INTIMACY

Definition of Intimacy:
Close familiarity or friendship.

Synonyms of Intimacy:
Closeness, affinity, attachment, familiarity, confidentiality, etc.

These notes are from recovery in AA and/or related 12 step programs. Readers are encouraged to click external links for more detail. We hope you find them helpful.

Love in fellowship.

Let the painful assist you. Get intimate with what hurts and bugs you. Date your loneliness, cuddle your grief, dance with your anger, cradle your shame. Stop making such a virtue out of comfort. Stop expecting spiritual practice to make you feel better. Get intimate with discomfort, without becoming an ascetic or devotee of diseased renunciation. –Robert Augustus Masters

Intimacy is that warm gift of feeling connected to others and enjoying our connection to them. As we grow in recovery, we find that gift in many, sometimes surprising, places.

Intimacy is not sex, although sex can be intimate. Sometimes there are conflicts. Conflict is inevitable.

There are many blocks to intimacy and intimate relationships. We deserve to enjoy intimacy in as many of our relationships as possible.

If we have a serious issue with someone, the best way to resolve it is to bring the issue to that person. Direct, clean conversation clears the air and paves the way for intimacy, for good feelings about ourselves and our relationships with others. –The Language of Letting Go/Melody Beattie | More…

Trying to control and change the people around us creates great problems in our relationships. We seem to be more trapped in these self-centered behaviors with the ones we are closest to.

Intimacy is clearly seeing each other and knowing the differences as well as the similarities. –Touchstones 19/10 | More…