I recently read Matthew Kelly’s Book, “The Seven Levels of Intimacy,” and it was a fantastic read. I recommend reading it if you are trying to figure out why we do, or do not, share certain things with certain people. The best way I can think of to describe how we communicate with others is thinking about how different people get into and out of the swimming pool. For example, sometimes people cannonball and splash right into the frigid water, sometimes people dip their toe in and run for the lounge chairs. These are two types of extreme communicators and both types tend to make us wonder what the other person’s problem is. Kelly (2005) does an excellent job of describing this process and how it is continuous, and we do this with all kinds of people, especially with our spouse/significant other. It is more typical for us to dip in slowly and continue walking deeper and deeper with people who are not going to harm us in the pool of intimacy. Sometimes, we find that it seems that the people we are supposed to trust the most, are attacking us like seals being hunted by sharks. 
According to Kelly (2005), We share clichés with everyone, “Hey, how are you?” with the grocery store greeter, or we use these to lighten a serious mood. We share facts, both impersonal, and personal. We share our opinions, our hopes and dreams, our fears, our insecurities, and finally our “legitimate needs” (Kelley,2005). We do this slowly, but it doesn’t always happen this way, nor does it happen in a level to level form (from 1 to 7). We can use multiple levels in one conversation! It’s like we get into the pool and we test the waters and swim around to get accustomed to it. Sometimes we get out of the pool, and sometimes we get accustomed to unsafe waters; waters where there are sharks, and we wonder what the heck is going on?! How did we get here? I thought we were swimming together in a pool, when suddenly we are swimming out in the open ocean surrounded by sharks. What do we do now? Now, we must be willing to tackle our own sharks (the things we are holding onto, keeping us from truly being in relationship with one another), those are the ones that are threatening the relationships, those are the ones threatening us. If we do this, we can share our legitimate needs with our partners. We all have our own share of sharks.
What’s in your swimming pool?
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