High Five Conversations

Dear Kelsey and Austin,

How time flies. Sorry I’ve bogged with my blogs to you. As you enjoy the new rock on your finger, let’s make this thing really rock. Ready for a fresh lovin’ tip? I suggest some High Five Conversations as you begin a lifetime of together. Here are some starter questions Grandpa and I still enjoy:

• What does a fun fulfilling life together look like?
• What would make you feel loved?
• What is important to each of your?
• What makes you feel connected intimately?
• Bottom line: What do you really want from each other?

Last year Grandpa and I learned something that moved us closer even after 55 years of together. We try to hit  #4 daily and even savor an occasional  #5.

What on earth am I talking about? Conversation, one of the most important gifts God gave to humans. Identifying our 5 Levels of Conversation has helped us interact better with everyone, especially each other. We both feel more heard and loved and are still finding out new secrets about each other. So where do your interactions fit on the scale?

#1 Small Talk: Conversations often begin here with “How are you?” “How’d your day go?”  This is good when visiting with the cashier at the checkout. However, if we stay paddling in the shallow end of the communication pool with our lover, we will soon feel bored, uninterested, and frustrated.

# 2 Facts: Sometimes we open up more as we share information but still don’t disclose how we feel about it. For example, you might answer “How was your day?”with  “Fine, paid all our bills then went to soccer game. We lost.”  Again, not very life-giving yet.

#3 Ideas & Opinions: This is the level where we crack open the door and begin to know each other as we get vulnerable to share our thoughts and opinions. Intimacy begins here because we trust enough to risk revealing our ideas, knowing others won’t always agree. Here is where couples see disagreements pop up. That’s a good thing because it pinpoints important issues to talk through. The earlier you tackle them, the better.

My man and I talk about some of the same issues we had in our 20’s. You might as well learn to deal with them early on.  Though we often don’t resolve our differences, we get closer when we feel we are fully heard. We still have different opinions almost daily. This morning our unresolved discussion was about “Can we really afford to go to Niagra Falls in Canada later this month?”

#4 Feelings & Emotions:  It’s common for couples not to make it past #3 as we stop short of sharing how we really think or feel about what is happening and whether we are happy, sad, afraid, discouraged, angry, frustrated, or whatever. But stepping into this deep end of the pool is a refreshing fun place to swim. We’ve found that intimacy comes as we share our inner feelings and truly listen to each other to find out the underlying why’s. This is the special place where we feel heard, appreciated, and loved.

# 5: Deep Insight: Once in a while we will also have special moments of feeling deeply connected, usually during a shared major life experience. Maybe it will be when we see Niagra Falls for the first time. Or it may come one evening when we once again are rocking in our gliders, sipping a cold drink and watching the sunset after Grandpa closes his shop for the day. I expect quite a few more #5’s as we make space to share matters of the heart.

Beth Moore says, “Be authentic with all, transparent with some, intimate with a few.” Of the few, our spouse is most important. Unfortunately, the world is quite noisy and we get stuck at  #1, 2 or 3, crowding out the precious deeper conversations. As for Grandpa and me, we are going to continue to make a special effort to go to the levels where we can really swim together.  It is our prayer that you do too and that you enjoy a lifetime of joy that is full of deep and rich conversations.

Let us know if you put any of this in practice. See you in August at Ma V’s Bed and Breakfast.

Hugs from Grandma

(Concepts from John Powell’s Why I am Afraid to Tell You Who I Am)