You were born a natural communicator.Enthusiastically, you shared – without hesitation – with others all that was important. A feather found, a feeling, or a building you made of blocks. You invited others into your world, and you sought entrance into theirs.

However, for most of us, somewhere along the way, we discovered that innocently trusting and sharing wasn’t always safe. We were misunderstood; scolded; or ignored. So, our tender feelings hardened and emotionally we retreated.

No more sharing. No more trusting. No more innocence. no more communicating about those ideas and feelings that are important.

All it takes is hearing a few comments like: You’re stupid, shut-up, you’re fat, etc., you don’t know your x!x! from your x!x!—and, like an airplane hit by a missile, you crash. Understandably, after a few times you don’t get back up again.

So, you stop sharing and you stop being interested in others. Okay, fine. Perhaps you can accept that. But there is a bigger problem.

After a while, you forget “how” to communicate.

So when a person who is safe to “open-up” to comes along, you no longer know how to. You no longer know the art of communication, the art of connecting.

The years of retreat and self-protection have taught you how to be judgmental, harsh and mistrusting—and how to remain “shut-down” and “closed-off” to really getting to know one another—to “be known” and “to know.”

Devoid of effective communication skills, you are unable to become truly “intimate”—in all meanings of the word.

Sure, you may settle for superficial chat or boring, routine sex. But this is not real intimacy. This is not “be known” and “to know.” You can say (at best): “Pass the butter,” or “isn’t it a nice day,” but you don’t know how to communicate—how to talk—how to build real and lasting intimacy.

You don’t know how to share your private feelings with the one you love, you trust—you want to know you. You can’t share your dreams, your fears, your humiliations and your victories. Rather, you are together, but apart (painfully distant).

Or perhaps you are dating, seeking a lifetime partner or a best friend. Knowing how to communicate to build intimacy is your best shot of getting what you want—what you really need to be happy.

The most common relationship problem is two individuals living together and not knowing how to talk to one another.

But it doesn’t end there. If all it was were two individuals that can’t talk together, maybe they could live with this. But it isn’t.

When two people can’t communicate it leads to fights, expressions of anger, criticism, cheating, loneliness and feelings of emptiness. And this is intolerable.

Many couples that don’t know how to communicate break-up, end-up in a therapist’s office, or go through life like two opposing magnets.

The good news is that communication that builds intimacy is easy to learn. As you learned to drive a car, operate a computer or swim, so too, you can learn to communicate effectively. You can learn all this easily and in only 8-minutes-a-day.