intimacy – Page 6

Why Have I Lost All Interest In Having Sex?

Losing interest in sex when you’ve been in a relationship for awhile, and even if you haven’t, can be frustrating and even embarrassing. You want to experience your partner intimately and of course, your partner does too!

If you’ve lost interest in sex, how can you find out what is behind it? What can you and your partner do?

Why am I no longer interested in having sex with my husband?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY5vSyCy5VA[/youtube]

Physical Reasons

There are a multitude of reasons that a woman, or a man, can lose interest in having sex with their partner. The first issue to explore is if there’s a physical reason for this.

For example, if a woman’s testosterone level is low, she may lose interest in sexual activity. The first thing you’ll want to do if you’ve stopped finding sex enjoyable is to check with your doctor.

Emotional Reasons

Many women and men suffer physical, emotional and sexual abuse as children and even as adults. Even if these issues are past, they can affect how you feel about sex and intimacy in the here and now.

You might not even realize it! If you’ve suffered any kind of abuse and you think it’s possible that the emotional after effects of it could be affecting your relationship and your sex life, it’s time to bring in a professional.

Talk to a therapist or a counselor. They can definitely give you the tools you need to push past these emotional issues and get your sex life back on track.

Life Balance

In today’s busy world, it’s common for both men and women to get up at five or six in the morning to get the kids ready for school and go to work, and not hit the sack until it’s 11:00 or 12:00 at night. That’s quite a long day!

It’s really no surprise that by the time you and your partner crawl into bed after a hard, busy day that you would have no interest in sex. Work on your life balance and find ways to rest and relax so you can recharge your batteries.

Get a little more sleep and maybe give up an activity or two that isn’t necessary. Work together with your partner to make these changes so that you both have the energy to experience each other sexually.

Discord With Your Partner

If you’ve been with your partner for awhile, and in some cases if you’re in a new relationship, you might not be feeling emotionally safe or connected with them. Contrary to popular belief, sex and intimacy has everything to do with feeling emotionally connected and safe with someone.

If you don’t feel connected and safe, it’s likely that you’re not going to be interested in sharing yourself sexually. You can help bring your relationship together so you can have a better sex life by doing a number of things. If your relationship is really distant, you can consider seeing a relationship counselor or a therapist.

You can also start by talking to your partner and sharing yourself with them. Take time out of your day for each other! You’d be surprised at how many men and women feel like they’re roommates rather than partners with their partner after awhile. Taking time out to spend with each other is something that can really help bring you together sexually later on.

Why Don’t We Ever Make Love Anymore?

By drmargaretpaul

I cannot tell you how often couples complain to me that they rarely make love. These are generally people who love each other, who enjoy being together and often have fun with each other. Yet they don’t have sex. Why does this happen so often?

Sexual arousal, especially for most women, comes from emotional intimacy and connection. While many men can have sex purely from physical desire, many women need emotional intimacy and connection to feel physical desire. While many men might love it if their wife would suddenly start to fondle their penis, many women feel violated when their husband grabs their breasts, crotch, or butt.

Gender Differences About Touch

I often hear from the woman I work with, “I just feel groped and disgusted when my husband grabs my breasts. Why doesn’t that turn me on? Is there something wrong with me?”

Many women do not feel drawn to touch or be touched in a sexual way until the feeling of love is flowing between them and their partner. Yet women have been trained to believe that they should respond sexually in the same way men do, and often feel inadequate when they do not feel turned on by the things that turn on men.

Hazel and Daniel were struggling with this issue of lack of sexuality. Just before their counseling session with me, they had a fight because Daniel fondled Hazel’s breasts while she was dressing in the morning, and then got angry when she didn’t like it.

Hazel had often expressed to Daniel that what turned her on was the deep kissing that resulted from emotional intimacy. Yet, even though Daniel said he wanted to make love, he would not intimately kiss Hazel.

Why?

As we explored the issue, it became apparent that neither Hazel nor Daniel felt safe with intimacy. While they loved each other, their fears of rejection and engulfment made them feel unsafe with each other.

When Hazel got critical, Daniel took it personally, and was unable to set loving limits against being controlled by Hazel. He would get angry and withdrawn, which would trigger Hazel’s fears of rejection.

Both Hazel and Daniel were afraid that if they were emotionally intimate, they would give themselves up to avoid rejection. Keeping the emotional distance felt safer than risking losing themselves or losing the other if they did not give themselves up. Yet sexuality could not flow without the loving feelings that come from emotional intimacy.

Be Conscious Of Your Intent

The problem was that neither Hazel nor Daniel were conscious of their intent most of the time. In most of their interactions, both of them were unconsciously protecting themselves from rejection or engulfment, rather than consciously thinking about what would be loving to themselves and each other.

Because their intent was to protect themselves, they were often trying to control how the other felt about them while at the same time protecting against being controlled.

Each would respond to the other’s rejecting behavior with their own rejecting behavior, anger, criticalness, blame, withdrawal, resistance. Each would attempt to control how the other felt about them by not telling their truth, not taking loving care of themselves.

Each were handing the responsibility for their feelings to the other and then getting upset when the other did not do what they wanted. Neither were showing up as loving adults to take care of their own feeling in loving ways.

Relationship Safety

While it may seem roundabout to deal with a lack of lovemaking by focusing on one’s intent, this is exactly what needs to happen.

Until both Hazel and Daniel become conscious of their intent and start to choose the intent to learn about loving themselves, instead unconsciously choosing the intent to protect/control, they will not create the inner safety necessary for intimacy. Until they practice taking personal responsibility for their own feelings, they will continue to fear rejection and engulfment and protect against it.

You cannot have the joy of sharing love and passion while protecting against loss of self and loss of other. Love and passion do not flow when you are trying to control and not be controlled. As long as protecting against rejection and engulfment is more important than loving yourself, you will not create the inner safety necessary to create relationship safety.

Relationship safety creates the arena for love and intimacy to flow, leading to the physical sharing of love that occurs when people are deeply connected.

You cannot change what you do not know you are doing. When noticing your intention, to protect/control or to learn about loving yourself and your partner, becomes your highest priority, you will begin the process of healing your sex life.

How To Achieve Emotional And Sexual Intimacy In Your Relationship

By loveandsex

To know and experience each other fully is the most effective way to keep the bonds of understanding, love and empathy alive and strong. This is the glue that keeps a relationship intact. Without it, it will eventually fall apart.

So what do I mean by emotional and/or sexual intimacy and how can one nurture such experiences?

Intimacy is not necessarily sex

Well, intimacy is often colloquially thought of as simply “having sex” by some. This is not what I mean here.

By intimacy I am referring to one’s ability to be open to one’s own inner feelings and then be able to share such experiences with one’s partner freely and without fear of any kind.

You see intimacy is about letting yourself be fully known to yourself and to your partner.

Unfortunately this is easier said than done for many individuals because most have been conditioned to suppress, hide, denigrate, or make unconscious much of one’s inner emotional life.

That is largely because the societal norms which continue to be perpetuated see feelings and emotions as dangerous, untrustworthy, illogical, painful, impulsive, etc.

Well, this is a sad state of affairs because emotions and feelings are what make you and me human beings.

What happens when we shut down

So by shutting down this part of one’s life experience one is essentially making one’s self less than a whole human being. That means that while in a relationship you are not fully present as your complete self.

Of course at some level your partner will eventually recognize this and feel like he/she is not fulfilled because he/she is not having a relationship with a whole human being.

It’s at times like this that individuals start feeling dissatisfied with their relationship and hence start looking elsewhere for happiness. No wonder so many relationships end for this reason.

The ability to nurture a bond of intimacy starts only when each individual starts to take personal responsibility for allowing their inner emotional life to emerge. First to themselves and then to their partner.

As I said earlier this self revelation can be a scary one for many because allowing this emotional life to emerge often means allowing unresolved emotional pain to come to the surface of one’s experience. This can make an individual feel inadequate, guilty, sad, depressed, anxious, angry, hurt, tired, etc.

The tendency might be to attempt to numb the emotional pain through drugs, alcohol, sex, work, and other distractions. Again this leads to individuals simply acting out a stale relationship with little depth and or awareness of self or other.

Sooner or later this will declare itself as unsatisfying and each partner will be on the look out for something else.

Nurturing intimacy

In order to nurture intimacy each individual must begin to invite their deeper emotional life into the relationship so that they can be fully known.

I have worked with individuals for over 15 years with a modality called the Mind Resonance Process(TM) (MRP) that allows one to quickly, easily and painlessly allow such personal and interpersonal growth to occur.

With respect to the issue of sexual intimacy I will add that one must be fully present (i.e. sexually, mentally, emotionally and spiritually) in order to achieve it.

In other words it is contingent on each partner allowing their entire Self to emerge in love, self acceptance and without fear.

So if you’ve followed me so far I think you’ve recognized that intimacy is as much about knowing yourself as it is about knowing your partner.

Five Tips for Creating Soulful Intimacy In Your Relationship

By sarahelizabethmalinak

There are times in life when we experience intimacy in natural, spontaneous ways. Consider love at first glance.

Someone who was a stranger is now in your life 24/7 and crazy about you! Suddenly, parts of your life that were private are now on display to the one you love but with whom love hasn’t been tested.

For instance, putting potato chips on your sandwich in front of him or her makes you feel awkward with the intimacy of the exposure of a funny, little detail of your life! The first time you get naked together makes you tingle all over from the vulnerability. Intimacy that is the result of love at first glance is easy.

It is when we have been in love for a while that we need to turn our attention once again to intimacy. We can create the kind of intimacy that will set our souls aflame! Following are five tips for creating soulful intimacy.

Speak and listen in a new way

Men and women communicate differently. Men like to get right to the point; therefore, they only have so much time and attention when it comes to listening. They want you to get to the point! Women, on the other hand, like to share nuances of insights and feelings when they communicate. Getting to the point for a woman might take several meandering twists and turns first.

One way to create soulful intimacy is to speak and listen in such a way that your partner feels seen and heard. When a woman gets right to the point, her man hears her in a completely new way, which is gratifying for both of them! When she listens with focused attention, he feels heard and appreciates this.

When he listens to her meandering thoughts and expressed feelings, she feels cherished. When he takes the risk to speak of his feelings, philosophy, and personal experience, she feels honored.

Without trying to morph into the opposite sex’s viewpoint, just every once in a while speak and listen the way he or she does. As simple as it sounds, doing so will make you feel you are taking one of those risks that makes you feel the kind of vulnerability that creates a fresh spurt of intimacy in the air between you.

Get imaginative with touch

Think of times when you are together on a regular basis other than when you are making love. Watching television together, preparing a meal, grocery shopping…things like this.

Consider where you might touch your lover in a place that usually goes ignored. The inside of the arm, neck, ears, and small of the back are possibilities. Perhaps it has just been too long since you were in the habit of resting your hands on each other’s thighs when sitting together.

Make a habit of reaching over and touching each other in ways that communicate, “You are my beloved, I am yours, and that is wonderful.” Always take a moment or two and be present with your touch. Look at him or her and feel your love and appreciation for the privilege of loving each other.

Lighten up and have fun

If life has been weighing on you and making you far too serious too much of the time, find things for you and your lover to laugh about. Learning to laugh at yourself, admitting to your flaws in humorous ways, acknowledges the fact that the two of share intimate knowledge of one another that goes beyond the physical. It heightens your sense of togetherness.

Be sensitive, though. Be sure to laugh with your partner, not at them. Invite their compassion, not their competitive edge.

Find reasons to genuinely appreciate your lover’s extended family

Perhaps it is so that we will move out there and start our own families, but most people have a difficult time dealing with each other’s extended family members. An easy and even lazy way for couples to create intimacy is to gossip and put down their own and each other’s family members.

A better way is to discover what you can truly appreciate in at least one member of your lover’s extended family and communicate that to your lover and the family member. When you genuinely care for those he or she loves, your lover feels appreciated too. Whenever we feel seen or appreciated, soulful intimacy grows.

Be present for sights, sounds, scents, tastes, and textures

When you are in that love at first glance relationship, everything about your lover is new, mysterious, and desirable.

The way his skin tastes, the scent of her body, the curve of her hips, the light in his hair, the way her pinky toe lies at a different angle from the rest, and his “innie” belly button are just a few of many things that capture the attention, the heart, and the kundalini! With all your senses heightened, you are present for everything.

In the beginning, it can be overwhelming. As time goes on, it can seem to disappear forever. It doesn’t have to.

Simply be present the next time she undresses in front of you and let yourself relish how you admire her beauty. Be present the next time he gets out of the shower and relish how you admire all his masculine features. Breathe softly through your mouth and feel your body relax and open to your lover.

When you practice just these five tips for creating soulful intimacy (not to mention the many more your own imagination can discover), closing the gap for even greater physical intimacy is sure to follow!

Afraid To Talk To Your Partner? Here’s a Step By Step Guide to Overcoming Your Fears…

By loveandsex

Certainly love means many things but one of the critical components is the ability to be courageous and indeed honest in your communications with your partner.

This is perhaps one of the most difficult of tasks because of the many fears that step in one’s way. It may not seem surprising that these fears are also those that eventually spell the demise of a relationship.

So what are some of these fears and how does one transcend them in order to establish a healthy and truly loving relationship?

Fears in Communication

First the fears; they include such things as:

I fear I will be rejected if I speak my truth to my partner.
I fear I will hurt my partner with my truth.
I fear I will feel guilty and be unable to forgive myself.
I fear I will have to justify my feelings or beliefs to my partner.
I fear my partner may get angry with me.

Clearly capitulating to such fears means suppressing your own truth. That is accompanied with feelings of frustration, dishonesty, needing to constantly be on guard that one’s truth is kept under control, and a decreasing degree of true intimacy.

It may also lead to feelings of becoming emotionally and sexually distant from one’s partner, possibly the sharing of such information with third parties in order to vent one’s frustrations, sexual affairs and so on.

The tendency for all of these is to undermine the relationship anyway.

So if you’re feeling caught between the proverbial “rock and the hard place” how does one find a way to nurture a truly healthy, loving and sustainable relationship? Well, to summon up the courage to be honest and truthful when the circumstances call for it!

Summoning Up the Courage to Communicate

Of course in order to do so one must transcend the catastrophic beliefs i.e. the potential for rejection, being hurtful, feeling guilty etc., that are fed by the fears that I have listed above.

Here is a powerful way to accomplish this.

Let’s take the first item above i.e. the fear of rejection as an example that you can walk through with me.

Overcoming Fear Step by Step

Now contemplate the following question: “What is the benefit to you of having the fear of rejection living inside you?” Initially one may say that it protects one from getting rejected,

If this is the case, then supposedly how would you feel knowing that you were being protected in this way? Well, you might say that you might be feeling safe, secure, calm, relaxed, confident and resilient to the reactions of others to whatever you might say.

So to summarize one could say that: The fear of rejection causes you to feel safe, secure, calm, relaxed, confident and resilient to the reactions of others to whatever you might say.

Is That Really Your Truth?

Is that, however, the truth? Clearly not because this fear actually makes one feel anxious, weak, fragile, tense, and leads to secretive behaviors that make one feel guilty, insecure and in fear of being found out.

This is clearly the opposite of the summarized conclusion above espousing the supposed benefits of the fear. So, can these opposite statement be simultaneously true? Clearly not!

Determining the Truth for You

Well then, which one is the truth for you? If you look closely at it I think you’ll see that the fear is not beneficially acting for you.

Well that means that the statement above that ” The fear of rejection causes you to feel safe, secure, calm, relaxed, confident and resilient to the reactions of others to whatever you might say” is false!

If you see this, do you want this false belief to be residing in your mind or body? If not then simply ask, from your heart, to have this belief purged from your life now.

Next, you’ll notice that the fear itself is clearly toxic to you as it undermines how you feel and your behaviors in your relationship so do you want it living inside you? If not, then again speaking from your heart ask it to be purged from your life now.

Now contemplate how you would rather be or feel in relation to being able to speak your own truth with your partner. This might look something like: feeling calm, confident, resilient, relaxed, loving, honest, and so on.

If this new way of being, as you have delineated it for yourself, feels desirable then again assert this to yourself as you speak this through your heart.

Now that you’ve come this far simply notice how you feel inside and how you feel about and towards your partner. You may be pleasantly surprised at how wonderfully positive loving moments will emerge through your new found freedom to be open and confident in this way.