How do you connect with yourself?
We often think of a 'sex life' as occurring between two people. At the crux of maintaining a healthy sex life with your partner is maintaining a healthy connection with yourself. I'm not strictly speaking of masturbation (though that is encouraged and has many benefits ), I am speaking of being connected to your body and to yourself as a person.
What are the practices you have to maintain a connection with your body? Yoga? Taking a bath? Going for a walk? Dancing to Music? Chopping food in the kitchen?
Needs some more ideas? If you live near Bend Oregon and are struggling with low libido, I'd love to help.
Curiosity is a Key Erotic Element
“Curiosity is a key erotic element, as it keeps us interested in ourselves and in our partner.”
-from the article 4 Ways To Reignite Passion In Your Relationship by Esther Perel (click here!)
What you want is conscious sex.
"Autopilot is simply a form of sleep. What you want is conscious sex."
-Esther Perel
Female Libido Journaling Exercise
Your childhood does not determine your fate, but it does play a powerful role in setting the foundation for how you view sex & pleasure. Spend some time reflecting on the following...
1. What are two key messages you received about female desire, libido, and sexuality?
2. What are the two key messages you received about the female body?
3) Were you taught to celebrate pleasure? Were you taught anything about masturbation and finding joy in your body?
Perhaps through this exercise you discovered that you were given some messages that don’t lead to the thriving and vibrant sex life you desire. The good news is that awareness if the first step. You can create something new through practice and further education! One last question…
How can you create a new vision, a new legacy for what sex and pleasure will mean in your life?
How Stress Affects Your Sex Drive
“Yet a bajillion things can interfere with sexual desire, and only rarely is it because there’s anything “wrong.” Almost always, it’s neither you nor your partner, nor is it the relationship. To find the problem, you have to zoom out and look for a factor in the larger context that’s standing between you and your own sexual well-being.
And the single most common factor?
Stress.”
From this great article: Here
Mindfulness of Pleasure
"Sexual difficulties are often related to a person’s inability to stay present and be attentive to the pleasurable opportunities of the moment."
-Stella Resnick
The Love-Lust Dilemma
“In our formative years, most of us learned more about stifling our sex drive than about celebrating our desires, particularly in the presence of family. The paradoxical result, contrary to what society or our family intends, is that once a romance turns into an emotional attachment, our brains and bodies are wired to inhibit sexual excitement in ourselves.
There is now a great deal of neurological, biochemical, and psychological evidence to show that feelings of love and sexual desire often operate antagonistically and drive us in opposite directions. It all starts with our earliest programming.”
-By Stella Resnick from The Heart of Desire: Keys to the Pleasures of Love.
Do you live in the Central Oregon area? Would you like to explore topics like this through sex therapy? Text Hannah today to set up a free consultation.
Wisdom from the Queen, Esther Perel
“The crisis of desire, is the crisis of imagination.”
“Desire is to own the wanting.”
“I want to be sexual, but in order to have an “I want to be sexual,” there needs to be a deserving “I,” who feels a sense of entitlement to engage with that part of yourself. That is the subjective experience of sexuality, the motivation, and once you grasp that desire is the owning of the wanting, you can understand that when you lose desire, you have basically lost a fundamental connection with yourself. "
Are you facing a crisis of desire in your long-term relationship? In what ways can you ‘own the wanting’ to help tend to your libido and maintain a sense of vibrancy over time?
Pulse Check
I encourage all the couples I work with to regularly take a pulse of their sex life. Here are a few questions to get you started:
1) What's going well?
2) What are you enjoying about yourself as a sexual person?
3) What are you enjoying about your partner as a sexual person?
4) What's missing and what role am I playing in this?
5) What's a step I can take to add something new?
Questions? Suggestions? Let me know!
Low Libido in Women
Are you a female in Bend or the Central Oregon area experiencing low libido? Libido and desire can be a complex and multifaceted area to unpack, but here are a few tips to get you started...
1) increase your heart rate (You may notice a change in libido with even a small amount of intense exercise. Jump-roaping is my go-to.)
2) connect with your body (what sort of practices to you have to connect with your body on a daily basis? you can begin by just noticing the way your breath feels :))
3) manage your stress (I cannot emphasize enough how much stress can be a libido killer for women. what systems do you have in place to manage your stress? yoga, taking a bath, going on a walk, talking to a friend; these may be a few places to start).
Have any questions? I'd be happy to answer them.
Sexual Disconnection...
Are you feeling sexually disconnected from your partner? We are taught the myth in our culture that sexual connection and desire should occur spontaneously. We are not taught that the erotic and intimate side of long-term relationship needs to be tended to on a regular basis.
What are you doing to tend to the erotic realm of your relationship? A few ideas...
- Pay attention to your partner in a new way. Can you see them through fresh eyes and appreciate something new about them?
- Change it up. Novelty is inherently erotic. Connect intimately in a new way, a new place, or a new time.
- Let touch linger. Be mindful of the way you are physically interacting with your partner. Have you fell into a pattern of hugging them, kissing them, in a way you would a family member? Touch your partner as if they are your lover...
Questions, comments? I'd love to here them.
Do you take responsibility for your own pleasure?
"You are responsible for your own pleasure and your own orgasm (if desired). You may enlist the help of your partner, of course, but no one else owns your pleasure. That means, likewise, that you are not responsible for your partner’s. You can be a willing participant, but it is not your burden to know what they want or to do it perfectly on your own."
-Jessa Zimmerman from Sex Without Stress
Myth: YOU AND YOUR PARTNER SHOULD WANT TO HAVE THE SAME AMOUNT OF SEX.
"The reality is that one of you is always more interested in sex than the other, at least over time... Which of you wants more sex and which wants less may switch, too, as life goes on. But a discrepancy in how much sex you want is not a problem. It can become one if you don’t deal with it well, however. You can dispose of the idea that something is wrong just because one of you has a higher libido or interest in sex." - Jessa Zimmerman from Sex Without Stress
Sex therapy can be incredibly helpful in working through desire discrepancy in a relationship. Reach out today for a free consultation.
Sexual Avoidance
"Avoiding your sexual problems doesn’t make them go away. You might experience a brief respite once the subject of sex seems to be off the table. But unless you and your partner are both content in a sexless, sex-limited, or sexually problematic relationship, you can’t escape the knowledge that at least one of you is unhappy. Even if you manage to put it out of your mind for a while because your partner isn’t bringing it up, sex is right back at center stage as soon as you have your next heart-to-heart (or fight) about it. Even if there are no outward signs that either of you is thinking about sex, you think about it. A lot. More and more as time goes by. The thoughts start to monopolize your mental energy. Avoidance creates pressure. Pressure comes from the belief that you should be having sex more often than you do. It comes from one person wanting sex while the other doesn’t. It comes from the energy it takes to avoid the subject. Additionally, once your frequency of sex decreases due to avoidance, there is more and more pressure that the encounters you do have should go well. And when sex doesn’t go well again (and again), the whole cycle amplifies. This is when you wonder if things will ever get better."
-From an excellent new book by Jessa Zimmerman: Sex Without Stress: A couple's guide to overcoming disappointment, avoidance & pressure
Sexual Avoidance & Disappointment
"Sex can feel disappointing for many different reasons. You may have unrealistic expectations (although you may not realize they’re unrealistic), leaving you sad and afraid when reality isn’t living up to your ideal. You may have the unfounded idea that sex should be spontaneous, that men should last a long time, that women should orgasm through penetrative sex, or that penetration is the only sex that counts. These are a few common errant expectations, and there are many more. Every time you have sex that falls short of your expectations, it can feel like a failure, diminishing your confidence for the next time."
-Jessa Zimmerman from Sex Without Stress
True Intimacy
"This is what we mean by intimacy - the tender and empathic search for each other with its subtle discoveries and revelations. Intimate passion is nourished by the shared pleasure of knowing how to read each other's mood and erotic body temperature, spelling out each other's alphabet of wishes and desires, knowing in detail and moment by moment how to please and be pleased. With these ingredients, a fundamentally new sexuality awakens. Bodies are grateful creatures: Treat them well, touch them well, and sensual fulfillment will probably be the reward."
-Renate Stendhal
Mindful Sex
If you notice you are becoming distracted by thoughts during sex, see if you can focus your attention on pleasurable sensations.
Repeat this over and over again with an attitude of self-kindness.
Get distracted by thoughts -> redirect your attention to pleasure.
Distracted thoughts come up again -> try focusing on pleasure.
Curious to learn more about how mindfulness skills can be applied to your sex life?
Sexual Requests
Interested in trying something new sexually with your partner?
Begin with telling them a few things you appreciate about them and then make a non-threatening suggestion.
I love the way you kiss me and I love when you pursue me sexually. How would you feel about having sex in the morning sometime?