Communicating In Relationship - Intimate Relationships

Not Getting What Your Want in sex? Maybe it’s not in There…

Communicating In Relationship, Healthy Relationships, Healthy sexuality, intimate relationship, Relationship

You might be thinking you’re really hot to trot and you can’t wait to have some hot sex!

You might be feeling like sharing some orgasmic pleasure with the one you love.

Or, if you’re of the more enlightened type, you might be thinking you really desire to make love. To surrender into a beautiful place with your lover…

So…

the event happens.

And all the things you wanted to happen, happen.

Yet somehow soon after you have been left feeling unsatisfied, even disgruntled.

You might be left thinking that something was missing.

Or you may even have felt, or thought this, during the event.

You’ve got no idea why, or where to look for an answer.

Well, we’ve got the answer for you here

And it’s not likely because your lover did a bad job.

It happens because at a conscious level, you could see what you wanted and why.

Yet at an unconscious level, you were operating in a whole different way.

Your unconscious mind is very sneaky.

Well, it’s not really sneaky, it’s just that you can’t see it. It’s under the surface of your awareness.

Until it gets revealed by what seems like a lucky accident, which is really no accident at all.

As when you bite into an Anzac biscuit and get flooded with feelings and memories associated with the golden, crispy sweetness of Anzac biscuits in the past. Maybe even right back to childhood. Or, it might be an unlucky accident that takes us back to an unpleasant association, making our unconscious seem like a bad thing.

Your unconscious mind isn’t good or bad, as you’ll see, it’s just efficient

Our unconscious mind is not just this dark cupboard where things get stashed out of sight so we don’t have to deal with them.

Kind of like those now embarrassing fashion, or furniture choices we regret, or things we meant to throw out or repair, but never got around to it.

Our unconscious mind is not even a location. It’s a living, functioning psychological matrix.

Its job is to incorporate our unseen parts into a more integrated whole. So becoming aware of things that lie under your mind’s surface is not a lucky accident. It’s your unconscious mind at work.

How is this relevant to your lack of sexual fulfilment?

Your unconscious, ever the opportunist, can try and sneak your deeply held needs into sex, under the guise of sexual desire, in order to get them met. When the needs might not be about sex at all.

This not only detracts from the free flow of your life force energy and reduces your capacity for pleasure. It also leaves you more open to being hurt or triggered when these unconscious needs are met.

When you identify and acknowledge your unconscious needs they no longer act as blocks

If you’re not fully satisfied by the sex you’re having, ask yourself whether you’re really having sex to:

Be needed
Be validated
Get love
Act out or relieve shame
Express anger covertly
Be physically close but avoid intimacy
Have power over something/someone
Get high to avoid real life/relationship issues.

Do you feel any emotional or body response to any of the suggestions on this list? If so, they will be a good place to start looking.

One of the best ways to help you identify any unconscious needs in sex is through your emotions. As your emotions are messengers of your more primal, unconscious mind. Yet we mostly miss out on these gifts of understanding because we make these feelings wrong.

Making What You Feel Wrong

We all have moments in lovemaking where the pleasure, intensity, excitement or feelings of any kind seem to disappear, or even refuse to show up at all. Instead we can feel an emotion surfacing. We stuff it down, thinking that emotions aren’t cool in sex, missing an opportunity to learn about ourselves.

“Emotion plays an enormously important role in sexual desire, arousal and fulfilment. Feelings make sex matter.”
The Erotic Mind, Jack Morin

The emotion isn’t wrong, it just is. It’s your unconscious speaking.

How to Identify Your Unconscious Need:

Being with the truth of whatever is in the moment is the doorway to greater understanding.

take a moment to connect with the emotion
focus on where the feeling is in your body
take a breath into that part
accept it as a messenger
Stay present with it until you get some insight into what is going on under the surface.

Then come back and start making love again if you want.

Or you can do this after the lovemaking, when the sense of something wrong or lacking about the sex you had arises.

It takes acceptance and acknowledgment

When you discover what the real need is for you under the sex, you can just acknowledge it.

To yourself, and if you wish, to your partner. Sometimes this is all that needs to happen, just acknowledgment.

If the need still feels real, you can go about getting it met in another way.

Leaving your lovemaking a clear space for pleasure, connection and love to flow.

Without it being highjacked by your unconscious.

And with the bonus of you feeling better about getting your needs met in an authentic way.

Foreplay Can be the Ruination of Great Sex

Communicating In Relationship, Healthy sexuality, intimate relationship

Relationship Killer: Foreplay as the ruination of great sex

Foreplay- defined as what you do in preparation for the real thing- sex.

It will, if all goes well, get you some good sex.

Yet in order to have really satisfying, even memorable sex foreplay (unless you spend hours and even days at it like like Christian Gery and let’s face it who does that?) is more likely to get in the way.

Foreplay creates an implicit power struggle that limits and separates the lovers rather than uniting them. It becomes a doing with predetermined outcomes along with increased expectations and a high potential for mere performance or disappointment. In other words it activates the egos in your relationship.

Foreplay happens when…

both of you are at your most vulnerable, when you’re beginning to be naked physically, emotionally and sexually. This is the time when your ego is most fearful and most wants to protect you from being embarrassed or made wrong!

It is not so much what happens in foreplay that creates the problem it is the mindset that goes with it, this idea that foreplay is the lead up to the main game. It means there is a goal oriented agenda towards what IS the main game, thereby creating a need to get somewhere.

We commonly believe that ‘foreplay’ is for women and real ‘sex’ is for the man. This ignites a not so subtle power struggle, focussing each in their minds thinking about what they should be giving or getting, disconnecting them from their feelings and blocking enjoyment.

There is also the vital question of how much foreplay is enough, and who gets to decide?

All of this limits the ease and openness that makes being sexual in your relationship feel so great in the first place.

For a man foreplay can:

Be seen as something he needs to give in order to get his ‘real’ pleasure. Or that he needs to ‘give’ his partner an orgasm first to be a good lover.
So he creates a plan of action in order to get to his goal, and his focus is on getting his partner ‘ready’.
His level of skill and confidence will determine his degree of enjoyment and performance pressure.
Sub consciously he can carry resentment at this having to focus on her and hold himself back.
He may have fear of failing to get his partner aroused, or of enjoying it so much he doesn’t last long enough for the ‘main game’. With his focus on his partner he is less aware of, or able to relax and enjoy his own experience.
Carrying this weight of success on his shoulders can reduce his interest in trying again.

For a woman foreplay can:

Feel like foreplay is something she needs to do to ‘get ready’ for penetration.
This puts her into her own performance pressure with the feeling that the clock is ticking, putting her in her head ‘trying to get there’, creating tension in her body and stress from her overactive mind, the total opposite of the relaxation she needs.
If she has a belief it’s the man’s job to get her aroused it leaves her cold or pissed off if he doesn’t/can’t do so. This can stop her from actively participating in her own arousal.
There is underlying fear or resentment about either performing, being good enough or not getting ‘there’ in time and missing out.
In not being fully aroused woman’s pleasure in penetration is limited and it becomes something to get over with as quickly as possible.
The focus on goal orientation limits her ability to relax, open and surrender into the endless full bodied pleasure she is capable of, reducing her interest in ‘next time’.

In porn the focus is almost totally on penetration. In many women’s articles penetration is often seen as getting in the way of a woman’s pleasure. Both of these are limiting points of view.
In foreplay we’re trying to make things happen, getting caught in routines that soon become acutely boring and passion killing, where we know exactly what is going to (or not going to) happen.

If these are not reasons enough to change your mind about your need for foreplay in your sexual relationship there is an even more compelling one-

That our most profound experiences in bed, the ones that stay with us for days, weeks and even years, giving life meaning tend to come from moments of spontaneity or unforseen creativity that surpass anything we could have planned for.

Our very best experiences are nothing like our best-executed agenda.

In fact, all of our trying just gets in the way.

The more we let sex happen rather than making it happen, the more these breakthrough experiences can arise.

Instead of foreplay explore being in each moment fully from beginning to end.

Choose to be simply present without agenda in each moment of sexual connection, whether it is the beginning the middle or the end.

Experience it fully as it is right now, in this moment, exploring it fully, then this one, then this…

Regarding each moment of sex as one of unlimited potential just as it is, rather than a mere passage to somewhere better. Whether it is a moment of high arousal or valley like stillness, experience each one fully.
This experience of what is real and acceptance of what is builds trust and openness, great stepping stones to pleasure, especially for women. It is not about expecting a woman to allow penetration without being ready, more that this way of being invites it to happen without forcing. It also creates a freedom and spaciousness for magic to enter that gives a man a performance break.

Rather than foreplay

Focus instead on getting connected with yourselves – being present inside your own bodies, in the moment, breathing, connecting, feeling, opening. This allows your bodies to respond naturally, opening to the innate creativity that lives within us rather than being forced into following our own, or our partner’s egoic agenda.

Thinking Vs Feeling: How Getting this Can Change Your Relationship

Communicating In Relationship, intimate relationship, Relationship

And Understanding this relationship will change your life!

When we first start to look at ourselves and become more aware of what is happening inside of us it can feel a bit like a journey into madness. This journey is necessary in order to become more whole in ourselves. When we shine the torch light inside of us it is vital to learn the skills for navigating what we discover- the unlimited cornucopia of our stories and the inevitable discomfort of our feelings.

This is the way to satisfying intimate relationship and unlimited sexual pleasure! For the degree with which we are intimate with ourselves is the degree to which we can be intimate and in pleasure with another.

Most of us try to think our feelings

Though this is what most of us try to do, as a way of avoiding the discomfort of actually feeling them. As we become more and more intellectual this becomes more ‘normal’. The problem with this is that it suppresses our authentic connection to ourselves, leaving us more anxious and fear based, more susceptible to mind generated negative thoughts and feelings.

Thinking vs Feeling

The first step is to start taking your awareness from the world around you to the world inside of you and simply notice what is happening- thinking vs feeling.

The second step is to make our feelings OK. If we’re not comfortable in our feelings we judge them as messy, painful and unnecessary. They’re certainly often portrayed that way in our society, whether it’s in emotion fuelled dramas on TV or role modelled by our least favourite ‘over emotional’ relative or co worker. Emotions also get a bad rap from many spiritual philosophies that talk about the need to ‘transcend’ emotions in order to be truly ‘spiritual’. Instead, we suggest accepting them and going through our feelings allows them to feel less like pain and more like aliveness on the way to truth and wholeness.

There are generally two types of feeling paths that people experience (who are often in relationship with each other!):

People with emotional intensity:

If you are someone who has many intense feelings then your journey towards wholeness is starting out fragmented in the intensity and moving toward your centre, where your centre is your rock in the middle of the storm of life. Like the popular poster image of a few years ago with a man appearing at the door of a tiny lighthouse, standing on a foundation no wider than the lighthouse itself in a raging ocean. The man appears without fear, centred and grounded in himself.

This is stepping into a place of control in your feelings is your challenge. Note that I said control ‘IN’ your feelings, rather than control ‘OVER’ them. It sounds illogical yet the experience is one of coming home to yourself, of freedom.

If intense feelings are your normal then your task is to get more present in them so they don’t overwhelm you. To detach your feelings from your story and just feel what is real in your body, by observing your thoughts exactly as they are right now and feeling your feelings as they are in the present moment. Rather than creating more intensity through spiraling thoughts and increasing emotion ie. drama, as this drama becomes like a never ending soap opera with no way out, with you hooked into waiting for the next episode. Taking some slow, deep breaths will help, as taking control of our breath helps us to take control of our feelings.

For when we fully feel any individual feeling it passes and is gone from our body, most often within a few moments, half an hour to an hour at most. If it feels never ending and doesn’t shift, this means you are still not experiencing it fully, and staying in the drama of your thoughts. If this is happening be gentle with yourself and see if you can stop and go more deeply into the feeling- ending your intensity sooner! You will know it has shifted when you feel clear of it.

People with little emotionality:

However if you are someone who has been very intellectual rather than feeling based it can seem chaotic and overwhelming to start feeling (not to mention pointless).

If you are new to feeling your task is to value your feelings and trust that they have a purpose, that they will offer you useful information about yourself. And that from this perspective they will also offer you freedom- for at its deepest point freedom is simply a feeling in your body.

Your practice is recognizing when you are thinking and unaware of your feelings. You do this by pausing and taking your attention inside you and simply noticing. Taking some deeper breaths can help, as the more you breathe the more you feel. You might first notice you are feeling nothing, this is still a feeling!

Remember that to fulfil your deepest desire of feeling connected with another you must first feel this connection with yourself.

Connection is a feeling in itself.

We can’t separate our feelings and decide we want to feel happy, excited, loving or connected etc whilst avoiding feeling sad, scared, hurt or alone.

We either feel or we don’t.

Whilst we may think we can feel happy etc whilst suppressing our so called negative emotions what we actually experience is a mere echo of what is possible. This interestingly also include our feelings of sexual pleasure.

Which means if you want better orgasms you need to start feeling more emotional!

And by feeling emotional we don’t in mean the socially accepted model- that of acting out our emotions all over the place! We mean simply feeling them.

For if you desire intimate relationship, if you want more love, closeness, happiness and even pleasure and excitement in your life then getting into healthy relationship with your feelings is vital because all of these good things are feelings!

One of the main reasons we avoid intimacy, or it goes pear shaped is down to our inability toconnect with or be with this part of ourselves. We see this over and over again in the work that we do with couples. We personally know this one from the inside out too, due to the intense nature of our relationship and life changes we’ve called in over the last few years- where our emotional intelligence has been invaluable, the difference between life and death!

Feelings are not good or bad

Emotions such as fear, anger, sadness and feelings like guilt and shame are not the only feelings we’re capable of, they just tend to be the messiest. It doesn’t mean our painful feelings are wrong it just means we need to learn how to deal with them.

Of course we can also experience many other feelings such as happiness, gratitude, openness, joy, peace, ease, love, pleasure etc. Our biggest challenge with these so called ‘positive’ feelings is that we don’t know we have the choice to access them inside ourselves and miss out on them whilst waiting for external circumstances to offer them to us.

We can’t choose to feel some feelings and not others, we either feel or we don’t. We miss out on feeling truly, mindblowingly wonderful by avoiding feeling so called ‘bad’. It’s all just feeling.

Our feelings have a purpose

Emotions are part of our communication and survival systems. In the west they are thought to be created in the oldest part of our Primal brain as part of our survival system, in the east are thought to exist as energy in motion (E-motion) in the body.

A simple way of thinking about feelings in our bodies is to imagine them like water flowing through a hose. When we choose to avoid a feeling we put a kink in the hose, creating a backup of water that eventually leaks out in other areas. The way to unkink the hose is simply to acknowledge and feel the feeling.

Our problem is trying to answer a feeling problem with thinking answers. We do this because we subconsciously believe it keeps us safe and in control. There are times when this is necessary and others when it just gets in the way. We all genuinely want to feel loving and loved in our relationships, and try to do the right thing, so we experience much inner turmoil when we’re triggered into feelings and behaviours that are the opposite of what we want. This inner conundrum, driven by our social conditioning and Egoic fears about emotions, creates confusion, disconnection and shame inside us making it difficult to step further forward into intimacy.

Thoughts and feelings are separate.

Thoughts happen in the mind. Feelings happen in the body.

Feelings are NOT thoughts and you cannot think them.

But they are strongly related to each other-

Thoughts can create feelings: today is Valentines Day and I believe I will receive flowers from my lover therefore I feel happy.

Feelings can also create thoughts: I feel scared as I want to tell my partner I love her. The fear of rejection makes me think she will see me as needy and I will be rejected again.

Triggered feelings from something outside of us: Anger in response to my husband sitting in front of the tv instead of helping me with the kids.

Triggered feelings from inside of us (usually from our past): feeling my girlfriend not being interested in me brings up feelings I experienced with my mother being emotionally unavailable.

WE all have these four kinds of feelings experiences and not knowing how to deal with them keeps us separate from our authentic self and from those around us as we act out, disconnect, pull away or shut down.

Thoughts help us understand whilst staying in control.

Feelings seem like they take us out of control and understanding comes after they have been felt. This sense of being out of control can be greatly lessened by simply choosing to acknowledge, feel, understand, enjoy and resolve our feelings.

Exercises to try:

Practice noticing whether you ‘thinking’ your feelings in your head, or feeling them in your body. If you are thinking them, pause and bring your attention to your body and notice what you are actually feeling, separate from your thoughts.
Practice noticing whether your thoughts are creating your feelings, or your feelings are creating thoughts, and whether your feeling triggers are external or internal. Noticing this will show you what to do about them.