It Works Because We All Love Being Appreciated…

That’s why this practice is a no brainer for creating real connection.

It’s a time honoured tantric practice called Honouring:

We all love to be respected, acknowledged and appreciated, especially​ ​by someone who loves us. It’s why this honouring practice works.

It leaves us feeling warm and gooey and more connected to the person who expressed these sentiments.

This is especially true because ​it’s more common​ ​to hear criticism and judgment in our daily lives. Most often from​ ​ourselves. 

At times, we can also feel a little uncertain of being loved. This can​ ​simply be because we’ve been too busy to connect. Or things have gone​ ​wrong at work or with ​family, or ​you​ haven’t made love for a while.

Do it even if your relationship already has you feeling well loved and appreciated. For there is always benefit in celebrating that.

Honouring is more than just words…

Done with presence, honouring and appreciation become more than just​ ​a mental exercise.

They remind us how to feel. How to be in our bodies​ ​and to deeply connect with each other. This is because they come straight​ ​​from our hearts. They can even awaken our desire to make love.

The benefits of honouring, love and appreciation 

The benefits of regular honouring are legendary. So legendary it’s a mystery why we don’t offer it more often.

• Your mindset changes. You start looking for more of the good, than the problems.
• Your mood improves.
• Your level of engagement increases.
• Like it or not, people hearts and souls are brought into their relationships. Honouring gives them more opportunity to show up- in both tears and smiles. We need permission and a place for both.
• You build trust.
• You want to stay longer.
• You inspire your partner to greatness.
• Your partner hears what really gets your attention in as affirming way and is likely to give you more of it. Becoming more creative and efficient in doing so.

The practice can be done as formally, or as informally as you like, depending on your relationship style.

The practice works even if you’re not feeling particularly open to your partner. It’s not where you start that matters, it’s where you finish!

So here we go with the practice…

The Honouring Practice:

The practice can be done as formally, or as informally as you like. It depends on your relationship style.

You can even give yourself this precious gift by using a mirror…

Allow 10 minutes. You can take longer if you want, but short and sweet can keep you coming back.

Beginning:

• First check out the steps below and agree to doing the practice.
• S​it directly​ opposite each other​ (or as direct as you feel comfortable with).
• Take a few moments to connect eyes and share a smile​. You can hold hands, or rest a hand somewhere on your partner, if this helps​. 

First person starts:

• Then, if you’re the person​ ​sharing first, close your eyes, take some deep breaths, exhaling out of your mouth. Centre into yourself and focus on​ ​your heart.
• If you’re doing this formally, hold your hands in prayer position, resting your thumbs against your sternum (this literally helps activate your heart energy). 
• When you’re ready, allow your words of honouring, love or appreciation rise from inside your heart.

Don’t rush:

• Be OK​ ​if this takes a minute or two. The trick is to not try and work​ ​this out beforehand or think about it too much. The more you​ ​focus on your heart and speak from it, the more real your words will be.
• Share five things that you honour, love or appreciate your partner​ ​for.
• The things can be little or large – it doesn’t matter. The main idea is​ ​that they’re genuine, rather than trying to be romantic.
• Take your​ ​time. This is a precious gift you’re giving your partner.

Keep it clean:

• Make sure your words don’t carry any hints of negativity or covert​ ​sarcasm. This needs to be a totally safe space. One that you and your​ ​partner can trust if you’re going to build love in it.  You can use humour, just be clear you are being open hearted in it.
• The person receiving your appreciation is to be quiet, saying nothing.​ Other than, “Thank you!” at the end. This helps you receive your honouring fully. It helps your partner feel their gift has been received too.

Add some magic:

• Finally, share a mutually happy memory from your relationship – one that​ ​reignites the feelings of loving connection all over again. This is not only enjoyable, it helps to overwrite any​ ​negative re-writing of your relationship you might have going on.
• When you’re done, swap over. Give a bow first, if you’re doing the formal version.

Finish with a melting hug, or a third eye kiss (melt your foreheads together).

If you would like further connecting practices check out our book Coming Together: Solving the Mystery of Intimate Sex and Relationship.

Sitting in front of us is a man who is hurting and he doesn’t know why.

All he knows is that he’s hurting.

He is feeling stressed, maybe depressed, or bewildered, controlled or burdened by life. What he longs for is freedom from his pain.

He seeks this freedom in sex but finds it is leaving him less and less satisfied.

He also longs for some kind of connection with another human being to help him feel human again, loved and desired instead of isolated and alone. He believes that sex should give him this but these desires too, are going largely unsatisfied.

It’s getting harder for him to propose sex as his fear of rejection, of his pathway to the things he longs for, is annihilating.

His erections frighteningly are becoming less reliable.

He covers his pain with store of bitter throw away lines, off colour jokes, bravado and silence.

What is happening here is a man victimized by his conditioning, unable to find a way out.

We let him know that his way out is becoming more sexual, not less.

He looks at us with bewilderment on his face.

“Isn’t my focus on too much sex the thing that is getting me in trouble in the first place?”

We say again that the way out for him is a gaining greater love for himself and his sexuality.

Not to just go through the motions of what he’s been taught sex is.

But to find true freedom in it, all the way through, rather than just at the end.

And that doing so will bring him more of the pleasure and feelings of connection that he longs for. Feelings that will not disappear with the end of his erection.

He says that the sex he’s having now is pretty good, he could just learn to perform a bit better.

We ask him if his sex is truly satisfying, if it leaves him him sated for hours, if not days, and feeling energized rather than spent?

“Is that really possible?” he says.

We reply “Not only is this possible but it’s not reliant on your ability to perform, give your partner an orgasm or even have an erection”.

We ask him too, if the sex he’s having now touches his heart?

Or does it rely on some form of control or shame- an edginess or dirtiness for it to work for him?

Or is he free to flow from the edges of intense passion to exquisite tenderness and back again?

Deeply fulfilling sex is mandatory for a man to live a truly satisfying, happy and healthy life.

Despite what he might have been told, this doesn’t have to look a particular way, it’s more about where the man is being inside of it. His sex can be hot, passionate, naughty, edgy and more, the difference is his heart is open and his sex is not controlled by power games or shame.

This world is suffering from the majority of men being shamed about and disconnected from their true sexual nature. Their conditioning leads them to seek tension and release, needing to perform and finding freedom in their ejaculation rather than in the act of sex itself. Not to mention causing them to miss out on the infinite pleasure and love they are capable of. This leads to sex with a partner soon becoming a thing of the past.

The deeper, more expansive his sex the more life, love, true power, freedom and happiness he will feel in himself and bring to his world.

When his heart connected sex closes down man clings to what he knows and fears change.

When he is closed off, emotionally unavailable and shamed he cannot express his fears, share his true desires or respect his partners boundaries. The messages he receives about how he ‘should be’ in sex come from other men equally in the dark, from women who want him to be something that he is not or from today’s overwhelmingly negative sex culture. Messages about how wrong he is shame and disrespect his sense of self and leave him less able to respect his own, and his partner’s desires and boundaries.

Patriarchy, civilized and politically correct society shame him for wanting the rawness of sex and lock him into performing, denying him the freedom of really feeling, enjoying and opening into it. Easy access to the powerful medium of porn, whether it’s online or in the ads he sees on his way home from work manipulate him into believing porn sex is the only form of sex there is. Porn hijacks man’s wild side and steeps it in shame, leaving him desiring sex that is disconnected from who he really is, despite appearing to serve it.

Even today man has been raised to have a tough exterior shell against the world, to be sexual from this shell and go for what he ‘thinks’ he wants. To take, or to give at the expense of himself, rather than to express who he truly is.  His conditioning leaves him unconscious in his power over woman in sex, not seeing her willingness to override herself and fake sex in her need to please him. Or it leaves him unable to fully meet her genuine sexual desire because of his own place of shame in the #MeToo age.

He will not tell the truth of his experience because it is unsafe for him to do so.

Even if a man has a clue that there is something more to be had in sex the pervading anti sex, porn sex and the derision of toxic masculine culture will shame his voice before it gets a chance to be expressed.

Man needs permission to unleash his full masculine energy and access his wild warrior heart to allow his spirit to soar and his soul to be free.

As well as allowing him to receive love and holding giving him to access his tender heart as a man, rather than grasping at it as an unformed boy.

Only at this level can he truly trust and love himself enough to be fully seen.

This is a man worth being with for a lifetime.

We have seen this over and over again in the men we have worked with over the years. This is how to make a beginning…

As a Man it is time to change your sexual goals to give you more of what you want

Rather than following your instinctive nature to pursue, catch and bask in the achievement of woman instead pursue your understanding of your own sexual nature. Pursue its ultimate pleasure, power, freedom and yes, even love. Not love of the romantic kind but mysterious love that lies beyond words, that is about you as much as your partner, that is about the very essence of life itself.

Learn to enjoy sex in full bodied relaxation and unlimited pleasure. Know that your whole body can become as pleasurable as your cock if you breathe and relax. Be free to play in the moment, opening yourself to the potential of meaningful, real time connection. Connect your cock to your heart and find your masculine divinity through your sexuality rather than learning to make love like a woman. Discover your open your masculine heart, for the softer you become in your masculine heart the harder you become where it counts.  

Supporting Man to move beyond his conditioning

Rather than criticize his performance and drive him further into shame, insensitivity and numbness ask him what he is truly longing for in sex (this is going to lie outside of his shame and his conditioned responses and will take time for him to access it).

Let him know you desire to meet him there.

Keep asking till he believes you really want to do so.

Support and validate his vulnerability in this place.

Keep asking till he unravels a lifetime of conditioning- of beliefs, habits, body tension and genital numbness.

Touch his genitals and spread your touch out the rest of him, so he can learn to relax and let go, rather than leave this bit of him till last. Encourage him to breathe deeply and go slow.

Explore with him to find what IS possible, that which lives beyond your wildest dreams, because this is where you will BOTH get what you most want.

For support contact us on 1800 TANTRA or email here

Coming Together Book: Solving The Mystery of Intimate Sex and Relationship

Sitting in front of us is a man who is hurting and he doesn’t know why.

All he knows is that he’s hurting.

He is feeling stressed, maybe depressed, or bewildered, controlled or burdened by life. What he longs for is freedom from his pain.

He seeks this freedom in sex but finds it is leaving him less and less satisfied.

He also longs for some kind of connection with another human being to help him feel human again, loved and desired instead of isolated and alone. He believes that sex should give him this but these desires too, are going largely unsatisfied.

It’s getting harder for him to propose sex as his fear of rejection, of his pathway to the things he longs for, is annihilating.

His erections frighteningly are becoming less reliable.

He covers his pain with store of bitter throw away lines, off colour jokes, bravado and silence.

What is happening here is a man victimized by his conditioning, unable to find a way out.

We let him know that his way out is becoming more sexual, not less.

He looks at us with bewilderment on his face.

“Isn’t my focus on too much sex the thing that is getting me in trouble in the first place?”

We say again that the way out for him is a gaining greater love for himself and his sexuality.

Not to just go through the motions of what he’s been taught sex is.

But to find true freedom in it, all the way through, rather than just at the end.

And that doing so will bring him more of the pleasure and feelings of connection that he longs for. Feelings that will not disappear with the end of his erection.

He says that the sex he’s having now is pretty good, he could just learn to perform a bit better.

We ask him if his sex is truly satisfying, if it leaves him him sated for hours, if not days, and feeling energized rather than spent?

“Is that really possible?” he says.

We reply “Not only is this possible but it’s not reliant on your ability to perform, give your partner an orgasm or even have an erection”.

We ask him too, if the sex he’s having now touches his heart?

Or does it rely on some form of control or shame- an edginess or dirtiness for it to work for him?

Or is he free to flow from the edges of intense passion to exquisite tenderness and back again?

Deeply fulfilling sex is mandatory for a man to live a truly satisfying, happy and healthy life.

Despite what he might have been told, this doesn’t have to look a particular way, it’s more about where the man is being inside of it. His sex can be hot, passionate, naughty, edgy and more, the difference is his heart is open and his sex is not controlled by power games or shame.

This world is suffering from the majority of men being shamed about and disconnected from their true sexual nature. Their conditioning leads them to seek tension and release, needing to perform and finding freedom in their ejaculation rather than in the act of sex itself. Not to mention causing them to miss out on the infinite pleasure and love they are capable of. This leads to sex with a partner soon becoming a thing of the past.

The deeper, more expansive his sex the more life, love, true power, freedom and happiness he will feel in himself and bring to his world.

When his heart connected sex closes down man clings to what he knows and fears change.

When he is closed off, emotionally unavailable and shamed he cannot express his fears, share his true desires or respect his partners boundaries. The messages he receives about how he ‘should be’ in sex come from other men equally in the dark, from women who want him to be something that he is not or from today’s overwhelmingly negative sex culture. Messages about how wrong he is shame and disrespect his sense of self and leave him less able to respect his own, and his partner’s desires and boundaries.

Patriarchy, civilized and politically correct society shame him for wanting the rawness of sex and lock him into performing, denying him the freedom of really feeling, enjoying and opening into it. Easy access to the powerful medium of porn, whether it’s online or in the ads he sees on his way home from work manipulate him into believing porn sex is the only form of sex there is. Porn hijacks man’s wild side and steeps it in shame, leaving him desiring sex that is disconnected from who he really is, despite appearing to serve it.

Even today man has been raised to have a tough exterior shell against the world, to be sexual from this shell and go for what he ‘thinks’ he wants. To take, or to give at the expense of himself, rather than to express who he truly is.  His conditioning leaves him unconscious in his power over woman in sex, not seeing her willingness to override herself and fake sex in her need to please him. Or it leaves him unable to fully meet her genuine sexual desire because of his own place of shame in the #MeToo age.

He will not tell the truth of his experience because it is unsafe for him to do so.

Even if a man has a clue that there is something more to be had in sex the pervading anti sex, porn sex and the derision of toxic masculine culture will shame his voice before it gets a chance to be expressed.

Man needs permission to unleash his full masculine energy and access his wild warrior heart to allow his spirit to soar and his soul to be free.

As well as allowing him to receive love and holding giving him to access his tender heart as a man, rather than grasping at it as an unformed boy.

Only at this level can he truly trust and love himself enough to be fully seen.

This is a man worth being with for a lifetime.

We have seen this over and over again in the men we have worked with over the years. This is how to make a beginning…

As a Man it is time to change your sexual goals to give you more of what you want

Rather than following your instinctive nature to pursue, catch and bask in the achievement of woman instead pursue your understanding of your own sexual nature. Pursue its ultimate pleasure, power, freedom and yes, even love. Not love of the romantic kind but mysterious love that lies beyond words, that is about you as much as your partner, that is about the very essence of life itself.

Learn to enjoy sex in full bodied relaxation and unlimited pleasure. Know that your whole body can become as pleasurable as your cock if you breathe and relax. Be free to play in the moment, opening yourself to the potential of meaningful, real time connection. Connect your cock to your heart and find your masculine divinity through your sexuality rather than learning to make love like a woman. Discover your open your masculine heart, for the softer you become in your masculine heart the harder you become where it counts.  

Supporting Man to move beyond his conditioning

Rather than criticize his performance and drive him further into shame, insensitivity and numbness ask him what he is truly longing for in sex (this is going to lie outside of his shame and his conditioned responses and will take time for him to access it).

Let him know you desire to meet him there.

Keep asking till he believes you really want to do so.

Support and validate his vulnerability in this place.

Keep asking till he unravels a lifetime of conditioning- of beliefs, habits, body tension and genital numbness.

Touch his genitals and spread your touch out the rest of him, so he can learn to relax and let go, rather than leave this bit of him till last. Encourage him to breathe deeply and go slow.

Explore with him to find what IS possible, that which lives beyond your wildest dreams, because this is where you will BOTH get what you most want.

For support contact us on 1800 TANTRA or email here

Coming Together Book: Solving The Mystery of Intimate Sex and Relationship

Sex and lovemaking come with such high expectations.

You want to be desired, pleasured, thrilled and fulfilled.

A big ask when you and your lover most often come to bed late at night after a hard day.

What probably most often happens is sedative sex, a quick way for you to get the job done and go off to sleep.

Still, probably somewhere deep in the back of your mind exists some deeply ingrained ideas about the kind of sex you should be having.

These ideas come from your ideal longings, past experiences (good and bad), romantic and pornographic images, as well as the messages you’ve received from your parents, friends, religion, society and even big Pharma about sex.

All of this leads to pressure to perform and live up to your unspoken expectations.

This is not your fault but it does create HUGE potential for disappointment when you actually get around to connecting sexually and making love.

We have a simple suggestion for quickly turning this recipe for disaster around.

When you move into the bedroom drop ALL of your expectations that come from your IDEAS about sex.

And while you’re at it, forget everything you currently think you know about sex.

Simply show up and see what happens.

How does this sound? Scary? Exciting? Exhilarating?

It’s actually freeing. Freeing yourself from your mind’s limitations.

This is simple but not easy to do.

If your lover is unwilling to join you and tries to stay in agenda be strong here and invite them to share the moment HERE and NOW with you. Let them know you’re not disappearing, you’re exploring something NEW.

To make lovemaking amazing…

You start by taking the time to breathe, relax and FEEL into your body.

And notice what’s present there.

Make whatever is there OK.

This is the fear point right here. Because our stories of infinite and exciting sexual possibilities will try to make where we’re at right now not enough.

Don’t allow this BULLSHIT to control you, because that is just what it is.

Then share what you’ve found with your lover. Allow your feelings to be there and say “no thanks, I’m not interested in you right now” to your should’s and expectations.

Even if one of you is hot to trot and the other is feeling more like a cuddle, it doesn’t matter if you don’t make it WRONG.

Not making it wrong allows it to soften and shift, allowing you each to connect in a new and more authentic place.

Start by simply being in each moment.

Instead of doing what your mind’s agenda believes should happen just wait and see what your body might want, if you give it time to let you know.

Start simply and slowly.

Breathe.

Notice.

Feel.

Hold each other.

Discover the mystery that lies inside each of you, that will be better than any ideas you can come up with because it will be real and it will make lovemaking amazing.

For more bedroom tips click here for our book Coming Together

No, this is not a trick.

It really works!

Surprisingly the key to accessing a woman’s unlimited female pleasure isn’t found in a woman’s genitals, or even in her mind- the key lies in her breasts!

Breasts- no matter what shape and size they come in, represent the positive expression of a woman’s heart energy.

And they are the most powerful pathway to her sexual pleasure.

For when her heart energy is fully flowing a woman opens into love and trust.

Fully energised breasts spill their heart energy down into her genitals, opening them into deeper receptivity and capacity for pleasure (even if the breast(s) have been removed the energy is still activated through touching the skin here).

Massaging a woman’s breasts also helps regulate her endocrine system, stimulating her natural oestrogen supply, so it’s especially important during her menopausal years. This massage can minimise the risk of lumps, bumps and breast cancers so it’s great to do for health reasons alone.

Most excitingly breast massage actively increases a woman’s feelings of self-love and nurturing; activating her vaginal lubrication and turning her into one heart open, sensual and down-right sexual being…

This pathway to pleasure is often left under explored due to the ignorance of its power.

A woman’s breasts often receive none, or just a few seconds attention on the way to the main event- her genitals.

Or her lover might give them lots of attention but it is for his enjoyment rather than hers.

A woman herself might rarely touch her breasts (except for a functional check for lumps), expecting her man to do it for her rather than taking the initiative and doing it for herself.

Breast attention is a beautiful way to build trust and love between lovers.

It’s an equally beautiful way for a woman to love and open to herself.

Steps to Awaken Pleasure Through a Woman’s Breasts

This practice can be done by you or with your lover.

• Begin with rubbing your hands together and energising them with heart energy.

• Place your hands over your breasts, spreading your fingers widely to encompass as much of them as you can fit. Just hold your breasts feeling the warmth from your (or your lover’s) hands penetrating the breast tissue. Breathe deeply and slowly into your breasts.

• Focus your mind on your breasts, feeling their fullness (no matter what size or shape your breasts are they will all feel this fullness given the chance). Spend at least 5 minutes here.

• Allow any feeling present to move through you on your breath, even if it starts with numbness, nothingness, shame (wrongness), sadness, anger etc.

• Once your breasts feel warm and full use your fingers and palms to circle your breasts in a clockwise direction for 1 minute, then circle in an anti-clockwise direction for another minute (avoid the anti-clockwise direction if you have a history of lumps or cysts as this can encourage them to grow, just repeat the clockwise stroking).

• Allow your hands to brush over your nipples at times but with no intention to arouse, relaxation and opening is the key.

• Then stroke in an infinity symbol around and between both breasts, smiling to yourself as you do so for 1 minute.

• Before touching the nipples directly stimulate your sexual energy by squeezing and releasing your pelvic floor- squeeze inhale, release exhale. As you inhale imagine the energy rising up your central energy channel to your heart and to the centre of your brain.

• Stroke your nipples from the outside in- begin with the areola around the nipple itself, which can tolerate quite a firm touch. As you move to the nipple stroke lightly then as this feels pleasurable slowly increase the firmness, being guided by how good it feels (you might want to lubricate them a little if desired).

• Remember to continue to contract and release your pelvic floor as above.

• Continue for 5-10 mins, as feels right to you, there is no goal to end with firm massage, listen to your body and take it one step at a time.

• Complete with just cupping your breasts, noticing how your whole body is feeling and smiling.

Do this practice a few times and you’ll notice your sexual response, and even your response to your partner change significantly (even if you do the practice by yourself).

You’ll feel more nurtured, loved, abundant and safe which means energised and turned on- to life, love and your partner.

It’s a win/win/win offering!

At the launch of our book Coming Together at the Avid Reader Bookshop in Brisbane this week we invited attendees to anonymously write down what word came to mind when we asked them about what it was that sex meant to them. We then asked them to place their answers into our collection box.

The attendees came from a wide variety of backgrounds and this some of what some they came up with.

What sex means to me:

Pleasure

Liberation

Fulfilment

Fantabulous

How men think

Fun

Excitement

Non-existent

Passion

Sacred

Fantastic

Love

Compassion

Union

Enjoyable

Connection

So painful it hurts

Intimacy

Sublimely Sensual

Don’t even know how to spell it?

It’s obvious from these answers that sex, or making love, offers something pretty amazing- from the depths of despair to the heights of fulfilment.

What word comes to mind when you think of sex, of making love?

How do you feel about your answer?

Have you, or could you share what you’ve found with your partner and have a conversation around it?

Would you like more of what you’ve found?

Or would you like to create more of what you’re longing for?

Recognising what sex or making love means to you is the first step.

The second is asking yourself what is it that you can do to create more of what you’re looking for.

As is identifying what you’re doing that is getting in the way of this.

It’s much more empowering to look at your own behaviour rather than to focus on what your partner is not doing, as it puts you in a position of choice rather than limitation.

Making new, positive choices will help inspire your partner into their own.

If you would like to learn more about how to create the highs rather than the lows, or to expand your highs even further think about joining us for our upcoming weekend workshop Feb 22-24 Sexuality of the Heart. This weekend only we’re offering a special 10% discount to anyone who came to this weeks book launch!

We’ve covered talking about the big picture of sex in Part 1, how to ask for sex in Part 2, today we cover how talk about sex during and after making love. and a a bonus we mention ways to talk about sex around your children.

Talking About Sex During Sex

Talking during sex doesn’t have to be dirty talk (although this can add spice if you’re willing to risk it. If you’re not sure how to talk dirty, asking your partner what they would like to hear can be a good place to start, for even if you feel ridiculous at first they’ll love you for it!).

Simply letting your partner know you’re loving what’s happening for you is a great way to build the intensity and deepen your connection. We all love being affirmed, and this is a very powerful place to be affirmed in.

Your affirmation can be as simple as, “I’m loving that thing you’re doing with your tongue right now. It feels AMAZING!”. Oohs and Aahs are a good start, but being specific (when you can engage your thoughts!) is even better.

A beautiful tip is to occasionally tell your partner something wonderful about them in their moments of orgasm. They won’t be in a place to respond to you but your words will penetrate them deeply as in this moment they are psychically very open.

And remember those moments when you are beyond the thoughts, words and communication from your limited egoic mind are equally priceless as the most effective communication from it.

Talking when it’s not working during sex:

• When you’re actually in the moment, keep your communication simple and direct.
• Many people fear speaking up about what they want, but if you do it in a non-shaming way, most partners will love you for it.
• Most of us fear criticism in this tender place, however. So rather than focussing on what’s not working, ask for what you want instead. If you want a change, say, “This is nice, and a little to the left would be even better!” or “I’d love it if you could go a bit slower. That’s great – can you go even slower?” or even “I love it when you do… Could you do it now?”
• Don’t expect your partner to remember what you want every time. Just make a habit of asking for it. (Ironically, this takes the fear and frustration out of it for your partner so they’re more likely to remember.)
• If nothing’s working, it’s OK to pause, breathe, do your ABC and take the time to come back to a place of connection with yourself and see what emerges from there.
  
  Don’t make it, or your partner wrong. Instead, focus on what IS happening for you and share it, eg, “I’m feeling distracted,” “I’m not really present,” “I’m disconnected from myself,” etc. Own this as your feeling, and nothing to do with your partner (even the best technique in the world won’t get you there if you’re not available).
  
  And if your partner is feeling something less than perfect, don’t make it about you. As scary as it sounds, stating what is and allowing it to be OK can empower things to shift.

Talking After Sex

Just a simple ‘that was wonderful’ or ‘I love you’ can suffice immediately afterwards.

A little later, there’s great benefit in sharing about what you experienced. For even when you’re feeling totally connected with each other, you each still have your own uniquely personal perspective.

Talking about sex afterwards is a great way to learn more for next time, although it’s definitely a time to be gentle and leave criticism behind. Sharing can include what you learned, what worked for you, and what challenged or didn’t work for you – always owning your comments and speaking from your heart.

Sex = Children = No Sex

It’s funny how the gift of children that come from the act of sex seems to be the reason many people stop having it after those same children arrive. This is partly due to the place we keep sex in our minds: that it’s private, embarrassing, naughty, dirty, or just noisy, and that kids shouldn’t know we’re doing it.

However, it’s important to normalise sex, to make it a healthy part of family life, and to make your relationship intimacy equally important as caring for your children’s needs. There’s no reason that kids can’t be in the house whilst you’re making love. Open-hearted pleasure that leaves you feeling great will nurture and uplift those around you as well, (although do keep the really noisy times for when you’re alone).

With young children, talk about ‘parent time’ for loving each other or having cuddles. Set them up with an activity to keep them occupied; and if they happen to interrupt, just tend to their needs and come back, rather than give up or let your child get into bed with you.

If your children are old enough to be up without supervision, let them know you’re going to have some ‘connection time’ (no details needed). If you clearly hold sex in a place of importance and sacredness in yourself, your kids will do the same. Even if they roll their eyes and say, “Yuck!” they’ll highly value the positive role modelling you offer.

Reassess Your Sexual Map

Lastly, reassess your sexual map regularly, as your sexual desires will change over time just like you do. And even if talking about sex doesn’t go well the first time, keep trying: the gifts of lovemaking are too big to ignore.

The couples Graeme and I see find that the benefits of getting to an open and loving place in communicating about sex make communicating easier in all other areas of their relationship too. We trust it will be the same for you.

If you found these tips helpful and would like to know more check out Part 1 , Part 2, or purchase All Parts are from our book Coming Together: available here Or even give Annette or Graeme a call Ph 1800 TANTRA or email us here.