Secrets From A Couple’s Therapist On How To Create More Spark In Your Sex Life & Embrace Deeper Intimacy In Your Relationship
As a couples therapist, I have seen many of the ways that we struggle to connect with our partners. Sadly it often takes a huge storm to get a couple to come in for therapy. It can feel like seeking therapy is admitting weakness and defeat, often seen as an act of desperation. Only when they have tried everything else to connect will most couples give me a call. I do not blame couples for this attitude, it is one our society enforces.
I often wonder how it would be different if there wasn’t such a stigma about couple’s therapy. If couples were encouraged to seek support and guidance before getting married or committing long term as a right of passage, a way to ensure they can master the skills of intimate communication and powerful companionship to enhance and support their relationships.
We do not learn these powerfully connecting skills in school or anywhere else for that matter. Yet we expect that we should naturally have healthy relationships and know how to communicate our needs with our partners. The truth is we often repeat what we have seen in our role models intimate relationships. Usually our parents and other people we were close with as children are who we have as role models.
Truthfully by the time most couples come into my office they need significant support to repair their relationship to reconnect in healthy loving ways, significant damage has already been done. I am the last resort, the end line, the ultimatum. They are so far gone into defences and self-protection that it has become difficult for them to be vulnerable with each other. The walls are high. They have been struggling, trying to heal alone for years. Finally, they have come to the last straw, me. They are frightened, it’s scary to think that they may not be able to repair the damage created because even with all of the pain they still love each other and want it to work.
When I first started counselling couples I dreaded hearing how much couples struggled on their own before coming into therapy. I noticed that when I worked with these couples in traditional therapy focussing on communication, attachment styles, love languages and emotional bidding that these things were effective, but only to a point. These therapies helped couples to heal surface wounds and communicate better, but something was missing. The intimacy and relatedness in these couples, although much better, was still not at the level they really longed for deep down. Disheartened, I knew I needed to look into this to try to understand and bring a more holistic approach to healing in my couples work.
As I searched for answers I drew upon some of my own personal history with meditation, dance therapy, dyad work, tantric intimacy practices and ritual and healing ceremonies. I wondered what it would be like to incorporate these into my work with couples. I decided to try it out. What was there to lose? And perhaps so much to gain.
I noticed that in traditional couples therapy there was not room for deeper intimacy to be expressed between couples in the therapy room. How would they be able to navigate a healthy intimate life without a healthy space to practice? I could not give this as a homework assignment until they knew how to connect intimately in my room. In fact that was a major problem. Couples did not feel that they could engage each other with passion and presence and sensual energy in the room. It felt as though there was no space for the reverence and mystery of coming together, which is what guided them to find each other in the first place.
I knew I needed to create space for these things to safely unfold in my practice. There are few places in our society where couples are supported to dive into their intimate depths. We often have to navigate our sexual relationship delicately with no outer support. It has almost become taboo to talk about. I realized I needed to create a container for powerful intimacy to unfold in a safe way in the therapy room that honored couple’s deepest desires. This seemed to me to be the only chance for a couple so deeply ingrained in their painful patterns to truly heal and recover.
As soon as I began incorporating these things into my practice something amazing happened. I began to see powerful and deeply intimate connections being birthed back into relationships. Couples were able to truly share what they needed, heal old wounds and feel herd and held, loved and adored. This sensual holding allowed for burdened pains to be expressed, healed and alchemized. Couples expressed that not only did they feel deep healing and reignited love return, they reported discovering a path of sacred divinity within their relationships. They were able to go deeper with each other than ever before.
Our intimate relationships bring out our deepest wounding and that of course, with it follows our strongest defences. If you are looking for deep healing and powerful intimacy with yourself and your partner it is worth getting support that will go beyond talking, offering you practices that creatively embody your intimacy. This work not only transforms couples relationships it heals us individually