Many people rightfully complain that Valentine’s day is a “Hallmark” holiday, a creation by flower and candy pushers to make some extra money by selling cheap heart-shaped boxes and overly expensive red bouquets. We believe that Valentine’s day is simply one more day where you can remember to fully connect with all that is in your heart and share it. We also believe, if you get connected with your heart, the day can be so much more.
Reclaim the Heart of Romance
Romance is a funny thing. If we digress and get technical about it, it is simply a set of co-created behaviors that build and cement emotional connection. If we get slightly less technical, it is the verbal and physical expression of your deepest felt emotions and vulnerabilities.
Being in a state of romantic love is a bit crazy-making, an emotional roller-coaster full of unknowns and surprises where you move in and out of merging with another person and get a deeper look at who you are in the process.
Romantic movies capitalize on the delciousness of this feeling by focusing only on the beginning of this process and leaving out all of the rest that comes with opening to someone and letting them in to that level of vulnerability. As people fall more deeply and fully into love, all sorts of things begin to show up – insecurities, attachments, and all of the differences that exist between any two people. As the world rushes in, couple’s often question if romance can last a lifetime. We say yes – if you recognize it, cultivate it and deepen it when it shows up and, if you don’t expect it to be there all the time.
Love is a feeling, and like any feeling we have, we can claim it for ourselves, fully let it in, fully express it, and feel it spread through our whole bodies. This is true romance – flowers can be a symbol of it, but so can saying, “I tried to buy you flowers today and they didn’t have any that even remotely expressed all the feelings I’m having for you right now, or how beautiful you are to me.”
When we get to hear a sentence like that from that special someone while they are looking into our eyes, or touching our face, or smiling with their most fabulous smile, and we take a deep breath and let all of that feeling shoot and spread and move through us and send it back to them with our eyes, that is romance and those kinds of moments can be scattered through a lifetime with someone if we take the time to create them and feel them. This Valentine’s Day, leave the chocolate and the cards at the doorstep and try really letting yourself feel someone you love and love them back.
Protecting your partner from something potentially damaging or hurtful sends a powerful message to your partner that you don’t trust them. Regardless of how important it is for you to keep things flowing along smoothly, relationships experience and need to be able to survive the natural ups and downs of life. Disappointment and elation, frustration and contentment, anger and happiness are all part of a healthy, lasting relationship. Keeping secrets to save the relationship or your partner from disappointment, frustration or anger, or any of the emotions some judge as “negative” – is not allowing the richness and fulness of a relationship. Keeping important information away from others (in any relationship) narrows the spectrum of emotional sharing and, by letting your fears close you off, you begin pattern of closing yourself off in general. Allowing yourself privacy and boundaries is a great thing, but as Dr. Tammy Nelson writes, negotiate what you want to be a part of your relationship and what is safe for the relationship in terms of “Privacy” – in other words, keep mindful watch as to what you are keeping from your partner, and much more importantly – WHY you are keeping it from them. It could be keeping you from a richer relationship full of growth and true connection!
People come to us all the time feeling guilty about their needs in the bedroom. Instead of being really clear about what they want and seeing whether their partner is up for it or not, they don’t ask at all or only ask for a small percentage of what they need, feeling that everything in the bedroom needs to be tit for tat.
Relationships aren’t fair. In our practice, we see a lot of hurt come from the idea that people are supposed to have perfect equality in relationship on everything from work to child-rearing, from emotional support to time with friends. What the idea of fairness misses is the fact that any two people in a relationship have very different Needs and very different Capacities. For example, we saw a couple, let’s call them Bob and Susan – Bob had a very high need for interpersonal connection both inside and outside of the relationship. He loved spending intimate time with his wife and he also found spending time with his friends, his hiking group and his extended family extremely fulfilling, yet he spent almost all of his time alone with Susan. In talking through it, we found that Susan was much more of an introvert, and really didn’t want to spend time with other people much. He felt that this was bad for her and constantly tried to get her to go places with him. She would agree and cancel at the last minute, and he would feel bad and would stay home with her instead of going out himself, building frustration, resentment and some depression in the process. She, on the other hand, was delighted when he would go by himself and come home with fun stories to share. Once he realized that her introversion was not a sickness and that she was ok with him being with friends and family, he began to feel much more free to take the time he needed with friends, social hobbies and family instead of trying to make things fair.
Ask many women and they will all agree that good sex becomes great sex when you have a little helper at hand. The use of sex toys is becoming more and more popular as couples experience how incredible it feels to share this naughty pleasure.
Before you take the plunge, it’s important to know what you want to bring into the bedroom. If you look at vibrators for example, there are at least a dozen different styles. Read an 
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