"Not tonight, honey. I have a headache" How many times have you used that very phrase or some other variation on that theme, as a sneaky way of getting out of being intimate or having sex with your partner? Not tonight, honey,...! I'll bet dollars to donuts as a busy gal, you've said that and can relate to not being in the mood, feeling pressured, and just not being up to it. But what happens when, "Not tonight, honey" becomes your mantra?
It's so easy to let your romantic relationship slip away and fall into a habit of working yourself to the point of exhaustion, falling asleep in front of the TV, tumbling into bed, and sleeping with your back to your partner. Before you know it a month has gone by and you're arguing about stupid things that never used to bother you before. Whether your time and energy is getting zapped by kids or working on building your business, by the end of the evening, sex is usually the last thing on your mind.
Rebuilding Trust and Creating Feelings of Safety: My Experience of Losing and Regaining My Interest in Sex
As a woman who has a history of being sexually abused for many years, I'll share with you honestly and tell you that for a long time throughout my 20 year marriage, I wasn't so buzzed about sex, especially when my weight was top of mind. Thinking of myself as fat and ugly kept me thinking and feeling like a victim, which instantly reassociated me back into being that young child having no sense of boundaries with her body, fearing men.
In order for me to deal with my many trust issues and avoid the tendency to let my paranoia of men in general affect my relationship with my husband, I've had to use a process called Emotional Freedom Technique to deal with the many stresses that come up in my life related to being a woman and feeling safe around sex.
But more than anything, I want you to know that if like me, you've been thinking of yourself as all dried up, too old and too cold to be hot to trot, it's just not true. And remember, no matter where you are in terms of your relationship, it's never too late to shamelessly start over. Here are some tips I've learned the hard way to get started spicing up the passion in your bedroom so that you can fall in love with your honey all over again:
Deal with open wounds - Many times as in the case of illness, abuse or trauma, there can be physical, psychological or deep emotional scars that are creating your lack of interest in sex. If that's true for you, I encourage you to explore the possibility of getting support from your doctor, a skilled therapist, or a trained coach. Find someone whom you can trust who is capable of helping you to address your individual challenges.
Nurture Your Curvy Confidence - It's your body. Own it. Whatever size and shape you are, it's important to love and accept your body in order to feel comfortable enough to share yourself with your lover. I've begun to reconnect with parts of my body that I had long disowned for being imperfect. Over the past year, I've begun to touch my stomach and legs and other areas of my body that are still overweight and not exactly the way I want them to be. It feels wonderful to nurture and touch yourself. Try it. Get some massage oil and rub some lotion on your body, setting an intention to connect with yourself at a deeper level. Consider for a moment. What parts of your body have been lacking love?
Send love to yourself: Remind you that you're absolutely perfect as you are. Then send love and positive energy to your body and think empowering thoughts. As I continue to do this often, I notice my appetite lessening and my body reshaping itself naturally and effortlessly. Another positive benefit of sending more love your way, is that you will feel better about yourself and that is the perfect recipe for a night of fun and passion.
Stand in Your Power - Avoid being the little girl. Acting like a child is detrimental to your intimate relationship with your mate. Aside of enjoying the fantasy side of it, If you act in a way that you consistently show yourself as weak or incapable, such as the damsel in distress, you are jeopardizing your relationship with your partner because they won't see you as an equal. By whining, complaining, having tantrums and acting helpless you show that you are unable to handle confrontation and challenges in an adult manner, and you'll find that your partner will start to treat you like a child.
No More Dieting: In order to feel truly confident in my sexuality, it was an important choice for me to stop dieting. It may not be right for you, but it was the right decision for me. For years I was obsessed with food and hated my body. I feel strongly that if you want to truly enjoy sex, it's important to love the skin you're in and before I made the decision to take control of what I ate, I didn't have a clue what loving myself meant. If you know in your heart that your relationship with your body is dysfunctional, the kindest thing that you can do for yourself would be to commit to learning how to trust your body and eat in accordance with your body's natural hunger.
Plan for passion: - Ink It, Don't Just Think It! - Put sex on a schedule. One of the things that really souped up my sex life was my decision to get several of Laura Corn's books. She's a guru in the field of sex and relationships. Laura says that she found her calling when she noticed that her once fabulous sex life with her boyfriend was as thrilling to her as a wet dish rag.
At the time, she was under the gun as far as having to complete a TV project and sex was the least of all her considerations. One day after a two month stretch of "sorry cookie, no nookie," she said that she felt sorry for her boyfriend, Jeff, and just decided to give in and have sex with him. She wasn't expecting anything, because she was only doing this for him, so she was shocked and amazed when she realized how much her acting soon turned into being. The result of her little experiment yielded a whole new paradigm shift for her relationship.
Visualization: As a professional coach, I'm a huge proponent in favor of using the power of visualization. I use visualization often for everything, including sex. There's a saying that the most important sexual organ is your brain. Stimulate that and you can do anything. Whenever I spend just a few minutes visualizing feeling sexy and enjoying sex, the results afterwards are memorable.
Sleep Naked: If you're looking for a quick tip to heat things up in the bedroom and spice up your relationship, there's nothing like skin to skin contact that has the power to rev up your engine. Whether you're interested in taking that connection to the next level or not, sleeping with your partner au naturale and feeling them holding you against their warm body creates a powerful bond that reinforces the depth of your love and connection for one another.
Create 'Safe Spaces' - Since women are basically different from men, we arrive at the desire to be intimate based on how safe and loved we feel in the relationship. Then once we recognize that we are important to our partner and not just a warm body, we feel more relaxed being sexual. If your hubby has a tendency to be overenthusiastic, with his hands all over you, it can be overwhelming, frustrating and make you feel uncomfortable if you don't match that level of desire.
In every relationship it's natural for both of you to feel very differently about sex. Your partner may want it more and you may desire it less, or vice versa. Remember it's not a competition. In order for you both to make the most of your time together and to inspire feelings of warmth and connection, it's important to create safe spaces. These are times when both you and your partner make an agreement to go only as far as you are both comfortable. For example in order for you to feel safe sleeping naked with your partner, you may want to set certain boundaries, such as no sex, just holding and caressing one another.
Emotional Freedom Technique - I speak about EFT often and always. It's a powerful stress relief process based on the science of acupuncture. The foundation of it is that throughout our bodies, we have a low level electrical current. When we are out of alignment, all sorts of problems occur, due to this short circuit condition in our energy field. By tapping on different parts of your face, body and hands. you can release these blocks and that will realign your energy. Energetically speaking, having a lack of desire for sex means that something is out of balance and your energy is not in alignment.
If you are encountering resistance around anything, this is an indication to you that you are dealing with an imbalance in your energy. You can use EFT to tap on resistance around whatever is bothering you - Now this is not the time to point the finger of blame at anyone, because that doesn't do anybody any good. EFT can be used on any psychological and/or physical blocks affecting any area of your life, In terms of sex, these emotional blocks manifest in our thoughts as limiting beliefs that prevent us from feeling good whenever we think about any aspect of being sexual. Whether they are true or not, imagined or real, left unchallenged, these negative beliefs will keep us stuck in old behaviors and unconscious habits like procrastination, emotional eating, being fearful, paranoid or anxious. None of these circumstances are conducive to enjoying a romantic evening.
It's lovely to know that when I want to, I can rely on EFT to increase my desire, stimulate my body, get my hormones flowing, be present in the moment, reconnect with my husband, bump up my sex drive, eliminate fears of being inadequate, relax more so that I can enjoy sex and have great orgasms, boost my confidence and overall increase my feelings of comfort and appreciation for my body right now at whatever size I am.
Compromise: Recognize, be honest with yourself and find out why you're not 'in the mood.' During times of stress, when you're under deadlines, everything gets harder and feels more difficult. Sometimes the answer is getting more rest, other times the answer is releasing stress by enjoying a good romp in bed. You may call it menopause or whatever you like. By any label, it's still the same, a sagging sex drive. This is another example of when I would use tapping to reconnect with my body,and get back in the driver's seat. I like being able to increase my sensitivity, have more satisfying orgasms, be more playful, enjoy sex more often, be the aggressor, initiate, sleep comfortably naked, and feel absolutely comfortable sharing with my husband what I want and don't want at any given moment. On the whole, I love being more assertive, sexually confident, and happy, because I have more respect for myself.
My criteria for knowing when I want to vs. don't is when I recognize that some type of fear is blocking my desire. You can pin this down by noticing what you are telling yourself. Many times what happens for me, especially when I'm overstressed is I lose sight of how much I love my husband, Angel. Those are the times when I'm most vulnenrable and that's when my blanket fears pop up and fall into the old habit of generalizing my husband into the category of all men who have hurt me in the past. Since I've had mostly negative experiences with men, especially as a child, I fall right back into my old victim mode. Now I know that when I experience that particular level of fear and paranoia, what is necessary for me is a reality check, remembering how I feel about my husband. After I reground myself using EFT, I get a flood of feelings and happy memories that immediately resurface when I take the time to remember what I appreciate specifically about Angel. Once I've got it sorted and realize that he's "not one of those guys," then my desire returns.
Be grateful: I'm big on gratitude. I love letting my husband know how much I adore him and how excited he makes me feel. I give thanks for having so many blessings and that keeps me feeling good. Make a list of all the reasons you fell in love with your honey. Share that list and ask your sweetheart to partner with you in reigniting the flame by doing those things for you again. Tell him how much you enjoyed... and watch him grow a foot taller before your eyes. Keep in mind the principles of the law of attraction, what you focus on, you get more of. When we remind people of what we love about them, they do those things more. And so on.
Now have some fun and put my suggestions to use. Have a great time and enjoy yourself and your partner. And remember sex is supposed to be fun. If it's not, then your body's telling you that something's not right. Pay attention and really question if you want to continue to distance yourself from your partner. What are the consequences of continuing to do that? Be brave and willing to dig deeper and find out what's behind any old resistance that pops up. Remember it's never too late to shamelessly start over. With two people who love one another, you can always begin again.
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