Blog2022-06-06T19:20:20-07:00

Jealousy: Taming the Beast

I consider relationship jealousy to be one of the more painful emotional challenges, regardless of your chosen relationship model. No one teaches us how to protect ourselves from the agonizing grip of jealousy. In full force jealousy is emotionally (and physically) overwhelming. It not only cuts to our deepest fear of not being loved, but on a very primal level, jealousy is a warning sign that even our physical survival may be threatened if we were to lose our partner to another.

Examine Your Core Beliefs and Reach New Levels of Intimacy

By engaging in honest self-reflection and exploring the source of our stories, we can better understand ourselves and improve relationships by approaching conversations with clarity instead of fear or judgement. By owning up to what we’re telling ourselves and actively listening to our inner dialogue, we can unravel distorted thinking and create healthier connections with those around us.

9 Reasons Why Couples Work With a Relationship Coach

I love my couples. They reach out for sex coaching, wanting to create a fulfilling sexual and intimate life. The number one obstacle to achieving their goals is sometimes an unhealthy relationship dynamic. For most of us, opening ourselves to sexuality with our partners requires trust, connection and a sense of emotional safety. If our relationships are being impacted by unhealthy dynamics that leave us triggered and harboring conscious or unconscious resentment, sexuality will be impacted or, at worst no longer exist.

Sexual Trauma and PTSD

Sexual Trauma and PTSD keep painful memories from our past alive and present in our day to day lives. Hypnotherapy uses the power of your own mind to unlock the hold these memories have on you, by helping your brain process them in a gentle and effective way. If you suffer from trauma, you’re well aware that some memories trigger feelings of present-time fear, keeping you anxious, and on high alert, even though consciously you know you’re no longer in danger. If some of those memories have created Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that means your brain is ‘matching’ those past memories to present day experiences, or what is referred to as ‘pattern matching’ in Hypnotherapy.

New Ways to Heal Old Wounds

When two people get together to form a relationship, there are two sets of wounds merging and intertwining, our partner’s and our own. We know when our old wounds are being dragged into a conflict because our pain and defensiveness will suddenly spike. If our partner is speaking the same words as our inner abuser, the armor will go up, and disagreements will escalate into shouting, tearful battles.

I’m Done With Sex!

When I hear a woman make such a resounding statement as ‘I’m done with sex’, I imagine a long road of frustration, obligation, unmet desires and unspoken words, leading up to that absolute declaration. Sex is not about obligation, although women have been told it was their obligation for eons of time. Relatively speaking, it wasn’t all that long ago that women were considered the property of a man, and their role in life was having a family and pleasing her husband. (and in many parts of the world still are).

5 Elements of a Welcoming Invitation: The Art of Initiation (Part 2)

In last week’s blog, Initiating Sex (part 1) you read about why it’s important to master the art of initiation. I use the term art, because with seduction and initiation there is no formula to apply, no one-size fits all script to use. In part 1 we learned that the secret is good communications. I now want to give you some insights that might help you hear ‘yes’, more often than ‘no’.

Thoughts on Sexual Savoring

Savoring is more than mindfulness. Mindfulness brings us to a razor’s edge of awareness that has qualities of neutrality and acceptance. Mindfulness teaches us to be with what ‘is’. Savoring brings an additional layer of experience with it. It brings a depth of noticing that is filled with feelings of gratitude and appreciation, and even a sense of preciousness.

Sex and the Boomer Legacy

If you’re reading this and you were born between the mid 40s and the early 60s, you are formally an aging boomer. Congratulations! Let me ask you, do you view aging as a curse or a privilege, an approaching end to your book of life, or the beginning of your next chapter? Your answers will depend on what your life looks like mentally, physically, spiritually, and sexually.

The Transformative Power of Empathy

As a relationship and intimacy coach, I have witnessed firsthand the transformative potential that empathy holds within the context of partnerships. Empathy, at its core, is the ability to truly see and understand the emotions, experiences, and perspectives of our partners. Through empathy, we enter the realm of the other, witnessing their joys, sorrows, fears, and desires. It is in this space that intimacy flourishes.

The 4 Levels of Conversation: A Guide to Effective Communication in Relationships

Learn about the four levels of conversation and how to use them for effective communication in your relationships. By understanding these levels, you can avoid common communication pitfalls and improve your connection with your partner or loved ones. By applying the techniques outlined in this article, you can have more meaningful and fulfilling conversations, leading to stronger and healthier relationships.

Unleashing The Power of Polarity in Your Relationship

An intimate relationship with polarity has a magnetic attraction of opposing sides, an attraction that draws together two opposites to create a whole. There is no way to understand light without the existence of dark. There is no masculine energy without feminine energy or vice versa. Neither is superior nor more powerful. They are equal and opposite aspects of our human nature, and both the masculine and feminine reside in all of us.

7 Tips to Bypass Conflict in Your Relationship

If you’re in a relationship with another human, disagreements will happen. It’s a given. No matter how much we love someone, you can’t avoid differing opinions and heated discussions. The secret to a happy relationship is how you navigate these disagreements and move through them to a feeling of resolution. This doesn’t mean finding a solution, it means getting to the point where you both feel heard and empathized with. In the end we all need to feel respected, even in the midst of disagreements. Dr. Marshall Rosenberg developed a communication model called Non-Violent Communication.

Empowering Intimacy: Unlock the Power of Ritual in Your Relationship

Our lives are filled with rituals we inherited from our upbringing as well as rituals we’ve created that are unique to our own lives. Even the most mundane daily activities, like sharing a morning coffee or lighting a candle at dinner, can be elevated to a ritual by empowering the purpose of that activity and bringing meaning to our actions. What rituals do we honor in our relationships that bring meaning and purpose to our actions? The answer to that question is unique to each couple.

Nurturing Your Inner Child for Self-Compassion & Relationship Bliss.

We are, walking, talking memory machines. We draw information from old memories and apply it to our present-day decisions. Every pleasure we’re drawn to, every pain we avoid, every relationship dynamic or conflict is drawing from these memories to guide us in how we react to experiences, physically and emotionally, in the present moment. Interestingly, the memories that most impact our adult emotional state took place long ago, when challenging childhood experiences began to form our strategies for surviving in a dangerous world.

Rekindling Emotional and Physical Intimacy Through Tantra

Tantra/Slow Sex is an antidote to porn-driven sexual style so often represented in adult entertainment. Making love in the Tantric way means to be fully present with your sex partner. It asks us to bring our full attention to each moment. In Tantric lovemaking, there is no goal to be reached, and no race toward orgasm. Instead, there is complete attention to each touch, each breath and each sensation. The ancient practice of Tantra is in many respects the foundation of what we now commonly refer to as mindfulness. Tantric love-making is mindful sex.

Breaking the Cycle of Defensive Behavior in Your Relationship

We learned very young how to deflect, defend, and deny in order to save us from perceived danger. It all made sense at the time, but now as adults in relationships, that same defensiveness shuts down constructive communication with a defended word, or even just a look. As adults in relationships our defensiveness is just as transparent as our younger selves. Our vocabulary may have grown but the strategy is still pretty simple. Deflect and defend from attack.

How to Identify and Avoid Criticism in Relationships

One of the fundamental requirements of building intimacy in a relationship is safety. We want the feeling that our partner has our back, understands and supports us, and wants the best for us. When a couple allows criticism to seep into their communication, they have become domesticated adversaries. They are either bracing themselves for the next painful exchange, or they’re healing from yesterday’s wounds.

How to Overcome Contempt & Build a Positive Connection in Your Relationship

Contempt is perhaps the most destructive of all relationship behaviors. When we treat our partners with contempt, we are sending a clear message that we do not value or respect them. This can have devastating effects on the health and longevity of a relationship. Contempt can take many forms, from name-calling and insults to sarcasm and eye-rolling. It often arises when we feel angry, frustrated, or disappointed with our partner. Instead of addressing the issue in a healthy and productive way, we allow our emotions to get the better of us, and we lash out with contemptuous behaviors.

Resolving Conflict in Relationships: Overcoming Stonewalling and Reaching Understanding

The term ‘stonewalling’ conjures up an apt metaphor of the act itself. You can imagine one partner silently, building a wall, one stone at a time, to keep the other out. After a while the wall is so high, neither partner can see over it or through it. Stonewalling is a form of emotional and physical withdrawal in which one partner in a relationship refuses to engage or communicate with the other partner in the midst of disagreements or conflict.

How to Honor Your Relationship on Valentine’s Day

There are so many meaningful ways to honor your relationship on Valentine’s Day. If you need some help finding creative ways to show your appreciation, below, you’ll find a longer than average list of 50 possibilities to inspire your imagination, and infuse your V-Day with intention, imagination and open-hearted enjoyment. Choose the one you think will delight your partner, and then make it happen!

Overcoming the Fear of Conflict and Vulnerability in Relationships

Every relationship involves some level of conflict. It’s natural for two individuals to have differing perspectives and disagree on occasion. The key to healthy conflict isn’t armoring yourself for a battle, it’s placing your armor down and getting vulnerable. That may sound very counter intuitive, but it’s the quickest and most direct route out of the confrontation. Vulnerability is the path that leads you out of the battleground.

How to Rekindle the Bond of Love and Intimacy

Intimacy is the foundation to our relationships. When it’s burning bright, everything flows with ease, patience, forgiveness, light-heartedness and safety. Yes, safety. Sharing a feeling of intimacy with our partner gives us that much needed sense of security. Security that we belong, that someone has our back, that we are doing something right in our relationship, and feeling the positive effects of it.

Good Vibes

My female cousin was a primary contributor to my early sex education, when I needed it most. For instance she clarified that I couldn’t get pregnant by dancing with a boy, no matter how close we got. She also confirmed that I wasn’t the only person who touched themselves (down there), and most importantly, she showed me that ‘wellness massagers from Sears were used for things other than sore necks and shoulders. A few years later my boyfriend introduced me to the real deal. A vibrator made specifically for genital arousal. It was a cream colored, hard plastic, shapeless cylinder with a twisting on/off switch at the end.

How to Marie Kondo Your Sexual Beliefs

This week a client told me she was doing a Marie Kondo on her closet. She was getting rid of what no longer gave her joy. We went on to talk about her sex life with her partner and the nagging resistance she has to being touched. Somewhere along the line she formed a belief system about touch. She couldn’t identify a particular incident that informed that belief system. There was no trauma or abuse. She just knew that when she was touched (even by her loving partner) her body would recoil and she’d shut down.

The Cold, Hard Truth About Long-Term Relationships

There’s no getting away from the fact that couples in long-term relationships impact each other profoundly, in small and large ways. If you’re a couple who live together there are moments throughout each day that bring you together to discuss something, to work on a task, to accomplish an errand, to share a story, or listen to one. Partners flow in and around each other with such symbiosis, that we can sometimes feel like we’re one mechanism with a shared mind.

Filling Your Partner’s Love Tank When It’s Clear They’re Running on Empty

In my Tips for Couples in Captivity blog posts over the past weeks I’ve been inspired by clients, both their questions and their solutions. What did I hear about this week? Couples want to take advantage of this at-home time together to focus on their relationship, everything from ironing out the conflict wrinkles to having better sex and intimacy.

Desire: The Missing Link

Feeling desired is often the part of our sexual experience that gets lost in long-term relationships. We can become better lovers, more sensitive listeners, more generous givers, even more desirous lovers ourselves, but if we’re not feeling desired, that missing piece can leave a painful void in our sexual experience. Let’s acknowledge that we all have a deep need to feel desired.

The Curse of Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias. We all have it. We experience it every day in the news, in our politics, in our workplace, and most directly in our relationships, where partners can suffer the consequences of confirmation bias on a daily basis. When it comes to our relationship it makes sense then that our brains are far more skilled at noticing what’s wrong with our partner, than what’s right.

Vulnerability

Vulnerability is actually a gift that descends upon us when we stop pretending to have it all together and admit to our human flaws and fragility. It’s a gift we give to ourselves and our partner, because it shifts our state from one of closed-off superficiality, to one of feeling and deep sharing. When one partner in a couple opens the door to vulnerability, they create space for their partner to join them there, and it’s in that space of shared vulnerability where hearts connect and intimacy is experienced.

10 Tips for Talking About Sex With Your Partner

Sex is probably one of the hardest things to talk about with a partner. It’s easy to take things personally because sex is deeply personal. Confessing your desires and asking for what you want takes courage and trust that your partner is going to hold your feelings with care. If sex is difficult for you to talk about the best thing to do is to start talking, but do it in a way that keeps you both feeling heard and understood.

The Tender Truth of Gratitude

One of the most defining moments in my life was losing a brother when I was 14 years old. One day he was there, and the next day he was gone. Life's big lessons are irrefutable, and usually hold within them great wisdom. When you lose a family member, you never forget that impermanence is built into existence, and with every loss comes a second lesson which is equally important to understand. Here’s the confronting truth about life that’s hard to avoid, but easy to ignore. You’re going to lose everything and everyone you care about in life.

10 Ways to Nurture Your Relationship Back to Health

You may think that having a threesome would be exciting, but the truth is, you’re already in a threesome. There’s you, your partner, and your relationship. When we begin to view our relationship as the 3rd in our threesome, it’s easier to see how we are either feeding it with attention and nurturing care, or we’re literally ignoring it to death.

6 Steps To Resurrect a Sexless Marriage

If you’re in a sexless marriage (or relationship) and, you’re both honestly ready and wanting to bring sex back into your life as a couple, here are some important steps to take in order to traverse that seemingly vast and vulnerable chasm. For most couples, the word, ‘sexless' is terrifying. For most, it feels like a final declaration of unrealized relationship fulfillment, a shame-filled resignation to unmet expectations. It’s a state of the union that, for some, is a precursor to separation or divorce.

Touching For Your Own Pleasure

Three recent conversations with clients inspired me to write about pleasurable touch, and why most people can dish it out, but they can’t take it. There is so much more to touch than laying our hands on another person’s body. There’s context, intention, expectation, desire, sensation, communication. Touch is a language not just between you and your partner’s body, but it’s also a communication between your hands and your brain.

SLOW DOWN, Couples at Play

Play is a reset button for our over-stressed, news-saturated, time-pressured adult minds. Most couples I work with will readily admit that play is not something they experience on a regular basis. Life has gotten too busy. There’s barely enough time to be alone to talk, much less play.

Are You Touch Starved?

I was helping a friend celebrate his birthday this week. The 4 of us who attended this little outdoor soiree were diligently wearing our masks and keeping our distance. When someone held up a camera to take a pic of the birthday boy, I jumped up and, without thinking went over to wrap my arm around him and snuggled up close for the camera. In that split second I completely forgot that touching was a risk to both of us. I lurched back, apologizing profusely for my momentary lapse. “When was the last time someone touched you?” I asked him…

Learning How To Talk About Sex With Your Partner

“This is not what I signed up for, when we got together five years ago.” These words from a past client, ring in my head now and then, when I think about couples who are dissatisfied with their sex lives. You can feel in this sentiment, the utter frustration he felt when it came to his unmet expectations. Over those five years, something changed, or more than likely, was ignored in the excitement of a new relationship.

How to be a Better Lover

Most of the clients I see in my coaching practice share a common dilemma… They’re lacking sexual self-confidence. Life and circumstances have taken a toll on their confidence in themselves as lovers, and without that foundation of security, taking steps toward a better sex life, seems daunting and doubtful.

Abortion Bans and Their Impact on Sexual Desire

Sexual desire is born out of a sense of safety. The safety felt with a trusted lover, the safety that our bodies will be honored, the safety knowing that sex is for pleasure and intimacy. There is no safety if sexual intercourse has the potential to irrevocably alter a woman’s life. There is no safety if a woman’s right to choose to conceive a baby or not, is stripped from her.

Awaken Your Erotic Mind

Sex can invite us to be light and playful, and it can be intense and psychological. Sex can open our hearts to romance, or unite us in spirit. Sex can heal us of our pain, and introduce us to new-found pleasures. Sex can lead us into the deeper and more shadowy feelings that lie under the surface, waiting to be revealed.

You Can’t Argue Someone Into Loving You

You can’t argue someone into loving you, yet in effect that’s the conflict that many no-sex or low-sex couples find themselves in on a daily basis. Chronic anger around a couple’s sexuality poisons a relationship and stresses their emotional bond. Although these pressure tactics can work in the world outside of the bedroom, power struggles in the bedroom only end in frustration and conflict.

From Drought to Desire

No matter how dry your sex life is right now, there’s a path forward for you as a couple. Just like anything in nature, change is constant. Everything has an ebb and a flow, an expansion and a contraction, a rising and a falling. So it is with intimacy and sexuality in relationships.

The Secrets Inside the Date Night Masterclass

You see it everywhere, “How to have hotter sex now.” “Reignite the passion in your relationship.” “Get the magic back in the bedroom.” Online ads, magazine headlines, sex therapy advice, even TV shows all name the same problem. It’s pretty clear that they’re all speaking to an issue that is extremely common in relationships. Sexual dissatisfaction.

The Biology of Being Naked and Afraid

If sex is not on your mind these days, don’t beat yourself up about it. Our bodies are not designed to think about sex when our brains are communicating that we may be in danger. We can’t convince our bodies that we’re safe, when in fact we’re not. When stress is dictating our lack of sexual desire, we need to find ways to regulate our stress. We may not be able to avoid stress, but we can learn to manage it.

Who Are You (Really)?

Sensual, Tantra, Romance, Passion, Fetish and Kink are all spectrums within the wide world of human sexual expression. Where we find ourselves on that spectrum is part of our journey. Personally, it’s my belief that we narrow our sexual identity far too quickly in life, and exclude other avenues to arousal before we’ve even investigated them fully.

Addicted to Love

Ask most couples about the early stages of their relationship, and they’ll remember the ease they experienced around sex and intimacy. They’ll stare off into space with memories of testosterone-driven lust and estrogen flooding seduction.

A Wedding Gift That Keeps on Giving

What I’ve noticed is that millennials have outgrown the notion that therapy is somehow shameful, or a secret not to be shared. It’s more likely that they will have sought out a therapist who helped guide them through challenging times. Most of these young couples show up with the awareness that coaching is not just for the broken relationships that are in their ‘last resort’ phase, but rather millennials see coaching as a tool to help create happy and fulfilling intimate relationships.

Why Have Sex?

We’re all on a wild ride together. There’s no question about that. Every part of our life, from health, politics, cultural norms, climate, are in a state of crisis. Depression and anxiety are skyrocketing. I don’t know about you, but it sometimes feels like life is spinning out of control. When I sit down to write about sex, or speak to a group, or coach a client, this question, “why have sex?”, keeps bubbling up for me.

It’s Not You, It’s Me

Most couples who come to me for intimacy and relationship coaching have one thing in common; they want to know how to get their partner to change. They’ve gotten so used to paying attention to their partner’s shortcomings, that they’ve forgotten, or chosen to ignore their own 50% of the relationship equation.

Finding the Gifts in Conflict

No matter who you are or how happy you are in your relationship you’re going to experience conflict. Experiencing conflict in your relationship is not sign of weakness, nor a lack of wisdom. It’s simply a polarized dialogue between two people holding opposing positions. How we navigate this dialogue is determined by how skillful we are at moving through conflict as a couple.

Putting the Sexy into Consent

One of my couples came to me feeling the fallout of a non-consensual incident that resulted in one of them feeling angry and the other confused. The man made the mistake of not asking his partner’s consent to try out something new in the bedroom. Rather than talking about it with his partner beforehand, he showed up in the bedroom with handcuffs, and proceeded to lock his partners arms behind her back. There was no conversation about using restraints and no mutual exploration on the subject of bondage beforehand. In effect, consent was not given, and because of that it didn’t go well, at all.

Ethical Porn

Watching other people have sex is tucked deep into our DNA. We’re drawn to it out of curiosity, the thrill of voyeurism, the excitement of arousal, and the all time big driver in our human bodies, the desire to procreate. Watching others have sex signals our desire to have sex ourselves, since time immemorial. As a sex and relationship coach, I see how porn tends to pit partners against each other and leads a couple down the road of sexual shame, secrecy and mistrust. It doesn’t have to be this way.

4 Stepping Stones to Effective Communication

Having successful intimate conversations in a relationship is an art and practice. Even those who may have picked up some communication tools for the workplace, or from self-improvement workshops, won’t necessarily be able to transfer those skills to the type of very personal conversations that happen at home when emotions are running high. Our conversations with our partner hold a lot of weight. Everyone suffers when communication breaks down at home.

Sex and Grief

Where does sex fit into grief? The myth we tell ourselves is that these two very basic human experiences are mutually exclusive. We believe that we shouldn’t want sex until we’re feeling sexy and receptive, and we can’t be grieving if our bodies are turned-on and orgasmic.

The Seen and Unseen Impact of Trauma in Relationships

Trauma lives in those who are obviously dysfunctional, as well as the lives of the seemingly highly functional. Trauma lives in the lives of the privileged as well as the lives of the underprivileged. Trauma doesn’t know an income bracket. When it comes to the impact on happiness, trauma treats all people equally.

The Delicious Tension of Sexual Polarity

Erotic power exchange is a term that describes the play of sexual polarity between partners. In order to play with power exchange you have to first understand that you’re playing with opposites. If you’ve ever seen tigers mating the polarity of the pursuer and the pursued is exciting and very sexual. Nature’s sexual polarity teaches us about our own inherent workings.

Ecosexuality

April 22nd was Earth Day, and I couldn’t have found myself in a more awe- inspiring part of the world, The American Southwest. It was my first visit to the Grand Canyon. My partner led me up to the rim with my eyes covered. He placed my hands on a metal barrier that stood over a very deep part of the canyon and told me to open my eyes.

10 Tips for Talking About Sex with Your Partner

Sex is probably one of the hardest things to talk about with a partner. It’s easy to take things personally because sex is deeply personal. Confessing our desires and asking for what we want takes courage and trust that your partner is going to hold your feelings with care. If sex is difficult for you to talk about the best thing to do is to start talking, but do it in a way that keeps you both feeling heard and understood.

Growing Up With Sex

Every decade serves us up a unique sexual buffet of experience and challenges. We mature emotionally, physically, intellectually and spiritually, and if we want sex to remain an integral part of our lives, we make sex part of our conversation, to insure that sex matures right along with us.

Your Desires are Beautiful

Did you know that the most common sexual fantasies for Republicans are infidelity and orgies, while Democrats most enjoy BDSM fantasies? And yes, I voted for Biden. I’ve been enjoying, Kinsey Research Fellow, Justin Lehmiller’s latest book, Tell Me What You Want, The Science of Sexual Desire and How It Can Help You Improve Your Sex Life. I’m enjoying it probably because I agree with most of what he says. Funny how that work.

Intimacy in Analog

It's hard to believe we've only had iPhones in our lives since 2007. Prior to that if couples wanted to ignore each other they hid behind newspapers. The cliché of the man, sitting at the dinner table with a newspaper up to his face has been replaced with the couple sitting in a restaurant scrolling their cell phones. If you’re using your phone as a way to avoid human intimacy, connection and conversation, then it doesn’t matter what you’re hiding behind, you’re still hiding.

Do You Like Me?

My first invaluable lesson in romantic self-confidence came from a long-standing infatuation with a 5th grader named Paul. From grades 2-5, I prayed Paul would be in my homeroom class, and maybe, just maybe, he’d notice me. I’d coyly walk by him in the playground, stealing glances of him from across the monkey bars. I’d stand near him in gym class and, of course, I wrote about him in my diary.

Loving, in Cruise Control

We’re together with our partner day in and day out. Each week looks the same as the last. The passing scenery isn’t changing. We’re not even sure of our destination anymore. We’re just going along, without having much impact on how the trip is progressing. We’ve become passive passengers in our relationship, cruising in automatic.

Why It’s Nice to Be Naughty

How many people have you been naughty with over the past week? We don’t have a whole lot of people we can be naughty with. Being naughty is reserved for a very limited few. For most of us it probably boils down to one. Your intimate partner is the one person you have the freedom to be naughty with.

Kink – A multi-dimensional landscape

Wikipedia defines Kink as ‘unconventional’ sexual practices. We have all practiced, fantasized or secretly desired what may be considered ‘unconventional’ sexual practices. It’s the beautiful nature of our erotic minds to engage with ideas that create arousal in our bodies.

Fetish Sexuality

Fetish sexuality is worth a post of it’s own. It’s a fascinating subsection of kink that will often have its roots in early life experiences that, for one reason or another, have been eroticized, and therefore inextricably embedded in our sexual brains. Fetishes can range from an enjoyable distraction, to a necessary ingredient of our sexual fulfillment.

Passion – Waking Up The Sleeping Giant

Ah, passion. Everyone loves passion. It’s an energy that moves and enlivens us. Similar to romance, we’re all indoctrinated into what passion looks like. It’s feels exciting. It’s thrilling. It can even feel dangerous at times. Passion can launch us into an epic love story with our forever soul mate, and it can also lead us astray into illicit love and bad decisions.

Romance – New Findings of a Timeless Love

News Flash! Studies now show that long-term couples who may feel they’ve lost that ‘lovin’ feelin’ can reactivate their brain’s romantic reward centers by ushering Romance back into their lives. The whirlwind excitement of Romance carries us into a relationship, and the deepening of Romance keeps that relationship alive and thriving.

Slow Sex – It’s in the how, not the what

Although I speak about how sexual styles may differ from each other, I don’t view them in any kind of hierarchy. I think all 6 sexual styles (sensual, slow sex, romance, passion, fetish and kink) are alive in every one of us. We’re just more familiar with some and less familiar with others. But combined, they offer a full-spectrum erotic experience that can feed us on multiple levels, sometimes even within one sexual occasion.

Infidelity – 10 Steps to Unpacking The Pain

The feelings of betrayal that come from an affair being discovered or revealed can be overwhelming. Our world that felt safe in one minute, now feels dangerous and threatening. We can’t think straight, adrenaline is coursing through our bodies, and we shift from a calm, logical mind into fight, flight or freeze. When we feel triggered, or threatened, our amygdala brain is running the show. It’s purpose is solely to protect us from a perceived threat and keep us alive.

The Baby Behind the Bully

I woke up this morning feeling emotionally battered by the bullying behavior in our first national Presidential debate this week. I thought about how many people who currently live, or have lived under the same roof with an adult bully. I wondered how many of them were left triggered by the bullying behavior that is all too painfully familiar.

Sexual Shame 2.0

You may not identify with having sexual shame. You may be quite liberal when it comes to the sex you see on screen and in advertising. You may support honest and truthful sex education, and have a tolerant, accepting attitude toward less conventional sexual expressions. The shame I’m talking about is found less in spoken opinions and more in unspoken feelings and beliefs. Not wanting to talk about sex in our relationships is how we carry forth our ancestor’s sexual doctrine, and I see it in many of my clients.

Repairing Your Wheel of Sex and Intimacy

Teri and John (we’ll call them) came to see me a few months ago. They described their 15 year relationship as compatible and loving, except when it came to sex and intimacy, neither of which they were able to figure out how to change for the better. They reached a point where they could see three roads ahead of them...

Welcome To My Mind

Sharing fantasies with your partner is the 2.0 of sexual communication. In order to support each other’s sexual growth and learning, ask your partner if they’d be interested in sharing their sexual fantasies, for the purpose of deepening your sexual connection and expanding your erotic experience. When we’re tuned into our partner’s erotic mind, we can support them having the experience they’re drawn to.

Touch: Love In Action

“When was the last time someone touched you?” I asked him. “It’s been 6 months”, he said, looking shocked at hearing his own words. Something so natural as touching a friend in a happy moment has been taken away from us, unless we’ve joined in a pod with one or more equally cautious others. One of life’s great pleasures is suddenly dangerous to ourselves and to those we long to touch.

Creating Your Erotic Menu – Part 2

If you’ve been dealing with sexual challenges in a long-term relationship, talking about sex may be full of blame, guilt, regret, embarrassment, and a whole host of other emotions that have built up over the years. If your partner suggests sitting down to talk about your sex life, your first reaction may be to brace yourself for the inevitable bad feelings that will come out of that talk. I designed Your Erotic Menu to guide you through this conversation in a way that bypasses the blame game and supports curiosity and exploration.

A Communication Exercise For Curious Couples

Most people will understand an ‘erotic menu’ to mean the activities they engage in during sex. But if I ask a client what’s on their erotic menu, they’ll often look perplexed. They’ll start with intercourse, kissing, touching, oral sex but, after these more obvious activities, they realize their list is pretty short actually. “I mean, how many things can two people do during sex? Was what someone said to me a few weeks ago.

The Shameless Art of Loving Vaginas

When I first saw Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues in 1996, One of the monologues stood out to me. It was a woman’s account of being with a man named Bob. This is some of what she wrote. “…Turned out that Bob loved vaginas..."

Are You Being Sexually Authentic?

The number one reason most people say they don’t speak their truth to their partner is because they don’t want to hurt their feelings. But I think it runs deeper than that. I think we don’t want to speak our truth because we’re not confident about having a conversation that will lead us to the deeper intimacy that can be found in truth telling.

8 Tips to Create an Awesome Date Night

When I watch my coaching couples move from disconnection and frustration to becoming reengaged and turned on, I see how everything they were looking for was already within them. They just needed a sex and intimacy coach to guide them on that journey and find their way back to Love Sex and Desire.

The Wisdom of Slow Sex: I Want a Man With a Slow Hand

If you learned how to have hot sex by watching movies or porn, your sex education is lacking the wisdom of slowing down and guiding your lover’s body into an open, receptive, and pleasurable state. Slowing down with your lover is not just about reducing speed, it’s about gaining awareness.

10 Tips for Sharing Your Sexual Desires

Sex is probably one of the hardest things to talk about with a partner. It’s easy to take things personally because sex is deeply personal. Confessing our desires and asking for what we want takes courage and trust that your partner is going to hold your feelings with care. If sex is difficult for you to talk about the best thing to do is to start talking, but do it in a way that keeps you both feeling heard and understood.

8 Tips to End the Power Struggle and Bring Sex Back to Your Marriage

I recently got hooked into a reality show on Netflix called Married at First Sight. It followed four couples who agreed to arranged marriages, meeting for the first time on the day of their wedding. Three relationship experts paired them from a large pool of applicants. The show follows these four couples for two months, from the honeymoon to sharing an apartment for six weeks while they work and live their day to day lives as a married couple.

Leaping Out of My Comfort Zone (a true story)

The next time you hug your partner, or smile at them from across the dinner table, or take their hand when you’re walking together, speak your love out loud so they can hear it. Don’t assume they know you love them, or assume they don’t need to hear what’s obvious. Feel your love, find the words to express it and let them flow.

3 Steps to Weather Your Partner’s Storms

The next time your partner is letting loose and expressing their fear with uncertainty, frustration with family dynamics, work related anxiety, existential angst, grief of loss, overwhelm with a new normal, or any other challenging emotion, say these words to yourself… “I don’t have to fix this right now”

There’s an Elephant in my Relationship

Let’s stop ignoring the elephant in our relationship and start talking about it. We can even thank the elephant for sticking around and reminding us that we’re ignoring our own sensual and sexual needs. You might ask yourself, what are my sexual and sensual needs? What would it look like to have them met? How do I want to be seen and accepted in my sexuality?

Corona Buddies

9 tips on how to stay out of the roommate zone while in captivity... When we don’t have a work place outside of our home to create physical distance from our beloved partners, we need to rethink how to maintain the necessary ebb and flow of coming and going from each other’s company.

Kink as a Relationship Tool

Using kink as a way to heighten passion and deepen trust and intimacy is one of my favorite things to teach couples who come to see me for sex coaching. Often when I use the word kink, people conjure up images of whips, chains and pain. But what’s kinky depends on you. For some people kinky might be a blindfold or being restrained to a chair with satin ties.

Bring Me Some Higher Love

Lighting up a doobie before you make out has been around for decades, but experimenting with hybrids for increased desire, optimal intimacy and CBDs for blood flow and pleasure is a whole new world ready to be explored.

The Spiral Effect of Mis-Matched Desire

Let’s unpack one of the most common complaints I hear from men about their partners when they come to see me for sex and intimacy coaching: “We don’t have sex anymore. I don’t understand why” These men don’t feel wanted or desired. And they don’t know what to do about it.

The Art of Scene Crafting

Statistically, 70% of the population admit to having a kinky side. If we define kinky as anything outside of your normal sexual experience, then I’d say 100% have a kinky side.

Sex and the Boomer Legacy

If you’re reading this and you were born between the mid 40s and the early 60s, you are formally an aging boomer. Congratulations! Let me ask you, do you view aging as a curse or a privilege, an approaching end to your book of life, or the beginning of your next chapter?

Using Hypnotherapy for Eros and Intimacy

As a Hypnotherapist trained in sexuality, I guide you through all the layers of beliefs, self-doubt, anxiety and fear-based resistance that can turn love, sex and desire into an emotionally and physically painful part of your life, rather than a rich celebration of connection and pleasure.

Positively Kinky

Like food, sexuality comes in all flavors. Kink, fetishes and BDSM all add dimension to our feasts, and add dishes to choose from on our erotic menu. But if you want to learn how to add variety to your sexual palate where do you begin?

Sex, Intimacy and Relationship Coaching vs Sex Therapy

Somatic Sex and Intimacy Coaching is a method of learning that is proving to be an invaluable cutting-edge modality in teaching us how to understand and enhance our sexual enjoyment and deepen our capacity for intimacy with our partners. I like to help clients understand the differences between sex coaching and sex therapy, so they can find the modality that can best serve their present needs.

“Working with Corinne was a deep opening and permission to fully explore all of myself with my partner…”

“Corinne is extremely knowledgeable, deeply approachable, warm and sensitive…”

 

“We learned to explore boundaries, deepen our communication and enhance the play we love so much…”

 

“You led me to some deep, important and brilliant insights that I would never have discovered on my own…”

 

” I am deeply appreciative of what you are doing for me by totally realigning my mindset on sex…”

 

“She is a guide, a mentor and a wise woman who’s purpose is to give permission to open up and explore sex and intimacy…”

 

“I would just like to finally say a heartfelt thank you for all that you’ve done for me and continue to do for others…”

“Corinne helped us understand how to work with our differences with better communication, empathy and listening to each other…” 

“This was the single most powerful healing activity I have ever engaged in. The benefits have endured and people who know me notice a positive change in my face and my attitude…”

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