Intimacy and Relationship Coaching

Welcoming Risk and Reward

By Corinne Farago

Being in a relationship doesn’t qualify you as a good partner.

People all over the world are in relationships. That’s the easy part.

The ability to craft a successful relationship is what makes you a good partner.

Every day new lovers are entering relationships with the hope that they will become the lucky ones to get it right.

They hope that somehow all the pieces will fall into place, communication will flow easily, that sexual fulfillment will last, that their commitment will be unwavering, and friends and family will always  see them as the perfect couple.

When that dream starts to morph into a more realistic and challenging picture, a couple may interpret their struggles as signs of failure. They start asking themselves the question:

“If our special soul love was meant to be, then why do we have to work at it?”

As most happy couples will tell you, good relationships require ‘work’.

The work required is ‘good’ work. It’s not suffering battles, it’s not betraying our values, or crossing our boundaries. ‘Good’ work is exploring our beliefs, shifting our perspectives, and expanding our understanding of what makes a great relationship.

As a sex and relationship coach, I view a relationship as an ongoing project that educates us on how to love well, emotionally, erotically and spiritually. What that looks like is unique to each couple. The individuals within the relationship are the students and the relationship is the teacher.

I look at relationships as having 4 developmental phases:

• Relationships start off as a puzzle to be pieced together based on the individual’s histories, their emotional capacity, their childhood wounds, and their goals and desires.
• Relationships then become a schooling on how to build a box of tools that are geared to the couple and their unique dynamic. These tools will help them through the challenging times that are necessarily going to arise.
• When you have the right tools, relationships become your laboratory to try out those tools of intimacy and connection. Each day reveals the results of those experimentations. Like scientists, couples explore new ways of communicating and connecting, looking for what works best for their dynamic. They learn how to use their tools well, and create a stable and secure foundation, from which to grow and explore.
• And finally, relationship takes the form of a spiritual practice. I say spiritual because even though there are two people in an intimate relationship, it all comes back to the individuals, and their capacity to love in the face of challenge or disappointment. Successful couples aren’t challenge-free, they’re just adept at using the tools they’ve gathered to grow emotionally and erotically.

Every one of these 4 phases has its risks and rewards that show us where we can grow in relationship.

Our striving to love and be love is part of our human experience. We’ll never be perfect at it. In my opinion, learning how to love is one of the things we’re put on this Earth for. We never arrive at a finish line, and the learning never stops.

So in a sense, an intimate relationship, whatever phase you’re in, is your opportunity to learn and grow, to fall down, to feel pain and sometimes cause pain, to forgive and be forgiven, to learn to give generously and receive graciously. This is part of every human journey.

Ultimately, relationship is a powerful way to learn how to love — your partner, your self, your world, and all who live in it with you.

The practice of living in a thriving relationship, is in my opinion, the graduate school of being human.

So when a couple comes to me because they’ve stopped having sex or they fight too much, I ask them if they’re in their relationship to be satisfied by their partner or are they in a relationship to grow and learn about themselves as individuals.

I tell them, that’s where the real ‘work’ lies. Learning about yourself is the kind of ‘good’ work that reaps the real rewards in a relationship.

The ‘good’ work of being in a relationship isn’t to mold your partner into your perfect mate. The work lies in honest self-reflection, acknowledgment of our own shortcomings, and the ability to step back into connection with an open heart. The ‘good’ work is being willing to take the risk of being honest, vulnerable and intimate.

Sex and relationship coaching will require you to do this good work as a team. Couples learn to peel back the layers of obstructions that close them down and hold them back from being intimate.

What makes me useful to the couples I coach is this:

I’ve made the practice of long-term relationships my personal and professional specialty. I try to live what I teach every day, and each day I learn from my mistakes as well as my successes.

My coaching is built on a lifetime of personal experience and experimentation in relationships of all kinds. After many years of education and training, I’ve synthesized numerous modalities and methods within couples therapy. I teach what I believe is true and effective for couples in long-term committed relationships.

The couples I work with come to understand that good relationships are a daily practice of risk and rewards.

They embrace the risks knowing the rewards will follow. They come to view their desire for coaching, not as a sign of failure, but as an opportunity to deepen their commitment to self-awareness, self-acceptance, and honest communication.

Let’s talk about what love, sex and desire look like in your life.

Schedule a Discovery Call to discuss your goals, your desires and if sex and relationship coaching is your next step.

You can schedule a complimentary 15 minute Discover Call by clicking here  :-)