Over my years of clinical and academic involvement in sexuality (not to mention countless hours of personal ‘research’) I have identified seven underlying elements to our sexuality.

These elements are all essential to having a strong, healthy, integrated sexuality. If you are weak in any of them, your sexuality will be out of balance.

These elements are also developmental, each element includes and transcends the ones before. If you jump ahead before you’ve developed and integrated the earlier elements, that too will cause your sexuality to be out of balance.

One: Self-awareness

It all starts with you - having a positive sense of self, centred, confident, balanced in your yin and yang elements. (Of course, we are never ‘perfect’, but without a reasonable level of self-awareness and balance it is not possible to be able to engage with a partner in a healthy manner.)

I call this your ‘Lady’and ‘Gentleman’ sides, someone who is confident, centred and self-aware.

Two: Discernment

Once you've got the hang of yourself, you need take that forward and 'meet' your partner - with equality, assessing for worthiness, identifying boundaries, co-creating safety so you can then explore... read more

Download Audio: How to Avoid Spiritual Bypassing in Sex and Relationships

Sex within intimate relationships can be an extraordinary place to grow spiritually, to deepen in love, expand conscious awareness, to feel more peace, bliss, ease. But it’s also very easy to fall into what’s called spiritual bypassing, thinking that you’re becoming more spiritual but actually doing some or all of the following:

• exaggerated detachment,
• emotional numbing and repression,
• overemphasis on the positive,
• anger-phobia,
• blind or overly tolerant compassion,
• weak or too porous boundaries,
• lopsided development (cognitive intelligence often being far ahead of emotional and moral intelligence),
• debilitating judgement about one’s negative or shadow side,
• devaluation of the personal relative to the spiritual, and
• delusions of having arrived at a higher level of being. *
  

Which means you’re bypassing doing the psychological work you need to do to actually be able to develop spiritually.

I see a lot of this in my work, here are the most common examples:

• Spiritual narcissists, where one partner considers themselves spiritually ‘superior’ to the other. This may be because they have studied or engaged in spiritual practices more than their... read more

Download Audio: The Three Phases of Conscious Relationship Evolution

 

In the Tantric yogic traditions they talk about ‘actionless action’ or inaction through action. This is part of the karma-yoga tradition, developing spiritually through right action. Rather than renouncing the world and avoiding actions, karma yoga is about engaging in the world - cultivating wordly life and spiritual life simultaneously.

In the Taoist tradition there is the concept of wu-wei ‘action through non-action’ or action without intent, which leads to a life of harmony, aligned with the Way or the Tao.

As it says in the Tao te Ching (Daode Jing) "When action is pure and selfless, everything settles into its own perfect place," and “The highest virtue is to act without a sense of self”.

So what’s this got to do with sex? How can we modern people have sex through non-sex and thereby achieve harmonious living and spiritual growth?

Firstly - sex without attachment. This means you enter the sexual or intimate activity without being needy, without an expectation of outcome,... read more

Download Audio: Tantra: Sex Through Non-Sex

It's Autumn, the “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” to quote Keats - a time of ripening and reaching fulfillment. Mmm, doesn’t that sound so sexual!

It’s not an intense, fiery time of year though and I don’t advocate an overly intense approach to sex.

Too many people go too far too quick, rushing into it, without allowing the time for the ‘ripening’ in order to achieve real sexual fulfillment.

Truly awesome sex always takes connection, a 'sinking in' within oneself and with each other. It’s different from the rapid-fire approach to sexual excitation, which is the more “normal” mode in this society. With this sinking in comes a ‘syncing in’, where you can let go and really feel each other, really tune in - and for a while the two can indeed become 'one'.

Download Audio: Sink In to Sync In

When your vagina is relaxed and receptive it becomes the most amazingly sensitive organ, capable of experiencing subtle energies and generating beautifully exquisite sensations. Unfortunately, as the standard model of sex is for vigorous thrusting into the vagina, our vaginas tend to become “hardened” to subtlety.

Also, because of the focus on the clitoris, the vagina can get neglected. To the extent that some people feel that the clitoris is the only important sex organ for a woman and that the vagina is simply a vessel for the man’s penis to enjoy. So most of the attention goes on to the clitoris, with strong stimulation there to the point of orgasm, followed by intercourse until he comes. The clitoris is very wonderful, of course! But so is the vagina. I’d like you to reclaim your vagina as the wonderful, sensitive organ that it can be.

• Make sure you are beautifully aroused: be in a lovely environment, take your time with non-genital connection (kissing, touch, hugging, eye gazing, etc.) to become aroused. You are aiming for a soft, warm arousal... read more

 

Taking a break together is always a good thing to do, helping you relax and rejuvenate and hopefully have some quality sexy time away from the stresses of everyday life.

So why would you add a couples retreat to your time away? What are the benefits to you of going to one of my LoveLife Couples Retreats?

Well, where do I start?! Feeling the love and connection in the group and seeing the couples blossom is an experience that’s hard to put into words.

But I’ll try...