In the last post I wrote about consensual non-monogamy. It’s an option for some people and it can work. However, it’s not for everyone. Most people prefer to be at least primarily, if not exclusively, monogamous.

But for monogamy to work you need consensual non-monotony.

Yes, it’s a play on words, but it’s also an extremely important point. A couple can only have good on-going sex if they both agree to make it good.

As I’ve stressed so often, good sex doesn’t just ‘happen’, you must work at it, and you both have to work at it as a joint project. Otherwise, you get complacency and dreariness.

You both need to agree to ditch the monotony!

This is the most common client problem that I deal with - couples who want to improve the quality of their sex life. While a small proportion are open to considering non-monogamy, most want to improve things between themselves alone.

The key to success at consensual non-monotony is openness with each other – honest, real communication. That’s what is required to be able to discuss and explore and examine and refine.

This level of openness with each other is only possible if you have complete respect for each other, for yourself and for them. If you feel that your partner is judging you, or if you feel that you’re judging yourself then you will hold yourself back and you will not be completely open.

It’s really hard to be this open with your partner! It’s hard to be so trusting and so non-judgmental. It takes practice. I know from working with couples, that once they get to this level of open communication that the miracles start happening. I love that point! It’s what makes my work so worthwhile.

So, consent to non-monotony – and make it happen!

How many people are in relationship limbo, not knowing whether they should stay in the relationship or leave it? I see them all the time, mentally adding up the positives and the negatives, weighing them up against each other, hoping to come to some logical decision about whether to stay or go.

Trying to weigh up the positives and the negatives as a means of deciding whether the relationship is good or not is never very effective. Some days it weighs in favour of one decision, some days another.

It doesn’t come down to whether the positives outweigh the negatives. It actually comes down to some simple, key points.

Mira Kirshenbaum outlines these in her brilliant book Too Good To Leave Too Bad To Stay (Plume, 1996), which I highly recommend if you’re in relationship limbo, or what she calls ‘relationship ambivalence’. By examining these key points, and answering yes or no to some simple questions, you’ll get a feel for whether you want to stay in your relationship and whether you want to do the work necessary to make it better.

Some of the key points include:

Does your partner respect you? And do you respect your partner?

Is there a power imbalance so your partner makes you feel humiliated? Or does s/he bombard you with obstacles so that you can’t get even your smallest needs met?

Have you given time for hurts to heal? Does your relationship have the capacity for forgiveness?

Has your partner breached a bottom line?

Is the relationship abusive?

Was it ever really good? If not, it probably never will be.

Are you both capable of change?

Do you actually like your partner, and does s/he actually like you?

Despite everything, have you still got more to give?

Your responses to questions like these will give you a greater insight into the decision you need to make than any amount of comparing the good and bad. As Ms Kirshenbaum points out, you can’t be like a lawyer piling up the evidence for and against, you need to be like a doctor making a diagnosis.

So, the take home message here is that if you’re in limbo unsure of whether to stay or go, focus on the few important issues rather than all the positives and negatives.

Once you’ve made your decision, stick to it and stop tormenting yourself with the constant weighing up of pros and cons. If you decide to stay, commit to that and making the changes needed (even if it’s simply letting go of stuff); and if you decide to go, pull the bandage off quickly, and go.

My clients are all adults, although in some cases it’s hard to believe: they come to me wanting a positive, mature relationship with good sexual relating - yet they act like kids in the playground! They bully, they whine, they play games, they lie, they ignore, they’re rude, they’re insensitive…. And they think that this behaviour will result in mutual sexual desire!?

Name-calling, sarcasm, rudeness, withdrawing, clamming up, insults, aggression, contempt and so forth are not conducive to harmonious relationships. It sounds obvious when you read it here, but are you actually putting it in to practice yourself?

A mature relationship is based on individual confidence and mutual respect. Consider this as love of yourself and love of your partner. The two individuals are confident within themselves, not needy of having their partner agree with them on everything or share identical views, desires and intentions. Coming from this internal strength, they can then relate to their partner with utmost respect.

Respect means two things: to admire someone for their qualities, and more importantly to have due regard for their wishes, feelings and rights.

In a mature, respectful relationship neither party will force their views on the other, or expect their partner to share theirs. They will each respect the other as an individual so their coming together will be from desire and respect, not from need and expectation.

How does this look? For a start, you listen to the other with an open heart. You don’t leap in with defensiveness or accusations. You don’t respond until you are sure they’ve been heard, and you take time, whether it’s a moment or hours, to consider what they’ve said, from your heart, and then respond with love and respect.

You will also be completely honest with your partner. You won’t make assumptions, expect them to mind-read or withhold expressing yourself for fear of their reaction or fear that they won’t like what you say. You will have the personal confidence, and the respect of your partner, to trust that the two of you have the ability to deal with anything that comes up.

A client recently told me that after she opened up and told her husband exactly what she felt about their relationship she felt closer to him than she had in a very long time. As her husband replied when she shared this in session: “yes, and you naturally held your hand out to me afterwards and it was lovely.” She was taken aback that such honesty had been received so well and that it had created a better relationship. It was only because she respected her husband enough to be able to share, and he was strong enough to hear.

It does take work to get to this level of relating. That’s what relationships ideally are for: they hone your skills at being independent while together, being confident and respectful.

If you use your relationship to help you mature in this way, you will leave the playground shenanigans far behind in childhood, where they belong, and enter into a far deeper, more meaningful and genuinely sexier relationship.

That’s what a couple said to me recently: “We’re slaying the pink elephants!” These elephants had been sitting in all the corners of their relationship and taking up so much room they were feeling stifled and could hardly breathe, let alone relate. 

Because the elephants were there, but they did nothing about them, the elephants grew in size and number and took up a ridiculous amount of room. The couple had got to the point where they couldn’t mention anything of any significance or meaning as there was so little space in the relationship. They were tippy toeing around with shallow breath, hoping they wouldn’t bump into an elephant.
 
 Fortunately, they found the way to acknowledge that the elephants were there, and do something about them. They got out the metaphorical elephant guns and went on safari within their relationship, slaying all the pink elephants - those they knew were there, and those they discovered along the way.
 
 It can be quite a process to do this, and rarely easy. It requires bravery and commitment. You’ll hear stuff you don’t want to hear; you’ll acknowledge parts of yourself that you’re not proud of, you’ll get a greater insight into your partner and into yourself, and you’ll learn ways of moving forward together.
 
 The very first step is to admit the pink elephants exist and commit together to doing something about them.
 
Note: If the analogy of slaying elephants is a bit gruesome, just think of rounding them up and herding them away! 
 
 
If you need help slaying your pink elephants, book in for private sessions with me. 

Well Winter has finally hit! Cold miserable rainy days that just make you want to curl up and snuggle in bed. Mmmm. Add a cup of hot chocolate and thou.

In Winter our energies focus inwards, like the seed that waits under the snow before it blooms in spring. So for we humans it’s a wonderful time to focus on our inner selves and allow time for gestating.

As regular readers of my writings will know, so much of my teaching and inspiring is around developing that inner awareness, that sense of presence and selfhood, that allows for deeper sexual connection within yourself and between you and your lover, that enables sex to be truly intimate, real, and because of that truly wonderful.

So this Winter is a time for you to grow sexually. If you choose to. Coincidentally it’s also a time that I’m running a lot of workshops!

• They started with Blackbelt in the Bedroom for men last week, an inspiring evening with 14 men who left with a bounce in their step and a glow in their being.

• Then Luscious Lovers last weekend. Again, eight couples who spent a gorgeous day celebrating their love and learning deeper ways of connecting.

• Next it's the women's turn with a Luscious Woman Workshop at the start of August. The men's Black Belt in the Bedroom is on again later that month, and the couples' Luscious Lovers Workshop at the start of Spring.

Of course I can’t do it all for you, so I strongly encourage you to have other practices that help you develop mindfulness, centeredness, presence and physical suppleness. I developed it through decades (starting at the age of 11) of aikido, yoga, dance and meditation (as well as various other martial arts, kung fu, tai chi, chi gung, etc).

Any practice that enables you to quieten the mind while working the body is perfect for developing a deeper more connected sexual life.

At the very least, a simple daily practice of greeting the morning with some belly breaths, pelvic swings and internal energy circulations will get the day off to a good start. It really doesn’t have to take much. It’s not a hard serious practice, it is supposed to be light and uplifting and invigorating. Smile your secret smile and take that smile into your day.

Combine workshops and personal practice this Winter and you will have one awesome Spring!

I'm a little embarrassed to say this, but a couple of weeks ago I was in an emergency ward with a suspected heart attack. Yes, me, the supposed expert on chilling out, taking it slow, enjoying life and love....Oops!

So what happened? After all, I do regular yoga, meditation, relaxation...or do I?

Being attached to a machine that goes 'bing' for eight hours gives you a lot of time to reflect. It's kind of a forced meditation, especially as I was having trouble breathing and had to focus on my breath.

Well, the honest truth is that my regular self-care had become more than a little irregular. I hadn't been practising what I preach. I was proving that not doing what I advise to do does in fact result in a lack of peace and harmony.

This kind of work, where I'm constantly giving out nurturing and inspiring energy to people, plus having three children of my own, means that I have to keep filling up my love tank. So: physician heal thyself.

I share this so that you know that even we 'experts' struggle at times. In this era where there are so many things competing for our time, and where the truly important things in life tend to put aside in favour of the non-nurturing and the non-loving, it's so important that we each stay focused on what's important.

I often talk about how couples need to prioritise time for themselves, to fill up their mutual love tank. Before you can even get to that, you need to fill up your own self-love tank. It's like when the oxygen masks come down in the plane, you have to put your own on before you attend to anyone else, or else you'll be dead and no use to anyone.

For people with a stronger bent towards tending others, it can be hard to focus on yourself. "Who's got the time," you say, or "I'd feel guilty".

But if you don't, you either become a withered up drained shell of yourself, or you become harder and harder (and unhappier and unhappier) which leads to grumpy, bitter and twisted, and other nasty traits.

So, go through your life and start removing the irksome, the time-consuming, the draining, and prioritise the rejuvinating, the uplifting, the peace-inducing. And if you feel you 'can't', then book in for some sessions with me, so I can help make that a 'can'.

As for me, I have reinstated daily mediation and yoga, I have modified a lot of the ways I work, and I am writing this while on the tiny tropical island of Gili Air doing an eight-day rejuvenation retreat....

The love tanks are re-filling.

The good old-fashioned cuppa. What a wonderful space it creates for sharing and openness. People have been bonding over cups of tea for millennia.
 
 A cup of tea gives you a timeframe, something warm to hold, and a shared activity which creates your own ‘cone of silence’ in which to talk and share.
 
 That’s exactly the kind of space you need regularly in your relationship. A space where the two of you can relax and just ‘be’ together, with no agenda, no external pressures, just you and me, having a chat over a cup of tea. 

In that space you can open your hearts to each other. You can express your thoughts and ideas, feelings and emotions, and you can hear what your partner has to say.
 
 It’s a slow space, a gentle space, hopefully a judgement-free space. You can talk about nothing much at all, or you can talk about more deep and meaningful issues.
 
 You can share the small positives and negatives of the day; you can share the small kindnesses and the small neglects from your partner (remembering the 4:1 rule that communication in a healthy relationship has four positives to one negative); you can share the things that make you go ‘mmm’ and the things that make you go ‘ngh’.
 
 Importantly, you can remember that it’s this space, this ‘you-and-me’ space that attracted you so much in the early days, and so it’s creating this space in an on-going way that will keep you connected.
 
 It’s over the cup of tea that you can look at your partner and say: “Yes, I remember you…I like you…mmm…” 

"How can I ever trust him/her again?” 
 
 Client after client pleads this after discovering hurtful deceits by their beloved. What they are really asking is: "How can I ever be 100% sure that my partner won't ever do this again?"
 
 The honest answer is: you can't. In fact, you never could.
 
 You can never be absolutely sure that your partner will never ever be deceitful or hurt you in some way.
 
The very definition of ‘trust’ is ‘not knowing’. 

Trust is being OK with the not knowing. If you were 100% sure of something you wouldn’t need to ‘trust’. You don’t need to ‘trust’ that the sun will rise each morning; you just know it will. It’s only when you can't be sure, that trust comes in, trust must come in. We trust our partners to be honest and not deceive us due to the fact that we can’t be 100% sure that they won’t. Of course, that doesn't make it any easier when our partner is deceitful in some way. It hurts! But does that mean they are a terrible person, and you shouldn’t be with them? Maybe, but not necessarily. At the very least they’ve shown you that they are human, that they are fallible. They’ve shown you that like all of us, they are not perfect.
 
 So, the question you really need to ask is actually: “Can I be OK with the fact that my partner is not perfect and has hurt me?”
 
 It’s not an easy question, and the answer might well be a definite “No”.
 
 If the answer is “Yes”, or “Maybe” or “I’d like to be OK with it”, then you can jointly work to uncover what was behind the deceit and make changes to be able to move forward and avoid it happening again.
 
 In my experience, these hurts often occur because there is a lack of true honesty in the relationship, one or both partners is trying to be something they’re not, or putting up with something they increasingly can’t bear, but don't feel they can share with their partner.
 
 So, the healing comes with radical honesty. You need to learn to be completely honest about how you’re feeling and what’s going on for you, and you have to learn to be able to hear that from your partner without judgment.
 
 Ideally you learn this before a crisis sets in, but humans being human we often don’t realise there is a problem until something major happens. By working through this together, increasing the honesty and non-judgment on both partners’ sides, you grow as individuals and build maturity and resilience into your relationship.
 
 The greater the heartfelt openness and honesty there is in a relationship, the less likely there is a need for deceit, and the easier it is to trust, to be OK with the not knowing. 

 When things get tough, couples tend to either: 

• Separate, generally accompanied by bitter and twisted feelings or
• Put up with it and flat-line, living lives of quiet desperation.

It’s far better to go with option three: 

• Renegotiate your relationship.

Often when the relationship is not going smoothly, it’s because you’re trying to live by an out-dated ‘contract’. When you got together you had certain beliefs and expectations around your relationship. Chances are you didn’t even fully share those beliefs and expectations; you just assumed your partner would share them.
 
 Whether your beliefs and expectations at that time were mutual or not, over time your circumstances inevitably change, you change, and therefore the relationship needs to change. That original ‘contract’ needs to be updated.
 
 So often I see that people are trying to live by values and norms that simply don’t suit them any more (and possibly never did): people getting married for the wrong reasons, people absorbing the norms of the society around them without ever questioning whether they really agree with them or not, people assuming that marriage or a relationship means X-Y-Z.
 
 There’s nothing wrong with this, we generally do what we think is right at the time. But when we get to a point where we realise it is no longer right for us, then we need to speak up and do something about it.
 
 In the case of a relationship, that means we need to renegotiate. That requires communication, honesty, respect, and time.
 
 Ask yourself: 

• What do I need in this relationship now?
• What’s missing or lacking?
• How could that lack be filled?

Then share this with your partner. Put your cards on the table. Only then can you see what you’re working with, and negotiate something mutually beneficial, something mutually wonderful.
 
 The two keys to this process are to be honest, and to be open-minded. You need to be honest so you know what’s going on, and you need to be open-minded so that you can be creative and come up with good solutions. Your decisions about your life and your relationship must be what is right for you, as an individual and as a couple. Your decisions can’t be based on what was right for you years ago, or what your parents’ relationship was like, or what your community or culture claims is right, or anything really, other than what is right for you.
 
 This can take experimentation to find ways of being and relating that work. Look at your work life, your home life, your social life, your private time together, your private time alone - what type, how much, how long. When you look at your relationship, and your life, this thoroughly you’ll be amazed at what you’ve assumed, or taken for granted. It’s only when you really look at it in detail that you can start to mould and create something wonderful. 

One of the great blessings of my work is that I observe love. Whether it’s couples in private sessions or couples in workshops, I observe, and feel, the expression of their love and desire for each other. It’s not something we see often in this society, and it is a very beautiful, inspiring thing.
 
 I’ve written about two small case studies in my blogs this past month: You Can Make Love With A Kiss and Be Nice - It Works. Small, beautiful, examples of how when a couple come together with openness, honesty and respect, that is, with love, they can connect deeply and express their love physically, emotionally, even spiritually, with deep feeling and with gorgeous eroticism.
 
 I saw this over the past weekend in my women’s only retreat, Luscious Woman, in the Blue Mountains. It was the first retreat I’ve ever run, and it exceeded my expectations. It was, quite simply, beautiful. The beauty of the nature, the slowness of the pace, the space for personal reflection, allowed everyone to sink into themselves, to find the peace and strength as women to trust and open to their partners (which I hear they did on their return home...) 

In five weeks, I’ll be running my first ever LoveLife Couples Retreat in the same location. I'm now so much more excited about this, having seen what was possible with the women alone. Knowing how transformative the work with couples is in a consulting room or in a workshop, I can only imagine how much more wonderful it will be for the couples in a retreat environment.
 
 It will be a weekend of Tantric lusciousness. Let me share a little more of my plans for this retreat, to entice you to be part of it:
 
 The theme is The Art of Mindful Loving. For a start, as with all my work, it is completely classy and sleaze-free. There is no nudity, no actual sex, no need to share any more than you feel comfortable.
 
 It will be a small group, no more than seven couples, so I'll be able to give you plenty of focused attention. A wonderful colleague of mine will also be there as Assisting Therapist (and House Mother). My luscious partner will also be assisting and will run the men’s section when we do Secret Men’s and Women’s Business.
 
 We’ll start on Friday afternoon at 2pm and finish on Sunday afternoon at 5pm. (I’ve changed this timing from my earlier plans.) The retreat will be a series of two-hour sessions, with long breaks in-between for private time. You’ll have goodie bags and hampers of delicacies to take with you on the breaks. There will be gourmet food provided by the brilliant caterer who fed us at the women’s retreat. The accommodation is rustic and stylish, surrounded by the beauty of the bush (you might even see a quoll!).
 
 I am so looking forward to observing more loving couples, and I hope you’ll consider joining in as one of them!