How you can create more intimacy, improve communication, and have more harmony with your partner
Is your relationship falling flat? Are arguments becoming the norm in your partnership? Is there a lack of intimacy and connection? Do you wish there was more harmony, but don’t even know where to start? Would you like to have better communication and understanding with one another so you can finally be on the same page and move forward? Are wondering how you got to where you are with your lover and questioning if your marriage can really be saved from the D-word?
According to recent research studies, divorce rates are on the rise and more and more younger generations are putting off marriage.
Disney and romance movies and novels set the image of the ideal relationship and what love is supposed to look like. Unfortunately, relationships require work and aren’t always sunshine and roses.
When two people meet and fall in love, they enter the honeymoon phase. Blinded by their emotions, it’s really easy to put up with the aromas of one another’s stink. Once the honeymoon phase fizzles out, you wonder why you can no longer stand the fact that your partner leaves a mess of water behind after they brush their teeth. You wonder “Was my husband in here or Free Willy?” Oh, and let’s not forget to mention when your wife forgets to flush the toilet and you realize that women poop too!
When the little things start to turn to big things and the big things feel like an iceberg awaiting the Titanic to crash into, it’s time to take a pause and reevaluate the reasons why you embarked on this relationship in the first place. While it may feel like your relationship is unsalvageable, there is hope. In fact, there are tools you and your partner can implement right now in your relationship that will help you create harmony, deeper connection, and salvage your relationship.
Let’s dive in…
Creating More Intimacy
1. Find hobbies you both enjoy. Do you both enjoy running through unique nature trails, camping, weight lifting, throwing pottery? Often times couples lose harmony in the relationship and feel disconnected because they don’t have something healthy in common to bond over. Whether you choose to workout together or just share the enjoyment of going to the gym together but working out separately, there is no perfect was to bond over a commonality. I remember when my husband and I couldn’t work out together. We did more fighting than actually accomplishing a successful workout. He was more of the expert in exercise but didn’t understand why certain movements were painful for me, and I had a stubborn attitude. Overtime, we found a way to harmonize our energies and let him lead and listen while I allow him to teach me…and listen! Here’s an activity to try. Take out a pen and paper for each of you. Both partners right down a list of activities you each enjoy. Then, compare listings. Circle any commonalities you share. Then come up with your top 1-3 favorite activities you want to share together and schedule them into your weekly calendar. Make time for them!
2. Block out time for connection. Connection can come through hobbies, but this particular activity is meant for 1:1, undivided attention on each other. This can be taking a bath together (we love washing one another for a more intimate connection), talking and sharing your dreams and fantasies. foreplay and even sex. Yes, believe it or not, most couples do not engage in enough sexual bonding and need to schedule time for it. Here’s how you can cultivate a deeper sexual bond. Begin by creating alone time for yourselves individually. I like to call this “sexy time” AK.A. masturbation. The best way to cultivate a deeper sexual bond with your partner is to start with yourself. This time allows for you to really explore what you enjoy during sexual stimulation. Without judgement, allow yourself to provide yourself pleasure. Play with different textures, pressures, speeds, angles, and toys. Let your imagination and creativity run wild. This doesn’t have to lead to orgasm, but if it does, let yourself go! Once you’ve each had time to experiment on yourselves, have a dialogue with each other about what you found you most enjoyed. Then, demonstrate it. Without judgement, let yourself be vulnerable. You’d be surprised how around our partners get when they get to watch us stimulate ourselves. When you feel comfortable, let your partner practice what you’ve demonstrated on you. Take turns. Let your sensuality navigate you through this experience. Communicate with your partner on the sensations you feel, whether you prefer more pressure or less, faster or slower. Great communication in the bedroom yield greater communication outside of the bedroom! Meaning, this is the perfect time to work on healthy communication. Also, make sure you are each emphasizing on giving and receiving. This is not a one-way street. Be sure you are not only focusing on what you like, but also on what brings your partner into bliss!
3. Learn together. As humans, it is innate in us to want to learn and grow. When we can do this with our partners, we create more harmony and coherence. A couple that learns together, grows together. Find something you both want to learn and take turns making suggestions and trying out new things. Whether she wants to learn cooking and he wants to learn to ski, you can both indulge in learning about each other’s interests. If you find something you are both interested in learning, that’s just as great. The whole focus is to learn something new and grow in a cohesive direction. Not only does this enhance your bond, but also helps you find your significant other more attractive. It also enhances your spiritual bond.
Improve Communication
1. This greatly improves during intimacy. So make sure you are scheduling in individual and partnered “sexy time”.
2. Try to see the other person’s point of view. Do you ever find yourself in a disagreement and confused about why the other person is so defensive? Or why when you find your husband or wife in an off mood? A lot of the times, we are seeing a situation through our lens only. This causes defensiveness and one-sidedness. Often times, our partners are under pressure somewhere in their lives and we lack the awareness of what they are enduring. It’s important to come into a connection with your partner with a second pair of eyes and see things from their perspective. Are your requests really overbearing? Could you really give a little more effort and pick up your shoes from the entry way so others don’t trip over them? When we can see things through another perspective, we create compassion and empathy. We are able to approach things much more differently.
3. Don’t end a conversation on a negative note. Not always are we going to agree with our lovers. At times, we let our emotions get to the best of us and we’d rather leave the conversation prematurely and brush things under the rug because things got uncomfortable. Of course, if you need to, you should take some time to cool off or recalibrate your energy and regroup. This is actually very helpful with things get sticky. However, don’t let situations drop off with no resolution. And, never go to bed upset at each other. When you hold on to your negative energy, you bring it with you everywhere you go. Including your sleep. Whatever you take with you when you go to sleep, you bring into your following day. So, it’s best to resolve situations as soon as possible. Nip it in the butt and move on!
4. Write it out. Have you ever heard the saying “Think before you speak”? This is especially true for those who say things they don’t actually mean and could’ve said things differently so as to 1) communicate more clearly 2) prevent unnecessary drama. In some cases, it can be hard to put our thoughts into verbal words. Here’s where it’s a great opportunity to write out what you want to communicate to your partner. When we write or type, there’s more thought that goes into what we want to say. We can read over our writings and ask ourselves “Is this really the message I want to get across?” If not, you have the ability to revise it to accurately describe what you really mean.
5. Apologize for your wrong doings. Take ownership when you are wrong. Take accountability for what you say and do and never point the blame at your partner. Doing so only triggers more negativity. Rather, own up to your petty behaviors. When you own it, you now get to decide what to do with it.
Create Harmony
1. All couples look for two things: connection and trust. Focusing on your honest communication and creating more time for intimacy/bonding will cultivate a deeper connection. Trust is built by backing up what you say with action. It’s one thing to say “I’m sorry” and repeat the same behaviors you did before. It’s another to apologize and NOT do the same thing you did before that you apologized for. Trust gives us the knowing that we can depend on our lovers to follow through and support us in areas and ways we need it. Afterall, isn’t that what partnership is about?
2. Understand your roles. In any couple, group, or team, everyone has a role to play. Particularly in romantic relationships, there’s specific roles that are biologically and spiritually wired in us. Understand what those are and honor them. Converse about it. Get on the same page and own your role. Make a game plan for the goals you want to achieve together. Responsibility breeds purpose. When we have a purpose, we feel needed and important. Couples that create goals together and align their actions and energy with those goals, achieve greatness together!
3. Be each other’s support system. There is nothing worse than being on a one-person team. Honor your partner’s needs and look for ways to to support them, or ask them how you can best support them! I remember many times early in our relationship when I lacked a huge awareness of how I could support my partner in his endeavors. It took a huge toll on our relationship because he lacked a vast amount of support from his #1 teammate (me) in his career pursuits. Once it became evident that I could help influence him to be more successful and support him in ways that helped lift the heavy load off of his back, our bond grew deeper. Remember, relationships of any kind are about serving one another. Make a friendly game out of it and see who can out-serve the other.
How the Health of Your Relationship Affects All Areas of Your Life
1. Romantic relationships are our second most energetically entangled bonds, next to parent and offspring. When there is disharmony in this unique bond, there is disharmony within. We, especially women, take on the energies of our partners. Unless we can truly let them go, we harbor emotionally and it wears on us mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Stress in this area of our lives weighs very heavily on our hearts and minds. Resentment can lead to cancer, heart disease, heart attacks. Guilt can lead to energy blocks in the first and second energy centers causing low back pain, uterine issues, cancers, infertility, and the like. Overbearing or heavy baggage will weight heavy on our shoulders, which is where you can find osteoporosis and hunch-backs later in life.
2. When your relationship is healthy and has harmony, , oxytocin and serotonin spike flowing through our bodies and produce greater feelings of love and connectedness. We make better choices, go after what we want, show up better for our friends, co-workers, teams, and families. We take actions aligned with our higher selves. We experience an increase in the health of our finances and work performance as a result.
Now that you have learned a few tips and techniques to build more intimacy, cultivate better communication and harmony with your partner and how and why the health of your relationship affects all other areas of your life, you can begin to create a better relationship with your lover. Take the time and energy to really focus on these practices and let yourself experience new and uncomfortable things together. You will be amazed at the progress of your relationship in such a short span of time!