You are at the very foundation of your relationship. Yes, you. Without you, there would be no relationship. And because of this, you need to make sure that you are taking care of you! That means making sure that you are treating yourself positivity, with kindness and love and taking care of yourself in a way that honors you at the foundation of your relationship. 

In the honeymoon phase of your relationship when things are new and exciting you don’t have to think about intimacy because everything just flows so easily. You don’t need to focus on doing things differently or with intention because you are in the flow. When you move more into the committed love space and keep approaching your relationship with the going-with-the-flow mentality rather than taking action, things are going to start flowing in the wrong direction unintentionally.

This past weekend I went to my Saturday morning yoga class. Well, it’s going to start being my Saturday morning class because I just made it a weekly thing. Week one, check! When I was in class I was reminded of several things that I want to share with you about the paths that we want to take to feel ease and joy in our lives. For you and your relationship, the path may be embracing a new opportunity to follow the path of Intentional Intimacy, where you use an intentional approach to your relationship so that you have more ease and comfort in the intimacy between you and your partner. As you may have heard me say in the past,

Being in a long-term relationship doesn’t mean saying goodbye to your sex life. It just doesn’t. No evil fairy comes down and casts a spell causing your intimacy and sex life to disappear. Yes, it may be different from what it was at the beginning of the relationship but it doesn’t mean it’s gone. You just need to approach your sex life in a way that actually is sustainable in a long term relationship. But, if you are like me, no one handed me a guide book when I was younger about how to actually make sex stay alive in a long-term relationship. Lucky for you I’ve …

If you are like most of us out there you likely weren’t given the necessary puzzle pieces that help make a beautiful relationship picture come and stay together. Instead, you may have been left to just wing it and when it comes to relationships, we can’t just wing it. It just doesn’t work. Sure, it may work for trying some new restaurant because if it doesn’t go well then there is no harm no foul. But when it comes to your relationship, there is harm. The impact is way more detrimental because…

I was out for a run the other day along a path I normally take where I curve around the field of a school. Usually, when I’m out running there are kids practicing lacrosse or football or some other sport. On this run it was baseball. As I ran by, a ball went over the fence. I had options. I could have kept on running because, well, it was their ball and those kids are agile enough to hop over the small fence. It wasn’t my job to help them out nor did I particularly need to. Or I could instead go out of my way and run off my path, grab the ball and throw it over the fence so they didn’t have to go out of their way. I chose this time to…

The number of times I have heard the phrase “I want to want sex but I don’t” has been too many to count. This is what often has many women come into my office asking for help. Their partner wants more sex and this puts them into a feeling of wide-eyed pressure and thoughts of “uhhhhh well I don’t want sex” and they feel stuck. This then creates a negative feedback loop which…

Over and over I get women that come into my office that struggle with desire. Their partner is frustrated, they are frustrated, and both often feel stuck in what to do about it. He might think “why doesn’t she want more sex?” and in search of the answer his mind often lands on things like “Is it because I’m undesirable? Is something wrong with her? Is there something wrong in our relationship?” And on the other side, she may think “I want to want to have sex with my partner” and because…

Last week we talked about the key elements of orgasm, including the body, mind, and vulnerability.  Although it is helpful to know what is needed to contribute to the potential experience of an orgasm, I want to emphasize that orgasm does not necessarily need to be the sole pleasure goal when enjoying intimacy with your partner. Instead, intimacy is about a shared pleasurable connection and the best way to do this is to expand your intimacy focus so that you have a whole array of pleasurable ways to connect that isn’t focused just on orgasm…

As a therapist I see numerous relationships that are impacted negatively by the inaccurate myths that are thrown at us from the media, Facebook, porn, romance books, religion, trying-to-be-helpful parents or friends.

With the numerous inaccurate and negative messages out there that create harmful myths I want to help you re-examine what is good and what isn’t when it comes to sustainable relationships. Here are five of those myths…

Nowadays the internet totally bombards us with all these different ways to make your relationship better. Things like “how to spice up your relationship” or “how to have your partner want to have sex with you” and “ These are the new 5 sex position to try”.

Don’t get me wrong, spicing up the relationship is not inherently a bad thing. A fun new sex position to try out can certainly add flavor BUT you want to be careful you aren’t adding the spice before you …