Today we talk about physical intimacy beyond the bedroom.
I've been working with couples and individuals in the realm of relationship for over 10 years now,
So I've seen a lot.
So when I was preparing for this session,
I took a lot from that experience to tell you that one of the main things that fosters physical intimacy may be in the bedroom or outside the bedroom is emotional intimacy.
But here is the explanation.
You might not know what emotional intimacy means,
You might not know what physical intimacy means.
When we talk about physical intimacy,
Sexual intimacy,
Anything that has to do with sex,
Foreplay,
Afterplay,
The whole bunch,
That's sexual intimacy and is part of the physical intimacy.
Physical intimacy is touching,
Invading your personal space.
It's hugging,
It's sitting close to each other,
It's eye contact.
So these are like with a friend,
How you would interact with a person that you don't have sexual intimacy vibes.
All of that other stuff falls into physical intimacy.
When we talk about emotional intimacy,
What we talk about is that you feel safe being yourself with that person.
That means you trust them,
That you can be yourself,
You don't get blamed,
Shamed,
You don't get judged for who you are,
For your wishes,
For your worries.
They might take the piss.
My partner does that at least every now and again,
But that's okay.
It's nothing that I get judged for in the sense of that he tells me that this is ridiculous and you're out of space and you don't get that.
It's just for him an exclamation,
Not exclamation,
When he doesn't understand what I mean or is from a whole different angle coming towards the same thing.
It's like for him,
What the hell are you talking about?
You must be out of your mind.
But we talk about emotional intimacy,
The feeling that it gives you when you feel safe and secure in your relationship with that person,
With your partner,
Then you have that emotional connection.
So back to that sentence,
Emotional intimacy fosters physical intimacy.
We all know that sentence.
I think it's a global thing.
Happy wife,
Happy life.
And what it says is that when your partner,
Your wife,
Your spouse,
Your husband,
It doesn't matter,
But when they are happy,
When they're emotionally satisfied,
They share that with the world,
They share that with you.
And that's happy wife,
Happy life is about the emotional intimacy that triggers positively the physical intimacy and often in my experience,
The sexual intimacy.
But today we talk about beyond the bedroom,
Outside,
In front of,
However you want to call it.
So I've prepared a couple of examples of physical intimacy where physical intimacy has been forgotten.
And these are all client examples.
So if you see yourself in it,
Just know,
Yeah,
You're not the only one.
You're not alone here.
And the first one is that hugging only out of habit.
My client said,
When we talked about physical intimacy,
Because I do an assessment at the beginning,
When I work with one on one full assessment,
One hour.
And we talked about that.
And I said,
So do you have that physical intimacy in the sense that I explained it to you?
And she said,
Yes.
I said,
Do you enjoy it?
Well,
It's something we just do.
So for them,
It was the hugging.
Husband came home,
They hugged,
They kissed,
They sat on the sofa,
It was holding hands and it was all out of habit.
There was no intention coming with it.
It was no like,
I want to hold your hand.
I want to hug you.
I want to feel you.
So that's the difference.
It becomes an automation.
So it's not about the quantity because often couples tell me,
But we still,
We still have that physical intimacy.
We still have that emotional,
Not emotional,
The sexual intimacy.
When we go deeper,
It's an automation.
It's a habit.
And that's often because the emotional intimacy hasn't gone up or hasn't has gone down.
And now the rest becomes an automation after so many years.
And often people believe it's normal.
It's totally normal that it becomes an automation,
But it's not.
We forget it.
We just fall into our habits.
That's the difference.
So anyway,
Another example is there's no more playful flirting.
So no more taking the piece out of each other,
But in a nice way without shaming,
Blaming the other person,
But just this,
This flirty banter that you have with each other.
You probably had it at the beginning,
But it's not there anymore because for whatever reason,
What I hear very often as a reason is life,
Life has happened.
We have children now.
So yes,
Your brain,
Your mental space is filled with everything else that you have to think of.
That doesn't mean that flirting,
Because of the interesting thing is for many of the,
Of my clients,
At least when they went out and there was this new person they could flirt with,
Nothing happened.
It was just like when someone came in like,
That was possible with their own partner.
It wasn't.
And yes,
There is what usually happens for my experience with my clients is there is a lot of resentment that has built up.
So there is no,
I want to flirt with them because the emotional intimacy,
The safetiness,
The you can be yourself,
You accept each other,
Et cetera,
That has gone down the drain,
Maybe not completely,
But it's very low.
So you have built up that resentment towards your partner and with someone you resent,
You don't want to flirt.
But this playful interaction with each other that has been forgotten and that created that disconnection physically outside the bedroom.
Another example is that there's only touching when they want sex or during sex.
So it becomes this,
Oh,
I don't get touched.
I don't get any physical attention or no attention whatsoever until that moment when usually the male partner comes and says,
I want sex now.
And it's not even,
I want you.
It's,
I want my satisfaction.
So it's a bit of neck kissing,
A bit of hugging,
A bit of this so that you get them the physical attention.
And you know,
My clients told me it's then you think,
Ah,
Here we go again.
It's that time of the week again.
And to keep the pace,
They do it.
And they're not happy.
And they're not talking to their partner that I miss that attention before and after.
There is this saying that after sex is before the sex.
So after play is foreplay.
Sooner than one cycle ends,
The new one begins and everything is foreplay after play.
To the point where you get down to it and the orgasm is for both of them there.
Everything else is foreplay.
But that gets forgotten.
It's often,
Yeah,
I hear that very often.
It's your life.
It's the children.
It's work.
It's this.
It's that.
But when you go a bit deeper and you ask,
Really,
Is there no time to give your partner?
No matter what sex it is,
Is there really no time every day to give your partner a bit of attention by hugging longer?
But we get to the things that you can do at the end.
And there is.
It's just no priority and you forget about it.
But be honest,
Become aware.
That's the first step in creating change to become aware without judgment that,
Yeah,
This is what I do.
This is what we do in our relationship.
And then change can happen.
So,
Advantages of connecting physically beyond the bedroom.
And it's,
Of course,
It's a stronger bond,
Particularly emotionally when you connect physically in the sense of that you hug intentionally,
That you flirt again.
It's like I raise my emotional intimacy and that brings into the physical intimacy and the other way around,
But only when it's intentional.
That's the important part.
It's intentional.
You want to do it.
And if you carry a lot of resentment towards your partner,
A couple of weeks ago,
I did a life class about that to let go of the resentment,
Go there and listen to that.
It might be helpful to you.
But that stronger bond,
It creates a sense of safety and trust and being yourself.
And that's what you want in a long term relationship,
In any relationship,
To just be yourself,
To feel safe that you can be yourself and that that other person is there for you.
But if you stay disconnected beyond the bedroom,
You feel like roommates.
I hear that often with my clients.
They say,
Yeah,
It's like roommates with occasional benefits.
Or we're a good team.
And I find it quite interesting when clients,
When I work with couples particularly,
When they want to convince me that being a good team is a good thing for their marriage.
And don't get me wrong,
It's important to also be a good team.
Being a good team carries you often through the very,
Very tough times when you don't have that physical,
Sexual intimacy.
And only the emotional intimacy is there and that is very low.
Functioning then as a team can carry your relationship through those years.
And if you then invest time again to reblossom that relationship,
It can become very beautiful.
But if that's all there is,
It's only that we are a good team and there's no need,
No want for more.
It's not a particularly good outlook.
And I've noticed that my clients who say we're a good team and that's okay for us.
They don't stay with me because they don't want to work on their relationship.
They are complacent.
It's like there's nothing more for us.
This is all we get and that's okay.
I want you to be aware that whatever you want,
However much you want to get out of your relationship,
It's okay.
It's your choice.
No one else's.
There is no wrong,
There is no right.
It's your choice and that the only one that matters in your life.
And of course,
If you stay disconnected,
The distance plays out in your life,
In your relationship,
Outside the bedroom,
In the bedroom that you can share your fantasies with your partner,
That you can say what you want or don't want and that you don't feel the safety.
It goes back into the emotional intimacy.
So it's again,
This cycle.
Now let's come,
Let's get to the most important part of why we are here.
We want to know how,
What can we do?
So here are the three things to do that worked for my clients.
And I want you to become aware.
I want you to know that it's trial and error because you have to bear in mind,
Not everything that I'm telling you here works for you.
And if it works for you,
It might not work for your partner.
That's important to know.
That's important to bear in mind when you move forward.
There are things that might work short term,
In the long run don't.
It's trial and error what works for both of you in the long run.
There are things that might work short term just to kickstart the whole thing.
And then you might need to switch to something else that works in the long run,
But it's trial and error.
Be aware of that.
Don't expect miracles or quick fix.
It can happen,
But it probably doesn't last long term.
And so,
You know,
And when we talk about physical intimacy,
I put it down here.
We need to talk about the love languages.
You probably heard about the love languages.
There are five love languages and love languages are the ways people feel loved.
Now,
It could happen that your love language is physical intimacy.
You love to be hugged,
You love to be kissed,
You love to be close physically with your partner,
And they don't.
Wouldn't be the first couple,
But it's possible.
So,
When we talk about physical intimacy,
We also need to become aware that different people need different things.
So,
First of all,
Before you try anything,
Know what do you want.
Is physical intimacy,
Is physical touch something that you want,
That you feel loved by?
Is it for your partner?
Maybe it's something else like gifts or appreciation,
Acts of service.
There are other love languages.
But make sure that when you miss the physical intimacy,
That your partner is at a similar level.
Because maybe that's the simple explanation why you,
For you,
It's your first love language.
Physical intimacy is the way that you feel loved.
But for your partner,
It might be acts of service.
And physical touch is somewhere fourth place.
So,
For them,
It might not even cross their mind that they think,
Oh,
My partner needs physical touch to be loved,
To feel loved.
Because it's not for them.
So,
How should they know?
Unless they found out,
Unless they know that,
Oh,
Yeah,
They love to be touched.
Okay,
How far can I go?
What is okay for me and okay for them?
Where can we meet in the middle?
So,
Check out your love language and your partner's love language so that you find out that first.
And now here are three things that worked for my clients,
Trial and error.
And different things work for different people.
But one of them,
What worked for them is hug for longer.
So,
When the partner came home,
They hugged for 10 seconds.
That worked for them.
They felt closer just by prioritizing physical connection and making it intentionally.
That helped creating that bond again.
Another one,
Another thing is that you could share appreciation.
Particularly in a long-term relationship,
If you're not used to talking about what's bothering you in a very,
Let's say,
Problem-solving way,
There might be some resentment.
As we said before,
There might be some resentment that has built up some negative notions and something that,
Or many things that you don't like about your partner.
So,
It might be hard for you to start appreciating your partner.
You've forgotten how to appreciate them.
You don't see that anymore because your brain is now trained to go straight until,
No,
Don't like this,
Into that pattern.
And that is okay.
Become aware that,
Yes,
This is my pattern.
No judgment.
But by starting to share appreciation,
And it can be just one thing a day in the evening,
You say,
Okay,
Is there something that I want to appreciate my partner for?
Did they do something that,
At the time,
I didn't see it,
But now that I think about it,
It's heartwarming.
And the beautiful thing is,
As soon as you start doing that,
Your energy changes.
The way you talk to changes.
And they will notice and they will change.
So,
A relationship,
Often you don't need both people to start the change,
To go through the change,
Because you create your reality.
And as soon as you start seeing things from a different perspective,
That's what you give out.
Law of energy here.
Okay.
The next thing you could do is to create playful rituals.
The client of mine that tried that and did that,
And it worked for them,
It was playful rituals as kind of foreplay.
Like,
Hey,
Have a night where we just play games.
And that connected,
They connected emotionally.
And they connected physically,
Because,
And they created memories.
So,
They just sat there,
And they played card games,
Board games,
Old games.
And that's all they did.
But because they had these shared memories,
And they had fun together,
They wanted to be closer together.
And that helped them to become physically closer,
To just like,
Hey,
Well done.
Yeah,
That's physical intimacy,
This well done,
But you do it intentionally,
Because you want to show them,
Well done you.
So,
That brings me to the end of my lecture today.
