How you make love can heal your Relationship

For years I was tempted to avoid intimacy.

Yet there was always something deeper inside me that knew that avoiding was not the answer. So I was always open to new ideas and new possibilities because there was nothing more I wanted than a fulfilling, loving relationship.

This same deeper place inside me, that I could feel but just couldn't name, also knew that there had to be another way to this sexual intimacy thing in a long-term relationship hat could be more sustainable, more nurturing, and more satisfying.

Interesting that in the early 1900s, more than 100 years ago, a female American obstetrician, Alice Bunker Stockholm MD was writing about a caressing style approach of making love that she called 'Karezza' (Italian for caress), where 'the common daily sarcasm of married people are at an end, the unseemly quarrels have no beginnings and the divorce courts are cheated of their records.' I love how she said that!

It is amazing that by the end of the last century, another woman, Diana Richardson, was pioneering a new style of loving in her own way, through her own direct experience, grounded in the ancient philosophy of Tantra, that came to the same conclusion.

And how wonderful that now in the 2000s science meets mystery and is actually, in the 21st century, confirming the health-giving, harmonizing and nurturing effects of a more nurturing style of making love, on the brain, body and emotions.

Author, Marnia Robinson, in her book Cupid's Poisoned Arrow, shares extensively her own research and that of her scientist husband, Gary Wilson, on Karezza. One of the key suggestions by Marnia is that couples benefit greatly by having their daily dose of 'bonding behaviours'.

To put it simply, in Karezza there is a focus on touching, caressing, and making love while avoiding the usual peak and discharge. Many are horrified at this thought. Isn’t that the best part? Isn’t that why you have sex anyway? …To get to that point of pleasure, the point of no return?

The thing is that emotionally, this can be the point of no return. What happens is that with continuous, repetitive high-level excitement with peak and discharge style sex, there is a continual rise and fall of dopamine, the ‘happy’ hormone or reward hormone, which can cause something like a ‘hangover’. It’s the same chemical that goes off in the brain when taking heroin. And the same hormone that causes addiction. So the more we have the more we want. And the same goes for the orgasm. Now there’s nothing wrong with happy hormones.

It’s just that after repeated peak and discharge style lovemaking, there is often a feeling of separation. The things that you found attractive in your partner, now become a little bit … well, annoying. You go out and get therapy because you are ‘so emotional’ and disconnected. As a counsellor, I highly appraise the use of couple therapy, and I have personally found it invaluable and necessary at times.  

I also feel, after being with many couples and observing myself, that the way a couple make love, and how often they engage in ‘bonding behaviours’ on a daily basis can have a profound impact on their relating and their emotionality.

It is proposed that it takes about two weeks for these emotions to actually balance out after orgasm. Whereas, making love with more awareness - relaxing with each other, touching, caressing, snuggling, loving and giving in a less driven style, actually allows oxytocin, the ‘cuddle’ hormone to be released. This is the hormone that helps to bond a couple. Read further on my post Need a Hug?

And to read more on the research and science and to attend Marnia Robinson’s forum where thousands around the world are sharing their experiences in Karezza, go to this page at www.reuniting.info.

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P.S Your body is not broken. Menopause is a gateway, a privilege, a time to embrace change with grace and step into a life that is empowered, loving and alive.  This is your birthright as a woman.  You have been waiting for this all your life... Buy my book Tantric Sex and Menopause on Amazon AUS, Amazon US & Amazon UK.