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. 

Breathing together is one of the best ways to sync in and get in the mood for some loving. Here are five breathing activities to do:

For all these activities, you sit opposite each other, and I suggest you play some cool music and do the activity for one song (two if it requires you to take it in turns).

Alternate Breathing
As one breathes in the other breathes out. You feel the breath travel across from one to the other. If you’re having trouble noticing the breath you can place your hands on each other’s chest.

Sound the Breath
As one breathes out, the other makes a sound. It could be a simple ‘aaahhh’ sound, or something more song-like. Do this for one song, then swap roles.

Name the Breath
As you breathe out, say the name of your partner. You can take it in turns to do this, with one breathing and saying the name of their partner for, say, five breaths and then the other doing it for five breaths. Another version is when you both do alternate breathing while saying your partner’s name on the out breath. This way you are alternating saying the partner’s name while you are alternating the breathing.

Fire Breath
As you breathe in rock forward on your pelvis so that you move towards each other and relax back on the out-breath. You’re breathing in and out together. If this gets quite intense, make sure you spend time allowing the energy to settle afterwards.

Kiss the Breath
Lean forward and gently bring your lips together, then simply breathe. Keep the movement of your lips and tongue to a minimum, only a little now and again to relax or reposition.

As you do these breathing activities, note how you feel, what the energy in your body is doing, how it moves. These can be lovely activities to do in their own right, or they can be a kind of Tantric foreplay, enabling you to connect before moving into more genital lovemaking.

The number one secret to good sex is to surrender.
 
 That's all.
 
 You've got to surrender to the act. Let go of the noise in your head and get completely and utterly in your body, in the flow, surrendered to the pleasure of the experience. 

Sounds easy, but it’s hard to do. We’ve all of us, to varying degrees, gotten into a bad habit. This is the habit of thinking too much about things where thinking gets in the way of feeling. We're so caught up with thinking that we live our lives in our heads, so we're not really present in our bodies. In extreme cases, our bodies almost become an appendage to our heads. But to really feel, you must get into your body, you must really be present in your body.
 
 Paradoxically, being present in your body enables you to transcend your body. It enables the boundaries of your physical self to dissolve it and allows you to get into transcendent states where you lose touch with the physical plane and get into more spiritual, ecstatic planes.
 
 There's an exercise I do in my workshops - usually very early on because it's so instructive - where I enable people to get present in one side of their body and not the other. They're always amazed at the difference. One side feels warm and alive and tingly, the other feels empty and dead. When I point out that they mostly go through life with their bodies feeling dead like that, they realise what they're missing out on, and hopefully they then pay a lot more attention to what I'm teaching!
 
 We then do more work on breath and becoming centred and heightening sensory perception and lots of other delightful exercises that get people out of their heads and into their bodies. It might not sound all that relevant to sex, but it's fundamental. In fact, it's fundamental to living.
 
 It takes dedication and application and practice to live and make love with that level of presence and to be able to surrender so fully to the experience.
 
 Personally, I think it's worth it. 

I firmly believe that the reason humans have evolved to be so sexual is because sex is so good for us. While almost all other mammals have sex only to procreate, humans (and some of the other “higher” more intelligent mammals) can have sex at any time - and do!
 
 Keep in mind that I mean quality sex here, not obligation or duty sex. It must be real sex, and that includes solo sex, that you are genuinely enjoying and gaining pleasure from. It doesn’t even have to include orgasms, it’s about the quality of the whole experience, not achieving anything.
 
 It can be simple or fancy, the only indicator of whether its quality is whether it feels good for you and leaves you with a positive sense of wellbeing.
 
 Good regular sex benefits us:

• Physically
• Emotionally
• Relationally
• Spiritually
• Socially

Physically, sex tones the muscles, gently stretches the body all over, burns calories, helps with cardio health, respiration, digestion, skin and hair quality, generally keeping you looking young and feeling vital.
 
 Emotionally, sex cures mild depression, releases stress, calms and tranquilizes through the release of endorphins, and the dopamine release makes you feel positive and confident and able to take on the world.
 
 Relationally, sex is bonding due to the release of oxytocin, the cuddle hormone, and vasopressin, the men’s ‘chivalry’ hormone; it builds resilience in a relationship, so the little annoyances don’t matter and you’re more likely to act in kind and loving ways to your partner. You also become better parents, as calm, happy loving parents tend to raise calm, happy loving children (or at least are better able to deal with challenging ones!)
 
 Spiritually, I believe that bliss and ecstasy are a human need, one which so many people seek artificially, but one that can be met through the release of natural opiates from your own body from good quality, connected lovemaking, enabling you to grow spiritually, feeling more blissful and acting in loving ways.
 
 Socially, a society in which people were having regular quality lovemaking would be one where people were physically and mentally healthy, emotionally solid, with strong relationships and families - spiritually aware. All in all, it would be a pretty darn good society in which to live!
 
 So, make love - for the betterment of yourself, your loved ones, your society and the world! 

I recently ran a pre-conference workshop at a national Sex Therapy Conference on incorporating Tantra into Sex Therapy. I was a little nervous as it was the first workshop I’d ever run for other professionals, till now all my workshops and retreats have been for the general public. It was very well received though, with excellent feedback. I could see that a lot of people were sceptical initially, but over the day they got into it and could see why it is effective.

I started without much introduction by telling them to remove their ‘therapist hats’: “Tantra is not something you can just talk about, you have to experience it. We’re going to get you out of your busy, analytical therapist heads and into your bodies…”

So I dimmed the lights and over the next few hours I got them breathing to their bellies, feeling present in their bodies. We had what I light-heartedly called “tantric group sex’ by simply gazing into the eyes of every other person in the room. I led them on a guided meditation so they could experience an inspiring first sexual encounter, and then experience how that would feel if their whole life had been similarly positive encounters. We played with the yin and yang of sexual energy, giving and receiving, leading and yielding.

As with any group, I could see and sense them softening. The atmosphere of the room mellowed, ‘Mona Lisa’ smiles hung on their faces, the years dropped away.

After lunch, while their brains lolled about in that relaxed state of the Tantric ‘high’, I explained the science of Tantra. I explained how the practices prime our bodies to open to sex; enabling us to slow down and stay present; how it allows a couple to ‘sink in to sync in’.

“Tantra,” I said, “is the art and craft of mindful sex.”

We then concluded the day with an animated discussion on applying the concepts and various practices of Tantra in the therapeutic setting: our role as therapists in modelling a positive sexuality; how to explain this to clients; what could be done in the therapy room and what are useful homework activities.

Hopefully this is one small step towards making society a little more sex positive.

I don't believe so;I wouldn't be in this profession if I thought my role was to encourage people, especially women, to have 'good enough' sex. That doesn't seem to be the view of some of my colleagues though.

I was stunned then to hear approaches that effectively said:

“Women aren’t very sexual, they’re like frozen chickens in bed (actual quote), so it’s important we don’t get their expectations up and lead them into thinking they can have better sex.”

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! 

What level of desire do each of you have to: 

•  Cook
•  Visit the in-laws
•  Learn a foreign language for an overseas trip
•  Go running in the morning
•  Help the kids with their homework
•  Plant a vegetable garden
•  Renovate the bathroom
•  Have sex?

Were you equal on any of those? Probably not. Chances are there’s a higher and lower desire partner for each one; just as you’ve probably got different levels of desire for sex.
 
  There’s always a lower desire partner, and always a higher desire partner. Every couple has to come to terms with that basic difference and work with it. I’ve had three major relationships in my life (well, four actually, but the first was as a teenager so we never found out if there was a higher or lower desire partner - we just grabbed the chance whenever we could!).
 
  In the first I was the higher desire partner; in the second, we were pretty equal, with periods of variation, such as when our three children were babies where some modification and negotiation was required to see us through; and in my current relationship I am definitely the lower desire partner.
 
  I sometimes stamp my feet (light-heartedly) and declare: “I will not be the lower desire partner; I refuse to be the lower desire partner. I am a sexpert I can’t be the lower desire partner!” But, quite simply, I am.
 
  It’s fine to be the lower desire partner, and it’s fine to be the higher desire partner.
 
  Neither is right or wrong. Neither one is better or worse.
 
  “Mismatched libido” is one of the most common reasons couples come to see me, frequently with one claiming the other has a problem. I’ve noticed that it’s the partner with the lower self-confidence who always has “the problem” - regardless of whether they’re the higher or the lower desire partner - and the partner with the higher self-confidence is the one declaring that the other has “the problem”.
 
  “He’s over-sexed!”; “She needs to understand sex isn’t that important,” declare the high self-confidence low-desire partners.
 
  “What’s wrong with him, it’s not natural for a man not to want sex”; “She needs fixing, she’s frigid,” declare the high self-confidence, high-desire partners.
 
  Actually, no one has a “problem”, the couple simply have a reality that they need to learn to work with. In doing so each individual might have some stuff they need to work on themselves: such as to ditch limiting beliefs, become more confident, become more tolerant, deal with past traumas, learn to prioritize or relax, craft a better life balance, and so forth. But overall, both partners need to assume responsibility, without blame, for their love life.
 
  The first step in moving beyond a stalemate over differing levels of desire is to understand that it is normal. Then start looking at what you can do as individuals and as a couple to identify what the lower desire partner needs and what you can do to facilitate more desire, or at least an openness to the possibility; and what the higher desire partner can do to sublimate their urge to some degree, which means channelling that interest and energy in sex into something else.
 
  This is an ongoing process for most couples. The more openly, honestly and constructively you can work together the easier it will be, till you barely realise there’s a difference. Even if you are fairly well matched, there will be times of stress or challenge in your time together where desire on one or both sides will dip or rise.
 
  As with anything, it’s all about flow, and learning to surf the waves of life and love. The better you get at the surfing, the happier you will be.