intimacy Archive - Seite 4 von 4 - Natur Heil Praxis

Cues: Between and Beyond

This is Sean. I am back with you to further our discussion of HHIA Relationships and how we create and maintain them. Building on our exploration of actively expressing ourselves and actively listening to those around us, we are going to look at other modes of communication.

Communication is Key

Relationships, especially Happy, Healthy and Intimate ones are based on communication. We have explored clear expression and active listening. On the one hand, these two activities are excellent ways of communicating. On the other hand, there are a lot of other ways we have learned and are taught to both give and receive information.

Words and Actions

In other words, we have essentially two primary ways of expressing ourselves in the world: words and actions.

Words start out as sound and receive meaning through perception and interpretation. Some of our first words are no, yes, ma, da, and so on. Words then develop into sentences and eventually language.

Actions are movement. In simple terms, we move toward things we like and away from things we don’t like. This action is initiated by attraction, belief, and/or intention. Truthfully, we do not know if we like something or someone until we actually interact. These actions become patterns and habits, ultimately creating behavior.

Between & Beyond Words

We do receive information/input in from other sources between and beyond words and direct action:

Cues – “Say Something”, …and you? Any thoughts? Hmmm..
Hints – Warm, Cold, More, I am thinking of…
Promts – „Jump“ „Simon Says“…
Signs – Stop, Yield, X-ing, Children, Advertising
Signals – Traffic lights, Blinkers, Emojis

All of these things have a lot in common. They are all created/intended to inspire a response. We learn lots of these from our parents, family, friends, social groups, culture and religion. Another thing these things have in common is that they are often indirect, culturally varying and open to interpretation. This makes them all challenging to always understand and appropriately apply.

Music makes or breaks an atmosphere. It helps to create the mood and also is a very important aural cue; simply shut off the music when you want people to leave.
Lisa Vanderpump

Achieve and Avoid

Due to both their flexibility and their coded nature, we tend to use them when trying to achieve and/or avoid experiences. This has the potential to inspire misunderstandings, a lack of clarity, and is often experienced as nervousness or insecurity because we lose our sense of security and connection when we do not understand what is being expressed. We can be associated with the “fight or flight” response.

Fight or Flight

Consider the times you have been misunderstood or misunderstood someone or something yourself. This is how we all feel when things become unclear or indecipherable. This is objectively noone’s fault and can be resolved when we calm down and clearly express, ask, and actively listen to the intentions and desires of ourselves and those around us.

In conclusion, I invite you to think about some of the ways you, your friends and environment use Cues, Hints, Promts, Signals and Signs to inspire and create actions and responses in your life.

Are they always clear?
Does everyone interpret them the same way?
Is the result always satisfactory for eyerone involved?

Next time we will explore some examples and how we can improve our understanding and our use of these communication styles further.

This is Sean. Try being nice to yourself (and those around you) for a minute, an hour, a day, a week, and see what happens.

Love to hear your thoughts. Till next time! Our earlier Blog-Lessons:

1–2–3–4–5–6–7–8–9–10–11–12–13–14–15–16–17–18–19 –20 –21–22–23–24–25–26–27–28

Healthy Happy Intimate Adult Relationship, Uncategorized

Healthy Happy Intimate HHIA Relationships 28

Dezember 30, 2020März 14, 2021 sean

In Between

Laughter is the closest distance between two people.
Victor Borge

Sean – in the mix. Whether we are expressing ourselves or actively listening, the in between is where we begin to share and create trust and intimacy.

Just as with our intentions and actions, the intention is the beginning. The action is our attempt to express our intention. Then our partner’s reception and interpretation of our action is the result. Hence, what we create between us is key to the positive expression, reception and interpretation of both actions and intention.

What else is there?

In other words, the world we exist in is subjective and our perspective and interpretation of the world is based on our experiences. This is also true for your romantic interest(s), your girl-/boy-friend, your partner(s) and spouse.

The more positive input we have and try to put into the world around us results in a safer and more trusting environment. This environment is the space between ourselves and others.

Affirmative

In other words, maintaining our affirmative ambiance/atmosphere can be supported by the following:

Being nice to ourselves
Forgiving ourselves and others
Considering that most people are doing the best they can, in the moment, including ourselves

On the one hand the more positive we make our environment, the more attractive our environment becomes, on the other hand the more attractive our environment is the more we experience positivity.

Some ways of insinuating positivity in to your environment include:

Smiling
Eye contact
Active listening

Ultimately encouraging more communication between ourselves and others.

Talking

Naturally, we find it easier to talk with people who exist in and are creating a similar atmosphere.

Communication and understanding can become a little bit more challenging or strained when we have different backgrounds, upbringings, and perception of the world around us.

Hence, to improve are chances of both understanding being understood we can use active listening and positive expression to encourage a “trusting and save” “in between” each other as we communicate.

Attraction

Attraction may be a completely different experience. When we are attracted to someone who is creating a different vibe than we are used to, it can be intimidating or interesting. Both can initiate excitement.

At the same time, when we meet someone who wants to share our space or even participate in creating it. Feeling the same and/or responding in kind can be a first step. And then, we are on our way to creating a relationship space.

It can be helpful to remember that our relationships exist both within our hearts and heads, as well as, outside ourselves in a realm of their own; in the in between.

This is Sean. Try being nice to yourself for a week, a day, an hour, a moment, and see what happens.

Love to hear your thoughts. Till next time! Our earlier Blog-Lessons:

1–2–3–4–5–6–7–8–9–10–11–12–13–14–15–16–17–18–19 –20 –21–22–23–24–25–26–27

Healthy Happy Intimate Adult Relationship, Uncategorized

Healthy Happy Intimate HHIA Relationships 26

Dezember 13, 2020Dezember 13, 2020 sean

Express Yourself (2)

This is Sean again. I am back with you to continue our exploration of initial communication. After our last Blog-lesson where we looked at eye contact and body language. Now it is time to consider our words.

Use your words

There are two basic communication building blocks we need to consider.

One the one hand knowing what you want to say and on the other hand knowing how to say what you want to say. These two things are most important to achieve good communication. This is why we have been looking at ourselves and exploring what is important for us.

What

Hence, we are aware and have considered our own likes, attractions, feelings and desires.

(You can go back to earlier blog lessons to further explore these things.)

How

First, be clear about what you want to say: feelings, thoughts, etc.
Second, make eye contact, use body language and be aware your posture (See Blog 25).
Third use “I sentences…”

I think, therefore I am.
René Decartes

– I am, therefore I communicate…

A great way to express ourselves are “I statements”. In other words, using these are a way of expressing ourselves and owning our thoughts and feelings. It is a way of sharing ourselves without giving away our responsibility or our power.

A few examples include:

I believe…
I think…
When… I feel…
I am …
What I like…
I would like…

Questions?

The important thing is not to stop questioning.
Albert Einstein
Quotemaster

After, or even before, sharing ourselves, we can ask questions. Questions show interest and encourage others to share themselves with us. Questions can be open or closed, leading or not.

Some Questions:

Open:

Who……?
What……?
Where……?
When……?
Why……?
How……?
Which……?

Closed:

Do you……?
Did you……?
Will you……?

Leading:

Have you………?
Have you ever……?

When you ask a question, be sure to listen to your partner’s answer. Then you respond with another question or an I statement of your own. By listening to your partners words, looking them in the eye and responding “on topic” , you create a communal space. Hence, a mix of questions and I statements can create a lively and really fun interaction and maybe even spark an interest that wasn’t there to begin with.

Take a minute or two and practice this kind of interaction with a friend. Do this with someone you like, trust or know well to practice. And let me know how it goes and what you think. This is Sean wishing you all the best.

Your thoughts? Till next time! Our earlier Blog-Lessons:

1–2–3–4–5–6–7–8–9–10–11–12–13–14–15–16–17–18–19 –20 –21–22–23–24–25

Healthy Happy Intimate Adult Relationship, Uncategorized

Healthy Happy Intimate HHIA Relationships 23

November 22, 2020November 29, 2020 sean

Touch

From Head to Toe

Welcome Back! Sean Here – I hope you enjoyed our body exercises last time. Becoming aware of our bodies and our touch can be an interesting and enriching experience. Our bodies are both our „temples and our „playgrounds“. Therefore we are also encouraged to play with/in and enjoy our bodies as well.

I touch myself

In this vein, we are going to go through a touching exercise. We are going to be activily touching and passively being touched over our entire bodies. We can go though the exercise playfully and with self-love. You can be comfortably dressed or undressed. It is all up to you! I would suggest reading through the entire exercise before starting. Then, go for it! Be affectionate to you:

We are going to start out standing or sitting confortably.
Place your hands on the top of your head.
Lay them there and close your eyes.
Feel your crown, your hair, your hands.
Feel your hands on your head.
Caress, pat or reposition your hands on your head.
Do this with more and less pressure;
add some pressure and lighten the pressure a few times.

Face

What do you feel on your head and in your hands? Do you like the way it feels?

Now touch your face.
Your forehead, your nose,
Caress your cheeks and your jaw and your chin.
Lay your hands flat, feel them, let them feel you.
Let your fingers trace and explore your face.
Adjust the pressure from light to firm and back again. How does all of this feel: in your hands, on your fingers and on your face.

How does all of this feel: in your hands, to your fingers and on your face?

Neck

Clasp your fingers around the back of your neck.
Hold your hands to your neck.
Loosen your fingers and cares your neck and throat.
Slide your hands around your throat and neck from the base of your skull to your shoulders, from your collar bone up to your chin.

What do you feel on your neck, your throat. How do you feel in your hands? Do you like it? Do you enjoy your own touch? The way you feel.

Chest, Arms

Lay your hands on your chest.
Let your fingers touch your chest, your nipples.
Run them over your chest, across, under your arms into your armpits.
Rub them over your shoulders,
Along your arms down to your elbows, fore arms and your hands.
Let your hands move back up along your wrists, fore arms elbows, shoulders and back to your chest.

How does all of this feel: in your hands, to your fingers and on your chest, arms and hands? Are you enjoying the affection?

Hips, heels

Let your hands travel from your chest to our belly.
Rub your belly.
Let your hands flow around your belly
Move them up and down your flank from your ribs to your hips.
Let your hands flow to your lower back.
Run them along your hips.
Trace your fingers across your upper thighs and into your lap.
Caress your legs and touch your pelvis.
Let your hands rest in your lap.

How does all of this feel: in your hands, to your fingers and on your belly, your lower back and in your lap. Do you like your touch? Do you like being touched? Are you enjoying the affection? How do you feel to yourself?

Legs

Move your hands along your inner thighs to your knees.
Trace your fingers and hand around your knee.
Glide them behind your knees.
Slide along your outer thigh up to your buttom/buttocks.

What do you feel on your legs, knees, bottom, and in your hands? Do you like the way this feels?

Feet

Run your hands back down the back/side of your legs to your calves.
Caress your claves, your shins.
Hold your Ankles.
Sit or lie down.
Take one foot in your hand.
Rub your foot.
Trace your heal and toes with your fingers.
Touch the top of your foot.
Release and Relax.

Take a moment and reflect on your experience, your thoughts and feeling.

(The lists, exercises, and these blog-lessons are maintained in a google and family friendly format. For more information, vocabulary, more intimate or direct language, please contact me.)

I hope your exploration and excursion along your body was adventurous and a pleasure. If anything was uncomfortable or tense, you can try the entire exercise or just one section more slowly. You can also try being firmer or gentler with your touch. Have fun and play with yourself. 🙂

It would be great to hear your thoughts. Have a great day.

This is Sean signing off. Till next time.

Our earlier Blog-Lessons –1–2–3–4–5–6–7–8–9–10–11–12–13–14–15–16–17–18–19 –20 –21–22

Healthy Happy Intimate Adult Relationship, Uncategorized

Healthy Happy Intimate HHIA Relationships 21

November 8, 2020November 9, 2020 sean

Mindset

Sean here! Back in the saddle and looking forward.

We are back to continue towards our best selves and our best relationships. In other words, we are here to learn and lead from our experiences towards our goals and desires.

With our recognition and examination of our past and present experiences as well as the best, worst and inspiring interactions and intimate experiences, we are now ready to go one step further and look at our wants and desires.

Let’s get down to brass tacks:

Where is your head at?

When you look inward, what do you see as the ideal life/relationship? On the one hand how independent are you? How much „me time“ do you need? How much do you have? On the other hand how much couple time, social time, group time do you find most comfortable?

Are you single? Or are you in a relationship? Are you married?

Relationship status is often just another label, a status symbol to help us make sense of the world.

Firstly, singles often get to make their own decisions and choose for themselves alone.

Secondly, people in relationships have an affininty and an expressed responsibility or fealty to one or more others depending on the nature of the relationship.

Thirdly, married people are really established in their positions as being governmentally and socially recognized as being related to another person with whom they are attached financially and legally.

Ultimately, this is a pretty big deal for most of us. Where do you see yourself in an ideal world?

Do you feel loved?

Love is something that we feel for ourselves and others. Hopefully we love ourselves as much if not more than the others in our lives. This is a really good place to start. If this is not the case, it is important to consider how and why your selflove has been diminished. This is not a “game changer” or a prerequisite for relationship building. To be clear, however, self-love is an important aspect to establishing comfort, trust and awareness of our needs and boundaries.

Are you in love?

When you think of that someone (someones) special in your life, do you feel love? Are you inspired by a feeling of attraction, respect and appreciation of the people you have around you and in your intimate daily life? Is there someone or some ideal which inspires you to such feelings and aspirations?

Is there romance in your life, in your mind or in your heart?

Ultimately, the above questions and thoughts are important for you and your consideration. After all of these thoughts and considerations it is time to think about “What to do?”. In this vein, how much romance do you have in your life?

Romance and romantic are extremely individual and often overblown in our media and advertising to sell the idea of being loved. In my experience romance is the act of being in love and inspiring love in yourself and others. This is my understanding of romance.

Our culture puts a lot of restrictions and fantastical expectations on romance. Between the perfect lingerie, perfect grooming, perfect timing and perfection itself we mostly fall short of the idealized and cinematic romance of our cultural expectations.

Truthfully, romance is more than “spontaneous overflowing perfect expressions of love”. Really, romance can be as small as a knowing smile or as large as sky writing “I LOVE YOU” or as simple as a small snack to share.

However, romance can also include emptying the dishwasher… because your partner is coming home late, or taking out the trash to “spruce up” the kitchen before dinner.

Is there romance in your schedule?

Ultimately, romance is expressing love for yourself and/or for your partner. Why shouldn’t we make time for this kind of action. We make time for so many other things. We call this scheduling.

My suggestion at this point is to look at your schedule or your week if your schedule is that open and consider where and when you want to express and inspire love this week.

This is Sean. Be good to you and inspire love when you can. I would love to hear what you think about all of this. Till next time.

Our earlier Blog-Lessons –1–2–3–4–5–6–7–8–9–10–11–12–13–14–15–16–17–18–19 –20

Healthy Happy Intimate Adult Relationship, Uncategorized

Healthy Happy Intimate HHIA Relationships 20

November 1, 2020November 8, 2020 sean

4 REAL

Healing (4)

Nothing ever becomes real ‚til it is experienced.
John Keats

Hi Y’all! This is Sean here! We are back! After looking at our firsts and our lasts! We are back again. The following exercise(s) will help to round out our experience inventories. Hence, we are going to take a fourth turn on the memory rollercoaster/carousel. We might even go three times around on this fourth round.

On the one hand our firsts helped us to look at our initial experiences. On the opther looking at our last experiences allowed us to contemplate our present reality. We are now going to look at some events in between.

Time after Time

In other words, we have the chance to use a different filter to look at our experiences and our memories of events which we have repeated, time after time, as well as, our interpretation of these events. That is to say, using a few superlatives we can customise our inventories to flesh out our feelings and thoughts about our intimate relationships and experiences.

In the last three Blog-Lesson we reviewed the most significant people in our lives, earliest experiences, and our most recent experiences and our memories. Hopefully these exercises were insightful and more titilating than torture.

Opposites

So, let’s to continue on our way. The next step is to choose which direction we want to focus on. Some identifier options include:

best – worst
perfect – imperfect/worst
funniest – most serious/boring
most favourite – least favourite

This is your inventory and you can choose any identifers you wish. I would recommend starting with opposites. Then you can choose how many memories you want to explore between 10 to 15. To be clear, I would again recommend giving yourself approximately an hour for the exercise. This would be between 4 to 6 minutes per memory.

Special Attention

You can also choose 5 encounters per identifier and then choose a third identifier for variety like:

most memorable,
best story,
secret/most private

Remember this is a meditation for you and you alone to begin with. This allows you to decide which identifiers work best for you.

And what exactly is the next step?

This Time

We can restructure the records of our first/last experiences and select the ones you would like to revisit. For instance, with one word change. We change first to last. It could look something like this:

1. my favourite kiss
2. my favourite date
the favourite time:
3. I saw someone naked (same/opposite gender)
4. I asked someone out
5. I slept with someone
6. my least favourite kiss
7. my least favourite date
the least favourite time:
8. I saw someone naked (same/opposite gender)
9. I asked someone out
10. I slept with someone
11. my best kiss story
12. my best date story
the best story about the time:
13. I saw someone naked (same/opposite gender)
14. I asked someone out
15. I slept with someone

Something like this. This list should include events from your firsts and lasts list.

(The lists and these blog-lessons are maintained in a google and family friendly format. For more information, vocabulary, more intimate or direct language, please contact me.)

Identify

Once we have our new „indentifier“ inventory we can add the first three words that come to mind:

For example:

my favourite kiss = husband, first, dancing
my least favourite date = whiskey, art, disaster
the best story about the time:
I asked someone out = bar, bet, YES

To be clear, I would again recommend giving yourself approximately an hour for this contemplation. Do your best to be honest about the first thoughts and words you use to deepen the experience without being too judgemental.

Once you have completed your list of identified interactions with your key words:

Take a minute! Breathe! …And Smile! You have survived them as well. Congratulations!

We have done quite a bit of memories and processing!

Inventory Alignment

The inventory process and stepping back in your life can sometimes be a very dark process. But it also can be extremely funny and surprising.
Craig Charles

We can look at our inventories – people, firsts, lasts and defined by printing them out and laying them side by side. Looking at them and their ratings and remembering our defined – (best, worst, funniest) can help us to explore not only our histories and experiences, it can als offer us an insight into our feelings, thoughts, opinions and preferences. Additionally we can begin to understand where these thougths and feelings come from.

Memory

If you are up for it, take a look at your four lists and see where there are similarities and differences. Look at how things have changed from your first to your last experiences and what happended in between. When we put our responses side by sides we can get a picture of our development and begin to understand the “results” of our choices, both positive and negative.

Otherwise, put your inventories away and let them rest for a while. Let them be. You can come back to them later. The meditations themselves are a big step towards healing and owning our presence and voice in our relationships.

I would love to hear how things are going.

Next time we are going to think about our thought and feelings and how this affects our ability to relate.

This is Sean

“Be good to you!”

Till next time.

Our earlier Blog-Lessons –1–2–3–4–5–6–7–8–9–10–11–12–13–14–15–16–17–18–19

Healthy Happy Intimate Adult Relationship, Uncategorized

Healthy Happy Intimate HHIA Relationships 19

Oktober 25, 2020Februar 28, 2022 sean

Healing (3)

Experience is still the best teacher

Hello everyone. Sean here. After looking at our firsts. We are back at last (Truthfully, it has only been a week.).

Remembering our firsts helped us to get a handle on our past. I am back to talk about our experiential learning. Two Blog-Lessons ago we looked at our earliest experiences and our memories. I hope the exercise was insightful and more pleasure than pain.

So, let’s to continue to heal. Our next step after looking at our initial experiences is to look at our current experiences. In otherwords, remembering and contemplating our experiences are key to being aware of what and how we have learned from the world around us. As we have navigated our way through the world our experiences have taught us how to interact with others and how to respond to our impulses and our own truth.

And what exactly is the next step?

Last Time

We can restructure our record of our first experiences. For instance, with one word change. We change first to last. It could look something like this:

my last kiss
my last date
my last tongue kiss
my last intimate experience

the last time:
I saw someone naked (same/opposite gender)
I asked someone out
Someone gave me flowers
I slept with someone

and so on. This list should be as detailed and explicit as your firsts list.

(The lists and these blog-lessons are maintained in a google and family friendly format. For more information, vocabulary, more intimate or direct language, please contact me.)

Last Dance

Once we have our new „last“ inventory we can rate it 1 – 5 one being fantastic and five being the opposite! In each case whatever the opposite might be: i.e. embarrassing, uncomfortable, etc. Just like the first time!

my last kiss = WOW-2-3-4-5
my last date = WOW-2-3-4-5
my last dance = WOW-2-3-4-5
my last tongue kiss = WOW-2-3-4-5
my last intimate experience = WOW-2-3-4-5

the last time:
I saw someone naked (same/opposite gender) = WOW-2-3-4-5
I asked someone out = WOW-2-3-4-5
Someone gave me flowers = WOW-2-3-4-5
I slept with someone = WOW-2-3-4-5

To be clear, I would again recommend giving yourself approximately an hour for the exercise. Do your best to be honest and fair in your evaluation (ratings) without being too judgemental.

Once you have completed your list of last experiences:

Take a minute! Breathe! …And Smile! You have survived them!

Adjectives

A man’s character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.
Mark Twain

We can expand our inventory by adding our own adjective to the number one ratings and the number five (5) ratings.

This could end up looking like this:

My last kiss – lovely (1)
My last dance – ecstatic (1)

the last time:
I saw someone naked (same gender) – exciting (3)
I asked someone out – nice (2)
I had a one night stand – unsatisfying (5)

This has been quite a bit of memories and processing!

Best for Last

If you are up for it, take a look at your two lists. and see how things have changed from your first to your last experiences. When we compare our responses to our firsts and our lasts, we can get a picture of our development and the “results” of our choices, positive and negative.

Otherwise, put your lasts away. Put them with your firsts. You can come back to them later.

I would love to hear how things look.

Next time we are going to talk about our inventories and perhaps explore the „in between“, best, worst, most…, least… or something like that. This is Sean saying “Be nice to you!” Till next time.

Our earlier Blog-Lessons –1–2–3–4–5–6–7–8–9–10–11–12–13–14–15–16–17–18

Healthy Happy Intimate Adult Relationship, Uncategorized

Healthy Happy Intimate HHIA Relationships 17

Oktober 11, 2020Januar 9, 2022 sean

Here we are, Here we go…

Learning to heal

Sean again! Last time we explored how we experience scaring and damage to our natural Lovemaps:

Recap

To recap: Most of us have grown up in a patriarchal world where we are exposed to skygod religions (Judaism, Christianity or Islam) which are invested in a patriarchal, omniscient, judgmental god. In addition, most of us have experienced rejection, loss, separation fear or embarrassment with regard to our bodies, our feelings, our affections or attractions at least in part to our environment and the people around us.

Therefore, most of us can relate to and/or empathize with feelings of isolation, inhibition, being misunderstood, and/or unappreciated. All of these can spring from real or imagined intentions and actions of others.

This blog-lesson will begin to explore how we can start to heal and recover.

Awareness

So, how do we raise our awareness?

A good place to start is with an inventory. Therefore, the next couple of blog-lessons are going to be a bit more interactive. In other words, I am going to provide a frame/outline and you are going to be encouraged to fill in some of the blanks This will help you to get a better understanding of who you are, including how you experience and have experienced the relationships in your life.

The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance
Nathaniel Branden (1930 – 2014), US-american Psychotherapist and Autor

People in our lives

Starting with an inventory of the people in our lives. These include our first relationships and influences and continues to the people we interact with today. In order to keep things in perspective I would suggest keeping it simple. Hence, I have developed a three-word system to describe the people in your relationship history.

The idea is that is to think of each person listed in the inventory. The person or people described can be added to or subtracted depeding on you. This means, you can adapt the list to mirror your relationships and the people in your life.

Instructions

First: you write down the name of the person you are thinking of.
Second: write down the first word you think of in connection with this person.
Third: think of a positive/plus/helpful/favorable/flattering word to describe this person. Write it down.
Fourth: think of a negative/minus/unhelpful/critical word to describe the person. Write it down.

The inventory should only take 15 to 20 minutes to complete. Do not over think it. Go with your gut, remember first throughts.

An Example

My first infatuation: Redhead – sleepovers – lost
My Boss: Independent – creative – critical

3-Word Inventory:

Person: First Thought – Plus – Minus

Earliest: First Thought – Plus – Minus

Mother: ____________ – _____________ – ____________
Father: ____________ – _____________ – ____________
Grandmother: ____________ – _____________ – ____________
Grandfather: ____________ – _____________ – _____________
Close Family: _____________ – ___________ – _____________

Firsts: First Thought – Plus – Minus

Friend: _____________ – _____________ – _____________
Teacher: _____________ – ____________ – ____________
Infatuation: _____________ – _____________ – ____________
Romance: _____________ – _____________ – ______________
Best Friend: ____________ – _____________ – _____________

Current: First Thought – Plus – Minus

Best Friend: _____________ – _____________ – _____________
Good Friends: _____________ – _____________ – _____________
Your Boss: _____________ – _____________ – _____________
Best Colleague: _____________ – _____________ – _____________
Child(ren): _____________ – _____________ – _____________

Intimate: First Thought – Plus – Minus

1st Intimate Relationship: ___________ – ____________ – _________
Significant HHIA Relationships: ____________ – ___________ – __________
Current HHIA Relationship: ____________ – ___________ – __________

Once you have completed the inventory, it is a good idea to let it sink in. This means putting it away for a day or two and then revisiting it.

Upon revisiting the inventory, think about the words that you chose.

Do you still agree with them? Would you like to change one or the other? Why?

Go ahead and write down the new words. Be sure to keep the first ones and add the modifiers, if you wish. This is your private inventory. You can keep it for yourself and revisit it periodically.

“Who are we, who is each one of us, if not a combination of experiences, information, books we have read, things imagined? Each life is an encyclopedia, a library, an inventory of objects, a series of styles, and everything can be constantly shuffled and reordered in every way conceivable.”
Italo Calvino (1923-85), Italian writer, Six Memos For The Next Millennium

Feelings and Memories

As we look at the people in our lives and our relationships in this condensed form, we may remember experiences and feelings which have been hidden, put away or forgotten. These feelings and memories are key to our healing and learning.

This process is our first step towards understanding and enriching our relationships with ourselves and others; intimate, familial and platonic relationships as well.

Our memories and feelings are shaped by more than the people we knew and know. On the one hand we build relationships and create bonds with the people in our lives. On the other hand, people, we know and people we don’t create experiences and impressions that affect and inspire emotions and thoughts. Subsequently, these thoughts and emotions tend to color and inform our relationships and decisions regarding romance and intimacy.

I would love to know what you think of the inventory and any other comments. Next time we will look at some of those experiences and impressions. Until then this is Sean signing off. Be good to you.

Till next time: Our Blog-Lessons –1–2–3–4–5–6–7–8–9–10–11–12–13–14–15–16

Healthy Happy Intimate Adult Relationship, Uncategorized

Healthy Happy Intimate HHIA Relationships 15

September 27, 2020Dezember 27, 2021 sean

Lovemaps (1)

How did we get here?

Hey I am back. Sean here! After looking at „Where we come from“ in the last blog-lesson. This time we are going to look at „How we got here“ from a clinical perspective (lovemap). Hence another perspective on attraction, desire and preference. The ideas and concepts we are going to explore fill up more than a couple of books.

The premier book, “Lovemaps” by Dr. John Money is a very detailed clinical examination of the concept of Lovemaps; “…an idealized and highly idiosyncratic image”. In other words, lovemaps “…depict your idealized lover and what a as a pair, you do together in the idealized, romantic, erotic and sexualized relationship.”

Our lovemaps can be correlated to our native languages. On the one hand, they develop naturally and are completely individual. On the other, they are peppered with familial, social, cultural and environmental input. “A lovemap exists in mental imagery first, in dreams and fantasies, and then maybe translated into action with a partner or partners.”

Biology or Environment

Clinical research quoted by Dr. Money suggests that our Lovemaps begin in Utero before we are born. This is reflected in hormone research which examines the levels of the three “sex hormones”: progesterone, testosterone and estradiol.

These hormones occur in both male and female development. Boys and girls have all three, just with different levels or ratios.

Research suggests that our preferences and behavior are at the very least, influence if not established in the unborn brain. The quoted studies include mammals mentioning sheep and monkeys.

The masculinity and femininity of the brain can be affected by testosterone and estradiol levels. In this vein, our perception of ourselves and our attraction to others begins in our brains in our mother’s wombs before we are even born.

An example of this is the recording of a male erection by sonogram. Up to now we do not have any way of recording the corresponding female vulval vasocongestion in utero.

After we are born, we continue to present such reactions, again more readily recognized in boys. This happens both when we are awake and when we are asleep. This often occurs in REM sleep which is associated with dreaming.

Photo by yair daniel zarate segovia on Scopio

Zero to Five

Sooner or later during the first year of life we recognize the sensual nature of our genitals in response to rubbing, squeezing, touching, and so on. Following this discovery, around three or four children begin to show flirtatious rehearsal play. This is most often patterned after models in our social environment including seen on TV and computer screens. This behavior is often directed at parents or older children.

Around five, or even earlier in kindergarten and preschool, we begin to have a larger number of “agemates”. This allows flirtatious play to become playmate romances, often boyfriend/girlfriend playmate romances.

Consequently the development of our lovemaps can include playmate sexual rehersal behavior including kissing, playing doctor, or other intimate expressions depending on our eperiences and environment. Ethnic and cultural differences can influence these behaviors as well.

Eight is Enough

Ultimately about eight years old two partners participating in sexual rehearsal play may become bonded in what could be called a love affair. And at this point children seem to have established what Dr. John Money calls a “native lovemap”. A native lovemap is a correlate to a native language which develops naturally both biologically and environmentally through experience, ability and our environmental input. In short our lovemaps, our native love maps are mature around the age eight.

What happens next is our topic for the next Blog-lesson. I hope this has been interesting, informative and gives you something to think about. It would be great to know what you think about the concept of love maps.

More about me.

Till next time: Our Blog-Lessons –1–2–3–4–5–6–7–8–9–10–11–12–13–14–15

Healthy Happy Intimate Adult Relationship, Uncategorized

Healthy Happy HHIA Relationships 13

September 13, 2020November 23, 2021 sean

Time and Time Again

Reality Check – Body (2)

Time After Time

I am back. This time to talk about just that: Time and its affect on our bodies, lives and relationships. Our last Blog lesson was focused on our bodies in the world and our interactions on the material plane. Now I want to talk about the time we spend here. What we do with it and what time does to us.

Ooh Baby Baby

We all start out as babies, and infants become toddlers, toddlers grow into children, children turn in to youths and the adolescents develop into adults.

Adolescence is where our bodies, minds and spirits begin to mature and become more gendered and we begin to emotionally identify with older, more mature members of our family, community or society. We call this time in our lives Puberty.

Puberty

Puberty: Physical changes in girls start around 10 or 11 with most girls showing signs of change by 13. In boys the physical changes start at 12 or 13 with most boys showing changes by 14.

Puberty is signaled in girls with and the development of secondary gender attributes including breasts, pubic and armpit hair, and a broadening of the hips, resulting in the beginning of their menstral cycles.

Whereas puberty in boys secondary gender attributes begin with testicle and penis growth, followed by pubic and armpit hair, muscle development, facial hair and vocal changes. Sexual maturity is signaled by ejaculation.

At this point, biologically both boys and girls are physically mature. This means we are in most cases able to reproduce.

Adulthood

Biologically most of us are able to reproduce naturally for approximately 20 to 30 years. And at some point often between 16 and 21 years of age we are recognized as adults by our parents, peers, friends, family, community and the law.

For instance, as adults our bodies tend to respond according to what we do, the choices we make and the events we experience. In other words, if we are active, watch our nutritional intake, and care for our bodies, most of us create and maintain a fit, healthy and attractive body. This is what many, if not most of us aspire to, to one degree or another.

In time we learn what we like, what we need, what we want and who we are. All of these things tend to fluctuate and develop over time and affect what appeals to us. As such, what we are looking for and offering as a partner changes overtime.

For example many of us hear the ticking of our biological clock, which is our society’s euphemism for our ability and desire to reproduce; to have and raise children. Having children for most women includes pregnancy, and child birth. Many if not most men are biologically regulated to the sideline and act as a supporting character in this period; approximately 9 months of pregnancy.

Menopause and Manopause (Andropause)? Advancing Age

Subsequently, the next biological marker for women tends to be menopause which is a process when women’s bodies mature further. Through this process a woman’s hormones change and the menstrual cycle comes to an end. This occurs, generally between 45 and 60 years of age with the average age being 51 years of age. (More information is available.)

Meanwhile, men experience a similar biological maturity. Although it corresponds, in time, with the changes women experience, the biology is a bit different. Men typically experience a reduction of testosterone after they turn 40. This occurs at an average of 1% per year according to the Mayo Clinic. Men may experience the effect of this in their late 40s or 50s. However, most men continue into an advanced age to maintain testosterone levels in a normal range. (More Information is available.)

And this is just the first half if we are lucky. More & More from WebMD

Telling Time after Time

And that was a quick review of our biological time. Time is however all we have, really. And no matter how much we have left relationships and connection is an essential part of the experience.

We have other ways of telling time. We have clocks, calendars, and diaries. With these we measure:

seconds
minutes
hours
days
weeks
months
years.

Other measurements of time include:

dates
holidays
seasons
birthdays
anniversaries
lifetimes
relationships.

Relationships are also experience time. A rhythm and a process of maturing.

Many of us experience time in relationships differently. We calculate and remember the day we meet, the number of dates we have had, our first kiss, all of our firsts. And then we start to calculate things.

Things like:

When will we…?
When will he/she/they…..?
How long has it been since…..?

So many calculations. Most of these can be managed though simple communication.

Do we want to…? Do you want to..? Let’s….?

These kinds of questions can help us to stay in the moment and thereby keeping our focus on ourselves and our loved one’s in the room or on the phone, computer or tablet.

And my time is up! I would really enjoy hearing your thoughts. This is Sean! Until next time. Cheers! More about me.