Healthy Happy Intimate Adult Relationship, Uncategorized

Healthy Happy Intimate HHIA Relationships 49

Intimate Space

In the Zone

If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving be me.

W. H. Auden
Photo by Lean Lui on Scopio

TOUCH (2)

And here we are again. This is Sean and we are going to continue our exploration of touching exercises to enhance and support our intimate experiences and desires.

Last time we played with announcing our desires to touch and caressing our hands and feet.

Again, all of the exercises can be experienced with a partner and/or solo.

5 minutes of intimacy

This is a simple silent exercise. We can share a physical intimacy with a partner or ourselves with minimal preparation and scheduling. In just 5 minutes we can find a safe space, warmth and physical intimacy. Simply put, we can schedule a 5 minute window and be: together with ourselves and with our partners.

With a partner the physical component can include:

  • Holding hands
  • Playing footsie
  • Hugging
  • Leaning on each other
  • Sitting back to back
  • Shoulder to shoulder
  • Spooning …

Most important is that we enjoy the silence; together.

If 5 minutes seems daunting, start with 1 minute and increase the number of minutes over time. What is important is the intention and commitment to the process and not the time itself. In other words, counting the seconds and “watching the clock” to ensure that we make it to 5 minutes minimizes the intimate effect of the experience.

Photo by Javier Sanchez Mingorance on Scopio

Back to Back

Another aspect of intimacy is trust. Blind trust is something that most of us find challenging. This exercise can help us to build trust and intimacy without having to actively express anything, except being. This is primarily a partnered exercise.

  • We can sit on the floor, on cushions, a sofa or a bed. 
  • Sitting facing opposite direction a way from each other.
  • Scooting backwards until our backs are touching.
  • Pushing together until we are together comfortably, back to back.
  • From here we just take the time we have planned to be together and enjoy our togetherness.
  • That’s it.
  • Spending time being in the same space and experiencing the physicality of our partners existence.

We can sit with our eyes open or closed. If we want, we can read something or listen to soft music. The intention is to be together without expressing or experiencing expectations. This allows us to enjoy the company, free from a need to perform.  

If practicing this exercise solo, I would suggest pressing my back against a wall from head to bum. Try breathing in and out with my eyes closed and experiencing the pressure and pleasure of the full back sensation and variation of tactile experiences while beathing, flexing and relacing my head, neck, shoulders, hips and bum.

Photo by Joslyn Kramer on Scopio

Being There; Being Here

The fact is that people are good. Give people affection and security, and they will give affection and be secure in their feelings and their behavior.

Abraham Maslow

There are a thousand ways for us to express and experience our own and our partner’s touch. What is most important is to find the ways which work for us and enhance and support these experiences with intention, awareness, and communication over time.

Try to remember that announcing our intention and discussing our desires is always a positive experience for a relationship. This is true whether our desires and intentions are welcomed in the moment or not. Ultimately, the creation of a communicative and safe affectionate environment for ourselves and our partners is priceless. All the activities described can be utilized at any time anywhere where we feel safe and supported by our partners. In other words, we can hold hands on a stroll, lean on each other in the bus, play footsie under the table in a restaurant and so on. So take a chance and try touching each other.

Photo by Cheyanne Ponder on Scopio

This is Sean. Try expressing your intentions and desires with yourself (and those who are important to you) this week and see what happens.

(You can always contact me for more concrete suggestions.)

Our earlier Blog-Lessons:

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Healthy Happy Intimate Adult Relationship, Uncategorized

Healthy Happy Intimate HHIA Relationships 48

Intimate Space

Get in Touch (1)

We are back! This is Sean. And we are here to talk about our bodies and how we learn to share our physicality and play with our senses.

We learn and have been tought that we have essentially five physical senses:

  • Sight
  • Hearing
  • Smell
  • Taste
  • Touch
Photo by Ira Mironyak on Scopio

Simply put, our sense of touch is the one which we have the greatest potential to control and calibrate. We can manipulate touch to fulfil our desires and wishes. And, through choice, consent and control we can determine where, when and how we experience touch from ourselves and others. 

Together with me, myself, and I ….. maybe with you too

In other words, we are able to experiment, play and learn to touch our partners and ourselves to enhance and support both pleasure and intimacy.

We are going to toy with a variety of playful exercises to discover how we experience and interpret touch both for ourselves and our partners. Essentially, all of the exercises can be experienced with a partner and/or solo.

“Touch has a memory.”

John Keats
Photo by valentina alvarez on Scopio

Consent & Caress

Individual execution of these following exercises implies consent. We are, in most if not all cases, individually aware and able to give ourselves our consent.

Paar and group exercises should include a brief description of the exercise and a verbal and or visual explicit expression of consent.

Verbal Touch

Announcing our intentions and desires with a request for consent can help us to create an environment where consent becomes the basis of our phyiscial communication with each other. This practice can include statements like:

  • I would love to kiss you right now.
  • I want to hug you.
  • May I hold your hand.
  • I wish to kiss your neck.
  • I am thinking about pecking your cheek.
  • May I pat your bum….

All of these statements should be followed with a pause until your partner responds with a Yes/No response to your request.

Photo by Javier Sanchez Mingorance on Scopio

Positive / Negative =

Positive Responses  

  • Come on.
  • Go for it.
  • Sure.
  • I would like that.
  • Yes, please—

Negative Responses

  • Please wait till later. 
  • Give me 5 minutes.
  • Maybe later.  
  • I’m not available for that (right now).
  • Could you ask again – later/ in 5 minutes/ in an hour.

These exchanges quickly establish a safe and respectful intimacy between partners that can carry over to the rest of the relationship. This creates a relationship where both acceptance and rejection of impulses and requests become emotionally neutral and are perceived as equally viable and sensible in our intimate and physical exchanges.

Photo by Pablo Nidam on Scopio

Fingers & Toes

Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.

Charles Dickens

To start, we can consider our hands and fingers as being both extremely sensitive and practically accessible for practicing touching caressing and feeling our own and our partners touch. This touch can be handled with a variety of pressure, speed, area and volume. Our hands include: fingers, palms, wrists, fingernails and the backs. All of these can be used to share and exchange touch and physical intimacy.

This exercise begins:

  1. With a brief description hand holding and touching and the determination of a “Safe Word” which is said to immediately pause/stop the exercise.
  2. One partner chooses to be giving and the other receiving.
  3. The receiving partner sits with their eyes closed and their hands in their lap or on a table.
  4. The giving partner touches their partners hands beginning lightly, slowly with their fingers exploring the back, palm, fingers, and so on….
  5. After a few moments the giving partner can verbally ask how the receiving partner is feeling, if they are comfortable, if they like the feeling, etc.
  6. This movement advances to include the use of the entire surface of the active hands to caress the passive hands involving more pressure, surface varying the speed of movement…  
  7. After a few moments the giving partner can verbally ask how the receiving partner is feeling, if they are comfortable, if they like the feeling, etc. 
  8. This exploration can continue to include tightly holding, patting, slapping, scratching or massaging the receiving partner’s hands.
  9. All of these variation should include verbal confirmation of comfort, sensation, interest and attention.
Photo by Pablo Nidam on Scopio

Variations:

  • Steps 1 – 9 can immediately be repeated with partners changing roles.
  • 1 through 9 can be repeated with partners changing roles at another time.
  • Steps 1 through 9 can be repeated touching with the giving partner touching the receiving partner’s feet & toes, rather than their hands.

Nothing is so healing as the human touch.

Bobby Fischer

Awareness is Key

Being aware of our partner’s reaction and responses to our touch can help to inspire greater understanding and intimacy among us.

This exercise can be just as inspiring and informative when performed solo. This would involve choosing a giving and a receiving hand, closing our eyes and allowing the exploration to begin. ?

That is all for now! We will have more touching exercises next time.

Photo by Ben Kao on Scopio

This is Sean. Try touching yourself with awareness (and those who are important to you) this week and see what happens.

.(You can always contact me for more concrete suggestions.)

Our earlier Blog-Lessons:

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Healthy Happy Intimate Adult Relationship, Uncategorized

Healthy Happy Intimate HHIA Relationships 23

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.
Photo by Zuzi Janek on Scopio

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?

Photo by Alan Rodriguez on Scopio

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.
Photo by Kirill Gudkov on Scopio

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 –12345678910111213141516171819202122