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Relationship Repair With Shadow Work, shadow and archetypes, shadow work

Shadow work is a valuable process for anyone with a fear of intimacy

Shadow work and relationships

Shadow work can significantly improve human relationships, including sexual relationships, by helping individuals to become more aware of, and integrate, the unconscious aspects of their personalities. Read on to discover how this can work.

Uncovering and Integrating Repressed Desires

Sexual relationships often bring up deep-seated desires that may have been repressed due to societal norms, personal shame, or past trauma. Shadow work encourages you to explore these desires without judgement, leading to greater sexual expression and satisfaction.

By confronting and integrating parts of yourself that you might feel ashamed of, such as certain sexual fantasies or preferences, you can reduce feelings of guilt and shame. This creates a more open and accepting atmosphere in sexual relationships, where both partners can express themselves freely.

Video – sexuality and shadow work

Enhancing Emotional Intimacy

Many people carry emotional wounds from past relationships or childhood experiences that impact their ability to connect deeply with others. Shadow work helps you identify and heal these wounds, making it easier to trust and be vulnerable with your partner. 

By bringing unconscious fears, insecurities, and past betrayals into the light, shadow work helps you develop a deeper sense of trust in yourself and your partner. This trust is essential for creating a safe space where emotional and sexual intimacy can flourish.

Improving Communication and Reducing Conflict

Conflicts in relationships often arise when one partner is triggered by something the other says or does. Shadow work helps you recognize your triggers, understand where they come from, and communicate them to your partner. This reduces misunderstandings and reactive behaviours, leading to healthier, more constructive communication. You can read a lot more about shadow work in this book, including information on how a shadow work session might take place.

Taking Responsibility for Projections

In relationships, it’s common to project disowned aspects of yourself onto your partner, such as anger, jealousy, or neediness. Shadow work helps you identify these projections and take responsibility for them, leading to less blame and more harmonious interactions.

Deepening Sexual Connection

Many people carry sexual inhibitions rooted in the shadow, such as fears of rejection, inadequacy, or being judged. Shadow work helps you confront and integrate these fears, allowing you to be more present and open during sexual encounters.

By becoming more aware of your own shadow, you can also become more attuned to your partner’s needs, desires, and vulnerabilities. This heightened sensitivity can lead to a deeper, more connected sexual experience.

Shadow work helps you identify and break unhealthy relationship patterns that might be rooted in unresolved past traumas or unmet childhood needs. By addressing these issues, you can cultivate healthier, more fulfilling sexual and emotional relationships.

Shadow work promotes personal growth and self-awareness, which in turn encourages both partners to show up authentically in the relationship. This authenticity fosters a deeper connection and mutual growth. If you have any fears about what may happen in a shadow work session, this book (which you can buy on Amazon) will reassure you as it describes the nature and dynamics of a shadow work session in detail.

Releasing Resentment and Forgiveness

Resentments often build up in relationships due to unaddressed shadow aspects, such as feeling unappreciated or misunderstood. Shadow work allows you to explore these feelings, release them, and move towards forgiveness, improving the overall dynamic of the relationship. By integrating past hurts and disappointments, shadow work helps you let go of old baggage that might be affecting your current relationship. This release can lead to a fresher, more vibrant sexual connection. In archetypal terms, we would see sex and relationships as the province of the Inner Lover. To understand this, and why the concept matters, read this article.

Fostering Mutual Understanding

Shadow work increases your capacity for empathy and compassion, not just towards yourself but also towards your partner. Understanding your own shadow helps you recognize and respect your partner’s shadow aspects, leading to greater mutual understanding and support.

Engaging in shadow work together as a couple can be a powerful bonding experience. Sharing your vulnerabilities and working through shadow aspects together can deepen your emotional and sexual connection. In fact, a relationship that integrates shadow work becomes a safe space for both partners to explore their sexuality without fear of judgment or rejection. This openness can lead to more fulfilling and adventurous sexual experiences.

Shadow work also helps you understand and respect boundaries—both your own and your partner’s. This respect is crucial for maintaining a healthy, consensual, and pleasurable sexual relationship. Shadow work can also reveal unconscious power dynamics in sexual relationships, such as one partner feeling dominated or the other feeling powerless. By bringing these dynamics to light, you can work towards a more balanced and equitable relationship. As each partner does their own shadow work, they can reclaim personal power that might have been given away due to fears, insecurities, or societal conditioning. This empowerment enhances both the emotional and sexual aspects of the relationship. In archetypal terms, we would see this as the growth of both partners into the power, authority and leadership of their inner sovereign archetype. This is a concept about which you can read a lot more here.

As you can see, shadow work is a transformative process that can greatly enhance human relationships, particularly sexual relationships, by promoting self-awareness, healing, and integration of unconscious aspects of the self. By addressing the hidden fears, desires, and projections that often interfere with intimacy, shadow work helps create a deeper, more authentic connection between partners, leading to greater satisfaction, trust, and mutual growth.

erectile dysfunction

Dealing with erectile dysfunction

This article is derived from Mayo Clin Proc. 2002;77:276-282. It should not be regarded as authoritative medical advice, policy or treatment strategy.

Diabetic men have proportionately much more erectile dysfunction than other men. About three times as much, in fact. Around 50% of diabetic men aged 50 or over will have erectile difficulties. Now, as you may have read on another page on this site, erections are primarily caused by changes in the amount of blood flowing into the penis, though the regulatory factors are biochemical.

While any assessment of a diabetic man with erectile dysfunction would include possible vasculogenic, neurogenic, and hormonal causes, to rule out any hormonal causes such as hypogonadism or thyroid abnormalities, the usual treatment is with agents like Viagra, which act by inhibiting phosphodiesterase in the penile vasculature.

To recap, the usual mechanism of erections is as follows: increased blood flow into the corpora cavernosae and the bulbus spongiosum causes an increase in volume through engorgement of the cavernosal tissues. This leads to an increase in pressure which traps the veins leading out of the penis (the emissary veins), which in turn makes the penis even more  engorged.

The penis has a high level of nitric oxide (or “NO”), which usually causes relaxation of the  intracavernosal trabeculae, thereby maximizing blood flow and penile erection. Nitric oxide works by promoting the generation of cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP), which encourages the smooth muscles of the penis to relax, and thereby increasing inflow of blood.

 Detumescence (the loss of erection) is set in motion when nitric-oxide-induced vasodilation subsides because of metabolism of cGMP, which is a process regulated by intracavernosal type 5 cGMP phosphodiesterase. Viagra and similar chemicals inhibit the action of 5 cGMP phosphodiesterase.

In diabetic men, changes in the levels of potassium ion movement across the smooth muscles of the corpora can lead to a lack of erectile capacity.

Nervous & endocrine system influences on erectile dysfunction

The autonomic nervous system is responsible for starting the erectile process. Sexual stimuli, whether, they are real or in fantasy, will stimulate nerve impulses to travel along the nerves of the spinal thoracolumbar erection center to the pelvis, while physical stimulation of the penis activates a reflex arc in the sacral erection center.

Testosterone is implicit in maintaining NO synthase levels within the tissues of the penis. NO synthase impacts on the local production of Nitric Oxide. Clearly, therefore, testosterone replacement therapy is essential for hypogonadic men, whether diabetic or not, as it restores erectile function and sexual drive.

What causes erectile dysfunction in diabetic men?

The primary cause is that the primary arteries and other blood vessels of the penis narrow, so that they are unable to carry enough blood to promote engorgement. This is thought to be caused by microvascular degenerative changes in the smooth muscle. In addition, there is disturbance of both somatic and autonomic nerve systems in men with diabetes whose pudendal nerves and bulbocavernous and urethroanal reflexes have longer latencies of somatosensory-evoked potentials.

There appears to be resistance to the action of NO at the receptor level or an increased rate of breakdown of NO, due to high levels and activity of NO synthase. In addition, there are abnormalities in local levels of vasoactive intestinal peptide, prostaglandins, endothelins, and other mediators.

The psychological factors in Erectile Dysfunction

Since so much of the sexual arousal process is in the mind, it’s always important to assess whether psychogenic factors are playing a part in Erectile Dysfunction. Any stressful relationship or life event has the potential to cause Erectile Dysfunction, but nocturnal erections and erections during masturbation may remain unaffected. These conditions are discussed at length in this book about erectile dysfunction.

By contrast, organic Erectile Dysfunction is due to the causes mentioned above. When damage to the nerves is a factor, there will be clues such as lack of ability to masturbate, absent cremasteric reflex and bladder dysfunction.

Analysis of the blood flow may reveal a vasculogenic origin, which may be confirmed by the man’s smoking, low blood pressure in the penis or poor blood flow, no nocturnal or morning erections, and a gradual onset of erectile failure. Hormonal factors include loss of libido, gynecomastia, lack of maculinization, and decreased facial hair growth.

There are of course other factors, such as obesity, drug use – both prescription and non-prescription – including, ironically, drugs used to treat diabetes, prolaspe of the intervertebral discs, and vascular occlusion due to high cholesterol levels. Even the plaques of Peyronie’s disease can cause erectile dysfunction.

Test for all these physical factors can be carried out when treatment is being considered for diabetic men with Erectile Dysfunction. In addition, a hormonal profile including measurement of at least free and total testosterone and thyroid-stimulating hormone levels is considered good practice.

The measurement of testosterone needs to be taken carefully since there is considerable diurnal variation in the level of this hormone. Other tests which are available to the physician include nocturnal penile tumescence studies, intracavernosal injection, arteriography, and duplex penile ultrasonography, though this battery of test tends to be reserved for the more seriously affected men.

The most effective treatment is Viagra and other Phosphodiesterase Type 5 Inhibitors

Viagra is a powerful inhibitor of cGMP-specific PDE5. It works well in many men, including diabetics and those whose Erectile Dysfunction is due to vascular occlusion or drug use. The initial dose is usually of the order of 50 mg, though it may be increased gradually up to 100 mg depending on need.

The older and still effective therapies for Erectile Dysfunction involved a constricting ring placed around the base of the penile shaft, perhaps in conjunction with a vacuum suction device to induce engorgement of the corpora. This works well for some men, though others find it painful or have unsatisfactory orgasms and ejaculations.

Relationship Repair With Shadow Work

Relationship Repair

Because this is fundamentally site about relationships, it’s worthwhile talking about how you can renew a relationship after it’s broken up.

People who break up with lifelong or short-term partners can feel a variety of things – anger, sadness, despair, and of course, if the breakup was the right thing to have happened, happiness or joy.

But in general people on the Internet looking for advice on how to reverse relationship breakup are doing so because they know full well that they didn’t want to break up, or that their relationship broke up through a series of silly events which they should have been able to deal with better, or that they have broken up and now realize they’ve made a terrible mistake.

All of these are reason for looking for ways to get your girl back. And there are plenty of them!

There’s a common factor in all cases of courses wanting an ex-partner back: knowing you have made a terrible mistake! That’s OK – I mean, after all, we all make mistakes, especially around our relationships.

This post, however, won’t apply to you if you feel that you wanted to break up and you’ve done the right thing – that it was time for you or your girlfriend or boyfriend to move on.

Still reading?

OK. Obviously you want to know how to get back with your girlfriend even if she’s moved on (click here if you do!). And you clearly felt she was the right person for you and now you want to know what to do.

Equally, you won’t want to get back together with your ex-girlfriend if you feel that she’s moved on and that was the right thing for both of you. In other circumstances you could be feeling pretty desperate though! What you do, how do you find out the steps you can take to get your ex back, and – more realistically – will anything get your relationship off the ground again?

Well, the good news first of all is that there are plenty of things you can do that will restore your relationship.

Obviously your relationship broke up for some reasons which you need to identify: it could have been bad communication, it could been a disparity of fundamental values and interests, or it could have been the fact that you were triggering each other into regressive patterns of anger, fear or sadness.

Now, these triggered patterns come out of historical woundings – emotional woundings during childhood, to be exact. If you want to know how this happens, this website has a good explanation.

The good news, as you might expect, is that all of these things can be dealt with if you’re really serious about getting back together with your ex: to do that, of course, at some fundamental level you need to be certain that he or she was indeed the right person for you, and that both you and your ex girlfriend or ex boyfriend are willing to overcome the obstacles to happiness that you created between you and your relationship. Read more here – couples who know each other well don’t break up.

How to get your ex back

To start with if you’re being triggered into a state of regressive childhood anger or fear, then what you’re doing is projecting some image of a parental figure onto your partner.

As an adult, is inappropriate for you to be projecting parental issues that you haven’t resolved your partner, and then responding to your partners though they were in fact the provocative person in your life.

Now separating your partner from a person onto whom you’ve been projecting a parental figure can be done, but it’s not necessarily that easy unless you have (a) great insight and (b) some assistance from a professional who can guide you to see things as they truly are.

But it is possible, if you’re willing to communicate with your partner, to explore this yourself, and to understand the depths of what I’ll call “subconscious programming” which can lead you to see your partner as some historical figure – most likely mum or dad..

It’s certainly true that good communication is the best way to re-establish harmony in a relationship, but again it takes time and effort.

So my question to you at this stage in your attempt to get your ex girlfriend back is: “Are you seriously going to spend the energy, time and effort involved in communicating with her in a way that will ensure you can see her for who she truly is?”

You can “take projections back” from another person, but as I said, this requires insight and indeed patience. There are various therapeutic techniques which can help in this process, and going to counseling together is probably one of the most effective.

So there we have covered the first principle of re-establishing a relationship with your partner: good communication, perhaps facilitated by a professional. You can read about the principles of how the Lover energy of a man and woman fit together to form a great relationship (or not) in this wonderful book on the archetypes.

Some more principles of getting back together with an ex-girlfriend (or for that matter, an ex-boyfriend) are tolerance, understanding, patience, and love.

When you grow into a place where you stop seeing everything your partner does as a provocative act designed to cause you shame or embarrassment, or just to trigger you, then you will have grown up and matured emotionally in your own self.

That’s the kind of maturity that leads to you responding to other people as they are now – an adult – rather than reacting from a historical emotional place.

Obviously it’s desirable for everybody who’s in a partnership to do personal work on themselves so they grow into a place of maturity, and also a deeper understanding of the dynamics in the relationship which can trigger them.

Video – getting your ex back

There are plenty of places on the Internet we can get good advice about how to do this, and although that’s not as good as seeing a therapist, it can help in lessening the tendency you have to project onto other people those feelings thoughts and emotions which come from your historical experience rather than your current experience.

At the end of the day, if you feel that a relationship’s worth preserving, and that the person with whom you’ve been in relationship is somebody with whom you have a future, then it’s certainly worth making the effort to invest the time (and of course the money if you decide to see a counselor) to put the relationship back on its feet

shadow and archetypes

Fear Of Sex

Fear Of Sex

Can you relate to these remarks, made to me by two people I met on a support group online for men and women with a fear of sex?

A woman, who was 33 years old, said: “I’ve never had a successful relationship, and it almost breaks my heart when I look around me and see everybody else in a relationship…. I usually start fantasizing about what sort of sex they’re having, how much they’re enjoying it, and how much pleasure they give each other. I’ve never had been to bed with a man, and I don’t think I ever will. And I really don’t think a man will ever love me, the way a man should love a woman.”

And a man, aged 37, told me: “I’ve never had a sexual relationship with a woman. Somehow the right one has never come along. In fact, women see me as a good friend, but they never want a sexual relationship with me. I can’t imagine ever having sex with a woman. I’ve had some sexual relationships with men, though. At least I can trust a man.”

It tugged at my heart to hear them say this. I think we all long for human connection, but for a lot of people it somehow never seems to work out.

Anxiety about sex can be cured

Maybe you feel that way – after all, you’ve reached a page of this website intended for people who are anxious about sex. And that includes sex in general, as well as sexual intercourse specifically.

So if you’re in the same position, that is, if you’re avoiding sex, or somehow it’s never happened for you, or you’re in a relationship and you’re anxious about sex – whether it has or hasn’t happened yet – I want you to know one thing. You can overcome fear of sex.

Sometimes fear of sex results from things that men and women know about themselves – that they have a small penis, that they have body dysmorphic disorder, that they have some sexual dysfunction or other such problem, like for example premature ejaculation or anorgasmia.

The fact is, there are many reasons why women and men are anxious about sex, or reach an age when most people have had sex and they are still inexperienced. So in other words, fear of sex or sexual anxiety are just blanket terms which cover many different issues. Let’s look at some of these.

Many women have a challenge with sex because, regrettably, they experienced some kind of sexual abuse at some point in their life.

Whether they’re aware of it or not, the memory of that abuse and the emotional response to it is strong enough to give them an aversion to sex in later life. This is trauma, of course. And nothing can disrupt the fullest expression of who we are than trauma. Trauma causes fragmentation of the personality, a process described here.

When someone’s personality fragments, various parts of the self (the split off parts) are taken into shadow. This is the basis of all emotional wounding, especially that which occurs during childhood. Now, I don’t want you to think that I’m suggesting that all women who find sex difficult, or who have difficulty forming an intimate relationship, have been abused. But let us put it this way: they may well find it difficult to pull their natural, wholesome, rewarding and enjoyable drive for sexual pleasure out of their shadow. (A definition of the human shadow can be found here.)

But even when abuse is physical or emotional rather than sexual, it can still diminish a person’s trust so much that they simply can’t open themselves up in the way that’s needed to have a relationship. This means they cannot fully occupy their own embodied state of being. Another way of putting this is that they cannot fully occupy their natural archetypes. (Read more about archetypes here.)

Other women find that sex is painful. A lot of women have pain when they try intercourse for the first time, and the memory of that uncomfortable experience can stay with them and produce a fear of sex in the future.

For men, who are often cast in the role of the pursuer, the wooer, the one has to win the woman, lack of self-confidence can be such a barrier to getting together with someone that it just never happens.

And fear of sex can develop because the first sexual experience a man has is a disaster: he might come prematurely, he might not be able to get an erection, he might be humiliated in some way… the possibilities are endless, but they all lead to the same thing – fear of sex. Then again, for men who aren’t clear about their sexual orientation, fear of being gay can be a big barrier to exploring sex.

And the same comments about abuse and fear of sex that I said above about women are true for men too. Whoever you are, you have to be able to trust another person enough before you can have an enjoyable and comfortable relationship – sexual or not – with them.

The problem is, if you can’t trust enough to be intimate, then you may well feel anxiety around sex, fear of sexual intercourse, fear of intimacy, or have a fear of being alone.

I’m assuming that you want a relationship, and you might even want to explore sex, because you’re here on a website that’s designed for people who have some fear of sex! And yes, it is an exciting prospect, isn’t it? So here is some advice for everyone about how to have a successful relationship.

You hear people talk about sex so much, you see sexualized images all over the place in magazines, on TV, in the cinema… And the way people talk about it, and perhaps even the fact that you think about it so much, must mean there’s something here worth exploring!

And the fact is – you’re right. Sex can be fantastic. At its best, sex is the best human experience possible. Shared with another human being who likes you and loves you, sex can be sublime. That’s why I would like you to be able to enjoy it – I’ve seen the happiness it can bring people, over and over again, in my work as a sex therapist.

shadow work

Delayed Ejaculation

Delayed Ejaculation

You may say, isn’t the ability to make love for a very long period of time a rewarding and exciting thing for a woman?

The answer to this is a very clear “no” – at least in the majority of cases. Surveys have repeatedly shown that women regard around 10 minutes as the ideal length of intercourse. For the majority of women, 10 minutes is the ideal duration of intercourse.

(It’s worth noting in passing that there is a degree of uncertainty about that number, simply because most men ejaculate after about five minutes at the most.)

However, for men who cannot reach orgasm during sex, the ability to last 15, 20, or 30 minutes or even longer, is not an advantage but a major disadvantage. Apart from the fact that a woman usually becomes physically sore and frustrated, there are other consequences.

For the man there might be feelings of shame, incompetence, inadequacy and sexual failure. For the woman, there may well be soreness and frustration, and there is probably also a psychological issue: she feels she’s not attractive enough to make her man reach orgasm and ejaculate.

Particularly when a couple is trying to conceive, delayed ejaculation is not an asset in any way, but a major disadvantage. In fact, if you look around the Internet forums, you will see that from time to time couples break up because of it.

Obviously this apparently bizarre (but surprisingly common) condition raises a number of questions. The first of them, and the most obvious, is “why does this happen?”

There’s a website is devoted entirely to the question of penile sensitivity after circumcision and how this might be remedied. According to this website, delayed ejaculation is almost certainly a product of penile insensitivity due to removal of the nerves of the foreskin during circumcision.

In reality, that may or may not be the case, because the majority of men in America, up until quite recently, were circumcised. However, the percentage of men who experience delayed ejaculation is much lower than the percentage of men who have been circumcised.

And while that’s not absolute proof that there’s no cause-and-effect relationship at work, it’s certainly suggestive that there is another cause for delayed ejaculation.

Most sex therapists would take the view that difficulty reaching the point of ejaculation is due to low arousal.

Delayed ejaculation is a direct contrast to premature ejaculation, where men reached the point of ejaculatory inevitability far too quickly, because they are “over aroused”.

In the case of delayed ejaculation, a man might never reach the point of ejaculatory inevitability, because he is “under aroused”. If we accept that there is no evidence to link circumcision to delayed ejaculation, what might be the root cause of this low arousal?

The most plausible answer to this question is that there’s some kind of disconnect between the sexual situation in which a man finds himself, and the arousal mechanism in his brain.

A man who is not particularly connected to his feelings may also not be particularly connected to the  sensations and stimulation which could normally arouse a man sexually. Why would this happen?

The answer is that it’s probably different in each case, but we can draw some important generalizations.

Most men with delayed ejaculation are more invested in their partner’s sexual satisfaction than their own.

This is rather ironic, considering that in general neither partner becomes sexually satisfied or fulfilled from long-lasting intercourse without ejaculation.

But there you have it. A man’s inability to put his own needs first – if you like, to be selfish – or at least to put his own needs equal to his partner’s, is indicative of some historical dynamic with women.

Most likely this represents the consequence of an experience with sex or sexuality which resulted in fear around women, and a drive to please them.

For men in this situation, some traumatic event happened during childhood or adolescence (or even early adulthood). And it has left them with a legacy around sex of inhibition and inability to “open up” to the pleasure of orgasm and flow of sexual energy that would take them to that point.

The frustration which ensues can be a real challenge for men who want to enjoy normal sexual relationships with women, and who don’t understand the origin of the difficulties they have with ejaculation.

Now, should you be a man who is experiencing a long build up to climax, you’re probably wondering what you can do about this.

Perhaps, as many of the men who speak to me on this matter believe, you may be thinking that sexual psychotherapy is necessary. If so, you may be groaning inwardly at the thought of a “talk-cure”. But in fact this isn’t always needed.

There are ways in which you can learn to be intimate with a woman in adult life which will overcome the inhibitions and difficulties that you have experienced in establishing intimacy.

For example, a series of sensate focus exercises is very good at establishing trust, and rebuilding your capacity to enter into an intimate relationship.

The essence of the problem here is that some younger part of yourself had a bad experience around sex and decided to defend yourself from the pain of that experience in the future by avoiding intimacy and closeness in sexual situations.

To overcome this inhibition, this “learned response”, it is necessary for you to “re-educate” that part of yourself.

Doing that with a safe and trusted partner is a good way of making a start on the road to normal sex.

And of course the inherent difficulty here is that the lack of trust, and the absence of safety, that you feel at perhaps a very deep (and maybe unconscious level) is the real cause of the problem.

And what can help you to overcome this is conscious intention. In other words conscious desire to overcome delayed ejaculation. A desire to enjoy normal sex with the timely ejaculation.

Depending on how much you want this, your motivation to overcome the difficulties that you experience with your sexual partner will either be low or high.

Needless to say, the higher it is, the more likely you are to succeed.

And having said all of this there is another factor in the equation: your partner’s desires and wishes.

One of the interesting things about delayed ejaculation is that it often disguises sexual problems which the woman is carrying. Most particularly, her inability to reach orgasm.

As an aside it’s interesting to reflect on the fact that until really quite recently women who couldn’t reach orgasm during intercourse were regarded as frigid.

Only recently has it become understood that this is not a failure of sexual drive or sexual desire, but a failure of physical stimulation. And it’s normal!

We now know a woman’s clitoris is not stimulated during the act of intercourse. (At least not unless she’s using a new lovemaking technique.) And we now know that it is quite normal for a woman to receive clitoral stimulation during lovemaking so that she can reach orgasm.

Is there a parallel, perhaps, with men who can’t reach orgasm during intercourse?

This might be true in some sense, but it does require a reframe of our expectations around male sexuality.

Generally speaking we expect men to be aroused quickly, to enter their partner, and to ejaculate quite quickly.

But what if a man requires extra stimulation to get him to the point of orgasm?

Of course the the reason why a man might need extra stimulation to get into the point of orgasm is quite different to the reason a woman might require extra stimulation to get to the point of orgasm during intercourse.

Even so, there’s a similarity in ideology and principle. And it turns out to be true, in that men, or at least in some men with delayed ejaculation, that extra stimulation during intercourse can result in orgasm.

This trigger into orgasm and ejaculation may take the form of nipple stimulation, hard-core fantasy, or even anal or prostate stimulation.

That isn’t really a cure for delayed ejaculation, I must say. It’s more of an adjunct to conventional treatment.

That treatment will generally require the desensitization to underlying fear (of intimacy or sex) which I’ve described above. And the process of sensate focus is most often the form in which this therapy is applied. However, some success has also been reported with shadow work. This is a technique which gets right to the heart of childhood trauma and seeks to “reprogram” our memories and experiences so we can function more effectively in the world of today.

relationships advice

Relationship advice

One of the things that affects people with fear of intimacy is the difficulty of getting into sexual relationships, because sex can often seem like an embarrassing and awkward subject.

However one of the great things that the Internet has provided is a means for people to connect with each other and discuss these problems in Internet forums.

In addition, of course, one of the other things that the Internet provides is a number of programs which have been written by relationship experts to give people advice about how to deal with certain problems they face: getting into relationship, or dealing with relationship breakups, or sexual difficulties, for example. This avoids the need to see a counselor or therapist in person.

Let’s not overlook the amazing benefit that these online resources can provide for people who would find it difficult to talk face to face about intimate matters, and for those who seek a relationship.

(The need for relationship is strong in all of us, regardless of the level of comfort we have with intimacy.)

Now I’m not seeking to make light of these problems, because I do think they are very serious and sometimes can inhibit people’s lives in a major way.

Our need for the love of another

On the other hand, by using an Internet program you can avoid the difficulty of speaking to a counselor or therapist in person, while at the same time getting some seriously good advice about how to deal with issues.

Relationships: dedication and effort makes them succeed

One of the things that matters here is personal discipline and dedication to applying the solutions you discover online to your own particular problems.

However, I can’t help you with that!

One of the difficulties you will face in dealing with any emotional or psychological problem is being able to incorporate the knowledge you get from an Internet program into your everyday life.

Let’s consider for a moment the issue of people who have broken up after a relationship has ended because they are not able to establish intimacy with another person or because they’re not comfortable with intimacy.

Relationship repair is one of the most necessary things for anybody, because the pain of breakup can be so great, leaving in its wake anger, sadness, guilt fear and shame.

I know only too well, having counseled people who have broken up with their partners for many years now, how serious a relationship breakup can actually be in terms of a person’s lowered self-esteem confidence and happiness.

It’s perhaps inevitable that once a relationship has broken up, one or both partners suffers another blow to their confidence around the area of intimacy.

So what I recommend is that if you’re an a relationship that’s ended, and you are looking to establish a new relationship, or if you’re looking to find a way of bringing an old relationship back together, read this: how to get your ex back.

This site provides all kinds of suggestions about what you should do (and what you should not do!) if you’re trying to establish a relationship (or re-establish a relationship).

For example, should you contact or your ex partner within a period of 30 days or wait longer? The website addresses all such questions and issues, and tells you why these rules – if indeed they are “rules” – have been proposed, and why they could well be broken in individual cases.

At the end of the day, being able to conduct a relationship with another human being is all about emotional maturity. Sure it is, and it’s also necessary for two partners to see the similarities in each other, and to understand they are more important than their differences.

Relationships Work Because Of Effort 

And needless to say, it’s also about finding a partner who you can truly love with your heart open and making yourself vulnerable to them. This requires trust. Establishing trust, building intimacy, eventually falling in love are all aspects of relationship success.

Feel The Fear

It could well be, therefore, that the first thing you need to do is to allow yourself to explore the possibility of feeling the fear that you live with and going into it totally, exploring it to the full, letting it take over your soul, and finding that you can actually come out the other side without suffering unduly.

This is the area of the Magician Archetype, where experiencing transformation is possible – indeed probable.

You see, the Magician Archetype (or rather the energy of the magician), is mainly exemplified in the human body as the energy of fear, and this is a gateway to transformation.

It could well be that your fear is an ally rather than an enemy, and it may help you to find a way through pervasive fear (which stops you doing things) to an emotional place where your confidence is much greater and you find renewed vitality and happiness in life.

In any event, if you are experiencing fear of intimacy in your life, I suggest you work on it by examining the Magician archetype in you.

You may wish to see a counselor to explore how you could go through your fears of intimacy,  sex and intimate relationships, so as to come out the other side, hopefully able to conduct a relationship with another human being….

….. and experience all the joys and rewards of relationship which accrue naturally.

After all, being in an intimate relationship is a natural aspect of humanity, and you have as much right as anybody else to establish a relationship and be happy in it.

Needless to say, you also have the right to establish a sexual relationship and enjoy your sexuality to the full without shame or guilt. Such is the reward of coming through fear to confidence.

relationships advice

Get The Relationship You Desire

You only have to look at the pain that people experience when a sexual or romantic or loving  relationship comes to an end to understand how vital it is for everyone in our society to feel they are part of a couple.

Why should this be? After all, we are social animals, but the need for connection and even love can be met by being part of a larger group, not necessarily being part of a pair bond.

Could it be that there is a biological program deep inside us which compels us to overcome our biological ancestry (which might imply males meeting with as many females as possible, and females bringing up offspring on their own) –  and is it possible this need to be in a couple is part of the evolution in consciousness which came about as the development of the neocortex, the sophisticated part of our brain that allows us to think and reason?

Can you impact the universe with your desires?
Can you impact the universe with your desires? Yes, you can.

Yes, it probably is, and this is interesting because it’s also the neocortex which allows us to use the process of manifestation by means of the law of attraction to get what we want.

It’s here that the subconscious resides, the capacity of this part of our brain far outweighing that of the most sophisticated supercomputer, perhaps even working as an atomic computer, or perhaps working through some mysterious energetic connection with a universal knowledge database.

In a way it doesn’t really matter which of these is the true explanation of manifestation and the law of attraction, because the very fact that we can manifest what we want to using our mind is in itself sufficient reward for being human on the face of this planet in our current era. Love, it would seem, is just a bonus! And a loving relationship is some kind of reward for being human. Pleasing each other by loving each other is a corollary of being human, too.

And yet, as you may have observed, comparatively few people are able to manifest successfully using attraction as basis of reality creation. Comparatively few people manifest the sexual relationship they want, either. If you wish to be one of the few who do then  click here to discover all about the secrets of pleasing a woman by manifesting reality.

Is there, do you think, some discrepancy between the talents and abilities bestowed on us by our evolutionary history and the designing creative force of the universe, and our capacity to see into the spiritual world and use these abilities to our advantage?

Again, the answer is almost certainly yes – we’ve been gifted with a phenomenal brain, of which we use, by even the most conservative estimate, no more than 10%.

The vast reserves of subconscious knowledge and intelligence that allow us to access universal intelligence and which also allow us to achieve the relationship we want, create a perfect pairbond based on love, and open our hearts to the people we love.

There is plenty of evidence nowadays that heart is just as powerful mechanism in terms of neural power of the brain, and there is plenty of evidence to suggest that none of us are using this resource to the full. What then, is the way forward?

The way forward probably relies on us taking advantage of the power of our minds to create reality using the essence of the connection we can establish to the subconscious mind and from their to universal intelligence.

If you want a relationship, for example, in particular if you want to establish good sexual relationship, one which will allow you to please a woman in bed, the way to do it is to visualize your outcome.

As Mike Dooley has it, you don’t do this in specific minute detail, but you do it in generalities which will allow you to imagine the overall “flavor” or emotional tone of what you want.

So for example, rather than specifying the exact color and appearance of your desired mate, what you do would be to visualize your beloved encapsulated in some image of the happiness and love  you will experience when you are with your ideal partner.

If you wanted money, you wouldn’t specific specify an exact sum of money in a bank account, but you’d visualize the prosperity and abundance and everything you could have by using symbols such as an expensive car and house, expensive holidays, and so forth, without being attached those details.

In this way it is possible to manifest reality without becoming attached to the trivialities that are simply so disruptive – something known as the cursed hows.

But for a relationship, a sexual relationship, consider this: it’s a natural evolutionary state of being human to be in a relationship, and its a natural evolutionary capacity of the human mind to visualize and therefore manifest reality. You can put these two things together and create the relationship you want.

It’s a phenomenal prospect, allow you virtually unlimited possibilities for what reality creation can offer you, and it’s amazing that you, as a human being, can access to this power.

It’s been said that we need to reach a certain level of conscious evolution to be able to access this power, but I’m not sure I believe that – I think it’s open to everyone who has the capacity to apply themselves to manifestation using certain simple psychological and psychic principles.

exploring human sexuality

Overcome fear of intimacy with great sexual techniques

A guest post, written by Janine, who is a female sexual educator, based in the USA.

I want to tell you little bit of the history around my sexual experience – as a woman, I grew up in a very repressed environment where my family didn’t talk about sex and all issues about the body and femininity – and indeed bodily functions – were completely taboo.

This had a massive effect on my sexuality, as I’m sure you can imagine – leaving me in a place where I was completely unable to orgasm, and indeed for a period of time, experienced dyspareunia when my boyfriend tried to enter me.

Indeed it would be fair to say that my sexual relationships were an absolute disaster in every way, leaving me unsatisfied and frustrated, feeling shame and bewilderment, and exploring none of the sexuality which is my natural birthright as a woman.

I’m well aware that there are many problems that women have around the world about sexuality, including female genital mutilation, lack of opportunity to express sexuality, and indeed repression by the patriarchy at every level.

However, I want to make it clear that for me, as a woman in Western society, which is comparatively relaxed around sexuality and female expression of sexuality, this upbringing was a disaster, leaving me socially inhibited and massively ashamed of my sexual birthright.

Indeed, practitioners of therapy will talk about how wounds in “the lover quarter” can leave a woman unable to express both physical and emotional love, because she believes that somehow the something wrong with her ability to love, or that she is unlovable.

That was only true for me, nowhere did this express itself more clearly than in bed with a boyfriend – anorgasmia, sexual inhibition, and dyspareunia were indeed just the tip of the iceberg as far as my sexual problems were concerned.

So how did reparation come about? Bike first of all forming a conscious intention on my part to actually explore my sexuality and come to terms with those problems that I had – and not to stop until each everyone of them was resolved.

First of all I went through a program of becoming fully orgasmic through masturbation, which left me at least proud of the fact that (in isolation) I could reach orgasm, although penetration was still a nightmare.

Next, I engaged in a process of therapy at every level – active, interactive and counselling in an office – so that I could experience intimacy on every level, which I then backed up with deep Tantric work from a skilled Tantric practitioner, so that I could overcome fear of other people touching my body.

After several months of intensive therapy of this kind, I was finally confident about being touched by somebody else, and indeed eventually was actually able to be brought to orgasm by Tantric practice.

This really change my attitude to sex completely, and it was almost as though some kind of gate had been opened, a doorway perhaps my deeper sexuality which I was then determined to explore in every way possible.

And so I set out on a journey of discovery, where I went to bed with every available man – certainly being promiscuous – but certainly doing it safely – using condoms and ensuring that there was no danger of sexually transmitted infections (or at least, that the danger of sexual transmitted infections was minimized).

Now a lot of people have said to me that they thought I was a slut  – to which my response is simply this – I don’t care what you think, because actually it’s none of your damn business.

If you want to make judgments around my sexual behavior, then go away and make them somewhere where I can’t overhear them, because I have no interest in being judged by you.

One of things, as you may have gathered by now about exploring my sexuality in this powerful and highly personal way was that it actually taught me a lot about boundaries.

It empowered me to speak my mind and know when to stop the infringement of my boundaries, my sacred space, my personality, my very being, by anybody who didn’t have my best interests at heart.

So when anybody says to me something like they’ve learnt an enormous amount about themselves, and they’ve engaged in a massive period of personal growth through learning about their sex and sexuality, I completely understand what they say and what they mean.

And for this reason I highly recommend the exploration of sexuality to you to as a way to overcome fear of intimacy – now admittedly you may have to find a skilled practitioner and pay them, but what’s better?

A life lived in isolation and fear of sexuality, or an honest and open commitment to exploring these natural aspects of the human being?

I’m sure you know the answer to that question without me telling you!

In particular there were two extraordinarily helpful techniques which I used – the first was to explore my sexual fantasies, and the second, believe it or not was to explore the possibility of G spot orgasm with female ejaculation.

Now I know this is somewhat controversial area, and for most people who are exploring intimacy it will be a long way down the road personal development before they begin to be feel confident enough to actually have somebody stimulate their G spot and encourage them to learn how to female ejaculate.

But take it from me, as a way of shedding inhibitions and developing an open personality that welcomes the expression of sexuality in all its forms, these intense orgasms are very powerful and wonderful experiences.

They can leave you feeling not only highly charged with endorphins, but socially adept, relaxed, and confident on every level of your being, both sexually and socially.

Finally, to close this section here is a video from somebody who works on the Internet. She has a lot to say about all aspects of sexuality, but in particular, she brings a refreshing and rather intriguing viewpoint to the more outlandish – at least by any conventional standards – areas of human sexuality.

manifestation

The Law of Attraction – Getting What You Want

Manifestation and the Law of Attraction are popular subjects – if you’re interested in finding out how to get what you want, click this.

Here’s what an expert has to say on the subject:

What exactly is “Manifestation”?

One of the things that few people appreciate, I suspect, is just how much influence they actually have over what happens to them, and how much they can control events in the world around them.

Can you impact the universe with your desires?
Can you impact the universe with your desires?

The process by which you can do this is called manifestation, or using the Law Of Attraction. The most famous writing about the Law of Attraction is Napoleon Hill’s book, Think and Grow Rich That, followed closely by The Secret: a book written by Rhonda Byrne in 2006, which has led many people into the world manifestation and reality creation.

Now of course when anything is very successful it tends to attract derision and this was true of The Secret, just as it’s been true of every other pioneering thought change in the history of humanity.

I think it’s important to recognize that just because somebody with no experience in achieving their own reality makes fun or a mockery of something like The Secret, it doesn’t mean that there is no truth in it.

Manifestation is a reality, and this can be testified to by millions of people down through the ages, who report consistent set of experiences around the creation of their own reality.

In essence, those experiences center on a combination of intense emotional states which lead to a high level of motivation, high level of expectation, and perhaps most importantly of all, a high level of confidence and belief in the entire process, even in the face of apparent setbacks.

So in essence, therefore if you’re actually going to achieve anything by the power of your mind, you need to start from a place which involves intense desire for a particular outcome.

Desire is often thought of as wanting or wishing for something, but the truth of the matter is that desire is a state of mind which is so intense that you can almost taste the strength of your passion, and something which you feel almost every moment of your waking existence.

You will know if you have passion for something because when you think about it your emotions are literally that – “passionate”.

Intense desire is a state of mind – a state of existence, one which lead you to the next step of this manifestation process, which is belief.

And I think belief is the problem that most people find difficult to accept: we all desire certain outcomes, and I’m sure you can remember the last time you wanted something so passionately that you would have done almost anything to get it.

The inevitable truth, and perhaps the sad truth, is that most people do not manifest even the things that they desire most passionately, and one of the compelling reasons why that should be so is because they simply do not believe that they can achieve that outcome.

Without believing that you can achieve, you never will achieve: is one of the most fundamental rules of manifestation and using the Law Of Attraction.

So what you do when you don’t believe? Of course you change your objective into something that is within your belief system.

One client of mine said that he was intensely passionate about founding a business, and he desired financial success and wealth: he programmed for an income of $1 million in the first year.

But when we talked about why him to achieve this, it turned out that his belief system limited him to something much lower than $1 million in sales.

Even though he thought it unwise, I persuaded him that he should go away and program for quarter of a million dollars in sales in his next year of operation. And even though this might seem like a big step backwards what I knew immediately from the look on his face was that this was totally believable for him, and of course you will not be surprised to learn that this is exactly what manifested.

The third step is expectancy or expectation. And what this means is that you must expect it to happen.

Not only do you need to believe that you can get what you want, that you can manifest a particular outcome, but that you should expect it to happen.

People are sometimes confused about the difference between belief and expectation, so I sum it up like this for them: I believe a man can go to the moon, but I certainly don’t expect to go there myself. And I believe Richard Branson can make $1 billion a year, but I certainly don’t expect to do myself.

There’s an extremely good summary of the law of attraction manifestation to be found on this website, which explains more or less everything that you need to know about how to manifest success.

One thing is really important to bear in mind, is that you can manifest almost anything you desire – that isn’t just include financial success, but it also includes relationship success, happiness, the partner of your dreams, material objects, financial wealth, emotional happiness… You name it, you can have it. Provided, that is, you believe, you desire, and you expect to receive it.

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Don’t let fear of sex kill your enjoyment of intercourse

Now I know this is easy to say, and perhaps not quite so easy to bring about in reality, but nonetheless the fact is that if you allow fear of sex take charge of you, you’re going to experience a number of consequences.

First of them is premature ejaculation or erectile dysfunction, because both of these are conditions which have considerably significant emotional input to them — and in particular, premature ejaculation can be caused by fear and anxiety of all kinds.

The sad fact is that for many men sex is laden with fear and anxiety because they were never brought up to exude masculine power, and internally they are in an emotional state which denies them access to their male power: by male power I’m not talking about aggression, I’m talking about simple confidence about the status of a man in a sexual relationship.

In a sexual relationship it turns out that it’s the man who is designed to lead, both biologically and emotionally, and if he is incapable of doing this, then he may well feel inadequate.

The consequence of feeling inadequate is that he’s going to feel anxiety about whether or not he’s performing well, and what his emotional and sexual partner feels about him.

It’s not a good thing or a bad thing, it’s simply a statement of fact — men are the initiators during intercourse, they are designed to lead, they’re designed to feel powerful, and they’re designed to take the woman to a place where she wants to go during intercourse, which is one where she can open her heart because she completely trusts her man and has confidence in him to make her feel safe.

 

That feeling of safety is not going to develop adequately if the man is inadequately prepared to take his male role during the act of lovemaking.

So all of this could mean premature ejaculation — which in my opinion is a sign of fear or anxiety at the deepest level about sex, intimacy, or even possibly about just being close (physically and/or emotionally) to a woman.

Like it or not, men are troubled by premature ejaculation from their first sexual experience onwards — in at least 50% of cases, and perhaps as many as 75%, men feel that they cannot control their ejaculation and experience a rapid end to lovemaking, which generally means an end to any pleasure or chance of pleasure for the woman as well.

You see, for most of us, intercourse is predicated on the assumption that it finishes when a man has his orgasm and ejaculates, because that actually is what happens! A man loses interest in sex after he comes, even though a woman, after her orgasm, may wish to engage in further intimacy and sexual activity, it simply isn’t like that for a man.

Now all of this means an interesting dynamic from men who have premature ejaculation — at the simplest level, it’s a loss of confidence; a deeper level, it’s letting the partner down and feeling inadequate because of it; and at a further level still, it simply proves an inadequate performance which leads to even more anxiety. This in turn feeds back in a vicious spiral of ever-increasing premature ejaculation and greater and greater anxiety.

So in the face of this significant and very real male problem, a problem that actually impacts on both a woman and a relationship as well is the man, what’s to be done to stop ejaculation?

Well, the first and perhaps most important aspect of this is that there is help available — in many places on the Internet, for example, although not all of them are necessarily to be recommended by professional sex therapists!

The fact of the matter is that many of the websites on the Internet designed to help premature ejaculation are run by opportunist crooks who are out to make money, and who have no moral principles and very little biological or medical knowledge to back up what they say on their websites.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in the case of certain “overseas far eastern” websites which purport to offer an ancient Thai cure for premature ejaculation — this turns out to be nothing more than clamping down your PC muscles when you feel the first signs of impending ejaculation!

If ever there were a cure for premature ejaculation which was nothing of the kind, then PC muscle control is it!

The simple truth of the matter is that you need something far more sophisticated to control ejaculation, and in general only treatments which have been medically approved and are offered by professional sex therapists will do the job.

You see there is a biological component and an emotional component, and there’s certainly also a physical component — and while it’s true that your ejaculation is more powerful if you have a strong PC muscle,  this is not a route to ejaculation control per se.

Instead, you’re going to need to adopt certain behavioral changes, you’re going to need to condition your mind to respond to sexual arousal more slowly, so that you don’t end up over-aroused and ready to ejaculate at the drop of a hat, so to speak, and you’re going to need to change your mindset so that you step into a place of male power which will enable you to feel confident when you’re making love.

All of these things can be done, and they can be done quite easily if you know where to get the right information. One of the best sources of information for men with premature ejaculation – and especially about how to control it – at least the one of the best sources of information I am aware of, is Ejaculation by Command by Lloyd Lester.

I actually happen to have written a review site on the subject — you may not be surprised to know! — and this should help you to establish exactly whether or not this program is going to be of any assistance to you in seeking to extend the duration of lovemaking and control your ejaculatory reflex.

It’s important to remember that even if you’re having a really hard time with premature ejaculation you need to be kind to yourself, and you certainly don’t need to berate yourself as a failure — though I think if you don’t take action to cure this problem you might want to ask why you are not doing so….