Confidence
Great sex partners are confident. Now when I say confidence people often think of some cocky or arrogant bossy boots.
When I say confidence I don’t mean telling other people what to do, initiating sex all the time or being in control but feeling confident enough in yourself to embrace your own vulnerability.
There is such strength in raw vulnerability. It is sexy and intimate.
When you’re confident, vulnerable, in touch with your sexual power and open to your partner you aren’t playing games or pretending. You wouldn’t use your sexual power to hurt or manipulate others. You’re not bottling up your emotions or using others to feed your ego in a pursuit of pleasure.
Vulnerability is about feeling confident about your body and your sexuality.
It’s about being authentic about who you are and expressing your wants and desires.
If you’re confident you can be flexible, open and adventurous within the sexual world of your relationship. You’re not putting yourself out there from a needy, empty place that needs validation and attention but rather because you believe you have something to offer the other person. You trust yourself.
Notice your internal scripts. What are you telling yourself about your body? What do you tell yourself about what you deserve in a relationship?
“Your sexuality is an integral aspect of life. Ecstasy is your birthright. Intimate connection is foundational to health and happiness, beginning with your connection with yourself.”
S. Winston
This leads me to my next points..
Body Awareness
Great lovers are in touch with their bodies and have great body awareness. They are in tune with what their bodies are trying to tell them and listen to their bodies.
Many of us rush throughout our days and try to do everything to shut our bodies up. Try focussing inwardly for a moment and listen to what your body is trying to tell you. Tune into your breathing. Put your hand on your heart and listen to your heart beat.
Put your phone down.
When you eat a meal don’t look at your phone or watch the tv-try to solely focus on the sensual pleasure of eating without distractions.
Go outside and notice how the breeze feels on your skin.
Notice how the light reflects off the leaves and smell the damp moist smell of the earth.
These practices can help you mindfully channel your sexual energy and be more open to sensations. If you’re stressed out and rushing everywhere all the time it won’t help you to tune out and enjoy sexual connection. Your sexual energy is not just alive when you’re in bed.
Body Love
Start to express gratitude for your body and how it carries you around, protects, serves you and gives you pleasure.
Marvel at its uniqueness and abilities rather focus on the negative points you don’t like.
Accept your body and see it as a gift. Tell yourself, “I am imperfect but I am enough.” (Brene Brown)
Understand how your body works sexually and know how to give yourself orgasms. Notice what works for you and what doesn’t.
Honour your body.
Try to do one self nurturing thing for your body everyday.
Surrender to how sexy you truly are.
Changing our internal dialogue with ourselves is an important step in becoming empowered, owning our personal power, improving our sexual self esteem and transforming our sex lives and our relationships.
Focus more on the journey and less on the destination
Concentrate less on the orgasm and more on the pleasure and sensation. Sex is so much more than genitals touching and reaching an orgasm. Sex can be about connection, closeness, emotional release and intimacy, sensual surrender, bliss, vulnerability, healing, bonding and can be the closest thing some people get to spiritual “highs” or meditative bliss.
Try to stop viewing sex as a performance sport and don’t worry if what you like is nothing like what you’ve seen in a porno.
Good communication
If you feel so low about yourself you are always looking for validation in others, it will be difficult for you to communicate from a healthy place.
Learning how to communicate our wants, needs and desires and negotiate these accordingly are important skills in sexual communication. New research shows that couples that talk about sex are happier and have higher satisfaction with their sex lives.
Your partner isn’t a mind reader. If something feels good, say so, or make encouraging noises. Explain what you want, need and like and be a good listener and try to understand your partner’s needs.
Practising mindfulness can activate and rewire the anterior insula in your brain with studies showing women who practise mindful meditation have a thicker insula and better orgasms. The more your practise using your insula, the better you can experience physical sensations during sex and be attuned into your partner’s emotions and feelings, and neuroscience researchers see brain changes after two weeks of practising so, if you’re starting out, try it every day for at least twenty minutes.
worrying about our the appearance of our body, how we ‘perform,’ or ‘watching’ ourselves having sex with an anxious, internal narration.
During sex be present with every throb, tingle, movement, taste and smell. You are opening the doorway to a new world of pleasure.
Don’t criticise yourself for not getting it perfect, the more you practise the easier it will get. You are retraining your brain by practising attention and you are becoming more sensitive to pleasure.
