During my training, I was taught "everyone owns their own orgasm!" This concept is true not just sexually but relationally as well. When it comes to the success of a relationship and intimacy, we each have the responsibility of holding ourselves accountable in creating and fostering the greatest environment for us to thrive, mentally, emotionally, financially, spiritually and sexually. Too often in my office, I hear "he, she or they are just supposed to know."
In my perspective, it's not fully your fault, as a society, in general, we are not raised to connect to or to validate our own experience. We are programmed or directed to focus on external factors of life and the acceptance of others. By functioning in this manner, we are creating voids and emptiness within the many layers of our lives. However, it is your responsibility to be a key factor in your life through self-awareness and self-exploration, which includes physically to foster a life worth celebrating for you and those involved.
Just because you have been with yourself your entire life doesn't mean you know or accept yourself. Too often the outward influences of our lives dictate our internal experience, which causes us to focus on making someone else happy; without considering our happiness. Seeking the acceptance of others often results in not accepting ourselves. This is backward, life starts within, you are to be a key, if not the primary factor in your life.
For you to thrive in being a great partner and great lover you are encouraged, to do your internal work and explore yourself physically, and intimately with the acceptance of your whole self. Then be open to sharing this knowledge with your partner(s) so that he, she or they can care for you in a way that allows you to be a key factor in cultivating the greatest collective quality of life. Otherwise, you are placing too much of the responsibility on your partner(s) which sets you up to be handled like a piñata. How fair is it to expect someone external to you, lead you into your brand of relational and sexual excitement, without your insight, guidance, or voice?
To do this, you are setting your partner up to fail and yourself to be disappointed and mishandled. When speaking of self-awareness, self-knowing, and acceptance, I am referring to every layer of who you are, mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, mentally, financially and sexually. In addition, you are to be open to the exploration and wonder of learning your partner, and how you relate to your partner within the construct of the relationship. A benefit to this mindset is it creates a customized screening test to determine who should be in your life, and how they should fit in your life or if they should be accepted or not. Think about it, if you are clearly articulating to someone that "I am a chair" and they chose to treat you like a ladder, it's clear they do not value you, not able or willing to hear you. They don't want you. Your partner(s) want their perspective of you.
This provides you the clarity of what the next move of happiness is for you, your partner and the relationship. Relational and sexual self-awareness and acceptance open and removes barriers that distort the communication and intimate connections within the relationship. By doing this, you are freeing yourself to truly share in the relational and intimate/sexual God-like experience. This is an experience that is greater than the sum of the parts joined, an existential out-of-body experience.
Life is dynamic and not static, using this mindset/approach cultivates a continual individual, relational, intimate, sexual wonder and exploration fostering healthy long-lasting relational and intimate greatness. To be very clear, being selfish and taking the time for your personal, relational and sexual self, with acceptance means being open to learning the other person. This allows growth in being able to collaborate in creating an environment for both of you to thrive and share a life worth celebrating.
This self-awareness through self-exploration and wonder in every layer of your life allows you to create and foster an environment to thrive in your greatest self, as an individual, partner, and lover.
Todd Malloy is a relationship and sex therapist in private practice in Charlotte, N.C, USA. For more information on enabling your inner power to experience and live a life worth celebrating, visit www.ipcctr.com or call (704) 937-2286.
