We have been discussing breathing this month. The breath is such a simple thing and yet everything we do depends on it. We can do nothing without it. As we mentioned a couple of weeks ago, most people don’t take a deep breath all day! No wonder we get tired!
Today’s breathing lesson is simple as well and can be done anywhere. It is recommended to do it at least twice a day if you are feeling particularly stressed.
The Sigh Breath
1. Get comfortable. (This technique does not require the closing of the eyes but you will feel more relief if you do the technique while your eyes are closed and include the self talk).
2. Once again take in a deep breath through your nose, for a count of 10.
3. Hold it for a count of three. (1,2,3)
4. Exhale slowly through your nose for a count of 10.
5. Do this three times.
6. On the fourth exhalation, slightly open your mouth and allow the breath to be expelled and allow the sound of a sigh (Ah….). Exhale slowly for a count of 15.
7. While exhaling, allow your shoulders, jaw, neck, face and chest to relax.
8. Do this 3 times.
While sighing, tell your brain to ‘STOP’! The chatter you keep going in there is tiresome and just adds to the anxiety. While you do your sigh breath, concentrate on the Ah…. The slow exhalation allows the carbon dioxide to build in your lungs and that will relax you.
Next month, we will start self talk and guided imagery.
Why…..Is the hardest thing you ever have to answer. ‘Why’ is the root cause, the impetus, the answer to the riddle… ‘Why’ we do anything has been the question since the beginning of recorded time. In fact, there is a whole school of thought in psychology that says, ‘forget why, just focus on the what’ because we don’t have the time to wait for that answer. Well, CoupleDumb is not from that school. We are what you would call, ‘Old School’. We are all about the ‘why’. We are all about getting to the motivation, traumas and decisions. Only when we answer ‘why’ can we move on to ‘what’s next’.
Why to fuck?
We have the ‘who’ and the ‘when’, but the ‘why’ is a little more complicated. Why do we have sex at all?
For some of us it is an easy question. For others…well, that’s where it gets complicated. We often say that sex is a physical release that you share with another person. Intimacy is not necessarily the purpose for sex. If we limited our intimacy to sex then feeling close to your partner comes at a cost. We believe that intimacy is something you share with a touch, a snuggle, a long kiss before going to sleep. Intimacy is not an orgasm. Intimacy is the emotional connection, a sharing of a moment of the heart. Fucking is not the place for that. Sure, you can feel intimate with your partner but if you are fucking someone for the first time, you are kidding yourself if you believe that intimacy has anything to do with it.
Of course to understand any of this, we must look within. We must be aware of our sexual beliefs and hang-ups before we start knocking boots. The lack of self understanding has killed more than a million relationships in their infancy. You can be having a wonderful time in bed and all of a sudden something he or she does triggers a memory or emotion and the fun-times are drowned in a sea of insecurity.
For some people, the why of sex is ‘because the partner wants it’. That is probably one of the saddest reasons to have sex. Where are you in all of this? Sex is a dance, a tango of the naughty bits. If you are just doing things to appease your partners desires than when do you fulfill your desires? This harkens back to a common CoupleDumb theme of rescuing. Rescuers always end up resenting their victims. It works out like this, ‘Ah, you poor thing. You want to have sex? O.K.’. Which evolves into, ‘Oh you want to have sex? What about my needs?!’ This is one of the slippier slopes of relationships. Sex is not something you grant people or give into. It’s not like having pizza when you wanted a salad.
Why to fuck is simply based on carnal curiosity and, for those who have been doing it for a while, carnal sating. Nothing more and nothing less. It is not the foundation of a relationship. It does not make the relationship better or worse. It does not bring you closer! Sex is a physical act. Sex is fun. Due to our family of origin, hang-ups, messed up dates in our misspent youth and such, sex becomes complicated. Uncomplicate it by remembering that sex in itself, with someone with whom you feel safe and trust, is just a physical release.
So you look across the table and decide that you really like this person that you have been dating now for 1, 3 or 15 weeks. Yes, you know that you are going to ‘give it up’ at some point with this person. So the big question becomes, when. When is it too early? We have a name for women who drop their panties too quickly. Unfortunately, we also have a name for women who drop them too slowly. And, yes, guys do not have all of the bad names but they do have just as much of the crazy. Too soon and you are a player, not serious about the relationship. Too slow and you’re into other guys or you’re a monk.
When to fuck?
The answer to this is that you will know when it is right. Your gut will tell you. Yes that is the simple and accurate advice but it really can only be given to you by your Auntie Mame type granny who curses, has buried a husband and taken a lover twenty years younger than her. This advice assumes that we are in touch with ourselves. As we wrote yesterday, that is probably not the case.
If you are asking the question then what you are truly concerned with is promiscuity and impulsivity. On the spectrum of psychosexual dysfunction, one end holds the things that stop you from having or enjoying sex. The common folk would call them frigidity or prudishness. We have written about this before and will again, but not now. Just know that that is one end. The other has the impulse control issues. This is where promiscuity and sex addiction reside. You want to fall somewhere in between.
Oddly enough, most people, especially women, are not worried about putting-out too slowly. So let’s focus on too fast. Are you being impulsive? If you are with your guy, stewing in a pool of your own panty pudding, doing everything you can not to claw his shirt off then this is not the right time to address your impulsivity. Impulsiveness is a personality trait, according to scientists. This means that it is very hard to stop the impulse while it is happening. Instead you need to go into the situation with forethought. Have you had sex too early for you? Have you woken the next day with that Oh Shit feeling? Monitoring impulsiveness means looking at your life patterns, knowing them then, if you want, changing them.
With any impulse control issue, like addiction, there is a point in the treatment when you realize that you cannot do what you have been. Or in other words, if you do not want to feel like a whore then stop having sex on the first date. Put your ugly panties on because you know that no one is seeing them tonight.
If you are pretty sure that you are in the healthy middle of the sex spectrum then when do you have sex? You are not a prude and you are not an addict so can you give it up tonight? What does your gut say? Ask yourself why you are going to have sex (which we are writing about tomorrow). And know that, all hang-ups aside, sex is good. Anthropologically, the mating ritual is what removes promiscuity (sexual wanderlust) from the community. If not for sex, we would be a nomadic tribe of horny humans. Thanks to sex, we have cities. Animal culture, including human, is built on sex. So go ahead. Have a good fuck on us.
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