Intimate Positions

Yoga and relationships have a lot in common. Besides the fact that they are both a practice that is enhanced through mindful attention, they also both rely on the same core principles of cultivating and balancing strength and flexibility. Just like daily yoga practice, the asana of relationships is constantly changing and what can appear as weakness one day is a source of strength on the next.Holding a pose can be a sublime experience of opening and finding more breath and space in your body than you knew you had. It can also be a chore, where our mind is everywhere but on the block beneath our hands, where instead of opening we are constricted, we cannot find our breath. This continuum describes our capacity in our intimate relationships as well. Sometimes our sense of connection triggers libido as if a natural sequence, while at other times, we cannot even hold our partners gaze let alone open to the journey of intimacy.Yet approaching your sexuality practice with the same steadfastness and integrity that you bring to your daily mat workouts can bring about surprising and revolutionary shifts in your relationship. There are a million good and legitimate reasons that libido wanes in life. Hormonal shifts associated with life cycle changes, overall sense of well being and even daily life style choices concerning exercise, diet and rest impact our connection to our sexuality.Making sexuality a vital part of your regular-care hygiene is perhaps the most powerful shift you can make to creating and sustaining a healthy and vital passionate connection to our partners and our selves. There are many days when I am not in the mood to go through my daily yoga poses. Fortunately I have long ago given up the idea that my mood has anything to do with whether I go through the routine. Freeing your sexuality from the need to respond to being in the mood allows the same powerful commitment to sexuality.Luckily in both cases the satisfaction of the practice begets itself. The more you practice the poses, the more t! hat movi ng towards the practice has its own payoff.The same goes for cultivating a thriving relationship to your own sexuality and shared intimacy with a partner. The overall health benefits that accompany a conscious awakening to pleasure is enough to make anyone keep coming back for more.In fact there might not be a more beautiful synergy of practice than the present moment yogic consciousness of learning to stay and the beauty of being fully present to a lover. In the same way that we learn to hold a pose and witness the changes that happen in the silence and patience of the moment, applying this practice to the vulnerability of physical intimacy is transformative and allows for the release and abandon that is the ground from which deep pleasure and orgasm grows.Related:
Discovering Passionate Touch
The Elusive Orgasm
Living Longer with Love and Sex

Wendy Strgar, owner of Good Clean Love, is a loveologist who writes and lectures on Making Love Sustainable, a green philosophy of relationships which teaches the importance of valuing the renewable resources of love and family. Wendy helps couples tackle the questions and concerns of intimacy and relationships, providing honest answers and innovative advice. Wendy lives in Eugene, Oregon with her husband, a psychiatrist, and their four children ages 11-20.