Excerpted from Happy! Sexy! Shameless! – What Your Mother Did Not Know About the Birds and the Bees…
People often ask me how to keep that desire burning in their marriage or relationship. Many relationships have become a partnership of responsibility or a great friendship but the physical attraction and intimacy is gone. Why is it we lose that lusty feeling? And how do we keep desire for our partner alive?
There are always many complex aspects of a an intimate relationship, but part of the answer to this mystery is actually quite surprising and is contrary to much of what we have been told about intimate connection. The answer is that separation is good for desire!
I don’t mean legal separation. I mean the kind of separation where a couple doesn’t wear matching Holiday Sweaters and do absolutely everything together. It is actually good for connection and attraction when we retain a semblance of our own identity, interests and space. Many of us believe the opposite even if it’s at an unconscious level.
For example, when I took a vacation without my husband last year many people asked me “If everything was ok?” Or even better, I received comments from some that they were surprised, “He was letting me go without him.”
The truth is my husband, Ian and I have different interests and we honor that in each other. I love Yoga and he loves fishing. That’s ok. We don’t have a perfect marriage but we recognize each other as separate, interesting, and alive people. After ten years of marriage and 14 years of intimacy, we are still going strong in part because we allow some space in our relationship and respect the individuality of each other.
Thanks to the cultural mythology about love and relationships, we often believe the “you complete me” nonsense which suggests that separation, individualism and even differences are bad and an indication that we must not be in love so we tend to smother our relationships with sameness, always togetherness and the belief that if we don’t like all the same things that there is a problem.
Of course, we need to ensure we create time to connect, that we are actually present to each other when we are together (put down the IPhone please), and that we have common goals, interests and ideas but we also need space to create longing and attraction. We must remember what it was about this person that drew us in in the first place and allow that to continue to shine. Just like a fire needs a little air to roar, your relationship may need it too.
In Happy, Sexy, Shameless – What Our Mothers Didn’t Know About the Birds and the Bees, Shasta mixes personal experiences, interviews, storytelling and research in a genuine style that emboldens women to celebrate their sexuality as an essential part of living a great life. The discussions are candid, straightforward and to the point. It’s female sexuality communicated in a voice that women have been waiting to hear, and Shasta Townsend delivers.
Coinciding with the release of Happy, Sexy, Shameless, on February 17 from 8-9:15 EST VividLife.me and Shasta are offering ‘Bad Girls Do It Better’ a FREE live-stream Fire-Stoking Session for Women Ready to Unabashedly Create their Next Big, Beautiful Chapter – In the Bedroom and Out! Click for More Info.
Written by Shasta
Shasta loves to see women of all ages recognize, access, and utilize the greatness within them, and to be a small part of it. She is skilled at cracking the lockbox of limitation and revealing one’s inner gifts. She is a feisty champion of creating an unlimited life where ease, joy, and freedom reign, regardless of the circumstances. Shasta’s expertise in these matters does not come from a few letters behind her name, but from her own investigation, learning, and journey. Thanks to this, her offerings are not regurgitated from another’s textbook, but from her own personal evolution and inner guidance. Shasta shares her passion for living well as a Featured Columnist at Elephant Journal, The Good Men Project, Rebelle Society and Vivid Life. Shasta leads retreats, workshops and talks around the world. She lives in Canada with her husband, cat and creative impulse. Her debut book, Happy, Sexy, Shameless – What Our Mother’s Didn’t Know About the Birds and the Bees is available through amazon.com
