What New Couples Can Teach Us
New couples seem to exist in an orbit all their own. A parent I worked with, frustrated with her nineteen-year-old son, exclaimed, “He and his girlfriend lie on the couch for hours, doing nothing! They stare at each other and hardly speak. I call them for dinner and nothing—no response. The house could be on fire and they wouldn’t notice. I don’t think they’ve gone to the bathroom in two days…” Talk about a Zen-like focus!
I mention the young lovers because new relationships (with all their intensity and naivete) hold the key for anyone wanting to increase the passion in their relationship. Many of the couples I’ve worked with who have been together for quite some time complain about feeling over-burdened by obligations and competing commitments that have squeezed the life and passion out of their relationship. Raising a family, maintaining a home, and holding down a job take a powerful toll on any relationship.
However, many of the couples who have little time and energy for each other now recalled having stressful, busy lives when they first started dating. The pressures of college or graduate school, finding the right job, and having limited financial resources are a few scenarios they remembered. Yet most described intensity and passion early on. Even those who had to deal with the time-consuming complexities of blending families from previous relationships reported that they found ways to create steamy moments with their new lover. For some mysterious reason the challenges of life didn’t hold back these individuals when their love was new—they each had the motivation and found the time (even if limited) to bump up the passion.
Steps to Rekindle Your Passionate Self
It is nearly impossible to feel passionate and sexual with your partner while your mind is pulled in many different directions. You may never be able to recapture the intense focus that existed in the beginning of your relationship, but don’t worry—that level of focus isn’t necessary for passion to survive and thrive in your relationship. If you want to increase the sexual spark in your relationship, you will need to learn ways to reduce your mind-clutter and block out life’s constant intrusions—at least temporarily. You did it at the beginning of your relationship, so you can do it now!
Increasing Your Sexual Appetite Through the Power of Focus
Quieting your mind is a basic requirement in becoming more focused. This is easier said than done. If you’re anything like me, your mind is in some past or future time-zone, reflecting on what has already happened or anticipating life’s next surprise. The antidote to this mental time-travel is awareness. Awareness of all the ways in which you are not present and awareness of the negative impact that distraction is having on your relationship. Becoming more present will help you create opportunities in which to plant the seeds of passion.
Practice these steps to recapture the focus needed to ignite your passion:
1. Focus Rehearsal. Each day create a pocket of time (at least five minutes) to deliberately think about your partner when you’re not with him/her. (Remember how you automatically did this at the beginning of your relationship?) Schedule this time in your daily calendar and take this mental appointment very seriously. Picture your partner using as much detail as possible, focusing on the things you like and enjoy about him/her. When your mind drifts to competing obligations, let go of these momentary distractions and refocus your efforts. Practicing this daily is a powerful way to controlling the drift of your mind.
2. Mind-clearing. There are going to be times when you are distracted because of an emotionally-charged issue that pulls at you. Each time you think about your partner or attempt to spend quality time alone with him/her, the gravitational pull of what is troubling you interferes with your desire for an intimate moment with your loved one. If this continues to occur, you need to schedule five minutes of journaling about the troubling event. Five minutes—no more, no less. Write about all the things that are bothering you and the feelings that are being stirred. Express yourself fully during this time and even attempt to exaggerate your reactions. When your time is almost up, conclude by stating that you are no longer going to give this issue attention until the following day. Repeat this process as necessary—achieving a reduction in the feelings that are troubling you.
3. Mind-organization. There is a simple reason why your kitchen has cabinets and your office has book shelves and file cabinets: Organization. You know where to go to find what you need, and at the same time you’ve got a clean work space when so many things are shelved or filed. For those of you with a messy desk, you know first hand the headache involved in finding what you need. There is also an emotional benefit since a disorganized space can cause you to feel overwhelmed and less efficient.
Your mind works in a similar fashion. The work space of your mind needs to be clear for the task of focusing on your partner. If your mental clutter is left unattended and scattered on the desk of your consciousness, you will be preoccupied and emotionally unavailable. One way to help with mental organization is to set priorities—a mental check list. Once you’ve established a priority list, write it down and delegate each item to a particular time and day that you’d like to give the item attention. Creating a time-based structure for your mental clutter allows you to store the items away until their scheduled time. It’s very important to follow through on the schedule you create. If you don’t, your mental clutter will remain displaced and you’ll remain preoccupied. Remember, you cannot feel passionate if you are preoccupied.
4. Learn to Compartmentalize. It’s impossible to feel sexual after you’ve just put your sick child to bed and you still smell of the meal he couldn’t keep down. The ability to compartmentalize involves the creation of mental walls that can temporarily house or block out certain experiences. You already do this. Just think of a time that you had a really bad day but refused to let the negative experience interfere with your evening plans. Or the time you enjoyed your friends, despite the intense argument you had with your adolescent hours earlier.
Compartmentalizing involves the ability to temporarily forget something that is troubling you. In order to do this, you need to first select whatever it is that you’d like to forget. My friend Barbara is really adept at compartmentalizing. I remember her saying, “I’m not going to let that bother me right now. I’m going to lock it away in my mental safe until later. When I open the safe I’ll deal with it.” Barbara wasn’t in total denial of her problems. She realized the importance of attending to whatever was troubling her but she did this in a controlled way. Instead of lamenting about what was bothering her all day, Barbara would deliberately focus her attention elsewhere.
There are two steps to compartmentalizing. The first is to create a mental image of something that can store the experience you’d like to gain distance from. Visualize yourself placing the experience where you’d like it stored. For example, Barbara’s visualization is her safe. The second step is to steer your attention away from that temporarily locked-away experience and on to something else. Here you decide to direct your attention away from something and towards something more desirable. (You may need to practice this before you get the hang of it. Don’t give up—it’s worth it!)
5. Create a new reality. Use your imagination and pretend that nothing and no one else exists when you’re with your partner. This needs to be a repetitive and deliberate act. Prior to spending time with him/her, repeat to yourself, “No one and nothing else exists. I’m with the person I want to be with and in this moment all I want to do is intensely focus on everything about him/her. Everything I need is right in front of me.”
While carrying out this exercise you may find it helpful to focus on a particular aspect of your partner, like hair or eye color, or the sound of his/her voice. Note some feature that you haven’t given attention to in a while, describing it to yourself in as much detail as possible. In this moment of alone-time try to see your partner in a new way. Don’t worry if you have trouble doing this at first. Practice and keep at it.
These exercises are geared toward helping you learn to control the distractions in your life. Being fully present with your partner is a prerequisite for passion to flourish in your relationship.
As for that enamored teenager wiling away the hours enraptured by his girlfriend, I recently received an update from his mother. It’s been eight months and her son continues to be totally absorbed to the point of ignoring everything and everyone around him. Oh, but the object of his desire now involves a video gaming controller and internet access. Go figure.
