January 01, 2019

I is for Intentional Intimacy: How Depending on Spontaneity Will Kill Your Relationship

January 01, 2019/ Dr. Chelsea Page

You know that friend you used to hang out with a lot, then that dang business of life got in the way and it’s been ages since you’ve seen each other? You try to get together for coffee or a drink and there’s the “let’s get together soon” talk but nothing ever gets put on the calendar. And then you realize it’s been weeks or months and you still haven't gotten together? You reach out and say “hey it’s been awhile let’s get together soon!” but the cycle repeats with that coffee date rarely or never happening?

Think of sexual spontaneity as a similar elusive friend to your relationship. Sex happened a lot in the beginning of the relationship and the business of life didn’t even feel like it existed. But then the hormonal buzz of the new relationship wore off and the spontaneous sex seemed to disappear right along with it.

The Spontaneity Trap

Leaning on spontaneous sex to run a satisfying sex life is a trap that many of us fall into because we aren’t given any help on how to do things differently. And don’t even get me started on the movies that smack us over the head with the expectation that if we are truly in love we would be having hot and steamy sex all the time without any effort. Total eye roll.

So guess what happens?

We go to the default of relying on spontaneity and along with it a feeling of disconnection and growing thoughts like:

Man I wish I was having more sex with my partner!
I totally wish my partner would stop bugging me so much to have sex!
Ugh I am so busy I barely have enough time to even eat!
I’m super sad I don’t feel like more a priority to my partner.
We like never have sex anymore. Does s/he even love me anymore?
I want to have sex but ugh, why won’t my partner just initiate for once?
Kids suck up all my energy I just have nothing left to give

Sound familiar?

You are totally not alone. Promise.

I have heard hundreds of my clients have similar thoughts when they are in the spontaneity trap and I have definitely had these thoughts myself. Early in my relationship when the honeymoon phase started to get further and further in the rearview mirror, the spontaneous “I don’t have to even think about it” type of sex life was moving away right along with it.

This is such a common feeling and yet no one really talks about it let alone tells you what to do about it. And it’s not your fault either. No one teaches us this stuff! I don’t know about you but the extent of my sex education as a kid was basically “here’s the penis, here’s a vagina”. Important, sure, but where’s the “how to have a pleasurable sex life and satisfying relationship talk”?

Want to know the how to have a pleasurable sex life and a satisfying relationship? I’ll tell you.

Be Intentional.

That’s it. No fancy new sex position or crazy toy that could be part of an alien movie. They may add some spice, don’t get me wrong, but you need to have the main ingredient first. And that, my friend, is Intentionality.

Intentional Intimacy

What the heck is Intentional Intimacy?

Well, being intentional means taking planned action toward what you want knowing that hoping and wishing isn’t going to get you there. Have you ever tried sitting on the couch and wishing yourself into a healthy and fit body instead of eating that salad and going to the gym? I have and it certainly doesn’t work. Making good choices and taking action is where it’s at. Same goes for your relationship. Sure sexual spontaneity is nice when it pops up but you need to get away from depending on it. If you want a fun, reliable and consistent sex life then you need to shift your focus from the hoping and wishing passive position to an intentional and active mode.

Implementing the Intentional intimacy Mindset

How can you start implementing the Intentional Intimacy Mindset? No there is no quick fix or magic wand. Sorry, if I had one to offer you I would totally give it to you, promise. Instead you have to do the work. But I can help guide you there.

To start building your intentional intimacy muscle you have got to plan a time to connect both physically and emotionally. Then you need to show up. To start:

Pick one time a week starting with 15 minutes to connect physically with your partner such as exchange massages, cuddle, have sex, suds each other down in the shower.
Pick one time a week starting with 15 minutes to connect emotionally with your partner. You could: cook dinner together, go for a walk, watch the next episode of Stranger Things (So good right?!).

I can already hear you wanting to say “But Chelsea, 15 minutes?! How is that going to get us anywhere?”

Creating a satisfying sex life is about reliability and consistency and you need to start small to build up the habit. If I was your fitness coach I wouldn’t say at the start “go to the gym for an hour every day”. You would think I’m crazy and I wouldn’t be setting you up for long-term success. You need to start with what’s doable that you can commit to and then build from there.

“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”

— Vincent Van Gough

Start with the 15 minutes for several weeks and add more time or days when you can continuously show up for those 15 minutes. And if you want some more guidance as you work on being an Intentionally Intimate couple, you can check out my Free Women’s Guide to Intentional intimacy.

I know that as a result of following an Intentional Intimacy mindset you will get a relationship that is full of continued emotional and physical closeness that creates a strong foundation of great sex and fun. Spontaneity just doesn’t do that. It’s the unreliable friend. And my friend, you and your relationship needs and deserves something better.

Key Things to Remember:

Spontaneity is passive and not reliable
Intentional Intimacy takes action and planned time to connect physically and emotionally.
Start with small bite-sized time to build up to where you want to be.
Adjust your Intentional Intimacy time when needed (when sick, holidays, etc.)
Mix up the connecting activities both inside the bedroom and out.

EXPLORE PAST BLOG POSTS:

5 Powerful Ways To Love Yourself More

Perhaps you are new to the self love journey and wondering “how can I love myself?”. Or maybe you’ve been on the self love journey for a while and want to deepen your devotion of love to you. Wherever you are on your self love journey, five powerful ways to infuse yourself with self love is to use…

Expanding Your Capacity for Pleasure

Access to more pleasure is something so many of my clients desire to experience more of in their life both inside and outside the bedroom. They, like you, crave to be able to let go of the over doing and over pleasing and instead open themselves to deeply surrender into the luxury of pleasure. To feel the delicious sensations of this human experience fully. Although for many the desire is to expand and connect more to sexual pleasure, it’s also about …

3 Ways You Are Blocking Physical Intimacy in Your Relationship

One key piece for wonderful intimacy in a relationship is the openness and energy of receiving physical touch. It may be hard for you to receive physical touch in your relationship right now and this is because one or many blocks have gotten in the way. Let’s explore three ways that physical intimacy gets blocked in a relationship so that you can start to consider where there are blocks to receiving the physical connection in your relationship…

Get Down to Business For More Emotional Intimacy

In many relationships, we often can get trapped in assumptions or assuming that our partner can read our mind. Assumptions can come from how we witnessed relationships growing up or our culture, or just a straight-up lack of actually checking in with each other about who’s doing what and where and why. It’s important as an Intentional Woman to not leave understanding and getting on the same page to change. This makes emotional intimacy in your relationship vulnerable and susceptible. This is why I suggest that in order to get everyone on the same page is to sit down for an intentional relationship discussion aka a “Relationship Business Meeting”…

Self Intimacy: The Foundation of Your Relationship

Until this year it had been 7 years since I took a bath (don’t worry I showered!). What I mean is a nice, luxurious bubble bath. How do I know? Well, Facebook has their memory posts and a picture of a lovely bath set-up of mine popped up with the caption “7 years ago today…”. What was crazy was not only seeing that it had been 7 years since a clear representation of self-care but also…

Interview on Sassy AF TV: How To Have Intentional Intimacy

Interview on Sassy AF TV!: Intimacy and sex can be a touchy subject for In Demand Women! While we want to have fun, play and be sassy and sexy, sometimes we forget to let our hair down and enjoy the moments. Our special guest this week, Dr. Chelsea Page, is a sex & relationship expert who helps women break free being everything to everyone. We talk about how to release expectations around desire, orgasm and how to have more fun with intimacy (solo or with a partner!)…

Claim Your Intentional Word for the Year

Here you are, you have already made steps into the new year and the new decade! What is wonderful about this time of year is it’s an opportunity to not only reflect on what has been but to also set intentions for what is to come. When setting intentions for the New Year many create resolutions. Others set goals. A word, however, has the power to be…

Your End of Year Reflection

Can you believe that not only the year is coming to a close but also this decade?! As this year is coming to a close, let's make sure to not jump and skip (and maybe the desire is to run for you) over into 2020. For many with the new year coming it can be easy to think “holy cow I’m so glad the year is over!” and then to be focused on the goals for the next year. Instead, it’s important to take a pause and reflect on the last year in gratitude. Let’s slow down and

Top Blog Posts of 2019 (and the Value of Consistency)

This time last year I sat in a cabin in the mountains of Seattle with my family, snow outside, feet in fluffy socks and coffee in my hand while I reflected on my past year. I was reflecting on the concept of consistency after listening to a podcast and how it is key to all areas of life. It’s also a key value of Intentional Intimacy, but when I looked at myself and my business I realized that I was not being consistent. I thought: “How can I encourage my followers to show up consistently in their relationship when here I am not showing up consistently in my relationship with them?”.

Part 3: The Intentional Woman's Relationship

As an Intentional Woman, you have learned the tools you need to up-level your relationship and you have focused on how to build a a Healthy Relationship Bridge. You know that you are responsible for building your side of the bridge and your partner is responsible for his. But what about that connection piece of the bridge, who’s responsible for that? Let’s zero in on that part of the bridge that connects you and your partner and the energy input…

Part 2: Building a Strong Relationship Bridge

In Part One of this series, we talked about up-leveling your relationship by having the right tools, using them consistently and up-leveling yourself. This helps to strengthen and grow that Relationship Bridge where connection, love, and intimacy live. To have this you want to build your Relationship Bridge in a way that is strong and in the right shape so that it is sustainable. To understand the right formation for a strong relationship, we are going to dive into the alphabet…

Part 1: How to Up Level Your Relationship

Everyone in relationships right at this moment is experiencing a different stage of relationship success. Success meaning happiness that is not defined by any external source (cough*cough - tv, movies and crap on the internet - cough*cough) but instead by what is co-wanted and co-created by your heart and your partner’s heart. The creation of your relationship is an internal process, not an external process so be careful about defining things by external measurements…

Setting Helpful Boundaries During the Holidays

The holidays are supposed to be a time for happiness, cheer and wonderful family experiences, right? For some, this isn’t always the case. The effort to keep spirits high as the snow falls or the idea of spending time with a Grandmother that constantly criticizes you might instead feel more like a Halloween horror. To help make sure the holidays remain fun, it’s important to…

How to Create Confidence in the Bedroom

Confidence is something that many seek help on, especially when it comes to sexual intimacy. If this is you then you may want to feel that when you enter the bedroom that you can feel totally good about your inner Miss Desire. But if you are like many women, you may not feel confident entering the bedroom. You may feel hesitant, worried, or have no idea what to do let alone feel confident about this part of you. Understanding the importance of…

How Much Sex You Should Be Having

The question of “How much sex should we be having” is one that I often get. If you are asking this question you are likely wondering if you and your relationship are at a normal frequency compared to others and thinking “Are we normal” and further “Am I normal?”. I totally get it, we all want to “fit in” and not be an outlier when it comes to anything that we do. We are social creatures and want to fit in and that means feeling normal…

The Joy Codes: How to Live Joyfully

Have you heard of the fabulous Marie Kondo? She was quite the sensation several years ago and continues to this day with her books The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing , and Spark Joy, as well as her Netflix series. She’s all about tidying up your home by clearing out the things that no longer bring joy, and keeping only the things that spark joy in your home. Yes, it is important to have only the things in your home that spark joy but it is also essential that the things you do in your life also operate under the same concept. Meaning that you do the things that …

A Powerful Secret to Positive Change in Your Relationship

Relationships, thank goodness, are flexible. They are adaptable and able to change. I know, I know, you may feel differently at the moment but bare with me. I want to share with you a powerful secret to creating change in your relationship if things aren’t going how you want them to. And it’s pretty simple when you think about it. Simple, but not always easy. That’s were the intentional work and focus come in. I know from first-hand experience, which I’ll get into below with a story about my dog Sherlock and my Husband.

Top Three Book Recommendations from a Sex and Relationship Expert

I am a huge bookworm and if you are too you are in for a treat! In this post, I want to share with you three of my favorite books that I recommend to anyone wanting to understand more about emotional and sexual intimacy. There are so many books out in the world, which can make it hard to know which ones to read. Although there are certainly other great books out there that I suggest, this post has three goodies that I don’t want you to miss out on!

Protect Your Relationship From the Dangers of Intimacy Limbo Land

Hundreds of couples have come to see me to discuss their differences in desire. What plagues these couples, and perhaps you as well, is that these differences, although not a problem if you know how to handle them, is what often drives one partner into Intimacy Limbo Land as a result. It’s a detrimental place that you don’t want to be part of your relationship. In this post, I’ll let you know

How Perfectionism Harms Your Relationship (and What to Do Instead)

If you are like me you have a part of you that strives for things to be perfect, or at least as super-duper close to perfect as you can get, in all areas of life. But when it comes to your relationship you can’t expect perfection (really we can’t expect it anywhere). I know this may be hard to hear for that perfectionist part of you, your inner ‘Miss Perfect’, but you have to have realistic expectations that you or your partner are not going to be doing things 100 percent all the time. Instead, we want to have a…

Create Easy Connection Using the ‘ARE’ Approach

In a past post T is for Transition, we explored four areas where transitions are so important in your life when it comes to you and your relationship. A great transition means you are attending to your mind, body, and soul in a way that lights you up like the sun on the inside. This helps you to move or “transition” into different areas in your life with more energy and openness. Transitions include when

How to Easily Share Emotions Without the Overwhelm

Oh emotions…

They are important and necessary in a relationship but the emotional world is often an area that catches most of us by the toe. If you didn’t have an upbringing where emotions were viewed as good, were shared, and validated then the emotional world can be seen as a bad thing you want to avoid. If this is you then you weren’t shown or told how to effectively share and receive emotions so that leaves many of us lost. Here I want to help put you on the road of Intentional intimacy and provide some clarity and safety around sharing your emotions in a way that feels “doable”- no overwhelm here.

How to Avoid the Relationship Triangle of Blame

In relationships we certainly want everything to go well. Smiles and hugs all around, right?. But it doesn't work that way. Instead, when you are in the dance of relationship with your partner, even when both of you love each other so very much, someone's toes are inevitably going to be stepped on and hurt will unintentionally happen. That’s just the nature of the dance since we are humans and we are going to stumble, fall and step on toes sometimes, even those we love a ton.

12 Common Motivations for Sex (Part 2)

Your motivation for anything that you do in life doesn’t ever come from one sole source. Perhaps there’s a dominant reason, but because you are beautifully diverse there are often several motivations that lead us to do something, like have sex with your partner. In the previous post: 12 Common Motivations for Sex (Part 1) we got to dive into the first six of the 12 common motivations for having sex and here we will continue to explore the remaining six.

12 Common Motivations for Sex (Part 1)

If you think about the motivations for having sex you might think well, you have sex because you want to have sex. Now wouldn’t that be easy? If that were the case I’d be out of a job! That would be like saying we eat food simply because we want to eat food. Instead each time you eat food the motivation may stem from the biological urge of hunger, or your body is craving some iron, or perhaps you want to enjoy something yummy, because you are

Keeping Intimacy Alive if You're Pregnant or Trying to Conceive

As women, we go through many transitions not only from day to day but month to month like when we have our periods, and also on a larger scale through our own personal seasons. Pregnancy is also one of the times of big seasonal changes within your body and it is important to be aware of and honor the transitions or your body. Being aware allows you to understand the impacts on your sexual self. I want to break this transitional time down into the five seasons around pregnancy so that you can be more aware of what’s going on in your body so you can honor yourself and your intimate relationship with your partner.

How to Maintain Physical Intimacy Throughout Your Menstrual Cycle

If you are like me, I had spent years not being in tune with my body. As a recovering people-pleaser and woman on the go, my focus was outward. Knowing and honoring how I felt and how my hormones influenced my mood and energy was never something I even considered as a possibility. But it is vital as a woman to take a look inward including your monthly hormonal cycle to understand the ebbs and flows of your energy. Knowledge of our inner world is essential and luckily I have come a long way in understanding that I need to show up in the world based on the inside out, not the outside in. Join me on the inside and be curious about the ways your monthly cycle influences how you show up in intimacy with your partner and how to navigate the changes.

How to Confidently Guide Your Relationship to Connection

When it comes to your relationship you have a connection and a bond with your partner as a result of your love for each other. This love means you have a huge impact on the other and this impact desire is to be good. But you can also have a negative impact where your relationship heads for an iceberg like the Titanic. Left unattended your relationship heads for that iceberg easily and often. Approaching things with intention will be all the difference between a cycle of disconnection or connection in your relationship. The best way to influence this cycle is to have awareness of what you do, say and feel and how this impacts your partner and visa versa.

Doctor's Orders: Treat Yourself!

You are at the very foundation of your relationship. Yes, you. Without you, there would be no relationship. And because of this, you need to make sure that you are taking care of you! That means making sure that you are treating yourself positivity, with kindness and love and taking care of yourself in a way that honors you at the foundation of your relationship.

Do Something Different For a Love That Lasts

In the honeymoon phase of your relationship when things are new and exciting you don’t have to think about intimacy because everything just flows so easily. You don’t need to focus on doing things differently or with intention because you are in the flow. When you move more into the committed love space and keep approaching your relationship with the going-with-the-flow mentality rather than taking action, things are going to start flowing in the wrong direction unintentionally.