5 Ways to Keep the Fireworks Going
Don’t let the doldrums of married sex get you down. Use these five tips to reignite the passion.
BY WENDY STRGAR

BigStockPhoto If you want to bring back the fireworks, learn how to reconnect during sex. “ The practice of training your eyes on the one you love, extending from five seconds to thirty will teach you the truth of finding eternity in a minute.”

"Sex is always about emotions. Good sex is about free emotions; bad sex is about blocked emotions." ~Deepak Chopra

My 15-year-old daughter told me that a friend was planning to try to get his first kiss when the fireworks went off over a fourth of July celebration. Talk about a romantic beginning. But even more than a romantic beginning is mastering the tools to keep intimacy vibrant long after the fireworks fade away. In light of that, I offer these five foolproof tips to get a spark to ignite and enjoy reliable, continuously improving pleasure with your heart’s desire.

1. Let your nose lead you to desire. The most famous lovers of all time have always known that our most powerful access to sexual desire comes through our sense of smell. Scent is experienced by the olfactory and registered in the limbic part of the brain where memory, emotion and sexuality is waiting to be stirred. Move towards a kiss by paying attention to smell and enhance the experience by using scented products that turn you on. Arousal is a switch in your brain, not your genitals, and smell is the control dial.

2.  Fantasy is your friend. Whether you have private fantasies, enjoy visual candy in books or video together, or love to explore various roles and characters; healthy sexuality lets us abandon our normal reasoning self for brief moments to let the body’s cravings lead the mind. Having the freedom to be your sexual self and delve into the crazy fantasies that live far outside the margins of our daily life takes a visceral sense of safety with yourself and your relationship. The bigger the leap, the greater the risk; but if you take no leap, then don’t expect to see fireworks. Passionate fantastical sex is inseparable from the risk and mystery that creates it. This is why the illicit affair is always so steamy. The sex might not even be that good, but add a dose of the forbidden and suddenly it is full of flame. Whether orgasm is easy or challenging to achieve has a lot to do with your ability to let go and experience the odd and fascinating part of being a sexual human.

3.  Make love with your eyes wide open. Practice eye gazing, even for only five seconds. Look up and see your spouse speaking to you across the counter.  Look up and hold your partner’s gaze when she shares her concerns about the car or the kids. The practice of training your eyes on the one you love, extending from five seconds to thirty will teach you the truth of finding eternity in a minute. It will also prepare you for the simplest yet most extraordinary shift you can make to your physical lovemaking. The vast majority of couples make love in the dark, eyes shut. Slowly, bringing light, cracking your eyes open to witness the person above or below you, while sharing the most entwined poses available to us, will surprise, bewilder and connect you like nothing else. This revolutionary approach to lovemaking is harder than it sounds. Bearing full witness to the person you love in the act of lovemaking requires stepping outside of your own experience in moments when we can be consumed by the power and depth of our own erotic self.  Our sexual fulfillment has many expressions: sexual release appears sometimes painful, sometimes ecstatic, sometimes effortful, sometimes the essence of deep appreciation. We realize gratefully that connection is not about how we look. Having courage to both witness and be seen in the many faces that love generates will keep sparks flying.

“The sex might not even be that good, but add a dose of the forbidden and suddenly it is full of flame.”

4. Breathe together. The communication you share in your relationship is the very breath of your love and also the currency of energy that sustains or depletes the life force between you.  Practice aligning your breathing by listening more to the pauses between the words, to the tone of voice exchanged, to the aspiration of what is trying to be said, rather than just the words alone. Taking this practice into the bedroom by deliberately setting your breath together during intercourse is like adding jet fuel to the heat that penetration generates. Aligned breathing regulates the container of your passion so that both partners share the continuous awareness of each other’s deepest states. This kind of sexual listening opens the simple yet profound transformative force of awakened love to your intimate life. Again, this practice is more challenging than it sounds on the surface. Adding breath consciousness elevates penetrative rhythms into a rain dance and conversation into connection.

5. Penetration and lubrication. I never pull out the lubricant until I can’t stand it anymore, until I can’t wait another minute. Accepting anyone into you as deeply as intercourse provides for is a sacred and life-changing moment. Lubrication eases the entry and creates a dynamic smooth gliding of tissue against tissue. Healthy lubricant ingredients not only soothe and heal during their use, but also build the elasticity and integrity of the tissue over time. There is nothing more explosive and deeply satisfying than sharing the fireworks of deep intimacy and connection of our most private selves.

Wendy Strgar, founder and CEO 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, intimacy and family. In her new book, "Love that Works: A Guide to Enduring Intimacy," she tackles the challenging issues of sustaining relationships and healthy intimacy with an authentic and disarming style and simple yet innovative advice. It has been called "the essential guide for relationships." The book is available on ebook. Wendy has been married for over 30 years to her husband, a psychiatrist. They have four children and live in the beautiful Pacific Northwest.

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