Our loving relationships are the most gentle and effective education we engage in to become the person we want to be.  Rather than focusing on finding the right partner, commitment works best when we approach relationships as a method of personal growth.

This is an excellent series that anyone who is partnered or who aspires to be in a long term relationship.  It offers a thorough explanation of the hard but rewarding work of what it means to love.  In addition to teaching through stories and anecdotes, Wendy also provides meaningful meditative practices to tap into your own capacity to give and receive love, to listen more deeply to yourself and others and to open up to experiencing all the pleasure that your body can hold.  Wherever you are in the cycle of your relationships, Wendy’s insight and wisdom will help you sustain and nurture your capacity to love and the loving relationships in your life.

Access the tools necessary to develop the skills of communicating, showing up and thinking more positively. Open up your life to the real possibility of receiving the love you want.

Relationship Boot Camp Module 1

Relationship Boot Camp Module 2

Relationship Boot Camp Module 3

Relationship Boot Camp Module 4

There might be no more perplexing part of life than Making Sense of People.  Listen as author and well known Psychiatrist, Dr. Samuel Barondes explores the mystery of the developing brain and the ways that our behavior is built into us.  His four step method for deciphering the complex and sometimes challenging behaviors of those that we both love and love to hate.  Gaining a deeper understanding of how your own behavior is a result of both heredity and your developing environment.  Don’t miss this conversation sure to inspire a deeper look at the relationships in your life that make you who you are.

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Ever wonder about the increasing popularity of body piercings,  don’t miss this informative and surprising view of the art and science of body art by Elayne Angel who wrote the definitive guide The Piercing Bible.  With over 40,000 piercings in every imaginable place,  Elayne shares her unique perspective of how body art ritualizes important life passages as well as how it has been practiced throughout the world since recorded time.  Her’s was the first piercing shop in the country and she remains the leading voice for improving it’s education and safety.  I promise you will not look at piercing the same…

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Anything you think you have understood about sexuality deserves to hear this remarkable conversation with Christopher Ryan, PhD., co-author of Sex at Dawn with his wife Cacilda Jetha, MD.  Without question two of the most educated and well researched thinkers explore the origin and evolutionary nature of human sexuality with a convincing array of interdisciplinary scientific evidence from anthropology, archeology, primatology and a bevy of cross cultural psycho sexual studies which took them 10 years to collect.   Gracefully and with compassion they end up debunking almost every belief about human nature and our intimate relationships that most of us hold dear.  I guarantee that you will think twice on what it means to love sexually and at least wonder how to expand the nature of loving relationships in your own life.   Genius,insight, provocative, funny and enlightening.

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“A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.” Ingrid Bergman

I love to kiss. When I think back to living in France in my 20s, the most memorable part of my time there was all the kissing that occurred. I got to kiss everyone: strangers, friends and of course, lovers. Participating in that social ritual that demanded that one come in close was what I missed most when I left. I had no idea that there was a science and study of kissing when I started this article and I must admit that I feel a bit miffed that we can consecrate a science to kissing, philematology, and people still balk at the idea of loveology. Still, the more I learn about kissing, the more legitimate the science becomes. Kissing is the building block of intimacy. Done with intention and passion, the kiss is the most profound of all our communication devices and the pathway to sustaining loving relationships.

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“Sex lies at the root of life, and we can never learn to reverence life until we know how to understand sex.” Henry Ellis

Appreciating the joys of living in a body of flesh and blood literally begins with the euphoric recognition of what it is to be a sexual being. From the tiniest of sensations on the skin to the perfectly placed nerve endings in our most erogenous zones, we are bodies molecularly designed to experience profound pleasure, deep connection and the ability to procreate all within the same remarkable, mysterious, life changing act. This month we invite you to explore with us the wonders of what we love about sex.

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“An inordinate passion for pleasure is the secret of remaining young.” -Oscar Wilde

One of my best memories of the recent sex therapy conference that I recently attended was when I met the 84 year old grandmother of one of the PhD students attending the conference. Actually, she was accompanied by both her mom and sister too and the whole family was being interviewed about the “hottest thing” they saw in Phoenix at this AASEC T conference. The grandmother said in her slow and steady Midwestern accent, that “she must be the hottest thing there, as she has been loving sex for most of her 84 years.” When I asked her if her if she thought her sex life kept her young, she responded, “Well, maybe when I am having it.”

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“Man is a knot into which relationships are tied.” ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Life is made of moments of unraveling. There are good reasons everyday that things come undone, but perhaps none so painful as the un-doing of our most intimate relationships. It is easy to understand how living with the difficult emotions of disappointment, embarrassment and the irritation and resentment associated with loving people up close, can bring out the least attractive parts of ourselves. And how in turn this most difficult emotional space can impact our ability to stay loving and present in the relationships we have chosen.

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“We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love – first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.” Albert Camus

Most people who have affairs will say that they don’t know how it happened. Extramarital affairs are rarely consciously planned; they happen as life often does, with one thing leading to another. Evolutionary psychologists, in attempts to understand human behavior as prevalent as infidelity, have found some interesting patterns that suggest that our biology might again be the leader in our life choices.

The percentage of people impacted by infidelity is between 30-60% of all married couples, depending on the study cited. More interesting than the differing rates of occurrence for men and women are the different patterns of infidelity for each gender.

Cheating men are more likely than cheating women to have an affair with someone younger than their spouse. On the other hand, cheating women are more likely than cheating men to have an affair with someone better educated than their current spouse.

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If ever an expression defined human behavior, it is the notion that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. Ovid, an ancient Roman philosopher and poet was perhaps the first when he said that “the harvest is always more fruitful in another man’s fields.” This sense that life is better for others has perhaps its strongest and most debilitating hold on us as it affects our relationships. Infidelity, the most cutting breach of trust that we experience in our intimate relationships is rampant. It is so common that not having some form of the experience is uncommon. While the stories of infidelity are as unique as the millions of people who engage in them – our shared human biology, emotional needs and the thinking errors that allow them – are universal.

http://www.goodcleanlove.com/cms/index.php/newsletters/earth/262-the-grass-is-greener

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