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If you're reading this, you probably already know there's more available to you. More depth in your intimacy, more presence in your pleasure, more of that connected and alive feeling where sex stops being something you do and becomes something you're inside of. What I've come to understand, in my own body and alongside the people I sit with, is that the way into that depth isn't through better technique or more effort, it's through the body itself, through learning to feel wh

Before you read on, take a moment to notice your body. Where is your breath moving easily, and where does it seem to stop? Is anything held in your jaw, your shoulders, your belly? You don't need to change a thing. Just let yourself arrive here, in the place where all of this actually happens. Every feeling begins as sensation. Before anger has a story, it's heat rising through the chest and a jaw that wants to set. Before grief has words, it's a pressure behind the eyes and

On repeating cycles, giving grace, and letting the healthy adult lead There's a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from finding yourself back in the same place over and over again. The same ache, the somehow same kind of relationship, the same moment where you notice yourself bending a little further than you meant to, and the same quiet voice afterwards asking, why do I keep doing this? again? If you know that voice, I want to begin by saying something gently. Don't be

It's taken me a while to write this. I recently ended a relationship because one of my non-negotiables was crossed. It was a hard choice to make, really hard. There was love there, real tenderness, and part of me wanted to find a way through. But I knew it wasn't something I could see us coming back from, and I knew my body no longer felt safe with him. I want to write about this, not to tell his story, but because I think non-negotiables are some of the most important and le

Heartbreak asks a lot of the body and the heart. It reaches into our sleep, our appetite, our sense of who we are, and the way we move through an ordinary day. These aren't fixes, and they don't make the grief go away, but they're the small, steady ways I'm caring for myself while I move through it. 1. Keeping no contact. We didn't go straight into no contact, and the dance in and out hurt more than the ending itself. Now we're holding the line, as a boundary of care. Each ti

In my recent breakup, we didn't go straight into no contact, and it was rough. We danced in and out, a message here, a conversation there, some light hang outs, each one opening the wound a little further just as it was starting to close. I was so heartbroken, my feelings and sensitivities so high, and every bit of contact sent my whole system back to the hurt. We're in no contact now, moving towards our separation, and even though I deeply miss them, I'm grateful this is wha

I've been moving through a breakup, and if I'm honest, my body has been more of a teacher than my mind. My mind understood the ending fairly early, but my body is taking its own time. It keeps reaching toward what it knew, wanting the voice, the touch, the familiar relief of contact, wanting a quick fix for a pain that doesn't really have one. So I've had to slow down and notice. To feel the pull to reach and the equally strong need to pull back, not away from love, but towar

How do you play? I mean that as a real question, not a rhetorical one. So many of us have lost our access to play somewhere along the way to adulthood. It got buried under responsibility, under seriousness, under the quiet belief that being an adult, or being in a serious relationship, means being composed. Boring. But play, play my darling, is not the opposite of intimacy. It might actually be one of its deepest forms. Think about the last time you were truly silly with your

Have you ever found yourself getting really irritated by someone's behaviour, almost like it hits a nerve you did not even know you had? Maybe it is that one person at work who always seems too confident, or a friend who is overly emotional, or even someone you barely know who just rubs you the wrong way. It is easy to write it off as a personality clash, a difference in how we relate. But what if there is something more going on. Carl Jung put it simply. Everything that irri

I wonder if your familiar with this experience... The scroll that gives you a break from your reality. The glass of wine that isn't really about the wine. The shopping cart that always fills, or the delivers that arrive and you can't remember ordering. The cigarette you didn't even want but your hand somehow ended up with. The way your fingers through your phone without awareness to social media. The snacking that stops when the box is finished. We've been taught to see these

There's a thought that keeps so many relationships holding their shape long after the shape has stopped being true. The thought goes something like this: if I stop reaching, if I stop bridging the gap, if I stop being the one who softens and adjusts and holds the whole thing together, it will all fall apart. So you keep reaching. You play the role your partner needs someone to play. You become the regulated one, the flexible one, the one who understands, the one who doesn't a

Before any of us had language for want or need, we had a body. And that body was already learning, long before we could name it, what was safe to reach for and what wasn't. So many of us grew up in homes where children were meant to be seen and not heard, where a want voiced too plainly got called greedy, or too much, and a need voiced too plainly got met with irritation, or silence, or something worse. As children we took what was offered, what was allowed, because that was

There's a myth we've been sold about safety, and most of us have been quietly organising our whole relational lives around it. The myth goes something like this, out there somewhere is a person who will finally make us feel safe. Once we find them, once we do the work, once we get the relationship right, the risk will stop. The world will soften. We'll finally be able to exhale. I want to gently take that myth apart, because I think it's costing people something. Not the desi

Honesty is the floor, not the ceiling. Most people think honesty is the whole job. Don't lie. Don't cheat. Answer the question when you're asked. Tick the box, call it integrity, call the relationship "honest." It's not nothing. But it's the floor, not the ceiling. Here's my take on the differences and why I see them valuable, to understand the difference. Honesty Honesty is reactive. It's what happens when something is asked of you and you tell the truth instead of a lie. It

I want to say something that might land a little uncomfortably for some of you, and that's okay. It comes from a place of real care for your relationships, not from anywhere clinical or cold. Yes, you should be able to share vulnerability with your partner. That's part of what intimacy is for. But I don't believe your partner should be the only person you bring your vulnerability to. Having friends, a therapist, a wider support community, places where you can express and conn

Something I learned from my own therapist a while ago has stayed with me ever since. When you're in the middle of something big, let it be yours for a while. Let it feel. Let it land in your body, before you bring it to anyone else. A big experience, a big revelation, a big realisation, these moments are precious, and more fragile than we usually realise. The instinct, when something big lands, is to reach for someone straight away, to make sense of it through another person'

Someone asked me recently what kind of clients I see, and what the most common thing is that shows up in my couples work. I've been sitting with the answer since. Most couples come in talking about communication. They want better words, better timing, a better way to land what they're trying to say. And there's nothing wrong with wanting that. But communication was never really the problem. It's the surface of something that runs much deeper, and if we only work at that surfa

What fourteen years of open relating has actually taught me, written from inside the experience. I am writing this tonight while my nesting partner is at a sexuality festival with no phone reception. No contact. No quick reassuring text. Just trusting, and being with me. I want to be honest with you: I had a little tear last night. I long for his cuddles. I bought myself a bunch of self-care things, made some art, called a friend, caught up on things around the house, rested.

The relationship you have with yourself is the foundational one. Every other relationship in your life, the way you love, the way you receive love, the way you show up, the way you leave, is shaped from here. Not partially, fundamentally. This isn't a self help idea. It's a relational truth. When you know yourself, really know yourself, you bring something different into connection with others. You stop looking for someone else to tell you who you are. You stop outsourcing yo

I forgave you. I want to be clear about what that means, and what it doesn't. Forgiveness was never about you. It wasn't a gift I was offering, or a door I was opening, or a signal that what happened was okay. It was something I did quietly, in my own body, for my own life. A release. A putting down of something heavy that was never mine to carry in the first place. I'm not bitter and I'm not holding a grudge. I genuinely wish you well. But I have also seen you clearly. You s