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February 5, 2021 By Pallavi Barnwal Leave a Comment

Mindful Sex Practices

The fast-paced life has left most of us exhausted, stressed, and disconnected, and most of us attempt sex under these unfriendly conditions. Immediately after sex, most couples rush for their smartphones and sex timing is cut short to quick foreplay and ejaculation. It is difficult for our monkey minds to stay present and shut off all outside distractions. Such sex is unlikely to generate any intimacy, connection, and stronger orgasms. I have been through this nightmarish journey most of my life until I experienced a glimpse of divine lovemaking with a man. The synchronicity of our orgasms, the chants I sang as he thrust inside me, and the power I gained in my being as I rode on him with full confidence; all came from a deep work from within on my self and the man, that involved a blend of meditation, bodywork, and liberating conversations. Yes, this will take time but bedazzled by this experience, I am motivated to share some simple mindful sex practices that can begin the transformation of your intimate life with your partner. Run through the list, practice, and let me know your experience!

Mindful Sex Practices

Embodied Movement: Most of us are so disconnected from our bodies; wearing tight clothes, spending most of our time sitting and unhealthy eating habits, all take us away from our bodies. It is important to drop in our own bodies and feel each cell, each pore of your being before you start to receive pleasure. This embodied movement brings you back to your home, your body. Start by standing tall, feet rooted, and taking a deep breath. Turn on music that matches your current mood and dance it out, feeling the motion move through your body. Then shift to music that matches how you want to feel and repeat.
Relationship Agreements: There is a lot of unresolved, unspoken angst and resentment between couples which they bring out at the most unrelated occasions. Sometimes a seed of thought stokes an entire mental film where the person goes into unfounded imagination, a chain of destructive thoughts. All of this negatively impacts harmony in your relationship and eventually, sex takes a backseat. In order to avoid this, strive to form small relationship agreements that are doable, and can be discussed without hurting the ego of the other person. Choose 1-2 things you want to work on and set up a rule. Some examples: whenever one of you will talk about your inner feelings, the other person will not judge and will be compassionate; when you wake up in the early morning, give each other a nice hug; no phones at the dinner table (or in the bedroom), consciously give each other personal space. Express Gratitude. Sit, stand, or lie facing each other and holding hands or embracing. Take turns saying “I’m grateful for…” Continue until you both feel everything has been said.
Eye Gazing: Keep eye contact with your partner during sex. You can be touching each other or in any sex position. Giggles and laughter are totally welcome. Try this daily for deeper connection and to shift out of your head and into the present moment.
Connection with Heart Chakra: First, breathe into the center of your chest – your heart. If you are struggling to stay present, imagine breath and light going into your heart. These are shallower breaths so be mindful of doing this. Then connect your breasts with their chest – give their heart some physical love by massaging, cupping, pulling, and generally loving on their breasts.
Sensate Focus: Use your monkey mind to notice all the sensual things happening. What are 5 things you see? Taste? Feel? Hear? Smell? Can you notice where exactly the hand of your partner is on your body as they are exploring you? What kind of sensation do you feel? This practice enhances our sensory experience and we are able to feel fully all the pleasure that is received by our body.
Tantra Breath: Take a deep inhale and exhale with sound ‘ha’. Sounds create internal vibrations in our body and take the energy up from lower chakras to higher chakras. Something you can practice with a partner and take into sex. The sound should be deep but not high-pitched. As you get closer to orgasm, deepen your breath and breathe into your genitals. Any sounds you’re making will take you deeper into the higher realms of lovemaking experience.
Chant As You Reach Orgasms: You can pick any mantra, (my favorite is om, omkar). Sex is this profound oneness, the union of masculine with the feminine, the arc of energy that travels from the masculine, emissive pole to the female, receiving pole. Through our chanting, we merge our personal consciousness momentarily with the infinite consciousness that is our origin and our destiny. It is the drop of water finding its way back into the ocean from which it came. Chanting raises your physical lovemaking experience to spiritual dimensions.

I have tried all of this and surely, this has transcended our physical pleasure to a spiritual, universal dimension. We feel as if the entire universe is in love with us and so do we. It is a divine experience, a symbol of indissoluble unity of pleasure and emptiness.

We hope this article on Mindful Sex Practices helps you! Do leave your thoughts in the comments below. For more articles by our Sexual Wellness Expert Pallavi Barnwal, check out Healthy Reads or tune in to her LIVE sessions on GOQii Play. You can also connect with her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pallavibarnwalcoach

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Disclaimer: Reader discretion is advised. This content is for an older, mature audience who seek to improve their health and wellness. GOQii is not responsible for any misrepresentation of this information.

January 22, 2021 By Pallavi Barnwal Leave a Comment

Is Your Relationship Abusive?

Shweta Mishra, aged 21, met her ex-boyfriend at a friend’s party. They soon became close and started seeing each other. The guy had recently gotten out of one relationship and used to get very abusive at times. He would get drunk and talk about his ex-girlfriend which badly affected her self-esteem, to the point where she started considering herself ugly. He would also call her names and say that she was with him only because she wanted money. She started doubting her own attractiveness and self-worth slowly. His abusive behaviour did not end there. He would get jealous if she talked to any other guy and even forbid her to talk to the attractive ones.

He would try to touch her inappropriately when he was drunk which she detested. One day, it got much worse than the other days. He was badly drunk and started touching her inappropriately. She had started hating the smell of alcohol to the point that it made her nauseous. She said a repeated no but he went on groping her. That night she had the worst breakdown ever. The worst part was that he blamed her for being frigid and difficult the next day and told her that now she would make him the bad guy.

Shweta started having a series of breakdowns where she would hate herself. She started scratching herself as she felt ‘dirty’ and ‘ugly’. She would feel his face on her body and want to cut herself. Finally, she decided to walk out of the relationship to preserve herself. But even after months, she still has trust-issues in relationships. She had several episodes of breakdowns even after that when she hurt herself to ease the pain.

Does the above scenario sound familiar? Have you been mistaking an abusive relationship for ‘love’? If so, read on.

Love in young age is full of hormones, tumultuous changes, confusion and chaos. Adolescents and young adults often find themselves lost when it comes to finding out information on safe sex practices or healthy relationships. Popular media promotes eve-teasing, stalking, possessiveness and ownership behaviour as ‘love’. With increasing peer pressure to have a girlfriend or a boyfriend, a young mind which is already grappling with questions of self-worth is seduced with the idea of having someone as a partner. Most victims choose to continue being in abusive relationships just to avoid the shame of ‘breaking-up’. The communication gap between parents and children while growing up makes the situation even more difficult.

So how do you recognise these signs of abuse?

Emotional abuse or psychological abuse is categorized by a pattern of behaviour that leaves another person feeling isolated, degraded or worthless. It is a way for the abuser to maintain power and control in the relationship. Psychological pain can be just as bruising as a slap or punch, even if it leaves no physical mark. Let us talk about these in detail.

Intimidation: can be subtle and includes veiled or indirect threats. The partner could be watching each movement, checking on your whereabouts, checking your phone or springing up on you unexpectedly. This can have a damaging effect on a person’s overall sense of safety and lead to anxiety.
Explicit Threats: Sometimes, intimidation is not so subtle. We all know the infamous acid attacks on the victims who had the courage to say no to their spurned lovers. There are far too many instances of the partner threatening the girl with self-harm or suicide in case she leaves him.
Slut Shaming: This is another form of abuse which could leave the abused trapped, unwanted and ashamed. ‘If you don’t go out with me, I will tell everyone what we did in bed.’ Worse, the abuser could get explicit photos or videos of the abused and blackmail the partner into doing things they might not be ready for.
Name Calling: Abuser might call the partner ugly, fat, dark, stupid or similar such which eventually leads them to believe that it is true. The sense of self in teenage years is still fragile and such behaviour might lead to withdrawal and depression.
The Silent Treatment: Sometimes the abuser might use non-communication as a form of punishment to coerce the other partner. They might completely ignore the partner till they give in to their wishes. There are abusers who refuse to acknowledge the presence of their partners in public and are responsive when alone.
Constant Criticism: ‘You can’t wear that!’ or ‘You cannot hang out with those friends’ or ‘You cannot go there’ is something which abusers use to erode the self-esteem of the other person. This may make one feel unacceptable and feel bad about themselves.
Sexual Abuse: Any sexual contact or activity with an intimate partner that makes a person feel uncomfortable, with the purpose of controlling through fear, threats, coercion, manipulation or violence. This may be with or without the presence of physical violence at the time of the act or within the relationship. These happen mostly as there is lack of parental consent and the victims do not want to talk about it due to fear, guilt and shame. The victims could be both men and women, young adults who are in same-sex relationship, all ages – tween and upwards. Most such victims who were forced to have sex are less likely to use condoms. The perpetrator is frequently an intimate partner. Date rapes, forced oral sex, unwanted touching – all constitute part of sexual abuse.

If you have faced any of the above, it might be time to walk out of the relationship. This is not always easy but try talking to someone you trust – a friend, sibling or trustworthy adult. And always remember – IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT.

We hope this article helps you! Do leave your thoughts in the comments below. For more articles by our Sexual Wellness Expert Pallavi Barnwal, check out Healthy Reads or tune in to her LIVE sessions on GOQii Play. You can also connect with her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pallavibarnwalcoach

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January 8, 2021 By Pallavi Barnwal 2 Comments

The Single-Most Effective Sex Tip I Have Ever Given

Do you know the single-most effective sex tip that I’ve ever given?

Touch More!

Most of us consider touch to be a part of foreplay that leads to sex, but I am talking about touch just for the sake of touching. Yes, this kind of touch has the power to transform your sex life like never before.

You might think of touch as simply a skin to skin touch but it goes much beyond that. Touch is a central way that we share emotions with others. As a child, we felt safe in the nurturing, protective arms of our parents. As infants and little kids, we were held in a soft embrace or we will sit on the lap of our mother to receive that joy of nurturing. But as we grow up, the very same nurturing touch becomes sexualized.

But even as grown-up adults, we need this kind of nurturing yet non-sexual touch. It is where we go wrong in our intimate relationships, in our long term sex lives by linking touch only to sex. Intimate love relationships often fail because of the lack of this kind of touch. And to restart your sex life, you need to bring back this ‘touch’.

There are so many different kinds of touch: hugs, caresses, massages, cuddles, embraces, tickles, strokes and so on. And so many different places you could touch: hair, hands, feet, toes, fingers, belly, neck, backs, faces, shoulders, arms, legs, and more (remember to avoid touching the breasts or genitals because the purpose of this touch is not to be sexual but to enjoy the pleasurable feelings). And there are so many different messages you can convey with your touch: love, relaxation, seduction, sympathy, playfulness, desire, and so on.

Here’s why a touch is an effective sex tip that can help you put your sex life back in action after a long pause:

Reason #1 – Touch is exciting!

First things first, the touch itself can feel amazing! Do you remember that first kiss you had? Do you remember the thrill of that skin-to-skin contact? Just a simple touch could light you on fire. Even when that initial thrill wears off, many touch techniques can feel even sexier and more pleasurable than sex techniques. There are so many ways to experiment with touch in the bedroom. You could spend an entire month spicing things up without even having sex!

Reason #2 – Touch is less intimidating

You’ve might be knowing about countless books and sessions on “try new things in the bedroom”. But like most people, you never follow through on that advice because it feels intimidating! Sex feels like a chore, a task when the emotional connection wears off and life hits monotony. In this situation, it’s vulnerable and deeply uncomfortable to put yourself out there and do anything new in the bedroom. But trying new techniques for touch can feel a lot less intimidating than trying new techniques for sex. Touch is an easy thing to be good at. You feel less pressure and less perfectionism when experimenting with simple yet rich and profound touch.

Reason #3 – Touch increases your desire

If you want to try new things in the bedroom, you both have to feel the desire to be intimate in the first place! Some people have Responsive sex drives, which means they don’t feel the mental desire to have sex until they get physically aroused. If you ask a person with a Responsive sex drive type, “do you want to have sex?”, they will mostly say “no”, because for them their mental desire does not precede their physical desire. But if you start cuddling, touching, and kissing, their desire will naturally emerge, and they’ll want to keep going. Touch opens up the door to sexual possibilities.

If you want to bring more touch into your relationship, here’s one easy way to do it: for the next week, try to dedicate 10 minutes a day to spend together privately, in your bedroom, just holding each other, touching, and kissing. Don’t think of this time as “foreplay”. The idea is to enjoy physical contact simply for the sake of physical contact without any added pressure of going into intercourse.

This sex tip may sound simple, but the truth is that most relationships are so touch-starved that just this one exercise has the power to make a big impact on your sex life.

We hope this sex tip helps you improve your sex life. For more on sexual wellness, check out Healthy Reads or tune in to LIVE sessions by our sexual wellness expert Pallavi Barnwal on GOQii Play. You can also connect with her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pallavibarnwalcoach

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December 11, 2020 By Pallavi Barnwal Leave a Comment

Understanding Your Partner’s Low Sex Drive

As a woman indoctrinated in the Indian culture, for a long time I believed that a woman should not initiate sex. It’s a man’s job. I believed that women should be pursued both inside and outside the bedroom. Women in my home observed purdah in front of their men and were always fully clothed. I ended up carrying this belief right since my childhood, through my adulthood even after studying from an illustrious college and working for several years thereafter. In my relationships, I would wait for the man to initiate, to undress, and to penetrate. Once in college, my boyfriend asked me to ride him and I was terrified. How can I be in power?

Though my sex personality is submissive, by choice and also my general easy-going nature, I like to initiate things and let him take over. Alfred Kinsey, a pioneer in the area of human sexuality rightly said that “the only universal in human sexuality is variability.” Each one of us is more different than alike when it comes to our sexual preferences and tastes. Even Vatsayana, the ancient Indian philosopher who wrote Kamasutra classified men and women basis the shape of their genitals.

Men with a small penis are known as a “Hare” (rabbit) then an average penis sized man would be called a “bull” and a plus-sized man a “horse”. Women with a smaller vagina or “Yoni” will be known as a “deer”, the average would be a “mare” and with a large vagina the “elephant”.

Let us talk about the difference in Libidos

When you hear the words “sex drive,” “libido,” or “desire,” you probably just think of one thing – being in the mood for sex. But it is much more complex. There are actually two completely different sex drive types:

Spontaneous Sex Drive – You have a spontaneous sex drive if:

You feel the desire for sex at seemingly random times across the day.
You might be busy at work and the idea of having a night of extraordinary passion flashes out of the blue.
You are the one who initiates sex most times in your relationship.
You tend to want sex more frequently than your partner.
You can feel turned on in a lot of different situations.

Responsive Sex Drive – You have a responsive sex drive if:

You rarely think about sex.
Sex doesn’t sound appealing until you’re in the middle of it.
At the end of sex, you think, “That was fun. Why don’t I want that more often?”
You rarely initiate sex with your partner
You tend to want sex less frequently than your partner.
The situation needs to be “just right” in order for you to feel turned on.

In general, men tend to have the spontaneous desire, while women tend to have responsive desire. Let us understand the sexual turn-on process, it has got two elements:

Mental Arousal – When you get the thought of wanting sex or feeling that having sex is good
Physical Arousal – When your body readies for sex. Women get wet, men get erect. For both men and women, their nipples get erect, heart rate increases, breath deepens, and so on.

The difference between spontaneous and responsive sex drive is:

Spontaneous Sexual Desire/ Libido – Mental desire comes first; physical arousal later
Responsive Sexual Desire/ Libido – Physical arousal comes first; mental desire later

Spontaneous Libido is when your mental desire comes first. You’re just going about your routine day when you realize that you’re in the mood. You go and initiate sex with your partner, and then get physically aroused once you get going. Responsive Libido is the exact opposite. You don’t feel mentally interested in sex until you’re already physically aroused. You might be watching an erotic scene in a movie, and start thinking, “hmmm, that sounds good.” Or you might be kissing your partner, and start to feel interested in taking it a step further.

Why Does It Matter?

Most people think that desire is supposed to be spontaneous because that’s how we see it in the movies. A couple will both spontaneously feel the sexual desire at the exact same moment. They also happen to have the time, mental space, and privacy to have sex at that exact same moment.

If you don’t know that Responsive sex drive exists, both partners in a relationship can be frustrated or sad that the Responsive partner never feels spontaneously turned on. You may end up thinking the Responsive partner never wants sex. But that’s just not true! The Responsive partner does want sex. They just need to feel physically aroused first, and then their mental desire will follow.

How To Bridge This Gap?

If You’re The Spontaneous Partner: You should be willing to take the time and the effort to get your responsive partner physically aroused. You can engage in light foreplay (kissing, cuddling, tickling, massaging, hair stroking) to get them interested in sex since for them physical arousal precedes their mental interest in sex.

If You’re The Responsive Partner: You should be open to being physical before you feel mentally interested in sex (since you now know you’ll not feel mental interest before being physical)

Both of You: Have to respect that you have different types of desire, and be willing to work as a team to create the sex life you both want.

We hope this article helps you. For more on sexual wellness, check out Healthy Reads or tune in to LIVE sessions by our sexual wellness expert Pallavi Barnwal on GOQii Play. You can also connect with her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pallavibarnwalcoach

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