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archetypal books, archetypes and love

Archetypes and You – Magician and Lover

What are Magician and Lover archetypes?

So now we move on to the archetypes of the lover and the magician. These are archetypes which enable us to relate to other people and to protect ourselves from danger.

To be more exact, the lover archetype is all about relationship. Work here, in the form of shadow work, is about the healing of emotional wounds suffered in early childhood, which prevent us from forming relationships in a wholesome and mature way in adulthood.

Think about it this way: suppose for a moment that as a child you didn’t receive the attention that you needed to satisfy your need for attachment. Perhaps your mother was wounded in some way emotionally or spiritually. Perhaps your parents were busy, preoccupied, earning money and trying to keep the household going, or perhaps hey were just simply inadequate parents because they themselves had been parented inadequately in turn. But whatever the reason, you did not get enough attention as a child, and therefore later in life you find yourself with a weak lover archetype.

THE MEANING OF A WEAK INNER LOVER

Just what does this mean? Well, it basically means a lover archetype inside you that isn’t fundamentally equipped to cope with the difficulties and tribulations of attachment, of connection, of love. You see, the simplest explanation of the lover archetype is that it holds your capacity to love anything, whether that’s self, others, the world around you, the creation of the world, whatever.

So if you are deficient in lover archetypal energy, you’re more likely to find difficulty forming wholesome, long lasting, sound, satisfying relationships. Indeed, you may even be avoidant, which means that you find loving relationships threatening and avoid them; or you may be anxious in a relationship. You see, the archetype of the lover is the primal archetype of all us. It forms at a very early age, probably even before birth, and manifests soon after birth, where the bonding of mother and baby is so fundamental to the development of our humanity.

When baby and mother look at each other with a loving gaze, the baby is reassured that he or she is lovable, wanted and a precious being. But if the baby’s handled roughly, or lives without much attention or love, then s/he’ll form a different opinion of himself: that s/he isn’t worthy of love or that s/he can’t be loved, and her/his life will be blighted….. most likely by a string of failed relationships, or worse, perhaps no relationships at all.

By now you may have realised that, since this is a website about love and relationships, the lover archetype is absolutely fundamental to your success in achieving a happy and loving relationship in life as an adult. Whether you can have such a relationship depends, at least to start with, on how your experience of loving relationships was during your childhood. If they were good, you probably have little difficulty in forming a relationship; if your relationships in childhood were difficult, you probably find it harder to establish a loving relationship as an adult.

Feeling Body and Lover Archetype

The feeling body (as the lover archetype is sometimes called), is fundamental to our humanity. Indeed, it’s probably the foundation of our humanity, and if you have any difficulties with it, you may well find solace and reassurance in doing some shadow work. You need   a practitioner who’s sensitive enough to cope with the pain of loss, and who is sensitive enough to work with the damaged younger parts of yourself, the ones which have difficulty forming attachments.

I always recommend shadow work to people who have difficulty in forming relationships because it’s a therapy that’s focused fundamentally on the wounded inner child (that is, the combination of all the parts of us that were damaged in childhood in one way or another, or did not get the love that they required).

Shadow work

Shadow work takes you through a process: first, exploring how the archetypes came to be inadequately developed in your psyche; second, working with a therapist or shadow work coach to find a way of healing these deficits. This will involve applying certain techniques and methodologies designed to strengthen and build the inner lover and put you more in touch with your own self. If you want to know more about this, you can go to this website for full information.

The Magician Archetype

The magician archetype is the part of us that’s concerned with thinking and feeling and strategizing. It often manifests in childhood when we are faced with difficulties in our environment which require us to be clever and strategic in coming up with ways to stay safe, or in the worst possible case, to actually survive.

Alice Miller made the observation that even in our modern society, there are millions of children whose experience in childhood is far from adequate, let alone satisfactory. And these children may go through life feeling unwanted, unloved, or have difficulty in forming adult mature relationships. The archetype that comes into play in childhood in such situations is often the magician, which seeks all the ways it can think of to defend the wounded lover archetype inside a child.

Inner Magicians come up with strategies which are extraordinarily creative, but often we pay the price of losing some aspect of ourselves: simply because some aspect of the self has to be hidden to enable the protective strategy to come into force. A child might hide his boisterousness nature or his desire to explore the world, say, to avoid being made to be quiet and “nice”. Or a child might hide his or her need for love in an environment where love was hard to find.

But of course, as you can well imagine, these deficits in childhood, and the strategies that were originally designed to overcome these various difficulties in childhood, can lead to an adult who has a difficult time expressing their full humanity.

And there is the essence of shadow work: to make somebody into the person they were always meant to be before the world got in the way.  If you feel that you like never wholly developed your magician or lover archetype, or for that matter, king or warrior, then please try shadow work. It might make the difference between you enjoying a wholesome and satisfying human relationship or living with  a series of inadequate, short-term, and ultimately unsatisfying relationships.

archetypal books, archetypes and love, shadow work

Archetypes and You – King and Warrior

What are archetypes?

You might have heard of the concept of archetypes. In particular, you might have heard of the concept of king or queen, warrior, magician, and lover. These were the original four archetypes named by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette back in 1990 as a result of Robert Moore’s exploration of Jungian psychology.

But over the years, other people have developed other names for the archetypes so that, for example, the king archetype and queen archetypes may have become known as the sovereign. The magician may have become known as the transformer, or sorcerer, wizard, priestess, and such like, and the lover may have become known as the feeling body.

But all of these names are designed to encapsulate one aspect of the archetypes, which is the qualities that they bring to us and to our lives. However, at this point, you may be wondering what on earth an archetype actually is, and it’s a fair question because it’s an obstruse psychological concept formulated by Carl Jung in the early 20th century.

What do we mean by “archetype”?

Basically, an archetype is a pattern of behaviour, thoughts, and feelings that resides within our genetic structure as a species. The specific way in which the archetypal “program” is expressed that allows us to differentiate between the different expressions of the archetypes in different individuals.

So for example, while your king or warrior might be strong, leading you to be bold and assertive in the world, you may know someone whose king and warrior are weak, so they cannot assert themselves. Or you may, for example, know somebody whose king or queen allows them to be confident and explore the world with self- assurance and self love, while you may know someone else who is less able to put themselves “out into the world”.

All of these variations are natural, but the one thing that we all have in common is that these archetypal patterns are an essential part of us and contribute to our physical, psychological, and social attributes and makeup.

Obviously, it would be very helpful as a human being in the society in which we live if we were able to develop and control these archetypes as we wish! Well, the good news is that you can actually develop the archetypes and you can also control the way in which each of the archetypes is expressed in you, in your individual way of being in the world. Let’s take a look at how we can go about  finding the king within.

This archetype is the part of you that allows you to behave with confidence, holds your self-worth, sets a vision for your life and your future, and allows you to make decisions that serve the whole of your kingdom or queendom, whatever that may be, in a way that’s positive, affirming, wholesome, generative, and supportive. (When we talk about kingdom or queendom, what we basically mean is any area of life for which you are responsible or in which you are the leader.)

And that fact leads us onto the next aspect of the sovereign archetype, which is the quality of heart-centered leadership. A heart-centered leader is always compassionate, looking out for the good of everybody, and his motivations or her motivations will always be based upon the principle of “what in this situation would be best for all concerned?”

Heart-centered leadership is a complicated issue, yet very fundamental to leading a good life  – and having a qualify of life that is satisfying and enjoyable. If you’d like to know more about the qualities of the heart-centered leader, then this book by Rod Boothroyd is the one you must read.

Before we move on to the Lover, let’s briefly think about the Warrior.

The Warrior Archetype

The archetype of the warrior is the part of us that allows us to go out into the world, while confidently asserting ourselves and making an impact in whatever field of enterprise we’re involved with. The point about the warrior archetype is that it’s not associated with warfare per se, although originally in our evolution as human beings, we would have had an impetus to defend our territory and perhaps even to attack other tribes in order to survive.

Regrettably, perhaps, this archetypal energy still exists within us, but today it’s much more aligned with the purpose of asserting ourselves and making an impact on the world so that we can assert ourselves. And so that we can have an impact on the world, we can get what we want, we can make our presence felt, and we can actually achieve what we wish in the world by taking action.

Now, the archetype of the warrior often gets a bad rap because it’s associated with warfare in people’s minds, but the truth of the matter is that for anybody, living in any kind of society, having a powerful warrior is absolutely essential. Without this energy and without this impetus, which allows us to make an impact on the world, we are basically impotent. We have no power, we have no authority. We have no way of asserting ourselves or indeed of setting boundaries.

Yes! Setting boundaries, especially in the world of love and romance, and in all our interpersonal relationships, is another aspect of the warrior, one which is absolutely critical to our well-being. You may well have experienced people invading your boundaries at some point during your life, asserting themselves in your world in a way that was unacceptable to you.

The question at that point is: do you have the power and authority to assert yourself and stop this happening? In many cases, people will find that their warrior isn’t strong enough or doesn’t know how to prevent this kind of psychic or physical invasion of their world. To maintain a healthy position in the world you need to learn how to develop your warrior. If you’d like to know more about this, then this book by Rod Boothroyd shows you some powerful ways of asserting your warrior and gaining traction and authority in the world in which you live.

More about the warrior archetype

Of course, the warrior can over-develop, and in some cases, as you may well know from your own personal experience, it can develop into a loud, aggressive bullying part of us. This is generally due to an inability to channel the warrior in a wholesome and balanced way. For anybody who finds that they have difficulty channelling the warrior in a good way, some kind of therapy or counselling or coaching (in fact the best option is deep process psychotherapy) is a very good idea. This allows you to find out why your warrior was so unable to assert him or herself in the first place; and, better, to correct whatever deficits of development have led to that situation.

archetypal books, archetypes and love, shadow work

Archetypes, Shadow and Projection

Shadow work

This is a form of psychological and personal development practice rooted in Jungian psychology. Here are some potential advantages of engaging in shadow work:

1. Increased self-awareness: Shadow work helps individuals recognize and confront aspects of themselves they may have repressed or denied.

2. Emotional healing: By addressing hidden or suppressed emotions, shadow work can lead to emotional release and healing of past traumas.

3. Improved relationships: Understanding one’s own shadow can lead to better empathy and understanding of others, potentially improving interpersonal relationships.

4. Personal growth: Confronting and integrating shadow aspects can lead to significant personal development and a more authentic sense of self.

5. Reduced projection: As individuals become more aware of their shadow, they may be less likely to project negative traits onto others.

6. Enhanced creativity: Exploring the shadow can unlock creative potential by accessing parts of the psyche that were previously ignored.

7. Greater psychological integration: Shadow work aims to create a more balanced and whole personality by integrating disparate aspects of the self.

8. Increased energy: Repressing aspects of oneself can be mentally and emotionally draining. Integrating these parts may lead to increased vitality.

9. Improved decision-making: A better understanding of one’s motivations and hidden desires can lead to more conscious and aligned choices.

10. Spiritual growth: For some, shadow work can be a path to deeper spiritual understanding and connection.

It’s important to note that shadow work can be challenging and may bring up difficult emotions or memories. It’s often recommended to undertake this type of work with the guidance of a trained therapist or counsellor.

More detail about projection and psychological integration 

Projection is a psychological defence mechanism where individuals attribute their own unacknowledged thoughts, feelings, or traits to others. It’s a way of dealing with uncomfortable aspects of ourselves by seeing them in others instead. For example:

1. Someone who is insecure about their intelligence might frequently accuse others of being stupid.
2. A person who struggles with faithfulness might become overly suspicious of their partner cheating.
3. An individual with repressed anger might perceive others as always being angry or hostile.

Projection often involves the shadow aspects of our personality – those parts we’ve repressed or deny in ourselves. By recognizing our projections, we can gain insight into our own psyche and work towards integrating these disowned parts.

Psychological Integration

Psychological integration refers to the process of bringing together different aspects of the psyche to form a more cohesive, balanced whole. This concept is central to Jungian psychology and many other schools of thought in depth psychology. Key points about psychological integration include:

1. Wholeness: The goal is to create a more complete sense of self by acknowledging and accepting all parts of our personality, including those we might find undesirable.

2. Balancing opposites: Integration often involves reconciling seemingly contradictory aspects of ourselves (e.g., our “light” and “shadow” sides).

3. Conscious and unconscious: It aims to bring unconscious material into consciousness, allowing for greater self-awareness and intentional living.

4. Reduced internal conflict: As different parts of the psyche are acknowledged and integrated, internal psychological conflicts may decrease.

5. Individuation: In Jungian psychology, the process of integration is closely tied to individuation – becoming one’s true, unique self.

6. Improved functioning: Psychological integration can lead to better emotional regulation, decision-making, and overall mental health.

7. Ongoing process: Integration is typically viewed as a lifelong journey rather than a final destination.

The relationship between projection and integration

Recognizing and working with our projections is often a key part of the integration process. As we become aware of what we’re projecting onto others, we can start to reclaim those projected parts of ourselves. This awareness allows us to take responsibility for these aspects, leading to greater self-understanding and the potential for integration.

Jung’s model of archetypes

This is closely intertwined with the concept of shadow work. Here’s an overview of how they relate:

1. The Shadow Archetype

The shadow is itself one of Jung’s primary archetypes. It represents the unconscious aspects of our personality that the conscious ego doesn’t identify with. Shadow work directly addresses this archetype, aiming to bring these hidden aspects into awareness.

2. Persona and Shadow

The persona (our public face) and the shadow often form a complementary pair. What we reject from our persona often becomes part of our shadow. Shadow work involves recognizing this dynamic and integrating aspects we’ve rejected.

3. Anima/Animus

These archetypes represent the feminine aspect in men (anima) and masculine aspect in women (animus). Shadow work often involves confronting and integrating these contrasexual aspects of our psyche.

4. The Self

As the archetype of wholeness and integration, the Self is the ultimate goal of both shadow work and Jung’s individuation process. Shadow work contributes to the realization of the Self by integrating disparate parts of the psyche.

5. Other Archetypes in Shadow

Any archetype (e.g., the Warrior, the Magician, the Lover, the King) can have a shadow aspect. Shadow work might involve recognizing and integrating these darker or repressed versions of archetypal energies.

6. Collective Unconscious

Archetypes reside in the collective unconscious, but our personal shadows are shaped by our individual experiences. Shadow work often involves distinguishing between personal and collective content.

7. Projection of Archetypes

We often project archetypal content onto others. Recognizing these projections is a key aspect of both archetypal psychology and shadow work.

8. Symbolism and Dreams

Both archetypal work and shadow work frequently involve analyzing symbols and dreams, as these are ways the unconscious communicates archetypal and shadow content.

9. Transformation and Rebirth

Many archetypes relate to transformation (e.g., the Hero’s Journey). Shadow work, by integrating rejected aspects of self, is inherently transformative.

10. Balancing Opposites

Jung’s model emphasizes the importance of balancing opposing forces in the psyche. Shadow work contributes to this by integrating the rejected “opposite” of our conscious identity.

In essence, Jung’s archetypal model provides a framework for understanding the content that emerges during shadow work. The archetypes offer patterns and symbols that help in recognizing, interpreting, and integrating shadow material. At the same time, engaging in shadow work often leads to a deeper understanding and experience of these universal archetypal energies.

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The Hero Archetype

The Hero archetype

This is one of the most recognizable and celebrated archetypes in mythology, literature, and psychology. Rooted in Carl Jung’s concept of archetypes and expanded upon by Joseph Campbell in his work on the Hero’s Journey, the Hero archetype represents the quintessential figure of bravery, self-sacrifice, and transformation.

### Characteristics of the Hero Archetype

1. **Courage and Bravery**: Heroes are often characterized by their willingness to face danger and overcome significant obstacles. Their bravery is not the absence of fear but the ability to act despite it.

2. **Self-Sacrifice**: Heroes are willing to put their own needs and desires aside for the greater good. This selflessness often leads them to take on great personal risks for the benefit of others.

3. **Transformation and Growth**: The Hero’s journey typically involves significant personal growth and transformation. Through their adventures and trials, they evolve and mature, gaining wisdom and insight.

4. **Quest and Adventure**: The Hero is usually on a quest or mission, which serves as the narrative framework for their story. This quest often involves a series of trials and challenges that test the Hero’s resolve and character.

5. **Moral Integrity**: Heroes often embody strong moral principles. They strive to do what is right, even when it is difficult, and serve as a moral compass for others.

6. **Exceptional Skills**: Whether through natural ability or rigorous training, Heroes often possess skills or talents that set them apart. These can be physical, intellectual, or supernatural.

### The Hero’s Journey

Joseph Campbell outlined the Hero’s Journey, a narrative structure that many Hero stories follow. This journey is divided into several stages:

1. **The Call to Adventure**: The Hero receives a call to leave their ordinary world and embark on a journey. This call often comes in the form of a challenge, quest, or adventure.

2. **Refusal of the Call**: Initially, the Hero may be reluctant to accept the call due to fear, doubt, or a sense of inadequacy.

3. **Meeting the Mentor**: The Hero encounters a mentor who provides guidance, wisdom, and often magical assistance to help them on their journey.

4. **Crossing the Threshold**: The Hero commits to the journey and crosses the threshold from the ordinary world into the unknown, where the adventure truly begins.

5. **Tests, Allies, and Enemies**: The Hero faces a series of trials and challenges, making allies and encountering enemies along the way. These experiences test their resolve and help them grow.

6. **Approach to the Inmost Cave**: The Hero approaches the central challenge of their journey, often facing their greatest fears.

7. **The Ordeal**: The Hero undergoes a significant trial, often facing death or a symbolic equivalent. This is a moment of crisis that leads to transformation.

8. **The Reward**: After overcoming the ordeal, the Hero receives a reward. This can be an object, knowledge, or a new understanding.

9. **The Road Back**: The Hero begins the journey back to the ordinary world, often facing additional challenges.

10. **The Resurrection**: The Hero faces a final test, emerging renewed and transformed. This stage often symbolizes rebirth.

11. **Return with the Elixir**: The Hero returns to the ordinary world with the “elixir,” which can be literal or symbolic, and uses it to benefit others.

### Examples of the Hero Archetype

– **Mythology**: Hercules, with his twelve labors, is a classic Hero who undertakes seemingly impossible tasks.
– **Literature**: Frodo Baggins from J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” embarks on a perilous journey to destroy the One Ring.
– **Movies**: Luke Skywalker from “Star Wars” follows the Hero’s Journey, evolving from a farm boy to a Jedi Knight.

### Psychological Implications

– **Personal Growth**: Embracing the Hero archetype can inspire individuals to pursue their own personal growth and face their challenges head-on.
– **Overcoming Adversity**: The Hero’s journey serves as a metaphor for overcoming adversity and achieving one’s goals.
– **Self-Discovery**: The Hero’s transformation reflects the process of self-discovery and the realization of one’s potential.

### Conclusion

The Hero archetype is a powerful and enduring symbol of human potential and resilience. It resonates across cultures and eras, illustrating the universal quest for growth, courage, and the triumph of good over evil. Understanding the Hero archetype can provide valuable insights into personal development and the nature of the challenges we face in life.

psychological projection

Projection

Projection is a psychological defence mechanism proposed by Sigmund Freud.

It means that an individual unconsciously attributes their own unacceptable thoughts, feelings, and motives to another person. This mechanism helps individuals avoid confronting their own undesirable traits or emotions by seeing them in others instead. Projection can be both negative and positive.

Negative Projection

Negative projection involves attributing one’s own undesirable or distressing traits, emotions, or thoughts to someone else. So, for example, a person who feels jealousy may accuse their partner of being jealous. Or, perhaps, someone who is angry might accuse another person of being hostile or aggressive. And a person who feels insecure about their abilities may criticize others for being incompetent.

Negative projection serves to protect the ego by deflecting blame or negative self-assessment. It prevents individuals from facing uncomfortable feelings about themselves, thus maintaining their self-image. The problem is, it can lead to misunderstandings and conflicts, as one partner attributes negative traits or intentions to the other. Also, it often results in blaming others for problems or feelings, which can damage trust and intimacy. Both the projector and the recipient of the projection can experience increased emotional distress and tension.

Positive Projection

Positive projection involves attributing one’s own positive qualities, desires, or virtues to another person. So, for example, someone who is kind may see another person as exceptionally kind and generous. Or, a person might project their aspirations of intelligence and creativity onto a role model or partner. Or, someone in love may project their own loving feelings, seeing their partner as perfect and ideal.

Positive projection enhances the self-concept by seeing one’s positive qualities reflected in others. It can also create an idealized image of another person, which can be motivating and inspiring. This means positive projection can lead to someone idealizing a partner, sometimes overlooking their flaws or real traits.  This can create unrealistic expectations, where the partner feels pressured to live up to an idealized image.

However, positive projection can foster strong feelings of connection and admiration. In this way, it may be a good way of bonding with another person.

Positive projection

Mechanisms Behind Projection

Projection is largely unconscious, meaning individuals are not aware they are projecting. It serves as a way to manage internal conflicts without facing them directly. As a defense mechanism, projection helps protect the individual from anxiety and guilt associated with their own unacceptable traits or desires. Projection often develops in early childhood as a response to difficult emotions or experiences. For example, a child who experiences criticism might project feelings of inadequacy onto peers.

Addressing and Mitigating Projection

Increasing self-awareness through mindfulness, introspection, and reflection can help individuals recognize when they are projecting.

Psychotherapy, especially approaches like cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and psychodynamic therapy, can help individuals understand and address their projections. In relationships, open and honest communication can reduce the negative impact of projection. Discussing feelings and perceptions with a partner can clarify misunderstandings. So can working on self-esteem and self-acceptance, because this reduces the need to project, as individuals become more comfortable with their own qualities and emotions.

Projection is a powerful psychological mechanism that can significantly impact personal and interpersonal dynamics. By understanding and addressing projection, individuals can foster healthier relationships and personal development.

archetypal books, archetypes and love

Knowing About Archetypes Can Help You Find A Man!

Understanding archetypes and engaging in shadow work

These two approaches to personal development can be profoundly beneficial for a woman seeking a healthy and fulfilling relationship. Here’s how each aspect contributes:

Archetypes

Archetypes are universal, symbolic patterns or models that are part of the collective unconscious, as proposed by Carl Jung. Recognizing and understanding these can help in several ways:

1 Self-Awareness: Identifying your own dominant archetypes (such as the Lover, the Mother, the Heroine, the Wise Woman, etc.) can help you understand your strengths, desires, and behaviours in relationships. This self-awareness can guide you to seek a partner who complements your traits and values.

2 Projection: Awareness of archetypes helps you recognize when you are projecting certain traits onto a potential partner. For instance, you might project the Hero archetype onto a man, expecting him to always be strong and protective. Recognizing this can prevent unrealistic expectations.

3 Understanding Dynamics: By understanding both her own and her partner’s archetypes, she can better navigate the dynamics of the relationship. For example, a union of the Nurturer and the Warrior archetypes may require balancing care and assertiveness.

Shadow Work

Shadow work involves exploring the unconscious parts of the psyche that we often reject or hide, known as the “shadow.” This process can be deeply transformative for relationships.

1 Healing Past Wounds: Shadow work helps a woman address and heal past traumas or negative experiences that may affect her current relationship patterns. This healing is essential for entering a relationship without baggage and with a healthy mindset.

2 Integrating the Shadow: By acknowledging and integrating her shadow aspects (such as jealousy, fear, or anger), she can prevent these unconscious elements from sabotaging her relationships. For instance, recognizing a tendency towards jealousy allows her to address it constructively rather than letting it erode trust.

3 Authenticity: Shadow work encourages authenticity by helping a woman embrace all parts of herself. This authenticity attracts partners who appreciate her true self, leading to deeper and more genuine connections.

4 Breaking Patterns: Many relationship issues stem from repeating unconscious patterns. Shadow work helps identify and break these patterns, allowing for healthier and more conscious relationship choices.

Practical Application

Here are some practical steps a woman can take using these concepts:

1 Journaling: Keep a journal to explore her archetypes and shadows. Writing about her feelings, experiences, and relationship patterns can bring insights.

2 Therapy or Coaching: Engaging with a shadow work therapist or coach familiar with Jungian psychology can provide guidance in exploring archetypes and doing shadow work.

3 Mindfulness and Meditation: Practices like mindfulness and meditation can help her stay present and become more aware of her unconscious reactions and projections in relationships.

4 Reading and Shadow Work Workshops: Reading books on Jungian psychology, archetypes, and shadow work or attending related workshops can deepen her understanding and provide practical tools.

Integrating the archetypes

By integrating your archetypes and engaging in shadow work, you can develop a deeper understanding of yourself and your relationship needs. This self-awareness and healing process enables you to form more meaningful and balanced relationships, paving the way for a fulfilling partnership.

Female archetypes are symbolic figures that represent universal patterns of behavior and personality traits. These archetypes can provide deep insights into a woman’s psyche, motivations, and relational dynamics. Here are some well-known female archetypes, including their characteristics and influence on behavior:

The Lover Archetype

 Passionate, sensual, and emotionally expressive, the Lover archetype thrives on intimacy, connection, and the experience of pleasure. She seeks to create deep, meaningful relationships and is often guided by her emotions and desires. This archetype values beauty, romance, and the enjoyment of life’s sensory experiences.

The Mother Archetype

Nurturing, caring, protective, and selfless, the Mother archetype embodies unconditional love and support. She is often driven by the desire to care for and protect others, especially children. This archetype is associated with fertility, creation, and the cycle of life. She may find fulfillment in caregiving roles and has a strong sense of empathy and compassion.

The Wise Woman Archetype

Wise, intuitive, experienced, and insightful, the Wise Woman archetype represents knowledge, wisdom, and inner knowing. She often serves as a guide or mentor, drawing from her life experiences and intuition to offer counsel and support. This archetype values introspection, spiritual growth, and the pursuit of truth.

The Maiden (or Innocent) Archetype

Youthful, innocent, optimistic, and idealistic, the Maiden archetype is characterized by purity, curiosity, and a sense of adventure. She represents new beginnings, potential, and a fresh perspective on life. This archetype is often associated with a sense of wonder, creativity, and the pursuit of dreams.

The Queen (or Sovereign) Archetype

Powerful, confident, authoritative, and regal, the Queen archetype embodies leadership, strength, and a sense of duty. She often takes on roles of responsibility and is driven by a desire to create order, justice, and prosperity. This archetype values self-respect, honor, and the ability to command respect from others.

The Huntress (or Warrior) Archetype

Independent, adventurous, strong, and assertive, the Huntress archetype is a symbol of independence, courage, and determination. She is often seen as a protector and a champion of causes. This archetype values freedom, self-sufficiency, and the pursuit of goals. She is willing to take risks and fight for what she believes in.

The Healer Archetype

Compassionate, empathetic, nurturing, and restorative, the Healer archetype focuses on the well-being of others, often seeking to mend physical, emotional, or spiritual wounds. She is intuitive and sensitive to the needs of others, often putting their well-being above her own. This archetype values connection, empathy, and the power of healing energies.

The Seductress (or Femme Fatale) Archetype

Charismatic, alluring, mysterious, and persuasive, the Seductress archetype uses her charm and allure to influence and captivate others. She is confident in her sexuality and understands the power of attraction. This archetype values allure, mystery, and the ability to sway others through her presence.

The Mystic (or Visionary)

Spiritual, introspective, imaginative, and insightful, the Mystic archetype is deeply connected to the spiritual and unseen realms. She often seeks meaning beyond the material world and values spiritual growth and enlightenment. This archetype is visionary, often providing insights and guidance based on her connection to higher truths.

The Creator (or Artist)

 Creative, innovative, expressive, and original, the Creator archetype is driven by the urge to create and bring new ideas into the world. She values originality, self-expression, and the transformative power of art. This archetype is often involved in artistic endeavors and innovation, seeking to inspire and evoke emotions.

The Rebel (or Outlaw) 

Non-conformist, rebellious, independent, and bold, the Rebel archetype challenges the status quo and seeks to bring about change. She is often driven by a sense of justice and the need to break free from societal norms and constraints. This archetype values freedom, individuality, and the courage to defy conventions.

Understanding these archetypes can help women recognize their own traits and motivations, as well as how they interact with others. By identifying with certain archetypes, women can gain insight into their behaviors, strengths, and potential areas for growth, ultimately leading to more fulfilling relationships and a deeper understanding of themselves.

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The Power of Shadow Work

Is shadow work actually any good as a form of psychotherapy?

“Shadow work” typically refers to a psychological and spiritual practice that involves exploring and integrating the unconscious or “shadow” aspects of oneself. This concept was popularized by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, who believed that the shadow represents the hidden and often repressed parts of our personality, including aspects that are socially unacceptable or personally challenging.

While shadow work is not a formalized or standardized psychotherapeutic approach like cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) or psychodynamic therapy, many individuals find it valuable as a complementary or self-help practice. Here are some potential benefits associated with shadow work:

Self-awareness: Shadow work encourages individuals to explore and become aware of aspects of themselves that they may have suppressed or denied. This increased self-awareness can lead to personal growth and a deeper understanding of one’s motivations, behaviors, and emotions. You can read more about how this works in Rod Boothroyd’s book King Warrior Magician Lover King.

Integration: The goal of shadow work is often to integrate the disowned or hidden aspects of oneself. By acknowledging and accepting these parts, individuals may experience a greater sense of wholeness and authenticity.

Emotional healing: Engaging in shadow work can provide an opportunity to process and release repressed emotions. This emotional catharsis can contribute to healing from past traumas and promoting mental well-being.

Improved relationships: Understanding and integrating the shadow can lead to more authentic and compassionate interactions with others. It may help individuals recognize projections and avoid projecting their own unresolved issues onto others.

Spiritual growth: For those with a spiritual or philosophical orientation, shadow work can be seen as a path to greater self-awareness and spiritual enlightenment.

However, it’s important to note that professionally delivered shadow work is genuine psychotherapy, especially for individuals dealing with severe mental health issues. Many some people find shadow work beneficial on its own or as a supplement to therapy.

As with any therapeutic or self-help practice, the effectiveness of shadow work can vary from person to person. Some individuals may resonate with its principles and experience positive outcomes, while others may find it less helpful or relevant to their needs. It’s advisable to approach shadow work with a discerning and open mind, and if you’re dealing with significant mental health challenges, seeking the guidance of a qualified mental health professional is recommended.

A film about shadow work
https://youtu.be/iH0UEkufz_Q

About shadow work facilitator training

What are the organisations which I can trust to provide relaible and qualfied facilitators in shadow work?

Finding reliable and qualified facilitators for shadow work can be essential to ensuring a safe and effective experience. While I cannot provide real-time recommendations, I can suggest some general types of organizations and platforms where you might find reputable facilitators:

Psychological Associations: Check with reputable psychological associations in your country or region. They may have directories of licensed therapists and counselors who are trained in various therapeutic modalities, including those incorporating shadow work principles.

Training Institutes: Look for training institutes that specialize in Jungian psychology or other approaches that incorporate shadow work. These institutes often provide training programs for therapists and facilitators. Examples include the C.G. Jung Institute and other reputable training centers.

Professional Directories: Explore professional shadow work directories that list therapists, counselors, and coaches. Websites like Psychology Today, GoodTherapy, or the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) have directories where you can search for practitioners based on their specialties.

Mindfulness and Spiritual Retreats: Some mindfulness and spiritual retreats incorporate shadow work as part of their programs. Ensure that the facilitators leading these sessions have relevant qualifications and experience in psychological and therapeutic practices.

Personal Recommendations: Ask for recommendations from trusted friends, family members, or colleagues who have personal experience with shadow work facilitators. Personal referrals can be valuable in finding someone with a good reputation.

Online Platforms: There are online platforms that connect people with qualified therapists and coaches. Platforms like BetterHelp, Talkspace, or TherapyRoute may have professionals who offer virtual sessions incorporating shadow work principles.

When considering a facilitator or therapist, it’s important to:

Check Credentials: Verify the facilitator’s professional credentials, education, and training. Look for individuals who have relevant qualifications and experience in psychology, counseling, or a related field.

Read Reviews: If available, read reviews and testimonials from other clients. This can provide insights into the facilitator’s approach, effectiveness, and professionalism.

Have an Initial Consultation: Many therapists offer a free initial consultation. Use this opportunity to discuss your needs, ask about their approach to shadow work, and assess whether you feel comfortable working with them.

Remember that the effectiveness of shadow work often depends on the rapport between the facilitator and the individual, so take the time to find someone you feel confident and comfortable with. Always prioritize your safety and well-being when seeking therapeutic support.

How to make a man fall in love with you

Falling In Love With Your Man

Show Your Love! (And Make Your Man Fall Deeply In Love With You!)

If the way that you treat your partner is kind and loving, what you feel you’ve given out is so valuable and precious. But not just to you!  To your partner too, who will undoubtedly feel your love and begin to develop deeper feelings of love himself, towards you.

Rarely is a sense of falling in love founded on one person’s actions alone: it’s always due to a combination of kindness and love between two people. But when you haven’t dealt with your emotional wounds from childhood, you may not be the fully mature person you can be. These wounds are held in shadow, and require a form of therapy known as “shadow work” or “emotional process work” to resolve them.

So if you really want a man to fall in love with you, and you know that you love him very deeply and dearly, and that he is fundamentally the right person for you, then you may choose to work on your emotional issues and old wounds. This is what we call emotional baggage.

Only then will you be in a position to have a mature relationship free of anger, rage, grief, and general emotional anxiety.

One of the best ways to do this is to engage in shadow work which is a form of Jungian psychology or active psychotherapy, which allows you to access old wounds in a very quick and easy way. Often the work takes place in a safe group of people who are supporting you. This is a away in which the historical “recordings” that you have in your mind can be changed, so that you see yourself in a very different way. (And behave in a very different way!)

So, when it comes to falling in love, or indeed “making” a man fall in love with you, working on your shadow is an option to deal with emotional wounds that are preventing you from enjoying a relationship. You see, shadow work offers a whole range of practical techniques that you enable you to move forward into a new relationship. 

There are, of course, other approaches to this situation. This website has a lot of very useful advice about how to make a man fall in love with you. One of the best I’ve found is a “Relationship Recovery” program. This reveals how a man or woman may be responsive to a certain type of approach if you wish to have them fall in love with you.

That approach is not an emotional one, nor is it seduction, nor is it charm, nor is it whining and neediness. All of these are approaches used by people who want to be in relationship. But they do not usually lead to a long term relationship. 

Much more productive approaches can generate a sense of belonging, a sense of togetherness, a sense that actually your relationship is the right one. This is the view of the mature couple who can see living together as a good option which offers support, companionship, mutual respect, love, admiration, and so on. These are the values of humanity at its finest.

So what’s the basis of getting together? Well, modern psychology suggests that there are many different behavioral techniques that can get people together and help them to fall in love. 

In other words you’re not going to try and make a man fall in love with you because you believe that it’s going to be good for your ego. Nor are you going to do it because you feel lonely without a partner. Rather, you will actually believe that’s the best thing for both of you, in the long-term. This allows you both to enjoy natural personal growth and development, as well as increasing your happiness and relationship success.

I also want to write briefly about a program that is available on the Internet called Capture His Heart and Make Him Love You Forever (essentially a relationship and dating advice site). Programs like this can be extremely useful in enabling people to build an intimate relationship which provides fulfilment and emotional satisfaction.

Capture His Heart has been reviewed very thoroughly in a number of places, and it has been applauded by everybody who has seen it. You may wonder what the qualifications are to write an Internet program consisting of online dating advice! Probably just about the same as the qualifications to write an Internet site offering advice on any subject! That is to say, you have some experience in the field, you can write well, you’re an intelligent individual, and you know what you’re talking about.

The people responsible for Capture His Heart (subheading – “and make him love you forever“!) are Claire Casey and Michael Fiore, who are experienced in the field of relationship advice and Internet programming. Together they have produced a very helpful and essential program which can enable people to build intimacy and enjoy happy and successful relationships.

Capture His Heart starts by offering insight for women into the behavior of men. It explains what makes men behave in the way they do, and what motivates them to pursue a woman so they can have a relationship.

Mike Fiore provides great emphasis on traditional gender roles, a viewpoint which may not be popular with feminists. But I think, like he does, that we are most fulfilled when we operate within the dictates of our genetic gender nature. You may not agree with thiss now, but I would suggest that after you’ve reviewed Mike Fiore’s program, Capture His heart and Make Him Love You Forever, you may well have good reason to change your mind!

He and his co-author, Claire Casey, have indeed broken down male behavior into its fundamental components. They offer an explanation of male psychology which is certainly one of the best available on the Internet. At least, that is, for women who want to have a man fall in love with them….

Now of course establishing a successful relationship is not just about understanding the behavior of the opposite sex. You also need advice on dating behavior, intimate relationships, dealing with your own emotional issues, and coming to understand your partner in a way that builds trust and intimacy.

The great thing about capture his heart and make him love you for ever is that it provides all this information in a simple form. You will readily understand this psychology of relationships as explained there. 

The short fact of the matter is that I don’t think you will find a better relationship advice program this one anywhere on the Internet.

How to make a man fall in love with you

Pleasuring Your Partner

How To Give A Sensual Massage To Pleasure Your Partner

Sensual massage is a wonderful process which can get you back in touch with the good feelings which you can enjoy from your body.

We tend to lose sight of the fact that our skin is the outermost and very sensitive covering of our bodies. We can use that fact to gain a lot of pleasure: being touched by our partners in a non-sexual way can be a very enjoyable experience!

Sensual massage implies that you are not focused on sex, that you are just going to enjoy the physical pleasure of being touched in a loving and gentle way by your partner.

This is very enjoyable, but it also reinforces the emotional connection between you and your partner. Such things can of course speed up a process of growing closer and even falling in love with each other. It can help in making you feel bonded, emotionally close and loving towards each other.

Sensual implies something that is non-sexual, non-genital, and that’s exactly how you can approach the practice of sensual massage.

Although this isn’t necessarily sexual, it’s definitely sensual: being able to give someone a relaxation massage is a wonderful skill. In the case of a lover can be wonderful prelude to sexual connection. 

There’s no shortage of books and classes on how to give someone a relaxing full-body massage, but here are a few basic tips:

  • A massage table makes things much easier for the person giving the massage, as well as more relaxing for the person receiving it. They aren’t that expensive.
  • Use almond oil, grape seed oil or similar as a massage base oil; any good health food or holistic shop should be able to offer a great selection of wonderful massage oils. Use a small squeeze bottle that won’t spill.
  • Don’t let your partner get cold: having a sheet on top of the massage table, while they’re lying underneath a second sheet and perhaps a thin blanket, is a good idea (they can stay mostly covered up except for where you’re working). Alternatively, you can crank the heat in the room way up, or more luxuriously yet put the massage table in front of a fireplace with the room lights dimmed. Mood is everything!
  • Confident touch is good touch.
  • For long gliding strokes down the back, lean into them a bit with your body weight rather than depending up upper arm strength: the result is smoother, and feels more reassuring to the person receiving the massage.
  • Particularly if your partner has long hair, or spends a lot of time on their feet, giving them a scalp massage or massaging their feet may provide an experience so pleasurable that it’s almost erotic – and no massage table is required.

In general, the feeling of relaxation you get after a good full-body massage from your partner isn’t that different from the feeling of relaxation you get after sex with your partner. In each case the body’s basic need for touch, which is a basic human need, is being satisfied.

It’s always important to exchange information so that you know what your partner is feeling, and what is good for them and what isn’t.

This communication doesn’t need to be extensive – it can be just be single words like good, harder, softer, slower, deeper, that’s good, and so on. This means the person massaging knows what to do and the person receiving is getting the experience they want.

If the person massaging is unsure about what they are doing, they can say: “How’s that?” By being more in touch with each other’s needs and wishes, the massage is more likely to be beneficial.

After you have had a few sessions, include the more sexual areas of the body – buttocks and breasts, but only by mutual consent.

As you progress, grow more comfortable about giving and receiving, and get to know each other’s bodies better, you can include the genital region. Again this is not compulsory, and remember all of the massage you give and receive is by mutual consent.

The objective is not to get sexually aroused – it’s about pleasuring each other through touch (and we don’t mean sexually pleasuring! No orgasms are involved – at least, not at this stage of the process!)

If you are receiving, then focus on receiving. Don’t let concerns about the comfort or convenience of the person massaging you affect how you enjoy this process – their comfort is their concern, and they can look after themselves.

You can keep your attention on your feelings, your experiences and the sensations you are receiving as they massage you.

If this doesn’t work for you, in the sense that you feel agitated when you are massaging your partner, it may be that you are focusing too much on their pleasure.

Try massaging them from your own viewpoint – in other words, do what feels good to you as the massager.

When you remove the pressure of pleasing your partner (especially if you have added pressure because you don’t know exactly what they want) and start thinking more about giving them what feels good, you are more likely to enjoy massaging, and give a better massage.

If you feel anxious, stressed, tired, distracted or grumpy, then it is probably not such a good idea to offer a massage nor to accept one. However, it’s possible that focusing on the massage will take you away from your concerns, and allow you to relax into a better frame of mind.

For the man who wants to pleasure a woman 

Being able to pleasure your partner develops her capacity to enjoy orgasms. It will allow you to experience sexual pleasure at the same time, too, which will lead her to a much richer enjoyment of sexual connection.

Being able to pleasure a woman reliably is obviously a desirable sexual skill for a man.

If you are willing to pleasure her instead of enjoy sex with her, this will increase the likelihood of her being able to focus on her own needs, rather than worrying about whether or not you are sexually satisfied!

At the same time, because you won’t be having sex, you don’t have to worry about whether or not you will be able to “give her an orgasm”.

The responsibility for her pleasure ultimately lies with her. However, culturally, men are conditioned to believe that somehow they are responsible for pleasuring a woman.

Furthermore, you will probably be surprised how much you enjoy the sensuous massage, which may just mean enjoying touch and physical closeness, not necessarily sex.

For the woman:

What are orgasms all about? Check out the function of the female orgasm here.

Make sure that you are whole-hearted about having your man enjoy pleasuring you, especially if you are sharing the experience with him. The fact that you aren’t having intercourse with him is a choice, and you need to be committed to that choice.

There is the possibility that he may not wish to pleasure himself. Men can often accept this situation just as it is, in other words, that not having intercourse and not having orgasms is acceptable for him – because he gets pleasure from seeing his woman fulfilled. This is a loving act!

However, if you are pleasuring your man to orgasm, it’s important that you feel happy and willing to do this, and that you’re not feeling pressured or coerced.  The short way to deal with this is for you to be genuinely happy to receive, knowing you can provide sexual pleasure for him, whatever form that takes, later. 

If you are truly happy and relaxed about doing this, completely lacking in resentment, and feeling pleased that he is getting pleasure in this way, your love for him may grow stronger.

To both of you:

The sensuous massage experience, both giving and receiving, are well worth incorporating into your life. Such physical contact through massage can provide added closeness and emotional connection between a couple. It certainly will enhance your relationship and deepen your love.

love and sex

Archetypal Energies In Relationship

Men: How To Satisfy Any Woman In Bed!

Whether your sex is long lasting and romantic or fast and furious, you’ll always want to enjoy the greatest satisfaction you can. These are some simple tips which will help you to make sex into a joyous occasion, whenever and wherever you make love. Bear in mind that you can see any such sensual experience as a part of the Lover archetype.

This is the part of us which enjoys sensuality and sensuous experiences. The part of us which has, above all else, a desire to connect with other people – not necessarily sexually, but certainly in an intimate way. The union of mother and baby at birth is the primal form of the lover archetype, and that is in some way the state to which this part of us (the Lover archetype) always wishes to return. It represents bliss and the ultimate in security and happiness. (At least in theory – for not all children have such joyous experiences before, during and after birth.)

1 Take time over foreplay

Most men want to roll around the bed a bit, enter their partner and ejaculate as quickly as possible. An exaggeration? Perhaps, but if you’re honest with yourself, maybe not so much? Men get sexually aroused more quickly than women, and often find foreplay tedious.

When men are aroused, they want quick satisfaction. As a generality, for men, the reward of sex is the intensity of orgasm and ejaculation. For a woman, the rewards of sex come in the form of closeness, intimacy, being with her partner – and, last of all, her orgasm.

And of course women like orgasm, but they certainly have an intense desire for intimacy and physical affection as well. Sometimes this seems more important than sexual intercourse: a finding reported from surveys of sexual behaviour many times during the last fifty years.

The reason for this seems to be that foreplay generally does not last long enough to get a woman properly aroused – aroused to the point where she can enjoy sex.

Foreplay means anything that takes place before the act of penetration – whether that is anal, oral or vaginal. In fact I’d say foreplay is anything that happens before the man or the woman reaches orgasm! Kissing, fondling, caressing, stroking, mutual masturbation, and more: all these things are a kind of foreplay. For a woman the most important aspect of foreplay is to be touched, lovingly, by her partner.

The first touch needs to be non-sexual, on areas of her body other than her genitals. Only as she becomes more in touch with her physical sensations and connected to her sense of arousal and her own body’s response to touch, should the touch gradually transform itself into a more sexual caress, on her breasts and genitals.

Sex and relationships is one of the most popular subjects researched on the internet, particularly for advice on foreplay and intercourse. You can see advice on how to enjoy oral sex, as well as providing a lot of advice about sexual positions, written from the point of view of both a man and a woman, here. You may think of oral sex as something like the main event at dinner, but it can be a great form of foreplay.

Many woman will not reach orgasm through intercourse, but almost all women will reach orgasm through oral sex if they have had about twenty minutes of touching and caressing and kissing beforehand. This can be a great precursor to penetration for both men and women, as it does not matter if he ejaculates quickly when he enters her. 

2 Be a sensitive lover

Just taking your pleasure and ignoring her needs during intercourse is a route to disaster! A woman wants the intimacy and rewards of sex just as you do, but to get them she will need to be loved, reassured, stroked, and respected. You can of course work out strategies and techniques for enjoying better sex long before you even get into bed – the Magician within you is a great source of creative ideas. In mentioning the Magician archetype, I hope to illustrate how the various energies with in the human system can work together during sex to create a more fulfilling experience.

This planning process, the domain of the Magician, means many things: giving her an orgasm through oral sex before you enter her, perhaps; cuddling her after intercourse; saying how much you love her outside the bedroom as well as during your lovemaking; spending enough time on foreplay (see above); giving her the opportunity to lead and take the initiative during sex…..and so on. What represents being sensitive will be different for all women, just as it is for all men. That part of the sexual experience comes from the Lover archetype – read more about that here.

One way to make sure she gets pleasure during intercourse is to ensure that you have taken the time to learn better control, so that she can get as much physical pleasure from the thrusting of your penis in her vagina as possible. Many men think they cannot control their ejaculation: the reality is that with a little motivation, it’s not at all hard to learn how to treat premature ejaculation.

3 Reassure your woman about her body

She’s likely to be much more sensitive about her appearance than you can imagine – even if she does have a few areas that are not perfect, as far as you’re concerned, this may not matter. After all, when you’re about to have sex, that’s the last thing on your mind!

But to her, it is extremely important to hear that you like her body, and that you find her attractive.

What’s more, she’ll want to hear this many times – it’s no use expecting her to be reassured just because you told her she was attractive last week!

4 Provide the right amount of reassurance about the fact that you love her.

Such reassurance is all part of a woman’s need for emotional security. She can only give herself fully, and therefore be fully into sex with you, when she is emotionally secure and happy in your relationship. And by the way, she may be more fully in the relationship if she is sexually satisfied. This is because good sexual and sensual experiences open her up to inhabit more fully her Lover energy.

That can only happen if you work to ensure her sexual pleasure. As a man, you have a responsibility to seduce her, which actually means ensuring she knows you are sexually attracted to her – this is a vital part of her self-esteem. And also, to romance her, which means, essentially, paying her attention. And indeed, to be gentle and loving with her in bed. This means knowing what she needs to satisfy her sexually – essentially, knowing what you have to do to bring her to orgasm. You could see these techniques as being directed by your Sovereign archetype, the heart centred part of you which directs your life and your wider world. There’s a good summary of different archetypes here.

5 Be considerate and elegant during sex

Of course there are times when sex goes wrong, and these are the times when a couple who are truly relaxed with each other can laugh about it without embarrassment or shame. But for the most part, sex goes smoothly when you add a little thought to what you’re doing: for example, don’t leave your socks on when you undress. There are few things in life as comical as a man dressed only in his underwear and socks!

When you’ve made love, dispose of the condom tidily, in a tissue. When you enter her during sex, don’t peck around with your penis at the entrance to her vagina: if you can’t find the way past her labia, ask her to guide your penis in with her hand. It’s touches like these which will make sex a graceful experience.

6 Control your orgasm

There is no need for a man to lose control during sex. Indeed, the mark of a good lover is that he knows exactly how near his ejaculation he is and how to stop himself ejaculating as he thrusts in his partner’s vagina. If you don’t have this level of control, it’s worth researching how you can overcome rapid ejaculation and how to last longer in bed for men, as it will enhance your experience of sex and it will make your lover respect you more.

7 Deal with erectile dysfunction or delayed ejaculation 

The pressure is often on men during sex to get and keep an erection, and this is not always as easy as you might think. Certainly as men get older they come to remember the proud hard erections of their youth with great fondness! The erratic erection, the low sex drive, the inability to reach orgasm: all these problems and more can be dealt with, fairly easily. If you look after your sexual health, you’ll find that sex continues to be just as rewarding as it was when you were young.

The answer to many sexual problems is simple: communicate with your partner and let her know what’s happening for you. You don’t have to reveal every detail of your sexual life (often this would not be appropriate; for example, many of men’s sexual fantasies are best kept secret!), but you do need to talk about your feelings, hopes, fears, and what you want and need from your sex life. Only when you find a way to communicate about sex will you reach that relaxed and intimate place where good sex is natural.

Male sexual dysfunction is very common (see a helpful resource here).The most commonly known problems are premature ejaculation and erectile dysfunction. Delayed ejaculation is the third most prevalent.

 

the language of love

Love Language

One of the more interesting concept about love is the idea that there are different “love languages”.

These are the ways in which people express love. And of course if your love language is different to your partner’s, you may not appreciate that he loves you, and he may not appreciate that you love him.

So let’s look briefly at the concept of love languages and see what it can actually do for us in relationship. And also, what the idea of love languages can do for a woman who wants to have a man fall in love with her.

The idea is that there are five different ways to express and experience love – each of these is love language. They are:

  • Receiving Gifts
  • Quality Time
  • Words of Affirmation
  • Acts of Service or Devotion
  • Physical Touch

The originator of the theory of love languages was Gary Chapman. He suggested that each one of us has a preferred (primary) love language and a secondary love language (which we use less).

Suppose, for example, you believe love is expressed mostly through, say, acts of service, while the man you want to love you thinks that love is expressed through words of affirmation. Clearly, you might be heading for some kind of car crash in your relationship.

Why? Because you don’t pick up on the symbols of his love which your man is giving to you as an expression of how he feels about you! 

Gary Chapman also suggested that people tend to express love for another person in the same way that they prefer to receive love.

So you can truly understand whether a man is falling in love with you by simply looking at how he expresses love, what is his primary love language.

When you know his love language, you can tell if he is showing you his love, and you’re simply not recognizing the fact.

The Man You Love and Love Languages

The importance of Gary Chapman’s work on love languages is that it really can help you to see relationships in a different way.

You can take a quiz on his website to find out what your own love languages are – 5lovelanguages

So let’s take a look at each of them in a little bit more detail.

1 Words of Affirmation

This is simple and straightforward – you say things like “I love you” to your partner as a way of expressing your love for them. And to someone whose love language is about words, negative or disrespectful words can be very destructive to the mutual expression and feelings of love.

2 Quality Time

Again, the name gives it away: this expression of love is about spending time with your partner, and giving them your undivided attention.

Talk will not mean so much to a person whose primary love language is quality time.

It’s being together that counts, it’s being together which is the main focus for the feelings of satisfaction, comfort and appreciation which come from being loved.

When someone whose love language is quality time finds that their partner is distracted, or postpones dates, or doesn’t spend intimate time with them, they may feel really hurt. “Being there” is what counts.

3 Receiving Gifts

Gary Chapman suggests that some people understand they are loved when they receive a tangible gift. It’s not about materialism, it’s more about a physical expression being meaningful or thoughtful enough to make somebody feel appreciated and loved.

4 Acts of Service

People whose love language is primarily around acts of service believe that “actions speak louder than words”.

If you are in this category, acts of service or doing things for your partner is a true demonstration of love and shows that you really care.

Broken promises are hurtful to people whose love language is about doing things. For example, anyone who breaks a promise or causes a person more work will be showing a lack of love.

In fact, if you want to make a man to love you and his love language is about acts of service, you must be willing to show your man appreciation by supporting him in practical ways, or he may conclude you don’t value him.

5 Physical Touch

Someone whose love language is physical touch will appreciate and want to be held in an appropriate way. 

And this isn’t about what goes on in the bedroom during sex, where we hold each other.

It means showing love by touch every day, in appropriate ways, like handholding or kissing or any other affirming physical touch.

For somebody whose primary love language is touch, not being supported physically and held can be devastating because it demonstrates to them a lack of love and affection.

Of course we all have our own primary or preferred love language, which is our preferred way of expressing and receiving love.

But this doesn’t mean we need to avoid (or should avoid) all of the others.

And to be clever enough to spot the primary love language of your partner and to be able to satisfy their desire for the  way in which you express your love is a skill we all need.

So take a look at the book with your partner, or go to Gary Chapman’s website and complete the quiz. You’ll discover whether you have different styles of loving to your partner, and find out what you need to do to express your love more clearly to your partner.

Uncategorized

Men, Sex And Love

When you’re hunting for a man to fall in love with – for want of a better way of putting it – it’s useful to know some of the things about your “prey” that might not be obvious to you at first sight.

And one of those things is how men see sex and love.

I mean, you, as a woman, know very well how you feel about the connection between love and sex. Sex is probably the physical expression of a deeply felt love for a man, at a level that seems to take over your soul.

You value sex, as a way of connecting with somebody truly special to you, perhaps even the man who you want to have fall in love with you, the man with whom you wish to remain in relationship for the rest of your life.

But you may not fully understand how men see sex.

I’ve worked with men who have all kinds of addictions, and sexual issues like low and high sex drive.

And what I know is that many men use sex as a way of connecting with their need for love, intimacy, connection, comfort, soothing and care.

That’s not to say that men don’t like nonsexual contact. We all know how soothing and comforting it is to have a hug or a cuddle.

But to understand men’s psychology around sex, you need to understand why sex can become a way for a man to express his desire for physical or even emotional connection with the woman he loves.

And this comes down to the fact that many men in society are brought up to believe that it’s somehow shameful, weak or feminine to express their need for connection.

(Keep in mind that when we talk about connection here were talking about both spiritual, emotional and physical connection.)

So a man who’s been brought up in this way may feel sad, but have no way of articulating that sadness. Believe it or not, it’s even possible he doesn’t know he’s sad.

But his human instincts will propel him to look for some kind of connection. And because of the way he’s been brought up to think about men’s role in society, and men’s relationships with emotions, he may believe that what he actually wants is to have sex. I mean, it’s a great way of connecting, isn’t it?

you may well meet a man who thinks it’s weak or unmasculine to allow a woman – even when he has fallen in love with you – to know that he is lonely, isolated or sad.

He may, however, find it perfectly acceptable to ask for sex. And no wonder! Sex would certainly satisfy his need for human connection.

So you could see a desire for sex at the root of almost any desire for connection and love, even when it might be expressed more appropriately.

An example which comes to mind here is how men often think a woman is going to want to make love after they’ve had an argument – for a man it’s perfectly logical. For a woman it’s inconceivable. What he’s searching for is reconnection, and what she feels is complete disconnection.

And don’t forget, too, that sexual excitement is a basic human drive in its own right.

But it can become tangled up with feelings of sadness, loneliness, anxiety, anger and fear.

When you get that cocktail of feelings going on, it’s no wonder that many men – and perhaps even a lot of women – aren’t entirely clear about what they’re feeling.

It’s just a clever way in which the human mind ensures that our basic human needs for connection and contact with another human being are met.

And of course, as I said before, we live in an age where young boys and men aren’t encouraged to express their feelings or show their authentic selves.

We have a narrow definition of masculinity which pretty much means men are allowed to express sexual excitement and anger as their two main feelings. Anything else is pretty much disapproved of.

At least, that’s how men feel about it. I’m sure a lot of women would be delighted if their men were more authentic and could express feelings other than sexual desire and anger!

Anyway, the bottom line is that if you’re in love with a man, or you want to help a man fall in love with you, you need to remember this:  the tender emotions we all feel such as sadness, love, the desire for connection, fear and even a need for intimacy, can be expressed as sexual desire in men.

Think about it! When you’re making love, a man can get held, stroked, hugged, physically soothed, and express and receive love under the guise of sexual intercourse.

What You Can Do for a Man Who’s Fallen in Love With You

  • You can accept his feelings of sadness, fear, joy and excitement as normal, and encourage him to express them.
  • You can tell him that the need to connect with other human beings is one of most basic desires, and it’s not specific to men or women, and it doesn’t need to be expressed through sexual intercourse.
  • You can invite the men in your life to investigate their thoughts and feelings in a non-judgemental environment, and reassure them you certainly don’t think of them as weak or feminine.
  • You can remember that both men and women can be weak and strong in different ways, and the key to emotional well-being is to recognize all these parts and hold them in a respectful way.
  • And you can watch a film with him about how men are socialized to suppress very natural feelings. It’s entitled The Mask You Live In by Jennifer Siebel Newsom and it’s available on Netflix.
remain true to yourself in love

Men Love To Fall For A Genuine Woman

Men Love To Fall For A Genuine Woman

As you work on making your guy fall in love, there are some things you need to keep in mind about your own personality, values and goals.

One of the key things that helps people to find common ground and to love each other is that they hold similar values, similar goals, and similar desires.

So if you don’t really know what your desires and goals and values – and particularly your values – are, then spend some time thinking about them.

You really don’t want to compromise yourself early in a relationship so that the man you want will love you in return. All that’s going to happen is that sooner or later the realization will dawn on either you or the man you’ve seduced that you’re not compatible.

Of course some compromises are necessary in any long-term relationship, but you should never compromise your most important values.

The key thing here is that if you are genuine, and stay true to yourself, in other words you follow the principle of “being yourself” as the relationship develops, you’re going to find you have a much deeper connection much more quickly.

And it’s also necessary to be clear as you seek the man you want to be in love with, that nobody’s perfect.

If you’re seeking perfection, you could go on looking for a relationship forever.

The question is “What’s good enough?” for you when it comes to love.

So how much are you willing to compromise on the qualities you would like in your partner?

The key thing here is probably to be clear about what you “must have” in a man you fall in love with – and then also to be clear about the qualities which while not essential would be “nice to have” in a man.

Be realistic about what’s absolutely essential for you to be in a loving relationship with a man. You see, if you’re realistic about who you date, you’re going to be much luckier in finding the right man to love you and more likely to establish a strong connection.

The simple truth is, by doing it with authenticity, you’re not  going to be wasting your time trying to make the wrong man love you!

And finally, you need to speak your man’s love language.

“Love language” is an interesting idea, and we’ll talk about it on another page of this site. What it means is that each person has a way of expressing their love for another person.

So to make a real connection with a man you need to discover both of your love languages and share them.

This is how each of you can be sure you’re focusing your love and attention on the areas that will have the most impact on your partner.

It’s obvious, don’t you think, that the quickest way to a man’s heart is to speak the same language about love as he does?

Read about love languages here.

A Key To Making a Man Love You:
Be Passionate About Life

We mentioned above that there is very probably some kind of genetic program deep in the male psyche about pursuing a woman till he wins her. Of course men are hunters and gatherers – that’s their genetic inheritance.

And as you might’ve observed when a man’s shopping, this hunter urge manifests in many areas of life, in many ways.

If you can switch on a man’s instinct to pursue a woman till he wins her (that’s you!), you can automatically give yourself a much greater chance of being in his sights, of having his attention focused on you.

So when a woman represents some kind of challenge for man when he is pursuing her, his energy will rise. His goal is suddenly clear – it’s you!

You can think of this in whatever way you like, but the reality is that men have always taken the role of pursuer, even perhaps aggressor.

And one of the things that men can smell a mile off is the fear and desperation in a woman that she won’t find a mate, or soulmate. That fear in a woman, that she will always be alone, is likely to make him turn and run.

So how do you deal with this if that’s how you’re feeling? Simple. You turn that switch in yourself from fear to love.

You have to love who you are, you have to love your life, you have to love the world around you. You have to be passionate about what you’re doing, clear about your desires, and energetic in your actions.

Make your life – no matter what your physical circumstances – a celebration of love, gratitude and joy.

Find something you can be truly passionate and energetic about, something which gives you joy.

Such energy is a powerful attractant for a man. A man wants to fall in love with a woman who is celebrating life, feeling her heat and her passion.

In fact, the truth is that men are not only attracted to this energy, they want to be the focus of it.

You know what? One great way to flip your switch from fear of isolation to love and passion, is to have a crazy love affair – not necessarily with a man, but with yourself, with your own life. Discover a way to make yourself fall in love with you and your life!

Focus on the things that make you feel joy and happiness. Because when you’re in that state, you don’t have to do much more than set your intention that the right man will show up….  and he will, and he’ll most likely fall deeply in love with you.

blocks to love

Limiting Beliefs About Relationships

Where Is Love?

What if you haven’t found love in your life or you haven’t found a man you trust or like or love enough to marry?

What if you feel despairing of ever finding a guy who will fall in love with you?

And what if you’re trying to make a guy fall in love with you and you’re simply not succeeding?

Well, to start with you might want to consider whether the beliefs you hold about yourself (or about love and relationships) are preventing you from getting into a long-term relationship with a guy.

Some of the most common reasons why women don’t find marriage or a long-term relationship are so commonplace that you might be surprised when you read them.

Others are more complicated, more subtle, coming out of what’s called the Shadow – the part of yourself that you don’t want to face up to, and and perhaps don’t even want to admit exists inside you.

Looking at your shadow can produce massive improvements in the quality of your life and your relationships. It might even be the step you need to take to be able to form a truly loving relationship with a man.

But that’s up to you. What we’re going to do here is look at some of the most common beliefs women hold, beliefs which prevent them getting into loving relationships.

First of all, some women treat men as though they are more superior than themselves, and some women treat men as though they are lesser beings than themselves.

In reality,  regarding yourself as either more superior or inferior to a man is no basis whatever for entering into a relationship.

In fact, such an attitude is going to stop you getting into a meaningful relationship, because when you believe other people are more important or less important than you are, you can never meet them truly from a heart-centred space as an equal.

Another reason why some women have difficulty finding a soulmate or partner who they can love and settle down with is that they’re working from the premise that a guy will come along who is going to love them “just the way they are” – but there’s a fallacy here.

Surely what you need is a partner who will not merely accept you as you are, but who will draw out the best in you, raise you by his very presence up into the most sovereign energy you can experience, the most expansive personal power you have available to you. 

A third reason, which you might recognize, is that there is a desire in you to give over part of the control of your life to somebody else.

You can call this “being rescued” if you want, because it comes to the same thing. It represents a lack of power in you, a lack of personal firepower, the sort of power that would enable you to go out into the world as a strong, intelligent, worthwhile and fully actualized human being.

If you feel like this about yourself, you might have some personal development work to do! That won’t stop you getting into a relationship, but it might mean that the relationship you get into isn’t going to be your “forever together” relationship with the guy who’s going to settle down with, you marry you, and love you forever. Rather, it might be just an interim step to that long term bond.

Next? Well, some women seem to believe that love is a fantasy, and that the level of shame and fear, depression and lack of hope that they experience in everyday life is an indicator that nothing can possibly ever go well.

These women (and many men, of course) do indeed believe “life’s a bitch and then you die”.

But if you have this kind of negativity inside yourself, it’s merely indicative of the emotional wounds you’ve collected in life, and all it means is that you need to do some personal development work with a therapist or counselor.

Another? Well, you might be fixated on the idea of being “married with kids” by a certain age – and of course if you’re doing this, you’re not being attentive to your true needs: to find a good enough man who can love you, bring out the best in you, and be alongside you, in a relationship of strength and honesty.

A sixth reason why some people fail to form a relationship is because they have problems around sex and sexuality. Yes, that will stop a guy falling for you – he’ll smell your fear of sex a mile away.

Ask yourself if you have guilt or shame around sex. Perhaps you fear men or fear sex? If so, find a way of dealing with the problem. See a sex therapist, for example

A seventh reason for the absence of love in your life might be that you’re addicted to being in control, that you’re frightened to let go, to surrender to life (or to the arms of a man who loves you).

Yet maintaining control like this is indicative of many things: fear, perhaps, or not feeling good enough, certainly.

Whatever the cause, being addicted to control means that you can’t relax into the natural space of femininity which is your birthright. 

That is a space where you are a Goddess, a Creator, and a High Priestess who deserves to be loved. In short, to put it another way, if you don’t know the power of your Queen, you’ll never find your King. 

And lastly, perhaps you’re disconnected from your feelings, or you don’t share them openly. Maybe you don’t even know what they really are?

If that’s true, then you certainly know won’t know what your feelings and intuition are telling you about your relationship to love, and in particular about your ability to find someone who will fall in love with you.

what makes a man love a woman

Why Men Fall In Love

Love Is The Greatest Thing….

I guess we would all like to believe that love is something magical that comes out of thin air, surprising us when we meet our ideal partner, and giving us the perfect partner with whom we can live happily ever after.

But the reality, of course, is somewhat different. At the biological level, we know that falling in love and feeling love are due to chemical changes in the brain.

When a man falls in love with you, hormones and brain chemicals such as dopamine, endorphins and testosterone flood your brain, predisposing you to see other people as more attractive, and perhaps even causing you to bond with them.

But if you’re a woman, trying to find out how to make a man fall in love with you, one thing’s for sure – you’re not going to be conscious of your brain chemicals making you fall in love! What matters is what you feel –  a sense of intimacy, satisfaction, connection, friendship…. and, dare I say it, perhaps even love.

But how do people fall in love?

More to the point, how do you know when a man is in love with you? Can you even set out to make a friend fall in love with you, by some conscious act of intention?

These are serious questions for every woman who wants to have a relationship with a man based on love and trust. So let’s see if we can find out exactly what is required for a man to fall in love with you, and what signs you might pick up which show he is falling in love with you.

One: Intimacy and Connection

What we mean by intimacy varies from person to person, but you may well have your own definition of intimacy, and  almost certainly you know exactly what it means for you – and that’s just as well, because intimacy is the foundation upon which a loving relationship is built.

Video – intimacy

Basically, for most people intimacy is a sense of emotional connection which somehow conveys the impression that the person with whom you’re in relationship understands you, can support you, knows how you’re feeling, and is willing to stand by your side. You might want to add your own experience of intimacy to that list!

Two: Good Sex

This is slightly controversial, because good sex tends to come after a couple have connected emotionally rather than before!

But we do know that good sex causes dopamine levels in the brain to increase, and when dopamine in the brain increases, you get that “loving feeling”!

The conclusion is inevitable: great sex can help a man to fall in love with you. Sure, this isn’t the only way guys fall in love, but it’s worth remembering that sex helps him feel loving. And in any event, great orgasms are always fun,  even if they don’t lead to a loving relationship!

Three: You Support Him

Again, like all these concepts, what “support” means for you is probably different to what it means for the next woman, but you probably would agree that support, i.e. standing by somebody’s side and “being there for them”, is definitely something to do with love and connection.

(Unless it’s to do with obligation, which is a completely different human dynamic – as you may well know, if you’ve supported your aged parents from a sense of obligation rather than love.)

There’s a serious point here, though, which is simply to ask yourself why you would ever consider standing alongside and supporting somebody who was not returning the energy?

Although love and connection and friendship are different aspects of the same emotion, each contains some desire to feel supported by a life partner. This may be someone we can trust, someone who’s going to make us feel comfortable, someone who relies on us in some way to feel safe in the world.

Video – How To Make A Relationship Last 

And sure, support manifests itself in many different ways: it might even be as dramatic as the woman being the person in the relationship who is earning the money and supporting the man financially while he stays at home to look after the kids.

Sure, that wouldn’t be normal in our society, but what the heck does that matter? As long as the dynamics of support in your relationship are clear, and satisfactory to you both, then a high level of trust will undoubtedly develop, and eventually underpin your relationship: then you’ll know that each of you will back the other up.

And it’s worth mentioning that in such a situation it’s a lot less likely that either partner will be unfaithful.

Implicit in a relationship where  trust is high is a commitment to encourage your partner always to do better, to be a better person, and to engage with the challenge of constantly increasing his or her personal standards and stepping more and more into their own power.

As a woman, do you believe this is all a part of knowing how to make a man fall in love with you? Because it is, in the sense that these things are part of what “makes a man a man” and part of what “makes a woman a woman”. And all male-female relationships are based on complementary strengths in different areas of personality.

Four: He Supports You

For you to have a relationship of strength and equality, it’s necessary that both partners support each other. You may even find this mutual support essential for good emotional health.  

That’s because men want to be the provider, to support, to provide for their loved one. And let’s not evade the fact that there are two primal urges in humans:  a man wants to look after a woman and provide for her;  a woman, at some level, wants to be cared for by a man.

My experience working with people over many years suggests that when we allow these primal urges and feelings and desires to be felt by ourselves and met by another person, something which feels remarkably like love can begin to emerge.

Five: You Are His Ideal Mate

Could you consider the possibility that one aspect of what makes a man fall in love with a woman (you?) is the fact that you are just right for him?

We all know it’s easy to fall in love, and I’m sure of each and every one of us has had plenty of experiences of falling in love with somebody who couldn’t possibly have been right for us.

Once the romantic phase of a relationship is over,  we readjust our perspective and then we understand that the first romantic flush of a new relationship is an idealistic phase….. one in which we see our partner through the distorting lenses of love.

Idealization Must End Sometime!

So what keeps people together in relationship, long term, after the idealization has ended? The first thing is simple: Are you still loving each other? Do you know how to make a man love you forever?

Each of us could probably connect with many different partners, in many different ways, but perhaps the definition of a satisfactory loving relationship is that it fulfils the majority of a person’s needs around connection.

In other words, for a man to fall in love with you, you have to be the woman who fulfils most of his expectations and needs in the arena of love – certainly more than the next woman.

And what about the reverse situation? What makes a man fall in love with you? Simple. It’s probably the same dynamic – you have to be the woman who has more of what he needs and wants than any other woman.

Bear in mind that it’s precisely this – the things which somebody wants in a relationship – that makes a man or woman unique in terms of how attractive to you they are. And that attraction “gets you together”….. and then, maybe, you will fall in love.

We fall in love because at the root of the mating and dating game, we have a desire to seek out somebody who fulfils our needs and meets our expectations.

It’s almost like having two pieces of a puzzle which fit together so perfectly that it seems as if “it’s meant to be”. As women often say, now I know how to make a man fall in love with you! At least, that’s how it feels to the people involved.

love and sex

Love and Sex Go Together – Don’t They?

No matter how much we might start with good intentions, the reality is that many relationships become sexless in a comparatively short space of time.

In fact, one in five marriages becomes “sexless” (which means sex takes place less than 10 times a year) within five years.

Considering that we’re all brought up to believe that love and sex go together, or that sex is the physical expression of our love for each other, this is quite remarkable.

The Decline Of Sex

The truth is that sex is a really enjoyable part of both an individual’s and a couple’s life, both separately and together.

And you can’t talk about loving someone forever if you’re not having sex with them – or rather, you can’t talk about romantic love as lasting forever if you’re not engaged in sexual intimacy with your partner.

One of the critical things about good sex within any relationship is to have realistic expectations about what it can do for a couple. Also, it’s necessary that both members of a couple value their sexual health, their sexual body, and their partners sexual body.

Perhaps one of the reasons why a loving relationship which starts out with lots of passionate, romantic love and intense sex declines quite quickly into in a sexual relationship with a lack of intimacy is not that love has diminished, but that the couple are aiming for a too-perfect sexual relationship.

You see, when you regard sex as something that is about pleasure, and intimacy, and reducing tension, and increasing self-esteem, you can probably accept more easily that it doesn’t have to be perfect, and that it can take a variety of forms, all of which are satisfying in one way or another.

But He Doesn’t Love Me Any More!

By the age of 40, as many as 90% of men will have gone through at least one experience of not being able to get an erection or losing it during intercourse.

That’s quite normal, it’s not a sign of erectile dysfunction – and it’s certainly not a sign that your man has stopped loving you, as some women often think!

Some women seem to think that the loss of an erection or a man’s inability to get an erection means something about him not desiring his partner any more. This isn’t true either.

But on the other hand, the penis never lies, and the lack of an erection means something. It’s a way the body is speaking to you and to the man who owns it. And yes, doctors do think that the majority of problems with erections in men under 50 are the result of psychological or relationship factors.

What kind of factors might those be?

Well, probably something about some aspect of love in one way or another. Often it’s about connection and intimacy – or a lack of those qualities.

It’s quite possible to love somebody, but not to feel intimate or even to feel sexual with them, even within a loving relationship. Yet most women really value physical intimacy and want it to continue throughout the love relationship.

This desire for love and the physical connection and intimacy of sexual intercourse needs to be set against a realistic background: for example, it’s a myth that men are always ready to have intercourse, at any time, with any woman, whenever the opportunity arises.

This is simply untrue. And at the same time for a man, the loss of his erection, or failure to become aroused at all, tends to rate around 10 on a scale of 0 to 10 in the personal disaster league.

Furthermore if a man loses his erection during lovemaking, he tends to wonder why he’s not turned on, while his partner may think that he’s lost interest in her sexually or he is turned off in some way.

In fact, erections come and go quite naturally during prolonged intimacy, sex play and lovemaking. In 45 minutes, a man should expect 3 or 5 erections.

How To Enjoy Love More

There are some simple tips which can help couples enjoy lovemaking more. And since lovemaking such fundamental aspect of any relationship, it’s worthwhile considering incorporating them into your own sexual routine:

1 Let the woman initiate intercourse and guide the man into her. This reduces performance pressure, and it’s a comfortable and familiar process for the woman, removing pressure from the man.

2 And don’t expect every intimate encounter to lead to intercourse – only about 85% or less of interactions will end in intercourse, the others can conclude with a loving connection, a loving cuddle perhaps, or some erotic expression that doesn’t involve coupling.

Rekindling Your Sexual Desire

You need to start with a sense of positive anticipation, and the expectation that you deserve the pleasure of sexual satisfaction within a loving relationship.

You also need to accept that you’re the one who’s responsible for getting that pleasure – it’s not up to your partner to pleasure you, although that’s often the way couples see the dynamic of the physical expression of love between a man and a woman. (That is, man pleasures woman.)

And remember that the initial romantic love and passionate sex phase of any lovers’ relationship will usually last less than two years, and is often over within six months.

In a loving relationship, sexual desire is maintained by you both developing a comfortable way of functioning as a sexual couple.

That means building intimacy, being relaxed about sex, releasing false expectations and hopes of what sex can do for you, and finding ways to maintain sexual desire.

The chief one of those, by the way, is touching, both sexual and nonsexual.

The Importance Of Touch

There’s an interesting set of guidelines for couples in a loving relationship who want to maintain a sexual connection by using the catalyst of touch.

This is likening touch to having a car with five gears. The first gear is when you’re just simply holding hands or kissing or hugging, and second gear is more sensual touch, which might or might not be with your clothes on, holding and caressing, or perhaps cuddling in bed.

Third gear is touching both the body in general and the genitals specifically, whether  in clothes or not, or perhaps engaging in such things as taking a bath together or whole body massage.

Fourth gear is erotic touching – in other words mutual stimulation of the genitals and other body parts to high levels of arousal and perhaps orgasm. And fifth gear is, as you might have guessed, within the context of a loving relationship, allowing pleasurable and erotic touch to flow into intercourse.

It’s important that this is fun, and affectionate, perhaps even sensual and playful.

Yes, “play” is a good word to apply to the way that physical sensations of lovemaking manifest within an ongoing loving relationship between a man and a woman.

As an expectation many women think that somehow love alone will keep sex on the agenda. It isn’t really like that; it has to be worked out, you have to find ways to cultivate sexual desire.

Touching, as we’ve already seen, is a very good way to do that – and there are many others.

Loving sex within a love relationship with a loved mate is basically about finding ways of communicating to your partner your anticipation, expectation, experience, beliefs and feelings around sex.

Bear in mind it’s worth doing this because positive sexuality can really increase shared pleasure in the wider relationship, it can deepen intimacy, and it can help you both deal with stresses of life and indeed the stresses of your relationship.

There’s a lot of evidence to show that having orgasms in the bedroom isn’t just satisfying within the context of physical loving. The pleasure and satisfaction which orgasms produce spreads into a harmonious relationship outside the bedroom in all areas of life.

It’s also important to have realistic expectations. You can’t expect to have the same level of pleasure, perhaps you can’t even expect to have an orgasm, or maybe even emotional and physical satisfaction, each time you make love.

For when you look at couples who have been together a long time, only a third to a half of sexual experiences are very good for both people.

In general one experience of sex in five is very good for one person and just OK for the other, and about the same proportion are just OK for one person and merely acceptable for the other.

And between 5% and 15% of sexual experiences are downright disappointing, no matter how much two people might love each other.

You just have to accept that is part of life, bounce back, and enjoy “good enough” sex next time, while laughing off whatever goes wrong from time to time.

Interestingly enough, regardless of how much a woman might love a man, or how much a man might love a woman, when sex falls to a frequency of less than twice a month, both the man and the woman may become anxious about anticipating it, and self-conscious about the possibility of having it.

When it does happen they may find that sex is tense and unsatisfying. That in turn leads to a future avoidance of sex, which often puzzles the couple, because they feel like they don’t want any sex any more.

To be honest, the simple remedy for this is to plan times for sex, to put it in your diary, and to enjoy it.

You’ll find that the more you have sex, the more you’ll enjoy it, and the more loving you’ll feel towards each other.

You see, one of the most important things about sex is that sexual desire (or if you prefer, “being horny”) develops when you having regular sexual activity!

the difference between love and sex

Love and Desire – Are They Connected?

We all tend to think of romantic love and sexual desire as going hand-in-hand, but they are the result of very different processes in the brain.

And the fact that they do come from different neural networks, and they really do involve very different subjective experiences, might suggest there were different evolutionary origins for romantic love and sexual desire.

Love and Marriage?

Basically we could reasonably assume that sexual desire was about mating and procreation, whereas anything associated with romantic love looks much more about the process of pair bonding for the purpose of rearing children. Socially that has become a process of ceremonial bonding – marriage. We all seem to assume that marriage follows on from falling in (romantic) love, but that is a cultural adaptation which Desmond Morris suggests is based in a human concept of fairness (one man, one woman for all).

If that’s true, it’s no wonder the men and women can experience feelings of sexual desire and love quite independently, but there are some questions that the scientists feel are unanswered.

If this was true, then people might feel sexual desire people of one or other gender and simultaneously be able to fall in love with people of a different gender.

Lisa M Diamond of the University of Utah has summarized the differences between romantic love and sexual desire; let’s have a look at what she’s got to say on the subject. 

Love and Sex

As we all know, sexual desire is about a need, perhaps a biological drive, to find sexual objects or engage in sexual activities, whereas romantic love is more about feelings of infatuation and attachment, perhaps combined with intimacy and a sense of empathy.

A lot of people researching love make a distinction between the first stages of love – which we’d call passionate infatuation or “limerence” – and the later stages of love, which are more about companionship and affection.

As you yourself might have experienced, it’s possible for both men and women to experience romantic love without sexual desire, or to experience sexual desire without love.

For example, in general, research seems to suggest that men and women can fall in love with people of either gender regardless of their sexual orientation.

One of the problems of investigating love is that there’s no clear test of what constitutes true true love, and it’s therefore hard to identify it.

Equally, it’s hard to be sure that you’re researching love consistently between different people.

But by putting together a group of behaviors, thoughts and feelings, psychologists have been able to identify the characteristics which seem to be common among people in love in different cultures.

According to the psychologists, therefore, passionate love is “a temporary state of heightened interest in and preoccupation with a specific individual, characterized by intense desire, proximity and physical contact, resistance to separation, and feelings of excitement and euphoria when receiving a partner’s attention.”

In later stages of love (which we could describe as more about companionship) the desire for proximity and the resistance to separation become less marked and are replaced by feelings of empathy, intimacy, security, care and comfort in the presence of a loved partner.

Neurobiology

A great deal of research on the neurobiological mechanisms of love and desire has been carried out.

We know that the primary driver for sexual interest is hormones from the testes or ovaries – and it appears that these hormones are not involved in the formation of loving feelings.

Love itself appears to be a product of the basic “reward” system in the mammalian brain, a system in which various chemicals such as oxytocin are involved. In essence, it appears that love is an intense feeling of what the psychologists call “reward” when you ‘re in the company of a loved individual.

But why should this be? It doesn’t really make logical sense that sex and love are the product of apparently separate neurological mechanisms. Why don’t they go together?

To answer this question, psychologists have drawn attention to the similarity of attachment between mother and infant on the one hand and attachment between two lovers on the other.

There are significant similarities:

  • an intense affectional bond
  • separation produces feelings of distress
  • and proximity produces feelings of comfort and security.

Perhaps the natural evolution of the maternal – infant care-giving bond was “co-opted” for the purpose of ensuring reproductive partners stayed together to rear their offspring in the human species.

In fact when you look at the neurological mechanisms of animals caring for infants, and also animals which form pair bonds, you find that the biological mechanism is exactly the same for both behaviors. This tends to reinforce the idea that romantic love between adults is an evolution of the bond between mother and infant.

So if this was true, how could we explain some common observations such as the fact that women place a greater emphasis on relationships as a mechanism for sexual feelings than men do?

Love and Sex 

It could be that biological factors contribute to this gender difference: for example, chemicals like oxytocin and dopamine, which are responsible for bonding processes, are also involved in sexual behavior.

And these chemicals definitely affect men and women differently. They produce gender specific behavior.

Female rats, and therefore by implication female humans (who are also mammals), have much more numerous oxytocin brain circuits than males.

The reason for this is undoubtedly to facilitate caregiving behaviour between mother and infants, but interestingly enough, oxytocin also interacts with estrogen and regulates the rats’ sexual receptivity.

Unsurprisingly, since this is most likely an evolutionary mechanism, women show greater oxytocin release during sexual activity than men, and there is even some evidence to suggest oxytocin is related to orgasm intensity.

An inevitable conclusion is that women find sex more desirable, acceptable or enjoyable within the context of an intimate relationship than men could be a product of the higher levels of oxytocin in the female brain.

Another observation which is perhaps less well-known that many women who have had sex with another woman report that they had no desire to engage sexually in this way until they fell in love with another woman.

This is not something that men seem to report very much, if at all.

Could it be, therefore, that the higher levels of oxytocin and similar chemicals in a woman’s brain allow her to connect love with desire, even when these desires override her usual sexual orientation?

Probably. And underpinning this research is an assumption that sexual arousal is a basic biological process, while romantic love is more mind-centred. What we can say for sure is that current research demonstrates culture, socialization, and neurochemically mediated processes all affect the behaviors and feelings associated with both romantic love and sexual desire.

falling in love again

Top Reasons Why Men Fall In Love With A Woman

The Internet is full of information about why men fall in love with women, but I thought I’d offer you a perspective from a male point of view. 

So here’s a post from counselor and therapist Rod Phillips, with his views about how you might make a man fall in love with you – or at least help a man to see that you really are the right girl for him!

1: Loyalty and Love Go Together

And loyalty isn’t just about the sexual aspect of life.

Loyalty and faithfulness go well beyond sexual faithfulness  into the times when a man isn’t as powerful as he normally would be.

When he’s ill or in some kind of trouble, more than anything he’ll looking for his partner to stick by him, no matter what the temptations other men might throw in front of her. He’ll be looking for her support until he is back on his feet, both psychologically and physically.

2: Openness and Honesty – A Route To Love

Nothing perplexes a man more than when a woman cries or sulks and won’t say what’s wrong, or tries to hide the fact that something is wrong. (Especially when her anger or sulkiness is manifestly showing all over her face and in her demeanour.)

This comes down to a high level of emotional intelligence. And part of that is having the good sense to know that manipulating a man by means of emotional trickery is a pathway to disharmony.

The best way to deal with a man who you want to love you is  a straightforward approach where you say what’s wrong, say what you need, and ask for support clearly and directly.

Interestingly enough, when a girl does this, a man may fall even more deeply in love with her and want to meet her needs as best he can. You have to understand that nothing upsets men more than a woman who’s manipulative with her own emotions and disrespecting of his feelings.

3: A Pleasant Nature

When a woman’s appreciative, when she hears her man say how pretty she is, how delightful, how good-natured, or even how sweet she is, she takes the compliment to heart, opens her heart, feels closer to her man and proud to be on his arm.

In return, he feels his masculine sense of self being empowered, so he’s grateful to have her as his partner, he’ll treat her like a queen, and protect her in every way he can.

When she shows her sensitivity and her desire to help those who are less fortunate, he will listen carefully to her and if there’s anything he can do to support her, he’ll find a way to do so.

You see, by being vulnerable herself, and emotionally open, and by being ready to support her man when he feels emotional himself, he is given permission to show his own feelings and ask for support from her.

In this way, a couple will become more emotionally open so they can exchange their deepest thoughts and feelings. And oddly enough, this in turn will help a man exhibit his masculine strength and protectiveness towards his partner, just as she wants him to do.

4: Forgiving

A woman who has the capacity to avoid grudges when a man does or says something which hurts her is likely to be a woman whom a man can love deeply.

The thing is, most men are not really emotionally literate, so a woman who can forgive her man his transgressions, most of which will be unintentional and done out of insensitivity rather than a desire to hurt, will soon have a man who’s thanking his lucky stars he’s got a partner who so kindly compassionate. And from there to admiration, and from admiration to love, is but a short step…

Furthermore, when a woman does forgive a man and continues to love him, he’s really got no choice but to face up to his attitude, his actions, and his behavior, which means he can then do what men are good at: fixing the problems so his relationship improves even further.

5: Being Supportive

This means understanding your man, it means being alongside him in his hour of need, it means encouraging him, and more than anything else, it means respecting him.

And more than anything else, respect is what a man wants form a woman. Once he has it, he will fall in love more easily than you can imagine.  

6: A Good Listener

Men want a woman to listen to them when they are ready to talk about their problems.

Ideally, a man is looking for a woman who is going to be empathic and compassionate, who listens carefully, avoids criticism and judgment, and can be trusted with a man’s innermost secrets – especially around sex.

Keep in mind that men rarely reveal their deepest thoughts and feelings, so a woman who can suspend judgment, be accepting, tolerant, compassionate, and yet at the same time empathize with a man who’s sharing deep and personal stuff (most likely stuff he would never tell anybody else), is a woman with whom a man is going to fall in love very quickly.

7: Her Expectations Are High

If a woman’s ambitious for a man, she will stay alongside him when he fails, tell him that he has to “man up” and meet the challenge and go back into battle and defeat his enemies, no matter what form they take, and motivate him to be the best he can possibly be.

And if she’s doing this gently and calmly, making clear how important it is to her, she’s going to build her man up and he will respond by trying to be the best he can possibly be.

In other words, behind every good man there’s a good woman. Behind every great man, there’s a great woman. 

8: She Has Her Own Life

Keep in mind that what makes a man fall in love with a woman is probably not what makes a woman fall in love with the man.

Since we’re interested in what will make a man fall in love with a woman, and in particular how to make a man fall in love with you, let’s just check off a few more important points.

First and foremost a man isn’t interested in a woman whose entire existence depends on him and what he’s doing. (Not unless he is a complete narcissist, in which case any sensible woman would be running a mile.)

Truth is, men love women who have a life of their own – in other words, women who have their own interests, their own social circle, and who can live happily without a man at their beck and call.

A man knows that a woman who respects herself doesn’t want to be with a man who will drop everything every time he gets a text message from her, change his diary and arrangements to suit her, and is desperately waiting for every phone call she cares to make.

A strong man knows that the way to a close relationship is to be two separate people who understand each other, respect each other, and are independent. In other words – don’t be needy.  It’s a massive turn-off for most masculine, caring men.

Sure, some men, whose self-esteem comes from being needed, like a needy woman. But really…. what a way to build a relationship! Mutual dependency is no basis for a man to fall in love with a woman.

Furthermore, if you don’t give yourself easily to a man, he’s going to know that you’re worthy of his companionship and love. He’ll sense that while you respect him, you also respect yourself just as much.

He’ll know you’re not dependent on his presence for entertainment, nor his suggestions about what to do for ways to fill your life.

And please note: this isn’t about “playing hard to get”. It’s about simply having a life of your own that demands time and attention separate from your man.

And also, the same is true in reverse – if you want to make a man fall in love with you, please don’t answer his text messages the minute they arrive, unless you genuinely have nothing else to do. Wait until the next break in your day, and then answer him. Don’t hang on him as though your life depended on it….

Remember that the excitement of a relationship, and the likelihood of falling in love, will be increased by individuation rather than merging (except, perhaps, in the first early months of a new relationship when nothing seems as wonderful as your beloved).

9: She’s Ready to Try Excitement

Many studies have demonstrated that men and women who share activities which have an element of danger, with an adrenaline rush, tend to fall more deeply and more quickly for each other than if they spend time together doing the conventional things like movies and dinner.

I don’t mean to say having dinner together isn’t a rewarding experience. Rather, sharing experiences which take you over your comfort zone can be a more powerful tool to make a man fall in love with you.

Just think about the thrill of rock-climbing, skiing, mountain biking, or some other exhilarating pastime, and think how you feel after sharing your experience with your partner, perhaps compared to going to the movies together. Get it?

10: She’s Willing to Be Intimate

Intimacy is knowing somebody at a deep level.

There’s no question that people fall in love faster when they have shared their deeper thoughts and feelings.

One psychologist did an experiment in which people who didn’t know each other sat down together and exchanged personal questions and answers. After they’d done that, they looked in each others’ eyes for four minutes – and lo and behold, guess what?

They didn’t exactly fall in love, but they felt very intimate and connected. There’s no question that shared intimacy, which comes from opening up the deeper parts of yourself, can be a way to encourage a man to fall in love with you.

Want to know how to make a man fall in love with you? Well, these are the qualities which will make a man fall for you faster than any other: in essence, mature, balanced men want a woman with a high level of emotional openness and trust, one who will respect them without making judgments, one who will support and challenge them. 

ways to make a man love you

Three Ways To Make A Man Fall In Love With You

As always, the Huffington Post has some amusing and interesting articles on the perennial question of how you can make a man fall in love with you.

Writer Dr Ali Binazir (sounds like a pseudonym to me!) Says there are three basic ways. Here they are!

One: The Natural Way Of Making Love

Men may well have an image in their minds of the woman they want to meet. It’s almost like an archetypal image of the woman that man is going to fall for. If he’s really lucky, she’ll enter his life at some point.

If you like, she has the combination of all the things he’s programmed – and who knows how that happens? – to want in a woman: a smell, her looks, her way of being, her cultural background… loads of elements that he doesn’t even sense, but which altogether give him a powerful image in his mind of the woman he wants to be with.

But, you might think, even though all of those things are important, doesn’t he actually need to like her before he can fall in love with her?

Yes, of course he does, and so much the better for him if he does like her. If not, he’s probably going to be heartbroken.

And just as importantly, you have to like him as well – there’s no point falling in love with a guy you don’t like! But if you meet a guy you like, and who falls for you because you’re his archetypal woman – well, congratulations! Your search is over.

Two: The Devious Dastardly Way To Make Him 

Well, well… this is the manipulative strategies described in books like The Rules. So much the worse for all of us, because the strategies are based on old-fashioned ideas and out of date concepts.

To sum it up, it appears to be a strategy that you can summarize in three words: give, withdraw, repeat.

But let’s get something straight before you go any further – if you’re planning to manipulate a guy so he’ll fall in love with you, then you’re heading down the wrong road.

He might be infatuated with you for a while, but he’s not going to really love you, especially when he finds out he’s been tricked and manipulated. He’s really going to react badly. Unless, and it’s rather unlikely, you have the ability to then move the relationship from its foundation of deception and manipulation into something more honest and trustworthy.

Up to you, of course, so let’s have a look at it.

By the way – if you do use these techniques, you might find a man becomes obsessed with you and starts behaving in a quite peculiar way (stalking? obsession?) It’s not really recommended.

For instance, you might give out your phone number and when he phones you, make a date – which is giving a man something. Then, you cancel the date at the last minute – obviously the man is going to be confused, feel rejected, and not understand what the heck is going on.

Then you can switch back on again: call up, apologize, explain, and swear you want to reschedule. You promise you’ll make it up to him.

Of course, now he thinks you really do care, it wasn’t your fault, and you are merely a victim of circumstance. Most men in this situation will give you another chance.

Of course if you withdraw again (by cancelling) you’re probably going to be blown out. But if you turn up, flirt, give him compliments, gaze into his eyes, touch him a lot, and then cut the whole thing short and leave, you’re withdrawing again. Indeed, you’re repeating.

And once again, this man is going to be mighty confused, but this time he’s been so close to a taste of love (he might even be beginning to fall in love with you), it’s probable he’s going to be thinking about you – maybe even obsessed with you in some way. Most men would be.

So if you re-enter is life in the next day or two or three,
give him more, and then withdraw in some way later on, you’re really manipulating him into a place of vulnerable dependency. It can take a very strong man to resist this!

Of course you might already have done something similar to this unconsciously – and decided never to do it again. But done consistently, it’s really underhand, and the end result of your work might be a man who’s infatuated with you in an inconvenient way.

Three: The High Road

Dr Ali Binazir recommends another way of making a man love you: the honest way.

How to make a man love you….. use your feminine power – that’s the feminine power which can help a man become more of the man he was always designed to be.

You know the saying “behind every great man there’s a woman”? Well, you can be that woman, by nurturing his vision of his greatness, making him feel taller (metaphorically), more capable, or more masculine. Most men don’t get this reinforcement anywhere in their lives – so to get it from a woman is very powerful and can build and reinforce deep feelings of love.

The key to succeeding in this strategy is to make sure that you pay attention to the best aspects of the man you are with (or the man you want to make fall in love with you): in other words, you must appreciate and respect his positive qualities – ones like strength, loyalty, creativity, compassion and love.

By focusing your attention on these, and appreciating those qualities in him, you will actually see him evolve into the man you want to be with.

gauging the depth of a man's love

Eye Contact And Falling In Love

In 1970, Zick Rubin, from Harvard University, published a research paper in which he first described the difference between liking and loving, and then investigated whether couples in love spend more time gazing into each other’s eyes than couples who don’t love each other so much.

Love is generally seen as our most profound and deep-rooted emotion. It can be our most profound connection with other people, and it starts at birth, when we learn whether or not we are loved (and lovable) by the response we get from our mother as we emerge into the world.

Yet despite the importance of love to the human condition, back in 1970 very few psychologists had paid any attention to it whatsoever. If they did pay any attention to love, they often described it as an intense form of “liking”.

Loving & Liking

But is this really true? If you’re falling in love with a man, don’t you feel something different to the feelings you have when you merely like a man?

Isn’t love something that makes you think, feel and behave in a different way, a special way, towards a particular person?

Romantic love, at least, surely falls into that category? This is what we’re talking about on this blog, which is all about how to make a man fall in love with you.

That is not to deny there are different types of love. But surely the love you have for your brothers and sisters, the love you have for your spouse, and the love of God, to take only three examples, all have something in common.

But we can take it further. We can find out how people who are in love behave towards each other. We can identify characteristics which allow you to measure how much in love somebody is with you.

Now bear in mind that when you know this, you can judge how successful your attempts to make someone fall in love with you are proving…. which is, I’m sure you’ll agree, a very useful strategy in the dating and mating game.

This all follows on from Rubin’s research.

He asked young men and women at Harvard University a series of questions which were designed to identify the feeling of “loving someone” and the feeling of “liking someone”.

So for example, the scale of love, designed to identify how intense somebody’s love for their partner was, had questions like this:

  • If my partner were feeling badly, my first duty would be to cheer him or her up.
  • One of my primary concerns is for my partner’s welfare.
  • I would forgive my partner for practically anything.
  • When I’m with my partner, I spend a great deal of time just looking at him or her.

The liking scale, designed to identify how much people liked each other contained questions like these:

  • Most people would react very favourably to this person after a brief acquaintance.
  • I think that this person and I are quite similar to each other.
  • I think that this person is unusually well-adjusted.

Obviously the idea is to produce a scale of love on a scale of liking, which people can measure how much they love and like each other.

And in fact the questions were cunningly designed to identify different aspects of a relationship such as a feeling of affiliation, or a wish to be exclusively in connection with somebody.

But the technical details don’t matter. What’s important to us here is any information we can get from the survey which is relevant to a woman who is trying to make a man fall in love with her.

Because falling in love (or being in love) is the most important thing to so many men and women alike, the signs that he’s falling in love are especially important to a woman who is in relationship with a man.

What were the important findings?

An interesting finding which comes across very clearly is that love and liking are much more highly linked among men than women – in other words, men really have to like a woman before they feel they can love her.

Women don’t show this tendency, which suggests that women can separate the experience of loving and liking the person – for a woman, liking and loving someone are not the same thing.

As you might expect, how people related their partner on the loving scale was closely linked to the extent to which they were in love.

But did those love scores correlate to any other behavior? Yes, the answer is they did. Rubin observed couples from behind a one-way mirror when they were facing each other, and measured the amount of time the couple spent gazing into each other’s eyes (at the times that they were directly facing each other).

Video – eye contact and romantic feelings

Would it surprise you to learn there was a strong tendency for couples who said they were deeply connected and deeply in love to engage in more mutual gazing or eye contact?

Probably not, because we’re all accustomed to meeting people who’ve fallen in love and have no time for anyone but their partner. And this is really interesting because the complete absorption of two lovers in each other is manifested through eye contact. It turns out that your lover does indeed “only have eyes for you”, as the song had it….

And in turn, this means the amount of time a man spends gazing directly into your eyes when you’re in close connection and facing each other is an indication of how much in love with you he is.