Inevitably, barring any medical reasons, our sex lives and our sexual activity will be bound up in our emotional, psychological and physical engagement in the world. Our sense of passion, our ability to surrender ourselves to the other, our need to be in charge, our need for connection, our dread of connection, our need for freedom, will all be connected to past attachments and sometimes trauma. Our life journey will have shaped the level of emotional expression we feel comfortable with and, more importantly, how willing we are to let the other love us and how willing we are to take the risk of loving the other.

Unsurprisingly then, desire, eroticism and passion follows a uniquely individual path for all of us. There is a Buddhist saying which states that all desire is thwarted compassion towards the self and in my work with individuals and couples I help people to see how this need for compassion, whether that be about safety, protection, or total ecstatic abandonment, shapes our desire and the expression of our desire. Non shaming communication between partners is an essential way to improve your sexual connection so that you can learn to be more compassionate to each other and to sexually heal each other.