What is foreplay? What isn’t foreplay?
As an Intimacy Expert, people’s immediate curiosity tends to be whether I’m really a sex expert. A somatic sex therapist. A Tantrika. Can I teach them how to give better blow jobs, have bigger orgasms or stay erect longer? Well…. 😘😉
Growing up, I suppose I thought intimacy meant the same thing. And while the outcome of the energetic and emotional work I do with people very often turns into more enjoyable sex … it’s really a positive side effect rather than the goal we were going for.
I define intimacy as an inside job, I’m sure you’ve heard the saying.
It’s the relationship we have with ourselves, one of transparency, vulnerability, honesty, truth and raw reality, all walls down, heart splayed wide open, out of control, letting go of attachment and outcomes and diving completely into the present moment first with ourselve, so we can be that, with another.
My personal and professional experience is that as we become the one, we find the one. As we drop out of our heads and into our hearts, we deepen our intimate relationship with ourselves and our relationship with our beloved thrives.
Yet it doesn’t stop with just our beloved. We begin to have an intimate relationship with life, finally feeling like the universe has our back. We begin to have intimate relationships with our mission, vision and purpose, our money and business, our friends and family, our children… with nature and beauty.
We begin to see that we are in a consistent relationship with everyone and everything.
Are we trying to control everyone and everything?
Have we given up as a victim?
Are we constantly looking for the other shoe to drop?
Do we feel in charge of our destiny?
Do we feel that life is fundamentally hard and people are basically out to get not give?
Are we solid enough on the inside to truly listen to another without judgment or interruption?
Can we honor another’s experience as valid even if we don’t agree or understand?
The good news is as we cultivate a solid thriving intimate relationship with ourselves, absolutely everything on the outside changes. It’s like we put on a new pair of glasses. It’s like we change train tracks. An entire new reality appears before us without doing anything to make it happen. It arises out of its own accord based on our own vibration and point of view.
And of course, it’s all science. If we’re coherent in our heart we’re turning on our prefrontal cortex abstract thinking and igniting our instincts and intuition, able to vibrate high enough to receive non-local intuition from the Field.
So what in the world does this have to do with foreplay? Phenomenal question 🙂
I find after 20 years of being an intimacy expert and relationship coach that we are either motivated by fear or inspired by love.
Foreplay IS either a strategy from emptiness to get something to finally feel good enough… Or it IS an expression of authentic pleasure and creativity given as a gift from the overflow to dance with the mystery and your partner.
We all know what it’s like when somebody says ‘I love you’ but at the end of it they leave it like a question with a hook. You feel you have to respond to and say ‘I love you too’ or they’re going to play dirty or hold a grudge. They’re trying to manipulate you into saying it. They’re empty and they need you to say it back.
Some people do this with giving gifts or making dinner… It’s to keep you on the hook so that you reciprocate so that they feel safe, good enough or in control of the relationship.
The same with foreplay.
Little notes or cards or glances or touches or gestures… you can FEEL the ones that come with an agenda and strategy…
Or, you can FEEL the ones that come as an authentic gift from the overflow that’s sacred desire and sensuality from the core of their heart and spirit.
Many clients complain that after the honeymoon stage is over and the chemistry wears off, that all the foreplay goes away and all their partner wants is to ‘stick it in’. They complain of either denying their partner genital copulation, or just putting up with it while they think about their golf game or the grocery list. You see this happens to both men and women in my coaching practice.
Both men and women have relationships where they feel used for sex for the other person is in it to take and not give.
Another version my clients complain about is that they shut down and run from their partner’s attempts at foreplay throughout the day because there’s such a strong agenda for sex. They KNOW if they receive the foreplay it’s going to be EXPECTED they have to ‘put out’. So they turn cold and reject the person.
With total compassion of how this feels, I point out that they are not the victim of their circumstances. I teach them to speak up in these sacred intimacy communications called ‘dyads’, which I speak about in my books and year-long membership programs.
Other clients still choose to shut down sex altogether because there’s so much pressure to make them orgasm. As their partner is way off in the future trying to attain a goal, so they feel good enough about themselves as a lover, that they’ve left the ‘present moment’. Their partner literally ‘feels alone’ while making love, because their partner is so ‘attached to the outcome’ – they feel ‘under the gun to produce the results’ and often fake pleasure. Fake orgasm. Fake that they’re enjoying themselves. Fake that they’re feeling safe, or having any fun whatsoever. Inside they shame themselves for not being orgasmic enough.
What else is possible?
True extraordinary, exquisite foreplay allows every moment of presence to be complete in and of itself. The kiss is the kiss without an agenda. The brushing of a hand down the cheek, neck and clavicle is a moment of rapture complete in and of itself.
I invite them to slow everything down… Let go of the outcome, let go of the goals, let go of the pressure of achieving orgasm. Let go of meeting approval or things needing to go a certain way in order to be enough.
The results are extraordinary, sensual intimacy, sexual connection, often tears of relief, hearts healing and souls connecting.
Bodies alive. Spirits Ablaze.
Finally, I encourage them to make love with the Universe all day long, so that they are coming from overflow by the time they approach their partner. Send them a note or kiss their neck in passing.
They’re not looking to be filled, they’re not taking. It’s a practice. A rewiring of how they thought about sexuality. It’s a willingness to be bravely present and courageously communicative… And the results are nothing short of ecstasy!
A great way to start to heal what’s in the way of providing or attracting great foreplay, is to discover the blind-spots that are sabotaging it. You and I both know, if you were able to see them, you’d heal them, right?
Thus, when you take my quick, easy and proven Intimacy Blind-spot Quiz, you will discover the culprit behind a sabotaging pattern you haven’t been able to change… AND how to break through!
Take the assessment now at www.AllanaPratt.com/quiz.
You’ll be one step closer to not only giving or receiving great foreplay… But learning to cultivate deep, rich, connected intimacy with yourself and your partner – in the face of any circumstance… creating devotion and soul shaking union!
To your thriving, love,
Allana xoxo
❤️🧡💛💚💙💜
21 August, 2020
Biography
Intimacy Expert, Allana Pratt is a global media personality and go-to authority for those who have suffered heartbreak and are ready to live unapologetically, and attract an open-hearted, ideal relationship.
Her vulnerability and courage landed her a featured weekly column on the GoodMenProject, featured as an Icon of Influence, and as a Guest Expert on Huffington Post, People Magazine, Forbes, CBS & FOX and The Jenny McCarthy Show.
This Ivy League grad is the Author of 4 books, has interviewed Whoopi Goldberg and Alanis Morissette, and Hosts the edgy Podcast “Intimate Conversations” where listeners learn how to find the relationship they deserve. A certified coach, Allana was asked by Leeza Gibbons to coach her during Dancing with the Stars. With close to 5 million viewers on YouTube, Allana supports non profits like ‘Rise of the Butterfly’ to end human trafficking while offering private coaching and retreats so that her clients have a thriving intimate relationship with themselves first, which naturally attracts and enhances their ideal partnerships.
Contact Allana directly at: www.AllanaPratt.com
