Let’s start with the obstacle. The biggest obstacle to great sex is the idea that you “should” be having great sex.

This is an obstacle because if it “should” be good and it’s not, you judge and pull away. If it should be good and it’s not, there must be a reason, and your mind wants to find that reason. One place to start is your partner. If only she/he were more open. If only she/he were more adventurous. You know the drill.

Or maybe you blame yourself, or the chemistry. Whatever way you chose to resolve this dilemma, you stop investigating. And when you stop investigating, you stop learning and growing. You just stop where you are and sex doesn’t get any better. In fact, it gets worse.

We have this romantic notion that great sex just happens. If you love each other it’s great. If you’re sexy, beautiful people, it’s great. When in reality, great sex is reserved for those who cultivate great sex.

Is it any wonder that when it gets sticky, so many of us pull away?

Truth be told, what you get is the“starter kit.” You get the parts and the desire and interest, but the rest (the fulfillment, the satisfaction and the depth of connection) require ongoing attention, learning and growth.

Most people resist this level of deep engagement because the fantasy is so much easier and so much less risky.

To truly resurrect a boring sex life, you must drop this idea that it “should” be good and take responsibility for any lack of aliveness. Then show up ready to discover and learn.

Expectation is a barrier to intimacy and pleasure. By courageously letting it go, you truly show up. And through that there is the freshness you seek, and the depth of feeling and passion.

If there is one “tool” that makes sex exciting, each and every time, regardless of how you’re “doing it,” it’s presence. Put your attention on your breath, one breath at a time, and let thoughts dissolve into nothing. This will breathe life into an otherwise boring sexual experience and truly intensify your pleasure.

Karen Brody, copyright 2009. All rights reserved. For reprint permission, contact the author.

I interviewed Arielle ford this past Tuesday and we talked about soul mates. Arielle is the author of “The Soul Mate Secret.” I think the most startling “secret” that Arielle revealed is that she doesn’t believe that we have one soul mate, but that a soul mate can be anyone for whom we feel a deep affinity! I imagine ears were burning on that call!

I have to admit, that even though this makes sense intellectually, some part of me had a struggle with  letting go of the romantic notion of the “one.”

The idea goes back to Greek Mythology, to the story of Plato’s Symposium. At this dinner party, Aristophanes creates a story of love, whereby The God Zeus cut humans in half to weaken their power — leaving them to search for one another for the rest of their lives.

Did this story arise out of a knowing that Plato carried within him that we are a piece of another, or did this fantastical story make it’s way into our psyches over thousands of years and become inextricably imbedded in our story of love?

Or, does this yearning to be met and completed by another simply represent our egoic fear of not being enough?

As a counselor and a coach I see how much pain and confusion arises in the search for the “one” — the agonizing over how to recognize this mythic figure, the angst that you might never find him or her.

What if the “one” is within you?

What if in wrapping your arms around  this inner “other,” you merge in the wholeness you so desperately seek?

Karen Brody, copyright 2009. All rights reserved. For reprint permission, contact the author.

I had a client consultation a few days ago by someone referred to me. He told me he’d be “interviewing” several prospects.

As I listened to him talk about the issues with his girlfriend – one of those being that she isn’t grateful for all of the opportunities his income provides – I could hear many openings for healing.

He turned that “captain of industry” energy on me ultimately, and asked, “So what makes you qualified to be my counselor?”

Men tend to jump toward challenges like this, where women tend to retreat. It’s like trying to get nectar from a tree by hitting it with a bulldozer.

This is a classic example of a man using a dominant style of relating to engage a woman. He applied force instead of gentleness, and what that did is force me to retreat and withdraw my heart.  You can’t pound the loving essence of out someone.

The point here is don’t challenge a woman like you challenge your men friends, if you want to connect with her and elicit her loving. Instead cherish and encourage, and gentle her to open her heart to you. This will always produce the sweetest nectar.

Karen Brody, copyright 2009. All rights reserved. For reprint permission, contact the author.

Sexcess with men is all about mastering the art of seduction.

Let me explain, and make a distinction: I had a very sexy acquaintance in college, who liked to get men to take her to expensive dinners and then ditch them when the check arrived. She was not a seductress. She was a manipulator.

I have no interest in taking you down her path or teaching you her nasty tricks. Being a seductress is a respectable art form. Women who know how to seduce elegantly and masterfully, weave men right into their gorgeous webs, and into their hearts. The true seductress has fun with men, and she knows how to hold a man’s interest, even in committed relationship.

Most women haven’t a clue how to hold a man’s attention for any length of time, as demonstrated by what happens for women in relationship. Here are 5 Keys for how to take your power back.

Key 1

A man has to feel that he cannot have you. This ignites a fire in him. If he feels that he can easily have you, typically he will lose interest. The pursuit is not a pursuit.

This dynamic will shift once you are partners, or close lovers, but initially the “chase” is essential to the man’s excitement, to his interest –and his perception of success with you. Think of a hunter. If there is nothing to catch, he gets bored and goes home.

This doesn’t entirely disappear once you are committed. He still wants to feel that you’re a bit of a challenge or he loses interest. You can keep a man wondering and chasing by never fully turning yourself over to him.

In order to apply this principle, you need to get into a mindset where you are absolutely clear that if this man NEVER wanted to see you again, (even if he’s your husband) you would be ok – to such a degree that you would live your life fully and happily, without him! It’s the only way to be so confident, so elusive, that he chases you for years to come.

The key is to date him (or if he’s your partner, engage with him) as if you could, let him go, for good — at any moment. This will free you up to be sexy, irreverent and independent.

In fact, keep letting him go on every breath. This is a daily practice for non-attachment. The less you are attached, the more you can fully enjoy him, and the more he wants to enjoy you and lavish you with his attention. When I say, “attached” I mean that you’re gripping and holding onto him out of fear. This is very different from loving him.

You’ll feel truly powerful when you aren’t clinging to his approval, his desire for you, or hopes for a relationship with him –or trying to hold onto his involvement in your relationship. Let it all go, and be free within yourself.

Key 2

Make fun of him and his efforts to impress you. Do this gently and playfully. He’s got to know you’re not impressed by what he does – that you’re looking for the man beneath the money, the car and the success. If he can’t impress you, he’ll want to. A man desires a woman who lovingly encourages and pushes him to be his best.

If you’re in a committed relationship, don’t let him get away with gifts and favors in lieu of stepping up in love. Accept them graciously, of course, but remind him that it’s his loving you seek, and invite him to love more deeply in the ways that are meaningful to you. When you accept less, he’ll regard you as easy and stop trying to get you.

Key 3

Laugh freely, and play in the sexual energy between you – as if you have all the time in the world to luxuriate in the energy of attraction. If you’re dating, don’t be sexually aggressive. If you become the aggressor, he might take advantage of that and make love to you, but you will have robbed him of the pleasure of the hunt.

You can be in charge, of course you are always in charge of your body and your choices, simply let him direct, initially.

Pace the interaction so as not to be sexual too soon – before you’ll clear that he’s really into you, mentally and emotionally – or he’ll take what he wants and never call you again. It’s simply what happens, for men, when there isn’t a deeper connection.

If you’ve taken the the time to by create emotional connection, you’ll get better results.

If you’re married, tell him what you want him to do to you, and then enjoy yourself. Really allow him to give to you and then demand more of it. Contrary to what most women think, this makes you appear as more powerful to him. The more you can ask and take, the more he finds you wildly attractive.

Key 4

Let him do things for you. It’s important for a man to feel that he can do good for you. A woman who cannot receive robs a man of pleasure. If you love yourself, receiving isn’t an issue. Simply accept with grace, and give to him when it feels organic to you. Receiving with grace is a beautifully feminine.  Remember this especially in bed. His greatest pleasure is when you allow him to lavish you with pleasure.

Key 5

Be honest and express integrity. Tell him when you’re into him and when you’re not. Whatever you do, don’t string him along. If sexual interest isn’t there, be clear. And don’t play games that make him feel powerless, by not calling him back and the like. If you’re in a relationship, be truthful when your needs aren’t being met, and ask directly and specifically for what you want, rather than punishing him by withholding sex. Never use sex as a bargaining tool. It diminishes your sexual power.

By Karen Brody, “The Sexcess Coach.” all copyrights reserved 080409.

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When I interview men who want better sex with their partners, it’s the same disheartening dialogue again and again. It’s like a bad broken record.

“I like sex more than she does. She’s just not that into it. I don’t know why she’s not that erotic. I love it when she climaxes and I’m really into being inside of her, and I’d love to try new positions, and ….I want to figure out how to turn her on.”

Even as the “therapist,” I’m bored. Why is it so challenging for men to get that we don’t care about what you need to achieve in bed?

If you want to turn a woman off in three seconds, just get really graphic about all of the things you want to try and do. Yuk.

It’s not that we don’t like these acts, we just don’t like the way you talk about them.

There’s no intrigue when you name positions. Tell her what you want to do to her in the way you look at her, or you savor your wine — how you feed her, or moan when you place your hands under her ass — or in how you smell her hair, or push her up against a wall and eat her alive with your eyes.

Men talk about sex and give away all of the details, when what turns women on is anticipation. It’s the possibility of what you’ll do and how she’ll feel with you that makes her ache for you.

Don’t tell her on a date that you give great tongue. Demonstrate it once you’re in bed. When you tell her, you spoil the fun. Now, she’s not in the play of her imagination, she’s wondering if you can possibly live up to your claim. Chances are you can’t.

“My wife doesn’t like to try new positions.”

This is because you haven’t learned to do the basic ones with any finesse.

Karen Brody, copyright 2009. All rights reserved. For reprint permission, contact the author.

I like to say that how you make love is how you do everything. Think about it.

If you hold back, if you rush through, if you avoid deep engagement, isn’t this also how you are in the rest of your life?

Sexcess is about making love to your whole life! It’s about taking the most desirable qualities from Great Lovemaking (connection, passion, pleasure, openness, growth, joy) into the whole of how you live.

So imagine this: if you simply focused on the quality of your lovemaking, how that would affect everything you do! I’ve seen miracles happen when people open to lovemaking in a deeply connected way.

Want more money? Greater Joy? Make love more. You getting the theme here?

A sexcessful person makes love to life. There is no separation between how you make love and how you live, and this has to come out of making love.

You can do a bang up job at your work and it might affect your connection as a lover, it might not. But, be better in bed and it WILL affect work. It will affect earnings and quality of relationship. That’s the magic of lovemaking – it permeates everything – and the result is always, unequivocally, more love.

Karen Brody, copyright 2009. All rights reserved. For reprint permission, contact the author.

Can you imagine if you went to work or exercised only when you were in the mood? Can you imagine the effects on your income and your physical shape?

And yet, this is how most of us relate to sex! We let how we “feel” dictate whether or not we make love.

Not “being in the mood’ could mean a host of things that are always shifting. It could mean you’re afraid; it could mean you’re angry. It could mean that you feel unattractive. Moods are affected by everything. To let whether you feel like having sex be a defining factor in whether you do, is not a very solid “plan” for your sexual growth and enjoyment.

Mood centered sex also enables you to avoid one another and to distance yourselves.  One of you simply says: “ I don’t feel like it,” and all hopes for a loving interaction are off.

Mood driven sex pretty much ensures you will not grow sexually because there isn’t enough consistent attention and nurturing to your connection. You can’t water a garden when you feel like it, and hope to find much alive in the garden.

Great sex and the benefits in your life, require you to make it happen even when you’re not in the mood. It’s a big step toward moving into deeper connection, graduating from sex that is about pleasure alone, to sex expressed as love!

Dear Men: Do you have any idea the kind of power shift you could affect with any woman if you learned to sometimes, even occasionally, say “no?”

One of the reasons women stay on top sexually is that they say “no.” Your desiring sex, more,  balances the tables in a woman’s favor. We are the choosers. You are the beggars. Think about it.

Learning to say “no” now and again gets a woman thinking. It gets her wondering, and it gets her turned on! Suddenly there’s a challenge, instead of an always ready, always hungry and always eager sex animal in her midst.