LOVE

What is love? How is it born? how can it die? And how to maintain it?  

As Valentines Day approaches, people talk about love and relationships. Some really enjoy the occasion, others hate it. Some don’t want to be in monogamous relationships, some do. Some don’t like commitment, others love it. Some feel that love is not for them, and some keep searching for it.

We are bombarded with perfect images of love and good relationships on television and on social media, it can be confusing to really make sense of what love really is. The media represents a good relationship as finding ‘the one’ and then living happily ever after.

Some of us don’t always recognise love when it comes to us because we may have some pre-conceived ideas of what love looks like. I hear my clients say: ‘a good relationship should start with love at first sight’ whilst others say: ‘ I don’t trust love at first sight, for me it takes time to get to know someone before I feel love’. The truth is, love can take many shapes and forms and can come your way when you least expect it. There isn’t one perfect way to fall in love with someone.

When people start a relationship with someone they love, they often make the mistake to think that everything should be easy from now on. That is not the case. Love is not only feeling the butterflies in your stomach. Those butterflies will go at some point in your relationship, usually quite early on. For some people, it can be distressing. I often hear: ‘I don’t feel the same way about my partner now that we’re committed’. Feeling differently as the relationship goes on is normal and it doesn’t mean that you are falling out of love with your partner. It means that you are entering a new phase of your relationship with a different kind of love: the one that needs to be maintained by regular small gestures.

The high peak erotic is replaced with fitting sex in your busy life.

The butterflies in your stomach get replaced with a sense of contentment when you’re around your loved one.

The high intensity passion gets replaced with the everyday gentle flow of care and kindness.

And, of course, the ‘he’s perfect for me’ gets replaced with ‘He’s annoying sometimes’.  

All of it is still love.

Some loving people can sometimes do unloving things to each other like shouting at each other, intimidation, shaming, insults. If these are one-off occurrence, it is best to learn from those destructive behaviours and ensuring you honour your love for your partner by not behaving like that again. When those behaviours become a regular occurrence, it is when love can die.

For a lot of people, love doesn’t die because of toxic behaviours. It dies because it has been left unattended. Love is a living entity and it needs feeding on a regular basis. Some people think they fall out of love as soon as there is a problem and are prepared to throw in the towel too quickly. Others leave the relationship once the butterflies leave their stomach in search for new butterflies. But love can be long-lasting if you keep working at it to maintain it. To help you guide through the maintenance, here are a few tips:

1-    Never assume what your partner thinks or feels. Always be curious about them and how they are doing.  

2-    Hug and smile at each other daily. Make it part of your routine to hug, kiss and smile at your partner when you leave the house in the morning and when you return home in the evening. It provides a tender, loving and caring frame for the relationship.

3-    Make small, reasonable requests and meet your partner’s requests: the small gestures of making a cup of tea, for example.

4-    Surprise. An occasional small gift for no reason can bring some lightness to the daily grind.

5-    Spend quality time with each other, talking, laughing, playing and staying away from phones, laptops and tablets for that moment.

6-    Develop a positive language. Make sure you express to your partner when you feel warm, loving or sexy towards them, don’t keep it to yourself! And praise them for the things they do well.

7-    Learn to like the things about your partner that you can’t change. There will always be some things your partner does that will irritate you. Bring empathy to your life and learn to like those things. Would you rather put up with those things or lose your loved one? If you’re in the right relationship, putting up with the small irritations are worth the trouble to keep your gorgeous partner!

If you and your partner can navigate the daily grind of life and continue to feed love, you are both more likely to have an enduring satisfying relationship. There is no happy ever-after as in fairy tales. But it is a matter of creating the space for love to thrive every day. Whether you are happily single, looking for love or in a relationship, I wish you all a happy Valentine’s Day.

Silva Neves 

Rethinking your new year resolutions

In January, we hear ‘New Year, New Me’, we hear many resolutions: ‘I will go to the gym more’, ‘I will have a better diet’, ‘I will drink less’, etc.

Those resolutions quickly become yet another thing on your to-do list, and then you beat yourself up for not doing them. Does it sound familiar?

At this time of year, my clients often ask: ‘If making resolutions are unhelpful, what can I do to have a better year? I respond that what might be useful is to move away from an action-based thinking to a being-based thinking. Of course, what we do is important but a state of happiness and success is also a ‘being’ experience.

The essential ingredient for a happier year is joy.

Joy is essentially a ‘being’ state. Firstly, I invite you to think back at 2017: what did you do that made you feel good about yourself? What did you do that you loved?

You may be tempted to think about the big things like an important achievement at work, for example. If it made you feel good about yourself then and still making you feel good now when you think about it, that’s great. But your source of joy last year may not have been anything to do with achievements. For example, you may have purchased a new rug, and each time you look at it, you feel good. Or perhaps you had a great time with an old friend and when you call up the memory it brings a smile to your face.

I encourage you to take some time to reflect on the joy of 2017: for some people, joy is staying in bed late on Sundays. For others, it is enjoying an impromptu glass of wine with a best friend.

Once you have reflected on 2017, you can start to draw a joy-based plan for 2018.

Not enjoying your job doesn’t mean that you have to change your career. What it means is that in 2018 you can focus on joyful things outside of work: if you have a hobby that you love, do more of it. If you don’t have a hobby, find one in 2018. If joy for you is connections with friends, see friends more. My clients who made a joy-based plan tell me: ‘I spend more time reading novels on weekends and that makes me happy’ others say: ‘I spend more time with my favorite friends and that brings me joy’. Others say: ‘I took up painting and it’s a new hobby that makes me feel good’.

We are all different, going to Pilates can be a source of joy for one person and Hell for another. Why listen to what society tells us we ‘should’ be doing to be happier? Going to the gym five times a week, eating blueberries, medidating every morning and so on. These actions alone seldom bring joy, unless they are something you love doing.  

Of course, a good diet and exercise is crucial for health and well-being, but you don’t need to adopt a regime that you find tough: it is unlikely that you will stick to it. Denying yourself the piece of pizza you really want because it doesn’t agree with your workout goals is truly joyless.

Many people do joyless things because they are driven by an underlying fear of being worthless. I encourage you to be mindful with your ‘should’ and ‘must’ thinking. Some are useful, for example, you definitely ‘should’ go to work even when you don’t want to. And you ‘should’ be polite even when you’re irritated. But who says you ‘should’ drink a kale smoothie every morning? ‘Must’ you really wake up at 5.30am to go to the gym when your body tells you it needs a rest?

All of us, of all health status, all body shapes, all lifestyles, we are all worthy of leading a joyful life. Being kind to yourself and others brings much joy.

Gratitude is another element that can bring you joy in your life. Sometimes I ask my clients to write three things they are grateful for every day. It can be anything from an existential gratitude: ‘I’m grateful for being alive’ to a practical gratitude: ‘I’m grateful for my boiler not breaking down this winter’. Focusing on gratitude is a good way to get away from the stress of ‘not having’ towards being mindful of the things that you do have.

Well-being, self-care and a successful year isn’t always about what we do and what we achieve. It is primarily about taking on a new philosophy of ‘being’, focusing on joy: what you love, what makes you happy, what makes you feel good about yourself.

My challenge for you is to bring more joy into your life. Notice how different you can feel about yourself. You might also notice that the to-do list, the career goals, etc. become easier to achieve when you have a joyful life. If you start with the ‘being’ you can be a more productive ‘doer’: full circle.

I wish you all a happy, successful and joyful 2018.

Love your vagina

This year, a worrying increase in numbers of young women, as young as 16, reported to go through vaginal plastic surgery to make their vaginas look ‘better’. It seems that many young women think their vagina doesn’t look right.

Surgeons performing such interventions say that it is helping these young women have better ‘self-esteem’, which I think is incorrect.

Surgery only promotes the ‘perfect-looking vagina’ epidemic that seems to be spreading. As a psychosexual psychotherapist, I know that if we don't address the underlying issues that bring the distress around the look of vaginas, the surgery won't make that person have a better self-esteem.

The vagina is a complex structure with many important tissues. It can be traumatic to have unnecessary surgery in that area: it can in fact contribute to psychosexual problems. Having an operation before the age of 18 is not recommended because the body hasn't completely developed by then.

But, most of all, why go through that pain? Vaginal operations are only recommended if there is a genetic anomaly that makes sex very painful. If it is just cosmetic, it is not recommended.

If you have distressing thoughts about your vagina, here are some tips:

1- Look at other vaginas in the right places: not erotic images nor pornography. Look at anatomically, everyday, real pictures: you will see that all vaginas look very different and they are all normal and beautiful in their own way. There isn’t the ‘right’ amount of hair, or just the ‘right’ colour. Vaginas come in all sizes, shapes, hair and colours, etc.  

2- Get to know your vagina: with a small mirror, look at your vagina: touch it gently, looking with curiosity. After looking at other pictures, you will see that yours is just as normal and beautiful as others.

3- Protect your vagina: if a boyfriend tells you that your vagina isn't hairless enough, or pretty enough, it is the equivalent of bullying: protect it and defend it. It may be that your boyfriend needs to educate himself about what vaginas actually look like.

4- Give a voice to your vagina: it may sound strange but it is a powerful exercise. If your vagina could speak, what would it say? As mentioned above, your vagina is a complex structure: it has much to say, and it might have a lot to say to respond to you not liking the look of it.

I see many women in my consulting room who have no relationship or a hate-relationship with their vaginas. This simple process of getting to know it, spending time with it, meeting it, protecting it, giving it a voice is a meaningful way to learn to love your vagina. In my experience it is the easiest, less invasive, less painful way to address permanently the issues of self-esteem, and feeling better about yourself.

There isn't just one way that your vagina ‘should’ look like. It is an important, tender, beautiful part of you, so, please, love your vagina.

MEN

I sit opposite a female client in my consulting room. I hear her say: ‘All men are evil. What hope do women have? How about our daughters?’. I challenge my client with the obvious: ‘I’m a man’. To my surprise, her facial expression was one of shock. It was difficult for her to reconcile her notion of ‘all men are evil’ and knowing me, a man who had been holding her emotional space and helped her heal over the last six months. Thoughts like ‘all men are evil’ is what we, psychotherapists, call ‘global thinking’.

I can’t blame her. Global thinking is prevalent in today’s society, especially through social media, as is ‘black and white thinking’: some things are good, some things are bad. There is no room for grey areas. Yet, my clinical experience, and life, has taught me that reality is hardly black or white, and is mainly composed of various shades of grey. During my career as a psychosexual and relationship therapist, I have noticed that global thinking and black and white thinking encourage the movement of shaming male sexuality and, at the same time, promoting the fear of male sexuality: ‘men who watch porn are bad’. ‘men are cheaters’. ‘men sexually offend’.

Douglas Murray calls this movement a ‘sexual counter-revolution’ in his article in The Spectator published on the 4^th November 2017. In his opinion, the new ‘feminism’ is ‘producing manifestos for torturing men’ to the extent that ‘no sex at all’ will become the new appropriate behaviour. I fear that Murray is right, given what I hear in my consulting room, more and more, and especially since the Weinstein scandal and the subsequent #MeToo movement.

I am not denying the struggles of women in a patriarchal world: women have to endure men putting them down and sexually objectifying them, every day. It is not ok for women to live like this. The #MeToo movement has created empowerment for some women to speak out, which is positive. But it is equally important to remember that not all men are sexual offenders or predators. Most men are loving, caring and kind. Perhaps some are awkward and ignorant and say the wrong things at the wrong time: it is clumsy, but it is not a criminal offence.

Soon after #MeToo, another movement took off: #ImperfectMen, to encourage men to say that they are imperfect. What good would it do to anybody? With #ImperfectMen, it is a way to silence men again, and to put them all in the box of ‘Not Good Enough’. I prefer #WhatIHaveLearnt. This seems more appropriate to me because it can create a discussion without shame. Sadly, that one didn’t take off.

And, by the way, nobody is perfect.

What appeared on social media besides #MeToo and #ImperfectMen is multiple articles and blogs with headlines like: ‘The 5 top things to never say to a woman’. ‘The 10 things you must do to be a better man’. ‘The 5 signs to find out if your boyfriend is a cheater’, etc. Rather than ordering men to act exactly in this way or that way so that they can be a ‘good man’ or a ‘better man’, why not have an ongoing conversation between a man and a woman: because women, too, are not all the same.

Some women enjoy being told that they’re beautiful. Some others don’t. Some women enjoy the attention from strangers. Some women don’t. Some women have sexual fantasies of being dominant, others have sexual fantasies of being submissive. Some women enjoy a man taking control, some don’t. Some women welcome a flirty touch on the shoulder or the knee, some don’t. Some women enjoy watching porn, some don’t. Some women, too, exploit men’s vulnerability to coerce them into sexual behaviours, most don’t.

If there is no ongoing conversation between men and women, on an individual basis, then how can we understand what is right for one person and what is not for another?

The conversation is simple if we stop thinking in black and white terms, or in global thinking.

‘For me, this is ok to do this, and it is not ok when you do that’. This is boundary setting from one individual to another.

If someone unknowingly crosses a boundary and they are told so, this person must not minimise, argue or dismiss the assertion of boundaries, but simply listen to the boundaries, apologise and make sure they don’t cross the line again with this particular person. Then, they can ask for clarification: ‘what is acceptable for you?’: this is the basis of consent.

If this dialogue happens in this way, then you have two people who are honest and assertive and they can respect each other.

Of course, there are gross misconduct and criminal behaviours that we all agree should never happen, like any non-consensual activities and other illegal sexual behaviours. And we all have social norms to respect: not intimidate or ridicule another person. I think this is pretty easy to know what is right and what is wrong if you have been socialised by reasonable parents. Most men know about non-consensual sexual behaviours and what is illegal. And most men know about social norms, and they don’t breach them. This notion that male sexuality is dangerous and that it can get out of control quickly is pure fiction and fear mongering.

Of course male sex offenders exist, they are a tiny percentage of the population. These people should have the appropriate criminal sentence.  And There are also female sex offenders who also should have the appropriate criminal sentence.

At the same time that we demonise men, we also order them to open up: ‘men must talk more because their mental health is poor’. Suicide statistics are worryingly high amongst young men. But how can we give a chance to men to open up if we’re going to shut them down as soon as they make a genuine mistake, or be clumsy or not knowing the right word to say at the right time?

Masculinity is beautiful. Male sexuality is as vibrant and loving as female sexuality. Let’s embrace all of it.

Rather than demonising men, I think it is best to meet each other with open arms, have honest ongoing conversations without making judgements and assumptions of what we are, what we think and what we are likely to do based on our gender.

My point in writing this blog is to offer a bit of balance in a discource that is often too black and white. We seem to live in a world that is polarised. But the fact is that we are men, we are women. We all do good things and bad things. We can unknowingly offend somebody by being insensitive and clumsy. Let us keep the judgement in the court room for the true sex offenders. And for the rest of us, let’s allow mistakes to happen, it is how we can learn from each other.