Massage adds loving touch to your relationship

RELATIONSHIP IS LIKE dance. We join for a while with a partner to move through life. Some of us float with the grace of maturity over the floor of a large ballroom, while others bop frenetically with the awkwardness of a teenager in darken dance halls. In this dance of relationship, we seek to join with our partner in intimate ways that have the potential to being beautiful and sacred.
To touch is to experience the godself in ourselves and in the other. Physiologically, humans are wired to give and receive touch. Gentle and loving touch of another opens a rich and wonderful realm of experience; endorphins are released producing pleasure, lymph circulation is promoted and the muscles release toxins and other waste products along with attending emotional issues. Through loving touch, we learn we can become safe and vulnerable with our beloved, thus becoming closer to our
partner in a way that is precious and deep. The god/dess in ourselves blends with the god/dess of the other creating a communion that is spiritual beyond description.

Many ways to enhance your relationship
If you and your partner wish to enhance your physical relationship, massage is a wonderful gift for you both to share with each other. The following list is just one of several ways of introducing another form of loving touch into your relationship:

•Get out your daytimers and set aside several dates for you and your partner to get together to create and share in your loving space. If you wait until you both "have the time," you may find you never do.
•On each date, get rid of the distractions. Turn off the phones, ignore the doorbell, lock the doors, and find someone to play with the kids for a few hours. This is your time to be with your beloved and to re-discover each other in new and fun ways.
•On your first date, find a comfortable and pleasing place to cuddle. Tell each other your dreams for your physical relationship. Listen to each other and dream out loud about the sacred space you would each like to create where you can commune with each other. This space need not be fancy. Instead, have it reflect how you would like to be touched by beauty in all the senses: touch, sight, feel, smell, and even taste.
•Over time, create your sacred space together. Collect soothing music, light, and art to enhance the mood of the space.
•Buy some books and videotapes on massage. Play with creating a pleasant mixture of massage oil. Add fragrant essences to the oil to stimulate the sense of smell.
•In creating your sacred space, make a comfortable place for both giving and receiving the massage. Make sure it is warm enough for the recipient. If the bed doesn't work well for massage, buy a good quality massage table. A good comfortable table can be bought or built for not too much money.
•Honor your beloved before, during and after the massage. The god/dess self in you is communing with the god/dess self of your beloved. Create and share a heart opening ceremony before the massage. Both of you state what you want for the other. And have fun with the ceremony! If you want, you can dance, or song to your ceremony.
•Loving massage is a flowing dance between you and your partner. Follow the flow of the massage. Honor your partner’s requests; do more of whatever your partner likes, and don't do what your partner doesn't like. Play and experiment with technique. Lavish your partner like the royalty they are during this sacred time.
•Be totally there for your partner.

This means no mental laundry lists! Sometimes feelings may come up for your partner that have been trapped in the body for a long time. These can be feelings of sadness and anger as well as those of joy and ecstasy. Whatever feelings come up, you need do no more than just cradle this precious person and listen to them without judgment and with an open heart. They're opening up to you because they feel the safe and loving space that's been created between you.
When the massage has finished, cover them up to keep them warm. Pamper them by washing their feet or whatever loving gesture comes to mind. If they need to be alone with their feelings, then gently let them know that you are available to listen to them later and let them be. Otherwise, cuddle with your beloved. And, if the fires of passion happened to have been ignited, then, well, I'm sure you both can figure out the next part.