Making Room For Romance

If ever two were one, then surely we

By Debbie Eisenstadt Mandel

The initial passion fades, and routine settles your life; you have become best friends, but where are the romantic interludes of yesteryear? Generally passion implies fantasy while marriage means mundane reality. Can the two ever live happily ever after?

Sensuality is conceived in the brain as the body actualizes the wish. We need to fantasize about what we do have, not what we don’t have. Part of the problem is that we expect someone else to complete us, to make us happy. The movie Jerry McGuire did a lot of damage to the abstract idea of romance when Renee Zellweger turned to Tom Cruise and said, “You complete me.” No one completes another person. We complete ourselves. Instead of waiting for your partner to tantalize you, to make you happy, why don’t you set up a romantic scenario based on your own fantasies, rather than being disappointed by some token romantic gesture you demand he devise or else! Create your own story with you in the lead role and remember to dress for success.

Use your five senses to intensify the experience. Lingerie can hide many imperfections and once your lover is involved in the process, no one cares about a little excess here, or a little cellulite there. Find activities, games, delicious finger foods to tease your beloved out of the cave. For example:

• Leave a trail of your clothes from the front door to the bedroom culminating with a love poem on the pillow
  
• Gaze into your lover’s eyes with a penetrating look, especially when doing mundane chores together
  
• Give your lover a hug from the opposite direction that you normally hug
  
• Present your lover with love coupons for redeemable kisses
  
• If the object of your desire is watching a game, then watch it with him and bet on the outcome. The winner gets his or her fantasy gratified
  
• Play music that has special meaning for both of you—especially from your decade
  
• At a party whisper to your partner, “you are the most beautiful/handsome one here!”
  
• Create small rituals together as a couple
  

When you feel happy, you make room for romance. When a woman feels stressed, tension tightens the body and when that happens she is not in the mood to be a recipient of love. However, when a man feels stressed, he needs to release and looks for the opportunity to make love and relax. Therefore a woman needs to make time to decompress to get into the mood. This can best be accomplished by exercising. By the way working out is great for men too! Here is how exercise helps us to get physical!

Exercising, particularly lifting weights, releases testosterone, burns off stress hormones, and raises endorphins. For both men and women the more testosterone means more libido. What better place to have the object of your desire working out along side you when that happens! When you go home, you can shower together, preheat towels in the dryer, to create warmth and a feeling of pampering. Worthy to note: exercising makes you look better, feel healthier, more energetic and therefore more confident about yourself. If you don’t love yourself, it will be harder to believe that others love you too. Here are some suggested workouts for two:

• Partner-driven squats
  
• Hand-held cross lunges
  
• Tandem lunges
  
• Abdominal crunches on the floor-- interlocking feet and passing a medicine ball
  
• Abdominal obliques—standing back to back and passing a medicine ball
  
• Belly dancing to shake down inhibitions—costumes compensate for a lack of technique
  

Don’t forget to eat a balanced diet that is heart smart; otherwise you will be starved for affection. Human beings are not creatures of deprivation.

Above all, express yourself, reveal your true inner self-- that is the secret to living in greater joy. When you suppress your feelings, they settle into resentment which will smother any passion, consciously or subconsciously. The key to romance is liberation, freeing the heart, mind and body, to move beyond self-doubts and fear. Anything that happens in life involves perception—how we choose to perceive and interpret an indiscretion, or a situation. If we cut our partner some slack here, by showing compassion and understanding, we have shed an energy drain. Most of the time we create a tense story that had nothing to do with the sequence of events. Negative self-talk persuading us that we are not good enough makes us see others as betraying us, ignoring us, or not loving us enough.

A long term relationship is not a 50-50 partnership—rather it requires a 100-100 ratio. We each have to give 100 percent. And sometimes we have to work (and play) overtime.

Did you know that your cravings to be with a person that you love is actually your hunger for Divine love. Read the Songs of Solomon which develop the allegory of the sensual love between a man and a woman as an expression of God’s embracing love for mankind and our longing for that spiritual embrace. See how Divine your partner is!

Debbie Eisenstadt Mandel, MA is the author of Turn On Your Inner Light: Fitness for Body, Mind and Soul, a stress-reduction specialist, motivational speaker, a personal trainer and mind/body lecturer at Brooklyn College. She is the host of the weekly Turn On Your Inner Light Show on WLIR 92.7 FM in New York City and has been featured on radio/ TV and print media. To learn more visit: www.turnonyourinnerlight.com