Exploration of Self and Each Other
Posted on April 01, 2019 by Melissa Menchaca, One of Thousands of Relationship Coaches on Noomii.
This can be as fun or as terrifying as you make it out to be. The magic lies within you.
5 things that alternative lifestyle relationships do that should be a part of every romantic relationship. Welcome to Item 3: Exploration of self and of each other!
Yesterday, we talked about both hard and soft limits. Today is where we talk about everything that is well within your limits and possibly pushing some of those soft limits. This can be as fun or as terrifying as you make it out to be. The magic lies within you.
Self exploration is a must. You need to know what you enjoy and what you don’t in order to truly create some limits. The stuff that you don’t know about is the stuff that should/can be explored. What hobbies do you enjoy? What have you always wanted to try? Go ahead and do it. Do you enjoy being girly or do you like being a tomboy or an alpha lady? This is your life and you get to live it however YOU WANT IT. Do what makes you feel awesome. Do things that push you forward toward your goals. Do things that might suck in the moment but the end results are amazing (ahem like working out… totally SUCKS in the moment but end results are nice).
Exploring together is another must. Go hiking together. Try new foods. Try working out together. Find things that you both found might be interesting. Use each other as motivation to do great things or just feel great. Once you trust each other enough, you can even work together to push some of those soft limits.
Here’s a personal example of exploring things together with a fantastic end result. I typically am not a photo person. Whenever I looked at a photo of myself, my eyes always went to my second chin or the muffin top. I just didn’t like the way that my body looked. I began to question why my husband ever chose someone as ugly as me. As we began to explore an alternative lifestyle together, he came up with a daily task for me. He was going to send me a boudoir photo and I was to send him a picture of myself in a similar pose. I was SUPER hesitant but he explained that he wanted me to see the beauty that he saw. He wanted me to have physical evidence that my brain is lying to me.
At first, when I started getting these photos from him, my thoughts were all about how these ladies were super model skinny and my fat ass would never look like that. That he needed to pick out some plus sized photos. It was even evident on my face that I was mocking these skinny ladies and also telling him “WTF” with my eyes. After a week though, I told myself that I actually needed to try. Don’t make a game of this, but really try to see the beauty.
I would take 50 photos just to find that 1 perfect one that I could edit to send to him. After a month went by, I took 30 photos, no editing and sent him the 2 best ones. After 3 months, I take between 1-5 photos and he gets them all. The most editing I will do is maybe throw a black and white filter on there and call it a day. This speaks to how much my confidence has grown. On pictures that I thought were hideous (I never said that to him though), he would tell me that I looked gorgeous. I now see the wonderful things that he sees.
Explore things together. Experience life together. Here’s my one warning though, don’t sit around waiting for your partner. Plenty of ladies will say that they don’t do things because they are waiting for their partner to free up time or insert excuse here. Don’t let them hold you back. If they need to wait a bit, have them actually schedule a time (BE SPECIFIC). If you just leave things open ended like “well we’ll get to it sometime next summer,” it’s most likely not going to happen.
Hop on over to my profile to read about other items that alternative lifestyle relationships do that should be a part of every romantic relationship.
