What is Intimacy Coaching?
By Ashley | March 25, 2021
What Does an Intimacy Coach Do?
An intimacy coach helps people feel safer, closer and more connected to their lover or partner. Tackling issues around physical and emotional intimacy, these coaches teach their clients a sense of safety they may have never learned as children. Intimacy coaching also helps to develop a deeper sense of closeness and comfort, increase emotional awareness, and heal attachment wounds.
First Steps in Intimacy Coaching
My client is nervous. He is looking down at his hands, unable to make eye contact or form sentences. I’ve just asked him to flirt with me.
I can feel his unease in my own chest and stomach, tightening and bracing. My fight, flight or freeze response is threatening to take me away while I’m working with my own emotional history and defenses. I continue to ground myself and track what he’s feeling and how my own system is responding to him. He’s here because he said he wanted to learn how to have more confidence on dates, how to be a better lover, and last longer in bed.
As a sex and intimacy coach, I get a lot of male clients coming to me with these same desires. They feel they’re not doing their job as “men” and their identity is threatened if they experience difficulty with flirtation, seduction, and fucking someone’s brains out. They seem to believe everyone else has these skills down. In truth some element of intimacy or performance is a struggle for most – maybe even all – men.
I feel for these guys. They haven’t been given the tools to connect emotionally. What’s been reinforced is often a pick-up culture. And this is all about how to distance yourself emotionally and get validated by sex, rather than enjoying the pleasure of exploring connection. This hurts us all in the long run.
Finding a Connection with A New Client
Facilitating Change
He’s different now than when he first boomed into my office.
He was acting larger than life then, projecting power. He was also quick-paced, demanding, and challenging. Never wanting to actually take a breath, he showed no sign of being less than fully in charge. I felt my defenses wake up and wanting to teach him a lesson. My chest expanded, my breathing was heavier, my pulse quickened. I felt the need to respond in a way that would impress him.
After working together for a while however, his demeanor is completely changed.
He is acknowledging his nervousness and is ready to take input and listen. He was unsure of himself at first. Once I started to lead us through exercises, grounding us in the moment, humanizing each other, and asking to look into each other’s eyes without speaking, he remained present. It’s vulnerable and there are no words to fill the space with. We are just there together, feeling each other’s presence and taking each other in.
My Own Defenses Can Also Get in the Way
Through my work on myself, I’ve learned that we’re just individuals with our own emotional histories. We each have defensive mechanisms we’ve picked up to protect ourselves. We can have deeper intimacy when we learn to navigate our own, and how to keep connected with someone else through all of their intimate challenges as well.
I have identified my defensiveness around typical “alpha” guys. If I were to describe it comically, it would look like me smearing war paint on my face, and erecting giant walls around any vulnerable feelings. I’d come out shooting fireballs and screaming a battle cry to show them who the real alpha is. And that I’m not some little girl that will fall for their pick-up lines and power plays.
Now I know I have used this strategy before to overcome my fear of being overpowered. And not necessarily in my practice as an intimacy coach. It’s that need to prove I’m tougher and stronger than them – which actually drives a wedge between us and connection. I don’t want to be hurt again, and neither do they. We are both attempting to prove something and protect ourselves from the other, rather than see if there’s a connection worth pursuing between us.
Something very important to note here is that, when we try to connect, we pick up on our own as well as the other person’s feelings. We feel it resonate in our own nervous systems. My client’s own need to prove himself to me and the nervousness of rejection directly hit on my need to feel safe. I felt as if I was being taken on a sales pitch that I had to say ‘yes’ to rather than being able to check in with myself.
True Intimacy and Connection is Learned
He takes a deep breath and blows it out, finally meeting eyes again with me. I signal for us to take a couple more deep breaths down and hold our eye contact. I feel an unclenching in my chest and stomach. His eyes soften and his face warms into a smile.
“Ha, I don’t know what to say or do right now. This is different,” he says. He looks skeptical but his body language starts to soften.
“I know, I’m really enjoying seeing this side of you though. The no-bullshit side. You don’t have to do anything for me right now. In fact, I’m far more comfortable with you now than when you first walked in. I don’t feel as much that I have to be a certain way for you.”
I can feel the rest of my body start to unfurl and unclench. We take a couple more breaths, and I can feel the heat turn on in my system. His system responds to mine. My eyes sharpen and narrow. His gaze heats. His chest is expanding, and he’s slowly blowing labored breaths out of his mouth. With our eyes locked, I can feel my animal start to pace beneath my skin and course through my veins. I can feel he has one too. We’re facing each other, breathing heavily, soaking each other in and feeling the erotic charge build between us.
It’s so damn satisfying. I feel seen and respected. Like we could talk about just about anything in this moment, and he wouldn’t judge me. He feels the same, I sense.
This Somatica Sessions video shows nicely how an intimacy coach works on building emotional and erotic connection with a client.
Earning Your Own Pleasure
I hold out my hand. He looks at me hesitantly, then takes it in his. Electricity shoots up from my pelvic floor and we both look at each other as if we want to devour each other. “Now I want you to enjoy touching my arm in a way that feels good to you.”
His eyes narrow and there is a small drop in connection I can feel in my chest. It’s starting to tighten again. He frowns slightly, but starts to move his fingers along my forearm. He is looking down at first, but then glances into my eyes, searching for signs that I’m enjoying it. The connection starts to feel hollow and so does my chest as I start to feel the need to tell him he’s doing a good job.
“So I can tell you’re doing this for me.” I put my hand over his and gently smile.
“Yea…” He looks confused.
“I can tell you’re not enjoying it, and now you’re trying too hard. I want to ask, “Where did you go?” If you’re not enjoying it, I’m not enjoying it. Follow what feels good to you.”
Breakthroughs in Intimacy Coaching
We breathe together again to help ground him, and reassure him that his pleasure is just as important. The more I feel his pleasure, the more I’ll feel mine. It starts to heat up again, and his fingers begin to send warm tingling sensations through my skin upon contact. His first breakthrough – he stayed in connection with me and didn’t focus on performing.
This is the connection I was hoping we would find. Vulnerability. Getting down to the core of intimacy.
We all want to be seen, accepted, and to be able to explore connection. It’s beautiful, powerful, validating. So many of us are conditioned to shut it off for fear of rejection. When we can be fully present and stay connected to our own pleasure and our partner’s, our fears melt away and real intimacy and eroticism is possible.
How to Become an Intimacy Coach
To become an intimacy coach, you need to explore if you’re prepared to work with people in a mutually vulnerable relationship. It’s possible to help people by simply talking about the philosophy of relating and giving homework. People, however, only learn how to be truly intimate by practicing in an authentic connection with someone who already has good intimacy skills.
There are very few programs that help people learn the skills of emotional and erotic intimacy. You will want to research what program fits your personality and values best. Make sure it is a program that helps you gain the skills to guide others in a safe, supportive container.
When you apply to your chosen program, check the tuition, scholarship funds, payment plans, and other discounts so you get a tuition plan that works with your budget.
Beyond the initial training, research what steps you need to take to get certified. You’ll want to see if the program is accredited by other certifying organizations so you can have the professional recognition you need to launch your practice and career.
Look for programs that not only help you develop the skills to become a successful intimacy coach – but also to find clients and market your business.
Skills and Qualifications
It’s important to have a high level of self awareness as an intimacy coach. This self awareness can be developed, and different training programs have a sharper focus on mindfulness and expanding your relationship with yourself and your clients.
In the Somatica Training, we include exercises that teach you to deeply understand your own needs, feelings, capacities and boundaries. You’ll learn to be responsive to others’ intimacy needs as well, and practicing over and over in real-time will prepare you to guide them.
Best practices around intimacy develop over time. It’s important to have the patience and self-compassion to allow yourself to give things a try, make mistakes, yet continue to receive feedback. This will support on your own growth trajectory around intimacy coaching.
Ready to Explore More?
About the Author:
Ashley is a Certified Somatica Sex and Relationship Coach in Los Angeles. She also has certifications as a Dominatrix, and Sex Educator by The American Board of Sexologists.
She knows it’s sometimes hard to advocate for ourselves because of our emotional histories and societal messages about who and how we are supposed to be. Ashley helps you develop the awareness, self-worth, confidence, and communication skills to ask for what you want, and create the life and relationships that are right for you.
Ashley sees clients in Los Angeles, and online.