If you want to strengthen your relationship, try some couples meditation exercises. Trust me, it will do wonders. I should know.
As a meditation teacher, I love helping couples to be happy and healthy. That’s why I’m always excited when a couple takes my private meditation lessons.
In this guide, I will share the best couples’ meditation exercises and the many benefits that they offer.
8 Best Couples Meditation Exercises
Here are my favorite exercises. We will start with a sensual one. Then we will look at exercises for relaxation, compassion, and more.
1. Touch Your Lover Mindfully
- Sit together in the middle of the bedroom.
- Take ten mindful breaths to relax.
- Hold hands and meditate on your partner’s hand.
- Be mindful of the sensation of oneness. Notice how it feels. Imagine that the feeling of their skin is everything. Meditate on your partner’s body, exploring it. As Thich Nhat Hanh [1] says “Every person is a world to explore.”
- Meditate on the different areas of their body in the following order:
- Hands
- Arms
- Shoulders
- Face
- Hair
- Back down the face to the chest
- Abdomen
- Thighs
- Lower legs
- Feet
- Back up the legs
- Sexual organs
- You will now feel closer to them than ever before.
This is one of the best couple meditations for intimacy.
2. A Couples Meditation Exercise On Sexual Fantasies
Buddha may have said, “Desire is the root of all suffering.” But that doesn’t mean you should ignore your desire.
When you ignore a part of yourself you push it down deeper inside.
Thankfully, you can explore your fantasies in a healthy way by meditating. By being mindful of your fantasies and acting them out, you explore a new aspect of yourself and a new part of your relationship.
One night a week, live out your fantasies with your partner. You’ll find this deepens your relationship tremendously.
3. Sensual Exercise for Couples
As a meditation teacher, I often advise people to focus on their senses.
Be mindful of sight, scent, touch, taste, and sound. This connects you to the present moment. Plus, it gets you out of your head.
Try practising sensual mindfulness in the bedroom once a week.
Place some scented candles, and play some romantic music. Create a divine sensual paradise. Then, meditate on your senses. And allow your senses to lead you toward intimacy.
4. Use This Egyptian Secret to Channel Sexual Energy Through Your Chakras
Did you know that The Ancient Egyptians believed that you could channel sexual energy? They believed this was the key to eternal youth. How do you do it? Why, by climaxing while meditating, of course.
5. Basic dyadic meditation
If you don’t want to get naked, practice a traditional meditation as a couple.
- Sit together holding hands.
- Close your eyes and focus on your breathing for five minutes.
- Open your eyes and focus on your partner.
- Touch them if you like, and explore their body, but not in a lustful way, in a mindful and completely accepting way.
- Imagine you are seeing them for the first time and meditate on them.
- Take 108 breaths while you meditate on your husband/wife (boyfriend/girlfriend).
6. Meditating while making love
You won’t forget the feeling of meditating while making love.
You don’t need to be in any specific position or anything like that. Simply make love while focusing all your mind on sensations.
If you want to, take this to a karma sutra level by not climaxing. Experience what it feels like to be “on the edge.”
Feel the sensations, the tingling in your body. Explore your sensations.
7. Oneness Meditation For Couples
If you don’t want the experience to be physical, make it about emotional intimacy.
- Sit comfortably together
- Hold a mala (mediation beads) so that you are both holding the same bead while also holding hands.
- Begin to chant OM together at the same speed.
- With each OM move one bead on the mala, one person going one way, the other person the other way. So, by the second “Om” you should not be on the same bead.
- Listen to your voice for 25 breaths.
- Now listen to your husband/wife’s voice for 25 breaths
- Now focus on saying OM together
- Continue until you both arrive back at the same bead of the mala. This should be on the 108th OM.
- Chant Om together one last time and truly feel the oneness between you.
8. Naked meditation with your partner:
This is a beautiful couples-meditation for intimacy:
- Sit naked together on the floor in Lotus position (crossed-legged) or kneel.
- Take ten deep breaths to relax.
- Explore your partner’s body while you are both naked.
- Feel their naked skin and be genuinely intimate with them.
- Feel their body, focusing on it 100%.
- If this leads to making love, then allow it to, but meditate on making love by focusing your consciousness on your connection with your partner.
With these couples’ meditation exercises, you’ll experience intimacy on an all-new level.
Best Couples Meditation Positions
While you are doing the exercises above, use the following positions:
Sitting facing: If you’re doing a simple meditation together, simply sit facing one another.
Aim for symmetry: When meditating, couples should position themselves symmetrically. So, either both sit in Lotus (crossed-legs), both kneel, or both sit on a chair. If you are doing a loving method (like Loving-Kindness), you can hold hands.
Standing bowing: If you are doing a religious or spiritual form of couple’s meditation, position yourselves opposite one another. Now, bow heads an equal amount.
Side by side: If you’re doing a more intimate form of couples meditation, position yourselves side-by-side. This creates equality. Most positions in the bedroom have some level of submission and dominance. Side-by-side is equal. And that is how meditation should be.
Alternate who’s on top: When doing a couples meditation, your position should reflect equality and mutual love. When one person is on top there is a power struggle. That’s not good for mindfulness. However, you can change this by mixing it up. Let one person be on top and mindfully explore that. Then switch it around. This creates balance in the relationship.
Benefits of meditation for couples:
There are many benefits of meditating as a couple:
- Helps attract love.
- Improves sexual confidence
- Boosts intimacy
- Develops psychic connection
- Increases pleasure
- Strengthens the bond between lovers
- Makes relationships last longer
- Makes you more attractive
- Make you even more appreciative of each other’s beauty.
- Help with fertility and pregnancy
- Improve communication in the relationship
- Reduce arguing
- Enhance pleasure
- Promote a compassionate connection.
Connection
Couples who meditate together usually develop a stronger connection.
To develop that strong connection, take time for each other. Have a dedicated time when the two of you focus on one another.
Like Jack Kornfield [2] says, “When we get too caught up in the busyness of the world, we lose connection with one another – and ourselves.” Don’t let that happen. Make time to escape the busyness of the world.
Less arguing
Throughout my time as a meditation teacher, I have helped many couples to resolve marital problems. And research published in the journal Mindful shows that daily couples meditation does indeed help to resolve conflicts.
How does meditation reduce conflicts?
Meditation cultivates a non-judgmental attitude. Plus, it reduces stress according to Jon Kabat Zinn [3]. Ultimately, this less-stressed, less-judgmental attitude helps to prevent arguments.
Plus, meditation helps partners focus on each other.
Marital studies [4] show that distractions, such as checking your smartphone instead of listening to your spouse, are one of the main reasons for breakups. However, mindful couples are more focused on one another. And this strengthens the connection.
Sexual dysfunction
Mindfulness helps with sexual dysfunction. Plus, it boosts sexual confidence.
In 2008 the Massachusetts General Hospital researched 31,000 women [1] and found that:
- 42 percent of women have sexual problems
- 39 percent of women have low sexual desire
- 26 percent of women have low arousal levels
Many physical factors can lead to sexual dysfunction. However, researchers state that the primary cause of sexual problems in women is psychological.
For instance, Lori Brotto, professor of gynaecology at the University of British Columbia, lists these causes of sexual dysfunction:
- mood
- interpersonal relationships
- general wellbeing
- physiological factors
In 2008, Brotto researched the effects of mindfulness on the sexual desire of cancer survivors.
Brotto found that women who practise breathing meditations and cognitive behavioural therapy have improved sexual functioning. And, mindfulness was found to be more effective compared to alternative treatments.
Compassion
When you practice couples meditation exercises, aim to cultivate compassion.
A relationship need not be perfect. No relationship is ever perfect. Naturally, there are ups and downs on our journey. Obviously, that’s just life. But A mindful relationship understands and accepts these ups and downs as a sacred step on the journey.
When you meditate, you increase your compassion. And that can only do good for your relationship.
If you would like to start meditating with your partner, book a private meditation lesson with me today.
Side effects and precautions
The main risk of meditating as a couple is that the insight you get from meditating might reveal to you that you actually want to split up.
Health wise, there are very few risks of meditation although anyone with a preexisting condition might like to consult a healthcare professional first.
Conclusion
As an online meditation teacher, I love it when couples take my meditation lessons together, because I have seen firsthand how meditation can improve relationships. And it is so simple and easy, and doesn’t even require the awkward conversations that couples counseling does.
Sources:
1: Thich Nhat Hanh, founder of the Plum Village Tradition
2: Jack Kornfield, teacher in the vipassana movement in American Theravada Buddhism
3: Jon Kabat Zinn, creator of mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center.
4: James A.Roberts and Meredith E.David at the Hankamer School of Business, Baylor University,
Paul Harrison is a passionate meditation teacher who believes in genuine, authentic meditation. He has more than 15 years experience in meditation and mindfulness. He studied meditation in beautiful Oxford, UK, and Hamilton Ontario Canada, and earned his degree at Staffordshire University.
“My goal is to provide the most authentic meditation sessions so you can harness the power of your own mind for personal transformation” – Paul Harrison
