You and someone you care about, whether a romantic partner or dear friend, may be yearning for a more solid foundation of safety and trust between you. One of the ways you can cultivate more trust and safety in your relationship is to deepen your sensitivity.

This is a partner practice John taught live at the May 2019 Embodied Men's Leadership Intensive in Mount Shasta to help with developing deeper sensitivity in feeling a connection with another. You will practice syncronizing your breath and a simple movement, and connecting through your awakened 5 senses, all while standing back to back.

If you want to increase your sensitivity as a pathway to deeper safety and trust, try this 12-minute practice.

Stand back-to-back with your partner with your feet wide and spines touching, but not leaning on one another. Using the Systema Breath practice (inhaling through the nose; exhaling through pursed lips), begin matching your breath, so that you inhale and exhale at the same time. Synch up the connection through all 5 of your senses: Imagine that you could hear the connection through your back more with every breath. Imagine you could amp up the touch between your bodies to make it more alive and pleasurable. Imagine you could taste the connection your bodies have even more. Imagine you could see the connection with your whole body, even though you're not looking at your partner with your eyes.

After several minutes of this, slowly, you will move into a squat together and then back to standing, finding a rhythm with your bodies and breaths. Exhale as you fold your knees into the squat and inhale as your rise to standing. See if you can continue to feel the depth of the connection you were feeling before you started the movement. Keep your awareness on the awakened senses and the matching breath. Through synchronous movement, how deeply can your senses feel one another? Even if the movement becomes strenuous, practice keeping all 5 senses alive. You may even send love to your partner through the back of your heart.

After several rounds of this movement, come to stillness, back-to-back, and deepen the quality of your connection by matching your breath and enhancing your senses.

Then slowly turn to face one another and continue to feel the depth of connection you created while looking into one another's eyes and breathing with each other. Allow your whole body to have this connection before bringing the practice to a close.

Disclaimer: Although anyone may find this practice to be useful, it is made available with the understanding that we are not engaged in presenting specific medical, psychological, emotional, sexual or spiritual advice. Nor is anything in this practice intended to be a diagnosis, prescription, recommendation or cure for any specific kind of medical, psychological, emotional, sexual or spiritual problem. Each individual has unique needs and this practice cannot take these individual differences into account. Each person should engage in a program of treatment, prevention, cure, or general health only in consultation with a licensed, qualified physician, therapist or other competent professional. Any person suffering from a sexually transmitted disease or any local illness of his or her sexual organs should consult a medical doctor and a qualified instructor of sexual yoga before practicing the sexual methods described in this practice.