In 2015, I trekked into Manhattan after work for a date in The Village. I remember how my face held a permanent smile almost the entire time. He had been thoughtful enough to plan a surprise-filled date. He held the door for me and stepped to the outside as we walked down the street. I immediately saw that he was intelligent and kind, well-traveled, and funny. From the first words spoken, he doted on me and I wanted that feeling more than I wanted to deal with the other less-glamorous realities.
I put the red flags on the backburner. I had no interest in what was going to happen down the road, I wanted the right now. I wanted to keep enjoying spending time with a man who (finally) thought the world of me and actually showed it.
It took two months for things to unravel. His abandonment issues, lack of trust, and addictions boiled over and brought the short-lived relationship to a heightened and final end. I was crushed even though we'd only been dating for a short while.
The writing was on the wall early on but I'd left my heart way too open and my head on a shelf. It took falling too fast a few too many times to really get the hang of guarding my heart and contrary to popular belief it's freer and much more intentional than we've been taught.
Guarding Your Heart 101
"Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it." (Proverbs 4:23 NIV)
Contextually, this nugget of wisdom is applicable to all aspects of life. However, it has especially been embraced in dating and relationships. We love to instruct each other to guard our hearts. The only problem is, we misshapen what that actually means.
Imagine you're driving through one of your favorite alluring neighborhoods on a sunny day. The streets are lined with masterfully trimmed oak trees and the homes tower above you.
As you drive, you notice the newest home setting back off of the road. You can tell it's nearly finished but you can't see all the details you were able to see for months prior during its construction; a gate has been erected surrounding the property. As you pass, you strain to see how those floor to ceiling windows turned out but the gate obstructs your view. You're a bit annoyed but simultaneously in awe of such a beautiful home. I used to immediately and exclusively view the gate as a defensive force to keep out the inevitably bad people and things ready to take advantage of a beautiful new property. While that assessment isn't wrong, it is incomplete.
The Purposes of Guarding Your Heart
- To keep out the people, things, and experiences that mean harm.
- To allow in all of the people, things, and experiences that mean well.
- To set a standard so others know how they must approach or (if their intentions aren't aligned) not to approach at all.
- To protect your focus and freedom.
To many, guarding our hearts is a manipulative game of cat-and-mouse, always calculating to make sure that at best we don't get hurt and at worst we hurt them first. This actually robs us of the ability to guard our hearts. Being more concerned with never getting hurt than with experiencing life and love fully and wisely, pushes us toward romantic extremism and self-sabotage.
Many of us are blind to the reality that what we do to protect ourselves, the poorly intentioned gates we erect to keep hurt out, actually leave us open to more hurt than we could imagine. Those gates may keep out some hurt, but when that is our only intention, we prevent love and relationship and wonder and happiness and creativity and our futures from flowing in.
How To Purposefully & Intentionally Guard Your Heart
For others of us - like my former self - guarding our hearts is the hardest thing in the world to do because we're so starved for affection, affirmation, and attention that we think it's love the first time the possibility presents itself. We don't temper our excitement with a critical eye, prayer, or wise counsel. We write off red flags as things that can be fixed later instead of warnings.
We doom ourselves to becoming the architects of our own broken hearts because we have not mastered wisdom in love and life.
Guarding your heart is:
- Being so spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically in tune with yourself, God, and others that you can see/feel clear what is meant for you and what is not.
- The ability to accept what is best for you even when you don't necessarily want it and the ability to let go of what will bring nothing good to your life no matter how much it intrigues you.
- An act of intercession on your own behalf.
- The mastery of discipline.
- A current choice for a long-term reward.
Guarding your heart is the discernment and proactivity that allows you to experience life and love for what they are and not what you want them to be. Guarding our hearts healthily allows us to feel what we need to feel when we go through the tough stuff. It allows us to be able to process it with clarity in God's presence and the company of those who love us instead of isolating.
Inside of wisely-intentioned heart-guarding stands a belief in your worth and your choices. This will allow you the freedom to walk away from anything that does not serve your best self with no feeling of loss or regret.
Featured image by Getty Images.
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Again, the answer never changes because, if there is one thing that Shellie Reneé Warren is gonna get, it’s 6-8 (sometimes nine) hours of sleep. However, since my chronotype (check out “Ever Wonder What Personality Traits Make Someone A 'Morning Person'?”) means that I like/prefer to write in the wee hours of the morning, sometimes I will sleep for the night for five hours and take a nap in the day. And y’all, that is just fine with me because I am well aware of the fact that napping does everything from give me more energy, heighten my alertness and even make me more creative to decrease stress levels, strengthen immunity, and reduce my chances of experiencing a heart attack or stroke.
My problem is I will oftentimes go “overboard” with my daytime zzz’s. What I mean by that is, in order to get the most out of a nap, they say thatyou shouldn’t sleep for longer than 25 minutes or so; otherwise, you could wake up feeling sluggish (I don’t but…). Also, it can make resting, soundly, at night a bit of a struggle.
So, what are you saying, Shellie? We should get quickies in? Yeah. And it’s funny that the word “quickie” would come up because just like a sex quickie can do wonders for you (and it can — check out “12 Super Solid Reasons To Have A Quickie Every Single Day”), it’s a full-circle moment when I say that something that can improve the quality of your sex life is to have a power nap (a nap that lasts between 10-30 minutes).
Wanna know how the two things correlate? Honestly, it’s no secret that sleep and sex work together to optimize both (check out “6 Fascinating Ways Sex And Sleep Definitely Go Hand In Hand”). Today, though, we’re going to tap into how a nap, specifically, can have you partaking in some of the best sex that you’ve experienced in a minute. I’ll explain.
Naps Reduce Stress
GiphyIf you’re feeling super stressed out right now, you are not alone. There is plenty of data out here that says that most of us are stressed for at least a couple of reasons at a time — and that can impact your sexual health on a few levels. For one thing, it can bring about feelings of depression and/or anxiety. Stress can also throw your hormone levels off (including your cycle) which can weaken your libido. Stress can make you want to put distance between you and your partner (yes, literally).
Stress can also make it challenging to get aroused or to have an orgasm. And just what can help to decrease stress? Taking a nap. Since sleep has a way of helping you to “get off of the clock” and relax a bit, that can lower your stress levels and “reset” your body so that you are calmer — and that, in turn, can do wonders for your sex drive and ultimately your sex life.
Naps Improve Your Mood
GiphyThere is one person in my life, and fairly 80 percent of the time, she’s in a super good mood. Oh, but let that girl go without sleep, and…who is this woman? LOL. There’s research behind why this happens. When a person is sleep-deprived, it messes with their brain chemicals, and that can amplify emotions like anger, restlessness and sadness. In fact, one study revealed that people who had their sleep disrupted throughout the night, they ended up having their positive outlook on life reduced by about 30 percent.
And geeze, who wants to have sex when they’re not feeling very good? Anyway, since serotonin is a neurotransmitter that helps to regulate your moods, your sleep patterns, and your libido and sleep is what helps to keep it in balance — by taking a nap, not only can it help you to feel better, it can also increase your desire for sex (it can also build up your endurance which is also…sexually beneficial).
Naps Increase Your Focus and Concentration
GiphySomething that some of my clients bring up is how, when it comes to having sex, sometimes the flesh is willing while the spirit is weak because, although the desire for intimacy is there, so much is going on that they aren’t able to get still enough to focus on experiencing copulation with their partner. This also tracks because, when you don’t have enough rest, your brain finds itself not working in harmony and that can make it hard to do everything from approaching life with a sense of flexibility to making necessary decisions.
Certain data also reveal that a lack of rest can cause you to have a really poor attention span and not process things in context (the more you know). So, if you really want to get some yet it’s hard for you to focus long enough to make it happen, ask your bae to lie down with you and take a nap. Between the sleep and the snuggling (check out “Fall's Coming: 8 Wonderful Health Benefits Of Cuddling”) — you may wake up with your mind and body totally on the same page. #wink
Naps Can Make You Feel Better About Your Body
GiphyEven if, overall, you feel really good about your body, I think that we all have moments when we feel less attractive than others — and who wants to have sex when they don’t really feel…very sexy? Well, something else that sleep, in general, can do is increase your confidence in your body.
For one thing, if you want to lose a few pounds, sleep can actually make that happen by helping your body metabolize the glucose (sugar) that’s in it so that you can better manage your appetite. Other studies go on to share that since sleep deprivation can impact one’s mental health and emotional stability in a negative way, of course, getting enough rest would increase body positivity.
Shoot, science even goes so far as to say that insomnia can cause people to have an elevated level of dissatisfaction when it comes to their body image. Don’t take their word for it, though. Look in the mirror before a nap. Then look in a mirror after waking up from me. Do you feel better? I’d be surprised if you don’t.
Makes Your Brain Bigger…Which Could Make Your Orgasms Better
GiphyI saved the best for last by design. Now if you’re wondering how in the world a nap can improve (and possibly increase) your orgasms — oh, there is a method to the madness…trust. For starters, the saying that your biggest sex organ is your brain? That isn’t a myth. Long story less long, the brain is what houses your central nervous system and that is what controls how men and women sexually function (yes, literally).
And since the brain also releases feel-good chemicals like dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin during sex and brain activity significantly increases in women during sexual activity (especially right before she orgasms) — well, would it trip you out to know that when you take a nap, your brain actually expands? A bigger brain (that’s healthy) can potentially intensify your sexual experiences (and your climaxes) — and who doesn’t want that to go down?
____
Like I said earlier, I never have to be convinced to get a nap in. However, if your sex life has been a bit stagnant lately, you’ve been feeling a little sluggish and you’re not sure what to do — I’m hoping that a nap can get you right.
There’s enough science to prove that it can. All you need to do is give it a shot.
Now where’s your pillow and sleep mask, chile?
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Featured image by FG Trade/Getty Images