Simple ways to create bedroom intimacy

These events are not the things that need to define your whole life. Store the envelope in your keep (basement, attic, or garage), or anywhere outside of your sanctuary. Then spend time working on this room. Turn your bedroom into a healing, restorative sanctuary as a way to defy any violations you experienced around the issue of intimacy. Loving yourself is the first step toward that healing. Protect intimacy by putting limits on who is allowed in this room and the kinds of interactions accepted here

While kids' and dorm rooms tend to have desks in them, the bedroom is not a good place to put your home office -- unless you want to kill the softer parts of you that unite with your larger soul or another human being. However, if you need to multifunction this room, the second function -- especially if it is a computer or work station -- needs to be set off by screens or tall plants or something else that turns the space into two separate rooms. This is a boundary you need to set with yourself.

Pajama games
You have to be careful about dragging the quality of intimacy into every other activity besides the appropriate ones. You have spent at least a third of your life since birth sleeping in your bedroom, and your body -- including your voice -- is in pajamas ... or less. If you think you're concealing that from people on the other end of the phone with whom you're conducting business, you're wrong. They might not picture you in your birthday suit, but they sense that something's "not right," especially when formal business discourse degrades into inappropriate familiarity. It is inappropriate to hold business meetings in the boudoir, especially in person. Those tasks are out of harmony with the function of sanctuary, forcing visitors, who feel their own sense of intimacy violated, to squelch feelings of embarrassment.

Tuning out
Okay, TVs. We realize many people use them in the bedroom for many reasons -- sleeping aid, company, and foreplay, primarily. And if you're going to break a rule, this will probably be it. But, consider that the use and function of this room are at odds with the use and function of the TV.

Nothing against television -- one of us watches more than enough, while the other is responsible for putting quite a bit of it on the screen. We just think you should be fully conscious of what the medium is all about and, more importantly, fully conscious when you're watching it. Remember that everything you see and feel when watching it -- advertising, news, drama, comedy, reality -- is manipulating you through your senses to elicit a certain thought, reaction, or feeling. Its number one function is as a marketing tool; entertainment comes second. Programs are "packaged" for impact and the medium tells you when to laugh, cry, and feel hungry, and what to do about it, as well as what to purchase immediately. And most of us cooperate in predictable patterns. That's what makes it such a powerful tool. It's important that viewers remain conscious and alert when watching it, and that's not the mood you should be in while settling down in your bedroom. So tune out.

Page 3 of 4 -- On page 4, find 22 tips that can help you and your partner get a better night's sleep.