Blake
performing for love

There's more of you
longing to be met.

performing for love
You say yes
when you mean no.
You soften your truth
to avoid disappointing someone.
You worry about being
too much.
You hide your needs.
Then feel misunderstood.
You feel unknown,
even in close relationships.
You wonder why
intimacy still feels out of reach.
seed beneath the soil
when we stop performing

You say no and it's still love.

You speak your truth even when it disappoints.

You take up space without apologizing for it.

You name your need, and trust yourself with whatever comes next.

You risk being known, even with your unfinished parts.

butterfly hyssop Intimacy.

We can meet others in our naked truth,
and honor theirs.

the relationship lab

Solo

I become your practice partner. What you build here transfers into your relationship with yourself and others.

Couples

We explore what each of you wants, then practice giving and receiving it with each other, in real time. Sometimes that means meeting one or both of you individually first, so there's room to explore before we bring it back to the shared work.

watercolor illustration of tree roots spreading downward Your Inner Foundation
  • Building a felt sense of safety in your own body
  • Regulating your nervous system so it can welcome intimacy
  • Giving yourself permission to want what you want, and to say no to what you don't
  • Deshamifying and celebrating how you're wired
  • Working with your attachment style
  • Connecting with and caring for your inner child
  • Working through how identity, gender, and upbringing shaped what you learned about sex
  • Making room for disappointment (this is advanced adulting)
watercolor illustration of a fig sliced in half Getting to Know Your Erotic Self
  • Discovering what you want to feel during sex (your core desires), and why
  • Your natural style of turn-on: connecting with a partner, dropping inward into sensation, or playing with role and fantasy
  • Your "hottest sexual movie," the scenarios that turn you on most (romantic, passionate, spiritual, dominant or submissive, and more)
  • Anatomy and pleasure mapping: how you like to be touched, and where
  • Strengthening your relationship to pleasure
  • Reclaiming full erotic self-expression: permission to make noise, move, touch yourself, and ask for what you need
a hand gently touching the center of a calla lily Relating to Another Person
  • Attunement: sensing what someone else is feeling, and letting them feel sensed
  • Mapping your triggers so you can recognize them early and de-escalate instead of reacting
  • Sharing erotic energy so connection feels alive instead of shut down
  • Explore giving, receiving, and touching for your pleasure
  • Communicating your core desires to a partner
  • Naming a boundary or a desire clearly, without apology
  • Repairing after a disconnect or a hard moment
  • Reviving a sex life that has gone flat

What Is Intimacy Coaching?

The relationship lab isn't a place. It's something we create together, a sandbox space where you can grow your inner foundation of safety and trust, deepen the connection with your erotic self, and practice relating with me or your partner. Without an agenda, we can slow things down, notice what comes up, and explore what you need or want to experience in that moment.

Whether you come to this work alone or with a partner, this isn't talk therapy in the traditional sense. It is experiential. As your coach, I can support you in ways a therapist may not.

Why It Works

Old patterns don't just live in our thinking, they get wired in through relationship, and they get rewired by creating or receiving a new experience in relationship. That's what our relationship lab is for.

This mirrors what interpersonal neurobiology research describes as a disconfirming relational experience, encountering safety and attunement while an old pattern is emotionally active, which is what allows it to be rewritten instead of simply replayed (Badenoch & Cox, 2013).

See how a session unfolds
1

Notice and name the longing.

We start with what's present. A feeling in the body. A pattern you keep bumping into. A want you've learned not to say out loud. We slow down and get curious about it rather than moving past it.

2

Make room for what it's carrying.

Longing doesn't arrive alone. There's often grief underneath it. For what hasn't happened, for what you've needed and not received. We make room for that, and then we ask: what does this longing actually want?

3

Create an experience that gives it what it wants.

This is where our work gets creative. Through visualization, through role play, through breath, through giving yourself permission, we practice getting you what you want in our session. Not as a concept. As an experience. Sometimes I may be involved in you receiving what you need. Sometimes what's most powerful is giving it to yourself, with me as witness. And new stories create new possibilities in your relationship to yourself and others outside of our sessions.

Disappointment is part of the work.

Disappointment will show up here too. In our sessions, between us. Sometimes what's underneath it is an idealized version of a partner, or of yourself, that reality keeps failing to match. I'll have my own version of that too, an idea of who you are that isn't quite you, and I'll name it when I notice it. Naming it together sets us both free from the shitty rigidity of performance. Something more creature-like and playful gets to come out, and there's more room for real intimacy between us.

If this feels like the kind of work you've been looking for.

keep going ↓
work together

I'd love to connect.

Let's Talk (it's free)

A 20 to 30 minute call to connect, ask questions, and get a feel for whether working together feels like a fit.

1

The basics.

Sessions are 50 minutes, held virtually. Sessions can be booked at a pace that feels good to you. I often suggest weekly or biweekly to start. It helps build the foundation for the work.

2

Investment.

I've personally benefited from sliding scale services and I'm deeply grateful for all the people and community agencies who made them available to me. Please pay what feels right for your circumstances. How it feels matters.

$40
$50
$60 (full rate)
3

Insurance.

I don't work directly with insurance. Sessions are self pay. If there's a way I can support you in reimbursement, please let me know.

Have a question? intimacywithblake@gmail.com

about me

I know from experience the pain of performing for love. It hurts self-trust, and puts a real damper on building secure relationships. Maybe worst of all, it sucks the joy-juice out of life because even the most amazing moments can start to feel like an obligation when we perform for love.

I also know the joy of permission.

Full permission to love what we long for and pursue it according to our values.

Permission is contagious.

When one person dances from their joy, others can't help but join in.

I'm a dad to three young men. I enjoy yoga, contact improv, and ecstatic dance. I laugh big and enjoy both sharing and hearing another's raw truth.

I'm also a Somatica Institute student and MFT graduate student entering my practicum. I see a therapist and have benefitted from working with coaches.