Charting Toward Intimacy

Here's the deal, you're not going to get good at sex by yourself. It takes two to tango! Sex is a team effort, and it takes practice to get good!The best sex happens when each spouse is focused more on the other than on themselves. If you're looking to get to have all-star sex, you need to train like an athlete. That means practice, communicate, and practice more!Come join us in the exclusive Charting Toward Intimacy community! Click here for our presale deal of 6 months for the price of 3! You'll get access once the community launches on June 15!________________________________________________________________________________Looking for support around sexuality, NFP, sexual ethics, or something we talked about in this episode?NFP/FA Mindset coaching and NFP Method Match coaching might be for you! Wondering what that is? Check out episode 62If you are interested in booking a coaching session with Ellen, click here.Reach out at instagram.com/chartingtowardintimacy/ or email us at podcast@ellenholloway.com

Did you know there are two main types of desire? Spontaneous and Responsive. If you feel like your desire is always lacking or you "never" feel like having sex, you might have responsive desire. Guess what: You're not broken at all. In fact, you're completely normal. When it comes to desire, sometimes just the knowledge of what kind of desire you have can help so much!Come join us in the exclusive Charting Toward Intimacy community! Click here for our presale deal of 6 months for the price of 3! You'll get access once the community launches on June 15!________________________________________________________________________________Looking for support around sexuality, NFP, sexual ethics, or something we talked about in this episode?NFP/FA Mindset coaching and NFP Method Match coaching might be for you! Wondering what that is? Check out episode 62If you are interested in booking a coaching session with Ellen, click here.Reach out at instagram.com/chartingtowardintimacy/ or email us at podcast@ellenholloway.com

Sex is a window to something greater. It is an icon, or image, of God's love for us. Even within good, faithful Catholic marriages, sex can be a point of contention because we aren't seeing God through sex and our sexual relationship. We're looking at sex not through sex. When you switch your mindset and start to look through sex toward God, it becomes easier to love your spouse. (not EASY, it becomes EASIER!)Come join us in the exclusive Charting Toward Intimacy community! Click here for our presale deal of 6 months for the price of 3! You'll get access once the community launches on June 15!Pray with us this month. We're putting together a spiritual bouquet for our mother Mary during this month with special intentions each week having to do with NFP and marriage. Please email podcast@ellenholloway.com with the things (rosaries, prayers, masses, etc.) you offered this week for our intention:For Priests. We pray for our priests to be brave and authentic to their Catholic faith when talking about marriage and NFP. We pray for our priests to have compassion in the confessional when it comes to sexual sin, especially as it relates to NFP use and abstinence, while also remaining strong and firm in the teachings of the church and the meaning of the conjugal act.________________________________________________________________________________Looking for support around sexuality, NFP, sexual ethics, or something we talked about in this episode?NFP/FA Mindset coaching and NFP Method Match coaching might be for you! Wondering what that is? Check out episode 62If you are interested in booking a coaching session with Ellen, click here.Reach out at instagram.com/chartingtowardintimacy/ or email us at podcast@ellenholloway.com

Want to get started with NFP but don't know where to go? Heard of NFP but you don't really know what it is? Have some questions about Natural Family Planning that you haven't been able to get a clear answer on? Look no further than this episode. Kathleen and Ellen answer the basic question of "What the heck is NFP?" We go over the cycle, methods of fertility awareness, the difference between birth control and using NFP, and a bunch of frequently asked questions about NFP like "why does is cost money?" and "do I need to have an instructor?"Looking for the method match course or coaching we talked about in the episode? Click here!Come join us in the exclusive Charting Toward Intimacy community! Click here for our presale deal of 6 months for the price of 3! You'll get access once the community launches in a few weeks.Pray with us this month. We're putting together a spiritual bouquet for our mother Mary during this month with special intentions each week having to do with NFP and marriage. Please email podcast@ellenholloway.com with the things (rosaries, prayers, masses, etc.) you offered this week for our intention:For all women. We pray for the conviction of women to recognize the need for better healthcare, especially when it comes to birth control. We pray that women will get to know themselves and their bodies through fertility awareness.________________________________________________________________________________Looking for support around sexuality, NFP, sexual ethics, or something we talked about in this episode?NFP/FA Mindset coaching and NFP Method Match coaching might be for you! Wondering what that is? Check out episode 62If you are interested in booking a coaching session with Ellen, click here.Reach out at instagram.com/chartingtowardintimacy/ or email us at podcast@ellenholloway.com

Got questions about your first time? We have answers! Kathleen and Ellen share a little bit about their own first times to make you feel like you're not alone if your first time is.....not so great. We touch on questions like "what lube should we use?" "How do we figure out positions?" "What if we're tired on the wedding night?" "My friend told me about bleeding, what's the deal with that?"Our Lube recommendations: Almond oil or Jojoba OilSex BlanketMentionables (get 10% off with code Ellen10)Come join us in the exclusive Charting Toward Intimacy community! Click here for our presale deal of 6 months for the price of 3! You'll get access once the community launches in a few weeks. Pray with us this month. We're putting together a spiritual bouquet for our mother Mary during this month with special intentions each week having to do with NFP and marriage. Please email podcast@ellenholloway.com with the things (rosaries, prayers, masses, etc.) you offered this week for our intention:For Medical professionals and the medical community as a whole. We pray for an overall embracing of the science of fertility awareness as well as an understanding of the harms of hormonal birth control.________________________________________________________________________________Looking for support around sexuality, NFP, sexual ethics, or something we talked about in this episode?NFP/FA Mindset coaching and NFP Method Match coaching might be for you! Wondering what that is? Check out episode 62If you are interested in booking a coaching session with Ellen, click here.Reach out at instagram.com/chartingtowardintimacy/or email us at podcast@ellenholloway.com

Sister M. Karolyn Nunes is joining us this week to talk about sexual wounds and healing. As the vocation director of her community, Sr. Karolyn helps to direct many women discerning religious life to start their own healing journeys when they have sexual wounds. One of the things lacking in marriage prep is ensuring that the healing process has begun for sexual issues, baggage, addictions, etc. Sr. Karolyn is chatting with us about how we can integrate this healing into our own lives whether we are preparing for marriage or we've been married for 25 years. Interested in the book Sr. Karolyn mentioned? Into Your Hands Father by Wilfred StinissenCome join us in the exclusive Charting Toward Intimacy community! Click here for our presale deal of 6 months for the price of 3!Pray with us this month. We're putting together a spiritual bouquet for our mother Mary during this month with special intentions each week having to do with NFP and marriage. Please email podcast@ellenholloway.com with the things (rosaries, prayers, masses, etc.) you offered this week for our intention:For married couples. We pray for an overall embracing of marriage vows and an increase of the gift of self between spouses. We especially pray for those couples who struggle with periodic abstinence and NFP.________________________________________________________________________________Looking for support around sexuality, NFP, sexual ethics, or something we talked about in this episode?NFP/FA Mindset coaching and NFP Method Match coaching might be for you! Wondering what that is? Check out episode 62If you are interested in booking a coaching session with Ellen, click here.Reach out at instagram.com/chartingtowardintimacy/or email us at podcast@ellenholloway.com

Let's talk about selfishness and NFP!This episode is stemming from a lot of talk about "contraceptive mentality." We're not really talking about contraceptive mentality in this episode, we're talking about the underlying question behind the conversations about contraceptive mentality:Can NFP be used selfishly? what about if you change the semantics and ask this question: can fertility awareness be used selfishly? The answer is actually different and we dive into what those answers are and why they're different.Here's a hint at the answers: NFP is not self correcting system where if your reason to avoid pregnancy is not "good enough" or "serious enough" you and your spouse won't be able to abstain for the fertile window. That's just not true for many couples.________________________________________________________________________________Looking for support around sexuality, NFP, sexual ethics, or something we talked about in this episode?NFP/FA Mindset coaching and NFP Method Match coaching might be for you! Wondering what that is? Check out episode 62If you are interested in booking a coaching session with Ellen, click here.Reach out at instagram.com/chartingtowardintimacy/or email us at podcast@ellenholloway.com

Ever heard the phrase "It's just not supposed to be this hard!" Maybe you've said it yourself.Well when it comes to your sanctification, it actually probably is supposed to be that hard. Holiness is hard, really hard.We're talking about how holiness is hard in relation to married life.A lot of the time engaged and married couples have a lack of understanding that marriage is for the other person and for sanctification, it's not for you and your happiness. The goal of marriage is to get you to human flourishing, but it's not through easy, it's through hard. When things start getting hard in your marriage, that's when you know you're actually on the right track.Here's some things that are hard in marriage, that actually aren't supposed to be easy:-NFP-Sex-Abstinence-Kids-Pregnancy-FinancesIn this episode we're going to be discussing that while life is hard, and holiness is through hardship, we're not just called to sit back and let the hard make us miserable. We should be actively engaging in the hardness and asking ourselves: how can I grow in holiness in this time? Work like it all depends on you, but pray like it depends on God.Interested in checking out the episode we mentioned about marriage being a battleground? A Letter from St. Valentine to Married Couples | Episode 104Interested in checking out the Tighten Your Tinkler signature program? Click HereUse the code CHARTING50 to get $50 off.Check out Episode 70 with Jenn: Your Pelvic Floor is not a Magical Unicorn________________________________________________________________________________Looking for support around sexuality, NFP, sexual ethics, or something we talked about in this episode?NFP/FA Mindset coaching and NFP Method Match coaching might be for you! Wondering what that is? Check out episode 62If you are interested in booking a coaching session with Ellen, click here.Reach out at instagram.com/chartingtowardintimacy/or email us at podcast@ellenholloway.com

In this episode we are talking about scheduling sex--pros and cons, when it works and when it doesn't.Scheduling sex is a tool in the arsenal of ways to improve your sexual relationship. But here's the thing, scheduling does not work for every couple. Maybe it works for both of you, neither of you, or maybe it works for one spouse and not the other.For example,Here's a pro for scheduling sex: We give priority to things that are on the schedule. Are you prioritizing sex? If scheduling sex allows you to anticipate it, then scheduling might work great for you!But here's an example on the other side: sometimes life is unpredictable. Flexibility is so important; you need to have that flexibility. When scheduling sex becomes a pressure to have sex even if you have a really hard day, it could set you up for disappointment and duty sex (which is never a good thing).When it comes to scheduling sex, it's not going to work for everybody. There are a lot of different ways to go about scheduling sex and that's what we're talking about in this week's episode. Give it a listen, and maybe give it a try!Interested in checking out the Tighten Your Tinkler signature program? Click Here Use the code CHARTING50 to get $50 off.Check out Episode 70 with Jenn: Your Pelvic Floor is not a Magical Unicorn________________________________________________________________________________Looking for support around sexuality, NFP, sexual ethics, or something we talked about in this episode?NFP/FA Mindset coaching and NFP Method Match coaching might be for you! Wondering what that is? Check out episode 62If you are interested in booking a coaching session with Ellen, click here.Reach out at instagram.com/chartingtowardintimacy/or email us at podcast@ellenholloway.com