The Art of Relating: A Compassionate Path Through Relational Intimacy

Life is relational. My ayurvedic teacher often said "the school of Life is relationship". It stuck with me since I was young. Relationships aren't only with people. We cultivate relationship with many things in our lives--our bodies, our habits, our emotions, food, movement, rest, and pleasure.

The quality of our lives is shaped not only by what we do, but how we relate to the doing.

As a relational mentor and somatic sexologist too, my work is centered around what I call The Art of Relating: a practice of slowing down, becoming mindful of how we relate to life, and gently shifting those relationships toward something more true, more nourishing, more whole.

What is Relational Mentoring?

Relational mentoring is not a clinical process. It’s a human one.

Within sessions, we explore how you relate—to yourself, to others, and to the many parts of your inner world. We sit together in curiosity, compassion, and embodied presence.

Some of the questions we might explore together are:

• How do you respond to your own needs and boundaries?

• What patterns repeat in your intimate or family relationships?

• How do you relate to stillness? To stress? To pleasure? To movement? To care for yourself?

These questions open the door to self-awareness, self-trust and eventually, to relational intimacy with yourself and the world around you, including the people in it.

The Art of Relating

The Art of Relating is one of the most beautiful aspects of relating. It invites you to explore your unconscious relational patterns and meet them with care.

We can’t control everything in life, but we can become conscious of how we meet what arises. Relating with presence changes everything. Whether it's how you eat your lunch, speak with your partner, or move through a tough emotion—your way of relating holds deep intelligence.

The practice of The Art of Relating includes:

• Relating to food as nourishment, not as control or stress

• Relating to movement as an act of love, not punishment

• Relating to your body with listening and reverence

• Relating to emotions without suppression or shame

• Relating to sexuality with truth, safety, and choice

The art of relating is a subtle shift, and yet it can transform your entire way of being.

Somatic Work & the Wisdom of the Body

As a somatic therapist, I invite you to feel—not just think.

The body remembers. It holds emotions, trauma, pleasure, and truth. In both somatic therapy as well as relational mentoring, we allow the body to guide. Through touch, breath, movement, and stillness, we access parts of you that long to be felt and expressed.

Sexuality, Intimacy & the Sacred

Part of the Art of Relating is inevitably our intimate relationships, of which our sexuality comes into play. I work with people longing to reconnect to their erotic aliveness.

This isn’t about performance or pressure—it’s about deep truth and living a choiceful life, with relationships that nourish us in our unique way.

The art of relating includes the exploration of your relationship to desire, boundaries, pleasure, shame, and consent and we return to the body as a sacred home for intimacy and connection.

The work of relational metnroing honors the erotic as part of your full expression.

We may work with:

• Somatic awareness

• Embodied dialogue

• Breath, movement and erotic expression

• Nervous system attunement

• Ritual and reflection

🌹 When we shift how we relate, everything transforms.

For relational mentoring, please book an exploration call here

With love,

Tessa