Entrepreneurs / Small Business  January 31, 2014

Relationship therapy: Center helps people to be happy, better lovers

BOULDER — One of the negative results of women modeling men in the business world and putting a cap on their emotions is that romantic relationships can devolve into roommate connections.

Backing the premise with input from trusted sources like Dr. Oz who says our nation is in a sexual famine, Joanna Kennedy’s company, the Center for Happiness, Love and Pleasure, focuses on helping both genders find what she calls their true selves.

Since launching the center in 2007, Kennedy has seen more than 1,000 people face-to-face and interacts with thousands every month online.

Through one-on-one coaching, workshops, seminars and videos, Kennedy helps men connect to their confidence and women connect to their sensuality.

“The impetus behind this comes from my own pain when I was trying to find happiness in the midst of what I called success,” she said. “I spent 13 years in the oil and gas industry (as an engineer) in the ’90s in Texas. I prided myself on knowing how to compete and beat” in an industry she calls a “good ol’ boys club.”

“By all outward measures I looked highly successful, but on the inside I was highly miserable,” she said. “My relationships had many issues.”

Kennedy credits a workshop she attended as her wake-up call.

“I learned that I was both successful and miserable because I had buried my femininity in a masculine persona.”

Kennedy said the goal of her center is to “help women find joy and intimacy and help the men in their lives not go through the pain I had put men through.”

Rather than giving in to the belief that a woman must choose between having success at work or success in a relationship, Kennedy believes a shift can blend the two, so a woman’s office energy isn’t killing passion and chemistry with her lover.

She helps facilitate that shift by offering workshops ranging in price from free to $2,000, on topics that provide education on how to be happy, how to kiss and techniques in becoming a more passionate and skilled lover. The workshops are open to men, women, singles and couples.

Kennedy also offers a free 30-minute discovery session during which she discusses a person’s challenges and desires. These sessions often can reveal conflicts within one’s desires.

As an example, Kennedy said a male client told her he wanted to meet a woman who was “passionate, juicy, fiery and turned on. … He then said that he didn’t want anything to do with women who were emotional.”

Kennedy said many divorced or separated men come to the center hoping to learn how to bring more to their next relationship. For women, they either want to feel more connection or are frustrated because they can’t find good, powerful men.

“Whether they’re in a relationship or looking for one, most of the time women come across so strong that a man has a hard time showing up and being that man,” Kennedy explained.

“We’ve been so conditioned to be strong and not be weak and not to ask for help,” she said. “Women may be looking for a relationship, but what they need to do is to go inward and take care of themselves. … That doesn’t mean to step out of her power but to step into her own power.”

A part of what that means to Kennedy is for women to realize that men love making them happy. “Most of the time we don’t let them,” she said.

The benefit to men who get the chance to “be a woman’s hero” is that it builds their confidence, purpose and direction.
For more information, visit the website www.happinessloveandpleasure.com

BOULDER — One of the negative results of women modeling men in the business world and putting a cap on their emotions is that romantic relationships can devolve into roommate connections.

Backing the premise with input from trusted sources like Dr. Oz who says our nation is in a sexual famine, Joanna Kennedy’s company, the Center for Happiness, Love and Pleasure, focuses on helping both genders find what she calls their true selves.

Since launching the center in 2007, Kennedy has seen more than 1,000 people face-to-face and interacts with thousands every month online.

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