Eros, Reclaimed: Where Intimacy, Neuroscience, and Healing Converge
Eros is often misunderstood.
In contemporary culture, it is flattened—reduced to sex, confined to desire, or measured by performance, frequency, or chemistry. In this narrow framing, Eros becomes something to achieve or sustain, rather than something to feel, inhabit, and allow.
But Eros was never meant to be transactional. In its truest sense, Eros is a life force. It is the current of vitality that animates creativity, intimacy, imagination, and connection—not only between lovers, but within the self. It is what gives relationships their sense of aliveness, depth, and meaning.
When Eros fades, it is rarely because love has disappeared. More often, it is because the nervous system has learned to protect rather than open. Stress, trauma, betrayal, chronic pressure, and unresolved emotional injury quietly shape how safe the body feels in intimacy.
Over time, desire does not vanish—it goes dormant, waiting for the conditions that allow it to reemerge.
Intimacy Lives in the Nervous System
Modern neuroscience and trauma psychology now affirm what somatic traditions have long known: intimacy is not purely psychological. It is physiological. The ability to feel desire, closeness, and erotic charge depends on a nervous system that feels regulated enough to soften its defenses.
When the nervous system is locked in vigilance—hyperarousal or collapse—connection becomes effortful. Communication becomes reactive. Touch becomes charged. Partners may love each other deeply and still feel distant, disconnected, or caught in repetitive relational patterns they cannot seem to break.
This is where many couples find themselves—not broken, but stuck.
Dr. Holly Richmond is a somatic sex therapist who focuses on this critical intersection of the mind, body and sexuality. She specializes in helping couples rediscover Eros through both a relational and somatic lens, and knows one cannot function in its most fully expressed state without the other.
“When you heal the nervous system, you heal the body, and when you heal the body, you open space for sexuality that is authentic, creative and entirely alive,” Dr. Richmond states.
The Role of Psychedelic-Assisted Relational Work
In recent years, psychedelic-assisted therapy has emerged as a powerful tool for addressing not only individual trauma, but relational conditioning. Among these medicines, 5-MeO-DMT occupies a distinct and often misunderstood place.
Unlike other psychedelic compounds, 5-MeO-DMT is not primarily visual or narrative-driven. Its effects are rapid, inward, and profoundly somatic. Research and clinical observation suggest that it can temporarily quiet rigid ego structures and habitual neural loops—particularly those related to identity, defense, and control.
In relational contexts, this matters.
When ego softens, couples are able to meet each other outside of conditioned roles: the protector, the pursuer, the withdrawn one, the caretaker. Communication becomes less performative and more honest. Emotional material that has lived in the body—often beneath words—can finally move.
Dr. Richmond adds, “Through 5-MeO-DMT, couples discover another language--most often mediated through the body--that offers a softening and deepening into their awareness of the relationship and their cocreated sexual expression.
When the body can lead without the full impact of the constructed ego, there is an authenticity that emerges that takes sex from something they do to something they are.”
This is not about peak experience or recreation. It is about creating the internal conditions for truth, presence, and repair.
Eros as a Path of Healing, Not Performance
Eros is not something to manufacture. It cannot be forced or optimized. It arises when safety, curiosity, and attunement are present.
In conscious relational work, Eros becomes a guide rather than a goal. It reveals where connection flows and where it contracts. It exposes patterns of avoidance, shame, or fear—not to punish, but to inform. When held in the right container, Eros invites couples into deeper co-regulation, trust, and embodied intimacy.
This is the foundation of Opening to Eros, Tandava’s upcoming couples retreat.
Opening to Eros: A Couples Retreat at Tandava
April 22–26 | Tepoztlán, Mexico
This five-day retreat is designed for couples with a solid foundation of communication who are ready to explore intimacy beyond habit, performance, or narrative—and into presence, embodiment, and truth.
The retreat is led by Dr. Holly Richmond– a nationally recognized expert in sexual health, somatic psychology, and trauma recovery– along with Joel Brierre and Victoria Wueschner.
About Dr. Holly Richmond
Dr. Holly Richmond is a licensed somatic psychotherapist, certified sex therapist, and leading voice in sexual wellness and trauma-informed care. She is the founder of an international sexual health and coaching practice and the author of Reclaiming Pleasure, an innovative framework addressing both the psychological and somatic dimensions of erotic recovery.
Dr. Richmond regularly consults and serves as an expert witness in large civil cases for survivors of sexual trauma and is frequently quoted in major media outlets including The New York Times, CNN, NBC, Wired, Oprah Magazine, Men’s Health, and Women’s Health. She is also regarded as a pioneer at the intersection of sexuality, healing, and emerging therapeutic modalities.
Her work brings clinical rigor, deep compassion, and embodied intelligence to conversations that are often oversimplified or misunderstood.
What This Retreat Offers
At Tandava, Opening to Eros is held within a science-informed, trauma-aware, and carefully supported container. The experience integrates:
- Psychedelic-assisted relational work with 5-MeO-DMT
- Somatic and nervous system-based preparation
- Guided embodiment practices, breathwork, and meditative intimacy
- Structured relational exercises for couples
- Thoughtful, personalized integration before, during, and long after the retreat
The intention is not to “fix” a relationship, but to create the conditions for couples to meet each other more honestly—beyond defenses, beyond roles, beyond fear.
All gender identities and sexual orientations are welcome.
A Return to Aliveness
Eros is not lost. It is patient.
It waits beneath stress, beneath survival strategies, beneath the stories we tell ourselves about what intimacy should look like. When given safety, skillful facilitation, and deep respect for the nervous system, Eros reemerges—not as performance, but as presence.
At Tandava, this work is approached with humility and care. Transformation is not rushed. It is invited.
For couples ready to explore intimacy as a living, evolving force—Opening to Eros offers a path back to aliveness, together.
To learn more about the April 22–26 Eros Couples Retreat or to book a discovery call.
Eros is often misunderstood.
In contemporary culture, it is flattened—reduced to sex, confined to desire, or measured by performance, frequency, or chemistry. In this narrow framing, Eros becomes something to achieve or sustain, rather than something to feel, inhabit, and allow.
But Eros was never meant to be transactional. In its truest sense, Eros is a life force. It is the current of vitality that animates creativity, intimacy, imagination, and connection—not only between lovers, but within the self. It is what gives relationships their sense of aliveness, depth, and meaning.
When Eros fades, it is rarely because love has disappeared. More often, it is because the nervous system has learned to protect rather than open. Stress, trauma, betrayal, chronic pressure, and unresolved emotional injury quietly shape how safe the body feels in intimacy.
Over time, desire does not vanish—it goes dormant, waiting for the conditions that allow it to reemerge.
Intimacy Lives in the Nervous System
Modern neuroscience and trauma psychology now affirm what somatic traditions have long known: intimacy is not purely psychological. It is physiological. The ability to feel desire, closeness, and erotic charge depends on a nervous system that feels regulated enough to soften its defenses.
When the nervous system is locked in vigilance—hyperarousal or collapse—connection becomes effortful. Communication becomes reactive. Touch becomes charged. Partners may love each other deeply and still feel distant, disconnected, or caught in repetitive relational patterns they cannot seem to break.
This is where many couples find themselves—not broken, but stuck.
Dr. Holly Richmond is a somatic sex therapist who focuses on this critical intersection of the mind, body and sexuality. She specializes in helping couples rediscover Eros through both a relational and somatic lens, and knows one cannot function in its most fully expressed state without the other.
“When you heal the nervous system, you heal the body, and when you heal the body, you open space for sexuality that is authentic, creative and entirely alive,” Dr. Richmond states.
The Role of Psychedelic-Assisted Relational Work
In recent years, psychedelic-assisted therapy has emerged as a powerful tool for addressing not only individual trauma, but relational conditioning. Among these medicines, 5-MeO-DMT occupies a distinct and often misunderstood place.
Unlike other psychedelic compounds, 5-MeO-DMT is not primarily visual or narrative-driven. Its effects are rapid, inward, and profoundly somatic. Research and clinical observation suggest that it can temporarily quiet rigid ego structures and habitual neural loops—particularly those related to identity, defense, and control.
In relational contexts, this matters.
When ego softens, couples are able to meet each other outside of conditioned roles: the protector, the pursuer, the withdrawn one, the caretaker. Communication becomes less performative and more honest. Emotional material that has lived in the body—often beneath words—can finally move.
Dr. Richmond adds, “Through 5-MeO-DMT, couples discover another language--most often mediated through the body--that offers a softening and deepening into their awareness of the relationship and their cocreated sexual expression.
When the body can lead without the full impact of the constructed ego, there is an authenticity that emerges that takes sex from something they do to something they are.”
This is not about peak experience or recreation. It is about creating the internal conditions for truth, presence, and repair.
Eros as a Path of Healing, Not Performance
Eros is not something to manufacture. It cannot be forced or optimized. It arises when safety, curiosity, and attunement are present.
In conscious relational work, Eros becomes a guide rather than a goal. It reveals where connection flows and where it contracts. It exposes patterns of avoidance, shame, or fear—not to punish, but to inform. When held in the right container, Eros invites couples into deeper co-regulation, trust, and embodied intimacy.
This is the foundation of Opening to Eros, Tandava’s upcoming couples retreat.
Opening to Eros: A Couples Retreat at Tandava
April 22–26 | Tepoztlán, Mexico
This five-day retreat is designed for couples with a solid foundation of communication who are ready to explore intimacy beyond habit, performance, or narrative—and into presence, embodiment, and truth.
The retreat is led by Dr. Holly Richmond– a nationally recognized expert in sexual health, somatic psychology, and trauma recovery– along with Joel Brierre and Victoria Wueschner.
About Dr. Holly Richmond
Dr. Holly Richmond is a licensed somatic psychotherapist, certified sex therapist, and leading voice in sexual wellness and trauma-informed care. She is the founder of an international sexual health and coaching practice and the author of Reclaiming Pleasure, an innovative framework addressing both the psychological and somatic dimensions of erotic recovery.
Dr. Richmond regularly consults and serves as an expert witness in large civil cases for survivors of sexual trauma and is frequently quoted in major media outlets including The New York Times, CNN, NBC, Wired, Oprah Magazine, Men’s Health, and Women’s Health. She is also regarded as a pioneer at the intersection of sexuality, healing, and emerging therapeutic modalities.
Her work brings clinical rigor, deep compassion, and embodied intelligence to conversations that are often oversimplified or misunderstood.
What This Retreat Offers
At Tandava, Opening to Eros is held within a science-informed, trauma-aware, and carefully supported container. The experience integrates:
- Psychedelic-assisted relational work with 5-MeO-DMT
- Somatic and nervous system-based preparation
- Guided embodiment practices, breathwork, and meditative intimacy
- Structured relational exercises for couples
- Thoughtful, personalized integration before, during, and long after the retreat
The intention is not to “fix” a relationship, but to create the conditions for couples to meet each other more honestly—beyond defenses, beyond roles, beyond fear.
All gender identities and sexual orientations are welcome.
A Return to Aliveness
Eros is not lost. It is patient.
It waits beneath stress, beneath survival strategies, beneath the stories we tell ourselves about what intimacy should look like. When given safety, skillful facilitation, and deep respect for the nervous system, Eros reemerges—not as performance, but as presence.
At Tandava, this work is approached with humility and care. Transformation is not rushed. It is invited.
For couples ready to explore intimacy as a living, evolving force—Opening to Eros offers a path back to aliveness, together.
To learn more about the April 22–26 Eros Couples Retreat or to book a discovery call.