Something exceptional happened last week.
On my workshops in Cape Town were 2 disabled men.
One of them had lost a leg, the other was blind, had been since birth.
It’s always been important to me that this work is inclusive and available to everyone.
This was a big experience for all of us, emotionally, physically, energetically, sensually.
It brought to my awareness something that I’ve had conversations, discussions about over the years.
Conversations about how important this work would be for disabled people.
Conversations about how difficult sexuality is for so many disabled people.
Conversations about how little so many disabled people get touched and pleasure.
Conversations about how difficult it is for so many of us to touch disabled people, how we don’t know how to do that.
Conversations about how this world of Conscious Sexuality can be so healing, so releasing, for all of us.
Conversations about how accepting this space, these experiences can be.
We see these beautiful pictures of sensuality, sexuality workshops and experiences, these beautiful people in beautiful places.
And these are amazing.
I teach them.
There’s more in the world, so much more.
And this world of ours has so many gifts for everyone.
I’d like to see it be more accessible, more available, more open.
I saw that last week, in the flesh, for real.
People so vulnerable, so strong, so open, so willing.
Stepping into the heart of sensuality.
And that heart opening to meet them.
Hands to touch, bodies to receive.
And in the touch, lives to live.
Love to experience, enfold us, take us in, transform us, expand us.
Show us how much more there is within us.
And how much we can share with others.
We talk so much about love in this thing of ours, which is a phrase from many Mafia movies, and makes me chuckle.
Tantra Mafia, would have some cool outfits, which we have anyway.
This is such an amazing opportunity to show, to share, to express this love.
Many of us in this world love in a way that’s easy for us, we love people who are like us.
This is an opportunity, a possibility, to look at what love is, what might make us uncomfortable in loving, in touching, in intimacy, and expand our hearts, grow into greater acceptance and inclusion.
This is where we see the transformational power of this work, of sensuality, sexuality and pleasure.
I talk a lot about the healing power of pleasure.
There is so much in this, not only for others, but for ourselves as well.
I remember a long time ago, when I was teaching deep-tissue and therapeutic massage, a guy came to see me.
He was a top martial artist who had lost his sight through a virus.
He wanted to learn massage and went to a few teachers. They all refused him.
I said yes, not knowing how we were going to do it, and we did. To this day he has a thriving practice.
As teachers, and practitioners, we’ll all choose who we work with, and how that will be.
When we expand that we expand ourselves.
We step into possibility.
The possibility of the heart, the possibility of touch, the possibility of love.
Whoever reads this and has a connection to a person, to a group, an organisation in the disabled world, I’d love to talk with you.
I’d love to see what possibilities there are for us to meet, to touch, to share in some way.
‘Just a quick note to say how much your work is appreciated.
After 2 decades of self-judgement, of quietly believing that my amputated leg made me less lovable, less desirable and unable to enjoy sex the way I used to, my mind and heart were opened up to the truth that lay beyond the shame.
In the most loving and practical way, your work reintroduced me to my whole body and it’s natural propensity for pleasure. To discover that we are truly infinite in our capacity to love our physical selves back into a state of bliss and a deep acceptance. I could finally mourn the old me and embrace the new.
I think people whose bodies are substantially different from the norm are often marginalized, both physically and psychologically, through ignorance. This often results in a very subtle “shutting down” of our erotic self, preventing us from living and creating to our full potential.
We are extraordinarily sensual beings and we are living a half-life. Trapped in patterns of fear and judgement, we feel unfulfilled at the most basic level.
This careful yet glorious stepping into the world of physical pleasure turned me on at the deepest spiritual level too, allowing all the love in my heart to overflow and mingle with the beautiful kind souls who were on the journey with me. I’m forever grateful to them.
I would encourage anyone reading this, whether you’re disabled or not, to drop any hesitation and trust that your body is perfectly designed to explore, to receive, to experience ecstasy and to heal through touch.’
