When I began this journey of teaching, facilitating, and for want of a better word for now, healing, a framework emerged that I use to this day.
One of the cornerstones of it is patterns.
Patterns of the mind, patterns of the body.
Family patterns, generational patterns, religious patterns, tribal patterns.
Mostly subconscious, and we generally only become aware of our patterns when we begin to heal, and when we decide to grow, which are really extensions of each other. We become aware of doing the same things, in the same way, saying the same things. In pretty much all of life.
Patterns in work, in play, in relationship and in sex.
And in sex, that’s what we’re talking about here.
The first thing is that our sexual patterns are not limited to sex. What happens in our sexuality is other parts of life playing out, and our sexuality comes into other parts of life. Nothing inside of us is in a vacuum, everything is connected.
Sex is not just about our genitals, it’s about our whole body, and how much in our body is working, or not. It’s about our hearts, minds, beliefs.
And one of the important elements of Conscious Sexuality is that when we change something in our sexuality, it touches other parts of life. And how awareness and moving things in other parts of life does something to our sexuality.
One of the deepest patterns we bring to our sexual experience is exactly that.
Pattern.
We do the same thing in the same way.
We start somewhere. We touch, kiss, lick, get the penetration, the orgasm, most times in the same way.
What we do works, or we think it does, it’s what we know, and it’s what we’re comfortable with. All of those, more than anything else, simply because it’s familiar. That’s it.
And whether it actually brings fulfillment is a whole other story.
Which is an important story.
An important question, what is fulfillment. And going through the motions, which is what we so often do, over time, is less and less fulfilling.
It actually makes us numb.
It numbs our bodies, so we feel less and less in the sensation. It numbs our hearts, because we feel less and less emotion, less intimacy, less connection.
And the more we’re focusing on the end, the orgasm, the less we experience on the way there.
Our sexual patterns numb us.
They put us in a space of expectation.
They take us out of presence.
They take us out of response.
They become reactive, habituated.
We go through the motions, tick the boxes.
We become more bored, less excited, less connected and engaged.
Which is nowhere near what our sexuality is.
Which is nowhere near what pleasure is.
Which is nowhere near what sexual energy is.
Our sexuality is vibrant, alive, pulsating with a myriad of sensations. It has richness and depth, that endlessly reveals more. It has colour, sound, texture, taste far beyond what we generally allow ourselves. It’s life-force, vitality, creativity.
It has curiosity, a wide range of curiosity.
It has a desire to be expressed in so many ways, from the soft and slow to the fire of passion. It has elements of earth, water, air, fire and ether. It’s spiritual and sacred, meditative, ecstatic. It’s down and dirty and animalistic.
Moving out of the pattern requires presence.
I do a dance modality called Biodanza. In some recent classes and workshops we’ve worked with dancing out of the pattern. It requires presence in the body, awareness, bringing something to the surface that’s different from the way I move.
It’s uncomfortable, challenging, silly.
And it’s liberating.
One movement opens to another, the invitation of possibility.
So much of my work is massage and touch. I talk about how limitless touch is. I see this almost every day. After 30 yrs of doing this, how new touch experiences emerge. The same for pleasure, how much there is for us, how many ways we can experience ourselves and our lovers.
In touch, in intimacy, in sensation, in emotion, in energy, in pleasure.
I talk a lot about possibility, and the invitation it offers us.
The invitation of our bodies, hearts and minds. They’re all connected, entwined, on this journey. They all have a voice, desire to whisper, sing, shout, dance, feel, in ecstacy. In liberation.
Into the moment. Into where I am today, what my body and heart, need, desire.
Into what’s alive now, what’s calling me.
Into a place we can meet each other, with openness, with aliveness.
There is way too much mediocrity, numbness, patterned, conditioned ways of being in life.
Just look at nature, look at how life expresses herself. Take a moment to explore how many ways there are to touch, how much your body can feel. Learn just a little about how something like breathing differently, just one example, changes what we experience.
I love words, of course I do. I write a lot, talk a lot. The words we use are important. They’re deeply connected to our experiences, thoughts, beliefs. They’re often clues to what’s happening inside of us, to what we’re doing.
One of the big word shifts here is moving from having sex to experiencing pleasure.
And sex, in the way many of us do it, is just one part of pleasure.
Pleasure is alive, vibrant, awake, aware, present.
It’s feeling, sometimes subtle, sometimes huge.
Pleasure is an invitation, into our bodies, hearts, minds. It helps us go from numbness into presence, into possibility.
It’s the energy of discovery, exploration, curiosity, fun, joy.
It’s the energy of life.
This is important.
Not just pleasure for the sake of. There’s no consciousness there, and it soon becomes numb, burns out in the ever-seeking of more.
It’s about going from patterned sex into present pleasure. And all that holds. Which is where intimacy, connection, being met, seen, felt and more live.
And here’s a secret. That’s the stuff we’re really looking for. The freedom to express who we are, and this body, and all it is, is a pathway to that.
The invitation is going from numb to being, feeling, alive.
In my world there are many beautiful, delicious experiences and opportunities for that.
I invite you…
