SEXUALITY AND SELF-LOVE

DEAR FRIENDS --  Sex and love are our two most joyful emotions. They are also the two most powerful forces in our beings. Your capacity to feel alive and free is basically determined by your openness to love, by your ability to surrender to your sexual passion -- and by the strength of the connection, in your body, between the two. Even if you are not sexually active, your system's basic openness to it's sexual energy is essential for maintaining a mood of happiness, aliveness and inner peace. Since your sexuality is a vital part of your authentic self, fully accepting and enjoying it is equivalent to loving and believing in yourself!

Despite the modern world's greater openness toward sexual behavior -- the so-called "sexual revolution" of the 1960's and '70's -- the capacity of most people to fully feel their sexual excitement is still very stifled. The billion dollar industry in drugs for male sexual dysfunction, and the epidemic of diminished desire and orgasmic incapacity in women, are evidence that we may be more free to have sex, but we are not more free to deeply feel and surrender to sexual energy! Shame, guilt and fear about sex are still very strongly embedded in our social norms, religious and spiritual systems, and cultural attitudes. This is partially due to powerful fears about being overwhelmed by our sexual feelings, and is also related to the tendency of modern civilization to suppress emotional aliveness in general.

To the degree that your body is free and your heart is open, sex triggers wonderful feelings of passion, pleasure, connection, joy and love. There is nothing shameful, "lower" or "unspiritual" about your need for sexual pleasure. It is entirely positive, since embracing your sexuality is an expression of loving yourself and loving life. On the path of self-love and happiness, increasing your capacity for sexual fulfillment is a beautiful aspect of spiritual growth.

To be free sexually, you need to free your body. By this I don't mean the increase in movement and flexibility that one might gain from yoga, or dancing or athletics. These pursuits are of course very positive, but they are essentially mechanical and don't dissolve the emotional suppression that restricts sexual feelings. It is your body's ability to feel and express emotions in general, and sexual feelings in particular, that deepens your capacity to surrender to sexual pleasure.

For example, if your ability to fully release your sadness through crying is blocked by physical tensions (in your throat, chest and belly), those same tensions will suppress your body's opening to sexual longing, excitement and orgasm. The suppression of crying comes from tensions that restrict full breathing, and complete freedom of breathing -- all the way up through the throat and all the way down through the belly into the pelvis -- is necessary for full sexual excitement. My clients in therapy frequently comment that the ability to be happily overwhelmed by their sexual excitement -- and orgasm -- always increases after deep crying where the sobbing reaches the belly.

Another common emotional block that frustrates sexual experience is subconsciously held-in anger. A sexual experience can be "hot" when your positive aggressive energies are flowing freely. Suppressed anger in your body causes you to hold back the intensity of your passion -- the exciting desire to possess and be possessed, the joy of taking and being taken. It inhibits your surrender to movement and pleasure -- as well as to the feelings of love and tenderness that energetically connect your heart to your genitals. In addition to an overall sense of frustration and disappointment -- "Is that all there is?" -- the tension of held-in anger causes problems such as premature ejaculation or erectile dysfunction in men; and lack of desire, diminished excitement and orgasmic difficulties in women.

When you and your partner are free of significant blocks your experiences together will vary delightfully -- sometimes passionate and aggressive, often tender and loving, playful, serious, and ecstatic. There is no "spiritually correct" way to have sex! Explore your feelings and responses --  with no guilt or shame. That is what self-love and self-discovery is all about!

When your heart is open and your energy level is high, you will sometimes experience a distinct sensation of awe and "sacredness" in your sexual encounter. Although this sensation is difficult to describe, it involves great joy, and an intense conviction of the goodness of life. It can also involve experiencing and adoring the divine in your partner -- truly feeling she/he as "the goddess" or "the god".  

During intercourse, when each of your energies are flowing freely within yourselves, it is natural that your movements will begin to synchronize. With no "technique" necessary -- the instinct is supplied by Nature -- you surrender to a shared rhythm, merge ecstatically with your partner, and orgasm together. Very few people have experienced this deeply satisfying release, but it usually happens without any effort or conscious intention when there are no significant blocks. The inability to claim this "sexual birthright" is a hidden source of depression in many people. I want to reassure you that this sexual capacity exists in you, that you deserve it, and that you can set it free.

Sexuality is the life-force that transports us both into and beyond ourselves. When your sexual excitement is flowing freely it melts your deepest resistance and resoundingly affirms the goodness of life. Transforming everything that restricts your sexual aliveness leads to the greatest of all treasures -- all of YOU and the joy of being alive! LOTS OF LOVE -- BRYAN