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As an intuitive psychiatrist I help my patients and workshop participants learn how to develop their intuition to deepen their sexual lives. In my book, Guide to Intuitive Healing I devote a whole section to exploring sexual wellness. Sexual awakening means coming into your own erotic power. How each of us does this may differ. Conventional wisdom teaches you to clarify your sexual needs, then learn to communicate physically and emotionally with a partner. Of course both are essential. Sexuality is neither a marathon nor a sprint. Nor is it competitive! You must find your own sexual rhythm and style. The kind of awakening I’m describing includes the psychological and physical, but intuition offers other erotic options.
Sexuality radiates from many places: your physical body, your body’s subtle energy, inner guidance, dreams. Honestly ask yourself, Am I happy with my sexual life? What works? What doesn’t? No judgments. Only truth. Then you’ll know what you’re dealing with. You don’t have to answer to anyone but yourself. You may want to explore a complete process of rebuilding. Or perhaps you’ll embrace the good, discard the rest. Remember though with intuition, nothing is ever static.
Teaching workshops throughout the country, I see a radical shift in what many of us want for ourselves sexually. Tolerating months or years slipping by without sharing a real connection in a relationship no longer seems feasible. Couples long to relate more closely, even if they don’t know how. Awakening sexuality requires intimate expressions. Partners must talk, explore, dream, intuit, make mistakes, make amends, overcome strife by returning to the heart again and again. We’re all learning together. Your triumphs are my triumphs; they have a collective ripple effect on everyone wanting intimacy. Conscious sexuality, founded on spirituality and intuition, requires the following four building blocks.
Four Building Blocks for Conscious Sexuality from Guide to Intuitive Healing
1. The Erotic Power of Common Values
Sexual relationships become more erotic when people share basic values. It’s a balancing of forces. Resonances harmonizing. For instance, imagine you and your partner making love. If you both believe this act is sacred, your bond will strengthen, your ecstasy increase. Two people don’t have to agree on everything. Harmony is the melding of simultaneous notes in a chord. But when it comes to what counts – the merits of the heart, spirituality, a desire for passion – be on the same page with your partner, or at least striving toward it.
2. Passionate Communication
Being intuitive with a partner doesn’t mean you can always read each other’s mind. Express your preferences as positively as possible. For instance, telling your partner, “I really like it when you touch me softer here, harder there,” “Going slower feels great,” or “Please do that again.” If this is the tone between two people, tougher subjects can also be breached. A sense of appreciation of your partner and a sense of humor keep passion going. In relationships communication must stay open in all areas.
Beyond emotional communication, as you and your partner become intuitively attuned all kinds of wild subjects may come up. When making love you could see colors, feel energy shoot through your spine, experience intuitive flashes about how to bring your partner closer. This can all be very erotic. Don’t hold your experiences in or think they’re weird.
3. Making Love with Spirit
The writer Alan Watts said, “When you’re in love with someone, you see them as a divine being.” The divine is ecstatic, at times erotically so. Many spiritual belief systems fail to make this association. Typically God is portrayed as love unrelated to sexuality. I’d like to amend this; I believe we must include God in our sexual lives too. Take a simple approach. If you’ve never experienced spirit as sexy before, while making love ask, “May the divine flow through me” (a sacred, not sacrilegious request). Then stay aware of what happens physically, focusing on your erotic response. Slowly let it spread from your toes through your genitals to your head. Spirit gravitates to where love flourishes. Your body is the instrument it sensually plays.
4. Letting Go of Shame
Let’s aspire to viewing our entire bodies as luminous. For the purpose of society, we wear clothes. But underneath layers of pants, sweaters, skirts, mufflers, coats, slips, hosiery, and underwear, we are all naked. This is our natural state, though it’s not mentioned much. The words vagina and penis embarrass people. Except between lovers they’re rarely used in our vocabulary. We are a culture of shame. But sex is nothing to be ashamed of.
Seeing the beauty of the body with intuition lifts shame. Respect your particular aesthetic sensibilities, but also be ready to examine which ones are based in shame. Touch. Scents. Sounds. Positions. Techniques. No shame – instead of being so quick to erase the primal traces of sexuality, move intuitively with them. There’s no need to inhibit yourself.
Sexual awakening necessitates balancing masculine and feminine aspects. If a man feels, I must be macho, or vulnerability makes me weak, that balance teeters. Similarly, if a woman feels, I have to squash my intuition so I don’t threaten men, a kind of death is under way. Awakening is about seeing how multidimensional we are rather than sexually polarizing. It’s not that men are more powerful than women or women more powerful than men. True power comes from internalizing both qualities.
Adapted from Dr. Judith Orloff’s Guide to Intuitive Healing: Five Steps to Physical, Emotional, and Sexual Wellness