Please Sir. Can I have More?

I have been "The Queen of More" for a great deal of my life. Some people may have even called me insatiable. That desire for more has served me in spaces of creation. But in other times, that desire for more has brought me to my knees. I doubt that I am alone.

This is what I know to be true.  If you are a woman who lives a life of creation you will be endlessly hungry for the next thing, or more.

Everyday when you wake up, your nose will sniff possibility the way a dog seeks a bone.  Nothing will stop you because how could anything stifle your desire?

I am a creator and my desire for more possibility in my life is endless.  And the more I intentionally create the more I intentionally create.

And yes, there are the moments of having it. The extraordinary moment of holding my dreams in my heart and being in it.  The moments that I get to totally experience my own creations and bath in it. I can only describe it as ecstasy.

This is what I also know to be true; if you are not fully awake to your own sexuality - you will not be able to completely light the fire on your ability to create.  I do not care how successful you are; you can be more successful. There is more.  And why wouldn't you want more?

Light the fire. Invite your desire and feel the hunger.

Create.  Digest. Savor. And then do it again.

This is what is true for me now.

I am sitting in the richness of moments that were created by my own insatiable desires.  Creation brings moments. It's really that simple.

And it's the moments that keep me company. It is the moments that I allow into my body, heart and soul that I remember.

It is a kiss on a street corner. An experience with a lover at a bar, connecting eyes, a smile and a wink of recognition with a stranger on the street. It has been on retreats, on a massage table for a session, a conversation that is full between friends.

It is the bites.

Why wouldn't you be hungry for more of that?

The Price of Desire

I love desire. I am a desire chaser the way some people chase storms. And we all know that people who chase storms, sometimes get caught in the hurricane. It's a risk that they take.  But they still chase storms. It can be that way with desire too. Desire's can come with a price tag.  But don't be frightened of price tags! Just know that they exist. Too many people work so very hard at avoiding their desires, because of their fear of the costs. But to me, to have a big beautiful burning desire, and to bury it is the biggest cost of all.  It's a trap to believe that once we get our heart's desire that this is where I trouble will begin. I don't buy that. What I do  believe that we all have a heart's desire. Many of us have more than one. It's a dream perhaps, or some kind of prize that we hope to one day have in our lives.  The women I talk to have desires around connecting to their bodies in a deeper and more fuller way. They want to play again in their lives. They want to not only uncover their desires, name their desires, but to experience them. And not all of them do. Why not?

Perhaps the price is too high, and they are looking for a bargain. You know, how to get your desire with double coupons or at a flea sale. And for others, they are willing to sell one's soul to the devil to get what they really want.

Sometimes, when we go exploring our desires we may find out that our lives just as we have them isn't quite right anymore. We may have outgrown our marriages, or friendships. If we go looking for what in our heart calls us, we may leave behind what was once so very precious. That's a pretty scary risk isn't it? Kinda like selling your soul? Reaching for those desires have a pretty hefty cost. But what about not reaching for your desires? That can be really expensive too.

If you stay where you are; tamped down, numb and perhaps very anger that is a different kind of selling of our souls - isn't it?

Rarely does anything worth happen come for free. And sometimes the price tag is  not as dramatic as selling your soul or making a decision to leave your own backyard to find it.

Sometimes, to find our desires we need to put aside time and money. We need to share ourselves with our loved ones and let them in on what our desires are.  We have to be willing to put ourselves first.

This is what I have learned in my life as a committed desire seeker.

1. You have to be willing to reach with a full heart for your desires.

2. You often have to let go of the past, after you have tasted and rolled around in your desires.

3. Fulfilled desires often do bring change and while change can be momentarily uncomfortable, it can also be amazing.

4. Your body can hold way more desire fulfilled that you can imagine.

If you can restrain your desires, put them aside and ignore them - maybe the desire is not great enough.  Understanding your desires, and deciding which desires should have your focus is a key.

Go on. Take on your desire.  Just check the price tag, and decide that you are worth it.

 

The Power of The Erotic

We have put the erotic in a box. Say the word erotic and many people conjure up images of partner sex, pornography and lap dances. Nothing wrong with that. But what if the erotic could be seen through a different lens. What if the erotic (sexual energy) could be harnessed to power up all aspects of your life? What if you could get in touch with the erotic as life force energy and use it not only as fuel for orgasm, but also as fuel for your creativity and every other aspect of your life? What if your erotic knowledge is also a potential inner guide, like a sensually fueled GPS navigation system that you can tune into?

Most people want to live a fully expressed life. The question always comes down to how do we get there? My belief is that you already have what you need and it is held in your body. The issue is that this inner knowledge and power has been carefully suppressed. The erotic is so powerful that throughout the ages, people have been frightened of it. We have been cultured out of our own powerful inner knowledge because once we are connected to our inner guides and have access to the erotic as life force energy - we are harder to control.  We have been  shamed into a kind of sexless submission.

If  can learn to live from inside of our bodies outward to the world, not being frightened of the power of our own erotic energy to guide us we will be able to get in touch with our deepest feelings  and let go of the numbness that afflicts so many.  Being fully empowered and connected to our bodies is an act against oppression.  It is through this inner knowledge that we can get in touch with our desires and create change not only in our lives, the lives of our families but also the world.

What we want to create in our lives begin with our ability to know our desires. The foundational step is to know your desire. When we learn to harness our own erotic engine we can dare to know our desires and to be powerful in our lives.

Change is scary and but it is only through change that we can grow.  You cannot harness someone else erotic energy for very long. You can use it to inspire yourself to find your own. But we each need to know, cultivate and access our own inner flame.

And in order to do that, you must first be willing to believe that you have it.

Loving you from here,

Pamela

Workshops!

Pamela is teaching in NYC and Seattle in October and November!

Join Pamela Madsen and Monique Darling in NYC on October 12th.

Female Erotic Confidence: The Art of Being Soft and Strong in NYC.  Learn more here!

Join Pamela Madsen and Lori Berkowitz on October 26th in NYC for

Seducing Our Own Beauty: A Very Unique Play Shop for Women

Learn more here

Join Pamela Madsen in Seattle on November 21 and 22nd for "Portal into The Feminine" a mini retreat at the Foundation for Sex Positive Culture  Learn more here:

Back to the Body: Sensual Retreats for Women is Sold Out for Tuscany in September and our Core Program in Victoria, BC. We have opened Registration for February 12th through 17th. Four spots are left.  Back to the Body is limited to six women.  Learn more about Back to the Body here.

What Christian Grey Could Teach Men About Seduction

I have written a lot about what is wrong with Fifty Shades of Grey, but there are lessons in everything. Christian Grey as a leading man got as many things right as he got wrong. After all, women couldn't put this book down right? So Christian was seducing them too.  And I get it, we don't all get to be fabulously handsome billionaires. But Christian Grey could teach any man a few important tips to bring into his relationship if he is passionate around sex. What Christian Grey Would Tell You About Seduction if He Could Be Bothered:

1. Let's start with anticipation! That's about all of the deliciousness that come before you get your hands on your lover.  Yes, of course everyone knows that Foreplay is very important to a woman's sexual experience, but I'm not talk about how long you touch her breasts or how much attention you give her genitals (all good things!). I am talking about the sexy text in the middle of the afternoon. The hot request that she meet you at the bar wearing no underwear. I am talking the tenor of your voice when you tell how how much you are looking forward to stripping her slowly later on that night.  Learning to build anticipation is a skill that Christian Grey was masterful at. How can you build sexual tension in your relationship? Get her to simmer in her desire for you.

2. Let her know in her bones that she is the object of your desire. On other words; give your woman some attention! For many women, desire is the orgasm! Women want to know that they are wanted and that their lover thinks that they are sexy and beautiful. Communicate that to her: A Lot. Feeling valued is a turn on for many women. How can you show her that you value her?

3. Make sex important in your life.  Christian Grey has an entire room devoted to sex. How much space do you give sex in your life? Sex is about more penetration. Experiment with your fantasies and hers. Ask her to tell you her erotic secrets. Play games; such as asking her to bring three sexy toys or videos to your next erotic tryst! Give her a gift certificate to a sex toy shop and ask her to go shopping. This tip also build anticipation which was Tip One! How can you expand and shift up how you engage erotically with each other?  Seduction is sometimes about not know what will come next. Make sex about more than who climaxes first.

4. Dress for success! Christian Grey always looked good. When women put themselves together for a date or love making - they sweat the small stuff. How about you? I know a man who wears super hero underwear because they make him feel sexy! What are you putting on under your jeans? Dress to make yourself feel sexy and it I can almost guarantee that if you are feeling sexy - you will be sexy.

The Art of Being Sexually Selfish! A Complimentary Tele-Seminar

Join Pamela Madsen and Neal Wecker internationally known Certified Somatic Sex Educators with over 30 years of combined experience in adult sex education for a unique complimentary tele-seminar on exploring the state of sexual selfishness. Learning how to receive and be sexually selfish is essential for deep arousal especially for women. For women,their erotic excitement has to be able to break form from 'taking care of others' to a place of valuing and living their arousal.

The 'Art of Being Sexually Selfish' will explore ways for women to break through their barriers for the pleasure that they desire and deserve. The reality of the need shows up so clearly in the fantasy about being utterly taken, taken without her having to care about someone else in her experience of surrendering. Come and explore the 'Circle of Consent' and so much more.

The call will take place on Tuesday, August 26th at 5pm PT/8pm ET. After the call Pamela and Neal will stay on the line to answer questions about Back to the Body: Sensuous Retreats for Women and private sessions.

Self Register for this Complimentary Seminar Here

We hope you can join us!

It's Time to Get Creative! June is Adult Sex Education Month!

You're not in middle school anymore when sex education was all about learning  about the birds and the bees. Maybe in high school you got a lesson about how to handle a condom, or how to say "No".  The fact is that you are not a kid anymore,  and what could be a better time than an entire month dedicated to learning about being a "grown up" and learning about getting creative in the bedroom. What could be a better time to get started trying something new than an entire month dedicated to Adult Sex Education!

#AdultSexEdMonth is the brain child of  originator of A Good Woman’s Dirty Mind (http://agoodwomansdirtymind.com).

How smart is she? And  how do you get started? Believe it or not, one of the best ways is to practice being sexual!

One of the more challenging things for many people when it comes to sex is to find what really turns them on after having removed all of their shame and judgment. The next big step is to then state their desires out loud to themselves and to their intimate partners. It is easier said than done, because it requires time, patience and dedication.

Recently, one of my sex coaching clients Vicky, started our session by exclaiming “Holy shit. I think it's actually revolutionary what I'm doing. I am practicing being sexual. I can now actually use the word “sex” without feeling self-conscious or guilty. I am finding my sexual voice. And damn, it does take practice!”

Vicky has been practicing what is often referred to as “Orgasmic Yoga” which, in reality, is not about yoga or orgasms! It's really just another name for developing a core erotic practice.

She has been on a 30 day practice schedule of working solo with her own body; exploring it on a physical and emotional level. Orgasmic Yoga is a pleasurable, intimate and trans-formative discipline that is practiced while sexually aroused. The goal is to develop or reclaim erotic capacities. Some individuals practice it to reawaken the awesome feelings in their body., others to discover it for the first time.

Taking the time to participate in a mindful, planned solo erotic practice allows the individual to focus on what is substantial in their sexuality rather than what is superficial.

Vicky has also been working to identify her peak erotic experiences in order to understand what gives her authentic sexual pleasure. The desired result is to giver herself the ability to better communicate her sexual needs to herself and to her partner. This takes guts, and it takes time. It can feel like a radical step to actually practice being sexual. But Vicky, like the countless women and men that I work with, have decided they really want to own their own sexuality; that it's their time.

From Vicky:

“I attended a music workshop recently where we explored the idea of stepping out and dipping our toes into fear. This was about trying on new ways to use our voices, and about performing. It was all new to me, for I am not a performer at all, and while I sing in a community choir, I sing very quietly. I enjoy learning and I feel safe as long as I am surrounded by a group of stronger singers. I imagined the choir as my comfort zone, where I could participate without having to step out into the fear of performing solo.

"But this is not really a comfort zone at all, as I learned during the workshop. My comfort zone is what I know and explore about my own voice. What can it do? What is its range? Where is the heart of the music I love? The only way to discover it is through practice. And more practice. The comfort zone is here, in my own voice. And once I know my own voice, then I can step out into the unknown, fearful places where I can challenge myself to change and expand and share my voice with others.

"It was in choir that I made the connection between our sex coaching and choir.

"I had always thought that my sexual comfort zone was a very confined space, where I would not be challenged, where my partner would be 'fine' with the status quo of our intimate life. I thought the best I could ever hope for was to somehow get better at it, so I could please him better. I thought I wanted the comprehensive 'how-to' manual, but even if there was such a thing, I was too embarrassed and shy to look at it.

"But that's not the comfort zone, is it? What I am learning is that it starts with me. I get to discover my own self as a sexual being, finally, in my mid-fifties! I have to learn to name what my own heart and mind and body want. I need to discover for the first time how sex works for me. I need to come to my senses. It's a bit of a paradox. It's scary to be discovering my own comfort zone. And if this is scary, what will it be like to step out of it?”

A Beginners Guide to Orgasmic Yoga Practice:

From Joseph Kramer, Ph.D, Founder of Orgasmic Yoga: “At it's core Orgasmic Yoga invites embodied, mindful self-accountability. The self-directed practice sessions involve breathing, savoring, sound, movement, touch, placement of attention, and awareness of intention.

"Erotic practice sessions weave together the heart and genitals. This alone is a profound reason to commit to practice. Orgasmic Yoga often produces a state of arousal that is free of fantasy, unfinished emotional business, religious dogma, cultural caveats and habitual sexual behaviors. In this erotic trance state, an individual becomes aware of the body as a source of wisdom, happiness and freedom. Thus, the intent of Orgasmic Yoga practice is the practice”.

Every Orgasmic Yoga session includes the following:

  1. A statement of intention(s) at the beginning.
  2. A clear beginning and ending time.
  3. A session structure, outline or choreography.
  4. One or more minutes of Kegels.
  5. Conscious breathing patterns.
  6. Movement, stretching, and/or dancing.
  7. Sounds, moans and laughter.
  8. Quiet for the last five minutes of each session.
  9. Reflection and note-taking after each session.
  10. Full body self touch including genitals

Optional:

  1. Use of toys or vibrators
  2. Specially Chosen Music

“An integral part of Orgasmic Yoga is to savor and reflect upon the experience after you have completed each day’s practice. It is crucial that you rest quietly for at least five minutes at the end of your session, to simply be and breathe. We suggest that you then reflect on your experience in a journal or with a friend or lover” says Joseph Kramer .

Clearing the space in your life to learn your own sexual voice  can change how you understand, express and enjoy your sexualty. It can also enliven your sexual expression  with your loved ones. It's one of the gifts that you can give yourself.

What to Do Next After Reading This Blog?

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Do you want to know more about Pamela and her "Back to The Body Retreat's For Couple's and Women? Visit here.

Searching For That Feeling of Aliveness

So many of us want to feel alive again. We are stuck in the patterns of our lives whether it work, family, relationships, or marriage. We may feel stuck in some kind of trauma that we can't seem to climb out of.  We are longing to reconnect with parts of ourselves that we have lost, forgotten or never got to explore. We may think it's about getting hot sex; it may be. But I think it's more about getting attention, feeling desire, dancing in a kind of excitement that we may have lost in our daily lives. When was the last time you felt yearning in your life for anything? Took a real risk, and jumped into an adventure? When I speak with women who are restless, feeling numb in their bodies, bored with their lives, wondering if this is all there is in their relationship with their sexuality; it becomes clear to me over and over again that they are not looking for another person, they are looking for who they become when they have new experiences.

I know this up close in personal as I shared in my memoir; "Shameless: How I Ditched The Diet, Got Naked, Found True Pleasure and Somehow Got Home in Time to Cook Dinner (Rodale, 2011). 

I am an explorer, but I am not reckless. I have a happy marriage of over 30 years, one that I wouldn't ditch for the world. But sometimes, I need to to ditch who I am in my marriage. I need to go out into the world, and become the other parts of me that I don't even know yet.

That's often when I feel my most alive, and for me a path to feeling aliveness has been through the erotic. I have wanted, and continue to desire to experience all of my new selves in a way that doesn't interfere with my marriage. And many women are single and want to have more aliveness too.  These feelings are not so different in marriages or in singleness, as we all get stuck in this place of  "everyday".

So how do you do it? How do you create this feeling of aliveness in your life? How do you explore all of your other selves? Okcupid? Maybe.

For me, so much happened literally on the massage table working with different Sexological Bodyworkers and attending retreats that created safe spaces for me to explore who I was in different situations. It changed everything for me; my relationship with my body, my relationship with my food (cured an eating disorder - I think I was like a bored bird plucking at it's own feathers), my relationship with my desires and my erotic expression.

I was literally reborn and living a very alive life.  I continue to plan for my pleasure and make it happen as well as help other women do it too.

I support other women to explore their sexuality, renew their feelings of aliveness, and experience their "other selves" through:

Back to the Body: Sensuous Retreats For Women

Private coaching where I support them in creating their own "Pleasure Plan" and learn new ways to create and keep these new found feelings in their bodies

Supporting women on their own journey working with Sexological Bodyworkers.

Right now there is a lot of hot going on; so many opportunities where you can explore you own desires for a new sense of aliveness.

Are you ready for that?

Email me to arrange a free consultation and I will not only hear your story, but I will tell you about all the very cool stuff that is happening between now and October! Just do it, email me at  Pamela@backtothebody.org and put Aliveness in your subject line.

I am creative and determined to support you in moving the obstacles out of your way so you can experience all of the other selves that are in you.

Loving you from here,

Pamela

 

 

 

Don't Break Up With Your Desire

I am surrounded by friends right now in my personal life who are feeling dumped. Truth be told, I'm feeling a bit dumped too. We can feel dumped in all sorts of ways. Someone we loved may not love us back. A project that we believed in may be getting dumped. Our boss may have dumped us. A friend or a group of friends may have dumped us, or a family member. And sometimes, we even dump ourselves. But here's the thing:

Don't break up your desire even if you feel dumped by circumstance, misled, or lost. You still know what your desire is. Right? You can feel it. What it is that you want in your life. It's okay to feel impatient for it. Feel the ache like a tooth exposed at it's nerve.

Don't shame yourself for trusting the path that you set yourself on, even if all the plans went wonky. All that happened is that you tried. All that happened is that you loved. All that happened is that you danced with your desire and your dreams.

Come sit with me in the compost for a little while. It's kinda warm here, and there is plenty of room.

Put a red rose between your teeth. The rose is important because you get to look foxy and the perfume of the flower helps ease the scent of the compost!

But don't discount the murk. There is life in the shit. Seeds full of hunger and desire ready to sprout.

Can't you feel it?

Are You a Part of The Ten Percent?

Dear Shameless Beauty; Yesterday, I arrived in Seattle. I like to make a pit stop here and visit friends before I head to Victoria, BC. I am on my way to the February "Back to The Sensuous Retreat for Women". I got to share simple pleasures that are not so simple. Intimacy, laughter, and friendship.

Loving sacred community with all it's messiness and vulnerability. I have a soft spot in my heart for Seattle. Today is a day of 'more to come'. And it got me thinking. You see, I got to my day by sharing sharing "lotus lift meditation" with a girlfriend. What followed was a deep, sweet knowing conversation with another woman who knows what it is, and what it takes to have a relationship with one's own pussy as a life force energy.

Here's the truth ladies: having a relationship with your own pussy and through her your own erotic creature is a practice.

I am past 40, did the menopause thing, and I'm living a more sexually alive life than I ever had before.

It's all getting hotter - all the time. It's not about the hormones. I don't take any.

It's not about having socially acceptable body - I don't think I have one of those either.

It's not about so much that we are led to believe it's all about.

It's possible to have this by staying in connection with you own body which can be as simple as learning to hold your own pussy when you go to sleep at night, and wake up in the morning.

Learning to cultivate an ability to listen to and speak to your own genitals. And sometimes, that means being compassionate and bringing our genitals along to the party even when she doesn't really feel like it.

With some loving attention, our bodies can restore and come alive in ways that you cannot even imagine. I don't care where you are right now in your relationship sexuality. You can have more. I can have more. This is like our relationship with our own hearts. We can always uncover more and expand.

We just have to commit to start exactly where we are. I work with all kinds of women, and the women who commit to living a sexually alive life and are willing to practice even when they are not in the mood - are tapping into an energy in their body which is extraordinary.

I have begun to call these women "the ten percent". Because it's only about ten percent of the women who I come in contact with who are willing to truly go there, and keep going there. They are the ones who don't put stories and obstacles in their own way. The ones who think they have to lose weight first. Or figure out how to speak to their partners. Or believe that they don't have the money for this. There are so many obstacles that are really excuses for our own fear.

Perhaps it's the fear that if you try - it won't work. Perhaps it the fear that connecting to your own body will change your life. Then what?

Having a relationship with your own pussy IS huge. You are right.

And it's not only about having sex with another being. It is about how we are able to use arousal/sexual energy as a tool in our every day lives.

That's revolutionary.

Are you ready to start your own revolution? Start just where you are, and say hello to your genitals.

Loving you from here,

Pamela

Mothers and Daughters: Sexuality and 'The Mother Wound'

Daughters complain a lot about their mothers. And mothers can talk endlessly about their difficulties with their daughters.  Much has been written about "The Mother Wound" which is this idea that collective generational pain is passed down from mother's to daughters. For daughters it can feel like we will never be quite right for our mothers. This feeling that we will never totally win our mother's complete approval. We are too fat or thin. Not feminine enough or showing too much skin. This feeling that our mother is always comparing us to someone elses daughter or even our sister, who has a better job or does more for their mother. It can be about our parenting, our dress code and most of all—this unspoken shame around our sexuality.

Many daughters feel that they have to remain sexually small because how dare they want to have more sexual freedom and pleasure than their mothers had.  Or maybe their mother's were sexually or emotionally abused—and there is this fear that if the daughter is sexually alive the same fate will befall her. The daughter may not even know this on a conscious level, but somewhere deep inside, she knows that she cannot explore who she is on a sexual level because it will trigger her mother's fear and disapproval.

In my sexuality and intimacy coaching practice and at my retreats, "The Mother Wound" has been one of the prevalent issues that lay right under the surface for so many women.

They keep themselves sexually small because they don't want to threaten other women or call too much attention to themselves. There is this fear that "something bad will happen to them" that they will not be able to control. Or worse - that they will be blamed. They compete endlessly with other women and have this feeling that they cannot trust other women.

After all, some feel that they couldn't they trust their mother to protect them or see them as they truly were/are.

They have this secret fear that they are broken in some way and not worthy of creating what they really want in their lives. There is this fear around shaking things up too much. Women talk to me about attracting men into their lives that step all over their boundaries or are "safe and uninteresting". When asked about their desires, there is only this vague sense of unrest.

Many who struggle with their 'mother wound' take incredible leaps forward in exploring their sexuality and then self-sabotage by dropping out with excuses that range from money and time to feeling that they have gotten all that they need. Mostly they are frightened "of going too far and falling off a rail". The fear of anyone finding out that they are exploring their sexuality is extraordinary. No one wants to be a "bad girl" for real. So instead, many women develop anxiety, eating disorders, depression, addictions and complain of a general feeling of numbness in their genitals that we call "Low sexual desire" or "Low Libido".

So many of our mothers were raised in service to others rather than ever thinking about their own needs. They have their own mother wounds. It's important to remember that our mothers are someone else's daughter. She may have all of the same feelings that I just described above.

How is she suppose to teach and support her daughter to be anything other than filled with these same feelings of shame and comparison? This is a legacy that is carefully protected, shrouded in fear, shame and conflict. As daughters so many of us want our mother's approval; and if that means remaining small so that we do not challenge our mother's belief's about being a woman we will do that.

For many daughters that means shutting down their sexuality instead of taking on her own sexual power and potential. The risk of rejection and shaming is far too big a fear. I wonder if that is why so many women wait until mid life to sexually awaken. By then we are far enough out of the house, have accumulated  enough life experiences of our own, and we may have lost our mother through death or conflict.

Many of us develop a late life compassion for our mothers and a deeper understanding of our mother as daughter. That she is/was a product of the same legacy. We begin to  know at a deeper level in mid life that we will not lose our mother's approval or love—or if we do we are strong enough to walk away from the legacy.

While it may still feel risky for a woman to step forward and decide to connect to her body, her sexuality and a practice of self loving and pleasure out of a fear of risking angering and rejection from her mother—somehow in mid life we seem to be gathering the fortitude. As daughter's age, many of us come to this awareness that while our mother's may have given up parts of herself to her own mother—we no longer have to. We can break the cycle. This does not mean that we deny the legacy—it actually means that we take it on and look at it. Often there is grieving to be done.

In order to fully get into our bodies and let go of the fear of our own sexuality—it is vital to look at our own mother wounds as they are the foundation on which our relationship to our sexuality and our bodies are built.

As daughters we cannot repair or save our mothers lives. But we can choose to offer ourselves and our mothers compassion. We can offer our mother's and ourselves understanding and forgiveness. And we can step away and fulfill our own potential as women without this underlying fear that our relationship with our own pleasure and sexual expression is something dangerous and an act of defiance against our mother. We can step into our discomfort of "leaving our mother's behind" or even perhaps feeling their envy as we live lives that they were unable to have. In mid life many of us feel the disappointment that our mother's have in their own self sacrifice and the hunger for what they didn't have. Perhaps it is this maturity and ability to see what our mother's have held in their own lives that creates this burning mid life desire not to forever limit our own true potential. In mid life - it can feel like now or never. It is finally time to become all of those things that we repressed in fear of hurting, angering or betraying the sacrifices that our mother's made for us.

It becomes time to love our bodies as they are. It becomes time to be as big, creative, successful and  smart as we can. This can be a remarkable time of rebirth and recreation in a woman's life. We want our own experience of being a woman, and this reaching for our full potential is not about abandoning our mothers. It is about finally realizing that we will never be able to fully pay our mother's back for what they gave us—or letting go of the deeply held desire to win this approval and love. It is the final falling out of the nest.

And as a mother who is a daughter we have work to do too.  Being a mother is one of the hardest roles we will ever occupy. Occupying motherhood in our world is a job that no one can prepare you for. And it sets you up for all the old feelings of being a daughter like being competitive with other women—only this time it's about your kids plus all the other stuff that you were carrying before. It's hard to confront all of the "Mother" feelings when we think we are enlightened. This is not "old world" feelings. This is a legacy. In our own role of mother/daughter, we may be trying to take back our own sexual power while we are seeing our children out pace us. It can be terrifying to feel fear for our daughters while we envy them.

"The Mother Wound" is one of the most complex obstacles women face, and it's the leading cause of women staying small. As women we may have a tremendous amount of anger for the boxes that we are put into and the sacrifices that we make as mothers. Where can we talk about feeling left out in our daughters lives? Hating being the one that has to be the constant giver and nurturer? Who can we speak to without shame that we are tired of being in service to our daughter's whims, desires, anger and resentments?

There are few safe places to bring this rage and confusion. While there are a few advocates working hard to provide those safe places like Nekole Shapiro and her Holistic Peer Counseling Program for Birth and Parenting—these programs are rare and new.

It's time for all of us to take a look at the mother wound. How it has affected us as mothers,  daughters and ultimately as women. It's time for us to peek at how the mother wound has affected our relationship with our bodies and our sexuality. It would be wonderful if young women could do this—and it's not too late ever for any woman of any age to do this work and have this transformation.

I have seen women in their fifties, sixties and seventies heal their wounds and take back their bodies with extraordinary pleasure. I have watched them experience their sexuality in ways that they felt were completely out of the range of possibility for them. I have been inspired by women who have left the regret and the legacy behind them. It is a stepping out and letting go of the internal monologue of 'mother wound' self criticism, guilt, shame,  fear, and obligation that robs us from our full potential.

This wound can be healed and women can have lives that are full of love, self acceptance and sexual expression. I see it happening everyday.

 

What to do after reading this article?

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Have you read Pamela's book? "Shameless: How I Ditched The Diet, Got Naked, Found True Pleasure and Somehow Got Home in Time To Cook Dinner?"

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Your Sexuality Is Your Garden, Your Will The Gardener

I meet women every day who want something more in their lives when it comes to their relationship with their own bodies. They feel shut down and turned off when it come to their own sexual selves. They describe to me a general feeling of numbness, lack of sexual desire and this feeling that someone just turned off the switch "down there". And yet they call me, because they know that deep down, their own bodies tell them there is more for them to have. The fear and excitement in that initial outreach is palpable. This letter from a 60 year old woman tells the tale: "After years of disappointing sexual experiences (thanks to disowning what I now know were my own legitimate sensual/sexual/intimacy needs, at a very young age) there is still juiciness inside me, and the possibility of satisfying, even ecstatically transcendent sensuous sexual spiritual experience (by myself, and with a partner) for the rest of what I expect will be a very long life! So sending this email is my first big risk-taking reaching-for-the-moon of 2014 (maybe even scarier than jumping out of an airplane, running a marathon, and climbing 10 mountains when I was 40)."

During our first sessions, many of the women describe to me a feeling of stomach upset and resistance - as if their genitals are saying something to them like "Leave me alone! Go away! I don't want to wake up! Why are you doing this to me?"

The fear of "reunion pain" when a woman gets to not only make peace with her genitals but finds the capacity to meet her genitals again in pleasure feels terrifying.

There can be the fear of regret which can sound like this: "I can't believe how amazing it is to finally be in touch again with my sexuality" which dissolves into tears and the lament, "Why did I wait so long?" The fear of reunion pain is real, the struggle women are facing between their own resistance and their desires for reuniting with their bodies is extraordinary. It's almost as if years of sexual rejection from partners, or messages from society, have created a place in a woman's body where her own genitals are saying; "Fine, you didn't want me when I wanted to be wanted - so now I don't want you."

The good news is that women are breaking through this wall and finding out that their bodies were just as scared as their minds. Once we move past that initial terror of; "I can't, I'm stuck, Nothing works, I'm ugly, I'm old, My hormones are a mess and nobody wants me anymore" - pleasure can happen and that changes everything.

Do you recognize yourself here? I promise you, that you are not alone.

Here are some tips for gently easing yourself back into a healthy relationship with your own sexuality:

1. Dignify your own desires: Spend some time thinking about what it is you want in your own personal relationship to your body and sexuality. Get to know what you truly desire. Write it down. Speak it to somebody such as a close friend, partner, therapist or sexuality coach. Speaking your desires can be powerful and life changing.

2. Prioritize pleasure in your life. Create a "Pleasure Plan". Start to look at even the smallest moments of choice in your life as a possibility for pleasure. Do you want that salad because you think you should have it, or because eating it will give you pleasure? Notice the pleasure choices you are making. Making pleasure a conscious choice every time you are choosing something can change your experience of even the smallest decision.

3. Activate your ability to receive. The extent to which you are able to receive pleasure and kindness in your life has a direct influence on your ability to love and feel your body. Oftentimes women are great givers, but really don't know how to receive or take for themselves. Look at where you are pushing away pleasure, kindness and support. Try saying "Yes, I would." instead of, "I'm fine."

So many woman have put fences around their sexuality garden and they may have been put there for good reason. There may have been a feeling that this part of you needed protecting and just wanted everyone including your own self to keep out. But it's possible that you are hearing this tiny voice in your head that is urging you to do something about these fences for a very good reason.

You know deep inside that there are riches to explore, and you just don't know how to get started.

Listen to the little voice. 

If your sexuality is your garden, then your will is the gardener. You are not too late.

What to Do After Reading This Article:

Please take a moment to "Like it" "Share it" and give it a Tweet! And comments are always a pleasure!

Are you curious about Pamela's "Back to the Body Retreats For Women"? Check out the website here.

Do you want to know more about Pamela's journey back to her own sexuality and healing her body when she put her big toe into the mid-life? Read "Shameless: How I Ditched The Diet, Got Naked, Found True Pleasure and Somehow Got Home in Time to Cook Dinner" (Rodale, 2011).

 

 

 

 

Will I Be Safe? Exploring Hands on Sexual Healing

I talk to literally hundreds of women that are exploring cutting edge humanistic sex therapy, somatic sex education or more simply stated - hands on sexual healing and exploration. The number one question is "Will I be safe?". That's the most complicated question to answer, because there isn't a straight forward response! What does being safe mean to you? Of course you will not be harmed in any kind of physical or emotional way. That is the hope whenever we see a professional holistic practitioner that we trust with our care. But safe? A part of me wants to answer..."Of course not! And isn't that the point?" Is that why you are truly showing up? Or are you showing up to push your boundaries and comfort zones? To feel things that you have only read about in books? To explore and heal places that perhaps you could not get to through pills, shakes, and Dr. Oz?

Going deeper into your body and mind can be really challenging. Sometimes, it can really make you feel uncomfortable because you are touching all kinds of new and old feelings. So, no, you will not be safe from any of that. Sometimes, you may feel like you want to run away. That is a challenge any time that we want more in our lives. It's about digging in, and getting terribly real with ourselves. That's what hands on therapy provides.

It's an opportunity to explore your sexuality, desires, and body image in a way that is all about you.

Step-by-stiletto step, it can feel exciting, eye opening, earnest, pleasure filled, and magical. On your journey you will be flipping the switch on your erotic engine in ways that you never thought was possible. That’s the powerhouse motor fueled by sexual energy that propels every aspect of a woman’s life--sexual pleasure, relationships (from mother-daughter to lover to her own body), education and even success in business.

Safe? Will I be safe?

Well, it all starts with you. Your body. Your humble vagina and your precious pelvis. Every woman’s got one. The problem is it’s only the rare woman who knows how to access and use its magic powers for self-transformation.

That's what hands on, somatic practice is offering. An opportunity to explore this place in yourself and learn how. The goal is to power up, rediscover or perhaps to find for the first time that hotbed of energy and harness it to unleash each woman’s full potential.

Do you want to feel integrated, powerful, sensuous and seen? Do you want to look at your sexuality through a different lens then you ever have before? What if sex is not just there for attracting men, orgasms or making babies? And what if you could have all that and the secret sauce too if you wanted it?

Naomi Wolf has taken on the subject of the vagina-heart-brain circuit in her inevitably controversial treatise and NY Times bestseller, “Vagina: A New Biography.” Though it’s met wild adulation and bitter criticism, the message is compelling. When the circuit, a dopamine-oxytocin-opiate loop in physiological terms, is intact and uninterrupted, women are in a state of genuine well-being: capable, confident and sexy. When that loop is disrupted, severed, shamed or abused women numb out. They get depressed, anxious, have low libido and dare I say it, suffer “hysteria.” While Wolf’s analysis may be bitterly contested by some, her understanding and defense of the genital-brain connection is one that we've studied and established empirically.

What she didn’t explain in any great detail is how to acknowledge and complete that circuit so that we women are steadily charged, activated, open to and ready for life. That’s what this is all about.

Will you be safe? Is perhaps forever changed safe?

Yes....you will be safe in the deepest sense of the world. And you will also be busted open, and alive like you have never been in your entire life.

Do you want to know more? Contact me for a free "Curious Critter" session. Just send an email to Pamela@beingshameless.com and put "Curious Critter" in the subject line!

Can You Dare To Eat?

Can you feel your hunger? I am so sick of diets. And I don't mean food restriction diets either. There are so many different kinds of diets that we are either put on, or put ourselves on. There are financial diets (we call them budgets), There are sexual diets (often we are put on these by partners who cannot meet us erotically, or by our own stubbornness in not being willing to get to know our own bodies and feed ourselves), there are emotional diets (where we settle for "emotional crumbs" given out by friends, lovers and ourselves when love is parceled out in tiny bits and pieces - often just enough for us to "stay in") and then there are food diets where we restrict according to the latest information about how to be oh so beautiful.

Damn, I could go on and on - because I have been on every diet known to mankind. And if I wasn't on a diet, I was numbing my desire out with food addiction or shopping. Anything not to feel the absolute need in my body for things that I felt were not for me, or just out of reach. And then I had to stop the addiction, because there was no choice. My eating disorder had to go, and in it's place came lots and lots of big powerful feelings.

In the Shameless Community right now, so many of our close to 700 members are writing about our own re-birthing process out of numbness into being fully erotic creatures again. The blogs are raw, sexy and stunning, and they inspired me to write this blog!

No matter how far we are into this journey - it is an always process. I believe if you think you have arrived, you probably have gone back to numbing again in some way. We are always growing and changing - we are always in some stage of growing into and out of our skin).

The good news is that there are plateaus of coming home to yourself where you just get to roll around in the sheer joy of it all. And sometimes the process of getting back truly into our bodies is full of incredible pleasure and unbounded playful self discovery.

I would love to invite you to take a minute and be still. Allow yourself to feel the hunger of desire in your beautiful body and then close your eyes and ask yourself two questions:

1. What do you want?

2. What is getting in your way?

You may need to ask this question of yourself ten times for each question! Write down your responses. These are deep soul questions. And then look at the "diets" you have put yourself on. Are you ready to eat?

Loving you from here,

Pamela

Desire is The Real Female Orgasm

Do you want to turn women on? Then you had better know our dirty little secret...it's what makes so many of us women feel sexy and raises our libidos about ten degrees. It's the feeling of being desired.Marta Meana said it best when she said that for most women "Desire is the real female orgasm". As women, we want to be the most desired fruit in the salad. We want our significant other - or simply admiring eyes to reflect back to us their desire for us - and this gives us more pleasure that most of us would like to admit to. It's not very politically correct now - is it? Well - here's a new flash for you - sexuality is not politically correct! I don't know about you - but I want to be swept off my feet by a suitor that just cannot breathe without me. Oh come on. You want it too! You know it's true. And if it's really, really, really isn't true for you as a woman - it is true for countless others. Why do you think romance novels are so popular? It's girl porn! It's where we get to read about the damsel being desired - courted - whisked away against her will - because his desire for her is so intense that he just must have her! And that turns on our feminine soul in such a hot deep place that the heroine falls in love. The end. This story is told again and again - marketed directly to women - to our core fantasy - and purchased in truck loads by countless women in countless Walmarts across the country every day. And yet - we are bashful about it. Aren't we? The question that I pose is why don't we us women simply cop to the fantasy? My theory is because it embarrasses us. We feel shame in having any desire that does not include us being in control at all times. We want to be feminists - and self sufficient. We don't want to "Need" men (or female lovers) - or look to the outside world for approval. It's not what we have been taught to want. But sexuality and desire - didn't read the play book. The way our desire works in as encoded in our DNA as the color of our eyes. So what happens to us as women when we no longer "feel seen" as sexual beings. What if weight gain, aging, or even disability makes us feel invisible to those outside eyes? What happens then to our female sexuality? What happens if we hate ourselves so deeply because of life events such as experiencing infertility or cancer that we turn in completely and switch off our sexuality button - so that nobody will see us anymore? Oh yeah - you know what I am talking about. Big ugly shapeless sweat shirts to name one stereotypical piece of female sexual camouflage. But it's true - we do it. We hide in so many ways. We make it so that no one could desire us - and that fulfills the prophecy that we are not desirable. I watched Geneen Roth on Oprah months ago and it still stays with me. These women couldn't stop talking about how they self loathed. It is a vicious cycle - of self hating - not being willing to be seen - and there fore not being seen. That shuts us down - and creates a host of problems for us. What kind of problems? Well how about low libido, depression, anxiety anger, sadness and all kinds of self abuse in the form of overeating and abuse of other substances as we try to feed something we can't name inside of us. I don't think that any of this can truly be cured in the form of a pink pill for women. It's so much deeper for us. For us - Desire is the Female Orgasm - and we have to return to a place in our selves first where we can learn to receive pleasure. Once we can decide that we are worthy of that first step - miracles can happen.

Secret Desires

I am still smiling months after the encounter. There I was in an independent book store - about to doing a reading of Shameless: How I Ditched The Diet, Got Naked Found True Pleasure and Somehow Got Home in Time to Cook Dinner when I was greeted by a beautiful women that I know through my fertility work. She hadn't read the book yet - she was coming for the reading and to say hello. We started to chat about mutual friends - and my book. One of our mutual friends wasn't very comfortable with everything in my book. I told her that I thought that she was uncomfortable with some of the "kinkier" desires that I had uncovered during my journey of sexual self discovery.  "I think it was the spanking" I told her.  "I think that the spanking freaked her out," I confided in my friend. Her eyes grew as big as saucers and she started to giggle. She covered her mouth and in a stage whisper said to me "Like it too!" We both broke out peals of laughter. "Of course you do!" I said with a wink. "It's not so uncommon, you know - so many people love to play with sensation and power games in the bedroom."

The one thing that I learned is that no one is kinkier than anybody else - and whatever you think is sexy or erotic - there is a line behind you of people who find the same thing sexy and erotic! Just go into any sex store and you will see your neighbors fetishes all lined up and ready for purchase. So - lighten up and give up the shame. If what you are turned on by is safe, sane and consensual - it's really all good! And you don't have to whisper! We all probably like it too!

Sexual Desire is Like a Flower! It Grows When You Water It!

"If you don't use it...you lose it". Have you ever heard that phrase? How about "The more you get - the more you want?" Have you noticed that the word "insatiable" goes so well with the word "desire"? Almost like peanut butter and jelly!

There have been times in my own sexual awakening that I started to feel that exploring my sexuality is like that old saying about eating Chinese food. You can have a delicious meal and twenty minutes later you are hungry again!

Maybe I am exaggerating just a little, but I do think that if you do not stir the pot of your sexual being - you can become dormant just like a hibernating bear. Have you ever seen a hibernating bear on one of those nature shows after he wakes up? Just like the bear - once you wake up and begin to feed yourself - you can find that your hunger is extraordinary. And that hunger can be quite unsettling. How do we manage our hunger?

I love to talk about us "waking up your sleeping beauty!" And what I mean by that - is reawakening our sexual selves. But what happens when Beauty wakes up and the Prince is snoring? Or there is no Prince? How does Beauty feed herself? And don't take my metaphor too literally this can apply to men too!

I have been steeped in desire lately - I have a Shameless Life Coaching practice - and one of my clients is a lovely woman who I am going to call "Gena". Gena is in her forties and has two kids, runs her own business and after reading my book Shameless: How I Ditched The Diet, Got Naked, Found True Pleasure and Somehow Got Home in Time To Cook Dinner began to explore her own sexuality by working with me and a Certified Sexological Bodyworker.

Guess what happened? Her inner "Sleeping Beauty" woke up! WoooHoooo! Fantastic! Well, actually feeling our newly found sexual awakening can sometimes be uncomfortable.

Once we start exploring what we desire, figure out how desire looks for us and how to reach for them - things can really heat up for us in our lives! Gena recently said to me...

"Speaking of desire I have a subject that I hope to get feedback about. I have a terrible time focusing on the requirements of my daily life. Since I started do deeply explore this part of myself - I have become so focused on sex! I have a business to run, friends, kids, parents, etc.

I crave all that goes with this quest. Following discussion groups, reading, watching videos, having more experiences, experimenting with Zestra and other ways of exploring my own sexuality for myself. And all of this learning, all seem to tug at me when I really should be working or doing the more routine, and often less fulfilling parts of my life. I don't feel comfortable sharing much of this with anyone in my immediate circle, which is obviously a problem I have to work on. I desire comfort in this new found joy. I'm unsettled. Like I'm waiting for something. It's hard to sit with the pleasure and happiness I experience in increasing amounts as I learn and incorporate more of the eroticism and deep excitement I often feel. Maybe that's it. Too much excitement for everyday pursuits.

How do other people deal with this? What do you do with an inability to satisfy yourself, in a complete, overall way? It seems like no matter what I experience I still have insatiable desire for more".

I don't think that Gena is alone. After we starve ourselves - and then taste food for the first time in a long time - it can be pretty overwhelming. The good news is that if we continue to feed ourselves our lives can become more balanced and we can kind up in a much better place.

What I have found is that it comes in waves. This insatiable need for more is always strongest in the beginning of ending sensual deep sleep.

Again, I liken it to survivors of famine who for a while after they are rescued hoard food or cannot stop eating. So many of us are starving in our bodies for sensual pleasure and a fully healthy integrated life.

It's just that sometimes we don't know our hunger until we jump start our bodies and come out of hibernation. And then the food tastes so sweet and our bodies just cannot get enough because we went too long without feeding it.

My suggestion is to everyone who is just beginning to wake up again sexually is to notice your hunger. I am noticing mine, and as you are able to - feed yourself. Perhaps you need a little more right now - then let your body have it. Reassure your body that you will not take this away from yourself ever again - that it IS available.

If you can afford it, explore taking a workshop and indulge yourself a bit. Look for new ways to feed and explore your own sexuality. Pleasure and sexuality can be found in so many things! Use your new found sexual energy to channel your creativity! Painting, taking up photography, cooking, dancing and yoga are all great ways to continue to explore and use your nearly emerging sexual energy.

Feeding yourself can be buying long black stockings and wearing them just for yourself! I have begun to buy beautiful bath products. I am addicted at the moment to LUSH. I give myself special long sexy baths .I acknowledge and feed my desire in different ways.

Please don't be frightened of your desires. Feed yourself in ways that reassures your body and your mind will be much more free to do what you need to do. Notice your desire. Do not judge it or decide that it is too much.

Consider seeing and feeling your desire as an indicator of your vitality! I often feel my desire in that way. I choose to feel that I am a beautiful sexual being in full bloom! When I feel my deep desire....I imagine myself as that flower after the rain and I allow myself to enjoy the feeling.

I believe that as our bodies learn that we will never go to sleep on ourselves again that we will become less agitated with all of these new feelings and we will become more fulfilled in how we live our daily lives. Sex is not an end point - it is an integral part of who we are.

For now, I have advised my client to eat freely and eat often. I am so glad that Gena woke up! And she is not alone. So many of us are finally acknowledging our desires, and wanting more for ourselves in this life. Feeling all of those feelings it isn't always comfortable especially in the beginning - but isn't it so much better than being asleep?

Desire is Real Female Orgasm!

I just spent a weekend at a Tantra Workshop - we were all women - with only one man present (insider tip for men - if you want to meet women - get interested in Tantra!).I observed myself in this group of women and this one man -  and I hit up again against a little known truth about women and sexual desire.Do you want to turn us on? Then you had better know our dirty little secret...it's what makes so many of us women feel sexy and raises our libidos about ten degrees. It's the feeling of being desired! Marta Meana said it best when she said that for most women "Desire is the real female orgasm". As women, we want to be the most desired fruit in the salad. We want our significant other - or simply admiring eyes to reflect back to us their desire for us - and this gives us more pleasure that most of us would like to admit to. It's not very politically correct now - is it? Well - here's a new flash for you - sexuality is not politically correct! I don't know about you - but I want to be swept off my feet by a suitor that just cannot breathe without me. Oh come on. You want it too! You know it's true. And if it's really, really, really isn't true for you as a woman - it is true for countless others. Why do you think romance novels are so popular? It's girl porn! It's where we get to read about the damsel being desired - courted - whisked away against her will - because his desire for her is so intense that he just must have her! And that turns on our feminine soul in such a hot deep place that the heroine falls in love. The end. This story is told again and again - marketed directly to women - to our core fantasy - and purchased in truck loads by countless women in countless Walmarts across the country every day. And yet - we are bashful about it. Aren't we? The question that I pose is why don't we us women simply cop to the fantasy? My theory is because it embarrasses us. We feel shame in having any desire that does not include us being in control at all times. We want to be feminists - and self sufficient. We don't want to "Need" men (or female lovers) - or look to the outside world for approval. It's not what we have been taught to want. But sexuality and desire - didn't read the play book. The way our desire works in as encoded in our DNA as the color of our eyes. So what happens to us as women when we no longer "feel seen" as sexual beings. What if weight gain, aging, or even disability makes us feel invisible to those outside eyes? What happens then to our female sexuality? What happens if we hate ourselves so deeply because of life events such as experiencing infertility or cancer that we turn in completely and switch off our sexuality button - so that nobody will see us anymore? Oh yeah - you know what I am talking about. Big ugly shapeless sweat shirts to name one stereotypical piece of female sexual camouflage. But it's true - we do it. We hide in so many ways. We make it so that no one could desire us - and that fulfills the prophecy that we are not desirable. I watched Geneen Roth on Oprah again yesterday - and it opened with women talking about how they self loathed. It is a vicious cycle - of self hating - not being willing to be seen - and there fore not being seen. That shuts us down - and creates a host of problems for us.

What kind of problems? Well how about low libido, depression, anxiety anger, sadness and all kinds of self abuse in the form of overeating and abuse of other substances as we try to feed something we can't name inside of us. I don't think that any of this can truly be cured in the form of a pink pill for women. It's so much deeper for us. For us - Desire is the Female Orgasm - and we have to return to a place in our selves first where we can learn to receive pleasure. Once we can decide that we are worthy of that first step - miracles can happen. 

Who Wants To Be Cured of Desire?

When I was sixteen I wanted to be a writer. This desire led me to become an editorial intern at "The Village Voice". I answered the phones - and opened unsolicited manuscripts. I read them - and if I liked them - I passed them along to the editors. Pretty scary huh? Your precious manuscript in the hands of a sixteen year old girl? I traveled everyday from Long Island, to Manhattan - I felt very sophisticated. I rode the Long Island Rail Road, sometimes with my dad on his way to work. I bought coffee and croissants every morning. I remember how delicious they tasted. I had only known from bagels and Wonder Bread.

I had never bought breakfast before like that....this was the days before Starbucks and Peets. People didn’t do that on a regular basis - at least not in Great Neck in 1976. I ate at my desk. It was very sophisticated and grown up. I loved it. Every morning I was filled with desire as I made my way to The Village Voice. It was all possibility. The job itself was rather boring - it was all the things around the job that I loved. Being at The Village Voice - being in Manhattan - eating croissants that left butter on my finger tips, and buying coffee.

In many ways, my desire has created so much goodness for my life. My desire to figure out my sexuality and not to be silenced led to my book. And I am having an incredibly good time launching it into the world. Sometimes the details around all of it isn't that exciting - but boy oh boy are there moments!  I cannot tell you how much fun I had taking that calendar shot! Everyone should do that just once!  Play at being a pin up! It was kind of like licking that butter off of my fingers. Not my everyday life - and so totally delicious! I want to do it again!

The Universe has been generous to me. And I am grateful for that generosity. Even when I have fallen down hard - the Universe coupled with my own resilience and desire - has picked me up again.

But like everybody else - I  have moments of  feeling my desire slipping away.  And every time that happens - it makes me nervous. I just watched a terrible movie called "My Zinc Bed" - I don’t recommend it - it was about drinking and addiction. The skeptic about AA said to the man committed to AA - "You are not cured. If you were cured - you would have no desire - and who would want to be cured of desire?"

I guess that is where I am landing now. I have no wish to be cured of desire. Desire makes me howl at the moon. Desire drives my heart - and moves my spirit. Desire fuels me. I have built a life out of my desires - from my desire to have children to my desire to be heard as a woman.  Perhaps, when we feel our desire ebb and  flow it is a sign that it is simply  time to think about opening to new desires  and  allowing our desires to shift without judging it.

When I get like that - I ask myself to to open wider - and see what might flow in.

My in laws bought an Recreational Vehicle. It is an over sized van. They call it a stealth RV - because it can go anywhere and people don’t know that you are camping. It has a kitchen, bathroom, bed, and shower. I feel desire for that. Sometimes, I think that it would be incredible to just run away. Leave it all behind.  Go on some fabulous adventure!  To simply go where ever I wanted in the country. To meet new people - to explore - and to taste it all on so many different levels.

And then it occurred to me, that perhaps while I am not  in an RV -  that in so many ways -  this was the life that I was now living. A life  where adventure is possible - where I am meeting  new people through sharing my story.  If we allow ourselves to look at what the world offers us -  often we get us our desires - not just in the packages that we expect them in. We just have to open our hearts and let it all in.

So this year, what I want more than anything  is not to be cured of desire. I want to dance this year in the Red Wood Forrest to drums - I don’t know how - but I will. I will float in the water again at Harbin Springs -  I will continue to feel my own body pulse with sexuality and abandon. I will love more - and without fear of not being loved back. I want to continue to write.  And I want to give up my fear  of telling my story. Ah sweet Desire....So this year  I will "Work like I don’t need the money - I will love as if I have not felt hurt - and I will dance like nobody is watching".  This year - I will light the flame under desire yet again.

Won’t you join me? And what will you do to stoke your desire?