Suspending The Need To Be Certain....

This morning Danielle LaPorte inspired me with one of her "Truth Bombs" in my morning email. She wrote: "Suspending the need to be certain is an act of enlightenment." I really liked that and it got me thinking. When we suspend our need to be certain it's also an act of courage, love and faith. In the work that I do,  women (and sometimes couples) are rarely certain about whether sexuality and intimacy coaching, attending a "Back to The Body Retreat", or creating a private mini retreat for themselves or their partners is the right thing for them.  They can spend time talking with me to see if they feel comfortable and if working with me "feels right". They can talk to other women who have done this work. But in the end they have to suspend their need to be certain and just commit to trying.

It can feel crazy brave to take on your own sexuality. But what do you secretly want to happen in your own life? It sometimes, can only happen if we persuade our inhibitions and try.

Are you ready?

Let's talk. Shoot me an email from the contact form, or Pamela@backtothebody.org. Consultations are complimentary.

Loving you from here,

Pamela

 

Finding Your Organic Orgasm: Exploring Erotic Trance States

We've all experienced various types of trance - perhaps a meditative trance or an exercise trance. Erotic trance is no different. Erotic trance is the state where you are so aware of your erotic energy that everything else fades away. The noisy mind is quiet and your only focus is on what you're feeling. There's no magic to accessing erotic trance, but it does take some practice.
I invite you to participate with me during this tutorial. We learn things by doing - not by reading about it or watching someone else do it. While I'll be offering examples and demonstrations, the best way for you to learn is to experience it for yourself.
Please set aside some time for the exercises I'll be showing you. Make a date with yourself. Put it on your calendar. Ensure that you won't be disturbed. There's just no substitute for experiencing this for yourself. Imagine reading a text that describes what an orgasm feels like. This isn't the same as experiencing one This is best if it's a hands on experience.
Breathe
The key to erotic trance is a conscious focus on the breath. Most people when experiencing increased erotic energy, tend to hold the breath and tense the muscles. These actions keep the erotic energy from circulating throughout the body. This first exercise is intended to help you focus on your breath and also to slow down. This is a self pleasure or masturbation homework assignment.
Assignment
Plan on a time when you can be alone and undisturbed. You may want to turn your telephone off. Find a comfortable place where you can relax. Throughout these exercises I strongly recommend that you have a mirror close by where you can observe your body.
Position the mirror where you can see your face and most of your body. Create an atmosphere that is comforting for you. This may include candles, music, items of personal significance, or erotic toys. Use whatever works for you.
Begin the exercise by closing your eyes and checking in with your body. Note any areas that are tight or relaxed. Try not to judge your feelings - just note them. Scan your body from the top of your head to the tips of your toes.
As you're doing this check-in open your mouth and take nice deep slow breaths. Make some noise with your breath. Keep the effort only on the inhale. Let the exhale fall; there's no need to push the exhale out.
As you're breathing be aware of your genitals. There's no need to touch them yet - just be aware that they exist. Be aware of the muscles in your pelvis. See if you can relax these muscles on the inhale. This is easier if you breathe into your belly rather than your chest.
Movement
Movement helps to not only wake up the body but it also helps us move erotic energy throughout the body. There are many ways to move the body. Some of us like to run. Others like to stretch. Some may prefer yoga. I encourage you to develop a movement routine that works for you and your body.
Assignment
This exercise is focused on movement around erotic energy. Begin by planning on a time when you can be alone and undisturbed. You may want to turn your telephone off. Find a comfortable place where you can relax.
Create an atmosphere that is comforting for you. Find a place where you can freely move around. Lay down and extend your arms and legs to make sure you have enough room. Begin the exercise by closing your eyes and checking in with your body. Note any areas that are tight or that are relaxed. Try not to judge you feelings – just note them. Scan your body from the top of your head to the tips of your toes.
Begin by breathing just as in the prior exercise. Each exercise build on the previous ones, so don’t forget to breathe Begin by making yourself comfortable on the floor. Then stretch your arms and then your legs. Be sure to also include your hands and fingers. Start with slow deliberate movement. The intention is to wake up the body.
The particular stretching technique you use isn’t that important for this. The important thing here is to move the body, so do whatever is comfortable for you. As you feel your body warm up you may also want to include some aerobic activity. Jump. Run in place. Kick your legs. Sweat is good Just remember that this is a prelude to self pleasure, so there’s no need to exhaust yourself.
Include your genitals and breasts in the movement. Wake up your genitals. Rotate your hips. and allow them to rock. Feel free to include some touch. Don’t focus on generating lots of erotic energy, but begin with some light touch and movement. Wake up your body and prepare for new levels of pleasure.
Reverse Genital Hole
Infants are naturally curious about their bodies. Babies touch themselves everywhere they can. As infants we learn that touch to our genitals is pleasurable. However, this natural exploration is usually discouraged. We quickly learn that genital touch is something to be ashamed of. As we grow older most of us are torn between the pleasurable feelings of self touch and the guilt imposed by our culture.
This causes us to develop guilt and shame around self touch. We enjoy touching ourselves because it feels good. However, others clearly disapprove of such touch. This causes continual mental conflict over self touch. As a result many men and women develop what has been called the ‘genital hole.’ We become conditioned to ignore the feelings and sensations in our genitals. Some of us become numb.
For many of us when we begin self touch our attention focuses entirely on our genitals. We ignore the rest of our body. It’s as if we live in two worlds: no genitals and only genitals. I believe that it’s important to engage the entire body when masturbating.
Assignment
For this exercise find a comfortable spot and plan on a time when you can be alone and undisturbed. You may want to turn your telephone off. Position your mirror where you can see your face and most of your body. Create an atmosphere that is comforting for you. This may include candles, music, items of personal significance, or erotic toys. Use whatever works for you.
Begin the exercise by closing your eyes and checking in with your body. Note any areas that are tight or relaxed. Try not to judge your feelings – just note them. Scan your body from the top of your head to the tips of your toes.
Create an intention to erotically touch all of your body. Begin with the top of your head.
Include your face and ears. Slowly caress your arms. Feel the sensation of your touch on the hairs of your skin. Caress your hands. Move to your chest. Play with your nipples! Spend time loving your breasts. Include your belly with your touch. Most of us ignore our bellies – some of us are ashamed of this part of our body. Make love to your belly.
Include erotic touch of your genitals. Use slow deliberate touch. Explore your inner and outer labia. Allow yourself to gently play with all kinds of touch around your clitoris and then move deep back around your vagina and your perineum. Caress the tender places on the inside of your legs. Include your feet and toes.
Erotically wake up your entire body. Yes, your genitals can create lots of erotic energy. But so can the rest of your body.
 Working with our Male Partners on Expanding Pleasure and Experiencing Erotic Trance
Most of us learned to masturbate when we were much younger. At this time in our lives we learned that we needed to hide our pleasure from others – like parents or siblings. This required us to be very efficient about masturbation. We learned to be quick and quiet. For some of us this habit carried into adulthood. We needed to be quick and quiet to hide our masturbation from roommates, partners or spouses. This results in a lifetime of quick hidden masturbation.
For men, this habit conditioned our bodies to ejaculate quickly.
Assignment
The focus of this exercise is to recondition our bodies with our partners. This is about learning to build pleasure. It’s not about ‘controlling ’male ejaculation. You may find that you and your partner need a lot of practice with this exercise. That’s okay, reconditioning takes time. And it's fun!
This exercise is about learning how to build excitement and enjoyment of pleasure without climax. This is a one way touch exercise - where you will be trading with your partner on giving and receiving touch. I recommend doing this on different nights. Ladies - start by giving your man a full body massage and then moving to the genitals. When touching your man's genitals - the key to building pleasure is to vary the pace and the strokes. Most of us are used to doing the ‘piston’ stroke – the usual up down stroke with a fist. I recommend that you vary the pace. Try using a ‘backhand’ stroke – reversing your hand as you stroke you man. You may want to switch hands. Include some light pulling and tugging of his balls. Include touching his perineum.
This exercise is focused on the distinction between excitement and enjoyment. All pleasure involves two polar opposites: “interest-excitement” and “enjoyment-joy.” Interest - Excitement is felt in the body as an increase in neurological firings. Excitement is that phase
where our erotic energy is increasing, progressing upwards on a curve leading towards orgasm and ejaculation. Our energies are focused on increasing the level of sexual energy.
Enjoyment-Joy is felt in the body as a decrease in neurological firings. Enjoyment is focused on simply experiencing the pleasurable feelings. The focus here isn’t on increasing the erotic energy as much as it is focused on experiencing that energy.
A complete pleasure cycle usually involves the build up of excitement followed by a period of enjoyment. Most of us are better are experiencing excitement than experiencing enjoyment. One of the ways of getting into an erotic trance state is to alternate consciously between excitement and enjoyment.
Talk to your partner. Ask him to tell you when he is getting close to the place where he feesl somewhat close to orgasm, when he shares that - then back off on your strokes. Stop building excitement. Instead, spend some time focusing on the pleasurable sensations in his body. Encourage him to enjoy the feelings. Move to rubbing his breasts and nipples...kiss his belly and allow him to float in the session.
You may want to help him to scan body similar to what we did during the breathing exercise earlier. Ask him to scan his body from head to toe and become aware of what he notices. Encourage him to enjoy the waves of pleasure that he may be experiencing. When you feel ready to increase the erotic excitement, feel free to resume generating erotic energy. Freely switch back and forth between the two modes.
Spend time enjoying and savoring Don't get hung up on erections. Erections come and go - it's a natural cycle. Don't focus on making sure that your man is maintaining his erection; rather, focus on the pleasure and note the distinction in feelings between touching him with an erection and without.
This exercise can simply be reverse for you as the woman receiving touch Do him first so he gets the idea You can also use this exercise as a self pleasuring exercise - you do not need a partner to experience all of the things that I have talked about in the exercise.
Enjoy and savor Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
Pamela

Do You Have a Pleasure Ceiling?

It's sometimes true. The women that I coach and support around sexuality teach me through their openness in sharing their feelings. It happened again, just other day. I was in the middle of working with an extraordinary 40 year old female client around building her "Pleasure Plan". We were in the midst of talking about orgasms and self pleasuring as a way of her exploring and expanding her pleasure.  I had given her an assignment during the session to try on during the week between our calls.  The assignment  felt really big for her, because she was like most people. Self Pleasuring (masturbation) followed the "Quiet and Quick Rule".  How quickly could she self pleasure and how quietly. A married woman - she tried to sneak in her self pleasure around a husband not catching her.

We spoke about how she was treating her own sexuality the way a not so polite lover might treat her.  She never romanced herself before she took out the vibrator to "get off".  There was no sexy self talk, no hot bubble bath, no loving self massage with favorites oils. She didn't even take the time to get undressed.  She and I were laughing hysterically as we compared her treatment of her own vagina over and over again to that of an inconsiderate lover who just wanted to come and take what he wanted and get out.  She never stayed with her own sexual excitement long enough to see if there was perhaps more pleasure to be found. After all, she had got what she had come for....why wait around to see if her body wanted more pleasure or not?

"I think I have a pleasure ceiling" my client said.  Wow a "Pleasure Ceiling"! I loved the term that just flew out of her mouth in a moment of epiphany. "Yes, I think that I worry that if I have too much pleasure that something bad will happen like I will stop being responsible or something. Or I will go off the rails. It's not just sex it's also food, or dancing - anywhere I have pleasure. I always cut it short. I have to be responsible and leave early so I can make sure that I won't be late for work in the morning.  Or worse - just ditch it all for pleasure. So I think I keep it under wraps."

Holy Guacamole! My client had nailed it - and she was speaking for so people.  We have installed "Pleasure Ceilings" because if we don't-  we might "go off the rails".  It's such an interesting story that so many of us have created around our own pleasure.  Somehow, if our pleasure goes too far - it will wreak our lives.  Of course I am the Queen of removing pleasure ceilings and proving that it will not wreak your life - in fact it will transform you life.

My client and I sat with each other a while, and I asked her if she was going to be able to do her assignment of expanding her self pleasure the way discussed. She looked at me with her dark open eyes and said; "Sometimes I say to myself; Self - what made you think you can do this? Take it to another level? Experience something more? And then, I get kinda angry with myself! Why not? I've got the goods to do it! It's about time! Well, why not me? It's time to move my pleasure ceiling."

So where are the "Pleasure Ceilings" in your life? Where are you frightened that if you moved them up higher, or break them down completely that something awful will happen? I promise you that things might change, transform and look different - that's true. But I bet the view will be so much more beautiful with a sun roof.

Loving you from here,

Pamela

 

 

The ReBirthing of You

You are going to start hearing the word "reBirthing" from me a lot. Right next to "Back to The Body" because I think it's about our bodies and the constant ability to allow a new self to come through. It is about change and transformation which is something that I am devoting my life to. Not just for you - as a coach, muse, and educator. But for me. I am constantly looking at who I am, and the patterns that make up my life. I am a change and transformation junkie - and it's not always easy.  There may be labor pains.  You may need support. Tons of it. When I am in the midst of a Rebirthing of my own self, I call in the troops to support me. I'm doing that right now in my own life. Sometimes, I scream with the pain of my own labor as I allow my newest powerful Pamela to come forth. Sometimes, I don't get the help I ask for. And sometimes, I do. This is reBirth and not everyone can hold you. You need to find the people that can and surround yourself with them. And like any labor, it will be worth it. That I can promise you.

I can't believe that in my life of change and transformation that I am approaching a new frontier again. Didn't I just do that? But here it is,  a new frontier with new ideas and responses. My priorities are changing.

What about you? Here are a few of the tell tale signs that you are about to shed a skin and reinvent yourself again:

* an impulsive decision to do something out of character

*a willingness to take a calculated risk into the unknown

*a determination to make contact with ones' authentic self and tap into the true passion there

*a desire to become a source of truth about life for the next generation

*the delicious freedom of looking the latest expectation in a life time of expectation in the eye and saying "not me, not now!"

Do you feel the twitch? Perhaps that's why you hang out with me. Because I love to ask the question; "What's next?" Maybe you find that question challenging and exciting.  You might find that in this new place that you let go of drawing from your past experiences. What was, may no longer fit all. As the journey goes forward you may need to get to know this new persona a little bit. Welcome your new outlook, new confidence, new dreams. We are not programmed to fade away. As we move into this place of rebirthing ourselves, we might find that we are better suited to new challenges than we ever were in the past. As you move forward in your new explorations, this unfamiliar persona, this mischievous Tinkerbell at our ear, matures into the voice we count on most. It gets stronger, more authoritative , more philosophical, more courageous.

People rebirthing themselves, in their second adult hood are different than anyone else. They tell the truth.

Listen to your voice. Listen to your body.

Loving you from here,

Pamela

You Are Half Water

I have always had this thing about water. Perhaps it is the Tantra metaphors about the feminine and the masculine that got me. The feminine is often described as "a river" and the masculine "the banks". I really got that. I was the wild river flowing, and I always felt like my feminine was in full force when it was held and contained by strong banks. I like to say that if the banks weren't strong when my river was rising - that the water would flood small villages and hurt unsuspecting people. I felt like I needed that - and I noticed that when my energy was flowing and contained that my creativity went way up. I was happier. But if I'm dependent on the banks (the masculine) as an outside force (not a part of myself that I learned to source),  and the banks are not showing up - life can get pretty tricky for a river. I just came across this passage from author Margaret Atwood and this is what she has to say about water:

“Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.”

I love this passage. What a different perspective than the one that I had been holding about water.

I think I like this one better. And the banks? I still like them. But we all have an inner feminine and masculine in our own bodies. Lately, I have be resourcing my own banks a bit more. And the creativity has been flowing because it's true what Margaret says about water - it's patient and nothing in the end will stop water from where it wants to go. And water can do this without resistance - just by flowing.

So what is stopping your flow? What is your story about it?

You are half water. If there's an obstacle go around it.

Loving you from here,

Pamela

I'm Not a Goddess

I have a confession to make. I'm not a Goddess. Honestly, I don't think I ever was. But everyone loves the idea of being a "Goddess" and calling each other "Sister Goddess". It's like "the thing". Especially among new age sex educators and their flock. So, I do it. If it makes you feel sexually empowered to be called a Goddess: then poof you are a Goddess. At Back to the Body: Sensuous Retreats for Women, we often call the women Goddesses. It's meant in a loving and playful way. We want to permission women to be in their full body expression and to feel powerful. and if calling yourself a Goddess gives you permission and empowerment, then why the fuck not? Embrace it. Be a Goddess.

But I'm not a Goddess. I am a very unusual and very normal woman. I understand to you that I may not seem normal - but to me that is who I am. I am sometimes insecure about so many things. My normality and fears runs the spectrum from weight and aging to my ability to create the life I want. I have kids. I worry about them. I have friendships and an expanded sexuality that can put me through my paces. I have a marriage of 32 years.

If I think of myself in grander terms, I'm the Queen of my own life. I have the power to put into motion the kind of life that I want to live. I am magical like that. I can choose what I'm willing to show up for, and I can disappear. I can bring you into my court - or I can banish you. I have the power to live as fully as I want to. Queens can give gifts and she can surrender her kingdom. Queens can also be betrayed, lose their lands and have their hearts broken. Queens are both powerful and vulnerable. And yes, I suppose the same could be said for Goddesses.

But I am mortal. I am a woman. I take the trash out. I get that this confession may make me way too normal for you. But for me, my life is pretty sexy.

What about you?

Loving you from here,

Pamela

What's Your Excuse For Playing Small?

Many of you say that you want to do so many things! You want to travel to India, find inner peace, have a healthy and delicious relationship with your own body and have an extraordinary sex life. You say that you want to "find your orgasm", raise your libido, learn how to attract a lover or relight the fire on the relationship that you currently have.

If you want something this badly - why don't you do it?

Enter your ubiquitous companion: FEAR.

You are terrified of failing. So many of you have tried one or two things to create a change in your life - and change is hard! It takes practice and you may not have hit on "The Thing" that is really going to nail it for you.  You decide that your efforts have failed, and you don't want to fail again. How you perceive failure is a game changer. What if you saw each step that you took on your way to your desires as a step on the road to success? A great big success! Forget the all or nothing mentality! That, quite frankly, is bullshit.

Allow yourself the pleasure of all of your small steps, and see each positive motion as a celebration, because it is.

What else do you use to hold yourself back from getting what you really want in your life?  You play small.

I know all the excuses: you want happiness, but you are not going to pay fifty bucks for that meditation series by that top teacher that might support your path - because come on it's fifty bucks! You want happiness -  it's the most important thing in the world to you, but you are not going to pay for it.  But go on - buy those new boots!

Money is the biggest excuse that people use to stop them from getting what they want. You want to  make big changes, and then you look at the price tag and say you can't afford it. I wonder a lot about that.  In my mind - how can you afford not to?  People always find a way to pay for what they truly think is important in their lives.

You see, you do not have to be anywhere near wealthy. But to live a big life, it takes something other than money. It takes courage and a desire for more that is way bigger than your fear of what you could gain if you stopped playing small. That's right - "Playing Small". What would happen if you actually healed your relationship with your own sexuality? You might get bigger. Then what?  You can remove the obstacle and open the gate. It is really about finding your courage.

Marianne Williamson says it so beautifully in "A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles".

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

So, what excuse are you using? Are you waiting to be thinner? Do you think that what you need to help support you is out of your financial range? Do you allow your partner to hold your back? Do you think you are too old? Do you think  you can't  have what you want in your life right now because you have young  kids?

What  excuse are you using for not facing your fear?

Find it. Look at it. And then decide if you really want to live the kind of life that you tell yourself that you want.

Do you want to find inner happiness? Do you want a healthy, extraordinary relationship with your body? Do you want more abundance in your life? Do you want a better relationship with yourself?

Does this scare the crap out of you?

It might. Because changing any relationship with yourself will create feelings and reactions that are not only very scary - they will remove you far from your comfort zone.   It is far more comfortable to aspire and complain than it is to actually do anything that will help create the life you say you want. You know where you are and somehow it feels safe to you,  even if you know you can have more. Even if you are dying to have something different in your life.

Think about it. Is this true for you?  And then decide if you really want to play small? Notice that your excuses are really your fear talking.

What do you want?

Loving you from here,

Pamela

Got Comments? Do it here on the live blog!

What to ditch playing small? Wonder what it might be like to have me on your team? Send me an email and let's talk about how I can support you in getting what you want - Pamela@Beingshameless.com

Want more inspiration?

Watch this short video with me speaking about how you can find your own true pleasure:

Read my story about how I stopped playing small in my memoir - "Shameless: How I Ditched The Diet, Got Naked Found True Pleasure and Somehow Got Home in Time to Cook Dinner".

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).

 

 

 

 

Reclaiming Our Virginity

I am studying the work this week of Saida Desilets, Ph.D.  I was attracted to her because she does a lot of work with women around the use of the Jade Egg which is an embodiment practice that I am intending to bring to our work at Back to The Body: Sensuous Retreats For Women (BttB). In her writing, Saida speaks about this concept of "Reclaiming Our Virginity". I love this. Mostly because it has put words to what I see in the women who leave "Back to The Body", and what I have experienced in myself.

So many of the women who I watch leave BttB feel to me like they have been born again sexually, or have reclaimed their own pure sexual essence. It is as if they have returned to a natural state where they are free from contamination, foreign shame, the softening and letting go abuse or negative thoughts about their bodies and sexuality.  I watch many regain a feeling of spontaneity around their sexual desires where they only welcome in what they need in order to feel in a state of completeness.

We can learn to touch and reclaim this pure essence of our own sexual energy. It is always pure, spontaneous, wild, free, and available to help us create whatever we want in this life. As Saida says, "As we reclaim our virginity we return to our innate sense of self. Through redefining ourselves according to our own truth and not according to what others lead us to believe, we deepen our trust in really knowing what that is for us".

Yes, it is possible to be born again sexually - and to keep being reborn and kept in a pure state of sexual virginity where every touch and moment is free from contamination.  I love this definition of virginity. It's not about penis in vagina, it's about the pureness of feeling and the opening afresh every time to touch. It's this sense of aliveness and anticipation to each and every sexual encounter, and a shame free curiosity to our own bodies that can keep us as eternal virgins.

I love putting new language to ideas and thoughts that I already know to be true.  Yes, it is possible to be an eternal virgin. I watched a 75 year old woman become one last retreat. It can be reclaimed, and kept forever.

Loving you from here,

Pamela

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The Arousal Principle: How To Put Passion Back Into Your Life

Strap yourself in. I want to talk about female sexual arousal. I believe that it's the secret source of every woman’s power. It’s the ignition switch of the female erotic engine, that potent driver of sexual energy that is life force itself. It propels every aspect of a woman’s existence-- pleasure in all its expressions, relationships (from mother-daughter to lover to her own body), education, creativity and success in business. The Arousal Principle is a new way of understanding and harnessing female sexuality. It stops being about merely the orgasm, the lover, the marriage or the commodity for sale. The Arousal Principle explains how core female sexuality is the fuel that lights up a woman from within.

When she’s in an aroused state, when the erotic engine is humming, mind and body collude to give her that instantly recognizable and enviable show stopping ability. Think Cleopatra or Michelle Obama. Marital status, age, sexual preference, body size or health issues just don’t matter. This is for all women. When women learn how to tap into and access their arousal they rediscover or perhaps find for the first time that hotbed of energy to unleash each woman’s full potential.

It all starts with the vagina, and a little basic science. Walk with me into the land of the controversial and understudied. And I’m distilling the research to what is core to the Arousal Principle.

When we stimulate the vagina (and yes, I mean all of the parts) we stimulate the production of dopamine. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter responsible for sexual arousal. In an aroused state our senses are heightened, we are more focused, flushed with creative energy, self- confidence, highly motivated and just plain sexy.

We tend to race past this fertile and delicious state in hot pursuit of the orgasm. The “Big O” is something that we’ve been brainwashed to think is the only successful outcome every time we go near our genitals. In the mad dash to climax, we get gypped of a free, organic state that doesn’t require anything other than giving your vagina attention.

Learning to access and use arousal is the beginning of becoming whole. Throughout history, women have been severed, often violently, from their sexual energy, preventing them from using it for anything other than the service of men. When the circuit is disrupted, severed, shamed or abused, women numb out.

The uniquely female life force, turned back on itself shorts out the vagina-heart-brain circuit. With the wires fried, women often find themselves disconnected from their own desires on the most basic of levels. Some women make themselves sexually invisible, consoling themselves with addictions (shopping, food, alcohol), or tumble into depression and anxiety. Many of these women are leaders in so many parts of their lives. CEO's to Supermoms, it doesn't matter. When this circuit disrupts, the break down is often private and unseen to the casual observer. Too many women are still faking it on the deepest of levels when it comes to their relationship with their bodies. They cover up numbness and fear often with either compliance or anger.

So while the Arousal Principal's primary focus is not about how to have great sex, you will. As one of my coaching client's said: “My boyfriend has not changed his techniques. Nothing looks different really from the outside, but damn - sex is hotter than it’s ever been in my life.” That's what I am talking about.

So how do you get started? The reclamation begins in the simplest of ways. For many of us that means we need to by-pass The neo-cortex, hand-slapping, nay-saying part of the brain, and dive right into the pelvis. You need to put your attention on your genitals.

Start slow and easy, when you’re alone and there’s privacy. Wear your clothes or don’t. Whatever makes you comfortable.

In a comfortable seated position, feet firmly on the floor, cup your vulva, palm up, from the front with your fingertips pointing back.

With eyes closed, start rocking your pelvis back and forth.

Focus your attention on the sensations generated by your vulva filling your hand , your muscles clenching and releasing, your pelvis rocking

If you’re feeling adventurous, throw in some Kegels, squeezing and releasing your pelvic floor.

As your awareness of sensation increases--and it will-- let yourself move and lean into the rock.

KEEP BREATHING

When you feel heat rising, when you start to feel pleasure, you’ve arrived in that juicy activated known as arousal. And you’ve done it without any of the usual agendas -- no imperative to reach orgasm, pleasing a partner or satisfying a fantasy. This simple exercise can begin your journey of connection to your own body. It can mark the end of numbness.

One of my clients, we will call her Sarah was so disconnected from erotic engine that she couldn't identify pleasure in any parts of her life. She was sexually non functional, depressed and on heavy medication. She kept telling me that she couldn't feel her genitals, that there was no pleasure there at all. So fully clothed, (we were working through video Skype) I asked her to cup her vulva and begin to softly rock her pelvis while learning forward . I coached her to allow her vulva fill to gentle fill her hand. We did this exercise quietly for about five minutes. When I saw that she was very relaxed and into her own body, and that her face was beginning to flush. I asked her is she could feel anything?

Sarah opened her eyes and tears begin to flow. " I feel heat. I can feel my body!"

It was as simple as having her put attention on her genitals in a way that didn’t have to lead to anything other than feeling erotic energy.

Moment of awakening. The first step in getting the engine cranked and it’s so simple. It's all about the Arousal Principle.

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What to start exploring this in your own life? Check out Pamela's "Back to The Body Retreats for Women" and her coaching practice.   You don't have to do this alone. Support is available!

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!

A Year of Pleasure: Do You Have a Pleasure Plan?

It's an interesting question, isn't it? I spend hours everyday "channeling the Goddess" in women, and sometimes their partners. What I have learned, is that everyone needs a "Pleasure Plan" and often that means reaching out of the box! How do we feed ourselves pleasure? Perhaps it's not the story book romance that we thought we would have in our lives. Or our marriage beds have cooled, or there isn't a partner at all. Or maybe we just want something more or different? What then? Do we simply crumble and find ourselves in a very long season of discontent? Screw that. Do you want more pleasure, fun and adventure in your life? Then create the plan. Take out the calendar and start planning your own "Year of Pleasures". Start a journal about it. Blog it here in the community. How can you bring pleasure into your life?

I am dedicated to living a life filled with pleasure, and I love to inspire pleasure appreciation in others. It's my work, and it's my passion. Pleasure is my creative rocket fuel for all the parts of my life - and it can be yours too.

It's okay to go digging in your 401K for pleasure. You are never too young or too old to transform your relationship with pleasure.  January1st is just around the corner. Why not begin to plan for a new kind of New Year's Resolution? How about declaring your own "Year of Pleasure"?

Here are some possible starting places:

1. Consider doing a coaching series with me! The Queen of Pleasure! Let me help you tap into what you want, and let figure out how to get it. Learn about Coaching with "The Pleasure Doula" here!

2. Layout your calender and your finances!Put aside a budget of time and money. Give generously to your plan. Your life will transform. Really, the new whatever can wait!

3. Consider taking a "Pleasure Retreat". I try to have one every two months for an extended weekend. I plan for it. I pull every drop of pleasure out of that time. There is the pleasure of anticipation and planning, the actual event, and the after glow where I can roll it around in my mouth for weeks after! Go somewhere you have never been before. Figure out the food! What is your pleasure? Experiment. Your pleasure could be visiting gardens, it doesn't have to be sex!

4. Explore workshops! There are lots of awesome workshops in the sexuality realm! If you are a woman - consider joining me, Will and Ron at our winter "Back to The Body - A Sensuous Retreat For Women" limited to only six women! The timing is perfect for a New Year's Kick off for a year of pleasure or an early Valentine's gift to yourself.

5. Consider a private retreat with a hands on practitioner, and go on your own Shameless Journey......and yes.....of course I can help you there too! Don't know what I am talking about?

Read my book! Shameless: How I Ditched The Diet, Got Naked, Found True Pleasure and Somehow Got Home in Time to Cook Dinner!

Face your life, and look to your desires, leave no path untaken.

The point is to make a plan. These are some ideas to get you started, and an offer of help.

Wanna talk about a Pleasure Plan? Send an email to Pamela@beingshameless.com and we can set up a free consultation.

Loving you from here.....

Pamela

Learning To Trust Your Own Vagina

I am deep in the world of vaginas.  I am watching "Hysteria", reading Naomi Wolf's new book, "Vagina: New A Biography", and busy planning the details for"Back to The Body: A Sensuous Retreat For Women". I went to sleep literally holding mine in my hand, and lulling myself to sleep. My vagina gives me comfort, pleasure, and is literally the biggest tool in my tool chest for my own continued transformation. I want that for all women.

It makes me so sad that many women don't trust their own vaginas. We have so much fear about them, and create a world of Grimm Fairy tales around them.  We worry that we smell funny. That we won't orgasm, or lubricate enough, or that our vulva is funny looking. We worry that our vagina will take too long to give us pleasure and that our lovers will get bored or tired.
Most of the healing and relationship building I have done with my own vagina has been through vulva massage and through talking about vaginas in the company of other women. Most heterosexual women have never seen another woman's vulva. We have no idea of the different shapes, colors and textures. Many men know more about vaginas than women because they actually get to see them, and touch them.
Most women are left alone, in isolation with our vagina for our entire life. We don't even have words we are comfortable with to name our vagina, and way too many women cannot name the landscape of their own vulva. Let's face it. Nobody talks about their own vagina. Women talk tons about their relationships with men, but when was the last time (if you own a vagina) that you talked about your vagina?
I believe that women need way more touch on their vaginas then they are currently getting. I am not necessarily talking about love making. I am talking about vulva,clitoral, vaginal and g spot massage. Women can learn to do this for themselves, and it is absolutely awakening to us, to simply be able to lie back and receive this. It can bring you into a place of transcendence. It will open you up to parts of yourself that you didn't know existed. Emotional weather will come in like a tornado, and leave you in sunshine. You may cry, scream or laugh. You may have an orgasm, or you may not. The more you receive genital massage the deeper you will go. You will wake up in ways you cannot even imagine. And once you wake up your vagina - you will touch your own beloved, and she will never leave you. You might even lull yourself to sleep, gently holding her.
The feminine spirit lives there, and we need to teach women how to access it. Why don't we teach girls about vaginas and the emotional powerhouse that is stored in them? That is the endless question, that there are way too many answers too. But we can take control now, and teach ourselves. It is never too late to access the power of your own vagina and learn to trust her. One tool, might be to listen to "Self, Love and Sexuality" my meditation created to take you inside your own vagina.
Your vagina is beautiful, desirable, and can help you release the creative potential that you hold inside of yourself.  If you want help in your explorations, please reach out.
Loving you from here,

Pamela

 

Naomi Wolf, The Vagina and What Every Woman Needs To Learn!

Naomi Wolf is making a stir with her new book "Vagina: A New Biography". And I love it. She is talking about what so many of already know, and that is that a woman's heart is connected to her vagina. And that arousal and orgasm is more than pleasure in the dismissive way that our cultures talks about it. It is the power engine of a woman's body. It is the place from where women create from, and when it is frozen and numbed down - so are women.  So many cultures have known this for a long time, and a tremendous amount of time and energy has gone into shaming women about their vaginas. It helps keep women small and less powerful Ms. Wolf  points to neuroscience, and Sexological Body Workers can tell you that training and retraining neuro pathways in our bodies to help us reconnect with our bodies in a entirely new way. We are on to this! And so is Ms. Wolf! I love this, and the shit storm it is kicking up! I love that my voice as small as it is next to Ms. Wolf's, has another ally out in the world to sing with.

It is time to transform our understanding of sexuality for women, and we have so screwed up so many women when it comes to their own relationship with their vagina that we need more places, coaches and practitioners aligned with this information to support women to make their own connections,restore, expand and harvest the power of their pelvis.

Yes, there is a vagina-brain connection that Ms Wolf talks about. And we tend to shut it down, or ignore it. Woman are trained to do this. We need to help untrain them. Because it is only through that connection that women will really reclaim their power.

From Ms. Wolf:

"The new science has established a radically new insight: that there is such a strong brain-vagina connection in women that many of the neuroscientists whom I interviewed called it "a single system". More remarkably, few of us know that when a woman has an orgasm – and, even before that, when she feels empowered to think about pleasurable sex, anticipate it, focus on how to get it, and feels in control of and knowledgeable enough about her body to know she can probably reach orgasm during sex – her brain gets a boost of the neurotransmitter dopamine. Then, in orgasm, opioids and oxytocin are also released. This experience does not just yield pleasure, a fact that is well known; it also yields specific states of mind.

Dopamine is what I call the ultimate feminist neurotransmitter: it yields motivation and goal-orientedness, trust in one's own judgement and, most notably of all, in my mind, confidence. (Cocaine, for instance, powerfully stimulates release of dopamine – hence the crazy confidence and sociability of coke users, at least under the influence, responding to that boost). Opioids give the brain the sensation of ecstasy or transcendence; and finally, oxytocin – which can be released both when a woman's nipples are being stimulated and during the contractions of orgasm – creates a sense of bonding, caring and intimacy. Oxytocin has been shown in studies to give people with heightened levels an advantage in reading the emotions of faces.

So, given this chemical bath, it is fair to say that the vagina is not just a sex organ at all, but a powerful mediator of female confidence, creativity and the sense of the connections between things.

Realizing the nature of this brain-vagina connection led me, as a feminist, to have the next obvious insight. If female anticipation of pleasurable sex, and female orgasm, led to this kind of mood-alteration – among many other newly-documented outcomes I report on in the book – this also explains why female sexuality, and the vagina in particular, have been controlled, abused, targeted, derided and shamed. And why women have been mystified and kept in ignorance of their own sexual responses – for five millennia, certainly in the west. The dopamine loop also, of course, explains why some cultures practice cliterodectomy and infibulations – practices that we should now understand alter not simply the body and sexual functioning, but the influences on the female brain itself."

So today in the height of feminism 30% of all women report a disconnection from their sexuality and their vaginas. They are unable to reach orgasm or receive pleasure in sexual activity. The female pelvis is wired differently than the males. And is incredibly powerful.

Does this information make you feel more committed than ever to connect back to you body - and finally figure this out? I hope it inspires you to take those risks, and travel to those places that you were too scared to go. It's why Will, Ron and I created "Back To The Body: A Sensual Retreat For Women". We are going to be tackling all of this during our retreats, and we are going to help you feel what it is Ms Wolf is talking about!

Our November Retreat is full (There is a waiting list forming and you can get on it). But more importantly we will be running another one in February (dates coming soon). If you are interested in exploring this work with professional guides and a small intimate group of women - don't be discouraged that November's retreat is currently filled. Call me anyway, and let's talk. We can figure out a plan for your next move, a plan of action, and the next retreat. It will all be happening faster than you think - and there is work to be done! Your vagina is tired of waiting!

There is nothing more powerful than your vagina and your pelvis, Ladies. It's time to connect, go deep, go forth your erotic creature, unleash the power of your pelvis and create your life from a brand new place!

Send me an email at Pamela@beingshameless.com -

Loving you from here,

Pamela