These 3 Things will Help You Have an Amazing Sex Life
It’s not about technique
There’s a lot of sex advice out there. All sorts of attention is focused on positions and pleasure techniques, or how often sex should be happening, or how to have orgasms, or have more orgasms, or how you can increase orgasmic intensity…
All of that can be helpful to a degree, yet the belief that sex or orgasms or frequency is supposed to look or feel or be any specific way can easily add pressure and expectation to an area where people oftentimes already feel overwhelmed with pressure and expectation.
For me, sex came quite naturally, and my partners would often comment that they felt more at ease with themselves and comfortable. So I wondered, what kinds of experiences were men otherwise having? And why did people struggle so much with issues around sex?
That question was answered years ago when I worked as a sexual healer. I had the opportunity to get up close and personal with people from all walks of life that experienced sexual issues, and it was often strikingly clear from where they arose. These are the 3 most common things that my clients needed to become aware of in order to improve their sex lives:
- Good Sex Requires Connection to our Bodies
On a day to day basis, most of us have no idea whatsoever that our bodies carry wisdom and knowledge, or how to read our corporal language. Which is unfortunate, since our bodily wisdom is the root of what ultimately makes sex, and life in general, far more satisfying. It’s one reason why sexuality is so frantically sought after in the first place. Sex is one of the only experiences where some of us come even close to feeling connected to ourselves and present with the sensations of our bodies. That means it’s one of the only times we ever really feel truly alive and present.
When it comes to sex, your body either says yes, or it doesn’t. LOTS of people have experiences with partners where their body is saying no, but they still charge forward, totally oblivious. Or we experience a yes with someone, then expect that yes should be there all the time. There can be any number of things our bodies tell us—including messages of pain or trauma—that we ignore or override.
This is common, and the reason behind why there’s such hype about lubes and porn and all sorts of techniques that can be potentially harmful and are, in truth, unnecessary. Our collective bodily disconnection mirrors our disconnection from nature and the qualities of the feminine.
As within, so without—Hermes Trismegistus
So how do we reconnect with our bodies? That leads us to this next bit.
2. The Key is Intimacy
Basically, most of us suck at intimacy. Not because we don’t want it. Quite the contrary, we deeply yearn for it. We just don’t know how. The reason we lack this ability is simple: Socially, we’re taught to perform and push and force and move forward. The problem is, these are precisely the opposite qualities that we need to be intimate with ourselves and our bodies. Intimacy requires the ability to be still, to listen, feel and let go. If we don’t know how to be intimate with ourselves, how could we possibly be intimate with anyone else?
Intimacy with yourself means that you can be alone in your own space and enjoy being in your own skin. It means you can observe yourself with reasonable objectivity. You give yourself what you want and need rather depending on anyone else. You’re present, aware, and fulfilled because you know yourself, so have something of substance to offer to others, both in and out of bed. Self-intimacy is the opposite of living on autopilot. It’s a moment to moment presence of awareness.
Here’s an example:
Do you have a favorite beverage in the mornings? Coffee or tea? If you have that same drink every single day pretty much without fail for months on end, there’s a good chance you’re not paying enough attention to your body.
Why?
Because your bodily needs change, but if you’re not present, you’re simply on autopilot, following patterns. Your mind overrides any bodily messages such as; today I need to rest my nervous system, please.
And that’s what most of us do in a kazillion ways. We’re a super ‘heady’ culture that has learned to trust and follow the images and desires within our minds far more than the messages within our bodies.
It’s why advertising works so well. Mmmmm…that chocotripplelatte with whipped cream looks sooooo good! The image is there in our mind and we just gotta have it. So we get it. Might be perfectly okay. But it also might not. Our body may not respond well to all that sugar and caffeine, especially adding up day after day. Yet we override the bodily message that is telling us this, because we’re not really ‘at home,’ not quite ‘checked in.’
We do this with all sorts of images; sexy women, fancy cars. Looks good, gonna make us happy right? Yet our bodies don’t always agree with our minds, and we wonder why we end up in all sorts of relational and sexual troubles. When we’re stuck, as many of us are, within mental images and social ideals, we lack intimacy with ourselves, so live out inauthentic lives. When we do this, we’ll always want and need more, as we never truly feel satisfied.
In order to become more intimate with ourselves and connect with our bodies, we need practice. It’s a matter of shaking out of autopilot by placing conscious attention on your day to day activities; tasting food, feeling your feet on the ground, breathing deep into your belly. It’s the difference between reading through several paragraphs in a book and enjoying it, and reading through those paragraphs without taking any of it in. The difference was where you offered your conscious attention.
Think yoga, meditation, quiet introspection.
3. Performance is a Lack of Surrender
Concern about performance is the ultimate sex-killer. I gained some real empathy for what men especially go through in this realm. They oftentimes feel immensely pressured to perform. I watched many clients leave their bodies as soon as the clothes come off and there was any kind of idea that sexuality or performance was ‘supposed’ to happen, even when that was nothing but an idea in their minds.
But sex has zero to do with performance and everything to do with the moment to moment truth of our bodies and the comfort with ourselves to move, or not move, according to it. This requires intimacy and bodily connection.
Performances are for theatre and circus acts. It doesn’t belong in the bedroom unless, perhaps, there’s some kind of role-play going on. Then it can be fun. But the more we can leave behind the idea that sex is supposed to look or feel like anything in particular, and be with the truth of what is from one moment to the next, the more our bodies and minds can relax into that truth and open. Performance is a belief in technique and a place to focus. It’s putting an image and structure around something that is best experienced in the freedom of surrender.