(First published in Odyssey Magazine, Blissexology Column Winter 2023
When pleasure is held as sacred energy
“When bliss and pleasure is held sacred, it can be a deeply spiritual experience.”
Opening yourself to experiencing fully this sort of bliss and pleasure often begins with a revamping and resetting of the nervous system.
If these deep experiences happen within a guarded or armoured nervous system, we often don’t have the somatic capacity to go deeply into the experience.
This often means that our bodies move the energy into nervous system arousal / sexual arousal and have no capacity to travel deeper within the energy to bliss or flow states.
Life force energy, or sexual energy, the energy of creation, is one of the most powerful energies in our bodies, chemically as well as energetically.
It’s also one of the most difficult energies to work with as, for many people, this energy is shrouded in fear, guilt and shame, or even traumatic experiences.
I have found with my work in Neo Tantra and intimacy coaching that, when people begin to use this energy alchemised into a pure or neutral form in the body, mind and spirit, it becomes a source of immense power and energetic fuel.
However, to get this energy to that state of neutrality, we often have to walk through our own sexual shadow, to be able to transmute this energy from the purely erotic to the creative and healing energy it can be, with a fullness and exploration of Eros and pleasure to take the perceived or experienced negative charge out of it!
Sexual energy is like electricity, it’s a force in the body that can be used as power for a number of systems and, at its essence, is a neutral energy. It depends on the person channelling it as to what it will be imbued with.
This means your state of consciousness, beliefs and your nervous system interpret this energy. This creates a difficult polarity, as this energy can be used for fear, guilt, shame or harm, as well as for healing, release (real ease), heightened creativity, deep flow states and manifestation.
Sexual energy tends to be used for whatever container it is directed into, so if we are not dealing with this energy consciously, it is often only used for actual sexual activity. Now, don’t get me wrong, erotic and sexual pleasure can be absolutely wonderful and, enjoyed with love, sheer delight and playfulness, can connect us to the fuller human experience! This way of raising energy and awareness in the body is often the doorway that is used in Neo Tantra to begin to allow a loving and kind way to explore this energy without judgment or shame.
But, this is often where we get stuck. We often polarise this energy into the contractive state of fire, Eros. This means we don’t often travel into expanded states of sensuality, using this energy through breathwork, bliss and deep states of relaxation to create a new and expanded container in the nervous system. When we create safety in the nervous system, we can channel this energy for self-awareness, healing, creativity and bliss and flow states in the body. We don’t achieve the full range of this potent energy if we always use it as sexual energy for actual sexual engagement.
The midlife pleasure journey (from 35) can be travelled as a deep exploration of pleasure energy without attaching it only to sexuality (although the doorway through sexuality, if free of fear, shame and guilt can be beautiful and incredibly empowering). When we explore this journey with a full experience of this energy from contractive to expansive, we hold the possibilities of moving beyond patterning into heightened states of awareness and consciousness, as well as increased capacity in our nervous systems for flow states.
For many, the Neo Tantra journey only truly begins when the fire energy of desire and intense contractive pleasure has ‘burnt out’ and the sense of moving beyond pursuing sexual goals begins!
This tends to happen more easily in midlife, where an awakening and exploration of the mind, body and spirit begin often, where desires occur that go deeper into channelling this root chakra energy for purposes other than Eros. Not excluding Eros, but moving into a larger picture of bliss The fullness of the senses, capacity for bliss and what I term ‘Sense You Wellness’ then has a chance to blossom in the body. Sense You Wellness a holistic look at intimacy then becomes possible.
From midlife into menopause is also when a woman is most likely to start her sexual awakening, when the body moves beyond procreation into expansions of pleasure experiences and sensual power.
This is not what we are taught in the western world, although the experiences of so many show that midlife is where we can travel into our sexual and sensual selves in a whole new energetic way, become more fully ourselves in every aspect.
When sexuality and sensuality are not tied together, when they are separate explorations of energy, when we can move into full presence within our senses,
We can really open up to new energetic experiences and somatic understandings that can deepen and improve our total health as humans.
Often, before we can move into true sensuality free of fear, guilt and shame, we have to heal our sexual selves, find a new place to experience various pleasure states that align with our ethics and highest selves.
This often involves travelling through the shadow that surrounds our own personal sexuality, to be able to use and channel this beautiful energy for a higher good within our own lives and those of the people around us.
To do that, we need to make a decision to heal our creative life force energy, to move this energy into higher purpose and realise that, although sexual energy is a gateway, this force in the body can be channelled for so much more!
I wish you a journey into yourself that explores this energy for you in a powerful and enlightening way, with a journey into your sensual self, fully engaged and turned on to all that life can offer.
It has been the biggest adventure and journey of my life so far and my deepest calling is sharing this awakening with others in a way that is beautiful, useful and loving to them on their individual paths.