I have been in the trenches. I know what it is like to squeeze my eyes shut during sex and hope that my partner is doing the same, terrified of seeing or being seen. I know what it is like to be able to “relax” and ask for what I really want only when I’m drunk. I know what it’s like to only be attracted to people who don’t treat me all that well. To feel more alone during sex. To have sex with someone I don’t even like. To wonder if my spiritual life will ever spill over into my sex life. I know how it feels to be told that my sexuality is wrong. I know the sound of me faking an orgasm. I know the feeling that there must be something more.
I have been there.
Somewhere along the way, I decided to make a change in my life. Now I know what it is to turn on the lights and look directly into my partner’s eyes as I come. I no longer need alcohol to help me relax or communicate. I have tools for working through periods of low sex drive. I can allow myself to be loved, respected, and treated with loving kindness. I know how to fully embody my pleasure, free from thoughts and anxiety. I now have a relationship that engages my sexual expression and is based on honesty and love. My spiritual life and sex life are interconnected. I don’t allow the fears or judgments of others to dictate my sexual expression. I never, ever fake it. I have found that sexual discovery is endless.
Of course, I haven’t been exactly where you’ve been. We all have our own unique experiences in life and with sex. Sexuality is different for everyone, and the tools in this book are meant to be flexible, to suit different people. I will share my story with you and what I have learned, with the knowledge that life is a constant process of learning and evolving. Not everything in this book will resonate with everyone. I do invite you to open your mind to what lies beyond your current comfort zone and adopt a stance of openness on this journey.
Sitting down and practicing meditation every day reengineered my whole life, including my sex life. It wasn’t only meditation, of course: I also incorporated therapy, recovery groups, bodywork, writing, and reading into my practice. But meditation has been the bedrock from which my sexual awakening has sprung.
This book will give you the tools to start a meditation practice, if you would like one, or deepen your practice if you already have one. After that, the next step is to bring mindfulness into your sex life. Sexual awakening isn’t a spectator sport; it requires some work, and this book will guide you through the process. There will be plenty of fun along the way, though. Waking up can be an amazing adventure.
Bringing mindfulness into sex invites you to open yourself to a bigger, richer, and more present life. If we put our sexuality in a shoebox under the bed, we are putting a part of ourselves in there too. Every present moment, if we bring our full attention to it, is a chance to wake up. Awakening can happen while you load the dishwasher or while you press your lover’s body against a wall and make her scream with pleasure. As you bring more mindfulness to your lovemaking, you can get a glimpse of your own brand of enlightenment. These moments of awakening that come from deeply experiencing sex add up. You may find that the intense connection you feel with your partner during sex extends to include the whole world.
I have an old friend with whom I reconnected several years ago. The first few times we hung out she spent a good deal of time sharing with me how much I had changed since we had been teenagers. Of course, most people do change during the years between sixteen and thirty-something. She reminded me how wild and reckless I had been. She told me of all the escapades I had led: adventurous tales of skinny-dipping in stranger’s pools and streaking in suburban neighborhoods. There were also darker tales of close calls with drunk driving and mornings of regret from the night before.
It was a huge surprise to my friend that I was teaching people how to bring spirituality into their sex lives. “You told me you were totally over sex when you were fifteen!” she said. I had only a vague memory of saying something like that, but she was sure of it. She recounted my tight jaw and stony words like it was yesterday. She told me that she had felt sad for me, being so jaded at such a young age. While I love who I am today, and all those experiences led me to this point, I felt a little grief hearing about that teenage version of me.
It started in the back seat of a green Chevrolet Chevelle, with an eighteen-year-old with tattoos and a ponytail. It was a chilly night in May, at a graduation party out in the woods of Eastern Pennsylvania. I was just fourteen, wearing my favorite flannel shirt and cutoffs. I had made a promise to my mom that I wouldn’t drink that night, but not that I wouldn’t get high. I smoked a joint and I set out on a mission. Tonight was the night. I would lose my virginity, come hell or high water.
The guy with the ponytail had been my crush all year and seemed like a good candidate. I noticed that he had his eye on another girl that night. I was relieved when she left early and he turned his gaze to me. He asked me to take a walk with him, and that walk ended in the back seat of his car. Right before he reached up to the glove box to get a condom he asked, “You wanna do this?” Afterward, when retelling the story to my friends, I changed this to, “Are you sure you want to do this? We don’t have to if you aren’t ready.” I wanted him to seem more considerate. Looking back, I do appreciate that he asked for consent. That’s more than I can say for a few other men I’ve been with.
I kept my turquoise All-Star high tops on the whole time. It hurt a lot but didn’t go on for long. Afterward I told him that I’d remember that night for a long time. He lit a cigarette and said that we should head back to the party. I had never even made out with anyone before. I was high and remember that night as if I was far away. I just did it because I thought it had to be done; it didn’t really matter if I was actually present for it. Later that year, I had sex again: this time in a field with a twenty-year-old, also with a ponytail. I was intoxicated again.
This pattern went on for many years, sex without presence or intimacy, though not always with older men with ponytails. Not always with men. What remained the same was my inability to really be conscious for sexual experiences. Even if I wasn’t drunk or high, I was checked out in some way. I didn’t look into my lover’s eyes. I was lost in my own mind, needing a fantasy to climax. I didn’t feel a sense of merging or the sacred. Sex was all about checking out and getting off.
By my late twenties, these patterns had driven me to an all-time low. I had been drinking since I was twelve and still depended on drugs and alcohol to get me through tough times. My patterns in relationships had led me to a partner who was verbally and emotionally abusive, but I was unable to leave. I started thinking about ending my life. I spent a whole day wandering around Hollywood trying to find a crisis center that would take me. That day was a wake-up call. It was time to make a change.
I began by getting sober and committed to a year of celibacy and being relationship-free. I wanted to break the old patterns and create new ones. When you clear out old patterns, you create space for new ways of living. The new pattern that changed my life more than any other was my daily meditation practice.
After I had been sober a little over a year, I started dating a kind and loving man. It was the first truly healthy relationship I had ever been in and it primed me to have a whole new kind of romantic partnership. While I was still shut down sexually in some ways, the sex we had was the most conscious and mindful I had had up to that point. That relationship didn’t work out long-term, but it was an important one for me, and I credit him with inspiring me to get serious about meditation.
Early in our relationship, my new boyfriend started hosting a meditation group at his house. It wasn’t until the teacher, Michael W. Taft, accused me of being “chicken,” that I actually tried it out. At my very first meditation session I saw that I could maintain separation from my thoughts, even when my thoughts were going crazy. I was full of anxiety that day about a job I was hoping to get. During the meditation, I watched those anxious thoughts come and go. I was a witness to them, rather than being stuck inside of my monkey mind. This was a revelation for me.
I dove into my meditation practice, and so began a series of awakenings that rocked my world. My practice showed me that I was not my thoughts or emotions. I’d heard spiritual teachers say “You are not your mind,” and now I knew it to be true. With this insight, I was able to explore the wild mystery of what I really am. I started to realize how interconnected everything is: There was no illusion of separation anymore. It became hard to think of myself as a solid and fixed thing, as I had done before. There was no one me, but instead a constant flow of experience that made up infinite selves. I fell in love with life, each tiny seemingly mundane thing. I laugh now when I tell people how I cradled my water bottle with total love and adoration after a particularly intense experience of absolute love in a meditation.
In my early practice I had many of these “peak experiences.” Some of them were deep states of blissful concentration, and some were full on sixties-style acid trips. While some of these peak states were coupled with deep insights, others were due more to the intensity of my practice and my personal history (and are in no way necessary for everyone). Some of these states were exhilarating, and some were terrifying. As I began to process years of pent up emotion, my subconscious had some frightening displays for me. But I got the good stuff too. The flashy experiences helped motivate me to keep meditating, but eventually they slowed down. As my practice took on a calmer and more grounded tone, I began to see the results of my hard work. My relationships began to change with my family, my friends, and my partner. Most importantly, I started to see a clear choice in front of me: Did I want to suffer, or take another path?
About a year into my meditation practice, my father became very ill. He was an alcoholic, and when he got hit with cancer he couldn’t stop drinking or smoking. He wasted away. He and I had a profoundly deep but also complex and challenging relationship. We were often called “Twin Flames” because we looked and acted so much alike. He was one of my very best friends, which was wonderful, but also meant that he became my drinking buddy when I was only fourteen. We took trips together, stared up at the night sky together, got drunk together, and sat in the car listening to The Rolling Stones, The Eagles, and Led Zeppelin together.
As I got older, I tried to become more responsible: I tried to drink less and spend more time working and less time playing. This caused me to grow apart from my dad. I no longer wanted to be around him when he was drunk. I found his alcoholism embarrassing and depressing. But our special connection never faded. I remember one night after I had been living in Los Angeles for a number of years, I was watching some obscure film that I had rented. Just as the credits started to roll, my dad called me from Philadelphia to tell me about this film he thought I should see. It was the same one I had just finished. That kind of synchronicity was commonplace for us.
At a certain point in his illness, it became clear that he wasn’t going to get better. At first, I was scared to buy a one-way ticket and be with him until he died. But eventually I knew I had to go. Armed with my practice, I sat by his side for the last month of his life with love, compassion, and acceptance for him and for myself. I administered his medications, and at the end, I even changed his diapers. I didn’t judge him for his alcoholism anymore. Hell, I put beer in his feeding tube when he asked me to. The day before he died, he was so underweight that I could pick him up in my arms like a baby. That last day and evening I washed his body, whispered to him everything I hadn’t yet said, meditated on his face, and listened to his heartbeat until it became faint. Along with my mom, my sisters, a cat, and dog, I stood beside his bed as he took his last breath. I held his socked feet as his frail and broken body finally let go.
Without my meditation practice, that experience would have been much different. I would have been so full of anger, resentment, and grief that I wouldn’t have been able to offer the care that I did. That one year of meditation healed and prepared me for my father’s death in a way that nothing else could have.
Not long after my dad died, one of my meditation teachers suggested that I start teaching meditation. Soon I was sharing my experience with groups and individuals. In the beginning I primarily taught mindfulness, focusing on learning to witness thoughts and emotions. That type of technique had changed my life and I wanted to spread the good word. I had found a new calling, but I still had a lot to learn when it came to integrating my spiritual life with my sex life.
Although my spiritual growth had taken off, I had yet to take a hard look at my sex life. I was still cut off from my body during sex. I still failed to fully connect with my partners. I did enjoy sex, but I was only scraping the surface. I had no idea what good sex was. Good sex invites you to be fully present for every single sweet drop of pleasure.
I was only partially present for my partners because I was only partially present for myself. I tended to attract people who matched my own emotional and spiritual evolution. Very few of my partners ever called me out on disappearing during sex, because they did as well. My meditation practice, however, alerted me to my disappearance. Observing my thoughts and emotions every day in formal meditation was revealing the parts of me that were hidden away.
There was a woman inside of me waking up. She wanted a new kind of sex, passion, and pleasure. She wanted to explore the far reaches of her sexuality and beyond. She wanted to feel a lover truly become one with her. The awakening I was having in other areas couldn’t help but spill over into my sex life. I wanted more. My authentic sexuality was bursting forth.
Around this time, I read Passionate Marriage, by David Schnarch, PhD. I was struck by his writing about looking into your partner’s eyes while you climax.1 At first I thought, No way. Never going to happen. The idea of seeing and being seen at that vulnerable moment made my skin crawl. But I was committed to allowing my sexuality to shine and slowly began to take a peek at my partners during sex. There wasn’t any eye contact yet, but it was progress for me.
It took time to go from the desire for good sex to actually having good sex. I had to work through years of old habits. And there was another hold up: I didn’t have partners who wanted to practice mindful sex. Why would I? Up until then, the idea of mindful sex frightened me. So I had to be patient. It was frustrating to be ready for a new kind of sex but not have the tools or the willing partner with whom to take the next step. Luckily, my meditation practice helped me hang out in the gray area without suffering too much.
I began seeing a sex therapist, and he invited me to find ways to sexually heal and blossom without a partner. This was such a valuable piece of advice for me. I could start practicing mindful sex on my own. I began to read more about sex: instructional manuals, erotic fiction, and personal essays. I meditated on the feelings of rejection and disappointment I felt when partners didn’t want to try a new way of lovemaking. I bought sexy underwear and red lipstick and spent time seducing myself. I brought mindfulness into masturbation, exploring and finding new kinds of pleasure. I worked a lot on sexual trauma and negative sexual beliefs. I also dove into my creative life: writing, drawing, dancing, and acting. I found that sexual energy and creative energy were the same thing and could enhance and inspire the other. In short, I made my sexual awakening a priority.
I’ve come to learn, based on my own experience and that of my friends and students, that when you focus your attention on an area of your life, it will change. My sexuality was no exception. It sounds cliché, but during the first wave of my own sexual revolution, I took on a glow. My friends asked what was going on, my classes grew, and I became more playful and light. I had access to more energy than ever before.
The first time I looked into a lover’s eyes while we made love was frightening, exhilarating. It was, in essence, a new first time. Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” comes to mind when I remember it. There was a sincerity and openness that I had never felt. It was also obvious that, of course, this is the way it should be. I began to have profound spiritual experiences during sex. I was actually “becoming one” with my partner. We were connected in a way that I had never been with anyone before. And it was fun! Sex became both spiritual and an adult playground. I started to have more flexibility in what aroused me. I discovered new pleasures and fantasies. It was a meditation in action that I had never known. As a result, my creative life began to expand too. I found that I had more energy to write, act, draw, and play.
My relationships benefitted as well. I was no longer hiding from my partners. I was present, vulnerable, and open. My body became incredibly sensitive. I could feel things that I hadn’t even known existed. With this greater connection to my own body, I connected with my partners on a much deeper level.
What is possible to share with another person continues to shock and delight me. Now that I’m not cut off from such an important aspect of myself, I have so much more to offer my partner. I also have more to offer as a teacher. Being a teacher means modeling the willingness to keep growing. If I left my sexuality unexplored and stayed checked out, I’d be limiting my ability to be of service as a teacher.
I’ve been teaching since 2009. I started by facilitating a small group in Los Angeles once a week that has since grown into a flourishing community called The Eastside Mindfulness Collective. Several teachers lead weekly classes, both online and in person, as well as hold workshops and events. I teach everyday awakening through mindfulness and inquiry techniques. I give raw, down-to-earth talks on being human. In addition to my classes and workshops, I offer private sessions to individuals, couples, and families. I also teach for other organizations and special events in the Los Angeles area and beyond. In recent years, I have expanded my teaching to include my work with mindful sex. I’m deeply in love with this area of my work. It’s such a joyful experience to see someone awaken sexually.
Sex is such a big part of being human, yet it is often ignored in discussions of spiritual practice and awakening. This is why I have focused my efforts on using my experience to help others. To wake up fully, we need to invite awakening into all parts of our lives—including our sex lives.
I had another therapist who said: “As you get older, sex gets weird.” He was a longtime meditation practitioner and a very awake person. I took what he said to mean that when you continue to bring mindfulness to sex, you access deeper and deeper mysterious layers. Over the years, my sexuality has changed and changed and changed again. Sometimes it does get weird, in a delightful way. When I greet sex with openness and acceptance, the possibilities are endless.
A couple of weeks back my partner and I had a few hours free, and decided to use the time for a sexual adventure. We spoke openly and with joyful laughter about what we might explore. There was a sense of fun, excitement, and total trust as we stopped talking and started undressing each other. Before long I was all tied up and not going anywhere.
I won’t get into the rest of the intimate details, but I will share the most important detail: I was present for every moment of our sexcapade. I felt it all, and so did my partner.
Having mindful sex doesn’t mean always making love while staring into your partner’s eyes, and whispering sweet nothings. “Mindful” doesn’t mean mushy or boring. In my experience, mindful sex can be dirty, fun, exciting, and even rough (mindful sex can absolutely involve handcuffs). It is based on who you are in that moment.
Mindful sex is not perfect sex. If you are stuck in an ideal, you miss out on what is happening in the moment. So many deny themselves spectacular sex because they are caught up in how they think it should be. Your sexuality is a gift that you get to unwrap again and again throughout your life. It changes and evolves just like your body does, just like nature does, just like everything does. This book isn’t meant to give you a cookie-cutter sex life. Instead, it’s an invitation to venture into the mystery and beauty of your authentic sexuality. By simply being present with yourself and your partner while you are having sex, you can connect in ways that seem magical. It’s not actually magic: It’s how life is when you show up for it.
As you begin this adventure, remember that ultimately you are your own best teacher. My experience and suggestions are just a jumping off point. As you get to know your body and begin to gain some perspective on the stories in your mind, a new kind of wisdom will emerge. A wisdom that you can trust to lead you skillfully through your sex life and beyond. No one can give you this wisdom; you must find it for yourself. So take what you like from this book and leave the rest. One size does not fit all.
I don’t believe in one true answer for sex issues, but I do know that adding mindfulness to sex yields results. I hope to empower you to find your own path to mindful sex. We are going to explore everything from those dreaded open-eyed orgasms, to non-monogamy, to trauma. I will continue to share details of my story with you, uncensored. What better way to make use of all my trials and errors than to share them to help you?
It’s incredibly important to let go of getting this right. There is no right way. If you have a firm idea of how your sex should be, it’s time to let go of that. This is an adventure and an exploration, not a contest. Cast out the desire to be the best at mindful sex or the best at meditation, and just be here now. As you let go of your expectations and ego-laced goals, you will wake up to reality. When you truly reside in reality, your experience will blow any fantasy out of the water. You’ll begin to see how limitless life actually is.
A note for my trans, gender-fluid, and gender-nonconforming readers. I am a cisgender female and most of my sexual experiences are with cisgender men and women. At this point I also have very few experiences sharing my mindful sex work with members of the trans or gender-nonconforming community. While that is the knowledge base I am coming from, I do my best in this book to make the writing accessible to everyone. There may be times when you have to translate the material a bit, but know that this book is for you too.
I use the words “penis” and “vagina” in this book. Feel free to cross out those words and add pussy, cock, vajaja, wiener, cunt, dick, honeypot, joystick, or whatever tickles your fancy. I know some of the words I just listed can be offensive to some, whereas for others penis and vagina can seem awkward or too formal. Call your genitalia by any name you like.
Another word I use in this book is “fucking.” Dr. Schnarch uses this word in Passionate Marriage,2 and I’m doing the same. I’ve come to know fucking as a very different thing than “making love.” They both have their place in good sex and have different intellectual and behavioral meanings depending on who you are. If the word fucking freaks you out, feel free to replace it as you wish. I do recommend that you explore what fucking versus making love means to you. Is it possible that you have never experienced what fucking at its best can be? This is worth a little mindful investigation.
You will see me mention trauma many times throughout this book. I am incredibly passionate about healing my own trauma and helping others heal theirs. Trauma recovery has been a huge part of my spiritual path and my personal healing. Toward the end of the book, I’ll be delving much deeper into the subject of trauma with both my personal experiences and what I’ve seen as a teacher. I offer a little warning at the beginning of chapters that may be triggering for some.
Without a dedicated meditation practice, I would most likely still be sexually checked out. Just reading this book will not magically transform your sex life—you will need to put the practice of mindfulness into action. The next two chapters of this book are a mini-manual for mindfulness meditation. These are techniques that I teach in my classes, many inspired by Shinzen Young’s mindfulness teachings.3 Don’t feel you need to retain all the information on the first read. Think of this as a reference that you can flip to at any time. I will refer to these techniques throughout the book.
Learning to have more mindful sex can bring up a lot of emotions. This is especially true for anyone who is working through sexual trauma. It is important that you get a lot of support along the way, and just meditating may not cut it. A good therapist, recovery groups, and a spiritual or meditation coach can be a huge help when delving into mindful sex. Take care of yourself and be patient and loving with whatever comes up. In this book we will explore ways to use meditation and mindfulness to address trauma and the shame that often accompanies it. That has been a big part of my story, and I’m honored to share what I have learned with you. I consider myself a spiritual person and this book has a spiritual tone. If even the word spiritual rubs you the wrong way, fear not. You can ignore that aspect of the book. Mindful sex does not have to fall into the spiritual category if that doesn’t work for you. But don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Try the practices for yourself and then decide if mindful sex is for you. Even if you do consider yourself to be spiritual, don’t just take my word for it. This is your adventure. See for yourself what mindful sex can do for you. This path is uncharted. It’s made of your experience, unfolding moment by moment, breath by breath, touch by touch. A willingness to dive into the present is all you need to begin your journey.