Even during my early encounters in which I didn’t always value the quality of my sexual experiences, my sex life has always been very important to me. I’ve seen sex as a creative way to connect with myself and other people. You might say it’s been my hobby, or my extreme sport. For a big chunk of my sexually active years, though, I was selling myself (and my partners) short. I was not in touch with my body. I couldn’t feel the subtle vibrations after an orgasm ends, or the warmth that spreads across my inner thighs and stomach when I become aroused, or the tingle in my chest when I get kissed exactly the way I like.
When I started practicing meditation, I didn’t set out to have better sex. In fact, I didn’t actually know what I was missing at that time. I set out to process years of painful emotional buildup and hopefully to grow spiritually. I didn’t know that by sitting quietly each day and exploring the sensations in my body, I would start having mind-blowing sex. It makes sense, though. The more I got to know my body, the more it could offer me.
I go to silent meditation retreats at least once a year. It’s a time to put my regular life on pause and dive deep into my practice. On the first night of a recent retreat, the teacher, a Buddhist nun, said, “Go to sleep tonight for the first time. It’s the first time every time. It’s brand new. It’s the only time.” This is how I try to live my life, from my head hitting the pillow to giving head. Each time is brand new; each time is the only time.
When you encounter your sexuality as something mysterious and unique, your fixed ideas and emotional and mental blocks can begin to melt away. Sex becomes a beautiful dance. Rigidity gives way to fluidity. The default setting of your lovemaking is replaced by endless possibility, surprise, and awe.
How do we begin to bring this freshness into our sexual expression? The first place to start is where you are right now. In your body.
Before we take one breath of air outside of our mother’s womb, we already have a body. Until the last breath we take before death, we have a body. Our bodies experience birth, pain, pleasure, emotion, illness, old age, and ultimately death. Our bodies are always with us.
Mindfulness is about being right here, right now. And when you are moving toward mindful sex, it’s of the utmost importance to be grounded in your body. It is in the body where the sex is happening, after all! Even so, we spend a lot of time resisting our bodies. There are many reasons people don’t want to be grounded in their bodies. Chronic pain, sexual trauma, and stress can all make the body seem like an enemy. For me, the body was not a safe place to reside. I had a lot of physical pain from a young age. Back issues, chronic headaches, digestive problems, and more. I was accustomed to finding ways to get out of my body to relieve pain, whether it was emotional or purely physical. There was anger, sadness, and trauma stored up inside my skin. Being embodied made me feel afraid and stressed-out. I couldn’t do yoga because it was too uncomfortable to hang out with my body for that long. I used to have murderous fantasies when someone put their mat too close to mine. There was a lot of anger piled up inside of me. The body is also an ever-present sign that illness, old age, and death are a part of life. You are going to get wrinkles and gray hair; you will experience illness; and eventually you’ll drop dead. The body is a big, flashing neon sign of a reminder that everything is impermanent. It can be difficult to look at that sign and accept it for what it is.
But when we ignore illness, old age, and death, we resist a huge part of life. We are basically pretending that the story won’t end the way we all know it will. This resistance and denial causes us a lot of unnecessary suffering. Whenever there is resistance, we are taking a chunk out of our potential to experience the fullness of life and of sex.
You might think you can avoid pain by staying out of the body. But when you actually feel the pain and accept it, your relationship with it changes. When you get grounded in your body, you come to realize that pain is just another sensation to be experienced. You’ll also find that it changes. It gets stronger and weaker, disappears completely, flares back up, and disappears again. Pain may continue to ebb and flow, but you will no longer be suffering so much. The level of discomfort will become the right size. Your body offers you a chance to experience impermanence with every ache and pain.
You need to be in your body to really feel all the good stuff, too. Your body has so many ways to create pleasure and it all feels better when you really feel it. Think about how enjoyable a hot bath is when you are cold or have sore muscles. How about getting a massage from a skilled bodyworker? Or the feeling of being in love? Those pleasurable feelings can all be heightened with mindfulness.
When you are in your body, you get the full experience of pleasure, not a watered-down one.
You would think that everyone would want to be in their bodies during sex. It feels good, right? But many people are having disembodied sex. I used to be one of them. I felt the broad strokes (like climax), but all the subtle sensation was ignored. Even our orgasms are greatly limited when we aren’t mindful with the body. There is so much more to be felt when we bring mindfulness to our bodies during sex.
Learning to be present with pleasure in the body can also help us not to be so attached to it. Attachment to fundamentally impermanent things is a recipe for disappointment. Acceptance is the antidote for attachment, and being fully present with an experience will lead to acceptance. I also find that letting go of my grasp on pleasure makes it all the more pleasurable. I like to breathe, relax, and let go. It’s hard to really enjoy sex or anything else if you are holding on for fear of it ending. Here’s the thing: It will end. Everything does. When we greet and bid adieu to pleasure with acceptance and curiosity, when we hang on loosely, it is free to delight us in a whole new way.
I often hear from people about “that one amazing time” they had, and how they just want to get back to that. Some go so far as to use the memory of a good lay to get off every time they have sex. There is certainly nothing wrong with recalling especially satisfying sessions. I’ve laughed with partners about how a really hot time can keep the fires burning for weeks between us. Just the mention of it is all the foreplay we need! But overly relying on memories to be able to have pleasure during sex is limiting and disconnects us from our partner. We are just replaying the past like a movie in our minds instead of actively engaging with the present moment. Fantasy absolutely has a place in mindful sex, but we don’t want it to be our only option.
I know letting go of what works for you, what gets you off, can be hard to do. But I promise you it will be worth it. You can also come back to your old tricks from time to time, or maybe expand upon them. Being more grounded in your body will only make these tricks better anyway. Nurturing a relationship with your body will give you a new blueprint for pleasure. You will wonder how you ever had sex without the emphasis on embodiment. That has certainly been my experience.
When teaching others to have what I call embodied sex, I like to start with masturbation. When I first began wanting to bring mindfulness into sex, I didn’t have anyone to practice with, so I did it by myself. It was a wonderful way to get to know my body and my capacity for pleasure. Even if you have a partner who is game, it might be helpful to get in touch with your sexuality on your own first. Sometimes it can be a bit too confronting to jump into embodied sex with someone else, and mindful masturbation is a gentle way to begin the journey.
I’m going to suggest something that may feel unfair and bring up resistance for some. For this exercise, please don’t use sex toys, porn, or fantasy. This isn’t going to be about getting off, it’s about getting into the body. This is a meditation to help you stay with your body as you experience sexual sensations.
Create a safe, cozy, soft space to practice this in. Your bed, a couch, or even the floor with pillows and blankets will all work. You may also wish to have your favorite lubricant handy.
When the timer goes off, congratulate yourself. You have taken a big first step to more connected and mindful sex! If you are feeling turned on and want to bring yourself to climax after the exercise, go for it. But before you do, take a moment to notice how this experience made you feel. What did you like about it? What did you hate? Did you find that your mind became noisier at certain points? Were there any new sensations that you never noticed before? This would be a good time to grab your journal and do a little stream of consciousness writing about how you feel.
If you do decide to go back to masturbating after this period of contemplation, do your best to stay with the sensations—even if you use the old standard technique, including toys and whatever else tickles your fancy, to come. Try to stay with the body as you orgasm, rather than checking out to get off.
To be clear, this isn’t how I masturbate every time, or how I think you should. This is a special exercise to help you connect with your body. I’m simply inviting you to give yourself more options. When you are first learning to have embodied sex, putting aside distractions is helpful, but that doesn’t mean that what turns you on is wrong. There’s no need to judge yourself or become too rigid—just be willing to give something new a try. You may find that by temporarily closing one door, three more open.
Another reason embodied sex can be a little scary is that many people don’t like their bodies. Being in the body during sex is a reminder that the shape, size, or appearance of your body is not quite right. This isn’t true, of course. You are perfect just as you are in this moment. But I know it can be hard to believe that, and the world around us doesn’t always help.
While there has been a movement against body-shaming in recent years, the message is still pretty clear: You are not thin enough, or you are too thin; your muscles are too small, or they are too big; your breasts are too saggy, or they are too small; your skin is too dark, your skin is too light; your penis is not the right shape; your belly is too round—you are not good enough as you are. The pressure to be considered attractive is pounded into us everywhere we go. Commercials, films, and television show us what we should look like, and that content seeps into our consciousness. We starve, inject, and brutalize our bodies in hopes of meeting an imaginary standard of beauty. We reject this beautiful vessel that is here to serve us. This high level of self-hatred and denial in our culture really hurts our chances of having embodied sex.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t eat healthy, get good exercise, and make an effort to look nice. Heck, I love the way yoga makes my butt look. I eat so clean it’s embarrassing, I like wearing makeup and heels and I may have tried a little Botox. But we need to nurture a loving and accepting attitude toward our bodies. From a place of self-love, we can make choices that are right for our own unique body. When we love ourselves, it becomes natural to take care of our bodies.
Here’s a self-love exercise that often makes people grimace and groan. If you think it’s dumb, pointless, and embarrassing, then you should definitely do it. It can be done with your eyes closed or while looking in the mirror. This will help to rewire your mind to see yourself as you truly are—perfect and totally lovable.
That’s it! You survived. It’s kind of funny how much resistance there can sometimes be to offering yourself love. It’s okay to treat yourself with love and kindness. It’s also okay to fake it ’til you make it. If you are wired to put yourself down, it can take time to create new neural pathways. But you can do it if you consistently offer yourself kind and loving words daily.
Self-love and acceptance are paramount for embodied sex. Learning to love and accept yourself is an ongoing process, and one helps the other. As you get more mindful with yourself, you’ll get more mindful with sex, and vice versa. I know that for some people the preceding exercise is not easy. Be gentle and patient with yourself. This is not a race or another thing to “get right.” I’ve been working on self-love and acceptance for years and I haven’t graduated yet! Learning to love ourselves, and by extension others, is our life work. There is no finish line, as far as I can tell.
Learning to be embodied with someone else is the beginning of a whole new kind of sex. I love hearing from clients after their first embodied sexual experience. They say things like: I never knew I could feel so much; I felt so connected to my partner; My orgasm went on forever; I had no idea it could be like this. People also find that the benefits spill over into all aspects of life. Work feels easier, creativity gets freed up, there’s more patience for the kids or other family members, the world is brighter and more beautiful, and a sense of relaxation and ease replaces stress and tension. Discovering embodied sex is its own kind of spiritual awakening.
I also get another kind of report. For some, embodied sex is incredibly confronting. Being in the body during sex can be very challenging. Sometimes, just the grief for the years of disembodied sex can be overwhelming. As always, patience, self-love, and acceptance is the antidote for this kind of experience. We can’t get around this material—we need to go through it.
Before I started down the path to wellness and spiritual evolution, I avoided partners who encouraged me to be embodied during sex. I thought they were too emotional, too sensitive, and too needy. Imagine thinking someone is needy for wanting you to actually be in your body during sex. But that’s how my mind worked at the time. When I first began having embodied sex it was like waking up from a deep, dark sleep. My eyes opened to a world that I could hardly comprehend.
Reading about embodied sex is great, but doing it is better. Before we plunge into sex, let’s try it with a hug. Mindful hugging is a fantastic way to test out our new embodiment skills. It’s also something you can practice with a friend in a platonic way if you are single or don’t have a willing partner.
This practice will introduce you to your body and help you to build the concentration to stay with it. As you become more comfortable residing in the body, you can start to bring that new awareness into your sex life. This means staying with the sensations of your body while engaging with someone else. It can be tempting to go back to thinking about sex instead of feeling sex. As you develop your concentration skills, you’ll get better and better at being present to the body sensations of making love.
If you are doing this exercise with your partner, a lot can come up. For example, who usually ends a hug first? And who is usually left wanting more? What does that say about other areas of the relationship and how does that play out in your sex life? This exercise will begin to open up those questions, so please be patient and gentle with each other and yourselves. Having mindful sex includes being mindful with each other’s lovely and tender hearts.
The first few times I practiced this exercise, I wanted to jump out of my skin. It was so uncomfortable to allow myself to soften and relax in my partner’s arms. My heart would start beating fast and my breath would become shallow. Over time, I became more comfortable relaxing while embracing. It just takes practice and lots of self-love and mindful soothing. Now Mindful Hugging is one of my favorite things to do.
I was always a very serious person, even as a kid. I was called a “little grown-up.” I remember winning an award in my early twenties. I was so serious in my acceptance speech that I came off as cold and ungrateful. I now know that I acted that way because I felt too vulnerable being expressive and joyous.
Sex was always one place that I could stop being so serious, but only to a point. I still wanted to do it “right,” and I wanted my partners to do it right. Whatever I deemed to be right, that is. There wasn’t a lot of room for playfulness and humor. Those were both luxuries that my checked-out self could not afford. As I integrated my mindfulness practice into sex, something marvelous happened. I started to play and have fun. The seriousness began to melt away as I softened into a less severe version of me. I like to say that I am getting younger and younger the older I get. There is a childlike wonder and joy that blossoms when you don’t take things so seriously.
When you are ready to bring your new body awareness into sex, remember to take it easy. There is no need to get super serious and bogged down with technique. If you go into it with the goal of “getting it right,” it will feel more like doing your taxes than having sex. There is no “right way” of having mindful sex. Allow some playfulness and lightness to enter the scene. Have fun!
Just like with mindful masturbation, I would suggest that you forego sex toys, fantasy, porn, or any other default turn-on when you start practicing embodied sex. You can always add it back in, but for now, start with getting grounded in your body. It may also be helpful to take orgasm off the table in the early days of embodied sex. We can get so focused on getting off that our body awareness becomes very limited. You might choose to have intentionally embodied sex for a set amount of time, treating it like a meditation. If, after that period of time, you want to pull out the vibrator collection and focus on the Big O, go for it. You may find that eventually embodied sex becomes the new normal, and toys and fantasy are just an occasional cherry on top.
Ideally, this is something you can share with your partner, but that isn’t always the case. If your partner is not interested in all of this mindful sex stuff, you can still try it out for yourself. If you find yourself feeling resentful that your partner doesn’t want to explore mindful sex with you, take a moment to turn the spotlight back on yourself. Where in the relationship are you resistant? Are there parts of the relationship that you don’t bring mindfulness to? How can you be more present with your partner? Of course, sometimes your partner’s resistance to mindful sex may be showing you that you have outgrown the relationship. Before making that decision, address all the ways you could stand to evolve. Take your time and do your best.
The only thing you really need to do to have embodied sex is to be in the body. Focus on your body before you start having sex. What does it feel like when you know you are about to get intimate? Explore the tingles and shivers of anticipation. Feel the earthy heaviness of your body, alive with longing. Notice how your genitals begin to throb or become warm with blood. Whenever you find yourself pulled into thoughts, bring your attention right back to your amazing body. Stay with your body as you kiss and touch. Stay with your body when you take safe sex measures. Sometimes when the condom, glove, or dental dam comes out we can check out a bit. Instead, let that be a part of the experience.
Stay with the body when giving or receiving oral sex. While I am a big proponent of open-eyed sex, it might be helpful to close your eyes during oral sex to focus on the sensations. As you become more comfortable residing in the body during sex, open your eyes and enjoy the view!
Whatever sex means to you, whether it involves penetration or not, stay with your body while you do it. If you and your partner are taking this adventure together, you can support each other. One way of doing this is to name the sensations you are feeling. By saying what you are experiencing out loud, you’ll help you and your partner stay focused on your bodies. It can seem kind of silly, but try it out. Use descriptive words and get specific about where in your body you are experiencing the sensation (I’m feeling a deep throb in my clit. I’m feeling a sweet shiver in my legs. I’m feeling a tingling warmth in my chest.) As always, there’s no wrong way to do this, so give yourself space to explore. If talking takes you out of your body too much, you may want to save sensation naming for later.
Get deeply interested in all the elements of sensation. Notice tingles, throbs, waves, heat or coldness, vibration, contraction, expansion, and undulation.
Direct your physical awareness to sensations of pleasure, without resisting any uncomfortable feelings. You may realize that you like something you never noticed before or that you don’t like something that you thought you did. If you discover that something your partner is doing doesn’t feel good, tell them. Express yourself in a kind and loving way. Focusing on sensations of pleasure is a great way to become more mindful during sex. All you need to do is really feel the pleasure of sex. You can focus your attention in just one spot, move from sensation to sensation, or expand your awareness over your whole body. Deeply tune into what pleasure actually feels like. Get present with each throb, each rush of heat, and each tingle. Focus on the sensations of touching your partner. Experience the movement of your hands on their skin, the feeling of their hair in your hands, the wetness of the sweat on their body. If you love the way your partner tastes and smells, take that in as completely as possible. You can start to experience not only your own pleasure more fully, but also the pleasure of making your partner feel good more fully. There have been times when it seems like I can actually feel what my partner is feeling.
Once you are really feeling the sensations of sex, start noticing the movement and change in the sensations. There is the movement of your breath and heartbeat. There is the movement of your partner’s body against yours. Soak in this flow of changing sensations. During oral sex is a good time to practice this concentration. Focus on the flow of pleasure in your body and on the movement of your partner’s mouth. Merge those sensations together in your awareness for a really connected experience with your lover. There is an endless flow of sensations in your and your partner’s bodies. Feeling your way into that flow is a way to enhance your pleasure and your intimacy with your partner.
Anytime you get pulled into thought or a sense of grasping, just come back to the pleasant sensations of sex. Remember: Orgasm is not the goal or the end of the experience. You don’t need to worry about coming too soon or taking too long. There is lots of pleasure to be had and to offer regardless of when or if you orgasm. Anchor yourself in your body and go along for the ride.
Use the tools of BASIC BODY AWARENESS to help you stay with the sensations that feel good during sex. You will find that there is much more sensitivity in the body. It may be overwhelming at first, so go slow and check in with yourself and your partner along the way. If you need to go back to mindful hugging to ground yourself, that’s totally fine. Let it be fun! Taking yourself too seriously can make it harder to be present and really feel what’s going on.
Bring these new skills into every area of lovemaking. That includes flirting, foreplay, kissing, and everything else. Watching your partner take off their silk tank top, or recognizing the scent of their cologne when they come into the room can create all kinds of sexy sensations. There are so many opportunities to enjoy the experience of your body while being intimate with your partner. If you don’t have someone to practice with, try it on your own. Use your body awareness skills to explore the experience of self-pleasure.
Talking and writing about the experience of embodied sex is a wonderful thing to do for yourself. This gives you a chance to integrate the mind with what has physically occurred. Consider doing a little check-in with your partner after sex to discuss your experiences. Think of this as a chance to express any discoveries or feelings that arose during the session. If you want to share something that didn’t go quite the way you wanted, be gentle. This is about collaboration, not critique.
Remember to be patient. It’s easy to get frustrated in the beginning of a meditation practice and that is true of learning to bring mindfulness into sex too. If the experience isn’t what you had hoped at first, you are not “doing it wrong.” You are learning a whole new way of relating to yourself and your partner. This requires lots and lots of love and kindness. As you continue to practice embodied sex, it will feel more natural and easeful. I always want to race to the finish line when I’m learning something new, so I know how that feels. Over the years I’ve gotten much better at being on the journey without asking, “Are we there yet?” over and over. Slow down and enjoy the ride.
An important insight on the spiritual path is that you are not your body. Your body is a part of what you are, but you are not reducible to it. As you sit in meditation and observe the plethora of sensations that arise and pass, it becomes clear that you are not those sensations. If you can witness them, you must be something else.
However, this is only one side of the coin. On the other side, you are deeply connected and one with your body and every sensation in it, no matter how small. Tricky, huh? Well, you’ll have to get used to this nondual way of looking at things. If you keep your meditation practice you won’t have to get used to it, you’ll just come to know it.
One way of thinking about enlightenment is this: knowing deeply that there is no self, but having the ability to manifest a self as needed. Part of that self that arises is your body. You have been gifted, at birth, with this fabulous concoction of cells, organs, bones, skin, limbs, and features.
Learning to let go of attachment to the body while at the same time caring for and enjoying the body is a worthy endeavor. When you no longer identify with your body as you, you have a freedom to more fully sink into the body and connect sexually. If you keep meditating, you’ll start to get a sneaking suspicion that you are not what you thought you were. You will see that you are so much more than a body. Follow that thread and explore it for yourself. But as you gain this insight, remember that it’s only one part of the spiritual path. Embodiment is equally powerful and enlightening. Everything you need for awakening—and for the best sex of your life—is right there in your body.