Mindfulness

Transforming the Endgame

We know we have advanced into adulthood when sex is no longer about sexual activity but about erotic/affectionate energy.  Then the accent is not on a behavior that gives pleasure so much as on a loving force that shares it.

David Richo from the book When the Past is Present

This quote perfectly illustrates what I teach in the SE classes – that the main focus on our erotic play needs to shift.  In speaking with a potential client last week, I was struck by how much anxiety can be created in our minds, and our partners, around cumming.  Perhaps it is that one cannot maintain a hardon, or has a delayed ejaculation,  or gets hard slowly, or even that your buddy did but you didn’t.  There are many variations all concentrating on one single major event or goal.  Damn, that’s a lot of pressure.

Ease up guys.  Men need to change that, make erotic play more fun.  The way to do this is to take the endgame off the table - to create space so that sex isn’t about performance, a duality of either it’s good or bad sex, and make it more about play.  It’s a whole different way of thinking about sex with another man, less about proscribed movements that we saw in the latest steamy porn vid and more about having room for creativity and choices.  That way, no one has to “measure up” to some fantasized pornographic ideal of what a “hot” session should be.

I do not like to do anything that limits my choices.  I am the first one to rail against someone telling me I should do things only one way.  Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!  (Sorry Guys – that was one of my favorite obscure Charlton Heston references).  Ah, but I digress…….

For a lot of men it’s hard to imagine how to have sex that isn’t about “finishing.”  They have been having sex for years and doing it the same way, same for jacking off.  For me, good sex is where my legs are shaking and my whole body is vibrating not whether I’ve ejaculated load after load on his face or down his throat.  Energetically the feeling is exactly the same: spent, energized, heart open and sweaty – but with no cumming I do not feel drained of man energy.

And a little plug for this excellent book: David Richo, a psychotherapist in SF, explains about our projections and how they get in the way of a loving relationship.   It is about taking back our power so that we are more present in the present, not coming from some imagined past.  Check it out, guys.

So, please think about doing something different the next time you are getting sweaty with your man.  Think about changing the rules to make room for more play and less about the endgame.  You WILL discover something new about yourself in the process – that all that anxiety around sex has melted away.

Good Head

For something so small compared to the rest of our body, our heads sure try to take over and do most of the work.  This is where most of us get into trouble – allowing the brain to run the show, to call the shots, to be the default way of moving through the world, even to the exclusion of all the other data we absorb into our bodies.  This narrows down our perceptions to only what is ordered and orderly, to what can be controlled and manipulated.   When I picture this kind of somatic organization, I see a huge head on a little body, kind of like you see on South Park, all except for Cartman (he’s not fat, he’s big boned…..).

So how the hell did we get such big fat heads?  Often when there is an event, such as early trauma, abuse or even the death of a loved one, we lose the ability to experience the world fluidly.  For example, think back to when you were a young child.  When we meet the world we take information through all kinds of channels, not just our heads.  Watch a young infant for awhile and you will see them tasting furniture (for that matter just about anything that can fit will go in their mouth – some of us never left that strategy behind!!!!).   It is all about exploring, not just with our eyes but with our sense of touch and smell, and taste.  It is ALL about discovery.

So when the head takes over we become rigid in our thinking, less flexible in our responses to how we deal with the world, less able to handle what life throws at us.  In a real way, our world becomes smaller and so do we.  Kind of like Alice in Wonderland sipping the bottle marked “Drink Me,” we shrink to make the world fit our small way of experiencing it, through our heads, and not the other way around.  Our world is supposed to shape us, so that we can grow with it, we can expand our container (our bodies, our way of thinking) and then, in turn, shape the world.

So what happens when our minds take the reins?  We become ungrounded, fearful, less contactful (we lose touch with ourselves and the world), suspicious and untrusting.  Things often become much bigger than they are emotionally.  I suppose I am describing the Religious Right and the Republican Party, but I digress.  The Buddhists have a term for this – they call it Monkey Mind, a mind out of control, running amuck, taking over.

So how do we get ourselves out of this fine mess we got ourselves into, how do we take back some of the control?  Slowing things down is a good start, and honoring all the senses is another.  Our bodies are big ol sponges – soaking up all kinds of information from multiple sources.   Often our gut reaction is equally valid, and truer than our head evaluation of a situation.  At times, our sense of smell can tell us more about a person’s health than mere visual inspection; frequently this happens when I am working with clients doing bodywork.

Another way to develop and expand our container is to take some risks, like doing new things.   A different part of our brain comes online when we do this, new nerve pathways are set as we experience unfamiliar places and novel situations.  I believe this is a part of that “refreshed” feeling that happens when we take a vacation.   I wonder if it is all about getting us back to a infant-like state, back to the part of us that was open and excited about life, willing to put anything into our mouths and smelling everything we could.  Good Head, to me, is all about Good Body, meaning to experience the world we need ALL of us online.

UPDATE: Click here for an excellent article by Jonah Lehrer, called How we Decide, on what is actually happening in the brain when we do novel things like taking risks.

In-holes and Out-holes – The Holes We Long To Fill

TAKING BACK OUR STORY

I had a chat with a friend the other day about this very subject – no, not those holes, the metaphoric ones.  He’s in the middle of the Diamond Heart work, where the founder A.H. Almaas talks about the holes we live by.  By holes I mean that which we are continually attempting to fill up in our lives, that which drives us in the screen play that is our life, most often based in our early experiences.  Many of us rarely ask ourselves what influences us, what motivates our most enduring behaviors, as these are usually associated with what we perceive we lack, hence the hole. Most of these holes are formed at a time when we do not have the cognitive understanding to make sense of it, a non-linear, irrational perspective that can then rule the rest of our lives.

The key here is mindfulness, for it is the way out.  Awareness of what we need on a most basic level in our lives helps us out of the trap, sometimes called the trances we live by.  When we are living our lives with awareness we have choices – in trances we do not.  We are merely helpless actors in a poorly written novel – sure it has pathos but will there be resolution?  Will the hero transcend  his shortcomings?  With awareness we can look at the patterns of behavior we are continually living out in relationship.  Is it around contempt of the other?  Is it about loss (everyone always leaves me…), or engulfment (come closer, now go away….)?  Are we always trying to find space in relationship, or are we trying to merge with our partners?  Some psychologists believe these holes are all about our early bonding or lack thereof, called Attachment theory.

Once we are aware of our patterns in life and relationship, we then can take back our power and come out of the trances.  We then have choices and can ask for what we want/need, or even take some risks with another to challenge those beliefs we live out day in and day out.  This is the opposite of “being stuck.”  It is about taking back our lives, our script, not about trying to fill holes that can’t be filled. That way we can write that happy ending we dream about.

More of what I want for Christmas……..

In all of the craziness of the season, what with the buying and parties, the drinking and forced family get-togethers, it can be difficult to feel connected to others, let alone ourselves.  Most of the time our energy is moving out into the surround, deciding what prezzies to buy for that special man in your life, deadlines for mailing gifts, all leading up to the frenzy of the 25th of this month.  Yet, in all of this madness we can become disconnected from what truly makes us happy.  In Somatic terms, discovering and practicing things that make us feel centered and happy are what we call resources.

I reminded a client just this morning that he feels most connected to himself and much more available to others when he walks the dog in the park (or the beach);  this one simple act grounds him, and calms down the anxiety he feels.  What makes you more available?  No, I don’t mean a jar of your favorite lube, or a even a stiff Scotch.  What is it you do, or can do, to bring you back to yourself?

I’ve found that coming from a place of gratitude about all that we have in our lives increases our feelings of abundance and well-being.  In fact, this is one of the basics laws of the universe, something lost on the new generation of kids.  The younger generation, I’ve found, do not express their thanks as say the older folks who understand this basic concept.  When you increase your level of gratitude about all of the wonderful things you have in your life, you also increase the likelihood of it happening again (and again).  Do you see?  It is about an openness, not an, “I’ve got to get more” or “there’s just not enough in the world” attitude.

This truly is a time for thankfulness.  We have a lot to be thankful for – when we connect to our resources we become more available to ourselves and others, and when we connect to our gratitude for what we do have, we leave room for all kinds of good things to come into our lives.   Thanks for walking this path with me over the past year, for taking emotional and erotic risks, and for being open………..

In Gratitude and Much Love this Season

David