Noticing | 7
New words!
We have spent a few weeks with these somatic words: Temperature, Texture, Weight, Movement, Interoception, and Proprioception.
I’m shifting focus to a new set of words, with the theme of erotic aliveness. Another layer of this practice is for me to notice what sensations are enlivening or pleasurable, as an intentional re-calibrating of the body’s negativity bias. Negativity bias is the tendency to experience negative feelings as stronger and louder than positive feelings. An intentional practice of noticing pleasure turns the volume up on sensations that are pleasant and resourcing.
This recurring series includes moments from my week that I noticed particular sensations, big or small, as a way to share with you about my week, and also to provide an example of what somatics even is. Enjoy!
Spark
I got excited about more plans for KinkFest, specifically how I am going to foster connections with folks while walking around the conference. It’s enlivening to anticipate new connections.
The sun peaked out from behind the clouds and I instinctively turned towards it and yelled out “THE SUN!!”
Magnetism
I cried listening to an episode of How to Survive the End of the World podcast with adrienne marie brown and Sonya Renee Taylor about moving towards a horizon of love from the current moment. This pulled on me, and I could feel the pull from the horizon of love creating this motion towards it.
I noticed this theme repeating itself through the week from other people speaking about how to respond to the current moment. Folks who run in different circles. I even parked behind a car wit a windshield decal that said “Love Is the Answer.” We have to move from and towards love.
Warmth
Felucia was particularly psychic this week and settled onto my chest for a nap right before I started to bleed at the beginning of my cycle. Then once I soothed myself with a hot water bottle, she chose to lay on top of that and share the warmth with me.
Melt
I had really good breaths this week that melted tension in my lower belly. I didn’t notice I was holding the tension until the deep breaths melted it away. This happened multiple times throughout the week, that a big deep breath melted away tension and the warmth of relief filled the space.
Savor
This week was a luteal week, which came with frustration about being overstimulated from the touch that is my go-to when I’m either trying to get myself off or have partnered sex. There are moves that usually just work, but this week they were sending my body into an uncomfortable, spikey, shocking, and overwhelming time.
When I gave myself permission to stop trying to chase these things, and carve out these same paths, my body softened, I stopped making orgasms another thing on my to-do list, and I savored the present moment. Snuggling and making out without a goal or a specific focus to achieve a certain kind of pleasure, actually created the space that I needed to open up, for my body to receive rather than tighten into overwhelm.
Even after all of these years as a sex educator, I still get to keep learning that the best way to have an orgasm, is to stop trying to have an orgasm, haha.
Afterglow
I was invited to make a video that may be included in the course material for the Institute for the Study of Somatic Sex Education, which involved filming my own Mindful Erotic Practice.
I had a really connective moment by myself, with rope, that was slow and not goal oriented. This came before the snuggly make-out that I savored, and I think actually made the space in my body that I needed to even realize that was the kind of partnered interaction I wanted to have. I focused on setting a space for myself where I wouldn’t be distracted by anything else, with specific lighting, and listening to music in my headphones. And then I just played, and could hear that my body wanted me to make time for it to just be, and not make my experience of play “another thing to do”.
When I came out of that session, I had a really yummy afterglow that lasted for the rest of my evening, and made it really easy to keep noticing to slow down into what felt good.
I am a being in the realm of somatic sex education, ancestral healing, erotic healing, kink, relationship anarchy, polyamory, geomancy, and a constellation of anything else you’ve seen written here. If you would like to work with me one-on-one in any of these realms, keep an eye on this space for an announcement when my books re-open.