Preparation for a Spiritual Sexual Practice

Spirituality is an all-encompassing thing, and no where is it potentially more badly needed than in sexuality in Western Society. At somewhere along the line, sexuality became a shameful act. I don’t know when, and I have no interest in speculating as to why or blaming anyone else. But what I do know is that sexuality is as much a part of us and this world as anything else. Not only that, but it is vital to the human race and most creatures on the planet for sustaining their species. With that said, I encourage you towards embracing your sexuality, and in this post in particular, I’ll be talking about how to prepare your heart, body, mind, and spirit for a regular spiritual sexual practice.

Getting to Know Your Own Sexual Space

The sad truth is most people don’t really know their own sexual space. They may have vague ideas about what is pleasurable, a bunch of romantic ideas from their upbringing and the media, and a whole lot of expectations about what a partner should give them. They, generally speaking, don’t own any of their sexuality. When I say this, I mean they don’t really understand it nor how it works. How things come to orgasm or do or don’t feel good is kind of a wild mystery, and whenever someone finds a partner who doesn’t give them what they think they should get, they blame that partner and move on. This is why having your own personal sexual practice is so important. If you don’t even know your sexual space, how can you really expect anyone else to understand it? I think some people get a little lucky with a really good partner, but until you go into your own space to really see what you’re carrying around in your sexual space, you won’t even scratch the surface of what is possible in terms of pleasure, healing, union, love, and even enlightenment.

Setting Aside Time for Just You

Because masturbation has been a dirty word in this culture for sometime, it may seem strange to set aside time just to be sexual with yourself. I guarantee you that it is worth it, and it is equally as spiritual as meditation. However, in this space, I am encouraging you to focus more mindfully on your sexuality. Too much of the mindset of masturbation is into just getting off or achieving climax. But there’s a lot more going on in this space than just that one moment. Once again, we have to see what the ego is up to, and more often than not, it’s drug down here a whole bunch of nasty stories. Those stories range from “I just what to feel good” to “I’m totally ashamed of my sexuality” to “I should have a partner for this.” All of these stories get in the way of the deeper union that is possible for you.

Which is why you will probably need your journal near by. Every time a thought comes up to dissuade you from this sacred practice, you’ve got something else to write about. You’re going to find a lot down here too. Shame, anger, self-hatred, and a lot of stuff has gotten stuck in sexuality. It can get so bad that some people can’t orgasm (Often this is the case for women, but this happens to men as well). So here you are in the midst of this beautiful and highly-pleasurable practice, and you’ve hit a wall. It can be a little demoralizing at first, so this is why having a practice is so crucial. It helps you to be with what is going on and begin to let go of judgment around it. So many things may come up for you on your own that that is also why having your own practice is so important. You can’t project these issues onto anyone else in the room. You and you alone are responsible for them.

Cleaning Up Your Inner Space

This practice may be highly illuminating. If you’ve had trouble with intimacy in the past, you may suddenly start to see some of the blocks and issues that you brought into the bedroom. It doesn’t relieve your partner of any of his/her issues, but it does start to help as you take care of your own. Bedrooms have been warzones, it’s sad to say. People bring a load of their issues, expectations, and pain into the room, and then they expect intimacy to just happen. A lot of the time, there’s a bunch of inner healing that has to happen first. To do that means you have to go right into a highly vulnerable place (and ironically, a lot of people are avoiding being vulnerable while having sex…go figure). With the right partner, there are all kinds of healing possibilities, but as I said, it’s often easier to start with yourself.

Furthermore, I also want to debunk this idea that you can’t have great sexual experiences until you find a “great partner.” If anything, deepening a spiritual sexual practice with yourself will start to show you the ENORMITY of the pleasure that is already locked inside of you. But you have to dig it out from underneath the pile of karmic crap and misery that it is buried under.

Spiritual Sexual Preparation Tip #1: Stretching or Yoga

The body carries everything. Every good, bad, and indifferent experience of every kind is in there. It also gets locked into certain habitual movement patterns. This can stiffen the muscles and breakdown the natural flow. Before you go into your self-pleasuring phase of your sexual practice, do some yoga or stretching beforehand. You can do it immediately beforehand for maximum effect, or you can just set it up as a regular practice in general, which is always good. The point is not about contorting yourself into some ridiculous pose while self-pleasuring. The point is to open the body to the natural conduits of blood, breath, and energy. The more those things flow naturally, the more the orgasmic energy that you release can flow and go where it needs to go inside you.

Spiritual Sexual Preparation Tip #2: Journaling

Before and after and heck, maybe even during, your journal is a great way to divest yourself of shame, anger, and other upset emotions. Many of you may not be happy that you don’t have a partner or that you don’t have a partner who can journey with you into this kind of spiritual sexual depth. I’d start there. I’d start by working to let go of that idea and to see what that idea is really about. What is it promising to you? What better experience do you think you could have with a “perfect” partner? I’m sure the ego idea is that with the perfect partner you’d be locked in endless seas of ecstatic and embrace all the time.

Are you laughing yet? Just writing that last line probably shows you the ridiculousness of the idea. No releationship–sexual or otherwise–stays in just one state of being. And as you can see, here is the power of our writing. When you journal about something, you really have to look at it and see what it is about.

Spiritual Sexual Preparation Tip #3: Meditation & Breathwork

Some meditation before your personal sexual practice and some light breathwork are great ways to get in touch with what is going for you. You may journal after doing it before going into your practice if a lot of issues come up. The idea is to clear the way of enough stuff in the heart, body, mind, and energy to really release fully into your sexuality. In so doing, you may hit a new layer of issues that are getting in the way. This starts the cycle of healing and releasing again. But this is okay. It is to be expected. You may also be able to release more deeply into depths of pleasure you did not know you had. The depths of your own pleasure are mind-shattering, and until you really delve inside yourself, you really don’t know how much you have to offer to yourself or to a partner. It truly is a game-changer. Because as you own all this pleasure in you, what you want in a potential sexual partner will greatly change.

In saying all that, some gentle breathing all the way down into your low back and belly during a 15 to 30 minute meditation can be a great preparation to drop into new layers of your sexuality.

Creating a Healthy Sense of Sexuality

I encourage you to think of a personal sexual practice and a partnered sexual practice as two equally important aspects of healthy sexuality. So look at all your assumptions that may resist such an idea and see where they coming from. Assumptions are as bad as locked up muscles. They get in the way of allowing the experience to flow and to happen. Not all spiritual sexual experiences are mind-blowing euphoria. Many will be calm and mild in nature. Others may bring up things that require a lot of healing. Orgasmic energy is also very healing in its nature. At the heart of the matter, it’s all your energy. There’s nothing particularly etheric about it, and for those of you who aren’t really sensitive to “energy” around you, I’m sure you’re still really sensitive to energy inside of you.

But to really feel all of it and to flow in the depths of it, you’re going to have to get out of your own way.

Allowing the Experience to Be What It Is

I’d encourage you to keep letting go of expectations. You never really know what you’re going to find when you go down into this space. If you’ve avoided it or shamed yourself for it, it may take awhile. If orgasm isn’t available to you yet, then simply focus on loving yourself. Then do the work you need to do to face the ideas and the emotions that you feel blocked by. Never try to force your body to do something. Our bodies have been desecrated and maimed and shamed for too long. Gentleness is often the name of the game with a personal sexual practice, and you’ll be surprised how far it’ll take you.

With that, I encourage you to accept however your practice turns out. If you make this a daily practice, you may soon notice how different it is each time. You will learn a lot about yourself, and I encourage you to listen to what your body and your sexuality have to tell you.

Releasing Deeply Into Yourself and Spiritual Awakening

An amazing thing can happen here–well, a whole lot of amazing things can happen–but sexuality can also be a conduit to awakening. Moving all that energy through your system can spark something. Once again, there are no guarantees, but sexual energy is one conduit to a spiritual awakening. It’s something to consider, and it’s also another reason to appreciate the power of sexuality. It’s why I don’t talk too much about all the techniques that can be used. Too many people are being too naive about the power of a lot of these spiritual tools, and awakening the kundalini through sexuality will really turn your life upside down. As always, the spiritual path doesn’t take you away from pain and discomfort–it takes you straight through it.

But in going through the pain and issues associated with your sexuality, you will get to know more about you and the enormity of the pleasure and energy inside you. This energy–as I mentioned earlier–can be used for many things. It can spark creativity. It can create new life. It can heal you, and it can awaken you. Many opportunities are available to you in this sacred space, and I encourage you to step into the beauty of your sexuality to discover one of the most amazing aspects of being a human being.