“Only the united beat of sex and heart together can create ecstasy.” 
                                                                     - Anais Nin, Delta of Venus
 
Breath. Sex. Connection. Fear. Arousal. Confusion. Love. Fantasy. Argument. Love. Rejection. Pursuit. Object. Closed. Joy. Repression. Fight. Kissing. Anger. Touch. No desire. Orgasm.  The many faces of the sexual experience, possibly an infinite list. While at UCLA, one of the mantra’s that we used and has stuck with me is “It all Belongs.” And really, until we meet this way of life straight on, we will experience suffering.
 
Sex and all it offers, is opening Pandora’s box. And we can think of Pandora’s box as offering it all and therefore it all belongs. The question about our sexual life to ask is how might I embrace all the aspects with kindness, resiliency, generosity, curiosity, and warm-regard, when the confusion, anger, rejection, lack of desire, no orgasm, affairs, etc., enter on the stage of sexuality. Might we find a way to have all the suffering sit before us and open up to it?
 
Sex in its most raw form is like fire, wind, motion, water, harshness, multi-dimensional, and transcendent.  Yet we want to harness it, capture it, tame it, and somehow fit it into our conditioning so we remain comfortable, untroubled, invulnerable. If the absolute nature of sexual energy with all it’s qualities is beyond such constrains, then our suffering is more about our methods of tramping this very powerful energy. 
 
Passion is defined as a powerful, strong emotion that is filled with love, desire, and even hatred and anger depending on the motive behind it. Emotions are physiological impulses that provide feedback on stimulus, either internal, external or both and have a half-life of about 90 seconds. Narrative feeds the emotion for better or for worse.  If raw sexual passion arises then, what are we feeding into this powerful impulse? Is it more frustration, anger, edginess, if so, we begin a cycle of supplying our sex life with kindling of dislike, contempt, resentment, hatred, for ourselves and our partner. Another story we have the potential to cultivate is just staying present to how it arises and stay with the felt sensations and ride these sensations like a surfer rides a wave. We may choose to imbue those sensations with some space and freedom and warmth. 
 
How we unite our mind to our body during sexual impulses/experiences, is how we will ultimately experience our sex life. The mind interrupts sex through the body’s impulses. How do you interrupt yours? If the mind is embracing the quality of love, then sex will be experienced in the body as love. If the mind is objectifying, judging, and conquering, then sex will be an experience of selfishness and dehumanization, disconnecting the mind and body from the raw form of sexual energy.  Alas, suffering.
 
Applying mindfulness into the sexual experience of our lives goes without saying, it is essential, necessary and fundamental to a deeply satisfying sex life. To the degree that we become mindful of our sexual impulses and allow it’s form to arise and welcome it all, is the degree to which our sexual experiences will transform our lives into authentic intimacy. In allowing our mind to remain present, open, loving, accepting, and empathic to what arise, we come home to life and our bodies. "When love expresses through you it first expresses as the body. It becomes sex. If it expresses through the mind, which is higher, deeper, subtler, then it is called love. If it expresses through the spirit, it becomes prayer.” - Osho

As we continue our investigation of the Four Balances (see link for previous blog explaining Four Balances), let’ examine how our cognition influences whether we are aligned with cultivating balance in thought or dropping into a dissonance and miserable mental state that arises with thought.
 
A slogan suggested from renown author and nun, Pema Chodron, is "don’t believe your thinking, don’t believe your thinking, don’t believe your thinking." If it’s true that we think about 50,000 thoughts daily and most of these thoughts are recapitulations from the past or futuristic thoughts, then we surely may want to adopt this slogan for the time being.
 
As a sex counselor there are few topics (maybe money being the other hot topic) such as sex that ignites mental states that are riddled with much intensity and density. While understanding our stories about our sexuality is vital to undercover it’s nature, the negative thinking about our sexuality is what needs transformation. If we could download our daily thoughts about our stories around sex, what would they be? Write it out. What is the story line? What would the title be? This inquiry is important to know. Because once we peer into the thoughts produced, we can see how it leads to mental states that plague our sexuality.
 
A recent exchange between a couple in my office, I’ll call them Jay and Karen, went like this. She shared what she thinks when he makes advances toward her. It goes something like, “I hate when he comes onto me like this. It’s always the same and he never asks me if I’m even interested. He just goes in for the ‘kill’ and I just give in because it’s too much of a headache to talk it out." Karen says this is at least 90% of the time what she is thinking. Jay shares his thoughts, “I know she doesn’t care about sex anymore and she always turns away from me if I try to kiss her. She seems like she’s just putting up with me. I’m usually thinking that she doesn’t really like me or sex, but because I want to have some closeness with Karen, I guess I look at this type of sex as something that may get us to be close.” Jay says this is what goes on for him in his mind almost 100% of the time.
 
They both said they knew the other person had those thoughts as they had shared them with each other at various times, but could not get themselves out of the habit of recapitulating the same story.  This is what I call a cognitive imbalance or cognitive dissonance. We often just let our thoughts run amuck and we don’t intervene on our own behalf to stop the storyline that we repeat over and over. I asked them what their deepest intention is for the relationship. They both agreed that they want connection, closeness, love, and to feel sexually satisfied. 
 
So how do we bring about a cognitive intelligence and resonance with our sexual partner? Check up on your thinking. Is it aligned with your intention or conative intelligence? If not, then we must change our level of thinking to a resonance with the Intention. Jay and Karen want to have connection. They’re ruminating thoughts are not in alignment so the first step is to create a new thought pattern that reflects connection. Instead of Karen assuming Jay is just wanting sex and pursues her to “get some,” she is practicing mindfulness of her thoughts and changing the story knowing that Jay wants connection and that he wants her to enjoy their sexual play together. Jay is doing the same thing. They are telling a new story that reflects connection and love and their sexuality is founded on these principles.
 
Quoting from Gandhi, "watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions." To watch our thinking requires mindfulness. It requires us to remain on guard, to be a custodian of our thinking is such a way that when we sway from a balanced emotional state we reel in discursive mind of rumination and negativity bringing it back to rest in calm and peace that is held with kindness, love, and connection. To finish quoting Gandhi, “ watch your actions; they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, your character becomes your destiny.” So begin to think kindly of your partner and watch how your destiny becomes that of kindness and connection.
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Imagine all the brilliant flashing lights displaying words like compassion, altruism, gratitude, love, and happiness. Imagine all the money moving through slot machines and gaming tables going toward education, healthcare, and the impoverished. Imagine all the shows having a theme about loving-kindness, compassion, enthusiastic joy, and equanimity. Well, if we are talking about Vagus as in the vagus nerve, then it’s for certain we’re talking about the same thing. Guess Vegas has a long way to go and probably why what happens in Vegas, will stay in Vegas.

Dacher Keltner at UC Berkeley, has devoted many years to research on the vagal nerve and what is now called the nerve of compassion. The vagal nerve is a nerve that originates in the brainstem (lower brain, unconscious area) and runs through many visceral organs including the heart. Studies find that the stronger the vagal tone, the more compassionate one is. It is suggested that high vagus nerve activation in a resting state, promotes altruism, compassion, gratitude, love, and happiness.  

This helps explain that during compassion meditation one feels the ever expansive and warmth in the chest region. This nerve, known as the rest and digest or tend and befriend nerve, is responsible for that activation. This part of the nervous system is our relaxation response and not only reduces heart rate, but also reduces inflammation. Inflammation is the beginning process of any disease, be it depression, insomnia to heart disease and cancer.

Studies show that meditating on compassion shifts resting brain activation to the left hemisphere, specifically pre-frontal cortex, which is the seat of happiness, biologically speaking. Oxytocin, coined as the trust hormone, also activates this nerve as if priming for compassion and helping relaxation.

As we practice mindfully with compassion meditations, we are showering our bodies with great benefit, which is a kind and loving act of self-care. As we send compassion out for the wish to alleviate others afflictions, we are still receiving great benefit.  Jon Kabat-Zinn provides this reminder, “In Asian languages, the word for 'mind' and the word for 'heart' are the same. So if you’re not feeling mindfulness in some deep way as heartfulness, you are not really understanding it. Compassion and kindness toward oneself are intrinsically woven into it.  You could think of mindfulness as wise and affectionate attention.”  ​

Amelia Earhart set out to circumnavigate the globe in 1937 and disappeared over the Pacific Ocean. In her decision to take this flight said, “decide whether or not the goal is worth the risks involved. If it is, stop worrying.” She left a legacy representing courage, determination, and following her hearts passion. Maybe some of you, like me, have taken to voyages that seemed risky and confronted the place inside our heads that threw stones at such a possibility.  

The human spirit has a built in regulatory system that has the capacity to conquer such fears as sky diving, learning to fly, climbing a mountain peak, or taking a trip to another country. Such experiences open life in ways that if not done, we wouldn’t be who we are today. But what about the risk of day–to-day circumstances of our lives that present themselves over and over only to be shut down, shut out, refused.  We close to the vulnerable moments, keeping our hearts closed.

At times, I witness this in my office as patients struggle to get in touch with their vulnerabilities. Discussing sex is like opening Pandora’s box. It’s not about the sex per se, but about what gets in the way of actually being present to body sensations, feelings, and thoughts just as they arise in any given moment. The “what’s getting in the way,” or fear, is that difficult place that feels like the plane will probably go down in the pacific. Or the paper tigers that seem real, which as fear spells, False Evidence Appearing Real.

Researcher, Brene Brown, in her pivotal work on the courage to risk being vulnerable, says that vulnerability is the core, the heart, the center, of meaningful human experience. How desperate we are to be seen and heard, to be noticed as valuable and worthy. Yet more than not, fear hijacks life’s experience of living wholeheartedly. So much of our conditioning as a child until this moment keeps us locked into modes of fear, shame, guilt, unworthiness, etc.; so why even leave the runway, right?

Making the decision to act on the calling of our hearts and risk vulnerability seems the only real and true option. And with gratitude and appreciation, I bare witness to hearts opening to their stories, to their tears, to their need to be loved and held. I know in those moments of space and time that the universe changes in some very magical way. This space is wide open, like the sky Amelia flew in with the vast ocean below her. These moments of wholehearted expression feel like the open sky and vast ocean. 

That is what our hearts have to offer. This is where vulnerability leads. Sometimes we may not land where we’d like, yet the experience of being in a field of such expansiveness makes it all just fine anyway. I would say when we risk vulnerability of the heart, it’s the experience of the flight that really matters anyway.  As Amelia says, "the process is it's own reward." May your heart take wings so you may experience what I’m certain Amelia experienced as she encountered the great expanse of the sky and ocean.
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Just take this moment and check in with your day so far. Since your day began, how many thoughts have you had about what you want? How many about what you don’t want? How much of the wanting is about getting an object of desire such as a new job, relationship, sex, food, clothes, house, car, etc., fill in the blank. How much of the not wanting is about the exact same things? 
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Like a Tasmanian devil, we are frantically seeking endeavors that consume our time and energy on gaining something, getting pleasure, improving our status, and getting approval. Yet, we can also assess that these same conquests bring pain, loss, disrepute, and attack.

The Industrial Revolution changed our lives, yet most of our desires began to revolve around acquisition of “things.” In the late 1880’s, Sears and Roebuck started mailing consumer good catalogues to customers. Their motto was “Don’t be afraid to make a mistake” because there’s a money back guarantee and these "things" could be returned or replaced. Catalogue advertisers spent approximately 90 million a year (2.3 billion in today’s dollar). Today, a whopping 100 billion is spent for online advertising alone.

At any given time, we have just about any possible desire at our fingertips, literally. Google anything your heart desires and within seconds hundreds of thousands of opportunities will present itself. If your desire is for food, check out how many restaurants offer delivery to your home so no need to go anywhere. If you want entertainment, it’s endless. Sex, check out pornography, or the 2,500 dating websites promising your soulmate. And, of course, shopping opportunities galore for clothes, appliances, books, yoga mats, shoes, cars, homes, etc. all awaiting a buyer.  And, in "The Giving Tree" as Shel Silverstein writes, “You may cut off my branches and build a house … then you’ll be happy," but not really.

The United States is one of the most unhappy countries on the planet despite what’s available to us. This “what’s next syndrome” keeps us seeking and hoping and fused with a “believable” reality outside of ourselves. Consider making your “what’s next” a pause. Slow down the process of getting, having, wanting, and craving and take note of what's present in those moments. Observe how the wanting is mostly tied into a very frenetic, panicky energy and the not wanting with aggression and discontent. 

There is a way of not falling into the trap of what’s next. Think of what’s been on your mind regarding a desire or some dissatisfaction. Now take it through this mindfulness exercise called RAIN (by Jack Kornfield):

• Recognize. This does require that we know we are doing this, so for now, consider a recent longing for something and bring awareness to your thoughts, feelings, and body sensations about this longing.
• Acknowledge. What is your awareness revealing in the form of thoughts, feelings, sensations.  With your breathe, just allow this to be as it is.
• Investigate.  With openness, curiosity, and nonjudgment, look at the narrative taking place in your mind. What story are you believing? What feelings arise in relation to this story?  What sensations emerge when you tell this story?
• Non-attachment or non-identification. See if you can drop the personal pronouns from the storyline.  The “I,’ “me,” “mine.” Let them go and allow your mind to rest with your breath, with simple awareness.

Next time you feel the urge to “get something” or “get rid of something,” practice this process. Happiness is an inside job. Rearranging the furniture, so to speak, is only an attempt to keep you away from what’s really going on inside. It may be that the new pair of shoes or ending the relationship or enjoying sex is the most authentic way to proceed. But until we pause and look at what our mind wants us to believe or not believe, then we will continue on the “what IS next syndrome” ride that produces more of the same – unhappiness.  

After the boy had taken everything the tree could give, it's leaves, branches, and trunk, the tree invited him to sit on his stump because the boy was an old man now and needed rest. Before we waste our entire lives on "what's next," rest now. Rest with ease and peace of what's now. Just as it is. However it is. Be mindful. Be authentic. Be happy …. and the tree was happy.
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