Arousal of life...Come on, get turned on!

Arousal is a way to experience living, from the tastes we taste, to the smells we smell. We can choose to be acutely aware of these or completely tune them out. When we tune our senses out, life can become dull and bland. We then may seek to find experiences outside of our self to enhance and reactivate our self.

Looking outside for arousal leaves most of us feeling lacking. This empty feeling leads to more searching and more emptiness and we desperately wait for something to pull us out of our bleak existence.

As we become dulled to our senses we lose the ability to feel sensation, to hear sounds, see colors, taste things and to experience pleasure in our bodies as we once did. I believe we become depressed in this state. Sexual depression in the form of low libido for women and erectile dysfunction for men is seen as medical- I see it as spiritual. I see it as a lack of living in full arousal. Even further I feel we not only suffer from sexual depression but emotional and intellectual depression as well.

As humans we have the potential to be aroused in many different ways and through lots of different channels. One of the greatest gifts we have is the ability to experience life from a profoundly deep place, and living in arousal is the key to accessing those depths.

As children we came into the world in arousal of everything and insatiably curious. We lived for the moment of new sensations, reveling in how things felt, the texture in our hands, ears, mouth and anywhere else we could explore it. Intellectually everything was new and we expanded our minds almost minute by minute.

We looked at green and saw hundreds of shades as our eyes feasted on the sights around us. Our taste buds exploded in response to the food placed in our mouths, we were acutely aware of all the sound around us. Life was a delight to be engaged in.

When we hear the word arousal as adults we tend to limit this expression to our genitals. The genitals are usually the last place arousal is lost because of the evolutionary need to procreate. The arousal in this area of our bodies can be a joy or a frustration. We see it as joy when we have some way to celebrate it, as an annoyance when we are single or experience frustration when the sexual energy is stuck there.

When I am out on stage teaching to live in full arousal the question I get is how do you concentrate if you are running around horny all the time?

I am not horny all the time. I am in full-blown arousal all over and throughout my entire body. This is not a feeling I would ever want to get out of, or lose. I want to make it even bigger and bigger. I love living my life on fire, milking every ounce of each experience fully and completely.

Learning to move your sexual energy up out of the genitals and through your entire body takes all the frustration out of the crotch and leaves it freed up forcreativity and to live life fully engaged. One of the practices of Tantra is the ability to do this.

Sexual energy is potent and when used through our body it enlivens us in a way we didn't know was possible. We want and we need to live in arousal. Living in full body, unabashed arousal of all our senses can help us live a life that we truly experience deeply and in connection to everything around us.

Come on, jump on board, your arousal is free, fun and bound to raise some eyebrows!

How to:

Gather friends and/or a lover and some really yummy food. Get foods that delight the senses with color, smell and texture that you can eat with your fingers even if it's messy (that's more fun anyway).

First feast your eyes on the food, really drink it in, and use your eyes to notice everything. Then feel the food with your fingers, roll it, squeeze it, caress it, watch others have fun as well. Then feel it with your lips, top and bottom, inhale as you do this for maximum experience, touch it to your tongue. Before you put it in your mouth really desire it, breath your arousal up into your mouth, play, and laugh. Once you put it in your mouth really savor it. Use your whole mouth and tongue, feel the juices slide down your throat, breathe.

Repeat and let others feed you and you feed them. Make an event out of the whole thing.