Blissexology – Intimacy Beyond Sensuality

My calling for the last 13 years has been to train intimacy coaches worldwide to help people professionally with their intimate lives.

Travelling through surgery and illness in my specific field has been a true ‘blessing in disguise’ or what I call the ‘crap present’.

You know, at Christmas they have all of those beautifully wrapped, shiny-papered presents under the Christmas tree in shopping malls?

The presents are perfect. And empty.

The worthwhile present is the one that arrives on your doorstep that has a truly valuable gift, although it’s wrapped in a crappy and difficult experience.

There’s nothing quite like being unwell for an extended time, losing your libido and what feels like your identity as a sensual woman by undergoing complete surgical menopause in a month! It’s horrific.

Menopause generally takes three to seven years to adapt chemically to a completely new endocrine system for hormones, a changeover from the reproductive system to the maintenance system after fertility.

I knew my cervix, uterus and ovaries were going to be removed, which meant no more A-spot orgasm (anterior fornix erogenous zone, which is on the cervix) or intense physical orgasms that contract the uterus. I’d also enjoyed a two-hour orgasm which was life-bending within what it does chemically within my body, so having nerves and tissue removed was frightening.

These peak pleasure experiences weren’t all just within the clitoral classification of orgasm, so, although this major surgery was necessary, I was nervous about this loss.

Trying to discuss that with the doctor was interesting; his reply was that my clitoris would be intact, so he didn’t know why I was worrying!

My calling has involved the exploration of intimacy, connection and pleasure within the human experience, helping people find more of that comfortably within their relationship with themselves and others. On that path into Neo Tantra, and Taoist Sexuality I’ve personally discovered a spiritual awakening and 13 different types of orgasm!

My whole path with pleasure and womanhood felt as though it would change after surgery with regards to what would be possible with pleasure!

Having struggled to come out of the anaesthetic and being in high care was a deep and beautiful lesson I learned about intimacy and sensuality, when my husband of 28 years gently used Yin Massage on my feet and I fell deeply asleep for the first time after surgery.

This was an introduction to a whole new level of intimacy in relationship.

You see, we’d only used Yin Massage (a oxytocin-based skill set) to improve intimate pleasure and general conscious touch in our relationship. We’d taught this sensual technique to many couples and clients, but never used sensuality in a non-sexual and new intimate way to this extent before.

I’ve worked with healing sensual touch for many years and this was the deepest experience of being touched with love that I’d ever had, in high care, in a hospital.

For better or for worse in the true sense of the vow, became a gift of the present in that moment. It was truly sensual but not sexual at all.

We miss the opportunities to live a truly connected and sensual life when sensuality is always connected to sexuality, even though most of our marketing and belief systems see them as inextricably linked.

My second ‘crap’ present was realising that my identity is also deeply tied into my chemical experience of being human.

After surgery, the hormone replacements I was given in the beginning had severe side effects, so I became someone I didn’t know without this chemical balance in my body, grumpy, anxious, weepy, quiet and with no libido or sex drive AT ALL.

This absolutely terrified me as I thought about my work and how I teach people, how would I be able to authentically teach about regaining libido and exercises to improve pleasure if I myself didn’t want to engage with my partner?

Then we got a new prescription for hormone replacement and slowly, within six weeks  I started feeling like myself again and was able to do some gentle work on rebalancing and resetting my nervous system.

Again, the chemicals of humanity are real experiences! We are BODY as well as Mind and Spirit!!

This ‘crap’ gift, with no shiny paper, moved my husband and myself into a deeper learning, even after 28 years together, using techniques we already knew in a deeper and more profound dive into love and intimacy.

And the orgasms are back. They are different, deeper, more sensual and opening a whole new world of pleasure in our 50s.

It’s not true that deep sexual and sensual intimacy are only for the young and healthy.

You can find that right now, in your present, no matter how crap it may first appear!