by Lissa Boileau
My mother brought me to Orgasmic Meditation (OM). She died in October 2015, and I found OM a year later. It was her death, though, and her memory, that put me on the path that brought me here.
I was very young when I made the choice to be different from my mother. It was so early that I could barely remember it; I only knew I wanted to follow a different path. My mother was a free spirit. She’d rejected the Catholicism of her upbringing and explored all kinds of different things. She was creative, open-minded, a hippie. For some reason, I found that repellant when I was young. I shied away from that feminine energy, and instead, I threw myself into a very rigid, conservative Christianity. I married a man I met at church and had children with him. My narrative was to be a better mother than my mother had been and prove that her way of living had been wrong.
When she died, I was shattered. We had just started to grow close during that final year of her life and had probably talked more in those 12 months than in the 12 years before, and I was so full of grief when she passed. In addition to all the sadness, I realized I was so far from living up to my potential. It was only her death that allowed me to really fall in love with her spirit. And I wanted to start to embody some of the characteristics of my mother that I had judged.
I was so tired of being a chameleon. I spent my days trying to be what my husband and kids needed me to be. I’m a nursing supervisor, so I had all these people at work who relied on me, too. All day long, I wore masks – and I had nowhere I could be fully myself. I just focused on making other people happy, which meant having well-fed and well-behaved kids, a clean house, and home-cooked dinners every night. My husband wanted a domestic woman who would serve him. I had tried so hard to be that, so unlike my mother. And now, I was done.
After my mom’s death, I reached out to a lot of her friends. They shared with me a lot of what had been meaningful to her. It was because of her friends that I started doing yoga and meditation. My husband thought these were demonic practices and was furious with me. I did it anyway because I had this sense of urgency I’d never had before. I needed to find these intuitive practices, and I started researching spiritual awakenings. Something had shifted in me with my mother’s passing, and I needed to make sense of it.
One of my mother’s old friends practiced Orgasmic Meditation, and she invited me to check out a workshop. At first, I was uncomfortable. I’d gone through a lot of growth by the time I walked into OM, but I was still mortified at the idea that what seemed like sexual things could happen with the lights on. Part of my discomfort was that I hated my body. I had scarring on my inner thighs from a breakout of boils. My pregnancies had left me with stretch marks on my legs as well. I loathed my own skin, and I couldn’t imagine exposing myself to someone else. Somehow, I found the courage to push through all that self-loathing and anxiety.
My first OM was a strange experience, unlike anything I’d ever felt before. It started in my genitals and then radiated up – I heard ringing in my ears and then felt buzzing in my hands. It wasn’t unpleasant, just so strange. Even now, when I remember it, I can feel my hands start to vibrate with remembered energy. In any case, I loved it from the start.
For a while, I felt like I lived two lives. In Orgasmic Meditation, I felt increasingly carefree and exploring my existence. I tend to throw myself into anything I get excited about, and I was absolutely committed to OM. On the other hand, I was still trying to live this life of devotion to my husband and the church, pretending to be a good Christian woman. It was an exhausting double life, and I couldn’t sustain it for long. My husband could feel my changes and was more attracted to me than ever before – but he couldn’t accept Orgasmic Meditation (OM) as a practice. We tried, but the gulf was too big. We split up in 2017, a year after I came to OM. Lord, I still wish he’d try it just once!
Just as it took me a year to leave my husband, it took me at least a year of OMing to start to accept my body. The idea of being naked in front of another human being with the lights on may seem no big deal for others, but for me, it was such a huge gulf to cross. At last, I got to the place where I could take off my clothes and lie down in the nest with confidence and comfort. Once I realized that I could do that, it was incredibly liberating. It struck me as something my mother would have done.
I continue to grow and learn in OM, but in my mind, I often go back to that very first one, the one where my hands started buzzing. It was like I climbed a mountain and came face to face with God. The vibration of my body, the vibration of my voice, the vibration of his stroke; it was all so perfect because it was so authentic and true. I’d waited so long to find something that felt so real. I hope I never stop being hungry for that realness.
As a nursing supervisor, I don’t know how I’d get through COVID without the tools of Orgasmic Meditation (OM).
I manage 30 nurses overall. About five of them are on the campus where I have my offices, and we do these regular check-ins together. As often as I can, I bring the principles I’ve learned through Orgasmic Meditation into those check-ins. The other day, we talked about the resentment that comes up for us when we ask for something from a coworker and don’t get it. So much of the problem is in the asking. Even in the medical field, where we’re taught to be direct and clear, many people have a hard time asking clearly. I told my nurses it’s important to ask each time like it’s the first time. It’s not about talking down to people; it’s about letting them hear what you need as clearly as possible. It’s a simple shift, but it can lead to huge changes.
Orgasmic Meditation gave me this connection with my mom’s spirit that I couldn’t imagine I could have. It’s healed so much from my past and brought clarity and confidence to everything I do. I’m a long way from perfect, but I’m a long, long way from where I was, and I’m grateful.
