I was born and raised in a very beautiful part of Germany. My parents were self-made and successful, and my conditioning was very much oriented toward being successful and a man who can provide for a family. That kind of social programming took me into repetitive, machine-like thinking that was not easy to break out of.
Before I found Orgasmic Meditation, I worked as a photography assistant with a world-class photographer in London. I was already fairly successful and had my name in magazines like Vogue. I also had a severe alcohol addiction and smoked weed. My life was simply a loop of very intense work and then every night coming home and easing the pain of the whole experience with intoxicants. I was starting to realize that a successful life, as I had designed it, would slowly cave in on me. Following a path to happiness through success would always keep me far from home, tied down to big cities and places where the fashion industry thrives. The more I worked, the more I realized that there was a certain dullness to the industry itself. I would never quite find what I was looking for warmth and connection.
I was very confused. I didn’t know what happiness meant. I was missing my family, and my girlfriend, who I’d been seeing whenever I could on weekends, had broken up with me. I think I was living in the endless hope that I would be happy and successful one day. But at that point, it wasn’t happening, and I was looking for a solution. I was looking for a way to change my life, and I learned about Orgasmic Meditation (OM).
My first OM was with a woman that I identified as the most similar person I could find to my ex-girlfriend. I guess I was looking for someone who would fit that same box. I was nervous and excited. Fortunately, she was an experienced strokee, and I felt very safe and approved of her. I still remember the texture of her skin, the hairs on her skin, and a certain blush on her legs.
At first, I felt entitled, thinking I was doing it better than most men. It was a kind of condescending one-upmanship with all other men. I think sometimes a spiritual practice does increase the ego for a while!
I soon understood that the container was very important. It became very clear that there was a very specific way that my partner wanted to have my attention and a very specific way the container needed to be set up—the pillows and the blanket—so she could feel safe and let go. As I understood what made my partner feel safe, that intuition translated into almost everything I did with her.
But the container is the outside work. Then, there’s the inside work, which is the stroking itself. During OMs, it seemed like I was only doing the same thing repeatedly: up, down, and down, up on the same spot. But other things constantly needed my attention: pressure and speed; speed and pressure are very important. At each moment in an OM, these things can change. When they do, I start feeling where my partner is emotionally and react accordingly, paying particular attention to the feeling component between my partner and me. Over time, there is a syncing-up process of thoughts, ideas, environment, and expression.
OM helped me realize that my emotions are connected to my partner. I feel so deeply connected that I’m pretty sure what I’m feeling is what the other person feels. That realization is very, very powerful. Then, the frame my partner gives afterwards can confirm to my logical-thinking mind that what I’ve just experienced was not just my imagination. It’s immediate feedback.
I have used that tool to develop emotional intelligence in all sorts of relationships, whether in my business, family, or romantic partners. It has improved my life all around because I can communicate my emotions, which are my well-being, and share my feelings in a way that other people can understand.
A great example happened when my fiancé and I planned our big wedding in Germany.
We had developed a way of speaking emotionally with each other, and I got to experience what it means to translate from an emotionally connected language into a language a service-based provider could understand. We were in a flower shop, and I listened to her and translated her vision to the German flower lady. At one point, we started talking about ribbons, and my girlfriend, who doesn’t speak German well, couldn’t get her point across. I just had a mental image of how she wanted the ribbons to be bound with a particular cross-woven style with two colors interwoven, and so I explained it to the shopkeeper. The florist created a test piece that was just what she wanted. My fiancé looked into my eyes and said, “You knew perfectly what I wanted before I could even say a word about it.”
If not for Orgasmic Meditation, this situation would have played out much differently. Led by pride, I would have had some fancy idea of what this flower bouquet should look like. If it wasn’t what she wanted, that would have frustrated me. I probably would have gotten into a fight with her, trying to convince her that because I am an artist, what I think is stylish, cool, pretty, or something is right. I would have been very prideful at that point, and it would have turned into a disaster. Instead, because of our work together with OM, this beautiful, sublime moment of connection and wordless understanding brought us closer.
Orgasmic Meditation has affected not only my relationships but also my art in a very similar way. Before OM, my art was driven by what I thought could be successful. I would lean into trends and into what other people did. I still always had a very strong sense of my creativity, and I would create projects that were beyond all of the norms, but I would struggle with constant self-doubt and self-criticism, worrying that the art I had inside me wasn’t good enough. I would constantly try to bring it closer to the norm so it would be sellable. OM helped me see that this approach wasn’t making me happy anymore. It helped me draw a line, start from scratch, and, just like in an OM, create my container around my art so that it could be free and enjoyable.
The grounding step inside the Orgasmic Meditation (OM) practice is the moment where I become fully present in what is. I use that a lot as an analogy for life. I need to create that in my everyday moments to feel safe, grounded, and present. It has taken me a long time to learn to do that, but I am on my way to creating freedom in my art, business, and life.
