I’ve always been a high achiever, and I was always ambitious. I started making lists of what I intended to accomplish by a certain age. For the most part, I hit all those targets. I went to college and graduate school, where I got an advanced degree in speech pathology. I got married. I did it more or less on the schedule I’d set for myself – except that something felt missing once I had everything I wanted. I was always hard on myself, but I’d never let myself be angry. I was extremely conflict-avoidant. I thought if I could work hard enough, I could avoid conflict.
I was a teacher. One day, I sat watching a group of my ninth graders finishing an assignment, their heads down, their pencils scratching away. One girl looked up at the ceiling and gave this heavy sigh, and I felt that sigh deeply – and then realized, quite suddenly, that I was done. It was time to move on. I didn’t have any real connections in my life; I was going through the motions, doing what I had been taught and what everyone around me was doing. I needed to change something, and I needed to change it now.
That change didn’t come until after my daughter was born. There’s something about going through the crucible of labor and delivery that changes you, or at least changed me. I realized both that I could have easily died and that I was stronger than I had thought. As a mother, I began to look at myself differently. Motherhood convinced me I was tough enough to make any change I wanted. At first, I thought that that change was creative writing; Canada gives new mothers a full year off, and I decided to use as much time as possible to write a book.
I kept getting stuck. Twice, I started a novel and made great initial progress. The words just flowed. I hit a wall halfway through both times and had this awful writer’s block. I couldn’t finish. I couldn’t get around it or over it. The same thing was happening in my marriage. I’d lost all desire for my husband, and it frustrated both of us. It was like both my creativity and my sex drive were still there but walled off. I knew they were there; I could remember how they felt but couldn’t find a way to access them.
I confided in a cousin of mine. She was like my sister, the one I could go to when struggling. I was stunned when she told me about this practice she’d started, Orgasmic Meditation (OM). I was intrigued but scared – I didn’t want to do this with anyone but my husband. “It’s fine,” my cousin told me; “you guys can do it together.” My husband was willing to try anything to get us to reconnect, so he went with me to a workshop.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but I didn’t expect pain. My husband was a patient and eager stroker, but my first several OMs were overwhelmingly difficult. After a few minutes, I’d feel this sharp pain. All of this sexual trauma from my adolescence started to come up, the trauma that I was sure I’d worked through in therapy. All this pain came back into my body, and I wanted to stop. I got angrier and angrier as my husband continued stroking my clitoris. Yet, somehow, we found the strength to keep going.
I could sense something was unearthing from underneath the pain. I felt my face getting redder and redder, and I had this intense visualization of everyone in my life who had told me what to do, and I was standing in front of them, screaming in their faces. A moment later, I had the most powerful climax I’d ever had. Before this one, my climaxes had been muted by comparison, as if I was in fourth gear instead of fifth. This one was full and explosive, and I felt this wave of release and euphoria wash over me.
My husband felt the same thing. He’d been feeling the pain with me and had come very close to stopping, but he had trusted the process. He told me he’d felt this energy come up through his hand and into his chest, and up to his throat. At the same time, we felt the wall between us come down. We’re a rational, educated people. We don’t fall for hocus-pocus. But this worked, like nothing else has ever worked, to connect us.
A single orgasm didn’t change everything, but the Orgasmic Meditation practice has. It was OM—Orgasmic Meditation that got me out of the rat race and helped me get a better work-life balance. I get time with my kids, and I make far more money than I did before. Even in tough times, I find a way to thrive. I still work hard, but the thriving comes from a magnet inside me. Orgasmic Meditation brought down the walls and opened my heart, and I’m not the only one who can feel it.
I remember when I was in a business meeting in New York and had OMed just that morning. I walked into this meeting and could feel myself buzzing and throbbing with energy. It was so intense that a couple of the men there had difficulty looking me in the eye. I wasn’t trying to intimidate; I was just so fully alive. After the meeting, when I returned home, I heard how impressed everyone had been by my presentation. “We had no idea you were so knowledgeable,” I was told. (“I’ve always been that knowledgeable,” I said to myself; “I just couldn’t show you.”) I landed this significant deal, and more deals have come out. I have no doubt where that success comes from. I walked into that meeting prepared, and that preparation started with Orgasmic Meditation.
Every time I practice, it reorients me toward creativity and flow. The blockages are gone. I, my family, my colleagues, and the world benefit. I just have to remember where all this comes from.
