Growing up, visibility was a big issue for me. All my life, I felt largely unseen. It was so bad that when I walked down a city street, people would run into me because they just didn't see me. I didn't like being invisible, but I didn't like being visible either. I didn't like being seen, and receiving compliments was impossible. I’d worked on this issue with a psychologist through different arts and sacred dance, and it had improved somewhat. But I still had little confidence and would chronically shrink away from people and withdraw into myself.
I heard about Orgasmic Meditation (OM) and was interested in it for years before finding out more. I had grown comfortable with being invisible; this practice was the opposite. It was actually a very persistent friend who finally led me to Orgasmic Meditation. I moved to Seattle, where a friend of mine had started her practice. She invited me to join a couple of intro events, and that helped encourage me to take a class on how to OM.
In my first OM, I felt like I was taking a huge risk of being seen completely in a way that doesn't normally happen. But the most frightening moment for me was not being physically exposed. It was the moment when the stroker did the noticing step. Much to my surprise and relief, noticing statements aren't judgmental, and I found them to be profoundly healing. Experiencing this neutral noticing of my genitals, everything just clicked and fell into place. I felt like I’d spent two years in traditional therapy just to get to the point of having that experience. It was that powerful for me. After that moment, my major work in Orgasmic Meditation involved getting used to being acknowledged without judgment—without good statements or bad statements.
It was such a huge shift being able to feel more, to be more present, and to tolerate being seen. A really big moment came one day, not long after learning to OM, when I walked out of a building and onto the street, and someone looked up and saw me. It was a man who looked at me and took me in. It was so profound. No one had ever done that before. Because I was no longer afraid to be seen, because I was no longer pulling my energy in, because I was being present in my body, suddenly people were seeing me, noticing me.
The next really big piece of the puzzle for me was connecting with sensation. There's so much we, as women, are not taught about our bodies. I was raised in a strict religious household, and body knowledge was taboo. After OM, I became really curious about sensation and what my body was feeling, how I felt things and why I felt them, and about my sexuality. I realized I had spent my whole life thinking about my body as a bunch of disconnected parts and pieces without ever connecting them in my mind very much. I had no idea that the female reproductive organs comprise a whole system and that there is a direct connection between the brain and a woman’s genitalia. It was really profound for me to acknowledge the kind of wisdom the body contains—wisdom that I'd been missing out on my whole life.
Understanding that I can be my full self out in the world and that I don't have to cut off my sexuality—that it’s part of who I am, part of my creativity, and part of how I connect with the world, all of which makes life that much more vibrant—was a profound experience.
As my acceptance of my body increased, so did my confidence. Simultaneously, my fear of doing new things decreased. Because I was no longer hiding parts of myself, I began connecting with people in a way that was more authentic. I experienced more ease in navigating social situations. Where before, I was unable to make changes and ask for things without a lot of anxiety and self-judgment, learning to respond and direct my strokers gave me the confidence to make requests of people out in the world actively. Now, day to day, I'm thinking, “What do I want? Do I want to ask for a shift?” in a wide variety of situations.
The more I release old guilt, shame, and judgment, the more uplifted I feel. For me, breakthroughs are easy to make with Orgasmic Meditation, at least twice as fast as using talk therapy. Physically experiencing releases and sensations in the moment and connecting them with other body sensations and insights is really powerful medicine. A lot of work happens within Orgasmic Meditation in an internal, nonverbal way. I’ve also found that journaling after each OM session pulls all the pieces together.
Making collages is a great way for insights to show up visually. After an OM session, I often journal before even driving home from my stroker’s house. I go to my car and write down all my immediate thoughts and impressions. Then I go home, sit down, and do a collage. Then, after a couple of weeks, I review my notes, look at the college, and really take the feedback in. It truly helps deepen the practice.
