“Sit down,” my husband said. I knew something bad was coming. “I’ve found my soulmate,” he said. For a millisecond, I thought this was his awkward way of trying to be romantic with me. And then it hit me – he was leaving. We’d been married for 13 years and together for a decade before that. I wasn’t the right one for him. I was devastated.
It took a while, but I realized he had been right: I wasn’t his soulmate, and he wasn’t mine. That was as much my responsibility as his. I had always had a hard time saying what I wanted or thought. That was true at work, where I paid overtime without asking to be compensated. And it was true in my marriage.
A typical Sunday evening with my ex-husband would find him watching a Star Wars movie for the 38th time while I’d be in the kitchen cooking. I worked more hours outside the house than he did and did all the work at home. I’d get irritated, but I hardly ever asked for help. And when I did ask, he would come in the kitchen, do a mediocre job, and then walk out before it was finished. I couldn’t find the words to ask him to stick with the task or adjust to what he was doing. I’d resent him and resent myself for being unable to find the words to tell him what I needed.
A few months after my ex left, another newly divorced friend told me about a practice she'd found called Orgasmic Meditation. She told me that as a result of having her clitoris stroked deliberately for 15 minutes in a meditation practice, she’d found the confidence to go and ask her boss for a raise – a raise he ultimately gave her. I was slightly scandalized. But I was also curious about Orgasmic Meditation (OM), and I did some searching online the next day. Soon, I signed up for my first workshop to learn about the practice. I took to the practice immediately but realized I had misconceptions about what it would give me. I was expecting the men in Orgasmic Meditation to flock to me, and that didn’t happen. For a long time, I was frustrated because I was looking for a healthy romantic relationship, and I figured why not with another person who OMs.
I eventually saw that I was being passive, waiting to be chosen by the right guy, as I always had. That dynamic wasn’t going to work anymore. I’d been so used to waiting to be asked out; what Orgasmic Meditation taught me was that nothing was going to change until I started asking for what I wanted. That was true in my work, too – I’d never stop working overtime if I waited for my boss to realize I was overextended. I had to name that for myself and ask to have assignments taken off my plate.
I learned to ask by making requests or adjustments to my OM partners. I got really good at verbally guiding my partner to exactly where to put his finger and how to adjust his tempo. Soon, I had no trouble being very direct with my feedback during an OM. After a while, some of my regular OM partners started to thank me – for being explicit about what I wanted. It took pressure off--they no longer needed to read my mind and do it right. They felt so much more effective, as though they knew how to win with me. We got what we needed most when I was open about precisely what I wanted.
The other thing that’s shifted in my life is that all of my senses are heightened. When I go for a run now, I can smell roses from across the street. If I stop to touch them, I can feel the softness of the petals and see the brilliance of the colors in a way I never could before. It’s like the perception dial has been turned up two notches in my brain. I’ve always loved cooking, and Orgasmic Meditation has taken my cooking to a new level. It’s inspired by something from deep within.
My housemates were the first to notice that something had changed; they always ate my food with pleasure, but their delight intensified after I got into Orgasmic Meditation. I don’t rely on recipes anymore. I tap into my intuition and find the missing ingredient that makes the food sing. I trust myself in a totally new way; from that place, I can ask for what I want and need. It's made my life so much richer and more fulfilling.
