by Samantha Fowler
My relationship with my ex-husband was a traumatic, brutal exchange – for me, emotionally equivalent to violation on many levels. In order to relearn healthy intimacy and enjoy touch again after my marriage, I had to learn to feel safe and to strip away the myriad protective layers born of that trauma. Orgasmic Meditation gave me that safe container to heal in. It was a place to cry, to feel again, and to shed the numbness I had developed. I learned to unfreeze. With the help of OM, I have discovered joy in touch, and I have begun to heal the scars of my former marriage. I have also become more reflective, aware, and in touch with my feelings and desires. I stopped drinking, I lost 40 pounds, and I found a loving partner. Now, I possess a sense of liberation that comes from feeling grounded, safe, and aware.
For years, my husband’s volatile personality often meant that I had to use my body to calm him down or to barter for his engagement in our everyday lives, like chores or spending time with the kids. Physically, it was brutal and painful, and emotionally, it felt transactional and violating. Needless to say, authentic desire was no part of the equation for me. After our separation, I knew I had to heal, both physically and psychologically. Therapy and medical attention helped some, but it was OM that really helped me feel safe again. Safe enough to be touched. Safe enough to start to enjoy it.
I started OM about six months after my separation. I had heard about it before, but I needed time before I could even consider having a man touch me again. I cried during my first few OMs just from the sensation of being touched in a soft way. Right away, I could feel the safety of the container. When I was learning, I heard that it was normal to cry during OM. Just hearing that was important for me, because the crying felt integral to the process. The tears I shed during those early OMs felt as if they came from my womb, bringing with them all this heat and warmth. Eventually, I started being intimate with men again, and sometimes the tears would come then as well.
Keith, the man I’m seeing now, was my OM partner from the beginning. My healing process required me to OM regularly, and Keith was a supportive partner the entire time. He helped me through layers of trauma and healing that I had to address through often painful OMs where I would scream, groan, and growl. I was trying to find my voice again, to be heard. And Keith heard me. He witnessed what I went through and felt it with me, and for those 15 minutes, I felt safe letting it all out and allowing myself to feel again.
Allowing myself to feel again that’s what I was really doing. I call it unfreezing. I’m usually quite upbeat, but during my marriage, I was in survival mode, unwilling to acknowledge the emotional pain I felt. Letting myself really feel these negative emotions as they came up was a key part of my OM experience.
Once I learned to feel these things, I could also stop the numbing behavior. I used to numb my pain with food and alcohol, but after finding OM, I stopped drinking, and I lost a lot of weight. Now, I feel so in touch with my body and so aware of my own sensations that it’s easy for me to stop eating when I’m full.
OM has given me access to a wide range of feelings I had previously ignored or suppressed. Sometimes, I feel a smoothness, a softness, an exciting jolt of energy, or a reassuring grounding. The more I OM, the more I feel the layers of protection and façade melting away, and the more I am able to reconnect with my desire. I unfreeze. The desire for sex – which I had suppressed and turned off for years – resurfaced. The goalless stroking of OM, bounded by the container and the hard 15-minute cut-off, let me explore and examine that desire as it came out without being concerned about climax or reciprocation.
These days, Keith and I incorporate what we learned from OM into our own private lives, which gives me a wonderful sense of safety. Sometimes, we’ll create other temporary rules and boundaries and play within them, like “Tell me everything you want for five straight minutes.” Other times, we will use the noticing step to get more out of the experience by asking, “What’s the sensation? What do you feel?”
I like that either of us can say “no” at any time, and the response from the other is always “thank you.” He honors my desire, and I honor him, but there is never any debate or question if one person doesn’t want to engage. Sometimes, we schedule our time together like an OM, but neither feels any obligation if we back out. He always asks before he touches me, and if I say no, he asks what I want.
OM has given me the freedom to connect physically through a wide range of emotional overtones – all with a feeling of safety and respect that gives me confidence in my ability to play, explore, and connect with my own feelings and sensations. The sense of awareness and connection I have attained through OM is invaluable. It has helped me heal the wounds and trauma of my former marriage, guided me toward a loving, respectful relationship, and given me a sense of awareness and groundedness that has transformed my life.
