During my ten-year marriage, my husband and I only had sex once or twice a year. He didn’t seem interested, and when I asked him about it, he would verbally bite my head off. So I lost my voice and completely shut down anything below the neck.
My career wasn’t going as I’d hoped, either. I was struggling to make ends meet as a freelance writer. A mentor shared the book Slow Sex with me. When I looked at it, I said, “No way.” I think I was afraid that if I looked too closely at my marriage, it would fall apart. What I didn’t acknowledge was that it already was falling apart. Within a few years, we were divorced.
I signed up for some courses based on the Orgasmic Meditation (OM) philosophy, but I was still unsure about trying the practice myself. Yet the Orgasmic Meditation - OM women I was meeting seemed to have access to a level of joy and radiance that I deeply desired. So I devised a plan: I’d convince my sister to OM so she could be that woman for me. I set up a coffee date with someone I knew who OMed to evaluate whether the practice was right for my sister. At some point, the woman asked me, “What do you want?” I said I wanted sisterhood with women who were vibrant and alive. Then, she asked the obvious question: “Why don’t you learn to OM yourself?” She repeated the question: “What do you want?”
“I want to be free from whatever’s stopping me from doing this,” I said. I knew I needed to turn towards my nervousness, not away from it. So, I decided to try the practice.
During my first OM—Orgasmic Meditation, I was so nervous my hands were sweating, and I couldn’t feel anything in my genitals. At the end, when we had to share frames—a moment we remembered from the experience—I just said, “I’ve got nothing.” And he said, “Thank you.” And that was that. “It wasn’t that bad,” I thought. After that, I made a commitment to OM on a regular basis. Gradually, I began to feel more, and the sexual desire I’d pushed down started to awaken. Asking for OMs and learning to treat the response as value-neutral also helped me become comfortable approaching guys who interested me and saying, “I think you’re really handsome, and I’d like to spend time with you.”
Working through my struggle with asking for what I wanted during OMs helped me realize how hard it was for me to say what I wanted in other areas of my life. One OM partner didn’t seem to pay attention when I asked for adjustments during the OM Orgasmic Meditation. At first, I figured I wouldn’t OM with him again. But then, I realized I needed to speak up. When I confronted him about it, I learned he was actually hard of hearing. So, it was up to me to either repeat myself or be louder if he didn’t hear. I saw how I’d shortchanged myself in so many places by making myself small and not asking for what I needed. I also learned a huge lesson about the benefits of connecting with people when I’m in a conflict instead of pushing them away.
Once I started OMing more regularly, an influx of work began to flow in mysteriously. My newfound success was not a mystery when I thought about it. Orgasmic Meditation had trained me to slow my brain down and just feel, and I was applying that skill to my work. When talking with clients, I’d speak more clearly and confidently about how I edit. The bosses I freelanced for started noticing that the questions I was asking and the pieces I’d pull from their stories were getting to places in their work that they had not seen before. Within six months of beginning to OM, I got a big promotion to become the editorial director for a book company. This practice has allowed me to create a life beyond my wildest dreams. Now, I not only have a sisterhood of vibrant, supportive, expressive women – I’ve become one myself.
