It’s obvious when we’re actively giving in lovemaking, those moments when we completely lose ourselves in service of our partner, totally there for them and loving every moment of it.
And there are those delicious moments when it seems like you’re just flowing together, not knowing where one person ends and the other begins, and nobody appears to be giving, it’s just happening (called entrainment by the way).
It’s less obvious when we’re actively receiving, for 
men or women. It’s less talked about and a skill not often understood.
The experience of it can transform our lovemaking experience from ordinary to magnificent!
It’s a mindset firstly, an opening of your mind, a letting go of control and allowing whatever is happening to be utterly as it is.
Yet it’s not just passively laying there.
It’s having your mind fully engaged in the moment, actively breathing and feeling your sensations fully.
Letting go of any inner fear or resistance you might have.
Totally surrendering to yourself through your lovers touch.
Rising to meet your lover’s touch, with your lips, hands, breasts, legs or hips.
That’s the thing about surrender here- it’s surrender to yourself, not to your partner.
Although you automatically feel more connected to your lover as a result, and they to you.
Surrender to yourself can look like surrender to your lover but the internal reality is very different, for you remain connected to and safely in charge of yourself, trusting yourself that you will be ok in whatever happens.
It does not mean tolerating something that feels uncomfortable, but asking yourself the question of are you letting it in?
Can you move your body in a way that opens it further?
Can you breathe in the sensations you’re feeling, transforming them?
Can you open your eyes and let your lover see you?
Is there any resistance you can drop? Emotion you can acknowledge?
This can help us go underneath yourself into something unforeseen yet wonderful.
Expressing gratitude to your lover for the gift you’re receiving builds the connection and trust between you.
Sometimes surrendering invites activity, a rock of the hips, a surge of energy, heat, movement, coming from deep within.
At others it invites even deeper stillness, a sigh that opens into freedom, melts like wax in fire or expands into bliss with intuitive imagery of waterfalls, stars, mountains, earthly or spiritual beings. The potential is unlimited.
If what your lover is doing still doesn’t feel good, then ask for it to be changed.
Active receiving is one of the most precious gift you can give to both yourself and your lover as it opens not only the heart through the gratitude it brings, and the spirit through the acceptance it takes, but also the doorway to greater pleasure through the expansion it offers.
Give it a try sometime soon!
Breathing this openness through your body allows your sexual pleasure to become more full bodied as you’ve made room for it, for pleasure that you can then share with your partner, along with the openness that created it. Again, it’s magic!
blankness of the depression family (some may say it is underneath depression), it is profound nothingness. This is what the eastern mystics do so well, and whilst we might not need to rid ourselves of our worldly possessions and live on the road without money like a sadhu, a life of nothingness it does have much to teach us. If we can be OK with our experiences of nothingness we can let go of the endless need to get, to have, to do, to accumulate, to be and to achieve. Not that these are bad things in themselves, our lives are richer for them. But if they control us we are out of control of ourselves. And the way to find this control within is to be willing to be OK in our nothingness, to welcome it in as a precious gift and experience for a time and receive its profound healing. Just like the night sky can be a relief after the intensity of a hot, sunny day. So if you come across nothingness in your ABC practice welcome it in!
wonder of it.
Temple at Khajuraho which is covered with thousands of highly erotic sculptures, considered vulgar or pornographic in the west. A student of this temple must meditate on each erotic image until he has come to peace with the lustful desires it inspires before he is allowed to enter the vast space that lies within the temple itself. A lustful mind will imagine a real orgy going on inside these temples, even more sex than is depicted on the outside, when actually inside is the vastness of nothing, where true peace lives. This understanding allows us to no longer be controlled by sex, to no longer destroy love at the expense of lust.
favourite essence.
enough, getting rid of our thoughts, holding our body in the right way, getting our lovers to do A-Z in the right order for the right length of time in the right way…we can have a whole ritual of what needs to happen before we think we can go there. The trouble is all of this puts us in the opposite place to where pleasure happens- in our analytical minds judging what is or is not happening. What we’re looking for doesn’t live there. Controlling our lover in this way doesn’t allow them to connect with their own place of freedom either, further limiting the potential of your sexual space.
We can have a whole lot of shame that keeps our body numb to pleasure and saying YES to this part of ourselves helps us burn it away. Keep saying “I give myself permission to be sexual and love it” until you feel a shift in your body.
Spend a little time naked at home.
