We have become, over time, almost entirely intellectual beings. We navigate the world through the one sense that carries no physical sensation: eyesight. Eyesight is still a thought. It is still an image. We have desensitized ourselves from touch and smell and taste, and we have over-indexed in mind.
How we desensitized ourselves
We have desensitized ourselves from touch and smell and taste. We have over-indexed in mind. We should be proud of the body and its capacity for sensation, it is something we are designed for. Instead, we treat it as something to attend to once everything else is done. We are designed for pleasure, and we have forgotten that.
The true evolution we are looking for is one that makes us understand that the wisdom is in the body. The ability to really feel life is a sensorial experience, not a cerebral one. And there is a total lack of balance in where our focus is currently going.
We only ever learned to release
We have only ever been taught about sexuality in terms of reproduction and release. Sexual energy builds, and we release it. That is the only frame most people have ever been given. What Tantra and Taoism understood, and what I have found in my own practice, is that sexuality is our life force. It is the energy that we can create in our system. The only energy we can self-create. When you only ever release it, you lose what it could otherwise become.
Arousal is both mental and physical. Training the pelvic floor and edging during your self-pleasure practice helps cultivate physical arousal, even when desire is low. Your arousal and your pleasure are your responsibility.
"The limitations are constructed. The body does not have them. We need to want more, and to know that wanting more is available."
What creates the shift
Resensitization. A return to the body as the primary source of pleasure rather than the mind. Moving from releasing an itch to genuinely exploring what is available. When you feel more, it becomes very easy to stay present. When there is no sensation, it is very hard to stay there.
Pleasure is a really easy and fun way to be present, to resolve anxiety and stress. I think it is just the best medicine. And it is free. You can start exactly where you are.
Try this
As many of these practices require privacy, which might not be immediately available, I invite you to simply imagine the practice. Visualise, sensualise, how you would do this practice, and what it would feel like.
One moment of deliberate presence
I invite you to find a single moment today where you give physical sensation your full, undivided attention. It might be five minutes of slow touch with yourself, phone in another room, nowhere else to be. It might be a long exhale with your hand on your lower belly, noticing what is there.
Notice the quality of a single moment of genuine presence, how it differs from distracted contact. That is the body showing you what it is capable of when given the conditions it needs.
Let that be enough for today. Come back tomorrow. This is yours to return to.