Reawaken Sensuality and Self-Love

Take a moment to focus fully on your whole being, on how it feels when you are open, vibrant and alive. If that’s your present reality and you love yourself, congratulations! Unfortunately, some of us have lost that lovin’ feeling. Stagnation may have occurred in the wake of a physical injury, trauma, emotional blockage or simply years of poor nutrition and health.

Our bodies and minds get depleted, exhausted and need replenishment, including rest, rehydration, healthy diet and invigorating exercise to regain that self-love, explained family practitioner Katrina Miller, MD, of Adventist Health in Echo Park.

But take heart, hope is on the horizon. The self-love and sexual energy you crave can be found and sustained.

This journey begins with making time for you. Being kind to yourself will bring you to a relaxed state that is receptive to healing. From here you are better able to love yourself and others. A three-pronged approach can help, but always be sure to consult your own health care provider before embarking on any new program.

Love Your Libido

First order of business: your physical body. Las Vegas-based sexologist Dr. Shelley, PhD’s approach is to focus on what might be diminishing your libido and sexual desire. She recommends starting with a hormone imbalance check.

“Sometimes balancing your hormones with bio-identical hormone therapy is sufficient to bring back the urge,” she said. If a man has low testosterone levels that get addressed and his libido comes back, the woman may want to have her hormones tested as well.

Also included on her short list of remedies is cutting back on carbs to increase energy and lower weight, which contributes to eventually bringing back sexual urges and self confidence. A long-term vegetarian diet that’s improperly balanced can also lower libido and stamina in men, and sexual desire in women, she noted. Prescription pharmaceuticals can have that same effect, so if there are physical issues that can be addressed equally well with diet and exercise, that could be a double win.

So how do you start to reawaken yourself? “Self-pleasuring is always a good start,” Dr. Shelley said, “It’s important to discover what brings you pleasure first.”

And then there’s cuddling, which leads to an increase in oxytocin; known as the feel-good hormone, it helps balance the emotions.

Don’t forget to engage your playful childhood self. Explore fantasy, or experiment with stimulating herbs. Livestrong.com recommends muira puama, a tree bark from the Amazon River basin. Or sip some damiana leaf tea. Massage with jasmine oil to first relax the body, then follow up with stimulating oils such as ylang ylang and sandalwood.

Stoke the Fire Within

Neglecting to prioritize time for self is a top cause of losing that lovin’ feeling. The body needs to rest and recharge or the nervous system gets taxed and adrenals get blocked.

Charu, founder of Embody Tantra in Culver City, uses a down-to-earth approach that makes it easy and safe to explore sex and spirit. The tantra practice includes movement, sound and guided visualization. “Our ultimate goal when we are engaging in any kind of tantric practice is to open the body to what is actually its natural state and allow the power of our sexual energy (the life force) to activate,” explained Charu. “The number one way to revive your sexuality is to find and prioritize time and space for yourself.”

This is not to minimize the role of orgasm, which releases beneficial chemicals in the body, but, “It’s an awakening process as well. One must give the nervous system and body the chance to recalibrate. It helps to get the body into a beta brain wave state and deep relaxation.”

Once the body softens, simple tantra practices can activate our sexuality. This process progresses quickly because we are asking our bodies to do something based on nature.

Our bodies must return to an “organic state,” Charu said, in order to reach natural arousal. This simple 10-minute exercise is about awakening the body, breaking out of patterns, boosting energy and blood flow, and bringing in more oxygen.

Start by standing with both feet on the ground. Keeping your feet still, bounce your knees and allow the top part of your body to resemble a rag doll. You may sway your hips side to side.

“Let yourself feel like a child,” she said. “Let there be a sense of play and innocence. Tremble and shake parts of your body that don’t move often.” The shaking releases tension. Do this movement for at least five minutes.

Then lie down in a five-minute shavasana pose. Bring one hand to your belly and with the other, lightly cup your genitals. Inhale through your mouth and let the belly rise. Exhale, again through your mouth, and let the belly go toward the spine. Relax the jaw. This reminds the body how to relax so it is ready to be aroused.

Now bring both feet to the ground and point your knees up, spaced about six inches apart. Begin to inhale and pull up through the tightened pelvic floor, comparable to a kegel exercise. Exhale and release. Synchronize with the breath. Experiment with using only 20 percent of your strength. This makes it a more subtle movement, but will keep your buttocks relaxed. Women, focus on the vaginal wall. Men, focus on the inside of the penis. Continue for two minutes.

Next, rock the pelvis gently for one minute. Push your rear into the ground and lift your lower back off the ground. Then curl your rear under and bring your lower back to the ground. On each inhale, your rear goes back into the ground. On each exhale, the lower back gently curls under and goes down. Finally, rock the pelvic back and forth. Synchronize the breath and be conscious with the movement. Relax again with hands over heart and genitals.

Elevate Your Emotions

Sometimes the self-love seeker’s path is littered with the detritus of previous experience, in which case Chinese Medicine offers surprising benefit in healing the emotional self.

What causes a person to fall into depression or even just numbness? “Sometimes people get stuck in unhappiness when they are not being honest with themselves or are trying to mask things over (with drugs, food or other substances),” said Sandy Lee of Elements Total Health Center in Pasadena, “or they are not grounded, getting sleep or working from self awareness. Then they are not facing their emotions. This is a running theme; pain with the root cause of fear. The level of pain the patient is manifesting has to do with suppression.”

Lee works to remedy this with a combination of needles and medicinal natural herbs, roots or flowers to help elevate the patient to optimum health and happiness.

“For the ancient Chinese,” Lee explained, “sex was not only employed for its procreative aspect, but as a means of physical and spiritual cultivation. The act of pleasure was used to harmonize one’s energy, conjoining the masculine and feminine aspects in the pursuit of physical revitalization and longevity, along with the concept of immortality.”

In Chinese Medicine kidney energy is related to sexual energy, so Lee recommended epimedium plant, ginseng root, polygonum root, rehmannia root, cordyceps fungus, schizandra berry and gingko leaf to strengthen the kidney.

In matters of love and sex, aside from causing the freeing of opioids, acupuncture potentially promotes the release of oxytocin. It activates blood flow, moves stagnant energy, restores optimal homeostasis and encourages the production of endorphins—feel-good opioid substances—thereby mitigating pain, reducing stress, boosting immune function, reducing inflammation and allowing for deep rest and recovery. These are all significant factors that can influence the maintenance and restoration of sexual energy and a vital, healthy sex life.

One of the loveliest things about the journey back to self-love is that it is a pleasant journey. There’s no reason not to begin.