The Power of Pleasure

A woman's pleasure is as powerful and intoxicating as any force on earth. You may not yet feel it, but within you is a wellspring of vitality that can transform your sexual pleasure and illuminate your life. We often think of sex as separate from the rest of our lives, but nothing could be further from the truth. Our sexual life mirrors our general health, our relationships, and our emotional well-being at the deepest level. It is certainly true that who we are and what we have experienced affects our sexuality, but it is also true that making changes in our sexual lives can transform the other parts of our lives, including our relationships.

Taoism, an ancient Chinese system of healing and spirituality, has always understood the fact that sexuality is an integral part of our health and wellness. The ancient Taoist physicians would ask about desire and sexual activity as a routine part of assessing one's health. They might even prescribe lovemaking at certain times of day or in certain positions to treat illnesses. In this book, Mantak Chia and I will combine this Taoist knowledge with insights from modern medicine to offer an effective program that will kindle your desire and magnify your sexual pleasure.

As a holistic physician, I am committed to offering the best of traditional and complementary medicines to address the issues that are most pressing in women's lives. I have repeatedly seen that a woman's overall health and well-being is dramatically affected by the quality and frequency of her sexual experiences. And sadly, too many women are not experiencing the pleasure and sexual satisfaction that they need and deserve. According to surveys, one-third of all women in the United States have never had an orgasm, another one-third are not regularly orgasmic, and even fewer women, only one in five, are multi-orgasmic.

Some of us experience our most profound joy, connectedness, and spiritual oneness during lovemaking. Many of us may have had only rare glimpses of what is possible in intimate sexual union. And still others of us may have been blocked from claiming our full sexual potential by painful sexual experiences. This book will lead you on your own personal journey to discover your sexual power and pleasure, and it will show you how to use this power to transform your life.

In chapter 1, you will develop a "Personal Sexual Satisfaction Plan" that will help you to focus on the chapters, techniques, and exercises that will be of greatest help to you. In chapters 2 and 3, you will learn to cultivate your desire and balance your energy. In chapters 4 and 5, you will discover what prevents you from having the full pleasure of your orgasms and learn the best techniques for you to orgasm easily--and often. In chapters 6 and 7, I will show you how to expand these orgasms into whole-body orgasms and to extend them with your breathing into longer and more intense multiple orgasms. Finally, in chapters 8 and 9, I will help you to maintain your sexual health and healing over the course of your life and show you how you can begin to use it for your emotional and spiritual growth.

Cultivating your multi-orgasmic ability requires that we explore your sexual energy and your pleasure anatomy. By "sexual energy," I simply mean your desire, your passion, or your libido, as doctors sometimes say. The more sexual energy or desire that you have, the easier it will be for you to orgasm. The Taoists see sexual energy as the most powerful source of our overall vital energy, or <I>chi<$>, which is responsible for our health and livelihood. If your energy is being drained by demanding work, family responsibilities, financial stress, ill health, or addictions, it will be harder for you to have the sexual energy you need for satisfying lovemaking.

Not only does low sexual energy make it harder to orgasm, it makes it less likely that you will even want to have sex. A recent in-depth study determined that the number one reason that couples don't have sex is fatigue. This is certainly the case for the women who come to my medical practice. In part due to their physical and emotional exhaustion, many of these women are less interested in sex and when they are, they cannot orgasm regularly or at all. The Taoist practices that Mantak Chia and I will teach throughout this book will teach you how to draw energy and inspiration from the desire within your own body.

As an expert on the various medical and complementary options available, I can say that Taoist sexual practices, called Healing Love, are uniquely able to help women with low energy and low libido to have satisfying multi-orgasmic lovemaking and to increase their overall vitality. Carol, a 44-year-old nurse from Pittsburgh, explained her experience: "I began doing the Healing Love practice several months ago, and I can't remember the last time I felt so alive! I feel so sensual, womanly, and juicy. Even my friends have noticed that my color looks better. I have rosy cheeks!" For women who already have high levels of sexual energy, the Healing Love practices will help them to channel this energy and to access it when and how they like as a source of vitality in all aspects of their lives.

But while Healing Love sees orgasm as an important source of joy, energy, and health for women, it does not minimize or in any way overlook the rest of your sexual experience. The Healing Love practices offered here will allow you to enjoy your pleasure before, during, and after orgasm. As you'll see, orgasm is not the goal of sex. It is simply one of the highlights on a journey of personal pleasure and discovery.

Another part of this journey to sexual satisfaction involves exploring your "pleasure anatomy"--that is, your body's particular sensual response pattern--and learning what arouses you. In chapters 4 through 7, I will show you how to intensify your sexual enjoyment all along the way to orgasm and from crescendo to crescendo. You will discover what your unique "hot spots" are and use the latest--and some of the oldest--techniques from both Western and Eastern traditions to guide you in your pleasure. Whatever your current experience with orgasm--whether never having had one to already being multi-orgasmic--the techniques and exercises throughout this book will help you to enjoy the ever greater bliss in your body that is your birthright.

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