“The intimate connection between a woman’s psychic humor and her clitoral power means that the clitoris must be wired up to the brain – the big brain – before it can sing.” The brain must learn to ride its little rod the way it must learn to balance its body on a bicycle. And once learned, the skill will not be forgotten.”
Natalie Angier, Woman: An Intimate Geography.

Yup, size matters. Be Mindful, Not Mechanical.
Our largest, most powerful sex organ is our brain. Although you think everything happens between your legs, the sensation of orgasm actually originates between your ears, in the form of chemical messengers and the receptors they bind to. It's like a scene from Star Wars with little ships zipping around and docking in their corresponding bay with this mysterious system guiding the whole magical dance. True, the information comes from the farthest reaches of our body; the real action takes place in a fairly primitive part of our brain, the limbic system. Known as our mammalian brain, this is the seat of our emotions, desires, drives and impulses. It's where you fall in and out of love…or lust.

"Learn to tune your engine. Realize that just like a carburetor, the mix can get 'off' and then pressing on the gas might cause a sputter or a tailspin,” says Stephanie Moses, author of Getting to Neutral. Be mindful, not mechanical. Pull back the curtain on your emotions and thought patterns and their effect on your sexuality and health. How you focus your attention and manage your emotions directly shapes your experience.


Don't be a leadfoot. Ease up on the pedal of your stress response system. If your mind is not allowed to conduct your body in healthy ways, eventually it just gives up on the direct communication and manifests a different route, usually through your body and not in pleasant ways. They need to work together, or they both suffer. “If your body is forced to settle for what’s going on inside your mind—let’s say, negative talk—then your body will live that out,” affirms Stephanie. If you allow the painful, negative occurrences of your day, of your past, or what you predict and deduce of future events to constantly swarm in your mind, your flooding your brain and body with stress hormones. Your system is in overdrive and burning itself out – and you’re letting it happen. YOU are the lousy driver.

Okay, but what does all this have to do with my clitoris?

Good question. When you’re immersed in swarms of negative inner dialogue about yourself and how you think & feel about sex – you’re grinding your sensory responses down to nubs.

On top of that, you’re pulling the ripcord for habitual stressful emotional patterns, biochemical responses that cause you to hold – to contract your body – so, you feel less and less. After numbing everything all day, you suddenly expect your body to leap into action sexually. Think again. Imagine someone yelling at a child all day and soon enough, that child starts to ignore the tirade, and eventually ignore everything. They check out. When you harness the power of your thoughts and dismantle your stress engine you clear the path for your natural healing and ultimate pleasure network.

“Since the internal representations we make lead directly to our feelings, our behaviors, and which people or situations we attract or become attracted to, becoming aware of how we do that gives us choice”, offers Bill Harris, maverick Personal Development Specialist and creator of The Holosync SolutionTM. He adds, “It allows us to stop creating our experience of life automatically, based on the past and, instead, to create our life by choice, in the moment.”

We think of ‘the rush’ we experience as being from external means – love, lust, booze, nicotine, prescription drugs, adventure, success, stuff, or sweets - however it's really our response to our own biochemicals driving us to acquire them.

Get the Dope on Dopamine
The most important factor in falling in - and out - of love and lust is dopamine. There are many chemicals streaming inside us to create our experience. Dopamine is the neurochemical that activates your reward circuitry, a small portion of the limbic system, which is a set of brain structures that drive many of your behaviors that further your survival or create pleasure. Whether it’s sex, eating, taking risks, achieving goals, or drinking water; they all increase dopamine, which is the juice that you get at the end of the deal. It’s the "craving" neurochemical, think of dopamine as the "I’ve got to have it" ingredient, whatever "it" is.

Is orgasm on the list? Check. Another good example is food. We get a much bigger blast of dopamine eating high-calorie foods than we do low-calorie foods. It’s why we choose chocolate cake over Brussels sprouts. Our reward circuit is programmed so that "calories equal survival." By tuning in to your mind~body connections you get to enjoy bigger slices of ‘cake’ – to choose from a giant supermarket of sexual calories and evolve your sexual menu from the bland, basic three. Look, you’re not actually craving ice cream, a winning lotto ticket, or even a romp in the sack. You’re craving the chemical ingredient that is released with these activities.

Look inside this glorious system of yours, acquire a taste for the recipes of your mind and when you learn to ‘tend the fire’ you can cook up whatever your heart desires.

Our most healing, lasting biochemical friend is Oxytocin, stimulated by touch, a warm embrace; it’s our nurturing and bonding reward and catalyst. Bonding is a mammalian program. Genuine communication, dissolving fear, building real connections and gratifying interactions promote and stimulate a delicious cocktail of oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin – that radiant glow we feel when we’re happy and loved up.

Your attitude toward evolving emotionally, creating different levels of 'sexual' intimacy and rewarding them, and flat out outfoxing the law of diminishing returns are powerful tools. Which is your tool? Start looking; just venturing there will give you a whole new vantage point, a whole new relationship to your relationship. Choosing to lighten up and explore new pathways is your first step. A spirit of adventure and a good laugh is good medicine.

"A positive attitude and laughter increase the neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin. These neurotransmitters cause us to feel good, get things done, resist sugar and other carbohydrate temptations and sharpen our minds," affirms neurologist Vincent Fortanasce.

Tags: Sexuality and Stress, Natalie Geld, Mindfulness, Brain Chemistry, Sex, Clitoris, Dopamine

Observe your thought. I think, therefore I am. Stressed, that is. Sure, juggling the roles and responsibilities of our lives like a Yugoslavian plate spinner can feel overwhelming, yet it’s our thoughts that activate stressful reactions in our body.

The mind leads and the body follows. More often than not though, it isn’t leading us into a pleasure den. So, what gives?

“Well, we always want to point the finger and go, ‘oh no, the bad stuff’s out there, over there, somewhere far from me.’ In fact, it’s inside all of us. The shadow is us. So the thing to do is look within and work on ourselves, ” says Deborah King, Ph.D., author of Truth Heals. Begin to recognize the feedback loop of sexuality and stress. Agitated thoughts – not external factors - produce high blood pressure, nervous stomach, persistent feelings of discomfort, lack of desire, sexual dysfunction, an inability to relax or sleep, frequent displays of displeasure and outrage. Basically, feeling like crap.



I’m Gumby Dammit!
When unobserved and unmanaged, negative levels, recurrent thought and emotional patterns prohibit a healthy body; inhibit sexual pleasure and an overall sense of well being. Thoughts are our energy that shape our temperament and color our emotional health.

Respons(e) Ability
Stop ‘knee jerk’ reacting and improve your response ability. By understanding and managing our (e)motional undercurrent, we then create a framework for a more thoughtful, effective response. To begin, let’s break down the word: E(motion) = movement, our emotions don’t just kick back inside that box you shoved them into, arms crossed, waiting for you to deal with them. Nor do they hang out under a shady tree inside your mind whistling Dixie while you stockpile even more to avoid.

Nope, for you intellectuals - the word 'emotion' is derived from the French word émouvoir, based on the Latin emovere, where e means 'out' and movere means 'move,’ Science buff? The brilliant pioneering scientist Dr. Candice Pert, Ph.D., author of Molecules of Emotion: The Science Behind Mind – Body Medicine has something to add…”what we experience as an emotion or a feeling is also a mechanism for activating a particular neuronal circuit – simultaneously throughout the brain and body – which generates a behavior involving the whole creature, (uh, you) with all the necessary physiological changes that behavior would require.” That’s a long sentence for an instantaneous action from first thought through embodiment. How about thinking of it this way? It takes one thought for a man to get an erection – say, ‘sexy bare thighs’, if that, and tada! Up springs a woody. It takes but one contrary thought, let’s say ‘Sh*t, I forgot to send that IRS check today,’ And down goes the crotcheroo.

Be the author of your pleasure. Tell yourself good stories. Let go of what you think you know and explore ways to transform your thought, manage your emotions and dismantle your stress engine to feel good. Find out what works for you…how do you transform your negative inner dialogue and manage your emotions?

As Dr. Christiane Northrup, author of Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom puts it: “Every thought has a biochemical reality in the body. Uplifting thoughts and emotions are associated with an entirely different mix of neuropeptides and hormones than are thoughts of panic, fear or anger. So entertain thoughts that produce the biochemistry of health and joy.”

Tags: Natalie Geld, Emotional Health, Science of Emotion, Mindfulness, Consciousness, Stress, Sex and Stress