Learning the sensate focus exercises together can even heal a troubled relationship. You simply cannot do them well unless you learn to shut out the world temporarily and concentrate totally on each other. Gradually, you get into the habit of setting aside time to be with each other in a pleasurably way, and to communicate honestly about your needs and feelings. Research shows that people, who know how to communicate their feelings, in both verbal and nonverbal ways, are healthier-both physically and emotionally.

You can learn to intensify the healing powder of sex by consciously it when you make love. Some esoteric eastern traditions even prescribe certain positions and sexual exercises to heal specific organs. While that is beyond the scope of this book, I would like to teach you a simple way to experience the healing power of sex.

Sexual Healing

There is little that can do more to boost sense of well being than knowing that your partner cares for you and desires you sexually. One way to express this is each other is to take turns making love to each other. Do it in a way that allows you give yourself 100 percent to the experience.

Have your partner lie back and relax. Lovingly lock your gaze on your partner's eyes as you psychologically draw your partner in and compel him or her to focus on what you are doing. The more you enjoy what you are doing, and the more intently you focus the more effective this will be.

Caress your partner's body with your hand.  Place your ear on top of your partner's chest so you can hear his or her hear beat. Maintain as much body contact as you can. As you start to caress your partner's genitals, keep your ear or a hand on his her heart. Or keep your face up against your partner's face. Maintain this contact as you begin to have slow, gentle, focused, intercourse with your partner.

As you make love, concentrate all your mental energy towards healing or nurturing your partner psychologically. This is a lot different than worrying about whether your partner likes what you are doing. Here, you are directing all of your positive sexual energy towards making your lover feel good, rather than trying to make your lover feel good about you because you are using the "right" technique or touching in the "right" place.

If you both make love with the intention to focus your innate healing abilities on each other, this can be very powerful. You might even feel the healing energy that you have created together as an intensified current between you. This type of union is intensely fulfilling. Yet, you can have an even deeper experience of sexual communication. It's called ecstasy.

Ecstasy

Ecstatic sex is a level of sexual experience beyond arousal, beyond the intense pleasure of orgasm and even beyond mutuality and intimacy. It comes unbidden during intercourse, and most typically, just at the point of orgasm. There is no mistaking it when it happens.

You and your partner may feel yourselves becoming so close that your merge into one, transcending the limits of your bodies. Or, you alone may feel the bliss shooting up your spine and catapulting you into a dimension of experience you can only describe as cosmic.

I have experienced it myself and it is hard to put into words.

I have found it most like those descriptions of the Buddhist state of being totally free from desire. It is a state of pleasure so intense, that while it may be accompanied by an orgasm, you really do not know whether you are having and orgasm or not. And you both turn to each other and say, "Did you feel that? What was that?"

Spiritual experiences are so highly personal, that I cannot describe a typical ecstatic moment. But here are ways my clients have described it:

"While my husband and I were having sex, I had several orgasms in a row, and then I just seemed to stay in this orgasmic state. I felt like I was there for several minutes although it could not have been more than a few seconds. My husband told me eyes glazed over. It was like being in an altered state of consciousness."

"I saw God, Buddha, and Allah." (Yes, he was being metaphorical.)

"When I got close to orgasm, I felt this white-hot light start at my tailbone and slowly move up my spine. When it got to my head, I had the orgasm. It was one of the strangest things I have ever felt. I asked my wife if she felt anything strange and she said she felt almost like both of us lifted about six inches off the bed."

Some people have said that they see intense colors or images. Others hear music. Some feel an overwhelming sense of connection with all creation. These experiences are probably due to part to the release of endorphins-besides killing pain, endorphins can cause intensely pleasurable states.

Ecstatic sex is something you cannot make happen. Every time I have experienced it, it has been unplanned. Yet, I do know that the sensate focus approach is much more likely to lead to ecstatic sex than a performance-oriented approach. This is because the state of mind that is a prerequisite for ecstatic sex demands that you be in the here and now and one hundred percent focused on your sensations.

The ecstasy associated with intense sexual experiences is the focus of a form of yoga known as tantra. Tantric yoga emphasizes reuniting the basic male and female principles in the cosmos through specific practices and postures. The sexual energy is harnessed in a way that can lead the practitioners to couple and individuals. After   you have completed the exercises in Sexual Pleasure, you may wish to learn move about tantric yoga or tantric sex in order to go further in your exploration of your sexual self. Margo Anand's book, The Art of Sexual Ecstasy" The Path of Sacred Sexuality for Western Lovers is a worthwhile book on this subject.

Going Forward from  Here

Through the exercises in this book, you have learned to enjoy touching and being touched. You have learned to let go-to relax and enjoy your own sexual response, to savor your desire for your partner. Through peaking and plateauing exercises you have also learned to make the most of your arousal and orgasm patterns. And through it all, you have learned to communicate with your partner and become deeply intimate.

Where do you go from here?

I recommend that you continue the breathing, PC-muscle, and bonding exercises daily for the rest of your life. They will keep your senses, your body, and your passion alive and afire.

Return to the others as you need or desire. Remember that you can always count on the focusing caresses to relax you. Since you have learned peaking and plateauing, your body has been conditioned and will naturally respond in that way. This gives you infinite options on ways to make love, based on what you have come to learn about your own sexual responses and possibilities.

Sexual expression can have an overwhelmingly positive effect on your life. It frees you, enriches you, and opens up new dimensions of your humanity. I hope the sensual and sexual activities you have learned here will help you enjoy the many healthy and empowering aspects of sexuality-desire, arousal, orgasm, intimacy, and ecstasy.