Self-Pleasure Journey Online Course:
Mindful Masturbation Techniques for Everyone

Do you feel like you are stuck in an unhealthy pattern, or relationship with masturbation? Do you struggle with self acceptance, negative body image, or a lack of self love? Is your solo sex a bit boring and unsatisfying? Are you struggling with sexual issues like premature ejaculation, vaginismus, erectile dysfunction, or an inability to reach orgasm? Do you want to experience more pleasure, and sensation when you touch yourself? Would you like to have deeper, longer lasting orgasms? Do you want to know how to use self-touch, and self-pleasure as a way to enhance your intimate experiences with others? Do you want to build a mindful, and healthy relationship with self pleasure and masturbation? And do you want to feel, just generally more relaxed, more confident, and more at ease in your body? I'm Libby Sheppard at Touch of Happiness, and this eight-week course, "A self-pleasure journey", is an in depth hands-on education in self-touch, self-pleasure, and mindful masturbation. This is everything I wish that I had been gifted, and encouraged to explore as a essentially and sexually awakening teenager. It's everything I've learned and realized through my work with 1000s of clients in my role as an intimacy coach, and central massage therapist over the past seven years. This course will help you rewire the negative unhealthy conditioning around masturbation that leads to so many of our sexual dysfunction issues. You'll learn how to feel more relaxed, more confident and more excited by your body, and it's potential for pleasure. You'll be given space to overcome shame, feel more confident in your skin, and be able to enjoy self-pleasuring as a healthy part of your sex life. You deserve this. We all do. The cost of the course works out to the equivalent of £6.50 per day. So that's less than a tub of Ben and Jerry's, or a glass of wine, or a coffee and a pastry. So I invite you to redirect your investment in pleasure for eight weeks, and change your life. Come join me, and learn to really enjoy your beautiful body. - During this journey with Mindful Masturbation, you do not have to feel that you are orgasmic. In fact, you might not feel arousal in the ways that you are used to at all. Particularly if your masturbation up to this point has been habitual and/or perfunctory. It might feel clunky or difficult at first. You might be full of distraction, but we do this practice so that over time we progressively become more orgasmic, more aware of sensation, and there's just greater flow and ease with the concept of practice itself. To enter into this journey, I encourage you to actually completely let go of the preconceived idea that masturbation is all about arousal or horniness and to focus initially on awareness and feeling sensations. In the beginning, it might be difficult to let go of the goal of orgasm or greater orgasmicness or a hard penis, but mindful masturbation doesn't always end in orgasm. In fact, I really really encourage you just to consider letting go of that goal completely and enjoying your masturbation, without the typical happy ending. You'll have to be willing to be curious about what orgasmic sensation feels like. Maybe it's different to what you're used to. You'll have to be willing to be curious about what masturbation is. Maybe it's more about the beginning and the middle, not just the ending. During your daily practice, you do not have to be erect, hard, wet, aroused, or horny. All of those things are really welcome but none of them are required. You might find that you are distracted by a whole host of things, busy thoughts, boredom, trying to do it right to name just a few, but mindful masturbation is essentially an erotic meditation. So the practice is to notice the distractions and then return your attention to the present moment and the sensations in your body. It's also a practice in cultivating your ability to feel and regulate emotions. As the famous British philosopher, Alan Watts put it, "There is a price to be paid "for every increase in consciousness. "We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure "without being more sensitive to pain." This means that you will probably feel some uncomfortable emotions during this journey, resistance, shame, boredom, sadness, disgusted, apprehension, judgment, all these and others could come up. Those emotions are not necessarily a distraction from your practice, but potentially just things that need to be felt, acknowledged and integrated before you can access your core of natural, joyful, abundant pleasure, and arousal. If you've unconsciously avoided these emotions in your life, or if you typically use masturbation as a way to avoid those emotions, then spending time with yourself in this mindful way will inevitably mean that you are going to come up against them and here it's up to you, I can't do it for you. You can continue to avoid things like boredom, sadness, shame, et cetera, and not do your practice, or just continue to use masturbation in your old habitual ways. Or you can encourage yourself to create change and use this course to alter your trajectory into a place of higher consciousness, deeper self-love and acceptance and an expanded sense of freedom, pleasure, and relaxation. Mindful masturbation is an intimate and goal free experience with an intention of pleasure and eroticism. I'm going to ask you to begin each practice with a statement of intention, so just one or two sentences of what you are consciously choosing to practice. For example, my intention during this masturbation practice is to play with different breath patterns or my intention during today's masturbation is to explore, touch, and sensation through X, Y, Z area of my body or just my intention today is to be fully and totally embracing of my own pleasure. You'll learn more about those areas of focus as we go along. I'll ask you to end every mindful masturbation session with a quiet period of installation. So just experiencing your body in the present moment and reflecting on how you engaged your intention. Do not be tempted to simply rush off and get on with the rest of your day. Installation is a vital tool in shifting away from habitual, unconscious patterns and relationships with masturbation. This pause at the end of a sensory sensual explorative practice gives space for new neural pathways to fire and wire, and to maximize the positive changes each experience can create in your habits, behavior and sexual relationships, both with yourself and with others. - One of the most common things that I see in the way that people masturbate that completely limits their experience of pleasure and arousal is that they never touch the rest of their body. They just fiddle with their genitals a bit. So your skin is your biggest organ. Stimulating it and touching as much of your body as you can during masturbation, will boost your oxytocin levels. That's a hormone that reduces stress, boosts immune function and helps your nervous system to relax. More oxytocin and full body touch means deeper and longer lasting orgasms that are felt throughout the body, not just in that small triangle of skin on your genitals. Incorporating full body touch will also help you to play with your arousal levels, sometimes described as edging. You can build sexual energy and intensity with genital touch, building up to maybe an eight or nine out of 10, and then let your hands and your focus move to the rest of your body to spread that energy around. So here's a specific practice you can do to start exploring full body touch. As always, try this as a standalone 15 minute self-pleasure practice and or try integrating the concept into your existing masturbation habits. Three simple ways you can do the latter. Firstly, touch the whole of your body, following this framework, before you go anywhere near your genitals. Secondly, you can set an intention to have two hands touching your body at all times. One can be on your genitals and one can be elsewhere. Thirdly, try and end your masturbation by touching the whole of your body in the way that we're about to explore. So you do this practice in a quiet, private space where you're not going to be interrupted. Set a timer for five, 10, 15 minutes, however long you want . Start small. I encourage you to be naked. Exploring your own skin to skin sensations is vital in this practice. Let go of expectations, goals or the need to achieve anything. Remember, to breathe deeply throughout your practice and find a position that's comfortable where you can reach to touch the front back and sides of your body. To begin, take your hands to the crown of your head and then let them move slowly down over your skull, your face, let your fingers investigate, and touch your eyes, your nose, your mouth, your ears. Move the hands slowly down over your neck and your throat. Explore and touch through each arm in turn all the way from the shoulder down to the wrist, the hands and fingers. Notice any sensations that you feel under your hands and on the areas that are being touched. Bring the hands up to the collar bones. Let them move down over your chest, your breast, the sides of your ribs, moving and adjusting your body so you can reach as much as possible. Let the hands sweep down over your belly. Explore round through your lower back, moving the hands down onto the front of your pelvis, your genitals, your buttocks. Notice if there are parts of your body that you linger on or avoid. Try to keep your attention and touch moving in a balanced flow from the top to the bottom. Sweeping down through each thigh, knee, ankle and foot. (narrator sighs) Remember to take your time, breathe deep and full. When you've moved down through both legs all the way down to the foot and the toes, pause, take one deep full breath and then begin passing the touch through the body, this time from the toes all the way up to the crown of the head. (narrator sighs) You'll repeat this methodical journey through your body for the duration of the practice, moving from top to toe and back again. As the time passes and you complete more sweeps of your body you might notice the sensations changing and shifting. You might notice that your attention drift or distracting thoughts appear. You might notice difficult or pleasurable emotions arising. And all of these things are really normal. When you notice changes in sensation, just observe them, no good or bad. Sometimes you may not get your hands further than your neck before you realize that you are distracted. Take a breath and begin again. Moving your hands even slower. (narrator sighs) When emotions arise, allow them to be felt. It might be sadness, anger, joy, nervousness, arousal, anything can come up, do not dismiss them as bad or indulge them as good. To end your practice, let your hands come to rest over the front of your pelvis and your heart. Just notice what sensations you feel in your body. Take a couple of moments to just be still and let the practice install. - [Instructor] So we begin this practice by just taking a couple of deeper breaths in through your nose, out through your mouth. It can be nice to just bring your hands to rest on your body somewhere, just to connect. Take a little pause, really feel your feet connected to the floor. (athlete breathing deeply) And then we're gonna start taking this stepped inhale. So two little inhales through the nose and an exhale through the mouth. You can add a little bounce and shake of your body. So bouncing the knees, bending the knees, just moving the hip side to side, letting your shoulders be relaxed, letting your arms be nice and floppy. Just giving the body a good shake. (athlete breathing deeply) Let the hands move. (athlete breathing deeply) Nothing you have to control, nothing that has to be tidy or look good. Just bouncing through the knees, and giving the body a nice jiggle and shake. (athlete breathing deeply) And keeping that stepped inhale that's slightly faster breath than your normal breath going. (athlete breathing deeply) Take a couple of deeper breaths every now and then if you need to. (athlete breathing deeply) And then pause. Notice any fizzing, buzzing, tingling sensations. And then you can also try this practice lying down. (athlete breathing deeply) So coming into a comfortable position, and then just letting the hips shake. (athlete breathing deeply) Letting the legs shake. (athlete breathing deeply) Letting the movement roll up through your spine, just noticing if it gets stuck anywhere. If there are areas in your body that are tensed, braced or held, you'll find that the movement doesn't flow as easily. (athlete breathing deeply) Letting the thighs and the legs, the pelvis bounce and shake. And then taking a couple of deeper breaths. (athlete breathing deeply) Letting the lips roll, letting go of any tension in your face. (athlete breathing deeply) And finally, coming to stillness. Again, just noticing what you can feel in your body right now. - So these two incredible tools on the ends of our arms can produce a really diverse range of effects. Finger pads, blade of your hand, your nails, your knuckles, the heel of your hand firm, soft, light, smooth, heavy, sustained, or fleeting. On some days, a strong pointed knuckle into a aching muscle will feel really delicious, and on other days it needs flat, smooth, circular strokes. So for today's practice, we'll begin exploring a non-intimate area of your body, so your arm, your thigh, your calf, et cetera, just somewhere that you can reach easily. You're gonna set a timer for five, 10, maybe 15 minutes, however long you want. And then in that time, you're going to focus on exploring and experimenting with different textures of touch on that area. So here are just a few ideas for different textures that you can create with your hands. First of all, light. So you can use the lightness of your breath. You can try light fingertip strokes up and down. You can squeeze, but with light pressure. Firm texture, so you might wanna try firm needing. So that's kind of pressing and rolling with the heel of your hand. You can do kind of pummeling with closed fists. You can try squeezing with firmer pressure. You can try sharp textures. So maybe your nails over your skin. You can try like pulling or tugging on the little hairs that creates kind of sharpness. You can try pinching and then maybe rolling the skin between your fingertips. And then contrast that maybe with some smooth texture. So you could try super smooth strokes along your skin, maybe with or without oil or lube to create that smooth texture. So pause the video here, set your timer and explore different textures of touch on a non-intimate area of your body. Remember to breathe fully and deeply, to take your time, notice the sensations in the area that you're touching and also elsewhere in your body. You can make some notes afterwards on what you tried, what was surprising, what was pleasurable or maybe exciting and also what you enjoyed less. Once you've explored a non-intimate area, you can expand this practice to your whole body using just the hands as we've already done and by introducing different textures of fabric or objects on your skin. Try playing with moving your body against different textures to create points of sensation that you can sort of zoom into rather than only moving the hands and keeping the body still to create sensation. So here are some examples to get you going. So you can put your body into a kind of poppy pose from yoga and then take a towel and move your breasts or your chest on that rough fabric of the towel or maybe a blanket underneath you. (narrator sighs) So you could take a cushion or a object and sort of pop that underneath your pelvis, and then use our lovely pelvic rock to kind of rub or press and move your genitals, your inner thighs against that fabric. (narrator sighs) So you can take a really light fabric, like a sarong or a scarf, and just drap that over your skin. I really love this one. And then you just, really let it slowly be pulled off and over the skin. Finally, you could use a common everyday hairbrush or skin brushing brush to just explore that little. Oh, that's nice. That little bit of pointy, but brushing texture on the skin. (narrator sighs) Other ideas, you could also have a heavy blanket or duvet draped over your back whilst you're lying on your belly. You could use a heated blanket or like a hot water bottle. You could trail an ice cube from your breast bone down to your pubic bone. Lots to play with and get creative with. So you can pause the video again now, if you like, and have a play with some different fabrics objects and moving your body. So to integrate this into your regular masturbation practice, try bringing different textures to the way that you touch your genitals as a simple tool for interrupting the habitual boring routine. So for example, how does it feel to pinch and squeeze your outer labia, to firmly massage the perineum with your finger pads? Take a smooth slide with the palm of your hand from the root of your penis, to the tip, to lightly scrape your nails over your testicles, to pat or lightly slap your vulva, to move your genitals or your body against different textures rather than just moving your hands. - We'll be continuing this week to build a solid foundation of breath, sound, movement, and full-body touch as a way to maximize our pleasure before moving to our genitals next week. We'll be focusing on having an active body before and during masturbation rather than a passive motionless experience. I'll introduce an essential tool for an embodied life, the simple body scan, and we'll start to get creative with texture and the way you stimulate your body when you touch it. As with last week, check out each practice individually or integrate them into your current practice of masturbation. So remember, option one was read or watch all three lessons right now and integrate them into your existing masturbation practice. It's probably best for people who have at least some experience with mindful masturbation already. And then option two was to read or watch practice one, and then focus on that over the next couple of days. Then take a look at practice two and spend another couple of days on that one. And then at the end of this second week, have a session or a practice where all three of the exercises or concepts are blended. And that's what I recommend for beginners. The week will end again with reflection questions to integrate the experience you've had. - If you only ever touch your genitals, when you masturbate it might feel overwhelming to know where or how to begin with touching and exploring other areas of your body. A typical client, let's call her Emily, shared with me that she feels really numb in most of her body, and therefore just doesn't bother touching anywhere other than her clitoris because she doesn't know how to make it feel good. If you've never done any yoga, meditation, martial arts, or other kind of embodied or mindfulness practices, you might find it difficult to only use breath to bring awareness or change to your body mind state. The phrase, breathe into that area might just sound like a load of nonsense, and I get it. The first time I heard that in a yoga class I had no idea what the instructor was going on about. In my head I thought, hang on, I breathe through my nose or my mouth. I don't know how she expects me to breathe into my shoulder blades and thighs. So today we're gonna combine the expansive breath practice that we've explored before with a simple pattern of touch to help you wake up the front of your body and build a sense of openness and sensitivity through the heart, belly, and genitals. Practicing this touch and breath regularly will help you to feel more relaxed, help you to access and release suppressed emotions that lead to physical tension, and the reduced intensity of your erotic sensations. It's gonna improve digestion. It will increase your intake of oxygen as you breathe more deeply and efficiently. More oxygen equals increased blood flow, improved cellular health, engorged, and relaxed genitals and more capacity for sensation. It'll also give you a kind of body memory or sensation memory of drawing energy, arousal, sensation, up and away from your genitals. When you want to delay ejaculation or experience more full body orgasmic sensations. It'll give you an anchor to help you drop attention and energy away from the mind and mental fantasies when you want to get an erection or relax into orgasm. So this practice we're gonna do lying down so you can find a position that is nice and comfortable. I like to grab a couple of cushions so I can prop those under my knees. So you're letting the knees drop outwards and have the feet, the soles of the feet, press together. And just take a couple of moments to maybe like wiggle your hips around, let your shoulders settle in. Take a couple of deeper breaths and just let go of anywhere that's holding any tension or tightness. (inhales) (exhales) So we're gonna begin by taking the hands onto the front of the pelvis. The fingers can just be resting on the pubic bone or even a little bit onto the sort of outside of your genitals over the genitals. As you inhale, you're going to let the hands stroke and move up from the genitals from the pelvis to the heart and the chest. As you exhale, (exhales) you're letting them float and slide back down through the front of the body and landing again on the lower belly, the front of the pelvis. So inhaling up, (inhales) and then exhaling back down. (exhales) Inhaling through the nose, (inhales) and sighing out through the mouth. (sighs) (inhales) (sighs) You can let the hands wander, explore through the sides of the body, (exhales) or just up through the sort of central channel. (inhales) (exhales) You might notice that your back sort of wants to arch and respond to the touch. (inhales) (sighs) Let your hips move if that feels nice, (inhales) (sighs) and then just keep letting the hands and the breath move and flow as one. (exhales) (inhales) (exhales) So you can spend maybe five, three, five minutes just connecting with this breath and touch or you might want to do say 10 conscious breaths, 20 conscious breaths this way. At the end of the practice just let the hands rest again in stillness and just noticing what you can feel in your body. - This week, we'll start to take attention to our genitals. Now that we've spent some time connecting to the rest of the body, and to those key skills of breath, sound, and movement. It's a common habit to limit masturbation, or erotic sensations to the genitals. So I encourage you to be curious this week, and approach your genitals as if they are brand new. As if you have never touched them before. The exercises will help to interrupt habitual patterns by getting you to use awareness and visualization before you start touching, giving you a framework for touch that balances attention on the genitals with the rest of the body. And then also invites you to vary the speed with with you touch yourself. This is an important week in the overall journey. As it invites you to connect with your genitals in a more mindful way, perhaps for the first time in your life. You may find it really difficult not to fall into old habits or patterns. You may struggle with feeling any significant level of sensation or arousal, or you may be confronted by subconscious beliefs, judgements, and expectations of yourself, your body, and your pleasure. Remember, you can share your experiences in the comments section along the way and ask for reflection and support from your fellow students. Someone else might be going through, or has gone through the same experience. If there's something that you want me to address directly, please feel free to ask in the comments. - So our first kind of new idea for a position for masturbation is very, very simple. You're going to stand up. This is a great way to interrupt the kind of passive lying down position that many people have during masturbation. So it's a nice one to do in the shower. You're already standing up and you're already naked, right? If you are doing this, maybe in your bedroom or elsewhere and you might normally watch porn whilst you masturbate, it can be nice to put the laptop or the phone, the tablet, whatever, at eye level, and then explore your body, touch, explore whilst you're standing up. So make sure that your feet are nice and flat on the ground and there's a little soft bend in the knees so your legs aren't like locked out. Be curious about your butt cheeks. Try not to clench them really tight. See if you can let them relax, let the hips move a little bit. And from here you get access to more of your body. You can touch around the back of your body than you would when you're lying or sitting down. So this can be a really nice one to start exploring and noticing how that little change in position gives you slightly different sensations in your body. So if you want to challenge yourself a little bit more in this standing up position, you can come into a horse stance. So you're gonna take your feet a little bit wider and then just drop the knees down. So you're kind of in a, it's like a small squat position. So this again is a great one for being able to touch more of your body, the back, the butt cheeks, the thigh as well. It's also a little bit more challenging for your leg muscles. So helps you kind of stay grounded, engages and works those big muscles of the thighs. So if you get a little bit tired or it gets a bit intense, just have a little break, shake the legs off and then you can come back down into your horse stance. Let your hips move, touch on your genitals, your belly, your heart, and explore in this slightly more challenging position. So again, very simple idea to interrupt the maybe habitual sort of horizontal position for masturbation is to come up onto your knees. So you're a little bit more upright. I'm sitting on the knees here. This isn't comfortable for everyone. So a couple of things that I suggest as options. Firstly, invest in one of these. This is a lovely big fat meditation cushion. I'll put a link below so you can find one of these and then you just pop that under your bum. And that kind of raises you up a little bit, takes a bit of pressure out the knees, can be a bit more comfortable. And then this is a lovely position to be able to explore your genitals, the front of your body, your belly. It's one of my favorites. If you don't have one of these meditation cushions, simple normal sofa cushions will also do, just pop those between your heels and your bum. And again, just raises you up a little bit, can make it a little bit more comfortable. So to extend from this kind of upright on your knees position, it can be quite fun to come more into a sort of all fours position. So maybe you want to just have one hand resting on the floors, a bit of support. And then the other hand is free to play with your genitals in the front, can reach around and get access to your bum and your arsehole in the back, playing with the lower back, sides of the body, the legs. And you can bring in a little bit of active movement with the body here as well. So rather than just staying still and moving your hands, the body can move and the hands can stay still. So another little extension here from on all fours, this one's a bit more challenging. You do have to have slightly better flexibility. So give it a go. And if it doesn't work for you, just come back to the on all fours position. Basically this is kind of like a poppy pose in yoga. So you're gonna bring your chest right down to the floor and have your butt up in the air. And so this one I find is just like a feeling of surrender or kind of openness in the body. You kinda let the hips move around a little bit. There's that nice sort of contact with the heart and the chest on the floor. And then it's really nice access for kind of playing with your arse, playing with your bum cheeks. But also that hand can kind of come down in the front of the genitals here as well. Can be a really nice position for internal work if you are a person with a vagina. So just explore here with massage on the outside and touch on the inside. So if you want to make a very small adjustments to your kind of habitual position for masturbation, you can change from lying on your back to lying on your side. So this is a really nice one to do in bed and you get really nice and comfy lying on your side. You can either have your knees together here, or I like to sometimes bring one knee up a little bit higher. And that means then that I can reach around and touch the base of my spine here, my butt cheeks. But it also means that this hand can kind of rest over my genitals. And if I gently rock and move my pelvis and that gives that little bit of stimulation and touch to my genitals whilst the other hand can still move and explore and touch elsewhere. So our final little position to try out during your masturbation practice is a really nice relaxed chilled one. So you're gonna let your back be nice and supported, can be on the head of the bed or maybe on the sofa, or if you are sitting on the floor, just pop some cushions behind you against the wall so that your belly can be nice and relaxed and your torso is supported. And then grab some more cushions, shove those under your knees and have your feet, the soles of the feet together and really let the legs just completely drop and relax. So there's no tension in the inner thighs and the legs are nice and heavy. And so from here, this is a really nice one to keep the body relaxed, to play with the genitals, to explore every part of your body that you can reach. Even maybe leaning forward a little bit, coming down to the toes, the feet. Sweeping all the way back up the legs, getting into the genitals a little bit, and then flowing up through the rest of the body. So in all these positions, explore ways that you can move your body to generate sensation to break the habit of just moving the hands and keeping the body kind of rigid and passive. For example, when you're standing, gently rock the pelvis back and forth to move your penis into your hands, or when your side lying, arch and round the back to glide your vulva over your palms as they rest between your legs, or in that puppy pose, move and rotate your chest so that your nipples graze the fabric underneath you. Use the opportunity to really feel how your body can stretch, undulate and expand. Next week we'll be looking at more ways you can stretch, strengthen and activate your body in order to enjoy masturbation even more. - So to begin your mapping practice, you can have your list of anatomical landmarks or the parts of your genitals nearby, and perhaps have a small mirror if you would like to use that as well. So working with your list, you're gonna locate and place a finger on each anatomical structure. So choose your first, and then let the fingers just come to rest on that landmark, that place. And just holding, there's nothing busy or fiddly that you have to do here. Just letting the fingers hold and connect on that area. Sometimes it can be nice to literally name this part aloud. Just stay present here with that touch, notice what it feels like, be curious. Remember, there's no right or wrong way to feel. Just allow yourself to feel what is there even if that's not very much right now. Remember to breathe nice and fully deeply into your body and into this point that you're touching. If you notice that you start to go into any old habits of masturbation or touch, then just take a little pause. Arousal is not the object of this exercise. It can be helpful if those old patterns of masturbation or arousal do come up to just gently, take the hands away, take a breath, and then come back to that area. Reconnect with the touch and just hold. You can stay on each landmark, each item on your list, for about two, maybe three minutes. Notice if the sensations change as you stay there. You might find that you go through different layers or levels of sensation awareness. The sensation might stay in that location under your fingers, or it might ripple or spread out into other areas of your body. You can repeat this exercise after you've spent some time with massage, stimulation and pleasure. Tune in and notice what differences there are. Again, be curious. - [Narrator] So, to start your mapping practice, have your list of your anatomical landmarks to hand. And you're gonna start by choosing one that feels like the right place to start for you. And then gently and gradually just take a finger, so whatever finger feels good, and just rest that over your first little landmark. So locating your first landmark, place your finger on that place that you've identified. And when you touch it, you can name it out loud, if that feels good, and just stay present there. Notice what it feels like. Be curious. Remember, there's no right or wrong way to feel. Just allow yourself to feel what's there, even if that's not very much sensation right now. So remember to keep your breath nice and full, nice and deep. (narrator sighs) Just notice if the sensations stay in that place that you're touching, or if they kind of ripple out anywhere else in your body. If you notice that you start to go into old habits of touching, masturbating, those old patterns of arousal, just take a little pause. Arousal's not the object of this exercise. So you might like to just take your hand away briefly, take a breath (narrator sighs) and then you can come back to it. So you stay on each landmark for maybe two to three minutes, just noticing if the sensations change. You might find that you go through different sort of layers or levels of sensation. And after a couple of minutes, you can move onto the next area that you've identified on your list. You can repeat this exercise this time after you've spent some time massaging, stimulating and pleasuring your genitals, and notice if there are differences. Again, be curious. - Throughout the course, we'll be learning about different genital massage techniques for self-pleasuring. The emphasis here is on massage rather than masturbation techniques. I encourage you to think of your genitals as you would any other area of your body that can be touched and massaged in order to promote more relaxation. Arousal and pleasure will be a byproduct of the relaxation in your genitals and pelvis. I invite you with all these massage techniques to approach the touch as a form of meditation. So I'll encourage you to repeat each technique or stroke 20 to 30 times whilst paying attention to the way, the sensations and responses in your body change rather than using the technique to try and get you somewhere or achieve a certain outcome or goal. The pleasure is in the journey, not just the goal. And on this journey, you might notice that the arc of the sensations is not what you are used to compared to maybe your habitual or familiar genital touch, which carries the function of getting you to the goal. At first, you might not feel much with these techniques, and then after say 10 mindful repetitions, the touch and some softening or warmth might appear and then a layer of prickling, tingling or buzzing. And after 20 repetitions, oof, little electric shoots expanding outwards from where you were touching. Then maybe another layer of numbness or reduced sensation. And don't be tempted to give up there. Before a wave of soft, heavy pleasure that, I don't know, feels like warm caramel just flows through your pelvis and down through your legs to your toes. Well, for you it might be entirely different. There's no right or wrong experience. Some people will have very subtle sensation experiences or a lot of numbness. Others will struggle to keep the arousal levels in check. Your body is unique and exploring these massage techniques is a way to become more familiar with it, more relaxed in it, and more loving towards it. - This week, we're going to get a bit scientific and geeky about genital anatomy and explore the individual landmarks of your genitals to increase your capacity for sensation. We're going to get creative with body positions for masturbation, and we're going to explore some genital massage techniques. As you move into more direct interaction with your genitals this week, really notice where you want to go into old patterns or habits with arousal, touch and stimulation. Remind yourself of the intention of mindful masturbation sessions. They are a space to explore and learn about your body. Not necessarily focused on the goal of arousal or orgasm but with a curiosity around what you can feel. - When you begin to explore a more mindful approach to masturbation, you'll find that not all parts of your body respond to touch in the same way. So some places might be extremely sensitive while others might register as numb. You might feel pleasure in one place and pain in another. The sensations in different areas of your genitals will be different today compared to yesterday and they'll change again tomorrow. So genital mapping is the process of exploring without agenda the capacity for sensation in your genitals and building a comprehensive awareness of your own body. It's a vital reconnaissance mission which can also be fun, playful, and deeply connecting. It's a way to build a more complete and detailed circuit between the sensory receptors in your skin and an area of your brain known as the homunculus which is literally a representational map of your body housed in your brain. Being able to tune into these subtle layers of sensation and importantly, understand the way that those sensations change when you become more aroused, is a big part of a more varied, exciting and masterful approach to solo sex and partner sex. Genital mapping involves applying gentle pressure with the fingers on skin and parts of your genitals that may be sensitive, numb or somewhere in between. So I encourage you to map your genitals at least twice. The first time without much sort of preliminary stimulation, so you can experience the mapping without arousal. And then the second time, add some stimulation, play a little bit with arousal beforehand so that you can experience the difference in sensations when you're mapping your aroused or engorged and unaroused or non engorged genitals. In doing this practice, you might come up against some uncomfortable emotions. For example, a client let's call her Julie, struggled with strong feelings of disgust and dissatisfaction with her vulva. She came to me while she was considering having labiaplasty and wanted to understand how she could connect with more love and acceptance of her genitals before opting for such an invasive procedure. So this was a really challenging but intensely profound exercise for her. And she repeated it many times before she was able to access pleasure and joyfulness. Equally another client, Mike had felt insecure about the size and straightness of his penis since adolescence but his experience of mapping was revelatory and this is what he shared with me afterwards. "I discovered sensations I didn't even know were there. "I've spent so long thinking mean "and unhappy thoughts about my penis 'and how it measured up to everyone else "that I was missing out on what it was actually capable of "and how pleasurable it could actually feel." In the next video you'll see just how to approach this exercise and I'll give you step by step instructions. But firstly, check out the anatomy diagrams in the next lesson and also use your own resources to make a list of the anatomical parts of your own genitals that you could map. If the vocabulary used in the diagram doesn't resonate for you, if, for example, it feels a bit too medical, I invite you to use your own language on your list. - [Narrator] So we're going to begin our genital massage just by holding and connecting in stillness. You're gonna take one hand to rest over the hole of the outside of your genitals and then the other hand just resting on top. And don't be in a hurry here. This is a really beautiful opportunity to just connect. Make sure that you're comfortable. To bring your awareness down into your pelvis, into your genitals. So you turn on that little bit of internal awareness that introspection, that inner vision. You can send a little bit more breath down into your pelvis and into your genitals and just holding, connecting, before you start to do anything more active with your touch. So you can tune into the sensations in your hands, the warmth of your hand on your genitals and just really letting your whole body relax. From here, we're gonna start to add a little bit of pressure or push, just a little bit more firmness through the hands as you inhale, and then just soften release, relax the fingers and hands as you exhale. So as you inhale, just giving a little press, exploring a bit more firmness and then release as you exhale. Letting the inhale flow through the nose, letting the breath sigh out through the mouth. (narrator sighs) So you can take maybe 10, 15 even 20 conscious breaths here, giving that little bit of pressure as you inhale and softening as you exhale. (narrator sighs) From here, we'll start to just very gently rotate and circle the heel of the hands. So you're bringing a little bit of movement to the fascia that covers the front of your pelvis, right at the root of your penis. And really take your time here. There's no rush. Just circling the hands around. Can play with different levels of pressure. Just rotating and moving the fascia at the front of the pelvis. Try going in one direction and also taking it back in the other direction. Noticing any difference in the sensations. Gradually you can start to move a little bit faster almost like sort of jiggling the genitals, the skin, the fascia on the front of your pelvis. (narrator sighs) This is a really lovely way to bring blood flow to the tissue, the muscles, the fascia that hold your genitals onto your body. Can relax the lower belly, bring blood flow into the penis into the erectile tissue of the penis. It's just a nice way to begin and connect. So the first area of your genitals that we're going to play with explore touch massage is the perineum. So that's the space underneath your balls the base of your pelvis. And you're gonna take both hands to this area and using maybe the first two or maybe the first three fingers, you're just gonna start to do little circles, kinda massaging, into this area. So you can keep the pressure light to begin with and then maybe explore slightly firmer pressure, suppressing a little bit deeper into this perineum area. So for a lot of guys this is an area that doesn't get much attention, doesn't get a lot of touch or connection but it's actually connecting within massaging into the root of your penis as it's inside your body. So rather than just going straight to the parts of your genitals that you can see on the outside, this is a nice way to kind of connect right from the root, all the way down inside your body. So really let your fingers relax, exploring this area that might feel a little bit tender. There might be some tension here. So it's a really loving place to to massage and help your body relax. Remember to keep the breath nice and deep, nice and full. (narrator sighs) And really be curious about this area. How does it feel to massage, to stroke, to enjoy? I encourage you to try this without any oil or lube to begin with. It gives you just a little bit more traction a little bit more grip on the finger pads and you can really massage into the muscle and the fascia. So for this next touch technique, I'm gonna encourage you to put a little bit of oil or lube onto your hands and we're gonna start exploring the shaft of your penis. We're gonna move from the base all the way out to the tip. And this is a very specific way to interrupt the most common sort of pattern of touch. You're going to let your thumb and your first finger be closest to your body and then sliding down and out to the tip. And really taking a time here. This is like a beautiful stretch and stroke through the whole length of the shaft of your penis. You can play with different pressures here. So you can squeeze a little bit more or a little bit less between your fingers and your thumb. Have a little experiment, see what feels good, what the different pressures create in terms of sensation in your body. (narrator sighs) So this slightly different direction of touch to what most people are used to is a great way to kind of uncompress or decompress your genitals. It tends to be a lot of tension in the root of the cock, in the front of the pelvis. So this is a really nice way to sort of start thinking about opening your body up, opening your genitals up instead of contracting and tightening and tensing. And so again, as with all these techniques, try this for three minutes, four minutes, five minutes just repeating this stroke. A little addition to the root to tip stroke is a twist and slide. So with this one, again, you're moving from the base to the tip, but just adding a little twist either with the hands or sort of twisting round the shaft of the cock. And tune in to what that rotation feels like, where it's stretches, where it creates a little bit of a pull or tag. Again, you can play with the pressure here, explore, experiment and always staying connected to that nice deep breath. So adding to this root to tip slide, we're now gonna come in from the hip and slide the hand all the way down over the shaft of the between the thigh giving that little squeeze of the shaft between the hand and the thigh. And you can really use the heel of the hand here over the hip. Nice bit of pressure and massage to the front of the pelvis and onto the shaft. This is a really nice bit of massage for the front of the pelvis. Nice little side stretch. So you can try maybe five, 10 or so with the right hand and then bringing the left hand in and taking the shaft of the cock onto the other thigh. (narrator sighs) So really exploring with that sensation of kind squeezing the shaft of your cock between your hand and your thigh. - [Presenter] Okay, so the first technique that we're gonna cover is just holding and being in stillness with your genitals. So you're gonna let one hand just rest and cup over the hole of your outside of your vulva, and then let the other hand come and rest on top. And you just take a couple of moments here, maybe bring some awareness down into your genitals using that sort of internal vision, internal awareness. Maybe you take a little bit more breath down into the pelvis. So just connecting and holding before you start any more active touch. From here, you are going to give a little bit more pressure or firmness through the fingers, through the hands as you inhale. So just pressing in as you breathe in, and then just let the hands relax and soften as you exhale. (Model breathing deeply) So you can play with different kinds of pressure here as you breathe in. As you exhale, you might want to experiment with letting the hands come away completely, and then reconnecting as you inhale. (Model breathing deeply) From here we're going to start to sort of gently rotate or circle the heel of the hand, keeping the fingers in connection with the outer lips. This should feel like a sense of sort of moving the skin or the fascia, just a little gentle rotation. You can try going one direction and then the opposite direction. Notice if that creates any different sensations. (Model breathing deeply) So begin this slowly, and then if you want to, you can kind of speed it up, do more of like a little jiggling with the hand, yeah. We're just moving the skin, the fascia on the pubic bone, and the vulva, the outside of your genitals. So we're now gonna start playing a little bit with the outer lips. So you can start by bringing the fingers just onto the top of the pubic bone, the mons pubic. And then you're gonna pinch or squeeze gently the skin between your thumb and your fore fingers, and then just roll down. So you're kinda rolling the skin from your pubic bone down towards the opening of your vagina. Yeah, so you're kind of walking the fingers, really like massaging the lips between the fingers as you walk down. (Model breathing deeply) So sometimes at first this can feel a little bit strange, it might be like a little bit of tenderness or tightness up by the pubic bone. But what we're doing here is like bringing blood flow and suppleness into the outer lips, which helps to just kind of warm up the whole of your genitals. So now we're gonna start exploring the vestibular bulbs, which are these small little pieces of erectile tissue just down on either side of the opening of your vagina. So if you place your finger pads just at the either the left and right side of the opening of your vagina, you'll feel this kind of springy or like slightly bouncy area. And you're gonna take the first finger, or the first and second fingers, and just kind of massage and press into that area, little circles. And letting the fingers relax, letting your hands just kinda rest easy on your thighs as you are pressing into that little area at the base of your genitals. So again, this is really nice for kind of relaxing the pelvic floor muscles. Can be a really nice one to do before you start doing any internal touch, sort of softens and relaxes the band of tissue either side of the opening of your vagina. And we can also play with a little doorbell touch here. So instead of the little circles just giving a little bit of pressure as you inhale, and then releasing as you exhale. (Model breathing heavily) Once again, you know, have a little feel around and find the area that feels pleasurable for you. Maybe if you go a little bit further down, or a little bit further up, or to the sides, just that little bit of curiosity around exploring the area. And then you can come back to that doorbell, pressing in with the inhale and release as you exhale. (Model breathing heavily) So we're now gonna start stroking and exploring the whole of the vulva, and up onto the pubic bone, the front of the pelvis. And we're gonna do this in a beautiful figure of eight motion so that we can touch and cover as much of the vulva, the outer lips, as possible. So letting one hand to begin with, just explore and take this figure of eight motion the middle point sort of crossing, maybe over where your clitoris is or where the pubic bone is. And I would suggest doing this without oil to begin with and going really lightly, like a very, very light fingertip pressure. If you have pubic hair, this can feel so, so yummy 'cause you're sort of brushing or tugging on the the hair follicles as you move. After a while, maybe explore with the other hand as well, which might be a little bit difficult to figure out the pattern to begin with. And exploring with the least dominant hand as well. And really take your time here, it's this very gentle stroke and caress of your whole outer labia, your whole vulva. So you might also want to explore this one with a little bit of oil or lube. So you can just take a little bit onto your hands, let it cover your whole palms and fingers. And you'll probably notice with the oil it's a different texture, it's a different sensation, you can go maybe a little bit firmer with your pressure. And just keeping that little figure of eight going. And if you want to, you can try with both hands as well for maybe a little added pressure or firmness, or just that doubling up on touch and connection. So from here, we're gonna take small little circles, again, with probably the first or second, or maybe even the first three fingers. And you're doing these little light circles on the skin level to begin with, moving from the pubic bone, and gradually making your way down over the outer lips to the base of your pelvis, down near your perineum. When you reach the perineum, come back up to the pubic bone and begin again, just stroking down in these little circular motions. So what we're doing here is kind of following the shape of the clitoral legs, which flow from the root of your clitoris and go down the sides of the opening of your vagina and kind of end down near the perineum, behind those vestibular bulbs. So you can gradually add a little bit more pressure, so you're working more onto the fascia layer. And then moving a little bit deeper even to whatever depth of pressure is comfortable for you. (Model breathing deeply) - This week, we're going to play one of my favorite masturbation games. Am I touching or being touched? We're going to do a bit of sexercise to activate, stretch, and strengthen your body, your pelvic floor muscles and your pelvis. And we're going to add another layer and another selection of genital touch techniques to your repertoire. With all of these, don't forget about the foundation of conscious breathing and remember to spend time in stillness and instillation after you've explored. Follow along with each practice on its own and/or experiment with adding the principles to your existing ways of masturbating. The first practice is often quite a revelation. So feel free to share your experiences and questions in the comments section of each lesson. - [Instructor] So our final stretch for the cock is gonna work in opposite directions. So you're gonna take a little ring with the thumb and first finger around the balls, just making a little lock to hold that tight. And then, you're stretching and pulling in opposite directions and giving that nice stretch through the whole length. So letting the fingers relax, and really taking your time to just slide through, and giving that little stretch in opposite directions with your balls and the shaft of your penis. (sighs) This can be a really nice one to do with all without lube or oil. So have a play, experiment, and see what feels good for you. - Cool. - From here, we're going to take a really slow full hand slide. We're gonna move from the perineum, underneath the balls. Sliding up over the underside of your penis, maybe onto the belly, and then following with the other hand. That's really nice to have a little bit of oil, or lube on your hands here, just to create that frictionless sliding movement. You're really letting the fingers caress over the perineum. Can play with a nice light texture, or light pressure. Maybe explore a firmer, little bit more pressure through the touch. And just keep letting those hands flow up and over, and can carry the touch on and up all the way to the chest the heart, over the nipples, really feeling that connection through your genitals and the whole of your body. So in this new position, slightly different position perhaps, for your masturbation and self-pleasure. It's really important to make sure that you're comfortable. And simple way to do that is to shove some cushions, pillows between your butt and your heels, as many as you need to make it comfortable. So the technique, the touch that we're gonna explore here is making a little prayer shape with your hands. So taking, interlocking the fingers together on the underside, and then wrapping the thumbs around on top. And from here, you can slide the whole hands from the base to the tip, feeling that connection on the top of the shaft and the underneath. So this is a beautiful way to interrupt the habit of perhaps, only touching yourself with one hand and simply by bringing touch with the both hands and this lovely interlaced, connected feeling through the hands can be a really simple way just to interrupt that pattern, that habit. Again, let your body move, adjust. Make sure that there's as much relaxation as possible. Let the hips wiggle, let the pelvis move a little bit. Can create a slightly different experience of the sensation if you hold your hands still, and let your pelvis move your genitals into your hands. So again, experimenting here with what pressure feels good? What speed feels good? Allowing the breath to be full and deep. And Just keeping that beautiful prayer shaped connection through the hands, stroking the underside and the top of the cock at the same time. So our final technique for this week is a little bit more of an edgy one, a little bit exciting. A sharp little sensation on the head of the penis. You're gonna hold at the base with one hand, and then just let the head slap, or drop into the palm of the other hand. This can be a feisty little sensation, that little shock of the impact. And just playing with that slightly different impact and sharp sensation. It's a really great one to bring blood flow into the head of the penis and that very sensitive area, the glands and the tip of the penis. And this can be a really nice one to alternate with that route to tip slide. So that's my little top tip go between this and the route to tip slide. - So this practice begins with the invitation to put on some music and dance or shake to activate your body for pleasure and sensation. After that, we'll work on a bit of strengthening and toning for the pelvic floor. That's an important set of muscles in the base of your pelvis that contribute to healthy sexual function and your ability to enjoy and regulate orgasmicness. We'll finish with my four favorite stretches that increase mobility around the pelvis, the hips, and the lower torso. Doing these regularly will help you feel more supple and relaxed, which can lead to stronger erections, deeper vaginal orgasms and more choice and mastery around arousal levels. This is an exercise class specifically designed around sex. It's sexercise. So if you want to wear some Lyra, go for it. If you want to be naked, that's also okay. If you'd rather keep it nice and soft and comfy then do this practice in your pajamas. I'll give some different scaled options for each of the exercises. So there'll be something for everyone. Please feel into what works best for you. So we're gonna start here with five minutes of just shaking your body out, getting it moving. You could have a little dance. It's basically just an invitation to move your body in a nonlinear way. So it doesn't have to look good. There's no dance steps. You're just gonna follow along. Play around with this kind of shaking and movement. If you want to put on some music at home, I really encourage you to do that. I'm gonna just be flowing here without music just the music in my, in my head. And then I'll guide you through. I'll let you know when the five minutes is up. So if you need to pause, put on some music, do that now, but otherwise let's begin our sexercise class. So you can start just by coming down into the feet. We're standing up here, starting, just bouncing. Maybe you've had a long busy day. Maybe you've been sat at your desk for a long time. Maybe you haven't moved very much today. So here is your opportunity to just have a shake. Let it go. (exaggerated exhaling) Remember to keep that breath moving. Nice inhales through the nose. Exhale through the mouth. Just let it go. Just let it all go. (exaggerated exhaling) Maybe you feel a little bit ridiculous. That's okay. Just keep shaking. Let the butt shake. Let the hips wiggle. Let the shoulders all nice and floppy and relaxed. (exaggerated exhaling) Do a little twist with the hips. (exaggerated exhaling) Getting the heart rate up a little bit, getting your breathing up a little bit. Hopefully can see that it doesn't have to look a certain way. Just let your body kind of lead you, have a little dance around. (exaggerated exhaling) Whenever you need to, you can slow it down a little bit. Just come back to the feet and maybe do a little bounce. (exaggerated exhaling) Everything that's kind of been building or stuck there in your body all day, just give a little shake, a little jiggle. (exaggerated exhaling) Maybe have a little laugh, giggle at yourself. Feels a bit silly. Feels a bit playful. Don't have to take it all so seriously. Just have little bounce up and down. (exaggerated exhaling) So just a couple more minutes here. Yeah, maybe one more minute. (exaggerated exhaling) Let the arm swing. Let the shoulders relax. (exaggerated exhaling) Okay, let's bring it just gently down into this small little bounce, taking a couple of nice, big deep breath here. Maybe you notice that your heart rate is up. Mine definitely is. Maybe you feel a little bit warmer on your skin. Maybe you're breathing a little bit more. Maybe there's a little bit more blood flowing through your legs, through your torso. (exhaling) And then we'll just take one little minute just to stand still, really feeling any tingling, buzzing, vibrations in your body. (exhaling) Beautiful. So now we're gonna move into our strengthening section of this class. So we're gonna come down onto the floor. I'm gonna be lying on our backs. So grab a couple of cushions, if you need. I'm gonna have one just under my head. And you're coming down to lie on your back. Let the feet be flat on the floor here. We're moving into our little kegel exercises, so strengthening for the pelvic floor. So to begin, let's just find the pelvic floor muscles. So if you, as you're sitting here, let your hands just rest on the lower belly and imagine that you are cutting off a pee halfway through. So you're trying to stop yourself peeing halfway through. Just notice what happens in the base of your pelvis down near your genitals. There's that kind of little squeeze or kind of movement, a little bit of holding or pulling through the pelvic floor. The other way that sometimes you can imagine this is if you're walking into a really cold lake, imagine what happens to your pelvis. Oh, it kind of lifts. There's this sort of lift and protect movement. So those muscles, that little squeeze, that is your pelvic floor. So we are going to target those muscles by breathing and contracting or giving a very gentle lift and squeeze to those. So we're gonna do 10 of these to begin, with and you can follow me with my breath. But just something to be aware of, notice if when you're trying to squeeze your pelvic floor, you tend to sort of squeeze your butt or squeeze your inner thighs. If that happens, give the hips a little wiggle, make the squeeze or the contraction a little bit smaller, little bit more subtle, not as, eh not as tight and squeezy like that because we want to not switch on those big muscles. We want to isolate the smaller, less well used muscles of the pelvic floor. So getting comfy in the pelvis, you can rest the knees together, if that's a little bit more comfortable for you, or just have them apart here in this active rest. So as you inhale, you're gonna give a little gentle squeeze on the pelvic floor. As you exhale, relax. So we'll do 10 breaths and squeezes here. Inhale and squeeze. Exhale, relax. Inhale and squeeze. Exhale, relax. Inhale and squeeze. It's like a 30% effort on the squeeze. Exhale, relax. Really letting that go. So almost like you're pressing down and out on the exhale. Inhale and squeeze. Exhale, relax. (exaggerated exhaling) A little bit of sound or noise with the breath is really okay. Inhale and squeeze. And exhale, relax. (exaggerated exhaling) Halfway there. Inhale and squeeze. Exhale, relax. (exhaling) So it might not look like I'm doing much here, but that's how subtle the little contraction can be. Inhale and squeeze. Exhale, relax. (exhaling) Last three, inhale and squeeze. And exhale, relax. Inhale and squeeze. Exhale, relax. Last one here. Nice inhale through the nose. Little squeeze on the pelvic floor. And exhale, relax. Good, so give your hips a little wiggle if you need to. Just notice what sensations are there in your pelvic floor, and your pelvis and your genitals. Sometimes the first time doing this can be quite emotional. There can be an emotional response in your body. That's not unusual. So if that's there, allow it to be felt. We're gonna do a second little exercise with the kegels here. It's a three stage clench. So rather than just inhaling and squeezing, we're going to inhale whilst we tighten, tighten, tighten and then release. Sometimes who can sort of imagine this as an elevator, going up from the first floor to the second floor to the third floor and then all the way back down. So inhale first floor, second floor, third floor and relax. So a small squeeze on the first one. Little bit more on the second, little bit more on the third. Again, we're gonna do 10 of these. So inhaling, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, exhale, relax. Inhale, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, exhale, relax. (exhaling) Inhale, squeeze, squeeze, exhale, relax. Inhale and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. Exhale, let go. Inhale, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, exhale, relax. Halfway there. Let's do five more. Inhale, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, exhale, release. Inhale and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, exhale release. Keeping the butt cheeks relaxed, thighs relaxed. Inhale and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. Exhale, relax. Two more. Inhale, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, exhale, relax. Doing really well, last one. Inhale, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, exhale release. Nice. So give you a pelvis that little bit of a wiggle, that one can feel quite intense. Can feel a little bit confusing. The muscles kind of trying to figure out how to switch on and how to switch off. So if that one was a little bit more challenging, no worries, just keep practicing. We're gonna do one more here. This is a third practice with kegels. And this one we're gonna do little fluttering kegels. And we're gonna do a faster breath. So it's gonna be a sort of, (exaggerated breathing) again squeezing with the inhale, releasing with the exhale. (exaggerated breathing) Okay, so we're gonna do 10 of those and then one long inhale and squeeze, long exhale, relax. Okay. Getting comfy. Let the butt relax. Let the hips relax. Thighs, relax. Let's go. Short little inhale, exhale. (exaggerated breathing) Squeeze with the inhale. Let go with the exhale. (exaggerated breathing) Long inhale. Squeeze the pelvic floor, and exhale. Just press down, let it completely relax and give the hips a little wiggle. Okay, so that is our kegels, our strengthening part of the workout. I would suggest that you try to do those at least every other day. And they're wonderful because you can do them wherever you are. No one needs to know. You can do them on the tube. Little squeeze, relax, squeeze, relax, bringing more awareness and connection to that area of your body. So we're gonna move into our stretching now. So these are some of my favorite simple, simple stretches for building a little bit more mobility, movement and suppleness through your hips and your pelvis and the kind of base of your torso. So with all of these, please feel into what is good for your body. Don't push anything to the point that you are not able to relax and stay connected to the breath. If it feels like you can't relax, then you've gone a bit too far. So just come out of the stretch a little bit and connect with that breath. There's no point in pushing too hard, too fast. So the first that we are going to explore is a little lunge and you can do this on your carpet in the living room whilst you're chilling, watching Netflix. We're gonna take one knee resting on the floor, can have a cushion under there if that's more comfortable, and the right foot here is going out in front of the body. Now to begin with there's no, we're not lunging miles and miles. I want you to really think about getting the hips straight. So if you notice that your tailbone is kind of tucked out, there's this big arch in your back, just practice to kind of tuck that in and under. Thinking about keeping a nice straight line from the hip bone here down to the knee bone. And for some people, this will be enough. I can already feel that that's stretching through my, the front of my thigh and the front of my pelvis here. So stay here if you can feel that stretch simply by tucking the tailbone under. If you want a little bit more here, keep the tailbone tucked and move forward onto that right knee a little bit. So you bring the right knee slightly over the ankle. Now you're gonna start to feel this stretch more in the front of your hip, the front of your pelvis here. And you can just hang out here for a little bit, take some nice deep breaths. You can rest the hands on the front knee or I'm a little teapot on my hip here. (exhaling) And we're just gonna hold this for maybe another 30 seconds or so. (exhaling) You might notice the leg starts to shake a little bit. You can always come out, come off the stretch if it's too much. (exhaling) If it feels like it wants to go a little bit further, then let that front knee extend, giving a little bit more stretch in the front of this left thigh. (exhaling) Good. And then press into the right foot to push yourself back and we're gonna switch legs. So we keep ourselves nice and balanced here. So again, just set this up for yourself. So no lunging straight in, but thinking about making the hips nice and square and tucking that tailbone under. So keeping the front of the pelvis here, nice and flat. And again, I can already feel that that stretches through the front of my right thigh here if I just tip my pelvis a little bit. So you might wanna stay here or you can slowly extend and stretch a little bit further if you want to feel that more through the front of the hip. So again, we're just gonna hang out here for about a minute. (exhaling) And the breath is really key here. So allowing the inhale to go through the nose, exhale through the mouth. You just sort of allow your body to soften into the stretch. There's nothing you have to fight. If it feels too much and you can't breathe properly, then come out of it a little bit, take a bit of the stretch off. So you should be feeling this through the front of your right hip at the moment. That's the leg stuck out the back there, really opening the sort of front of the pelvis, the psoas muscle, which runs from your spine, goes over your hip and then kind of attaches into your thigh bone. Nice little stretch to open up the front of the body here. Okay, so pushing into that left foot to bring yourself back into the beginning position. And we'll move from here down onto our back. For this one, you might wanna have a little scarf for a piece of fabric to hand. And we're gonna work on a little stretch for the glutes, so your gluteal muscles, your butt cheeks, basically. You're gonna take the left leg and put the ankle onto the right knee. Nice and easy so far, right? You're gonna keep the left foot flexed. So it's active. And then you have two options here. The easier option is that you put a little bit of fabric or the scarf round the back of the right thigh. And you hold that and pull the leg towards you. So you can hold the scarf, hold the fabric there, keeping that little left foot active and also this little right foot active. So it's important here to let your shoulders stay on the floor. We're not crunching up. Top of the body is nice and chill, nice and relaxed. And to think about letting this knee push outwards that way. So it's pushing away from your head. So you can use the scarf there, or if you're a little bit more flexible, you can take the hands to the back of that right leg. And then you're pulling in towards your body whilst you push that left knee out that way. And again, we'll just hold here for another 30 seconds or so. Nice, big deep breaths. (exhaling) Again, you know you could have your Netflix just chilling here if you wanna hang out in the evening and do something a little bit lovely for your body at the same time, or just close your eyes, focus your awareness down into your butt cheeks, into your pelvis. Think lovely supple, stretchy thoughts for your pelvis, for your butt. Okay. So lowering the right foot back down to the ground. We're gonna do the other side. Let's give the hips a little wiggle. You gonna take the right foot onto the left knee. And then again, you can use your scarf, come under under that left thigh, or you can lift the knee, keep both feet nice and flexed, grab behind your left thigh and then just chill and hang out here. So you're pulling the left thigh towards your chest, and you are pushing the right knee away from your head. Shoulders nice and relaxed and on the floor, not crunched up. (exhaling) Let's hang out here for another 30 seconds. (exhaling) You might notice that one side feels a little bit tighter than the other. That's very normal. None of us are symmetrical. (exhaling) Let's see if you can let the belly relax. Let the jaw relax. (exhaling) Okay. So taking that foot back down to the floor, give the hips a little wiggle and we're gonna come into our next stretch, which looks like a very intense one, but trust me, it's not. We can scale it for however flexible you are to give you more suppleness and flexibility with practice. So. We're going to be sitting on the butt, as I am now, and the legs are in this sort of straddle shape. So for some people, this will be enough right here. If you're a little bit more flexible, you can open the legs a little wider, but again you should be able to feel that you can relax, that you can breathe. So it shouldn't be so tight through the inner thighs that kind of like shaking and not able to breathe. So if it feels like that, go back a little bit, go back a little bit, bring the legs in, bring the legs in, find the place that's comfortable for. So you're gonna get this little straddle shape and then grab a couple of cushions, pop those in your groin area there. Add more if you need. Nice bit of padding. And then you're just gonna, ugh, kind of lean, rest your chest onto those cushions. And just hang out here for a little bit. Couple of important things, make sure these feet are nice and active. So they're flexed. They're not just dropping and drooping. We wanna stay connected to the feet. Keep the elbows down on the floor if that's comfortable, or maybe for you, it's up on the hands. Find where it's that sort of sweet spot for you. And you'll feel this stretch through the inner thighs. So really helpful for opening the pelvis, bringing more suppleness, blood flow to the inner thighs, the groin, the pelvic floor, around the perineum, those muscles that support erections, those muscles that allow for relaxed opening of the vagina. But also you're gonna feel this potentially a little bit through your lower back as well. So a nice little stretch for the base of the torso. So let's just hang out here for another 30 seconds or so. (exhaling) Nice big breaths. (exhaling) Again, you know, I could be just chilling and watching my favorite series on, on my laptop here. I could be reading a book, or I could just be closing my eyes, sending lovely, relaxed, happy thoughts and vibes down into my pelvis, my pelvic floor, and just paying attention to what those sensations feel like. Can you use your breath to really surrender into those sensations? Okay, so to come out of this one, you're gonna do it slowly, gradually just pressing up through the hands, coming back up to seated. Chuck your cushions away. Thank you very much cushions. And oh, if you've never stretched this area before, what's gonna happen now is you feel like, oh, can't move my legs. So a little helpful hint, grab under the knees and just walk the legs back together in front of you, give them a little, little shimmy, little shake and then we're gonna do our final stretch. So kind of similar here for the inner thighs, the hips, the hip flexors, you're gonna bring the souls of the feet together, holding the toes or the feet with the hands. If like me, your legs, your knees don't go down to the floor, if you are not a bendy, super yogi, shove a couple of little cushions in here. The intention is to be able to relax and to let the inner thighs soften rather than having them under lots of strain. So sitting with a little bit of support. That little hold on the feet. (exhaling) And holding here for another 30 seconds or so. (exhaling) Again, sending some awareness down into your tailbone, your pelvis, your genitals. (exhaling) So you can stay in this position for a little bit longer if you want to, or you can go back to any of the other stretches, spend a little bit longer there. Remember to jot down a couple of notes after your sexercise practice, what was challenging, what was comfortable, what was uncomfortable, what was enjoyable, what distracted you, and then just notice how that changes as you try this class perhaps next week, week after, and in the months to come. - So in this practice, we're going to focus on placement of attention when we're touching our body. And we're going to move the attention between the experience of touching and the experience of being touched. So those two dynamics can create different opportunities for the kinds of sensations that are pleasurable, enjoyable, relaxing, exciting, and it also sort of opens up your capacity and receptivity for sensation. So we're going to explore a non-intimate area of the body to begin with so we can focus on this skill of where the attention is whilst you're touching. So you might want to get into a really comfortable position. I suggest being seated for this rather than lying down so that you just maintain a little bit of activation in the body rather than falling asleep which is more likely to happen if you're lying down. So it's seated. Just make sure that you are nice and comfortable. Maybe grab some big cushions behind you. You can sit cross-legged, or you can have the legs out in front, and then you're gonna choose a non-intimate area of your body. So that might be your forearm, might be your thighs, your belly, just somewhere that you can reach easily. I'm gonna work with my right thigh today. So before you start touching just take a couple of moments to settle in, slow down, maybe let the eyes gently close and just take a couple of deeper breaths here. (inhales) (exhales) (inhales) (exhales) Just noticing here, what kinds of sensations you can feel in your body. What sort of level of awareness you have. Notice if there's any busy or chattering thoughts just let them slow down for a moment. There's nothing you have to switch off but by switching on the sensitivity of your skin those thoughts will slow down and will take a backseat. So we'll begin by bringing the hand to the area that you've chosen to explore for this practice and just letting it rest and hold to begin with. (inhales) (exhales) Tune into the sensations that you can feel going into your hand. So for the next couple of minutes we're going to explore touch here as the toucher. So the person touching. (inhales) (exhales) So you're tuning into what would feel yummy for that hand. What does that hand want to explore in this experience of touching? (sighs) So maybe the hand wants to focus on very light touch. Maybe it's more of a squeeze that feels good kind of grabbing the skin or the flesh. (inhales) (exhales) But all the time, just keeping the attention tuned into what that hand can feel. So the experience of touching. (inhales) If you notice that you get a little bit distracted, confused, just let the hand come to stillness, take a breath, and then begin again with that awareness in the hand, the sensations moving into the hand the experience of touching. (sighs) (exhales) And gradually just let the hand come to stillness. Moving the touch away. Give the hand a little wiggle, with fingers a little wiggle, little stretch. And then we'll begin again, bringing the hand to rest on the area of your body that you've chosen to explore. Starting with stillness and this time tuning into the sensations that you can feel in the area being touched. So we're tuning in now to the experience of receiving, of being touched. You can start to let the hand move and noticing what would feel pleasurable, yummy, enjoyable, for that area being touched. Hmm. And it might be that the sensations or the touch are very different. It might be that they're very similar and just keep tuning into the area being touched. (sighs) And again, if you notice that you get a little bit distracted or confused with where your attention is just let the hand come to stillness and rest for a moment. Recenter, and then begin again. (sighs) (sighs) (laughs) Focusing on how it is that your body wants to be touched to receive touch now. (sighs) (sighs) And then gradually bringing the hand to stillness and then taking that touch away. And just pause here for a moment. Notice the sensations in your hand that was touching, the sensations in the area that were being touched. Ans any sensations elsewhere in your body as well. So once you've experimented with this on a non-intimate area of your body, I invite you to apply this principle to the way that you touch your genitals as well. It can be quite fun quite playful to give yourself those two different dynamics. The receiving, and the giving within your self touch experience. To move between the two or to spend maybe one practice focused on just giving or just receiving from yourself. So the energetic aspect of this practice can be super horny to play with. You can go a little bit more into that space of maybe dominating yourself, being dominated. So you start to explore these different aspects energetically within your self-pleasure practice, rather than everything just being sort of monotone and there being no distinct or clear intention with your touch. - So we're gonna start in our holding position, taking one hand over the whole of the outside of the genitals, the vulva. And then from here, we're gonna do the slowest, slowest slide with plenty of oil, as you can see, or lube. And you're gonna really slowly just let that hand slide up over the vulva and onto the pubic bone, and then flow down with the other one behind it. And then you just keep letting those hands slide up and over from the perineum all the way up over the lips. You might feel that this kind of brushes over the head of your clitoris a little bit so you start to get a bit of clitoral stimulation, can be really nice. You can begin with light pressure, maybe play around and see if it feels good with firmer. Just adding that little bit of variety so you get those different layers of sensation as well. And with this one, it can also be nice to play with a little bit more speed, so you can mix it up and go very, very slow, and then do, ah, more like sweeping, petting, sliding up. And then, ugh, come back to that iceberg slow. My top tip for this one is definitely use plenty of oil, plenty of lube, creates that really beautiful sliding texture. From here, we're gonna start to bring some touch directly onto the very delicate inner lips. So these are often like a very sensitive little area, it's a very thin membrane of cells so super important to make sure that you have plenty of oil or lube on your skin. Friction on these inner lips is not a fun, not a fun sensation. So make sure that you've got a little bit of oil or lube on your fingers. And we're gonna start by just stroking open those little inner lips just finding that beautiful little sort butterfly shape. If you want to here, you can use a mirror to help you, to guide you, little handheld mirror or larger kind of makeup mirror can be helpful. So you're gently just rolling those open moving from the middle to the outside, stroking over. Sometimes this can send little shoots of sensation up into the clitoris, the nerve endings that innovate in the head of the clitoris sometimes for some women do also kind of run down into the inner lips. And you might find that you're also brushing a little bit on the head of your clitoris, so it can be this really yummy blended sensation. From here you're gonna that little shape all the way out onto the thighs, connecting with this sense of sort of opening, relaxing down and out. Rolling over those little beautiful inner lips and out over your inner thighs. So from here, we are gonna start touching a little bit directly onto the clitoris but perhaps not the way that you are used to. We're not gonna go straight to the head of the clitoris, we're gonna explore and stimulate the shaft, which runs from your pubic bone. That's kind of the root of the shaft and then it sort of runs out into the head. So you're gonna take the first two fingers and just slide them down either side of the shaft and into that little valley between the inner and outer lips. And then again, just follow with the other hand. But really take your time here. You can give a little sort of squeeze between your fingers as you go down over the shaft of your clitoris. And really feel like your finger pads kind of press into the pubic bone to start and then slide out. So again, with this direction of touch and kind of stimulating the clitoris from the root to the tip, we're connecting with this sense of like relaxing down into your pelvis, into your genitals. So rather than pulling in and up, we just encourage that sense of relaxing down, that energy sort of flowing down into the bowl of your pelvis. So from here, we're gonna do one of the maybe most simple but profound techniques. Rather than moving straight to internal touch and kind of pressing and pushing inside with your fingers. We're simply gonna hold at the entrance of the vagina. So you can have a little sort of feel around and it'll feel sort of like a thick elastic band and you just hold the finger there. You're not pressing or pushing in, but you're just in the, we call this sort of in the vestibule, so in the entrance. So you can take a nice big, deep breath here and really feel what that texture is like under your finger. Does it meet resistance? Is there softness, tightness? This can be really playful here, you can let the hips wiggle or move a little bit but just keeping the finger in place. So there's almost like a sense of teasing yourself like a bit of anticipation. And I would really encourage you to just take your time here. Don't be in a rush, you know, if it feels okay, maybe you'll start to notice that the entrance of the vagina almost like sort of sucks your finger in a little bit, starts to soften, your finger gets like invited in but it's never a sense of pushing or pressing or rushing in here. For a lot of women this area can feel very sensitive, can feel almost like it's, you know, a little bit stingy or like it's been irritated or could be irritated. If there's any feelings of discomfort that come up, just see if you can let yourself breathe into them, let it soften. If there's any emotion that moves here, just let it be. And always, obviously, you can let that finger kind of come away a little bit, come out and then gradually just rest back in. - So the first thing that's super important for your self-abdominal massage is your setup. You'll notice that I've got a couple of cushions under my knees and a couple of nice cushions under my head and shoulders. And this is a really important part of this touch practice, to make sure that your belly, your core muscles are nice and relaxed, and that your spine can be resting on the floor. So a little bit of that support under the knees and a little bit of support under the head and shoulders. So let yourself get comfy. Settle in here. Maybe give the hips a little wiggle. Let the legs just feel really nice and heavy. Let all the weight of the legs drop down into the pillows underneath. (instructor breathes deeply) And then we're gonna bring the hands just to rest somewhere on the belly. So letting the hands come, hold in stillness. And just finding this little connection, tuning in to the space between your ribs and your pelvis. And noticing what thoughts arise here, any expectations, judgments. Allowing your attention to shift to the physical sensations. So the heat from your hands resting on your skin. The way your body moves as you inhale and exhale. Any little murmurings or movements, vibrations in your belly. (instructor exhales loudly) So we're gonna start with a very light fingertip touch, caressing down from the right ribs to the left hip. And then again on the other side. Just making this little crisscross over your belly, from your ribs to your hips. (instructor breathes deeply) And this is a really light, feathery touch, just grazing the hairs, the very surface of your skin. Noticing the little sensations that arise here. Maybe it's a little bit ticklish, little goosebumps. (instructor exhales loudly) And just enjoying that caress across the belly from the ribs over to each hip. (instructor exhales loudly) Keeping that really lovely, light, fingertip touch now, we're gonna do circles around the whole belly, starting at the base of the ribs here, the solar plexus. Moving round to the left ribs. Encircling around the whole of the belly. (instructor exhales loudly) So flowing in this direction, you follow the direction of the digestive system. So it's really nice to go round in this direction. (instructor exhales loudly) And then just letting the hands come to rest on the base of the ribs so the fingertips are just touching into the solar plexus, so this little point where the rib cage meets in the middle of your body. Just holding here, you can give a tiny little bit of pressure with the fingers. Just holding and noticing any little pulsing or movements under your hands. And see if there's anywhere in your body that could let go, relax just a little bit more. And then from here, we're gonna bring some oil or lube onto the fingers and the hands. Bringing the fingers back to the solar plexus area, we're gonna start these smooth, oily circles all the way around the belly again. (instructor exhales loudly) (instructor exhales loudly) You can really take your time here, just enjoying spreading that oil around onto your skin. (instructor exhales loudly) You can experiment with moving from lighter pressure, so just on the skin level. Maybe pressing in a little deeper on the next sweep round. And then another nice, big, slow, smooth circle, a little deeper again. And as you're sweeping around here, just notice if there are any areas that feel tender, any areas that feel maybe a little bit numb. Notice the difference in the textures, the softness, the firmness. (instructor breathes deeply) So from here, we're gonna do little smaller circles now with the fingers. You can either use just the first two fingers or all four finger pads, and see what feels good for you. And we're moving from the solar plexus down a little bit towards the belly button. And then we're going around to the left side. So again, we're following the direction of our digestive system. Coming down now into the area of the small intestines, kind of in the center of your belly here. And just doing these little circles, massaging round. Can play it different depths, so you can go on the skin, or you can press in a little bit further to the fascia, or press in, oh, even deeper to the muscle layer there. And working around over to the right side. Oh. And as you are circling, massaging through here, just notice if there's anywhere that has that sort of feeling of resistance, or there's like a firmer texture, or if there's any tenderness, or pain, or discomfort. And on those points, just hold. Stay there for a moment. Breathe and let the body soften. Let the belly soften under your fingers. (instructor breathes deeply) So then carry on with these little circles around, just kind of massaging into your belly. Working your way towards your right hip. So this little junction through here between your small intestine and your ascending colon, which runs up the right side of your belly here. And then you're just coming in again, these little circles, following the flow of your digestive system up from your right hip to your right ribs. (instructor sighing loudly) And then across the top of the belly. Just massaging all that beautiful oil into your skin. Over to the left ribs. And then starting to flow down through the descending colon, which comes down through the left side of your body. Still with these little circles. Again, just noticing if there's any little points where you want to hold a moment. (instructor sighing loudly) And then flowing all the way down to the left hip and coming round into the center of your belly, just below your belly button. And just pause and hold here. And then we're gonna take the right thumb and the left thumb into the inside of the left hip bone, so these little areas on the inside of the pelvis. I'm just exploring through here with some longer, smooth strokes. Again, if this feels tight or tender, just hold still. See if you can touch and stay with love, with awareness. And letting the belly soften and relax. And then coming onto the right inside of the right hip. And letting those thumbs just slide down through. Mm, this area can often feel a little tight, a little bruised, almost, so go gently. (instructor sighing loudly) And then we'll finish our lovely, yummy, soft belly massage with some more of those big sweeping circles all the way around, just letting the fingers explore, pressing through the heel of your hand, using the fingertips, the finger pads. Mm. Then letting the hands come to rest in stillness on the belly. Taking a little pause just to notice the sensations in your body. (instructor sighing) So when you move from here, I would really encourage you to roll onto one side and take a few breaths there. Don't just sit, bolt upright. So you can come almost into a nice little resting, fetal position. A little bit of love and tenderness into your belly. And then when you're ready, go slowly when you move. - So your gut is essentially a second brain, more attuned to emotion and intuition. Your head brain is more of a processing and control center for the signals and information that are being received and generated by your body every millisecond of the day and night. You know the feeling right? Your gut might tell you something is off, but then your brain overrides it and you end up in a tricky situation that could have been avoided if you just noticed and valued that intuitive gut instinct. Sometimes having your belly massaged or touched feels even more intimate or vulnerable than having your genitals massaged. The belly holds feelings of self-consciousness, insecurity, and vulnerability. In our culture, it's a marker of how attractive we are, having a flat stomach or wash board abs is something we are told to aspire to. We're told to crunch, tighten, and hold or suck it in. For me, this is a worrying metaphor for how we're conditioned to restrict our experience and enjoyment of our body and try to contain or suppress our emotions. Physically, this shows up as tension, pain, dysfunction, and armoring in the abdominal area. Energetically, this creates a lid or a roadblock between your genitals and the rest of your body. When we are disconnected from unloving towards, tense and numbed out in our abdominal area, it's much, much more difficult for erotic energy and sensation to spread and be felt anywhere other than the genitals. The majority of our vital organs kind of nestle in this space between the base of the ribs and the top of the pelvis. All those wonderful parts of the incredible machine that is your body, working away within your abdomen. The enteric nervous system is comprised of trillions of nerve endings wandering around in your gut, and it plays a huge role in helping you to regulate stress, arousal and excitement. By giving yourself regular mindful abdominal massage, you can gain access to the parasympathetic activation of your nervous system. That's the part that's responsible for the rest and digest state rather than the sympathetic branch, which we know as fight or flight. Another fun little fact is that your vagus nerve wanders around through all the organs and muscles of your torso. It's the only major nerve pathway that doesn't run down through your spinal cord. There's some interesting research that shows this neural pathway, the vagus nerve, can give access to orgasm in people who've had spinal injuries. The vagus nerve plays a huge role in the deeper and more full body orgasmic states, that are accessed when we feel safe, deeply relaxed, and connected to our physical and emotional bodies. So this week I invite you to explore one practice, solely focused on abdominal massage. It won't necessarily be orgasmic or arousing, but I encourage you to connect with an intention of loving kindness, curiosity, and the luxuriousness of having your belly rubbed. You might then also hold more awareness of sensations in your abdomen during your regular masturbation practices. So follow along with my demonstration of a simple 15 minute self-massage for your belly in the next video. - So this week you're going to learn how to massage another really intimate area of your body: your belly. Increasing relaxation and awareness in the belly is a big key in the experience of full-body orgasms. You'll add another set of genital touch techniques to your toolbox, and you'll have the opportunity to try out something that is, for many people, quite an edgy, confronting, but powerful exercise. This week you will be connecting with visual stimulation during masturbation in a, perhaps, new and exciting way; witnessing yourself in pleasure, being your own voyeur and exhibitionist all in one. - [Narrator] So we're going to bring touch now from the thighs, sweeping in and stroking along the inner thighs, which can be a lovely, sensitive area, and up onto the shaft of the cock and all the way out. So really letting those hands just gather up sensation and energy in towards your genitals and then out along the length of the shaft. And you can really enjoy this. Stroke can touch up through the inner thighs, maybe taking a nice, deep inhale as you sweep in, noticing the difference in the sensitivity along your thighs before you reach your genitals. As an alternative with this one, you can sweep in through the thighs and then stroke up over the underside of the shaft, so it comes up onto the belly and your hands carry on up. And then, again, just letting the hands drop down. Caress and stroke up over the thighs, the genitals. And letting that energy, that sensation spread up through the rest of your body. So this can be a really nice one for just helping to relax tension in the inner thighs, building that sense of anticipation and energy in towards the genitals. And just helping you to explore a little bit more of your body. So from here, we're gonna start to focus a little bit more on the tip of the penis. This super sensitive area has over 5,000 nerve endings in the head of your penis, tends to be the most sensitive or sensitized part of the penis. The first little way of touching that we're gonna explore is to make a little lemon juicer shape with your fingers, to use the fingertips close together and then just stroking up over the very tip. It can feel really nice to make a sort of lock around the base with one hand. It can help to sort of push a little bit of blood flow into the tip. So you're pulling the foreskin back a little bit to expose the tip of the penis and then taking these little lemon juicer delicate fingers and just playing over the tip. (breathes deeply) So here, you're touching onto the frenulum, which is on the underside of the head of your penis, and also the corona, the little ridge around the glans or the tip of the penis. And again, explore this touch. As a little meditation, spend three, five, maybe even 15 minutes with just this touch. Notice how the sensations change. I recommend you use some oil or lube here on your fingers to reduce the friction and avoid overstimulating or irritating that delicate skin on the very tip of your penis. So again, working on the head, the glans of the penis. We're gonna hold up to the base with one hand and then make a little suction cup with the other one. So tucking the thumb in under the fingers and letting the head of the cock kind of nestle in the palm of that top hand. And then you're gonna give a little squeeze, circle, massage, and play around on the tip with that cupped hand on the top. Again, letting the breadth flow. Notice if you start to hold the breath, particularly around this area because it tends to be a more sensitive area, tends to be associated with maybe older patterns of arousal or masturbation. So notice what else is going on in your body as you're playing and more mindfully exploring this part of your genitals. So letting the shaft of the cock rest up on the belly now. You're gonna take a little bit more oil or lube on your hands if you need, letting the oil spread over the palms, and then we're gonna take very slow and silky smooth circles with the hand around the underside of the cock. And really let your body get comfy here. Make sure there's no tension in your butts or in your thighs. And letting that hand circle round, so you're rubbing onto the frenulum. The fingers are maybe just lightly covering the balls. Remember if you try with one hand, have little play and explore with the other hand as well. It can be really fun to play with speed here. So blend going faster, really moving the hand, and then maybe tease yourself a little bit with a slower, a more expansive stroke. Can always be nice as well to let the other hand stroke or move around. And playing with those circles, movement on the underside. So our final touch technique for this week is a little more familiar to maybe older ways of touching. We're going to move from the tip to the base. The main difference here is that we're using both hands and we're sliding down over and over again. And this conveyor belt of hands moving from the tip to the base. So this one can feel super yummy as you stroke down over the head and then the whole length of the shaft of your cock. And if it feels nice for you, maybe include the balls a little bit as you stroke down. It can sometimes feel nice to let that spread out onto the thighs or up onto the belly. Just have a little play, explore. Find what feels good for you. So a little playful, fun technique here to get your hips moving. You're gonna be standing up and just letting the hips swing left to right. And as you get a little bit of speed going, just playing with your hips, you'll notice that your cock starts to swing side to side. And this is a really lovely one to just have a little bit of fun. Get that little bit of sensation as the shaft of your penis and the head of your penis slaps onto each thigh, just tuning into that little sensation, seeing if you can relax your butt, relax your thighs, and just let your hips wiggle around. Letting your breath flow and just having a fun little swing from side to side. So just as we began our genital massage, it's really nice to finish your practice just by holding, resting in stillness. Letting your hands cup and hold the whole of your genitals. Just noticing what sensations you can feel in your body and letting the experience in store. - [Instructor] So we are moving now to internal touch. And again, we're not gonna rush into our internal world. We're gonna go very gently. And this is a suggestion for how you can sort of, start to explore the very entrance of your vagina. So you're gonna take a finger, whichever finger feels comfortable for you. And from that position that we had before of holding at the entrance. You're gonna let just maybe up to the cuticle of your finger. Just slide in or be welcomed into your vagina. And you're just gonna hold there to begin with at this shallow depth. So, we're really not going deep to begin with. You can take a couple of breaths just in stillness. That feeling of being penetrated. And then you're gonna give a little bit of very gentle pressure. It's not forceful, but just a little bit of pressure to the left. And you'll feel maybe a little, sort of stretch or resistance. Again, hold and breathe. And then a little bit of stretch or pressure over to the right side. And always with this, going to the extent that feels comfortable for you. There should be no pain. If there is, just take the pressure off a little bit. You're then, gonna bring a little bit of pressure up towards your pubic bone. You may find that this feels a bit uncomfortable because that's where your urethra is, which is where your pee comes out. If that's the case, take a little bit of pressure off and just feel into the pad of your finger. And then, a little bit of pressure down towards the floor or down towards your tailbone. So the back of your finger, your nail will be giving a little bit of contact to the base of the opening of your vagina. So, you could repeat at this depth a couple of times if you wanted to. But you could also then just take the finger in a little bit deeper maybe up to the second knuckle on your finger and repeat. So, you give a little bit of pressure to the left, a little bit of pressure to the right. A little bit of pressure upwards. Sort of, pulling up towards your pubic bone trying to keep the finger flat, if you can. And then a little bit of pressure downwards. And again, you could repeat at this depth if that's what feels good for your body today, or you can let the finger be invited or drawn in a little bit deeper. So, as deep as feels comfortable for you. And again, repeating that little four direction movement, to the left, to the right, a little bit up and a little bit down. So this is a beautiful way to bring relaxation to the band of muscle, the pelvic floor muscle that controls the constriction or relaxation at the opening of your vagina. So, this is a really beautiful one to do for yourself before kind of adding any extra fingers or penetrating with any toys. It's like a nice little warm up and relaxation of the tissues. So from here, you're gonna gently, slowly, slide the finger out and we're gonna take the thumb to penetrate. So, taking the thumb and giving a little bit of pressure down towards the tailbone, you'll feel maybe a little spongey piece of tissue here. This is called the perineal sponge. And this is a little bit of erectile tissue that kind of plums up, swells up, makes the entrance of your vagina nice and soft and cushy. So, you can hold here. You can do little taps or like presses with the thumb. Then you can try little circles with the thumb, maybe about the size of a kind of five pence piece, just circling onto that posterior wall of your vagina. So, this next technique is for starting to explore your G-spot, which is on the top wall, the anterior wall of your pelvis, which is sort of where your hands rest. if they're resting on the front of your pelvis. So you're gonna use two fingers if that's comfortable for you. If not, just use one. And you're gonna slide in with the palm facing up. So as you slide in, just keep the fingers straight. You're not sort of, poking up. Just keeping those fingers nice and straight. And to begin, just slide in, connect. So you'll feel on the top wall of your vagina. It's like a spongey texture maybe. Sometimes people think of it like a little marshmallow texture, or like a little peach, like a skin of a peach. But just hold the fingers there, connect. And then we're gonna start taking a sweep. And you'll feel if you have a little explorer around in there, just to either side, there's a sort of little valley. And you're just sweeping the fingers, kind of, stroking like a little, like a U shape with the fingers. (breathing heavily) So with this, you're stimulating the entire length of the urethra sponge, which is actually what the G-spot is. It's not one little magical spot inside your body somewhere. It's a collection of the nerve endings and little ducts in the erectile tissue that surrounds your urethra on the top wall of your vagina. So this gentle stroking motion, rather than like poking or pressing allows that erectile tissue to plump up, to gain sensitivity. And with this, what you can add is a movement of the hand from deep to shallow. So, keeping the sweep, but then gradually just moving the hand out towards the entrance before you slide back in and repeat. (breathing heavily) So from here, we are gonna move a little bit deeper inside your internal landscape, your internal genitals. And we're gonna try and see if we can find the cervix. So, your cervix is nestled right at the top of your vagina. It's the entrance to your womb. And it's this little sort of cone shaped piece of tissue that descends into the vaginal canal. You'll feel if you palpate around a little bit, so feel around with your fingers. It's located differently for every woman. And it also moves around depending on where you are in your cycle, whether you've had babies, whether you are pre or post-menopausal. So, have a little explore. It will feel like the end of your nose, that kind of slightly firmer texture. Or sometimes, I think of it as like an olive with the stone taken out. So, it's that sort of texture. One top tip, if you're finding it a little bit difficult to find your cervix, is to pop a cushion underneath your butt. So, to lift your pelvis up a little bit. So, with the cushion under your butt, what you'll find is that just sort of, tilts and tips your pelvis a little bit and may make it easier to sort of locate and find your cervix inside. So, another top tip is that you can lift one leg up towards your body and hold that closer. And again, that just increases the tilt, the angle of your pelvis. So, have a have a play around with those, if you're finding it hard to locate your cervix. So, when you've located your cervix, first of all, just hold. We're just gonna touch gently on the outside. So it might just be with the tip of the finger. But to begin with, there's nothing busy that you need to do. Really tune into what you can feel in the fingertip. And then, see if you can tune in to the sensation of your cervix. For a lot of women, this can be very difficult. It's an area of numbness, often. Sometimes there's pain that's associated with the cervix. So really, be gentle. Take your time here. Just holding, connecting and breathing deep down into this very, very deep space in your body. (breathing heavily) And the final, very gentle technique that we'll use for the cervix that you can explore is just to simply circle the fingers and explore the edges of the cervix. So, you're sort of just tracing the finger around in a little circle. You might find that the cervix wants to run away a little bit. Wants to hide or tuck back up. You can help yourself a little bit here by bringing the other hand onto the front of the pelvis using the fingers or the heel of the hand. Just give a little bit of pressure onto the front of the pelvis. It's almost then like you are sort of, squeezing the cervix between your finger and the hand on the outside. (breathing heavily) So, this is a very simple technique to stay with for a couple of minutes, at least. And just to keep tuning in to the subtler sensations. Do they shift? Do they change? So, when you are finishing your genital massage practice it's always really nice just to come out slowly and then let your hand just rest and hold over the outside just as you began. So, rather than rushing off and running away, take a couple of moments after you've been inside, just to hold and cup and connect with whatever you can feel in your body. - Solo sex, self-pleasuring, masturbation, is the act of making love to yourself. This next practice involves the simple yet profound act of masturbating in front of a mirror. Look into your own eyes during the session or enjoy seeing your own body feeling pleasure. Mirror masturbation can be an interaction with your essential self, your pure beauty, and your most real sexuality. It can also be a confrontation with the masks, limits, and inherited conditioning and beliefs you're playing out every day. It might feel shameful at first, and you might be totally repulsed by the idea. You might think, "Why would I want to do that?" Or immediately conclude that it's stupid or disgusting. You might feel a shot of fear or embarrassment caused through your body, perhaps the fear that you'll get caught, or that someone else will know. Or you might be thrilled at the prospect of such a personal and intimate expression of your sexuality. The fact that many people are initially very resistant to this idea, and believe me, I was too, or would never dare to talk or even think about masturbating passionately and joyously in front of a mirror, is an indication of its power. The barrier is often shame. Shame is a learned emotion that we inherit through our interruption of our natural enjoyment and joy. As a young child, you may have been innocently, happily touching your genitals because it felt nice, until a parent or caregiver, triggered by their own embarrassment and shame, chastised you, maybe shouted at you, maybe smacked your hand away. The enjoyment and joy was interrupted, and the shame was internalized. In any aspect of sexuality, the stronger the shame, the more pleasure and power it often conceals. I'll share a personal story here. I have a mortifying memory of wetting myself in public when I was about five years old. For a long, long time, I had a visceral reaction of repulsion to the concept of squirting during sex or the idea of, God forbid, golden showers or wet play, as part of a kinky sex life. I had so much shame. Through my work and explorations with conscious sexuality and tantra and practices like this one, I've been able to let go of that shame. What emerged from underneath was ecstatic joy and sensations that I never even dreamed my body was capable of, through the act of being able to squirt and incorporate this into a healthy part of my sex life. Sexual shame conceals a deeper shame of being alive. Here in this practice, you have the opportunity to confront and release your shame, letting go of shame frees up a great deal of energy for you to channel into your existence, your creativity, your relationships, and just your enjoyment of life. People suffering from an overwhelm of shame, and trust me, I've been there, in the form of negative body image, low self-value, or lack of self confidence, are likely to resist this practice the most strongly. And by no coincidence, they are the ones who find the greatest relief and healing in it. We're taught that our self-image is something we put on, a character or set of behaviors that will be met with love, appreciation, and approval. I would propose that it's something far better taken off. All the conditioning, expectations, and beliefs loaded on us by our upbringing, religion, advertising, society, and ex lovers can drop away through this process and this practice. You will feel better for doing this. Your life will change. Read through the instructions underneath this video and notice what reactions come up in your mind, in your body, and in your emotions. Prepare your space and set time aside. I recommend at least 20 minutes for this practice, but if you are feeling a lot of resistance and shame, then start out small, three minutes, four minutes, maybe five minutes. The intention is not to overwhelm yourself, but to be able to gradually and lovingly invite more of your shame-free, innate sexuality into your self-pleasure practice. - So begin your practice by finding a comfortable position, taking a few deeper breaths, letting any chattering thoughts, slow down. Let your hands come to rest on your genitals, maybe your solar plexus or your heart setting your intention, and then allow your hands to caress and explore your chest, collarbones. Moving up from the genitals to the heart and just warming up this area of your body, before you actually start touching your breasts. I always find it's nice to begin just by cupping holding your breasts. Sending some breath and love into this incredible area of your body. You can add some oil or lube your hands and begin with your first massage stroke. So using two or maybe even three fingers flat on your nipples, gently circle your touch in one direction, and then the other. You can massage one breast or nipple at a time or both. Play with what feels pleasurable for you. Use your breath to deepen the sensations, allow your body to move and respond. A variation on this stroke is to start on the outside of your breast with the flat tips of your fingers and then make small spirals as you gradually move in towards the center towards your nipple. Using the palm of your hand now, stroke across your breast in each of these four directions east to west, west to east, letting your body move and rotate, and then exploring north to south and south to north. Play with using both hands or just one hand. You can be curious here. Notice if there's one of these directions that feels more pleasurable for you today. Notice any areas that have more sensation, less sensation. And you can take your time, repeat this four direction stroke for maybe 15, 20 different times. So using the palm and the heel of your hand now knead your breasts as if you would when you were kneading bread to dough. Explore pressure and pace, moving a little faster or slower, massaging into the breast tissue, the pectoral muscles underneath. Always letting your body move, adjust, respond as it wants to. With this technique you use both hands placing one hand flat on the top of your breast, and the other hand flat on the underside. Gently stroke, both hands together towards the nipple. You might like to try this stroke on the sides of the breast as well. Notice the different textures, the different sensations in your breasts, in the skin the fascia, the tissue, and the muscles underneath. Whenever you need to have a pause, just hold the breasts. And then you can explore this cupping and shaking. So holding each breast with the full hand and then lightly moving the fascia, the muscle, the skin. This can feel like a very awakening movement. You might like to add some sound, some vibration through the chest. Massaging, shaking, and vibrating from the outside and the inside. Taking one arm now above your head, your stroke can caress down from the underneath of the arm, the armpit, over the breast and in, towards the center of your body. Let your head and your neck relax. Enjoy this touch on these little delicate areas of skin and the inside of your arm and your armpit. Let that energy flow down into your breasts and into your heart. Take your time here. Explore as many repetitions of this stroke as you want on each arm, on each side. Notice if one feels more sensitive, more pleasurable, more sensation full than the other. And to finish, let the fingers, the hands trace down from the collarbones over the sternum the heart over your full breasts. Closing your practice by connecting the heart and the genitals. Noticing the change in sensation and awareness in your body after the practice is finished. After all that yummy touch has been given to your breasts. - Our penultimate week will cover the potential for pleasure in your breasts, regardless of your gender, everyone has nipples, and how to massage them and touch them for pleasure as well as other lovely benefits. There's an exercise for you to flex your creative muscles in one of my favorite fields, music, and another opportunity to try something a little more edgy and challenging. With this final practice, as always, everything is an invitation, and I encourage you to feel into what option suits you best. Stretch your comfort zone only to the extent that you are still able to relax, engage, and learn from the experience. If you haven't done so already, this week is a good time to share in the comments section and let your fellow journeyers read about what you are enjoying, struggling with, learning, and letting go of. - In this practice, you can choose from two options, both of which I'll outline in a bit more detail in a moment, but the basis of both is to create a special occasion out of your masturbation practice. So, you could think of the course so far as if you were a musician in an orchestra, or a duet, or a soloist preparing for a gala concert. Until this point you've been rehearsing, finessing and attuning your skills, your musicality, your empathy, and your intuition. So, this practice is kind of like the concert. It's a chance to put these skills to use in real time. So, option one, if you want to be the soloist in this analogy, then I'm inviting you to take yourself on a date, to seduce yourself and make love to yourself with your newfound self-pleasuring knowhow. Set the scene, put on music and candles, set up a full-length mirror, arrange towels, cushions, oil, prepare yourself, take a long bath or nice warm shower, put on some perfume or aftershave, dress for the occasion in something that makes you feel sexy and excited. Kiss yourself. Whisper praises and naughty words of encouragement to yourself. Take your time. A minimum of 45 minutes. Undress yourself. Massage your whole body from top to toe. Explore and luxuriate in your body. Tease and enjoy the way that you would with a lover. You are your own lover. I remember the first time I did this exercise, I was just astounded. I'd never realized how fun it could be to seduce myself and be seduced by myself. I got exactly the touch and stimulation that I wanted. I didn't feel like I had to impress anyone. And it just felt so amazing to have such a beautiful space prepared just for me. All the care that I took of other people, suddenly came flooding back in towards me. It was emotional, and arousing, and vulnerable all at the same time. So, if you choose this option, I encourage you to just go all in. The most intimate relationship you will ever have in your life is with yourself. So, don't be afraid to take your time and enjoy it. Option two, if you want to be part of an orchestra or a duet, then I'm inviting you to explore mutual masturbation. This could be with your partner. If he or she is not taking this course, then this can be like an exciting opportunity to to share some of your new learnings and explain the the basic principles to them. Or it could be with someone else who is on the course. So, in this context, mutual masturbation is not about performing for each other or putting on a show. It's an experience of being joined and witnessed in your natural embodied arousal and pleasure. So, I suggest that you follow these basic guidelines. Number one, have a talk about what you're going to do before you do it. Ideally, this should be on a separate day to your masturbation practice. You could share about what feels vulnerable, uncomfortable, edgy about the idea of mutual masturbation, but also what would feel exciting, intriguing, and wonderful. This chat will also cover whether you are going to meet in person or virtually and what boundaries, needs and desires you each have around those circumstances. So for example, if you're going to meet virtually, make sure you've got confirmation, confidentiality and that the call won't be recorded. If you're in person, where? When? How long? What happens when you're finished? Do you have a cup of tea together? Do you have dinner? Do you just say thanks and goodbye. Number two, on the day, begin by setting your intention just as you would for a solo mindful masturbation experience. To avoid going into performance mode, don't sit or stand facing each other. Start by lying side-by-side, or sitting back-to-back. If you're doing it virtually, I suggest that you kind of place the phone, the laptop, the tablet, whatever to the side of you. So, you're not both staring at the screen. This is gonna help you to keep your attention primarily in your own body. And just simply explore masturbation in the presence of another, who is also masturbating. Thirdly, if you want to be more interactive after a while, then shift your position, so you can be in eye contact, to see and be seen. Remember though, this is a self-touch practice, so keep the boundaries of the experience and the exercise and don't let it become a mutual touch practice. So, my experience with mutual masturbation has been shame-busting, liberating, freeing. It's helped me to be able to tune into my own body instead of being totally disconnected and just performing. I remember the first time that I tried this, I actually got completely distracted and focused on the other person's sounds and had to really slow down to be able to pay attention to my own body. That's a skill that has really helped me to access more orgasmicness in my solo sex and my partnered sex. It's been a really deeply bonding experience when I've done this with my partner. So, seeing and hearing him enjoy himself and vice versa, has brought us both a lot of happiness. I also learned a few things about what feels pleasurable for him by seeing how he touches himself. Things that I never would've known otherwise. Being a witness to other people's masturbation experiences through my coaching work has been humbling and touching. It's really quite something to just be present with someone whilst they do probably the most intimate thing in their life. I'm always incredibly grateful to be trusted in this way. So, if you choose this option, I hope that you'll be able to experience this same sense of liberation, of connection, and gratitude, and that it forms a foundation for all your other intimate interactions. So, if you're going with option one, then go ahead and arrange your solo date. If you're curious about option two, reach out in the comments and ask for someone else on the course to join you or go and have a chat with your partner and let them in on the wonderful things you've been experiencing here in this course. - Our final week, we'll focus on playing with and mastering your arousal levels, learning to surf a scale or ladder rather than just race from zero to 10. This is a huge part of creating more variety in your masturbation experience, understanding how to access different intensities of arousal and what those feel like, whilst not being in a hurry to reach an end goal. We'll also cover one of the most common questions that I get asked about mindful masturbation, how to incorporate sex toys. I'll cover some of the most common types and give you my suggestions for the best options. We'll finish the week with an exciting ritual. It's completely optional, but I really encourage you to give it a go. It's liberating, eyeopening and will hopefully give you a sense of how far you've come over the past eight weeks.