Right now mindfulness is the hottest thing in the psychology field because of its effect on stress. The ironic thing is that it’s not new; meditation and mindful teaching has been around for thousands of years, just not in the western world.
We all live very stressful lives filled with the hustle and bustle of modern life. When stressed, we tend to be physically in one place while our mind is another time and/or place. We move about our lives thinking about anything but the present moment and dwelling on other things, or burying our heads into one of many electronic distractions. Mindfulness teaches us to be more focused, present, and connected to the world around us.
What is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness is a technique involving many practices including meditation and exercises meant to keep the mind from wandering off in directions unrelated to the present moment.
To see what I mean by this, try this simple but enlightening exercise. All I want you to do is at 5 random times during the day ask yourself, where am I and where is my mind? See if you are thinking about the present moment or rather find you are at a meeting, picking the kids up, reliving the fight with your partner, last night’s football game, or whatever it may be that is unrelated to the present moment and task.
We are constantly living our lives in times and places unrelated to the present. As a result, we miss so much of our own lives and life is short. We just float through the world without connecting to it. This leaves us with a very hollow, unemotional, detached existence filled with harmful stress and people wound tighter than a snake squeezing the life out of its prey.
The benefits of Mindfulness
I tell my clients that people who are depressed tend to dwell in the past and people who are anxious dwell on the future. People who are happiest focus on the present moment.
Here is why: the past has happened and nothing can change what has already happened, but we dwell on past events and beat ourselves up over things that have no bearing on our lives today.
The future looks daunting and frightening because it’s filled with unknowns and question marks that we cannot begin to emotionally handle, but the biggest reason the future is so anxiety inducing is the fact that it may never come. We are not guaranteed anything more than the present moment. Just ask the dinosaurs about this concept because a single rock from space whipped them off the face of the earth forever in an instant.
Mindfulness and Sex
So let’s take this concept and apply it to sex. Remember the myth that says if you want to last longer in bed think about something not sexual like football? Everything about that myth is false and not even close to anything resembling a fact.
The fact is that not being present during sex hinders orgasm, stamina, pleasure, connection, and performance. Being present is the key to great sex. Sex may be bad in your relationship because you are not mentally participating in it. Thus, you are not connecting and allowing the full pleasurable experience that sex brings.
Often people who experience sexual dysfunction do just this because they are worried about a past sexual experience that was dysfunctional and worrying if the pending experience will be a repeat of that experience. As a result it happens again since the person was not present for this encounter but rather was focusing on the one that was dysfunctional.
Being present during sex is the key to orgasm in both men and women and ejaculatory control for men. If our minds are not on the sex, your body, and your partner’s body then you are denying yourself a good sexual experience.
For men the key to maintaining and gaining an erection is to not worry about getting one in the first place. As teenagers, young men did not need not to think about getting an erection because the penis as we knew would rise to the occasion. Only after does it not rise to the occasion or does not remain erect do we start to worry.
For women worrying about what you must do the next day or what you need to be doing or whatever is not related to the current sexual experience does two things. It causes you to not get aroused. The vagina is not opened or lubricated when not aroused. Like the penis, the vagina changes during the arousal in ways that indicate that women have their own form of erections. The vagina opens and elongates and then lubricates to allow for pleasurable penetration. If a women can relax and allow herself to be present during the sexual encounter and maintain focus on the pleasures of the sex then any women can orgasm.
If you feel your partner is disinterested or checked out during sex, chances are they are. You can actually feel your partners mind wonder if you are in tuned enough. Sex involves the transfer of energy from one person to another until ejaculation expunges all the male sexual energy. Energy will always follow intention and the mind. Where the mind is, so is your energy. Bioenergy must be turned into sexual energy for sexual arousal to take place and, if the energy is being consumed by tomorrows meeting, the energy for sex will not be there. So what you are feeling is your energy being drained and no energy being returned from your partner. So then you feel like he or she is not into it or disinterested. As a result, the connection is severed between you and your partner/s and sex becomes all about getting off rather than the experience.
So being mindful during life and sex has the power to transform even the most stressful of lives, restoring that person to a healthier mental place. Remember, the mind is part of the body and impacts the overall bodily health. A person who is mentally sick is really physically ill. So if we live in the here and now we can all live happier lives.
