The Multi-Orgasmic Couple: Sexual Secrets Every Couple Should Know (17 page)

WHAT GOES UP MUST COME DOWN

One of the major differences between the Taoist sexual practices and the Tantric sexual practices of India is how the energy is channeled through the body. In Tantra, sexual energy is channeled from the root chakra (or energy point at the genitals) up to the brain. This can be a profound and even mind—

alerting experience, but it can also lead to painful or dangerous amounts of energy in the brain. According to the Taoists, who modeled their practices on the natural world, “what goes up must come down.” For this reason, the Taoists know it is essential to bring energy that one circulates to one’s brain back down to the navel, where it can be safely stored and where the body can absorb it more easily.

WHAT DOES YOUR GUT TELL YOU?

Modern people spend most of their energy in their brain. Our information civilization requires constant mental energy, and many of us can get stuck in our head. Bringing the energy down from our head to our abdomen allows us to store the energy safely and to have more energy available to fuel our sex life and our desire for life.

There is another reason why it is important to bring energy down, and the Taoists knew this also. In our abdomen resides another center of intelligence in the body, which might be called our “second brain” or “feeling brain.”

Today, we tend to think that all of our thoughts and feelings originate in our head. The Taoists, however, saw feelings as energies that arise from different organs and not just from the brain. This is also part of common knowledge in the West. We have long associated the emotion of love with the heart. We now know that in addition to our brain there are other nerve centers at our heart, our solar plexus, and our abdomen.

There is startling new evidence that the extent and complexity of the neural web in the abdomen approach those of the brain. Researchers are now calling this the “abdominal brain.” In colloquial speech we recognize this, as we often say, “My gut tells me.. .” or “My gut feelings are.. .” This gut-level knowledge is often considered more intuitive and more accurate. The Taoists were particularly interested in the potential of the abdominal brain because it uses less energy than the brain in our head to do the same “thinking.”

You will now learn how to bring the energy down to your abdomen through the Inner Smile. This will allow your body to use it when necessary. As you bring the energy down to your abdomen, direct it to your navel. Your navel is more than just the vestigial scar of your umbilical cord. According to the Taoists, the navel is where all nourishment flows into our body in utero
,
and it remains the
energetic center
of our body.

Finally, the Inner Smile is the first step of the Orgasmic Upward Draw. As it is necessary to empty a glass before it can be filled, drawing energy down from your brain with the Inner Smile will allow your brain to fill up again with fresh rejuvenating energy from your genitals.

It is essential to bring energy that one circulates to one
’
s brain back down to the navel, where it can be safely stored and where the body can absorb it more easily.

Drawing energy down from your brain with the Inner Smile will allow your brain to
fi
ll up again with fresh rejuvenating energy from your genitals.

THE INNER SMILE

The Inner Smile is an extremely simple but powerful exercise. It was just like the Taoists, who tried to align themselves with nature, to notice the profound impact of something as simple and ordinary as a smile. We tend to think that when we are happy we smile. But there is compelling research that suggests the opposite is also true. When we smile, we feel happier as well, even if we did not begin by feeling good. All of us have experienced the power of a smile: we can recall a time when we were sad or sick and someone, possibly even a stranger, gave us a big smile, and immediately we felt better. The Taoists have long known the profound energetic and healing power of smiling.

The Taoists would say that when you smile, your organs release powerful secretions that nourish the whole body. On the other hand, when you are angry, fearful, or under stress, your organs produce toxic secretions that block the energy channels, settling in the organs and causing loss of appetite, indi-gestion, increased blood pressure, faster heartbeat, insomnia, and negative emotions. While the presence of such secretions has not been demonstrated clinically, the connection between stress and illness is well established in the medical literature. Smiling and cultivating joy and happiness are important for your overall well-being and for a healthy love life.

Finding the W ay

Smiling Eyes

The Taoists noticed a very interesting point about smiling. Real smiling comes not just from the mouth but also from the eyes. “Smiling eyes” is an expression in English, and it conveys the essence of this insight. When we truly smile, we do so with both our lips and our eyes. When you smile, try to soften the corners of both your mouth and your eyes, smiling from both.

The Inner Smile will also cultivate your love and compassion, which is an essential part of working with your sexual energy. As we will discuss in chapter 6, for healing lovemaking it is essential to keep lust connected to love, or in other words to keep the sexual energy in our genitals connected with the compassionate energy of our heart. Since sexual energy simply magnifies whatever emotions you are feeling, it is essential that you
not
practice (or

Inner Smile— bringing energy down to your abdomen helps you empty energy from your head, so that it can be replenished with sexual energy rising along the spine.

make love) when you are feeling anger or other strong negative emotions. Whenever you have sex, your attitude should be one of joy and love both for yourself and for your partner. In addition, try to smile and be playful as you circulate your energy.

Do not be surprised if it takes you a little while to feel the energy come down to your abdomen. Men especially often find it easier to draw energy up than to bring it down. You may simply need to circulate more sexual energy before you can feel it descend down the front of your body. The exercise after this will give you plenty of energy to work with—or play with. Enjoy.

Exer cise 13

INNER SMILE

DRAWING YOUR ENERGY DOWN

1. RELAX: Relax and breathe deeply.
   

2. TOUCH NAVEL: Touch your navel with your fingertips, gently pulling it open. (This will activate your navel and help you bring energy down.)
   

3. TOUCH TONGUE TO ROOF OF MOUTH: Touch the tip of your tongue to the front roof of your mouth (see illustration on p. 70) to connect the front and back channels of your body and to allow the energy to flow down from your head to your abdomen.
   

4. SMILE DOWN TO YOUR NAVEL: Smile as you focus on your navel. When you smile, soften the corners of your lips and your eyes. Feel the sun shining down on you, and as you smile feel warm energy descending through your head and torso down to your navel. Let the energy gather there. You can spiral the energy around your navel to help it absorb.
   

5. TOUCH FINGERTIPS TO YOUR HEART: Then touch your heart with your fingertips and smile as you focus on your heart and on making it soft. As your heart softens, you can imagine it opening like a red flower blossoming with love and compassion.
   

6. BRING ENERGY TO ABDOMEN: Keep smiling and then bring this loving and compassionate energy back down to the abdomen.
   

Orgasmic Upward Draw

After bringing the energy down with the Inner Smile, you will then bring the energy up with the Orgasmic Upward Draw. Bringing the sexual energy in your genitals up your spine will allow you to experience a refreshing, revitalizing wave of energy up your spine, stimulating all the nerves of the body along the way. During lovemaking, this ability to draw sexual energy up will allow you to expand your genital orgasms into whole-body orgasms. Eventually, as you cultivate your ability to circulate energy, you can feel this orgasmic wave of pleasure at any time without even having to be sexual. Now
that’s
better than a double latte.