Last week I shared with you some of the telltale signs that you’ve lost sight of your life’s orgasmic potential. Even some of the most “successful” women I know are actually settling for less than they really want in their lives – and I used to, too.

It’s quite astounding to me just how easy it can be to slip into complacency and tell yourself that you don’t really need something, or start telling yourself that you’re just fine where you’re at.

We all have so much to be grateful for that it can be confusing when we start to feel that all too familiar feeling of wanting more. It can stir up a lot of guilt and shame, but in reality, it’s neither.

Dr. Christiane Northrup has talked about this guilt-shame phenomenon that women go through, especially when they desire more. She reminded me that guilt comes from knowing that we’ve done something wrong, and shame stems from other people judging us for doing something wrong.

But here’s the thing: there is nothing inherently wrong with wanting more. In fact, it’s in your feminine nature to desire change. Wanting more is part of the very anatomy of evolution.

Even though it’s the heartbreaking norm that women from every walk of life are settling for less than they really desire in their lives, there are simple, accessible, and truly luxurious ways to start living into your life’s orgasmic potential right away.

Before you tell yourself that it’s not possible for you, or you start thinking that stepping into something so lofty and divine is going to require more of your precious time and energy, take a breath.

There’s nothing extraordinary about your life’s orgasmic potential. It’s always there, waiting for you to claim it for yourself. All that’s required is for you to choose it. Choose the orgasm! Choose what feels divinely delicious to you now, and stop settling for what everyone else is having.

If you want extraordinary, you have to choose it for yourself. If you want gourmet, you have to stop going through the drive thru. If you want orgasmic, you have to re-orient your life towards that kind of toe-curling, lip-biting, OMG amazing-ness that’s really easy to underestimate, overlook, and take for granted.

Below are 7 simple & luxurious ways to start living into your life’s orgasmic potential, right away. Don’t be fooled by how mundane they might seem. These are all things that I practice on a regular basis, and they really work!

1. Turn off your devices and get connected with reality – Everywhere I look today, nearly everyone is staring at some kind of electronic device – a phone, a tablet, a laptop. It’s easy to get sucked into those pseudo-realities, trust me, I know! And, everyone is doing it! So it’s even easier to do what everyone else is doing, too.But recognize that when you plug into your device you direct your attention away from your real life and all of the ways you can get turned on by the beauty that’s all around you. You trade the possibility of a true conversation and connection with a real person for a text or a Facebook post from someone who isn’t even in the same room (or city) as you.

   Try this: Turn off your phone, put your tablet and your laptop away. Walk away from the online world – if even for only an hour a day. Get out into the real world where it’s possible for you to have a genuine and pleasurable experience with your 5 senses. Notice the colors, smells, textures, tastes and sounds that are all around you. Allow yourself to get intoxicated by life – real life – today.

2. Self-massage – We’re moving so fast in our world today that it’s become super easy to disconnect from your physical body and instead live primarily up in your head. When you couple this cultural phenomenon with the harrowing statistic from February 2017 citing that 91% of women are unhappy with their bodies, you have the perfect recipe for a society of women that live their lives a short distance from themselves!Feeling good in your own skin might feel elusive to you, and even if that’s not the case, a short self-massage ritual is a great place to begin. You have to be in your body to be able to experience pleasure, so why not create a pleasurable ritual that will help you come back into your body?

   Try this: Buy a delicious body lotion that leaves your skin feeling soft and kissable (I love the Weleda line of body lotions… use what you LOVE) and have it on hand to apply to your skin post shower or bath. You may tell yourself that you don’t have time to do this, but it only takes 2-3 minutes, and in my opinion you don’t have the time to skip this delightful treat!

   Start with your feet and legs, move up to your belly, buttocks and the parts of your back you can easily reach. Then finish with your hands, arms, shoulders and chest. Spend a little extra time in the places that feel a bit neglected, or even “unloveable” to you. Practice saying positive things to yourself while you massage your body. Then, take a moment to really notice how you feel, and receive that feeling.

   Do you feel like you’re actually in your body now? Can you appreciate life more from this awakened and connected place inside of yourself?

3. Practice sensual eating – In all of my studies around nutrition and eating, this one practice has the potential to completely transform your relationship with food, eating, pleasure, and health. When practiced regularly, it changes everything for the better!Sensual eating is about engaging all of your senses and giving yourself permission to get really present with the act of eating. In American culture we like to distract ourselves, or multi-task while we eat. It’s commonplace for entire families to watch television while eating dinner. Eating in the car while driving is also a common practice.

   What would it be like for you to just eat when you eat?

   Sensual eating is an invitation to a new level of awareness – to yourself, to the food that is in front of you, to how your body is responding the food you’re feeding it, to how you feel while you’re eating, and to the pleasure that your body longs for when it comes to the act of nourishment through food.

   Try this: Take a moment to get really present with your food before you put anything in your mouth. Drink in the beauty of the food, the colors, the smells, the way it’s been presented to you. Take your time chewing and feeling the textures, allowing your taste buds to sing with each new burst of flavor. When you settle into a state of appreciation when you eat, your body gets to more fully enjoy every nuance of your meal, and your body is able to digest and draw out more nutrition from whatever it is that you’re eating.

   What do you notice when it comes to sensual eating? Does it change the quantity of food that you consume? Does it change the quality of food that you desire? Do you find yourself feeling full in ways that have little to do with physical hunger? Do you feel more connected to yourself and to pleasure?

4. Move your body – All of the conveniences of our modern age have made us a primarily sedentary society. I’m grateful for all of the ways life is considerably easier than it was for my grandparents when they were young, but this kind of lifestyle means that we have to look for ways to move our bodies and strengthen the muscle groups that can become weak with a lot of consistent chair sitting.Why not find deeply pleasurable ways to do this? Moving your body increases the blood and lymph flow throughout your body and brain, literally waking you up, boosting your immune system, and helping you to feel more awake, alive and inspired.

   Try this: Take advantage of the gorgeous weather and go for a walk, a hike, or playful bike ride. Take yourself swimming, or get into a yoga, Pilates, Nia or dance class. Move your body in ways that bring you home to yourself (note: jumping on a stair master or eliptical machine at a gym may or may not help you come home to yourself, even if it is moving your body).

   The idea here is to find pleasurable ways of being in your body, of feeling yourself move through space in creative, powerful or inspired ways. How you move your body can be about burning calories and pushing through pain to get to an end goal or result… or it can be about enjoying and celebrating the body that you’re in. Both have their purposes, yet moving for the sheer pleasure and joy of moving itself can be a faster way to truly living and loving your orgasmic life.

5. Have a good laugh and/or a good cry – When was the last time you laughed until your cheeks hurt, or cried until you had no more tears to shed? There’s something so cathartic and powerful about giving yourself full permission and the time and space to feel the power and pleasure of your emotions.Most of the time we are holding our emotional selves back, which actually takes a good deal of energy. What lies on the other side of the dam that’s holding your emotions in? What if you let your emotions flow, no matter what they are?

   My experience has been that I feel so much more connected to myself when I allow the honesty of what I’m feeling to just be. I get to feel the highs, the lows, and everything in between, which means I actually feel myself and my life!

   Try this: The next time you feel the need to emote, give yourself the time or space to have your feelings. It might feel uncomfortable or foreign to do this, or like you’re going to inconvenience someone else by having a feeling that they might not be comfortable with. Take 5 minutes, or 50 – however long you need, really – and give yourself the opportunity to feel your feelings, feel yourself, and feel how alive, powerful, and real you are. I guarantee you’ll feel more connected to who you really are.

   And that, my friends, is a truly beautiful, orgasmic, and irreplaceable thing to experience.

6. Have good sex, even if it’s with yourself – Yes, I said it. And you were probably thinking it, too! Sex is one of the best (and my personal favorite) way to live into life’s orgasmic potential. But let me be clear here – I’m not talking about sex that’s all about the “big O”. I’m talking about sex that ignites all of your senses, that leaves you feeling tingly, relaxed and super alive, regardless of whether or not it results in an actually peak experience, like an orgasm.This kind of sex may or may not take place with a partner (or a device that requires an electrical outlet or batteries). This kind of sex might very well be about you exploring yourself and learning more about what feels good to you, what really turns you on, and what you require to reach a place of feeling truly fulfilled and liberated inside of yourself.

   Most women aren’t having this kind of sex. In fact, the last statistic I read was that over 76% of women are having dissatisfying sex on a regular basis! So it’s time that you discovered what really turns you on, what doesn’t, and that you share this valuable information with your partner so that they can please you the way you ought to be pleased.

   It’s also time that women took more responsibility for their sexual pleasure by taking a stand for getting their needs and requirements met. You were built for pleasure – it’s in your very anatomy, my dear! So what would it be like to explore this more for yourself and share what you discover with someone who wants to give you pleasure?

   Try this: Set aside time during the month (especially around ovulation and the week following) to explore your anatomy. Get a great book that will help you understand your body better, if that’s what you require. Make it an act of self-loving curiosity and play. Allow your process of self-discovery to be all about you, your unique pleasure, and whatever feels good to you. You don’t even have to have an orgasm for it to be good sex if you discover more about yourself and how your body works in the process.

7. Make a list of all the things that bring you pleasure or feel pleasurable to you and start doing some of them right away! – Some of my clients have been so far removed from pleasure that they don’t even know what feels good, what they like or don’t like, or what they want when it comes to increasing the amount of pleasure in their lives. Well, like I tell them, there is only one way to find out!What would it be like to make a list of all the things that you like to do – that bring you some form of pleasure – so that you have something to reference for yourself when you draw a blank, or start to feel like you’re becoming a pleasure robot in your busy life?

   Specifically, make this list about things that feel pleasurable to you while you’re doing it and the next day. Bingeing on a pint of ice cream might feel pleasurable while you’re doing it, but it usually ushers in a host of negative things too, like additional food cravings, blood sugar highs and lows, feeling guilty about lack of self-discipline and control, and a lot of self-criticism and self-loathing if it becomes a regular occurrence.

   What kinds of things, experiences, people and places bring you pleasure? My list includes things like watching a sunrise or sunset, taking photographs in nature, coming up with new, healthy recipes in my kitchen, regular time with my girlfriends, receiving a really good massage, stretching, yoga and dance, laughing with my son, sitting quietly while drinking a cup of hot turmeric tea with honey… you get the idea.

   Try this: Grab your favorite writing implement and some quality paper, or if you’re feeling artsy, grab some colored pens or pencils. Sit down and think about all of the things that you used to love doing when you were a little girl (rolling down grassy hills, blowing bubbles, finger paints, coloring books…?) and start your list there. Then, as your imagination gets rolling, think about the things that you love to do now that you’re an adult – the things that leave you feeling confident, buoyant, and happy. Keep going until you feel like you’ve exhausted your list.

   Then, choose something you can add to your schedule this week, and post your list someplace where you’ll see it often and be inspired to make time for even more pleasure in your life.

   What do you notice about how you feel when you’re filling your time with things that light you up like this? Can you continue to give yourself permission to live a life that feels good to you, even if you’re not being “productive”, “professional”, or “serious”? Does your life start to feel a bit more orgasmic when you incorporate more of these activities into your day, week, month and year?

Living into your life’s orgasmic potential is about getting really present in your life, and allowing yourself to feel how orgasmic it can be when you allow pleasure in and make it your priority. You don’t need to take yourself sky diving or do something completely outlandish to experience an orgasmic life – unless you want to!

The point is to remember that living a life that’s devoid of pleasure is just no way to live. You miss out on a lot when your life is lacking in pleasure. I know I’m not alone in believing that life is meant to be lived, loved, and enjoyed thoroughly. So, if you’ve lost sight of your life’s orgasmic potential, which of the above ideas will you try, today?

You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain.

I want to hear from you! Share your insights and experiences below, and let me know what you think is possible for you when it comes to living an orgasmic life.