Ecstasy is Necessary with Barbara Carrellas

Welcome to Mama Goddess. I'm your host, Alexandra J. Johnson. This podcast is all about rocking your goddess life, creating vibrant health and celebrating motherhood and family life. It's about living an authentically awesome life. Let's have some fun. Today we have a wonderful guest, Barbara Corrales. I don't even. Is that how I say your name? Corellus. I'm like, I wasn't sure about that. So Barbara is awesome. She is a sex and life coach. She's an educator, she's a lecturer, she's a speaker, she is a theater, a theater artist, which I'm very curious about. That's pretty amazing. And she's also an author. She has Urban Tantra, Ecstasy is Necessary and. And Luxurious, Loving. And I have all three of them and I think they're the best titles ever. So welcome. Barbara.

Hi, Alexandra. How are you?

I'm fantastic. How are you?

Just fabulous.

And I just gotta appreciate you too. Cause I love your energy. Everything, you know, just. I mean, I have Urban Tantra right here. Like, look at that cover. Like that.

I know. You know, every time I look at that cover, I give gratitude to Ten Speed Press for the care they took in that. It's.

It is fabulous. I mean, it's just like sexy, hot, alluring, beautiful. I love it. So I just love. I love what you bring to sexuality. So I'm thrilled to be talking with you today. So I'd love to start off with what is pleasure? Like, what is pleasure for you?

That's the key question. What is pleasure for you? Nice whole idea. I think that in our culture we are sold consciously and unconsciously, this one size fits all definition goal for sexuality, sexual pleasure, pleasure in general. And if we don't measure up to whatever that standard is by whoever's holding that standard, we feel broken. Not only do we feel broken, that same culture wants to convince us we're broken because they'd like to sell us something to fix us. So whatever pleasure is for you in our culture, you're likely to feel that there's something somehow wrong with that pleasure. Like, I don't want pleasure enough, or I want pleasure too much, or I get my pleasure in really kinky ways. I bet that's wrong. So pleasure is so individual, I don't even exactly define it. I think, though, that there are different flavors of pleasure. There's obviously, there's sexual pleasure, there's emotional pleasure, there's spiritual pleasure, then there's ecstasy, there's ecstatic experiences. And to me, ecstatic experiences have an element of the Erotic as well as an element of the spiritual. So that's a whole other flavor that might be loosely lumped under pleasure. Yeah, it's a hard word. It's a difficult word because it runs around in our vocabulary so undefined. So I often encourage people in my coaching practice to sit down and. And look across from each other and define your terms. So what's pleasure? To me, it depends on the day.

That's awesome.

On a really hot day, a cool breeze is pleasure. Sometimes when I've had a whole lot of wild, ecstatic, intense, which I usually really like, I long for a little quiet pleasure. Something that people would say, gee, we're surprised that even turns you on, really. Could I just have a hand massage, please, right now? That would be so pleasant. So what is.

What if somebody's, like, wondering how they start to tune into their own unique expression of pleasure, you know, because I think the word is thrown around. But so many of us aren't connected to what truly turns us on. So where do we start for that?

I. Look, that's kind of why I wrote ecstasy is necessary, was to try to figure out how to. How have I done it, how have I encouraged other people to do it and what worked and how can everybody do that so we don't get caught in these traps of what somebody else thinks we should want? And the first thing that was important to me was looking at what I really valued. And this one's really pretty simple. You can look around your house and your life and go, what do you see? A lot of. Probably that's something you value. And starting with physical stuff is perfectly fine. If you have lots of animals like I do, if you have lots of art like I do, you can just start there, and then you just question yourself a little deeper. Well, what does the art give me or mean to me? Or what do the animals give me or mean to me? And then you can go from what your values are in terms of stuff and chunk it down into what your core values are. Mine always chunks down to freedom, by the way. No matter where I start, the core value always winds up at freedom. Somebody else, it might be security or generosity or nurturing children or whatever. Yeah, that's first. I love that what you need is another one. Now, we often confuse what we need and what we want. So needs are. And mostly there's. If you've read any psychology, there are dozens of different scales and lists of basic human needs. And when I wrote ecstasy as necessary, I mostly focused on the relational needs. What we need from another human being. Because it was really basically a book about sex and relationships. So in Ecstasy is necessary. I made little checklists of different things that people have expressed to me or to my colleagues that they need in relationship with someone. Because if you just look at somebody and say, what do you need? Save maybe a glass of water at the moment, people just go blank, you know?

Yes, totally.

Or they go, I really need that Mercedes Benz. No, you don't. You want to. And to learn the difference. And then desires. We are sometimes shamed for our desires. You want too much, you want the wrong things. So I help people just sort of look at what is it you really want. And do you want that in fantasy? Should it stay in fantasy? Would it make a hot fantasy to play out sexually? Or is that something that you would like in the physical, in the real? So it's a process. And I like mindfulness processes. So more and more my inquiries into these wants, needs, desires, values, I try to do them with mindfulness processes so that they come more from within than without.

Yeah, that's great. And I think this is so important, especially on pleasure, to really get clear about these. And I love that you said, like, look around, like, what's important to you? And I've done this recently. Just like, okay, what is really important to me? And I'm really clear. But like you said, we start questioning it. Like, I'm not a big art person, but I'm like, should I be into art?

I'm like, I don't care. Right, right, right, right. One of mine has always been, I should be into classical music. I'm so not. I'm a didgeridoo and djembe person, you know? But I have made my feelings feel guilty about not being into classical music on and off for years. I've given it up now. The guilt's over. But, you know, that's great.

So I love it. You just give us permission to really. I love it. And just being. What are our desires? What are our needs? Like, really just our authentic expression, like who we are.

That's. You really can't have true pleasure unless you are able to be in the moment with yourself, you know, in that other. Because the only place pleasure, ecstasy, orgasm, anything happens is in each present moment. And if you're busy worrying about what happened in the past and hoping it won't happen again and worried about the future and will you like it? You're everywhere. But where pleasure happens.

Yes.

That is really so. Than in sex. Right? I mean, it's like, did I turn off the microwave. Is the. Did the dog get walked? Oh, my God. I didn't do that email. Oh, well, I can't do it now. Hello. That's what happens in everybody's mind at some time during sex. And there's another thing we get to feel guilty about.

Yeah. So this is why. Do you think that this is why we miss. Because a lot of this conference is. It's enjoying the simple pleasures of everyday life. So do you think this is why we miss. Because we're either in the future or in the past, and we're just not. Yeah.

Here. I think so. I think so. And when I started studying tantra and the Eastern forms of sexuality, what occurred to me was that the distinction between the Eastern philosophies of sex and the Western philosophies of sex is. In the west, sex is something you do. In the east, sex is an energy you allow. Overly simplified perhaps, but pretty true. To run the energetic program, so to speak, of sex, which involves focusing on breath, using your imagination, because that's how you see and move. Energy doesn't necessarily mean you make it up, but you use your creative mind to move energy around. Those require present moment skills. It's like meditation. One of the first things they tell you. Right. Focus on your breath.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I do think a lot of the pleasure we miss is because we aren't able to be in the present moment.

Right. And what do we do about that? I know that's like a whole workshop.

But it starts with give your mind erotically constructed things to do.

Tell us more.

So the first erotically constructive thing to do is breathe, because the more you breathe, the more you feel. And that my favorite thing. And we'll talk about it in a moment. My favorite thing in the world to teach is to teach people how to have an orgasm just from breathing, because it's so much fun and it blows their mind. And then they think, my God, if this is possible, what else is possible that I couldn't conceive of yesterday? And that's where I want to take people. So the breath is that powerful. If you did nothing but breathe, you could reach orgasm. Nobody needs to touch you. You don't need to touch you. It's so powerful that it completely transforms any other human activity. So whatever pleasure we're getting into here, whether it's eating or walking in the woods or I ask people in my Facebook and Twitter community give me examples of ecstasy and orgasm or ecstatic experiences other than sex and orgasm, and I got more responses than I ever have to any other Facebook question ever.

Wow.

So people know that these things are possible.

Yeah.

All out there doing them. We could have more of them more regularly if we simply breathed a whole lot more. Another one, another one is imagination. And by imagination, I mean conscious use of the mind. Instead of worrying about the email we didn't answer, we could bring our mind to our body and go, ah, what does the sun feel like on my skin right now? Or the cool breeze? Or what's the fireplace in the room feel like on my skin? In other words, something sensory. We could also imagine energy flowing through us. I often teach people to imagine being able to breathe energy from the center of the earth up into your heart or out the top of your head, things like that. And that kind of imagination, whether you see it, smell it, hear it, feel it, taste it, occupies the mind constructively. It brings you more into the pleasurable experience. So there's two points of getting us here now. Another grounding, one that's especially good for sex because it's grounding and it also needs a lot of sexual energy are squeezes of the pubic oxygeus PC muscle. The muscle everybody uses to stop peeing. Like, you're in the bathroom, somebody opens the door, you don't know them, you go, oh, that muscle. Little squeezes of that muscle have been taught for centuries and decades, more recently as sexual health muscles. But I think of them as an erotic energy pump. Exactly, exactly.

You could be pumping anywhere, anytime.

You can do them anywhere. And you can do them in line at the atm, right? Yes. Boring business meeting calls. Possibilities are endless. A friend of mine used to do them when she was losing. You know, like she was doing phone sales when the sale started to slip away. If it did, she would start doing PC squeezes. Nine times out of 10, she turned that sale around. Wow. Just saying.

Awesome.

It was a great statistic. We wanted to do a larger study. Couldn't find the funding for that one. Those are three easy, easy, easy ways to be here now, as Ram Dass said.

Yes.

And I think be here now is this is the secret to pleasure.

I love true. You're saying, like, the energy is allowed. Because I know for me personally, and I know that I'm not the only one, there's like a resistance to letting that energy flow. Like, we're like clamping on our life force, on our sexual energy all that the time. Right.

When I first started doing breath and energy orgasm workshops, I would ask the question, what are your orgasms like now? And what would make them better? The answer to the first question is less important to the second question. By far the overwhelmingly popular answer was, I know there's something more out there. I'd like to let go and find. Find it. Key phrase, something more. You know, I think we're all looking for the something more we inherently know is there. And we also instinctively know that all we have to do is let go. And that's the hard part.

Totally.

So most of the exercises and techniques that I learned when I first started studying Tantra were in fact exactly the ones I needed for all the life lessons I needed to learn being a control freak. I was a Broadway general manager and producer here in New York City, you know, high powered, wheeling, dealing, just from the art angle, you know, And I mean, I was paid to be a control freak. So my livelihood depended on my ability to control. So it was a profound lesson to learn how to let go. And as someone in the arts, letting go, making arts like sex, it's what happens when you're not trying so hard.

Yeah, I mean, trying hard in everyday life too, you know, with the sex. But it's just like we try so.

Flipping hard at everything, you know, because in the western world, but especially in this country, I think our whole country wasn't. Wasn't it founded on if it isn't hard, it's not spiritual, good worthy.

I mean, and they busted their butt. I mean, they had to work really hard to survive.

Yes, yes. So they made it a spiritual exercise because without there being a higher purpose to it, I mean, let's just end life now. Yeah, totally.

So you're saying there's like room for improvement on that?

We could rethink this. Don't you think.

That'S great?

I love that somebody, the other day, Somebody was on the radio the other day and I missed the bulk of the discussion, but I believe it was an. On the media, on npr for anybody who wants to dig into this. And it had to do with the fact that we are essentially doing new technology which was designed to make our life easier the old way. Yes. Our consciousnesses have not, in fact, we've not allowed them to be transformed by the new ease we could have if we used the new technology in a really new way. If we were swamped by paper before, we're now swamped by email.

So we just have the same programming, the same habits.

So I really do think it takes a very conscious effort to. It doesn't mean it has to be a struggle, but it takes such a conscious Effort to change, to notice the old habits and change the old habits. It's why I really do encourage people to, first of all, think big, and secondly, work detail, get small. The work big part came from think big. Like I'm known for my orgasm expansionist theories, which is to say I think orgasm is a lot bigger event than most people think it is. I think that there are crygasms and gigglegasms and anger gasms and blissgasms and all sorts of emotion gasms. The variety of emotion gasms is astounding people. I've seen people have toe gasms and knee gasms, and it just goes on forever. And I think that I get all this from my dear friend Louise Hay. Many years ago, delivered a lecture, I think it was around 1989, and it was called the Totality of Possibilities. And in it she said, great metaphysician that she is, that there was really an unlimited set of possibilities out there for us, a totality of possibilities, but we only ever could conceive of a very limited number of them. And just by acknowledging that there was a totality of possibilities, our minds expand to include more of them just by acknowledging the ones we can't see. So when I started, I actually heard her deliver that lecture as I was just getting started in my conscious sexuality studies and teaching. And I thought, my God, what real ecstatic experience does real. Not just quickie orgasms, but really big orgasmic ecstatic experiences. It lifts the ceiling, it shatters the ceiling on our limited possibilities, and it reveals this totality for the next set, you know?

Yeah. Yeah.

And that's why I became so passionate about what the intersection of sex and spirituality and what that could do for people, how it could literally change anything. Everybody, I think, goes into whatever it is they do, especially if they change careers for different reasons. And there are so many wonderful sex educators out there today. And it's wonderful when we all get together to notice that everybody's doing it for a slightly different reason. You know, somebody's passionate about working with people in college. Somebody else is out to halt the spread of HIV or whatever that. Or someone's working with people who have been abused. But mine is. Mine is to get people to see a bigger picture, to feel a bigger experience. Yeah.

I love. And in your books, I feel like that you talk about this too. It's like connecting to God spirit, like oneness.

Yeah. And you don't have to believe in a particular deity.

Yeah.

I mean, complete atheists will often agree that there's some higher part within them that knows a bit more.

A wiser self.

A wiser self or will acknowledge that, you know, obviously physics will prove to us that we are all connected, that what we do actually really, truly affects other people on a very direct and connected level. And I think that everything that brings us to sexually orgasmic, sexually ecstatic moments shows us the timelessness, the part of nature, the interconnectedness. All. All of that becomes very apparent. Who play in these states for any length of time. Some people get there with drugs. Yeah. Hallucinogens.

Yeah, totally.

Yeah.

Many different ways.

Yeah. All paths to the same end, I suspect.

That's awesome. So I love your orgasms, like, opening up. I'd love to talk more about that. Opening up our possibility to orgasm and maybe just sharing, like, what is orgasm? Because I think for so many of us in our culture, like, we get so focused on orgasm and it's either like the clit or, you know, the penis. And like, everybody just needs the outcome. Like, let's just have an orgasm and that's it.

And I can't. And why? Because you're trying so hard. Yes, exactly. Let's talk about orgasm. But one of my favorite topics, understanding orgasm is something more than a physical event is, I think, pretty important.

Very cool.

I think that again, you can define orgasm certainly as something that happens when, with sufficient stimulation of genitals. You could define orgasm as a release of tension, which indeed it is. Or you could. It could be something more like a release of tension and an expansion of energy flowing through the body mind, connecting us to spirit. It's all how you want to look at it. And I am, as I said, an orgasmic expansionist. I'd like the definition to be a whole lot bigger. I really thought that the nadir or the height, let's say, of sexual reductionism, on the other hand, was the day that Bill Clinton. 96, 97, 96, I think, got on the air, went on television to say, I did not have sex with that woman. My sex had at that moment became reduced to penis, vagina, intercourse and marriage. Okay? That's a new low in sexual expansion. Whereas I want a whole lot more things to be sex and a whole lot more things to be orgasmic. Because I think orgasms are important. Why else could quadriplegics have orgasms when a square inch of skin on their neck is stimulated? Why could paraplegics have nipplegasms when their genitals were stimulated? Why does orgasm still, I mean, physically. We can discuss what nerves might make that happen, but the point is if bodies that have been that compromised still seek, crave and are capable of orgasm, it must be pretty freaking important. Because basically, you know, the only function some of these bodies have left are breathing and swallowing. So why is orgasm still there? Hello. So I think Wilhelm Reich was right. And the release of tension, not just like, oh, I'm so stressed, I need to relax, you know, but literally the release of physical tension, Very few things do it better than orgasm.

Right.

But when we just have these little hiccupy orgasms where not much energy has been built up in advance, if you haven't built up much energy, there's not much energy to release. There's not much energy to help you release all that tension.

Right.

So bigger, fuller orgasms aren't just. We want bigger, fuller orgasms. You want it for a reason. It's actually something the body craves.

O, I like that.

For the body. And the long. The more deeply you can go into orgasm, the more deeply you are likely to be able to. I call it the get on the magic carpet. That, that altered stage of consciousness journey that takes you to the realm where. Oh my God, there's the answer I've been seeking on that problem.

Yes.

Fmris are just now being used to measure track things like orgasm and meditation. I expect as we get further along into these studies. Because orgasm doesn't just happen in one area of the brain. Meditation doesn't happen just happen in one area of the brain. Multiple areas of the brain are involved and there's different flavors of orgasm. There's different flavors of meditation.

Yes.

You know, is this a more visual one? Is this an auditory whatever? And I think we are going to find more and more overlap between orgasmic states and deep meditative states or highly specific spiritual click click states, you know?

Yeah.

Because they just, I think many of us just know intuitively that that is so connected.

Yeah. I mean, I feel like I meditate better when I'm having sex. It seems like a better meditation.

Or as my friend Annie Sprinkle put it, when the combination of masturbation and meditation. Meditation.

Oh my gosh, that is classic.

So, yeah, I think you're opening up.

The possibilities for me already.

Kitty. Oh, hi, Kitty. Meow, meow. She's 21.

Oh, you're beautiful.

She is. Otherwise people would just see a tail. So I thought I would introduce her.

So that's great. I love that on the. I love that you just open up the possibility because as you're just talking it for me, I feel an opening in my body And I would imagine other people are too with like, oh, what's possible? And how do I go throughout my day allowing this energy so that different things can be orgasmic?

I think the first things I really do recommend mindfulness meditations. And they're getting more and easier and easier to find because it's getting more popular right now. Taking a moment where you just notice what is, whatever that is without a judgment. Certainly taking some time to actually get aware of one's breathing. When I was studying all things breath and sex, we both studied and came up with by practicing and playing and experimenting all these lovely different kinds of breath. Breath through the nose, breath through the mouth. Breath through the mouth is more energizing. Breathing through the nose, more relaxing. Blah, blah, blah, blah. When I went to take holotropic breath work, which I highly recommend, Stan Grof's process and Stan Slav Grof was actually leading this one, which I was thrilled about. I expected him to deliver the secret of breath, you know, as you do, oh, wise one, I am a seeker. Tell me the secret.

The answer.

The answer was just lie down. Breathe a little more fully and deeply than you usually do. Go. I went. All these years, I've spent all these nights in breath leading people through these complicated breathings. Just breathe a little more totally and deeply than you usually do. I went on a three hour journey on breath with that instruction. So let's not make it overly complicated.

That's awesome.

Because a lot of people will do that. We'll make something too complicated so that we'll have a good excuse not to do it.

Oh, interesting. One of our little ways to sabotage our sexuality.

Yeah. Or life in general. Can't do that. Don't have the time. Too complicated. Yes. One of my favorites, that is. Embrace your inner teenager. You know how, like, we've done all this inner child stuff and I'm not putting it down. I think it's wonderful. But I find incredible inspiration when I speak to my inner teenage. I realized that when I was 16, I basically felt and think the exact same way I do now. And when you're 16, people are like, oh, yeah, when you grow up, you won't want that tattoo. Whatever. You know, you won't be interested in that. You don't want to do that. Tattoos, of course. Yeah. Maybe you won't want that, but there's a. We put people down for those desires at that age.

Yeah.

And I realized going back to embracing my inner teenager, she is pretty smart and she was damn clued in to who I am now. So I spend a lot of time listening to her and nurturing her. And I find that she is also often the key to a piece of pleasure I'm missing, or she's holding the keys to the trauma that's preventing me from going there.

Hmm. Very interesting.

That's. It's. You know, I don't. I don't think that's true for everyone.

Y.

But I find that. I find that both are true.

So.

So I really, really recommend that people spend some time visiting with their inner teenager. For me, it's 16, but it could be another age.

Yeah. And there's also. For a lot of people, maybe not for everyone, there's, like, a freedom. Right. Like you were talking about. Like, there's a freedom and a curiosity and exploration and, like, a boldness.

Yeah. And if you're interested in something at that age, you're totally interested.

Unapologetically. Like, there's no.

Like, you will knock people over to get there. And often we need some of that. I've noticed that, you know, there. And it's funny, things that I loved at 16, the theater, horseback riding, surfing, even though I never really had the time because of the theater, to get very good at it, are still things that I long to spend time doing now when I have the time. And when I go, oh, my God, I really don't know what I need. All someone has to say is, want to go horseback riding? Want to get on a surfboard? And I'm like, oh, that's what I need.

Yeah, interesting. So I love that too, because it's a great way for us to tap into what we need to stay nourished.

Look back.

Yeah.

It might be something that you abandoned a long time ago to get more responsible, grow up, and respond to.

You know, I love that. I love the energy, too, of just, like, going for it. I guess when I feel a teenager, like, I just feel like. And you were talking about desires, like, for so many of us, we just keep suppressing, and then we're like, I can't do that. I can't do that. And our, like, fiery desire self, like, where is it?

You're onto something. Here's another piece to what you're saying. Never, ever put down faking it till you feel it. Embrace, fake it till you feel it. Because sometimes if we have lost that you were just talking about, we have to actually fake it till we feel it again. You and I, before this interview, were chatting about things like loss of sexual desire or just not feeling sexalicious. Now There's a lot of different ways to handle that.

Yes.

But one of the ways is to fake it till you feel. Yeah, totally. And it works a fairly high percentage of the time, but it works. Once again, I don't want to turn it into yet another prescription pill that's supposed to be one size fits all, but it has its merits.

Yeah, totally. And I love that you said that because I have that. I'm a new mom, right? So sexuality is an interesting thing for this phase, but sometimes I just don't feel like it. But like the fake it, like, I'm like, okay, let me just breathe deeply. Let me just start to get the energy. And once you start faking it and you start, you know, oh, even exaggerating it, before you know it, you're like.

You'Re in it because what have you just done? You've just probably started breathing, you started moving, you started making sounds. All that part that goes into the faking it, it's, it's. Those are all the energetic building blocks of sex. You can have an orgasm just from doing that, you know, I mean, you know, and, and you have to, of course, have the thought that you want to actually go there. If the thought of having sex is like a complete turn off, maybe you should go paint a lovely picture or go walk on the beach during. I mean, do something else. If sex is not your thing this week, this year, this month, that's okay. But find some passion somewhere. That's really what I. I am not here to say, oh, darling, you're not interested in sex. Let me fix you, you poor broken thing. Cause I don't think you're broken.

Yeah.

I think though that I do want to ignite your passion for something somewhere. So where can we find it? Chocolate is good, but over a long haul. So let's start there and then move up. That's awesome. Anything, you know, with someone who's really been down and depressed. I really don't care what it is.

I love that the passion just igniting that passion, which is like sexual energy, right?

I mean, it's not going to work. Energy and changing the baby energy and reading the newspaper. Energy and sexual energy. It's all life force energy expressing in different forms. One person's ecstatic pleasure other than sex and orgasm was eating mackerel flavored ice cream at a particular ice cream shop in Melbourne, Australia. Okay, that's great ice cream. I liked that one too. There were lots of food ones. Find something you can get passionate about and go there.

That's all that is fantastic. I love it. So now I'm really curious. The breath orgasm. Tell us more.

Okay. I first learned the technique early, early, early days when I was studying tantra. Right at the beginning of my studies, it used to me away. It hooked me for life. It was also when we were in the middle of the AIDS epidemic. So learning a technique that was completely safer sex that was that much fun, that orgasmic, and you could do it in a group safely was an extra bonus. So with all those things and we were so, so overwhelmed with grief in those days that to have this incredible burst of delight from just breathing and our imaginations seemed beyond miraculous. I still think the technique is beyond miraculous. It's really quite simple. People do it a lot of different ways. Basically the way I teach it, you breathe and you imagine energy filling your body. If anybody wants simple instructions on how to have one. If you sign up for my newsletter on my website, Barbara Karelis, that's two Rs, two Ls. Barbaracarellis.com if you sign up for my newsletter, you'll get a return email with instructions on how to have a breath and energy orgasm. I also just, I wanted to be able to teach it to people that I couldn't get to in person. So this summer I did an online, a four part online course based around this technique and other energetic building blocks of sex called Orgasms with Spirit. And it's on the website too. Just look for Orgasms with Spirit because now it's an on demand. And I teach you how to have and do a meditation and talk you through it to allow. And I teach it two different ways so that if that way didn't work as well, you have another opportunity. Because that's what I found too. Certain aspects of certain techniques work better than others for me. So I did wonder for a while, was this really an orgasm? So, as I described in my latest book, Ecstasy Is Necessary, I took up the producers of it's now the Learning Channel. At the time it was Discovery, the producers of the series Strange Sex, when they said, would I like to try to have a breath and energy orgasm inside an FMRI machine so they could track my brain waves to see if it was an orgasm. The hard part about this is I am severely claustrophobic. So that was the challenge. But if you want to see me do this little challenge, it's on, I think it's available on Netflix. Look for Strange Sex episode one or two. It's called Unusual Orgasms. But the results showed. And of course, for everything to be proved. There has to be more than one or two results. But the results showed that indeed the orgasm, the state I took myself into, was lighting up the same areas of my brain as a general orgasm would. So in fact, breath and energy orgasms are orgasms. They're interesting. They generally happen full body. It tends to be a full body experience. And interestingly enough, the one place you usually don't feel the orgasm is in your genitals. It's usually happening everywhere else. So I tell people, imagine that you could have an energy orgasm while you're having a genital orgasm. What would that be like? And of course you can. It's really easy to do that. So the breath and energy orgasm technique is just one of my favorite ways to introduce people into the totality of puff possibilities, into the energy aspect of sex, into a kind of pleasure that makes people that goes beyond pleasure, that takes us into the ecstatic realm and lets us really believe that anything could be possible. It's really just a question of how. How much we want to believe is possible.

Yeah, that is amazing. I love that. And I was making notes then I'm gonna go watch that and I'm going to experiment with this because this is amazing. So on the orgasm, I'm curious because you were just saying you can have this orgasm, this breath, energy orgasm, and you feel it in your body, but you're not feeling it in genitals. What about all this focus in our culture around the genital, you know, and women not being able to have orgasm, some men not being able to orgasm. And can you just talk about that a little bit and how we can orgasm? Is that something we should focus on? What are we missing?

Good questions. I believe that everyone is capable of an orgasmic experience of some kind of orgasm. I think it's equally possible that not everyone for physical reasons is possible, is capable of genital orgasms. Everything from illness to injury to disability, whatever. I think treasuring, cultivating and expanding the orgasms we have is the first step. So usually that means where possible. Usually that means starting with oneself can learning to bring oneself to orgasm. That's why I am so such a fan of Betty Dodson's work. Sex, for one. I think that's where it all starts. Obviously, if someone is disabled in such a way that that's not possible, then they'll need assistance with that. But it's still all about their orgasm. What takes you to your orgasm. Then after that, the most often reported problem that I hear is I can't have an Orgasm with another person. I can have one by myself, but not with another person. I said, well, what do you mean by that? And much of the time it's a woman saying she can't have an orgasm through penetration alone. And 70% of women can't have an orgasm through penetration alone and often. And that just hearing that number improves the situation because couples think they're broken if she can't have an orgasm that way. And then there is the. Well, why do you think it is? What is the difference between having somebody else there and having an orgasm on your own? And so it's very individual. Again, the one size fits all. What is it? What's happening or not happening in that context that makes you not able to have an orgasm with somebody, but you can by yourself. And then we just keep chunking it down and chipping it away until we find out what that variable is. It's there. It's always there. It's always pinpointable.

Interesting.

It's important. Yeah, I do. But here's another thing, though. I really do encourage people who, like, I think people overemphasize the importance, I know they do, of penis vagina, intercourse being the only way. Like, if sex is not possible, that way it's not possible. We're not. We can't have sex. What does that mean? You know, what does that mean? You can't have sex. Dozens of thousands of ways to have sex that do not involve penis vagina, intercourse. But, you know, if a man has erectile dysfunction or premature ejaculation, or if a woman has painful intercourse or whatever, we can't have sex. What? Who told you that? Who told me that? One of the things my work is all about is why I spent such an incredibly long time on the erotic massage in Urban Tantra. Because any of those techniques can be taken back to sex that is going to result in penis vagina or penetrated sex. But when we practice erotic massage, like the ones I suggest we teach in earlier Urban Tantra, and in person, it just reminds us that the whole erotic experience is a lot bigger than any one single act that is supposed to bring us to orgasm.

Yeah, And I love it too, because it's like we can get so focused on the outcome. Just what you said too. It's like just the process, like enjoying being with your lover, your partner, like touching it doesn't have to be. Be this boom all the time. Right.

That's the other appealing thing about tantra. The incredible emphasis on slowing down and understanding that all the joy and all the magic and all the wow was going to be found along the way. That there was no goal, there was no proper conclusion. We weren't going anywhere except where the path took us, not where we carve the path.

Mm. Yeah. Yeah. Very interesting. So I'm curious on this. So how do we maintain this kind of, like, sexual fire, if you will, like, throughout the days? Because I know for me, personally, I've had phases where, you know, didn't use it, started to kind of lose it. Like, I just wasn't interested in it. And I was like, kind of inertia. Like, I'm not doing it, not doing it, not giving it attention, you know? And I know that I'm not the only person that has this experience.

Not at all. I. I do, too. It comes and it goes. Let's remember that we all live really big lives.

Yeah. Yeah.

And we are not always going to be juicy, hot, ready, turned on, interested in the same. Same things at the same level of intensity all our life. We're on an erotic evolution. Everybody's on their own erotic evolution. And there's going to be times when you're just horny and ready to go. And there's going to be other times where you're not. So it really comes down to, are you wanting. Are you really wanting something more or less? Or are you happy with things the way they are now? In your heart of hearts, who's telling you you want more? Is it you? And you want to break out of a rut. Great. Let's work on that. Or is somebody else telling you that a movie, a television show, your partner, whatever, who's saying it? I think that's really important to ask. Who's telling me I need more sex? I am. Okay, let's go. How do I break out of this rut? That's pretty easy. Yeah. When I get a client who's truly at that place, we can move very quickly. When I've got some. Who's calling me because someone else told her she should.

Yeah.

Directly or indirectly, we work instead on finding what really like what she really liked to do and what she is being asked to do that she doesn't want to do and owning that and finding another way. So I think that that's. Get clear on who's. Who's asking.

Yeah, totally. And getting. I love what you said too. Getting clear about what you want, like, for so many of us, especially women, but men have it too, right. Where you're, like, not really clear and you're not comfortable with what you actually Want saying, this is what I want, whether it's sex yes or sex no, whatever. Like, I want this now. Boom.

Often turning that into a game is easier. I talk about that. And ecstasy is necessary. You can. The yes, no, maybe game can be super fun, which is somebody comes up with, says something like, I'd like to dip you in chocolate and feed you to whatever. And all the things I was coming up with were illegal. So. You get to say, well, maybe, or ew, no, or yeah. And you can play that game without anybody having to do it that night. It's just a game.

Hmm.

It's just a game because you might want to be dipped in chocolate and thrown to the trolls tonight. But you might think that's really boring tomorrow.

Yeah.

So it's just a game. And then from the game, like, I'd like to paddle you all over, then rub fur all over you, then ice or whatever. Or you can obviously break them down. Or I'd like to try receiving those things. You can then go back later and go, you know what? I thought I was kidding. But, you know, I kind of would like that. That actually sounds more fun now that. Because now the ice has been broken.

Interesting. Yeah.

The other thing, another game I suggest, an ecstasy is necessary, is somebody says, I'd like to you in chocolate, and, you know, then stuff you in the freezer till it cracks off and you get to say no. And then somebody says, I would like to kiss you slowly and deeply, and you say no. And no matter what they suggest, you say no. And what that does is make saying no less scary. Right. Because often we will say yes to something that is barely a maybe, you know?

Totally.

And I think in order to really open up our sexual imaginations, we really have to learn to say no. Know that we can say no because you can't push the erotic envelope unless you know that no is something that can easily come out of your mouth and easily be heard and respected.

That's huge.

It's interesting, isn't it, that it's not the yes we have to practice. It's actually the no.

Yeah.

And here's another tip. Maybe is always a no. If it's a maybe, it's not an enthusiastic yes in the present moment. And the only thing we want are enthusiastic yes is in the present moment. In the present moment, maybe no. Maybe means, well, if the conditions were right, but they're not right now, and if the temperature were warmer, but it's too cold right now, whatever, you know, it maybe is a no right now.

I Love this. I'm totally gonna practice it with my husband. And I think it's so great, too, because you add, like, the fun element. Because I think for so many of us, me included, can get really serious about sex.

I agree. I agree.

So this is great. Like, you can just play with it. And I love, too, because I just. I can feel it in my.

Make you laugh. Yeah.

Like, and you just use your imagination. You're just, like, being ridiculous. Like, I want to have sex with you on the gravel right now, you know? You know, and just, like, play with it and just.

Tarmac at the airport at lax. Yes.

You know, and then it's like. And then he gets to choose. Yes. I love this. This is, like, transformation formative for couples.

Well, yeah, I just like the tarmac at LAX that while that could be a little scary, it could lead to in a quiet graveyard on Halloween, you know, which would be hot and sick.

Oh, my gosh, that's so great. And I love the noise. No, too. Especially for us women.

Yeah, yeah. No's pretty huge.

That's powerful. My husband's actually doing a practice right now from his coach of saying no like, a hundred times a day. Like, just getting comfortable with saying no. That we're so people pleasers, and we're always trying to say yes, you know.

And then we get, you know, and us people pleasers, we'll do things like yes. But yeah, that was a no.

Totally. Or just say yes. Like my husband, if I say yes, and I'm like, okay, yeah, you know, and he's like, that was not an enthusiastic yes. It's really a no. I'm like, yeah, it's a no. But I just say yes. We're just weird.

I know. It's. Again, it's conditioning. We're trying to be nice people, but we're in. In fact, we're selling ourselves so short. Oh, here's another one while we're on our yes, no's. Because I think this has so much to do with all kinds of pleasure, I think. So I was looking, and I was at one of the conferences I speak at, and I was looking at some jewelry, and I found this ring. And I'm looking at the ring, and a friend of mine comes up and goes, what you think? And I went, I don't know about this. What do you think? Classic, right? What do you think? And he looked down and he said, well, it's either a hell yes or it's a hell no. It's a hell yes. There you go. It was Suddenly so easy. Is it. If it's. Is it a hell yes or a hell no?

Totally.

And what if there was no nothing in the middle?

Yeah.

And suddenly the decision was so excitingly clear. Yeah. I still love that ring. The person who gave me the hell no. Hell yes. Hell no Was Darren Weissman of infinite love and gratitude. So great guy. For those people who know Darren, that is fantastic. Yeah.

Derek Sivers, I think CD baby. He talks about that. I think. I think so. Because my husband will do that. Hell yeah. Is it a hell yeah or is it a hell no?

I learned it from Darren. It's a really good, good technique for taking the real pleasure out of the situation. Yeah.

Because there's like no room. There's no room for wishy washy.

Right.

It's either yes or no.

So I think any. You could probably extract the true pleasure out of any situation with the hell yes, hell no theory.

And I love, for me, it's always a challenge because for me it makes it really clear what's an actual hell yeah. Because I don't have that many hell. I mean, you know, like, it's a small range of hell Yeahs, but they're like hell yeahs.

Exactly, exactly. Exactly. And when you're. And sometimes when we're wishy washy about pleasure, it's because we don't think we deserve it. We think it costs too much. There's some, perhaps false judgment is getting between us and our pleasure. Something is trying to talk us out of it. Usually it comes from some sort of we don't deserve place. So if you can identify whatever it is you're struggling with as a hell yes, it breaks through that. And it also tells you, like, if you're looking at a pair of shoes, if they're not a hell yes, but you can leave them without wondering for the rest of the day, should you have. Should you have actually gotten them? You know? Yeah. No, they weren't a hell yes.

I love this transformative stuff. I mean, it's like, it's the simple stuff, Right. Like you said, the breath, like lay down and breathe.

The best thing that Louise Hay ever taught me was the value of. Of keeping it as simple as possible.

Totally.

Yeah. Because then people will do it, including us.

Yeah, definitely. So I have one more question and then we'll wrap up. But ecstasy. So why is ecstasy necessary?

We've sort of covered it. An ecstatic experience shatters the glass ceiling of your totality of possibilities.

Yep.

It like takes you. It like picks you up, turns you upside down shakes you around. And when it puts you back down on your feet, everything looks different. And that's the good thing. Everything is a little different. Everything is new again. One of the places where we go into pleasure denial or, or just being unhappy is when we become kind of jaded, when everything seems the same. Depressed people describe that sort of gray sameness. We need things that help us to see things new as new. Like you're a little baby when they came into the world. Right. You know, it's like everything's like fabulous. Everything's new. We need to recapture some of that and it's difficult.

Yeah.

This is ecstatic. Experiences are a sure way to look at the world with newer eyes. That's my favorite reason for having them.

Beautiful. And that's like perfect for the conference because that's what I hope everyone gets out of it is that they can look at life and that savor the sweetness of their everyday life.

Yeah, exactly. We need less that is out there and can appreciate the wonder of so much more. That's right here. When we learn these simple but often not talked about skills. And we need a skill set or we'll fall right into the unconsciousness of the rest of the gray world. We need a skill set to keep honed to our inner aliveness and our pleasure. It's gonna happen.

Yeah. And I love that you brought that up because I think a lot of people, we think of pleasure and should just be easy. Like it should just be easy. Of course. A pleasure filled life, it's easy. But I love that you said, you know, you gotta have some skills, take some work.

Yeah, it does. It takes intention.

Yeah.

It takes some serious intention. That does not necessarily mean it's painful or hard, but it does take focus. When I tell people, you know, all consciousness really means is keeping your attention quietly focused on your intention.

Beautiful.

Amazing. But it takes a skill set.

Yeah. Oh my gosh. I love you. This is so great. Okay, so we're gonna wrap up. Even though I could talk to you forever. Tell us where we learn more about you, your website, anything else that you want to share with us. Any goodies that you think the peeps will like. Hi kitty.

Hi kitty. Say hello again. Hello. Hi Kim. That's a sure thing. To get her to go away is to like actually say, say hello. Oh, okay. You can find out a whole lot more about me and my work@barbaracarellis.com youm can sign up for my newsletter. You can read about my workshops. I love teaching workshops and I travel all over to do so. And as I said, I now have an on demand workshop in case I'm not coming to your area. My books are Urban Tantra, Sacred sex for the 21st century. Ecstasy is Necessary and Luxurious Loving. And my other, one of my passions is my Urban Tantra Professional training program. I have a professional training program right now. It's in Australia, London, sometimes Europe, United States and Canada, other locations to come. And it's for sexuality professionals and anyone who wants to work with conscious sexuality in any capacity. We've had every people, artists, filmmakers to sex workers to sex therapists. It's always a delicious group. And there's more about that on my website too under workshops, the Urban Tantra Professional Training Program. We're just now announcing the 2014 dates. So that's me. Go to my upcoming events page because I've been off the road a little, doing some writing and some new Internet projects and I'll be back on the road real soon.

Ooh, exciting. See you in the live.

In person. And of course I do sex life coaching. So if anybody would like to work with me privately, I do that over phone and Skype.

Fantabulous. I love it. Well, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom.

So happy to be a part of this discussion. I love the whole, I love the consciousness you're bringing to the whole pleasure scene, the whole concept of pleasure, because it's important. We really don't change things by getting more miserable. We change things because we are naturally inclined to seek more pleasure than we are currently having.

Amen. Beautiful. Well, thank you, thank you, thank you. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Mama Goddess. Sending you lots of love and blessings. If you'd like to connect more, go to mamagoddess.com until next time. Keep rocking it and have an awesome day.