In a 21st century world, it can be hard to feel connected to anything other than your phone. With all the trouble of the world, choices in life, and struggles with mental health, it can be overwhelming to just exist. But there’s a way you can connect with your body and feel sexy through embodiment exercises. Heal through mindfulness, balance, and self-acceptance. Here are some practices you can add to your day so you can focus in life and the bedroom.

Connect your senses with your sensuality

In sensual and sexual practice, we want to quiet the planning, problem solving, and task-related functions and raise the volume on our capacity to be present and responsive to stimuli. The following are three embodiment exercises for doing just that.

Breath & Pelvic Floor Work

It took a lot of years, but I eventually converted to the school of thought that intentional breath can have a serious impact on our experiences – including sexual ones. To practice breathing techniques in tandem with sexual energy manipulation, you can lay down either flat on your back or with your feet flat and knees up or in a comfortable sitting position.

There are lots of different types of breath that you can incorporate into your sensual and sexual activities, whether it’s box breathing, breath of fire, diaphragm breath, synchronized partner breathing, or something else. The key here is to intentionally choose a breath type and begin noticing.

  • What happens to your belly and rib cage as you breathe?
  • Where are you choosing to direct your breath? You might direct your breath towards your hips, your genitals, the belly, chest, etc.
  • Are you lifting and relaxing your pelvic floor to the rhythm of your breath? What happens when you do?
  • How do sensations change if you rock your hips to match your breath pattern?

Settling into your breath can awaken your body. Learning to notice will help you remain present in your bodily experiences. Intentional breathing can also keep you oxygenated so that your body is able to keep up with the physical exertion of sex.

Connecting to Your Senses

If you find your mind drifting in the middle of a solo or partnered session, try focusing on one or two sensory experiences that feel erotic, exciting, or enticing.

  • Identify and sit with sensations playing across your skin
  • Smell yourself, your partner, or a lit candle and savor it
  • Listen to the breathing and moaning patterns and how they shift with different sensations
  • Lick your partner’s shoulder to see if it’s salty or taste your own juices and revel in your arousal

Choosing to focus on a particular sense will remind your body of what is happening in the now and how to remain present.

Explore with Curiosity & without Goals

It’s easy to get caught up in the goal of orgasm when masturbating or engaging in partnered sex. Unfortunately, this can sometimes distract you from enjoying the non-orgasmic but delightful sensations your body has to offer. That’s why it can be incredible to explore your body with curiosity and without the goal of climaxing.

To try this practice, grab some sensory items like feathers, spiky things, satin, lubricants, yummy tastes, music you find enticing, and more and go on a pleasure journey. Try feeling different materials against your skin. Graze, scratch, lightly (or heavily) slap different areas. Rub yourself with lotion and tease different areas of your skin. Slowly tease your tongue with different flavors. Give yourself a sexy dance in the mirror.

Allow yourself to find new erogenous zones and create new habits. Play. See where this takes you and what new experiences your body is open to receiving. Then, rinse and repeat. Especially for menstruators, bodies can respond differently to the same stimulation depending on where they are on their menstrual cycle. Today, you may find your nipples are unresponsive and the next week they feel orgasmic. Let the sensations in the here and now direct your exploration and remain curious to new opportunities.

What other sexy embodiment exercises can you think of?

Love nature and want some ideas for how to engage in nature related embodiment experiences? Send us a DM on Instagram and we’ll do a piece on that next!

Yael R. Rosenstock Gonzalez

Yael R. Rosenstock Gonzalez

Sex Educator, Researcher, Author, Speaker
I'm a queer, polyamorous Nuyorican (Puerto Rican New Yorker) Jewish pleasure activist (a term popularized by adrienne maree brown) who believes that sexual wellness and sexual liberation involve our WHOLE selves. I center identity, values, and social positioning work, playful exploration, and intimacy with self and others. I am here to support you in finding pleasurable, joyful, embodied experiences with self and sex through intentional practices geared towards your specific needs because sexual wellness and pleasure are for anyone who seeks them.