Book excerpt: Awaken Your Erotic Life “Making sex work—embracing your erotic soul and deepening the intimacy in your life—is both a consequence of deep presence and its gift. Healing our selves in our deepest erotic space can only be a deliberate act, and the doing of it miraculously seems to heal everything else. Tapping into the courage to know your own deepest sexual thoughts and feelings, and offering them with your whole being, is both a life work and lasting gift that will be long remembered.” —Wendy Strgar, Sex That Works If you and your partner have lost that special spark, here is a book with the power to save your sex life—and your relationship. Sex That Works invites you to experience a new level of feeling and a new level of freedom in your sexuality. Wendy Strgar offers healing insights, potent practices (for you alone and with your partner), and guidance drawn from her marriage of over 30 years and her work with thousands of people to encourage the full awakening and expression of your erotic life. Nine core topics include: Freedom Taking responsibility for your sexual evolution • Healing our harmful behaviors • Claiming erotic freedom • Overcoming silence • Giving yourself permission • Finding forgiveness Pleasure Pleasure as a medium of communication • Restoring our humanity • Orgasm • Relaxing our judgments about sexuality • The many benefits of self-pleasure • Owning the pleasure response • Calling pleasure by its true name • Transcendent orgasms • Broadening our sexual vocabulary • Pleasure as a fountain of youth Finding your normal The universal uncertainty • Bridging the erotic with the rational • Putting sexual health in context • The Sexual Identity Grid • The malady of sexual dysfunction • Trusting our erotic nature • Beyond right and wrong Courage The gift of choice • Growing up sexually • Living well with risks • Befriending our fear • The four attributes of courage • Desire as courage • Daily practice • Becoming who you really are • Healing erotic wounds • Letting our erotic self teach us Curiosity Overcoming sexual boredom • Filling in the gaps of our sexual education • Exploration as the leader • Sensory intrigue • Opening as a creative act • Awakening to life, sexual and otherwise Sensation Awakening the senses • Out of the head and into the body • Trusting erotic impulses • Building a vocabulary of scent and taste • The healing language of touch • Erotic connections • Making noise • Negotiating shared sensations • Mindfulness • Falling into the body Fantasy Eliciting arousal through stories • Witnessing your fantasies • Fantasies as charged erotic fuel • The space between witnessing and enacting • Inner erotic landscapes • Uncovering the subconscious source of pleasure • Expressing desire • Submission and domination Attention Listening • Making the time • A radical leap • Creating a love container • Sustaining an atmosphere conducive to intimacy • Showing up vs. coexisting • Compassion as a way to connect • Sourcing from our center • Committing to something bigger than our selves Gratitude Letting go and receiving • Grateful sex • Healing through kindness • Receiving abundance • The importance of sexual freedom, revisited • A simple gratitude practice • A passionate love affair with your fleeting life