how to become a more sensual person
6 ways to sharpen your senses and become more aware of the world around you.
For many, the word sensual has a purely sexual connotation, but the more traditional meaning of the word is, 'gratification of the senses'. Using that definition, a sensual person is someone who knows how to stimulate their senses for not just practical, but also both pleasurable means.
Aside from the obvious benefit of experiencing pleasure, being able to tune into or focus one's 5 primary senses has numerous physical and mental benefits.
What Keeps Us From Being Sensual In the First Place?
As babies and small children, we were completely engrossed in sensory exploration of the world around us - putting everything (including our own little toes) in our mouths, delighted to hear the sound of our own shrieks, laughs and cries. Our five senses were the way we learned about everything. But social conditioning and maturity taught us to lessen our sensory interaction with the world in the name of appropriateness. Things like self-touch, loud vocalizations and uninhibited movement were discouraged and labeled as things that 'well-behaved boys and girls' didn't do. As a result, many of us have become largely detached from our senses, and may even be uncomfortable as over-indulgent or immoral.
sensuality osho
To become a truly sensual person, some unlearning of the norms of so-called good behavior is necessary.
These tips from MindBodyGreen and Mind Map Inspiration will help you increase your awareness and heighten your senses.
25 Ways to Increase Your Sensual Awareness
Dance
Stretch
Give a hug
Eat and drink more slowly
Silently observe nature - watch your cat grooming, listen to the wind rustle the leaves outside, pay attention to the pace and rhythm of your own breathing
Go barefoot
Close your eyes to enhance your hearing
Focus totally on your breath
Look at a close object then a distant one and alternate focus
Study your hand – explore the detail and aging!
Smell deeply – differentiate between subtle odours
Touch with eyes closed – explore textures, surfaces, shapes
Close eyes and feel temperature of objects with hands
Close your eyes and sense individual body parts
Close your eyes and identify objects solely by touch
Close your eyes and try observing your pulse or blood flow
Gently pull your ears out and listen!
Feel the wind – really feel it with all the senses
Close your eyes and pass your hands through water
Identify foods with your eyes closed
Close eyes and brush fingers lightly over arms and face sensing hairs not skin
Walk and be conscious of every step as you plant your feet
Become aware of your entire body and “feel” with every cell
The more we feel with non-judgmental awareness, the more we open to the experience of our innate sensual pleasures"
While becoming more sensual may make you feel sexier - it may even make you a better lover - the real benefit in being more in tune with your senses is improving your ability to deal with the stress of everyday life.
What tips do you use to heighten your senses?
(Photo Journal) antelope canyon - A sliver of Calm amidst the chaos
My visit to Antelope Canyon was breathtaking and, surprisingly hectic.
antelope canyon - recipes for travel
Antelope Canyon. A breathtaking place. A magical place. Also a very hectic place. Upper Antelope Canyon is heavily visited by groups of tourists wanting to witness and capture its unique beauty. We were one of at least a dozen groups of 10-12 people that filed through the twisting canyon during our fast-paced visit.
Our guide, McCarr, was a small, no-nonsense Navajo woman who let us know in no uncertain terms that we were to follow her instructions or be met with her motherly wrath. During her intro speech while were still parked in the vistors’ lot, She spoke to us like stern matriarch would have when we were little. ‘Look, when we go in this store don’t u go asking for nothin’, touchin’ nothin’ and don’t wander off and get lost. And don’t make me have to tell you twice!’ One of our group, a grown man of at least 40, fell behind a couple of times during our tour because he wanted to take more pictures. I witnessed McCarr smack his hand while he was attempting to take a picture. A grown man!
But like a mama or auntie, she was stern because she knew what was good for us (and she had much more experience in the sometimes-unpredictable canyon than we did (an Antelope Canyon flash flood in 1997 killed 11 hikers). And since no one in our subgroup of 5 girlfriends openly defied her – or at least didn’t get caught doing so – she rewarded us by taking some amazing photos of us and our birthday-girl and helping us get just-right shots of key features and the ever-shifting shafts of light within the canyon. The rest of the tour, though, was all yelling and ‘hurry-ups’ and ‘move-alongs’ and ‘come this way, no I said this way!’, while trying not to run into or be run over by the next tour group frantically snapping pics in front of and behind us.
In the midst of the madness, which I had expected from reading tour reviews, I tried to have a more serene and memorable experience with the canyon, which, quite honestly, filled me with a sense of joyful awe. I let my arm drag along the canyon wall as I walked slowly at the tail end of our group, the underside of my forearm, my palm and the pads of my fingertips gliding along the cool, smooth- grooved surface of the canyon, stopping for a moment to press my cheek against the coolness, then my right and left eyelids - which temporarily relieved the irritated feeling from all the fine dust and sand swirling around. The sensory experience of my physical existence being introduced to the canyon's would last longer than the photos, I figured. Or at least, it would add a richer element to the memories when I perused the photos later today and years on.
Have you ever visited Antelope Canyon? What was your experience like?