Erotic Breathplay
Just as your journey into this world in your body begins with a breath, so too, does the journey back to erotic embodiment. Breathing is central in building an inner relationship with your erotic self and feeling good in your body. Ultimately, taking steps towards feeling good in your body is one of the most important acts of self-love that you can do, and feeling comfortable in your body will positively affect every other aspect of your life.
Regain Your Natural Curiosity
In playing with breath, you can regain the natural curiosity about yourself and your body that you had as a child. Bringing your creativity, your passion for life, and your love for yourself to breathplay can make erotic breathing fun, delicious, exciting, and relaxing. Reward yourself with lusciousness every time you take time out to play with your breath.
Be with Whatever Arises
While every step of the journey is about joy, it is important to note that delving into your erotic self and remembering your curious child may bring up trauma, past abuse or negative feelings about the self. Thus, it is important to be gentle with yourself and to remember that moving through these feelings can be done with a sense of power and accomplishment. With this in mind, we will start by joyfully stating that there is no right way to breathe. Simply remember that different breath increases different kinds of responses, perceptions, experiences, and/or sensations in your body and mind. The good news is that if you do nothing more than play with different kinds of breathing throughout your day, you will experience a greater sense of erotic embodiment
The Steps to Eros Breath
To awaken the center of your eroticism, you must breathe deep into the parts of your body from which your most erotic energy is generated. Think of your breath is an inner masseuse that connects you with your intelligence, your voice, and your empathy, power, and passion, while at the same time bringing all of these important aspects of yourself together. There are many kinds of erotic breathing.
Relaxing Breath
A great breath to start you with is Relaxing Breath. To attain the greatest heights of arousal, you must first find comfort and relaxation in your body. We hold many memories in our bodies, of pleasure and trauma, stress and relaxation. You can breathe into all of these feelings and the breath will heal trauma and relax the stress, allowing you to feel more comfortable in your body and to begin to produce an erotic glow that others will sense.
You can do erotic breathing in any position. When first beginning to explore erotic breathing, we have found it easiest to feel the deep movement of the breath lying on your back, however, you can experiment with different positions.
- For now, lie on your back with your knees bent, feet planted on the floor and simply bring consciousness to your breath, notice how deeply you breathe, what parts of your body move when you breathe, whether you hold your breath after the inhale or after the exhale. Moving the breath into different parts of your body, your chest, your stomach or your sides, for example, has the benefit of awakening that part of the body, massaging nearby organs, activating digestion and blood flow and creating connections between your body’s energy centers.
- Place your hand in the center of your chest and take 10 slow, deep breaths directed into your chest. Do not force your breath, but allow it to gently flow towards your hand. Feel the breath rise and fall in your upper body and visualize yourself opening to love. Open to the love you have for yourself, the love you have for others and the loving being that you are. We like to say, either aloud or to myself “I love, I am loved, I am love” to remind ourselves that love flows between ourselves and others and that we embody love.
- Place your hand on your solar plexus, the upper part of your stomach right below your ribcage. Take 10 slow, deep breaths into your stomach, again being gentle with your body. Feel your body open to power. Connecting with your own sense of personal power (as opposed to power over others), your free will and your desires will have profound effects on your ability to be comfortable in your body. We like to say, “I am, I desire, I create, I fulfill” to remind ourselves that we are the source of our own desire and fulfillment and that the dance of desire and fulfillment is in large part what ignites our creative energy.
Eros Breath
The final breath, the one that is rarely taught in other embodiment practices, but which is the basis of erotic embodiment, is what we call the Eros Breath. Breath that moves through your throat, chest, and stomach into your erotic center connects your inner senses of voice, love, power, eroticism, and security. The idea is to recreate free-flowing energy between these centers. Connecting these centers, which have often been painfully disconnected through the process of socialization, trauma, and difficult relationships is the first step towards erotic embodiment.
When your erotic center is connected to feelings of love, you will better know your desires. When it is connected to your sense of security, you will better know your boundaries. And, when your erotic center is connected with your sense of power you will feel empowered to use your voice to ask for what you want and to communicate about what you don’t want. This is why erotic breathing is a big part of our work.
If Eros Breath seems difficult at first, it is because you are likely very used to breathing into your chest or stomach, and you do not realize how deeply you can move your breath. However, if you watch a newborn baby sleep, you will see their pelvic floor moving with the breath, with some practice, you can regain this depth of connection. Most importantly, be gentle and do not judge yourself, the healing effects will come in time. Remember you deserve pleasure, playfulness, joy, and love in your life and breathplay is one way to give yourself these gifts.
- Cup your genitals and gently bring the breath all the way down to the pelvic floor. Notice what reflex, if any, happens around your pelvic floor when you breathe deeply directing your breath towards the base of your body.
- Take a few deep breaths and notice. The basis of the Eros Breath is an active relaxation in the inhale and a passive relaxation in the exhale. Sometimes, simply directing our gentle attention to this part of our body will encourage relaxation in the pelvic floor when we breathe in. It is possible to deepen this relaxation by VERY GENTLY bearing down during an in-breath in order to train your body to open and relax on the inhale. Eventually, you will not have to push at all. On the exhale the idea is to DO NOTHING, simply allowing your body to fully release the breath. This is much easier than it sounds for most people who often equate conscious breathing and sexuality in general with feelings of control. By letting go of this control, you can feel your body open to eroticism.
- Allow your consciousness to move deeply into your pelvis and genitals. Imagine the base of your body from your pubic bone to your buttocks is getting warm and soft, imagine it beginning to glow with your energy and passion. We like to say “I give and receive pleasure, I am sensual, (or I am erotic), I am fulfilled.” As you engage fully in this breath, you may start to feel some tingling or awakening. Give yourself permission to enjoy this experience. You might actively tell yourself, “I deserve pleasure.” After 5 minutes (or more) of Eros Breathing, allow your breath to return to normal and check in with your body.
Check-In
Do you feel a difference anywhere in your body? Are you more warm and open? Is there a greater sense of relaxation and aliveness? Are you aware of tension you didn’t know you had? Did any resistance come up? If you keep a journal, try writing about feelings or sensations that came up during this breathplay. Or simply walk through the world with the greater sense of erotic centering you feel, you might be surprised at the magnetism that this breathplay generates as others become curious about and excited by your glow.
