by Kim Anami: Growing up, I always had a strong sense of my sexual energy. I could feel it. I was intrigued by it. I wanted to explore it.I also had the intuitive sense that my sexuality was some kind of portal: a gateway to another dimension.

After a few years of experimenting, I read an article about Tantra. The author described sexual energy as being tangible and real; something you could exchange with a partner. He suggested an exercise: when with a lover, imagine moving energy between you. Not with words or touch, but just with your feelings and imagination.

I had a very sensitive and aware lover at the time. I decided to try the experiment, without telling him what I was doing.

I imagined shooting out energy from different places in my body, into his. From my heart, to his heart; from my head to his head; from my genitals to his genitals.

Something curious happened. Without my hands on him at all, he moaned. I visualized moving energy into his thighs. He writhed.

I knew I was onto something. I wanted more.

Shortly after, I moved to Byron Bay, Australia. If you haven’t been, Byron Bay is a small, very alternative town on the country’s east coast. It is meant to be an energy portal, sitting at a converging point of powerful ley lines. Almost everyone you meet there is on a path of personal growth: acupuncturists, energy healers, vegans—I even met my first breatharians there. I immersed myself in the study of every healing modality that interested me.

I studied herbs—with a special interest in plants that stimulate the mind and the genitals—and homeopathy, instinctively rejecting allopathic and pharmaceutical medicine. I became vegan (I was already vegetarian), bought only organic food, and stopped eating white sugar and white flour products—all of which gave me mental clarity and greater energy. I hit the beach every day at 6am to surf bigger and bigger waves—I liked pushing myself and the feeling that there was always another level to get to. I quit smoking and drinking. I realized that I had been using psychotropic substances to reach altered states that I could now reach through meditation, yoga, and exercise, so I stopped using them.

I also realized I could reach higher states through sex.

When I fell in love for the first time, I combined emotional vulnerability with the ability to abandon myself sexually—and I upped the potency of each. The sex amplified the love, and the love intensified the sex. I reached highs that outshone my best drug experiences and left me permanently opened and transformed.

I remember spending an isolated weekend holed up in my family’s summer cabin with my boyfriend, my first love. We never left the confines of that space. Having the entire weekend without any distractions gave us a chance to expose ourselves emotionally without holding back, which resulted in even more powerful and cataclysmic sex. He fucked me open—on every level. When I returned to work on the following Monday, I was carried by an energy and a lightness: I was smarter, wittier, happier, more compassionate, patient, and charming than I could ever remember being. People gravitated to me. Men lingered at my cubicle, finding excuses to talk to me. I had a clear answer for every problem that came my way, and I felt as though I fit in the flow of life.

This is the essence of conscious, powerful sex: using our intimate connection to transform our lives.

Fast forward almost twenty years from that first experience with moving sexual energy and now I can make love to my partner without even touching him. I can have an orgasm from the sound of his voice. I can feel his touch when he is on another continent.

My sexual experiences have become so deep, so life-changing, that I’ve dedicated my life’s work to show others how the same is possible for them.

And it is. They are possible for everyone.

If you haven’t experienced anything like this before (and many people have; they just haven’t had a label for it), try the exercise I described at the beginning: imagine moving energy between you and your lover. Go inside and tune into your subtle sensations. The more you practice, your awareness will grow. It’s just like strengthening a muscle.

Your super-sensory, mega-Kegel, love-and-awareness muscle.

I’ll arm wrestle you with it anytime.

Published May 25, 2012 at 8:00 PM