Episode 93 - Touch That Takes You There with Ed Ehrgott and Nellie Wilson

Transcript

Francesca Gentille

: Welcome to Sex, Tantra and

Kama

Sutra: Bringing You The Soul of Sex. I’m your host

Francesca Gentille

, and with me today is Ed Ehrgott and Nellie Wilson. Ed, who was in computer technology for over 23 years, has some huge wake up calls that he’ll be sharing with us, and became an erotic coach, a certified sexilogical body worker and the co-director of the sacred touch school. Also with us is Nellie Wilson, and Nellie is a massage therapist, a certified sexilogical body worker working towards her master of arts in integrative arts, a somatic sex educator and the co-director of The Sacred Touch school. Welcome you two.

Ed Ehrgott: Thanks Francesca.

Nellie

Wilson

: Thank you Francesca.

Ed Ehrgott: It’s great to be here.

Francesca Gentille

: It’s wonderful to have you here, and what I love so much about having this show is that I get to have windows into the souls of my, of my guests, and then share these amazing gems back with our listening audience. And I was very moved in talking to you before the show about your personal stories and the gifts and the skills that you’ve gathered that you want to give to us. And I think Ed maybe I’ll ask you first; would you share with us - ‘cause I know this all led up to everything that you’ve become - a little bit about your personal story that led you from being this computer technology person to being the co-director of The Sacred Touch school.

Ed Ehrgott: Sure. Thanks Francesca. So I spent a lot of time working with the – I’ve got the right side and the left side of the brain mixed up – but the side that’s logic in things you touch and, you know, if you can’t (unintelligible) it doesn’t exist and those kinds of things. And when I was working in the corporate world, I was just so aware that my body was numb. I was a wreck, I was having a lot of stress, my blood pressure was very high. You know, basically lots of not good things. And as I did a lot of reflecting, you know, I looked back on, you know, a number of different things in my life and just realized I spent a good chunk of my life not really being in my body. And I got to the point of saying, “Okay, why am I doing this? Why am I going through, putting myself through all of this stress?” And it got to the point of saying enough is enough. I’ve always had an interest in doing massage work, and left the corporate world behind, jumped both feet first into doing massage, and one of the things I found in massage work is that a lot of people treat their massage therapist in some ways like their bartender, and people were opening up with lots of intimate issues going on in their lives to me. And I realized there’s really something to this, and with my work in touch, my work in working with people and their bodies, being able to read their bodies, I decided it was time to make this change and really dive headfirst into sex coaching and sexilogical bodywork.

Francesca Gentille

: And there’s also not, not only that time period that you were in technology and noticed things, the stress that so many of us can feel leaning over a computer and a desk and, you know, rushing to work and focusing on our head and our hands all day and feeling disconnected from our bodies when we get home. When we talked before you also mentioned that this, there was something about your own childhood and growing up that had you have a longing for a deeper richer connection to erotic energy and a discovery that it was very healing for you.

Ed Ehrgott: Yeah, that’s really true that… So I grew up as, you know, I wouldn’t say I was like the fattest kid, but I was definitely up there. And I say to a number of people, it’s like, you know, thank god for the really fat kids because that horrible exercise you go through of picking teams, at least I was never going to be picked last. It may be next to last, but it wasn’t going to be last. And as I look back and, you know, in my childhood, sports was really valued a lot in my family, and I wasn’t very good at it, I was a bookworm. And so while all the other kids were getting reinforcement on being part of a team or learning what their bodies could do and, you know, really trying to strive with their bodies, I kept getting the message of “My body isn’t good enough. I’m not able to do this.” And, you know, that just spent a lot of time for me just being numb as a, you know, as a teenager and as a young adult. And ended up having this epiphany through discovering new ways of looking at sexuality, and really came to a place of healing with my body, realizing that my body is just fine as it is, that my body is capable of some amazing sensations and some amazing pleasures and, you know, in a way it was almost like a spiritual epiphany of giving thanks for the power and giving thanks for being in this body, which for me, growing up as someone who just hated the body that he was given, that was a pretty powerful experience for me.

Francesca Gentille

: Now which came first Ed, the giving thanks for your body and the ability to access healing, the healing nature of erotic energy? Or accessing erotic energy and then being able to bless your body and release some of that lack of self worth or lack of self esteem? Or were they kind of interwoven?

Ed Ehrgott: That’s a really interesting question. You know, as I was, I was thinking about it as you were asking the question; I think they were kind of interwoven, but there was probably an acceptance of erotic energy came first. For me it was through self pleasuring and a, looking at self pleasuring from a different perspective. Not looking at it from, you know, a traditional male perspective, just as a way of having a sexual experience or getting off; but rather looking at it as a way of being fully present in my body, being, you know, fully aware of all the different sensations. And what I noticed through being present that way is that it took me to some places that I really didn’t expect at all, one of which was this epiphany of just being thrilled with the body that I was given.

Francesca Gentille

: That’s, you know, you’re so not alone, you’re so not alone in this journey of in some way not feeling like we’re good enough. I mean I think that so many of us, it’s not always about our bodies – sometimes it’s about something else, maybe about our emotions, our intelligence, sometimes it’s about our genitals – but I think so many of us carry that kind of suffering, that there’s something not quite good enough. And you’re saying that erotic energy can heal that and that there’s a way to be present through self touch, self pleasuring itself, that starts to heal and transform that. I want to talk more about how that works, how does that delicious thing work and how to do it, when we come back from a break and a word from our sponsors. And I also want to weave in Nellie and her, and her beautiful story as well. And I invite our listening audience to support our fabulous sponsors because that helps shows like this keep coming here to you. And we’ll be right back.

Francesca Gentille

: Welcome back to Sex, Tantra and Kama Sutra: Bringing You The Soul of Sex, with Ed Ehrgott and Nellie Wilson, who are both co-directors of The Sacred Touch school, both certified sexilogical body workers and both wonderful people with amazing stories that have led them to create this school. And before we go back more into Ed’s story and what some of those skill sets that he wants to share with us, Nellie your story actually is although unique and distinct from Ed’s, also weaves in ultimately this same pathway and skill sets. So would you tell us a bit about your life, your, how you got here?

Nellie

Wilson

: Sure thing Francesca. When I was growing up I actually had a pretty positive experience around my sexuality. My mother had a copy of the book Our Bodies, Ourselves, which I pored over, and so I got a lot of information around sexuality. One of the things that happened to me about five years ago is I ended up with having some health conditions come up and specifically some gynecological issues, which ended up causing a fair amount of pain and discomfort in my vulva. Prior to that I had had a pretty active and wonderful sex life, and this really changed things for me. So I wasn’t able to have intercourse like I had been doing and I was experiencing a lot of discomfort. And through that process of finding out, it’s like, “Okay, I can’t have sex the way that I previously had in the past”, it gave me an opportunity to explore the eroticism of the rest of my body. So I really took time to connect with other parts of my body and the sensations that I was feeling, particularly my breasts, my lips and exploring self touch through my whole body, as well as beginning to incorporate more full body touch with partners. And through that process of realizing that it’s like, “Okay, you know, we’re going to, we’re going to not be so genitally focused here because that’s a source of pain and discomfort for me right now, lets expand out to the erotic potentiality of the rest of my body, see how that feels” and then from there I really discovered that over the course of time and in exploring more full body eroticism, I was able to begin to shift into a place of actually directly healing and starting to experience pleasure in my genitals again.

Francesca Gentille

: You know Nellie, you’re story as well I think is so relatable to so many of us, is that our sexuality can change. It can change due to illness, it can change due to aging, it can change due to having a baby, and it literally changes the vulva sometimes or the uterus in some ways. And then there we are in our whole life time in this ongoing discovery of what to do now. Sometimes medications can change things. And both of you were pointing that there is this journey with erotic energy, this engagement with erotic energy, in a more fully way, in a more pleasant way, that shifts things. It’s very different than how our culture does it. Would one of you maybe give us a little bit of a picture of how the culture normally engages with erotic energy – that looks like this, sounds like this – and then a picture, a window, some techniques around how we can shift that into something that’s as expansive and as healing as you’re talking about.

Ed Ehrgott: Sure…

Francesca Gentille

: Both of you actually.

Nellie

Wilson

: Yeah.

Ed Ehrgott: A couple observations on how our culture looks at sexuality; our culture tends to be very goal oriented, and goal orientation I think can be helpful in a number of ways, but where it really can trip us up is especially around sexuality. As an example, you know, a lot of men are very goal oriented toward having an erection, and we get sometimes so focused on whether or not we have an erection that we’re really not paying attention to what we’re doing with our partner or what we’re doing with ourselves. Often times both men and women can get so goal oriented toward having this incredible orgasm that we’re not really enjoying the process of getting there. It’s as if we’re so focused on the destination that we’re really not paying attention to the journey.

Nellie

Wilson

: I think one of the other things that happens as well is that we don’t spend very much time being sexual, whether it be with ourselves or with a partner. I think that probably – I forget the exact statistic, but it’s like, you know, about five minutes between getting started with being sexual to being done, you know… like, whether it’s like masturbation, time is like five minutes or, you know, if it’s partner sex, maybe it’s like fifteen minutes at the max. So I think there’s really a lack of time that’s spent in exploring sexuality.

Francesca Gentille

: I love that both of you are speaking additively of promising and putting aside more time, slowing time, being more present, and releasing the goal. And after we come from a break and a word from our sponsors I’d love for you to take us through maybe a couple of techniques or a couple of steps or something or even share an intimate moment that you’ve tried that will give us, give us that picture of how this goes, when we come back from a word from our fabulous sponsors.

Francesca Gentille

: Welcome back to Sex, Tantra and Kama Sutra: Bringing You The Soul of Sex, with the wonderful and amazing Ed Ehrgott and Nellie Wilson, co-directors of The Sacred Touch School, certified sexilogical body workers and so skilled, so heart open, so present in so many ways. And we were just talking about this journey of shifting from this go/go/go, rush/rush/rush, get to the point culture, to a way of being erotically with our self and others that’s healing, that’s connective, that’s expansive, that’s awakening for the entire body. And do either of you or both of you have a story or a step by step process that you could take us through that would help us really get clear how does that look, because, you know, so often we don’t see that in TV, we don’t hear that in, on the radio. What is it really like?

Nellie

Wilson

: Well I can, I can share, I can share a story. One of the things that I like to, I like to do for myself every once in a while – I wish I could do it more – but I try and make a commitment to myself to spend just part of the day, usually it’s nice if it’s warmer weather outside, but I will – and often it’s in the morning – I will wake up and I will take my time in getting up out of bed, take my time in breathing, noticing the light coming in through the windows, noticing any sounds that are coming in to my apartment from outside, and I won’t bother getting dressed, so I will stay naked and I’ll just slowly start going about my morning. So that usually involves going into the kitchen and putting on the teakettle and starting to make some breakfast. And the whole time that I’m doing this I’m really seeing how connected I can be to what I’m feeling in my body. So noticing how it feels for me to be naked; if it’s chilly I might be noticing how I have goosebumps starting on my arms, and it might cause me to want to move a little bit quicker and I really try and connect with a playful energy of maybe dancing around my apartment or jumping up and down to stay warm. And also taking time to just caress and connect with no specific intention of like, I’m going to get somewhere, you know, that I’m going to masturbate or, you know, I’m going to have sex with somebody. But just taking that time to connect with my body. Being naked really helps me to be present and feel more sensation in my body because I’m not, I don’t have that barrier of clothing in the way, so there’s much more of a tactile sense that can be created. And that’s something that I think that you can do, you know, even if it’s just in your, in your bedroom by yourself, just giving yourself some time to really relish being in your own skin.

Francesca Gentille

: This is, this is, reminds me of something very important in my own life. I was born and raised in the Midwest, Catholic, at very, you know, maybe the body was suspect and sexuality was dangerous and, you know, I got dressed and undressed in the dark, I was in some way so ashamed of my body and had never really seen my body; I was so scared of it somehow being imperfect. And when I moved to

California

, one day people invited me to go to a clothing optional

Hot Springs

and I was there for several days, and at first I was totally clothed, almost like wearing a turtleneck when everybody else was naked. And little by little over several days I would take off a layer of clothing, just waiting to see “We’re people going to laugh? We’re people going to attack me?” And over the five days eventually I was naked, and it was so freeing. And I agree with you, I came home to my body in a whole new way and I saw different sizes and shapes and ages of bodies, and I realized that we’re all so unique and I get to be unique. So for our listening audience, no matter where you are in the country I recommend going to Hot Springs; there are places that are clothing optional, they’re extremely safe for you to get to do that. You know, some of us, some parts of the country you can go to a spa or a

Hot Springs

place or a hot tub place. And sometimes it’s women only, there’s a women only section or a men’s only section, and some, a lot of beautiful five star hotels these days have these spa areas with beautiful pools that might be women only and men only, but you start to get a sense of “We’re all here human, we’re all here different types of bodies. I get to have my body.” And especially in the summer, to try this, if you have children… They go to bed, eventually in many cases they go to bed or as Nellie said, you can do this in the privacy of your own bedroom, and if you’re parents, get a lock. Get some kind of lock or bar over your door so that you can feel that you can shut it, you can still answer your children’s needs if they’re knocking, but you can have the freedom to walk around your bedroom and feel the air on your skin and just feel a sense of freedom, if only for a few minutes everyday. Thank you so much for bringing that, for bringing that up Nellie. I had forgotten what an important moment of actually awakening and transformation it was for me.

Nellie Wilson: Mm hmm.

Francesca Gentille

: And how about you Ed?

Ed Ehrgott: Well it’s interesting that we’re on a theme of how we wake up because I’m a very strong believer in the way in which we wake up sets the tone for the entire day. When I coach people I’ll often hear a complaint of “My wife is too busy. I’ve got to much to do. I’ve got so much running around to do.” I’ll often ask people, when they say that, “How, tell me how you wake up in the morning?” And usually what happens is I hear a story that says, “Well the alarm goes off at, you know, 5:30, I hit the snooze button three times. Then I realize that I hit the snooze button too many times, so I have to wake up, quickly get out of bed, go jump in the shower, you know, eat a power breakfast quickly and go run off to work.” So what I sense is this sense of rushing from the moment your feet hit the ground. So one of the things that I recommend is look at the way that you start your day. As an example, what if we were to start our day by saying when the alarm goes off, or even better yet, when you wake up without the alarm rolling over to your partner and is doing some tender caresses, some tender gentle massage, just to wake up each others body. I find that that’s a wonderful way to wake up in the morning. And the thing that I find interesting with that is most often most often people will say, “Well gee, that’s going to lead to intercourse or lead to something more sexual”, and the reality is it doesn’t have to. It can be a five minute or ten minute thing that you do with your partner in the morning just to greet each other, to wake up and celebrate having a new day together, and then you feel that energy begin to build in your body. And yes, some of that energy is erotic energy. But you can keep that energy with you throughout your entire day. So, you know, wake up in the morning, roll over, caress your partner, hold each other, give some gentle caresses. Feel free to include the genital, but don’t focus on the genitals. And then when it’s time to actually get up and go on with the rest of your day, you know, make that transition. But I find that it’s just a wonderful way to wake up and set the tone for the entire day.

Francesca Gentille

:  You know, let me highlight this, and before you jump in Nellie, I just want to highlight that you’re saying something extremely radical and revolutionary – viva la revolution – is that we can trust that there’s enough. I often find for myself and others that I can be hungry and greedy and needy and if I start experiencing something that’s tasty I want more and more and more of it, you know; like, you can’t eat just one of this thing, you have to have the whole box of cookies. And there’s this fear, if I let go, if I’m caressing you and I’m loving you up and you’re loving me up and, you know, I’m getting a little aroused and you’re getting a little aroused and I let it go, there’s this fear that my day’s so busy and we’re so rushed that by the time we come home in the evening, take care of the kids, that spark is going to be gone. We’re not going to reconnect, we’re not going to have that time to take our sexuality even higher or to some form of completion. And do you have some advice for people who might be like me, who don’t always trust or maybe have experiences of lack in their life, how to shift from that scarcity in a sense into something else?

Ed Ehrgott: Well one of the things I’ve found in working with people on erotic energy is that most people have a belief that erotic energy is like a light switch; it’s either on or it’s off. And I actually view erotic energy more like a dimmer switch that can be, sometimes be bright, sometimes be medium, sometimes be dim; nevertheless it’s always there. And so for as an example, if you were to wake up in the morning and play with that erotic energy and then keep that erotic energy with you throughout the entire day so that you’re going and doing your work and doing your errands and taking care of the kids and all those things that we have to do during the day, and being aware of the erotic energy. Again, it doesn’t mean that you have to do anything about it, it’s just being aware that that part of you exists. And then when you come home in the evening and the kids are put to bed and you have some quiet time, you can then reconnect with that energy you’ve been carrying with you throughout the entire day, so it’s not as if you’re starting from scratch. You actually have, you know, an expression is you have this reservoir that you can draw upon so that you don’t have to feel as if you’re reinventing the process every time.

Nellie Wilson: And I think that in terms of, you know, we’re talking about erotic energy and some people might be like, “Well, what exactly is this erotic energy, you know? And if I’m carrying this with me throughout the day, does that mean I’m going to be walking around horny or like, you know, am I going to be having erections when I don’t want to”, and those sorts of things, and I think that there’s, I think that there’s a more different quality to it and that there’s more of that sensual flavor in when you’re carrying erotic energy through the day, and kind of like what Ed’s saying about it being a light switch is that it’s simply a force that’s moving inside of us and it can be used for creative endeavors, it can be used to create some sense of calm. There are a lot of different flavors of what this erotic energy is. And it’s not just a purely animalistic sexual, you know, like “Oh, I’m horny. I’ve got to have this sexual drive happening all the time.” There’s definitely a place for that and it’s beautiful in that space, but there’s so many other flavors of it as well.

Ed Ehrgott: Here’s a quick example that I can offer, and you’re absolutely right, it’s not about walking around being horny with an erection all day. But what it is is being aware that you are a sensual person along with all of the other qualities that we bring to life. Here’s a quick example; one of my own personal crosses to bear in the world is patience. I’m, by nature I’m not very patient. So one of the hardest things for me to do is to be in a supermarket and standing in a checkout line that’s not moving – and I always seem to pick the line that never moves. And when I’ve noticed myself in that line that’s not moving and I notice my impatience start to boil to the top, what I do is I take a few nice deep breaths (deep breathing). So there’s a little bit of noise; it’s not enough noise where, you know, the people around me are going to turn around and look to see if I’m okay, but just a little bit of noise that connects me with all the different chakras – I know that’s a term that may or may not be comfortable to people – but it connects me with – it does connect me with my genitals – but it connect me with that part of me from a place that I know that part of me exists. It’s not as if I have to do something about it. And there’s a sense of calmness that can come over me and say, “Yeah, this is, the line isn’t moving, but I can make it. I will survive. I’ll get out of the store eventually.”

Francesca Gentille

: So there’s a sense of relaxing instead of pushing, and a sense of breathing and allowing our energy, attention, awareness and focus to go all the way down our bodies, all the way down to our genitals, all the way down to our feet, and then all the way up again, from our feet, our genitals, our belly, our chest, all the way up to our forehead, our head, and to go back down again, all the way down to the feet. So there’s, when you’re this there’s so much more of a sense of being connected and present to my whole body, rather than I feel like so often I’m just living in my head. It’s like I’m almost numb to the rest of my body and then I try to have sex and I wonder why it doesn’t feel very connected, it doesn’t feel very rich. So what you’re saying is there’s a practice that we could do all day – is that what you’re saying – that if I’m connecting to all of me, including my genitals all day, chances are I’m going to be, I’m going to have a more rich and full experience when I’m home?

Ed Ehrgott: Exactly. And I find that iron because when we’re going through our daily lives we pretend, we act as if all the other parts of our body exist – we pay attention to our thumb and our feet and your legs and your belly – and some things are cultured just as I’m not supposed to be aware of my genitals unless I’m in this sexual situation. And one of the things that Nellie and I talk about in Sacred Touch School is be aware of that, of your genitals and that erotic energy at all times, and also recognize that being aware of that energy and being aware of that part of the body does not necessarily mean that you’re doing anything about it; you’re just being aware.

Nellie Wilson: And one of the places that we really start from as a foundation is breath, is breathing, because that’s the quickest way that you can access that part of yourself. So when we talk about breathing, a lot of times we’re breathing very shallowly throughout the day. So if you think about how you’re breathing right now in this moment, can just bring your attention to how your breath is moving; is your chest moving a little bit? Is your belly expanding at all? And from there you can start to bring more attention to how you’re breathing. So for instance you can begin to bring in a little bit more air through your nose, and feel that expanse in your chest and start to expand your belly out. And so you’re now bringing breath into your chest and into your belly. And you can then begin to deepen that breath so that you’re expanding the chest, you’re expanding the belly and you’re really bringing that breath all the way down, connecting with your pelvic floor. One of the interesting things about breathing is that when we’re asleep is when we’re breathing very relaxed and fully. So our sphincter, so actually our anal sphincter is something that moves, it expands and contracts lightly when we’re in the place of deep relaxation and breathing, so we’re actually doing really deep breathing when we’re asleep, and the way that you can kind of notice that is that the pelvic floor, the muscles that make out the bottom of the pelvis that surround the genitals and the anus, are actually slightly expanding and contracting with the breath. So there’s a lot of neat things that you can do to experiment with that. But one of the things you can start to do right now is taking in a breath, seeing how much you can have that gently expand your belly, and begin to notice and see how far down into your belly you can bring that breath, and then see if you can notice any sensation happening in your pelvis as you take in a deep breath. So if you want to give that a try, listening audience, we can all take a breath together (deep breathing). And just let the air gently fall out. Again, this isn’t about pushing, this is just taking a nice deep inhale, seeing how much you can feel inside of your body and then letting that air go. And again, noticing what kinds of feelings are happening. That’s just kind of a quick and easy way to begin to access more deep connection with the pelvis.

Francesca Gentille

: I love the information. I love both of your personal stories and the way that you, as every healer has done and lived, you harvest and craft your own lives into a gift for the world. And thank you so much for being here. How would, how would people find out more about you, your school, your private services? How would they do that?

Ed Ehrgott: The best way to find out about Sacred Touch School is to go to our website, www.sacredtouchschool.com, and we are offering a discount to listeners of this podcast. Send us a message that you found us on the broadcast and we’ll give you ten percent off of our membership fee.

Francesca Gentille

: Thank you so much Ed. Thank you so much Nellie.

Nellie Wilson: Thank you so much Francesca.

Ed Ehrgott: Thank you.

Francesca Gentille

: And I want to thank you, our listening audience, for being on these sacred journeys with us, for being the people who are willing to be the change to make a difference in the world. And if you want to find out about, more about Nellie and about Ed, see their beautiful pictures, connect to their website, get transcripts from the show, found out about their services or connect with my website, my beautiful picture and my services, you can do that at www.personallifemedia.com. That’s www.personallifemedia.com, Sex, Tantra and Kama Sutra: Bringing You The Soul of Sex.