“Wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving.” ~ Kahlil Gibran

Gratitude is a visceral response.

It is a creative burst of energy that springs from us, with a single purpose, to do good in the world. Gratitude cracks the heart wide open and fills us up. We are loved, we are able to love. Carry this feeling into your bedroom the next time it is flowing with your partner and be prepared for the most gratifying sex of your life.

Start with your own body. The cascade of chemical reactions that occur with perfect synchronicity to open you to the remarkable and transformative experience of orgasm is just short of miraculous. Consider the moments when everything feels good in the body. Well fed, rested, exercised and feeling strong. Experiencing the clarity of these moments, at peace in a human body is ecstatic.

Sharing this body moment with someone you love is an epiphany.

Consider your partnership. Through thick and thin, knowing that someone is truly at your back provides the foundation to forge on. Imperfect communications, the drive that keeps you working to connect, that keeps you both devoted to being understood. Safe in their thoughts, the relationship is a nest, a haven to figure out who you are and what you want. To be loved for yourself, in spite of yourself, without doubt. Praise and gratitude for partnerships that help us learn how to love.

Combine these elements into a warm bed and the magical mystery of making love is nothing if not a dance of gratitude. How and why we do the things that our sexual drive awakens in us, in the deepest recesses of our brain, we can’t explain to ourselves, let alone anyone else, but it doesn’t matter. Safe to be yourself, or whoever else comes to mind between the sheets, you let go and follow instinct willingly.

Pleasure is a close cousin to gratitude, if not its twin. Giving and receiving feels like the same act. Allowing yourself the wondrous and indescribable sensations that only intimate pleasure creates is like entering a new universe. The clitoral organ system sings, and inner and outer are indistinguishable. Touch is actually its own language—one that has all the nuance, depth and meaning that words convey, maybe more. The expression of gratitude without words changes how you look at each other.

System reset. That is what grateful sex does.

Each nerve fiber is soothed, the connections between heart, mind and body are restored, balanced. The peace and calm, which settles between you is more than just a relief. It is getting back to the center, the truth of why you are together. Gratitude transforms and nowhere more deeply than in the body, between two bodies in love.