“Sex is more than an act of pleasure, it’s the ability to be able to feel so close to a person, so connected, so comfortable that it’s almost breathtaking to the point you feel you can’t take it. And at this moment you’re a part of them.” -Unknown

There is not another single human act that so fully embodies gratitude at its peak as the moments of profound lovemaking. This is where we know most deeply the sensation of gratitude, which at its best, is not a thought, but rather a visceral response. Like joy, gratitude is a creative burst of energy that springs from us, with a single purpose, to do good in the world. As we embody this profound change agent of connectivity, gratitude cracks our heart wide open and fills us up. We are loved. We are able to love. Dare to express this intense gratitude within the confines of your bedroom the next time it is flowing with your partner and be prepared for the most gratifying sex of your life.

Beginning within your own body, gratitude explodes with a cascade of chemical reactions that occur with perfect synchronicity to open you up to the remarkable and transformative experience of orgasm. Our capacity to give and receive pleasure in our body is just short of miraculous.  Consider and savor the moments when goodness fills the body:  Nourished, strong, rested, and satisfied.  Appreciating 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, easy to take for granted or worse still hold hostage to your own unspoken wounds. Relationships are the spiritual containers for human growth, a haven to figure out who you are and what you want. Learning the skills to work through conflict and keep your promises provides a foundation to build on. Imperfect communication skills are simultaneously the challenge and the drive to be understood. To be loved for you, in spite of yourself, without doubt deserves the highest praise and gratitude.

Bringing a solid relationship and a healthy body together in a warm bed is where ecstatic intimacy is made new over and over again. The magical mystery of making love is nothing if not a dance of gratitude. How and why we do the things that our libido awakens in us, in the most primal region of our brain, we can’t explain to ourselves, let alone anyone else, but it doesn’t matter. When you are safe to be yourself, or whoever else comes to mind between the sheets, you let go and follow instinct gratefully.

The visceral experience of pleasure is a close cousin to gratitude, if not its twin. Giving and receiving are interchangeably gratifying. Opening to the wondrous and indescribable sensations that only intimate pleasure creates, offers a new universe of sensation. Experience, time and space of the inner and outer realities are indistinguishable. Touch is a language with 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. Every 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 finding center, the truth of why you are together. Gratitude transforms and nowhere more deeply than in the body, between two bodies in love.