You’re invited to my next workshop in Philadelphia!

Click on the link below for all the information.  I hope to see you there!

When You Can’t Talk Your Way Out of Feelings

I’ve got another workshop coming your way at the Sexploratorium!

Where: The Community Room, 3rd Floor of Passional Boutique and Sexploratorium:317 South St, Philadelphia, PA 19147

When: This Sunday 2/18/2018

Note: the time is incorrect on the website. It’s actually from 3:30 to 5pm !

Solo Sensual Touch w/ Kira

Are you stuck in a boring sex life with yourself? Do you focus on your genitals and ignore the rest of your body? Is it difficult to get your mind and body on the same page? Time to turn your old routine into a new experience!

In this interactive sensual touch workshop, we enhance our pleasure through mind/body connection! Work on building erotic energy through breath, movement, fantasy, and pleasuring your largest sexual organ: your skin. Learn how to use your mind and simple touch techniques to turn your whole body into an erogenous zone. Participants work alone and do not remove clothing nor directly stimulate themselves. Participants may also choose to opt out of any activity and simply observe. All identities and orientations welcome!

Get tickets HERE!

Grief is a physical thing.

It’s an ugly, inelegant, awkward, snotty, teary, gloppy thing.  And it’s 100% necessary.

A painful loss sets off a series of biochemical processes that, if not tended to, can have devastating physical consequences on the bereaved. Immediately the body experiences extreme physical stress.  We can feel tightness in the throat, tension, loss of muscular strength, empty stomach, crying, lack of focus, and pain.  Over time, the body can undergo sleep disturbance, change in heart rate and blood pressure, and even decreased immune response.  In other words, you are far less physically capable of handling normal life for a while.

One of my friends – a board-certified emergency physician – once described it to me as “taking a slegdehammer to your nervous system.” And if that doesn’t scare you enough: your odds of surviving a second traumatic event (accident, illness, etc.) drop significantly.

I’m sorry if this depresses you.  I don’t mean to create suffering with this post.  Instead, I want to validate the experience of grief as the physically painful and exhausting process that it is.  Think of it as a sickness that waxes and wanes but won’t fully go away.  Your body is fighting it like it would any other sickness, but it needs assistance from you, the griever.  If you are in a position to give yourself what you need (time off, counseling, travel, healthy food) then please take advantage of it.

But what if you don’t have the time and finances and options to take care of yourself?  Do you just ignore the grief, put on the “I’m fine” mask, and carry on?  No!  Symptoms need to be acknowledged, even if you don’t have the space to treat them.  For those truly awful and overwhelming times, here’s a mental trick to find reserves of self-love and patience that can save your sanity.  I know from personal experience that this works:

1. Take out a piece of paper and write out the overwhelming obstacles you have to tackle (“Keep being the parent I’m supposed to be,” “Somehow move on in my career”).
2. Break down that insurmountable obstacle into manageable steps (“Spend every evening with the kids and create amazing memories” “Send out 20 job applications a day”).
3. Break those steps down into even smaller steps (“Make the kids favorite meal tonight” “Attend one networking event”).
4. Keep chunking down tasks until you reach a task so easily accomplished that you shrug and think that this isn’t as big a deal anymore (“Drive to the grocery store” “Put on my favorite blazer”).
5. Go accomplish that task.
6. Put your hand over your struggling heart and truly thank yourself for a job well done.

You did it!  Your body managed to get out of bed and put on pants.  Sometimes, that will be the big win of the day.  Just remember to forgive yourself over and over again for not doing it all.  You’re sick right now, and your amazing and wise body is handling it the best way it can.

 

 

How I went from dance instructor to sex coach…

After dancing in undergrad, I took a job as a ballroom dance instructor thinking it was a temporary gig on my way to becoming a curator at a natural history museum (yes, really!).  I didn’t set out to climb the social dance ladder at all.  I just fell in love with teaching!  Within a couple of years, I was teaching and performing all over North America in an array of styles.

While teaching at a big dance workshop is fun (and exhausting!), my favorite classes are private lessons with individuals and couples.  The intimate attention allows me to work on their specific goals, obstacles, and quirks; pretty soon a dance lesson becomes about so much more than steps.  As I wrote in my application to Widener University’s Human Sexuality program: “My private lessons with anxious wedding couples often morph into pre-marriage counseling sessions about mutual ego-building, listening, patience, and communication.  I treat ‘connection’ as a technique that students learn and practice….  My partner-dance classes double as training sessions on sexual etiquette: while practicing the steps, my students develop body awareness, self-confidence, and comfort with being vulnerable.”

Grad school for Human Sexuality was nothing short of a personal upheaval.  Everything I thought I knew was chucked out the window and replaced with a more complex, broad, pluralistic view of sexuality.  I didn’t even realize how narrow my view was until I was already deep in the literature.  Ironically, the more I learned, the more strongly I came back to my first love: dance.  This time, I had a deeper and better understanding of my craft.  I’m fascinated by how we are socialized (based on gender, sex, class, race, religion) to move through a room, to walk, to stand, to touch ourselves and be touched and by whom, and of course, how we have sex.

I became a body-focussed Sex and Relationship coach because I believe that all the answers we need to live happy, sexy, loving, and connected lives lie under our very skin.  I act as a guide, witness, and dedicated support system to help you get in touch with yourself, and to live out your best sex life.