The art of living sensually for health and happiness 

La dolce vita – the sweet life, or, more succinctly, the good life, a life of pleasure. Now I’m not talking about purely hedonistic pursuits. You don’t need money to feel pleasure. You don’t need money to feel life through to your fingertips. What one needs is an awareness, not just of the beauty all around us, but of the present moment, and the possibilities it brings. We can immerse ourselves in the sensuality of the present. Pain can’t, and shouldn’t be avoided, but in between marital issues, car problems, rent or mortgage payments, and the ever-impending gloom and doom of the world, shouldn’t we seek out the simple pleasures as often as we can?

We’ve all tried baking a cake at some point. Are you the kind of person who sticks it in the mega-mixer to do the work for you, or do you get your wooden spoon into it and stir it around? We don’t always have time to stir. Mega-mixing definitely has its place. However, one can mega-mix their life away. Stirring requires a gentle strength, touch, sensation and a licking of the spoon. It’s a sensual and pleasurable process. Sure, you get a little messy, and sure, that cake isn’t made as quickly. You can’t run out to do 5 minutes of a pilates DVD while you’re stirring. But you ARE committed. You may be daydreaming, or planning somewhere in your head, but, in some way, you are connected and present to the moment. Stirring allows you a moment to contemplate and empty your head. The cake is made in 40 minutes instead of 30, but it has become a more wholesome and satisfying experience. You have become more connected, and moreover, you have slowed down. Isn’t life fast enough without you mega-mixing? Stop trying to finish things as quickly as possible (in order to get the next thing done) and just enjoy the process of what it is you are doing. This is living sensually.

Humans are sensual creatures. As children, we naturally choose to live sensually. We don’t have the hang-ups, the confusion, or the guilt of living how we are meant to live – not necessarily comfortably 24-7, but by embracing life. Have you noticed the way a child eats an ice-cream? Their eyes are wide and they lick it for all it’s worth. They get in there, they smear it all over their face, they get their tongue out and swish it around without a care about how greedy they look. They love it! Most adults only give tentative little licks in case they somehow look like they are too enthusiastic. They are too self-conscious about the pleasure. So they give up their enjoyment of the ice-cream, and fail to live sensually.

Life is a little dirty, and to be alive means to get a little dirty, and a little messy. To live sensually is to nurture all you relationships, not just with other people, but also your body and your environment.

There are 5 physical senses we are blessed with:

•               Taste
•               Touch
•               Smell
•               Sight
•               Sound

In what ways do you aspire to live these each day?

Taste:

Eating is a requirement for survival. Beyond that, food is a cultural glue, a social binder that nurtures relationships. However, many women in our society have a particularly difficult, love/ hate relationship with food. We place an enormous amount of mental energy into it, usually negative. We may feel guilty after eating, but food should not be our demon lover. Food is meant to be enjoyed! In most other cultures today, and in our own ancient tribal culture, there is an art to eating and dining. There is no such thing as eating on the run, or scoffing a sandwich in front of the computer at work. And, as tribal creatures, we aren’t meant to dine alone. So slow down and take your hour lunch - break to enjoy your meal. Savour every mouthful and your body will naturally tell you when it’s sated. Smell the aromas. Eating without awareness can lead to over - eating, which in turn can cause a myriad of physical problems. Enjoying food, not eating in front of the TV, and if possible eating with other people, is a much more satisfying experience for your body and your soul. It gives food the respect it deserves, as one of the big three that keep us alive! And try eating pizza and chicken wings with your fingers at restaurants...it can be liberating!

Touch:

Are you a tactile person? There are millions and millions of nerve cells throughout your body, and 1,200 nerve endings per square-centimetre in your hands, with a denser concentration of up to 2,500 per square-centimetre in your fingertips. We humans are naturally tactile as a way of gathering information and learning about the world.

Touching makes us feel good. Some of us are not ‘huggers’, and that’s ok. Don’t try and analyse it, life is too short for that...we just aren’t. However, the power of touch is undeniable. It is a connection in a disconnected world. Having a friend briefly touch your arm while talking to you feels nice. It breaks down barriers, displays empathy, is inclusive, and encourages the ‘touchee’ to be responsive and open, so long as it’s within the parameters of social acceptability. We hold people to show we love them, that we care for them, that they are so dear to us we want them as close to us as possible.

Do you run your hands over the fabrics when you are in a clothing store? If you spot a feather lying on the ground, do you pick it up and tickle your face with it? Or brush flowers on your cheek? It is these little things that make life that little more pleasurable. They won’t fix your debt problem but they will give you perspective. Try touching yourself kindly, rather than beating yourself up for your imperfections.  In the shower, spare a thought for the stomach that carried your children, the scar that was from an accident, and your scull that houses and protects your brain. Get in touch with your body. You have legs and feet…walk barefoot in the garden and give yourself a bit of reflexology on the side. Massage a loved one…aren’t they one of the most important things in your life? Then demand to be massaged back!

Smell:

 Smell is a sense that many people seem to forget, yet it is an amazing sense that supplies us with endless information about the world. The average human nose can recognise approximately 10,000 different odours. We use this sense continuously, testing the quality of the air we breathe, warning us of poison in our food (try smelling rotten fish and enjoying it), and detecting danger (when smelling smoke the human body automatically goes into ‘alert’ mode). There is evidence that smell can influence mood, trigger memories, and influence your choice of mate. All in all our noses are a pretty advanced piece of equipment!

Our sense of smell plays a vital role in our sense of wellbeing. We all have our favourite smells, and usually, they are ones that remind us of some wonderful time in the past. Do you have a fondness for the smell of steaming bitchumen after an afternoon summer rainshower? There are perfumes now that simulate these kinds of non-traditional scents. There is a fragrance on the market at the moment called ‘Dirt’ which smells exactly like moist dirt, which is actually kind of nice!

Other odours that many people respond positively to are fresh laundry, newborn babies, cooking (especially stews or anything with cinnamon), freshly washed hair, cut grass and, yes, sweat (it may be the pheromones).

Scent can change a dank, mouldy room into something lighter and more inviting, so try infusing your home with cooking smells, or light an oil burner. There are scented candles on the market now, so you can choose from either artificial ingredients (which can be quite heavy-handed) or natural essential oils. A nice smell in the air, like a bunch of fresh-cut flowers, can make everyday just a little more special.

Sight:

Enter the sense that we are most aware of…sight. There are many reasons why we see, and the one reason that we all love to see is beauty. Humans are drawn to beauty. Where once beauty in both people and landscape was universally defined by survival, beauty is now mostly defined culturally, and relies heavily on gender, age, and social subgroup. Many people are drawn to what they believe is beautiful because society tells them it is so. However, there is a beauty that is timeless, and one that is found in the simple tenacity of life. It is a grace, a quiet dignity that can be found in all of nature.

Try looking at the world with the eyes of an artist or a poet, where great beauty is found in tragedy and imperfection. Whether it be a blossom, or a dying flower, it is the transience of life that is beautiful. In traditional Chinese art, it is said that a painting must be done to absolute perfection then that the final brush-stroke must be discordant with the rest of the painting. It is this final imperfection that makes the painting beautiful. Such can be said about artists and their muses. It is usually an indefinable, original quality that excites the artist to try and capture it.

Have you ever noticed how a garden appears more vibrant after a sunshower? Notable romantic poets, like Coleridge and Wordsworth, write beautiful poetry inspired by landscapes, and can help show us the things we sometimes miss when we race from work to pick up the kids.

Lines, colours, contours, shadow, arrangement…this is what we see, but it is the function of our brain and imagination that turns them into beauty, and we ourselves can choose what is to be beautiful.

Sound:

To many there is nothing more effervescent and enjoyable than the sound of a child in hysterics. It is a sound that noticeably lifts our hearts. Sound and what is pleasant to us is, to a great extent, conditioned. For example, the term ‘country-side’ is synonymous with peace and quiet, but in actual fact it can be quite the opposite! Ask any urban-dweller who is unused to the sounds of the country and what do they hear at night? Dogs barking, crickets whirring, lizards scuttling on the roof, mosquitoes roaming, frogs croaking, partner snoring…this is the cacophony that sends country-dwellers to sleep every night!

Despite this, it is agreed that nature generally produces the most soothing sounds, especially those that seem to have a gentle rhythm, like waves breaking repeatedly, or the thrum of rain on the roof. This is why so many nature-sound CDs are sold for meditation and relaxation purposes. There is also rising evidence that chanting, a form of meditation, can alleviate stress and anxiety, and increases our awareness and concentration. You can refer to it as a spiritual or religious practice, but either way there is rising medical evidence that listening to or participating in chanting is beneficial for both our physical and mental health.

It was a new experience for me when going out dancing with some deaf friends of mine. I didn’t need to point out the obvious, but when they started dancing to the music, I demanded an explanation. They answered that the music was all around them. They didn’t have to hear it to feel it. They felt the beat through the floor, and even claimed to ‘hear’ the music through the air. So we ‘hear’ music on so many different subtle levels, and its effect on us can be profound.

All music, all sounds, evoke a physiological response. World music can inspire you to travel or try new things. Classical music can coax you to a glass of red on the veranda. Rock can make you dance, or clean the house in a rage, or even drive faster. All in all, sounds, and the spaces of silence in between each note, carry a lot of influence in our lives. What soundtrack do you choose for your life today? Perhaps just silence.

Living sensually is to make full use of our senses, and puts us in tune with our environment and the people around us. It allows a connectedness that is found lacking in today’s frenetic world of downloading, SMSing, MMSsing, superhighways, super freeways, and constant multi-tasking. It is an appreciation of our bodies, and an acknowledgement of the transience of life. We may not be able to afford a yaht cruise in the Caribbean, or skiing in the Alps, but we can live sensually with what we have. Here’s to a sweet life!