The few minutes of quiet reflection at the end of Orgasmic Yoga sessions and at the end of other types of Sexological Bodywork sessions is a crucial part of the learning. During the session, there is a pattern of activation among networks of neurons. We need go beyond this “activation” in our somatic experiences. We need to “install” that experience in our neurology. Installation involves creating new neural pathways, moving the experience from short term memory to long term memory.
How do we install a blissful Orgasmic Yoga session? We need time (just a few minutes) to absorb the experience. In Sexological Bodywork, this absorption usually involves noticing sensations and feelings states and reflecting on what happened in the session.
Neuroscientist Rich Hanson focuses on “installing the good.” His thesis is that our survival over millions of years has depended upon fight and flight, whereby stress is the default in our brains, not trust, happiness, bliss or pleasure. He says we need to more consciously install our positive experiences into our brain. If we do not take conscious action, having a great experience (in Orgasmic Yoga) will not benefit us as it might. Five minutes of quiet at the end of a session is the time to install that experience into our neurology.
For me, the research that’s relevant is on learning, both cognitive learning and especially emotional learning. How do people grow psychologically? The research on that shows that it’s a two-stage process of activation and installation. Also as a long-time clinician, I began to think about how relatively good we are as clinicians at activating positive mental states, but how bad we generally are at helping people actually install those activated states into neural structure. That was a real wake-up call for me, as a therapist.
Rich Hanson’s suggestions for successfully installing your learning:
There are five major factors that promote installation:
Duration: the longer we stay with an experience, the more likely we are to learn from it. Get the neurons firing together.
Intensity: Second factor is intensity. The more intense an experience, the more it’s going to get encoded as a change of neural structure or function. Even if it’s a subtle experience like tranquility, if it pervades your mind, it’s relatively intense.
Multi-modality: The more aspects of an experience, the richer the experience, the more it’s going to get encoded. An experience having imagery, perception, emotion, desire, and/or behavior is more likely to get encoded.
Novelty: This means looking at an experience through the eyes of a child, with a beginner’s mind, as they say. The brain is a big novelty detector.
Salience/Personal Relevance: The more we see the salience, the personal relevance to something, the more likely it is to encode.
The installation process begins with the intention to take the experience of a pleasurable Orgasmic Yoga session or some other learning process into our body permanently. Hanson recommends that an individual might help installation by feeling grateful for the experience or learning. He says intensely enjoying the memory of the experience and inviting it to absorb into the body also facilitates installation. We suggest several minutes of installation but the process could happen in less than a minute. You are recommended to “install” every learning experience in this course.
Rich Hanson explains his method of installing the good in this Ted Talk. Hanson gives an excellent presentation but you can start viewing at 6:43 and not miss the core of his method.
This lesson, by Joseph Kramer, comes from the professional Sexological Bodywork training course materials. The core course materials are available for a reduced tuition here: www.YogaofSex.com