I remember one of the fathers of a little girl on a soccer team I was coaching years ago who came out to me and told me he was going to go through a transgender process. We were friends, so I was able to ask him about his motivations to go through the painful and expensive process. He said he wanted to finally look how he felt. 

There is no time like long summer nights to cultivate our uniquely, profoundly human capacity for pleasure, especially sexual pleasure. Our pleasure response transforms our relationship to each other and even to life itself. Focusing on pleasure not only changes how we see our opportunities for intimate connection, but also invites us into a deeper relationship with our erotic soul.

Most of us don’t realize how frequently we are checked out of our life. We struggle to stay present in the day-to-day with the never-ending onslaught of digital feeds and new devices that offer superficial connectivity at best, but we lose out on the true contact that feeds our soul and makes us human. More and more scientific research is showing how much we give up when we trade the voyeurism of social media for the real-time relating that makes us feel seen and heard. Even more disturbing is how we are losing the muscle memory to do the messy and gratifying work of truly showing up, risking our heart, and communicating. It is in the trenches of our life, in the mess of people’s feelings spilling over onto us that we are really connected and that we can offer our best self. Start today with one of these tips and see how different life can feel when you fully show up!