by Natasha | Dec 8, 2025 | Body Awakening ©, Courses and Certifications, For couples, Intimacy, Raising children with a healthy sexuality |
I spent over a year creating my Body Awakening Course, because I wanted it to encompass much more than simply learning a new style of touching. Intimacy, to me, is a whole person experience and I wanted the participants to, at the end of it, recognize touch as something sacred. I imagined them walking away from the 9 months with a feeling of reverence for; the gift of touching another person, the body of the person they touch (whether it be their own or someone else’s) and the sensations that can be experienced through all the wonderful textures that skin provides. Along with this, I wanted them to be aware of and prepared for what can come up when we touch another person’s body in a safe and attuned way. Soft, slow, present touch can create an opening that extends much deeper than the surface of the skin —bringing up intense sensations, emotions, pleasure, resistances, wounds, insecurities and unmet needs in both the person being touched and the person touching. To hold space for this requires self-awareness, attunement, curiosity, communication, reverence and lots of practice.
We began our 9 month online journey learning about ourselves and how experiences in infancy and childhood shape the way we interact in intimacy as adults. We learned to attune to our own breath as a tool for self-awareness and how to expand our breathing patterns so we can safely feel more and ultimately experience more pleasure. We practiced exploring and touching our own bodies to discover what sensations we could feel through our skin, and learned how to combine breath, touch and imagery to increase and plateau those sensations when feeling more gets too much. We developed self-awareness around what gets in the way of our ability to be present when touching others, noticing when it happens and how to continually come back to the sensations in our fingers we feel through our touch. While we practiced all of this individually or in partnership, we came together online every two weeks to share our discoveries, pleasures, doubts, feelings, insecurities, tears and lots of laughter. In this safe, shared space we discovered that we aren’t the only ones who find intimacy challenging, scary and exciting.
We spent 7 months ensuring the quality of what we are able to offer through our touch — whether alone, in partnered intimacy or with clients — before applying our learning to touching others. Body Awakening touch is less about techniques (although there are some) and more to do with getting out of our own way to be present, attuned, curious and reverent to the experience so that who we are really comes through our touch. This, to me, is what intimacy is all about. In the last month of learning, some of the participants chose to participate in the In Person portion of the course where they deepened their practice on each other and then with volunteers from the community. It was an absolute joy for me to witness them creating a cozy space for their volunteer touch partners and welcoming them in with reverence, compassion and curiosity for whatever might come up.
As the teacher and creator of this modality and course, the past 9 months have been more rewarding than any previous work I’ve done. Creating a course that embodies the integrity that I believe touching a body deserves, and witnessing the evolution of the participants as they grow and learn together has been beyond meaningful to me. When we touch in a reverent, present and attuned way, there is no limit to our potential for connection, pleasure, growth and intimacy.
I’m excited to be once again offering this course beginning in March of 2026. There are options for Individuals, couples or practitioners interested in Online learning, In Person Experiential learning and Certification. Early bird registration opens January 5th and I would be honored to have you join. Details on my site and please reach out if you have any questions.
https://natashasalaash.com/body-awakening-course/
by Natasha | Nov 27, 2025 | pain during sex, Partner sex, Sexual liberation, Vulnerability, Vulvas |
When a body has learned to defend itself from harm, it often shows up for women as extreme over stimulation when touched, numbness or pain. When the armor (that was created to protect from further harm) is no longer needed, it can be frustrating for the woman who just wants to feel pleasure and enjoy sex. In situations like these, I help them learn to take the power back through attuning to their own body, listening and developing awareness about what they want and need moment to moment. To help their defenses back off and their armor dissipate, their nervous system needs to know that she is in control and will choose what is right and best for herself. I liken it to her best friend defending her from a jerk until she sees she can defend yourself.
Sometimes, in situations such as these, pleasure can feel like an impossible goal and the woman may become disheartened that she isn’t experiencing it. Being treated as “sexually dysfunctional” for years, what’s wrong, becomes the narrative. In fact, the “dysfunction” is simply our teacher reminding us where guards are up and that it hasn’t yet felt safe to let them down. When this happens, we focus on bringing her back to what I call baseline or, as my client yesterday said, “neutrality.” “It feels neutral, like there’s space” she said with a smile. This incredible place of neutrality — where there’s no longer pain, just present moment connection and awareness — is where possibilities of pleasure exist.
It’s incredible to watch and feel the guards come down and a vulva come to life, fill with color and plumpness. To feel my finger welcomed inside like a warm hug – no tension, guarding or resistance. “Your vagina feels alive, plush, soft and completely normal” I say. “Take it in, receive it, feel what neutrality feels like in your body. There’s nothing wrong with you at all, you’re just helping your guards come down.” Eyes glistening, she smiles receiving it in. As she satiates in this space of neutrality we joke that we could be watching Netflix for how relaxed her body is. Sometimes she notices resistance wanting to come up in other areas of her pelvis — unsure if it’s really safe to be this soft and relaxed. She notices them, we recognize them as friends double checking in that she’s okay, and with her soft exhale she brings her attention back to the spacious bliss of neutrality.
by Natasha | Sep 3, 2025 | connection, Shame, Vulnerability |
For the past two and a half years, I’ve been consciously downsizing my life to make more room for what really matters to me. It’s been a process of many steps to both explore ways to tangibly put this into practice and help decondition my pattern of constantly setting goals, planning, working, doing and achieving. It’s not that these skills aren’t or weren’t important, but my soul was calling for less — or more — depending which way one looks at it. More space in between all the work, time to pause and be present in my day, more time with my loved ones, for my inner state to be calm, flowing and at times still.
I have no problems with doing. I’m hard wired for it from years of it, and I’m very good at it. Twenty-six years ago I married a man from tribe in Africa with no formal education, passport or way to support us. In order to be together, it was quite literally all on me and I took on this challenge with vigor. This meant I worked in Canada to save enough to go to Kenya and live with him until the money ran out and I’d repeat it all over again. Five years into our relationship we moved to Canada and for the seventeen years we were married, his larger income went to our daily living and my smaller income, went to all the extras. There was always a plan and I was always saving for something — buying our first home, trips for him to go visit his family in Kenya, trips for us to bring our children to visit his family in Kenya, and adopting our daughter from Ethiopia. Looking back on all this, it’s not lost on me that I chose the hardest path possible. It was as if some inner force was propelling me to choose and even create situations that required me to work harder and do more. Not a year went by where I was just living solely for what was happening right in front of me. “Someday I will have time to rest” I told myself, meanwhile making plans to do more.
When I became a single mom 9 years ago, my skills at planning and doing supported me to buy my husband out of our house, take on the mortgage on my own, build a successful business, support my kids on one income and even have room for extras like professional development trainings, family travel and trips with my lover. This was all good, and yet in all the planning, rushing and doing, I began to notice a feeling of misalignment within me. I was supporting clients with connecting to what was authentic for them in their life and intimacy, while at the same time, rushing from session to session with little to no space in between to be present to the voice in my own body saying that something wasn’t right for me. When did the work that I love so much start to feel like work? In my “down time” I often felt overwhelmed and frustrated by tasks of daily living that were stacked on top of each other every weekend. Was it all necessary I wondered? Maybe at one point it had been, but at some point it just became my normal.
This summer we took a trip back to Kenya to visit my children’s family who had cared for me as a young, nineteen year old woman so many years ago. I felt like a shroud of shame was covering me from my divorce, and was terrified of being rejected by them. Would I see blame and anger on their faces for initiating the end of my marriage? As the days led up to our visit I felt resistance build in me to go, as if my legs were knee deep in mud. I tried to find reasons to delay and still — the day arrived. As I walked towards the village surrounded by three of my children and my new husband, I saw the colored cloths of the women’s dresses stand up and move towards us. The sounds of the women crying brought up the tears in me as I ran into their open arms. We cried and hugged — my hands feeling behind them to touch the small, round heads of their babies on their backs. Finally stepping back to look at them, I saw in their eyes acceptance, love and family.
As the days went by we caught up, laughed, told stories and talked about the divorce — how worried they were and had no way to contact me. I told them about my shame and subsequent regret at how it kept me away and from contacting them for so long. Slowly, I felt the shroud of shame loosen it’s grip and fall from me, landing like a thud on the dusty, dry ground below. When the dust settled, I was surprised by how much weight that seemingly small shroud carried over me and how it had — even with all it’s heaviness — acted like a propeller pushing me to do and achieve and prove that I was enough. I realized this shame was there like an appendage throughout my teen years and early adulthood, guiding my decisions even before my divorce. It was fed by the endless pursuit of trying to be enough and, because nothing ever felt like it was, it was fed well. This shame had been a part of me for most of my life and yet strangely, in that moment, I felt more me without it.
The weight of the shroud gone and my propeller now quiet, a distinct feeling of stillness, ease and space has replaced it. In an effort to support this feeling in my body to become my norm, I’ve set a goal for the next year of working less and having no goals. 🙂 Nothing that requires, steps, planning and saving. If things come up that I want to do, I can do them if I have the means. If doing them would take me out of this feeling of stillness, ease and space, or require that I work so much it becomes a chore, I won’t do them.
In this stillness, ease and space, I can feel my souls’ more.
by Natasha | Jun 2, 2025 | Awakening, Intimacy, orgasm, Partner sex, Self loving/masturbation, Sexual liberation |
When I began my journey of sexual awakening thirteen and a half years ago, I viewed and experienced sex as a way to please partners’ and feel loved. I had never orgasmed during partner sex or from anyone pleasuring me and, until then, it hadn’t really occurred to me that sex could be for my pleasure too. I knew I was supposed to look like I was enjoying it, but I didn’t know that I could actually enjoy it. I masturbated a lot growing up and experienced orgasm through that, but in all the sex education I received, no one had told me that what I experienced masturbating could be experienced in sex. In fact, I had no idea that pleasure had anything to do with sex at all.
At the age of 32 I realized that I was living my life for others, and my own unacknowledged needs (apart from making others happy) were suppressed so deep that I didn’t know where to even begin finding them. Wanting to connect to myself, I began a daily practice of touching my body and feeling through my fingertips to discover what I needed. In time, with this touch, I upgraded my childhood masturbation method to a more full body experience of pleasure and orgasm. Inspired by the legacy of Betty Dodson©, I decided to incorporate masturbation into partner sex and in doing so, “owned my right to pleasure” as she put it. It took a bit to become unapologetic in this, but once I did, I orgasmed every single time I had sex with my husband. If It happened that he came first, I made sure that our sexual encounter didn’t end until I orgasmed as well. I was embodying what Betty taught me and, through this lens, everything changed.
Now that I was getting something from sex as well, it became something I wanted to do often — not only for him, but to meet my own sexual needs. Knowing what worked for me and not waiting for him to step up and offer me that, I never had to worry about not orgasming. It was up to me. Once I had achieved a high level of proficiency in this area, I felt resourced enough to step back and assess the quality of my sexual experiences. I wondered what other needs I had in intimacy now that this baseline one was filled. With this new level of discernment, I realized that I was “well fed” with orgasms so to speak, and now wanted to focus on the quality of my intimacy. I longed for things I was afraid to ask for — sensuality, slowing down, deeper emotional connection, touching and extended pleasure states. As I began stating my needs and asking for these things, I realized that they all involved a more willing partner.
Nearly fourteen years later, I’ve gone through divorce and built a successful business supporting individuals and couples in all aspects surrounding intimacy. Remarried now, my own sexual intimacy is centered around shared touch, extended states of pleasure, connection and taking time – I know orgasm will always be a part of it — so I focus more on expanding and savoring the journey.
I often hear women who aren’t orgasming in sex, dismiss it as “unimportant” and talk themselves out of it by maintaining that they’re “fine” having sex to feel connected and to keep their partner happy. Ironically these same women often come to me for help with “low libido” (as I once had). I remind them that having sex for someone else’s needs, or as another task on the to do list gets old quickly and it’s no surprise they don’t feel a libido for it. At the same time I often read articles written by sex educators or women proficient in orgasming with partners’, talking down to women who are focused on orgasm. They speak as if orgasm as a goal is for “basic” people and they’re somehow missing the whole point. When I hear this I’m reminded of a quote by Kahlil Gibran I discovered over twenty years ago that has stuck with me since:
“How bravely the glutton counsels the famished to bear the pangs of hunger.”
It’s easy to say orgasm doesn’t matter when you know you can have one whenever you want. It’s easy to focus on the quality of an experience when you feel you have choice in how the experience goes. Many women were raised with so much shame around pleasure that they haven’t learned to orgasm or don’t feel comfortable seeking it out as a right to expect as part of their intimacy.
It is absolutely okay to want to orgasm each and every time you experience sexual intimacy with your partner or yourself. If the narrative was reversed and men were told it didn’t matter if they orgasmed, they’d be rioting in the streets – and rightly so! There is nothing wrong with wanting orgasm for yourself and being committed to that as a baseline in your sexual intimacy. Orgasms feel great, are good for us, release tension, stress and give us amazing feel good chemicals. Why wouldn’t we want them? And, if orgasm is easy for you, it is also okay to want to feel even more satiated in experiences that are less goal-oriented and more savory — like a slow cooked meal vs. fast food. Speaking as a woman who didn’t know how to orgasm in sex for most of my life, or understand it to be an equal right for all, I now know it as such. If orgasming isn’t a part of your proficiency yet, it is well within your right to seek it out as something important, meaningful and fundamental to being human. It is okay to explore your own body to discover what works best for you, incorporate that with partners, acknowledge time needed for it to happen and ask for help achieving it. You have that right. And, if orgasmic people (partners or otherwise) suggest to you it’s not important, you’re welcome to tell them to kindly fuck off. 🙂
by Natasha | Apr 23, 2025 | Body Awakening ©, Self loving/masturbation, Vulnerability |
Bundled up all winter, it’s easy to forget how sensual my body feels when it’s unencumbered,
open and exposed in nature;
On a break between client sessions,
I walk outside, take off my shirt, lift my skirt to my waist
and lay down on the old couch in my back yard.
Like a flower, my body turns slightly,
drawn towards the warmth of the sun and
I connect to the inhale and exhale of my breath.
As my belly rises and falls,
I feel a light breeze touch my legs,
dipping down between my thighs…
up and out again.
My body shivers, registering this surprise sensation.
My legs fall open, hoping it comes back.
As I wait, I notice a brush of air at my feet,
along my right arm, across my nipples and up my neck.
It’s dancing along my skin the way my lovers hands do.
My breath quickens.
The breeze swirls around my face,
taking a few strands of my hair with it.
I imagine the air as fingers lightly twirling my hair around them.
It feels so real, I’m tempted to open my eyes and see if anyone’s there.
But I don’t.
I keep on breathing.
The air stays still for what feels like minutes.
My body arches upwards, begging it to come back,
waiting and wondering where it will touch me next.
Then I feel it, like a soft exhale trailing along my breasts and stomach.
My breath stops.
The air loves to play.
My body loves being played with.
Feeling it’s delight, I wonder for a moment,
Is the air touching me or am I touching it?
It’s all perception.
I lay there, time irrelevant,
marveling at how the air knows exactly how to touch me,
as long as I’m present to feel it.
Like any great tease, I don’t want it to end
but eventually my timer goes off.
I put my clothes back on and
go back inside to meet my next client.
Cheeks flushed, body soft, smiling.
I wonder if they’ll see on me,
the face of a woman who just made love.
