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Author and Advocate for Healthy Sexuality and Spirituality

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Rules of Mental Engagement

02/10/2015 by ShannonAdmin

Rules of Mental Engagement

Rules of Mental EngagementThe voice on the other end of the line was quite feeble, and I could tell that she was on up in years.  She said she’d just read some of my books, and wanted to know if I’d be interested in hearing her testimony.  Intrigued, I urged her to please go ahead.

She’d been married over fifty years, but they almost didn’t make it past the thirty-year point.  They were headed to divorce court when her husband begged, “Would you please be willing to see a counselor about your sexual hang-ups?”

Although willing to share in the responsibility of their crumbling marriage, he felt as if so many of their problems stemmed from a stunted sexual connection. As she shared her fears and insecurities with her counselor about “letting go” in bed, she insisted, “I know God would be so displeased with all of those sexual thoughts running through my head, and I don’t want to displease God!”

The counselor inquired as to what types of thoughts plagued her in those moments, and found them to be rather normal, run-of-the-mill mental patterns.  No one had ever explained to this woman that, because orgasm is a 95 percent mental engagement process for a woman, our brain naturally entertains arousing thoughts while being physically aroused by our husbands.  He wisely asked, “If God designed your body and your brain in such a way that they work together in unison to provide sexual pleasure to both you and your husband, isn’t that a good thing?  Isn’t that the way God intended for the human body to work?  Why would you expect to operate any differently?”  He also posed the question, “Do you think that God would be any less displeased with your decision to divorce due to sexual inhibitions?”

Challenged by these questions, this woman experienced such a paradigm shift in her thinking about sexuality that she and her husband never made it to divorce court.  In fact, she explained, “I’m 72, and I have more intense orgasms now than I’ve ever had in my whole life!”

I confess, I was rather encouraged by this tidbit of information, as I thought, Hallelujah!  Perhaps it only gets better and better as we age!

Indeed, God has gifted most of us with a pretty vivid sexual imagination, and that is intended to be a blessing to both our marriage and our marriage bed.  We can feel grateful rather than guilty, as long as we’re using the sexual energy created within to fuel the home fires, not start a fire elsewhere.

Excerpted from The Passion Principles: Celebrating Sexual Freedom in Marriage  by Shannon Ethridge. Copyright 2014. All Rights Reserved. Published by W Publishing Group, and imprint of Thomas Nelson, Nashville, TN. Used by Permission. Not to be copied without Publisher’s prior written approval.

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Filed Under: The Passion Principles

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