Happiness, Stock Markets And Labia

This week saw the launch of Action For Happiness, which has as one of its big ideas that happiness comes from helping others. I certainly agree with that. It was one of my big ideas, too, in How To Be Happier (Teach Yourself). Cynics are asking how it’s possible to judge happiness. Well, I have a way. It’s called the stock market.

It works like this. If you can invest money on the stock market and not go crazy then you surely must be not only a happy person but one whose happiness has very solid foundations. My partner had a little bit of money to play with and so we decided we’d have a go on the stock market. Anything to supplement a writer’s income!

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Happiness And The End Of Something

Yesterday we drove the two hours up to Les Angles to go snowboarding again. It was hot and sunny, as it has been for days now, and the pistes were slushy and running with water and I knew it was the last time this season. Snowboarding is one of the things I live for so how do I deal with it when something wonderful like that comes to an end? How do I stay happy? I learned various techniques when I was writing How To Be Happier (Teach Yourself).

Hemingway wrote a marvellous short story called The End Of Something. I’m a great admirer of Hemingway. As a craftsman in words he never has been equalled and probably never will be. And, yes, when I’d finished reading everything of Hemingway’s that was ever published I felt sad about that, too.

What I love in Hemingway is the feeling of enjoyment that comes right off the page. No man seemed to relish life more. And he, too, loved the mountains and wrote some short stories about skiing. And yet Hemingway sometimes suffered from depression. And, of course, eventually committed suicide. At around my age.

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Your Mind Is Your Aphrodisiac

Since I wrote about Maca I’ve had a few emails asking about more powerful aphrodisiacs and my promise to blog on the human mind. Okay. The most powerful that I know of is fantasy. But you have to know how to use it. You have to know what’s likely to turn your partner on, and your partner has to know what turns you on.

Even couples who have been together for years have little or no idea of one another’s fantasy lives so I always suggest beginning with a fairly innocent suggestion.Next time you’re making love you could say something like:

  • Last night I dreamed we were having sex on a beach and people were watching
  • I wish I could have been in your changing room today with all those men/women.

If your partner responds, all well and good. If not, drop the idea for the moment and try some other fantasies another time. You can be pretty sure your partner does have a fantasy sex life. It’s just a question of discovering what it is. Once you’ve teased it out so you can develop scenarios together, taking turns to move the ‘story’ forward as you make love.

I should warn you, though, that just like pills and powders, fantasies can have side effects. Be careful you don’t try a fantasy that turns your partner off rather than on.

Goodbye CBT, Hello Dating Tips

This morning I finished my book on CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy). A few clicks later it was in my editor’s office in London. Not so long ago I would have had to print it out, drive 20 km to the nearest post office in Figueres and spend 20 Euros sending it. The internet has transformed the lives of people like me.

Less sure is the impact of the internet on my income. It seems that readers are just as willing to pay for fiction but far less willing to pay for factual material like mine. There’s so much available on the internet for free. I take the view that, say, £10 is very little to pay for a book that could change your life. I hope enough people agree.

What now? I have a friend who spends about three years writing a novel. She uses the D.H. Lawrence method of writing a draft then setting it aside and writing a second version. And a third. And even a fourth. She takes holidays in between.

I don’t have that luxury at the moment. Every paragraph may be revised several times but once the book is finished it’s on to the next. No holiday. And so, this afternoon, I’ll get down to the book on dating and seduction. Thanks to all those who have already sent in suggestions. Keep them rolling in, please.

In my youth I copied from a film the idea of sandwiching blank sheets of paper between a few pound notes to make it look as if I had a thick wodge of the folding stuff. With today’s plastic money does anybody on a date still do that?

Aphrodisiacs

From time to time I try out various entirely legal substances reputed to enhance sexual desire or performance. Back in the early days I had a go at Viagra and there´s no denying its power but the side-effects in my personal case were so unpleasant as to make it pointless taking it. You don’t feel much like sex when you have a bright red face and a splitting headache.

Recently I’ve been testing Maca (Lepidium meyenii), a plant from the high Andes of Peru and Bolivia, and I’m fairly convinced it works as a performance enhancer. I can’t prove it, because it’s very difficult to disentangle the psychological effects from the physical. But properly-conducted scientific experiments do seem to suggest it gives men a genuine boost. It’s not like Viagra where the results are rapid and unmistakable. It’s a tonic you take every day, usually as a pill. However, I like the powdered root. It has a delicious vanilla flavour which goes well sprinkled on soya yoghurt.

But the best aphrodisiac/performance enhancer I know is the human mind. I’ll be blogging about that soon.

Snowboarding, Tantric Sex And CBT.

One of the great thing about being a writer is that you can take off when the mood comes over you. Yesterday it came over me and we drove the two hours up to our nearest decent ski station, Les Angles in the French Pyrénées Orientales. Actually we both now snowboard rather than ski because it’s far, far easier off-piste. And the reason I like to get off-piste is that it’s just like Tantric sex. The aim is the same. An altered state of consciousness in which a spiritual experience is possible.

Sadly, there was no real off-piste yesterday. The weather has been too warm and the snow off-piste is rotten. So after a bit I changed tacks and headed for the snowpark. Much as I like the idea of out-of-this-world experiences I’ve always been intimidated by jumping. But I had a possible solution in cognitive behavioural therapy or CBT, which I’m writing a book about. If you’re not familiar with CBT, you could say that it’s a method of altering behaviour by eradicating negative ways of thinking. The behaviour I wanted to eradicate was my practice of boarding round the side of the jump rather than going over it.

I decided I would no longer label myself as a non-jumper, no longer focus on the negative aspects of my performance, no longer magnify the scale of the challenge, no longer jump to the negative conclusion that I would make a fool of myself and no longer see myself as a failure if the jump was much less than perfect. All these kinds of thoughts are errors in CBT.

Well, I did do the jumps. There were three in a row and I did them three times. I had a couple of falls and some of the moves were less than graceful. But so what! I had a good time, I improved and I’m looking forward to my next visit.

If you’d like to know how CBT might help you, drop me an email and I’ll send you details of the book as soon as it becomes available. Meanwhile, you’ll find plenty of useful advice in my already-published Be More Confident, Transform Your Life With NLP and How To Be Happier, all of which are in the Teach Yourself series.

Writing About Sex

It’s a tough job writing about sex. I could have been watching TV like other people but yesterday evening I devoted myself to the one-hour yoni massage. And there was no overtime pay. But, as they say, somebody has to do it. For those of you not yet into Tantric sex the yoni is the vulva/vagina.

  • 1st stage. According to my friend P who recommended it (see my Writer’s Life entry for March 19th) you begin with a special kind of whole body massage for 15 minutes. Essentially you ‘brush energy’ with your fingertips firstly towards the base of your partner’s spine and then towards the pubic mound.
  • 2nd stage. Next, for 2 minutes, comes the special moment when, seated beside her, you place your left hand over her yoni and your right over her heart and circulate the energy from yoni to heart to yoni.
  • 3rd stage. Conventional thigh massage for 5 minutes.
  • 4th stage. Massage the outer and inner lips for 10 minutes.
  • 5th stage. Massage and tease the clitoris for 15 minutes.
  • 6th stage. Massage the G-spot for 5 minutes.
  • 7th stage. Massage the G-spot and the clitoris together for 5 minutes.

The verdict? Time seems to pass very quickly for both of you. Especially if you’ve got some good music going. (And don’t forget the incense and the candles). In fact, it’s a very beautiful experience, more Taoist than Tantric but nevertheless resembling the Tantric nyasa as described in Get Intimate With Tantric Sex. (And it’s infinitely more enjoyable than TV.)

According to P, the one-hour yoni massage isn’t foreplay. It’s something for itself and when it’s over it’s over. But how many people will be able to resist carrying on? Try it and see.

Dating Advice Wanted

I’m currently writing two books at the same time. One is on cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and the other is all about dating. Now it’s quite a while since I was dating. I’ve got all the scientific literature about, for example,  how many times a woman has to smile at a man before he’ll pluck up the courage to chat. (It’s nine, since you ask.) But I’m not up to speed with the latest dating conventions. So I’d appreciate any advice. Just click on Contact and email me. I’ll publish the best ideas on the website.

Sex After 50…And 60…And 70…

Weekends are usually working days for me. I prefer to take time off when the pistes and the beaches are at their quietest. But my partner slips over to Roses on a Sunday morning and brings back a newspaper. This week it was the Sunday Times. I see that even columnist India Knight, writing in support of Cherie Blair, rather damns senior sex with faint praise (see my A Writer’s Life entry yesterday). Cherie, she asserts, is ‘striking a blow for womankind by alluding to her pushing-60 sex life’.

But then India spoils it all by writing: ‘This isn’t a plea for everyone who is no longer a spring chicken to start volunteering the lurid details of what they get up to in bed.’

Well, they should. Because surveys show that the Over 50s have much better sex than the youngsters. They have more time and they have more skill. Younger people could learn a lot from them.

And what’s with this ‘lurid’ anyway? Every part of the body is holy, as I explain in Get Intimate With Tantric Sex. Sex is beautiful, not lurid.

India, you’re doing quite well but I’m afraid you’re still suffering from guilt and inhibition. You need to work on it.

In this section of my website I’ll be very happy to publish any useful tips from older readers. And I’ll be blogging quite a few myself.

Cherie, Tony And Yoni Massages

Last week I wrote about the way so many people feel guilty about sex. That certainly doesn’t apply to Cherie and Tony Blair. But the fact that their ‘revelations’ have left so many people aghast just underlines how repressed many people are. For those who haven’t caught up with the interview Mrs Blair gave to the Evening Standard’s ES magazine, she said the ex Prime Minister ‘still excites me, in all possible ways’. The nation, apparently, was horrified.

Well, why not talk about sex? If you’ve just discovered something really good, why not pass it on?

P, a friend of mine, did just that by telling me about one-hour yoni massages. My partner and I are pretty used to lengthy sex sessions, including the special kind of Tantric foreplay known as nyasa. But one hour just on yoni massage did sound rather a lot. I’ll be letting you know how we got on in another post. But meanwhile I’d recommend the Blairs to include yoni massage in their repertoire, if they haven’t already.

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