Cherie Byrd, Blog

I was out in the garden wrestling with blackberry roots and I realized that a short sound bite had been skipping thru my head for a couple of days, looping round and round in the background of my mind... "Flintstone kids, ten thousand strong and growing...". Geeze, a kid’s vitamin jingle, what was that about? "Well, I’m glad you asked!" says the singer of the head tune, one of my less reverent inner guides. "What have you been pondering about these last several months?" Lordy, that’s a big question! In that year I’d been wrestled to the ground by a kundalini awakening, which had literally ejected me out of my psychotherapy practice in the city and into the wet, cool grit of country soil. In the midst of a "spiritual emergency" I was being energetically electrocuted and was getting hauled thru the graduate course in grounding. In that year it had become clear that the trip had only just begun, and I was pretty clueless as to where I’d end up....

To Kiss or Not To Kiss, What's the Question? I was being interviewed for a " Kissing School!" video and the producer asked me, "are there different kinds of kisses?". My mind was instantly overloaded with images and I realized that there probably are as many kinds of kisses as there are intentions for giving them. The technique itself doesn't carry the kiss, it's the energy transmitted, the emotion or thought behind it that informs the kiss. The technique may translate the intention skillfully or not, but that's more a matter of finesse and perhaps even more the quality of presence within the act. Contemplating this later I started sorting out various roles that kissing plays in this culture by relating them to the qualities of energetic makeup represented in our chakra system. The language of chakras comes out of a mostly eastern vision of various psychic energy transformers within our bodies which we unconsciously use on a daily basis. To t...

Iinterview with Cherie Byrd, MA by Diana Cristina L ast month I joined my sweetie upon a nest of pillows and blankets and we spent the day kissing. This wouldn't be so unusual, except that, as if in a strange dream, we were in a schoolroom with several other couples doing the same thing while learning tantric embodiment practices: breathing exercises, energy meditations, sensual heightening, and touch training. Everyone was either grinning, looking love-drunk, or weeping, hearts cracked open. I later met with the instructor, a wild woman named Cherie Byrd, to learn more. I began by telling her that I'd felt slightly wicked even considering coming to the class, but that the idea of being in school learning how to stay in my body and run energy while making out was just too deliciously weird to pass up. Cherie: That's right, the whole idea of going to school to learn the arts of loving is pretty radical in this puritanically engendered day and age! It's not unhea...

I t makes me grin when I think about it, for it seems I have created a very privileged role for myself. I’m in practice as a holistic psychotherapist and I teach " Kissing School”. I’m blessed with a lot of deeply intimate conversations with friends, clients, and perfect strangers about their sex lives, their longing for love, passion, what turns them on and off. I hear about the struggles between sex and our beliefs regarding its value, its relationship to spirit, to body images, and the power issues between partners. I'm told frequently that people feel cheated, that real sex doesn’t live up to the promises, the fantasy. It’s clear that sexual and sensual shutdown seems to be rampant in these stressed out times . I hear tales of hormones, non-responsive partners, depleted energy and general disconnect from the experiences of the body. Our inner lovers seem to have been stuffed into a dark closet along with too many other good ideas gone wrong. Interestingly enough in th...

Cultivating an Embodied Inner Lover by Cherie Byrd, MA Seven everyday steps for igniting your inner lover: 1) Learn to BE HERE NOW . By trying to be everywhere we end up nowhere. Our access to our power is available now, and now, and now, and...Bring yourself to it again, and again and... 2) Learn to breathe deeply and do it a lot! Diaphragmatic breathing generates an increased flow of chi, or vital energy in the body. If you are aware of your heart chakra open it at the top of the inhalation allowing it to fill full of light. On the exhalation allow this lightforce to flow thru the body. This practice will directly impact sexual potency. 3) Learn to walk using your whole body, beginning the step from the hip and allowing it to flow thru the upper and lower body, arms swinging in counter position to the legs. Now do it while breathing diaphragmatically. With this we encourage the brain/body conversation . Awaken your inner pharmacy! 4) Drink pure water often. Yup,...

To Connect or Not to Connect, THAT is the Question Cherie Byrd W hy aren't all lovers bursting full of heart and soul, radiating passionate life force? Why aren't all their days filled with the energy of their beloved sweetly rushing through their bodies as they go their way? Why aren't these luscious souls swooning with enflamed hearts and bodies full of bliss hormones when they are together? I have the great privilege of talking about intimacy with lots of people. I am often heart broken by the number of people who readily acknowledge that their love life is mediocre, at best. Is it your belief that the goal of sex is orgasm? Oh, there is sooo much more. Sex is about amplifying connection, with the result of exponentially igniting your mutual energy. This gives us access to "the source" of passion, ecstasy and oneness. There are realms of passionate energy that dwarf the experience of genital orgasm entirely. Have you mistaken sexual "technique...

On-Line Dating article requested by love.msn.com for their April 2007 column! Cherie  Byrd T he true gift of on-line dating is the quality of focus, clarity and intention that’s required to be successful in manifesting our dreams. Most people initially go on-line with very little clarity about what they truly desire in a relationship, and the responses they receive will always mirror their beliefs and confusions. Anyone can fill in the blanks and post a profile in a matter of moments, and what they will quickly find is that they get a vast array of responses. Much of the time you’re left wondering, WHY did this strange person respond to me? Because your profile was vague enough that they could see themselves in your picture, after all they like sunsets too. Who wants to wade through the muck of confusion that will inevitably come your way as a reflection of your own? Clarity if a wonderful thing! What does it say about a person who begins their profile with a statement lik...

The kiss, a user’s guide. Part 2 interview Cherie Byrd, MA Byrd hates “the peck” — when lovers quickly snap a kiss on the cheek and leave. “A peck is saying, ‘I don’t have time to kiss you.’ It’s also annoying. You’re breaking contact each time — peck, peck, peck. It’s like poking somebody. It’s never satisfying,” she says. “When you kiss somebody, you want something that lingers, that makes you go ‘umm, umm, umm.’ It flavors your morning,” Byrd says. Goodbye kisses, frequent in military marriages, are sometimes the most important kiss you can give. “The truth is, you don’t know if you’ll ever see that person again. It’s dangerous sending them out to war, and it’s dangerous just going out into the world every day,” Byrd says. “The goodbye kiss is the, ‘if I never see you again, I leave you with this gift of connection, this gift of my love for you.’ ” And the hello kiss? Well, that can set the tone of the entire evening. “If he comes in the door, and you look him right in...

All About You: Your Love Life The Art of Kissing, interview of Cherie Byrd, MA By Allison Perkins W hen you kiss your spouse, do you peck them on the cheek? Twist tongues? Exchange spit? Press your lips against each others’ until it feels done? If that’s all you think kissing is, then you may be doing it all wrong. Cherie Byrd, psychotherapist and instructor at the Kissing School in Seattle, says kissing is so much more than just moving your mouth. Kissing should be a way two people connect with their souls, their hearts and their bodies. Kissing isn’t a duty — it’s a gift. “One of the fundamental things that needs to happen in a relationship is that each person needs to know how to connect with themselves,” Byrd says. “If you’re not in touch with your own self, you can’t get intimate with someone else, because there's no one "home". It’s this whole practice of feeling at home in your own body, breathing, feeling, and using your inner energy....