What Facing Aversion Taught Me About Unconditional Love
A story about consent, consciousness & staying present at discomfort's edge.
Listen to me read this post. 👆🏼
In May 2014, I attended a OneTaste workshop called Mastery. It was more explicitly sex-related than our Orgasmic Meditation (OM) curriculum, though we still began each day with two OMs. We explored shibari (Japanese rope bondage) and other structured games designed to enliven our senses and confront the places where we tended to contract or shrink.
It was in one of these games that I had a direct experience of unconditional love, unlike anything I’d known before.
But before I go there, I need to say something about aversion practice: the deliberate practice of engaging with what we resist in order to expand our emotional and energetic range.
This practice later became one of the most controversial aspects of OneTaste, and a central issue in the lawsuit against them.
Critics argue that, even within structured consent frameworks, aversion practice was used coercively at times to push people into experiences they didn’t genuinely want.
My relationship to aversion practice didn’t begin at OneTaste…
Below, I go deeper into aversion practice and what unfolded at Mastery. This space is for paid subscribers, where I share my most intimate and revealing stories with readers who want to go there with me.