As the married Pranababe, it falls to me to drag my poor, infinitely patient S.O. into this challenge. I was nervous, since consciously cutting off that part of our relationship seems like a foolhardy thing to do.

Lovely person that he is, he reminded me last night that 30 days is nothing compared to the arduous, tricky parts of our somewhat difficult pregnancy, and then the zombie days and nights that followed. In total throughout our relationship we’ve probably had at least a year of celibacy already, so what’s another 30 days, especially if we can learn something?

For me the most awkward part of this challenge won’t be closing up shop, it’s talking about it that I dread. My friends can attest, I am the quiet one during the second bottle of wine “girl talks”. I am not especially prudish, and I love a good dirty joke, so why do I get so tongue tied when it comes to my own experiences?

My goals for this challenge are to establish a sense of comfort opening up dialogue about sex and my experiences with it (between my mister and I, close friends, and of course, this month, through my internet community), and to make some decisions about the roles that I consciously and unconsciously play in my life. When do I behave aggressively? When do I take on the submissive role? What does all of this have to do with my desire to have everyone love me? My need to be the funny one? Am I ok with these roles, or is there somewhere I want to change but haven’t figured out how yet?

Relationships must surely be the most important thing about having a human experience, yet they are tricky. It is easy to default to a certain mode and vernacular with certain people but if it becomes a habit, how can we ever tell when we are having a genuine experience with that other divine being or not? Is it humanly possible to take off all the masks?

You may have noticed by now that I quite handily moved this from a potentially vulnerable and personal post to a series of academic questions. I’m working on it, ok?

When you start to study the eight-limbed path of yoga you may find yourself amidst a ‘sex or no sex’ debate thanks to the presence of bramacharya in the second limb, known as the niyama. The niyama get us thinking about our behaviour and personal discipline, observing more closely the effects of our restraints (or lack of them) on ourselves and others. Bramacharya has been a divisive concept in the yoga community, but does it really mean “celibacy”, like some yogis claim?

According to Yoga uber-scholar Georg Feuerstein, yogic texts explain that when one is ”grounded in chastity [bramacharya], vitality is acquired.” Pranalife Yoga Advanced Instructor Asia Nelson puts it this way: “Practicing bramacharya means remembering that we’re all divine beings having human experiences, and we open ourselves up to life’s greater forces (prana) when we treat ourselves and each other according to that understanding.”

Here at Pranalife HQ we’ve decided for our September 30 Day Challenge to put bramacharya to the test. For starters, we’ve committed to no sex all month. Yup, you heard us. Nada. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Obviously this isn’t because we think celibacy is the only path to enlightenment; we believe we just might learn something valuable by taking this action (or in this case getting no action) and observing the outcomes. We want to consciously experiment with the way our energy interacts with the energy of others around us, so we’re starting with one of the most intense energy exchanges humans do. What if we redirected energy we’d normally spend on carnal pleasures to other things? What if we re-envisioned what sharing energy - on all levels and in all manner of ways - even means?

Follow our blogs this month to see how it goes, or better yet join us and try it out for yourselves. See that sign-up widget in the lefthand side of this page? Put in your info and you’ll receive our newsletter where you’ll get tips, info tidbits (you’ll love trivia), and invitations to Pranalife Sexless in September events in Waterloo via email (oh my, what could Sexless in September ‘events’ be? …). Join in the conversation and be part of the evolution!