Day 3: Expand Your Palate

"The point is not to get it over with; it’s to explore what you enjoy."

What happens when you slow down and savor your favorite flavors?

Today's Exercise

Foreplay is a process of giving and receiving pleasure. Today’s exercise is about giving ourselves permission to savor and actively receive.

•Grab a piece of your favorite decadent chocolate.

•Identify who will give and who will receive.
•Re-listen to the first part of the audio and follow Esther’s lead in savoring the experience from first smell to the aftertaste.
•Then, switch roles.
•Variations: Blindfold the receiver before the tasting begins.

Now ask each other: What was it like to give? What was it like to receive? If one was more challenging, try practicing that role more
frequently. You can try it at any meal.

Beyond this week, return to this exercise with your favorite treats to practice exploring what you enjoy.

Transcript - Day 3: Expand Your Palate

Imagine you have an orange. Hold it in your hands.

What does it look like? What does it feel like? What does it smell like?

Cut into the peel and let its full fragrance emerge. A juicy orange is a cornucopia of the senses.

The eyes lead to the nose; the nose leads to the palette. Now bite into the orange in utter slow motion. Let the juices drip. Explore the flesh.
Keep it in your mouth.

Don’t rush to swallow it. Turn it over with your tongue like you’re tasting wine. Spread it. Taste it in every corner.

Then swallow. Wait for the aftertaste.

This is one way to savor rather than gobble. And savoring is an embodied experience. The point is not to get it over with; it’s to explore what
you enjoy.

When we isolate a sense, we intensify the sensory input. Prolonging the experience can make it feel surprising. Slowing down deepens and
widens it. You cannot change the flavor of the fruit in your hand, but you can play with the experience of the fruit itself.

Savoring the fruit is a process of giving and receiving pleasure. So, too, is foreplay. In both cases, the aftertaste is merely closure. If the
foreplay is good, it becomes the main event. As Emily Nagoski says, “the pleasure is the measure.”

This may be challenging for you. Foreplay requires fluidity between giving and receiving. And receiving, in particular, is a common block for
people. Why? It asks urs to surrender, to allow someone or something else in. And THAT is an emotional nakedness that makes us feel
vulnerable.

Today’s exercise is about giving ourselves permission to actively receive. You’ll need not an orange, but a small piece of chocolate. As you
discover it on your tongue, allow yourself to enjoy that cornucopia of senses. Let your partner give and you receive.