"More important than the quest for certainty is the quest for clarity." ~ Francois Gautier

While we all want pleasure, most of us don’t understand why our pleasure response gets blocked or even how to ignite it. So here are four steps to turn on your libido, enlarge your experience of sex and trust the intelligence of your heart.

Start With an Empty Mind

If you can’t clear your mind when you are about to have sex, don’t bother. Coming into bed with a head full of thoughts, any kind of thoughts from to-do lists to insecurities to anticipation, will prevent you from really being able to engage sexually. Good sex demands one thing above all—your full presence. We know that when your brain is busy processing anxious or tedious thinking it can’t simultaneously make room for orgasm.

So how do we fully arrive in the arms of our lover, empty of our mental noise and able to both give and receive our sexual desire? One way is to commit to working with our brain, the sexiest organ in the body, by establishing a regular practice of emptying our mind. Learning how to meditate and giving ourselves a daily moment of bearing witness, not only to stop the flow of errant thoughts that disrupt our attention but also and more importantly to the hot, sticky emotional ties that bind us invisibly is a powerful sexual intervention. We don’t often link this meditative work to passionate sex, yet there may be no more powerful part of our sexual anatomy to engage than a brain that can settle. Showing up to our love lives, emptied of our cares and concerns literally translates into becoming an empty vessel that love can fill.

Enlarge Your Range of Touch

Once you have your brain on board, rethink your intimate time like you would a canvas ready to be painted. Begin slowly, filling the empty space between you and your partner. Explore the many aspects of intimacy that you might take for granted by breaking them down into the smallest elements. For example, when thinking of the kiss, reflect on how lips, tongue and the space between you makes the dance of physical communication erotic. Recognizing that the space that lives between you is a crucial aspect of engaging sexually not only slows down the time you spend, but also heightens and affirms the delicate connections that make sex great.

Bring Your Heart Into It

What is sex that we cannot allow ourselves to feel? A mechanical operation of bodies each trying to meet their own needs? When we do not engage our hearts with sex, we shut them down. So even if you aren’t emotionally engaged in the sexual encounter you hope to enjoy, have the courage to allow yourself to feel what is being exchanged in the depth of sexual intimacy. So much harm comes after casual sex when people cut themselves off from the feelings in their body. Our feelings are true reflections and an accurate barometer of our sense of safety, of being seen and valued.

Pleasure Comes from Connecting the Dots

Healing our erotic lives begins with fully engaging our heart with our sexual desire and libido response. Allowing and encouraging an interactive and informative dialogue between these parts of ourselves is where pleasure is born and reborn. The often shattered link between our capacity for pleasure and our sexual behavior is repaired in the empathetic process of connecting these dots. Listening for the soft voice in our hearts that allows us to bare our bodies and open up sexually is where pleasure can turn on and heal us.

Divorcing ourselves from this empathetic response, whether through self-medicating with alcohol or drugs or simply refusing to feel, slowly deadens our erotic capacity. So come to your bedroom seeking clarity, empty yourself sufficiently to hold the intimate exchange you claim you want and allow your heart to feel, and trust what you hear. It is the voice of pleasure.

Wendy Strgar, founder and CEO of Good Clean Love, is a loveologist who writes and lectures on Making Love Sustainable, a green philosophy of relationships which teaches the importance of valuing the renewable resources of love, intimacy and family. In her new book, "Love that Works: A Guide to Enduring Intimacy," she tackles the challenging issues of sustaining relationships and healthy intimacy with an authentic and disarming style and simple yet innovative advice. It has been called "the essential guide for relationships." The book is available on ebook. Wendy has been married for over 30 years to her husband, a psychiatrist, in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, and has four children.