I developed the ISIS Wheel to illustrate how our sexual experience is much more than physical—it is multi-dimensional: body, mind, heart, and spirit. The ISIS Wheel includes four aspects of experience that are always present in our lives: spiritual, mental, physical, emotional. What I call the “ISIS connection” occurs when all of thes meet and merge in the center, which is wide open to the other aspects. This is where sexual experience enters the uncharted territory of ecstasy and mystical revelation.

The point of diagramming the ISIS Wheel is to help you see all of the paths, regardless of whether they seem to be part of your sexual experience right now. You can use this ISIS Wheel to map your own sexual responses. You can start anywhere. It begins with your willingness to move beyond the idea that sex is all about performance.

The ISIS paths don't always follow the rigid boundaries shown in the diagram.. As you experience sexual relationship in the complexities of your own life, they're likely to twist and turn and wend, or detour or bump or even come to dead ends. Sometimes following them can feel like slogging through a wilderness—because sexual experience is not always positive, and even positive experiences may restimulate past pain instead of pleasure. It’s complicated—but exciting once you get it. My books and workshops explore how you can move from negative responses to positive ones. They also explore how you may get a straight shot to bliss—and how to enjoy it when you get there.

The physical path: A full range of sensory experience-smell, taste, touch, sight, and hearing. Movement and stillness. Comfort and safety. Arousal, orgasm, and other physical pleasures. The physical ISIS experience is characterized by heightened senses-brighter colors; increased sensitivity to touch, taste, smell and hearing; exquisite awareness of how all parts of your body connect

The emotional path: A full range of feelings-love, passion, longing, anger, and fear. Whatever touches your heart. Empathy—the ability to feel what others feel. Compassion-the Dalai Lama describes this as the ability to love yourself and others no matter how conflicted your feelings may be. Trust—the ability to let go of control. The emotional ISIS experience is characterized by open-heartedness and heightened feelings.

The mental path: Beliefs and messages about both sexuality and spirituality. Imagination, intuition, memory, and dreams. Waking dreams and fantasies. Wishes, intentions, anticipations, and expectations. The mental ISIS experience is characterized by an open mind, increased understanding, expanded beliefs, and letting go of judgments about what sex should be like.

The spiritual path: A deep sense of connection with yourself, your partner, and/or a "higher power." This can include inner visions, communication with divine forces, experiencing yourself as part of all that is sacred. The spiritual ISIS experience is characterized by ecstasy, increased energy, lasting satisfaction, and transcendence.

The Center: As you near the very center of the ISIS Wheel you enter a kind of high-definition Oz where everything seems vibrantly colored. It may feel like a place of mystery and paradox where opposites merge in an uncanny way. The experience of the Center differs from person to person and time to time. It's yours to define. You may experience opposites, oneness and integration, shape shifting, and timelessness. You may experience extraordinary light and lightness of being. You may find yourself communing profoundly with your partner and with yourself. Each journey to the Center can encompass your whole life. There's no past and no future here, only a greatly expanded now. It's a place of clarity and vision, of vastness, of unconditional love.

-- Adapted from The Heart & Soul of Sex, and The Return of Desire, by Gina Odgen, PhD

Click here to download the ISIS Survey.