How holistic intimacy & neuroscience are teaching us how to live more connected lives.
When I started writing for Odyssey Magazine in Spring 2022, the focus with the Blissexology column was intimacy coaching as part of a healthy and conscious sex life.
The focus was mainly on pleasure and bliss. That hasn’t changed, but it has certainly evolved!
I was honoured to be part of the Mind Matters Summit 2025 in Cape Town. My husband, Tim, and myself ran one of the immersion sessions with Sensorium Sensory Soundscape, at a beautiful venue called Rooftop on Bree.
This entire Mind Matters summit reinforced the worldwide movement towards the neuroscience of immersive experiences, and was a summit that moved beyond just talk, into experiencing.
The understanding and studies that are emerging about how much mental health matters in every aspect of life, are mind blowing, as well as the deep connections of practical immersive experiences to health and wellness.
But what was strongly reinforced for me was the connection and transformation within group immersions. Apparently the feedback from these experiences was that although some were nervous about these immersions, the benefits were tangible and immediate.
Some senses can only be activated in immersive experiences with the community. This sort of experience, through deep connection with your senses, is deeply intimate. Because it’s deeply and vulnerably connecting to yourself and others.
Because it’s transformative.
Because we are evolving what an intimate experience looks like, and realising it expands definition way beyond just your sex life.
There is a neuroscience around this aspect of intimacy that is only really starting to emerge into the public consciousness now. Intimacy, as a definition needs to evolve and expand. Holistic means encompassing the whole of a thing and not just a single part. Holistic Intimacy can be inclusive of all intimacy, not just the sexual part.
The holistic aspects of healthy intimacy can include:
The intimacy of friendship
The intimacy of grief
The intimacy of shared struggle
The intimacy of vulnerability
The intimacy of conscious touch
The intimacy of a group immersive experience
Solo intimacy, beyond hackneyed ideas of this only being a sexual experience, into real nervous system and emotional regulation, real self-care.
The neuroscience of intimacy, how our brains interpret these aspects of intimacy, shows us more and more that these vulnerable and culturally intimate experiences are giving us wellness gifts. The activation of mirror neurons in any form of intimacy including another human.
The collective effervescence effect observed through neuroscience when these aspects of intimacy are explored, and the release of oxytocin in both shared intimate experiences and with conscious touch or bodywork.
The neuroscience of intimacy is also starting to make connections to improved sleep, hormonal balance and anxiety relief through this umbrella of evolved intimacy we have both alone and in groups. As with all intimacy though, there are some challenges we have to face to connect this way.
We have to challenge our willingness to be vulnerable. Our willingness to move past feeling silly, or ridiculous. Our resistance to change patterns and outdated beliefs about what is possible.
We need to find the willingness to invite a sense of curiosity, to unlearn and relearn our lived experiences, our very definition of intimacy.
Challenging yourself to evolve and grow within your sexual intimate life can actually help you find more connection and consciousness with people that are not present in that aspect of your life!
How?
Because the neuroscience of intimacy is beginning to show us how having a blissful experience with your intimate romantic partner can release the brain activity and chemicals that can translate as an ability to be more present for your coworkers, your friends and family.
The oxytocin, the serotonin, the vasopressin, and yes the dopamine that can be present during our sexual intimacy can translate into the rest of our lives too!
It’s time we stopped relegating our sexual intimate lives into the taboo.
Restricting them to the performative, addictive, shameful and extreme.
It’s time we realised that holistic intimacy is a life skill, helping us to be authentic and to grow and expand our connection to other people.
It’s time we realised that intimacy skills increase our ability to live fuller, more connected lives in all aspects, not just sexual.
To be seen, understood and heard.
That is intimacy.
To grow and connect this to your personal aspects of intimacy means evolving way past your sexual intimacy alone.
This holds the potential for you to have real connections with real people, whether personal or work related.
This is a skill that is going to become more and more valuable with the advent of AI, and other often overwhelming technological advances
The possibilities of intimacy coaching are expanding.
Are you ready for growth?
Originally published for Odyssey Magazine, Autumn/Winter 2026.
Meet the Odyssey Magazine editor, Christa Gumede Buthelezi, and the team at KwazuuSpirit Festival.
Meet Tai Chi Master, Sifu Leo Low Ming at the KwazuluSpirit Festival.
Leo Low Ming is a dedicated, professional martial artist. He has trained with the world’s top masters and practised his art for over 48 years. Leo teaches the young and the not so young. This is learning through doing. How to experience and evolve through the martial ways unfurls. Join Leo Low Ming for a unique experience. Step by step, let the master lead you… Simple taiji and qi gong movements and meditation techniques open up an energetic connection with the physical world. The western way thinks vigorous exercise that strengthens the muscles and heart brings good health. But the eastern way is different. Gentle, slow, repetitive movements release tension in the soft tissues and nerves, stimulate the organs, circulate the blood and quietly relax you. Here there is no separation of mind, body and emotions. Unsurprisingly, scientific evidence suggests that taiji can prevent illness and prolong life. Slowly, very slowly, you can feel, release, open and heal all that is bound and restricted within you.
“When the Tao is present in the universe, the birds sing.” Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching: Verse 9.
If there is harmony and balance in nature, your true nature unfolds. There is no such thing as early or late. Too much or too little. Too fast or too slow. Taiji is an art of inner peace. An inner peace arising from yin and yang, the two equal and opposite forces within us and the entire universe. Our life energy, or chi, arises through the interplay of yin and yang. Wellbeing depends on a harmony or balance between these two. Africa: The birthplace of humanity, where ancient ways can help us to see how we are part of the world, impacted by it and affecting it. Also as the most dominant species, we see how we burden the planet through our disharmony. As the Tao Te Ching says: “Empty and be filled. Bend and be straight. Yield and overcome.” Through mind, body awareness and the breath, it is time to recalibrate, recharge and reconnect with yourself and the natural world.
“…whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” – Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species.
The world has a ready answer: gracefully. Quietly. With good skincare and a positive attitude and a willingness to accept, with dignity, the slow dimming of the light.
I want to offer a different answer entirely.
At 67, I am not dimming. I am not declining. I am not managing the distance between who I was and who I am becoming with anything resembling resignation. I am, if anything, more alive, more present, more at peace with myself and with life than at any previous chapter of my journey. Not because I have escaped the realities of ageing – but because I have stopped fighting them, and in that surrender, discovered something extraordinary waiting on the other side.
That discovery is what I call Radiant Living.
Radiant Living is not a wellness trend. It is not anti-ageing in disguise. It is a way of moving through the world – particularly through the profound season of midlife and beyond – that is rooted in three simple but transformative pillars: a Calm Mind, a Strong Body, and Natural Radiance.
A calm mind is not the absence of thought or challenge. It is the understanding – neurological and spiritual at once – that we are not our thinking. That beneath the noise of worry, expectation and self-judgment lives an innate wellbeing that no birthday, no diagnosis and no life circumstance can touch.
A strong body is not about performance or perfection. It is about movement we can love, nourishment that genuinely serves us, and an honest, compassionate relationship with the body we are living in right now – not the one we had at thirty, and not the one we imagine we should have.
And Natural Radiance – perhaps the most quietly revolutionary of the three – is what emerges when a woman stops abandoning herself. When she reclaims her joy, her boundaries, her pleasure, her presence. When she stops performing wellness for the world and starts actually inhabiting her own life.
I have spent over forty years in the personal development field and twenty-four years as a life and wellness coach. I have coached thousands of individuals through their most significant moments of change. And I can say, with the particular authority that only lived experience provides, that the women I meet who are thriving in their fifties, sixties and beyond are not thriving because life got easier. They are thriving because they found their way back to themselves.
That is the conversation I want to bring to the KwaZulu Spirit Festival. Not a lecture – a lived experience. A tap on the shoulder, an invitation to remember what has always been true:
You were not made to simply age. You were made to radiate.
Meet Sharon at KwazuluSpirit Festival with her masterclass, Radiant Living, on Sunday 31 May, 14:00.
ABOUT SHARON:
Sharon Castle is the founder of Mindfit Coaching Academy, a pioneering South African training and development organisation dedicated to developing conscious, emotionally intelligent leaders, coaches, and entrepreneurs. With over 40 years of experience in the personal development field and more than two decades of professional coaching practice from her studio on the North Coast of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, Sharon has designed transformational programmes such as The Awakening, The Coaches Calling, Business Builder, Mindfit for Teens, Your Inner GPS – and most recently, Radiant Living, her global membership programme for women over 40 who are ready to stop accepting decline and start living with genuine vitality, clarity and joy.
As a respected life coach, mentor, and teacher of transformation, Sharon integrates timeless spiritual wisdom with practical coaching principles rooted in the Three Principles of Mind, Consciousness, and Thought. Her down-to-earth and insightful approach helps leaders, teams and individuals bridge generational gaps, build resilience, and create cultures of collaboration, purpose and wellbeing.
At 67, Sharon is living proof of her own philosophy – that ageing is not a diminishing, but a deepening. Through Radiant Living and its three pillars of a Calm Mind, a Strong Body and Natural Radiance, she invites women across the world to reclaim their vitality, their presence and their full aliveness at every stage of life.
Known for her warmth, authenticity and grounded wisdom, Sharon inspires others to redefine what is possible – to live and lead with clarity, compassion and confidence by reconnecting to their innate potential and choosing, at any age, to radiate.
Your Magic Toolkit is a silly name for something really important. All of us, no matter how experienced you are or what titles you hold, forget the very simplest practices which make this being human a radical adventure in showing up as ourselves and enjoying the moments that only this life brings.
A reminder for some and a guaranteed series of “lightbulb moments” for others, Christa brings levity and straightforward, concise instruction in creating a life which is grounded, expansive and light-oriented even in the rougher seas of life. This toolkit holds all the little tools Christa wishes fervently we taught our children in Grade R, for the care and keeping of you. The presentation will provide an overview of various ways you can tap into support beyond the offerings our societal norms hold, combined with embodied practices that the audience will try out on the spot! Come prepared to sit, stand, and play with new and old favourites.
If you’d like to delve further into any or all of this, you can find Christa at www.christagumedebuthelezi.com.
About Christa: Christa Gumede Buthelezi is an ordinary human with an extraordinary ability to communicate across different aspects of consciousness. As a medium and a diviner, she creates a bridge between being human, all that has been and all that will be. In plain English, you might call her a coach, a mentor or even a Sangoma. In any case, she brings light to the world in any way possible. Born in the US, she is South African by choice and spends her days with her family in KwaZulu-Natal. She is the editor and curator for ODYSSEY, the conscious living magazine based in South Africa. With an amazing team of creators and collaborators, Odyssey invites curiosity, connection and compassion for being human in today’s world.
THE MASK WE WEAR AND THE SELF WE’VE LEFT BEHIND – Conscious Parenting with Jenna Dias.
You are trying so hard to be a good parent. And yet somehow you still find yourself standing in the kitchen at 7am, voice three octaves higher than you intended, wondering — *where did that come from?
It came from somewhere. And in this talk, we are going to find out exactly where?
Waking Up at the Wheel is an honest, deeply human, and genuinely transformative exploration of conscious parenting — not the Instagram version, not the perfect version, but the real one. The one that starts not with your child, but with you.
Jenna is a Conscious Parenting and life Coach and a registered counsellor — and a mum who doesn’t always get it right. Drawing on the work of Dr. Shefali Tsabary, whom she studied under she will guide you through why most of us are not parenting from our adult selves, but from our past — from wounds we didn’t choose, patterns we never questioned, and a nervous system that learned long ago that control was the only way to feel safe.
In this session you will explore:
– Why you react the way you do — and what your triggers are really telling you
– The three parts of self that show up in your parenting: the inner child frozen in the past, the ego performing in the present, and the authentic self-waiting to lead
– A powerful mask activity that will help you see — perhaps for the first time — the gap between who you show the world and what you are actually carrying inside
This is not a talk about doing more or getting it right. It is an invitation to pull over, look at who has been driving, and — with compassion and curiosity — gently take back the wheel.
Come as you are. Leave changed.
About Jenna Dias
Jenna is the founder of Conscious Living and a registered counsellor, conscious parent, and life coach. With over seventeen years in counselling, neurofeedback, and play therapy, she helps families understand brain development and the nervous system shaping behaviour—bridging science with everyday parenting. A devoted mom of two boys, Jenna guides parents to trust the process, unravel fear, and stay present with their children. Her brain-based, heart-centered approach translates complex insights into practical, compassionate strategies that empower both child and parent. She invites you to move from autopilot to mindful connection—one moment, one conversation, one truth at a time.
Unlocking Voices from The Other Side with Sarah Bullen
Workshop Overview
This workshop invites you to explore the practice of automatic writing and channelled writing — two related techniques used across creative, spiritual, and therapeutic traditions to bypass the critical mind and access deeper layers of expression, intuition, and inner knowing.
Whether you approach these practices from a creative writing perspective, a spiritual or metaphysical framework, or simply with curiosity, this workshop offers a guided space to experiment and discover what arises when you let go of conscious control and allow words to flow.
Your Host
Sarah Bullen has been coaching, editing and teaching writers since 2005. Sarah is a multi-published author and publisher, with numerous books on the art of writing, spirituality, and near-death experiences. She is a qualified African Constellations facilitator and works with Writing with the Ancestors. She engages in traditional rites of passage storytelling, curates storytelling retreats, and facilitates traditional women’s rites of passage.
What Is Automatic Writing?
Automatic writing is the practice of writing continuously, without pausing to think, edit, or judge. Rooted in the Surrealist movement of the early 20th century and independently explored in spiritualist traditions, it is used today by writers, artists, mediums, therapists, and seekers alike. The goal is to allow raw, unfiltered material to arise from the subconscious or from a guided source.
What Is Channelled Writing?
Channelled writing extends this practice into the realm of the spiritual or metaphysical. It is a practice in which you can receive guidance, wisdom, or creative content from a source beyond your own — whether you understand this as your Higher Self, spirit guides, departed loved ones, the collective unconscious, or a deeper aspect of the psyche. What you choose to work with is entirely personal; this workshop is non-dogmatic and welcoming of all worldviews.
What to Expect
Over the course of the workshop, you will:
Learn the history and context of channelled writing across creative, psychological, and spiritual traditions
Practice grounding and relaxation techniques designed to quiet the analytical mind
Engage in a series of timed, guided writing exercises — from free-flow stream of consciousness to more intentional “open channel” prompts
Explore different entry points: music, breathwork, visualisation and silence
Reflect on what emerged and find the messages.
Develop a personal practice to take home
Who Is This Workshop For?
This workshop is suitable for:
Individuals on a spiritual or self-inquiry path
Those wanting to connect to unseen messages or explore a new connection.
Those interested in journaling, mindfulness, or expressive arts
Anyone curious about the relationship between writing, consciousness, and intuition
Writers seeking to break through blocks or access new creative material
No prior writing experience is necessary. You do not need to identify with any spiritual tradition. All that is required is an open mind and a willingness to show up on the page.
What to Bring
A journal or notebook (lined or blank — your preference)
A pen
An open, non-judgmental attitude toward whatever arises
Comfortable clothing
A Note on the Practice
Participants are reminded that automatic and channelled writing are exploratory practices. What surfaces may feel surprising, mundane, profound, or puzzling. There is no “right” outcome. The facilitator holds a non-interpretive, supportive role — the meaning of what you write belongs entirely to you.
Duration:
Half-day (3.5 hours) or Full-day (6 hours) format availableMaximum participants: 12–15
Come and experience this extraordinary Experience at KwazuluSpirit 2026
