The Lexington story begins, as so many do, with new friends laughing and bursting with ideas over platters of salty Italian food.  

I had just finished my Somatica sex and relationship training that night. Lauren and Sri had already completed the training and begun seeing clients. This training transformed our lives in more ways than can be summarized. Mainly, by shifting our focus away from playing it small and feeling shame about sex and everyday pleasure into feeling celebratory. Going from “lives of quiet desperation”, as Thoreau put it, to basking in our own awakening and giving others a space to create theirs. Like journeyers in a fertile new world – sans the near-inherent colonialism – we had been liberated, reborn even, into new lives of thriving, blossoming, and exploration. 

Lauren and I started hatching a plan for me to teach a belly dance and Somatica experience workshop at her wellness center, aptly named Centered. Like a quickly growing bamboo shoot, the vision kept expanding until it included Sri and a full weekend of connection games, yoga, erotic experiences, and a Saturday night dance and cuddle party.  

Our name developed later on in the creative process. We began to realize the potential of this offering, that it would benefit many communities beyond our initial destination. Using “The ________ Story” as the subtitle format is intended to imply that each retreat weekend is curated specially for the city hosting our communal exploration. 

Each place, every community, holds their own kind of cultural energies around sexuality, embodied self-trust, and confidence. When we venture into these various public spaces armed with our newfound personal power, we’ll encounter unique curiosities and challenges that come along with this culture. Therefore, “The Lexington Story” and all that follow will have sociological research built into our west-coast sensibilities so that we can try to offer what’s best to exactly who is in attendance.

You vintage movie buffs out there might like knowing we borrowed the phrasing of The Lexington Story from The Philadelphia Story, a 1940s Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, and Jimmy Stewart film. A movie with sharp wit, great costumes, and a healthy helping of romance!

You know that feeling when you have this thing coming up and you’re so excited, just itching to get there, and time couldn’t possibly pass more slowly? That feeling when you have to run to your best friend – or anyone who will listen for that matter – and tell them about it even if you’ve already told them three times before? That’s how I’m feeling, a couple of weeks away from our grand adventure. So, I’ll tell you about it, since all of my close confidantes are already in the know (and probably exhausted from hearing about it, ha).

On Friday, our first night together, we’ll taste samples of our coming weekend, share a feast, and say goodnight to new friends. After a long beauty babe rest, I hope we all wake up fun and fresh for Saturday’s revelations!

The next morning is the great new beginning of our lives. I’ll assist Lauren in sharing movement and breathwork skills for freedom of sense and self. Then, a Players’ Choice: learning to express sensuality creatively through belly dance, or thoroughly unleashing your inhibited senses in a “mancave” (note: no part of this weekend is strictly binary or gender-limited; “mancave” is used for efficiency’s sake).

Sri’s portion is intended to help people express repressed emotions and find release and openness in being witnessed while doing so. My belly dance immersion… well, of course I’m biased, but I’d bet my bottom dollar that it’s like no other. We’re not just gonna shake our things outwardly but share our intimate essence with abandon through the dance. 

Then, the Be Greedy For Your Pleasure 3 Hour Tour, our centerpiece. Here we’ll workshop real-time intimacy, asking, desire, and flirting through games that we’ll disclose when you get here. I know I know, you’re dying to know more, but what’s the fun if I tell you all the dirty details and ruin the surprise?

And finally, the secret ingredient, that special sauce that makes the most delectable sweets: YOU! Not only does each place we visit influence the way we experience intimacy and openness, but each individual human being in that room will create a different kind of chemistry that only WE will know. I am absolutely dying to know what our chemistry will look, feel, taste like when we start this movement together. You, who will come to this first Living Your Pleasure retreat in Lexington, will live in my heart and mind through the ages.

Living Your Pleasure: The Lexington Story is a chance to be part of a legendary  beginning, like the oft-discussed first Burning Man or the cultural explosions of the 1960’s.  Not necessarily in terms of scale, but certainly in terms of tales to share for a lifetime. A special, personal beginning that makes you want to shout from rooftops and tell each person you meet. Kind of like the first date that taught you what whole, unabashed love could feel like.

Will

You

Join

Us?

April Hirschman in a white dress with a red sweater leaning against a white wall, smiling.

April brings a fullness of embodiment to her work – as a Somatica Coach and Certified Life Coach, as well as a belly dancer, yoga instructor, and massage therapist. Whether you want more expression or passion in your sex life or are working on dating, boundaries, sexual dysfunction and other relationship aspects – she will meet you right where you are and support you in your growth and transformation. The Somatica Method lets you practice intimacy with in real time. With April, you enter a safe and welcoming space where it is your time to explore bringing more authenticity and intimacy in your life.

World traveler and linguaphile, April is also the author of the Best Breakup Ever! – a self-help book about bouncing back from your breakup with humor and dignity. April hosts the relationship, dating, and memoir podcast Heart Centerfold.