How to embrace and enjoy your sexual self

About 50% of women come to see me for Sexual Healing Therapy or Sex Therapy Relationship counselling, because they are driven by an underlying feeling of inadequacy and/or their partner having expressed dissatisfaction about their shared sex life.

At the beginning of healing work, 80% of my clients are initially somewhat disconnected from their bodies and their sexual energy. Sadly, for some this is linked to previous trauma such as sexual abuse.

But for many this stems from having consciously or unconsciously internalized intergenerational, cultural and societal messages that define

• what it means to be sexy and what sexy should look like
• how a woman should act during sex
• what gives a woman pleasure and how much pleasure women should experience during sex
• how often a “good” wife or girlfriend is willing to have sex

this list could go on…

In the past, Religion and financial power have often kept women in a place of accepting that their sexual needs or desires were not as important as those of their male partners. Today, women are less dependent on men for survival. But now we are confronted with images from media and pornography, that create an entirely different set of expectations to live up to.

As Kacey Musgraves says so eloquently in her song “Follow your Arrow”:

If you save yourself for marriage
You’re a bore
If you don’t save yourself for marriage
You’re a whore-able person
If you won’t have a drink
Then you’re a prude
But they’ll call you a drunk
As soon as you down the first one

If you can’t lose the weight
Then you’re just fat
But if you lose too much
Then you’re on crack
You’re damned if you do
And you’re damned if you don’t
So you might as well just do
Whatever you want

But here is the crucial question… what do you want? What do you like? Can you connect to your body and sexual energy and lovingly accept your unique self? Can you  let go of all the should’s and all the judgment and give yourself permission to explore what turns you on… and then ask for it?

Or are you too busy inventing who you should be, pretending to be and feel things you think others expect and want from you… so you can avoid all your doubts and low self-esteem?

The first step to sexual healing and to enjoying sex is connection… and the most important connection you need to cultivate is the connection to yourself. 

Sometimes you first need to peel away some layers before you can connect to what is; before you can connect to and celebrate who you are sexually.

I invite you to do the following exercises to connect to yourself:

Stand naked in front of the mirror… and listen to your internal monologue… write down everything you think and take a look at all the negative comments. Identify where those comments come from…when did you start to think thoughts such as your breasts being too small or your belly too big? Did it start with the voice of  your mother who told you to suck in your stomach in or all the other girls in high school developing more quickly than you?

Strip away all these external constructs and see what is left. Can you embrace your body and love it? Can you not only love it but appreciate this vessel that allows you to do life every day? Can you forgive yourself for perhaps having neglected to take good care of your body? Can you let go of the notion that parts of your body are dirty or weird looking? Can you welcome the sensations in your body when you touch yourself without feeling guilty or wanting them to be different?

Now take a moment to write down everything you have learned or heard about sex and sexuality…from the comments your grandmother made… to what your first boyfriend said to what you have seen in movies… read thru all these messages and eliminate what you don’t like, what isn’t yours…and expand on what feels like a fit.

Remember that sexual energy is connected to your second chakra and this is also your center of creativity. Sexual energy is passion and creation. 

Be creative courageous and define as well as design your sexuality… which is uniquely yours… yours to be proud of, to embrace and celebrate.