Embracing our Sexuality

For centuries and maybe much longer sexuality has been repressed. Depending on how we grew up, what our parents beliefs were, what our religious leaders taught us, and what our early sexual experiences were, we will have varying relationships to our sensuality and sexuality. Regardless of the quality of that relationship, almost every one of us represses it’s expression in some way.

It would be hard for a woman or a man to have grown up in most of the western world, particularly the United States, and not carry some level of sexual repression. We are constantly bombarded with reasons to hold back our full sensual and sexual expression. Many religions tell us to ignore our urges until we are married without regard to the fact that centuries ago, men and women married in their teenage years, rather than waiting until their late 20’s or 30’s or even 40’s to marry as many couples do now.  In most cases, our parents didn’t know how to talk about it with us and in most families it’s still never talked about.

For many adults, men and women alike, we can carry unconsious beliefs and conditioning that sex is somehow dirty.  Even if these beliefs occupy only a small part of our sub-conscious, they can still powerfully impact and limit our lives.  Others of us feel the subject so taboo we can’t even talk about it to our best friends, yet it’s a huge part of our lives as healthy loving adults.

Here’s a contrast I noticed when I started traveling outside the U.S.  In America, sex toys and paraphernalia seem to be sold primarily in small dark stores in old strip malls while these same types of stores are common inside mainstream shopping malls in Europe.  Nudity is common in print advertising and commercials in many countries.  It’s a wonder there is so much shame about our bodies and our sexuality here.  Have you ever noticed how many rules and how much conditioning we all have around sexuality?

What are your rules, beliefs and taboos around sexuality?

I’m not suggesting that there is any right or wrong in our conditioning and rules.  I’m simply inviting you to notice that you have them.  Most of us took on our conditioning unconsciously through education, observation and experience and we don’t realize how much impact it has on our lives… on our joy, our passion, our love.

Very early in my life, I got a clear message about sex. “I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.” For 25 years, I had an ongoing inner battle between the part of me that loves sex and sensuality and the part of me that was terrified of it. In high school, my mother made it clear that she believed sex was for after marriage and that included all sexual activity. So with all the sexual curiosities and urges arising in my teenage body, I learned quite quickly that they were bad. It was confirmed sometime during my junior year when I let a boyfriend kiss my chest and he left a mark. I tried to hide it from Mom, but we lived in a house of women and doors were rarely closed. A few days later she saw it. I don’t remember her exact words and what I heard was that I was a slut. My knowing that sex was bad grew deeper.

Later that year, a boyfriend broke up with me because I was following my mom’s rules (or at least the big one!) and I wouldn’t have intercourse with him. I remember sitting on the couch dumbfounded after he left thinking, “You’ve got to be kidding me. This guy I like so much… that I’ve had so much fun hanging out with… is breaking up with me because I don’t want to have sex?”
I realized in that moment I was screwed, although certainly not literally! If I have sex I’m a slut and an overall bad person and if I don’t have sex, men leave. Over time, I most certainly learned to navigate boyfriend and sex issues and yet that conflict continued to run in the back of my mind. How do you think that impacted the quality of my sex life?  Or my ability to fully express my sexuality?

How has your past impacted your ability to embrace your own sensuality and sexuality?

Are you ready to be free of … or at least consciously choose…
your own beliefs and rules around sexuality and intimacy?

We host two powerful and transformational weekend retreats, Conscious Relating and Conscious Sexuality.  If you register for either of these workshops before the end of the year, you’ll receive a bonus holiday gift from me… a FREE one-hour one-on-one coaching session with me.  (For couples, I will work with you together or individually as you prefer.)

Check out our Upcoming Events and take your relationships (whether you are in one or not) and your sexual passion, pleasure and intimacy to a whole new level!

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In love, light and ecstasy,