Many of our struggles with things like sex and relationships stem from a belief and conditioning that there is right way to experience and define them.

We get unconsciously attached to things like sexual scripts and relationship escalators, habituated to believe that these are the only pathways to a life time of perpetual pleasure, intimacy and connection.

We get attached to ‘maps’ or ‘right ways’ of being, and in the process diminish our capacity for creativity, authenticity and discovery.

We go along, discarding or cutting off parts of ourselves in an attempt to make it all fit or keep others happy.

We tolerate, endure and numb ourselves as we navigate life believing there must something wrong with me, if this isn’t feeling good.

We get hooked by stories of performance and pressure to please and achieve, as we dilute ourselves or simply lose touch.

All of this comes at the expense of not only our authentic erotic selves, but a missed opportunity for our relationships and the world to receive the medicine of our truth.

2022 has been one of the most liberating years of my life thus far.

Instigated by the death of my last remaining parent a year ago, I was flung head first into transformational gateway of deep grief.

It was painful and I felt incredibly lost.

Much of what I knew to be true and ways I had of being, suddenly no longer worked.

I floundered, reached out and grasped at things I thought would anchor me, only to find myself more alone.

Here is something I wrote at the time.

 

Decimated.
Hollowed inside out by grief.
The sequence of time a blur.
One sunrise merges with the next.
I lay still.
Watchful from another realm.
An unknown place in which I feel lost and uncertain.
Free falling.
There is no bottom to this pit.
Where are the gateways, the sign posts?
No one speaks of this wasteland let alone how to be here.
I’m angry.
Angry at the silence masked by fraudulent rituals and empty beliefs.
Angry at the silence that takes our power.
We all grieve in different ways – I hear parroted over and over.
Sure, the permission is respectful but the sentiment isolating.
Death is certain, yet taboo harnesses our tongues and thoughts.
Where are the way showers?  The maps? The Elders?
Blinded and beguiled we are, by a nonsense world.
I’m angry.
Heartbroken and floundering.
Those closest to me also stuck in the silence and fear. Why did I not ask?
Prepared I am not.
Wasteland swallow me.

 

Even now reading this, tears of remembering spring to my eyes.

A deeply painful letting go that stuck me to my core.

But without this time in exile and lostness I would not have retrieved the gems that lay within its heart.

There were many jewels I discovered over the months that followed and thankfully now I can rest in their deep nourishment.

One of them was a disentanglement from a culture both inside and out, of false belonging.

When we learn the art of being lost, willing to let go of whatever no longer works, we begin hear the quiet whispers of deepest truths.

Layers of deceptiveness fall away and we are invited into a new way.

It can feel uncertain and unclear.

If however, if we gently allow the next small step, the path gradually emerges.

This morning I had the honour of holding a space for client who deeply desired something new.

He felt shut down and disconnected from desire.

He felt the constant pressure to perform, stay hard and be something for others that he was not.

As we explored on this edge of discomfort and no knowing he noticed a longing to slow down and re-member part of himself that had been swallowed by the pace and chaos of life.

Through bodywork and his continued presence, we embraced and explored the unchartered space of softness.

We turned the focus inward and noticed.

We invited play, curiosity and in the process desire emerged renewed.

He found places of orgasmicity never noticed before and felt the excitement of new edges and the possibility of pausing there for a while.

None of this would have happened without his willingness to let go of the ‘Shoulds’, the scripts and the conditioning, and allow a space of not knowing the pathway forward.

What stirs in you as you read this?  As you still yourself and notice.  What quiet longings show themselves within you?    What holds you back from gently moving towards them?

I love this quote from Howard Thurman.

“There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls.”

 

Share This