Embodied Sexuality and Sexual Trauma Healing

You are likely here because you’ve experienced sexual trauma or shame and want to begin the healing journey but have no clue where to even begin.

Whew. Let’s pause there and take a deep breath together because that alone is a really big and emotional charged sentence. I invite you to place one hand on your heart and one hand on your body. Take a deep breath in through the nose and exhale it out the mouth with an audible sigh. Recognize that you are here, right now and are presumably very safe. Repeat a few times if that would feel good for you before moving on.

Ok, are you back with me now?

You’ve experience sexual trauma.

First and foremost, I want you to know that I believe you. Without condition and question. What happened to you should have NEVER happened to you. Whether it was in childhood, teen years or as an adult, you never deserved what happened to you.

It wasn’t your fault. No matter who and what anyone has made you to believe, I am here to tell you that it wasn’t your fault. You’ve done nothing wrong and you deserve to heal, move through and past your trauma so that it no longer has a bearing and hold on your life, relationships, sexuality and emotions. You are worthy of healing AND feeling deep pleasure in your body. You are deserving.

However, our ability to stay present and embody our pain has a direct correlation to our ability to be present and embody the pleasure, peace and deep joy that you deserve to feel. Only to the depth we can feel our darkness can we feel our infinite and embodied light. We can’t selectively numb out some emotions without numbing out all emotions to some degree and limiting our capacity to feel deep intimacy and orgasmic pleasure.

Maybe you are here because you’ve come to the realization that you aren’t having any sex, too much dissociated sex, loathe sex, are terrified to have intimacy and sex with the same person or haven’t tapped into your full embodied sexual desires and pleasure.

There is so much overwhelm in sexual trauma that commonly survivors find themselves using busyness and hyper achieving to deflect emotions away and create an ongoing sense of lovability and worthiness.

Controlling food and eating habits can shove emotions even further down or create a masterful disembodiment by not trusting basic human needs and sensations such as hunger.

Minimizing what has happened to you suppresses emotions and doesn’t allow for the deep tenderness that is needed for healing. You minimize your experience because if you were to really feel and face the trauma, you would have to face how it has affected your life and this means feeling the waves of anger, grief, pain, loss and betrayal you have experienced.

Many survivors turn to numbing to avoid pain. Numbing out their sexuality, during sex and through the use of alcohol and other drugs. Numbing out can also look like disordered eating to either suppress emotions or assert the control that was taken from you.

Having a passionate and present sex life after trauma can seem completely overwhelming or like that could never exist. You have a deep longing for intimacy and sexual presence with your partner or spouse but feel disconnected from your body and the very thought of emotional intimacy sends you into shut down or disgust. You may feel sexual alive and very free but can’t seem to stay present during sex. Sex has become a tool that you feel worthy and lovable versus a source of embodied pleasure, emotional intimacy and deep ecstatic bliss and healing.

Let’s check in again with our body. How is your breath? Can you take a few deep inhales into the belly and sigh it out your mouth. Notice your feet and wiggle your toes. Take a moment to check in and then let’s continue because here is the fabulous news …

Your trauma doesn’t have to be the defining experience in your life any longer.

Once your sexuality begins to be reclaimed, empowered and you feel sparks of desire on a deep somatic level, it is easier to enter the battlefield of your trauma and shame, come at it from a place of power and authority as a sovereign adult and take your control and power back.

Using Somatic Experiencing to titrate into your trauma and sexuality simultaneously sets you up for a more integrative approach that won’t skyrocket your body and nervous system into overload, overwhelm and shut you down further than you already are.

Working through embodiment and beginning to notice the sensations, emotions and energy in our body helps us facilitate more awareness into what we actually need on a somatic level.

There is less need to be busy all the time because you are able to hold space for what is hidden under the busy lifestyle. Eating becomes more pleasurable because you can notice hunger and fullness. Numbing out, over time, becomes less and less because we work to stay in the present and feel safe here. Overwhelm is slowly changed into Orgasm!

Yes, Orgasm! When you can truly feel into the sensations in the body, sex becomes even more pleasurable and bringing your new presence into the bedroom either by yourself or with a partner allows for deeply ecstatic and healing experiences.

Your body may have been violated but your sexuality is something deep inside of you that nobody can ever take away or touch. Your deep, embodied sexuality can never be violated. It may be buried under abuse, deep shame, boundary violation and guilt but it is still there.

Using embodied pleasure practices we begin to build a container in a very titrated way that you are able to stay fully present with yourself first and foremost and then with a partner, lover or spouse. Using Tantric approaches as well as the deep healing power of Dr. Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing that specifically was designed to aid healing trauma survivors in a way that they are able to stay in the here and now and it doesn’t blow your body or nervous to the moon and in fact the only thing blown to the moon is your capacity over time to feel more pleasure than you could have ever dreamed of!

Don’t just take my word! If you would like to learn more about Somatic Experiencing and healing sexual trauma through sexual embodiment, here are three different sources that you can gather even more information!

Peter A. Levine PhD – Sexual Trauma: Healing the Sacred Wound

Click HERE

Layla Martin – How To Overcome Sexual Trauma With Sexual Healing

Click HERE

Ariel Giaretto, LMFT, SEP – How Somatic Experiencing and Sexual Embodiment can Change the World

Click HERE

When I discovered the power of Somatic Experiencing and what my body was capable of feeling, everything changed. I began learning to hold space for my anger and move it through my body. I wasn’t crippled with grief and pain because I learned my own power in being able to FEEL. Combining this opening with sexual embodiment, Tantra and embodied sexual pleasure I became more powerful than my trauma because my body became a source to feel SO many beautiful and pleasurable things I never knew possible. Sexual Healing through Somatic Experiencing gave me my life and orgasmic bliss back. It helped me discover who I was, what I was capable of experiencing and a deep sense of purpose.

The other side of trauma is peace, presence and a life full of purpose.

You are more powerful than what has happened to you. You get to and can own your own life.

Reclaiming and re-embodying your sexual pleasure and sexuality takes back your power at the very place you were attacked.

You are now a Warrior at the battlefield declaring your body and life as your own!

Embodiment is a daily practice to stay present. Movement, Breathwork and Sound are vital tools. We work together to integrate these into your life.

You CAN experience magical, epic sex even if right now you’ve never even had an orgasm because your body hasn’t felt safe.

You CAN stay present with a loving, respectable and trusted partner and enjoy pleasure! With or without the Orgasm.

You CAN heal and navigate sexual trauma and shame.

Embodied Sexual Pleasure can be a gateway for your healing. Your body is powerful. Your body WANTS and desires pleasure.

Your sexuality can be violated but NEVER taken from you. You’re still vibrant and alive at your core.
Your sensuality and sexuality are waiting for you to come home.

They love you. They welcome you.

You are infinitely more powerful than what has happened to you.

Working together we will help you discover your own magic, purpose, passion and power!