Sexual Reawakening - 10 Simple Steps (4 page)

Are you monogamous, choosing to stay with one partner
for life?

Are you a serial monogamist, choosing to stay with one
partner at a time, until the relationship ends?

Are you promiscuous, preferring to play the field
sexually, with many different partners?

Has your sexual commitment style changed?

How?

When?

What caused the change?

How has your sexual commitment style affected your
sexuality and your life?

Close your eyes and reflect upon your responses.

A man and woman enter the bedroom, tear off their
clothes and jump into bed.

A married couple slips into their pajamas and meet each
other under the covers.

Two people get into bed, turn their backs to each other,
and turn out the light.

What happens next in bed is often the culmination of
hours, days, weeks, months, even years, of courtship, loving interactions, or
hostile exchanges, indifference, frustration, or even boredom. 
Sex does not begin in the
bedroom.
 It starts with the
way we look, act and interact with each other and by what we feel inside, all
day long.

What interferes
with our personal enjoyment of our own sexuality depends upon our unique
experiences, our bodily and emotional memories of those events, and our current
beliefs about love, sexuality and intimate relating.  Our own personal
programming determines our sexual responses.  When we feel threatened by
closeness, even the most gentle and tender touch by a loving partner may be
perceived by us as pressure, demand, aggression, even violence.  If we have
been programmed to always please others, if we feel in any way inferior to our
own idea of the way we should be, our sexual responsiveness may suffer.  If we
believe we are sexually inadequate in some way, we may fear that we will have
to change.  Change is always frightening because it involves the unknown.

The first step in
reawakening our sexuality is to discover what is currently blocking or
interfering with our ability to feel and enjoy pleasure.  Some of us can only
allow our sexual feelings to emerge when we are in the privacy of our own home,
alone by ourselves.  Some of us avoid physical contact even with our own
bodies.

Stand in front of a mirror and observe yourself, with
and without clothing.

Observe the way you are standing?

Are you standing tall and proud?

Slouching?

Forcefully holding your body erect in a state of
tension?

Comfortably relaxed in your own presence?

Observe your breathing?

Is it full and rhythmical?

Shallow and even held?

Observe your facial features,

The quality of your skin,

The expression on your face?

Are you looking your best or

Do you appear to be tired?

Older than your years?

Stressed out or relaxed and content?

Observe the rest of your body  Are you satisfied
with:

Your physical appearance?

Your weight?

Your shape?

Your fitness level?

Your muscle tone?

Now go internally.

Are you satisfied with your personality and the way
you present yourself to the world?

Are you satisfied with your life right now or is
there something that you want to change?

What have your emotions been telling you about the
way you are living your life?

Are you satisfied with your education, work,
career, and finances or is there something you would like to change?

Are you satisfied with your family, your home life,
and the quality of your intimate and non-intimate relationships?

Are you satisfied with the amount and quality of
touching, loving, and sexual expressiveness in your personal life and most
intimate relationships?

Taking a long, honest look at ourselves, our current lives,
and what we truly desire, can be difficult, but well worth the time and
effort.  If we want a passionate sexual relationship, sometimes we need to
change behaviors that are keeping people away.  We may have to give more than
we thought was necessary or not as much as we naturally give.  We may have to
ask ourselves questions to discover what we really want.  We may also have to
find out what our potential partners want.  We don't have to have all the
answers and solutions.  Others can help.  Why waste any more time struggling,
suffering and remaining unhappy?  Relief may be just a phone call, workshop,
self-help book, or therapy session away.  We need to learn how to ask and how
to receive the answers we get.  We need to be able to truly listen and to hear
what our partners say they want, not what we think they should want.

As we begin to heal the disconnection between our body,
mind and spirit, we can no longer tolerate verbal abuse, tiny humiliations,
control, manipulation and lack of acknowledgement from others. Whether we are
in a loving relationship, an unhappy situation, or have been alone for years,
as we reclaim ourselves, our desire for sexual contact is sometimes temporarily
diminished. We often need to turn our focus inward, pay attention to our own
self first, before going back out into the world to connect with another.  Many
religions practice celibacy to help us let go of physical connection to the
outside world, returning our focus back to the self, back to spirit, source,
creator, God.

Our sexual organs can be powerful allies, if we let
them.  Listen and they will tell us all we need to know about love and our
relationships.  Ignore the messages, or control our bodies with our mind or our
willpower, and our sexual organs will seem to betray us with their exasperating
honesty.

What do we want our sexual organs to do?

Perform for us?

Perform for someone else?

Or assist us to open our hearts, feel the love inside,
and bring pleasurable sensation to ourselves and others?

It's that simple.  Performing brings us into our mind,
away from our bodily feelings.  Feelings bring us into our body.  Once we
connect within, it is easy to connect with others.

How do you want sex to be in your life?

What needs healing?

In your body?

 Your mind?

Your emotions?

Your spirit?

What steps have you taken to heal your body, your mind,
your emotions and your spirit?

If you are truly serious about reawakening your
sensuality and sexuality, you may choose to remain celibate for a while,
examining your life, your thoughts, and your emotions. You can use this private
time to determine what you really want in a partner, a lover, a steady
companion, or a lifetime mate.   When you are ready, you can return to the
world of sexual activity and sexual connection.  After a brief hiatus, you will
then be able to approach your love life with insight, wisdom and the power of
knowing "I can do without it and still be okay."

What would it be like to forego sexual connection for
an entire month, 30 or 31 days?  What would it be like to abstain for 6 months,
for one year or for longer than that?  How would your lifestyle, health, energy
level and emotions be affected?  Some of us have already been sexually
abstinent for months, years, or even decades.  Some of us have never actually
had any sexual experiences with others.  And some of us have been seeking
sexual contact for so long, with such intensity, that we often approach
potential partners like a panting animal in heat.  Many of us jump in and out
of relationships quickly, rarely taking time between relationships to be alone,
to be celibate, and to contemplate what we really want in our life.

For those of us who have rarely gone without sexual
contact for even short periods of time, what would it be like for you to
totally refrain for a month?  Without an outlet for the accumulation of
emotional and physical tensions, you might find yourself feeling agitated,
nervous or depressed and lethargic.  You might feel lonely, isolated, insecure about
your sociability, closed off, and less interested in the world around you.  You
may have difficulty sleeping, your mind racing and reviewing the day, flooded
with thoughts, evaluating your actions, obsessing over minor details.   Without
your usual and expected dose of sexual activity, you might even feel as if you
are going crazy.  You might find yourself obsessing about how you would compare
to their current lovers.  You may become overwhelmed with your fantasies,
desires, longing, craving and neediness.  Or, if sexual relationships have been
problematic for you, you may actually find yourself sleeping better, having
more energy for work, for pursuing creative projects, or for spending time with
friends.  You may even rediscover a forgotten interest in some hobby or other
leisure activity.

You can choose to fill your time with activity,
traveling, gambling, shopping, exercising, or even working.  You can
temporarily satisfy your sexual desires with online social networking,.  You
can suppress your feelings with conversation and food. Or you can suppress your
feelings with mind-altering chemicals, drugs, cigarettes, or alcohol.  Being
celibate for a while offers you a rare opportunity to look inside, examine your
true feelings, notice the many ways you attempt to use and suppress your sexual
energy.  You can then focus on your dreams without the emotional complication
of sexual intimacy with another person.

In a difficult relationship, sex can be the last avenue
for getting close.  The fear is, if you take time off from the one area of
closeness between you, all sorts of bad things will happen.  Actually, stopping
that last link to pleasure and intimacy, you may be able to see your
relationship more clearly for the first time.  You may observe your partner's
attributes, both favorable and unfavorable, without being swayed by your own
physical desires and needs.  Brief periods of refraining from sexual contact
can help you to discover your own inner longing and reflect upon your own unmet
needs.  Then, you can begin to heal your relationship with yourself first, and
then with your intimate partner/s.

Many of us can only delve so far into our own nature. 
To understand yourself and your relationships more fully, you have many
choices.  You can pursue private psychotherapy, relationship, couples and sex
therapy, workshops, body therapy, and body psychotherapy, and even personal
coaching.

Have you felt your heart patter lately?

Do you sense your organs smiling?

Is there a glint in your eyes; a lilt in your voice?

Does your body feel free and alive?

Do you move confidently and gracefully with strength
and purpose?

If not, then maybe you are ready for a new experience.

Sexual Reawakening
is the return of your
body/mind system to a sensual state it once knew or may have never known.  It
is not measured by the frequency of sexual contact, the intensity or number of
orgasms, the amount of sexual desire or the number of intimate relationships. 
It does not even require having a partner.

The obvious symptom, unreliable erection, lack of
pleasurable sensations, or inability to reach orgasm, may be used by your
conscious mind as a smoke screen, a mask, a clever device to cloud and confuse
the real issue. Freud and other psychotherapists have written volumes about our
unconscious, neurotic and psychotic defenses. All of us are masters at hiding
the truth from ourselves.  But how many of us are brave enough to tackle our
deception, delve into the turmoil in our minds, and strive to reach for a level
of authenticity, truth and joy in our lives?

Once we journey inside to our own core, the healing process
has already begun.  This is what Reawakening is all about.  We reconnect to
those lost parts of ourselves, those parts that hold us back from good
feelings, from connection, from love.  Aren't we all attracted to and in awe of
a person who seems self-confident and secure?  Wouldn't you like to approach
life, love and romance on a sure footing?  Let's begin to celebrate the joy of
life and the wonder of our own precious relationships.

In your journal or on a clean sheet of paper, write the
heading

"My Commitment
to My own Sexual Reawakening."

Close your eyes and imagine your sexual reawakening
as a fête a complis, a completed event.  Imagine how you look and feel and
express yourself.  Imagine the people or non-human animals, plants, or elements
of nature that are sharing your good feelings with you.  Slowly open your eyes,
pick up your pen and write freely.  Do not censor your thoughts.  Write
whatever thoughts come to you. Read your commitment every day.  Add to it and
alter it as your feelings change.  But remember, it is your commitment, your
slow steady focused progress toward your final goal that will result in
transformation of your life.