Ecstatic Embarrassment Syndrome

 

I’m currently teaching a women’s sexuality circle, and the morning after the second one, I had both the thought of “Why haven’t I/we been doing this all along?” and “I fully understand why I haven’t led these kinds of circles for years.”

Because opening to sexual energy requires nothing less than our complete surrender, vulnerability, trust and courage-which is what humans, including me, are most afraid of.

And the mind can easily dismiss sexual practice as not having value, because like meditation, it is relatively simple.

I’m currently studying with two teachers now who are essentially giving me a review of what I learned over a decade ago, but was too afraid at the time to share with other women. The information has been in me all along, but while some are able to simultaneously teach what they most need to learn, I needed another ten years to deeply trust my own experience before I could teach others.

When I came out ten years ago, attempting to teach sacred sexuality and offer orgasmic demonstrations of running Kundalini or sexual life force energy through my body, I was not prepared for the judgment I would come up against — especially from women. 

I was not prepared for women feeling intimidated, threatened and even scared to witness the flow of sexual energy.  Nor was I ready to meet the doubt that would arise in me in the face of others’ shame, fear and judgment.

And I can perfectly understand the frustration of women witnessing who were not having the same experience, who may have wanted to ask questions, but didn’t know how to articulate them, or were too afraid to ask because they thought they were the only ones whose sexual energy wasn’t flowing.

Women need to start talking to each other about our real sexual experiences and how we experience sexual desire, arousal and pleasure.

Though we communicate intimately with each other on so many subjects, I find women are still afraid to be vulnerable and trust each other regarding our sexuality. 

There is a shyness and competitiveness in revealing what we are able or unable to experience. But it is through communication that women can help each other to trust what we feel in our bodies — some of which can be so subtle we can easily toss our experience out as imagination  — or so overwhelming we become afraid or embarrassed to share out of fear of being an outcast.

As I watched a film of myself today doing my pleasure practice, undulating, shaking and laughing, I looked possessed. Though my experience was one of deep bliss, it looked more like I was having a mental breakdown.

“How is opening to sexual energy functional for a woman in the world?” I asked myself as an outsider watching.  “How can a woman let go and open to the chaos of her sexual energy while balancing the responsibilities of work, children and home?”I heard the voice of one woman who had attended my first sexuality class, but not the second, saying she had just too much going on right now. 

The questions continued.

“Doesn’t this energy only add to the stereotype of how women tend to be hormonal, emotional, irrational and can not be trusted to make important decisions?”

“Would awakening this energy in the collective be detrimental to all the hard won respect and power women have gained in the work place?”

“Aside from turning on our lovers and a little more pleasure in our lives, what are the benefits of learning how to awaken and channel our sexual energy?”

First, being that sexual energy is life force, the stuff life is made out of, it makes sense that learning how to cultivate it would increase our vitality, health and longevity. Second, sexual energy is creative force.  It’s not just what human babies are made of, but also what plants, stars and all the poetry, songs and paintings of the world are made of.

And like any other form of creativity, learning the art of flowing our sexual energy is possible for everyone.

Similarly to how we must practice the guitar or piano before we can get good at it, so women must also practice awakening our pleasure body.

With all the shadow work we’ve done in recent years to release our pain bodies, you’d think opening to our pleasure would be a breeze.

But it’s actually way more vulnerable to open to our pleasure than our pain.  Because the pleasure body is new territory for most and requires an even deeper level of trust and surrender. Especially when we can’t attach our pleasure to something outside of us, like a sunset or a lover’s touch or a piece of chocolate cake. Especially when we must be the source of our experience.

I would like to distinguish these outside-sourced experiences of pleasure from pleasure that is sourced from within.

Just like we grow exponentially in consciousness when we take responsibility for our pain (as we’ve learned from all of our shadow work), so it is true for pleasurable experiences. 

And the more we awaken our pleasure body, the more pleasurable experiences we will have.  And the richer, more multi-dimensional quality of experience we will have.

As we become practiced, we learn that even in our deepest pain, there is pleasure and even in our highest states of ecstasy, there is also pain.  We learn that life isn’t just a series of random painful or pleasurable experiences, but always our choice to open or close.

When I watched the film of me in my pleasure practice again, beyond the beauty and strangeness of my ecstatic expression, I saw my courage. 

I saw how much courage it takes for a woman not only to open to enormous energy that is beyond herself, but to allow it to express through her and be witnessed by others who might judge or abandon her.

I saw the courage of ecstatic women, like Margot Anand and Shakti Malan, Sofia Diaz and Michaela Boehm, who have been putting their vulnerable selves out there, teaching this sacred, sexual work to women for years.  Inspired by them, I made a promise to myself to not go back in the closet this time — to stay open, trust my body, and share my experiences — to stand in the fire of teaching again until women all over the world are undulating, shaking, laughing and feeling their deep sexual pleasure on a daily basis.