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Let’s face it – even though sex is everywhere these days, most of us are not comfortable talking openly about our sexuality and desire. And this is not necessarily because we’re shy or we self-censor. When it comes right down to it, free-expression about the sex you have or want to have is still incredibly taboo in most cultures across the globe.
Yet, a healthy, expressive sex life is an essential part of a healthy, expressive life!
To help me start a conversation about sex, I’ve invited my friend and Sexual Empowerment Coach, Amy Jo Goddard, to share her thoughts with us in this week’s article.
So much of Amy Jo’s work is about encouraging people to say what they desire. Often times, the desires we keep secret are the ones that hold the greatest potential to bring us the kind of fulfillment and satisfaction we seek. It takes courage and a willingness to be vulnerable to say what you want out loud. Yet, when you find your voice, you’ll have a better chance at finding your pleasure.
UNDERSTANDING YOUR SEXUAL VOICE BY AMY JO GODDARD
I’ve struck a chord with my dialogue on “Finding the Sexual Voice.” Some people feel like their sexual voice is stifled, and always has been. Others are completely out of touch with it. And, many want to know how they can shift their sexual voice to authentically get their needs met. In any case, to understand the sexual voice, we first have to break it down.
The sexual voice is two-fold: We all have an internal voice and an external voice.
INTERNAL
Your internal sexual voice is the way you talk to yourself about your sexuality, the way you treat your body, the way you think and what you think when you are having sex, the stories you have believed and continue to tell yourself about sexuality, your desirability and your sexual life and desires.
In my Women’s Sexual Empowerment program we focus on the sexual story and herstory in our first weekend retreat and we do a powerful exercise that allows us to look at our collective sexual story. It opens us up to seeing what kinds of stories women are carrying, how they are viewing themselves and defining who they are, and what they have held onto. It’s so powerful. I wish everyone could have that experience because it can allow us to see that we are not alone, that others have had similar experiences or stories about themselves and we can develop a deep compassion for ourselves when we are witnessed in our stories.
Your internal story is what you carry around with you all the time. It’s the way you frame your sexuality and what happens to you inside. There are always embedded beliefs in the sexual story we carry internally. Things like, “It’s not normal that I don’t have orgasms, there must be something wrong with me.” Or “I’m not attractive enough/sexy enough/sexual enough/exciting, etc.” Or “I’ll never heal from my sexual abuse.” Or “I’m too old for sex…”
Hopefully we have positive beliefs about our sexuality that we carry: “I am totally lovable.” “I’m capable of amazing orgasms and pleasure and I feel good about my lack of inhibition.” “I love my body and it’s abilities.” “I’m a sexually desirable creature.”
Your internal voice impacts how you feel in your body, in your relationships, how present you are in sex, how much you enjoy your sexuality, how inhibited you are, and how you express your sexuality on a daily basis. It is essential that you do some work around your internal voice, stories and beliefs so that you can have a healthy outlook and framework for your sexual life.
EXTERNAL
Your external voice is how you talk about your sexuality and your body, how you flirt and approach people, how you put yourself out there, how you ask for what you want, and express your desire.
Your external voice will mirror some of the internal stories and your internal voice. Your level of positivity or negativity about sex, your insecurities, your frustrations, your healthy view of yourself, and your confidence all stem from that internal voice and are expressed verbally, emotionally and energetically.
Most people get really stuck in finding their external sexual voice for a variety of reasons. I can remember when I was younger the way a frog would get stuck in my throat when I wanted to express something in a sexual situation. If I wanted to make a request or ask for an adjustment it could feel like the hardest thing to do. I know many people struggle to tell a partner they want something different or to offer any instruction because then maybe their partner will get discouraged or think they are doing it wrong, or maybe it will hurt their feelings.
There are many ways the external voice shows up during sex. How do you communicate in the moment? How do you ask for what you want when you are in the throws of it? How do you shift gears? How do you make inviting requests?
There is a larger conversation that must happen around sex, and when you establish it with a partner, it becomes much easier to offer this kind of feedback: talking about what is working and what is not, talking about new desires and wishes, and discussing how to improve or build your sexual relationship.
Nothing builds deeper and more meaningful intimacy than learning to talk about sex in a way that feels empowered, exciting and fun. And even when it’s hard, it brings you closer. This is why I work with people so much on how to have these conversations and how to set up their sexual relationships for success and intimacy.
Now that you understand the dichotomy of the sexual voice, you can start to notice your patterns and responses within each aspect, and gather tools to break through to your authentic, empowered sexual voice.
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As a Sexual Empowerment expert and thought leader, Amy Jo Goddard has guided thousands of people towards the wholeness and fulfillment they want, sexually and in other aspects of their lives. She earned her Master’s degree in Human Sexuality Education from New York University and has 20 years of experience in the sexuality field. As a renowned speaker and teacher, Amy Jo travels to colleges, communities, and conferences teaching classes and offering keynotes that help people to connect the dots around sexuality and money, expand their creativity, grow their confidence and learn to be bigger in their relationships, in business, and in the world.
She delivered her TEDx talk “Owning Your Sexual Power” in March, 2014 in Napa Valley, was named one of GO! Magazin’s “100 Women We Love” in 2010 and one of Kinkly’s ”100 Sex Blogging Superheros” in 2013.
Amy Jo is also the author of the upcoming book, WOMAN ON FIRE: 9 Elements to Wake Up Your Erotic Energy, Personal Power and Sexual Intelligence.
This week I want to talk about personal power and empowerment. What does it mean be in your power? What gets you there, what holds you there, and what gets you off track? When you know more about these dynamics you are able to harness really deep forces for creation and transformation.
What does it mean? The term empowerment was popularized in the 80’s. It was based on the idea of “giving to, or increasing, the strengths of other groups of people whether those are educational, spiritual or otherwise.” Personal empowerment then became a buzz phrase for when we “give” ourselves back our own power or when we feel our own sense of power without the need to hold it over another.
Like many expressions of the personal development field, the phrase personal empowerment states something in a way that helps us understand how to shift our perspective. We have the ability to do or say things that will give us more power. We have the ability to hold our power in a way that is more about our deep respect for our self than it is about holding it over or using it on another. Personal power and our own empowerment is the result of our knowing we have the ability to choose and in influence the many aspects of our life.
What gets you there? If we have the ability to empower ourselves then how do we do this? What are the practical everyday types of things that you can do to feel confident and able to move forward with whatever you want to create in your life.
From an energetic perspective, being in our power overlaps with other experiences such as being centered, grounded, connected to our self, or clear (other expressions that help us understand HOW to be more powerful.) When we cultivate these states, we cultivate a stronger sense of personal power.
What holds you there? Once we have discovered our own power, we soon find that we can just as quickly lose sight of it. To stay connected with our power, we need to put ourselves in environments that support us and learn how to support ourselves. We need to need to take care of ourselves in the deepest way possible. And, be more and more aware of the situation in which we lose touch with our personal power.
What gets you off track? Standardly, what gets people off track are the core patterns that disempowered them in the first place. Somewhere along the line, you were hurt while being in your fullness and this had you take a dramatic action to try and protect yourself. Once we have reclaimed our power we are most likely to let it go when we face replicas of these past events. You can easily find out what gets you off track by figuring out what you are afraid of or afraid of having happen.
Why is this really important? Staying connected to your personal power is foundational to being able to create the life and business that you want. Without it, we do not know how to see each situation as an opportunity and each moment as a choice. This limits what we can create and often leaves us playing the role of the victim rather than the role of the victor.
What is personal power and how can you connect to it and use it to propel your life? This week on Real Answers Radio, Dr. Kate discusses how personal power is linked to being able to create and manifest what you want in your life. From this perspective, tools for cultivating personal power are one of the most important things we can learn. Tune in to explore what being empowered really means and what you can do to step for fully into it.
Living our purpose is the key to our fulfillment. Creating both an inner and outer positive impact through living our life purpose will take us beyond what we might have seen as possible. When stepping into our purpose this way, we will experience a depth of meaning and harmony. We become less afraid of outcome and more able to face difficult truths. We become this way because we are doing exactly what we are best able to do.
Each and every one of us will not feel satisfied or fulfilled in our lives until we understand the power we hold. For example, if I go to work and believe my actions and interactions are meaningless regardless of what my job is, this will have a negative effect on how I perceive my life and how much meaning it has. Or, if I perceive myself as a victim in all circumstances ― feeling as though the world sets me up to knock me down ― I will shy away from actions that might prove otherwise. As a result, I am likely to create situations that prove I am at the mercy of the world. This perspective will leave me blaming others, feeling resentful, and feeling stuck.
On the other hand, if I see my actions ― regardless of my situation ― as having the potential to have a positive impact and to be within my control, I will feel more positive about my life, more excited by my choices, and, ultimately, more deeply fulfilled and satisfied. More than that, if I see a situation that is dangerous, negative, or hurtful, I will feel it is possible for me to take action in a positive way. As a result, I will see even more positive effects and will likely find it easier to face even more challenging circumstances in a more positive way. This makes a profound difference in my life and the lives of others.
Think of this in terms of your life’s purpose. In order to move toward your life purpose you will need to feel as though what you are doing makes a difference ― that you are capable of making a difference at least in your own life. Otherwise, there is no reason to bother.
Whatever it is that you feel passionately about, you can do it! You were meant to do that thing more than anything else. Think about yourself in the terms that Alan Watts used: “You are the perfect expression of the universe exactly where you are in this moment.” Or, as Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: “The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray.”
When you begin to see yourself as a being who is connected organically to the rest of the world ― whose personal wants are whispers of the universe ― then you can begin to see your work as imperative, but less personally driven. Of course, because you are doing exactly what you want to do, you benefit as well. Following what you love and exploring the ideas and options that emerge is a great way to hone your ability to envision a different future for yourself and others. The thing is, people often think that there is some secret to finding out what you really love. However, this is not the case. The biggest thing that you need to do is pay attention to when you are feeling good. If you have not felt good in a while, then think about a time when you were happy –even if it means thinking back to when you were a kid. Want to build on this? Think of a time that you lost track of time because you were so engrossed in an activity. These are the cues that show you your purpose.
The following questions that get you to think outside of the limitations you have placed on yourself are also helpful in getting clear on your purpose. If money were no issue, how would you spend your time? Or, if you could do anything, what would your ideal day look like? One of my favorites, is list people you are jealous of and why. (The why is something you want more of in your life.)
The fact of the matter is that once you know what you love, the key is doing as much of it as possible. It is when we do more of what we love that we uncover and clarify our purpose as well as make our lives much more fulfilled. Sometimes, it can feel a bit overwhelming or out of reach to bring what we love into our life. So, start small. Small, consistent changes make a huge difference over time. Set goals for yourself. So, you can be clear about and proud of your progress as you bring in more and more of what you want.
Tune into this hour of Real Answers Radio as Dr. Kate discusses how to tap into your passion and purpose and most importantly, how to take that passion and use it to craft more and more pleasure, happiness and deep satisfaction in all that you do.
Along with self-care, the idea of “what we deserve” can be riddled with entitlement. However, what it basically means is that we are willing to take in the same amount that we put out -that we are willing to create balance and health in our lives.
Let’s take a moment to tune in and pay attention to what is going on inside of us.
What are you rationalizing, making excuses for, and in general tolerating in your life because you really want something and are willing to get a fraction of it because somewhere deep inside you believe that might be the best you are going to get?
Or, maybe, it does not even get that conscious. Maybe you just settle before even becoming aware of it.
So, let’s wake up. Life is truly to short to be anything less than our full and fabulous selves. It is not a matter of entitlement. It is a matter of stewardship. Ultimately, what serves this life that you are living –what affirms it.
Move in that direction every chance you get. It is a recipe for fulfillment and success.
There are some things that maintaining our victimhood gives us. People are less likely to challenge us or try to over power us. Often they are willing to give us our way if we have had a hard enough time. We have a tendency to think that we are less responsible for our actions and emotions. And, with all the privilege that we have victims actually have a bit of social capital.
The hardest thing about playing the victim is that the last thing that we want to do is admit that it is what we are doing –how embarrassing! However, spotting it and transforming it could be one of the most amazing transformations of our life.
Let’s be clear here. There are some points in our lives where we may have been victimized and there are people who experience this again and again in their lives. This has serious repercussions and I am most certainly not saying get over it to this.
However, some of us might benefit from moving on and becoming more empowered –using our power directly rather than passive aggressively with others.
How do you know if this is you? Here are some clues that you might be being a victim:
If you do chances are you are justifying things as being out of your control or somebody else’s fault –and that is the territory of the victim.
Here is what you can do instead:
Have you ever felt victimized in your life or met someone who is constantly be running the “poor me” story and feels completely powerless to change their reality? Chances are you have. We all have at one point in our lives felt like victims, but why is it that some people identify with the personality of victimization while others choose to get up, reclaim their personal power and take full responsibility for the outcomes they have manifested in their lives? And why is it that people who are compassionate tend to attract victims to their lives? Or why do victims sometimes end up as perpetrators and lash out at those who are trying to help them?
Victimization is an epidemic in our society and in this article we will uncover the minute details of the Professional Victim Archetypes and its multiple manifestations and relationship dynamics. Remember that these are archetypes, personas and manifestations of the shadow self. Do not confuse the description of the archetypes with your essence or the essence of another person, for no one is truly a victim, but rather some of us simply have chosen to unconsciously identify with these archetypes.
Professional Victim Persona:
Victim of the world. Blames everyone and everything, including their own incompetence, irresponsibility and even predatory behaviors. Victims expect special treatment or exemption from life because he/she is so fragile and decimated by tyrants. They will often attack even those who are trying to help them and may often collapse into dysfunction “you can’t expect anything from me.”
Addictions: powerlessness, worry and cynicism
Goal: regain safety
Fear: exploitation
Issue: Is “victimized” by the conditions required by solutions. In order for victims to heal their victimization they must take full responsibility for their life and its outcomes.
Virtue: once the victim persona is transcended the person becomes interdependent.
Victims point the finger of blame at everyone else except themselves. Blaming everyone (family, relationships, co-workers, friends, teachers, healers, coaches, etc.) and everything (government , media, weather, economy,etc.) for why they are unhappy and life is such a struggle. Victims do not take responsibility for their own happiness, they believe that the responsibility for their happiness is owed to them by other people. Victims find compassionate people and then blame them because they are not happy. People who are identified with the victim persona are not fun to be around because even compassionate people will eventually turn into tyrants in order to get rid off the victim. At first when a compassionate person engages with a victim they think “I must help him/her” and they do anything possible to help this person. Then the victim keeps blaming the compassionate person because they are not happy or not feeling well and then one day the compassionate person who is playing the Rescuer Archetype explode and turns into the tyrant.
Victim-Persecutor-Rescuer Complex:
If you play the rescuer and the person you are rescuing does not need it, they will lash out and victimize you. When they become the persecutor and victimize you, later they are likely to feel guilty and try to save you as well, making them the rescuer. If a person plays one of these roles then they will most likely end up playing all three. These roles tend to cycle and repeat over and over again – a classic “karmic loop.”
Victims are very addicted to the emotions of hatred and pity. They project their own self hatred to others and constantly tell their “poor me” story so that other people feel pity towards them. Victims are energy vampires and they extract energy from other people who have pity for them. Another way victims get their energy is by putting a guilt trip on everyone by blaming them. This is exactly why compassionate people tend to attract victims.
Compassionate People Persona:
If a compassionate person has unresolved guilt from past lives, the guilt makes us blind to victims.Our willingness to help other people because we are trying to get rid of our own guilt makes us easy prey for victims. Compassionate people are often emotionally addicted to the need to be needed. There is a big difference from TRUE COMPASSION and emotional neediness.. Sometimes true compassion requires us to tell victims that we will not accept their guilt anymore and ask them to leave.This is compassion because it encourages the victim to become independent and sovereign.
Victims will often say “I have tried everything” as an excuse to avoid taking responsibility and will blame the methods, techniques and healers for their own unhappiness. Many people in the coaching and healing industry are compassionate people with good intentions that unfortunately attract a lot of victims who only want to do is suck their energy and are not really committed to become their own rescuers, take responsibility and do the work that needs to be done. Although victims have tried many different approaches, many victims will keep telling themselves and other people same story of how “my life was devastated”, “I’m so unlucky”, “life has been so cruel”, “some of us are not meant to be happy” or “no matter what I do nothing works”. Their reality will never change as long as they keep running and identifying with the same story. As long as they expect other people to “make” them happy and do all the work for them NOTHING will change, they might get a relief but soon enough they will go back to their own ways. We all have seen people who have gone through incredible hardships of abuse, poverty and other misfortunes only to become people who inspire others with their stories of success, happiness and triumph. All of them have one thing in common, they didn’t let their circumstances define who they were and they became extremely hungry and believed they could defy all odds. They simply changed their story, gave it a new meaning and took massive action to achieve what they envisioned.
If you have identified with the Victim Persona it is time to clear this energetically from your field and reclaim your personal power. Only then will you be able to take full responsibility for your own happiness, take charge of your life and become ALIVE again. If you are a compassionate person or you are playing the Rescuer Archetype is time to energetically clear your unconscious guilt, the need to be needed and begin to focus on helping those who actually are willing to receive your help and will benefit from it. If you were once a victim and someone told you to leave, be grateful for the opportunity to become independent and sovereign.
Commit to eradicate all thoughts, behaviors, words and rituals that resonate with victimization, blame and guilt. Take full responsibility, embody your personal power and become the master of your own destiny.
reblogged from ascendedrelationships.com
There is a reason you are the person you are. Really! Everything that exists has a place — and that includes you.
It is easy to feel like you don’t have a place. I felt like that for most of my life. When we feel like this, we can start to believe that we need to change ourselves in order to make things work. This is likely to be the first in a long line of mistakes! The only way we can make it work is by being ourselves and doing things the way we know they need to be done.
Of course, I am not saying that each of us does not have a lot to learn — we have a ton to learn from others and the world around us. Sometimes, learning requires us to temporarily set aside our own way of doing things — but only temporarily. We need to integrate what we learn into who we really are.
Both fulfillment and success result from being ourselves and living the expression of who we are. What I find is that people are not taught how to connect deeply to their own inner truth and wisdom. Most people go through life not even knowing what that means. We are taught myriad things in school and at home — such as how to set a table and do math — but most schools and homes are filled with adults who have no better sense of how to connect to themselves than the children do.
One way to connect with our essence is to write out our values. By creating a list of our values and why they are significant to us, we are able to gain access to what we find most important. This is who we really are. This is what we are meant to bring forward into the world.
Ever had that experience, where you are in a group of people, possibly those you consider as friends and join in the conversation, only to find someone changes the subject or talks over you?
Ever had the experience of instinctively knowing a plan, solution or process that would enhance your business, team or company only to find your suggestions/comments ignored?
Ever had the experiences of being told what to think, do or say?
How often have you had that feeling inside that the ‘Super Hero’ in you was trying to burst out? Maybe it was that feeling, deep down, of the freedom to spread your wings, expressing your individuality on seeing or hearing your favorite singer/actor/artist perform?
Then you come back from your lunchtime daydream or wake up at the start of yet another work day…into your current reality of invisibility. The frustration of knowing you are capable of so much more than your current life holds, yet having no idea of how to change it or how to become visible to the world, can be overwhelming.
I know…been there…done that!
It took me decades of being invisible to finally find how to make the changes and the secret key turned out to be inside me all the time. After spending years and years suffering other people’s insults, abuse, derision and control, I had the biggest challenge in accepting to myself I created all those experiences and I was the one keeping myself invisible!
Let me explain what happens energetically and scientifically, to make it so you create your own experiences and invisibility cloaks, as each of these are examples of allowing yourself to be invisible. Yes, I did say allowing, let me explain the science behind this:
You project out the holographic perception of your beliefs, which energetically transmute into experiences and opportunities. This is a scientifically verified FACT.
Your cells take their signal from your beliefs, this triggers electrical impulses to the Frontal Lobe in the brain, from there to the Thalamus, your processing center and where the by product of thought is created. From here signals will go to the Occipital Lobe, your visual center and your Peritoneal Lobe , it is this that is the crucial part of the process. The peritoneal lobe projects the holographic perception of your reality…from the power of your belief.
Therefore your external experiences are a reflection of your point of belief. Getting the picture?
OK, so why do you do this? Where does it begin?
When you hold low self worth, don’t value yourself or find it hard to love who you are; this is what you project into the external world. This through the transmutation of energy create your external experiences. So you really do allow situations to happen.
More often than not, the low self worth is also a reflection of you feeling invisible to yourself. When you are invisible to yourself , you mirror this in your external world and become invisible to others.
Are you getting a sense of how you create this now?
Through my own work with clients, working back on where the feelings of being invisible come from, can more often then not, be traced through generations.
Negative emotional memories are passed from mother to child at cellular level.
We hold these in and around the cells, which is the reason why, even with the best will in the world to be positive, it only takes a small, negative incident to move you back into feeling negative, as it is still held at cellular level and until you accept and acknowledge this, only then can it be energetically released.
It is crucially important to begin understanding the power you hold inside and how this dictates your external world. Once you can accept this, you then have the ability to clear out the internal baggage and begin consciously creating your external world through changing your beliefs.
This process begins through observance, contemplation and meditation.
This can start with simply getting out in nature and allowing yourself to be still to get ‘tuned in’. Nature is naturally abundant and will always help in the energetic process.
Other than this, begin the regular practice of me time, time to go into contemplation and meditation; this time will allow you to identify where your low self worth, the invisibility comes from.
To be ‘seen’ in your external experiences you have to first be visible to yourself and this takes finding the strength in your vulnerability to admit and acknowledge your fears and release them.
reblogged from http://consciouslifenews.com