So what is a Somatic Sexologist exactly?

When I tell people I’m a somatic sexologist, they often look blank. Melody Wright’s article, linked below, does not discuss sex but it does describe elegantly the somatic practitioner’s understanding of how stress is stored in the body and how we work with people to support its release. It may help you to understand more about what I offer.

Many problems within our sexual life are due to trauma or distress from past experiences being triggered by what’s happening now. The events that may leave trauma in our body can range from the seemingly small to the clearly challenging. The body, and especially the sensitive tissues of the genitals, can close down or numb out after eg. a sexual encounter that went wrong leaving us feeling ashamed or inadequate, an uncomfortable experience of penetration that we suffered through rather than telling our partner to stop or maybe simply teasing or unwanted attention about our body shape or experiences of puberty. Events such as these can all cause tension and distress that is held in the bodies tissues as well as the more obviously traumatic experiences of non-consensual, inappropriate or unwanted sexual touch at any age. 

Somatic practitioners understand that these are responses that you can’t think your way out of. What we can help you to do is to re-train your body using practices that support you to deactivate the sympathetic response of stress in your nervous system and activate the parasympathetic, rest, digest and repair mechanism. 

A somatic sexologist can support you to understand how this stress plays out in your body during or around sexual experiences and to develop confidence in your ability to regulate this. We can help you to reverse these stored responses, heal past wounding and as Melody says, to ‘create a more embodied, joyful life’.

If any of this rings a chord with you and you’d like to find out more about how we might work together please pop an email to consult@lauradoe.com and tee up a confidential, no obligation chat. Location is no issue as I work via Skype with people all over the world.

Melody Wright's article - Stress - It's not in your head, it's in your nervous system

On wombs, grief and talking to children about sexuality

Last night I sat in a room filled with parents, mainly mothers, who had come to hear me discuss how best to talk to their children about sexuality. Studies show that children who report having easy, open conversations about sex with mum and/or dad are more likely to do what most parents want for them; delay sexual activity, have fewer partners, and use contraceptives when they do have sex. However, when parents feel discomfort, shame or embarrassment on the topic, young people are left to learn about sexuality from friends, television, music, advertisements and the internet. These are sources which can present a skewed and at times even dangerous perspective. 

So how do we create the environment for these conversations, especially when most of us had very little effective modelling to draw upon? For many of us this calls us to attend to whatever remains of our discomfort around our own sexuality. More on this later.

This morning I've been reading an excellent book called Wild Feminine by Tami Lynn Kent. I'm at the chapter on mothering and the womb and, as with much of what Tami writes, her words resonate beautifully with my own understandings and experience. 

She speaks of the capacity of the womb to hold (create) and release energy and also of the depth of grief that she has encountered while working with women in their pelvic bowl. I'm well aware of the capacity of the sensitive tissues of the pelvis to hold and store unprocessed memory and emotions and the possibility of release with tender, loving touch, focused attention and breath.

The light that went on for me was when she spoke about the lack of grieving rituals in our culture. Not only do we not have a time or place set aside to grieve the small and the large losses of our lives, most 'modern' women do their best to ignore, cover up or minimise their body's monthly release of her womb's lining. And in doing so we miss this natural opportunity for grieving and letting go of whatever has passed in the previous month. Little wonder that so many of our bodies respond with pelvic and uterine issues, both those that involve heaviness, holding and unwanted growths and those that result in weakness and excessive release.

How would things change, I pondered, if we devoted just one hour of each menstrual flow to allowing ourselves to grieve for the losses and deaths of the previous month, both our own and those of our family, our nearest and dearest? For women after menopause and for people without wombs the natural timing for this would be the dark moon. The human body responds to the moon's cycles even without a womb lining that waxes and wanes.

Which brings me back to the parents meeting. I find that a good part of what colours our views on sexuality and thus what we present to our children is determined by our own experiences. Often the bad ones. The process of cleaning the slate so we can be clear about what we want to pass on can be well served by reviewing and taking time to grieve and let go of losses and disappointments in our own sexual history.

Although, for some this can be a more lengthy journey, a simple ritual with a clear intention can be very helpful. Here's a suggestion, that could be used, both for this process or as regular monthly ritual.

Take some time to reflect on and write down those events from your sexual experiences (or those of the past month) that are unresolved within you. Allow yourself to feel the feelings that arise. Give your self permission to grieve these losses. Self soothe with gentle touch and let the tears flow if they are there. When you feel complete then simply take the pieces of paper and throw them into a river or stream of moving water or burn them in a fire and watch them being released or carried away. 

And if you are considering how best to talk to your children about sex then I recommend that you give yourself a couple of days and then ask yourself the question 'What does my child need to know to have a happy and fulfilling sexual life?'. Guided by this reflection, your conversations will be more likely to contain what kids say they want from their parents - honest guidance about values and feelings. 

I'd love to know if this is useful - do let me know how you go.

The truth shall set you free

Exploring the underbelly of womens’ relationships with one another.

In the past six months two women in my women’s group have decided that it is time for them to leave the group and move on in their lives. For both women there was some sadness and regret and a sense that the group was not serving them in the way that they would have liked.

For me the decision in each case felt appropriate and reflected the way I see the differing desires and directions of the group as a whole and the individual women who chose to leave. But those of us who remain decided that we would take up the opportunity to inspect a little deeper any ways in which we may have failed to support the women who left and/or contributed to their sense of alienation.

We decided to explore the ‘underbelly’ of our group dynamics and those parts of our individual behaviour that, even after seven years of exploration together, we prefer to keep hidden.

It is a challenging but fascinating and liberating journey as we confess to one another facets of ourselves that we had hoped went unseen. It has really been like peeling the layers of the proverbial onion.

In the first week that we approached the topic I felt confident that I had addressed all the areas that I was still hiding. But as the weeks progress I realize that I had merely opened the door. I had been in denial about my denial! I suppose it is not surprising – blind spots are called just that because we find them so difficult to see. But choosing to shine a light on these murky areas within the safe container of a group of women who love you is very powerful indeed.

And the process feels more and more potent as it dawns on me that we are exploring things that are of major importance to the wellbeing of the feminine and to the re-establishment of women’s culture. In a world were the qualities and gifts of 'the feminine' have been devalued and denied in so many ways for such a long time it is not just ‘the masculine’ that does the oppressing. Women have also learned to oppress other women in order to survive. I believe we all have an ‘inner misogynist’ that seeks to align us with the power of the dominant paradigm by putting ourselves and other women down. How could we not? Doing so is so ingrained in the society that we live in.

And it is not just the undesirable qualities that we are finding we choose to hide! We have also revealed gifts and attributes that we are proud of but that we choose to minimise and keep hidden. But whether I see a hidden aspect of myself as desirable or otherwise, the process of allowing it to surface and to be seen for what it is has been equally powerful. Reaching for the truth is immensely cleansing and liberating. I highly recommend it!

Women's culture

Have we forgotten something?

In our struggle for equality with men.

Have we missed a crucial part of the picture
... a whole flip side of the coin?

Western "civilization" is a man’s world.
Women have struggled and in many areas succeeded in developing their masculine skills in order to successfully, survive, compete and excel in this masculine oriented culture. All credit to us.

But does it make us happy? Do we offer our greatest gifts? Does it serve the bigger picture?

And where is the world, the way of living, that is designed to support the feminine, that is home, nurturing, supportive, safe, natural for women? That acknowledges our unique (and very different from the masculine) qualities.
What of our cycles? The stages of a woman's life, maiden, mother, crone. During our fertile years, what of the monthly ebb and flow of our womb’s life nurturing lining. How could we imagine that we can stay full and nourished in a world that ignores these vital changes in a women's body and feeling nature. Our conditioning has been so compelling that we manage to believe that we have to squeeze our flowing, rhythmic nature into a narrow uniformity of weeks and weekends.
No wonder there is such an abnormally high ratio of disease in our feminine organs. Did you know that 12 hysterectomies are performed every 10 minutes in the USA? That hysterectomy is the second most common major operation performed in the United States (and many other countries) today, second only to .. you guessed it ... cesarian section!

Where is our women’s culture?

Are we missing a huge and vital portion ?
Are we missing the fact that we have lost all sight, all knowledge and even the sense that there should exist a women’s world to complement this man’s world?

If we have, then where it was lost/forgotten historically?

Did it start in the slow, subtle transference of allegiance from mother goddess to the one (masculine) God? .... alluded to (among other places) in Anita Diamant's "The Red Tent" , described in Susan Weed's article - The Goddess is Alive

Was it confirmed in the burning of the witches - the complete eradication of huge bodies of knowledge about birth, herbs and healing?
Was it compounded in the break up of the extended family during the industrial revolution?
Many traditional cultures retain their women's culture. But we are much smarter, more civilized, more modern then they. Aren't we?

What did you learn from your mother , your grandmother, your aunties and cousin's, your female lineage?

What women's culture is not (although it could be)

Knitting circles
Coffee mornings
CWA
Alone keeping house
Mothering in isolation

What might it be, then?

I’m not advocating that we turn the clock back and deny all the successes of the (civilized) masculine world (!@$)

But women urgently need to find a way home, a way to nurture our essential selves to revitalize and regenerate, to relax, to feel known and understood, recognized and deeply honored, to regain our self worth, our sense of beauty and dignity no matter what age or shape our body’s form might be, to share and to hear and to learn from women’s story, her-story, myths and mysteries, to sing and to weave, to create and to give birth, to laugh and to dance, to grieve and to celebrate, to delight in our bodies sensual feeling nature, to recognize that here are a myriad of facets to the diamond of women’s culture and these jewels can only be gained in the company of other women.

What can we do?

Rome wasn’t built in a day

We can start by taking time out on a regular basis to connect deeply with other women.
I don’t mean a coffee and a chat about the kids or even a d&m with a girlfriend about our problems or our love life, although those are good things to do. I mean a space and time set aside (and with intention made sacred) for women to gather and nurture one another with touch, acknowledgment and loving reflection. A time for body oriented expression, dancing, massage, sensuality, rage and delight. A place where it is OK to be exactly who we are.

I have had the privilege of being part of such a group that has met weekly for the past four years. It is the well that I drink from that nourishes and revitalizes me and gives me the strength to carry on. I have felt sick when I arrived and left feeling well. It is the place that I can come happy or sad, ebullient or broken-hearted and I will be seen and loved and leave refreshed. It is place where every facet of my woman-self is welcome. It is my place, my women's culture.

I will write more about this and other things and if this blog could support women to start to reconnect with one another and themselves in this or any other way then I would be a very happy camper. That is my intention and my heartfelt wish. So may it be.