How #metoo and Fear Will Make You Avoid Sex * | Listen to the Epic Couples Podcast | *
You want to know how #metoo affects you? Affects your relationship?
Fear is irrational.
Fear is illogical.
Fear doesn't live in the same place as rational, logical thought.
Fear lives inside the primal brain, a place responsible for basic functions like breathing, beating your heart, and surviving.
Fear doesn't speak in language.
Fear understands symbols.
Fear doesn't understand that what happened to you or your partner in the past isn't necessarily what's happening now. #metoo
Fear's purpose is to keep you alive.
And fear will make you avoid sex.
In this episode of the Epic Couples podcast, Shaun and I talk about the primal brain—what some people call the reptilian brain—and how it affects fear and sex and intimacy.
We talk about how tricking your brain may not be enough and how self-awareness is key. You'll hear me tell Shaun, “I want to have sex. How can we get me there?” while Shaun shares the fear that sends him into flight and freeze.
Ready to see what's going on with your primal brain?
Here are five steps you can take to develop self-awareness and observe fear's role in your sex life:
STEP ONE: Engage Your Imagination and Activate Your Bodymind
Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. I recommend three-to-five, but you can feel it out. Take as many breaths as it takes to calm your mind and to connect to your body.
Next, imagine your partner and you are having sex, making love, or being sexually intimate. Engage your five senses—sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell—and allow the experience to be real to your primal brain.
You can see your partner and your surroundings. You can hear sounds coming out of your own mouth, from your partner, maybe from lightly playing music. You can feel your partner's skin, the texture of the sheets, your clothing, or maybe the slipperiness of oil. You taste the remnants of your last meal, maybe something your partner fed you, or the taste of your partner. You smell oils diffusing, candles burning, or maybe your partner's pheromones and the smell of sweat.
STEP TWO: Scan Your Bodymind
As you imagine having sex with your partner, scan your body inside. Do you have any feelings of discomfort, fear, resistance or anything else like this? Do you have any sensations or feelings inside of you that you notice?
You may feel open or contracted, cool or warm, tight or loose, for example. Observe these, and maybe even write them down. Notice if they have a specific location.
STEP THREE: Take A Step Back
Now visualize you are just about to have sex with your partner. Scan your body from the tips of your toes to the top of your head. Do you have any sensations or feelings inside of you that may feel like discomfort, fear, or resistance? Are there any that are different from the last step?
Take note of these, too.
STEP FOUR: Take Two Steps Back
Finally, visualize yourself starting to take action towards having sex with your partner. Scan your body now. Are there any new sensations of discomfort, fear, or resistance? Are there any new feelings or thoughts you notice?
Acknowledge these.
STEP FIVE: Take It All In With Acceptance
You've just mapped your bodymind's wisdom around 1. having sex with your partner 2. just about to have sex with your partner, and 3. taking action towards having sex with your partner.
Take a few moments to see if you can sit with these sensations, feelings, and thoughts and allow them.
You might wish you felt differently. You might want to shame yourself or feel bad for feeling the way you do. Though all you need to do in this moment is accept where you're at.
This is the wisdom of your body, the wisdom of your primal mind, the emotions of your limbic system, and the thoughts of your cortex. They are all in service of you. They are all in service of keeping you alive.
See if you can allow them. Be curious if there's a part of you that can accept them.
And then breathe.
Just breathe.
I'm here with you, and I invite you to take the opportunity to reach out to me and share what you experienced, what you go through, and even what you've been through.
#metoo is just the start to opening up a conversation about how women, men, and all people can heal their sex, love, and relationships to experience epic sex, epic connection, and an epic life.
And it starts with feeling the fear.
All, all, all my love,
Daniela
