by Felice Dunas
Do you have a difficult time opening up sexually?
Are you able to reach orgasm easily, or is this a source of frustration?
Do you feel sexy and allow your partner to see every inch of you, or do you hide beneath sheets, making sure to turn off the lights?
Can you completely let go and surrender to ecstatic pleasure, or is something in the way?
And…do you worry you’re the “only one” who struggles with this?
As a doctor of Chinese medicine and a sex educator for over 30 years, I have a unique vantage point into people’s lives. Specifically, I’ve had the privilege of learning the most private details of the most public figures—including royalty, celebrities, and prominent business executives.
And I can tell you that you’d be very surprised—and comforted—to learn what really goes on in the private lives of people you think “have it together.”
Some of these people come to me because they have been unable to have truly fulfilling sexual experiences—and in many cases this has resulted in depression, loss of productivity, and relationship challenges.
Just like everyone else, outwardly successful people can feel like failures in the bedroom.
Nothing can be further from the truth—for them and for you. In fact, 3000 years of research prove that you can have incredible sex, no matter what emotional blocks you have around sex or what your sex life looks like now.
***Note: while this message is written predominantly for women, if you’re a man reading this, it will open your eyes to what your partner can be experiencing, which will in turn allow you to connect more with her—in and out of the bedroom.
Releasing Yourself From Blame And Leaving Shame In The Past
Do you feel there’s something wrong with you because you struggle when it comes to sex? If so, I want to put you at ease. I’m willing to bet you’re not to blame and that the culprit is something you may never have thought of: trauma.
Now, when most people hear “sexual trauma,” they often think it means rape, sexual abuse, or molestation. These are truly traumatic experiences that can adversely affect a person’s sexuality. I’ve helped people with this kind of trauma heal, find empowerment, and enjoy sexuality the way they were born to.
But trauma can be anything.
Maybe you had acne when you were 12 and still carry the emotional scars even though your skin has long cleared up. At that pivotal teenage moment of forging your identity, you looked in the mirror day after day and concluded that you were less sexually deserving than your smooth-skinned friends.
Or perhaps the first time you got naked with someone, your partner made a joke about the slight bulge in your belly—or the size or shape of your genitals or your breasts. Since then, you remember that moment every time you try on a bathing suit or feel a knot in your throat if someone starts moving his hands down your torso.
It could be that you developed much more quickly than your classmates, garnering the attention of not just boys, but grown men. You resorted to covering yourself up to hide your curves from the world.
Trauma is, simply put, anything that chips away at this beautiful bright crystal that is your sexuality.
See, your sexuality is not just your body—although advertising sure makes it appear that way. Sexuality is actually supremely linked to spirituality, and it encompasses what the ancient Chinese call “chi,” or vital life force.
Chi is energy that runs through your whole being, and it is both masculine (yang) and feminine (yin). Chi is literally what powers your physical and emotional health.
Trauma can upset the delicate balance of chi, causing you to close down sexually—especially if the trauma occurred early on.
The Roots Of Shame: Trauma And The Energy Of Childhood
Yang energy is giving and active. Yin energy is receptive. One is not better than the other; they are both essential.
Throughout our lives, the balance of yin and yang energy changes. Yin energy runs childhood, and since yin energy is very receptive, it is highly vulnerable.
This is why it is said that “a child is like a sponge”—soaking up everything he or she learns, including new languages. The downside of this is that a child can also be highly influenced and affected by negative stimuli.
So, if you were made fun of because you didn’t hit puberty as quickly as your classmates, this kind of criticism can be highly traumatic, making you feel unsexy as an adult. You’ll mature into a perfectly normal woman with a B-cup, but you’ll find yourself making excuses for your boobs. Instead of soaking up the adoration of a lover, you recoil into your 13-year-old self who stuffed her bra.
Or you could be enjoying yourself in sex and then suddenly sit up, grab the sheets, and start crying.
And that is because:
Love Brings Up Everything Unlike Itself To Be Healed
As you get more intimate with someone, trauma comes up.
Because the more you fall in love, the harder it is to hide. It’s easy to keep your “stuff” under wraps when someone isn’t getting too close. But start peeling back the layers—physically and emotionally, and the truth is there.
The more you reveal to each other—especially the scary parts you don’t want to show—the more love can bloom. You show your lover this little piece of you, and he stays. Then he shows you his secrets. Safety begins to develop, and with that, real intimacy.
It’s like a pendulum. If you avoid being vulnerable—if you stay tightly wound up and only allow a small part of you to be seen—then you wind up with an equally narrow relationship.
You need to go into the dark to find the light. You need to be willing to go into the darkness and bring your pain into the relationship.
The extent that you’ll talk about and share your pain and be vulnerable about it is the extent to which the pendulum will swing the other way and your relationship will deepen, healing will begin.
You must let your connection to yourself and to your partner be bigger than your trauma.
What may surprise you is that you don’t need to be healed before you can enjoy ecstatic sex. In fact, regular sex—done the right way—is actually one of the most powerful ways to gain empowerment over trauma and ultimately heal it.
How To Heal Trauma Through Ecstatic Sex
Trauma behaves like a burn. It sinks in deeper over time.
Trauma will shrink your willingness to explore all the joys and benefits sex can bring you. Because not only does it deny you one of life’s greatest pleasures, it can rob of you of tangible health and emotional wellbeing.
The patients I see who are closed off sexually tend to present with chronic fatigue, elevated stress levels and a myriad of aches and pains. They have low energy, have a hard time fending off colds and they report relationship dissatisfaction.
Many of these patients have “given up” on ever having satisfying sexual experiences, and this is where I can really help them.
Because if you face and acknowledge trauma, and don’t allow it to be bigger than you are, you can overcome it. I teach my patients how to gain power over their trauma by showing them how to fall in love with their sexuality and use it as a tool to improve every area of their lives.
In Passion Play, I can show you how to work with your trauma so as to help heal it, allowing you to discover the gorgeous sexuality that has always been with you.
You’ll learn how regular, skillful sex has the power to heal your emotional wounds and triggers, allowing you to fully experience ecstatic pleasure.
But skillful sex isn’t about reaching orgasm as quickly as you can. It’s not “10 Ways To Rock Your Man’s World In Bed Tonight.”
Skillful sex is sex that rises beyond animal instinct in order to heal and celebrate what makes us human. It’s sex that taps into the vital life force in your body, respecting the balance of yin and yang in a way that sets you up for optimal emotional and physical health.
When I work with a patient who has trauma, I consider how the energetic profile of this patient reflects the trauma they have experienced. It can show up in a myriad of ways: Heart heat causing anxiety, Liver congestion leading to addictions, Spleen yang resulting in eating disorders, or Lung yin resulting in asthma. The wave moves from outside the body inwards, knocking out delicate patterns of chi, causing chaos as it heads toward the organs.
Because sexuality goes beyond the act of sex, I’ll cover the same lifestyle and diet prescriptions I give my own patients, so you can improve your overall health and balance your energetic profile.
Through a detailed, illustrated eBook and video, I’ll teach you how chi powers your body and the symptoms that tell you when your energetic profile is out of balance. You’ll also get a PDF where I answer the 10 most popular questions I get about sex.
And skillful sex is not just for people in relationships. In Chapter 8 of Passion Play, you’ll learn how to get your sexuality in shape when you’re single so that you’re better able to attract a healthy relationship:
Dive Into PleasureThere is absolutely no reason for prior pain to keep you from experiencing one of life’s greatest pleasure. It’s my privilege to show you how.
Warmly,
P.S. Trauma is one of the 5 emotional barriers to great sex. To see if one of these barriers is keeping you from your fullest sexual potential, go here:
Emotional Barriers To Great Sex