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A post shared by M U H A M M E D S A L A H (@muhammedsalah_) on Sep 24, 2019 at 3:43pm PDT

There is a feminine sexual empowerment revolution going on. And for the most part, you may agree, this is a good thing.

Women have been cut off from a deep relationship to their pleasure and sexuality for far too long. Two thousand years of mass shaming of feminine sexuality has taken its toll, creating pain, confusion, dysfunction, and disconnection for all of us.

Therefore a revolution of sexual empowerment is not only necessary for women, but also a sign of healing and evolution on a much larger scale. It is also one of the most direct ways to address the patriarchal repression of the feminine.

As a healer and teacher who works with women’s sexual healing and empowerment I am in full support of women—all women—reclaiming an empowering and shame-free connection to their sexual nature.

And yet I feel deeply moved, to speak about something even more important than waking up our sexual power. Let’s talk about developing integrity around our use of power.

Let’s speak about why integrity is so necessary, particularly when working with sexual energy.

Sexual energy is a great magnifier. It will expand whatever it is mixed with.

This means that when your sexual energy becomes strong and connected to the heart or the universe, that force of primal energy can work as profound rocket fuel for healing and awakening, both personally and collectively.

Most women find that their power and vitality is boosted considerably by cultivating the connection to their creative sexual energy. I found my whole life changed into a wild, creative, and juicy adventure once I was permanently tapped into the flow of sexual energy flowing within me and through me. It would be almost impossible to go back to a limited relationship with my sexuality.

In my work teaching sexual energy activation practices, I’ve found that most women on the path of exploring feminine embodiment and sexual empowerment are looking for more ease and joy in their bodies and lives after being raised by a generation of women mostly cut off from ease, joy, and ecstatic bliss states.

But the necessity and benefit of sexual empowerment are perhaps seen most clearly in the lives of the many women worldwide who have embarked on a journey of sexual empowerment to heal and transform their personal stories of shame and trauma.

For these women—and damn there are lots of them—the process of creating an inner connection to their sexuality allows them to heal deeply entrenched wounds resulting from sexual trauma and even the more subtle the wounds resulting from patriarchal sexual education and its resulting, distorted sexual experiences.

We women who have previously struggled with our sexuality, either through feeling completely disconnected from our sexual organs or only relating to their sexuality in dysfunctional ways, can begin to feel dramatic changes in our health, vitality, and levels of self-worth and respect as a result of working with our sexual energy with intention and love.

This is the ideal. In these cases, the empowered sexual energy we cultivate is harnessed on a personal level for healing and transformation. When approached in this way, everyone in our lives benefits.

But what if sexual energy is awakened without the intention to channel this energy for healing, liberation, and transformation?

What if the power is used consciously or unconsciously to manipulate rather than connect to a higher power?

Or, let’s put it this way: what if we develop our sexual power without doing the work of bringing our unconscious patterns to awareness?

The danger in doing it this way is that the boost of power will magnify our blind spots, distortions, and manipulation—the power games, the separation, the ego bullsh*t. We might begin to use our sexual energy to get validation from outside of ourselves and play with our increased power to do so.

It might seem pretty obvious to some that we have to balance our expansion of power with our deep work on the parts of ourselves lurking in the shadows.

In some indigenous cultures, there is a natural emphasis on preparing a man or woman to be ready to hold power before giving them the keys. In these cultures, it is common sense—the kind of common sense that consumerist culture lacks the sensitivity to attune to.

No, this kind of thinking isn’t as common as we might think. We might be blind to the ways that we are not tapping into or using our sexual power with integrity.

When I began working with women new to tantric sexuality and who had not been on a deep inner journey of self-exploration and self-healing, I noticed that many of them initially didn’t get the point.

I noticed that many women saw sexual power as something that you used to “get something.” Perhaps this is a by-product of a culture that does not guide women to connect with the power inside of them. In the absence of an inward connection to love and true power, sex becomes a bargaining tool to get what you want.

Here are some of the distortions that can arise when power is not balanced with integrity:

1. The part of us that wants to be wanted hijacks the show and creates messy relating dramas leading to more confusion and power games.

2. Addictive energy is given a new way to feed its desire for power and stimulation.

3. Instead of using sexual energy as a force for healing that is beyond us, we begin to identify with being powerful and abuse rather than use our sexual power for benefit.

If this sexual empowerment movement is going to serve as an evolutionary force rather than just another power game, it is imperative to re-route our approach to sexuality, to connect sexual energy to something larger and wider than own personal list of desires.

How do we get the benefits of sexual empowerment without it turning into an ego trip?

Ultimately, when it comes to power of any kind, especially sexual power, the keyword is humility.

We need to honor sexual energy as a precious and sacred power to keep far away from the clutches of our inner wounded little girl or boy.

Sexual energy needs to be approached with the highest and clearest of intentions.

Here’s what that looks like:

1. An emphasis on self-reflection, meditation, and exploring our shadows.

2. An active balance between extreme processes and time for quietness and integration.

3. Being held accountable through mentoring from mature people or elders who can support and guide us as we explore our blind spots.

If we “play” with sexual energy or manipulate it even in subtle ways, we contribute to the global distortion we see showing up in the form of toxic porn, and widespread abuse.

The point is not to be a sexual superstar, or a tantric goddess or god. The point is to bow down to life and use this potent form of sexual energy to expand our consciousness—to use it to be channels for big and divine healing love.

In the growing culture of sexual empowerment, this is worth mentioning over and over again.

Let’s call ourselves and each other up to the next level of integrity and transform this world with a clean and clear use of sexual energy.

After all, we are all susceptible to the subtle ways that we can (often unconsciously) f*ck with power.