Many women struggle to feel authentically connected to their own sensuality.

There are tons of sex and pleasure coaches who want to offer a solution, claiming that if we focus on pleasure and orgasms, then we will have tons of feminine sensuous desire coursing through our veins.

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.

Many who struggle to connect to their pleasure have deeper blocks that make it feel like it’s just not possible for them and forcing it feels inauthentic. It’s hard to “mindset” our way out of pleasure repression because the blocks to pleasure live deeper than our minds, deeper than our positive affirmations, and yes, even deeper than our orgasms.

Long-held negative beliefs we have about our bodies and sexuality create energetic blocks which can manifest as physical tension that affects the way we move, the way we breathe, and even can tighten the muscles of our face, changing the way we look! They block our freedom of expression, making it hard to even know what authenticity means for us. For many, this has been going on for so long they believe that this lack of freedom is just a part of their personality.

The way to undo these energetic blocks isn’t to force sensuality or to try to embody “goddess-y” feminine energy. Forcing this can actually do more harm than good, implying that a deeply embodied woman has a mold to fit into, a formula to follow, and a desired image to aspire to.

This can cause a woman to feel inadequate if she doesn’t think she measures up to the images shown to portray the ideal feminine expression, or she may feel even more “broken” if this energy doesn’t come as easily as advertised.

In healing sexuality, we must first work on healing the trauma that keeps us from feeling safe to experience ourselves fully. Trauma is the residual tension and reactivity in the nervous system created from a single big event or a series of events that made you feel unsafe, unloved, or unworthy.

Whether big or small, we react by mentally disconnecting from the body in order to avoid the discomfort of feeling the present moment. The long-term cost of this disconnection might mean losing contact with pleasure and sensation. When we feel safe enough to be present with the subtle sensations of our bodies, sex can become a deeply healing and even sacred experience.

Everyone has the ability to experience their body as powerful, pleasureful, and fully alive, but each person needs to find this in their own unique way.

Since most people learned to hide their sensuality and limit their embodied freedom early on, it might feel a bit awkward for them at first to reconnect to their authentic expression. It’s also possible that trauma may emerge when they start to feel things they’ve been avoiding feeling.

If we try to force a sensual awakening without being trauma-informed, we could end up re-traumatizing someone who actually needed to focus on “lighter” modes of embodiment such as presence, breath, and movement to learn to feel safe in their body, before diving into the sometimes tumultuous waters of sexuality.

The process of embodiment is about first learning what your authentic expression even is, then working to clear away all the crap that stands in its way. Pleasure comes from here. True power comes from here. Deeply satisfying relationships come from here.

This is why I deeply believe trauma work should supersede pleasure work, to clear the pathway so the full you can come forward, and so that no part of you is left behind on the journey toward better orgasms.