Beyond Broken

Wendy’s Blog

Healing The Shame Of Sexuality

(Photo taken at Ephesus, a Greek and then Roman city that flourished around the time of Christ)

 

I have been exploring Dan Siegel’s Wheel of Awareness in which he describes the hub of awareness as the center of ourselves and the spokes and rim as the things we take in from the  outside world: our senses, our mind thoughts, our relationships, our body sensations.

Practicing this for several days I became interested in my hub, the essence of me that is me — the center.

This is a new variation on many practices of I have tried over the years.  I have always found some resistance to going into the center of myself.  In the past I have  thought I was afraid of how little would be there, that I would find that I am really just made up of everything going on outside of me.  I am very ‘other’ focused.

This time I began to notice something new stir in the center of my being.  The word feminina came into my consciousness.   It is a word my husband uses to refer to me often.  The word means feminine in Portuguese.  I have noticed that I have a slight aversion to him calling me this name.

This aversion, as I really explore it, contains a lot of strong emotions and is a microcosm of myself as a sexual woman — fear, shame and lust.  In the center of my being I find my sexuality as an integral part of the essential me!

When I was becoming a woman at age 14, my mother was becoming a man.  She had a radical mastectomy and then took hormone treatment which made her voice lower, and hair grow on her face.  This was horrifying to me and I understood — this happens when you are a woman.  I also knew that  for women there was another type of danger, whispers of pregnancies, getting in trouble, being a bad girl.

My own budding sexuality, although active, went into hiding, laced with shame and isolation.

This may be a common experience for women even though my coming of age experience with my mother was unusual.  The photo above depicts  Medusa looking very ambivalent herself, some 2000+ years ago. It adorned a wall of a home in ancient Ephesus.

If I am Feminina, what does that mean?  Pressure to be something, the receptacle of endless need?  I have not had many positive associations.  AND that is changing!

My husband and I have been working with sexual fantasies and preferences in a new way in our teaching . Of course it has been so healing for us as well.

Sexual fantasies  and sexual preferences are a great way to find a view into the center of yourself.  Our sexual fantasies are working underground on very above-ground issues.  The main issue for each of us is how to resolve the inherent conflict between two of our most basic needs; arousal and safety.

Through fantasy we can have our arousal in a safe and private place.  Our fantasies are also busy resolving other issues.  Inside our fantasies we find our deepest wounds.   Some of our fantasies are direct.  I was used as a child so my fantasies are about being used.  Others compensate and are indirect.  These fantasies provide us access to what was denied us as a child, power, importance, admiration etc…

Finding your sexual preferences by exploring pornography can also be so helpful.  I was always put off by pornography – above it all.  But now I see images of women like me.  Doing things I like to do.  I always thought there was something wrong with me.   I am normal after all!  I feel my shame lift and freedom take its place.

I love this quote from  The Autobiography of My Mother: A Novel  by Jamaica Kincaid.  She is describing a young women who turns 14.  “And so, too, the smell of my underarms and between my legs changed, and this change pleased me. In those places the smell became pungent, sharp, as if something was in the process of fermenting, slowly; in private, then as now, my hands almost never left those places, and when I was in public, these same hands were always not far from my nose, I so enjoyed the way I smelled, then and now.”

What if each of us could embrace our sexuality with all it’s bodily manifestations in this way?  What freedom awaits each of us as we can feel normal and accept the fullness of our feminina.  For men I am sure there is an equivalent experience of isolation and shame around sexuality.  Let’s all come into the light that is our own unique yet normal sexuality and see what a beautiful vehicle it is to work our our deepest issues and come into contact with the deepest center of ourselves.

 

 

 

The Dry Desert of Self Contempt

Each of us has words we say to ourselves silently that we would never speak out loud to anyone else.  These words become so familiar they barely reach conscious thought but they carry very negative energy.  With my clients we have excavated phrases like “you are such an idiot”, “you are a fat big”, “you do not even deserve to live”, or “you are worthless” and more.  You might be interested in listening for what you say to yourself.  This self-contempt is so painful, but is actually meant to protect us.  If we say these things to ourselves we will fend off the criticism of others.  We will whip ourselves into better shape (smarter, thinner, deserving, etc).  Sometimes these words were said to us and we have internalized them.  Sometimes we just lived in an environment where our significant others interacted with us in a way to make us draw these conclusions.  For example, one of my client’s Dad was a policeman.  When he came home after a long day of work all he wanted to do was watch police chase videos on TV or Pornography on the computer which was in the living room.  His Dad did not delight in him or show interest in him.  He drew the conclusion that he must be an idiot and he now has trouble focusing on tasks — finishing things he starts.  This of course confirms his phrase “You are such an idiot”.

The healing of this dynamic has some challenging but very clear steps.  Self-contempt is in our control.  First we have to excavate these phrases.  Listen for them in our background thoughts and self talk.  Then we have to challenge their validity.  Is it true I am idiot?  A fat pig?  This challenge immediately softens the energy these phrases carry.  Next we have to go into the early scenarios that began this self talk.  Go into the living room and feel how much you wanted your Dad’s attention and how he was not interested in you.  As you feel this also allow yourself to feel how this really happened to you.  You were a cute, creative kid.  You deserved attention and support.  You needed it.  Once you allow yourself to feel your feelings and really validate what happened, you are on your way to healing.

And we can get stuck here.  We can shift from self-contempt to contempt of the other and what they did and how bad it was.  This is a step in the right direction but not the end goal.  Staying in the loop of “it is me that is bad” or “it is you that is bad” is strong and compelling.  Self-contempt or contempt of others is self-betrayal.  It is only when we accept our selves and what really happened on our own terms and for ourself that we are free.  Then we can move to the next step.

Given what happened to you, anyone would have some of the problems you have.  It is real that we need support and attention when we are young and we will be left with deficits without this.  Pride or self-will may make coming to terms with our deficits difficult.  “I was humiliated for this as a child.  I do not accept the limitations.”

Pride and “you are a fucking idiot” often dance back and forth in a lockstep.

Try this exercise given by the Guide in Pathwork Lecture #240.  In meditation, bestow tender love upon every aspect of yourself, every neglected part, every attitude, no matter how distorted. Face yourself in truth and see if you can then find your true divinity and perfection.  This love must come from and to yourself and not by means of hating or rejecting parts of others.  Self hate is a prison for all of us.  See if you can make it conscious and know that it is not caused outside of you.  You alone can change this hate to love by accepting all of yourself without conditions. When we are in truth and love this is never indulgent.

The only way out is compassion. Compassion for our deficits and what really happened, and compassion for those who hurt us.

Then we can build a life based on what we need now.  My client is working on finding the attention and support he needs to focus and complete what he begins — to move through life with more ease and grace.

 

PURITY

While at the beach in Florida this winter I had a casual conversation with a stranger.  We quickly found we shared step-parenting.  Both of us each wrested with feeling included in a family not of our own making (at least biologically).

I agreed to send her an article I was reading about cultivating the good amidst our tendencies to see how we don’t belong or might be excluded.

The next day I saw her again on the beach and she said I had made an impression on her.  Like a yoga teacher she knew once, “I was pure”.  In the moment I dismissed what she said.  I found no place in myself to connect with purity.

I have fallen out of contact with Marie but her words stayed with me.  For a time they stayed in the periphery of my mind.  But I woke yesterday from a dream in which I was in bed, with purity as a young daughter lying  next to me.

What if I used the exercises of the great teachers, Tara Brach and John Welwood to make space and really embody this feeling of purity?  They both have similar four-part exercises to make space for, embody and receive support for difficult feelings.  What if this exercise worked for positive feelings too?

Today at a northern beach in the early morning I tried it. The first step in the process is acknowledging or recognizing the feeling. I acknowledged and recognized purity. That was not too hard. The next step, allowing purity, was more difficult.  Tara Brach says, “let it be as big as it is.”  This was challenging. I felt purity bouncing around inside of me ricocheting off all my un-pure, underserving places — whew!  The next step was to enter or get intimate with purity. This step was excruciating.  Images of destruction and crucifixion were swirling through me, of Christ on the Cross, parts of me dying so that purity could really enter my being.  Finally came the step of receiving support, letting my purity meet purity itself.  The bigger purity, the universal, non-personal purity.  In this step I merge with purity itself.  I let it consume me and it is me.  I have the the strongest and most pure sense of the true benign nature of the universe.

I imagine the color of purity and I let it fill me inside.  It is a light blue and makes my being translucent so all life and love and death can pass through.

 

 

 

Redemption

Redemption

An act of redeeming or atoning for a fault or mistake and returning to a state of being redeemed.

Here is what happened for me. I married my husband when I was 26. I was a very young 26. I needed a mother and a father as much as I wanted a husband. He was going to make up for all my losses — a happy ending to a sad life.

It wasn’t so easy. He had two young boys in our care. They were 5 and 7 and had lots of NEEDS. I did not understand what it meant to be a wife, let alone a mother. I did my best at each of those tasks and I wasn’t very good at them. Most of the time I was resentful of everyone else’s needs and competed with them for my husbands attention. And I was so afraid to love. What if they did not love me back? I had no understanding of, or way to hold this negativity inside. The little boys were cute, creative and so smart. How could I feel so mean? I hated myself ­— guilt, fear and resentment forming a toxic mix.

This went on for years. My husband and I fought over our priorities, over the boys. Fights are especially vicious when you hate yourself. Maybe you know what I mean. Although I have a lot of happy memories of this time in my life — ice skating with the little boys for hours on the river behind our house, cutting down our own Christmas trees, harvesting a wheelbarrow of corn in the summer. But this was all with a backdrop of bad feelings.

Life goes on. The boys grew up and married and had boys of their own. My husband and I grew up too. We had a decade of empty nest time when we could concentrate on each other and our relationship. When our first grandson was born I was invited to be right there in the room for the birth. I was so proud of my stepson, sensitive and attentive to his wife and moved to tears by the miracle of  birth. And our grandson! He was the center of our universe. We had no idea how much we would enjoy this second chance at parenting and how much better we would be as a team. Four grandsons later, our youngest now are three and five and have just begun sleep over dates. And we love every minute of it. It is pure joy being with these little guys who feel like my two best friends. Until one has a potty accident and I remember he is 3!  The other night the simple joy ran so deep that I found my lips forming the word redemption. I knew I needed to write about it.

When I Buried It

Winter is a time to slow down and turn inward. It can be a time for excavation. It can be exciting because our semi-conscious or unconscious mind afford us endless material. Imagine discovering some new aspect of yourself. Or even some buried part of your family history. We bury things for all kinds of reasons. We bury traumatic experiences we are not ready to process, we bury parts of ourselves that have been shamed like sexuality and even joy.

Recently we were getting dressed in our coats, gloves and hats to go for a wintery walk. Cole, 5 was all ready to go, except for his shoes. Where are his shoes? Could we have left them out at the beach?   How did we miss carrying them in – they are bright green? We retraced our steps out to the empty beach and there are no shoes. We look and look. Finally I asked Cole, where did you last see your shoes?” And he replies, “when I buried them.” It did not take long to see where the sand was disturbed and dig them up. At that age something lost and something found is very exciting. He had read about Curious George burying things in the sand to cause his usual mischief and was trying it out himself. It is a beautiful children’s metaphor for our real psychological process. We all have the agency to bury things and this is very important to our mental health.

Culturally there is such a mystique around buried treasure – pirates with black patches over one eye, burying something so as not to get caught. Digging it up later and escaping with the chests full of jewels and gold coins.

One place to look for your buried treasure is where you still struggle.

I have struggled for much of my life with a sense of belonging. I was asked recently a simple question – “When did you first feel you did not belong?” And an astonishing answer slipped out of my mouth. It made no sense but there it was. I said, “I first had this feeling when my brother died.” What is so surprising is that I never had a brother and he did not die. But this sent me back to when I was 5 years old, like Cole is now. My mother was pregnant and had a miscarriage. My imaginary (but very real) little brother died. I was an only child with no brothers or sisters. I did not belong. I am now filled with questions. Why did my parents wait so long to have another child? Were we waiting to move from our apartment to our house? But then why did the house only have two bedrooms – oh, but wait, it did have three bedrooms (the third one was always called our den). I ask my older cousin, the only one now who might remember. She says, “I remember it was really sad when your mom lost the baby.”

Since excavating my little 5 year old’s hopes and dashed dreams I can grieve more and feel more my little ones loneliness. I can also feel how I belong now – just about everywhere I look. And most importantly a little part of myself just came back to be with me – where she belongs.

What have you buried? And what treasures does it contain? Those are my questions for you on this wintery night.