Did you know that your self-awareness needs to follow you to the bedroom? That’s because sex is far more than just an act. It is also a gateway to the deepest longings we can experience as human beings—for connection, for safety, for pleasure, for comfort, for validation, for growth and for healing.
Your relationship with yourself is the basis of all your other relationships, not just the sexual ones. All your other connections are shaped by your relationship with yourself. This self relationship includes the entirety of your history and life experiences. It’s grounded in your relationship with your body at all levels - physical, mental, spiritual, emotional and energetic.
Your inner relationship includes all the beliefs and values you were exposed to growing up as well as those you hold now. It incorporates your current and past relationships and your connection to all the communities you participate in. It starts with your family and extends to your neighbourhood, work, education and what you like to do for fun. If you grew up in a house where sex was a taboo topic, or in a community where sex is talked about as sinful or dirty, sex might be something you have but not something you have much permission to learn about or think about. All these and more are the threads that weave the tapestry of your relationship with your sexual self so be gentle with yourself. You have your whole lifetime to become more and more sexually self-aware. Because you are always growing and changing as a person, you will need to discover and rediscover again and again who you are as a sexual person.
Your sexuality is about who you are, not about who you do (or don’t) have sex with. Your sexual activities don’t define your sexual identity-they emanate from and are expressions of it. Your sexuality is an inherent, inseparable and essential aspect of the complex person that is you. You are your primary partner, the only one who has been and will always be there for you. That means that if you want to have better sex, better relationships, more love, more connection, more pleasure, then you have to start with yourself. How you think and feel about yourself profoundly influences your sexual beliefs, choices and behaviour. How do you feel about your body? How do you view your genitals? How do your stories about yourself effect your sexuality?
Like a hologram, your sexuality is a microcosm that reflects and manifests everything from the personal to the planetary. The erotic surrounds us; it contains; it penetrates us down to the cellular level. Sexual reproduction creates diversity, novelty and complexity. It makes life, including the unique complex being that’s you.
Looking at sexuality in a holistic way is about recognising our connectedness to all life. It’s about acknowledging how our sexuality both affects and is affected by everything else in our life. It’s about accepting and embracing our sexuality as an integral part of who we are as human beings, and it all starts with self-awareness.
