Navigating Change

Did the title make you feel uncomfortable, or did it intrigue you? Or both? Your initial reaction might be linked to your learnings and experiences around the act of sex, sexuality and sensuality. What do you think about sex? Do you enjoy sex? Are you able to talk openly about sex and your sexual experiences? OR does thinking about sex bring up feelings like embarrassment, disgust, fear? If so, you are not alone and you may be struggling with sexual shame.

Sex shame can look and feel very different for each of us. If you grew up in a household where the tv channel was switched because a sex scene was on the screen like I did, the likelihood of feeling anything but uncomfortable is unavoidable. The message absorbed is that sex is dirty, taboo, and if you can’t watch it, you surely should not be “doing it.” It’s shameful.  

A simplified way of defining sexual shame is the sense or a feeling that something is inherently wrong or bad in you and anything remotely revolving around sex. You may feel this about the way your genitals look, the shape or size of your body, sexual fantasies, desires, who you are sexually attracted to or any kinks that you may have, and so on.

 So where have you learned sexual shame?

These learnings are not isolated to our family homes. Some of our culture or religious beliefs contribute to our sexual shame. We may not be aware of it or not want to believe it does have an influence, but it does. Some of the teachings around sex say that it is sinful, particularly outside of the construct of marriage (and you are having sex outside of marriage), or that sexuality as a whole is bad or dirty. This can instill feelings of guilt around normal, natural, sexual thoughts and behaviors.

What did we learn about our bodies growing up? From a young age we are bombarded with false messages about what our bodies should look like and how we should behave. Absorbing and believing these messages can lead to body shame. Body shame is closely tied to sexual shame. The media doesn’t help either. As we know, it often promotes constricted standards of beauty and what is sexy. Although we’ve made some strides in the past ten years or so, we still have a way to go. These messages formulate an unrealistic idea around sex and what is acceptable or not that can leave us feeling guilt (what I’m doing is bad) and shame (I am bad).

On a heavier note, individuals who have experienced sexual trauma or abuse may have internalized feelings of shame around their sexuality, associating sexual experiences with disgust, pain, fear or violence.

 How is sex shame showing up in your life?

There are so many consequences of sexual shame that we may not be aware of. Here are some of the experiences you may have or are encountering in your life. Sex shame can lead to sexual dysfunction such as lack of desire, inability to orgasm, inability to have penetration or full penetration (i.e.: vaginismus) without pain, difficulty with arousal, and so on. You may experience low self-esteem due to feelings of shame around your sexuality, often increasing levels of anxiety and depression. Shame around sex can often build walls in your romantic relationships prohibiting honest communication, misunderstanding and leaving partners feeling inadequate and dissatisfied. Not to mention even more isolated in their shame. You’re also most likely not able to experience full pleasure. Shame can make it difficult to fully enjoy sex, to evoke a sense of curiosity and explore your sexual desires in a safe way.

How can you reclaim your sexuality without shame? (Or at least try to)

It is possible to relearn your relationship with sex and your sexuality. Here are some things that might help:

Therapy: Talk to a trained professional. Someone that is able to hold a safe space for you without judgment. Your experiences and how you feel about sex are valid and talking to a therapist can support your need to be heard and validated. Learning ways in which to understand your shame can help you learn how to release it.

Consensual safe sexual practices: Sexual practices established around consent and respect will support transparent communication. Being able to share your needs and desires will increase chances of building positive experiences around sex and reducing shame.

Challenge your beliefs (a repetitive narrative doesn’t make it true): Check in with yourself and your beliefs around sex and your sexuality. Are these your beliefs? Are emotions such as guilt and fear motivating factors? Do these beliefs support your authentic self?

Educate yourself (SEX 101): You may need to go back to the drawing board. (I’m remembering the 50 mins of sex education class). It might be helpful to relearn about sex, sexual consent, sexual/reproductive organs, anatomy, etc. This may help debunk all that we think we know about sex or have learned about sex, what we should or should not be doing sexually and, more importantly, how to or not to feel. Learning that sex is natural and some of it not so sexy may help shed some of the shame wrapped up in these learnings.

Self-compassion: Being kind to yourself while working through shame will be necessary. Your sexuality is unique, no need to compare it to others and there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to work through your shame. Go at your own pace and what feels safe to you.

If you haven’t been able to label your sexual shame until now and wish to work on challenging and creating a new narrative around your ideas around sex, sexuality and sensuality, first and foremost, be kind to yourself during this process. It will require self-reflection, open communication, and a shift in your mindset. Healing from sexual shame is a brave and powerful step towards living an authentic life, having deeper and meaningful connections and cultivating a sense of empowerment and love for yourself. Reminder, you don’t have to do this on your own.

Please reach out to our team of therapists for support at co*****@re*************.com and you can check out ReLearning Human’s very own sex therapist Kehinde Ekpudu’s bio here. 

Authored by Kavita Patel, MSW, RSW, Psychotherapist & Co-Founder of ReLearning Human.

Many of my clients share their challenges around falling asleep or staying asleep throughout the night. Especially during this time of year. When further explored, it’s quite clear that one of the challenges around sleep is that we are in fact trying to force ourselves to sleep! We know the drill. Twist and turn, get up to pee, curse, scroll on our phone, thoughts and worries running through our minds, curse some more, and so on. Forcing sleep doesn’t work. When we do this, we disrupt our natural process of sleep, our circadian rhythms and the release of sleep hormones such as melatonin. Here are some reasons as to why forcing yourself to sleep won’t work.

Let’s think about it, if you are forcing yourself to sleep you are adding pressure on yourself and this often leads us into an anxiety spiral. At this point trying to sleep is becoming more and more stressful. When you are feeling anxious, you are more sensitive and can experience a heightened awareness, not only in your body, but your surroundings. We experience anxiety when we are feeling a sense of threat (i.e.: F**k, I can’t sleep! I’m not going to be able to function and deliver a stellar presentation at work tomorrow!).  

We also don’t give sleep and the complexities of sleep the credit that it deserves, and we often neglect this process by neglecting to listen to our bodies. Your body knows when it needs to sleep and fighting off these cues often lead to disruptive sleep cycles. I understand that you may not be able to take a nap in the middle of the day (especially if you’re physically in the office 😊), however listening to your body at the end of the day and following through on what it needs when it comes to sleep may surprise you.

Probably the worst thing you can do (I am guilty of this too) is reaching for your phone or any device before sleep and/or when you awake in the middle of the night. When you do this, you are activating your brain and it will be difficult to fall asleep. 

My first suggestion with clients wanting to relearn how to sleep and stay asleep is the practice of:

 1) Acceptance VS resistance. This can help support your process of sleep overall. It interrupts the current habit or pattern that exists. You are also choosing to focus on the present moment and not tomorrow’s presentation.

2) Mindfulness sleep meditations can keep you in the present moment. Deep breathing and muscle relaxation techniques can help calm your mind and body, easing your anxiety (find some resources here). Journaling is also another way to declutter your mind and soften or dump any negative ruminating thoughts.

3) Listening to your body and trusting that it knows when to sleep is helpful. You can try getting up, doing some light stretches, walking around or sitting in another room if that is an option and doing this quietly.

4) Assisting your body and mind with a pre-sleep realistic relaxing routine can help wind down.  Limiting caffeine, heavy meals and screen time before bed can help. However, don’t set yourself up for failure. If you don’t like to read or meditate before bed, then don’t. Setting a realistic relaxing routine for you is important.

5) Give it time. If you are starting your journey in relearning how to sleep and stay asleep, some offerings of grace and kindness to yourself will be nice. Your brain needs time, repetition and consistency to adopt a new learning. So be nice to your brain.

6) Seeking additional support for sleep may be necessary and always recommended if it is impacting your daily functioning. Consult with a healthcare professional. They may be able to provide further support around your specific sleep care needs.

Getting to know our bodies and our natural sleep cycle is important. Being in tune with ourselves brings an awareness of what we need to fall asleep and stay asleep. Accepting that our needs around sleep will change from time to time can be difficult. We are not always going to have a deep, peaceful sleep due to life events, stressors, change in season and so on. Being mindful of this and accepting this natural process can also contribute to better sleep. It’s a start anyway. If/when you decide to relearn and create a sleep routine that works for you give some of these suggestions a try. Good luck to you and maybe, good night.

Authored by Kavita Patel, RSW, MSW, Psychotherapist & Co-Founder of ReLearning Human.

Feel it through. Harnessing, trusting and using your intuition to create the life you want.

Intuition:  a natural ability or power that makes it possible to know something without any proof or evidence: a feeling that guides a person to act a certain way without fully understanding why- Britannica Dictionary 

We understand this from a cognitive perspective however there are very few of us who practice following our intuition. Other terms you may be familiar with, “sixth sense, gut feeling or neuroception” coined by Dr. Stephen Porges. Most of us humans are conditioned to use our intellect and cognitive thought processes rather than tapping into our intuition. 

The past few years, I have had many clients speak openly and courageously about their “gut feelings”, their “Spidey senses” and how, if they just paid more attention, listened and trusted they would have made better decisions for themselves. My response is often the same, “You needed your rational brain to protect yourself from whatever fear you thought the outcome would be, the outcome that you most likely would not be able to manage at that time. You need time to experience, to grow your courage, strength and to trust your person to get to this place. Now when you feel that gut feeling, you may be ready to listen to it. Ready to do the thing that you did not want to do because you will have to feel what you do not want to feel”. Followed by, “feel it through”.  Most often this is responded with a scoff, or a look of disbelief and maybe even some nervous laughter.  

We all want the answers, right?! The calculated decisions with the guarantee that the decision is the “right” decision the “right” outcome and…it needs to make sense. And the truth is we can’t make sense of our intuition. What I also share with my clients full heartedly believing and knowing this, “you know yourself best, follow your intuition, it is the one thing that never lets you down”.

All of us have experienced that feeling, the feeling in the pit of our stomach telling us what we need to do, sometimes yelling at us. Our deeper knowing that we cannot make sense of but follow it anyway, well not all the time. So why is following our intuition worth a try? How can we learn to tune into our deeper gut instincts? How can we train ourselves to develop these senses further and how can we use our intuition to grow and expand every aspect of our life? 

Why is following our intuition so important?

This gut feeling has helped us survive since our primitive years and has nothing to do with how smart we are or our level of education. Some may refer to it as the process of quickly deducting information built on experiences, connections, patterns however intuition is not a cognitive experience. It is an emotional, intuitive experience. These hunches give us clarity and help us make the best decisions for our lives. The challenge is not allowing outside pressures or influences to intercept this guidance. When we don’t follow our intuition more problems are likely to arise in the future, again not so easy to do as we are often preoccupied with what others think about our life decisions, listening to what others say we “should do” or how stupid would we look if we made decisions following our gut or heart and not our head.  

How can you tune into your intuition?

It’s always been there. It can take some time to tap into if you haven’t become familiar with it yet or if you have chosen to ignore it and now decided otherwise. As humans, we are influenced and highly impressionable by our external environment (social media, structure of educational systems, news, etc.) and slightly closer to us, our caregivers, family, culture, religion, faith, etc., all of which create our view of the world and how we learn to view ourselves. We learn from a very early age to listen to elders, authority figures, follow or be forced to submit to a system, a certain kind of “order”. 

Along the way we often lose or second guess our internal cues (intuition being one of them) and fall victim to the noise around us.  When we ask ourselves if this makes sense, what is rational or logical about this we often forget to ask ourselves, what am I feeling? What values do I hold, what feels right for me? If things don’t align or make sense but that “feeling” is strong, go with that feeling. It is ok to stop and listen to what you are feeling. Sounds strange right? to listen to what you are feeling. Paying attention to our body and our feelings is the first step to tuning into our intuition.  When you are ready to develop your intuitive muscle, be patient and kind to yourself and as I share with clients, always at your own pace. 

Some ways to develop and nurture your intuition: 

1. Silencing the noise: allow yourself the opportunity to find a quiet place where you can relax, practice mediation, deep breathing and/or sit in silence for a few minutes (this may feel uncomfortable. Do it anyway). This will help calm your mind and help you to hear your intuition. What does it tell you? 

2. Feel your feels. Pay attention: Our intuition speaks to us through feelings, gut instinct and/or sensations. What are your feelings in certain situations? when you need to make a decision and when you are around people? Being curious and observing how you feel will help you become more in tune with your intuition.

3. Trust yourself: I often share with clients that they know themselves best. There is an inner wisdom that we all possess and to never dismiss these instincts. They are not coincidental or irrational.  Just because we cannot rationalise everything, make sense of everything we feel, does not mean we shouldn’t trust it. 

4. Practice of presence: Mindfulness exercises and the practice of presence can truly support your intuitive development. Being present is difficult to practice as we know. Our minds are often busied with thoughts about the past or worries about the future (our oldest friend as we know as anxiety). Mindfulness can sharpen our awareness and sensitivity to subtle cues of our intuition that are often quieted.

5. Body awareness: What is your body telling you? Intuition shows up through bodily sensations. Pay attention to when your body is feeling relaxed, tense or uncomfortable in areas such as your stomach or chest. These cues can guide you towards the right decision or what course of action you need to take.

6. Write down your experiences: keeping an intuition journal can help remind you of your inner wisdom and knowing when you can’t necessarily make sense of them. Tracking your intuitive patterns can help you gain a deeper understanding of how your intuition works. (it reassures me that I haven’t entirely lost all my marbles!)

7. Neuroplasticity (intuitive exercises to change our brain): We have the opportunity as human beings to change and strengthen our brain’s neurotransmitters and neural pathways. We can do this through engaging in new activities, stimulating our brain through creative expression, guided visualizations, being curious and nurturing a growth mindset. This can help build confidence and in turn, tuning in to our inner guide.

8.  Don’t be afraid to be on your own for a while:  We are not built to be alone and feel comfortable or safe on our own as human beings. However sometimes it is important to seek solitude to access your inner self without external distractions and influences. Doing this will strengthen your connection to self and to your intuition.

9. Take action (the risky part): Follow your intuition. When you receive intuitive insights let them guide you even when it feels awkward and uncomfortable. It doesn’t always make logical sense and that’s ok.

10.  Learn and Celebrate:  Reflect on your process when you allow your intuitive insights to guide you. What has been the outcome? How do you feel? Reflective practice helps to consolidate our experiences and provides a positive feedback loop. This not only strengthens our intuition but also our confidence to continue to follow it. And as I share with clients…CELEBRATE this experience.

Trusting your intuition: 

Your intuition doesn’t tell you what to do nor is it foolproof, however it can guide you to new opportunities that you may have never thought to consider. Sifting through genuine intuition and impulsive emotions (i.e. having an intense urge to connect with an ex-partner!) is important to learn and requires patience, self compassion, and self awareness.  

Our experiences are often muddled with our fears, judgments, wishes and we are receiving massive amounts of information, so we need to take time to sort them out. Our gut feelings feel the most intense when aligned with our core values, with these experiences it is important to balance between instincts and reason. Seeking inner guidance through your own Q&A session is often helpful. Asking yourself questions such as, “What is this hunch about for me (in my body and my mind)?” “What may I be missing?”, “can I connect with someone who has had similar experiences and ask for their observations?”. 

Trusting and following our intuition is accompanied with a tremendous sense of responsibility and accountability in our own lives. To reap the benefits or to suffer the consequences of these actions can feel unsettling especially when it is not backed up by a pros and cons list and infallible outcomes based on factual reasoning and logic. Well, this is how we convince ourselves right?  I often describe this as a disillusionment of control.  This also plays a factor as to why we don’t do the thing we innately know to do. Maybe it’s just too much of a risk when we don’t have the guarantees? This makes logical sense, and it is terrifying. 

We rely greatly on logic and reason as a society often dismissing our innate wisdom as human beings. It is essential however to trust ourselves in making decisions for our own lives and require a tremendous amount of courage. To make life decisions based on a hunch, not comparing to others, not listening to others, not being influenced by external factors might be considered as outrageous or maybe the most courageous way to live one’s life. Most successful people often speak of following their intuitive instincts and taking chances and risks and often dancing away to their own tune.

Are you reading to become your own intuitive expert? If you are ready, first know that you have access to it and can hone and nurture your intuition. Next, practice the guidance that resonates the most to you at your own pace. Pause, breathe & remember, your intuition is the one thing that never lets you down.

Authored: Kavita Patel co-founder of Relearning Human.

For support, connect with our Relearning Human therapists.