Image description: A woman with long black hair is straddling a wood chair in the middle of a field. Her eyes are closed. Photo by Daniel Apodaca on Unsplash

There are so many reasons why we might want to do some healing around our sexuality and pleasure. Whether you’ve experienced sexual trauma, have noticed that impact of all the conflicting messages around sexuality you’ve received or perhaps realized that you’re neurodivergent and/or LGBTQIA+ and are desiring to unmask in your sexuality. The unfortunate reality is that we live in a society that doesn’t teach us how to tend to our sexuality, how to notice how trauma responses (such as fight, flight or fawning) can show up in our sexuality and how to create a connected relationship to our sexuality.

I’m a person who has both experienced trauma around my sexuality and as a certified Sex, Love and Relationship coach and somatic practitioner my approach to sexual healing is that we’re never sexually broken-even though sometimes it might feel like that. Sexuality healing isn’t just about healing our relationship to our sexuality, it also involves completing outdated trauma responses (such as fight, flight, freeze of fawning), unpacking beliefs around sexuality that are no longer serving us and creating a new sex positive story and more. In this blog post I’ll be sharing a bit about sexual healing and three doable practices to start to tend to your sexuality.

Please note: sexual healing is tender work so please take care of yourself while reading this blog post. You can stop at any time, read it in small manageable chunks or read through it with a coach or therapist.

What is trauma anyway?

My favorite definition of trauma comes from my trauma resolution teacher Rachael Maddox who shares in her memoir Secret Bad Girl that “trauma is an embodied violation hangover. In other words, trauma is the residue energy that’s stuck in one’s body long after a violation, shock, or dangerous experience has occurred”(Maddox, 2017, p. 70.) Perhaps you have your own favorite definition of trauma or prefer the basic definition of something that happened too fast, too soon or was too much for your nervous system. It’s important to remember that trauma is also both what happens to us and also what didn’t happen. So we might have experienced traumatic events from things that we experienced and we can also experience trauma from things we didn’t receive (such as not receiving attuned care in our childhood for example.)

Sometimes identifying that we’ve experienced trauma can feel validating and sometimes it can also feel really tender. We might wonder if having experienced trauma means we’ll live a challenging life or even feel unsure how we might begin to heal it. While I always recommend working with a trained trauma practitioner, it can be helpful to also remind yourself that just like there are trauma imprints, there’s also health. You have your own Blueprint of Health that’s always available to you and is never broken. What would it be like to both notice the challenges and trauma you might have around sexuality and also notice where there’s health?

Practice: Make a list of 10-15 things that feel pleasurable to you. This is a small doable way we can begin to notice the health of our sexuality. What things (both sexual and non-sexual) feel pleasurable to you? Perhaps that’s the wind on your face, eating a yummy piece of chocolate or using a favorite sex toy. Can you perhaps pick one thing from the list on a daily or weekly basis to connect with in a small doable way?

A holistic approach to sexual healing.

Images description: Over a pale green background the title reads: “first tend to the roots and trust the bloom.” There are two pictures: one is of a hand planting seeds in dirt and the other is a picture that shows roots growing beneath the dirt and then a blue flower growing with the blue sky in the background. The text under the photos reads “planting seeds and trusting the bloom.”

I’ve been in that place of “I feel sexually broken and I want to heal as fast as possible.” So often we look at what isn’t working and we sign up for the tantra courses, buy a new vibrator or force ourselves to be sexual (even if perhaps we aren’t feeling it.) But the real secret to experiencing post traumatic growth in sexuality? It’s about tending to the roots or in other words spending time focusing on creating steady foundations of:

a core blueprint of worthiness, full self expression, sovereignty.
rebuilding self trust in different areas of your life.
working with your nervous system and honoring your right pacing.
Identifying your core needs, advocating for them and getting them met.
physical, emotional and energetic safety.

You might be thinking “wow, that sounds like a lot of work and I don’t have time for that. I need to heal NOW"! The reality is that just like any other type of healing, sexual healing takes time. But by taking our time, working with our nervous system and going at a small doable pace we can create important shifts that lasts. A huge part of this approach is trusting that the bloom will come. When we give our healing the right conditions, time and tending that it needs we can trust that we will experience the blooming of our healing. What would it look like to know that you’re worthy of taking the time and to trust in the blooming of your own healing?

Now I’m going to share with you three doable practices you can do as part of your sexual healing journey.

1.) Getting to know your sexual yes’s and no’s.

Do you know your authentic sexual yes’s and no’s? This can often be challenging for those of us who have a tendency to people please in our sexuality, to mask our needs or perform our sexuality. Getting to know your authentic sexual yes’s, no’s and maybe’s is a way you can begin to authentically explore:

What authentically turns me on? What feels sexually delicious or yummy to me?
What is a turn off for me? What feels sexually bad or yucky to me?

We live in a culture that is both very sexual and also sexual shaming. As a young person you likely didn’t receive the sex education that you very much deserved. Or perhaps a history of trauma has led to you having a fight, flight, freeze or fawning response in your sexuality. Or maybe no one ever asked you “hey, what things turn you on? What turns you off?”

The key part of doing this exercise is to give yourself full permission to authentically get to know your sexual likes and dislikes. It might be supportive to give yourself permission that you get to like and dislike anything and everything. Can you give yourself permission to be curious and ask yourself: “what do I authentically like?” Not sure where to start? You can look at a worksheet like this one and notice how your body and minds feel around specific sex acts.

2.) Get to know your sexual somatic cues.

Image description: over a peach background there is an image of a woman in white underwear, she is holding a piece of fruit and has two fingers in the center of it. The title of the text reads “Explore your somatic pleasure cues” and the description reads: “before engaging in sex or a pleasure practice can you pause and ask yourself: “am I a yes, no or maybe to this?” Pay attention to your body cues and honor when your body is a no to being s.xual or a specific act.

After identifying your sexual yes’s, no’s and maybes, you can now exploring honoring your own boundaries. The reality is that there are many reasons why it might have felt challenging to identify and share your sexual boundaries with others. If boundaries feel challenging to you, please know that it likely makes so much sense based on your history. A small doable way you can get to know your sexual boundaries is by exploring your somatic sexual self consent.

Somatic sex self consent is about:

Identifying your own body cues and knowing when you’re a yes, no or a maybe to a sexual experience.
Identifying the difference between being turned on and still feeling like a no to a sexual activity. Example: I might be physically turned on but I’m not interested in having sex.
The ability to honor your sexual yes’s and no’s-first with yourself and then with others.

A really easy way to explore this is by exploring a specific pleasure practice and tuning into your body. Let’s imagine that you decide that you want to masturbate, before you begin touching yourself can you:

Pause and ask yourself: “Am I a yes to touching myself?” Then notice any body, emotional and energetic information that you might experience.
If you’re a yes, then you go ahead and have fun!
If you’re a no, can you honor your no? After honoring your no you might get curious if there’s something else that would feel good to you. You might be a no to a specific sex act (like penetration for example) or you might be a no to anything sexual. Your no is so valid and welcome. It might be supportive to say “my no is so welcome here” or “I get to be a no for this as long as I want.”
If you’re a maybe you might get curious and ask yourself “what conditions would I need for my maybe to perhaps be a yes?” The idea isn’t to force yourself into a yes but to get curious. Perhaps there’s a layer of support that you need?

The beautiful part about this practice is that as you get to know your somatic cues you can then take this knowledge into either your regular pleasure practices or apply it if you have sex with others. Learning how to honor your sexual boundaries in your own self pleasure practices can help you advocate for your boundaries and needs when/if you engage in sex with others.

3.) Tend to your pleasure.

Images description: over a peach background there is an image of a woman bringing a strawberry to her half opened mouth. The title reads “tend to your pleasure” and the text reads “Just like you might go to the gym or be consistent with meditation, can you create consistent ways of tending to your pleasure while honoring your body’s limits? So without bypassing your body’s no’s, can you make time for small doable ways of tending to your pleasure-even if that’s 5 minutes of connecting to something pleasurable?”

Just like we might have a dedicated movement practice or have a morning routine that nourishes us, can you also create small and doable ways to tend to your pleasure without overriding your limits? The key part of this is inviting pleasure into your days while honoring your limits. So that means that if you’re in a freeze around your sexuality you might honor your limits by not being sexual. Or perhaps your doable step is doing 5 minutes of something non sexual that feels pleasurable. You might tend to your pleasure by:

Sitting outside and enjoying the sun on your skin.
Eating a yummy piece of fruit.
Giving yourself (or receiving from a partner) a sensual massage.
Dancing.
Self pleasure practices.

Tending to your pleasure doesn’t mean that you need to do hour long practices, the idea is to invite some pleasure into your life in small doable ways. Perhaps that’s 5 minutes a day or even less. You might think of it as a mindful practice, can you be present and perhaps see what’s happening at the body level as you spend time with your pleasure?

Can I be celebrate my sexual healing journey?

I like to think of my healing as a journey instead of there being a specific mythical destination where we arrive “fully healed.” Since healing can take time, it’s so important to name and celebrate both small and big shifts. Can you celebrate what is working without bypassing the difficulty? This isn’t about bypassing or toxic positivity but rather about orienting ourselves to the health. Going back to the metaphor of planting seeds and trusting the bloom, part of building trust in our healing timeline can look like celebrating your growth. That could look like:

Celebrating the things you’re doing in your healing. Can you name the steps you’re taking?
Noticing and naming when things start to feel a bit easier or when you’re able to do things that maybe felt really difficult 2-3 months ago.
Adding joy and pleasure to your healing. We sometimes think that healing has to be serious but what if it also got to include joy and pleasure? How might you add 2% more pleasure and joy to your healing?

I am celebrating you for all the ways in which you’re showing up in your healing. It might feel supportive as you read this to take a pause and ask yourself: “what’s here to celebrate right now?” and “what small shifts do I want to celebrate?”

Resources consulted & cited:

I learned about the concept of sexual yums and yucks from Emily Beatrix in her incredible course The Journey to Pleasure.
The teachings of sexual somatic consent I learned from my teacher Layla Martin in her year long VITA™ Sex, Love and Relationship Coaching Certification.
The definition of trauma I shared in this blog post comes from Secret Bad Girl (2017) by Rachael Maddox. You can also learn more about the ReBloom methodology in her book ReBloom.

Thank you for reading!

I hope this blog post was supportive.

The information contained in this blog post is for general educational and informational purposes only and should not be construed as medical or mental health advice. The information provided is not a substitute for advice from a qualified professional who is aware of the facts and circumstances of your individual situation. We expressly recommend that you seek advice from a professional familiar with your specific situation.

Your healing matters.

I hope this blog post was helpful in your own healing journey.

If you’re seeking support and healing, I’d love to support you in my 5 month program The Somatic Mentorship. In this program I support clients with ReBloom Coaching (a somatic archetypal trauma resolution method) and steady support. The program includes:

An intensive intake session & personalized “Coaching Map” document to identify your goals and developmental objectives that we’ll work on in our program together.
Three (75 minute) sessions a month.
Optional practices and resources to help support you in implementing the work we do in our session.

You can find out more about The Somatic Mentorship here.

Tiffany Landry is a somatic coach who works with neurodivergent and queer clients on coming home to themselves. She works with clients in her program Autistic Support Sessions and The Somatic Mentorship. Tiffany also writes a free newsletter on Substack called The Queer Autistic Newsletter.