Woman on Fire (12 page)

Relationships are the place where we play out our previously learned behaviors, where our subconscious needs rise to the surface, and where our insecurities become evident. They are a repository for all of the experiences that have brought us to where we are today. Relationships are the place where we face great betrayals and deep healing.

The majority of people treat relationships as either an achievement or a given. Few people do conscious work on how to be their best selves in their relationships and work on healing the damaging emotional patterns they bring into them. As we get into “committed” relationships, they are generally assumed to be mutually monogamous but frequently are
not.
We begin to build a life or a social environment with a lover, and as our lives get more entwined, it's more difficult to question and change the roles each person plays and the dynamics we create together.

Personal expansion doesn't always mean staying in a relationship. In fact, it often means having to leave a relationship that is not serving you, that you have outgrown, or that is actually harmful. This might fly in the face of the commitment you made, so you may tend to choose the commitment rather than choose yourself and look at why you made this commitment in the first place.

Sometimes we have dysfunctional desires that need to be examined. If you desire something or someone that impedes your ability to live your life, or if you desire something that puts you directly in harm's way, like an abusive relationship, it has to go. If you enjoy a desire and have fun with it and no one gets hurt, it's coming from a healthy place. If you desire something that would hurt someone else or yourself, that's a dysfunctional desire. You have to look at it honestly and stop the hurtful behavior.

I recently spoke to a woman who very much wanted to work with me as a coach, who had some big questions about her sexuality and
places that needed attention. After we spoke, she told her partner about it and he got very angry. He told her she did not need someone's help and thought it was ridiculous to work with a coach to improve her sexual life. The implication was that he was “enough” and that she shouldn't need help around sex. By association, if she needed help, it might indicate that he also needed help, and that was just too much for him. She chose to listen to him and not move forward in the work, although I know it would have been a huge game changer for her—and it probably would have meant she would have had to leave him eventually. I don't think she was ready for that possibility.

Sadly, many people choose to be in a limited relationship that doesn't serve them rather than be alone and work on fully growing and expanding. If you stay, you've got to do the work together that is required for each partner to grow and expand within the relationship, and that includes sex.

If you do not have the makings of a fully realized relationship that includes caring, communication, growth, and mutual benefit, then walk away. One of the most common examples is going back to an abuser over and over and convincing yourself to stay because you love them. Love is not enough. You will never change an abuser. They will keep you in the cycle of lies and abuse that keeps you coming back so they can do it again. And it tends to escalate over time. Love yourself enough to walk away. An abuser is incapable of fully loving. Their wires are crossed and they've got serious work to do. You can't do the work for them and you can't save them. But you—and only you—can save yourself. Whether you are in an abusive relationship or one that is unfulfilling, your choice is to stay and actively work on it or get out and work on you.

Time alone is an important way to do your healing and get clear about who you are and where you are going. This is often very hard to do from the vantage point of a relationship, where another person's needs, expectations, and demands may obscure your true
desires. Sometimes we have to let go of relationships that just are not aligned anymore. It could be a fairly healthy relationship yet it's holding you back. Maybe you are not compatible sexually. Maybe you want different things. Maybe it has run its course. Don't be afraid to let it go if that act will free you both to have what you really want in life. That is real love. Sometimes our paths diverge and the most loving thing is to let go, release the person, and build something new. It allows room for someone you are really compatible with to come in. Love yourself enough to know when it's time to move on. Release the relationships that aren't right for you.

It's hard to release the things we know we need to let go of for several reasons. First is that you've become accustomed to the beliefs, feelings, relationships, and behaviors that need to be released. You've created identities and relationships around the old dynamics. If you release them, you have to find a new anchor, a new belief system, new relationships, or new habits—and that can feel scary. When you are accustomed to the old way, change is hard. Yet change is necessary and it will come, whether you direct it consciously or life directs it for you. It's so much better to be in the driver's seat making choices about what you want to happen in your life.

It might be hard to release the old and unhealthy ways of being because you don't think you can have more or deserve more. This belief can be buried deep in your subconscious self and you keep sabotaging change so you can keep proving to yourself that better or more will forever elude you. When you don't have a strong sense of your own self-worth, you might not make decisions that are good for you because you don't believe you deserve good treatment or that what you want matters. This might mean you put yourself in risky
sexual situations or that you don't ask for what you want and need sexually. If you are not used to your pleasure being important, you won't pursue it. Many people just do not advocate for themselves because they do not believe they deserve more or can have more. They have unhealthy relationships or end up in abusive situations that maintain their low self-worth.

Everyone who has self-esteem wounds has to tackle them. Getting to the core of that wound is about truly learning to love yourself no matter what, and to learn to put your own needs above others'. It's likely that with low self-esteem you will engage in people-pleasing, and in sex, that means doing what you think your partner wants without regard for what you want and not asking for what you need. This makes you vulnerable to retraumatizing experiences because you won't speak up or set boundaries. Learning sexual assertiveness, communication, boundary-setting, and request-making is essential. Loving yourself enough to know that you deserve good, healthy, fulfilling, consensual sex is the core of your work.

Finally, you might have a hard time releasing because you just don't know how to do it. No one ever modeled anything different for you, and you need role models, education, information, and support for a new way of being.

I started this work on my sexuality because I was miserable about sex, both doing it and thinking about it. As the work progressed, I realized that all the upsetting emotions, all the negative patterns I had in sex also played out in the rest of my life. It all really came down to not valuing myself—not asking for what I wanted, not bringing up what upset me, not feeling like I could say no. These things all played out subtly in all of my relationships—from my
partner, to friends, to professional relationships. Sex was where they boiled over because sex was the one place where I didn't feel like I could turn to anyone else for support or advice.

To change my emotional patterns around sex (and everything else), I had to admit how much of my power I gave away. It was so easy to feel like a victim—it was much easier to blame others for not meeting my needs than it was to acknowledge that I was actually preventing myself and others from meeting them. Stepping into my own power has been uncomfortable. My fear has fought me every step of the way, crying out that I am asking too much, that I will be hated, abandoned, alone. Yet every step has proven this false. That fear still exists in me, and I still have more power to reclaim, but the work I've done so far has drastically improved my quality of life. I can easily give voice to things that would have eaten me alive in silence a few years ago, all because I have faith that my needs are worth meeting.

After a lot of time and energy put into releasing my old ways of being, I feel more like my true self than ever. It's like shedding old layers of skin, getting closer and closer to being my deep core self at all times. And that self is wonderful. I truly believe that each of us
is
self-actualized, deep, deep down. That shining, brilliant,
true
self
is
buried under old scars and open wounds, under pollution and muck and other people's old junk, under layers of protection we feel we need, under masks and costumes and elaborate charades. Doing the work to clean all that up and come into my own power started by realizing that I was capable of making my life a safe space to be my whole self. And from there it's been about putting one foot in front of the other, day after day, and being kind to myself when I pause to rest.

There are many techniques you can use to release what holds you back and make more space within your being for what you are bringing in.

ECSTATIC BREATHWORK

There are hundreds of ways to breathe. This is one to try. Ecstatic breathwork can be expansive and exhilarating. When you do deep-breathing techniques, sometimes the body gets so overwhelmed with new oxygen that you will feel dizzy. Your body isn't used to you breathing so deeply. If you get dizzy, just adjust your breathing or your position so you don't faint, and know that it's normal. You might also feel a tingling sensation or a temporary paralysis in your fingers, hands, or feet. This contraction of your muscles is called tetany, and it's normal. It is temporary and will last only a few minutes. It's a sign your body is really taking in the breath.

1. Sit cross-legged or stand with feet slightly wider than shoulder-width, knees bent, back erect.
   
2. Set a timer for 3 minutes. As you get practiced, do it for 5 minutes or more.
   
3. Begin to count your inhale and exhale at 5 counts. Inhale for 5 seconds, then exhale for 5 seconds. Try to make them even, so you are receiving and releasing breath equally. On your inhale, fill your lungs as fully as you can, and release every bit of breath you can when you exhale.
   
4. As you get comfortable in your breath, start to speed it up. Count it off at 4, then 3, then down to a 2 and even a 1 count. Breathe rhythmically. In. Out. In. Out. Say it to yourself. Receive. Give. Receive. Give. Inhale. Exhale.
   
5. Keep going and don't stop until your timer goes off. All of your focus is on your breath filling your body, touching every cell in your body with fresh life force.
   
6. You might feel fatigued and want to stop. Keep going! Pushing over the hump is where the juice is. If you stop with breathwork, you probably also stop with sex. There is that place in sex where you could keep going and have an orgasm, but many women stop. Don't stop until it's time.
   
7. When the timer dings, slow down your breath easefully until you get back to a normal in-and-out breath.
   

Notice what happens in your body. Notice the space you create. Notice if your mind feels more relaxed or quiet. Don't be surprised if you feel tingly or even orgasmic. This is why it's called “ecstatic.” This is a wonderful practice to do when you feel stuck in any way. Play with your breath and enjoy the ride. You can even do this with lovers or friends.

When you are out of sorts, off, in a pattern of sabotage or telling yourself unhelpful stories, bring it back to your breath. Breath is the way we make space internally and it's the thing we give ourselves every moment of every day. Breath is life force. Doing some deep
breathing or ecstatic breathwork is a way to energize our bodies, get out of our heads, and create more spaciousness. Breath helps us to release what we are holding in our bodies and to clear the muddle in our minds. I can't underline enough how important and powerful breathwork can be. Breath is the fastest way back to your body.