it was not her exuberance and joy that had triggered her uncle’s rage. It was not her fault at all. At the time of the event, he was deep in his own pain, confusion, and addiction, and she simply had no way of knowing that.
The older, wiser part of Janet thanked the freeze response, and I felt her chest coldness melt under my hands. Her breathing deepened and returned to normal as she cried sweet tears of relief.
In the aftermath of this session, Janet’s panic attacks went away completely. She slowly began to make friends with the men in her life, at work and play. Her irrational sense of fear dissolved. That fear of her body and its panic response, as well as the fear of a primal rage response from men, was gone.
Body Myth 3: The Body Is Seductive and Leads You Astray
This body myth says that the primal sensual and sexual urges of the body will get us into trouble and lead us astray if we listen to and act on them.
Most major religions — whether Catholic, Protestant, Hindu, Muslim, and so on — impose sanctions against fully feeling the body so that this feared primal energy is kept in check. This is expressed in instructions like these:
“Guard against your body’s urges.”
“Control your body’s impulses and sublimate them.”
“Stay in charge of your body and hold its compulsions at bay.”
Meanwhile, popular culture, advertising, and the media flood us with sexual images because marketers recognize that this primal energy can help sell almost anything. Advertisements turn around and twist what is acceptable and attractive, leaving most of us chasing a phantom image that promises to make us feel whole and lovable if only we buy into it.
In the meantime, the message is, “Whatever you do, do not fully feel your sensuality and sexuality — it is dangerous. If you are a woman, you might be preyed upon or called a woman of loose morals. If you are a man, you could be seen as a dangerous predator.”
This primal life force is powerful. My friend Emilie Conrad, who developed Continuum Movement,3 taught that the energy of eros, the Greek word for “intimate love,” is what makes our cells ignite. It allows us to feel our juiciness. In fact, it is the creative force of life itself. It feeds our joy and raison d’être, our reason for being.
Yet, Body Myth 3 tries to convince us that our core sensuality and sexuality are evil, seductive forces. How did this body myth come into power?
The problem arises when we judge this part of ourselves as bad, corrupt, or wicked and try to compartmentalize and seal off this powerful energy from the rest of our system. This acts like an aerosol can in the sun or a restless volcano building internal pressure. Like the closing love scene in Like Water for Chocolate, where the long-repressed lovers finally consummate their relationship and go up in flames in the process, this myth tells us that our sensuality, allowed free rein, will set fire to our world, burning out of control.
In fact, when we allow pleasurable sensation to flow through our entire system with the wisdom of each part of us informing and integrating it, the powerful energy we feel is not a force for evil. It is the energy of life itself.
If I am feeling sexually attracted to someone, it does not mean that I need to act on it. However, if I hold my sensual nature tightly wrapped, it can become a seductive shadow side of who I am. When we allow our sensations to fill all of us, the direct experience of this connection has a deep and abiding integrity, not a seductive one.
Locked Out of Her Own Sensuality
Karen is a high-powered administrator who successfully leads thousands of students at a major university. She came to see me with multiple physical issues that included asthma, chronic throat infections, and ongoing tightness in her solar plexus area, which made it hard to breathe deeply most of the time. My inner knowing was drawn directly to the area of her respiratory diaphragm, so we started our session with my hands on the front and back of her lower rib cage.
The sensation between my hands was of a drawn-in-tight achy pain. I asked her to drop her awareness inside to explore this area of her body with me. I felt her system pull in even tighter as she turned her attention inward.
She described to me the sense of her torso being not available, or “closed for business,” as she said. I asked her how long it had felt that way, and she started to cry.
She told me that she was married to a wonderful man and had a daughter she adored. Even so, four years earlier she had fallen in love with someone else. There was a strong sexual attraction. He was a dynamic person who awakened her sensual side as a woman. The affair was short-lived, ending soon after her husband became aware of it. Feeling guilty, she shared that, when this happened, “I locked down my heart and pelvis and threw away the key.”
She had spent the last four years struggling with her health and trying to prove to her husband that she still loved him and that she wanted the marriage to last. In her misguided fear that her core sensuality had caused the affair, she disconnected from the juiciest parts of who she was — and her health was suffering for it.
On my table she realized that she was afraid to breathe deeply or she might start to feel the “sensations” in her pelvis again. She said, “That was a primary part of what led me into the affair.” Another key facet of self-blame, particularly for many women, is that when we find deep joy in our sensual experiences, it feels like a forbidden treasure, rather than one of our most primary natural responses.
She also had not forgiven herself for her “transgressions” and was carrying a heavy weight of guilt, which closed down her heart, slowing her energy flow further. Her throat was shut down as well, so she would not speak “the truth of my heart,” she said.
I gently held her solar plexus and heart and asked what she would say if this affair had happened to her best friend. She got quiet and replied that she would feel compassion and would tell her friend to let go of her guilt and move on. I asked her if she could be her own best friend in that moment. I felt her body relax a bit as she took a deep breath and accepted that idea.
I then asked her if she was still in love with the other man, and if she wanted to leave her marriage. She said no; that moment in time had passed and she had moved on in her life. Another wave of relief released under my hands as she realized she was not in danger of succumbing to the seduction of this affair again.
As a woman living in our culture where sensuality is ignored or vilified, Karen’s longing for a deep sensual connection made her vulnerable. A strong sexual attraction is almost impossible to refuse unless the integrity of the whole body is onboard.
I shared with Karen about the wisdom she could experience when her sensuality was alive and connected to all the other parts of her body. With the heart connected to the pelvis, gut, and head, we are inspired to approach important choices in our life journey by pausing, taking a breath, and seeing the bigger picture. We realize the implications and probable end result of our choice. Our decisions become grounded and based on whole-body informed thinking.
We talked about recognizing that her natural, primal needs deserved to be fulfilled and that she could bring her sensual longing home as a gift to herself and her husband. This choice would validate Karen’s grounded, whole-body-informed thinking.
Her torso relaxed slowly and completely as we spoke. She could sense that I held no judgment of her, had no agenda for her. Her sensual nature had not seduced her — it was not at fault.
We spent some time connecting her heart to her gut, her feet, and her legs, and then to the clarity of her bones and her head. When she got up off the table, the color had returned to her face. She was visibly more relaxed and present. Karen was awed by the depth of the work she had just done.
Karen is not alone in having this split between her head and her body. Body Myth 3 is alive and well in our culture, and many powerful women have left their body behind to get the job done successfully. This split creates vulnerability and makes us susceptible to the pulls and tugs of sensations that