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DECIDE YOUR OWN PACE & DIRECTIONS IN LOVE & SEX
by Sasha Lessin,
Ph.D.
You grew into who you
truly are in sex and relationships unless parents,
teachers, peers, lovers, literature or media pushed
or pulled you from your natural preferences. The
influence of people in charge of you when you were a
kid powerfully affected your lovelife.
You developed your sexual and relationship attitudes
at your own pace and direction unless parents,
religious guides, media icons, literary paragons,
authority figures and/or peers programmed you with
their attitudes toward masturbation, sex with people
with disabilities, or sex with people of races or
body types, ages, religions, occupations, wealth,
geographical location or education that differ from
or seem similar to yours.
If people interfered with your erotic explorations,
you may have conformed to or rebelled against their
demands. If, for example, your rearers forbade the
natural practice of masturbation, they held you
back. If, on the other hand, they pressed you to
masturbate (perhaps as a substitute for sex with
other people), they pushed you.
When people push and pull you, they imply you lack
judgement to choose a lovestyle for yourself. You
get the message that you aren't naturally okay. They
want you to be some other way than the way you
evolve yourself. They approve of you when you fit
their image of how you should be rather than how you
truly are inside.
RESCRIPT to Center & Energize Under-Expressed
Subselves in Love and Sex
Explore your erotic conditioning and your ability to
transcend it when you do the following exercise.
Expand beyond your training and embrace aspects of
yourself you inhibited. When you embrace both your
conditioned reactions and your inhibited
subpersonalities in terms of what both need, you
witness and center yourself; you discerningly
coordinate your own lovelife.
REPROGRAM YOURSELF
Reprogram a limit to your full expression of love
and enjoyment of sexuality. Do this exercise with a
partner who reads the cues (in bold below) to
you. As Responder, you relive a time someone
interfered with your loving or sexuality in a way
that inhibited or fixated your sensuality, sexuality
or expression of affection. Your partner, who
roleplays your pusher or puller reads:
Lie on your back, eyes closed, legs apart, arms at
your side. Breathe deeply through your mouth; let
your belly stick out when you breathe in, fall when
you breathe out. Make a soft "ahh" sound as you let
all the air out.
Recall a time WHEN SOMEONE PUSHED you to do
something sexual or romantic you weren't ready to do
or WHEN THEY HELD YOU BACK from doing something
sexual or romantic you were ready to do. About how
old are you when took takes place?
Tell (and relive) the incident in the PRESENT TENSE
as though it's happening right now.
What EMOTION do you experience when they push or
pull you?
What bodily sensations do you feel during this
experience?
Feel that emotion now. Sink into the feeling more
deeply. INTENSIFY it.
Imagine–perhaps unlike the situation you’ve
relived-- you can express yourself safely now and
tell your pusher (or puller) how you feel. Amplify
and EXPRESS yourself to the person(s) involved in
the situation.
What limits, fixations, conclusions, attitudes and
INNER VOICES (subpersonalities) do you develop or
reinforce as a result of this experience?
How did the fixations, conclusions, attitudes and
subselves do you developed or reinforced as a result
of this experience serve you then? HOW HAVE THESE
SUBSELVES AND ATTITUDES PROTECTED YOUR INNER CHILD’S
VULNERABILITY?
What do the interests of the protective subselves
serve you NOWADAYS? What do they really need?
RE-TELL THE SCENE or situation you just relived.
This time, however, tell it differently. Tell it in
a way that frees you from automatically limiting
yourself in situations that remind you of the one
you just relived. Relate this fantasy in a way that
what you learn no longer limits your loving or
sexuality. How would the new scenario go?
I’ll ROLEPLAY [say the name of the person--Mom,
Dad, Lover, Rapist, etc.–involved in the
situation] but this time, I’ll act-out their part
the way you retold the situation. Tell me how to
play the part so you get a more flexible attitude to
situations that remind you of the situation you
relived.
Create an AFFIRMATION–a reminder sentence–to help
you remember you can choose your response to
situations reminding you of the situation that
imprinted you to limit yourself sexually or
romantically. Say your affirmation aloud.
Say the affirmation again, louder. Shout it.
Imagine a future situation where you experience the
old, automatic attitude toward a sexual, romantic or
relationship issue.
Ask the subself that carries the old attitude to
state its concerns.
Then ask the subself that bears the new possibility,
the inner voice that expresses the affirmation you
just created, what it wants of you in this future
situation.
Center yourself between the subselves that advocates
the old attitude and the one that advocates you live
from your new affirmation. Create a discerning
action that addresses the concerns of both subselves.
RELATIONSHIP COUNSELING |
