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Last week in my practice there were some amazing realizations that came through shifting perspectives and asking different questions.
Asking different questions allows us to see things differently. When we can see things differently we can do things differently.
And one of the most powerful understandings from this is the power of questions, to be more engaged, more curious, more open.
Gabor Mate talks about 2 ways of being.
The first is closed and defensive. We spend more than 70% of our lives in this space because most of what we do comes from stress, from a pattern of defensiveness to stress. This forms the basis for the patterns we develop, which impact on every area of life. I sliding sex and relationship. The more I think about this, the more I do the work and teaching I do, the more I see how for so many of us, sex is actually an expression of stress rather than the freedom of pleasure.
The 2nd way for us to be is open and engaged.
This is where we start to create possibilities, this is where we see things with eyes open a little wider, eyes that can see things from a different place. This is where we connect from a place of being able to expand rather than contract.
This is the place that so many of these conversations came from this week.
It takes time to get here, it takes energy and persistence and consist of eve and desire to change to get here.
And it opens incredible possibilities.
One of these came from a woman of 32 who had lost her desire, sex became such a chore, she was unfulfilled, unsatisfied, the connection with her partner, the intimacy they shared was closing, there were more obstacles, more withholds, less sharing, less talking, less affection, more withdrawal, more unsaid things, more confusion, more frustration…
It’s important to understand that sex, and relationship, do not happen in a vacuum. There are many aspects to them and many issues. So we’ve been working through these for a while. Each one makes the next understanding, the next realization, and the change that comes with it possible. When we don’t try and rush this when we build a foundation for change we’re able to integrate what we’ve learned, see the pattern and see how to do it differently.
The big question came from turning things around, going within and asking, what do I get from being more sexual in my relationship, what does it allow me to do, what does it give me?
This is from a point of self- awareness with a depth that we often don’t allow ourselves as we’ve been so conditioned into ‘selfish is bad.’
A long time ago I read a book by Anthony DeMello called the way to love. In this there was a piece about selfishness that said essentially we get something from everything we do, not matter how charitable or giving we are.
This really started me looking at aspects of my life, why I do what I do, which part of me is being fed by this.
When we put that into the space of sex and love, when we can ask the questions that come from it, we can really find some very different possibilities.
This woman was able to see that when she was more sexual she felt more alive, more vital. That was about her.
She saw that she was able to communicate with more openness. That was about her.
She saw that she felt more loved. That was about her.
She saw that her arousal was more about her choosing it, allowing it, rather than waiting for him, that was about her. And that alone led her to start looking at how much else in her life was her choice.
She saw that she felt sexier, more feminine. That was about her.
She became more interested in sex, in learning more, in experimenting. That was about her.
She was more able to communicate when certain things worked better for her. That was about her.
And there were so many more realizations and the change that came from them.
Our pleasure, our fulfillment, our happiness, not only in sex, in a relationship, and in life is more about us than we’d like to think. When we get that, it’s up to us to do something about it.
And for so many of us, that’s the hard part.
It requires healing, change, learning, growing…
It requires us, our pleasure, our love being important to us.
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I'm a Conscious Sexuality Practitioner in South Africa. I work with men, women, and couples of all orientations. I offer a range of lessons, workshops, and retreats. I present a weekly online radio show, SexTalk on cliffcentral.com.
Asking different questions allows us to see things differently. When we can see things differently we can do things differently.
