Mind, Body & Sexual Freedom

Welcome to Laid Open. This podcast is a long time coming. For months, I’ve been having deeply meaningful and fun conversations with friends, practitioners and other experts. We’ve talked about topics from sexual freedom, energetic orgasms, and staying present to working through shame, sexual trauma, and how to masturbate and have excellent sex. So before we jump into it a little about me, I’m a licensed body centered psychotherapist, certified embodiment coach, and have extensive training and working with trauma and sexuality have spent over two decades helping people heal sexually and find pleasure in their bodies. What I’ll be doing on this podcast is sharing my own stories, answering your questions, offering practical exercises for healing, and interviewing other survivors as well as experts and authors in the field of Cymatics. Trauma, attachment, healing modalities, mindfulness and the arts. On today’s show, I’m sitting down with my buddy Amy, and we’re talking about several things that keep us from experiencing sexual freedom.

This is Charna Cassell and I’m sitting here with my buddy Amy Amy McLean is a storyteller, singer, songwriter, and educator committed to building a more resilient and equitable world. She offers engaging interactive experiences that facilitate awareness and healing. She is also super goofy, and appreciates potty-humor. Let’s jump right in.

What’s up? How you doing? Good. How you doing?

Excellent. Or as my favorite worker at Berkeley bowl says unstoppable. Wow. Awesome. It’s amazing. He said that every time I’ve asked him for the last year, he said he feels unstoppable. He says unstoppable. He’s inspiring. That’s excellent. Yeah, I really like it.

What are we going to talk about today?

I think we’re going to talk about sexual freedom for you to do freedom and what is sexual freedom to you.

It’s such a big topic. For me personally, I went from being a teenager who would have almost feel like I was gonna have a panic attack. If someone said I was beautiful or sexy. I remember just the eye contact with a guy that I I liked in high school. The sensations in my body were so overwhelming, I could barely breathe. And so what happens with trauma, the wires between excitement and anxiety get crossed and your system can’t decipher what is what so any increase in sensation for me felt like panic. So it’d be like, Oh, shit, I can’t handle this. So that’s where I was. And where I am now, is being able to thoroughly enjoy the sensations that move through my body in non sexual and sexual situations, and pursue and choose situations that heighten those sensations rather than avoid them.

Wow, I can’t quite imagine that and having that kind of control. Or you could choose what you want to or choose to heighten something like, Oh, I think I want to feel a little more sensation right here. I can’t even I can’t even imagine that. That’s why we’re here. See, it’s good to have a foil some some polls. Yeah, yeah, one of the things I want to say is, it’s I think it’s really important to not compare ourselves to other people. So when you’re thinking about what sexual freedom is, looking at where you were, and where you are, maybe where you want to go, rather than like, we have our own mini continuums along this bigger continuum that exists for let’s say, it’s like this general idea of what sexual freedom is. And for one person, being able to breathe deeply or to make any kind of sound during sex could be huge for them, or even being okay, taking up space in a dance class. Right being visible, that could be a big deal for them. So how you’re measuring what sexual freedom is, is really specific to you.

So the fact that right now I am just coming out of basically three years of divorce proceedings, and even though they were amicable, and my person is really wonderful, my ex person, my husband, just like I was my husband.

So even though, you know, that all went down fine, I don’t feel traumatized by that I still don’t have any desire to engage sexually. That could be sexual freedom for me in this moment, because I’m at least recognizing what I don’t want.

Absolutely. I think that’s, that’s well said. And I think it’s really important that sex inside of freedom, that’s a freedom to choose to choose what you want. And you know, even when someone’s healing, from sexual trauma, there are going to be periods where they may take sex off the table entirely. Or there may be a day where like, for instance, I used to work at Good Vibrations. And so I was I was simultaneously doing sexual trauma, healing, seeing a somatic therapist for the first time, and selling dildos, and cock rings, and lube all day, every day. And I was really enthusiastic and excited about teaching people about their anatomy and pleasure. And then there were certain days where younger parts of me felt confused and disgusted. And I would have, you know, customers that would hit on me or touch me or say inappropriate things or doing inappropriate things. And I just wanted to go in the back of the store and hide and just be like, Why do people have sex, I don’t understand it. And that literally would change from day to day, it didn’t, you know, for some clients I work with, there might be a year where, where sex is entirely off the table, but it can change for people.

So I’ve heard you say this a number of times that sex, or your sexual freedom isn’t necessarily static. So it doesn’t, it’s not like, Okay, I’ve achieved this one place, and now I’m there.

Yeah. So I mean, wherever, wherever you are, as, for me, at least, as I keep, as I keep healing, different emotional or physical things in my body. And in my history, my system keeps opening to more and more, and has become more and more sensitive. Right? So, you know, for me, someone doesn’t have to put their hand literally on my body for me to have an orgasm, right? It can be an energetic experience. So I had a partner and we would meditate long distance. So we were in different countries meditating. 

And we were both having orgasms without touching ourselves. Wow. So that’s not something that I could have imagined, when I was selling till Towson, very focused on, you know, that she’s bought in the clitoris, and in penises and things like that. I think this is such an interesting part of why this podcast is even here is to kind of talk about how we, or at least I know, for me, I get so mental. And so much of the healing that I’ve done has has happened in this mental realm, right? I’ve done talk therapy and 12 step and nothing wrong with any of those, you know, but I did a bunch of different methods of talking through my healing. 

And my healing has been very mental. So I understand so many of the concepts. And I feel like I I’m also an educator, I do all kinds of educating about emotional intelligence. And yet, like when it really comes to feeling things in my body, I feel like that’s the final frontier. And there’s a lot in there that I haven’t even explored yet. So what I hear you saying is a little like, foreign to me in terms of my experience. So I feel like I’m trying to put this in the, in the picture of sexual freedom, right?

 Well, we don’t know. We don’t know. Right? I can remember being in college and somebody making some kind of remark about putting something in there. But and I remember being like ill, and there was a guy who I was kind of dating though we didn’t we were never sexual. Then he was like, don’t talk to you try it. This is what a 19 year old boy, which is pretty awesome that he said that. Yeah. And he’s talking about himself. Fast forward five years, and my perspective is really different. fast forward another 10 years, my perspective, changes even more about putting things in your bed, putting things in my bed or putting things in other people’s butts.

No, we’re talking about this is sexual freedom equal opportunity. At this point. I’m not there. I’m not there. It’s totally okay. You don’t need to be.

So could you give us like a couple more examples of what sexual freedom looks like for different people. So right now I’m hearing, okay, enlightened orgasm without touching anybody. I’m hearing can’t really feel my body. So I just don’t want to like I’m just not there. I got to figure out other ways of taking care of myself. And that is my freedom in this moment, but it’s sort of more toward the asexual space. What in your clients, what are some things that you’ve seen? They’re like, Oh, this is their sexual freedom.

Okay, so So I think that having embodied knows, which means that you’re able to say no from automatic and genuine place, you don’t have to think about it, being able to say no to something that you don’t want being able to feel your body enough to know what you do or don’t want, first of all, then being able to make a choice about it, the more that you can say no, then the more access you actually have to your yes, your your yes becomes really genuine versus default and about pleasing other people.

 So there’s a lot of freedom in being able to feel yourself and then act from that place. Right? So that for one person they’re working on the stage of embodied knows, right? Versus defaulting to Yes. And for somebody else, we’re working specifically on different kinds of sexual acts. Right. So for some people there, it’s called pre orgasmic, right, that they have not had, what Masters and Johnson calls an orgasm, right? So there’s different actually different kinds of orgasms, which we can get into at a different time. 

Just get into it. What are the kinds of orgasms Come on, we’re talking about sexual freedom, I want to know, well, so there’s this old school concept of what an orgasm is, which is this rise and sharp drop off a climax, right? It’s like, oh, and you peak, and it’s done versus something that’s popular in the Bay Area, made popular by by different communities that have taught whole body orgasm. And there’s this idea that you can increase sensation, back off, increase sensation back off, keep rising so that you’re climbing and climbing and climbing. And what that’s doing is it’s building sensation in the body. So that it’s not just genitally focused, it’s not, you know, orgasm, that’s it, or ejaculate. That’s it. There’s a building of sensation and chi and energy that has you feel your whole system, and it goes on and on and on.

So you would have to be able to feel your whole body, which is kind of what we’re talking about where my my body, I don’t have that much sensation in my body, right? I don’t experience that much sensation in my body. So part of my freedom, if I were to go down that road, one thing I could do would be practice on expanding how much I can feel. And have you had any clients where like, they’re expanding how much they can feel, and then just boom, they just shut it down. They’re like, no, too much.

Oh, absolutely. Healing is not a linear process. What you’re saying is really important, I do a lot of sex therapy, people come to me with a focus around sex, but I may be working with them around being able to feel sensation in absolutely non sexual situations, because that is more tolerable and the stakes are lower. So it’s super important. It’s like, Oh, can you feel the hunger? Is there a food that you really like and that you crave? And what does it feel like? or is there an activity like dance or performing music? What’s something that has you come alive? And what is that like in your system?

It’s so funny. I just feel like we’re recovering from the mentalism. If you were to put this like in this very broad sort of picture of where we’re moving as collective intelligence, right? Where we’re moving as a society, it’s like, we have gotten so far into our heads that we’ve almost forgotten the body and the only way people practice with the body is like, you know, they work out or they do exercise or something. But you know, there’s so much more about longing and sensing and yearning and craving and all those things that are so more animalistic, you know, really in the body. And I feel like, I keep hearing things about Cymatics and consciousness that are moving it into the body.

Yeah, I’ve had a lot of clients who are actually, you know, they’re professional dancers or iron marathon winners, and it doesn’t mean that they’re embodied. Right, you can be really athletic and really fit and not feel your emotions and not feel your sensations and not know what you want and be able to make decisions based on what feels good to you.

So part of sexual freedom is being able to feel it and understand so I heard of bodied knows, I heard sensation, identification, awareness, tolerance, expansion. I’ve heard different types of orgasm, being able to sustain high sensation for longer amounts of time being able to be totally stimulated, in your mind.

That’s, that’s the core of everything that I do is thinking about how sex is a microcosm. And so much of what I may talk about with clients, it’s like it relates to all these other aspects of your life and yourself in it’s outside the bedroom, right? Like, give me an example. Well, I want to rewind and speak to how I may have said this a little bit before but just in terms of sexual freedom, how it can look so different. So certain clients I’m working with, you know, we’re taking these baby steps towards this bigger goal they’ve named when they were coming in. Okay, so we’ve had to, it’s like, okay, this is the lighthouse, we’re moving towards that. Yet, we’re focused on learning how to stay present and not dissociate during sex. But how that then relates to it’s not just sex, right? It’s it’s other parts of their life. How do they even stay present? When they’re writing about a hard topic? How do they stay present in a hard conversation? How do they stay present when they’re with their kid? Right?

Even mean, when you say that, right, thanks. Stay present. It’s like what exactly, I feel like that means five different things to different people.

So certain clients that I’m working with, they may come in with this idea of what they’re wanting to move towards sexually or in other parts of their life. And we’re having to take baby steps, right? So instead of jumping right to, I want sexual freedom.

That’s the request. Instead of jumping right to having that as an experience, it might be like, Oh, okay, first, you need to be able to tolerate taking a deeper breath, and being able to feel your body and stay present and not dissociate. As soon as sensation increases.

So if you were going to give someone an exercise for that, how would you describe it to them? So you’re saying stay present? Take a deeper breath. Can you say a little bit more about what that means to stay present? And then what would be the exercise you would do right after this podcast to just practice staying present?

Yeah, certain kinds of mindfulness meditation can be valuable around this someone like Reggie Ray who does body based or the pashmina meditation that’s focused on feeling your body versus transcending your body when you’re meditating. For me somatic practices that came out of working with Richard Strozzi, Heckler and Stacy Haynes really made a difference for me in becoming more present and staying in my body. So an example something like as you as you breathe, okay, breathing in through your nose, letting the breath fall out your mouth. Simply, you’re doing it, doing it with me, feel your feet on the ground. Okay. I’m gonna, I’m going to up the ante. And have you do something that that you might not do in a meditation room with a bunch of people that you can do this. Once you learn this, I’m going to bring your attention to your pelvic floor. Right? You may have learned about this in yoga or pilates, your pelvic floor of your pec muscles, the pubic coxa Jia muscles are the muscles around your genitals and anus.

So just if I like squeeze, like I was trying to stop peeing, so your muscles that stop your pee or your muscles that may bear down, those are your pec muscles, this is actually a really big one, these muscles can be being aware, bringing attention to them, and learning how to relax them can really help you also regulate your emotions. Imagine there’s a big antique bathtub, and it’s filled with water. It’s plugged up and your body is that bathtub, and let’s say anxiety or sensation is the water. And if it keeps filling, filling and filling and you don’t unplug it, it could overflow. And it could overflow in the form of you having an emotional outburst. I never have those.

You’re above the law. Or if you unplug the tub, all of that water starts to flow down. So the same idea so those emotions can start to flow down and start to flow down. You can imagine they go into the earth. It’s a way to contain and be with what’s happening in your body. And if you put your attention lower, putting your attention lower in your body when we’re upset, often people will only feel from the neck up, right? They feel all this tension rise, their shoulders rise, they hold their breath, their eyebrows rise, their faces and jaws get tense. It’s really hard to have a tense job when you have relaxed pelvic floor, right? So relax your pelvic floor, if you can, and just so you know, identifying those muscles and accessing them is not always easy. Some people get it right away and other people it takes time. So give yourself some time. What I tell my clients is I say Imagine you’re sitting on a mirrored stool and you can fog the mirror with your breath. Out of your vagina. That’s right. It’s just called I like honestly, I like to call it Volvik Breathing or I tell my male clients to breathe out their asshole.

That just, I mean, don’t you think people are going to be scared already that they’re getting eaten up? I mean, that they’re getting.

Yes. Like the vagina is like a mouth that’s going doesn’t have teeth. It’s like fluttering I know. But when you’re gonna fog up a mirror with your breath out your vagina, that is what I thought. Come on now. Okay. We’re serious. See, I used to work in Good Vibrations. I had this awesome colleague I loved and he would, when someone would piss him off, he would say, I’ll be in the back breathing out my asshole. So just so you know, there’s a book called The multi orgasmic man by Montauk chia. And he is a Taoist practitioner. And he can, there’s a variety of practices in that book that I may refer to, as time goes on, and you can read more about breathing out your asshole in that book. For now, we’re going to talk about breathing out your vagina or your asshole. It’s either way, okay, we’re gonna talk about breathing out your vagina or your asshole and fogging up your mirrored stool, your personal mirror. So I just have to say that even the grumpiest person, if you do this at work, you’re gonna have a better day.

You’re just imagine you’re just sitting there with your boss, they’re saying something totally annoying. And all of a sudden, you’re like, I’m breathing out my vagina onto my mirrored stool.

You’re smiling right now, aren’t ya, I really, what it does is it brings your attention lower in your body. I mean, if you you can do this, and it can create turn on or you can do this and it can just bring your attention lower and your body. Okay, so we’re going to practice this week, bringing our attention lower in our body. So maybe when we’re really upset, trying to squeeze those pee muscles and relax them. And imagine the emotions draining out of the plug of our bathtub.

So one of the key things is unlike in yoga, or Pilates, where it’s like Mula Bandha, or you’re pulling up on your pelvic floor, which increases energy, you are relaxing, or bearing down gently, right. So it’s a subtle bearing down initially, it might be stronger, right? So you don’t have to squeeze them. That’s a whole other practice that we can get into. So you’re just letting them be soft, just exhaling. So as you inhale, you let them be soft. As you exhale, you exhale through them.

I think this might take me a little while. Yeah, that’s good.

Although practice is exactly what it’s all about.

For any of us that’s done a Kegel exercise, or someone who’s had a child, right, there’s a place of understanding like, for me, since I’ve had a child, I really have some distinction about the muscles and how those muscles feel. So but I think even as you’re saying that I’m like, Okay, it’s gonna take me a little bit of practice, maybe to actually feel them relaxing, and to learn how to bear down a little bit without pain. 

Yes, I’m gonna practice. And just so you know, I mean, I have, I’ve worked with a range of ages, and I have some clients who, if they’re dealing with incontinence in any way, like, that’s going to be harder. I’ve worked with people after prostate cancer, and there’s gonna be more tendency to not have much control over your pelvic floor and your muscles, but I like this. Okay, so I’m practicing. Moving my I’m practicing a couple of things I’m practicing. First of all, maybe just sitting there and seeing if I can feel the muscles of my pelvic floor. And I might start by squeezing them just so that I can look at them. And then see if I can feel them relaxing. And just practice feeling that in a moment when I’m quiet, but I’m also practicing, remembering in moments where I get charged, triggered, angry, upset. Noticing if I feel my emotions moving up. And if I feel something like my shoulders getting tired or my chest getting tight, and then I’m going to practice loosening that up and moving my energy down to my pelvic floor. Okay, so this is yeah, this is this week’s exercise. I work with a range of topics and clients and issues and so sometimes people come in and they’re dealing with not being able to get an erection or maintain an erection or not being able to stay hard as long as they want to or come too quickly.

Soft caulk, soft, quick caulk.

Disk, this car won the race wasn’t a race. It was a leisure stroll.

Do people have turtle cock?

I would say some toxic like turtles.

I’m just saying if it softens up like let’s say they get hurt and then all of a sudden something happens and it’s like turtle caulk.

Absolutely. emotional vulnerability can cause terrible caulk. There are practices that people can do to help themselves last longer.

It’s Standard, extend extended hours like working overtime clock.

Okay. Very good. Because extended caucus just pretty much any excited clock. That’s right. Okay.

That’s called an erection.

Great, thanks. I just haven’t seen one in so long, it’s hard to remember. Don’t feel bad,

I’ll just say that I think at different times in your life, a hard on can be a threatening or scary thing. And I have to say, at this point in my life, it’s very much well, as long as I like the person, it’s very much invited. And it’s so awesome. And it has an incredible amount of power. To change my mind.

I’ve heard one of our teachers say that there’s a plexus of neurons down there in your root Energy Center, where your sexual organs are, that has an effect a mind of its own.

Which teacher are you referring to?

Dr. Joe Dispenza. Oh, yeah, talks about the different lineup, that route Energy Center, you know, he basically talks about how there’s neurological cells and pathways in each of the energy centers or some hippie people like may call them chakras. So in each of your chakras, there’s an energy center, and often that there’s a plexus of neurons associated with that center that can operate sort of independently or that can generate thought or action on its own. This relates back to in terms of Mula Bandha, like pulling up the energy from there, if you like, inhale, you bring that all the upper spine all the way at the top of your head. That’s a lot of energetic force. Okay. So if you can use it that powerfully to energize yourself, you can also use it to relax yourself, the more that you work those muscles, right, you can actually even heal. You know, you could if you have, for instance, an anal fissure, and an anal fissure, God bless you. I hope it heals quickly, because they’re not fun. But if you have any kind of tear, or, or anything on your perineum, if you do practices by contracting and bringing more blood flow to that area, you can heal that if you have a tendency to have less like, have more soft caulk less hard cock, doing these practices, bringing the blood flow to your pelvic region is going to energize your cock, right? It’s going to bring the juices and the blood down there. Everybody wants to energize caulk, yes, and a juicy cock. So pressing, this is a whole other topic, but women’s will keep going. Pressing your your perineum, or pinching the head of your cock are different ways to stop. If it feels like you’re about to ejaculate too bad, we can’t do that from the inside. 

Oh, you’re talking about puppet master cook, I’m talking about you talking about choice full, being able to control they’re about to go when and where and the woman’s like, stop, stop, I got you. I’ll pinch it right from here.

Press the Pause button. But you know, something just along those lines. I think it’s it’s really valuable to remember, if you’re a man having sex with anybody. You don’t have to just keep going, going going. It’s not a race to the finish that you can pause. You can mix it up in terms of the rhythm, you can stop and have a conversation, the more that you elongate how long you’re building up that energy. If the goal is to have an orgasm, it’s going to be stronger and more powerful. I was just gonna say that, you know, that at a different time in my life, being confronted by a hard on was threatening and scary or gross. And definitely if it’s if it’s from somebody that you don’t want pressing it up against you, that’s really yucky. But when you like somebody and maybe you’re not even like for me at least the other night, I was like, Okay, I’m not. I’m not ready to go there yet. Didn’t think that that’s where we were going. And then when I felt him hard. I was like, Oh, this is this is this is done. And that’s not always the case. There are plenty of times when I have total like I could be confronted with someone without their pants on. And I’m still like, yeah, no, let’s just make out. 

But the other night. I was like this is this is over. And that’s it in a good way. Like this is the this is the power of feeling someone’s hard GOC and knowing like, Oh, that’s a good surprise. I did this storytelling event that was basically like a local Vagina Monologues and it was called the Yoni verse. And the first line in my story was talking about how Oh, I love sex the way other women love chocolate. At the time, I couldn’t eat chocolate I can now, which is very exciting, I’ve healed my digestion. And I still love sex more than I love chocolate. And I think that it was a really big deal for me to say that and claim that in a room full of strangers, because there’s a way that until I was in my late 20s, I blamed myself for my sexual abuse. 

And so for me, I had more shame coming out around wanting to have sex with men than I did coming out when I was a teenager. Because even though this doesn’t sound logical to a lot of people, there was a way that I was like, well, if I’m attracted to men, or boys, then that means that I wanted the abuse to happen, or that I gave permission for the abuse to happen. So the reality is that I was a sexual kid, even as a baby, like, you know, I would masturbate and that’s who I came into this world, as I just felt like there, it was important for me to name that there’s this part of me that is very sexual, and very comfortable talking about sex and loves having these kinds of conversations. And then there’s this other part that’s like a lead has like a foot, a little toe on the brake, thinking, Oh, my God, if I claim this and put this out into the world, then what? What kind of permission? Am I granting strangers? Or how are they going to take this and then use this against me in some way? Yeah.

And just to be reiterating what you said about the the healing that you’ve done, so that you know that even though you’re a sexual kid, that doesn’t justify any abuse? No. And it’s really making that distinction of like, wow, I have these really sexualized feelings. Yeah. And it doesn’t mean, an older man was allowed to take advantage of me. That’s a lot of complex work you had to do or a child or an older woman or whatever it was, right. Yeah. I mean, I think that’s the thing. It’s like children in general. And I’ll speak for myself that, that there’s this light to them, right. There’s this sweetness. There’s this energy, that lifeforce that’s moving through them. And people want that it gets perverted. And people take it in a variety of ways. And so you know, even being a 20 year old, and I bought my first car at a junkyard, it was a 68 Dodge Dart. 

And for $700 it was it was big and kind of rusty brown with gold detailing and purple tinted windows and fuzzy seat covers, and had no working brakes and no wrecking anything lights. And anyways, the guy that ran that shop, ended up proclaiming His love for me, he was like in his 60s. And, you know, it was very confusing for me at the time. And I’ve come to see it since that from like, so many older men who have extended, you know, whether it’s inappropriate things or even he wasn’t he was it was inappropriate, but it was still caring, like he was like, I’m in love with you. 

And it was coming from a place I think of like he was he was depressed and feeling kind of suicidal and dead in his life and unhappy in his marriage. And then this spunky kid comes in off the street. And I had all these ideas about like businesses using old antique scripts from cars and making purses out of hubcaps, and weird shit like that. And it infused his life with a little bit of light. Yeah, right. So I don’t always think that people intend to be as inappropriate as they are. But there’s a desire for lightness. And aliveness,

I think where I resonate so much with what you’re saying is, for me, as a trauma survivor, not necessarily a sexual abuse survivor, although one of your teachers, Stacy Haynes did tell me at one point when I was doing some work with her that if there’s domestic violence, and a high amount of sexuality in the same space that those things get collapsed. Absolutely. So for me, you know, there was a lot of domestic violence in my house, and my stepdad and my mom. Also, were very sexual. And so there’s this place for me where I know I shut down so much of my lifeforce, like, I’ve super light, super curious, want to laugh at everything I want to engage with everyone is kind of my essence and how I find joy, and lightness in the world. 

I spent many years of my life trying to manage and control that energy within me because the impact of the domestic violence was, Oh, God, I can’t say anything, or want anything, because I’m gonna get hurt or in trouble for that. And then the impact of the sexuality that he had with my mom, including domestic violence with her as well had me just be like, Oh, sex is humiliating. So it’s been interesting to kind of watch you on your journey where there’s so much sexual freedom and so much sexual desire, whereas I look at myself and I’m like, Well, I just don’t want any of that stuff. But actually, so much of my want has been tamped down.

I resonate a lot with what you just shared, because that’s where I live from until my early 20s or late mid 20s that I had a real sexual aversion that was my response to sexual trauma. And I actually, Amy, I consider what you describe sexual trauma, right. So one of the things that I’m writing about in my book, swimming through glass six steps to sexual freedom, is how all these other forms of complex trauma that have developmental trauma that happened in our lives, domestic violence, being one of them affect and shape our sexuality, and you dampening down and squeezing down your lifeforce, which I consider sexual energy, ultimately affect your sexuality, right.

 And I had a similar thing in my family around domestic violence and having to hear my mom having really loud sex with this person who abused us, and how confusing that was, and how I was filled with rage about it. And it really shaped my sexuality, not just the abuse, but like I decided, I would never be dominated by a man, this guy moved in with us really quickly. And so that even shaped even when I was partnered with women sharing a home with a lover, that also felt oppressive. Like there was so much around intimacy, not just sex, but intimacy and closeness that I had an aversion to, as a result of domestic violence, sexual abuse, all sorts of things.

When you say that our sexual freedom is a microcosm for freedom and the rest of our lives, our dampening down or our trauma, it also kind of creates the microcosm in the other direction.

Well, for instance, there was somebody who came to see me really early on in seeing clients, and he only came in once he was an older man. And he basically had an issue around not having a numb dick. He’s like the head of his khaki, couldn’t feel the little bit of his story was that he was a martial arts teacher, he was an older man, a Jew in a pretty anti semitic neighborhood. And he learned how to fight. Right? So he knew how to fight and he knew how to fuck. But he couldn’t intimately connect, he couldn’t feel. So how that showed up is, you know, we did a physical practice based in martial arts based in Aikido, and I walked towards him with my hand extended as if I was going to put my hand on his chest. I’m a small woman, I’m five 520 bounds. 

And as I walked towards him, he swung at me. So what was embodied was fighting. And he was really surprised he was because he’s not threatened by me, of course, right. And so as we practice, the swing got less than less, right? It just became like a shoulder pole towards me. And so you know, some part of him wanted to not have a numb dick. But he wasn’t really ready to feel more intimate and connected. Right? Like, he said, something I want to give him some feedback based on what was happening in the practice. He mentioned, yeah, my, my girlfriend wants me to be cuddly or more intimate or more tender. But that wasn’t something that his, you know, went against his survival to do that, right. So does that make sense where it’s like, he came in specifically around this, but I wanted to open up this other stuff that was just like, he wasn’t ready to go there.

It’s funny when I’m operating in my daily life, I, for a very long time, 14 years, I work for an organization that was all about helping people understand their feelings, and take care of their feelings and connects more build connection, handle conflict, all that kind of stuff. And so it was a very touchy feely kind of office. And one of our practices was hugging people, when they walk in the door, like offering a hug being there and creating some contact and some connection. And my first reaction, I was very sarcastic about it for a long time. And I’d be like, don’t touch me, you know, I’m like, here, let me have a hug. Let me give you some context, but don’t touch me. 

And, and I laughed about it. But when I said it, it just came out a little too harsh. You know, it was like I said it with a little too much energy, you know, when you’re making a joke, and it’s not actually a joke, and you can tell because you can feel the force of someone’s like, oh, like, Don’t touch me. Yeah. And it took me a while to even like recognize how much force I was saying that with? Yeah, yeah. So if you’re going to look at that first step, like in your book, you’ve got six steps to sexual freedom. Where would you say was the first one?

Oh, well, starting with awareness, right. I mean, I think even being able to identify and name what’s happening, what your experiences acknowledging it I think most people minimize what their experiences are. A lot of people may not even have the idea that something is sexual trauma, and they may not have found relief approaching it, you know, focused on all these other aspects of their trauma, and they’re still not relief. But if you’re not able to acknowledge what’s actually happening and what your experiences, you can’t really address it.

So when was the first time you had like a real awareness of your trauma, like a consciousness, kind of like you became aware in the way that you’re talking about is that first step in your book. So as a high school student, when we were in 12th, grade, I went to a school called crossroads in Los Angeles. And we had this very special class called mysteries, we would do a vision quest, we would a group of kids spend this time up on land in Ohio, do some work on the land, do a sweat lodge, we had this whole thing. 

God bless the hippies, yes. And in that. So basically, what I knew is that people spoke about things that were secrets that they would share that they had never shared before. So in my mind, I thought, oh, okay, this is going to be the place, I’m going to go into that sweat lodge, and I’m going to share this stuff. I had been sexually abused by my brother, my friend’s dad, and my stepfather, and I was going to speak about it, and it was going to be done. And poof, I would be better. That was literally how I conceived of it. And I started therapy at the age of 15. And so I’d spoken a little bit, I was also in a Child Protection Center as a teenager as a 14 year old. And I’d spoken about it there. But I don’t think I even understood the extent like there were certain incidents that I could identify, especially with my mom’s boyfriend who I called my stepfather who lived with us. 

But there was a pervasive culture of I called it domestic torture that we lived in that there were things that I didn’t even identify as sexual abuse or sexual trauma, that I only later could conceive of those things. So I was in the sweat lodge. And I shared these like, came out like a wailing guttural grief that I had been bottling up all this time, because I hadn’t been even talking to about it with my therapist or anything. And once it came out, I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t pack it all back in. So I felt okay and safe when we’re all together in this little, you know, community up in Ojai. But then once school started, I felt so exposed, I felt like I was like a crustacean and my shell had been ripped off and all my protection of not speaking about things, I was too exposed. These people knew too much about me. And I actually just, I couldn’t go back to school. For like, a month and a half, I stayed home, I felt depressed and paranoid and anxious. I did all my schoolwork from home.

Are there moments of your awareness? So when you talk in your book about the first step is awareness? Are there moments that you remember where you were like, Oh, I’ve got this, or Oh, a big piece came in. And you were like, oh, now I’m aware?

It’s such a big question, because I was a really self reflective kid. And I started therapy at the age of 14. And there were so many moments, where awareness built on itself, and my even conceiving an understanding of the extent of the abuse that I was living and how it affected me. So you know, it wasn’t really until I started somatic therapy, that I could look back on all these other moments, and understand that I was dealing with PTSD, and how much certain experiences from childhood affected even how I functioned in school and how like every semester, around a certain time of year, I would have a breakdown. And that related to certain kinds of trauma during a certain time of year. And so the more self reflection, the more I meditated, the more I did body work. And all these pieces started to integrate and come together, my consciousness and my understanding of what trauma is and how it’s affected me was less like a bunch of random pieces of fabric on the ground and became more like there were sewn together and a quilt.

Yeah, I think I can relate to that. Because I think for me, there’s places where it’s like, okay, I left that abusive situation of domestic violence at 13. I moved into a with my dad, my real dad, and had a stable home. But I wouldn’t say I had awareness of any of the things that were really happening to me. I moved towards Christianity for love, because I there was a youth group. It was fun, it was uplifting, and I started to feel the love that they talked about. But from a spiritual source. 

And then I went to college and was like, I’m not sure I want this spiritual source as my spiritual source. I don’t know if I believe all these things, you know, and I went through that, and I separated from that. And then after college, I went into therapy. And I started talking about some of the things but I didn’t have a lot of awareness, I would, I would say that then I started doing some 12 Step work codependence. And there, I started to have little pieces of awareness about things I did in relationships. 

I could reflecting Oh, I did these things, oh, this is a way I don’t say what I mean, or this is a way I’m having an experience, I’m not really talking about it. And I’m not really being honest. And so that that was where I really think I started to come into some awareness about how I operated differently than what I thought, you know, I started to really see what I was doing in my life. But then it was round after round after round of other kinds of thoughts and practices and workshops and stuff like that, until I landed where I am today, which is with a lot more awareness, but I feel like it comes in waves. And, you know, it’s like you can take the lid off of something like you did in high school, in that experience. And then you know, it’s going to be round after round of understanding both that experience and all you shared and everything that you’ve experienced. I feel like awareness is one of those cycles, you know, that you’re constantly working on?

Absolutely. There’s so many layers to it. And someone who became a mentor for me and was my first somatic therapist and became a teacher is Stacy Haines. And she wrote a book called What used to be called survivor’s Guide to Sex and this renamed healing sex. And when I moved out to San Francisco from back east, I lived in Northampton, Massachusetts, after college, I discovered this book. And then so then synchronistically, actually, I had started going to Al Anon. And after my first meeting, this woman approached me and she’s like, Hey, do you want to have coffee, and she became one of my best friends. 

And so we, when we went to coffee, I happen to have that book in my purse. And she started talking about our therapist, Stacey. And I was like, Oh, my God, wait, hold on, I pulled the book out like this, Stacy, oh, my God, I was so excited, I felt a little star struck. And so turned out Stacy had one space in her group and one space in her private practice. And I got to fill those spaces. And so much came together as a result of doing that work specifically and being surrounded by other, it was a somatic survivor’s group. So it was the first time that I felt home and I felt gotten, I felt like I felt really understood in a way that I’d never understood myself or felt reflected by other people. And so groups can be a really great resource for people.

Yeah, I think for me, I’ve gotten in a women’s circle that I sit in, I’ve heard so many of their stories. And often their stories are really different than mine, you know, the prevalence of sexual abuse. And sexual assault is so high that in this group that I sit in, there are many women who have experienced sexual assault, and I feel like I haven’t experienced that, you know, experienced domestic violence.

 I think that combined, of course, with the sexuality, and so there’s an aspect there, but I didn’t experience that. And still, I hear their experiences, and what they’re going through, and I’m like, oh, and it just helps me reflect on my own experience, I see myself in their own reactions. And then I become more aware of habits I have that might be destructive, or just aren’t generative for my relationships, or whatever. So group, hearing someone else’s experiences, being with a therapist, and someone who can actually help you to bring a sort of meta perspective to what you’re going through any other ways you can think of, of building your awareness?

Well, so just inside, specifically, that group, we used physical practices, we didn’t even really explain what we were doing that much. But what had helped me see was what was automatic and invisible to me. So my habitual responses to stress were revealed to me in your body, through my body through physical martial arts based practices. And in starting to embody, we would do these exercises around boundaries, for instance, and I do a lot of this stuff with my clients now. 

And every time we would do this, like a simple physical practice, and we’d say no, I would just start crying. And I had no idea why I was crying. There was nothing happening in the room simply saying the word no, I’d be reduced to tears and just certain even dynamics in the group, like there was just like you were saying, there’s so much awareness around how I related to other people, and what was what was a conditioned response in order to stay safe. That was one of the things that really got revealed to me in that group experience.

So you’re talking about therapy, you’re talking about workshops, you’re talking about reflection circles, and you’re now you’re talking about physical exercises that help you uncover maybe physical responses that you have that aren’t necessarily so mental.

Right? Meditating was has been a huge part of my life for the last Many years, there’s been so many different kinds of meditation. Initially, I was introduced to meditation through the Strozzi Institute with Richard Strozzi, heckler as my teacher. And it was really about just building focus and bodily awareness. 

And then I started heart centered meditation and and then I studied with a man who has a brother, Ishmael Tete, who was a mystic from Ghana, there, all these different kinds of meditation, chakra centered meditation, Vipassana as well as, okay, this is a good time for this. I think that we need to go back and forth and say all the different practices we’ve tried to get healthy, right and emotionally stable.

Okay, we could both say 12 step at the same time. Ready? And then you could say one and I’ll say one ready to step. Alateen Al Anon. Codependents Anonymous, Love Addicts Anonymous. I went to a couple of meetings back in the day, okay.

Okay. Christianity, Reiki landmark, acupuncture, chiropractic, Rolfing. Film Christ, sound healing, energy, bodywork therapy. I want to say jumping. Dancing, fitness definitely did this miracle of love emotional release meditation.

My list is really long, but my brain is really slow. In this moment, someone was asking me how many cults I’d been in. I’m like, oh, plenty of cults.

I dipped my toe in the one taste cold and very quickly was like you’re just encouraging people to listen to your policies, but I believe in listening to the whole body. Oh, hey. Two minutes sex cold. Yeah, I’m not a big I’m not a big guru cold fan. Although I have had some primary teachers that have left indelible imprints a muscle somatic and somatic experiencing being a light worker of the Lucia light. 

Well, there’s that but Mira by Devery, who is also an another meditation and energy teacher. Yeah, going to chi upasana Dr. Joe Dispenza, Dr. John high favorite, really healed my physical body doing that work, chi gong Aikido, there’s more. There’s more, there’s more where that came from.

I really want to hear people’s laundry list.

But you know, like, how many of us have gone through 17 different modalities to try to heal ourselves, zillion chiropractors, I basically have dealt with my spine being destabilized and back being out Oh, biodynamic cranial and cranial? sacral therapy? HeartMath. Yes. My back being out for almost the last 10 years, consistently for two years. And this last the last six years consistently until I’ve been able to learn how to actually adjust my own back and keep it stabilized, which is amazing.

Yeah. Nutritionists to Oh, yeah. I mean, last naturopath. Oh, yeah, homeopaths osteopaths.

Oh, yeah, seriously, ultimately, what I have found for personally, for me, inside of all these things, the things that have made the biggest difference in my own physical healing, yes, I needed to have a certain amount of psychoeducation. And holding, and re parenting modeled for me through somatic work. But besides that, really, it was at a certain point, when I had enough of that it was meditation. And that really meditating and becoming my own solid consistent being that I never had from anybody else. For many parents. I needed to be that for myself. And it’s a cliche and it’s absolutely true. 

Yeah, I hear you more coming to my mind here. Holotropic, breathwork, rebirthing, eight, constitutional acupuncture, all of those. Oh, yeah. Thai massage, also neurofeedback. That’s a really big one.

Yeah. EMDR it takes a lot of courage to turn towards yourself and decide. I mean, the thing is, is things have to get bad enough. You have to be really done with how things are going before you’re ready to change, compelling enough reason to make changes and to stir things up and to experience them in a new way. 

Because we’re really attached and identified with old ways of being, I just want to acknowledge wherever people are, like you get to take your time and go at your own pace. building awareness can be a slow and layered process. It’s a spiral, right? Healing happens in a spiral and you keep coming closer and closer into the center and building new levels of awareness. So being impatient really doesn’t help you.

Have patience. Have patience. Don’t be in such a hurry. So that’s gonna do it for us today.

I’m Charna Casell, you’ve been listening to Laid Open. You can learn more about trauma informed sex therapy at my website, passionate life.org where you can also sign up for my newsletter and get access to exercises from Each episode I’d love to hear from you email your stories and questions to laid open podcast@gmail.com And I’d love for you to follow this podcast on Instagram at laid open podcast