Sex & (Online) Dating
Sex & (online) Dating
Sex is unconscious manifested in physical. Dating is forever changing and in between there are many left confused what to do.
Helping clients release blocked energy/thought patterns trapped sexually; sexual expressions; sexual addictions; unconscious repatterning of sexual energy; establishing inner confidence and acceptance of sexual energy(female) in body and mind; trust and acceptance of body in sexual domain; overcoming shame/guilt linked to or expressed sexually; integrating animus and anima.
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Sex, as the intercourse between two people, is a sacred rite that has since time immemorial been appraised and held in high esteem. Cultures around the world have expressed this energy in different forms and manifestations followed by many customs and rituals. Similarly such powerful force and energy, that in its essence is the bringer of life, is also the temple of pleasure that has the strongest and most deeply imbedded biological and psychological program in our mind and body. For this reason, when this inherent energy and system is blocked or expressed in ways that harm us or others, it can be one of the greatest catalysts to underlining problems. Another important factor here is how sexuality joins with attitudes, values and beliefs as well as trends; how it shapes our self and our identities and especially its role and label as related to the feminine and the woman.
Defining Sex
Spencer.A.Rathus et al( 2005) define sex(acting as a verb) ‘as the physical activities involving our sex organs for purposes of reproduction or pleasure’, as such it is also included in activities of: masturbation; hugging; kissing; sexual intercourse. Sex also encompasses a wider scale and includes erotic feelings, experiences, desires, sexual thoughts and fantasies, sexual urges or feelings of sexual attraction to another person.
Sexual Behaviour:
This refers to the physical activities which involve the body as the expression of erotic/affectionate feelings. These behaviours may or may not involve reproduction and thus are performed for the purpose of pleasure, eg. masturbation; foreplay; oral sex; fondling.
Human Sexuality:
These are the many ways in which individuals experience as well as express themselves as sexual beings. Its important here to add that, ‘’our awareness of ourselves as females or males is part of our sexuality, as is the capacity we have for the erotic experiences and responses’’ (Spencer.A.Rathus et al 2005).
The Conscious Mind:
The conscious mind is attributed to the representations you are aware of in a given moment, or the immediate mental map which you have conscious access to. The conscious mind expresses through the internal framework of systems running and assigning commentary to the events you experience at a given moment or moments.
The Unconscious and Sex
The unconscious mind, is everything in the mind-body system that isn’t conscious at a given moment or situation. The unconscious mind is a colossal library which holds the complete knowledge that makes ‘you’ at the essence and so compared to the conscious mind, it excels in its processing capabilities. Take this extraordinary illustration, at this moment while you are reading this text, your unconscious mind is going through the archives of all your learnings, expediencies, filters etc while at the same time regulating your body functions such as pumping blood to your heart; digestion; breathing; cleansing lymph cells; healing any internal or external issues; counteracting antibodies which come into your body system. This is just a small fraction of what happens in glimpses and seconds let alone minutes of your current state. Numerous research has shown an astounding case, that our unconscious mind absorbs millions bits of sensory information through the nervous system in just one second. Within a person’s unconscious are all elements of past experiences as well as learnings through all senses (mentally and physically). These are all stored representations and when we select a given experience or memory, our unconscious mind presents it to the current representation. Memories and experiences can change based on awareness and based on states (internal and external), through hypnosis we enter a state that is beneficial to understand and fully associate to in order to gather resources that are missing in our conscious awareness and life.
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Sex is a prime motivator and common denominator for all of us, as Sigmund Freud acknowledged, personality development in childhood takes place during five psychosexual stages, which are the oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital stages. During each stage sexual energy (libido) is expressed in different ways and through different parts of the body. As such sex is very unconscious in the ways it manifests in the mind at the same time sex is very conscious and overt drive in both men and women. Since sex is deeply imbedded and dare we say, major program, running in our unconscious mind, the habits and acts we do are based on so many experiences we have taken with us through the stages of our life, we need to use this lens as a kaleidoscope through which we will look at our most essential self and find ways to integrate with our chosen partner as well as with our own selves.
The self vs Identity
The concept of self (me and I as subjective and objective) is the sum total of the individual’s thoughts and feelings about himself or herself as an object (Rosenberg 1979). Self-concept is composed of various identities, attitudes, beliefs, values, motives and experiences along with their evaluative and affective components (eg self-efficacy or self- esteem) in terms of which each individual define themselves.
Identity refers to who or what one is and the various meanings attached to oneself by self and others. From a sociological perspective, the concept of self -identity refers to the self- characterizations individuals make in terms of group memberships, social roles and categories as well as the various character traits an individual displays and other attribute to them on basis of her/his conduct. To put it in a nutshell, identity is the most public aspect of self.
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Blocked Sexual Energy
Sexual energy, as any medium such as emotions or feelings, can be blocked, stagnant and lead to certain habits or behaviour(s) that are deemed important to either overcome/unblock or to avoid and remain oblivious to its workings. Since it is an energetic imprint, it is best to work within its domain to uncover the base cause that has led to the situation(s). Oddly enough in the majority of cases (based upon the observations and workings with many clients) the prime cause for such a blockage isn’t usually related to sex or sexual expressions but rather deeply embedded thought patterns or imprints which have stemmed from either childhood or at a critical life stage. Another important link to distorted or blocked sexual energy and its corresponding expressions lie in feelings and emotions of shame or guilt. What’s important to remember is that, emotions are just expressions, a feedback that it expressed by the body through sensations and feelings. They are categorized, labelled and filtered through the mind and called anger; rage; worry; anxiety or fear. We have certain feelings which connected to thought and thought processes which in turn connect to somatic processes of emotional expressions. Through our state, the unconscious mind and its signals along with our thought patterns (and imprints) prompts us to have an experience of an emotion. The feelings and sensations are not the same as the label we assign to emotion but repetitive thought and automatization of our minds through habits and learning have created labels for each emotion and what they mean. What truly is felt, its intensity and extent along with the finer components of our internal reference structure may be far away from the label, what’s more every person experiences differently each nominalization, also known as emotions.
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Guilt
Guilt can be termed to be a self-conscious emotion since it involves introspection and reflecting on oneself. There are many reasons why people feel guilty, it could be some acts they committed or acts which they think they committed. It can also mean failing to do something that is deemed necessary or even moral. Guilt has a high social relevance and has its importance in building and keeping interpersonal functions and relationships. However when and where guilt is contorted, mismatched or distorted due to deeply imbedded thought forms, patterns and imprints it can feel very dwarfing to oneself and life circumstances as well as people relations.
Both guilt and shame may have its roots in childhood experiences with immediate family and especially influence of mother. As before aforementioned, my work focuses predominately with women, upon numerous clients ive had, I came to see this as a somewhat hypothetical scenario. Whether it is due to the repressed inner child or the hurt inner child or even more prevalent- the lost inner child, there appears to be an underlining state that has been fixated with such emotions. What’s particularly interesting is that the emotion may not have been registered as guilt or shame by the individual and so has found its way coupling with other emotions such as sadness in addition to concepts of self, such as self-worth and self-esteem.
Shame
A prevalent and basic emotion, which like guilt may not be easily registered especially when coupled with traumatic events or events where the individual felt like a victim and instead of their perpetrator feeling the shame, they would usually (though not always) feel shameful and even guilty. It is also worth noting that, shame and guilt may couple very easily together and be quite unconscious buried within self defence systems, layers of filters and many a times- denial. There is usually (though not always) a split that is felt, a sense of emptiness, when shame/guilt or both are tackled which is also why its very important to know how to overcome certain mechanisms and patterns which have been learned as efforts of self to avoid circumstances that will lead to these emotions displayed. By this statement what I mean to say is this: if the shame and guilt are invalid or emotions that have been labelled as such with the reasoning of a past event(s) that has falsely persuaded an individual to feel in such a way, then re-learning and overcoming is the ultimate goal. As with all emotions(nominalisations) they have a negative and positive attribute, more essentially so is that they are sensations and feelings stored in the body and mind as a submodality.
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Submodalities
This is an NLP term, briefly stated it means the finer components that create structure of our internal representations- so how we encode our internal pictures, sounds and feelings to create meaning for our representations. The power here lies in change, if the structure can be changed, then so will the meaning.
According to core NLP research, each person’s brain seems to code emotional significance differently through variations in mental “image” or representation. Examples found include people whose unconscious minds place black borders around bad memories, people for whom visual images seen dimly are less compelling than those seen brightly, people for whom a subjectively “good” memory is accompanied by one kind of sound whilst a “bad” memory is accompanied by another, and so on.
Submodalities listed according to the three representational systems:
Visual:
Black & White or Colour
Near or Far
Bright or Dim
Location
Size of Picture
Associated / Dissociated
Focused or De-focused
Framed or Unbounded
Movie or Still
If a Movie-Fast/Normal/Slow
3 Dimensional or Flat Loud or Soft
Near or Far
Internal or External
Location
Auditory:
Stereo or Mono
Fast or Slow
High or Low Pitch
Verbal or Tonal
Rhythm
Clarity
Pauses Strong or Weak
Kinaesthetic:
Large Area or Small Area
Weight: Heavy or Light
Location
Texture: Smooth or Rough
Constant or Intermittent
Temperature: Hot or Cold
Size
Shape
Pressure
Vibration
Animus and Anima
According to psychoanalyst Carl Jung, there is a concept of complementary-gendered attributes in each individual, this needs to be integrated in order to develop a more complete personality. Jung associated women’s psychology with the principle of Eros (Love) as psychic relatedness while men are associated with Logos (the word) as reason. Furthermore, there exists as in the symbolic expression of Ying Yang, a dark in the light and a light in the dark; a female in the male and male in female-Animus and Anima.
Anima is described as feminine side of man and animus as the unconscious male principle in a woman. Both animus and anima are crucial aspects to self- development and a principality of a complete and integrated self.
Jung’s theory and its implications further assert that, a negative animus (masculine principle) could lead to domineering, opinionated, egoistical and controlling aspects of one’s personality. While a negative anima (feminine principle) diminishes and makes women moody, bitchy, controlling, needy and demanding. When men integrate their feminine side, they reclaim their emotions, instinctual responses and their intuitive connection with others (empathy). When women integrate the masculine side the reclaim their independence, have a focused sense of direction and personal power.
Awareness
When one is unaware, one is separate, in separation we build walls and defences and keep the loop of pain, emotions and other imprints, not understanding the prison we create unconsciously. We create multiple images of ourselves with certain expectations of each, certain roles and personas, but is it possible to live without an image of ourselves? The first step in resolving our ‘crisis’’ is through awareness and attention, through stepping out of our perceptual positions and taking a choice, giving a chance to experience something differently. The self is individual as it is collective, the self is aware as it is unaware, the self is an ongoing process and an invitation towards discovery of who one is independent of labels, stereotypes, identities and identifications.
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Wholeness
Through integrating the unconscious mind and the conscious; tackling the frame of reference, understanding the choice(s) to be made and the willingness to take the necessary steps to a whole and unified self.
In order to understand sex/sexual energy/sexual expressions and how to integrate oneself and our chosen sex partners, its useful to consider below some critical points in a woman’s life and how this can influence the domain of sex and sexual practices.
Stages of Development
The content which will be covered here is collected through various experiences through client work and educational stances of my practice. Upon observation from numerous clients, mostly women, as well as taking consideration to the everchanging social structures and environment, the incoherent and unpredictable world-wide views circulating over vast majority of individuals of all ages, there appears to be a hypothetical structure here that will be posed. This structure is one that identities various crisis points and dilemmas in the life of an individual through different time periods, taking into consideration and using Morris Massey’s Value Development Stages (see topic Stages of Development) as guiding points to some stages. These stages and their various dilemmas focus on women, mostly Westernized women from different cultures and religious backgrounds, from the ages of childhood through until late fifties.
1) The child -> little girl : This will be ages of birth until age of seven known as the imprint period. The environment that’s being absorbed as assimilated is fully done so and here the early memories as well as deep structural imprints will be made. The importance of parents at this point I would ascertain is crucial and even more so in particular, the mother and the relationship with the child. Here the archetype, in its pattern behavioural sense ,of mother is passed on through the five senses and fully absorbed by the child, unconsciously. The kinaesthetic elements and their components of feeling, emotion and expression, internally and externally are learned and assimilated, once again mainly unconsciously. As the child grows onwards from age of five, the moral structure of right and wrong are loosely established. Even though Morris Massey argues that young children are pre-moral ( amoral) that is no real values, I would disagree to this statement only from standpoint of consciousness. It isn’t the matter whether children understand right-wrong and morality to its standard of value system but rather they unconsciously are assimilating their surroundings and binding themselves (extent depends upon character temperament and personality) to their family, mainly their mother. The image of mother, her voice, her movements, her feeling and in early months her smell and taste are all held together and kept buried deep down in memory of child. With relevance to Jung’s archetypes, the mother archetype is one of the most common and universally recognized archetypes in most cultures. Representing the universal, idealised version of motherhood, the archetypal mother is either depicted as the nurturing, selfless carer who protects and provides for her offspring at any cost to themselves or opposite, the archetypal wicked stepmother, or neglectful mother who abandons her child. In most of my cases with clients, any deeply rooted problems they have had experienced in their life, either emotionally, physically or psychologically, we have found great relevance to their relationship with their mother. Cases range from abandonment (emotional and psychological) to abuse (physical; bullying; gaslighting) to even worse still, ignorance and apathy. The onset of these instances would mainly be presented from the age of seven (or earlier) with various degrees progressing onwards to later stages. The roots would be set and instead of flowers blossoming, the garden would be one of weeds and endless replanting, to put it as a metaphor. Even more so, as the child would grow older, they would take with them repressed unconscious patterns, repressed inner child as well as some sort of ‘trauma’ deeply imbedded in their mind, their cognitive and perceptual processes; filters, even more so and worse, their values.
2) Girl -> Teenager : With relevance to Value Development, this is the period of modelling, from age of eight until thirteen. Modelling, as defined through the terms of NLP is: the process of extricating and replicating the language structure and behavioural pattern of a selected model who person chooses. Once a model(s) is found there is a process of unconscious assimilation of patterns that takes place. By observation and cognition, the child in this case, would keep replaying the patterns through practice and trial/error until they become idiosyncratic to the model(s) of their choice. In addition to this, with relevance to Morris Massey, this stage isn’t one of blind acceptance but rather trying out and trying on values like clothes and seeing how it feels. At the previous stage, we established the imprints and repressed unconscious patterns and now the layers of self and identity with respect to character and personality start their patchwork. There can also be crisis points when a value is tested through the lenses and filters of the unconscious repressed imprints, which creates a some-what split. For example, the wish to do certain hobbies or model certain people can be an escape or a solidification to the ‘trauma’ of past. The nature of identity, especially ‘’identification with’’(taking on an identity) is explored as well as the more social, role models. As with values being tried on so do identities, as noted by McCall and Simmons(1966) the multifaceted nature of self (each being an identity) is tied to a multifaceted nature of society and modelling provides an escape or journey to venture into ‘the self’.
3)Teenager -> Young Woman: This is the last stage of which we use Massey’s Value Development as reference, this is the socialization period which covers the age of fourteen until twenty-one. This stage is all about integration (or lack of it) within a peer group and social structure. The ‘early programming’ as Massey notes that individuals wish to get away from, is the need to exist independently and yet socially too. Here the self and identity (or identities) wish to merge or find at least coherence. At the same time, the need to find ‘people who seem more like us’ is a tricky task. Firstly, we don’t yet fully know who we are, secondly our early programming and modelling as well as value trying and establishment (or lack of) and thirdly, the deeply imbedded imprints that might lead us to self-sabotage and self-deceive ourselves. Add to that our society which is heavily focused on media, illusion and a certain lens through which social roles or identities are presented, values adhered to and belief systems. The deception of liberty and the danger of ‘tribal’ mentality along with identification and assimilation within peer groups. The force and nature of our strongest part of self is here to be expressed: sex and sexuality. Please note sex is mentioned here as the act of two people engaged in intercourse and not the male-female aspect of word as we wont delve into that concept here. Who we chose to have sex with, how we express ourselves and many other sexual tendencies is a matter of trends, socialization engulfed within a shell which at the core of it, is still unexplored and misunderstood as it has much to do with our imprints and patterns as any other aspect of ourselves. However, in my personal belief, sex provides an expression and perhaps to some extent liberation (while to others agony or repetition of abuse) that other aspects of who we are cant quite express within a similar outlet or domain.
4) Student -> X: This stage has been named as student to unnamed, through the assumption and hypothesis that usually (but not definitely) this is the stage most individuals are undertaking some sort of development or work towards themselves. Taking into consideration of recent changes and course of events, in time perhaps this will not be the norm but for now I’m undertaking this generalisation as to establish a category for this stage. In previous decades, though in some cultures still withstanding, the twenties (mid to late especially) was a time when a woman would think of marriage and children however the concept of self-mastery and efficacy as well as other core terms of self (see I am More than my name article) has taken over the role modelling and identification of women. The meaning behind the word and its complex structure as well as various emotions and feelings it carries, has been and still is undermined and misunderstood. It is my opinion that at this stage the first conflict starts, then conflict of who they are- for themselves as well as their inner circle, mainly focused on either fellow students or fellow colleagues in workplace. There is a drive that is pushing forward all those models, patterns, programs and imprints that now need to find a way of life, of expression.
5) Wife -> to be or not to be: As above is noted yet not firmly established, the period was twenties, this stage could be that of thirties. Once again using a generalized view towards stages yet with ample examples throughout Westernized societies where in thirties usually women marry and wish (or not) to establish a family. This is the beginning and first part of crisis in a woman’s life: to be married or not; to be a spouse/partner/wife or not. ‘’What does this mean for me now or in future’’; ‘’who am I once I do that (my identity and role)’’ and then the inevitable which would follow usually (though not always) that is, to have a family or not. At the stage it is also crucial, if not done prior, to unify and restore the core energetic unity consciousness, that is the animus and anima. With relevance to Carl Jung, Jung associated women’s psychology with the principle of Eros (Love) as psychic relatedness while men are associated with Logos (the word) as reason. Furthermore, there exists as in the symbolic expression of Ying Yang, a dark in the light and a light in the dark; a female in the male and male in female-Animus and Anima. Anima is described as feminine side of man and animus as the unconscious male principle in a woman. Both animus and anima are crucial aspects to self- development and a principality of a complete and integrated self ( see I am More than my name article). Our true self, authentic self and unification can be fully integrated at this stage since it has had the experience as well as readiness to change or re-establish oneself. If not done so, the patterns, imprints and programming will resume and as life unfolds with more responsibilities and roles, the complex and complicated are the feelings and perceptions of ourselves and our surroundings/environment also others. Feelings of apathy or lack of purpose could result in some cases where the focus was either on others- be it family members or institutions like university/studies or work. In most cases loneliness results, since there is emptiness or aloneness, here the split happens not only introspectively but also socially. The pressure or general popular script within certain ideologies where a woman is influenced to pursue and establish a career and not fall back on old role models of housewife or motherhood and carer of family. Through historical times and with progression in the area of freedom there are many respectful possibilities a woman can now pursue and yet women nowadays seemed to be more lost, alone, angry and aggressive towards themselves as well as other fellow women.
6) Mother -> To be or not to be: As noted above, the second part of crisis in a woman’s life is whether to have a child or children. Here the matter is even more complex in its layers than above stage, since usually (though not always) due to career pursuits or other, the time period (biologically) may be coming to its end and in many ways even more pressure to the choice to be made or not. In previous times, for example 1950s, there was a mass hypnosis that was established through infrastructure of family and asserted values as well as socially though media etc. The values at that time, though not different from now or any other time, was family. The difference is that the script of this mass hypnosis that created trance nowadays is a different one. We have focused on individualistic values and motivation of self and have consciously or unconsciously sacrificed the social structure of family- in its truest sense, as a wholeness that integrates all individuals and society. This statement is rather generalised viewpoint and observed through the prism of Westernized society as well as media-influenced value systems. The inherent desire, dare say need, to reproduce, to share and extend oneself with another has in many ways lost its core meaning. There is a proposed structure, a social imprint, that still exists, that is one of family and its strengths but for many women, the desire and inclination towards the identity and role of mother is in many ways warped. Another very important point to note here, is once again our relationship to our mother as well as the early imprinting period. This aspect can greatly influence our choice whether or not to have a child or the dilemma of the type of mother and role they will fulfil.
7) After-Kids Emptiness -> Making of The Crone: if the woman does pursue motherhood, there is a last stage of crisis, that in my experience have found to be very common and is in many ways the final and ultimate crisis: Who am I now? What am I now?. After the kids have grown up and left home, many people suffer the ‘empty nest’ syndrome but this stage here will focus only on the introspective aspect of woman. At this stage, which like above doesn’t have a set age but usually (though not always) may happen at the ages of fifties towards sixties. There may appear an emptiness or confusion on an unconscious level perhaps even sadness which the person cant put a finger on. All imprints, programming, experiences have had their full displays yet when at this stage a person feels constricted that is the last resort left to identify the deeply held repressions as well as any strong emotions and baggage they have been carrying. The result at such a stage is a feeling of absolute freedom, stability in themselves, a true form of authentic self and the making of a crone, or archetype of Wise Woman. The archetype of the Wise Woman is a woman that is moulded by her experiences and lifelong pursuit of knowledge. Carl Jung refers to this archetype as an individual’s ‘’mana’’ personality. The ‘mana’ represents a primordial energy that, if properly embraced, can assist the individual to grow and/or transform. If not properly embraced, however, it can cause the individual into disintegration and destruction. It can be seen as the spiritual in human form or as here in this stage as a woman who has accepted her choices, embraced and overcame her obstacles and has grown through her mistakes. At this point, a newly found freedom and eagerness at the later stages of life are embraced with great enthusiasm and acknowledgement of wisdom.
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Choice:
What choices have we made to be here and what choices will we make to change
What is our intention
What is our goal and outcome