"I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand." ~ Confucius, 450BC
The word Somatic comes from the Greek root Soma, meaning ‘body’ and 'the living organism in it's wholeness'. The term is often used in connection with one’s health. Somatics recognizes that the mind/body/spirit are one. When we connect the vast intelligence of our body with the mind and spirit, powerful change, healing, expansion and growth are available. Somatics looks at the body as a place of evolutionary intelligence and learning.
Somatic Sex Education is a visceral experience, meaning you feel it. It is experiential learning.
It’s possible to spend many years in talk therapy working on understanding or bridging the gap between body and mind, and this certainly has it’s benefits, but there is a limit to how far talking can take you. Somatic education engages the body and senses, the whole self. Learning is often immediate and profound.
For example, if we want to learn to golf, we go to the greens and practice. If someone wants to become a chef, he or she takes classes in a kitchen. We can read and talk about it all we want, but eventually we need to take action to experience the learning. Practicing pleasure is empowering...and fun! When we learn new skills and ways of being with our self in an intimate way we open many doors to discovering and embracing our nature.
How do you walk in this world as an erotic being? Do you feel juicy and alive or are there places that you feel stuck and sensually lackluster? How do you express yourself and move through life? Are you tapping into your sexual energy and using it as a tool of personal power and vibrancy? Some questions to ruminate upon. Are you living an erotic, awakened life? What may be holding you back?
My role as a Somatic Sex Educator is to help people slow down, way down, to discover what it is they want, how to communicate what they want and to evoke empowerment and confidence within themselves. I invite people to embrace their power, to find and exercise their voice, make their own choices and to ask for what they want. It is an honor and privilege to guide people through the process of learning these skills so they may take them out into the world and exercise them in real life scenarios, partnerships and all relationships.
Once preliminary work has been done and a strong foundation of empowerment is embodied by a client there are many options to explore. "Pleasure mapping" is a wonderful modality in which to further expand the capacity for pleasure. I will guide you in how to use your breath to circulate arousal and tune, more deeply, into to your body. Breath is our greatest source of energy and aliveness, yet by the time we are adults many of us are breathing shallow and without much awareness of it’s importance toward increased vitality. I invite you to take a long, slow, deep inhale right now...breathe in and exhale with a vocal sigh... ahhhh... What do you notice? How do you feel? Do it again..perhaps a few more times. What changes did you notice?
Mapping of pleasure explores new styles of touch and a variety of different pressure, strokes, caresses and tempos.. I act as a guide to help you experience new sensations and levels of awareness in the body. The purpose of this kind of touch is to awaken to where the sensitivities are in the body, to explore new styles of sensate focus and to use this playful activity as an opportunity for growth and sensitivity discovery.
Our history resides in the body, both traumatic and pleasurable memories are stored in our cells, muscles and the fibre of our being. When we work with the body there is a direct link to what may need attention, reflection or releasing and the opportunity for self healing can occur. You are your own healer, your body is a teacher. I am a skilled facilitator that leads you to discover your own treasures and how to tap into the wisdom and magnificence of your being.
As a Somatic Sex Educator I guide and support you in this process. My work focuses on:
Boundary Setting, finding your voice, empowerment exercises, consent, communication, body awareness
Wheel of Consent, the work of Betty Martin
Expanding your capacity for self love and pleasure
Asking for what you want
Erotic mapping, genital anatomy
Sensate focus, nurturing, caring touch
Releasing shame and guilt around sexuality
Vulva, Vaginal, G spot massage
Exploring female ejaculation
Prostate massage
Expanding orgasmic potential
Multi orgasmic exploration for men
Erotic energy massage/Taoist erotic massage
Inability to orgasm
Erectile and ejaculation concerns
Scar tissue remediation, internal and externa
Reconnecting to pleasure after childbirth & reconstructive surgeries
Please enjoy the below writing by Caffyn Jesse, one of my incredible teachers, mentors and a colleague. She has kindly shared this with me to use for your perusal.
'With somatic sex education, women who are shut down sexually come alive, and experience bliss. Couples reignite passion and overcome obstacles to erotic joy. Men who are dissatisfied with ordinary sex learn to master the extraordinary. People who have experienced sexual abuse find their wholeness as erotic beings. Many students say they are astonished at the pleasure they are capable of, and they are thrilled at how easy it becomes. I have seen marriages saved, orgasmic states savoured, shame released, and people opening to new dimensions of ecstatic experience, making sex profound and sacred.
Many people feel wounded sexually-by trauma, heartbreak, unmet needs or unshared secrets. Something inside us yearns for healing and wholeness. There are many therapists and self-help strategies. But the problem is, sexual healing doesn’t come from the mind. Sexual healing happens in the body. Sexual healing comes from experiencing love and acceptance physically, viscerally, and with the heart.
As a somatic sex educator, I offer body-based learning, including coaching in breath, movement, body awareness, boundary setting, communication, anatomy, sensate focus, massage, erotic trance and other body based teaching about sex.
Somatic sex education is designed to nurture, deepen or awaken the sensual self. I offer sensual and sexual bodywork sessions, in which my students can discover their capacity for joy at their own pace. As they open to their deepest pleasures, there is space to process shame, fear, and grief it it arises. Playful exercises empower choice and voice in erotic exchanges'.