One of the things I love the most about being a Sexual Wellness Coach, is that I get to listen to women’s most intimate stories that they often have never shared with anyone else, and to see them transform through the power of awareness and simple, powerful practices, some of which we’ll dive into in this article.
After working with thousands of women on sexuality and relationship issues,
I’ve come to notice that there are FIVE common blocks that prevent women from experiencing the full capacity of pleasure, passion, joy, aliveness and freedom in the bedroom and beyond.
In this article we’re going to roll up our sleeves and get real about what these 5 blocks are and how to break through them, step by step.
It’s long, but it’s totally worth it, so grab a cup of tea and let’s dive in.
The 5 main sexual blocks I’ve encountered are:
- The Trauma Block
- The Disconnection Block
- The Unworthy of Pleasure Block
- The Body Image Block
- The Shame Block
Let’s take a closer look at each block and a roadmap to unblocking it:
1. Trauma Block
We’ve had over 15,000 women fill out our “Sexual Blocks Quiz”, and the Trauma Block was the #2 most common blocks. Most of us are familiar with the shocking statistics around sexual abuse, sexual harrassment and assault.
The important point to understand here, is that sexual trauma in the context of sexual blocks, doesn’t only occur in cases of sexual assault or harrassment.
Trauma can also occur in times that you’ve allowed someone or something to enter your body when you weren’t fully READY or really WANTING it.
You know, like times when you skipped foreplay and went straight for penetration, or when you’ve consented to sex rather than truly DESIRED it to happen… when you said yes for the OTHER person.
Honestly, I haven’t met ONE single woman who hasn’t experienced that at least once, and most of us have experienced it MANY times.
How to unblock the Trauma Block?
Many women who have experienced sexual trauma try therapy or other forms of healing, which is great and can be super-helpful. However, there’s a piece missing in talk therapy. That’s because it doesn’t involve your body.
It doesn’t include a cellular re-patterning of the trauma.
Which can only happen THROUGH the vagina, where the trauma is stored.
So here’s some suggestions to start with:
1. Place one hand on your heart and one hand on your yoni (female genitals), breathing deeply and feeling your connection to her. Then, simply say sorry to her for all the times you didn’t fully respect her NO. If emotions or tears come up, allow them to flow and release.
2. Gently and consensually (yes ask your own body for consent) Massage the outside part of your yoni with loving touch, and as you do, tune in to the way she wants to be touched TODAY and give that to her. As you’re massaging, keep sending her loving messages from your heart. You can say it out loud or internally. Some examples to get you started: ‘I love you, you’re SO beautiful, I will always respect you’.
3. There are many more practices that can help with your healing – if you want to take the re-patterning and healing a step further I recommend practicing with a Jade Egg – click here to learn more about it
2. The Disconnection Block
The Disconnection Block is usually present when you are generally disconnected from your feminine sexual organs – your vagina, vulva, ovaries, uterus and breasts.
This means you only realize you have a vagina when you’re in bed with yourself / a partner, when you are menstruating, or when you pee… 🙂
But other than that, in your everyday life, it’s like these parts of your body don’t even exist.
It’s like your body is a vehicle for driving your head around in the world!
This can create a situation where you’re disconnected from the source of life force, vitality, vibrancy and aliveness that lies right within your body!
You might feel depleted, shut down, tired, and just a general feeling of “Meh” towards life.
This can influence your ability to enjoy yourself, not just sexually, but in the whole of your life.
How to unblock the the Disconnection Block
The good news is that there are some really simple practices to start re-connecting and re-integrating those parts of your body.
Here’s some of my best tips to start with:
- Place one hand on your heart and one hand on your yoni. Breathe in love and joy into your heart and with every breath out, imagine that love traveling down your body and wrapping your yoni up with love. Really feel the connection between your heart and your yoni. If emotions come up, allow them to be there, and just BE with them. They are here to be released.
- When you wake up in the morning, before leaving your bed, take a moment to say hello to your breasts, ovaries, uterus and vulva. Give them a sweet little rub, stroke or massage, wake them up gently, tuning in to what kind of touch they need TODAY to feel most alive and vibrant. This can literally take just 1 minute if you don’t have much time.
- If you want to make a serious leap in the process of re-connection, I recommend practicing with a Jade egg- click here to learn more about it
3. The Unworthy of Pleasure Block
First of all I want to share with you that The Unworthy of Pleasure Block has been MY Number One block too!!
It can be a bit of a tricky one to detect.
It’s when you feel shame and guilt around pleasure, and this isn’t just sexual pleasure.
It often goes along with difficulty to trust that others actually DO care about your pleasure, and you might find it challenging to fully surrender to being pleasured.
This might sound like: ‘he/she’s been down there between my legs for so long, they must be bored, I need to make it stop.’
Sound familiar?
Now the key point to understand here is:
The level of pleasure you feel is directly related to how worthy of pleasure you believe you are!
The more worthy of pleasure you believe you are = the more pleasure you’ll feel!!
That’s why it’s so important to identify this block and unblock it.
How to unblock the Unworthy of Pleasure Block
I have done a LOT of things to reprogram this belief.
So here’s some of my best tips:
- Practice ACTIVELY receiving pleasure into your body. This can be any form of sensual pleasure (i.e. pleasure through the senses). For example: drink a sip of your drink slowly and breathe in the pleasure that it provides for you. Imagine that pleasure filling up your whole body. If pleasure sounds like mmmmm want to come out of you – allow them to be expressed!
- Make a list of ALL the reasons why it would be a good thing if you had more pleasure in your life. Who will benefit from it and how? (This includes yourself of course!)
3. If you want to take your worthiness of pleasure to the next level – I recommend practicing with a Jade Egg – click here to learn more about it
4. The Body Image Block
The Body Image Block is when you just don’t love your body, or a specific part of your body.
This might sound unrelated to sexual pleasure, but trust me, it is SO strongly linked.
Some surveys have shown that 97% of women think at least one unloving thought about their body every. single. day. WOAH.
When you don’t love your body (as I haven’t for most of my life…) you can feel self-conscious in bed.
Maybe this makes you avoid certain positions because you think your breasts look saggy or that your belly looks fat.
Maybe you can only undress in the dark.
The main thing this block does is that it keeps you in your HEAD during sex, rather than being in your BODY.
And here’s the important thing: pleasure and ecstasy are in your BODY not your head.
That’s why it’s so important to slowly learn how to love our bodies exactly AS THEY ARE, right now.
How can I unblock the Body Image Block?
I tried to love my body for so many years and I even felt shame about the fact that I didn’t love my body
How could someone who had done so much work on themselves still feel like this?
Now, I still have days where I compare my body to other women’s and feel bad. But in general, I feel a sense of joy and ease in being in my own body. I feel enormous love and gratitude towards my body, almost every day.
An important key that enabled me to do this is to learn to love my body THROUGH the body – not just the MIND.
So here’s some suggestions to start with:
- Touch the parts of your body you don’t love the most on a regular basis. Give them a loving massage, smile at them, stroke them in a loving way as often as you can, even if you don’t feel like it.
- As you’re touching or massaging, it can be helpful to look in the mirror and talk to those parts of your body you don’t love. Gaze at them with new eyes. Tell them: ‘I love you, I’m sorry for all the times I’ve judged you and compared you, You are beautiful as you are, thank you’.
This might seem silly or impossible at first, but with consistent practice, things will likely start feeling very different.
- Talk with other women about the issue of body shame. It’s important to know that you’re not alone in this.
- If you want to take your body love to the next level, I recommend practicing with a Jade Egg- click here to learn more about it
5. The Shame Block
The Shame Block usually shows up in women who have either had a very strict or religious upbringing that shamed sex, sexuality and being a sexual woman,
or they just grew up in a house where sex was NEVER spoken about, completely ignored or talked about like it was something shameful.
When you feel shame or guilt about sex and about being a sexual woman, it can prevent you from feeling deep pleasure and ecstasy in bed, because you feel like you’re doing something WRONG and that it might even be dangerous to enjoy sex because of what might happen to you if you do.
Even if logically you know it is not true, deep down inside, it just FEELS true.
Sometimes this all happens subconsciously and you’re not even aware this stuff is going on!!
How to UNBLOCK the Shame Block
One way is to air out some of those old beliefs about sex and sexuality, and to incorporate NEW beliefs – but here’s the important key:
It’s much more powerful when you incorporate those new beliefs not just through the MIND but also through the BODY.
So here’s some suggestions to start with:
- Write down a list of beliefs you’ve been exposed to around the topic of sexuality, sex, relationships, pleasure, sexual desire and being a sexual woman. Take your time and really get as much of these written down even if you think that you’ve already worked through or moved past some of them.
- For each belief – flip it around in as many ways you can! For example: you can flip ‘sex is bad and shameful’ to ‘sex is scared’, ‘sex is beautiful’, ‘sex is a magical way for me to give love to myself and another’.
For each new belief make a list of all the reasons why the NEW belief is true – even if right now you DON’T believe them yet.
- Repeat 1+2 many times.
4. I mentioned that it is much more powerful to reprogram your beliefs through your body. The most effective way I have found is by using a Jade Egg- read more about it below
The Jade Egg
If you have never heard of a Jade Egg, it is a powerful ancient Taoist practice that can support you to incorporate your new beliefs through your body. That means that you will believe, right down to your cells, that your sexuality is beautiful and sacred, that your desires are important!
This means more pleasure, passion and ALIVENESS.
The Jade Egg is a small egg-shaped jade crystal, which you insert into your vagina in a special way, and practice with certain meditations and exercises. It’s kinda like Yoga for your Yoni. This practice has transformed my life and the lives of hundreds of my students in many ways.
The ancient practice has been adapted to suit the life of busy women just like you and me, by my amazing teacher Dr. Saida Desilets, so you can easily incorporate it into your schedule.