Trauma-Informed BDSM: Healing Through Counter-Normative Kinky Erotic Play

I’m not sure about you, but it feels to me like I spent a lot of years mired in the story that trauma and kink don’t mix. That BDSM is dangerous, that it deepens traumatic wiring, that it’s too much, too fast, too risky.

But like many stories that pitch a ‘right’ and a ‘wrong’ way, this attitude washes away erotic nuance and robs people of agency. What if trauma informed BDSM was more complex and potentially full of healing, wholing, and reclamation? What if trauma healing at its finest is sometimes found in intentional explorations of our most visceral selves? What if taking our deep wounds and infusing pleasure into them transmuted these wounds into a source of power? That edgy erotic play can be deeply consensual, taboo, AND transgressive? That we can be tender, fierce, fragile, powerful, scarred, and wildly alive… and sometimes all at once.

This is an invitation to explore and celebrate trauma informed BDSM and kinky sexy play as a realm of play infused with power and possibility— not in spite of trauma, but because of it.

Kink: Exploring Power, Play, Presence, and the Forbidden

For many people, BDSM is a conscious agreement where we explore beyond-ordinary states and feelings. When we weave in the ingredient of healing trauma, it includes an intention to taking care of our nervous systems, and/or with an eye to exploring past unwanted experiences in the present with choice and intention. Trauma informed kink can become about the stories we get to re-tell, the roles we get to try on, the edges we get to dance with, as well as doing so in ways that play with and honour our nervous systems.

Kinky play is often portrayed as the ‘opposite’ of healing, but in my mind that’s a false binary. It frames ‘normal’ healing in ways that centres a sanitized, colonial, medicalizing, pathologizing, and erotophobic attitude about how we take care of our mental and physical health, how we hold and recover from the wounds of life, and how we manifest empowered futures for ourselves. It frames ‘normal’ sex in ways that prioritizes colonial attitudes and ideologies… that is, that sex should never be far from it’s ‘acceptable’ forms: heterosexual, between two people, procreative, unpaid, and saturated with racist/ableist/gendered/ageist/classist attitudes. And ‘normal’ sex certainly isn’t kinky.

However, what if we looked at healing, kink, and eroticism with an infinitely more curious and creative lens? What if we played with the idea that BDSM can be a means to open doorways to our darkest moments as well as our most profound experiences of liberation? That through kink we can PLAY, be MESSY, feel PLEASURE, indulge IMAGINATION, and embrace IMPERFECTION - a rare opportunity in adulthood, with remarkable benefits for our sense of resilience, empowerment, and wellness (as an aside, these behaviours are considered ‘gold standards’ in trauma recovery - yet isn’t it interesting that trauma healing modalities rarely integrate them?)?

Survivors’ Erotic Wisdom

People who live with histories of traumatic wounding are often deeply familiar with feelings of powerlessness, hypervigilance, freeze, or reactivity. However, in kinky play there’s rich opportunity to play with these states, gain familiarity with how they feel, and create experiences that rewrite or reclaim the histories that we’ve been through.

In kinky play there’s opportunity to integrate the tools of negotiation, choicefulness, safety, and shared agreements - elements that were likely unavailable in earlier experiences of consent violation and other unwanted experiences. Integrating these tools in BDSM and kink containers can help profoundly reclaim and rewrite our past, while also dancing in a container that welcomes intensity and messiness and visiting our edges. When we choose to approach those edges with support, structure, and autonomy, we invite healing through establishing containers that feel safe enough so we can meet our bravery, complexity, embodied wisdom, and power.

Principles of Trauma-Informed Kink

Here’s what trauma-informed BDSM might include:

• Shared Agreements: discussing what intentions you have for your scene and building agreements about how to take care each others’ desires, limits, and boundaries during the scene.

• Nervous System Awareness: tracking and playing with your body’s experiences of excitement, bliss, overwhelm, and underwhelm.

• Counter-Normative Dynamics: playing with power, restraint, sensation, fantasy, plus inviting in pro dom(me)s, sex workers, friends, or kinky community members exponentially expands the palette of pleasure and play available.

• Embracing The Ingredient of Time: anticipation and slowness can be powerful erotic tools, as can be urgency or force.

• Aftercare Matters: respecting that nervous systems can shift at any moment, and having pre-planned strategies and tools to support feelings of connection and belonging before, during, and after play or potential triggers.

• Power is Co-created: no one is automatically in charge unless you agree to intentional power imbalances. Embodied voice and choice is prioritized and celebrated.

To be clear: you don’t need to be ‘healed’ before you play. You don’t need to play in order to heal. You can be exploring kink and BDSM because it’s hot, because it’s weird, because it’s new, because you’re curious—and healing can be a little whipped cream on top. You can be scared and aroused (read more about fear and arousal here). You can laugh and cry. You can be in a puddle on the floor and majestically in your power. Erotic experiences that stretch our capacity don’t always fit into neat boxes—and that’s part of their magic.

Kink invites us look in unvarnished ways at our stories, desires, and fears, welcoming them, and infusing them with pleasure. And, if we want, trauma informed BDSM can support us in exploring the places that were once too charged to face, saturate them with pleasure, and moan from them instead.

Getting Started

Curious? Here's some ideas of how you could begin:

• Play with yourself first. Try blindfolds, solo sensation play, self-restraint, fantasizing, porn, erotica, or writing smut.

• Communicate & listen. And, find a partner who listens and communicates. It’s important to ensure you can share and be heard in your desires, limits, and preferences - and that you listen and learn about theirs.

• Go slowly. Set small time containers, include a slow build up to whatever peak experiences you have planned, check in regularly, and don’t start with your edgiest fantasy!

• Discuss safety and strategy: Have agreements about safe words, what to do if a trigger shows up, and how each of you would like to be cared for post-play.

• Journal or voice-note afterward: what came up? What felt electric, edgy, strange, nourishing, curious?

Embracing Erotic Healing in Nonlinear, Queer, Medicinal Ways

In short, trauma informed BDSM and healing through kinky play invites a non-formulaic, emergent, imaginative, adventurous attitude. And that’s the magic.

Healing doesn’t always have to look like regulating your nervous system and going to therapy. Sometimes it looks like being tied down and through your powerlessness finding freedom. Or tying someone down and marvelling in your power. Sometimes it sounds like drool-y laughter through a gag while wagging a unicorn-tail butt plug. Sometimes it feels like choosing pain on your own terms, and savouring the gift of joy (and endorphins!) that emerges. Sometime’s it’s getting triggered and being held well by another. Sometimes it’s boldly forging new paths into an unknown future saturated with pleasure, honesty, exploration, rawness, and erotic sovereignty.

States or Stories? Chickens or Eggs? Working With Body and Mind in Sexual Trauma Recovery.

In the world of resolving traumatic stress—especially when it comes to pleasure, gender, and sexuality—there’s a question that I’ve orbited for years:

Should we work with our thoughts—our beliefs and stories and mindset—to help our nervous systems feel more at ease?

Or

Should we attend to our nervous systems first, knowing that a sense of safety and regulation can shift how we think and feel?

The answer, at least every time I’ve thought it through or spoken about it with colleagues, mentors, and teachers, is that both matter, and that they’re uniquely interwoven. Sometimes our stories and beliefs need our attention. Other times, our nervous systems are desperate for some TLC. And often, it’s the dance between the two that creates real and lasting transformation.

The Stories We Carry—Especially Around Sex

So many of us carry painful or confusing stories about sex, bodies, relationships, and our own worth.

Some of these narratives come from our early life: family beliefs about sex. Religious or spiritual contexts. Early experiences of shaming and blaming. Some narratives live rent-free in our heads thanks to school, friends, and TV. We’re immersed in curriculums that hyper-focus on risks and danger rather than play and curiosity, while also misinforming us about anatomy, sexual functioning, and the role of sex. We’re exposed to media with seemingly ever intensifying messages equating sexiness and erotic worth with thinness, whiteness, performance, youth, class, ability.

This is why science-informed, sex-positive education is such an important part of my work. When we learn what’s actually true—about arousal, consent, desire, anatomy, nervous system responses, and trauma—we begin to loosen the grip of the old stories. We can create space and choice between the pathologization or stigmatization or miseducation that runs rampant about our bodies and focus on what we personally know to be true about ourselves and our experience. We can soften the harsh impact of our cultural context, and build an awareness that who we are and how we are often make remarkable amounts sense when placed in a broader and intersectional context.

Sex education isn’t just about learning tips, tricks, and facts about sex—it’s also about giving ourselves new language and frameworks that support a friendlier and more accurate mind-body relationship, plus a friendlier and more accurate understanding of ourselves and the cultural contexts we find ourselves in. It’s about exploring the stories we’ve inherited and fact-checking them against grounded and well-researched information.

The State We’re In

But sometimes, no amount of accurate information can soothe us if our bodies are stuck in survival mode.

When we’re in a dysregulated nervous system state (learn more about regulation and dysregulation here) we lose access to the parts of our brain that process logic, empathy, and memory integration. We might logically know something isn’t our fault, but that doesn’t change that we might still feel intense shame, guilt, or fear. We might understand our body’s arousal response, but still feel a sense of unworthiness or self judgement.

This is why nervous system regulation is a foundation of trauma-informed and pleasure-based healing. Through tools like grounding the body, building a mindful relationship with breath, touch, and movement, as well as learning more about interoception, regulation, and practices like pleasure mapping, we can support the body in returning to a state of safety. And when the body feels safer, the stories often begin to shift or soften on their own.

The Work I Offer

As a somatic sex educator, I work at the intersection of state and story, offering a somatic trauma recovery framework that holds the nuanced complexity of how our erotic souls flow through our minds, bodies, spirits, and relationships with lovers, friends, communities and the planet. In my work, it’s all about dancing with ALL the chickens and eggs of trauma recovery, sex, pleasure, and embodiment! Generally this looks like:

• Sex-positive, trauma-informed education PLUS embodied somatic practices to unlearn and relearn our relationship with sex, arousal, consent, and pleasure

• Nervous system education PLUS toolkit building so you can recognize what’s happening in your body and learn to work with your experience

• Body-based coaching and hands-on work that helps reconnect you with sensation, pleasure, and the capacity to feel yourself from the inside

• Pleasure-centred practices that invite curiosity, presence, and joy back into your erotic life

For many people, the most powerful shifts come not from choosing one path or the other, but from moving back and forth between both— tending to the body AND untangling the stories.

Pleasure And Fear: Navigating Arousal, Activation, and Your Nervous System.

If you’ve ever felt afraid or overwhelmed in a moment that was supposed to be pleasurable, you’re not alone.

Maybe a soft touch sent your heart racing… in a way that didn’t feel that great. Maybe your body responded with arousal… even though your mind felt unsure. These moments can be confusing and might come with a cascade of questions: Was that fear or turn-on? Why did I freeze when I wanted to feel close? Am I broken?

What you’re experiencing makes perfect sense when we understand a little more about how the nervous system works. Let’s unpack this a little bit:

Why Turn-On and Fear Can Feel So Similar

What turns us on and what scares us might, on the surface level, seem like polar opposites: one rooted in pleasure, the other in danger. However, on the level of ‘bare sensations’, they often feel nearly identical. This is because both states are forms of nervous system hyperarousal, which means they both involve physiological sensations like increased heart rate and temperature, faster breathing, flushed skin, muscle tension, and heightened sensitivity.

This is known as interoceptive confusion — the challenge of accurately interpreting internal body signals (like a racing heart or tightening belly) as ‘wanted’ or ‘unwanted’ experiences. That is, a fast heartbeat might mean “I’m scared,” but it might also mean “I’m excited.” Tension might mean “I’m bracing against something unwanted,” or it might mean “I’m on the edge of something exciting and delicious.”

For survivors of sexual trauma, these sensations may carry the association of past experiences of danger. So, even when you’re in a safe and friendly context, exploring safe and friendly play, your body may interpret signals of arousal as signals of a threat, due to past associations. This isn’t a shortcoming. It’s a skillful survival strategy. Your body learned to associate certain experiences or feelings with danger due to the past, and now in the present it’s trying to protect you.

However, there’s no denying that this can create a lot of challenge when trying to enjoy play and pleasure in the moment, when there are old wirings between fear and arousal to contend with. Luckily more and more research is coming to light that can help with retraining and relearning the signals your body is sending, parsing out what is a threat, what is a turn-on, and how to connect with pleasure. And it all starts with getting curious. When you meet your body’s signals with curious openness, you can start to build somatic discernment — the ability to map out what are sensations of fear, what are sensations from the past, what are sensations of excitement, and what are sensations from the present.

This is where mindfulness, nervous system regulation practices, kink, and embodied pleasure practices can become powerful tools.

How to Support Your Nervous System When Arousal Feels Like Fear

Here are some of the most effective approaches I’ve found for working with this overlap — drawn from neuroscience, somatic therapy, trauma research, and sex science. Please don’t do all of these at once! Please think about them as a menu of options - if there’s one that you find interesting, maybe try it out for a week, and see what happens!

1. Mindful Awareness of Interoception

Lori Brotto’s work with low desire has shown that mindfulness — specifically, nonjudgmental awareness of bodily sensations — can help people better interpret and respond to their sexual arousal.

Instead of pushing past confusing sensations or experiences of activation, you pause, and practice paying attention to the ‘bare sensations’ that are showing up. What are the energy movements, temperatures, breathing patterns, body postures you’re experiencing in your body? Where are you noticing them? Really strive to stay with the sensations, without jumping into stories, or conclusions about what they mean.

This creates space to notice what’s actually happening rather than reacting automatically and piling on assumptions or deepening old belief systems. Over time, mindfulness can help create more space to notice and be with sensations arising, as well as melt the associations we have between a sensation (e.g. racing heart) and a belief (“I’m scared”). The trick is to start with ‘bite sized’ experiences - there’s a much greater chance you’ll be able to stay with your body as you do this practice.

2. Nervous System Regulation

According to nervous system research, such as the Polyvagal Theory, the nervous system has multiple branches of response:

• Fight or flight (hyperaroused dysregulation)

• Freeze or shutdown (hypoaroused dysregulation)

• Social connection and safety (the window of capacity: regulation)

Pleasure is best available to us when we’re in a regulated state, however many of us still find ample ways to enjoy pleasure wherever we find ourselves with our nervous systems. I’ve written an article here about the basics of nervous system regulation, as well as one here about using pleasure to regulate our nervous systems, and another one here about how we can play with our nervous systems.

3. Dual Control Model of Sexual Arousal

According to the dual control model of sexual response, made popular from Emily Nagoski’s Come As You Are, our sexual response system involves two branches:

• An accelerator (which responds to sexually exciting information in our environment)

• A brake (which responds to anything the brain interprets as a threat or reason not to be aroused)

Often when we’re struggling with arousal, desire, or activation during sex, it’s not about trying to press harder on the accelerator, it’s about learning how to ease off of the brakes. A certain touch, tone of voice, or body position might hit the brakes without conscious awareness. (Sometimes it might *also* hit the accelerator, and sometime it might not. Once again, this comes down to your unique wiring,  what you happen to find sexually exciting, and what happens to hit your arousal brakes.)

Building awareness of your unique brake and accelerator can help you create conditions where pleasure feels more possible. Noticing when something is hitting your brakes can be a game changer, since you can then respond by setting limits on the things that hit your brakes, see if there are ways to reframe the experience that makes it feel better for you, or try workshopping it with a somatic sex educator or other facilitator to see what you can learn about what might make sex and pleasure feel more a little more easeful.

4. Understanding Arousal Non-Concordance

Have you ever felt physical arousal even when you weren’t mentally or emotionally turned on — or the opposite, where your mind was ready to party but your body didn’t respond? This is called arousal non-concordance, another concept made popular by Nagoski’s Come As You Are, and it’s common, completely normal, and can be a piece of the puzzle of navigating fear and arousal. As Emily Nagoski puts it, “Your genitals are not a reliable measure of your desire or consent.”

In other words, your body’s response and your brain’s response don’t always line up — and that doesn’t mean anything is wrong with you. Physical arousal can be a reflex, even if it’s unwanted. And mental desire can exist without your body jumping on board right away.

For trauma survivors this can be especially confusing if there is a mismatch in their physiological and mental responses to sex or desire. Using strategies such as mindful awareness can support a greater understanding and re-wiring of this experience of non-concordance.

5. Pendulation and Titration

These techniques involve moving in and out of intensity in ‘bite sized’ ways, rather than leaping straight into the middle of intensity.

• Pendulation is the gentle swinging between something activating and something neutral or soothing.

• Titration means working with small doses of intensity, rather than overwhelming yourself.

These practices help teach your nervous system to stay regulated in the face of intensity — whether that intensity is fear, arousal, or both.

For example, if your arousal is building during play, but it starts to feel overwhelming, you could try asking for a pause from whatever’s happening, pay attention to your breathing and touch something neutral (such as the sheets), or maybe even splash a little cold water on your face. Then reconnect with yourself or your sweetie (if you’re playing with others) and decide if you’d like to go back to play or do something else that might not be sex, but keeps the connection going. The key here is to practice *slowly* building your ability to stay with pleasure. It’s kind of like eating a rich slice of cake, taking a pause when it gets to be a little too sweet, having some water, and then going back to the cake (if you want!) once your feelings of sweetness overwhelm have subsided.

6. Empowered Kink Play & Trauma Informed BDSM

Intentionally playing with your edges through creating experiences of power exchange, sensation play, and chosen vulnerability can be a profound tool for rewriting your relationship to arousal and fear. Through this, we have an opportunity to intentionally choose and explore experiences that bring up fear, and try infusing more pleasure into them. Or, we have a chance to embrace experiences that scare us and turn us on at the same time. Or, we can wholeheartedly indulge in things that bring up feelings of arousal for us, even if they are often thought of as scary experiences for others. We can reclaim agency in formerly disempowering dynamics, we can explore intensity in structured containers with clear agreements, and we can learn more about ourselves (or that which has wounded us). Often using some of the other tools in this list such as pendulation, titration, nervous system regulation, and mindful interoception can be really assistive in creating experiences that reclaim and rewrite and sometimes completely transform what we find scary, an what turns us on.

For instance, Taylor had a complicated relationship with bottoming and being a submissive. Past experiences of powerlessness made it hard to relax into submission — even when they knew they wanted to. With a trusted play partner, they began exploring this element of kink. They thought about what would feel sexy and reasonably challenging - something that would help them embrace powerlessness AND take care of their nervous system. They landed on a scene where they asked to be restrained slowly while their partner whispered affirming words and only used gentle touch on bodyparts that didn’t feel charged to them. They set a time container to make sure they would know when it would be over. They also asked for aftercare that they thought would help with any ‘drop’ they might experience from the scene: a foot massage, pre-prepared bowl of fruit, and co-showering with their sweetie.

At first Taylor was feeling the edginess of their choice. But the slow pace, clear agreements, plus a pre-agreed safe word, and the pre-agreed aftercare helped them realize they were in choice, that this experience was for them, and they could say ‘no’ at any time. While their shape certainly didn’t change immediately, with each scene, they reclaimed the pleasure and joy available to them in moments that used to trigger fear. Kink offered a structured way to intentionally meet their edges — and stay connected to their own internal “yes” or “no” throughout the process.

You Don’t Have to Rush

To be clear, healing sexual trauma doesn’t mean never getting triggered again. It means gaining more tools, more options, and more self-trust when intensity shows up, widening your window of capacity, and your ability to stay self-aware and resourced in moments of intensity. With up to date education about the nervous system, neuroplasticity, plus sex positive sex education and a willingness to try out different tools you learn, you have more choice available to you than ever before to work with feelings of pleasure and fear to create expanded choice and embodiment for yourself.

Claiming Your Power in an Era of Diagnoses: You Are More Than a Label.

In the age of medical tests and TikTok, it’s easier than ever to find yourself with a diagnosis—or at least something that feels like one. Whether a doctor’s office handed you an official label, or you’ve pieced it together through a mix of cultural influence, social media, and your own observations, having a diagnosis can sometimes feel like a double-edged sword.

On one hand, a diagnosis can provide relief: “Finally, something explains what I’m experiencing!” “Finally, tools and strategies and a community geared towards my context!” But on the other hand, it can start to feel like the diagnosis defines you, boxes you in, or even whispers, “This is just how things are now.”

Whether your diagnosis was handed down by a professional or crowdsourced by your favorite content creators, the truth is the same: you’re more than a label. A diagnosis can be helpful and sometimes liberatory information, however it doesn’t automatically dictate how you make choices, build relationships, or dream about your life. Let’s dive into how to maintain a sense of power, possibility, and playfulness in your life.

Diagnosis ≠ Identity

First things first: a diagnosis is not your personality. It’s not the most interesting thing about you. It’s simply a word (or set of words) to describe patterns, symptoms, or behaviours you (or someone you know) believes aligns with your physiology or personality traits.

But sometimes, diagnoses—especially self-diagnoses picked up through social media—can sneakily become part of our identity. Maybe it’s because they help us feel seen, or because the cultural conversation around them is so strong that it’s easy to feel like the diagnosis explains everything.

While understanding yourself better is a good thing, it’s worth pausing and asking:

• Is this diagnosis helping me feel more capable, or more limited?

• Am I using this diagnosis to give myself grace—or to avoid exploring new possibilities?

• Does this diagnosis feel like a tool, or a cage?

If the answers are leaning toward limitation, it’s time to reassess.

Why It’s Easy to Feel Stuck in a Diagnosis

Whether official or self-prescribed, diagnoses often come with a lot of cultural baggage. Here’s why you might feel disempowered:

1. The "Fixed Identity" Trap:
   Diagnoses can feel permanent, like they’ve etched a big neon sign over your life that says, This is who you are now. This can lead to over-identifying with the label instead of exploring the full spectrum of who you are, appreciating your complexities and contradictions.

2. Social Media Magnification:
   Online spaces can make diagnoses seem larger than life. It’s easy to fall into the rabbit hole of #relatablecontent, where people’s stories reinforce the idea that your diagnosis defines every aspect of your experience.

3. The Authority Dilemma:
   When a diagnosis comes from a medical professional, it can feel like the final word—like you need to defer to their expertise completely. Self-diagnoses can create a similar feeling, where the internet or a community establishes a type of 'authority-creep’ over your life.

How to Reclaim Your Power

Here’s the good news: no matter where your diagnosis came from, if you feel like it’s feeling less like a source of empowerment and more like an oppressive force, you can reclaim your autonomy and step back into the driver’s seat of your life.

1. Be Curious About, But Not Defined By, the Diagnosis

Think of a diagnosis as a tool, not a title. It can help you understand yourself, but it doesn’t have to dictate your story. Ask yourself:

• What does this diagnosis help contextualize?

• Where does it ‘miss the mark’?

• What choices and points of authority do I want/have in my life?

Sometimes the most empowering thing you can do is shift your mindset from “I am [diagnosis]” to “I am someone navigating [diagnosis].” Or, perhaps take it a step further: it can be empowering to step away from a diagnosis and ‘un-labelling’ yourself. This can support a reclamation and centring of your own personal experience. An example of this might look like “I am someone navigating [symptom / emotion / experience] at the moment.”

2. Tune Into Your Experience

Social media and cultural narratives around diagnoses can amplify the idea that your condition determines everything about you. Instead, take a step back and reconnect with your body, mind, and intuition.

• What’s true for you?

• What brings you relief, joy, or a sense of ease?

• What stories about your diagnosis might not be serving you anymore?

This is where practices like journaling, somatic awareness, or even talking to a trusted friend or professional can help you separate your experience from the noise around you, while hopefully also orienting to strengths-based and resourcing-based tools and discussion topics, to support you in feeling your own framework beyond the definition of a diagnosis. Often diagnoses focus on what’s feeling crunchy or hard. If we’re focusing on this all the time, it can result in a ballooned ‘negativity bias’ or other cognitive distortions. Taking time to focus on what’s working, what feels resourcing, and the ‘silver linings’ of life can be critical.

3. Embrace Visioning and Possibility

A diagnosis can sometimes feel like a full stop, but it’s more like a comma—it’s just one part of your story. Take time to dream about what you want your life to look like, diagnosis and all.

• What goals or passions light you up?

• What’s one small step you could take today toward something that excites you?

• How can you work with your diagnosis, rather than letting it limit your vision?

For example, instead of saying, “I can’t do X because of my condition,” try asking, “What would it look like to do X in a way that feels good for me?” After all, we *all* have strengths and weaknesses. Asking yourself ‘what could I do to shift this and make it even just 5% better’ is a powerful practice that increases choice and self advocacy.

4. Reconnect with Your Inner Authority

Whether it’s a doctor, a social media influencer, or your well-meaning cousin, it’s easy to let outside voices take over after a diagnosis. But no one knows your life like you do.

Reclaiming your inner authority might look like:

• Seeking multiple perspectives and opinions when making decisions.

• Tuning into your body’s wisdom and signals.

• Giving yourself permission to research approaches that resonate with you, even if they’re unconventional.

• Choosing to look at a new context or diagnosis from a variety of different (perhaps contradicting) vantages to support a ‘triangulation’ and mind-expanding exploration into how you feel about this new context.

5. Play with Joy and Pleasure

Diagnoses can feel heavy, but your life doesn’t have to. Carve out space for moments of joy, curiosity, and play. What makes you laugh? What makes you feel alive? What turns you on? Lean into those things. I believe this is a valuable practice in its own right, however, there’s also such great research that illustrates the biochemical benefit to cultivating pleasure in daily life. Further, pleasure and joy aren’t ‘just’ indulgent—they’re a way of reminding yourself that you’re more than your diagnosis. You’re a full, complex, wonderful human being with dreams, desires, and a whole life ahead of you.

You’re the Main Character, Not Your Diagnosis

Whether your diagnosis is official, self-diagnosed, or somewhere in between, it’s important to remember: you are so much more than a set of symptoms or a cultural context.

Your diagnosis can be part of your story, but it doesn’t get to define your plotline. You’re the author. You’re the one holding the pen. And the next chapter? It’s all yours to write. So what do you want it to say?

The Magic Of Embodied Awe.

Have you ever felt a moment so expansive that it seemed to shift something deep inside you? The quiet majesty of a forest, the raw energy of a storm, or a fleeting sense of connection that felt sacred. Moments like these can spark awe—a profound reminder of the vast beauty that exists within and around us.

But awe isn’t just a fleeting feeling. When we allow it to settle into our bodies—when we embody awe—it becomes a path to greater presence and aliveness.

In a world that often pulls us away from ourselves, embodied awe calls us back. It reconnects us to our wholeness, to the wisdom of our bodies, and to the truth that we belong—not just to the earth but to the intricate web of life.

What Is Embodied Awe?

Awe, in its essence, arises when we encounter something greater than ourselves—something so vast, beautiful, or mysterious that it softens the boundaries of who we think we are. It’s often thought of as a mental experience, a shift in perspective. But awe is also deeply felt.

Embodied awe invites us to move beyond observing awe as a concept and instead experience it fully through our senses. It’s the catch in your breath when you gaze at a starry sky, the warmth that spreads through your chest when you hear a song that moves you, the grounding pull of your feet on the earth as you witness a sunrise. It’s awe not as an idea but as a living, breathing connection to the present moment.

Why Embodied Awe Matters

When awe moves through the body, it becomes more than just a fleeting experience. It becomes a resource—a way to find strength, grounding, and joy in the midst of life’s chaos.

Here’s why cultivating embodied awe is so important:

1. It reconnects us with ourselves.
   In the noise of modern life, it’s easy to lose touch with our bodies and the quiet wisdom they hold. Embodied awe invites us back into ourselves, reminding us that we don’t need to look out there for answers. We can feel awe in the rhythm of our breath, the sensation of our heartbeat, and the everyday sacred moments that remind us we’re alive.

2. It heals through presence.
   When we allow awe to ground us in the present moment, we create space for healing. It’s here, in the now, that our bodies can release what no longer serves us—stress, tension, disconnection—and make room for what nourishes us instead.

3. It connects us to something greater.
   Embodied awe bridges the inner and outer worlds. It reminds us that we’re part of something vast and interconnected, a web of life that stretches far beyond the boundaries of our individual experience. This connection can be profoundly humbling and deeply comforting, especially when we feel untethered.

4. It expands our capacity for joy and resilience.
   When we cultivate awe, we begin to see beauty in unexpected places—a flower growing through the cracks, the laughter of a child, the sensation of cool water on our skin. These small moments of wonder build our resilience, helping us meet life’s challenges with a sense of grounded possibility.

How to Rediscover Awe in Your Daily Life

Embodied awe doesn’t require grand gestures or faraway adventures. It’s waiting for you in the ordinary, ready to be noticed and felt. Here are some ways to invite it back into your life:

• Start with your senses.
  Awe is a sensory experience. Pause and ask yourself: What do I see, hear, smell, taste, or feel right now that brings me even the smallest sense of wonder? Let yourself linger with that sensation and the guiding curiosity of wonder. Feel it move through your body.

• Connect with nature.
  The natural world offers countless invitations to awe, from the quiet rhythm of waves to the intricate patterns of a leaf. When you’re outside, let yourself slow down. Notice how the earth supports you, how the wind brushes your skin, or how light filters through the trees.

• Honor the small moments.
  Awe doesn’t always come in grand displays; it’s often found in the ordinary. The breathing of a sleeping furry friend, the way your body stretches after sleep, or the feeling of warm water on your hands can all be tiny gateways to awe when approached with curiosity and presence.

• Let your body lead.
  Sometimes, awe comes through movement. Dance, stretch, or walk in a way that feels intuitive and nourishing. Notice how your body responds when you let it move freely—does it soften, expand, or reach for stillness?

Returning to Wholeness through Awe

At its heart, embodied awe is an invitation to come home to yourself. It’s a practice of remembering that your body is not just a vessel but a sacred landscape—a place where you can experience the richness of life, even in the midst of struggle.

When we make space for awe, we reconnect with our innate wholeness. We remember that we are both small and infinite, fragile and resilient, rooted in the present and part of something timeless.

So, pause. Breathe. Feel the miracle of being alive in this moment. Awe is already here, waiting for you to notice it—not just with your mind but with your whole self.

It’s not about seeking extraordinary experiences; it’s about letting the ordinary become extraordinary. In this way, embodied awe becomes a practice of healing, a source of strength, and a pathway back to the wonder and wisdom that have been within you all along.

Exploring Breathwork in Pleasure-Centered Trauma Recovery.

Breathing is a truly remarkable system within the body—both automatic and intentional. We rarely think about it as we go about our day, yet we can consciously manipulate it to influence how we feel. This unique quality makes breath a powerful “bridge” between the autonomic nervous system and conscious self-regulation, giving us the ability to shift our physical and emotional states.

For those navigating trauma recovery, breathwork can offer a pathway to greater awareness, choice, pleasure, and connection in the body. It can also be misused and is often misunderstood.

Breath as a Bridge Between Body and Mind

Breathing is part of our autonomic nervous system, meaning it happens automatically—without conscious thought. Whether we’re asleep, stressed, or at rest, our body ensures we keep breathing.

Yet, unlike most other autonomic body functions (like digestion), we can easily consciously control and change how we breathe. This ability to intentionally influence an otherwise automatic function makes breath a unique gateway for tending to our nervous system.

For example:

• Deepening our inhales activates the sympathetic nervous system (associated with energy and activation), creating feelings of alertness, excitement, or even hyperarousal.

• Lengthening our exhales engages the parasympathetic nervous system (associated with rest and relaxation), helping us settle into calmness, bliss, or hypoarousal.

By consciously playing with our breath, we can explore how it impacts our state of being, widening or narrowing our access to feelings, sensations, and nervous system regulation.

Breathing and the Nervous System

The way we breathe directly affects our nervous system and overall sense of safety in the body. When we alter our breath with intention, we can influence how we feel in the moment:

• Short, shallow breaths: Is how many of us breath, at least some of the time! This breathing style is associated with stress, hyperventilation, or anxiety. These can signal danger to the body and perpetuate states of dysregulation.

• Slow, nasal breathing: Supports nervous system balance and encourages calmness and stability. Programs like the Buteyko Breath Retraining that I took by Jennifer Snowdon emphasize the long-term benefits of breathing less, breathing lightly, and breathing consistently through the nose.

This approach can be especially helpful for those who habitually hold their breath, sigh frequently. mouth breathe, or experience irregular breathing patterns due to stored traumatic stress. Retraining the breath to be steady and soft can help settle chronic dysregulation and create a foundation for healing.

However, it’s important to remember that the breath is just one piece of the puzzle. While retraining breathing patterns can offer transformative impact, it’s also vital to explore the bigger picture of what might be causing nervous system dysregulation, such as unresolved traumatic stress or unsafe environments.

Breath and Pleasure

Beyond regulation, the breath also plays a pivotal role in how we experience pleasure. Breath has the power to shape our sensations, emotions, and access to feeling within the body. For instance:

• Intensifying inhales can cultivate excitement, heightening sensations and creating an “upward” sense of energy and arousal.

• Extending exhales can enhance feelings of bliss, promoting relaxation, fullness, and an “opening” to pleasurable sensation.

These dynamics make the breath an incredible tool for widening or narrowing our access to pleasure. There are a variety of pleasure-based breath work practices that can be used in erotic contexts to offer an added dimension to erotic play. And, most importantly, by experimenting with how we breathe, we can learn to cultivate specific feelings and sensations at will, enriching our experience of embodiment and adding more tools to our erotic toolboxes.

A Practice of Curiosity and Play

A key way to explore the impact of breath is through curious experimentation. By creating intentional containers or learning goals around breathwork, we can uncover what works best for our unique needs.

Some ways to start:

1. Begin with Awareness: Notice how you’re breathing in different situations. Is it shallow? Rapid? Are you breathing through your nose or mouth? Awareness is the first step to understanding your patterns.

2. Experiment with Dynamics:

   • Try deepening your inhales for a short amount of time to play with building energy or excitement. If you notice you’re instead feeling unwanted feelings of hyperaroused activation, this is great information! Practice settling your system and try something else when it’s feeling right.

   • Practice lengthening your exhales to create calmness or bliss. If you notice you’re instead feeling unwanted feelings of hypoaroused activation, this is great information! Practice settling your system and try something else when it’s feeling right.

   • Notice how these shifts affect your access to sensations in your body.

3. Set Intentions: Create a goal for your breath practice. For example, “I want to explore down regulating-style breathing,” or “I want to explore what makes me feel energized during solo erotic play.” Try to make your intentions simple and achievable. Use this intention as a guide to explore different breathing patterns.

4. Remember the Bigger Picture: While breathwork is a powerful tool, it’s not the only one. If you find that breathwork alone isn’t enough to address dysregulation, it’s worth exploring other factors like somatic therapy, relationship dynamics, or environmental changes.

The Role of Breath in Trauma Recovery

Breathwork offers us the ability to connect with and influence our bodies in profound ways. It can be a tool for calming the nervous system, accessing pleasure, and deepening our relationship with sensation. But like any tool, its effectiveness depends on how we use it and whether it fits the needs of the moment.

By approaching the breath with intention, curiosity, and an openness to play, it can be a powerful tool in our toolbox.

Feeling Into Yourself: Interoception, Proprioception, Exteroception, and Neuroception in Trauma Recovery

Healing from sexual trauma is a deeply personal journey, one that calls for patience and the courage to reconnect with yourself at your own pace. Trauma often disrupts our relationship with the body, leaving us feeling disconnected, unsafe, or numb. Rebuilding this connection is an act of reclamation—of safety, pleasure, and self-trust.

A key part of this process involves exploring the ways we experience our bodies and the world around us. Four essential sensory systems—interoception, proprioception, exteroception, and neuroception—help us navigate and make sense of our internal and external environments. By gently engaging with these systems, we can support our healing and rediscover what it feels like to be connected, present, and whole.

What Are Interoception, Proprioception, Exteroception, and Neuroception?

1. Interoception
   Interoception is your sense of the internal state of your body—your heartbeat, inner temperature changes, breath, hunger, thirst, or tension. It’s what allows you to notice cues like “I’m thirsty” or “I feel uneasy in my stomach.” Interoception helps you tune into the ‘felt sense’ of your needs and emotions.

2. Proprioception
   Proprioception is your awareness of your body’s position in space. It’s the reason you can touch your nose with your eyes closed or balance on one foot. This sense gives you a felt understanding of your body’s movements and positions, helping you feel grounded and embodied.

3. Exteroception
   Exteroception is your awareness of the external world through your senses: touch, sight, sound, smell, and taste. It connects you to the environment around you—the warmth of sunlight on your skin, the sound of leaves rustling, or the texture of your favorite blanket. Exteroception offers a way to find beauty, comfort, and pleasure in your surroundings.

4. Neuroception
   Neuroception, a term introduced by Dr. Stephen Porges as part of the Polyvagal Theory, refers to your nervous system’s ability to subconsciously assess safety or danger. It’s the automatic process that determines whether you feel safe, threatened, or neutral in any given moment, even before you're consciously aware of it.

   Unlike interoception, proprioception, or exteroception, neuroception operates in the background, shaping your responses to situations based on past experiences and survival instincts. When neuroception determines a situation is unsafe, your body might enter a fight, flight, or freeze state—even if the threat isn’t real or immediate.

Why Are These Sensory Systems Important for Trauma Recovery?

Trauma often disrupts these sensory systems.

• You might feel disconnected from your body’s internal cues (interoception).

• You could lose awareness of your body’s movements or feel ungrounded (proprioception).

• You may feel overstimulated or numb to external sensations (exteroception).

• And your neuroception may be “stuck,” causing you to perceive danger even in safe situations.

These disruptions aren’t signs of failure—they’re protective mechanisms your body developed to keep you safe during moments of overwhelm. The good news is that with patience and practice, you can begin to gently reconnect with your sensory systems, creating a foundation of safety and trust.

Practices to Support Each Sensory System

Healing happens at the speed of trust, so let your body lead. Choose practices that feel safe, supportive, and hopefully interesting or curious! If something’s feeling too challenging (or boring!), that’s great - listen to that and instead try something else instead!

Interoception: Sensing Inside Yourself

• Practice body scans: Practice noticing sensations like warmth, tightness, or ease. If it feels too spacious to explore the whole body, perhaps try focusing on smaller areas like your hands or feet.

• Pause to check in with your body and assess if you have needs over the course of the day: Am I hungry? Thirsty? Tired?

• Notice small body-based pleasures: the rhythm of your breath, the warmth of a blanket, or the feeling of your heartbeat.

Proprioception: Feeling Your Body in Space

• Explore mindful movement like yoga, walking, lifting weights, or stretching. Notice how your feet connect to the ground or how your arms move through space.

• Try self-soothing gestures, like placing your hands over your heart or hugging yourself.

• Rocking or swaying or intuitive dancing can offer grounding and comfort, helping you rediscover your body’s natural rhythms.

Exteroception: Sensing the World Around You

• Experiment with sensory pleasures: the taste of something sweet, the texture of soft fabric, or the scent of a favourite essential oil.

• Take time to notice the world around you: sunlight on your skin, the sound of birds, or the colors of the sky.

• Engage with your senses in small, pleasurable ways: wrapping yourself in a cozy blanket, drinking tea, or offering yourself some pleasurable touch.

Neuroception: Cultivating Safety

• Practice grounding techniques that signal safety to your nervous system, like feeling your feet on the floor or holding something soothing in your hands.

• Use your breath to calm your body: slowing your breathing, breathing through your nose, and focusing on your exhale can help shift your nervous system into a state of rest and safety. Breath can be a powerful tool- less is more here!

• Surround yourself with people, places, and activities that feel supportive. Safe relationships, in particular, can help reshape neuroception over time, teaching your body to trust again.

Reclaiming Ease and Pleasure

Healing isn’t about rushing to “fix” yourself. It’s about creating a welcoming relationship with your body where curiosity, trust, and pleasure can grow. Each small moment of body-based connection—whether it’s noticing your heartbeat, savoring a warm cup of tea, or feeling the ground beneath your feet—is a step toward connecting with your sense of self.

Neuroception reminds us that safety is foundational for healing. As you explore practices to reconnect with interoception, proprioception, and exteroception, listen to your body’s signals. If something feels too overwhelming, give yourself permission to pause or try something different. The key is moving at the right speed—not too fast or too slow—letting your body guide you toward what feels supportive and nourishing.

Finding Joy in Reconnection

Your body is a remarkable place, capable of learning, adapting, and healing. By gently tuning into your sensory systems, you’re not only rebuilding trust with yourself—you’re creating space for pleasure, joy, and the profound gift of feeling alive.

Wherever you are on your journey, may you find moments of ease, beauty, and connection that ground you in your strength and resilience.

The Power of Somatics in Healing Sexual Trauma.

When it comes to recovering from sexual trauma, somatics offers a unique and powerful pathway for healing. Unlike talk therapy alone, which focuses on processing experiences through the mind, somatic practices invite us to reconnect with the body—the place where trauma is stored. Learning to “feel yourself from the inside” is not only a radical act of self-care, but it’s also a way to re-establish trust with your body and reclaim your innate capacity for pleasure, choice, and aliveness.

Learning to Feel Yourself from the Inside

Sexual trauma often creates a profound disconnection from the body. This disconnection, while protective in the moment, can leave us feeling numb, dissociated, or unable to fully inhabit ourselves. Somatic practices help us bridge this gap by inviting us to notice and attune to the subtle sensations, emotions, and signals that arise within.

Feeling yourself from the inside means cultivating an inner awareness—like turning on a light in a dark room. This awareness allows you to recognize your body’s signals of “yes,” “no,” and “maybe.” These signals are essential guides to reclaiming your sense of agency and safety.

When you tune into these signals, you strengthen your ability to make choices that align with your needs and boundaries. Over time, this practice fosters a sense of trust in your body, helping you feel more grounded and present in your daily life.

Integrating All Parts of Yourself

One of the challenges in trauma recovery is the tendency to compartmentalize, separating the mind and body… often while completely avoiding sexuality and eroticism (one of the challenges of living in a sex negative culture). This fragmentation can make it feel like you’re walking through life as “a head on legs,” disconnected from the richness of your body’s full experience.

Somatics emphasizes the importance of integrating all parts of yourself - and, in the case of somatic sex education, this certainly includes your sexuality, as part of the healing process. Reclaiming eroticism is not just about “fixing” what was harmed—it’s about connecting and exploring a vital part of your humanity. Your eroticism is a source of creativity, joy, and connection, and it deserves care and attention in your recovery journey.

Through somatic practices, you can begin to explore your body’s sensations, rhythms, and movements in a way that feels safe and empowering. This might look like:

• Noticing the feeling of your feet on the ground as a way to cultivate grounding.

• Exploring gentle touch or movement to reconnect with areas of the body that feel numb or tense.

• Practicing mindful breathing to sense the natural ebb and flow of your body’s energy.

And, as these practices feel good or you’re wanting more challenge, definitely begin to explore how to welcome in your erotic energy, genitals and other sexually sensitive areas, as well as fantasy and sensuality - through this you can perhaps expand a recovery journey to include *all of you*. This integration isn’t about rushing or forcing anything. It’s about creating space to listen to your body, honor its wisdom, and gently expand your capacity for pleasure and connection over time.

Healing Beyond the Mind

Trauma recovery is not just a mental exercise—it’s a full-body experience. While intellectual understanding is critical, lasting healing comes from embodying that understanding in your daily life. Somatics teaches us that healing is not about bypassing the body, but rather about learning to be present with it in a way that fosters safety, resilience, and connection.

This process may feel vulnerable at first, especially if your body hasn’t felt like a safe place for a long time, or if you’ve never learned tools and skills to be with your body. But by slowing down, noticing the ever present gifts of sensation, and practicing kindness toward yourself, you can begin to create a new relationship with your body—one rooted in trust, care, and empowerment.

Reclaiming Pleasure as Medicine

One of the greatest gifts of somatic healing is the reclamation of pleasure as a resource for resilience. Pleasure doesn’t have to be sexual—it can be as simple as the warmth of the sun on your skin, the taste of your favorite food, or the feeling of your breath moving through your body.

When you invite pleasure into your daily life, you send a powerful message to your nervous system: It’s safe to feel good. Over time, these moments of pleasure can help you expand your capacity to stay present, even in challenging moments, and build a foundation of joy and vitality that supports your ongoing healing.

Moving Toward Wholeness

Healing from sexual trauma is a deeply personal journey, but you don’t have to walk it alone. Somatic practices offer a gentle, body-centered approach to recovery that can help you reconnect with yourself in profound and meaningful ways.

By learning to feel yourself from the inside, attuning to your inner signals, and integrating all parts of your body—including your erotic energy—you can move beyond mere survival and begin to reclaim your sense of wholeness, freedom, and pleasure.

Your body is wise, resilient, and capable of healing. Through somatics, you can learn to trust it and find a path into a life filled with connection, aliveness, and joy.

Dancing with Your Nervous System: How to Playfully Explore Hyperarousal and Hypoarousal.

Your nervous system is a powerful, dynamic part of who you are. It shapes how you experience the world, respond to challenges, and move through moments of stress, connection, and joy. Often, we think of regulating the nervous system as a reactive process—something we do after we’ve been thrown into dysregulation. But what if we could playfully and mindfully explore our nervous systems so we have knowledge before challenges arise?

By intentionally creating experiences of hyperarousal (energy, excitement, or activation) and hypoarousal (slowing down, stillness, or numbness), we can better understand how our systems respond, what tools work best for us, and how to expand our sense of choicefulness. This playful exploration builds resilience and confidence, turning nervous system regulation into a dance and perhaps even sometimes kind of fun!

Why Play with Your Nervous System?

Exploring your nervous system in a mindful, intentional way allows you to:

• Build Awareness: Learn how your body feels in different states (like hyperarousal or hypoarousal) and recognize the early signs of these shifts.

• Expand Your Capacity: Practice moving through different nervous system states safely, which can expand your ability to handle stress and challenges.

• Develop Your Toolbox: Experiment with tools and practices that help you shift between states, so you’re better prepared when real-life challenges arise.

• Cultivate Choicefulness: By getting curious about your nervous system, you can reduce the feeling of being “stuck” in a state of dysregulation and instead feel empowered to shift gears intentionally.

How to Create Playful Containers for Exploration

Before diving into playful nervous system exploration, create a safe and supportive container for yourself:

1. Set an Intention: Approach this practice with curiosity, not judgment. You're not trying to "fix" yourself—you're here to learn and play. Keeping your intention simple and process oriented (as opposed to outcome based) can help with establishing it as a guide for your practice.

2. Create Safety: Make sure you have the time and space to explore without distractions. Have grounding tools that work for you ready, like a weighted blanket, good snack, or soothing music. Consider having a trusted friend or therapist you can reach out to if needed.

3. Tune Into Your Capacity: Start small and listen to your body. If something feels too intense, it's okay to pause or shift gears. If you’re trying this out for the first time, err on the side of keeping practices short (set a timer!) and not letting the practice get above a 3/5 level of inner intensity for you. There will most likely be great information to gather from this place.

Playing with Hyperarousal

Hyperarousal is the state of heightened energy and activation. It can feel like excitement, joy, or focus—or, if it becomes overwhelming, anxiety or panic. This can be the complicated thing about ‘wanted’ versus ‘unwanted’ activation: the ‘felt sense’ of both excitement and panic can sometimes feel remarkably comparable! By intentionally activating your system in safe, playful ways, you can explore how to work with high energy without flipping into dysregulation.

Activities to Try:

• Exciting Movement: Dance to fast-paced music, run around, or engage in a high-energy workout. Notice how your body responds as you increase your heart rate.

• Challenge Yourself: Try something that’s just a bit out of your comfort zone, like public speaking, a timed puzzle, or a creative project with a deadline.

• Stimulate Your Senses: Listen to loud or energizing music, eat something spicy, or step into a cold shower. These sensory experiences can bring your system to life.

• Play with Speed: Do something you’d normally do slowly—like cleaning or walking—at double speed. How does your body respond to urgency?

• Make it Sexy: I’ll leave this to your imagination! What erotic practices support you in feeling energized, heightened, or excited?

Questions for Reflection:

• How does hyperarousal feel in your body? Where do you notice sensations, temperature changes, breath pattern or vision changes, etc? What textures, energy movements, and postures show up?

• Are there specific sensations, thoughts, or emotions that arise?

Tools for Regulation:

After intentionally activating your nervous system, practice bringing yourself back to a state of feeling grounded. Here’s an article with some suggestions for grounding practices.

Playing with Hypoarousal

Hypoarousal is the state of low energy or slowing down. It can feel like restfulness and calm—or, if it’s a nervous system trigger or activation, it is what we often call numbness or disconnection. By curiously exploring hypoarousal, you can learn to recognize when it’s restorative and nourishing versus when it’s a signal of a nervous system collapse.

Activities to Try:

• Stillness Practices: Sit in silence, lie down in a dark room, or focus on your breath. Notice how your body responds to slowing down.

• Gentle Sensory Deprivation: Try closing your eyes while listening to soft music or wearing noise-canceling headphones in a quiet space.

• Meditation or Daydreaming: Allow your mind to wander without judgment. Explore what it feels like to "float" without a specific goal.

• Play with Pauses: Interrupt a high-energy activity (like dancing or exercising) with moments of complete stillness. How does your system adjust to the change?

• Make it Sexy: I’ll leave this to your imagination! What erotic practices support you in feeling slow, blissful, or grounded?

Questions for Reflection:

• How does hypoarousal feel in your body?

• Are there moments when it feels soothing versus moments when it feels heavy or dull?

Tools for Regulation:

After exploring a hypoarousal-based practice, try re-engaging your system with a small burst of mindful energy: play upbeat music, move your body, or drink a glass of cold water. Or, perhaps try something that brings that same energy of slow groundedness, with a focus on mindfulness. Here’s some more information about regulation practices.

Building Your Toolbox: What Works for You?

The beauty of this practice is that there’s no right or wrong way to play with your nervous system. The goal is to experiment, reflect, and build a personalized toolbox of practices that work for you.

Some tools might help you shift out of hyperarousal, while others bring you out of hypoarousal. Some might help you expand your capacity to stay with intense sensations, while others help you recalibrate when you need rest.

Expanding Your Feeling of Choicefulness

By intentionally exploring your nervous system in a safe, playful way, you can expand your sense of choicefulness. You’re no longer just reacting to stress or dysregulation when it arises—you’re learning how to dance with your nervous system, experimenting with tools and strategies, and building resilience in the process.

This practice isn’t about mastering your nervous system or forcing it to behave a certain way. It’s about cultivating a relationship with it—one rooted in curiosity, compassion, and play. Over time, you’ll feel more confident navigating the ebbs and flows of life, knowing you have the tools and awareness to support yourself, no matter what comes your way.

Eudaemonic vs. Hedonic Pleasure: A Path to Understanding Embodied Joy.

When we think about pleasure, we often default to ideas of indulgence—moments of sweet satisfaction like savouring chocolate cake, taking a hot bath, or binging our favourite show. While these pleasures are important, they represent only one dimension of the full spectrum of joy.

In somatic sex education, we explore the nuances of pleasure, including how it supports our well-being and aligns with our deeper values. This brings us to two concepts from philosophy and psychology: hedonic pleasure and eudaemonic pleasure. While both are valuable, understanding their differences—and how they impact our nervous systems—can help us connect more fully with our bodies, minds, and inner wisdom.

What’s the Difference Between Hedonic and Eudaemonic Pleasure?

Hedonic pleasure is the kind of joy we experience from external sources: physical comfort, sensory delights, and immediate gratification. It feels good in the moment—like sinking into warm sand at the beach or enjoying your favorite meal. This kind of pleasure is essential for signaling safety to the nervous system, especially when we’ve experienced trauma. It’s also a reminder to pause and savor life’s simple joys. These pleasures are often the ‘cherry on top’ of what nourishes our lives - when we pay attention and choose to reach for things that feel good, we are giving ourselves embodied reminders that there is always pleasure, joy, and delight available to us, no matter out context or circumstance. We are fuelling our souls and bodies, choosing to say ‘yes’ to moments - whether big or small - that brighten, sweeten, and deepen our lives.

Eudaemonic pleasure, on the other hand, is rooted in meaning, growth, and alignment with our core values. This is the kind of pleasure we feel when we’re living in a way that feels authentic and connected to purpose—when we pursue relationships, work, education, volunteerism, and experiences that nourish us on a deeper level. It’s the satisfaction of having a heartfelt conversation, creating something meaningful, or standing firm in a boundary that honors your truth. Eudaemonic pleasure may not always feel good in the moment, but the lasting sense of pleasure and satisfaction offers a deep delight that is profoundly nourishing for the soul.

Where hedonic pleasure is often immediate and sensory, eudaemonic pleasure is often slower to unfold. It’s about the fulfillment that comes from making choices aligned with who you are at your core.

How Pleasure Shapes the Nervous System

Both forms of pleasure play a critical role in how we regulate and care for our nervous systems.

Hedonic pleasure—the immediate enjoyment of things like the warmth of the sun on our skin, delicious food, or sexual arousal—can directly influence how our nervous system responds. These experiences might activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which supports the “rest and digest” state by slowing the heart rate, deepening breath, and promoting a sense of safety and calm. At times, hedonic pleasure can also activate the sympathetic system—however, in a way that’s enlivening, such as the pleasurable excitement of a good workout or the building of erotic energy. When we experience this kind of arousal in safe enough, and chosen contexts, it can expand our capacity to stay regulated through experiences of intensity more generally.

Trauma, chronic stress, or dissociation can disrupt these our systems—making it harder to access the regulating effects of pleasure. But even small, consistent ‘snacks’ of embodied pleasure can help re-pattern the nervous system toward safety and presence.

Eudaemonic pleasure—the deeper fulfillment we experience when we live in alignment with our values—also supports nervous system regulation, but in a ‘low and slow’ kind of way. Choosing relationships, activities, or work that reflect our life intentions and integrity can cultivate a sense of internal coherence: the feeling that our inner world matches how we’re showing up in the world. This coherence is a powerful signal of safety to the nervous system, particularly the vagus nerve, which is closely involved in both emotional regulation and social connection. When our choices feel congruent with who we are, our nervous system learns that we are safe to be ourselves. This tends to lead to long-term feelings of stability, reduced baseline stress, and a greater capacity for resilience over time.

In this way, both forms of pleasure—whether immediate and sensory or meaningful and value-driven—have their roles in nourish the nervous system.

Celebrating Both Forms of Pleasure

In a world that often prioritizes quick fixes and instant gratification, we can sometimes overlook the importance of eudaemonic pleasure. It may require slowing down, listening to ourselves, and making choices that don’t yield immediate rewards but build a foundation for long-term fulfillment.

That said, hedonic pleasures are not “shallow” or “less than.” They’re essential, especially during times of overwhelm, when grounding ourselves in sensory experiences can bring us back to the present moment. They’re also a fabulous ‘low risk high reward’ pathway to learning how to *feel* pleasure from the inside (strengthen our interoceptive skills).

The magic happens when we create space for both. Savor the small pleasures: light your favourite candles, dance to that banger of a song, or dive into the texture of your favorite blanket. And, when it feels right, reflect on the bigger picture: Are the choices you’re making aligned with your values? Are you cultivating relationships and practices that nurture your soul?

Inner Wisdom as a Guide to Pleasure

At the heart of this conversation is the idea of choice. When we tune into our bodies and listen to our inner wisdom, we can discern what kind of pleasure we need in the moment. Sometimes, that’s the hedonic pleasure of taking a nap or indulging in something delicious. Other times, it’s the eudaemonic pleasure of choosing discomfort in the short term—like setting a challenging intention—because we know it serves our long-term well-being.

In somatic sex education, we often focus on reconnecting with the body’s wisdom as a way to access both forms of pleasure. This practice of slowing down, noticing, and honoring what feels just and right can lead to a deeper sense of joy, satisfaction, and self-trust.

An Invitation to Explore

What would it look like to nurture both hedonic and eudaemonic pleasure in your life? Maybe it’s allowing yourself to enjoy a sensory delight today—a warm drink, a sunset, a sexy solo play session. And perhaps it’s also pausing to reflect on how your daily choices align with the life you want to create and the world you want to live in.

Both forms of pleasure are gifts, and when we embrace them with intention, they become powerful tools for healing, connection, and joy.

The Basics of Nervous System Regulation: Embracing Your Unique Path.

Your nervous system is the core of how you experience life. It shapes how you respond to stress, connect with others, and find your way through challenges. Learning the basics of nervous system regulation isn’t about fixing yourself or striving for perfect balance—it's about increasing awareness and understanding of the unique shape of your system, and how to best support it with intention and care.

What is Nervous System Regulation?

Your nervous system is a dynamic system in your body that strives for balance. We can refer to our nervous systems as feeling:

• Regulated: This is when you feel grounded, connected, and present. You can face challenges without ‘falling off your horse’, find joy in everyday moments, make thoughtful decisions, and enjoy moments of curiosity and connection.

• Dysregulated: This happens when your system is overwhelmed or under-engaged. You might feel anxious, agitated, frozen, or disconnected, as your body tries to protect itself from perceived threats. It likely feels harder to focus, feel grounded, connect with others, or play in this state.

We all shift between regulated and dysregulated states, and there’s no such thing as a perfectly regulated nervous system. Dysregulation is part of being human. The goal isn’t to avoid dysregulation but to learn how to recognize when it’s happening, understand that this is a part of your body’s functioning, and develop tools to support yourself when you’re feeling dysregulated, if you so choose.

Understanding Your Window of Capacity

Your Window of Capacity (a phrase I learned from Jane Clapp - most nervous system educators often use the term "Window of Tolerance" - however, I’m not interested in aspiring for tolerance!) is the range in which you can handle stress, stay present, and engage with life without becoming overwhelmed or shutting down. Within this window, your nervous system feels responsive, regulated, and supple.

When something challenges your capacity—whether it’s a stressor or a trigger—you might move outside this window into one of two zones of dysregulation:

• Hyper-arousal: Feeling anxious, panicked, angry, or hypervigilant. This is when your system goes into “fight or flight” mode.

• Hypo-arousal: Feeling numb, disconnected, or shut down. This is your system in a “freeze” or “collapse” state.

Your window of capacity isn’t fixed; it can expand and contract based on your circumstances, past experiences, health, hormonal shifts and more. Also, there are practices you can do to help widen your window of capacity over time. The takeaway here is to understand that you have a window where you’ll feel resilient and regulated - and that you will enter and exit this window. As you pay attention your body’s responses, you can begin to develop awareness of when you’re in your window, and when you’re outside of it.

There's No "One Right Way" to Have a Nervous System

One of the most important things to remember is this: there’s no one-size-fits-all nervous system. Your body’s responses to stress, triggers, and challenges are shaped by your unique life experiences, biology, and environment.

It's normal to experience dysregulation—it doesn’t mean something is “wrong” with you. It’s just your nervous system doing what it does to protect you. The work isn’t about trying to eliminate dysregulation but about building awareness of how your system works, and through this expanding your choice in how you relate to your nervous system.

Often once you start watching the patterns of your nervous system, it can become clear what kinds of protective responses your system has figured out to help you get by in the past. Because, after all, the nervous system is very interested in keeping you safe, and has a variety of clever ways to secure that safety. From your nervous system’s point of view, ensuring you’re safe far surpasses ensuring you’re having a pleasurable day-to-day experience. However, given that often we may end up with patterns of numbing out, being very reactive, or other habits that get in the way of having a grounded and connected relationship with ourselves or others, learning how to regulate the nervous system can be a powerful tool to help us get more of what we want out of our lives.

If it feels like it’d be fun or interesting, perhaps try tracking your system for a day, or a week. This can look like keeping a journal and making regular notes about what kinds of sensations you’re feeling in your body, what kinds of thoughts you’re thinking, what kinds of emotions you’re feeling, and what kinds of actions you’re engaging in. When tracking, I encourage you to not try to change your experience - simply watch, and gather information about what it’s like to be you over the course of the day or week.

Tools for Supporting Regulation

Once you’ve built awareness of your nervous system’s patterns, you can experiment with tools and practices to support regulation. There’s no universal approach, so it’s about finding what works for you. Here are some ideas:

Grounding and Soothing Practices

These tools are especially useful when you’re wanting a mindfulness-based practice that will focus on down-regulating the nervous system. This style of down regulating practice is heavily used in nervous system work HOWEVER it is not always the right or best choice! Sometimes we need mindfulness-based activities that will match our energy when we are feeling activated!:

• Breathwork: Practices like breathing into your pelvis - using your mind’s eye to encourage your breath deep into your body. However, you don’t need to suck in an ocean of air! What does it feel like to let your body breathe for you, and see what amount of breath your body wants to take? Alternatively, sometimes extending the exhale, and maybe humming at the same time can feel really pleasurable and grounding for some people.

• Grounding Exercises: There are a myriad of ways of focusing on your senses, from pressing your feet into the ground, or holding a warm cup of tea and tuning into the sensations, or looking around your space choosing to notice and pay attention to the details of five different things you see.

• Restorative Rest: Cozying up with a blanket, taking a bath, having a sauna, or listening to calming music. Try to avoid screen time or multi-tasking, instead tuning into and paying attention to your experience of rest.

Energizing and Engaging Practices

For some people, activation is sometimes best addressed by engaging with challenge, excitement, or novelty. These activities when done mindfully can meet the energy in your body or mind while also supporting you in strengthening your mind/body connection and encouraging presence, which helps regulate the nervous system:

• Play and Adventure: Try something slightly out of your comfort zone, like a new type of kinky play, intense sport, or other physical challenge that is novel and challenging.

• High-Energy Movement: Go for a run, lift weights, take a cold plunge, or do something physically challenging that gets your heart rate up and body moving.

• Engaging Your Brain: Solve a complex puzzle, try a new creative project, or start learning something that excites you, like a language or skill.

Balancing Connection and Solitude

Learning about the shape of our nervous systems and how we regulate is a rewarding process. One important dynamic to keep an eye on is what role being solitary and what role being in connection plays. We’re each different when it comes to what leaves us feeling regulated or dysregulated.

• Co-Regulation: Sometimes the best way to regulate is by connecting with someone else. This could be having a heartfelt conversation, playing games, cuddling a loved one, or sharing a laugh or a cry with a friend. Co-regulating through volunteering or otherwise being of service is another powerful practice to try - there’s a lot of compelling research that indicates that being of service to something we find important deeply supports our nervous systems and sense of belonging. Alternatively, sometimes being around others might leave us feeling dysregulated.

• Intentional Solitude: At other times, taking the time to come back to ourselves and spending intentional time alone to reflect, journal, or practice mindfulness can be a powerful way to process and recalibrate to life. However! Sometimes being in solitude might exasperate feelings of dysregulation. It’s about learning what works for each of us.

Tapping into Pleasure and Joy

Small moments of joy signal safety to your nervous system and can help create a foundation of regulation. More on this here - as a somatic sex educator I’m a big believer in the role of pleasure in supporting the nervous system. This could look like:

• Slowly eating and savouring a favorite meal or dessert.

• Spending time in nature, whether it’s hiking a challenging trail or lying in the grass.

• Giving yourself permission to play, laugh, and explore what feels good.

• Cultivating purpose & meaning and giving space to what you find important.

Moving Forward with Compassion

The journey of nervous system regulation is about practicing getting curious and present with your different states in a curious and non-judgemental way. As you learn more about how your system operates, you learn more about how to work with your system, which increases choice and freedom in your life. By learning about your nervous system, you can support yourself in ways that feel deeply aligned with your unique needs and path in life. Curious to learn more about this? Check out my article on playing with your nervous system states.

Approaches to Sexual Healing for Trauma Survivors.

Healing from sexual trauma is a deeply personal journey, yet it flourishes when we embrace a multidisciplinary approach. Trauma doesn’t just affect the mind; it ripples through every element of ourselves: our body, psyche, relationships, and sense of belonging in the world. By holding these interconnected layers of experience in a recovery process, survivors can support themselves in thriving.

Below, we’ll explore how practices involving movement, bodywork, nourishment, mindset, education, and new experiences can support trauma survivors in reclaiming pleasure, connection, and a sense of wholeness.

Movement and Bodywork: Reclaiming Safety and Pleasure

Trauma might result in survivors feeling trapped, disconnected, or unsafe in their bodies. Movement and bodywork offer powerful pathways back to grounding and embodiment.

Movement practices, such as yoga, qi gong, ecstatic dance, or mindful strength training can help reconnect survivors with their physical selves in ways that feel safe and non-threatening. Practices that offer elements of nervous system awareness, choice, consent, and body awareness can be empowering resources for survivors to explore movement at their own pace and in their own way.

Somatic bodywork—like Sexological Bodywork, Somatic Sex Education, or De-armouring — provides a hands-on way to release trauma stored in the body’s tissues. These practices are unique opportunities for survivors to explore and claim their bodies as sources of pleasure, safety, and agency. For many, touch work (or pleasure-centred and trauma informed coaching if touch isn’t available) is a bold step in rebuilding a positive relationship with sensation and sexuality.

Food and Lifestyle: Nourishment as Healing

Trauma impacts the nervous system, often leaving survivors in prolonged states of hypervigilance or exhaustion. Food and lifestyle choices play a crucial role in restoring balance.

Nourishing meals support not just physical health but emotional regulation. Protocols like The Wahls Protocol, which emphasize nutrient-dense foods, can enhance cellular recovery and nervous system resilience.

Lifestyle changes—like prioritizing sleep hygiene, creating daily joy rituals, and spending time outdoors—can anchor survivors in rhythms that promote healing. These practices aren’t just about survival; they’re about building and connecting with lives that feel abundant, spacious, and aligned with what survivors value most.

Mindset and Meaning-Making: Rewriting the Narrative

One of trauma’s most insidious impacts is the way it reshapes our inner world. Survivors often carry shame, blame, or feelings of unworthiness. Healing requires not just releasing these burdens but replacing them with new, empowering beliefs.

Mindfulness and self-compassion practices can help survivors gently shift their mindsets. Survivors may find power in meditations, affirmations, journaling, or acknowledging their strengths. Spiritual practices (for those who resonate with them) can also offer a nourishing sense of connection and meaning, supporting survivors in feeling anchored to something larger than themselves.

Community and Connection: Healing Together

Trauma can be isolating, but connection is one of the most potent antidotes. Whether through group therapy, peer support circles, or creative workshops, survivors often find healing amplified by the presence of others who understand their journey.

Community spaces offer validation, shared wisdom, and a sense of belonging. They remind survivors that they’re not alone—and that healing, while personal, doesn’t have to happen in isolation.

Education: Understanding Patterns and Choices

Many trauma survivors experience challenges with intimacy, boundaries, and trust, often without appreciating the ways in which these are common trauma responses. Education about attachment theory and nervous system regulation can empower survivors to recognize these patterns, accept the gifts and challenges of them, and possibly work towards shifting them (if wanted).

For instance, understanding the fight, flight, freeze, or fawn responses helps survivors make sense of their reactions. Understanding patterns of anxiety, avoidance, and dysregulation in relationships similarly can help folks make sense of their experiences. This knowledge can be transformative when paired with tools for navigating relationships, strengthening boundaries, and cultivating trust with themselves and others.

Creating New Experiences: A Future of Pleasure and Possibility

Trauma often traps survivors in the past, but healing invites us to step into a future of our choosing. This means creating new experiences that reflect our desires and dreams!

• Pleasure practices: Daily rituals—like savoring a warm bath, enjoying a favorite scent, or basking in sunlight—help rewire the brain to associate the body with safety and joy.

• Exploring intimacy: Survivors may find healing in cultivating eros through paradigms that honour their autonomy and unique shape, such as consensual non-monogamy, erotic friendships, solo polyamory, monogamy, celibacy, and more.

• Play and creativity: Trauma often robs survivors of joy, but playfulness can be a profound tool for healing. Whether through art, music, or laughing with friends, cultivating a spirit of curiosity and lightness creates space for growth.

Professional Guidance: A Safe Container for Healing

While survivors take many meaningful steps on their own, the guidance of skilled, trauma-informed professionals can be invaluable. Therapists, somatic practitioners, and educators trained in sexual healing provide safe, compassionate spaces for survivors to navigate challenging emotions, sensations, and experiences.

Trauma-informed care ensures survivors are met with education, empathy and respect, empowering folks to build resilience and strength.

A Journey Toward Wholeness

Healing from sexual trauma is not linear, and it’s never one-size-fits-all. It’s a deeply personal process of rediscovery, grounded in the practices and relationships that feel right for each individual.

Through movement, bodywork, nourishment, mindset shifts, education, and community, survivors can create lives that reflect their resilience, desires, and capacity for joy. Healing is not just about moving beyond trauma or erasing it—it’s about claiming the fullness of who you are and the richness of life itself.

You are not defined by what has happened to you. You are defined by the courage it takes to reach towards what you long for, the choices you make to claim pleasure and joy, and the future you build for yourself, step by step.

Reclaiming Pleasure and Presence: Why Professionals Are Embracing Somatics in Their Practice.

In a world where sex, pleasure, and the body are often treated as clinical or taboo subjects, many therapists, coaches, and healers are beginning to explore a different approach. The field of somatics — rooted in body awareness and giving voice to sensation — has expanded to address not only trauma recovery but, in the world of somatic sex education, also the cultivation of pleasure and safety within ourselves and our clients. This shift represents a reclaiming of the erotic as a nutritive and nourishing part of the human experience. For those of us who hold space for others, embodying this in our own lives can transform how we practice, live, and connect.

Why Somatics? Moving Beyond the “Tyranny of Normal”

Our culture is deeply entrenched in norms around sex, pleasure, and gender, shaping how clients (and we) experience bodies and relationships. These norms can narrow our understanding of what’s possible - and pathologize the very things that make us human. In many of the somatic practices I love to explore with folks, we seek to soften our attachment to these scripts and instead invite curiosity, autonomy, and a celebration of uniqueness in erotic expression.

The Role of Pleasure in Healing

Too often, pleasure is overlooked in therapy. However, pleasure-based healing can be a profound resource for resilience and well-being. This isn't only about “feeling good”—it’s about recognizing pleasure as a form of safety, and a way to connect with the nervous system, a way to experience selfhood and sovereignty. Much of my work aims to support clients in grounding, attuning to their senses, and expanding their capacity to feel both joy and difficulty.

Example: Techniques like guided breathwork or sensory grounding exercises can be powerful tools for fostering a sense of safety and presence. Over time, they help create an “anchor” that folks can use during challenging moments.

Consent, Boundaries, and Inner Wisdom

In my understanding of somatics, consent is foundational—not just as an ethical practice, but as a way to support people in listening to their own guiding wisdom. Consent goes beyond something taught within a therapeutic relationship and becomes an inner and ongoing practice - for both practitioners and clients to be aware of and honor their boundaries. This is key for those working with trauma, as it provides a framework of choice and agency.

Practical Tip: Practitioners can integrate consent-based practices by using language that invites choice (e.g., “Would it feel right to explore this with me?” or offering three options and inviting the client to choose). Over time, this empowers clients to tap into their own voice, trusting their “yes” and “no.”

Embodying the Erotic Self as a Practitioner

This training also asks us as practitioners to consider our own relationship with the erotic. When we show up for our clients, our presence is the greatest tool we bring into the room. Exploring our own embodied experience of eros—beyond sexuality and into pleasure, vitality, and connection—nurtures our capacity to hold space and act as a grounding presence.

Cultivating Erotic Futures in Our Practices

At its core, I hope that somatic work can invite a radical re-envisioning of healing: one where we celebrate the erotic as a natural part of being human, and where safety and pleasure co-exist. For practitioners, embracing this work means stepping into a fuller sense of who we are - and from this place creating a practice where clients feel seen, supported, and free to explore their own stories, knowing fully that the container cast is for their process and growth.

Whether you're already using somatic tools or simply curious, exploring this work can be a deeply enriching journey. As we labour towards a future where expansive expressions of pleasure and connection are honored, we make manifest the change we want to create.

How Connecting to Pleasure Supports the Nervous System & Aids Trauma Recovery.

When it comes to healing from trauma, we often focus on talk therapy, mindfulness, and other therapeutic practices, which are all important. But one aspect that is sometimes overlooked—yet incredibly powerful—is the role of pleasure in healing the nervous system. That is, connecting to sensory, bodily experiences that bring feelings of satisfaction, ease, pleasure, and joy—pleasures that can be as simple as feeling the warmth of the sun on your skin or as profound as sharing exquisitely pleasurable touch.

Let’s talk about what’s happening when we use pleasure to tend to our nervous systems.

1. Pleasure Calms the Nervous System

When we experience trauma, our nervous system can get stuck in a constant state of fight, flight, or freeze. Our body learns to expect danger, even when none is present, and this makes it hard to relax or feel safe. Pleasure, especially when it’s rooted in the body, activates the parasympathetic nervous system—the system responsible for relaxation, digestion, and recovery.

Imagine how your body feels when you slide into a warm bath, enjoy a slow, deep breath, or receive a gentle massage. These experiences tell your nervous system: “Hey, it’s okay. You’re safe now.” This shift from a state of hyperarousal to one of embodied feelings of pleasurable safety is a hugely helpful tool to support the nervous system rewiring from trauma.

2. Pleasure Rewires the Brain

Our brains are incredibly adaptable—this is the magic of neuroplasticity. Trauma can change the way we think and feel, often leaving us on high alert, expecting the worst. But here’s the good news: when we focus on pleasurable sensations, we can start creating new neural pathways that lead to feelings of safety, joy, and connection.

One way to do this is by intentionally noticing the little pleasures of everyday life. Slow down and savor the way a soft blanket feels against your skin, or the taste of your favorite tea as it warms your mouth. These small moments of sensory pleasure teach your brain to notice good things, not just potential threats, and over time, they help create a more resilient, peaceful mindset.

3. Pleasure Expands Your Capacity to Cope

Trauma can narrow what’s called our window of tolerance—the space in which we can handle stress and emotions without becoming overwhelmed. This often means we get triggered more easily or feel dissociated when life gets hard. But the good news is that pleasure helps expand this window.

When you take time to experience pleasure—whether that’s through sensual touch, dancing to your favorite music, or even something as simple as stroking a pet’s fur—you’re gently increasing your ability to handle more emotions and stress without going into overdrive. You’re teaching your nervous system that it’s safe to relax and feel good, even when things get tough.

4. Pleasure Anchors You in the Present

Traumatic stress pulls us out of the present moment, either back into painful memories or forward into anxiety about what might happen next. Sensory pleasure helps anchor us in the here and now. It draws our awareness back into our bodies and into the present moment, which is where healing happens.

Try this: next time you’re feeling overwhelmed, pause for a moment and focus on a simple, sensory experience. It could be the feeling of a soft breeze on your skin, the sound of birds chirping, or the warmth of your hands clasped together. See if focusing on that experience helps ground you in the present - even just a little bit - and if it might help remind your nervous system that right now, you are safe. However, to come back to the present, we need to calibrate our sensory experiences to meet our traumatic stress with sensations that work for us in the moment. By this I mean that if you find your system is really hyperactive and fast, maybe a slowing or grounding sensation helps you come back to the present. Or, maybe a fast and bold sensation helps you come back to the present. You can read more about strategies for nervous system regulation here.

5. Pleasure Helps You Reconnect with Your Body

One of the most challenging aspects of trauma is that it can leave us feeling disconnected from our own bodies. We might feel like our body has betrayed us, or we may struggle to trust it after trauma. Reclaiming pleasure is a way of rebuilding that trust and connection.

Here’s where my work as a somatic sex educator comes into the picture. Sensual pleasure—whether through connecting with the pleasures of life, solo play, experiences with a sweetie, or sexologic bodywork—can help you rediscover your body as a source of joy and pleasure. Slow, mindful exploration of what feels good to you in a safe environment can be incredibly healing. It might be something as simple as gently massaging your hands or feet, or running your fingers lightly over your skin. Start small, and notice what feels good, and let that pleasure be a guide toward reconnection.

6. Pleasure Builds Emotional Resilience

One of the beautiful things about pleasure is that it builds emotional resilience. By regularly tuning into what feels good, you’re nurturing your nervous system and expanding your capacity to notice and enjoy feelings of pleasure, joy, and ease. This doesn’t mean life’s challenges disappear, but it does mean you’re more equipped to handle them with greater resilience and capacity.

So, here’s my question to you: what would it feel like to take even just two minutes a day to choose something pleasurable and savour it? Whether it’s through enjoying sensual touch, a delicious meal, or the feeling of warm sun on your face—what would it feel like to let pleasure be a part of your healing process? Pleasure is a powerful medicine.

Pleasure is a resource that’s abundant, freely available, and always within reach. By leaning into pleasure in ways that feel good and right, it’s my belief that you’re giving your nervous system delicious care and attention it that deserves to recover and thrive.

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If this resonates with you, and you’d like to explore deeper ways to integrate pleasure into your trauma healing journey, feel free to reach out. I’m here to support you in discovering how pleasure can be a part of your recovery and healing process.

Resilience & Recovering from Childhood Sexual Abuse.

In trauma recovery circles, there's often a lot of discussion about exploring the narrative—the ‘why’ behind unwanted past experiences. Diving into our personal stories can be a powerful tool for gaining clarity and fostering self-awareness. It can also help us reframe and rewrite the story we tell ourselves. After all, storytelling is a powerful way to make sense of our lives. However, focusing solely on narrative may not be the complete solution for overcoming childhood sexual abuse.

When traumatic events occur during childhood, such as childhood sexual abuse, they can profoundly affect our development and self-perception. These experiences can influence not only our beliefs and stories (that form our narrative and outlook on life) but also manifest in various other aspects of our lives, including our sexuality, gender identity, orientation, and even physical health issues like autoimmune disorders and high cortisol levels.

For those who have endured unwanted sexual experiences, it’s crucial to identify how these experiences have impacted their actions, emotions, and thought processes. By shining a light on how developmental trauma has shaped our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual lives, we can better understand and address the unique challenges we face. This process allows us to honor and grieve the complex journey of our lives, recognizing both the dark places we have known and the light we have within.

As Carl Jung famously said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” Engaging with modern research on attachment theory, keeping a log of your thoughts and feelings, exploring cognitive biases, and developing mindfulness practices can be highly beneficial in a process of creating greater awareness. While working with a professional can greatly support this journey, solo exploration can also offer valuable insights.

Carl Rogers wisely noted, “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself as I am, then I change.” Embracing and nurturing yourself as you are can be a powerful act of resilience, and one of the most powerful steps in recovering from childhood sexual abuse. Resilience is our ability to adapt and recover from adversity, and it is crucial for anyone navigating trauma recovery.

You can cultivate resilience by focusing on:

• Supportive Relationships: Build connections that are both committed and respectful of your individuality. These relationships should foster interdependence rather than co-dependence.

• Self-Efficacy: Take responsibility for aspects of your life you can control and focus on your own growth and empowerment.

• Self-Regulation: Develop your ability to manage your emotions and adapt to challenges.

• Faith and Cultural Traditions: Build a relationship with faith, hope, and practices that nurture your well-being.

In my practice, I emphasize fostering resilience in the realm of the erotic - on helping clients connect with what nourishes them. The goal is not to dwell in past pain but to discover paths to greater ease, pleasure, and joy.

If there’s one key takeaway from this article, let it be the importance of practicing resilience. Reflect on your relationship with yourself, others, and the world around you. Examine your mindset and attitude towards life’s challenges. Assess your ability to manage emotions and find calm during distress. Consider the role of faith, philosophy, tradition, or religion in your life, and evaluate your relationship with pleasure and self-expression. Are you making choices that bring light and vitality, or do they feel confining? What can you do to make things just a little bit better for yourself?

Erotic Friendships.

Sometimes when working with clients they might share challenges about their current relationship structures and agreements. Folks might name they’re feeling in a bind - where the structure they have slid into (or consciously chosen) doesn’t reflect their values or where they wish to go in their own lives, or their dynamics with their partners.

Certainly I relate - the ‘pre-fab’ relationship structures we’re offered often won’t be just the right fit. While in my own questions about how to cultivate relationships that have the potential to offer both safety and stability while also being committed to erotic freedom, my colleague and friend Caffyn Jesse introduced me to some writing they’ve done on erotic friendships. I’d love to share it with you, in hopes it might offer a seed of inspiration to guide you towards more of what you want for you and your loves.

Erotic Friendship - Caffyn Jesse

Love, joy, passion, tenderness, the exchange of fluids without the assignment of roles, pleasure without possession – the concept and practice of “erotic friendship” is a way to explore love and eros that thrills me. I won’t want to dive deep with another, without a paradigm for relationship that welcomes and cherishes the great holy wild we are. Wild means undomesticated, impatient of restraint, fierce, crazy, eager with desire, free. Wildness is life energy, the intricate wisdom of natural systems, instinct, anima (breath, soul). Call it what you will, it calls us - out and away from domestic spheres and human settlements, into the forest, down to the water, up the mountain.

In finding and forging connection with lovers and others, I have invented and practiced a form of loving relationship I call “erotic friendship.” When we meet as friends, walls around us and inside us open. What matters now? I / Thou. Friends make space for each other, and it is space where we can be all we are becoming. This love that unfolds in a frame where we can listen to our wild hearts, find full voice to sing with, stretch our wings. “Family” is a word derived from the Latin famulus, meaning “servant.” The word connotes obedience. The word “friendship” evolves from the Anglo-Saxon freond, meaning “love.”

Friendship is a space of ongoing attunement. An erotic friendship can start and stay small, or it can unfold its more and more with a wild and joyful magic. There is space here to soar, dive, and journey dark and deep -- into the wildness of the world.

*Learn more about Caffyn Jesse’s work here.

What is Ecosexuality?

Ecosexuality is a belief system of relating to the world around us and the planet as a lover. Also called sexecology, it was coined by Annie Sprinkle and Elizabeth Stephens. Frankly I don’t resonate with the word ecosexual, however, I deeply resonate with the philosophy.

For me the joy of ecosexuality is about the joy of connecting with erotic aliveness beyond human connections. It’s the joy of being able to witness and savour the *infinite* experiences of aliveness, pleasure, and eros that are ever present every time I smell a ripe peach, or go for a walk, or watch the tides come in, or stroke fresh herbs.

My history in the world has included a lot of feelings and beliefs of scarcity, aloneness, and disconnection… Tuning into the world around me as a web of aliveness that I can connect with as an interdependent lover has created so many opportunities to question and re-write my old stories, and notice the abundance of connection and eroticism that’s available to me at any time.

How does this philosophy feel in your body? Are you hot for the feeling of summer sun on your skin? The feeling of cold lake water touching your genitals? The taste of fresh in-season fruit? The smell of cedar? Is there anything erotic about sensory experiences like these for you?

Pleasure is Not a Reward.

When you’re in your pleasure (and I mean pleasure from spicy play to afternoon snacks) are you able to slow down just a little bit more, and see what you notice about your experience?

Many of us rush through pleasure or ignore it because of social conditioning, shame, or a belief that there is more or better pleasure in the future.

But! Is this true?

Slowing down, tuning into the senses, and asking the question ‘what’s feeling good *right now*’ can be powerful.

Pleasure is not out of reach. Its not a reward. It’s not meant to be rationed. Pleasure is available in a myriad of ways in any given moment and is abundantly available.

Welcoming greater pleasure is a practice of noticing how pleasure is available *right now*.

Your Sexuality is Yours.

Remember: your sexuality is centred in your relationship with yourself.

Your sexuality is yours alone, even if you choose to share it with other people. Since it is yours, be sure to give priority to your own experiences of pleasure. When you prioritize your own experiences and explorations of pleasure, there is amazing potential for self care and erotic growth, which is a rich learning landscape that can help you figure out what to ask for from others.

When you cultivate a self-loving and sexy relationship with yourself you are practicing connecting with the many facets of who you are...

• Your fantasies

• your body

• your gender(s)

• your desires

• your energy

• your spirit

This is more than exploring different ways to touch your bits.

This becomes a way to more deeply explore and integrate your whole sexual and erotic self into your life.

This becomes a way to unlearn cultural sexual scrips and turn towards and follow your own authentic pleasure.

This becomes a way to develop clarity about what relationships, people, and practices will nurture your erotic soul.

Choosing a Sex Positive Life.

Having a sex positive life means actively committing to practicing the strengths & skills that reflect the life you want for yourself. Some questions to consider:

• what kinds of support / skills would help you feel more connected to your desire/eroticism/kink/embodiment?

• how do you connect to affirming media/communities/people?

• who is on your sexual solidarity team? Who will be by your side when things are challenging or when you want to celebrate your sexual growth / experiences?

• what are the contexts when you feel sexy, attractive, seen, heard, or most like yourself?

Getting clear on what nourishes you sexually is needed so you can say ‘yes!’ to *more* of what connects you, turns you on, feels pleasurable, and satisfies you.