Episode 55: I Smell Sex & Candy & TRAUMA

A WITCH, A SUCCUBUS, A HERETIC!!! FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM? SENSUALITY!!! So, what if you were the fullest, most embodied, sensual version of yourself? What are you afraid would happen? Would you lose control? Would you attract unwanted attention? SAFETY!!! Boundaries!!! HUMAN DECENCY!!! QUEER & WEIRD!!! TANGENTS!!! DEFINITIONS OF TRAUMA!!! Cultural conditioning!!! OOO FUNNN!!! SHAME!!! PHEROMONES!!! VIXEN WOMAN!!! & And why, if anything do you suppress that? Who taught you that this essential nature, you as a sensual being, was wrong? Who shamed you?

Excerpt 1:

“So I offered my show up in sacrifice last week, to the gods of cold hard cash, which is allowing me to take better care of myself. And I remembered something critical, the more you work the more you have to rest, so I did what I tell everyone else to do. I rested in my pleasure, I took myself to a spa, for the first time in years, and got a massage, a facial, and a pedicure. I was rubbed down with hot stones and took long hot showers and sat in the steam room. And it was glorious.

And it reminded me, that the pleasure felt in my body is restorative, is cleansing, is healing. Is good for me, and for everyone I work with. It reminds me to check my priorities. To focus more on rest, on healing, on joy.

But this delicious relaxation, this lovely moment of rest. Was bookended with a very difficult conversation I had with my current partner. It was, let me just say, a doozie. A rough one, not a knock-down-drag-out, it was a reckoning. Calm, calculated. Because I don’t react with anger, with punishment anymore. You know like at my best. I reacted by holding space, by trying to process through. But it was a hard one.

It was about trauma. And the things we have to do, in the face of it. As trauma-aware humans. As someone facing their life, instead of running from it. Having to feel the feelings, understanding the nervous system's response instead of numbing it out.

So, the big question is, can someone with an extensive history of trauma, be with someone without one?

The simple answer is yes. The more complicated answer is yes *maybe. If that other person can learn, what alllll of that means. For themselves, for the relationship, for the other person. It’s a lot.

So let’s get fun with it, WOOO let’s talk about the definitions of trauma!!! So fun!! I mean we use that word liberally these days. Trauma-informed, trauma-sensitive, trauma-aware, physical trauma, emotional trauma. So fun!

Ok! So the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual the textbook used by classically trained therapists - the DSM-5 definition of trauma requires “actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence” (p. 271). Stressful events not involving an immediate threat to life or physical injury such as psychosocial stressors (e.g., divorce or job loss) are not considered trauma in this definition.

However, this has expanded now to include disorders that are precipitated by specific stressful and potentially traumatic events are included in a new diagnostic category, “Trauma and Stress-Related Disorders,” which includes both Adjustment Disorders (ADs) and PTSD.

However, I trained with the HeartMath® Institute, the leading institute in heart research, which is dedicated to studying how the heart interacts with the body, mind, and emotions.

The Heartmath institutes definition of trauma is an expanded definition, taking into consideration, the impact of stress, shock trauma, or otherwise, on the heart rate variability regulation (the measure for how we adapt and cope with stress in the body) and nervous system.

The HeartMath institutes definition of trauma is: Trauma is the subjective experience of an event, or series of

events, that overwhelms an individual’s capacity to cope.

Subjective: This definition of trauma does not rely on an

observer’s perception of whether or not an experience was

sufficiently “traumatic” to produce symptoms.

Physiological: This definition brings the experience of trauma into the body and the nervous system.

The impact of a traumatic event on an individual and their

nervous system is influenced by:

1. Age and stage of development at the time of the event(s)

2. The nature of the event

3. The relationship to the perpetrator

4. Attachment style

5. Prior history of trauma

6. Family history of trauma

7. Genetic predisposition

Alright, so now that we have expanded our definition of trauma, to incorporate what I’m always telling you... it begins and ends in the body. I do not treat a client's mind. I treat their body, which treats their mind. I take a bottom-up approach. Regulate the heart, the nervous system, and the mind will follow. Letting the heart lead the way. It's actually poetically beautiful.

So what, on earth does all of this have to do with my conversation with my partner….

Well, I'm just going to have to leave that lovely little cliffhanger right there. GOTCHA!

And we will see if I still have a relationship after this brief musical interlude. Tonight since were talking about sex and pleasure and trauma because what else would we be talking about, you are on with Olivia Wade aren’t you? This is Sunday Nights Are For Hopeless Romantics after all, isn’t it?

So, since I can smell sex... it's actually a fun part of my hyper-sensitive palate and nose, that makes me such a good chef... here’s "Sex & Candy," by Marcy Playground. What a classic! Can’t believe I haven’t played it here yet. And we will talk all about sex, maybe not candy, after Marcy Playground followed by THE HEAVY! Because you better believe I’m still on that kick, with "Colleen," featuring The Dap-Kings Horns, OOOO boy is it a sexy little number.

And I’ll be right back, keeping you a little more trauma-informed, after the break!”

Excerpt 2:

“Play into this fantasy, this role… Who are you without your trauma at your most sensual?

And why, if anything do you suppress that?

Who taught you that this essential nature, you as a sensual being was wrong?

Who shamed you?

You know they used to call me Succubus in high school, because of a Southpark episode where there was some woman demon that sucked men's souls out.

Ahhhh the myth of the Succubus has been around for ages, the vixen woman, feeding on the hearts or lust of men, only to kill them after.

I mean I didn’t find my favorite representation of that for many years after: a bad sci-fi tv show called Lost Girl about a bisexual Succubus named Bo. She even looks a little like me, to be honest, it's kind of funny. So I reclaimed that particular shame a long time ago. But I always had powers, ones I didn’t understand. I could feel the energy moving in your body, I could move it with my hands, my tongue... I could control it even, edging on the rising tides of desire, until they overflowed. I was acutely aware of my power, and that it came from my presence, my intention, my depth of sensation. Call it a Scorpio superpower. I was on high alert. I can actually smell the moment pheromones change in the human body. This means I can smell when someone gets aroused or afraid. Mostly only when someone turns from the point of neutral to the point of arousal.

The smell heightens, gets thicker and muskier, for men and women and anyone in-between or their very own. In college someone once dropped a pencil off the side of their desk to turn and look at me, a split second after I smelled someone in the room get aroused. I could see the deliberation, the arm knocking the pencil off the desk, the slow sensual turn. Meeting my eyes. Needless to say, we fell into bed together, not long after.

But a sexual, sensual woman, how shameful, how wrong. She’s a witch, a Succubus, a heretic.

So what if you were the fullest most embodied sensual version of yourself?

What are you afraid would happen?

Would you lose control?

Would you attract unwanted attention?

Well, it's actually about learning to be safe within yourself, which is where boundaries come in. If I know my boundaries, hold them firm and fast, and know I am in my right mind, soberly taking on the world. I am mostly safe here with myself. I am in my power. And I can let go, I can rest in my pleasure and sensuality. Because really, that's not hurting anyone. Even if my friends are threatened, or worried about their partners being attracted to me, so they don't introduce them to me. Still, this is not my fault, that is an externalized shame. I would never let them kiss me. I would never let them sleep with me. I have strong boundaries now. I can be my wild sensual sexual self, everywhere. It is ok. Other people's reactions to that are part of their own shame, part of their own internalized trauma, and part of their cultural conditioning.

Not that I am condoning activity acting without regard for human decency, for other people's feelings and reactions no, we are responsible for our behavior. Always.

SO, what on earth was that tangent, we’re talking about... talking about trauma with your partner here! So, what to do when your partner reacts poorly when you’re trying to ask for safety or communication?”

I guess you will just have to listen to find out!