Video: The Biggest Obstacle to Great S*x

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Shame; the speaking wallpaper of our existence. (VIDEO TRANSCRIPT)

Introduction

Shame: Not the sexiest or most entertaining of things to talk about, but like anal sex, I’ll talk about anything at the dinner table, or in front of you here tonight.

Indeed no one particularly wants to talk about shame at all, even me. But what compelled me to write this for you, is a need to share part of my journey of discovery and healing of my own shame.

Accelerated by my training, in personal therapy, and as part of my professional practice.

What has become clear to me that we cannot fully inhabit our true authenticity – and live our best lives, sexually or otherwise - if we do not address our shame.

This is a big statement to make - I know - yet in just 3 months, it has completely changed the way that I work as a Somatic Sex Therapist and I'd like to share a little of that with you this evening.

Introduction

Shame: it is universal: most of us know that feeling when your heart pounds, your face flushes, you get sweaty palms, feel some nausea or churning in your stomach, some bathroom urgency, or feel the urge to hide or run, or wanting the ground to open up and swallow you.

Shame Definition

Well, all of that is happening as a shame response to a perceived threat. Because shame is hardwired into our nervous system - into our survival reflexes. In this sense shame is so much more than ‘just’ an emotion.
You know that feeling when you step off a pavement without seeing the car coming towards you? When your body’s survival response kicks in and jolts you into action to avoid injury or death and you survive the danger
And you know that feeling when something happens, and you feel ashamed or embarrassed? Well, the face flushes and stomach churning etc is the exact same survival response that saves you from the car. Except its responding to a different kind of threat: the risk of feeling something uncomfortable, or the exposure of our vulnerabilities.
By vulnerabilities, I mean the parts of us that we have hidden away or banished, that tell us
‘I want to be a singer’ but I can’t carry a tune
‘I want a life of travel’ but I have to settle down and raise a family
‘I want to spank her’ but violence is wrong
‘I’m not a girl or a boy’ but I have to be who I am told to be
‘I enjoy women’s clothes’ I must be a man at all times
‘I want to have sex, but my partner doesn’t want to’ I am wrong to feel frustrated and abandoned
‘I enjoy touching myself’ masturbation is wrong / I mustn’t make a noise or make a mess
‘My genitals aren’t the right size or shape’ I’m not good enough / I can’t perform
‘My dreams don’t matter’ sexual fantasies make me a bad person
‘Asking for what I want is wrong’ It’s easier to just be alone on my side of the bed.

So, we very quickly learn to stay on the pavement to avoid passing traffic and we very quickly learn to avoid any thought, feeling or situation that will trigger the shame response.
Our bodies will react the same way too, whenever we are at risk of feeling the things that make us an outsider, or different or not good enough. This can be just as much at work, at home or in the street or in fact in any situation where there is you and at least one other person.

Shame and Guilt

It’s useful at this point to distinguish shame from guilt.

Guilt is about what you have done, it is repairable by replacing the broken vase, making good on the missed promise and with heartfelt apologies.

Shame however is about who you are. It is fundamental and feels irreparable and unchangeable.

To simplify further, guilt is ‘I made a mistake’. Shame is ‘I am a mistake.”

Yet shame is present to a greater or lesser degree in all of us. Shame is so deeply ingrained that its effects have changed the way we relate to each other, the way we love, the way we work, behave and the way we reach out for connection, love, sex and intimacy.

Acute Shame and Chronic Shame

Yet with all this said, shame is not all bad – there is a difference between Acute shame and Chronic shame.

When we go against a value that is dear to us, we feel a prickle of conscience, you know the feeling of I really shouldn't do this…. When I feel this kind of shame, it helps me to stay in integrity with my chosen rules, my sense of self and helps me maintain my self-respect. And I feel good about myself because of it. This is acute shame, healthy shame

Chronic Shame, or Toxic Shame is, at its core, a feeling of being unlovable. Here our shame can be defined as feelings of being unacceptable, defective, inadequate and worthless and is often accompanied by feelings of loneliness, isolation and a desperate urge to disappear.

Here I might reach out to a friend or lover for connection, and they say no. But I don’t just hear that no from a place of they are busy, or tired or needing to take care of themselves, but that in my vulnerability of asking for my need for contact, I then believe that I was wrong or stupid, not only to ask for what I wanted and be rejected, but now I have to make my need smaller or wrong – I just shouldn’t have asked in the first place. It may be so painful for me to hear a no, that I stop asking, supressing my needs and withdrawing.

How Shame Forms

Shame is not just an individual thing that just happens in isolation. While we feel it in ourselves, it is created between people in relationships.

Shame begins in infancy when we reach to caregivers for our needs to be met. When they are not met, or are unwelcomed or denied, we have to adapt to survive. We begin to adjust our need and our behaviour. We begin to hide our needs so that we don’t risk disapproval, rejection or abandonment. We form beliefs that our needs are wrong, and even that we are wrong to have them. And we develop shame as the protective layer that stops us even feeling our needs in the first place.

And since the shame process starts at such an early age, we don’t even know this pattern is there. It becomes like the background, the foundation to our lives. Like wallpaper, it’s always there but we don’t even notice how it makes us feel.

Shame Defences

Given this lack of awareness and the excruciating experience of feeling shame, it’s quite natural to want to hide it so well that we can’t feel it and others can’t see it. And so we develop unconscious strategies to hide our shame and the vulnerabilities underneath.

Perfectionism, deflection, rage, blame, control, withdrawal, and contempt are just some. Others you might not realise include:

Shamelessness. This is an overt defence against feelings of vulnerability in a hostile environment. It’s where we desensitise to our shame and avoid feeling or showing any vulnerability or weakness. Over time this can lead to indifference and disconnection from compassion for ourselves and for others.

Narcissism which includes behaviours such as grandiosity, a pervasive need for admiration, and a lack of empathy. But what is rarely understood is that narcissism is underpinned by chronic, debilitating shame.
Vivacity: is creating a sense of liveliness and engagement, it’s a performance designed to distract from closer scrutiny, it’s a form of safety, of hiding in plain sight

Shame can show up in response to praise or admiration. Many of us have to learn to accept compliments and praise without feeling that squirm of discomfort. That squirm, my friends, is shame.

And shame shows up in not allowing anger, where fear of feeling our shame around this emotion, makes us avoid any kind of controversy or conflict, including our own anger.

When shame and what it is protecting, is so far out of our awareness, it can easily be triggered by perceived criticism or judgement, leading to extreme reactions such as self-righteousness, anger, blaming someone else, or attack, even violence.

For people stuck in these patterns, the shame of their over reactions just adds more shame to their already burning insides.

There are more examples, but you get the picture

Shame in Sex, Intimacy and Relationships
Shame can interrupt our best sex life in so many ways - primarily in hiding and denying our needs to ourselves. And if we do have awareness of our needs, shame can inhibit us from reaching for our needs to be met.

Many people, opt instead to try and meet the needs of others, getting their needs for intimacy and connection through the other persons pleasure, rather than their own.

All of us are influenced by religion and cultural beliefs, as all societies and families have rules around pleasure, sex and relationships. Transgressing those rules. or even wanting to, can be a source of shame. And for others, shame becomes a pain point adapted, often unconsciously, into fetish or troublesome turn ons

Most frequently, in my practice I see people who are crippled by the shame of sexual inexperience, sexual dysfunction, concerns around performance, body image issues and difficulty getting their essential need for connection, love and intimacy met. And one of the fundamental issues that needs to be worked with in all of these, is shame. By asking the question, who would you be in your life and in your sexuality if you could be free of chronic shame?

Ways out of shame

Shame was created in our early relationships with caregivers
It is deepened when we feel alone and isolated
And can only be undone or eased in relationship

The undoing of shame begins, with a journey to discover and recognise the vulnerable parts of us, that for survival, we have had to hide, using shame as the guard dog to keep ourselves and others away.

I know from my own experience, and the experience of many of my clients, that this journey is not an easy one to take.

But, within a safe stabile and supportive relationship with a partner or therapist, or sexological bodyworker or peer or therapy group, we can find the courage to ‘move through’ the shame to uncover our authentic selves. To find more ease, forgiveness and self-acceptance. Moving through shame into erotic and personal authenticity and freedom is an ongoing journey, for all of us. And contrary to what our shame tells us, I want you to know,
that I am,
and you are,
not alone.