Dear Raphael,
People are often confused by what I mean when I say I work with people to become
sexually empowered. Sexuality is so vast that when people want to work on their sexual
selves they often don't even know where to begin. One of my client prospects recently
said, "It's like my sexuality is a big round ball and I don't know what to grab onto or how to
get in."
For over 15 years I have taught sexuality to teens, college students and adults. Out of my
work I have developed 9 steps to a sexually empowered life. (Why 9 steps? Well, it just
happens to be one of my favorite numbers AND my birthday is November 9th ;)
These are the steps I've created after working with thousands of people over the years to
help them have the sexual lives they want. I have seen people transform their lives based
on these steps as they become open to the relationships they really want, dream and
demand more in their sexual lives, and express their sexuality from a place of confidence
and clarity. (By the way, I don't see these as 9 linear steps that you go through one-by-one,
but more like 9 congruent elements that are always in development and always impacting
one another. Sexuality is vast and complex -- not a linear graph, not a one-way street, but
an ever-unfolding prism.)
The 9 Steps to a Sexually Empowered Life
1. Rewrite your sexual story.
Rewriting your sexual story means looking clearly at the experiences you've created and
how and why you did that -- the painful ones as well as the exciting and pleasurable ones.
It's time to look at the beliefs you carry around your sexuality, what it means to be a sexual
person and the messages from the culture/other people that you may have internalized
without realizing it. When you work on this step, you give yourself the gift of releasing the
parts of it that no longer serve you or do not embody the sexual person you are becoming.
2. Release sexual shame & blockages.
The next piece is to identify beliefs, experiences and origins of your sexual shame, guilt
and trauma that have blocked your own sexual magnificence and expression, and then to
work to heal impact of that shame and trauma so that you can release it and move into
your ideal sexual self. Sexual shame is ubiquitous in our culture and it thrives in isolation.
That's why working with professionals and/or being in a supportive group setting where
sexuality can be openly discussed is so important for this step.
3. Nurture and increase your sexual energy.
I work with my clients to keep their core sexual energy fed, and teach them to nurture that
energy so they have more pleasure and joy in your life. A big part of the work here is
shifting & re-framing negative views of sexuality into sex-positive beliefs that nurture you
and make your life more juicy and alive. I have a whole toolbox of skills that I love to teach
on this subject, all about ways of connecting more deeply to your body and strengthening
your second chakra, so you deepen your self-intimacy and express your vibrancy in a
powerful way.
4. Shift emotional patterns that damage relationships.
What are your personal defense mechanisms? How have punished yourself and others
with them? Where in your life are you saying 'yes' and where are you saying 'no'? When I
work with people on this step, we develop a process for breaking them once and for all in
order to fully break free of your damaging emotional patterns. You have to learn to express
and maintain boundaries that support you to have what you want and avoid what you don't
so you come into a place of fully authentic emotional expression that does not harm
yourself or others. And the big step -- forgiving yourself for old wounds.
5. Activate desire & create a sexual practice.
This step is about making sexuality a priority EVERY DAY so that it stops being something
that gets put off, procrastinated or that falls to the bottom of the "to-do list". This work is
about exploring your sexual desires, needs and fantasies and taking steps to make some
of your fantasies real if you choose. You increase your desire by daily attention to your
sexuality -- energy flows where attention goes.
6. Radically accept your body.
It is so important to break your patterns of body abuse and learn to radically accept the
body you've been given with grace and gratitude so you can begin to enjoy your body in
ways you didn't know, or forgot you could. When you radically accept your body, you learn
to take greater pleasure in yourself and to build your confidence and sexual-self esteem.
7. Develop sexual skills.
What's in your sexual repertoire? What sexual skills have you mastered and which ones
do you know need work? What are your top 5 tools for experiencing sexual pleasure and
activating your own desires? When you identify, improve and expand your sexual
repertoire, you can start having the best sex of your life and the quality relationships you
want.
8. Develop your Erotic Authenticity & personal love language.
This step is about assessing how you are best loved, how you learn to communicate your
needs for giving and receiving love. It's important to examine how power shows up for you
most authentically in sex and relationships and what you want to incorporate in your erotic
terrain. Ultimately, you will come into deep alignment with your sexual nature as you
develop your authentic language for flirtation, touch, connection, sex, power, and
expression of your needs.
9. Come home to yourself.
Come home beautiful! Learn how to come home to yourself and stop leaving yourself in
relationships so you are more authentic, radically self-reliant, and able to meet your own
needs. When you fully love and embrace all of who you are, you draw to yourself the
relationships that honor that person and you live a fully expressed and intentional life!
AMY JO GODDARD
