“Would you like to try receiving some sensual touch?” I ask her.
She closes her eyes to consider the question.
She’s sitting very erect, definitely not lounging, on the couch across from me. The outline of her face is softened by the winter sunlight streaming into my studio.
She’s come to see me for Healing. She wants to get over old trauma from an abusive ex. That trauma keeps resurfacing as painful memories and fear anytime she tries to be physically intimate with a man.
She’s angry that it keeps coming up 14 years after the fact. She wants to be free from the past. She’s lonely and wants love, sex and connection. She’s frustrated and wants to feel in control of her body again.
I admire her tenacity and the courage it took for her to reach out to me. We’ve had an email correspondence, a phone call, a meeting at a coffee shop, and a few sessions in my studio where she’s done some solid work on personal boundaries, finding her voice, and staying connected to her body. There’s been no touch so far.
I’ve been here before with other women I’ve served. Physical intimacy can be challenging because she’s working with opposing and powerful parts of herself. A part of her is hurt and wants safety and distance. Another part is lonely and wants closeness and touch.
What I know, through learning the hard way, is: Move Cautiously Into Touch.
Why? Because touch often activates old trauma. That’s not a bad thing, the trauma has to be felt to be healed. But there’s an art to making sure it comes up in small enough doses that she can feel, while staying centred in her body in the now, without losing connection to her pleasure and desire.
That’s the ideal healing edge. Finding it can be messy though. Given the power of Desire, it’s easy to go too far and release a powerful flood of difficult emotions. If that happens, both our relationship and her own inner resources need to be strong enough to deal with it.
My intuition says we’ve got those things in place now. Enough for some gentle touch anyway. For everyone it’s different. For her it was 3 sessions, for another woman it could be 30.
Maybe 15 seconds have passed since I asked her. My gaze is soft and full of loving presence. I see her struggle and her strength. She inspires me. In my own body that feels like a warm openness in my chest.
Her eyes are still closed. I imagine she’s tracking her body sensations as we’ve practiced before – her feet on the floor, areas of tightness and ease, the rhythm of her breath.
I wait. Nothing more needs to be done. A minute has passed. There is no urgency. I notice her eyes moving back and forth behind the closed lids. In my mind’s eye I see a powerful river meeting a heavy stone. The stone is Fear the river is Desire.
She opens her eyes and meets my gaze. “Yes, I do. But where do we begin?”
