Women and Sexuality

Everywhere we turn there are images of vibrant, sexy women. Look at any magazine article, turn on your televisions set or check out your home page on the Internet. Women exuding sexuality everywhere? It is curious to me that in an over sexed culture, that sex would be one of the main reasons people divorce. Why is it that 35% of women, in conservative polls, say they wouldn't care if they never had sex again? And 35% of women say it is hard to get in the mood. It is easy to assume that raising children, working, and everyday stress can play a role in this. And certainly there is truth to these theories. But what if you handed a women $1000 to spend on herself, or prescribed a massage or a hot bath, would she be as hard pressed to follow through? Not likely. The secret is that they feel like it is something that is just for them, unlike sex.
The sad truth is that for many women sex feels like another thing to check off on their lengthy to do list. It is another thing they do for someone else, not experience for themselves. Somewhere along the way that sexy woman on the inside decided to take a nap- in a long, warn out, terry cloth robe. What is deeply misunderstood is that sexuality is not about looking like a model, being there only to please your partner, not having your fat roll become obvious or a "do it and get it over with" kind of job.
Sexuality is an innate part of who we are. When we do not fully engage in this part of ourselves and cut ourselves off we become imbalanced. Sex is place where our spirit can connect us to a higher place, a place where our creativity and sense of self is set free. We are set free is a place of true vulnerability where our bodies merge with another. The release of hormones creates a sense of euphoria, a feeling of closeness to our partner and even relieves stress to boot!
If you are a woman who has fallen into this rut there are a lot of things that you can do to ignite your spark again. For starters, stop buying those trashy magazines that tell you how to please him, how to keep him, how to look to keep him, what to say in bed to keep him, and suggest you need to look like a barbie for you to enjoy sex and for him to want you. Instead, focus on what makes you feel sexy. What are things you and partner enjoy? It is through understanding from a personal place about ourselves that we can go further into sexuality and total fulfillment.
Sexuality and fulfillment live in the experience of our sexual acts. To experience what we are doing we need to be conscious. Experiencing means to be alive to what everything feels like, to be fully connected to your senses.
Here are some ways to reconnect to your senses:

• When you see something with texture, touch it. Touch it with your finger tips, the front and back of your hands.
  
• When you sit down to eat, avoid biting, chewing and swallowing. Smell the food, touch it on your lips and see what that does to your senses. Put the food in your mouth and see how it feels. Let it stay in your mouth before swallowing. Swallow after savoring.
• Allow yourself to fantasize without editing or judgment. This is a wonderful way of awakening yourself and it's very private!
• Take a scented bubble bath. Feel how the water feels on your skin. Smell the aroma of the bubble bath.
  

In our world today we are overstimulated with sex without meaning. We have replaced a healthy sexual appetite for the need to work, raise kids and simply do the mundane day to day things. In my opinion, it is traumatic for the soul to be cut off from the everyday sensual experiences that have ability to ignite the passion our soul craves. When we stop seeing sex as a chore and a commodity we will be begin to create a more healthy culture views thriving sexuality as a pure and powerful place to reach new levels of fulfillment.

Out with the Old and In with the New!

I get it! I get it! That's what this is all about. I have known for a long time that I need to get rid of the old to make room for the new. I have pondered this with my new life now for a while.
I AM in my new life and wondering what of the old still lingers?
The heat is out in my house and it's really, really cold. A chilling 48 degrees. My bedroom, on the other hand, is warm with all the fun my daughter and I are having camping out! Dinner in bed, breakfast in bed, sleepovers with a lot of giggling and snoring dogs. I am only half happy about the new furnace coming tomorrow.
I came home last night wondering what my room would look like. We left the dogs in my room so that they could keep warm. The thought crossed my mind as I was leaving the yoga class I had taught. "What if the dogs went crazy in my room and chewed up my stuff?" I rushed to my moms to pick up my little one. We laughed and wondered the whole way home what we would find when we got here.
Deep breath, ddeeeeeepppp breath, Katy. There is nothing in there that can't be replaced. I cracked the door so that I could asses the damage slowly. White stuffing everywhere! Oh God, I thought. Did little one's favorite stuffed animal get it? Oh thank God, no. Molly the Maltese is fine. Whew!
Then I saw a piece of fabric. Is that the Calvin Klein comforter that was folded under my bed?
Then a big smile came over my face, and joy fulled my heart as my daughter stood with her saucer like brown eyes. I knew at moment that the Universe always does come through, in little ways and in big.
I have been continuously asking for the last of my old self and my old life to be washed away from me. This was a big part of it. This was the comforter I shared with my ex-husband. I had wondered what to do with it. I didn't want to use it because of the memories, but wasn't sure what to do.
And there it was demolished, destroyed and my dogs' tails were just wagging, almost like they were winking at me! They knew they had been given the divine assignment of helping me move on.
The little things can be harder to spot because we grow so accustomed to seeing them there.
The furnace's control panel is out. There was a disconnect in allowing the heat in. The ball bearings were off, out of alignment. Everything in my life always represents a message.
There goes the rest of my past. As I am being rewired, put back into alignment and the old being demolished, I am freer and freer everyday. My heart is lifted feeling that no matter what, I am always being watched over and supported. It is my job to ask for help and take it where it is given. Enjoying the little blessings that are around me and propel me further into the life I know I am here to live.

What Does Being Happy REALLY Look Like?

I have been thinking a lot lately about what makes me happy. I think because I see a lot of people with anxiety in my practice and they all have one thing in common; the seem to believe that happiness is something outside of them. I know, I know, this is not a new concept. However, I have started to see this with a twist. This "happiness" that they seek seems to be this external force that they are trying their best to control. They are doing their best to control what they believe will make them happy instead of checking in with themselves and asking, "why do I think THIS will make me happy?" Often times we are programmed to believe what will make us happy. When you are 18 you go to college and are supposed to have an idea about what you want to BE. Notice we do not hear very often, "what you want to DO". After college, you get married and if you are doing it the "right way" you have 2.5 kids. (Or maybe it's 3 by now) The point I am trying to make is that we are taught from an early age that these "rights of passage" are the pathway to our happiness and when they go unfulfilled they consume us.
We start to feel anxious about other things. Feeling in some ways like a failure and that if we could just control some of the other things in our life we would have a sense of validation and purpose.
I find that most anxiety can be treated with soul searching. Sitting down and understanding what would make us happy, and only us. Turning off the critical parent in our mind or even our culture. Our culture sets the stage for us to run around like chickens with our heads cut off and then has the ability to make it seem normal!!
It has become the norm, but it is not healthy. And it really is up to us to help that shift occur. I say it over and over again, but when we do our work, our corner of the world is changed. Sit down and do your personal homework. What are the internal goals you have? Do you want to feel more confident, more at ease? Do you want to feel like you are making a difference in peoples lives?
Start with the internal goals. When we are fully aligned with who we are, the rest follows. So go deep inside first and then make the list about the house and the husband/wife. When we come from this place of inner strength it really doesn't matter what is going on around us because we understand that we are not in conrtol, yet we are safe. From there we are free to make the choice to be happy in a way that is authentic and allows in the miracles.

New Years Resolutions

A new year and a new dawn. I feel that I have turned some kind of corner with the new year. I have never been sensitive to the notion of a new year, this is my first time. Maybe it is coincidence, and maybe it's not.
That got me thinking about the idea of new years resolutions a lot. People always seem to be buzzing and ready to go with the untapped dreams they hold so close. This is usually the time when people seize the illusionary moment, believing it is somehow different from the moment before. The collective energy declares a clean slate.
So what happens a month down the road when the slate seems murky again? Buzzing slows and people lose their steam finding that there really was no true distinction between this moment and the one before after all.
Anything that motivates people to change for the better and walk further on the path of their personal evolution should be honored. At the same time, we need to engage in a deeper internal dialogue with ourselves because a clean slate appears when we have cleaned it. WE do the work to create space for that new picture. A new day does not clean the slate for us.
Cleaning the slate is like doing our emotional laundry and then taking an inventory of our closet. It's not just time to "do" better things. It our time to evaluate what is still working in our lives and what is not. Then get rid of what is not working and make sure we are creating enough space for what is. And also being mindful of all the other possibilities that are out there. The dreams that we can obtain as long as we are taking an inventory.
What if you never cleaned your closet out from the time you were little. Do you think those pants from the third grade would still fit? What beliefs are you carrying from the third grade that don't fit any more? Would you have space for the new and the better? No. You closet would be jammed with things that are just taking up space and not productive.
I encourage everyone to take an inventory of who they are, where they are and who they want to become. Let that be your New Years Resolution. That is the only way to true fulfillment.
If you want to lose weight, quit an unhealthy habit, start a hobby, whatever it is. The only place to start is to take a deep look at yourself and your life without judgment. Then remember that anything you can dream up can become your reality. You just have to do your laundry and get rid of the clutter first.
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Feeling Good!

I am always amazed at how serenity works. So much of the time it is easy to fall into the mindset that, "when life gets better, I will feel better". And in reality, that is not always so. Certainly there are situations in life that can be more draining than others, however, real serenity is truly about how we feel in the moment no matter what is going on.
I have noticed with myself that I am increasingly feeling better and my life situations have not changed at all. It is my perception that has changed and that has made all the difference in the world. I know for me personally getting further away from the recent split with my husband has also made things feel more smooth and "back to normal, although it is a new normal that I am creating at this time.
I really recognize how the best way to deal with life, for me, is to catch the curve balls as best as I can and run with them. Sometimes, when I run with them you would think my head was on fire. And other times it's more a of a sprint or a jog and I hang onto my connection with my higher self and Spirit as my GPS system. Most of the time, I do not know exactly where I am going. I just know that I am going and as long as I keep my contact, I am just creating a new and temporary "normal".
I have come to realize on a new and deeper level that the only thing that is permanent is change. That is the one thing that we can always count on happening in this human experience. I find that it is best to deal with that realization first and everything else seems to fall into place much easier. It takes my need to control out of the equation. I reminds me to release and surrender and to know that change is always happening and always with good reason, and usually reasons I don't understand until a long time after the fact, if at all.
It's not about knowing or understanding. It is about living in the moment, saying yes, being open to giving and receiving love and taking direct guidance from the only real support I have- Source.
I feel that this is how I am feeling serenity at this moment in time. God knows this will pass too and I will then relearn on an even deeper level how to move with the changes that continue to evolve me into who I am here to be.

Making Time

I find myself in a place that so many of my clients come to me in- EXHAUSTED! Here I am, a single mother, with a part time job and a company of my own that I started barely a year ago. I feel some days that I am so tired, less on a physical level and more on the mental level, and I can see how challenging it feels for some people to make time to care for themselves. Did I mention that I am newly separated and going through the motions of that as well? Yes, I am tired, exhausted really. I have also needed the energy to process, digest and feel my way through some very uncomfortable things. I have been uncovering a lot about myself. Things I love and strengths that I have. I am also finding more that I would like to change about myself. I am happy about that because I am here to grow and evolve more than anything else. Evolving and self reflection- yet another thing that takes time!
With all that I have going on in my life right now it would be easy to make excuses if I wanted to. Excuses as to why I do not have the time or energy to care for myself, to stop and spend time doing what feels good. However, I find that with a little more effort than usual, I am able to create time for yoga, meditation, journaling and time to be playful. These are activities that are all too often seen as practices. Sure, that is what they are, but that is only a partial truth. I feel that they go beyond a practice and become an integral part of who we are and are really life savers.
It is through fully immersing and integrating these activities in my life and really being a part of who I am rather than what I do, I am afforded the luxury of enjoying my life no matter what is going on around me. Sometimes are easier than others, but I have found that when I am right with myself, I am right with the world. In this time of heightened stress and exhaustion, I am laughing, playing, enjoying life and most of all, so in touch with how wonderful life is. How everything is really as it should be. I am hopeful, there is no impending doom in my life as there was for me years before. Before I was able to make time for myself I wondered through life with the sense that "it" was not going to get better. I know now that the truth is, "it" always gets better. Then, there is another "it" that seems worse and that too gets better. It is me that is okay as long as I chose to be. And I only seem to be really open to this CHOICE when I have made the time for myself. To stop whatever I am doing a couple of times each day to do a little something that reminds me to be alive and in the moment. Take time to make time. That is the biggest gift that we could ever give ourselves. And like I always say, when we heal ourselves, the world heals too.

Living From Your Heart

Eleven years ago, when my lights came on, I started therapy. I loved therapy and I loved my therapist. I spent a lot of time with my therapist, looking, inspecting and dissecting. I listened to my story and then I listened to her interpretations. I looked at how my situations at the time and how they mirrored the old. I could see the patterns that I created. I began to understand that I was not a victim, I was volunteer. I began to understand that when I reacted to so many situations in my life, they were from a very old place.
What a gift it was when my therapist taught me that when I react to something with a very high volume and the situation was not calling for that, it meant that I was reacting from a old place. It was more easily identifiable and that felt comforting to me. I now had a better idea of how to integrate all that I was learning because I had a "cue".
She then explained something I think she got from a book that was also very useful. An equation that went; I over E. This meant that when I was reacting emotionally that my "E" was over my "I" or my intellect was overriding my emotions. I needed to then find a solution to flip it the other way around. I used this practice for a long time and it served me well. I started understanding that I could feel all that I need to feel and still behave in a way that was not toxic to me or those around me.
Years later, however, I realized that I was spending a lot of time in my "I". I so enjoyed the benefits of not blowing up over stupid things, I enjoyed the more placid life experience this gave me and I also enjoyed control that processing gave. And where was my heart in all of this?
While I believe therapy gave me a solid foundation because of the way it allowed me to look at, as an adult, things that were still running my life. It created a safe space for those wounds to heal and a road map for me to integrate what I was learning and really practice here in Earth school. I also believe that I was not taught to distinguish the difference between my emotions and my heart. I had no idea that my heart was yearning to have a stronger voice as it continuously got covered up by my processing and compartmentalizing. Through this practice, I did not learn how to trust my heart, which for me is the center of my truth. Source speaks to me through my heart. Much of my intuition about my own life speaks to me through my heart and I had shut it down. I have learned that emotions are feelings and reactions due to experiences and perceptions we have. And the intellect processes the data like a computer. The heart however is where the purest piece of who we are resides. It is not reactionary. It is strong, trustworthy, it is pure and not swayed by all of our "shoulds".
It has been some time since I first understood this about myself. I have since been on the path of going to my heart when I am going through something. I do not always have to call a friend right away to "process". That does not mean that I do not call for support. What it does mean is that I count on my heart first. My heart does not have opinions. My heart honors me even if something does not seem logical. My world began to open up as soon as I realized and then leaned on the power of my heart for support. I sit with my heart and cry, write, meditate and THEN I call a friend!!