Sex, love and relationships are such a complex combination that it is a small wonder they create so much anguish.
In this article Barbara Brennan shares her approach, based on healing the specific wounding suffered in childhood.
Healing the multiple issues around sex is a global industry. Whole armies of sex therapists, relationship counsellors and behavioural psychologists exist to deal with them. And they are all greatly needed.
How do we look at sex – as a source of personal gratification, or as an expression of love and pleasure in the physical? Healthy sex is a way to experience union while in the body. You could also say that it is the outflow of the life force. Sex is about the giving and receiving of essence through the body and the human energy field. Healthy sexuality happens through the intention to be true to oneself and to be in authentic deep contact with the other.
The vast majority of adult sexual issues stem from childhood. Instead of the glorious journey of discovery that these years should be, we learn about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ through the distorted beliefs of society and our parents. Those beliefs are all held in the Human Energy Field and suppress the essence. So as we grow up we become unable to allow ourselves to open fully and receive the pleasures of relationship.
Understanding the difference between healthy and unhealthy relationships is a huge breakthrough in itself. But giving ourselves permission to stop suffering, to stop recreating the wounds of our childhood, takes a lot of personal work and dedication.
It is important to learn the difference between healthy pain, which comes from letting go of the expectations of the child within us, and unhealthy pain, which comes from repeating the patterns of our childhood over and over again.
In early childhood, we begin to develop one of five basic character types or personalities depending on the wounding we suffer. Or to be a little more exact, one character type usually dominates while we may take on elements of others.
The five character types are:
Schizoid – this begins with the infant perceiving maternal coldness, aggression or hostility before or at birth. In adult life, this person will not want to be in the body.
Oral – the child feels deprivation or abandonment. It grows up with the belief that there will never be enough, that he or she is not enough.
Masochist – the wounding is over-control by the mother. The child grows to have a terror of humiliation, yet humiliates and shames her/himself.
Psychopathic – the child suffers betrayal by a parent, and as an adult has a fierce need to be in control of others because of the underlying fear of that betrayal being repeated.
Rigid – the essence of the child was never recognised and he or she was rewarded only for achievement and perfection. As an adult, there is constant striving for perfection that can never be achieved.
It is not all doom and gloom! The authentic sides of these personalities contain many wonderful qualities. But here we are dealing with the wounded child and how it defends these wounds.
Let me give an example of a woman with an oral defence and how it distorts her approach to love and relationships. Her parents were always too busy and did not express love. The child, and later the woman, is left starving for attention and contact. She experiences constant inner loneliness.
As a child, she had to work hard to get her parents’ attention by being cute or clever. In short, the child was precocious, her energy focused on getting her parents to notice her. As a woman, she is still seeking attention, needing the approval of those around her.
In a love relationship, the childhood habits will manifest as an inability to appreciate her own value and a chronic inner tension because she is always on tenterhooks, expecting her partner to abandon her in some way – physically, emotionally or mentally.
Sexuality will become currency to trade for emotional closeness. A person with an oral defence will crave the intense connection that sex offers. He/she will also use sex not just for the pleasure it offers, but as a way of keeping the partner connected or close.
Even experiences of deep connection and intimacy will only temporarily heal the inner split. Contact will not really fill the emptiness that remains from childhood.
This is an example of unhealthy pain. Healthy pain would come from processing childhood wounding, letting go of the pain of a currently dysfunctional relationship, and dropping into the loneliness so that the person’s own essence can fill the empty space within. This deep contact with the self is the healing response.
Giving oneself this healing response will lead to a state of integrity – the self is honoured, and a new belief is created that is positive and healthy: ‘I am lovable. I am worthy of being loved, of having a partner who wants to be with me.’ From this healed place, sexuality will be a different experience.
Each character type will use sexuality differently.
Schizoid
In a defended, unaware state, sex can be terrifying. It is too intensely physical, and involves too much contact with the other at an uncomfortable level (schizoid relationships mostly occur at the level of ideas and intellect). For women with this defence, penetration can feel like invasion. For men, it can bring up terror of being consumed.
Healing: Sex can offer a sweet doorway to experience the physical as being safe, gentle and pleasurable. If the person can ride the wave of terror that comes from too much contact, the pleasure of the present moment can be experienced.
Masochist
In the defended state, sex can feel intrusive. The person resists sexuality because of attachment to negativity. Sex can feel like a demand from ‘the other’, rather than an inherent impulse to experience contact and joy.
Healing: Learning healthy boundaries is very important, as is reconnecting with the body and honouring it. He or she also needs to learn to move from a passive, victimised position to a dynamic, proactive role in relationships.
Psychopathic
Defended state: Needs to be the one to initiate; needs the chase to feel attractive, strong, and in control. When the quarry is ‘caught’ or once ‘success’ is experienced, the person loses interest and moves on to the next cycle.
Healing involves letting go of the need to prove oneself, so that ‘being-ness’ can be experienced.
Rigid
Defended state: There is no connection to the soul seat. There is a split between the second and fourth chakras – sexuality and the heart. The woman splits the saint and the whore. Actually, this is an out-picturing of inner defence against intimate contact. It can be hard for those with a rigid defence to soften in the heart area, so they try to meet their need for contact sexually, often leading to promiscuity. Without sexual contact, he/she can’t experience being-ness at all. They use sex as a way of feeling connected.
The healing comes in connecting the heart and sexuality and in honouring sexuality as sacred; the body is honoured as beautiful without seeing it solely as an object of sexuality.
In summary, how complex it all is! No wonder we suffer! And yet, as I hope I have illustrated, all these issues can be healed. We learn a lot about ourselves as we do it.
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