Tenderness, Vulnerability and Sexual power

I have recently had an aha moment and feel to share something that popped into my awareness.  I was doing a breathwork session and this week and the following polarity came up.  To be fully in our power, we also need to be in our tenderness.  At the minute this is quite relevant given some of thew work I have been doing.  Bringing this to awareness I feel to explore this from the perspective of sexual power.  I was thinking how this relates to my inner lioness, the one who wants to take for her own pleasure, within boundaries of course.  The place I step into that I feel that raw animalistic passion and power which until I came to terms with it was scary as its big and it powerful and as humans we are not used to giving ourselves permission to explore the fullness of our power. 

Feelings like, this will be too much for another person or a fear of being out of control or not welcome in our power comes flooding in and it is this fear that pulls us back.  It comes back to the same thing that as infants we are taught to shut down and not fully express ourselves.  We are told its wrong and before we know where we are our full expression has become a feeble movement while we sit in the edited part of ourselves that is palatable to others.  As Debbie Ford says in her amazing book, dark side of the light chasers, our huge mansion with lots of rooms to explore becomes shut down to a two-bedroom flat that needs some work as we move from childhood to adulthood.  We shut down to be accepted by the people around us and with that we shut down the ability to step into our power of sexual expression.

When we step into our power and especially our sexual power, we become vulnerable we take a risk that we may be told its too much and we pull back afraid to go into raw passion and express our full sexual power for fear of scaring our partner.  I remember one of the first times I stepped into my lioness with a desire to pin my partner down on the bed, sinking my teeth around his throat and take from him until I was satisfied, I was terrified to be seen in this place.  I feared my own power and my own sexual desires.  I was scared because as a woman this was not how we were supposed to behave and being a woman in her power had at that point only ever brought me criticism and rejection from others. I feared been seen as a woman in her power and feared being rejected.  However, what I want to share is what happened, and it was in this positive experience that everything changed.  As I found myself on top of my partner and this desire coming over me to sink my teeth in, I gently with tenderness brought my teeth down onto his throat.  I am going to add here this is someone I knew very well and someone I knew had the capacity to speak his boundaries.  His eyes lit up and I felt his body let go and surrender into the moment.  It is at this point that I felt the surging of my inner lioness in all her power come to the surface as I pinned him down and took for my own pleasure.  It was an incredible experience where I could fully explore my raw sexual power and be supported and encouraged in this, what unfolded that night was a real dance of stepping into and out of our sexual power as we took it in turns to embody our raw sexual expression.  

What has come to me that to be fully in our power we must also be in our tenderness, and it is when the balance of power of sexual expression is met with tenderness that the magic happens.  It’s having the two polarities present at once the Ying and the yang and it is in this moment that the pure magic happens and the openness and expansion into sexual expression as the realisation of the desires I have been suppressing for years are welcomed in fact not only are they welcomed but they bring an erotic charge not to me but also to my lover.  

The importance is really on the tenderness as it is from the tenderness that the growth is into power.  I recently had a client visit me and he wanted to go into his power but kept pulling back, I am just going to mention here that this is client I know very well, and we have grown together over the years.  I asked him why he felt to pull back a few days after the session and he shared with me that he feared his own sexual power and scared of overstepping the mark or scaring, which I totally understand having been on the same journey myself.  This brings me neatly onto boundaries as the importance for me to maintain my boundaries while supporting the expression of another’s sexual power is paramount to safe conscious emotional and sexual expression.  Being in my power brings me to a place where I am safe to enter such an encounter.  I can tell you my lioness was dying to play with his lion, but the lion was fearful of itself, and he pulled back.  We are working on this and it’s something I look forward to exploring in the future.

What then occurred to me is that when we are truly in our power we are at our most vulnerable as to be seen in our power we take a risk of rejection from others, and we make ourselves vulnerable as we show all our true self.  Let’s take a moment to think about a lion hunting coming into their power to meet the needs of their survival.  What happens the lion breaks cover once it gets close enough to the prey, it comes out in to the open and it’s the coming into the open that makes it vulnerable.  The same happens to us when we come into our power and our sexual power, we break cover and show all parts of ourselves we come into the open and in doing so take a risk of rejection making ourselves vulnerable.  It is in the vulnerability that we find our power by taking a risk to tear back some of the layers of our social conditioning stepping into our power with compassion and tenderness and be met in this by another then there is pure magic and affirmative that our power is welcome.  

I have really struggled with this in the past and struggled with been seen as a woman in my power. It’s a big thing to be seen in my power as when I was growing up as many other women there was a whole thing of its not welcome.  One memory I will share is when I expressed my anger at school and thew some chairs across the room in infant class I was sent home and told that little girls don’t behave like that.  What happens is next time I am angry don’t allow myself to step into that power, I suppress it and push it down , afraid to be seen in my power as I will be rejected and no one will love me, as we journey through life millions and millions of examples like these happens and before we know what has happened we are shut down, turned in and cut off from our power.  The same happens in our sexual development and even more so as its very often not discussed and brushed under the carpet driven by the fear, the shame and the guilt. 

It takes courage, love, compassion, tenderness, and vulnerability along with small affirmative steps to move from suppression into expansion of possibilities when we dare show our true self and be celebrated in that expression whatever it may be.  This is where I love to work for those that wish to journey with me weaving together tenderness, vulnerability, and sexual power to create affirmative experiences of conscious sexual expression.

I know this is big subject and as with everything I write I am always open to discussion and questions of anything this may bring up in you.

I very much look forward to exploring together the possibilities and the magic of some wonderful encounters.

Kristina J – Creator of intimate encounters and connected experiences.