COURAGE to TURN ON
“It feels dangerous”, she tells me, describing the sensations of her body turning on. “It’s just too vulnerable”. I’m talking with an old friend, and we sit and feel the truth of her words - the truth of the destabilizing nature of appetite. How it makes our heart race & palms sweat, flushes our cheeks and agitates our well established protective mechanisms.
I can’t count the times I’ve had this conversation with women (and men for that matter). The deep desire for aliveness and intimacy, yet the total terror, or at least ambivalence when it comes to actually having it.
It reminds me of a dream I had as a teenager. I was standing across from a new student in my high school class and the way her hair blew across her glossy lips stirred something in me - arousal, longing, hunger. I woke up from that dream totally terrified. Did it mean I was a lesbian? And if I was a lesbian did I have to dress like Spike from Degrassi Jr High? (The only model I had for a young woman with these kinds of dreams as a young Canadian in the 1980s).
The answer turned out to be no, at least not in the way I imagined. But remembering that dream reminded me of how little I understood desire in my early years. I didn’t realize the endless flavors of turn on that would run through me in this lifetime. And that I could receive the sensations enlivening my body - the experience of being a vital, feeling human being connected to life itself - without fear of ‘what it meant’. Nope, instead I was mortified. I’ve had women tell me they fantasized of cutting off their genitals as young people, they were so scared of their own feelings. Others who worked hard to hide or control any sensations of turn on so as not to attract unwanted attention. You likely have your own version.
There’s good reason for it. Just like there is for my friend’s feeling of danger in the face of her own appetite. We’re often taught that safety comes from maintaining control, following the status quo, and not allowing another to see or feel our “weakness”. And so when our sensations ignite, and our hearts start racing it can feel like a threat. “I didn’t plan this! This is not where, how or with who I am meant to feel this way,” our minds protest.
How much easier is it to keep things neutral, to be the pragmatist, to maintain rationality and “normality”, a fixed identity and cognitive control? I mean, it really is easier a lot of the time (and in a child’s psyche, often the most intelligent option for safety). I don’t want to understate that. We’re no longer children, but when as adults with volition we open to desire and turn on, it can turn our lives upside down (at least a little, if not a lot).
On the other hand, keeping it tamped down leads to a damn dry life. The truth is that you can’t numb selectively. I spent many of my early years managing what I felt in my body, and that also dulled my confidence, power and intuitive sense. I’ve seen through my students and clients that this is how it works - for some in more extreme ways, others in more subtle.
It takes courage to start feeling again - to welcome the full range of sensation, including the destabilizing current of desire. It takes guts to release the comfort and constraint of old identities so new vitalities can come through (deep bows to my courageous students & clients willing to go there). And it can take time - the nervous system has its own pace when undoing patterns of the past, which I’ve come to deeply respect. But with willingness, practice and integration, that feared force can really become your deepest ally… and joy. That turning life upside down ride becomes a reminder that life is not yet done speaking through you - you’re alive! I’m so grateful to look at that picture of my young, scared self (see blog icon) and let her know this truth.