Do we need to be persistently sexual beings? What is really happening when we feel sexually shutdown?

To broach this topic of sexual shutdown, I’d like to start with a reframe. Many of us subtly correlate our sex life with thriving. If we’re not having enough sex (whatever “enough” means to you), we think that something has gone wrong in our lives and our relationships. Alternatively, this may lead us to think that when we’re having a lot of sex that all is well and as it should be, disregarding or minimizing other aspects of wellbeing. So, before we move forward, join me in ceremoniously dumping this notion of sex being a metric of how well you’re doing on this journey called life right in the trash ➡️ 🗑️

Instead, I’d like to propose a possibly new thought: sex is the manifestation of desire.

There’s no rulebook on how much or how little of it you “should” be having. As Emily Nagoski Ph.D. illuminates in her flagship book and commemorative service to humanity at large, Come as You Are, sex is not a drive. Sex is not driven by some innate hunger to rub knobs and bare offspring. Instead, sex is biologically motivated, not biologically required the way food or water is.

Our parts (and our hearts) have evolved to motivate us to desire sex. We have clitorises and pleasure receptors outside the womb, not just inside it.

It’s like the Universe is saying, “Thanks for signing up for a lifetime membership on planet Earth. Here is a human body. It has a myriad of pleasure hot spots and you can also set up new ones if you’d like. Enjoy it, or do something else. It’s up to you. We’re just happy you’re here. Enjoy your ride!” *insert an obnoxious stream of unicorn, butterflies, and strawberry emojis*

Your life and relationship(s) have worth, value, and meaning regardless of how sexually active you are. When you understand sex as an cumulative exchange of energy, love, desire, beauty, and focus, you realize sex is simply the pulse of life. And there’s no way to ever be separate from it or lose our connection to it. You may momentarily misplace your MetroCard but the trains are still running and you can grab a new ticket whenever you’d like. You can’t stop the flow, baby. You haven’t lost your way or missed out.

Why it’s Sexual Desire, not Sex Drive

Seeing sex as a manifestation of desire rather than a biological need that when not fulfilled may lead to a dramatic death, means two things:

1. Your condition is not dire (though it may feel that way).

You’re ok. You won’t embarrassingly end up in the emergency room as a result of “sex starvation.” And thank the Goddess for that.

2. You can approach sexual shutdown similar to manifesting any desire.

I’m about to give you the crashiest crash course on manifesting. Are you ready? Manifesting is a cumulation of resistance-free focus. You can focus through thoughts and/or what I call “thought-free knowing” that stems from your Deeper Self.

So, let’s put it into your current context. If you’re reading this, you’re wanting to go from sexually shutdown to ➡️ sexually turned on.

And I’ll give you the steps to do that below. But looking at this process through the lens of “manifesting a vibrant sex life,” you’re essentially shifting your focus away from sexual shutdown (and what caused it) and towards pleasure, sensuality, and all that turns you on. From there, the desire will grow and your body, mind, and soul will motivate you (or drive you) to fulfill your now bolstered and revved up sexual desire.

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy (sort of).

And with this in mind, you also see why early sex researchers (by and large, MEN) confused sexual desire for sex drive. They lived in a culture that nourished and supported their male sexual desire and so their bodies more easily motivated them towards sex and they faced fewer internal mental and emotional roadblocks to filling that desire. Meanwhile, women were historically discouraged from being sexual and shamed for having a high desire for sex. Since an unfulfilled biological drive is a medical crisis, we then pathologize ourselves and think there is something deeply wrong with us when we’re experiencing low sexual desire. But there’s not. For whatever reasons, both serious and unserious, we’re just not into sex at the moment. Our manifesting focus is elsewhere.

In fact, there’s probably something that you’ve mistakenly identified as “taken the place of sex” in your life right now. It could be kids, work, meditation, therapy/personal development, painting, soccer, you name it. But here’s the thing. It hasn’t actually “taken the place of sex.” It’s just dominating your resistance-free focus. Emphases on *resistance-free.*

Here’s an example to help you understand the role of resistance in creating your desires: Let’s say you want to go on a fun beach vacation, but every time you think about going on vacation most of your focus is on not being slim enough to feel confident in your bikini or not having enough money. When you focus on these unwanted possibilities, you’re resisting the wanted possibilities — the desire for a fun beach vacation. It’s also unlikely you’re going to even want to look up flights to what sounds like a miserable time full of financial and emotional insecurities. The beach vacation you really desire is not gonna show up in your life until you shift the focus to feeling good in your body and having all that you need for a wonderful trip.

Your sexual shutdown may be due to active resistance around sex or… it may just be a byproduct of your concentrated resistant-free focus on something else that is fulfilling other desires in your life at the moment. (Or a little bit of both in some cases.)

And so to address your sexual shutdown you now need to answer this:

“Am I resistant to sex OR am I simply enjoying creating another desire right now and feeling generally fulfilled?”

How to Nourish Your Inner Garden Back to Life

Step 1 – Take Stock of Your Internal Garden and Plant the Seeds

If you’re feeling generally fulfilled and reading this article because you’re ready to start focusing on nurturing sexual pleasure again, then your gardening work is made easy. There are already various flowers and plants in bloom in your garden. Your desire for more sexual trysts is a seed planted and intention set that will easily bloom as you continue to enjoy what already feels and tastes good in your flourishing garden while incrementally watering your seeds with the practices in Step 2.

However, if you can feel you’re actively resisting sex, then there may be weeds that have taken root in your garden that you’ll need to either pluck or stop feeding. These weeds can take many forms. Sexual shame, low self-esteem, gender dysphoria, relationship trauma and abuse, PTSD/CPTSD, stress and anxiety… You may even feel like your garden is full of weeds with only a few desired plants. I know the feeling.

For you, the process of nourishing your garden back to life will feel like a full life-overhaul, though the steps will remain largely the same. This is actually how I got into this work in the first-place. I noticed how focusing on my desire for sexual intimacy and profound soul-deep love, completely transformed every other area of my life and wanted to help other women experience this life-changing transformation. Sex truly is the pulse of life. How we approach sex and how we feel about sex has roots in every major area of our lives. For you, especially, investing in a pleasure program, private coaching, or simply following the steps below to nourish your inner garden back to life will feel like discovering a whole new way of being.

Step 2 – Rekindle Your Sensuality (Start with These Practices!)

Wherever your garden’s starting point, you might be wondering — shouldn’t I just focus on trying to have more sex with my partner or self-pleasuring?

Well, if you recall our reframe: Sex is a manifestation of desire.

Again, emphasis on desire.

You can try to white knuckle your way through, put it in the calendar, and force yourself to have more sex, but is that really the heart of your desire? Do you want to just have sex OR do you want to feel sexually alive and motivated to have sex?

Most people would say the latter. But if you’re a robot and just here to check a box… Don’t bite me when your kind takes over the world. You do you, boo 😅 no judgment here.

***Note this is not the same as being asexual and wanting to cultivate desire that is NOT sexually motivated. If you choose to have sex, as an asexual person, you may be motivated to give and receive sexual pleasure, not from sexual attraction, but for other reasons. I’ll have to dive deeper into this topic at another time, but please know, you too are not broken. Nothing has gone wrong. Your desire simply lies elsewhere. Rock on.

(And while I haven’t given this a read yet, it’s on my reading list and has lovely reviews on GoodReads: I Am Ace: Advice on Living Your Best Asexual Life by Cody Daigle-Orians)

But, okay. So granted you’re not asexual or an AI reading this in an augmented reality (please don’t come for me), then you’re likely not just looking to add sex to the to-do list. You’re wanting to feel sexually alive and sexually motivated again.

And so we’re going to help those seeds sprout, by focusing on kindling desire.

Practices to Rekindle Sexual Desire

Practice #1 – Pussy Breathing

Breathwork can be used to ease resistance, strengthen positive emotions, and elevate desire. When you’re first starting out with pussy breathwork, follow along with a pleasure practice audio (like this one in Module 3 of the Vaginal Rejuvenation) or set a timer. Having a set time that you’ve committed to the breathwork practice can help to keep you focused and helps your nervous system manage any emotions that arise.

The goal is simply to become sensitive to what you’re feeling in your pussy again. Initially, you may feel difficult emotions that you’ve been avoiding, like sadness, anger, or grief — especially if your sexual drought was brought on by a painful breakup or loss. But with time, practice, and consistently meeting your internal world with love and compassion, these emotions will soften and you’ll be able to feel other emotions as well, like interest, curiosity, playfulness, and desire.

Add pussy breathwork to your morning and/or evening routine for 15 days. It takes just 5-10 minutes a day. This is you effectively watering your seeds.

Practice #2 – Breast Massage

A breast massage (like this one you’ll learn in Module 3 of the Vaginal Rejuvenation program) is not only good for re-sensitizing the breasts and helping you eventually unlock your breast orgasm, but is also a soft, gentle practice for reconnecting with your sensuality.

Simply, apply your favorite oil to your hands and lovingly stroke your breasts in a circular motion for 5-10 minutes. As you stroke, you can close your eyes and bring your awareness inwards, becoming aware of the sensations arising in your breasts as you complete your massage.

At first, you may not feel much, but with time and your consistent focus, you’ll become increasingly sensitive to pleasure in your breasts. You may also feel your sensuality reawaken like a flower opening, pedal by pedal, in your heart space. The desire to touch and be touched may return or the desire for other sensual things, like beautiful colors, soft textures, and savory treats. Your senses may begin to awaken as well as your pussy…

Add a breast massage to your post-shower/bath self-care for 15 days and experience the benefits for yourself.

Practice #3 – Sensory Focus

*whispers conspiratorially* This one’s my favorite.

Sex is the pulse of life. We are easily motivated to sex and all that feels good when we’re connected to the vibrancy of life, feeling and savoring life through our senses.

Earlier we talked about approaching sexual desire as a manifestation. In which case, we need to shift our focus away from seeing our sex life as parched, so we can focus purely on what we do want which is more pleasure and sexual vitality. But how do you do that when you’re very literally experiencing a drought? This is where just about everyone fails when they try to “manifest” something. The very act of thinking about sex makes us feel heavy and annoyed and resistant and fearful, because we immediately start focusing on how little we’re having and how bad things are going on that front.

So, how do you focus on having more sex without bringing your attention to how very little sex you’ve been having? What do we focus on instead?

Instead of trying to tackle sexual desire head-on, go adjacent. Water your garden from a different angle.

You can do this by activating your senses throughout the day, focusing generally on pleasure and sensation, rather than sex. When you’re eating, put your phone away and focus on the taste of the food in your mouth, the feel of your lips, the power of your tongue… When you’re moisturizing, smell your creams and lotions. Apply them slowly and deliberately. Feeling the shape of your thighs, the softness of your skin… caress your curves and edges, delighting in your own skin. As you drive to work or run an errand, take a peak at the sky at the stoplight, bask in the breeze blowing in from the AC or the car window… whenever you can remember throughout your day, allow yourself to experience your world with your 5 senses. (And your spiritual senses too, if you have access to those.)

The more you open your sensual awareness, the more turned on you feel. Not sexually turned on but sensually turned on. You’ll feel increasingly receptive and vibrant. If your life was a color-by-number coloring book, it’ll feel like the pages are finally being filled in with vibrant colors, scents, smells, and tastes. Everything that you were previously numb to will come to life. Muted hues begin to brighten and intensify. You can taste the nuance in each bite.

Cultivating sensory focus throughout your day is one of the most powerful things you can do to boost your sensual and sexual desire.

It primes your nervous system for sex by putting you in a mental space where you’re more open to sexual stimuli. Sensory focus also helps with stress, anxiety, and some CPTSD symptoms. It can be a way of grounding into the present moment and feeling the wellbeing that abounds.

You are safe. Life is beautiful. It feels good to open up to life again.

Before we move onto Step 3, I’m curious — do you want me to coach you through this process? I help women become their most orgasmic and potent selves. That means restoring your connection to your body, your senses, and your Deeper Self ✨ If you’d like a fully personalized program to meet your personal intimacy goals, let’s chat: Book a 60-min Consultation | Claim a Private Coaching Spot

Step 3 – Make Room for a New Bloom by Harvesting from Old Seasons

When we’re in the midst of a long sexual drought (a year or more), we can begin to romanticize the old self and wish we could get back to “the old me.” We can become resentful of what has prompted our sexual drought (i.e. trauma, health challenges, grief, the end of a relationship, etc.) and feel helpless in the face of difficulties. Sometimes, our sexual essence feels so far away, we start worrying it will never return.

But hopefully, implementing the practices from Step 2 have given you hope. Even just reading them has ignited something within you. Your desire is in reach again…

But what desire? The desire to be an old version of you??

Dearest Gentle Reader,

I promise you. You have not lost yourself. And there is no “old you” to get back to. Only a new you to discover and create.

This can be hard to embrace when our sexual drought is brought on by negative experiences, like relationship trauma and abuse, medical conditions, and loss. These experiences can take a toll on our trust in ourselves, our body, and the Universe. We fear that the new self that emerges from this is not an improved self, but a diminished self. One that has suffered a signifiant loss and is no longer living in a bright, shining world full of love and possibilities.

Recovering from these experiences takes time. But you can and will recover. And there is support here if you need and want it ❤️

An important step in recovery is harvesting the lessons and insights gained from the prior season(s). Rather than looking at the rotten fruits that have fallen and festered in your garden, turn them into fertilizer and shift your gaze to the plump, ripe fruit ready for harvest.

Harvesting these lessons also means that you’re less likely to cycle through them again in upcoming seasons. So, don’t skip this step ❤️

Once you’ve given yourself space to grieve and be with the anger and upset (Get Coaching Support Here to help you heal), reflect/journal on these guiding prompts:

• This experience has shown me what I don’t want. Here’s what I want instead…
• My internal guidance system is always active and on. This situation taught me to trust my knowing in these ways…
• Regardless of the circumstances, I can choose to see myself as suffering or in recovery and on my way to better days. I choose…
• Slowly but surely, I’m finding my way to what I really want. This experience has shown me that these things are very important to me and my wellbeing…
• I can use this experience as an excuse to expect less from life, or I can rise to the occasion and dream up the best possible life for myself. I know I am supported by the Universe and I know I can create my desires. Since I can have it any way I want, I choose…

Staying strong through shitty circumstances is not required, and may be absolutely impossible.

But also know that your suffering does not define you nor does it “make you stronger.” Strength is a choice you make within to be the person you want to be despite what life throws your way. True resilience isn’t suffering and allowing it to harden your heart and diminish you. True resilience is choosing, for yourself, who you want to be and what you want to experience and aligning body, heart, and soul with that desire, regardless of what you’ve been through.

Can you become unconditional in your self-trust, self-love, and faith? Not all at once and probably not today. But you can turn and face that direction for now… until you’re ready to take the next brave step into brighter days.

Again, support is here if you need and want it.

Step 4 – Feed Your Sexual Imagination

Your garden is now ready for some adornments.

Is anyone else into food porn? I LOVE saving recipes on Instagram and Pinterest. Do I get around to making them all? Absolutely not, but they whet my appetite and keep my culinary brain inspired.

We are imaginative beings. We create from our imagination and ponderings. Every artist needs its muse. Sex is no different. If you freeze up during intimacy or don’t know how to prime your pump, it’s time to feed your sexual imagination. How you refresh your palette is up to you.

In a failed attempt to start a serious and rigorous literary book club with friends, I inadvertently started a Smutty Book Club last year 😅 And I haven’t looked back.

Here’s some of my current faves for romance, adventure, and smut:

• Bride by Ali Hazelwood
• A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas (Series)
• Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros (Series)
• Legendborn by Tracy Deonn (Series)
• The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
• Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan (Book #1)
• Heart of a Sun Warrior by Sue Lynn Tan (Book #2)

Not a big reader? Try the audiobooks. Or get inspired through art, performance, film, fitness, and more. What tickles your fancy may be unconventional or totally cliché — who the fuck cares. Be an enigma, be a classic romcom girl, but do it wholeheartedly just for you.

Step 5 – Explore Your Sexual Identity and New Ways to Play

As you’re starting to feel your seedlings grow, you may feel inspired to re-assess the way you play and explore your re-emerging sexuality. You may even find new desires rising to the surface. Maybe there were things that you prioritized in your sexual experiences before that don’t feel relevant anymore. Perhaps, you’re ready to explore something you’ve always been curious about but previously too afraid to try. Seize the new bubbling energy that is growing inside, as your sexual desires grow and start to manifest.

You’re on the cusp of something new…

Book a 60-min Consultation

Sexual shutdown can feel overwhelming, but hopefully these guiding steps have helped illuminate a path to your most orgasmic and potent self. Get on my calendar this week and let’s dream a new you into being: Book a 60-min Consultation | Get Private Coaching