Break Free of Old Sexual Pain

If you think elephants never forget, consider all the things your body remembers. It remembers that you like ice cream, how to hear and see and how to feel excited, how to ride a bike, and what the tingling sensations of being in love are like-even if you haven't eaten ice cream, ridden a bike, or felt the least bit interested in romance for a decade. Ask anybody's body what its repertoire of good feelings includes and it will give you a long list. rnBut bodies also recall what it is like to not have a good feeling. rnChests tighten with the memory of being picked last for anything rnin elementary school. Hearing of some one else's romantic rejection can bring on that familiar knot in your stomach. Too many bodies are burdened with memories of bad rnsexual feelings. Sexual pain comes in many forms including rape, incest, and molestation. But the body also holds pain from more subtle experiences. If your beloved has harshly rejected your erotic advances or if you spent hours planning an unappreciated date, hairstyle or dinner, you know that your identity as a sexual man or woman senses assault. As these memories stew over time, they become sexual trauma. rnAccording to my professional ancestors, the great sages rnof traditional Chinese medicine, trauma lives in the body's memory. When you have an accident or injury, your body remembers it. Years later you will not run into the street after that softball because when you were six you broke six bones when a car hit you doing just that. We do not stick our fingers into a socket too many times, either. Bodies use their trauma response to protect us. rnEmotional trauma registers in the body the same way. If you were ever robbed in apark, it is unlikely that you will happily re-enter that park at a later date. If you got jilted by your lover while wearing a particular dress or suit, you may have to push yourself to wear it again a few weeks later. rnUnfortunately, if any trauma isn't healed, be it physical or emotional, it sinks deeper into the body, building up over the course of a lifetime. Here is a simple way to understand this process. Perhaps you had a sports injury as a child or in college. You healed and, upon thorough examination, the tissue appeared to be restored. For twenty or thirty years everything was fine. But eventually the tennis elbow showed up again as arthritis, and the knee sprain you forgot about came back as chronic tendonitis. Though the tissue healed, the trauma continued to sink into your body like a burn, showing up decades later at a much deeper level. This is why, as an acupuncturist and herbalist, I address both the injury and the body's trauma response to the injury. Treating the trauma takes much longer than does addressing the pain or swelling or tissue damage. Sexual trauma also accumulates over time, ultimately expressing itself at a deep level of the psyche. Can trauma be healed? Absolutely! Might you or your beloved be the only ones plagued with it? No. A majority of people experience erotic difficulties due to negative body memories. The trick is to persevere in finding a solution. You are not sick or wrong or broken; your body just needs you to release pain, to make more room for love.