Healing from sexual wounding

Any kind of sexual wounding can disturb our energy field and negatively impact our emotional body, leading to feelings of guilt, shame and anger, which may cause poor self-esteem, low self-worth, a lack of confidence and feelings of hopelessness. This in turn can negatively affect our mental state and lead to depression, anxiety, stress and/or overwhelm, which may give rise to a whole host of unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Not only that, but our relationship with ourself, and especially our body may also be compromised, causing issues with intimacy and our ability to enter into healthy and loving relationships, where we are able to give and receive equally. This can compound the above, so that we enter into a cycle of self-loathing and frustration.

Sexual wounding can result from all different sources. For some, feelings of shame and stigma around menstruation can negatively impact their wellbeing, let alone termination and sexual assault, whether consensual or not.  Even having a smear test can create a wounding. Often these experiences are not talked about because of their taboo nature and this can compound our suffering.

There have been experiences in my own life that I had hidden deep inside me because of the stigma and shame accompanying them. I share them now because I am conscious that many other women suffer as I have done, and do not feel safe to talk about their experiences, which therefore gets in the way of them being able to effectively process and heal.

I was fortunate in many respects as I grew up in an environment where menstruation and sex was openly discussed, so there was no stigma or shame. However the unfolding of our lives is often beyond the control of our parents and other caregivers who love us, regardless of their attempts to protect us and ensure our health and wellbeing.

At age 26 I fell into a toxic and controlling relationship, which took me to my lowest ebb. I wrote about this experience at length in my book From Darkness Comes Light as it led to a deep depression, which caused me to reach for the tablets that I hoped might end my life the night I turned 27. There is no doubt that this was a call for help, but nonetheless demonstrates the extent of my feelings of utter hopelessness and helplessness.

During that relationship I had a termination, which impacted me in innumerable ways. For a very long time I held unprocessed feelings of shame, guilt, sadness and anger, which slowly ate away at me, causing internal stress and a deep disdain for, and rejection of, myself.

The relationship is hard to describe even now. The boyfriend moved into my life without me really realising it, as if I had been blindsided, and slowly distanced me from my family and friends, breaking down my support network. It was volatile, manipulative and sexual in nature, and to those on the outside it made no sense – it made no sense to me either when I awoke from what felt like a bad dream.

I didn’t mean to conceive, I was a good girl in my head and good girl’s didn’t just get pregnant. But coming off the pill, which I hated, and not using another effective birth control was the issue. Maybe on some level I didn’t realise how easily one could get pregnant – ironic that years later I - like so many in a similar position - had such trouble conceiving.

Continuing with the pregnancy was out of the question; I was booked to travel around the world with a friend seven weeks later – it was a dream I had been working towards for some time. Plus, I knew deep down that the relationship was flawed, we were incompatible at heart, but I was already too deeply in it to get out.

There had to be secrecy because of the perceived stigma and shame which might be brought upon me and the family if anyone else should know. I was told it was simply a physical procedure, no emotion required. And so it was that I buried the experience deep within me with all my shame and guilt and sadness, and all my self-directed anger for being stupid enough to accidentally conceive in the first place with someone so inappropriate.

Anyone who has had a termination – and it is common, more common than we might imagine, just not talked about, a taboo subject – will know that it is difficult to avoid our emotional body. Not least because of the hormonal shift, one minute pregnant, one minute not, but because of the very nature of termination, the pain and shame of the medical procedure, let alone the feeling of shock and loss, which may accompany such a defining moment in our life.

I went traveling as if nothing had happened, and the boyfriend eventually joined me in New Zealand a few months later. By then I had changed. I was no longer interested in sex. Sex meant pain, so my body and my mind were now incapable of letting go to the extent that I couldn’t now open to pleasure and orgasm. There was a tightness within me, a stress, an irritability. I felt anger at my body for responding to his touch.  Who was I to deserve pleasure after all that had happened? On some level I had decided that I was a bad person and needed to suffer now.

The boyfriend didn’t understand, nothing had changed for him. One day he went too far and didn’t honour the ‘no’ which kept coming out my mouth. I gave up, resigned, my body lay still and I disassociated, went outside myself, something I can do even now if needed, exit, float, be not here now. It is coping mechanism, a closing down. He realised eventually and was angry at me for behaving in such a way, but I was done, done with sex, done with him, done with all of it.

I was already drinking a bottle of wine each evening and smoking cigarettes and cannabis too when I could, and I lost myself to it, as a way of numbing myself from the intensity of my emotions – often I would drink to unconsciousness. This is not uncommon in women who have experienced sexual wounding. The other effects may include:

Depression: Some women may experience depression, characterised by sadness, loss of interest in activities, and difficulty sleeping. There can be feelings of utter hopelessness and helplessness.

Anxiety: Anxiety can manifest as excessive worry, nervousness, or fear, and may be related to the decision to terminate or the procedure itself, let alone the fear of it happening again. Similarly this can apply to other sexual wounding too.

PTSD: In some cases, women may develop PTSD, characterised by flashbacks, nightmares, and heightened emotional reactivity related to their wounding. 

Grief and Sadness: Many women experience feelings of grief, sadness, or a sense of loss after a termination. Similarly there can be sadness at the loss of innocence and the abuse of the body after non-consensual sexual interactions.

Guilt and Shame: Women will likely experience guilt or shame related to their decision to terminate – even the fact they conceived in the first place - or the perceived consequences of their actions. There can be guilt and shame around sexual wounding too, feeling as if you have done something wrong to encourage it in the first place and anger at not being able to protect oneself.

Relationship Problems: Termination can strain relationships, especially if there is a lack of support or communication between partners, and especially if one is pushing for the termination. After sexual wounding, it is very difficult to open to intimacy.

Lowered Self-Esteem: Some women may experience a decrease in self-esteem or self-worth after a termination – the feeling of being bad will cause the feelings of guilt and shame and this feeds the self-berating which ultimately lowers self-esteem. If they are judged by others then this exacerbates the situation. Similarly, the loss of control and the sense of being harmed sexually can definitely lower self-esteem.

Flashbacks and Nightmares: Women may experience intrusive memories or nightmares related to the termination, not least the procedure itself, which can be painful, but the decision too. The same with sexual wounding – I had a flashback during a yoga practice, lying in a similar position, which brought up a whole heap of unexpected emotions including deep rage and a sense of injustice.

Substance Abuse: In some cases, women may turn to substances as a way to cope with the emotional effects of a termination and /or sexual wounding, effectively trying to numb themselves from the strong emotions and the thoughts which accompany this.

Suicidal Ideation: In rare cases, women may experience suicidal thoughts or attempts, particularly if they have pre-existing mental health conditions or lack emotional understanding and support. Sadly there is truth in this as I know from my own experience.

It took me an awfully long time to realise the extent to which these experiences negatively impacted my relationship with myself and created internal stress and a loss of vitality and wellbeing. I hated myself and gave myself a very hard time, which manifested each month through PMS and self-directed anger outbursts, weepiness and depression. I was distrusting of myself and of others, which limited my ability to enter into healthy and intimate relationships.

It didn’t help that I was now wary of sex, viewing orgasm as a trap which can cloud judgment and ensnare us in controlling and damaging relationships. I didn’t want to get caught twice and was now hyper vigilant, on alert for signs of control. I had also effectively closed down my heart behind a protective shield, which others may have described as aloofness, but was simply survival. Sex was no longer the sacred act I had once believed, but a tool used to manipulate and I simply couldn’t let go to it.

The trouble was, I buried these experiences so deeply that it was almost as if they had never happened, and it took a long time working with a trusted therapist to be able to overcome the feelings of shame and guilt to be able to even give voice to them, let alone work towards releasing them. I felt like a bad person – guilty – as if I had done something so wrong that I needed to punish myself continuously.

It took years of Scaravelli-inspired yoga too, to slowly uncover the tension and stress held  deep in my body. The years of vinyasa yoga prior to then had undoubtably supported me on some level, but it was only in changing movement patterns and bringing awareness to the deeper layers of tension, held especially around and within the pelvis, hip flexors and thighs, that the body let go of the memories and trauma it still held.  

As is often the case, the journey to healing has many layers to it. I was supported enormously by my next boyfriend, a friend of my brother, who I had known for many years and who was therefore safe. Our relationship was one of companionship and he gave me the courage and strength I needed to make changes in my life, which I documented in my book Namaste.

Later, the father of my children continued to support me in my healing and in living my dreams, not least in fathering our children, but in my work and all the studying and writing this entailed. It wasn’t lost on me that my fear of unwanted pregnancy had caused me to choose a partner with whom I couldn’t naturally conceive, due to male infertility, and our only route being IVF, which I wrote about in Dancing with the Moon – on some level I had again managed to ensure my safety.

This highlighted to me the manner in which we may make choices, not from a place of consciousness, but from a place of contraction, of avoiding having to face our deepest fears. I can see how easily sexual wounding and a lack of love for self, causes us to choose partners who we feel are safe. This often leads to co-dependence which has become normalised by our society as ‘love’ and will undoubtably lack the passion that we may later crave, when we have done the work to heal ourselves.

I reached a point in my life where I knew I needed to go deeper and reclaim my sexuality and ability to experience pleasure again, let alone be able to open up to the vulnerability of greater intimacy. I found my way to Shakti Tantra who ran a few online Tantric courses shortly after the pandemic. Tantra has always fascinated me and the effect of the practices that these courses offered had a profound effect on me. Not only were they healing, but they opened up my energy body in ways I could never have imagined and ushered mystery and magic back into life again.

It has taken a long time though, to recognise the harm caused by the deep repression of my emotions and to appreciate that every time I repressed anger, for example, I was using guilt and shame to do it. These two emotions especially, guilt and shame, have a very low vibration and will keep us stuck in old patterns of over giving, lack of worthiness, poor boundaries (giving our power away) and feeling unsafe if we don’t somehow release them.

Furthermore, the swallowing down of anger inevitably led to stomach issues and digestive complaints. There was a skin condition too, which highlighted my internal stress and the anger I was feeling about not being heard or understood in a particular situation, which was a recurring theme.

This was exacerbated because of my lack of awareness of my emotional needs and my inability to therefore voice them in a healthy way. We will always attempt to get our needs met, but we may use methods we formed during childhood causing us to act childishly (the inner child still not healed), or to manipulate or try to control others in the process, usually unconsciously.

Had I known my emotional needs, and recognised my worth, I might have had the courage and confidence to voice them and spared myself a lot of internal angst and frustration. But when we are used to giving ourselves away to others, it can be very hard to put our needs first, especially if we are judged by others for doing so. Our society still celebrates selflessness, and those who put their needs first are often accused of being selfish, as if this is a bad thing.

But it is more than this, I also had to delve deeper into the shadows to uncover the subconscious beliefs that will keep feeding more of the same. I had to recognise that I had taken on a belief – essentially – that receiving was unsafe, that it led to harm and pain. I also had to reprogramme my false belief that I was somehow unworthy and bad – guilty then.

This also takes time, the healing process cannot be rushed, and we must be very gentle with ourselves when we try to heal these core wounds. Forgiveness is essential so we don’t play the blame game nor get caught in victimhood, which serves no one, especially ourselves. Forgiveness can be the hardest thing in the world, but also the most liberating.

When the boyfriend who caused so much angst died suddenly, earlier this year, I felt sad for his suffering and for his mum, who had lost her only child a few years after losing her husband. It was a break through moment for me, because for many years I felt only anger, resentment and bitterness towards him but now there was no negativity - I had finally managed to forgive him and let go.

But I realised there was still a part of me that had not forgiven my younger self for her perceived foolishness and badness. Even after all these years, I still held some shame and guilt, which seemed so ridiculous in the grand scheme of life. It struck me how much of our life can be limited by something which has happened In our past and our inability to make peace with it, and to therefore let ourselves off the hook.

I resolved then to set myself free, to stop caring what other people think and to keep opening my heart, regardless of my perceived vulnerability. I hope that if you are reading this and it resonates on some level, that you are able to also free yourself from your past and let go of similar feelings of guilt and shame, and caring what others think, which may be holding you back and preventing you from opening to greater love and intimacy.

Life is short. It is only we who get in the way of our deserving of a better life and therefore it is only we who can set ourselves free. To do so we need to work with our mind to see what patterns of negative thinking, false and limiting beliefs and unhelpful programming and conditioning are getting in the way.

We must also remember though, that our body keeps score and the more we can befriend it, the more it will reveal to us where we need to focus our healing. Sexual wounding will inevitably show up through any combination of menstrual irregularities, PMS, infertility, menopausal symptoms, dysfunctional relationships, fear of intimacy, lack of love for self (and rejection of self in many ways), digestive complaints, depression, anxiety and inability to orgasm and experience pleasure during sex. Ultimately it causes stress on the mind-body-spirit system.

I have managed to elevate my awareness to see more of the bigger picture. To appreciate that our soul draws in experiences, which we might label negative and traumatic, but which allow us the opportunity to learn more about ourself and enable us to grow and expand as we heal and take our power back.

I shall always be grateful to my family for their unwavering support, for trying to meet my needs and ease my suffering. But ultimately the buck rests with me, as it does for all of us. It is only when we take responsibility and let go of our victimhood that true healing can occur. There is always support if we seek it, we just need to feel deserving of it.

So what can we do about it?

• Acceptance and forgiveness are key. Accepting what has happened and forgiving ourselves and others sets us free. Otherwise we stay stuck in victim mentality, which serves no one, least of all ourselves. I have found that elevating the perspective helps enormously too. While no one wants to have a termination or be sexually abused, from a soulful perspective there will be a reason that we called this in, because of how that might have awakened us or encouraged us to make changes to the life we were living and open us up – perhaps – to more of our potential and in that way, positively shift our consciousness let alone encouraging us to take our power back again.

• I am biased of course, but I have found the Scaravelli-inspired approach to yoga enormously beneficial in helping me to change my movement patterns and in so doing,  uncover and release the deeper held tension. Tension inevitably has a stuck emotion and a thought/limited belief encased within it, and so by releasing the tension we can release the emotion (which is energy in motion, or in this case, energy stuck, not able to move) and the mental imprint that is stuck with it. This practice also helps us to cultivate a deeper appreciation for our body and can be very healing for those of us who have suffered with eating disorder and other self-harm patterns. It is important to work with a trusted teacher who cares about us – working one to one is therefore ideal.

• We have to be mindful of physical activity, including certain yoga approaches, which merely feeds existing tension and movement patterns as this prevents us releasing the trauma held in the body. If we always do what we have always done, we will always get what we have always got – this applies to the body too. And let us not forget that the body, mind and spirit are intrinsically linked. Thus every time we reinforce a rigid and unhelpful movement pattern in the body, we are also feeding more rigidity in the mind. Please note that contrary to common thought stretching does not equal freedom, if you think of stretching a rubber band you can see how this merely increases tension, and does not release it. Instead we need space to heal, and the body and mind both need space to release tension.

• While EMDR and talking therapies can be helpful, they can also be limiting, simply because the body keeps score and to truly release the internal stress and tension, we absolutely need to get deeper into the body too, hence my bias towards a therapeutic approach to yoga (and yoga should really be therapeutic by its very nature). EMDR and talking therapies can support the process however.

• As an energy healing technique Reiki is whole and complete of itself and can be extremely healing and transformative. Again I am biased but Reiki literally saved my life and is by far the most effective treatment I have experienced for releasing stuck emotions in a gentle way encouraging greater peace, harmony and ease on all levels of being.

• SHEN is also really helpful in releasing trapped emotions and Jo Henton of SHEN Guernsey holds space beautifully, for this deeper work.

• Working with daily affirmations and using a Sankalpa (resolution/intention) in Yoga Nidra can help to reprogramme the subconscious. We might work with something like “I am safe, protected and unconditionally loved”, or “It is safe for me to give and receive love”, or “It is safe for me to receive pleasure in my life”, or more specific, “I open to greater love and intimacy in my life. The affirmation and/or Sankalpa should be worded in the present tense as if it has already manifested in our life.

• Understanding our emotional needs is key and then finding the strength to meet them. Remember no one else will meet them for us, and no one else will know about them unless we communicate clearly. This forms part of my Spiritual Life Coaching and can be a helpful enquiry.

• Taking our power back from those who judge us and criticise us by establishing healthy boundaries and reclaiming our sovereignty. There is no right or wrong, good or bad, only what our mind decides so we are encouraged to increasing let go of caring what others think, because more often than not they are projecting their own stuff onto us.

• Ayurveda has been invaluable in supporting my healing. This ancient holistic approach to healing and wellbeing incorporates a combination of diet, lifestyle and medicinal herbs to provide symptomatic relief and help us get to the root cause of any loss of wellbeing. Ayurveda is hugely helpful for all women’s healthcare issues from PMS to fibroids to endometriosis to infertility to menopause.

• Undertaking a Tantra course can be helpful. Shakti Tantra and Somananda Tantra School offer courses both online and in person.

• Talking to others who have navigated this journey can also be helpful and please do feel that you can reach out if needed. Often talking while receiving Reiki makes a huge difference, not least to talk through whatever is coming up but just having the safe space to process and digest.

Love Emma x