Self-Improvement – Amanda Metta

What is Religious Trauma Syndrome and how can I use my sensuality to overcome it.

Religious Trauma Syndrome (CTS) occurs when an individual struggles with involvement with a religion or a set of beliefs that have led to their indoctrination. It involves the trauma of breaking away from a religious community, once thought of as an only, or right way of living. Living in such a community can be exhilarating at first, with a high level of support and sense of purpose, which lasts for only as long as a person is part of the community and subscribes to their beliefs.

When doubting the beliefs of the religion, leader, or community, a person can be overcome with a sense of shame and confusion. Everything they thought of to be good and right, is suddenly under question and can lead to a profound sense of cognitive dissonance over what really is true and what not.

This black and white way of experiencing life lacks the world of color and nuanced intricacies of what is available for us to experience. Being either right or wrong, validated or invalidated, worthy of life or not becomes an unsolvable puzzle, unless filled in with tinctures and flavors of variation to form a picture of which the blacks and the whites are only fine outlines of events, time periods, or characters.

It is important to learn the skills of coloring in one’s life in order to find and create meaning and purpose. Without that, the dangers exist, that an escapee jumps into the next shiny situation, which leads to mismatched values and unhappiness. This is true for anyone who has suffered trauma and had to temporarily abandon their inner self, to get through the external circumstance.

CTS can be similar to the results of complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD,) which is the trauma resulting from personal relationships with low/non-conscience individuals, commonly referred to as narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths.

In the movie “Holy Hell, the followers of the Buddhafield religious movement commented that the feeling of comradery and community was so strong during their time there, that it was easy to turn a blind eye to what they inherently knew wasn’t right. This statement indicates the strong need we humans have for a sense of connection and belonging. Leaving a life of familiarity behind for that of uncertainty takes a lot of courage. I would argue to say that the mere exhaustion that follows such an act, can easily be the hook for a follow-up episode of different kinds of indoctrination or codependency.

In the Netflix series “My Unorthodox Life,” Julia Haart shows what can go right, when a person successfully breaks away from a life that limits one’s personal development and the right to make individual decisions based on self-reflection and intuition.

For many others though, religious indoctrination has not taken such an extreme form. For many the struggle lies in recovering from these kinds of inharmonious beliefs, whilst in the midst of family and friends, who still live by it.

It doesn’t really matter how we look at the topic of RTS, it is clear the the results lead to a feeling of loneliness, being misunderstood or misplaced, feeling a lack of belonging, and lack of identity, which further leads to issues of self-worth, difficulty in decision-making, and often anxiety, depression, sexual dysfunction and so much more.

Quite understandable, RTS makes it difficult for a person to trust, as the lenses of guilt, shame and fear follows their trail, directly from the belief-structures these individuals are trying to let go of. Inability to trust, inevitably leads to relationship difficulty and a potentially victimised relationship with personal resources.

Nan Wise outlines in her book, “Why Good Sex Matters,” what is called The Pleasure System. The Pleasure system is one of seven systems representing our most basic emotional needs. Without all seven of those emotional needs met, a person will struggle in one area or the other, although any imbalance will show up in your sexual expression, but more on that in another article.

In my understanding, the pleasure system is connected to the Sacral Chakra, which is the leading center of sensuality. It is the center where you explore different tastes and textures and develop an “appetite for life.”

What is sensuality?

Sensuality is the ability to guide through your body’s senses, rather than your mind. It holds the ability for enjoyment, and prioritizing enjoyment. A deeper sensuality can differentiate between subtle feelings or stress, dissonance and the feelings of true harmony and safety. Sensuality is guided by a felt sense, and thus keeps one connected and true to the experience of oneself, as opposed to promises, ideas or beliefs of another.

So here are a few ways that you can use your sensuality to overcome RTS, or related issues:

Change your beliefs

Beliefs are formed when there is a strong emotional response, together with a command and/or consequences – real or perceived, positive or negative. A strong emotional response happens when all of your senses are involved. Thus changing your beliefs will require that you feel and experience new wholesome beliefs with your whole body and senses. Let your new beliefs feel good, true to you and give you a feeling of openness all through your body.

Know your values

How do you know what is important to you? You feel it! Without the guidance of an outside force telling what is right or wrong, good or bad, important or not important, it becomes your feelings’ job to discern your choices. The thing is, only once you’ve experienced what makes you feel good, through your sensual nature you are able to discern that which doesn’t. Practice feeling good without outside provocation. A good way to do this is to say no to something. If you feel relieved, albeit secretly, then you know it’s not your thing. If you feel really disappointed, then you may be on to something.

Through knowing your values, you regain your sense of self-identity and pride.

Actively do things that make you feel good!

Yup, it’s not enough to just know what is important to you. Taking the steps to prioritize those things is once again another courageous gesture. Here’s the thing… when your desires are clear, boundaries become a by-product. That means, that the more you assert who you are, the easier it becomes to distance yourself from that which you are not.

If all of this work sounds intriguing to you. Feel free to reach out to discuss how I can help you on your journey. My recommendation is the Find Your Mantra coaching session. You may further benefit from a Chakra Reading or Holistic Healing session.

I am Amanda, a Holistic Healer, who also became a certified sex educator, in order to open the conversation where it matters most.

Watch my free video on sexuality coaching for introverts here: amandametta.com/join

Much Love

How does Metaphysical Healing help me have better intimacy?

What is Metaphysical Healing?

“Metaphysics” is roughly translated as “beyond,” or “behind” the physical, implying that the physical reality we experience as tangible and visible is not all that exists.

We know that our reality is made up of so many levels that are interconnected to make up a whole existence of connected, yet seemingly separate parts.

You as a separate individual, would not exist without at least two other people coming together to create you. The environment you grew up in, influenced who you’ve become. The food you ate, the thoughts you’ve thought the beliefs you’ve acquired have all become part of who you are.

If we ask what the original element was that brought you into existence, we can draw this explanation out to go all the way to the origin of life. I think it is suffice to say that there is more to our existence than meets the eye and metaphysics acknowledges this.

Metaphysical healing aims at acknowledging the origin of a limitation, at its core, or as close to the core as is meaningful for us as individuals. In this way we can remove blocks, limitations and hindrances to our authentic sexual expression, if authentic sexual expression is our goal.

So what could these hindrances be? Let’s look at an example:

You could be madly in love and turned on by someone, yet every time they show closeness to you, you joke around, make a negative comment about yourself, or kill the vibe in another way.

In one short moment you went from nearly sharing the high energy of sexual exhilaration you were so enthusiastically excited by, to being flat and platonic.

Why on earth would a person do that?

You may be doing this because there is an underlying fear of closeness.

If you are the person in this example, at some stage or another, your inner wisdom protected you from closeness, because it was dangerous, unpleasant or harmful in some way. Many situations could grant such reactions, for example, a single parent’s authoritative new partner, who threatened to leave you behind, in competition for your parent’s attention.

Perhaps your high level of energy was overwhelming for your parents, who scolded you for it, thus you learnt to never get too close to the people you love.

At a deeper level of your brain, at the midbrain level, a core belief may have formed, that closeness is unsafe, that in order to be loved, housed, fed, be part of a family or to be alive, you have to prevent closeness to the people closest to you.

That deep part of your brain is what is responsible for bypassing your critical thinking and keep you alive in times where thinking may take too long and guess what, any area of our lives where sexual expression gets involved, are translated as such. You are bound to operate from those reactive parts of you mind, rather than the rational thinking mind … and thank the heavens for that!

You wouldn’t want to have sexual intimacy as if you are reading a recipe book, would you? Well, maybe, initially, that can give you a sense of safety, but mostly us human beings feel confident, expressed and happiest, when our bodies know just what to do and how to do it.

By becoming conscious of those underlying hidden beliefs and reactions, you can change your expression, without changing who you are as a person.

Just imagine a life of living free from inhibitions, strengthened by personal values.

How would you feel about yourself if your desired ventures matched your actual expression?

Amanda is a metaphysical healer and sex educator who loves to loves to help introverted individuals be fulfilled in the bedroom and out in the world.

www.amandametta.com/coaching

Craniosacral Therapy For Sexual Trauma

Many people who inquire about CranioSacral Therapy, assume it is some kind of head massage, while in actual fact this modality reaches far beyond manipulating the physical body to a healing system that touches the soul. Emotional healing that results from this gentle, non-invasive approach can be more profound than what is imaginable.

CranioSacral Therapy is a light-touch manual therapy technique that helps to restore the unobstructed flow of cerebrospinal fluid between the head and sacrum. Your sacrum is the bone at the center of your pelvis, central to all that important hip movement.

When the movement of the sacrum is restricted, so is the movement of the hips, and we all know what that means for healthy sensual expression.

We need our hips to be loose and sexy in order to express ourselves sensually and we need to express ourselves sensually, because it puts us in touch with what it feels like to be desirable and being desirable is kind of the same as being needed, having a purpose, and being validated, which are core human needs.

When we have endured sexual trauma, it is common to have restrictions on the structures of the pelvis. Trauma can manifest as numbness, stiffness, tightness, pain, lack of mobility, and very often excess weight.

Where there is unresolved trauma there will be a lack of energetic flow in the body. There will be obstruction from one part to another. In facilitating healing, feeling and flow have to be restored in the affected area and this can be done without going into the story of how the injury happened. It is truly an encounter of deep somatic empathy.

Using CranioSacral Therapy, we can elicit where that obstruction is and gently guide the body to release. Receiving this work feels nurturing, validating, and liberating.

Throughout the spine and at the sacrum, some cerebrospinal fluid gets transported to other systems, such as the lymphatic system, via the nervous system. While scientists are still discovering the exact mechanism for how cerebrospinal is absorbed through our bodies, we know that where the very, very subtle flow of CSF is not palpable, is where trapped energetic debris is locked in the body tissue. This is how a CranioSacral Therapist can accurately determine exactly where to work.

In a world with so many mixed messages about who and what we are supposed to be; and with a rapidly changing social expectation of acceptable sexual expression it is natural to want to close off, hide or retreat. This is an invitation to do quite the opposite.

We all have a little shame, guilt, fear, and trauma locked into privacy longing to be liberated through nurture, love, and support.

Reach out and heal the most vulnerable parts of yourself to fulfill the most basic needs of being human, that of connection, acceptance, and belonging.

Much Love

Amanda

Depression: Why are women more likely to seek out help?

It is noted that statistically, women seek out professional support for depression more than men do. Why is this?

Is it because women are simply emotional wrecks, or is it because men are insensitive a-holes driving the female gender to pieces? Perhaps there is more to it?

Depression due to delivery is well documented. Men don’t give birth, so comparatively, they have at least one less reason to develop depression, statistically.

There are various other reasons, why women are more likely to seek help for depression, than men do.

Men are less likely to acknowledge depression as a problem. Men solve problems privately, connection is the answer to women’s challenges.

Several relationship theories have tried to identify some fundamental differences between men and women. One of them, is that men solve problems, mostly based on survival, while women build structures around communal support.

I am not sure if this is true, but when we look at nature, most mammals mimics something similar. After the elephant bull breaks his isolation, he mates with a female and disappears again as soon as the act is taken care of. The herd, consisting of females and babies all gather around the female mated with, to give her emotional support.

Men are natural providers and women are natural community builders. For men to voluntarily admit that there is a problem, without actual tangible evidence, (ie. broken lightbulb vs emotions which cannot be seen,) would be to admit that they are failing in their life purpose – that of solving problems. It is understandable why they would not voluntarily “create” problems where there are not. Women’s survival instinct seems to be centralized around the idea of community and they are thus more likely to reach out for support.

Patriarchy’s collective shame

Due to the rising resistance against the Patriarchal societal structure, women, collectively feel a greater sense of justification for their emotional challenges. It is more acceptable for women to be allowed to experience emotional difficulty, based on the oppression they have endured. There is thus less shame in asking for support and asking for support is even considered a sign of empowerment. Due to this system, the reverse effect is placed on men, who often still try to fulfill the societal expectations of being leaders, in control of their command. Torn between the fulfillment of this internalized expectation and the vulnerability of their own being, they may choose to not seek support.

“Boys and girls have the same risk of depression before the hormones of puberty, but by age fifteen, girls are twice as likely to suffer from depression.”

Hormones.

Estrogen, Progesterone and Oxytocin are all hormones we associate with women. These are all hormones associated with passivity and growth and preparation, thus expressed internally. Women are more likely to deal with emotional challenges through internal processing. Bonding through talking is thus an acceptable approach for them.

Testosterone and Vasopresson are hormones we associate with men. We generally believe that testosterone contributes to personal drive and aggression, vasopressin contributes to feelings of possession, protection, and the combination of that can lead again to external expression, even aggression. With more drive, one would imagine that men are more likely to deal with depression through physical activity, rather than internal processing. They may find the support they experience through a team sport activity sufficient.

If you or your partner are suffering from depression, don’t try to fight it on your own. Seek out help, to get you back on track. You deserve it!

No more childhood shame.

Scientists say that up to 95% of our minds, function from the subconscious. We operate from a mere 5% conscious awareness. Further research shows that our basic beliefs and attitudes are formed already by age 7. It is noted that through the ages 3-7, children have and increased interested in understanding where babies come from, and they may start to explore the bodies of other children and adults around them, or openly display interest in their own genitals by touching and other body movements such as rocking and riding.

Between the ages of 5-7 innocent self-touch as form of bodily exploration is quite common, albeit not exactly encouraged. As these are the ages we also venture out into the classroom of the world, meeting new friends and playmates,

Unfortunately, this is also the time where innocent curiosity, often gets turned into shame by a teacher, mother or father, who are trying to hide their own humiliation, when a toddler’s investigative hand reaches their crotch.

It is indeed a caring parent who mentors his/her young ones in the appropriate behavior for social acceptance. Yet, the means of shame, humiliation and guilt have lasting effects, potentially causing anxiety in healthy adults, when approaching their partners in an intimate setting. Many first time couples, for example, rush to get the deed done, only to set a stage they find themselves difficult to get out later, when one or both crave more connection and intimacy.

Now, we can’t change our pasts, but there is something we can do start healing our own sensual responses and generate more connection in our own lives.

Once you’ve read this passage, close your eyes for a moment and imagine yourself as a toddler playing in the sand. Notice your little toes curl as they try to pick up the tiny grains, while your fingers runs through the rough textures. When you pour a bucket of water in the sandpit, notice yourself delighting in the mud and its cool smoothness. Observe just that toddler secretly playing in bliss, with careful, deliberate, slow, investigative movements.

Now imagine how it would be to bring that very same blissful exploration to your adult life right now. Wouldn’t THAT be nice?

The more you use slow and deliberate as an approach to intimacy, communication and life in general, the less you will deal with shame, shyness, anxiety or inhibition.

Best of bliss with your exploration.

Help, I found naughty pictures on my BF’s laptop.

If you are reading this, you may have experienced that moment of utter betrayal and disappointment when you made the nasty discovery. In contrast to the dream in your head, of a loyal lover, endlessly focussed on you and you only, you know found evidence that your undivided love, is being shared. In fact you are being rejected, abandoned even for someone that doesn’t even exist in real life. This discovery can be devastating and have you doubt whether you are indeed with your mr. Right. Absolutely nothing society has taught you about real love, is depicted in this story.

I’d like for you to spend this time revising what response would really be appropriate to this, not so uncommon scenario.

Now, finding evidence that your partner is indeed fostering a secret sexual relationship with another invested person, is not what I am referring to in this post. Please do find some support if that is your story. If the pictures you are finding are random models posing with the bare minimum, clearly only for visual stimulation, then please read on.

Every person deserves just that little bit of privacy, that no-one else knows about, not even their lovers, mothers, spouses, or anyone else. Having a little bit of freedom from having to be perfect, is in fact, healthy. Not only is having a little privacy healthy, it is sexy and serves as a platform for self-growth and emotional maturity.

Society has long been trying to suppress the natural drive of men, by having them believe that their sexual urges are wrong. The popularity of vegetarianism in America, is documented to have a religious motivation in denying men meat, to lessen their sexual urges. Stigma around sex has created Billion Dollar Industries. Why, because when our natural needs and desires are taken from us, we are compelled to and willing to pay very high rates, for just a sense of it. Why are we, as a society so scared of men’s sexual drive and where they get their stimulation from? More importantly, why are you as an individual so threatened by your partners normal, healthy drive?

If you are currently facing the issue of not knowing how to react to finding naughty pictures belonging to your partner, I’d like for you to take a really, really deep breath and let it go. You are not in danger, your healthy relationship is not in danger, but may well be, should you choose to react. Rather ask yourself; what do you need to be more sexy, to be more fulfilled and what secret fantasies do you allow yourself? You may find that your beloved partner still holds you in the highest place in his mind and heart and always has, so take a chance and give each other a little bit of privacy. Find the magic in allowing a sprinkle of added imagination.

5 Steps to Sensual Confidence

What are the benefits of being able to express your sensuality?

Being able to free express your sensual nature can have real positive results in literally every aspect of your life; like having better communication skills, having more charisma, attractiveness and even an improved ability to manifest your intentions.

Expressing your sensual nature, does not mean that you are changing your personality to be that of a promiscuous enchantress or a suave smooth-talker, flirtatiously sailing through everyday. It does however mean that you are comfortable in your own skin. It means that you give and receive affection comfortably and you can fulfill your desires, free from guilt, shame and fear.

Most of us are somewhat confused when it comes to our own sensuality, as just showing too much overt sexual interest, may have caused embarrassment in the past, perhaps even misunderstanding, or mistrust in a treasured relationship.

It is therefor quite understandable, how our subconscious mind would want to close ourselves off to free, unobstructed sensual expression and label it as something dangerous, unpredictable or unsafe. Yet there comes a time where every individual decides that enough is enough and their inner being urges them to test the water of their own ocean of expression.

Are you ready to express yourself in a way that is inviting to others, in a way that gives you confidence and magnetism?

Remember, sensual liberation has a very subjective meaning to every individual. To some it means being able to share their erotic fantasies or exploring intimacy with a greater range of people. To another it may mean holding hands in public or simply wearing a bathing suit out.

So, your goals may differ from your friend’s and comparing yourself with them, may not be helpful. If you are unsure about exactly which goals to set for yourself, it is always helpful to work with a professional coach or therapist.

So here are some suggested steps to follow:

Identify your safe space. A really good place to start is a dance or yoga class, although many people choose to be safely at home. Every lesson life has taught you on where to close your authentic expression off, has also given you a parameter for exactly which circumstances you find safe, acceptable and agreeable to practice free unobstructed expression in, so that you can now become comfortable with the idea of being a sensual being.

Choose your method. Dance, Breathe or Shake! How do you want to connect with your body in a way that feels good to you? Learn to SLOW DOWN your movements. This is the secret in creating confidence and charisma.

Enjoy! Changing your beliefs about what sensuality feels like will come through enjoying the action that you choose. Own the enjoyment, make it yours. Releasing negative connotation to dancing sensually in front of the mirror, or to speak slow and sensually will take time. Don’t let the awkwardness at first put you off.

Share your sensual expression with the world. This is the big step, which will differ for everyone. Wear your bikini at a hotel pool and reject each thought of judgment about it. Try a conversation while slowing your normal speaking pace down, dance at a party with your eyes closed, just for yourself.

I look forward to seeing your confidence radiating from afar.