Episode 7 - How I used pleasure to heal after sexual trauma

Did you know 24.8 percent of women have experienced rape in their lifetimes? That means if you walk into a room with four to five women, more than likely at least one of them has experienced rape.  A heart-breaking stat.  Dorothy shares how she reclaimed her mind, body, and soul after rape by using pleasure.  Her key was unlocking five different pillars that she has found to not only transform one’s sex life but life all around.  Rape is a taboo subject and a very challenging topic to discuss, but it’s also so very important to discuss because the more we normalize the discussion and different healing modalities, the more support we can offer survivors.  This helps to end the cycle of violence that more often than not, affects women.  

This episode of Nantucket After Dark is especially supportive for anyone that has experienced rape or wants to support a loved one that has experienced sexual trauma.  

Download your free copy of The Unlocked Mystic - The Sacred Sexual Woman; https://nantucketloveschool.com/theunlockedmystic

Email me to join the free Unbound Mystic women’s circle on April 6th. dorothy@dorothydstover.com

If you would like to be part of The Sacred Sexual Soul Series or learn more, click here - https://nantucketloveschool.com/sacredsexualsoulseries

www.dorothydstover.com

www.nantucketloveschool.com

Questions, feedback, or praise email Dorothy at dorothy@dorothydstover.com

Sacred Sexual Soul Series.

Email for questions, feedback, or supportive words - dorothy@dorothydstover.com

Transcript

Hello, and welcome to Nantucket after dark, where we talk about relationships, love sex spirit in the mix. I'm your hostess with the mostess, Dorothy Stover seventh generation Nantucket, her love and pleasure teacher, founder of the Nantucket love school, where we focus on spirit and pleasure so that our students feel more love in their lives.

I've been helping women transform their lives, feel empowered because I support students connecting their spirit, their intuitive. And how they can heal their bodies and their lives. I'm so glad you could join us. Let us dive in today's episode. Today's episode. We are going to talk about how I use pleasure to heal after sexual trauma.

Let me first start by saying this may invoke strong feelings, maybe activations or triggers. Please listen to your body and your intuition. If you need to rest rest, if you need a break, take a break. Don't be afraid to pause. If you need to, the information in this episode will hopefully support you or a loved one healing and thriving in life.

We all deserve that. I'm going to share with you how I was before I started my healing journey and what my life looked like to give you an idea of how far I've come, then I'll share how I've used pleasure to heal my mind, body, and soul. So let us dig in. So life before I found my pleasure practice. All right, we're going to rip the bandaid off here and I'm just going to jump right on in.

I was raped at 16 years old. I won't share the details here because the details aren't necessarily important for your healing. Probably the only detail that may be helpful was that my experience was violent, but isn't every rape of violent act. And that reason that that's important is because everyone experiences.

Are different, no matter what you look like, what you were wearing, where you were going, what you were doing at the time, who you were even, or what someone did with your body, it was all violent, no matter what, no matter the circumstances you may or may not have had bruises or visible interests injuries, maybe it was so fast.

You don't even know that it happened. And I say this because people often compare their stories and think my story is worse, or it's not as bad as theirs. It doesn't matter. And everyone deserves someone to recognize that and validate that what happened was not their fault. And it actually did happen.

And nor is something that can be swept under the rug as well. And most importantly, I believe you, I believe what occurred was an injustice and I can't take back what happened. But I can support and I can help people reclaim themselves. And perhaps really my deepest wish is that you live your best life.

Unapologetically you. My mother used to say to me, the best revenge is a life well-lived.  After the rape, you can feel like a shell of a human broken voiceless, and powerless because that's the point of rape. It's a tool to disempower someone. It's a tool to break someone that's been around for gosh, at the beginning of time.

But today I'm going to share with you the tools to help you. Physically after the rape I experienced, I had heavy periods. I had scar tissue that caused me to bleed. Every time I had sex, the pain, I felt even just inserting a tampon, even in my twenties was not only uncomfortable but with some. Have the shooting pain that would go from my vaginal canal, straight through my body.

And up to my brain, it was this combination of brain freeze and a knife that felt like it was stuck inside me but ripping me open from top to bottom. I felt like a foreigner in my body and I didn't feel my mind-body or soul were in alignment with each other. It felt so disconnected from everything and everyone.

And I hated God. I hated God for allowing what happened to me to happen. How can there be a God and rape still happen in the world? I would think this often to myself in romantic relationships, I was afraid to be vulnerable. I preferred superficial relationships. I couldn't have sex unless I was under the influence of something and certainly use sex to validate and feed my ego as well as feel some form of connection.

And connecting with another human being sober felt way too scary and undoable. And so I didn't, before I began my healing journey, I had flashbacks also during sex. So if you are listening to this and you were a partner of mine and you were with me when I had a flashback, I am sending you so much, love it.

Must've been so scary to be with someone and have them frozen in time or in a fetal position on the ground or shaking and crying uncontrollably that must've been so scary. And I'm sending you love. It was scary for me too. And I would like to also, while we're talking about this, these flashbacks were a big part of my sexual experiences.

It happened almost it happened regularly. I'd like to send a big, thank you to big red, you know, who you are. I'm so glad you came into my life. When you did, how often you held me while I was having my flashbacks and verbally reminded me where I was and that I was. Your strength and sweetness allowed the space for me to gather up the courage to heal.

And I hope that everyone has a big red in their lives that can remind us of what loving someone unconditionally looks and feels like. I'm so lucky that I had you and have you in my life, big red, it was big red that really supported me getting the help I needed. Talking with me after the sexual trauma groups that I was a part of after my therapy sessions, helped me to expand with pleasure and begin to use pleasure to hear.

How I first was able to have a sexual experience, sober and feel fully connected to my body, another human being, and to God, big red was the only one of my partners that when I told him my story, didn't look at me like I was completely damaged. And he said to me, thank you for sharing that with me. I'm so sorry that happened to you.

And then he held my hand and hugged me. May there be men like big red? Really and truly we need more of them. I don't want to turn this into an episode of praising big red, although he deserves it and certainly would love the ego boost and he deserves it. Right. He deserves that ego boost. I want to make sure I'm supporting you the listener to pay forward what he and others did for me so that I can show up for you today as a fully integrated human.

I didn't set out to reclaim myself. I first set out to love myself and to be able to be in a healthy, romantic relationship because I had so much hatred for myself. I knew I wasn't going to last much longer. And I knew I wasn't going to have a healthy relationship. If I continued the path that I was on, something had to give in yoga philosophy.

When you reach your bottom, this is where the path appears until then you are floating and going through the motion. You are not awake. As I say, I needed to hit my bottom four. It was my bottom. I realized what I wanted my path to be was love. I came up with the mantra, everything I do in life, I do for love after one of my sexual trauma support groups that I was a part of.

I didn't want to hate anymore. I didn't want to live in fear. I knew that if I wanted to live a life without hate or fear, I was going to have to choose love. So loving. I first started with self-care. There was a full-day retreat for rape survivors that I went to, we did crafts, meditation, yoga, and learn other ways to heal.

From there. I studied sex relationships. Pleasure. I wrote about my experiences and I started to feel more connected to God through this. I studied religion and spirituality and mysticism. I studied the energetic field and how. Um, all of that can be so connected to our energy being raped and that sexual trauma can be very extreme for the energetic field.

And I began to learn about chakras and heal my chakras. And through that combination of also going to Wendy mural at healing hands, I also went to reflexology and didn't and did different healing modalities. And when the mural here on Nantucket, she really helped to support my healing. Just through that touch of reflexology.

And at the same time, I was diving into my chakra as even more so in meditation and mindfulness using white light and angels. And I was able to heal my heavy periods and the pain I was experiencing so much so that I thought it was just a miracle, which it was, but a miracle I was fully part of. I continued studying energy and their intuitive self and began taking classes on mediumship and intuitive development.

I became a Reiki master. I went to India, became certified in yoga and meditation. From there. I further went into my studies and experimented with my own body and with pleasure and spirituality discovering, I could have stronger orgasms and better sex when I called him. I noticed how much love I felt for myself and how connected I was to my partner and how embodied and grounded I was in my body through these practices.

I knew that this was something I no longer had flashbacks of during intercourse. So I went from having a flashback at least once a week, a few times a week to never. I went from having moments that would activate or trigger me to not being activated or triggered. I, I knew I can't be the only one that used pleasure to reclaim and heal their body.

Then I began studying Tantra and using different techniques to heal and expand. Here's what I've gathered along my 14 plus years of study and experimenting, there are pillars I've used and continue to use to heal my body, mind, and soul as well as expand myself the first, the movement of the body, the next breath, and pranayama.

Number three is stillness and meditation. Number four. Number five is intuition and wisdom. I have found these five elements to make up the sacred sexual self. Let's take each of these one at a time. So first the movement of the body to get up and get out, move your body to music. Move your body in nature, exercise in yoga, playing on a playground.

Just move your body. It doesn't matter if you were in a wheelchair or if you are, able-bodied to move your body. And if you are not able to move your body yet. Visualize your body moving. Imagine the sensations, see it all happening. What this does is move the energy just as you could with moving the body, move every appendage of your body, that you are able to the next breath and pranayama.

Most of us only breathe 60 to 80% of our breath. We, we all tend to hold ours. Or not take full breaths. We take shallow breaths during breathwork can support the body healing itself. Not only because breathwork or pranayama help to move energy in the body, but when we are breathing fully, we are less likely to experience anxiety, depression, and dis ease within the body.

So disease is from a dis ease in the. And breathwork helps to find ease in the body, allows our energy to focus as well. Breathwork is extremely important for pleasure as well. Often people can hold their breath, which tenses the body, and you're less likely to experience a pleasure. In fact, you may end up holding onto emotions instead of using pleasure to heal those emotions.

The next is stillness and meditation. We can all receive the answers we need during stillness. Sit out nature brief and everything you need will come to you. Often, those that have experienced trauma have a challenging time relaxing and being still. It's tough to be with ourselves. Sometimes it's tough to just sit with our bodies, sit with our thoughts, let something just be the stillness.

This leads to looking inside yourself, instead of looking to others, for answers, looking outside oneself for validation, which leads to insecurity. It's natural for humans to have insecurities, right? It's also useful to know how to lessen them and stillness and meditation can really support receiving the answers as well.

Supporting you letting go of past programming. There are many different types of meditations. There's a meditation out there. Everyone. You just maybe have to dig in a little bit and test things out and try and see what works for you. What feels good? You'll know it pretty fast. I have found deep meditations can be especially supportive for reprogramming your brain.

After trauma. We are constantly getting downloads with information, everything. We come in contact with every movie, every show, every book you read, social media, huge downloads over there. Our brains are like computers. Meditation is almost like a software update, fixing any bugs, discrepancies, and even improving the program.

We all have some tapes and old programming that is floating around and we all have opportunities to reprogram and upgrade our software. I find meditation to be one of the best ways to do this. Before we get into pleasure. I want to share something about intuition and wisdom, which is another pillar.

Another element of healing connecting with your intuition. Your intuitive self is so very powerful. Loss of trust is one thing that happens when we've been through. Trust of ourselves, trust of other people. Trust of God. If we pay attention and honor our own intuition, it's the most powerful way to reclaim our trust.

We first begin by moving slowly and in small steps, just dipping our water in that intuition pool, noticing the little things your mind, your body, your soul are trying to tell you such as turning left at the end of the street or buying a ticket on a trip or what to eat for. The more you tune in pay attention and take action.

The stronger your trust muscle becomes and the stronger your intuition muscle, the more empowered you feel honoring your own wisdom leads to gaining confidence as well as feeling your power. So it's so very important to follow one's intuition. So lastly pleasure. What we came here for, right. Sexual trauma can cause emotional, mental, physical, spiritual scars.

The energetics of sexual trauma are not feeling safe, not trusting yourself, feeling weak, insecure, having to prove yourself. People-pleasing financial challenges, self-hatred, boundary issues, romantic challenges infertility issues with the genitals, such as not being able to Oregon. Oh, there's just pain and numbness.

And so much more pleasure consists of sexual and non-sexual practices, combining movement of the body breath, work, meditation, intuition, and following pleasure are incredible. And so transformational pleasure can be, non-sexual such as enjoying a piece of chocolate cake, bike ride, feeling the sun on your face, buying yourself fresh flowers every week can bring so much joy and pleasure.

Just saw that. Having a massage or having someone cut your hair and feeling that fresh. I mean, a fresh haircut really can change your whole perspective. Right? It does give you a whole new Meese and just feel so good, so much can bring us non-sexual. Pleasure can be sexual to placing your hands on your body.

Sending love to different parts of your body. This can be non-sexual, but then you also can add in the sexual beginning to massage or tickle or play in different ways using different toys to stimulate the body massage and the genitals, making sure that each stroke pole or glide to sunlight. Especially in the beginning, sending love to yourself is so very important.

We humans transform to what we tell ourselves to transform into our thoughts really do create the. There are a few experiments, one with monks, praying over muddy waters and changing the water to drink a bowl, water, absolute miracle, and the other with muscle testing, how we can affect someone else's body with our thoughts we can strengthen or weaken someone by our thoughts.

It's the same for true for our own bodies. Both of these experiences, give us important information. Not only can we heal ourselves, strengthen our bodies, but we can also support others doing so. Our mind is so powerful. Our thoughts are so powerful. So send yourself love. I can't stress enough how love can transform.

So each time I sent my body love and had hands on my body, I reclaimed a little bit more of myself. I allowed that self-hatred to fall away and the self-love to emerge then with different toys and instruments, I began the following pleasure as well as paying attention to what comes up emotionally and physically, for me, for instance, one pleasure session.

I was using a crystal wand and I came upon a pain point in my vaginal canal. My first instinct was to withdraw, but I knew that pain is inflammation, pain. Let's me. That's something's ready to be healed when it comes to healing. First, we feel nothing. There is numbness. Then as we use the tools, there is pain.

If we continue using the tools, the pain heals, and there is sensation. And if we continue using the tools after then sensation, there is a pleasure. So that process is numbness, pain sensation, and then pleasure. These are the steps of healing. Let's take something non-sexual for instance, if we are looking to numb ourselves with alcohol, we are hoping to numb our feelings and to have happy or feel-good feelings, number way the pain.

But do you notice how many people that drink have anger and security that pop up when they? This is the pain trying to heal, but the alcohol blocks it though because that's what alcohol does. It's an, it, it energetically blocks and that's part of the body and soul that has access to moving through that pain.

The alcohol blocks that the pain needs a sober mind. So how does one heal sexually? By pausing breath, work, meditation, stillness movement of the body, and listening to one intuition. Now you don't need to do all of that to heal. Sometimes it's just one thing. Sometimes it's all of it. That's true. You can take all that you know, and apply it when need be.

In this particular instance, I hit this pain spot. I paused and I began breathing and I began using my voice. And I asked my body, what am I feeling? Why am I feeling this pain? Then I took a moment to journal and I asked my body, what does it need right now? And then I listened and I followed it. The pain spot needed to be recognized to be acknowledged, to be seen.

So that's what I. I then sent love and breath and my voice to that pain spot and began to move the wand slowly and gently focusing on my breath and sending love soon, the pain lifted and I felt sensitive. Then I felt pleasure. And I had one of the most profound orgasms I've ever had in my entire life enough so that I thought, oh my gosh, I never need to be with a partner ever again.

He literally was like, oh my gosh, this is insanely amazing. And the best my body has ever felt. Um, So almost from there, my energy changed and I felt so much come into place. And personally, I haven't completely healed myself. There's always something to be healed, right? Like healing happens in layers and it's a whole life process like healing.

Doesn't like that, you just don't end up being fully healed, but you certainly can be fully integrated and you certainly can be in alignment. Your body, mind, soul are alive. So that you thrive and you're living such a wonderful life. There's always something that will come up, that's ready to be healed. And that's part of the process when something's ready, that we can heal and we don't need to heal all the time.

And so for instance, right, healing always happens in layers. Sometimes the idea of penetration really scares me even say with the crystal wand that I enjoy so much, right. It's, I've experienced so much pleasure with that crystal wand. I still have the fear. And there are times when I overcome the fear and I give my body time and I have those beautiful sexual experiences and the most powerful orgasms.

And my pleasure practice feels insanely amazing and mind-blowing and just fully connected to God and spirit. And this. And before I started doing this work, I wasn't really able to have orgasms vaginally. Now I can. And actually, through this, these pleasure practices and embodiment actually have discovered that there are so many more ways to experience pleasure and orgasms within the body.

More so than we talk about that's for another day today, we're talking about the pleasure and how pleasure can heal us, support us, and really unblock us and unlock us in so many different ways. There's so much to share in regards to how pleasure can heal after sexual drama. It is a path it's the path of the sexual sacred woman.

It's an oath. A woman makes to herself to have the best revenge possible, a life well-lived. I've created something special for you to begin your journey of the sacred sexual woman, the unlocked mystic, the sacred sexual woman. I would love for you to download your free copy today. I would love for you to do that.

And if there's someone, you know, would be. Please share this with them. I know they will. Thank you. We all deserve to feel embodiment, pleasure, and joy. I have also a free circle that will be coming up. Women's circle the Unbound mystic, and we will go over these practices even further and deeper. We'll love for you to join us.

There's a link below to join and that's at the beginning of April that we'll be hosting that circle. I am sending you so much love, and if you're feeling the love, I would love to ask you if. Please share this podcast with your community. It's super simple and takes less than a minute, but will help me create more content like this and help other people and spread that love.

Here's a fun, easy way to do it. Take a screenshot and tag me at @DorothyDStover. They don't over on Instagram. It's a win-win because I'll make sure to share you with my community as well. Plus when you tag me, I'll send you a free gift because I like to do my best for spreading the love around. Thank you for helping me do so until next time.Bye for now. .