questions & answers
You will be guided every step of the way into experimenting with new ways of being and revisiting old ways of being that you are wanting liberation from.
FAQs section 1
What happens at the beginning of a session?
In the beginning, I invite you to write and share an “I want” list and I read it back to you. From this, we discover and explore what new ways of being you are wanting to inhabit. We then, together co-create our therapeutic relationship agreement with structured short and long-term plans.
What happens in a session or retreat?
You will be guided into the areas of exploration you are seeking to experiment with. These include Wheel of Consent practice, Body Poem, bodywork, Body Focusing, meditations, movement and playing.
I support you in discovering what you need to feel safe enough to feel more, trust in your intuition and discover your strengths and inner resources so you can learn to listen to your inner guides.
I guide you step by step through a process that supports you to be liberated from the straight jacket of projection into the fullest receptivity with what’s true for you so you can overcome your fears and raise your confidence in making the changes that you are wanting to make in your life. listening to your body communications and practising asking for what you want practising intimate decision making.
How long does it take to overcome a loss of confidence?
The length of time of each session does not necessarily relate to the depth of what we explore, That is dependent on the depth of presence that we achieve which takes different lengths of time and approaches depending on what you need to feel safe enough to relax into.
Why do “the work” in retreats?
It is easy to inhabit new ways of being and experience epiphanies in one-off sessions but without the installation of these experiences, they can get lost in short-term memory.
This is the most long-term and cost-effective way of gaining these skills. If you want to “inhabit new ways of being” learning and practising relationship skills, it takes a much longer period of time to see these changes happen in weekly or monthly online sessions. A busy life can also create distractions in between sessions that can potentially delay progress.
The ways that online sessions are effective are if you are in a relationship where you can practice together in between sessions or are committed to practising on your own.
The other advantage of our spending this time together is that it simulates how it is to be in a real relationship as we relax together. I am someone to practice with in private where there is nothing to lose.
How does an overnight retreat help?
The overnight part is significantly important as internal dialogue referencing unvoiced communications often arise in sessions afterwards and can easily be integrated the following day which is unavailable when you go home straight afterwards.
Also, sleep has a very important integrative function and the session the following day can support wiring the fired-up new neural networks from the day before.
These retreats are designed with integration and installation to support the laying down of new neural networks in long-term memory that is useful for the future.
Do you work with virgins?
Yes, alongside supporting people experienced in intimate relationships where trusting in intimacy is being inhibited, I specialise in working with people who are inexperienced or virgins wanting to gain confidence and experience and to learn to trust in intimacy for the first time.
There are many times when confidence can be lost in intimacy and we are not meant to figure things out on our own either in a relationship or when we are on our own.
When aspects of the self that are seeking expression and fulfilment are not acknowledged, they can slip in under the radar in unclear relationship agreements and tend to show up as upset when they are not met. This is an opportunity to learn more about what you actually want and overcome the shame that keeps these wants in hiding.
What is Somatic Sexology?
SOMATIC SEXOLOGY is the meeting of somatics, which relates to the sensate body, with sexology, which relates to the scientific study of human sexuality.
- a merging of practices from ancient wisdom teachings from Africa, India and Asia, with leading-edge research in affective relational neuroscience and psychology.
Somatic Sex Education™ supports new neural pathways firing, in the service of exploring new ways of being, and wiring them through practice.
One of the somatic realms that Somatic Sex Educators introduce to our students is a state of arousal that is free of fantasy, unfinished emotional business, religious dogma, cultural caveats and habitual sexual behaviours. In this meditative state, an individual becomes aware of the body as a source of wisdom and freedom.
Expansions of consciousness involve us humans feeling more of our creative and intuitive selves as part of nature's ecosystems and overcoming our fears of losing our lonely belonging in the hologram.
The Institute for Relational Harmony Studies is contributing to the collective wave of embodiment practitioners in service to opening receptivity with radical acceptance as an antidote to the projections of separation.
I am the director of this training in Somatic Sexology that is recognised by the International Association of Certified Sexological Bodyworkers (ACSB) In Collaboration with the School of Somatic Sexology, the Australian Institute of Somatic Sexology & the Canadian Somatic Sex Educators Association.
FAQs section 2
Should I come to see you alone or with my partner?
I support you in co-creating new authentic relationship agreements.
You may want to experiment with new versions of yourself in private and then come home to the ones you love and who love you with new versions of yourself and enough self-acceptance to support you in co-creating new relationship agreements together.
or You may want to explore updating versions of yourself with your beloved and co-creating new relationship agreements so you are on the same page each step of the way together.
Do you practice Tantra?
Yes, I facilitate tantric practices with many years of hindsight in relation to understanding neurobiology in relation to consent, trauma and the right use of power.
You might be curious and excited to expand and discover new realms in altered states of consciousness and want to explore how to open your senses through Tantric practices.
Opening the senses can facilitate trance-like timeless states with the Default Mode Network in the brain being released from self-referential identity belonging maintenance.
When this happens boundaries of self, other and the universe are relaxed and aspects of the self previously inhibited can emerge into awareness offering what are called somatic openings.
What are Somatic Openings"?
Somatic openings are when epiphanies update versions of ourselves with new insights or “awakenings” which we then have the responsibility of taking care of.
My hindsight has taught me to facilitate step-by-step tantra within the framework of the Wheel of Consent to limit experiences from being overwhelming which is not useful. This way, we can be confident with these encounters knowing that there are islands of choice in between the dives into opening the senses.
How do I go back into my life if I discover truths about myself that my loved ones don’t know about?
We have a duty of care to the ones we love who may be attached to the old versions of ourselves we are updating as these influence our relationship agreements. As part of “aftercare,” I support you with integrating new ways of being into your current life and learning how to co-create new more congruent relationship agreements
What kinds of areas do you help couples with?
You might be avoiding addressing loneliness with your partner in relation to your sexual or intimacy needs and want to find a way back into connection and bravely speak the unspeakable.
An opportunity to take time away from home and work life without distractions to expand your repertoire and learn more about touch; enhancing intimacy and sensation.
You may be longing to relax from the tensions and habits that most long-term relationships experience
You might be experiencing what are called “troublesome turn-ons” that feel unspeakable with your partner which is driving you to look elsewhere but you wish you could bring them back into your relationship with acceptance.
One or both of you might be experiencing a loss of libido or mismatched desires and needs and want to know how to come together and rekindle eros with each other.
What is a consultation session?
Consultations are via Zoom or telephone and an hour in length where I listen to what you are wanting to welcome into your life and what you are curious to explore and what you are wanting to be free from. We then create possible ways forward together.
What areas do you explore?
Guidance through somatic practices and Body Poems with updating versions of yourself with radical acceptance and overcoming inhibitions and shyness. learning to trust receptivity and spontaneity and overcoming self-referencing inner dialogue that inhibits self-expression and body confidence with limiting beliefs.
What do you teach about pleasure?
Learning the Wheel of Consent practices for inhabiting the direct routes to pleasure through touch. Learning what brings you pleasure and about your pleasure with another’s pleasure. Discovering your erotic hidden drivers, the anatomy of arousal and the core erotic themes in your life. Pleasure might be the sensual erotic closeness of intimacy or the forbidden edges of exiled aspects of self-expression or adventure. These can be explored in role-play practice inhabiting the indirect routes to pleasure. Eros can be understood to be in service to integrating all aspects of nature.
Can you help me with painful sex?
You may be wanting to overcome physical or emotional pain in relation to self-pleasure or in intimacy with another.
In my hindsight experience, this is often from adapting ourselves which can lead to commodifying our bodies. This easily happens when belonging needs override authenticity which eventually results in stress, inflammation and pain.
I facilitate a retuning into your body and mind to listen to where it hurts and repair and heal the pain of it.
From deep listening to ourselves, we can learn to navigate intimacy decisions with care without it hurting again and open the buds of pleasure and desire that are somatically led.
All expressed desires and when they are out in the open, are liberated from the pressure of keeping them hidden. This enables you to practise creating authentic “true to yourself” clear relationship agreements in private with me to gain confidence to take home with you.
What is Body Poem?
A Body Poem session lasts anything between 15 minutes and 1 hour and can also be used as part of longer sessions as the framework for listening and integrating the communications from a person’s story or body.
It unfolds as a guided meditation where clients are invited to notice what sensations are alive in their bodies and what is attracting their attention through the senses in the environment.
The structure of Body Poem is used to bring these emerging sensations into expression. The intimate revelations shared form the basis of a spontaneous poem, transcribed to create an original piece of art that embodies the witnessed experience.
Through guided meditation, the client is invited to notice what sensations are alive in their body.
The structure of Body Poem is used to bring these emerging sensations into expression. The intimate revelations shared form the basis of a spontaneous poem.
Body Poem provides a safe container for the individual’s expression and bodily sensations that are witnessed and reflected back free of assessment or interpretation.
Body Poem is a revolutionary tool illuminating unknown and unspoken parts of the self from spontaneously emerging poetry, honouring and trusting the self-organizing intelligence inherent in every human being.
What is Embodiment?
Our ability to come into a relationship with ourselves requires finding ways of connecting to, feeling and expressing what is happening inside our body. The embodiment can be understood to be this symbolic relationship with our feeling states, senses and how we create meaning from these experiences.
Discovering, and gaining access to symbols and language can help us self-reflect, communicate and integrate the visceral responses from our bodies and embody these.
This work guides us into an exploration of embodied states, enhancing our capacity to be intimate with ourselves and with each other. This supports co-creating relationship agreements with conscious awareness and integrity.
When we are touched or we touch another, we are touching somatic memory channels from this lifetime and lifetimes that have gone before us.
- generations of unintegrated aspects of humanity emerge out of the soup of the collective conscious to be witnessed and accepted
There are parts of you that are kind and want you to overcome all that's in the way of your relaxation, pleasure, expansion, learning, sexual expression and naturalness.
What is the Wheel of Consent?
“The Wheel of Consent is a model of consent based on, but not requiring, exchanges of touch. The Wheel notes the distinction between the ‘doing’ aspect of the touch dynamic — who is doing — and the ‘gift’ aspect — who it is for.” - Betty Martin
Touching and being touched awakens complex biofeedback loops between the sensory receptors of your hands with the part of the body that is being touched. When we are being touched, we are touching memories and also when touching, we are awakening memories of where our curiosity might have been interrupted. In repeating these simple exercises, we are coming home attending to aspects of ourselves that need care and attention and learning to trust our spontaneity and confidence with attuned curiosity.
As well as touching and being touched soothing and restoring emotional equilibrium offering somatic messages of self-directed care and repair from times we have felt alone and done to or from the isolation of no touch, there are possibilities for curiosity and pleasure that is both in the touching AND in the being touched.
“For example, you may be touching another person for their enjoyment, or you may be touching them for your own enjoyment.
Both of those dynamics are welcome and needed in different situations, and once the distinction is clear, the entire touch dynamic becomes clear, which brings ease, confidence, self-responsibility and freedom to the interaction.” - Betty Martin
Dr Betty Martin has informed the foundations of my practice with her profound and simple teachings that support an easy safe step by step route into embodiment and living a consensual life by opening the direct routes to pleasure. These are called direct routes to pleasure and intimacy as they are engaging through the senses rather than purely through imagination associations.
I am a certified Wheel of Consent Practitioner with many years of practice applying the dynamics of the wheel in thousands of hours of clinical practice and participated and assisted in many “Like a Pro” training for practitioners learning these essential skills of how to serve without taking.
I currently teach the Wheel of Consent as part of the Institute for Relational Harmony Studies Sexological Bodywork and Somatic Sex Educators professional practitioner training.
What is Body Mapping?
What we feel in each part of our body is in relation to a biofeedback loop.
Sometimes we have an inaccurate map of our bodies in our brains which makes it impossible to know where and when to touch. Imagine if you never touched or looked at yourself;- you would not have ANY maps to guide you. This means that you would NOT be in consent in intimacy with yourself or with another. It would be the blind leading the blind!
Body mapping offers an opportunity to discover the maps of your body integrating the subjective and objective sense of self and identity with understanding and healing the parts of you that went underground that become silent drivers in your life. This can release buried feeling states repressed and held in the body tissue.
When we are touched or touching another, we are touching memories.
The brain maps the body from the outside in and from the inside out in different neural networks in the brain. Body mapping engages the circuitry of the internal visceral landscapes of the body and the external landscapes of the body through the senses and sensations in a dance between the felt senses and the mind’s categorisations. Most of us have at least a sketch available but that leads to hit-and-miss intimacy and body mapping literally gives us more detailed maps to navigate intimate territories with.
'It's over with before I've felt it”
This is a very common problem and you’ve come to the right place to support you in overcoming this often embarrassing and disappointing experience. I do not just teach pelvic floor control of ejaculation which is just another control route to what is a deeper body motivation. I teach re-firing new neural pathways roots between the sex and heart to increase the body’s capacity to feel strong feelings and states of pleasure and ecstasy without it blowing a fuse.
There can be many reasons why a person’s body takes them out of the feeling before they've experienced enough of the pleasure in the experience. One reason can be that the body hasn't accessed the para-sympathetic nervous system adequately to actually have the capacity to feel. This is common with people living busy lives where there are high demands or stress with the achievement of goals.
Another common reason is that your body might be used to masturbating quickly in private from a young age and the same neural pathways are established when you want to be close to another witnessing your pleasure. It’s as simple as firing up new routes to achieve this capacity to overcome the shame inhibitors that many adolescents develop that stop being useful when in a relationship.
Another reason can be developmental changes in your life and body which require you to re-discover new connections inside of you from the ones that have stopped working.
Another reason may be fears that have no specific name silently interrupting surrender into pleasure and intimacy. I support you in easily uncovering these into increasing your confidence and kindness with yourself so relaxation and intimacy become easy and pleasurable.
I guide you with easy for you step-by-step guidance that supports your body to have an increased capacity for pleasure and feeling.
What is Scar Tissue Remediation?
Scar tissue remediation was developed by Ellen Heed and is taught in professional Sexological Bodywork training for healing the scars of healed over wounds from operations or accidents where function has been impaired.
We all carry scars, some small, some big, and very few of us get away without any injuries in our lifetimes. They are part of our vintage and require radical acceptance like any wounds emotional or physical that have impacted our body.
Healing the contracted tissue of scars with Body Poem coaching can literally transform physical scars and liberate the contracted, restricted skin and flesh increasing sensitivity with feelings flowing again.
Scars from injuries can affect body image, causing emotional or physical pain and limiting function eg, vulva scaring from childbirth, penis scaring from circumcision, scaring from prostrate operations, mastectomy scars, caesarian section scars, gender reassignment scars etc.
When the body has been impacted, the body’s defence mechanisms activate fibroblasts to knit the wound rapidly with collagen which can carry on attracting this repair mechanism causing inflammation over time and affecting other parts of the body in a chain reaction leading to what is sometimes called referred pain.
Engaging in focused touch with specific massage techniques using organic castor oil can deepen your receptivity to sensation. Scar tissue remediation is first demonstrated by the practitioner and then you as a recipient take your wounds into your own hands to heal what can be reached easily in complex biofeedback loops between the sensory receptors of your hands and the part of the body you are touching. The remembered physical impact that the injury caused can be liberated, relieving emotional and physical pain from being held in the scar tissue. Healing scars is like taking your heart into your hands and giving the message to your immune system that care has been taken and the body can restore equilibrium and relax again.