“Because you could not find joy, you settled for pleasure. Pleasure is not joy.” -Sadhguru
Let’s be grown about it. There’s nothing casual about sex, and it’s good to see more and more young people making YouTube videos and content questioning our hypersexual societal programming. These trends that examine the positive effects of temporary periods of celibacy and abstinence for non-religious reasons get me (dare I say) excited—even if they ebb and flow.
Now, I’m no Puritan. Hell, my chosen name is that of an ancient sex goddess. But I’ve been through the ringer enough to have some of the typical scars shared by those who have barreled into love and lust too soon and too often.
That’s not to say that I’m among the most experienced. I got married straight out of college and never did lots of dating. During my teen years, I was deeply immersed in Southern fundamentalist Christian thought and a deep vow of abstinence.
After deconverting from organized religion, I explored a bit. It didn’t take me long to realize that my natural disposition is toward moderation and that in all those years of abstinence, I didn’t miss much.
It took a few bumps on the head to realize that my innate sexual sobriety could be likened to a superpower. We live in a world where so many are kept on a tight leash by their sexual urges and constantly tossed by the waves of energetic overload that result.
“Everything is energy and that's all there is to it.”
How many even stop to ask what the effects could be of repeatedly mixing their energies with others?
Shit, lots of people don’t even know their ongoing STI statuses. Even more aren’t bathing to a sufficient degree. You wouldn’t believe how many people complain about their partner’s hygiene!
I once sat in a church service where the pastor went on for several minutes scolding grown men in the audience, telling them, “Wash yo’ body!!” Apparently, he had sat through too many marriage counseling sessions where this was a real concern.
SMDH. If people can’t be expected to stay on top of basic physical hygiene or fundamental sexual health protocol, you can be damn sure their spiritual hygiene is being neglected, too.
They say energy is neither created nor destroyed. It transfers. I believe we affect and are affected by the people we choose to be intimate with on a physical, emotional, and spiritual/energetic level. Now, I won’t bore you with the use of words like “empath” and “narcissist”. We’re hearing enough about those dynamics already—and we should be.
But I grew up spiritual, my predominant heritage is from those ancient people who acknowledged and didn’t underestimate the spirit realm. I don’t either, so in the JoyWell, we’re here for the woo-woo.
I’m excited because this trend is the kind of shit that changes the DNA. It’s human evolution in real time. It creates positive lifestyle shifts that affect generations going forward. Many lives will be positively and permanently impacted from these ripples of higher thought. It means that a few more people will be learning how to slow down and savor the flavor of love in order to make better choices and create better relationships.
How many of you can relate to having a heightened awareness of ramped up emotions, unexplained dreams, memories or thoughts after being intimate with someone?
My experience has been that when I become intimate—or simply develop a strong platonic bond with someone—I begin to feel and embody some of their feelings and thoughts. I begin to sense their moods when we’re not together. I sense some of their thoughts and periods of stress, like when they’re in danger. If their personality is a calm one, I’m particularly at ease after sex. If they’re in turmoil, I feel that continuously.
This is probably happening to many of you, but people often aren’t self-aware enough to track this very normal phenomenon. Start paying attention, and you might be able to relate better to what I’m saying.
I’ve had partners whose vampiric nature was so palpable that I felt like I was being fed on whenever they laid a hand on me. I could feel their energetic intent to feed. Other partners that I’ve experienced may have been a little more loving, affectionate, and present, but even one or two of them left behind a negative residual impact if something in their lives and their spirits was generally unstable.
In fact, it was after the most seemingly loving encounters that I experienced the greatest spiritual backlash, because those individuals showed clear signs of toxicity and turmoil in the other areas of their lives, and we were deeply enmeshed because of our genuine connection.
Our demons played well together.
The codependency out here is real, and even if one person has no intention of draining another of their vital energy, it can happen when one person is relatively healthy in spirit and the other is deficient. That’s how parasitism works, and that’s why it’s so important to take the journey of healing. You’ll never be perfect, but you can reach a level of living where you can stop feeding on others and thrive on your own inner strength and resources.
“When you start celebrating your limitations, you cannot be free…” - Sadhguru
All you have to do is spend a little time in these streets, watching, TV, or scrolling through social media, and you’ll be pelted with the messaging of “sexual freedom”. The idea is that a whole lot of random fucking is a source of liberation. Yet, anything that’s allowed to run amuck in your life will cause the exact opposite – bondage.
What is freedom? It’s having the autonomy to take care of yourself and create the life you want, right? This requires a balance of responsibility. Otherwise, someone else will always get stuck cleaning up the messes of us “free spirits” when we refuse to take responsibility ourselves.
Sex is one of the most powerful exchanges of energy that people share, and I don’t want to be one of those spirits freely dumping my energetic debris on another human being. I certainly don’t want to be the dumping ground.
Ah! Now I see why the bible says to, “Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers.”
For the decidedly nonreligious, that can translate to,
“Don’t get tied up with someone whose lifestyle and values don’t align with yours.”
It’s easier said than done. Still, no matter how intoxicating the chemistry may be, the goal is growth. Our mates are our mirrors. The chemistry of love and lust are catalysts that should propel us into facing the issues that our partners reflect back to us. They can be catalysts for our mental and spiritual evolution. Even if opposites attract, it is for the lessons they bring, but I’ve learned that I need baseline compatibility for long-term stability.
You probably do, too, if you don’t want to deal with the fallout of Sexually-Transmitted Insanity and having to constantly exorcise energy that you don’t want or need.
Now, this is not an argument for monogamy, long-term chastity, or the marital traditions of old. It also isn’t a proclamation that everyone should grab hold of the new age fantasy of soulmates and twin flames, either.
I personally do not believe in the idea of one soulmate. I think we attract whoever we need at a given time for a particular set of life lessons. Once we gain mastery, we either move out of people’s lives and make room for the next person they need for the next set of lessons, or we evolve and grow together… til destiny do us part.
There are people out there who have found great satisfaction and lasting, stable love in non-monogamous relationship structures. However, in order for those to work well, I believe people have to be operating on a high energetic frequency. To make this sound less woo-woo, I also like to refer to “high frequency” as High Level Humanity – embodying healthy, progressive thought processes, and a predominant reliance on critical thinking balanced with emotional intelligence rather than base urges.
When you’re energetically sick and scattered, you’ll surround yourself with people who are, whether you have one partner or ten. The healthier you become, the healthier the people in your orbit will be.
Once a critical mass of us finally evolves to a point that we understand this, maybe 80% of women can stop faking orgasms. With better energetic exchange, better sex will inevitably result, not to mention healthier love connections!
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