Episode 11 - Ecstatic Intimacy through Sexual Healing with Dr. Deborah Anapol, sexuality & relationship coach, and author “The Seven Natural Laws of Love”

Ecstatic Intimacy through Sexual Healing with Dr. Deborah Anapol, sexuality & relationship coach, and author "The Seven Natural Laws of Love"

Announcer:  This program is intended for mature audiences only.

[Music]

Francesca Gentille:  Welcome to Sex: Tantra and Kama Sutra.  Bringing you the soul of sex.  I am your host Francesca Gentille and with me today is Dr. Deborah Anapol.
Deborah Anapol: Even the same woman, from one day to another, is going to be different and a lot of men, and some women, feel much more secure when they have a list of things - if I do X, Y, and Z, I am going to get the result I want.  We keep ourselves from feeling deeply by making our breath more shallow and this has the affect, perhaps, of making the emotional or physical pain less, but it also has the affect of making our pleasure less.  The biggest piece is really to get in the habit of inviting in whatever is there and communicating about it in the moment.

Francesca Gentille:  She is the author of the 7 Natural Laws of Love.  She is a clinical psychologist who coaches in person and by-phone in relation and human sexuality.  And she is a beautiful being who has workshops in the big island of Hawaii for women, for couples, and for singles.  Welcome, Deborah.

Deborah Anapol:  Thank you, Francesca.

Francesca Gentille:  Deborah, I was looking - taking a peek on your website, which is www.7lawsoflove.com, and I saw a quote you wrote which I thought was so beautiful.  It says, "As we search for love in our lives most of us often feel we are on a journey without a compass or even worse a faulty map, we're programmed from early childhood experiences with scores of assumptions about love.  We're taught male and female roles and ways of seeing ourselves that may lead to separation, fear, and mistrust.  These many fallacies, misconceptions, lead us to associate love with disappointment and pain."  That is such a powerful quote and it leads us to today's topic which is about healing.  About how we use these beautiful natural laws, the Tantra Principles, to feel in-love.  Could you speak a little bit about some of these misconceptions and some of these woundings that we care into our relationships?

Deborah Anapol:  Well, you could that there is a epidemic of sexual wounding in our culture and while the most dramatic has to do with sexual molestation in childhood or rape in adulthood and affects maybe a third of women and 20% of men.  So that is big right there.  But, even the majority of people who have not experienced this kind of extreme violation are wounded through medical interventions.  Circumcisions in men can create a lot of genital [inaudible].  We are also wounded through the cultural attitudes toward sexuality, through being shamed for even wanting to be sexual, for touching ourselves to children, for perhaps masturbating within marriage or other relationships.  We're wounded by the, what I call the "war between the sexes", the misunderstanding and lack of empathy that men and women often have for each other.

Francesca Gentille:  Let me just ask you a question about this.  This, you know - I am so glad you are talking about this because I think it is in some ways a shock to me to hear about it and I am imagining it is a shock for some our listeners who really recognize it is such, like you said, it is an epidemic.  It is such a huge issue of these either the shaming we got from our parents or the culture or literally sometimes the physical, emotional, or sexual abuse.  You were saying something about empathy.  What - as a way to that we don't often have it, in a way to potentially bring some healing.  What happens with empathy and what is empathy and how can it help us?

Deborah Anapol:  Well, basically you could say that empathy is the capacity to feel what another is feeling.  Spiritual teachers throughout the ages have told us that we really are all one being.  We really are interconnected energetically on many levels that we may not be aware of.  So empathy is one of these pathways to feel what the other is feeling.  In other words, to be willing to acknowledge that connection.  That we have that capacity, that we are connected so deeply.  That if we allow ourselves to - is not that we need to learn how or cultivate the skill.  It is more that we spend a lot of energy trying not to feel what the other is feeling.  Once that is felt, then instantly there is greater understanding.  It is like - Oh!, that's why he or she did this or that.  It wasn't as I thought, it wasn't to do with me, it was to do with their own wounding.

Francesca Gentille:  So an example could be - let's do an example from the male perspective or the female perspective.  Let's start from the male perspective.  So here is the guy who is coming forward to, you know, really out of love and attraction, to want to have sex with his beloved.  She is like - "No!"  "Don't touch me!"  or "You are not doing it right!" or  "I am not in the mood!"  How can empathy work for him in this moment?  What can he do with one of the natural laws to bring some healing into that moment?

Deborah Anapol:  Well, so many of the laws would come into affect here, but I think the main thing for that man to realize is not to take it personally.  His beloved's lack of interest doesn't mean that, doesn't necessarily mean that, she doesn't love him or doesn't desire him.  More likely she's got a lot going on inside that she is afraid to vulnerablely share with him.  The love truth tells us that the more you are willing to speak what you are feeling and to self-disclose the more love will grow.  Yet many women have experienced men, I would say being insensitive to their sexual needs.  Either, perhaps as children being inappropriately being sexual with them, or perhaps as adults, men who basically only wanted to be concerned with their own pleasure and not the women's pleasure, so consequently sex maybe was not a pleasurable experience for her.  There could be many other things going on the relationship level.

Francesca Gentille:  So for our really great guys who are listening to this.  The thing to start with is to just bring in that sense of compassion that their beloved is coming with some really tender places.  It's not about them.  It's really something that she is carrying that's blocking her ability to be intimate in many cases with anybody.  He can become a sexual healer.  We will be talking about that a little bit more after a break and a word from our sponsors, as well as talking to women about what they can do to bring more healing into a moment, more healing into their sexuality when we come back with Dr. Deborah Anapol.

(Commerical Break)

Francesca Gentille:  Welcome back to Sex: Tantra and Kama Sutra bringing you the soul of sex.  We're back with Dr. Deborah Anapol, clinical psychologist, author of the "7 Natural Laws of Love" and we are talking about being the sexual healer in relationships and how do we really contribute to that as a male perspective or a female perspective.  In a moment we are going to give men some more tips on how to the sexual healer, the sage of love they have always wanted to be.  But we want to get back right now to our women who are listening and for women, let's have a scenario - let me think about it.  How about - it is very common for women when they are with their beloved, a couple of things could happen.  Either their saint could - "Stop, do it like this!" or "That's not working!" and maybe their beloved could, their mate, could get very angry and say, "Oh, you are always telling me what to do" or "I never can please you".  Or their guy is saying "Are you in the mood?"  And she is not in the mood at that moment.  She is not feeling connected or aroused.  What are some ways - she can tell that he is very sad, very despondent, very angry even when she says she is not in the mood right now or that she wants something to be different - how can she bring some sexual healing into the relationship?

Deborah Anapol:  Well these two different scenarios, I think you are right, are very common.  One of the difficulties, again, that men tend to have through their conditioning is this idea that they need to know everything and if they don't they're not good enough or there is something wrong with them.  So if women want to ask for something it is important to, first of all, get permission ahead of time, perhaps in a conversation.

Francesca Gentille:  What does that mean - to get permission ahead of time?  Could you give me an example of that?

Deborah Anapol:  Yeah.  So let's say they are not in a love-making situation at the moment.  They are not - they are planning to make love later on.  She could say, "you know I've really been looking forward to our sexual connection and there are some things - I wonder if it would be OK with you if as we begin or as we are in the middle of it, if I became aware of some things that would make it even more pleasurable, would you be open to hearing them?"  Now if he says no, then maybe she needs to get another partner.  If he says yes, he's giving permission in advance.  He has been giving a heads-up, she may make some requests.  Then when it becomes time to make some requests, it can be done in a way that is either playful or that makes it very clear that she appreciates what he is already doing and this would make it even better for her.

Francesca Gentille:  Oh, what does that sound like?

Deborah Anapol:  Well, perhaps it would be - "I love the way your touch feels, would it be OK if I put your hand over here or "I love the way your touch feels on my leg, would you be willing to touch my breast?"  Or, "you're going a little fast for me, could we slow down?"  "I know you are eager to go deeper as I am and I think I can get there faster if we go slower."

Francesca Gentille:  I love that.  Coming from a more positive perspective and supporting the person.  I think we all want to know that we are loved and wanted.  We all want that.  If we say to our lovers - I love you and I love to be connected with you and could we try it like this?  One of my favorite sayings is, "Would you be willing to experiment with me to help me discover my own pleasure?"  It sounds like a very similar thing, that sense of working together to create something.  There is not the same pressure.  And for any of our men listening, I am sure Deborah and I want to invite you to let go.  You need to know in advance the manual that you never got on how to please a woman.  Each woman is her own divine instrument, her own violin, her own cello and each one will be unique.  Each moment is unique.

Deborah Anapol:  That's so true and even the same woman from one day to another is going to be different.  A lot of men, and some women, feel much more secure when they have a list of things - if I do X, Y, and Z, I will get the result I want.  The reality is each moment is different.  One day X, Y, and Z may have been perfect, but today it is not.  There is really an opportunity for men to let go of having to know and be willing to intutively either tune in the moment or get direction in the moment, which makes it completely different from yesterday's direction.

Francesca Gentille:  So tell me a little bit more.  There can be a hesitancy for some of us to get directions.  But what becomes possible?  What opens up when we ask our beloved - "Do you like it like this?" or "Would you like it" - I find that actually doing it, trying it, then asking them, "Would you like it a little slower, faster?"  What happens then?

Deborah Anapol:  Well for one thing, what happens is that the woman begins to trust that the man really cares about what she is feeling and that the man really cares about her experience and her pleasure.  This is one of the deepest wounds for many women.  Definitely women who have an abuse background, but even for women who don't because the patriarchal culture has placed so much more emphasis on men's sexual satisfaction than women's sexual satisfaction.  For women to be eager and equally desirous of sex as men are, women need to be able to trust that it is not just for him, it is for me.

Francesca Gentille:  There is a very subtle thing in there too that men don't always realize.  Some of our men are thinking - it is all for her.  I'm always doing her, or pleasing her, or trying to get her off.  It's really for her and they don't realize that very subtle, sometimes it can still be for our own ego.  Where I am trying to please someone or get them off or get them to have an orgasm because that's going to have me feel good about myself.  Our lover still feels that more self-oriented reason versus that I'm really here just to be here for you, whether that means not touching you.  Whether that means being still in intercourse, not moving.  Whether that means a light touch or a heavy touch.  I think that is what you are talking about.  Really, just totally focusing on the other person in that moment without attachment or ego.  Is that what you are saying?

Deborah Anapol:  Exactly.  Yeah, because women are very sensitive beings and I know some men are too.  I can tell the difference.  If someone is touching me for the purpose of causing an orgasm then I am feeling that as a manipulation and I don't respond.

Francesca Gentille:  Know this is some tricky stuff.  I want to get back to it more because I think we are getting really to some of the heart of how we bring sexual healing to another person, male or female, who has that lack of trust that another person really sees them, cares about them, and that their own desires truly matter.  So I want to - this is, juicy.  I want to come back with more of this after the break and a word from our sponsors.  Thank you so much Deborah.

(Commercial Break)

Francesca Gentille:  Welcome back to Sex: Tantra and Kama Sutra bringing you the soul of sex.  Today I am honored to have with us Dr. Deborah Anapol who is a coach in-person and on the phone with relationships and sexuality and who provides beautiful workshops for singles, couples, and women only in Hawaii.  We are talking about sexual healing and we were just talking about some of the - releasing the ego and attachment and I am guessing that some of our men and some of women are confused because after the '60s, after the sexual revolution, there was this sense of "we want to have sex" and women are supposed to have lots orgasms and so men are supposed to give them to her.  Now it's almost seems like we are saying now don't give her orgasms or for women we are saying they don't have to have orgasms, but that's not what we are saying, right.  We're still celebrating joy, pleasure, and orgasms.  We're saying something a little bit different.  What is that we are saying about this place of healing?

Deborah Anapol:   Well, as you said, it really is very subtle.  It especially applies to partners acting as healers for each other and I would say that's the biggest difference between what we can say is sexual healing and what is ordinary sex.  That has to do with the willingness to not have an agenda about what is supposed to happen.  To be willing to hold space.  To be willing to just invite whatever happens to come into the space, to come in.  So if an orgasm wants to come in.  That's absolutely great.  No problem with that.  But I have worked with many, many women who have sexual abuse backgrounds who avoid having sex because they're afraid that in that deep, intimate sexual connection their going to be flashing back to their past experiences of abuse or they may have grief come up.  They may have pain, anger, tears and they feel that it's not OK to bring their authentic self and experience into the sexual connection with their lover.  So as a result, they try to avoid sex or they try to be there just having "happy" sex and cut-off the part of them that is having these emotions.  This is probably what they did originally in the experience that wounded them.  It's making the wound deeper.  So I realized that it's difficult to show for a sexual experience, actually any experience, without an agenda, without a picture of what it's supposed to be like.  Yet it's only through releasing that attachment.  You can have a fantasy, you can have a suggestion or an idea of what you would like, but if that's not how things are going - the law of truth says you need to be authentic.  You need to move with what's happening and that is a very healing experience for both parties that brings them closer and perhaps opens the door up for a truly mind-blowing experience.

Francesca Gentille:  You know, as I am listening to this I am trying to think of - what is an example in day-to-day life for people because there are some sports and some work environments where they say "keep your eye on the prize".  Keep what you are going for and that's going to bring it in, but this a case where I'm thinking it is much more like the sports, maybe tennis, maybe even football, where you really need to be right there in the moment.  You need to be in that zone, where you are responding moment to moment to the curve of the ball or where, in a sense, is the flow of field happening as everyone is starting to move in one direction, is there an opening over here?  I think that some of our people that are in sports or in certain kinds - some people who dance - that there is a sense of being right there in the moment and knowing, right in the moment, not ahead of the moment and not behind the moment, what the next move is?  That's the kind of zone we are talking about here, right?

Deborah Anapol:  Exactly.  Exactly.  I surfing is the quintessential “catch the wave and ride it" sport, but as you are saying, the Zen of tennis and golf and archery and all of these experiences that are actually what they all have in common is that, they are a way to connect with the larger self.  To get out of the personal ego that always can find fault no matter what is going on.  It is never satisfied and it's really incapable of deep communion with another because of these fears.

Francesca Gentille:  That's the inner critic.  The thing we call performance anxiety.  Where it's just running of in the mind going, "I'm not OK, there not OK."  "I'm not OK, there not OK."  That's what you are talking about, right, when you are saying let that go.

[Laughter]

Deborah Anapol:  Exactly.

Francesca Gentille:  Let it go.

[Laughter]

Deborah Anapol:  Leave that one at the bedroom door.  You can pick it up later.

[Laughter]

Francesca Gentille:  For those people who are listening who maybe are aware that their - sometimes we know intuitively that someone in our lives has had some suffering in their background.  Sometimes we know specifically.  We've heard about their childhood or we have heard about their teenage years.  We know the kind of suffering they carry.  What could be a first step, now that they are listening to this show, male or female, that they might want to.  Let's start first - if you're the one, the person who is listening, they're the one that has this kind of background.  They know that they have had this kind of wounding in their past and now their thinking if there is a way to work with my partner to help me.  What's a tip you can give people who are carrying some of this in their heart, body, mind, and spirit?

Deborah Anapol:  Well, the first step is to, again, talk to your partner.  Explain to them, if you haven't already, what you have experienced and how you realize it is affecting you now.  Ask if they would be available to help you heal this?  That's the first step.

Francesca Gentille:  A courageous one, the greatest courage there is to be vulnerable.

Deborah Anapol:  Right.

Francesca Gentille: Yep.

Deborah Anapol:  Right.

Francesca Gentille:  And then?

Deborah Anapol:  After that, the biggest piece is to really get in the habit of inviting in whatever is there and communicating about it in the moment.  Even if it doesn’t look the way you think that your sexual experience is supposed to look, this can be very healing.  Now, there are many systems that work in very specific ways to heal sexual wounds.  Not even just exclusively sexual wounds, but wounding to our connection with our own inner male and inner female because as long as that inner relationship is distressed the outer one is going to be distressed.  There are so many messages, verbal and non-verbal, we get from our parents and other adults as we are growing up that we carry with us into our present day sexual relationships.  We may not even be aware of this.  So, essentially what we want to do is program, reprogram, both body and mind with positive, healing connecting thoughts and allow those separating ones to fall away.  If your partner doesn't really have an idea about how to do this, one thing you can do is to bring in a coach to work with both of you and this is something that I just love doing.  I have done it over the phone, as well as in-person and essentially supporting partners to be healers for each other.

Francesca Gentille:   That sounds beautiful and before our show completes, I just want to have a moment to give a tip to people who might be listening who know that their partner is someone who carries some of this and they haven't know what to do in the past.  We know that they could get a coach and work with someone over the phone or in-person to really support them being healers.  They could definitely let go of that attachment to a particular whim and be very present in the moment.  What is something else, one key tip that you would invite them to start this process with their beloved?

Deborah Anapol:  Well, you of the simplest and easiest ways to begin is to work with breaths.  We keep ourselves from feeling deeply by keeping our breaths more shallow.  This has the affect, perhaps, of making the physical or emotional pain less, but it also has the affect of making our pleasure less.  So one thing partners can do is to take turns sitting with each other, usually with one person lying down and the other sitting.  Have one hand on the center of the chest, the heart center, and one hand over the pubic bone.  To just have the loving touch of a partner helping to reconnect the heart and the genitals as we breathe deeply and be willing to feel what's there.  So, it sounds very simple and it is and it is tremendously powerful.

Francesca Gentille:  For those of us who are listening right now, I invite us to - if you are private you can even do it ourselves.  Put one hand over the center of your chest and one hand over own pubic bone area and just imagine there is a connection there and breath and let yourself relax the belly.  Feel a little bit of that and start practicing or you can imagine in your own mind for when you bring this to your sweetheart and become that sage of love, that priestess of love, that sexual healer of love.  Dr. Deborah Anapol thank you so much for bringing us that precious gem of inspiration.  Deborah's wonderful work and her summary of the 7 natural laws of love are on www.lawsoflove.com.  Thank you Deborah for being with us today.

Deborah Anapol:   You’re very welcome.  Thank you.

Francesca Gentille:  You can find out more about all of this and get transcripts from this show, find out about other shows, and download this at www.personallifemedia.com.  That's www.personallifemedia.com.  With two "Ls" in the middle.

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