Episode 78 - FROM SEXUAL WOUND TO SEXUAL WONDER with Anyaa McAndrew
FROM SEXUAL WOUND TO SEXUAL WONDER with Anyaa McAndrew. Shamanic Transpersonal Psychotherapist, Ordained Priestess, Astrologer, Tantric Educator, 33 years working with women and couples.
In this episode, Anyaa unveils the sexual map from cultural wounding to intimate wonder. From her life journey as juvenile probation officer and rape counselor in Central Illinois to a Shamaness and Priestess of healing. She shares with us keys to shamanic healing such as invocation, ceremony, and setting intention for the highest good of all beings. Learn how to find the male and the female sacred spot. Deepen into what creates a healing climate of safety for you and your beloved. Explore how to bring your lover back to their body, their pleasure and their ground of being.
Transcript
Transcript
This program is intended for mature audiences only.
Francesca Gentille: Welcome to Sex, Tanta and Kama sutra bringing you the soul of sex. With me today is Anyaa Mcandrew shamanic trend personal psycho therapist or [xx] crescent, astrologer, Caterer, a fabulous woman who has been working over 33 years with women and couples in their healing in various mortalities and I am delighted to have you on the show here today. Welcome Anyaa.
Anyaa: Thank you Francesca
Francesca Gentille: Anyaa when I look at your bio and had an opportunity before the show to talk about you and your journey, I was so impressed with the depth in breath of who you are and what you have to offer and this woman from Elanoy who lived in various parts of the country who started out in one way and became as evolved into something else and would you tell us little bit about that journey. I think our listening audiences would love to connect with you as I was fascinated by where you started and a smidge of how you are today.
Anyaa: Well actually I started I wasn't really satisfied with my undergraduate degree which was , I just didn't feel complete. For my first job out of college was as a jovial probation officer in a detention home for teenagers and what I started feeling, this was merely in the 70's was the kids who were running away from home and when I asked them why they ran away from home, they would tell me that they were sexually abused and that just flattered after me and of course as a young councilor I would take that home with me and really it was a sort of stress for me because I didn't really know how to handle it. But I found that I did know how to handle it and I just began to talk to them and tell them that obviously something was going on that was not their fault.
But I didn't really understand it. So, I ended up going back to college and getting a Masters degree in counseling and then after that found myself taking a job in a rape crisis center. And this was in the midst of what we call the second phase, the second way feminism. So, the first way feminism was when women got involved and second way feminism was in the 60's and 70's and 80's and so we put that. In women movements, rape crisis movements and here I was right in the middle of it and learning really about sexual abuse in fast rate and starting to really understand what that was all about and understanding that it wasn't so much about sex. It's about power and I really had a lot to do with this system that we live in.
So, I did a lot of work as a therapist with women of all kinds and then I moved to Hawaii, I moved to Mali and then child and Caroline premier western tantric teachers and became involved in Tanta and found that I really loved that piece but it wasn't really connecting up with sexual abuse and it took me a while to really out all the pieces together. How could sex be so beautiful and so sacred and then this other thing is happening at the shadow levels. In the culture and it's so predominant so I left Mali about 7 years later and came back and became involved in Traumatism and because as a therapist I wanted to learn the most profound ways of moving people through trauma and I was still very much doing psychotherapy work and so I discovered shamanic breast work which was work of being a thriving and star walls.
I live in a little community in North Carolina, became trained in that and some other tools and techniques. Then I learned about semi public resist process and woman named Nichole Christine who was afraid to explain that process and she passed away now. She left the planet in November but I brought her to Atlanta where I was living and my friends and I went all through this amazing process of learning how to do living ceremony, understanding the archive of the prefix as an ancient future archive and then all the pieces started falling together and then I realized that we can store space for healing and we can hold place for the sacred and the sexual can be part of that. But often times women who in many times, women who have been sexually abused are actually carrying the medicine of sexual healers. So, often times they can work through their sexual wounding they carry them that medicine for others to be able to heal sexuality on the planet. That's a really long answer Francesca but we're having an interview.
Francesca Gentille: It brought up many things as I was listening and I loved that last piece that the wounds that we carry, the concept of the wound and the healer that the wounds that we carry whether sexual trauma, physical trauma, emotional trauma and our spiritual trauma that these wounds if assimilated, harvested and healed will it become the pathway for us to be the healers like an inoculation in the sense, will we become the healers in the world for the splitting that has been happening for thousands of years.
When we talk about the patria key I feel it is equally wounding to men as it is to women and that sense of the trauma and abuse are culture carried, the conflicted messages about the body, emotion, aging and sexuality that men and women both carry these traumas and often almost all of us receive conflicted messages that are wounding to the wholeness of our soul self and most of us by the time we are adults have experienced some more specific traumas around being touched in ways that were didn't honor the preciousness of our limited boundaries, didn't honor the preciousness of our wants and needs. Often for men there is a tendency of touching be more towards physical violence and for woman to include a sexual violent and there are many women who have received the physical violence and there are many men who have also received the sexual violence and many of us need emotional bonding the way we are spoken to, the way we're listened would not with the sense of you precious human being that I want to hear what you have to say and shut up don't talk to me.
A lot of us heard those kinds of things and very denigrating statements. So, I love it you're bringing your own life. It's bringing us this pathway and potential of healing. And I think I'm going to have to go to a break a little early right now because when we come back I so want to invite your learning wisdom to the listening audience of how can we deepen recognizing one of the wounds that we carry, how can we heal them and become a healer for one another in our relationships and the bedroom when we come back from a break and fabulous words from our sponsors who invite you to keep shows like this continue to our world and we'll be right back.
Francesca Gentille: Welcome back to Sex, Tanta and Kama sutra with Anyaa shamanic trend personal psycho therapist and tantric educator just got us in cornet and we were talking about this journey of wounding that our culture caries and this potential for healing. I see that there is a possibility for the listening audience they can be in 3 places, they can be listening for Oh my goodness I am the person who needs healing, they could be listening for Oh it's my partner, my partner is the one that needs healing or they could be listening from both of us need to be healed and we're on this journey together. And where would you like to start bringing your wisdom to where our listening audience might be?
Anyaa: Well, first of all statistics are 1 in I think in 4 women have been sexually wounded or abused by an authority figure sometime by the time they reach adulthood and I think that the statistics are 1 in 3 of all men so we kind of get attracted to each other. Each of you wounded sexually you will tend to attracted to someone who has an opposite wound.
Francesca Gentille: What does that mean? An opposite wound?
Anyaa: Well, an opposite wound would be someone who is more addicted to sex or someone who says could be sexually anorexic who avoids sex for some reason that people who are wounded there maybe some person in the partners who is more obviously wounded but the only thing I know about working with couples is that if you can discover what it is that will allow your partner to begin to heal from whatever it is that they are needing to heal and you can stretch into doing that in fact will happen that it begins to heal you.
So if your partner needs you to slow down sexually and be more tender, that you may be kind of a person that came from a family where there wasn't any tenderness. I mean so that's the skill you actually need to learn and if you are a person who is sexually abused tends to be sex phobic because of your abuse, you’re first thought in the relationship but then you're sexually phobic once you get closer and..
Francesca Gentille: And phobic stays afraid of that? Is that what you're saying?
Anyaa: Yeah afraid of sex. That's for you to really learn the skills of for you to learn to be present to your own body but with your partner's body can actually start to help you build the skills that will start to feel what's going on there and then the primary thing needs to be safety that's always the case and safety is not necessarily hard one by people who are sexually abused so it really takes like slowing everything down and being willing to not just be sexual but sensual, to learn about your own body, to learn about your partner's body and not necessarily go to intercourse but to find all kinds of other ways of making love and I mostly encourage men and women in partnerships to learn the art of sacred spot, not only sacred spots for men but sacred spot for women.
Anyaa: The sacred spot is the G which is own as the G spot gisenburg spot you know named after some, so we thought to name it sacred spot instead. So sacred spot for women is right at the top when you enter the yoni or the vagina it's almost right before or right after the pubic bone. It's right there at the top and it's spongy like and when you being to massage it, it swells and that place is the place where women hold a lot of sexual tension and then they hold a lot of sexual abuse and also the whole yoni, the whole vaginal wall there can be places of sharpness, some pain or numbness and learning to work with that, the whole yoni the whole spot face of the yoni.
And I would say for myself that I have absolutely experienced this and that for me when I am having a healing session with my partner, I mean sometimes we're just in the flow and working either works or doesn't work but when we're really wanting to bring healing to one of us we set that aside. So if I'm the one the focus is on healing it's just on me, the focus is of his healing it's on him and when we're, I've been touched in my life in ways that were disconnected it wasn't really necessary full abuse where I was raped because I was sort of colluding in my whole wounding because I was allowing someone to enter me or touch me when I really wasn't that into it and now I find that slowing down and looking into my partner's eyes really need to know are you here with me? Do you love me? Am I precious to you? And then when I have my G spot touched and pressure brought to it or as he's entering me there might be moments of pleasure but also moments of pain.
So, slow down and breath into that and he'll stop for a moment and he'll say let's just breath into that spot and I'm going to put a little pressure with his valves with his cock and then as we breathe into it there is a relief. He tells me that it feels amazing to him when that knot of suffering, that knot of pain releases that he feels a sense of being welcomed and being connected to me even more deeply.
Francesca Gentille: And men really want to be received. When a man is being received by a woman it just feels so good to actually be received. Work out those places in the vagina; really allow a kind of receptivity it feels really good to both the partners.
Anyaa: And men have a sacred spot too. It's reached actually through the anus and its not the prostate it's actually in front of the prostate. It's a very tender little place, it's like a little shelf and it's all kinds of things can come up for men, childhood, wounding it doesn't even have to be sexual it can be issues around fathers or mothers or insecurities or things that happen in teenage hood, doesn't even have to be sexual and if they have been sexually abused tenderly working with that spot and breathing into it and really allowing yourself with the partner who is really willing and learning how to be able to do this and being willing to go into an altered state and to move that trauma. These are some of the techniques of shamanism, some of the techniques of going into an altered state and with sexually can be and is for many people but doing that in a cautious way, where you're studying intention and calling it sacred before you do it, sexual healing can be wonderful and it doesn't really have to inside the body it can also be outside the body and just touch. There are so many things. I mean Tanta has so much to offer.
Francesca Gentille: I want to talk more about that. The altered state and also invoking the sacred that comes to invoking some of the shamanistic qualities when we come back from a break and a word from our sponsors and we'll be right back.
Francesca Gentille: Welcome to Sex, Tanta and Kama sutra bringing you the soul of sex. We're talking about the sense of altered states and invocation. So how do I know that I am in an altered state or someone else is? How do I help someone get there? And even why do I want to get there? And who do I hold it from them if they are?
Anyaa: Well, one of the things I would go in here is that we can be associated if you have been sexually wounded you can go in the associate state which is the kind of altered state where you are actually stealing outside your body and that's not what I am talking about when I am talking about an altered state. When I am talking about altered state I mean consciously setting a field you can go into a relaxed expansion of consciousness rather than the association of your consciousness and there are lots of different tools that have been used through the age. Music is a wonderful tool. Just one of the CDs I love that always works is CD by shaft girl called Tantric heart. It's just a wonderful CD for taking us into that love space, heart space. Candles, aroma therapy of different kinds, sensual betting and a really saved space that's also really beautiful and really allowing yourself to transform into to sort of shape shift into the prince or princess for your partner. Calls having down you know polls having into the body.
Francesca Gentille: Let me just slow it down a little bit. When I heard you describing the setting the space which is gorgeous when we stay safe sometimes can also mean that the phones might be turned off, the doors might be locked if there are kids so we know that we're not going to be interrupted by anything as well as the sense of beauty you described for us. If someone is disassociated I've felt that way in times where I literally my energy is out of my body and my vulva is very numb and my partner is into that before we go into invocation. Invocation is the divine how would I bring someone back I notice that maybe something there is signaling me that maybe I'm not fully present or they are not fully present.
Anyaa: I think one of the ways to bring a person back is both really to sit up for the one person is not lying down and just get into present tense. Instruct your partner can you feel you feet? Can you feel your hands? Let's breathe and look at me I'm sitting here, I'm sitting on you. Do you know it's me? So maybe eating something. If you really want sexual healing keep alcohol and drugs out of the space for sure. You don't need that because that's going to disassociate that person further. Having maybe something to drink like some hot tea or a grounding aroma therapy essence of some kind.
Francesca Gentille: What would you consider grounding?
Anyaa: Let's see something kind of like mint and flower essence like rescue remedy would be also really good. Let's see I'm thinking of some other essences that will be good. Can you think of anything Francesca that would really ground?
Francesca Gentille: Postnatal[sp] would bring the spiritual in.
Anyaa: But you don't really want to bring the spiritual in the midst of disassociation. You want to wait until that person was pretty grounded maybe some sej[sp] and[xx],
Francesca Gentille: Sometimes cinnamon.
Anyaa: Or chocolate. Yes absolutely.
Francesca Gentille: Even the scent of it something that has that sense of earth or deeper into the body. I love this. This is so good. And so we were listening to Anyaa what she was letting us know it's a pretty sacred session. There's some preparation, we want to prepare. I believe in sacred quickies.
Anyaa: I believe in raw sacred sex but there's really time to when the intention is truly healing, expansion or bringing in a complete sense of divinity I am going to want to slow it down. I'm going to want to set time aside, I'm going to want to set the space just like you would for any long trip or any advanced sports technique you want to prepare so we want to think of that.
And then we have this sense of invoking or evoking the divine and I think of evoking as bringing something out of myself so evoking it out deep and I am bringing it forward. And invoking is when something is up the universe with a great divine and the great mystery and then I'm bringing it down an experience I am bringing it down almost from the top of my head or down through the top of someone else's head.
Francesca Gentille: So how would you, what are some of your favorite phrases or thought images, there's not a lot of training in this out in the world so this would be very new for some of you out there. This idea that every tradition has it the gift of the spirit we say in Christianity where we connect with something very expensive and very divine, we experience it almost bigger then ourselves really comes through. So what are some of your favorite ways to either bring it through out of yourself or bring it through or into another?
Anyaa: Well, I think the studying intention for the session, especially the person who is the receiver is really important. That's one of the ways that you can start to call in the sacred energy as well as know that your partner, the person who is receiving it is not associative. If they can really speak their intentions through the session and you can really feel that intention then you know that they are really present.
And then of course you want to call in the précis in both of you and you want to call in their higher self. I mean the précis are like our higher selves actually.
Francesca Gentille: Can I ask you to do it now? So ok invite the précis in me and the précis in you. How do you that?
Anyaa: So Francesca I would like to take a moment now another way I would do it is that I would use a drum beat and I might walk around you with that drum beat and I might say let's go ahead now and let's grow a tale down into mother earth and rap that tale right around the center really feel held by the great mother and then also opening the crown of your head to the father sky energies and letting them both meet at the heart and from the place in the heart that we call in all of those who love us in the universe and we call in our own priestess and our higher selves. We're calling those ancestors that are standing behind us at all times and want to see us clear our lineage and clear whatever maybe blocking us from moving forward and we also want to call in all the spirits and devas that might be with us the four directions if they are sacred to you and then as below which is the sky, the outer Philistia energies that also join with us and the energy that are outside of the world that also join with us and you just call in everything that is sacred to us and for someone who has a different belief system you just simply call in things that are sacred to you maybe the four directions or the Philistia energies don't quite work for you maybe it is mother, father guide that is most important. So whatever it is it doesn't really matter.
Francesca Gentille: And the crystals.
Anyaa: And the divine Mother Mary and the arch angel Michal and the arch angel Gabriel we can call whatever really feels beautiful to us. Exactly the angels, the arch angels it doesn't matter there are so many many unseen world that they just love to come and show us and I always like to add that only those energies that are beneficial to us be there. The ones that are not that do not have our highest good in mind that they not be allowed to come in.
Francesca Gentille: That is so beautiful. Thank you so much for modeling that ability to prayerfully call in energies of the highest and best and release any energies that are not of the highest best here and times. And how would people find you? How can they work with you? How can they learn about you in various ways?
Anyaa: Well my website is pretty easy to remember. It's called goddess on the loose that's goddessontheloose.com and you can find all the information around, contacting me, my email, my phone number. I am actually in North Carolina and I do a lot of work around here but I also travel around the country if it's couple working in different places, couple's workshop. My partner and I are doing discover the sacred purposes as a couple for those ongoing and I do a sexual healing retreat a couple of times a year so goddessontheloose.com is the best way to connect with me.
Francesca Gentille: Thank you so much for joining me today and all of those Anyaa it was gorgeous to have your presence.
Anyaa: Thank you Francesca.
Francesca Gentille: And I want to thank you our listening for being with us on the show. For being on the journey in sacred and life and sexuality and if you want to learn more about Anyaa see her gorgeous picture and bio, learn more about me , read my bio , get transcripts of the show contact either one of our services you can do that at www.personallifemedia.com that's www.personallifemedia.com. Sex, Tanta and Kama Sutra brining you the soul of sex.