Sex, Trauma & Healing

Trauma is devastating to sexuality, and for a fundamental reason. To understand it we have to understand the basics of the central nervous system, and how it relates to sex and pleasure. The nervous system functions on a continuum between opposing states called ‘fight or flight’ and ‘feed and breed’ (also referred to as ‘rest and digest’).  Hopefully this is something we’re all somewhat familiar with.  Traumatic experience sends our sympathetic nervous system into the ‘fight or flight’ state, communicating to our entire being that this is not the time for feasting, rest or lovemaking.  

A fight or flight state is one of the biggest threats to libido imaginable.

With unresolved or cumulative traumatic experience, a fight or flight response will linger long after potential threats have left.  Low grade fight or flight can even become our default, keeping stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline high, and competing with the production of sex hormones like estrogen, progesterone and testosterone.  From this trauma-induced feedback loop, it’s quite challenging to access the more sensuous and present aspects of being, where pleasure and connection exist, simply because our central nervous system isn’t allowing us to get there.   

When I speak of trauma here it’s important to note that I’m not only speaking of the devastating impact of sexual trauma, violence or violation….

…(frequently experienced in childhood or adolescence) that is more common than we would hope to imagine, but also the trauma of betrayal and disappointment; the accumulation of devastating life experiences, grief and loss; and even the overwhelming constancy of a busy, on-the-go, doing-everything, overachiever lifestyle. Because although the emotional and sexual traumas will leave more layered and nuanced pain to uncover and release, it all ends up working somewhat similarly on the central nervous system.   

Even if we continue to have a lot of sex through these experiences, it is typically quite disembodied (think Michael Fasbender in Shame).  We can use sex as a distraction, even a source of more adrenaline and chaos, and though there’s something to be said for this kind of charged sexual encounter, it’s often accompanied by a subtle tension that keeps us in resistance.    

Somewhat ironically though, the depth of pleasure and connection we avoid as a way to cope with traumatic experience, is a powerful source of healing.  So how do we break the cycle and reconnect to sexuality more deeply? 

 It’s a process.  Breath work, meditation and embodiment techniques are all profoundly useful and I see a lot of sex therapists rely on them, but the herbs are an invaluable tool in shifting these patterns.  

Physiologically this is because healing the nervous system is a place where the herbs really shine, especially the herbs called nervines and adaptogens, that reduce cortisol and adrenaline production, calm the central nervous system, and help us ground. But I believe the herbs do things beyond the physiological, working on the subtle energetics of emotional pain, resistance and tension as well.  Muira puama and rose are some of my favorite herbs for this kind of work, and they’re both in formula No. 12 & 16.     

As we work through trauma and open more deeply, the more our sexual and orgasmic experiences will reverberate into our being. 

We can reach altered states of consciousness in lovemaking that are much like meditation or trance states, and perpetuate a cycle of ease and flow instead of stress, tension, and withholding. And the healing qualities of these luscious, embodied states of being, help us enter into a new kind of feedback loop, one that helps teach our bodies that we’re safe to be in the pleasure of them again.