In our current culture, talking about sex is still taboo. Talking about sexual trauma? Same story. Even with the #MeToo movement, getting adequate support and healing when dealing with sexual trauma can be challenging. And even then, the conversation rarely revolves around how to heal sexual trauma holistically.
In this blog post, I’ll be sharing powerful holistic techniques and strategies that I give to my paying coaching clients who suffer from sexual guilt, shame, and trauma. Many of them are healers, coaches, and creatives themselves, so if you’re energetically aware, rest assured that these techniques will also work for you.
So, let’s dive in and jumpstart your healing around sexual trauma so that you are liberated, free, and erotically empowered. I am SO excited to support your transformation!
Want to go deeper? Download our free PDF guide: 7 Strategies to Heal Sexual Trauma Holistically
1. Write an empowering story about your sexual trauma.
Stories are how we, as humans, make sense of the world. The human mind has been hardwired for millennia to tell narrative stories, to fill in blanks with assumptions, and to survive. When it comes to sexual trauma, it is very easy to tell the story over and over again (e.g., seeing flashes in your mind) so that it wears a deeper rut each time.
When you’re not bringing conscious illumination to this story, it’s often one about “hero and villain” and “victim and perpetrator.” You focus on the powerlessness, any boundaries crossed, and the non-consensual acts.
And what you focus on expands.
Choose instead to tell a conscious and empowering story about the sexual trauma you experienced and reclaim your power in the process. This may be hard to hear: it’s not actually the non-consensual act that traumatized you, it was the feeling of being a victim, of powerlessness, of not being in control of your body.
To write a more empowering story, ask yourself the following questions:
- What did I learn about myself and the world as a result of this experience?
- Where do I incorporate the lessons learned into the work that I’m doing?
- Were there any cues from my body that I didn’t listen to in the moment? If so…
- How can I commit to listening fully to my body’s wisdom in the future?
- What if, through this act, and them being connected with my energy, I accelerated this person’s healing?
- To accept this reframe, what would I need to let go of and accept?
As you do this process, have a pen and a notebook nearby. Notice where in your body that victim story of powerlessness still shows up. See if you can tap into that energy and lovingly release it.
Rewriting your story and connecting with your body in this way will empower you to rewire your subconscious mind so that, over time, you can see the event as neutral (free of charge) or as a blessing that supported you in experiencing amazing and powerful growth.
2. Extend compassion and forgiveness.
This process can be challenging, and it’s also the most powerful way to heal sexual trauma holistically. During this process, focus on forgiving yourself, forgiving the other person (villain, perpetrator, etc.), and forgiving other parties involved.
Some powerful questions to ask:
- How must the other person have grown up to commit the act that they did?
- How might they have grown and expanded as a soul because of that experience?
- What if they had experienced sexual trauma themselves?
- What if they were ignorant and didn’t understand the full impact of their actions?
Extending empathy for this other person will also support you in forgiving them and letting go of any remaining anger and resentment.
[Related article: What I Learned About Soul Healing & Empathy from My Past-Life Sadist Self]
Set a timer for 5-15 minutes; start it at 5 minutes per day, and work your way up to 15 minutes. Visualize a white healing light coming down through the crown of your head and filling your entire body. From there, place your hands over your heart and breathe deeply. Breathe in up from the earth, through your feet, into your body. And then exhale out your mouth. Do that at least three times.
Then, begin practicing Ho’oponopono, the Hawaiian forgiveness mantra (I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you). Repeat the mantra for the duration of your timer. If you prefer to do this practice in silence, you can download our 5-minute recording here.
3. Practice conscious breathing.
If you practice meditation or yoga, I’m betting you already know the importance of the breath. Breathing deeply expands your ability to move chi, energy, your life force throughout your body. When you meditate, you might even consciously focus on your inhale and exhale instead of a mantra.
But did you know that you can take it even deeper with breathwork? My mentor is a big advocate of doing breathwork to accelerate healing and spiritual breakthroughs. My biggest shifts have also come from breathwork, so I can’t tell you enough: do healing work with the breath.
[Related Article: How Breathwork Helped Me Release Resentment from a ‘Break-up’]
For the deepest healing and transformation during breathwork, breathe in through your nose and mouth in a continuous cycle. Start with no more than 10-15 minutes as this breathing pattern will be activating. It will infinitely expand the amount of air that you’re taking in, so it will also support you in releasing stuck emotions faster.
When my mentor leads breathwork sessions at her retreats, she guides us through the breath pattern a few times and then invites us to vocalize… hum, sigh, moan… to begin activating the throat chakra. From there, the breath continues to open up the body.
After 15-20 minutes, the energy goes deeper, and that’s when the big shifts start. When I’ve participated in in-person group retreats where we’ve done 45+ minutes of breathwork, it’s been exceedingly powerful and I’ve had the most intense shifts of my life.
For example, this process even supported me to heal deeply lingering resentment I had after a ‘break-up’ of sorts. I was in a deep state of limerence, and because of the breathwork, I released and let go several more layers of my devotion and adoration for someone who was no longer in my life.
What these practices mean for your healing
For healers, coaches, entrepreneurs, and creatives, doing this deep healing work so that you feel empowered in your own practice is SO important. By delving into your sexual trauma and transforming it, not only can you hold greater and deeper space for others, but you also learn to have greater compassion for yourself.
Whatever strategies you bring into your healing practice, thank you for doing this deep healing work on yourself so that you can shine brighter and hold bigger space for others.
Lots of love,
KNZ
P.S. If you enjoyed this article, you might also like the related article How to Have Sacred Sex: 5 Ways to Make Sex Healing, Not Shameful.
P.P.S. If you’d like more strategies to heal sexual trauma holistically, download our free PDF guide: 7 Strategies to Heal Sexual Trauma Holistically.