The past few days have felt really intense and emotional for me. I’ve heard the same thing from a lot of others too. Has it felt emotional and intense for you as well?
You may or may not be into astrology or moon cycles, but we just had a series of eclipses plus the 11th was the New Moon in Leo. New moons tend to bring up our collective and individual shadows…and for me, a lot of it was sexuality based.
I spent a lot of yesterday crying and feeling some intense things coming up, without totally knowing what any of it meant. And this morning I woke up with such a heavy heart and I just began to feel the weight of everything. It felt like I opened Pandora’s Box during the new moon and things that felt so ancient and unrecognizable have been surfacing ever since.
I also think the fact that I’m working through a 9-month sexual shadow integration course (which just started in early August) has something to do with all of this intensity…not to mention I’m now 37 weeks pregnant and in that deep void where I have no idea when she’ll come.
I’ve been talking a lot lately about eroticism, devotional rituals and embodiment and how eroticism is the key to really knowing (and uncovering) ourselves. When we engage with our eroticism, it shows us the unconscious shadows and emotions that we’ve been holding inside or repressing while liberating our sexual energy, truth, power and expression.
So with all of this intensity brewing inside of me I knew that I had two choices in that moment: repress the emotions and feelings and move on with my morning OR express and let myself excavate, feel and embody my emotions and shadows.
This morning I did a practice that I’ll be teaching in my upcoming course The Temple of Erotic Devotion (because learning how to fully be with and embody our emotions is what frees more erotic energy and power) and I’m going to share the quick version of it with you here, because I know that I’m not alone with feeling so much emotional intensity right now.
This practice is called Embody Your Emotions.
This is a daily practice – or however often you want to do it – training you to feel what you might not be feeling and bring it to the surface to be met and felt. You do this by bringing unwavering presence, a loving devotional heart, erotic energy and non-judgement to your experience.
You can also use this in a moment (like I did this morning) when an intense emotion comes up, but this will help you get into the habit of embodying your emotions on a regular basis, not just when something feels overwhelming or all of a sudden.
The basic flow of this practice, whether in the actual ritual or in daily life, is to witness the emotion, feel the emotion in its intensity up to its peak and then allow sexual energy to come in and help you fully integrate and move it through you, but with turn on as the fuel.
How do you bring sexual energy in to help you move it? You move your body in some way that matches the emotion inside. You let the emotion move YOU instead of trying to move how you think you should be moving. You dance, sound, breathe, touch yourself in the way you need in that moment and allow the emotion itself to have a physical expression.
This morning I put on one of my playlists that has a lot of slow music that invokes my sadness, grief and overwhelm so that I could FEEL it, dive deep into it…feeling it all up to its peak…and then through movement, sounding, breathing and touching myself in loving and soothing ways I was able to use sexual energy to begin moving the emotion.
Emotions are just energy in motion and most emotions only need 90 seconds of being fully felt and processed in order to move through us.
So I slowly moved my body and danced through my sadness. I hugged myself. Cradled myself. Rubbed my belly. I sobbed tears that felt ancient and heavy. I sounded out what my sadness felt like and breathed into the sadness, expanding it so that I could go deeper into it.
After spending several songs doing that, the veil of sadness slowly began to lift so I allowed myself to flow in the new sense of lightness…and eventually I could reach a space of erotic turn on. It’s not the same turn on or erotic expression as when I’m feeling totally sexy and confident, for example.
But rather the kind of erotic that comes after a deep cry or emotional release. The soft, raw, open and vulnerable eroticism that still feels so damn good to let flow. The eroticism that is met with a heart freshly cracked open, beating with new red blood flow. An erotic pulse deep in my heart and pussy.
All you really need is five minutes to do this…the length of one song…but sometimes you really do need longer than five minutes to fully be with and move your emotion(s) so be mindful that you don’t cut it short when you’re still feeling raw and open. We don’t want to repress the emotion, we want to give it full expression…that’s what it really wants.
So here’s what I recommend for the Embody Your Emotions ritual:
- Without needing to necessarily label the emotions or feelings (unless you know for sure that you feel sad, angry, resentful, jealous, lonely, etc.) find a space to do this ritual and set up a playlist for yourself or turn on a song (or several) that match the energy that you want to invoke, feel and embody.
- Let your body move AS the emotion. Close your eyes if you need to so you’re not focused on how you look. Focus on feeling the emotion fully and completely — bring it down INTO your body. This is embodiment. Feel especially in your heart and pussy, where emotions usually reside on a deep level, but also feel into other parts where the emotion is living.
- Bring sound, breath, touch, any kind of movement that feels true from moment to moment. Maybe you’re punching a pillow, throwing a tantrum on the floor, sobbing against a wall, curled up in the fetal position holding yourself, etc. BREATHE DEEPLY. All the way down into your belly and pelvic floor. Breath is what moves sexual AND emotional energy.
- Stay with the emotion – don’t cut it off or stuff it down. Let it flow and move you.
- Once you feel a sense of relief or lightness coming in (this may or may not take a while depending on what it is that you’re processing and how many layers it has in this moment), follow this new direction.
- Eventually you’ll feel a slight erotic pulse deep within. A tiny spark of eroticism. Turn on music and repeat the process (moving, dancing, sounding, touching, breathing) with this flame of eroticism. It might still be mixed with some sadness, some anger, some vulnerability, but let it course through you, opening you deeper. Don’t be afraid to be exposed and open in your heart and pussy.
- Once this feels complete, set a timer and rest or meditate in silence to fully integrate and be present with the experience you just embodied. Let it land. Don’t just rush off into your day. Even if you only have a minute or two. Breathe deeply, relax your belly and pelvic floor and imagine everything soaking deep into your cells. Acknowledge the healing ritual you just did and how powerful it is that you chose to be with and go deep into your emotions.
I hope you enjoy giving this ritual a try. It might feel wobbly or uncomfortable the first few times if you’re not used to feeling your emotions so fully and deeply, but in my experience, it really does turn into a pleasurable experience. Orgasmic even.
Deeply erotic because the erotic is ALIVENESS and stuck or repressed emotions often lead to stuck and repressed sexual energy and vice versa.
Don’t be surprised if you feel more erotically charged and ALIVE after doing this embodiment ritual.
If you’re interested in more erotic embodiment and devotional rituals like this one, then I have an exciting opportunity for you coming in a few days…
I’ll be opening a new 21-day course focusing on merging the heart and sex connection…the erotic and soul connection and more through a series of daily devotional rituals. You can get a taste of it by downloading my Devotional Erotic Ritual & Embodiment Practice here.
This is an erotic embodiment practice that combines breathwork, sensual movement, erotic dance and devotional ritual.
You’ll receive a 30-minuted guided audio erotic embodiment ritual and a video introducing you to the practice of devotional erotic rituals.
Details coming soon on the 21 day course and journey.
Until then, enjoy this practice.
With deep love,
Amber