You have to love yourself before you can love anyone else. How many times have we all heard that before? It may be a cliche but truly knowing yourself and accepting who you are is a critical part of a healthy relationship. This month on The Stress Less Show, we’ve been talking all about relationships and this week’s episode was all about the most important relationship we have in our lives - the one we have with ourselves - because the relationship we have with ourselves affects everything else we do.
That is why I brought on Personal coach and orgasmic meditation trainer, Sofia Lloyd, to help us work on our relationship with ourselves by giving us tips on finding ourselves when we are feeling out of touch with what we want and need.
Sofia’s work in Orgasmic Meditation and coaching fascinated me instantly, but what I loved most about her work is that her story is one that I and so many of us can connect to. She first became exposed to orgasmic meditation after having her own experience with feeling lost in her life.
“I was a few years out of college and moved to Philadelphia for a job and then pretty quickly I [found] myself totally resentful at modern work structure. I didn't know how to get out of it. I just knew that I wasn't happy with like 9 to 5, go in and get a paycheck, do some work... At the same time, I was having difficulty after difficulty after difficulty in all of my dating and romantic relationships and I felt unmatched and unmet and just so frustrated. I felt powerless.”
After a friend suggested Orgasmic Meditation, she did her own research, experienced the practice for herself, and felt so affected by her experience that she began down the path of becoming a trainer and coach while living a more connected and turned on lifestyle.
Having worked with a variety of different clients, Sofia says that orgasmic meditation can be beneficial for women in many different places in their lives - whether we are happy and seeking abundance or we are feeling burnt out and overwhelmed from working all the time.
“At some point constantly being in production mode wears you out. Orgasmic Meditation re-trains your stress response… There's like a fundamental shift in how you perceive the world and how you perceive how you're supposed to move in the world. And so it comes from like a place of desire and nourishment. And then you move from production into creation.”
Through her experiences as a coach and orgasmic meditation trainer, Sofia has gained a lot of insight on getting back in touch with our desires and has three tips we can use in our own lives to begin to find ourselves and understand our wants and needs.
Tip #1: Ask For What You Want
As women, it can feel almost impossible for us to stand up for what we want. We may feel unheard or ignored. Or we might feel so out of touch with ourselves that we can’t even bring ourselves to think about what we want. That is why Sofia’s first tip is so vital.
Asking for what you want sounds simple enough, but Sofia notes how difficult it can be to start asking for what we want when we have spent so long pushing our desires aside.
“Speaking our desire will always feel like messing up because everything in our culture has it be that we're not supposed to desire things or that there's a very short range of things that's okay to want.”
As foreign as it may feel at first, the first step in beginning to find yourself is to start allowing yourself the space to connect to and advocate for what we want and need. As we begin to get in touch with those desires, Sofia stresses the power that comes from seeking them out.
“Women begin to experience themselves as much bigger and much more powerful simply by wanting more and being able to surrender to the fact that you actually want a lot.”
Tip #2: Remember Why You Are Doing The Work
Speaking our desires is important, but much easier said than done. We can feel terrified of asking for something because what happens if we are rejected. When we are feeling unsure and nervous, Sofia suggests that we remind ourselves why we need to do this inner work. We need to start asking for what we want so we can feel the connection that we often are desperately craving. Keeping that in mind allows us to combat our impulses to fight our desires.
“I have a thousand compensatory behaviors that have it be that I don't get what I want and then I stay isolated and then I continue having experiences that I don't like. But once I started admitting that I wanted connection, I started shifting everything from the perspective of it. I'm actually doing this for connection”
Tip #3: Understand Your Desire Responses
So many of us experience stress so often that we can tell exactly when it starts to kick in. The headaches show up, we start getting irritable, the list goes on. However, once we begin to start connecting with what we want, we might start to notice that we are experiencing feelings we aren’t used to because we don’t have the same understanding of our desire responses.
“Desire will naturally take you out of control. You will feel out of control. You might feel like your cheeks get really hot or your or your voice trembles.”
Experiencing this type of desire can be new for a lot of us. It might even be scary at first. It is important though, to recognize that when we enter into this state of desire, it is not a state we should fear and it can be the key to discovering new parts of ourselves and who we are.
“It's like a different state of consciousness where suddenly your body's like buzzing with electricity. Know that whenever you start to put some attention on desire, you're going to start to feel that and that it is a good sign.”
If you are interested in learning more about orgasmic meditation and Sofia’s work as a personal coach, you can visit her website here or follow her on Instagram here.
This episode of The Stress Less Show was sponsored by The Stress Less Space, an intentional space for women to relax and recharge away from the chaos of everyday life. Learn more about The Stress Less Space by clicking this link!