Women's Empowerment Stories ...

Re-igniting Libido

~ Patrice Robson

“Sexuality is the great field of battle between biology and society.” -- Nancy Friday

As a young adult, I enjoyed a healthy sex drive. My body knew what it wanted, and I found love-making exquisite.

As I grew older, sex became tangled and ultimately choked in male/female relationship dynamics. For me, the bedroom became a key arena for power and powerlessness, both between my partner and me and within myself. My mind started to control my body. What began as a natural, instinctual drive for connection evolved into a wifely duty to satisfy the needs of my husband at great personal emotional sacrifice. But let’s be clear: I did this to myself.

Today, my self-esteem is infinitely higher and I’m now in an empowered relationship. But I brought my bedroom baggage with me and part of me has held on to the anger and disempowered patterns of the past. In frustration, I turned to my mentor, Eve Bernshaw, and what a gift she gave me!

Eve says that blocks arise when we get angry at ourselves because we acquiesce to others rather than honour our own desires. No matter what, I have to be truthful to myself and to my partner. We can’t have physical, emotional and spiritual intimacy unless we have the hierarchy of our own needs met. (See Eve’s article) In effect, every time my mind said “Do it” and my body didn’t want to, I was asking my body to go to war. No wonder it shut down!

If we look honestly at the sex drive, we can see that it is both inspired and fulfilled through a selfish focus on our own pleasure. If I want to feel passion, I need to do this for me, not for him!

Sex can be entered into as a gift to myself. By filling my own needs, I may then have abundance to give back to my partner. Or I may not. There’s always a choice.

Eve assures me that the passionate part of me isn’t dead, it’s just locked up. If I want, I can bring this side of me back to life. And I can do that by remembering the passion – by sinking into those memories of when coupling felt really good.

Sexual energy is one aspect of health. To be whole, we need to acknowledge that we’re sexual human beings. Now that I’m well past 50, hormones (and the lack of them) undoubtedly play a key role in my interest and ability to engage in sexual activity. That’s a subject for another time.

But Eve reminded me that the biggest sexual organ for women is our brain. Hormones are not nearly as important as our imagination.

I want to be really healthy and alive and I want to have a fulfilling sexual relationship with my husband. So my focus lies in remembering myself as a vibrant, sexy woman and in honouring her here now – with how I pamper myself, with what I wear and with how I move. And once again, I’m doing this for myself, not for my husband. In light of my past, that shift makes all the difference in the world.

~ Patrice

“Sex is hardly ever just about sex.” – Shirley MacLaine

“You mustn’t force sex to do the work of love or love to do the work of sex.” -- Mary McCarthy