Sensuality and Emotional Health

As I was sitting down to write this piece on sensuality and our emotions, I did a quick search to see what the internet was saying about sensuality. The number one search related to sensuality was “sensuality meaning.” 

That search term was up 190% in the last 12 months! This made me both excited and incredibly sad.

I am fucking excited because this means that people are starting to pay attention to sensuality but also made me so sad that people have no idea what sensuality is.

When I did a search for great quotes to use, articles, etc. I found a lot of things related to sexuality. Let me be clear, there’s a difference. Are they related? Absolutely. More like cousins than siblings.

According to the Oxford Dictionary, sensuality is “ the condition of being pleasing or fulfilling to the senses.” This means all the senses. This means we take care of every aspect of ourselves. We need to do things that feel good to us.

Today, I want to discuss emotional health and sensual embodiment. In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, it goes physiological needs and then emotional needs but in America we’ve created a stigma around our emotional needs. Womxn are called needy, clingy, bitchy, bossy, etc. for expressing emotional needs. So instead of focusing on our emotional needs that we as humans need to satisfy, we suppress them in order to make others feel better.

We’re patching holes in sinking boats if we put off, push away and avoid what we’re feeling.

Sensuality is all about feeling things and maybe that’s why it’s just now seeing an uptick in the search for the meaning of sensuality. As a societal whole, we’re waking up. We’re realizing there’s a reason that suicide is on the rise. America has created a culture of work until you cannot function. Men are highly regarded for their ability to “shut off” their feelings. Things are supposed to just happen in our lives and we aren’t supposed to let it faze us; we’re expected to shake it off without dealing with the emotional ramifications.

How many times are we told to “get over it” or “move on?” All.The.Fucking.Time.  My personal favorite is “it’s not that bad.”

People are also accustomed to sharing how they handled emotional situations as if every situation is the same and every person is the same and so the responses should be the same. Wrong.

Maslow’s hierarchy discusses the need for emotional well-being in order to achieve the highest level of self-actualization so why have we chosen to ignore it? Because it can be fucking hard to deal with the issues we’re facing.

Sometimes we do not even know what feels good to us. I’ve spoken to clients before who could not tell me what makes them happy. They had no idea what felt good. Why?

Because of a culture that expects us to be emotionless drones who make money and pay taxes. We work ourselves to death so we don’t have to deal with the emotional aspect of life thus never reaching self-actualization.

Imagine for a second the successful corporate CEO. Everyone always assume life is perfection for him because he has status and money but how often do we see that the family is dysfunctional, addiction is prominent or other issues have manifested? When we focus on just the physiological piece of the pyramid we do ourselves and those around us a great disservice. We’ve disavowed our connection to our heart and being in our emotions like they are pieces of scrap metal that aren’t needed when they are in fact part of the masterpiece in our sensual embodiment.

While it can feel selfish to focus on the emotional side of sensuality it is necessary for true happiness.

We regain sovereignty and deeper joy, love, contentment, and acceptance when we’re present with our emotions and allow them to flow through us.

Here are some ways to discover what brings you true joy.

1.  Be prepared for the hard stuff

We’re about to peel back the layers of a very unhappy onion here. This exercise will require you to dig deep, identify what makes you unhappy and be brutally honest with yourself. This can be emotionally exhausting so be prepared for this work. Take a bath. Go for a walk. Break the work up. Set a timer for how long do look at your stuff; you don’t have to plow through it until it’s complete. Do a hard evaluation and then reward yourself with something you know feels good so you don’t get discouraged or sad.

2.  Only you can do this

Remember that only you can solve your emotional needs. No one else can give you emotional sensuality. Other’s actions and words can only be internalized and assigned emotion by you. You get to decide what feels good to you. No one can assign that for you.

3.  Write it out

Grab a journal, your iPhone, laptop, the wall, whatever feels good to you and write down the things you know feel good to you. Does a walk feel good or does it feel forced? Do you love alone time? Do you thrive in social situations? Write it all down.  Hint: If you feel your body relax and open, feel energized, or think “Mmmm”, those are signs you’re on the right track!

When you have a list of what makes you excited, you’re ready to start tapping into caring for yourself. Is there something on the list you’re laxing on?

If we continue to operate on a patchwork basis, rather than creating a healthy, emotional relationship with ourselves, we are looking at pure self-destruction and we’re likely to bring others down with us.

Think about children who act out more than is considered a normal range. 9 times out of 10 it’s because an emotional or physical need is not being met. The unmet needs manifests as outward destruction.

While we all have the same emotional categorical needs, the way we experience them is different. What feels good for me may not feel good for you and vice versa. It’s up to you to get off the sinking boat. No one can help you but you. Only you can put the work in to discover what feels good for you.

The good news is that you don’t need to tackle trying to figure out the root cause of your unhappiness. You don’t need to try to figure out what feels good all alone.

I’ve been there. In 2008, my anxiety was at an all-time high. I’ve been there. As someone with an M.A. in Clinical Mental Health, I help my clients figure out their root cause of unhappiness and find out what is going to bring them the most joy. We figure out what sensuality means to you and how you can embody it. Let’s talk about how I can help you get off that sinking boat and stop doing patch jobs. We’ve all seen what happens when we do patchwork to our plumbing right? It’s okay temporarily and then you have a flood on your hands. Don’t let that happen to your emotions. I want to talk to you. Book a call here: Discovery Call

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