Claiming my Sexuality: I am a Woman
Day 46 of 100 days of Blogging
I was 32 years old, visiting my parents on Cape Cod with my two young daughters for a week vacation. The transition I was in included divorcing my first husband, a new job working full time as a Project Manager at Johns Hopkins University in Epidemiology and moving out of my marital home into a house I was renting for my daughters and me.
I had a moment with my Dad upstairs and I asked, “Dad, when did you finally feel like you were an adult?” He looked at me like I was crazy. He told me he had no idea what I was talking about. It felt like such a natural question to me. Wouldn’t there be a time when I felt like I had moved from childhood to adulthood? Weren’t you automatically supposed to feel like an adult when you had responsibilities?
For most of my life, the roles I let myself play were connected to being a daughter to my parents and a mother to my children. Neither of those roles allowed for sexuality in my mind. No one in my lineage of women ever demonstrated that sexuality was a part of their lives. I was told to cover up my breasts and not wear anything that was too revealing. Sexuality was not on the table for discussion. Not the essence or the power or the desire.
My sexuality began to wake up three years ago, at the age of 56, when I started to practice Orgasmic Meditation (OM). All of my children were adults, my husband had died, and I wanted a safe, sexuality practice. I wanted connection. I OMed for eight months before I met a man who I was interested in spending time with, including having sex. My body was awake and alive and I wanted to have sex and to allow myself to play. As we explored and got to know each other we finally had sex and it made me feel like I was 16, not 56. I returned to a time in my life where I felt alive and free with my sexuality; when I began to explore with a boyfriend in the back of my parents station wagon.
The ten months I spent with Axel uncovered subtle places where I had blocked my sexuality.
A moment like this:
Axel: “What’s the sexiest panty you could wear under your dress to today?”
Me: “I don’t have any. I couldn’t let my kids know I have a sex live.”
Axel: “What?! That’s the reason? That was ages ago!. Your kids are all adults.”
And I walked out of the room…speechless. I didn’t have an exclamation. I just know that was the reason for a long time.
Axel loved seeing me in my power. Standing on the stage. Writing. Leading. His attention encouraged me to express ALL of me and I did the same for him.
In the story I wrote for Sensual Voices: True Stories by Women Exploring Connection and Desire, I claimed that I am a powerful woman with desire. Claiming desire involves surrender and vulnerability and softness.
Recently, I met a man, a much younger man, who I OMed with in New York on my birthday in October. The minute his hands touched my thighs with grounding pressure, I felt a jolt of electricity. His hands on my pussy during the 15 minute practice brought me into a deeper surrender. I felt like he followed the sensations and knew my body in a way I had never felt before. I felt like he really saw me. When I asked him what he felt, he said, “The minute I touched your body, my hand fit you like a glove.”
He came to see me in Washington, DC a month later so we could explore this electricity and connection. I just wanted to have this experience where we were both filled with desire and we could explore the sensations and feelings in our body.
For the first time in my life, I felt like a woman. Whole and complete and nourished. And as I open to this relationship that is based on desire, sex and friendship, I wonder how many women are denying themselves this kind of real body connection and repressing their sexuality because of the “rules” they were taught about how you have to be married, or he has to be your boyfriend or there has to be some other commitment other than an experience of body connection.
In this connection, I learned how Orgasmic Meditation is opening my body to more sensations and pleasure and personal power. I experienced a man’s full attention on my body while we explored this connection in bed. Now, that I have had an experience of passion and tenderness at a new level, I have a better idea of what I want to attract more of in my life.
It’s time!
**********
Andrea Hylen believes in the power of our voice to usher in a new world. She is the founder of Heal My Voice, an organization that inspires women and men to heal a story, reclaim personal power and step into greater leadership. Andrea discovered her unique gifts while parenting three daughters and learning to live life fully after the deaths of her brother, son and husband. In addition to serving as Heal My Voice’s Executive Director, Andrea is an Orgasmic Meditation Teacher and Sexuality Coach.
She is following her intuition as she collaborates with women and men in organizations and travels around the world speaking, teaching and leading workshops. Her passion is authentically living life and supporting others in doing the same. To connect with Andrea and learn about current projects go to: www.andreahylen.com and www.healmyvoice.org.