Frankly, sexy is very much in the eye of the beholder and not preordained, but I digress. For people who hold this belief that they aren’t sexy, there’s often fear and terror around their own sexuality – both exploring it and deepening it. However, that’s exactly what’s required to shift the paradigm of the patriarchy.

The divine feminine is not only about bodily sovereignty, it’s about sovereignty period. Did you know the practice of a woman taking her husband’s last name is a vestige of a law that dates back to the 11th century? Sometime after the Norman Conquest, the Normans introduced the idea of “coverture” to the English, which asserted that after she married, a woman’s identity was “covered” by her husband. From the moment of her marriage, a woman was known as a “feme covert” or covered woman. She became “one” with her husband. Her identity was erased and she could not own property or enter into contracts on their own. Husbands had complete control over their wives, legally and financially.

The breath is a powerful process and can be understood even as a mind-body tool. It can both indicate an emotional/mental state as well as encourage one. For instance, when a person is calm and relaxed, often their breathing slows. It gets deeper, in the belly, and even out almost through the ribs and down the back. When a person is stressed and tensed, often their breathing quickens. It gets shallower and in the chest. However, you can also facilitate each of those emotional states by changing your breathing. Meaning if you start breathing more slowly, taking belly breaths, you may start to feel more relaxed and at ease.

If you want to feel more spacious in your life, if you’re craving a slower pace, slowing down your breath is a great place to start. Try it right now. Inhale for a count of four, hold for a count of four, exhale for a count of four, and hold for a count of four. This is called a box breath. Repeat this sort of breathing as much as you like. There’s a journal prompt below to help you engage in this breathing experience.

As an addiction metaphor, the hungry ghost demonstrates what it feels like internally for a person with an addiction or addictive tendencies. Unlike true hunger, which can be satiated by food, addiction is more of a spiritual hunger that a person tries to quench with something external. They may try a substance, a relationship, or a behavior (sex, shopping, etc.) to fulfill the aching emptiness inside.

They don’t belong because the child knows on some level there’s a healthier way of existing, that there’s another way to show up in the world and live, even if they’re not quite sure what that looks like. For a child who perpetually feels like an outsider in their own home, or an adult who feels untethered to anyone, this can lead to numerous symptoms, including addiction and addictive tendencies.

When I work doing psychedelic integration, I invite people to dive deep into a shorter-term intense exploration that can be done in conjunction with any other longer therapy or coaching that person already has in place. I have different options to do this type of work.

Mostly what I care about is folx keeping in mind two things: sex isn’t supposed to hurt, and if it does, there may be a physical reason as to why. There’s no shame in asking for help and doing so could make all the difference. It’s important in my line of work to have colleagues to refer to who are sex-positive.

People in each category tend to feel extremely lonely and ostracized because it’s hard for others to grasp what life is like for them.

As long as you attempt to continue living the old way, your limiting beliefs are not only boxing others in but they are violent because they actively harm transfolx by denying they exist, making them feel unwelcome, or refusing to provide them with adequate medical care. The world is already hard enough, why not make it easier if you can?

How can you connect with yourself and others if you’re not open to seeing their point of view and instead are adamant that your way of looking at things is the only way? This is why individual therapy and coaching are so important – someone else is able to point out behaviors operating out of your awareness and support you in changing them if you wish and are ready.

I also want to acknowledge that because the prostate is accessible via the anus, and prostate milking can be practiced as a form of sexual pleasure, some folx may feel resistant to using this technique. Because many people continue to subscribe and use heteronormative languaging, they may feel scared and even consider this as “doing something gay.” And at the same time, a body part doesn’t have a sexual orientation. Body parts are neutral. They are attached to people and people are the ones that have sexual orientations.

ATTUNEMENT: WHAT IS IT? WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

There’s a very important factor that determines whether one or both parties in a relationship feel seen and nurtured. It applies to relationships across the board, from romantic to platonic, therapeutic to familial. And without it, miscommunication, fights, and hurt feelings are common. That factor is attunement. I’ll give the clinical definition first because it’s a word we often use in the field of psychotherapy and so you have a full picture of what attunement is and then I’ll describe attunement in layperson’s terms.

Rigorous, long-term psychological research demonstrates clearly that people who are denied abortions are more likely to experience higher levels of anxiety, lower life satisfaction and lower self-esteem compared with those who are able to obtain abortions. In addition, there is no research to indicate that abortion is a cause for subsequent mental health diagnoses.

Because it’s taboo to talk about money in public or with your friends, you might not even question the messages you received about money. . Just like romantic relationships, friendships, and familial bonds, your relationship with money deserves attention and nourishment. Are you giving that to yourself? If not, it’s never too late to start.

The collective still very deeply holds the trauma that has been caused by the violence directed toward non-straight people. This may be directly held by older generations in the lgbtqia+ but it may be held in the psyche of the younger generations. Creating space for these feelings to be expressed, explored, and held without judgment is important for healing this wound. Discrimination scars and some folx may not feel they have the space and time to heal in the ways needed. Let us hold that as we move forward in this Pride month. There is space for everyone to celebrate and heal in community.

As evidenced by its appearance across spiritual disciplines, a kundalini awakening can happen to anybody at any time on any spiritual path. You don’t have to practice Kundalini Yoga, for instance, or recite a particular mantra to have your kundalini rise.

That’s a problem for numerous reasons but what’s interesting to me is that straightwashing is not relegated to Hollywood. When someone gets into a man-woman relationship, people default to calling it a heterosexual one or believing both parties are heterosexual. It may look that way on the outside, but is it? What if one or both people are bisexual, pansexual, or identify in a way other than hetero? What if one or both people are trans?

Non-gay people do not have a right to use the word f*ggot, just as they are not allowed to greet each other with the word “homo.” The diminutive version of the word homosexual is not used as a descriptor, it’s used as an insult or a joke. In other words, it causes harm to anyone who identifies as a homosexual or falls closer to that side of the sexuality continuum.

Patriarchy focuses mainly on power and has implications for sex, money, and numerous other factors. What patriarchy comes down to is this: giving men power and taking power away from women, nonbinary folx, and “girly” men. In other words, men who display what are perceived as “feminine” traits like sensitivity, vulnerability, and care are less valued under patriarchy and discriminated against.