You Are In Integrity

“You are in integrity when the life you live is an authentic expression of who you are.” — Alan Cohen

 

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Integrate Healthy Sexuality Into Life

“Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation.  The other eight are unimportant.”  — Henry Miller

Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 –– June 7, 1980) was an American novelist and painter. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms, developing a new sort of novel made up of autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association and mysticism, one that is distinct always about and expressive of the real-life Henry Miller, and yet is also fictional. His works of this kind are Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn and Black Spring. Henry Miller also was known to write travel memoirs and essays of literary criticism and analysis.

It is good and healthy to laugh about sex – as long as the laughter is on the side of life.  Sex, after all, is part of the life force, and if it is surrounded by caring and honesty, it leads to a joyous intensification of our relationship with others and with the world.  Then sex, like laughter, integrates.

Too often, laughing about sex betrays uneasiness, shame, disgust, and the want to hurt.  We talk about “dirty jokes” and consign sex to the bathroom.  We split off sex from other feelings and surround it with taboos and rituals and mockery.  Viewed in this way, sex isolates us.

We need to learn to talk about our sexuality in a proud and affirmative way. Talking and laughing in a group, or with a friend, or with a loved one, is one of the steps we take to bring sex into the open to take its place as part of the diversity of life.  Own your sexuality.  Talk about it without shame and claim it a vital part of life.

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Exploring Healthy Sexuality

 

“O Body swayed to music, O brightening glance how can we know the dancer from the dance?”   — W.B. Yeats

Sexuality is not something we do, but its part of whom we are.  We are physical, intellectual, emotional, sexual and spiritual people, and all parts are equally important.  To consider sexuality as energy, a state of being, and not a state of activity, helps us bring our sexuality and our sexual expression back within ourselves.

Part of my challenge with sexuality is to explore what healthy sexuality is and to decide what my values and behaviors are going to be.  I am responsible only for taking care of myself; it is not up to me to decide sexual issues for others or for society.  It is more than enough to know my own needs and how I will meet them.  I can give myself permission to put sexuality in its rightful place.  It is an important part of who I am, but only a part, not the entire sum of my personality and being.

 

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Hugging and Holding

 

“I’d never seen men hold each other.  I thought the only thing they were allowed to do was shake hands or fight.”  —Rita Mae Brown

Like many men, I grew up without knowing the warmth of lovingly touching one another.  Some of us had fathers who trapped themselves in a stereotypical male role, afraid to hold us and show their love for us.  We may have learned to be independent, competitive, and even separate.  We often fall into awkwardness and isolation.  As men especially, we become afraid to reach out, hug, and hold someone of our own sex. So many of us, whether male or female, have lost touch with ourselves and with others.  We have been alone far too long.

One result when pursuing personal growth is the awareness and beginning of healthy and proper holding of one another and giving hugs.  At first, we may find it embarrassing and keep our distance.  As we learn to loosen up and reach out, we look forward to the warmth and strength that comes from giving and receiving a friendly, caring hug.  It is good to learn to touch in a fearless and nonsexual way.  I am glad to be in touch with other people through hugging and holding.

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Consensual Inferiority

 

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

Even though we may deny it, there are those of us that may secretly want to be hurt by others; since, in some strange abhorrent way, we think that is what we deserve.  Before I became clean and sober, I lost my good opinion of myself; I indulged in actions that placed me in situations of humiliation and debasement.  It’s a sad truth, but I found comfort there, finding a sort of release from tension through degrading acts.

For those readers who may relate even remotely to such degradement, resolve with me to reject humiliation.  I find that through talking to others, that life is rich and varied and open – I want to join in!  There was a woman sitting across from me on the bus the other day, and I noticed that from her purse hung a long chain of Crystal Meth Anonymous (CMA) sobriety chips; the one most prominent boasting 30 months sobriety. This woman was riding the bus with two others, who I eventually came to know as her husband and daughter.

As I watched this woman interacting with her family, seeing their big smiling faces, listening to their jests and laughter, I thought how alive they looked.  Not ghostly images of addicts going unnoticed as life moves about them, but rather, they were engaged in life.  I wanted to join in!

We do not have to continue to find false comfort and release in acts that come back to haunt us and humiliate us.  There is no more room in my life for feelings of inferiority or worthlessness.  There are ways for us all to gain self-esteem and a sense of true value of our lives.