Sexual energy is the energy of Life! It is the life force running through your body; your direct and personal connection to everything around you. The energy that comes in through the sacral chakra is the raw energy of creation. We connect to the physical world through our root and sacral chakras.

Sexual Integrity from a shamanic point of view focuses on the open flow of our personal sexual/life force energy through our being. When the sacral chakra is cleaned out and open we engage fully in life. We feel the world responding to our energy as we respond to it. We are connected to all of creation.

Sexual Flow

When you tap into your sexuality from a shamanic perspective, you feel your effect on the world and its affect on you, experiencing directly the energy of the universe as it flows through you. You have sex with the flowers, the trees, the feeling of brick under your fingertips, the smile of your beloved. You feel out into the world through your sexual chakra and touch into the essence of all the life around you. Feeling the ebb and flow of energy around you there is no doubt about the abundance present in each moment, the fullness of presence and openness available to you with each breath.

And the breath! What a joy, breathing in more energy all the time, filling yourself, feeling the connection between your breath and your sex, allowing the world to penetrate you as you penetrate it, breathing it in deeply, opening to it, deliberately engaging with it, swimming in the warm yummy wetness of life fully lived…. Woohoo!

Step One: Getting Clear on Our Domestication

Part of the problem we face as beings that want full access to our sexual energy is the way our ideas of sex have been (consciously or unconsciously) distorted and warped by the matrix of our western culture. To reclaim our sexual integrity we must be willing face the layers of our sexual domestication and be honest and dedicated to clearing out old stuck energies, beliefs, and agreements.

Most of what we believe about sex and sexual energy is a product of our upbringing. The beliefs and attitudes of our family, friends, and the culture that we are in have a huge impact on our reality. In addition to what we take on as a result of being directly told “this is the way it is,” we also take on these beliefs from the modeling of the people around us. We pick up energetically what is ok and what is not, what is acceptable, what is edgy, and what is “perverted” or unacceptable from the people around us. What is critical here is to understand they went through the same process as they were growing up.

There is an interesting bind many of us carry in our beings because of our domestication. There are two main messages we receive around sex from what the Toltecs call "the dream of the planet" (or the way all humans are dreaming, which is based in fear at this time.) One comes from the old religious paradigm that sex is a "sin" and you should only have sex when you are married (or only to procreate...) The other message is reflected in our media, which shouts "You must be highly outwardly sexual to get what you want!" There are even messages from Tantric or spiritual communities that we can take on, even though they are not in alignment with our truth.

Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't

If we are unconscious of the beliefs of our culture we are put in a situation of feeling bad and wrong for having and acting on sexual energy, while at the same time we are bad and wrong if we aren’t acting on our sexuality. You just can’t win! The result is our sexual energy bound around itself energetically. We often can’t access it without feeling guilty and inadequate at the same time, so the tendency is to shut it down as much as we can, until it blows out sideways through bad relationships, alcohol and drug use, drama, drama, drama. All so we can just get a little sexual energy running through our system and feel somewhat alive…. It's exhausting! (not to mention in-efficient!)

Another place of confusion is when we label all feelings of sexual energy as “desire to have sex with a partner right now” instead of exploring what we are actually feeling. The tendency when we do this is to sever all sensation to the genitals and even the whole lower body.

On Clamping and Grasping

If you clamp down on your sexual energy, if your access to it is limited by your self-imposed limitations, then your access to new energy, creativity, joy, and excitement are also limited. Limitations unconsciously placed on your sexual energy also limit your ability to stay present and really engage with your life. It limits your ability to open fully to the world around you. You are in effect saying some part of you is bad and must be denied access to God, to the One life force.

Limiting your ability to access more energy through your sexual center also gives you a constant perceived lack of energy. Unconsciously people act on this sense of scarcity by trying to take energy from other people. We start looking to other people to try and complete the sense of unfulfilled potential we feel inside ourselves. We get needy for attention, love, sex, or emotional juice of any kind, even if its negative in our attempt to fill ourselves with energy. This is like trying to run your energetic system on cheap gas! You have access to unlimited, unfiltered, totally pure energy through your sacral chakra, yet you go out and pull on other people who have filtered, used, and distorted the energy before giving it to you.

Reclaiming Your Life Force Energy

To begin the journey to reclaim your sexuality as your life force energy, explore what your unconscious beliefs are around sexuality through writing. Don't edit as you write, and invite the most unconscious part of you to speak. Review your sexual relationships and any agreements you made around sex. How have you related to your own sexual energy over the years? What was your first sexual experience like? What has been the flavor of your sexuality? What have you told yourself about your own or other's sexual energy? How do you feel about your sexual energy now? Explore with an open and curious mind all of your agreements and experiences around sex as a foundational step to returning to sexual integrity.

In the next article we will explore the shamanic tool of recapitulation.

HeatherAsh Amara and Raven Smith are dedicated to balancing inspiration and action, ecstatic union with the Divine, and one-pointed physical focus on a goal. They are both ministers of the Toltec Center of Creative Intent, Master Firewalkers through Sundoor International, and Toltec Mentors in the Eagle Knight Lineage of don Miguel Ruiz, author of The Four Agreements. HeatherAsh and Raven are the co-authors of Stop Seeking, Start Being.