Sex educator Emily Nagoski talks about the “brakes” to accessing desire and pleasure: beliefs, judgments, and feelings that kill your access to enjoyment of your erotic body and mind.
In Erotic Blueprints, these are called the “Shadows of your Blueprint”
Each Blueprint Type has its shadows and they may be the very source of your disconnection and dissatisfaction.
The Shadows of your Erotic Blueprint™
Opening to your sexual joy and true erotic freedom takes courage and detective work.
It also takes getting raw and real with yourself.
There are schools of thought that profess that everyone in our modern western world has sexual trauma.
The cultural message is that sexual pleasure is bad, wrong and sinful.
Be honest with yourself!
Have you inherited judgments and shame about your own sexual expression? Do you struggle with desire based on past experiences or unknown challenges? Do you get stuck in your head?
We’ve been separated from our bodies and our pleasure!
The first step on the path to healing your Shadows is to recognize them, and I’ll add that they are only a Shadow if they put on the brakes: taking away your desire and pleasure, slowing them down or even screeching them to a halt.
There are usually 3-6 Shadows that can show up for each Type.
To get you started here are a few examples of shadows for each of the Erotic Blueprint Types™:
Energetic Shadow: The energetic’s natural sensitivity can go haywire and turn into hypersensitivity. Being approached too quick with too much closeness may cause you to short circuit, go into overwhelm and lose all connection to your body.
Sensual Shadow: You may be blocked from your arousal or have it instantly die if something in the environment is off. The music is wrong, your partner or you have an unpleasant body odor, it’s taking too long or partner’s touch is not the right depth or speed. You get caught in your head.
Sexual Shadow: For the Sexual, your shadow may be found in your single focus around what successful sex is. You can get annoyed (or bored) by foreplay or a partner’s need for something that seems complex. If there isn’t orgasm, erection or wetness as part of an erotic experience, it was a “fail.”
For Sexual women, shame may be your shadow. You’ve been made bad or wrong for having a high sexual drive – slut-shamed – and you took on the belief.
Kinky Shadow: Shame is one of the most debilitating shadows for the Kinky Type. Your turn on by the taboo can bring up an intense judgment of yourself. You may make yourself bad or wrong for your desires, thinking something is wrong with you.
Shapeshifter Shadow: You could be stopped in your turn on tracks by the Shadow for any of the Types, but one way you shut yourself down is judging that you are “too much”. You may have heard this from lovers in the past and you took it on. You may also consistently shift to be what other’s want instead of really claiming that you love it all.
And there is a Shadow Type that I think of as a sixth Erotic Blueprint Type: the “Shadow Shapeshifter”.
This Type has the shadow of every Blueprint. Imagine having your brakes to pleasure thrown on by every Shadow without any of the positive aspects to accelerate your desire. Breaking through to pleasure can be incredibly challenging for this Type.
The remedy.
The first step to healing your shadows is to recognize them.
Begin to pay attention to when your pleasure is interrupted. Or notice what’s happening in your body and then in your mind, when you can’t even get the engine going.
I would recommend taking notes of these Shadow experiences, so you can begin to track when they occur.
Awareness is the first step.
Acknowledging is the next.
Once you see the challenge, you can begin the process to transform pain into pleasure!
Then take steps to find a mentor, a sex-positive therapist, a community of support to help you grow towards a healthy and rewarding sexuality.
We also offer an entire module in our Erotic Blueprint Breakthrough™ Course where we focus specifically on healing the Shadow sides of our Blueprints, so that we can clear the path for full acceleration of desire and pleasure.
Don’t walk the path alone! Reach out and get support.
Fill your life with pleasure,
Jaiya
Your Erotic Blueprint™ Type is your access to deeper connection and hotter sex! Do you know your Type? Take Your Erotic Blueprint Quiz Here!
