How to stay in your own lane during sexy time

One of the common things I hear from clients is some version of, “I just can’t seem to stay in my own lane when I’m with somebody else and things start to heat up.”

Physically, they may be there obviously with the other person in sexy time, but mentally and somatically, they’ve left the building. And so let’s break down a little bit about what the spectrum of this disconnection can look like.

We can look at it as a passive disconnection.

This could be a sense of zoning out, or the touch may feel dull or distant. Perhaps you are in observer mode or spectatoring as they call it, where you are like observing what’s happening in your body, but you’re not actually feeling it from within. Maybe you’re just mentally checked out and you are doing the grocery list. These are examples of collapse, dissociation, and freeze at varying states.

Or it could be an active disconnection,
Where you are performing a pleasure and making all those sounds and movements, but you’re not actually feeling it. Maybe you are over-focused on doing it right. You could be planning your next move in your head rather than sensing what’s happening now. It’s a hyper attunement to the other person while completely disregarding yourself.

So on the outside, you may be doing all the right things, but you’re not actually there while you’re doing them. This can be seen as a performance mode, a pleasing of the other maybe even an over-efforting. And again, this is just another variation of a nervous system response, right? We’ve moved into fawning.

And what’s common across this spectrum is that you are not grounded in safety in your body. Your nervous system has shifted into a sympathetic state of fight or flight, or freeze to a varying degree.

And so why does this happen? Why does arousal make this more likely to happen for some people?

Because the stakes are higher. We’re talking about sex. It’s vulnerable, it’s intimate, the stakes are higher.

What are they gonna think about me? How am I going to be? What does this mean for us if this doesn’t go the way that I want it to go?

All of these things play in the back of our mind within our inner survival system. It is a threat to some degree. Because of that, our nervous system may respond accordingly.

And so what does that look like?

It looks like people not really enjoying the sexual interactions that they’re having with their partner, with their playmates. That they’re distracted, they’re not present, they feel disconnected. And quite honestly, it’s unsatisfying for everybody involved.

And so what does it mean when I say to learn how to stay in your lane with these situations?

It’s being able to notice what’s happening in your body, Sensation, pleasure, while still staying connected with the other.

It’s about being present and exploring what’s coming up in the moment, instead of doing what you think you should be doing, and left wondering whether that other person is enjoying themselves or not.

It is about being able to notice what your needs and your desires are and being able to voice them in the moment.

Or it could even be noticing when you’re about to check out, or have checked out and be able to bring yourself back completely.

And remember, this is a skill like any other. If you have spent most of your sexuality not being present, your capacity to stay present is probably low.

And so as we move through these practices, what we are doing is building our capacity to stay present in the moment, in our body with another person. What I cover with all my clients is learning how to keep their nervous system in a grounded and regulated state as their arousal rises.

Now last month we covered the waking hands to pleasure meditation, which is a foundational skill of learning how to stay present in your body as pleasure and sensation arises.

For some people, doing that by themselves is not a problem. “Hey Mandy, I can be with my pleasure, I can ride my pleasure to high arousal and have no problems.”

But the moment that another person is in the picture they start shaking like a leaf. Teeth are chattering, ready to run out of that room like nothing else. So now how do we translate that message of safety to our body in a dynamic situation?

We do that with communication, that is the bridge to bringing us together. And that’s what we are going to dive deeper into in this week’s paid practice. It’s about how do we create those spaces to practice safety of our nervous system with another.

Yes, there are ways to communicate and express, but if we’re only ever doing that when the stakes are high,
That doesn’t necessarily help our capacity to build. And so creating places where we can lab, where we can experiment, where we lower the stakes and get to actually train and hone these skills that can bring us safety and connection.

Because being in your body is one thing. But being in your body while connected to another, that is where real intimacy lives.

We’ll see you there.