This month’s theme at Trust Tending is sexuality, and I want to start off, particularly for readers who may be new here, by clarifying the point of the work that happens at this site. If I could boil down the philosophy of the work that happens here into one single line, it would be this:

And by trust, I don’t mean blind willingness to assume others’ best intentions, which of course would be the last thing you’d want to do in quite a lot of cases!

By trust, I mean a worldview of hope. Which includes, among other things, things like: I’m enough, I can heal, I can grieve, I can be happy, I’m lovable, I can take risks, I can say no, I can rest, I can pursue dreams, I’m not unhelpably stuck, my body is good, my age is right, I can start exactly where I am. Trust softens us, connects us with ourselves and each other, clarifies our vision, emboldens us to name and follow dreams, and opens us up to give and receive good things (sexually and otherwise!).

Fear, of course, does the opposite of all such things: it makes us brittle and tight, it closes our hands and hearts, it shrinks us into small living (“I can make do with this life…”) or makes us pretend we’re far bigger (more competent, connected, energetic, popular, sexually alive…) than we actually are. It’s the thing that keeps us from deep, transformative peace.

And, to my mind, it’s the heart of every problem on our globe (!).

So as we look toward sexuality this month, the goal is to create conditions for shifts to happen inside of us, from places of fear and insecurity to places of greater trust.

• I want to explore fears around sexual orientation, sexual assault and abuse and the scars left by them, sexual inexperience/naivete, and, conversely, sexual addiction and the perception of over-experience.
• I want to name the connections between sexuality, creativity and spirituality and the fear and confusion we can experience when we find ourselves sexually attracted to people we want only to love as friends.
• There is huge overlap between last month’s body theme and sexuality, too, so bodies will play a role here again this month, with the fears we know around being…or not feeling like…sexy or sexual selves. Or feeling like that’s all we’re appreciated for being!
• Lastly, I’d like to devote an article to children and sexuality, and the challenge we have as adults to navigate conversations with kids around their (and our!) sexual development.

I’m so looking forward to another month here with you! And as I said last month, please let me know if there are specific topics, rituals, or songs you’d like to see covered/created here this month. I can’t promise to be able to fit every good thing in…or to feel competent, even, to do so (or to pull in the right people who ARE competent to do so)…but I’d love for this space, and this topic, to grow trust around the issues around which you most want it to grow!

Tweet