What is this life?!
My guest today in the Love and Making It: Holiday Edition series is my one-and-only sister, Robin Chancer. She might be taller than me (I mean, who isn’t?!) but she will always be my little sister.
You can trust Robin to look at life with both practical and deeply emotional insights. Her post reminds me of one of my favorite Tyler Knott Gregson’s Typerwriter Series poems (as if I could have a favorite in that series!!)
I want my kisses to be without question marks. I want our passion to make all the questions into exclamations. Really, what I want is to feel those questions straighten up and stand at attention. I want to feel the assurance literally FILL the space between us as we meet each other new each time.
Keep reading. This post from Robin is a big, beautiful dare to be real and present in your body so that the intimacy between you and your spouse can become an exclamation.
This is how you make more love. This is intimacy.
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I work as psychotherapist, and recently I was meeting with a couple having a common struggle. He caught her sexting with someone else. She felt awful and wanted to fix the marriage. We were trudging through a classic conversation: he wants more sex, she wants less pressure. Well, shoot, I thought. This conversation is definitely not sexy.
David Schnarch in his book Passionate Marriage makes the point that classic marital therapy: active listening, I statements, and so forth is just not that sexy. That’s not what maintains passion, he would say. What maintains passion is a strong sense of self—standing on your own two feet so that you can be authentically intimate with your partner.
It’s the connection, not the technique, that matters.
But intimacy is hard. We all think we want more intimacy. Most couples say that in our first session together. But we forget that being intimate with our partners is scary. It means being radically honest, letting our partner in, seeing and being seen. It means saying things to our partner, and even to ourselves, that we might not want to hear. That’s dangerous. Because the longer we’re with our partners, the more important they are to us. If we allow ourselves to take the leap and be vulnerable, and our partner hurts or rejects us, we have a lot to lose.
So most of us start playing it safe. We keep some cards close. We start working to please our partner, maintain the status quo, be nice, avoid risks. Sex becomes predictable. Or, we retreat into our heads during sex. We focus on our sensations, or our fantasies, or what we know our partner likes. For this woman, I could tell she saw it as one more obligation on her long list of chores.
So I decided to try something. Instead of talking about connecting, I thought, let’s actually connect. Right now.
“This might sound crazy,” I asked her, “but could you take a second to tune in to how you feel right now?”
She thought for a second. “Tired,” she answered.
“Where do you feel that in your body?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” I could tell she was not used to tuning in to her body.
“How do you know that you’re tired?”
“I don’t know. I’m just tired. All over.” Getting into her body was really tough for her.
I gave her some silence so she could try harder. “My chest and shoulders,” she finally answered. “They feel heavy. Like everything is weighing on my shoulders.”
“Good!” I cheered her on. “Could you say that to your husband? If we want to connect , we have to be willing to let our partner see us for who we are right now. Tell him what’s going on inside you right now.”
For the first time in our session, she looked at his face. She told him how tired she was, and he just listened.
“Could you take his hand for a second?” I asked. “Tell me what you feel in his hand.”
They giggled like teenagers.
“Um, I don’t know.” She thought. Tuning into his body was tough for her, too. “It’s hot. And firm. And strong.”
“Good! What do you see in his face?”
She thought for a second. He had a wonderful look of love on his face.
“He really loves me,” she finally responded, like she was just realizing it. They both got tears in their eyes.
“How can you tell?”
“The gleam in his eyes. And the smirk on his face.”
“Good!!” I saw them relax. They kept looking at each other without my prompting now. We paused, enjoying the moment.
“You do it now!” She shouted, squirming to be on-the-spot for so long. We all laughed again at how awkward it felt to really connect.
He verbalized how tired she looked. He talked about how frustrated he felt and how good it felt to hold her soft, sweaty hand, how much he wanted that physical connection with her.
“This is intimacy,” I said. “Right here. Right now. Connecting on who you are this moment. What you really think and feel. If we can be transparent like that, sex will be different every time. You might have a different mood every day. You might be angry one day, serene the next. What matters is coming out of the cloud of our heads and really seeing each other.”
Schnarch suggests trying to keep our eyes open during sex. Most people shudder when I mention that. Why is that so hard? With our eyes closed, we can pretend sex is what we want it to be. We can go somewhere else. Maybe we’re afraid of what we’ll see on our partners’ faces. We might see that they aren’t truly present either, or truly having fun, or maybe that they ARE. With our eyes open, we’ll have to really be there. We’ll have to face our nakedness, to see our partner seeing us.
In this session, I saw her start to do that emotionally. She had let another man start to see pieces of her that she kept from her husband: she shared fantasies with him, told him her deepest feelings, complained and vented to him, confessed her ambivalence about her marriage. Now that she was starting to open those doors to her husband, I could feel the heat building between them. We had no idea what would happen next. It was uncomfortable. Even painful. And scary. And squirmy. And exciting. And hot.
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Robin Chancer is a clinical social worker in North Carolina. She revels in being a sister, daughter, wife, and new mother of a sweet, spunky nine-month-old. She loves singing, pupusas, hugs, and laughter. She clings fiercely to this awesome, crazy thing called life. She blogs at www.roboinguate.blogspot.com.
It’s an embarrassment of riches, around here, Friends! It’s time for another guest to join us in the Love and Making It series – the Holiday edition.
Everyone’s story is different and yet from your comments and the posts themselves, I see universal struggles and universal hopes for our sexuality. We are in this together – It’s awkward in the best possible way. I have words to offer, words that are forming in my heart for you all – and for me – about what to do next. What do we do after we have grappled with the hard stuff, invited God into our sex-lives, reclaimed our wildness, accepted that we are loved, and tried to be brave – even with our boobs?
For now, we confess. We confess our struggles and our hopes. We flash a little more brave with a twinkle in our eyes.
My next guest, Candice Jones, a woman of shocking beauty who is pursuing freedom and courage with everything she’s got, has quite a spark to her. Enjoy her words on Love and Making it.
Let her confessions inspire you to admit your own.
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I’m Candice Mae. I am happily married, and I rarely enjoy sex.
These are my confessions:
I wore a purity ring through my teen years to ward off unwanted suitors, meaning ALL suitors.
I am still trying to find the little girl in me who decided to hide and never be seen.
I judged and condemned other girls for their promiscuity, while secretly envying their ability to let someone in so close.
I was taught to fear– specifically to fear the regret I would feel as an adult because of the decisions I made as a young person.
I believed being vulnerable equaled the loss of my control and power, so I decided not to be vulnerable. (damn you, twisted truth)
I didn’t kiss a man until I was 22 years old, and it is one the most awkward experiences I have survived. (Right up there with my bathing suit popping off at the top of a waterslide, which resulted in me flashing several young children. Unlike Abby’s previous post, people have seen my boobs.)
I unintentionally absorbed the belief that life is not messy. I can remember painting murals on the inner walls of one of the churches I attended as a child. We painted precise pictures of white people with clear skin and smiles in different settings and stories described throughout the Bible. Even the crucifixion scene had minimal drops of red. Being raised in what is considered a conservative church, and by a strong, single mother, my early days were somewhat void of what I now know are real, messy, and good life experiences. Simple things were unknown to me, like crying in front of someone in complete vulnerability. What was modeled to me instead was going silent and running away from heartache and anger rather than opening up and letting people sit in it with me. As you can imagine, these learned practices did not set me up well for a relationship. I still have a lot of pain stored in my soul. I am unlearning, and some days it feels like I must unlearn everything.
I tend to giggle like a junior high kid when it comes to penis jokes, because I never understood them growing up. I was terrified of them. Penises, that is. It was a word never explained to me. I think I even blocked out what I learned in my Human Anatomy class because it made me so uncomfortable. I blushed a fiery red in those days. The only reference I do remember was during a video, while explaining semen, a pirate flashed on the screen and said, “ARRGG!” … oh right, I get it. Like sea-men. Ha. The semen thing stuck with me, and totally grossed me out. I was convinced that I would never be able to do that, ANY of that. Hollywood did not help either. The way sex was (and is) portrayed is completely ridiculous to me. Really? People make THAT much noise?! I didn’t get it, and in my walled-up heart, I rejected it. However, I am also a realist who has always loved children. I knew I couldn’t keep my eyes shut and hands to myself forever, though I never anticipated how much work the undoing (and undressing) would actually be. It took a lot more than my man’s good looks to get me into bed. After an enormous amount of prayer & soul-searching, married friends sharing their hearts & newfound knowledge, and an intense Christian therapist, I am in a much better place. But as I confessed in the beginning, sex is a rare thing for me to relish in.
My husband and I are opposites. From food, to hobbies, to energy levels, we usually seem to interrupt the other’s rhythm more than encourage our differences. It is the same with our physicality and sexuality – he is all in, all over, building up, while I am slowing down, breathing, and letting go. I tend to emphasize the X in sex, wanting to cross it out, move on, or get it over with quickly. As I dive deeper into myself and into my story, I know for a fact that my X-ing tendencies are directly impacted by two words: beauty and belonging.
Why do I strive for beauty in this space? Shouldn’t I be convinced by now that he loves what he sees, feels, knows? Why am I still working to make every inch of my skin soft and smooth and clear, keeping my make-up on instead of washing it off, going for the lacey cover-ups instead of letting him see me completely natural and bare?
As I process these questions, Light pours into my heart. Bare – I equate this word with “empty.” I compare nakedness to having nothing, not like admirable humility but more like disgusting poverty. I feel awkward. I am raw. Even in my youth, I am a bit saggy and dimpled in places. I fear the effects of age, because I still believe that beauty is formed on the outside and fades away over time.
Belonging. I can count when I have felt this, truly and deeply, on my two hands. Insecurity is my consistent friend, found in the dark days after my dad left. Thankfully, a village of brilliant, loving people raised me, and my need for and delight in authentic community has also been constant throughout my years. In these spaces of friends’ hearts, in living rooms and around tables, I belong. In my shared bedroom, nestled beside the man I am learning to trust with everything I am and have, I belong. Pursuing this truth in these places and among these people is my saving grace.
I have this belief about life:
Wherever we are in our stories is exactly is where we are meant to be.
& I am here —
where beauty is freely growing as well as striving,
where love is longing and awakening, failing and fighting,
where sex is becoming a mystical and God-breathed miracle between two beings who choose to show up, to enter in, to stay, and to heal.
I am unlearning my shame. The shame that tells me I am empty. The shame that perverts my nakedness, causing me to see poverty instead of purity and divine creativity. Shame focuses on the broken, rather than the being made whole. Shame hides my breasts under the blanket. Shame keeps me in the lie that I am what I feel. To all of this, I am saying no more. I am waking up, rubbing the false and easy out of my eyes, and opening my heart to truth. Messy truth. Trusting that I am loved more than I know, that I belong here, and that I am beautiful beyond words and beyond my youth.
I am growing away from Shame and growing into Shalom.
And reminding myself that relishing is a good thing.
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Candice resides in Minneapolis with her fellow adventurer & husband, Kip. Living it up as newlyweds, they are avid dog-sitters and baby-holders, since neither of these gifts is in the plan yet. She’s a Southern Belle turned City Dweller who currently hopes to make it through another long winter. She enjoys traveling at every opportunity and continually exploring all of the unique places and faces of the Twin Cities. A proud thrift addict, she hopes to soon find a creative career that supports both her passions for the world and her coffee appreciation. You can find her words (for now) at http://candiceloves.blogspot.com.
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Candice, Abby, Esther, Jennifer, Sarah – they are all Story Sessions Sisters. If you need a group of friends who are wildly creative, brave, funny, loving, and accepting. Come check out Story Sessions. We are pursuing writing, story telling, artistry and God without forgetting that sometimes it’s good to make a full on career out of what you love. Come check it out. And let Elora know I sent you, if you decide to join us!
Welcome, Dearest Friends, to the next guest post in our Love & Making It series, written by Esther Emery, a woman after God’s own heart. I began stalking (aka following) Esther through twitter long before we became friends through the Story Sessions. She fights lions and tigers and lies for the sake of her family – not just with words but with her bare hands and brave guts. She gives me courage and has helped me find my own voice. The following words are hers; read them and let them read you.
Enjoy the force she harnesses to clear the fog and reclaim her story. You will agree and you will disagree. Pay attention to what and why you feel the way you do. Read yourself as you read her story.
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Wild Girls Dancing by Esther Emery
I wrote a post recently that triggered a pornography firewall. Exciting, don’t you think? It fits with my rebel image. The trouble is, that post wasn’t about sex. At all. It was about my four-year-old.
Girls. Wild. Dancing.
Those three words. That’s all it takes to trigger a firewall.
I tried to think it was funny. I tried to say, “Oh, that’s the way the world goes, isn’t it?” But I couldn’t let it go. It kept reminding me of something.
How old were you, when you learned about the dark power of a woman?
The stain? The sin? The trouble that came in through us like an open gate?
We had a power, they said. To incite. To attract. To distract. Who knew? We were just twirling in our skirts. But we learned that the dirtiness, the exploitation, was ours somehow. It lived in us like some kind of a beast we had to control.
How old were you, when you first heard about the dark power of woman?
Were you just four, like my daughter? Or were you eight, trying on your mother’s high heels and makeup? Was it later, when they told you not to wear that, not to stand like that, sit like that, not to walk alone in the streets at night.
Or was it earlier? Was it when someone did something to you that you knew was wrong and told you that you couldn’t tell?
It was a lie. It died under bright lights. But it thrived in the shadows, underneath the surface. As a collective, especially among Christians, we swallowed it. We tucked it in pockets underneath our breasts, under our thighs, beneath the skin.
It is a lie with teeth.
Pornography is what happens when wild girls dance.
Sin is what happens when wild girls dance.
Satan – the King of Darkness – has a vision for Woman. She is the door into darkness, the foothold of evil in the world, the one that takes the blame, the creature abused, humiliated, silenced.
But God has a vision for woman, too. She is the last-created thing, the pinnacle, the crowning jewel of a masterpiece, the creature who when created makes the mud man burst into the Bible’s first love song.
I have seen Satan’s vision for womankind. I have seen it spread parent to child. I have seen it lifted up by the church. I have seen it laid on women by other women. Mother to daughter. Sister to sister. Friend to friend. This lie.
Sin is what happens when wild girls dance.
But I have seen the opposite as well, and I lift it up. Women reaching out our hands to one another. Voice to voice, stories told in bathroom stalls and over baby bottles. From a whisper to a shout, women sharing freedom instead of shame. Encouragement. Hope for healing. The promise of redemption.
We take back our pride, and our power. We take back the beauty of our sexuality. We take back our sacredness. Our createdness.
Free.
And wild.
And dancing.
We are wild girls dancing.
In the dark, in bedrooms, underneath the covers. In the light, in churches and at microphones, telling our stories. Alone with a mirror.
We are wild girls dancing.
We claim the arched back and the swinging hips – even this, as safe space. Our space, God’s space. This moan, God’s breath.
We are wild girls dancing.
Reclaiming, inch by inch, our own skin. Unbinding our breasts and wiping off the paint. A free woman is not Satan’s woman. A dancing girl is not Satan’s girl.
We are wild girls dancing.
Not white sheets to be stained by whatever a man spills on us, but living, breathing image-bearers. Our God lives here.
We are wild girls, dancing.
Make room for us, men. And other women. It is a slow dance to healing, and we bump into our triggers in the dark. But redemption calls us all to freedom. And we are walking our way.
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Esther Emery
Esther Emery used to direct stage plays in Southern California. But that was a long time ago. Now she is pretty much a runaway, living off grid in a yurt and tending to three acres in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. She writes about faith and rebellion and trying to live a totally free life at www.estheremery.com. Also, connect with her on Twitter @EstherEmery.
… aka…Holiday Magic…in bed.
People want to be special and powerful. We want to surprise and delight. We want to be magic.
It’s ok, you can admit it.
We each dream of being able to access magic, because “magic” does not always mean spooky mind-bending or casting spells. This kind of magic is not anti-God. Magic is when time stands still. The kind of magic we want to be a part of is when God shows up in us and we feel loved.
MAGIC is: a quality that makes something seem removed from everyday life, esp. in a way that gives delight.
Magic is the MORE the SPECIAL the DIVINE. Magic is that moment when we have taken someone’s breath away, inspired, and saved. Magic is when this happens to us.
To harness immortal, divine power bigger than ourselves and grab on as it pulls us from the dull normalcy of our existence – this is what we desire as human beings. We long for magic to be IN us. We are made of spirit and dust; made to feel the Divine coursing through our veins, but most of our days are covered in dust.
We are consumed by bad jokes, computer screens, carpools, and calendars.
We can never quite access the power and beauty in the magic of life from underneath the mounds of dust.
Except in rare moments.
Art and music give this experience to the artists. The masters can dance or sing or play and experience being a conduit for the divine.
Mothers and fathers experience magic. Children are wide open life-forces for the Spirit of God and eternity and breath to come rushing through.
But nothing is like sex… well, not just sex… Sex between people in love who are committed to each other’s GOOD. And then, when that kind of commitment and love are set on fire, that is magic. When the eye-contact that punches your gut becomes a kiss that melts all your frozen parts… when your commitment to this one person is not just symbolic but literal… Falling in love doesn’t hold a candle to creating it.
Together with one more soul we bring excitement, faith, joy, depth, and passion like we never see in the plain world of the day-to-day. It’s beyond us and yet OF us. We are special. We are magic.
It requires bravery and trust, understanding and a willingness to play…. Not just all that, it takes fortitude and perseverance and creativity and a wicked sense of humor.
Nothing else is as powerful or fun as laying ourselves bare in 1,000 different ways with one person doing the same.
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Now, I realize this is absurd to some people. It is either an unattainable ideal or a laughably old-fashioned concept: sex as an ongoing, magical, powerful experience with only one person forever and ever.
For you, my friends, who see how it may be absurd but still want it anyway… this is the place for you.
For you, my friends, who see so many images of so many people all day long that you never have sex without their pictures in your head… this is the place for you.
For you, my friends, who have so much love for your spouse that you overflow with gratitude but still avoid sex whenever possible… this is the place for you.
For you, my friends, who look forward every day to getting in bed every night… this is the place for you.
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This morning, the morning after Halloween, begins the holiday season. We will probably spend a lot of time and money looking for some holiday magic in these next couple of months.
Here, at 1000 strands, we will find some magic of our own. “Love & Making It” will continue – The Hot Holidays Edition.
I’m inviting some of the writers I trust to speak about their lives – about making love, about the struggles, triumphs, frustration, and magic. We will speak honestly about how to improve our lives in bed… how to grab hold of some magic. We will bring both the positive and negative sides of our sex lives into the open: Learning ways to have fun, develop a taste for new things, and embrace the roller coaster risk of sex AND still address the hard things too as we wade through issues with porn, body image, or physical limitations.
And in the end, I hope we all find some holiday cheer… in bed.
-CHEERS!
-Nicole
