Get In Touch With Your Sexual Self.

1. Cosmos Allurement. 

       The presence of the divine fire is manifested in another way in our world. it shows itself as an energy of connection, the mysterious "magnetism" that permeates our cosmos on all levels of being. 

In the beginning, there is no light, no air, no darkness, nothing. Shortly after, God created the creation, he created fire, light from that divine power. The divine power of God attraction. In the beginning is the relationship, the energy of love. 

2. A Future With Hope (Listening to our psychosexual story).

        There are times in most of our lives when we feel exiled - cut off from our feelings, alienated from those we love, uncomfortable with our bodies, guilt-ridden about something in our past. Therefore, each of us grows up with a desire to connect: to find safety, nourishment, and protection when we are infants; to discover playmates and friends when we are in school; to choose a way of life, which includes the significant person or persons who will be our companions. These people become a vital part of the way we walk through time. Some, like our families, may be part of our entire journey in one way or another. Others enter our story at certain significant times as classmates, friends, fellow workers, colleagues, or lovers, and then they disappear. Still others - usually only a few - are in some way bonded to us through the most important times of our growing and changing. They are the real-life companions, the "significant others" who know our hearts and love us in our weaknesses as well as our gifts. Therefore, we come to have an important answer of "self-knowledge" and "self-acceptance" in our journey. When we know our story, we can begin to heal our past, embrace our present, and shape our future. Each of our stories is a graced venture into the unknown, and sometimes painful, sometimes joyful encounter with the energies of love and hatred, acceptance and rejection, trust and betrayal. Because of that, self-acceptance is one of the ways we can discover "some of the best stuff God did". 

1. What is the meaning to listen to our psychosexual story? Listening to our psychosexual story means talking about the time to be with our memories. Initially, this will probably mean time alone, time to be quiet and to let the silence speaks to us, time to let memories begin to surface and play around the edges of our consciousness, time to go for walks or light a candle and just sit, time to spend jotting down memories, journaling our feelings, or, if we are so inclined, sketching images from our past. 
2. It also involves taking the risk of asking questions. It means talking to our parents about their relationship and their memories surrounding our birth and infancy. It involves the willingness to explore our family's attitudes and messages around sexuality. It could mean conversations with our brothers and sisters or our other relatives about our shared past and early life experience. 
3.     The other side of listening to our psychosexual story is naming our messages. In another word, how do we feel about our bodies and our sexual selves? If we were fortunate enough to come from a reasonably healthy family, we would have inherited some affirming messages, we would have the sense of personal growth. But, what if this point turns into the opposite like:

- Our family just didn't talk about sex. The message was that the topic is taboo which is, of course, a significant message...

- The church gave me mixed messages about sexuality. It felt like they were saying "sex is dirty, save it for somebody you love"

- My parents were loving people, but they didn't show affection toward each other or toward us. I couldn't imagine them having sexual intercourse. 

- Each time I went on a date, my brother reminded me that the girl has to be in control; boys just can't help themselves. I got the message that boys were sexual and girls weren't. 

- In the eighth grade, the pastor took the boys to one room and the sister took the girls to another to give is the "sex talk". It was a pretty grim approach to sexuality. It made it seems like a secret that wasn't nice enough to talk about in mixed company. 

To deal with it, there is no other is to be aware, to shift this mindset "sexuality is the gift" or "God made it and he doesn't think it dirty" and "God loves them feelings best at all". 

3. Pathway To Love.

Psychosexual development is the growth process through which our capacity to love comes to fruition. It is the presence of "cosmic allurement" in our flesh, the other-orienting energy of God in our lives. "in the beginning is the creative fire, the light from the light. In the beginning is allurement, the divine power of attraction. In the beginning is the relationship, the energy of love.

That is a process of "growing up in our relational lives. It is our personal journey toward integration as embodied human persons. Psychosexual development refers to that dynamic interplay of experiences, circumstances, phrases, tasks, awareness, and decisions that lead us toward mature and loving relationships. It is a process of growth that embraces all aspects of our human reality. There are six dimensions of healthy psychosexual development.

Physical: the genetic, biological, hormonal factors that influence our sexual response from the first moments of conception and throughout the seasons of our lives. 

Cognitive: accurate and adequate sexual knowledge; the positive perception of our bodies, beliefs that reverence self and others. 

Social: relating to others in unselfconscious ways; having the capacity for self-disclose; being able to sustain friendship and intimacy. 

Moral: valuing the attitudes and actions that are necessary for ongoing sexual integration; expression of our sexuality that is faithful, healthy, and other-enriching; behaviors that are congruent with our life commitments. 

Spiritual: affirming the presence of God and the sacred in our sexual feelings and expressions; coming to recognize that sexuality and spirituality are not enemies but friends. 

        There is a reminder when any of these six dimensions are absent or limited, or if they develop in unhealthy ways, our journey toward sexual integration will in some way be hindered or slowed down, perhaps even halted altogether. As the result, our sexual energy will likely be expressed in ways that are hurtful to ourselves or others. Some of these unhealthy attitudes or harmful behaviors include the following:

1. The inability to make an accurate assessment of potentially dangerous sexual behavior in ourselves or others. 
2. Discomfort with ourselves socially, physically, and emotionally. 
3. The inability to develop and sustain relationships that give life, coldness, and distance in relating to people. 
4. A tendency to be excessively judgmental or self-righteous in our attitudes toward the sexual behavior of others. 
5. The inability to be faithful to primacy commitments and relationships. 
6. Involvement in sexually unhealthy or abusive behaviors, for example, casual or anonymous sex, use of pornography, deriving sexual gratification from children, the compartmentalization of one's sexuality. 

4. Knit Together In My Mother's Womb (Psychosexual development prenatal life).

You created my inmost self, knit me together in my mother's womb. For so many marvels I thank you; a wonder am I, and all your works are wonders. (Psalm 139: 13-14).

As wondrous as our prenatal development is, there is more to it than our physical formation. The psalmist hints at it when he speaks of the "inmost self". There is something more than flesh. something of an innerness that is knit into the fabric of our being. It permeates our flesh but is not synonymous with it. The inmost self is with us from the beginning. It is the part of us that involves our core identity, our uniqueness. And each of us has our sexual identity as male or female from the earliest stages of the process of conception. 

For each of us, the earliest and most important form of touch was self-touch. It began in utero with our first halting, searching movements. Month-hand touch, hand-body touch, and body-uterine wall contact provided us with our first awareness of our incarnate selves. We didn't experience ourselves as separate from our mothers until long after birth. But our early contacts with the feel of our bodies and the sensate messages of the uterine muscle, the warm water, and the increasingly small space all contributed to what we might consider the primordial awareness of our body boundaries. 

What does all of this have to do with our sexuality? First, we want to emphasize that sexuality, even in its earliest stages, goes beyond genitality. Before it is a pelvic urge, it is body awareness. We wake to our whole physical selves before we begin to gain a sense of body awareness. Before birth, we do this by exploring our own developing flesh. We rub, we suck, we kick, we touch everything we can reach or everything that we discover within our reach, the more our flesh becomes familiar to us, the more we will be able to take responsibility for its desires. 

    But unlike the sexual behavior of other species, our sexual behavior is governed by more than a mating instinct or a pelvic urge that has been irrevocably programmed into our brains. Our potential for sexual union is not regulated by cycles of fertility, nor is our desire for genital contact limited to reproductive fulfillment. Our yearning for human closeness goes far beyond that which can be satisfied by physical union alone. In other words, unlike sheep, we are not hormonal robots. We have an "inmost self" that can make decisions, be faithful, and act responsibly. Our movement toward psychosexual integration involves all dimensions of ourselves learning to function in relationship to each other. 

5. Let The Children Come To Me (psychosexual development during childhood).

Let the children come to me - Lk 18:16 

TOUCH - our skin hunger for it. It appears that touch gets "under our skin" and makes its way to our hearts. It tells us that we are not alone. It assures us that we are loved. As soon as we were born, we began to write the first chapter of the sexual story that we carry in our flesh to this day. It started with touch. The self-touch that began in utero underwent further development at our birth. For the first time, we felt the touch of someone else's hand on our flesh. That sensation of being held in the hands of another provided us with the initial psychosexual encounter of our newborn life. With it, we began to learn, primary through sensate experience, the first lesson of sexuality: sexuality has to do with human contact. 

Jesus wasn't talking about psychosexual development when he spoke these words. He was making sure that the children coming to him to be touched would not be prevented from doing so. He was trying to remove aby obstacles that would hinder the babes from having access to him and to the holy caress that would bless their bodies and nourish their hearts. 

6. Growing In Wisdom And Grace (Psychosexual development in Adolescence). 

Jesus grew in wisdom in stature and in grace with God and men - Lk 2:52 

We begin this exploration of the adolescent years with a desire to affirm this challenging and hope-filled time in our lives. This is the season when our dreams are born and our visions are claimed. These are the years of risk and self-discovery. These are the times of coming to know the intensity of our feelings and the soaring desires of our hearts. With all its uncertainty, anxiety, confusion, and awkwardness, adolescence is nevertheless a sacred adventure into life. And in any contemporary culture, this fundamental reverence for youth has been replaced with a strange mixture of fascination and fear. In its etymological roots, the term "adolescent" carries the positive meaning of "growing up" or "maturing". In our time it has come to mean almost the opposite - a lack of maturity, an inability to be responsible, an awkward, inconsistent state of mind. 

• Part of the reason for this negative understanding of adolescence may be due to our own painful memories. As adults, we often tend to focus on the negative images of our growing up. Therefore, we may need to begin by being more gentle with our own memories of growing up and with our stumbling attempts to understand and cope with our changing sexual feelings. 
• Sexual feelings, desires, and images originate as spontaneous expressions of our growth toward relational maturity. Like other human needs, such as hunger, thirst, and security, they are in themselves good, or at least ethically neutral. It is our inner attitude toward them - the manner in which we consciously approach them - that gives them moral "weight" or value. 
• Another part that needs to deal with for this stage is sexual fantasizing. During adolescence this undifferentiated energy begins to become more focused and relational. It begins to become attached to persons, whether real or imaginary. The most important human faculty that assists this "personalization" of sexual energy is our ability to fantasize. Sexual fantasy is the human capacity to explore our relational horizons. It is an interior and imaginative way of engaging the human need to reach out to other people. (Sexual fantasy is our deep, intuitive way of preparing for mature love by picturing it in our minds and hearts). 

The differences in sexual fantasizing between males and females. For the most part males tend to focus on physical appearance and bodily attractiveness. The content of their fantasies typically involves experiences that precede or lead to genital forms of intimacy. As a group man also tend to find visual stimuli to be a significant source of sexual interest and arousal. On the other hand, women's sexual fantasies tend to be more romantic and relational. They may involve images that include physical intimacy, but their focus is more often centered around romantic settings such as dancing, walking in the sunset, having an intimate conversation, or being held in a caring way. 

Therefore, healthy sexual fantasies, on the other hand, are a normal and necessary part of psychosexual growth. They are not "impure thoughts" Rather, they are the creative way in which our imagination prepares us for mature love. 

7. Coming to Our Own (Psychosexual development in adulthood)

Most of us grew up with a rather narrow understanding of what it means to be an "adult" or "mature". it was more of a cultural presumption than a philosophical theory, but it nevertheless influenced the way we understood ourselves and our lives. We may focus on one or some like physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual energies of our lives. It seems there is no place for psychosexual development. Therefore, we will clarify the aspects of adult psychosexual growth, namely mutuality and ongoing formation. 

1.  psychosexual mutuality. How can we tell if we are growing in the capacity and skills of mutuality? To answer it, there are some signs or characteristics for this,

• Accurate self-knowledge. When our self-perception is basically congruent with the way other people experience it. Without this capacity of self-awareness, we will not be conscious of how we "come across" to those we love and care for. 
• Empathy. The ability to have a "feeling connection" with others; to transcend our own needs and concerns so that we can be moved by the pain, the joy, the anger, or the fear of those around us, especially the significant others in our lives. 
• Interpersonal sensitivity. The capacity of being conscious and aware of the other person's needs. this is more than empathy; it includes responding to another person. With those with whom we have grown close, it involves the ability to anticipate their desires. If our state in life includes physical lovemaking as part of our relationship, interpersonal sensitivity also refers to the awareness and reverence that we have for each other's needs and preferences. 
• Trust. The foundation and primary building block for mutuality. Trust presupposes a capacity and a willingness to take risks, to surrender control over the beloved. It is the desire to validate the integrity of the other, even in the face of possible betrayal or rejection. 
• Equality. Another cornerstone for reciprocal love. If there is a real or perceived imbalance of power in a relationship, there cannot be authentic mutuality.
• Capacity for self-disclose. There cannot be mutuality without a shared experience of intimacy. The key to authentic intimacy is the ability and the skill with which we are able verbally to share our feelings and the world of our inner selves.
• Spontaneity. The outcome or overflow of the above-named qualities in a relationship. if two persons share a reasonable level of self-knowledge, empathy, sensitivity, trust, equality, and self-disclose, there will automatically be an atmosphere or psychic and emotional safety - a setting in which playfulness, surprise, and wonder can flourish. 

On going integration. In reality, we are all "in recovery". None of us is exempted from the bruises and wounds of being human. We are all emotional wayfarers. None of us escapes the fears, the guilts the mistakes, or the fallout of our brokenness. And in the area of sexuality, ongoing integration ay frequently take the form of doing "back-up" work in areas of our lives that were either skipped over, neglected, or simply not dealt with. There may be some days when we feel permanently fixated on some primordial form of im-mutuality. We feel uneasy with our bodies, disappointed with our ability to communicate, awkward at lovemaking, unable to communicate our feelings, overanxious about our health. 

        Therefore, we want to suggest some specific behavior signs that point toward two different but related levels that are characterized by attitudes and patterns of living that reveal a basic and reasonable measure of relational maturity. The second level points toward deeper, more demanding dimension of growth and integration. 

Level 1: the basic characteristics of psychosexual maturity.

• depending personal awareness and good self-knowledge.
• body confort and a sense of being at home in our skin. Despite the exploitative propaganda of the media and advertising, we dont have to be young or have striking good looks to achieve a healthy sense of body image. 
• sustained ann consistent involvement in close personal relationships and the capacity for intimacy. Such relationships are further characterized by
• honesty and trust
• fidelity
• awareness and openness about one's expectations
• self-disclosure that is appropriate to the level of the relationship
• open communication of feelings 
• physical expressiveness that fits with the level of commitment and closeness in the relationship. 
• avoidance of control, manipulation, and abuse
• faithfulness to primary commitments
• adequate knowledge of sexual anatomy and physiology, as well as current information on sexual issues and concerns
• confort using sexual words and talking about sexual realities in the appropriate settings
• not "over spiritualizing" sexual realities or engaging in emotional or psychic denial in relationship to them
• ability to make appropriate decisions and commitments involving sexuality
• taking responsibility for ones sexual expressions and behavior
• awareness of past hurts or traumas around sexuality and the willingness to take steps toward healing.

Level 2: Signs of deepening psychosexual integration.

• a growing congruence between our personal behavior and our public, social commitments; a sense of integrity about our lives
• the ability to name and articulate our sexual story in the appropriate setting (e.g., with a spouse, close friend, spiritual director, counselor, therapist, support group) and to understand how it has influenced our lives and relationships
• a psychic and emotional balance between our sexual life and other aspects of living; neither being preoccupied with sexuality nor denying its place in our lives 
• growing integration between the human and the holy, between our sexual energy and our spirituality. For example, when a married couple can experience as much as closeness watching a sunset or praying together as they do sharing physical love
• an attitude of compasion vs self-rightteousness in relationship to other people's sexual behavior
• a deepening sense of generativity, i.e., the experiential knowledge that our presence to and with other people is life-giving and nurturing
• inclusivity in our relationships, whereby the beloved in our lives become compassions in reaching out to a wider circle of persons withour diminishing the depth of our primary commitments

8. Seasons Of The Heart (Adult life circle and the rythms of intimacy)

There is a reason for everything, a time for every occupation under heaven - Ecclesiastes 3:1. Most of us can look back over our lives and see and its possible for us to see our lives as graced and healed, as well as, at times, broken and wounded. we can recognize that there has indeed been "a season for everything..."

a time for giving birth, a time for dying 

a time for planting, a time for uprooting what has been planted 

a time for tears, a time for laughter

a time for mourning, a time for dacing 

a time for embracing, a time for keeping silent, a time for speaking

a time fo loving, a time for hating 

Therefore, one of our task of ongoing psychosexual integration is the invitation to "name our days". To reflect back on our story of our lives, and then carry these memories with compassion and wisdom into the future. 

9. To bind Up Hearts That Are Broken (The wounds of psychosexual development)

When something happens to wound our psychosexual development, our emotional maturation can remain in affixed position. our bodies will continue to grow and develop, hormones will surge at the approritate time, and the secondary sex characteristics of adolescense will appear. we can even marry and have children,a ll the while being psychosexually detained at a much younger stage of development. when this happens, a host of unpleasant and even hamful consequences may befall our relationships. we ca, quite literally, be led away from love. 

The significants of psychosexual trauma:

• sexual, physical, or emotional abuse
• medical examinations and procures involving the genitals, anus, or breasts
• discovery during normal childhood sex play 
• frequent enemas or react temperature checks 
• exposure of genitals, breasts, or buttocks
• frequent of harsh spankings
• failure to receive accurate and age-appropriate sex information and education 
• being the recipient of a sexually transmitted disease 
• concern, confusion, and pain regarding sexual orientation 
• sexual harassment, psychosexual ridicule 
• being the victims of sexual malpractice (i.e., having sexual contact with one's therapist, doctor, confessor, academic professor, minister, or other helping professional).

Sexual abuse is the most devastating source of psychosexual trauma. Regardless of whether it involves penetration of bodily orifices or gentle tactile founding, whether it occurs a single time or repeatedly over many years, whether the victim fights or submits, whether the penetrator is known to the victim or is a stranger, sexual abuse always leaves scars. the circumstances may vary greatly, but no one emerges from sexual abuse unscathed. no matter how much interior strength of person may have, how much conscious awareness of the assaults, or how much he or she may want to believe that "it didnt really affect me all that much". Harm has been done and needs to be addressed. Sexual abuse may be one area where the old age adage "time heals all wounds", is the farthest from the truth. Neither the passage of time nor increasing emotional distance from the event automatically heals the damage perpetrated by sexual abuse. 

10. I Call You Friend (Psychosexual development and human intimacy).

"I shall not call you servant anymore, because a servant does not know his master's business; because i have made known of you everything i have learnt from my father" John 15:15

Friendship doesn't happen simply because we share a common vision, engage in a mutual project, or spend time together. it is not an automatic by-product of living together, working with each other, playing golf, or taking a tour. Having sex neither produces nor sustains friendship by itself. Friendship happens because someone begins the arduous and sometimes painful, sometimes exhilarating work of self-disclosure, and invites the other to do the same.

Friendship and sexuality: we have describes sexual as other-orienting energy. As such sexuality prompts us to move toward one another. Its power urges us to become known in ever more progressive ways - psychological naked. It involves taking one's clothes off, undressing the flesh, baring the body. it also involves taking one's mask off, undressing the heart, baring the soul. 

Have you been intimate yet? In another way, have you told your life stories to someone and listened as they told theirs? Have you taken off your masks and gently peeled away the many layers of protection that hide. your true self with someone, somewhere or sometime? Have you been giddy and silly with someone, just because you felt so free in their presence? Intimacy could be understood being close enough to be inside of another or let other inside us is at once awesome and fearsome. it demands that we let go of control and give up the safety of our solitaries. it requires a journey into the often uncharted waters of relationship, where there is no maps, no guarantees, and even less certainty about exhausting and nourishing. the more we enter "inside of" the life of another and allow that person to do the same with us, the more we are in the space where strength and fragility live alongside each other. 

So i would like to quote the story to end this part how to build the intimacy. Mary and Jim had been married almost ten years. they had both felt some gradual distance creeping into their relationship as the years went by. it didnt seem very serious, but quietly worrisome just the same. although they felt they had a good marriage, both of them had the unspoken feeling that the romance was gone from their relationship. they had three young children, active careers, and an ever expanding list of meeting, obligations, and friends. They were very little time for them just to be alone with each other, much les to share their feelings at any depth. 

as they discussed what they would do to celebrate, they concluded that they needed to rekindle the wonderful romance that had characterize the first year of their marriage. they made a reservation for the bridal suite at a luxurious hotel in the weekend of their tenth anniversary, which was three months away. They began readying themselves for the event. to do so, they each focused on enhancing the physical aspects of their relationship. 

with each of their children, Mary had gained an extra ten pounds that she never lost. Her hair seemed lifeless, and she had a chipped front tooth that she thought made her less attractive. Jim was equally out of shapes, with an emerging potbelly and aging biceps. He had a mustache when they married and had shaved it off years ago. he resolved to grow it back, perhaps it would remind Mary of the way he looks when they first met. 

As the weeks went by, their anticipation grew. Mary joined an aerobics class and got her tooth fixed. Jim pumped iron and took up jogging. His muscle made its appearance and he felt quite dashing. Mary got her hair highlighted. A few weeks before the magic weekend,, she bought a lovely negligee. by the time the anniversary date arrived, they were ready. 

After giving last minute instructions to the babysitter, they drove to their romantic hideaway and checked in for the weekend. their accommodations were exquisite - a heart -shaped bed, a heart-shaped Jacuzzi, and a heart-shaped basket filled with flowers and champagne. that evening they enjoyed a romantic candlelight dinner by the pool/ Afterward they went for a long walk in the moonlight and kissed and caressed in the hotel garden like young lovers. Even the weather was celebrating with them. Later, they took a bath in their Jacuzzi, they gave each other a tender massage. they made love. eventually, their heart-shaped bed carried them to sleep. 

Then something mysterious happened, about 4:00am. Mary woke up crying - she wasnt sure why. Jim asked by her sobs. "what's wrong? are you alright? Was it something I said? Wasn't...wasn;t it good for you?" He queried anxiously "no, it isn't that - last night was wonderful. I dont know - i feel so strange, so alone or something," Mary replied between gulps. They held each other. They started to talk about Mary's feeling of aloneness; Jim acknowledges that he sometimes felt it too. they talked of their fragility, their fears of losing each other. they spoke of their doubts and wondered out loud if each as he told Mary how he sometimes worried that she wished she had been too afraid of too proud to ask her before. the reassured each other, half-crying and half-laughing. they talked of death and of what it would be like ti be left if the other die first. they named some old angers that they had never been able to bring out in the open. they spoke words of forgiveness and words of hope for the future. there, in the night, with mourning breath and rumpled hari, they talked and laughed, and cried together as the hours passed unnoticed. before they knew it, dawn gave away to morning. It was 7:00 am. It had been years since they had talked for so many hours while time stood still. they knew then they would make it. they were still in love. 

Mary and Jim ad made love around that midnight. their physical sex took place in the context of their shared history. over the years, they had loved each other well and been happy together. they had engaged in periodic self-disclosure, and their intimacy was deeply rooted and secure. But this night if nights, something special happened for the,. they learned something about making love, something old and new, something that they each had known in their hearts and even experienced, yet something fresh and young at the same time. 

Making love. Experience intimacy. We do it whenever we stay awake long into the night sharing stories with a friend while time stands still. we do it when we laugh until our sides hurt with someone close. we do it when we cry in one another's arms, because the conflict that always comes with intimacy can hurt so much, and we do it whenever we say to someone who holds our heart: i call you friend because i have made known to you everything. 

SUMMARY  

1. Firstly, We all need to affirm that our body is sexuality. Because it was created by the divine power, which is the energy of connection, the energy of love, from God. Therefore, no doubting that our body is the gift of beauty. 
2. I'd like to pose a reflection question: "How do we feel about our bodies and sexual selves?" Because each of us grows up with a desire to connect or reconnect, rather than having been "cut off" from our mother's womb. By doing so, we try in various ways to find acceptance from others rather than from ourselves. As a result, making time to talk and be with our memories is critical. To progress, we must recognize that no matter "what messages" we have received, they are not always helpful. "Sexuality is a gift, God created it, and it is not dirty, but a grace for humankind," I need to affirm.
3. Physical elements for sexual reactions, including genetic, biochemical, and hormonal components, are the six dimensions of a healthy psychosexual development. Body perception and sexual knowledge are both cognitive. Emotional: a sense of well-being and a sense of security in one's own body. Social: the ability to keep a healthy relationship's boundaries in place, especially when it comes to friendship and intimacy. The significance of a relationship and life commitment are both morals. The presence of God in our bodies, as well as sacred energy; the body is our buddy. 
4. Body is a feeling. It contains a variety of cravings for closeness, including touching, licking, and kicking.