How Our Developmental “Arcline of Touch” Influences Adult Sexuality & Intimacy Patterns

 Welcome to your Body. Remembers pleasure. I'm your host, Rahi Chun. This podcast is devoted to sexual embodiment, intimacy, and the body's innate capacity to heal, feel, and remember pleasure. If something here resonates with you, you're welcome to explore more writings and resources@rahichun.com. And now let's begin. 

In this first episode, we explore the arc line of touch with Dr. Eile LaPierre. How do the initial touch imprints of our first breath breastfeeding diaper, changing self pleasuring, and adolescent sexuality blossoming. All influence are later adult, sexual, and intimacy patterns with ourself and with others.

At the end of the episode, Dr. LaPierre leads us through a somatic exercise for reintegrating disconnected parts of our embodiment. Enjoy

today. I am really thrilled and honored to invite Dr. Aileen LaPierre to the podcast. A there are so many things I can share about Aileen, but on the kind of professional level, she is the director and founder of the neuro Effecti Touch Institute. Where she teaches internationally a somatic modality that she developed called Neuro Effective Touch.

She's also the co-author of Healing Developmental Trauma. And I feel like Neuro Effective Touch is like a culmination of so many decades of your experiences. Certainly as a practitioner, as a senior teacher in the somatic arts. And Aileen, I feel like it goes all the way back to I feel like you're a movement artist and a visual artist and really a listener for how life force wants to emerge.

And I feel like all of that is really expressed in neuro effecti touch. A little background about Aileen is yeah, she was a an artist in Europe as, and it's what brought her to Los Angeles. And then she became really involved in in continuum which is a practice that invites a listening for how the authentic body wants to move and express itself.

And I love that you are so body, just so attuned with your body and then complimented that with your studies at Pacifica. It's a thrill to have you here, Aileen. There's so much we can cover, but having taken the neuro effecti touch training and I loved how. Clearly I came to understand the developmental journey of one's nervous system and sense of safety and embodiment and all of what that offers.

I would love to start off by asking you if you can share the arc line of our developmental journey as embodied beings and as an, as embodied sexual beings and how that develops from really from from the very beginning, from the very beginning. And this is the piece that I think is so important for us to understand.

When psych, when psychotherapy, when psychoanalysis started, Freud was talking about the sexuality of children. And of course it created this uproar and this absolute sort of black mark on psychoanalysis, but actually. From the body's perspective, there's something really important that happens in that from the moment we're conceived, the body develops through pleasure.

In other words, through feeling safe. And there's a really deep link between feeling safe and the body being able to go into an expansive state. That actually is very important when we come later on to our mature sexuality. Because sexuality is about sensation in expansion in the body. Yes. It reminds me of the the organic pulsation.

Yes. Of the protoplasm from our training that we are really organically expanding. We're pulsing our organic pulsation, and that happens from our, from when we're in the womb. And the pleasure you speak of it reminds me of images and articles I've read about. You can see a fetus holding onto its genitalia often, and that pleasure in the womb, I'm just imagining it must be orgasmic, not in a sexual sense, but in a life force, joy and safety sense.

Right in a full breath se sense. So here's the thing. Touch is really important in sexuality. We make connection very much through touch. And touch. Develops is the first sense that develops in the wombs at weeks six of gestation. So from, and it's called of course, the mother of the senses because it is the first sense to develop.

So it goes really deep to the root of our nervous system, how we're touched. And of course, in the womb we're floating in the amniotic fluid and the skin. There's some little Celia all over the skin that stimulates the skin. And so then from the beginning, this sense of being connected through touch is really important. Yes. Yeah. And I remember in our neuro effecti touch training, how the image of the way the fetus is usually positioned in the womb with its entire backside against the belly of the mother just feeling that connection through those touch senses. And like with a partner, how wonderful it is to spoon, which is basically recreating that full contact of the spine and the back to the belly of our partner, and how soothing that is to the nervous system and how it does communicate a sense of being loved, accepted, a sense of being safe, of being enveloped. That really allows the whole body to relax and open to the connection with the other.

Yes. Yes. And I'm imagining in the womb when our senses are so alive and pure, even the reverberation of the mother's heartbeat and the breathing and the sound of her voice the way it's vibrating against her touch senses is a form of touch in it, in and of itself. It definitely is.

Absolutely. And also this sense of floating, we are in a we're in a liquid medium the amniotic fluids. So we are floating as well as being touched. And that feeling of floating, of becoming really light and outside of gravity is also very core to that sense of of wellbeing and that sense of deep connection.

Yes. I don't wanna go on too many tangents here, but it reminds me of a watsu sessions that I've received Yeah. Up at Harbin, where they warmed the temperature of the pool to your body temperature and you are floating. And it does, it's astounding what memories and what kind of lucid dream space that can elicit.

So coming back to the arc so from the womb then, yes, there's. The birth of the fetus. Of the infant. And so at birth, there's a compression at, and we're talking about a healthy birth here. Yes. We're not talking about. All of the things that can go awry and that could be a different conversation, but it's nice first to set the arc of what happens when everything develops as it should.

So then through the birth, as we, as the baby goes through the birth canal, there's a compression that happens and that compression sends a signal into the body. To awaken in a different way. It prepares us to be in the outside world. So then our, all of our touch sensors through that compression awaken in a particular way.

And I have seen it like in, in in cesarean birth that there's a certain awakening of the skin that needs to happen that might not happen through a cesarean birth. So then our skin is then ready and as the baby then comes into the world and is put on the mother's belly, then the relationship of the body is different because it's no longer being floating in an amniotic fluid.

It's now coming skin to skin. And the skin has been awakened. And so the communication skin to skin begins. Wow. Yes. So the awakening that, that birthing through the vaginal canal, that compression of the skin, it is like waking up or engaging those touch receptors in such a dynamic way that it wasn't used to, but it actually prepares it for the bonding and connection.

It, it can then experience as a being out of the womb. And so once the infant is placed on the chest, then it, I've read incredible. I've seen incredible, it is just so intuitive how the baby knows where to go. And finding the mother's nipple. And here's the p the piece about giving time, because as the baby lands on the mother's belly the cord will just slowly, the baby has to learn to breathe in the real world and not get its oxygen from the umbilical cord.

So then that takes time. The body needs time to acclimate. And that feeling of, I have enough time to. To find my way, is really important because when the cut, when the cord is cut too early, there's this sense of, I have to hurry up. I don't have enough time. And when the transfer of the breath hasn't fully completed out of the cord into the lungs, there remains in the body an activation in the nervous system of never, even, never being able to fully drop in because there's not gonna be enough time.

And that sense of timing is really important in sexuality. You know that to, to give the body time to find its way into a full breath, into a pulsation. Yeah. I feel like it speaks to whether an introduction into life is, whether there's space to allow the organic expression to unfold.

Yes. Or whether there's an outer agenda imposed onto that organic expression. And that, that in and of itself occurs in sexuality all the time. Is there the space for the organic life force to feel itself, to feel its authentic movement and initiation? Or is there an outer agenda? That's beautifully said, Rahi.

Wonderful. Yes, absolutely. And so you can see that as we look at those early experiences that imprint the foundation of life, force, of what life can be like on the planet, right there at the very foundation of our nervous system. And from there, everything builds. Cord is cut, the baby doesn't even flinch.

There's it's done. And then after a little while, this is the most amazing thing for anyone who's observed, a natural birth. You see the lips begin to have this little movement, like a little. Just a little sucky and it happens spontaneously. And that, as that happens in the baby, in other words, how that, that stucking movement begins to awaken, then the baby begins to find its way and look for the nipple.

And so then there's a desire that awakens in the lips for connection for the nipple. And that begins to awaken the whole lip area. The mouth and actually the digestive system. And bring pleasure because as the baby finds the way to the nipple, connects to the nipple and begins that sucking motion, the body feels pleasure.

It's pleasureful because that's what's supposed to happen. And so it awakens the mouth and you can see how that later leads on to a pleasure at stimulating lips with kissing, with having that play around the mouth. Yes. Yes. And at that. At that stage of an infant's development.

It's a whole body pleasure. It is ins, it is instigated by this the nerve endings and the lips in the mouth. But I'm imagining the whole body is ecstatic and being satisfied. And where it leads to then is that as the baby suckles, the warm milk comes in and awakens the whole digestive tract.

So it awakens that the belly, the stomach, that whole wellbeing that can then happen in the gut. Which is actually the first station of the vagal system. If we go deeper into the nervous system, and we talk a lot about the vagal system, it begins an awakening of the dorsal vagal in, in the gut area.

And in the gut area and all the way down into the pelvic floor. Because that sucking motion has a resonance in the pelvic floor in all of the diaphragms of the body. Yes. I was speaking to a colleague who really focuses on the throat pelvic connection and how they're really interconnected.

And it starts from that very beginning. So then Eileen, continuing on the, or on, on a healthy developmental arc with a, an infant's touch receptors. In the chapter that you shared with me, touch and sexual healing, I really loved some of the somatic exercises where in order to restore touch receptors that may have not developed organically, you are inviting that unconditional presence and attention, the intention and the focused attention.

These are what nourishes, it's like watering the plant of the touch receptors in an infant. Yes. Yes. Yes. And so in, in an infancy the role that kind of touch and a variety and diversity of touch for the infant to start identifying its felt sense as its felt self as you share in the chapter really speaks to so much of not only our embodiment, but our intuition, identifying our body's likes and dislikes.

It's really creating that, that language of touch, the touch literacy that you speak of. When I work with couples and sometimes, they'll come in going we're, we don't seem to be well matched sexually. One of the first questions I asked is, do you like how your partner touches you?

And usually there's a silence and a bit of embarrassment, and both parties will say, no, it's too much, it's not enough, it's too fast, it's too slow. There's not attention. There's like a lot of issues that come up around how we're touched. And the fact is that we have so many different sensors in our skin.

Some are surface sensors, some response to deep sensors, some response to fast touch other sensors like slow touch. And all of us have our preferences in terms of which touch receptors we like to stimulated. And so it's important to know how our partner needs to be touched in terms of what receptors are responsive, or what receptors that person pre prefers to have stimulated.

And very often, couples don't know that there's so much exploration there in terms of feeling met, in terms of feeling loved, attuned to and aroused. Yeah. So we're moving into the restoration now, which is perfect. The somatic exercises that you offer in the chapter are really about it's it's like inviting couples or individuals to develop their.

Inventory of Yes. What touches they, their body likes, doesn't responds to, maybe wants to explore. And it's it still surprises me how for a lot of them, it's the first time they've explored a touch inventory of themselves. And so I can imagine with couples how that can be just revelatory.

Yes. So to come back to that developmental arc, sure. There's a really important piece that we didn't go to, which is the eyes. Which is the gaze. Which is so powerful. And so then as the baby settles to suckle, the mother holds the baby, and then they engage in the eye to eye contact. And so then this eye to eye contact now is connected to these, this deep pleasure of warm milk going into the gut, the feeling held, the stimulation of the skin having been awakened.

And now they look at each other and the baby starts to see the mother's love that little glint in her eye. And that awakens, I think, goes into, the vision centers in the back of the brain that starts to awaken the whole brain and heart connection so that the brain then becomes involved in that sense of allowing pleasure through contact.

It is profound to me how the infant is experiencing the soothing warmth of the breast milk and the aliveness of the whole body with the bonding of the eyes of the mother. And you started to speak about when that glint may not be there or when the feeding experience is combined with a preoccupied mother figure or maybe a disconnected or disembodied who is not so present.

I wondered Aileen, because that there's another experience that can mirror a lot of people's adult sexual experiences where the body is actually being stimulated with sensation. Yes. Yet it is not met with an emotional receptivity or availability. Uhhuh, with the presence of the eyes and the presence of the body.

And then, of course I wonder whether that wiring may also associate. The infant's upregulated nervous system with pleasure rather than a relaxed receptivity with pleasure, which can also mirror a lot of our adult experiences as well. Are you saying that we can have a physical stimulation, but it isn't accompanied in parallel with an emotional response?

Yes. Yes. Yes. And, the emotional response really happens very much in our organs. It's like our organs are the generator of the emotional response, which is the interoceptive sense of touch. And then the sensation is very much associated with the extra receptives receptors, which are the receptors in the skin.

And so we have, actually, we have three touch systems in the body, right? We have the extra receptive, which is the, all of the receptors in the skin the pressure, the warmth, the cold, all of that, that happens in the skin. Then we have receptors in our joints. That, that when those are stimulated, we get a sense of movement, and that's really important as well.

And then we have what is called the interoceptive sensors, which are the sensors of the vagus nerve, which are the sensors in the organs, in the belly, in the heart, through the throat and vocal cords. And then through the face, the eyes, the ears, the sense of smell, the sense of taste, all of that. So these three systems ideally work together for a full experience.

And so you could see that when some part of it is missing, we try to compensate, because the body feels it, there's a missing parts. So how do we fill in, how do we compensate for those missing parts? And oftentimes we will put extra focus on a particular aspect, whether it's a sound, whether it's a more friction sensation, something to make up for the missing parts.

So what I'm hearing is that when there, there may, when there is an absence of the emotional connection, which is the interceptive, a lot of times that can result in the body amping up the interceptive or whatever is available, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's really profound to recognize how, when there is an alignment of those three receptors, there is a sense of wholeness and alignment and rightness and when there isn't, how there is that disconnect with the inner the inner sense despite what's happening on the outer.

And you will have some people, some individuals who need to come in to connection through the emotional, because the sensory is a little bit dull or was never. And so then if they're with a partner who has an opposite where they need the sensory stimulation before they can activate the emotional, you have different mismatches or different needs, and those needs need to be recognized for people to really come together.

Yes. And yes. So that it's not necessarily a mismatch of souls, but a mismatch of receptors. You yes. This is a good way of saying it. Yes. Yeah. And identifying, as you say the assessment and the identification of that mismatch can lead to, to both people consciously realigning and making sure that both receptor sets are really being addressed and met.

Yes, exactly. And so it's, it's wonderful work for couples to do that, those types of healing parts together, to recognize them, to identify them, and for a partner to be interested in helping their, there's their loved other to, to really develop those missing peace. Because in terms of restoration, although the main window of development happens early on, we're still, we know now very plastic.

And so we can heal and we can reopen those pathways. And what a exquisite opportunity of intimacy. Yes. For beloveds and couples to. Revisit these wounds that the partner may just be discovering or realizing for the first time themself. Yeah. And usually when a partner is willing to do that, there's a sense of gratitude that awakens in the person.

You really care about me. You really are willing to be with me where I need to be met. And the bo not only is there a, an emotional wow, you really see me and you see what I need, but the body itself, down to the cellular level feels gratitude. Yeah. Gratitude. And I'm guessing also a deeper it's almost like a window towards a deeper felt self for the receiver.

That, that, that and that trust will deepen the intimacy within the relationship. Yeah, that's really profound. I'm to con to, to continue with the arc. Yes. We get to this really critical and interesting touch experience of genital contact outside the womb with diaper changes and, eventually potty training, right?

Yes. And I feel like it's a rich area and experience of whether of really planting seeds for the infant's relationship with their genitalia. Absolutely. So much happens there. Yeah. I think this happened during the Aileen, do you remember at the infant therapy training was Charlotte Groom?

Yes. There was a video shown of diaper changing. In a way that was not shaming, that was participatory, that was both present and really playful, right? Yes. And what can we say about it? Again, you know what's so important in any exchange with the parent, with the caregiver, is this.

Feeling that the infant can trust that no, no pain will come, or that the body, it's actually at very much on a body level at that point, that the body feels cared for, that the eye contact is maintained, like in, in that exchange. And if I remember in that exchange the mother or whoever is the caregiver.

Always talks to the baby this is what we're doing, this is why we're doing it. And what was striking about the whole relationship of the adult to the child is that even if the child didn't understand the actual meaning of words, still on some level, the child absolutely knew what was being told.

So then in terms of this diaper changing, we very rarely talk about it. Was it rough? Was the mother disgusted? Was was the way that she cleaned the baby because of that disgust of the smell of the poop and all that? It's and did the baby get that? Im that message that, yes, my genitals are not clean, they're dirty.

I'm displeasing my mother, and then you begin to have all of these subtle. Patternings that are about distancing from genitals, feeling badly or shamed about, pooping or Yeah. Or wedding diapers or and then this sort of retraction and this very subtle constriction that starts to happen in the pelvic floor and in the genitals and the genital area.

Yes. And a splitting off I'm gonna pretend like it doesn't exist because it really displeases my mother or my caregiver. Absolutely. Absolutely. In another interview, one of my guests shared that a Norwegian, a Norwegian study showed that by the time children are, I think six or seven years old, there's already a fair amount of tension in the pelvic bowl.

And I just have to wonder like what, the effect of that exactly to what you're saying, is it inconvenient? Does it seem inconvenient to the parent? Is it, are they irritated to be able to have to do this again? And I feel like, when we're children, there's all this, on the playground, there is a shaming of each other when it comes to peeing and pooing.

And where is that learned? How is that learned? Yes, for sure. Or is a child left in a wet in a wet, dirty diaper too long? So that again, that, that retraction, yes. Where is it learned and. So many parents were themselves shamed or not cared for. So it is passed down through the generations.

Absolutely. And this brings up like another fascinating topic for me, I, the degree to which our adult unrecognized or unaddressed. Sexual issues get passed down with the interaction of the child or the infant's genitalia through, through, whether it's through potty training or changing diapers whether there's an aversion, whether there's a. Discomfort a kind of contraction within the parent that the child probably feels right when those diapers are, when there's potty training or when there's contact with that part of the body. The pulling away, when you said the word discomfort, you did this naturally, this pulling away, and we're talking about this pulling away this dissociation from the area so that it becomes, like you say, shameful or numb or somehow there's a message that says that allowing consciousness to be fully present in the genitalia is is going to be a source of pain.

And a source of rejection. Yes. I think that's like really powerful. Yeah. That, that we, when we ex experience some form of rejection early on for the bodily functions of the pelvic bowl, genitalia, excretion, that it's very hard to find one's way back. And particularly that there's no real.

Attention given to healing that, as practitioners, of course you really are in a field where you can start bringing healing to coming back into the pelvic bowl, the genitalia, all of that. But there have been, there haven't been, ways of doing that. The only, like in my own training, which was years ago, like in in deep tissue, you would go into the area, but it was always in terms of musculature of allowing the connective tissue to, to release.

It was never this subtle relational, emotional connection that was encouraged to come back. And I think that's what you are doing is this, like, how do we bring back this loving, caring, relational approach into the lower body, into the genitalia, into the pelvic floor? Honestly, Aileen, I feel neuro effective Touch does this brilliantly in creating that dialogue between mind and body and inviting listening for the body to tell its story.

Oftentimes, stories that have been buried in this, in the cellular tissues for decades. I sometimes refer to the work I do as neuro effecti Touch for the genitalia. Beautiful. Yes. 'cause it's the same principle. It is the same principle, like all the tissues and musculature of our body hold stories and they.

In order to reestablish that intimate relational dynamic between body and body owner. Those stories, the trauma, especially the disconnect needs the reparation and Right. The genitalia deserves it as much as any other part of the body. Oh, for sure. For some reason this hierarchy has been created, where brain is at the top of the hierarchy and genitalia is I don't know, it's kind of like absent or ignored or worse, it's it's bad, it's dirty, it's shameful. It's been sent to hell in a way. And that needs to change because really, as far as the body's concerned, there is no hierarchy any place where the body breaks down affects the whole body no matter what cell, what organ, what system.

There is no hierarchy in the health of the body. Yes. Yes. Yeah, I, I, so trigger warning because when it comes to that kind of disconnect I really wonder the effect of circumcision on young boys. Oh. 'cause here, sometimes straight out of the womb, straight out of this incredible communion, an area of the body that's innervated in a particular way. So that's, there's so much sensation, and it's introduced with to this incredible pain and mutilation. Oh, it is a mutilation, it's barbaric. For sure. It is barbaric without an aesthetics, yes.

And I think there's been enough studies now to show that there is no medical advantage. To being circumcised. I think that's finally come out now. Yes, but there's I really wonder what that does to an infant's relationship with that, intimate part of their body. And, on another level whether there is a sense of distrust or feelings of betrayal to the caretakers to allow this kind of experience to take place.

Or if the infant is too young to really register that. You are never too young to register. And that's the important thing to remember is that even if the cortex is not yet online, the body is, every cell is, and it is it's a, it's an it's a horrendous betrayal. And it's not just, we're not talking very much about energy right now.

We've been talking about the physical but it's a breach in the energetic field. And so I don't even, sometimes I don't even know how to talk about the energetic field without sounding, way out there. Yeah. But ultimately there, there's a pulse and there's an electromagnetic field in the body that can be measured.

And when there's a breach in that field, something that there's a vulnerability that remains, it's almost like the field is a protective field. And when you betray or when there's a breach, it remains open. And so we have particular vulnerabilities as a result of these betrayals. It's also my sense, I talk a lot about the shock to the heart.

That anytime there's a relational betrayal, which this is because that baby was not, did not give permission for this to happen, anytime, even on a on a cellular level, even without saying yes, that lack of permission comes in as a shock to the heart. Like what? Like on the heart level, because the heart tracks the caring, loving, respectful, relation, relational aspect of, so when there's a betrayal, it's a shock to the heart.

And so not only is there a physical numbing, but there's also already a signal to the heart to not trust. Do not trust. Yeah. And this is where I forget her name, that Charlotte. Charlotte, this is where Charlotte was so brilliant, is that she would talk to the betrayal so that the child, could say, this is why this happened.

And so that the child could come back out of that shock of the betrayal. Yes. Yes. Because every betrayal, no matter on what level physical is is causes a numbing and a shutdown. Yes. I agree that, that is brilliant. Charlotte's work infant therapy the acknowledgement and the ownership.

It's like the adults are taking ownership and that somehow creates a relief in the psyche of the child. It does. For example, for this piece of circumcision, I don't know. I would imagine like we could say, this happened to you, your penis was really, was cut and it was painful.

Your parents didn't do it because they didn't love you. They did it because they didn't know any better and the doctor said that, they're very sorry that it hurt you. And so there's an acknowledgement and there's a, putting it in a context so that the child can let go of that feeling of betrayal.

Yes. You can see when that story is told, you can see the child actually relax. And you can see the eyes connect a little bit more and it's, it was, it's an amazing thing that, telling the story, but acknowledging, and particularly this piece of acknowledging, it's not that your parents didn't love you, it's that this was the norm then.

And the doctor said, you should, they should do it. And they wanted the best for you, but without knowing it, they hurt you. Yeah I'm just feeling how that, how restorative that is to the heart contraction. That you alluded to earlier how the shock is not only to the nerve physical sense, but really the heart contraction and sense of trust and how that can really relax that heart protection and guarding. And you'll notice even as you feel that the heart starts to let go, there's a shift in the breath. And the breath can come in a little more deeply and come back into the diaphragm, back into the belly, and as the diaphragm relaxes, as a result, the pelvic floor will follow because the respiratory diaphragm and the pelvic floor all, there are a number of diaphragms start to move together again, which then will shift how we can reconnect with genitalia.

Aileen, I've imagined like how intimate and restorative this could be for couples for the partner to hold space for the adult man. I've been to RO workshops where the men will separate and the women will separate and we will re, we will go through, they will simulate a circumcision kind of ritual, but the response to it will be different to re imprint a new story.

But to do that where your beloved or your wife or your girlfriend is there to, really be supportive to the post circumcision experience with an intentional touch with, their presence, I think can be could be remarkably healing. That's true. And that's where couples can do healing that no practitioner ever can do because of the love, because of the connection, because of the involvement of the heart.

So to do that healing with an intentional touch, a very gentle holding touch, helps reestablish the the reestablish that, that fullness of the energetic field and then Yes. Moves back through all the way into the tissues. Yes. Yes. So I wanna continue on the arc line Sure. Once again, because I feel like in infancy we get to a place where, children discover how good self pleasuring is.

Yes. And just so innocently and so beautifully. And the, in my intakes, I always, it's so many stories of people being caught and the response of being caught by a parent, it can range from i've heard of a parent like excusing themself, just to give the child some privacy.

And in a way really honoring, that relationship with the body, obviously all the way over to not only shaming, but punishment and fear of damnation and going to hell and all of that. And the incredible imprint that has stemming from just an innocent exploration of one's body and what feels good.

Yeah. And particularly I think there's a period, between three, four years old, five years old where sexuality awakens and then it goes dormant again until puberty. So I think you're probably, I don't know if you're talking about that period where it just awakens in the body and the child is receiving these amazing sensations, right?

And the body is learning to open and to move in a pulsation to allow the sensations to move through the whole body. And again, when a parent either discovers or shames the child. It sends a shock this time through the whole system. And we know that what shock does is that it arrests that natural pulsation in a freeze response. In this case it's not about fight or flight, but it creates a freeze right there in that pleasure pulsation. And then it becomes later on that since its net doesn't get addressed, that freeze in the pleasure pulsation leaves the person who is wanting to be sexual, having to somehow always find a way through the freeze back to sensation.

And then it's not that natural organic pulsation, but it's a way of how do I get back into myself? Yeah. Yeah. So that freeze response creates blocks, both physiologically and emotionally, psychologically yeah. So when we do get to, the prepubescent or and puberty stage, I feel like it's another really ripe, stage in our development because here we're, our bodies are changing, our attractions to the, our classmates are changing. And I think something that's not talked about so much is how our parents' behavior towards our sexuality changing can be either celebrated, given space for, or be met with such discomfort.

And a lot of times I've had clients who, whose bodies develop, early, at 11 or 12, and their fathers don't know how to respond to their little girl or interact with them based on their own discomfort or unmet sexual needs. Yes. And on this arc now we're really following the arc of what happens inside a person's body.

We haven't talked about what happens when there's abuse or sexual abuse and all of that. That's a whole other huge subject, but still has an impact. But it's true that, even for girls, it's like when the menstrual period start, it's like that shift in the body.

And again, it's like how the, how a girl is introduced or ready or not ready for that. It's so much then gets programmed there as well, but you were talking about how a father may retract from intimacy, from being just open and spontaneous with his daughter when she becomes sexual.

And of course, that is often taken by the young girl as a rejection of her femininity and of her sexuality. Yes. Yes. And that can be, so internalized and confusing when there isn't a open conversation or way to address, what's actually happening in the dynamic, right? Or a father may go the other way and really, make inappropriate comments or even in inappropriate touch.

And so again, it's do I, for the young girl is do I show myself as I am? Do I hold back? Do I retreat out of my feminine? Do I feel shame for my breasts? Do I start to curl my body into, to hide my, my, my body's flowering in a way? Yes. Yeah, I'm really struck I have a niece who's a teenager now and I'm struck by what you shared of that, when a society does is place, places, values on the external looks and appearance on women in a way that, that women are, feel a pressure to lead with that.

And objectified. And objectified. Yeah. The confusion especially in, in, in our teen years as to where is my value? What is my value? What am I being valued for? Yes. Yeah. So I'm struck once again by the profoundness of that because Eileen, I gotta say so many of the stories I hear when I do an intake, the teenage years are always, they often involve alcohol and peer pressure and, unfortunately a breach of boundaries because as you say, no one teaches one how to identify what their boundaries are. Much less advocate and voice, voice them. And, so few of us learn how to be truly embodied in a way that really helps us develop a solid identity.

And teens are at the teen years really bring in this sense of who am I and how do I fit into my peer group? And it's like developing our social capacity. It's like the it's it's a second birth of sort. Yes. It's like first we're born, in, in our physical self, in our family, and then we have to be born socially.

And so whatever happened in the early years will be repeated in some way in our social birth. And that's why so oftentimes teenage years can be so confusing or painful or there's a lot of shame, or it's like making one's place in a peer group, but with the missing pieces of whatever traumas happen earlier.

It's a, it's very complex. Particularly fat teen has no, no support and no help. Yeah. I was gonna say, for those of us who lacked that secure presence of our care of our caregivers in the developmental years, those it is a rebirth. It is a rebirthing, but it can easily turn into the primary sources of attachment for our identity. And at that age it's, we become very susceptible to the peer pressure because that becomes our primary family. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And you know a lot, and this is where. Somatic work and body psychotherapy can be really helpful to a teen to help them find, reconnect or connect with their bodies in a way that they maybe were not able to as children.

But really it's not a field that's very developed yet. And so we taught, we have the teams talk about, we do very mental, very work, but the teaching of how are you embodied and how have your developmental leaders brought you to who you are today so that you can develop a healthy identity and choose your partners wisely.

Yes. Yes. So here we're talking about the real need for the restoration and reclamation of one's bodies felt self. Felt sense and felt self. And again, I wanna refer to the somatic exercises in the chapter that you sent me. I felt there was such a beautiful sequencing of, and I find that, so many of my clients have never done this, essentially taken inventory of their felt sense of their body.

It's like a body mapping of understanding, what parts of your body feel good with what kind of stimulation and how to give voice to that. Yeah. In our teenage years, if that was part if our sex education involved waking up those touch receptors as a way of connecting with intimacy, as a prelude to sexuality. It would go a long way as a preparation. Because that is, it's all of these years of development are really preparing our bodies to come to this place where sexuality opens and where we're available for this beautiful connection that is intimacy and sexuality.

Yeah. Yeah, so I, I imagine that's a lot of the work that you do, rahi is helping people through these stages and helping them reconnect in a way where they can become available to themselves and to their partner. Yes. Yes. And that is why the approaching the repairing of the rupture sequentially, I find to be very valuable.

Going all the way back to the. Some of my first questions are, what were the circumstances under which you were conceived? Because we know that's where it starts. If not before that, but to address those ruptures sequentially within the nervous system. And this is where, this is why I call it, neuro effecti touch of the pelvics or the genitalia, because it really does, it's the repairing the journey of the of how the nervous system develops organically.

Repairing those ruptures is very akin to or is very instructive, I should say, of how to repair the ruptures of one's sexual embodiment and relationship with their own sexuality because they build on each other. Yeah. And then we get into after the adolescent stage when we start dating and getting into sexual relationships I feel like, once again, if a lot of those ruptures are not addressed, we bring those patterns into our sexual dynamic and oftentimes it's what's assumed as the norm.

And, of course we magnetize, the energy container that can handle where we're at. And then patterns develop within relationships and as you mentioned when there's a mismatch between the the receptor sets of our body or.

A misalignment of our, the needs and our kind of love languages that developed. It can become a relationship of avoidance of that, sexual intimacy. Yeah. Then we come into, this whole field of attachment styles and some people want like a very symbiotic connection, energetically and others are very avoidant.

They still want so these attachment styles, which are connected to that early development, start to play out in what we look for in our sexual exchanges. Yeah. And just to finish up the arc, Aileen something I wanna underscore is I see a lot of people go through hormonal changes pre menopause and postmenopausal and as well as men with their testosterone.

And the body is still touch is so important at any age. And always. That is our language. As we illustrated from our gestation period on and it's the body's language. It is the body's language, yes. And just to encourage a continual exploration because as our bodies change.

There's always kind of new terrains to explore in regards to intimacy through touch. And whatever happens, the, this in terms of this arc, it's whatever happens in to our genitalia, it's also important to remember that orgasms are not just the domain of genitalia.

It's we each organ, each part of the body is capable of its own orgasmic experience. And yes. And that's I don't know if that completes the arc, but it's important to remember, particularly as we get older, to cultivate that capacity for the body to open up. Because really an orgasm is an opening and a, a sharing and a release of deep energy that as we continue to develop, it's like part of what happens in older age is that if that is happening, then the body, the focus is less on genitalia as a whole, as rather than a whole body experience.

Not that genitalia are not having their part of the orgasm, but there's a cultivation of this orgasmic pulsation through all of the organs in the whole body. Yeah. I feel like this gets back to the interoceptive and the ex receptive receptors. Yeah. And it's almost yeah. As infants, I think we are, I think we're extremely whole body orgasmic, not sexually, but in the joy and energy that we feel.

Yes. And that this can be the case at any age. When again, that focused attention and intention and that unconditional presence is brought to. The exquisite touch that are all the parts of the body. So to come back, it's like when all the parts are touched, they either and, continue that whole body orgasm kind of feeling, or we have to cultivate that so that our bodies remain alive.

And I, I see it very much, as we get older and you can see it in older people, it's almost like their color changes. The body becomes grayish, which is really a signal that pulsation, that orgasmic capacity that life force is pulling out has not been encouraged to really move through the whole body.

And we call that aging, but I don't think it needs to be that way. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. So really an encouragement. To speak our, to keep our primary language of touch front and center, in our self touch as well as our partner in community touch.

Yeah. Really beautiful. Yeah. Eileen before we wrap up I, there are five or six somatic exercises in that chapter. Is that chapter available to the public? Yes, of course. I'd love to make it available because they're so simple, but they're so profound and I find that in the restoration and reclamation.

Of sexual wellness arousal our natural stimulation responses. It calls for those kinds of guided practices to restore and awaken yeah. Those responses. But for our listeners who are listening and not going to the website, is there a somatic contemplation or a somatic practice that you feel could really or nourish their sexual embodiment?

As you sit and breathe, you notice a place where you are breathing. If I breathe, I can feel okay, my belly rises and falls. So I would put one hand on the place where I do feel my breath. And then as I take a few more breaths and notice that, then I would ask myself, is there a place in my body where I don't feel I'm breathing?

And I could feel it let's say here in my shoulder. So then I keep one hand on the area where I am breathing and one area where I'm not feeling that I'm breathing. And then I connect both and just breathe. And what happens is that the part that isn't breathing learns from the part that is and you could do it, from on my heart, I can feel I'm breathing here and I could put an a hand over my genitals. And so that the, because in terms of restoration, the body pulsates and opens with our breath. So we want to bring our breath to every part of the body. So connecting with the part where we feel breath and a part where we don't feel the breath and holding both together, then the part that didn't feel the breath is going to learn.

And then there's a sense of, ugh, it opens up. And you can keep doing that through your whole body. Yes. That's wonderful. Aileen thank you. Thank you for. Who you are, your body of work, and for sharing your light on the planet. And if people wanna find you they can go to the neuro effecti touch.com.

And currently neuro Effective Touch is being offered virtually all over the world. Is that correct? Yes. And we. We are starting a training and it's mostly for professionals, whether you're a body worker, anyone interested in really bringing more awareness to the body and it's through touch.

It's amazing how well the touch can be taught online. And so what I'm doing is we're doing most of the theory and self-practice and that online. And as soon as it's safe, then we will do in-person touch master classes. But there's a training starting in January and for the US there's also one starting for Australia and there will be an Oslo training for Europe as well.

All are on the website starting beginning 2021. Wonderful. Wonderful. Yeah. Great. Thanks for being with us today, Eileen. It's great to see you. Thank you. It's always such a pleasure to have conversations with you Rahi. Notice how this exploration with Eileen is landing in your body, and whether your body may be inviting a deeper exploration of any stories.

It may be ready and wanting to share with you.

 Thank you for listening to Your Body. Remembers Pleasure If this conversation supported you, the simple way to help this work reach more people is to leave a five star rating or a brief review. You'll also find more resources and teachings@rahichun.com. Until next time, take good care.