According to survey results, 60% of women want more sex, although only 27% of women orgasm with every intercourse engagement—the rate increases to 34% with oral sex. Overall, women’s orgasm rate is 69%, compared to 95% for men. Sadly, the lack of sexual satisfaction is a cultural norm embedded within a system that emphasizes a particular power structure that only entitles men to orgasm.

The female orgasm is optional even though the female body is particularly designed for orgasm, as the clitoris has no other function. Women have fought robustly to remove power structures that restrict success. Yet, research reveals that women compromise their body autonomy to fulfill the sexual “needs” of their partners, including agreeing to ‘threesomes,’ watching pornography at the partner’s request, and performing as bisexual at parties.

Women also rationalize coercive sexual experiences. However, normalizing sex without orgasm is the most common compromise of body autonomy. The single-orgasm sexual experience, in which only the male has an orgasm, is oppressive. 

The field of research called “adverse childhood experiences” indicates ten common childhood experiences that, combined, negatively affect the adult experience. Those experiences include non-contact experiences of the child, such as single parenting, mental disturbances, imprisonment, domestic violence, and direct physical, emotional, or sexual abuse. The more adverse experiences an adult endures during childhood, the more likely they are to have heavy mental and physical health burdens. 

Adults exposed to four or more adverse childhood experiences have considerably more difficulties than those with less than four. Those with four or more are far more likely to have severe health conditions, higher than average mental health visits each year, and an increase in broken relationships.

The inner child has a place in our adult lives. Becoming childlike (not childish) is the most adult thing we can do on the healing journey. People who are childlike laugh more, are more active, risk more, and are more carefree. They are more at ease with uncertainty. Think about a skill or talent you developed in childhood. That talent is connected to your inner child. Maybe it’s time to pick it back up. It may help you become conscious of your inner child.

People often ask performance poets why they write such sad poems, or worse, offer pity for our experience. Any poet will give the same response. By the time we perform a poem, the healing has begun, no matter how much emotion we display in the delivery. Sharing poetry deepens the cathartic release. Poets validate themselves by performing, no matter how the audience responds. We leave grief, shame, and self-doubt on the stage. We flaunt the power that we find through picking up the pen. No one shares their journal. The feelings stay caught up between pages for the writer to return to time and time again. As an artist, the next poem is always waiting to carry you beyond the words. We can choose to return to a poem, update it, or share it. So many options exist.

to leave is the path of least resistance. Sometimes helplessness or neediness is used to guilt the person into remaining. Each of these patterns is a manipulation based on fear and produces unhealthy relationships.

Conflict is a state of arousal that some couples substitute for intimacy. Becoming passive in the relationship so that the person is not tempted to leave is the path of least resistance. Sometimes helplessness or neediness is used to guilt the person into remaining. Each of these patterns is a manipulation based on fear and produces unhealthy relationships. Unhealthy relationships require one or both partners to live small. Unhealthy attachment is signified by insecurity and uncertainty in relationships. There is a desire for constant affirmation. While you may get plenty of it in the beginning, relationships settle, and instead of trust and safety forming, fear of abandonment grows.

Many people have wondered if meditation would improve their lives. Among other things, meditation can be described as a healthy habit, fad, religious practice, or escape from reality. But could meditation be right for you? The biggest challenge is getting started and finding a lifelong meditation practice is a process of trial and error.