Sexual Trauma: We All Have It

You think about Sexual trauma can be experienced physically, emotionally, energetically. It's a violation as it relates to something sexual. So whether you're sharing a story, whether you're touching a part of your body, whether there's a physical contact with another person, those are all different aspects of how sexual trauma can be experienced. Thank you for tuning in your consciousness to the Naked Human podcast. I want to acknowledge your presence and what it took for you to be here today.

Listening. My intention for you is that you receive what you came here for and find what you didn't know you needed. This podcast is about what it means to be a human being and what it really means to be naked and how our relationship with Mother Nature has the power to heal us. My name is Carrie Cott and I'm a nude nature photographer, licensed photograph physician of Chinese medicine plant guide and wild woman embodiment mentor.

I help women heal from sexual trauma, awaken their authentic voice, and distinguish between fear and intuition so they can be led by their deep feminine heart. I bring to life in this podcast my own internal wisdom. I will only share what I've learned and experience on a personal level. As you listen, I encourage you to take from this what you need and just trash the rest. So happy listening.

Sexual trauma, we all have it. And in this conversation, I'm going to touch on what is sexual trauma. Why am I even talking about it? How is it that we all have it and how the. The medicine of nudity, of nature, of plants of touch, are avenues for healing this experience. Okay, so what is sexual trauma? And that definitely intertwines with that. We all have sexual trauma to some varying degree.

Now I'm imagining that most of us, when we think here sexual trauma, we might think of rape and being molested. And those are definitely a part of what sexual trauma is. And to also connect to the word trauma, as I'm speaking to it and as I believe it, it means is that trauma is a moment in time, an experience when something happened and we shut down. As we shut down, there is an incompletion of processing and feeling that experience. That moment created a repression of self.

It's like it stamped something in a moment in time and we became forever stuck there. Now, Maybe something happened 20 years ago and it's trauma. It's unresolved. That stamp of being stuck there means that that experience, that imprint from that moment continues to play itself out. No matter how long it's been. It'll. It'll play itself out in your behaviors, your thoughts, your experiences. Your feelings, the way that your body responds in situations and scenarios.

And so it's forever reliving that experience. That's what trauma is. It's on an unresolved moment where the water within you, your natural flow of existence, became stopped, damned. You know, like how a dam stops the water from flowing. And then it can create all sorts of issues, right? So that's trauma and sexual meaning as it relates to anything that is experienced as it connects to sex, sexuality, sensuality, body parts that are associated with sex.

So genitalia, even the breast, the nipples, the mouth, the anus. While disclaimer is that all parts of our body can be highly erotic and sexual and sensual. This is a typical space, these specific body parts that are traumatized as it relates to sexual trauma. And so sexual trauma is a moment in time when something, as it relates to, to sex, sexuality, sensuality, your sex organs, something happened, you were shamed, shunned, violated, and it was unresolved.

So as it relates to, we all have sexual trauma is that. Imagine if you were a little boy, you're like five, and you're just discovering your penis and your mom sees you and she's like, ew, don't do that. That's disgusting. Put it away. Boom. There's a, there's a sexual trauma imprint that. Unless that little boy was just like, this ain't my fucking shit, I'm gonna let this ride off my back. Chances are that little five year old who's receiving that from his mother is.

It's a imprint in a moment in time that this part of myself, my penis is wrong and bad. It needs to be hidden. This part of me needs to be hidden. And what just popped in my brain is, you know, the, the. I don't know, I was going to say healer in me, but the guide in me of how this can play itself out decades from now is that it could, it could, it could be premature ejaculation, it could be difficulty getting erections, could be prostate issues.

All sorts, symptoms and signs can manifest from that. And it can even start to express itself out in specific sexual desires and how this boy in the future interacts with his mates as it relates to sex. And maybe it needs to be hidden and maybe it starts to turn into things that people would start calling taboo things. I mean, literally, it could breed into all sorts of manifestations in life. So there's an example of sexual trauma watching things in a movie can imprint.

So this is about things being imprinted as it relates to this context of sex. So if you've been watching many, many movies where the man and woman, for example, have sex and then like, literally three seconds, it's over, and he's ejaculated, she's laying there unsatisfied, that can start to leave an imprint of, like, that's what happens. That's a form of sexual trauma.

Every single time that you were with someone and engaged in sex with them and you didn't really want to be engaged in whatever way, shape or form, that is a form of sexual trauma. Every time that you didn't use your voice to say, no, I don't. I don't want to do this, that's sexual trauma. Every time that you wanted to do it because you thought you should do it or because this is. This is my partner. Like, isn't that, like, an obligation of our relationship?

Whether it's a kiss, whether it's penetration, whether it's some form of oral sex, whatever it is, or just like having your breasts be fondled, if you didn't really want to receive or experience or give that, that is a form of sexual trauma. Sharing a story with a friend of yours and being like, oh, my gosh, you're talking about some experience you had with someone else as a sexual experience.

And your friend is like, you always talk about this stuff, and this is an appropriate conversation or some form of that. That can be a moment of sexual trauma, of experience, shame.

And then there's the being molested, being raped. And I just have it that those are more obvious experiences of sexual trauma. They're physical violations to the body. And so you think about sexual trauma, it can be experienced physically, emotionally, energetically. It's a violation as it relates to something sexual.

So whether you're sharing a story, whether you're touching a part of your body, whether there's a physical contact with another person, those are all different aspects of how sexual trauma can be experienced. And to some degree, we all have a sexual trauma just based on our society. This conversation is super important to me because this is the foundation. Well, wait a moment. So, like, this is a personal conversation to me. I mean, I am a part of. Everyone has it.

I've also experienced being molested by my friend's cousin, my first sexual experience, and being raped, and basically reliving those experiences over and over and over. And, you know, the. The little girl in me who had these experiences, she made a choice. And that choice was that if these things were going to continue to happen, then she was just going to be an active participant.

So I Intentionally, because I am that little girl and this phase of my life I intentionally just surrendered my body to experiences that I didn't, didn't actually want. I mean I wanted them on some level, right? They happened. I was really ultimately yearning for love and connection and to be cherished.

And that was not the play out but these experiences had happened and were really imprinted in, in my experience that I just assumed that that was going to continue happen and if it was, then I would be more of an active participant so that I could intentionally remove myself. So by remove myself I mean I could offer my body and I could detach so I could have sex with someone and I could detach from my body so I could just opt into the experience.

But then I could protect myself by removing myself from the body, from my body. And I even remember it's actually quite miraculous that one time I had sex with a partner of mine. And this was actually after we completed our relationship and we had sex and I completely left my body. I could see myself, it was like I was hovering over myself witnessing it. I had left so much like. And I say that's miraculous because it's like, wow.

And that actually really, that moment really helped me to continue to make shifts in this area for myself. It was like a moment of whoa, this is what's happening. And this doesn't, this doesn't feel good, this doesn't work for me.

So I have my personal experiences and the root and the foundation of the events that I facilitate and curate with women are rooted in healing sexual trauma. That's why there's specific boundaries as it relates to no sex and non sexual touch and going into the medicine of nudity and connecting with the earth and, and all the other things that we might do like going inside of our body, going inside of our yoni, connecting with this part of ourselves.

The container itself is created from providing safety and the opportunity to heal all the fucking shit about our bodies. And unbeknownst to me, nudity presented itself from an experience that I had. You can listen to the episode A story on nudity in Bondage. It presented itself as a medicine for healing, healing this trauma that I didn't know that it was going to specifically non sexual nudity because the first time that I had experienced it it was just like, wow.

All I knew is that I wanted to keep doing it. There was something about it that felt so good. I wanted to keep doing was because I was in an environment that was safe. There was no sex that was involved. There was nothing that was being asked of me on a sexual level. And therefore it became medicine to heal sexual trauma. Because sexual trauma is a violation of some sort. And in my case it was physical violation.

And to be an environment where nobody was going to touch me without explicit permission was the medicine, is the medicine, and it's still my medicine. Like, there's still layers of healing for me as it relates to, to these experiences that I had. And ultimately they're about me diving deeper within myself. And maybe the layers of this never end. But I also see that as the layers of just coming home more within ourselves.

Like that experience of expansion and healing, if you want to call it that, of discovery, of unlearning, of letting go. Like it just, it just never ends. So being naked in an environment where I feel safe has become medicine for healing this trauma. I get to reprogram myself, and by myself, I mean with my body, with the imprints in my body that were stuck, unresolved and stagnant, the trauma, right. It's an unresolved moment.

And so being in an environment where I can be naked and I can use my voice and have boundaries and I'm physically safe, it creates an opening to resolve that moment. And the aspect about layers is how much resolution happens in a moment in time. And the more and more that I personally have experienced nudity in this way and then now facilitating non sexual nude experiences with women like, it just creates more resolution.

And in that resolution, it's not necessarily always pretty, can be confronting, uncomfortable, scary, there can be a lot of tears, there could be screaming, the anger that comes up, rage, grief, sadness, all sorts of things. Because the unresolved feelings, emotions and energy from that moment in time, they need to be processed and felt. If they're not, then they still remain dormant and they still get to run the show on some, some aspect.

So if it's not resolved, it's still existing within, it's still playing a part in your thoughts, feelings, actions and words.

And the relationship with our natural world becomes another medicine for healing. And I can obviously only speak for myself the way that I see it and experience it is that nature, our natural world, for example, and any of the other ways that are there to assist in the healing of sexual trauma is because they. Well, the word that's there is trust. It's a space for cultivating trust and nature. And like I said, I can only speak for myself.

And what's popping in for me right now is, you know, have an understanding as it relates to the earth in my own way. And I know there's so many of us or maybe all of you listening to this. You can completely relate to this, you know, because it's inherent. Like our relationship with the natural world is inherent. And I also understand that not everybody grew up in an environment that has intrinsically fostered that relationship with the earth.

So I grew up in the country and nature wasn't even a thing that I would like give it a word, like it wouldn't have a name. It was just, it just existed. And it was pivotal in my, my years. I feel like I was birthed into an abundance of mother Nature. And so it's always been a space that has existed for, for me and has supported me without, without me ever having language to say those things. I mean it just is.

And even sometimes when I think about speaking about nature, I just like there's such this, like. But I don't even like, it just is. It's like this feeling within me because it was, it's like an imprint in my life of existence. And it's beyond words. And there are all these scientific things about nature, you know, like all the ions that happen when your feet are barefoot on the earth and all these like powerful magical things.

And that's just not something I can really like give voice to because that's not as at my place of expertise. My place of, I guess expertise is just the feeling inside of me, interconnectedness with the earth, with all of life. And so as it relates to sexual trauma that I'm speaking into is that our natural world is a really beautiful place for trust and cultivating trust and being with trust and just like spending time.

For example, if you were to be naked, lay on the earth and like close your eyes and bring your awareness to that energy and the tangibility, the physicality of the earth below you, holding and just like having your awareness go to the connection between the parts of your body that are in direct contact with the Earth. Just imagine that safety, you're being held and you bring your awareness to that.

And when it comes to trauma, any form of trauma really, the earth becomes this place that we can rely on, especially when we're connecting with the earth. That is like holding us. It's like beneath our feet, beneath our butt, beneath our back, we're laying there, the earth is holding us, has us. And just like soaking that in is a way to re imprint your nervous system, your body. I believe that it can happen without your awareness of that.

Because really, I mean, for me, when I started experiencing non sexual nudity I wasn't like, you know, in my head like, wow, this is really healing for this. It was just happening and there was something about it. And in hindsight I can be like, okay, yeah, this makes sense for this and this and this. And I'm still discovering things along the way and new things pop in like, oh, I didn't see that before.

But in the moment they're just happening and they happen and they invite us in because we're open to the healing. So whether it's actually a thought process happening in your awareness of like, oh, I'm doing this for X, Y and Z, I believe is truly irrelevant. We just have to be an open vessel for the medicine, for the healing, for the movement to occur.

And imagine you're laying on the ground naked, still being held, and you take some deep breaths and you notice some part of your body starts to like twitch a little bit maybe, or you just like keep sighing deeper into the earth and maybe some tears start to come and flow and ah, that is the energy, that's the experience of moving that which has been unresolved. The human mind, the thoughting, thinking process doesn't have to translate it in order for it to be medicine and for it to be healing.

And then when we look at touch, touch is such an integral part of what it means to be, just what it means to exist. I mean, I was going to say what it means to be a human being for sure. And if you think about animals, they have relationships with each other where they're touching and grooming each other and cuddling and holding and it exists everywhere.

And even the trees in the forest, as I look out my window, they're like interwoven with each other and they're touching and underneath their roots and the mycelium network, they're all overlapping, everything is connected. And there's a whole other conversation I could probably tap into about touch and how like just in general there's like a deprivation of touch and connection and for lots of different reasons.

And when you bring in touch, non sexual touch as well, I mean even bringing in sexual touch can be healing. It has to be in a container with boundaries and clarity and communication. And those boundaries need to be honored for it to be healing.

Bringing in the medicine of being naked and touching a non sexual way, even if it's touching parts, whether it's self touch or touch with someone else, even touching intimate parts of ourselves that have been shamed, like just having your yoni be touched and just held, having touch to the breast to the abdomen to the hips, to the side of your cheek.

Like all of that becomes a layer of healing because it's all of, all of, all of these experiences are creating an opportunity to reprint yourself, your body, your nervous system. You're like reprogramming. And the layers are that the more that you have these experiences, the more that safety, protection, I am safe, I am safe. Gets integrated into you.

And so having many experiences to be touched, knowing that there's nothing sexual, being asked, just bringing touch, being held in that touch creates that new imprint. It's just like training, you know, if you've ever trained a dog, I mean we're training people all the time how to treat us and interact with them and all these things. But you know, think about a dog when you're training a dog. It's repetition.

And if a dog has learned something that's not super ideal, there's a process, there's many processes right in how to shift that. And as I see it, the most beneficial process is the one where the desired outcome is encouraged. It's not about reprimanding bad behavior, it's about inviting in the desired, the new behavior.

So through a practice of non sexual touch, even just bringing your hands like to your breasts and just bringing your awareness with the that touch to that part of your body, taking some deep breaths invites and encourages that new energy to exist. And I see like when you're just like holding touch, it being really powerful because there's no like, there's no attempt to try and like stimulate something.

You know, so much of it, sexual activities or the experiences of them is like stimulation in order to xyz, you know, in order to orgasm, in order to get aroused, in order to. There's like this in order to. When you just hold the energy in your presence with the touch, with your touch, somebody else's touch, it becomes new medicine, new connection. I'm just being held and being present and being honored.

And I feel like there are so many, many other things that I could share about, like working with plants, how that invites consciousness in. And that's all of it, all of it is connected to trust. And when there's violation, whether it's physical, verbally, trust and safety are super important. And all these practices as I see it, inviting the opportunity for the individual to experience that so they know what that texture, that flavor, that feeling is like.

And it has the opportunity to integrate into them, that they begin to trust themselves. And they can begin to feel safe within their own body. And from that space they can have the opportunity to cultivate an inner experience of safety and trust within themselves. Because ultimately the violation is within self. The experience has happened. The conflict, the trauma. Using the word conflict as trauma. Here the conflict is within.

And so no matter how much outside of self safety is insured or tended to, the ultimate space in which the freedom, the true safety exist is from within of actually feeling safe with yourself, that you can trust yourself regardless of what's happening, to not abandon yourself. Because ultimately what happens is there's a moment of trauma, something's unresolved and the individual leaves themself.

So in my example, I abandoned myself, I left my body, I stuffed it all down, kept it to myself, I didn't share it, I didn't speak up in the moment or afterwards. I mean, eventually I did, years later, I didn't provide a space for myself to process and feel and I left. It's a self abandonment experience. When there's trauma, we, we jump ship on ourselves. So the safety and the trust, ultimately underneath all the layers of this is, is the, the trust and safety within self.

And so going through the layers of healing, there eventually becomes this space where safety is an experience within, regardless of what's happening around. So even if safety is ensured and then something happens and you don't like, it doesn't become the same experience.

You don't jump ship, you stay connected to yourself as you're moving through the experience, allowing yourself to feel, to move your body and how it needs to move in that moment to use your voice to actually open up the space of connection, connection with yourself.

So I had an experience after years of doing different healings. And this, this example is connected to this, is that had this experience with this man and had communicated what I was available for. What I was available for was hugs and were cuddling. It was cuddling and kisses. I wasn't available for anything else. And I communicated that. And that boundary wasn't honored. This person attempted, well, I shouldn't say this person, you know, went beyond those boundaries with his touch.

And instead of continuing to go with it, abandoning myself, repressing it, I got to use my voice about that and I got to make choices for myself. And so that's a more integrated experience where it doesn't mean that things don't happen. Having a cultivated space within ourselves of safety and trust doesn't mean that life ceases to exist or we'll never be confronted with anything ever again.

As it relates to this, it means that we don't abandon ourselves, we can trust Ourselves to do what we need to do, to take care of ourselves. We are safe within our body, to stay in our body and to stay present to the experience like that. Safety. Because I can trust myself. Like, in this example, was that ideal that my. My boundary wasn't honored? No. No, it's not ideal. Did it happen? Yeah. Did I use my voice? Yeah, I did. Did I do what I needed to do for me? Yeah. Was it completely 100% easy?

No, but it was pretty damn fucking. It was. It was easy in comparison than it's ever been. There were definitely moments where I was like, oh, this is uncomfortable. And I just listened. And so that's. That's the space that's available in these experiences of being naked, being in nature, touch, connecting, being in intentional environment where this healing is encouraged. And what these spaces are created for is so that we can tend to the parts of ourselves that.

That we've abandoned, that are there within us unresolved, wreaking havoc in our life, creating scenarios and situations that are like Groundhog's Day of trauma. And so wherever you are on this scale of. Or where you consider yourself to be on the scale of having experienced sexual trauma, it doesn't matter.

It's an invitation, ultimately, to connect deeper within yourself. So sexual trauma, we all have it, and we're all healing and we're all unraveling layers and layers and layers of it, and we will until the moment that we die.

All of this is just an invitation to give yourself permission to acknowledge your experiences, acknowledge that something is there for you, even if it doesn't seem like it was big or a big deal, and even if it is a big deal and it has been a big deal for you, this is just the opportunity to give yourself permission to acknowledge that, like, yeah, this is just what's so for me. I have these experiences. And so that completes our transmission for today.

Until next time, thank you for tuning your consciousness to this episode of the Naked Human. However you find yourself, whether it's relieved, enlightened, triggered, or as if the past minutes were a complete waste of your time, it's perfect. Be present to it and allow it to be the medicine you need. I welcome your feedback and heartfelt reflections of how this episode impacted you.

You can share with me online@thenakedhumanpodcast.com and if you're feeling called for a more personalized experience into your nakedness, I invite you to join our community of wild women in person or online. You can find more specifics@thenakedhumanpodcast.com and until next time, bye.