On today’s episode of The Addicted Mind Podcast, Duane speaks to sex coach and educator Stacie Ysidro about addiction and healing your sexuality during the recovery process.
Stacie has studied virtually every corner of addictive sexuality and has focused her career on helping people navigate sober sexuality once they’ve recovered. She has something of a passion for sexology and the relationship between sexuality and spirituality. She realized that people need coaching around their sexuality in recovery. Stacie discusses how sex is typically seen through the lens of people-pleasing and not through an honoring one. When not using a substance to escape, you have to more or less face your real sexual self. And yet it’s hard to honor yourself after trauma. Because sexuality is so vulnerable, it gives you access to every other part of yourself.
Duane and Stacie talk about the link between vulnerability and sex with regard to treatment programs, our relationships, and the broader culture. Part of this process deals in releasing ourselves from shame and forgiving ourselves. Stacie uses something called a Sexual Values System to help assess where people are. The system has people scrutinize their own values, beliefs, and even definitions surrounding their own sexuality, including desires and expectations. Doing this work in a shame-free environment allows people to find new words, change their understanding, and set and realize goals.
Stacie’s work helps people to see their own worth. She encourages people that are curious about healing their sexuality to start asking questions about their own sex lives to try to better understand their attitudes about sex. To come into presence with your body is the only way to authentically step into pleasure, free from judgment. And to do this is to ultimately unite our spirits with our sexuality. As Stacie says, “pleasure is our divine right.”
Timestamps:
1:45 — Keep sharing your messages of hope with The Addicted Mind Podcast!
2:45 — Stacie introduces herself.
4:00 — Stacie started sex coaching a decade ago.
7:20 — Common issues with sexuality in recovery.
11:15 — It’s easier to have sex than to become intimate with someone.
12:30 — It can be scary to make yourself so known.
14:00 — The sexual values system is used to assess sexual health.
19:00 — This work is direct access to what’s holding you back.
22:00 — The pleasure blueprint.
24:35 — Advice to people wanting to heal their sexuality in recovery.
27:00 — Being honest about emotions that are no longer serving us anymore.
29:30 — You know yourself whether or not you’re ready for this.
Key quotes:
- “Orgasmic energy is life-force energy.”
- “For me, addiction has been about isolation and disconnection from the spirit.”
- “[Addiction] was like a spiritual death.”
- “Normal is what’s normal for you.”
- “I don’t believe that people are sexually-incompatible—they’re just speaking different languages.”
- “You can never dissect sexuality from a person.”
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