Relax

Last week, we looked at our addiction to time. This week, we are going to look at relaxation to better understand what it is and why it is so important to let go of this addiction.

Let’s look at the etymology of the word relax. In old French, it is the word relaschier, which means to set free, soften, reduce. This word is related to the Latin word relaxare which means to loosen, open, stretch out, widen again, to be slack. The word relaxen means to make less compact or dense referring to muscles. Meaning to decrease tension, to make less rigorous. The root word, lax means to loose, wide spacious, roomy and free.

Are we talking about relaxing or something else here? I cannot make these things up. This is why it is so important to REALLY understand words. Words have power and meaning. I don’t know about you; but for me, these words remind me of sexual intimacy.

As a sexual recovery therapist and a recovering sex addict and anorexic, I thought I had read and knew everything there was to know about sex. To say I was wrong is an understatement.

After reading Intimate Communion by David Deida and The Heart of Tantric Sex by Diane Richardson, I realized there is so much more to learn. In fact, I need to unlearn most everything my western Christian culture has directly and indirectly indoctrinated me about sex. Richards states that sexual intercourse should be a spiritual energetic experience that is not rushed… meaning two to three hours of loose, spacious, roomy, slack and wide sex, without ejaculating.

Dieda explains there are three ways couples love. We are going to keep this on a very macro level. The first is love, when you actively choose to open your heart. It is unity. Second, romance is an exclusive feeling for someone. Finally, sexual polarity is the feminine and masculine energies that dance and polarize with negative and positive charges, like the poles of a magnet, which attract and repel each other.

Deida writes, “Our culture has lost the wisdom of the laws of sexual polarity, and we tend not to be very conscious of the type of energy—either more Masculine or more Feminine—that we are putting out in any given moment…a relationship feels over when polarity is gone.”

Are you getting this?! Do you understand what he is saying? Love and romance are not the same thing as sexual polarity.

So many couples “fall out of love” the longer they are married, as the relationship becomes neutral, depolarized and the “chemistry” is gone. This chemistry/energy is what is called sexual polarity. In my experience of counseling couples for almost 20 years, couples generally divorce because the romance has stopped. But they do not get divorced because they do not love each other. What if they are getting divorced because the sexual polarity has died, like a battery. In fact, what if sexual polarity is the battery that keeps love and romance going?

Over the past decade, I have read book after book on energy psychology, Quantum healing, the polarity of every cell in our bodies, as well as the power of the mind and body being able to heal itself. Everything is energy, vibration, and frequency. How did I not see this before? Polarity is really in everything that makes the universe work.

He describes the feminine polarity to be much like being out in nature, full of color, adventure, enjoying the beauty all around you, enveloped and to be consumed by it, much like Maui, Hawaii. It’s a place to relax. The masculine polarity is more like New York City which is black and grey, driven by a schedule and deadlines to achieve, conquer, and consume.

Here in the West, not only men but women also have become driven by their addition to time, schedules, and deadlines. Neither gender knows how to relax; and if both are polarized in the masculine to a period of time, the relationship is now neutralized, depolarized, and the battery is dead.

Diane Richarson writes, “Relaxation and inner ease have become so unfamiliar to us that when we are not ‘doing’ anything we feel restless and bored. We long for action, excitement, stimulation. It seems that we have reversed the rules of nature. Living with and against the clock seems to give our life meaning while ‘being’ and stillness and quiet arouse our anxiety.”

Our western culture is nothing but anxiety that you see and feel all around you. We have convinced ourselves that we are too busy and too important to take time to relax and miss a deadline. Our addiction to time and being in a hurry with the inability to relax has destroyed sexual polarity.

In the next few blog posts, we are going to begin to penetrate deeper into unlearning sex.

Sources: “The Enlighted Sex Manual,” “Dear Lover,” The Way of the Superior Man.”
“Intimate Communion, Awakening Your Sexual Essence” by David Dieda,
“The Heart of Tantric Sex” by Diane Richardson, etymonline.com

Cory Schortzman Executive Director

Cory Schortzman is an author, speaker, teacher and licensed mental health professional. Since 2008, he has served as the Executive Director of Transformed Hearts Counseling Center in Colorado Springs, CO. He is the founder of SARA, the Sexual Addiction Recovery Association. Cory is passionate about helping couples and individuals overcome sex addiction. He is also passionate about bringing awareness to the public and supporting the elimination of sex and human trafficking. Cory has been married since 1998 to his beautiful wife, Kerry, and lives in Colorado with their four daughters. He and Kerry have been seen on the CBS Early Show, Inside Edition, and ABC Good Morning America, Fox 21 News, and TLC/Discovery discussing the harm of sex addiction and the joys of recovery. He has also been heard on numerous radio programs.

Cory’s books include: Out of the Darkness, Into the Light the Workbook, Into the Light the Steps, Ashes to Beauty the Steps, 301 Dating Ideas, 301 Conversational Ideas, 301 Ways to Say I Love You, 301 Ways to Love Your Children & 301 Recovery Tools & Tips.