One of my clients, let’s call them Booshra, sought me out to change an old relationship pattern they’d struggled with (and repeated) for years. In the beginning of their relationships, or with strangers, they were able to enjoy deep, ravenous sex. But as feelings began to intensify, usually around the 3 month mark in a relationship, inevitably they’d stop feeling attracted to the person. The sex went from being rapturous to indifferent. Before long, both the sex and the relationship would end.

When Booshra started working with me, they were in a long-term relationship and hadn’t had sex for several years. They desperately wanted to save the relationship and enjoy the kind of ecstatic sex they used to have.

This pattern of Booshra’s is actually a very common issue that many of my clients – and a lot of people – struggle with, called the Heart-Sex Split.

What is the Heart-Sex Split?

From a young age we received mixed messages from our family, society and social norms about what was – and was not – acceptable. When our sexual aliveness, excitement and arousal were met with rejection or judgment, we learned to split from our potent life force out of survival.

As we grew, peer pressure and our culture imposed how we needed to show up to be accepted, so we further armored against bringing our erotic innocence, wildness, playfulness and our heart together. 

At the core of the heart-sex split is the mistaken believe that not only is it not acceptable, it’s too vulnerable, to bring our heart into our sexual experiences and vice-versa. We’re afraid – actually, terrified – that we’ll be annihlated if we join our heart and sex. Our energetic system feels this will be too risky. Too dangerous.

The Wounded Masculine

In the book Female Authority, Polly Young-Eisendrath and Florence Wiedemann write, “Most women seek power and authority either by becoming like men or by becoming liked by men.” It’s not just women that do this, however. Many people struggle with this. We become achievement-based and performance driven. We cut off from our intuition and creativity. We focus on pleasing others and being selfless. We become children of the patriarchy.

But when the masculine is distorted – when it’s wounded – it demands control, domination, perfection and the tyranny of progress, without any respect to limit. When it is unbalanced and not in relation with life, it becomes destructive and combative.

As we struggle to be perfect and production-driven, rational and logical, we separate from our bodies and push down our feelings to be more like the masculine rather than the feminine. As we do this, we deepen the heart-sex split.

A split, such as in the heart-sex split, blocks the natural flow of energy in our bodies. We become cut off from our erotic power, our feminine connection to nature, our intuition, our MAGIC. We are not in relation with life, so we take and dominate.

The heart-sex split not only impacts our relationships. It impacts how we move and walk in the world.

I was a “Father’s daughter.” As a result of the rejection of my mother, I evolved as a high achieving girl, seeking voracious approval and power of my first male role model – my father. 

From an early age, I saw my mother as the villain and my father as my ally. I over-identified with the masculine and wanted to be rescued by the masculine. This continued as I grew into an adult. I oriented myself by the most powerful man in the room, in every setting. I gathered male allies wherever I went. 

By the time I was a teenager, I no longer had girlfriends. I cut off from female mentors and friends. I was bright and ambitious and cut off from emotions. I learned to walk with domination, emulating the patriarchy. I led from my self-will. I was driven by progress – no success was ever enough. I was a pleaser of the masculine. I separated my sexuality from my spirituality. I was alienated from my spontaneity and creativity. I was completely cut off from my body. (Can you relate?)

The heart-sex split was complete. My defense was fully-formed.

De-armoring: Healing the Heart-Sex Split

We cannot heal alone. It wasn’t until I started asking for help that I was able to heal my own heart-sex split and wounded masculine. I let go of my lone ranger, isolated existence; the part of me that would power my way through any hardship. I began to accept those unloved and rejected parts. 

My journey to discover self-intimacy was primary before I could come into deeper connection with others and nature around me. Healing was a deeply embodied process. Most importantly, expanding my capacity to tolerate the unknown and live in uncertainty helped to shed my identification with the patriarchal masculine, making way for the possibility of rebirth toward a more spontaneous, creative aliveness.

Over the years, I began to adopt a spirit of surrender and trust. In order to carry out the feminine wisdom that I began to tap, I need a strong masculine with a compassionate heart. The journey to feel my heart, release the armor and be led by it, has helped to heal my wounded masculine.

My client, Booshra, was also disconnected from their body and feelings. They had built their own armor and defenses in response to early childhood learning and wounding. 

In our work together, we explored where they were blocked in their heart and pelvis. I invited them into a conversation with their body and a dialogue between their heart and sex. We explored where they were cut off from their own arousal and turn-on and where they were punishing their partner by not bringing their attraction to her.

Over time, Booshra has been able to experience both passionate sex with their partner again as well as an intimate heart connection – with themselves and their partner. All of their relationships are shifting and changing, for the better. They’re enjoying more aliveness and presence, turn on and creativity.  

The journey of healing didn’t happen overnight. It’s a process that takes the time it needs. When you consider that Booshra had been moving through the world for decades with this invisible armor and split, you begin to see how it’s a slow process. It takes time to unlearn the rejection of a union with all their parts. It takes time to disarmor and awaken the connection between heart and sex and their wholeness.

If you’re struggling with the heart-sex split, if you don’t have sex anymore with your partner, or you have sex but don’t have the emotional intimacy you crave, please know you’re not alone. Right now you may feel like you can’t have both at the same time, but the truth is, you can. When you heal the heart-sex split. 

I invite you to sign up for my free video to find out what the heart-sex-split is, if you have it and how you can heal it.