“I can't see any reason for this (sexual problem).”
When a man hears that from his doctor, does that mean he should just accept it and live on feeling less of a man?
Some may think so.
I don't.
The Power Of One Energetic Shift
I’ll never forget the day back in 2014, when a man in his 50s came to see me for a Tantra massage. He said although he was fit and healthy, he hadn't had an erection in months, and hoped the session might do something to help.
He was a lovely man, very softly spoken, and as we talked I couldn't help wondering, “Is there somewhere in his life that he's not standing up for himself? Not speaking up for himself?”
“Would you be willing to try a little experiment with me?” I asked. He replied, “Sure”. So I invited him to stand up, and enquired, “When was the last time that you really allowed yourself to roar from your belly?”
Visibly surprised at the question, he answered with a shake of his head. Neither he nor anyone else had ever given him permission to do so.
“Now I'm going to begin roaring from my belly, and I want you to do the same. To allow your body to let out whatever sound it wants to make. Please don't hold yourself back, just let go.”
Naturally self-conscious at first, it took him a few minutes to get into it, but when he did, something primal in his body took over. Something that all his social conditioning had no power over in that moment.
For several minutes he roared from the depths of his being. I encouraged him to let his body move in any way it wanted to also.
In this, something energetically shifted within him. I don't know what. I didn't ask. All I know is that in receiving the massage that followed, he had no problem having an erection.
In that moment, I began to wonder,
“What’s really crippling a man’s sexuality today?”
Being endlessly curious, this was a question that fascinated me. One that I wanted to go to the source to explore. So I was eager to learn from the actual men who came to see me. Those with sexual problems their doctors could provide no answers for.
Patterns
I went deep down the rabbit hole that question opened up, and over the next couple of years began to notice patterns I didn’t see anyone else notice…
Optimal sexual functioning is an expression of an integrated system; body, mind, heart, sex and soul.
I came to see first-hand how we live in a culture that indoctrinates men into believing myths and lies about their sexuality that are disempowering and isolating. And how our society promotes a state of disempowered disintegration as the norm for men.
I won’t say much more about that or the above here, as I have a whole page dedicated to why it’s not your fault.
Why It’s Not Your Fault
Whether your problem creates... A feeling that you're letting your partner down. Frustration, loneliness, lack of intimacy, and an increasing sense of distance between
Tantra
I began my Tantra coaching and massage practice in 2013. From the start, about 99.9% of my clients were men. While Tantra massage can be a transformative embodied experience of sexual/spiritual integration, some want to believe it’s an alternative cure-all for every type of sexual problem.
It’s not.
In fact, this is magical thinking at its finest, “If I can have 3 or 4 sessions in which I can lie back, have someone massage me, and I don’t have to do anything to help myself, the problem I’ve had for x amount of years will disappear”. Seriously?
I’ve had years of invaluable experience working intimately with hundreds of men. This taught me how it’s essential to work with the stress-related, energetic, emotional, and spiritual drivers, (which are often subconscious, beneath the level of awareness) if real, lasting change is to take place.
Many men will say “I’ve tried everything, but nothing’s worked”, because most “everything” doesn’t do the above!
EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques)
Clinical, evidence-based EFT works directly with these drivers. Because I wanted to be able to offer my clients the best chance of attaining real results that mattered to them, in 2021, after a year-long rigorous training and certification program, I qualified as a trauma informed, accredited, certified, clinical EFT practitioner.
In 2024 I became an accredited, certified Matrix Reimprinting practitioner.
I became fascinated by neuroscience, to discover that there was an actual neuroscientific explanation for much of what I’d seen in my Tantra practice over the years.
An erection Is fuelled by energy, not willpower. For a man to hold his sexual charge, rather than have it dissipate in early ejaculation, that takes energy.
When a man worries about his sexual performance, his energy is tied up in that worry, and there’s a neurological reason why that can inhibit erections and stimulate ejaculation.
The question is...
If his energy isn’t in his pants, where is it?
Where did he leave it?
Below is an illustration of some of the themes I’ve found over the past 10 years that can subconsciously be major contributing factors to a sexual problem that a man’s doctor may not find any reason for.
That to have an energetic shift in may make all the difference in the world.
Today, I feel inspired to work with a man who's open to seeing a different future for himself. Who desires to feel powerful again, or maybe for the first time. Who wants to take his power back from all those places, people and things he’s left it with. Who even though he may feel devastated by the problem he’s been struggling with, is willing to give himself the best fighting chance of overcoming it.
Confronting My Own Fear, Guilt And Shame
I have an insatiable curiosity and a passion for living, loving and experiencing. I've always questioned much of what I was taught or told.
Today, I feel blessed and grateful to have challenged and overcome the sexual conditioning I grew up with.
Confronting the fear, guilt and shame arising from my traditional Catholic upbringing, I’ve spent over 25 years on a voyage of discovery, experimentation, playfulness and integration.
Exploring Diverse Life And Lovestyles
I’ve traversed the paths of marriage, monogamy, polyamory, celibacy, clandestine relationships, and have explored alternative and diverse life and lovestyles. I’ve known the height of ecstasy and the depth of despair.
I learned through direct experience what I could never have learned in any other way. Truth born of deep personal experience has a powerful luminosity that lights the way out of bondage to the lie that one is separate from the divine or ever could be.
Cosmic Orgasmic Experiences
I’ve had cosmic orgasmic experiences during which I had the felt experience of being totally One with everything that existed.
This state of total bliss, ecstasy and rapture was far beyond anything words could come close to describing.
I learned that far from being an impediment to communion with the divine, the body is the ground in which we experience it.
But it wasn't always like that...
Being Shamed
As a young child, I was savagely shamed and humiliated by my mother for self pleasuring; told it was disgusting. Being reminded "Holy God is watching you" was the final nail in the coffin of my curiousity and self-exploration. For both an ogre in the sky God, and mother, were too formidable a team for any little girl to take on alone.
Puberty was hell. By the time I got to 27, I was severely depressed. In all the years since that early experience I'd never once touched my own body for pleasure.
What’s poorly understood in our society is how early shame, guilt and fear programming can have a devastating effect on people and relationships even decades later.
Something I’ve learned while working with men with sexual problems is how so much of their sexuality can be bound up in early shaming experiences. Before then, I’d never realized men had the same thing going on.
I have a woman’s mind and body, but a shared history with many men.
The Experience That Changed Everything
That summer, I had a profound spiritual experience which changed everything. Not long after, I explored the forbidden territory of my own body for the first time. It was a beautiful revelation.
A short while later, I heard a lovely Franciscan priest say to a small group of people, “As long as you keep praying to a God out there, that's where he'll always be, out there”. I had always been taught God was "up there, out there", anywhere but "in here", and I'd rejected that distant and punitive God long ago. Now, on hearing this I thought, "There's something different going on here, and I'm going to hang around for a while". I hung around for the next five years. During this time I healed my relationship with the Church, and my depression completely lifted, never to return.
It took another couple of years before I found the courage to walk away from my painful marriage. Having done so, I was sure about one thing, I was done with men forever.
Yet within the year, I had an encounter with someone I can only describe as an angel in the form of a man, in which that decision was turned on its head.
My Highest Priority
After this, I embarked on a conscious quest to reclaim and heal my relationship to my sexuality. This became my highest priority because I instinctively knew that the area of greatest wounding held the greatest potential for transformation.
Along the way I met some wonderful men, who to this day I feel a warmth in my heart and deep gratitude toward for being part of my journey.
It was a journey that wasn't always plain sailing. At times it was difficult, messy and painful. And I had to endure some harsh judgment along the way.
But reaching the shore of personal sovereignty, easing into a sense of wholeness and completeness, knowing that there isn't a part of myself out there somewhere that I need to bring home, there’s nothing missing, made it all worthwhile.
A Reflection
Reflecting on my personal experience, I question if there isn’t a divine imperative within each person nudging us to confront what may stand in the way of us embracing all of what it is to be human. Which includes our sexuality.
And does that imperative sometimes come disguised as a “problem”? I believe it may.
Other reasons why I created this website and offer what I do today are because...
Abi O'Donovan
If you'd like to explore the possibility of working one-to-one with me, you may discover more about how to do that here.
If you enjoy and get value from your visit here today and would like to send a small token of appreciation, please click the button below, thank you...