Unshackling Innocence

If you’ve read Holy F*ck, you’ll know lust was a massive challenge for me. I’m a Scorpio, had bipolar (linked to sexual impulsivity) and grew up thinking all love lived outside of me.

Like most of us, my curiosity about sex and pleasure was shamed pretty early on, and what began as a healthy exploration, became an unhealthy addiction.

As I got into my teens, I used the cycle of reward and temporary relief to protect myself. It was so much easier to escape into fantasy, and offload the responsibility of loving myself unconditionally onto another human.

If I was chasing highs, I didn’t have to do the work to become myself (something that seemed impossible).

This worked for a little while. Gasps of pleasure feel good, until you realise you’re sacrificing something even more valuable to get them — investing in things that don’t nourish you and people who can’t love you back.

I kept eroding my self trust (and will to live) until, in my early twenties… I wanted a way out.

I didn’t vibe with the teaching in church that I had to deny lust. It didn’t make sense. God gave us this powerful experience, all this wild energy, there had to be reason and purpose in it — and a way to use it for good.

I began to sit with lust. Examine it. I felt how it felt in my body, and noticed what made it roar. When that wild hunger arose, the urge to chase and devour, I created space around it.

“If I can observe it,” I realised, “there must a part of me that’s free of it. Which means I can choose whether I want to act on it or not.”

Eventually I began to see, lust was showing me something — it was showing me what I needed to embody next. The people and experiences I wanted desperately, were mirrors of unclaimed aspects of myself.

I took my desire to merge with another human to the Source and began seeing what I wanted as a map to what I already had.

Realising how little we were taught as young people, gave me so much compassion for myself, and the boys who, driven by this compulsion, took advantage of me.

I don’t think many people enjoy being railroaded by lust — they just need a path out.

How else are we supposed to find relief, especially in a culture where our base instincts and reward centres are constantly being poked and prodded, creating all this pressure?

Like any adversary, deconstruct lust and you’ll have its power.

What do you really want?

Distill your longing down to its essence.

What’s the object of your desire activating in you? What attributes do they have that’ll help you? How can you integrate and embody them in your own life?