Healing Sexual Energies
by Michelle Rios Rice Hennelly
& R. Kevin Hennelly
 It
is time for us to rethink our beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors about the use we
make of our sexual energies. How and with whom we use these
energies are among the most important decisions we shall ever make in life. The
consequences are immediate for the entire gamut of life lived, from the raw
physical to the subtler mental and emotional levels we inhabit, to whatever
higher-mindedness we may aspire toward, whether ethical, philosophical, or
spiritual -- or all of these, seeing that they are components to be found in us
all.
EXCHANGES OF ENERGY
When two people are committed to each other in a mature bond of love, they
willingly take on and carry each other's energy. Some of the energy they
take on from each other may be negative: most of us have flaws and imperfections
that we carry energetically, as well as on other levels. But this is part of the
commitment we make in love that strives to be unconditional. We willingly
accept both the positive and negative of the other person, and this includes
what they are carrying energetically.
THE FAIR EXCHANGE: HEALING
When love is present, much of the energy that is formed and exchanged during
lovemaking is creative and healing. The lovemaking and the ensuing exchange of
energies actually have the power to clear away negative and dark energies
that the lovers may be carrying. This is one of the great, but often
unrecognized, benefits of lovemaking. It can actually be a source of healing.
This includes physical healing. Many illnesses are caused by problems
in the energy centers and by depletion or by imbalances in the energy field. The
movement and fusion of energies in lovemaking can actually keep the energy
centers open and their energies flowing and the energy field full and vibrant
with energy, preventing or removing the conditions in the energy
field that could manifest in the physical body as disease.
TRANSFORMATION AND COMMITMENT
Lovemaking can also be a source of transformation. When our thoughts
and feelings are unencumbered by negative and dark energies, we have a better
chance of becoming our best. That is, we can move into the highest frequency of
energy, which is love.
This is what we can aspire to in lovemaking -- but only within a relationship
where there is a genuine and deep bond of love and commitment between the
partners. This is the context that lovemaking requires. To open ourselves to
another and to love deeply requires trust -- and trust calls for commitment. Let
us, for a moment, examine commitment.
"FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE"
When we fully commit to another in love, we willingly accept both the
positive and negative of the other person, and this includes what they are
carrying energetically -- because what we carry energetically is a part of
who we are that we bring to the relationship. But we do so only with a
positive adjustment in view. We strive together, in love and mutual support,
to confront and let go of all that is not love. Here we see another level of
meaning in the old words "for better or for worse" used in the traditional
marriage vow.
But why would we accept and strive, even in these positive ways? Because we
are now moving in love, which, while certainly not a mortgaging of self
to abuse or sacrifice, nonetheless constitutes a willingness to share from our
own store of good. Energetic give-and-take lies at the heart of bonding
and makes of two persons the desired one that robs neither of anything but
instead confers only good, each upon the other. And it is only within a context
of love that this energetic give-and-take can heal and bring the lovers to a
oneness.
WHAT IS THIS COMMITMENT?
Commitment in the exchange of sexual energy lies precisely within the
exchange itself. Love does not, cannot, horde. In love, energy is never
arrested, thwarted, stifled. In the healthy person open to the exchange of
energies in love, there is no "armoring" or "steeling" of the emotions, the
nerves, or the muscles against a prospective misuse, abuse, or other
depreciation of energies, feelings, or body.
Commitment here means being what the French call engage -- the very
opposite of being alienated, distant, aloof, suspicious. It is rather total
nakedness in more than just body -- in the presence of the one chosen to
receive and give sexual energy, its roots in the very depths of our energy
centers and total energy field.
Commitment, then, is much, much more than anything that boils down to words
or statements. It is a state of being, wholly SELF-ish in the best sense of the
word. And it is also the willingness to give oneself wholly to the other, where
two can become one. For many, it is in lovemaking that this sense of oneness is
first experienced.
MARRIAGE?
Commitment in this context naturally suggests marriage. And although marriage
is not a requisite for the highest expression of sexual energies, it is a
"summit" of sorts in the realm of love-making -- but again, not necessarily for
all the "traditional" reasons.
In its own highest expression, marriage is a special relationship in which
two persons jointly and reciprocally commit to a life of love. This is the
primary reason two persons should marry. If they truly strive to love each other
and live that love with all their hearts, minds, and bodies, the relationship
will carry the potential to transform them at their deepest levels.
In this sense, marriage provides the "container" for the feelings that begin
to come alive in us at the initial stirring of romantic love. As the lovers open
more to each other and to love, they can transcend the limitations of the
ordinary mind and move into a consciousness of love found in the awakened
mind, and closer to a oneness with each other. It is when we move into this
"mind of love," which opens to us in lovemaking and orgasm, that the experience
of oneness becomes possible.
This is what we most deeply desire in romantic love, and it is a formidable
achievement, one that cannot be gained through a relationship where a genuine
bond of love and lasting commitment are not present. And we would be naive to
believe that love goes unchallenged by powerful forces within and outside
ourselves. Without an abiding commitment to each other and to love, which in
most cases is found only in marriage, lovers run a great risk of losing their
way and of having their love for each other run aground.
Marriage, then, is meant to "seal" the love between the lovers. It is
a means of sealing a union between two people striving together to achieve
something truly extraordinary in their lives and relationship. And that sealing
affords an indispensable element of defense against those forces inimical to
love that the lovers must not ignore or underestimate if their love is to
survive and grow.
Naturally, marriage cannot create that love -- although its power, once
engaged and committed to, could reverse many an unwholesome background or bad
beginning. As a seal, though devoid of magical powers, marriage can
confer a special protection on the love and the relationship. Among other
things, it can bring in light and help to shut out the dimness of misbegotten
energies. For the "seal" is in the minds and the hearts of the lovers.
Each partner in a marriage in which love is present can be the minister
of love to the other. In this ministry our deepest wounds can be healed. Partly,
this takes place in the energetic "give-and-take": the willingness to take on
each other's energy in the framework of a commitment in which the lovers,
as individuals and as a couple, strive to be all they can be. They thus
become of much benefit and blessing to and for each other
MARRIAGE THE "DIALYZER"
The healing that can come through marriage is a process somewhat comparable
to dialysis, in which poisons or impurities are separated out from the healthy
solution. Here, the impurities, which take the form of thoughts, emotions, and
the effects of past choices -- all of which we carry as energy -- are those parts
of ourselves that are not of love and that act to obscure the love that
is our essence.
In romantic love, each partner goes through a process of purification in what
can be a wholly wordless, non-conceptual, interactive way, love being the sole
"filter." This process will be facilitated if each partner is anchored in
some form of conscious striving for greater openness and self-awareness,
such as meditation, healthy introspection, analysis, counseling, prayer, or
insightful spiritual practices.
A process of purification is really unavoidable in love. As the love between
the lovers comes alive, it is as if the light of their love illuminates and
draws out of them their inner darkness -- those parts of their personalities that
are not of love. The emergence of these impurities, while difficult and at times
painful to deal with, offers one the opportunity, often otherwise avoided, to
face and deal with those parts of oneself that prevent one from knowing and
becoming the fullness of love that one can be.
Marriage is therefore a process -- one in which we can come to know
ourselves and have the opportunity to filter out the poisons we carry, which are
certainly not of love. Likewise, we can help our partner do the same. Most, of
us carry energies -- "impurities" -- that can undermine the love that was the
basis for the marriage. Viewed another way, then, this process is the "alchemy"
of love, which can be experienced in a special way in marriage.
MARRIAGE THE CHALLENGER
Marriage, then, presents us with a challenge it quite rightly poses: to love
and to be loved in commitment and reciprocity. In our human condition,
although love is what we most deeply desire, it is not always simple or easy to
love and be loved. Any "simplicity" or "ease" has to be worked out on many
levels, all of them as complex as we ourselves are.
At our deepest level, we long to be whole in relation to another. We
long to know and be known, to love and be loved, by another. Ultimately,
then, most of us long to find that other, that partner, with whom we can
experience pure love and become one. And we are, in a basic way, unfulfilled
until we do.
This longing to join and become one with another is a defining characteristic
of romantic love. To this some will add that the desire to become one with the
beloved in romantic love is an expression of the soul's greatest longing: to
become one with the divine.
This
article was excerpted from:
 Sex True or False?
by Michelle &
Kevin Hennelly.
Reprinted with permission of the publisher, DeVorss Publications. ©2003. www.devorss.com
Info/Order this book.
More books by these authors.
About the Authors
MICHELLE
RIOS RICE HENNELLY is a healer. She received a BA from the College of Santa Fe
and a MSW from New Mexico Highlands University. ROBERT KEVIN HENNELLY is a
former attorney and currently a psychotherapist. He received a BA from the
University of Notre Dame, a law degree and MS in Foreign Service from Georgetown
University, and graduate degrees in counseling and clinical psychology from
Pacifica Graduate Institute and the Fielding Institute. Visit their website at
http://www.ourladyoflightpublications.com.
More articles by these authors.
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