S2E4: From Sexual Trauma to Embracing Pleasure
Heather Rhea Dawn
Heather Rhea Dawn is a Relationship & Intimacy Coach for Couples, & an Empowerment & Pleasure Coach for Women. She is a Master of Touch, being a professional Massage Therapist since 1989. Featured on Rori Raye’s Modern Siren DVD/CD series for Women’s Empowerment in Relationship.
Her life’s work is about conscious communication and touch. She is a dancer and healer at heart, this is the base of who she is, and to support them to release trauma is her mission so all people can have healthy, thriving conscious relationships!
Social media and contact information:
www.theecstaticbody.com
https://www.facebook.com/groups/540615212795346
https://www.instagram.com/heatherrheadawn/
https://www.facebook.com/The-Ecstatic-Body-Heather-Rhea-Dawn-103199598370275
Podcast Transcript
[00:00:00] Damaged Parents: Welcome to the Relatively Damaged Podcast by Damaged Parents where beautiful, hurting, searching people come to learn. Maybe just, maybe we're all a little bit damaged. Someone once told me it's safe to assume 50% of the people I meet are struggling and feel wounded in some way. I would venture to say it's closer to 100%.
Every one of us is either currently struggling or has struggled with something that made us feel less than like we aren't good enough. We aren't capable. We are relatively damaged. And that's what we're here to talk about. In my ongoing investigation of the damaged self, I want to better understand how others view their own challenges.
Maybe it's not so much about the damage, maybe it's about our perception and how we deal with it. There is a deep commitment to becoming who we are meant to be. How do you do that? How do you find balance after a damaging experience? My hero is the damaged person. The one who faces seemingly insurmountable odds to come out on the other side, whole.
Those who stare directly into the face of adversity with unyielding persistence to discover their purpose. These are the people who inspire me to be more fully me. Not in spite of my trials, but because of them. Let's hear from another hero.
Today's topic includes sensitive material, which may not be appropriate for children. This podcast is provided for informational purposes only, and is not intended as advice. The opinions expressed here were strictly those of the person who gave them.
Today, we're going to talk with Heather Rhea Dawn. She has many roles in her life, daughter, friend, breath worker, stigma breaker, and more. We'll talk about the shame she felt from what her mother said about sex and pleasure. And how she was sexually traumatized. She'll tell us the journey on how she was able to find health and healing let's talk
Hey, Hey, welcome back to Relatively Damaged. I have got Heather Rhea Dawn with me today. She is a relationship and intimacy coach for couples and empowerment. Oh my goodness. I forgot the word already. Pleasure. How could I forget? Pleasure. How could I forget? Pleasure. I'm going to leave this in the recording because I think it's a beautiful that I forgot the word pleasure.
Maybe I need more in my life,
[00:02:33] Heather Rhea Dawn: Doesn't surprise me because, we were like, oh pleasure, wait a second. I have to remind myself to have pleasure in my life.
[00:02:39] Damaged Parents: right? Like. we all know you're here to talk about a struggle though, and I'm trying to figure out how you got from your struggle to where you are now with the history. Cause I know a tiny bit about the history. So tell us a beautiful story and I will most likely interrupt you along the way.
[00:03:00] Heather Rhea Dawn: I see. Good to know.
[00:03:04] Damaged Parents: Yeah. Yeah. I just, I just own it, it's easier if I just own it.
[00:03:07] Heather Rhea Dawn: You might get a face like this. If you get a face from me, you interrupted your map. Okay. It's all good. Oh, I love it. Okay. My story, well, you want the happy story now? I'm going to tell you the full story, but I'll keep it as I don't want to be here all day. So
I come from a long history of abuse anywhere from being molested, which I, in my body, it felt like a rape. And because when, when you're really young, you can't differentiate between rape and molestation. I started that probably around three or four with my step-dad. I'm pretty darn sure that I had some pleasure in it because what ended up happening as, as I got older and got more abuse in my system, because once it starts in the system, it just keeps repeating until it's guilt or it sometimes feels to a degree and then it continues on.
And let's all stop and then go again. Lost my train of thought interrupted.
[00:04:01] Damaged Parents: I do it all the time.
[00:04:02] Heather Rhea Dawn: So yeah, so I had guilt and shame and stuff like this, and I'm not deserving. That's what was popping up in my head when I got too much pleasure. So like the abuse started so young and then there was abuse when I was a teenager. And then the first time I ever had sex, I was raped. And then I, but I was very open.
I was very free. And so people were really drawn to me. Men loved me and it was just like, and it's like, but I was very grounded. I never went to that boy crazy phase or anything like that. I was very grounded and men and boys that love that about me. Like I wasn't, I didn't get attached to them.
Um, Most women that have been, or most people have been abused. They either completely shut down or they become highly sexual. And I was still in the middle ground. I somehow knew how to handle it. I I don't know how I did that. But I think it was, I, I meditated in dance a lot, as a child and a teenager.
My dance was my meditation. I would dance like crazy loud, booming music on lay down the floor and meditate to the point where everything went away. All I could feel is a vibration of the music. And the only reason why I knew anybody was in my space, if the light came on in my room, because my mom or my roommate as I got older would open the door.
So this abuse kept going like every, and I, at one point in time, it stopped for 12 years. I just, somebody would just, I would just get so firm in my system, that is not going to happen again. And in between this I'd have beautiful, amazing, sensitive, awesome men that come into my life and, and be with me and be in relationship with me.
And it was incredible. When I was 30 though, I met a man that felt like my sexual healer. I was like,
[00:05:45] Damaged Parents: healer. Is that what you said? Healer.
[00:05:47] Heather Rhea Dawn: yeah, Very into tantra. If you know anything about tantra, tantra is like this, the spiritual practice that's non-religion. It's not a religion. It's a spiritual practice that you meditate and you breathe together and you open your chakas and you start clearing out all the pain.
And when you make love, your eyes are open to start community about anything and everything, and in a very conscious, caring way. And he started opening me up. Like the first time we messed around, we didn't even have sex at first. Then we messed around afterwards. He took me for a hike. We sat on a rock and he started telling me what his experiencing for me.
And I, I wanted to crawl underneath the rock because I was always the person that people came to to talk about sex. Ever since I can remember, I taught blow jobs when I was like 17 years old, don't do it on a pepper shaker. Do not teach on a pepper shaker. Just learn that the hard way, but it was just like, I was always a person because my mom talked to me about sex.
Not foreplay, why that's really important, but she would talk to me about sex. She was open to talking to me about that. She was always like, let me answer any of your questions. So I was always the person that they would come to me and talk about sex. So it was weird that be with this man. And he opens up the dialogue of like what he felt from me when we were messing around, making out and stuff like this.
And I was like, And she was like, oh, it was so hard and
[00:07:15] Damaged Parents: So you could be, what I hear you saying is you could be sexually intimate, but being emotionally intimate was terrifying.
[00:07:23] Heather Rhea Dawn: verbally, verbally, yes, verbally and emotionally intimate that way. Like my heart could open. I could totally love, but to talk about that kind of shut down. And about what was, what was going on in my body and mind you, I will say this kind of an important part. Oh God, there's a lot to this. So in my past lives, if you believe in past lives I do I would say prostitutes.
I was a was also a general in an army. So I had both dichotomies. I have is like, I was the cortisone. And I was the geisha and I was this general. And so I had both in me. And so when it became sex, I became the one in charge, but I also, and I also had the air of like, I know exactly what to do to please you, except for, I was also that healer side of me was like, always curious from the very first time I pleasured a man, I was always like, how is this?
Does this work? I always wanted to make sure. I was like, like a really amazing lover. I wanted to make art out of everything. The way I moved, the way I ate, the way I made love, stuff like this, it was just so beautiful to me. And but I was always the one in charge. It wasn't a surrender, like I didn't know how to receive cause receive brought up emotions or I left my body.
I wouldn't leave my body with this man when I was 29 and 30, we were together when I was 29 and 30. He would have me open my eyes during lovemaking, hard to leave your body when your eyes are open,
[00:08:51] Damaged Parents: Yeah just kind of going back real quick, you were saying as early as age three, there was this molestation three and four molestation going on. I mean, was it something where you it's, you said you think maybe you enjoyed it. Was there something at some point that were, you realized that wasn't okay and it, it was shameful or anything like that to get to this point over here, maybe.
[00:09:16] Heather Rhea Dawn: I don't know if I knew that was shameful of what was happening. I can't say that I knew I had shame over pleasure because I pretty sure I enjoyed it.
Something in my system knew it was wrong and so yeah, there was a wrongness and then there was a shame around it and a non deservingness when I got to be an adult about it.
Like, I don't deserve that much pleasure. And then when I started. And then of course, when I started teaching about sexuality, that's when the really deep shame came because my body and my mind, like my sex and my mind weren't fully connected and I hadn't healed enough to like actually climax .
I'm distinguishing between climax and orgasm they're two completely different things I could orgasm. I could not climax orgasm. You can have in your mouth, you can have over your body. You can have in your ears, you can have by climax and sexual, it's a, it's your sexual organs that, contract is like this.
That I could not do without a vibrator. Very few times with of a partner and I had all this shame. My boyfriend, when I was 29 and 30, he's the one who introduced me to, eyegazing. Opening my eyes staying in my body. Even sometimes I would start to go out of my body and I would have to reel myself back in to be present and then deal with all the emotions that would show up.
And then also not be able to feel anything because I, my eyes were open until I got to the point where I could start feeling. I actually. Started, he was so patient with everything that we would play and explore in ways that
opened me and that I finally was able with his patients and with our exploration to climax with my own hand, which I never were able to do
[00:11:08] Damaged Parents: Okay. Yeah, no, I'm just really interested because it sounds like you didn't have, like, it wasn't like shame about the body. It was literally shame about having pleasure and, because of that pleasure, you couldn't climax and there's more. Okay. So you lifted your arms. They got a big look on your face.
Let's go with this.
[00:11:28] Heather Rhea Dawn: My mother told me not to touch myself when I was kid, because it would cause me to not be as sensitive when I was older. So what would happen is I would be self-pleasuring and right before I'd get climax, my hand would freeze and I could not continue.
That's how much training was in my body from my mother telling, I mean, I used to love touching myself.
And when she told me that I stopped, I learned how to climax without hands look, mom, no hands just by clenching everything. As I got. I ran into my brother and he did the same thing. I knew that. And he was like, you don't want me to see I'm going to walk by.
[00:12:11] Damaged Parents: That's funny, but I think that's really interesting because where my mind is going on, this is I'm thinking about, People growing up in, in religious homes or growing up in kind of, I don't know if it's so much in today's world, but , when I was growing up it's you teach the kids, don't touch yourself.
I think one of my daughters works at a daycare and I think they just have to let it go now. Like they teach them just, that's what they're doing. It's not anything wrong with it. Just let it go or whatever. know, But then I think we get into like the big concerns. Well then what might they do later?
[00:12:48] Heather Rhea Dawn: But it's amazing how if you let them be, they do grow out of it. They do figure it out that you're not supposed to be in a grocery store with your hand down the pants, or I've known parents. I actually have coached parents on many things. I've had people go, will you do the sex. Talk with, my kids.
Sure, but I'm not going to be there when they start asking, what are you going to do then? But like some parents, I watched them and they say this is completely normal and natural Johnny, Betty, whoever it is. But in public, we need not to do that. And it's okay. You do that in your bedroom. Or, sometimes I'll be, playing with themselves in living room. Hey.
I'm so happy that you're doing this. Can you please, can you please take it to the bedroom without charge? Cause your tone can't be like this
and your tone must be knowing that it's okay. And I wonder how those kids are raised being raised. Like, I don't, I don't know how it's affecting them, but it's definitely better than like stop doing that.
It's dirty. You're going to be less sensitive, which is like, obviously the opposite of truth.
[00:13:51] Damaged Parents: right now. The other thing that comes to mind, I remember reading a study about masturbation and how aftermath, if, if someone will not elicit master just masturbation. Or was it with pornography one? I think it was, masturbating to pornography where, where the, and I think it was only on males.
Don't quote, don't quote me, but I'm, I'm pretty close, I think to,
[00:14:13] Heather Rhea Dawn: I can't promise, everybody else won't quote you, but I won't quote you.
[00:14:16] Damaged Parents: but happened was then because they were so used to only gaining pleasure that way, that then in relationship, they couldn't gain pleasure. And you're nodding your head yes. I'm thinking you've had maybe some experience coaching. Some of those people.
[00:14:31] Heather Rhea Dawn: I have, I've had to coach women on how to handle that with their partners who are addicted to porn. There's a slow unraveling in the women to and, different people. I've had to coach them on different things within the men. Normally don't come to me for coaching. The women will come to me.
And every once in a while, they'll bring their partner with me. And there's this slow unraveling in like one situation where I, I coach students couple coached her mostly and coached a couple about once a month for years and on many things. And there was a slow unraveling of. Of how to handle this because he didn't want to give it up.
And she wanted him to give it up and figuring out the middle road. And yeah, it was like men get so desensitized. You know, Because first of all, they self-pleasure one way. That's another thing that I I've worked with men on is how to self-pleasure many different ways and women, how to touch different ways, but it's like, and then not expecting your partner or partners to always be that way.
And so it stimulates a part of the brain that actually activates certain things. And if they don't see that, if they don't get that, then what happens is they can't get turned on. And they're so busy doing that so often that when it comes to their partner, They're not even turned on because they're not moving their boobs and their hips like that.
They're not this, they're not all that. They're not acting like a porn star so then they get trained to that's what they need in order to actually get aroused. And so then there's a training and training or retraining to actually start seeing what you can be aroused by with your partner and cutting back the porn.
[00:16:10] Damaged Parents: wow. That seems like a really difficult journey.
[00:16:13] Heather Rhea Dawn: Yes. It's not easy at all on either partner. It's not, it's not an easy journey. I recommend just don't even start with the porn.
[00:16:21] Damaged Parents: Right. And I'm thinking there are also women though, who become addicted to porn. And we don't talk about that really. I mean, it's definitely a male. I think it's more prominent, but maybe that's just because that's what I hear about, I don't know. Is it just as prominent in women?
[00:16:35] Heather Rhea Dawn: I think nowadays it's starting to be, yeah, it's starting to be it's it's women. Haven't been, been being satisfied and they finally realize what sad setup is satisfied.
[00:16:47] Damaged Parents: Satisfaction.
[00:16:48] Heather Rhea Dawn: Yes. I can't say.
[00:16:50] Damaged Parents: It's okay.
[00:16:51] Heather Rhea Dawn: I think they know what it is now. And they'd rather have nothing and get themselves off then to deal with all the stuff that comes with the sexual, because women are very specific, when it comes to sex, like we bond once, depending on your age and stuff, like this.
some women bond after having sex. Once, sometimes we bond after the third time, but we bond for three weeks, men bond maximum three days.
[00:17:18] Damaged Parents: What do you mean by bond?
[00:17:20] Heather Rhea Dawn: it's a hormonal thing that goes on in our mind and body that we literally, when we have sex. Unless we trained ourselves otherwise, or unless we really we really embodied the masculine. We actually chemically bond to that person for three weeks. Now, I know a lot of poly people out there that they have trained themselves not to do that, or they train themselves to just be okay that they're bonded to that person for the three weeks, but they typically see them so often that they don't, the bond just keeps there and then they're bonded to several different people, but, that's that, isn't my specialty.
I mostly work with monogamous couples and, but it's like, so when a woman. Yeah, it's our brain chemistry, our hormones, everything we bond within one to three times of having sex, depending on age, when we're younger, takes like normally two to three times to, get attached. As we get older, we attach a little faster unless a woman's gotten out of marriage and then they just kinda like wanna go free flow with everybody.
And then the men are like, What about me I'll come back to you in a July?
[00:18:26] Damaged Parents: right. But like with, after the trauma, like you had experienced trauma, so was it, does it change for someone who's had trauma? Like you're saying a woman who gets divorced might just be like, well, screwing everyone just because they can, or, I mean, does that. Or just, I guess what my question is, does trauma change the bonding process or the length of time?
[00:18:49] Heather Rhea Dawn: I'm not sure if it changes the length of time. I think, I mean, every woman is different, so I can't, I can't say factually I don't think there's been any studies on that per se or if there has, I haven't read them. I'll say that depending on which way she's gone. I ain't going to fuck everybody or I'm going to disconnect.
Because if she has not worked on her healing, she'll just fucking fucking, fucking, fucking fucking fucking fucking fuck. And she won't get attached because she or if she does get attached, she'll push those feelings down. Like, I've seen that a lot in abused women where it's like budget. They'll start to soften and talk to me about what's happened and this, that, and the other, and then they'll just shut it off and go.
Yeah. But you know, it's okay. It was only a one night stand or it was only three times. And they're shoving it down. And then there's the women who like, they barely have sex with anybody. Cause they're so scared of like, having trauma abuse. And so then when they do have sex, it's like, you're my partner and I'm needy and and then when they don't show the same thing back, or if they don't.
Then they're like abandoned and then they just put more trauma in their system and stuff like this. And this could go, I mean, the women that I've talked to, which are very few, by the way that have not had any trauma in their system, we've only talked to two or three in my life. I'm just
[00:20:08] Damaged Parents: It had no trauma and how, and you've talked to how many
[00:20:12] Heather Rhea Dawn: like,
[00:20:12] Damaged Parents: but hun, like you've counseled with hundreds or,
[00:20:16] Heather Rhea Dawn: Oh, yeah. I mean, I've been doing this 20 years, so
[00:20:19] Damaged Parents: 20 years, so thousands probably.
[00:20:22] Heather Rhea Dawn: yeah,
[00:20:23] Damaged Parents: and and only a few haven't had trauma.
[00:20:26] Heather Rhea Dawn: Yeah. And they are just full of life and light and no shame and just move the way they want to move and do what they want to do. And they just. Their attachment style is just a little different. It's a lot more spacious, even though they might get attached, but it's spacious, there's space in it.
And stuff like this. And also it depends on how, what they saw growing up and how healthy their relationships with their family and all that stuff. A lot of that, but it's just like their joy level is higher. Their pleasure level is higher. Everything is just. You know, The first time I saw a healthy woman that hadn't been abused like in full pleasure, freaked my brain out.
Cause I was like, wow. But what was great is I used, seeing what she went through, as a support for myself to be like, oh, I'm allowed to have that much pleasure. So I took my pleasure level higher, witnessing
[00:21:23] Damaged Parents: That's fascinating.
[00:21:24] Heather Rhea Dawn: it was. beautiful. So what so when I was about 32 is when I was, I started seeing this light flashy in my brain saying Tantra, Tantra, Tantra.
I'm like, oh, that's that thing that it's about sex. And it's like, which of course I, at that point in time, I would say that I'd love sex. Not as much as I do now, but you know, I know much more about it, but it was just like it was like, I didn't want to face it. And so I didn't want to fake because I knew I'd have to face that trauma.
I knew it would be in my face because I knew intuitively I knew it was going to be the thing that took me on the journey I most needed to go on, but net facing everything. And what I did was I found one teacher. I went to her. I'm like, absolutely not. She was not a safe place to land. I had a friend that came if he would always come for five hour massages on the body worker and healer energy worker, it's like this, and he'd come to me for five hour sessions within the first hour or so of the massage.
I heard this voice in my head and said, ask him I'm giving him a such ask him, I'm like, oh man, got persistent. Aren't you?
Interesting ways. It's like I just said, Hey, I'm I'm considering studying tantra. And I was wondering if you knew of a really good Tantra here. He told me this person's name. My whole system went, yes, this is who you're supposed to start with. I knew I was supposed to start with her. I didn't connect with her so much, but her work, I, first of all, I'm just so like, I sign up for a seven week course, like I just dove right in and, which is like once a week.
So it wasn't like full on seven weeks.
On the fifth session, she said, look around the room and, see who you're drawn to see who you're attracted to. And it was very interesting cause I was really drawn to this woman. I'm like, okay, so why am I I'm like, okay, don't question it. But I knew I was supposed to work with her and you know, I got my second and third choice there in line and she, the woman was sitting standing right next to me and she said, okay, go find your partner.
And the girl. And I literally went like this and we just faced.
[00:23:24] Damaged Parents: Wow.
[00:23:25] Heather Rhea Dawn: Whoa. It was a clothes on tantric massage. And we started doing the massage. She's walking us through it at one point in time, I would like raise up out of my body. I started witnessing what was going on between our bodies like it was such a spiritual experience, but like, my linear brain was like, It's going on because hands were going underneath clothes and kissing, and I'm like, what is going on here?
And then I'm like, what's she gonna think? She's gonna think that I'm into her, but it was so beautiful to feel this and watch this and witness it. And then all of a sudden the teacher said something and I came back into my body and as soon as she's like, okay, this part is done, the girl, and I looked at her, I go I kinda left my body and I was like, witness she goes I did to o that
was amazing. I'm like, it was amazing. Both of us had raised up out of our body was witnessing what was going on. The teacher pulled us aside afterwards and said, that was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. You guys have got to practice together. She's like. She goes, I'm tired of that. Excuse you and me to practice with her.
She's like, you don't understand. I want to keep my marriage. It was that amazing. Neither one of us were lesbians. I mean, I was attracted to women when I was younger, but it was just like, That's a different story. I kind of experienced and woke up straight. That was really funny. Somebody said that should be the title of my book.
I woke up straight. I'm like, it's a great title. I'm not sure if that fits my whole life, but
[00:24:53] Damaged Parents: a great
[00:24:54] Heather Rhea Dawn: and so nobody else would take that as my title.
[00:24:57] Damaged Parents: That's right.
[00:24:58] Heather Rhea Dawn: I got it on recording right here right now on December 1st, my time.
[00:25:02] Damaged Parents: That's right.
[00:25:03] Heather Rhea Dawn: So yeah, so we didn't practice together. We never actually partnered together ever after that.
And she, and I did have a conversation, but that was like the beginning. And so after that we, I started downloading all the, all these exercises in the middle the night and I have to wake up and record them and write them and all this stuff. And
[00:25:21] Damaged Parents: Wait, when you say downloading, I'm thinking it's in the middle of the night, it's coming to you and you're having to take note of it, right.
[00:25:28] Heather Rhea Dawn: Yeah, and it's so powerful. It's like, you must do this. And I'm like write writing or writing and, and recording. And, and I started coaching this woman who, she needed support with her relationship. And I said, I just started coaching her. And then one day her and a few of her friends and one of my friends also, they were all meeting in Arizona and they said, why don't you come out and teach a class?
I'm like in like in the woods, they're like, yeah, like, okay. So I just got on an airplane. They paid me to come out and it was interesting. Like all the nights were cold and buggy and all this stuff. And this one night just, I just started. Delegating. Oh, clean up this. And can you bring the stereo out and can you cut this and turn out to the beautiful evening we were in like tops like this skirts, no bugs moon full on out.
It was just so amazing. I could not have planned it any better. Guided them through this whole entire evening of tantra practices and stuff that I downloaded and they were blown away. They were like, you've got to teach this. I went back home and started teaching two classes a month and they, .
I had waiting lists within months. I had people showing up at my door knowing my address going, can I join? Like it's been sold out and it's stuff like this. And this was before the internet. This was, this was through flyers and word of mouth.
And this was back when craigs list used to actually exist.
And you could put your flyers stuff on there, that, that was the only way, but it was mostly word of mouth. And that started the practice and then the teacher at one point in time did a sexual, a women's series on, and she's like, oh, it's going to be sexual healing in my whole system.
It's like, yes, that's what I meant to do. And it was like, is weird. Cause like in the whole entire series we did at once, it was horribly guided and just horribly done, but I knew it was, what I'm supposed to do. And so as soon as I had a taste of it, I went searching for my teacher. I was like, okay.
Where, where, where, where?
[00:27:32] Damaged Parents: For the sexual healing.
[00:27:34] Heather Rhea Dawn: yes, because she was awful.
I went and found this woman. These two women who are teaching it only to women. So that meant I worked on women. I received it from women. It was amazing. It was a three-day weekend. And then they had teacher training, which were for teachers and. And you got to choose who you partner. It's just so beautiful.
And it was 10 days of getting to give and receive this practice. Every single day took me three months to integrate three months. All my friends were like go to burning man. When I got out. .
[00:28:07] Damaged Parents: So with the giving and receiving, it was in that, that the healing happened.
[00:28:13] Heather Rhea Dawn: it's when it started. It's when it started, but honestly, the truth is it gave me enough, not like first of all, I turned out to be amazing at doing this because I'd been traumatized. I, and I've been a healer since I was eight, eight years old. So I was good at giving it and holding space for it. At one point in time, I I realized I hadn't healed myself, not to the extent that I wanted and needed.
And so I had to take a break. So after, I don't know how many years I took a break and I don't know if a year and a half, two year break, something like that. I think it was two years. I just worked on myself. I did my own sexual healing because I found most people could not hold the kind of space that I needed.
They would always this, Side note, careful who you work with on like sexual healing. Because a lot of people who are doing the sexual healing, they know you're in a vulnerable place and they cross boundaries, completely different story.
[00:29:06] Damaged Parents: But important to know, I would think so,
[00:29:09] Heather Rhea Dawn: because the sessions are about the client.
The sessions should not involve the practitioner at all
[00:29:15] Damaged Parents: but when you say worked on yourself, what does that mean?
[00:29:18] Heather Rhea Dawn: Yeah. So this was, so I was taught how to do a Yoni massage, and this is what I was doing with the women in my life. I was giving you any massages, supporting them in really emotionally and physically and letting them cry and scream and getting to the point of actually feeling some pleasure, because a lot of women.
Because they've had bad childbirth, they've had that sex. They've been raped. They've been sexually abused. They've been told to shut up. They've been, had so much abuse or they've seen something so traumatic that everything's shut down. And there pleasure threshold and almost all, almost, almost all trauma goes to the pelvic region.
Like when you slam on your brakes really fast on your car, notice where you tense, it's normally in your belly and pelvis.
[00:30:01] Damaged Parents: Yeah,
[00:30:02] Heather Rhea Dawn: and so
it goes there and that all needs to be released and let go. And so that's why they say like doing a Yoni massage when it's completely consensual, when it's completely like about.
And not the practitioner at all, which means the touch goes one way, not two ways. There's no sex involved when the person is completely honored. And it's not about any goal. There's no goal. There's an intention set. I want to heal. I want to open. I want to let go of this. Great. It doesn't mean like we're going to go at that.
It means we're going to see what shows up in the space to be, let go of and. There is there's no holding of any goal. I must get to climax no, if you climax. Great. If you don't great. In almost 20 years, I'm doing this very few women have actually climaxed because they're so busy releasing trauma that the climax comes either in the very end of the session or.
And then, or they go home to their partner and then they finally start doing, it's like, oh, now I can come up with climax , if that's what their desired, lots of women actually have climaxes, but they don't have it in session because that's not what they're there for. And if somebody says that, that's what a Yoni massage is, therefore, it's, it's not it's to see what shows up organically because most women have not been touched just to be touched
I'm not touching the woman in a sexual touch. I'm touching her in a very present touch in a massaging touch, which includes the whole entire body. Some of them might be stimulate cause you want some stimulation to be able to, oh, have her yoni open and enter. But the goal is not for her to get to climax, but if she climaxes is great.
[00:31:44] Damaged Parents: Right.
So you were using this for yourself when you were working on yourself cause you did the Yoni massages for other people. Right.
[00:31:55] Heather Rhea Dawn: Yeah. ,
[00:31:55] Damaged Parents: and then you were able to do it on yourself or did you have. Involve other people to help you with that healing process.
[00:32:03] Heather Rhea Dawn: Every person I tried to work with that. It didn't work where they wanted to do their own thing, or they wanted to make it about them or they want to have sex after or whatever. It's like, no, I don't want to deal with that. So I actually did the practice on my own. I, and I knew what to do so amazing. I would feel a sensitive spot, and as breathe into it, I cry, I feel the pain I release and then I'd go to another spot and I feel something else and I would open and I'd move.
And I moved my body and I, did you do another point? And I like, oh my gosh, there's no nothing there. Awesome. And then another point like, oh, that feels numb. Okay, what? Okay. And then I listened to my body and see, what do I need to do there? And I keep going, doing all the pressure points, all the pressure points.
So it's like doing this on a regular basis, continuing to break it down. Continuing to feel to beat the crap out of a pillow if I needed to during or after a session and just crying and letting the emotions out and let him be anger out and letting the pain out and letting it all go and letting go of the pressure of if I climax, if I didn't climax, if I, this, if I, that if I did a da, how much pleasure could I get to how much pleasure?
How about now? How about now? It's like opening to my own pleasure. And so that was a beautiful journey to the point where it got me to a huge, awesome level in my pleasure my pleasure cup. And then once that open something else happened that was traumatizing and I just went into a black hole and
[00:33:28] Damaged Parents: you just open.
[00:33:29] Heather Rhea Dawn: Yeah, like a year or two before, and I just black hole just back in.
And then, and that moment now mind you, if you know me, I'm like, I don't do drugs. I rarely drink, I don't smoke anything. I don't do pot. That's just thing. And then I'm in this dark hole, I'm starting to do breath work and breathing and I'm breathing in and breathing and breathing is a really good way of getting rid of trauma.
But in my breath work that I was doing what happened was, and mind you, I was in my room. I would come out once a week to go dance. And other than that, like I stopped taking clients. I'm just like trapped in my room and I'd have friends come over and just be there with me through it, but couldn't get out.
I didn't know what was it? Just do me, my breath work and crying and then one day I heard this thing saying to take this, go on a medicine journey when like, oh no, no, no, I don't. I don't do drugs and it just kept showing up, do this, do this, do this for months. And I saw Ella go to a practitioner and do this instead.
I'll go to this practice every single time. I'd go to a practitioner. It got shut down. Like something I wasn't able to work with them after the first session. It finally, I said, okay, universe, you want me to do this? Bring me somebody that's really safe to be with and I'll do it. Yeah. The way that's not gonna molest me or any of that while I'm on my medicine journey within a month, one of my friends showed up in my life that hadn't seen in months and I was like, that's him?
And so we were talking and I just asked him, oh, that would be awesome. I would love to be in the space. As long as you don't mind. Y'all I'll do it too. I'm like, yeah, that's fine. We set up a time a day. We set our intentions. I did this amazing ceremony that I already felt like I was on a drug by the time when we started, we had no, I hadn't even taken anything.
So I took it and the first two sessions were amazing. I actually saw, I saw the trauma in my brain. I saw it. I saw the blackness. I saw that, all that. And then I would do mirror work while I was in there. And I would say thing. I would really be feeling like how much I really loved myself. And every time I had like a positive thought, this streak of color would go through my brain.
And then if I sent it again, it was groove in there more. If I have another positive light and groove in there more, all of a sudden my brain started lighting up with these colors and my brain was glowing. Talk to a scientist. Didn't know she was scientific the time we were just having tea at a cafe. And she's like, do you know what you've just described is what I've studied in.
And nobody's ever told me that they've seen it while there have been on this medicine. And I'm like, well, here you go. I've seen it because I'm very visual. I'm very energetic after two sessions. And what, with a, the spirit, it told me like do it for a year, once a month. And I'm like, okay. So the third session, I felt it coming and I realized I couldn't do it with my friend.
My friend really needed to be. With people and I needed to do it by myself. Like I was always in my bedroom. He was always in my living room and I could tell that he just needed company and I'm like, I feel it the third time I, I did did it on my own and I woke up and I knew something was different and it took me 10 days to finally own what was different and actually speak about it, which was, I was out of depression.
Like the depression was gone.
[00:36:42] Damaged Parents: So you, when you took the medicine, you saw the trauma and it's almost sounds like you integrated it and maybe accepted it right. Then, let it go. Maybe, I don't know. I'm trying to figure out what happened there.
[00:36:56] Heather Rhea Dawn: Well, it's a medicine made for post-traumatic stress. Like, oh, actually it wasn't. It was made for people to connect for therapists to give couples for them to connect, honestly. But it's also good for trauma and so they actually use it for a lot of people that have post-traumatic stress, which is what I have, and that's what I'm still healing.
And so I,
I don't actually know what happened in that session. I couldn't even, I guess I felt so much and I saw so much. But I just knew when I woke up in the morning and I wondered if it was temporary and that's why I didn't own it for 10 days. Cause I was like, okay, I don't trust this to stay. And so in 10 days I was like, okay, I can finally trust this as happening.
Meanwhile, I signed up for a Kundalini yoga teacher training, which is full of breath work, which was amazing. I continued even against my teacher's like wishes, please don't do this medicine while you're doing our practice. And I'm like, well, I'm going to still do it. Several months into doing the practice .
My medicine practice is when there was a belief around my sexuality that was really stopping me in so many areas. And I, it was from like somebody really special somebody. So like I knew she meant well, but she'd said something that I took in as my own. And I realized, like it wasn't mine. Okay. So how can I say that?
I was called for someone. So at that point in time, in my life, even being, you know, tantra educator, all about sexuality and stuff, it was somebody that I didn't necessarily like sex, sex toys. And, I'd gone out and bought all these sex toys at this convention this week, that weekend. And I'm like, what am I doing?
I don't use these things, but something was telling me to buy them. And then something was saying, you need. Do this today, this journey and I'm like, no, no, no, no, I'm fine. I'll just turn off my phone. And they're like, it kept saying, this is for you. This is for you. I'm like, I can have me time without taking this drug.
[00:38:50] Damaged Parents: Yeah.
[00:38:51] Heather Rhea Dawn: Thank goodness I listened. And I surrendered. And I said, okay, fine. I, all of a sudden, I was just listening to what spirit was telling you to do. And I was like, I got the sex toys out. I'm washing them and putting them out on a towel. And I'm like, okay. I don't know why this is happening. I don't, whatever I did my ceremony and took the medicine.
And that night
was one of the most powerful opening, probably healing nights in my life, because they didn't tell me that the belief, this woman instilled in me, which was, that's not an orgasm. That's not what that is. Usually the thing that. Shut me down sexually, basically when she said it, because I thought I was broken there really, she told me, all this stuff, which caused me to feel broken and that, why would anybody love me if I didn't work?
Right. So basically those were my beliefs in my head found out later when I told her this, she's like, that's how I feel about myself. I'm like, well mean it's somehow instilled in you. And I was too young to like, realize that wasn't mine. That night, it didn't tell me it showed me it wasn't true. So I started just self-pleasuring hands and then with toys and then, and EV he was just like, and then in every orifices and stuff like this, and I was just like opening and opening and the climaxes started coming and, they've done studies that a woman can only climax so many times in an hour.
It's not in a minute. It's not true because. My body was making up for lost time. It got to the point where I literally wouldn't even touch myself. I was above my clit by like, just sit like this much. And my, my, I would just, I would climax and I would climax. and I would climax and I would climax and there was like one or two seconds between the next climax or three seconds maximum over and over my body.
My bed was completely wet from just the sweat and all everything. It was just like, it just kept going for hours. And I would just finally have to take a break from time to time. It was like, so was exhausting to have this much pleasure, like I was making up for lost time. And, and then when I, and everything became alive in my body.
And so all of those beliefs and all the crap from my past, just like was let go in that night. And the next morning I was scared that the climax had left. And that's when I started using the word climax because it was orgasmic before it was not climactic.
[00:41:10] Damaged Parents: Yeah.
[00:41:11] Heather Rhea Dawn: And I woke up in the morning, scared that it was just the medicine.
And within minutes I had five climaxes and I'm like, wow, it's still here the next month, exact same thing happened and just like climax after climax. And it just stayed with me for a very long time. I think it was just the body, mind, body needed to have that much release to make up for all the pent up energy in my life and of it not working or me not working because the mind is such a powerful thing.
It's like, if we're aroused, it allows us to be aroused. If we have a block that we can't get around. So I had a block around climax because of what she said and what my mom said. And all of a sudden those blocks were gone and I was freaking free. It was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. And I was like, people, they would touch me and I feel different.
And then I got with a partner and climax was so easy. And I had to retrain my brain because my brain was still set on. Am I going to, am I going to and he's is he going to get disappointed? Is he gonna, and because it was all, cause some partners I've been with so like they thought it was about them.
Like, no, it's not about you. It's about me. It's about my history and they're taking it so personally, no it's like luckily, most partners I had. But, you know, one or two did. that caused a whole mess of other stuff that the whole.
[00:42:38] Damaged Parents: Yeah, I just have to ask. So do you think, after going through that healing journey that you went through, if then you felt like the I mean, I don't know if you're still healing the trauma, but you had made a comment earlier about counseling or working with people who hadn't been traumatized and they were so few and far between that now.
You were as free as they are, or they were, or your perception of them.
[00:43:04] Heather Rhea Dawn: That's a very good question.
I don't really don't like the comparison can comparison causes like a competing at a negative negative. I would say this, the opening that I had was so freeing that there was just, there was just an ultimate freedom. The freedom to sound the freedom, to ask for what I wanted the freedom to know what I wanted to freedom to know that I wasn't broken.
Was it as free as the women that I'd seen that had no trauma? I have no idea because I don't know what they're feeling. I don't know what they're going through. What I know is my level of freedom went up and my level of pleasure went up so high. It didn't matter anything.
[00:43:44] Damaged Parents: that's fantastic.
[00:43:46] Heather Rhea Dawn: Because there was no comparison of like, well now your, cause there was a, there was a thing in me that was like, well, why would you want to be with me when you can be with somebody like that?
[00:43:54] Damaged Parents: Oh, that makes so much sense. Oh my goodness. I hadn't even thought of that when I asked the question, because I was just trying to understand where you went, but in the way you had described it, the level of freedom, it was like you were free. It didn't matter. You know, Sally or Pam, or I don't know, I'm just throwing out ideas or names.
Right? Like it doesn't matter what they had. You're free. So now.
it just, who cares? That's beautiful. Okay. We are at the end of the podcast time. So three tips or tools that. Summed up if we can have already talked about them or not, that, that you think anyone going through this similar struggle would, it would be helpful for them to know or have, or have access to.
[00:44:43] Heather Rhea Dawn: Definitely do your breath work. Continuous conscious breath work. I teach breath work. Now I do it online. Breathwork brings up all kinds of trauma. If you've been sexually abused, it's not your fault. Big time meditate on that. Just keep saying, positive things to yourself. Mirror work, huge.
Sit in front of the mirror. Feel what's going on in your body. Listen. self-pleasure Not to climax self-pleasure to feel, let go of all goal, enjoy the practice and believe me, your, your mind is going to not want this, but make time, even if it's suggest stroke your arm to see, can I feel pleasure here eventually get to your sex or eventually get to your breast.
Breaking those things down. And then if you want to go to a healer, find somebody that you absolutely know that has no history of giving abuse in sessions, which I can't, I can't even refer people to anybody who stays because I've got a list so long of abusers that it's insane, but there's a lot. And you can always.
We'll coach women on how to do sexual healing on themselves. That's another also point of view. So again, you don't need to rely on anybody else. And I will, I can walk women through that, but yeah, the breath work though, the mind or the thinking of like knowing it's not you and self-pleasuring to no goal coming.
To somebody like me, who can walk you through sexual healing or come to me, I'm in Thailand right now, but someday I come back to America or whatever, but you know, those are the top things honor. What you're feeling, feel them beat the crap out of a pillow, feel everything. I know that's more than three tips, but
[00:46:29] Damaged Parents: way more and I love it.
[00:46:31] Heather Rhea Dawn: it's not your fault.
[00:46:32] Damaged Parents: No. Thank you so much we have, Heather Rhea Dawn here, you can find her https://www.Theecstaticbody.com or on Facebook at Heather Rae, R H E a. thank you. so much for coming.
[00:46:46] Heather Rhea Dawn: thank you. It's been awesome.
[00:46:48] Damaged Parents: Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. We really enjoy talking to Heather Rhea about how she overcame sexual trauma. We especially liked when she spoke about her journey to find pleasure. To unite with other damaged people connect with us on Instagram look for Damaged Parents We'll be here next week still relatively damaged see you then
