ABSTRACT
Your nervous system is your inner barometer letting you know if you’re feeling resilient and resourceful or wobbly and unstable. Where there is compulsive sex, there is often some type of trauma history—often within the home where you grew up. Although sexual acting out is an attempt to regulate the nervous system and feel better in the short-term, it dysregulates the nervous system over time leaving you ungrounded and imbalanced.
Somatic therapies offer portable tools including orienting, grounding, and resourcing to regulate your nervous system without the use of mind-altering behavior. By focusing attention on pleasurable, life-affirming choices and activities, a resilient, regulated nervous system grows stronger. As we have learned from neuroplasticity, it is possible to teach old dogs new tricks and to carve out brand-new neural pathways. In the past, it was always about the doing—seeking, running, and hunting. In recovery it’s about being in the now—conscious breathing, mindful living and slowing down. Long-term recovery from problematic sexual behavior requires you to put on the brakes and listen closely to the wisdom of the brain-body connection.
