Many years ago, a convergence of experiences and losses left me in a state of grief. I cried, I felt sadness, and I rationally accepted life as it was. Yet over the months that followed I felt like I was in a low-grade depression. I spent time with friends and enjoyed day-to-day pleasures, but something inside of me was not moving on.

After a few months I went to see a bodyworker who offered massage in addition to other healing modalities. I didn’t share much more with her than my name.

She placed her hands on my chest and my lower abdomen and with very little movement started to slowly draw her hand up from my pelvis to my heart. She kept repeating the same very slow movement with her hand.

After twenty minutes or so, I could feel something growing in my belly. It was a ball of warm energy that I sensed traveling up through my torso to my chest. When it reached my throat, I let out a loud deep guttural sound that surprised me.

Those sounds kept coming until the feeling of the ball of energy inside of me was gone. After a few minutes of feeling calm and relaxed, she continued to draw her hand up to my heart and throat.

I could feel the ball of energy again grow in my belly and move slowly up and out of my throat in loud guttural cries. My cries had surprisingly little emotional content, and my breathing was deep and effortless.

My body knew what it was doing.

Cycles like this continued a few more times until, after an hour and a half, there was nothing more left, and I felt a deep sense of peace and blissful emptiness. My body had released my unprocessed grief. No one had to tell me that; I could feel it.

Before I left, I shared my experience with the bodyworker. I told her it was similar to feeling an orgasm slowly building in my pelvic region, but rather than it moving down and out through the genitals, the energy moved up and out of my throat.

My body knew what to do. All I had to do was relax, focus my attention, continue breathing deeply, and marvel at my body’s inherent wisdom and healing power.

Love, reality & grief

Years later I delivered a talk to a group of cancer survivors in a local hospital. We were talking about how to use sex to help heal from the grief that comes with illness. Each woman shared her journey with cancer, each expressing how touch and pleasure eventually became an important part of their healing.

I came away from that talk feeling even more deeply that sex is a healer, and when the time is right, orgasmic energy can play an important part in connecting us back to our bodies and experiencing feelings of all kinds, not just the sexy ones!

There’s much to feel these days. If we slow down enough to feel it, grief surrounds us. Untimely deaths, environmental degradation, injustices, relationship breakups, unwanted change, aging… we’re all grieving, both personally and globally. Grief has taken a seat at all our tables.

So where does sex fit into grief? The myth is that these two very basic human experiences are mutually exclusive. We believe we shouldn’t want sex until we’re feeling sexy and receptive, and we can’t be grieving if our bodies are turned-on and orgasmic. But this isn’t necessarily so.

Everyone needs to honor their own journey through grief. Grief is not something to be measured by time. It presents itself differently for every person, but is it possible to allow grief to be part of our sexuality?

Grief is an isolating experience. We become lost in our own subjective pain, and even find refuge in our retreat from society; but after some time, the need for isolation is replaced with the need for connection.

When the time comes to reach out and take the hand of a caring lover, a new phase of healing begins. We can open the door and let them into our private pain.

Intimacy takes on an even deeper meaning. When we let ourselves be seen in our most vulnerable and raw states, we can allow ourselves to be held and touched, and receive all the hormonal and mental benefits that touch brings. By seeing ourselves through the loving eyes of lover , our pain is shared, and our burden is eased.

Pleasure never leaves us; we leave pleasure. Even when we move through difficult emotions, pleasure is always there; like a bridge over troubled water, pleasure can reconnect us to our bodies.

By focusing on arousal, physical pleasure drags us out of our subjective thoughts and into the present moment. The present moment is free of the past and the future, both of which weigh heavily on us during times of grief.

Letting go into pleasure, feeling the buildup of orgasmic energy, and trusting that it’s okay to let pleasure move in us, can help shift us out of the deep freeze of loss.

With the use of deep breath and arousal, energy gets unstuck and our emotional armor relaxes. If you’ve ever cried during sex, you know that tears and orgasm are strangely similar in their release. They both move energy through our bodies in a way that’s physically healthy and emotionally healing.

Lovers in a dangerous time

It’s wonderful to feel the love of others in trying times, but the real power of love during grief is the giving of love, as much as the getting. We can become absorbed in grief and loss. That’s part of the grieving process as well, but when the time is right, we can turn our gaze from inward pain outward to our beloved standing by us, ready to help.

Sending loving energy shifts us out of our left brain, where fight, flight, and freeze operate, into the part of our right brain that houses things like gratitude, empathy, and compassion. The act of giving love is like placing a healing balm on a wounded brain. It gives our exhausted, high-alert mind a place to rest and connect.

Anyone who meditates will tell you about the clarity and emotional transcendence that comes from focused attention. Stop reading right now and place your thumb and finger together. Move them so slowly and with so much attention that you can feel the ridges of your fingerprints.

Do this for a few breaths and see how long you can give your full attention to this experience. You’ve just momentarily cleared your mind of its outward thinking!

Sexual pleasure draws us into our bodies and for a while puts the rest of the world on hold. Sex and orgasm offer an escape from our overly active minds.

In letting go and allowing an orgasm to happen, we take a momentary leave from the weightiness of our world. In addition to clearing our minds, orgasms also move stuck energy in our bodies. If we’re carrying grief, orgasmic energy can move through us with a healing force.

You don’t see grief or sad feelings in porn. You rarely see sex and grief in films or TV. Sex is usually depicted as a one-note emotional experience of passion or romance.

If your partner is experiencing grief, here are some things to remember when it comes to sex and intimacy:

Offer nonsexual touch and affection without expectations of anything more. Allow your partner to find their way back to sex in their own time. If they want to be sexual, keep the sexy out of it, and assure them that they don’t have to feel anything other than what they’re feeling (which is probably not very sexy).

Having sex during sadness or grief is a multi-emotional experience. Emotions flow and intermingle. Tears can change into laughter and vice versa. Your partner may feel alive one moment and numb the next.

The grieving partner needs to flow with whatever arises without judgment. Joining in sex with a grieving partner requires us to stay attuned to whatever feeling is present, and whatever our partner needs in that moment.

Encourage them to breathe fully and relax into the pleasure of physical contact without any pressure to perform or reciprocate.

Create a slow, relaxed pace so they have the time to connect to their pleasure and become aroused in their own time. Allow arousal to build slowly and gently.

Be prepared for loss of erections or lack of lubrication. Our bodies know what they want. If intercourse is off the table, turn your attention to whatever feels pleasurable to your partner. Help them ask for what they want and follow their lead. There is no place to get to.

This kind of lovemaking can be relaxed and meandering. Orgasms may or may not happen. Leave your agenda at the bedroom door.

Incorporate breaks to share your thoughts, if needed, or simply stay silent while holding or cradling.

Tears may flow. Stay in connection and encourage them to feel what they’re feeling. Be a rock when they feel unstable and let them know you’ve got them.

If you are suffering from the pain of grief and want to know how to find relief, schedule a brief call with me to learn more about what’s available to you.

And if you know someone who might be helped by this article, pass it on.

The Turned-On Couple Community is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Get full access to The Turned-On Couple Community at theturnedoncouple.substack.com/subscribe