• • • Toxic Beliefs
    • Healing Sexual Trauma
    • Tips For The Chronically Single

How To Experience Sexual Healing While You’re Still Single: Sex Therapist Mike Moran

A Powerful Interview With Sex Therapist Mike Moran

How can we experience life-changing, powerful sexual healing while we’re single? Stay tuned to the Deeper Dating Podcast as I interview sex therapist, Mike Moran.

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Hello, everybody and welcome to the Deeper Dating Podcast. I’m Ken Page, and I’m a psychotherapist, the author of the book, Deeper Dating, the Cofounder of the meeting site – DeeperDating.com, and of course, the host of this show. I’m excited today because I am interviewing a dear friend who is also a brilliant sex therapist. Mike Moran is going to be talking to us about how we can experience and create sexual healing before we’re in a relationship. This week and every week, I’m going to share with you the greatest skills I know to help you find love and keep it flourishing and heal your life in the process because the skills of dating are nothing more than the skills of love, and the skills of love are the greatest skills of all for a happy and meaningful life.

If you want to learn more about the deeper dating path to real intimacy, just go to DeeperDatingPodcast.com. You can sign up for my mailing list, you’ll get free gifts and you can get transcripts of each of these episodes, including this one. I also want to say that everything I share in this podcast is educational in nature. It is not medical or psychiatric advice or treatment, and if you’re experiencing any serious psychological symptoms, please seek professional help. Finally, if you like what you’re learning here, it would be a wonderful thank you if you subscribed and left me a review on iTunes or elsewhere. Thank you so much for that. Without any further ado, I want to introduce my dear friend and  deeply respected colleague, Mike Moran.

Let me tell you a little bit about Mike, why I’m excited to have him on this show. Mike is an LCSW and a psychotherapist, a certified EFT couples’ therapist and supervisor, a certified sex therapist, and a certified inner bonding facilitator based in New York, where he specializes at the intersection of relational and sexual challenges. He’s the Founder and Director of The Center for Relational Fulfillment, and he’s on the board of directors of the New York Center for Emotionally Focused Therapy.

Mike also presents internationally training therapists on sexual issues in EFT, couples therapy, and he’s also taught graduate courses in marriage and family therapy, and LGBTQ practice at Rutgers University. He offers weekend workshops to couples. Mike says that he views erotic energy as chi, meaning life force or creative vitality, and loves helping people remove the barriers to creating authentic, passionate connection emotionally and sexually. You can learn more about his work by going to FulfilledCouples.com. I know Mike for decades. We’ve worked together many times, and you will get this quality of goodness, decency, intelligence, clarity, integrity, and smarts that he emanates, which is why it’s such a joy for me to have him on the show. Welcome, Mike.

Thank you, Ken. Thank you for that introduction. I feel all warm inside.

It’s all true about you. I am so glad to have you here because this is such an important topic that doesn’t get talked about enough, and single people who are not yet in a relationship don’t know the tools that are available to them to grow in their sexuality and their sexual healing while they’re dating, and before they’re in the committed relationship that they’re searching for. The way I would love to start is with you telling us anything about your story and what led you here.

Sure. I think on a fundamental level, sex, erotic energy has always been very important to me. I am a sexual person. I honor that energy, and I feel like it’s been an integral component to my own healing. I was born with a birth defect that impacted my sex life. I was in sex therapy as a single gay young man in my twenties, and it changed my life. That awakened me to the power of sexual energy, and how if we do our work, it can enlighten us. As I say in my bio, I think of erotic energy, sexual energy as chi, as life force. For so many of us, that energy has been dampened. It’s been tainted by many things, so I help people. I help folks liberate that.

Trauma occurs in relationships. It is also healed in relationships.CLICK TO TWEETThat is beautiful and powerful. Can you tell us more about how you do that? For our listeners as well, what’s the journey that they can take as they learn from you, as we speak?

Toxic Beliefs

I’ve worked with many people over the years. Straight, gay, transgender, gender fluid, who have recognized in themselves that they sense that this wonderful energy, this wonderful life force that lives within them has been tainted, and has been dampened  down. We go on a journey together to learn about how their sexuality, how their sexual energy, their Eros, emerged in their body. How it lives in their body, how it came of being, and then how it lives in their body now, and how the myths, the messages. In our culture, I don’t care if you’re straight, gay, what have you. The culture at large, mainstream culture can do a real number on us. It’s like toxins. We ingest these negative beliefs and messages and myths about sex that can do a number on us and that can hijack our capacity to let that energy flow in us. That’s one of the questions I ask the folks that I work with, “What toxins have you swallowed in the culture at large, in your family culture? What lives within you that, perhaps, you and I can help release, get that poison out of there?”

That is beautiful and powerful. Let’s have a moment so that all of the audience could think about this. Maybe you even want to take out a paper and pen, or maybe you’re walking or driving and you want to pause this and think about it, but this is a powerful question. You’re saying, Mike, it’s the very first question, it’s where you start on this journey. Let’s all do this for a minute. Let’s sit with this question that Mike asked. Mike, can I ask you to ask it once more, and then we’ll give people a minute to think or to pause, and reflect on it?

Sure, of course. What toxins have you swallowed that are living in your body from the culture at large, from your family, from your friends? What lives in your body that isn’t authentically you? What messages, what poisons do you need to release to come to embrace a healthy, loving, powerful model of sexuality?

Beautiful. Here’s something I want to say that I’m going to ask you to address in a minute, Mike, which is for those listeners who have experienced real sexual trauma, this could be a very triggering question. Feel free to answer this in a brief and general way and not to dive in, to be aware of what triggers you. To take care of yourself in the process of answering this question, you might want to answer it on a very broad level. Stand as far away from the trauma as you need to, to be able to look at it, even if it’s from ten miles back and getting a kind of a safe view of it. I wanted to put that in for people who’ve experienced trauma because it’s a rich and important question we all should be able to ask.

It doesn’t have words. It’s a feeling of shame that I feel goes deep inside my being kind of to the point of curling my toes and my fingers. It’s a sense of shame and it’s a deep belief. Goodness is important to me, and it’s a deeply imprinted belief that sex and goodness are antithetical. That’s a myth that I’ve spent my life working to deal with. I wanted to share mine because it’s such a beautiful question and I wanted to kind of model a little bit of answering that question.

That’s beautiful, Ken. I’ve worked a lot with shame as I’m sure you have. Personally, and in my work with folks, shame is a big one. Isn’t it? It can hijack our ability to own our truth in our lives. It can just shut us down, and what’s the underbelly of that? What’s going on there? What have we taken in that we haven’t released yet? That is not us, but it’s in us.

Well said. Asking this question and articulating even more fully, what the words are to that shame? Would that be the next step?

 

Absolutely, to slow things down. You weren’t born with that shame inside you. Something happened there and it came of being. What happened there? What’s the story of how shame began to take over your experience of your sexuality, if indeed that’s occurring?

Healing Sexual Trauma

I know there are more questions, Mike, and I have a choice point question for you. What this is bringing up for me, as all the people who are listening, who have experienced sexual trauma and violation? I think I would like to pause and hear any insights because this is huge. It was one of the questions I was going to ask you. If you could address for folks, those of us who have experienced sexual abuse or sexual trauma and have the deep trauma reverberations inside our being, how do people in that situation? Do you have any thoughts you want to share about the healing journey around that?

I was glad that you added that, Ken, because I’ve worked a lot with sexual trauma. I can talk about a case with a person I’m working with right now. The first thing I would say with this is in order for us to open to our trauma, we have to feel safe enough to do that. If you’re working on your own and beginning to open that box, pay attention to what’s happening for you, pay attention to your body. Sometimes, memories have been kind of stored in there and then they start to emerge. I’ve worked with folks where that’s been the case. If you find yourself feeling that your trauma has limited you and you want to do the work of washing it out, go slow and be gentle.

As you open to what happened, learn about how, then how you respond to what happened. I’ll tell you why. I worked with a woman who had been date-raped in college. It was interesting. After it happened, she repressed the whole thing. She pushed it down. She forgot about it. She was pretty promiscuous in college afterward, and we wondered if that was a component, if the trauma was playing out on some level. Anyway, it reemerged. After she got married, she had had a satisfying sex life with her partner, but about a year into the marriage, all the trauma came up in front and center, and her body completely shut down. I worked with her for about a year when I’d had the partner come in sometimes. She had an awesome husband. I loved this guy. He was great, but the key was helping her open to that she’s in control, that she’s the one, that she gets to decide about her body. She holds the reigns and nobody else holds the reins around her sexuality. It was a very healing work.

Since safety is the first order of business for many people working on trauma, it is good to get help, right?

Absolutely, especially with trauma because it’s overwhelming. Remember, trauma occurs in a relationship, trauma is healed in a relationship. I encourage folks who have had to deal with that to get help.

Here’s another question. This is not in any way to discount the importance of therapy and doing trauma work, but if trauma can be healed through relationship, how can trauma be healed through your relationship with yourself? Let’s say you’re a single person. You’re not having sex. Maybe you’re having sex occasionally with people that you date. Maybe you’re having recreational sex. Maybe you’re just masturbating and wanting to do your healing work in that. Could you share thoughts in addition to, or on the side, even instead of, therapy, what are ways that people can heal sexual trauma and sexual wounding in their relationship with themselves before they are in a partnership?

It’s a good question. I relate to it. I think I did a lot of my healing as a single person.

Own your disabilities from a place of empowerment instead of shame.CLICK TO TWEETI have talked a lot about being in a support group for chronically single psychotherapists, and Mike was one of my support group members. We were in this together.

We were.

It was very healing for us.

I loved that group. I would say, the first step, if you’re going to work on this on your own is do the work on every level. There’s the mind. That’s what we talked about the myths, the messages, do that work, and understand how it lives in your body from an insight perspective. Also, get to know your body. If you had trauma, how does the trauma impact your relationship to your body? How do you feel about your body? I’m working with a gentleman right now who’s had major trauma. I gave him an exercise, “Just lay naked on your bed and notice sensations of what’s happening. Just slow down.” A lot emerged for him because he had never thought to do that before. I would encourage you to slow things down and get to know what goes on inside your head, what goes on inside your body, what’s your relationship to your body? Do your best to keep a deep sense of curiosity,  just noticing it all.

What a powerful, beautiful, and simple exercise for reflection.

It can be very powerful. The other thing that I encourage you to do is all of us have what we call an erotic blueprint. All of us have our own unique algorithm that allows our sensual sexual energy to come alive. There’s more direct stimulation. There’s the senses, our  sensuality, and then there’s what we call psychogenic, which is thoughts, feelings, fantasies, what have you. Do some exploration around “what’s your erotic blueprint? How does your sexual energy begin to hum? I ask folks, “How does your erotic engine get turned on and  humming? What happens there?” Get deeply curious because we’re all a little different in that place.

That’s wonderful. That’s something I talk about too in my book, like different components of that are what moves you in sex. What emotionally moves you? What makes you feel safe, and what turns you on, and holding all of those together is. that’s the rich place. That’s the wonderful place. I want to share, Mike, the genesis of this episode. You and I were in a cafe together maybe 6 or 7 years ago. I don’t know if you remember this, but I remember it so vividly. We were sitting there drinking our ice coffee together, and I asked you, “In your work as a sex therapist at this point,what’s exciting you the most?” What you said was beautiful and powerful to me. I would like you to speak about that a little bit and I’ll say what that was. This is what you said to me.

Tell me because I don’t remember.

 

I will tell you and it was awesome. It opened a whole new vista of pathways to healing and a possibility. This is what you said, “This is what interests me. No matter how traumatized someone might be that I am working with, there’s a zone that they can go into where they can be sexual and feel good inside and feel unblocked and unfettered. There’s circuitry that they can go into where things work for them, even if they’ve been traumatized. Even if a great amount of the time they can’t do that, there are times when it’s smooth sailing. They are just in alignment with themselves. I’m fascinated by what it is that allows that to happen.”

What it is that allows them to drop into that groove where they can celebrate their sexuality in such a satisfying way.

Tell us what you have learned about what helps people, no matter what, be able to drop into that groove.

I think a real component is the yearning to do it, the motivation to do it, the persistence to keep learning about, what are the barriers to you claiming your unique, beautiful version to your sexual energy? I’ve worked with folks with all kinds of fetishes. For so many of us that grow up in a culture that denigrates anything that is “other”, it shuts us down before we even know that we’re shutting it down. I’ve worked with many of the fetishes, the Adult Diaper community. I’ve worked with folks were in Puppy Play, which is your erotic energy comes alive through primarily portraying an animal, what have you. The human experience, the mind, the nervous system, all of it is so rich.

I think with that, those of us who are willing to move beyond the confines of this world that we live in, that tells us that we’re not allowed to be ourselves in whatever’s going on in there, those of us who have the chutzpah to move beyond that, I think that’s the impetus to be able to link into that group. Can you allow yourself to be your erotic self ,in all its glory, whatever that is, however that begins to come alive within you? I think that’s the underbelly of it all. Many people, including myself, have real feelings about claiming that truth and that borrows back to the myth, the messages, the stuff that we’ve taken in that we have to move, we have to release, and we have to throw and vomit out.

This is great because this is work that everyone, no matter where they are in the spectrum of single to committed couple hood can do. Every one of us can do this, and if you do it now before you’re in a relationship, it will save you a great deal of grief and allow you a great deal more of happiness. This is a wonderful time to be doing that work. Mike, the first thing you talked about so richly was naming the myths that we’ve swallowed our sexual freedom that block us from being who we can be sexually. Now you’ve talked about naming your algorithm, acknowledging what brings you to the place where your heart is alive, your Eros is alive, and you’re turned on and your engine is humming, and I love that. Can you frame that for the audience as a question that we can all sit with for a moment?

Sure. Let me put it this way, which borrows back to Jack Morin’s work, which is amazing. Think about it this way. Let’s say you’re not turned on at all. You’re not feeling erotic at all, but you would like to be. What are the thoughts, feelings, images, and fantasies? What’s all that you know would be the best bet to help you come alive there, to help your erotic portal open and for you to move into that altered state of Eros coming alive in you? What are all the factors that come into play there? What is it about those qualities? What is it about those that make it so inviting, that make it so enticing? Let’s ponder that for a moment.

That is beautiful. It is such rich, wonderful stuff. Thank you, Mike. This is great.

We heal through compassion, not judgment.CLICK TO TWEETYou’re very welcome.

Was there more you wanted to say there, or should I jump to my next question?

I think we’re good. Keep jumping, Ken.

I want to ask about, and this is like a huge range. I’m going to say them all in this one question, but feel free to separate them. What about people who have shame about organic conditions of any sort, who are single and feel scared of entering into a relationship or even the dating world because of shame around disabilities, things in their sexual anatomy, scarring, STDs like herpes, any of these kinds of things that could make people feel, “I know this takes me out of the game?”

You’re talking my language because I have a birth defect. This is exactly what my journey was and I value the sexual energy that I did this work. I think the key with that is to do your best to let go of seeing your disability, your scarring, your STD, your herpes. Do your best to let go of framing it as this is my illness, this is where I’m damaged, this is my defectiveness. Do your best to soften the gaze and try to see it through the lens of, “This is the body that I was meant to explore, that I was meant to have on this journey of embracing my sexual truth.” In fact, this was part of it. Try to see it as a component of your journey. Try to shift the lens from it being a deficit to more of an attribute of your unique journey.

Did you do that, Mike?

I have done that. I have crossed the bridge in that capacity and it’s been very powerful, but it’s hard. It’s not a one conversation thing. That’s a burner.

I just want to say something about this journey concept because I guess, when we look at ourselves and our defects, whatever they are, are glaring, obvious, and embarrassing. We feel like, “How would anyone be turned on to me?” Maybe we even feel like, “I wouldn’t be turned on to me,” and all of these thoughts that are kind of crushing. The question you asked was not as simple as, “how were these parts of me just fine, just beautiful? How is this actually part of my authentic sexual journey of claiming my sexuality? That’s a shift and that’s very profound, and thank you so much for sharing something so personal with us because then everyone who’s dealing with that can say, “He knows what he’s talking about. He’s been through it.”

 

It’s developing the capacity to own it but from a place of empowerment versus a place of shame and trying to cover it up, trying to pretend that it’s not there, or foreclosing on your dating or sexual journey because you can’t imagine. You are giving into fear versus claiming it as a component of your journey, of your life that is meant to be there for you to learn from. Ultimately, I see all of life as a classroom. It’s all a classroom and we all have to embrace what we’ve got and what we’ve been given.

Tips For The Chronically Single

Mike, this is so beautiful, so rich and I have some more questions for you.

Sure.

What about people who’ve been chronically single for a long time and want to get out into the dating world, and are just afraid and feel rusty with dating?

Ken, you shared. We were in our chronically single therapist group. I think what I would say with that, where I come from that, I think about how I tortured myself about that. I labeled myself. I used it as an identity, “I’m chronically single,” and I’ve been partnered now for thirteen years. I look back at the young man. I used that label to torture myself. I think the first step is, so you’ve been single for a long time. That’s all it means; you’ve been single for a long time. It doesn’t mean you’re defective. It doesn’t mean you’re broken. It doesn’t mean that nobody’s ever going to want to date you.

All it means is that you’ve been single for a long time. That’s all it means. Don’t take that like Ken and I did and run with that and torture yourself with it. That’s all it is. It’s just data. It’s information. You’ve been single for a long time. What’s your next step toward taking a risk and getting up there again? If you want to internet date, great. If you don’t, great. If you want to take a class, I had a client, who met her partner in an Italian class. She took an Italian class and ended up meeting her partner. What’s your next step? Seeing it through the lens of this, I keep coming back to this word, journey.

Do your best not to focus on this destination of, “Where is my partner?” See it as a journey of moving toward this person. I remember and it is true, it’s such a cliche when they talk about it, it comes out of nowhere, what have you, but it is true. When I met my partner, I met my partner at  Big Apple Ranch, which is a gay square dance in the middle of Manhattan. I remember the night so well because it was all I could do not to cancel. If I hadn’t promised my friend to meet him at this thing, I would never have gone. I remember getting into the shower and being like, “Why am I going to this thing?” I don’t even like country music. I just was not there, but I showed up and my partner was there and I’ve been with him for thirteen years. You just don’t know. You just have to keep taking the next step and do your best to not frame it from a negative place.

Mike, I’m smiling because I quote you all the time in my classes and my courses without mentioning who you are. This is another thing that relates to that because when you were searching, or maybe it was when you first met Steve, and I said to you, “What are you doing now that’s different?” You said, “Ken, I’ll tell you what I’m doing. I get home from work and the last thing I want to do in the world is to take a shower and get dressed and go out.” It literally makes me feel sick to my stomach, but I know that if I don’t do that and go to events where there are spiritual gay men, I will never find my partner, and I quote you on that all the time.

Sexual energy is powerful. It’s beautiful energy. It’s healing energy. It’s vitality. It’s an awesome part of living on this planet.CLICK TO TWEETIt is because that’s exactly what happened when I met Steve. I’m telling you; I remember getting into the shower like I can’t breathe. I’m dragging my butt up the Seventh Avenue. I lived in the West Village at the time. I think I remember that walk. I was dragging myself into that building, but it’s true, we have to get in the ring, don’t we?

We have to get in the ring and the ring also includes doing the rich sexual questioning and mining of treasures that you are describing. I have another question for you. I want to talk about the whole issue of hooking up. This is a show for people who are into the conscious search for love so we don’t talk that much about hooking up. I think many people here don’t do that. I think that there are also many people who do that and wonder how they feel about it, and wonder if it’s a good thing to do. I would like us to talk for a few minutes about this issue of this conscious journey of healing. If your commitment is toward healing, and you’re single and you want sex, how to hold this issue of hooking up? I would love to hear any of your thoughts.

Firstly, I want to preface this by saying, I’m a sex-positive sex therapist. What I mean by that is, if the sex is consensual, respectful, and safe and everybody in the room, regardless of how many people are in the room, are having pleasure, if everyone is having pleasure, then rock and roll. I don’t judge any of that. Now, that said, if you’re recognizing that who you are in that context, your behavior, what you’re doing, if you are starting to get those inner promptings of, “This is not really reflective of my deepest truth. This is not reflective of who I want to be. This is not my wisest self that’s doing that.” You’re wanting to deepen into, “What is my wisest self with respect to the challenging conundrum of being a sexual being?”

Some of us have very high sex drives, and being single and needing that release and needing that outlet. Trust me, I very much empathize with that. That said, if you’re feeling like, “This is not who I want to be here,” do some exploration. What is the part of you that’s doing the hooking up? What is that part wanting? What’s going on there? Do your best to open to compassion. We heal through compassion, not judgment. Do your best to soften the gaze, let the inner critical wounded part of you ask him or her to step outside for a moment and do some compassionate learning about, “What’s happening in this place? What’s going on?”

There’s the part that is doing something here. There’s the part that is acting in a way that’s not in alignment with who you want to be, and so you want to get curious, partner with this part of you. Learn about what’s going on there. It may feel better to hook up and to engage in casual sex in a way that ultimately doesn’t feel right to you, but maybe it’s serving you because it’s helping you not feel more vulnerable feelings. Maybe it’s helping you to distract yourself from feelings that otherwise would be knocking on your door. What I say with that is to get curious, slow down, and learn about it. Whatever you do, don’t beat yourself up. There are always good reasons for why this stuff plays out the way it does.

Beautiful. Thank you, Mike. I agree with you. It’s important that even when we are acting in ways that might be not great for us sexually, that we still hold the beauty of our sexuality and remember that first and primarily. That’s wonderful. Mike, you’ve shared so many rich, wonderful things. One thing that I’ve appreciated is you have articulated all of these kinds of thorny and important and highly charged issues as a journey that we can be kind to ourselves around and curious and exploratory, which is what I love about your work and why I so wanted to have you on the show.

I’m glad you picked up on that, Ken. It’s a fundamental tenet of how I work with folks and I help them open to their journey through the eyes of compassion, not judgment.

You have been through that journey and we are all on that journey together.

 

We are, indeed.

Mike, we’re moving toward closing now and in a minute, I’m going to ask you to talk about how people could get in touch with you and reach out and find out more about your work and take part in it if they’re moved to do that, but first, are there any last closing words that you want to share with this community?

This borrows back to what we touched on earlier in our conversation, but I think what I want to emphasize is erotic energy and sexual energy are powerful. It’s a beautiful energy. It’s healing energy, it’s a vitality, it’s aliveness , it’s such an awesome part of living on this planet. As we all well know, living on this planet can be challenging, but it’s like anything. It can be used in the service of the best parts of ourselves or it could be used in the service of these wounded parts. I think the key is to honor the energy, honor how powerful it is, honor its role in your life because, of course, that looks different for everybody. Respect it because it’s a beautiful part of living, in my opinion.

Mike, that’s wonderful. I just want to acknowledge you and all the other folks in the world who are brave adventurers in exploring sexual healing because it’s still is so taboo and limited in this world and in this country. This is a statement of gratitude for all the people working on sex and sexuality in the world, and to you in particular. For everyone who wants to explore this more fully, some of the things that Mike talked about, who want to learn from him, hear more about what he’s doing, what he believes in, what he’s studying, what he’s teaching, how can people find out everything about you, Mike?

Just go to my website, it’s www.FulfilledCouples.com, and if you want to email me directly, my email is Mike@FulfilledCouples.com. That’s the easiest way.

Mike, I can’t thank you enough for your years of loyal and wonderful friendship, for the work that you’re doing in the world, and for sharing this with us.

Likewise, Ken. I remember us doing the retreats back in the day where I would do the music and we’ve had a rich journey together.

It’s true. Mike is a musician and a songwriter, by the way, as well. Mike, thank you. Thank you everybody for listening. You can go to DeeperDatingPodcast.com to sign up for my mailing list. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Just a reminder that at this point, I’m only doing episodes every two weeks for the time being, so see you then and thank you so much. Thank you, Mike, once again.

Thanks, Ken.