Beyond the guilt and shame

"I feel guilty and shame" he told me the other night.

"Guilt and shame for the needs that I have. For the things that I want or need to do.  I cannot leave behind the baggage that people place, that society places.  But, there is also something of feeling that guilt and shame when I do the things that I do, and I cannot imagine what it would be like to be freely ok with the needs that I have.  I am scared that if I let those feelings go, if I can get past them, of how I will feel".

Liberated?

Free?

To be free from guilt and to carry now shame about the things that you want or need?

I think a lot of us worry, about how it would be if we ever got to a place of not having that shame or guilt about the needs that we have.  I worried that things would be boring, would never be enough and that if I accepted everything that I did that it would lose its interest, lose its excitement, that it would take all of the feeling out of it all.

It hasn't.

It doesn't.

You just get to enjoy the things that you like and want and need, without feeling guilty. Without feeling shame.  I have felt liberated.  Accepted. Free.

This conversation, really reminded me of something that I had read a long time ago, by Guy New York and I pointed this person I was having the conversation with in the direction of this specific piece of writing.

"Beyond guilt and shame"

In my dreams of liberated sex without fear, guilt, or shame I find an underlying anxiety that is more troublesome.  Beneath the struggle of leaving behind my cultural baggage is the worry that if I am successful in moving past the guilt and the shame I will be left with sex that is dry, dispassionate, and uninspiring. 

It’s the same fear that comes to writers when we think we need to live the mythic life of the artist and all that it entails.  It’s the fear that comes to musicians when we hide behind drugs and alcohol. 


It’s the fear that left all alone without our worries we just may not be good enough.


I’ve seen glimpses of the other side though, and I can tell you it’s all a lie.  On the other side of shame and all the other stories we’re told and accept is something remarkable.  On the other side of guilt is sex that is wild, kinky, and powerful. On the other side of shame, and fear, there is love, honesty, and passion.   On the other side, there is sex full of mind-blowing orgasms that leave us trembling, shaking and begging for more.
—Guy New York

I am on the other side.

I don't have that guilt or shame.

I don't have the fear of what people will think.  I accept what I am, what I need. Just as I accept other people for what they need.

On the other side there is love, honesty, passion, there is that sex of mind blowing orgasms, but there's also a whole lot more beside . . .losing the guilt and the shame doesn't take away from anything.  It just allows you to enjoy it all in a different way, in a liberated way.  It allows you to be who you are, what you are, what you need to be.

But more so, it allows you to be free.