Episode 13: Mindless Vs. Mindful Masturbation Ft. Lee Curac-Dahl of Army of Love
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Sureya: “You've probably heard people say emotions are energy in motion. And anytime that we feel an emotion, there is an energy that is available to be harnessed towards a specific purpose, if we choose to allow it. But if we're always avoiding it, we're stuffing it down. And then, like you said, we're being faced with reality from a more depleted place afterwards. We don't actually escape it. We only temporarily escape it. But for example, anger is enormous energy.
Anger shows up when a boundary's been crossed when there's something that needs to change. It's an incredible fuel for change. If we channel it appropriately, sexual energy is an incredible force. A lot of times when we have that compulsory tendency to distract ourselves by masturbating because there's something that we don't wanna deal with. That's gonna be challenging for us. We are selling ourselves short because that sexual energy is there as an ally for us to help us push through that thing.
Especially male sexual energy is, is very fiery. It's the element of fire. And when that energy arises, it asks you the question: ‘Do you wanna use me to distract you or do you wanna use me to get this done?’ And we often don't hear that there's a question there. We often don't know, we don't realize there's an option. And so we might take the cheaper route and say, well, fuck it. I just wanna have an orgasm.
And if you choose that route, just notice. How do you feel afterwards? How does it feed into you being able to take on that task that you're avoiding? Just getting curious about it. What happens if I breathe into the sensation of avoidance and I really allow myself to feel it, and I get clear on what do I need to be able to face this task head on. And if you want, you can bring in your sexual energy to this in a very. Tangible way you can use a self-pleasure practice, an intentional one where you don't orgasm, you build the energy, you circulate it through your body, and then you channel that into your project. And so rather than stuffing it down or using it as like a quick way to have a pressure valve, you allow that energy to build up as vitality because that's what it is.”
Sureya: “Porn is incredibly addictive for lots of reasons. It's novelty, it's so easy for people. If they've been addicted to porn, they get bored of their partner, because they're addicted to the novelty that exists within porn, rather than having the capacity to go deeper with their lover.
And you build a tolerance, as you keep getting these dopamine blasts from it, as you keep going to more extreme content, as you fracture your attention span across so many different people, you build a tolerance. And so what did it for you at one point, won't do it for you at another point, if you're constantly chasing the next big thing.
This is where sensitivity comes into play and it's huge. And some people have the problem of being too desensitized. Some people feel overly sensitized, and I think porn can affect this in both directions, but sensitivity is a gift. It is such a gift and we need to learn how to work with it.”
Lee: “I feel that so much of the world many of us live in today, and I'm speaking to smartphones and Instagram, social media. It goes beyond porn. Sure, porn may be a big jackhammer version of what we're talking about here, but if we're mindlessly going to our phone in any moment of boredom, it feels like we're sort of de-training our brain to be with what is, and to soak up the sensations of feeling what the air feels like in this room.
And we're just like constantly overloading our brain with more and more information, which is ultimately, I think, taking us away from our ability to tune into the simple sensations of life. Something that really brings me a lot of inspiration is recognizing that the body is absolutely incredible. And, for anyone out there who feels like they've gone too deep or reached a point of no return, from overindulging in this stimulation, whether it's social media, porn, whatever shoe fits for you, it's remembering that the body will course correct itself.
If we give it the space and, you know, get our nervous system to a place where it's rested and we can repair those circuits, if you will. And now I'm, now I'm speaking out of my jurisdiction, but, you tell me, speak to that a little bit to anyone out there who maybe feels like, ‘Yeah, I hear what you're saying, but have I burned out my receptors? Have I gone too far?’”
Sureya: “Yeah. Ooh, this is a practice of patience. It really is. It's re-attuning to the subtleties. It's like drinking a cup of tea. Really savoring the flavor and noticing how it feels in your body is gonna feel different than that quad espresso with eight pumps of mocha syrup that you're used to, right? It's gonna feel different. You're not gonna get the same effect from it.
I think that's what we need to realize too, is like we are going for a different type of experience. We're not expecting that the tea is going to deliver that same effect where getting curious about: ‘What kind of experience is possible with this cup of tea that maybe I never even scratched the surface of with that mocha?’ Because the type of experience I was going for with that was to get like all jacked up on caffeine and like pumped and whatever.
But what if the tea brings forth this quality of aliveness and presence that you've never felt before? And it's subtle, it's subtle, but it's real. And you're just tuning in with every little thing that your body is feeling. You're not juicing your body for more. You're not demanding of your body. Caffeine is juicing our adrenals. It's just pulling from our jing, it's pulling from reserves. It's hard on the adrenals and the kidneys. And a lot of things that we do, you know, loading up on lots of sugar or porn or social media. These things, they're depleting for the body. And so to replenish the body, it's gonna feel different.
But when we restore that vitality, when we restore that sensitivity, we start noticing new qualities of richness that are different than what we could have ever imagined. And sometimes those will feel very extreme. Sometimes they'll be very blissful.”