A Mindful Approach to Sexuality - Part I
October 6, 2020
By Jacob Hess, Blake Fisher, Blaine Hickman, Ty Mansfield
PART I
Proposing a new conversation about a gentle, spacious, patient, agentic way to navigate questions around sexuality and identity.
Mindfulness is everywhere these days. It's required for counselors in training, trending on Youtube, and even "prescribed" by doctors for a variety of stress-related illnesses, pain management, and conditions like depression and anxiety. How mindfulness might benefit those facing challenges in parenting, marriage, and healing from trauma also continues to be a major focus.
What about sexuality and identity—are there other applications of mindfulness in these areas?
Absolutely. Like other aspects of life, an open, compassionate, and non-reactive stance has plenty to say about the many sensitive, personal questions around sexuality and identity. Yet it's surprising how little exploration these applications have received in society today. In what follows, we summarize ten beneficial insights mindfulness raises for these sensitive, complex questions that have become so contested in American culture over recent years.
This exploration of potential benefits is the first of a three-part series dedicated to laying down some underpinnings of a broader conversation about a more gentle and spacious approach to these many complex matters. We do it prayerfully, knowing that the Holy Spirit can lead each of us to "know the truth of all things."
If this sparks something in you, we'd love to hear from you. If it raises a question or concern, please join the conversation—including if you want to raise another perspective. Although this represents our own best understanding of these matters, there's always more to learn—and we want to stay open to seeing more than we currently do. We're also going to focus specifically on sexuality at this point. The implications of mindfulness for gender and gender identity deserve more space in a separate exploration.
Ten Possibilities Mindfulness Raises for Explorations of Sexuality and Identity
1. Recognizing something deeper than thoughts, feelings, and even the body.
This first point shouldn't be unfamiliar to any who believe in "spirit," but it still often is. However visceral and real our day-to-day experience is—emotionally, mentally, physically—mindfulness draws our attention to something deeper than all of that, a place from which we can observe everything else. What Christians call "our spirit," is referred to in the contemplative/mindfulness traditions as "awareness."
What would it mean to take spirit / awareness seriously in how we relate to sexuality and identity? That means first teasing apart our "awareness" from the many things we entertain in our field of awareness moment by moment—which may or may not be necessarily "us."
The Buddha is reported to have said, "Nothing should be clung to as 'I,' 'me,' or 'mine.'" Rather than relating to various aspects of our experiences so personally—rather than identifying with them as "me"—this means we can consider approaching them in a different way: as events in the mind, heart, and body; as content passing through mentally, emotionally, and physically; as snapshots of a continuously changing evolution and unfolding of both experience and self. Mindfulness is a discipline of disentangling "us" from the things we experience in these temporary mortal tabernacles.
Let's break this down a little more.
2. Seeing thoughts—including sexual thoughts—as thoughts.
Although thoughts feel personal for all of us, it's still a leap to relate to them as self (or "reality"). As any of us watches the mind, we can learn for ourselves that thoughts generally have a more bounded, transient nature—arising and manifesting, then passing away. Even those thoughts arising again (and again), will undoubtedly pass away again (and again)—evolving, expanding, and contracting, in part, depending on how we respond to them over time.
Do we embrace and identify with a particular thought as reality—or who we are? If so, don't be surprised if that mental content grows to become precisely that: more a part of our regular, ongoing life (and the "self" we accept as who we really are). The opposite is also true: if we observe, but do not identify with a particular thought as reality—or who we are—then it's possible that this mental content will evolve over time—even potentially becoming less a part of our regular, ongoing experience (and perceived self).
When we change our relationship with things, there's the potential for them to take up less space in our lives, or different space, that isn't as powerful.
3. Seeing feelings—including sexual feelings—as feelings.
Similar dynamics apply to feelings—with the difference being that they often feel even more personal, visceral, and real than thoughts. Nonetheless, those who persist in holding emotion in awareness—in all its rich manifestations—make the same essential discovery: rather than a permanent and enduring feature of our life, emotions rise, crest, and then pass away.
That insight allows our relationship with feelings and emotions to shift and grow over time. We understand that while these emotions may arise again (and again), they will just as surely pass away again (and again)—likewise evolving, expanding, and contracting, depending on how we respond to them over time.
Do we embrace and identify with a particular feeling as who we are? If we do, then this emotional content will likely grow to become precisely that: more a part of our regular, ongoing life (and what we experience as our "self"). And if we acknowledge but opt to not identify with a particular emotion as who we are—then it will likely contract and become less a part of our regular, ongoing experience (and what we see as our self).
4. Seeing physical sensations—including sexual ones—as physical sensations.
All this applies to physical sensations just as much as it does to thoughts and emotions, encouraging us to consider the bounded nature of physical sensations as "events," their continuously changing nature—and our ability to mindfully observe them and decide how we want to relate to them over time.
Once again, will we embrace and identify with a particular physical sensation as who we are? If the latter, then this physical content will likely grow to become precisely that: more a part of our regular, ongoing life (and "self"). By contrast, if we observe but do not identify with a particular physical sensation—including sexual ones—as who we are, then there's room for the way we experience them to shift and evolve, ultimately becoming less a part of our regular, ongoing experience of "self."
None of this, by the way, means that physical sensations (or emotions, or thoughts) will (or should) inevitably change in a certain way over time. It just means it's in the nature of all our experience to change over time in some way or another (the Buddhists call this "impermanence"—which hearkens to Latter-day Saints ideas around "eternal progression").
Hopefully all this feels encouraging. Thoughts, feelings and physical sensations—including sexual ones—are important parts of our ongoing experience. They are also something we get to decide how we relate to, including whether (or not) we want to identify with them and embrace them as "us" moving forward.
One man's experience of how this helped him is instructive:
“At the beginning of my journey navigating my sexuality, any thought, feeling, or physical sensation that reminded me that I was attracted to other men was followed by a lot of judgement and attachment: ‘I should not be feeling this way, it's wrong. I can't believe I'm same-sex attracted!’ And then the rumination would start: what happened that led me to this place and what does it mean for my future?
Later, after letting go of feelings of shame, I still reacted to thoughts, feelings, and sensations related to sexuality with a lot of judgement and attachment, however more positively: ‘Being gay is the best! I'm lucky that I get to experience these incredible things in such a beautiful way.’ I would then ruminate about past injustices or idealized pictures of the future.'
The way I relate to my experience with sexuality has continued to change. I don't feel any need to judge or label my thoughts, feelings, and sensations as good or bad, beautiful or broken. I have also learned that the presence, absence, frequency, and intensity of particular thoughts, feelings, and sensations is extremely variable and doesn't necessarily say anything about who I am fundamentally or what my future will look like. I can observe the ever-changing process with curiosity and kindness and then go about living my life moment by moment.
5. Helping us get out of our heads—and into our bodies.
Having said all this, let's be honest: all of this can be challenging to discern and appreciate especially if we live most of our lives in our heads. In James Joyce's The Dubliners, the author says of the main protagonist, "Mr. Duffy lived a short distance from his body."
Can you relate? We sure can. Especially surrounded as we are by screens (and jobs where we dutifully sit in front of them) the tendency to dwell in ongoing analysis, conceptualization, and rumination is undoubtedly stronger now than any other previous era or time. That's why practicing an intentional shift into the body can be so helpful. Practice like the "body scan" can help us reconnect with the body—and, by default, consciously shift our attention away from excessive preoccupation with thought itself (click here for a variety of body scan practices you could try).
For believers who see unity between body and spirit as the marker of being alive, feeling even a little more synchronized with your own body (a little more "embodied") can be an enlivening experience. It can also help ground us in navigating our ongoing explorations of sexuality, gender and identity itself.
6. Helping experience the body as distinct from self, so as to not over-identify with the body.
For many of us, seeing our thoughts and emotions as something we experience rather than who we are can seem easier to get on board with than approaching our physical experience the same way. But that is just as true of our bodies—which can be appreciated as part of our experience and something we "inhabit," rather than the defining touchstone of our experience, and plainly "who we are."
To modern minds skeptical of this point, Michael Singer notes in his book, The Untethered Soul, "While someone could tell you that you are not your body, death shows you." Similarly, in Stephanie Nielson's story of life after surviving severe burns over most of her body, she describes a moment when she was doing laundry, "I went to the closet, touching all the clothes. A wave of emotion took me over for a few minutes. I missed me again, I mourned for that woman again." But then, she experienced "a beautiful spiritual confirmation that this is my new life… It is good; it is, oh, so good." She describes learning to allow the true her to be fully present in the body she was now in, despite its limitations—as summarized in the powerful truth the Spirit had impressed upon her: "I am Stephanie Nielson, and I am not my body."
From a Latter-day Saint perspective, these mortal bodies are not us, they are something we inhabit for this brief period of our eternal progression so we can have experiences that will stretch our souls and help us to develop various attributes of godliness: faith, perspective, trust, humility, stewardship, consecration, etc.
This idea that the body is something other than me (I have a body...I am not my body) does not mean we distance ourselves or objectify the body at all. There's something beautiful about the closeness we can have with this beautiful stewardship we've been given—like our affection for a lovely place we live. Yet it's also true that we can over-identify with or get attached to any experience in the body (or even the body as a whole), all of which can lead to suffering or estrangement from Christ and the Spirit.
When we overly identify with the body, that's when body-shame and hate can arise—along with its opposite: pride. In our experience, all this can improve as we cultivate mindful awareness of the body as something we inhabit—noticing and observing sensations in the body as a whole.
7. Helping experience emotion as distinct from self, so as to not over-identify with emotion.
All the same can be said of emotion as well, which is closely tied to the body. Isn't it easy to identify with emotion as a simple reflection of who we are? This is something rarely even questioned in American society today.
Perhaps it's true that a particular emotion does reflect on your core identity. Or perhaps it's not. The point of mindfulness is to cultivate sufficient space to evaluate and make a choice in the matter, rather than take it as an obvious given.
In other words, there is experience—and then how we identify with experience. They are not the same thing. And it's when we get attached to identifications of our experiences (physically, emotionally and mentally) that trouble sometimes arises. Our experience has been that learning to be mindfully aware of the full spectrum of experience in all these domains—and explore it with more curiosity, space, and compassion—decreases suffering, while expanding options in how we relate to what we're experiencing.
The discipline of disentangling our physical, emotional, and mental experiences from who we are is just that—a discipline. It requires a commitment to excavating our capital "S" Self—the awareness and intelligence that is our true spiritual core—from our lowercase "s" selves—the proximate mortal experiences that we often come to over-identify with.
What is eternal, and what isn't? Is the part of me aware and observing everything "gay" or "straight"...or something else entirely?
On the surface, any of this can feel challenging—even initially threatening to "who we are." But in our own experience, once again, we've found that added space around these questions can actually expand agency to explore one's true and full identity, rather than the reverse.
8. More space for agency in relation to our experiences of life and love.
In a classic teaching from holocaust survivor and psychologist Viktor Frankl, he explains, "Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness." Elder Neal A. Maxwell put it this way: "Righteous desires are much more than passive preferences or fleeting feelings. Of course our genes, circumstances, and environments matter very much, and they shape us significantly. Yet there remains an inner zone in which we are sovereign, unless we abdicate. In this zone lies the essence of our individuality and our personal accountability."
Mindfulness invites us to courageously and curiously excavate precisely that space between stimulus and response, that inner zone where we can sit with our experiences with greater awareness—including the sensations, emotions, and mental content associated with sexuality—and realize the wide variety of ongoing opportunities for choice and the exercise of agency.
Romantic experiences in our larger culture are often only valued if they are automatic, and organic—seemingly involving no choice. What is "true" or "authentic" romance is thus equated with something driven, all-encompassing, and "choice-less": because that's what every fiber of your being makes you do.
Is that the kind of love Jesus yearns for his disciples to give their lives to pursue? We believe that the truest of love—particularly the "greatest of all" love that Christ calls us to—is something that arises from our own heart's commitment and desire. Renowned psychiatrist and writer M. Scott Peck said it this way: "Genuine love is volitional rather than emotional. The person who truly loves does so because of a decision to love. This person has made a commitment to be loving whether or not the loving feeling is present."
Similarly, social science researcher and writer on the "language of emotions," Karla McLaren, referred to true love not as an emotion but rather as a "prayer and a deathless promise." "Love is not an emotion," she said; "it doesn't behave the way emotions do. Real love is in a category of its own. Those things we've learned to equate with love—the longing, the physical attraction, the shared hobbies, the desire, the yearning, the lust, the projections, the addictive cycles, the passions—those things move and change and fluctuate in the way emotions do, but they're not love... Love isn't the opposite of fear, or anger, or any other emotion. Love is much, much deeper than that."
As one man put it, "Mindful practice shows me how much room there is for choice. It helps put space around my experiences—helping me see that part of me that can choose."
All of this involves seeing and experiencing love in a broader way—with chosen, intentional action in romance appreciated for its reflection of true love (rather than misunderstanding it as a lesser, counterfeit version of love). Just as doubt can make faith an even more beautiful and heart-felt offering, moments when the "feeling" of love aren't present can make the expression of that love all the more heart-felt and beautiful as well.
In combination, these insights suggest new ways of experiencing attraction as a whole—which is most often experienced in prevailing American culture as almost entirely centered on physical sensation. The gospel of Christ underscores what a mistake it would be to identify attraction as a purely physical thing—and helps us appreciate what a more "whole-souled" attraction between two people entails.
9. Embracing what is uncomfortable.
It has become normal in our day for people who feel any degree (or kind) of pain in a relationship to see that as evidence they are doing something wrong. But is that really true—and a reliable marker of right or wrong?
Not at all. As one individual put it, "Mindfulness has helped me increase my tolerance for pain—and see pain as pain, not always a sign I'm doing something wrong."
Remember, you are not defined by your mind, or your emotions, or even your body. You are something deeper than all that. That means we can all experience dissonance in our minds, our emotions, and our bodies, and it's not necessarily a sign of something definitive or even "true." There are lots of things going on in our physical, emotional and mental experience not necessarily connected with who we are.
Any or all of this may, in fact, simply be a sign you are growing.
10. Allowing growth to continue happening.
Latter-day Saints understand well that eternal progression involves becoming lots of things we aren't right now—and likely a lot less attached to the specific contours of our current experiences than we are now. That means (for all of us) seeing some aspects of our experience fade away in the future—and others emerge gradually over time.
Are we okay with the discomfort and uncertainty these kinds of unfolding changes naturally entail? Rather than something we must fear or fight against, mindfulness encourages a new kind of relationship to ongoing change itself as something to value and embrace.
And even enjoy. That means we can watch and observe the changes unfolding gradually in our lives with interest, curiosity, and even joy. We can also take gentle steps to influence and shape these changes—channeling them in the directions we feel best about, and which are in line with our greatest hopes and most sacred promises.
That concludes our part one exploration of various possibilities mindfulness raises when it comes to sexuality and identity. In part two, we turn to common misconceptions that exist in this same conversation.