Myths, symbolisms, and archetypes can often be the key to unlocking different parts of our awareness and consciousness — or, at least, this was the case for me. In the Tantric traditions, deities are often used to evoke certain energies or essence within us. 

I’m Filipino-American and grew up in a family that was wildly uncomfortable with discussing anything related to sex, relationships, and money. On top of that, I was also subjected to the cultural conditioning that many of us have become familiar with: a society that shames and blames women for embracing their bodies, radiance, and erotic power.

Beginning the Healing Journey

My sexual healing journey started with me trying to reclaim my power through meaningless experiences, dating partners who weren’t a match for me, and learning to be in relationship with a body that had been sexually abused. I was trying to reclaim the parts of me that were taken, given away, and the ones I had yet to meet.

At 19 years old I met my ex-husband and we fell in love. I moved in a little under a year later, and shortly after became unexpectedly pregnant with my first child. As a young mother at the age of 21, I faced major challenges.

I was starting my first career as a hairstylist and was just starting to build my clientele. The thought of having kids was definitely not something I had envisioned until I was well into my 30s, but the universe had other plans for me.

Finding Strength in Motherhood

I was not prepared to raise a child and definitely not looking forward to my body changing. For the first time in my life, I was starting to have a relationship with my body — and there I was sharing that relationship with a stranger inside of me.

I gave birth to that beautiful stranger, and 6 years later another beautiful stranger was born. My two kids, daughters at the time they were born, became the source of my strength and power.

The version of motherhood I witnessed growing up was one of survival, sacrifice, and suppression. So I did the same: I put the kids and the husband first because that’s what I thought I had to do as a mother. It’s all I knew at the time.

As my kids got older and life became busier, I became more out of shape, mentally and physically. I slowly fell into a depression over what I thought was the root cause: my self-image. But after years of trying to work on my body and mental health, I discovered I was confused about my sexuality as a woman and deeply disconnected from my erotic power.

Igniting my Erotic Energy

In 2016, something started to awaken within me. I have always known that I am a multi-passionate human being — someone who chases what intuitively makes me come alive. What I began to feel within me was the slow rising of my sensuality and sexual power, but I was so afraid of it then.

“What would my children think of me if this part of me was more expressive? What would culture, society, or the internet think of me if I began to come into this essence that felt so natural, so organic, and so primal? Can I be a mother and erotic too?”

Audre Lorde says it best, “The erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling.”

Every time my erotic energy came alive I felt the need to shut her down, to protect her, and in some ways, I thought I needed to protect myself. I didn’t trust it. How could I? No one ever showed me how to build a relationship with my erotic essence.

Embracing my Erotic Self

This was the start of the reclamation of the archetype I love to call the Erotic Mother. The reclamation to this part of me was seductive — it felt slightly dangerous but it also felt like home. It was my life force and the source of my creative expression, joy, pleasure, and strength.

For me, the Erotic is the water that flows through my body and the Mother is the structure in which the element nourishes. The moment I embraced the function of these two energies within me, things began to shift. Motherhood began to feel more joyful. Days that once felt exhausting and depleting became days that swelled with a sense of accomplishment. 

I became the woman I always wanted to be for my daughters — a mother who wasn’t afraid to use sensuality to turn her on in all areas of life, who wasn’t fearful of her power as an entrepreneur, who knew her boundaries, and who could communicate them from a place of emotional empowerment.

Read more on the lift, a blog by knix.