One of the most powerful antidote to shame

Many people feel stunted in the bedroom because of internalised and sometimes subconscious toxic shame and sexual shame. These may have been inherited from religion, families, narratives of sex negative cultures...

This can make it hard for some people to talk about sex or ask for what they want.

And it takes consciously addressing those inherited beliefs and their somatic imprint for shame to release its grip. This is the type of work I do with my clients in private sessions, where we explore those narratives and tools for communicating.

Play is one of the most effective antidotes to shame I know. But whenever I say that, some point out that shame is exactly what makes play impossible.

One of the defining features of play is a diminished consciousness of self: you stop tracking how you look, whether you're doing it right, what it says about you. Shame is the opposite state. Shame is you, watching and judging yourself.

You can't force your way into play. Esther Perel says you have to feel safe in order to play, you can't do it from anxiety or contraction, and without play, the erotic doesn't really show up either. Play, as she puts it, is when risk is fun.

Which may sound like a trap. It isn't. It's a sequence, and most of us have it backwards.

We assume confidence comes first. That once we've dealt with our stuff, we'll be loose enough to be playful. Play as the prize at the end of the "healing".

It's the other way around. Play is the practice. Stephen Porges calls it a neural exercise: small doses of activation held inside cues of safety. Watch any two animals play, they keep coming back to face-to-face contact, and the moment something lands too hard, they stop and check in. That check-in isn't an interruption of the play. It is the play. It's how a body learns it can be stirred up without being in danger.

It's also why the stakes have to start low. Shame goes for the big stuff: am I too much, am I broken, am I even desirable. Play shrinks the stakes. Inside a game, a "wrong move" isn't evidence about who you are, it's just a move. Which is why people can say as a character, in a costume, in a role, in a bit of theatre, what they'd never otherwise say. When you play, you can be whoever you want and get out of your own way.

And it's why laughter does so much of the work. Brené Brown says shame needs three things to grow: secrecy, silence and judgment. Play breaks all three at once. It's shared, it's noisy, and it suspends judgment by agreement. Shame requires being taken seriously. Play refuses.

So no, you don't have to arrive un-shamed to play. You don't even have to feel confident. You have to feel safe, and safety isn't something you manufacture alone by trying harder. It gets built, with consent and choice and practice.

That's what Wild Play retreat is about. A container low-stakes enough that the body finally gets to find out what's underneath. And PLAY. Want to join us?