Were you held enough as a baby? Were you ever held with unconditional love?In the first six months of your life, did a loving person hold you most of the time? Or were you left alone a lot to cry, or held by a smothering or cold person?
Today, as an adult, do you still feel a need for holding, for touch? Do you wish you could be held and rocked like a baby, or even nursed?
Many people who did not receive the holding they needed as infants, grow up with a deep longing to be held in the way they needed to be held as a baby.
Because it is not easy in our society to receive this kind of holding as an adult, many people confuse this need with sex.
Leticia consulted with me because she had a hard time connecting with people.
Having been abused and neglected as a child, she had never experienced a sense of bonding with another person. She was aware of a deep longing to be held and physically nurtured by a woman, and she had concluded, as a result of this longing, that she was a lesbian. She had become sexually involved with a woman in the hopes of fulfilling the longing, but it was not happening. She was confused.
%26quot;How come when Gayle holds me it doesn't heal that longing in me?%26quot; she asked.
%26quot;Leticia, what generally happens when Gayle holds you?%26quot; %26quot;We end up making love.%26quot;
%26quot;Is your longing for sex or for loving holding?%26quot;
%26quot;I really want the holding. I also want to be nursed. I thought if she nursed me, that deep longing would go away. But it hasn't and I don't understand why.%26quot;
%26quot;Leticia, when you were a baby and needed loving holding, did you also need sex?%26quot; %26quot;No, of course not!%26quot;
%26quot;And if someone had held you and then been sexual with you, would that have been loving to you?%26quot; %26quot;Absolutely not!%26quot;
%26quot;Well, it is no different today. The little baby in you wants to have what she didn't get. She wants to be held with love. When you are held with love and then you have sex, it is actually violating to the little one within you. It is a betrayal. This is why it is not healing.
You are trying to heal the little baby with an adult activity, and this will never work.
If you want a sexual relationship, then have a sexual relationship. But if you want mothering, then you need to find a totally different kind of relationship.%26quot;
%26quot;So does this mean I am or am not a lesbian?%26quot;
%26quot;Wanting to be mothered has nothing to do with being a lesbian. Are you more sexually attracted to men or to women?%26quot;
%26quot;To men. I have had much better sex with men than with Gayle.%26quot;
%26quot;Then it seems that you are not a lesbian. You have sexualized your need for mothering and that will not heal the baby who just wants the mothering.%26quot;
%26quot;So what do I do?%26quot;
%26quot;Finding mothering is, unfortunately, not easy. If you have a good friend or relative who can hold you with tenderness and love, that would be great.
You can come to an intensive and receive a lot of safe holding there. But you also need to learn to open to your loving spiritual Guidance and bring that love into yourself.
I suggest that you get a doll or stuffed animal that represents the baby in you and start to practice holding her and bringing to her the love she is longing for.
You will be surprised at how much healing you can receive by holding the baby within you.%26quot;
Leticia was fortunate. She had a motherly friend, a woman with children of her own, who was more than happy to hold her. Over the months of being held by her friend and of holding herself, the longing gradually healed. Leticia is now married and delightedly expecting her first child!
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