Self love is, essentially, the opposite of shame. When we behave in alignment with the idea that we are worth loving as we are, we in alignment with the idea that there’s nothing wrong with us, that we deserve, for example, healthy food, enough sleep, and pleasurable experiences. For some of us, that causes a kind of rebound effect where we end up falling back into self-punishment and in our familiar old hole of shame.

After healing from sexual assault, sex has to change. Whatever our experience of sex before the assault and however it has affected our lives, sex can never be the same again. Here’s the good news: it can be way better.

For a lot of us, especially when we have experienced trauma, been through difficult times, or, like, ever made a mistake, trusting ourselves can feel more complicated. I mean, trust myself to what, exactly?

I used to think trusting myself meant being able to feel into my gut or intuitions and just “know” something. Like whether or not a certain person was good to date. Whether I should follow a particular career path. Should I buy a yoga studio? What I should have for lunch??

In the event of non-consensual penetration of any kind, the vagina might be expressing its displeasure by being “out of balance.” Sometimes the issue is about a spiritual or energetic penetration: someone pressing toxic energy into you or making you do things you don’t want to do (whether sexually or not).

Hunger is a form of physical desire. It is something that we feel in our bodies and, when we’re healthy, it’s unambiguous. We can feel it right there in our stomachs. Fullness is a physically felt aversion, an internally felt “no” or “stop” signal. Feeling and following our hunger and fullness signals is a powerful way to practice consent within our own bodies, to teach our nervous systems that our desires and our limits matter.

Food and love are inextricably linked. The association is old: when we are babies, food almost always comes alongside touch, with the closeness of a caregiver. Most babies quickly learn that when they cry, they generally get milk. We learn early on that food soothes. When we get older, food can become a replacement for love.