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Embodying your Sexuality P1 & P2, Episode 160 & Episode 161.
“Save sex for marriage”. A wise piece of advice. But because I didn’t learn anything about it’s value, I just assumed it was nasty.
But I never learned about my Ressa. Why your Ressa needed to be reframed and renamed: Ressa = Receiving him into your Essence
(Feel free to keep the name you feel most comfortable with. However, I don’t feel comfortable using the words publicly on this show, that to me either evoke negative/pornographic connotations or are medical terms that don’t include all the areas and don’t capture the radiance of your essence.)
We as Christian women often don’t respect it or honor it as wonderful good.
A lot of negative and embarrassing things happened while learning how to grow up with a Ressa. You may have a negative view of it just because of the way you grew up.
- Episode 110 Luke Gilkerson how to raise healthy sexual kids.
Is it awkward to consider God coming into the room with your husband and you making love? He’s not surprised.
God made it all. He made it to be filled with blood and become sensitive when its touched.
Embracing the fullness of your Ressa is foundational for you to walk in pleasure in your intimacy. For you to relax and receive him into your essence. Next week builds upon this one, so be sure to do your homework!
Next week’s podcast:
176-Body P5: Value Touch
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Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. This show where you hear from amazing and inspiring wives sharing their struggles, triumphs, and advice for this journey called marriage. Here’s your host belah. Rose.
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Oh, okay, welcome back. Thank you so much for joining. If this is your first time with the show, you are in for a treat. We talk about marriage, I often interview wives about their just journeys, things that they’ve had challenges with, and what they’ve learned. And a lot of it is about sexuality is a lot about physical intimacy in your marriage, because that’s so important, to a vital and wonderful unity. That I believe God really desires for you and your husband. So we’re in the middle of our series about body, body image, food issues, all that stuff, it really goes all together, and it affects your sexuality. Because the greater acceptance you have of your body, the more you’re going to enjoy sex, the more you’re going to relax, the more that you’re going to be present. Because you’re not thinking, oh my gosh, I’ve got a second or, you know, I can’t wear that in front of him. My, you know, this part that I hate is showing. But instead, if you become free with who you are, and you become free with everything that your body is, you’re going to like it more, you’re going to start to be able to focus on what is pleasurable, instead of what you look like. So yeah, this is cool. So I have asked a few times throughout this series that you would actually do the series in order because it really builds on each other. And if you want to make significant changes in your life around the way you think about your body and present your body and your marriage, and food and all those things, I think they all connect. I encourage you to take the time and walk with me in this week by week. We’ve got a few more sessions of the series. So yeah, start from the beginning. And go with me, it starts from the beginning of January 2018. So alright, let’s dive in. This one’s called honoring your ReSSA. Now, you might be wondering what I mean by Reza. And if you did listen to a podcast not too long ago called embodying your sexuality. I encourage you to go back and listen to that. But if you didn’t yet get a chance to listen. I I’m sorry. It’s 160 and 161. embodying your sexuality. Yeah, I like it. I like those episodes. I think it’ll be helpful for this conversation as well.
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What do I mean by Reza? Before I tell you that I want to tell you kind of a story.
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For me. I grew up telling everyone, no no listening to everyone. Say things like save sex for marriage. And that’s great. I did. You know, I saved it. I think that’s wise. I think it’s the best thing to do. But I never learned about my ReSSA and now I’ll explain what it is right. That’s, that’s your womanhood. That’s, I’ll tell you the name why it’s called that but that’s not just your vagina. That’s your vulva. That’s your pubic mounds. That’s the labia menorah labia majora. It’s even kind of a three inch diameter would be the word around your vagina. So all all of that space that you I mean, that really is most intimate for you or your most vulnerable. In in knowing that, right? Um, it’s called ReSSA because you’re receiving Him into your essence ReSSA receiving into your essence. And that’s really what it is. That’s your ReSSA is beauty. It’s your essence as a woman. And it’s not something that we as Christian women grow up understanding as beautiful or honoring. It you know, a lot happens down there growing up, right? There’s the there’s we got to figure out puberty. How frustrating is that? You got to learn how to use a pad. And you don’t even know why this is happening to you and probably way earlier than you would ever want to have a kid you had a period. And you know, you probably grew up thinking it was gross that you had to use these different paraphernalia up in their tampons, whatever. And you probably even had like embarrassing experiences where I remember gosh, no one knew about it, thank God, but I remember something about my tampon got backed up the was me and my best friend, I’m trying to remember what happened. We were at a youth lock in at church. So that meant like, the youth group was spending the night at church. And something about they were like, I can’t remember exactly, but somehow it clogged with toilet and it was kind of like a big issue. The point is, embarrassing moments could have happened in your youth, you know, like poor kids, they bleed through their pant. I mean, there’s all sorts of things. And also, you know, it’s just an interesting way that we have to kind of deal with womanly stuff that we probably didn’t grow up thinking it was this really holy, beautiful part of our body. In fact, we probably thought it was ugly, and weird. And it was not, not something we kind of wanted to embrace, I would say as as a holy part of our of our womanhood, the other thing is more than likely, we were not taught that this is good. We were not taught that this is beautiful. Because our parents didn’t know how to talk about it. They just didn’t, their parents didn’t know how to talk about it. I’m struggling as a parent knowing how to talk about it. You know, I’ve got plenty of people to learn from that. I’m going to go follow up Luke Gilkerson, actually, is a great, great resource. I’ll just let me find his episode that he talks specifically about how to teach your kids about about about sex, because it’s so important. Okay, here we go. It was episode I interviewed him episode 110. Very, very good episode. So I need to re listen to that episode, and then follow up because he’s got some really good resources. But the point is that more than likely, you are not raised with understandings that made it healthy and good for you to have a Reza Why did Reza need to be renamed, because whatever name you have used, you’re welcome to keep using, please don’t feel like I need you to rename your ReSSA in your own private
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bedroom. Or even in the way you talk to other people about it. Whatever you’re comfortable with is fine. What I am comfortable with was nothing that was out there. I feel like vagina is essentially the sheath. It’s not anatomically correct in terms of what I want to talk about. I want to talk about the part of your as a kid, you call it private parts, your lady parts the jewel between your legs, right? That’s what I want to talk about. And so that needs a new name, because unless we start to put it into a new framework, we can’t because it either evokes pornographic images, or it evokes um you know, gross dirty things like it’s bad. And it’s it’s just completely opposite. I think I think a new name needed to be given so that you can start to think of it as beauty as Wonder as joy as excitement as you know part of your essence of who you are as a woman that you wouldn’t be a woman without that you know, this is God given your your your gorgeous your rest is gorgeous. You know the folds the color all the areas of it and just ask your husband he’ll tell you you know if you’re not at a safe place where he does give you compliments about your wrestler yet trust that he does. Men love races, alright, just they’re wired to. We might think it looks weird. It does nothing for us at all are like Oh, but the point is, God made them to love it. To love it to love the smell the way it tastes the way it looks all of those things. So for you, as a woman to honor your ReSSA, what does that mean? What does it mean to go from a place of thinking it’s gross as I was, in fact, I had come from a place where I wanted to save sex for marriage, because I thought my body was so gross, that no one would want me if they saw it before I was married. And then, you know, they had no choice. They were already married. They they couldn’t go back. I’m not it. I mean that. Yeah, that’s how I felt. So it was probably shortly before marriage, that that changed in terms of my thought process. But most of my life, that’s why I was able to wait so long. I don’t think that’s an effective method or a good method to help your children. But that, that was how it worked with me. So the point is that no, honoring your ReSSA to realize that it’s not gross, that it’s just the way it’s supposed to be. It’s handcrafted. I think, and I go into this a lot in my book to let your husband, I bring up my book, because I don’t always bring it up. And the book is really the secret sauce. I talk about a lot of sex stuff on my podcast. But if you don’t read the book, you miss a lot, because I go very explicitly in there. There’s a lot I don’t cover on the podcast, because who knows who’s listening, right? I don’t, but the book is got the stuff in there. Okay, so the practical, really, really practical, but there are not pictures just for any woman that gets squeamish. I get squeamish at pictures. I don’t like it. So there’s no pictures, but it is practical it is get your teeth in it, figure it out, get confident about your sex life. Right. You don’t have to keep thinking, is it bad? Is it sinful? You know, what do I do? What does my husband think? What do I think about you know, my body, how to be confident all that stuff. And then detail like specifics of what to do with your body, with his body, like all those things very, very specific. So I encourage you to let your husband get your teeth into this stuff, figure it out. And, and like I said, all my free stuff hopefully is like hugely helpful to you. But
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yeah, the the, you know, there’s, there’s really good stuff in the book. So I mentioned that. But in my book, I talk about, let’s say your Eve in the garden, okay, Adams, your husband, and you’re sitting down by the stream, and you’re dangling your feet in the water. And it’s, it feels so cool and refreshing. And you’re sitting next to this beautiful tree. It’s one of your favorite spots to sit in the garden and you just kind of are looking out and just letting your eyes just dance on whatever strikes your fancy Oh, there’s a butterfly that you’re just letting yourself gaze on and then suddenly you see something rustle in the you know, kind of undergrowth near you and a fawn comes out with her mother and you just enjoy the scenery. It’s gorgeous and lush and green and beautiful. And suddenly your husband grazes your shoulder and you look around laughing excited to see him and butterflies kind of come into your stomach as you realize that he is there and and he’s and so you jump up from your feet and just excited to play with him and you give him a big kiss and then you run off and say come and get me and you run and run and run run as fast as you can and jump over the the branches and around and suit he wrestles you to the ground and the soft spot patch of grass and you make love and it’s just oh it’s darling. It’s just wonderfully enjoyable for the both of you and just in the afterglow of sex. You’re you know, just laying on your husband’s chest and God walks up you go oh, Lord, hello, welcome. Come sit down. It’s just Oh, it’s so wonderful to to see you and you know how wonderful you made my husband. He has just done so much. For me so many good things. We had such a lovely afternoon. If you think about it for a second, it was shocking. To have God walk in on you and your husband making love. I’m wondering why? Why did you feel embarrassed that God saw you making love? Well, God made it. He made it good. He made your husband’s member to become erect when he sees you and feels you, and he made your restaurant to be filled with blood and sensitive, when you are touched and enjoyed. And so God made it all. He knows that it’s sensitive, he knows that it responds. And it’s good. He did that he designed your ReSSA. It’s good. It’s holy, it’s beautiful. It’s just the way it should be. And so I encourage you, how can you honor your VESA, you can make sure that you think about it sounds strange, but you can ensure that this is part of your body. This is not something to be ignored, or act like it’s, it’s no big deal, but something to value. And make sure that you’re using panties that are beautiful and not, you know, things that you just throw on because you don’t have anything else but something that really honors what you have. And then also just just the way you care for it, and the your cleaning habits and the ways that you interact with it that it’s beautiful. It’s good, you can touch it, you can enjoy it, you don’t have to feel like this is off limits or gross. So what is your homework, it is to go back and listen to episode 160 and 161. And two,
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even if you’ve already listened to it before, I’d encourage you to just listen again and see what nuggets you might pick up additionally, and to just journal about it. And journal about how you feel about your wrestle right now and why? And think about pray about what things resonated with you from this podcast and what things felt really awkward and uncomfortable. As I was saying them. I encourage you to just be curious about why Why was this awkward? Why was it uncomfortable? What was going on for you really spend the time to journal about this, if you want this to change, you’ve got to do some hard work to make sure that it does. Alright, God bless you. And we will be talking next Tuesday more about body, we’re going to be talking about valuing your touch, valuing touch. So it’ll be a little interesting to learn more about how your body works as a woman, and how touch is so important to that. So let’s talk that way. Yeah, it’s more about enjoying sex than anything else. I’ve come across so many women in my coaching, and just in my normal day to day life that really are so disconnected with their ReSSA that they don’t even touch it or look at it or any kind of appreciate appreciation for their ReSSA there’s just nothing and I think it’s because they just are so far away from valuing what God has given them and it is truly a jewel, it’s truly their essence. It’s truly this reception into who they are. It’s it’s not anything that the world has, has decided it is in in the sinful areas but within your marriage within where God made your Reza to be enjoyed and to be honored. That is where it belongs. That is where the honor can be happening is in your marriage. And so you really have to be the one to start this. I was just telling a coaching client recently is that if you think about you, being a host, receiving your guests receiving your guests into your home, it’s your responsibility to be comfortable, to be enthusiastic to make them feel comfortable, make them feel at home, in your home. And that’s you as a wife, you are the receiver you do receive your husband into your essence. And so that’s the same kind of thought processes. Your comfort level with your Reza causes him to feel more comfortable causes him to enjoy more. So as you feel more comfortable with your essay, you will enjoy the interaction more as well. And so it’s a process of understanding your ReSSA and being willing to engage in sexual intimacy with this understanding that your ReSSA is the environment in which sex takes place, your ReSSA is what makes sex happen. You are receiving his remember, you are the environment in which sex happens. And so your acknowledgement, your enjoyment, your awareness of your ReSSA is really important for you to enjoy sex. And so the next episode, I’m going to be talking about valuing touch. But this element is so important for you to get to that place of valuing touch of intimacy. Because if you don’t
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honor your ReSSA, and accept and embrace your rests as holy and good, you won’t be able to get to that teaching and receive all that you could. I wanted to just kind of go into that a little deeper. Because what I’d like you to really do this week is to really do this is to really focus in on how you think about your wrestle right now. How do you feel about it? What words have really messed things up for you? Where were their experiences? I know sometimes in our culture, we’re so afraid to go backwards and to think about an experience. And I’m not saying you need to, you know, blame your whole life on your childhood. Please don’t misunderstand me that’s not. But if we don’t understand where things come from, we’re unaware of how it affects us now. So it’s almost like this pain pocket that needs to be processed and digested, and then it’s free to go. And I actually got that analogy from women food, and God, what I referenced in episode let’s see 173 I think which is the body series part to know your worth and freedom with food. So women, food and God, but anyway, the point is that process that pain, where where does that negativity around your ReSSA come from? Was it about how someone at school talked about it? Was it the fact that your mom didn’t teach you what it meant? Was it the way unfortunately, you had a really horrible experience with someone inappropriately touching your Reza? Was it you know, you being molested as a kid and thinking that you liked it and you’re really confused is was the molestation your fault. I mean, there’s just so much and I, I don’t want to say that, you have to go back to these scenarios by yourself. No, therapy is a huge, wonderful, important piece, or processing with your husband, if he’s a safe person to do that with or processing with a mature, safe Christian woman. But if you can’t get to a space of honoring, valuing your ReSSA, the enjoyment of intimacy is going to be missing, at least to the degree that God wants you to have it. Because your ReSSA is the environment in which sex takes place you are receiving your husband, the more you feel comfortable, the more you will enjoy the experience. And again, we’ll be talking about that next week more so. And I think it’s gonna be wonderful. I really do. Do the hard work this week. See what you can do to focus on it. Block out some time, grab your journal, ask the hard questions. What’s going on for you? Why do you feel this way? What is blocking you from taking that next step? Call the person who is safe that can talk you through this conversation. Take some next steps. So you do move into a place of deeper acceptance. All right, my dear, thank you for joining me. Thanks for sticking this one out. If you’re uncomfortable, I’m just grateful you’re here. You’re doing great, hard work. God bless you and we will talk soon. Next Tuesday, in fact.
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Thanks for joining. If you’ve been inspired by the show, would you help spread the word? If you take a moment to review and subscribe others can find us more easily. Find out how to delight your marriage.com forward slash iTunes. Until next time, live with love, wisdom impassion