Re-thinking Performance Anxiety
When your body just won’t perform the way you want it to in intimacy, it’s tempting to cover it up and even avoid intimacy altogether.
When you’re outwardly successful and powerful, having a secret vulnerability in the bedroom department can be agony.
Even worse, it’s true that sometimes women can be merciless when it comes to criticism of men’s ‘performance’ in bed.
This can lead to secrecy, shame, and relating to your body with anxiety, criticism and disappointment — which makes the whole thing worse, in a downward spiral.
However, there is a way out of this mess.
A Radical Shift in Perspective
One of the gifts of Neo-tantra is the radical acceptance of the truth of our moment-to-moment experience of life.
Part of that looks like relating to your body, pleasure, and sex without shame.
From this lens, the number one thing I can tell you that helps if you’re anxious about what your body is going to do or not do in intimacy is:
Consider that your body might be wise.
And, your body (and yes, your cock) may be trying to tell you something when it’s not ‘performing’ the way you want it to in the bedroom.
Tuning Into Body Wisdom
The key to overcoming performance anxiety is listening to your cock.
Performance anxiety could be your cock trying to communicate with you that:
The woman you’re interacting with isn’t a safe person for you to be intimate with
There’s a conversation you need to have with your wife that you’ve been avoiding
There’s an old memory trying to surface
There’s an emotion that needs to be felt
There’s some way you haven’t been honoring yourself in your relationship
Now, I’m not dismissing, real, biological causes of finishing before you’re ready or having challenges with erections — definitely consult your doctor.
What I am saying is that continuing to criticise and feel disappointment in your body only creates more anxiety, which physiologically reinforces the problem.
Instead you can turn toward your body and your cock with curiosity and compassion, and consider:
Is there a deeper relational, emotional, psychological issue at hand that you need to address?
Once you cultivate a relationship of respect with your body and allow yourself to ‘hear’ what the REAL issue is, then you can make changes that actually work, instead of feeling frustrated and in the dark.
Now, let’s look a little closer at this approach and explore how it can transform your experience of performance anxiety.
5 Keys to Overcoming Performance Anxiety
Cultivate Self-Compassion: Instead of beating yourself up, relate to your body and especially your cock like an old friend. Treat your body and emotions regarding sex with kindness and curiosity, acknowledging that performance anxiety is a common experience.
Expand your definition of sex and your experience of pleasure: instead of focusing on intercourse, re-claim ‘foreplay’ as ‘coreplay’ and explore energy play, for example. Being able to get creative in intimacy is actually a huge opportunity that will make you more skilled as a lover.
Talk about sex: Instead of operating based on unconscious narratives and believing you have to already know everything, talk about what your desires and fears are when it comes to intimacy. Set your standards such that anyone you’re going to be intimate with needs to be able to talk about sex with you.
Practice non-linear sex: Let go of rigid expectations and performance pressures, and instead focus on the present moment. Allow intimacy to unfold naturally, without the need to achieve a specific outcome. Give yourself permission to stop, slow down, and even take a break.
Train wisely: Develop an intentional self-pleasure practice that supports deeper connection to your body, explores new pleasure pathways, and trains your body to last as long as you want.
Orient toward pleasure, not perfection
Overcoming performance anxiety is not about ‘fixing’ yourself or living up to unrealistic standards of perfection.
It’s about being honest about what’s really going on for you, and confidently being creative about what sex and pleasure can look like.
Something way hotter than you ever thought possible may emerge!
Join the Community
For more on overcoming performance anxiety and other common obstacles and barriers to pleasure and liberated sexuality, join my free Facebook community: Passionate Relationships for Powerful Men.
All genders are welcome in the group (so that we learn from each other!), though the content is focussed on men.
In this group you’ll find 350+ powerful men: successful executives, VCs and tech founders who’ve built world-class businesses, now building world-class relationships.
See you there!
With love,
Dr. Jessica
xo
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