JUST SAYING ITS NAME IS ENOUGH

Daven Lee is an intimacy coach. She is also creator of the twice-sold-out Power of the Yin oracle deck (a few of the cards illustrate this piece), an adept of various wisdom traditions and healing therapies, and a dear friend. We met through our daughters, who went to the same funky little K-8 school in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Daven is a true wisewoman. I can think of no one better to ask for advice on sex, love, and mental health. In this wide-ranging interview, we talk about the sexual soul, the field of the Yin, the negatives of sex positivity, what to do about overlong hugs, and much more.

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Jocelyn Davis: What does it mean to be an intimacy coach?

Daven Lee: People come to me for help with sexual and relationship challenges. I focus on women over 50 who feel a deep, unmet longing: a longing to express something inside them that, for various reasons, went underground and became inaccessible. Often they are longing for a soul-connection with another person. And we always work on intimacy with themselves, because that’s where intimacy with others begins.

I call myself a coach, but what I really offer is highly skilled, attuned, gentle guidance. Guidance includes holding space for women to hear themselves, offering my own perspectives, and bringing healing skills from many traditions.

Jocelyn: Is it like being a sex coach?

Daven: No. Sex coaching is usually about tips and tricks: how to have a better orgasm, how to be better in bed. Tips and tricks are fine, but they’re not what I’m working on with my clients.

Jocelyn: At the core of your practice is something you call the sexual soul. Tell me about that.

Daven: My awareness of the sexual soul arose from my own experience. I went from feeling my own deep unmet longing, to leaving my marriage, to exploring sacred Daoist sexuality, Qi Gong, Chinese medicine, cranial-sacral therapy, and more. I learned that nearly every wisdom tradition understands that our sexuality is our life-force energy. In Daoism, it’s called the jing.

But the jing isn’t just about sex; it’s our creative wellspring. If anything defines human beings, it is that we are creators. And each person’s sexual energy is utterly unique to them: a unique blueprint. It has to do with pleasure and eroticism, but it also shows up in every way we express ourselves: What colors attract us? What music do we love? What people are we drawn to? What places do we want to visit? How do we like to work, play, and be? All this life energy originates in our sexual soul.

Jocelyn: How does the sexual soul relate to mental health?

Daven: Our sexual soul is uniquely our own, not what our culture tells us it should be. So often we find ourselves railroading over what we want for the sake of what we’re told we should want, and this can create incredible despair, disappointment, and disconnection in our relationships.

What makes intimacy exciting is the unknown in ourselves and the other person. Real intimacy comes from a place of innocent desire: curiosity, exploration, revealing, discovery. And when we put the sexual soul at the center, because it is our essential energy, it leads the way. The jing is the guide. To hear the voice of her sexual soul when a woman says what is going on with her—it leads us right to her true desires, her gifts, her struggles. I like to say that my compass is tuned to the sexual soul.

Jocelyn: Your practice has roots in the ancient wisdom tradition of yin-yang. You call it the Power of the Yin. Why do you focus on the Yin?

Daven: First of all, you can’t have Yin without Yang—they exist in relationship to each other—but in our culture, we have this incredible overemphasis on the Yang, which is everything outward, measurable, linear, expressive, results-oriented. The Yin, on the other hand, is nonlinear, mysterious, internal, timeless. It’s the realm of the soul; the field in which the sexual soul exists. Our Yang-focus drives us to produce more and more while the Yin, the fertile field, suffers.

Jocelyn: Could you give an example of how Yin power works in our lives?

Daven: I used to be very Yang-oriented: always accomplishing, taking care of business, getting things done. I was also an ice skater, and I kept getting injured, so I started working with a Qi Gong teacher. What’s important in Qi Gong is the slowing down—waaaay down. I began to sense something huge in that slowing down: the Yin, the source, the field of creation, the field of eternity. And the injuries stopped.

In my practice now, I help people remember their connection to the field of the Yin. Women so often say, when it comes to their sexuality, they want to slow way, way down. They want a present-time, emergent experience without a set goal or destination.

Another aspect of the Yin: it’s receptive. The Yang goes out and gets something; the Yin stays still and receives. I hear women saying they struggle to receive love or pleasure. In order to receive, they have to open, which is an inherently risky thing to do. But the opposite—staying contracted, small, tight—that can be devastating, too. How do you feel safe enough to open and receive?

We have to help women find the safety within themselves, to realize they are the ones who decide what is OK and not OK. When we can know what we want and say what we want, then we can trust ourselves, and that’s the foundation for trusting others.

Jocelyn: What else are women seeking when they work with you? How do they describe their pain or hopes?

Daven: There is a sense of longing. It might be something inside that they always wanted to express, or a feeling they have lost themselves and don’t recognize themselves anymore. It might be a feeling of despondency, of not being able to connect with others, or relationships that have been dissatisfying or traumatic. They say, “I’ve shut down a part of myself, and the price is too high.” Many of them know they are coming into the most powerful part of their life; they want to share that power, but they feel stuck, don’t know where to begin, or feel afraid to open this part of themselves up. What will they find that could change everything?

Jocelyn: In feminist circles, one hears a lot about “sex positivity.” How is the sexual soul different from sex positivity?

Daven: The essential concept of sex positivity is true: sex is natural, and each individual gets to decide for themselves what kind of sex (if any) they want to have. It can be genuinely liberating. But this type of work often happens in a group setting—like a tantra retreat—and in that setting, we will start to conform to group expectations: “You should want this, you should want that. You should be free sexually. If you’re not sexually liberated, there is something wrong with you.”

In my practice, the only way to get to the sexual soul is to have no pressure. That is how we actually hear ourselves. When things move too fast, our trauma or our learned behavior tends to take over. The workshops, clubs, and communities: these can be ways to explore, but they can also be ways to run right over your deepest desires.

Jocelyn: Sex education these days seems to be all about “consent”: as long as we get consent, anything goes. What are your thoughts on that? What might we be missing when we talk about consent?

Daven: The pop-culture concept of consent feels to me like an attempt to control a complex, layered, personal experience; a clumsy tool for trying to achieve a very nuanced and attuned connection between two people. In any sexual interaction, there is so much going on, moment to moment, that you can’t simplify into a single yes or no. There is trauma, and context, and the fact that we may not know what we want. Then there is personal responsibility, or resilience; a word I like is resourced. When you know what you want and don’t want, you are more resourced when things don’t go your way.

Verbal consent is just one layer of consent. Am I noticing that my partner is feeling frozen? Are they speeding up and I’m feeling overwhelmed? In a genuine relationship, you get to know the signals. The relationship should be a safe container for something very powerful and by nature wild. I like to say that the sexual soul can’t be controlled, but it can be cultivated.

Also, in everything relational, we tend to lose track of who the giving or receiving is for. This is why I love Dr. Betty Martin’s Wheel of Consent, where the core question is, “Who is this for?” Whether you are giving or receiving, is it for you or for your partner?

The Wheel is an artificial framework, of course, but it brings so much clarity. Things that don’t need to be complex can be simplified. The first step is to name what you want and know that you are allowed to want it. It doesn’t mean you’ll get it, but you need to start by naming it. This is the basis for intimacy, because when you connect to your genuine desire you are revealing your true self.

Jocelyn: What’s an example of how this concept of consent can help our everyday relationships?

Daven: My dad used to give me these very long goodbye hugs. He has always been very demonstrative that way. For me, it was suffocating, but it was also complicated, because I knew he was trying to show me love. I spent a lifetime analyzing his behavior: “What’s wrong with him that he does this? Why do I feel suffocated? Am I a bad daughter? Why can’t I just love him back this way?”

When I came across the Wheel of Consent, I suddenly saw the better question to ask: “Who is this for?” And the answer was obvious: It’s for him! Why he did it or why I felt suffocated did not matter. He thought the hug was for both of us, but it was for him.

The next question followed naturally: “Am I willing to do this for him at this moment?” Maybe I was, or maybe I wasn’t, but either way, I was free to say, “Not right now, Dad.” Or “Sure, I can give you this.” Or “Dad, I would like a shorter hug this time.” I’m not sure we ever talked about it directly. Just my having that clarity was enough to shift the whole dynamic.

Jocelyn: More people than ever before say they are lonely. Fewer people are dating, finding romance, marrying, or forming real-world friendships. What do you see as the biggest barriers to loving relationships today, and how might we start to overcome them?

Daven: The place of our deepest authenticity is also the place of our deepest vulnerability. The place of our deepest self is also the place of our deepest wounding. Nobody escapes the wounds of life. When we are wounded, we immediately start to hide and cover the most authentic part of ourselves—try to be someone we are not—and our culture reinforces that hiding and covering in a million ways. The path back to connection with others is the path back to our authentic self. We have to let the wounds do their work of revealing that self.

Sometimes, when I’m with a client, they’ll say something that touches their unique beauty, and they’ll say, “I hate this about myself.” But I say, “This is you, this is yours.” That’s when the transformation happens. That’s where we find their true gifts and true joy.

Jocelyn: What is a new thought or feeling about love you have had recently?

Daven: Love is not worrying about another or trying to “take care of” another. Yes, it is about caring, but it’s not about rescuing. It’s about being present with someone: trusting the journey they are on and showing up from that place of inherent trust.

Jocelyn: The last line of the Love card is “Believe the sages when they say: You are love."  I love that line! What do you think prevents people from believing it? What happens when we come to believe it?

Daven: This card is part of a set within the deck called “The Absolutes.” There are absolutes to life on earth; no one gets away without experiencing them. Love, in this sense, is not “We’re in love” or “I love the puppy.” We’re talking about a rule of the universe: the infinite, the eternal.

That’s why I wrote, “Call on it in the darkest places. Evoke it when it’s the last thing you feel. Just saying its name is enough”—because it is that powerful. I had a teacher who in the most painful, difficult situations would say, “I’m calling in love at this moment, even if it is the last thing I feel.”

How often do we feel we are not loved, not worthy, inadequate; that we cannot give or receive love? The antidote is to know this truth: We are love. Look to the great sages in every wisdom tradition, the people who have studied and practiced in deep and extreme ways. They all say it: We are love. So it must be true.

To connect with Daven and learn more about her work:

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Jocelyn Davis writes about leadership, history, and mental health. She is the author of Insubordinate: 12 New Archetypes for Women Who Lead and five other books, all of which can be found at JocelynRDavis.com or wherever books are sold.