For over a decade, Charon has worked with individuals and couples in the territory where most healing becomes visible and felt: the body. A Licensed Master Social Worker, relationship therapist, somatic psychotherapist, and shamanic bodyworker, her approach is trauma-informed, somatic, and deeply relational, drawing on attachment theory, polyvagal theory, Compassionate Inquiry®, and the practices of erotic embodiment.
In this excerpt, she explores the life-force energy many of us were taught to suppress and why reclaiming it may open access to a fuller sense of aliveness. Hear the full conversation on The Gifts of Trauma Podcast.
There is an energy most of us were taught to suppress early and often. Charon Normand-Widmer, the author of Sovereign in Love: The Nervous System Path to Holding Desire, Power and Intimacy, has spent a lifetime helping people find their way back to it.
CHARON: What I’ve come to understand about the energy of sexuality is that it’s our life force. So if we have a shame, an anger, or a fear relationship with our sexuality, it’s my belief that we’re not as plugged into life as we could be.
She makes it clear that this is not a conversation about intercourse but about aliveness. And somewhat surprisingly, she suggests that our ability to access our sexuality doesn’t depend on us having a partner.
CHARON: Even if we’re not partnered, we can work on having a healthy sexuality because what we’re doing is stepping into that flow, the energetic flow of life. When that flow is blocked, we feel it everywhere, not just in our intimate lives but also in our daily capacity to tolerate, connect, and engage. When there’s blockage there, we’re also more likely to get upset with the person in front of us because we’re blocked inside. But when we have that flow moving through us, we have more capacity to engage with different aspects of life without it necessarily sending us above or below our window of tolerance. Because when we have that sexual energy flowing, our capacity is bigger and we can tolerate more.
What created the blockage in the first place? For most of us it was shame, and Charon addresses where that shame typically originates.
CHARON: The shroud of shame surrounding sexuality has caused many of us to be small. Some of that is by design, I think, to keep people disempowered. So we’re not going to be asking the bigger questions.
But eroticism, which is what she names this life force in its most accessible form, is not as distant as shame would have us believe. It shows up in the most ordinary moments.
CHARON: Eroticism shows up when we have our favourite cup of tea, or see a beautiful sunrise, or we’re in that relationship and we feel like, ‘My person heard me. They got me. I feel seen and heard.’ That’s eroticism. And the importance of freeing sexual energy is that it touches every aspect of our lives because it is the energy of life; it is aliveness. This is how each of us got here; our parents had sex, and that’s how we’re here. And so to celebrate life, we want to be able to touch that eroticism, that aliveness. When we can connect with and plug into that force in our lives, we really have no idea how good life can be.
Charon’s path to this understanding began in childhood, long before she had language for it.
CHARON: I grew up in a household where there was a lot of grief… watching my mother deal with it… and very early on I started reading people’s bodies. My parents yelled a lot, and what happens for me when I hear someone yelling is I go into a freeze. Because my nervous system, in that moment, is back with that 10-year-old girl who was like, ‘I don’t know what’s being asked of me right now.’
Charon’s early attunement became the foundation for everything that followed: The somatic training, the shamanic bodywork, her studies with Pat Ogden, and ultimately her capacity to guide others back into their own bodies with extraordinary gentleness. In the opening minutes of this conversation, she offers Kevin Young a live demonstration.
CHARON: I’m going to ask you to rest behind your eyes, to locate your awareness behind your eyes. Now I want you to notice your right thumb, maybe wiggle it a bit… Now return behind your eyes, and with this same awareness, I’m going to invite you to bring awareness to your shoulders. Let’s go with the right one first. And you’re bringing awareness with so much curiosity to this shoulder, as if you’ve never seen this shoulder before and you just hang out there. Maybe you’re noticing sensations, maybe there’s nothing—it’s all okay. Maybe you can slide over to the other shoulder with so much curiosity, and you’re just noticing what you notice. Then return behind your eyes and join me when you’re ready.
Charon goes on to read an excerpt from her book, Sovereign in Love. She chose Chapter Six, titled “The Timing of Repair.” Throughout this passage, her words offer what may be her clearest distillation of the experience of sovereignty in relationship.
CHARON: A sovereign nervous system does not win arguments. It recognizes when it can no longer have one. This is not weakness; it is the most sophisticated form of relational intelligence available. The ability to read our own internal state with enough accuracy to know, ‘I am no longer here; I am in threat… Whatever comes out of my mouth right now will not serve this relationship, this person, or the truth I actually want to speak.’ And then to pause, not to avoid, not to suppress, but to pause with intention. Sovereigns do not argue in threat. They wait for coherence, because coherence is when words finally have the chance to land.
Charon is equally precise about what sovereignty is not:
CHARON: When I say “power,” I don’t mean power over anybody but power within ourselves. Power to stand next to whoever it is we wish to be with. Being sovereign brings us presence; it brings us groundedness. It opens space for that clarity to come in.
The invitation that Charon extends, in her practice, in her book, and in this conversation, comes down to simply claiming what is already ours. Because pleasure, she says, is our birthright.
The Gifts of Trauma is a weekly podcast that features personal stories of trauma, transformation, healing, and the gifts revealed on the path to authenticity. Listen to the full conversation, and if it resonates, please subscribe, rate, review, and share.
Editor’s Note: This post is comprised of edited excerpts drawn from The Gifts of Trauma podcast transcript. Selected passages have been carefully woven together to create a cohesive narrative that speaks in the guests’ voices and faithfully represents their perspectives. – Rosemary Davies-Janes
