On this episode, when a single ED experience changes things.
Hey guys, welcome back to the show. I’m Steven Mathis. Thank you for making this a part of your day. Thank you for being a part of this growing tribe. Let’s talk about erections, specifically erections. Erectile dysfunction, and something in particular that I have heard from a lot of guys over the last several years.
And that is this, when things are going along pretty well in terms of having sex with a partner, whether that’s a girlfriend, a series of girlfriends, a wife, whatever it is, things are going pretty well sometimes for a long period of time. And then a single experience, a single night, or maybe a couple, or maybe a few, where things don’t go well, changes things.
And it seems to change things long term. In fact, it does change things long term for some guys. Because I’ve heard from many guys where that has happened, and then 1, 5, 10, 20 years have gone by. of then having struggles of then continually facing this challenge of erection problems with their partner where it didn’t exist before, where every physical indicator seems to indicate that things are fine.
For example, they’re having morning wood, they could get an erection if they’re, you know, edging masturbating alone. And yet, the problem seems to continue to persist with their partner or with a series of partners. I’ve heard from a lot of guys where this has ended a number of relationships for them, where once that, you know, kind of experience happened and things shifted, they had a series of relationships that ended relatively quickly.
I’ve heard from guys who’ve been married for a very long time, where that was a night or a day or a few times where things changed and they just weren’t the same. After that, let’s talk about why that is and what we can do about it. Here’s the thing. If we are still seeing physical indicators that we can get good erections and that we are getting good erections, for example, waking up with good morning wood, that is a huge sign.
Being able to get an erection alone or under certain circumstances, again, good signs that physically things are relatively well. Where they are not well in this situation. is really in our patterns. It’s in the wiring of our mind, our body and our autonomic nervous system. Because a big part of the ejaculation response and the erection response is an autonomic nervous system process.
That means a chunk of it is under the surface, like our heartbeat or things that we cannot as directly control. We can learn to influence them. People do learn to influence things like their heartbeat. And all of these autonomic nervous system processes, and in fact, we can very much learn to influence how long we can last, our erection quality, and various aspects of our sexual health, which to that point, and still, are very much an autonomic nervous system process.
So when this happens, when guys experience a single event, a couple of events that really shift things, what has really happened, is if we think about playing an old school record On a record player, what has basically happened is that needle has shifted over to a new groove in the record, to a different groove in the record, and it gets stuck.
It gets stuck in that same groove. The rest of the record is still there, still functional, still works perfectly fine, but the needle is stuck in that one groove. groove. And a lot of times this happens in the beginning because it can be such a difficult experience when that happens, when guys are not expecting it.
And when it’s a new thing, it can be an experience that is filled with a lot of shame and guilt and various things, depending on the exact circumstances, but it’s not an easy experience. And so what happens with a lot of guys based on the conversations that I’ve had is there’s an initial process Of, okay, going into the following encounters with their partner, there is a lot of anxiety that the same thing is going to happen again.
And that anxiety is in essence, determining and sending the signal to our needle to go in that same groove, right? Especially if we feel that anxiety very strongly, we are in essence, setting that as the target for our body. So the needle goes in the same groove on the record and the same thing repeats.
And then, after a while, it’s really outside of the control of, okay, is the anxiety just the thing? Could you be more present in the moment? After months or years or many years of a similar pattern, it becomes very much grooved in. That needle becomes very much stuck in that groove. I know a lot of you guys have experienced this or some version of this.
However, it does not have to remain stuck in that groove. We can absolutely. change this. Now it doesn’t change overnight. However, we can absolutely change it. And the first thing to doing that is to recognize that in fact, there’s not some part of the system that is broken. There’s not some part of the system that you can no longer access or something that you can never get back to.
It’s just a matter of moving the needle over to a new groove that takes time. It takes persistence. It takes consistent practices that help ingrain that new groove, that help you feel what that feels like, and hear, so to speak, in terms of the record analogy, hear energetically what that is like in your body.
When you can experience that new groove again, which is really the old groove, because for a lot of you guys who’ve experienced this, things were going well for a long time. So what’s old is new again. It is new again by practicing new practices, by reconnecting and rewiring. The fundamentals of this are going to come down to a few aspects.
One is mental. Certainly your mindset, the thoughts that you allow to dwell in your mind, the thoughts that you focus on and engage with when it comes to this stuff absolutely matter. Part of it is emotional. There are emotional triggers. There are emotions that get stuck. In the body, because these are very powerful emotions that guys experience when this happens and very powerful emotions that are experienced over a period of years when it happens for a long time.
So there’s an emotional healing component and a rewiring of those emotions. There is that component. And then there’s a rewiring of the body because our body goes in patterns. Our body moves in patterned ways. Watch somebody walk or run or eat or how they sit. Or any number of other aspects of life and you will see that we are very much creatures of habit.
Our bodies get programmed and wired and they start repeating that same thing unless or until we change it. So that is part of what has happened here as well, is that the body, the autonomic nervous system, and the physical aspects of the body have repeated the same thing so often, so many times now. The same thing in terms of having anxiety, or not being able to get an erection, or not even wanting to have sex, or being able to have sex because you know you can’t get an erection.
And all of this stuff, it has been repeated so many times that that’s what’s wired into the body, but it doesn’t always have to stay that way. The mental aspect, the emotional aspect, the physical aspect, all of these things can be rewired and reprogrammed and that is how you move through this and change the story once again.
For a lot of guys, they were going along and something happened in this way and the timeline shifted. And in this regard, it shifted in a negative kind of aspect. It removed a lot of joy and created a lot of difficult emotions, but that story can shift again, it can shift in a positive direction and really what that.
boils down to is consistent practices that reconnect and rewire your body. Largely that is going to come down to your edging practice. This is one of the things where an edging practice is so beneficial. It allows you to retrain how your body responds. It allows you to retrain how your mind and your emotions respond to stimulation and respond to Getting an erection, and having sexual energy build up, and all of these things.
It is your practice arena. If you are in a relationship now, or you want to be in a relationship again in the future, the place to practice is not in the relationship. That’s like an NBA player deciding that they don’t need to practice, they’re just gonna play the games. There’s zero players that do that.
And don’t get hung up on the NBA, obviously. Doesn’t matter. The analogy holds true. We need to practice. We need to practice if we are going to be able to show up effectively, and especially if a player, for example, is really off, they’re just on a streak of playing terrible, then largely, and often, what is required is is practicing some new things, going back to the drawing board, going back to the, to the batting cage, going back to the practice situation where you can rewire and reprogram those things.
That is one of the major functions that are mindful, sacred edging practice can serve in our lives. It can help us work through those things and heal those things and completely change that story. In terms of how we connect, not only with ourselves, but with partners and specifically and absolutely including how our erections go, if this is something you have experienced, I’m going to leave you with this, have faith that it can change because I know for a lot of guys, many years go by.
And it doesn’t change and they try various things and it still doesn’t change and they start to lose faith and they start to lose hope and often they’re working on it completely alone in their own head and it’s a very emotional, very intense thing. Have faith that it can absolutely change. I have seen so many guys that I have worked, that I’ve worked with change the story in this exact situation.
This exact situation. Now you have the own, your own unique circumstances. And for a lot of you guys, you’re not in this particular situation, but we can learn things from it regardless. And that is primarily that we, we can rewire and reprogram all of this stuff if we have the intention and we decide to, and we commit to regular practices that do that.
Send you guys all my best. Thank you for listening, for watching. Continue to move forward and take steps in your sexuality. It is such a powerful, amazing thing. Go get some keep building keep growing. I support you guys. Thank you. We’ll talk to you soon.
