Inhabitation

Making changes can be hard in many ways.

New habits require us to develop new actions and new thoughts, while simultaneously purging our old actions and thoughts that we may be barely aware that we have.

Living out the new habits can feel weird and unnatural for a long time. We have to tend to our habits and thoughts in new ways. When someone responds to our newly developing habit, we have to figure out a new way to respond. We often find ourselves with new rhythms of daily life and need to pay attention to things that have been automatic for years. Sometimes we find ourselves adjusting to a previously unexplored part of ourselves, maybe even challenge our sense of identity and self-worth.

It is said that it takes three weeks to make a new habit, and that has been somewhat true for me. However, it usually takes me much longer than that to feel confident enough about the new habit that it feels like it is a natural part of me rather than something I’m putting on. It’s the difference between playing dress-up and feeling like I’m wearing my own clothes.

Even when our hearts are totally on board with the changes we are making, the process of making changes and developing a new habit can be quite an adjustment. And when our hearts aren’t totally on board but we’re doing it out of obligation or because our minds know we should even if we don’t feel it, well, it’s an even bigger adjustment then.

If we keep at it, though, we realize that we are truly living those new habits.

We have inhabited the new actions and thoughts.

A Whole New World

Just over a year ago, my husband and I moved from our long-time suburban Wisconsin community near our adult kids to my husband’s small hometown farming community in Illinois to care for his elderly father.

Everything in my life seemed to be in upheaval. I had to adjust to new people, less access to the kinds of resources I was used to, a completely different living situation than I had known, new cooking and grocery shopping habits, and so much more. I hardly knew anything about farming, and suddenly I was living in a house two blocks from an elevator, with grain wagons going past the house nearly every day. I began going to church with people I met decades ago. I’d seen them from time to time over the years, and now I was in a Bible study getting to know them. I was welcomed, but I didn’t understand anything about their lives.

I’ve written about my adjustment process over the past year:

• Growing Pain
• After the Harvest
• This Old Marriage
• 5 Lessons for Growth
• Spin Your Cocoon
• Making a Habit
• Crossing the Bridge

Even aside from the pandemic and a crisis with one of our adult kids, much of the past year has felt like a major life disruption for me.

Driving Mr. Taylor

Yesterday I drove my father-in-law to town for a medical appointment. Harvest season is here, which means that the corn and soybeans are dry and brown. Some fields aren’t quite ready to harvest, but others are at just the right stage. We saw harvesters and combines in the fields and farm equipment on the roads.

As we drove through the farmland, we talked about the fields—which ones looked ready, which ones had a lot of trash (weeds), which ones needed another week or two, and so on.

I had a shocking realization: I actually understood the whole conversation.

A year ago, I knew very little about farming. Yesterday I engaged in a conversation about it.

As we drove into town, I pulled into the John Deere dealership so my father-in-law could look at the new combines and tractors. I thought about how I always slow down when we go past so he can have a look. I also thought of the fields where I slowed down because they were ones that had been in his family at one time. He no longer has to ask me to slow down. I just do it. And on the way home, we went the long way so we could look at even more fields.

Apparently I have begun to inhabit this rural life.

Step by Step

The process of figuring out sex involved many changes and adjustments.

I had to learn new habits and thoughts:

• Take a deep breath before responding to my husband’s initiation.
• Choose to believe that my husband wanted ME more than he wanted an orgasm.
• Make a decision to not let my feelings in the moment determine what is good for our marriage.
• Believe that my husband’s desire for me was part of God’s design for us.
• Clear out my mental browser tabs before getting sexually busy.
• Stop hiding my body from my husband.
• Seek opportunities to sexually tease him.
• Trust that my husband really does find me beautiful and sexy.
• Relax at his touch rather than cringe.

Sometimes I worked on one of these areas at a time. Other times I tried to make progress in several areas at once.

Every new thought or action took about three weeks to become a habit. It was weeks and sometimes months before it felt natural and comfortable. For much of that first year, I felt like I was a big fake. Fortunately, my heart was fully on board with these changes, which kept me motivated enough to persevere.

And then—a year or so after I began my journey—I realized that sex was easy. Comfortable. Even natural.

I was truly dwelling in this sex-positive life.

The inhabitation process was complete.

A Season of Harvest

If you are in the early stages of your journey to address your sexual difficulties, you may find that your newly-emerging thoughts and actions feel artificial. You may be surprised (and a little overwhelmed, too) by the many steps and the self-talk you have to do just to get yourself to say yes or agree to a new position or put on some lingerie.

Inhabitation doesn’t happen overnight—but it does happen if you persist in your efforts.

You may feel like life is a little disrupted by all the time and attention you have to give to sex. Know that it is going to be that way for a while—and one day you may suddenly realize that the upheaval has been replaced by comfort, confidence, and peace.

Just keep at it, and you will be able to harvest the fruit of your efforts.

It happened to me with living in this small farm town, and it can happen for you in the bedroom.

Image credit | canva.com