When Sex Isn’t About Sex

How projections onto sex and partnership keep us chasing—and what happens when we see through them. (Sex, Systems, and Sacred Union: Part 4)

We had carved out the time.

The baby was asleep. The lights were low. Tantric music was playing. We had lit candles. We’d even built an altar. Everything was in place.

After weeks of exhaustion and parenting, we were finally naked together—the kind of intimacy we’d been missing in the blur of new parenthood. We moved slowly, sensually, skin to skin. It was one of those rare moments that brought back memories of the sexual magic from the early days in our relationship.

We hadn’t made love in a while, and this felt like a step toward that—toward penetration, toward union. Before we got there, however, something shifted.

There was a moment of collapse—subtle, but real. The kind of moment where something vulnerable arises, and there isn’t quite enough energy to meet it. It was late. We were tired. And so, gently, we let it go.

Even so, I could feel the beauty of the night—the love, the tantra, the courage in both of us to even show up. There was something sacred in it—a sweetness in the way we touched, a tenderness in the space we had created.

But the next morning, something else was there too: a quiet, heavy discouragement had crept in.

At first, I thought it was just about sex—or even about her. I thought it was about how she hadn’t stayed with me through the collapse.

But when I was honest with myself, the truth was that I hadn’t stayed. I hadn’t honored that I still wanted to be in it. Even though it was late, even though it was tender. Some part of me had stepped out, when my heart wanted to stay. And I could feel the weight of that in my body.

It was more than disappointment though. There was an ache in it—something older. Like a familiar fog had rolled in again. A sense of: We’ve come so far… and we’re still here?

We had made time. We had created space. And still, sex didn’t happen. And the part of me that had been holding so much—hope, desire, effort—just felt worn down.

The whole experience felt stuck. I kept turning it over—was it about her? About the night? About the pattern? But none of those quite landed.

Because beneath all that, something else was surfacing. A long-running storyline I’d been swimming in for years. I couldn’t name it yet—but I could feel it pressing up through the discouragement, asking to be seen.

And in that moment, a tiny crack appeared in the projection. Maybe this wasn’t just about sex. Maybe it wasn’t about her. Maybe it wasn’t even about the night.

Maybe what I was feeling wasn’t the result of what happened—but of how I was seeing.

Welcome to Part 4 of “Sex, Systems, and Sacred Union”—a series weaving story, framework, and lived experience to explore sex not just as pleasure, but as a sacred system for healing, awakening, and intimacy that can hold everything. Read Part 1 here.

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Projections—The Lens We Don’t Know We’re Looking Through

A projection is when we collapse an unseen inner lens—an internal belief, fear, or longing—onto an outer circumstance. And then we mistake what we’re looking at as the source of our experience.

It’s like we’re all swimming in the water of our own consciousness—made up of our past experiences, unmet needs, wounds, and hopes. But like fish, we can’t always see the water we’re in. We just see through it. Instead, that water becomes the lens through which we view the world. And whatever that internal water is—scarcity, fear, shame, hope, longing—gets silently cast outward, like a film projected onto a movie screen.

Suddenly, it’s not just I feel abandoned. It’s you are abandoning me.
It’s not just I feel unmet. It’s you never meet me.
I’m not just feeling lack. I’m seeing lack in your behavior.
I’m not just afraid. I’m convinced you’re making me unsafe.

The projection becomes so convincing we can’t see it’s one possible story—we believe it’s reality. In this way, life itself becomes a projection screen.

And the places we project most intensely? Sex and partnership.

Each one alone carries charge. Sex touches shame, desire, power, approval, intimacy. Partnership touches attachment, identity, longing, safety, love.

And when they merge—when we believe our partner should meet this need, through sex—it becomes the most powerful kind of illusion. The stakes feel existential. The nervous system gets hooked. Our sense of wholeness feels like it lives in someone else’s hands.

That’s the cost of projection. It lights up our body with urgency, scarcity, and reactivity. We flail. We withdraw. We blame. We rupture. And we keep trying to fix something out there, that’s actually happening in here.

But the upside is this: Projections always leave clues.

The ache, the charge, and the reactivity are visible surfaces of something deeper—a way our nervous system is relating not just to a person or an event, but to Life itself. And if we’re willing to feel into them—not just act from them—they can show us the inner lens we’ve been unconsciously swimming in.

If we follow the charge—not to act it out, but to be with it—we start to see. When we give ourselves the capacity to ask, “How is this experience a projection of how I’m relating to Life itself?”—we begin to see how an entire worldview can collapse into a single interaction.

And when the projection cracks—when we realize this isn’t about them—we reclaim our power.

Because the thing we thought was about our partner, or the sex we’re not having, or the unmet need in this moment—is actually a mirror for how we’ve learned to relate to desire, to love, to the mystery of being alive.

And that’s the path to freedom.

Sex and partnership then become not just mirrors—but initiations. Because they’re the projections that carry the most energy, they hold the potential for the deepest rupture—and the deepest liberation.

When we see clearly, the real opportunity arrives: To heal the wound not just in sex, but in Life. To reshape how we meet intimacy—not just with a partner but with reality itself.

If this resonates—if you’re walking your own path of seeing through projections, reclaiming power, and healing in partnership—subscribe to follow this unfolding. I write about sacred union, sex as a portal, and the deeper truths that live beneath our everyday lives.

The Kind of Discouragement That Reveals the Pattern

That morning, I didn’t yet know what the projection was. But the discouragement was familiar. I could feel how this loop had shown up before—times when sex wasn’t happening and when I just felt tired, stuck, and alone in wanting more.

When I zoomed out, I saw the same pattern echoing in how I was relating to the sex container program I’m creating for couples. I’m wildly excited about it. I know it’s aligned. And still, I’ve felt overwhelmed, discouraged, almost frozen. Like I don’t have the energy to do the thing I know I’m here to do. Like I need someone to come rescue me from a situation I didn’t have the capacity to meet.

And then it hit me: This wasn’t about sex—or the program. It was about the projection I was carrying.

That feeling of helplessness—of waiting for someone to come—became a portal. It brought me straight back to a childhood memory that surfaced during a recent plant medicine journey: I was four years old, standing alone at the front of my family’s Chinese herb store.

My mom was the only adult running the place, and every day during lunch, she’d step away upstairs to make food. She would lock the doors, and my job was to stand watch. If a customer came, I was supposed to tell her.

So I stood there—tiny body pressed up against the glass—staring out, alone, frozen.

I didn’t want to be there. I was anxious and afraid. I didn’t know what I was doing. I barely spoke English. But I also felt like I couldn’t leave. This was my post, my job, something important I had to hold. I couldn’t walk away to get help, couldn’t ask for connection, couldn’t move.

So I just waited. And waited. And waited—for someone, anyone, to come save me.

But no one came. Even when my mom came back, she couldn’t see how disregulated I was.

That part of me never stopped waiting.

And now, decades later, I could feel myself projecting that same helpless waiting—onto sex, onto partnership, onto life.

The projection wasn’t just showing up in moments of collapse. This undercurrent had been running quietly beneath so many moments—where I subtly hoped things would change, where I wanted to run away from what life was giving me, where I looked to be rescued without even knowing it.

This experience connected the dots. The way through isn’t waiting. It’s turning toward the little boy who is—and holding him.

Because that’s who had been here all along—still waiting, still watching the door, still hoping someone would come save him. That little boy needed to be seen and held, met by something larger than himself.

And that was the echo I’d been living inside. I’d been swimming in the invisible storyline:

Life won’t come for me. I’m on my own. I’m alone in my collapse.

Not just in partnership. Not just in sex. But in existence itself.

That’s what had collapsed in me the morning after our intimacy. Not because the night wasn’t beautiful—it was. But when the energy shifted and it didn’t feel like my desire could be met, something in me still believed: And here it is again. I’m on my own.

Even if we had made love that night, it wouldn’t have touched that place. At best, it would’ve been a temporary balm—an illusion of resolution. At worst, it would’ve deepened the illusion that Kiki’s body could rescue me from a wound that began long before her.

Because here’s the truth:

When we make our partners responsible for wounds that live in our relationship to Life, they will inevitably fail. Not because they don’t love us. But because no one else can repair a rupture that happened between us and Life itself. Only when we can see the full rupture, do we create the possibility for enrolling our partners to meet us in what’s truly here.

And so the discouragement became a gift. Because for the first time, I could see through the projection and the healing that actually wanted to happen. Not to override the frozen feeling. Not to “make it through.” Not to make Kiki respond differently. But to re-pattern the experience with that little boy.

To show him I wouldn’t abandon him, too.

I stayed. I held him. I whispered: I see you. You’re not alone. I’ve got you now.

And something began to shift.

The frozen waiting softened. His body—my body—began to feel a little safer. A little more here. No one had come for him back then. But this time, I did. I didn’t leave.

The Moment I Chose to Meet Life

And then, just a few days later—something opened.

The nanny was here. The house was quiet. Sunlight poured through the windows. We had set up the room. Music floated through the space. And for the first time in what felt like forever, there was breath—spaciousness. A pocket of time not ruled by exhaustion or needs or rushing.

We danced—bodies present, alive, attuned. We moved with the kind of touch that’s not about getting anywhere, the kind that says: I’m here. I feel you.

And then we made love.

Our bodies had missed each other, deeply. There was reverence in it—pleasure, tenderness, a sense of return. It reminded me of our early days—those moments that felt orchestrated by Life itself. Like something sacred was moving through us, loving us through each other, meeting desires we didn’t even know we had.

But this time, something else was here too, something new.

We held each other through moments that—just days ago—we might have collapsed in. We stayed through places that used to unseat us. We breathed through uncertainty, through tenderness, through the edge of old patterns. And in that staying, there was such devotion and love.

Because even as I felt the beauty of our connection, I could feel what had changed.

This didn’t just happen. I had created this moment.

I had initiated sex. I had stayed with my desire and reached for intimacy. I had felt the freeze when it arose, and instead of collapsing, I breathed with it. I didn’t override it. I didn’t disappear. I stayed with the part of me that once froze in terror. The little boy who waited at the door. I whispered again: You don’t have to wait anymore. I’m here.

From that place, I no longer needed to wait for life—or for Kiki—to rescue me. By seeing that I was projecting the little boy’s story onto the moment—and by holding him—I became the source of what I most longed for. That’s what allowed union to meet me—not from waiting, but from choosing to meet Life.

That’s what moved through our lovemaking. A power that went deeper than arousal, deeper than connection. A truth that was anchoring in my body: I am no longer helpless inside this pattern. I can create the world I long for.

This wasn’t just a beautiful moment between lovers. It was a reclamation—a closing of the gap between longing and reality. A pulse of empowerment that moved from my pelvis to chest to throat—until every cell in me knew: this will ripple.

Not just in sex.
In life.
In how I create.
In how I move toward what I love.
In how I hold myself when the old fears arise.

Because this time, I didn’t collapse. I didn’t spiral into helplessness. I didn’t wait to be rescued. I moved. I stayed. I held the boy who once froze—and chose to meet Life, exactly where he couldn’t.

And that’s the power of projection. Left unseen, it keeps us circling the same loop—assigning meaning to the outside world because of something unresolved within. But once revealed, it becomes a portal.

This wasn’t about sex. Or Kiki. Or even partnership.

It was about how I’d learned to relate to Life. And in choosing not to wait—in choosing to stay, to feel, to move—I reclaimed something I didn’t know I’d given away: my own power to meet the moment. My own capacity to create the world I long for.

Because I am the one I’ve been waiting for.

If this piece touched something true in you, I’d be honored if you shared it with someone walking a similar path. These are the stories we don’t often say out loud—but when we do, they become medicine.

And I’d love to hear what this opened in you. What did it stir, challenge, or reflect? I read every comment.