The Nervous System Reset No One Talks About: Sacred Touch and Women’s Healing

There’s been a lot of talk lately about our nervous systems.

Why Nervous System Talk Isn’t Enough

Whole dissertations on how to calm them. How to support them. How to regulate them.
There are TikToks. Podcasts. Coaching programs. Even corporate wellness workshops.
All trying to teach us how to manage our out-of-control, fight-or-flight systems.

We even have guidance on how to choose our next partner—
If their presence doesn’t bring calm to your nervous system, they’re clearly not the one.

A common practice among many women is to drive to a location and sit in your car. In silence. Breathe. There’s something calming to our nervous systems about this practice.

What Real Support for Women Looks Like

If we really wanted to help women—especially Black women—regulate our nervous systems, the attack on our bodies would cease. Our choices deregulated.

The fragile supports we’ve already fought for would be fortified instead of dismantled, and there’d be no arguing about building the ones we’ve always needed.

If you really want to help our nervous systems—the status quo would have honored our cease and desist orders that were silently screamed from behind closed office doors and down grocery store aisles.

Reclaiming the Conversation Around Black Fatigue

And new to the social media conversation is the rising trend of white folks using the term Black fatigue—not in solidarity, but as complaint. They’re tired of hearing about our exhaustion. Tired of being confronted. So they borrow the language of our suffering just to describe their own discomfort.

Let’s be clear: Black fatigue isn’t a trending phrase.
It’s a lived experience.

Coined by Mary-Frances Winters, Black fatigue describes the chronic physical and emotional toll that systemic racism takes on Black people. It is not a metaphor. It is not up for grabs. And it is not something to parody because you’re tired of hearing us speak.

We are tired of living it.

The Mental Health Conversation We’re Not Having

This post is not about nervous system reset hacks. It’s about reclaiming what has been demonized and is mostly accessible to us all to help heal us heal our own emotional and mental state. It’s the Mental Health Awareness conversation we’re not openly having this month.

This post is about sacred touch, and the deeply political act of returning to your own body.
The “M” word, some are too embarrassed to say. This is about pleasure as medicine. Not performative, not for someone else, not shame-laced.

This is pleasure with the power to heal.

A woman pastor I know once shared a story from a gathering of married women. One woman admitted—out loud—that she had never had an orgasm. She was healthy. There were no underlying medical reasons. She just… hadn’t.

I still laugh thinking about that pastor gathering all the women around her, laying hands on this sister, and fervently praying that Jesus would bless her with a divinely appointed orgasm.

And wouldn’t you know—she came back later to testify that the prayer had been answered.

Now that pastor? She’s definitely not the norm. And yes, the orgasm had to happen within the confines of marriage—not something she could do for herself.

But still. I applaud the effort.

And let’s not forget that women having orgasms is a global concern.

In some places, female genital mutilation is still performed to strip women of their ability to experience pleasure. And even in countries that have banned it, the practice continues in secret, in silence, in shame. Why? Because there’s still fear of what a woman can become when fully embodied.

And here in the U.S., the shaming of women’s pleasure hasn’t ended—it’s simply been dressed in doctrine. Our bodies are still treated as public property, battlegrounds, or temples for everyone but us.

A Note for Survivors of Abuse and Trauma

And I want to say this too—because it matters:
For some women, sacred touch may not feel safe.
For those healing from sexual abuse, trauma, or disassociation, even the idea of coming home to the body can feel overwhelming.

In those cases, breathwork, somatic yoga, trauma-informed therapy—those might be the first doors back in.

There is no one way.
No single path.
But if and when the body becomes a place of safety again, pleasure can be a powerful part of that return.

Orgasm Is Not Just a Moment—It’s Medicine

So let’s tell the truth.

Orgasm isn’t a temporary escape. It’s not dirty. It’s healing.

Orgasm lowers cortisol. It boosts dopamine. It shifts your nervous system from fight-or-flight into rest and repair. It floods your body with oxytocin, the love and connection hormone—even if that connection is with yourself. It brings you back into your body.

And here’s the irony: this isn’t new information.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, doctors used orgasm—often induced manually—to treat what they called “female hysteria.”

A real medical diagnosis. A catch-all for everything from irritability to sadness to ambition.

These women weren’t sick. They were overstimulated, under-supported, and disconnected from their bodies.

And the very thing we’re now taught to feel shame around—pleasure—was once prescribed as medicine.

The vibrator?
It wasn’t created for sex.
It was created to save doctors’ wrists.

The Science Behind Sacred Touch

And maybe most importantly: you can’t multitask your way through sacred touch.

It’s not something to rush or background while checking things off a list.
It’s singular.
Intentional.
It’s release.

It is the ultimate nervous system reset we aren’t talking about.

Let me say it directly: masturbation—what I’m calling sacred touch in this piece—isn’t a shameful secret. It’s healing.

The Part The Patriarchy Didn’t Want Us to Know

And what nobody teaches us—what we are rarely taught in any loving, unashamed way—is that orgasm is not the same experience for women as it is for men.

For most men, orgasm is linear. Tension builds, is released, then it’s over. There’s a refractory period. A wait. A shutdown.

For women, it’s different.

Our bodies are capable of multiple orgasms. And when we do, our brains light up across up to 30 different regions—emotional regulation, pain relief, memory, sensory processing, reward. It’s not just pleasure. It’s neurological restoration.

For men, orgasm often marks completion. For women, it can mark connection.
To self. To spirit. To softness. To strength.

And yes—men can experience depth too. But for women, it’s our default design. That’s the part patriarchy never wanted us to understand.

Because what happens when a woman is well-regulated?
What happens when she doesn’t need to beg or perform or be chosen to feel whole?

She becomes sovereign.
She becomes still.
She becomes unstoppable.

Returning to Ourselves Is the Revolution

When we’ve been taught to fear or ignore or outsource our own pleasure—we search outward for regulation.

We overspend.
We overeat.
We overperform.
We try everything but the thing that might actually help us heal.

Because somewhere along the way, we were told not to turn inward.

One of my favorite shows is Bridgerton. And in one of the later seasons, Lady Bridgerton—mother of many, widow of Edward—is talking to Lady Danbury. Her children are grown or getting married. She’s alone. She admits that her “garden” is alive and screaming. She even jokes about asking the footman to help her out.

But here’s the part that struck me: nowhere in that conversation is it even hinted that she could care for herself. That she could tend her own garden.

Sometimes, yes, you want a partner. Sometimes you want intimacy and communion and connection. That’s beautiful. Sacred even.

Sitcoms even joke about the uptight girlfriend who is encouraged to just “go get her some” so she can calm down.

But this isn’t about desire for another.

This is about devotion to yourself.

This is a “physician heal thyself” moment.

This nervous system reset was divinely orchestrated and created just for you.

Because you’re fearfully and wonderfully made of course and healing is always going to be your right.