About CHRIstina

ABOUT INTIMACY COACHING WITH CHRISTINA SOPHIE:

Birds do it, bees do it, so how hard could it be, right?

Where did you get your education about how to have a satisfying sex life or for that matter a loving relationship? Your family? Friends? The Internet? Porn?

As a culture we have woefully undervalued the need for highly personalized education on how to have loving relationships and satisfying sex lives. This is guidance we are supposed to get from our families… or maybe the Internet. Yeah, how did that work out?

Sex is so private you can think that everyone is having a great sex life – and you are the only one who isn’t. Birds do it, bees do it… So how hard can it be? When you’re in love, you’re supposed to ‘let nature take its course,’ or just figure it out together. Nothing is further from the truth.

“Maybe I’m not with the right person…”

Yeah, it’s okay to admit this. Pretty much everyone secretly believes that if only they were with the right one, the rest would be easy.

Or the next most popular belief… and this one is a real money maker…

“If only I were _____________, sex would be great!”

(Fill in the blank with your favorite insecurity… bigger, smaller, younger, older, more this, less that… you get it.)

We have been buried under Fairy Tales and collective fantasies about the way love and sex, and for that matter our bodies, are supposed to be. These ideas infect the way we think about ourselves and twist us into knots.

MOST OF WHAT YOU BELIEVE ABOUT INTIMACY IS NOT TRUE.

Intimacy coaching is about combing loose emotional, cultural, religious, and familial tangles so that you can know yourself and your loved ones without all that pressure.

There is a unique wisdom written in what makes you feel good, what makes you feel connected, and what makes you feel authentically you.

INTIMACY COACHING HEALS YOUR HEART AND GIVES YOU CONFIDENCE.

We will investigate the context that you were helplessly born into. We will re-write the stories you were told about yourself and your abilities. We will fill in any missing pieces in your personal sex education (we all have some).

AS YOUR INTIMACY COACH, I CAN SUPPORT YOU IN WAYS YOUR THERAPIST CANNOT.

We will care for your nervous system, allowing you to feel solid even when exploring difficult topics. We will train your awareness so that you literally feel more sensation. And your capacity to connect deeply will expand, because we will practice connection.

INTIMACY COACHING LETS YOU HACK THE “TECHNOLOGY” OF LOVE.

We will create a relationship laboratory where you can get perspective and feedback on the way you give and receive love. Practicing communication, not only verbal, but through presence and touch, builds confidence. Rinse. Repeat. That’s why coaching is so profoundly transformative… it’s experiential.

WITH INTIMACY COACHING, IT’S CRITICAL YOU FIND SOMEONE WITH WHOM YOU FEEL COMFORTABLE.

Your sexuality and your feelings about your body are… well… incredibly intimate! This is risky business. Reading everything on my website, and seeing my picture, can certainly help you get a sense of my values and my ‘vibe.’ I want you to know me. There is plenty of intel you can gather from clicking around, and you might already have an intuition that we are a good fit.

The quality of connection with a healing practitioner is far more important than methodologies used. This is a foundational truth of the therapeutic arts, backed up by multiple studies and immeasurable anecdotal evidence.

That’s why I offer a free 15-minute heart-to-heart chat.

We’ll quickly get a sense if you and I have the chemistry we need to make meaningful contributions to your happiness. Call me now. Or if you like more words, read on…

About Me

Hi, I’m Christina, nice to virtually meet you…

When I was little, I wanted to be an evangelist. I wanted to travel the world and tell everyone, “I bear good news! You are Loved!” And in a way, that’s what I do for a living. I’ve been a sex educator since I taught my best girlfriend about oral sex on my thumb at an age so young I won’t admit (Mom might be reading).

It’s been a winding road I’ve taken to get to you, but I’ve always wound around one theme. I’ve spent my entire life obsessed with expanding my capacity for awareness, connection, and love.

Erotic Empowerment isn’t just my job, it’s the stand that I take in the world. I believe that it is a key component of Social Justice.

When we totally love the miracle of our body, and we are free to be exactly who we are, and love exactly who we want, in whatever family structure supports and nourishes our community, we are creative, productive, and very difficult to control.

We are resourced by the vast primal energies of the body, the same energy that created the Universe. Erotically empowered, we are alive in a way that defies unjust authority.

-Christina Sophie, Menlo Park, Oakland & Online Sexual Empowerment Coach

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free
that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” ~Albert Camus

Menlo Park Sex Therapy

Oakland and Online Sessions Available with Christina

Schedule a Free Consultation

My Approach and Experience…

I practice a Somatic Method of Sex and Relationship Coaching, and with it I weave in other powerful modalities I’ve picked up along the way.

I am continually in supervision with the founders of various somatic sex therapy and coaching modalities. That way you get the benefit not just of my experience, but the support of an exceptionally gifted group of trainers who have collectively helped several hundreds of people have better sex and more love in their lives.

I have been working intimately with individuals, couples and small groups for 25+ years. Before I trained in Somatic Based Methods of sex coaching, my coaching practice was focused on the intersection of Sexuality and Spirituality.

I am qualified to offer Spiritual Direction to serious students of Tantra and Yoga philosophy. I have also taught meditation and relational spiritual practice, and both participated in and founded communities exploring the evolution of collective consciousness.

Supporting loving relationship, in all its permutations, has been my jam my entire life. Here’s a bit about how that unfolded…

In my early 20s, I trained as a Certified Massage Therapist. Through the course of my career, I’ve had my hands on over a thousand people. I have worked with clients across the spectrum of size, race, gender, and personal self-expression using multiple bodywork modalities.

There was no way for me not to develop respect and deep appreciation for the therapeutic power of pleasurable touch. In fact, a quality emerged in my work that I could only describe as “sacred.”

Bodywork is an extraordinarily intimate profession, and clients took advantage of the safe space we created. My table became a “confessional.” Touch is as emotionally therapeutic as it is physically restorative.

Themes around body shame, sexual trauma, and spiritual awakening began to emerge. I scrambled to get the training to keep up with how my practice was evolving. During this time, I was both a student and a teacher of Tantra, embodied spiritual practice, somatic sex education, and relational spiritual practice.

SOME HIGHLIGHTS…

• 4-year Tantra Teachers Certification and private study with Dr. Rudolph Ballentine

• 10-year affiliation with Body Electric School’s Women’s Program

• Former Core Faculty at the Institute for Sexuality and Enlightenment, an AASECT accreditation institute

• Co-founder of the WePractice Community, an organization exploring awakened relationship

I have dual bachelor’s degrees in Philosophy and Psychology. I continue to keep up serious, long-term professional studies in Somatic Experiencing, Positive Psychology, Adult Sexuality Education, and Personality Theory.

I hold myself to a high level of accountability to be informed, supported, and up to date in my studies. And I still think of myself as a Touch Minister, an Erotic Evangelist, and by the power invested in me by the Internet, I’m even officially a Reverend.

Degrees and endless education is great, but let me share with you my most hard won credentials.

I’ve had more than one dark night of the soul and more than one spectacular public failure. I know what it’s like to feel like my hormones, the government, and the gods are conspiring against me.

I’ve been both inside and outside of the cultural standard in terms of body size, family structure, and sexual self-expression. I grew used to all my appetites being large, until they weren’t.

I have worn identities and shed them either by choice or force so many times that my sense of self has been taken down to the studs. When I’ve been at my lowest, I have leaned on the support of others (many of them professionals) who have been able to see all of me and love me anyway.

My gratitude is beyond what I can express. My only way to balance the karmic scale, to my absolute delight, is to offer this to others.

Because I’ve been there and come back, I can hold a larger vision for your well-being. Even when you temporarily can’t.

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San Francisco's Leading Couples Counselors & Sex Therapists

SEXOLOGICAL BODYWORK

“I don’t like this body.”
“I just wish I could feel different.”
“If only my partner understood my body.”

LIVING A FULL LIFE LEAVES ITS MARKS ON THE BODY.

You’re mature enough to know that even the most powerful conversations can’t touch these feelings. Therapy that doesn’t include the body is no longer interesting to you.

Hormones… Anxiety… Stress… Scars… Trauma… these leave tangible, physical marks. Their impact can affect your ability to feel connected to yourself… let alone another person.

Such intimate tension deserves your attention!

Your body holds your history, even the memories you wish you could forget.

Every idea about how you’re supposed to look, be, and behave.

Anytime you’ve ever been shamed or felt ashamed, it’s recorded in the flesh. Add to that childbirth, or other physical trauma – these things have literally sculpted your erogenous nervous system.

SOME THINGS CANNOT BE TOUCHED WITH TALK

The power of hands on flesh is that it subverts the personality. It brings therapeutic attention directly to the body.

It lets you feel what’s possible, rather than simply imagining it.

Healing touch can restore sensations you thought were gone.

Body-based somatic sex education can awaken experiences you didn’t even know were possible.

AND WHEN IT’S TIME TO TALK…

You’ll be talking to a sexuality and intimacy specialist. Your body, your sexuality, and your life are not separate. As you learn more about your capacity for physical pleasure, you can apply that directly to expanding pleasure throughout your life.

SEXOLOGICAL BODYWORK CAN HELP YOU ADDRESS A WIDE ARRAY OF ISSUES.

Relieve the anxiety, depression, fear, stress, and isolation associated with conditions such as erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation, and painful intercourse.

Regain the ability to feel pleasure after childbirth or surgery. Ease discomfort with scar tissue remediation.

And much more.

One of the most powerful reasons to explore Sexological Bodywork is your own intimate empowerment!

HOW IT WORKS:

Sexological Bodywork is only offered in the context of coaching packages of five or more sessions (unless you are referred by a trauma therapist, sex therapist or somatic psychologist). We need unrushed preparation and thorough integration to reap the greatest benefits.

Sexological Bodywork is a legal profession whose educational certification has been approved by the State of California.

Training, skill, attitude, and soul will all play a part in your ability to relax and allow yourself to be met in the soft and tender tissues of the body.

CARING FOR BODIES FOR A LIFETIME

Taoist/Tantric Massage, Sacred Intimacy, Sexological Bodywork, Pelvic Floor remediation – I’ve been caring for people’s tender bodies for long enough that I’ve seen intimate modalities evolve from underground alternative treatment to mainstream physical therapy.

And I’ve served that evolution directly.

For 10 years, I was involved with the Body Electric School where these groundbreaking intimate therapies were created, originally by Joseph Kramer.

I continued on with intensive private Tantra studies with Dr. Rudy Ballentine, M.D. (Swami Ravi Rudra Bharati) for six years. I have taught somatic-spiritual integration (body-based spirituality) and intimate body work in both academic and alternative settings.

Integrating medical, psychological, yogic, and spiritual approaches to the body has been my personal and professional focus my entire life. And no matter how much experience I acquire, I am committed to getting continual education and expert supervision in my work. You can be confident that I hold myself to the highest standards.

I have tailored my practice to the exacting client. Even in this brave new frontier of therapeutic bodywork, you have a right to expect excellence. And I intend to provide it.

A POWERFUL COMBINATION.

If you already have a therapist, bodywork can take the progress you’ve made and install it in your nervous system. This is a powerful healing modality in combination with trauma therapy.

I am happy to consult with your trauma specialist, so you receive the best from both of us.

RECONNECT WITH YOURSELF – AND YOUR PARTNER.

Let’s talk… I can explain the whole process and answer any questions you might have in a phone call