Hiya, how y'all doing?
My name is Chelsea Liley and I'm a certified sexologist and full-time human being.
I could give a speel about who I am and where I've come from. I've done a lot of work to 'know' myself, (kind of comes with the territory of being a therapist), but what I have learnt is that there is a lot that makes up oneself. A lot of different pieces, experiences, and contexts that play different roles in creating our own unique conceptaulisations of ourselves. We have different identities, depending on where we are, and who we are interacting with. I myself have a lot of different versions of me. All of them ever-changing, and so it is a lot to try to stick it all in one 'about me' page. But instead I will lay it all out for you, like a road map of my mind.
To start with I have my childhood and youth, my lived experiences of sexuality.
The way in which my parents, to me, were perfectly in love. How I watched Disney princess movies and dreamed of my happily ever after. I believed love was real and I wanted it. And it started me on the path to all of this. Little 4 year old me playing kiss chasey with the boys, except I broke all stereotypical rules and chased the boys myself. From the age of 14 and without even noticing it, becoming the queer feminist rebel simply through rarely shaving my legs because I couldn't be bothered and the boys didn't have to. The way that I then learnt about sex and sexuality, explored it so safely and naively sexy with myself and my first boyfriend, at the innocent yet promiscuous age of 16, and with all the rose-tinted glasses of first loves. My journey into sexuality was wholesome and content and it set me on this path.
Then I have my background in psychology. My foundational understanding and learning about human behaviour. My double degree in scientific and social psychology, at the University of Western Australia, the layers by which I understand this world. The introduction to cognitive behavioural therapy, mindfulness-based acceptance and commitment therapy, trauma informed and person-centered care. To the various different forms of intellectual therapy that are out there aimed at healing the mind, the cognitive processes and mental parts of our psyche.
This led to me furthering my studies into Sexology. Psychology gave me a taste into the human experience I craved to explore, but Sexology lit that dream on fire. Clinical psychology always seemed cold and distant to me. It has worked to an extent, but I had deeper reasons to be exploring human emotion. I wanted to explore emotions of love, sex, desire and romance. My sexology degree taught me to extend my clinical counselling skills within sexuality, as well as how to become a sexuality and pleasure educator. What makes us mate, what makes us fall in love. To explore the experience of sex, the scientific study of everything to do with sexuality. And I just completed my master's degree in Sexology at Curtin University, with my paper on women's sexuality and it's connection to psyche and well-being, and the negative effect that sex education has on this.
Lastly, for the last five or so years, I have explored spirituality, through the whole thing of relationships, breakups, and sacred single life, I have explored my own deeper meanings to self and sex. I have discovered my own sense of sexuality, of self-love and sass. My own meaning and magic. I went travelling the world, Bali and Europe and other parts of Australia. Had a five-day tantra training, and a multitude of courses, festivals, workshops and classes. I explored meditation, breathwork, body work, yoga, sacred sexuality, polyamory, couples counselling, touch therapy, tantra, reiki, and kink. I have worked with the more spiritualistic and emotional healing modalities, developed my own knowledge and understanding through exploring sexuality, and studied various concepts of psyche and theories of therapy. I have explored both the mind and the body based practices, to gain a holistic view of what it means to be human. Mind, body, and soul. And the soul really encapsulates all of it.
And so this has created different realms of my self and you can work with me in a variety of different ways that might feel good for you. I am a certified sexologist working at AISSM for a more science-minded practice. I have my blog here, Cliterally, where I explore the intricate parts of my own mind and sexuality, my online diary, where I embody and educate on what I learn from my pursuits of pleasure. And I have my own instagram page @chelsealiley.sxlg, where I live on the regular and combine it all together, all of the intricacies and little nooks and crannies that make up my world. For the more spiritual-based sex therapy you can contact me either through here, or instagram.
