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Speaker 1: Good a.

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Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us on Healthy Ish. How are

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Speaker 2: you Hope you are having a fabulous day. This is,

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Speaker 2: of course, the daily podcast from Body and Soul. I

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Speaker 2: am your host of Felicity Haley. What does sexual confidence

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Speaker 2: mean to you? Well certified sex and relationship practitioner Georgia

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Speaker 2: Grace has a new book out. It is called The

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Speaker 2: Modern Guide to Sex, and as a friend of the pod,

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Speaker 2: we had to get her on to talk about it,

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Speaker 2: in particular to shine a light on sexual confidence. So

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Speaker 2: today she discusses the reasons for it, how to assess

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Speaker 2: your levels, and simple strategies to boost it. Make sure

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Speaker 2: you're listening into Extra Healthy Ish, where we chat about

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Speaker 2: exploring pleasure through fantasies, toys, and non monogamy. You can

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Speaker 2: catch Extra Healthy Ish wherever you get your podcasts. Georgia,

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Speaker 2: welcome back. I'm going to call you a regular and

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Speaker 2: well and a friend of the pod.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I love being a friend of the show. Okay, that's

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Speaker 2: a friend of the show. And congratulations in new book.

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Speaker 1: Thank you. Yeah, it's really exciting it's finally out. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's good to have you on here and talking

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Speaker 2: about well, one thing jumped out at me when I

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Speaker 2: was leafing through your book, and that was the idea

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Speaker 2: of boosting sexual confidence. I feel like that comes up

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Speaker 2: a lot for especially women female gender, throughout their lives.

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Speaker 2: How would you describe sexual confidence?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's such I don't think it has one definition really,

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Speaker 1: because it means different things for different people. But often

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Speaker 1: people will describe their sexual confidence as when they're feeling

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Speaker 1: really good or comfortable in their body, when they feel

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Speaker 1: like they can ask for what they want, when they

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Speaker 1: feel like they can try new things and have this

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Speaker 1: sort of air of exploration in their relationships, when they

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Speaker 1: can go into a sexual experience and not need to

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Speaker 1: be an expert in that specific technique or position, be

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Speaker 1: curious and open. So I think sexual confidence is often

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Speaker 1: about feeling comfortable or safe or grounded or sexy in

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Speaker 1: your body. But again that that is just like so

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Speaker 1: broad and it means different things for different people.

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Speaker 2: And I think it's interesting to point out that sexual

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Speaker 2: confidence can like it dips and throughout your lifetime depending

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Speaker 2: on what life stage you're at.

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Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, And I think that capitalism has got its

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Speaker 1: greedy little fingers into the concept of sexual confidence and

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Speaker 1: it says, oh, you're not feeling great here by this

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Speaker 1: rose scented cream, and this will fix everything for you.

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Speaker 1: Run a bath, do some self care, and that's not

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Speaker 1: going to quote unquote fix or support you in becoming

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Speaker 1: more sexually confident. It is a process, and as you

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Speaker 1: were saying, it can change throughout our lives as well.

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Speaker 1: And that's what I think what we need to kind

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Speaker 1: of look at. If someone is feeling like they're not

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Speaker 1: as confident as they want to be, or they're sexual

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Speaker 1: confidence has changed, we need to sort of step back

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Speaker 1: and not look at just them or their body as

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Speaker 1: the problem, but look at all the things that are

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Speaker 1: going around around them. And maybe that is also looking

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Speaker 1: at social, cultural, political ideas that are informing how they

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Speaker 1: think and feel about sex and bodies, because it isn't

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Speaker 1: just on the individual. We need to examine the messages

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Speaker 1: all of us have grown up with. But then we

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Speaker 1: also need to look at what's getting in the way

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Speaker 1: between them and feeling sexually confident, Like, so, what has

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Speaker 1: been going on for them in life, in their relationships,

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Speaker 1: how are they feeling at work? Have they gone through

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Speaker 1: a big life change? Is their body changing? And that

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Speaker 1: sort of supports us in getting closer to working on

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Speaker 1: their sexual confidence and what Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I guess what it means for them when I just

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Speaker 2: listen to you talk. It can actually change day to

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Speaker 2: day depending on where you are in your cycle and

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Speaker 2: the mental load or whatever else is going on. It's

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Speaker 2: quite a dare I say, malleable thing?

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Speaker 1: Yes?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And so that's why I guess I struggled.

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Speaker 1: I have this one definition because I think what we

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Speaker 1: need to do is challenge the image of sexual confidence.

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Speaker 1: And often, you know, we see the image of the

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Speaker 1: sexually confident woman on Instagram, who you know, is owning

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Speaker 1: her body and being really central, and that is amazing. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: that is like incredible for anyone who feels great in

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Speaker 1: their skin in that way. But that's just one portrayal

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Speaker 1: of it. And I think everyone is familiar with the

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Speaker 1: fact that it can change on a day to day basis.

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Speaker 1: And rather than beating yourself up about the fact that

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Speaker 1: you're doing all this work and then you have a

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Speaker 1: week or a month or a period of time where

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Speaker 1: you're no longer sexually confident or you're not feeling as good,

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Speaker 1: that's not necessarily a step back. Maybe we just need

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Speaker 1: to look at all the other things that are going

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Speaker 1: on in life?

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Speaker 2: So have can we assess our confidence levels?

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Speaker 1: Yes?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so you've got some more questions in your book. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I ask a little questions in that book, and I

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Speaker 1: think that that self reflection is really important. So I

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Speaker 1: like to examine the assumptions that we have, and I

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Speaker 1: have a list of questions in the confidence chapter, and

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Speaker 1: that is like looking at what assumption do I have

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Speaker 1: around bodies? How is this serving me?

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Speaker 2: Is it useful?

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Speaker 1: What assumptions would I like to adjust or examine or challenge.

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Speaker 1: And that's more of like this top down approach. So

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Speaker 1: and I go through this in the book as well.

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Speaker 1: There's two therapeutic approaches. So there's a top down it's

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Speaker 1: looking at our thoughts, our feelings, our ideas. But then

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Speaker 1: we also have the bottom up approach, and that's looking

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Speaker 1: at how emotions are existing in our body, how our

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Speaker 1: body is responding. I have this case study of a

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Speaker 1: client in the book whereby they were talking about the

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Speaker 1: fact that they've done all the CBT, they'd done all

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Speaker 1: of the examining their thoughts and feelings, but they found

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Speaker 1: that their body would kind of freeze or tense up

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Speaker 1: anytime they were going into sex and we needed to

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Speaker 1: bring away to this response and to regulate it so

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Speaker 1: that they could then start to approach new sexual experiences

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Speaker 1: thinking that it's normal that I'm feeling awkward or nervous.

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Speaker 1: This is a part of having sex with someone new.

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Speaker 1: But how can I feel safe and regulated so I

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Speaker 1: can approach it. So it's a really good question, and

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Speaker 1: I think I like to split it into both the

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Speaker 1: top down and bottom up approach so it's more holistic.

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Speaker 2: So, just going back to that case study, what are

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Speaker 2: some ways you work with her to help her boost it?

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Speaker 2: Do we boost it or do we reassure ourselves? Or

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Speaker 2: what do we do when it comes to sexual confidence?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we can use any of those words,

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Speaker 1: I think. So the first would be we examined the thoughts, feelings, ideas,

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Speaker 1: we observe what's happening in the body with this person.

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Speaker 1: What we did was we normalize the feeling of being

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Speaker 1: clunky with this concept that I work with, which is

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Speaker 1: the learning edge. There's an idea that when to be

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Speaker 1: confident you have to be an expert, but I actually

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Speaker 1: think being confident is being able to approach a situation

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Speaker 1: and recognize that feeling a bit awkward is okay, I agree,

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Speaker 1: because all of us feel a little bit awkward when

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Speaker 1: we go into sex with someone you or we want

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Speaker 1: to voice a desire. So we actually worked with this

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Speaker 1: concept of the learning edge where I kind of worked

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Speaker 1: with them to normalize the fact that it will feel

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Speaker 1: clunky having sex with someone new, but that's normal, and

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Speaker 1: then we sort of broke it down into more accessible things.

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Speaker 1: So rather than saying, Okay, I'm going to go have

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Speaker 1: sex with this new person, because that was really actually

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Speaker 1: quite terrifying for them, Instead we developed some strategies whereby

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Speaker 1: they would say, hey, like I want to come back

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Speaker 1: to yours, all I want to do is kiss, or

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Speaker 1: the next time they said, I want to know exactly

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Speaker 1: how you want to be touched, so I have all

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Speaker 1: the information to support you. So we kind of broke

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Speaker 1: it down into small and more accessible pieces, and they

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Speaker 1: came back to session again and again and said that

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Speaker 1: being able to voice the desire gave them power and autonomy,

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Speaker 1: and they were also really surprised how the people they

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Speaker 1: were having sex with responded to that because they only

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Speaker 1: wanted to go that far as well. So yeah, we

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Speaker 1: did a lot to work with them, but at the

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Speaker 1: end of the day. It was really normalizing the fact

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Speaker 1: that it's okay to feel a bit clunky.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we're all human at the end of the day.

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Speaker 2: Give us a few strategies as to how we can

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Speaker 2: work on increasing our body and sexual confidence.

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Speaker 1: So there may there's a few other things you might

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Speaker 1: want to do. Examine the people who you're following and

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Speaker 1: the ideas of sexiness because at social media, the algorithm

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Speaker 1: will send these certain ideas of what a sexual person

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Speaker 1: looks like, and that it affects a lot of people

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Speaker 1: they feel like they need to live up to those

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Speaker 1: beauty standards. So examine what you're looking at and how

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Speaker 1: you can diversify the people who you turn to for

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Speaker 1: inspiration around sexual confidence. You might also want to do

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Speaker 1: something called body mapping, and that is bringing your awareness

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Speaker 1: to the part of your body that you don't necessarily

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Speaker 1: feel confident in or connected to, and that might be

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Speaker 1: you know, through pleasure or touch or awakening sensation. Because

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Speaker 1: when we don't like a part of our body, we

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Speaker 1: often ignore it, we don't look at it, we cover

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Speaker 1: it up, we hide it. But there's a lot of

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Speaker 1: pleasure that can be experienced in our bodies as well,

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Speaker 1: and then also start to examine these ideas that your

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Speaker 1: body needs to look a certain way in order to

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Speaker 1: be deserving of pleasure. I did this workshop once. It

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Speaker 1: was in Bondai and it was a bunch of young

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Speaker 1: Irish women and they said that since living in Bondai

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Speaker 1: they felt like their confidence had dropped because they were

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Speaker 1: looking around at all of the people and they saw

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Speaker 1: a very specific kind of body, so they thought they

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Speaker 1: weren't deserving of pleasure. So we started to really examine,

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Speaker 1: like what does it mean to be deserving of pleasure?

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Speaker 1: Your body is deserving of pleasure because it has all

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Speaker 1: of these rich nerve endings and because it feels good,

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Speaker 1: and you don't need to look a specific way. And

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Speaker 1: also so what is attractive to one person will be

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Speaker 1: completely different to the person.

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Speaker 2: So I just want to throw one in there that

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Speaker 2: I liked in your book, and it was do things

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Speaker 2: that make you feel uncomfortable. Yeah, yeah, I love that one. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: push yourself out of your cover zone. It's so hard, yes,

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Speaker 2: it is. The reward can be so great.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, It's a really great thing to remember. And

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Speaker 1: it's a tricky one when working with sex because we

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Speaker 1: obviously don't want to push you too far and push

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Speaker 1: your boundaries. But we don't want you to stay in

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Speaker 1: the known and doing things that you're already doing because

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Speaker 1: nothing will change. So yeah, yeah, do the clunky, uncomfortable thing.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, Georgack for coming on healthy, Thanks for having

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Speaker 2: me well. One thing we can take away from that

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Speaker 2: chat is sexual confidence and not just sexual confidence or

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Speaker 2: confidence can ebb and flow throughout our lives. And George's

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Speaker 2: book goes into that, of course, in more detail. You

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Speaker 2: can grab it now. It is called The Modern Guide

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Speaker 2: to Sex, and I will leave a link to her

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Speaker 2: last chat on anal play in our show notes. You

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Speaker 2: can listen to that that also did very well. If

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Speaker 2: you did enjoy this, tell us rate and review this episode,

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Speaker 2: subscribe to this podcast anything else. He said to Body

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Speaker 2: andsoul dot com dot you follow Body and Soul on

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Speaker 2: social media. Grab our print edition, which is our your

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Speaker 2: local Sunday paper. Thanks again for listening, and stay healthy

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Speaker 2: ish