Speaker 1: We acknowledged the traditional custodians of the land we're recording
Speaker 1: on today.
Speaker 2: I've done a couple of energy healing sessions that it's
Speaker 2: breath work in Bali, and I always end up sobbing,
Speaker 2: per like wailing sobbing, and She'll be yelling at me
Speaker 2: like as I'm doing my breath like, She's.
Speaker 1: Like, keep going, keep going, keep going, while I'm.
Speaker 3: Like, hello, welcome back, shitters, this is eat sleeve shit
Speaker 3: repeat your wildly unhinged podcast about the madness that is
Speaker 3: motherhood and everything in between, and thank you for letting
Speaker 3: me well.
Speaker 2: No one had a choice, including Keene producer mads Have.
Speaker 2: Last week off I simply was just peek overwhelmed. I
Speaker 2: was hosting some panels for a FABWD event. We're in
Speaker 2: the middle of the U Beauty Awards. I'm obviously trying
Speaker 2: to look after everything assr. And that's on top of
Speaker 2: just like my regular workload. See, you know, there was
Speaker 2: just no episode last week. I went to the GP
Speaker 2: a few weeks ago because my noggin was injured.
Speaker 1: In it ball. That's the story for another day.
Speaker 2: She no joke was like, your head is fine physically,
Speaker 2: it will be sore for a while, but it's okay.
Speaker 2: I would like to discuss your mental health though, because
Speaker 2: I don't know. I must have just been releasing some
Speaker 2: extra unhinged vibes or something. Anyway, I did the standard
Speaker 2: mental health checklist thing, and I was like slay because
Speaker 2: I barely registered for being depressed.
Speaker 1: And then she said, ma'am.
Speaker 2: She did say, ma'am, You've got the highest possible score
Speaker 2: for stress and anxiety, so you know, not great. And
Speaker 2: you know what, I know that our guest today is
Speaker 2: going to tell me that orgasmine would be a good
Speaker 2: stress reliever. And all I shall say to that is,
Speaker 2: Dear God, no, please do not put anything else on
Speaker 2: my to do list, which you know pisses Luke right
Speaker 2: off because then he feels.
Speaker 1: Like a chore.
Speaker 2: Tara Oh is a sex coach and has been working
Speaker 2: with women reigniting their desire for over ten years. Instead
Speaker 2: of just interviewing Tara today, I'm actually going to have
Speaker 2: a live sex therapy session, which I'm guessing is going
Speaker 2: to be mortifying to share. But as I said to her,
Speaker 2: if I've learned one thing from my history of oversharing,
Speaker 2: it's that no experience is unique, so sharing really does
Speaker 2: help people feel less alone. Tara, could you please start
Speaker 2: off by telling us a little bit about yourself, what
Speaker 2: you do, how did you.
Speaker 1: Start doing it?
Speaker 2: And you are a mom to two as well, so
Speaker 2: you're a mom, so it is they're going to be
Speaker 2: glad that you're not like some twenty two year old
Speaker 2: going just have our sex.
Speaker 4: Okay, Well you need to do is just buy more
Speaker 4: lingerie and schedule it in.
Speaker 2: Schedule it in, go to honey, go to spend five
Speaker 2: hundred dollars on some lingerie.
Speaker 4: God, it's expensive these days, isn't it.
Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever bought lingerie in my entire
Speaker 1: life because I just refuse.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, I mean you can get some really cute
Speaker 4: stuff from bing W. By the way, I was in
Speaker 4: there the other day trying to buy some more I
Speaker 4: think some very unattractive period nickers, and I was like,
Speaker 4: what is that red lace little thing there? For two dollars?
Speaker 4: I will take that.
Speaker 1: Big W for the win.
Speaker 4: Big they were in for the win. But about me?
Speaker 4: So I am Tara, I've been a sex coach for
Speaker 4: over a decade now. I am also a mother of two.
Speaker 4: Very intents we could go with intense big personality, a
Speaker 4: lot of energy kids. I wouldn't have it any other way,
Speaker 4: but it's a lot.
Speaker 1: I always say I'd rather than be intense and boring.
Speaker 4: My kids are definitely not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're going to be boring adults and they're not
Speaker 2: going to be dudged people. They've got big personalities.
Speaker 4: They have they have. I've been married for well, we've
Speaker 4: been together for about thirteen years, married for seven, so
Speaker 4: deep in the trenches of navigating parenthood, relationship, our sex, live,
Speaker 4: our intimacy. The thing that lights me up the most
Speaker 4: is working with other mothers and women who feel like
Speaker 4: they've lost desire or spark or intimacy in their relationship,
Speaker 4: who might feel like they're a little bit broken or
Speaker 4: something that you know is wrong with them or wrong
Speaker 4: with their relationship. So I hold workshops around Australia called
Speaker 4: Great Sex Matters. I have online courses, so I kind
Speaker 4: of cover quite a few topics, but mostly my highest
Speaker 4: selling course is called Sex after Kids, which is all
Speaker 4: about sort of unfucking your sex life after kids, because
Speaker 4: it you know, it's hard out there, so this course
Speaker 4: really walks you through the pathway of how you can
Speaker 4: kind of reignite that desire. I've written a book called
Speaker 4: The Better Sex Project, which is all about my journey
Speaker 4: from my early twenties to where I got to now,
Speaker 4: including after having kids and thinking I was just going
Speaker 4: to be this sex goddess after kids. And I was
Speaker 4: a bit of a dickhead for thinking that, I admit.
Speaker 4: So it was a very nice kind of come down
Speaker 4: to earth moment for me. I had a really bad
Speaker 4: prolapse and lost a lot of pleasure and just didn't
Speaker 4: want to be touched and all of those kind of things. So,
Speaker 4: knowing what I know and being able to bring my
Speaker 4: kind of my expertise into a realm that I know
Speaker 4: so well, maybe a little bit too well, I just
Speaker 4: wanted to bring the kind of sex coaching that women
Speaker 4: need and want in this kind of season of their life.
Speaker 4: And that's that, no bullshit, no fluff. We can have
Speaker 4: a laugh, we can have a talk. We don't want
Speaker 4: to get into this kind of really stagnant sterile therapy type,
Speaker 4: high stress environment because I think mums have got enough
Speaker 4: going on. I think that we need actionable tips that
Speaker 4: are sustainable. We don't need to be told that we'll
Speaker 4: just have more sex, just schedule it. In because there's
Speaker 4: a lot of stuff behind the scenes that's going on,
Speaker 4: and I think it helps when you've got somebody telling
Speaker 4: you go, yeah, I fucking get it. I get how
Speaker 4: hard it is. And sometimes you look at your husband
Speaker 4: you want to smash them in the head with a
Speaker 4: fry pan and put the kids in the rubbish bin.
Speaker 4: But we need to kind of do a little tweaking
Speaker 4: here and there. So yeah, that's kind of me, that's
Speaker 4: kind of my vibe.
Speaker 2: And you've got a lot of workshops coming up, so
Speaker 2: I'll make sure that we link that in the show
Speaker 2: notes because I've I reckon after today's session, people are
Speaker 2: either going to go away and have happy humping or
Speaker 2: they'll be like, I need to check myself in.
Speaker 4: I need to check myself in. Well, the workshop is again,
Speaker 4: it's a really good fun girls night out. You can
Speaker 4: have some bubbles, you bring your girls. There are zucchinis
Speaker 4: or carrots involved. Because I give a little demonstration of
Speaker 4: a ligam massage which will blow your pastner's mind. It's
Speaker 4: a linam massage, so it's kind of Lingam is sort
Speaker 4: of the time trick name for penis. It's called the
Speaker 4: wand of Light. Darling, which sounds ridiculous, but believe me,
Speaker 4: it's a very fun night. And what it does is
Speaker 4: it just gives you more tools to make sex interesting
Speaker 4: because I don't know about you, but sex can get
Speaker 4: really fucking boring after a while. When you've been humping
Speaker 4: the same guy for a long time, there's not a
Speaker 4: lot of newness. So in order to bring back newness
Speaker 4: and curiosity and exploration, I give you ways to do
Speaker 4: that in the workshop, and also how to increase your
Speaker 4: own so you take it from those tiny little micro
Speaker 4: orgasms or that really fast two second sparks, like really big,
Speaker 4: full body What the fuck just happened? Blew my mind?
Speaker 4: I'm now on a different level. Can we do that
Speaker 4: again in about three weeks time? You know? So it
Speaker 4: makes sense. That's much interesting.
Speaker 2: You just like also made me feel so much better though,
Speaker 2: because you just said three weeks time, because it's like
Speaker 2: people that say a couple of times a week. I'm like, how, guys,
Speaker 2: for some people, that's so great and so realistic. Because
Speaker 2: I also wanted to ask you because whenever we read anything,
Speaker 2: we will always see, like you know, good sex is
Speaker 2: part of a good relationship, and I have one girlfriend
Speaker 2: out of all of my girlfriends, who is having good,
Speaker 2: regular sex most nights of the week, she's a psychopath.
Speaker 1: I think she's.
Speaker 2: She's got a kid under one, but most nights because
Speaker 2: they almost days, like and they'll actually do it a
Speaker 2: few times. Apart from that, like everyone's kind of like
Speaker 2: every month or every couple of months. But the thing
Speaker 2: is as well, is that out of all of my friends,
Speaker 2: most of them have really happy relationships without having sex.
Speaker 2: So I just want to ask your perspective on that,
Speaker 2: because we're often told that we can't have a happy
Speaker 2: relationship without sex.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's completely untrue because, like yourself, I know
Speaker 4: people that will be intimate together once a month and
Speaker 4: they've got a beautiful relationship. I know people that will
Speaker 4: have sex very frequently, but their relationship is troubled. The
Speaker 4: frequency of sex doesn't tell us anything really about relationship
Speaker 4: satisfaction or sexual satisfaction. Because also, you can be having
Speaker 4: a lot of sex and it can be unrewarding, or
Speaker 4: you're doing it for them, or you're doing it out
Speaker 4: of obligation, or you're doing it with some other kind
Speaker 4: of belief or from a trauma pattern. But you could
Speaker 4: also be having sex every two weeks or every three weeks,
Speaker 4: and it's really connected sex and it brings you guys
Speaker 4: into a really beautiful union, and it's fun and it's playful,
Speaker 4: and that kind of sustains you for the next two
Speaker 4: weeks or the next three weeks. So whenever we look
Speaker 4: at frequency, I mean your friend who has sex quite often,
Speaker 4: that's amazing and if it's.
Speaker 1: Worth and they are very happy as well, by the way,
Speaker 1: that's it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that is, and it is really important to point
Speaker 4: out that that it's very one size doesn't fit all exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you have to kind of co create the kind of
Speaker 4: sexual relationship that works for both of you in the
Speaker 4: relationship and find compromise and find a balance so that
Speaker 4: one person really wants it all the time and then
Speaker 4: one person doesn't want it all the time. That can
Speaker 4: be a really kind of a bit of a struggle.
Speaker 1: Well that's the position that I'm in.
Speaker 4: So do you want to tell me a little bit
Speaker 4: about where you are with intimacy with your partner? And
Speaker 4: first off, you've got.
Speaker 2: A child, Yes, yes, we have little Lennie. He's three
Speaker 2: years old. He's hilarious. So I thought i'd just start
Speaker 2: by telling you a little bit about my past because
Speaker 2: I think that as well. Like a lot of people,
Speaker 2: if they didn't regularly listen to the show, or if
Speaker 2: someone just met me, they would be like, she is
Speaker 2: an absolute wild cat, and I'm not. I'm very open
Speaker 2: about talking about anything. And I don't know, I guess
Speaker 2: I just come across as like I've got big fake titties,
Speaker 2: So I probably just come across as like really hyper sexual.
Speaker 2: But I genuinely, and I'm saying to this honestly to you,
Speaker 2: if you told me you never have to be touched
Speaker 2: or have sex ever again in your entire life, I
Speaker 2: would be like, oh my god, Thank Heavens, I do
Speaker 2: not want to be touched.
Speaker 1: So when I was thinking about, you know, sharing in.
Speaker 2: This episode, I was like, oh god, I'm really going
Speaker 2: to have to probably share like more of my past.
Speaker 2: And I realized, like, I've never been comfortable sexually. Sex
Speaker 2: has always been a little bit more performative for me.
Speaker 2: So when you were talking about the technique that you
Speaker 2: like to show in your workshop, I'm sure that i'd
Speaker 2: probably have something like that down pat if it's about
Speaker 2: pleasuring a man, because I'm very good at doing that
Speaker 2: and very good at performing. And I have never, I realized,
Speaker 2: had good sex so because I cannot release the inhibitions
Speaker 2: or whatnot. And I've had three very long term relationships,
Speaker 2: and I'd say I've probably orgasmed in my life with
Speaker 2: a partner maybe twenty to thirty times. And that's a
Speaker 2: long time, almost two decades. Oh my god, I'm getting
Speaker 2: on of very regular sex because I've had long term
Speaker 2: boyfriends and when I wasn't, I was quite happy to
Speaker 2: you know, I always was having little flings and such.
Speaker 4: Well, first off, thank you for sharing that, because it
Speaker 4: can feel really vulnerable and scary because other people, you know,
Speaker 4: you worry about what people think, and everybody can when
Speaker 4: they have got this kind of image of you and
Speaker 4: things to break. That is really, you know, really really brave.
Speaker 4: And I bet that there are a lot of women
Speaker 4: that resonate with that, right because our generation, in particular,
Speaker 4: we grew up with sex being a performance. We were
Speaker 4: told by the magazines how to have twenty orgasms while
Speaker 4: standing on your head in the shower, or how to
Speaker 4: pleasure a man. It was always about what we give
Speaker 4: to them, that our sexuality was something we traded. We
Speaker 4: traded it for a nice dinner. We traded it for love,
Speaker 4: we traded it for a text back, we traded it
Speaker 4: for a promotion sometimes if that be the case. But
Speaker 4: we were very much told and sold this idea that
Speaker 4: our sexuality didn't belong to us. It was a trading hard.
Speaker 4: It was something that we did in order to get
Speaker 4: something outside of ourselves in return. So it makes a
Speaker 4: lot of sense that you would feel like that your
Speaker 4: sexuality isn't your own. Yeah, And even if you think
Speaker 4: about sex, the way that we learn how to have sex,
Speaker 4: it can be from movies, it can be from porn.
Speaker 4: We basically get an understanding of our own sexuality and
Speaker 4: our own pleasure and what sex looks like by the
Speaker 4: very people that's job it is to pretend. So we're
Speaker 4: learning from people who are pretending already. So we never
Speaker 4: really as women, get a very We don't get the
Speaker 4: opportunity to form a really authentic sexuality, knowing what we like,
Speaker 4: knowing what we don't like, knowing what we need, want, desire,
Speaker 4: knowing that we deserve all of those things. We are
Speaker 4: not educated in the way that a lot of teens
Speaker 4: and young adults are educated now. They're given a much
Speaker 4: more rounded, holistic view, much more empowerment, much more liberation
Speaker 4: around it. Yes, we had empowerment growing up, but it
Speaker 4: was always you can go and fuck like a man, right,
Speaker 4: And for a lot of women, fucking like a man
Speaker 4: isn't actually doing anything for them. You know, we don't
Speaker 4: want to rush in their hot and heavy and get
Speaker 4: the shit banged out of us somethings. Yeah, we need
Speaker 4: different a different way. So it doesn't shock me that
Speaker 4: you haven't learnt what really is Kelly's true sexuality, What
Speaker 4: does she need in order to feel safe, Because what
Speaker 4: I'm hearing is if you're drinking, if you're feeling like
Speaker 4: you can't let go, that's a safety thing. You don't trust.
Speaker 4: You don't trust that it's safe to be in your body.
Speaker 4: You don't trust that it's safe to be sexual. Or
Speaker 4: maybe there's been trauma in the past. Maybe there's been
Speaker 4: and that can range from anything from severe sexual trauma
Speaker 4: to like a slap on the bum going on the
Speaker 4: bus when you didn't want it, or comments, hey big tits,
Speaker 4: blah blah blah blah, you know all of that stuff
Speaker 4: that makes you go, oh god, that's scary, that's invasive.
Speaker 4: I'm going to shut that part of myself and I'm
Speaker 4: going to stuff it right down below so no one
Speaker 4: can can touch it and I don't have to feel it.
Speaker 4: So that safety and allowing yourself to really come into
Speaker 4: pleasure is important because without safety, we can't trust, and
Speaker 4: without trust, there's no connection, no connection to your body,
Speaker 4: no connection to your partner, and then without connection, you
Speaker 4: won't be able to surrender, surrender to pleasure, surrender to orgasm,
Speaker 4: surrender to having those kind of experiences that would make
Speaker 4: sex worthwhile. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2: Like why would I want to do it on the
Speaker 2: rag when it's like, oh my god, it's just literally
Speaker 2: another thing to put on my to do list because
Speaker 2: I don't get anything out of it. What you just
Speaker 2: said makes so much sense because my husband literally would
Speaker 2: do anything to make me feel as safe as possible,
Speaker 2: and I know how to get pleasure, like if I'm
Speaker 2: by myself, I have no problem orgasmine. I've got no problem,
Speaker 2: Like I can get there in under a minute, like
Speaker 2: it's no dramas.
Speaker 1: So that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So, just going back to when you were saying
Speaker 4: that you feel like sex is a chore, like something
Speaker 4: to do on your to do list. What is it
Speaker 4: about sex that makes it feel like a chore for you?
Speaker 4: Is it because it's coming the initiation and the invitation
Speaker 4: for sex is coming from your husband.
Speaker 2: I think it's just like it's a job that I
Speaker 2: will be doing that I don't get anything out of
Speaker 2: except for getting him off my back for twenty four hours.
Speaker 4: Because the sex doesn't feel super rewarding.
Speaker 1: Oh god, it's not rewarding at all.
Speaker 4: No, yeah, okay, And so that again makes complete sense.
Speaker 4: No wonder. It feels like a chore and an obligation
Speaker 4: because we very rarely move towards something we don't like.
Speaker 4: You know, I hate tomatoes. For example, I'm not going
Speaker 4: to go into my kitchen right now pick up a tomato.
Speaker 4: But if my husband's like, please eat this tomato, please,
Speaker 4: and you're like, oh fuck it, he's really in tomatoes.
Speaker 4: And then you take a bite it and you go, okay,
Speaker 4: I'm eating it for you. But let's just say, instead
Speaker 4: of making me or me feeling like I have to
Speaker 4: eat that tomato, if my husband took that tomato and
Speaker 4: he chopped it all up and he drizzled bousamic all
Speaker 4: over it, and he put mint on it, or basil
Speaker 4: and a nice piece of sourdough that was fresh out
Speaker 4: of the oven. You can guarantee I'm going to eat
Speaker 4: that thing like no tomorrow. Yeah, I would devour it.
Speaker 4: It's the same thing, it's just presented and created differently.
Speaker 4: It's using different flavors, it's using different ingredients. So I
Speaker 4: wonder that if sex felt rewarding, if it felt pleasurable,
Speaker 4: if you've got to the end of an encounter, sexual experience,
Speaker 4: encounter with your husband and was like, that felt so good,
Speaker 4: my body feels alive, I feel or maybe you cry
Speaker 4: and you release some of this kind of grief intension
Speaker 4: that you're holding in your body because it's been so
Speaker 4: long that you felt safe enough to kind of go
Speaker 4: down into that depth of your body and your soul.
Speaker 4: Whether sex like that would feel more enticing if there
Speaker 4: was no pressure, there was no obligation, it was just
Speaker 4: simply something that brought you, guys, pleasure, joy, connection, playfulness,
Speaker 4: release that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Definitely, Yeah, yeah, of course.
Speaker 2: But then I'm like, I don't know how to because
Speaker 2: like everything that he wants to do, like I just
Speaker 2: I don't even want to be touched. Everything's just like, oh,
Speaker 2: I've got real and I know that I do. I've
Speaker 2: got like real intimacy problems. It's only getting worse as
Speaker 2: I'm getting older. And I hate that I've turned into
Speaker 2: the mum that never wants to have sex, you know,
Speaker 2: like it's just such a cliche. I hate that I've
Speaker 2: turned into that person.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're not wanting to be touched, though. I think
Speaker 4: is really really common because it's sort of the same
Speaker 4: kind of thing when women say I'm too tired for sex, right,
Speaker 4: So there's being that kind of too tired for sex,
Speaker 4: and then there's feeling overwhelmed. Now when you say that
Speaker 4: your partner when he touches you, you don't want to
Speaker 4: be touched. Is it because you're feeling in your body
Speaker 4: overwhelmed by what's happened during the day, or that you're
Speaker 4: overwhelmed by what's going on in your mind? Or is
Speaker 4: it something that if somebody else, if Chris Hemsworth walked
Speaker 4: in and started stroking, would you still have that kind
Speaker 4: of inner battle? Well, I admitted this on a different
Speaker 4: episode and Luke heard it and was like what.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I've got to be honest about this.
Speaker 1: But I was like, oh, I reckon.
Speaker 2: I could totally have like loose sex with a stranger
Speaker 2: in a hotel room because that person doesn't know anything
Speaker 2: about me. They have got no idea about my moods,
Speaker 2: and I don't argue with that person about rubbish or
Speaker 2: they don't know what I do for work, like absolutely nothing. However,
Speaker 2: to get really intimate and like let someone like kiss
Speaker 2: my body or something, I'd still have to be inebriated
Speaker 2: to really let it happen and not be grown stout. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because I've just gotten to a stage where any intimate
Speaker 2: act is just like ough. And do you know why
Speaker 2: does it feel like it's a transgression on your space?
Speaker 2: Does it feel like it sends you into a bit
Speaker 2: of a flighty response, like a flea or a fight
Speaker 2: or flight kind of nervous system response. Yeah, like a
Speaker 2: I freeze up and I'm like, I don't know it,
Speaker 2: just like I haven't let my husband go down on
Speaker 2: me for like since before I was pregnant, because I'm
Speaker 2: just like, oh my god, yuck, like yuk, yuk, yuck, yuck,
Speaker 2: chuck it just the whole thing. I'm just like ill, no,
Speaker 2: please don't.
Speaker 1: I used to.
Speaker 2: Of course I would enjoy it, but I was always
Speaker 2: like weird about it. I was like, I need a
Speaker 2: pillow over my face. I can't like music needs to
Speaker 2: be up very loud. It's like I've just got this
Speaker 2: block where as soon as something's really intimate, I can't
Speaker 2: let it go. Like I would rather have sex from
Speaker 2: behind so that I don't have to look at anyone.
Speaker 1: And I've just always been like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, And it's funny because sex is so intimate.
Speaker 1: Yes, letting like another body into your body or join
Speaker 1: your body, you know, however you do it.
Speaker 4: But the problem is that to have really good sex,
Speaker 4: there has to be intimacy, and that intimacy is born
Speaker 4: from connection, which is trust and which is safety. So
Speaker 4: if you're already not feeling safe in your body, it
Speaker 4: makes a lot of sense that you don't want to
Speaker 4: move any further towards intimacy because you don't feel safe enough,
Speaker 4: and that feeling of unsafety and not trusting and feeling
Speaker 4: it it's your brain. Your brain will stop any kind
Speaker 4: of desire before it can even flow through you. Yeah,
Speaker 4: So if there is a touch on your hand or
Speaker 4: a touch on your shoulder that your brain then determines
Speaker 4: as unsafe oh, it's going to lead to sex. I
Speaker 4: don't want to have sex. Now, I'm spinning. Now, I'm
Speaker 4: going into like overwhelmed with all of these thoughts. My
Speaker 4: body feels repulsed. Your brain will do a very quick
Speaker 4: calculation and decide that sex and pleasure isn't worth it
Speaker 4: right now, and that it's actually unsafe to you. So
Speaker 4: it will cock block any type of pleasure or any
Speaker 4: kind of nice sensation that you would be able to
Speaker 4: kind of harness as you move forward with the encounter.
Speaker 4: So when your partner does come and initiate, is it
Speaker 4: normally your partner initiating.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'll sometimes be like, do you want to have sex?
Speaker 2: Because I'll be like, it's been a few weeks, we
Speaker 2: better do it. Very unsexy.
Speaker 4: The way that I initiate, Well, really, I mean you
Speaker 4: had me at the well, do you want to have sex?
Speaker 4: I'll be right over.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, ill, no, no, just come on, get hard,
Speaker 2: come on, come on, let's get it on with like
Speaker 2: come on, and then I'll be like doing everything I
Speaker 2: can to get it over and done with as.
Speaker 4: Quick as possible, as quick as possible.
Speaker 1: Very sexy. I am Oh, I mean.
Speaker 4: You would be surprised at how common it is. Honestly,
Speaker 4: we might raise our eyebrows and think, oh, that's that's
Speaker 4: never me, but we've all done it. We've all faked
Speaker 4: an orgasm to spur the other person on, or you
Speaker 4: know that hand is reached over and you've gone, oh god, okay, fine,
Speaker 4: you know, throwing the bone. So I'm not saying that
Speaker 4: it has to be a perfect kind of scorecard moving
Speaker 4: forward and things that you can always still have encounters
Speaker 4: that you're not you know, one hundred percent into, especially
Speaker 4: when you're in a married and healthy relationship. We just
Speaker 4: we do it right. But if we always have sexual
Speaker 4: encounters that are for avoidance reasons, like it's been a
Speaker 4: couple of weeks and maybe you're avoiding an argument, or
Speaker 4: maybe you're avoiding relationship drift or avoiding something else, or
Speaker 4: you're feeling bad about yourself that you're not a good partner.
Speaker 4: If you're continuously saying yes but really deep down it's
Speaker 4: a no, then that's going to erode your desire and
Speaker 4: your pleasure even more so, it's going to make it
Speaker 4: even harder to access that kind of pleasure and that
Speaker 4: desire because you're not even trusting your own no. Yeah,
Speaker 4: really it's a no. But your brain is going, ah,
Speaker 4: well I should, I should, come on, come on, do it,
Speaker 4: and your body's like, but hang on. We've been telling
Speaker 4: you we don't feel safe, we don't like this, and
Speaker 4: you're overriding it. Yeah. So I think the first thing
Speaker 4: that I would do in your sort of particular case,
Speaker 4: we need to reset the whole sexual cycle. We need
Speaker 4: to get rid of the pressure, the obligation, the chore.
Speaker 4: We need to wipe the slate clean and go moving forward.
Speaker 4: I'm going to create a new sex life with my
Speaker 4: partner and with myself, one that has the foundation on safety, trust, connection, honesty, authenticity,
Speaker 4: and that really centers my emotional state, my needs, my desires,
Speaker 4: and my wants. And in order to do that, it's
Speaker 4: about having a conversation with your partner. And when you
Speaker 4: were saying, Luke would do anything to make you feel comfortable,
Speaker 4: right like, I like to think that we have good
Speaker 4: men in our lives. And yeah, they can be total
Speaker 4: shit back sometimes and not read the room and all
Speaker 4: of that stuff. They're not, you know, as great as women, obviously,
Speaker 4: but they're pretty amazing, especially when you can feel that
Speaker 4: sensitivity and that appreciation of like what do you need?
Speaker 4: Like what can I can I help you with? When
Speaker 4: it comes to your sex life, they're pretty clueless as
Speaker 4: well when it comes to a female sexuality, almost as
Speaker 4: much as you know, we're pretty clueless as well. I
Speaker 4: mean they're more clueless, but we're also pretty clueless when
Speaker 4: it comes to our lives. So when it comes to
Speaker 4: two people trying to move forward, you don't really know
Speaker 4: what to do because it's like, well, what other kind
Speaker 4: of sex can we do? What should we do? How
Speaker 4: should we talk about this? How should we navigate it?
Speaker 2: And I don't know if this is how other people
Speaker 2: would feel, but it almost makes me feel like really
Speaker 2: embarrassed and shy, like oh, which sounds ridiculous, but it's
Speaker 2: like like I just would get straight away just very
Speaker 2: awkward and embarrassed about such a thing, like oh goodness,
Speaker 2: oh goodness me.
Speaker 4: I know. And it's exactly again. It can be from
Speaker 4: our culture, can be how we were raised, It could
Speaker 4: be religion, it can be from anything. But you know
Speaker 4: a lot of us were told don't touch your vagina
Speaker 4: or you know it'll close up on you or something
Speaker 4: or that's dirty, and hide your body, hide your vagina
Speaker 4: or you know, everything from oh it's smelly, because there's
Speaker 4: so many ads about how you can make it more
Speaker 4: beautiful and smell stuff. So again, it's that kind of
Speaker 4: hangover from the way that we grew up and what
Speaker 4: we learned about our own bodies and our sexuality. We
Speaker 4: weren't told they're amazing pleasure vessels, and this is you know,
Speaker 4: you can advocate for your own pleasure. Now it's getting better,
Speaker 4: like I was saying, but not then. So having a
Speaker 4: conversation with Luke about hey, I like to start with
Speaker 4: like I feel, I want, I wonder as kind of
Speaker 4: a framework, because again, sexual conversations can be really tricky.
Speaker 4: They're hard for everybody, especially when you are wanting to
Speaker 4: make change. Yeah, because most of us talk about sex
Speaker 4: when something's wrong. We don't often sit there and go, hey,
Speaker 4: do you remember that time we're on that beat each
Speaker 4: and you know, things got pretty saucy between us or
Speaker 4: whatever whatever happened. We don't often recount those kind of
Speaker 4: stories to us. So when we have conversations, they're laiden
Speaker 4: with sort of embarrassment and expectation and vulnerability because we're
Speaker 4: bringing something to the table and we haven't been practicing
Speaker 4: these kind of conversations, so it's hard, right, But it
Speaker 4: sounds like Luke's a great guy, so we can kind
Speaker 4: of be confident that he's going to receive this in
Speaker 4: a really good manner. And I think it's about talking
Speaker 4: to him and saying something like, you know what I've
Speaker 4: been thinking about our connection. I feel like I might
Speaker 4: be ready to take some steps to make sex something
Speaker 4: that is a place where we can find lots of
Speaker 4: pleasure and fun and connection. And I want to be
Speaker 4: able to feel like I can look forward to it
Speaker 4: or that I you know, not meaning that we have
Speaker 4: to have sex all the time, but I want to
Speaker 4: feel excited by my own body and my own pleasure
Speaker 4: and connecting with you and building sex life that feels
Speaker 4: good as we age, you know, when Lenny leaves the
Speaker 4: home and we're still, you know, going to bingo or something,
Speaker 4: I want to know that I can hold your hand
Speaker 4: and we're connected in this way. And then you would
Speaker 4: probably say something like, so you've done the I feel
Speaker 4: the I want, And then the I wonder is the
Speaker 4: invitation to say so, I wonder if you would be
Speaker 4: willing on doing a thirty day no sex reseet, which
Speaker 4: means that Luke wouldn't be able to initiate anything. He
Speaker 4: can initiate conversations, sure, but you'll be the one initiating
Speaker 4: any physical contact. You'll be the one initiating sex. Not
Speaker 4: in the first two weeks, You'll be the one sort
Speaker 4: of initiating any initiation, if that makes sense. So what
Speaker 4: we're doing in this experiment is we're removing the pressure
Speaker 4: that a any touch is now going to lead to
Speaker 4: more intimacy or sex or interaction that doesn't feel safe
Speaker 4: for you. We're setting expectations so that Luke knows that actually,
Speaker 4: you're doing this because you value the relationship and this
Speaker 4: side of your relationship and you want to create something
Speaker 4: that feels good and rewarding for both of you that
Speaker 4: you have like a commitment there. And what it's doing
Speaker 4: is it's giving you the opportunity that in those thirty
Speaker 4: days you're able to start doing little experiments with yourself
Speaker 4: in a way that feels unhurried, but nobody's watching. You
Speaker 4: can feel and find ways to reconnect to yourself that
Speaker 4: feel safe for you. Do you know why Luke reaches
Speaker 4: for you, why he wants to engage and have intimacy
Speaker 4: with you in sex.
Speaker 1: For him, it's how he feels connected.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think that's really important to know and
Speaker 4: listen to our partners share what it is that they
Speaker 4: receive from it, because if it was just about getting off,
Speaker 4: of course, they can go to the bathroom and they
Speaker 4: can bang one out. You know, they could do that
Speaker 4: morning and night. Of course, pleasure is always a component,
Speaker 4: but there's always another reason, yeah, like an emotional reason
Speaker 4: and need the drives reaching out for that person and
Speaker 4: being like I want to feel that validation. I want
Speaker 4: to feel connected to you. I want to know that
Speaker 4: you're as into me as you know I am into you.
Speaker 4: And that's where it can trip up a lot of
Speaker 4: people because if somebody's saying no, but the other person's like,
Speaker 4: but I'm trying to connect, it can expiral into a
Speaker 4: lot of arguments and a lot of resentment, rough and
Speaker 4: resentment and tricky territory to navigate. It's basically usually the
Speaker 4: couple wants the same thing, connection or validation, but just
Speaker 4: in different ways, like love languages. You know, we've got
Speaker 4: different ways we've given and receive love. If they're coming
Speaker 4: for connection, but you actually just go to sex because
Speaker 4: you know you want to feel good about who you
Speaker 4: are as a partner. You're not doing it for anything else,
Speaker 4: You're doing it for avoidance reader reasons. You know you've
Speaker 4: got mismatch needs and wants out of sex. So knowing
Speaker 4: that Luke's need, his underlying need and why he comes
Speaker 4: to you for sexist connection, finding ways that we can
Speaker 4: up that connection with Luke, but not frequency of sex.
Speaker 4: We're looking like, if he had a connection tank, how
Speaker 4: can we deposit more connection in his tank? So that's
Speaker 4: filling up, but it's not penetrative sex. It's not even
Speaker 4: really highly intimate touch on your body. So starting to
Speaker 4: brainstorm and think of ideas, which might be maybe he
Speaker 4: just wants to sit next to you at the end
Speaker 4: of the day and hold hands while you're watching a
Speaker 4: show or a movie but your bodies are next to
Speaker 4: each other, yeah, you know, and you're having a glass
Speaker 4: of wine. Or maybe he wants to connect with you
Speaker 4: without any phones or screens or anything in bed and
Speaker 4: you actually put your phones down and say maybe you
Speaker 4: text him during the day and say, can we just
Speaker 4: have a chat in bed tonight. We'll go to bed
Speaker 4: five minutes early or something. You put your phone down.
Speaker 4: And when he sees that, it's a shift, a conscious
Speaker 4: choice to put your phone down. And I know it
Speaker 4: sounds ridiculous, but it's a true rebellion these days, you
Speaker 4: know we have it's also much distraction.
Speaker 1: Well, I'd be showing him that I'm putting an effort,
Speaker 1: putting in an effort.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly. The weight of the effort is gold basically
Speaker 4: because it's like, if you know, even with things that
Speaker 4: our partner does, especially in the early days, it's like
Speaker 4: he planned the dates and it was it wasn't the
Speaker 4: Italian that I wanted it, but it was the next
Speaker 4: best thing. You know, it's the effort. We've got it,
Speaker 4: and as we stay in a relationship, the longer we
Speaker 4: forget that the effort is a very clear indication of
Speaker 4: the wanting and the desire to keep a relationship healthy
Speaker 4: and thriving. Yeah. So with Luke seeing you put that
Speaker 4: phone down, actually sitting together in bed or lying together
Speaker 4: in bed, you can either. Also I recommend a lot
Speaker 4: of couples actually just taking their clothes off and they
Speaker 4: inbed naked to each other or cuddling if it feels comfortable,
Speaker 4: because again, that's a high degree of intimacy, but it's
Speaker 4: often a high level of intimacy that we reserve only
Speaker 4: if it's then going to go into sex, or if
Speaker 4: it's then going to mean that there's going to be
Speaker 4: a hand that slips down and a fondle and a
Speaker 4: grab and you're like, oh, so it's a very uncomfortable
Speaker 4: place for a lot of women because there's a lot
Speaker 4: of internal pressure, expectation, or a lot of mind stuff
Speaker 4: going and going okay, where is this going. So if
Speaker 4: you can set the ground rules and be like, okay,
Speaker 4: I just want to lie with you naked. I just
Speaker 4: want skin to skin contact. Remember how when you have
Speaker 4: a baby, they always put you on the chest, and
Speaker 4: they do that for a very particular reason. It's the oxytocin,
Speaker 4: it's the bonding, it's the connection, it's all of those
Speaker 4: yummy neurochemicals that kind of get ejaculated through our body.
Speaker 4: Can do the same with your partner, just skin on skin,
Speaker 4: And what's going to be really important for you is
Speaker 4: that you're going to have to bring your nervous system
Speaker 4: down a little bit by he will help you co
Speaker 4: regulate that because obviously it's not a trigger for him.
Speaker 4: So he's probably really enjoying this touch. Yeah, allow his
Speaker 4: breathing to coregulate yours. So you're just breathing slowly, try
Speaker 4: to kind of notice the skin touching his, the sheets,
Speaker 4: feeling what you can sense, smell, taste, you know, all
Speaker 4: of those things here, and then just ask him like,
Speaker 4: how are you really and he'll tell you a little
Speaker 4: bit and then go but yeah, really, and he'll tell
Speaker 4: you a little bit more go yeah, and anything else
Speaker 4: like really, and even just saying really, a couple of
Speaker 4: times you start to kind of again un cover that
Speaker 4: surface stuff. We go, oh, well, my day was a
Speaker 4: little bit stressful, or oh, Lenny didn't eat any of
Speaker 4: the dinner again, can you believe it? And then you go, yeah,
Speaker 4: but really, yeah, I'm actually pretty tired, Like I've been
Speaker 4: dealing with this all week, and I got to say,
Speaker 4: like I'm feeling burnt out, okay, and anything else? Really, Yeah,
Speaker 4: I think I'm taking it out on you. And I
Speaker 4: am almost happy that I'm taking it out on you
Speaker 4: because it's giving me direction.
Speaker 1: For my anger right now, giving me an outlet, giving.
Speaker 4: Me an outlet. Yeah, So being able to ask questions
Speaker 4: in this way, repeating them and it can be saying
Speaker 4: really or tell me more about that or whatever it is,
Speaker 4: but keep them open ended and then just listen and
Speaker 4: giving again that really beautiful connection of talking and connecting.
Speaker 4: But there's no sex. There's no penetrative sex. So when
Speaker 4: Luke turns over and goes to sleep that night, his
Speaker 4: connection cup is getting filled, you know. And whether he
Speaker 4: wants to then go and relieve himself a pleasure, But
Speaker 4: my guess would be that he's actually really fucking stoked
Speaker 4: with that. Yeah, Yeah, And then I would start looking
Speaker 4: at things and homework that you would do that would
Speaker 4: kind of start to unravel some of these kind of
Speaker 4: long held beliefs about who you are as a woman,
Speaker 4: who you are as a mother, who you are as
Speaker 4: a sexual woman. Where you've got a lot of those
Speaker 4: beliefs and those messagings from then I would focus a
Speaker 4: lot on those beliefs and aren't hooking yourself from them?
Speaker 4: And they can also It's so fascinating, and I really
Speaker 4: love working with the whole body because again, aroused when
Speaker 4: desire starts with the brain. Right. So if we've got
Speaker 4: a belief this is a big belief a lot of
Speaker 4: women have around, well, he only wants sex, right, And
Speaker 4: this is you would see in every kind of mum forum,
Speaker 4: a lot of kind of thing. It's a very classic
Speaker 4: trope that the man always wants the sex is always chasing.
Speaker 4: And when I talk to women about this, I say, well,
Speaker 4: first off, if it's no wonder that you actually don't
Speaker 4: even really want to want sex, Because if you've got
Speaker 4: that message in your mind that you know all they're
Speaker 4: after for me is for sex, you know, I'm just there.
Speaker 1: I say a piece of meat. I'm like, I'm not
Speaker 1: a piece of meat.
Speaker 4: I'm not a piece of meat. I'm not a t
Speaker 4: bone steak.
Speaker 2: I have an angers rump, I am aware, I am ray.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm actually even inedible. Don't touch me.
Speaker 1: Okay, you'll be poisoned, okay.
Speaker 4: Mad cow, Mad cow. If you're thinking that that's all
Speaker 4: that they want, or you're thinking that it's not going
Speaker 4: to be rewarding anyway, sure I have more sex, but
Speaker 4: why do I want more sex, Because it's not even
Speaker 4: the sex that I even like. It's going to stop
Speaker 4: your motivation for making change. Because our beliefs affect our thoughts,
Speaker 4: and our thoughts affect our emotions, and our emotions will
Speaker 4: affect how motivation to whether we're actually going to, you know,
Speaker 4: put in any effort to do this in the first place. Yeah,
Speaker 4: So we need to change these and make these positive beliefs.
Speaker 4: So if a belief, say was he only ever wants sex,
Speaker 4: that can be true. Of course that can be true.
Speaker 4: And it could also be true that he's asking for
Speaker 4: sex a lot because he thinks that one in twenty
Speaker 4: times he asks, he's going to be able to get that.
Speaker 4: A sales pitch, isn't it. It's like a sales pitch.
Speaker 4: It's like, you know, I'm going to keep messaging you
Speaker 4: until you say, actually, you know what, I do want
Speaker 4: that essentral oil or something, and it's like, yeah, finally,
Speaker 4: keep throwing something at the wall enough times, one of
Speaker 4: the times that'll stick. Why is it going to stick?
Speaker 4: Or I'm going to get so over it and be
Speaker 4: like okay, fine, you know yeah, or and again that
Speaker 4: is sex. But if we take it back to what
Speaker 4: we're talking about with Luke, is it that he wants
Speaker 4: that pleasure from you? Because I mean sex and a
Speaker 4: vagina of course is really really great, but there are
Speaker 4: a lot of other ways so he can get pleasure.
Speaker 4: So what is it really okay? It's that connection, it's
Speaker 4: that validation suck. He's felt so unattractive since also becoming
Speaker 4: a parent, and he's wondering, do you still find me sexy?
Speaker 4: Or does our relationship matter now that we've got, you know,
Speaker 4: other small, tiny terrorists in the fray? Can I have
Speaker 4: some of your time now, you know? Or where do
Speaker 4: we fitness pitch? Are we going to make it through this?
Speaker 4: Because I've got three friends that are divorcing right now
Speaker 4: and I'm thinking, fuck, that's going to be us next yeah.
Speaker 4: Or the man at work he was saying that his
Speaker 4: wife like is so grossed out by him, and doesn't
Speaker 4: you know blah blah blah blah is that us? You know?
Speaker 4: So they've got their own internal dialogue and beliefs and
Speaker 4: systems as well, So yes, it can feel like they're
Speaker 4: chasing us for sex, but what's really going on under that.
Speaker 4: The other thing I want to bring up as well
Speaker 4: is that we often look at this kind of work
Speaker 4: like it's dire and terrible, Like we think that there's
Speaker 4: something going to be wrong with us, that's irreparable, that
Speaker 4: will never actually be able to find the true nugget
Speaker 4: of our sexuality, that will never be able to feel
Speaker 4: that kind of sensual aliveness anymore, or that pleasure or
Speaker 4: feeling really juicy in our body in a way that
Speaker 4: feels real and powerful for us. And what I say
Speaker 4: to women is that I've never met a woman that
Speaker 4: doesn't have it in her. We are built like that.
Speaker 4: You know, our clitoris has seven thousand nerve and its
Speaker 4: We are built for pleasure. We are built to be
Speaker 4: filled from the inside out with fullness and radiance and sensuality.
Speaker 4: You know, it's how much you feel when you go
Speaker 4: for a massage. Or we like to beautify ourselves. You know,
Speaker 4: we rub things on our skin. We like sense, we
Speaker 4: like smells, we like you know, beauty in and of itself.
Speaker 4: We have a central nature and when we can tap
Speaker 4: into that and move forward. There's not a woman out
Speaker 4: there that doesn't have that capacity, or doesn't have the
Speaker 4: capacity to feel pleasure, to feel desire, to feel like
Speaker 4: she can turn herself on.
Speaker 2: Do you have like tips for me and other people
Speaker 2: that we know what we like and we know what
Speaker 2: would make.
Speaker 1: Us enjoy sex. But how do you get.
Speaker 2: Past that mental block of not wanting to do it
Speaker 2: in front of them?
Speaker 4: So I think it's it's shame and conditioning again, right,
Speaker 4: It's that thing of being like perhaps you were told
Speaker 4: as a teenager that if your quote unquote too sexual,
Speaker 4: something bad's going to happen. You're going to invite abuse,
Speaker 4: You're going to be called a slut, You're going to
Speaker 4: be shamed. Right.
Speaker 1: So I went to a religious school, so that makes sense.
Speaker 4: I mean you might want to start there.
Speaker 1: No sex before marriage.
Speaker 4: Of course, because it's shameful.
Speaker 1: It's very shameful.
Speaker 4: It's dirty. And don't even think about touching your own body.
Speaker 4: Oh now, it is the biggest sin. And do you want,
Speaker 4: you know, the wrath of God on you. You can't shame
Speaker 4: anybody more than that. So again it makes sense, right,
Speaker 4: It makes sense that you would carry things of being like, yeah,
Speaker 4: guilts kind of getting in the way of me actually
Speaker 4: wanting to touch my body in front of you. What
Speaker 4: it comes down to is if Lenny touched his body
Speaker 4: in a way that felt nice for him, what would
Speaker 4: you tell him. Would you say that's disgusting, don't do God?
Speaker 2: No, I just would say, hey, like I know that
Speaker 2: that might maybe feels nice.
Speaker 1: Maybe when we touch ourselves we do it in our bedrooms.
Speaker 2: I went to a religious school, but my parents were
Speaker 2: very they were very no sex before marriage. But I
Speaker 2: remember when I was little they used to catch me
Speaker 2: fondling myself sometimes and they were always very like, okay,
Speaker 2: see y'all, like they wouldn't never like they never made
Speaker 2: me feel guilty. Amazing, And do you think there would
Speaker 2: have been other times as well as you were growing
Speaker 2: up that you would have picked up messaging that has
Speaker 2: made you kind of retract from your sexuality or see
Speaker 2: it as something shameful, whether even you remember Cosmopolitan how
Speaker 2: the sealed section was always sealed, Yeah, you know, even
Speaker 2: little things like that was the fact that it wasn't
Speaker 2: out there?
Speaker 4: Why was it sealed? Or this is something naughty, this
Speaker 4: is something to boo, this is something that needs to
Speaker 4: do we shouldn't be talking about, or that we shouldn't
Speaker 4: be talking about. So there is also those things of
Speaker 4: looking at of what are the key messagings around shame,
Speaker 4: Where did it sort of start from the root of
Speaker 4: the shame and is it serving you? Like what is
Speaker 4: this holding this amount of shame in your body? How
Speaker 4: is that impacting your ability to experience pleasure and intimacy
Speaker 4: with your husband. Once you've picked the shame like out
Speaker 4: and you're sort of taking it out of the garden
Speaker 4: of your sexuality, for example, you've really got to couple
Speaker 4: it with moving it through your body. Like that shame
Speaker 4: that's in your body is trapped with things like contraction
Speaker 4: and a sort of a denseness and an inability to
Speaker 4: kind of relax the nervous system to open enough to
Speaker 4: actually start to even receive any sensations or receive any
Speaker 4: kind of intimacy itself. So what I would do, I
Speaker 4: would start off with you because there's such an undercurrent
Speaker 4: of not feeling safe and almost like I don't want
Speaker 4: to say the word repulsion, but a distaste in your
Speaker 4: own physicality or your own having physical touch on your body. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 4: So we really will kind of want to go back
Speaker 4: to treating your body like a newborn baby's body, you know,
Speaker 4: and giving that that safety and really kind of swaddling
Speaker 4: her and being like, Okay, we're going to start doing
Speaker 4: somebody based practices and moving that shame and that greef
Speaker 4: or that anger. Like, I bet you're fucking super pissed
Speaker 4: about the amount of times people have commented on your
Speaker 4: your boobs or times when somebody has made the wrong
Speaker 4: assumption about you because you're a beautiful blonde woman, you know,
Speaker 4: and maybe oh she or she's not smart, or hey,
Speaker 4: baby doll or whatever it is, you know, so all
Speaker 4: of those comments and that that kind of shame or
Speaker 4: maybe that's a self protective thing that you're like, well,
Speaker 4: I'm going to do this so that they don't see
Speaker 4: the real me. So giving that a voice and a
Speaker 4: space while also connecting to your body by breath and
Speaker 4: by moving it through your body. So what I usually
Speaker 4: like to do is, if you're doing it by yourself,
Speaker 4: you can get like a beautiful massage oil, but something
Speaker 4: that is not going to irritate your vulva or your vagina.
Speaker 4: So coconut oil is really really good. And I would
Speaker 4: set up and again an intentional space, because ritual and
Speaker 4: intentionality also creates a sense of safety because we're telling
Speaker 4: ourselves and our body, Okay, I'm doing this in a
Speaker 4: safe environment because I'm closing the door, because I have
Speaker 4: dimmed the lights, because I've got music on that's really
Speaker 4: good for my nervous system and relaxing, so your body's
Speaker 4: getting cuses. Okay, this is safe. We're not in the
Speaker 4: middle of the park. We're Luke's not here, so he
Speaker 4: can't see.
Speaker 1: He can't come in.
Speaker 4: He can't come in because I've double bolted the door
Speaker 4: and put a mouse trap on the floor or a
Speaker 4: rabbit trap. My dad actually did that once, he put
Speaker 4: a rabbit trap in the hallway for when my boyfriend
Speaker 4: stayed over.
Speaker 1: Okay, your dad sounds like my dad, though it's not wild.
Speaker 4: And you wonder why we've all got these kind of
Speaker 4: weird messagings about sex.
Speaker 1: Exactly that we are so precious. There's literally like a
Speaker 1: bear trap set up.
Speaker 4: There is a bear trap. You cross over there to
Speaker 4: my precious angel.
Speaker 1: Mery daughter bear trap exactly exactly.
Speaker 4: So look what I'm saying is you're not that shit crazy.
Speaker 4: You're completely normal. Look what we grew up with. So
Speaker 4: you've got your coach noddle, you've got beautiful space. And
Speaker 4: what we want to do is we want to start
Speaker 4: to create safety with our body. But while we're breathing,
Speaker 4: and we're going to breathe in kind of a bit
Speaker 4: of a sexual way, So you might start by sitting
Speaker 4: like if you're on a bouncing ball, like when you're
Speaker 4: giving birth, and your sort of legs are on the side.
Speaker 4: You're basically just kind of kneeling up on your knees,
Speaker 4: but then sitting back, if that makes sense. So your
Speaker 4: legs are underneath you or save your cross legger, but
Speaker 4: then you tuck your legs underneath you and you're sitting back.
Speaker 4: You know the praying emoji guy. You're sort of sitting
Speaker 4: there like this. I think he's yeah, he's got his
Speaker 4: hands on his upper thighs and his legs underneath. Be
Speaker 4: that man. So you hop into the emoji praying man.
Speaker 4: This is where it's key. So we want some music
Speaker 4: that's got some sensual nality to it. We're not listening
Speaker 4: to Shake it Off by Taylor Swift. We're not any
Speaker 4: or any any jeez. Yeah, this is funny. On my playlist,
Speaker 4: I've got some of my beautiful songs, but then just
Speaker 4: a wiggle song will come out of the blue and
Speaker 4: you're like, manto no, and I'm like, oh what, I
Speaker 4: don't know. It's all of a sudden, I'm like, we
Speaker 4: don't talk about Bruno.
Speaker 1: It's like massive attack.
Speaker 2: You're in the middle of like enjoying angel and then
Speaker 2: in pops in Michael Finnigan did.
Speaker 4: Forget and that ship you can never get out of
Speaker 4: your mind exactly, then ruins the mood straight away. So
Speaker 4: you need a playlist that's not going to surprise you
Speaker 4: with any kind of other songs. And you're going to
Speaker 4: start to move your body. And all you do is
Speaker 4: you're moving in like a wave motion. So you put
Speaker 4: out your chest and you kind of stick out your
Speaker 4: bum and then you would collapse your chest and sort
Speaker 4: of move back and then out chest out, collapse your
Speaker 4: chest kind of shoulders in as if you're kind of hunching.
Speaker 4: You can actually do it in any kind of way.
Speaker 4: All I want you to do is just move rhythmically
Speaker 4: to the music and inhale an out how as you
Speaker 4: breathe that in how and ex house so just like
Speaker 4: you would the ocean, you know. And if you want
Speaker 4: to go really in depth with that, you can hold
Speaker 4: and release your pelvic floor muscles, squeeze and release like
Speaker 4: you're doing a keegel. Right now.
Speaker 1: You're massaging yourself at the same time.
Speaker 4: And you're massuging yourself, but you're just kind of focusing
Speaker 4: on your upper body. So you've dripped some warm coconut
Speaker 4: oil on your hands and you're doing like as if
Speaker 4: you would be putting on lotion, but you're slowing everything down.
Speaker 4: And what you're doing is you're using like feather light
Speaker 4: touches and then kind of more compression touches, and you're
Speaker 4: going across your chest, around your boobs, sort of up
Speaker 4: your neck as you're breathing, and all you're doing is
Speaker 4: you're just rocking breathing feeling. And then this is the
Speaker 4: crucial part. I want you to start sounding. Now. This
Speaker 4: can also feel like okay, we've gone from zero to
Speaker 4: blow here, but it's a very effective way to start
Speaker 4: to bring up some of that shame and that grief
Speaker 4: from a bodily sense, yeah, from like a somatic sense,
Speaker 4: so that ohh. And imagine as you're breathing out, you're
Speaker 4: breathing like a black.
Speaker 1: Cloud of like you're getting it out out all of
Speaker 1: that shame, all.
Speaker 4: Of those comments that you've heard, that filth from the
Speaker 4: trades on the side of the street, the shit you've seen,
Speaker 4: the whatever it is, You're just breathing it out.
Speaker 2: I've done a couple of like energy healing sessions that
Speaker 2: it's breath work in Bali, and I always end up sobbing,
Speaker 2: perfect like wailing sobbing, and she'll be yelling at me
Speaker 2: like as I'm doing my breath like, she's like.
Speaker 1: Keep going, keep going, keep going.
Speaker 2: While I'm like, the amount that our bodies can release
Speaker 2: just through breathing is insane.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, it is. And it's so well researched. Now,
Speaker 4: it's a very researched wellbeing hack. That was you know
Speaker 4: how it started off with meditation and then and it
Speaker 4: was breath work. What I guarantee will be next, it
Speaker 4: will be sexual fitness, because it has been proven now
Speaker 4: that our sexual fitness or our sexual wellbeing is a
Speaker 4: quicker hack to overall well being than breath work, silocybin, magic,
Speaker 4: mushrooms because there's a lot of trauma and use therapy
Speaker 4: now with mushrooms, anything like that. It's been researched at
Speaker 4: Harvard by a woman called Nicole Proust, and what she's
Speaker 4: now doing is recommending women with anxiety depression stroke their
Speaker 4: clitareress for fifteen minutes because what it's showing is that
Speaker 4: women can re circuit their nervous system because it's all
Speaker 4: so connected down into the vaginal canal and the polyvagel
Speaker 4: theory and everything back to this up but it's showing
Speaker 4: that it has better effects than medication, that it has
Speaker 4: better and faster response time at lowering a woman's stress,
Speaker 4: giving her a sense of well being, for creativity, vibrancy,
Speaker 4: they've had women in an MRI machine where a brain
Speaker 4: lights up in the exact area that it is for
Speaker 4: what you would get if you had been meditating for
Speaker 4: twenty four hours and you're having a mystical state, right,
Speaker 4: So our bodies are wired for these experience. What we've
Speaker 4: got to do is we've just got to clear the
Speaker 4: muck to get there. So that breath and using that
Speaker 4: sound for us to allow to tap into the good stuff.
Speaker 4: We've got to unfortunately, clear out the pain before we
Speaker 4: get the pleasure. You know, we've got to detoxify. If
Speaker 4: you're starting a diet and you wanted to start like
Speaker 4: having a better gut health or you want to start
Speaker 4: eating properly, you've got to clean out that the candida
Speaker 4: or the whatever it is. You want the old stuff out.
Speaker 2: Then you want it to take the prebiotic to get
Speaker 2: the good bacteria to get the good Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so this is your antibiotics basically, Yes.
Speaker 1: Okay, the breath, breath is that it's an antibiotic.
Speaker 4: It's an antibiotic.
Speaker 1: This is what's going to love analogy, So that's great.
Speaker 4: Yeah, purifying, So this is how you're going to purify
Speaker 4: your vessel in order to come back into more feeling
Speaker 4: and more sensations. Yeah. So sometimes when you do this,
Speaker 4: you will feel like you're purging a lot. There'll be
Speaker 4: a lot of grief, or there'll be numbness. A lot
Speaker 4: of the times, wimills I don't feel anything. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 4: because we've numbed out so much of our feeling and
Speaker 4: our capacity to tap into our body because we're too
Speaker 4: busy doing stuff. We're too busy thinking, we're too busy
Speaker 4: running around with a million things in our head. And
Speaker 4: then all of a sudden we say, okay, pause, stop,
Speaker 4: you know, like at the whizzard Freeze. Yeah, and now
Speaker 4: I want you to Feelbody's like, fuck, we haven't felt
Speaker 4: for the last four years, and now you want me
Speaker 4: to drop into my body? What does that even mean?
Speaker 4: So instead of using distractions and sort of anything that
Speaker 4: we numb or anything like that, it's about retraining that
Speaker 4: we can come back into our body but also feel
Speaker 4: safe in the coming back of our body. Also, if
Speaker 4: you get really in a jam, sound, it's going to
Speaker 4: open up that super highway for emotions to come through,
Speaker 4: for feelings. It's just a very good way of supercharging transformation.
Speaker 4: So really loud and let it sound authentic, not like
Speaker 4: ah oh, you want to be like oh from your
Speaker 4: like you're giving birth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I know what he's like when no one's
Speaker 1: trying to.
Speaker 4: Exactly nobody saying. And that's why they say having sex
Speaker 4: is like giving birth, because if you're really in your pleasure,
Speaker 4: if you're in your guts, if you're in the throes
Speaker 4: of ecstasy, you don't care what you look like. You're
Speaker 4: just being that wild, like guttural, unleashed version of yourself.
Speaker 4: Then when you're finished, you want to close it. And
Speaker 4: you'll know when you're finished, maybe the tears of coming
Speaker 4: too much and you're like, okay, that's enough now, and
Speaker 4: i feel like I've purged some blief. Now I'm going
Speaker 4: to hold myself. So you wrap yourself in a blanket
Speaker 4: and you lie down and you're like, it's safe, I've
Speaker 4: got you, and you talk to yourself like you're a
Speaker 4: little girl who's had a really bad nightmare or who's
Speaker 4: been bullied at school by her own, you know, her
Speaker 4: own peers, except it's your thoughts that are doing the.
Speaker 1: Boy, it's yourself.
Speaker 4: It's yourself, it's you know, aren't we our greatest bully?
Speaker 4: And then just really really hold yourself in that and
Speaker 4: kind of allow again your nervous system to settle into
Speaker 4: the recognition that you're okay in this body. So after
Speaker 4: a couple of times of doing that, then I would
Speaker 4: ty trate that with bringing pleasure back to the body
Speaker 4: as well, because if your body has felt like a
Speaker 4: source of resentment, or you're feeling annoyed by it, or
Speaker 4: you're feeling knocked out of it, or it's not feeling
Speaker 4: like how you want it to feel, you can form
Speaker 4: like quite a bit of a not a nice relationship
Speaker 4: with yourself. So we're coming in and coming back in
Speaker 4: and be like, Okay, let's find some ways to bring
Speaker 4: pleasure back into our system. And we do this a
Speaker 4: couple of ways, like touch that feels nice to you.
Speaker 4: So rather than grabbing a vibrator and chucking it on
Speaker 4: your clip for like one minute or two minutes or
Speaker 4: something and really just fast for that really purpose driven
Speaker 4: orgasm and release, we're going to shift and see if
Speaker 4: we can find pleasure that feels lazy and relaxed, and
Speaker 4: pleasure that's we're not looking for a goal. We're not
Speaker 4: going at it in a way that's you know, or
Speaker 4: I need to get off. We're actually going in it
Speaker 4: with a way of how can I go inwards? How
Speaker 4: can I make pleasure feel good on my body? How
Speaker 4: can what does my body even like? Do I like
Speaker 4: my hair being pulled a little bit? Like? How do
Speaker 4: I when I go for a massage and they pull
Speaker 4: your hair back?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it's my favorite part.
Speaker 4: So good. Right, So, sometimes if we're having trouble getting
Speaker 4: into our body, harder sensations can be really good because
Speaker 4: it overrides again our mental capacity, so it gives ourselves
Speaker 4: that opportunity to go, oh wow, that's really kind of
Speaker 4: taken me. So that the occasional pinch, the occasional squeeze,
Speaker 4: the occasional flick or tweak or things like that can
Speaker 4: be really good and exploring your whole body like that
Speaker 4: and really kind of mapping it for going, oh fuck,
Speaker 4: I didn't realize that I've never asked Luke to pull
Speaker 4: my hair a little bitter. I've never asked him to
Speaker 4: tickle my back as we're falling asleep, or I've never
Speaker 4: asked him to. You know what, I just want a
Speaker 4: foot massage, and I like a foot massage quite hard.
Speaker 4: Little ways that you can explore touch in a way
Speaker 4: that feels safe, but also that you can start to
Speaker 4: build the blueprint of your own aerrogenous zones, of your
Speaker 4: own way that you experience pleasure as a woman. Now
Speaker 4: the old routine is out. We're resetting. We're doing the
Speaker 4: thirty day reset, We're doing initiating connection more with Luke.
Speaker 4: We are doing the exercises of connecting to your body
Speaker 4: and physically removing that kind of that shame through your body,
Speaker 4: letting yourself cry, letting yourself journal, starting to look at
Speaker 4: the beliefs of why you feel so much shame. What
Speaker 4: we told, what were your messages bringing things also that
Speaker 4: really remind you that sexuality is something that gets to
Speaker 4: be celebrated, that gets to be enjoyed, that it can
Speaker 4: look like many different things, not just a man on
Speaker 4: the top of a woman trying to get off. The
Speaker 4: idea is not to rush it, not to make something
Speaker 4: like okay, in this thirty days you're going to be healed,
Speaker 4: you're going to actually want sex. You may start to
Speaker 4: even just kind of shift. The only thing that happens
Speaker 4: maybe the shift of like I'm thinking I might want
Speaker 4: to want to work. I'm thinking I might want to
Speaker 4: get the motivation to go a little bit further down
Speaker 4: this track. Yeah, you can't rewrite all of those years
Speaker 4: of conditioning and beliefs in thirty days, But what you
Speaker 4: can do is start building a new sexuality and a
Speaker 4: new sex life based on the blocks that truly matter
Speaker 4: to you, like trust, safety, zero stress, no expectational pressure
Speaker 4: around it, and at the moment, no one wanted touch
Speaker 4: or touch that feels transgressive or unsafe. And you're building,
Speaker 4: You're going to be building in and moving towards something
Speaker 4: that feels really good for you, something that you actually
Speaker 4: get to feel is pretty fucking amazing part of you
Speaker 4: that you are really excited to develop and explore a
Speaker 4: little bit more because that makes you feel really really good.
Speaker 2: Everything you've just said that was so good, and it's
Speaker 2: also all things that anyone listening at home can put
Speaker 2: into practice as well, which I really love, Like I
Speaker 2: think that, Yeah, the thirty days and then the naked humping,
Speaker 2: the air.
Speaker 4: If you don't even want to hump, you could just
Speaker 4: lie back and do it on your back and just
Speaker 4: touch your body in ways that feel nice, and even
Speaker 4: just the breathing into whats like some of us haven't
Speaker 4: touched our bodies in weeks. Then you're in your pajamas,
Speaker 4: and then you've got more people on your body. We
Speaker 4: tend to if we're feeling overwhelmed and touched out, move
Speaker 4: further and further away from it, so that nourishing touch
Speaker 4: that we can receive from ourselves or from our partner
Speaker 4: feels like a distant memory because it gets lumped in
Speaker 4: all that same kind of being touched category. But actually
Speaker 4: this touch is something different. This touch is supposed to
Speaker 4: soothe that overwhelming, touched out feeling. So we're using touch
Speaker 4: in a different way because we're allowing ourselves to self
Speaker 4: heal and self soothe and reconnect. It's just also about
Speaker 4: being really honest and truthfull about your capacity, how much
Speaker 4: space you've got to allow that to take up in
Speaker 4: your life at the moment. You know, we come through
Speaker 4: different seasons where we've got so many balls in the
Speaker 4: air that adding your sexuality piece can just make it
Speaker 4: feel like you're going to drop all of them. We
Speaker 4: don't want it to be a source of pressure for
Speaker 4: months out there or stress. We want it to be
Speaker 4: like when you get to that kind of that space
Speaker 4: where you're getting a little bit more sleep, where your
Speaker 4: partner and you are finding like you've kind of have
Speaker 4: moments of connection. Whether that's at the moment you could
Speaker 4: just be watching a show or you could be lying
Speaker 4: in bed with phones, that's still the time still there.
Speaker 4: You could just redirect the time, but knowing and owning
Speaker 4: the capacity for which that you can devote to this
Speaker 4: kind of stuff. But it is worth having a really
Speaker 4: honest think and thinking, what is the kind of relationship
Speaker 4: I want to have at the end of when the
Speaker 4: kids are twelve, when the kids are thirteen, when the
Speaker 4: kids are starting to go and have their own lives
Speaker 4: and identities, what do I want to have to come
Speaker 4: back to what's going to be there? And remembering that
Speaker 4: it's through small steps that we take that can have
Speaker 4: such big impacts. You know, even just filling up Luke's
Speaker 4: connection cup and you'll have your own core kind of
Speaker 4: need and value from him. Knowing what though those things
Speaker 4: are that makes our partner feel loved makes them still
Speaker 4: feel like they have a connection to sexually. And that's
Speaker 4: not to say that you don't get to compromise and
Speaker 4: be like no, no, no, no once every week is
Speaker 4: too much for me. It's just I'm not there with
Speaker 4: my energy. I'm not there with my attention. I think
Speaker 4: we need to rejig this and go, okay, where can
Speaker 4: we compromise and make our sex life something that suits
Speaker 4: both of us.
Speaker 2: You've given us so much information. You've really like changed
Speaker 2: my perspective the way that I look at different things,
Speaker 2: so I really appreciate it.
Speaker 4: Oh You're so welcome, and we've got to remember that
Speaker 4: we're looking for pleasure here, loving for enjoyment.
Speaker 1: I want saying alive, Okay, it's yeah exactly.
Speaker 4: We're just knowing what feels good in my body, you know,
Speaker 4: or what could How can I get back into union
Speaker 4: with with Luke and feel good? And I want that
Speaker 4: spark we had because when we first started dating Fark
Speaker 4: he was so hot and I want to feel that
Speaker 4: kind of connection again because life is hard and I
Speaker 4: want this to be you know, love and intimacy, enjoying it.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for listening to the pod.
Speaker 2: Today, and thank you so much to my gorgeous guest,
Speaker 2: glorious gorgeous guest Tara.
Speaker 1: For joining me. She's probably walking away just like, Oh
Speaker 1: my lord, that lady.
Speaker 2: I hope you've gotten something out of it, and it
Speaker 2: might be presumptuous to say, but you might enjoy some
Speaker 2: happy humping over the next couple of days.
Speaker 1: This episode was produced.
Speaker 2: By myself, Kelly McCarran, with audio production by Maddie Joanna
Speaker 2: And hopefully I'll be back in your ears next week. Bye.