Sometimes we forget to make space for new parts of ourselves to develop. And while this certainly applies to our sex lives, it’s also true for our professional lives, our friendships, our hobbies, etc. Jo Portia Mayari joins Dr. Emily in today's Emotional Push-Up to talk about how we can consider the things we’ve put on autopilot in our lives, and work to discover new needs and desires.

Thank you for listening! Staying emotionally fit takes work and repetition. That's why the Emotionally Fit podcast with psychologist Dr. Emily Anhalt delivers short, actionable Emotional Push-Ups every Tuesday and Thursday to help you build a better practice of mental health. Join us to kickstart your emotional fitness. Let's flex those feels and do some reps together!

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The Emotionally Fit podcast is produced by Coa, your gym for mental health. Katie Sunku Wood is the show’s producer from StudioPod Media with additional editing and sound design by nodalab, and featuring music by Milano. Special thanks to the entire Coa crew!

Dr. Emily:

Ready to break an emotional sweat? Welcome to Emotionally Fit with me, Dr. Emily Anhalt. As a therapist, I know that staying mentally healthy takes work and repetition. That's why I'll share Emotional Push-Ups, short, actionable exercises to help you strengthen your mental fitness. From improving your friendships to managing stress, let's flex those feels and do some reps together!

Hey there, fit fans! I am here today with Jo Portia Mayari, a conscious sex and relationship coach. Joe, it is so wonderful to be here with you today. How are you?

Jo:

I'm doing well. Thank you for asking.

Dr. Emily:

I'm so glad you're here. And today we're going to be talking about discovering new needs and desires, needs and desires that we might not have been in touch with before this moment. The idea for today's episode came from a conversation I had with a friend of mine, specifically about her sex life. This friend had recently gotten out of a decade long relationship with someone she loves dearly, but who she realized is not her forever person. They met when she was 22 and their lives had gone in different directions, and so now she had started sleeping with someone new and she was telling me how amazing the sex was with this new person. I asked for more details, obviously, because therapists are voyeurs. We want all the dirt, all the juice. And what she told me was that after 10 years with her partner, they were still having sex the way they did when they were 22.

And over those 10 years, they had figured out what worked well enough, and they kind of stuck with that. And she hadn't realized until she was with this new partner that sex as a 32 year old self might be different. And when she had this chance to start at her present self, she discovered all of these new things that she hadn't even known that she wanted or known to ask for. So, of course, this is not to say that we can't discover new parts of ourselves with long-term partners, but I think sometimes we forget to make space for new parts of ourselves to develop and to be discovered. And as I thought about this more, I realized that this applies to much more than our sex lives. I think the idea that we need to make space to rediscover ourselves is true about our professional lives, our friendships, our hobbies, so much more. So before I get to our pushup to explore this, I want to check in with you, Jo, what do you think about this whole idea?

Jo:

Well, for me, I think sexuality, like anything, needs nurturing, needs growing, needs practice, and so I firmly believe that as we evolve and as we change our needs for our bodies, our expression, whether that's in our sexuality or whatever area in life, also grows and evolves with it too. The way that you might experience yourself having sex at 22 is definitely going to be different than what you're experiencing yourself in 10 years later. I experience different expressions of my sexuality almost every other day, and it's just something that I've learned to ebb, flow and become my own scientist and experimenting and exploring with my body, with my pleasure and with my sensuality.

Dr. Emily:

Well, I think that is a perfect segue to our pushup today, which is going to be all about making a little space in our life to discover a new need. And again, this could be in our sex life, but it could be in really any part of our life. So step one of this pushup is to pick an area of your life where you might be a bit on autopilot. So Jo, I get the sense that for you, this is not your sex life. I see that you really put a lot of intention, thoughtfulness, practice into an ongoing healthy relationship with your sexual self and sexual relationships with others.

So perhaps it's in your job or perhaps it's in a friendship, or it could be anything but wherever you might be doing a similar thing that you've always done. So for me, for example, I have a friendship of 20 years that means the world to me. I love this person very much, but the friendship has always looked a particular way between us and my friend and I have both grown up a lot. So the friendship is where I'm going to be focusing on for my pushup. So for those listening in, feel free to press pause here while you choose what area of your life you want to think about, what new need might need to be discovered, or keep listening to hear what Jo will be exploring today. So Jo, what area of your life would you like to focus for this pushup today?

Jo:

I think an area in my life that it feels like it's on autopilot at the moment is probably my fitness life right now.

Dr. Emily:

Oh, that's a good one. I love that. Thank you so much for that, and with that we'll go to step two of the pushup, which is just to think about one need that you might have in this area that you have not been in touch with. Maybe a change you want to make, or maybe it's a type of curiosity and experimentation you'd like to bring into this part of your life. Maybe you want to prioritize learning again. So for me, in my 20 year friendship, I realized that I think I need my friend to show up for me a little differently than she has been.

Our dynamic has often been that she does a lot of talking and I do a lot of listening, and that worked great for me before I became a therapist. When we were young and we met, all I wanted was all of the juicy details of her life. And the truth is, when she asks me about myself, I often shift the focus right back to her. So it's not all on her. This is a dynamic that I co-created with her. But now that I spend my days listening professionally, I've realized that I want that balance to shift a little bit. So for those listening in, think about what need you might like to explore in this area of your life, and Jo, I'm curious for you, what might your need be?

Jo:

When I'm thinking about my fitness, most of us have had a sketchy relationship with our fitness on and off. And I think one of the things that I've been really wanting to explore more or learn more about is recovery as it relates to food, as it relates to rest and nourishment. I'm slowly heading into my forties and the way that I was working out in my early thirties is not quite the same anymore, and I'm still trying to approach my intensity the way that I did in my early thirties as I am now, and I'm like, "My body is not quite there at all," and so I'm wanting to really incorporate, explore and get to learn and understand more about what my body's needs are around recovery and rest.

Dr. Emily:

I love that answer so much. What a perfect example of the way that we change over time, but our habits don't always accommodate that change. Of course, our bodies at 40 aren't the same as they are at 30, but if we're still using the exact same exercise plan, then that doesn't really honor that. So that's such a great example. And so step three of this pushup then is to take one step toward that part of yourself of rediscovery. So maybe it looks like throwing out everything you've been doing already and creating a brand new plan, or maybe it just means doing one little thing differently each time.

I know for me, I actually did have a conversation with this friend of mine about wanting to shift our balance of talking and listening, and she was totally open to it. She even admitted that she wishes I would share more of myself, and we'd both been wanting something different and maybe hadn't even known it. So just by telling her, "This is something I want to change," that in and of itself intrinsically changed it a little bit. So Jo, what do you think one step might look like for you toward discovering what your present physical self needs?

Jo:

Yeah, so I think there's two answers to that. One of them is possibly picking up an aura ring so I can understand the data and understand what my actual physiological needs are and reading it. Because I think for me, I need to be able to see what it is that I actually need so I can work towards that, because I could go on to say, "Cool, I need 10 hours of sleep to catch up," or, "I need six hours here," or, "I think I need consistently seven hours," but finding a way to actually track for accuracy might be really beneficial for me in this moment. Plus, it'll help me calculate all the other areas of my life that are adding to that as well.

Dr. Emily:

I love that.

Jo:

And the other thing is actually honoring my sleep, which requires me to change my bedtime, and as a busy mom, that's really difficult. You want to maximize whatever waking hours you have to catch up on my business or even my relationship, or even just TV sometimes. But the reality is sometimes those things just need to be shelved so that I can prioritize the thing that'll nourish my recovery more.

Dr. Emily:

That's a great one, especially sleep. I don't know that we're taught a lot about sleep, but the truth is our sleep needs change dramatically throughout our life. Teenagers need a completely different amount of sleep than 30 year olds do. And when you get into your late sixties and seventies, it completely changes again, and we really don't tend to that. So I love the idea of giving that a full reassess.

Jo:

And I think it's hard too because, at least for me, and we know this, our brain likes patterns, so of course it's like breaking an old pattern, breaking the old pattern that I had in my early thirties of how I used to train and workout then and reintegrating a new way of being is just going to take some time, but also takes a lot of shedding and changing and reevaluating.

Dr. Emily:

Absolutely. It's beautifully said, and that's it. That's the pushup. We just did it. And our needs and desires are these ever evolving alive things. We have to check in with them every once in a while, so thank you, Jo for flexing your feels and breaking an emotional sweat with me today. It was so wonderful to have you, and for those of you who want more of Jo, tune into our next Taboo Tuesday where we will be talking about self-pleasure and how important it is to pay attention to that. Super juicy. Can't wait, Jo, and thank you so much for being here.

Jo:

Oh, you're so welcome.

Dr. Emily:

Thanks for listening to Emotionally Fit hosted by me, Dr. Emily Anhalt. New Push-Ups drop every Tuesday and Thursday. Did you do today's Push-Up alongside me and my guest? Tweet your experience with the hashtag #EmotionallyFit and follow me at @DrEmilyAnhalt. Please rate, review, follow and share the show wherever you listen to podcasts. This podcast is produced by Coa, your gym for mental health, where you can take live, therapist-led classes online. From group sessions to therapist matchmaking, Coa will help you build your emotional fitness routine. Head to joincoa.com, that's join-c-o-a.com, to learn more. And follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @joinCoa. From StudioPod Media in San Francisco, our producer is Katie Sunku Wood. Music is by Milano. Special thanks to the entire Coa crew!