Ep. 188 FINAL

Before getting more into Susan, her background, her bio, and our conversation, I wanted to take a sec to quickly remind everyone that this week is the last week to get 50% off a package of five Cereset sessions at Cereset Encinitas. I shared this at the start of last week's episode. This is a really special promo Cereset is offering just to my clients.

Just like last week, I'll make sure that my interview with Andrew from the Encinitas location is down in the show notes. For any who haven't heard or don't know what Cereset is you can listen to that or if you just want a little bit of a refresher, I share a bit of my story, why I've found it so impactful, why it's something I refer clients out to when I feel it's necessary and going to be impactful.

So their information, that episode will be linked in the show notes below, and again, you have until the end of April to get that special 50% off deal. Moving on to today's guest, Susan Morgan Taylor. She is a leading somatic sex therapist who helps couples deepen their intimacy and create lasting, fulfilling connections.

She's also the creator of the Pleasure Keys, retreats, and host of the Sex Talk Cafe podcast. When not working, she enjoys hiking and singing karaoke in the mountains of Western North Carolina. Like I said at the start, I have never had anyone on the podcast to talk about sex, sexuality, sensuality. But I, in talking with Kelly, my podcast coordinator, I was sharing with her that I feel like I've been starting to see trends or themes in my one-on-one client work where a lack of sensuality, and this doesn't just mean sex, but a lack of sensuality and embodiment in this area of life really seems [00:03:00] to lead to a lack of vitality in all areas of life.

So it was really fun to have Susan on to even start with just why is sensuality and sexuality a foundational part of wellness? And again, how that doesn't just mean sex, but then we get into why in partnership we begin to lose that sensuality. And how to start to reignite it, how to start to explore that again with some really tangible, practical tips.

But also I think we have such a beautiful conversation around the unconscious and the emotional root causes to a lack of alignment in partnership. This was a really, really beautiful conversation for me. I'm sure we will be having Susan on again to talk about some other facets that I think she could just share so much insight and wisdom into.

Yeah. You were doing therapy before, so you were already kind of in the mental, emotional wellness field. Mm-hmm. But what ultimately brought you over to sex therapy? Somatic sex therapy. Yes. Maybe a little bit of your origin story. What brought me to the dark side? Yeah. It's funny 'cause you know, I really actually started out in holistic healing as an intuitive healer doing medical intuitive work, and which I absolutely loved and I.

And part of what happened with that was I had a chance encounter with a somatic sex therapist. Oh my gosh. So very early on I had this exposure to how you incorporate sexuality, incorporate the body into working with sexual issues and in a very holistic way. Um, I also had a huge awakening that happened at the same time, all around the same time.

It was one of those moments where I said, okay, universe, I'm going to undergo the study of my sexuality. I made this declaration because up to that point I'd had, you know, a marriage that was sexless. Um, yet I longed for more intimacy and more sex. And then a couple years after I left that marriage, I had a relationship where this man's like, oh, you want a full body orgasm?

Books that jumped off the shelf. Totally. I had this chance encounter with this somatic therapist that totally changed my life. And then this was all in the course of like one month after making that declaration, I had this experience where. I was self pleasuring. So one of the things that I did under this study of my own sexuality was I made a date with myself every week.

I said, okay, I'm just going to learn my body. I'm gonna engage with myself intimately sexually. I'm gonna have a pleasure date once a week, and I'm just going to have a different approach where I slow down, I learn how to just notice what's really happening. I'm gonna get rid of orgasm or climax as the goal, and I'm really gonna figure out, I wanted to find that pathway to these like, um, you know, deeper sexual, emotional, spiritual experiences through my body that I'd heard about but didn't know how to access.

My face kind of was tingling and numb, and this whole wave just moves through my body, burst out of my heart, and I'm just like, suddenly in tears. All this love is coursing through me. This pleasure is coursing through me and I realize, I'm like, oh my God, I'm having a full body. Orgasm, that's what this is.

Yeah. And in that, in that moment, I realized nobody gives this to us. Mm. So pleasure, love orgasm. These aren't things that someone can give to you. They're literally states that exist naturally within us at all times that we have access to when we clear the debris out of the way. And what's happening is on a day-to-day basis, most of us have a lot of debris in the way, which is why we're not literally like living in these orgasmic, blissful states, uh, on command and at will, but that truly is what's available to us.

So very early on, that was the decision was to become a sex therapist. And then the somatic piece was really woven throughout my work. For the decade that I spent in sort of the more traditional mental health setting doing sex therapy, I just couldn't get away from the somatics. 'cause that's where the, the rubber really meets the road and where my clients would get the best results.

So I eventually left mental health and now I do the somatic sex therapy and coaching. I'm not working under the license anymore, just so I can be a little bit more free in how I work with clients. Completely. Yeah. Completely people. So I'm getting my PhD in depth psychology. Cool. But I actually have never done any psychology or counseling or therapy before that.

All the legal things you have to say. Yeah. But. I completely get that because it it is, it's just very narrow with which how you can approach. Yeah. And I just think we're seeing that mind body connection, spirit body connection, like it's a two. It's a two-way conversation. Yeah. And it needs to be, and yes, mental health is, it can be very restrictive to work under in that format.

And what's so interesting, I find too, is really in its origins when you go all the way back to Carl Young and Sigmund Freud, I think Freud is kind of a load of shit, to be honest. But he had some good stuff like starting out. Yeah, right. Have another conversation on that later. And it got pretty narrow in another film.

You know, he created his, um. Whole theories around that, but we've, we really lost that over time, that connection to the body. And I think in this day and age, the body is, the body is back baby. Like, you know, like God, it's really God, it really, God. Thank God for that. It really is the way, the future, it's just unfortunate that, you know, it's been sort of lost in the rigid rigidity of a lot of the mental health realm.

So not to rag on mental health, right. It's got its place. But where I saw my clients and my couples and the women that I worked with, where they really made the biggest changes was through the somatic work. And that was what had influenced me as well. I never would've had that awakening had I not learned how to work directly with the body and working directly with the sexual energy in the body, which is another story entirely.

That might be a starting point for many, many, many people. Sure. But what we just have to acknowledge is that's a piece of the puzzle. Yeah. And what sometimes irks me is that it's, it's often touted as the end all be all right. And I wish there was just a little more nuance from everyone in all professions.

Even on our holistic side of being able to go, this is a piece of the puzzle. That's a piece of the puzzle. We need to be kind of educating patients and clients on all the pieces of the puzzle and help them be able to determine which 1:00 AM I needing right now. Exactly. And I think we need practitioners like yourself and, and myself.

Mm-hmm. Which really are becoming mainstream now, they're just not quite ready. And so if we have more practitioners that are well versed in, let's say somatic approaches, that can weave that into a traditional mental health setting. And it's a way for people to start to get a taste of that and then also to be able to refer out.

Mm-hmm. I did that a lot too in my private practice. I was able to, you know, people trusted me and so then they were more likely to trust my referral to, uh, say like a hands-on somatic sex, sex educator, for example, which I don't do hands-on work, so I usually refer out for that. But yeah, so it's really about, um, you know, meeting people where they are at and what's the doorway in.

And it very much is mind, body, and spirit and the integration and the nourishing and the tending of all the parts. And something that I'm seeing we, we cannot get away from, and yet we have gotten so far away from, is that sexuality and sensuality is a foundation. Yeah. For wellbeing. Yes. And I'd love to hear your 2 cents on that, what you think about that.

Maybe why you see it being so vital. And also I think maybe a clarifying factor of, does sexuality just mean sex? Yeah. And if it's more than that, what? What is that? Oh, there's so many good nuggets and what you just said. I don't even know which one to start with other than, let's just start with the depth psychology piece.

Um, and why is that? Let's even look at our dear old friend Sigmund, our favorite buddy. Uh, you know, he used the word libido. And libido is really, really what that refers to is the life force, the libi drives. And so he had some really interesting theories on that. But libido really is just our zest for life.

It's our desire to live, to exist, to be um, to explore, to make love, uh, to have sex, all these things. That's what libido really is. So really sex, sex and sexuality has its roots, um, in. In our unconscious and in our, in our history of psychology, as well as it's grown up through the ages. We've lost that some.

So we tend to have a very narrow and limited definition of what sex is. And you know, most of us, when we hear that word now, I, myself included, often I think is just, you know, penis and vagina, penetration of some sort happening. However, let's just broaden that a little bit. To me, sex is connection. Sex is how we connect.

So how I view it, sex is, it literally is everything. And if you start to just observe nature, it doesn't take long to come to the conclusion that it is sexual, that our existence is fundamentally sexual. Yeah, completely. You know what it's making me think of is it's reminding me of Esther Perel and she might use instead of libido, that word eroticism.

Yes. And she uses it to really ex describe this, that life force, that vitality. And it just, what I was thinking is, you were talking is what I don't think we realize is that we, we have so many different parts within us. You know, I speaking for myself, I might have a like essential sexual part. I might have an athletic part, I might have a therapeutic part, I might have a daughter part.

And that, that for me is like the core of unconscious work and depth psychology that is so beautiful. This expression, like more than anything it is expression. Yes. I love, love that. And it's such a beautiful way, the term that I might use in my work to describe what you just described so beautifully. And this is really a, it's a both a practice and a principle.

Um, and we tend to disconnect from that. Aspect of ourselves. So for example, if you were slut shamed as a young girl for being too sexy or dressing too sexy, there's a little aspect of our life force that pulls away from that part of our body, from our genitals. Oh, I don't wanna appear that I'm a slut or that I'm too easy.

So I'm going now sort of pull my awareness and my presence out of my genitals so that I don't come across, you know, in this negative way that I'm being perceived. And every time we do that, we siphon off a little bit of that libido, that life force energy. A little bit of that just gets clamped down around the same is true and we don't wanna feel certain feelings or emotions or, or even sensations in the body.

So if we're afraid of one of them and pulling away from it, we're disconnecting from the fullness of our expression as as human beings. And so it's just a different way of saying what you exactly said. Something I use myself often and recommend to clients often too, is the Apollo neuro wearable device.

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I am disintegrated. Yeah, there's, and I just was thinking about this, like why, why can it be so.

What is that doing? And how does that then begin to ripple out into a life that is not fully embraced, not as vibrant? And I think people do sort of compartmentalize them. Well, that's sex and I'm not having sex with my partner anymore, but all of these other things are, that's not gonna affect anything else.

And I really do feel, in my practice, I'm seeing that it is affecting the rest of their life and their vibrancy and Absolutely mentality and embodiment. Yeah. Well, I don't know. Are you familiar with the work of Will Helm Reich? A little bit. It's very familiar. He fun, he wrote, he wrote some books. One of them is called The Function of the Orgasm.

Like sick patients with cancer, for example, would go sit in this box that he made that could amplify this orgasmic energy that's just naturally the life of the universe. And people would be cured of their cancer, in which, so he was very controversial. But one of the really interesting things that he says is about, you know, sex and orgasm itself.

The energy of orgasm is the energy of life force. It is the contraction and expansion of the universe itself. And so one of the things he, he theorized or he. Through his work showed is that when people would be sick with cancer, for example, that it was essentially a death process. It's a process of of death that's happening when that life force energy ceases to freely flow through the body.

Genital contact or even any touch between two people happening at all. We actually have the ability to access that at will just by learning again, how to open to it and become available to it, and to allow it to course through our bodies, uh, like a river flowing and clearing that debris out that's in the way, or those death processes that are happening to be able to actually re reinvigorate them and, and really fundamentally reverse some of them.

So his work is pretty cool. It's kind of a little out there for a lot of people, but, oh, I wrote it down. It's, I wrote it down. I'm gonna make sure I get that and, and we'll link it in the show notes. But immediately when you said that, that that orgasm kind of is life force energy, yeah. Immediately all the questions that come up right in this like unconscious.

In the entire universe because literally we can create new life. We can literally create a new human being from sexual energy. And so it, but aside from that, we can create universes, we can create worlds. We can use that sexual energy to know God for enlightenment, for awakening, for transcendence. I mean, it is the most powerful force in the entire universe, which is why the religions shut it down.

You know, why did we remove that aspect from our mainstream, uh, religions because of the power of it. When people have access to that, it's exceptionally powerful. So there does come a big responsibility with it. And however, I'll say that to be disconnected from it is far more dangerous. It's far more dangerous.

And again, that could be a whole other line of inquiry. But I think, I think where I really wanna take us, 'cause this might be what resonates most and where I also feel very much out of my depth when I'm working with clients, is maybe having a dialogue and a conversation around what you see. I think this could be individually, but I'm thinking particularly in partnership, why that sexuality, sensuality gets disconnected, fades away.

Mm. Um, and then how we start to reignite it. And I'm also kind of thinking in two distinct paths of one. I'm sure you have a lot of like, practical reasons why. Mm-hmm. We lose that connection with our partner, busy schedule, da da, da. But I'm also wondering like the emotional patterns you see, oh gosh, yes.

However, what you just said right there, it's the patterns, um, of relating the patterns of how we connect, which again, I said at the beginning of this conversation, sex is about connection. It's about how we connect. Mm-hmm. So if we look at sex as that piece right there, that's what we start to look at.

That's what I start to look at when I'm working with couples, either in private coaching or at my couples retreats. I'm looking at this connection is how are these two people showing up in relationship to one another and. When we're willing to see that clearly and to make a new choice, that's really where we can start to get some of that eroticism back online.

It has to become, in my opinion. A regular moment by moment practice of making a commitment and becoming devoted to not allowing those resentment, bricks of resentment to build and to remain. And so I know that's a practice that I have personally taken on within myself and a practice that I have in my relationship, is that I am committed to not allowing those bricks to become solidified into a wall.

And having my partner being willing to witness me in that. Yeah. And to receive me in that. So there's a whole relational piece that happens there as well. Oh my gosh. Well, just bringing it back to when you talk about the debris. What as, as soon as you said, it's a connection, that question we're asking is what is the relational debris?

Yeah. That needs to be cleared out in order to allow connection to happen again. And that's where it's, I think so much less about the technique or the timing or the kids. Yeah. And we're not getting enough sleep and so much more about what is going on deep within each of our soul spirits and psyches.

What are the obstacles to asking for what we want? So if we just think about that for a minute, we could again do a whole podcast on this concept alone. I could teach a whole workshop on it. Totally. Why don't we ask for what we want? Let's think about that. I mean, there's a whole host of reasons. Maybe I don't know what I want.

What that creates as a whole host of other things. So what do we do instead? If we're not able to really embody, desire and ask for what we want, what do we do instead? Let's think of a few. We might fake it, pretend that we're liking it. Mm-hmm. Uh, maybe we give an out of obligation. I'll just go along with it.

'cause that's, you know, that's what he wants. Or she wants, I'll go along with it. Maybe we suppress our desires 'cause oh my gosh. Like I don't wanna be judged or I've been rejected so many times, like, I'm just gonna try to tone it down 'cause I'm upsetting my partner by my desires. So, you know, these, this is a very clear and obvious thing that we do all the time.

And so when we can highlight those things, we can start to see where the problem is. Well then we can start to talk about what the solution is for then how do we start to actually resolve some of those things? 'cause anytime we're doing those things, instead of embodying our desire, asking for what we want or need or like, we're shutting down connection.

'cause it's not often just as simple as being like, well, you're afraid to ask for what you need, so just ask for what you need. That's what's happening here. It's, yeah, it's so much more of, and where, you know, those deeper narratives of, it's not safe to use my voice. Maybe I'm not deserving of it. Maybe I feel shame and wanting to ask for a certain thing.

Yes. Yeah. This is a reproductive purpose only. Oh. If you are interested in it. Beyond that, you are dirty and sinful and shameful. Yes. So there's, there's been a lot of deprogramming I've had to do around that. Not to mention all the safety danger narratives if there has been some kind of sexual abuse.

Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. I mean, those are, there's similarities there because both are forms of trauma. One, you know, where there's explicit sexual abuse is more what I would call like big T trauma. It's more obvious and overt. The little T trauma is like the religious programming and societal influences, the shaming that happens little by little.

These are two different things. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And you can even rename God, that word is extremely triggering for many people the word God. So maybe someone needs to find a new, a new reference point for what someone else might call God. You know? So like nature for example, or a beautiful vista looking out over the ocean.

Like that could be that experience of expansion and bliss. You find what it, what the reference point is and then find a new way of describing that. So that's one way to work with that. You know, and the other way, and, and really what I'm doing when I work in the format of with couples, either in retreats or private coaching, but especially at the pleasure keys retreats, we're really actually encountering some of those things in a way that where we don't have to really do any analyzing it all.

What we're looking for is how we create just enough activation in the nervous system, what's called the learning zone in somatic therapy. So we have the zone where like, all right, I'm totally chill, I'm completely calm, this is my comfort zone. And we have the zone of, oh my gosh, I've been pushed way too far, and I'm going into a trauma response.

I'm shutting down. I'm avoiding like, you know, one of the ways of, of, um, you know, survival responses. That we go into when we've been pushed too far. We wanna find the space right in between those two extremes of like, I'm a little bit activated, this is a little scary, but I'm not in my comfort zone and I'm not all the way over the edge.

I have worked with clients before where, you know, the, the task was for them to ask me to, uh, to ask for a hand to touch my hand or something, or touch their partner's hand. And there is so much activation just around that piece. It's not about getting to the touching of the hand. It's let's work with this activation.

What would you need right now so that you could feel calm in your nervous system? May and maybe you need, uh, your partner to take a few steps back. Maybe you just need to breathe into that sensation in your body. Maybe you need to hear words of like, you're safe right now. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere.

So that's one way to work with it when that activation happens, is to identify what's the need and can you give some spaciousness around that? Sometimes we don't always know immediately what the need is, but if we can give ourselves some time, we may be able to find, okay, uh, maybe I need to give myself a deeper breath right now.

What is the narrative? But sometimes the narrative is coming out or being expressed cognitively. Yeah. And sometimes I think it's being expressed in the body. Yeah. And vice versa. We're trying to bring in new narratives, and sometimes we can do that consciously and unconsciously, and sometimes we can do that through the body.

Yeah. Me moving in a certain way, breathing in a certain way is giving a different narrative. Yeah, it's a different storyline. And I love using symbology as well. So if you work a lot with narratives and stories, I do a lot of dream work, which I love this, working with symbols of the dreams and I've had some of the most massive breakthroughs just from that alone.

And how would a panther move if I was a panther, what part of the body would that be most manifest through so we can learn how to actually bring that symbol as a bridge into the somatic. Where originally it was just like an idea or a concept or a story in the mind. Yes. I mean, completely image. I, I just find image is so powerful.

He's maybe even come beyond the, the threshold, but there is that like one little, and it's not like a solid, solid wall, right? It's just like one sort of, maybe kind of hazy curtain that, but it's just not quite ready to come down yet. And I. Like, I could tell you viscerally what that might feel like. But when I put imagery to it, it sort of expresses that, where there's just, this is the imagery that depicts what I'm feeling.

And I find sometimes that helps people completely click into it. But the other point I wanted to make with what you're saying is, and I think this is true for me too, sometimes we have been experiencing somatic things. Mm-hmm. Or not experiencing things Yeah. For so long that we, they're not even on our radar Right.

It kind of opens up this whole new thing or, oh, you know what? I didn't realize, like when my partner is touching me, I feel like my awareness contracting within me, and I feel this sort of like bracing in my body. I. I didn't even realize I was doing that. That's just been happening so unconsciously for so long.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and it's so powerful to have that awareness and that attunement to that. Again, it's critical. I mean, that's so the pleasure, keys, well, awareness is one of the pleasure keys, but, but the sort of the practical application of that is the key of noticing. So there's nine keys in the Pledger keys process.

Anytime I hear this, there's numbness. I feel nothing or I notice nothing. I know that we're sitting on a landmine. Mm-hmm. Because numbness is often, it's a way that the body deals with di, how the body disconnects from intensity and where we don't want to feel, or it's not safe to feel we'll go numb.

Numbness will happen. That was, you know, part of my own journey when I went on my sexual exploration with myself. I actually had a lot of numbness in my genitals. I had. Mm-hmm. I was able to have a lot of orgasms in my marriage and then I, you know, I left the marriage obviously, and orgasm was never a problem, but when I really slowed down and started to pay attention, I did not have a lot of sensitivity uhhuh.

I'm like, I should be feeling more right? And then I'm like, oh, all wait a minute. Let's slow down. Let's get present. Let's just say, yes, let's embrace. Right. This principle of embrace that we talked about earlier, it's embrace what I'm noticing. And as I did that, I was able to drop a layer beneath the numbness and I had massive emotional releases of just deep grief, sorrow, even some rage and anger that all just came pouring out from my genitals.

That moved up from my genitals and like came pouring outta my heart. And I just cried and sobbed and had this big releases and I'm just like, I just went with it. But what was so fascinating was almost instantly I had more sensation in my genitals. Wow. More sensi, more sensitivity. I could feel more down there because I was actually allowing myself to feel for the first time.

There was a lot of stuff I had shut down over the years that had turned into numbness. You know, we shove it all down there, don't feel disconnect and, and then that quality of noticing and then this quality of embrace is also a really important aspect of that to be able to say yes to everything that arises.

Actually, the more we do that, the longer it stays trapped. So, yes, completely. No, I love that. And even as you're talking about the numbness, I'm just like, we know we can't selectively numb. Mm. You know, and so we might be thinking, you know, I'm numbing, my, my genitals are numb. But again, like where I immediately go to is.

What in my life am I numbing to love? What am I not allowing myself to feel love? You know what that reminds me of? I don't wanna, I don't wanna cut you off. No, go ahead. Go ahead, finish. Well, I just was gonna say, like to your point when you, when someone comes to you and says like, how can we get the fire back?

And because what I was gonna say is when you said we can't selectively numb, it reminded me of like when you work it at at the gym, you can't like selectively just isolate your belly fat. Like yeah, that should work out your whole body. Right? That's just what that reminded me of and I love that. Which is so true because I think that opens up a lot of different access points, especially for perhaps people who maybe have some sexual trauma.

We don't have to start necessarily with. Going straight for the genitals or the sex. There's other ways, also gateways that can bring that in. Um, by allowing oneself to feel more. In general, there are so many different wonderful resources, therapies, modalities, that we can use when we're in a time of heightened stress, whether it's work, stress, family stress, relationship stress.

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Check the show notes below. There will be a discount code and a link you can use to try either of these products or any of the other amazing products by SymbioticA. And what I just have noticed in myself particularly recently is there is this feeling of over overstimulate, it's too good. I can't let that in.

Yes, I have to pull back. This is as good as it can be. I can't let it go any further, any deeper anymore connected or anymore like spiritual and, and deep and. That is very interesting and that's a little bit of a theme for me, but it's definitely been coming up so much more where it's not like this is misaligned and it's bad and I'm shutting down.

Mm-hmm. And the pathway to pleasure is really through that surrendering. And becoming present too. And the embrace of everything that needs to be felt so it can move through and expand through us. And from there, we can then sink into, oftentimes it shifts into pleasure. Any negative emotion at its core is connected to orgasmic energy, whether that's anger or um, you know.

And we're gonna keep hitting those walls, but I, I think you've got a good, a good problem there with that. It's the upper limit of the pleasure, like, right. Yes. Um, it would be interesting to poke at that and get curious around, is there a lower limit? There is, there's something under that that's related to a.

Fear, uh, fear, oftentimes there's the fear of, for example, uh, complete annihilation. You know, we really go into like those really, really deep states, like the self completely fades away. It's a, that's a terrifying edge to work on. So oftentimes that is the case when we're tapping into deeper levels of pleasure.

It's an unconscious fear. So, completely, I, I'd be curious to maybe you work with that and like see what Archetype is. Oh, totally. Connect to, oh yeah. You know, we could talk archetypes all day long. All day long. So I think, you know, getting into, and you talked about the pleasure keys, I'd, you know, love to go into those, if those are really kind of practical, um, or related to this.

And I think, yeah, maybe even what that looks like for you when you're working with them. And maybe this is where we weave in those pleasure keys, but it's, it's not just as simple as like. Well, you guys need to be having sex more, so just do it. No, right. Absolutely not. Yeah. So there's nine keys, nine or three triads that make up nine keys.

So the keys are essentially like skills that we, that we learn and we learn it through embodiment. So it's not just like, oh, I read it on a piece of paper and now I get it. It's really, you learn them through experiential engagement. And so you know what, like you're, to answer your question and to make this relevant, I mean, I do have a free resource too if people want to like read up on that.

We're in the wrong part of, I'll just give it to you really practically, and then we can get woo if we want, but on a really fundamental level, like we're in the wrong part of the nervous system without other otherwise, right? If we are under any kind of a stress now, stress can look. Different ways. There can be physical stress, uh, there, but more commonly we have mental and emotional stress or tension, uh, where if I'm afraid to speak up out of fear, um, if my brain is, you know, on some other thing that happened two weeks ago that I'm upset about if I'm afraid to cry in front of my partner, that's mental tension.

Um, so I could get that to you to drop in the show notes or if people wanna, oh yeah, that'd be fantastic. Reach out, message me on Instagram. I can, I can get that to you. Um, which is a way of actually just learning how to relax into the body and training the awareness to be. In the body. And one of the ways we do that is by just focusing on sensation.

It's very, very, very simple. Mm-hmm. Just learning how to pay attention to sensation. So even right now, what we could do is, you know, I could invite you and invite myself and invite your listeners just to pay attention no matter where you are. Can you notice something physical right now in your body? So I can feel, actually I have my hands resting on my legs, so I'm noticing that and sort of the warmth of my hand between my knees.

But you can't move on to that part without the foundation of the first two triads of the pleasure keys. I'm happy to go into, I've got a real easy one for people to remember, but I'll let you ask questions there. Oh, please. Yeah. Well, I just, what I was gonna say is it starts with the self, you know, this, this idea and, and absolutely it takes two to tango, so maybe there's tweaks each partner needs to make to be able to be aligned with each other.

In sort of a metaphysical sense. There's always two, there's always relationship, which requires the two. There's the relationship with myself and my own body. Mm-hmm. Uh, my thoughts of my feelings, right? So there's relationship, my heart with my womb, and then there's relationship with me and my partner, right?

So there's always the opportunity really to deepen into this practice within ourselves as much as relationally, you know, external relationship, intimate relationship. Yep. Completely. Okay. Please continue. Well, here's an easy one to remember. So three of the keys, um, that are related that might be helpful and easy to remember.

Then the next key is the ability to name that, to speak it. Using this part, using the voice. I notice I feel, or I notice I want, or I notice right now that I, what I would need is, so being able to give voice to it is another, a completely different skill, right? The third one is then if we're look talking about two people in intimate relationship, next is the negotiation.

How can I get this thing that I want? You know, let's just say I wanna have more sex with my partner. How can I get my partner to want to have more sex with me? We're trying to negotiate this thing when we don't have a good access to the noticing or the naming. Hmm. Or our, or our partner doesn't. That happens a lot of times too.

One partner might be more resourced where the other partner has no idea what she wants or what she needs. So she's defaulting and going along with it out of obligation. Mm-hmm. Just to keep everything on an even keel. And that's not leading to her getting anything out of it. So she's not interested in having sex with him and he can't figure out why.

I love what you're saying and, and I don't just, how do you see that going with peop individuals and couples you work with? Because I do kind of feel like the negotiating piece is where people probably get hung up. Yes. On, well, I want this, but you want that. And both of us feel we're deserving of what we want.

Yeah. And then we sort of like get stuck in this little limbo. Absolutely. That's where the third tryout of the pleasure keys comes in. That one's a little bit more, it's a little bit more, it's a little bit more complex. So I want it just to keep it really simple. One of the things that's happening when we have mismatched desires like that is there's not a, couples don't have a framework to work from.

Mm-hmm. So, you know, a lot of times we're coming, what's happening, what you just described, just so I can kind of give you something tangible to work with. What's happening there often is just both of them are coming up against one, probably one of the obstacles that we talked about earlier, like maybe feeling obligated, selfish, whatever, or they're, they're both in desire.

So in order for something to be Harmon engagement, to be a harmonious, and we're talking about intimacy. When there's a problem, so I'm not gonna say this is across the board a hundred percent of the time, but a hundred percent of the couples that come to me and want my help have this problem. It's a problem for them.

Both of them are in a, either in wanting, they're both wanting something and that they're not getting, and the other one doesn't want it at the same time. Or they're both in a place where they're giving or they think that they're giving. So what we actually need is to understand the difference between giving and receiving.

Who is it happening for? So if my partner is making a request of me for something, he wants something, and in that moment, it's not my desire. I'm not wanting it. What we wanna clarify is that for me or for you? Because I would gladly maybe do that if it was something he desired and I was in a state where I was willing, willing is a state of giving.

Mm-hmm. And it was his desire we were gonna follow and I was willing to do that. Then we could make, we could cut a deal right then and there. Mm-hmm. But if he was trying to offer something to me, 'cause he thought I wanted it. But it's really not something I want. My answer's gonna be very different depending on whose desire we're following, right?

So couples get really stuck in that just because they don't understand or have the answer and understand the nuances to this question of who is it happening for, who is this request for? And then the difference of wanting something versus willing. Giving, which is the difference between giving a gift and receiving a gift, having the clarity around that.

And those have, there can be a lot of baggage attached to both of those roles. So some of what we do when I work with couples, it's learning how to actually clarify those roles. And when we have the clarity that's where the pleasure lives, that's where the connection lives. That's where it becomes easy and fun.

This moment right now is me giving. Yeah. So I might not be getting every perfect kind of stimulation and pleasure I'm looking for Exactly. But I am consciously, wholeheartedly. Authentically deciding I am entering into this giving. Yes, he's receiving. That's it. Yeah. And then maybe sometimes it can be both at the same time, but I think maybe we need to allow ourselves, ourself, let's talk permission.

Let's talk about it. This is such a good, I'm so glad you said this. Um, because, well first, we'll, just to clarify, the only way to. Really, truly have that clarity. Okay, I'm gonna be in giving right now so that we, I know that and I'm cool with that. We have tolar, we clarify it. If we don't know for certain who it's happening for, 'cause you don't know, he could just be going along with it.

But the other thing you said is, um, absolutely it's okay to be in just one or the other, and in fact, necessary. Because here's the analogy I like to use. So I'm a big time, long time partner, dancer. I love dance, love, love, love. Salsa Tango Ballroom, west Coast swing. I love it. And I've been studying dance for a long time and it's one of the best analogies for what we're talking about right now because on the dance floor, think about it, if you have, usually you have one person leading and the other person is following, and you need that dynamic in order for the dance to look beautiful because mm-hmm.

If two people are trying to lead, that doesn't work. It doesn't work. It, that's called like a fight. Yeah. On the dance floor. Right. Or back leading. A lot of times when the follower tries to also lead, it's not a fun experience. And if, if nobody's leading, both people are trying to follow or they're both in the giving role, for example, or receiving role, they're both in the same role.

There's times where we are just in the flow and it's fabulous and we don't want, need to think about this. Mm-hmm. But it's for the times when it's not fabulous and when there's what I call, like, you know, the, the roadblocks are happening or the train, I call 'em train wrecks for my couples, like, you know, there's all these train wrecks that have happened.

It went south to the extent that they're not even wanting to be intimate 'cause there's so much anxiety that it's gonna happen again when the train wrecks happen. That's where we resource ourself with these skills and we get the clarity. When we have the clarity, we know how to find our way out of it.

Yeah. And that's making an assumptions, a lot of miscommunication. And maybe you can just briefly be like, Hey, I wanna just focus on you for 10 minutes. What would be so great for you? Exactly. Exactly what you just said and when you, anytime we're assuming we, we don't have clarity. And I think what you just described is such a classic example.

It happens around oral sex a lot for some reason where we assume that like that's what our partner wants or would like instead of getting the clarity. 'cause if it, what you just said is beautiful, if I wanna be a giver, I just wanna like give to my partner, then ask what would rock your world right now?

What could I do that would really like just be so juicy and delicious and find out? Because otherwise, technically it's not really giving. If we don't actually know that that's a gift that they want to receive, then we're just guessing. We're reading smoke signals or we're doing what worked last week and wondering why it's not working this week and what's wrong with us and.

What. We have to get over that whole idea of that asking isn't sexy. And Yeah. And I've even heard this like, well, you know, if I have to ask for it, then I don't want it anymore. Or if I have to ask for it, then she's just doing it because I asked for it. It's like, well, yeah, what's, I mean, that's hot.

There's no reason why that doesn't not be hot. You know, like you get to get exactly what you want and she wants to give it to you. Like, yes, like sign me hot, get the jackpot. Like keep going. So, so it's a lot of just that baggage and these ideas that we have that in order for it to be a certain way, it has to be or sound a certain way.

And it's also like, Hey, here's something I'd really love right now. Still the main focus is just that connection and that giving and that receiving. I do think that also leaves room for the experimentation to happen. Yeah, absolutely. And for you as the partner who's receiving, to maybe coach them through it a little bit because it's not about, well, you're not doing it perfectly, so I'm not gonna orgasm this time.

So let's just stop. Right. It's, yeah. Yeah. Actually, I this, if we did tweak this a little bit, and maybe you still don't orgasm, but like they've gotten to know you a little bit better. They've gotten to, yeah. Mm-hmm. Well, yeah, it's that exactly what you just said. And you know, that's one of the things that we do at the Pleasure Keys retreats, is that.

We tend to have more obstacles, more baggage and just more stuff we bring in. So we wanna get really well resourced first in the skills of notice, naming, negotiating, and then the other, you know, triad, which is really the negotiation piece. We wanna get really well versed in those skills so that when the intensity increases with, let's say, sexual touch or, or a sexual situation, that it's, it's easier for us to.

'cause when we have that, then we kind of, the rules are sort of already built in. We understand that a request is not a criticism. Um, the giver understands how to solicit feedback. And we do that in very specific ways. We learn how to do that in very specific languaging that we use so that it, that you can actually get the right kind of feedback and not the wrong kind of feedback.

I know I'm taking us over a little bit. I do. One, this is great. Last, last question, and then we'll sort of let people know where they can find you. Sure. But I think maybe an important thing to talk about is there might be some relationships where entering into that rediscovery and reigniting with their partner maybe isn't accessible right now.

Yeah. What could that look like to just start to kind of explore and reignite within yourself? Oh, we, I mean, it starts with the self and I'm a. Firm believer in having a strong solo practice. Um, you know, our prac practice is like, and it doesn't have to necessarily be a masturbation or a self-pleasure practice.

It could, it could be, but that's not even necessarily what I mean, because, you know, it's not necessarily always gonna be the case for everybody. Their partner's just like super willing to like, jump on board, you know? Mm-hmm. But what we don't wanna do is then just shut ourselves down. And so a great place to start is I believe, just to start to write down some things.

Is, is there a trip I've always wanted do? Uh, you know, I just took up singing actually about it. A little less than a year ago, I sing karaoke. I'm a karaoke total dork. I love it. Um, but you know, like that was a skill I'd always wanted to learn and get better at. And so I just like started doing vocal training and it just lights me up and mm-hmm.

Um, and you know, that's a thing that I lean on, like when, you know, my partner, he's. Busy. He's got a business, he is doing his thing, he's not, you know, I, and I have my things, so I really, it's important to have that, to have the passions that we pursue together. Mm-hmm. But also the things we're developing independently that also still light us up, that we can do that don't require our partners participation.

Yeah. And I think that I'll just like bring that right back to what you said at the very beginning, which is maybe, I don't know, 20%. The fire is from my partner. Yeah. The rest of it is from within me and, and I think it does start to feel, we can start to feel so trapped of like, well, if my partner just blink, blink, blink, then I could have such a beautiful sensual thing.

And what you're saying is, I actually think so empowering, which is most of the control and the power. Is within you. Well, I would even venture to say that it, it all is because otherwise then we're not that our partners can't bring some awesome stuff to us, but if we're waiting for something, anything in our lives to be different before we become who we're meant to be or who we want to be, then we're always going to be waiting.

Like he didn't do it. You know, he did not deliver on that. So, so thank goodness that I didn't keep waiting for the next guy to bring it. 'cause I might have been waiting a really long freaking time, you know? And I, I found that within my own. Sexual nervous system with my own body, my own hands, with my, the own work that I did.

Full body orgasmic experience, and that was hot, and I was able to bring that opening into my next relationship, which was a genuine gift to that man. You know, we mm-hmm. Had some really very beautiful growth together sexually, so we can bring it. We have to resource ourselves in that. We cannot wait around for somebody else to do it for us.

You're experience, you're not responsible for your partner's behavior or their experience. You are responsible for what's happening inside of you and what you choose to do with it. Yeah. And that is just the fundamental truth that will set us free. The truth sets us free. It's not, we don't really wanna hear it.

Yeah. Yeah. That's what's true. Well, and how can I. How can I break the pattern? And that might be just initially within me, myself, and I, and doing something differently with myself. Like, you know what, I've always wanted to, you know, paddleboard on the weekends, I'm gonna start doing that boom pattern broken already.

Mm-hmm. I mean, it is, I mean, we have all the power back in our hands and we can look at it at that level. It doesn't mean that we don't need things from our partner. There aren't requests or things our partner we could ask for. We should absolutely resource that, but it's that we don't blame anybody else.

Mm-hmm. Else or make somebody else responsible for that act of asking. Mm-hmm. That will happen a lot too. Like, go, why doesn't he bring it up? He said, I'm not gonna say anything. He's gotta bring, he's the one that did da da da da. You know? Instead of like, wow, I am feeling this thing this. Sucks and how, what do I need?

I ask myself this all the time, what do I need right now to take care of me? Mm-hmm. Okay. I'm gonna voice it. Something feels a little crunchy here between us. Like, I dunno what's going on. Like, can we clear this up? And I try to do that early and often is really the key to that because if we don't catch it and we let it slide, that's the resentment wall.

Absolutely. Yeah. So the Pleasure Keys retreats, they happen several times a year and we're hosting them, uh, outside of Asheville, North Carolina. So I live near in the area, about an hour west. Uh, and it's just so beautiful in these mountains. So we host the retreats out here. Um, the retreat dates are on the website.

That's the best place to kind of stay up to date on that, just to keep this sort of more evergreen, this conversation. Mm-hmm. But the information. On that is on my website@pathwaytopleasure.com. And if you just click on the nav bar, I think it's under right now, I have it under Work With me. It says Couples retreat.

You can get that@pathwaytopleasure.com or just go straight to pleasure keys.com and you can download a copy of that right there. And it goes over three of the first triad, uh, the three keys of that first triad, which are really fundamental and all the other, you know, the other two triads really build on those first three.

So that's at pleasure keys.com. I love that. Like I said, we'll make sure it's all linked in the show notes, but I think it's gonna be such a phenomenal resource for the audience. I hope so. So thank you so much. You're welcome. This was so much fun, Leigh Ann. Just what a beautiful space you hold for these conversations.