What if you could transform your life's greatest struggles into sources of strength and self-love? This episode brings you an inspiring conversation with Dr. Fanny Le Boulanger, a French doctor and sex coach who did exactly that, following her epilepsy diagnosis at the age of 26. Dr. Fanny opens her heart about how she navigated the challenges of seizures, medication, and their impact on her relationships, eventually finding peace and self-acceptance. She reminds us of the transformative power of nurturing oneself, stepping away from the hustle, and embracing the beauty of self-love.
Ever wondered how you could find pleasure and comfort amidst chronic pain or illness? Dr. Fanny is back with more enlightening insights, sharing how she discovered joy in the simplest of things. Together, we explore the art of self-soothing, connecting to our senses, and the therapeutic power of a silly song. Dr. Fanny even shares her top three coping tools - skin-friendly oils, positive affirmations, and, of course, that mood-lifting melody. We end the episode on a hopeful note, making sure you remember that it's okay not to be okay and that you're never alone in your journey. So, join us, and let's embrace the healing power of self-care and acceptance together.
Bio : Lifegasm Fairy Godmother and creatrix of Your Sexyfied Life podcast After years of working as a doctor helping women, she noticed something was missing… She decided to use her skills to help people fall in love again with their sexuality, stop their inner-war and come home to themselves. With a coaching methodology combining ancient wisdom and up-to-date scientific tools, a bilingual podcast and a French sense of humor, she dedicates her life to helping people build their own Sexyfied life. To reclaim the Lifegasm they deserve.
Links :
New Intro 2024
2024
Website: https://myspooniesisters.com/
Support:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/MySpoonieSisters
What if you could transform your life's greatest struggles into sources of strength and self-love? This episode brings you an inspiring conversation with Dr. Fanny Le Boulanger, a French doctor and sex coach who did exactly that, following her epilepsy diagnosis at the age of 26. Dr. Fanny opens her heart about how she navigated the challenges of seizures, medication, and their impact on her relationships, eventually finding peace and self-acceptance. She reminds us of the transformative power of nurturing oneself, stepping away from the hustle, and embracing the beauty of self-love.
Ever wondered how you could find pleasure and comfort amidst chronic pain or illness? Dr. Fanny is back with more enlightening insights, sharing how she discovered joy in the simplest of things. Together, we explore the art of self-soothing, connecting to our senses, and the therapeutic power of a silly song. Dr. Fanny even shares her top three coping tools - skin-friendly oils, positive affirmations, and, of course, that mood-lifting melody. We end the episode on a hopeful note, making sure you remember that it's okay not to be okay and that you're never alone in your journey. So, join us, and let's embrace the healing power of self-care and acceptance together.
Bio : Lifegasm Fairy Godmother and creatrix of Your Sexyfied Life podcast After years of working as a doctor helping women, she noticed something was missing… She decided to use her skills to help people fall in love again with their sexuality, stop their inner-war and come home to themselves. With a coaching methodology combining ancient wisdom and up-to-date scientific tools, a bilingual podcast and a French sense of humor, she dedicates her life to helping people build their own Sexyfied life. To reclaim the Lifegasm they deserve.
Links :
New Intro 2024
2024
Website: https://myspooniesisters.com/
Support:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/MySpoonieSisters
Hi, my spoony sisters, it's your house, gracefully, jen and I have kind of a different kind of episode for you today and I'm so excited and I hope you are too. Welcome to Dr Fanny the baker. How are you today?
Fanny:I'm doing great.
Jen:Thank you, I'm so excited to have you here and, like I said before, I don't want to butcher her last name. I will let you tell it yourself. So a little introduction to you.
Fanny:So, hi everyone, thank you for tuning in. My name is Dr Fanny Le Boulanger, literally meaning the baker. That's why it's always fun to say I am a French doctor. I am a sassy sex coach and my mission is to help people come home to themselves using the power of falling in love with the air, sexuality, finding inner peace, stopping self-hate all of the good stuff that we all need.
Jen:Absolutely Okay. So how about we start at the beginning and how you got to where you are today?
Fanny:Yes, thanks. So I am 31 and at age 26 I had a diagnosis of epilepsy. You can have one seizure in your life. It doesn't mean anything For me. The first one was during the ER training session, so we had 24 hours night shifts, then having to go to class the day after, so that's basically 30 or 34 hours without sleeping, exhaustion and things like that, and you can have epilepsy from exhaustion. So that's what happened to me. We did all the tests I had the night at the cleaning, with all the things on your face measuring everything, and everything was fine. So I was like, okay, this was just from the ER, turns out it was not. The second seizure was at the movies, watching something amazing, without anything. I was happy and I wasn't exhausted at all. And so I had another seizure. I remember the first thing that I said. Waking up, I was lying on the floor at the cinema and was like, oh shit, because that's mean, that's the second one, and if that's the second one, that needs treatment. So that sucked.
Jen:That sucks, and how terrifying too. You've got all these people around you. You're trying to enjoy a good movie. Oh my goodness, I don't even know how you could handle that.
Fanny:Oh, I actually don't handle because I'm unconscious. I would say that the hardest thing, it was hardest and it's still hard for my partner because he saw me having the seizure and having all of these movements and things like that. I didn't see myself, I just woke up in the hallway feeling like, oh crap.
Jen:That's a very good point, because you're the one experiencing it. It's probably scarier for all those around you.
Fanny:Yeah, exactly yeah.
Jen:How did he handle that?
Fanny:Actually he was. Regarding the handling the situation, there is not much to do. If someone is having a seizure in front of you, you just put everything away. If you can put a cushion under their head, that's great. You just look at the clock so that when you call the 911, you can say, hey, the seizure started at this moment, and then the seizure stops, then you're and things go forward and the person will regain consciousness slowly. So there is nothing much to handle. I think the best, the part where he handled it the best, is accounting, being with me in the grieving process and the pretending that I had figured it all out. You know, oh, I handled my grief. So way no, that was denial.
Jen:I think we all experienced denial in situations like that, because now you have a whole new direction for your life.
Fanny:Yeah, I interestingly, when you say that, it reminds me of how I was so sure I was going to die young. Like when I met him, I was like I won't be, like I won't be here, I won't go over 30. Like I know I won't be here, but I was okay with that. You know, some people are like I just know it. And then this happened and I really felt like I changed the direction of how I don't feel that anymore. Now I know that I will be around. Yeah, it's messy, but it's a good thing.
Jen:Definitely Okay. So how did you move forward from there?
Fanny:So I started with a first medication, the most common one. It's called kepra I don't have the molecule name at the moment which is the most prescribed, and it can create mood disorders. I really remember being not nice to be around. I was depressed. I was always angry, aggressive, like I was in myself. So we had to start to try the second medication, which is a little bit less prescribed because of allergies, but it went well. So I've been on this medication for a few years.
Fanny:I did what we all do pretend that I don't need it anymore and I'm going to manage things by myself. You know, with yoga and meditation, well, control it. You know, the scientific literature said that you can control a lot of things with meditation. You know, I had another seizure. So, no, I had to go under treatment again and we're getting alone pretty well. It's. Yeah, I know that I don't have the energy that I used to have and at the same time, it also helped me feel and understand that what I had before wasn't really healthy.
Fanny:How I think one of the many things that I learned is in this journey is how living your best life isn't doing. So. Many of us, myself included, are stuck into this doing mode and we actually do a lot of stuff and we don't feel anything and so we get emotionally, physically numb, living in 52 shades of gray not the sexy one and how you can see that in a lot of practices, like when many people, when we start yoga, we're doing power practices and the more we progress we're like, no, you know what? I'm going to learn to be gentle with myself and how living your best life is finding this inner peace and knowing to be kind to yourself and to know when to push yourself because you have the resources, finding the sweet spot to feel at all and to really manage what you have.
Jen:Wow. So you're going through the screaming process, you're going through the motions. You know which we're all guilty of. We go through the motions and we just get through the day. What finally clicked to where you were like something has got to change, and this is what I'm going to do.
Fanny:I think, the diagnosis itself. A few months after the diagnosis, to be more precise. I remember one day just figuring out that I was so proud I have been so proud for so long for my mind to be so powerful that I could submit my body, that my body was really a tool in service of my mind, until someone told me your body just switched off your brain. Okay, maybe that's a good thing to point out. Things had already started. I got started yoga, I became a yoga teacher, so I did a ton of work around that, so I started to embody myself again. But really figuring out that this has like no physical reality. You cannot say from a medical perspective that your body is switching off your brain, but just this symbol, the symbolism of that, was really interesting and that's where I noticed that, yeah, a gap was passed there.
Jen:Wow, wow. And so many people don't recognize that right. Many of us are guilty of it. We just go through the motions, get through the day. We're in survival mode.
Fanny:Yeah, exactly, and we're not living when we are in survival mode, and it's also okay to acknowledge that we are there, that society says it is a good thing. Like this going forward until you crack, literally, and how we're doing ourselves a favor to do things differently. And let's be honest, doing yourself a favor in our society is hard, especially when you have a condition, when you have something different from the rest of the world or at least from the many people around you.
Jen:And how we rock yes, and I think you know we feel guilty and that's not a good feeling, it's just not, and we have to figure out how to get out of that rut of the guilt and move forward. So what did you do? What did?
Fanny:you do. This actually ties up with the second part of the. It's interesting. The big thing in the middle is how I actually had to meet pleasure and finding peace with my sexuality to get out. I hit a plateau from yoga and self-development so I did a ton of things and it didn't work and that's when I actually started to reclaim my pressure and fall in love again and find peace with my sexuality and actually things started to change because the guilt around sex, the guilt around desires, around fantasies, around a lot of things, is real, is hard. So I really felt this resonance between when you digest this guilt and using pleasure is a good thing to digest hard emotions.
Fanny:What I like to say is that you can have sadgasm, you can have angergasm, you can have disgustgasm. Pleasure is an amazing tool to help us meet these emotions that we need to meet, to heal. We need to feel the unfelt Hell. Let's be honest sometimes the unfelt sucks Like, really, when we've been stuck in guilt for so long, when we've been stuck in shame in a self-doc that feels so hard on ourselves, I like to say that a part of my head is literally an SM dungeon, like there are so many people that are dedicated to make me feel bad. And also, when you consider it like that, it's less scary, well, I think to go along with that.
Jen:so many people, depending on how we're raised, that is something we don't talk about, it's something we are quiet about, or we don't discuss or we don't share how we're feeling with even our partner. How would you recommend to a person to work through that?
Fanny:About sharing with the partner, do you mean? Yes, I think the first step is to actually allow yourself to look at what you feel. So many of us are focused first in how should I share this with my partner? And we don't know inside how we really feel, because things are supposed to go a certain way, or a healthy sex life is supposed to look that way, and it can't go that way if you're physically numb or emotionally numb. So what I do with the Cochise that I work with is to first focus on yourself, tell your partner that you are doing something, that things will change, and to be supportive. Then can help you with X, y or Z.
Fanny:But I hate the cliche that says like if you want to learn really you have to love yourself, and even if it sucks, it's true. There is a ton of things that we don't talk about because self-love is hard to achieve at the beginning. When you hate yourself, when you look in the mirror and I think so many of us with conditions can really feel that Like getting this injunction of self-love, where you look at the mirror and you like I want to puke and I hate myself, what do I do? So there are steps to feel you can go to self-tolerance.
Fanny:First stop hating yourself. So self-tolerance, then self-compassion, then self-acceptance and then self-love and with that you can share with someone else. So first finding peace, not saying that inner peace is something that you will get, and then you know what's shifted and you'll keep it. Hell, no, but moving forward and building first self-tolerance is so key to actually create relationships from a place of high I am meeting you from a place of wholeness, or at least a place of fullest, and then you can build something different. So what I like to say on the very like two as a summary if you want to improve your relationship, then start self-plattering.
Jen:That's great advice. I think that I'm trying to choose my words. You know, not all people know how to go about doing that. Especially, I go back to how they were raised. Maybe that was taboo. Maybe that is not something discussed and got figured out somehow, right?
Fanny:Yeah, and how actually also honoring that self-pleasure is an umbrella. Like eating a piece of chocolate with yourself for five minutes, taking up the time to smell it, to listen to the sound when you rub it, to look at it and play when you move it, see how the light changes it, and then taste it and have it in your mouth for several seconds. This is an experience when you activate your senses. This is a pleasure experience too. Self-pleasure can go from anything from the chocolate to masturbation, as long as you're doing something that is making you feel good. And if making you feel good isn't accessible because, also for many of us, we don't know what makes us feel good when we've been numb for so long just makes you sorry, just soothes you. Starting with something that soothes you is already an experience of self-pleasure.
Jen:Okay, that's great advice. So I guess my next question would be for people that struggle with physical pain, whether it be arthritis or something else do you have tips for them on where to begin?
Fanny:Hmm, First, there is the whole part of being sure you are checked with a competent healthcare practitioner, because, as a healthcare practitioner, our first rule is do no harm, and we see so many patients stuck into alternative therapies that do more wrong than good, so allowing yourself to use every tool that is available. If you need painkillers for some time, then use them. I'm a really big fan of actually integrating everything that is available instead of trying to separate things. That being said, even if you are in pain, there are some positions in your body that are a little less painful. There has to be.
Fanny:You're not a hundred percent pain all the time, and figuring out this that makes you feel a little less uncomfortable If comfortable isn't accessible. Finding something that is less uncomfortable and bring pleasure and pleasure can be as simple as your touch. When you've been forever numb, for at least for years, what works wonders is to use an amazing oil, like a skin-friendly oil that smells amazing, and rub your neck and rub your shoulders. So finding a less uncomfortable spot and soothe yourself. That's my opinion. That's the key to actually start the journey from the level one that we struggle so many of us, that so many of us struggle with.
Jen:I think that's a really good point. What would you say would be a level two?
Fanny:I think level two would be to when you know yourself and you know what feels pleasurable. Even I would say level two is feeling good. Like level one would be I soothe myself. Level two would be it feels good. Level three feels it's pleasurable, and it can also vary from places, like some people are more sensitive in the neck and they can go from soothing to a hundred percent pleasure, if you like, if you want to feather or, if you like, activate your senses. Some places in you you can go from soothing to pleasure and some places are numb and they mean numbness, soothing, good and pleasure.
Fanny:And the secret, in my opinion, is when you honor the soothing part, you create the safety inside, and so many of us with chronic condition don't feel safe in our own bodies because we can feel our bodies betray us, because we can't do what we used to do and we don't feel safe enough inside. In my opinion, that's what really creates the next step allowing yourself to build a safety and also being a way that creating safety is hard and it sucks because when you want to step out of numbness there is so much time just figuring out soothing, what's soothing? You're like I don't know, I don't feel anything, and honoring the process is long and sucks. We need to acknowledge that and don't race forward as society tells us what it. That's what we should do.
Jen:All good things take time. We can't just rush into it. It's not going to happen in five seconds. We have to put in the work, yeah, and honoring that.
Fanny:We have no control in that and it sucks this thing's tamed time Really.
Jen:It sucks it does. So we're going to kind of sidestep for a second. I have a few questions that I want to ask you, so the first thing I would like to ask you is what would you consider the top five things in your Spoony Toolkit?
Fanny:I actually have three. So first is the combination of a weight blanket and a plush, as I mentioned earlier. Building safety is key and weight blanket helps us do that tremendously and same goes with a plush. It can be a teddy bear or whatever. It works wonders because it helps us reconnect to our inner child, which we all need more of in our society because somehow we've confused growing up and cutting the communication with your inner child. So it really helps you feel safe from outside and from inside. The second one would be connecting to my senses, as I mentioned, when I go into my head too much. The chocolate thing that I mentioned earlier works wonders.
Fanny:Or the self-rubbing with an amalgamating oil. You don't need to go 100% self-massage with one hour with yourself, like when you are in pain. The idea of one hour of self-massage can feel really inaccessible for all of us. So just having a five-minute timer, even a three-minute timer with yourself and amazing oil that smells great and massaging yourself just any part that feels good, soothing your system a little bit, that works wonders. And I think the third one is to record yourself or find something that you want to listen when you feel down, for example. It can be two things there.
Fanny:First, what I like is the silliest song possible. I have a three or four songs playlist in my phone. You cannot not smile when you hear them. They're just stupid. They make you laugh and even if I'm grumpy, I'm like this. So it helps change your mood. And what helps as well is to find a podcast episode or listen to yourself like a recording to yourself, if at some time you feel good and want to whisper compliments to yourself because you did a great job. Record yourself doing that like, hey, you did great today Because X, y and Z and keep that in your phone. Our brains are designed to make us feel like shit and, having that as an outside resource, your brain cannot not hear it and cover it with your own bullshit because it comes from the outside. So that would be my top things.
Jen:Do you have a favorite oil that you would recommend?
Fanny:I would. Actually, I tend to recommend to be cautious with essential oils, so it's better, in my opinion, to find a cosmetics that smells amazing. We have a brand in France that is like it's a French brand that smells amazing. It's called Nukes. But it's really more interesting, in my opinion, to try and test what your skin likes, what it doesn't, and also know that you can also play and have a neutral oil. It can be to jojoba, almond, coconut or sesame and have an essential oils diffusing in the room as well. It helps playing with that too.
Jen:Yeah, and you know, I'm really fond of oh gosh, I can't even think of the name of the company but there is a company that has these body butter. They look like a soap bar but they're not, and once you rub them in your hands, it like melts and gets warm. Yeah, it feels so good on the skin and it's moisturizing, and one of my favorite ones is chocolate. But you know, I'm definitely fond of anything that is like cinnamon and warm and just feels good on the skin, yeah, yeah. So okay, what was my next question? Let me find it here. Okay, do you have any tips and encouragement, maybe some advice for anyone on a similar journey as yourself?
Fanny:First, it's okay not to be okay. There are so many of us and usually can come from the outside and from our loved ones who want to make us feel better, and it's really the fine line between I need to have my pain acknowledged and I am letting myself down is fine and subtle, and so many of us can really what we mentioned at the beginning, like deny yourself our process, deny that today no, I don't have the energy Trying to make peace with that. That is not helping us in the long run to force ourselves to go through, even if our brains say that that's what we are supposed to do. It's a process, especially because what we have around us as a society is really designed to come like the archetype of the contrary.
Fanny:We have all this technology that help us numb ourselves when we feel challenged, when we have negative emotion. We numb ourselves with amazing things that are designed to numb ourselves and that work amazing. Or we reach out for food, for example, and it's okay to feel things that are not so nice to feel. And your secret here is to build your safety and to know what soothes you, because when you have access to that, you can meet what's brought to you at the moment and finding peace inside. Some days you will do amazing and some days you will not, and that doesn't mean anything about you and who you are as a human being. That's. And the last thing is to have an awareness of what is the SM dungeon in your head that wants you to go forward and do, do, do, do something, and the wisdom that comes from inside.
Jen:Fantastic advice. All right, so I'm switching back gears again. So before we started the recording, we had a little discussion and I want to bring up a word that I'm sure listeners are going to be shocked to even hear me say, because this is not something we talk about normally on my Spoonie sisters, but let's talk orgasms. Yes, I cannot believe I said that. Yeah, I'm just going to let you take over on that word.
Fanny:Orgasms are great and we need more of them. I like to say an orgasm a day. Keep the doctor away. You can have the apple too, but the orgasm is good.
Jen:And part of what you were talking about is there's different kinds, so do you want to explain that to us?
Fanny:Yeah, you can consider you have. If you take the definition, the traditional definition of an orgasm. Some people would say it's a rhythmic contraction of the pelvic floor provoking waves of pleasure. Yes, and First you can have orgasms from different parts of your body. You can have cervical orgasm, you can have G-spots orgasm, you can have clitoris orgasms. So there is this whole, and also science is modifying things like the latest tendency is that maybe all of them are from the clitoris. We're not so sure. So the physiology of orgasms is getting different.
Fanny:So maybe a better idea to define it is to feel the release of an inner tension, but a tension that feels good, like an inner wave of energy that has been accumulated and then it's released. And when you consider that, when you know that emotions are just sensations given meaning by your brain, you know that emotions are just energy. And that's when you can get the anger orgasm, the disgust orgasm, the sad orgasm. It's really, as we mentioned earlier, the safety and the soothing yourself. Allowing these emotions and bringing the pleasure with them helps you get access to their whole range, to their whole palette, and then you notice that you have an endless playground to play with.
Jen:I like that word choice playground yeah, an endless playground. Okay, so I don't even know what to ask Because I mean, this is not a topic I'm used to discussing with people, and so trying to come up with the words here, I guess you know we're getting close to time. What would be the last bit of advice you'd want to leave with people?
Fanny:What I always say is there's nothing wrong with you.
Fanny:You are a smart being and you don't do anything stupid. When we go on the healing journey, when we go on the self development journey, so many of us try to fix ourselves or to find explanations to what we feel or what we have in mind, and usually it's more a question of parts of ourselves not having the memo and not knowing that what was useful isn't useful anymore. That goes in your healing process. That goes in the shame regarding your sex life, because at some point we chose shame to be sane, because we felt that if we didn't choose shame, we wouldn't belong anywhere, we would be expelled from our community, we wouldn't be lovable, we wouldn't feel safe and how. In the end, it's always a question of safety and love and belonging.
Fanny:Self development is so simple. Any type of conflict or interaction or problem that you can have is a question of self safety, love and belonging. And so when you know that it's easier to first be more at peace with yourself and noticing that there is nothing wrong with you, it's always a question of the dynamic. There's nothing wrong with who you are.
Jen:I think that's the best advice we can leave listeners with today. That's fantastic and I'm telling you my Smoony sisters. Reach out to Dr Fanny. Talk to the baker, the one all know all of all sex things. Don't be a picket the job and, as awkward as it can be, ask the questions, Ask for the advice on how to deal with this, despite what you are dealing with health-wise.
Fanny:I'm always open for questions.
Jen:Absolutely. Where is the best place for people to find and follow you?
Fanny:I am a podcasting girl. I have an Instagram, but I'm like having this love-hate relationship with Instagram. So I love Instagram, but for DMs only, or sometimes once or twice a year when I'm like. I'm going on Instagram right now because I feel it, but the best place to actually meet and understand what I work and what I do is to listen to my own podcast. It's called your Sexified Life. Keep the Y at sexy because I'm French and I misspelled it, but it's called your Sexified Life. You can find it anywhere. In there we talk about all of what we discussed today Finding peace, safety and sex and everything. I work one-on-one with Cochise and, yeah, all of the details you can find it on the website as well.
Jen:You can send that in the show notes. Absolutely.
Fanny:Yeah.
Jen:Thanks, definitely check out the podcast. You're in store for all things Delightful, but just probably make sure your littles aren't around. If you have littles, they probably don't need to hear it. But I appreciate you coming on and sharing your wisdom with us today and, yeah, I just I'm so grateful for you taking the time out.
Fanny:Thank, you so much for having me and thank you everyone for tuning in.
Jen:Alright, my Spoonie sisters, until next time, don't forget your spoon.