From Pelvic Pain to Pleasure: An Embodied Approach to Intimacy

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Learn More About My Guest:

Website: https://www.sarahnelsoncoach.com/

IG and Substack: Sarah Nelson Coach

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Transcript

Lindsey Vestal

Sarah what a blast from the past it is so amazing to see you again and to have you as a guest on the OTs for Pelvic Health Podcast

Sarah Nelson

It's so amazing to see you and to be here. Thank you.

Lindsey Vestal

For everyone listening, Sarah and I go way back. Sarah was a client of mine in New York City who since has reached out and really reinvented herself and is doing some incredible work out in the world. So it is really a joy to have this conversation with you. And I was wondering if you could share a little bit of your journey into intimacy and sex coaching.

Sarah Nelson

Yeah, absolutely. So I had another career when we knew each other. I ran global research programs for nonprofit organizations, but I always found that even though that work was amazing, what motivated me the most was mentoring and managing the teams.

At the same time, like you said, we worked together. So about 11 years ago, I gave birth to my second child. And I was having pain during sex after that.

And that was how our paths came together. And when I met with you, you taught me things that my body does every day that I didn't know. And I think what really fascinated me about it was not just the biology of that, but also the psychology of the fact that our bodies are built to do things.

Sarah Nelson

And it is so taboo to talk about them that we don't even know. And I wanted to be part of the solution to that. So I put those two things together and i am now a sex and relationship coach.

Lindsey Vestal

So in incredible, What an amazing origin story. And I love how you listen to your intuition and trust it yourself to reinvent yourself and follow your passion.

I really admire people who have second and third acts because life is long. Why shouldn't we, right? And why not be able, what a rewarding thing to take what we've learned from former experiences, former careers and bring it into ours and find the expansiveness of that. I just, I admire that so much.

Tell us a little bit, Sarah, about what someone could expect from you, specifically like in the first intimacy coaching session.

Sarah Nelson

Yeah. So think I the main difference between coaching and therapy, which people might be more familiar with traditional sex therapy or talk therapy is that therapy is very much about solving problems that are, that are in your head.

And coaching is very much about getting into your body. So I don't ask a lot of questions. I don't, care what your relationship with your mother was like, if you don't want to tell me. It's very much about helping you build the skills to feel into your body, to understand and even identify what your body is telling you, to get in touch with what you truly believe, and then also to build the skills to be able to communicate that. And through that, to find more

Confidence and ease in your relationships So in a typical coaching session, i will Continually bring you back to What are you experiencing right now? How does this feel in your body?

Where do you feel it or? Could we do this exercise to try to work through that, try to practice how you would take this out into the world. It's very practice based and it's very much about,

You understanding yourself. It doesn't actually even matter whether I understand what's most important is whether you're understanding yourself and whether you feel like you have the tools to use that in your life.

Lindsey Vestal

I mean, what you're talking about is client centered work. It's, you know, you're really being led by a greater calling and,  you know, therapy and all of that fantastic modalities. I find that very often though, what you're talking about is can be a biggest turning point for clients to kind of step into that authority and that sense of agency. it It sounds like you cultivate a lot of agency and building trust and intuition back to a sense of self.

Sarah Nelson

Yeah, absolutely. it's so much about you reclaiming your own sense of who you are and who you want to be in the world.

And I think so much of us carry so much, so many messages that we don't even realize are not our own. We tell ourselves things and we think that they're actually our beliefs, but when we really examine them, we realize they came from sometimes our parents, but often just from the society that we live in. And there's a lot of shame that goes with that.
And until you can identify that shame and start to get rid of it, it can be really hard to make the choices that feel best for you.

Lindsey Vestal

100%, and I love, love, love that you are,  that's such a pivotal part and integrate it into the sessions that you do because you're right. To me, it's a clear call to action when someone says, have no idea why I believe this and I haven't stopped to think about it or reflect on it because you're right, it kind of becomes a fabric of who we are and and maybe we're not happy with that aspect. It's not serving us. And so to really stop and pause and maybe even feel the sensations that arise in our body when people ask us these questions is so pivotal.

not only for our intimate relationships, but for just stepping into a higher version of ourselves for all aspects of our lives. That's phenomenal, Sarah. I also know that you work with exploring ethical non-monogamy and polyamory, if I'm saying that right.

Sarah Nelson

Yeah.

Lindsey Vestal

Okay, What are some common challenges you see in those relationships and how do you help clients navigate them?

Sarah Nelson

Yeah. So, I mean, this is a relationship structure that I think it gets a lot of attention now, and that's part of why I moved into it. I actually have been in an ethically non-monogamous relationship off and on for most of my adult life.

And in a lot of that time, There weren't a lot of resources. I didn't have a community and I really had to learn to do it on my own. Recently, I've had the opportunity to build a relationship really intentionally and I've learned a lot of different things through that. And I love bringing those learnings and skills to my clients.

So a lot of my clients are coming from either an interest in potentially opening their relationship or they have opened their relationship and they're encountering challenges that they didn't expect.

Jealousy being the one that we all think of first. And I find jealousy super fascinating because it's actually a really complex emotion. It's usually several things piled on each other, a combination of fear, anger, feeling of being left out. And also, again, brings in this this shame factor of I shouldn't be feeling this way or my partner shouldn't be doing this even though I agreed to it.

So I work with people who are interested in exploring those feelings, why they're coming up, unpacking them, figuring out all the different layers. Again, how does it feel in your body when this happens?

It's a lot of triggers too, right? And how does a trigger feel in your body?

What's your natural response to a trigger? Some of us have that flight response. You know what? I think I just really need to get in the car right now. Others of us have the freeze response. I you know i just want curl up in a ball.

Or the fight response. I can't believe you're doing this to me. So identifying those different responses, understanding them for yourself, and then learning ways to apply new skills to your relationships.

Lindsey Vestal

That's phenomenal. Thank you for bringing up jealousy. You're totally right in terms of it being such a multi-layered, multifaceted emotion. What about like mismatched desires or mismatched libidos?

Sarah Nelson

Yeah, I mean, so much of sex coaching is about some kind of mismatch. No matter how similar we are to our partners, there are going to be mismatches, right?

And one of the things that I think is really interesting is that what works best in these situations is not to try to meet in the middle.

Many times what's what it's really about is everybody staying where they are, but accepting them themselves and accepting their partner. So whether that's, I want sex 10 times a week and you only want sex once a month, or whether that's, I want to spend money on a fancy vacation and you want to spend it on a new set of speakers.

It's really important not to always think that compromise is the solution. Often it is.

And sometimes it isn't. Sometimes you need to say, you know what? Your perspective is absolutely valid. I love you for your perspective. I have a different perspective and we can work with this mismatched desires is the way we commonly think about this in the bedroom, frequency, but a lot of times it can be about what kind of sex you want to have. Maybe I really like hard banging, passionate sex and you really like slow and sensual kind of spiritual sex.

And we can have a mismatch in that. And, working with people on accepting themselves for who they are, accepting that the way that you want sex is absolutely okay.

And the way your partner wants sex is also absolutely okay. And can you communicate what you want and can you accept what they communicate and then decide, are we going to switch off? Are we going to have these desires fulfilled separately? Are we going to find some common ground? So working through all of these different possibilities.

Lindsey Vestal

Oh, so fantastic. So rich. You're very familiar with pelvic floor therapy, which is amazing. Do you have any thoughts on how pelvic floor therapists, which are the primary listeners of our episode today, and sex coaches can collaborate to better support clients, especially if the pelvic floor therapist listening are maybe more familiar with the therapeutic route and maybe less familiar with coaching?

Sarah Nelson

Yeah, I mean, I think there's so many possibilities for collaboration. I love working with pelvic floor therapists because we share a fundamental belief that so many things that our society takes for granted as normal are actually dysfunctions that can be resolved.

And, So many of these things are about the mind-body connection. And there is biology involved that I am not skilled at And there's also this aspect of getting back into your body, and just understanding yourself. So much of pelvic pain is this combination of what's happening physically and what's happening emotionally and mentally.

I've and experienced it. I know what that's like. and there's so much space for an exchange of information between pelvic floor therapist and the coach about where are the blockers? What are you seeing from your side? What am I seeing from mine? And what are the skills? Again, I'm teaching skills.

Skills for getting into your body, skills for communicating better, your teaching skills about how to relax your pelvis and use it in its healthiest, most functional way.

And I think there are many opportunities for working together on that.

Lindsey Vestal

I think that's fantastic. And I will ask at the end of our episode today for you to share ways for anyone who wants to get in touch with you and collaborate with you, because it's incredibly important to remember that it's, it's, it really does take a community, especially with some of these more, as you started off our conversation today, kind of like deeper rooted, maybe insecurities or messages that we have around sex. And I think that the more we could come together to support our clients. It's always going to be so robust. One of the things I love that you talk a lot about is you know strengthening communication.

It's definitely something you brought up a lot today on your website, etcetera. And you also talk a lot about setting boundaries. What are some simple starting points for someone who struggles to talk about sex or their needs sexually?

Sarah Nelson

So much of this is about understanding yourself first and having this space to look inside yourself and to be in touch with how you really feel. Because I think a lot of us don't set boundaries because we don't even recognize that the reason we're reacting the way we are is because our boundaries are being crossed.

So having the opportunity to just explore that and then to practice in a very low stakes situation can be really helpful.

I can pretend to be your partner, not in the sense of, I will pretend to be that person you're normally with, but I can pretend that you and I are in a partnership.

We are in a partnership when we're working together and, and you can practice setting boundaries with me. and having these opportunities, even just to say words, to form words with your mouth that you may never say out loud, I think is really important.

I think shame, again, is a big part of this as well. There are so many times when we don't say something because all these other thoughts get in the way. I shouldn't want this. I shouldn't have a problem with this. I am in this loving relationship. This person loves me. Why wouldn't this be okay?

Or if I say this, they're going to feel bad and they're not going to you know it's going to kill the mood. One of the things I love working on is not just setting boundaries, but setting boundaries in a loving way.

How do you do that? How do you express what your boundary is and continue to hold that space for your respect and your love and your caring for the person that you're setting with?

Lindsey Vestal

We're not taught these things.

Sarah Nelson

We are not.

Lindsey Vestal

We're not taught them. And I think there's not a lot of great examples out there of it either. Right. And so what beautiful. What beautiful things you guys are uncovering in your sessions together. And then I always think about the ripple effect of potentially even like non-romantic relationships. So some of your clients then go into work and they're using their same skills and comfort with boundaries there. So it's not just sexual. It's one of those things that once you learn how to use your voice, it really does start to impact all aspects of your life in the most positive way possible. And then I think about people who have kiddos and how they get the opportunity to see that modeling happen. I mean, it's just, it's such an incredible gift that you are giving your clients. So I just, I love this.

Another thing that you've mentioned, and I'd love to hear a little bit more about this is that you really do help your clients distinguish what they want versus what they've been taught. You know, we've just been talking about that. I'd be so curious, especially because I think our listeners would love to understand this a little bit more. What are some of the most common cultural myths around sex, around relationships that you find yourself helping people unlearn?

Sarah Nelson

I think a really big one for people who are socialized as girls and women is that the, although not, it actually affects people socialized as men as well from a very different angle, is that the best way to have great sex is to try to figure out what your partner likes and give it to them.

What's really fascinating is that the best way to have great sex is to figure out what you like and to try to get it. Because when you are really in your body and really feeling great and enjoying it, any good partner is going to enjoy it more.

And when you get out of your head and really just move the way that it feels good, your body knows what to do. mean, this is the same thing that you're teaching through pelvic health therapy, right? Is your body actually knows what to do and we've taught it not to.

Sarah Nelson

So I think this is a really, a really big myth that needs to be broken down. Is this kind of people pleasing? I need to do the right thing.

And if I really think about it hard enough, I'll figure it out. and it'll happen.

Tied to that is the anxiety that comes up around sex for so many people. And anxiety, I think in women, very often manifests as low desire or pain.

And in men, often manifests as either premature ejaculation or trouble getting an erection.

Anxiety is an arousal killer, right? It's a mood killer.

But we have, we don't even realize the extent to which all of these messages that we've internalized are causing anxiety in the bedroom or wherever we're having sex.

And so that's another big avenue for exploration.

Lindsey Vestal

That's awesome. I love this. For the therapist listening, Sarah, what is one thing we could start doing today to hold space for our clients' sexual wellness and curiosity?

Sarah Nelson

I think the biggest thing is to accept people exactly where they are and also understand that, anyone talking to you about anything in their pelvis is probably looking to you for cues that whatever they're saying is okay.

I know that I have been in a situation where, somebody asks me question, you know, do you have, how do you feel during sex? And my first thought is how much did they really want to know? And I might say something small, and then judge their reaction. Right?

So I think, for the therapist listening, what's really important is to come in with a sense of no judgment. That sex positive attitude where as long as it's safe and consensual, it's okay.

And Encouraging people to talk because people do not have the opportunity to talk about what is happening with them sexually. They don't have a lot of spaces where that's welcome.

And once you start get digging in a lot of times there can be a lot of, either just dysfunction or challenges that can be overcome once a light is shined on them and people understand more what's going on

Lindsey Vestal

Fantastic. Yeah, that's great. That's, that's an amazing message for us all to reflect on and remember. I'd love to ask you a couple rapid fire questions, If that’s okay with you?

Sarah Nelson
Yeah

Lindsey Vestal
Okay. Here's the first one up. What's your favorite book right now on relationships or sexuality?

Sarah Nelson

So I think I'm not going rapid a fire. going to talk, but, I, you know, come as you are is like a Bible, i think just like the baseline, but a book that I love that people don't read as much is called the erotic mind. And the reason why I love it is because it gets at this idea that we all have these core desires and finding ways to have those desires fulfilled in the bedroom is the key to having great sex.

Lindsey Vestal

Great. I just learned about a new book. That's awesome. What's a myth about sex that drives you crazy?

Sarah Nelson

A myth about sex that drives me crazy is that there is a right way to do it and that most people out there are doing it that way.

Lindsey Vestal

I love it. Most underrated intimacy practice.

Sarah Nelson

I think a big one that I love recently is eye gazing, spending time not talking and just reading each other's body signals and getting in touch with each other in that way.

Lindsey Vestal

Lovely. A go to grounding technique in a tough moment.

Sarah Nelson

Eye gazing. 

Lindsey Vestal

Yes.

Sarah Nelson
But also I think taking a breath and taking a moment where you don't talk because a lot of times we try to talk ourselves out of those situations, but it's in those heightened situations when we say the least useful things.

Lindsey Vestal

Yes, I could not agree more to that. Boundary setting in one word.

Sarah Nelson

Self-empowerment.

Lindsey Vestal

Good. That's a hyphen, so that counts as one word.

Sarah Nelson

Thank you.

Lindsey Vestal

And my last one, a small habit that makes a big difference in relationships.

Sarah Nelson

I'm going to take my cue from you on this one, Lindsey, and say putting down your phone.

Lindsey Vestal

I'm a big fan of that, Sarah, I can't thank you enough for being a guest today. How can listeners find out more about your work?

Sarah Nelson

So my website is sarahnelsoncoach.com. You can also find me on Instagram at Sarah Nelson coach. I'm also on substack. I read about sex there also Sarah Nelson coach.

Lindsey Vestal

I will put links to all of that in the show notes for folks can, can listen to you more. I think your approach is so OT and so complimentary to the work we do. So thank you for bringing your work out into the world and for spending time with me today was fantastic.

27:11.72

Sarah Nelson

Likewise, Lindsay, thank you so much.