#036: The Hidden Cost of Stress on Intimacy, Pleasure & Connection | Rebecca Levy

In this episode, Sally-Anne is joined by Rebecca Levy, a Newcastle-based Somatic Sexologist, Sex Educator and Relationship Counsellor who works with individuals and couples to help them feel safer in their bodies, communicate more clearly and build deeper intimate connection.

Rebecca combines counselling, somatic practices and sex education to support people in reducing shame, understanding healthy boundaries, exploring embodied consent and reconnecting with themselves and their partners in a way that feels natural, grounded and healing.

Together, Sally-Anne and Rebecca explore the often-unspoken connection between stress, nervous system safety, pleasure, intimacy and relationship disconnection.

This conversation gently unpacks why so many high-achieving women can feel overwhelmed, touched out, anxious or disconnected from their desire, especially when they are carrying the mental load of family, work, relationships and everyday life.

Rebecca shares why intimacy is not simply about sex, but about safety, communication, embodiment, self-awareness and the ability to be present in your own body.

Inside this episode, we explore:

• Why stress and overwhelm can shut down desire
• The connection between nervous system safety and intimacy
• Why obligation can quietly damage connection in long-term relationships
• How shame impacts pleasure, communication and sexual wellbeing
• What embodied consent actually means
• Why women often disconnect from their bodies during intimacy
• How breath, slowing down and self-awareness can support reconnection
• Why pleasure matters for women’s overall wellbeing
• The importance of maintaining identity inside a relationship
• How couples can create more intentional time for connection

Rebecca also shares insight into her work supporting individuals and couples both face-to-face and via Zoom, as well as her role as a registered member of the Australian Counselling Association and President of the Somatic Sex Educators Association of Australasia.

This is a mature, grounded and deeply validating conversation for women who have ever wondered why intimacy feels different in seasons of stress, why desire can disappear, or how to begin reconnecting with their body, their partner and their own sense of pleasure without shame or pressure.

Connect with Rebecca:

• Email: hello@rebeccalevy.com.au 
• Website: https://www.rebeccalevy.com.au/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rebeccalevy_somaticsexologist/ 
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rebeccalevy.somatic

About your host
I’m Sally-Anne Kearns, Functional Nutritional Therapy Practitioner and host of Nutrition Gateway. I help women calm anxiety, clear brain fog, and stabilise energy through simple, stackable micro-habits grounded in nutrition and lifestyle foundations.

Book here for a complimentary health audit phone call, we will run through what may be missing in your toolkit to optimise your health.

Check out the Lifewave X39 Light Signaling Patches 

Transcript

Sally-Anne Kearns  02:56
So today I'm joined by Rebecca Levy, a Newcastle-based somatic sexologist, sex educator, and relationship counselor. When I first met Rebecca, I was like, what do you do, and I just needed to know more. With Rebecca, she's working with individuals and couples, combining counseling, somatic practices, and sex education to help people feel safe in their bodies, communicate more clearly, and build a deeper intimate connection. Rebecca's work focuses on reducing shame, supporting healthy boundaries and embodied consent, and helping people really reconnect with themselves and their partners in a way that feels natural, grounded, and healing. Rebecca works both face to face and via Zoom, and is also a registered member of the Australian Counseling Association and president of the Somatic Sex Educators Association of Australasia. So, this conversation started sort of offline, and we had this, you know, just beautiful sort of conversation around what is it that you actually do, and who are your ideal women, and who are you serving in your community? And maybe we can just start there, around, you know, who for those starting to listen, who is your ideal client? And if they're sitting there going, should I be listening to this, maybe you could speak to that for a moment.

Rebecca Levy  04:36
Yeah. Thank you. Lovely, thank you for having me on, Sally Anne, it's really lovely to be here. The women that I see, women who have either, they're either young and they've been in a relationship and they're having communication issues, and the balance of labor between, you know, emotional and physical labor between them and their partner is not always equaled, and when that happens, sex goes off the table, so they'll come in looking for sex. The second other type of client that I work with are couples where, or especially women who have been having sex because with their partner, and it's been very, it's been a very similar way for decades, because they know, because they love their partner, they're willing to do that, they know they feel this obligation as a partner or a wife to actually provide that for their husband, but in the course of that process they've disconnected from their own body, their own pleasure, and they've started to withdraw and eventually shutting down, so they might lose desire, they may still have a libido, but they don't have the desire to want sex anymore, and so that's also who comes in to see me as well. Yeah,

Sally-Anne Kearns  06:04
beautiful. And how did this, you know, probably my audience might be wondering, like, what does this have to do with nutrition, or from that lens of, you know, serving women that are high-achieving women that may perhaps be struggling with anxiety or brain fog. And the thing that's become really apparent to me is that when we're in a state of anxious or overwhelm, or you know, meeting the demands, we tend to put pleasure potentially lower on the ladder, and I think that pleasure is something that should be sought, in particularly in a healthy relationship, and that was one of my things this year, it was like, you know, how do I find joy, but also just pleasure, pleasure in what I'm doing, feeling satisfied within myself, within my relationships, within my communication, and you know, this has been when I, when I sat down, I've been kind of contemplating this, this chat for a little while, I'm like, where did I even get my ideas around what is a healthy relationship when it comes to sex, and what frameworks or paradigms do I perhaps need to reconsider about what this should look like, and instead of making it a topic that's not discussed, I wanted to be able to explore that with you, so what would you say are some of the myths in this, in the space that you work in, that need to be busted,

Sally-Anne Kearns  07:26
that sex is obligatory,

Rebecca Levy  07:30
that just because you're in a long-term relationship you have to have sex? I am a firm believer that we should be responsible for our own sexual needs, and therefore not put that onto somebody else. If I'm hungry or I'm thirsty, I can produce food, I can go and get a drink of water, you know. If I need to exercise, I can go and do that. Well, sexual wellness is the same, you know, that's what masturbation is for. However, when when one person's sexual needs get put onto the other person, then there's this obligation, like I have to do this, and that actually removes the fun and the exploration and the curiosity, which also reduces the pleasure, and so when we change the that dynamic, sex becomes way more playful and way more interesting, and also pleasurable. The other myth that I would say is that one person is responsible, like your partner is responsible for meeting all of your needs, and that's emotionally, mentally, you know, physically, I mean, sex and intimacy is contained usually within a monogamous relationship, and I'm going to say, like, majority of the population, probably 85% of the population, are monogamous, and so therefore that part of themselves is contained within the relationship, however, to expect your partner to meet every other part of you is a lot of pressure as well, and I think that can lead to frustration and in turn disconnection, whereas if we can, you know, have friends or hobbies or things that also sustain us and help us maintain our own identity. It means that we've got two individuals coming into the relationship and not trying to get from the relationship the very thing to fill them up that the other person might not be able to meet them in.

Sally-Anne Kearns  09:38
Wow, that's a really interesting insight. So it's like two two parts that are complete, or two full parts that are essentially merging to become even more, instead of us, you know, feeling like there's a need that needs to be fulfilled by another person, because you're right, I mean, that, that is unfair. Um, the

Rebecca Levy  09:57
way I, the way I explain it is like there's there's me and there's my partner, and then there's us, right. And so the relationship itself is a separate entity from me or from my partner, and I need to put into the relationship just like my partner needs to put into the relationship. We both can put in and pull out, like we put in and withdraw, but if we are both withdrawing and neither one of us is putting in. Then it's going to be a very withered relationship.

Sally-Anne Kearns  10:28
Yeah,

Sally-Anne Kearns  10:29
I think at the core, when I think about what do we all really desire, we all desire the intimacy. We know the intimacy than that, a, that a confident partnership looks like when it comes to healthy sex. We know how we feel, you know, we feel connected. I know that, that this is definitely not a topic that I have talked about openly, so I'm still feeling a little bit prudish in this chat. But then I'm also like, why is that? I mean, this, this is such a strange thing. It's something that is a, it's God-given in a relationship, and we should be able to have these conversations as adults around what are our needs. What would you say are things that are that are really getting in the way of enjoying intimacy?

Rebecca Levy  11:22
I shame, the inability to communicate without.. I mean, there's.. there's definitely fear of being rejected. There's a fear of being judged as being weird. There's, you know the messaging that we might have received growing up from either you know our family or you know a religious background or schooling or whatever other social conditions apply when we look at messages that come through the mainstream media around sex, it's changing, it's starting to change, which is very exciting. However, mostly it's been driven by sexualization, especially of women, and that sex looks like a lot of penetration and is very genital focused and very orgasm, male focused orgasm, you know, to like this, like penetration is the main course.

Sally-Anne Kearns  12:27
Yes,

Rebecca Levy  12:27
and so that doesn't allow for a woman's body to respond the way that our bodies do respond sexually. They take a lot longer. There's the men are like a frying pan, you turn the heat on, they get hot, you cook whatever you need to, you turn the heat off, they get cold. Women are like an oven, you got to turn them on, let them get nice and warm and hot, and then you cook whatever you cook, and then when you turn them off, they're still hot, and they take a long time to cool down, which is great, because it means you don't have to wait as long to turn them back on again, if it's a bit more consistent, and that, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be penetrated based as well. So I think the I think the reason we don't talk about it is because people just haven't felt comfortable about it. I've always talked about it. I was the teenager at school talking about it, not realizing that it was

Sally-Anne Kearns  13:27
weird.

Sally-Anne Kearns  13:28
It's not weird at all. This is the thing that's so fascinating. It's like when I actually thought about, I've been unpacking this in my head and just looking at what, what am I holding on to. It was kind of like when we got married. I remember going through all the traditions, you know, the checklist, and being like, why do we even do that? Why do we even cut a cake? Do we do we need to do the cake? Why do they do the veil? What's the whole gizmo with rings like? And so I was looking into what, what's the real meaning behind the things that we do, you know, there's society that tells us to do something, and then there's also the meaning that we need to connect to with it, and so instead of doing things just for the sake of doing them, because that's how so and so did them, it's now taking that ownership around, but why, why do I think like that, and what was modeled to me as a child when it comes to healthy relationships, and this was never something that I was talked to because I had a bit of a bit of colorful upbringing, but when I think about what was modeled, I was like, it just wasn't ever nobody talked about what safe, safe embodied sex felt like, or how you should feel in a relationship physically, or what that should look like. So, can you explain, you have used the word, I think, in your descriptives around embodied, so could we talk a little bit about what disconnected is in this space versus embodied?

Rebecca Levy  14:55
Sure, so like earlier I mentioned about, you know, women who have sex because they're willing to do that for their partner, not because they actually want it. So they may have sex, and in their mind they're in their head with they might use some lubrication, penetration, they may even have like a little bit of oral sex beforehand, just to, you know, get warmed up, but in total, like, sex may take 1520 minutes, and so in that process they are willing to do it, so they put their bodies in a position, but meant, but they're really there in their head, like, how much longer does this go on for? What am I going to do when I finish? What am I going to cook for dinner? You know, what time do I have to go and pick Johnny up from school? You know, did I do the washing? All these, like, what do I need to do? What's the next meeting at work? Like, all these other things that they so they're in their head and they're not actually in their body enjoying it, and so there's a disconnection from what's actually taking place within my body versus being in the head, and so embodied is about being in the body, our presence is in the body, our awareness is in the body, we are able to say, oh, I like that, no, I don't like that, or do more of this, do that a little bit to the left, a little bit to the right, a little bit further, a little bit harder, a little bit softer, a little faster, slower. So we're actually able to tune in to what is actually happening, because we're in the body, as opposed to in our heads,

Sally-Anne Kearns  16:41
so it's almost a state of receiving, but in order to be in that space, to be able to confidently say, I'd say, you, you have, you'd have to just feel confident in your own skin, you'd have to feel grounded, and you'd have to do what, just so, How do you coach women to get in and men to get into that space together, like, what, what would be the conversation? So, if a woman was like, "I just can't, you know, that racy mind, because that's very characteristic of anxiety, so it can be hard to turn those thoughts off, or because they're always forward pacing what could go wrong, like, "Oh gosh, I'm going to miss the kids, I'm going to pick, you know, pick them up wrong at the wrong time, or I'm going to, they're going to be the last one standing in the line, or there's always this future pacing of, of anticipation of something going wrong. Well, how do you get women and men to get to that place of just let's just be here in this moment and land?

Rebecca Levy  17:36
It's not, I don't have like a one step, 12345, step, because every couple and every individual is so unique, so I need to meet them where they are, but I also like to work in a non-sexual way, so we might build awareness within the body through things like breath, touch, sound, movement, just awareness, like our intention, and with that we can then expand it into communication around receiving and giving those things, and then we can look at how can that be moved into a sexual environment, but also a lot of sex education, as I said before, you know, women are the oven, and it takes 45 minutes for revolver to be completely engorged, and you know, like, ready for penetration.

Sally-Anne Kearns  18:27
That's fascinating, really. 40-five minutes, but

Rebecca Levy  18:32
yeah, it can take, like, the less, the more time in between, like, the longer it'll take the less desire someone's feeling, the less, yeah, interested someone is. When I just go straight in for penetration or even vulva touch, there's so much more to intimacy beyond just the genitals, and that's, you know, that's the part around slowing it down, but yeah, a vulva. I've actually just been.. I've just delivered a workshop over the weekend at gathering called Vulva Love, like my workshop was called Volvo Love, and you know it was educating women on vulvas and bringing them into different types of types and sensations, but the vulva is, you know, got the clitoris and the inner labia are also made up of erectile tissues, just like a penis, and they take time, unlike penis, to become engorged, and when that area becomes engorged, it becomes more sense, like there's more sensation, and with more sensation comes more pleasure, and it changes the shape of the vagina. Vaginal canal even changes with arousal.

Sally-Anne Kearns  19:46
Okay,

Rebecca Levy  19:46
little organs get up and out of the way. So, there's a lot physiologically that happens within the body with arousal that just, you know, so doesn't have enough. It doesn't get explained enough.

Sally-Anne Kearns  20:01
No, I've never heard anyone explain it like you've just explained it, which is just even to me is like, how is this not common discussion? The amount of women that I meet that are quite open with the fact that they've never reached an orgasm. I just think, and I don't know what the statistics are, you're probably more abreast on that, and the shame that must go along with that too, like around I'm broken, but if they knew that they were an oven and they just hadn't hit the preheat level, then there's going to be less shame and guilt around even that, and knowing that, that just means that they need, if they were going to be intentional with their partner, they can create a bigger laneway on the calendar to maybe be a bit more playful and have that have that space that's just given me so much to think about. Do you know the statistics of women that don't have an orgasm?

Rebecca Levy  21:02
They like the research is a few years old now, but the statistics of lesbian women who orgasm is like 93% 94% The statistics of heterosexual women who orgasm is around the 50% mark. Yeah, it's

Sally-Anne Kearns  21:22
incredible, like

Rebecca Levy  21:23
I just like, even you know, but there's there's reasons, like this is women's pleasure, got removed a long time ago from being on the table without going into like the history too much, but basically in the 1940s the clitoris in her full form got removed from the textbooks, medical textbooks, and they just left the little, the little head, the little part that sticks out. They just removed the rest of the wishbone, and I've actually left my toy, my stuff in the car, but, but, yeah, like the whole clitoris was removed from medical textbooks, and it was only in the late, like in the 90s, that a female professor in Melbourne started mapping the clitoris in her own time and started publishing articles about it that it got put back into medical textbooks around 2012 that went crazy. I just think to myself, well, what happens if we just cut the penis off and just say, well, it doesn't exist, can't see it doesn't exist.

Sally-Anne Kearns  22:36
That is mind blowing,

Rebecca Levy  22:38
and I think that's the level of that's that's kind of an indication of where we're coming from when it comes to educating not just women, not just vulva owners, but vulva lovers about them as well. If we look at say articles and books from like 300 years ago, way more on top of women's pleasure.

Sally-Anne Kearns  23:06
Yeah, wow, it's, it's really interesting. It's almost like, you know, it's such a connection piece, and when I think about how a woman stands when they're in a relationship that they're being seen, they're being held, and there's that sort of, I don't know, like there's an excitement, you know, when it, when a relationship is really new, there's just so much excitement around the thought of the other person or being with them, and that their touch changes, and then, as obviously, as you, your roles change in your relationship over time, like the needs of the family tend to be the shift of the focus, and there's not as much energy at our disposal, but I think there has to be this place of coming back to these conversations for women, not only as a self-service, but as a layer of connection between intimacy, as you phrase it, that embodiment not only for women, but for men, and if men knew, hey, these are some of the parameters, then they would be a bit more creative in problem solving, I think, as well, because most men do want to pleasure or provide or assist in pleasure with the person that they love,

Rebecca Levy  24:20
yeah,

Sally-Anne Kearns  24:20
and, and that's reciprocated, like we were the same. If we knew how to do it in a way that was meaningful, we would possibly do that. So, let's all open up communication, and if you're struggling with that, then I know that Rebecca has maybe a tiny bit of space on her calendar to sort of show you now, in terms of that intimacy and things that are getting in the way, what would you say that the, I guess, that embodied safety, what would you say that that feels like for a couple?

Rebecca Levy  24:54
Firstly, feeling really comfortable with being honest, you know, being able to say no, and the no being received, being able to say no in a lovely way, rather than a no feeling like you're allowed to say no, and that that's received, because the reality is that our bodies change not just through the years but throughout the cycle, throughout our stress levels. It depends what else is happening in our life, as to whether or not, you know, sex is even on the table. We, the reproductive system goes offline when we're under a lot of stress, and so just like digestion, you know, it's the body goes, now's not the time, you know, so makes sense that when we've got people who are high achieving and in a heightened stress state, that they just have no interest in sex, yeah,

Sally-Anne Kearns  26:00
yeah, there's definitely been, I guess, you know, when you're working on big projects and your mind is in one place, it's difficult sometimes to kind of, you know, and I'm speaking about myself, it's kind of difficult to spread yourself in that place of, okay, so now I'm, you know, I'm getting out of this project solving mode, and now I'm getting into this, you know, mum kitchen mode, and now I'm getting into this, you know, let's get hot, hot and silvery mode, like just switching between the roles. It doesn't always feel like it's happening effortlessly, and I can relate, you know, where your mind is somewhere else, so what? What advice would you give to women like we? You're high achieving because you've got a purpose in your life, but then there's another part of us that's yearning. I feel like there's this yearning for the connection and the intimacy. So, what's.. where's the disconnect here. What, why are we, why are we not being able to have both? Why can't we have our cake and eat it too?

Rebecca Levy  27:06
Well, we can, but we just have to be in the body.

Sally-Anne Kearns  27:08
Yes,

Rebecca Levy  27:09
and allow for transition time. We need to allow for, like, you know, I've just been through, I've had two weekends back to back of events, you know, so my stress levels have been heightened, so I've had to give myself space on the other side, and throughout it all, making sure I meditate, or I go for a walk, that I eat well, that I get to bed, that I get off my, you know, phone and laptop at a particular time. So, there are things that we know that will actually help with our sleep. There are things that we know that will help with our stress levels, and so even within that time of those two stressful things, like weekends, I've still been able to build my resilience, and that's purely from self-care. So, having a bath, exercising, meditation, some breath work, connecting with friends, you know, reading a book, being in nature, they're all like things that we hear again and again and again, and it's because we're human. Our bodies are built for that.

Sally-Anne Kearns  28:12
Yes, they are.

Rebecca Levy  28:13
We're not our mind, we're not technical, technological, but we do live in an incredible piece of, I'm going to call it technology. Our bodies are amazing. Our entire body is orgasmic and capable of experiencing pleasure, but it's whether we take the time to slow down and create the neural pathways that actually allow us to experience them, or whether we're just going to leave the sensations that are available to us through our entire body offline.

Sally-Anne Kearns  28:46
I love what you just said there, because sometimes the solution sounds so simple, you know, getting time in nature, having a meditation, having a hot bath, they sound like, you know, cliche, really simple, like they're not really going to move the needle, but what they do do is they tell your body that it's okay to be nourished, and that nourishment is actually part of showing yourself love. And I'm constantly asking women in my coaching space, what do you do to nourish your soul, and most of them at that question, they, they seriously are flabbergasted, they don't have an answer, and in fact they get quite emotional, because they realize that there's a part of themselves that they're actually not honoring, and what you just said there, it's like you knew that you had the event, so you've built the space to create that, that defrag time, I think that's where we can sometimes get caught up just moving on to the next thing and the next thing without having that pause in between, so is there is there anything else that you feel, if you could have gone back to your younger version of yourself, is there any advice that you would give yourself in this space?

Rebecca Levy  30:13
I would have backed myself a long time ago. Yeah, I've been, you know, like I've been on this path, like, the reason I'm on this path is because I don't carry shame around sex. In that I grew up with parents who were teenagers when they got pregnant. I never got shamed about it. I saw them very loving and very intimate, like. And when the door was closed, I knew what they were doing on a Saturday afternoon. It wasn't in my face, but I definitely saw a lot of love and affection, and so, and that coupled with, like, my own, you know, childhood sexual abuse, along with experiences that led me, that I had to go and happening in my body during sex, that I had to go and learn about, which is how I got into Tantra, you know, a long time ago, like three decades, it's been 30 years. So I think what I would have done is got into it a lot earlier, but as it was, it just took me like it was a hobby that I did, helping people, until I got the credentials to actually work in it as a professional, yeah,

Sally-Anne Kearns  31:25
that's so powerful, that, that you know, you knew, because you were talking about it in high school, as you said, like this was something that sort of came naturally to you, and not in a weird way, but just did a, in a really organic way, and I think that's what we need, we need more women and men in this space, talking about what it feels like to be embodied when it comes to relationships and sexual pleasure, because it is - it is something that is so paramount to the, to the, to a relationship flourishing. Let's be really honest here, and okay, so the couples that are having the best sex, let's just,

Rebecca Levy  32:05
before it, before we go there, I just want to come back to one thing that I would like women who don't have my background, you know, who aren't like, because it's never about my body and my experiences, it's about meeting clients where they are and supporting them into having whatever experiences they want to have, and when it comes to orgasm, orgasm is is learned, and it's learned over time, and it's about creating that neural pathway of learning how to get there, and once we've got one pathway, it's easier to make other pathways, but sex and masturbation are habitual, and so when we do it the same way each time, it's only ever going to produce the same results, and so if we don't take, if we don't create space for a bit of sex exploration, we don't know what else is possible. Yeah, so orgasms are possible, but it does take time and practice to build that pathway.

Sally-Anne Kearns  33:11
You touched on it briefly around, and we didn't - I didn't ask if I could ask this question. So, if you don't feel comfortable talking about it, but I would love to understand. Trying to figure out a diplomatic way to say it. You touched on your early childhood experiences with abuse, and if somebody out there has had an experience like this, and they're feeling as though that could be limiting them from getting into this exploration or feeling that embodiment because there's still some trauma. What would you, what would be your first step recommendation in that, in that space?

Rebecca Levy  33:53
Get some support on it. Yeah, whether that's with me or with a psychologist who does, like, EMDR, or there's so many different layers to sexual trauma, and so it might be that one therapist can take you this far, and then another therapist can take you that far, and then somebody else. So it's about not giving up on yourself in order to reclaim it. I have a lot of psychologists who refer clients to me that they have worked on processing the trauma, but then I work with supporting the client to start to hear their body, feel safe in their body, stay online during an intimate experience, have their voice during an intimate experience, and we can only go as fast as the body lets us,

Sally-Anne Kearns  34:42
yeah, yeah, that's so beautiful, and it's so incredible that there's women like you out there supporting these couples, because you know it's not just women that suffer these experiences, it's also men, and,

Rebecca Levy  34:55
and that's not talked about enough,

Sally-Anne Kearns  34:57
it's not talked, I think

Rebecca Levy  34:58
it's only just starting to, like, I think, um there's a lot of men sitting on sexual abuse shame,

Sally-Anne Kearns  35:07
for sure. I mean, it's the statistics are staggering, and the more that we can bring these topics into the light, the more my view is that we can break generational patterns, and so all of a sudden the needs can be met constructively, as opposed to in this darkness and shame that is, you know, whatever, whatever is driving those behaviors for the person, they need to be met constructively somewhere else, and the only way that that can happen is that if this stuff is really kind of openly talked about, and not, not, not swept under the rug. Let's be honest, so many scenarios, I think people are kind of going, "Gosh, I have had to keep that, that secret locked in inside me, and that's kind of held them back from fulfilling their true purpose as well. So, thank you, thank you for that tip, and just know that Rebecca is available to support you through that. If that's something that you're feeling like, you know what, I want to explore this, I want to understand if this is something that I'm ready to unpack. And moving on to, I guess, you know what, we all want, we all want a healthy sexual relationship and a healthy relationship with our partners, so what would you say the couples that are having the best sex? What's what's the secret?

Rebecca Levy  36:30
They, there's a few secrets, they keep dating, there's a feeling of being heard and valued and cared for and respected in that within the relationship they talk about it and they explore something different, they, they may do it frequently enough, and it's satisfying enough, and it's, you know, it's enough to build all the good juice between them, for and when I say juice, like sex and intimacy releases such good chemicals in our bodies, you know, it's so nourishing for our bodies, like we look at stress as being like one of the top diseases you know in the world, and yet pleasure has the ability to bring in a whole, like to flood the body with lots of different chemicals, so when we get those beautiful chemicals like oxytocin and serotonin and dopamine and all those beautiful endorphins, it makes it there's a warmth that's created, there's a connection that's created, and so when there's physical affection in between sex, it doesn't, it feels you feel cared for and connected. Yeah,

Sally-Anne Kearns  37:57
definitely. I think things have changed and shifted so much, sort of, that post World War Two, you know, to where we are now at from a societal point of view, and just where we're kind of think about, you know, where do we go wrong in this in this space, and I just think that there's so many layers to unpack, first thing would be to take the anatomy out of the descriptive books, that that part of it is definitely another a heart moment that I, and I've had so many of them now that I'm starting to ask better questions of myself, and and I think that's where we all need to start, like, where am I adopting these these thoughts, and where did I get this behavior modeled, and is it actually serving me, is it really bringing me the pleasure and the desire that I wish for. So, you have something exciting coming up in August on the eighth of August. Would you mind discussing to our audience what that looks like? Date night.

Rebecca Levy  38:54
Yeah, sure. So, date night is an event where I invite couples in, and they could be couples who are literally dating, or they could be couples who have been together for decades. The ages, the ages of participants has ranged from late 20s into their 60s, so there's no age gap, like there's no particular age bracket that it's for. I just ask that the couple are not in a crisis between the two of them, and that they're actually in a pretty good place between the two of them. They want to experience something different. So, during date night, I just create this space for couples to read to really slow down, to become embodied, to come into connection, to engage with one another, and in a way that leaves them feeling more in sync, you know, so they're attune to each other, they're they feel nourished, and some of the embodied, there's a lot of embodiment we go through, like emotional, physical, energetic connections and it was birthed out of me teaching couples how to do this at a two day event that I would run for couples called Intimate Exploration for Couples, and the couples at the end were just like, we really love the way you guide us through the practices, can you just do that, so I did. I created the event, just come to do the practices. It's not a teaching workshop, it's purely a date night.

Sally-Anne Kearns  40:29
So far,

Rebecca Levy  40:30
and they don't need to share. It's every, the feedback has been that every couple goes into their couple bubble, you know, and they literally, like everybody else in the room, just disappears, and they just have their own experience.

Sally-Anne Kearns  40:43
Yeah, that's incredible. And you did mention it to me, and I was like, oh, that sounds really bit daunting. You know, at first it's like, you know, being in a room full of other people learning these new skills, but at the same time I think this is where what's the intention, like, what you know, what's the intention, and obviously you do a beautiful opportunity to facilitate this space. Otherwise, people wouldn't be coming back, and you wouldn't keep putting it on, but it's obviously a gift that you've been given to help people feel really safe in those spaces to explore those relationships. So, go you, and

Rebecca Levy  41:16
everybody's having their own experience.

Sally-Anne Kearns  41:19
Yes,

Rebecca Levy  41:20
watching, you know, like I'm not with my partner, watching what the other couple are doing, I'm having my own experience with my partner, and we might have a giggle about, like, I have no idea of getting it right, but then I just keep guiding through that practice, you know, and there isn't anything like it, so it is new, of course, it's going to be awkward, embrace the awkwardness, that's where we learn new stuff,

Sally-Anne Kearns  41:44
and it's also what's the goal here, and if you haven't got another tool in your kit to reconnect at that level, well, then you've got nothing to lose. Yeah,

Rebecca Levy  41:54
if we come back to, like, sex goes offline when we're stressed, so when we slow down and we feel connected, and we feel a bit loved. Up, more likely to have sex,

Sally-Anne Kearns  42:07
obviously not in that environment.

Sally-Anne Kearns  42:11
Just

Sally-Anne Kearns  42:12
for anyone that's thinking that that's happening, it's not that's not what she's suggesting at all.

Rebecca Levy  42:16
Not yet. No, no, it's not like that anyway.

Sally-Anne Kearns  42:21
Okay, he's at the door, beautiful. No, that's beautiful. Like, we've all got these preconceived ideas, and so I think it's important to understand, like, what's your goal here with your partner? And I really wanted to have this conversation, because it felt almost taboo-like, but then when I think about it, I'm just like, this is another natural part of the puzzle around connection, and I love how you explain embodiment, because that's something that I'm certainly going to be more intentional about it, and the oven analogy is just the best. Thank you so much. Is there anything else that you'd like to share, or that's come up that you think, "Hey, I'd love to share this before we wrap it up.

Rebecca Levy  43:04
A really simple way to become embodied is to just bring your awareness to your breath, like just your breath is present moment all the time, and our bodies move when we breathe, you know, like if I was to meditate, I don't need anything else other than my breath to meditate, and the more awareness I bring to my breath in meditation, the more the slower my mind goes, and the more I can feel within my body that is embodiment.

Sally-Anne Kearns  43:39
Yeah, yeah, that's so beautiful, and it's what I'm teaching clients all the time. It's like, what does your body want? There will be a physical reaction, but often we've turned it all off. We've turned it off because we're busy, we've turned it off because we've got projects, we've turned it off because of stress, trauma. And so, the minute that we can step into ourselves, and I've only looked at it through the food lens, I've not actually gone, okay. So this is another piece of the puzzle, but it fits so beautifully. So

Sally-Anne Kearns  44:06
just

Rebecca Levy  44:07
on that, sorry, just on that, there is when the difference is my mind is saying yes to something, but my body says no.

Sally-Anne Kearns  44:14
Okay,

Rebecca Levy  44:15
and that's the, that's the gap between am I embodied and actually speaking from my body's perspective, or am I in my head and making my body do something that I don't really want to do?

Sally-Anne Kearns  44:30
It could, it could be the opposite as well, like your body could be saying yes and your mind could be saying no because

Rebecca Levy  44:37
of the

Sally-Anne Kearns  44:38
to-do list. So, like, I mean, how about we start tuning in? There it's like, what, what you know, understanding is that is there is there yes in the body but a no in the mind. And then how do you, how do you work through those obstacles as well? What can you put pause on or do not disturb to try

Sally-Anne Kearns  44:54
and

Sally-Anne Kearns  44:55
be there? But that's it's so

Sally-Anne Kearns  44:56
beautiful,

Rebecca Levy  44:57
the scheduling schedule time.

Sally-Anne Kearns  45:00
Yeah, look, it sounds so unromantic, but then it's about being intentional.

Rebecca Levy  45:07
Well, you just block the time out. You don't have to have an agenda of what you're going to do. You just know on Friday at 2o'clock you know everybody's out of the house. You know, my partner and I are going to get together and we'll see what we feel like,

Sally-Anne Kearns  45:21
yes, yeah, could

Sally-Anne Kearns  45:22
just

Rebecca Levy  45:22
give each other a back massage, like blame bed and kiss for half an hour. Who knows? But if I don't book the time in, I'm never going to get to connect, and I think you know, when it comes to sex and intimacy, it's no different from any other part of life, where you, if you want it, you have to make space and put energy into making it happen.

Sally-Anne Kearns  45:46
That's the mic drop moment, right there, isn't it? It's like we have to make, if that's something that we're wanting, we need to decide that it is, and you're right. Absolutely. So, thank you so much. It's just been a blessing. I'm so grateful in terms of where people find you, you are on social media, you're on Facebook and Instagram. I'll put the links in the show notes, but the website is Rebecca levy.com.au and the details for date night, where do they find that?

Rebecca Levy  46:18
They will be on my website.

Sally-Anne Kearns  46:20
Yeah,

Rebecca Levy  46:20
so I think it's even on the banner, like it'll.. there's like two images on the banner, otherwise in events it'll be

Sally-Anne Kearns  46:28
excellent. Thank you so much for your time today, and your insights. I just love how you've brought this conversation into such a grounded, organic space that I feel really comfortable to even have online, which is huge for me, so thank you so much, and thanks for being you and showing up in the world with your purpose.

Rebecca Levy  46:45
Thank you, thank you so much for having me, and for yeah, inviting me to chat with you, and being open and curious about where this conversation could go. I really enjoyed it. Thank you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai