125. Desire, Sex & Creativity: Interview with Sex Therapist, Skylar Collé

"Is this hot or not hot?"

Skylar Collé holds a dual Master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy and Art Therapy, and she is currently pursuing a PhD in Clinical Sexology. Her research focuses on the 4-D Wheel as a tool for embodied, liberated, and decolonial healing. Skylar’s work brings together instinct and intellect, neuroscience and intuition, moving at the intersection of ritual and evidence-based therapy to support deep transformation and wholeness.

Transcript

125. Skylar Collé Interview 

Suggested Reading

Reclaiming Pleasure By Dr. Holly Richmond - this is specifically for women who have experienced sexual abuse

Becoming Cliterate by Laurie Mintz to help women that are unable to orgasm with a partner

Come as you Are- by Emily Nagoski for learning about accelerators and breaks

 This is a hot and steamy episode, so if you are at work or hanging out with kids, put on your headphones and get ready for an episode that will delight and please you. Today's episode is an interview with Skylar Collie, and she holds a dual master's degree in Marriage and Family Therapy and Art therapy, and she's currently finishing her PhD in clinical sexology. Now, her research has been focusing on what's called the 4D wheel as a tool for embodied, liberated, and decolonial healing. We'll talk a little bit about that during the interview, so you can get a sense of what these four D's are and how to use them. Her work brings together instinct and intellect. She's using neuroscience and intuition, and how we can move at the intersection of both ritual and evidence based therapy. And her goal is to support people in deep transformation and wholeness. Our sexuality isn't critically vital, important part of our creativity. We touch on just briefly why this can be a difficult place for creativity, and we mention the sexual assault, patriarchy, and the systems that make it difficult for women. And we don't go into any kind of detail. But I want to let you know that if those are areas that you've experienced and you feel blocked around your sexuality, I want you to know that there is a lot of help. You are not alone, and you can get support through your local rape crisis center. You can find a therapist who focuses on trauma, who is also willing and able to go take that dive into not just trauma recovery, but into being a fully self expressed woman. I'm so excited for you to get to meet Skylar. Let's get into this. Let's get this started. 

Thank you, Skyler, so much for joining us today on the Modern Creative Woman podcast. It is a delight, as always, to talk with you. And of course, you have the most interesting subject matter for us. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. I'm excited. I was trying to remember when we met. It's been a while. Yeah. Getting to know you on a trip that Doctor Sanders and I hosted through the university in Nicaragua was when I feel like I got to really know you more. Definitely. Yeah, and it's been a while. It has been a while, but, um. Yeah, that trip was. That was a really special trip. I feel like I kind of came out of my shell more to the people in the program to saying, you know, this was probably a decade ago. Yeah, it was it was definitely a decade ago. Yeah. And I think that one of the things that I always really admired about you is how optimistic you are. And you're curious about the world. And those are two qualities that I really admire and I'm always trying to cultivate within myself. And it just seems very natural for you. Sometimes too much. Sometimes too much, but yeah, I. The curiosity and the optimism. I feel like kind of carries me through in my work a lot because you see a lot of sad stuff. So it's like, how do I remain optimistic? And I like, I really like, um, pleasure Activism by Adrian Marie Brown I don't know if you've read any of her work, but I feel like that kind of validates some of it. Sometimes I think I'm a little embarrassed about all the optimism that it can feel like too fluffy or ungrounded. It's like, I don't know, I read the book Pleasure Activism and was like, yeah, that's how I feel. I want to bring joy and fun to people's lives. And if that's my gift, that's my gift. I used to think I was supposed to be serious and focusing on my intellect, you know? My parents were both teachers. My mom's a professor and a chair in her department, and I'm supposed to be kind of serious. And that was all really persona. I want to enjoy getting dressed. I want to have fun and be silly. And I love to laugh in therapy with my clients. Me too. I think that I'm still dealing with that feeling of like, if I'm not serious and I'm not taken seriously. It's like finding a balance between being taken seriously, but also still being optimistic and silly and fun and joking. And I never minded when people underestimated me. That seemed fine for me, but I didn't feel when I was younger that I could be so outwardly fun. I felt more shy or concerned about, you know, I was just like safety in the world and don't draw too much attention, right? And the older I get, the more fun I'm having. Yeah. And I think that's real. I think that has a lot to do with what we're going to talk about too, in regards to sexuality and sex. Yeah. How do we make it more fun and enjoyable and pleasurable without feeling like we're a whore? It's like talking to you about the Madonna whore complex that is like centuries old archetype throughout centuries of feeling like if you're nurturing. You can't be erotic. If you're erotic, then you can't take care. You're a slut or a whore and feeling like you have to, like, tone that all down. I felt the urge to tone things down when I became a mother. I thought that was like, should be a little more serious and in control of a mature, nurturing image, right? Yeah, I felt like that too, when I had my first like, oh, I have to be nurturing mother now. I'm no longer an erotic person and just a mother. So weird how those archetypes live in our psyches and so many women feel that way. There is such a long history of punishing women for having desires for being sexual. It was supposed to be hidden away. And in the United States, this real puritanical culture and expectation exists where I think other places it's a little more free, sometimes a little more repressed, other times. What is that? Why did. How did we end up here? I think it has a lot to do with colonialism and control and patriarchy. Look at, like, what the United States is founded on. The settlers came and stripped people of their language in order for them to conform. And one of those languages is pleasure. I think that there needed to be a lot of control around women, too. So there's like this enforcing of the good girl script. If you're not, you're erotic. You're not a good girl. The girls don't do that. And so I think that that message also lives in society and in the collective consciousness. Also, I'm reading a great book with my anti-racism group called Becoming Kin, and it's about indigenous women in Canada, in the United States, in North America. And the author talks a lot about projecting this increased available sexuality onto women of color. And that projection and imagination makes them so much more vulnerable to assault and so that so much autonomy. Yeah. So some women are suffering a lot more from these expectations than others. Absolutely. I think I can't even remember the percentage of indigenous women that go missing or experience sexual assault so high. It's. Unimaginable in Canada. They've named it as a genocide for indigenous women and girls and two spirit. It's now a genocide. They recognize it as it should. Yeah. And what is it that. Before we jump into what is desire and into the good stuff. There's a lot of reasons that women simply don't feel safe expressing desire. And maybe we can just talk about the kind of the problem and then into the solutions that there's a lot in film that shows we are unsafe. There's a lot of experiences in the world that shows it's potentially dangerous to show desire or be in a situation where it starts off mutual and women find their idea to change their mind or direct, what happens is disregarded. And again, there's a lot of reasons why we're in this problem. I think, and this is the work you do in your individual therapy. Yeah, yeah. It is. How do you work with women and couples to shift away from that problematic narrative and those old archetypes into something else? Where is the the shifting point? Where do you do that work? Well, it also depends on if a couple's coming in and one person has sexual abuse or trauma in their past, or if they're just feel like they have a lot of shame around sex and they're not sure why. So it depends on kind of who I'm working with. But if I think specifically of women who have experienced any kind of sexual trauma, um, it's like helping them to recognize the trauma itself and then helping them to release shame and then somatic exercises to help them get back into the body and slowly help the nervous system to kind of relax into what it feels like to experience desire. Um, and then and then it's kind of a, like a reclamation of that pleasure. Um, through these little exercises, the more and more they start to do and release shame. I think shame is really such a block for desire. Um, and it's also so prevalent and common among women and men that have experienced any kind of sexual abuse. Um, so much anxiety that lives in the body and and shame that makes it hard to experience the desire. So these like different kinds of somatic exercises that get people, um, get people to kind of release that nervous system response can get them more into their desire. That makes sense. It's a slow process, so the nerves take time to heal. I'd always say to to listeners, if you're resonating with this conversation and you need to do the healing work, it's okay to find a therapist and to find an expert in trauma work. And that's the nature of my decades of work is is also trauma scholar. And what you're doing is taking you're leaving space and therapy for that other side. What's it look like on the other side? And I don't think a lot of therapists do that. That's something that I always want to do is we're going to do the labor, but you're not just going to get out of a hole, you're going to excel. And the the way that systems are set up. If people have insurance. It's not always an option to get people out of a hole and then excel. There's a lot of bandaid work that ends up being done to help women very quickly and short term. But the idea of getting out of a hole of shame, or the the nervous system dysregulation that happens from traumas, big traumas or little traumas and then allowing them to move into curiosity about desire. That's the kind of work that we should be talking about a lot more often in trauma work. And it's not there as much as I would imagine it could be or should be. Exactly, exactly. Actually, I took a class with doctor Holly Richmond, and she has a book called Reclaiming Pleasure, and she's a somatic sex therapist. And reading her work was like, yeah, that's the missing key. It's that it's helping people to reclaim their pleasure. People have been harmed. Well, let's talk about desire. What is women's desire? What does that look like? How is it? How would we define it? So many of us are just kind of ignoring it. We don't even know what it means. Um, okay. I like Emily Nagasaki s work. Uh, her book. Come as you are. She's got another book that came out not that long ago called Come Together. And she talks about accelerators and breaks. And so we have different things that turn us on, which would be our accelerators. And we have different things that turn us off, which are our brakes. And so finding more accelerators and it can look so different for so many different people. Desire looks different. There's no normal. It's just all whatever people like, they like whatever they desire, they desire. And I think that part of colonialism and patriarchy is this kind of binary. You're expected to like this one thing, this one flavor, and that's it, really. There's just so much more out there. So say like desire can look so different on so many different people because that's how to define it. Well, I'm reading that book. Come as you are. My friend Harry gave it to me. And the idea of an accelerator and a break from my perspective as an Act therapist requires us to be present, make contact with the present moment, observe from our self as the context of our lives, and observe what we're interested in or curious about. And we're so distracted. It takes practice to be in the moment and notice. Yes. Okay, now that brings me into another book that I love, um, which is, uh, Katherine Price's book, and she talks. It's not a book on sexuality, but it's a book on fun, and it's called The Power of Fun. And she says that because we're a society that is so tech obsessed that we're we've all become obsessed with what happiness is because we're scrolling. We're like, that looks like happiness, that looks like happiness. And then we're losing. What actually creates happiness is fun. Just regular, everyday fun. Um, and she had the recipe for that, which was playfulness, connection and. And blow flow. Right. Disconnection and flow. I did an experiment that my coach gave to me, which was to go ask people what they do for fun and just bring it up wherever I could in conversation. And sometimes I told people I'm doing this cool exercise, and then they would go do it themselves. And the idea of what people do for fun really is pretty vast. So you're right about this idea that desire is so different, and I wonder if it fits into our sensations, right? Like what we see, what we smell, what we taste, how it feels like it's largely body. When we think about desire, like a good smell or a light touch versus what we think about it is. It seems like there are two different things. Yeah, I think that that's also sensuality. What you're talking about. Just like clean sheets and yummy food and smell good candles, those are all really sensual. And sensuality can lead to desire. And I think that a lot of women feel a little shy to feel their sensuality. Like, I have clients that I tell them, okay, well, now I'm going to give you a piece of chocolate and I want you to say, mm, a bunch of times, what's going to happen? What happens? Are you like, so nervous? Are you excited? What's going on for you. That's that's like just a really simple somatic exercise or mindfulness exercise, even to get people in touch with their desire and pleasure. At such a good point. I've used that exercise. It's a classic mindfulness, one where people savor. They know they open the package. I usually use a Hershey Kiss because it has a sound and a feel and then the taste. I love that you add sound to the. The person now makes a sound of yeah, I have them go really, really slow too. I think I took in my PhD program, I took a course on tantric sex, and the facilitator had us do this exercise with chocolate where we just go really slow, like feeling it in the hand and then rubbing it on the lips and kind of teasing yourself and then making sound. And that's always stuck with me. That's an easy one that anyone can do. Like next time you chocolate and have a go. There's also these desires that are necessarily sensual and leading to sexual expression. And when you and I talked last week, you mentioned sleep. Yeah, I prefer sleep or a nap or sleeping in. Talk about that. And why are women not sleeping? I think that there's the societal pressure. Again, I think it's the binaries of like how women should behave and act. And if women are experiencing too much pleasure, it's like considered hedonistic or shameful. So I think that a lot of women feel like they can't take naps, they can't enjoy food, they can't have any kind of pleasure without being, uh, labeled as like a hedonist or shameful or a whore even. Um, I think those it's those archetypes, again, that have really stuck in the psyche. I've been working on myself for as long as I can remember and actively, you know, in therapy and in classes since I was 18. And just the other day on Saturday I worked, I had six hours of clients and took the dog for a walk, and I thought, I really just want to lay down. I want to rest. I had picked out a movie that I wanted to show my son, Grey Gardens, that documentary, and I thought, shouldn't I be working a little more like two more hours? Should shouldn't I be looking at my to do list? And I had this dialogue because of our conversation about rest. I think I've done enough. I think this is capitalism in my brain telling me I'm not done enough. And I lay down and cut, and I got the kid to watch a movie with me. That's wonderful, I love it. I feel like that's that's resistance. That's rebellion, resistance and rebellion against patriarchal norms and expectations of how women should be or behave. A lot of black women authors have written about rest, as you're right, and there's like the Nap ministry, there's exactly what you said that rest is rebellion against systemic problems. And when we can take the time to rest, I'm not going to work a whole day. I'm going to work a part day and do what I feel like. That's not always an option. But it was on that day. And yet the the voice was still in my head. We can't unlearn this stuff, but we can learn new things to put on top of it. To make the second thought so much better and nicer. Yes, I feel like my head is just nodding throughout this conversation like yes, yes, yes, it's exactly this. This is a conversation that needs to be had for so many reasons. What about women learning to receive? And we give and we give and we give and we know how to give and we feel valuable for giving. What? What about receiving? What does that even mean? I think it's so hard when I have my couples, I'll have them do left eye to left eye contact and and left eye specifically because it creates more oxytocin in the brain and more connection. Um. Anyway, so I have them do this. I'll have the woman be the receiver of love, and then I'll have her be the giver. And unanimously, almost every single time they feel more comfortable giving than they do receiving. I do this exercise all the time with couples, and I think I have yet to see a woman say I liked receiving better. Wow. It's ingrained in us. It's ingrained. What you're talking about with that left eye. The left eye, you know, comes from attachment theory. And it's a cool way to interact with your partner, with someone you love, to explain the idea. So all the listeners can go do this is to invite your partner to left eye. Left eye contact. For how long would you say? I don't know, I think it's kind of like you have to work your way up. Usually I'd say like some people might look for 30s and say, okay, that's enough. Some people might be ready to look for ten minutes and say, that's enough. I think there are people who do it for like hours. I couldn't do that well. And it stemmed from mothers looking at their children. Yeah, it's a way that, um, parents or caregivers holding a baby will help that baby regulate. Yeah. I'm in contact and reflecting. If the baby makes an expression on their face, the parent will reflect it. That idea of mirroring. But that left eye. Left eye is really cool. Yeah. There's a lot of attunement that happens, and sometimes big emotions come up and then that. Then we're able to explore that in the session. And, um, yeah, I really like that exercise. I've done it before. It's in the context of Act and Doctor Moretti, who was a guest on the podcast last month, and I did that exercise to two each other, staring at each other, for we did two minutes as a way to understand it and how incredibly awkward it starts out, and then it's so delightful. She's a good friend and I felt so much affection for her friendship. But by the end of these two minutes of looking me up. It's cool. It is cool. It is awkward at first, but then it does. Like, if you can sit in it long enough and it really does start to increase the connection and kind of soften. A lot of my goal with couples, just like just soften, there can be so much heat and tension and hardness which. 17 would be good for sex, but can also not be good for sex. It's like the dilemma of the safety and the risk and self differentiation that Esther Perel and David Schneider and, I don't know, probably several other sex therapists talk about their wealth of information. Oh, it's the PhD. I'm just, like, constantly reading and learning and so excited. It's like turned into such a sex nerd. Would you talk about your doctoral program and what it looks like, and the training required to become a sex therapist, because you've done already so many years of educations to be an art therapist, and since marriage and family therapist. And that's seven years of school and two years of supervised work before you realize, like, you put the work into it, now you're doing this other thing, why are you in this doctoral program? And then tell us what you're learning? Yes. Okay. So I started my private practice and was seeing individuals and couples and realized I love working with couples. It's so much fun. There's so much energy. It's so dynamic. I was feeling, like, totally revitalized. Idolized after each session, but then they started coming in and talking about sex. And I was like, I love talking about sex, but I don't know how or what I'm allowed to say or what I'm not allowed to say or how to do this ethically. Um, because therapists are told, you know, not to really talk about sex, I think, or don't have the education or experience to do so. It's not it wasn't in the programs. So I started taking some courses with Tammy Nelson and some others, and then I just was having so much fun and was so passionate about it. I was like, oh yes, I have had that message of good girls don't. That's true. I have felt these things I need to I need to work on me in these ways. And so I started looking for PhD programs or ways to get certified as a sex therapist. And I found the Modern Sex Therapy Institute, and they they offer supervision and classes and certification and PhD. So the first year is tons and tons of classes, lots of supervision, second year is dissertation with more supervision. Um, and that's what the program looks like. It's a lot of fun. I'm learning a lot. Nice. I think in master's programs and master's level therapists, they they're given the basics on sexuality, sex development and, you know, some pieces of language to have a conversation about this. And after that, it's if the therapist is curious or drawn to this aspect of the human experience, that they would go more into it. And I certainly learned a lot more in my PhD program and in my internship and residency at the VA hospital. We did classes, rotations in various topics, and one was women's health and sexuality. And I thought, how have I not known so much of this research or even been exposed to it? And how the medical profession historically has dealt with women who were struggling in this area, and how much better treatment is getting every year. Yeah, there's so there's so much more information now. And I think that things are also constantly changing in the sex therapy world. Like there's all these different people that are doing all these different studies and publishing, um, books. And there's one that I liked, like New Directions in Sex Therapy with. Well, I like hats a lot. I can't remember her first name. Patty. Patty Potts, do you think, um, she's in there a lot, and her work is fascinating. And this. Things are shifting and changing in the sex therapy world, which is exciting, moving away from the kind of. It started out really kind of as this, like, medical model, medical behavioral model. And it's moving more into. But how do we help people reclaim pleasure? Way more interesting. Right? Way more interesting. Medical models are boring. And there's too much binary with like, am I normal? Am I not normal? Everybody's normal. What about women who want to learn more about their sexuality? But the only examples they can think of are, oh, people doing wild things that I don't want to do. Right. So there's like a the stereotype inside of that's too far for me. Like, how does a woman get started doing this? I think self pleasure rituals, self pleasure ritual is reading The Erotic Mind by Jack Moran's another book. Um, getting in touch with what turns them on and what feels erotic to them because. It's a whole new thing for people, especially men or women, who have only been dealt or it felt like one way is the right way to have sex, or to experience pleasure or desire. It's like kind of helping people open up their minds to to what's out there and what's possible. In Act, we talk about the goal is always psychological flexibility, so that whatever we're doing, whatever comes out of our mouth, whatever we're thinking is our choice in that moment based on our values and what's important. And the opposite of that is believing the same thing over and over again. Not wondering. Being curious. Subscribing to these like really binary beliefs about women are either this or that. So psychological flexibility. I've done a lot of, um, giving homework to my clients. Things like go get a haircut and pay attention when they're washing your hair. Go buy new bras and pay attention to what color you love. Just the idea of noticing what could feel good. Being curious about it seems like an opening. What do you think? What else do you do to get people out the door with a bit of homework? Oh, I see all kinds of stuff. Um, one thing that I really like to offer clients. I love this idea of psychological flexibility. Um, one way to have more psychological flexibility in regards to pleasure and sexual desire. And the erotic is, hey, we've just seen this one exercise called the yes no maybe list, and you can find them online. It's like it's like a whole menu of different activities that are either a yes or a no. Or maybe you do it with your partner, and then it opens up the dialogue of what you like and what you don't like, and it gets you thinking about what you like and what you don't like and what's on the table and what's off the table for you. Love? Yes. No. Maybe. List. I feel like that's like a. I have a first session with someone who's like, I don't know what I like, but get a yes no, maybe less. Oh, I love this. How do women get over the embarrassment of doing this with their partner? I would say talk to your partner about the kind of messages they had around sex growing up, and then share with them the kinds of messages that you had around sex also. So both people sharing what messages they had and how that influences their desire and their sexuality today. It's like a nice, nice little opener. It's good because you're talking about your family and the messages instead of yourself, so you can get like a little, little. Yeah, a little more in like, oh yeah, I, I don't know, I, I think I read that in one of Gina Ogden's books to talk to your partner about the kind of messages they had. And I remember talking to my partner like my husband, asking him, what kind of messages did you have around sex? And he's like, nobody's ever asking you that. Before. I was like, yeah, it's not a question that people usually ask. He's like, gosh, I think I've been influenced this way. And I was like, I'm in this, this way. And then I was like, let's, you know, maybe list. What a cool conversation. I've done it before around gender. And what are your childhood influences around gender and movies? Film people, experiences that inform how we express our gender. And I've asked people to do it with collage and just like, see, whatever shows up because collage is, you know, you're pulling on these kind of archetypal images again. Mhm. And then the yes no maybes, kind of the next level. So this whole thing could be done in collage as well. Yeah it could. It could. I love art therapy for sexual desire. I think we were talking last week. I told you that I have clients like draw a picture of your vulva, draw a picture of your penis, draw a picture of it when it's really engorged and feeling very sexual. Uh, draw a picture of what an orgasm looks like, and it and it doesn't have to be, like, literal, but it could be abstract. Whatever people feel comfortable with. Well, let's talk about creativity. And you said before, good sex is a creative act. Yes. Say more about that. Okay, good. Sex, I think, is energy, and it's creative and fun. But yeah, I do think that whenever people are having really good sex, that the creativity starts to spill out into their life and they're more creative. And in other outlets. I was actually talking to my friend, I'm going to do a retreat with her at the Omega Institute, doctor Roxanne Partridge, and we were talking about the lineup, and we're going to make masks as, um, one of the activities, and I told her we should ask everyone to listen to their pussy before they make masks, because pussy is a creative force. But there's a lot of creativity that is held in the vulva, the vagina, pussy, whatever you want to call it. So tuning into parts of our body, like lots of therapists do that, but they they're like, you know, what are your hands want? Or like, what does your body crave? Like what kind of stretch? Right. But this is much more. Pacific and its compartmentalizing this aspect of our energy. Right? Like we're energy? Yes, we're told so often as little girls or little boys. Like. Don't touch that. They have a different name for their, you know, private part. Even like don't touch your nay, nay or whatever. And so there's such a disconnect, I think, for women and men from their genitals that I think really does. People just serve us. It's just a body part. It's just a body part, like a belly button. Listen to a volleyball where you make a mask. Well, 40% of women is is been your estimate of women not having orgasms with their partner? Yeah, I actually looked it up and it was 50%. Wow. Yeah. And I was gonna tell you about this too, is that there is a huge orgasm gap between men and women. So not only are women having less orgasms with their partner, but their partners are having way more than they are male male partners, specifically as this heterosexual couples that I'm talking about. So half of in this context. Half of women having sex with men are not reaching orgasm. And disproportionately the men are having all the way Muslims way more than zero. Yeah, yeah. And actually, uh, I read another statistic that said that 75% of women that were having orgasms during sex were using toys or tongue or other things to stimulate the clitoris. And Doctor Lori Mintz, I took a class with her. Talks so much about the importance of becoming clitoris. She has a book called Becoming Clitoris. And I think a lot of women expect to have an orgasm with just regular penis and vagina penetration. And then I really just point it if they're not having that. But Lori Menz is like, well, that's because they need to stimulate their clitoris. So some of what women need is psycho education like this. Exactly. We just need a little more information. Most of us haven't had sex and class since we were 12 years old in elementary school, and there's no talk about the clitoris since, that said. But I remember. I don't remember that either. No, I remember it being about getting periods, how babies are developed. I don't even think we talked about sex, really. We just talked about body. Our own body. Yeah, it sounds right. Well, what? What about sex between women and women? What? Higher orgasm? Way higher rates of orgasm. Way higher rates. And do you attribute that to somebody in that being more clitoris? I do I think that they're probably both more clitoris. I mean, I would imagine two women being more clitoris than because I remember talking to someone about a male asking me like, well, how do I give my partner an orgasm? I was like, well, you have to become clitoris. You have to learn what to do. They're like, but it's not my body part. I don't have that body part, so I don't know what to do with it. If you think of two women, they do have that body part and might be more able to know how to pleasure it. What a what's the cost, then, of withholding our desires? So we've looked at the rates of orgasm, the struggle to know our own bodies, to recognize our desires. What's the cost that we're paying by not opening this door and educating ourselves, picking up one of the books that you've recommended. What cost are we paying by failing to take action? That's such a good question and so hard to answer. I think that the cost is the ability to have fun and be creative and feel that life force. I think that so many women feel shut down. They feel depressed. They feel anxious. They think that sexuality is such a great gateway to having more fun, to experiencing more pleasure, to experiencing more joy, more vitality, more wholeness, both shadow and light. Being able to embrace both of those getting out of binaries. I mean, I like took me a second, but I could go on and on and on. I think of the psychic energy it takes to hold off thoughts or feelings or emotions, or compartmentalize this energy that we have. And the psychic energy to hold things down is it's such a huge cost. People will hold in their desires or their traumas, or their wishes or their dreams or anything that they want, and they'll push it down. And then so much of their vitality is spent pushing it down, keeping it at bay. But they just don't have the energy to, like you said, have fun, be engaged in life. They're spending all of their time trying to keep the beach ball below the pool surface instead of just allowing things out, and you can play beach follows him on? Yeah, exactly. I think that's exactly right. I have a somatic practitioner who, whenever I'm doing breathwork with her, like one of the things that comes up a lot is like this feeling of playing small that women often feel like they have to do. And she has me say, I'm tired of playing small so that other people can be comfortable. And I feel so powerful to me. And I think one of the ways that we stay small or play small to make other people uncomfortable, to make other people comfortable, is by denying ourselves pleasure and desire and sensuality. I've been talking to my son about the Invisible Woman and that idea that came from, you know, someone would have a servant do their labor, right? And so they didn't see the labor. It was just done. And how that shows up to this day and relationships where someone is doing the invisible labor of buying the holiday gifts or making the social plans or fixing the the meals or whatever it is that the other person just doesn't see. And it's usually the invisible woman that's doing this labor. And I think playing small is a great way to recognize it. We fall into this trap in the same way that we fall into compartmentalizing sexuality. Let me just do this for you, right? It's so true. Did you read the New York Times article about man keeping arms about it? Yeah, there was a New York Times article. I think the title was called Man Keeping and Why. And it's why the younger generation is refusing to be in relationship. Women specifically, are refusing to be in relationships with men because they're like, we don't want a man keep. Uh, which essentially means exactly what you're talking about, about being an invisible, the invisible woman. Like having to do all the emotional labor and expected to, like, maintain all the social connections and take care of everybody's feelings, and. Yeah, well, that's a real no for a lot of people now on their desire list. There's nothing that's I think. Well, maybe for someone, but for most people, that's not a desire. Building activity to set aside your own desires in total service of someone else. Exactly. Oh, and that's. Gosh. Oh, this is so fun to talk about. Um, with self differentiation, I think that a lot of times in couples that they feel like they have to just like be one thing together. So one person starts to lose their identity and the other person kind of takes over. And then that's really not good for sexual creativity or risk taking or playfulness or any of the things that really that are required of of having great sex. Um. So yeah, it kind of all all goes together. Man, keeping is so unsexy, right? It's like man become self differentiated so that we can have great sex. Find. Find ways to do your own thing. Your own values, your own emotional regulation. Find your own friends. Take care of yourself. And then that's. That's way hotter. It is way hotter to be your own, interested in your own life. And then you can bring that to your friends, your partner, and share your vitality in a completely different way. Mhm. Yeah, I think so often couples get swallowed up in each other. It's usually I see it a lot where the one person is just really losing their autonomy and their sense of self and their sex life is struggling so badly because it's so unsexy. Yeah, they're I always use this analogy with clients that, you know, you're in a relationship for a while, and one person wants to see this kind of movie. They want to see a comedy, the other person wants to see a drama, and you end up going to the movies and seeing something that neither one of you wants to see. Compromise to the point of now, this is taking on a life of its own that is not interesting to anybody. Unsexy. So unsexy. It's. I think I'm going to spend the day going through whatever I'm doing is hot or not hot. Yeah, hot hot hot hot. Yes or no? Or maybe. What is it? That's your personal kind of pleasure practice. And I'll tell you some of mine I love scent. I just find it to be so important to me. I always have scented candles. I always wear perfume, except at conferences and on airplanes. And try and be polite. But the idea of smelling good is important to me, and that's so easy to make happen. I have a bag of lavender I bought in Paris last month. I just love smell and it's so little effort to make that happen. It's 10s of my time to light a candle, right? And I think I'm trying to enjoy more of my husband cooks, and I love it so much and to be taken care of that way. So since the pandemic, he's been cooking. And I just really started to enjoy it so much more when I'm not doing the cooking. Yes, he does the cooking. Hot. Definitely hot. Yeah. Wow. So, like, those are two, two areas that I can think of off the top of my head that that receiving. And I always say thank you. And I say thank you for feeding hungry people. Right. He's like, he's taking care of us in a really meaningful way. And I feel so much more enjoyment when I'm not cooking. Yeah. And gratitude is hot, too. And you're like, thank you for doing this. Gratitude. So good. It's so good for us. But you're right it. When said out loud, it is a yes. People like to keep things hot. Definitely hot. I'm gonna do this to you all day. I'll be like, hot, not hot. Sexy. Um, another thing I do is I always dress for the day. I wear nice underwear. Always. That's something that my mom taught me from, like, I don't know, age 12 or something. She would make sure to buy me nice underwear. And Brad really stuck with me. And we would hand wash everything, all the, like, slips and everything was like, that's very essential, and it has really been for my lingerie to hand wash its. That's a yes. Yes. Putting on clothes every day, putting on jewelry every day. Those are yeses for me and it's about my own pleasure. But then it extends. Yeah, yeah. Because then other people see it and they're like, wow, what a beautiful outfit you're wearing. Oh, what cool jewelry you have. And they feel inspired. It's like, don't play small to make other people comfortable. Instead, be beautiful and bright and then other people feel safe to do the same, you know? Yes. It's an invitation. Okay. What do you like? What are your day to day things? Close clothes I love clothes, I love putting outfits together. I love the feel of feeling of silk or bamboo or like a nice knit. I love clothes and the way they feel on my skin. It's like I pick clothes that are soft and nice fabrics. Um, smell huge for me. Love perfume, good smelling lotions, um, really good smelling, um, shampoo and conditioner. I want my hair to smell good. If my hair doesn't smell good. Not hot, not sexy for me. Um. What else? Well, dancing need to, like, listen to really good music and dance. Clean sheets, sexy lingerie, pretty, pretty underwear. Important. All those things that you said. What is it called? The. The idea of turning yourself on first, that you're giving yourself these pleasurable things. And that happens long, like long before we might be intimate with someone, is this own sense of self-worth and valuing our body not like getting dressed most days and then schlepping around in terrible holey underwear on the weekends. Right. Like, it's. It really. It's like I take care of myself even when no one sees. Yeah, it's kind of like whenever you have really good sex and that creative force kind of spills over into the rest of your life. It's like that. It's like when you start taking really good care of yourself. Just like the little things. Not like fake self-care either. But I think we're getting sold a lot. But like really taking care of yourself and being in the moment and being present. And really, what do I like? What do I not like? How can I bring others joy? I have to bring myself joy first. You know that kind of self-care? What are the fake self-care that we're being? Oh, oh, you know, like. I think over consumerism like buy this, buy that can be a little bit fake self-care. Like be present, buy it with intention if you really want to get it. But don't just, you know, scroll mindlessly. I think, like, oh, I'm doing self-care, so I'm going to scroll. I think that can be a little bit fake self-care. I have a lot of women who say they just want to come home and decompress by scrolling. They just want to lay down and scroll. And it's hard to convince people that that is not giving you what you want. It's giving you this short, quick burst of dopamine that's really dis regulating us. It makes it harder to have dopamine over things that we're invested in, because we're we're so used to being able to get it quickly. And it's in particular there's some studies about the short videos. No. When we scroll through stories, faster and faster and faster would become dependent on it because it's such a rush. It is not relaxing. What would be relaxing would be to lay on the couch and close your eyes for five minutes. Exactly. Yeah. I even my kids, they were going through this phase where they were really into YouTube, like kids, YouTube. And they were like clicking and clicking and clicking. And I was like, oh my God, this is terrible. This is. And they were melting down. And it was just it was chaos in our house. And I found this video of I was like, there's got to be some expert who talks about this that I can show my kids. And it was this, this man who had done studies on the impacts of scrolling or like these short bursts and what it does to the brain. And, um, I showed it to my kids and they were like, oh, we're not going to do that anymore. That that's bad. I was like, listen to the expert because they wouldn't listen to me. I was like, if I find an expert, they'll listen to him and or her. And they did. They were like, this is really bad if we're not gonna do that. It's a great parenting tip. You know, get somebody else to, like, also say not just right, but if it comes out of mom's mouth, it's it's less credible for some reason. Yeah. When I think about the benefits of just doing something pleasurable, lighting a candle in the morning, putting on clothes that you like, it helps me stay focused at my work. And there's a ton of research that says that to the studies about wearing, um, the right clothes for the job. Help us stay with the job longer. So if we're sitting writing and we're in something that's writerly, whatever that means, right? Like, not our pajamas, we're more able to stay with the task longer and solve complex things at a greater rate. And if we're painting, then we put on the painter's smock and that we're dressed appropriately for painting, we're more likely to stick with it and stay in flow. I love that that makes me so happy to hear that. I'm sorry I interrupted you. I got so excited. I was thinking, uh, whatever. Um. I remember reading a study about how you dress for the interview also has a huge impact on whether or not you'll get hired, so picking out the right attire for the interview is important to that. Older research used to look at what's people's impression of us according to how we're dressed. And the newer research is all about how do we perform when we're dressed in the way that feels good to us? We like that better. If we're invested in lounging for the afternoon, we should have like lounge clothes that we enjoy, not our old holey sweatpants. So anybody listening right now, go have a look at what you're lounging here. It matched your ability. Your best matters. It depends on it. Oh, I love this. It's. It's so true. And it's validating. It's really validating. Um, one thing I was going to say to you, Amy, before I get forget, is I remember whenever we were, I think we were in Nicaragua or maybe just in in school whenever you were teaching. Um, and you said other people's opinions of us as none of our business. And that stuck with me so much. And the reason why I want to say that is because I think it goes along with that. I don't need to stay small to make other people comfortable, because other people's opinion of me is none of my business. Then you can stand it. I mean, it's really like standing in your authentic wholeness and experiencing your pleasure and your desire without the fear of being rejected. Yes, it's something my mom told me. I think Eleanor Roosevelt is probably where she heard it from then. It's not merely something to consider or take into account. It's actually none of our business what people are thinking about us. We're not invited into their heads, and we spend so much time projecting our own fears onto other people. And when we're thinking about what someone might think of us, all we're doing is navel gazing and thinking about ourselves and judging ourselves. But we're using that person as a proxy variable to like they're the judge or not us. Not me, not hot. Not not me. It takes so much psychic energy to it has to do that. It takes up so much psychic energy. And yeah, I was talking to a friend about this recently about how our energy is important and who we give it to matters. And so we're constantly thinking about what the other person is thinking about us. Such a waste of our energy and our time. They don't deserve that. The other person really doesn't deserve your energy in that way. Conserve the energy. I read a study about orgasm that said women who are trying to hold their stomach in so they look a certain way to their partner are less likely to have an orgasm because they're impeding the the appropriate organs in their body by pulling in their stomach. Yeah. True cost of true blood. Yeah. Just be free. Be your authentic self. Women. All the women. Yeah. There's. Oh, the idea of safety and pleasure. And I think for a lot of women, it's a slow, like, slow cooker, not microwave to understand that it's safe to have your desires. It's safe to go to get nice underwear. You're worthy and deserving of that. And so those areas that might feel like a little bit of a stretch, a little bit uncomfortable, those are the places we want to go. Absolutely. David Bowie, it always sticks in my head. But he says, if you're a creative person and your feet are touching bottom, you have to go a little deeper, just a little more. So you're having to tread water and not touch the bottom. And it's just a subtle shift, you know, one inch more deeper into the pool, and you can still feel safe because you're close enough to being able to touch. But just those little steps can make a huge difference. Such a huge difference. It's. Yeah, it's mind and body. Mind, body, heart spirit. We didn't talk much about the wheel, but it is mind, body, heart spirit. Being able to like, really fully embody who you are. Love the clothes you wear, love the way you look, love the way you feel. These little steps help you fall in love with yourself. When you love yourself spreads its true. Well, talk a little bit about the wheel and end your dissertation and the decolonising aspect of it too. Yeah. So, um, I was introduced to the 4D wheel through my supervisor Kamara McAndrews, and I just fell in love with it so fast. I started doing it on myself and with my partner and then bringing it in to my clients. Um, the wheel is it's based off the Patrick Coody mesa tradition. The more I learn about it, the more I'm finding out, oh, this is based off the Patrick Mesa tradition and Doctor Gina Ogden's ISIS surveys because she was hoping to help find a connection between sexuality and spirituality. And she did. And so she was like, well, that's the missing component. A lot of times in sex is spirituality. And she was finding in her study that, um, the more women had these kinds of spiritual experiences during sex, the more they were able to heal, let go of shame, release. They just had all these kinds of really amazing benefits from bringing spirituality into their sex lives. Um, and so with the wheel, it's mind, body, heart, spirit. And you literally walk around the wheel and you have these power objects, one that represents what you want more of and one that represents what you want less of. And, um, as you're going around, you'd be surprised if a lot of people get stuck in their mind or they get stuck in their in their emotions and it's like, how do we bring in body? I feel like I'm always trying to bring in body more. People are so disembodied and spirit, right, to help people get to that center place where they can feel the center of the wheel is like ecstatic bliss and connection. Mind, heart, body, spirit. It's like the the orgasm where you feel like you're tired. Woman say one woman say electrocuted by guy. It's like, I like that. That's a great word. I love it. Yes. Um. And that's what that it's. She was on this mission to bring pleasure to to women and men. But she was really a hardcore feminist and wanted women to experience more pleasure and get rid of the good girls. Don't message. So anyway, the more I started to research it, I was like, wait, but this is like very indigenous work. Where is this mentioned? And, um, it's not in her books. And I think that that has a lot to do with her not wanting to be delegitimizing. And, um, and she was like trying to get into Harvard studies. And she did write her last book on the neuro update and, and was able to prove the neuroscience behind the modality. But I think with a lot of therapeutic practices that are really healing, a lot of times they are indigenous and indigenous people don't get credit or it's called woo woo. And that's that's I feel like such a disservice to an A in a way to discredit or delegitimize indigenous ways of knowing and being. So as I was doing the wheel, I heard decolonize, decolonize, decolonize, Decolonize, and I was like, I don't even know what that word means. And so I started looking into it and, um, was like, oh, yeah, we we need to put this real into right relationship, really, really study the indigenous perspectives and where this thing came from. And so that's that's the wheel in a nutshell. I was like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I want to spit out the idea of decolonizing is really important in all areas, and understanding more about it in the field of psychology. Colonizing means taking what you want from someone else and using it the way you want. Often getting credit for it or getting financial compensation for it. And I think people are understanding more about cultural appropriation, where you see people adopting or taking the the dress or the style of another culture and then putting it on the runway and making millions of dollars. Exactly. Yeah. Doctor Talbot talks a lot about how white women throughout time have taken indigenous practices that are spiritual and profited majorly off of them. And I don't know that Gina was doing that. She did. She did this, um, study under Don Oscar, and he was like, you bring the wheel, like, use it in your in your work. It's so important. I don't want to keep this. I think everybody should have access. It is in all of us. It's in the collective consciousness circles. Mind, body, heart, spirit. That's all of us, right? Um, so she was given permission, but then it wasn't named. And I think that has more to do with the the Academy at the time than any kind of intentions that she had. And a right relationship means giving credit. It's citing our sources, not just the last person who said it or not, just the white person who took it and named it, but really taking personal responsibility for knowing what it is we're talking about. And if there's ways to compensate, you know, in psychology, compensation is citing your source as your you're giving credit, right? Um, but there's lots of ways to compensate or re compensate people and certainly financial aspects, etc.. But the idea of giving credit in is the, the piece in psychology that we can do right away. Plagiarizing is a colonizing practice. Yeah. It is also. I've lost my train of thought. I was going to say something about it, but. Well, the idea of decolonizing, it's decentralizing how we view the labor we do. It's a colonizing practice, the field of psychology. It's, you know, something's wrong with you versus something's systemically wrong. And we're suffering in a, in a broken system. And the more as therapists, we can help people see that, that normalizing you and I have talked about before is a really powerful thing to say. Well, this is a normal reaction to the society we've grown up in. It's a it's a system that oppresses women. Women of color in particular, that when we recognize the systems and not the pathology of the individual, that's a decolonizing practice that we can all participate in. Absolutely. And so Doctor Zelle is the chair of my dissertation, and she was she's teaching decolonizing psychology or decolonial psychology at Columbia. She was saying, you have to be careful too with some of these words, like decolonizing because decolonizing, if something is totally decolonized, it means the land is back. And so she's like, maybe we could say decolonial. And then she she sent me an Instagram post of someone saying, um, um, colonizing maybe or indigenous. There's always different ways to say it, but I think we all mean the same things. We want to put it back into right relationship and, um, stop the oppression of indigenous and men, women and people of color. Right. And, you know, we have. As individuals. We have our piece that we can play and we can advocate at government level for the reparations that need to happen. And yeah, the naming of like naming the genocide in Canada, putting names on it is always the first step, acknowledgement. And so advocating when we can at these higher levels to to name and recognize and helping people see that reparations are possible, we can move towards that. And I've been working with this same group of women for 30 years, I think, doing anti-racism work with Mary Bridgette. She was the first interview on my podcast because her fingerprint is on everything I do, and I still feel like I have so much to learn and so far to go in understanding that. I just know that talking about it here and with my clients, with my friends, is a way that I can learn more, be more respectful, sort things out, work on my own internalized racism. Same. I think a lot about positionality and like what is my position? I'm a white woman writing about decolonial tool. How do I how do I make this right? How do I put this in right relationship? I think it's also like what you said of like being participating in anti-racist groups and speaking to indigenous knowledge keepers to get information and, and learning and continuing to learn and and grow. Right. And and racism is a is a white person's disease. And so us doing our own healing is part of our contribution. Yeah, absolutely. I talked to, uh, Doctor Yellow Bird, um, kind of about some of my research. And he was like, it's the intention that matters. The words don't matter as much as the intention does. And that felt helpful. He's like, you have to be coming from a good place. He's like, well, definitely, definitely that. Yeah. And I think there's there's often been people coming from a good place to do. You know, they want to teach or be social workers, and they're working in a system that is completely dysfunctional and navigating that. I really appreciate that you're exploring how we can do it differently or be in right relationship with a lot of things. We start with ourselves, but then we can explore. Yeah. Yeah. Any last bit of advice or a tip that you would want to leave for the women, or a question that you would want to pose for them? Well. Maybe. What turns you on? Think about what turns you on. I love that. I just I wish they could answer. What turns you on. Love to hear that. Well, if people want to send a message and then show notes and and say the thing, you know that. Smell the texture of your sweater and turn on doesn't have to have all kinds of connotations. It doesn't have to be related to sex or drugs. Those are the two contexts that it's often associated with, but lights you up. It's important. It gives you a vital spark. What gives you a vital spark that turns you on? I love it. Well, Skyler, I just want to say thank you so much. We're having this conversation here, and it's such an area that's compartmentalized. It's not something I've talked about on the podcast before. It's certainly work that I do in therapy with people. Absolutely. But you're you're the expert in this area around understanding desire. And it's such a cool way of hearing how you use it, using it creatively with art and also the creativity of life, that it's such a vital life force, energy that infuses so many more aspects of ourselves in pleasure and desire. And it just feels good. It does feel good. It's so fun to talk about. It's so good to talk to you. I was a little nervous when we start, and I feel so at home in this conversation and with you. And thank you so much. We haven't seen each other in a long time. It feels really good to reconnect. Amy. Thank you.