Rock The Bedroom Podcast
This podcast talks about how women can be more confident in the bedroom, and have the best sex of their lives--to create passion and playfulness in and out of the bedroom.
Rock The Bedroom Podcast
Ep. 18 - Sexual Avoidance, with Jessa Zimmerman
Discover how to break the sexual avoidance cycle and reclaim intimacy in your relationship with insights from Jessa Zimmerman, a licensed couples counselor and certified sex therapist.
Learn how unmet expectations spiral into negative feelings and avoidance, why it's important to understand the 2 types of desire, and the liberation of taking personal responsibility for one's own pleasure.
This episode is packed with practical advice and compassionate insights to help you break taboos and normalize conversations about sex, ultimately fostering closer, healthier relationships.
Jessa’s website: www.intimacywithease.com
Instagram & Facebook: @intimacywithease
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okay, so let me read this up. Uh, do you, jessa zimmerman? Zimmerman uh consent to be recorded and appear on the rock the bedroom podcast and allow me, lee jagger, to have the exclusive right to edit this recording and use it, plus your image and bio, in perpetuity to promote this podcast, without royalty payment or compensation.
Speaker 2:I do Awesome.
Speaker 1:Okay, that stuff out of the way. Are you ready? Do you have any other questions for me? No, I'm ready. All right, sweet, let's do this. Ready. All right, sweet, let's do this. Okay, all right. On the show today, I have with me Jessa Zimmerman. She is a she's fully awesome. I've talked to this woman before. She is a licensed couples counselor and a certified sex therapist with a private practice in Seattle Washington one of my favorite cities, and she's also the author of the book Sex Without Stress A Couple's Guide to Overcoming Disappointment, avoidance and Pressure. Love that. And she's the host of the Better Sex Podcast, which I have been a guest on. Highly recommend you check that out. So, jessa, it is such a treat to have you here. Welcome, thank you. It's a treat to be here. So let's start with who do you help and how do you help them?
Speaker 2:Who do I help? Is any couple who's in a relatively committed relationship, so a couple of any sort, married or not, gender, sexual orientation, relationship structure, whatever.
Speaker 1:And so couples, so you're not working with individuals.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Every once in a while I'll take an individual client, but basically I've been exclusively couples for I don't know like a decade. I just love working with couples and it's a kind of thing that involves two people, so I can't tell you how many people reach out and want help. Oh, I've got performance anxiety or ED or whatever it is, and they're in a relationship thinking they're the problem. Let me just come and fix this thing and it's systemic. So sex, so you know, sex affects your relationship, your relationship affects sex. We need both people understanding what's happening. Both people have a role. So, anyway, I basically work exclusively with couples. How do I help them? That's a that's a harder question to answer, you know, because, um, how do I? I mean, there's so many different ways, I suppose, with different clients, but some of it is about education and the paradigm and understanding how sex actually works and kind of deconstructing the myths that exist and our expectations that we bring into it.
Speaker 2:It's the key to this whole thing and part of what we'll talk about today. It's our expectations that set us up to feel like we're failing. Our expectations are the problem, so a lot of it is about information and correcting that. A lot of validation and safety and permission to sort of explore these things that can feel heavy and even shameful sometimes for people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's hard to talk about this stuff. Sex is.
Speaker 2:It can be Well, especially when it's not working. If it's going great, it's hard to talk about this stuff. Sex is it can be Well, especially when it's not working. If it's going great, it's easier to talk about. But if you're struggling, so many people think there's something fundamentally wrong with me or my partner or our relationship.
Speaker 2:So it's this very heavy loaded thing. But sex therapy also is pretty action oriented. So there is homework, there are exercises, there are things to go do in between sessions. So part of how I help is giving people those tasks.
Speaker 1:Yes, awesome. Oh, this is juicy, so I want to back up just a little bit Something that you mentioned a second ago. I'd like to unpack the topic of avoiding sex. I've been in several relationships where I would love the guy that I was with, but I just didn't want to have sex with him. I wanted to want to, but I didn't, and many of my clients feel the same way. This is rampant, and so let's talk about sexual avoidance.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So what happened is back when I wrote my book in gosh. I guess I was writing it in 2017. It came out of this thing I saw with almost all my clients, and so I came to call it the sexual avoidance cycle, because it is really common. So what happens is we have sexual experiences that somehow don't meet our expectations. So something doesn't go the way we think it should, whether it's how we feel about it or what we're doing, or what the result is, or how we look, or, you know, whatever the sexual functioning part of it. Right, whatever that is, it doesn't meet our expectations.
Speaker 2:So something air quotes here for people that aren't watching something seems wrong with sex, and then we're going to have negative feelings about that, right. Right, I mean, at the very least, disappointment, but probably feeling inadequate or broken or afraid or resentful or angry or rejected, whatever it is. And the thing is, it's human nature for us to avoid things that make us feel bad. Of course, right, like who goes running off to have sex. You know you might come out feeling bad, or your partner is going to feel bad, or something like that. So it's really common to start to avoid it when it seems like it's going badly.
Speaker 2:But the last piece of the cycle is that that actually increases the pressure. I mean, first of all, nothing is getting better while we're ignoring it, right, but there's like there's more pressure on your sex life when you're avoiding it, you're not having it. There's a sense that, oh, my partner wants it and I don't, or we should be having sex and we're not. And there's also more, more pressure on the sex that we have we're not. And there's also more more pressure on the sex that we have Because, if you think about it, if you're having sex a lot, whatever that is, and a time doesn't go that well, no big deal, right, we do it again Thursday, whatever, when sex is infrequent.
Speaker 2:So many people then think, oh, this time better work, because, first of all, who knows when we might have it again, right, but also like there's so much fear that something's wrong. I need this time to go okay, so I can relax and feel good about it. But how are we really supposed to relax and have a good time under that kind of pressure? I mean, we're not. That's why we're likely to have another experience. It sort of reinforces that story and around we go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and it's really hard to just open up to your partner about it and and admit that there's a problem. Yeah, you know, a lot of people don't even have the words to talk about it in a way that's not going to exacerbate the problem or offend our partner, or, you know, get into this blame game where you're pointing fingers at your partner and like, oh, but if you know, if you did this, then maybe I'd like it more. Or they don't even know the problem, so they're just like, you know, throwing gas on fire.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's really common to believe that if we talk about this or look at this or try to work on this, we're just going to find out it's really hopeless, it's irreparably broken or something is fundamentally wrong, and so there's avoidance of that. But what I find, more often than our partner doesn't know there's a problem, more often both people know there's a problem, but they aren't. Neither one is talking about it, like they're both aware that it's not going that well, or certainly they're aware that one person's like avoiding it and deflecting, or that they've got this desire discrepancy that is becoming a problem, or, you know they generally both people know something's off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and when you actually give voice to whatever is bothering you, um it's, you're really just giving a voice to what everyone is feeling in their bones anyway. Right, you know, and that's really the only way to now. Ok, let's rectify it, let's figure out how to make this better.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So, but we do naturally avoid it because it's then it makes it real, real, but we're already feeling it really in our, in our bones.
Speaker 2:Like, yeah, it's not like putting our head in the sand and let me do this, it'll just get better, you know, is making this any better? I mean, it really does start to come at a cost to your relationship, to your sense of well-being, to your confidence, all kinds of things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's why I think it's really important to have people like you out there for people to go to, to find the words to, you know, have a moderator to navigate that conversation and to get the ball rolling. And and let's bring normalcy to that conversation so that it's not so hard to talk about. And I love that you give people homework, because then you're you're getting them to just change the fundamental way that they relate to each other regarding this topic. That needs to be revamped for sure.
Speaker 2:It does.
Speaker 1:We don't have good education around this.
Speaker 2:When we talk to our partner about this and we can be honest about what our experience is and truly openly curious about what their experience is. It kind of reinforces this idea, which I think is fundamental. We're a team in this. We are having sex together. It is our shared sex life and we both want 99.99% of the time. We both want both of us to be happy. We want both of us to enjoy it. We want both of us to want it. So let's solve that together. You know it's not adversarial Right.
Speaker 1:Exactly, yeah, it seems that way.
Speaker 2:It can seem that way.
Speaker 1:I've got these needs, but you've got those needs, and so sometimes you're butting heads, but really got those needs, and so sometimes you're butting heads. But really I think, when it comes down to it, we all want the same thing. We just want connection, we want to feel loved, we want to feel desired, we want to feel taken care of and nurtured, and all the things. Sometimes we go about it in a different way. So what kinds of things drive that cycle of sexual avoidance? Do you think, other than lack of communication?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, when you think about it, the way I think of it, is all kinds of things that can make sex seem to go badly Right. So again, we're talking about's like how is anybody having sex, because so many things can get in the way of that. There's stuff just about us that we bring in our own trauma, our mental health issues, our body image, the stories we integrated, the messages we got being raised from our family or culture, religion, whatever. All this different stuff that we just totally about us. Maybe there's stuff about your partner that's in the way They've got their own mental health issues or trauma or whatever right. You got relationship issues If you don't know how to communicate well, or there's power struggles, or I don't know if you think about Gottman's Four Horsemen, right, contempt and stonewalling. I mean all the kinds of things that can go on between two people of course could block interest. And then you've got your household, kids, money, other kinds of responsibilities, like there's a lot that can block this for people.
Speaker 1:Right Gosh, where do you start? You're right Gosh, where do you start?
Speaker 2:You're right, Like right. It's a mountain. How is anybody doing this?
Speaker 1:I don't know, I mean doing it and enjoying it, like, oh yeah, you know, like we, we see it in the movies where it's just all la la land, you know. But but yeah, life life's and and stress happens. And how do you block that out of the bedroom and find that oasis?
Speaker 2:Then we've got like just aging to getting older and our body changes and how it functions changes, what we want changes, how it feels changes. You know it's really complicated. So it's it's not so much that these things happen, it's how we're feeling about these things that I think, tends to drive our avoidance right. It's our feeling bad about stuff is what makes us stay away.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, yeah. I have a lot of clients in my program going through menopause. Like I work exclusively with women and they're going through menopause, so the physical changes of just their body going ow, that thing I used to really love don't love it anymore, can't take penetration at all, you know and they used to have a raging libido. Now it's totally bottomed out. Like all those things come into play and man, like the game changes.
Speaker 2:It really does.
Speaker 1:And you might think that you're just going along and woohoo, this you know, or we have these certain problems, and you're used to dealing with those issues in the bedroom. But then the game does change when you go through hormonal changes as well, and so that that's another monkey wrench in your engine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I don't think this gets talked about enough. I mean, I hear it a fair amount in my circle, you know, but I don't know that we expect those challenges or that we really understand. There's some, like some mysterious thing around the corner of menopause, but we don't quite know what it means. People aren't talking about this, and so not only is there this adjustment that needs to happen Again, so many people just think, oh, I broke, you know. It's not like oh, I've just changed, let me figure out what to do now. It's more like, oh, something's really wrong. Everything comes to a screeching halt. I'm too afraid to look, you know, or don't even realize there's anything I can do about this.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, yeah. That's the thing. A lot of people feel really alone out there. I can't tell you how many times I've heard from people on my coaching call saying I love that someone else other than me has that problem, like I'm so sorry that they do, but the relief I feel is incredible that, oh my God, I thought it was the only one. Yeah, and I'm not. There's a whole community of women going through the same thing and this is normal. It doesn't have to be the status quo, but it's okay, I'm not broken, this can be remedied. It's so huge for women to know that.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of men out there with issues as well.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:You're okay, dude, we can work with this.
Speaker 2:Well, and these struggles. I mean, I really think that some sort of sexual struggle is inevitable if you're going to be with somebody for a long time, like there's just no way, it just doesn't work, like it's all magic, it just works. Nothing ever changes Right. No way. It just doesn't work, like it's all magic, it just works. Nothing ever changes, right. People are going to hit these obstacles and you know, to realize that we're not broken it doesn't mean something is wrong.
Speaker 2:It doesn't mean I can't be with this person or the relationship has to end. It's like, oh no, this is a normal part of the evolution of our relationship. We have to deal with it. But again people feel so alone. I've had so many clients say relationship, we have to deal with it. But again people feel so alone. I've had so many clients say all of our friends think we have like the perfect relationship. They have no idea that we haven't had sex in years or whatever. It is Right. They just nobody's talking about this. So everybody feels like they're the only one Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that whole Instagram, you know happy face thing, like, yeah, everyone has the perfect life and no one does Well, right, everyone's struggling in some way, but we don't.
Speaker 2:We don't show that. Yeah, and it's hard to show up and talk to people about your sexual struggles, and I think I don't even quite know how to put this in words but I feel like our, our sexual self is so much of our essence, so when something isn't going well with that, we can just feel like at our essence, something is broken, right, so that's not something I'm eager to go share with people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly yeah, we don't typically air our laundry in public, Right yeah. So let me ask you how do we escape that sexual avoidance cycle?
Speaker 2:Well, I guess I think of it in maybe in all three of these, these different areas, like one is to address the expectations, because, again, our ideas about what's supposed to be happening are a big part of why we think there's a problem. So we got to like flatten that, you know, and take apart those myths, sort of identify what are these stories? What is this you believe should be happening? What's actually real? How can we make space to be like it's okay if it's different than that, you know? Change that, I think, for those obstacles, all the different kinds of things that can get in the way. We have to identify those and well, I mean eliminate what we can and kind of mitigate the rest or work around them.
Speaker 2:As far as the, so that sort of hopefully tackles the negative feeling part of it. As far as the avoidance thing, I think the only the real strategy is to just proceed even though you feel anxious. Even though you feel anxious, you know like we have to kind of push through that, that urge to avoid this, and think, no, I'm just going to lean in and be willing to be uncomfortable or be a little anxious or overcome that feeling, cause our anxiety when we avoid something. Our anxiety about it gets worse.
Speaker 2:So, we just have to choose not to avoid it. Like I'm going to. I'm going to walk in and start, and it helps to have exercises or conversations or some support or structure around what you do Right, something new to try instead of just you know obligatory doing this, doing the thing that you know that you don't like.
Speaker 1:Instead of that, have some new thing to try.
Speaker 2:Right, but being willing to do that even when it feels a little uncomfortable, or pressured or contrived or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course, and that's always going to be the case. When you're trying something new, your brain is going to go this is new. I'm not sure I feel safe about this, right, because it's new, and so there's fear that sets in, or anxiety, or I'm just going through the motions. I feel it's a little robotic, but you're right, you got to do it anyway, because it just means it's new often.
Speaker 2:Yeah exactly Exactly, if you think about it. I think the first time we do anything it's probably uncomfortable. The first French kiss we're totally uncomfortable. We earn or gain comfort through exposure, through practice, and sometimes we do things whatever a few times we don't get any more comfortable. This is a hard. No, that's fine, but I think everything we kind of have to lean into that anxiety a little bit and be willing to be out of our comfort zone.
Speaker 1:Yes, hallelujah for trying something uncomfortable. We really got to get comfortable with that idea. I think, just as a society in general, the more we can get comfortable with the idea of being uncomfortable like knowing that on the other side of this.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm not going to be uncomfortable about that anymore. I'm going to feel more empowered now. You know, your comfort zone just expanded, so that thing that used to be uncomfortable. It's not that it's wrong, it's just you haven't tried it before. Now you try it. Now it's comfortable. That it's wrong, it's just you haven't tried it before. Now you try it. Now it's comfortable, right you know.
Speaker 2:so, if you think about it, if two people let's take everything off the table you're uncomfortable with, and everything off the table I'm uncomfortable with, and especially as it changes over time, we're you know we're talking a very small pile of things that are left and it really, it really is worth. It's okay to be a little uncomfortable, it's okay to explore this, it's okay to try several times and adjust and adapt. And again, if you hit something that's a hard, no, that is fine. It's not like you're going to necessarily embrace everything, but you don't know until you've explored it, and I think everything within your total comfort zone gets boring real quick.
Speaker 1:And when it comes to relationships and sex, boredom is a killer. Well, it's not fun at all. So you can try new stuff.
Speaker 2:Well, the other thing is, what's totally in your comfort zone might exclude some things that are really meaningful to your partner.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:You know, because if you both had the exact same comfort zone, you know, maybe it's not such a big deal, but the fact that your partner is interested in something that makes you a little uncomfortable, like there really is room to experiment and grow, and again, so much of the time we end up comfortable and empowered about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So let me ask you this how can someone increase their desire for sex? You know, without that, that obligatory thing, that I was talking about. How can you like?
Speaker 2:genuinely increase. So there's sort of two different that was, I think, two different things I'm going to start with. First is understanding those barriers Again, body image issues, trauma, mental health stuff, work, stress, whatever these different things that might be blocking your desire. What can you do about those? So those are sort of these artificial or external forces coming in and blocking. So if there's any of that, let's deal with those.
Speaker 2:But the other thing I think we really have to understand is there are two kinds of desire. So one I call proactive. This is where it's on your mind You're thinking about sex, you're horny, I would like to do this thing, and I think that's what most people mean when they talk about libido or sex drive. But there's also reactive sex drive, which is I'm not in the mood, not thinking about sex at all. If you asked me if I was interested, no, but if we started and I got what I needed, maybe my body wakes up, maybe I end up aroused. Now I want to have sex. So that's really the key. So, once you've gotten rid of all those obstacles or done what you can about those, the real key is accessing that reactive desire. So making those opportunities to start and being willing and having input. But maybe most importantly because that's not a commitment, there's still got to be flexibility. You can't know ahead of time if you're going to end up turned on and wanting sex.
Speaker 2:So it's got to be this. Maybe so many couples are. You know, yes, we're having sex or no, we're not.
Speaker 1:You need a lot of maybe.
Speaker 1:I love that you are saying this, jessa, because it's like a permission slip to not feel like you're being a tease, you know, to permission slip to go. Okay, let's try this Like to, to just realize that, oh, maybe I'm just reactionary because I'm not in the mood Doesn't mean I'm broken. So I could be in the mood if, if you know, we got what I needed. Yeah, if I feel filled up and and we're and things are going really well, maybe my body's going. Yeah, okay, let's do this. But maybe not. And I think a lot of women, especially that I work with, they shut down because they already have it in their head no, I'm not in the mood. If we play around and I'm still not in the mood, then oh, there's going to be a fight if I shut things down. So I love that permission slip to go. You know what, I'm allowed to change my mind any moment and go. I think I'm done, like, I think this is all I wanted to do.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, that's always true anyway. But here again is part of why I always work with couples. Both people need to understand this. Reactive desire is normal and valid. There's nothing wrong with it. So when we say, how can I increase my desire? I'm never trying to fix reactive desire. We're not trying to turn it. We're never trying to increase somebody's proactive desire, Unless, again, it's about obstacles that we can move out of the way.
Speaker 2:It's about accessing reactive desire and that shows up somewhere between 5% and 95% of the time, but not a hundred. So the partner also needs to know that just because we start does not mean we finish. And again, so many couples have have at least landed in a place where it's all or nothing. Every time we start something, we finish. So it's become you know whether it's whether it's their actual expectation or it's just the way they've played it out. Yeah, that's where they're starting from. So this whole idea of maybe is really crucial. And you're not teasing and it's not a problem, it's like you're really. You're creating an opportunity for your desire to actually show up and you actually want sex some percentage of the time. And if, if you didn't, you're going to have more sex that way than if you never did these.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:If you only have sex when you're absolutely sure I can do this whole thing. That's not. You know, it leads to a lot of no, and maybe it's like oh yeah, well, first of all, you get to enjoy whatever it is you did. It doesn't matter if you have sex or not. Whatever you do together in that space is lovely.
Speaker 1:Right, right, I love to take out the finish line altogether, like what a finish line to me is going to be at a different place than a finish line for you, maybe, like even okay, if we think of orgasm as a finish line, I mean that can come in a lot of different ways, yeah, and like, why should that be the end? Right, exactly. And a lot of people assume that, oh so sex means intercourse. Those two things are the same thing. Well, sex is a whole big umbrella. Intercourse is just one little piece of that. And so if maybe one partner wants more foreplay and the other one wants really just penetration, there's going to be a bit of a disconnect there. Then it kind of it opens up more options in that playing field for everybody to feel connection and playfulness and desire and passion and all the things. And you're right.
Speaker 2:We get stuck in a rut sometimes and think that, oh it, talk about this is so often sex seems like this football field and we're marching down linearly until we cross the goal line and score and we're done Right. And I really think sex is like a playground and the point is that we go together. That's a win, not what happens once we're there. We don't know ahead of time what we're going to feel like playing on or how long we want to stay, and it is certainly not about just going down the slide, right, it's, it's whatever. And once we get there we get inspired. Maybe I'm tired, but once I'm there it's like, oh, this monkey bar is like really fun, you know, there's just, it's all, it all counts. It doesn't matter what you do, what you do with the body parts, who does what, none of it.
Speaker 1:I love that analogy of the playground. That is so good. Yeah, yeah, there's no goalpost in a playground Exactly, there's a whole bunch of apparatus to play on and have a great time, and it always looks different. You have kids who go to a playground and they never do the same thing twice. It's always something different. So that's a great analogy. I love that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's chilling that. So good, just the outing is the win, just going Right. So somebody with like again, somebody that's not feeling proactive desire, who feels like they've got no libido air quotes here. Going to the playground is like just a willingness to show up and start and then tune into what you might want, communicate, that be open to shifting gears Some percentage of the time. Look at that. My body woke up, you know. Now I'm aroused and interested.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that tells your partner something just you willing to show up is like a commitment to going hey, I'm wanting to connect with you, and that alone, I think, carries a lot of weight for your partner to see that and to go. Oh yeah, they are actually willing to try. They are actually willing to show up to some degree within their comfort zone to connect with me. The feeling of being rejected is now off to the side.
Speaker 2:That's not the forefront. The partner has this role in seeing it as a playground and not a football field and being, you know, understanding that just because you go to the playground doesn't mean you end up aroused and wanting to have sags Like that, flexibility and this whole maybe thing. Really both people have to, you know, integrate that, yeah, and sometimes that's tricky.
Speaker 2:Yes, well, that's why I help people have these conversations. Yeah, let's get on there. Because here's the thing that the higher desire person in my experience in committed relationships they want their partner to want to have sex Right. They do not want them just to show up and do it as a chore Exactly.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I think sometimes lower desire. People don't understand that. They think, well, if I, you know, they're getting laid right, they're getting sex, they should be happy.
Speaker 1:It's like they're not they are longing to feel it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so generally a higher desire person is really willing to embrace this stuff when they understand how it all ties together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true, oh, that's so good, that's so good. And, like often, when it comes to sex and intimacy, a lot of people feel like they're failing at it. Yes, right, like, let's talk about that. It's not. It's not as easy as it seems in the movies. Whatever, all you people out there, all the stuff that you see in the movies that doesn't exist, that's totally scripted, and no one's. It never looks like that, like it just isn't. And so, just in your experience, how can we make it feel like we're not failing, you know, like we're not doing it wrong?
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, I believe that we are each all responsible for our own pleasure and we have to equip our partner with what they need to be pleasing with us. So people feel like they're failing so much when they think I'm supposed to know what to do, I'm supposed to show up and perform. This is on me to somehow make something happen for you, and so I want to shift that responsibility. It's our job to be responsible for our own pleasure and equip our partner. So that involves some communicate, you know. It involves awareness, first of all, of what we want, and then communication to the partner and teamwork and looking at this as a little bit of a I don't know about experiment, but, you know, exploration that we do together until we really learn these things about each other. And then you know, and then it changes on Thursday, or it changes next year, or, you know, it's sort of a continual living process.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that. Oh, that's so good, just being responsible for your own body, your own orgasm, your own pleasure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, your own experience. And you've got to let your partner, you've got to give them that gift. A lot of people, if their partner says, can you slow down, they hear that as criticism oh, I'm not doing it right, I'm feeling I'm doing this wrong. It's like that is a gift. Only the person receiving this thing knows how this is feeling and what would be better. It is a gift to tell each other that.
Speaker 1:Right, because we can't read each other's minds and we kind of forget that, like, if you loved me, how long have we been together? You should know me by now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, still not. You're still not in my body. No, exactly how it feels to me right now. I'm the only one that knows that. That has that information.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, oh my gosh, that's so good. So, um, so I w. I want to ask you shifting gears a little bit. You have a private practice in Seattle. Is that the only way that you work with people?
Speaker 2:No, I'm actually licensed as a therapist in both Washington State and New Mexico. So those only people that live in those two states can I do therapy where there's like a diagnosis and treatment plan and things like that. But outside of that I can do coaching. So you know, in some ways it doesn't actually look that different because I'm kind of a let's do things now to change the future orientation anyway. But that's sort of the difference with coaching there's no diagnosis or anything like that, right, but it's very solution focused and action oriented.
Speaker 1:So do you do that one-on-one with couples or do you have online courses people can take?
Speaker 2:Yeah, then I have an online course called Intimacy with Ease that walks people through. You know, basically my book is a process for couples, but my online course walks them through that whole thing and includes coaching calls and support to help people actually do it, navigate it. And then I've got my podcast and little special collection podcasts and all kinds of resources out in the world trying to help.
Speaker 1:I love that and can people find your book on your website, and I'll of course, put intimacywitheasecom in the show notes yeah, basically everything's there.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Good yeah, because that sounds like a really great book to get. I love that and the fact that it's, you know, process driven book, so that people can actually get benefit. It's not just a fictional fun read or theoretical you know, but good to have the support going through it too.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You know, yeah, I think that it's. I mean, I wrote the book thinking, oh, people can just take this and go from beginning to end and do the whole thing on their own, but what I find is they won't we hit a lot. You know, we hit difficult things or we need the motivation, or we have questions or what is it? Now we did some of this stuff, but this happened concerns Like that's where the coaching program comes in, you know a hundred percent, really, really useful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, I did the same thing. I teach erotic massage and you know women how to touch your guy's body and I thought, oh, here's a DIY course. I got it all spelled out Right, exactly. But they had all these questions and I'm like, but it's all, right there. Then there was questions that aren't really you know, you can't really demonstrate. It's like right there. Then there's questions that aren't really you know, you can't really demonstrate. It's like okay, so I did this, but he reacted this way.
Speaker 1:So I'm not really sure what to do with that or how, to how to verbally address it in the moment. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. There's always questions, there's always clarifications and and you think that it's a most people I find, think that okay, give me this step-by-step A to Z exactly what to do. Okay, I got it. But then they go and try it and they realize, oh well, there's some communication stuff. Like I don't know how to initiate this thing, or I don't know how to answer those questions that they have. I don't know how to talk about what we're trying here. It all boils down to communication.
Speaker 2:Or it's bringing up this or it's bringing up that. I mean it's yes.
Speaker 1:So to have that added coaching component I think is vital and just to have the support system you know. Like to know that you're not the only one and that there's an easy fix to my concern, kind of thing. So I love that you offer that. That's awesome. Where can people find you on social media?
Speaker 2:Intimacy with ease is my handle on Facebook and on Instagram. I'm not on TikTok. I was for a while, but I didn't enjoy it, frankly.
Speaker 1:TikTok likes to shut people down who have education in this field. Let me tell you, they shut me down I had 1.2 million followers and they're like no, we don't want that, so they shut me down.
Speaker 2:That's a whole other thing. It's like when I first. So my book is called Sex Without Stress, so my first online course on my website and everything else was Sex Without Stress. Little did I know. You can't advertise anything with the word sex in it on Facebook, so I had to rebrand everything. So that's where intimacy with ease came from is like how to take the word sex out of it. It drives me nuts, as if sex is some dirty bad thing. I mean this is part of the problem.
Speaker 1:Right, that, exactly that is part of the problem. They're. They're trying to save the. We're just trying to protect our community. Well, no, you're actually y'all thinking about it. You're all doing it, or wanting to do it, or wanting to make it better.
Speaker 2:We all came from people that did it.
Speaker 1:So you know, come on. Yeah, so we need educators like you out there. So thank you for being on this podcast. Thank you for having a podcast about this stuff, because without Well, you too, right, thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we got to normalize this conversation or no one's getting any better, like no one. This becomes a really awkward conversation and it need not be right. And if we could just talk about it more and have people like you and me and other podcasters out there and just other people in general wanting to talk about this, if we had more of those people out there then we wouldn't have all the problems that we have, because people wouldn't be afraid to talk to someone about their problems, about whatever's coming up for them. There's so many people who even just like trauma and stuff. It's so hard for people to talk about trauma that's affecting their sex life now, because it's just so darn taboo and that's sad, because we really we need an outlet and we need this to be okay and not like, ooh, I'm a dirty girl for even thinking about these thoughts.
Speaker 2:Right, right. And the sad thing is, while we're not doing anything about some of these things, it really does take a toll on your relationship. It starts to create some distance or disconnect or self-consciousness. I mean it can get to the point where it's creating resentment and divorce. But even if it's not at that level, there's like a block. People that I talk to know that they are not as close and connected as they could be with this elephant in the room. It creates a barrier and that's heartbreaking because it doesn't need to be there Completely avoidable, yeah, yeah, completely fixable, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I really appreciate you willing to come on here and have these conversations and, uh, open up freely about this yeah, well, thanks for having me yeah, awesome. Thank you so much for being the bright light in the world that you are, jessa and um just wanting to, I guess, normalize the conversation, just wanting to be really frank and professional and, um, okay and not awkward about this conversation. You've clearly been around the block many times, so thank you for uh, for sharing your expertise with us today, so appreciate you welcome awesome.
