Reclaiming Pleasure & Sexuality

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2:47Bringing together thought leaders, culture changers, creatives, founders and CEOs, scientists, doctors, healers and seekers. Here to start conversations. because simply asking questions and listening has the power to change the way we see the world. Here we go. This week on the Goop Podcast, I'm joined by my friend and longtime teacher, Michaela Bohm. We have known each other for over 15 years, and she is someone I turn to when I need to get out of my head and back into my body. In this episode, we're talking about something I've been thinking a lot about lately and maybe talking about too much, but that feels really important.

3:31How perimenopause has shifted my relationship to my sexuality. For most of my adult life, that part of me felt innate, like a current that I could always tap into. But lately that current has felt different. And it's left me asking, who am I when that part of me changes? because Michaela has a grounding way of approaching these questions. And she reminds us that pleasure doesn't disappear as we age, it evolves. And when we stop measuring it by the standards we used in our 20s, there's actually so much more to discover.

4:10I'm so happy to have you on the podcast. Thanks for having me. It's so fantastic. So Michaela and I have had a relationship for many years, 15 years. At least, yeah. And I met you sort of in the context of a therapist, and then you really become a friend. But of course, I still exercise my right to call you when I get in a bind. And lately, you know, we have been talking a little bit about and what I wanted to really explore with you or at least start today. And as my listeners know, I apologize for talking about perimenopause and menopause all the fucking time. But I think I'm really fascinated and I guess also frustrated by how the hormonal changes in a woman's life, like how much they impact our sexuality.

5:04And so I wanted to, I think, start with sexuality as identity because I think what I've noticed in going through this hardcore perimenopause thing that's happening right now is that my relationship to my sexuality has changed or my sexuality has changed. And it makes me feel like I don't know myself anymore. Like, like my sexuality was such a huge and important part of who I was always, you know, I mean, at least from, you know, post puberty. How, I mean, I have so many questions around this topic, but is it right that our identity is so intertwined with our sexuality? does that happen for everybody like for me it really was or it is so i feel like when my sexuality wanes or libido or whatever hormonally yeah i feel like a grief yeah i'm so glad we're talking about this because i think you know it is kind of the final frontier because we're not allowed to really talk about it because also when we start talking about those hormonal changes the very thing that makes us so identified with our sexuality kicks in meaning what we could call very crudely our sexual market value and it doesn't matter if you're in a relationship or not right from when we are teenagers we as women right feel this enormous power in our sexuality and it is something that belongs to us and it's connected to who we want to explore ourselves right and it is a superpower i mean no make no mistake it is a superpower not only externally you know i'm not even talking how it affects other people but the kind of pleasure we can give ourselves the kind of pleasure we can or connection or play we can seek out of course we grew up in a time where that was possible right but even if you had a fairly conservative let's say you know you got married young it's for most people a place where they don't have to perform outwardly it's something that's their private enjoyment and at the same time we identify as women as sexy as desirable we do everything to look good and and be seen as good right and i mean you notice this this feeling of walking in a room and everybody looks at you right there's something very empowering and beautiful about that even if it's not kinked in some way right some people have things around that so when that goes internally as well as externally it's essentially a huge identity crisis yeah that's an interesting point because I think we do turn heads right when we're young like we and if we don't we want to you know and that creating that center of energy is like you're right it is a power it is it is something that women kind of it's a magnetic field around them around us but you know I've I am now post menopausal I have arrived I'm still having hot flashes all of the things that come with that and I have you know now when I'm getting off planes or so it's horrendous still but but I'm now I'm now at that point where I look back and I'm going wow right how much things have shifted And what I've realized in that conversation we're having is that really where we have a conflation, where we have difficulty, and that's the way forward, is that radiance and vitality and life force isn't the same as sexual viability.

9:20Yes. And that's the way out of it. Because a lot of what is considered that young woman magnetism is vitality. It's radiance. It's that natural shininess of the energy. And it's the ability to be both, let's say, big and soft. And kind of the swirl of something. And that gets conflated with just being young or being sexually viable. but you can have that essentially till the day you die probably not the day you die then it might be a bit more low energy but you know up till a very ripe age and i know women who are super vital in their 80s and 90s i mean look at jane goodall for instance yeah yeah she's amazing he's amazing now it's different it's maybe not as sex centered externally but i know women in their 80s and 90s who are having really fulfilling sex lives come on no no for real and i know a woman in her late 70s who's dating she doesn't even want a partner i love she lives in new york city that's amazing on dates and she's tearing the swaths through the to a certain demographic in new york city and openly talking about it That's great.

10:43And what that is, is the willingness to essentially completely reinvent your identification with your sexuality. Yeah. And I think the worst part for me, and you've talked about that too, is that it no longer just loads up, you know, like out of nowhere. Yeah. You no longer have like this natural kind of a thing. And that's when I when that happened, I thought my life was over. Yeah, because it was like, what am I going to do now? Yeah. And so I had to really find what it was really about and how I can stay turned on or alive or. And what was it about? Well, well, for me, it was that understanding that maybe not everyone was maybe, you know, I wasn't going to turn heads anymore with everyone.

11:35Which is also kind of a relief. It is. You know? It's nice to be in an airport and nobody looks at you. I don't even brush my hair anymore. Yeah, it's a little bit like that. But there is a relief about that. But we identify that with our personal relationship, and that's not the same. So maybe we're a little bit less visible out there. And, you know, it's weird things. I was in Portugal, and I blew a tire in the middle of absolutely nowhere. and you know in the olden days the moment that happens you could just go help and somebody will rescue you and that did not happen people just drove by me you know for it but then of course somebody stopped and helped me and i realized that idea of the damsel in distress is somewhat disempowering completely it is right and and and it's i think a myth that we often perpetuate That's what I mean.

12:32It's connected with our sexuality and our sexual viability and all of that. And there's another way. And for me, what it was, was realizing that my, let's say my love and care and connection with myself kind of rose while my sexual viability went down, so to speak. meaning as I got older and as I got into perimenopause and I had a rough perimenopause like really rough for a few years yeah I had to kind of really go who am I what am I about how do I want my life to be what if this is the way it's going to be from here on out what if my looks go to the point where I'm not happy with the way I look right what am I going to do then And so what kind of remained was what I know I'm about and also this kind of real strong vitality that I then turned into self-pleasure.

13:33And then out of that came pleasure with a partner again. Self-pleasure meaning? Self-pleasure, not only sexual self-pleasure, which I think is super important. I think the one thing I can say being on the other end is that even though you don't feel like it, you have to essentially chip away every single day and have a moment of actual physical pleasure. And it could be anything. Could be anything. Could be a massage, self-massage, could be a nice hot bath. Can also be sexual stuff, self-pleasure. because i do notice there's a bit of like anhedonia lately you know like i have sort of i'm happy i'm content i'm very grateful i love my my people my husband my children my friends my job but there's something about this time hormonally yeah where it's like the pleasure all around is just dulled.

14:35Yes. And that's the practice. So why does that happen? That our pleasure gets, I think what happens is it's all one system, right? And that's why it's so important when we talk about people not feeling like having sex, I never start with sexual stuff. I always start with the senses. I start with beauty. I start with smelling things, tasting things, touching things creating beautiful things you know of this beautiful flower here right so where you essentially go i have senses i can enliven my senses my enliven senses then enervate the rest of my body into that line from let's say sensual to sexual pleasure but if you are low on the the senses you're not going to feel sexual and i think we go low on the senses because it's so have to feel like i'm having a hot flash right now right you have to let me go get my fan you have to essentially disconnect from the parts of your body that don't feel good right and then with that when you take that back you take everything else back right because it's one system and so when you don't want to feel something you know that doesn't feel good you know and you suddenly your skin's loose somewhere or you gain weight or you don't you're a bit dry or whatever you pull back from yourself and that pulling back regulates down the entire let's say hedonistic you know like array of things right you don't want to do anything anymore that's interesting too because you know of course you have this physiological thing that's happening right your whole endocrine system is changing you are no longer reproductively viable.

16:24So you're not making all those hormones, you know, there's a whole sexual desire that goes along with those, right. Those rhythms, those patterns. So that is waning. And then also at the same time, I didn't think about the discomfort, you know, that where this sort of hijacking of your body, your mind, sometimes, you know, your emotional sense of emotional stability and i guess that's why there's that i guess it's like a it's almost like a hunkering down and like pulling out protect you know it's like it is and and so and that is hard to do at the same time to both try to be regulating yourself all the time you know because we live with people and in work with people and we can't be dysregulated all the time yeah but also that it's hard it's very hard to get swept up in pleasure it is and it doesn't happen like you said no longer happens from an endocrine viewpoint yeah because i mean you know once you're ovulating you know you get swept up in some tidal wave of something if that's not happening you have to source from somewhere else and that sourcing starts way earlier you know way way earlier you can just hope that something turns you on or someone turns you on you have to essentially go okay i need to have a baseline of sensual engagement that carries me over the slump and then that that of course relates with the nervous system because it's the you know these things are related if you're frozen you won't won't be able to have strong avousal of course right if you're fight or flight you're actually stepping on the brake of your arousal because you can't be surviving and thriving right you know and that's the whole thing that's why it's called fight or fight feed or breed sometimes right because the feed or breed is the down regulation from the fight or flight and that's the other thing when you have hot flashes for instance right you have a you have essentially a fight or flight moment yeah it's true come down from that thing and the last thing you want is anybody to touch you or anyone to come close to you or any desire because you have to essentially regulate your body back from a you know nervous system arousal yeah and i imagine postpartum i mean i'm trying to think back to that time too when you know you have the endocrine thing going on but then also you have you know children feeding off your body and you're living to so that's i i always feel like these two times and in a woman's life are particularly challenging as far as being able to feed yourself with your with with pleasure and and i think i do think sexuality is such an important part of that and like you talk about it's this sense of play like one else as an adult are you ever free to just play exactly you know And experiment.

19:31And also, and this is also important for women, right? Particularly high achieving women. But I think all women nowadays are high achieving somewhere, right? Yes. There's so much going on. Yes. You know, there's so much to juggle. There has to be one place where you can let go. Yeah, exactly. And for most people, that's in the bedroom. But if your hormones are fucked up and, you know, your leg is like. You don't feel like it. You feel like you need to control things. but even if you desire to let it all go if you don't have the impetus to be available for that then that's not going to happen yeah can you talk a little bit about this new frontier of sexuality so this post menopausal I'm so happy for you that you're on the other side of this

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21:29So how are you contextualizing this chapter of your life for yourself? Well, this is still a work in progress, of course, but I've just finished writing, you know, the book on this i mean the outlines and stuff like that and i waited and waited till i was kind of on the other side where i could actually talk about it not in the aspiration but because i think aspirationally i've read a lot of things you know yes the crone or the hag or and you know like there's a whole thing there elder and i don't think that's what it is i don't honestly think crone hag or elder is going to cut it for me or or most most women i know right it's a horrible and there's a whole yes there's a whole book about claiming you know haggitude and by mind you and you know i i love the particular author and everything but it's not my thing right and the reason it's not my thing is because I don't actually think that just because you're menopausal now you are kind of you know this whole idea of now you're the woman who speaks her mind and fuck it all and you know a little bit angry but uncompromising I don't think that's where it's at I actually think that we can reclaim the best parts of us but drop the ones that were essentially adaptations for the sexual viability or the feeding in a certain way and i see it more as as kind of a second puberty so to speak right yeah but from a place of actual experience where you can go oh this is actually what i want to do with my body and this is actually how i enjoy sex and I enjoy pleasure and enjoy my senses.

23:31And I don't have to put that in the context of, now for some women, they still need to find a mate, right? But for many people, they have a mate and they just have to re-kind of develop that relationship as one of, let's say, adventure and joy and fun and newness, which you could say, you could say, wow i'm no longer in fear of being pregnant i no longer in my case now not having mood swings it's like i can't even tell you what that's like wow i've had mood swings like you know homicidal mood swings for for my adult my whole adult life right so like that kind of let's say stretch of time where you you're not hijacked by the up and down has been honest to god the most creative and productive part of my entire life and i've kind of taken the last year and not done much business wise or whatever and new stuff because i really wanted to see what's left but what i'm saying is it's finite and when i look at what i want to do with my life if it's finite then And it's super clear.

24:55I want to have pleasure. And I want to have the kind of pleasure that's not determined by my biochemistry, but the kind of pleasure that includes food and friends and beautiful gardens and touching an animal, you know, for the sheer joy of having, you know, you know, I love dogs, having a dog, but then also having a kind of relationship where I don't have to be a housewife, you know, or a very specific partner where I can actually say, this is how I want it. Yeah. It's very, it's very freeing. Yeah. I do think there is something though to, I've noticed for myself that bumping up against menopause, there is a kind of not giving a shit like that I find really deeply relaxing in my bones because I don't care.

25:58I don't seek approval. Like what I, I still have issues in my relationship with myself because I still talk to myself negatively or I can still kind of like break into some, you know, old thing that still needs healing. And I suspect I will have to do that for the rest of my life. But I find it so freeing to be able to speak the truth. Yes. And I never tied that to reproductive viability, but it must be. It is. Why? It is. Well, and by the way, I have the exact same experience, but it is tied to reproductive viability because when you're young you're you're looking for a partner right and so when you look for a partner you are essentially and i mean most women i know have compromised wildly in the early parts of their relationship in order to keep a certain kind of a construct of a relationship or marriage or family going right and so while we are in the reproductive years and child-rearing years and finding partnership and maintaining partnership, particularly when you have children and you want to maintain partnership, you are constantly selling yourself down the river.

27:17That's so true. You know, I mean, you have to. And that is part, I think, of being a good parent in a certain way, that your needs are not the most important thing in the house. Of course, of course. But we've done that and we do it over and over and over. and we no longer think about the fact that that's just expected in a certain way and a knee jerk and there's a lot of you know kind of compliance because also you have other women in your family construct mother-in-laws mothers ex-wives whatever you know people who care for your children while you go to work people you work with so you're constantly in this acquiescence of maintaining a certain kind of a status quo and you know then you hear all these stories about nasty women and you know disagreeable women or whatever it's woven in the fabric of of our civilization where you are supposed to be collaborative and you and you're not supposed to be and really you're you're the survival of your children can be predicated on you being collaborative exactly and when you look at it in the tribal context also you know the olden days if you weren't nice to the other women who were helping you raise your children help you birth help you you know men came and went particularly in the early days of humankind right men would be out there fighting or hunting getting killed never coming back right so you relied on a group of women which is why we yearn for that so much but also why it's so sometimes abrasive because we have to fit somewhere in that construct and only it's a pecking order essentially yeah and if we do then we are safe yeah and then of course if you happen to live long enough we're talking tribal concept you know like millions of years ago even if you live long enough and you no longer risk dying in childbirth or you no longer need to collaborate for food or status or things like that you can just be yourself and then women look to you for wisdom and instruction and help and support and when you end in that place which is what perimenopause menopause postmenopause is essentially you no longer have to be selling yourself out yeah right yeah and i think that's that's the actual key to the new sexual power is that when you come from a place of sovereignty where like you said i mean there's always things right where we compare ourselves so we you know we talk tough to to ourselves but that all aside you know who you are you've earned your place you have a certain kind of gravity in your surrounding that allows you to go here's what i'm thinking and you won't get out you know cast out you will be listened to so interesting isn't it it's like we can be threatening if we have if we're in our sovereignty right when we're when we're young it's like too it's too threatening yes i think it's like the acquiescence and the collaboration is what makes us acceptable and we learn that lesson that like we're lovable when we are in collaboration with everyone and so many times like i can think of so many times in my life that i betrayed myself in order to collaborate oh yeah oh yes i mean when i think back at some of my greatest achievements many of them came with having to sell something of myself out so to speak down the river meaning i had to go well you know i'm gonna have less time for myself or well i said yes to this and have to now work with somebody i don't want to work with but that's the only way i'm going to do the thing i want to do right so there's there's all these things that happen and when they no longer happen that's when actual personal power kicks in and hopefully will be let's say polished by life enough that we use the personal power for good meaning other people and our own sexuality

31:56how does that translate into this kind of new iteration of our sexuality especially if physically things are different. You know, like one of my great friends the other day, she was making me die laughing. She's my age and going through all the same kind of thing. And she was like talking about having sex with her husband who she loves. And she was like, okay, just like do whatever. I'd feel nothing down there. Absolutely nothing. Like, like there, it's almost like a change. She was describing like this change in her nerve endings even, Yes. Oh, yeah. I remember. I mean, there was a very specific moment where I just touched it usually would work, did nothing.

32:41So what happened? Like, did it come back? No, no, it did not come back. It never came back? No, it didn't come back like that, but it came back other places in different ways. But and what I mean by that is my pleasure now is much wider and like full bodied and very deep, like internal even. And, you know, cervical and there's all kinds of places that I never knew. I mean, I knew they existed. You know, this is my my my my my livelihood. But meaning I never knew I had such power and potency in those areas. So how how how does how do you access that? Well, so the thing is, when your friend does the thing where she goes, do your thing, I feel nothing, that's not the way to go.

33:28That's not the way to go. No, that's not the way to go. That's not to say that on occasion you don't want your partner to just do their thing, right? In a healthy relationship, there is a place for that. Right. In a healthy relationship. Right, right. Not as a martyr or abuse pattern, right? But I want to just say this for anybody listening. But then there's also the moment to say, listen, things are not the way they used to be. So can we experiment with other things? So that's the way I did it. It's like, can we experiment with other things? I've never really had to experiment what else would feel pleasurable because it's always been instant and available.

34:15but now you can you help me explore right and then most good partners go sure you know what do you want to do and then you you can go well let's just do touch can you just like go everywhere and see what things feel like or there's lots of good advice or can we maybe you know use a toy or something not to replace the partner but to see are there other areas right can you just be wildly experiment you know experimenting also with different settings maybe you were never into role play but now suddenly that sparks something right a lot of women we both know right read like these erotic kindle novels and stuff like that which people report as huge turn-ons because it gets their system going in a different way than the usual way like a more intellectual way intellectual but also typically there's some weird stuff that you can can can use there one of my friends writes i mean she makes millions i'm not kidding you she makes millions she started this just when kindle started doing self-publishing she writes one every two weeks and people buy it and people buy them on kindle and like the 99 cents or whatever right and it's a formula but it has like these she i mean she takes these different boxes of you know how she and it's like explicit novels super explicit wow yeah but i'm saying this to say maybe you need to send me the link that exists in that atmosphere of ending that in that kind of whole area of of kindle where there's erotic literature that makes you go oh i never even thought about that but it hits certain beats that are outside of your usual erotic patterns so you're saying it might be an interesting idea to for women who are experiencing this to open the aperture and just read stuff try stuff see stuff just almost like put down the version of yourself that you knew and what turned you on yes and then yes absolutely because you know that we've talked about this and i think many people talk about this that arousal patterns are learned right right so how you typically learn an arousal pattern is first by yourself and so the way you give yourself pleasure has a very specific like cascade of events that includes physical stimulation physical you know endocrine hormonal stuff and fantasies because most people learn arousal patterns through self-pleasure and so you think about a certain thing you're in a certain posture you move your hands in a certain way and that's your arousal pattern right and then and so that's typically and this is also true for men why which is why men have very specific fantasies it's it's built into your nervous system and so it's kind of you push the first button and then it's like this cascading round of dominoes that does the thing that then gives you arousal and ultimately an orgasm and so when you then are with a partner a lot of times in the beginning when people have sex they still need that arousal pattern because that's the only thing that's built into their nervous system and then over time you create one with your partner or some people have certain fantasies that they play in their head while they're with their partner which is not optimal but that's how it often goes and so i'm saying this to say you can at any given moment in your life not only in perimenopause and menopause but change your arousal patterns And we do that, of course, consciously with people who had traumatic sexual imprints, where that was one of the things I did in my early career is I helped people rebuild those arousal patterns.

38:29But you can do that by yourself by letting yourself experience aliveness and arousal from different sources than what's built in and then rebuild those through practice. And I'm making quotation marks here because it does feel like practice when you have to, let's say, read something and masturbate to it and you don't really feel like it. It's homework. It's homework. It's literally homework. And you can completely re-pattern your system. But you can also repattern your system with the arousal of being free, being non-compromising, speaking out with your partner in the bedroom, trying different things for yourself, sensually and sexually, dressing differently, doing things differently.

39:19So you can repattern any which way you want at any given time. But we typically don't go there till the spots that used to light up no longer light up.

39:36can we go back to the trauma piece that you were talking about for a second because i think this applies to a lot of women obviously i just wanted to ask you when you were you said in your early career you help people find a different arousal template around trauma why is that you mean because they conflate trauma with their sexuality. Yes. So can you talk more about that? So this is, you know, a snapshot of something that's a very big field. But essentially, when your sexual imprints are traumatic, either because of abuse, or because you were in a relationship where you acquiesce to things that you should not have, or you didn't, you know, you had pain or, you know, all kinds of things so it doesn't have to be transgression next it could also be self transgression right also happens so you essentially weave together your let's say orgasm or your arousal with certain behaviors with certain emotional states right and so then what very often happens is for instance if people had let's say very active transgression against them they want to repair that but then they get into a relationship with let's say a guru right in a cult or something like that where the exact same pattern applies just now in the spiritual domain interesting right but it's still sexual in or or you end up with a partner who looks nothing like your abuser but then over time puts you into the same position where you have to compromise yourself in a certain way or humiliate yourself in a certain way and you get aroused by that because that's the only arousal you know interesting now and so very often in that kind of work you have to look at is what you're seeking out sexually based on essentially spiking and then regulating your nervous system or spiking it and then freezing or trying to get out of a freeze with some really rough sex you know like those kind of things when when when you have trauma tied up in your sexual behavior you have to really look careful what's real and what's essentially trauma-based or trauma imprinted wow and how does how do people go about understanding which is which well i think it's always important to say that if you don't suffer right meaning you have a certain kind of sexual inclination whatever that is and it works for you and it works for your partner and your body feels good with it it doesn't matter where it's coming from so to speak right but if let's say trying to think of someone i've worked with you have a kind of a dependence on your partner you know kind of a daddy thing and that you know that kind of daddy thing plays out in sexual dominance but then also plays out in relational disempowerment this happens quite a bit right where then women go well it's fun in the bad bedroom but now where have you been show me your phone dress like this do like do this don't do this we're going here right and then so it kind of mushrooms out into somebody no longer having power in the relationship then we have to look at and then often women have said to me things like well but you know i like the sex is great and that part is i'm never gonna get that with somebody else so i'll deal with the other things then of course we're now in a territory where it's a bit like you're essentially in a trauma pattern where you are perpetuating in your life things that really only belong in the bedroom.

43:40Why is that? And very often you can trace that down to some earlier thing. Interesting. And it is like you can recover from that? Yeah. You can reprogram? Yeah, you can. Not everything is super severe, right? I mean, if you've had really, really severe stuff, you will forever have that imprint. That's, you know, I don't want to say that you can, it's not like you get healed, but you can most definitely learn the tools to A, not attract people like that. That's the important part. Yes. B, catch yourself when the trigger is coming and C, do something else when you feel that you're going into these patterns that are unhealthy.

44:23I want to go back to something you talked about earlier because I think and you know it's a it's a topic that so many women of all ages who've been in a longer term relationship especially especially when there are little kids like I have so many friends where that incredible sexual connection they had with their partner the children like sort of. you know, drain all of the energy out of it. And I remember once a friend of mine that I went to high school with, she was like really not in a good place in her marriage. And then the, the three kids actually all went to summer camp sleepaway camp for the first time.

45:10And she was like, this is, was a total marriage defibrillator. Like it, it, you know, just even remembering, but you know, that's extreme in a way, like all three kids going, you know what I mean? Like, So how can women, what did you say you said? You said that it is possible to get that sense of adventure and newness with someone that you've been with for a long time. Or say you have toddlers or say you're in menopause. Or say, for example, a lot of friends are so highly powerful, focused on work. And I think just the sense of adventure goes, right? Because your priorities are shifted. So how do people cultivate adventure and newness in a longer relationship where there are dependents or competing priorities?

46:07Yeah. Well, I have a whole thing about that. I actually just came back from teaching this particular thing in a workshop in Australia because… What was the workshop called? It was called the Relationship Bootcamp. It's my newest thing I've taught. I'm teaching them all this year. You know, I only teach my workshops one year and then I make new ones. So cool. This is a relationship boot camp. And so one of the things we looked at or the things we looked at in a long-term relationship that allow you to keep the spark alive. The first one has nothing to do with sex. But it's the single most important thing you can do for your relationship.

46:49And that is praise. Hmm. And because it's the first thing that goes, right? Particularly you have young children, you're now running the business, right? The business of a family. It's all about what you haven't done and not what you have done. It's all about how two people are managing a life that's essentially unmanageable. Yeah. Right? Yeah. When you were really honest about it. Totally. And so the first thing that goes is benefit of the doubt and regard. Hmm. And that's a very interesting aphrodisiac, though, in the sense that when your heart isn't open, the sexual thing kind of is one dimensional, as we all know.

47:35And so the heart opening is the finding things to praise your partner with generously and freely as a means of reestablishing appreciation and seeing that partner, not for that same old, same old, but for something that they've done that you actually thought was great. Yeah. Yeah. and I mean most people come home and they'd say oh and today I did and it's like okay well can you take the kids now right and there's not that wow she's just done that or he's just done that or or you look across and you actually see someone looking in your in your kitchen if somebody's there right like you look into the kitchen you see your partner sit there and I don't know read a magazine or something and you have this moment of like ah and you don't act on it you don't go over there and say i really love you or or you you know i love that you always x right we always go i hate that you always x but we never say i love that you always read your paper before you do anything else and then tell me about it while i cook or whatever right someone once said to me like catch them doing something right exactly right exactly and then and then And this is like dog training, right?

48:56For both men and women. It's like you have to go, good boy, good boy, good girl, good girl, right? But also it's about the heart, about being seen, right? Being actually seen by your partner is probably the most incredible thing. So that's one thing. But the thing about adventure and aliveness in a relationship, unfortunately you're going to have to plan for it, right? Like you're just going to have to, it's not going to happen spontaneously. If you wait for it to happen spontaneously, you're going to wait a long time. Right. With kids and jobs. Right, right. Yeah, people make plans. And then, you know, in your book, The Wild Woman's Way, which is such a fantastic book, you kind of talk about, you know, the site you teach, I think it's you've trademarked this nonlinear movement, right?

49:48of like women having a modality to get in their body and to have that as a practice because you want to be halfway there when you get to the appointment right yeah exactly but i do this thing called the jar exercise i love this tell everybody exercise is just i just i came up with that for a couple who was like so busy and had four children and both had companies and and they loved each other but they had zero there was zero play right so the jar exercise in its simplest form is you sit down and you write a wish list of things that you would like to have happen on a date right so are they all sexual no that's the thing so you so you can get very fancy i i have one couple they have like an like they have like a agenda of color-coded pieces of paper on the front of their jar you don't have to go there so you can do the way i slice them typically is outside adventure so meaning something you can do outside the house just the two of you that's not let's go to a dinner and have sex which never really you know after dinner exactly thank you like let's go to a bar and have sex let's go and watch a sunset and have sex so other things like that right and it was funny because i did this in melbourne people came up with like crazy stuff like what what was an example but one that i really loved was we'll get dressed up like victorian vampires in this like dark sexy outfit and we're packing a picnic with all kind of dark or blood colored foods like red wine chocolate a steak whatever like so this was this whole theme around vampires and then they went to the yarrow river which in melbourne is where there's millions of bats flying off when they wake up in at sunset so you can watch the sunset and then these little balls that hang in trees start screeching and kind of waking up and there are these massive bats like massive bats and so that was one date thing it's like they were gonna have watch the bats emerge in their victorian outfits on a bench eating their sexy dark food i thought that was pretty pretty cool listen honestly you know whatever whatever floats your boat but so outside adventure inside connection so meaning both people are at home and it's about connecting okay and sexual and then the sexual falls into things we've never done before things we like but haven't done you know much or never quickies and one partner just saying what they want and the other partner giving it to them so you put all of these in a jar yes so each person writes these okay so each person writes these down and then you can essentially put them on on different color paper or you can write on the outside what it is different color paper really works and then you throw them in the jar and then whichever turn it is you always want to take turns so let's say it's wednesday evening it's your it's your turn you're gonna pick brad's color and you pick whatever you decided it is like you have 15 minutes before somebody shows up you know quickie of some sort or you have an evening you don't feel particularly sexy but you really want to connect or you want to go out and do something so whoever picks picks in the morning figures out how to do that and then gives that experience to the partner partner gets to enjoy it doesn't have to reciprocate i like that yes super important it's not a tit for tat right Right.

53:54Then next day, it's the other person picks. That's great. So and then you can go, oh, let's do something crazy, sexual. And you have those you have those things. Right. And then it's it's not I don't know exactly how to say that. It's not the two people having to tell each other what to do. It's one step removed with the piece of paper. So it takes away that, you know, OK, now I have to tell him what to do. You told him what to do three weeks ago. So it has a different tonal feeling to it. And it has a sense of adventure because it's a game. And, you know, of course, people can set time or, you know, certain things that they don't want to do.

54:43But essentially, the agreement between consenting adults is for this time, I'm going to do whatever you said you wanted. Right. Right. And then that can go sexual or non-sexual. It's a great game. And then one of my set of clients who I started this with, what they do is they take the few days later, they take the piece of paper and they go, how was that? Do we want to put that back in the jar or not? Oh, right. And then they often have a conversation where they go, oh, no, I don't think so. That's not my thing. and then the other person might say but i really love that and then it goes like okay well it goes on your on your list and so you kind of in a very playful non-threatening and also non-chore way massage your relational sexual intimate erotic life without it being a problem right right that's the thing it can't be a problem you have to do these things and not as a problem right now because the other side of catch them when they do something good is say something negative while they're trying to offer you a gift or service or an experience that kills it yeah that's no that's terrible no that's yeah yeah and then the last thing i want to say about people with young children and their sex life going is i think it's important that people don't do that enough is to essentially have a real sit down on occasion with a therapist or without and say where are we with the let's say purpose of our relationship so we're pregnant now this is we're going to be parents now are we do we know what that means what do we know we need to maintain in this phase of being parents what can go what's important relationally but also community wise what's not so that both partners know what to expect no that doesn't often happen so one person still thinks you know they will be swinging off the chandeliers after the baby is put to bed and the other person doesn't want to be touched ever again yeah well it's just so interesting you know it's like we seem to be so so many of us anyway seem to be so drawn to be in a committed long-term partnership and yet it is full of ups and downs and and it's really i think becomes you know it it really all those moments do become opportunities to like have real intimacy with someone as opposed to like lust or attraction you know it's only through moving through those difficult times where things don't feel as intuitive and you're fighting for it you know you're fighting for this the relationship that exists between the two people.