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Born and raised into a musicians’ family in Bulgaria, Alexandra Dotcheva came to the US in 2000 after earning a bachelor’s degree in Music from the National Academy of Music in Sofia. She earned a Doctor of Musical Arts in Violin Performance from Louisiana State University in 2007 and decided to pursue a career in nursing in 2008.

Alexandra Dotcheva has been practicing as a registered nurse since 2011, with a strong passion for educating patients on acquiring optimal health. She also has interests in martial arts, fitness, finance, and investing. Her mission is to help people overcome self-imposed limitations that prevent many from realizing their goals, finding peace of mind, and acquiring prosperity. By sharing her own journey to achieving control over the most important aspects of life, Alexandra’s goal is to inspire others to turn away from various forms of fear and self-doubt and go after their dreams instead of leading lives subdued to conventional ways of thinking that have long been proven outdated, inadequate, and damaging to a person’s self-esteem and self-confidence. 

Important Links: 

• More about Alexandra - www.holisticselfconfidence.com

• Purchase Holistic Self-Confidence - https://www.holisticselfconfidence.com/shop

• Read Alexandra’s blog - https://www.holisticselfconfidence.com/blog 

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EPISODE 218: Alexandra Dotcheva

[Fun, Empowering Music] 

Amanda Testa: Hello, and welcome to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. I am your host, Amanda Testa. I am a sex, love, and relationship coach, and in this podcast, my guests and I talk sex, love, and relationships, and everything that lights you up from the inside out. Welcome!

If you are looking to stop getting stuck in self-doubt and grow your confidence, then kickback and enjoy this episode because this week on the podcast I'm talking with Alexandra Dotcheva on holistic ways to more self-confidence.

Hello, hello, and thank you for being here. I'm your host, Amanda Testa, and I just welcome you, Alexandra. Thank you so much for being here.

Alexandra Dotcheva: Thank you for having me, Amanda. I greatly appreciate it.

Amanda Testa: Yes, and I'm gonna have her share a little more of her story in a moment, but she is a hospital nurse and a one-time celebrated concert violinist in a very competitive world of symphony orchestras. So she is no stranger to self-doubt and low self-confidence, and so, she's gonna share a little bit from her own journey about how she really turned that around, made herself a self-made millionaire as well as really becoming an expert on her holistic health and wellbeing, and so, welcome! Thank you so much for being here.

0:01:11

Alexandra Dotcheva: It's a pleasure. Thank you. 

I will make the story of my life very short so you can actually ask the questions that will be relevant to your listeners, but yes, I was a violinist for 26 years before I decided to pursue nursing. I came to The United States in 2000 from Bulgaria. I had already earned my bachelor's degree in music. I earned my Master's and Doctoral in Violin from Louisiana State University, and then I moved to Syracuse, New York. I was employed with the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra. In 2006, the market started shrinking, the orchestra started bankrupting, and I figured, well, something bad is really gonna happen. So in 2008, I figured, well, 2 of my closest friends and colleagues from the professor we worked with in Louisiana, they started pursuing finances and medicine respectively. They were two of the most gifted musicians that we had in our class during our study time, and I had to wake up and say I am really stuck in a field where I can't make any more progress because of my bad self-inflicted history, twenty-years-long of self-doubt and stage fright. 

0:02:06

I really struggled with stage fright quite a bit. I was able to give decent recitals, but when it came to orchestra auditions for the really competitive orchestras that would make a difference in my financial life -- you compete between 4,500 people, and I realized around 32 years old, if I don’t try something new now, I'll greatly regret 30 years from now.

So nursing was one option that you don’t get stuck in school forever. I had been in college for eleven years, mind you, before I made that decision, and it's a profession in high demand. My parents were terrified over the telephone. "Wait, what do you mean, nursing? You know this is one of the hardest professions imaginable? Do you know what it is to deal with human suffering? Do you have any idea what you're getting into -- or death?" I said, "Yes, I would like to do that because, honestly, guys," I told them over the phone, "I really have not developed any clear idea about real life and real people's problems being a violinist for 26 years. I need to change that so I can grow my self-confidence by learning to solve problems that I haven’t been willing to solve up to this point."

0:03:04

So nursing school, that was interesting because I had no science basis whatsoever. I had only learned music subjects. It was funny, the community college, they said, "Oh, we can probably use your music theory as one of these credits." I said, "No, guys. It has absolutely nothing to do with science, so everything here starts from scratch, literally." A late starter, right? That's what the book I wrote is all about, the late starters in life, the people who try to change their life, decide to change their life, even if they're in their 30s and 40s, in spite of you being told, "Oh, it's too late to learn something new." Learning starts when you get a grasp that you are responsible for your life and that if you don’t help yourself, nobody else will help you, right?

So nursing school, then I became a nurse in 2011, and I stopped playing the violin. The orchestra bankrupted in 2011, and I had a job waiting in the ICU at that point. Ironic timing, but great timing for me, not so much for my colleagues who didn’t pursue any other skills, unfortunately. So with nursing, I had encountered a double standard of hypocrisy of the contemporary Western healthcare system. 

0:04:00

I saw how chronic diseases are treated as very profitable venues for the industry. I learned that healthcare is the most profitable business in this country and is the first cause of personal bankruptcy in the US, which I found very disturbing. Okay, so I figured besides the job, I need to do something to secure my retirement but not the stock market, not a 401K because we know what happened in 2008 with 401Ks when people in their sixties lost their entire retirements. You can't recover when you're in your sixties and try to wait for a recovering market. It never recovers as fast as it crashes so I became an investor. I started investing in rental real estate. I have three real estate businesses right now which I manage happily by myself with my boyfriend who's a great, great sport. I've learned so much from him. He's been a nurse for 30 years now in the nursing home.

So, currently, we're completely financially independent. I also create options, right? So all this learning came over the past 10, 12 years because we wanted to expand our knowledge to have more and more options for multiple streams of income. 

0:05:02

The relationship has only strengthened from that because we're not worried anymore about, "What if I get fired tomorrow?" "What if the employer wants us to do something that we find profoundly unethical and we don’t want to go along with it and get fired or invited to resign," you know? So we don't have to worry about that anymore, and along this process of creating optimal health for ourselves with our organic whole foods, vegan diet for the last four-and-a-half years now, our crazy fitness routines and our financial freedom, we have also learned to very carefully select our relationships -- very carefully because time is your most valuable asset, and if you lose it, you can't get it back. If you waste your time on people who constantly argue with you, who defend their old ways of thinking against the status quo and conventional thinking and stop you from your own progress, you will not flourish in your life, and you will not be holistic, and you really have to align your existence with people who are like-minded even if they pursue different goals, but they are just as task-oriented and determined and self-reliant and resilient as you are, and they inspire you and you inspire them in return. So that's in a nutshell.

0:06:12

Amanda Testa: Yes, well, I know that's the Cliff Notes of a very long journey, and I just really want to celebrate, like you even say, that decision to go down a path where you had no experience to try to solve problems you'd never solved to get over the self-doubt, and to also have options of ways to not be stuck, financially too, you know, and that we're never too old to learn something new.

Alexandra Dotcheva: Exactly, exactly. Yeah, thank you.  

Amanda Testa: Yeah, and I'm wondering, too, if it feels okay to share, maybe if you could kind of talk a little bit more about some of the ways that you noticed your self-doubt changing as you kind of decided to follow a new path --

Alexandra Dotcheva: Of course.

Amanda Testa: -- of solving problems you'd never solved before.

Alexandra Dotcheva: Absolutely. It was an interesting combination of desperation, fear, inspiration and curiosity that -- that's a strange amalgamation of factors there, a heck of a combination when they hit you at the same time at the right time in your life, but you either embrace it or you let them crush you because if your fear and desperation are stronger than your inspiration and curiosity, then you're screwed, right? 

0:07:12

But if you manage to equalize them and kind of transform your anxiety from the fear of failure into something that will motivate you to keep yourself accountable, you make it an ally, and the longer nights that you can't sleep, you gradually reconcile and say, "Okay, I’m anxious right now, and my fear is completely normal, but I have to dive into this new field. I have to solve these problems because otherwise I will not build my self-esteem, I will not build my character," which I really recognized that I was lacking character. I was very afraid of failure. I was extremely insecure, as if somebody cared if I failed or not. Once I realized that nobody gave a, you know, crap about me, I figured I'm my most important self-advocate, and that's where it all started.

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

Alexandra Dotcheva: I will do my path ethically and morally. I won't hurt others in the process, but I will pursue my path as long as I have a plan and goals. 

0:08:02

So I realized I needed a plan and I needed goals. Once that was in place, and you start following that, that's the latter. You might modify it, but you never lose sight of your final destination and your craziest dream. I learned I had to have crazy dreams that just build my first move and my second and so on, which is completely possible, and it's not about the money, it's about your ability to make that journey and recreate yourself and believe in your abilities to create a better life than your parents had and an example that they gave that you may think is nice, but in some cases it's not so nice because you think you're stuck in that same predicament, and you really aren’t. You really shouldn’t be.

Amanda Testa: Yes, and I think one of the things -- I love the term "holistic" because it does take into account all the different factors happening, and so, when you are speaking to holistic self-confidence, what do you mean by that?

Alexandra Dotcheva: For the sake of simplicity, I have divided life into five important pillars. The health, the spirituality, the career, the finances, and the relationships. 

0:09:02

So without optimal health, you won't be able to work and create multiple streams of income. So you won't be able to perform properly in your career field because you will not meet the capacity to match up with your peers and really deliver to your clients or patients or whoever your clientele is. Will you be able to appreciate your efforts and your work if you're not optimally healthy? A lot of medical bills will suck your bank account, and you won't be able to build your financial foundation for further streams of income so you can retire richer than you were when you were working as opposed to poorer. Many people carry the mindset of once I retire, I'll be poorer than when I was working, and that's why they keep working until their 70s and sometimes their 80s right now. It's just really, really heartbreaking to see people in their 80s and late 70s. They work because they have to, but not necessarily because they want to, right? 

As far as the career and building multiple streams of income, when you have the financial stability, then you can allow yourself to not work yourself to the bone for an employer and go to the fitness, to your diet, to your own cooking instead of relying on outside food which is really unhealthy. 

0:10:08

The restaurant food -- we don’t touch restaurant food. For years we haven’t. I mean, super few exceptions maybe once a year, but it's never our constant lifestyle. If I don’t buy the ingredients and cook them myself, I don’t touch it, right? That's the healthiest way to live and the most economical, honestly. Even if you have a lot of money, if you learn how to feed yourself economically and support your household like a very highly-efficient operation, the better for you and the more your wealth will grow without you necessarily displaying status in society because that's never been my thing. You know, I don't drive a Lamborghini for a Ferrari. They say, "Well, why don’t you buy this expensive car?" Well, because that's not in alignment with my values at all. Status has never been my thing. I just want to be completely independent with my health, my spirituality, my finances, my career, my relationships so I don’t have to rely on anybody, and that's the beautiful aspect of life. I'm the expert of my own life. That's all I need. Does that make sense?

0:11:02

Amanda Testa: Yes, that does make sense. So you have the five pillars, and they all build upon one another.

Alexandra Dotcheva: Exactly.

Amanda Testa: Yeah, and I think that's so important, too, when it also comes to, like we were talking earlier, relationships and sexuality and all the things. Everything affects everything, right? 

Alexandra Dotcheva: Yes.

Amanda Testa: We're not living in silos with just one aspect of ourselves, yeah.

Alexandra Dotcheva: Correct, correct.

Amanda Testa: Yeah, and I'm wondering, too -- because, often, there are things that we can control and things that we can't control. I'm wondering when it comes to resilience and self-confidence in handling the unknowns or the things that life throws your way that are unexpected, what are some tips you have around staying confident when that happens?

Alexandra Dotcheva: My tips are that many people think that they can't control things that they actually can control. First of all, you need to learn to control yourself. Now, in my case, I have to share that I was a martial artist for almost 12 years, and that tremendously helped with my self-control. Martial arts, people misunderstand. You know, oh, yeah, you can beat people. Yeah, you can, but that's not the point. The point is to, first of all, control yourself, and then you are able to defend yourself if need be, but the perseverance and the resilience and the control of yourself is what will allow you to better distinguish what you really can't control, and then you have to adapt to that if it is within your ethical and moral standards. 

0:12:16

If it's not, then you probably can take yourself away from a situation and create a new circumstance that can work for you, ethically and morally. It's a big game, a brain game, a spirituality game, if you wish, and it's a constant debate within yourself, and if you give me a more specific example of what you can or you can't control, I can give you a more specific answer, but because everybody's life is different, that's kind of a hard question to answer.

Amanda Testa: Yes, but I do appreciate that just kind of really focusing on the things that you can control and not letting the things that you can't control kind of sway that, but, you know, one of the things I was just thinking is in my own personal life, my husband is in holistic healthcare, and he's super -- he eats very healthily, he works out, he does all the right things, right? Then, he had a stroke last year which was unexpected and, thankfully, he's fine, right? 

0:12:59

So I think for him, that threw him for a loop thinking, “Oh I thought I could control my health because I do take such good care of myself, and I work out all the time, and I do all the things that are right,” but yet, still, there are some things that we just can't control, right? So I think in that aspect, in some ways, I would say the blessings from that were, A, that he totally recovered. It has been a little bit of a journey of just kind of coming back to, well, we really can't control anything. We can control some things, like we can control our daily habits and rituals and routines that support us. We can control who we surround ourselves with, right? We can control what we put into our bodies. We can control what we move away from. So there is actually a lot that we can do to give us that sense of comfort and confidence even when things outside might feel hard, I guess is what my question is in a deeper sense.

Alexandra Dotcheva: Right, that's the struggle. I'm very sorry to hear that. I mean, I know there are three types of strokes. I would love to look through a person's diet if I know they had a stroke and they think they ate healthy. We chose to eat completely plant-based with no added oils whatsoever to prevent strokes. Now, hemorrhagic strokes, that's a different story, right -- different reasons, but as far as clotting strokes and embolic and thrombotic strokes, these are very tightly linked to fatty animal and processed food products 'cause the plants don’t have that type of fat, and then when you exercise and all that, I know the stroke risk is exceptionally low in that case. 

0:14:15

Of course, I don’t know your husband's case. My respects for him recovering, and I wish him very lasting health from now on. A scary event for sure, and if you recover, that's very fortunate for you, and I hope he is fully functional.

Amanda Testa: Yes, yes, thank you. Yes, thank you. Yes, and so, what I'm wondering, too, when it comes to finding the things that you can focus on that you can control even when it feels hard, what would be some tips on the days where you're just like, "Yeah, it's hard today." How do you go forward and reconnect to the will and the persistence when it feels challenging?

Alexandra Dotcheva: I recreate my whole path of creating goals and the most important goals, and I focus on them once again. During my day, I really try to enjoy and appreciate the very small things that happen that many people may not notice, okay? 

0:15:03

For everybody that's different, but you can play your mind to make yourself laugh or cry if you want to because only you can control your thought process, okay? You can only influence others so much depending on the circumstance, if you can't control, you will have to try to make the best out of it because those problems are the ones that make us grow the most if we utilize them properly, like, learn from what happened, what are possible solutions, what can you solve, what can you do differently next time to avoid this from happening, right? It's very important to analyze the situation instead of just, "Oh, my gosh, what happened," and to completely freak out. It's hard to do sometimes, but the sooner you get control over your thought process in such a situation, the better off you will be for the rest of your day and the better you will sleep that night.

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Alexandra Dotcheva: The less you let it overwhelm you, the shorter amount of damage and the shortest amount of time you allow this event to cause you, the better off you will be. It's the same -- like, it's opposite when you say you meet a horrible attacker in the street, that you have to handle your goals to cause the biggest amount of damage in the shortest amount of time. 

0:16:05

But when you get that event that you can't control, then you control your mind over it. Consider it staying healthy in the event that you are able to make your own decisions, right, if a situation offers.

Amanda Testa: Yes, I do love the mindset piece. I think mindset is so important in everything, right? Whatever you are focusing on in your life, having those goals and really letting your mindset support what you want, right? It's very easy to have those negative thoughts or those self-critical thoughts or the thoughts that maybe were the voices of whatever the inner critics that we have, right?

Alexandra Dotcheva: You've just got to prioritize. What is the most important thing for me to do and understand in the moment so I can move forward to the next step and get out of the situation. Prioritization, yeah.

Amanda Testa: Yes, and I think, too, when you were talking about enjoying the small moments, I think that's such a huge thing. I'm wondering if you could maybe talk a little more about that 'cause I feel like, as someone who's devoted to pleasure, I think that is such a great way to tap into the core of it. 

Alexandra Dotcheva: Yes, it's a great way. For example, I like the drive between patients' homes, especially if I know that the next patient is gonna be a train wreck. So the ride, I try to look at every tree, every flower. In some familiar areas of the area that I live in Phoenix I know which seasons in certain landscapes they plant the certain flowers that I like. 

0:17:19

So I make my way to look at the flowers and smell them if I’m at a traffic light, but I've been in the profession for almost eight years now, so I know where I'm driving and what I'm doing without prolonging the trip between me and the patient because I have to be at the patient's home on time, but you create nice moments during the drive, and then once you get to the patient (which is your real performance and your real test), you try to make them as comfortable as possible by being genuine, such as my behavior with patients is very different from what you see from me right now because the patient is the sacred person right now that you absolutely have to help. So that gives me pleasure too, when I see that the patient is responding, and they appreciate that I genuinely care. 

0:18:02

Being a homecare nurse, honestly, allows me to teach patients more than when I was in the hospital. Other small things that you notice is the relief when the job is well done. You have communicated properly with your client (what they need to do, and hopefully they do it), but then, you realize if you don’t do it, that's not your responsibility anymore, so that's the matter of a source of relief. I mean, constantly, you create little things that you will see. Okay, I did this, but as far as pleasure, to me, the pleasure is if I can control right now pretty much everything I do which I didn’t feel I was able to for a very long time. So that alone gives me satisfaction, and I kind of -- it's not like you're coasting. You're always vigilant because things can go wrong very quickly before you even blink. That's happened to me too.

So constant vigilance is great, and then at the end of the day you're happy because you were able to be vigilant and not screw things up on the way, and everything went the way you planned or a little bit different but, still, it was under control. 

0:19:00

When they say life is what happens to you on top of what you plan -- while planning for life, life happens to you, right? So you have to be able to balance these two realities and still make it work for yourself, and then you're doing great if you can do that.

Amanda Testa: I think that balance piece is key of being able to, you know, kind of have a plan and be aware of what's happening in the moments, and also allowing for when the unexpected happens that you can get your mindset to support you in keeping moving forward by focusing on the things that you can control, yeah.

I'm wondering, too, you mentioned that you feel like you can work more with a patient being a home nurse than in the hospital system or another system like that. I'm curious why do you feel that way or what about it makes it easier to do?

Alexandra Dotcheva: You don’t have five call lights ringing at you at the same time.

Amanda Testa: Right.

Alexandra Dotcheva: You focus on the very same patient for an hour, an hour-and-a-half while in the home. You can answer all of their questions. You can thoroughly address their needs if you see that they have missed something that they could have done differently, and so you validate their ideas, they have the time to validate your ideas, and you can also tell them things that they won't normally hear from their doctor or from the healthcare system. 

0:20:10

For example, with the diet, I mean, there's such a discrepancy. Nutritional science is something that I have embraced, and many doctors and nurses have not because of the way we're schooled and dictated by the pharmaceutical industry. It's a very different approach, so I gear towards making people as independent from drugs as possible because I don’t take any pharmaceutical drugs. I'm 46 years old. My boyfriend's 50 years old. He doesn’t take any pharmaceutical drugs, but he did have two conditions that were potentially very damaging, hypertension and diabetes type two -- prediabetic, he became, and that's where he freaked out. That's when we started the vegan diet four-and-a-half years ago, and four months later, he didn’t have hypertension, he didn’t have high cholesterol, he didn’t have prediabetes anymore, and the cholesterol and hypertension had been problems for fifteen years from him. Now, he's free of those at age 50 which sounds crazy, but, again, with the proper direction and nutrition -- so when you say one-to-one patient care is much better quality of the delivery through a message for true health, but you also need to have the knowledge, and you also have to live 100 percent by your own example. 

0:21:11

I can't teach people nutrition and exercise if I don’t exercise like a fiend and I'm not completely physically fit because they notice right away. I won't tell you how many times patients have said, "Oh, thank you for not being a morbidly obese healthcare professional." It's like, "Oh, I'm not sure that's a compliment, but thanks for saying that," you know, because they have seen the double standard when they go to the hospital. Oh, we have these people, you know. You can tell they're sick and they're overweight and they teach us how to be healthy. How do they have credibility? Well, we don’t get credibility if we don’t live by personal example. So this is where the homecare nursing becomes very useful.

The other thing that's very good about homecare nursing which many people don’t realize, is they say, “Oh, well, that's a specialty. That’s a specialty because you're in the patient's home.” If you see how some people live, that you just -- in the emergency room where my boyfriend is, you see people with every disease known to man because you go to house where there are all sorts of sick people. All sorts of sick people come to the emergency room in a much more acute state. 

0:22:06

So we're not really specialty in terms of specializing in one condition, you see everything and you learn from everything. If you're willing to learn instead of saying, "Oh, I don’t want to learn about this condition," because some people get overwhelmed, right? You see all sorts of diseases, and you get overwhelmed, and you pick and choose your favorites. No, you get exposed to everything. You hear their problems, you listen to them because many of them really just crave to be listened to.

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm.

Alexandra Dotcheva: And I cannot tell you how much I have learned from patients, even more at this point than what I learned while I was reading, eight to nine hours a day, my nursing textbooks and doing clinicals for twelve hours.

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Alexandra Dotcheva: You can never underestimate your experience and what you can learn from your clients, in my case patients. 

Amanda Testa: Yes, so true. I'm wondering, too, you know, it sounds like one of the things you mentioned, too, is one of the pillars is spirituality.

Alexandra Dotcheva: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: I'm wondering how do you integrate spirituality into your goals and your career and all the things?

Alexandra Dotcheva: If I achieve what I want in a legal and ethical manner, that's a very spiritually uplifting path for me and keeps me going. 

0:23:04

I like to meditate. That is my way to clean my mind. In the spiritual chapter of the book, I have discussed, of course, meditation as a way to detox your mind and clean it away. Then, inspiration is the nourishment part of mind. That is in chapter eight. Then, chapter 13 is about lifelong learning. That's also part of spirituality because that's the brain's fitness strategy. You keep learning all your life, and your brain stays alive, awake, and vigilant and flexible and all that. You don’t fall into old patterns and you don’t get old that way if you keep learning, but as far as spirituality, there are two components, to me, at least. It's the freeing of your mind through meditation because you have to get rid of these heady thoughts, the ones that don't contribute to your personal growth. Those thoughts have to be removed every day, and then to allow your mind to get inspired and nourished, it's best to start fresh, clean the next day and to be able to absorb anything that will help your personal growth and the growth of those around you.

0:24:02

Amanda Testa: I'm curious, for you, what are some of the things that inspire you that you use to kind of fill your brain with inspiration and motivation?

Alexandra Dotcheva: Other people's successes inspire me very much.

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm.

Alexandra Dotcheva: Yeah, it used to be the other way when we were growing up. You know, we are envious of other people's successes, but if somebody has achieved something from nothing, I get very inspired, and I push myself to do more because I said, "Ah, clearly they can do it. I can do more," right, instead of being resentful. So that's very inspiring when I see people succeeding and really benefiting others in the process. I think that's great.

Amanda Testa: Yes, I love that. I think that's such a great thing to observe because I think in this day and age with social media and all the things and people can find it really easy to compare themselves to others. That can be a real damaging thing to your self-confidence and self-esteem. So I wonder what you might have to say around when you -- maybe sharing a little bit more about how you turned that thought around from being envious or resentful to being inspiring.

0:24:56

Alexandra Dotcheva: The fitness helped very much with that because after having done martial arts for 11 years, I hit the gym very, very hard because I had sustained two injuries which I resolved to remove from my body which I did, but the fitness, interestingly, I had a very intense instructor (whom I’ve described in detail in chapter six on exercise). My master was Greg Tearney and his wonderful, wonderful wife, Master Judy Tearney. She was the first blackbelt karate woman in America, but he taught us mind over matter, and when I went into fitness, there were two things out of everything. You won't believe, but during the black belt cycles, he was making us do over 500 push-ups and 500 sit-ups in between all the sparring rounds, which are ridiculous. He made us run uphill for a 5K the first day of the black belt class. We were preparing for this for years, of course, but the gym, when I went, I figured, you know, I've never done pull-ups and dips, so I felt very embarrassed about that because I was otherwise very strong, but pull-ups and dips, these are among the hardest things, especially the pull-ups with full-range motion. So I started doing them with the assisted pull-ups machine, and I saw people were looking at me, especially the young ones because I was older, right? 

0:26:01

I was 41 at the time, and that's where I made a decision. You care what others think about you. It's not your business. Let them watch all they want. You are focused on your pull-ups. You want to be able to do 100 pull-ups a year from now. You need to focus on the pull-ups. Don't focus on these people, and I adopted that mindset with every other thing that I did at the gym and in my job as well, as soon as I did well, and now I'm able to do over 100 pull-ups in a session without a problem, without any assisted pull-up dip machine, and nobody's watching or laughing. They watch it, but they don’t laugh anymore. [Laughs] It's the opposite --

Amanda Testa: Right, that's impressive.

Alexandra Dotcheva: -- because here I am 46 now, you know, and 100 dips, 100 pull-ups, 8 to 12 miles on the bicycle with the highest resistance from start to finish without even stopping for a water, I mean, these are things that you build with consistency or you stop caring about what others think about you, 'cause those who still care what others think about them, they're exactly where they were six years ago at the gym. They're now the same exact way. They're doing the same exercises. They think they're exercises; they're like mild warm-ups as far as I'm concerned, right? 

0:27:06

But this mindset, you transfer everywhere in your life, in every other aspect, and once you have experience with many things that you are doing, you need to be able to connect the dots and see how all of them relate, and you can have the same mental approach with everything you do, and it works. It's just that very small switch in mindset that you've got to stick with and believe it and just trust it.

Amanda Testa: Yes, and I think the practicing is the key, right?

Alexandra Dotcheva: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: The continued practice and focus. 

Alexandra Dotcheva: Not compromise.

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm. Yeah, so I'm wondering, too, if there's any other question that you really wish that I would have asked or if there are any other words you want to share about the book or about what you want people to know.

Alexandra Dotcheva: With respect to the book, I wrote it because people started asking all these questions, right? So I eventually organized and said what if I just tell them what I did because they always ask me, "How are you so physically fit? How are you able to do this diet? Where do I start with being on a vegan healthy diet?" There is a whole chapter with recipes from my own household, super simple recipes. I'm very -- I can't imagine cooking every day. No, we cook twice a week. It takes me 45 minutes to cook, and then we eat.

0:28:09

So investing chapters and all that, it's also drawn completely from my personal experience so people can see how you can start investing, how you can learn or get involved, and I believe I have exhausted pretty much the five aspects in a comprehensive way that gives you a system, and it's based on experience. There is no BS. Your experience will be different, but I want you to see that I struggled a lot with tremendous self-doubt to the point of self-humiliation just to earn some approval from others, and that was in my teenage years and early 20s and late 20s. If people are hesitant to start something new or they're in a midlife crisis, that's the best book for them, truthfully, right now because it's very organized, it's very methodical and easy to read --

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm.

Alexandra Dotcheva: -- is what I'm told from everybody who has bought it so far, and that's just it. You can always afford to buy a book. 

0:29:00

I have it on electronic and paperback versions so whichever suits you best, give it a try, and see what fits!

Amanda Testa: Beautiful, and, you know, one other question that I wanted to ask, too, is around the financial aspect in finding the money habits that support you. I'm wondering if you might just share a little bit about some ways that -- 'cause, again, like you mentioned, if you don’t have the financial wellbeing or there's constant fear, then that's gonna affect your health, and that's gonna affect your relationships and everything else. So I'm wondering if you were to share just maybe one or two tips around creating the money habits that serve you, what would you share?

Alexandra Dotcheva: Yeah, you need to make a difference between things that bring value in your life and those that don’t bring value in your life. So, for one thing, you want to stay away from credit card debt, but you can have debt when it’s rental properties. Tenants pay for this debt and you provide a nice place for them to live, an affordable place to live, I have to say. Don't bank on your tenants if you want them to respect you. Right now, this is very relevant with what happened with the COVID crisis and everything, but when you save money, first of all, you have to save much more than 10 percent of your income if you really want to get anywhere faster, but the saved money, you first invest in your financial education, and by financial education I mean all of my teachers, all of my mentors are self-made millionaires. 

0:30:12

I didn’t go take a financial college class because I know the professor earns a salary to make ends meet. I already knew how to do that, so I didn’t want somebody to teach me how to make money when they're relying on a salary themselves, so I need to know how the self-made millionaires made their money from scratch so I can become one of them. 

So I paid a couple of them for their online training, information products you buy, and you apply these strategies to your life, and it helped me. I was told, "Oh, these are scammers. Don’t do that, The Rich Dad Company. I studied with The Rich Dad Company, Robert Kiyosaki. I was warned against their teachings by people that were just as poor and financially ignorant as I was. As much as they were very well-intended, I decided not to listen to them, and said, "Well, let me see. I can risk some money and buy the courses." First, I read six of his books, of course. Then, I decided to buy the courses online, and the best money ever spent. 

0:31:04

They teach you how to prioritize. They teach you financial statements, and I'm not advertising, necessarily, The Rich Dad Company courses. There are other investment programs that you can do, but just research for yourself. Don’t be afraid to learn, read reviews, spend a little money, buy their books, see if you can trust them, and really don't buy things just to show off what you have. Create financial goals, realize how much you want your net worth by the time you're 60 or 65 or 55, again, depending on your goals. I, personally, am not very fond of the net worth concept. I really like the -- I'm a cash flow investor more so than capital gains and net worth. I mean, your net worth grows naturally, but cash flow, multiple streams of income that you can rely on for the rest of your life, and you want assets that are -- the income is slowly taxed, not like the earned income, that is the highest tax income. You have income from rental real estate. That's the lowest-taxed income because it's passive. Learn the difference between commissions and passive income and portfolio income. 

0:32:03

There is so much to learn in the financial world, but it all depends on your goals and plans, and most people don’t have a goal because they don’t know what will really make them happy. They have these generic ideas, "Oh, I want more money," but why do you want more money? "I want to be in good health." Why? Do you want to achieve something amazing that you need the good health for, like the really hardworking and successful people need their health to achieve all they achieve, or do you just talk to make yourself liked to your friends and neighbors? It's really interesting when you hear people talk, when you realize they really don’t have much in terms of goals.

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm.

Alexandra Dotcheva: The financial aspect is no less. People are so irresponsible, financially. Look at the credit card crisis in this country right now. It's not a new thing, of course, but I never had credit card debt. My bank pays me every month to use their card. I've never paid interest in my -- for the last six years, I have not paid a penny of interest to my credit card or bank, but I get their cash rewards every month. They pay me to [Laughs] use their card. I've written in detail about this in chapter ten, the financial discipline, education, and education.

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm.

0:33:04

Alexandra Dotcheva: And then the next chapter is about financial growth and investing.

Amanda Testa: One of the things I just want to share about that is, you know, like you say, you're never too late to learn something, and it can sometimes feel overwhelming, but really, it's not when you take it simply and just step-by-step, right? You can learn anything, and I think -- 

Alexandra Dotcheva: Just don't stop after step four! [Laughs] Keep on with five, six, seven.

Amanda Testa: Yes, well, that's the thing, too. I was listening to someone the other day -- I can't remember who -- but talking about that's what the master knows. When you're at the mastery, there is never a stop to the learning, right?

Alexandra Dotcheva: No.

Amanda Testa: There is never a stop, and that's what the master knows. You're not gonna stop learning. You're gonna always learn new things, and you’ve got to continue the learning process.

Alexandra Dotcheva: Yes, ma'am, and my most favorite from martial arts is, “The difference between the master and the beginner is that the master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried,” and this is such a true statement. There's a lot of failure in life, but if you treat it as a learning curve, then it's not really a failure. It's just you discovered one more way that it didn’t work. That's what [INDISCERNIBLE] said once upon a time. [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Alexandra Dotcheva: Yeah.

0:34:05

Amanda Testa: Well, thank you so much for being here and for sharing all of these beautiful inspirations and also to share more about your book, Holistic Self-Confidence. I'm wondering if you could just let everyone know where the best place to find you is and learn more about how they can get the book.

Alexandra Dotcheva: I do have a website. It's www.holisticselfconfidence.com, no dashes. The book is purchasable in paperback and eBook formats. I also have a blog that people can read. I just recently posted the sixth blog post 'cause I just started, right? They can read the blog. It's free, obviously, so they can see if they are interested in trusting me or not before they buy the book, but, like I said, the book is one of the most affordable ways to learn, then you buy courses from other people. That's a little bit more challenging for your financial organization, but I started through books. That's how I started my learning. I was clueless about finances, about health in many ways 15 years ago, and piece by piece, you just build your knowledge and make better decisions.

0:35:00

Amanda Testa: Yes, and that's what I love about the library, too, right? You don’t have to have a bunch of money to put in to learn. You can even just go to the library and get books which is great.

Alexandra Dotcheva: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That's right. That's right.

Amanda Testa: Well, thank you so much again, and I'll make sure to put in the show notes where you can find more about Alexandra and how to connect and get her book. Thank you all for listening, and thank you again for being here, Alexandra.

Alexandra Dotcheva: A pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for having me, Amanda.

Amanda Testa: Yes, we will see you all next week.

[Fun, Empowering Music]

Thank you so much for listening to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. This is your host, Amanda Testa, and if you have felt a calling while listening to this podcast to take this work to a deeper level, this is your golden invitation. 

I invite you to reach out. You can contact me at amandatesta.com/activate, and we can have a heart-to-heart to discuss more about how this work can transform your life. You can also join us on Facebook in the Find Your Feminine Fire group, and if you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please share with your friends. 

0:36:03

Go to iTunes and give me a five-star rating and a rating and a raving review so I can connect with other amazing listeners like yourself. 

Thank you so much for being a part of the community.

[Fun, Empowering Music]

JOIN IN THE DISCUSSION ON THIS EPISODE AND MORE IN MY FREE FACEBOOK GROUP, FIND YOUR FEMININE FIRE HERE.

Jayson Gaddis is a relationship expert and sought-after coach, as well as the Founder of The Relationship School and host of the successful Relationship School podcast. Jayson leads the most comprehensive relationship training in the world of intimate relationships and partnership, as well as trains and certifies relationship coaches. He has a master’s in psychology and lives with his wife and two children in Boulder, Colorado. Keep reading about Jayson here.

Get his book, Getting To Zero, HERE.

Follow Jayson on instagram HERE.

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If you've been interested in learning more about coaching with Amanda, she's now booking coaching clients for 1-1 support in creating the relationship and orgasmic pleasure of their dreams.   If you’ve been thinking about it, maybe we should talk!  Link here to book a free call to see if we’re a fit. 

EPISODE 217: Jayson Gaddis

[Fun, Empowering Music] 

Amanda Testa: Hello, and welcome to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. I am your host, Amanda Testa. I am a sex, love, and relationship coach, and in this podcast, my guests and I talk sex, love, and relationships, and everything that lights you up from the inside out. Welcome!

Hello, and welcome! If you are wanting to resolve conflict more easily in your relationship, then you are going to be in for a treat today because, as you are well aware, conflict in relationships is unavoidable, but there are ways to move through it to emerge stronger and more connected. So, today, I'm thrilled to be talking with Jayson Gaddis. He's a relationship expert, founder of The Relationship School and host of The Relationship School Podcast. He's also the author of the book Getting to Zero: How to Work Through Conflict in Your High-Stakes Relationships. So welcome, Jayson. Thank you for being here.

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah, thank you for having me, Amanda.

Amanda Testa: I'd love if you wouldn’t mind just sharing a little bit about why this topic is so near and dear to your heart or why you're so passionate about this work.

​​0:01:02

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah, well, it's something we all struggle with (including me), and it's just the uncomfortable part of relationships, and there's a tremendous amount of opportunity with any uncomfortable thing in relationships. So I love it as a personal-growth vehicle, and also I have a history of being difficult and struggling with conflict in my family and also growing up and then as a young man. So it's just a complicated thing that I want to figure out.

Amanda Testa: Yes. I feel like it's unavoidable and, often, we aren't giving good models of how to resolve conflict or how to -- I mean, some people are, but many of us are not. I fall into that category, and so, I know there are so many different ways people react when they're triggered or when their partner triggers them or someone at work or a friend. Specifically today, I'd like to talk about this in romantic relationship and long-term relationship because I think we can fall into these patterns that we repeat again and again, and I'm wondering if you wouldn’t mind sharing a little bit about some of the main ways people typically respond when they're triggered and why.

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah, yeah, I say there's four ways we disconnect with our, what I call, The Scared Animal, 'cause we're social mammals. We love being together even though we're difficult with each other sometimes. So the worst thing we can do is be cast out or rejected from the herd, so we react, and it's really understandable. Some of us get big. Some of us get small. So I call them the four disconnectors: we posture, we collapse, we seek, we avoid, or we might have a hybrid of several of those.

Amanda Testa: And would you mind going into a little more detail about what each one of those means?

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah, so posture is like we kind of puff up and get loud, maybe a little aggressive. We yell. We raise our voice. We get intense and pursue the person, and that falls under the seeking person which is also the person who feels anxious, and they want to get the connection back, and they might not posture so much but they usually are using words, and their energy, it feels -- their partner might judge them as needy or clingy or desperate or sensitive or whatever. 

0:03:02

Then there's the collapsers, and they typically shut down and get really quiet, and they might stay in the room, but they sort of freeze and don’t say anything. Then the avoiders are another version of collapsing but they typically run away (either literally or in their mind they'll dissociate) or they will leave the room. If anything gets hard, they slowly walk out of the room, and they just keep avoiding having the conversation, and they often have a really hard time coming back to get back to a good place.

Amanda Testa: Yeah, and I'm curious, too, because I know I'm definitely -- I hate to say it, but it's true -- I'm one of the puffers. My immediate response, typically, is to get real loud and work on it and, of course, even after all the years of work on it I still am a human.

Jayson Gaddis: Oh yeah, very normal.

Amanda Testa: I have tough work still to do, but I laugh -- and my husband is the same way, so we laugh 'cause we both are very similar in how we respond (my daughter, too, in little ways). So we laugh a lot about that in our house because we are very aware, but it still will happen, and so, I'm wondering if people are listening and they're like ooh, I can maybe resonate with this style -- and, oftentimes, the way we respond might be with someone who's very different than we are.

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah.

0:04:10

Amanda Testa: And so, there can be a lot of that or else, you know, also like passive-aggressive type of things where maybe they never speak up that they are upset but their partner walks by and, like, mutters things and they kind of wish they could just talk about it.

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: And so, there are so many ways to (and why) our brains act the way they do, but I'm wondering when it comes to maybe if you recognize yourself in any of these, what would be some of the itty baby steps you could take to start to bring awareness to what you're doing and how you can work towards coming back to a place of balance or less charge, so to speak -- coming back to zero, as you say it. I love that.

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah, I call it zero, right? All of us want to get back to a good place with other people, and it just feels better in life to sleep and just go about our day when we're in a good place with the people we care most about. Yeah, so what you're describing with your family, for example, again, it's normal. 

0:05:00

We all have our flavor, our style, and I find that, over the years, it doesn’t change all that much. Sometimes it can change in terms of if we talk about attachment styles (seek and avoid being the two main ones) that can flip depending on the level of commitment we have in a relationship, but the first thing we have to do is to understand and have compassion toward ourselves and our partner that they grew up for 18 years in a certain family system in a culture where conflict and stress was done a certain way, and to sort of just change that with a snap of a finger because you read a book is unlikely gonna happen. So we need to just be kind to ourselves, and when we understand the human body and the nervous system and the brain, I think it's really helpful 'cause then we stop judging ourselves so intently, and then the next thing is we want to have a commitment (as a family or as partnerships) to get back to a good place. We always return and repair no matter what. That should be one of the number one agreements in a partnership is that when things get hard we always stay with it, and we get to a good place, and if we need outside help we'll hire it 'cause we just want to live our lives in a good place. 

0:06:06

It's amazing that most couples don’t have that agreement in place, and there is no talk of that even at the wedding or anywhere near that, sadly. 

So once we have awareness and then we have an agreement like that, then it's really less about the raising of the voice or the shutting down, and it's more about how quickly you can come back and repair whatever was hurt, and you want to both apply effort, and I like to start with listening first to the other person. You know, I often say the most resourced person listens. It doesn’t have to be the most resources, it's just the person who's willing to listen first and without scorekeeping like, "I've listened first the last 100 times, and you’ve never initiated." We don’t want to do that 'cause, again, we're asking our nervous system partner that's wired a certain way to be more like us, and that's not gonna work. So if we have to lead for the rest of our lives, then we lead, and we agree that this person is more of the champion for the repair, and we -- listening first is a big one. 

0:07:01

If we're gonna speak, the first thing out of our mouth needs to be what our part is, like, "My part is…" is my favorite sentence. Finish that sentence: "My part is…," and "I raised my voice." "I was a jerk." "I didn’t text you back." You know, that kind of thing.

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm.

Jayson Gaddis: So those are a few pointers.

Amanda Testa: Yeah, and you just mentioned something that made me think of -- I love in your book how you talk about personhood and you talk about how you can't expect someone to change who they fundamentally are, right? Behaviors, you can work on, but how it's really unfair to ask that of someone.

Jayson Gaddis: Yes.

Amanda Testa: I wouldn't mind if you went and talked a little bit more about that because I see that happening so much with couples.

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah. Yeah, completely. We do, and it's, again, kind of a dumb move for us in partnership but we do tend to ask our partners to be different because we really have a belief that if they would just change then things would be smooth sailing or better, right? And so, it's understandable why we do it, but it's not a good enough reason to do it or continue doing it. I call that, as you probably saw, reasonable request for behavior change. You get to ask for behavior change if it's reasonable, and I think it's very reasonable to ask your partner to return and repair and work on it and work on becoming a better listener and communicator. 

0:08:05

That's a reasonable request. What's not reasonable is to say, "Hey, you need to come to my church and the things I believe in." "Hey, you're a messy person, and you are disorganized, and you are dissociated, and you have a short attention span, and all that needs to be different for me to be in a relationship with you." It's like, no, they're a work-in-progress like you. They're probably not gonna change that kind of stuff much, but they could respect and not leave their socks on the floor. That's something they could probably do, but to ask them to be more like you (OCD or whatever) then I just don’t think that's a good idea.

Amanda Testa: What would you say to someone that's finding themselves asking that of someone? How can they take a step back and say, "All right, well, what am I willing to put up with and what am I willing not to," right?

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: That's kind of a question that I would have them come back to, but you know what else about that or even just agreeing to be where they are. 

0:09:01

Like, I agree to be here in this situation. I'm not gonna do anything about it or I am gonna do something about it or --

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah, I mean, I like kind of edgy experiments. So here's one (it's a little edgy). Look your partner in the eye, and just say, "I really want you to change who you are, and I don’t accept you as you are." Just notice what it's like, what the impact of saying that is like on them. They probably might cry or feel defensive. 'Cause that's essentially what you're saying with your actions when you keep trying to change people. It's like then be direct. Just tell them, "Hey, I'd love you to be different, and I would love you more if you were different." That's honest, as you're saying that with all your other kind of sideways comments. So we could start there. 

If that feels a little too risky, then we need to ask ourselves, "Look, can I live with and grow old with or be in a relationship with someone who is kind of fundamentally like this?" They're just slovenly or they have a hard time -- they have an addiction. Can I live with that or do I have some non-negotiables where I'm like I'm unwilling and unable to and I will not live with a person who blank. 

0:10:07

That's fine. We get to have our preferences, but sadly, a lot of people stay in these tension-filled marriages trying to change each other for years on end, and I just think that's a recipe for a lot of heartache and resentment and burnout, and it just sucks.

Amanda Testa: I mean, I think if people had more skills around communicating more clearly or being more direct, there's so much that can be done there. I think that's a hard thing for a lot of people.

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: I'm wondering, too, because one of the things that -- I am sure you hear this a lot -- but I hear a lot of women who come to me and they really want to make some changes or they want to do work on their relationship but their partner's not necessarily always on board.

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: I'm wondering what maybe you would share around having more of a buy-in from your partner to kind of work together on things and work together on resolving conflict more peacefully. How can you go about those conversations and bringing them onboard?

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah, great. I mean, this is really common, right? I like to call them Enrollment Conversations.

Amanda Testa: [Laughs] Yeah.

0:11:03

Jayson Gaddis: Enrolling our partner into how we want to do our partnership, and let's just use the classic kind of traditional male-female-gendered conversation where the woman is listening to your podcast, she's reading my book, and the man is, you know, just for whatever reason not interested. It's not a value of his, but men will come around. I always think, is this kind of an asshole kind of a guy or is this a good man in hiding? A good man in hiding will come around if he's enrolled in a way that works for his values and he sees that by putting attention on you and your feelings and the relationship, he actually will improve his life 'cause so often a man sees that as a threat. He interprets an ask for, "Hey, can we connect more," or, "Hey, I'd love to spend more time, and you're always going out with the guys, but you won't spend time with me," or whatever, he sees that as a threat, and it's understandable given his values and probably if we knew his history and what he grew up with and his relationship to the feminine or his mother, and guys are kind of asleep to that 'cause personal growth is not as sexy. 

0:12:08

I mean, it's getting sexier for young men, especially, to be into self-reflection and personal development. So we just have to help a man see how considering feelings, connecting, and prioritizing his female partner is gonna help him. So I always tell women, "Look, you’ve got to understand his highest value (and let's say it's work, that's a lot of men's' highest value), you’ve got to help him see how having a better connection and spending time and energy and going to therapy or coaching and reading books together on the relationship is actually gonna help him make more money. It's gonna help him get a raise. It's gonna help him be a better leader. It's gonna help him be a better boss. It's gonna help him be a better friend to his people because, look, we're living in a world where relational intelligence is really needed right now more than ever.

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Jayson Gaddis: And thanks to people like Brené Brown, a lot of men are starting to wake up to the fact that, shit, if I'm a male leader in this culture and this time, I've got to be way more tuned-in relationally, I've got to be more sensitive, I've got to consider feelings, I've got to slow down, and it's not my natural thing 'cause I grew up as a boy who my father told me to shut my feelings down, and I got made fun of on the playground. 

0:13:13

So men are up against all their conditioning.

Amanda Testa: Yeah. Yeah.

Jayson Gaddis: But, again, a good man in hiding, he's gonna come forward if enrolled in the right way, and then if not -- if it turns out he's not a good man in hiding, and he continues to stonewall or gaslight or whatever, it's like why in the hell would you want to be in that relationship, you know? Don't settle for that shit.

Amanda Testa: Yeah. [Laughs] It's true. I like that, and I really do love how just taking that reflection of what are you willing to put up with and what are you not, and putting yourself -- having that, I think, self-awareness and self-honoring to stand up for what's important to you and your values and speaking those to one another versus being afraid to and living in misery. It's easier to -- sometimes there's that fear of having the conversation of doing some work around it, but actually on the other side, it can be so much more connected and so much better (like you say) for all areas of your life because how you do anything bleeds over into all the different areas of your life.

0:14:07

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: It really does. Yeah, and I really love how you talk about getting to zero because that's just a skill that can serve you in so many areas, right, whether it's your partner that triggers you or someone that pulls out in front of you in the road or whatever it is.

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: So I'd love it if you'd share a little bit more about how you can go about doing that from a physiological perspective too, but I know there's a lot of aspects involved with that if you'd share a little bit more about that if you don’t mind.

Jayson Gaddis: Sure. I mean, to be in an adult partnership these days there's so much stress and demand from our external world, and then there's stress from what's going on in the world and the news we watch, and some of us are numbed out to that, and some of us are ultra-sensitive to that. Regardless, we have to, I think, look at how becoming more relationally focused and sensitive to how our nervous system operates in relationship with others and how the other person operates in relationship to others, I think we can set ourselves up for success. So I talk about self-regulation and interactive co-regulation. 

0:15:07

So self-regulation is when I get triggered by you, it's my ability to be with all the discomfort that arises when I'm triggered by you or triggered by the person that cut me off or whoever. I'm gonna be a stronger human, a stronger parent, a stronger leader if I can not react and instead, I can just be with. Ooh, this is really hot and fiery and uncomfortable, and ooh, I feel rage, or I feel sad, and just be with it without needing to do anything. That's self-regulation, and a lot of mindfulness these days is about self-regulation.

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm.

Jayson Gaddis: Which I love the mindfulness movement. And then there's interactive regulation or being there for our partner's nervous system 'cause often they can't regulate themselves (they don’t know how 'cause they grew up in a family where that wasn't on the menu) so it's a big ask to help them regulate their feelings, but we can help, and how we can help is by looking at them in the eyes 'cause then we don’t go into memory (negative memories and associations). 

0:16:03

So eye contact is actually really important. Even though it can feel threatening, it's often a really good move. Not a staring contest, I'm just talking about looking at the eyes and occasionally looking away. It's like titrating. Then there's physical touch which is huge. Moving our body and the position of our body -- so if you're sitting down and I'm standing up, I look intimidating, so I don’t want to do that, especially if you get scared around me and my voice. So I'm gonna sit down next to you and not face square-off with you. I might sit next to you to be less threatening. I might put my hand on your shoulder or hand on your leg and say, "Honey, is this okay? I know I'm mad at you, and you're mad at me, but I want to see if we can cross this chasm of this connection by just physically being close. How would that be for you?" 

Some of us would rather move away from the scary person, and that's really understandable, but if we can do an experiment and push ourselves to move toward the person physically and have some kind of agreement ahead of time that physically we're gonna just make contact -- like we're gonna hug even though we kind of feel like enemies right now. 

0:17:03

We're gonna hug and take three breaths, and we're gonna see if our bellies can touch and if we can start to let down and let go because we're usually gripped in this moment. So there are a number of things we can do to try to do this, and then there's obviously things we can say such as, "I raised my voice," like, owning stuff. "I was kind of mean there," or we can say, "Tell me about how you're feeling and how what I did made you feel. I'm really interested." All these gestures are basically us saying, "I care about you, and I want to get to zero. I want to get back to a good place."

Amanda Testa: Yeah, and I think, oftentimes, they're not that difficult to do when you can remember to do them, right?

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: So, oftentimes, I think practicing some of these tools, if you have that agreement -- like, we really want to work on having better conflict resolution and to be on the same page with repairing, so can we practice some of these things when we're not in a state of crisis or chaos so that we could remember them when we need to, right?

0:18:01

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah, totally. Yeah, and if you have a partner who's anti-tools like, "Oh, you're just telling me all these tools," 'cause some people are like that -- 

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Jayson Gaddis: -- it's like cool, all I care about is the end result, honey, which is I need my nervous system to relax, and I need to feel connected again, and so, I don’t care how we get there. I care about the destination, which is getting there, and if we can be respectful in the process, and if you can be creative, great, but it's gotta work, and this is where people get really annoyed with how difficult the other person is. We get so mad because it's like god, no one ever did this for me as a kid, and now I've got to somehow learn about your nervous system and what makes you tick and what helps you calm and soothe, and it's like yeah, if you want to be in a good marriage, yeah, that's kind of required I think. If you want a mediocre marriage or if you want to just be roommates, no, you don’t have to do that. You can do whatever you want but seriously, a good, secure relationship is built on conflict repair, conflict repair, conflict repair, over and over. That actually builds security. It's the same in parent-child relationships.

0:19:03

Amanda Testa: Yes, I mean, all of those things that you shared about regulating your own self and your nervous system so you can be there for your partner or your kid, I mean, it's the exact same thing. It benefits so many relationships, and I think if you do have kids, having this kind of skill is even more important, oftentimes, so then they can witness it and learn from it as well.

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah, and sadly, so many kids now are going to their phones to regulate, and it's good that they know how to calm down with their phone. I'm always bummed when I see parents hand their two-year-old a phone when they're crying or something 'cause I'm like you're actually teaching your kid to not regulate and regulate through a screen, and so, now, anytime they're uncomfortable or dysregulated, they're gonna want the phone because that's what soothes them the most, and being social mammals, we want to be able to soothe through other humans. It's way more long-lasting, it's way more fulfilling, it sets you up for successful adult partnerships, so I feel it's kinda dicey these days with kids and their phones and the lack of eye contact. 

0:20:06

There's a lot of downsides, right, that I perceive, especially for their adult relationship life. I can just see where that's going.

Amanda Testa: Yes, I'm with you there, and also, too, you know, in adult relationships there are a lot of problems with the phone there as well.

Jayson Gaddis: That's true.

Amanda Testa: You know, we're just waiting to shut -- you know, so addicted to the phone or whatever, using it way too much.

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah, right, and totally. I would say to the listener, if that's you -- let's say you have a partner who's -- you guys fight and talk and connect while someone's constantly looking at their phone or they're multitasking on their phone, you’ve been tolerating that so you’ve got to stop tolerating that. You can make requests (again, reasonable requests) which is, "Honey, will you set the phone down just while we're talking about this subject? It would mean a lot to me. I'm starting to feel like you're not as interested, and I think you are, but it would help me to feel more of your presence here." Again, a good partner is gonna understand that kind of request. Wow, this is gonna help us. This is gonna help the relationship.

0:21:02

Amanda Testa: And I really appreciate you, and when you say that you're always kind of mentioning why it's important, like, the reasoning and here's why it's important to me.

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah,

Amanda Testa: I think that helps a lot with getting enrollments in whatever you're asking, right?

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah, that's right.

Amanda Testa: And so, I'm wondering, too, kind of in that same vein of making these reasonable requests, if it's something that you've not done before and you're not very good a maybe setting boundaries for yourself or asking for what you need, how could you encourage someone to start doing that? What are some baby steps they could take or some movements in that direction to make those reasonable requests more often?

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah, well, get in touch with what you want, and most of us want a secure long-term relationship. So if that's true, notice how your behavior, your daily actions are not lining up with that desire, and then start taking off your behaviors that you're colluding with an old strategy of yours or you've agreed unconsciously or implicitly with your partner that we just talk and fight and we're both on the phone and somehow we just figure it out and we wait for five days and it gets better and then we're good again. 

0:22:05

It's like look, you've trained this person for so many years that it's okay to kind of walk all over you or to treat you this way, and they've basically trained you that it's okay for you to treat them this way, and so, you’ve got to put your foot in the sand here and say, "Look, I'm not gonna do that anymore," and I think the first boundary, really, is with ourselves -- like what we will and will not do ourselves. Okay, I'm not gonna blame anymore. I'm gonna lead every conversation with a personal responsibility statement. "My part is…," for example, instead of, "You always, you never." That could be one little thing that we can start to work on to change, and that goes a long way, and whenever we put attention on something like that, we start noticing everywhere how many people do it, and then we start to get irritated by it, and we're like, "Wow, I can't believe so many people are just in blame, and that was me. Whoa," and it's really enlightening. This is an amazing thing to model to children because children need to see the big people change and transform too and get interested in this kind of stuff 'cause it's good for their relational health and mental health. 

0:23:06

So yeah, it's sort of like what do you want, and start looking at what's in the way, and start setting some limits around that, but here's the thing with boundaries (which you probably know about) is it's one thing to set a boundary and say it; it's a whole other thing to follow through consistently.

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

Jayson Gaddis: Like I have a friend who's parenting a 14-year-old girl, and it's around her phone, and he just won't take away the phone, and he keeps threatening to take away the phone, and he keeps not doing it because he's afraid of more conflict, right, and that she'll rage on him which is what she does when he sets boundaries. It's like yeah, well, you're gonna have to tolerate some of her rage when you finally take away the phone, but that's ultimately what's gonna be better for her in the long run is you being consistent with your boundary, because every time you set a boundary and you don’t follow through with it, you're untrustworthy, and young people learn to not trust big people because they say one thing and do another. That's everywhere. This is why I love teenagers when they're rebelling 'cause I'm like yeah, you're so tired of fucking adults being hypocrites.

0:24:04

Amanda Testa: [Laughs] Yes, that's so true, oh, my goodness. I can relate to that myself, too. I was a very rebellious kid.

Jayson Gaddis: [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: [Laughs] And so, you know, I think, too, like you say, making that commitment to yourself again and again, so that when you show up through each interaction, you can say, "Am I upholding my values? Am I sticking to what I'm asking? Am I sticking to my boundaries? If not, using the tools like you teach, that's so important. So many of us teach around regulating your own nervous system (being with yourself, being able to be with the hard emotions), and I love that you have some really amazing tools that you have in your book and in your toolkit that goes along with the book to really practice that -- like the meditations, too. What does that look like? How do you do it, right? People might be listening, "Yeah, that all sounds good, but how do you do it," you know?

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah, having a hammer's one thing; using it's a whole other thing, right?

Amanda Testa: Yes. I think that's -- I don’t know. I find the practice of these things is the most important thing 'cause it can just be one little thing that you practice again and again that is a huge change.

0:25:06

Jayson Gaddis: I mean, it's unbelievable what I see in our students through -- we have a nine-month course, for example, and people come into that course scared and skeptical, of course, and then nine months later, they're an altered human being because they know how to listen differently, and it's a permanent life-upgrade, and to see a person go from kind of being a blamer to an extremely good listener is really powerful, but it takes practice just like you're saying. That's why we make our students practice. Like, look, between classes you have to do a practice call with a peer and actually flex that muscle over and over for the game (when it counts) which is under stress with your partner at home. That's when the rubber meets the road, right? But if you’ve been getting your reps in, in the meantime, you're more likely to be successful when it counts.

Amanda Testa: Yeah, and would you be willing to share a little more about where people can learn more about you and find out some of these programs that you are offering? Also, I know you have a coaching program as well. I do feel like there's a good amount of coaches that are listening to the podcast as well, maybe you can share a little bit about that 'cause I think it's an amazing program.

0:26:06

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah, thanks. Yeah, so relationshipschool.com is our main website, and you can find the podcast and blog and lots of courses there. That's probably the easiest place to go. I'm active on Instagram @jaysongaddis. Once a year now we train people to become relationship coaches, and these are people that are brand new that have never been a coach before as well as people who are life coaches already as well as nurses, doctors, and we seem to be getting more and more psychotherapists and counselors and social workers come into our trainings because they -- like me, I did a three-year master's degree in psychology, and I didn’t have one class on relationships. So I've got that coupled with I didn’t learn this ever in undergrad or high school or elementary school or middle school, so I was like okay, I'm gonna create a school where we do this. This is all we do. So I'm trying to educate the planet to get better, here, at relationships, and that's my mission, of course.

Amanda Testa: Yes, yes.

0:27:06

Jayson Gaddis: So I'm training people to become relationship coaches in nine months and be a certified relationship coach that can charge money and actually start to work with clients 'cause you're always gonna have job security, right? There are plenty of people who need help here.

Amanda Testa: Yes, yes. I love, too, what you're doing with kind of trying to get this information to people younger and younger.

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah, absolutely.

Amanda Testa: Because how amazing it would have been to learn this all along in school, right? I'm trying to get better with the social-emotional learning these days, but definitely not when we came along or when I came along, that was not something we were taught.

Jayson Gaddis: Me neither, yeah. Yeah, I mean, my health class was one class on sex ed, and it was so bad, and I grew up in Utah, so it was really censored, and there was one class. I mean, just there was nothing about relationships in health class, I was like are you -- that's so vital now. We know this through neuroscience and research that the quality of our relationships is really paramount to the quality of our health and wellbeing --

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Jayson Gaddis: -- over the lifespan.

0:28:04

Amanda Testa: Yes. Well, I so appreciate your time, and thank you for being here. I'm wondering maybe if there's a question that I didn’t ask that you wished I would have asked or maybe anything else that you wanted to share?

Jayson Gaddis: I would just share this. We sort of covered it, Amanda, but I would just say it again in a different way which is let's say you read my book, and you're like, "Okay, cool, what do I focus on? There's so much here," or you listen to this podcast, I would say if you only had to do one thing, it would be repair. If you just focus on how to get back to a good place with your family members, your friends, or, specifically, your partner or your ex-spouse (who you're co-parenting with or whatever) or your kids, it's so vital for relationship health and security that, I mean, really, what my whole book is about is how do we get back to a good place, how do we get to zero, and I just think it's a great kind of focus if someone's struggling in a relationship or wants to work on something in the next relationship. A lot of people say, "Communication! We need to communicate better." 

0:29:03

Well, that's probably true, but you already communicate fine; it's that you don’t communicate very well under stress --

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Jayson Gaddis: -- and you don’t know how to clean up the mess after you create one or they create one. That's where you should put your attention -- how to clean up the mess effectively, and plan on it being for life, not, "Oh, it's a stage. We're just in the kind of challenging stage of our relationship." No, for the rest of your life you're gonna experience conflict with a spouse and kids and family, so get good at it. Get good at the repair part, and you will change your life.

Amanda Testa: Yes, I can attest. It's an amazing thing when you can do that and have that experience that you can share with the people that you love, too, that they can learn from because there's always gonna be something, right?

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah, that's right.

Amanda Testa: There's always gonna be something.

Jayson Gaddis: There's always gonna be something.

Amanda Testa: So, you know, one other last thing that I just had a question about is because, you know, you mentioned when people are doing this work and they want to practice, and maybe they are having a hard time getting their partner on board to practice, I love how you mentioned, like, is there a friend that you can practice with.

0:30:01

 Just finding someone who is open because it doesn't really matter as long as you do the reps of learning it, and then you can more easily bring it to whatever conflict you're dealing with. So…

Jayson Gaddis: Exactly. You could be one of Amanda's podcast listeners or maybe you’ve done a course with her. Find someone in that community and start practicing, 'cause, let's face it, some of our, quote, "friends" think it's weird or they don’t want to do this 'cause they don’t see the value in it yet, but find a willing person who's like, "Yeah, I could use that too," and then you become practice partners.

Amanda Testa: Yeah, I love that. Well, thank you so much, again. I'll make sure to share in the show notes with everyone where you can find more about The Relationship School and all the wonderful work that Jayson and his team are up to. Thank you, again, for being here.

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you.

Amanda Testa: And thank you all for listening, and, yes, please take some nuggets and find some practice partners or just digest one thing you could implement or get the book if that's all you do because it is an amazing book. It's called Getting to Zero, and, as you can tell, both me and my dog love this book. [Laughs] It's so good. So thank you again, and we will see you all next week!

[Fun, Empowering Music]

0:31:05

Thank you so much for listening to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. This is your host, Amanda Testa, and if you have felt a calling while listening to this podcast to take this work to a deeper level, this is your golden invitation. 

I invite you to reach out. You can contact me at amandatesta.com/activate, and we can have a heart-to-heart to discuss more about how this work can transform your life. You can also join us on Facebook in the Find Your Feminine Fire group, and if you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please share with your friends. Go to iTunes and give me a five-star rating and a rating and a raving review so I can connect with other amazing listeners like yourself. 

Thank you so much for being a part of the community.

[Fun, Empowering Music]

JOIN IN THE DISCUSSION ON THIS EPISODE AND MORE IN MY FREE FACEBOOK GROUP, FIND YOUR FEMININE FIRE HERE.

Elena Sonnino is a life coach, yin yoga teacher, and author. But what most people say about Elena is that she brings delightful sparks of energy to everything she does. 

Elena is on a mission to help you transform the walls of survival mode into doors of possibility so that you can step into the spotlight of your life as your most rooted and nourished self. Her work helps you get out of your head and into your body as your source of wisdom, and moves you from beyond shoulds and into delight, one day at a time. 

At home, Elena enjoys watching the sunrise, tending to her many plants, riding her Peloton bike, and impromptu kitchen dance parties.  

Learn more about Elena at www.elenasonnino.com or by reading her new book, Inhabit Your Joy: A Book of Nudges.

And please - if you have a question you'd like Amanda to address on a future episode, submit it on this anonymous form.

If you liked this episode, please consider giving me a 5 Star Review on Apple Podcasts! It truly does help the podcast grow. 

If you've been interested in learning more about coaching with Amanda, she's now booking coaching clients for 1-1 support in creating the relationship and orgasmic pleasure of their dreams.   If you’ve been thinking about it, maybe we should talk!  Link here to book a free call to see if we’re a fit. 

EPISODE 216: Elena Sonnino

[Fun, Empowering Music] 

Amanda Testa: Hello, and welcome to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. I am your host, Amanda Testa. I am a sex, love, and relationship coach, and in this podcast, my guests and I talk sex, love, and relationships, and everything that lights you up from the inside out. Welcome!

Hello, everyone, and on this week’s podcast, I am going to be exploring some themes around feeling broken and maybe when you are struggling to find pleasure or if there have been experiences in your life that have really disconnected you from that or that have involved pain. That’s a very real part of life, and so, what I’m really looking forward to today is I’m talking to Elena Sonnino, and she is a life coach, a Yin Yoga teacher, and an author, and her most recent book is called Inhabit Your Joy: A Book of Nudges. I just love that name. [Laughs] We’re gonna kind of dive into a little bit of the journey of pleasure and what that looks like and what we might think we might want to do to ourselves that might not be the most supportive and what, actually, are some beautiful ways to kind of move through this journey because, really, there’s never a destination. 

0:01:14

There’s always gonna be the road, and so, really, it’s around kind of finding your way and finding the joy in the process.

So welcome so much, Elena. Thank you for being here.

Elena Sonnino: Thank you so much, Amanda. My heart was smiling as you were sharing that, and it is so much about the journey and that process, right? So thank you. I’m delighted to be here.

Amanda Testa: Yeah, and so, I’d love it if you wouldn't mind maybe just sharing a little bit of your story and kind of why you have such a passion around this.

Elena Sonnino: Yes, I mean, passion is such a good word for it, right? I do have passion around this because this has been a journey I’ve been on -- oh, my goodness -- for 25 years without me even really realizing it. So in my early 20s, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma. 

0:02:05

At that time, I was kind of starting, right? You're in your early 20s. At that time I wanted two things: I wanted to be a mom, and I wanted to be an elementary school classroom teacher. Then, there I was, relatively healthy and being diagnosed. That time in my life changed everything I thought to be true about my body. 

The first six months of chemo actually weren’t a huge deal. The worst thing about them were that I gained a lot of weight and I lost my hair, but I felt relatively good, but what happened was even my relationship to receiving pleasure -- because my body was changing so significantly, my drive for pleasure or passion kind of felt nonexistent, and I was newly engaged at the time, and it became everything about pleasure felt like I needed to armor up for -- there was something already wrong with me, and here I was in my early 20s, and my life hadn’t been filled a lot with pleasure. 

0:03:08

I hadn't really started to experience pleasure through sensuality until about that time, and it felt cut short so abruptly. I went on to heal, and then I recurred, and when I recurred, I ended up having a bone marrow transplant, and because of that, theories around me being able to have children kind of came off the table, I developed blood clots which meant, in the long term, I wasn't ever going to be able to take estrogen because there was a clotting risk, and my body essentially (even though I survived) started moving towards early menopause in my very early 20s, and so, my body literally started changing from the inside out. 

Again, pleasure felt unaccessible to me, passion felt unaccessible to me, and I just kept being told by doctors -- honestly, by my partner -- we are just gonna kinda have to push through this. I was, to some degree, a bulldozer in my life. [Laughs] 

0:04:07

I was that person who saw a situation and -- as my dad said to me once, “You're that person that can do anything she sets her mind to,” and I believed him at the time, but what I’ve realized since then is that everything that I’ve achieved in my life had nothing to do with my brain. Yes, our brains are super powerful, but the moments of the most aliveness that I’ve experienced have come from that very deep place within me where I embodied possibility or I embodied hope without certainty, right? 

When I found out I was pregnant, we had been going down a path of a donor egg. I was weeks away from receiving a donor egg, and that created its own obstacles to receiving pleasure, right, because suddenly everything became very mechanical, all of it.

0:05:01

The doctor -- I burst into tears when they told me over the phone that in the ultrasound, to figure out what my body was gonna be doing, that they saw something, that that’s not what they thought they were gonna see. So he makes this call, and he tells me, and I’m sobbing, sobbing, crying, and he lets me cry, and then he says, “Look, you have a choice. You can grieve or you can celebrate until the day you can’t.” It was instantaneous for me. I knew. “Option B, please,” right? [Laughs] 

And so, I knew I was learning this lesson again and again to show up for the possibility even in uncertainty, but when it came to passion and pleasure and desire in my body, there were big, big walls that I built up because it felt like I was constantly needing to defend myself, and that I couldn't possibly be soft or vulnerable, and I really couldn’t depend on anybody else. So I kind of walled that part of me off, and then I started experiencing (after a hysterectomy that I had) significant vaginal pain during intercourse. 

0:06:06

I’ve listened to so many of your episodes that talk about how this isn't the only way to receive passion and pleasure and to be intimate with your partner, and yet, that was what I thought to be true, and over time it became so significant that more walls got put up.

And then somebody said to me, “You are not broken. This does not define you, and this does not mean that you can’t experience pleasure and passion and desire and have a healthy, intimate relationship with my now-husband.” Hearing that -- when a pelvic floor physical therapist said that to me about a year ago, I could feel the wall -- it didn't come crumbling down. It wasn't like a magical flipping of the switch, but suddenly there was a little sliver of light, and the more we started to explore breath work and really look at the system as a whole -- things aren’t fixed. 

0:07:16

There is still pain, and I am still very much in this process, but I’m so passionate about this because I know so many women who, for whatever reason, have created walls around themselves to protect themselves and feel like, “Oh, no, pain? I’m just gonna have to be there, and I need to be fixed, and I need to keep seeing doctors, and I’m gonna try this one more thing ‘cause that will make it all okay,” and, I believe without a shadow of a doubt, that the thing that we actually need has nothing -- doctors are amazing. My dad is a retired doctor. Doctors can do magical things, and yet, I don't know that that’s where the answers lie. I feel like the answers are within us in a much deeper place.

Amanda Testa: Yes, yes, yes. Well, I am just very touched by your journey and your story. 

0:08:05

I think there are probably a lot of listeners that can relate to having pain or to having experiences that wall you off -- those experiences that cause you to be more hypervigilant about what you're gonna let in and be more self-reliant and not really trusting others. Another thing, too, that you mentioned, and I want to kind of loop back to this because what I hear from a lot of clients that have had trauma with their bodies (autoimmune or cancer or disease or things like that), that it's when you find there's a disconnection with your own body because it's not doing what it's supposed to do in the way you want it to, right? 

Elena Sonnino: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: And so, that can bring up a lot as well. And so, I'm wondering if it feels okay to maybe share a little about your journey to reconnect with your own body and to find that -- you mention embodiment a lot which is such a big thing -- but embodying that possibility amongst all the unknown that you are experiencing.

0:09:03

Elena Sonnino: Yeah, absolutely because (you're so right) it is that exploration, right, of starting to look for other ways and redefine our relationship with ourselves because, as you were saying, I could almost see myself bracing for things, and now realizing that that's just not gonna be the journey -- and so, for me, I think the process started -- pelvic floor physical therapy was the first doorway for me, and we discovered a few things: that my pain was kind of surface level. It wasn’t deeper. The muscles -- there was some clenching because -- when we really went back to it, it started around that hysterectomy and feeling like this thing had been taken from me, and I needed to protect myself, and so, breathwork was the first opening where I started to realize okay, I have the capacity to create opening and to create possibility within me, and I know breathwork to be powerful in my practice in general and in my body, but there was this -- it literally felt like something that I could open and close when I chose to, right, and that I could allow it, and that I could allow expansion. So breathwork was the first doorway.

0:10:14

The second was just experimenting with kind of redefining what I saw and felt as pleasure, and almost going on, like, a pleasure scavenger hunt, and being out in nature and seeing something that I found pleasurable and letting that live inside me for a moment or allowing touch to feel pleasure, but really starting to retrain my brain to say, "Actually, I can receive pleasure," and collecting evidence in all sorts of different places around it. And then, I think, the path that continually surprises me is noticing the relationship between the energy centers in our body, right? 

0:11:00

So we think of the sacral areas being that place where our sensuality, creativity, pleasure, passion, desire live and exploring that. Recently, I had a moment after I had gone to yet another doctor because there was going to be a procedure that held hope to reduce my pain, and the doctor’s appointment didn't go particularly well. It was pretty disheartening, and I actually went to a pretty dark place. I came home with my husband, and I'm like, “We're too young to never be able to experience penetration again,” and he just kind of looked at me and allowed me to have my mini temper tantrum. [Laughs]

Then, I paused, and I recognized that my body was asking me to listen, and what my body really wanted me to know -- it was like a whisper. My belly literally said to me, "You know, maybe you need to move me a little bit. Maybe you need to explore what could be possible in different ways," and I was having a conversation with somebody, and this whisper -- it was maybe a little bit more than a whisper. It was a loud nudge -- belly dancing was the message! I was like belly dancing? 

0:12:06

I remember I said that out loud, and the person I was talking to was like, "Belly dancing?" So I did what I do, and I just wrote it down. I had to let it be 'cause I needed to not overthink it 'cause I can do that. [Laughs]

Then, the next day -- 'cause I ask myself this question on a regular basis of where can I be curious today -- I wrote down: "I'm gonna get curious about belly dancing." So I started Googling it and, lo and behold, there was a studio that, among other things -- they teach pole dancing and all sorts of things which was also something that I had done years ago once and discovered that that is a workout, and my upper body was sore for days, right? [Laughs] But I realized that this studio had a four-week belly dancing class that started the subsequent Sunday, and I was just gonna go, and when I got there, the instructor said to me, "We're gonna go through movements, and I'm gonna show you things, and there's gonna be choreography, but at the end of the day, my intention is that you fall back in love with that energy that's inside you," and it was like everything aligned in that moment. The puzzle pieces, I could feel them coming together, right, because that's what it is. It's redefining that it is love and it has to start with me. 

0:13:14

I have to be in love with all the parts of me before I can receive and experience and savor pleasure and passion with anyone else, from myself, and that that's the way to self-partner, to recommit to that.

Amanda Testa: Mm, I love that following of curiosity because that's such a key piece, right? It can be so challenging if you really want something, if you really want the pleasure, if you really want that penetration (if it is) or if it's orgasm or whatever it might be.

Elena Sonnino: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: And our culture is one of a lot of do, do, go, go, so it's very common that we approach a problem by, like, all right, here's the thing. If we're gonna fix it, I'm gonna force myself to do this. I'm gonna make myself do these things, and that is the exact opposite of what works, right? I mean, our body, often -- this is a lovely thing that one of my teachers Layla Martin says, and I think it's so true especially when it comes to healing is that you can only go as fast as the slowest part of us is ready to go.

0:14:10

Elena Sonnino: Yeah, Amanda, you're so right. So it's funny that my husband is an aerospace engineer by training (a systems engineer) so we have a spreadsheet for just about everything. I'm amazed that actually we don’t have a spreadsheet for this, but I don’t want him to listen and get ideas. [Laughs] I remember when I started pelvic floor physical therapy, we had essentially stopped having sex because there was so much pain, and my PT said, "So we've discovered that this isn’t the deeper tissues. We've kind of relaxed the inner thighs which there has been a lot of gripping, right? It would kind of be good to get a new baseline."

So I go home, and my husband's all excited 'cause we have this homework, and that baseline attempt created more trauma because I was -- here I was, doing just this of forcing, like, here I am, and I remember I was like I'm gonna breathe, I'm gonna be calm, and I tried to coach myself through all of it, and I had practiced some Yin Yoga beforehand and set the stage, right, and yet, because my tissues are the way they are, there was a moment of trauma at the point of penetration that then has made everything harder since. 

0:15:22

And so, that was this moment of realization for me that this was not going to be the approach, and that I had to get curious, that I had to listen in other ways, and that the only way through this was gonna be through exploration and, perhaps, experimentation and trying and just getting creative.

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Elena Sonnino: And maybe that can be fun. There's a difference, for me, in feeling like you have to do something and feeling like you get to do something, and I think I had a period of time where this felt like a have-to, and the opening came when I started to see it as a get-to.

Amanda Testa: Yeah, I love it.

Elena Sonnino: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: And I love how you're following your curiosity, and another thing that you mentioned, which I think is so key, you know, to kinda spend that time with your body because our body holds so much wisdom, and we often just don't know how to listen, but that is a beautiful step to take. Like all right, let me just spend some time with this space in my body and notice what it might want or need. What does it have to tell me?

0:16:17

Elena Sonnino: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: And there are such amazing things you can find out, and it might take a while, and I think what I also celebrate about you is just your devotion to connection to yourself and to having that partnership with yourself because that's one of the big keys -- just showing up for yourself and just honoring whatever is there whether it's pain, whether it's numbness, whether it's pleasure, whether it's whatever. It's so hard to do, but that devotion to yourself just gives you that potential possibility and also just that knowing that no matter what, you can show up for yourself. I think it's a challenging thing especially when you are wanting to be in a different experience, you know? It can be really hard to honor where you are or to connect, but I think that's why the little baby steps you say, like going curious -- what is a curious way I can approach myself today? 

0:17:03

I love that question that you ask yourself every day. Like, what can I do to be curious about this today, and that does give that shift of, like, ugh, now I've got to deal with this damn thing again? It's like hm, let me see what might bubble up -- that something as a want-to out of this whole thing, right?

Elena Sonnino: Yeah, absolutely, and I think the thing that stuck out to me when you were describing that is that the more we do that, the more we allow ourselves to belong, right? I was just speaking with a client who's having some medical issues, and her spine and her body and things just aren't moving in the way she wanted them to, and she's a very physical person and she's a doer. This conversation -- this reminder I think that so many of us have, that we see ourselves as something that needs to be fixed, something that needs to be problem-solved, project-managed, right, whatever it is -- spread-sheeted about -- and yet, when we get curious and we listen and we talk to those parts of our body that are talking to us as a friend, as an ally instead of an enemy, then the body knows things long before our brain does, and it is just so wise and magical and powerful and beautiful, and yet, too many of us, for whatever reason, have come to see our body as an enemy, as something that has to be fought against versus flowed with, and that, I think, is the continual journey. 

0:18:26

It's definitely not a flip of the switch, right? I am in flow and in output, but it's always that moment of reckoning when I notice ooh, yeah, I'm not really showing up in allyship with my body.

I once wrote a letter to my body as my hero. It was like a love letter to my body, and that was hard, and yet so powerful. It just changes the words and the language we use for ourselves, but it's a continual effort. Like, now might be a good time to write another one of those. [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: I love that. Yes, and you know, like you say, we do have that health within us. I love how one of my mentors Rachel Maddox calls it your blueprint of health, right, because no matter what we have that within us, that original essence, that blueprint of health, and because of life and trauma and all the things, then, we have these imprints that show up that hide us from the blueprint, but the beauty is is there are ways to let that blueprint come back alive. 

0:19:23

It's such an amazing thing to witness, and I witness it all the time with clients, and it literally blows my mind. I'm like you just watch them and it's like we just get disconnected from it 'cause of life and because we have never been taught how to do it, right?  

Elena Sonnino: Oh, right.

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

Elena Sonnino: Yeah, they definitely do not teach us in school. 

Amanda Testa: [Laughs]

Elena Sonnino: It's so true, right? I think about that -- I mean, it took me years to realize the thing that healed me from my Hodgkin's Disease were my own cells. I had an autologous bone marrow transplant, so they literally depleted me with chemo, brought my immune system to zero, and I gave me back my own cells, and then years later, the daughter that I wasn’t supposed to be able to have came from me. 

0:20:03

I mean, it sounds ridiculous, but I broke my -- I fell on the ice and broke my wrist this January, and when I went to the emergency room the first thing they said is, "Oh, this might be surgery," because of my age and da, da, da. Then, the orthopedist looked at it several days later and was like, "No, you're just gonna need rest." But, again, my wrist got to heal itself. I had to listen, I had to be kind to it, I had to not -- 'cause it was my right hand, and I'm right handed, but it's over and over again. Even this energy center of pleasure and desire and the possibility and the beauty and the power that lives within me, I am more and more convinced -- I had a conversation recently with my dad 'cause this is a really fabulous and fun conversation to have with your parent, and yet I went there. [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: [Laughs]

Elena Sonnino: And we were talking -- you know, 'cause this whole I can't take estrogen, and he was like well -- because there's always been this question, am I really at blood clot risk? I don’t actually believe that I am. I think it was a symptom of everything else, and so, what if I went and they ran the tests and determined that I'm not? Then I went wait, do I really want to actually want to take estrogen? The good or the bad, it doesn’t matter, but it was this reminder of that's a choice, and I could make it, but if I actually believe that my body has everything it needs to heal, then why am I gonna go down that path and spend all this time listening to people that might be very smart, and yet, that doesn’t actually feel aligned to this embodied knowing that I have, that my body is amazing and wise and it's own best teacher, and so, what if I could just trust? So that's the plan, [Laughs] to trust and allow and be curious and listen, above all else.

0:21:44

Amanda Testa: Yeah, and I know that self-trust piece is really hard sometimes, so I'm wondering what do you do when it feels hard to lean into that trust? 

Elena Sonnino: Yeah, so I'm a big believer in evidence, [Laughs] but looking for evidence in the most delightful way. It's one of my favorite questions to ask, "What's working?" But when I think about when I start having a hard time trusting, of just pulling back and saying, "Okay, but what do I know for sure in this moment? What evidence do I have that I can trust my body?" I start with the surface-level things of, okay, my body knew it was tired. I gave it extra sleep. It feels nourished. Right? So the really concrete things or I broke my wrist. It has healed itself because I listened, and I didn’t force. 

0:22:33

Then I start looking for more and more examples, and over time, as I collect time, my brain kind of can't help but see the evidence and say, "Oh, okay." So it does take reminders and sometimes even distractors. So sometimes one way to come back into trust with myself is standing in front of the mirror, and one of my favorite breath practices -- and I'll stand with my right hand on my belly and my left on the heart, and I look at myself, and I breathe in, "Thank you," and I exhale, "I love you," because I find that the distrust happens when I start going into that fixing-broken mode, and so, I need to come back into that relationship of love and gratitude for what's here versus the force and efforting. So that ability to say, "Thank you, and I love you," helps me come back into relationship with who I am, what I am, what's possible inside me.

0:23:29

Amanda Testa: I love that so much. That is a beautiful practice. I would urge you, if you're listening and that resonates with you, maybe notice what feels like a doable way to get curious about doing that possibly for yourself, right?

Elena Sonnino: Yeah. Yeah, and you can do that anywhere -- at my desk, brushing your teeth, in the car. It's just this reminder that there is so much within us that we get to honor, and then I've played with some honoring practices. I am queen of impromptu dance parties in the kitchen or here at my desk, but anything to -- actually, after I broke my wrist, I really needed -- it sounds so silly, but I was kind of mad at my wrist. It happened the day that my book launched. I mean, the universe was really asking me to slow down. [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

0:24:15

Elena Sonnino: Right? So much efforting had happened, and I had to come back into honoring and celebrating, so I started writing little love notes to my body, to my wrist. I started talking to my wrist. So any body part that we can start connecting with, being in dialogue with, and the pelvis, the sacral, the root area, I mean, there's a lot to connect with there and be in relationship with. [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: There is a lot there. I remember a woman who I had on the podcast once, Rebecca Anuwen, she was talking about how it's an under-the-sink kind of place, right? And it's so true because everything we don’t want to feel we're just like, "Oh, we're just gonna, like, shove that in there," and whether or not you have a physical wound, you still have the energetic space. 

0:25:04

So there's so much there, and when you start to unpack it, it can feel a lot, and so, that, too, is like you don’t have to rush through it. You can take your time and one day at a time, one step at a time, one layer at a time. Yeah.

Elena Sonnino: Yeah. Yeah, and the body is home base for me has always been so -- that's always an access point for me in terms of just coming in, whether it's dancing or shaking. I learned a practice in my first belly dancing class. I don’t think they call it shaking, but you're standing, and your knees shake, and over time, the faster you go, your whole body shakes.

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Elena Sonnino: But it's that release that happens when we give our body permission 'cause we're not meant to hold onto things.

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Elena Sonnino: And it's when we don’t allow things to move through us that, then, they get stuck and we create those energetic blockages, and so, honestly, the infrared sauna is also another favorite tool. [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: Yes!

Elena Sonnino: To sweat things out and just allow whatever's there to be there, and then to naturally be released.

0:26:06

Amanda Testa: I love that. I think there's so much, and just those little ways that you can find that resonate with you to let your body have a moment to do what it wants to do without trying to control it or without trying to direct and force, you know?

Elena Sonnino: Yes, yes!

Amanda Testa: And just listening. I love that, that curiosity that you’ve mentioned. Yeah.

Elena Sonnino: Yeah, and, you know, the other -- which is kind of really fabulous practice for somebody to play with is something like a child's pose or a twist, anything like that. If I think about getting into the body, into the belly, into the pelvis, into that root area and just breathing, right? When I ask myself that question, "What do I need today," sometimes my body needs a happy baby shape, and that was actually a shape that my physical therapist wanted me to practice and practice breathing there in terms of opening and closing. 

0:27:07

We don’t need special tools. There are so many tools that are available to us for healing and for play and we are our own best tool. We just have to remember to connect with ourselves.

Amanda Testa: Ah, I love that so much. Well, I mean, I just appreciate all the wisdom that you've shared and just really honoring your light and the spark that you have to talk about this. I think it is important to talk about because if you're listening -- and I know a lot of clients and friends in general that have gone through a lot at a young age, and you're like what the -- you know, this isn’t supposed to happen to a twenty-something and just honoring that and all the realness that comes with that, and then being able to find this new connection with yourself. Like you say, it's a journey, and there's new ways of redefining what brings you joy and pleasure. I would love if you would share a little bit about your book, if you wouldn’t mind.

0:28:04

Elena Sonnino: Yeah, absolutely. So Inhabit Your Joy -- apparently I have to reach for it -- it's a book of nudges, and I had thought about writing a book for many years, and I kept telling myself, "Oh, I don’t know what I'm gonna write about," and then I decided well, if I'm gonna be really curious and get out of my own way, what is that thing that I know about me? I have been told that I'm a nudger, that I, in the best possible way, I ask questions that help people find their own answers or help bring them back to themselves, and so, then, I decided how can I make this as delightful and aligned to me that I can? And so, this book kind of wrote itself. 

It is divided into three sections: be rooted, be curious, be alive. Each section has anywhere from 10 to 15 nudges that are meant to -- I designed it -- my intent as I wrote it was that it would be a book that would live on your desk or in your nightstand, and you could open it almost like an oracle deck, and a nudge would find you. 

0:29:07

I've had some people who say they were reading it cover-to-cover, and then they say, "And now, I'm gonna do it your way." [Laughs] There's no wrong way to be nudged, but I do that. It's on my desk, and I literally will close my eyes, take a breath, and allow a nudge to find me. [Laughs] You'll love -- I just opened, and the one that came up was, "Be Curious Number Five: What If You Did Know?" And so, there's always a little bit of a story of context and then the nudge itself which is meant to be something that you could just play with, ask yourself, maybe journal about. There are some Yin Yoga shapes here -- a child's pose, a twist -- with some guidance about how to either get rooted, get alive, and get curious or get alive and choose that joy, choose to inhabit your joy even in uncertainty, right? That joy isn’t all rainbows and unicorns, that this journey to being alive is full of all of it -- the dark storms, the rainbows, the sunrises, the sunsets, the hazy days, everything in between, but we get to make that choice to be rooted, curious, and alive, and the more we do that, the more we inhabit the truest part of our self that does live in joy. 

0:30:20

And so, it's been a great delight, and I always envisioned this book was gonna be shared from friend to friend in connection and community, and it's been great fun to just get to talk with people and play with these nudges with people. So it's been a joy to kind of send out into the world. [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: I love that. So beautiful, and I'll make sure to put a link in the show notes of where everyone can find the book Inhabit Your Joy.

Elena Sonnino: Thank you, yeah.

Amanda Testa: I love the nudges. That's a good reminder for gentleness and, like, let's just gently get curious and nudge ourselves here, right? [Laughs]

Elena Sonnino: Yeah, and it's interesting, right? I think as we get older -- I'm approaching 50, and this gentleness with ourselves is a gift we can give ourselves. To be curious and not have to be so forced, and not have to know all the answers and have the certainty of the path. We like certainty. It's comfortable. We like knowing where to go unless you're like me and you end up in a new city. One of my favorite things to do when I land somewhere is go for a walk without a map or without Google Maps on my phone either (now, in the new technology of traveling), but it's just that idea to give ourselves permission, and so, for me, anytime that we can do that in all the parts of our lives, the more we get to experience this journey that we're on.

0:31:38

Amanda Testa: Yes! Ah, thank you so much, Elena. I so appreciate you being here, and I'm wondering if there are any last things you'd like to share or if there is a question that I didn’t ask that you wished I had asked?

Elena Sonnino: Oh, I mean, no, I think that when I think of everything we’ve talked about and this sense of curiosity and then the embodiment of it, one of my favorite questions that I'll just leave everybody with is this question of what would feel delicious, especially as we're talking about passion and pleasure and desire and reconnecting with our body. 

0:32:11

Maybe the answer is chocolate, but maybe it's belly dancing. Maybe it's to go out and be in the rain or go stand on the grass barefoot or go play with your children. Whatever it is, this question of what would feel delicious today is a beautiful way to take the boundaries off, take the old expectations off and begin to access that curiosity. So just a fun practice to play with.

Amanda Testa:  I love that. I love that 'cause I'm all about pleasure in the little ways, 'cause it does add up so much when you're kind of being more aware of what you enjoy and what feels good. Maybe it's a beautiful sunset, maybe it's watching a bumblebee take some pollen from a flower. It could be anything.

Elena Sonnino: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: And it does kind of open up the potential for receiving more of what else you enjoy.

0:33:05

Elena Sonnino: Yeah, and if you're focused on exploring what would feel delicious, you're not focused on feeling broken. 

Amanda Testa: True.

Elena Sonnino: Yes. Yay! [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: Yes, thank you so much.

Elena Sonnino: Thank you!

Amanda Testa: Where else is the best place for everyone to find you? I'll also put it in the show notes, but where would you like for everyone to connect with you?

Elena Sonnino: Instagram is a great place. Come hang out with me there. I also have a Facebook group called Live Your Sunrise. There are always morning nudges, bed-time reminders, and inspiration in between, so those are two great places. Then, my website, elenasonnino.com, is the home for all the things.

Amanda Testa: Beautiful. Well, thank you so much, and thank you all for listening. I would just invite you to maybe take a moment to digest what was something that you really appreciated from this episode or something that you want to give a try. Feel free, if you have questions you can reach out to us. You know how to contact Elena, you know how to contact me, so let us know what you loved.

Elena Sonnino: Yes, thank you, Amanda!

Amanda Testa: Yes, goodbye, everyone!

[Fun, Empowering Music]

0:34:03

Thank you so much for listening to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. This is your host, Amanda Testa, and if you have felt a calling while listening to this podcast to take this work to a deeper level, this is your golden invitation. 

I invite you to reach out. You can contact me at amandatesta.com/activate, and we can have a heart-to-heart to discuss more about how this work can transform your life. You can also join us on Facebook in the Find Your Feminine Fire group, and if you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please share with your friends. Go to iTunes and give me a five-star rating and a rating and a raving review so I can connect with other amazing listeners like yourself. 

Thank you so much for being a part of the community.

[Fun, Empowering Music] 

JOIN IN THE DISCUSSION ON THIS EPISODE AND MORE IN MY FREE FACEBOOK GROUP, FIND YOUR FEMININE FIRE HERE.

Dr. Jayne Dabu inspires women to take their turn in health, relationships and career so they achieve invincible confidence, clarity and control.

She has practiced Traditional Chinese Medicine for the past 15 years and has helped thousands of people suffering from chronic health conditions. Dr. Dabu is Founder & CEO of the following: Lotus Acupuncture and Holistic Health Clinic, Genesis Botanical Formulas and women's movement, Her Turn.

Dr. Dabu began as a professional ballerina and retired to work for Turner Broadcasting Networks. While working for Turner, she was diagnosed with cancer. After surviving cancer, she left the corporate world and enrolled in Acupuncture school and became a Doctor of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine.

Dr. Dabu uses her personal and professional experiences to help people discover the source of their chronic health issues so that they can lead happy, healthy and transformed lives.

Dr. Dabu's supplement line has been nationally featured on major tv networks and recommended by Kevin Harrington, the original Shark from Shark Tank. She was featured in Blood, Milk + Honey, Atlanta Public TV, WVEC 13/ABC News Now (ABC News Affiliate), hosted internet radio show, "Nourishing Life" on VoiceAmerica, spoken at NASA, and guested on numerous podcasts and various stages in America.

Submit your application to be featured in a HerStory mini documentary here!

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If you've been interested in learning more about coaching with Amanda, she's now booking coaching clients for 1-1 support in creating the relationship and orgasmic pleasure of their dreams.   If you’ve been thinking about it, maybe we should talk!  Link here to book a free call to see if we’re a fit. 

EPISODE 215: Jayne Dabu

[Fun, Empowering Music] 

Amanda Testa: Hello, and welcome to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. I am your host, Amanda Testa. I am a sex, love, and relationship coach, and in this podcast, my guests and I talk sex, love, and relationships, and everything that lights you up from the inside out. Welcome!

If you ever feel like you have potentially done so much in your life for other people and now you're really ready to put yourself first for a change or you feel like maybe your health has taken a toll on everything you’ve done and you're ready to take back the reins on your health, then you're gonna love today’s episode. Welcome, welcome, and today I have the pleasure of talking with Dr. Jayne Dabu who inspires women to take their turn in health, relationships, and career so they achieve invincible confidence, clarity, and control. She’s also a founder of the Her Turn Movement. So welcome, Dr. Jayne. Thank you so much for being here!

Jayne Dabu: Oh, thank you for having me. I’m super excited to be here and just share with everybody.

0:01:00

Amanda Testa: Yes!

Jayne Dabu: Yes, awesome! [Laughs] Thank you.

Amanda Testa: I was just so touched by your movement. That is actually how I found you to reach out, and I’m curious if you wouldn't mind sharing a little bit more about Her Turn and what inspired you to create it.

Jayne Dabu: Yeah, so, basically, Her Turn is a story movement, and it focuses on women's triumphs over anything in life. You know, I started out with health, of course, with a lot of my patients and just how they're navigating through today, and the lessons they’ve learned whether it was health, relationship, it doesn't matter, you know? So you’ll be hearing a lot of women’s stories there. That’s basically, in a nutshell, what it is. It’s like a mini docu-series, so you’ll hear these women speak for anywhere between eight to twelve minutes, and, ugh, I mean, some of them just bring me to tears. I love it after an interview because then I get to watch the rough draft, and it's not even final but oh, my god, it's just so great to be able to share women's stories to the world.

0:02:07

Amanda Testa: Yes, I agree, and I'm so excited to share more about it and have more people know about it and get involved and share it because I think that's one of the things that we don’t often talk enough about -- our success and really celebrating how far we've come. I feel, a lot of times, maybe there are some taboos around bragging and being proud of yourself and celebrating your accomplishments, but it's so important.

Jayne Dabu: It is. It's so important because we have this -- well, not just women, but speaking about women since this is more a women's story movement -- we have this ideal that we keep on trying to achieve when we always forget, like you said, where we came from. Like I always tell my patients, just celebrate the micro-wins, and instead of comparing your little win today to your ideal (don’t do that), look at where you started and celebrate that. There's a book on that called The Gap and The Gain, and they say that when you are looking at the gap between you and your ideal, then [Laughs] that's where you start living in the gap, and you just start being down on yourself.

0:03:12

Amanda Testa: Right.

Jayne Dabu: But you need to live in the gain part, you know? That book is by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy.

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Jayne Dabu: Definitely, definitely recommend that book. It's great. It'll give you a good mind shift there when you're living in the gap.

Amanda Testa: Yes, yes.

Jayne Dabu: So just pick up that book, and literally, within the first 30 pages, you're like, "Okay, got it! Let's go." So it's great. Yeah.

Amanda Testa: I love that, and I know, not only part of the inspiration for this is sharing women's stories, but also, you’ve practiced traditional Chinese medicine for the past 15 years and helped thousands of people that have suffered with chronic illness and health conditions, among many other things. So I'm curious to know, personally, what maybe inspired you to be so passionate about this.

Jayne Dabu: Yeah, so, that's a great question. Well, my story -- I won't talk too long about my story -- but my story started in 2005 when I became very sick. I was actually working for a large corporate media company in Atlanta and couldn’t figure out what was going on with me. 

0:04:10

I was in my twenties, so I didn’t quite know how to communicate and speak to doctors. It was just like, "Okay, yes. All right, well, whatever you say. All right, whatever," and I didn’t have that ability to ask questions, you know, or be resourceful. And so, what happened was I was diagnosed with uterine cancer, and it was through that whole journey (before I had to come to a decision) when I discovered health, my health. I used to be a professional ballerina, and I thought I was pretty healthy, but my definition of health was not just going to the gym and maybe kind of eating right. I don’t know. My definition of health really changed then.

And so, when I was diagnosed with uterine cancer, then I was faced with a question, like, what next? Is this the end of my life, you know? 

0:05:00

Here you are in your twenties, right? I was also dismissed by many doctors, like, five different gynecologists. It wasn’t until the fifth gynecologist really listened to me, and he was retiring, and when he told me that day, my diagnosis, he was crying. He was crying for me, yes, but also crying and sorry. He kept saying, "I'm so sorry," because he was saying sorry for all the other doctors that wouldn’t listen to me, and saying sorry on behalf of his medicine, you know?

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm.

Jayne Dabu:  I was like wow. I mean, I realized that later, but before he even could figure out the diagnosis, right -- when you are trying to get a diagnosis in conventional medicine, sometimes it takes months, sometimes it takes years, sometimes it does take many years, and in the meantime, why don't you just take charge of your health? At least I had a friend in acupuncture school that said, "Hey, why don’t you go see an acupuncturist?" Another person said, "Hey, go do this. Go do some counseling." So I started just doing that while I was in the wings just waiting and waiting for answers. Sometimes you just can't wait for answers; you have to go out and seek it on your own, however way.

Amanda Testa: Yes. 

0:06:08

Jayne Dabu: But the person I -- and I wish I could find this lady today. I remember it must have been the second or third gynecologist. She was doing an ultrasound on my belly, my lower abdomen, and she goes (she was whispering), "You know what, this lady, this doctor, I know I work for her, but she's just gonna give you birth control pills. That's all she's gonna do," and I go, "Okay, so what are you saying?" She said, "Here, and she scribbled down this phone number. She didn’t even tell me what the name of this -- I was like okay, some random phone number! She goes, "Just call this phone number, and they do these free workshops outside of Atlanta, and you have to attend it." So I went, I attended it, and it was like a functional medicine -- I guess it wasn’t really functional medicine. I don’t know what it was, but I went, and they explained the root causes of disease, and then I was like, "Oh, my god."

0:07:00

After that talk, I was sold. I'm like let's do it because they were still trying to figure it out, and I just started working on my health, you know? Let me just go to the end. Before I had to choose -- because they said with uterine cancer, you cannot get the stage of it until you take the uterus out. So I don’t know if people know that, so I'm like okay, so I'm in my twenties. I wanted to have a child. So you're faced with that decision -- I don’t even know if it's a choice -- that decision. We'll take it out or not, and so, I should say I was working on my health with the naturopathic doctors, the acupuncturists, the spiritual counseling for several months (probably six, seven, eight months), and I kept pushing off the surgery, and the doctor's like, "You need to stop gambling with your life," but what I noticed in those months I was working was things were changing. I wasn’t as bloated. Certain things, you know, in your twenties that you notice. Oh, my acne is going away. What's going on? My period started getting better. He goes, "You better get this out," you know, and I was like, "Okay, well, I don’t want to play with my life. I need to know what stage it's at.”

0:08:03

They did tell me my cancer was about a golf-ball-size tumor. That was, I think, in November of 2005 when I had the best period ever, and December 13th, 2005 is when I was scheduled for my hysterectomy, and I did fight with them to keep my ovaries. I said, "Please let me keep my ovaries!" Oh, my god, I had to fight with them to keep them. They go, "No, we should --," I said, "No, that's it! That's the only -- that’s non-negotiable." 

So they went ahead and went through with the hysterectomy just so I could stage it, and then it was June 6th, 2006, I remember, when the pathologist called and said, "Oh, my gosh, we could hardly find cancer. I think you're in remission. You're fine." I was like, "What?! Did I just heal myself all these months?" I didn’t know, in my twenties, well enough to even say, "Hey, can you just check and do a CT scan again?" I don’t know. I didn’t know. 

0:09:03

I just did it because I got a little scared, you know? Of course, you know? So, well, that was basically it, and I celebrated, and I go, well, I don’t want this to come back. I just quit my corporate job. I said goodbye, I'm gonna go to traditional Chinese medicine school, and if what I did helped me, this is so powerful because I can go and help other women, so they are not in my shoes ever again. Everything I learned (spiritually, mentally, emotionally, physically) from just my experience, I mean, it's priceless, you know?

So that's the original story that inspired Her Turn. 

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Jayne Dabu: After being a practitioner for so many years, really, what's payment is not the money you pay me; the payment is you overcoming it, and I'm constantly -- you know what gets me up in the morning is seeing my patients and hearing their stories. I'm like these stories are so good. Someone's gotta tell them!

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

Jayne Dabu: Because it's only between you and me in this little room. Who's gonna hear these stories, you know? 

0:10:02

So I just was like it's her turn. It's her turn to tell her story. That's basically it, you know? I just love it. I love it so much, and like I was telling you, it's a labor of love, and when these patients -- they tell me, but when they watch themselves on film, they're like, "Wow, did I do all that?" I'm like, "Yes, you did that! You did that! I know you're a work in progress, but it's still going on." So that's basically what inspired Her Turn. That was a long story, but it was a lot. It was a lot. 

Amanda Testa: Yeah, that's a powerful story, and I really want to honor all you've been through and celebrate where you are now.

Jayne Dabu: Thank you.

Amanda Testa: I think one thing that I really heard from that, too, is just the power of advocating for yourself and just looking for solutions and really doing all that you can to support your health along the way because, yes, you never know what might happen, and even if you're as healthy as possible, there are still random things that can happen. So it's like how do you look at your holistic health -- and it sounds like that was a big part of it too. Not just going to the doctor, but also functional medicine and naturopaths and acupuncture and emotional therapy and all the things.

0:11:11

Jayne Dabu: Absolutely, everything, and that's what I try to impart on my patients. I go, "I love you, but I don’t want to see you here every day. You're gonna have to take charge of yourself," you know? They have to reconnect with themselves.

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

Jayne Dabu: They've lost that connection to themselves. So if they're not even empowered with themselves, how can they feel in many areas of their life and their relationships and their sexuality and whatever that looks like to them, you know? It's so important, and I find that once they get their health back, oh, my goodness, especially if they're mothers. They come back and go, "Oh, my god, my husband is not used to this new me," and I'm like, "Well, it's different now, you know?" You know, 'cause they're not taking the backseat in their relationships or their job or whatever it is.

Amanda Testa: Right.

Jayne Dabu: I find health is such a cornerstone and people don’t prioritize it. They just don’t. I mean, you can't live if you don’t have your health.

Amanda Testa: Right.

0:12:08

Jayne Dabu: You can't make money. You can't have anything. You just can't. 

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Jayne Dabu: You know, so that's basically it in a nutshell for that. [Laughs] I'm just so happy that when they do come here it's not just the needles, it's the mind shift when they see me, you know?

Amanda Testa: I'm wondering, too, 'cause one thing you mentioned is seeing so many women that lose connection to themselves.

Jayne Dabu: Yeah, it's huge.

Amanda Testa: I see that a lot as well. That was my story too. I remember one morning looking in the mirror and I had zero connection with the human looking back. I was like what happened to me. And so, I'm wondering what you see, how that presents in a lot of women, or what are the things that might be holding them back from finding that connection in themselves and in their health?

Jayne Dabu: You know, what I find and what I hear a lot -- and it was even me, too, is I kept putting other people first instead of me. You know, even at a younger age that's what I did. Everybody else's needs before me, and that's one of the top ones I hear with my patients and even with friends -- not prioritizing themselves, and then they find themselves out of alignment. 

0:13:14

They don’t know who they are because they’ve been living their life for other people, and if you don’t take charge of your own life, then your life's just gonna run you. I usually give this kind of visual of a plastic bag blowing in the wind or this buoy that's just in the water just going wherever everything else goes. I would say that's the top one. That's where people are held back, and then they don’t even know how to make small decisions, small choices, you know? I clearly remember my counselor when I was sick with cancer saying, "Well, just start with what am I gonna wear today? What do I feel like wearing?" It was that simple! Should I wear blue? Should I wear yellow?

Amanda Testa: Right.

0:14:02

Jayne Dabu: You know, I couldn’t even make a small choice like that. I know it sounds silly, but you have to start with the small stuff: "Do these shoes look good?" I mean, I couldn't even make a choice. What was wrong with me? [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: Yeah, well, I think many people could relate to that, right?

Jayne Dabu: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Amanda Testa: I think if you're looking to make big changes it can feel overwhelming, so starting with those little, simple things can be so huge, right?

Jayne Dabu: I know, and then it builds up from there. [Laughs] Just start with the small stuff. Even, “Where do I want to eat?” "Well, I want to eat here." “Why?” "Because I want to," you know? That's it. Stand strong behind what your choice is. Be empowered by it no matter what it is, small or large, and it grows, you know?

Amanda Testa: Yeah, I think that initial thing of tuning in like what do I want or what do I need and then listening. It can be the smallest. I love that. You're like go into the refrigerator. What is it that you really want? What is your body telling you, right?

Jayne Dabu: [Laughs] Exactly.

Amanda Testa: Okay, good, and then celebrate when you did it.

0:15:00

Jayne Dabu: Yeah, yeah, not just making decisions, but they just don’t listen to their body too. They lose their voice in speaking up. That was one of my biggest things. I was on mute for a lot of my life, and I'm saying that literally because I was a professional ballerina, and they don’t speak. We express ourselves through our body, and then once I got cancer, oh, I was unmuted then, and I continue to be. I've unmuted myself, so [Laughs] I will speak up, and that's it. A lot of women don’t. Someone told me -- I think it was one of my patients -- she goes, "I don’t know. When I hit 40, I just started speaking up." I'm like is it a magic number? What is it? Another lady's like, "When I hit 60, I started speaking up." I'm like is it a decade thing? No. Maybe it's an experiential thing, but it's important to speak up. That's all. Find your voice.

Amanda Testa: Right.

Jayne Dabu: Be your own advocate. Stay strong with all your decisions. You're gonna make it, you know? Don’t waver.

Amanda Testa: I'm wondering what some of the things were that helped you to feel like you could get your voice back?

0:16:05

Jayne Dabu: Oh, like I said, it was the small things, and then finding out when -- hmm, well, I was a patient advocate. Being my own patient advocate, speaking up, and when they had resistance, I would ask, "Well, why?" [Laughs] People don't like it when I go, "Well, why?"

Oh, goodness, when my dad was sick I'm sure other medical doctors didn’t like me. I go, "Well, why do you want him to -- can you explain why? Can you clarify that, please?" I was even just asking clarifying questions which was also speaking up instead of just blindly saying, "Okay, not asking questions." I think that was the large thing, and then when they would say something that didn’t make sense to me, whether it was -- I was like, well, that sounds -- I mean, in my brain (I don’t say it) I was like that sounds ridiculous. You want me to do what? Then I start asking more questions, 'cause the more questions you ask, sometimes they're just on automatic pilot, too, telling you things, especially if it's their job all the time doing it. 

0:17:07

Do they even question why? I don’t know, you know? Sometimes we're just programmed, and sometimes asking questions can deprogram other people from the regular, [Laughs] "Here's a script, and this is what I'm gonna say because this is what I do every day," you know? I think that helped me to start to speak up because when I questioned, I noticed there were some cracks there in other people. 

So yeah, questioning why but not being non-compliant. You have to be compliant. I don’t want to mislead people.  

Amanda Testa: Right.

Jayne Dabu: Right? They have to do what's right for you.

Amanda Testa: I think that curiosity in really listening to what's inside and naming the things that you're concerned about or have questions on -- and I think one of the things that you mentioned earlier, too, which I think is just so mind-boggling, and I never really learned or knew about until I started doing this work around pleasure and sexuality is that, often, hysterectomies are a very common procedure, and sometimes they are needed, and sometimes they can save certain parts of your reproductive system, but sometimes they just automatically take it all out. 

0:18:06

And so, I'm curious what -- when you had that conversation with your doctor you mentioned they were very resistant, 'cause that's the other thing, too. I'm sure sometimes it's scary to stand up to an authority figure of any kind, especially if you're someone who's conditioned to please and say yes in our patriarchal culture. So I'm curious how that went.

Jayne Dabu: Oh, how that went -- speaking up? It was a little scary. I remember my heart beating. I was in my twenties. I was like ahh, I was freaking out, but it was a little voice, and I said, "I really don’t want to do that," and he goes, "Well, why?" And I go, "Well, because you haven’t showed me otherwise that I have cancer there, you know? So why would I do that?" Then, I started speaking up. It was like that, and he goes, "Well, yeah, that's a good point." "Yes, okay, good," and we had to negotiate that, and I said, "Well, what if I want to have children one day?" "Oh, yeah, that's another good point. Well, if we see that something is off then we'll go there," right? I go, "Okay, that's good."

0:19:02

Another thing I wanted to say to that was -- and this is something I often hear. Now, I had a male doctor, you know, at that time, and, of course, he wouldn’t know what it feels like to be a woman, right? He was a very hetero male doctor (this was 2005), and the thing that is never talked about is the feeling -- and even my breast cancer women -- is the feeling that -- it's strange, that attachment we have to our breasts and our uterus, our ovaries. I remember feeling a lot of depression about that not because oh, I won't be able to bear children, but I felt less than a woman. I was not a whole woman. I was just part of a woman. I know that sounds strange, but I've heard that, not just with me, but sometimes I'll ask my patients after they've had a radical hysterectomy, full mastectomy, whatever, oophorectomy, whatever, any of those ectomies of the female reproductive parts, and they feel like they're not feeling that sexuality, you know? 

0:20:07

So it's a huge thing that's not talked about. I'm so happy to speak to them about that 'cause I understand that, too, of how you feel that.

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

Jayne Dabu: It's a process for sure, you know? [Laughs] It is, and learning to love your body now that there's a hole there, you know?

Amanda Testa: I think it's interesting 'cause as you mention that, I do know I have worked with clients who have felt that, and once they had a hysterectomy, they didn’t feel pleasure the same way or kind of went through the grieving process, and I think there's so much energetically that can be done to just even honor that part 'cause you still have the energetic energy even if you don’t have the physical organ, right, and we just aren’t taught to connect to that which you can do.

Jayne Dabu: Mm-hmm.

Amanda Testa: Our body is very capable of pleasure and rewiring itself in all kinds of amazing ways, but I think no one would know unless we talk about it because most of the time they just assume, "Well, that part of my life's over," right?

0:21:01

Jayne Dabu: Right, exactly. Then they just kind of stop trying to be -- if they want to dress up, they just stop. They stop trying to -- you know, "I want to feel good. Nah, I don’t want to 'cause I don’t have that anymore," you know? I don’t want them to feel that way. I want them to love their body where they're at right now, and at least all you lost was maybe that, but you're still there. [Laughs] You're not a shell of a person, you're still there, you know?

Amanda Testa: Of course.

Jayne Dabu: So it's been pretty powerful. [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: This is something that I would love to see. I'm just gonna put it out there as a wish in the world. I wish that when women had to have these procedures that they could be told what to expect or, like, maybe you should have a little ceremony for the parts of your body that you're gonna lose. Maybe you should honor what you've experienced and really invite this new chapter with love and how acceptance or just even neutrality or whatever feels accessible, and just deal with the grief and know that that's part of having support around that, right?

0:22:02

Jayne Dabu: I was gonna say I'm so happy you said that because I actually do that with my patients already because I know what it's like. I've been there emotionally, physically, everything. I've gone through it personally. I just did that with someone that was gonna get their gallbladder out. Now, I know that's not a reproductive -- but that's part of your -- you know. The gallbladder -- at that point, we tried to save it, but there are times when you just have to take it out. It just has to be taken out, you know? It would harm you more than keeping it in. She made that choice. I would honor whatever she would say, and she was so sad, and I was like, "But you need to start thanking that gallbladder for saving you. Forgive yourself for not knowing better. It's okay, but now, we have to send it off, and then now give a lot of love to that liver 'cause it's gonna be doing the job of two organs now so now you need to really take care of that place." And so, we did a meditation after her acupuncture treatment. She was like, "Ah, I feel so much better. Thank you for that." So it's funny you said that. That's what I do when people have to get parts taken out of them.

0:23:06

Amanda Testa: Right, well, I figured that might be part of your practice since, you know, all that you are doing there.

Jayne Dabu: [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: I think there is such a beautiful way that we can integrate all these different forms of medicine, and I just like to have those visuals of every person that has to have something removed can have a -- I will tell a funny side story. I had to have a tooth extracted the other week. It's this whole long story, but anyways, I do a lot of trauma resolution, and so, I work with a somatic experiencing coach, and I love that type of work (really getting into the body), and so, for every time I have a procedure -- even I had a pelvic ultrasound earlier, and it was an extremely non-trauma-informed experience, I will just say, and I'm thinking even just the -- I know it's getting better, and I will share, yes, it's getting so much better that there's a lot more education around that for practitioners and providers, but for being in the driver's seat of that, being able to work with someone to spend some time with these parts and letting them have their experience was huge for both the pelvic ultrasound and the tooth extraction and all the things. It seems so minor, but there's a lot there in your body, right?

0:24:06

Jayne Dabu: There is. Absolutely. 

Amanda Testa: [Laughs]

Jayne Dabu: No, that's a really good story. You know, I'm so glad you brought that up, too. Besides the aftermath of a surgery (even if it's a tooth being extracted), when my patients say, "I'm about to have this surgery," -- I remember a patient, and she was about to have a mastectomy, and, of course, there's a lot of fear about that, you know? Of course, they could go to counseling, but then there's another dimension to that, and what I usually tell my patients is, "Okay, what we're going to do is we're gonna create how this atmosphere's going to be." I know this may sound crazy, but I did this with my doctors right before the hysterectomy. I said, "Could you please --, I have a CD," and it was meditation music, 'cause I know! My friend who is an OR nurse, she said they do listen to music. I didn’t want them blaring some crazy music while they're cutting into me, right? 'Cause it's all energy, right? 

0:25:02

If you were playing some horrible music that was bad, with a lot of words, I don’t want that while you're cutting into me. So I got this meditation CD. I said, "Please, you have to have --," and I didn’t just tell him, I told other people on the team, "Please make sure you play this meditation music. I want calmness in this room while you're cutting into me." They were like, "Okay."

So I did that. I even said, "Is it possible to do some essential oils?" Well, I couldn’t do that because, you know, they didn’t want an infection so at least that, and I sat there, and I said, let's pray, and I prayed for them, and they were like, "Wow, no one's ever done this before." I sent a lot of energy to them while I was preparing for my surgery, right? It's so important how you enter surgery and how you exit a surgery. That's what I tell most of my patients. How do you want to create this surgery and really have them meditate on that, right?

Amanda Testa: Ah.

0:25:59

Jayne Dabu: Sometimes they do, do that. Yeah, it can change your whole outcome too, right?

Amanda Testa: Right. I mean, 'cause, like you said earlier, we're all just going through our days, busy. Just like everyone you're like, "Okay, I've got this procedure, I've got that procedure. I’ve got -- la, la, la." Everyone's just busy going through their day, so when you just invite -- I mean, of course, they're always doing their best to give good care, but just that extra reminder of, like, be really mindful and calm as you do this.

Jayne Dabu: Please.

Amanda Testa: I love that.

Jayne Dabu: It's my body. Please. I know it might be the seventh hysterectomy of the day, but just right there, this is gonna be a special hysterectomy today. We're gonna be calm, and you're gonna be relaxed, you know? What's funny, and I'm sure the doctor was like, "Who's this little 20-year-old telling me what to do?"

Amanda Testa: Right?

Jayne Dabu: [Laughs] I'm like seriously, it means so much to me, and I just really told them it would mean the world to me 'cause I'm really scared. And so, to alleviate my fear, you doing this will help me. Thank you.

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

Jayne Dabu: So it was probably a lot to ask for a little 20-year-old, right? [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: But, you know, I think the thing is all you can hear is a “no,” and more likely than not, they're gonna probably do what they can to work with you to be comfortable, right?

0:27:04

Jayne Dabu: That's right. That's right, and they did let me put some essential oils in my diffuser after surgery. [Laughs] I was like, "Thank you!" [Laughs] I brought some mood lighting in. You know, anything to help me in that sterile, cold hospital room, you know? So when I go visit anybody in the hospital -- well, maybe not during COVID times, but now we can go. I actually went to see a patient in the hospital. I brought her -- I don’t know if you can see -- you can't really see behind me, but I have this selenite lamp. I brought her one of those. I brought her some essential oil diffusers. She said it changed the whole entire room. I did some Tai Chi and Qigong while she was laying there sleeping, and then all the nurses told her -- I didn’t know this until after she got out of the hospital -- they told her, "Oh, my god, we love coming in here because the energy's so nice!" You can shift that. You really can. So it's super important. I hope that's a little tip for people out there.

0:28:00

Amanda Testa: I love that, and also because, yes, those people might have five call buttons going off at once, and they might just enjoy a moment of peace as well.

Jayne Dabu: Well, yeah, I think she said they liked hanging out there, and they're like, "Oh, I've gotta go! Next room," you know? Anytime they wanted to they'd just stop by her room which is great, you know? It makes it very calm in the middle of their crazy day especially in the hospital.

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Jayne Dabu: They're busy people. [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: I love this. You know, one other question that I would love to ask just because I'm sure you probably have a lot of women coming to you wanting to get more energy as they age, maybe wanting to get their libido rolling again.

Jayne Dabu: Yes.

Amanda Testa: I'm wondering what you might share around that.

Jayne Dabu: Oh, energy, libido, yes. Gosh, it's happening earlier and earlier. Before, it was just oh, perimenopause, menopause, but now it's 35, now it's 28, now it's I'm in college. I'm like oh, my god, it's coming earlier! A lot of tips around that. Diet has everything to do with it. The cornerstone of your health is your diet. What you put in is what you'll get out, right? 

0:29:02

Boundaries with your time -- you know, making sure you're scheduling yourself appropriately. So many times, like you said, people are just running all over the place, and we're not intentional, but really being intentional with your time and who you're spending it with 'cause you don’t want to be in situations or with people that are sucking or draining your energy. We've got to think about that -- besides your adrenals. There are those things too. Relationships -- are you getting what you need from our relationships? Are you giving more? That part, that's so important. Of course, where you live. I get into the feng shui of it. Like, what's going on there? Take a picture of that house. Let me see what's going on there. That can also drain your energy too, right? The surroundings are important -- all the external stuff, like I was saying. 

Then, obviously, when they come in we're going to be doing some physical stuff like the Chinese medicine, the functional medicine, that will help the libido and the other stuff. I need to remove all those obstacles that are draining that, 'cause I can only work on that physical and the energetics up here, but then they have to be responsible for their surroundings and relationships and their job. 

0:30:11

It's funny 'cause sometimes if they don’t do that part -- but once I get the libido, the energy, the hot flashes, it could be irregular period, or if there's a fertility issue, if we can get that in place, sometimes it just changes everything externally, but I try to get them to do as much externally that they can control. Sometimes you can't just leave a job, you know?

Amanda Testa: Right.

Jayne Dabu: So I work on goals for that because I'm trying to give them the best life, not just the best health because your health is also a cornerstone for your whole life too. So we're trying to work on everything. It's a layered process, I will say. It's a process, and people don’t realize that about their health and their relationships, but there is no magic wand or pill. I don’t know who is telling you that, but that just doesn’t work. You're gonna have to work on it whether it's your sexuality, your libido, everything.

0:31:06

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm, yes, I know there's that new drug that is out there for women's libido which, actually, I was like yeah, that's not gonna solve your problems.

Jayne Dabu: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: There's a great thing for placebo, so that's good, but usually there’s lots of layers, right?

Jayne Dabu: Definitely. For sure. [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: I think it's so interesting you mention, too -- 'cause there's a great book about sexuality called Come as You Are by Emily Nagoski. I just love her very much. She's a sex educator and researcher. Anyways, what she found a lot of times, too, is, really, at the root is burnout.

Jayne Dabu: Yes, yes.

Amanda Testa: And so, I think a lot of this that you're mentioning, too, kind of goes hand in hand with burnout. 

Jayne Dabu: Oh, yeah, you can be burned out in all areas of your life for sure. It definitely will mess with your sexuality, your libido, your energy. Oh, my god, you could be burnt out on certain people, you know? It could just be a personal relationship too. It's funny, I was burnt out on -- and I'm just gonna be very honest here and very transparent because -- I've never shared this, actually, in a podcast.

0:32:06

Maybe to patients one-on-one, but I don’t mind. When I got down to the root cause of my issue besides, you know, maybe not being on top of my health a little bit, but I was in a job that was toxic. I was in a relationship that was toxic, right? At the same time, my sexuality too (because I'm gay) has a lot to do with the uterus too. I was killing myself and not coming to my own (who I am as a person) and accepting myself, right? So that's a huge part. It took me many years. The shame that I felt, and shame is huge when it comes to cancer. Shame. I think I was watching some Brené Brown video. Oh, my gosh, she's great with that stuff. I have to keep watching it over and over and over and over again, but that's a program that's there for me, right? Finally accepting who I am as a person, loving myself as a person, and from there, that's where sexuality will come, libido, energy. Just living who you are is important and honoring that. 

Amanda Testa: Yes, yes.

0:33:12

Jayne Dabu: I find that with a lot of women, whatever it is, they're not honoring a part of themselves, and they've shoved it so down that how can you have that “I feel beautiful, I want to be wanted?” You can't have that if you're not honoring that part of you. You're killing that part of you. I didn't know it, but I was secretly killing myself without knowing. I didn’t know! I didn’t know any better, you know?

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

Jayne Dabu: So I think that's a huge, huge thing as well. I'm glad to share that with people who are listening. There's something to be said for that.

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

Jayne Dabu: And then forgiving yourself is important.

Amanda Testa: Yeah, thank you for that because I do think there are a lot of people that do kind of find themselves at these crossroads in life and are just like okay, this is no longer okay or I've been living this lie or I've been trying to be someone I'm not, and it's gonna be painful, and I'm gonna follow that truth, and everything might fall apart, and everything might be even more amazing on the other side, right?

0:34:09

Jayne Dabu: That's right, but you have to take the leap, and those people that are not there to support you weren’t your friends, they didn’t love you anyways, you know?

Amanda Testa: Mm.

Jayne Dabu: At least that's what cancer taught me, you know? A lot of people just -- I don’t even know -- they just scattered like at a bar when the lights turn on and everybody scatters like cockroaches. It's like where did they go? [Laughs] They're gone! But you know what? All that toxicity didn’t need to be in my life. I needed the right and perfect people, and god, that was such a huge lesson for me in my early twenties. It was big. Then you ask yourself, "Well, whose life am I living? Am I living my life or your life or what society is supposed to tell me (who I should be, how I should act, what I should wear)," you know?

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Jayne Dabu: You can't create a life you love or love the life you live if you are living someone else's life or from a place of limitation.

0:35:09

How can you create your life, you know? Once you're aware and you get past those limitations, that's when endless possibilities show up for you. It's easier said than done, but everybody has to walk through that themselves on their own timeline, you know? You have to just respect that about people. I mean, that's their life. That's not your life so who are we to judge? You’ve got to let them be happy, you know?

Amanda Testa: Yes, yes.

Jayne Dabu: So that's my preaching for today. [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: Well, thank you so much, Dr. Jayne, for all your wisdom and for all your creating and the amazing things you're doing. I'd love if you would just share with all the listeners where they can connect with you, learn more about your practice, learn more about Her Turn, and all the other amazing things you have going on.

Jayne Dabu: Absolutely! Okay, so I have a couple of things. You can find me on Facebook under Dr. Jayne Dabu. You can find our clinic, Lotus Acupuncture Clinic. You can also find me on Instagram under @drjaynedabu. I also have a supplement line called Genesis Botanical Formulas, so you can also find me on Instagram. I haven’t quite figured out TikTok yet, but I will get there one day. [Laughs]

0:36:16

Now, I am looking for delegates of Her Turn that want to share their story. So if you are interested and you want a little mini docuseries, this is free of charge. If you're okay to share your message with the world, and I'm saying please, share your message. I mean, it took me many years to speak up, right? I mean, we don’t wanna be selfish with that because you never know (just like that lady gave me that phone number that day) how your life will change. If she didn’t give me that phone number, I wouldn’t be here today. I would have been dead probably in 2005. So if you want to share your story, you can make a huge impact, and you'll never know who's listening on the other side. 

So herturn.me. There's a schedule down there. You can go ahead and sign up, and we'll have someone from our team call you and interview you and see if you would be a great candidate for that. I would love to hear your stories 'cause all I hear is what's in my room here in my acupuncture rooms, but I'd love to hear other people's stories too. 

0:37:16

So there's that. I also have drdabu.com, Genesis Botanical Formulas for supplements. Soon I will be hosting a four-hour masterclass on yourfourturnhealthlife.com. So that's a lot of websites. [Laughs] If you just got one, great! Just go there, and you'll find everything else from there, but I had to throw everything in there so yeah.

Amanda Testa: I'll make sure to list all those in the show notes for everyone listening so that you can find that. So thank you so much, again, for being here. Thank you all for listening. Please, yes, share your stories! I am excited to check out this project as it continues to unfold, and thank you all for listening. We will see you next week!

[Fun, Empowering Music]

0:38:01

Thank you so much for listening to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. This is your host, Amanda Testa, and if you have felt a calling while listening to this podcast to take this work to a deeper level, this is your golden invitation. 

I invite you to reach out. You can contact me at amandatesta.com/activate, and we can have a heart-to-heart to discuss more about how this work can transform your life. You can also join us on Facebook in the Find Your Feminine Fire group, and if you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please share with your friends. Go to iTunes and give me a five-star rating and a rating and a raving review so I can connect with other amazing listeners like yourself. 

Thank you so much for being a part of the community.

[Fun, Empowering Music]

JOIN IN THE DISCUSSION ON THIS EPISODE AND MORE IN MY FREE FACEBOOK GROUP, FIND YOUR FEMININE FIRE HERE.

Amanda Testa, is a World Changing Witch, Sex, Love, and Relationship Expert + Trauma Resolution Guide who works with busy professional women and couples to feel incredible in their skin, tap into abundant energy, take sex from a "to do" to something they look forward to, and enjoy better connection and fulfillment in their relationships.  She’s also a mama to a gorgeous 8 yo girl, wife to her sexy hubs, and the host of the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast.  

Her methods bridge ancient tools combined with the latest in neuroscience and somatic healing to facilitate rapid and lasting transformation.

Here is the link to the free Get In the Mood meditation.

And please - if you have a question you'd like Amanda to address on a future episode, submit it on this anonymous form.

If you liked this episode, please consider giving me a 5 Star Review on Apple Podcasts! It truly does help the podcast grow. 

If you've been interested in learning more about coaching with Amanda, she's now booking coaching clients for 1-1 support in creating the relationship and orgasmic pleasure of their dreams.   If you’ve been thinking about it, maybe we should talk!  Link here to book a free call to see if we’re a fit. 

EPISODE 215: 5 Ways To Fire Up Your Libido

[Fun, Empowering Music] 

Amanda Testa: Hello, and welcome to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. I am your host, Amanda Testa. I am a sex, love, and relationship coach, and in this podcast, my guests and I talk sex, love, and relationships, and everything that lights you up from the inside out. Welcome!

Welcome, welcome to five days and five ways. My brain is a little scrambly today because I woke up with a migraine for the fourth day in a row this week so my apologies there, but you know what? What I love about even when I have pain is I know ways to make myself feel good, and I can still figure out how to focus more on the pleasure than the pain. The beautiful thing is both pleasure and pain originate from the same place in the brain, and so, when you can kinda play and hack your nerves to focus on what feels good, it makes such a difference. This is one of the keys too. I want to talk more about five ways to fire up your libido, but what I love is that, you know, it's not always a challenging thing. 

0:01:00

It doesn't always have to be hard, and even just something like this. I love essential oils. So even just taking a moment -- right now, I'm gonna invite you wherever you are, whatever you're doing, if it feels possible to, perhaps, tune in a little more presently to what we're doing here and maybe, if it feels safe and comfortable -- not if you're driving the car, obviously -- but if you maybe want to drop your eyes closed or just gaze softly down or just kind of let yourself soften a bit. [Deep breath out] Maybe take a deeper breath or two and notice if you can find a place in your body, in your being, something that feels comfortable, something that feels stable, maybe grounded, maybe even good, maybe even pleasurable. If that feels hard, you can even start by connecting to what is, just feeling the weight of your body in the chair, feeling the weight of yourself being held by gravity, just feeling that trust of gravity holding you to the ground. Feeling that support for the ground beneath you, and, for me, my feet are a really good resource. I love to rub my feet together. I love to feel my feet rubbing on the ground. That, to me, feels so good. 

0:02:03

So focusing on what feels good can just help me bring my awareness to something that's pleasurable, right? 

And so, I'm gonna talk more about this in a minute, but as we move into five ways to fire up your libido, I want to ask you a question. I want to understand from you why it's important. Why is it important for you to have your sex drive back, to feel your libido alive and kickin'? I'd love to know your answer. Please post below. I'll also put an anonymous Q&A form 'cause I really am curious. I would love to know why it's important to you, and I think this can be a really important thing 'cause sometimes we can hear all the messages from the world around us telling us why we need certain things or this is what you should be doing or for your partner or whatever, but I want to know the reason for you. If you can just drill down into your own divine self, the part of you who knows what you need and why it's important, what is it for that part? I'm wondering as you feel into why this is important for you, what can you see, perhaps, be different or what would change in your life if you had your libido back, if you felt sexy, if you felt your sex drive alive and kicking, if you felt desire. 

0:03:09

What would be different? What would change? Maybe thinking what would be the best part about that? What would be the best part about that?

I want to celebrate you for a minute 'cause even just being here right now is telling the powers that be, the universe, the divine creative, all that is, whatever you believe it is, it's just making a statement that this is something that I want, this is something that's important to me, and that right there can open up a huge door. So I just want to celebrate you right now for being here because that, my friends, is the number one thing that you can do. Start to connect to your desires, why it's important to you, and why you want this. And so, that's the number one tip: connecting to why it's important to you and feeling what that feels like. What would change? What would feel so good about having that, right? Focusing on the desires and then focusing on what else you want around that, what else would feel amazing about that, right? Maybe even picture yourself in a scenario where your sex drive is on fire, you're feeling so turned on, you're so tingling with energy and pleasure, what would be the best part about that? 

0:04:11

Tell me more about that. Feel into it for yourself. What would you be feeling? What would you be feeling on your skin? What might you be touching? What would you be tasting? What would you be smelling? What would you be listening to? What might someone be saying to you or what are you saying to yourself? What sounds might you be making? Just notice how that feels, and also, I just want to honor if that feels hard or if that feels impossible or if that feels challenging to do. If there's parts of you that are like mm, no, that doesn’t feel true, that doesn't feel realistic, that doesn’t feel possible, and I assure you that there are baby steps you can take to return to your libido. 

So when you're focusing on your desires, that's a really important thing because it actually takes you into a place of focusing on what you want and allowing your brain to wrap its head around the potential of that happening, right? When you wrap your head around the potential of that happening, you often can let your body and being know that that's actually an okay option. That actually can be okay. You can have that, and you can still survive, right? 

0:05:06

There might be parts of you that think no, no, that doesn’t feel good. That feels scary. That's something you can do is spend more time with those pieces, and know what they might need to feel okay with moving forward because, oftentimes, there can be a lot of fear wrapped up in that, right? And so, I just want to honor that too, if that's what you're experiencing.

So the other thing, number two, is I'm gonna take your desires a little bit further. So when I talk about desire when it comes to a sexual nature (your libido, your turn on), there can be a lot of things that can stand in the way of connecting to that, right? And so, what are some baby steps you can take to connect to the things that light you up, connect to the things that feel good, connect to the things that make your body feel good, connect to the things that make you feel good? I want you to just take a moment now and make a list of what some of those things are. What are the things that make you happy, that you want, that feel good to you? Just think about what some of those can be. Maybe it's taking a walk in the sunshine. Maybe it’s snuggling with a loved one. Maybe it's petting your beloved pet. 

0:05:59

Maybe it's taking a bath. Maybe it's feeling the hot water running on your neck when you take a shower. Maybe it's smelling something that smells good, as I do that right now. Maybe it's just enjoying a glass of water, and on that note, I'm gonna remember to hydrate myself a little. Maybe it's putting something beautiful in your space that you can look at, that pleases your eyes. Maybe it's making sure that things that surround you feel good to touch. I really am such a sensual person that I love to dress in things that feel good or have things around me that feel good that I can touch and bring my awareness to. My desk is full of all kinds of beautiful amazing things that I can look at and touch. It makes my day so much more pleasurable. 

So those kinds of little things, again, as I mentioned in the beginning, we can redirect our brain to focus more on what feels good, and the more we do that, the more we open our pathways to pleasure, right? Now that you’ve kind of connected to some of those things that light you up, I want you to make a commitment to do those things more often than you think you need to, right? Do those things more often than you think you need to because some of the surprising things that will kill your sex drive are stress, feeling stressed out, having horrible things happen, right, all the world's events that are just traumatizing. 

0:07:08

I was listening to a podcast the other day, and they were talking about how we are not meant to hold the traumas of the entire world. We are meant to be with what's happening in our community and our family on a small scale, but now because of the worldwide web and the interconnection that we have, we can see all the sufferings of the entire planet, and that is extremely heavy on our nervous system. So stress, trauma, those things can kill your sex drive. So that's why it's important to really connect to the things that make you feel good.

Number three -- this is my third tip -- is understanding your nervous system and really doing what you want to nourish your nervous system because when you do that, you are going to find yourself at a more baseline level of desire and receptivity, actually wanting to, because, frankly, one of the main things I see with overwhelmed women and really busy high-achieving women that come to work with me is they are burned out. They do everything for everyone. They are working their asses off. They are busy from dawn 'til dusk. They are doing it all. 

0:08:08

Bringing home the bacon, frying it up in the pan, never letting them forget their man or woman, right? It's all that, and it's exhausting. Not to mention all that we've been through. We're kind of coming out of the other side of it, yet there is a lot of aftershock, and I think, now, what happens a lot of times when you're moving into the world is that all of those aftershocks start really kicking in, and you feel them and you're starting to feel the repercussions. Like, maybe you've put on a brave face for so long and now you're just like ah, I can breathe, and when you breathe everything comes rushing in. Let me know if you can relate to that or if that resonates with you.

Yeah, so the reason why nourishing your nervous system is so important is because we want to create a wide foundation of support for ourselves. We want to be like a 300-year-old tree. If a storm rolls through and there's a 300-year-old tree, most often than not, a really deeply rooted tree is gonna just wave with the wind and be able to withstand, right? 

0:09:03

If you think of a baby little sapling, if a big wind gust comes, it might just blow it right out of the ground, and it's gone down to Kansas. So this is the same with us, right? The more we can cultivate the things that ground us, that make us feel good, that can keep us in our window of tolerance, that we are gonna have more ability to handle the things that come our way with more ease and with more ability to respond. 

I want to just talk a little bit about your window of tolerance because I know I've talked about this before, but if you're not familiar, basically, this is a place where you could easily move throughout your day. You might have ups and downs, you might cry, you might get upset, but then you come back to a place of regulation and feeling good pretty quickly, right? You can easily come back to feeling centered and feeling grounded. That means you're in this window of tolerance, this place where you can be resilient. Now, what can happen in our busy lives is we can tend to, maybe, go in one of two ways. So maybe we have a lot going on, and we're up here all the time, like, "Ah, I've gotta do this. I've gotta do that. I can't even breathe. I've gotta go take the kids here, and I've gotta go run these errands, and I've got this huge presentation to do, and I've got 15 clients I need to follow up with. Oh, my gosh, there's so much, and I'm just gonna keep going and going and going," and then, that's a hyper state, right? 

0:10:13

There's a lot of anxiety, potentially, there's a lot of stress, there's a lot going on, and after that for an extended period of time, eventually, your body's gonna be like nope, and it might crash down into hypo. This can also be another state depending on how your nervous system naturally reacts to things. When you're in this hypo-state, it can drop down below, and then it's like, "Ah, just like lethargy, and I just can't even get out of bed, and I'm just exhausted, and I just can't even more, and ah, I never want to come out of my hole, but I have to pay my bills and I have all these other things." Then you kind of can go up and down from this hypo place to this hyper place. What we want to do is to get to a place where we can kind of be with all of the things that cause the triggers, that give them opportunities to complete the stress cycles, and to learn ways to come back down into a place where we feel good, right -- to maybe come back up to a place where we can feel good. 

0:11:06

And so, those are some important skills that you can learn, and oftentimes, when it comes to sexuality, it sometimes needs to start there because if you're not in a place where your nervous system is functioning optimally, then it's gonna be hard to connect to your libido, right? So that's why it's important to nourish your nervous system, and I love teaching clients about that. It's a big part of what I talk about so much because it's really important.

The other thing is understanding what is happening within and what is happening without. Oftentimes we can get a little bit confused of what's happening inside of ourselves and what's happening outside of us, and this is where boundaries come in, right -- creating boundaries that support you to keep in what feels good and to keep out what doesn’t and move towards what you desire and move away from what feels like it's depleting, right? When it comes to pleasure, one of the things that actually can happen is that we don’t really have the capacity to hold more pleasure, right? 

0:12:01

Our nervous system can't handle it, so that's another reason why it can be hard to handle when we have a bunch of arousal energy coming up. Our body might shut it down, and it might not know what to do with that energy, so that's part of the process, too, in working with the nervous system. Not only are you learning how to come into this place of regulation, but you're also learning how to healthily expand your potential for arousal so that you can actually stay with it and be present to the sensation versus shutting down. So, again, that's another reason why that is important, so I do like to address that because, oftentimes, that's not something people talk about when it comes to turning on your desire, and it's a big part of it.

So the fourth thing that I want to talk about is creating a sensual self-care routine, and I really love that term because part of what we need to do to take care of our nervous systems is to create a sensual wellness practice, right? We have to learn to touch ourselves, to be with our bodies in a way that feels good. Again, you can start wherever feels comfortable for you, but the intention is that, over time with loving care and loving touch, that you find a way to be with your body in ways that bring you pleasure, that you find a way to view the beautiful aspects of your body and really see the divine magnificence of it, no matter the shape or size, no matter any of that stuff, right? 

0:13:22

And so, how you can do that is creating a regular sensual self-care practice where you, on a daily basis, take time to drop into your senses, you take time to touch your body in a way that feels good, and, if possible, even doing some self-pleasure practices. That can take a while to build up to, but that's okay because a really important part is how you touch your body. Are you able to even do that, and if it feels hard, what are the things that are in the way, and that's sometimes when, you know, you might want to work with a professional or reach out to me to kind of get to the place where you can touch your body in a way that feels good and not have shame about it and not feel bad about it but actually embrace it as a way to nourish your sexual energy, to nourish your aliveness. That is your connection to yourself, and it can only take sometimes as little as five or ten minutes. Once you kind of have cultivated a practice, it doesn’t always take so long to tap into that energy.

0:14:09

As I mentioned this morning, I woke up with a terrible migraine, and I've had one pretty much every day this week, and I know it's hormonal and there are all kinds of things that I'm working with to get to the root of it, but, at the same time, I know what makes me feel better. So, for example, this morning when I took a shower, it's busy in my house in the morning. I don’t have a lot of alone time, but I do make time to do practices for myself, and it looks different every day, but it's important to me. And so, today I didn’t have the usual time because I was helping my daughter do something else this morning. It looked a little different, and so, when I was in the shower, I used that ten minutes to make it a pleasure experience, right? I luxuriated in every part of the shower. I listened to a transmission from one of my teachers, Layla Martin (I love her), and just connected to my divine goddess nature within, and gave myself a luxurious breast massage. I mean, it was amazing the difference when you can connect to what feels good and what lights you up. 

0:15:01

It brings your body alive a little more and, really, that's the intention of a sensual self-care practice of creating that sensual wellness routine so that you can find ways every day to activate that in yourself and to cultivate that. That is a beautiful thing, and it's so much fun once you get the hang of it. It can feel really hard at first, so I want to just name that if that's you, and you're like oh, I don’t know if I can do that, that's okay too because you can get to a place where you can do it if it's important to you, right? It's not important to everyone, but there are people who do want to have a good sexual energy aliveness practice, that they want to have a way to awaken that libido and aliveness and let it flourish you in the ways that it may. 

I think, sometimes, what can often happen is people want to get their sex drive going for someone else (for their partner, for their relationship), and that's an important part of it, right? When I first got into this work, that was one of the reasons I signed up for my first sexuality class I ever took. I was like, "Well, I mean, it couldn’t hurt. Things in the bedroom are a little challenging now that I just had a baby, so let's look at that," right? I remember when I signed up, I was so embarrassed. I was mortified. 

0:16:00

I was like please, god, don’t let anyone know that I'm doing this, but it was so amazing because what I learned at the other side was it had zero to do with pleasing my partner and everything to do with coming home to myself, coming home into my own body, learning how to feel good in my skin, learning how to touch myself in ways that feel good, and then from there, it awakened all these new pleasure pathways in my body. It opened my heart more to my partner, and so, now, my husband and I have a much deeper relationship because of my own process. We would have never gotten there had I not done my own work. So, oftentimes, yes, you can do this together with your partner, but oftentimes, it's individual work that you do on yourself first, and then things change when you work on yourself, right? Usually there is a change and a ripple effect around you. So hence the importance of a sensual wellness routine.

All right, and now I'm gonna go to number five. These are some fun, applicable things that you can start doing right this minute. These are some of my favorite holistic sex tools. They're simple tools that you can use to just start feeling more pleasure in whatever you're doing. When it's coming to your libido and activating your libido, we've talked about a few things now, right? 

0:17:07

We've talked about why it's important to you. We've talked about connecting to that desire and following those things and really learning to give your body and your being yourself, doing the things that light you up, doing the things that feel good, doing the things that make you happy, doing the things that nourish yourself because you can nourish your nervous system that way, right? Nourishing your nervous system is important, right? We talked about that. Then, finally, creating your sensual practice, your sensual self-care practice. 

Number five is using holistic sex tools. Now, these are just simple things that you can do when you're having sex or when you're in an intimate experience, when you're self-pleasuring, whenever you're doing something that feels good. I love these because they are all readily available without having to spend any money or do anything else.

Number one is your intention, right? Having the intention of I am going to be open to the potential of my sex drive coming alive. I'm gonna be open to the possibility that this could be the best sexual experience I've ever had. Even just telling yourself that can change everything because we can get ourselves in a loop of, "Ugh, here's what's gonna happen. This is gonna happen, and then I'm gonna get touched here, and then it's gonna hurt, and then I'm gonna be not into it, and then I'm gonna get bored, and then it takes too long anyways, so I'm just gonna let me partner do what they want and have fun, and then I'm gonna be done, and then I can go back to reading my book," right? 

0:18:18

So those kinds of stories aren’t gonna serve you at all. So it's kind of working with your intention. Like, what is your intention? My intention is to be open to connecting to something that feels good. My intention is to be open to having a heart connection with myself or my partner. My intention is to have the potential for my sexual energy to come alive. My intention is for my libido to awaken from its slumber a little bit, right? So having an intention is a very important thing. So when you move into whatever you're doing, there is an open mind and a curiosity.

Number two: focus on your breath. Slow down and focus on your breath. Oftentimes, we don’t realize how we're breathing, and especially when it comes to our sexuality, maybe we have different breathing patterns that we might not even be aware of. 

0:19:00

Perhaps we stop breathing or perhaps we hold our breath or perhaps we clench or perhaps we aren’t even aware of what our breath is doing so when you can kind of focus on your breath, that is a way to drop into your body. So even if it's just taking two minutes before you move into an experience. Maybe you do this with yourself before you move into an experience. Maybe you do this with your partner, but just taking a few minutes to just breathe and focus on your breath, maybe inviting in a breath pattern that feels good and supportive, maybe that means slow, deep breathing to you, right? Maybe you want a little more activating breath, and you can do a little bit of fire breath where you're breathing a little more rapidly in and out of the nose. Kind of like [Rapid fire breaths in and out]. That can be an activating breath, so that might not be good for everyone. If you have any health conditions or anything like that, you might want to not do that activating breath, but the great thing about it is if you do it -- you know, maybe just do ten breaths like that and take a break, and do ten breaths more. That's pretty gentle, but it can kind of activate you a little bit to kind of get things a little more awakened, right?

0:19:59

You know yourself more than anyone else. That's why with breath sometimes -- with everything sexuality -- it can be really helpful to work with someone so that you can get a little more nuances for your particular problem, but if you're someone who tends towards, you know, maybe being shut down or just not interested, then maybe a little activating breath can be good. If you find yourself as someone who is super anxious and stressed out and it's really hard to drop into your body, maybe a slower breath could be good for you, right? Breath is such a beautiful tool around that. 

Then, also, don’t be afraid to make sounds. Whatever you're experiencing, just sound it. Sometimes that can be a fun practice to do throughout your day if you have the sound privacy to do it. I love doing it in my car. Just notice what is going on in your body right now, and if you could make a sound what would it be? Then make it. [Laughs] Even right now I invite you to do that! If you could make a sound, what sound would you make? [Deep sigh out] That sounds about like what my sound is right now. [Laughs] Also know your sounds are beautiful. Whatever sound you make is the perfect sound. I'm actually going through a little thing right now where I'm working with my own sound because I had to have some mouth surgery, and I feel like I talk differently, and it's bothering me. 

0:21:02

People say they can't notice it, but I notice it, and it is irritating me so I'm working with that -- loving my sounds, loving whatever is coming out of my mouth. Then, letting yourself move, letting your body move more. Again, we can get so stuck in these cyclical patterns when we have sex or when we pleasure ourselves, and we can get stuck doing the same thing again and again, and so, the more we can kind of play with different ways of being, using those holistic sex tools of intention, breath, sound, and movement, it really helps you drop more into the experience, be present to what is happening, and be open to something new. A lot of these are learned skills, right? 

This is something I can help you in more detail with. If you have questions, let me know. If you want more support around creating a sensual wellness routine or if you want more help around any of these items, let me know what you'd like more information on, but I think these are really great starting points. You’ve got a lot of beautiful things. Even if you just start with what we we've talked about today, that is gonna give you a lot more clarity of why this is important to you, right, and what little things help you feel good so you can start doing more of those so you can just open up in general your whole body and being to more experiences of what feels good. 

0:22:12

That can really help awaken libidos 'cause, often too, there can be hormonal things, this, that, and the other, so it's never a bad idea to also talk to a healthcare provider but, also, I want you to know there's so much you can do holistically, and that's why I think it's important because many times there are things happening that we can do, right? We can focus on what we can do. We can focus on what does feel good. We can focus on where we do find pleasure. We can focus on touching ourselves in different ways to explore what we might like, right? We can get to the root of why it's important, we can focus on our desires, we can create our sensual wellness routine to nourish our nervous system, and we can use our holistic sex tools.

So these are some starting points. I know that it sometimes can feel overwhelming when you're facing these kinds of challenges, but I want to let you know that if you make a commitment to yourself and start doing little, teeny things every day, less sometimes is more. The less pressure we put on ourselves, the more we make it fun, simple, and doable, the more changes we're gonna see. 

0:23:12

So I'll invite you to have fun with these. As always, I'm here to support you if you need more help in this area. I also want to share with you a get in the mood meditation which is one of my favorite little practices you can do before sexy time, before self-pleasure so that you can take a moment just to drop in and be with yourself and kind of get in the mood. It's called amandatesta.com/getinthemood. So you can enjoy that! 

I will look forward to seeing you very soon. Have a beautiful rest of your day. Let me know what questions you have. You can post them in the Find Your Feminine Fire Facebook group. You can email me directly at info@amandatesta.com. Please share with me what you need support around, and I will gladly talk more about it on the podcast and in the group. I'm wishing you a beautiful day!

[Fun, Empowering Music]

Thank you so much for listening to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast.

0:24:00

This is your host, Amanda Testa, and if you have felt a calling while listening to this podcast to take this work to a deeper level, this is your golden invitation. 

I invite you to reach out. You can contact me at amandatesta.com/activate, and we can have a heart-to-heart to discuss more about how this work can transform your life. You can also join us on Facebook in the Find Your Feminine Fire group, and if you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please share with your friends. Go to iTunes and give me a five-star rating and a rating and a raving review so I can connect with other amazing listeners like yourself. 

Thank you so much for being a part of the community.

[Fun, Empowering Music]

JOIN IN THE DISCUSSION ON THIS EPISODE AND MORE IN MY FREE FACEBOOK GROUP, FIND YOUR FEMININE FIRE HERE.

SharRon Jamison is a life strategist, author, minister, entrepreneur, and corporate leader who is committed to helping you BE who you were born to be, and not settle for what society has taught and told you to be. 

Through her coaching programs, innovative workshops, wisdom-filled books, empowering sister circles, and speaking events, she passionately challenges people to shed societal “shoulds” and outdated beliefs so they can live  purpose-centered lives

SharRon earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Hampton University, Hampton, Virginia. She earned a Masters of Business Administration from Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

SharRon’s newest book, Deciding To Soar 2: Unwrapping Your Purpose, was just released and is quickly becoming a manual for people who are committed to living more aligned, empowered, and joyful lives. 

If you want to change your career, live more boldly, and love more deeply, please order her book today.

For Her Free Resources, please click here.

If you liked this episode, please consider giving me a 5 Star Review on Apple Podcasts! It truly does help the podcast grow. 

If you've been interested in learning more about coaching with Amanda, she's now booking coaching clients for 1-1 support in creating the relationship and orgasmic pleasure of their dreams.   If you’ve been thinking about it, maybe we should talk!  Link here to book a free call to see if we’re a fit. 

EPISODE 213: SharRon Jamison

[Fun, Empowering Music] 

Amanda Testa: Hello, and welcome to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. I am your host, Amanda Testa. I am a sex, love, and relationship coach, and in this podcast, my guests and I talk sex, love, and relationships, and everything that lights you up from the inside out. Welcome!

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the podcast. If you ever feel like you are struggling, perhaps, to accept all the different parts of you or, really, how to move past the old narratives or things that you might have heard so you can experience more joy and pleasure in your life, then you are gonna love this episode. I have a very amazing guest, SharRon Jamison, who is just such a delight. She's been on the podcast before. She's a life strategist, an author, a minister, an entrepreneur, and a corporate leader so she manages a lot, as well as a mom, and she is really committed to helping you be who you were born to be and not settle for what society has taught and told you to be.

0:01:04

So I am so glad that you're here, SharRon. Thank you so much for coming back.

SharRon Jamison: I am so grateful to be here with you, and just thank you so much for allowing me to come back in to share with you and your listeners. So I celebrate you, and thank you. 

Amanda Testa: Thank you! Well, I know something that you were just saying -- a couple of things -- spoke to me deeply. Number one, talking about how, especially after all that we've been going through collectively in the past few years, and just when you have the opportunity to slow down, actually realizing how tired you really are. You mentioned you just went on a trip, and so, tell me more about that. I would love to hear 'cause I think so many people can relate to that.

SharRon Jamison: Yeah, you know, I went on a trip because I knew I was weary, but I didn’t know how weary I was. I was tired in my bones. I was tired in my spirit because I had gone through so much grief with loss around COVID. 

0:02:05

I mean, not just physical loss of people (which was really painful), but physical loss of normalcy, physical loss of feeling that I knew what I was called to do. There was a lot of loss, and I think with grief, there's something that we say, is that sometimes only in death do you learn how to live, and there was so much death that it made me tired, that I think I learned how to breathe and to live fully, and I started compartmentalizing myself in ways just to survive, and I saw a lot of that, not only in myself, but also in many of my clients, that they started breaking off pieces of themselves just to survive, and some of them were barely existing, and so, I went away, got some clarity, and I had to understand a couple of things. 

0:03:01

I call it the four T's. I had to identify what was my truth now based on what we had gone through with COVID, based on the racial reckoning, based on as I get closer to the 60. What's my truth for this season in this stage of my life? That was really difficult, and I'm not sure I know yet, but I'm on that journey to understand what my truth is for now. 

Then the second thing I had to ask myself is do I trust myself with my truth? I think that I was hiding under all of the busy-ness, and I am now saying if I am being called to do something different and I want to let go of those old identities, do I trust myself, at almost 60 years old, to reimagine, to recalibrate, to redefine myself, and really what does that mean, and so, I am leaning into that. 

0:04:03

Honestly, I don't know. I want to trust myself 'cause I have evidence that I can. I have a history of trusting myself, but now, since there's been so much change and chaos, I'm trying to learn how to trust that I can do my truth and live my truth without apology. The two other things kind of go together. I'm trying to ask myself: can I take valued inspired action and, here's the other piece, can I also take my time so that I make healthy choices because now I'm in the second period of my life, and I don’t have time to rebound like I did in my 30s and 40s. Since I'm older, I feel this bigger commitment to being wiser, and so, those are the four things I am really grappling with and wrestling with so that I can not only move myself forward, but also provide some guidance for some of the people who depend on me in church, at work, and all the clients that trust me to be on this journey with them.

0:05:16

Amanda Testa: Yes.

SharRon Jamison: So those are four big things for me.

Amanda Testa: Those are such beautiful questions to ponder and I think, as you mentioned earlier, as we reach these new milestones in life, these different decades, there's always kind of a -- I don’t know, there are all of those questions that come up as you move into a different decade and especially when you've spent, maybe, the first part of your life caring for others or really burning the candle at both ends and all the things. It shifts, and so, it can be hard, like you say. It's like how do we trust who we want to be?

SharRon Jamison: Yeah, and something that you mentioned is the milestones. I am trying to make sure that the milestones don’t make me stop believing in miracles.

Amanda Testa: Mm. Mm-hmm.

0:06:03

SharRon Jamison: That is really critical because in my 20s and 30s, I was open to miracles. I was open to doing my part and then allowing the universe to meet me at my place of inadequacy or insufficiency and do what I could not do. That is hard as you get older because then you seen so much, you have lived so much, you have endured so much, and so, my goal is to make sure I don’t lose my capacity to hope for miracles, to embody miracles, to expect miracles. That's what happens, I think, sometimes as we get older. We stop expecting blessings and miracles and greatness and goodness, and so, I'm really trying to make sure that I don’t lose that as I age, that I don’t lose my wonder.

Amanda Testa: Ah, I love that so much. I'm wondering what are some ways that you do that? What are some ways that you lead that space and stay committed to wonder?

0:07:07

SharRon Jamison: Yeah, what a great question! I try to stay connected to wonder through a couple of things. One, nature. What I see -- for example, when I was on vacation, to look at the ocean and to sit there and see the vastness of the ocean, the waves, and knowing all the creatures that live in the ocean and how they have been there for centuries, it lets you know that miracles are still happening. So nature's really helpful. I also see wonder in community with the conversations. I see the wonder of healing. I see the wonder of being witnessed for all of the gifts that I may be overlooking in myself. I see the wonder of kind words. I see the wonder of humanity, generosity, to give and to forgive. I also am getting in touch with wonder as I work out and seeing that my almost-60-year-old body can still play basketball, can still run, can still lift weights.

Amanda Testa: Yes!

0:08:10

SharRon Jamison: And so, sometimes the wonder if looking in the mirror and saying, "Wow! I am a miracle!" I find God's miracles, the universe's miracles, in a whole variety of ways.

The last one is prayer, and prayer to me is not just praying on your knees. Prayer is walking, prayer is listening to music, prayer is dance, prayer is journaling. Sometimes prayer is crying. So I allow myself to experience all the different forms of prayer, and that lets me get back in touch with the miraculous and the wonder of who God is and who I am through God because I believe that God is not up there; God is in me, through me, and with me, and I try to make sure I sit in that and lean into that.

0:09:00

Amanda Testa: I love that so much. That kind of brings me something that you mentioned earlier just about how we can kind of reconcile all these different parts of us because sometimes it can be easy to compartmentalize, like you say. Sometimes it's kind of like you have to do it, and sometimes when you have the opportunity to look at all these different pieces and say okay, well, all these parts of me are divine and worthy of love, so how can I learn to be more accepting to these different parts of me. Tell me a little bit more about what your experience is with that.

SharRon Jamison: Yeah, and what I'm seeing in, not only my life, but also in the lives of people who give me access to journey with them is that people are really getting in touch with the different parts of themselves. They are realizing that they are social beings, and they want and need connection (healthy connection and holistic connection), that they are spiritual beings, that they crave and they yearn even when they don’t know it, to connect with a higher power (however they name that higher power), that they yearn to believe in something bigger than themselves. 

0:10:04

They realize that they also are sexual beings, that their body is healed by touch, that their body is healed by orgasms. Orgasms are not only physical, but they're emotional and they're spiritual, and that orgasms are what give us energy. It stimulates us. Eroticism is powerful. Eroticism is energy, and people are trying to get into that part of being sexual but also sensual. 

Sensual, I think, sometimes gets mixed up with sexual. Sensual that means that their ability to understand and appreciate and embody pleasure and joy and touch in all of the ways that we hear and see and feel and touch and taste, that we are sensual beings. All of those parts of us can bring joy, can bring pleasure, can bring peace, can bring wisdom. 

0:11:07

People never think that sexual intimacy can bring wisdom, but it brings wisdom, and so, I find that we all are, in some ways, leaning into the social, but we try to abandon or minimize the sexual or the spiritual or whatever that is because of religion, because of culture, because of social conditioning, and when we deny those very important parts of ourselves, we deny ourselves access to wisdom, we deny ourselves access to creativity, we deny ourselves access to our fullness. Those parts are really, really important for all of us to lean into them, and it's not easy. I struggle also. It's not easy, but it's important. 

Amanda Testa: Yeah, and I'm wondering if you might speak a little bit more to that. You mentioned it feels easy sometimes to lean into being the social being and these different parts versus being a sexual being. I'm wondering what are some strategies or some tips that you have for people who want to lean in, but it does feel hard.

0:12:13

SharRon Jamison: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: How can we merge that a little more?

SharRon Jamison: Oh, so that's a good question. You’ve put me on the spot so I'm gonna go there! Let's go there. One of the ways that we start to appreciate the sexual parts of us is to understand that the ways that we were taught religion were to control us, to control our sexuality. We were taught religion from a patriarchal perspective, and what does patriarchy want to do? Control women, control pleasure, control anything that makes us happy. [Laughs] That's gonna take a whole bunch of unlearning and relearning, so that's the first thing. We have to intellectualize. We have to understand that.

Secondly, we have to start to love our body. In my generation, we were taught not to touch our bodies. We were taught crazy things like if you masturbate, you'll go blind, right? I mean, just crazy stuff!

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

0:13:08

SharRon Jamison: And so, women and women-identifying folk have to reclaim their bodies and touch the parts of their body so that they can know it. It's like how can you know something that you won't investigate or look at? And so, we have to look at ourselves naked, and we have to look at our vaginas or whatever we have. We have to look at our genitalia. We have to look at our bodies, and we have to understand that our sexual organs are not the only organs that are erotic. We can touch, we can feel our toes and all the stuff. I even hate the word "fetish," because fetish sometimes invokes shame. So that's the physical component of it. 

0:14:00

I think the emotion of it is to give yourself permission to know that you're worthy of it and that you're not gonna knock the bottom out of hell 'cause hell is not a place that you go to, it's a place that you live when you deny yourself. So some of us are living in hell right now, right? Also, I think we have to find ways and find people we can ask questions because sometimes I find -- and I'm interested in what you see with your clients -- they're too embarrassed to ask questions, so sometimes we don’t know because we don’t know that we don’t know, and then we are shamed to know, and so, we sit and suffer. I have many of my clients who are almost 60 years old, and they’ve never had an orgasm. I think orgasms are healing, and as I get older, I'm understanding the value more. Isn't that interesting?

After menopause, I realized that they make me come alive, and I think that we have to talk more about orgasms and the benefits of sexuality in religious circles because, to me, sexuality is spiritual, and so, I think we have to have to talk about those things. 

0:15:12

And so, those are the four parts that people are trying to reconcile, and sometimes we're better at it than other times, but we're all on this journey to accept ourselves and accept the parts of ourselves that were demonized and villainized by people way before our time, you know, centuries before, and so, we have to challenge those assumptions with the truth.

Amanda Testa: Yeah, and you mentioned you have certain clients that are in their 60s and have never had an orgasm, and that can be true in lots of areas. You get to a certain point in life, and you look back, and you're like, well, I was just a bystander. One of the things my mom says that makes me laugh is she's like, "I feel like I didn’t even experience my life. I just watched it fly by." I think, too, what can come up along with all of that is when you embrace all of these parts and when you start to step into a different way of being or who you're called to be, there can also be a lot of grief that comes up in that, right? 

0:16:05

Maybe a grief of what you wish was different or all of the things. I'm curious what you might have to offer around grief.

SharRon Jamison: Yeah, oh, what a great question 'cause there is a lot of grief and regret. It's a lot, and sometimes it's when you're alone, it's when you start to play back the tape (for lack of a better word), and you see so many missed opportunities, you realize that was time you can never get back, and you will grieve and grieve deeply. Now, here's the challenge. It's really important that we don’t get stuck in that grief, 'cause I've seen that a lot. People grieve so deeply the first 40 years that they already resigned the next 40 years to stop living, so we don’t want to miss out on our future because of our past. That's why I think it's important that people hear that that's the stuff that you can't do alone.

Amanda Testa: Yes, yes, yes.

0:17:02

SharRon Jamison: Grief is something that you do alone, but it's also something that you do in community, and that's what I really love about different cultures because their rituals. There are ceremonies that help us go through that process, but also, I want people to know, like I said before, to take action but also take your time. My grandmother used to say, "Go, but don’t hurry," and I think sometimes we try to leapfrog over the grief, and we don’t process the grief, and so, we still don’t live because we're still looking at our lives like a movie and not settling in our lives and being totally present, but the grief is real. I have felt it. Even when I went on vacation, I sat back and I was grieving some missed opportunities because I didn’t have the courage at that time. I was grieving some relationships that I stayed in too long that did not deserve my presence, but one of the things I love that the late Dr. Maya Angelou used to say is, "You’ve got to forgive yourself because you are judging who you used to be based on the knowledge you have now." 

0:18:10

That's what we do now, you know? I see the 50-year-old woman who is criticizing who they were at 40, but I'm thinking you didn’t have that knowledge at 40. I think that sometimes it's hard to remember that by ourselves, that we have insight, that we only got through the journey. So, yes, don’t despise the journey because if you despise the journey, you won't appreciate or be able to extract and see wisdom gained and use that wisdom to galvanize you to what you desire most.

There's a saying in African American culture: "You're not done until you're dead." And so, as long as I know that I'm still breathing, that maybe the wisdom that you gained, you can really collapse time because now you have wisdom, and now you have courage, and now you don’t care what people think. So it took you ten years to do. It could take you two years now because, again, as you get older, your children are in college. 

0:19:11

You don’t have the same financial baggage or obligations. So now is sometimes the best time. Look at Forbes. How many women over 50 are starting businesses and becoming millionaires? So I want to encourage people listening that, as we say you're not done until you're dead, to not grieve too long.

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

SharRon Jamison: Grieve, but not too long. It's the not too long that kind of depends on the person, depends on what you lost.

Amanda Testa: I do love what you mention there about the community aspect and finding healing in community and just knowing that you're not in it alone. I think you can also use that wisdom that you gained as an adult to go back to those younger parts of you. I like the practice of sitting with those younger parts as your loving adult self and as you would your child or someone else who's younger and doesn’t know what they don’t know yet, right? We must just have a lot of empathy for those parts of us.

0:20:05

SharRon Jamison: Yeah, and I love what you said about that. I know that it's so important, like you mentioned, to go back and to remind our younger selves what we endured and what we’ve overcome because I know, many times, when I think about a lot of the changes and challenges in my life, I didn’t even know that I was navigating at such a high level when I was ten, you know? Here I was in the early ‘70s in integrated schools as the only Black woman, and I was in a very hostile situation, and I was kicking butt academically. I'm thinking wow, you did that thing! And so, now with greater wisdom, we can sit back and be like wow, I'm glad I didn’t know I was in trouble. I'm glad I didn’t buy into the toxicity. I'm glad that, somehow, even though I was ignored, I still believed in myself. Sometimes we can go back to the eight-year-old and gather strength, and that can serve as evidence of what we were capable of doing. Sometimes I think it's good to go back and love that person and thank that person for carrying me through to another decade. I think that's really critical what you said. I'm so glad you brought that up.

0:21:19

Amanda Testa: I love how you just said collecting the evidence. 

SharRon Jamison: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: Tell me more about collecting the evidence that backs up the things that you want to do or the things that you might be.

SharRon Jamison: Yes! 

Amanda Testa: You know, when you're talking about trusting yourself, too, how you gather that evidence to know that you can trust yourself even when it feels challenging.

SharRon Jamison: Yeah, one of the things that my father used to always say is -- when I told him I couldn’t do something he would say, "There's evidence. You have a lot of evidence in your life of being successful." And so, when I felt scared of speaking, he would go back and say, "Remember when you did the Easter scripture recital? Remember you did that?" I'm like, "Yeah." He said, "That was speaking." I'm like, "Oh, yeah!" "You remember when you were running that race, and you had never done a relay race before, and you won first place? That was a first time." 

0:22:13

And so, sometimes we have to go back and see evidence that this is not new because if we really think about our lives, what we're doing now, we have always done in different versions.

It's interesting when people ask me, "SharRon, are you surprised that you are a minister and a speaker?" I went back, and I'm thinking, you know, when I was four years old, I would line my dolls up, and I would preach to them, so I'm not really shocked, but I had to remember that because I think our lives, if we believe in a higher power, we are always being groomed from the womb. I believe we were groomed from the womb for greatness, and so, if we're paying attention, we are always being groomed by what catches our attention, by what we feel drawn to, by what we are gifted at, by what we are good at, and our gifts are showing up when we're two or three years old. 

0:23:09

Now, how do we know that, because they're being witnessed. There's the evidence again, right? They're being witnessed, and that's why it's important to have people in your life -- throughout my life, people were witnessing gifts that I was overlooking. They're like, "You know, SharRon, you're pretty good at that!" "You were good at that!" "Well, don’t do that, you're not really good at that," but however, we had witnesses and evidence. Witness helps you win. Being witnessed is like affirmation, confirmation. It is validation, and so, if we look at our lives, there's evidence that what I'm doing now -- if I go back, I see evidence when I was three or four years old. So I'm really not surprised when I get opportunities 'cause I'm thinking, gosh, that looks familiar. It might have been a chalkboard [Laughs] and some chalk, but I was still teaching. So I'm just teaching now.

0:24:03

So I think that if we look back on our lives, we have examples of our greatness when we were three and four years old if we were witnessed. Now, the problem is, if you never had people in your life to witness you or to validate you, then it might be harder 'cause, you know, a lot of people did not grow up being witnessed and celebrated and affirmed. It gets harder because, then, you don’t see your greatness until, maybe you're 20 and 30 years old, but they're signs. And so, if you have a person in your life that helps you see what you don’t see or illuminates things that you might say, "Oh, I'm kind of good at." "No, you're not good; you're masterful," I think that helps you. We never become our best selves by ourselves, and that's something we have to remember.

Amanda Testa: Yes. Oh, my goodness, and I think, too, even noticing the absence of community over COVID and how hard that was and is still to not be in those environments as much because, yes, you can be on Zoom, and, yes, there are amazing ways to connect, but you know there's nothing like when you're with your best friend, and you're together, and you're really lit up by one another, and, like you say, you mirror that amazingness that that person has back to them, right?

0:25:11

SharRon Jamison: Yeah, I think with COVID there was a lot of regression. Let me just say this. There was a lot of regression, but there was also some acceleration because those things coexist. We think that we're always one back, but sometimes, as we talked earlier, there's multiplication by division, and there's division by subtraction, right?

Amanda Testa: Yes.

SharRon Jamison: And so, sometimes I think there was some regression because there are parts of us maybe that we didn’t get to develop or get to practice -- or that atrophy, right? However, there were parts of ourselves that, if we were sitting still and paying attention, we were leaving COVID with an acceleration which is why we have clarity. Clarity brings acceleration. Reflection brings acceleration. 

0:26:00

Having deep conversations brings acceleration. Acceleration happens a lot of different places, and sometimes, acceleration comes because you realize what you don’t want to do anymore, so then you realize something that you want to do. There are many ways, and so, I think that we accept the regression. Sometimes I don’t think regression is always bad. I think sometimes we regress because we need to put it down, we need to sit it down, we need to release it. In that releasing, we see that our life really opens up.

Amanda Testa: Ah, I love that so much. I know you’ve been an author of many wonderful books. Your newest book is called Deciding to Soar 2: Unwrapping Your Purpose, and I think that kind of ties in. When you are finding your purpose again after all of this, maybe, that you felt disconnected or maybe now you're stepping into your post-menopause or whatever it is and you're like, "All right, now what? What do I want to do now? What will it be?" I love that you gave us some amazing new tools around kind of being aware of what you're being directed to, what's grabbing your attention, what you're gifted at, what you're good at, but I'm wondering if you could share a few tips around how you can go about finding your purpose if you're feeling disconnected from that right now.

0:27:25

SharRon Jamison: Sure. I really feel that finding our purpose requires us to tell the truth, and that's why I call it unwrapping because sometimes we have to unwrap all the lies that we have been taught and told about what we could be, what we should be, all this conditioning, and the truth is important because when we tell ourselves the truth about who we are and who we are not, we tell ourselves the truth about our desires. Our desires provide us great direction. We tell ourselves the truth about our gifts. Our gifts guide us to what we should be doing. We also tell the truth about what has our attention. Not saying what grabs our attention is what we should be doing, but, to me, if something grabs your attention, I think pay attention. 

0:28:14

Lean into that curiosity. Like, why is this grabbing me? What is this telling me? I always tell myself it's important to ask yourself what delights you, what fights you, what excites you, and what ignites you. Ignites you means what stirs you up, what stimulates you. What delights you means what makes you have fun, what gives you joy, what gives you pleasure. What excites you means what draws your curiosity and creativity. What fights you means, like, I am so pissed off; I am gonna fight for that. That can be justice, pet control, abortion rights, all those things fight me so I'm gonna fight back. If we think about what fights us, what ignites us, what excites us, what delights us, that will give us some pause to pay attention. I think sometimes in the busy-ness, things grab our attention, but we don’t know why.

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm.

0:29:12

SharRon Jamison: That's why it's so important to lean into curiosity. Like, why is this on my nerves? Why does this excite me? Why am I thinking about this? Why am I dreaming about this?

Here's another thing: why am I jealous because someone has something that I want? Jealousy is powerful because jealousy is a sign that something is there, and I tell people (and I tell myself) don’t be shamed by jealousy, be curious about it. Inquire. Like, why am I mad at that woman? Why am I judging her? What is it about her essence that's drawing the green monster out of me? I think we lean into that -- so those are the things I think will help us start thinking about what's drawing your attention, but also start looking at what you're good at. 

0:30:06

In our society, we have not been taught to celebrate ourselves. I'm thinking about what you do effortlessly. What does everybody come to you to ask you for? What do you get applauded for? What do you know that you're just masterful at? There are some things I'm just masterful at, and if we just can accept it -- can we just accept it? There are some things I'm like I'm just good at it.

Amanda Testa: Yes!

SharRon Jamison: And I'm okay, you know? Some women will say, "SharRon, are you surprised that you're gonna be 57 and you look so good?" I'm like, "No, I should look this good 'cause I take care of myself." It's a way of saying that there are some things in my control, and I have agency, and one of the things we have agency over is accepting our gifts because you cannot maximize as something that you will not accept. How can you cultivate something that you won't claim? I claim fitness. I claim greatness. There are four things that I'm really good at, and there are ten things I really suck at, but I'm not trying to do the sucky things.

0:31:13

Amanda Testa: [Laughs] Right.

SharRon Jamison: Right? I'm not trying to do those things. I want to write, I want to teach, I want to speak, and for some reason, I'm wise, and I've always been since I was three or four years old. I don’t know how I know stuff, but I know stuff, so I lean into that, and it helps me be a good coach and a minister and a leader, but there are other things I just suck at! If you came to look at my house, you're thinking why are things unorganized and why do I only wear three or four colors of clothes? A whole bunch of details I can't do. I can think of details, but I can't coordinate details, but I stopped trying to explain those things away. I'm like, you know, I just suck at it, and I'm grateful for the gifts that I have because I believe, spiritually, there's a biblical principle that your gifts make room for you, and I think my gifts are gonna make room for me to generate wealth, to generate influence and affluence, to generate income, to generate a platform, and also, to generate my booty to do my calling. Your gifts always help you do your calling, and if I'm doing all that, I don’t care if I have a big house [Laughs] because your purpose makes you happy. 

0:32:27

Your purpose makes you fulfilled. It's not about money. Money is important but meaning is what really changes the trajectory of your life, and so, I'm all about fulfillment. If I follow fulfillment, finances will come, and I have evidence of that. That's really important.

Amanda Testa: Ah, so good. I just feel like I could keep talking to you. I'm wondering, too, is there any other concept or any other thought that you wanted to make sure that you shared or a question that you wished that I would have asked that I didn’t ask or anything else that you want to share before we close our time together?

0:33:08

SharRon Jamison: Well, I have to say you really asked me some really great questions, and I hope they were coherent because I was thinking out loud. I was thinking from my heart. One of the things I would say I want to end with is that it's so important for people to follow their own truth and not tradition. I think tradition has made us deny and devalue all the different parts of ourselves. I think tradition has made us follow policies and principles that were oppressive to certain cultures and certain identities and certain sexual orientations. I think that tradition has denied us peace and pleasure and joy, and I think if we are able to discern between the difference between truth and tradition and knowing that our truth will change as we change. The truth is never static. 

0:34:04

Now, there are some things that are, I think, universal principles like freedom of liberation, right? You know what I'm saying? I think that as we get more knowledge, as we come more into ourselves, as we accept ourselves and trust ourselves, our truth will change based on our life experiences because the more you know, the more you realize that you don’t know, and once you follow those truths, whatever those few things are (they might be your values), you can lean into them and have more peace. I think that's really important. I'm realizing peace is the most important currency right now. Peace and health.

Amanda Testa: Yes. Ah, thank you. I'm wondering, too, where is the best way for people to connect with you and learn about how they can possibly work with you and find your books and all the good things?

SharRon Jamison: Thank you so much for letting me say that and add that. Everything is my name, SharRon Jamison, and that's S-H-A-R-R-O-N, and that's for all the social media, SharRon Jamison. 

0:35:10

I have two programs coming up. One is just a summer program. It's called Rooted to Rise: Your Journey Back Home to Yourself, and it's all about some of the things that we're talking about now. Some of the things that I'm learning that I had to go on an eight-day vacation and sit by the water to get clarity on. It's a shorter program because I think the summer is a time where people want to relax. I think that the summer gives us time to do it at a slower pace so that we can go into the fall and prepare for another year, God willing, with more understanding of our truth and more understanding of trusting the truth. If people are interested in that, they can email me.

Then my program that I really love is I DARE TO BE ME. It's a six-month program. I probably won't do that until the end of the year because I know that six months is a long time, and I have to have a lot of energy, and I'm on my own journey. I love that because it talks about four critical principles to help us come to ourselves so we can dare in every aspect of our lives. Those are education, understanding who you are, activation, and how to get yourself going and keep yourself going. One is elevation. How do you lift and rise above all that you’ve been taught and told? How do you rise above public opinion and hater-ation (as we call it).

0:36:29

Amanda Testa: [Laughs] That's a good word.

SharRon Jamison: How do you rise above that so you can do what you want to do. The last one is liberation because liberation is a practice, is a muscle that we have to practice daily. It's not just being liberated from people but sometimes liberated from our own internal demons that try to keep us small. 

So those are the things, and I love that program. That's a six-month program. Like I said, I probably won't do that until the end of the year. I just want to do something that's a shorter time period so that people can think, and then I'm going to have a three-month break, and then we will reconvene a couple of times after the three-month break with Rooted to Rise so people can really get the information and implement it in their lives. 

0:37:10

Sometimes I think some programs are kind of like you're drinking from a fire hydrant, and then you can't implement anything 'cause you learned it too quickly. [Laughs] I don’t want to do that. I don’t want it to be consumption only. I want it to be, not informational, but transformational, and that's really important.

Amanda Testa: Mm, so good. Well, thank you so much, again, SharRon. I so appreciate you and all the gems that you’ve shared. Too, for the listeners, I would just invite you to take a moment and digest, and think what are some of the concepts that you really appreciated or that you want to act upon, perhaps, or some of those questions you want to deep dive around, and thank you all for listening.

I'll make sure to put where you can connect with SharRon in the show notes and thank you so much again for being here.

SharRon Jamison: Thank you so much, and I just wish you so much joy and pleasure and success in everything that you do. Thank you.

Amanda Testa: Same to you, and to all of you listening, we'll see you next week. 

[Fun, Empowering Music]

0:38:05

Thank you so much for listening to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. This is your host, Amanda Testa, and if you have felt a calling while listening to this podcast to take this work to a deeper level, this is your golden invitation. 

I invite you to reach out. You can contact me at amandatesta.com/activate, and we can have a heart-to-heart to discuss more about how this work can transform your life. You can also join us on Facebook in the Find Your Feminine Fire group, and if you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please share with your friends. Go to iTunes and give me a five-star rating and a rating and a raving review so I can connect with other amazing listeners like yourself. 

Thank you so much for being a part of the community.

[Fun, Empowering Music]

JOIN IN THE DISCUSSION ON THIS EPISODE AND MORE IN MY FREE FACEBOOK GROUP, FIND YOUR FEMININE FIRE HERE.

Dr. Rose Schlaff (she/her) is a Pelvic Physical Therapist, Sexual Health Coach and the Founder and CEO of Be Well with Rose, LLC. She is passionate about helping women and queer leaders take the stress out of sex so they can feel energized and excited during intimacy and connect more deeply in all areas of their relationship. 

Dr. Rose utilizes simple evidence-based practices based on sexy science to amplify your desire and arousal, so you can feel confident, connected, and carefree in your relationship in and out of the bedroom. 

In addition to her virtual sex coaching practice, she is a guest lecturer for the University of Michigan’s Human Sexuality Certificate program, San Diego State University’s Marriage and Family Therapy Sexuality and Intimacy course, and has had the opportunity to lecture internationally on the topic of women's sexual and pelvic health in Beijing, China. 

Connect with her HERE.   Follow her on insta HERE. And grab her guide, Let's Talk About Sex, and it's a fill-in-the-blank MadLibs-style guide, HERE.

If you liked this episode, please consider giving me a 5 Star Review on Apple Podcasts! It truly does help the podcast grow. 

If you've been interested in learning more about coaching with Amanda, she's now booking coaching clients for 1-1 support in creating the relationship and orgasmic pleasure of their dreams.   If you’ve been thinking about it, maybe we should talk!  Link here to book a free call to see if we’re a fit. 

EPISODE 213: with Dr. Rose

[Fun, Empowering Music] 

Amanda Testa: Hello, and welcome to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. I am your host, Amanda Testa. I am a sex, love, and relationship coach, and in this podcast, my guests and I talk sex, love, and relationships, and everything that lights you up from the inside out. Welcome!

If you’re ever really exhausted at the end of a long day and you really want to go from turned off to turn on, then you're gonna love this week’s podcast because if you're looking to find more ways to amplify your desire and arousal, you're gonna want to listen in as this week on the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast I have the pleasure of talking with Dr. Rose Schlaff. She is a pelvic floor PT, sexual health coach, as well as the founder and CEO of Be Well With Rose. She is very passionate about helping women and queer leaders take the stress out of sex so they can feel energized and excited during intimacy and connect more deeply in all areas of their relationship.

So welcome, welcome, Dr. Rose. I’m so happy you're here.

0:01:02

Dr. Rose: Yes! I’m so happy to be here.

Amanda Testa: I always love to start with kind of learning a little bit about the journey that you've been on with this work because I know you have been doing this for a while. Would you share a little bit more about kind of what led you on this path?

Dr. Rose: Oh, my gosh, absolutely. I get this question all the time, as I’m sure you do too. [Laughs] Right, like how the heck did you get here? So I’ve always been that go-to friend that people share things with, you know? “Oh, I’ve never told anyone about this,” or, “Oh, my gosh, this might be too much information, but I just don't know who else to talk to,” and that’s always been my superpower is making things that are traditionally un-talk-about-able feel really safe and comfortable and fun and easy.

Amanda Testa: Yes!

Dr. Rose: So I loved those conversations that I was having in my personal life, and, professionally, I found my way to physical therapy because my mom has a disability. 

0:02:08

I saw after many, many, many encounters with her amazing physical therapist, how profound and understanding the human body can be, how much pain and pleasure in the day-to-day life, right -- not even from a sexual standpoint -- but moving better, feeling better, how much can be accomplished without medication with physical therapy which, really, was like magic in my eyes. So I felt like I had these two parts of me that were okay, I have this part that likes talking about sensitive things. I have this part that wants, really deeply, to understand the human body, and I figured out that pelvic floor physical therapy was a thing.

So I was like oh, this is perfect! I can still have all this knowledge of the human body, still have all this knowledge about pain and pleasure from a physiological standpoint and also I can treat the muscles of the pelvis. 

0:03:07

So I’m talking all day about pee, poop, and sex which are very sensitive topics. [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: [Laughs]

Dr. Rose: You know, I loved the work that I was doing. It’s different than the work I’m doing now a bit because I’ve gone through my own journey. I was in an incredible facility, a biopsychosocial approach. We had myself, a sex therapist, a sexual medicine physician all evaluating and treating the same people. I was learning a ton from this approach, and I also, at the same time, was really struggling deeply with my own health. I had pretty intense anxiety for the first time in my life. I was having panic attacks. I’m a life-long extrovert over here, and I was feeling really drained, depleted by my human interactions both with my patients but also with my partner. I felt this disconnect. 

0:04:10

I didn't really know what was going on, so I went to the doctor. We figured out I had a big hormonal imbalance in my thyroid that was creating heart palpitations, panic attacks, all the things that I was experiencing. So my nerdy physical-therapy brain was like oh, good, it’s a physiological issue. Let’s just address these hormones and get me back to normal. 

You know, I worked with that endocrinologist for about a year and a half, and it got a little better. During that time, I was working with a therapist because practice what you preach. I was working in a biopsychosocial model. I knew that, even though it started as a hormonal imbalance, there were still psychological impacts of that, and that helped a little bit but I still, at the end of the year, felt pretty out of control of my body, felt really disconnected to my body, disconnected to people around me, and was just struggling to connect and enjoy my life like I had been prior to this experience. 

0:05:15

I remember sitting in that endocrinologist’s office, and he had this big look on his face, and he was like, “Congratulations, your numbers are normal!” It was the biggest gut-punch that I ever could have gotten because it felt, in that moment, like the medical system, the system that I had invested all of my time becoming a part of -- at this point, I had a doctorate in physical therapy and had been practicing -- I really felt like it had failed me. I didn't really know where to go next. I was like I tried therapy, I tried hormones, why aren’t I feeling better, and that’s when I really went on a journey of self-discovery. 

It took me a couple different places, but one was functional nutrition, one was coaching, and what really came out of this was identifying that I wasn't looking at myself in the system. 

0:06:14

I think that a lot of us, as individuals, just identify with traits that have truly been socialized into us. Everyone who is socialized as female, or most people anyways, have been socialized to care deeply for others, have been socialized to put others' needs ahead of our own, have been socialized to be perfect, right? We have to be perfect to be worthy of the same jobs, the same pay, right? There's still a big pay gap. And so, I was really identifying these things as my personality, right? "Oh, I'm just so caring. I'm just a perfectionist. I care so deeply," and, really, what I started to recognize was these are all products of the systems that we're raised in, and when I started having these conversations with myself -- but also my patients, patients who were navigating pregnancy and postpartum, were navigating difficulty reconnecting to their bodies and their partners after their baby or throughout menopause or throughout a painful experience or trauma, when I was talking about these things, I noticed a bigger shift than when we were just addressing the physical, than when we were just seeing this kind of surface individual approach.

0:07:37

And so, for me, that really put me on the path of where I am today which is yes, addressing the physical aspects of what makes sex fun and makes it feel good in our body, feel pleasure in our body, feel connected to ourselves and to each other, but also what's going on in our society that creates a barrier for that, and how do we navigate the psychological issues that come from that? We all have mindset and physiological responses to these things that we've been raised in that may be happening behind the scenes. We may not even realize. 

0:08:18

So, really, my joy now is using my own personal struggle, my own journey of discovery to connect the dots instead of having so many different individuals that we go to and try to put the pieces together ourselves. I love putting the pieces together with my clients, and I love helping women and queer leaders take that stress and heaviness and disconnection out of life transitions and really create ease, joy, connection, fun. It should feel light, and it can feel light.

Amanda Testa: I love that, and I think there are so many listening that can relate. I know, so often, my clients share the same of, you know, going through the medical system and everything's checking out, but they still feel awful.

Dr. Rose: Yes!

Amanda Testa: But it's not, right? I know. 

0:09:07

Dr. Rose: Yes.

Amanda Testa: It can be challenging to navigate those waters, and so, I love that the understanding that you've gained through your years of experience has led you to this place of being able to guide others.  

Dr. Rose: Yes, and it's so important to note I did have a physiological issue. I did have a massive hormonal imbalance which triggered this whole shift in my body, even when something starts as a physical issue, right?

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Dr. Rose: Like pregnancy or postpartum or even physical pain or endometriosis or menopause, even when something starts as a physical issue, there is this waterfall of other effects, and until we can address you as a whole, even if the physical is addressed, there may be secondary issues that are continuing to keep you stuck in that pattern, and that's what happened with me.

Amanda Testa: Yeah, the holistic approach is so key.

Dr. Rose: It is.

0:10:06

Amanda Testa: I think, too, like you were mentioning, so much of our structural system is set up on extraction and is just really not conducive to our health, not conducive to our health, right?. It can be really common that, especially leaders and people that are ambitious or anyone, really, that’s doing what they think they should do in the world -- it's often like you work hard, you give, you sacrifice yourself for others, all the things that you mentioned. And so, oftentimes, people might not necessarily connect the dots of -- oh, okay. So I appreciate that aspect too. 

You mentioned, too, you work a lot with leaders. This is a question that I thought would be interesting 'cause I think, like you say, the holistic view is so important, but oftentimes we are very good at segmenting things in our life.

Dr. Rose: Right. Mm-hmm.

0:11:00

Amanda Testa: We segment work, then we segment family life, then we segment parenting, and then we segment our relationship, then we segment our sex life, but really, it all is so intertwined.

Dr. Rose: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: Right?

Dr. Rose: It is.

Amanda Testa: And so, I'm curious, from your perspective, what might your pelvic floor and your professional success have in common?

Dr. Rose: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: How do they affect each other?

Dr. Rose: Yes, absolutely. I think this is so important to note because they are all interconnected, and the way you do one thing is often mirrored in the way you do many things. So, for me, prior to my experience, I was showing up. I was at a world-renowned facility. I was in a really high-level place in my career, and the energy behind it was very different than the energy that I bring now. [Laughs] 

0:12:00

So I think a lot of the time we learn how to play the game that's set ahead of us for what we've learned we have to do in society to be successful, and we do it. We check the boxes. We learn how to be a leader. We learn how to lead our team. We learn how to be there for our family, for our friends, and we've gotten very good at that, but what I see happen is there's this disconnect between this high-achieving, everywhere else in your life -- sometimes I say you're a badass everywhere else in your life, but then your sex life is kind of this dirty little secret where you feel like you're not quite hitting the mark or not quite feeling like you could or should be feeling, and it feels out of alignment because you're used to being really, really great in most areas of your life and setting your goals and achieving them.

0:13:04

So what I see is because we've learned okay, this doesn’t really matter for the rest of my life, I can deal with that later, it often comes last on the list. When I work with people, when we start bringing pleasure -- it's not just about sex, right? Pleasure could be and should be laced throughout your entire life.

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Dr. Rose: And when we start bringing pleasure and we start practicing the things that I think make sex and intimacy the most fun like asking -- asking for what you desire, checking in with yourself and identifying what do I even want, what do I even need, asking for those things to mean that, the practice of receiving (that is so difficult, oh, my gosh, especially people socialized as female -- wow, it is so much easier for us to give than receive), the practice of receiving, the practice of being present while you're receiving, not thinking how you're going to reciprocate or give back -- all of these tools that we use to make sex more fun, to make intimacy feel better are things that, when we start to embrace them in this area, bleed out to the rest of our life and we're able to ask for what we need professionally, in our family, in our friendships. 

0:14:34

We're able to identify our desires more clearly. A lot of the time (this was certainly true for me) I felt like I was playing the game of life. It was like okay, get your doctorate. Okay, get this great job. Okay, buy the house. Okay, check, check, check, check, check. I've heard that reflected back from many of my clients of I've done the things, I've accomplished the goals, and, still, I feel something is missing, and I don’t know what I want, but I want something else.

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

​​0:15:05

Dr. Rose: And so, that practice of connecting to your desires and identifying that can help you in every area of your life, and I've had clients who -- I was just talking to a client the other day who's a trauma therapist, herself, and she shared with me, "I'm a better trauma therapist now because I'm able to be present in my body and just be there with my clients without worrying so much about the give and take and what's happening and oh, my gosh, am I doing a good enough job,” or all the stories that run through our brain just like they run through our brain in the bedroom, [Laughs] they run through our brain outside the bedroom. So I think there is a huge connection and we can separate these things, and hey, if we're stressed in life, studies have shown when you're hooked up to an electromagnetic sensor and you're showed a scary movie, your shoulders and your pelvic floor are the first things to contract. 

0:16:12

So it's like if you're stressed, your pelvic floor is tense and tight. So it's the same with your nervous system and your whole body, and if you're relaxed and receiving, your pelvic floor is able to relax, rest, receive, enjoy. So it's connected physically, it's connected in our behavior in all areas.

Amanda Testa: Yes, I think that is such a common thing especially for, like you say, people that are leaders or work hard, right? It's that go, go, go kind of collective spell that we have been taught, but it is. It's like that does inhibit that ability to kind of shift gears sometimes, right, because you're busy, leading your team, slanted at work, all the things, and then you come home and you're like [Snaps fingers twice]. It's hard to turn that off.

Dr. Rose: Yeah.

0:17:08

Amanda Testa: And so, I have a few questions about this, but before I ask you those, I'm curious -- and maybe this all goes together, but when you're feeling that tension and stress, obviously, it's a lot harder to relax. It's a lot harder to surrender (which is very important) and to be able to receive fully and to enjoy whatever experience you're in, whether that's at your board meeting or, you know, enjoying some delicious sex with your lover.

Dr. Rose: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: So I'm curious what would be some tips that you have to kind of relax the pelvic floor or kind of move into -- how do you turn off that desire to nonstop, to actually slow down and receive?

Dr. Rose: Yes, it's so hard to turn off "go" mode [Laughs] especially when we are so rewarded for it in our culture in every other area. So what I love to talk about is, two pieces. 

0:18:06

So the first piece is our breath is incredibly powerful for many reasons, but our pelvic floor and our diaphragm (which is the organ that we breathe with; it lives under our rib cage) work together like a piston and a car. So every time we breathe, if we are using our diaphragm, then our pelvic floor is moving. So as we breathe in, you'll notice because you can feel your rib cage expand left and right. You may feel some sensation in your belly or even lower all the way down to your pelvic floor. As you breathe in, your pelvic floor lowers and stretches and relaxes, and then as you breathe out, your pelvic floor contracts and lifts. This is so important because there's many different places that we can get stuck in our pelvis. 

So one, a lot of the time this go, go, go mentality, we're kind of ready, on. 

0:19:05

If you’ve ever noticed at the end of the day, like, "Oh, my gosh, my shoulders are so tense," or, "Oh, my gosh, I've totally been clenching my jaw," just noticing some tension in your body, there's a good chance that your pelvic floor might be holding onto that as well. So each breath that you do in this manner is allowing blood to flow through the pelvis. It's allowing your tissues to relax, release, and just kind of move. I always talk about this -- I don’t even know if this even applies to younger generations anymore -- cell phone arm or phone arm. You know, when you’ve been holding your phone up for a long time on a great conversation, and then you straighten your elbow for the first time after that, you're like oh, my god, my elbow is so sore, and you kind of have to do the Tin Man and shake it out a little bit, relax it. It's the same thing with breathing for our pelvic floor.

0:19:59

Another incredible piece of breathing is our respiratory organ (our diaphragm) has the vagus nerve which is our most important nerve for shifting into our restful nervous system. So our action-taking nervous system that we're in a lot of the day where we're taking action, we're making decisions, we're in this sympathetic fight and flight mode, and so, to just signify okay, I'm not in survival mode. I'm not taking action. I get to relax and shift into a different part of my night, that breathing can be really powerful to shift us. So that's the first part.

Then, the second part of this is really developing a system. I call it a sexy system or a ritual [Laughs] where you are actually telling your brain and body, "Hey, that part of our day is done. We are shifting now." This can look different for anyone, but some of my clients do this with a playlist. They'll just dance to a song. Some of my clients do this with a bath or a walk outside or a run or a shower or an eye-gazing activity with their partner or just three deep breaths together or a long hug, right? 

0:21:19

What are we telling our body? Okay, that part of our day is done. The next part is here, and I think during COVID this became even harder because, truly, many of us were working from home. I heard a lot of my clients say, "I'm drinking more frequently because that's the only thing that's telling my brain and body I'm not working anymore." And so, this is really important to have a ritual. Maybe you change your clothes. Maybe you do something else, but that ritual is important, especially if you work from home.

Amanda Testa: The rituals are so key. I love that. I always have a similar type of thing that we work with a lot of times. It's kind of similar to people here and there but, you know, that transition ritual is so key, and you can do it anytime, right?

Dr. Rose: Yeah.

0:22:06

Amanda Testa: The power of intention and ritual, I cannot say it enough, it's so key. Even, too, one of the things that works for myself and my husband is we, often, will just lay in bed for 15 minutes and just talk and connect and just let all the craziness dissolve.

Dr. Rose: Yes.

Amanda Testa: One of the beautiful things about working from home, if your schedule so allows or I actually really try to make sure my schedule allows, is that there's time in the day that we can connect because that, sometimes, is the only time we have alone.

Dr. Rose: Yes.

Amanda Testa: And so, it's really nice to make that time, but we also are very much in work-mode so we both need a okay, let's chill out for 15 minutes and just lay and chat, and then we feel much more in the mood.

Dr. Rose: Yes, I love that you shared that because I think that's also important to know. We've just been kind of taught that sex happens at night a lot of the time and we're like ah, I'm so tired or oh, I just did so much today, and maybe I do have a hard time shifting my brain at night, but I love that you and your partner both work from home so you have this flexibility, but also, maybe it's a weekend day. 

0:23:17

Maybe if you have kids you have your kids go on a playdate for a weekend day or, you know, getting creative with what are the best times for me where it's easiest for me to connect, where it's easiest for me to be present with my partner. That might be in the middle of your day, and it might be late at night for you. That might work, but just having permission to explore and knowing that there's no wrong time.

Amanda Testa: Yeah, I love that too. One of the things I think is fun is, often, when you have kids I recommend doing the sexy Saturdays where okay, you go to your friends for three hours, then they come here for three hours, and you can do the swap, right?

Dr. Rose: Yes, exactly!

Amanda Testa: [Laughs] So that you can have some alone time with your partner. So I love that.

Okay, so now tell me some more about ways of shifting that into that more relaxed turn-off-the-work mode, get-into-the-sexy mode.

0:24:09

Dr. Rose: Mm-hmm, yes, so I think it's important to note that with responsive desire, it's a multi-part system, right? So we, first, need to decrease the stress and shift into that parasympathetic nervous system just like we were talking about, either with breathing and/or a ritual to shift your body, but we also need to be exposing ourselves to something that's a little bit sexy. The way that I describe this is say you had me over for lunch, and I had eaten a big breakfast. I wasn’t really hungry when I got to your house, but your cooking smells so good. Oh, my gosh, as soon as I start smelling your cooking, I'm like I've got to eat some of this food. It just smells way too good not to eat. [Laughs] I didn’t know I wanted it, I didn’t know I needed it, but now that I'm smelling it, I do. 

0:25:02

And so, every person will be triggered in different ways with responsive desire, but knowing your triggers, knowing your go-tos -- does that mean we're listening to sexy audio stories beforehand? Does that mean we're watching a sexy show together? Does that mean after our 15 minutes of down time where we just chat, maybe for 10 minutes we're just touching each other's legs and lower stomachs, just giving our bodies a chance to warm up to the idea of being aroused. 

I think, so often, we start -- okay, we've got 15 minutes in the middle of our workday. Let's go straight to the clitoris or straight to the money, and I think we're really doing ourselves a disservice by not allowing our nervous system to catch up. If we create space, even five minutes of space, it can make such a difference for how present we are to the touch, once we are doing direct genital touch or how much we're enjoying it and aroused during. We've all had that experience where we think we're gonna get into it faster than we do, and then we're kinda in it and we're like okay, this is good, but we know it could be better. That's not my desire for any of us. I think my desire for all of us is to be met with this ease and excitement and fun during every stage of connection, during every stage of intimacy. 

0:26:40

I really love playing -- I'm sure you know this game -- there's an incredible sex educator who developed a game called The Three-Minute Game. Basically, there is one giver, one receiver, and each person has two turns in that role. And so, when you're the receiver, you have one turn where you say, "This is how I'd like you to touch me," and then when the next turn comes, the giver gets to say, "I'd like to touch you like this," and there's discussion back and forth. Okay, yes, I'd love to touch your feet, but no, I don’t want to touch your big toe. Those just weird me out for whatever reason, but I'd love to touch your ankles instead, right? There's a discussion. I think sometimes people get overwhelmed even by four rounds of three minutes. That's 12 minutes of touch. What’s that gonna look like? Is it gonna be awkward? Where are we gonna go? Sometimes even starting with 30 seconds or 1 minutes, it's like 4 minutes to shift from go, go, go mode into, "Okay, we're touching. That feels good. Oh, my gosh, I haven’t had my hair touched in so long," or, "Oh, now that you're touching my back, I actually think I want you to touch my inner thigh. This actually feels really good." So just allowing your body and brain to catch up and be on the same page can be really beautiful.

0:28:11

Amanda Testa: I love that so much. That's Betty Martin. She's amazing. It's so true because there are numerous things, right? You might love to touch your partner in a certain way, but they might not like to receive it that way, right?

Dr. Rose: Yes.

Amanda Testa: And you also need to be able to have those discussions like here's how you like to be touched. So you want to touch your partner the way they like to be touched and find out, also, when there is something that you want to do, what's the way you can do that in a way they enjoy, right? 

Dr. Rose: Yes.

Amanda Testa: So often we don’t have those conversations, and sometimes you don’t necessarily want to talk, so just being in the process of the doing can help to put it into words, right, because you might not know how to verbalize it in the moment. That's why these games can be so helpful because it's a less-stress situation in a way, right? You're like we're gonna play a game.

0:29:02

Dr. Rose: Yeah, or we’ve got one minute on the clock. We probably can't mess this up, you know? [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: [Laughs] Right, yes. I think that's fun, too, and I'd love for you to share a little bit -- I think, oftentimes, what can happen maybe is if you are in the cycle of things aren’t great in the bedroom, and then there's stress around it, and then there's that waterfall of things that happen that cascade to make you feel avoidant or have a lot of stress around sex, so what would be some ways you can kind of relieve some of that anxiety or stress about okay, this is gonna happen and ease into it with more fun and pleasure?

Dr. Rose: Yeah, absolutely. So there are so many different ways that we can do this, and it really depends on what level of stress, overwhelm, avoidance you're at. So, obviously, starting my career as a pelvic floor physical therapist, I worked a lot with people who were experiencing physical pain during penetration, and that level of fear surrounding sex is profound, and it's not uncommon. 

0:30:06

Seventy-five percent of people with vulvas have discomfort or pain with penetration at one time, and over thirty percent continue to have pain. So if you're listening to this, and you’ve ever felt discomfort, I want you to know you're not alone, but this is something that can shift. You don’t need to experience pain.

And so, something that can be really helpful when you're really at the end of this spectrum where you're just dreading sex or feeling really fearful about it, and maybe you once enjoyed it, but it's just gotten to a place where it feels so heavy, I really recommend taking sex off the table for a period of days. When I say sex, everyone's definition of sex is different. My definition of sex is very different than most people's. I don't define sex as penis and vagina or even orgasms at all. For me, sex is any time that we're together and touching or I'm alone and touching and feeling good, right? There doesn’t even need to be touch. It's just a connection with my body and my pleasure and my erotic nature.

0:31:19

So, for you, if sex looks a lot of different ways, maybe that's saying, "Okay, I love it when we hug, I love it when we cuddle, I love it when we kiss, but I notice that I'm feeling a lot of fear around penetration, and I would love for the next three weeks to take penetration off the table because my ultimate goal is for us to get back to a place where we're having more frequent intimacy and feeling really excited about it. And so, during that time, when we're taking penetration off the table, I would love for us to explore more external touch, and maybe we're playing the three-minute game, maybe we're not, but I want to create some times for us to explore together." 

0:32:08

And so, taking the pressure off penetration, taking the pressure off of orgasm, can be incredibly freeing, and also, we can create a space where it's like oh, that's easy. We have four minutes? Let's play the one-minute game. Okay, we did our homework for the week. We connected.

Amanda Testa: I love that. So key. Then, there's less pressure. I'm curious now -- 'cause it is true, you know? I know we've talked about this on the podcast around what to do when you have pelvic pain and how to seek out support, but oftentimes, there's multi-pronged approaches which is why you've got to look at the holistic view.

Dr. Rose: Mm-hmm.

Amanda Testa: And so, maybe if there isn’t pain, but there's just maybe discomfort or shame, even --

Dr. Rose: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: -- That can be a huge -- and that actually can present as physical pain.

Dr. Rose: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: So I'm wondering what might be some advice you have around that.

0:33:04

Dr. Rose: Yes, so I would say what I just said goes for anyone -- not just people with pain, but anyone who is feeling like sex has really become a chore. You're really feeling like it's a "should." You're feeling a lot of pressure to perform. You're feeling a lot of resentment about it. Although you wish you didn’t feel anger and resentment, you're starting to feel it creep in. That is a really good indication that we need to create a big boundary, and that boundary doesn’t need to last forever, but we need to create a boundary so that your nervous system can begin to feel safe again with connection. Whether it's taking penetration off the table for three weeks or taking all physical touch (outside of hand-holding and hugging) off the table for three weeks, those are options, but we can also decrease the pressure and stress by saying, "Okay, for the next three weeks I want to do an experiment. I want us to connect physically, and I want us to not create a goal towards orgasm. I want us just to connect physically and see what feels good." That's an option.

0:34:24

You can also -- I think there's a lot of pressure around initiation and, "Oh, my gosh, are they gonna ask me when I'm tired, and I'm tired of rejecting them, and I've rejected them three times already, so, gosh, I should just do this. You know, I should just do it," and we never want to push through that feeling. Although responsive desire exists, we have to at least feel an inkling of interest towards it, right? Just like the food example, "I smelled your food cooking, and then I got in the mood," but if I got there and you were like, "Eat the food! Eat the food!" I'd probably be like, "No, no matter how good that food feels, you're really shoving this food on me. That doesn’t sound good to me." So really being in touch with what feels good to you and what feels like a hell yes, even if it's a hell yes, I'm open to trying, and I can change my mind at any time. 

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm.

0:35:21

Dr. Rose: But, truly, identifying what part of this feels stressful. Is it the initiation part? Okay, then we decide my best hours to try this are Saturday mornings. Every other Saturday morning, we're gonna send our kids on a playdate, and every other Saturday morning, that's the time we connect, and outside of that Saturday morning time, we both know that it's off the table. So when you hold my hand, when you rub my shoulders, when you cuddle me, I can relax and now that this is just a cuddle. It's not for a purpose, for a next outcome. 

0:36:01

And so, that's another really beautiful way if you want to continue intimacy in your full spectrum but you just want to feel like you know exactly when it's coming so you don’t have to worry about it or you don’t have to worry if you're not on the same page. That's another great way to set a boundary.

Amanda Testa: Yeah, and I know in a little bit you're gonna share more about an awesome little fun, sexy MadLib you have around communication during sex and whatnot, but here's something that I hear a lot, and I know I'd love to hear your thoughts on this too. Like you say, it's so important to be able to really honor what your body needs in the moment-to-moment and really being present moment-to-moment and being able to say no whenever you want to say no and have that respected or feel confident in saying the no without fear of, like you say, rejecting your partner. 

And so, I'm curious what some ways that you can share that? When you're in the action and you want to stop, it's totally okay, and a lot of times people are like, "Well, you know, I've already made it this far. Let's just, like, get it over with, whatever," which is really not a healthy thing to do for yourself because, in a way, you're overriding your own boundary, which we do. We're all human. We're gonna sometimes do that, but when you notice it happening all the time, that is when a lot of resentment and pain can build and all kinds of things. It's really important to speak that, and so, I'm curious what you could share around that. 

0:37:22

Dr. Rose: Yeah, absolutely. I think it's really hard to say no, and it's really hard to say no when we've previously said yes. This is something we need to practice, and I find that sometimes a verbal no can be even harder. So sometimes just starting with a nonverbal cue of, "All right, I've noticed that sometimes I think that I'm gonna like something, and then when we get in it, it actually feels too sensitive or I actually notice that I'm not quite into it, but I have a hard time saying it when we're in the moment. 

0:38:02

Could we identify a hand signal or a word that could help me communicate that with you in a succinct way?" Because sometimes it's really the communication of it, of, like, “Oh, god, I'm gonna have to do this whole big explanation and then it's gonna take us out of the moment, and it's exhausting. Okay, I just would rather not.” So instead, having this discussion beforehand and saying, "All right, when I tap your shoulder or when I squeeze your upper-arm, right, whatever works for you or when I say 'mango,' that's when we know okay, we're gonna switch gears." 

Another thing that you can plan ahead of time is after that signal is given, what is the thing that always pretty much feels good? What's something that goes back to baseline? 

0:39:03

So it could be, "All right, when I give you this signal, I want to just come back to cuddling and eye-gazing, and then we can decide from there what we wanna do, but we might just end there." Actually explicitly getting that reassurance from your partner (of would you be disappointed if that happened or would that be okay) can be so freeing. We're not having these conversations, and inside our brain, we feel that heaviness of the fear of disappointing our partner, the fear of letting them down, and most of the time, our partner is like, "Oh, my god, of course, I wouldn’t want you to do anything that you don’t feel good with. Of course, it would be okay. Of course, I love cuddling you."

Another piece of this is if we have those times where we know okay, we're connecting back in, we have our ritual, there's not so much pressure on the few moments where we're intimate. It's like, of course, this was a great Saturday, and we're gonna try our next sexy Saturday.

0:40:12

Amanda Testa: Yeah, and I think it's working through whatever might be standing in the way of you having those discussions, and you can do that. There's lots of tools or if you feel like you need more support, then that's available for you as well, but just knowing, oftentimes, when you can feel comfortable having those conversations, it's a huge celebration because it can allow there to be new connection in new ways. Oftentimes, especially if we've been in a partnership with someone for a while we might just assume, right, that they're gonna respond this way or assume this is what's gonna go down or assume X means Y.

Dr. Rose: Mm-hmm.

Amanda Testa: And so, it can be really hard to kind of step back and give the opportunity for new possibilities to bubble up.

Dr. Rose: Yes.

Amanda Testa: But, like you say, most of the time our partners do want to please us, and they don’t want to be doing anything that's not enjoyed, right, and if you're not enjoying it, they probably know on some level, and they're not enjoying that either, right? 

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