Healthy Sexual & Emotional Intimacy, How Embodiment and Nervous System Regulation are Important with Dr. Alison Ash

Ep 356: Healthy Sexual & Emotional Intimacy, How Embodiment and Nervous System Regulation are Important with Dr. Alison Ash.  She is a sex & intimacy coach and educator/lecturer at Standford University, and online. Dr. Aly shared what embodiment means and how our US culture devalues the wisdom of our bodies, so we often disconnect from our bodies as a result, which causes us to run into problems in sex, relationships, pleasure, and quality of life. Not only does the US have poor sex ed, it basically has zero intimacy education (but things are getting better as some universities are starting to offer such courses). Practicing embodiment is to be very present living in the moment, which Dr, Aly explained is a form of meditation and mindfulness. We can engage in nourishing our intimacy. Our intimacy can be draining rather than fulfilling if it's lacking. She offers courses to help people with this and other issues (including sexual topics). She explained how the 'window of tolerance' and 'range of resiliency' impacts our lives and relationships, and how we can widen that window through self-care.  She talked about examples of self-care, which our culture tends to minimize and devalue, such as taking a bath, gardening, journaling, or wrapping up in a soft blanket. She addressed how we need to self-soothe (self-regulate) and co-regulate (meaning engaging in a soothing connection with someone else...aka feel that click with them). Both are important for a healthy relationship.  She stated intimacy comes from mutual vulnerablity and with our goal oriented culture, goal oriented sexual relations often occur and this takes us out of our bodies which leads to less enjoyable and fulfilling sex lives. She also stressed that as a culture, we need to stop labeling emotions as good or bad, they are all valuable and give us all information.  We also touched on repairing ruptures in relationships, and the female sexual genitalia anatomy...do you know what the clitoris looks like? It is about six inches long and has lobes, legs, a shaft, and a head (somewhat analgous to the penis).

Check out Dr. Aly's new course https://www.turnon.love/sexual-and-emotional-intimacy-skills
And her other courses: http://www.turnon.love/
https://ohfckyeahwithruanwillow.buzzsprout.com/1599808/11886390

About the podcast host: request an ARC copy hotwife audiobook: https://books.ruanwillowauthor.com/sharinghisadventurouswifefirsttimewifeshareittybittyvixenarc
To buy the book: https://books.ruanwillowauthor.com/sharinghisadventurouswifefirsttimewifeshareittybittyvixen
NEW!
https://books.ruanwillowauthor.com/thehideandseeksexchallengeaudiobook

Transcript

Season 3, episode 356 of Oh F*ck Yeah with Ruan Willow Podcast. This transcript was created by Substack. It is not 100% accurate. Please email ruanwillow@gmail.com with questions. The Speakers in this episode are Ruan Willow, the podcast host, and the guest Dr. Alison Ash.

SPEAKER 2

Hello, this is Ruan Willow with the Oh Fck Yeah with Ruan Willow podcast.

I'm super excited you're here today.

I have an amazing person that I chat with today.

So this is one of those episodes where we get to find out more things about sex, about relationships, how to have better sex.

and it's really a fantastic conversation.

I had her on the podcast before.

This is her second time on.

If you're under 18 though it is time to leave the podcast now because we are talking about sex and sexuality and today we are talking with Dr. Alison Ash aka Dr. Ali is a trauma-informed intimacy coach and educator, Stanford University lecturer, author and founder of Turn

on dot love t-u-r-n capital o-n dot l-o-v-e. Check out Dr. Aly's new course https://www.turnon.love/sexual-and-emotional-intimacy-skills
And her other courses: http://www.turnon.love/
Catch her first interview on the show here: https://ohfckyeahwithruanwillow.buzzsprout.com/1599808/11886390

As a sociologist with a Ph.D.

from Stanford, she has a comprehensive understanding of the complex societal challenges that often lead to unsatisfying and disempowering intimate experiences.

She also draws on her extensive training in the

Hakomi Mindful Somatic Psychotherapy Intimate Somatic Intelligence Trauma Therapy Approach and Somatica Method of Sex and Intimacy Coaching to support our clients to radically explore and courageously express themselves.

Dr. Ali designs workshops, courses, and retreats and offers individuals and couples coaching to give others the tools to be able to cultivate and sustain nourishing emotional and sexual intimacy

Dr. Ali invites you to turn on pleasure, intimacy and love at www.turnon.love.

Now that link will be down in the podcast show notes as well.

So stay tuned for this amazing chat.

She has so many great things to say.

She really does.

She's so knowledgeable and helpful and she's got all these amazing courses and they're just things that you're going to want.

Don't forget my link down in podcast show notes will have all of my books that are available for purchase and also you can go to story origin app and request an ARC of my audio books.

My latest audio book is Sharing His Adventurous Wife First Time Wife Share

It's a Hot Wife Story, Itty Bitty Vixen that I narrated with In My Hands Audio which he has an amazing sexy voice and that was written by Lacey Cross so that's my latest one and I also have two of my The Sex Challenge series audiobooks

One is about to release.

The Limo Sex Challenge is about to release.

It's really close.

The other one is the Hide and Seek Sex Challenge.

And I also have the final installment available in pre-order on Amazon for Taste of Victory.

That is the final story, the final novella in the series of six novellas.

of the Day of Play the Sex Challenge series.

So check that out.

I'll put the links down the podcast channels.

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Ruan Willow 10 for sex toys

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Okay, let's get into this discussion with Dr. Ali.

Let's go.

Hello everyone.

I'm super excited to talk to this person.

This is the second time I'm having her on the podcast.

And so you'll have to go back and check her other one out.

I'll put the link to that down the podcast show notes.

This is Dr. Alison Ash.

She's a sex and intimacy coach and educator and lecturer at Stanford University and the founder of Turn On Love.

Welcome, Dr. Ali.

How are you?

I'm doing so well.

Thanks for having me back.

I'm excited to chat with you again and find out more information about how we can have better embodiment and you know, I nervous system regulation plays into that and they're important for healthy intimacy, but I don't really think people understand what that means.

What does that really mean?

SPEAKER 1

Sure yeah embodiment is this ability to be aware of your sensations and emotions inside your body and to feel the impact of your connections between your body and the outside world.

So noticing what you're feeling, I always say feelings are the relationship between sensations and emotions.

Emotions show up in our body

Ruan Willow talks about

thinking culture that values and prioritizes the rational logical mind and it devalues the wisdom of the body and I think for a lot of people we're actually shamed for being too sensitive or too emotional and we start to disconnect from the body

Embodiment is crucial for healthy intimacy because it helps us understand

Yeses and No's, Our Wants, Needs and Boundaries.

So practicing embodied consent, not just having an intellectual sense of our yeses and nos, but actually knowing viscerally what we're available for and not available for.

It helps us to get out of our head and be in our body and experience more desire and pleasure.

it allows us to attune and co-regulate so we'll talk a little bit about what co-regulation means but that helps us be better lovers and better partners when we can

Basically attunement is a calibration process of adjusting how we're being in relationship with somebody else so that we're feeling connected and met and that's a very embodied process.

And so embodiment is so key for being able to have a healthy relationship with yourself and also a healthy relationship with other people.

SPEAKER 2

and thinking of embodiment is kind of like like living in the moment and feeling and being aware of everything rather than like thinking about things, right?

It's like more like the feelings that you're having in a specific moment.

SPEAKER 1

That's right.

It's actually a form of meditation or mindfulness.

It's it's being very present as you said, but paying exquisite attention to what's happening inside the body rather than getting lost in our thoughts.

SPEAKER 2

I love the phrase that you had seen you have somewhere was the embodiment matters.

And when we're talking about having nourishing not having but nourishing our intimacy.

I like that word nourishing our intimacy.

I think that it's wonderful to point to the fact that intimacy can be deeply nourishing, sustaining, fulfilling, enlivening, and it can also feel

SPEAKER 1

When there's longing or lack or conflict, it can feel draining and depleting and stressful.

And so we want to think about how can we attend to our relationship so that it can be more of the former and less of the latter.

SPEAKER 2

Yeah.

Yeah.

That makes sense.

And you know, if it's not nourishing and not positive, yeah, it totally can be draining and you might feel like you're more in service to the other person, which is draining too.

Not that you can't do service to them, but it has to be some sort of balance, you know?

So when we're talking about embodiment, how does that really relate to our nervous system?

I know obviously our nervous system is what helps us feel what's going on, but how does being embodied really help us relate to our own nervous system?

SPEAKER 1

Well, I think it might be helpful just to talk about the nervous system for a moment.

So our nervous system has two main automatic features, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic.

And the sympathetic nervous system is responsible for action, going, doing,

It's also where when we have what's called hyper-activation of our sympathetic nervous system we can go into a fight or flight trauma response.

Triggers right?

Triggers?

Right well stressors on the nervous system when we have too much stress on the nervous system what can happen is what's called our window of tolerance which is this

homeostasis that develops between our sympathetic nervous system the part that's responsible for agency for doing and our parasympathetic nervous system which is responsible for rest digestion relaxation coming coming to stillness

All day we're experiencing input on our nervous systems.

We can call those stressors even though it might not actually feel stressful, but we're experiencing input on the nervous system that's requiring us to oscillate between sympathetic and parasympathetic responses.

Dan Siegel coined this term called the window of tolerance.

Other folks refer to it as the range of resiliency, which I love because there's this idea that it's this

It's this area of spaciousness where when we're within our window of tolerance there's this homeostasis that's happening where there's a balance between sympathetic and parasympathetic responses and we have full functioning online when we're in our window of tolerance

we can engage socially we can be feel connected to other people we can be playful we can both feel and think simultaneously we can experience empathy and feel safe and have access to curiosity and be adaptive to situations and when we experience too much activation in the nervous system too much stressors or trauma but it's not always necessarily trauma it can just be

a lot of triggers as you said we can get overly dysregulated and that homeostasis is not in play and we go outside of our window of tolerance and we either go into hyperactivation which is where that fight flight response lives or we can go into hypoactivation which is where freezing collapsing disassociating can happen and

If you are in an actual life or death situation this is a very advantageous response we developed this response for a reason but the reality is that a lot of people get really dysregulated and are outside of their window of tolerance in situations that may feel life or death but actually aren't life or death and

That is problematic because then we respond reactively we don't have access to all of the skills that we need to have healthy intimacy we get short or stony and silent or we shut down or our mind goes blank and we don't know what to say anymore or we push somebody away we say an angry insult and we are

Harming Our Capacity to Maintain Healthy Connections.

so that we can have a wider more resilient window of tolerance meaning it takes a lot more input for us to lose our seat and show up reactively and we can also learn how to care for our nervous system both when we're regulated so that we can feel more nourished but also when we're starting to get dysregulated so that we can have some interventions come in rather than just continuing along that pathway to deep dysregulation reactivity or even a trauma response.

SPEAKER 2

So really what we ultimately want is to have a larger window rather than a smaller window because it just makes us harder to relate to others if it's a smaller window.

SPEAKER 1

That's right.

And I also just want to normalize that there's a lot of factors that can impact how wide your window of tolerance is.

It's fluid.

It's not a static thing throughout your life course.

So if you've had a wonderful vacation and a yummy meal and eight hours of sleep in a comfortable bed, you're going to have a wider window of tolerance than if you are overworked, underfed, underslept, but also

So in part when we think about intergenerational trauma, this is one of the ways that trauma gets passed down generation from generation because if you're having a lot of trauma can narrow your window of tolerance.

And if your parents have more narrow windows of tolerances and they tend to respond really react reactively and they don't know how to regulate their own nervous systems, then when they are caretaking an infant and a little one, then they're not actually

modeling and templating how to have a healthy window of tolerance, how to regulate your own nervous system and that can make it harder for folks as adults to be able to regulate and to have that level of resiliency that so many of us crave.

SPEAKER 2

Right and do you think some people just kind of think that they have to put themselves in go-go-go mode and like I'm not going to deal with this right now and that way they're not dealing with what they're feeling maybe making it harder to get to that widening of your your window.

SPEAKER 1

Of course yeah I mean we are a go-go-go culture right we are goal oriented we are affirmed for being productive we are

not encouraged to engage in radical self-care, to find moments and ways to have spaciousness, to be able to deeply breathe, to attune to your own body and needs.

We are oftentimes shamed for having boundaries and saying no to things that we don't have the capacity for.

So we push ourselves to the threshold of our capacity or often past our capacity.

And that's a dysregulating way to relate to yourself and to others.

But that's the momentum that our culture creates.

It's very hard to run up against that and do something different.

SPEAKER 2

Yeah, like we're not really taught to like, oh, live in the moment, enjoy that strawberry, you know, it's more like, what did you get done?

What are you working on?

What are you doing next?

And so that carries into the bedroom.

SPEAKER 1

That's right.

Of course.

Yeah.

And I think, you know, one of the most self-defeating ways of relating to intimacy is to approach it with a goal and to have an agenda in mind that creates a ton of pressure for you and a ton of pressure for your lover or partner.

but it's very hard to turn that off because that's just how we relate to almost everything in life.

SPEAKER 2

Right so what does it mean for us to care for our nervous system and why is it important for maintaining healthy relationships?

I know we've touched on this a little bit but what can we really do to care for our nervous system?

Is it just simply self-care things or are there other ways?

SPEAKER 1

Great question.

So we can both engage in self-regulation and co-regulation.

So self-regulation is this experience of self-soothing.

We can do that in small little ways by taking deep slow breaths, having our hand on our heart or somewhere on our body giving ourselves some soothing touch,

Shaking our body is so helpful for moving tension and stress through the body, but we can also do that by engaging in self-care activities.

So this is this term that everybody throws around.

So if you actually know what it means and

Have a menu of self care options that I love to share with folks.

If you're listening to this podcast, please feel free to go to my website, reach out.

I'd be happy to share it with you because the reality is, is that it's often hard, especially if you're in a state of dysregulation to know what's going to be soothing.

Nothing sounds like it's going to work or feel good, but if you look at a menu of options, it's much easier to pick something.

So some examples I have are taking a bath,

Ruan Willow

cocooned in something soft and not everything is going to work for every person but you want to figure out what are the things that work for you and to do them both with some regularity so that you're tending to your nervous system and giving yourself that soothing even when you're not in a state of dysregulation but then also ideally and this is where embodiment comes in

Noticing when you're starting to get dysregulated when you're starting to reach the edges of your capacity and stop what you're doing and engage in co-regulate in self-soothing techniques then so that you can be helping that homeostasis that balance come into play and not

go outside your window of tolerance when you're already outside of your window of tolerance and you're very dysregulated you don't really have as much capacity of making these healthy choices and decisions you're actually in your more we call your reptilian animal brain your prefrontal cortex has gotten bypassed and so you don't have access to the same kind of logic and reasoning and healthy decision making

So that's self-soothing and self-regulation.

We can also engage in something called co-regulation which is this experience of being soothed in connection with somebody else.

And this happens through touch, through laughter and playing, through eye contact, through breathing together,

All of these things can help essentially use the other person's nervous system as a tuning fork.

And so if the other person is really regulated in their window of tolerance and feeling embodied, and we're in connection with them, we start to harmonize and feel that kind of soothing in our own nervous system as well.

And in fact, this is what's happening when caregivers are holding little infants who are crying, and they're

It's okay and they're giving them soothing touch and they're holding them against their own chest and it's this attunement process that's happening where the infant is learning how to soothe themselves by being in connection with somebody else who is soothing and of course

We do this throughout our lifespan and co-regulation is just as important as self-regulation and some people are better at self-soothing and some people are better at co-regulating and so we want to learn how do we develop capacity to do both because it's important for healthy intimacy that we can engage in both forms of regulation.

SPEAKER 2

I have a couple things I want to say from all that, but I'm going to do the one that you just talked about most recently.

So kind of you can kind of think of co-regulating is when you click with someone, like when you feel that click, you know, you're talking to that baby or you're on a date and you're like making eye contact when you feel that connection and that like clicking and somehow you just all of a sudden get into this synergy where it's like a dance.

Yes, definitely.

So it's so important.

I mean everybody wants that click.

Everybody wants those moments.

Who doesn't?

Everyone does.

It's something we all strive for in all of our relationships really.

And then the other thing I wanted to talk about is you know all those self-care items that you brought up like the bath and all that stuff.

Unfortunately it's like our culture looks to those just like the frivolous things like oh you're gonna do that you know oh I I read a book or I cleaned my carpet you know so it's like those things are like the frivolous things and so we look at them in our culture as unimportant like those are those don't mean anything but you're saying those are the things we should be doing and paying attention to.

SPEAKER 1

That's right.

And when we can engage in self soothing and self care activities, we increase our resiliency, so we can actually be productive and navigate relationships and tough conversations and

Tent situations with a lot more capacity and is counterintuitive to think that we can actually be more productive when we also infuse in our day these moments of rest, relaxation, soothing, attending to what feels nourishing.

SPEAKER 2

And so when we're figuring this out and we're figuring out where our window is and all of that, how is this going to help us with conflict?

Because obviously people get into conflict, maybe they're, you know, one or both people are in a relationship or conversation are out of that window, right?

And so that's why the conflict is happening.

How can we

Hey, how does this play in navigating and what can we do to fix it?

I mean, are there things we can say to ourselves, maybe be aware and catch ourselves and be like, hey, look at what you're doing, look at what you're saying, or what are some things that that would work there?

SPEAKER 1

Great question.

And I teach a workshop on repairing ruptures in relationships.

And one of the things I focus a lot of energy on in that offering is the fact that most people are trying to repair conflict at the wrong time.

when one or oftentimes both people are outside of the window of tolerance and as you remember that means that we don't have access to empathy to reasoning to curiosity to memory to all of these things that we need to be able to navigate conflict effectively and so when we're in an experience of conflict that doesn't mean that you can't be angry or upset there's a way you have access to emotions when you're in your window of tolerance where you feel like you can

Be with them and still have your capacity to respond in a way that feels productive and helpful and with clarity and with

the ability to see the big picture and to be able to consider your experience as well as the other person's experience and then there's a way of reacting responding to your anger where it's consuming you and that's all you can see and feel and you have no capacity to hear let alone consider the other person's experience and

And so when that happens it's so important that you pause, that you take a break, that you create some space and that both of you go do things that are self-soothing.

Go for a walk around the block.

I'm in conflict with my partner.

I throw myself in the shower for as long as I need.

It's a long shower and I mutter and get it out and until you can have

Access to Curiosity and Empathy You're Not Ready to Repair

release it from your body and your system so that you can come back into the window of tolerance and then maybe even get some support from them so you can think about how to express your experience in a way that is clearer and less reactive and also maybe get some outside perspective on the other person's experience maybe and then come back to that repair process more regulated and more able to engage in repair work and if you're doing repair work

and what are both of you starts to get outside your window of tolerance take a break yeah and come back to it when you're feeling more regulated

SPEAKER 2

What I think that really points to is a lot of people think they start to have an argument or a disagreement and they have to, they have to like finish it right there.

Why can't we learn to come back to it?

I mean, it's something that I think that some people struggle with.

Like, no, we're not done talking.

We can't leave.

We can't separate right now because we're not done.

We haven't resolved it.

So I think it's, we need to start thinking of it in a different way.

Like you just explained that sometimes we do need some time and space before we can actually resolve the issue or talk about it.

SPEAKER 1

It is one of the harder things for people to do because they want to get through it.

They want to Fix it.

They want to resolve it.

They want to feel better or you're so angry They feel like they need to unleash it so that they're not holding on to it anymore Or sometimes they want to blow it through their system into somebody else's and have you carry my anger I don't it's too much

and so we want to learn what are some other ways that we can be with our anger.

I think one of the things that's so important to change in our society is that there aren't bad emotions and good emotions or positive and negative emotions.

There are maybe more pleasurable emotions and more challenging emotions but every emotion has

Ruan Willow talks about

explore our anger and make space for our anger.

And when you're way outside of your window of tolerance, you don't even have the capacity to be curious about your own anger, let alone somebody else's experience.

SPEAKER 2

Right.

You're kind of just trapped right there and you're just feeling it and you can't you can't seem to move from it.

You're just you're just locked in it.

SPEAKER 1

Yep.

Responding reactively rather than having some sense of agency and choice around how you're responding and engaging with your own experience.

SPEAKER 2

One thing I wanted to ask you too is why is it paramount to create an emotionally secure relationship and what does that really look like in real life?

SPEAKER 1

An emotionally secure relationship is when you have emotional intelligence, you're aware of your emotional experience of how you're feeling and what you're wanting and needing and your, I like to call it your internal landscape.

and you're able to share that with your partner or best friend or whoever it may be.

Our attachment figures aren't always our romantic partners.

And they see you, they understand you, they accept you for who you are and they also self-reveal their own internal landscape.

Intimacy comes from shared mutual vulnerability and so when we can know and understand our inner world and express it and share it that's always where I say empowerment comes from is radical self-awareness and courageous self-expression

and we're in relationship with somebody else who sees it who would be with it and accept it and empathize and honor our experience and then reciprocate then we can be in an emotionally secure relationship and that also happens when both parties are able to self-soothe and self-regulate when they need to and also co-regulate and soothe their nervous systems together

and we want to be able to do both because if you can only self-soothe but you can't co-regulate you know in a lot of ways our society encourages that because we want to be independent and self-reliant and we don't want to need anybody else and we can really gain an identity around that but we need co-regulation for bonding and for

Feeling like we can nourish our intimacy and have a home base that we can come back to.

And there are some folks who are much better co-regulators but they have a very difficult time self-soothing.

And then that can create codependency or a lack of autonomy and independence.

And so in order to find a healthy balance of independence and interdependence, we want to be able to develop our capacity to both self-soothe and co-regulate.

SPEAKER 2

I would imagine co-regulation must be very difficult for people who have social anxiety.

SPEAKER 1

Yes and also folks who have traumatic experiences.

It can be really unsafe to co-regulate.

It can feel unreliable or in their past experiences when they've tried to co-regulate they've been hurt or harmed and so can be it can feel even dangerous for some people.

and I think there are different things that are co-regulating for different people.

I would say for most people touch is the most co-regulating thing but then that's not true for folks who have had some kinds of trauma or

Maybe you're neurodivergent or whatever else it may be.

And so it's really figuring out what it is for you.

And, you know, I always like to use this term as phrases like coming up with your user manual, what are what are the ways in which you want to tell the people you want to be close to you what you need to be close and works for you and what doesn't work for you.

It might actually be playing video games and laughing and

Yeah, and I would imagine too that that's really you have to respect the other person's boundaries heavily.

I mean, it's, that's, that's totally integral.

Really, and our boundaries relate to our nervous system and our window of tolerance, right?

SPEAKER 2

Our, our capacity is how resourced we are to deal with

SPEAKER 1

Ruan Willow titled Healthy Sexual Emotional Intimacy, How Embodiment and Nervous System Regulation are Important

line between capacity and lack of capacity and in fact actually what I like to counsel people to do is to set their boundaries before their perceived limits of their capacity because humans are exceptionally bad and knowing how resourced we are and what our capacity is we overestimate it and then we go past our capacity and when you're past your capacity you're going to show up as short, irritated, resentful, angry, frustrated

When you're within your capacity you're going to show up as patient, present, curious, generous, playful and so we want to stay within our capacity so that we can have healthy interactions and so we feel like having boundaries are a bad thing that they're going to result in somebody being angry or upset or rejecting us

but really having boundaries is a gift because when we can show up in our window of tolerance within our capacity we can actually engage in ways that are nourishing to our relationships and so we want to assert our boundaries because that helps us both stay in connection with ourselves in a way that feels good but also be able to relate to other people in a way that feels good

and so it's it's a gift it requires some emotional labor and some self-awareness and some vulnerability to know and assert our boundaries and it's really important that we do that and nobody else can know our boundaries but us and our boundaries are fluid because our capacity is fluid so we need to be able to do that that work to be able to know what our yeses and nos are what the limits of our capacities may be

SPEAKER 2

Yeah and I think we need to also recognize that yeah it's not always going to be the same.

So you can't assume because someone wanted to do XYZ that they want to do XYZ again.

That's right.

But that's what people do.

I think in relationships they think oh I know you.

I know how you're going to react.

I know what you like instead of like maybe reading them in the moment.

So they're going off of history which isn't always bad but also like you said shifts around.

SPEAKER 1

It's fluid.

Right.

And we want to use our past experiences as a piece of information to kind of have a sense of possible or not possible.

Sometimes we have boundaries that are pretty enduring and lasting, but it's also helpful to check in verbally to attune to nonverbal body language and to never assume that past yeses or consent past experiences automatically apply to future encounters.

SPEAKER 2

Right and especially with sex because that's where we're most vulnerable.

I mean you know I don't know I feel like that's one of the areas we're most vulnerable.

You can't assume if you make assumptions you often can end up in trouble.

SPEAKER 1

That's right.

And I think the reality is that some people really want to have their way.

They want to get the yes, and they want to, they're really attached to an outcome.

And so they're not pausing, they're not checking in, they're not making space for no's verbally and non verbally, because they're moving towards their desire in a way and pace that doesn't really make space for attunement.

SPEAKER 2

Right.

Yeah I mean it's we need to look at it more I mean just gets back to being embodied more of a dance more of a in the moment instead of okay this is my list of things that used that worked before I'm just going to run through these again rather than being in the moment and reading your partner.

SPEAKER 1

Yes.

And you know when it comes to intimacy to sexual intimacy, you know we can communicate before during after we can communicate verbally and non verbally, but that communication has to happen, because we're not mind readers and because as you were saying it's a moving target.

SPEAKER 2

Yeah, I think that whole mind reading thing is really huge.

I mean, even if you've been with somebody for a long time, you still can't read their mind.

You can't read anyone's mind.

You're still elucidating or that's not the right word.

You're deciphering what you think they're feeling, but you don't literally know.

SPEAKER 1

That's right.

You know, some of us can be very attuned and especially if we're in an emotionally secure attachment bond, we might have a really good intuition about somebody else's experience, but it does put you in dangerous territory when you assume that your intuition is right and you don't check in.

SPEAKER 2

Right.

Or you get pissed at your partner because they didn't do what you wanted because they were supposed to read your mind.

SPEAKER 1

Oh yeah I think the way that we can relate to needs can be very complicated and I mean there's a lot of folks out there that feel like if you really love me you would just know what I needed.

Right.

And we want to help people be good lovers and partners by helping them understand what we need.

SPEAKER 2

So in doing some of your classes I know you address some of this stuff so what is something that you think is like super important that people need to know that you're working on right now?

SPEAKER 1

Well, in January, I'm offering my sexual and emotional intimacy skills master course, which is an eight week course, and I have it available oftentimes on demand at other points in the year.

So if you're watching this listening to this podcast, and it's a different time of the year, so reach out to me through turn on love and be happy to share it with you.

But

In January through March I teach the live version of this course so it's online with live instruction and I go through so many topics absolutely vital to having healthy emotional and sexual intimacy.

So boundaries, more about embodiment and nervous system care, skills for deep emotional depth and secure relationships like how to have empathy and how to talk about our needs and

I talk a lot about flirting and seduction and expressing desire and so many skills for maximizing pleasure how you get out of your head and be in your body how do you reveal enjoyment instead of performing and how do you stop enduring something that's not feeling great and actually be able to co-create your sexual encounter as we talk a lot about erotica and fantasies and how to unpack shame

And of course we talk about conflict and repairing ruptures because the reality is that if you're opening yourself up to intimacy, you're opening yourself up to hurt.

It's important to expect and anticipate that these conflicts and ruptures are going to happen.

So rather than doing all of the mental and emotional gymnastics to try to avoid them, how do you know and feel confident that you can

Navigate it well when it does happen.

And then of course I talk about how to pick partners and how to end relationships.

And even if you are in a monogamous forever relationship, we are picking people to interact with, colleagues, friends, and we are ending relationships of all kinds throughout our lifetime.

It's not just romantic relationships that we need this intimacy,

and these skills for it's for all sorts of relationships and we don't really know how to end relationships well and how to be with the grief that may arise and I think it's a very important skill to know how to be with the life cycle of relationships that many relationships have this kind of beginning middle and end and how do we end relationships well

SPEAKER 2

Right.

And then not have bad feelings that are just lingering all around.

You know, it's, it's a bad, I think most of us think of ending a relationship as a bad feeling.

SPEAKER 1

Right.

And feel hard when people grow in different ways, or they realize that they're not compatible in certain ways that are fundamental to the relationship, or they just drift apart, that can feel really hard.

But there can be an honoring of

what that relationship was and how it served both of you and a way of really being able to reflect and learn and grow and ideally all of our relationships prepare us to have continued and sometimes even better more nourishing relationships as we move forward because we learn more about what we can't do without and also what we need that's different.

SPEAKER 2

Right, right.

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, as time goes on, we just learn, you know, we learn more about ourselves and what we need and want and don't want in our relationships.

SPEAKER 1

That's right.

And so I would love for folks to reach out to me if they're interested in my courses.

I also have almost 20 different on demand workshops that are available for folks, including ones on

Navigating Conflict and a wide range of other topics.

And then I also work with folks, individuals and couples, helping them learn the skills for maintaining healthy emotional, physical, sexual intimacy.

I often say that having healthy intimacy requires experiential skill building, as well as deeper emotional processing so that we can look at all of the core material that can show up that can make it hard to actually implement and integrate

These intimacy skills.

So things like our attachment styles, our family dynamics, our trauma history, the way that shame and insecurity shows up all of this material can really make create blocks and obstacles to being able to have the kind of intimacy that we're desiring.

SPEAKER 2

I think some of this comes from how inadequate our sex ed is.

So it's like things like this that you can do as an adult can help you get places that all of those areas totally fell short on.

SPEAKER 1

I mean, sex education in this country is a joke.

And I'm not even just talking about sex education.

I'm talking about intimacy education, which is a whole nother level of preparing people to have fulfilling relationships.

And we are not

taught intimacy skills it is not well modeled or templated for us in our family dynamics in our school systems in our peer relationships society at large if we think about media and rom-coms and just so much of we're exposed to is not actually modeling how to have healthy intimacy and intimacy is a skill like any skill we can get better at it with proper instruction and practice but unfortunately unlike most skills it's very hard to find access to that

SPEAKER 2

It is.

And I just feel like it just, it does more, almost does more harm than good.

The way the sex ed is, is set up currently now, it almost does more harm than good because they just leave so much out and they just focus on certain areas.

So it just leaves us all lacking.

SPEAKER 1

Yeah, I think a lot of it is fear-based or shame-based or just looking at what's going to keep somebody physically healthy rather than also looking at what's going to keep them emotionally healthy and keep them from getting pregnant.

I mean, that's what they focus on, you know, like for an STI and they don't even talk about what happens if you have an STI.

How do you

Ruan Willow talks about sex education

SPEAKER 2

Oh, for sure.

And then they don't touch on pleasure at all, which is getting back to the embodiment.

You know, like they don't even talk about pleasure at all.

Like, of course, I don't remember them ever saying sex is pleasurable.

They wouldn't they wouldn't even say it.

SPEAKER 1

Oh, I mean, anatomy.

It's not like they talk about the clitoris.

Of course not.

You know, we we put a man on the moon and invented the Internet before we understood the full anatomy of the clitoris.

It's really wild.

You know how?

Yeah.

How much this stuff isn't

valued and talked about and normalized.

SPEAKER 2

Well what I think is crazy is how many how many people really don't even know what a clitoris looks like.

Of course everybody knows what a penis looks like because that's like everywhere but people literally don't know what it looks like and some people don't realize it extends inside the woman's body.

They think it's just this little button on the outside and that's it.

SPEAKER 1

That's right the average clitoris is about six inches long.

Most of it does extend inside the body.

It wraps around the vaginal canal

I teach a workshop called How to Eat Pussy Like a Champ which is wonderful for both givers and receivers alike because oftentimes receivers don't actually know a lot about their body or what would feel good or what the options are and how I think it's really important for both givers and receivers to know how do we stimulate the internal clitoris?

How do we create that kind of aching throbbing turn on that makes sex so much more pleasurable?

SPEAKER 2

I mean yeah that's that's amazing that you teach it I think that's just fantastic but it's true because

So many people don't know like I try to like talk about a lot of like social media and stuff too because and I'll ask the question sometimes I do polls like do you know what it really looks like and how big it really is and most people they don't know and the crazy thing is most people that follow me are okay with sexuality topics so those are people who are okay with sexuality topics that doesn't even touch the rest of the world that is not okay with seeing that on their social media so there are massive amounts of people who do not know what it looks like.

Which is crazy, but they also didn't talk about it I mean, you know weird thing is like I knew what a dick looked like when I was in sex ed But did I find out what a clit looked like?

No, I did not find out what a clit looked like until I a few years ago be honest Yeah, yeah, you're not alone in that.

I know isn't it crazy and what's wrong with our world our country?

I guess our culture not necessarily the entire world, but our culture.

It's just it's mind-blowing how it's so blocked Yeah, yeah

SPEAKER 1

I am seeing ripples of change and access to more sex positive education and comprehensive intimacy education and it's really wonderful to be seeing the resources that are available to folks that were non-existent when I was a teenager and yes

available to teenagers and adults alike.

And I just really want to encourage people to take workshops to take courses to work with an intimacy coach, because these are things that we can learn at any stage in life.

And it's never too late to start to learn how to have a better relationship with yourself and with other people.

It's really what makes life so fundamentally nourishing and enjoyable and meaningful.

SPEAKER 2

Yeah and I just love that you create all those those courses because yeah these are things that people aren't taught so you know they if they want to know and what I love too is that it's never too late I mean even someone who's their 60s and 70s and 80s they could still do this stuff as your body is still your body and it's still feel so there's no there's no end date for this stuff.

That's right.

We all need to enjoy it like you said.

SPEAKER 1

Yeah we all deserve to.

We all really deserve to have this kind of nourishing intimacy.

SPEAKER 2

Oh, we totally do.

And I think like that you talked about how, you know, people, when they start to have stronger emotions, they're just kind of outside of their window because it makes you feel like you're still you.

It's just, you're kind of shifted.

It doesn't mean you can't shift back.

It gives it more of a viewpoint of that.

Oh, this, this can change.

I'm not stuck here.

I'm not always an irritable person.

I'm not always angry.

You know, like I can, I can, I can deal with this and I can shift it for myself.

SPEAKER 1

Yes that's exactly right.

SPEAKER 2

Yeah that's so amazing.

Is there anything else we have not touched on that you wanted to mention or talk about or highlight for people?

SPEAKER 1

Just that I really enjoy working with folks so please feel free to reach out.

You can always contact me at www.turnon.love and I really enjoy talking with you on this show.

You run such an awesome podcast.

You're a wonderful, amazing, inviting host.

I enjoy our conversation so much and I'd love to be back again to connect with your awesome audience.

SPEAKER 2

Well I love that you feel that way.

I'm smiling huge right now because I enjoy talking with you too.

It's so much fun and what I love talking about you know you have all this education and it's like gives me different perspectives too to think about how like I just said people don't have to feel trapped by being triggered you know you don't have to think of yourself that way if you can I think that's important for people to know that they don't have to be trapped by that and they don't have to be like oh I'm always crabby I'm always irritable

they can do things like you said self-soothing and co-regulation they can work on these things and they can bring themselves out of that space and I think that's important for people to know.

That's right yes.

And on the converse you know we can always be happy but you can't you still have to pay attention to your boundaries because if you don't if you're someone who's always positive and you're ignoring your boundaries eventually you're going to fall into that other side and you're going to get resentful or angry or irritable so I think it's yeah it's important to pay attention to positive and negative

That's right it's very right yeah so people can find you at turn on love turn on dot love right because that's your website awesome

Will you mention real quick too, so I remember last time, wasn't it you I was talking to when we were talking about how there's actually more courses at college universities that are starting to include more sexuality in their curriculum?

SPEAKER 1

That's right, in fact I teach at Stanford University this course Sexual and Emotional Intimacy Skills and it's so wonderful getting to offer it in that kind of an academic setting

I'm really impressed with their wellness education program and the wide variety of life skills that they teach and offer.

And it's also really wonderful for me to get to teach outside of academia like I'm doing in January.

SPEAKER 2

Absolutely oh so cool I love to hear that stuff because maybe like you said it means things are getting more better more open more paying attention to this kind of stuff that really matters so thank you so much this was awesome and yeah I definitely would love to have you back again sometime.

SPEAKER 1

That would be great thanks so much I appreciate what you're doing here and the ways that you're really offering this accessible education to the masses it's so important to have these forums and I see and honor the work that you're doing.

SPEAKER 2

Oh and I wanted to say too it's like really people around the world can access this right I mean as long as they understand English they can access your courses right yeah right because I have people around all around the world really that listen so you know this is not don't think of this as just restricted to people in America I mean this is anybody who knows English right I mean they can listen and understand they can participate

SPEAKER 1

That's right.

I have clients across the globe as well.

And it's really wonderful to have such far reaching access to folks who are valuing this kind of work.

SPEAKER 2

Absolutely.

Awesome.

Well, you have an amazing day.

You too.

Thanks so much.

Okay.

Bye bye.

Okay, thank you so much for listening to that.

What a wonderful conversation we had.

So much good stuff in there.

Dr. Ali is just amazing.

So don't forget to check out her turnon.love in all of our courses.

I mean, seriously, we weren't given good sex ed as kids, right?

At least in America.

I'm sure other countries are similar.

Except for you guys over in Europe, you guys seem to get it a little bit better than we do.

But does it mean you can't learn now?

And she has amazing tools for you to do that and just improve your intimacy.

There's always room to improve our relationships, our intimacy and our sexual relations.

Totally so check out the podcast show notes for the links to that and her courses and her new course that's coming out and my books I would love it if you checked out my books and purchased my books that I have for sale because so much fun to write and it's a great way to exercise your sexuality on a daily basis reading erotica and listening to it

Okay, stay tuned for Tuesday when I come at you with another erotica fiction episode and don't forget I'm also on

PodNation TV on Roku TV Fire TV devices.

PodNation TV is the channel that I am on and you can listen to my episodes watch them because some of them are video in the app anytime view on demand and then also you can listen to it and watch it

Nightly on the streaming website, which I'll put the link to that down a podcast show notes The timing does float around a little bit depending on how long the shows are before it, but it's generally around 11 or 12 Eastern P.m.

So I'm in the dark hours, baby Of course I talk about sex that's gonna be put in the then that the dark hours the nighttime

Okay good don't forget to enjoy your bodies don't forget to come today we were given these organs for a reason to enjoy our bodies and get pleasure and hormone release so that we can have stress relief and feel amazing and healthy sexual health is mental health that's another key phrase I like to say lately because it's true and don't forget to come today whether you do it with yourself or with a partner

We were given these organs to enjoy our bodies, no different than we're given taste buds to enjoy food.

We wouldn't be given these organs with all of these amazing sensations if we weren't supposed to feel them, right?

So we gotta shed that shame and guilt and go all in baby, enjoy your body, enjoy your sexuality, marinate in it baby and use Dr. Ali's courses to help you if you feel like you can't do that freely or easily or if you just want to learn something new Okay, you have an amazing fucking day.

Love ya.

Bye.

Bye now
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