Libido & Desire Online Course:
Taking Control of Your Sexual Desires

Hi, and a warm welcome to the Wanting. I'm so excited to work with you and share this part of your journey with you. I wanna say first, it is so wonderful that you used some of the courage to say yes to this course, because I know it does take courage to say I need this. I want a different relationship with desire. And I know you've gone through a lot in order to get to the place, that you say yes to wanting to a change in this area of your life, to knowing you may need to change as part of your life. I find that an honor, and I will do all that I can to give you the tools and support to facilitate your journey. I'm thinking you decided to join the Wanting because you wanted to explore a different and more fulfilling relationship with desire and libido. And we're gonna do that. But I also want you to open to the possibility that you may end up learning a lot more, like who you are deeply, authentically, and connecting to a part of you that you've never known, or haven't spent a lot of time with. This is your journey. And I have the amazing honor to be your facilitator. I can't wait to get started. But first I want you to do something with me. Take a minute and close your eyes. And I really do mean close your eyes. Cause I know when I do this, I don't often do what they're asking me to do. But I really want you to do this and make a sacred ritual with this work. So to get grounded, first thing that I do is I put my hand on my heart and my other hand on my lower belly. But do what feels comfortable for you. Now I want you to close your eyes, take a deep breath, and release the background noise and all of your to-do list. Ground yourself and say a silent promise that when you sit down with your inner work with the Wanting, then you will make this space sacred. Take another breath. And I want you to imagine what it may feel like at the end of your work with a Wanting. Picture a life where you are free to choose what's right for you to define desire for yourself. See how things will change when you experience your body differently. Envision how energizing it will be to feel that spark in your life again. Imagine how that spark starts in one place, but moves to all areas of your body and infuses into all places of your life. Imagine feeling fulfilled, excited, connected, and energized about your life, and see your desire as a growing source within you. Do you see it? Do you want it? The wanting is yours to claim. Claim it and know you are not alone. I am alongside you in this journey, and you have a sisterhood to support you as well. Thank you again for joining the Wanting. We've been waiting for you. Let's get started. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - I wanna give you a bit of background on why I decided to make a course on desire and libido. So picture this, it's a true story. I'm lying there on the table, getting a bikini wax, pretty much the most vulnerable position you can be in. And as she pulls off another strip of hot wax, I see a look across her face. I know this look, I'm getting ready to be asked a question related to sexuality. Now I never know what the detail is gonna be but I'm always excited, waiting to see where this look is gonna take us. And she asks, can I ask you a question? And she drips more wax my bikini line. It's like pull out, fuck! Oh, absolutely. Of course, I'm acting like everything's just fine. She says, I'm on an antidepressant and my sex drive is gone and I can't orgasm very easily anymore, is there any hope for this to change? Excitingly I answer her for 20 minutes. It's not an easy answer and there's not a quick fix but I wanted her to know that there are options, that there are things that can be addressed. I also wanted her to know that there's a journey ahead full of pleasure and wanting, and desire and orgasms, but also work and healing and mind shifting. And I wanted her to know that she wasn't alone. I'm asked about desire and libido for women of all ages, backgrounds, life experiences, and cultures. I'm asked in a hush whisper, a war cry, and through buckets of tears. I share a space with women who are desperate who are numb, who are angry, who are confused about desire. And this makes sense to me. Our sexuality is our essence. It's a fuller, deeper reflection of who we are and how we connect with others and within ourselves. Our libido, our calling to desire is one of our most powerful pathways into our sexuality. So when we feel a disconnect with this power source it greatly affects our relationship with others and within ourselves. we have an innate calling to address this disconnect and find harmony and celebration again, and we should. The problem is we don't talk about this as a birthright and as something that is integral to our health, our happiness, and our meaningful connections. We talk about desire and libido with a list of shoulds and used tos, and something we don't have like they do. Desire and libido is shrouded with shame and secrecy, and well, wanting, wanting our wanting to feel different. Wanting to experience our wanting differently. And well, I wanna change that. We need to change this attitude surrounding desire and libido. Our wanting a desire is as natural as our human need for purpose or why we're here on Earth. Our desire is a pathway to our authentic self. Now that may sound a little bit out there to say and to grasp at this point, but once we go through this course together you'll understand what I'm saying. Exploring any part of your sexuality takes you closer to your authentic self and your essence, but focusing on your desire, your libido is like taking yourself exploration into warp speed. If you really dig in and you do the work, it is profound. It's hard, but it's eyeopening, and releasing and amazing. You will learn and understand profound insights into your intimate relationships with others and within yourself. You will see how you and your desire fit into these relationships differently, and with your community, and your friends and your spiritual world. And I can say this because I did this work myself and I've worked with hundreds of women. I know this works. I've experienced a transformation within myself and I've seen the change in others. After working with many women, I found the biggest problem with our relationship to desire isn't the natural waxing and waning, or the aspects that impede a closeness with our desire, it's that we aren't given the permission to talk about it, to ask about it openly. And we are rarely given the modeling for healthy explorations and discussions about it. And society also has dumped a heap load of yuck onto female sexuality too. The double standards that we've been hearing about and felt for years. Be sexy, but not too available. Want sex, but not too much of it. Your libido should be just right, or rather match your partner's perfectly, or something is wrong with you, or with them. Our families of origin, religions, media outlets and much much, more describe and decide for us what our sexuality should be and rebukes us if we try to define it or claim it on our own. But our desire is complicated, a complicated web. And as you will discover through this course our desire is constructed of many parts that interact and feed off of each other. But we're adaptive, we're resilient, but we aren't taught about what to expect through our lifespan, and within our life experiences with our desire. And we aren't given tools to strengthen our desire skills and to ride through the changes in our desire as we grow and live. I don't want you to feel alone in this. I don't want you to worry you are broken, or weird or different. You aren't. I want to give you a quick taste of the things women have told me as they begin a journey of desire work, their thoughts and shame, and hopelessness and questions are what fueled my resolve to make "The Wanting" happen. Women think something is wrong with them, that they're crazy, that they couldn't care less about having it but they think they should or they could lose their partner. They feel rejected and judged by their partner because they have a higher libido. They wonder if desire will ever come back. They feel numb, annoyed, frustrated, ashamed, embarrassed. They wonder if they should just accept the disconnect and stop wanting something more. No one should feel this way. No one should walk around feeling shame and worry about this, what this means, seriously. No wonder our relationship with desire is so convoluted and tricky. We need to understand what desire is, what a relationship with it is and how to strengthen it in our life. We need to change secrecy around it. We need to make desire and libido something that we talk about openly, ask questions, answer questions, have mature and loving conversations about it. So let's back up a little bit and find out, how did we get to this point? Well, let me ask you this. Did the topic of desire and libido come up in your sex ed. growing up? Did a family member talk to you about desire at any deeper level than when you and your peers were in teenage years that you were horny little teenagers. And that's what you thought desire is or libido is. I'm thinking your answer's probably no, I know it was for me. But when did libido and desire becomes something that you started thinking about? For most, it's when something shifts within them unexpectedly and seemingly without control. When they, or when they experience a mismatch with a partner. And when that happens, where do you go to talk about it? Who really asks us about it? Maybe some progressive healthcare providers, maybe. Maybe a close friend or your partner, but typically partner talks about desire are not supportive, giving room for growth and exploration. Usually partner talks are about disconnect, worry, and pressure. And of course they are, no one is giving us tools to talk about desire, to explore it safely, to even know what to ask for what we want. Well, I'm not having any of that. And we're gonna talk, we're gonna explore. We're gonna ask, we may laugh, and cry and grieve. And I promise you this journey is not gonna be a straight line or an easy fix. You need to know that, and you need to know that's okay. The journey to explore desire is complicated and individual, and I will be your facilitator, but I can't do it for you. I can't give you a quick fix and there's no one tip that will cure it for everyone. And in this course, we will serve as the beginning of a new fork in your journey. You will walk away with new insights, hope, resolve. You will end this course with a new relationship with a desire and a renewed spark within you. If you do the work, if you go deep, if you require of yourself a commitment to this, especially when it gets tough and life gets busy, when the topic makes you squirmy, commit. I know what I'm doing. Everything I say and ask you to do is gonna have a purpose. I've done it myself to make sure. Through my decades of work in this field, I'm asked to talk about orgasms and libido most frequently. I know I needed to put together all my information in a way that could reach women. I also knew that in order to fully maximize growth for the women who have sought my help, I needed to provide an atmosphere of sisterhood too. So an important part of sisterhood is allowing yourself to be vulnerable and authentic, because with authenticity comes growth. When we express ourselves to others in vulnerability it allows not only ourselves the gift of validation of our true essence, it also gives an invisible permission slip to others to do the same. Kind of like lying on a table half naked, getting myself all waxed. As I was owning and comfortable in my vulnerability, she was willing to be vulnerable and claim her truth too. And we both grew from it. Now that is a powerful exchange. And that's what I wanna give you in "The Wanting". A place where you can grow in a virtual dwelling, where you can own your truth, and a container for you to dive deep into the world of desire within. I try my best to use the most inclusive language. I wanna include all orientations, all genders, and all types of relationships, like single, or partnered or polyamorous. I do my best, but sometimes I may sling a certain way for ease of dialogue. I also wanna give you a heads up that I may use graphic sexual language, and I often throw a few cuss words in here and there. And I do this because I really do believe in being inclusive, because sex is for everybody. And I also wanna show that any topic, any word is okay. I want you to be comfortable and not embarrassed or afraid. So go there, just like I will, loosen up and enjoy it. So welcome again to "The Wanting", let's get started on the first module. (upbeat music) (bright upbeat music) - All right, so we're starting, and before we do the first video, I wanted to give you some tips to help make this be the most successful and the most enjoyable part of starting the wanting. So, one of the things that I want you to start off with is, have compassion for yourself in this journey. Don't be judging of where you are compared to other people, or what this is gonna feel like, I know there can be some nerves as to what is this going to bring out in me, what is she gonna ask of me, and so the really the most important thing, is to just to show up, and be self compassionate, and release yourself from judgment, most important thing you can do in starting this. Then I want you to look at this as something that's really sacred, there are a couple of things that I want you to do, that will help create that space for you. The first is, have a ritual that you start every time that you're gonna get into the work. For me, I like to light a candle, I have different lighting, or I have a special place in my house that just feels comfortable that I already know that when I get into I just kinda like mosey into it and just feel safe and secure in that, but it may be a coffee house that's right for you or someplace else that's outside of your home. But see if you can have some kind of consistency. So you automatically had this grounding with the work and sacredness. Another thing that I'd like you to do is have something that feels really good in your hands. Like a great pen, if you're gonna be doing the writing or a journal that when you look at it, it makes you feel really excited, and it's pretty or just resonates with who you are. So that when you start the work, you have this little even if it's just a subtle thing, you like, whoa, I love it, great. So I get asked a lot what to do with the worksheets, and you can print it out and put it in your notebook, or you can write it straight into the computer, and either way it works, I just want you to do what feels comfortable and fits into your lifestyle best. Something else that you may wanna consider is, if you have, let's say, an hour that you're gonna put aside to work on the wanting, you may wanna have 40 minutes that you plan to do the actual work part because it may take some time to get into the feeling of it and get yourself open to it. And then you may have some transition time afterwards. Now, sometimes life happens and you can't help but you have to go straight from one to the other, but ideally, give yourself some emotional space to transition 'cause this work is gonna make you go deep. And that can bring up some emotions, and I want you to not feel just jilted from one place to another. So after you finish your work, and you do your writing, give yourself some time to listen to music, or sit and let things sit within you. I found that when you're going into inner work like this, that it is really great, you get the material, it sparks thoughts, and you start doing all these self reflection. And then I'll give you work to do with it, and I want you to be able to sit with that. I don't want you to zoom through the material, I want it to sit and learn and marinate and give you insight as the week progresses. And then we switch into another idea. So if you can and in your lifestyle, if you can do it weekly and pace it out, that's what I really think is the best way to have the growth and have the opportunity for more insights and have it really sit within you and have this change in your life. Remember this feeling that you have right now, that feeling when you decided to say yes to this course, what you were wanting, what you were needing, and keep that within you. If you need to, put that in the very beginning of your journal, a commitment to yourself. Remember when I asked you, to say a silent commitment, go back to that and maybe write it out and read it throughout this time to make sure that you finish this course. You deserve all this information, and I want you to feel fulfilled and accomplished at the end of this course. So come on over and meet us over in the Facebook group, I can't wait to meet you. (bright upbeat music) (upbeat music) - So what is desire? I spoke to hundreds of people that I know and work with and ask them how they defined it. I learned a lot about desire and split the responses into two groups. There are positive and negative descriptions. Positive words emerge like longing, love, yearning, spark, passion, wanting, lust and phrases like overwhelming need and impulse, tunnel vision, insatiable craving, excitement, trickling, erotic warmth, traveling, losing yourself. I also heard other word associations and phrasing that express wounds and heartache, like disconnect, hopeless, no longer mine, obligatory, broken, ache, depressing, something to avoid, embarrassing, annoying, a source of frustration and shame, danger. I love this description though, desire. A sexual desire is an invisible force of nature. When things align within you and you feel connection with that fire, life feels limitless and happy and exciting. And when your desire derails or disappears, life can feel lethargic, depressing, frustrating, and hopeless. I want to give you a heads up on lingo. So medically you'll hear libido used, but I prefer to use the words sexual desire, or just desire. I'll say both throughout this course, but I lean towards desire and want you to release yourself from the old constructs of libido and open up to a reconceptualization of desire. So again, what is desire and what is a disconnect? First, what is it? Here are some definitions that you'll see out there in the world. Sexual desire is energy and a component of the life instinct. Sexual desire is a motivational state and an interest in sexual objects or activities, or is a wish, a need or a drive to seek out sexual objects or to engage in sexual activities. It's related to libido, sexual attraction and lust. It's both responsive and motivational. It's fire and Agra. Or did any of that makes sense to you? If you were like me when I first started exploring the world of desire, I was like a big, huh? So if you are there that's okay. Let's just keep going. Freud coined the term libido and believed that sexual desire was a person's primary motivation. Now say, what you want to about Freud and what he believed, and I may not agree with a lot of his tenets, but I am happy he put the topic into the general public and made society start thinking and talking about libido. A more modern view of libido desire now is a combination of hormones and physical pleasure and is informed and shaped by society and cultural norms, all interacting with relationships, life stages, development and life experiences. So hormones definitely play a role in sexual desire, testosterone and estrogen are big players. We also have dopamine D4 receptor, a gene that partly controls the brain's pleasure system and it has a role in our desire. But so are external and internal stimuli. Internal stimuli like lust and fantasy and love, external is like smells and visuals and things like food and connections with others. It's complicated. Our desire is interwoven, a web, a flame and an awakening all mixed up and interacting and changing, all parts simultaneously. I want to put a visual to this confusing concept of desire, and part of it's my story. I remember meeting a woman who had this palpable thing about her. I felt her energy. It was in what she wore, it was the pouring out of every part of her flowing hair, hell, it was everything about her. I couldn't keep my eyes off of her. It wasn't that she was stereotypically beautiful, or had some meaningless version of a perfect body. She just had this something about her that was drawing me to her, this confidence, this comfort with herself, a knowing of herself. And then she spoke. And of course she had this amazing stuff in her voice and her words too. She just did, she exuded sexy and confidence and connection. So have you ever met a woman like this or do you know what I'm talking about? Does anyone come to mind for you? Now I also met her in a time when I wasn't feeling great about myself. I wasn't digging my body, and my relationship was disconnected and my creativity was stagnant. So my mirror was really negative and my envy pretty bright. It felt like everything she had, highlighted everything I didn't. And then we talked and yeah, she was awesome and lovely too. And our discussion led into our view of sexuality. She spoke of mind blowing sex and orgasms and taking her into like sexual universes, she talked all about this and I kept thinking, I used to have that, or maybe, maybe I did. I didn't even know. It was hard to listen to what she was saying because everything she was saying I was comparing myself to. I tried to sound happy, and I tried to be fine with my situation, you know just go with the ebb and flow of things. But in the side, part of me was dying. And it was there that I disconnected. I felt disheartened. I wanted that. I wanted to feel whatever it was that she was describing, but I really had no clue what any of it really meant. Addition to it sounded amazing, and I believed she was operating in a totally different sexual realm than I was. I didn't look at her. I feel like I could be like her. I felt trapped in a relationship that was far from connected and fulfilling. I didn't see any options and anything that I could emulate. So how do I experience this? Do I have to wear a long flowing scarf dress, or be into tantric sex or be an expert? What was her secret? And here I was kind of this girl next door, this woman in jeans and flats, and I'd had great sex and enjoyed really wonderful orgasms in my past but not that kind of sex, not that kind of connection myself. I wasn't living that life. And I didn't think I could, I wasn't in touch. And I wondered if it was possible to feel that way, to exude all the sexiness and still do laundry or fill up my kids' school paperwork and pick out my husband's socks for the 30th time, whatever. It was hard to want to have sex sometimes let alone enjoy it. And leaving a trail of sexiness around me throughout the day seemed like an unattainable goal to achieve. If I wanted that level of sexual desire, sexuality, pleasure, and satisfaction, did I need to leave my husband and kids and to have it, and could I find it within the context of my own life through the good, through the bad and the shitty? Well, I found my answer. Yes. It started with changing my understanding of and relationship with desire, and understanding it wasn't about wanting her desire, how she exuded it. It was looking within, it was within me deeply, maybe dusty and hidden, but it was there. It always had been. So that was my reframe. It was individual. I realized that I was defining desire based on what I had heard her say about her desire and I saw how it was represented in movies and in books. And I was defining desire based on what I thought I should be, because of what I've been told I should be. And since I wasn't having that, then something must be wrong with me and I needed something different and something more in order to feel it. But conceptualizing desire is like asking 10 people to describe the color blue. Some may envision a midnight blue, dark blue while another thinks of Robin's egg or the teal of a peacock. But it's all these things. Blue is all these things. And so is desire. We just aren't told this and we aren't shown how to define it for ourselves on our terms, based on our own values and informed by our own memories and experiences and dreams. Your desire may be the meditative scarf wearing tantric kind of sex and desire, or it may be one of the quiet burns of a fire embers. Your desires may flow like a leaf caught in a river current, or a quick sparks, like fireworks sparklers. With all the work that I've done with women, I've seen it all. And I've seen women connect and find immense pleasure and joy with a beautiful array of desire, manifestations. The presentation of desire isn't the key, it's the connection from within to that manifestation that makes all the difference. And that connection comes from the work and the journey of defining desire on your own terms, and with your own choice with intention and compassion. When I realized I never taken the time to consider what desire meant to me, how I related to it and what I wanted it to look like in terms of things on my own terms and how I wanted it to change, that's when my process changed. So here's my process. I'm mourned the time lost and feeling badly based on someone else's definition. I was a bit mad that I allow that to happen, that our society does this so well. I kind of had noticed, and then I got excited. I was on a scavenger hunt of desire. I couldn't get enough, and I wanted to experiment with all different types of desire. But then I got overwhelmed. How did I know what felt right? And then I settled down and I let the connection flow through me instead of frantically trying to gather up like I was hunting for berries. So remember it, desire is an energy, not a thing. Desire is a resource within me that's sustainable, renewable but it's not unlimited if neglected or harmed. Desire is not housed outside of us, but within us. It's influenced by outside factors and relationships but it truly is an inside job. And I want to be clear about an aspect of desire. I'm asked about this a lot. What is normal? There is no normal level of sexual desire, and there are many components to it as well. I love this quote, finding desire requires you to do a deep and fearless search for yourself. Not of yourself, a search for yourself. It's about finding you. Because at the core of desire is your essence, it's you, how you experience the world, how you show up in the world, and how you relate to others in the world. It's also interconnected with pleasure, and what that means to you and how your pleasure informs who you are. And this is why desire is and will always be different for every one of us. And that's the great news. But it's also the uh-oh moment. So be clear. Desire is not about performance, comparison nor should it be about pressure. Desire is holistic, and there's three different components to it. Mind, our emotions and our ways of thinking. Body, how our body responds to and expresses pleasure and the relationship between our body, desire and arousal. And soul, the soulful journey that connects desire meaning and sexual energy or spiritual energy. And woven throughout each of these desire components is internal, our own experiences, our memories, our background, our current context and our dreams, and external our connections with other people in our relationships, romantically friendships and in our community. So I've talked to you about what my journey was and looking at desire and how I went through the process of redefining desire in my life. Now it's time for you to do your first search into what desire is. So for this week, what I want you to do is for your journal prompt, I want you to write your desire story. Think about if there was a time that you felt connected to your desire, or didn't even pay attention to it. Start there, then explore when that shift happened. When did things feel differently for you? Describe details and feelings, go deep. I really want you to take time with this. Write and then leave it, come back to it, carry it with you or have something to jot notes down on. If it feels safe, ask people about it, what their experience of you and what they've heard you say. All right. So you're sexercise for the week, I want you to click on the link with this module and take the desire quiz. You'll have a series of questions to answer, and then you will be given a category that you generally fall into. Now, this is just a fun quiz to get your juices flowing to put some words to your desire style, as it is currently. Don't get discouraged or overthink it. Just let it be as it is, and know that this is a starting point. Have a great week, and I'll see you in module two. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - In module one, I talked about how society has defined desire and libido, explored some of the reasons why it's hard to talk about desire, and told you a bit about my own desire journey. Your work in between modules was to write your desire story and finish the quiz that gives you a snapshot into your current desire style. Good stuff. Now in module two, this is all about the things that have gotten in your way of experiencing desire that fulfills you. This is the aspect of desire that most conversations are filled with when I'm approached about libido. All right, so two caveats. First, there are so many things that affect and impede desire. I can't touch on every possible reason, but I will be addressing the most common factors that change our desire. Second, it is rare to just have one thing that affects desire, and your relationship to desire. You'll most likely hear yourself in one or more of the categories, and you may have additions that I don't address at all. In this module, I'm gonna be giving you the blueprint for how to figure out what is affecting your desire, and then how to examine them. I have a really cool visual tool also that we'll be plugging all of this into. So I was given permission to share these two stories by women that I work with. Although the details will be different from yours, I'm gonna tell them to you because I think it's gonna help you see the complexities and spur ideas about your own journey. The first woman is 35. She had an active desire in her 20s, she felt sexually alive, she enjoyed sex, she felt good about herself, and she knew others desired her. She married in her early 30s, and was happy with the relationship. They had three kids close in age. Her husband got a job that required him to travel a lot, and she quit her work. She felt exhausted and actually bored quite a bit. She started doing some inner work and also realized that she had some sexual trauma from college that she hadn't dealt with. Life was so hectic that she felt sex was something on her to-do list, it was a chore. Her husband also started experiencing more instances where he couldn't get hard when sex started. And then she also started limiting sex positions because she was feeling self-conscious after having three kids. She rarely wanted sex, rarely masturbated, and she only had sparks of desire mainly on vacation, or after a girls night out of drinking. She felt like she was failing her husband, and mostly felt sad when she thought of who she used to be and how she used to feel about desire. So what do you hear in her story? Body image, hectic life, husband's traveling, erectile dysfunction, exhaustion, boredom, not having a spark in her life, sexual trauma, little self-pleasure, lots of connection, loneliness. A lot of components. So the second story is a woman in her fifties. She shared that she loved her partner and enjoyed over 30 years of marriage. She had completed menopause and felt content in her life, but her desire had dramatically shifted when menopause started. She had pain during intercourse. She didn't get wet like she used to, and her partner has stopped initiating sex like he had before. She then noticed their connection started loosening too. She felt content, but not happy. Not excited about life, more blah. And then she met someone, and noticed a complete change in her desire. She was excited, and felt horny, and had lubrication thinking about him. She'd attributed her change in desire solely to menopause but then the shift with this other person happened, and it really confused her. So what do you hear in her story? Menopause, hormones, pain in intercourse, less intimacy, lack of partners' interest, complacency in her relationship. So again, these stories won't be yours, but I want you thinking about all different aspects of your life. And if you are partnered, how his or her life may be intersecting with your story. All right, so let's dig in. I'm gonna hit things that affect your desires in body, mind, and soul. We're gonna start with body. Two big things that are a part of body and desire is body image and hormones. First, body image. When a woman doesn't feel good about her body, or feel connected within her body, it can significantly affect her desire. And there are two different factors with this. First, when you don't feel great about your body it can be very hard to share it with someone else, and really hard to enjoy it by yourself. Things that I hear women say related to their body is that they restrict sex positions, the timing of sex, they wanna have the lights off. The locations are altered all to maximize privacy and hide the body parts they're ashamed of. There's also a particular body part that you may be overlooking when you're thinking about body image and your relationship with your body, your genitals. What are you thinking when you first heard me say the word genitals? That'll be your first clue. How do you feel about your genitals? Do you look at them? Do you look at a regular basis, or have you ever looked at your outside genitals with a mirror? If so, what did you think? How does it make you feel to look at them? And if not, what's holding you back from looking at them? There's so much power in genital shame. I do body sex facilitation, and I see how absolutely transformative it is for a woman to feel comfortable with her naked body, and how difficult it is to get to that point in her life where she has that journey, and has that kind of intricacy with her own body. The second main issue is, I also hear from a lot of women that they feel disconnected from their body. This is either because they don't have strong body awareness or they've had trauma, or negative emotions, and experiences that have shut down this connection. Women describe this experience as a detachment from their body during sexual behavior, or feeling like they don't understand how their body works. And she doesn't know how to either wake it up, or how it physically works within her desire when her desire begins to rise within her. In module four I'll be addressing tips about this, and how to strengthen it. But right now, what I want you to do is really focus on what is hindering your body desire. So the second part of body desire is hormones. Depending on your life stage you may not think this section affects you, or no longer is relevant to you, but I encourage you to listen to this and stick with the topic nonetheless, and remain open to it. It may help you address things from your past that will help you with some subtle healing, and it may educate you for things to come. It also may be information that helps you within your sisterhood group too. So hormones. Most often when we are talking about hormones and body desire, it's related to menstruation, pregnancy childbirth, pregnancy termination, miscarriage or menopause. Menstruation and pregnancy childbirth has a fascinating dance with body desire. For some women, right before their period begins or the first few days of their period, they have a surge of desire and want to be sexually connected. For other women it is something they do not notice at all. It can also be the opposite. That as hormones dip or rise, a woman's body responds with a decrease of desire. What's common in all these scenarios is that she feels a sense of fluctuations that are beyond her control, which she sees as either negative or a positive part of the dance. Science has done some research on it, but not enough to really have definitive answers to the wide variance that women have in hormones and their menstrual cycles. If you have a cycle, check and explore the relationship in your period cycer, cycle, cycer, fuck. (coughing) I mean, it can be. (laughing) If you have a cycle, check and explore the relationship of your period cycle to your desire. This variance is also similar in pregnancy, and in moms of little ones. Women have enormous differences from each other and within their own pregnancies. Some feel a great rise in desire at different stages of pregnancy, and others plummet. If you're in this group of women I want to give you permission to embrace the variance, and the ebbs and the flows. It's normal, and although the dips may not feel good, or feel right for your relationship, you have so many other things happening that you don't need the pressure of this too. Desire is not gone forever, and it will come back, you just have to have a different relationship with it. So moms with little ones, you're dealing with so much. The experience of birth as empowering or traumatic, body changes, hormonal fluctuations, a new being to take care of, lack of sleep, body recovery. And then as you move out of newborn phase and your body has experienced recovery, you now need to build a new relationship with this body. As with all these topics, this looks different for each woman, but each woman goes through this. Women's experiencing pregnancy termination or miscarriage also have fluctuations of hormones along with an array of emotions, grief, relief, sadness, anger, fear, shame, worry, and much, much more. As with other factors, women respond differently. For some, desire plummets, and is consumed by negative emotions and hormonal changes. And for others, the emotional supersedes hormonal changes and their desires increases. These differences are not about judgment or shoulds. It's only important to take note of where you may fall in the swirling desire flame, and account for the wise. Remember to remove all self judgment and embrace self-compassion. And last, but definitely not least, most questions I could ask related to hormones is about menopause. If you aren't at this life stage yet please don't skip this part because you will be someday, either through surgery or through natural ways. And you'll need to arm yourself with this information. I frequently hear these emotions. Frustration, hopelessness, resignation, sadness, anger, desperation, and attachment. I want to validate all those emotions, if you're going through or have completed menopause. There are a few exceptions for women who experience none of these things with desire, and menopause dance is really easy for them. But there are a lot of women that do have a new relationship with body desire after menopause enters the seam. But it's not hopeless though. And menopause does not have to kill your body desire, nor signal the end to a happy relationship with desire. Let's talk about the important hormones related to libido. Estrogen. It's responsible for vaginal lubrication, and overall feeling of vibrancy. Low estrogen can be related with a variety of symptoms like painful or uncomfortable intercourse, causes hot flashes, or night sweats, dry skin and eyes, heart palpitations, and insomnia. All of these symptoms as you can imagine, would be enormous inhibitors to body desire. The second is progesterone. It helps an array of things in our body, but two big functions are helping keep our mind and body relaxed, and to help make testosterone. When a woman has high progesterone she may experience weight gain, depression, mood swings, and bloating. It's also important to note the relationship between estrogen and progesterone, and how they have it is often key to how a woman is feeling, and experiencing the symptoms of desire changes. If you research many sources, and talk to more than one person within the medical community, you will hear a multitude of opinions on how hormones and menopause truly affect desire, as well as a thousand opinions on if, or how you should treat them. This lack of consensus can be confusing and confounding. And I'm not gonna give medical advice here, but I'm gonna end with this. Whenever I work with a woman about desire, I always ask her to go to her trusted healthcare provider and have her hormonal levels checked. Always. It gives you a baseline, and can either key you into an important contributor, or help rule it out as a factor altogether. In the end, body desire can be affected both by hormones and your body image, and they both can exponentially be impacted by the symptoms of hormonal fluctuations. No matter what, it is affecting your desire. So the next one is mind. The two big heavy hitters within the mind desire are safety, and stress. First, let's talk about safety. The bottom line is that for most women, she will not experience desire if she doesn't feel safe, however she defines safety. What I have found over the years is that women don't always understand what safety means though in their lives. They don't know how to describe it, and they don't know how to describe it to somebody else. But there are many safety threats. It ranges from not feeling safe that the kids will interrupt you during it, to physical abuse. It could be financial safety, and emotional safety, also play big roles into mind desire. Your work is to make sure you know what safety threats you may be experiencing, to understand what needs to be addressed within these factors, and how these conditions need to be altered, and how you can communicate that to your partner if you have one. There are other two parts of safety that I wanna talk about related to desire, vulnerability and surrender. When I mention vulnerability and surrender most women have a negative reaction, it's almost palpable. To truly embrace desire, though, you really have to understand these two concepts and feel them intimately. This graphic illustrates how all of these things interact to enhance and embrace desire. Safety is at the center, with vulnerability and surrender at the top, and pleasure and connection at the bottom. We are seeking pleasure and connection within our desire mind. We must have vulnerability and surrender though, in order to achieve both states. And safety ties it all together. So let's wrap up safety with talking about letting go. What do I mean by letting go? Many women describe themselves as being in their head, and holding back during sexual activity. Now this of course creates an enormous hindrance in sexual pleasure, but it also affects sexual desire as well. 'Cause it's about mind body awareness, and connection. But it's also about mindfulness, that allows you to slip out of your thoughts and ruminating about the day, and staying in the present within your body, within your connection of yourself, and if you're with somebody else, with him or her. Knowing what holds you back is the best starting place. Then practicing how to let it go is next. Letting go also needs to happen outside of the bedroom. How are you holding back in other areas of your life? What context is it easy for you to let go in? Is it hard for you to embrace letting go? Stress is the other big player with mind desire. There are numerous factors related to stress and I can have a whole hour talking about what stress are, but here are a few examples to get you started. Children, busy work schedules, relationship problems, caregiving, an ailing parent, health issues, infidelity, alcohol abuse, juggling busy family schedules, household chores, financial problems. We live in a stressful world, and this dampens our desire. These stressors start feeling like they are the most important things in our lives. They take over to do lists. They zap us of energy, and even our self-worth. Stressors take us out of mindfulness, and make us feel like centerdness is a luxury for later and our present is all about checking off boxes on our many daily to do lists. It turns sex into a chore, and it dims our sexual desire as an incredible amount. But you do have a life, and you have responsibilities. There are some things you just can't remove from your life, and that thought probably stresses you out as we talk about this, I mean I actually kinda feel stressed myself thinking about it. So we aren't gonna be able to remove all stressors, and this module isn't about fixing that. It's really just about identifying them. Without judgment, without emotion, without getting too in your head with it. So, what are the stressors in your life? And last, it's soul. Within soul desire, the two main factors are shame and relationships. We'll start with shame. Shame comes up a lot in matters of sexuality, and particularly with desire. And I really want you to dig deep here. What in your life are sources of shame? Think about things that are related in the obvious sense to sexuality, and think of things that seemingly have nothing to do with it. Here are some things to get you started. Masturbation, your sexual history, your sexual skills, your body, sexual trauma, your relationships. Think about your education. What people think of you, your career satisfaction, your family relationships, trauma, anything you've experienced even your relationship with pleasure. Where is your shame showing up in your life? When you can free yourself and really examine this, it can start the process of disentangling shame from effecting your desire. And the last one in the soul desire is relationship, or the lack of having a relationship. Now, the details of relationship issues are so vastly different and complicated, but very powerful when examining desire. Now, the details of the relationship issues are so vastly different that I can't get into all the complicating factors that make up a relationship, and how that relates to desire. But I can say one important factor. The control that you feel like you have in your relationship is a main contributing factor to how vibrant you feel, and how connected you feel within that relationship. And that's the part where I want you to start. So if you are in a relationship, examine your history and pinpoint the areas within that relationship that are affecting you. Think detailed and then go global. From snoring to trust, from doesn't help around the house, to we don't have the same life dreams. If you aren't in a relationship, explore how that feels and how that's affecting your desire. So there are many, many, many factors that affect and impede our desire. I try to hit in the main factors that I think break up desire, mind, body, and soul. And I gave you examples within each of those topics that are kinda the heavy hitters of what I see and hear. But I want you to go much broader, and much deeper into your list of what's affecting you in your life. And that's gonna start with first, your sexercise, which you will see an explanation of in your sheet that's gonna be a part of this module. And the next part I want you to do in this part of the module is to look at two journal prompts. The first is, dear desire, fuck you. I want you to write about your grief, your anger, your frustration, your sadness, get it all out. Anything negative, anything that has made you feel upset. I want you to dig in and write it, just get it out of your system. And then the second one is, dear desire, let's be friends. I want you to write to your desire, and talk about forgiveness and compassion. Open up an invitation to a new way of relating to your desire. Remember, none of this is perfect, none of this will be seen by anyone else, and as always, be kind, be light, be real, and be you, you deserve this. This module is a hard one, it's gonna stir up things. Give yourself self care during this work, be good to yourself, and remember that if you have a relationship some of these emotions and insights bubbling inside of you may be surprising to them. So be kind to those reactions too. This is the good stuff. I'll see you in module three. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Before we start, I want you to grab something to write with and write on. I'm gonna be asking you lots of questions to spur your thoughts for this work after this module. When I ask questions, feel free to stop the video and write, or just write as I continue to talk. So with module three, we are getting into a really fun area of desire. We're gonna answer what do you want your desire to look like? What do you want to feel like? And what do you want your relationship with the desire to be? Oh, this gets me so excited. I really love hearing how women define this for themselves. There's just something so damn liberating about making choices, knowing you have them, deciding what they are, and then claiming them. I love liberating sexual choices the most. So open up, get playful, and remove the old shoulds and stories. Let's suspend the thoughts of things that affect desire and get into a place of excitement, hope, and fun. We're gonna start with body desire. So I'm gonna go through the categories and ask you questions throughout this video. So here's the time to get out the thing to write on and to write with. So with body, here are some questions that I want you to consider. How do you like to be kissed? And I wanna explain to you this thing called skin hunger, if you haven't heard this concept. It's awesome and it's very much related to body desire. It means your skin's need to be touched. It's similar to the personal space that we need. We all have different levels of skin hunger. Some of us need to be loved and hugged and kissed and rubbed all over. Some of us recoil at touch and avoid it, and there are lots of things in between. You may have skin hunger for a particular part of your body, like loving to have your hair brushed or your feet rubbed. You may love touch from another, but not for yourself or vice versa. Touch has a really amazing capacity for connection. Also, what kind of firmness do you like in your touch? So to truly understand body desire though, you need to explore all of your senses. Touching, seeing, tasting, smelling, and hearing. All of our senses can be inspiration and motivators towards sexual desire. So we've explored touch a little bit. Next is seeing. What we see can involve the person that we're with, his or her body, hair, how you look at each other, eye gazing, but it also can involve environment. Do you enjoy seeing the flicker of a candle flame or a certain genre of pornography? Do you like bright lights or a dimmer ambiance? It can involve watching. Watching other people live or looking at porn again. Think about what you like visually. What do you like seeing and what do you want to be seeing in your sexual desire? Next we'll move to smell. Now this is a fascinating sense within sexual desire. It is both what we actually smell, also what we think others are smelling within us too. Do you love a certain cologne or perfume that either you or your partner wears? For me, I love woodsy, musky smells and I'm super turned off by flowery smells. This is inside and out the bedroom for me. Smell can also jam up things in our desire. Sex can be messy and smelly. Body sweat or genital smells can be a pretty big deterrent. Some people have had a bad experience giving oral sex and don't like the taste of ejaculation so they're deterred from it for future things and aren't turned on by the thought of oral sex. We can also halt our sexual desire if we worry that we have the bad smell, that we worry about our body in general, or specifically our vulva. I've heard so many stories of women learning to hate receiving oral sex because they are afraid of what their partner will think of their genital smell. So, what is your relationship with the smells of your body? Next is taste. Within the world of sexuality, explore these questions. Do you like the taste of penis or vulva lubrication of yourself or somebody else? You may not think it's a sanitary thing, or what a good girl should do or try. Maybe you love it. If you use condoms, what do you think of the taste of condoms or latex? I also want you to explore yourself outside of body taste, think of food and drink. What tastes make you feel pleasurable outside of the bedroom? Are you a chocolate girl or do you love salty delights? What kind of meals make you feel light and filled with energy instead of heavy and exhausted? Last of our senses is hearing. I love exploring the relationship between body desire and hearing. Music is a huge part of my soul so I find a lot of connection between the two for me. I know what songs make me feel a certain way. I tune into those ones that turn up my sexual desire if I wanna feel sexy or creative, and I stay away from the ones that don't. Also consider if you're someone who is greatly affected by sound during sexual activity. If you hear the baby crying, will it be a deal killer for you? Or can you tune it out for a while? Just for a little bit. Are you turned on by the grunting and moaning sounds of your partner in pleasure? Or does that distract you? Do you know the sounds that you make during pleasure activities and do you have a good relationship with them or no? So one final thing to consider within body desire is how we move, how we breathe, how we dance, how we stretch and how we exercise, how we feel in our own body. Our physical health and how we interact with the physical movement of our body is a key component of understanding the connection between body and sexual desire. Have fun with body desire. Expand yourself, push yourself a little. And I want you to dream a lot. So let's move into mind desire. There are two parts to mind desire: emotions and thoughts. Both are incredibly powerful motivators to sexual desire. This section will be a little bit different because some of the points are matters that I haven't had you directly explore yet. So I'm gonna ask you to reflect on it, release it, and then get into the place of dreaming and redefining it. So emotions are a passageway to desire. Some of the most powerful emotions related to mind desire are love, compassion, connection, as well as the belief of safety, pleasure, and surrender. How do you want your desire to feel? What emotions do you want associated with your desire? Now this may sound like I want to feel excitement when I think about sexual connection. You may list it out like thrill, craving, fun. Just jot down a few things. I also wanna pull out one emotion, explore a little bit more deeply. Love. Feeling love for another person, as well as feeling loved by another, can be an amazing desire motivator. How do you want to feel love and how do you want love to inform your desire? Think of who you love, who loves you, and how you love yourself. Another thing about love and desire, something I find really interesting. It relates to how we have different ways to describe sex. We call it regular sex, hot mind blowing sex, and lovemaking. Other kinds of sex have adjectives before sex, but love is a whole other word and it's a verb. The act of making love. Some women I've spoken to have described powerful lovemaking after times of immense pain and grief such as death or a traumatic experience. They're craving connectiveness and feel desire growing out of the feeling of the compassion or the need for compassion and love. For others, lovemaking is about self pleasure and finding orgasms by herself. And then for others, some describe it as a powerful connection with a partner that's soulful and transcendent. What does lovemaking mean to you? How do you want it to show up in your love desire? Two other huge emotions to explore are surrender and vulnerability. These are juicy, important things so take the time to really examine what you like your relationship with surrender and vulnerability to be. Last, how do you want your emotions in general to affect your sexual desire? Are you okay with your mood determining interest in sex or not? Do you want your emotions to work for you and work with your sexual desire? Now remember, when you're talking about emotions, have fun with this. Play around. Connect with hope and enthusiasm as you answer these questions. Moving into the other part of mind desire is thought. I teach a lot about thinking the process of decisions, especially in our sexual world, because I believe there's an incredible amount of power in our thoughts. It's crucial to pay attention to what we're thinking and why we think that way. We need to learn about what we think about sexual desire. And we also need to learn where we learned it and why we think the way we do. This is the foundation to figuring out how you want to formulate your future mind desire. If you aren't in tune with this part of yourself, take some time now to examine your relationship with thoughts and desire. Then quickly move into what you want it to be like. The thought part of mind desire also incorporates memories and fantasies. These are the biggies. I believe memories can serve us, but also they can hinder us. We put great power in our memories. They can lift us up or tear us down. They can move us forward or hold us back. They are rarely neutral. We put a lot of weight on something that was filtered through a brain of someone who we once were, a child, a teenager, a woman who was before this. Now I'm not saying that they're inaccurate, but they are memories based on a brain that hadn't experienced what you have at this point. So I gently, gently, gently ask that you open to the possibility that maybe some of the things you recorded in your memory accurately, but also there may be a perception that has something changed within it. So if we were to see a recording of what that powerful memory is for you, maybe now as who you are would perceive it differently. So example. Maybe the sex wasn't that great, and you need to stop comparing every lover to the great one. Or maybe the insult about you wasn't as cutting as you remembered. Or maybe the woman you are now wouldn't care nearly as much as the young woman who experienced it. We hold fast to our memories, but perhaps they don't serve us. So like I said before about this, if you need to clear any kind of things from your past, a past memory, a past experience, do that now and then get to the place of reframing those memories for what you want them to affect and how you want them to affect your desire right now. And last, fantasy. One of my favorite topics. I love hearing a woman's relationship to fantasies. I love exploring fantasies. They are so fascinating to me. So I'm gonna ask you to really jump into a place of curiosity, fun, exploring, really suspend judgment and really dive into the wanting. Here are some of my many questions about fantasy and desire. What are your fantasies? I love the look on a woman's face when I ask for that. It's often a look of like, what? What? I'm not telling you. Why would you ask you that you perv? But why I ask it, because no one asks and it's a powerful motivator in desire. So we should be talking about it. So I'm asking, do you have an active fantasy life or is it a distant thing and awkward? Do you have any fears related to your fantasy life? What do your fantasies say about you? How do you make sense of something that you may fantasize about that turns you on, but you really would never do in your real life? What does it mean if you don't have any fantasies or if you can't feel turned on by one or by another? Anyway, these questions are great and I'm telling you it gets me so excited. It's such juicy stuff. I think mind desire is a big game changer and I really want you to dig in here. The last of this is soul desire. So I have said this a bunch, but I really think it's important. I believe that our sexuality is rooted and intricately tied to our souls, our core, our essence. Sexual desire is a powerful pathway to this core. Soul desire is tied to our connection with others, with a higher power than ourselves if we believe in that, our meaning of life and our meaning in life. For some, this means viewing sexual activity as sacred with boundaries and specific contexts and for others it's a practice as ancient as worship. For some women, soulful desire shows up in a full body orgasm and for others, it means transcendent connections. When I say soulful desire, what does it mean to you? So remember that woman I told you about earlier that I met and I wanted that sexual thing that she had? I had no idea how to find that kind of soulful desire. And this was because I was trying to find her kind of soulful desire. At that time in my life, I would hear women talking about orgasms that made them connect with the universe. And I would sit there green with jealousy but also like, what the hell? Now I'm a spiritual person. I'm a devout Episcopalian, I'm an orgasming woman. I had no idea how these three things could connect together until I started making purposeful steps to build a bridge between the three. Again, everyone has different relationships with soul and spiritual worlds and religious worlds. For me, I need a lot of grounding and I need tools to help me keep grounded. On any given day I can meditate, attend church, pull out a tarot card and experience soulful lovemaking. All of that grounds me. And sometimes I just do some of it. What is your path to spiritual religious or soulful connection? What is your soul desire? And now, what do you want it to be? The bridge starts with examining what your soul source is. Your experiences with spirituality, your connections with your soul and sexual desire. Think of church, meditation, tantra, chakras, praying, meditating, walks in nature, listening to the ocean, rituals, ceremonies. So I want you to think about all these things, incorporate them into one concept of what soulful desire is for you. All right. So we have concluded module three. Isn't it so fun and liberating to make these choices? To dream, to allow yourself to dream and determine. To think about what your answers are and what you want them to be. So free yourself, expand yourself, and celebrate your birthright to choose. Finish the writing prompts that I'm giving you in a separate link. Incorporate your answers into the questions I just threw at you in this module as well. And I also want you for your sexersize for this week to define desire on your own terms. And smile. Smile while you're exploring them. Smile while you're answering these questions and writing your own definition of what desire is. Redefine it and reclaim it. This is the good stuff. See you in our last module. (upbeat music) (gentle uplifting music) - All right. So here we are in Module Four. I'm so excited for us to be at this point in your journey. A few things before we get started. You're gonna need your journal and something to write with and all of your past work with each module for this final module. So first, I want you to go through the sheets for Module Two one more time. Here are some things that I want you to look for and perhaps add. Answer what fits for you, and add questions that aren't listed below but you've gained insight through the work as well. Explore more reasons, and see if you've forgotten something or have added a spark to something else. Let's go with body first. Do you have any medical conditions that could be coming into play? Any chance that you could have some endocrine imbalances? What about any medications that have listed side effects related to desire, or you have like a wondering maybe that it is related to desire too? What about mental health? Have you been experiencing anxiety or depression? What about obsessive compulsive symptoms? And let's talk about sexually transmitted infections. Have you ever had one? Is that affecting things with your desire? And masturbating, self-pleasure, I know that it can be an awkward thing to ask about, but it's something I really want to dive into now. How often are you masturbating? Are you doing it for a stress reliever or to get sleepy or an experience that connects you to yourself? So these are just questions that I'm throwing out at you. You can stop after each one and write them or kind of listen to all of them and see which fits and throw out what doesn't. And then some of my questions may spur on something and spark another question that I haven't hit on for you. So let's move into mind. What emotions are in play with your sexual desire? Think about performance anxiety, disgust, irritation. What about grief or tension? And let's really get into life stress. What context is playing into your desire? Do you hate your bedroom? Do you have a friendship that's stressing you out? Are you lonely? And here's a topic that isn't often asked about. What about your relationship with alcohol or drugs? Are you drinking more than you should? Is there a possible problem there that you need to explore? Or are you finding that you need to drink or use drugs in order to get into the mood or to have sex at all? And last, soul. Dig into communication. If you are partnered, are you communicating with your partner? Are you doing it with a critical and reactive tone, or you're approaching topics with, "I really want things to be different with us, and I'm really excited about finding something new." Or, "What do you think about this?" If you aren't partnered, if you've been in a relationship, think about your communication in those past relationships. And for everybody, how much time are you giving to yourself for self-care, giving back to you? Is it daily, weekly, never? Does the idea of self-care make you just twitch and feel like, "Ugh, everyone's saying that, but I have no time for it?" Now I want you to take (inhales) a deep breath. (exhales) Go back to Module Three. Read through all of those beautiful choices. Read through all of the hope and fun and enthusiasm, and soak it all in. Ground yourself in what you want and what you've reclaimed your desire to be. Now we're going to be putting both of those things together. With this work, you will use the sheet that's provided for you. Hit the heavy hitters for each of the categories. It may take you some time to figure out which of these are the most important aspects of the things that are hindering your desire. Give it that time, and don't get overwhelmed. It's okay if you need to come back to it. Don't rush the process. It's a really critical one, and it's one that you really want to give the space that it needs. Once you figure out where you're having the most impact on your desire, I want you to list them out on a sheet. Next to them are your ideas of how you're going to improve each area. Now again, I can't go through each category, but this is how the process works. Listen to how I'm going through several categories, and incorporate that into your ideas and your specific factors that affect your desire. So if ideas aren't coming to you easily or on your own, you may need to ask a healthcare professional, seek a therapist's advice, search on the Internet, or find aid in books. There are lots and lots of advice out there. Sift through what fits for you, and throw out what doesn't. But start first with your own instinct because you are your own expert. So here are some ideas. When I'm stuck in something, I find I really need to shake things up because if what I did naturally worked, it would've worked. So go big, stretch yourself. Here is a stretch for a lot of women that I recommend. If you feel disconnected from your vulva and vagina, I want you to take a mirror out and examine yourself. Look at your vulva. Look at your labia. Look at your clitoris. If you want to take it a step further, put your finger inside yourself and then taste yourself. Smell yourself on your finger. See if you can describe your taste and then affirm it. Affirm your labia and celebrate your taste and smell. Now I'm wondering if this has freaked you out or something, and you're like, "Whoa, this is a lot, Juliana." But it's just an example. For some of you, you've already done all of that. For others, this may be something that's really kind of scary. But whatever you need, do that. Start with where you are in comfort, and then stretch yourself just a little bit. And then after that, add a well, why the hell not? It's just your idea list. Doesn't mean you're set to do it, but it's something that you're exploring and thinking about. Now if you're needing to explore ideas about soul connection, think about learning something new. If you don't know a lot about the concept of yoni or chakras, consider learning about it. If that doesn't fit, that's okay. But maybe there's something within it, just one little nugget, that helps spur something else with your soul desire. Come up with your plan for your heavy hitters in all of the areas. Research your options, explore all kinds of ideas. If you feel safe, ask people in your life for ideas. Then get the conversations flowing and growing. If you need to get a healthcare provider to explore how your inner body or mental health may be affecting your desire, go. And search for sex-positive providers, and if they aren't progressive, keep searching for ones that are. And ground yourself and know that what you're asking for and why you're asking is valid, important, and nothing to be embarrassed about. You may end up educating them. If you've discovered that your relationship is a big factor, then I want you to consider seeking a therapist or having a positive and loving heartfelt discussions with your partner. Make the choice to address these issues. Have the courage to say you want more and want to try things differently, and know that it's okay if you need an outside perspective to help support you and your partner. If your lifestyle's a major stressor, take a good hard look at it, and make some huge decisions about what you can change. Now this isn't gonna be easy because if these changes were easy, you would've made them on your own. Think of it like you were downsizing your home, going down to your belongings to a much smaller place. You physically can't fit it into a smaller home, so you must make those hard choices. You must have things that you get rid of. So do that with your life and your lifestyles. Next, what about fantasy? If fantasy is one of your triggers, write a fantasy. Go deep. Think amazing. Go detailed. Don't just think about it, write it, and maybe your stretch is that you share it with someone or you find a site to post it on. Or if you're partnered, invite your partner to talk to you about fantasy. Ask him, "Do you have anything?" And find out do you have anything in common. Do you have differences where you can both learn and grow? Are there any hard nos? Is there any interesting maybe? Whatever works for you, but put some intention and attention into your fantasy life. Here are some more things to explore. Do you need something broad, like you just need a longer length of foreplay? Or is it specific like you just can't stand the way your partner goes down on you? What do you need? How can you expand to address this need in your life? If you feel the pressure to have an orgasm and that's the issue for you in desire, look into Sensate Therapy. Now this is best learned through professional support, but you can look this up too. Basically it's about learning different touches, creating intimacy without the goal of penetration or orgasms. It's about touch, pleasure, and connection. Or maybe you have an interest in Tantra. Learn it, take a workshop, or go on a retreat. Learn, open to it, and see if it sparks something within you. I also want you to think of things that expand your spark outside of the bedroom. Where is the joy in your life? Do you need to switch jobs or maybe find a new hobby? Do you need to say no to things? Do you need to go on more walks or have more girlfriend dinners? So, put all of these tips into your life. It's about being purposeful, intentional, and hopeful. If you feel discouraged at any point, I want you to go back to Module Three and let it fuel you. Let it remind you what you chose and what you want and how you define desire. Let the hope in that module carry you through, and remember, this is a process. It took years to get to this point, and it will time to change things up and to get to a place where you feel centered, grounded, and have an inspiring desire. So here we are. We've gone through the course. You've looked at society's role in making desire and libido so confusing and secret. You've explored what has impacted your desire. You've redefined it and claimed desire on your terms, and now you've formulated a plan for changing the impact of the factors in your life that were impeding your desire. And now it's time to take it out into your life, out into the world. Follow through with your plan. Start the conversations in your life with people who are safe to ask and to tell your story. Join the sisterhood, and invite others into our tribe. Remember, the new chapter of your desire journey is beginning now. So we're gonna finish The Wanting course with one of my favorite activities with desire. So remember that quiz that you did in Module One, the one with the images and descriptions of desire and put you into one of a few categories? All right, now I want you to forget all of that, and I want you to think about what image now fits your desire. After going through this course, you've blown the doors off of all those categories. You've made your own desire. What does it look like? What does it feel like? Put an image to that. This exercise will give you more instructions. Have fun with it, and post it on our Facebook group and send them to me. I really can't wait to see what you've come up with, and I want to support the intention that you have set for your desire. Go out in the world now. Feel desire, expand desire, awaken desire. Live your wanting. (gentle uplifting music) - Well, here we are at the end of the course, you did it, and I hope you did yourself too. Seriously, I'm so excited for you and congratulations that you finished the Wanting. This is really important work and I'm really thrilled that you've invested in yourself and really embarked on this journey. So I wanna recap what we've done so far. First, we looked at how society hasn't really served us and taught us about libido being anything important in our lives and really taught us what desire is. Then we looked at how you've had impediments and how things in your life have affected your desire. Then we moved into reclaiming and redefining desire on your terms, and then wrapped it all up with how to incorporate all this new knowledge and this new relationship with desire into your life. So the exciting thing is, this is just the beginning of the new chapter in your desire story. And I really wanna have you keep in touch with me and our Facebook group even though you've finished the course. I wanna hear what's happening in your desire story. Please keep in touch with us in the Facebook group. I'd love to hear your stories in this part of your chapter. And I found also that it's really wonderful for the people who are taking the course behind you to hear what the journey's like. And then for you to remember the things that you learned about and to see your growth and maybe learn something new as you hear where they're starting in their journey. So thank you again. Thank you for being a part of the Wanting. Thank you for knowing that this is a topic that's really worth examining, and thank you for investing in yourself.