You are listening to Take Out Therapy, speedy sessions for everyday problems. This is your host, Rebecca Hunter. In my role as a private practice therapist, I don't really just tell people what to do.
But in this podcast, I'm doing things differently. In the next few minutes, I'm just going to be straight up with you about what to do in certain situations. Keep listening for awesome tips on how to live a more intentional and less reactive life.
Clearly, this is not a substitute for therapy, but I guarantee it might help you. Listen up. Hello, people.
You are going to love me after this episode because I am going to dig in deep and help you get some action in 2020. Come on. Let's talk about sex, babe.
Yeah, I'm going to talk about sex. Let's do this. This is something that comes up in the therapy office so much is that people are wanting, needing and not getting enough intimacy.
So when I talk about sex, I'm going to tell you that I'm not actually talking just about intercourse people. That's not all there is to sex, right? And so let's talk about intimacy. We are losing our intimate connections at a certain level.
And if you're somebody who has not lost your intimate connection, come join in a conversation about this because I think that women particularly get around and talk about how much sex we're not having. And I'm sure men probably do the same, although those two conversations look a little bit different. Wouldn't you agree? But here's what I'll say is that long term relationships, it's really hard to sustain intimacy.
And so it takes a lot of work. And I think we're really disappointed that it takes a lot of work and we're super bummed out that we have to work so hard at it. But there's so many factors that go into the problem of a lack of intimacy.
One of the crass things that I always say is children are a great way to ruin a perfectly good relationship. No offense to you kids, but hey, right? It's very hard to kind of save your intimacy or preserve your intimacy in the process of child rearing and parenting and chaos that ensues once we decide to procreate. But even it's super interesting.
So even people that I talk to that don't have kids, it's also hard to sustain intimacy. So is it our age, right? Is it that we get a little bit older and we just don't want to anymore? The desire has gone down. I think it has to do with a lot of things about our culture.
Here in America, we're not exactly sexually free and easy and open. There's a lot of kind of hiding that happens around sex and intimacy. We don't kind of dig in here about it.
I think there's embarrassment. I could go into that really deep. But let's do think about how our culture affects our ideas about sex.
And so in all that, if life is chaotic and we've been together a long time, or sometimes just basically the research shows that after a couple of years, we really have to work at intimacy. So if that's true, then we have the chaos and the aging self, body, and relationship. And then you throw in culture there.
And I will tell you, people are not stoked about their sex lives that I have seen. So how are we going to get down to business? That's what we're going to talk about today. So I am going to dig in a little bit about this.
I will keep it clean. But the first thing that I want to point out is if we're not in a intimate relationship with ourself, it's going to be real hard to be in an intimate relationship with someone else. And so read all you want into that.
What I'm saying is we have to take care of ourselves in an intimate way. Does that mean that we masturbate? Does it mean that we spend time putting on lotion? Or just spend time being with our body in a way that feels really intimate? That's what I'm talking about. So friends, it starts with you.
Frankly, it starts and ends with you. If you're not taking care of yourself, then you don't even really know what you might want or need in terms of intimacy. So if you were to say, get creative, you wouldn't really know what to do or how to do that.
So also, it's good to kind of look at your partner, look at your person, and reflect on them. I think it's very easy in the course of longer relationships to get caught up in the annoyances of a person, like all the things. The way they unload the dishwasher to the condition of their bathroom sink can just drive us crazy.
The way they hang their towel, I won't go on and on. But just reflect in a different way on your person. Instead of spending a lot of time thinking about all the negative attributes or the things that you perceive are negative about your person, start to have a different kind of reflection if you want to create more intimacy.
Because frankly, when I'm irritated with John about some household BS, I don't really feel all lovey about him. And so try to spend time each day thinking about the good qualities of your person and why you want to get with them. So think about the things that endear you to this person.
Why do you love them? What are the things you still find attractive and sexy there? Look at them with curious eyes. So when they come into a room, instead of being like, did you get the blah, blah, blah, and can you come help me with this? Look at them as the object of your intimate affection. This is somebody that you're sharing some time with and that you're close to.
And so I just encourage you to kind of change your mindset if you're looking to have more intimacy with them. And then I would say also, have a conversation, please, with your person. So when I say a conversation, what I mean is words.
And I think we like to really try to communicate without words in relationships, and it never really works out very well. So in terms of intimacy, what I'm suggesting is that you talk with your person and tell them that you have an interest in increasing your intimacy. And you can say it in your own words, right? And if that means that it's not about intercourse, but rather just sort of learning to spend that kind of time together again, if you haven't for a while, or if you want to sort of open the doors to a little creativity, right? These are all things that are good for your person to know.
And you guys can like plan together maybe how that's going to look. And if you're, you just want to create a vibe, right, of love, intimacy. So there's, if you don't have the kind of relationship where you feel comfortable talking about this, then I would say, fine, be open, be creative.
That doesn't mean you can't have a conversation. You could write your personal little letter, right, and leave it on their dresser. You can text.
There's a lot of ways that we can keep in touch and email even, right? And just say, hey, I miss our intimate life. I would love to get with you, right? Or whatever your, obviously my lines are super effective. The other thing I would say is be really open-minded when we're, here's something really important for you to know.
When you're not open-minded, you're defended. When you're not open-minded, that means that you have expectations and the way something needs to go in order for it to be like positive. So that's kind of tough, right? Because here's the problem.
When we throw in another human being, the expectation that we might've had, sometimes it doesn't work out that way because it's not just about us. We're not in a bubble. And so being open-minded in your drive for intimacy means that you can sort of play in your imagination about this topic, right? Once you've talked to your person, now start thinking about what it is you'd like to do.
And like I said, there's a lot more to sex than intercourse. So start using your imagination to sort of create desire, right? You can stir something up with your mind. Our actions really follow our thoughts, as you've heard me say quite a bit.
Me and a thousand super smart, famous people. So it's really important that we have desire, right? And I think that's what's missing. And Esther Perel, if you follow her, you can look at my blog page for that name and information.
But if you follow her, she's done some beautiful work in this area, you guys. It's important to have create a space to just be together and be intimate and like have fun. So feel free to leave your expectations at the door, because intimacy is intimacy is intimacy.
And there's no definition as to what that includes. Does that make sense? So if you're going into the bedroom, like, we have to do the thing that we always do. That's kind of boring, right? Because we've done it 1 million times.
You know, that's probably not creating an intimate vibe. But it's totally appropriate. And it's totally valid.
I just recommend playing with that mindset a little bit and focusing on the idea of being really close to your person and see if that feels better. So hopefully, these are some ways that you can start to think about increasing your intimacy in 2020. Get some action, friends.
And include yourself in that action, because you are the most important person that you need to please. I promise you that. Okay, let me know if anything exciting happens.
Wait, there's one more thing I forgot to tell you. I had to come back on and record this last part. You guys, do a post-game analysis.
So if you ask for intimacy, and then you do all the things that I've already told you all about, and then it happens, talk about it together and see, like, how was that, right? And talk about it in a way that's open and exploratory. Because the more information we have about each other, the better we can be in relationship with each other. And so the same thing holds true for yourself, right? If you start doing intimate practices with yourself, just reflect on how those go for you.
Because I really think it's important to take care of yourself in the process of being in relationship with others, frankly. So anyways, now I'm done. Go off and get some action.
Hey, if just talking about sex gives you anxiety, I just wanted to let you know I put some resources on my website. It's rebeccahuntermsw.com on the podcast page. So hopefully that'll help you out a little bit.
And don't forget, you can always come and join my private group on Facebook. It's called the Anxiety Recovery Club. Okay, thanks for listening.
Thanks so much for listening. This podcast is not meant to be a substitute for therapy, but I hope it was super helpful for you in any case. I want to be part of some much needed change, but I'm going to need your help.
Please subscribe and review the podcast, recommend it to your friends and family and share it on social media. We're living in the digital age, people. Let's do some good where we can, right? Visit my website at rebeccahuntermsw.com to have access to resources, videos and the show notes if that interests you.
And again, I'm so grateful you're listening to Take Out Therapy. Thanks.
