Sex for Saints

Most of us have a manual for our spouse. An unwritten list of do’s and don’ts that affect the way you feel? Your emotions tied up in someone else’s behavior leaves you powerless and at the mercy of someone else. Do you really want to tie your emotions to someone else’s behavior? I don’t think so! It’s time to take your power back!

What is agency?  Most people think that it’s being able to choose our path.  Choose right from wrong.  But I think it means much more than that.  Agency is the ability to choose everything! Even every single thought we think.  As humans, we just haven’t learned how to use this magnificent gift to its full potential.  But this podcast will help you see how you can use it more than you currently are. Play In A New Window Download . . Show Notes: Ensign Magazine - January 2019 Issue Articles referenced: The Gospel: An Eternal Life Hack and Teach Me to Fly: Achieving Emotional Self-Reliance in the Lord’s Way Show Summary: Today I wanted to address the topic of agency.  In my faith as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, we talk about agency quite often.  We talk about it as a gift that as children of God we received so that when we came to earth we could “act for ourselves and not be acted upon.”  We consider it to be the greatest gift we have been given next to the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  Agency is a big deal. What is Agency? We are taught, in our doctrine, that a war in Heaven was fought in our pre-mortal existence over the whether or not we should have agency.  Satan wanted to force us to do what was right so that everyone would get to return back to our Heavenly Father someday.  But Christ wanted us to be able to choose and He would atone for our sins so that justice and mercy could be satisfied.  And He would choose to give all the glory to God where Satan wanted to keep it for himself. Elder Renlund, in a talk in the October 2018 General Conference said “Our Heavenly Father’s goal in parenting is not to have His children ​DO​ what is right; it is to have His children ​choose ​to do what is right and ultimately become like Him. If He simply wanted us to be obedient, He would use immediate rewards and punishments to influence our behaviors.” A more secular definition of agency is:  “the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices” As members of the Church and as a society in general, I don’t think we understand the extent of what agency truly is.  Most people think that it’s being able to choose our path.  Choose right from wrong.  But I think it means much more than that. I don’t think that agency is just the ability to choose right from wrong, good or evil.  Agency is the ability to choose EVERYTHING.  Including all of our thoughts. I love this quote by Brooke Castillo “Your thinking is the one place that you have complete agency. If your thoughts are getting you the results you want then great, but if they aren't you can always try on some new thoughts and see if you find some that feel a little bit better and get you the results that you're looking for.”  - Brooke Castillo I had this podcast all written and then when I was reading the Ensign this morning I came across this quote and thought that it fit perfectly with what I wanted to share with you today. In Doctrine and Covenants section 9, Oliver Cowdery is chastised for trying to translate the Book of Mormon plates without taking any “thought save it was to ask [God]” (verse 7). He is then admonished to “study it out in [his] mind,” come to his own conclusion, and then “ask [God] if it be right” (verse 8). When we follow this pattern, Heavenly Father is not abandoning us to rely completely on our own abilities and thoughts as we care for our mental health. He is allowing us the opportunity to learn how to exercise our agency. As we exercise our agency over and over again in this manner whenever our emotional well-being is tested, we slowly become better and more confident. https://www.lds.org/study/ensign/2019/01/young-adults/teach-me-to-fly-achieving-emotional-self-reliance-in-the-lords-way?l= Why do we want agency? Agency gives us so much freedom.  A lot of times we unknowingly give away our agency.  When we choose to think that we HAVE to do something.  But there are really not many things in life that we HAVE to do.   We don’t HAVE to clean the house We don’t HAVE to make dinner We don’t HAVE to obey the commandments We don’t HAVE to have sex with our husbands We don’t HAVE to do anything… They are all choices.  And choosing to think that we HAVE to do them actually gives away our agency and creates feelings of resentment and frustration.  I was reading an article in our church’s magazine, The Ensign a few days ago.  There was an article about how commandments are God’s way of saving us from a lot of pain and suffering.  Here’s a quote from that article “With any of God’s commandments, we have the choice to follow them or ignore them. But as I thought of the Word of Wisdom as a set of guidelines from God that both anticipates and protects us from so many challenges, I thought, “What if all of God’s commandments work that way?” What if a loving Heavenly Father, who has experienced this life and its challenges, has given a guidebook to help us navigate the world as painlessly as possible? And what if He gave that to us because He loves us and wants to protect us?” Many people believe that the commandments are so RESTRICTIVE and they HAVE to follow them.  But understanding that we don’t HAVE to follow them (because we have agency), but by doing so protects us from so many things, helps us feel like we have the CHOICE. When we believe we are unable to CHOOSE, we feel trapped and restricted. But when we realize that we have the ability to choose anything we want, we feel that freedom.  We are able to do what is ultimately going to make us happy, satisfied, and fulfilled.  We get blessings! Taking responsibility for our choices Sometimes it’s hard for us to accept that we are responsible for the results in our life.  We want to blame others for our circumstances and the way that we feel.  It feels easier to blame others for those things sometimes than by accepting that responsibility for ourselves.  But by blaming things outside of us, we are essentially giving away our agency.  We are handing it over to someone else to make those choices for us, which is exactly what SATAN wanted for us.  But when we realize that we don’t have to blame others for our circumstances or how we feel, we get our power back. We can take control.  When we don’t like what is happening to us or how we are feeling, we just have to reorganize the way we are thinking and find the thoughts that bring us back to agency again. Having the ability to choose makes us more like our Heavenly Father and what makes us human.  Animals have brains like our lower brain, our caveman brain. A brain that is driven by instincts with the need to survive.  The lower brain operates on the motivational triad.  It seeks pleasure, avoids pain, and wants to reduce effort.  But we as humans, also have the higher brain, a pre-frontal cortex…we have the ability to NOT be driven by just a survival instinct, but by evaluating the choices we have in front of us and their consequences. This is what sets us apart.  This is what makes us uniquely human. Consequences There are always consequences for our actions.  Good and bad.  Sometimes those consequences are understood ahead of time and sometimes they are not.  But there are always consequences.    God set out consequences, we set out consequences as parents.  Life sets out consequences.  That is part of agency.  But it’s how we choose to think about those things that matter. We don’t HAVE to cook dinner…but the consequence may be that our children eat cold cereal for dinner.  Is that a consequence you can live with?  Maybe?  Maybe some days that is totally acceptable and other days it’s not. You don’t HAVE to abstain from alcohol, smoking, drugs, coffee, etc.  But the consequences of not, can have small effects on your life or extreme effects on your life, maybe even eternal consequences.  If you don’t abstain from alcohol you may not have any immediate consequences.  But you may have long term ones.  You may drink and drive and hurt someone.  You may become addicted.  Many addictions take away our capacity to make decisions, to use our agency.  Or they make other choices harder.   Those are consequences…. I often struggle with letting my children have their agency.  Of course I they need to obey.  Of course they need to think the way I want them to think.  Of course they need to do what is best for them. But what if they don’t?  What if instead of forcing my way of thinking on them, I let them choose…. Sometimes those choices are going to be ok.  But sometimes they are not.  Sometimes there are going to be really bad for them.  And sometimes I choose to be sad about it. I’ve been struggling with something with my kids lately and I’ve really had to do some soul searching on it.  I have asked them not to do homework on Sundays.  Inevitably every Sunday one or more of them has homework that they haven’t done as is due the next day.  They made choices to do other things on Friday and Saturday or through the entire winter break and left their homework to do on Sunday.  So I have the choice of how I want to respond.  I can lay down consequences.  Or,  I can reiterate my request and try to set an example.  Or another option is I can choose HOW I want to think about them doing homework on Sunday and choose how I want to think about them in general.  Do I want to be mad at them for making that choice?  Do I want to be frustrated? Disappointed?  Not, I really don’t.  I don’t want to feel mad or frustrated or disappointed.   What I really want, is to just be at peace about it.  To not get upset when they don’t do what I ask.  Not even give them consequences or reiterate why I think it’s so important.  They’ve heard me say it.  They obviously feel differently.  Do I think it would be better for them?  Sure! But they need to learn that for themselves.  They need to make their choices. Agency in Marriage I hear a lot from clients that their life would be so much better if they spouse did X, Y, and Z.  That they are frustrated, or angry, or resentful, or downright miserable because their spouse is making choices that they don’t agree with. He should help me more around the house. He shouldn’t work so much. He should spend more time with the kids. He should pick up after himself. He should do things the way I want them done so it doesn’t cause me STRESS! He should SEE that I am drowning and WANT to help! And because he doesn’t do these things that I think he SHOULD do, it proves that he doesn’t love me.  He doesn’t want to be around me.  He doesn’t care.  He’s selfish.   My lovely friends…ALL of these are thoughts that right now your brain is offering you and you are choosing to believe.   Your husband is using HIS agency and making choices.  You want to try and take away his agency and FORCE him or at least WANT him to do things exactly the way you want so that you can feel better. Who does that sound like????  Who wanted to FORCE us to do and feel and certain way? Is that what you want for yourself?  Is that what you want for your marriage? You can’t take away his agency.  But you CAN use your own to change the way you are CHOOSING to think about him.   And I’m not saying this is easy…especially if you have been thinking these things for a long time.  But it is TOTALLY possible, if that is what you choose… What seek ye? If you were studying the Come, Follow Me lessons in Week 1 one of the themes was What Seek Ye?  As I really pondered that phrase and as I pondered this episode the two coincided in my brain. So what seek ye?  Are you purposeful? Are you intentional? What are you seeking? Do you purposely chose each thought? Or are you letting your lower brain run run wild and allow and believe every little thought it throws out there for you? Are you intentional with your thoughts and deeds?  Or are you ok with the status quo? Going with the flow?  Not evolving and changing. What seek ye? Using our agency, to choose all of our thoughts, is our highest self.  It is what our Heavenly Father truly wants for us.  This is what we fought for in the war in Heaven.  This is what makes us like Him.

Having a better emotional vocabulary helps you identify what you are actually feeling.  The feeling of “powerful” is going to drive a lot different action than feeling “good.”  So when someone asks you how you are doing today…. how do you want to answer?   “Fine?” “Good?” “Hanging in there?” or do you want to be “Awesome?” “Amazing?” “Confident?” “Productive?” How you answer could be the key to feeling exactly how you want to feel.

Who do you want to be in 2019?  “Over the years, I have observed that those who accomplish the most in this world are those with a vision for their lives, with goals to keep them focused on their vision and tactical plans for how to achieve them. Knowing where you are going and how you expect to get there can bring meaning, purpose, and accomplishment to life.” M. Russell Ballard 

Resentment is defined as bitter indication after THINKING you’ve been treated unfairly.  This is a huge issue I see in many of my clients.  In today’s episode we discuss 4 ways you can deal with resentment in your marriage and how changing your thinking is the key!     Play In A New Window Download   Show Summary: This podcast was actually at the request of one of my listeners.  Resentment is a huge issue I see in my clients, so I thought I would do a whole episode on it. Definition of resentment: Bitter indignation at having been treated unfairly I would add to that definition that its bitter indication after THINKING you’ve been treated unfairly. So today I want to talk about 4 ways you can deal with resentment in your marriage.  I believe these solutions can also be applied to other relationships as well. 1. Addressing Your Feelings Sometimes people think they are falling out of love with their spouse when they are actually feeling resentment.  The resentment can make you angry, withdraw, and think there are no feelings of love anymore. To determine if you are truly feeling resentment, really take a look at your thoughts.  Are your thoughts causing you to feel unappreciated, disappointed, angry, or hurt?  Are there problems in the relationship that you haven’t discussed? If the answer to these questions is yes, you are probably feeling resentment. Often resentment forms when a couple doesn’t discuss small problems.  This leads to the problem festering until one or both partners are angry and full of toxic thoughts.  So, to resolve this, you need to discuss the problems when they form so you can get them out in the open and work through them.  If you have a hard time discussing issues, try discussing small things first, like scheduling and meals, before tackling some of your bigger issues.  Some people don’t bring up their feelings because they don’t trust that their feelings are valid.  They may think they are overreacting or being too sensitive.  Or they may be afraid that they will be perceived that way by their spouse.  But feelings are ALWAYS valid, even negative ones like hurt, disappointment, and anger.  Allow yourself to feel your feelings so that you can voice them to your partner.  Your feelings are important.  But also remember that your feelings come from your own thoughts.  Take ownership of them and do not blame them on the situation or your partner.   Many times we avoid bringing up problems in our marriage because we don’t like conflict.  We want to do anything to avoid fighting and instead we remain quiet to keep the peace.  I like to call this “peacefully resentful.”   Resentment doesn’t lead to a good marriage, so a bit of uncomfortable conflict or even some angry feelings is worth getting through so that you don’t have bigger problems later on.   2. Talk about the Resentment Part of dealing with resentment is listening to your partner’s problems and feelings.  Though it may be hard to hear, take a step back and listen objectively to what they have to say.  You may want to employ the empathetic listening skills we talked about in episode 27. But listening to your partner, even if you feel resentment also, helps you work through the problems and reach a solution.  Refusing to listen leads to more resentment and can eventually lead to the end of the relationship. If you feel like you can’t talk to your partner or your partner won’t listen to you, you may want to seek a professional to help mediate.  Even if your spouse won’t see someone, you can go by yourself to help you figure out how to deal with the issues in your marriage and how to better communicate.  Coaching is a great option. When communicating with your spouse, be careful to not place blame on your partner.  Remember, that your feelings are coming from your thoughts and take responsibility for that.  Blaming them generally leads to more problems, anger and resentment.  Remember to use “I” statements when communicating. 3. Finding a Solution Resentment happens when you don’t forgive what someone has done to do you.  To help you move past the resentment, you must forgive your spouse for what they have done.  This helps you both move forward and repair the damage caused by the resentment. Forgiveness means that you acknowledge that a wrong was done, but you don’t let it control your emotions and your relationship.  Sometimes we are unable to forgive because we want to feel right and be validated.  But this need to be right impedes, our ability to heal and move on.   Resentment often comes when we hold on to the wrongs and keep replaying it over and over in our minds.  This lets it fester and become toxic.  In order to move forward, you have to let go of the destructive thoughts. To let go, understand that it happened in the past and that the only reason it is hurting now is because of how your are choosing to think about it that way in the present.  You can choose to think differently. Also understand that people make mistakes.  We are all human and we all deserve compassion for being human.  You can’t control what others do, but you can control how you choose to think and feel about what they have done. Letting go of the resentment allow you to heal, which is the healthiest thing for YOU and your marriage.  You can do this by changing your thoughts about what has happened. When you sit down and discuss your resentment with your spouse, you should come up with ways to solve the problem, or change the behavior.  Or better yet, change the way you are choosing to think about it. Resentment is one thing that I have personally really struggled with.  Not necessarily in my marriage, but in my family.  I am the oldest child and I tend to be a people pleaser in that role.  I’m not really like that in other areas of my life, but I am in my family.  In the past I have kept my mouth shut in order to keep the peace and then I’m resentful later on. Let me give you an example - So when Kevin and I were getting sealed in the temple, I really wanted to get sealed on our 1-year anniversary.  My sister lives in another state and she basically said, that date didn’t work for her and if I wanted her there then it needed to be on such and such date.  Well for years I resented her that she wouldn’t change her plans and be her on the date that I wanted for my special day.  I held onto that resentment for so long.  But, as I’ve worked through a lot of my resentment issues in coaching, I’ve changed the way I think about it.  Yes, she did say that, and I wish that she would have realized how important it was to me, but ultimately I made the decision to change the date because I wanted her there.  I took responsibility for my thoughts and feelings instead of blaming it on her.  Now the resentment is gone and I no longer have bad feelings towards her because of it. Now getting back to discussing resentment in marriage, it’s important that while you are dealing with the resentment, don’t shut each other out.  You may still be hurt, but if you don’t connect in other ways (emotionally and physically) the resentment will continue to build.  But being purposeful in connecting with each other, even if you are still working through issues, really helps you build a better connection and rebuild the relationship. 4.Moving Forward Things that lead to resentment are usually small things that can be dealt with easily.  Once you have dealt with past resentment, don’t let it happen again.  Share your problems, hurts, concerns with each other.  This allows you to deal with it while it is small and before it grows and festers. Make sure that your marriage is a priority.  Spend time together, even when life gets hectic with kids and careers.  Take a few minutes each day talking to one another and connecting.   And moving forward, figure out the things that cause you to start feeling resentment.  Once identified, you can acknowledge your thoughts and feelings more easily and let them go. There are three issues I hear the most from my clients that cause resentment in their marriages Not getting enough help from their spouse.  They feel overwhelmed with everything they have on their plate and need more help.  To resolve this, ASK FOR HELP!  Do not expect that your spouse knows exactly what you need and can read your mind.  Be specific.  Talk about it.  Communicate your wants and needs.  Remember that marriage is often a negotiation, so you need to make sure you are voicing your wants and needs and taking into consideration your spouses wants and needs and finding a balance and a compromise that works for both of you. Feeling that their spouse spends time doing things for themself instead of being with the family.  I hear this a lot with husbands playing video games or watching sports.  You need to voice your concerns but also understand that sometimes your spouse needs their “me” time just like you do, but it may look different than yours.  So again, communicate and negotiate. Sex.  They resent that their husbands want sex all the time when they don’t feel like it.  I hear them saying that they interpret everything through this lens of their spouse wanting sex all the time.  And they just aren’t in the mood or they are tired and touched out.  So if this is you, I would recommend you listen to last week’s episode of how thoughts like that are killing your sex drive.  And I would really encourage you to reframe how you are looking at sex.  You are looking at it as a way to satisfy your husband and constantly meet their needs.  What if it was a way of meeting your needs?  What if it was about you and not him?  If it’s about you then you won’t resent him for wanting to be with you.  Just another way of looking at it.  Again, communicate and negotiate. If you are struggling with resentment and want more help, sign up for a mini-session and let’s work through it together!

So many women think they don’t want to have sex because they are tired or “touched out” at the end of the day.  What was once a vital and important part of the marriage has taken a back seat to life and child rearing.  In this episode, we examine how the thoughts you are telling yourself are killing your sex drive…and how you can get it back! Play In A New Window Download     Show Notes: 3in30 Podcast with Dr. Finlayson-Fife Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife Instagram: @3in30podcast @finlaysonfife Show Summary This episode I am piggybacking off of a post I did last week in my Instastories.  Last week, my friend Rachel at the 3in30podcast did a great interview with Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife who is an LDS sex therapist.   It was titled “What happened to my sex drive and how can I get it back” I highly recommend you go listen to it.  In preparation to the interview, Rachel asked a question on her Insta-stories about why women didn’t have a sex drive and she posted a lot of the answers and it seriously made me so sad.  Pages and pages and pages of women with no sex drive.  Responses varied, but the most common ones were being tired, being touched out, and body image.  Almost every single one of the responses is a mindset issue.  Rachel was kind enough to point her followers my way, because coaching can be so powerful is this area.  I’ve received an overwhelming amount of DM’s and also people requesting a free min-session to discuss this issue.  So I decided I wanted to address it specifically on a podcast. I hear a lot from clients that they want to feel more connected to their spouse.  They want to feel desire for them and feel like they are desired by them.  So connection and desire are both feelings.  And feelings are just a vibration created by a chemical or hormone in the body.  So I want you to identify for yourself what connection and desire feel like to you.  What do those feelings feel like in your body.   Where is it located? Does it stay still or does it move? Fast or slow? What is the texture? What is the color? Really get familiar with what those feelings feel like to you.   When I am feeling that connection and desire for my husband, there is a quickening in my gut…butterflies.  And then it’s like this ray of yellow sunshine that pulses out and fills my whole body.  So figure out what that feels like to you. I think many times as women we think that in order to feel connected or desire we need something FROM our spouse.  We are expecting them to create that feeling for us.  But this, my friends, is the source of the problem.  Expecting those feelings to come from outside of us instead of creating them within us.   We’ve talked about in many previous episodes that all of our feelings are created by thoughts.  All of them.  Whether they are conscious or unconscious thoughts.   And if that’s the case, it is our OWN thoughts that make us feel connected to our spouse and feel desire for them (or feel like we are desired by them.)  It has nothing to do with the situation or the person.  It’s all about our own brain. Connection What does feeling connected to another person mean to you?  You feel love and desire for them and from them? You want to be around them? You want to feel like you matter to them? You relate to them and have things in common? Maybe you like to do things together or you like having conversations with them. So if these are the things that make you feel connected to them, and you aren’t feeling it, what is getting in the way?  Your thoughts!   All of these things make you THINK thoughts that create the feeling of connection. Your brain is giving meaning to what your spouse does or does not do that create those feelings in you. For example - Let’s say your husband comes home from work, kisses you on the cheek, asks about your day, and asks what for dinner.  Now depending on YOUR thoughts, you can take what he is saying and doing a variety of ways. You could think, oh how cute, he loves me, and you feel love for him and connected to him  OR you could think Seriously…he’s trying to butter me up for later and all he wants is a maid who cooks for him.  Ugh! It all depends on YOUR thoughts if you feel connected to him or not.  It really has NOTHING to do with him. Feeling connected to someone is all about our thoughts about them.  And you don’t even have to be WITH them to feel connected to them.  Think about a loved one who has passed on or maybe when you’ve connected with someone by email or letters or texts.  This year as I was getting out my Nativity set for Christmas, I felt very connected to my Grandma who passed away earlier this year.  She had given me my Nativity piece by piece every year for Christmas.  And as I got it out this year, it made me think about her and my relationship with her and I felt very connected to her.  Because of my thoughts. Desire Now desire is also created by our thoughts.  Especially for women, so much of our desire and arousal for intimacy and sex with our spouses comes from our minds.  And we are often times putting on the brakes for that desire without even realizing it. In my coaching practice I often hear women who just don’t find their husbands attractive anymore or they get on their nerves or irritated by something they do.  Some women could care less if they ever sex with their spouse again and others realize that there is a vital piece missing and they just don’t know where to look for answers. And the answer to ALL OF THESE is in your mindset….the way you think. Often times when we’ve been married for a while and especially after having children, we think that something must be wrong with our accelerator.  That something has changed physically within us so that we are no longer able to be aroused like we used to.  And sometimes, that may be the case.  I do recommend that you check with your doctor to make sure that nothing is physically going on with you.  But, most likely what is happening instead is that we are actually putting on the brakes by the thoughts we are having (either consciously or unconsciously). I want you to consider what it felt like when you were dating.  How did you feel about your spouse?  Did you find them attractive? Did things that they did and said drive that desire in you?  You were CREATING thoughts in your brain that made you feel those things.  Those same thoughts (or different thoughts) are available to you now too…you just have to choose to think them. What thoughts are you currently thinking that are putting on the brakes for you? So I want you to think about what thoughts you are currently thinking that are putting on the brakes for you.  Maybe it’s “I’m just so tired” or “Sex just isn’t a priority” or “I find that annoying” or “I’m just so touched out after kids hanging on me all day.” or Thoughts about your husband “He’s annoying” “I’m not attracted to him” etc.  Thoughts like those are KILLING your desire. Another issue I hear a lot from my clients is that they don’t want sex or don’t like sex because they can’t orgasm.   Just a little side note: Only 30% of women orgasm with intercourse…. so chances are, that is you and you just need to try something different.  And you need to get your mind in clear space thinking thoughts that BRING arousal and not slow it down.  That’s the bring worry, stress, “I don’t think it’s going to happen” or “this is taking too long” totally KILL your arousal which almost always stop you from having an orgasm. So, thoughts about not being able to orgasm or not being interested in sex or not being interested in your husband definitely don’t help your sex drive. If we put this in a model C = Sex with my husband T = I’m just not interested F = uninterested, disengaged A = Disinterested, Tell him I’m not in the mood R = no sex life, and continue to be uninterested in sex Do you see how that thought creates more distance in your marriage? It’s not creating that connection and desire you want. What if you changed your mindset…what if you changed your thoughts to something like “I’m a wife who likes sex” or “I want to create that connection with my husband” or a thought I heard from Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife was “I’ve taken care of everyone else all day, now it’s time for me to be taken care of.” Especially in the LDS culture, so much of our framework around sex is that it is a woman’s job to meet the man’s needs.  And that is just wrong.  Sex and intimacy has more to do about your about yourself, rather than giving someone else pleasure.  It’s about coming together each as a whole person and sharing your whole self with another person.  It shouldn’t be about taking…it should be about both giving and receiving. If you are having trouble with this, we can definitely talk more about it in coaching with what is specifically going on with you, but I would also highly recommend Dr. Finlayson-Fife’s online classes.  They are on sale for Christmas right now and what a great Christmas gift you could give yourself and your spouse.  I will link to them in the show notes. Body Image Another topic that seems to kill women’s sex drive, is our own body image.  Those subtle messages that we give ourselves about our bodies KILLS that desire within us.  If we have those thoughts running around  our head of course we aren’t going to feel desired.  We need to send ourselves body-positive messages.  Of course we all have things that may be sag or droop more than they used, or aren’t as tight as they used to be.  THIS IS NORMAL!  But dwelling on those things does nothing to help you create a desire and connection with yourself that you can share with your spouse. Managing Your Own Needs I talk a lot about meeting your own needs within your relationship.  That your spouse is NOT there to meet your needs, they are just there for you to love.  I do believe that Sex and Intimacy are an area where you also need to meet your own needs in whatever way that feels appropriate to you.  Maybe that is speaking up for what you want.  Maybe that means you need to initiate more.  Or maybe that just means managing your own urges and desires. But meet your own needs in a way that you feel is appropriate. Conclusion  So my friends, to summarize, I want you to really think about those thoughts that are going on in your head.  Thoughts that you didn’t even realize were putting on your brakes.  I want you to just gain an awareness around them.  Really look at them and realize that they are OPTIONAL.  And while your brain may continue to offer them to you, you can engage your higher brain, your pre-frontal cortex and CHOOSE different thoughts that are going to serve you and serve your marriage better.   And as always, if you want some help, I am here.  Just sign up for a free mini-session.  No strings attached.  And let’s get your sex drive back! Now…I want to give you a bit of homework. Homework Write down how it feels to you to feel connected and feel desire.  Where is it in your body? Describe it in depth.  And what does feeling that create? How are you showing up in your marriage when you cultivate the connectedness and desire within yourself?  What thoughts do you need to think to create that for you?  And then try it!  And see what changes.  See how you show up different to your spouse.  What results are you getting?  And, I want to hear all about it! 

Most people think that happiness is the goal.  It’s what they want for themselves.  It’s what they want for the children.  It’s what they want for relationships.  In this episode, you’ll learn why that goal is actually not making you happy at all.

In this episode we talk about how to get everything you want for Christmas.  It’s probably NOT what you think….     Play In A New Window Download

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I am sharing with you how important the emotion of gratitude is in your life and mine. Play In A New Window Download

In the final installment of my series on improving communication in our marriage, I have Tony Overbay, a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and host of the wildly popular podcast, The Virtual Couch. I asked Tony to share with us how Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), a modality he uses in couples counseling, can help us improve the communication with our partner.  He gives us some practical tips of what we can do together, what we can do on our own, and when its time to seek additional help.       Play In A New Window Download     Show Notes: You can find more information from Tony here: TonyOverbay.com Instagram: @thevirtualcouch Facebook: @tonyoverbaylmft Podcast: The Virtual Couch