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We sat down with Dr. Tammy Nelson, Ph.D. — a renowned sex and relationship therapist, TEDx speaker, and author of Open Monogamy and When You're the One Who Cheats. She also happens to be Ashley Madison's Resident Sex and Relationship Expert... so you know we came prepared with a lot of questions! We chat through some eye-opening stats, hear real stories from Dr. Tammy's experiences, and unpack why people cheat. If you've ever wondered what's really going on behind closed doors, this one's for you! For more on Dr. Tammy find her @doctor_tammynelson and check out www.ashleymadison.comWant our podcasts sent straight to your phone? Text us the word "Podcast" to +1 (917) 540-8715 and we'll text you the new episodes when they're released!Tune in for new Cat & Nat Unfiltered episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday!Follow @catandnatunfiltered on Instagram: https://instagram.com/catandnatunfilteredOur new book "Mom Secrets" is now available! Head to www.catandnat.ca/book to grab your autographed copy! Come see us LIVE on tour!! To see a full list of cities and dates, go to https://catandnattour.com.Are you a parent that is struggling understanding the online world, setting healthy screen-time limits, or navigating harmful online content? Purchase screen sense for $49.99 & unlock Cat & Nat's ultimate guide to parenting in the digital age. Go to https://www.thecommonparent.com/guideFollow our parenting platform - The Common Parent - over on Instagram: https://instagram.com/thecommonparentMake sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://bitly.com/catnatyoutubeCheck out our Amazon Lives here: https://bitly.com/catnatamazonliveOrder TAYLIVI here: https://taylivi.comGet personalized videos from us on Cameo: https://cameo.com/catandnatCome hang with us over on https://instagram.com/catandnat all day long.And follow us on https://tiktok.com/@catandnatofficial! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Send us a textIf you've ever struggled with mismatched desires, defining commitment with a partner, or navigating the messier side of non-monogamy — this episode is for you.In this candid conversation, I talk with Dr. Tammy Nelson, sexologist, therapist, TEDx speaker, and author of Open Monogamy. With 35+ years of experience working with couples in both monogamous and open relationships, Tammy brings a nuanced lens to everything from sexual boredom and emotional disconnection to jealousy, relationship fatigue, and the evolving nature of commitment.We explore:Why mismatched desires and “monogamy gaps” show up even in non-monogamyHow open relationships can become more intimate — not less — when built on clarityTools for navigating jealousy, initiating hard conversations, and honoring shifting needsThe danger of jumping to a solution before naming the real problemWhy fantasy, communication, and appreciation matter more than frequency or rules
EPISODE 264: Interview with Dr. Tammy Nelson. Tammy Nelson, PhD is a sex and relationship expert, an international speaker, an author and a licensed psychotherapist with almost thirty years of experience working with individuals and couples. In private practice she focuses on helping people of all ages, orientations and genders find love, healing and passion. Tammy Nelson, Ph.D. is the Director of the Integrative Sex Therapy Institute and has been a licensed sex and relationship therapist in practice for over thirty years. She teaches at several Universities, is a TEDx speaker and is the host of the podcast The Trouble with Sex. She is a Board Certified Sexologist, an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist, a Licensed Professional Counselor, a Certified Imago Relationship therapist, and a Licensed Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselor. She is the author of When You're The One Who Cheats, Ten Things You Need to Know, The New Monogamy; Redefining Your Relationship After Infidelity and Getting the Sex You Want; Shed Your Inhibitions and Reach New Heights of Passion Together as well as What's Eating You: A Workbook for Teens with Anorexia, Bulimia, and other Eating Disorders and her most recent project Integrative Sex & Couples Therapy. If you get value out of the Loving Without Boundaries podcast, then consider becoming one of our patrons! Not only will you enjoy exclusive content made just for you, your support will also help us continue creating educational content while helping more people have a deeper understanding of consensual non-monogamy and healthy, sex positive relationships in general. https://www.patreon.com/lovingwithoutboundaries
Send us a textIn this Locker Room Talk & Shots Podcast episode, I'm diving deep into the world of open monogamy with renowned sex and relationship expert, Dr. Tammy Nelson. We'll unravel the mysteries and misconceptions surrounding this evolving relationship style (one I'm personally invested in), where couples redefine traditional monogamy and explore new levels of intimacy, trust, and connection. Whether you're curious, skeptical, or already on board with open relationships, Dr. Tammy brings her expert insight, wit, and years of experience to the table, offering real-life advice on navigating this complex terrain without losing the love. My substack: https://talksexwithannette.substack.com/Subscribe to my e-newsletter: https://she-explores-life.ck.page/e9760c390cAsk a question, Leave a Comment: https://www.speakpipe.com/LockerRoomTalkPodcastTo find out more or book a session with me visit: Use code EXPLORES15 for 15% off all Womanizer Products at Womanizer.com. Experience the Pheromone Advantage at 15% off with my code LRT15Use code LRT15 at Eyeoflove.com And you'll get 15% off pheromone powered perfumes, colognes, and more. To find out more or book a session with me visit:https://talksexwithannette.com/home/sex-relationship-and-intimacy-coaching/Email: annette@talksexwithannette.com Use code EXPLORES15 for 15% Off at wevibe.com. Use code Explores15 for 15% off Womanizer, We-Vibe, & Lovehoney products. Everything from pleasure air tech toys to lingerie.Head to https://womanizer-north-america.sjv.io/B0ORDxor https://wevibe-north-america.sjv.io/R5Z24ahttps://wevibe-north-america.sjv.io/R5Z24aUse code Explores15Support the show Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@annettebenedetti Connect with usWe are on all the socials: TikTok: @ LockerRoomTalkPodcast LRT's Insta: @Lockerroomtalkandshots Annette's Insta: @BeingBenedetti SEL Inst: @SheExplores_Life LRT's FB: @LockerRoomTalkandShots SEL FB: @ SheExploresLife Annette's YouTube: Annette Benedetti Check Out More Sexy Content:She Explores Life Website: sheexploreslife.comCheers!
In this revealing episode, Dr. Tammy Nelson and Gabe Howard delve into the myths and realities of monogamy, infidelity, and open relationships. Discover surprising insights from Ashley Madison data and Dr. Nelson's extensive research, revealing that women, not men, are often the gatekeepers of monogamy. Explore the dynamics of emotional and physical connections outside traditional boundaries, and learn how couples can navigate discussions about open relationships without damaging trust. Whether you're curious about alternative lifestyles or seeking to understand the evolving landscape of modern relationships, this episode promises to challenge your perceptions and spark thoughtful conversations. Listen now! “I don't know if it's about not being under someone's thumb. I mean, women have always had affairs, even in cultures where you can be beheaded and stoned to death in the street, women still cheat as often as they ever have. So I mean, that's an interesting statistic. Like, why are we looking for alternative relationships even when it could kill us? You know, it's hard to get really good statistics on how often people cheat because cheating is based on dishonesty, right? And so people lie to the researchers. So we don't really know.” ~Tammy Nelson, PhD To learn more -- or read the transcript -- please visit the official episode page. Our guest, Tammy Nelson, PhD, is a Board Certified Sexologist, an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist, a Licensed Professional Counselor, a Certified Imago Relationship therapist, and a Licensed Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselor with over 30 years of experience working with couples and individuals and flexible monogamy relationships. She is a TEDx speaker and hosts “The Trouble With Sex” podcast. She speaks worldwide and consults with institutes, think tanks, and corporations on communication, integrity, and relationships. At this time of great global stress, Dr. Nelson helps people cope with working from home, disruption across all industries, and social distancing. Our host, Gabe Howard, is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, "Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations," available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from the author. Gabe makes his home in the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio. He lives with his supportive wife, Kendall, and a Miniature Schnauzer dog that he never wanted, but now can't imagine life without. To book Gabe for your next event or learn more about him, please visit gabehoward.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
DR TAMMY NELSON PHD IN A VERY OPEN AND VERY IMPORTANT CONVERSATION ABOUT OUR SEX LIVES - CAN WE FINALLY MAKE THIS TOPIC A PRIORITY IN OUR RELATIONSHIPS WITHOUT FEELING ASHAMED?
Today we explore open relationships and non-monogamy, emphasizing communication, boundaries and relationship fluidity.
Relatietherapeut en expert op het gebied van open monogamie Tammy Nelson, vertelt in dit boek alles over een nieuwe vorm van monogamie. Uitgegeven door Lev. Spreker: Venny Lugard
From 2022: Dr Tammy Nelson on the rise of open relationships.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Raise your hand if you've ever been victimized by anxiety.
We have Psychotherapist, Tammy Nelson the psychology behind Will and Jada. Dr. Wendy is answering all your relationship questions with her makeshift, driveby relationship advice. Plus, we are talking how to find love without hooking up! It's all on KFIAM-640!
Dr. Tammy Nelson, has a different opinion than most when it comes to Will and Jada. The couple has been facing a lot of backlash in the past few years. Dr. Tammy feels it's clear that their strategy has been working for their relationship. Take a listen to how she breaks it all down.
Dr. Laurie discusses changing attitudes about traditional marriage with author Dr. Tammy Nelson. You'll also hear answers to listener submitted questions, and get Dr. Laurie's take on "Sex in the News"
This episode we explore sex positive methods to increase novelty, variety, and interest in sexual relationships (with a variety of activities suggested to generate discussions). Also a focus on challenges like fatigue, building sexual appetite, differences in libido. I also review the importance of scheduled “sex dates” to continue expand authenticity, awareness and positive attitudes toward sexual play. References - Carlyle at Good for Her Sex Shop in Toronto, ON and Dr. Peggy Kleinplatz - Book: The Components if Optimal Sexuality, A Portrait of Great Sex, Ottawa, ON - Likert Sex Scale from Getting the Sex you Want by Tammy Nelson. If you enjoyed this podcast - Please consider donating to my Patreon account at http://patreon.com/TheSexPositivePodcast
* Replay from S2 * Dr. Tammy Nelson is a sex and relationship expert, and author of many books on sex including Getting the Sex You Want: Shed Your Inhibitions and Reach New Heights of Passion Together. She's a psychotherapist, Director of the Integrative Sex Therapy Institute, university teacher, TEDx speaker and is the host of the podcast The Trouble with Sex. Tammy is also a Board Certified Sexologist, an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist, a Licensed Professional Counselor, a Certified Imago Relationship therapist, and a Licensed Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselor. Today on The Soul of Life I speak with Dr. Nelson about what it takes to have a vibrant sex life with a monogamous partner and how cheating during COVID has taken on new proportions. We talk about the mindset that's required to prevent or recover from infidelity and why it can be an opportunity. We discuss several myths about infidelity, sex, and eroticism: "Women actually do cheat for sex. Men tend to cheat for emotional reasons." - Do all affairs happen because of sexual problems? - Does communication and empathy have the power to fix sexual frustration? - Why does emotional closeness sometimes seem to kill erotic passion? - And perhaps the million dollar question: Why does Oprah call it her "vajayjay?" Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SoulOfLifeShow or Twitter: https://twitter.com/SoulofLifeShow Want to book Keith as a guest on your podcast? Contact him at keith@souloflifeshow.com.
Tammy Nelson, Ph.D. is a sex and relationship expert, an international speaker, an author and a licensed psychotherapist with almost thirty years of experience working with individuals and couples. In private practice, she focuses on helping people of all ages, orientations and genders find love, healing and passion.Tammy Nelson, Ph.D. is the Director of the Integrative Sex Therapy Institute and has been a licensed sex and relationship therapist in practice for over thirty years. She teaches at several Universities, is a TEDx speaker and is the host of the podcast The Trouble with Sex.The hosts chat with Tammy about new monogamy, maintenance sex compared to sex dates, and how sex is like a bridge.Listeners of this podcast who are interested in participating in a free counselling session over zoom for education purposes, please contact Dr. Tammy Nelosn through her website and let her know you heard about this opportunity on Turn Me On! drtammynelson.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
When a “hall pass” just isn't enough… would you try an open marriage?? Jana sits down with sex therapist Dr. Tammy Nelson for an honest conversation about what an open marriage actually is, and how we define cheating in 2023. Jana discovers why open marriages skyrocketed during the pandemic, and the answer will shock you. And, Dr. Nelson reveals lessons we can learn from open marriages that can help strengthen traditional relationships.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Tammy Nelson, PhD is a sex and relationship expert, an international speaker, an author and a licensed psychotherapist with almost thirty years of experience working with individuals and couples. In private practice she focuses on helping people of all ages, orientations and genders find love, healing and passion. She is the Director of the Integrative Sex Therapy Institute, teaches at several Universities, is a TEDx speaker and is the host of the podcast The Trouble with Sex. Next month from Feb 20-24, 2023 she will be presenting Clinical Interventions for Sex, Intimacy & Relationship Dilemmas in Cancun where she will teach you the skills and interventions needed to help your clients out of the intimacy impasses that lead to low sex and sexless relationships. You can learn more about Innovations in Psychotherapy Cancun 2023 here. In this episode of the podcast, Dr. Nelson shares how she became a sex and relationship expert, how you can become certified as a sex therapist plus the number one question all couples therapists should be asking their clients. Learn about Dr. Tammy Nelson: https://drtammynelson.com/ Ready to start your podcast? Or perhaps you'd like to outsource your audio and video editing? If so, be sure to check out Chelsea Weaver's services. Learn more: https://www.chelseaweaverpodcasting.com/ I know how important it is to build a brand on social media and I also know how time consuming it can be. So, save your time and energy and let me help you with your content creation. Head over to my etsy shop, Honey Mustard Media where you'll find instagram templates that can be edited in the Free version of Canva. You can use them as is or change the colors, fonts, pictures, words to match your brand. It's easy and simple. I'll be adding more editable templates soon so be sure to favorite my shop, Honey Mustard Media, and you'll be notified when I add more listings. Plus right now you can get 30% off all templates. Looking to start 2023 off with knocking out some continuing education contact hours? If so, then be sure to check out my Podcourses. Currently there are 12 to choose from and there are a variety of topics,,learn more about play therapy, addiction treatment, creating a self care plan, meditation and ayurvedic life coaching, plus more! Listen to the content anytime, anywhere and when you're ready, purchase the course, take the self study quiz, pass it, and download your certificate of completion. It's simple yet if you have any questions, please get in touch. Mustard Consulting LLC is a NBCC approved provider.
Dr Tammy Nelson on the rise of open relationships.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Our concepts of relationships and marriage evolve to fit the times, and today many people are seeking different ways to support lasting, loving partnerships, says Dr Tammy Nelson. The psychotherapist, sex and relationships expert and author chats about the new open monogamy. WANT MORE FROM DR TAMMY? Find out more about her book Open Monogamy, here, or via her website, here. You can find her on Instagram @doctor_tammynelson. WANT MORE BODY + SOUL? Online: Head to bodyandsoul.com.au for your daily digital dose of health and wellness. On social: Via Instagram at @bodyandsoul_au or Facebook. Got an idea for an episode? DM host Felicity Harley on Instagram @felicityharley. On YouTube: Watch Body + Soul TV, here. In print: Each Sunday, grab Body+Soul inside The Sunday Telegraph (NSW), the Sunday Herald Sun (Victoria), The Sunday Mail (Queensland), Sunday Mail (SA) and Sunday Tasmanian (Tasmania). See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Could an open relationship work for you? Dr Tammy Nelson is psychotherapist, sex and relationships expert and author, and joins host Felicity Harley via Zoom from LA to chat about whether open monogamy is the secret to great sex…forever. WANT MORE FROM DR TAMMY? To hear today's full interview, where Dr Tammy discusses the concept of new monogamy...search for Extra Healthy-ish wherever you get your pods. Find out more about her book Open Monogamy, here, or via her website, here. You can find Dr Tammy on Instagram @doctor_tammynelson. WANT MORE BODY + SOUL? Online: Head to bodyandsoul.com.au for your daily digital dose of health and wellness. On social: Via Instagram at @bodyandsoul_au or Facebook. Got an idea for an episode? DM host Felicity Harley on Instagram @felicityharley. On YouTube: Watch Body + Soul TV, here. In print: Each Sunday, grab Body+Soul inside The Sunday Telegraph (NSW), the Sunday Herald Sun (Victoria), The Sunday Mail (Queensland), Sunday Mail (SA) and Sunday Tasmanian (Tasmania). See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Pod Crashing Episode 155 With Dr. Tammy Nelson Love is eternal—but in an age when we live longer, communicate differently, and value gender equality, is it any wonder so many people are looking for new ways to support lasting, loving partnerships? Open Monogamy by Dr. Tammy Nelson is an inclusive guide for the expanding audience of people exploring nontraditional paths to committed, loving relationships. Dr. Nelson draws on her 30 years of experience as a relationship and sex therapist to provide advice and tools for finding one's place on the “monogamy continuum,” having honest and respectful communication, making relationship agreements, and more.
Pod Crashing Episode 155 With Dr. Tammy Nelson Love is eternal—but in an age when we live longer, communicate differently, and value gender equality, is it any wonder so many people are looking for new ways to support lasting, loving partnerships? Open Monogamy by Dr. Tammy Nelson is an inclusive guide for the expanding audience of people exploring nontraditional paths to committed, loving relationships. Dr. Nelson draws on her 30 years of experience as a relationship and sex therapist to provide advice and tools for finding one's place on the “monogamy continuum,” having honest and respectful communication, making relationship agreements, and more.
Pod Crashing Episode 155 With Dr. Tammy NelsonLove is eternal—but in an age when we live longer, communicate differently, and value gender equality, is it any wonder so many people are looking for new ways to support lasting, loving partnerships?Open Monogamy by Dr. Tammy Nelson is an inclusive guide for the expanding audience of people exploring nontraditional paths to committed, loving relationships. Dr. Nelson draws on her 30 years of experience as a relationship and sex therapist to provide advice and tools for finding one's place on the “monogamy continuum,” having honest and respectful communication, making relationship agreements, and more.
Pod Crashing Episode 155 With Dr. Tammy Nelson Love is eternal—but in an age when we live longer, communicate differently, and value gender equality, is it any wonder so many people are looking for new ways to support lasting, loving partnerships? Open Monogamy by Dr. Tammy Nelson is an inclusive guide for the expanding audience of people exploring nontraditional paths to committed, loving relationships. Dr. Nelson draws on her 30 years of experience as a relationship and sex therapist to provide advice and tools for finding one's place on the “monogamy continuum,” having honest and respectful communication, making relationship agreements, and more.
Pod Crashing Episode 155 With Dr. Tammy NelsonLove is eternal—but in an age when we live longer, communicate differently, and value gender equality, is it any wonder so many people are looking for new ways to support lasting, loving partnerships?Open Monogamy by Dr. Tammy Nelson is an inclusive guide for the expanding audience of people exploring nontraditional paths to committed, loving relationships. Dr. Nelson draws on her 30 years of experience as a relationship and sex therapist to provide advice and tools for finding one's place on the “monogamy continuum,” having honest and respectful communication, making relationship agreements, and more.
Why is monogamy so hard for so many long-term partnerships? What are the “new models” for monogamy, and how can both monogamous and non-monogamous partner/s work together to recreate the relationship as a means for better sex and connection? For Dr. Nelson's free 40 Questions to Start Your New Monogamy Agreement, check out our blog at shamelesssex.com or click here About our guest: Tammy Nelson, PhD, is a licensed psychotherapist, Board Certified Sexologist, Certified Sex Therapist, and Certified Imago Relationship Therapist. She is a TEDx speaker and the host of The Trouble with Sex podcast. Her books include Getting the Sex You Want, The New Monogamy, and her latest Open Monogamy. She is executive director of the Integrative Sex Therapy Institute and has been a featured expert in NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Glamour Magazine, Cosmopolitan, RedBook, MSNBC, Men's Health, Woman's Day, and has been a source for Time Magazine. Dr. Nelson draws on her 30 years of experience as a relationship and sex therapist to provide advice and tools for finding one's place on the “monogamy continuum,” having honest and respectful communication, making relationship agreements, and more. To learn more or buy her book go to drtammynelson.com Want to join our free online Shameless Sex community on Discord (and maybe even connect with Amy and April on there from time to time? Go here: https://discord.gg/nvXqTEcBTg We have a Never Have I Ever__! event coming up May 24th 530-630pm PST. Not only will Amy and April be there, but we are also giving away free passes to Amy's online Orgasm 101 class. Other links: Get affordable online therapy now from the privacy of your own home + 10% off your first month when you go to betterhelp.com/shamelesssex Avoid the takeout temptation with ease (and yummy food that is good for you) + $40 your first shipment when you go to dailyharvest.com/shamelesssex Get 10% off + free shipping with code SHAMELESSSEX on Uberlube AKA our favorite lubricant at uberlube.com Get 10% off while mastering the art of pleasure at OMGyes.com/shameless Get 15% off all of your sex toys with code SHAMELESSSEX at purepleasureshop.com
WEDNESDAY - HR 5 Is the Whopper actually smaller. 4 persons have brought a lawsuit to BK making that claim. K.O.D. - Tammy Nelson from the YouTube had ruined Ryans day with the website population.io Monster Messages.
Not Your Grandma's Monogamy. I have known Dr. Tammy Nelson for many years. It is a true pleasure to welcome her voice onto our podcast!
Does infidelity make you a bad person? What’s even classed as being 'unfaithful' these days? And can a couple ever really recover from sex outside the relationship? Georgia consults the experts and hears stories of how infidelity has affected real couples to better understand this controversial act. LINKS Dr Tammy Nelson's Book - Open Monogamy Learn more about Dr Tammy Nelson on her website Read more from Tarrin Lenard https://linktr.ee/tarrin.lenard Follow @gspot._ on Instagram Follow @novapodcastsofficial on Instagram Email us at inbed@novapodcasts.com.au CREDITS Host: Georgia Grace Guests: Dr Tammy Nelson @doctor_tammynelson Tarrin Lenard @tarrinlenard Managing Producer: Andrew Brentnall Producers: Amy Kimball, Edwina Stott, Lem Zakharia Editor and Audio Imaging: Adrian Walton Listen to more great podcasts at novapodcasts.com.au See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Relationships and marriages aren't just hard--they're harder than ever because the expectations around them have changed so much. What worked in the past isn't working anymore, so it's time for a new approach. We need to figure out what works for us as individuals and create custom relationship agreements that reflect our wants and needs. But what goes into creating an ideal relationship agreement? That's what we're going to be discussing today. My guest is Dr. Tammy Nelson, a certified sex and relationship therapist. She is host of The Trouble with Sex podcast and the author of several books, including Open Monogamy: A Guide to Co-Creating Your Ideal Relationship Agreement. Some of the topics we discuss include: Why maintaining long-term monogamy today is more challenging than ever. How to know if an open relationship is right for you. When it's a good idea to open up, and when it isn't. Why empathy is key to having healthy relationship communication. How to navigate difficult conversations with a partner, and what to do when you have different wants and needs. The key ingredients of relationship agreements. How often you should revisit your relationship agreement. Common problems that can arise in open relationships, and how to deal with them. To learn more about Dr. Nelson, visit drtammynelson.com and be sure to check out her book, Open Monogamy. Get confidence where it counts with BlueChew! Their online service delivers the same active ingredients as Viagra and Cialis in chewable tablets at a fraction of the cost. Listeners can try BlueChew FREE by using promo code PSYCH at checkout; just pay $5 shipping. Visit https://bluechew.com to learn more. This podcast was made on Zencastr. Join Zencastr today and receive 40% off of their professional plan for 3 months with my exclusive discount code: sexandpsych Thanks to Promescent (promescent.com) and the Modern Sex Therapy Institutes (modernsextherapyinstitutes.com) for being sponsors of this episode! *** Want to learn more about Sex and Psychology? Click here for previous articles or follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, or Reddit to receive updates. You can also follow Dr. Lehmiller on YouTube and Instagram. Listen and stream all episodes on Apple, Spotify, Google, or Amazon. Subscribe to automatically receive new episodes and please rate and review the podcast! Credits: LEGIT Audio (Podcast editing) and Shutterstock/Florian (Music). Image created with Canva; photos used with permission of guest.
What is open monogamy? What are some ways couples are adjusting their monogamy? What can a relationship do when one partner wants to be more open than the other? Find out in this week's episode of The Learn to Love Podcast, where your host Zach Beach interviews the psychotherapist, sexologist, and author Dr. Tammy Nelson on Open Monogamy. For more on this episode click here: https://www.the-heart-center.com/ep-85-open-monogamy-with-dr-tammy-nelson/ Learn more about your guest below: Tammy Nelson, PhD, is a licensed psychotherapist, Board Certified Sexologist, Certified Sex Therapist, and Certified Imago Relationship Therapist. She is a TEDx speaker and the host of The Trouble with Sex podcast. Her books include Getting the Sex You Want and The New Monogamy. She is the executive director of the Integrative Sex Therapy Institute and has been a featured expert in the New York Times Magazine and the Washington Post, on CNN, and more. Learn more at - https://drtammynelson.com/ - https://www.facebook.com/DrTammyNelson/ - https://twitter.com/drtammynelson - https://www.linkedin.com/in/drtammynelson/ Learn more about your host and the show at: www.zachbeach.com www.the-heart-center.com Support The Show: If you like the show there are many ways you can support it, such as, - Buy a book from our blossoming professional network: http://www.the-heart-center.com/books/ - Register for Relationship Mastery, a 6-week self-guided course to take your relationship to the next level. https://www.the-heart-center.com/relationship-mastery-landing-page/ - Check out one of our sponsors, Listenable and use the discount code “zachbeach” for the first seven days on the platform for free. There you can find Zach's How To Be a Better Partner Course: https://frstre.com/go/?a=76205-87a7d9&s=1256514-e13191&p_affiliate.referral_code=zachbeach - Purchase The Seven Lessons of Love: Heart Wisdom for Troubling Times on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Lessons-Love-Heart-Wisdom-Troubling/dp/1983940704/ - Purchase a love shirt and show the world your love of love https://www.bonfire.com/store/the-heart-center/ - Review, Like, and Subscribe to the show on iTunes. - Like us on Facebook facebook.com/learntolovenow - Join the Facebook Community Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1428012130828678/
A short introduction and review of ways to improve your sexual communication, attitudes & beliefs to be more sexually inclusive, respectful, supportive and negotiating healthy consensual relationships. (References for Episode 1 : 10 ways to be more sex positive by Beth Gillette, Beyond the Basics, by Action Canada for Sexual Health & Rights, Getting the Sex you Want by Tammy Nelson, Opening up - A guide to Polyamorous Relationships by Tristan Taramino) - If you enjoyed this podcast - Please consider donating to my Patreon account at http://patreon.com/TheSexPositivePodcast
This week the hosts chat with Dr. Tammy Nelson. Tammy Nelson is a sex and relationship expert, an international speaker, an author, and a licensed psychotherapist with almost thirty years of experience working with individuals and couples. She is the Director of the Integrative Sex Therapy Institute and is the host of the podcast "The Trouble with Sex". Her most recent book, "Open Monogamy", is a practical guide for people who wish to explore new directions in their relationships. The hosts chat with Tammy about "wake up or break up" events, the monogamy gap and playing the "what if" game to open up conversations in relationships.The hosts chat answer some of the questions the book poses, and debate whether Bryde's bathing habits are a problem.Thank you endlessly to all the Patrons of the podcast at patreon.com/turnmeonpodcast. $5+ PATRONS: you can watch the aftercare segment of this episode! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Dr. Tammy Nelson joins Dr. Wendy Walsh and talks her book Open Monogamy. What are some common challenges marriages face? How do you renegotiate your marital contract? Dr. Tammy Nelson tells all!
Tammy Nelson, PhD, is a licensed psychotherapist, Board Certified Sexologist, Certified Sex Therapist, and a Certified Imago Relationship Therapist. She is a TEDx speaker and the host of The Trouble with Sex podcast. Her six books include Getting the Sex You Want, The New Monogamy, and her latest work, Open Monogamy. In this podcast, Dr. Nelson joins host Tami Simon for an informative and inspiring conversation about the emerging new definition of monogamy as people look beyond traditional marriage to find long-term happiness and fulfillment. Tami and Dr. Nelson also discuss the monogamy continuum—and how to talk about it with your partner; Dr. Nelson's view that all consensual agreements between consenting adults should be normalized; "second adolescence" and opening relationships for the wrong reasons; engaging in "what if" conversations; why there's never a coincidence in the partners that you choose; the pandemic's impact on our sex lives and intimate relationships; monogamy and non-monogamy throughout the developmental phases of relationships; fear, trust, safety, and risk-taking; eroticism and self-awareness; the new terminology of open monogamy; and much more.
Tammy Nelson, the author of the book When You're The One Who Cheats, joins me to talk about cheating and infidelity from the point of the cheater. She offers her interesting insight on why people cheat, what it's like to be cheated on, and the recovery process. Is it Infidelity? Tammy defines infidelity as forming a relationship outside of your primary partnership; a relationship with a sexual context such as flirting online or paying a sex worker, in which you are dishonest about these relationships with your primary partner. The pandemic has caused an increase in online infidelity. People cheat for various reasons, but Tammy says that defining what infidelity means to you can help to start a conversation with your partner and can establish an agreement of implicit monogamy. Kinds of Infidelity While some people cheat to break up, for others, it's a wake-up call to turn something around in their relationship. In Tammy's words, “People rarely look for someone to cheat with, they look for someone to be.” Only 7% of affairs end up in marriage with the other person, while most affairs don't last longer than a year. People who choose to make it work after the affair should acknowledge their changed relationship and incorporate their needs and desires into the new relationship to avoid another affair or any resentment. Recovering from Infidelity Before sharing anything with family or friends, it's best to deal with the trauma in the conflict/crisis phase. The partners should process everything, from how it happened to how they've changed, in the insight phase. In the vision phase, the partners make decisions about moving forward. The goal of recovery is not to forgive, but to work on building a new sex life that is fulfilling. She points out red flags that people need to look out for before deciding to move forward. Should You Tell Your Partner? A partner who confesses to an affair after it's over to feel good about themselves, knowing it could devastate their partner, is selfish. Many feel that they would want to know if their partner ever cheats, Tammy suggests, considering the extent of information you would want to know. How to Avoid Cheating Tammy believes people also cheat because they have experienced developmental challenges of a second adolescence and seek to evolve their personalities. They rebel against their partners as they did with their parents. To avoid cheating, partners can work through this stage together to reinvent themselves and have fun. She also advises seeking therapy and outside support to grieve the end of the relationship instead of using your partner for it. Advice Tammy advises us to differentiate between intuition and fear because intuition allows us to trust and move forward. Biography Tammy Nelson Ph.D. is a Board Certified Sexologist, an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist, a Certified Imago relationship therapist, a Licensed Professional Counselor, and Executive Director of the Integrative Sex Therapy Institute as well as Director of the Ph.D. program in Counseling and Sex Therapy at Daybreak University in Southern California. She is the author of several books including Integrative Sex and Couples Therapy, When You're the One Who Cheats, The New Monogamy, Getting the Sex You Want, and What's Eating You? Her latest book Open Monogamy will be released in November 2021 with Sounds True Publishing. Her work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, NY Times Magazine, CNN, Rolling Stone, and Time Magazine. She is a TEDx speaker and host of the podcast The Trouble with Sex. She is in private practice in Los Angeles CA. Resources and Links: Website: https://drtammynelson.com Podcast: https://www.thetroublewithsex.com/podcast Book – When You're The One Who Cheats: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1999481003/ Email Tammy and get your free E-book! https://drtammynelson.com/contact/ More info Sex Health Quiz – https://www.sexhealthquiz.com The Course – https://www.intimacywithease.com The Book – https://www.sexwithoutstress.com Podcast Website – https://www.intimacywithease.com Access the Free webinar: How to want sex again without it feeling like a chore: https://intimacywithease.com/masterclass Better Sex with Jessa Zimmerman https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/better-sex/ Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/182-when-youre-the-one-who-cheated-tammy-nelsonMore info and resources: How Big a Problem is Your Sex Life? Quiz – https://www.sexlifequiz.com The Course – https://www.intimacywithease.com The Book – https://www.sexwithoutstress.com Podcast Website – https://www.intimacywithease.com Access the Free webinar: How to make sex easy and fun for both of you: https://intimacywithease.com/masterclass Secret Podcast for the Higher Desire Partner: https://www.intimacywithease.com/hdppodcast Secret Podcast for the Lower Desire Partner: https://www.intimacywithease.com/ldppodcast
Tammy Nelson, the author of the book When You're The One Who Cheats, joins me to talk about cheating and infidelity from the point of the cheater. She offers her interesting insight on why people cheat, what it's like to be cheated on, and the recovery process. Is it Infidelity? Tammy defines infidelity as forming a relationship outside of your primary partnership; a relationship with a sexual context such as flirting online or paying a sex worker, in which you are dishonest about these relationships with your primary partner. The pandemic has caused an increase in online infidelity. People cheat for various reasons, but Tammy says that defining what infidelity means to you can help to start a conversation with your partner and can establish an agreement of implicit monogamy. Kinds of Infidelity While some people cheat to break up, for others, it's a wake-up call to turn something around in their relationship. In Tammy's words, “People rarely look for someone to cheat with, they look for someone to be.” Only 7% of affairs end up in marriage with the other person, while most affairs don't last longer than a year. People who choose to make it work after the affair should acknowledge their changed relationship and incorporate their needs and desires into the new relationship to avoid another affair or any resentment. Recovering from InfidelityBefore sharing anything with family or friends, it's best to deal with the trauma in the conflict/crisis phase. The partners should process everything, from how it happened to how they've changed, in the insight phase. In the vision phase, the partners make decisions about moving forward. The goal of recovery is not to forgive, but to work on building a new sex life that is fulfilling. She points out red flags that people need to look out for before deciding to move forward. Should You Tell Your Partner? A partner who confesses to an affair after it's over to feel good about themselves, knowing it could devastate their partner, is selfish. Many feel that they would want to know if their partner ever cheats, Tammy suggests, considering the extent of information you would want to know. How to Avoid Cheating Tammy believes people also cheat because they have experienced developmental challenges of a second adolescence and seek to evolve their personalities. They rebel against their partners as they did with their parents. To avoid cheating, partners can work through this stage together to reinvent themselves and have fun. She also advises seeking therapy and outside support to grieve the end of the relationship instead of using your partner for it. Advice Tammy advises us to differentiate between intuition and fear because intuition allows us to trust and move forward. Biography Tammy Nelson Ph.D. is a Board Certified Sexologist, an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist, a Certified Imago relationship therapist, a Licensed Professional Counselor, and Executive Director of the Integrative Sex Therapy Institute as well as Director of the Ph.D. program in Counseling and Sex Therapy at Daybreak University in Southern California. She is the author of several books including Integrative Sex and Couples Therapy, When You're the One Who Cheats, The New Monogamy, Getting the Sex You Want, and What's Eating You? Her latest book Open Monogamy will be released in November 2021 with Sounds True Publishing. Her work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, NY Times Magazine, CNN, Rolling Stone, and Time Magazine. She is a TEDx speaker and host of the podcast The Trouble with Sex. She is in private practice in Los Angeles CA. Resources and Links: Website: https://drtammynelson.com Podcast: https://www.thetroublewithsex.com/podcast Book – When You're The One Who Cheats: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1999481003/Email Tammy and get your free E-book! https://drtammynelson.com/contact/ More info Sex Health Quiz – https://www.sexhealthquiz.comThe Course – https://www.intimacywithease.comThe Book – https://www.sexwithoutstress.comPodcast Website – https://www.intimacywithease.comAccess the Free webinar: How to want sex again without it feeling like a chore: https://intimacywithease.com/masterclassBetter Sex with Jessa Zimmermanhttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/better-sex/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/182-when-youre-the-one-who-cheated-tammy-nelson
Tammy Nelson, the author of the book When You're The One Who Cheats, joins me to talk about cheating and infidelity from the point of the cheater. She offers her interesting insight on why people cheat, what it's like to be cheated on, and the recovery process. Is it Infidelity? Tammy defines infidelity as forming a relationship outside of your primary partnership; a relationship with a sexual context such as flirting online or paying a sex worker, in which you are dishonest about these relationships with your primary partner. The pandemic has caused an increase in online infidelity. People cheat for various reasons, but Tammy says that defining what infidelity means to you can help to start a conversation with your partner and can establish an agreement of implicit monogamy. Kinds of Infidelity While some people cheat to break up, for others, it's a wake-up call to turn something around in their relationship. In Tammy's words, “People rarely look for someone to cheat with, they look for someone to be.” Only 7% of affairs end up in marriage with the other person, while most affairs don't last longer than a year. People who choose to make it work after the affair should acknowledge their changed relationship and incorporate their needs and desires into the new relationship to avoid another affair or any resentment. Recovering from InfidelityBefore sharing anything with family or friends, it's best to deal with the trauma in the conflict/crisis phase. The partners should process everything, from how it happened to how they've changed, in the insight phase. In the vision phase, the partners make decisions about moving forward. The goal of recovery is not to forgive, but to work on building a new sex life that is fulfilling. She points out red flags that people need to look out for before deciding to move forward. Should You Tell Your Partner? A partner who confesses to an affair after it's over to feel good about themselves, knowing it could devastate their partner, is selfish. Many feel that they would want to know if their partner ever cheats, Tammy suggests, considering the extent of information you would want to know. How to Avoid Cheating Tammy believes people also cheat because they have experienced developmental challenges of a second adolescence and seek to evolve their personalities. They rebel against their partners as they did with their parents. To avoid cheating, partners can work through this stage together to reinvent themselves and have fun. She also advises seeking therapy and outside support to grieve the end of the relationship instead of using your partner for it. Advice Tammy advises us to differentiate between intuition and fear because intuition allows us to trust and move forward. Biography Tammy Nelson Ph.D. is a Board Certified Sexologist, an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist, a Certified Imago relationship therapist, a Licensed Professional Counselor, and Executive Director of the Integrative Sex Therapy Institute as well as Director of the Ph.D. program in Counseling and Sex Therapy at Daybreak University in Southern California. She is the author of several books including Integrative Sex and Couples Therapy, When You're the One Who Cheats, The New Monogamy, Getting the Sex You Want, and What's Eating You? Her latest book Open Monogamy will be released in November 2021 with Sounds True Publishing. Her work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, NY Times Magazine, CNN, Rolling Stone, and Time Magazine. She is a TEDx speaker and host of the podcast The Trouble with Sex. She is in private practice in Los Angeles CA. Resources and Links: Website: https://drtammynelson.com Podcast: https://www.thetroublewithsex.com/podcast Book – When You're The One Who Cheats: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1999481003/Email Tammy and get your free E-book! https://drtammynelson.com/contact/ More info Sex Health Quiz – https://www.sexhealthquiz.comThe Course – https://www.intimacywithease.comThe Book – https://www.sexwithoutstress.comPodcast Website – https://www.intimacywithease.comAccess the Free webinar: How to want sex again without it feeling like a chore: https://intimacywithease.com/masterclassBetter Sex with Jessa Zimmermanhttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/better-sex/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/182-when-youre-the-one-who-cheated-tammy-nelson
Who's your ideal client and what's the biggest challenge they face?What are the common mistakes people make when trying to solve that problem?What is one valuable free action that our audience can implement that will help with that issue?What is one valuable free resource that you can direct people to that will help with that issue?What's the one question I should have asked you that would be of great value to our audience?When was the last time you experienced Goosebumps with your family and why?Find Dr. Nelson on her Website and on social media: Facebook, Facebook Getting The Sex You Want, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedInHer Amazon Author PageAnd get your AASECT sex therapist certification HEREEmail Tammy if you want her free E-book and learn how to talk to each other again and have a healthy and passionate relationship no matter how long you have been together or how long you have been on lockdown. Learn more about how Uwe helps in-demand professionals and their VIPs to get back their family mojo, double their financial security, and live in abundance in all areas of their life (without feeling guilty or constantly questioning themselves): Visit www.uwedockhorn.com. Or when you feel you'd be interested in working together you can Book A Chat With Uwe
Who’s your ideal client and what’s the biggest challenge they face?What are the common mistakes people make when trying to solve that problem?What is one valuable free action that our audience can implement that will help with that issue?What is one valuable free resource that you can direct people to that will help with that issue?What’s the one question I should have asked you that would be of great value to our audience?When was the last time you experienced Goosebumps with your family and why?Find Dr. Nelson on her Website and on social media: Facebook, Facebook Getting The Sex You Want, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedInHer Amazon Author PageAnd get your AASECT sex therapist certification HEREEmail Tammy if you want her free E-book and learn how to talk to each other again and have a healthy and passionate relationship no matter how long you have been together or how long you have been on lockdown. Learn more about how Uwe helps in-demand professionals and their VIPs to get back their family mojo, double their financial security, and live in abundance in all areas of their life (without feeling guilty or constantly questioning themselves): Visit www.uwedockhorn.com. Or when you feel you'd be interested in working together you can Book A Chat With Uwe
The series kicks off as Andy opens up to sex and relationship therapist Dr. Tammy Nelson about his dysfunctional relationships, sex addiction and search for love. Their conversation takes a turn when Andy reveals a dark and twisted secret about his relationship with one of his longtime lovers. Our Guest Tammy Nelson, PhD is a sex and relationship expert, an international speaker, an author and a licensed psychotherapist with thirty years of experience working with individuals and couples. In private practice she focuses on helping people of all ages, orientations and genders find love, healing and passion. Dr. Tammy is a Board Certified Sexologist, an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist, a Licensed Professional Counselor, a Certified Imago Relationship therapist, and a Licensed Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselor. Her latest book, When You're the One Who Cheats, was published in February, 2019. Her new book, Open Monogamy, will be out in December 2021. She is the author of The New Monogamy; Redefining Your Relationship After Infidelity and Getting the Sex You Want; Shed Your Inhibitions and Reach New Heights of Passion Together as well as What's Eating You: A Workbook for Teens with Anorexia, Bulimia, and other Eating Disorders. Tammy eBooks series include: Six Weeks to Erotic Recovery, as well as chapters and articles on topics ranging from sexuality, desire, affair recovery, monogamy issues, open marriage, online infidelity, intentional divorce, passionate relationships and everything related to couples. Help Hotline If you are in the United States or Canada and struggling with anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, or a crisis of any kind – Text HOME to 741-741, and a Crisis Counselor will respond to you right away – 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Addiction & Meeting Resources Refuge Recovery Alcoholics Anonymous Narcotics Anonymous Sex Addicts Anonymous Credits Guest on his own show: Andy Dick Episode Expert: Dr. Tammy Nelson Produced by Brandi Savitt, Jarred Weisfeld & Andy Dick Mixed & Mastered by Flavorlab NYC Music by Aaron Steinberg, Glenn Schloss & Eric Blicker Engineers Kevin Jarvis & Aaron Steinberg Recorded at Sonic Boom Room, Venice CA Artwork by Matt Rockman **Press and other inquires contact weisfeldasst@start-media.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Research shows that physical activity — even a little foot-tapping or gum chewing — increases levels of the neurotransmitters in the brain that control focus and attention. Learn how a subtle fidget may help block out distractions, fight boredom, and increase productivity. In this episode we briefly discuss fidgeting and how it helps those with ADHD. Tammy Nelson the Cofounder of one of Jami's favorite ADHD products, CONQUERing joins the show to discuss the inspiration behind the product that has helped the neurodivergent community greatly. Shout out to the two newest patrons of The Neurodivergent Nurse Podcast, Robert DeSautel and Christena Foster. If you would like to join the patreon click here. Be sure to follow The Neurodivergent Nurse on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. Links to today's Guest: CONQUERing Website CONQUERing TikTok CONQUERing Instagram CONQUERing Facebook More information on fidgeting and ADHD here. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/theneurodivergentnurse/message
Dr. Tammy Nelson is a sex and relationship expert, an international speaker, an author, and a licensed psychotherapist with almost 30 years of experience working with individuals and couples. In private practice, she focuses on helping people of all ages, orientations, and genders find love, healing, and passion. In addition to this, Dr. Nelson teaches at several universities and is also the host of the podcast, The Trouble with Sex, and the author of many books, including When You're The One Who Cheats. In this episode… Affairs can be intoxicating, but they can also leave you feeling confused and ashamed once the excitement wears off. So, why do people cheat, and what makes an affair difficult to end? And, once you’ve been caught in your lie, how can you salvage your relationship? A lot of the answers for why we do what we do can be traced back to the chemicals flooding our brains. Much like being under the influence of a drug, our chemical response to a new or elicit relationship can make it difficult to see things clearly—and it can take time for the reality of a situation to fully set in. However, according to Dr. Tammy Nelson, even if you’ve cheated, you still have plenty of choices for how to move forward. As she suggests, there are ways to rebuild your relationship in the aftermath of an affair, but you may need to start with a whole new foundation. Join Dr. Marie Murphy in this episode of Your Secret is Safe With Me as she sits down with Sex and Relationship Expert, Dr. Tammy Nelson. Together, they discuss why affairs are often so exciting, the brain chemicals that influence how we interpret new relationships, and the importance of revisiting your monogamy contract after someone cheats. Plus, Dr. Nelson offers scientific insight into why people lie and provides advice on what to do if you’re the one cheating. Stay tuned.
Dr. Tammy Nelson is a sex and relationship expert, and author of many books on sex including Getting the Sex You Want: Shed Your Inhibitions and Reach New Heights of Passion Together. She's a psychotherapist, Director of the Integrative Sex Therapy Institute, university teacher, TEDx speaker and is the host of the podcast The Trouble with Sex. Tammy is also a Board Certified Sexologist, an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist, a Licensed Professional Counselor, a Certified Imago Relationship therapist, and a Licensed Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselor. Today on The Soul of Life I speak with Dr. Nelson about what it takes to have a vibrant sex life with a monogamous partner and how cheating during COVID has taken on new proportions. We talk about the mindset that's required to prevent or recover from infidelity and why it can be an opportunity. We discuss several myths about infidelity, sex, and eroticism: "Women actually do cheat for sex. Men tend to cheat for emotional reasons." - Do all affairs happen because of sexual problems? - Does communication and empathy have the power to fix sexual frustration? - Why does emotional closeness sometimes seem to kill erotic passion? - And perhaps the million dollar question: Why does Oprah call it her "vajayjay?" Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SoulOfLifeShow or Twitter: https://twitter.com/SoulofLifeShow Want to book Keith as a guest on your podcast? Contact him at keith@souloflifeshow.com. ***7-Week Stress Reduction & Relationship Growth Course*** If you and your significant other are looking for ways to improve communication and strengthen your partnership, there is still time to enroll in my upcoming live 7-Week Mindfulness and IFS course, called Mindful Marriage. Partners of any kind are welcome. It's a one-of-a-kind offering that can truly transform how you show up in intimacy. For more information visit: https://community.souloflifeshow.com/
Chaz and AJ talked about the state opening up vaccine appointments for people aged 65 or older. While discussing their plans to get vaccinated, they imagined what it would be like if one of the side-effects caused people to behave opposite to their normal tendencies. (0:00) Vince the bookie was back on to talk about the Super Bowl, which was not a good time for him. Tom Brady, once again, has made Vince's life very difficult. At least Chaz and AJ won their prop bet! (6:51) Dr. Tammy Nelson was on talking about the Top 5 things ruining your sex life, and while recapping everything turned against Chaz. (19:15) Nick the science guy was on to quell everyone's concerns about a giant asteroid approaching Earth. Apparently, NASA has known about it for 20 years. Just for educational purposes, Nick explained what would happen if an asteroid that size were to hit the Earth's surface. (26:24) Dumb Ass News - Chaz and AJ revisited a comment AJ made during Nick's call, and a selfie-taker in Hoboken fell into icy waters and needed rescuing. (40:00) Boston comedian Will Noonan's phone was on fire during the Super Bowl, since he appeared in a commercial that aired in the Boston area! Plus, the big money he won on a long-shot bet. (46:03) Image Credit: nevodka / iStock / Getty Images Plus
Coming soon in Season Two of The Soul of Life on February 26th, 2021. Dr. Tammy Nelson is an erotic recovery expert. She's a leading expert on infidelity and the healing of sexual relationships. Today on The Soul of Life I speak with Dr. Nelson about what it takes to have a vibrant sex life with a monogamous partner and how cheating during COVID has taken on new proportions. "If I am a mom stuck home, homeschooling my kids, and I've bene in my yoga pants in seven months, and haven't worn make up, and my life is about cheerios and how to figure out algebra. And then I meet someone online who thinks I'm sexy and alive and charming and beautiful and just wants to make out with me—I'm a totally different person for ten minutes a day and that makes you feel alive for those ten minutes." Dr. Nelson is the author of Getting the Sex You Want, and The New Monogamy: Redefining Your Relationship After Infidelity. We talk about the mindset that's required to prevent or recover from infidelity and why it can be an opportunity.
In this episode Heather interviews Dr. Tammy Nelson, Certified Sex and Relationship Therapist and Licensed Counselor, speaker, podcast host, and author. Tune-in to hear their conversation on: "We're sort of living in this moment of uncertainty." - The effects of the pandemic on couples and individuals and how they are coping with lockdown and a contact-free society. "How come there's no graduate program for sex?" - Dr. Tammy's career journey from art therapist to relationship and sex therapist. "Set up a sex date." - The importance of creating time and space for sex and erotic anticipation in your relationship. "We change and grow as people and we develop in a relationship." - Why Dr. Tammy recommends couples create and continuously update a Monogamy Agreement so their implied assumptions don't get the better of their relationships. Visit the show page for full show notes and more!
Today on the Sexology Podcast we are celebrating our 200th episode! We’ll be revisiting past episodes that our listeners selected as the ones that helped them the most and provided the best sex advice. In this episode, you will hear clips from: Dr. Lonnie Barbach, a clinical-social psychologist, has received numerous awards for her work on sexuality and has written a dozen books on relationships, sexuality and menopause in addition to a number of video tapes and audio tapes. http://www.sexologypodcast.com/2019/04/02/how-to-please-your-lover-by-dr-lonnie-barbach Dr. Alison Ash is a sex and intimacy coach and educator, lecturer at Stanford University, author, and founder of TurnON.love. http://www.sexologypodcast.com/2019/12/03/art-and-science-of-seduction-with-dr-alison-ash/ Caitlin V is a sex and relationship coach who helps men become amazing lovers and incredible partners. http://www.sexologypodcast.com/2019/08/20/how-to-last-longer-in-bed/ Dr. Cat Meyer, PsyD, LMFT is a licensed couples therapist, sex therapist, yoga instructor, published researcher, and reiki practitioner dedicated to evolving the relationship we have surrounding sexuality and our bodies. http://www.sexologypodcast.com/2020/01/07/ep158-7-ways-to-upgrade-your-sex-life-according-to-sexperts/ Emily Nagoski is the award-winning author of the New York Times bestseller, Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life and The Come As You Are Workbook, and co-author, with her sister Amelia, of Burnout: The Secret to Solving the Stress Cycle. http://www.sexologypodcast.com/2019/03/12/female-orgasm-with-dr-emily-nagoski/ Stephen Snyder MD is a sex therapist, relationship therapist, and sexual medicine specialist who has dedicated his entire career to helping individuals and couples with sex and relationship concerns. http://www.sexologypodcast.com/2020/07/28/ep187-the-key-to-great-sex-in-long-term-relationships-with-dr-stephen-snyder/ Tammy Nelson, Ph.D. is a Board Certified Sexologist and Certified Sex Therapist as well as a Relationship Therapist and author of several books for couples including Getting the Sex You Want, The New Monogamy, When You’re the One Who Cheated and Integrative Sex and Couples Therapy. http://www.sexologypodcast.com/2019/11/05/ep149-the-monogamy-paradox-with-dr-tammy-nelson Carol Queen is an American author, editor, sociologist and sexologist active in the sex-positive feminism movement. Queen has written on human sexuality in books such as Real Live Nude Girl: Chronicles of Sex-Positive Culture. http://www.sexologypodcast.com/2020/01/28/how-to-overcome-sexual-shyness-with-carol-queen-phd/ Ari Tuckman, PsyD, CST has given more than 350 presentations across America and in nine countries. His fourth book, ADHD After Dark: Better Sex Life, Better Relationship, examines how ADHD impacts a couple’s sexual and relationship satisfaction and how to improve both. http://www.sexologypodcast.com/2019/09/03/sex-relationships-adhd-with-dr-ari-tuckman/ Barbara Carrellas is the founder of Urban Tantra® and the author of Urban Tantra: Sacred Sex for the Twenty-first Century, Ecstasy is Necessary: A Practical Guide to Sex, Relationships and Oh So Much More, and Luxurious Loving. http://www.sexologypodcast.com/2020/01/14/tantric-orgasm-with-barbara-carrellas 101 Ways to Keep Your Relationship Hot http://www.sexologypodcast.com/subscribe/ https://oasis2care.com/subscribe/ Find Dr. Moali online: http://www.sexologypodcast.com Find me on social media: https://www.instagram.com/sexologypodcast https://www.facebook.com/oasis2care If you are interested in booking a video counselling session with Dr. Moali: https://oasis2care.com/contact-nazanin-moali-psychologist Podcast Produced by Pete Bailey - http://petebailey.net/audio
This week we have a juicy throwback episode for our dear listeners. Kaley and Sarah talk with Dr. Tammy Nelson about the scandalous world of affairs and why they are so common. Chat with us! Twitter: @sarahsahagian @kaleyames Instagram: kaleyames_ @youdoyoupod And our lovely guest! Website: https://drtammynelson.com/ Twitter: @drtammynelson
S1:E4 | June 25, 2020 | 42 min.Wendy discusses infidelity and what happens when you are the one who cheats, with renowned author and relationship expert Dr. Tammy Nelson. Listen as they discuss how infidelity is only one symptom of a relationship falling apart, not the reason for it. Hear how many couples have discovered ways to move forward from it. Plus, Dr. Tammy gives an effective tip to get more of the intimacy and sex you want in your relationship today.
In this episode Tammy talks about her full bounce house service for anyone from all ages and how she got into the business!!!
Ally Brooke is on to talk about the role music plays on mental health and how she's been coping during that pandemic. Dr. Tammy shares how couple can be better about discussing their mental health with one another and how to better cope while isolating with a partner,
Ally Brooke is on to talk about the role music plays on mental health and how she's been coping during that pandemic. Dr. Tammy shares how couple can be better about discussing their mental health with one another and how to better cope while isolating with a partner,
Has spending so much time isolating with your partner caused a strain on your relationship? Dr. Tammy Nelson has some insight on what you can do to ease the tension and get through this together.
Rover got into an argument with his wife over his treatment of Dumb. People won't stop emailing Rover pictures of Lizzo in a bikini. Utah law would decriminalize polygamy among consenting adults. Listener explains how his child was kidnapped. Sex Therapist, Dr. Tammy Nelson, calls in. Oscar-winning Ford v Ferrari sound editor criticized for using acceptance speech to thank wife.
Bob Stefanowski calls in to grade Ned Lamont's progress as CT's governor and Jennifer shares a story about a giraffe's tongue (0:00) Brooke Louellen Smith did her first radio shift this weekend, and talked about walking in on her cousin in the bathroom. Chaz and AJ also played some classic demos and breaks from early in their careers. So, who exactly is Charlie Faze? (9:43) Dr. Tammy Nelson in studio as everyone shares sex stories. Brooke Louellen walked in on her parents once, when she was very young. (44:23)
Michael-Scott Druckenmiller talks in depth about his time on set for TWO Oscar nominated movies - "Joker" and "The Irishman" (0:00) Dr. Tammy Nelson, after hearing Michael's segment, thinks she could also help the movie business with her real world knowledge on sexual relationships (24:46) Michael calls back in from the road with a sex story from his time as a paramedic, a couple who suffered a broken penis mid-sex; and more stories (28:25)
Jewelry By Design's Mark and Tammy Nelson joined AOTM to discuss the Annual One Day Sale happening tomorrow at the store.
Dr. Tammy Nelson is a sex therapist, podcaster, and paradigm shifter. Her concept of "The Monogamy Continuum" has helped countless individuals and couples rethink their wants and relationships. Tammy believes that everything from "you can't look at porn because that's a betrayal" to "you can have sex with other people, but you and I are primary" are versions of monogamy. And that monogamy is a daily, difficult practice that we must commit to, like yoga, if we want it to work. In "When You're the One Who Cheats," Tammy takes a compassionate view of one of our culture's favorite villains--the "cheater" in an infidelity scenario. She tells us that unless we have compassion for everyone, we'll never learn why relationships fail--and how to make them work. She also gives us advice on handling criticism, pushback, and haters when you're a woman living life on your own terms. Tammy is funny, out there, smart, and feminist AF. We love her and know you will, too! This episode is brought to you by Sweet VibrationsVisit https://sweetvibes.toys/ and use the code "Wild Love" to get %15 off at checkout Connect with Dr. Tammy Nelson|Website - https://drtammynelson.com/Twitter - https://bit.ly/2Kp913AFacebook - https://www.facebook.com/DrTammyNelson/ Connect with Wednesday Martin:Website | http://wednesdaymartin.com/Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/wednesdaymartinphd/Twitter | https://twitter.com/WednesdayMartinFacebook | https://www.facebook.com/wednesdaymartinphd/YouTube | https://bit.ly/2zfvv1H Check out Wednesday Martin’s new book Untrue |http://wednesdaymartin.com/books/untrue/ Connect with Whitney Miller:Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/whitnlove/?hl=enFacebook | https://www.facebook.com/Miss2Jits/Twitter | https://twitter.com/whitnlove Subscribe on Itunes https://apple.co/2XKfS0bSpotify | https://spoti.fi/2JPxuhnStitcher | https://bit.ly/2xYNQz0 Google Play Music | bit.ly/30nJwWAIHeartRadio | https://ihr.fm/2NooEuw
This week, Sarah and Kaley are joined by one of your favourite guests, Dr. Tammy Nelson. Tammy takes us through the latest research about why women in heterosexual relationships cheat on their partners. Get ready to learn A LOT! Chat with us! Twitter: @ydypod @sarahsahagian @kaleyames Instagram: @ydypod @kaleyames_ And our wonderful guest: Twitter: @drtammynelson https://drtammynelson.com/ Theme music is "Tag You're It," by The Whole Other
Welcome to episode 149 of the Sexology Podcast! Today it’s my pleasure to welcome Dr. Tammy Nelson to the podcast. In this episode she speaks with me about sexual boredom, contributing factors as to why people cheat, and the concept of new monogamy. Tammy Nelson, Ph.D. is a Board Certified Sexologist and Certified Sex Therapist as well as a Relationship Therapist and author of several books for couples including Getting the Sex You Want, The New Monogamy, When You're the One Who Cheated, and the upcoming Integrative Sex and Couples Therapy due out in March. She is the Director and Founder of the Integrative Sex Therapy Institute in Washington DC., a training Institute, and Think Tank focused on obtaining and creating sustainable relationships. She is also an expert consultant for Ashley Madison, an online dating site for married people. She has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, Time Magazine, and is the host of a popular podcast, The Trouble with Sex. In This Episode You Will Hear: The common mistakes people make to become sexually bored How sexual boredom can be akin to eating the same food every day Why being too comfortable in a relationship can cause sexual boredom Contributing factors as to why people cheat How desire can increase for a partner when they show interest in someone else Increasing the quantity and quality of sex in a long-term relationship Rebuilding sexual intimacy How changes in personality and identity can lead to cheating Looking at the concept of new monogamy What’s the difference between new monogamy and old monogamy? Managing your unrealistic expectations The role that technology plays in these changes Find Dr. Tammy here: https://drtammynelson.com Free gift: Email Tammy through her website and she will send you "37 Questions for your New Monogamy Agreement" - a handout to create a relationship discussion that can help you start your new vision for the future of your new monogamy. Find me on social media: https://www.instagram.com/oasis2care https://www.facebook.com/oasis2care Bonus: 101 Ways to Keep Your Relationship Hot: Sign up and receive this checklist to spice things up in your relationship for free: http://sexologypodcast.com/subscribe Work with me: https://oasis2care.com/contact-nazanin-moali-psychologist/ Podcast Produced by Pete Bailey - http://petebailey.net/audio
Tony Spera in studio for Freak Week - talking all about the infamous Annabelle doll in the Warren's home (0:00) Dr. Tammy Nelson in studio as the Tribe called in the times they had sex in public places, like a beach in full view of a passing boat. (14:17) Dumb Ass News - A crook with a stolen TV attempts his getaway on a motorcycle. (28:26) Jim Wiltsie on the phone to talk about how you can still get involved with the Vicki Soto 5K this weekend. (33:19)
So when the going gets tough, what do the tough do? They Keep Going! Creativity expert Austin Kleon returns with his latest book to share ways to stay creative in good times and bad. Find out why this “writer who draws” describes himself as a mongrel, and how that benefits his work. Why he says life is for art, and not other way around. How burnout can strike even if you love what you do. And, the big question, can you separate the art from the man, and the man from the art? Austin Kleon’s New York Times bestselling books include Steal Like an Artist and Show Your Work. Are you a stargazer? Andrew Fazekas is. So much so, that his passion for stargazing developed into a star-studded career, earning him the alias “The Night Sky Guy”. Today, he shares fun science facts, such as what causes the elusive “green flash” at sunset. And sheds light on his partnership with National Geographic to take the world’s first open-air, augmented-reality planetarium, to a global audience. Exciting times in Backyard Guide to the Night Sky. A science writer, speaker, and broadcaster Andrew Fazekas writes the StarStruck for National Geographic, and is the author of Star Trek: The Official Guide to Our Universe. Ending today’s show, if you’ve ever been cheated on, you might find it confusing when the cheater claims they are also confused. You may not even believe them–but according to sex therapist Dr. Tammy Nelson, they’re probably telling the truth. Dr. Nelson returns to Conversations Live to help unravel confusion on both sides of the cheating situation. She’ll offer tips on how to stop cheating if you’re the guilty party, and ways to move forward in When You’re the One Who Cheats: 10 Things You Need to Know. Tammy Nelson, PhD is a sex and relationship expert, international speaker, author, and licensed psychotherapist. She has 30 years of experience working with individuals and couples.
Kristin Hodson is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist. She is Founder and Executive Director of The Healing Group mental health clinic in Salt Lake City and Co-Author of the book Real Intimacy: A Couples Guide for Genuine, Healthy Sexuality (Cedar Fort 2011). Additionally she works as an adjunct professor teaching human sexuality to master level students working to become Social Workers and founded the Rocky Mountain Sex Summit in an effort to increase sexual health competency in mental health professionals. She has a unique ability to break down the topics of sexuality into easily digestible pieces empowering people to further develop their sexual identity, hone their sexual values, improve their communication around sexuality all with the intention to improve people’s relationships with themselves and others.Kristin is approachable, relatable and has a light sense of humor around something that often feels intimidating or heavy. She has been a guest presenter for nationally renowned sex therapist Dr. Gina Ogden and Dr. Tammy Nelson and has contributed to national media outlets including Huffington Post Live, NPR, Women’s Day Magazine and MTV and local outlets including RadioWest, Studio5,The Deseret News, RadioWest, The Salt Lake Tribune, Salt Lake City magazine, various podcasts and local news outlets. Kristin is a Mom of 3 wild things and a partner to her husband Jake living in Salt Lake City, Ut and Playa Grande, Costa Rica.
Sex Tech is coming! How can it improve your life? Would you do it with a sex robot? What about a dirty talk tutorial from an app? Bryony Cole, a world leading expert on the intersection of sex, feminism, and technology talks us through it all This episode is brought to you by Sweet VibrationsVisit https://sweetvibes.toys/ and use the code "Wild Love" to get %15 off at checkout Connect with Bryony Cole:Website | http://www.bryonycole.co/Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/bryonyco/Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/bryonycole/Twitter | https://twitter.com/bryonycole Future of Sex | https://www.futureofsex.org/ Listen to the Future Of Sex Podcast | https://apple.co/2ytAQ4A Connect with Whitney Miller:Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/whitnlove/?hl=enFacebook | https://www.facebook.com/Miss2Jits/Twitter | https://twitter.com/whitnlove Connect with Wednesday Martin:Website | http://wednesdaymartin.com/Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/wednesdaymartinphd/Twitter | https://twitter.com/WednesdayMartinFacebook | https://www.facebook.com/wednesdaymartinphd/YouTube | https://bit.ly/2zfvv1H Check out Wednesday Martin’s new book Untrue | http://wednesdaymartin.com/books/untrue/ Subscribe on Itunes https://apple.co/2XKfS0bSpotify | https://spoti.fi/2JPxuhnStitcher | https://bit.ly/2xYNQz0 Show NotesOMGyes | https://www.omgyes.com/OHNUT | https://bit.ly/2yoG5T8Real Doll | https://www.realdoll.com/Squish | https://unboundbabes.com/products/unbound-squishParma Ring | https://unboundbabes.com/products/palmaWomen of Sex Tech | https://www.womenofsextech.com/Realbotix Harmony AI | https://realbotix.com/HarmonyDr. Tammy Nelson | https://drtammynelson.com/Sue Jaye Johnson | http://suejaye.com/Dr Holly Richmond | http://drhollyrichmond.com/Kenneth Play | https://kennethplay.com/Mend | https://www.letsmend.com/Callisto | https://www.projectcallisto.org/The Rape Axe | https://rape-axe.com/Unbound | https://unboundbabes.com/The Womanizer | https://bit.ly/2LSvcScWe-Vibe | https://we-vibe.com/
Ashley is still trying to write her Maid of Honor speech for her sister's wedding, plus Dr. Tammy Nelson helps Ashley (0:00), Tony Terzi talks about the insane police chase last night in the Branford area that ended in a crash (17:29), Dumb Ass News - toddler's birthday cake says "Loser" and AJ thinks 2-year-old children can read (32:18), AJ is attempting his first drag race tonight, so Wayne at the Lebanon Valley Dragway was on to help (37:15), the lady who fell over in the port-o-potty at a state fair (45:47), and Dumb Ass News - a Tribe member shares the craziest things he's found on the job in the port-o-potty industry (53:57).
Thank you for listening to Mormon Sex Info. This episode is an archived episode and is only now becoming publicly available. Mormon Sex Info relies on contributions. To contribute, please visit: mormonsex.info Please enjoy the episode. Natasha Helfer Parker interviews Dr. Tammy Nelson, author of The New Monogamy: Redefining Your Relationship After Infidelity, regarding the complicated issues and tasks associated with recovering from infidelity. So many applicable things are discussed, whether you have experienced infidelity in your relationship or not. How do we define infidelity in the first place? How does having dialogue about what monogamy means help prevent infidelity? What can one expect to experience when they have found out their partner has been unfaithful? What are some ways to categorize the different stages of crisis and healing a couple might go through as they deal with betrayal? How do we negotiate our sexual relationships in regards to what some would consider benign behaviors like being attracted to other people, masturbation, and flirtation all the way to deciding to open one’s marriage to the sexual or romantic involvement of other people? When does infidelity point towards the end of a relationship? How do we find meaning in betrayals – as far as what they tell us about our relationships and our roles in them? What’s the difference between forgiveness and empathy – and what roles do these play? A wonderful overview of the many complexities and possibilities couples are facing as they decide how to move forward after a significant betrayal. Tammy Nelson, PhD is a licensed psychotherapist in private practice, a relationship expert and international speaker, an author, a faculty member and teacher for over 25 years. She holds a Doctorate in Philosophy in Clinical Sexology, is a Board Certified Sexologist, a Diplomat of the American Board of Sexologists, a Licensed Professional Counselor, an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist, a Registered Art Therapist, a Licensed Alcohol and Drug Counselor, a Certified Imago Relationship therapist and an Advanced Imago Clinician. Dr. Nelson is the author of several books including, “The New Monogamy; Redefining Your Relationship After Infidelity“ (January 2013), “Getting the Sex You Want; Shed Your Inhibitions and Reach New Heights of Passion Together” (2008), “What’s Eating You: A Workbook for Teens with Anorexia, Bulimia, and other Eating Disorders” (2004). Her latest book is currently under negotiation. She is the author of “Six Weeks to Desire” (2013), an eBook, currently published on Amazon, as well as several chapters of edited compilations and articles in professional journals. She has also been a featured expert in many media forums such as the New York Times, Women’s Health, Wall Street Journal and Redbook. Resources mentioned during podcast: The New Monogamy: Redefining Your Relationship After Infidelity For the Six Weeks to Desire Ebook contact Dr. Nelson directly: tammy@tammynelson.org
Art Wiknik, veteran of the Vietnam War and Hamburger Hill, talks about the Chaz and AJ Veteran's Gala (0:00), Kristen Cusato plays her cajon to "Wipeout" and talks about the warning signs for Alzheimer's (6:31), attorney Matt Maddox talks about the missing New Canaan mother case and all that happened in Stamford court yesterday (16:56), Chaz, AJ and Ashley drew pictures based on how they feel while listening to a certain song, Dr. Tammy Nelson analyzed the pictures and found a lot of sexual clues (32:44), Dumb Ass News - Giraffes struck by lightning when dumb humans didn't get them out of a storm (54:41), and Alan Bakula talks about the Chaz and AJ Veteran's Gala...and being attacked by a cat (59:15).
What are the common reasons people stray from their partners? How common is it and how do folks rebuild relationships after infidelity? And what is the "New Monogamy" all about? We also answer a sex question: How can I reconnect to myself and learn to relax with my partner after sexual trauma? Dr. Tammy Nelson PhD is an internationally acclaimed psychotherapist and TEDx speaker and the author of several books including, “Getting the Sex You Want, “The New Monogamy; and her latest book "When You're the One Who Cheats." She has been a featured expert in the NY Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN, Rolling Stone Magazine, TIME, and a source in Time Magazine. She writes for Huffington Post, ThriveGlobal, Medium and has a new podcast, The Trouble with Sex. Dr. Tammy is a Board Certified Sexologist, a Certified Sex Therapist and a Certified Relationship Therapist. She can be found at drtammynelson.com Some other links we talk about: Get 10% off + free shipping with code SHAMELESSSEX on Uberlube AKA our favorite lubricant at uberlube.com Get $5 off while mastering the art of pleasure at OMGyes.com/shameless Get 15% off all of your sex toys with code SHAMELESSSEX at purepleasureshop.com Learn more about sexological bodywork with River Drosera at riverdrosera.life Access your free 30-day trial to Open Fit by texting sspodcast to 303030
Kristin Hodson is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist. She is Founder and Executive Director of The Healing Group mental health clinic in Salt Lake City and Co-Author of the book Real Intimacy: A Couples Guide for Genuine, Healthy Sexuality (Cedar Fort 2011). Additionally, she works as an adjunct professor teaching human sexuality to master level students working to become Social Workers and founded the Rocky Mountain Sex Summit in an effort to increase sexual health competency in mental health professionals. She has a unique ability to break down the topics of sexuality into easily digestible pieces empowering people to further develop their sexual identity, hone their sexual values, improve their communication around sexuality all with the intention to improve people’s relationships with themselves and others. Kristin is approachable, relatable and has a light sense of humor around something that often feels intimidating or heavy. She has been a guest presenter for nationally renowned sex therapist Dr. Gina Ogden and Dr. Tammy Nelson and has contributed to national media outlets including Huffington Post Live, NPR, Women’s Day Magazine and MTV and local outlets including RadioWest, Studio5,The Deseret News, RadioWest, The Salt Lake Tribune, Salt Lake City magazine, various podcasts and local news outlets. Kristin is a Mom of 3 wild things and a partner to her husband Jake living in Salt Lake City, Ut and Playa Grande, Costa Rica. You won't want to miss this conversation! I studied health promotion for my undergrad, and I remember thinking it was a little strange when one of my classes was completely focused on reproductive health even though it was supposed to be about general health throughout the lifespan. The reality is sexual health is not just something that comes up every once in a while. It isn't a "talk" you can have once or twice and check it off of your parental responsibility checklist. Talking about sexual health is infused into everything we do. If you don't believe me, listen to this episode. We all need to get really comfortable with this conversation. Our kids are going to look for this information one way or another. It needs to come from their parents. More than this, our culture is already steeping in sexual culture. If we don't talk about it and help our children recognize it, they will hear about it even without trying. Kristin shares an example of teaching her son how to recognize sexualized lyrics in the music he was listening to. I talk about subtle language that creeps into the way we talk to one another that prepares our children to consider boundaries and consent. It isn't always an explicit discussion about sex. It is talking about appropriate touch, red flags, safety, relationships, and interactions with one another. Find more from Kristin at http://kristinbhodson.com Join the Family Success Toolkit Free Membership http://homeandfamilyculture.com
My guest is Jim Fleckenstein. He is a coach and educator on sexuality. He is also a researcher who focuses predominantly on non-exclusive relationships and how they affect the individuals involved. He is an expert in consensual non-monogamy and a wellspring of knowledge and insight, which he graciously shares in this episode. Jim shares stats and information on consensual non-monogamy, how those who practice it are reporting an overwhelming amount of satisfaction and happiness, how emotional needs have a lot to do with those who are drawn towards it, and how these relationship structures are actually much more common than you may have realized. This is just the tip of the iceberg of this discussion though. Listen along and learn a lot about this interesting topic! The Three Main Divisions of Consensual Non-Monogamy To start the interview, Jim breaks down consensual non-monogamy into polyamory, swinging, and open relationships. Polyamory is separate from the others because there is a chance for a deep emotional connection to be reinforced. While the others are more reserved for sexual acts, polyamory is can delve into the emotional as well as the sexual components of a relationship. Jim says that swinging is probably the oldest of the trio. And for those who don't know, it's a couple-centric act where couples work hard to establish an emotional wall to prevent emotional developments. They also don't have sex independently of one another. And in open relationships, partners are free to seek sexual liaisons outside of the primary relationship. Emotional connection is not established, and unlike swingers, they don't participate in sexual acts together but do their own thing instead. Jim says much more within the episode. Listen along! The Reasons Why Certain People Prefer Consensual Non-Monogamy For the reasons why people go the non-monogamous route, Jim says it has a lot to do with the emotional needs of the person. He says the question of “what is it that I am trying to attain here?” is a great question to ask to evaluate your emotional needs. Your needs will determine which version of consensual non-monogamy that you gravitate towards and want to eventually practice–if you do end up deciding that your emotional needs warrant the lifestyle, of course. Jim also talks about the boundaries that are established and how respecting those boundaries is important for the healthy functioning of any consensual non-monogamous relationship. Tune in! How Many People are Practicing? Jim says that it's difficult to have an accurate number or statistic for those who practice non-monogamous relationships. This is due to the fact that individuals can lose their jobs and their kids because of it, and in addition, it is still highly stigmatized in our country. This leads to a lot of people practicing in clandestine ways. So, because of these factors, it's hard to trust the surveys and numbers out there. But according to the stats, Jim says that somewhere between 2-7% of all relationships are practiced through one of the three divisions of consensual non-monogamy. The Importance of Education Jim shares a lot of important information on how people learn about polyamory or swinging by attending educational events where people discuss consensual non-monogamy in a non-sexual environment. Often the trepidations that occur can be alleviated through more understanding. And as is brought up during the episode, some of the concerns of being pressured by a partner into swinging or an open relationship can be addressed once more information is processed. He also makes it clear this needs to be a mutual decision. Who knows, maybe all it takes is a couple of events and you will comfortable enough with shifting your relationship dynamic! Maybe it will confirm your anxiety. Becoming educated is key! It destigmatizes and demystifies. Go-To Resources for Jim He says that his favorite go-to book is Opening Up by Tristan Taormino, for those who are curious about learning about or trying this relationship dynamic. It is a very comprehensive resource. The Ethical Slut is a good book as well, in addition to Designer Relationships. And for those who may have experienced infidelity, Tammy Nelson has a good book called The New Monogamy for handling the subject. Key (Affiliate) Links for Jim: Books he recommends: Opening Up : https://amzn.to/2WWhgZO Designer Relationships : https://amzn.to/2Jk3k7p The Ethical Slut :https://amzn.to/2th3tzf The New Monogamy : https://amzn.to/2Dy0Yxl Jim's website: https://www.affirmativeintimacy.com/ More info: Book and New Course – https://sexwithoutstress.com Web – https://www.bettersexpodcast.com/ Sex Health Quiz – http://sexhealthquiz.com/ If you're enjoying the podcast and want to be a part of making sure it continues in the future, consider being a patron. With a small monthly pledge, you can support the costs of putting this show together. For as little as $2 per month, you can get advance access to each episode. For just a bit more, you will receive an advance copy of a chapter of my new book. And for $10 per month, you get all that plus an invitation to an online Q&A chat with me once a quarter. Learn more at https://www.patreon.com/bettersexpodcast Better Sex with Jessa Zimmerman https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/better-sex/More info and resources: How Big a Problem is Your Sex Life? Quiz – https://www.sexlifequiz.com The Course – https://www.intimacywithease.com The Book – https://www.sexwithoutstress.com Podcast Website – https://www.intimacywithease.com Access the Free webinar: How to make sex easy and fun for both of you: https://intimacywithease.com/masterclass Secret Podcast for the Higher Desire Partner: https://www.intimacywithease.com/hdppodcast Secret Podcast for the Lower Desire Partner: https://www.intimacywithease.com/ldppodcast
My guest is Jim Fleckenstein. He is a coach and educator on sexuality. He is also a researcher who focuses predominantly on non-exclusive relationships and how they affect the individuals involved. He is an expert in consensual non-monogamy and a wellspring of knowledge and insight, which he graciously shares in this episode.Jim shares stats and information on consensual non-monogamy, how those who practice it are reporting an overwhelming amount of satisfaction and happiness, how emotional needs have a lot to do with those who are drawn towards it, and how these relationship structures are actually much more common than you may have realized.This is just the tip of the iceberg of this discussion though. Listen along and learn a lot about this interesting topic!The Three Main Divisions of Consensual Non-MonogamyTo start the interview, Jim breaks down consensual non-monogamy into polyamory, swinging, and open relationships.Polyamory is separate from the others because there is a chance for a deep emotional connection to be reinforced. While the others are more reserved for sexual acts, polyamory is can delve into the emotional as well as the sexual components of a relationship.Jim says that swinging is probably the oldest of the trio. And for those who don’t know, it’s a couple-centric act where couples work hard to establish an emotional wall to prevent emotional developments. They also don’t have sex independently of one another.And in open relationships, partners are free to seek sexual liaisons outside of the primary relationship. Emotional connection is not established, and unlike swingers, they don’t participate in sexual acts together but do their own thing instead.Jim says much more within the episode. Listen along!The Reasons Why Certain People Prefer Consensual Non-MonogamyFor the reasons why people go the non-monogamous route, Jim says it has a lot to do with the emotional needs of the person. He says the question of “what is it that I am trying to attain here?” is a great question to ask to evaluate your emotional needs.Your needs will determine which version of consensual non-monogamy that you gravitate towards and want to eventually practice–if you do end up deciding that your emotional needs warrant the lifestyle, of course.Jim also talks about the boundaries that are established and how respecting those boundaries is important for the healthy functioning of any consensual non-monogamous relationship. Tune in!How Many People are Practicing?Jim says that it’s difficult to have an accurate number or statistic for those who practice non-monogamous relationships. This is due to the fact that individuals can lose their jobs and their kids because of it, and in addition, it is still highly stigmatized in our country. This leads to a lot of people practicing in clandestine ways.So, because of these factors, it’s hard to trust the surveys and numbers out there. But according to the stats, Jim says that somewhere between 2-7% of all relationships are practiced through one of the three divisions of consensual non-monogamy.The Importance of EducationJim shares a lot of important information on how people learn about polyamory or swinging by attending educational events where people discuss consensual non-monogamy in a non-sexual environment.Often the trepidations that occur can be alleviated through more understanding. And as is brought up during the episode, some of the concerns of being pressured by a partner into swinging or an open relationship can be addressed once more information is processed. He also makes it clear this needs to be a mutual decision.Who knows, maybe all it takes is a couple of events and you will comfortable enough with shifting your relationship dynamic! Maybe it will confirm your anxiety. Becoming educated is key! It destigmatizes and demystifies.Go-To Resources for JimHe says that his favorite go-to book is Opening Up by Tristan Taormino, for those who are curious about learning about or trying this relationship dynamic. It is a very comprehensive resource. The Ethical Slut is a good book as well, in addition to Designer Relationships.And for those who may have experienced infidelity, Tammy Nelson has a good book called The New Monogamy for handling the subject.Key (Affiliate) Links for Jim: Books he recommends:Opening Up : https://amzn.to/2WWhgZODesigner Relationships : https://amzn.to/2Jk3k7pThe Ethical Slut :https://amzn.to/2th3tzfThe New Monogamy : https://amzn.to/2Dy0YxlJim’s website: https://www.affirmativeintimacy.com/More info:Book and New Course – https://sexwithoutstress.comWeb – https://www.bettersexpodcast.com/Sex Health Quiz – http://sexhealthquiz.com/If you’re enjoying the podcast and want to be a part of making sure it continues in the future, consider being a patron. With a small monthly pledge, you can support the costs of putting this show together. For as little as $2 per month, you can get advance access to each episode. For just a bit more, you will receive an advance copy of a chapter of my new book. And for $10 per month, you get all that plus an invitation to an online Q&A chat with me once a quarter. Learn more at https://www.patreon.com/bettersexpodcastBetter Sex with Jessa Zimmermanhttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/better-sex/
My guest is Jim Fleckenstein. He is a coach and educator on sexuality. He is also a researcher who focuses predominantly on non-exclusive relationships and how they affect the individuals involved. He is an expert in consensual non-monogamy and a wellspring of knowledge and insight, which he graciously shares in this episode.Jim shares stats and information on consensual non-monogamy, how those who practice it are reporting an overwhelming amount of satisfaction and happiness, how emotional needs have a lot to do with those who are drawn towards it, and how these relationship structures are actually much more common than you may have realized.This is just the tip of the iceberg of this discussion though. Listen along and learn a lot about this interesting topic!The Three Main Divisions of Consensual Non-MonogamyTo start the interview, Jim breaks down consensual non-monogamy into polyamory, swinging, and open relationships.Polyamory is separate from the others because there is a chance for a deep emotional connection to be reinforced. While the others are more reserved for sexual acts, polyamory is can delve into the emotional as well as the sexual components of a relationship.Jim says that swinging is probably the oldest of the trio. And for those who don’t know, it’s a couple-centric act where couples work hard to establish an emotional wall to prevent emotional developments. They also don’t have sex independently of one another.And in open relationships, partners are free to seek sexual liaisons outside of the primary relationship. Emotional connection is not established, and unlike swingers, they don’t participate in sexual acts together but do their own thing instead.Jim says much more within the episode. Listen along!The Reasons Why Certain People Prefer Consensual Non-MonogamyFor the reasons why people go the non-monogamous route, Jim says it has a lot to do with the emotional needs of the person. He says the question of “what is it that I am trying to attain here?” is a great question to ask to evaluate your emotional needs.Your needs will determine which version of consensual non-monogamy that you gravitate towards and want to eventually practice–if you do end up deciding that your emotional needs warrant the lifestyle, of course.Jim also talks about the boundaries that are established and how respecting those boundaries is important for the healthy functioning of any consensual non-monogamous relationship. Tune in!How Many People are Practicing?Jim says that it’s difficult to have an accurate number or statistic for those who practice non-monogamous relationships. This is due to the fact that individuals can lose their jobs and their kids because of it, and in addition, it is still highly stigmatized in our country. This leads to a lot of people practicing in clandestine ways.So, because of these factors, it’s hard to trust the surveys and numbers out there. But according to the stats, Jim says that somewhere between 2-7% of all relationships are practiced through one of the three divisions of consensual non-monogamy.The Importance of EducationJim shares a lot of important information on how people learn about polyamory or swinging by attending educational events where people discuss consensual non-monogamy in a non-sexual environment.Often the trepidations that occur can be alleviated through more understanding. And as is brought up during the episode, some of the concerns of being pressured by a partner into swinging or an open relationship can be addressed once more information is processed. He also makes it clear this needs to be a mutual decision.Who knows, maybe all it takes is a couple of events and you will comfortable enough with shifting your relationship dynamic! Maybe it will confirm your anxiety. Becoming educated is key! It destigmatizes and demystifies.Go-To Resources for JimHe says that his favorite go-to book is Opening Up by Tristan Taormino, for those who are curious about learning about or trying this relationship dynamic. It is a very comprehensive resource. The Ethical Slut is a good book as well, in addition to Designer Relationships.And for those who may have experienced infidelity, Tammy Nelson has a good book called The New Monogamy for handling the subject.Key (Affiliate) Links for Jim: Books he recommends:Opening Up : https://amzn.to/2WWhgZODesigner Relationships : https://amzn.to/2Jk3k7pThe Ethical Slut :https://amzn.to/2th3tzfThe New Monogamy : https://amzn.to/2Dy0YxlJim’s website: https://www.affirmativeintimacy.com/More info:Book and New Course – https://sexwithoutstress.comWeb – https://www.bettersexpodcast.com/Sex Health Quiz – http://sexhealthquiz.com/If you’re enjoying the podcast and want to be a part of making sure it continues in the future, consider being a patron. With a small monthly pledge, you can support the costs of putting this show together. For as little as $2 per month, you can get advance access to each episode. For just a bit more, you will receive an advance copy of a chapter of my new book. And for $10 per month, you get all that plus an invitation to an online Q&A chat with me once a quarter. Learn more at https://www.patreon.com/bettersexpodcastBetter Sex with Jessa Zimmermanhttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/better-sex/
Remember that spark you had with your partner when you first met? Butterflies in your stomach. Constantly checking for a text message or call from them. Daydreaming about your next date. Well, how do you get that back after you’ve settled into a routine of work, home, dinner, dishes, mouthguard, sleep? How about after a year? Five years? Or even a decade? Today you’ll learn how to use mindfulness techniques rediscover what’s amazing about your partner. Today’s guest is Dr. Cheryl Fraser. Cheryl combines her knowledge of how the mind works from a psychological and Buddhist perspective with her mission to help people create sexy, passionate, playful relationships. She’s also the author of Buddha’s Bedroom: The Mindful Loving Path to Sexual Passion and Lifelong Intimacy. As always, I’m looking forward to your thoughts on this episode and what revelations and questions it creates for you. Please join us in the Relationship Alive Community on Facebook to chat about it! Resources: Check out Buddha’s Bedroom on Amazon Visit Cheryl Fraser’s website Click here to get tickets to Relationship Alive...LIVE on June 6, 2019 featuring Terry Real and musical guest Katie Matzell Visit www.neilsattin.com/bb to download the transcript, or text “PASSION” to 33444 and follow the instructions to download the transcript to this episode with Tammy Nelson. I want to know you better! Take the quick, anonymous, Relationship Alive survey FREE Guide to Neil’s Top 3 Relationship Communication Secrets Guide to Understanding Your Needs (and Your Partner’s Needs) in Relationship (ALSO FREE) Support the podcast (or text “SUPPORT” to 33444) Amazing intro and outro music provided courtesy of The Railsplitters Transcript: Neil Sattin: Hello and welcome to another episode of Relationship Alive. This is your host, Neil Sattin. We’ve covered lots of aspects of how to develop true intimacy with your partner: how to communicate well, how to understand each other, how to get past your triggers. Today, I want to focus on how to bring that mindful connection that you’re developing with your partner into the bedroom. So that you can have passionate, thrilling, sexual connection with your partner. Because often that’s, if not part of why we’re in relationship, it’s a big part of why we’re in a relationship. In fact, recently I put the question out to the relationship alive community on facebook: “How important is sex to you?” and there were very few people who said “yeah, it’s not a big deal to me.” Almost everyone, without a doubt, talked about how important a sexual, intimate connection was. So there’s the intimacy, that’s your closeness, your connectedness, and then there’s your ability to bring that intimacy into the way you connect in the bedroom with your partner. And today we have an expert in that very topic to chat with us. Her name is Doctor Cheryl Fraser, and she is the author of Buddha’s Bedroom: The Mindful Loving Path to Sexual Passion and Lifelong Intimacy. And, Cheryl actually reached out to me and sent me a copy of her book, and I was just really moved by how simple it is, and yet how powerful the results can be for you. So, I’m really excited to have her here on the show. As usual, we will have a detailed transcript and show guide with relevant links. To download that, all you have to do is visit NeilSattin.com/bb -- and that stands for Buddha’s Bedroom. So I’m making it really easy for you. Or, you can as always text the word “Passion” to the number 33444 and follow the instructions. So let’s dive right in to the bedroom with Buddha and Doctor Cheryl Fraser. Thanks so much for joining us today. Cheryl Fraser: It’s so much my pleasure. So happy to be talking with you. Neil Sattin: Well, before we can get into bed, let’s talk about the way that you start your book which I love, which is bringing mindfulness to your relationship, and the sense that our partners aren’t there to make us happy. And how that desire for our partner to be that for us is at the root of so much unhappiness. So, before we can get really bed into partners, we often have this obstacle of feeling the resentments that we’ve stored about them. Or that abrasiveness that is actually an obstacle to the closeness, to the openness, to being there in a sexual way. So, how did you arrive there, and what, what is our good entry point here. Maybe it’s just with the Buddha, and how the Buddha’s teaching really do apply to the misery, the potential misery, of relationship as well as the bliss and joy. Cheryl Fraser: Yes. Well, I think the short handle there is that great love and great sex are all in our head. And that ultimately is absolutely true. When I’m in love with you, it’s in my head. When I’m disgruntled with you, it’s in my head. When I’m horny, it’s in my head, even if it’s in my body. That’s why we can have an orgasm in our sleep, with absolutely no physical contact. Because actual eroticism and sexual response is also in our heads. So, you know, the title of the book, is a little bit controversial in some circles. I’m a card-carrying buddhist, whatever that is, I’ve been studying for 25 years, and I teach buddhism in long retreats, and I’m studied in Tibet and India etcetera. And “Buddha’s Bedroom” is a bit of a misnomer, in that Buddha was a celibate monk after the age of, about, early twenties. After he left his pleasure palace, and his concubines, and his wife, and his infant child, to go discover the root of suffering. So. Why would we put Buddha in the Bedroom? Because ultimately the teachings of buddhism, and whether you’re a secular person, Christian, Hindu, Muslim, whatever your religious or philosophical bent is, the beautiful thing about the teachings of buddhist philosophy, is they’re simply about training your mind and looking at your experience, whatever your belief and religious system are, how do we bring that to love and sex, which is the root of your question. So in essence, whether I’m happy or not happy is in my mind. And that applies directly to our relationships. So I’ll give a very simple example. Neil Sattin: Great. Cheryl Fraser: Let’s say after this interview, you and I have to drive somewhere, we’ve got a meeting. And we each go out to our car after we hang up from each other, and we’ve each got a flat tire. So what happens next is entirely up to our head. Do we have a tantrum? “This is a terrible day, I’m going to be late for my interview, oh no, this is a disaster, why does this always happen to me!” None of that has anything to do with the tire. It’s completely due to my mind’s reaction to reality. Reality is I have a flat tire. So let’s say, I’m going to make me the bad guy and you’re going to be the enlightened one here Neil. Let’s say I’m the one that’s having a tantrum, and I’m freaking out “Wahh!!!” meanwhile Neil goes out to his car, and is a highly civilized human being, and sees his flat tire, and says “Oh, ok, that happened. I’ll have to adjust my plan now.” The difference between you and I is in our minds, and our mind’s reaction to reality in that moment. I freak out, and my mind goes into suffering and dismay, and creates my problem. Not the flat tire. You have the same real issue, the car won’t work in the way you need it to in here and now. And you simply go “Ok, that happened. Reality changed. And I, Neil, am going to go with the flow, and make a new plan. Call a friend, grab a bus, reschedule your appointment.” This is so simple. We all know that from our daily experience, when we react to something, that’s when we suffer. That’s Buddhism 101. How does that apply to love? Well, let’s say my sweet heart comes home today, and he promised he was going to get cat food. Now, my sweetheart has adult ADD, he’s a little bit forgetful. So let’s say he promised to get Cat Food. I texted him, “Hey hon, remember the cat food.” Because that’s part of our relationship agreement around his forgetting things. And he walks in, and we all know where this is heading, blissfully happy to see me, gives me a hug and a kiss, the cat’s meowing, where’s the cat food, his face falls. In that moment, reality is I have a person who’s forgotten to buy cat food. That’s all that’s happened. But what happens next can often be, and I’m not proud to admit that I’ve often gone there: “Oh, for goodness sakes. I can’t rely on you, I texted you, couldn’t you just check the phone before you leave the store. You know, what’s the deal.” I am suffering but it’s in my mind. It’s certainly not the cat food. It’s certainly not the cat’s fault. And arguably, and this is where it gets challenging, arguably my misery isn’t because my partner did or didn’t do something. My misery is because I don’t like reality. I don’t like the reality that they did or didn’t do something. So to your point in your introduction, about whether we are ever in the right relationship, or can we be happy in our relationship. I’m fond of saying we all marry or fall in love with the wrong person if we expect them to make us happy all the time. And the first quarter of the book is really about this teaching of examine your mindset, and don’t change your mate, change your mind. So most of the small or medium distresses in our relationship, sexually, romantically, communication wise, how we handle the chores, how we handle the commitments at christmas time -- whatever that is. The small and the medium distress, pain, annoyance, anger -- most of that we can get on top of that if we work with our mind. We can say “Oh, I’m so frustrated with Neil right now!” I can look at my mind, I can look at the emotion, I can feel the emotion in my body, I can look at the story: “Neil’s so unpredictable, he makes promises and he breaks them, nah nah nah.” I can harness that in, and ideally calm my body, calm my mind. Do a stretch, do a little meditation, go for a walk with the dog, and come back and say “Hey babe. I need to talk to you about something that’s really bothering me.” So when we take all of that, it sounds complex, it’s actually reasonably simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to do. But it’s reasonably simple to say “My mind is the root of my experience.” How I engage with you, my beloved, is, in reality we’re having engagements, but how my mind interprets them is where I’m either happy or not.” “Oh, I’ve got a hubby who forgets cat food, he’s such a sweetheart.” versus “I can’t rely on you. I’ve got to do everything myself.” Wow those lead down radically different roads. Neil Sattin: Right. Right. And so there are several different paths that I want to go down here. One of them, I just wanted to share, I had this interesting insight when I was reading Buddha’s Bedroom, which was thinking about the question that I’ve often get asked which is, “When I’ve done all this growth, what if I find out that my partner isn’t the person that I’m supposed to be with anymore?” And I think that a lot of what you just said is the answer to that question. Not 100% of the time, but probably 85 to 90% of the time, as long as that growth includes how you process your own stories about your partner and your relationship. And you may find yourself able to connect in totally new ways that aren’t based around the dysfunction that maybe brought you together to begin with. Which is so often the case. So I just wanted to share that because for me, it was actually really inspiring, as a way of saying, yeah you know what, when you reach a new level of growth, you also reach a new level of ability to take a new approach in something that’s problematic in your relationship. That’s part of the growing. And some of that is the relational skill -- it’s how you talk to Neil about the cat food he keeps forgetting. And another part of that is how the inner part of your conversation that’s happening. Recognizing that “Oh, it’s my mind that’s torturing me right now,” and whatever you do to get past that. And a question that I have for you is around, is around those moments, like, how would you describe someone being, having their story, and getting past their story, but still recognizing, maybe it’s not the cat food, but maybe it is a repeated sense of like, “Oh, in reality I’m noticing that my partner actually doesn’t pay much attention to me.” It’s not like you’re giving the negligent partner a blank check to walk all over the newly practicing buddhist, right? Cheryl Fraser: No, because that would just create more suffering. And buddhism is all about trying to reduce our suffering not increase it. So let me get a little more clear here, so if we’re becoming a little more aware, and we’re examining our inner experience and our relational experience, and we come to a dawning realization that maybe our partner’s not that great at paying romantic or connected attention to us. That’s partly what you’re putting out. What do we then do with that? And these are such vast, vast questions. And as relationship therapists and coaches, both of us, we know that there’s not pithy answer, but what I’m putting forward as a really important tool in the tool box that’s different than a lot of other relationship advice, is don’t immediately go to “I need to fix this situation.” i.e. teach you, bed you, plead, cajole, bully you into paying more attention to me, in order to be happy. That’s generally where we go. I have to fix the tire in order to be happy. And from buddhist philosophy, it’s a bit of a radical idea for most of us in the west who are not trained this way. Well, you don’t need to fix the tire to be happy. Ipso facto, I don’t need to get my partner to be attentive to me in a specific way that I would enjoy, in order to be happy. Whatttt. That means I’ve got all this space in which to be happy, with my inattentive, distracted partner. Who I know loves me deeply, and shows me in other ways. It also gives space for the two of us to say “Hey, but with the inattentive, distracted, not romantic part, that is something I would like to work on.” But now I’m working on it from a place of curiosity and wonder and friendship and play and good humored acceptance that that is not your strong suit, instead of pain, demand and almost a cyclical failure experience, where I’m hoping you’ll remember to -- Neil Sattin: Yeah. Cheryl Fraser: Ok, here’s one. Oh, I did not get his permission to share this, I’ll get it retrospectively. I had an experience with my dearly beloved this weekend. It was my birthday, and um, I told him that all I want is something with wrapping paper on it. I said I don’t care if it costs a dollar. It’s not about that. It’s because I love wrapping paper, not because I love wrapping paper, but because of what it indicates to me. Which is a thoughtfulness, a bit of precision, a bit of, you know, making something special. It goes back to old patterns, about wanting to make a fuss about my birthday as a kid, and all that good stuff that we have some awareness of. So, my dearly beloved goes and gets me a really sweet little gift. As dog lovers, you and I both Neil, he got me this sweet book on you know dogs and whatever -- lovely book. And, he put it in a bag. Oh, uh, no! I’m telling you we’re set up for a fight now. He put it in a bag, and he left it on the hotel bed, and he left a card, and in the card, he said all sorts of loving things that were beautiful. And he said, “And redneck wrapping.” Now, redneck wrapping, meaning “I threw it in a bag! I didn’t get [TK AGAINST TAPE].” And I was not a very good buddhist, or a very good sex therapist, or a very good relationship therapist, or a very good wife, or a very good person in that moment. I kind of freaked out. “All I asked for was for it to be wrapped! I just wanted it to be wrapped!” And I actually had some tears, I was very tired, it had been a very long week. Now, if I had practiced what I preached, which I try to, as much as possible, I would have said “How cool! That’s his way of wrapping. This is my sweetheart. It’s kind of funny. It’s kind of cute. It’s kind of quirky. We’re different people.” So, just to bring this back together and to summarize it for our listeners. When I accept responsibility for my mind’s reaction to reality, it frees me up to accept reality the way it is, and be not upset. It also frees me up to say, “Ok, I’m not really upset, but we can talk a little bit about the wrapping paper in the future? What I would really love, if is on special occasions, if you got paper, because it’s symbolic to me. It just lights me up. You’ll get great return on your investment because I’ll be so thrilled.” But instead of doing it from a place of pain and hurt, and the place we usually dialogue about problems. So, I don’t want listeners to think that “Oh, my goodness, I have to accept every shortcoming in my relationship, from now on, because it’s my fault that my head isn’t happy with it.” No, no. That isn’t what we’re saying. But we’re giving people a super powerful tool, to add to the way we usually do relationship. Work on our head as well as the interaction between you and I. And find a way to be happy, and joyful, and horny, and in love, and curious -- regardless of what’s going on for our sweetheart. And then maybe, take their hand and ask them to jump into that playground with us, when we’re at our best. Cajole them out of their stuck place instead of trying to berate them, or guilt them, or harunge them out of that place. I think you and I have both experienced professionally and personally -- it doesn’t work all that well. Neil Sattin: Yeah, as soon as we are coming at people with, what in the dog training world we call negative reinforcement, as soon as that is happening, they’re going into their shame, and feeling unworthy, and that’s not a place where any good problem solving is happening. And certainly, where the connection, also, isn’t happening. I love that example that you gave, because your husband clearly he was thinking that -- he was probably thinking that he was getting at what you were asking for. He acknowledged it even. But he didn’t really get what you were asking for in the end, because, what you wanted was fairly simple. But he missed that point. Cheryl Fraser: And I love him anyway. And we redeemed the weekend. And often it wouldn’t have gone that way, but you know, the trifecta was there: the exhaustion, the working too much, and hadn’t had much time together, and all that stuff. I’m a human being in relationships, so are you. My private practice therapy office is upstairs from my home. You and I are speaking from my home right now. And I often say to my beautiful patients I get to work with, the couples I work with, I say, you know, “There’s upstairs Cheryl, and she’s awesome. And then there’s downstairs Cheryl, and I’m a lot less skilled down here.” [Everyone laughs] But, all of us should be that self revelatory and not set ourselves up. Because even though, I’m literally considered a sex and love expert, that doesn’t mean it’s easy in the trenches of real life with real human beings. That helps keep us humble, and it keeps us always searching and looking for ways to bring this beautiful work to people to do something that is sacred and profound. Which is to choose to walk through life with a person. And we learn if we’re older than 16 or so, that it’s not as easy as we thought it would be, and that soul mates don’t exist, and that Walt Disney sold us a bill of goods, and we should all sue him. [LAUGHTER] There is no happily ever after, at least by itself. Neil Sattin: So I think they have some money, so I think we should put a class action suit together, and go after Disney. Yeah, yeah, and I think that this is so true, that what we’re after is not this idea of a perfect relationship where nothing goes wrong. In fact, my latest catch phrase has been “the perfectly imperfect relationship.” That, that’s part of it. That it’s not that nothing ever happens it’s how you show up, it’s how you handle those things that inevitably go wrong that show you how strong you are, and actually I think are just as valuable as the blissful bedroom moments, are the moments where you survive something with your partner that was tough. That maybe in the past would have really derailed you. And you realize, “Wow, we did that in five minutes, which would have before taken us five days, or five months.” And that’s a real beautiful level of resilience, that you only get to if you’re doing the inner and the outer work that you’re talking about. Cheryl Fraser: Yeah, there are no easy relationships, other than maybe in the first few months. And it’s the work, and the joy, and the … I think the old fashioned wedding vows are so profound: better or worse, richer or poorer, sickness and health. And I’d love us to remember that, that’s love. Not “you’re so perfect, and you’ll keep me happy forever, yay!” I mean, that’s naive, and, it’s not bad, goodness knows I’m not anti-romance, I love romance. But I love reality too. But the first part of the book, and we’ll probably move on to passion and stuff now, but the first part is sketching out the fundamental philosophy of using your mind in the way we’ve been talking about, as one way to approach your relationship, to increase your happiness and your connection, and avoid the pitfalls of having your day ruined because there’s a flat tire. Cuz nobody’s days ruined by having a flat tire. Your day is ruined by your mind, not the tire. Neil Sattin: And I want to highlight too that you offered this really profound view of self responsibility. That it’s not only about your happiness, it’s also about your horniness, or about your attention to a quiet moment. It’s what you’re bringing in every single moment, to that moment, is something that you have a say in, that you can bring awareness to. And what I love about these kinds of conversations, that now that you have heard us say this, you will not be able to experience the moment the same way ever again. You’ll experience it, and you’ll recognize, “Oh, wow I’m really unhappy right now.” And it will give you the opportunity, to ask yourself “What is my story that I’m telling myself right now.” Cheryl Fraser: Yes, yes. The phrase I use right now, that I bet you resonated with, is that we are story making machines. Right? I know you do that a lot of that in your work, and your teaching on this podcast and your other venues. It’s so important. What’s the story right now? And is it working for me! If the story is “You’re the worst husband ever, and all I wanted was wrapping paper, and nobody loves me!” That’s a dumbass story. I mean, what good is that doing me, what good is that doing me to the evening? Sure, we’re flooded with biochemistry, we all know when we’re in this story that it’s not always easy to snap our fingers and turn the page. Fair enough. But at least when we can realize that we’re stuck on a yucky page of the book, and this story is destructive, we can at least begin the process of stepping away, calming our self, finding our grounding, maybe hugging and holding our partner, letting our parasympathetic nervous system take over the sympathetic fight or flight, calm our self. And then we can probably turn the page, to a blank page and start again. Not easy, but profoundly beautiful to take that as a challenge personally, and with our partner if they’re willing to engage with some of that study with us. We can do with or without them being fully on board, like much relationship work, but to say: “I’m interested in re-writing my love story one mindful breath at a time,” is how I sometimes put it. Neil Sattin: I love that, I love that. And as we bring our attention to the moment, this is like a perfect segue I think, because I think for one thing I think a beautiful remedy for those really triggered moments is how you presence yourself. You know, our limbic system is lost in this sense that the tiger is chasing us. So being able to bring yourself into presence with your partner and talk about what is literally happening, I think is part of the mindfulness that you’re advocating for. Is that you seperate your story from what is actually happening, what the reality is that you maybe don’t like, but this is reality. And that can bring you into “I’m here, in this room, with my partner, they’re standing in front of me, we’re both breathing, the cat is meowing,” whatever is happening, that that brings you back into the moment, and once you’re there, all those systems start to come back online. And now let’s talk about how being in the moment is so important to revitalizing the sexual passion that so many people lose, and I’m putting “lose” in quotes. Because I love how you talk about how that’s never really gone, that it’s there within us. So yeah, how does our mindfulness and being moment focused get us back into passionate connection with our partner. Cheryl Fraser: Oh! My favorite topic. So the first chunk of the book is laying out what we’ve been talking about, the mindset and some of the fundamental teachings about how to use your mind to, to interpret reality and be happy regardless of reality, flat tire or no. Then I move into, I chunk it into what I call the “Passion Triangle,” I’ll briefly lay it out, and then I think you and I are going to focus on one or two key piece of that. When I talk about how to help people create, or become, or uncover, or revitalize, or reignite passion, I break into down into three keys to passion as a way for people to remember it. And I use the structure of the triangle, because I was told once by an engineer friend that a triangle is an incredibly stable structure. And if you want to build a big building you want to build it on the variation, and the idea of the triangle. All sides leaning on each other, strongly unshakeable. Isn’t that what we want to build in our love life? All three sides of our relationship leaning on each other strong and unshakeable. What are the three? I’ll name them. I’ll briefly describe them. I talk about intimacy being the base of your triangle. Thrill being one side of the triangle. And sensuality being the other side. And intimacy is what a lot of your work and my work covers, Neil. Which is I don’t use intimacy here as an euphemism for sex. I use it as a psychological, emotional communication, even spiritual connection. That sense of knowing each other and being known. What John Gottman and team call love maps, and which many other people talk about being seen by you, being heard by you, ups and downs, the little stuff, the big stuff. True intimacy grows over time, months and years, through what you were just about, the ups and downs, the things we go through, and maybe we can stand in the middle and survive. Intimacy, key to lifelong passion. Because the kind of passion I’m talking about, isn’t just a wild weekend. I’m talking about sustainable fluctuating alive passion. Sexually, emotionally, romantically and spiritually. So intimacy is really important, we probably won’t talk a lot about it for the rest of this conversation, but a chunk of the book is talking about how to bring mindfulness to your intimacy, and communication practices, mindful apology, things like that. Thrill and sensuality, are what I think people really respond to as ways to think about their relationship that are cast in a slightly different manner than maybe they’ve heard before. Thrill, I’m talking about the ineffable sense of butterflies in the tummy, and a rush of lust, or excitement through our mind or body, that most of us experience very easily in the beginning of our relationship, when we’re dating, we’re beginning to fall in love. You know in my days, I’m going to date myself a bit here, but it was all about the answering machine light and whether or not it was blinking or not when you walked in the door, you didn’t have the cell phone, so you were at work all day, and you came in at 5:30 or whatever, and immediately look to the corner of the room, where the answering machine sat, and if it was blinking, that meant there was a message! And hopefully it was him or her, and I would go and listen to the message, and it was my grandmother… And I love me my grandmother, but you’re so disappointed. We all know what it was like to be excited and anticipatory, and feeling a rush of thrill. To be at your office desk and to literally a rush of lust in your body when you remember that goodnight kiss from last night. Now what happens three, six or eighteen months down the road? You and I are familiar, and most of your listeners may be, with the findings that there’s a period of what’s called luminessence or numinosity, or whatever we want to call it in the fallin in love stage that is biochemically driven. We’ve got dopamine, we’ve got serotonin, and oxytocin, we’ve got love hormones, we’ve got sexual drive. We’re cave people in cave bodies, and we’re programmed to mate and get it over with! So the pursuit and the chase is very thrilling. Then we move into a phase of what I call “Marriage Incorporated.” Whether or not you’re married, gay, straight, or alternate couples, I’m talking about when we make a dedicated commitment to each other in whatever form. I just call it Marriage Incorporated. And that’s where the thrill is gone. We think, I’ll get back to that, but we think. As the old song says, the thrill is gone. And, we’re doing ok. I love you, you love me, we’ve got the kids, the dogs, the horses, the cats, no cat food, but whatever. We’re good, we’re fine, Neil, we’re fine. I like you, you like me, we’re not looking for an affair, directly, we’re not wanting to divorce, and we have a good time on vacation. And we are running the business of us: the mortgage, the pets, the kids, the activities, your career, my career, you’ve got that podcast, but I’ve got this other thing. We all know this, we are often living that right now. Marriage Incorporated is where the thrill seems to have gone, and we’re in contentment. Now, that’s a natural phase. My work’s about bringing the thrill back, re-infusing Marriage Incorporated, and turning it into Passion Incorporated. I’m going to get to sensuality probably a little later in this conversation, so let’s stay with Thrill right now. A reminder the three are Intimacy, Thrill and Sensuality. Because you asked me a key question, which is how does the mind, or mindfulness or paying attention, relate to thrill? In every single way. Because when you and I are new it’s novel, and novelty automatically takes care of thrill. I am curious as heck about you, I can’t wait to hear about your day, who your best friend was in school, and what happened to that friendship, where and how you lost your virginity, and how embarrassing was it. I want to know everything, I want to know where you bought that shirt, I want to know what your relationship with your parents are like. It’s easy, we’re organically curious when we’re falling in love. The thrill is based on novelty. You are uncharted territory, and I can’t wait to map every single bit of you. Every inch of your body, and every neuron of your mind. I want to know you. Neil Sattin: Right, and there’s often some fear, involved there as well that’s often fueling the dopamine and chemicals that are coursing through our bodies. Cheryl Fraser: Great observation, I am investing, and I’m fearful or anxious or excited that, you know, I’m falling in love with Neil, and I don’t know if he’s going to feel the same way, and am I over playing my hand, all of that is very exciting -- sometimes painfully so. And we then move into contentment, and life and busyness. We get complacent often. And the few of you listening that didn’t, Bravo and Hallelujah. But the majority of us get complacent, and I start to take you for granted. And what was new seems familiar. And it blows my mind when as couples we say, “I don’t really think there’s anything new to learn about my sweetheart.” Are you crazy? Have you met them?? We are vast, we contain multitudes. I think that’s Whitman. Neil Sattin: Yeah it is. Cheryl Fraser: Thank you, thank you! You will never know your partner anywhere as deeply as you think you do. As this is where I mentioned affairs. And I just want to ground this in reality for all of us. If you and I are in long term relationship, and our partner loves us and thinks were cool. But they’re not all that interested in our day, or our hopes and dreams right now, we’re not creating time to explore that together, we’re not cultivating thrill, we’ve lost novelty in terms of newness, and we’re not creating novelty with our mind and our activities. And then you and I meet someone at work, or at play or at a conference who’s interested in what we’re interested in. We have a fascinating conversation that is so often the grain of an affair possibility, someone finding us fascinating. So the work I bring with bringing mindfulness and the buddhist philosophy to our love and sex life, is create novelty all over again by what you so cleverly summarized a little bit ago in this conversation. If I show up with you here and now in this conversation, you are freaking fascinating. Even if I’ve slept next to you for the last 26 years. Even if I believe I know everything about you. You are filled with surprises, if only I have the eyes to see. And I think that a very simple way to make this relatable to people, is: Let’s say you and I love chocolate. And I am able to gift you with a tiny sliver of the most gorgeous Belgian truffle, in exactly the flavor and style that you would most love. Even as I say this, my mouth starts to water a little bit, and probably yours, and probably our listeners. And I give this to you, and I say to you “Neil, I want you to take your time, and I want you bring this to your nostrils and have a little scent.” And you’re like “Oh my goodness, it smells delicious.” But then I ask you to place it on your tongue and just leave it there. Just for a few seconds.” And it starts to melt a tiny bit, and I ask you to roll it around, and it’s silky and it’s smooth, you’ve got texture, you’ve got the orgasmic flavor explosion. And then you just enjoy it, you take time, and you swallow, and it’s gorgeous. Right? Neil Sattin: You’re killing me! Cheryl Fraser: Oh! Right after this I’m going truffle shopping. And I bet what you do not say to me is “Yeah, whatever. I’ve had a lot of chocolate before.” And the reason is, you’re just showing up here and now with that sliver of truffle. And you’re experiencing it, as though for the first time, and if you’ve had thousands of chocolate -- if you have a two chocolate a day habit, this moment is gorgeous if you focus on it. The power, and the eroticism, of attention. Now, if you were to, and let’s do this together right now. I want you to take your hand, and everybody listening, and just gently stroke the top of your other hand with the fingers. Using my right hand fingers, I’m stroking the top of my left hand. I’m closing my eyes, and I’m focusing on it for a few seconds. And it feels very powerful. Simply because of the special sauce of attention. Imagine kissing like that. Imagine someone licking our thigh like that. That’s the way it felt for the majority of us in the beginning, when we were exploring each other. We were locked and loaded on that sensation, and it was so alive, and it was so erotic, and it was romantic. Not just because it was new, but because we were paying attention. Novelty makes it easy to pay attention, familiarity does not make it easy to pay attention. The first time you drive a tricky mountain road. If you’ve driven it four-thousand times, because your house is at the top, you stop paying attention. So, what’s the point of all that? If you want thrill in the here and now after 27 or 48 years or 30 days, or however long it’s been. It’s your mind paying attention to this truffle, this kiss, this conversation with you, this description of your business meeting today, that makes it alive and passionate. Interest makes us fall in love over and over again. Interest and mindfulness, make thrill perpetual. Instead of simply part of the first few months of our relationship. That part comes automatically. Enjoy the heck out of it! I love falling in love. I love the rush of all that biochemistry and projection and craziness. And when I counsel people on what to do about it, I’m like “Enjoy the freaking ride.” It’s a roller coaster, but just know that you’re on a roller coaster. It’s amazing, it’s intense, you’re in an altered state of consciousness, the biochemistry of falling in love literally mimics the biochemistry of obsessive compulsive disorder in functional MRI machines. We actually are mentally ill when we’re falling in love. Enjoy the heck out if it. And then when it starts to settle, change, shift, and some of the deep work starts to happen, and it’s no longer so perfect, that’s where we can say “Ok, I am interested in boarding the roller coaster volutionally over and over again through our decades together.” That’s my mindfulness, that’s choice, that’s effort. That’s how we can begin to keep thrill alive forever. Neil Sattin: Great, yeah, that’s exactly how you take charge of your story. If you’re able in the moment to remind yourself, just like I had the ability to choose happiness in this moment, even, no matter what the circumstances are, now I also have the ability to choose attention. Cheryl Fraser: Yes. Neil Sattin: To put my attention into this level of fascination. And where my mind went strangely, not necessarily that the words are connected at all, but I was thinking about fastening, like you’re fastening your attention to someone. So you’re fascinated with them. And the way that brings you into joy, also I think, takes you out of that realm of wanting someone to fulfill your expectations. So, and this I think goes into the sensuality piece, right? Because when you’re in the moment, and you’re fascinated, and you’re just enjoying that last sense of the chocolate on your tongue, you don’t want that moment to end. You’re not really thinking of the next piece, right? Because you’re able to bring your attention in that fully. And where so many people get lost, I think, in especially when there’s a disconnected state, where we’ve been in relationship for a long time, and it feels like the chasm between us is vast -- I don’t even know how to get to being sexual with you because I’m so wrapped up with business, and the kids, and the dog and the cat food. So, but the way, it’s such a quick bridge is to be able to give your attention like that to your partner, and to find that fascination. And then, it’s almost like, that question of how we get to the bedroom, in some respects, becomes a lot less important, because you’re enjoying that moment, potentially almost as much, as you would enjoy the bedroom. And it gets you into that enjoyment, which gets you maybe into more of a sensual experience with your partner. Cheryl Fraser: Yes. I want to comment on a few of those great points before we move into sensuality, I love the idea of fastening and fascination, because there’s actually a fairly esoteric buddhist word to describe deep concentrated attention, which is called Watakka [TK AGAINST TRANSCRIPT] which means to tack onto. Which is to fasten. Where your attention kind of gloms onto this breath, and it’s unshakably there. So you’re intuitively really on that point there, Neil, of fastening and fascination, because you’re the totality of my experience in this present moment. I am focused on you. The truffle. The business proposal. The kiss, etc. The other thing is sensuality is the word I chose on purpose, and again you intuitively picked up on this. I didn’t call the third side of the triangle “Sexuality” because sensuality is a much broader field in which to play. All five senses: touch, taste, sound, smell, and vision. And, in Buddhist and other teachings, the sixth sense, which is our mind, we can play in that whole realm. So the third side of passion, intimacy, kind of our relational connectedness, psychological work, the delight in communication. Thrill: we’ve talked about here, every moment, being a perfect truffle. No, that doesn’t happen for me either. But I can aspire to it more often. And thirdly sensuality, our sexual and erotic life across the entire spectrum. Everything from my eyes meeting yours across the room and having a spark of “There’s my sweetheart.” to holding hands while we walk the dogs in the forest, to kissing to cuddling when we watch TV, to our entire spectrum or our erotic sexual life -- whether that’s a verbal foreplay with a sexy text, whether that’s kissing, whether it is in our love making, the breadth and depth and possibility of our love making, I’ll talk a little bit about that. All of that, is really in your head. I’m turned on or not turned on in my head, I’m interested or not interested in my head. I’m present with this orgasm in my head, or I’m fantasizing about someone else in my head while I’m orgasming. Which means I’m not fully present with this physiological and emotional experience, it’s still fun, but I’m having sex with someone else somewhere else, while my body’s with you. Which is a pretty common phenomenon. I’m not even conscious at my own orgasm, and feeling fully the deliciousness of this truffle. Neil Sattin: Ok, so, bringing our attention back to the sensual piece, when Chloe and I, in our course, when we talk about this, we talk about the continuum. And developing this mindful awareness that you are always on this continuum of sensual experience with your partner. Even if you are thinking about them, you are on that continuum. And the reason I talk about it that way, is because I like the sense that you’re always connected in that way, it helps, I think, also bridge the gap between disconnection or how do we even overcome this gap between us, and where we stand right now. If you’ve always been nurturing that sense of “Well, we’re on this continuum no matter what. It’s just a matter of where we are. We’re not in the bedroom part of the continuum, we’re on the kitchen making dinner part of the continuum, where we can be aware of each other's breath. Or I can go and touch and you really pay attention to that touch. And now we’re in the same dimension of sensuality, even though we’re in a different place than necessarily, hot sweaty sex between the sheets. Cheryl Fraser: Yep! I am so happy that you teach it that way, and to help people come to that understanding. But you know, I’m going to have to say that unfortunately in my experience, not a lot of couples are doing what you’re promoting there. And that they don’t experience it, as a continuum. They experience it as a relational life, and psychological life, and our loving each other life. And it’s like errrrr bomp! And then there’s our sex life, and it’s not experienced as a continuum. So I think a lot of people would say “I love making dinner with my sweetie, and we’re laughing and joking and we’re listening to oldies and dancing around the kitchen, but I’m not connecting that to sex.” And that’s what you and I in our own unique ways are encouraging people to do. Which is, oh my goodness, the state of sexuality in long term relationship is really poor. There any very good surveys that give us a real glimpse into what’s happening in long term relationship bedrooms -- but clinically, and the best of the surveys and research that’s out there, I would guess that the vast majority of long term couples are having sex maybe a couple of times a month. And it is something they’re neglecting, it’s something they’re not even necessarily avoiding, though that can be the case. It’s more like passive, denial? Neil Sattin: There’s so many other things going on… Cheryl Fraser: So many other things. Fatigue and Netflix, the two biggest killers of sex ever. Maybe there’s another class action suit there. But, I’m Canadian and we’re not litigious, when we spill coffee we generally just clean it up. We don’t usually sue. But, I don’t know. We’re obviously teasing, neither you nor I want to sue anybody. But humor’s also good in love and sex. Here you go. But in the passion triangle, for sensuality, I just want to offer a few teachings that I think will be super helpful for people listening. And hopefully very reassuring. For people in long term relationship who are not having much sex, and not having very much spontaneous desire -- they’re not just like “Oh, I want to jump your bones, right now.” That’s sort of the old thrill phase for a lot of us, the early roller coaster phase. I want to let people know that there’s some very important research. Rosemary Bissant out of UBC, Vancouver, Canada, she works with a new model for female sexual desire, people can look her work up. But here’s the take home message that’s reassuring. Her research indicates that the majority of long term couples start making love from a place of sexual neutrality, now what does that mean? It means that the majority of long term couples start making love when neither of them is particularly in the mood. They’re not turned on, and horny in the body, I call that physical arousal, there’s different language for these, I’ll use mine. How I break it down to make it relatable to people. So they’re not physically turned on, and they don’t necessarily have mental desire: like “Oh, I really mentally feel like making love.” Often, they have sex because they’re like “Dang, honey, it’s been three weeks. We should probably have sex.” “Yeah, we probably should.” And that does not sound romantic, but I’ll tell you what it is, it is real. I had a patient, a gay patient, lesbian patient last week, say to me, she and her wife hadn’t made love in four months, and I was really encouraging her to attend to that and open up those possibilities. So she was really excited, cuz they’d made love, and she said “Oh Cheryl, it was so great. I was snuggled in…” I’ll call her wife Jane, “and Jane had her back to me, and Jane said to me, ‘Do you have your mouth guard in yet?’” That was the big move! THAT was the big move, man. “Do you have your mouth guard in yet?” And we laughed, my patient and I. Cuz we thought right on baby, that’s real life. And she said “No, I don’t.” And the rest is history. Why do I make that point? Because that’s real life! So rest assured, if we’re not feeling spontaneously lusty, or really in our mind, “Oh, I really want to make love.” That is normal. And Ok. And so, one of the things I suggest to people, it’s not a novel idea, your guest a few episodes ago, Tammy Nelson suggested the same thing, as many wise people, you probably do to: Make a once a week sex date. And make that be unshakable. Like, Monday night we make love whether we have a headache, or one of us is super tired, or one of the kids has the flu. We make love whether we’re into it or not. Now, the only reason we won’t, is if really through illness or a business meeting, we consult each other and say, “Hey babe, I’m not sure I can make out Monday night sex date. Are you ok if we move it to wednesday this week?” Because that way, you start making love touching, kissing, have a hot shower, have a bath, when you’re not in the mood. Don’t wait until you’re in the mood. In fact I like to counsel people, one of my catchphrases is “Never say you’re not in the mood ever again.” And what I’m saying by that, is that it’s ok if you’re not in the mood. No one should be in the mood if you’re making scrambled eggs and thinking about your tax return. Tax Day in the states today, right?Neil Sattin: It is. Cheryl Fraser: And someone comes up and wraps their arms around you from behind, and says “Hey baby what do you think?” It’s like “I’m not in the mood!” Worst thing to say ever even though it’s true. Instead I suggest people say “Not right now babe, ask me later.” It’s a very different energy, and it acknowledges what we’re talking about right now. That waiting until you’re in the mood to have sex, means you probably won’t have very much sex. Versus, I have a couple working with the weekly sex date, just for the last three weeks, and they were having sex maybe once a month, they like sex. They have successful sexuality together. They were just busy and tired. But they made a weekly sex date, and they’ve made love five times in the last two weeks. Because the sex date on Monday, kind of got everything warmed up, and then Saturday morning was like, “Hey let’s have a quickie.” That’s not true for all of us, but what I’m saying is that this is also the practice of mindful attention. If we’re not paying attention to our sexual life, on that continuum, as you so beautifully put it, if we don’t bridge the gap in our continuum, from you and I, and our humor, and our playfulness, and our parenting, and our going to symphony, and all the other ways that we are. If we don’t remember that we’re naked under these clothes, if we don’t remember that the unique part about you and I, if we’re choosing a variation of monogamy, is that sexual contact is unique to my relationship with you. And we’re neglecting it, and we’re expecting it to take care of itself, and we’re buying into the myth that the thrill can’t last forever. And it’s normal for sex drive to wane. It is typical for sex drive to wane, which make it normal on a Bell Curve, but that’s like saying it’s normal when you’re old to get unfit. That is typical on the Bell Curve, but if we choose fitness as we age, if we choose to be at the gym, or yoga class, then we don’t have to fit what’s normal. Don’t be lazy and old with your sex life. Bring mindfulness to sensuality side of your triangle. And it gets so much bigger than that, we probably don’t have time to go into that, but I wanted to at least mention to people, where it gets super juicey to use your mind in your love making, is the aspect of Tantric Sexuality. Transcendent mind states in my lovemaking with you, where the sense of you and I dissolve, and the orgasm turns from its typical physiological experience, which is actually pretty puny -- the average male orgasm lasts 7 seconds, and the average female orgasm lasts about 20 seconds. That’s a pretty puny amount of pleasure, as great as it is. Through meditation and through focusing your mind, and some practices I talk about in the book, and you can research elsewhere as well, around tantric sexuality, extended orgasm, full body orgasm, we can turn the orgasmic experience into something that lasts much longer than 7 or 22 seconds. Imagine the orgasmic pleasure filling your whole body for minutes, even longer than that. Imagine being to exchange that on an energetic level. That’s some of the really beautiful places that working with our mind, our partner, our heart, our connection could lead us to in the sexual realm. A type of transcendent sexuality. So maybe once a month, or once a quarter, you decide to have gourmet sexuality and sensuality with your partner. Instead of your typical meal. And I talk about that in the later part of the chapters in the book, because, why don’t I talk about the in the beginning of the book? Because, it you try to practice tantric sex without clearing up some of your unfinished business, learning to communicate better, enjoying cooking dinner together, remember your partner’s fascinating, and all the things we’re touching on today, Neil, you’re probably not going to have a 15 minute transcendent orgasm. Don’t be greedy, put in a little bit of ground work. You know, create and cultivate the conditions with Thrill, with Intimacy, and with Sensual contact, to move into some beautiful areas of sexuality, and intimate, spiritual, sexual connection that a lot of us don’t explore. And that, can certainly make a long term relationship fascinating a again. Fascinating again. And open up new worlds. From what I usually refer to as our nipple nipple crotch, good night routine. Where we just do the dang thing ever time, and I’m not opposed to that, but I’m saying sometimes, create a gourmet meal. Neil Sattin: Right, so I just want to mention that if you are interested to learn more about Cheryl Fraser’s work, obviously you can read her book, Buddha’s Bedroom: The Mindful Loving Path to Sexual Passion and Lifelong Intimacy. There are lots of little how-to and action items in the book, to help you along the journey. So I recommend that. You can also visit her website, which we will list in the show notes. It is DoctorCherylFraser.com. And, as a reminder, if you want to download the show notes, and the transcript of today’s episode, it’s NeilSattin.com/bb, as in Buddha’s Bedroom, or you can text the word “Passion,” which is appropriate for this episode, to the number 33444. In terms of Tantra, I think it would be great to have you back on at some point to chat about that more. Um, we have if you’re listening and you’re curious, we’ve had Diana Richardson on the show, Episode 2 is a great place to start, it was the very second episode of the podcast. And, Margot Anand has also been on the show, I can’t remember her episode number, but if you search for Margot Anand on my website, you’ll find her. Two amazing Tantric practitioners who can at least start the conversation with you with what we’re talking about today. Cheryl Fraser: Beautiful. Beautiful. Neil Sattin: Cheryl, I’m wondering if you, cuz you offer on your website, people can sign up and get free stuff every week, and you over little love bites that give people a piece of something to work on, or to take action on, or to think about their relationship in a different way, which I think is really helpful to have those bite sized actionable items. You talk a lot about Tantra. Cheryl Fraser: I do. It’s critical to have bite sized action items. Because we talked about complacency, familiarity, fatigue, and netflix and everything else gets in the way. So they’re called love bites because they’re meant to be small bites of digestible. Some of them are two seconds, five seconds, thirty seconds to read a little reminder for your love this week. So that’s how I try to help each of us -- myself included, my sweetheart and I read my bites and try to put them into practice. Neil Sattin: We’ve been there, yeah. Cheryl Fraser: Yeah, and if people want to learn a little more about Tantra. I would start with the episodes you suggested, and I have a ten minute free video on my website as well, people can watch. Just so people can get a sense of what is a tantric orgasm, and how is it different, and that is a lifelong exploration that I welcome everyone to engage in, and I would delighted to dedicate a whole episode to that in the future, it deserves a bit more of an arc, so we can teach people some techniques on your show here, and have them start with that. But don’t lose hope. There are worlds to discover, sexually, emotionally, romantically, and conversationally with this person you think you know everything about. Neil Sattin: So, there’s one little bite that I’m wondering if you could offer our listeners today. I’m wondering if you could offer something for, let’s say you have that sex date on your calendar. And I have ten different ideas here, but I’m hoping you can offer one thing that brings people into the sensual dimension with our partner, something simple that helps reignite how they experience their partner this way, how they can invite their partner into the experience of them in a sensual way, what can you offer our listeners today as sort their little take home bite that they might try. Cheryl Fraser: Beautiful try this at home. There are a lot of ideas, but the one I’m going to offer right now is pretty simple, but very profound and very few of us do it. Which is, on your erotic date this week, take at least an hour, and break it into two thirty minutes segments, and it can be longer if you wish, and do a giving and receiving of erotic touch. With the rule, that you’re not allowed to touch overtly sexual zones. So, no genitals, no bums, and no breasts. So how that would work, would be the following: flip a coin as to who goes first, whoever wins the coin toss is the receiver first. And the receiver lays down on their back, nude, their eyes closed, you can use candles, and sometimes soft music without lyrics is nice to help relax the receiver and give them something to kind of let their mind dream on. And the giver, you probably did this in your falling in love and wildly sexual, but you probably haven’t done it in a long time, it gives you thirty minutes to explore your partner's body with a finger, with a tongue, with your hair, with a feather, with whatever you like. To just explore that body. When’s the last time that you licked the back of your partner’s knees? Everybody listening is probably thinking “Ummm 17 years, I think we probably did it that time we went to the cabin for the dirty weekend.” Anyway. So giving and receiving erotic touch. The receiver use this as a mindfulness practice, there’s more description of that in the book in some of exercises I’ve given as you mentioned, to do this with your partner. But, as you’re lying there, and your mind’s racing, about this and that, and thinking, and being distracted as minds are unless you’re very well trained in meditation, try to re-focus. Every time you notice you’re off in your head, “Ok, Neil’s fingers are, fingernails are scratching along my knee cap right now.” And just try to focus on experiencing that as deeply as you can. Mind races off, come back “Oh, now he or she are nibbling on my neck.” So you’re learning as the receiver, to really start to pay, and this is preliminary, it takes, some practice, really starting to notice the actual sensory experience without story. That can lead to persons who have difficult with orgasm, erection, premature ejaculaiton, this can help with that down the road, by the way. Then, at the end of the time, when the timer goes off, and you thank you partner as the receiver, and you switch. And you become the giver, and you explore your partner. So you’re doing multiple things here. You’re training focusing on your partner when you’re the giver. You’re training on focusing on your own experience when you’re the receiver. You’re training on exploring the sensual body away from the usual, as I call it as you heard, nipple nipple crotch good night points, that we’re used to diving for. Nothing wrong with that, but we’re expanding it. And we’re looking at creativity, we’re looking at eroticism, and we’re looking at making it more interesting, because if we fell madly in love with a new person or into the taboo of an affair. That sort of exploration might come naturally, all we’re doing is creating it in the here and now with the one we’re with. So there’s an idea people could do. And I’ll make the implicit, explicit. For this exercise, you could either then stop, and that’s the end of your sensual date, or, you could take it into love making if you wish, there’s different reasons to do either. But it’s really about erotically exploring. And let me just finish by saying that a sex date doesn’t mean that you necessarily have intercourse, or that either person necessarily has an orgasm. It means it’s an erotic experience that involves nudity, touching, in that way. And that’s a real relief for exhausted bodies too. Our sexual date might be we play, we touch, and one of us chooses to have an orgasm. And the other one says “I’m completely satisfied right now just with playing and kissing and helping you as you touched yourself etc.” There’s no right or wrong. It’s the mindset of exploration, and the willingness, if it doesn’t go well, to just begin again with curiosity. Neil Sattin: Yeah, I love the permission that you bring to how you approach this kind of time together. An it’s interesting because when I said the word permission, I’m also thinking about the permission to say No. So, there’s, even though for instance you just mentioned in this exercise you might say, that the genital areas are off limits. If you have points on your body that are triggers for you, those can be off limits too. Like you can set rules so that you feel safe enough to have this erotic but not explicitly sexual interaction with your partner. Cheryl Fraser: Yes. Neil Sattin: Create safety for you. I love that too when you mentioned the never, never say I’m not in the mood. And what you offered was to say, “Not right now, how about later?” that really reminds me of the Gottman’s work around the power of saying No, and both people have permission to say No, but it’s not a “No, never” it’s a “No, and” or a “No, let’s do this instead,” and speaking scientifically, they proved mathematically that more free each person feels to say no, the more sex they actually have, ironically. So I love that to incorporate that into your work, and hopefully if you're listening, you’ll get a date on the calendar, with your partner for this week even. And if you are not partnered, you can do that for yourself as well. You can have the self exploration, or, find a good friend. But you could definitely do that with yourself as a way of exploring your own erotic inner experience, and connection to self. Cheryl Fraser: Yes, and I’m so glad you mentioned that. Because although the book is written primarily for couples, everything in it applies to us when we’re not in relationship, particularly around discovering our own mindsets, our own erotic potential, our own erotic touch and there are solo erotic exercises in the book as well. Because, my goodness, get yourself ready for when and if you choose to be partnered again. Neil Sattin: Yeah it’s amazing how many opportunities you have in line at the grocery store to be reminded like “Oh, this is all a story in my head, what’s happening right now.” Cheryl Fraser: Right, right. Neil Sattin: Well, Cheryl Fraser, you’ve been so deliciously generous with your time and wisdom today, and it’s such a delight to have you here to chat about Buddha’s Bedroom, your new book, and I hope that you listening have gotten a lot of today’s show, and you take the opportunity to visit Cheryl’s website and find out more about the kind of work that she’s offering. You mentioned that you’re going to come out with a course as well, in the Fall, right? Cheryl Fraser: Yes, I am, mid-September, it’ll be debuting an online course for couples, eight weeks on this material and more that couples can do at home. I think the way a lot of your work is so important is that we create work that people can do from home, because they can’t necessarily arrange their lives, their childcare, their business lives to come at the same time to a therapist’s office for deep work, and I’ve been looking at ways to offer deep work to people, and that’s debuting in the fall. And anybody who goes to the website, or signs up for love bites, will get more information about that when it goes live. I’m very excited to work with people in that medium. Neil Sattin: Love bites, Great. And if you download the transcript of today’s episode, we can also let you know when Cheryl’s course becomes available. So some incentive to grab the transcript. Doctor Cheryl Fraser, thank you so much for joining us today on Relationship Alive. It’s been so great to have you here. Cheryl Fraser: Thank you so much, and thank you for the work you do Neil. You know, I think people may often take for granted the plethora of profound, free, amazing, accessible content out there, so I encourage people listening to support this podcast and other great podcasts out there, that bring this amazing work to us that we didn’t used to be able get so easily. We’re all very blessed.
What do the tough do, when the going gets tough? They Keep Going, which just happens to be the name of Austin Kleon‘s new book where he shares 10 ways to stay creative in good times and bad. We’ll find out why this “writer who draws” describes himself as a mongrel, and how that benefits his work. Why he says life is for art, and not other way around. And, the big question that many have asked over the past few months in light of scandalous celebrity behavior, can you separate the art from the man, and the man from the art? Austin Kleon’s New York Times bestselling books include Steal Like an Artist, and Show Your Work. Want a fun, educational, and free activity to enjoy with your kids? Try star gazing. Andrew Fazekas, aka the “Night Sky Guy”, turned his life-long passion into his career. Today, he shares fun science facts such as what causes the elusive “green flash” at sunset. He also discusses his partnership with National Geographic in taking the world’s first open air augmented-reality planetarium to a global audience. Explore the cosmos with him in Backyard Guide to the Night Sky. A science writer, speaker, and broadcaster Andrew Fazekas writes the StarStruck for National Geographic, and is the author of Star Trek: The Official Guide to Our Universe. Sex therapist Dr. Tammy Nelson returns to Conversations Live to help unravel confusion and make sense of unfaithful behavior. She’ll offer tips on how to stop cheating, and share advice for those still involved in an affair with When You’re the One Who Cheats: 10 Things You Need to Know. Tammy Nelson, PhD is a sex and relationship expert, an international speaker, an author and a licensed psychotherapist with almost thirty years of experience working with individuals and couples.
You Do You is the podcast that wants you to enjoy your love life. Brought to you by Eligible Magazine, hosts Kaley and Sarah discuss the weird and wonderful world of dating and relationships. From first dates to foreplay, no topic is off-limits for these uproarious ladies. Subscribe to make Sarah and Kaley your dating spirit guides! Theme music is "Tag You're It," by The Whole Other Chat with us! Twitter: @sarahsahagian @kaleyames Instagram: kaleyames_ And our lovely guest! Website: https://drtammynelson.com/ Twitter: @drtammynelson
What does monogamy mean to you and your partner? Sometimes a couple will have a different definition of what monogamy is and that miscommunication can lead to problems in your relationship and today we’re talking about that and a whole lot more. This week, our guest is Dr. Tammy Nelson, she is an AASECT certified Sex Therapist, and she's also a Licensed Psychotherapist, with almost 30 years of experience working with individuals and couples. Tammy, also offers training for therapists who are working with couples around these issues is the author of The New Monogamy: Redefining Your Relationship After Infidelity. Her work will help you heal and rebuild if you've experienced betrayal in your relationship, and it will also help strengthen your bond if you're simply looking to create an even more robust version of monogamy that really works for you, and your partner. As always, I’m looking forward to your thoughts on this episode and what revelations and questions it creates for you. Please join us in the Relationship Alive Community on Facebook to chat about it! Resources: Visit Tammy Nelson’s website to learn more about her work. Pick up your copy of Tammy Nelson’s book, The New Monogamy: Redefining Your Relationship After Infidelity FREE Relationship Communication Secrets Guide - perfect help for handling conflict and shifting the codependent patterns in your relationship Guide to Understanding Your Needs (and Your Partner's Needs) in Your Relationship (ALSO FREE) Visit www.neilsattin.com/tammy to download the transcript, or text “PASSION” to 33444 and follow the instructions to download the transcript to this episode with Tammy Nelson. Amazing intro/outro music graciously provided courtesy of: The Railsplitters - Check them Out Transcript: Neil Sattin: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Relationship Alive. This is your host, Neil Sattin. Recently in episode 167, we talked about how to keep assumptions from eroding your relationship, it's crucial for you to take all those implicit ideas about what it means to be in partnership, the things you're assuming that you and your partner agree on, and to make them explicit, actual conversations and agreements that you share with your partner. And there's no place where this matters more than in defining what monogamy actually means to each of you. It turns out that there are a lot of nuances to something that on its surface, sounds as simple as forsaking all others, and if you don't take the time to talk about it, those assumptions and nuances can spell trouble for your relationship. Neil Sattin: On the flip side, if you do talk about it, there's a ton of energy that it can create for you. That energy is the energy of being in integrity, diving into truly uncover your deep truths about what you want and what monogamy means to you, and what it also means to your partner and what your partner's deep truths are, and then living in that truth with each other. Sometimes though, before you have a chance to do that, some sort of betrayal happens in your relationship, where either your implicit or explicit agreements get violated. Today, we're not only going to be talking about how to help you create the version of monogamy that truly works for you in your relationship, but we're also going to talk about how to heal from an affair, and how having infidelity rock your relationship can actually create an opportunity for an even deeper, more rich connection with your partner, if you're willing to do the work. Neil Sattin: Today's guest, Dr. Tammy Nelson, is the author of The New Monogamy: Redefining Your Relationship After Infidelity. She's also the author of Getting the Sex You Want. Tammy Nelson is an AASECT certified Sex Therapist, and she's also a Licensed Psychotherapist, with almost 30 years of experience working with individuals and couples. Tammy, also offers trainings for therapists who are working with couples around these issues. Her work will help you heal and rebuild if you've experienced betrayal in your relationship, and it will also help strengthen your bond if you're simply looking to create an even more robust version of monogamy that really works for you, and your partner. As usual, we will have a detailed transcript for today's episode, just visit neilsattin.com/tammy, T-A-M-M-Y to download it. Or you can text the word Passion to the number 33444 and follow the instructions. Tammy Nelson, thank you so much for joining us today, here on Relationship Alive. Tammy Nelson: Thanks, Neil. Thanks so much for having me. Neil Sattin: Yeah, it's a total pleasure to have you here. And I have to say that, as I was reading The New Monogamy, I couldn't help but think, wow, imagine the power if a couple went through all of these exercises around defining monogamy when they were first committing to each other. [chuckle] Tammy Nelson: Yeah, I agree. Or at any point in the relationship. I always find it fascinating that we renew our driver's license every two years, but we have this assumption that we can go on like a one-time promise at the beginning of our relationship, around whatever our monogamy agreement is and that's supposed to last forever. It's kind of like saying, "Well, I told you I loved you when I married you, so I'll let you know if I change my mind." And that should suffice. [laughter] Neil Sattin: Right. And clearly, it doesn't. Clearly, it doesn't. Tammy Nelson: Clearly. Neil Sattin: We're growing as people the entire time, hopefully, that we're with our partners, and that growth necessitates being willing to talk to each other about what's changing, what's developing and how that's impacting how we're showing up in the relationship. Tammy Nelson: Oh, absolutely. And our relationships themselves develop over time. So, we go through our early phase of romantic love. And then you basically go into the power struggle of your relationship, which lasts forever, for the rest of your marriage, or the rest of your committed partnership, and that's totally normal. Tammy Nelson: What isn't so common is for people to understand that there is a new conversation that happens in every phase of your development as a person, but also as your relationship develops. If you make a commitment to each other during your romantic phase, that's going to be different than maybe you have kids and the kids are little, or when the kids get older or when the kids leave for college. Or when you go through what I call your own second adolescence, which is usually a time in middle age, when we get really interested in our sexuality again, and we're a little insecure about our bodies, but we're super interested in this new individuation phase, where we kind of redo our adolescence and we want to sort of do over the things that we might have not gotten right in the first adolescence, but now we're grown-ups. [chuckle] And all those times when we want to have a conversation even well into our 80s and 90s, with Levitra and Viagra and Cialis and even joint replacements, there's an expectation that we're going to be sexual for the rest of our lives, and either we're going to do it together or we're going to find a way to figure that out for ourselves. Neil Sattin: Yeah. And let's just get it all out on the table right now as well. When you're talking about the new monogamy, and I like this because here on the show, we've talked a lot about how we're having relationships in ways that are different than how our parents did or how our grandparents did. And generally, when we talk about that, what we mean is we know so much more about how to be successful in monogamous relationships. So the way that societal and cultural norms kind of kept the boat steady for prior generations except that in many cases it didn't and it actually failed those people, at least that was the case with my parents. Then, right now we're talking about new ways of being really intentional about the relationships that we get into so that we're prepared for the storms that may come our way. But that being said, on top of that I think in this book, you're adding the additional possibility here that monogamy may be evolving into something totally new and it's a way of entering that conversation. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Tammy Nelson: Yeah. I agree with it. And I really believe that with the hundreds and hundreds of couples that I've seen and the people that I've talked to all over the globe, it's not just America, I think because we're all living such long lives. It used to be, 200 years ago, we live to be an average of 38 years old and you were married like maybe 15 years. By the time you got bored, you were dead. [chuckle] Tammy Nelson: And so now, you're supposed to live with the same person for a half a century or more, and only desire that person, which is virtually impossible. 98% of us have fantasies of someone other than our spouse, which pretty much means everyone except my husband. [chuckle] Tammy Nelson: And I think that monogamy has developed into something that has to sort of keep up with our new lifestyle, and yet we're still going on this old idea that we were living on 200 years ago, that monogamy means certain things, and if we get it wrong, then we fail. And so there's a lot of shame around and guilt around, around marriage and around divorce and around infidelity and pornography and all the ways that we've kinda tried to cope with this long stretch of relationship life. And so now, I think people are creating new and more unique ways to not just cope, but to create sustainable and more healthy and joyful relationships. And so they're realizing they can't do it the way their parents did it or their grandparents did it because it's not going to work for them. And they don't necessarily want to get divorced and they don't necessarily want to cheat, they don't want to lie, they don't want to be dishonest. I really think that the way to have a sustainable relationship is to live in some kind of integrity because we're not necessarily faithful to another person. We're faithful to our own values. Tammy Nelson: And so, that's true for everyone. And so if your value is to live in some kind of integrity, which basically means I want to feel like I can keep my promises, like, I'm not going to lie, I'm going to be a good person, whatever that is, for me. Then we have to redefine what it means to be living in integrity, and integrity, basically means I have to align myself with what it means to be faithful, and if being faithful to my own values means we have to create a conversation around what our values are so that we're not constantly disappointing each other, then monogamy has to look like a conversation, an agreement where we create that definition. It's not the definition of the past because we're going to fail at that. 50% of people get divorced, more than that cheat, so statistically it's bad odds. [chuckle] Neil Sattin: Right. And what I love about your book, The New monogamy, is that it has some really great questions and it also coaches you the reader on a dialogue process for navigating those questions. But it has some great questions that help tease apart all these different aspects of what it means to be committed, what it means to be faithful so that you can know yourself and your partner way better than you would if you were just assuming that you knew the answers to these questions. And through doing that, I think it's really crucial in order to bring yourself into the kind of alignment and integrity that you're talking about right now. Tammy Nelson: Yeah. And I think that those questions and the answers may change over time, which is why they get to revisit it, but I think just asking each other those questions and talking about your own answers, creates this really nice intimacy. Intimacy is like into me see, like how transparent can we be with each other around what we truly want, because we can pretend to the that this is all we want, we're just going to live together until we die, and we'll never think about anyone else and never want anybody else, and never want anything else, and you're perfect just the way you are. And then live this other compartmentalized life with our real desires and our real fantasies, and never feel like we're living in integrity, never feel like we're integrated as a person. Never feel like we could be totally transparent with our partner about who we are. Tammy Nelson: And I'm not saying that you're going to always want to be with someone else and that you should be in an open marriage, although for some people that might be true, but for other people it might just be; I really want to have lunch with my co-workers every week, and be able to talk about whatever I want without feeling like you're always worried I'm in an emotional affair. Or I want to have a private masturbatory life and not feel like I'm keeping it a secret. Some people walk in on their partner masturbating to porn and feel like you're cheating on me and the other person feels like, are you kidding? I've been doing this since I was 10. This is my life. Neil Sattin: Right, right. Tammy Nelson: And those are conversations that should be included in your monogamy agreement. Neil Sattin: Yeah, yeah. Well, in that there are so many things that are really interesting to me, and I'm not quite sure where to go next. [laughter] Neil Sattin: But alright. So let's dive in here. First, one thing that I just felt for myself is like, wow, what a risk to take a topic like infidelity and to combine that with this idea that... Well, maybe one thing that we need to start talking about is loosening our definition of monogamy. And I think that for someone who is really still in a lot of pain from a betrayal, that might be a challenging thing to wrap their brain around at that moment. So how do you guide people into seeing; yes, you're dealing with a major trauma right now, and all that that requires. And then like... But on the other side of that, hopefully, you can experience that this is potentially a real breakthrough moment for your conversation about your relationship and what's actually possible. Neil Sattin: And I just want to say, too, for people listening, even on the other end of that, it could be an agreement that we are... I'm not implying that on the other side of that is an open relationship of some sort, where one or both people now have permission to sleep with other people, and so now you're not cheating magically because we have this agreement. That could be there, but you could end up in a space where, no, actually we've gotten really clear on how we just want to be with each other and end up there. So, I'm curious for you, how do you navigate the tenderness, around this, is a major trauma and there are some bigger pieces going on here, that are important for you to be thinking about. Tammy Nelson: Well, there's three phases of recovery after an affair. So there is the crisis phase, which is, as you said, a very tender time of, where there's been disclosure or discovery and people are quite distraught, and the person who finds out about the affair is always lagging, behind because the other person who had the affair has known about it for a while. It's going to take a while for that person to catch up and whose just finding out, and the trains are on different tracks and one person's always ahead in the recovery process. A lot has to be decided in that time, about how that is going to be worked through. But you don't have to decide if you're going to stay or go during that time, that's not the time to decide if you're going to make things work. Because eventually, you do... If you go into therapy and you read the book and you really want to work through to the next phase which is like the insight phase. Tammy Nelson: The insight phase is where you figure out, how did this happen? And what is this affair or what does this infidelity mean about us, and how did we get here? And you know you're in that phase when you say things like, "This affair happened to us," instead of, "You did this to me." And you don't blame the victim. It's not like, "I know I deserve this. I made you do this to me." But it is a shared experience with some curiosity about the meaning of the affair. And then you go into the third phase, when you've done a lot of discovery and then you decide, are we going to make this work? But I'll be honest, you can never go back to the marriage or the committed partnership that you had before the affair because that monogamy is over. People know when they have an affair, you don't fall into bed with somebody. You know when you cross that line that you're breaking your monogamy agreement, so you have to draw a line in the sand and say, "Okay that's over. We can't go back to that." If you try to go back, it's going to happen again. Tammy Nelson: And so, you both have to grieve that this was not the vision we had of how this relationship was going to turn out. And then, and only then, do you decide okay we could have a new monogamy together or we could break up and do it with someone else. But if we're going to do it together, it can't look like the old monogamy, because that didn't work. So our only choice is to discover together what we want going forward in this new relationship, and it's gotta be something that you agree on together. You may not agree on every single point, and certainly, an open marriage is not an excuse to continue an affair. So you might want to start with small things like, is it okay to send pictures of ourselves to our friends on social media? How much should you text? And should you share each other's passwords? And there's a lot of steps in between fantasizing and open marriage. Monogamy is a continuum. And so there's a lot of things that have to happen before you have that ultimate conversation about whether or not you even want a new monogamy together. Neil Sattin: Tammy, before we continue, I have to go meta for a moment because I'm noticing a lot of that scratchy sound again. Tammy Nelson: Oh okay. Neil Sattin: And I'm just wondering if we can figure out quickly... Okay, so diving back in. Tammy Nelson: Yeah. Neil Sattin: I appreciate that you broke it out into these separate phases, and it would seem like when you're in that tender spot at the beginning, that's a time when you're trying to shore up the safety of a couple so that the immediate danger is not there. So that probably wouldn't be a good time for the affair person; the person who had the affair to say, "Well maybe we should just have an open relationship, and then what I did won't be considered cheating anymore." [chuckle] Neil Sattin: What are some ways to help couples, once they've never navigated the tenderness phase, to develop that understanding that you're talking about? Because that does seem so crucial for both people to understand each other, and to start to get that sense of how they co-created the dynamic that led to one or both people having an affair? Tammy Nelson: Well, I think in that first phase of the crisis, one of the biggest struggles that people have, is not so much safety but trust. Because what happens is you kind of get to this place where you realize I'm never ever going to be safe with this other person again. You go from this naïvety about love being, I'm never going be hurt by this person to realizing that that risk of being in a grown-up relationship is knowing that another person could always hurt you, and choosing to love them anyway. And that's painful. Tammy Nelson: And knowing that relationships are a choice, knowing that you're going to get hurt because that's what love is. And that knowing also that trust is not about trusting the other person. Trust is about now learning to trust your own intuition, again. Because most people aren't really mad at the other person so much as they're mad at themselves. How could I have trusted you? How could I not have known? How could I have ignored my intuition? Why didn't I listen to my inner voice or I did listen to my inner voice, but I chose to ignore it because it was easier for me because the kids were little or it was more convenient, or I didn't want to believe that about myself, that I would actually stay with someone who was cheating on me. There's a lot that happens in the damage to your own belief and your intuition, and you have to learn the difference between your intuition and your fear. Tammy Nelson: And that's a turning point when people put the onus on themselves and realize, you can jump through all the hoops I set for you. You have to come home at a certain time. You have to give me your password. I have to have access to your email, you have to tell me you love me 10 times a day. You have to tell me all the details of what happened. We have to have these conversations three times a day. People can do that but it doesn't change the level of trust, because the trust issue is internal. And once people can shift that onus onto themselves, then they're ready to move into that insight phase where they can talk about perhaps what was happening before the affair. Neil Sattin: Great, great. And before we go there then, I love how you brought that up. It was something that really struck me in your book, is that distinction between whether you're experiencing your intuition or your fear, and how much our fear can be misinterpreted as intuition because that primal part of our brain is trying to protect us from some pain. Tammy Nelson: Exactly. Exactly. Neil Sattin: Perhaps could you offer our listeners a way that they could maybe start to discern between the two, fear versus intuition? Tammy Nelson: Yeah. I think it's such an important part for everyone to discover in themselves. Part of an affair is it's not so much about the affair partner; with all due respect to the third party, but it's who you become when you're in that affair. You discover this whole other part of yourself, that you long for or that you miss or that you want to discover and... But I think one of the things we don't talk about too much, is that the person who has been cheated on also discovers a part of themselves. When the affair has been disclosed and they're going through the pain of the recovery, they discover a new part of themselves, and one of those parts of themselves is a deeper understanding, a deeper listening, a deeper mindfulness or awareness of what is going on inside? Of what fears do they have. And being able to really listen closely to that inner voice that says, "What do you mean you're coming home late? Does that mean you're still cheating on me or does that mean you're just nervous to tell me you're coming home late and that's why you sound weird?" To really discover that part of yourself, that has that inner strength to know that you will always be able to trust yourself, you will always be able to listen to that voice and be able to discern. And that integrity, that integration of those parts of yourself, means that you will always feel strong, regardless of whether or not that other person lives in integrity, and that is a huge shift. Neil Sattin: So what are some signs that you're in your knowing versus being in your fear? Tammy Nelson: I think that's a shift into the second phase, which is recognizing your stories, the stories you make up. So one of the exercises I have couples do is talk about the story I make up about the affair and what it meant about me, and the story I make up about what the affair meant about you, and the story I make up about what the affair meant about us. And I have both partners or if there are more than two partners in the office, I have everyone talk about those stories that they make up, and I certainly have stories about what the affair meant as well, as the therapist. But once people can talk about those stories and what they mean. They're always connected to our own childhood, our own beliefs about ourselves, our own fears. And when you do that, you start to see that your story is totally different than your partner's story. Tammy Nelson: For instance, I had a couple today, where she said that the story she made up, about his affair... He had an affair with another man. And she said, "Well, obviously it means you're gay, and you're never going to want to have sex with me, again, and I've never made you happy." And the story he made up was, "I'm just a very sexually curious person, and I don't identify as gay, maybe I'm bi, maybe I'm just curious, but what I make up about me is that maybe I won't ever be satisfied. But I still love you and I consider you my partner." Tammy Nelson: And she said, the story she made up, about what it meant about her is that, she went back to a time in her childhood where she was never good enough, her parents criticized her perpetually, she didn't play the violin well enough, she didn't get good enough grades, she didn't clean the kitchen well enough, and it was like the story again about she would never be good enough. She would never compete with a man. And so once again she was never good enough. And he said the story he made up about what it meant about her, was that she was so loving and so caring about him as a person, that she was allowing him to have this freedom to explore who he was, and that's not what had happened to him as a child. He wanted to play sports and his parents wanted him to go to science camp. And he said he never felt so in love with her. And she just fell apart. She just bawled in the office and cried because, for her, she didn't see it as a sign of their love. She saw it as a sign of her inadequacy. And so they could have a... Whether either of those stories was true or not, is irrelevant. The fact that it opened a conversation and a dialogue between them, that can last for weeks or months. Neil Sattin: Right. And you talk about and encourage people to have regular dialogues, where they're structuring it in imago dialogue fashion. And we did have hard and have Harville Hendrix and Helen Lakelly Hunt on the show, back in episode 22 to talk about the imago process. So we don't have to go into that here. Though, I will say that one thing that's really great about your book among many things, is that you offer some great prompts for those structured dialogues, that help people get at the nuances of what was going on when an affair happened, and the stories that people were telling themselves about themselves and about each other in those moments. Tammy Nelson: Yeah, thanks. I think it's easier sometimes to have a little bit of structure. Otherwise, we go down a rabbit hole with our stories. Well, you didn't love me, you just did this to hurt me. You don't care about me. You are a narcissist. You didn't pay enough attention to me. We didn't have good enough sex. All those old stories of critical voices and inadequacies and our own self-hatred basically. Instead of approaching it with a little bit of curiosity, and being able to really hear each other, which is hard. Neil Sattin: Right. And the Imago dialogues, more or less force you to do that. [laughter] Neil Sattin: To really actually hear the other person and do your best to understand them. One thing that stood out for me in terms of that discerning between fear and knowing that you talked about in the book, was that when you're in your intuition, when you have a truth, and you have people go through a process, it's like a mindfulness process of getting really quiet, and then putting a question into that quiet space to see what arises. And you talk about if you're in your fear, you'll actually feel fear, like signs of fear happening in your body, whereas when you're in your knowing, that brings with it a sense of calmness. Or when I went through it myself, I experienced it as more like a solidity, that I would have called it almost the antidote to fear for myself. Yeah. Tammy Nelson: I think that's very true. I think most of us spend a lot of our time in our heads. If you're an analytical person or an intellectual person, that sort of can be a defense against your feelings. If you feel an intense emotional reaction to something, sometimes you'll go into your head, but underneath your head and all those monkey brain kind of thoughts are perhaps real feelings, and then underneath the feelings, if the feelings are overwhelming, is your intuition. So all those places are telling you something. Your thoughts, you have a story, and then you have your emotions, and then under that much deeper are the things that you actually know. And sometimes we can't hear them because our feelings or our head is too loud. [chuckle] Neil Sattin: Yeah. The question that popped up for me when you were talking about how often we did know or we may have known that something was going on, or something that wasn't right, is something that we use in our relationship and with our clients, it's, "What do you know that you're pretending not to know?" Which hopefully helps people unearth those layers of like, "Oh yeah, beneath all of that, if I'm willing to let myself go there, this is what I actually know to be true." Tammy Nelson: Yeah. That's a great one. That's really important. Neil Sattin: Now, there was something that I found a little confusing and I'm hoping that you can clear it up for me. I love that you talk about exits, and that's a topic that's come up on the show several times. And how people... How we have these strategies that take us away from our partners, away from intimacy, away from our vulnerability. And then I think where it gets confusing, is as we think about what it is that we want and what it is that we desire, and particularly where this circles back onto the conversation, of, "Well maybe I desire to have some freedom in this relationship to be with other people. How do you discern the difference between something being an exit versus... Oh, that would actually be a healthy choice for me and for us, in our relationship. Tammy Nelson: I think that's a good question. I think there's a difference between being conflict avoidant and living in your own truth. Your honesty is like your true north. So, that's different than turning around and walking north to avoid your conflict in your relationship. [chuckle] Tammy Nelson: So we all do things to avoid what's uncomfortable. Some people are more conflict avoidant than others. Some people are more minimizers or more withholders like they'd create space around themselves, to avoid conflict because they don't want to fight, and that makes total sense. That makes good sense, particularly if you've had a background where there's been a lot of fighting. And other people are pursuers and they're maximizers, and they get loud or more intense and pursue their partner because they feel abandoned, they feel like you're not listening to me, you're not hearing me, you're not taking my feeling seriously. And so that's the thing that sets up that pursuer-distancer relationship. Neil Sattin: Right. Tammy Nelson: But even pursuers have exits, they have ways of avoiding real intimacy and real transparency. And for most couples, it's really hard to sit, to sit with the uncomfortable stuff, to sit and be true. The longer you're together, you would think it would be easier to share what you really want, to share your true fantasies, your true desires to say, "Let's try something new." You think it'd be easier because you're more comfortable, you're safer. But just because you're safer doesn't mean you trust each other. You actually have more to lose the longer you're together, so you might feel like it's harder to take risks, to start making changes because you don't want to disrupt the safety of your relationship, you don't want your partner to change their feelings about you. And one of the things that shut down in a long term relationship is curiosity. We put our partners in a box and we're like, "Yeah, I know them, I know what they like. They wouldn't be into that and there's no way they could take it and they're too jealous, or they don't like that kind of sex, or they couldn't handle it if we did that." That kind of boxing your partner in is the opposite of love. We fall in love with someone when they're curious about us. When they say, "Oh tell me about you and what do you like and where did you go to school and what turns you on?" And I mean that's why we go to therapy. [laughter] Tammy Nelson: So someone is curious about us for an hour. But that's also why we end up having affairs because we meet someone who is curious about us and we get sucked into that attention and it feels really good in the beginning. It's really exciting. Neil Sattin: Yeah. I think that's helping me focus this question a little bit more, which is how do you know as you are entertaining thoughts of like, "Oh, maybe we should be entertaining thoughts of other people on some level, maybe that would be good for us or maybe that's my true north." Yeah, I'm having trouble articulating this. I'm holding that up against the notion that, let's say, if we're going to be in a closed monogamous situation, so it's just you and me forever, which is, I think, at least implicitly, what most people are choosing when they're choosing to be monogamous with someone. And they may find after they've gone through the questionnaire in your book, like, "Oh there's actually more nuances to that than I thought." So I invite you, listening to go through the questions in the questionnaire. They're very insightful and evocative. However, choosing closed monogamy is a difficult predicament, that brings with it the questions of how are we going to handle the inevitable humanity that exists in us when we are attracted to another person. And I think where the line gets blurry, is someone might think, "Oh, well, this is because, and there are certainly some people and authors who are making this argument, this is because monogamy is a bad choice. Like closed monogamy is just stupid." Neil Sattin: "And what we should really be doing is figuring out how to be safe with each other, while we allow ourselves to be human and experience other people." Other people might say, "Well, that's part of the whole project." As soon as you're entertaining other people then you are potentially jeopardizing the whole safety of your container with your relationship and that can create huge problems for your deepening intimacy. And I'm not monogamous relationship. So it's really the higher level question of, yeah, how do we know what's right for us in the middle of that? because there it seems like there's no right answer really. Tammy Nelson: Well, I think it's a great question and I think that it goes to this idea of some researchers who say that we're not born to be monogamous. Humans biologically are not really monogamous. And I would argue that fact and say, we're not born knowing how to eat with a fork either. [chuckle] Tammy Nelson: But we can learn. We are higher primates and we have a prefrontal cortex, we can choose. And that's the fundamental issue, is that you have a choice and so yes, you can choose any kind of monogamy you want. And the issue is that you have to choose it every day like it doesn't just happen with a one-time decision, it's a choice that you make every day and you might have to modify. But it is something that you choose and give to your partner. It's a commitment, it's like a sacred commitment like yoga or meditation, that you give to yourself because it's something you value if you value the freedom to choose and be with different people. Because that to you helps you express different parts of yourself, then you're never going to feel good about your partner or yourself if you don't do that, and that's a different choice. And you have to honor that choice. But one of the ways you can figure that out, and I can tell you the secret to having that conversation with your partner, is you're never going to change your sex life, or your relationship life, by saying, "I hate it when you go to the left," you say, "I really love it when you go to the right." Tammy Nelson: And because the secret to the universe is you always get more of what you appreciate. Our tendency is to point out what's not working, and to criticize our partner or criticize the structure of our relationship, or to go to therapy and say, "Just change them and we'll be fine." And the idea is to really point out what is working, what you do appreciate, what you do like, what you want more of. So to expand on what's already working, and then, and only then, talk about what you want to try. Because if you start off saying, "Look, I think we should open our relationship," it automatically creates a fear in your partner if they are not on the same track. And even if they are on the same track, the threat that it might create for someone who isn't normally in that same mode as you happens because it creates a hole in the implicit assumptions that you've already made. But if you start off with; I really love the times that we can joke together about how attracted we are to other people, I really love the times that we've been able to watch pornography together, instead of hiding it. I really love the times when I've seen you dance with other people, it's really exciting for me. To be able to share some of the ways that you've already done it in maybe simple ways that were good for your relationship. Neil Sattin: Yeah. And you talk about how appreciation is even one of the key areas that you need to address in terms of what may have caused an affair to happen in the first place. The kind of communication that was happening in a relationship, the kinds of appreciations that were being shared, and then, of course, the question of what was happening in the bedroom with you as a couple. Tammy Nelson: Yeah. I think we have to go beyond this idea of forgiveness as the goal after an affair, and you really have to work on erotic recovery or else that another person is still going to be in bed with you like this is an erotic injury. And so you have to work on a new erotic life together. If you don't, then you're both going to feel somewhat disappointed and stuck, and there's no impetus to making a new relationship between you work. You need some kind of a new vision for what this new relationship between you is going to be. And if it's not hot and sexy then you're not going to be excited about it. Neil Sattin: Yeah. So take us on the first step or two of erotic recovery and what's required for a couple who has gotten through the crisis phase, has developed some understanding of what led to what happened, have explored these questions of creating a new vision and what's okay and what isn't, and really gone deep on that. So now they're really communicating with each other about what they're looking for and understanding each other better. Yeah, how do we take that further into erotic recovery? Tammy Nelson: Well, what I would tell all my clients, and all your listeners, is to create a sex date once a week. And to do it the same time every week, same day and to show up whether you feel like it or not, whether you're mad at each other, whether there's something better on Netflix, whether you have a headache or you ate too much, or you feel gassy or you drank too much wine. And you show up, say, it's every Thursday night, at 9 o'clock, and you show up and you light the candles and you turn on the music and you create an intimate erotic date. You don't have to have intercourse. It doesn't have to be any specific kind of sex, depending on if you're same-sex or trans-sex or whatever, that kind of specificity is not necessary. But the idea is to have something that's a sacred dedicated time to your erotic life. All the other time of the week can be for your companionship, it could be like; who's walking the dog and who's picking up the pizza, and who's paying the mortgage. But there is something truly important and sacred about your erotic life that makes you feel like you're in love. All the other time is about loving each other and caring and supporting. But if you don't have that erotic time, you're not going to feel in love. And a lot of people react by, "But that's not spontaneous." Tammy Nelson: And I want to say, you can be as spontaneous as you want, if you plan it, even when you were dating, you kind of planned it, you knew when you were going to see each other, and you wore nice underwear and you shaved and you... It was a plan. Neil Sattin: Right. Tammy Nelson: I think what people are worried about is it's not going to be impulsive. And if you want to come home and sweep the dishes off the kitchen table and say, "Take me now", then do it, but still keep your Thursday night at 9 o'clock, as something that's like your sacred practice for each other. And then you can practice other things during that time but if you don't have that commitment, then when are you going to commit? Neil Sattin: And this is a great example of why I think the process in The New Monogamy is so helpful for anyone, even if you're not recovering from infidelity, going through the process of figuring out who you really are, what you really want, who your partner is, greater understanding. And having a regular date-night where you're there in the bedroom, or maybe occasionally in the kitchen or wherever. Neil Sattin: That how important that is to just be prioritizing feeding that energy into your relationship. Tammy Nelson: Exactly. Neil Sattin: So yeah. So whether you're recovering from infidelity or not, I think that's such a valuable practice. And you do outline in the book, like six week, six weeks of erotic nights once a week, and kind of a step-by-step that takes people through an experience that I think would alleviate some of the pressure of what we're showing up and now what we're supposed to have sex with each other, like, what do we do? Yeah. So maybe could you talk about that a moment? And then we probably gotta go. Tammy Nelson: Yeah sure. And if your listeners want me to send them a protocol for like six weeks of sex dates, I'm happy to do that, if they want to contact me directly. Neil Sattin: Awesome. Tammy Nelson: because the six weeks of erotic dates I think is important, particularly for people who haven't had sex for a while, or are finding it difficult to get back into or really need some time to remember and re-integrate what it means to really receive pleasure and to give pleasure. That it's not about getting to the finish line, which is usually the male orgasm and if you can't get there we'll give you a pill, which I have nothing against. But the idea is to redefine what intimacy means and to remember what it feels like to experience pleasure with this other person at the moment, to be really mindful about it and to also change what it feels like. Because there's a lot of stuff that gets stuck in your habits and patterns around sex and your communication, that you definitely have to change. So you don't get triggered by thoughts around an affair or boredom, or the story that you make up. We're creating a new story. And so you can do that over six weeks, with these exercises, and at the end, things will be different. It's absolutely possible. Neil Sattin: Great. So people should reach out to you through your website, which is... Tammy Nelson: Www.drtammynelson.com. Neil Sattin: Great. And we will have links to that in our transcript. So for those of you who don't remember that, you can just check out the transcript. Which again, you can download at neilsattin.com/tammy T-A-M-M-Y or by texting the word Passion to the number 33444. Tammy Nelson, thank you so much for your time, your wisdom and I think your optimism about what we're capable of, and I really appreciate your being here with us today to share your strategies on how to build stronger and more modern monogamous connections. Tammy Nelson: Thanks, Neil, I really had fun with you, I appreciate being on your show. Neil Sattin: You are most welcome.
In this episode with the amazing Couples and Sex Therapist, Dr. Tammy Nelson, we talk about the importance of therapists being comfortable with talking about sex. We talk about how much people's sex lives (whether they have much of one or not) is a huge part of how we define ourselves. Tammy also talks about how to recover from infidelity from a sex therapist standpoint. Dr. Tammy Nelson is a leader in the field of sex therapy. She has written books and regularly teaches other therapists how to work with couples. She has almost thirty years of experience working with individuals and couples and in private practice she focuses on helping people of all ages, orientations and genders find love, healing and passion. The Couples Therapist Couch is the podcast for Couples Therapists about the practice of couples therapy. The host, Shane Birkel, interviews an expert in the field of couples therapy each week. Please subscribe to the podcast for more great episodes. Here is the free resource mentioned by Tammy: Six Weeks of Erotic Dates & A Protocol for Erotic Recovery Get your free copy of The Comparison of 7 different Models of Couples Therapy. Click here to join the Couples Therapist Couch Facebook Group. Visit Tammy's website at drtammynelson.com Find out more about the 2020 Kauai CEU Retreat for Therapists
There are many misconceptions about why a woman cheats on her partner. In The New Monogamy, sex therapist Tammy Nelson, PhD, argues that freedom to have a discreet affair can be empowering, healing, and ultimately improve a marriage. Tammy is a sex and relationship expert, an international speaker, an author and a licensed psychotherapist with almost thirty years of experience working with individuals and couples. Also, if you're one of the many who feel the growing gap between the haves and have nots, it can leaving you feeling left behind, and less-than. Leadership consultants Jennifer Cohen and Gina Laroche say you are enough, you have enough, and there is enough to go around. We'll explore solutions to help you ditch scarcity thinking in The 7 Laws of Enough: Cultivating a Life of Sustainable Abundance. Jennifer is cofounder of Seven Stones Leadership Group and a speaker and author, known for coaching world-class leaders from institutions including Harvard Business School and Simmons. Gina is also a cofounder of Seven Stones Leadership Group and a leading organizational consultant, executive coach, keynote speaker, author and artist.
We got a curious email from the folks at Ashley Madison recently – that's the dating website for people looking for discreet encounters, such as affairs. They've seen a rise in the number of women signing up, and there's evidence showing that more women are cheating on their spouses – or perhaps women are now more open or honest about their affairs.We delve into why this is happening. We speak to a woman who has had an extra-marital affair to find out her reasons for the affair and her experience of it, and sex therapist Dr Tammy Nelson tells us about the wider social reasons for women seeking extra-marital affairs. Guests:‘Mary', woman who has had an extra-marital affairDr Tammy Nelson, psychotherapist and sexuality expert, author of the book ‘The New Monogamy; redefining your relationship after infidelity' https://drtammynelson.com/Host and producer:Nas aka Nastaran Tavakoli-FarCo-host:Jonathan FreemanCo-producers:Sam Baker and Jonathan Blackwell Sponsor:The Economist Relevant Links:The Gender Knot podcast and Facebook groupMore women are cheating. Why?We got a curious email from the folks at Ashley Madison recently – that's the dating website for people looking for discreet encounters, such as affairs. They've seen a rise in the number of women signing up, and there's evidence showing that more women are cheating on their spouses – or perhaps women are now more open or honest about their affairs.We delve into why this is happening. We speak to a woman who has had an extra-marital affair to find out her reasons for the affair and her experience of it, and sex therapist Dr Tammy Nelson tells us about the wider social reasons for women seeking extra-marital affairs. Guests:‘Mary', woman who has had an extra-marital affairDr Tammy Nelson, psychotherapist and sexuality expert, author of the book ‘The New Monogamy; redefining your relationship after infidelity'https://drtammynelson.com/https://www.amazon.com/The-New-Monogamy-Redefining-Relationship/dp/1608823156/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1339618990&sr=8-4 Host and producer:Nas aka Nastaran Tavakoli-FarCo-host:Jonathan FreemanCo-producers:Sam Baker and Jonathan Blackwell Sponsor:The Economist Relevant Links:The Gender Knot podcast and Facebook Grouphttps://www.thegenderknot.com/https://www.facebook.com/groups/182851532302085/Ashley Madisonhttps://www.ashleymadison.com/ Music: Government Funded Weed by Black Ant (used under Creative Commons)5 Pieces by Black Ant (used under Creative Commons)
Futurists predict women will have more sex with robots than men by 2025, and that it will be common to use teledildonics to connect with long distance lovers... But, do therapists really believe we will take it further with a robot? And what are the consequences? How can our society cope with technology moving so fast if our attitudes toward sexuality are so far behind? Future of Sex presents a ground-breaking panel of sexperts: Tina Horn, host of the podcast Why Are People Into That?,award-winning pornographer and writer Mal Harrison, sexologist, advice columnist Ms.M for the Museum of Sex and Director, Center for Erotic Intelligence Dr Tammy Nelson, sex therapist, author of The New Monogamy and Getting The Sex You Want Sue "Jaye" Johnson, TED Resident, documentary film-maker Join us for a discussion on the future of sex, technology and how relationships will look in 3 years. To learn more about this show, visit FutureOfSex.org. To keep up with Bryony Cole, follow her on Twitter and Instagram (@)bryonycole.
Welcome to episode 12 of the Sexology Podcast, today I'm speaking to Natalie Finegood Goldberg, LMFT, CST about the issues surrounding erectile dysfunction. In this episode, Natalie talks about the causes of erectile dysfunction, its physiological and psychological factors contributing to this struggles and steps that can be taken to overcome this issue. Natalie Finegood Goldberg is an AASECT Certified Los Angeles Sex Therapist and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (MFC #53017) specializing in sex therapy and psychotherapy. Working with individuals and couples, Natalie offers therapy services at her private practice in Beverly Hills. Previous work experience includes being a staff clinical associate at Center for Healthy Sex in West Los Angeles, as well as having previously worked at Cliffside Malibu, a dual diagnosis inpatient drug and alcohol rehab. Natalie was born and raised in Los Angeles and is familiar with the variety of pressures that come with living in LA. In addition to her degrees, Natalie has participated in a variety of trainings including a Clinical Sexology training with Dr. Patti Britton, Bridging the Couple Chasm: A Research Based Approach by Drs John and Julie Gottman, and the Sex Addiction Treatment Training Program with Alexandra Katehakis, MFT, CSAT-S, CST-S. Natalie completed the rigorous requirements to become a sex therapist through the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT) under the supervision of Alexandra Katehakis, MFT, CSAT-S, CST-S and Dr Tammy Nelson, CST-S. Natalie is trained in EMDR Therapy with advanced training in AF-EMDR (Attachment Focused EMDR) with Dr Laurel Parnell. In this episode, you will hear: The physical and psychological reasons why erections occur How as men get older they need a mixture of physical and psychological stimulation to get an erection The criteria that needs to be met to be diagnosed with erectile dysfunction How erectile dysfunction is related to all sexual activity, not just for example masturbation The physiological and psychological causes of erectile dysfunction Why men prefer the problem to be physiological How taking Viagra can make things worse if the problem is psychological The effects anxiety can have in relation to erectile dysfunction The impact erectile dysfunction can have on couples / relationships How masturbation and pornography can affect erectile dysfunction Available treatments both medically and psychologically The average time treatments can take The additional benefits mindfulness can bring The importance of communication to help overcome this issue Ways you can regain your sexual energy Understanding that erectile dysfunction is a multi-layered issue that needs ongoing support Resources http://www.creatingchangela.com natalie@creatingchangela.com
Businesses in Bloom: Therapists & Wellness Businesses Stories of Success
Tammy has an interesting perspective on couples and sex therapy that she developed after doing a lot of couples therapy training. She felt the couples therapy training she did, did not have an adequate understanding of the nature of sexual relationships in couples. Tammy talks about her busy life seeing clients as well as writing and speaking. She has built her business through referrals and has gotten a great deal of publicity due to her books. Tammy says she works a lot and does her writing in the evenings, but that she makes time for and self-care. She also spoke about the importance of having assistants to help her in her business. You can get the show notes for the episode here: http://www.julietaustin.com/bb13
It seems that affairs and infidelity are on the rise, particularly with the rise of websites like Ashley Madison, which has the tagline "Life is Short. Have an Affair." And the recent hacking of Ashley Madison has brought the topic of affairs and infidelity back into the spotlight. So we spoke to Dr. Tammy Nelson, who is a sex and relationship expert, an international speaker, an author and a licensed psychotherapist who has written extensively about infidelity and what she calls the "continuum of monogamy." In this episode Tammy discusses: Her thoughts on why affairs and infidelity are on the rise Whether couples can recover from an affair What is "the new monogamy" and how it can apply to any couple What is “erotic recovery” and why it's essential for couples who want to recover from infidelity Questions to ask partners to help them understand the affair and start to heal How to help partners look at their monogamy and redefine their monogamy One thing couples can do today to prevent an affair or change their sex life Open marriages: can they really work? Or is an open marriage a recipe for disaster? What heterosexual couples learn from gay couples when it comes to open relationships Get the show notes with all the links and resources mentioned in this episode at http://australiacounselling.com.au/session83
KEEPING SECRETS! Sandra seeks therapist & author Dr. Tammy Nelson's wisdom for creating intentional monogamy, especially after infidelity. TOPICS: 2nd Marriages, Occupations that cheat, Fixing yourself, Transformative sex, Redefining relationships, Surviving affairs, Fixing marriage, Explicit vs impact agreements, Committing to forever, Unconditional love problems, Love as a choice, Desexualizing your relationship, Planning sex, Anticipatory eroticism, Arousal before desire, Types of affairs, Monogamy continuum, Betrayal, Integrity, Getting more of what we like and Opening your frontal cortex.
DSR: Become a Better Man by Mastering Dating, Sex and Relationships (formerly Dating Skills Podcast)
In this Episode we talk to guest Tammy Nelson71| Recovering a Relationship after Cheating - Tammy Nelson.Link: https://www.datingskillsreview.com/ep-71-dr-tammy-nelson/
Everyone has their own concept of what “monogamy” means—and most people assume their partners and spouses are on the same page. Couples may assume that they are monogamous, but never discuss exactly what the monogamy agreement means to them. What happens when this implicit agreement is broken? After infidelity, relationships can become strained as both partners lose trust and faith in each other. The New Monogamy offers a way out of these difficulties for couples struggling to stay together after infidelity. Couples make these implicit assumptions and agreements explicit so that each partner knows exactly what is expected of them in the future and what they can expect from their partner.
Kathryn interviews sexuality expert and psychotherapist Tammy Nelson PhD on her book “The New Monogamy: Redefining Your Relationship After Infidelity”. Nelson helps to explain why some people choose to stay together even after infidelity, and offers practical guidance, checklists, and even questionnaires to help committed couples renew their relationship. Nelson is the founder and Director of the Center for Healing and leads couples workshops around the country. Kathryn also interviews internationally recognized psychologist Patricia O'Gorman PhD on her book “The Resilient Woman: Mastering the 7 Steps to Personal Power”. O'Gorman takes a deeper look at how societal messages tell women what they can and cannot do and offers self-assessments that any woman can use to identify her strengths, weaknesses, and resilience style. O'Gorman has appeared on Good Morning America and has authored several articles in Addiction Today, Counselor, and Recovery magazines.
Kathryn interviews sexuality expert and psychotherapist Tammy Nelson PhD on her book “The New Monogamy: Redefining Your Relationship After Infidelity”. Nelson helps to explain why some people choose to stay together even after infidelity, and offers practical guidance, checklists, and even questionnaires to help committed couples renew their relationship. Nelson is the founder and Director of the Center for Healing and leads couples workshops around the country. Kathryn also interviews internationally recognized psychologist Patricia O'Gorman PhD on her book “The Resilient Woman: Mastering the 7 Steps to Personal Power”. O'Gorman takes a deeper look at how societal messages tell women what they can and cannot do and offers self-assessments that any woman can use to identify her strengths, weaknesses, and resilience style. O'Gorman has appeared on Good Morning America and has authored several articles in Addiction Today, Counselor, and Recovery magazines.
The New Monogamy with Dr. Tammy Nelson. Email polyweekly@gmail.com, call 206-202-POLY, Twitter @polyweekly or visit www.polyweekly.com or www.facebook.com/polyweekly
Maybe you know them, the couple that “swings” or has mutually agreed both partners can have affairs. These couples make rules, and say it works. But are they just fooling themselves? This week join Lisa & Philip as they talk with Dr. Tammy Nelson about the “New Monogamy.” For more info go to http://www.c360today.com … Read more about this episode...