This episode is sponsored by a company I've used for well over a decade and that is 511.
I wore their uniforms back in Anaheim, California and have used their products ever since.
From their incredibly strong yet light footwear to their cut uniforms for both male and female
responders, I found them hands down the best workwear in all the departments that I've worked for.
Outside of the fire service, I use their luggage for everything and I travel a lot and they are
also now sponsoring the 7X team as we embark around the world on the Human Performance Project.
We have Murph coming up in May and again I bought their plate carrier. I ended up buying real
ballistic plates rather than the fake weight plates and that has been my ride or die through
Murph the last few years as well. But one area I want to talk about that I haven't in previous
sponsorship spots is their brick and mortar element. They were predominantly an online
company up till more recently but now they are approaching 100 stores all over the US.
My local store is here in Gainesville Florida and I've been multiple times and the discounts you see
online are applied also in the stores. So as I mentioned 511 is offering you 15% off every
purchase that you make but I do want to say more often than not they have an even deeper discount
especially around holiday times. But if you use the code SHIELD15 you will get 15% off your order
or in the stores every time you make a purchase. And if you want to hear more about 511, who they
stand for and who works with them, listen to episode 580 of Behind the Shield podcast with
511 regional director Will Ayres. Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast as always my name is
James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on the show sex, love and
relationship coach and the founder of Find Your Feminine Fire, Amanda Testa. Now what makes this
conversation so powerful is the world of sex is really still taboo in many households and more
often than not that can be detrimental as we progress into adulthood. So we discuss a host
of topics from the impact of childhood trauma on sexuality, body dysmorphia, hormonal dysfunction,
tantric sex, the detrimental elements of porn, the first responder community and so much more.
Now before we get to this incredible and important conversation as I say every week
please just take a moment, go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show,
leave feedback and leave a rating. Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast
therefore making it easier for others to find and this is a free library of over 950 episodes now.
So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories so I can
get them to every single person on planet earth who needs to hear them. So with that being said
I introduce to you Amanda Testa. Enjoy.
Well Amanda I want to start by saying two things. Firstly thank you to your husband Mark who was my
guest a few weeks ago now and secondly to welcome you onto the Behind the Shield podcast today.
Thank you so much for having me James it's an honor to be here with you.
So where on planet earth are we finding you?
Well I'm going to be in the
first two weeks of the show so I'm going to be in the first two weeks of the show.
So where on planet earth are we finding you?
So I am in Denver Colorado.
Beautiful. Well I would love to start at the very beginning of your timeline so tell me where you
were born and tell me a little about your family dynamic, what your parents did, how many siblings.
Yeah so I grew up in Georgia in Augusta Georgia which if you are a golf fan you might be familiar
with that. I grew up I have one sister who's younger and my parents were my mom actually was
like a fifth generation Augustan and my dad grew up in a small farming community in south Georgia
which so I got to grow up experiencing both sides of that right of the rural being in nature going
fishing and hunting with my dad all the time and also being in Augusta in the city and all of that
entailed so I think part of my love for I do have a big connection to nature and I think a lot of
that stemmed from being outside a lot when I was a kid. Now what about professions what were your
parents doing? So my mom was a teacher and my dad was a commercial realtor so he sold commercial
real estate mostly farmland timberland and all kinds of commercial buildings and such.
At that early age was there an element of spirituality or a more open discussion on the
sexual side or was it you know like a lot of those generations a little bit more behind closed doors?
Oh yes well I mean Georgia well in general I grew up in a very conservative environment
and we were Baptist Southern Baptist so that's also very conservative so it was not something
that was really talked about and I don't think it was I don't know if there was a lot of shame
that was intentionally instilled in me but it definitely was for sure and I remember when I was
in Sunday school when I was a kid there was one of the Sunday school teachers told me that I would
go to hell if I held hands with the boy so that was kind of the the messaging that I got coming along
which we know there's a lot of people too that are really affected by religious
you know kind of the way it shows up in their bodies even in their in a loving married relationship
or whatever it is it's like that messaging or hearing it for so many years it takes a while to
undo that fear. Why do you think it is that so much shame has been cast upon sex when it literally
is the very act that creates more of us people then then go to church? Right that is a very good
question James I love that so I mean I think number one if you and I want to just honor whatever
anyone's spiritual beliefs are because I think whatever you whatsoever supports you is great but
I think a part of it is too is the you know original sin right we are at least a lot of the
times in certain religious backgrounds we are taught that you know we are flawed and that's a
our bodies are sinful and pleasure is sinful and we need to I think the Puritans for example are
taught a lot of that so you know that anything that involves bodies or sexuality is taboo it's
wrong it's bad it's only for one specific purpose not for pleasure not for connection.
Yeah I think that's a big part of it and there's a lot of shame built in because we don't talk about
it a lot and the things that are publicized are often negative a lot of us the education that we
got around sexuality growing up was very scary right we got okay don't get don't have sex or
you're gonna get pregnant and ruin your life you ruin your life and your family's life um don't
have sex or you're gonna get a disease and die like literally and we and I I will age myself but
I grew up in the 80s and that's when kind of AIDS was coming out and there was a lot of fear there
was a lot of unknowns there was all kinds of things so it was really kind of a scary topic
that at least I would had a very fear best education coming along and I think that's
changing now but for sure that's what I got. Well you you start to unpack some of the people who
were slamming their fists on lecterns you know and talking about whether it's you know the gay
community or you know fidelity and then you peek behind the curtain of their lives and you realize
that they were you know closet homosexuals or having multiple affairs and you know you know
having multiple affairs so this is the kind of irony of a human in my opinion thumping a book
saying they spoke to God and he said this or she said this is that more often than not the loudest
voices aren't even living the very thing that they're preaching in the first place. That is so true
I think yeah and it's even I think there's a lot of statistics to back that up
specifically around you know that people that are protesting from the lines of abortion clinics
oftentimes are very right-wing fundamentalists and then a lot of the times those same people will
have their kids or somebody snuck in because they have had that happen. I mean I think that
I don't know the exact statistics but I've read them and that oftentimes with the abstinence
education doesn't work because I think that humans are human and we have certain drives and
depending on I mean I really do think it's an it's an overall part of our holistic wellness and when
we can learn to be really conscious about our sexuality and be really conscious of our own
bodies and learn to appreciate ourselves and other people and have a lot of consent and a lot of
pleasure base around it then there can be a lot of healthy experiences. The problem is when that
doesn't happen that's when things are more taboo when there's more violence when there's more
power dynamics that aren't healthy and then when people are are just going to be curious and they
don't have the education to know what gets them pregnant honestly that a lot of times happens
because I think there's only there's only a few states that actually require biologically based
sex ed. Interesting and when you talk about abstinence I think the perfect example is America
with alcohol like it was bizarre to me when I first came here that you know you you couldn't
drink till 21 but what that did was just pull that bow back so far that when they finally did you had
beer pong and keg stands and and you go to anywhere else in the world they don't have those things
because they just drink when they're younger now it doesn't make alcohol right and we all know
there's a lot of detrimental elements to it but you know you suppress that urge you create a taboo
that then sends people towards it so if you have I would argue open and honest conversations with
your children about sexuality age appropriately of course and I did with my son and I'd say it
was the hardest thing to find a book it's a simple book to explain to a young person puberty and as
they get older you know reproduction and you know if you have a child that maybe you know is is
attracted to the same sex then obviously these books talk about that too but um yeah it was it
was just it was crazy it was just so hard to find it but that is it I've kind of slowly had these
conversations with my son because when I was young I grew up on a farm and dad was a veterinary
surgeon and they told me that you just pray to god and he puts a baby in your tummy and it was
sex ed in school that like literally I'm not exaggerating 12 13 years old when my jaw dropped
and I was like oh you mean you mean they shag like animals why don't you just fucking tell me that
in the first place you know it was that it was all there just to to tell me but it was very much like
oh it's dirty darling don't do it and and so it's so crazy because like you said there's so many
examples of abstinence I mean look at look at the drug prohibition all that did was just send people
into the clutches of the underworld it didn't fix the mental health crisis so I couldn't agree more
that you know that we've I think the pendulum has swung too far at the moment with this whole
everyone you know is identifying as this bizarre thing now you know and there's a lot of projection
of a minority of people that that's how we should all think and and act now but I think open healthy
conversations on the human body and how you know we reproduce is is imperative and it it blows my
mind that we're in 2024 yet some cling so hard to victoria mentality very much so and I think that
is part of the shadow around sexuality is the fear and all that the unknown if we if people were more
able to feel comfortable about talking about their sexuality learning about their bodies at a young
age learning about pleasure learning the appropriate places and times to do that because oftentimes
kids get shamed for touching their bodies which actually in utero babies masturbate it's like one
of the things that they very quickly learn what makes them feel good and so you will probably
anyone out there that's a parent has noticed their child when they discover this part of their body
that feels really good and everybody approaches it in a different way and sometimes too it's based on
well how did my parents react to that type of thing and and it also can be again we're not
really taught how do we parent in a way that's sex positive but you know oftentimes kids are like
don't do that or whatever they hear versus you know hey that i'm so glad that you've discovered
that now just make sure you go do that in your room right you don't need to be doing that out
here in the den with all that grandma doesn't like right it's like oh yeah that's feel good
doesn't it like do you just do that in your bedroom though that's the kind of things we do in private
yeah what even on the screen i've made this observation it was really apparent when i first
moved here um you know when you still had cable television that you could have john rambo slaughtering
100 vietcong and that was absolutely fine but then the top of an ass crack or a nipple would
show and they'd blur it out and haven't we got this backwards the the murder of people is allowed
but the body that we were all born in you know naked is being blurred out now i get there's a
difference between that and you know what would be viewed as pornography but there's it's to the
point where you know you can't god forbid you show an areola the very thing that we literally fed from
for the formative years of our lives yes i agree and it's there is the violence is rampant on all
the tv shows and even the kids shows and i don't know my my kid and i were just looking we somehow
got on the topic of frozen and the you know the kids musical frozen with elsa and ana and apparently
there's going to be a frozen three we were talking about it so i was googling you know is that really
true and it looks like there's some huge war coming and it's very violent i was like why
why must this be what they have to see um i mean yes because that's the real world too but it's
just like it normalizes all the violence but we don't normalize the pleasure and the good things
as much oftentimes so i hear you there absolutely well going back to your early years what were you
playing and doing as far as sport and exercise well i was not the most um coordinated kid i was
very small too i didn't have my growth spurt till in eighth grade between seventh and eighth grade
and i remember when i was growing up everybody was playing tennis and i was not a very good tennis
player and i was a lot smaller than all of my friends so literally half their size and i think
that's most middle school kids right you line them all up they could all be 11 but they look
so different in height and development all the things but i was a very small kid and so i was
not as physically strong and i remember i did not like soccer i didn't like getting kicked i wasn't
much of that kind of a person so i mostly enjoyed playing with my friends i did a lot of um
riding my bike i loved to play outside i wasn't much as as much of a team sport person but i did
love just being outside and playing and i would spend hours in the backyard and just like ride my
bike and all that kind of stuff well i've had this conversation with a few people recently and
sadly sometimes people downplay their activities like oh well i wasn't you know i wasn't college
or high school level at sport or anything but as you said but you were able to play for hours on
a bike outside in the garden so i think a lot of countries still have that but we've been
but we've we've become so competitive here that you kind of almost like invalidate someone's
activity if it wasn't for some league or cup at the end of it yeah i think that's true and i
remember even as a kid it started to be uncool to ride your bike and people would make fun of you
and i remember there was an age where i just stopped riding my bike because it wasn't cool
anymore then of course it became cool again but it wasn't for a period of time now what about
career aspirations when you're in the school ages what were you dreaming of becoming i think i wanted
to be an astronaut or a marine biologist when i was little the marine biologist was always so
fascinating to me and i grew up and you know we would go to the beach every summer and i loved
the beach i love the ocean i still do and um i would i thought that would be so fun to just
spend my days like researching creatures in the ocean yeah they are clear water aquarium where
the dolphin's tail you know the film is made about that's that's not too far from us so yeah there
are there are people here in in florida that do do that for a living but i think a lot of people
dream of it and then they you know the reality of actually being immersed in that and studying it
diligently for your whole career that that weeds out you know the dreamers in us and finds the real
biologist that's true i think that can happen with that sometimes anything right whatever we find joyous
and then when it becomes work it's like oh how do we still maintain the that that connection to the
wonder and joy in it versus just the not near like how much will i get paid or all the things that
come up when it becomes real so when you look back at your early life with the lens that you have now
as we start to really understand the impact of our childhood on all things as we grow up were there
any elements you think that contributed to some of the struggles that you had later in life i think
you know i think for sure the um you know just feeling a lot of shame but i do feel like you
know my parents had a had a fairly good relationship i think they like everyone had their moments but
they have a lot of love and a lot of passion and you know i remember when i would when my dad would
come home my mom and dad would be like making out in the kitchen and we'd be like oh grouse you know
as kids but they loved they did they loved each other so much and they had a lot of a good physical
connection um and so they definitely weren't the type to shy away from physical affection in front
of us right they were very loving um and also i think just growing up in uh you know i think there
was a lot of expectations placed on me like many kids but i just didn't quite fit in as well into
my environment right i was not as pretty and quiet and all the things that i was supposed to be
to be a nice young southern girl and um i just had a hard time with all of that and so that made it
challenging for me growing up i think to feel like i fit i fit in well i think isn't that where the
whole toxic masculinity conversation is supposed to be i mean it seemed to have been dragged so far
to the extreme like all conversations seem to but just to allow a little boy or a little girl
to wear the colors they want to wear and play the sports they want to play and not be defined as oh
no no no a girl does ballet and gymnastics a boy does football and baseball that's what i understand
is you know i think what people are trying to get at but it just keeps getting dragged to
some you know like atomic level feminism version of the word
yeah i think you know i remember as a kid i don't you know i think it was very definitely much more
definitely much more patriarchal and i remember certain things saying and being like well i would
never marry someone who did that or that's not going to be me um and i think that was you know
i do love so much of the values i grew up with but a lot of them i have had to do a lot of unlearning
around for many years because i don't think that they're very healthy and a lot of and you know um
um i acknowledge like the privilege that i come from but also the there was a lot of problematic
things going on there um so that too yeah now you mentioned about growing up in you know the
beginning of the abes epidemic and i was probably right there with you a similar age and i just
remember being terrified when it came to sex and making sure that everything was bagged and sealed
and you know everything you could do and when i look back now it completely killed the romance and
you know and some of the relaxed natures that you would need in the intimate relationship
what are your observations of of that factor and obviously it was a real thing that was killing
people so it needed to be acknowledged but how how do you view that now as far as its impact on
um you know that kind of intimacy that we're going to start talking about
yeah well i mean i think like anything if there there are a couple things at play when we are
going to be intimate or have a sexual encounter with someone right we also have we have all the
things that are making us excited and all the accelerators and all the things that are
making it feel really lovely and turning us on and bringing in the arousal and all of that
but we also have the breaks which are like oh will i get pregnant or will i get a disease or is this
person safe or is this environment safe or all the things and so definitely fear of disease or like
STIs is part of the breaks and so i think depending on your level of education coming along that could
be more intense in certain situations and i think that um that's just something too to think about
right like we when we want to enjoy ourselves i think a big proponent i mean i'm a big proponent
of feeling safe and i think that's the number one thing you need to be able to really enjoy
sex to the fullest is to feel safe enough and to create a container that feels safe enough that's
consensual that you know you've taken care to ensure that you are doing it in a safe enough way
um and just like anything like there's no 100 guarantee of safety but you know if you are
you know get tested regularly if you are sexually active and if you make sure your partners are and
then you like talk you feel comfortable talking about it because i think that's a big fear
that's a big part of our conditioning too is that we are afraid to speak up in these really
intimate moments which are sometimes the most important times to speak up
even if people are in long-term relationships i work with a lot of couples where they can talk
about everything but sex but i think that is like when you feel and i honestly i think like
younger generations are better about this because i think there's a lot more there's better education
in a lot of ways in some areas and just being able to communicate but having that communication
before right and just ensuring everything is safe before or safe enough for you to move forward
i think that's important and to be able to feel good about having those conversations
so walk me through your journey to um where you realized there was an issue for you personally
because obviously this is an important lived experience that then kind of spawned the work
that you do now so you know what was that kind of devolution of your own sexual experiences
well i will say you know i did have some unpleasant encounters right and just a little
warning there but i had a couple of sexual assaults and i was a little bit of a
pleasure right and just a little warning there but i had a couple of sexual assaults and that really
affected how i showed up and this can have often happened like there's a couple of different ways
that this often shows up for people and one of the ways is that they could potentially become
hyposexual which is like really shut down really disconnected from pleasure really disconnected
from you know wanting intimacy or connection where the other side of that is they could become more
hypersexual where there's like more of a sexual expression or sex a lot or whatever it is it's
like the hyper expression of that because um it's kind of giving you some sense of control that's
not really control so there's numerous ways it can show up for people and i think for me it was more
of a lot of um self-blame and a lot of shame and a lot of you know again being raised in that very
religious background and i was like well i'm definitely going to go to hell now so might
as well have some fun you know that kind of thing and so i did have some fun and i think at the same
time i probably put myself in some situations that weren't the safest but thankfully you know
everything at that point i was very lucky but i do think those experiences affected how i showed up
and how i would connect with people and there was a lot of distance that i would put between
myself and others i didn't really allow myself to get into close relationships and i remember the
first really long-term relationship i had it was very um there wasn't very much sexual activity
happening there was not a big sexual connection that was a safety thing right it felt really
safe to be with this person that part wasn't there but i didn't care because i was like
i don't even want that but then i realized after years of that that that wasn't fulfilling and
that's not what i wanted right and i i think that can be the challenging place is where you want
more connection but then you're scared of it at the same time and you want to enjoy your body but
you're afraid of what might happen so there's a lot of things wound up in that and i did a lot a
lot of therapy around it and i think that's how i eventually came to this work is i did probably
a good five to seven years of talk there because i had a lot of things going on i think partly from
being raised in that really rigid environment where only certain things were acceptable
i think it's hard to fit in a lot of the times which can lead to a lot of kind of um
behaviors that aren't the healthiest so i would say you know like eating disorders and things of
that nature all of that i struggled with until so i started when i was in my early 20s i was like
well i want to work around these things mainly when i started it was mostly around the eating
disorders but then after in my late 20s when i was realizing like i want a deep relationship like i
don't want a sexless relationship that is not fulfilling and um and so after a lot of talk
therapy i was like all right that helped me a lot in a lot of ways and then i went on to you know i
was also very i like to run and i like to do triathlons and i like to be active again not
the team sport but the individual sport we were laughing the other day because we went to our
daughter's lacrosse end of the year party and so it was parents versus kid and i literally did not
catch one ball i was like see i'm not good at all sports but i'm good at the individual sport um
so anyway so i but then i found a lot of healing through doing triathlons because at the same time
i was working through a lot of this my dad had was dying from early onset alzheimer's there was a lot
happening so needless to say i started changing and like and i think of that work of running and
swimming and biking for miles and miles and miles really helped me process a lot because we do like
that's one of the ways our bodies can process things um but i think after that then i was able
to kind of realize like okay now it is okay and it's safe to be in a relationship that is fulfilling
and that's you know it takes time to work through a lot of those things so i just want to honor
anyone out there who's listening and one of my teachers says this that i love is we can only go
as fast as the slowest part of us is willing to go and that's hard for a lot of people because
in our culture we're like we need that fixed yesterday i want this problem checked off my list
yeah well especially this profession that's listening to we're the fixers so you know we show
up you call you call 911 we show up and then within minutes if not hours then you know it's fixed so
you know now we're trying to fix our own relationships and as you said it's not going
to be overnight like that yeah and i think too because there's we've all had different kind of
experiences and those things leave imprints like whether there's been a trauma or just anything
that has affected your body image or the way you feel being intimate or anything like that
that shows up under the surface a lot of the times and we might not even realize it right but it could
be where we don't feel comfortable being vulnerable or where it's harder to communicate about certain
issues right or there are certain patterns that we go into around like rigidity or even being open to
different expressions of sexuality or different ways that you could play together there can be a
lot that shows up there like an unwillingness or maybe a you know more of a closed mind around
certain things i don't know how to explain that but it shows up in different ways that we that
are often under the surface so yeah well you mentioned about eating disorders when you had
the body dysmorphia i'm assuming that was kind of up beneath was it the kind of anorexia bulimia
side or were you eating more so but mostly mostly anorexia and bulimia and a lot of that too again
growing up in the 80s with all the in the early 90s with the heroin chic models that was the thing
the way yeah that's a very and also i have to say like in some ways there a lot of that culture
around thinness is just it's basically it's not true right because we realize this was i'm not
this was i mean it's a form of um i think it's a form of controlling right we we feel like we have
to control every aspect of ourselves and that's just another way that we try to control and try
to make ourselves small and try to make ourselves fit in and try to achieve this like mythical norm
as orager lord says that is like a skinny white person which is not really realistic of the real
world right there's so many different ways and bodies and i think when you're only shown one
thing that's part of the problem too right or flipping that on its head what about you know
the the overweight and obesity element because when you know when i try and take any emotion out
of it and i just look at a relationship and you have two let's say fit young people and you know
they they start dating and then let's say five years later they've got married and then you know
there's a couple of kids and now you know because of the the culture of you know not moving very
much the culture of the processed foods you see a lot of our adults you know put on a lot of weight
in my kind of layman view i would assume that that would contribute to obviously you know low
self-esteem but also just just let's be honest attraction to the person because you were you
know the the cross player or the dancer or you know whatever it doesn't have to be like you said
thin as a rake but athletic and energetic when you were younger that's when you fell in love and then
now physically there's been a devolution what are you seeing as far as this kind of uh discarding
of health as as the national philosophy that's allowing this to happen the impact of that
specifically on happiness within relationships that is a really good question i think that
you know what i see is that our culture is a very hard one to thrive in it really doesn't support it
we don't have any time people are rushing around all the time you know most people work full time
and raise kids and potentially care for others or their you know parents or whatever it is and
especially in this middle time of life that's one of the hardest times of life because you might be
caring for young people you might be caring for old people you maybe you are in just you know there's
a lot of giving going on and there's not a lot of time for taking care of yourself so it really
and i think too especially if you are a woman or someone who's had kids you know your body changes
and hormonal changes happens on for everyone no matter what you your gender is there's a lot of
hormonal changes that happen in this middle age period and so a lot of it's not easy and i think
that sometimes what happens is that we just get into these routines where we put ourselves last
where we're taking care of everyone else and so we become last on the list and unless like a lot
of people that have careers where they are moving a lot or they have more movement and they they
have better health in that realm because they're not just sitting in a computer all day like a lot
of people but it is hard and i think that for sure there's a certain things that come into play like
you said body image and then that disconnection that happens because you don't feel good in your
body and you don't want to go out or you don't want to be touched or you don't want to be seen
naked or you feel disgusting in your body which makes you not want to connect and also there could
be experiences of hormonal shifts right and sometimes when you gain weight there can be
hormonal shifts with low testosterone that can contribute to depression and all and there's
other things at play and i think when we look at our overall wellness i think our sexuality is a
part of our overall wellness because typically if something's not working well in one area it's not
working well in other areas and it can be challenging for people especially as they get older
if maybe one person is staying fit and active and the other person is not and i see this complaint
a lot well i am taking such good care of myself and that my partner has like gained 50 pounds and
has zero desire to change and i think that's the hard part is when there's not the willingness there
um but what i do see is that if one person is willing to make change and be empathetic and be
a good example more often than not eventually the other person comes along especially if you make it
inviting and fun in any sense in any like if you if you think about if you're a parent or
and you have kids and you want them to do something they don't want to do like how do you get them
involved it's not like well you are not been cleaning up your room and you better clean up
your room right now like that is not a very inviting way to do it but if you're like put on
some fun music and dance and be like oh i wonder if we could put all the trash in the trash can
before the song's over that makes it more fun right and so they're more likely to come along
so but it is a big you know it's a big problem yeah no it's interesting i just interviewed um
a researcher who's going to very well know when it comes to firefighter wellness and one of the
most startling things she was talking about we're really focusing on the impact of sleep
deprivation which in turn creates weight gain destroys you know the sexual hormones i mean all
the things that lead to the cancers and the heart attacks and you know infertility but also passing
it on to our children the pediatric cancers you know and the the autism and some of these other
areas so this is i think you know why this is such an important conversation when the pandemic
happened you know the most heartbreaking thing aside from the people that we lost of course was
that we had a captive audience we had a beautiful opportunity to really reframe health in this
country we had an opportunity to take the terrible food out of our schools and put good food back in
just like we used to you know before industry um you know to to put p.e programs back to put more
exercise equipment and parks in in cities um but this is another layer you know we have you know a
high divorce rate we have a lot of you know issues when it comes to relationships and this is a
compounding factor too so it's not just about the fact that someone's going to drop dead of a heart
attack it's also that someone can be a more active lover in a relationship or a more active parent
for their children it is so true and i wish that we there's so many things that need to happen
in a early childhood area level that could make such a difference maybe one day it will but i
think that is true because even from a young age and i'm grateful for um the school that my kid
goes to is specifically a movement oriented school so they do an hour of exercise every morning
before they start their day but that's moved away from many schools and there's no p.e and there's
no help classes i remember even we had those coming along learning how to cook healthy food
people don't learn this and then also again back to that cultural situation of people having no
time and so they rely on convenience foods which aren't the healthiest and then they don't learn
the skills to cook or to you know find choices that are more supportive to nourish themselves and it
it's kind of a vicious cycle like you say it does pass down absolutely well we're on this the topic
of schools for a second if you were queen for a day what would sex ed look like through you know
the k-12 well i think that's such a good question well definitely for one it could be more
pleasure-based right and just more informative from all ages and i think even when you start
i think i will say i think it's getting better in some areas at least here because listening to the
curriculum that i've been exposed to through my kids schools but um you know even starting as early
as is like third or fourth grade just sharing about your body and growing up and what that looks like
and to be aware um because i think purity hits people at different ages and i think that's
i think purity hits people at different ages and it can be really scary if they've never heard
anything about it and sadly sometimes that's the case like there's plenty of instances of girls
that don't understand about their period and they think they're dying when they start their period
because it can happen as early as nine nowadays i mean so i think it's really just starting that
conversation and also teaching i wish they would do this even in the pediatric office from a young
age it's just like telling people talking about their bodies and you know explaining the parts
of their body so they don't think it's anything different if i'm talking about my elbow or my
boulder or my penis or my ear or whatever it is that it's just a normal part of conversation that
it's nothing to be um ashamed about or to have any kind of fear about but i think that you know that
will happen even when you do your best i think that's why we have to do our best at home because
as soon as they get to school and they start talking about it in class and someone's going
to make some comment and everybody laughs and then that's when that's another time when the
shame comes in or just that conditioning around oh well this is something to laugh at or this is
something that i should be embarrassed about yeah but i would say i would want them to learn about
their bodies i would like them to learn about the parts of their body i would like them to learn
about how their body works and really understand the anatomy and also from a health perspective
like the more we pay attention to our bodies the more we can notice if something's different in
an uncomfortable way or that might be an unhealthy way and so that we start you know just like you
would brush your hair and you know wash your face that you you know check out your body and make
sure everything's looking good and feeling good all even your genitals and all the parts of us
i think that would reduce a lot of shame around it too and i think it's also sometimes a gendered
shame because i think more often than not like girls get more shamed around their bodies and
boys or at least they don't talk about it this much i mean i remember i was at a friend's house
once and um you know she we were hanging out and we were she was bathing the kids or whatever and
you know she's like telling her kid to bathe down there and i was like why don't you just call it a
vulva she was like oh i hate that and i was like that's what it is like what do you call your what
do you call your son's genitals she's like penis i'm like what's the difference right just if you
don't even speak it then there's a layer of shame that's just automatically there right so um and
then also talking about you know what are healthy boundaries what is consent what does that mean how
do you really know when you're feeling yes and no and how can you discern if it's you know you also
have to bring your brain in sometimes when it doesn't want to be there and vice versa right
sometimes you want to turn your brain off but it's like listening like what is the really safe way
to move forward when is it you know making sure that i'm in alignment here is this a good decision
or not yeah well i think another area is you know that i i was just blown away in a very sad way
how many of the male guests i had on especially that were first responders or military members
were sexually assaulted as children and so you get to see behind this curtain and you talk about
taboo that's probably the most taboo thing for a man to admit is that he was raped by another man
when he was a small child but it's a very real thing so if we're not having these sexual
conversations you're not you know educating the child as you said consent what's right what's
wrong and you know to remove the shame so god forbid someone tries to do it they can immediately
come to you and say you know this is this is what just happened because i mean i've heard so many
times where the predator has basically said you know you got to keep this our secret you know your
mom and dad will be be angry well if you never talk to your child about that then they're going
to believe that but if you have an open line of communication the chances of them getting away
with something like that are a lot slimmer that is so true and i feel really grateful that my
my daughter's school had a really big curriculum around this i think when she was around first
grade and they do it every other year but it's really around um prevention like child abuse
prevention so it's teaching kids exactly those things what to look out for and also as parents
and things to say in ways to um kind of create a healthy environment and even simple things that
we don't think about oftentimes as parents when we send our kids off to play like if you're sending
your friend to a kid's house you're sending your kid to a friend's house um versus just being like
you know you listen to the parents and do what they say it's like if anything that makes you
feel unsafe happens there you tell me right away and doing it in front of the other parent doing
it in front of the babysitter so that they know like oh i better not try anything because these
parents are are on to me or that you know what i mean i hate to say it but oftentimes it's someone
that you know and there's a grooming process involved and so it's a very complicated and it's
very real like you say and so the more we understand the more kids understand the more they can
protect themselves and i think that's a big part of the education is then the more someone knows
the more they are aware and the more they can care for themselves because we're not going to
always be there and we want them to be able to care for themselves when they're on their own
which is a big part of it absolutely well i want to hit one more area and then go into you know
the the healing tools that you found for yourself you mentioned about hypersexuality it reminds me
that it was incredible i had a guest on who had written he was a bouncer back in england
and so he'd written books on fighting and as a young still small boy you know i was you know so
kind of meek and so i read all his books and you know it's this big guy with a flat nose and a
shaved head and years later i do this podcast and his name comes up in conversation i'm like oh man
i should i should try and get him on one day so we we sit down and talk and he opens up about the
sexual assault that he you know was uh receiving over and over and over again by his martial arts
instructor and he was very graphic too when he told the story he talked about the hypersexuality
towards himself so the masturbation and some of these things but it was you know it was almost
like so almost kind of self-mutilation to that point but you hear this with some people you know
whether they were it was a young girl called a whore because she had big boobs and then has
a sexual experience finally and then kind of goes in the hypersexuality side so you know expand on
that a little bit you know what what have you seen yourself or some of the women that you've worked
with as far as the impact of trauma sending down that road because you know i guess in in one
perspective it's almost like oh you've said i'm this person so let me just become this person then
yeah so i think a lot of it you know we our bodies are really smart and they develop these coping
mechanisms that um at some point served a purpose but then at another point they're not serving the
purpose anymore but there's a part of us that like still thinks it needs to react in that way
and i think when it comes to hypersexuality that could be more around like just um expressing
yourself without regard to the effect that has on others too right even you know really wanting to
be very potentially what our culture would quote unquote define as like sexual and how you dress
like maybe wearing certain things and um expressing yourself in certain ways or having a lot of sex or
whatever it is it's kind of but it's doing it from more of a um an unhealthy place it's like this
need to feed this it's kind of like a there's a need to feed this part of you and it's kind of
like a
it's not quite finding the regulated way to do it and and just so and i'm sure many of your listeners
already kind of understand this but i'll just explain this really briefly this really based
nervous system explanation is that typically um we want to kind of respond in our range of resilience
or our window of tolerance which is where something happens like there's a stimulus like say for
example you hear a loud noise you turn you realize it was just someone slamming their car door you
and just a couple minutes your nervous system comes back down you're back into regulation you
go about your business but what can happen is if you have had trauma or have had experiences you
hear that loud noise and then it gets your anxiety going you have this type of arousal maybe your
heart rate is fast your breathing shallows um and it takes a really long time for you to come back to
feeling more balanced right that is that's kind of if your body is tuned into that hyper arousal
state and so the same thing happens when we are kind of in that way in our sexuality it's like
there's there's that constant um need to feed that and constant desire to to feed it and in a way it's
to try to get control of the situation right it's trying to gain control of a situation that you did
not have control in before because oftentimes that's what happens when we are um if something
traumatic has happened right it was too much too fast too soon or as one of my teachers Rachel
Madick says I love her description it's an embodied violation hangover in whatever way that looks so
that's kind of how that shows up does that make sense no it does and it's interesting because from
a male perspective um you know that there's examples where people were you know rampant as far as their
infidelity and when you look at the the kind of um the physiology post-orgasm for a man there's a
kind of deregulation of the nervous system albeit temporary so then they start winding up again and
now they're kind of seeking that as well so you've got as you said the control element but I think
you've got the physiological response as well that the body kind of yearns for which is down regulation
yep exactly and that that's how that's one of the ways that we figure that out in the not so healthy
way right but it's like getting the result that you need but not in the healthy way of doing it yes
yes no because there's probably a lot more stress on the other end when you've just finished and you
look at the person you know I don't want to be with you I should be with my wife so yeah and I
also yeah I also want to name too like a lot of times these they I want to just give some empathy
if someone is experiencing this because a lot of it is beyond your control in a certain way like
once you hit a certain point it's really hard sometimes to to to shift so it's really really
a process of learning how to maybe complete the incomplete stress cycles that your body didn't
get to complete and to work through like what is the root of this and then that way your nervous
system responds differently over time well let's get to that then so you found yourself in this
place obviously you mentioned eating disorders you meant it mentioned hypersexuality you know
you had this relationship that was kind of asexual at that point what were what was kind of the lowest
point and then what were some of the tools that you started to find for your own healing well I
think what you know when I really I think that there was a relationship that you know beautiful
person but I would we just weren't right for each other and for too long I just wanted to leave but
I would didn't because for all the reasons like oh well I'm not good enough or all the stories I
told myself and so I just made the decision I remember I was at the beach with my family and
I was like this is just I cannot live like this I mean I think I was probably 20 pounds overweight
and I was drinking way too much and I was doing all the numbing behaviors that I could possibly do to
not feel my situation which was I wasn't happy right and I'm sure they weren't either because
how could they be you know and so I think realizing too that I just had to stop and
take care of myself and so I did I mean that's when I really I went back to my therapist and I
found a new one and then I started doing more triathlons and that was a really healing thing
and then I realized through that that I'm capable of a lot more than I thought I was
you know I think we give ourselves such a hard time where things feel so hard because when you
are overwhelmed and when you're shut down and have depression I mean that there's really there's not
the motivation and it's it's a biological thing sometimes like you just can't make the choices
but I think with the right support and if you have some accountability then you can do it and I think
that it doesn't mean it's easy but it's doable and you just have to take the steps along the way that
make it feel more doable and I often relate it to exercise because that's something I can connect to
but I remember when I first got back into running like I could barely run and so I would like walk
for five minutes and run for a minute and walk for five minutes and run for a minute
and you do that long enough and then you get a little bit more endurance right and then you can
get a little bit more as you know from your training like you can ramp up but it's not like
you go out there and you just go run 26 miles because that would overstress your system and
you would totally shut down and that would not be good but I think that's just the reminders like
there's baby steps you can take and that is the key and that's really how our nervous system grows
because we're meant to you know if we just give it a little stress that's the point where it can
find a different way of reacting but if we overdo it and like stretch it too much then that's
overstressing and we're gonna you know take two steps backwards versus going forward and I think
that's what can happen a lot of times with sexuality specifically is that you know we
want things to be so different so we might push ourselves past a point that we didn't want to and
then we kind of like there's that shutdown again especially if there's been trauma in the past or
you know there's a lot that you're holding on and let's face it like when you're dealing with a lot
of things dramatically every day and you hold space for so many things then there's a part of you that
you know kind of has to disconnect you have to have a little bit of healthy disassociation to
do your job well and to show up in the way you need to but then there comes a time when you want
to be intimate with your partner and you want to fully connect but there's a layer that's like
can't do that because of the vulnerability or whatever else might get touched on if you were
to allow that deep of a surrender yeah. So talk to me talk to me about the journey from
starting to heal yourself to becoming a healer. Well I think for me you know I did a lot with
with the talk therapy that was so helpful in so many ways and then through all the triathlons
and everything just feeling so much better in my body and just the power that I reconnected to just
through my own aliveness which I think is a big part of the trauma trauma resolution work I do is
to help people connect to that aliveness again and then of course I met my wonderful husband
and we had a really amazing relationship and then you know we had a baby and I think after that
that's when a lot of things came back which is very common is through birth can bring up a lot
of past trauma and things of that nature and I just remember feeling I thought I was doing all
the right things for myself after my daughter was born she was probably around a year old and I just
remember one morning in particular and I was walking to the bathroom and I she had this like
musical train I tripped over it and I was like and I kicked it and I was like I'm the only one
that ever does anything around here feeling all this rage and resentment and I went to the bathroom
and I looked at myself in the mirror and I'm like so depleted and exhausted and I was had zero
connection with the person looking back at me and I just remember in that moment being like
it's not being my life and I couldn't understand it either because I felt I was doing all the right
things for myself now I was working out I became a personal trainer at that point and I was teaching
stroller strides which is this workout you do with your kid in the stroller and so you run around
and you entertain your kid and you exercise the kid in the stroller so it's really great and then
I was you know I was very involved in my community and of course and my and my husband I had a really
good relationship I just was so disconnected from myself and I just remember in that moment that I
was just I made a little commitment to follow the breadcrumbs whatever that would take to feel
better and um and I was not diagnosed with postpartum depression which maybe that there
was a little bit of that because but I I didn't know what it was and so I thought all right well
I got to do something to change this and so one of the things I did I remember I started working
with a coach and that was the first time I'd ever worked with a coach I was like well let's try
something different and it was amazing because it really was focused on desires and my strengths
and like kind of going towards what is it that I want to do now and I think if anyone you know
once you have if anyone out there has had a kid then it does it's like this huge life transition
and especially later in life because I was 38 when my daughter was born and so it's a whole shift of
like well who am I now and I'm so used to living my life on my terms and doing whatever we want
whatever we want now there's like oh I have zero time and I never do anything for myself and that
was part of it and the other breadcrumb I followed was this online course I found around um like
spicing things up in the bedroom and I was like well that sure can't hurt because anyone with a
new baby knows that's not the best time of your sex life um so I started doing this work and I
remember when I first started I was mortified like I didn't want anyone to know I was doing it
I was so embarrassed there was a Facebook group I was like I would never join that Facebook group
I don't want anyone to know I'm doing and but then I started doing the practices and it was a lot
around um um not just spicing things up in the bedroom it was about connecting to yourself and
really learning how to activate your own sexual energy and how to take care of your own body and
really reconnect to what your desires are even from just a a level of what feels good in my body
like what do I enjoy and I think I had become really disconnected from that and I just remember
after doing this work I felt so much more energy and I don't even my husband noticed such a
difference in me and he was always like oh yeah go do your practice go do your practice he was
very happy with how things were yeah and so I realized I was like man why are we never taught
these things like this is nothing I ever learned I never even learned about my anatomy the the
like the capacity of what it's capable of until I was in my late 30s and started doing this work
and so I just at that moment I I was like okay this has been such a drastic transformation for
me in my relationship and I knew like I want every person to know this specifically like I was like
all the women in the world to know this I want everyone to know this is possible and um because
if it's possible for me it's possible for anyone and I think a lot of the work too had to do with
there was a lot of of a component of working with your body and like really kind of I had not done
that before in that way you know I done a lot of talk therapy but never around like being with my
body sensations or you know if I massage my body in this way what happens and realizing how much
was still there that I hadn't moved that hadn't moved through that was really holding me back
sexually and even just vulnerably with my husband I like had thought I would open my heart to him
but that was it was only probably about 20 open and so that was another huge part of it that I
didn't realize um so yeah from then I started training with my mentor one of my mentors Laila
Martin I did her beta sex love and relationship coaching and then when I started working with
clients I realized there's so much trauma wrapped up in this that I want more in that area so I did
another two-year trauma certification called Rebloom and then also somatic experiencing which really
there the focus is to work somatically with the things that are the material that is stuck that
is keeping you from you know your full aliveness and so that's kind of how I weave that all together
and what I do now long story no it's a good story though and I think this when I think about
you know the last few years I've been with my wife almost 11 years now um there were times I
can think about you know where I just couldn't turn my brain off and therefore the sex was you
know it wasn't bad but you know like for example in these exact these particular situations I
couldn't finish like my mind was just completely disconnected so you know it seems like that's the
kind of the the first go-to is just simply to address that which not only is great for
mental health it's also great for performance on the fire ground or as a police officer or a soldier
so it's kind of ironic that it's the same work that affects so many of these different areas
positively including you know your sex life and I think just to name that too it's like
that once you have the ability you also can discern when you want to fully turn it on and off
I think that's a lot of times people's fear is like well what if I you know start tuning into
this and then I'm hypersensitive to everything or I um you know what if I get too sexual or
what if then my body's sensations are overwhelming or um all the things that people can think and I
just want that's the beauty of once you kind of learn the tools in your body figures it out then
you can turn up the dial just like you're not going to be walking down a dark alley at 2 a.m
with your dial turned up to 10 you know you're probably at least for a woman right you're going
to turn it down um so yeah yeah that was surprising Margot wouldn't have you just jumped on top of them
started dry humping them because you were on 10 so I want to just address one area before we go
into unpacking you know what it is you know the tools a lot of us probably don't even realize when
it comes to amplifying our sexuality from my view it seems like the I mean I guess it's bled into
films a little bit really the porn industry has done a massive disservice to romanticism and
sexuality and and the the more extreme it gets then it seems to kind of open another dark door
which gets worse and worse and worse and I feel a lot of you know young girls especially are thinking
that it's normal to have these extremities you know sexually um that you know I'm sure
100 150 years ago weren't in most people's minds of course people would be you know
have have a spectrum of sexual experiences but not constantly bombarded as the norm so what have you
seen as far as the impact of that world on some of the struggles that you've helped women through
it I mean I think that is a big problem and not only just in the porn industry but also what we
see in the movies which is so unrealistic that people don't really understand what it takes
to have a great sex life or they're very performative I hear that a lot too and I see
this a lot my clients is there's a lot of a performance aspect versus actually an enjoyment
being able to really be in your body and feel your sensations and communicate what feels good and like
enjoy your partner and all the things versus like do I look good or am I making the right sound and
that again is keeping you all up in your head so you can't actually enjoy your experience and I
think too a lot of what we see on porn is very unrealistic um again the other problem there is
there's often a lot of unconscious consumption like kind of like in a numbing way which often
is to get that dopamine hit which we use many behaviors for but the problem stems from if that's
um you know becomes a compulsive thing where you're just like hunched down looking at your
computer having a quick orgasm then that doesn't translate into connecting with another person
and then it becomes harder and harder for you to respond in different situations and I think that
can be a challenge in relationships when that happens because porn addiction is a big thing
you know if you have a compulsive way that you reach orgasm every time then you might have to
you might have to increase the intensity of whatever you're watching to be able to get the
same experience which is why oftentimes it can be you know um unrealistic to what a normal or not
let me let me just put that I'm going to scratch that word normal because I think whatever two
consenting adults agree to do is great and that is wonderful but it's just like if it's affecting
your ability to connect with your partner then that's when it becomes a problem and I think
there's a lot of things that we can do unconsciously that you know I just think about my big thing is
inviting in a consciousness to what you're doing whatever that is right I think that's really
important thing I've learned from this work is there's a consciousness to everything I do
whether that's a consciousness to how I'm drinking my coffee that I lovingly made how I um you know
dress myself how I wash my body how I communicate with my kid how I communicate with my husband how
I drive my car how I show up in a sexual encounter like there's just a different consciousness to it
and I think that is the that's kind of one of the first steps is you can just think okay if I'm
choosing to do this great and there's a time and a place like I want to eat this bag of chips all
right I'm going to eat some chips it's not going to be the end of the world but it's more of like
what am I what is it I don't want to feel or what is it that that's the point of this is I just want
to like a release and I just want to feel better or is it that I just want that dopamine rush or
is there and maybe is there other ways I can get that but what's usually what's the need beneath
that and I think that's the thing that we don't often want to look at. Why do you think that rape
element that you see so often from from the male perspective the demeaning of women the you know
I mean there's no other way to describe it basically you know dramatized rape in in the
guise of porn is so popular. I mean I think honestly a lot of it again is our cultural
conditioning around violence like we see so much of it and I think specifically for men oftentimes
you know that's the only way they're conditioned to the only appropriate emotions are anger right
and that's that's allowed but no vulnerability no crying no all the things right because
that's just not allowed oftentimes growing up and so that makes it hard to have a spectrum of emotions
and so the violence one is an easy one to go to and that feeling of power of control of domination
like there is a power to that but also there's a way to access that power that's in a more healthy
way versus like and I think too again if this is like a fantasy and it's consensual with both
parties great but like the non-consensual rape or like really that taking someone else's sovereignty
when we reinforce those images and those things especially when you're a heightened state because
when you're when you have arousal you're in an altered state which it changes the way our brains
function and so that we more normalize violence which is why you see such horrific things in the
world and people are just like because they're totally deconditioned to it so that's what I have
to say to that yeah. Yeah well I mean these are just important conversations you don't hear very
often and you know I see it as a man you know and I when I after my divorce you know I bumbled through
dating in my late 30s and you know had some dates that ended up in sex and were so unfulfilling they
were consensual completely but it was it was sex and it was like and then I met me and my wife and
you know here we are 11 years later still as you know physically attracts to each other as we were
then so you know there's so much more on the other side of that that human connection I think it's an
important conversation so with that then let's talk about the the mental health tools that are
available that we're not aware of like psychedelics and things so let's talk about the sexual you know
growth that is available to a lot of us that most of us are probably completely ignorant to.
Well I think too because we're never taught that about that and our most of us learn that sex is
you know if a penis enters a vagina and then there's an ejaculation right but that is just
one of the many different ways people can engage in sexual activity and I think that's what a lot
of us hear and so there's very little about you know women's sexual pleasure or just even the
extent of how you can expand your orgasmic experiences. I think that I read somewhere
that the average sexual experience lasts around like three to fifteen minutes and for most women
to be fully for their fully for them to be fully engorged because we actually have just as much
erectile tissue as a male body it's just arranged differently it takes about anywhere from 20 to 45
minutes and so even just hearing that people are always like what um most of the time people aren't
aware of that and I think that is a shame because you know obviously we again we live in a culture
where we don't have a lot of time to explore the things that make us feel good and so but I think
when you can just learn ways to expand your pleasure capacity to be able to hold more to be
able to experience more sensation and hold the pleasure of it for a longer bit of time it first
of all makes for amazing sexual experiences but it also translates into other areas of your life
because then you're able to have more capacity to enjoy what's good in your life you have more
capacity to um really I think enjoy all the boxes that you've checked off because I think that's
what I hear from a lot of men and women is that you know I work hard and I have done all the things
and I'm just like not happy right because I've checked all the boxes and I have the things but I
am not happy and I think that is part of it is because we are just like go go go but the part
of us that wants to actually relax and enjoy has a hard time coming out. So how are you helping
through the coaching these you know women mainly um kind of tap into those areas that were kind of
shut down before? Yeah and a lot of this is it's learning to first of all I always start out with
teaching people just some basic tools of nervous system regulation and thankfully this is becoming
more and more mainstream because it is so needed and especially you know with first responders is
what do I I mean what does that even mean how can I do these things but it's things that you know
that I like the term of like full body exhale it's like the things that just make your whole
body feel like what are those things for you what are those things that help you just like kind of
reconnect to the present moment that could be drinking a glass of water it could be taking a
walk could be feeling the sun on your skin it could be um you know just looking around your space and
noticing okay right now in this moment I am in a safe space like I I know where I am and today at
this time is you know May 16th at 1207 MST you can just bring yourself to the moment and also you know
just looking around like okay if I look around my space what are some things I can connect to well
right now I'm noticing so like I will say what are three things that you can see in your space that
are pleasant or that draw your eye well I have like this really sparkly gold pillow that I like to look
at and then what are some things you can name about that well I notice it's like that you know
kind of gold sparkles and I like the texture of it because it's kind of got this leathery feel
and I like the color and then so maybe you can look around like what are some things you see
in your environment and can you describe a few things about them and then also you can tune in
and this can be the part that's harder is starting to learn the language of your body which is called
introception which is that ability to notice what's happening in your body so can I feel
the sensations that I notice in my body do I notice the temperature do I notice um you know and
the language of your body can also be called the felt sense and there's lots of ways you can connect
to it right is there a temperature is there a pressure is there a bubbliness is there like a
sharpness is there a a bubbly feeling you know there's so many ways to describe it but it's
being able to tune in and notice like maybe it's a tightness maybe it's like a weight um and kind of
noticing like all right well I can tune in and do a little body scan and notice all right if I'm
just paying attention to say for example my arms what do I notice in my arms well I'm noticing my
fingers kind of feel a little bit tingly and like I feel like kind of a cold sensation in my right
palm and those kind of things and when you can not only feel it but then speak it out loud that's
connecting different parts of your brain so those are kind of some of the basic steps that I'm like
okay well these once I know these basic things then I can step into different to difficult territory
and now I can always come back to these basic things right so I can just like
hydrate in I can add a little bit of difficulty and see how my body responds and if it's too much I
can come back out and that's kind of how I teach him to play with it because often then when we
start to explore our body we might notice I feel nothing I don't feel a thing I'm numb um nothing
I can't connect anything that's a very common one especially when people start doing this work
um I don't notice anything in my body I don't notice anything right so if that's the case then
it's often just kind of learning that process and how do you do that well you start by just
even listening to your breath and maybe placing a hand on your body somewhere and noticing okay if
I have my hand on my chest here can I feel the pressure of my hand on my chest yes or no is there
any part of me that can feel it um if I notice it what do I notice is there a temperature okay
maybe it feels a little bit warm I can feel the indentation of my hand on my skin I can feel my
clavicle right so it's those kind of things to kind of start the process and over time it becomes
easier and there's practices that you can play with to kind of learn how to do that um and again
at first it can be a while before if it feels numb right because there could be a lot of numbness
and oftentimes that is a process of just being with the numbness because that is also a sensation
and as long as it takes showing up and like it feels kind of numb and just noticing what about
the numbness is there is like an absence of feeling is it like a dullness is whatever right so you just
keep exploring and over time then typically what's on the other side of the numbness is like pain or
emotional release or or it could be you know pain that lasts a little bit of time because this is
something that hasn't been felt for a reason in your body again it's smart it's not wanted to feel
it so it's disconnected you from it that disassociation in a healthy way but then you want it to be there
and it's not and I'll give an example of this because I think if anyone's breastfed out there
oftentimes your breast might be totally numb I know after I breastfed I could like stab my breast
with my fingernail it wouldn't feel a thing but over time of like coming back to that and with
the practice of breast and saws or just being present then eventually the sensation came back
and now it's like a super pleasurable part of my body but for many people that can be an example of
how that might show up and um and so then it's like kind of working through that so that you
can move through and start to find the pleasurable sensations and then teaching your brain to kind of
default to the pleasurable the pleasant sensations that you notice now what about the tantric
philosophy talk to me about that yeah and so what I love about this is because I think when you are
talking about tantra oftentimes when we kind of mix sex and tantra together it's because of
neo-tantra which is not most of most of us think about when we're like weaving weaving them together
um but it's really when I think about what I like about the neo-tantra because again
to traditional tantra is based in Indian tradition and there's a lot of different lineages um but
I think again the way I learned it is mostly kind of a mix I have mix of neo-tantric
principles mixed in um and so when you think about what are the some of the traditional
ways of meditation um you know hafa yoga mudras different things of like that are
kind of what you would think with a more traditional way but really a lot of it was
finding the divinity in everything right finding the divinity in the shadows finding the divinity in
you know death and destruction and not only the good things but in all the things and kind of
realizing that every part of life is sacred and divine every part of our bodies is sacred and
divine and there's a consciousness to all of us so I think that like that consciousness is like the
eternal principle of awareness so when we feel into that consciousness again that's what brings
more um it's like that that energy that's in all of us kind of that original essence and
that's what I think the one we when we translate it to having better connection it's really finding
that like not only finding the divinity in yourself and reconnecting to that but also the divinity in
your partner and the divinity in all the aspects of your partner and every part of them and even
the parts that you don't like right or even the parts that maybe you were taught were gross or
disgusting or but finding the divinity in you. Well I want to hit one more topic and then we'll
go to some we'll go to the work that you do first and go to some closing questions but
the last area especially when you talk about Indian culture that I think of is you know the
karmasutra obviously is very famous and you know it's acrobatics with genitals um but there's
almost I would imagine an element of shame if you're not doing bedroom gymnastics every single time
you're making love so talk to me about that as they refer to the the vanilla sex these days.
Yeah well I just first I'll just step back for one second and just I really want to honor the
cultural roots and nuances of tantra because there's you know so many beautiful lineages that
have been passed down but I will say um when it comes to that you know people think I know this
this is maybe a well-heard joke but oftentimes because people will say that to me is it like
sting and you have sex for four hours and you can but I think also you can look at it as like
a gourmet meal a five course gourmet meal or like a quick fast food feed food right so there's going
to be a time and a place for everything but there are examples in times where you might want to
enjoy like a five-star gourmet experience where you slow down and taste every morsel of your food
and just like just revel in the deliciousness of every single bit of it in the environment and the
way the food's plated and the colors and the textures and the um ambiance in your part in
the person that you're eating with and really just letting it seep through every part of your
body and being right and that's kind of like maybe a more ritual sex experience versus like there's
going to be a time and a place when you're in a hurry and you might need to run grab some chipotle
and you're going to eat it really fast in your car and that works too right so I think that I
I like to use that example for sex too because sometimes there are going to be like the quickies
and it's just fun to connect or just like have a quickie and go about your day or you don't have
time and you just want that connection or just honestly sometimes you might not be in the mood
but your partner is and you're not not willing but you're like all right well I'm sure what and it's
not like you're saying no I mean it's not like we are saying yes when your body means no but it's
just like you're like okay sure I'll give this as a gift to you right now because that feels good to
me or vice versa right um and so there can be those experiences but I think when you can learn
tools to expand your pleasure and to really work with your sexual energy and also understanding
your erotic archetype there's so many different ways to play to to really enhance your experience
so talk to me about find your feminine fire and you know what you offer to the people out there
listening if it's a road they choose to go down yeah well really find your feminine fire is all
around like finding that aliveness within you and um I think that through our everyday life that part
of us is often turned off and again because we're going about our day we're doing all the things
we're showing up for the people that need us and we are leaving ourselves at the end of the list
and I think that find your feminine fire is around reconnecting to that so it's really learning the
tools first of all I mean I love this um kind of the overview of the archetypes of really
what are the different layers that we move through to be able to heal and to be able to enjoy our
sexual edge to its fullest and I think one of the easy ways to explain is um kind of like the model
of a plant so to speak because I think we too are a part of nature and I think sometimes when we've
experienced a lot of trauma or if we're feeling really shut down or disconnected from that part
of ourselves and again we go through seasons in life too so I want to just really quick name that
that it's normal to go through seasons right maybe there's someone that's sick or maybe you're healing
from an illness or an injury or cancer or all the things like there's periods in time where you might
be in a winter and that's okay and normal but if you've been in this winter for a very very long
time and you're ready to shift then that's when sometimes some help can can bring you out of that
but I think the first part of it is kind of really remembering your worthiness because again that's a
part of us that depending on our upbringing maybe we had a lot of neglect maybe we had a lot of
exploitation whatever shame and repression coming along it's like remembering that we came into this
world as like a perfect blueprint of health and you know kind of getting back to like what are
the things that I need what do I need right what are what are my needs can I connect to them can I
ask for them and can I meet them and again sometimes that takes some work to be able to do those things
depending on your experience the second is is um kind of feeling the boundaries that support you
right being able to have sovereignty over yourself feeling comfortable with the give and take of
energy and being able to know like what is healthy for me to move towards and what is
healthy for me to stay away from and how can I really feel that in my body and trust what I'm
feeling is true because again depending on your experience maybe your body's telling you one thing
but you're like is that really right because it really safe for me to do this or is this really
what I want to do right now um and kind of really learning that and often I will say this kind of
can sometimes show up in long-term relationships too like I mentioned earlier if you are saying
yes when your body means no again and again and again then you're going to have a sense of shutdown
or numbness or disconnection from your pleasure and so it's kind of really learning how your body
wants to be experienced how you want to experience and how you want to share it with others and then
also being able to express your your your whole self expression because again that's where the
shame healing comes in because so many of us have a lot of shame or repression or again depending on
how that shows up um is working through that so that you can really feel safe to express your full
self in all ways in all the areas not only just in the bedroom but outside as well.
Brilliant and where it will find that online. Yeah so that you can go to um amandatessa.com
that's where all my info is yeah. Beautiful well I'd love to throw a few closing questions at you
if that's okay. Yes yes. All right the first one I love to ask is there a book or are there books
that you love to recommend it can be related to our discussion today or completely unrelated?
Oh yeah I I think one great book that I love is there's a new book that Emily Nabaski just
wrote called Come Together which is really great on just kind of understanding how to have better
sex with your partner and I really like the way she uses kind of like the blueprint of a house to
figure out how can I get the rooms where they need to be so that we can both come together and feel
really good about it so that's one I really love. Brilliant what about films and documentaries any
of those? You know what actually there's a lot of good stuff out there on Netflix so there was a
great documentary that was really fun I think it was called the Pleasure Principles and it was like
a little mini series on pleasure which I think is a really good one. Also Sex, Love, and Goop
was another one on Netflix that kind of explores the erotic blueprints which is one of the
things I really like to teach people and it's kind of like your love language but for your erotic
expression. Brilliant all right well then next question is there a person that you'd recommend
to come on this podcast as a guest to speak to the first responders, military, and associated
professions of the world? Yes you know who I was thinking I really love Rachel Maddox she's one of
my mentors and she speaks a lot to this so that could be someone and I also I don't know if you're
familiar you might already be familiar with this person but my friend's husband Tom Johnson has
he does a lot around fit for fire, fit to fight fire and so on a side note I will look up because
I know through somatic experiencing there's a specific wing of that called scope that really
specifically works with first responders and that's a great resource too but I will see if
there's a specific spokesperson I can connect you with because I think that would be a fun
conversation for you too. Fantastic thank you all right well the last question before we make sure
everyone knows where to find you online what do you do to decompress? Well one of the things I love
to do of course is have good sex but I also love to be in nature you know just being outside is a big
big one for me live music outside those two things mixed together is even better.
Fantastic all right well then we talked about the website there any places on social media people
can find you as well. Yes you can find me on instagram at a b testa and I am also on Facebook
at Amanda Testa Amanda Brown Testa so you can find me there too. Brilliant well Amanda I want to say
thank you so much it's been such an interesting conversation very different than a lot of ones
I normally have but again lo and behold mental health is a big part of sexuality too so you know
there's so many intersecting elements of the circles again so I want to thank you so much
for being so generous with your time and coming on the Behind the Shield podcast today.
Yes thank you so much again for having me.