Saturn Returns with Caggie - Kiana Reeves: How Can Women Reclaim Their Sexuality and Cultivate Deeper Intimacy Through Embodiment?

Episode Date: February 24, 2025

For the second episode of Letters to Venus, Caggie is joined by Kiana Reeves - a certified somatic sex educator, sexological bodyworker, embodiment and intimacy teacher, STREAM pelvic health practitioner, full-spectrum doula, and mother of two delightful and wild humans. For over a decade, Kiana has worked at the intersection of sex, love, embodiment, and intimacy. Her work takes a holistic and somatic approach to the emotional, biological, personal, cultural, and spiritual nature of sex and connection. Together, Caggie and Kiana dive deep into the complexities of sexual health, intimacy, and emotional connection, exploring:  💌 The journey from doula work to sexual wellness, and why reconnecting with our bodies is essential for healing  💌 The importance of embodiment practices and solo sexual exploration in cultivating a deeper sense of intimacy  💌 How societal norms shape our sexuality and the ways we can unlearn sexual shame  💌 The challenges of maintaining desire in long-term relationships and how open communication can reignite connection  💌 Emotional intelligence and its role in building fulfilling, conscious relationships With Kiana Reeves’s profound insights and Caggie’s thoughtful reflections, this episode is packed with wisdom, practical advice, and transformative perspectives that will challenge the way you think about love, relationships, and intimacy. Unlock your cosmic potential with easyStars, through personalised astrology insights, AI-powered compatibility reports, and daily guidance from Pixie (your AI astrologer!)  Download easyStars on Apple here or Google here today and enjoy a free 2-week trial ✨ — Letters to Venus is a spin-off of Saturn Returns that delves into the mysteries of love, relationships, and dating through the lens of astrology. Hosted by Caggie, this series draws inspiration from Venus—the goddess of love, beauty, and desire—guiding you through your heart’s journey, relationship patterns, and pathways to true intimacy. ✨ Exciting News - the Letters to Venus course is now OPEN for enrollment! ✨ The Letters to Venus course is a transformative experience designed to help you integrate celestial wisdom into your love life. Plus, we’re thrilled to have Kiana as one of our guest experts! She’ll be leading a LIVE somatic session exclusively for course members. Spots are very limited ✨ Sign up here and secure your place! — Find Kiana online:  ✨ Instagram: @kiana.reeves  ✨ Website: www.kianareeves.com  ✨ Explore Kiana's Love on Fire couples course: www.kianareeves.com/love-on-fire

Today's episode is brought to you by Easy Stars, an innovative app at the intersection of astrology and technology. If you've ever wondered why you are the way you are, how to unlock your full potential or even the best time to make a big life move, Easy Stars has the answers. At the heart of the app is Pixie, your AI astrologer and personal cosmic guide. Pixie delivers daily insights tailored to your astrological chart, whether it's guidance on well-being or tips for better decision making.

And if relationships are on your mind, the Easy Stars AI-powered compatibility reports can help you navigate love, friendships and even workplace dynamics. So whether you're planning a trip with your Leo boyfriend, wondering when to make that big investment or just looking for a little cosmic clarity, Easy Stars has your back. If you're curious to see how the stars can help you become your best self, download Easy Stars today and enjoy your free two-week trial when you follow the link in our show notes. Hello everyone and welcome to a new spin-off show from Saturn Returns all around love, relationships and dating. This is Letters to Venus. Venus is the goddess of love, the celestial muse of beauty, desire and connection. She teaches us that love is

not just something we seek, it is something we embody. Hello everyone and welcome to Letters to Venus with me, Keggy Dunlop, our new spin-off show from Saturn Returns, where we explore all things to do with matters of the heart and love and relationships. Today I'm joined by the incredible Keanu Reeves, a somatic sex educator, embodiment expert and holistic wellness practitioner specializing in intimacy, pleasure and sexual well-being. specialising in intimacy, pleasure and sexual wellbeing. With a background in doula work, pelvic health and energetic healing, Kiana is passionate about helping people reconnect with their bodies,

heal sexual shame and cultivate deeper intimacy, both with themselves and in relationships. So whether you're exploring desire, healing from past experiences, or looking to deepen your relationship with your body, this episode offers a beautifully holistic perspective on love and intimacy. I'm so excited

to dive into this conversation so let's get started. Then there is a different face of Venus that takes us to Vedic astrology and that's where we meet Shukra. Shukra is Venus as well and Shukra was a teacher of demons and is a wise and compassionate guide and it helps you achieve wealth, creativity, and sensual pleasures. Shukra's energy reminds us that life's indulgences aren't mere distractions but can be paths to enlightenment when embraced mindfully. Shukra also in Ayurveda relates to semen, signifying virility and tantra. Individuals strongly influenced by Venus possess qualities that signify overflowing passion

and a desire for superior sensual experiences here on Earth. This intense life force of Venus, of Shukra, fuels an uncompromising nature fixated on creating true, tangible, central experiences rather than settling for fantasies. Venus natives, or people who want to embody more Venus energy, should develop traits of intense ambition towards righteous indulgence and a fearless core that embraces the dark and destructive parts of reality, knowing that these create a space for beauty and truth to emerge. Shukla is also very closely connected to Lakshmi and she was a goddess of wealth and prosperity in Hindu mythology. Lakshmi

represents abundance and grace and to invoke her energy, you can practice generosity and gratitude as well as create space in your life that reflects the readiness to receive abundance and beauty. You can embrace life with all of its facets mindfully and therefore cultivate an attitude and an energy that will magnetize all the very things that your deepest desires wish to manifest. Kiana, welcome. Thank you. So excited to be here.

I am so, I'm trying to think why I first came across your work but I feel like we have some friends in common and for this particular episode there's like on a personal level there's so much I want to dive into and I'm like happy to go there but for the audience that might not be familiar with your work would you be able to share in your own words a little bit about who you are and what you do? Absolutely, yes. And it's hard to put in a short little nugget, but I'll do my best. I've been in the field of women's sexual health for almost two decades. Started in the world of birth work, being a doula, became a mom, was always interested in

sexuality, always. From a young, you know, teenage years was like the person all my friends came to, to ask about sex. And we were finding our cervixes together, you know? Like it was, it's been a part of my life before I was professionally trained in it. And in my mid twenties, after I became a mom, it became a very serious interest of mine,

partially because love and sexuality are so connected. And the way I came into motherhood was as a single parent. And so I still had that seeking part of my heart that was like, how am I gonna have, you know, like, I want a deep, epic, incredible love, and I really want that relationship to be filled with incredible sex and like passion. And how am I going to do that as a, you know, as a mom? And so that really was my doorway into my professional training, which was somatic sex

education, sexological body worker. I had a practice for a long time that was hands-on and hands-inside pelvic work for anyone who'd had really like the female body, anyone who'd had traumatic births or scar tissue or, you know, past sexual experiences that were challenging. past sexual experiences that were challenging. And then the last half decade or so, I've really been focused on more tantric lineages and spiritual, energetic and emotional realms of love and intimacy and relationship. So holistically, love and sex and liberation of the true deep feminine is my jam. So deeply my jam, yeah. Okay, so many things I wanna ask you

because I was fascinated to learn that you were, are you still a practicing doula or is that something you don't really? I do it for friends. Yeah, I love it. I mean, there's nothing like being in the room during a woman in labor, nothing. And the moment a child is born is really, I mean, the veils between the world totally and completely open up, you feel time collapse into I mean, it's it's a very, very transcendent magical space, similar to

psychedelics, similar to to death to you know, I sat with my grandma, it was like the same. I was like, this is the same and it is a birth room, you know, we're just going in reverse. So really, oh, like, so deeply, it was like being sucked back into the cosmic womb. It was so wild. It was a five-day experience. We sang to her the entire time. It was one of the most important experiences of my life, for sure. This is with your grandma.

Yeah, my grandma. Yeah. A couple years ago. But, yes, so I'm still a doula, but I do it for friends because I find it really challenging to schedule being on call from people. Yeah, it's quite a commitment. The reason I ask is because I'm actually six and a half months pregnant. That's so exciting.

Yeah, which is really exciting. But then I have something at the point where I'm like, oh my God, it's like the final, the final part of the marathon, so to speak. And it's gone so quickly. But we can, we can circle back to that. I wanted to ask, because you said, you said that you were like with your friends at school, you were always the person that they'd go to. So would you say you always felt quite sexually liberated? I don't think sexually liberated was where I started. I think sexually curious is where I started. I was raised very Christian, like very, but interesting Christian. It was like, you know, the kind of Christianity

where people were laying hands on each other and speaking in tongues and like prophesying and like, like, like deep mystic Christ-tishism, Christ-tishism, that's what we'll call it. Sounds legit, let's go with that. Christ-tishism, but my dad was a pastor and so I don't, I don't know why that's Christ-icism, but my dad was a pastor and so I don't have memories of being connected to my sexuality at all before teenagers' years. And so I think it started as curiosity. I was like, what is this?

What is this thing that no one lets us like, young girls aren't supposed to want that is like, quote unquote dangerous, you know. And I think that fascination became my own personal healing path to go down the rabbit hole. Because you spoken a bit about, you know, the shame that a lot of women feel with their sexuality and whether that comes from religion, society. It's there, I think, for everyone to some degree. And I've noticed it as someone that's been brought up. I mean, I was also brought up Christian, not quite, more in the sort of like play guitar, make cutouts of like Jesus kind of thing.

Oh, sweet. Like the Alpha Chorus. People might not know that about me. But I don't, I wouldn't say that necessarily played a part, but I also, I don't know, I've noticed it more as I've got older, the sort of double standards and how like women are kind of like, even actually as motherhood kind of comes into the mix, it almost becomes like, no, no, no, you cannot be a sexual being and a mother. And I find that quite interesting because also it comes through men and women in this way that's like, I don't think it's what we actually think or feel, but it's just passed down to us.

How has that come through in the work that you do in kind of untangling and dismantling that? Yeah. Oh, such a good question. Yeah, so that was like my entry point was as I came into motherhood again, like being in my mid 20s, so highly, highly sexual, really excited about relationship, and being a young mom. It was the experience of being like, Whoa, the world treats mothers completely different than the maiden energy energy which is like craved and sought after. I mean everyone's trying to look like they're 25 until they're in their 70s, you know?

Like you have to be beautiful and you have to be sexy to like appeal to a mate and then the second you become pregnant or become a mother it's this Madonna-whore complex. It is the layering on of whether you were raised Christian or not. We have it in our like ingrained in Western society. The Christian church has so much reach and influence that even if it wasn't your generation, it was your mother's or your grandmother's that probably taught her to be either highly disconnected from this part of herself, afraid of this part of herself, or ashamed of her desire. And we inherit that both, you know, in our kind of biological memory, but also in the way that pre-verbal, pre-memory, the way our parents relate to us, and they relate to our desires, and they relate to our bodies, really imprints on how we feel about them.

You know, even down to like diaper changing, you know. And so it is so layered. I would say on top of that kind of cultural, social, what do I, like the kind of like the tea we've steeped in, we also have then personal experiences and familial experiences that are passed down. And so it is complex. It's very nuanced and hard to unwind. And it is layered from the personal to the familial

to the social to the cultural. And I think especially for women, it's really, really tricky. It's really tricky. Because did you still feel, I mean, I'm presuming that you did as like very sexual, you were in your mid twenties when you became a mom, like kind of at that real heightened point of maiden really, when you are experimenting with your sexuality and exploring,

and then you have this new role, like how was that duality for you? Well, and I like, I couldn't, right? Because I was breastfeeding, I breastfed for two years. And so from 25 to 27. And I think the first time I started dating after I had my oldest son was about at a year and a half old. And it was this very strange experience

because I had milk coming out of my breasts with this man who wasn't connected to, you know, like, it really was such an interesting, because I didn't have the freedom, maybe to go exploring the way other people might be at that age, late 20s, early 30s, I had to explore in the inner dimensions versus mean by that? Well, I think a lot of sexual exploration comes from where the desire to like sexually explore people look outward. So they look for toys or they look for handcuffs and

lingerie or sex parties or polyamory or sexual partners that bring a certain texture of energy to them. And you know having and I was a truly like a single mother like his dad was not in the picture. From the from the get-go? Yeah from the get-go right before he was born. It was a clear split. And so it was it was like I'd have like two hours of the day to like go meet at the time the guy that I was seeing for like a lunch sex date, you know, and so it didn't have I couldn't like externalize my seeking it

really became this relationship with my body how I mean I'm sure that you felt this before but there as far as we can go out in our exploration externally with people and experiences and and and physical kind of seeking, there is such a vast internal deep space to explore and it's infinite. Like sexuality is the energy of creation. It just is. And so when we touch that space in us, like you truly can stay there forever and ever and ever

and continue to go deeper and deeper and deeper. And I don't even just mean, you know, because when we talk about sexual energy, a lot of times people confuse sexual energy with the act of sex itself. And so it's limited to these really highly specific moments of either, you know, solo sexual experiences or partner and sexual experiences. And then the rest of the day, we're not really like, participating in that energy or cultivating it or in relationship with it. And what I

think a lot of my work has been is around like integrating sexual energy into the entire existence of my life and being in relationship with it because it is the seat of creation. It is the seat of how we experience the world through our senses. It's the seat of our like excitement and our desire not just for sexuality and for sexual experiences. It's like where desire comes from for life. And to have that alive and awake is deeply nourishing and helps us stay in connection for me to the divine. Helps us have clear vision, helps us really like go beyond what's happening in our, the day to day kind of mundane part of our lives and, and feel deeper.

Because it sounds like actually that experience for you of having to really go more internally has been the foundation of your work. And I thinking about so much while you're speaking for myself and I think probably for most of our listeners is sex has been so externalized and so viewed often through the male gaze as this quite limited experience, like you say, rather than this energetic force that's our birthright, that's our creative energy, that's something that doesn't need to be shamed

or suppressed. And I'd love to kind of tap into how people can begin to reclaim that, because it's, let's just say it's within our lifetime, because it's, you know, we know that it's multiple, but in our lifetime of going through school, perhaps seeking male validation, our first sexual experiences aren't necessarily pleasurable for us, but they give the other person pleasure that makes us feel liked and wanted and valued. And then that kind of seeps into our psyche as like, okay, sex is for the other,

because I know how many women actually struggle to even just access their pleasure. So how can we begin to kind of cultivate it being more of an internal thing, as well as dismantling that patriarchy of belief that it's shameful in some way, or that it's for the man. Yeah. It's a big question. I have a lot to say about this, but we'll go bite size. For those of you looking to deepen your understanding of love and healthy partnership, I am launching a live course as a companion to Letters to Venus. This course is an opportunity to go

deeper, guided by experts and supported by a like-minded community. So whether you're out there seeking a partner and you're tired of dating the same person in different forms, or if you're feeling unsure about the next step in your current relationship, or if you just feel like you've got patterns going on that you just can't quite unpick, this course will offer a safe and private space to explore love and relationships without judgement. I will be your personal Cos agony on leading weekly live webinars along with workshops and panel discussions hosted by incredible guest experts. Spaces are limited so if you would like to join, head to the show notes or visit satamreturns.co.uk

to sign up. This is the work of somatics. This is the work of embodiment and because a lot of people's first sexual experiences where they really feel alive and awake and whether they're negative, we classify them as negative or positive, are partnered, we begin to associate our sexuality through partnership. And so we don't maintain like a very deep integrated personal relationship with that part of ourselves. And so embodiment in the world of somatics and this is layered, right? Because it's not just sexuality. There's so many experiences in our society that tell us to externalize and seek validation and seek knowledge and seek the deep knowing from other that what these modalities do is bring us back

into our direct experience of being in a body, of living inside our body, the body's knowing, the body's desires, the body's way of living. And it's a returning to our essence. It's a returning that often takes years for people if not a lifetime. We are trained, we're trained in the education system, we are trained, particularly in Western society, to value thought and to value mind and because of that we very much dissociate and limit and have a hard time hearing the body's signals and so the very first place if you want a deep relationship

with your own sexuality you want to understand what that even means for you what's possible for you you have to go for you, you have to go into the senses, you have to go into the body's experience. And particularly for women, but for all people, I would say is the second you start to try to listen and pay attention to that you realize how, how far away from that you actually are and how hard that is, how many thoughts interrupt you in your experience, what you're actually thinking about. You start to pay attention kind of like a

meditation, right? If you're listening to the body, the body is, it's loud and quiet all at the same time. It doesn't speak necessarily through thoughts and ideas. It's not this like rapid thing. It's a felt experience. And so as soon as you try to go into your felt sense and experience of life, you start to see, wow, I am thinking all of the time, all of the time. And that is taking me out of my direct experience. And so this gets heightened in sexual moments, particularly partnered sexual moments because we'll start to think, well how is my body looking? Is my partner enjoying themselves? Am I you know quote-unquote performing? Am I pleasing to them? And the practice, it just, it's a returning and a

returning, it's like the eternal return to this, this deep, quiet place of experience, but it sounds so much easier than it is. And so you have to be part experience and part compassionate witness to all of the thoughts because the thoughts will arise as shame they will arise as worry they'll arise as anxiety though they'll rise as all all flavors of how your mind works and it's it's this dual practice of of breathing and being in sensation and as thought arises just compassionately saying like wow that is something I think that's fun you know like not not hooking into the story around it and that practice alone will vastly vastly impact your ability to experience pleasure

impact your ability to experience pleasure or to notice where you eject from your own pleasure, where there's numbness, where there's pain, where there's emotion. Usually, and when I've worked with clients in the realms of like the hands-on pelvic work, if you're dealing with numbness or pain or kind of like a field of suppressed sexual energy you'll go through this unwinding that tracks directly with your nervous system. As you start to feel safer, as you start to experience more sensation and be able to feel it, all of the things you haven't felt, all of the emotions emotions all of the times you've self-abandoned all the times you've contorted for love all of your ways of trying to get love from the world to validate you all of the the pain that you haven't felt it comes to the surface first so that it can be felt. And then there's this beautiful opportunity to be with that in the sexual space. And a lot of women I work with experience immense amounts of

healing in their solo sexual practices, because it's a it's a place to feel pleasure, which anchors safety pleasure is a signal to your nervous system that you are safe to feel pleasure which anchors safety pleasure is a signal to your nervous system that you are safe to feel while you truly experience and feel what's alive. It's not like the noticing a lot of people can notice that they're sad or notice that they're angry, but they don't actually move the emotion. And deep sexual practices, being in pleasure and being able to move and feel what's true and let it come to completion. I was going to ask how important is the solo practice?

Let's say if someone is in a relationship, but they feel like they have a lot of this work to do, is it something that they do independently and then bring to their partner or something that they can immediately do in partnership? I think it's both, both and. The solo practice is, is crucial because what happens in partnership is it's, it's very hard to hold your awareness internally when there's someone else in the room especially if that's the long-standing pattern or habit or dynamic in the relationship and

so taking a half hour 45 minutes an hour to really go into those internal spaces where you are, like when I go into my practice, like I'm inside and underneath my skin all the way. And it's really like that feeling of being so inside the body that I live in, that everything outside is not where my attention is. And it's really tricky to do that when there's somebody else that you're kind of in this relay dynamic with. And so to build the neural pathways,

I think solo sexual practice is absolutely vital to all relationships. And you spoke about when you work with women with pelvic, what is it, the practice, what does that actually look like? So I have, this is the core teaching in my class, the Rose map, because what I, the kind of amalgamation of these different lineages that I trained in, there's the very like physical anatomical understanding of how your body works. That's one branch of it. And that's being able to be like, oh, this is my vulva. This is my clitoris. Here my g-spot like oh there's my cervix how do these

things actually feel how do they like to be touched right so there's one branch that's like the physical anatomical what your body wants needs desires and then there's the emotional which for anyone who has a highly feminine sexual essence, a highly feminine essence in general, their heart and their sexuality is deeply deeply deeply connected and if the heart's closed, if it's holding resentment, if it's holding fear, if it's holding anything like it's gonna be hard for our sexuality to open and fully receive because we're going to be just trapped in the like the fuckery of emotion and we can't lean back into that full kind of like surrendered

openness of receiving pleasure. So there's the emotional piece being able to clear and move those emotions. There's a piece around the nervous system that is super crucial. And it relates back to what you and I were talking about early on, which is shame and fear live in the collective feminine psyche around our sexuality because there is a massive amount of sexual violence but there's also because

of our lack of education and understanding around sexuality and it being valued as like an important part of our culture and our identities we aren't taught how to say no and so even when there's not a clear kind of boundary violation, many women have experienced and have the experience in their body of overriding a need or a no and enduring. And so that lives in our nervous system. And that has to be felt and cleared so that we can truly feel when something's a yes for us. We can truly feel when we need more time. We can truly feel when we're not aroused enough for penetration and

that again takes a lot of work, a lot of practice to be able to really attune to that inner voice. And then there's, so those are four pieces, that's nervous system, emotion, the anatomy, but then there's also love and depth and spirit and like the divine part of our sexuality that matters so much to us. It's something all people are continually seeking is the depth of sexual experience that reminds us of

it's not even just our primal nature, reminds us like of like who we are and what we're capable of feeling. It frees us deeply. And that's a whole other part of embodiment that is mystic and archetypal and ancient and like, you know, the God and the Goddess meeting in those moments and everything beyond that, you know, all the full spectrum of life meeting in that moment. I mean, this is lifelong work. Yeah, I was gonna say, it's a lot. It's a lot. Because as much as it's like how that everything you described is exactly how it should be, then we're all dealing with lifetimes of the other stuff.

And particularly the nervous system piece that you spoke about, like brings up a lot of sadness in me because I feel like myself included and many of my friends that I've spoken to, and I don't even think it was our generation. I think it's, I hate to say it, but standard. You've described that we had sexual experiences that weren't a yes, you know, they were a no,

but because we didn't really have these tools or were brought up in this way, it's just everything's just been pushed down. But like you say, it lives in our bodies. And then paradoxically, you get then shamed for those very same experiences. And then you kind of feel, yeah, you just feel like a disconnection from your own desire sometimes, I think. Oh, completely. And in order to actually access this stuff, you need to process the grief and all the times that you said yes when you meant no and things that you kind of like, oh no, it was fine. Like I was drunk and you know, like all the things that we kind of normalized that are just not, they shouldn't be normal. Yeah, you're touching on something that has been very very alive for me in

the last few months which is it's the innocence of our sexuality the deep exquisite like epic innocence of our hearts in relationship to our sexuality. And what gets layered on top after all of those experiences is a sort of numbness and a sort of, call it like a capability. And you nailed it when you said, it was fine, right? I look back at certain things that happened, I'm like, oh, it was fine. But for the girl in me that it happened to,

it was actually quite scary and overwhelming. Even if it wasn't quote unquote scary. For my body, it was a lot. It was too much, too soon, too fast. And so I didn't know how to be with it. And so being able to go into those moments, where you're accessing the thing that's really cool about when we activate our sexual energy is it activates all parts of our brain,

all parts of our mind. And so we have we have access to the brain stem and the midbrain and the prefrontal cortex. It's relational, it's emotional, and it's primal. And when all of those parts of us are kind of like very active and available, there's a lot that can happen in a small amount of time. You know, you might spend, you might have a memory come up or a feeling come up where you weep for a half an hour and then your body's like, I don't even know what I was crying about. And yet I feel this freedom that I haven't felt in a long time. I have this open heartedness that hasn't been with me. And going back to that original thought around the innocence of our sexuality and our pleasure. So I was sitting last

week for tea and for me that's like one of my morning practices is sitting with tea and quiet it's like a meditative just it's a learning and a listening and I really had this this deep deep in my body understanding that my body before it was anyone else's before it felt like it was anyone else's it was mine and that's for all of us. Your sexuality is yours. And that is when you can go back to that place of just the truth of pleasure is that it's just your body feeling good.

And like how beautiful that is. And if you can stay with that feeling that innocence of just feeling good, there's so much available in that space just to kind of release the other thoughts that we've taken on the other beliefs that we've taken on in our lifetime that are, you know, we think are true. How do we navigate that in the world that we live in where a lot of people might be going on dates with people that, you know, approach it very differently?

And you're like, where does the line between what's our responsibility and how we feel versus do we need to try and educate other people? Because, you know, this is like a collective societal problem that if no one says anything, nothing's going to change. Yeah, so it is our responsibility. It's our responsibility to, to name our needs, to know what our bodies, our hearts, our minds are asking for, to know when we feel unsafe. And I'm not using the word unsafe like, ah, I'm afraid that you're going to hit me. I'm literally, there's signals in the body that when something's moving too quickly, we automatically bypass and it's it's the phrase you use which is this is fine. This is okay It's literally as soon as you hear yourself telling yourself that it means that underneath

somebody somebody saying something in there, you know someone's like hell or like too much and it means you slow way, way, way down. And I wouldn't say it's our responsibility to educate on a date. This is not stuff you have to like talk about and be like, hey, like, I want to talk about embodied consent. It is your responsibility to be in your truth because if you won't nobody else will know your truth. They won't so they won't be able to feel you you know and before I met my husband when I was dating I'm doing like the online dating

thing which is crazy and so wild like a whole other episodes that we could talk about. I had to do that. I use dating as my practice where I was like so committed to the thing that I was unwaveringly committed to is being very honest about what I needed in that moment. And it's not a heady thing. It's not like a big long conversation. It's like, Oh, I need to slow down. Or, you know, me taking a deep breath, so that the person sitting across from me can actually feel me more. And if you can't feel yourself, how do you expect someone else to feel you? Like, we're all just just stuck in our heads yapping at each other at

that point, you know? And then and then mirroring each other. Exactly. Exactly. You've also said that you think sex should be something we do when we're in love, which you said was like quite a controversial thing. Do you still stand by that? Did you get some people kind of saying that's not true? And why do you think that? Yeah, I think so there's there's nuance to this. And it's not that I think sex should be something

when you're in love. Sex is the ultimate expression of love being felt. It's love made real through the body. And so I think sex without feeling the heart deeply and without really recognizing in that moment how deeply you're connecting with that person is compartmentalization. A lot of people, because we're in this strange place

where there's like total sexual freedom and liberation, and we're navigating things like, well, I don't wanna be in a relationship, but I do wanna have sex, and we're not gonna be exclusive. And so people are really trying beautifully to free this sexual shame. A lot of times I think it's at the cost of feeling the deeper needs, which is I need to be felt. I need to be able to love you, even if it's just for this moment.

Like I need to love in sexual moments. Otherwise it's me in the lower half of my body and my heart is like, you know? Yeah, it's a disassociation. It is, yeah, it's a full compartmentalization. And so even, I think I say this in the talk that you're talking about, it's even if it's for that night, like let it fucking break your heart open.

You know, if you have a partner in front of you that maybe you're never gonna see again, or maybe you're gonna date for the next three months, or maybe you're gonna marry, maybe it's two people with you. I don't know, but at least let it break your heart with beauty, right? Because you are touching places in them and they're touching places in you, not even just physically, but the body and the emotions are deeply integrated.

They're not separate things. When you honor that in someone else, it honors what sex is, which is a portal to creation. It is the way life is made. And so being that deeply with someone, even if you don't even know their fucking name, it honors them and it honors you and it honors what's happening in the room. Even if it's crazy, you know, even if it's like in the restaurant bathroom, like why not let it, yeah, why not let it be like insanely deep? Because otherwise, what's the point?

Yeah, well, people are afraid of love because it's scary to get your heart broken. Okay, well, let's let's talk about that. And I want to look at the specifics of because I know you do a lot of work in terms of intimacy in long term relationship, because I feel like there's a lot of stuff out there around navigating the modern complexities of dating with the apps and all that jazz. But when people are in long-term relationships, the doors tend to kind of close on what people share. And there's a

different element of shame that comes into the mix because the honeymoon or the initial chemistry that makes it very easy to kind of go that first chapter inevitably fades. And then you have to have a whole different set of tools. And you go from being kind of lovers to life partners and parents or own a home together and all these things that are romantic in a way but they're also not necessarily that sexy. Yeah. And then it's like, okay, well,

how do we have these conversations and maintain that intimacy? Yeah. So I'd love you to be able to share a little bit about that because I know you do it so beautifully with your partner and I love watching your videos together and stuff. I'm like, oh God, this is so bold. I'm so English. I think I posted something yesterday which is around my husband and I's relationship.

And I think it's really important to say this because Instagram is a false reality. Social media is like one minute of a 24-hour day, highly curated to make people feel something. And, you know, for Chris and I, it's not like we have this epically hot, passionate relationship 24-7 all the time, like wildly. Just like that is, that's our North Star that keeps us in practice and it doesn't always feel effortless and it doesn't always it's not always like he comes up to me and I'm like oh yeah baby let's do it in the kitchen you know it takes work after many years of being with someone it does take work because what we are used to

feeling what activates our desire early on in relationship is usually spontaneous desire which is yearning for sex in the mind it's this thing that arises spontaneously from the body but there's also a quality of other right Esther Perel talks about this beautifully, which is where when someone is is a little they're the other right you're seeking as a distance. There's a distance you can see them in their you know in their purpose and in their in the space between you really get to understand more clearly who they are and you long you yearn for them you yearn to know them and then relationship incredible amounts of familiarity and comfort come in but when you move in

with someone and you have children with them you have shared responsibilities you're putting them from other into your early childhood familial dynamics. And they become linked in our brains in the same way our parents and caretakers were. And that is not a sexy place necessarily to live. So all of your early childhood wounding, patterning, programming around sexuality, but also just around like relating in general,

you know, how well we can navigate fights and conflict, how safe we feel in doing that. And then all of our boredom comes out because we become habitual, we become habituated to the situation. And so we respond to it habitually. Layered onto that is the fact that because of the place sexuality sits in Western culture, it is not revered, it is it's organized into this nice tidy little box of like that's something you do inside of a relationship and you know you'll probably end up bored with it if you're with someone

in the long run. There's no practice, there's no place where people can actually cultivate the skills. They really have to seek them out if they want to prioritize that in their relationship. Otherwise they enter into sexual relationship having maybe 10 or 20 years of experience that started as a teenager, which was awkward, often drunk, fumbling into the 20s, which is still often drunk, fumbling. And it's like the blind leading the blind. And you reach plateaus in those spaces,

in your relationship, and it's very hard for two people who don't have their own commitment to deepening to lead each other into sexual depth and there's nothing that will kill sexual excitement more than then boredom and repetition and feeling like you know what's about to happen. I'm about to make out. You're going to rub my boobs. You're going to touch me for a little bit.

Hands foreplay. I'll come. You come. Yay. That is the heterosexual, heteronormative understanding. That's fit. Yeah. And it fucking sucks. You know, like that

sucks. I don't like even if it's good, it sucks, because you know what's gonna happen. You know, and so couples need structures, where people who have been studying this work, whether it's reading books, I think is like a good entry point reading books is fine, but it's not embodied necessarily, it's conceptual, they need practice spaces and structures and teachers who have been helping people, whether it's a tantric lineage or a somatic sexual exploration

lineage, where they're actively led through a deepening in themselves and a deepening together. Otherwise, it is very challenging to know what to do in the moment. Yeah. And like you said, that then creates an opportunity and an experience that has that novelty, that has that element of excitement of seeing your partner in a different scenario sexually and it kind of creates that aliveness again. Yes. And a lot of that exploration, a lot of those conversations, especially at first, if you're not used to having them. Awkward.

So awkward. And like, let it be awkward. Because also you don't want it to sound like a criticism. Yeah. Like, think about it, like I love that music is a great analogy for sex. So think about, you know how to play like four chords. You're like really good at four chords, each of you, right? Maybe you can get a little harmony sometimes. But suddenly, and you know, you want to play like, like an incredible guitar song, like you just you know that that's possible. You've heard it before you've heard the music, you know it's possible.

But like you know four chords. What do you have to do? You have to study and practice. Like you you just do. Otherwise you're going to be with the same four chords and you're gonna be craving the orchestra. How do people go from that? Because I think a lot of people feel this way, but then they're like, okay, well,

I know that these four chords are kind of, you know, we played them a fair few times. But where, like, I don't even know what other music I like. Totally. And then it feels like, well, I don't know where to begin, so I'll just stick with these four chords and play them slightly differently. It feels like such an overwhelming space. You could try something and be like, I don't like that song at all, you know? So like, where do we go?

Like on a very practical level. I have a lot of answers to this happening in my brain at one time. So the first, I would say the first place to start is you gotta get intimate with your erotic landscape, your inner like erotic mind. The brain is the largest sex organ. It's where most of our eros,

the intricacy of our eros can be discovered and worked with. And so being able to spend time kind of exploring the inner erotic landscape through deciphering these textures inside of your fantasies or deciphering like really getting in conversation with well what is my body desire using current sexual experiences using past sexual experiences using reference points in movies and books and other things that kind of like light you up to to gather a

little bit of a roadmap or a little bit of an understanding of like where you Personally light up and where you'd like to start your exploration. Okay, and this is something that can be done in privacy It's a practice of solitude. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so solitude. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So it's one it's like one thing that I teach couples, whether it's in my course, or literally working with couples coaching is how to kind of go into that inner erotic landscape and just start pulling ideas together. Just start being like, Oh, I really like this song, you know, to stay with the music analogy, I really like how this

song sounds, it does something in me. And that's the first thing. So like familiarity with your inner erotic landscape, so that then you have some ideas to share with your partner. So the second layer of that would be space to clearly, lovingly safely communicate that with partner. And then the third piece of that, which is I think why most people are kind of like intimidated by it is how do you bring it to life?

And let's take like a classic example of a fantasy and kind of break this down step by step. So we'll go like with a classic male fantasy like having a threesome, right? So maybe a man's like, okay, I'm really turned on by threesomes. And immediately if you're his partner and you're in this heterosexual dynamic,

most women would be like, well, I don't wanna do that. That is way too intimidating. It's way too vulnerable, super threatening. All of the jealousy flares up. I'm not enough. You know, you're unsatisfied. So that guy is never gonna share that with his partner because he's already anticipating this kind of response. And you can see how this kind of rift is created where we take our idea of where we take our idea of what it means to have a fantasy, which is really what we're craving is an emotional and energetic experience.

But we take it for face value. And then the partner thinks, well, I'm never gonna do that. And then everyone's like, well, I'm never gonna get my sexual needs met. Like, why do I even enter this point? It's threatening. I'm never expressing that again, yeah. Yeah, it creates threat in the relationship.

So, so you get this fantasy and then you break it down and you go, okay, well what is the nourishment actually? What am I actually receiving in that fantasy in my mind that is giving my body an experience of deep pleasure and nourishment of just deep excitement. And it's actually the experience of, of being a little edgy, of being washed maybe or worshiped in feminine essence of being completely doted on of completely. Just depending on what the threesome looks like, I guess, you know, I have like

versions of it in my head. But there's, there's like an energetic and emotional texture to a threesome that isn't about three people being in the room. It's about maybe something being illicit and naughty, maybe something that's been forbidden, something that has to do with adoration, but also the felt experience of that man who has this fantasy of being completely overwhelmed by, you know, the beauty of like breasts and vulvas and juices and, you know, hips and like, I mean, you feel that and you're like, oh, that's what it is. Then his partner can go off. I understand, like I could actually become that I can embody that kind of adoration worship access to something that's a little more illicit in me, I can wash

him with the adoration of my hips and my heart. Like I can just surround him with it. And he will be nourished by that in a way that is maybe not exactly the same, but very similar energetically. It's the same energy. Yeah. I wanted to ask if we view it from a different perspective because I'm thinking from my own experiences,

what a threesome evokes in me. Yeah. And for me, what I find quite erotic, and I think that this is quite common, is the idea of my partner with another person, not because that's the last thing that I want. But it's like that very fine line between pain and pleasure, like something that you know, could hurt. It's like, the thing that you I mean, Esther Perel always says, like the thing that you campaign against in the day is

the thing you fantasize about between the sheets. And it's really true. And we have, you know, often that's why you find these CEOs at work that like want to be stamped on in their lunch break. And I think it's about like owning that duality in us that our erotic world is often going to conflict with what we want with our life partner, but that can bring up a lot of confusion in itself because it's like, oh, well, I don't want to say that because I don't want that to actually happen. It's just that kind of flavor of it. So when you imagine it, is there a flavor of like, like a little bit of jealousy and possessiveness? Yeah, which I kind of I like like that feels good for me. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And and it's also again that he's othered. Right? Yeah.

It creates this energetic space between you where you get to yearn for his attention, yearn for his presence, yearn for his turning towards you, choosing you over. So it sets up all of these cool... It's like my father wound type of thing. Yes. Like we're really going into. I have the same one. I'm like, I have the choose me wound. To be chosen. So deep. so deep.

So when you get into a moment where there's two women and he still chooses you. Yeah. So it hits the spot and you could imagine, like imagine this, okay. Imagine you're with your partner, you've shared this with him. Like I really want to feel you choosing me, but it needs to feel a little bit like you're choosing me over but it needs to feel a little bit like you're choosing me over Yeah, every other woman on the planet, you know, and so imagine instead of him just being like I love you You're so beautiful. He's like, you know, yeah, she yeah, she's fucking beautiful. But like I want you. Yeah

You know what I mean? Like it's it's so subtle Like it turns the heat up in's new. It's new. It like, it turns the heat up in a really big. I can see it on your face right now. Because it's something that I've been like muddying over in my mind. What is this? And also just to add as a caveat for people listening or like something that I feel is valid to mention, If you carry the

choose me wound, be really careful of letting it conduct like who you're picking as a partner. Because you could be in a cycle of like constantly going for unavailable people because it... absolutely. It really just... that's a bit of a detour but I just think that that's worth. Well that is okay. This leads us into our subconscious relational familial wounds drive who we choose in our partnerships. So what we're attracted to, unless we are very conscious of that, I mean, like I have such a long history of being attracted to unavailable people who felt weirdly like very available.

You know, it's like, it's fucking like, how did that happen? But we have all of this. Think about it like you're a baby, you spend the first 12 years of your life. But even if we're talking about those first seven years, your entire patterning around what love is, is in relationship to your caregivers and your parents entirely. So even if that relationship is not sexual,

as adults are sexual and romantic, the way we understand love is highly entwined with our sexuality. So we will find partners who absolutely replicate the familiarity of our early childhood love. 1,000%. Even if the man that I chose didn't look like my dad at all, he was the parts of my dad that hurt me for a long time.

And it's not necessarily something you ever like, like heal and be like, I'm done with that. It's something that you're in lifelong relationship with, you know, like you have to be conscious about it. So I love that you said that because we will bring that out in people. We will be like, Oh, you love me. I actually need you to be unavailable so that I can fight for your love so that you can prove to me that you love me that I'm lovable and I will push you away so that you will be unavailable to me and when I push you away, you will hurt me and then I will blame you for it.

And then I have enacted my own wounding cycle. My own trauma. But I'll blame you. I'm dying because I feel like this is, I mean, luckily I haven't, and I feel like I've got enough, just enough awareness and being like a good network of women around me that are like, this is

a you thing. But it's sneaky. So sneaky. So sneaky. So like, imagine then the alchemy of knowing this is, you know, it's like a childhood wound, but it's also a shadowy. It'll come out as a shadow. It'll come out as like a tricky fucking shadow that you don't even know as shadow. You know, the way it comes out for me is I'll start just like, like picking at someone I'll just pick and be like, in my mind, there's my shadow part of it, you know, who I am like in relationship with, I fully embodied. I like I know her voice because I know how to recognize her. But she's still come on really strong. And I'll just be like, you know, until until someone fights back until

someone's like, Hey, fucking stop it. You know, and then I'm like, you can handle me. I'm not stop it. You know, and then I'm like, ah, you can handle me. I'm not too much, you know what I mean? Like you can overpower me. And so it's like, they will come out, our shadows will come out in our relationships and we will force people to reenact our woundings. We just do it.

And that I think also it's important to note that that's just part and parcel of being in relationship. Because I think a lot of people are like, oh no, I don't want that to happen. And like, how can I avoid that and pick someone that's not gonna bring up those things? But I feel they're inevitable, but actually the right partner isn't that they don't bring up that stuff where you I feel they're inevitable. But actually, the right partner isn't that

they don't bring up that stuff where you don't have these conflicts. It's that you know how to repair and hold space for each other in your messy weirdness. Totally. Like we all are so fucking weird. Anytime you know, like anytime you avoid, anytime you try to kind of dampen and ignore those feelings, you cut off a part of your own desire, passion and aliveness. What do you mean by that? As in the part that you're pretending you're not feeling or thinking? Yes, because it dulls you.

It doesn't honor the truth of your experience. And I'm not saying go spewing your inner childhood wounds all the time. I'm saying reveal what's true. Really reveal what's true. And that is where vulnerability comes in and that is where intimacy is actually created. Yeah, which sounds so, so like paradoxical because a relationship therapist actually said this to me recently. He was like, say the unspeakable thing.

Yes. And I just thought after I was like, first, that's what we all go through life not doing. But I'd say a lot of the breakdowns of relationship, like if you stem them back, it's because someone didn't say something that needed to be said. Yes. Because we abandon. Yeah. We're afraid that it would hurt them or that it would cause an issue that we don't know exactly how we feel about it ourselves. And so we pretend it doesn't exist. And then that creates like more of the shadow.

It's you numbing yourself, which numbs your relationship and separates you. This is like a good example. Jealousy is a good example of this, right? Cause no one wants to feel jealous, it's deeply uncomfortable experience. And yet if you own it in the moment when you're feeling it, it can be a hilarious, which is like what my partner thinks it is.

Cause I am wildly jealous. Oh, like insanely jealous. Like I go fucking nuts. But I don't, but the thing is, is that I don't, even if the story is like really, really strong, really activating, I've experienced a fuck ton of betrayal, like a lot. And so even though I'm like, oh, I've healed that, there's a little part of me that's like, what if though? What?

You know, what if? And when she comes up and she's like, what if he's lying to you? When he's texting someone, I just, I straight up say it. I straight up say it and he will laugh so hard, you know? But imagine if I wasn't in relationship with that part of myself and I actually believe, I didn't say anything and I started believing those thoughts and feeding them and it started making me panic and then I would start treating my partner suspiciously and then he would start to feel like he was

untrustable and it creates this vicious loop. So when we own the parts of us and let the crazy wild, like hungry, whatever parts of us that are there and feeling things be seen, they get validated, they get felt, and they kind of are able to put the quest down, you know? Yeah, the hunt, the hunt for betrayal. The hunt, totally. Because the jealousy piece is interesting because I've had to navigate it in my relationship. And I mean, I don't know whether my partner would be very happy to be showing this,

but at the beginning, because I'd actually never experienced it like that before. It made me feel like I wanted to shut down. It's taken us a few years to find the tools, and also to create enough safety between us that when it rears its head, it doesn't capsize the whole boat. Totally. It's able to be looked at and laughed at and move on

rather than like, because it can be a really, jealousy can be really ugly. Oh, it's so gnarly. It is, it can be so vicious. And it hijacks your nervous system, maybe. Both of you because it's fear underneath jealousy is is fear of of dying and of being abandoned you know that is the closest to death we get is being abandoned in our childhood wounding so like yeah jealousy activates like primal fucking fear and also it can it can be that dance if one person gets jealous and like starts being mean to the other one, then like obviously they're afraid that they're being abandoned so they're like attacking you,

but then you feel like they're attacking you and they're gonna abandon you. So it's like this complete shit show if your whole nervous system can go from zero to a hundred in like a minute and it's hard to come back down. Yeah, when Chris and I get into it and we will now and then, my wounding is like I'm afraid of being abandoned. I'm afraid that you know you're wanting someone else. And he goes into, I'm, I'm

not enough. Like I'm doing everything I can, everything I can to show you how much I love you and you don't trust me. So like, it's never going to be enough. So then we're both in our little sad inner child wounds going like, you know, and it's like, you know, and it's, it's tough. You know, when, cause you've spoken about how, you know, when we harbor these things and we don't speak them, I find this an interesting piece because I've been wondering recently, like how much is sex about sex and how much is sex actually about all the other shit that

goes on in a relationship? Totally. Totally. You know? Because I think we think like, oh, I don't, you know, if your desires diminished or you're not feeling that sexual towards your partner, like, is that just a physical attraction thing or is it actually to do with like a whole mishmash? Oh, it's, it is everything.

It's everything. Yeah, that's what when circling back to the beginning of our conversation, the heart and the sexuality are deeply connected, particularly for feminine beings. And when our hearts are holding on to, oh, you didn't call me back, or I've been having to clean your beard hair off of the sink for like two weeks, disgusting, and or you haven't been giving me attention,

and you've stopped like kissing me, and I'm not even like feeling, like there's all of these things that we don't even know we're feeling that are wrapping our heart up in closure. It's like these just imagine that these little like blankets that are just like, oh, there's another layer. Oh, there's another layer. And sex is a great opportunity to let that be felt.

But there has to be an integration between your ability to feel your heart and feel your sexuality. And a lot of people are again practicing one or the other and that connection between both is like I mean for me personally the the most rewarding fulfilling ecstatic sexual experiences are ones where I am feeling a thousand different emotions in that. You know, I'm feeling the grief of love, the ecstasy of love, the anger that I haven't been able to move. I'm able to like get, I'm able to like feel all of it all at once and it's moving through me and it's helping me open and clear and feel. And my partner, who is very, very masculine, and feminine masculine does not necessarily correlate to gender,

so I just want to like name that here because I'm using the terms a lot. He gets so nourished because I am opening my heart and he is able to feel it. But again, someone else cannot feel you unless you're feeling yourself. So it's a great way to like clear that stuff. But it can be hard to get there if your desire is shut down and if you've kind of numb to it because you're secretly resentful or pissed off or feeling unloved. And if you do recognize that, what do you start to do to start unraveling the heart? Because I definitely, I mean, I feel like this is quite a Taurus trait that I will like,

also I'm not great with confrontational conflict. So if something's happened, like I will, I will make a mental note, probably shut down my heart a little bit and I will, yeah, lock it away. So usually women have been told we're too much and our emotions are too much. And so the way that we've learned to be lovable again, like all relational stuff

is childhood wounding but and societal wounding but for a young girl who cries a lot, you know, stop crying sweetie, you know, or like oh you don't need to be upset, you don't need to show this emotion or experience it. The amount of women who apologize when they cry, like that drives me nuts. Women will cry and it's the most beautiful thing, right? They start tearing up and everyone in the room is like, yes, someone's feeling like it's so beautiful. And she herself starts to cover her face, wipe her tears and goes, I'm so sorry, I'm

crying. And tries to stuff it down, right? tears and goes, I'm so sorry, I'm crying. And tries to stuff it down, right? Or anger. Anger is another one. Women are not allowed to show their anger at all. And so you tuck it away and you're like, like you said, I'm making a note of this for later. And I'm going to talk to you about it, but not in an angry way. It's six years time. It In six years time, and I'm bringing up when everything else is bringing up, and I'm gonna blast it at you like the kitchen sink, and you're gonna wanna run away from me.

So anger is a good example of emotion that really needs to move, because you can feel the second you get angry what it does in your body it's it's an active emotion it wants you to move it it wants you to yell it wants you to hit it wants you to fight because anger is activating your fight response and so getting very intimate with your fight response like not even intimate like practicing having a healthy fight response, like not even intimate, like practicing having a healthy fight response will give you access to being able to express anger, but it has to be in an open-hearted way. And this is where the disconnect comes from, like in the world of polarity, which you know, I've been studying in for many years, talks about the feminine storm, right? Like our fullness as the feminine is to be love and joy

and bliss and ecstasy and pleasure and rage and grief and all of it all at once. But if your heart is closed, when you are storming, it is abusive and it will not land well. That will shut your relation. It will shut your partner down. It will shut the moment down, it will shut the moment down, everyone's going to have tension in their body, it's going to feel

bad. When your heart is open, and you're expressing it in the moment as it arises, you're not you haven't saved it for later, and you're pulling it back out. If you've saved it for later, you're pulling it out, you're pulling it out with 500 other things. It has to be in the moment where your partner, you know, does something that pisses you off and you're like, hey, I didn't like that. You know, you really like it's fast and it's quick, but it moves it so that it clears and it doesn't turn into a resentment later on.

But that does mean you have to have access to your fight response. Many, many women are much more prone to a freeze, dissociate, numb response. And that's just nervous system training. But you have to practice being able to like activate your inner predator, you know, your inner like fierceness to be able to clear it. And to be in a relationship that allows you to express it. Yeah. And, you know, the level that you might want to express it at your partner might not be able to fully receive. That is

like a nice little dynamic Chris and I have going on is like, I would love to go 100% and just like unhinge. He can take about like 25% of my, you know, and it's gotten more and more. And I can request like, can you hold me in this or can I fight you, you know, like and push against you. And when he's prepared, he can take a lot more of it. But we have agreements around it, we have containers, like space for it. Part of our responsibility, though, again, goes back to self awareness, which is one piece, but then relational awareness, which is

being able to hold your awareness of what you need, hold your awareness of what your partner is capable of holding, and titrate. Titrate? Titrate. It's a little bit. It's like you're not given the 100%. You're giving like a little bit, and you see what happens. You're not like suddenly pounding on them. You know what's coming to mind though, what I feel like a lot of couples experience is that the time when they're able to express themselves

and often argue the most is when alcohol or substance is involved and then it all goes like, yeah, to a hundred and no one's able to communicate properly. How do people manage that if that's often the time when arguments happen and all the shadowy parts that usually we could keep at bay or perhaps would have the capacity to express healthily, suddenly come out in this like, rageful. Yeah, when you're uninhibited. When you're uninhibited. Yeah.

So again, having no inhibitions is really about liberation and being very authentic in the moment. Alcohol is like magnificent out of that. It's a magic potion for saying exactly what you're thinking and feeling. That's why people like it in a lot of ways. I think because it releases their inhibitions. Releasing your inhibitions is literally liberation and that's what we're talking about as a practice. The practice of liberation is being true in the moment when a feeling arises and not stuffing it down. And probably if someone if a

relationship hasn't had the practice of doing this, setting a time and a space weekly to go into a mago dialogue is to me the one that can give structure to intensity, intense conversations the best. In mago dialogue, it's like a therapeutic conversational structural model, believe it was created by Harville Hendricks, his wife and it allows you to fully express feel seen and heard and understood without going into like I feel this way well then I feel this way well then you know and you're you're back in this like

wounding one person at a time really gets a chance to be seen, felt, understood. And it gives you it gives you practice and access to receptive listening that will feel like for me it creates a lot of safety to talk about hard things. What it won't do is give you practice in expressing emotion. That in itself, I think, is useful to do inside of a container with a teacher who can help you learn to modulate, who can help give you access, give you ways to access that in your personal practice

so that you can bring it into your relational practice. Yeah, so you can work with a therapist that can kind of role play with you. Yeah. Yeah. Like an example of this is the first time I ever stepped into a workshop with my teacher, John Wineland, who I've been studying with for many years, there was a, we did a full day of sexual polarity and at the very end of the day, after like 11 hours of practice, breathwork, eye-gazing, running sexual energy, like being deeply felt. He had all of the men sent in a circle on the outside, all the masculine folks on all of the feminine practitioners on an inside

circle, each person standing with one person eye to eye. And the practice was to give the feminine an opportunity to express unfelt, unexpressed rage. And the entire room around me erupted into these like growls and stomps and screams and like unleashing of this like Kali like energy this this that the anguish and pain that we personally and generationally and socially carry. And I had zero access to it. I had I was so self conscious I was looking at a man that I was attracted to who I'd practiced with all day. I was like, I can't show this to him.

I don't even feel angry. I don't even feel angry. So I was like, you know, like I really like, I like tried it and I felt like that. Make it pretty. Yeah, yeah. Make it pretty. Make it pretty is what it is. Right.

Make it palatable so they can still love us. And, you know, six years later, like, I have a much different experience with it. But still, that's a tricky one. So having places to practice you being able to find it in yourself authentically, time and time and time again. You know, you don't go to a yoga class and suddenly become a yogi. It's like that's a lifelong devotion and dedication. So really deeply having lifelong satisfying love and relationships, it is a lifelong devotional spiritual path. Thank you so much. I'm aware that I've taken up quite a lot of your time.

I feel like there's so many other things that we can dive into, but this has been so much food for thought for me. So fun. And such a joy to speak to you and thank you for sharing your wisdom today. It's a delight. I love conversations like this. You're the best. Me too. Well, thank you. Where can our audience find you? So my website is my name, kianareeves.com. By the way, epic name.

I was born the year we got famous, by the way. So anyone thinking we're related or not, it's just a cosmic hysterical joke. Yeah, so my website, kianarives.com, and I have, if people wanna dive into what it feels like to step into a class, I have on-demand classes for couples and women there. And then for bite-sized kind of like cute little practices and women there. And then for bite size kind of like cute little practices and you know, just just learning. I teach a lot on Instagram so you can find me kiana.raves on Instagram.

I feel like I'm gonna do some of your classes now. Awesome. Yeah, the love on fire. We just launched that this week, actually. And that that one, I was like dying. My DMs are so full of couples being like, do I do, how do I talk to my partner, where do I begin? And I was like, okay, guys, let me just give you like five really clear things you can do over and over again, that kind of like foundation are gonna set you up

for success in erotic exploration. So that's what that one is about and I love it. I think it's going to help a lot of people. Yeah, yeah, I think so too. Yeah, exciting. Can't wait to dive in. Okiana, thank you so much. Delight, thanks for having me. Thanks for having me. Thank you for listening to this episode. I'm loving diving into this topic so, so much. It really lights me up and being able to connect with these incredible, powerful people, especially these powerful women just really makes me feel so alive and it's such an interesting space to explore. It's really something that I feel, you know, as a 35 year old woman, I'm just scratching the surface of. So I hope that you enjoyed it and that you learned something today.

And if you want to dive deeper with us, we are doing our Letters to Venus course. So it's going to be four webinars, live webinars happening each week. It's going to be coursework throughout, workbook content. And it's really to help you get an understanding of your own body, your own intimacy, and help that set you up so that you can be and find the right partner. Because ultimately all this work, the work of Venus, like Venus in our chart is about self-love, it's about self-pleasure. And when we really start cultivating a life that we desire and feeling into our bodies

and feeling that kind of sensualness, that femininity, that's when we attract the right person. So if this sounds like something you want to explore more, you can find a link in the show notes to sign up to our waiting list and we will send you more information. Spaces are limited. Or you can head to satReturns.co.uk to sign up also. I hope to see you there. Thank you so much for listening and as always remember, you're not alone. Goodbye.