Sex With Emily - Talkin’ Sex w/ My Therapist Dr Anadel Barbour

Episode Date: July 22, 2022

Anxiety, depression and low self-worth all block our sexual pleasure. But on a more fundamental level, they block us from showing up in the world the way we’d like: as confident, happy, sexy people. That’s why I invited my own therapist, Dr. Anadel Barbour, to talk to us through healing those intrusive thoughts. If you’re ready, your internal work starts today. On this best-of episode, Dr. Barbour and I discuss EMDR therapy, the four foundations of mindfulness, how to physically move through trauma, healing shame, and how to know if you’re in constant fight or flight. We also touch on sex and pain, and mindfulness in and out of the bedroom. If you’ve ever considered therapy but are on the fence about it, I hope this episode gives you some encouragement – because healing emotional wounds can truly transform your sex life.Show Notes:More Dr Anadel Barbour: Website | Instagram | Twitter Sex In Sobriety by Dr Anadel BarbourMore About EMDR TherapyOvercoming 4 Common Sex Fears Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What kind of relationship do I have with my body, this person? Why am I always constantly putting myself down? So that's where the mindfulness practices come in to redirect those negative thoughts and say, wait a second, is that the truth? Because thoughts are just thoughts, and they're honestly, they're not the truth. We think they're the truth, but they're not the truth. They're just things that keep going and keep going. Right.

And so part of the practice is noticing your thoughts and telling them they're not the truth. And then you're looking for the truth, and the truth is in the moment. You're listening to Sex with Emily. I'm Dr. Emily, and I'm here to help you prioritize your pleasure and liberate the conversation around sex,

anxiety, depression, and low self-worth all block our sexual pleasure. But on a more fundamental level, they block us from showing up in the world the way we'd like as confident, happy, sexy people. That's why I invited my own therapist, Dr. Anadel Barbour to talk us through healing those intrusive thoughts. If you're ready, your internal work starts today. On this best of episode, Dr. Barbour and I discuss EMDR therapy, the four foundations of mindfulness, how to physically move through trauma, healing shame, and how to know if you're in constant, fighter flight mode. We also touch on sex and pain and mindfulness in and out of the bedroom.

If you've ever considered therapy, but are on the fence about it, I hope this episode gives you some encouragement because healing emotional wounds can truly transform your sex life. All right, intentions with Emily for each episode, join me in setting an intention for the show. And what I mean is, what do you want to get out of this episode?

How could it help you? Well, my intention is to let you know that there are options for healing shame, fear, and anxiety. You don't have to be a prisoner to your thoughts. And by the end of today's show, I think you'll feel more empowered to seek any healing you need. Please rate review Sex with Emily wherever you listen to the show. My new article Overcoming Four Common Sex Fires is up at sexwithemily.com.

Also, check out my YouTube channel Social Media and TikTok. It's all at Sex with Emily for more sex tips and advice. If you want to ask me questions, leave me your questions or message me at sexwithamlee.com slash ask Emily. Or comma hotline, 559 talk sex, or 559 825 5739. Always include your name, your age, where you live, and how you listen to the show. And you can totally change your name or choose to remain anonymous. It's all good.

All right, I want't enjoy this episode. As a licensed marriage and family therapist and fully certified EMDR therapist with a PhD in human sexuality, Dr. Ann Adelbarel Barbour is devoted to helping people transform their fear into calm. She's awesome, my therapist. After healing from the traumas in her own life, including poverty and alcoholism, Dr. Barbour set out to help others live the life they want to live through a combination of EMDR, mindfulness, and radical compassion. Learn more at Anadelbarboard.com and on Instagram at dr.anadel. Welcome to the show Anadel. Thank you Emily. It's really, really an honor and a pleasure to be here with you. I was thinking about it. I've had a lot of thoughts about wow there's so many

places to go with this. And the first thing I thought was I am a huge advocate proponent for therapy. And I often say, I don't think a show goes by where I don't recommend that somebody should try therapy. It's my belief that everyone can use some therapy every now and then. They just think about it like you're dentist or just a tune up for your car. I've been in therapy with you for about two years. And then before that, I've been in different kinds of therapy.

I've been in therapy since I was about 19 on and off. At first, I was talk therapy, traditional therapy, which was great. I mean, I think that there's something to be said for really starting to understand your issues, your upbringing, your childhood. You know, I remember going into therapy in my 20s where I thought, oh, yeah, my parents got divorced and my dad died, but I'm good. I'm just anxious. Like, everything's fine, right? And then you go and therapy and you start to unpack everything. But I remember someone saying to me once, oh, therapy, it's like peeling back the layers of the onion. I didn't really understand it. Then I say you for two years, I'm like, there's so many more layers to peel that I hadn't even touched.

And so I guess I just would like to talk about therapy in general. Maybe we talk about the kind of therapy that you do if someone needs to get therapy. Where do they start? Well, I think people need to actually be willing to do some work because therapy isn't just going and talking to someone and finding out about your life. There is an hour with your therapist once a week or twice or once every other week, depending on what people do. There's work in between. For me, my belief and the way I believe and work is that I like my clients to learn about themselves, but also to become empowered,

to regulate their own emotions, and understand that sometimes the why doesn't matter. It's what are you gonna do about it now? And so that's why I think therapy is important, because we don't know exactly what to do when we're feeling confused, anxious, frustrated, sad. And so it's about learning what to do when we're feeling confused, anxious, frustrated, sad. And so it's about learning what to do. So that's what you do.

So that's what you do that. What's interesting is you're right, the why. Oh, because this happened to be my childhood or my mother was like this or my father was like this, what you're saying is he will come to you. It doesn't even matter what happened. How is it manifesting today? How do you do with something when you're sad or angry or do you even know what that is? So you help people sort of unpack that.

Is that what you mean by the why? Like all the details of it aren't as important? Well, the details are important because they brought you there, but it's not like you always have to talk about them. For instance, you came to me because you had a family issue. And you actually didn't think you had any kind of trauma. And so trauma can come in different forms. It could be just a lot of maladaptive family patterns that created maladaptive, you know, if you had some neglect or an angry father, mother, a father that was never there, addiction

in the family, that kind of thing. So those things shape who we are, but you're coming to therapy for a current problem. And so we actually get a little bit of details with EMDR therapy in particular. We get details from the past, but they don't have to be the story. Because EMDR therapy focuses on a traumatic event, and then we bilaterally stimulate your brain and so your brain is the thing that is going to help heal you and the story is in there. I don't need to know the story. I don't need to know the why.

You know the why really and so it's going to come out in therapy. And so there's mindful therapies that I've been doing for a long time. And then EMDR is something that directly affects the brain, which is quite mindful in and of itself. Yeah. And so that's what it is. It's about paying attention. Paying attention to what's happening right now,

regardless of what happened in the past. Yeah, exactly. It was such a great distinction because for some people who have trauma, they're like, well, I don't want to relive it. And that is the thing about EMDR, which is trauma therapy, that it doesn't really necessarily matter what happened. You rewires your brain.

It truly does, and you're right, when I came to you, I was having a traumatic event that I needed help with. But this is the other thing. I mean, it's been two years now and I've grown so much and I've learned so much, but I did not know about complex PTSD.

I actually had tried EMDR years ago in San Francisco and I just didn't stick with it or I wasn't ready, but this was a game changer. If people don't know, let's just explain real quickly what like the process of EMDR, what it stands for. Okay. Well, and someone was asking me about it earlier before we got on, on your shell here. EMDR has been around since 1989, 90, Francine Shapiro is the therapist that came up with this process.

She was working with PTSD war veterans doing trauma therapy. It wasn't EMDR obviously. And then her own experience, she calls this the famous walk in the park, which is what helped her come up with this idea. She got diagnosed with cancer. She sought some mindfulness practices to help her with her cancer. And so through her own mindfulness practices, she was actually taking a walk one day. She was obsessing about her cancer. When she finished with the walk, she realized two things. Her eyes were moving back and forth,

and she was no longer upset about her cancer. It was still there. She still had some fears, but she was no longer upset by it. So through some trial and error with the clients she had and the colleagues she worked with, they made a discovery about the brain that if you bilaterally stimulate the brain, the three parts of the brain get activated all at the same time and start communicating. Now the three parts of the brain that we have, because we all know about ripe and left hemisphere stuff, correct. We do actually have a triune brain.

We have a reptile brain which comes up in our spinal cord and it's our base instincts. We need water. We need food. We need shelter, right? Fighter flight kind of starts there, right? And then we have a mammal brain, and that's the limbic system, that's in the middle of our brain. And that's where our emotions are, the thomas,

the hippocampus, all that gray matter, and there's something called an amygdala that's in the middle of that. And the amygdala, part of the limbic system, is like our SIM card. And that's where the middle of that. And the amygdala, part of the limbic system, is like our SIM card. And that's where we remember everything, the way it happened.

And then humans have this neocortex. So we have a frontal cortex, and that's where our rational and meaning-making stuff is. So what happens when we get into a trauma, something that scares us, our fight or flight kicks in. The blood starts flowing and then it stops. It doesn't get to our rational thinking. So we're stuck in our limbic system trying to figure out how to get out of things that

upset us. And so it could be your dad dying. It can be getting in a car accident. It could be being a child of an alcoholic or a drug addict, constant eggshell stuff, right? So you're in fight or flight for so long, you never really get a chance to process and know that you're okay. And so with EMDR, what they discovered

was activating all three parts of the brain, focusing on traumatic event, the brain can communicate finally, and it can process from the maladaptive part into the rational adaptive thinking. And that's what the reprocessing is and the desensitization. So EM is eye movement, DR is desensitization and reprocessing.

And so that's how it came about. And it's evidence-based. It's been around for over 30 years. Now you can actually see brain scan if you go online, pre and post-VMDR stuff, right? So it's very interesting. I love the way you described it, because I could picture myself, for example, as a kid.

So let's say I fight out my dad dies. I was 19 years old. So the back of my brain, I get that terrible news. And that is a trauma. And then what you're saying is it's just in here. So I'm scared and I'm worried and I make, and so it never gets up to the rational brain that's like, can call me. It can be okay.

It can kind of make sense of it. It literally cannot do the journey. can't move, can't travel, stuck in the mig-del-unf your leg at the back. And then that becomes a repeated way of processing information. So what was interesting is when I used to hear about EMDR early on, I thought it was like, oh, I'd heard about Francine Shapiro and I thought it was for war vets. Or like PTSD is just one thing,

car accident or someone dies, but complex PTSD was a whole new level for me. And then I realized, wow, a lot of people have complex PTSD. So, you know, if you're listening to this, it doesn't mean that there'd be one major traumatic event. I happen to be bountiful in my traumas. I had my dad dying and then I

had a lot of emotional and the glck growing up and they pile up. What is it three or four that happened before a certain age? Things are traumatic. I don't know if you've got numbers. I don't know if there's a number. But you know, it's complex because it doesn't just

happen over one day or hour or like 9-11, but it happens almost chronically. You know, it's often and it's repetitive. For example, I don't feel confident in something or I feel, there's so many, I feel insecure or I feel stupid. I'm not good enough. I'm not good enough.

I'm not good enough. Something happens, I made a mistake. feel stupid. You're not good enough. I'm not good enough. I'm not good enough. I'm not good enough. Something happens. I made a mistake. And then there's actually ways that you would give me a sheet to identify what that is, right? I don't feel good enough. And then the interesting thing about EMDR2 when it opens up your brain is that you realize

that most of these crippling thoughts that we have about ourselves aren't new. And it's not the first time I felt I made a mistake or I couldn't trust my own judgment. Or, you know, then you go back and you're like, oh, the first time I was six. I mean, that's amazing what you remember. And then through the process, it just, I guess how I described it, it just starts to have the things that might have triggered you start to have less of a charge. You start, I start to be able to understand the chaos of my life. And then like making peace with it.

So almost like your trauma becomes just another thing. Like it doesn't have to own me. It's always, nothing's going to go away, but I'm totally a different person, but you've a different relationship to your issues. Yes. Yes. That's the perfect way to play that. And it all has a doctorate in human sexuality and she wrote a book called Sex and Sobriety,

a qualitative narrative exploration of the utilization of mindfulness practices for enjoyable sober sex. Now before you freak out, you're like, but I'm not sober. I realized to Anodelle another reason why I wanted to have you on is because one of the biggest challenges people face is their mind and their worryness and their thoughts are getting in the way of them experiencing pleasure in the bedroom.

Yeah, trauma is a good segue into that because the trauma work has a lot of mindfulness work in. And when we talk about mindfulness, it's in the zeitgeist. It's been kind of like part of society's talk for the past 10 or 15 years. It's been around for 3,000. And so we lose sight of what it might really be. And so we try and keep it really simple, because mindfulness is really the art of paying attention to the present moment without judgment.

So it's not necessarily meditation and not necessarily going to an ash-rom and getting rid of all the thoughts in your mind, right? It's just paying attention in the present moment, being aware, without judgment of yourself. And so it's a very difficult prospect because we have this automatic negative bias in our brain because of the fight or fight. We wake up in fear and then our parasympathetic nervous system tells us to calm down. But we also get so busy, we become

kind of mindless, right? We get in the car, we go where we have to go, we go to work, we become kind of robotic. And this is what happens to humans. It's just about not paying attention to what's really going on. And who knows why we end up that way. We have a very busy world. So I think more people have a more difficult time getting into the present moment.

But it's really about paying attention to everything that's going on. And that's why mindfulness is so important because it helps you regulate your own emotions. If you're anxious, you can use a mindfulness practice to calm your own anxiety. That's why it's used with the trauma work, right? If you're depressed, you can use mindfulness practices to elevate your mood. When you're in fear, you can calm yourself down. It doesn't mean the danger is gone, but you get into the rational part of your brain, and you can start making more rational decisions of how to solve problems.

And it's the same with sex. It's the same with fear of sex. Now again, I'm glad you mentioned don't be afraid because this doesn't apply to me because I'm not sober. My study was specifically about people that get sober because I am sober 18 years, 19 and a couple of months. And people that use substances for a great amount of time, and it doesn't have to be 20 years, like I did. It can be 10 years, but the substances are primary in their life and it affects their lives so much that they have to stop doing all these substances. Now it also affects your body.

So a lot of people have a relationship to being loaded and having sex. And all of a sudden they're not loaded and they got to have sex. Oh my God. And so that's really what my research project was about. But this stuff applies to everyone because we all get nervous. We all lose touch. We all may get bored with our partner or don't know how to find a partner or we equate love and sex. And so we're having sex with too many people and not really finding that it's enjoyable because we don't really have a connection, it could be so many different things. And so this is why the mindfulness practices

of yoga, meditation, breathing, concentration bring us into a place where we can actually choose what we wanna do, how we wanna feel, who we wanna be with. That was such a great way of putting it, Anadal, because I think when people call into the show or send emails and stuff there, they're like, how we say, well, do you have a mindfulness practice? I try to tell them, this is what could help you, but I think that it's so intimidating to people.

Well, they have to go to an ashram, or they have to, if they didn't do yoga every day. And I love the way you describe mindfulness because it's so true that if you are, I don't know how else to say, but when you learn to be mindful and it's not like you have to just, yeah, your thoughts go away for 20 minutes, but even if it's for five minutes and you're mindful, the best thing about it is you're truly in the present moment

with all your senses, your breath, your sense of your scent, your smell, I mean, your sense of your scent, your smell, I mean, scent and touch, hearing things, you can't be anxious anymore when you're truly in the moment. Like, it just, even if it's for a second, and so that practice of that muscle getting stronger is what will help you not only in the bedroom, but every area of your life.

And I'm glad that you described this a bright thing because in a sense, everybody who is having these challenges in the bedroom, like they might as well, if they're sober or not, it's the same problem. It's the same I've got to worry about being in the situation. It's just spiking my anxiety. It's making me worried. Right. Well, so let's talk about pre-menopausal post-menopausal stuff. Just as an example,

the body changes internally. We don't even know what's going on. And all of a sudden, you go to have sex and there's so much pain and it feels like there's no moisture and nothing inside and it hurts. It's like a washboard or something. What happened? And so then we start getting afraid to have sex and all of a sudden we're feeling old. We're feeling icky. We don't like ourselves anymore. So then we start having a negative relationship with even someone we've been with for 30 years or something or 20 or whatever it is because our bodies are changing and we don't know what to do with it. And so the fear starts taking over and we look for medications and we look for lubricants. We look for stuff, but we don't look with that. We don't pay attention to what's really going on

and we don't accept it. See, this is the thing that causes suffering for people. We don't accept what's going on. We want it to be different. And so that's why we get afraid, and that's why we get angry, and that's why we start craving things. We want things to be different,

or we want to get rid of the things that don't feel good, or don't make us happy, or are not working. And so that's why accepting things as they are, good, better, and different, is the way to find the solution. And the solution can be right in front of you, or you may have to go get a lubricant or a toy or something, right?

But at least you'll know. So what you're saying is, if we're truly mindful in the most, that's a mindfulness thing, too, to say, I'm not going to just run off and what's wrong with me and shut down my sex. I'm going to be paid attention and be like, oh, except we are at in your life, that's a mindfulness thing too, to say, I'm not gonna just write off and what's wrong with me and shut down my sex. I'm gonna be paid attention and be like, oh, except we are at in your life, the age you're at, the time you're at, honor what you have, what you had, what you've, and from that place, say what's available to me now.

Yeah, rather than a paper. If this hurts, what can I do? If someone's penis going inside of me is way too painful? Maybe we can start doing moral sex. Maybe we can start watching something together. Then you're gonna notice, oh my gosh, what kind of relationship do I have with my partner? Do we even talk about this stuff? So now

there's a new level of okay. I I gotta learn how to talk about this stuff. And so that's when we start doing practices to teach ourselves how to love ourselves and have joy and compassion. And so there's meditations that you can do to instill loving kindness for yourself, forgiveness for yourself, compassion for yourself. And then you can actually send it to body parts. And I gotta say, I did go to Ashrams. I went to three.

I spent three different times in my life, 10 days in silence. And I wasn't until I worked with you that I felt that I was actually able to do that integration, that my practice of meditation and mindfulness is actually stronger. Now, I have to be kind to myself because I don't have a few weeks where I don't do it, but it's way stronger than before. And even just the practice of taking a moment in the morning, like you always say, you're like, do it before anything and you gave me the permission of like, if it's two minutes,

even if it's when you wake up and you're like sending love to myself and others. You realize it, it really flips it on his head because you also, not only can you be mindful and elsewhere, you can't be grateful and be in anxiety. That's one thing you're really willing to let you do. So, it's such a helpful grounding exercise. But before we get into some of the exercises, I do have a question about this. But we're talking about his coming or mind. I would say that a lot of the sexual challenges that people face, I'm talking about premature ejaculation, inability to orgasm, even delayed ejaculation.

Wouldn't you say that a lot of that is more psychological than it is a repeated patterns, like, because then as for men, I feel like it happens once they premature ejaculate or twice. And then it's just like, it's been happening for 10 years. Like how do we get ahead of that stuff? So that can be very complex, but the answer is yes it is and always rule out something medical first.

First, yes, absolutely. Rule it out, go to your doctor, or you want medications? You know? And then secondly, I have a lot of clients that come in with many of those issues. And AMD are can actually help with the anxiety with some of that. So the bilateral brain stimulation and focusing on that moment of, oh my god, I came too soon, right? And then the brain makes these connections

and sometimes we find that it might be separation anxiety as a child that makes you fearful, that if you do something wrong with someone, they're gonna leave you, right? So it's this long line of stuff. That's not necessarily true, but that happened with one of my clients, right? So it's this long line of stuff. That's not necessarily true, but that happened with one of my clients, right? So, but if it's not that, if it's just shame because it happened, it's working on

the shame. And that's what mindfulness practices can help with because you can learn how to relieve yourself of shame. Look, I'm telling you all this stuff because teachers have taught me and teachers have taught them. This is not new stuff. So we'll talk about it, but please, everyone, there are resources out here to learn what this stuff is. Four foundations of mindfulness are the breath, the body, then we notice the tone of thing, right? We notice if things are pleasant and pleasant for neutral. And this is the speed version of it. And then we look at our state of mind. And that's, you know, are we agitated or happy or sad? And so that's the first thing we kind of work on, that core of breath, body, you know, are things good,

bad or not, and then how are we feeling about ourselves? And then as we integrate all that and pay attention to that, we start looking at our thoughts. And we pay attention to, what are those thoughts comprised of? How many negative things am I saying? What kind of relationship do I have with my body? This person? Why am I always constantly putting myself down? So that's where the mindfulness practices come in

to redirect those negative thoughts and say, wait a second, is that the truth? Because thoughts are just thoughts, and they're honestly, they're not the truth. We think they're the truth, but they're not the truth. They're just things that keep going and keep going. And so part of the practice is noticing your thoughts and telling them they're not the truth. And then you're looking for the truth. And the truth is in the moment. It's beautifully said because if you think about it, it's like your brain is stuck on one

channel that you're programming, but you don't even know that you're programming because it's the only channel you've ever seen. But once you realize that you could actually switch the channel, by switching the channel is infusing it with some mindfulness statements or whatever works for you, I have a note document in my phone from my sessions with Annabelle. That's at the very top. And it's really some of these phrases that I do during meditation or when I feel like I need to calm. And it's just so helpful to just say, oh, feelings are not facts, your thoughts are not

the truth. It's so freeing to realize it, but it just takes a beat to realize the notion of understanding that takes a little bit of time. Because we don't really realize, but we've been conditioned, however old you might be, you've been operating with this belief and these thoughts for a long time. So it's going to take a while to unravel them and change them. That's why it takes a while. And paying attention, the more you do it, the more dedication you can give to yourself. You know, you can really notice it, a difference.

We come back more with Dr. Anadel and stick around to the end of the show where she shares a super soothing body scan. You're going to love it. When we come back, more with Dr. Anadel and stick around to the end of the show, where she shares a super-soothing body scan, you're gonna love it. Is there a hack? Because there will be times where I leave your office, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna pay attention to me getting in the elevator. And then by the time I press the button, I'm on the phone, right?

Like even right now, I have gratitude on my computer and opposed it. I have break, take a break. I have breathe and loving kindness, right? And they're sitting right here on my laptop, so that can kind of help, but for some people, it feels very unattainable or they don't have the time and.

Yes, and I think you use a really important word, unattainable, because we're really not attaining anything. We are cultivating some stuff. Exactly. And we cultivate it and it grows and we experience it. And so all of us want to retain enlightenment and go to Nirvana. But that's what we're seeking. But if you ask any leader, teacher from Christ to Buddha to whoever, you know, it really

is about the journey. Keep doing it. Keep looking for it, because I don't think we ever really find it. But we do have glimpses. Yeah, it's true. The dots start to connect, and it's easier to get back into it, but it is, I love that. I used to think that, that you get to one place, and then, oh, everything's perfect. It's always going to be a little bit up and down down and then you just kind of have tools to navigate it. So like, especially now, like talking about, you know, I've often

said that we're all in a trauma right now in a way. Some people more severely than others. But it has altered life suddenly for many. And that could be traumatic, right? So right now, we are talking about this month six in, but have you noticed anything in your practice or in the world? Is my first question the second is, is there anything we could do right now to collectively deal with this?

Okay, I'm thinking about clients that I have. And this is so big. This is making most people have an existential crisis that they've never had before. They don't know even what that is. And the existentialists believed we're born and we die. And so if we're gonna die, what are we gonna do in between kind of? I mean, we know we're gonna die.

And it's not fair. Right? But so what's the point of it all? That's a simplification of. That's a simplification. But really, it's the why are we here? And people are starting to question that. And we live in a town where a lot of people's identities are wrapped up in what they do. And all of a sudden, people are going, what I do is no longer here. So who am I?

And so this is why these practices are really more important than never. And people are afraid to really look within, because it's difficult and it takes time. And a lot of us have plowed through enough to go, I've worked really hard to be where I am. And I don't need to go back. But it's not about needing to go back.

It's about you just paying attention to, why are you so afraid? Why is your identity in this when you are your identity? We're all part of something, right? It's not what we do, it's who we are. And some of us don't know what that is yet. You know, we live in a world of a lot of social media and influencers.

And so even the words, selfies, we have a society that has a vocabulary has created personalities to go with them. And so now, you know, things are just quite different. And we're with ourselves a lot. A lot. And we can't influence anybody anymore. No, exactly.

You know, and so, so again, those kind of identities are also shifted. And it's too big for this conversation to really talk about, but. Right. I'm speaking of someone in particular that I worked with. And it was a person that really never had a lot of tragedies per se in their life.

And it was inexplicable that he could not get out of fear of death and anxiety. He could not figure it out, but he could not get out of fear of death and anxiety. He could not figure it out, but he could not get out of it. And so we worked a lot just focusing on the anxiety and where he was feeling it in his body and the thoughts that he had. And a lot of the thoughts were about his parents are getting older and oh my gosh they may really go, right? And what would life be without them? And I'm going to die soon.

What have I done? What am I contributing? What does it mean to be alive? And then we tapped into some trauma. And so we started looking at that. And we did some reprocessing sessions. And something came up. He remembered being at a party just last year

and swallowing something and choking. And he didn't tell anyone. But he was really choking. And he was too ashamed to tell anyone that he was choking. So he went in the bathroom and he had to stick his finger down his throat and he saved his own life. But he almost died. And so he's been walking around with that fear. But it's all about death. And he couldn't figure out why he was so afraid and couldn't shake it because of COVID. Wow. Right. And it was really something that happened to him.

And so once we he released that, his anxiety started to eat. And he began to do some mindfulness exercises and taking walks and taking walks and doing intentions of loving kindness. And so he now reports that he doesn't have any anxiety. And he talks his parents every day on the phone because he knows they're in their 80s. They could go, right? So just to stay in the moment with them and be with them, it's so hard to explain because we all have our own experiences. That was a beautiful explanation because when we say things like you got to do your inner

work, you got to go inside. I don't always know that that's clear to people and everyone's journey looks different But that was a beautiful way to have explained the sort of secured is root if you really commit to the process of going to therapy and Working on EMDR. I think is great because it just unerse all these things that you never would have and that's the fun when you're like Oh my god the feeling of leaving that's the fun when you're like, oh my God, the feeling of leaving a therapy session and when you're like, ah, that's the connection. I didn't know, you know, not every single session's like that, but the times when you connect the dots or why things have happened and then it gets released,

it's just this, I can't think of it. So when then you do work in between and you come back and you say, oh my gosh, I discovered this. And my chaos and I had lunch today and guess what? Right? Yeah, yeah. I was like, I recognize my chaos. I didn't even let it in the door, right?

I was like, no, not today. So yeah, it's sort of personifying it in a way too. The challenge is you just look at it differently. It's really incredible work. And I think you're right right now, this going inward thing that our natural inclination is to get away from it. Like, if I'm feeling pain, I'm going to drink, shop, exercise, have sex. I'm going to do anything that will numb me. Exercise is really good. Try exercising and really paying attention to what's going on. and really paying attention to what's going on. And thinking your body, but yoga came about because people were sitting around meditating

and their body's hurt. And so there was a moving into meditation. See, if we do yoga with the goal of a spiritual goal rather than my body looking good. That's not a bad thing. Rather than a six pack. Right, right. And that can happen. But so moving, walking meditations, moving, jogging

meditations, dancing meditations, things that move your body, it does create an integration. And if you pay attention, you'll notice how much you don't like parts of your body, where some pains are that you didn't know they were there. You know, when you pay attention to your emotion, as you move, it's this flow that opens up. And so, mindful movement is very effective and very important. Absolutely.

Okay, there's a lot there because I think there's the moving your body to be mindful of just how you feel in your body. Like the walking meditation that I did the first time I did the retreat, there was a walking and a sitting meditation. But the walking was like all you have to do is like breathe and focus on just moving one step, paying attention to what was happening, walking up and down the same path,

which is harder than you think, right? But the thing about that is making the connection of my feet are on the ground, they're moving, they're walking. We never do that. We don't. And something happened to me. I have a lot of chronic pain because I have scoliosis in my back. We'd ever do that. We don't. And something happened to me.

I have a lot of chronic pain because I have scoliosis in my back. And so it has affected me. And so when I started paying attention, I was pretty aware of where the pain was coming from. And I was doing a walking meditation. And every time I put my right foot down it hurt. And so I started just noticing this pain, my right foot and it hurt,

and I noticed the curve in my spine, and I was saying, hello, curve, how are you? I know you're telling me something, I just can't figure out why I have to suffer like that. And I looked up, and there was a tree in front of me, and the trunk curved just like my spine. And I looked at it and I went well, the tree survives hundreds

of years with the curve. So can I, right? And all of a sudden I just had this different relationship. I'm like, look, I'm fine. I'm standing up straight. I'm going towards the sky. It's okay. And I'm telling you the pain is just

very different. It's just very different. It's like they say there's there's so many miracles right in front of us that we don't you might not have seen that tree, right? How many trees have we walked past? And it's those are the beautiful moments. And in that moment you stop being attached, you're just like, okay, there it is. And that is such a great example of that that makes so much sense. What about our traumas being stored in our body and releases

that can happen through this kind of work? There's a lot of different therapies out now that help with body trauma and EMDR is one of them because it's a whole brain therapy and we focus on the body, the emotions and the memories. But somatic stuff works really well, even trauma-focused yoga. You know, because what happens is we don't know where to store it. If it gets stuck, we got a for-john, right? So maybe we tend to step a lot when we're a kid. I noticed that my right shoulder always hiked up.

I never even noticed it until I started doing this work, right? And so if we have lower back pain, it means something. If we have one need that's always hurting. If something comes up, if we feel nauseous, I've had clients say, I've always had this pain in my chest. And after doing some work, they're like, it's moving. It's moving down. It doesn't hurt so much anymore.

There's a book. Body keeps a score. Vessel Vander. Love that book. Yeah. You can get it online. Everyone's reading it now. So it's kind of dense, but it's quite interesting.

It's really, it's all this work. Work can really help. Mindfulness, mindful yoga, the combination of it, therapy, MDR therapy, you know. All that. Yeah, all of it works. And I mean, I just think, I mean, what do people who say, I can't afford therapy, I don't have time for therapy. I don't need therapy. I mean, I just think, we would help people who say, I can't afford therapy.

I don't have time for therapy. I don't need therapy. I mean, are you the school thought with me that everybody could use some therapy? I think everybody could use some therapy. And not everybody can afford it. And so, you know, I take sliding scales. EMDR is now evidence-based.

And so a lot of insurances are approving a certain amount of therapies for EMDR. So please check with your insurance companies if you do have insurance. There's different clinics that have EMDR in their staff doesn't, like at Southern California Counseling Center here in Los Angeles, but you can

probably find some online across the country. There's also a site called Emdria EMDRIA. And it has therapists nationally, and maybe internationally, but you can put in your address and a therapist within five miles and the price point that you can work with. So you can find with, right? So you can find therapy for pretty low cost.

Let's do body skin, and then we'll go. Okay, a body skin is something that a lot of people know because people talk about it on all these meditation sites. And so go ahead and whatever your idea of a body skin is, that is it, but I call this and I love my body scan. Because we forget how precious our bodies are. We just do. And so let's just sit for a minute and it'll take about two, three minutes maybe.

And so if anyone that's listening can just settle into where you're sitting and lean back comfortably, you can leave your eyes open or close. And right now, the foundation, the life breath, which is our breath, just focus into that right now. And just notice it. And notice your feet on the floor, or if you're sitting on a cushion, pressure points of your body, leaning on a couch, sitting on a chair, air buds in, what does that feel like?

And just know them. And now just start at the top of your head. And I'm just going to guide you into an I love my body skin. And so focus on your brain and everything it does for you. All by your emotions, it helps you make choices. It wakes you up and activates all your senses. So tell your brain, I love you brain. Thank you for everything you do. And then your eyes and your nose and your ears, your teeth and your tongue, everything

that makes you human to see and hear, taste, to all of speak. I love you. Eyes, ears, nose, nose. Thank you for everything you do. And then just gently follow your body down through your neck and your throat. The shoulders and the arms down to the magical elbows, the forearms, the hands, the wrists, think about every joint in the fingers, every joint, the bones, the muscles. They hold people and put things down. I love your hands and arms and shoulders.

Thank you. And then, scan your torso, the breastbone and the breasts, and your ribcage and your heart and lungs and the spinal cord, all the organs leading down into your pelvis. Thank your organs for working so perfectly to digest and help you breathe and live. And the hips and the hip joints, the genital area, the digest system, thank you, I love you. You're getting me through this day. And now pay attention to each thigh, the front, the back, down to the knees, those knees that are so precious. The layers that help the sit knees, and thigh.

For your strength, in helping me move forward. And the shins and the calves, and all those muscles that wrap around each other into the feet, with the arch and the heel and the toes and all those bones and joints that help us stand. And lay down and walk there. Thank you, feet. I love you feet. And one last bit of gratitude for the skin and the blood and the thoughts and the feelings that come and go as a whole being, a body, a mind, and a spirit. I love my body's skin. And then coming into this moment, right here, right here.

And take a nice inhale and a nice exhale. And open your eyes. And here we are. I'm in my sex tail. And open your own, and here we are. Mm. That's good. I always say to her, like, that's good shit. I do. Thank you, Anadel. Anadel, that was very helpful. So we can find you at anadelbarboard.com,

B-A-R-B-O-U-R.com, anything else? In your book. On Amazon or on Doran's Publishing.com. I think there's an e-book available to us. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you, guys. I'll talk to you soon. That was awesome. It was really great. That's it for today's episode, See You On Tuesday.

Thanks for listening to Sex with Emily. Be sure to like, subscribe, and give us a review wherever you listen to the podcast and share this with us. Thank you for watching. See You On Tuesday. Thanks for listening to Sex with Emily. Be sure to like, subscribe, and give us a review wherever you listen to the podcast and share this with a friend or partner. You can find me on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at Sex with Emily.

Oh, I've been told I give really good email. So sign up at sexwithemily.com and while you're there, check out my free guides and articles for more ways to prioritize your pleasure. If you'd like to ask me about your sex life, dating, or relationships, call my hotline 559 Talk Sex. That's 559-825-5739. Go to sexwithemily.com slash Ask Emily.

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