Letting go of shame

LEAH: Welcome to Good Girls Talk About Sex. I’m sex educator and sexual communication coach Leah Carey and this is a place to share conversations with all sorts of women about their experience of sexuality. These are unfiltered conversations between adult women talking about sex. If anything about the previous sentence offends you, turn back now! And if you’re looking for a trigger warning, you’re not going to get it from me. I believe that you are stronger than the trauma you have experienced. I have faith in your ability to deal with the things that upset you. Sound good? Let’s start the show!

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LEAH: Hey friends. As I mentioned during the last solo show, I’ve tweaked the format of these solo shows to give myself a little bit of a breather. This week, we’ll be looking at a listener question and I’ll give you a recommendation for a podcast featuring one of my favoritest things on Earth, elephants! So let’s jump right in with a listener question.

This one came in from private message so you’re going to hear my voice reading it. Here’s what she said. “I gave birth three years ago and my body looks different and isn’t as sensitive or responsive as before. It’s a solid block of shame in my head and I’m still too afraid to deal with it. Should I be overcoming this shame on my own or is it okay to invite my husband to work through it with me?”

Dear listener, what a great question! As you’ve probably gleaned from past shows, I’ve dealt with significant body image issues throughout my life. Growing up with a father who said no one would ever find me attractive because I didn’t have a perfect body will do that to a girl. There were plenty of times where I wanted to go out and do something but couldn’t leave the house because I was sure that people would laugh at me no matter what clothes I put on my body.

During my year of sexual healing, I thought I was supposed to heal my body confidence all on my own. I thought if I looked to anyone else to support me, I wasn’t properly doing my work. I had bought into this idea that if I didn’t do it all by myself, somehow the healing wasn’t valid, or I hadn’t worked hard enough. But as time went on and I was having sexual experiences with different people around the country, none of whom had any connection to each other so they weren’t comparing notes, I started to notice a theme. They were all saying the same words to me. “I love your curves. Your skin is so soft. I love your curls. You have a beautiful smile. You have an amazing ass. You’re beautiful.” At some point, I realized that these words were changing something inside me. As I heard others consistently saying things to me that I could not yet say to myself, old wounds began to heal. It didn’t even matter that I couldn’t believe them yet. The consistency with which I was hearing the words was creating a chink in my armor.

Now I haven’t birthed a child, so I don’t know the process of relearning and reclaiming your body after giving birth. But I have heard lots of other women talk about it, and there seems to be a common experience. When your body has been in service to feeding and nurturing another little being, you don’t have the same amount of energy and passion to devote to getting turned on and revved up for your partner.

If your body is a jungle gym for your little person, perhaps it has downshifted sensation to help you deal with the barrage of elbows and knees wielded by someone who does not yet know how to fully control their own body. So are you supposed to tough this out alone or is it okay to invite your sexual partner help you get your body back? We get the message through so many channels that we are meant to be self-sufficient.

“It’s the American way! If you can’t do it for yourself, who is going to do it for you? You can’t expect anyone to give anyone to give you something that you can’t give to yourself.” But did your husband help you through your pregnancy? Did he demonstrate concern about how your body felt while it was carrying this little human? Did he do things to help you feel more comfortable and loved? Why would you assume that his caring about your body stopped the moment that the baby emerged and now it’s your burden to bear all on your own?

I think that too often we push others away in the belief that we’re supposed to do it ourselves. But what if they not only could help the process, but they’re yearning to find a way to re-establish connection and we’re the ones them at arm’s length in the belief that we’re not supposed to ask for help? If you are wanting him to do the work for you or make it all better for you, I’d throw a red flag. But if you’re inviting him to play in your sandbox with you, I think you have the opportunity to have greater intimacy for both of you. What if your husband holds a key to your healing that you didn’t even know you were looking for?

Now if I were the one on the receiving end of this message, my next question would be, but how? So here’s one potential way the conversation could go. “Honey, I know that I’ve been a little off since the baby was born. My body hasn’t felt the same and I haven’t known how to handle it and I’ve been scared to talk about it. But I’m also afraid that it has created some distance between us, and I don’t want that. I could use some support and I’m hoping that by letting you in a little more, we can re-establish the physical and emotional intimacy we had before I was pregnant. I don’t know exactly what that will look like yet. But I want to start seeing myself as beautiful and desirable again and I think it would really help to see myself through your eyes for a while. I love hearing you tell me that I’m beautiful, sexy, strong, whatever thing is most resonant for you. And when you tell me I’m beautiful, sexy, strong, if I shake my head or try to deny it, would you remind me of this conversation and that my job is to believe that you believe it?”

Remember, that intermediate step is often necessary. I can’t go directly from “not believing I’m beautiful” to “believing I’m beautiful just because I say I’m going to”, and anyone who tells you that that works is trying to sell you a load of magical thinking. But I can take the intermediate step of saying, “My partner is saying that I’m beautiful. I don’t believe it yet, but I can believe that they believe it.” And anytime my brain tries to turn that around and say, “They’re lying to you. They’re just trying to fill the blank with whatever terrible thing your brain says”, you can respond, “What reason do they have to lie to me? Why should I believe that their caring stopped the moment my body pushed out a baby?” And remind yourself, it’s okay that I don’t believe it yet, but I’m going to choose to believe that my partner believes it. And the more you practice that intermediate step, the easier it becomes to get to the point you want, allowing the possibility that you could believe it too.

To ask a question about your sex life, your desires or anything else to do with female sexuality, call and leave a message at 720-GOOD-SEX. You will remain completely anonymous and I promise you won’t have to talk to a real person. You just leave a voicemail. That number is 720-GOOD-SEX.

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LEAH: I want to invite you to imagine for a moment what your ideal sex life looks and feels like.

Who are you with?
What type of sex do you have together?
How do you feel while touching them?
How does your body feel when they touch you?
Or … would you like to have LESS sex than you’re currently having?

If you don’t know, or if that vision of your ideal doesn’t look at all like what’s currently going on in your bedroom, I can help.

With personalized sex and intimacy coaching, we’ll explore where you are, where you want to be, and the steps to help you get there.  There are no right or wrong answers, just the answers that work FOR YOU.

I understand that exploring your sexuality and all that goes with it – your body image, your belief in your lovability, and more – can be terrifying.  Believe me, I sat in the middle of that fire for decades. I know how painful it is.  But I also stepped out the other side, stronger, more confident, and more certain of my own lovability and desirability. You can do the same.

I work with couples and one-on-one – whether you’ve never explored your sexual desires before, or you want to explore things you’ve never done before like BDSM or non-monogamy, or if you and your partner need some help figuring out how to communicate together about sex.

I am queer, kinky, and poly friendly.

I want you to have a deeply fulfilling intimate life, and together we can help you get there.

For more information and to schedule your free Discovery Call, visit www.leahcarey.com/coaching. A new client recently said that before her Discovery Call she was extremely nervous, but that I made the experience feel easy and comfortable.

Book your free Discovery Call today at www.leahcarey.com/coaching.

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LEAH: This week, I’m so excited to introduce you to the show A Mind Full of Everything with Agrita. In her show description, Agrita asks, “Do you find yourself overwhelmed by thoughts on a regular basis? Those thoughts that leave you questioning why certain things are how they are, and that leave you feeling eager to find answers.”

So I heard a piece of this podcast a while ago and made a mental note of liking it but hadn’t added it to my list of podcasts to feature. Then, about 10 days later, I found myself quoting some of the information I’ve learned from the podcast to my boyfriend one night. And I knew, if I retained that information for that long, Agrita was not only talking about something that interested me, she was talking about it in a way that helped me metabolize what I was hearing.

And so I know offer you the same opportunity. In the episode, Beautiful Planet: Lessons from the Elephants, Agrita talks about what makes elephants so special including as she says, how we can all be more human by adopting the elephant way of living. And as for that fact that I couldn’t forget, sort of like an elephant, here’s the clip.

PODCAST CLIP: Only male Asian elephants can grow tusks so the females don’t. For African American elephants, both female and male elephants grow tusks. The tusk is of course a very important feature of an elephant. It’s kind of like the hands. They are actually left or right tusks, which I find really keen. So they tend to use their left tusk or right tusk more just depending on how they are like. So whenever you see an elephant, you always see that one tusk is smaller than the other and it’s more chipped or wear down the other because they’re using that much more than the other one.

Their tusks are basically extended teeth and they provide many benefits. For example, they can protect their trunk. They can help them lift heavy objects to access food or to remove any barriers when they’re migrating. They can even help each other out using these tusks. Recently, I watched a documentary where a matriarch was helping a calf to come out of the mud because it was stuck, and she was really using her tusk as well as her trunk to help that baby come out. Males of course use it for mating season to fight off other males. They use it to protect their territory and both male and female elephants use it for defense as well.

What’s really sad, however, is that due to extensive poaching in many different areas, many elephants are now showing to select against the growth of tusks because they really want to protect themselves. They don’t want to be killed just for their tusks, which really is invaluable to them, but has no value to us. So because of the extensive poaching back then and perhaps even now, so many elephants are starting to not grow tusks and those tusks are so important for them. So I think that is really, really sad. But it is definitely improving. We still need to sort it out, but it’s definitely improving.

The next feature that elephants are really famously known for is their trunks. A single trunk has up to 40,000 muscles in a grown elephant, compared to a human which only has 600 muscles in their entire body. That is amazing, so you really don’t want to be messing with an elephant, because that trunk can really sweep off so many people.

Studies have shown that elephants have long trunks to get enough food for their big bodies so the soft palatable nutritious leaves are in the canopies, they can easily access them with their trunks. They have no problem in doing that. However, their trunk is not just for accessing food that is on a high elevation. It is also really used for smell. Our of all the mammals that exist, elephants have the most amount of smell receptors so much so that they can actually smell TNT and bombs and remember to stay away from that site. I don’t understand how that really happen because we know what bombs are, we know what explosives are, but elephants don’t. Yet that smell of TNT, they can stay away from it because they associate that to danger. Maybe it’s because of the constant interaction that they’ve been having with humans and now they’ve evolved to remember that smell, but I think that is pretty strong.

LEAH: That is the show A Mind Full of Everything with Agrita. Information and links are in the Show Notes.

LEAH: That’s it for today. If you’re enjoying the show, please take a moment to leave a 5-star rating and review on Apple podcasts or, if you’re using another podcast app, go to www.ratethispodcast.com/goodgirls.

And remember there is a treasure trove of audio extras available FOR FREE at Patreon. Go to www.patreon.com/goodgirlstalkaboutsex. While listening to those extras is free, producing this show is not. If my work is meaningful to you and you have a few dollars to support it each month, I’ll gratefully accept your patronage at Patreon. I donate 10% of all Patreon proceeds to ARC-Southeast, an organization that supports women in the Southeast United States to access reproductive services that are increasingly difficult to obtain.

Find out more and become a community member at www.patreon.com/goodgirlstalkaboutsex.

Show notes and transcripts for this episode are at www.GoodGirlsTalk.com.

Follow me on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube at GoodGirlsTalk for more sex-positive content.

If you have questions or comments about anything you’ve heard on the show, call and leave a message at 720-GOOD-SEX.

Good Girls Talk About Sex is produced by me, Leah Carey, and edited by Gretchen Kilby.

I have additional administrative support from Lara O’Connor and Maria Franco.

Transcripts are produced by Jan Acielo.

Before we go, I want to remind you that the things you may have heard about your sexuality aren’t true. You are worthy. You are desirable. You are not broken.

As your Sex and Intimacy coach, I will guide you in embracing the sexuality that is innately yours, no matter what it looks like. To set up your free Discovery Call, go to www.leahcarey.com/coaching.

Until next time, here’s to your better sex life!

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