120. Opening Yourself Up Sexually

This week, Eric and Kate open up about what it's like to be kid free for a couple of days, What Sex means for us in the season we're in, and how to our mind, body, and heart impact our sex lives

Topics:
➡️ How your thoughts impact your desires
➡️ Helping your body experience great sex
➡️ Opening your heart to your partner

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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Eric MacDougall
So today, we're talking about a really great subject for us that we love talking about and we love discovering about ourselves, which is, you know, opening ourselves up sexually as individuals. And I brought up this topic because over the last little while, right, living in an RV with our family, having kids around being around, extended family, etc. I hadn't felt connected to myself sexually. Yeah. So you had like, brought that energy like, Ooh, yeah, I can't wait. And I'm just like, we're right. Like, you're totally right. Yeah. Which might be surprising for some people in terms of like, oh, it's the man the man's always want sex? No, that's not true.

Kate MacDougall
Right? Yeah. And it might be surprising to our longtime listeners who are like, Wait, Kate, the high desire partner. I know that never happened. I think in 120 episodes, there's never been an episode where it's like, Kate actually wanted sex. For me, Eric,

Eric MacDougall
started talking about phases and all that stuff. Don't get me started. Yeah, so we really wanted to frame this episode, in order to help our listeners think about opening themselves up sexually and what's available to them. Oftentimes, what typically happens is we look to our partner to engage or bring a certain type of energy, or kind of Rev our engines, if you will, right. And we feel like, hey, the reason that we're not having sex, or the reason that we're not feeling connected sexually is because something my partner is doing. Right. And you know, that the flip side of that is that if we ourselves are not connecting, wanting to connect sexually, or we don't want desire, right, and we're not kind of into that. We think there's something wrong with us. Yeah. And so really, really important. Understand that, you know, if you aren't feeling you know, like, ooh, that that hot that passion all the time, there's nothing wrong with you. It's perfectly normal. We don't all have the same desire levels. Some, you know, we've talked about this on other episodes before, but some people are the responsive desire partner, right? Where they're kind of more aligned to respond instead of always being the one that's pursuing, right. And so we have created this idea around sexuality, where it's like desire is this thing that you go towards you move towards it's, you know, aggressive, it's intense. But sometimes people don't get woken up until they feel or think about things they desire.

Kate MacDougall
Right? And even like, on that note, working with my coach, she was saying how it's okay. I guess, full circle. I'm like, I've always put this pressure on me to initiate right I always put this pressure on myself to like, bring up sex and be the one who like goes in and like, Hey, I write one songs.

Eric MacDougall
gotta be fair, we've got to be fair, you know what we love fair?

Kate MacDougall
Yeah, and there was this idea to that, like, you know, like Eric's, my partner, I should desire him. And in order for him to feel desired and to feel good about himself, and hot and sexy, like, I need to sometimes pursue him and I need to sometimes, you know, bring it up and, you know, try to initiate and, and whatever. But learning it talking to her, I learned that, like, that's not necessary, there's not necessarily a need to always go and, and be the one who's pushing and pushing and pushing, because what I found out about myself is that I find it sexier when Eric comes on to me, like, I could desire him. But I don't, to me, it's not a turn on. It's not like sexy to be like, hey, Reg, like, it gets me way too much in my head. And I'm just like, I don't like it. It just takes me right out of the mood. Whereas if I'm kind of flirty, and showing Eric like, hey, I'm interested, I'm interested with like hints, subtle hints throughout the day or throughout the evening, or whatever. And then he comes on to me, then it's like, well, by him. Yes. Thank you, ma'am. Yeah, yeah.

Eric MacDougall
And that is something that we have recognized in our own relationship that really works for us.

Kate MacDougall
Yeah. So I had to be very open with you and be like hair. Like, if we want to be having sex, like, I need you to pursue me. Like, I'll send you hints. I'll show you that. I'm into it. I'll be like, you know, like that, like, fertile cat who's like marine or anything. But I'm not going to be like the one who was like, okay, Eric, let's do it now. Right? Like, I can't, it just doesn't align with me. It doesn't feel natural. And it doesn't. And then it just gets me out of the moods. So

Eric MacDougall
yeah, good. We could create a system in our relationship where you had to do that. Yeah. But again, that's not us playing to our strengths. Exactly. Right. So we talked about how, hey, I can do that. But immediately as I start to do it, I don't feel as much in the mood, right? Yeah. Cuz I think it's really important to explain to our listeners, that works for us, you know, me initiating most of the time, if not all the time, and you're receiving and bringing that fun, playful, flirtatious energy that works for us. And the reason it works for us is because you initiating, you know, our sexual relationship in a very direct way doesn't do anything for me, except make it easy for me. Right? Right. So what I mean by that is that it doesn't add necessarily any extra level of arousal for me personally, right? It's when you do that, are you like, Hey, turn around, initiate I'm like, Alright, cool. Let's go. Like that makes it easy for me, because the signals are clear.

Kate MacDougall
Right? And you know, for sure, you're not going to be rejected. So Exactly. Right. Yeah. As opposed to

Eric MacDougall
you, it actually, you know, maybe the insecurities jump out, or for whatever reason, it lowers your desire,

Kate MacDougall
right? And that's, you know, kind of the theme behind our episode today. It's, it's very important to know yourself sexually and know what you like and dislike, what are your you no turn ons? What are your turn offs? You know, we've talked about breaks and accelerators. And it's really important for you to get to know those because the better you know yourself as a sexual being, the easier it is for you to communicate that with your spouse. But it's not just about accepting yourself. Sorry, it's not just about knowing yourself, it's about accepting yourself, accepting that it's okay for me not to initiate even though society dictates that, you know, it should be 5050. And, you know, you should initiate some I should initiate some like, it's how it should be like, that doesn't work for us. So by knowing that about myself, it's actually helped with my desire, it actually has lowered my level of stress and nervousness around sex. And it's actually caused me to feel a little more free to be like, Hey, this is what I like, this is what I need in order to continue feeling turned on. That's right.

Eric MacDougall
Yeah. And for us, our sex relationship, and the seasonal life we're in is very much about play for adults. Right? We use it to play together, we use a ton of fun together. That might change over time or throughout the years, right. But for the most part, the type of sexual connection that we're having, we enjoy it because it's playful, because there's pleasure because it's not a pressure to do it. Right. So that's the kind of sex life that we create. Yeah,

Kate MacDougall
like we're not trying to create a porno mind you would make a lot of money.

Eric MacDougall
I mean, like, we're not what I'm saying to is like, we're not trying to extend like we're not doing it to try to extend our family. We're not doing it to like feel deeply sensually connected. Yeah, because we like

Kate MacDougall
that's a whole episode in itself, like having sex. To extend your family or start a family like,

Eric MacDougall
yeah, so for us, it's just like we create the type of sex life where it's we remove the pleasure, the pressure, and there's a lot of desires, you know, sexual playfulness and stuff like that. So I want to talk about that in the container around the idea that that's our sex life for us. Right. And everybody uses the sexual experience in that same way,

Kate MacDougall
right and for a long time. And it still happens once in a while, where like, like, like, right now you kind of fell into a funk, you weren't feeling really sexual, you weren't feeling like, desirable, you didn't really desire sex, like, and, and that's why it's so important for us to do this episode today. Cuz, you know, we're gonna talk about how to get your mojo back how to

Eric MacDougall
Yeah. And that's kind of what we wanted to break it down, you know, for us when we think about these foundational things for us to feel connected sexually. And what I mean by connected is not only to each other, it's mostly actually connected to ourselves out socially, right? Because if I am not connected to myself sexually, it's going to be very hard for me to engage and create a sexual, great sexual experience with Kate, right. And so for us, we think about it in terms of you know, your mind, your body, and then your heart. And so the first thing I want to talk about is your mind, right. And we know that if you do not feel desirable, it's going to be very hard to desire another person. And what I mean by that is that, if the thoughts that are going on in your head is I have an ugly body, I'm not good looking, my husband isn't like me, I'm useless. Like all these, these negative thoughts that that inner critic, if that's rolling around in your head, it's going to be very hard to desire another and create us a healthy sexual relationship. Yeah. And

Kate MacDougall
if you're unable to turn off from your job, you know, move away from maybe some family drama or some friendship drama that's going on, like, that's also going to have an impact in your bedroom. Yeah, you carry that with you. And that energy follows you. And then you, you're probably unable to stop thinking about that, in order to create more desire.

Eric MacDougall
That's right. Yeah. So you know, if you think about if you're listening to this, and you think about what are the typical things that go on in your head, right, like day to day? What are usually the thoughts that you're having, or the thoughts about the schedule the kids what needs to happen, the finances my work?

Kate MacDougall
And I'm not talking like, we're not talking about the thoughts that are going in your head just before you're about to have sex? Or the thoughts that are going on in your head after your husband says, Hey, are we going to have sex tonight, we're talking about the day to day thoughts that are going on what is taking up the most bandwidth in your head in your mind? Every day, like for me, oftentimes, it's the kids, especially when they're in school and classes is being bullied and you know, things like that are going on. I'm like, Oh my gosh, like, we need, we need to figure this out. Like and I that's all my mind goes through. That's all I can think of is you know, what's going to happen? What? How do I fix this problem, like? And so because my energy is spent thinking about that, there's no space for me to even think about connecting sexually with Eric. That's right. My whole mind energy is going towards thinking about my kids and their schooling and all of my job. And then, and then it goes down the rabbit hole. Right?

Eric MacDougall
Yeah. And I think, you know, that's a great way to say like, those are not unhealthy thoughts. Right. Those are very normal thoughts. And oftentimes, if you're having those thoughts, and you want to transition into thoughts that can open yourself up sexually, it's much easier to do it that way than if you were having negative thoughts about yourself about your relationship about your life, etc. Yeah, right. Because this is what I see a lot. It's, you know, if you have anger, resentment, or you view your partner a certain way, or even you view yourself a certain way, if your relationship a certain way, and it's all negative, well, then thinking about having a sexual experience with your partner, there's going to be immediate resistance there. Absolutely. Right. So if you don't, let's say you don't like your body, or I'm talking about myself, right? I've been feeling really drained really into work really into focus. I've been having a lot of thoughts around. I'm not good enough. Like I'm not serving everybody at the highest level. And so I'm being hard on myself. Yeah. Right. And so the view that I have of myself is negative, right? I'm saying negative things about myself internally, it's Eric, you're not measuring up, etc. So when Kate starts to bring up and say, Hey, like, I'm really excited, like, I want to connect with you, the kids are going away. You know, she's kind of being really playful and being very overt. Right? Very direct about the type of connection that you want.

Kate MacDougall
Yeah, like we're gonna have the sex marathon. Right, exactly.

Eric MacDougall
Well, then, as you can see, right in my head immediately when I go to is, here's another way that I'm going to fail. Here's another way that I'm not going to measure up. Yeah. And so because I'm in that headspace, as soon as Kate introduces an opportunity, which to her is exciting, playful, so many. It's going to be great to connect and love you and I miss You don't take it that way I take it as based on my current narrative, which is crap, I'm going to disappoint my wife even more, right. And if that's your headspace, you're going to have in this case, I had to really get myself to a healthier headspace, right in order to say, okay, you don't need to go out for a walk in the woods and take time for myself, I'm gonna think about playful thoughts, I'm gonna bring a different energy, I'm gonna stop being so down on myself, I'm gonna think about all the great things I have in my life. And, you know, it took about a day or two, you know, I'm gonna say, a day or two, maybe a day, but I started to shift the energy within my, my body, right, because of the way that I was thinking differently.

Kate MacDougall
Yeah, absolutely. And like, understanding too, that like, you know, there are some things that take longer to fix, you know, like, like, when you're not feeling good in your body. You know, that was something that I went through for a few months where it was like, I was not feeling good. And Eric would touch my stomach, and I was like, Oh, my gosh, he's gonna touch all my rolls. And like, I don't know, I don't, I don't want that I don't want him to like, touch my body. That's not perfect, in my mind, right. And it didn't matter how many times they're told me you're beautiful. Like, just as you are, like, I don't think you look fat, I don't think you look any of these things you're taught, you're telling yourself it wasn't working like so I had to find a way to get out of my head and get into my body. And it was like, Okay, if we're gonna have sex, it's gonna be lights off. Maybe I'll keep my T shirt on, like, hide the body. So he doesn't see it. And maybe like, tell him like, don't touch my stomach area. That's I'm really insecure about it. But like, focus on other parts of my body like, but in order to get out of my head about that, I needed to be very vocal about like, what made me comfortable with my body the way it was, you know, because obviously, you're not going to lose the 20 pounds and a couple of days, it's going to take a bit of time, but

Eric MacDougall
an even in a sense, where you might have a scenario where you don't you're unwilling to lose 20 pounds are you unable to Yeah, because like, doesn't matter what your weight, you can still have a great sexual experience, right? And so in this case, that's more about your mind and your relationship with your body. And the way you view it, you know, if you have this idea that you can only have great sex because you're at a certain weight, that's a mind problem, right? That's a thought problem. It's a belief that you have etcetera, so still have all the body parts to do it. Right. And plenty of people no matter what way it was, some people who are 90 pounds, some people who are 300 pounds, still have a great engaging connection with a partner. Yeah, so really important. Understand that. You don't have to be a certain body type. But it's just the way that you view your body the way they view yourself, in your mind. Your mind, yeah, is going to impact that. So it's really important to clean up some of these thoughts. And then as we kind of transition to the second part, which is your body, right? And so really understanding your body and getting ready for the sexual experience. Yeah. Now, in some cases, people have had health issues that really pushes them or forces them to grow their idea of a sexual experience. Right? Some some couples can no longer have intercourse, some men can no longer get heart erections, like whatever the case, and you have to think about connecting sexually in a different way.

Kate MacDougall
Absolutely. But you know, there's simple ways to that you can think of your you know, if you're in, you know, good health, general health and things are going well, like I know for me, if I ingest any kind of dairy, any dairy intolerance, I have a dairy intolerance. There is no way there is no way I'm getting sexy that night. Like I feel puffy, I feel lethargic. I'm

Eric MacDougall
Yeah, it's very exciting to me when you like your third piece of pizza on a day and I'm like, Oh, great.

Kate MacDougall
Yeah, like,

Eric MacDougall
my Netflix

Kate MacDougall
yesterday. Oh, that's why you fell asleep. Yeah. Yesterday, I had poutine. And he's like, Oh, this is so but my stomach didn't even hurt. It was fine, and probably wasn't even real cheese.

Eric MacDougall
Yeah, we're just like, you're just like loving the poutine. And I'm just like, giving you the dead stare. Like

Kate MacDougall
we're not gonna crash tonight because you're gonna get old poofy? Yeah,

Eric MacDougall
well, how come you didn't have a green salad? Really important. Understand that? You know, the way obviously your body is part of creating a healthy sexual experience. So anything from the food you ingest, the stress that you have within your body, the way you're sleeping, right, all that kind of stuff is going to have an impact on your ability to be energized sexually. Absolutely. So if you're always with logic, and you you're always low on energy, and you're eating really junky foods, and you're never walking around or exercising, well, it's gonna be very hard for your body to engage in a sexual experience,

Kate MacDougall
right? I absolutely. Because you're going to be tired, you're gonna go to bed and just think the last thing I want to do is have sex. All I want to do is go to bed and in the afternoon, you're just gonna want to take a nap and it's just like, there's no way A this can happen because you have no room left for, you have no energy left for sexual experiences because your body's working too hard to digest bad food or to, you know, try to get energy to do anything like just normal day to day things like, you know, walking up and down the stairs. And so it really puts a barrier between you and your partner. Because you're not able to, you know, in sometimes, we're not even aware that the food is the problem, like I know for a while, like for a long time, like, unless I was eating dairy and it was like literally giving me an actual sore stomach. Like sometimes it doesn't even give me a sore stomach, but I'll get exhausted after eating cheese or something. And I just feel like so tired. And it took me a while to realize like, oh, like cheese doesn't only give me like a stomachache, it also makes me exhausted. So there's some days I'm like, I My stomach's not hurting, I feel fine. Like I can eat dairy again. But my body's like slowly shutting down, like you need a nap. This is too much like it's too much for us like for Yeah,

Eric MacDougall
and I think to even a certain extent, right, very common, which is like our relationship to alcohol. Or if you you know, if you take different types of drugs or anything like that, like you have to understand that, like, some of these things will affect your body. And as much as sometimes it's like, oh, it's so exciting to like be to drunk people having sex, like, sure, that's great. But in the end, like, if you want to create a really fulfilling sexual experience, it might be important to kind of lay off the sauce and not have your, you know, kind of glass of wine on a date.

Kate MacDougall
Yeah, exactly. Because you're, you're probably going to come home and either pass out, or you might not be able to get an erection or keep an erection like that, that alcohol does have that impact on on your body. So it's very important to think about what you're putting on your body in your mouth

Eric MacDougall
are so mature. So yeah, and I really do think the message that we would like you to all take away as listeners is like, your body is a tool. And if you want to create a great sexual experience with your partner, having a great tool in terms of your body and your energy, and kind of what you bring to it is really important, right? And so that has a lot to do with like you said, the stressors you're keeping in your life, the way you're sleeping, the way you're eating, the way you're kind of even to sense the way you're carrying yourself, right. That was one thing that I did, you know, in order to reconnect myself sexually, as I've put on great clothes, I got cleaned up, I had a great shave, like, and I really put myself in a situation where it's like, wow, like I really liked this body. So again, that's more of the mind thing, but the way that you view yourself, and the way that your body is showing up during that sexual experience is going to impact your openness to having a great sexual experience. Definitely. And then the last thing that we talked about is your heart. Right? And for a lot of us, this is that emotional connection. Right? Do I feel secure with you?

Kate MacDougall
Can I trust you? Yeah, all that stuff.

Eric MacDougall
And now again, in some relationships, there was a time in our relationship where sex was not happening, right? Because there was a lot of betrayals going on five years ago, there was a lot of resentment, a lot of anger. Kate and I, we really didn't feel like each other's person. Right. Kate felt like she was on her own. I felt like I was I was on my own in different ways.

Kate MacDougall
Yeah. And a lot of times if we were having sex, it was guilt ridden sex. Like, I haven't had sex with Eric and a month. I probably should have sex with him since you know, that's my wifely duty. Right? Yeah, exactly. Which, by the way, it's not your wifely duty. Yeah. And that's right, and you haven't heard her past?

Eric MacDougall
And I really do think that this piece of evil, sometimes we do a whole episode on it alone. But this is really about your heart, you know, are you connected heart to heart with your partner? Are you willing to open yourself up to them? Are they willing to open themselves up to you, etc. And in a lot of ways, you know, we put the onus on the partner to create that emotional connection really well, because you're not XY and Z. doing too much of that. Yeah. But this episode is really about taking ownership of that, right? Owning your own side of the street, and saying, like, Am I willing to open my heart up to this person? Am I willing to connect to them emotionally? Or am I totally closed off? Right? Because if you are closing yourself off to them emotionally, I think it's important to have that conversation with them, and say, hey, the reason I don't want to have sex with you is not because I'm, you know, you're unattractive, or you you, I need to take ownership that I actually don't want to open myself up to you. So I need to own this, right? And you need to be real with yourself listener, about whether or not you're willing to open yourself up emotionally to your partner, because it's going to be very hard to create a fulfilling sexual experience, if you're not willing to open your heart to another. Right. And for a lot of us, what we typically like is to have a willing sexual partner, right? None of us want to have sex with a partner where we're constant questioning, Are they enjoying this? Do they like this? Do they want this? Right? And so really, really important to stand here. Getting yourself to a place where you can not only be connected to yourself emotionally, but also be open, be vulnerable with your partner and work towards creating some of that security in your relationship.

Kate MacDougall
Yeah, and if that means you need to have conversations about what it is that, you know, you don't want to start doing in the relationship, maybe things you miss about, you know, things your partner might have been doing before that you miss. And you'd like to see that again, like, it's important to have those conversations so that you feel connected so that you feel heard, and you feel like, hey, I can trust this person. Because let's be honest, having sex with somebody is like the most vulnerable, you can be with them like you're laying there being taken. No, that's not what I wanted. Just be really in a vulnerable position. You'd only know.

Eric MacDougall
Kate learns about socks clearly.

Kate MacDougall
Button someone say, I just woke up from a nap.

Eric MacDougall
Yeah. So I do think you know, when you think about connecting emotionally, this is really important. And oftentimes it can start small, right? I've seen people start where it's like, Hey, I do want to be intimate with you. But I'm nervous, right? I'm nervous to connect with you. It's been so long, I don't know what your expectations are. Yeah, that's a great first step, right to really kind of put yourself out there and have the courage to share your vulnerability.

Kate MacDougall
Yeah. And sometimes that starts with like, let's just lay naked together, let's just, you know, kiss today, fully dressed, let's just kiss, you know, let's get close again. And then, and then we can do the rest, you know, the penetration and all the other fun stuff. But I think it definitely needs to, sometimes it's baby steps to get there.

Eric MacDougall
Yeah. And I think if you want to have a fulfilling sexual experience with a partner, you have to either, you know, heal some of these wounds, maybe right maybe like it said, something needs to be repaired in your relationship. So that needs to be faced, that needs to be talked about. But also you don't one of the things in our relationship that makes you feel disconnected emotionally, to me, is when we talk about some of these big challenging issues in our marriage. Right. And we've talked about that before, where it's, you know, I'm talking about it really high level, we're kind of like deconstructing our relationship and talking about what can be different and what can be fixed, etc. And after those conversations, you know, UK, they're not at a place where you are emotionally connected to me, you're like this, like, very, this is a cool view of our relationship, talking about the big picture of it all. And our roles in it is very much like, Ooh, I'm kind of feeling like I need a breath from all this.

Kate MacDougall
Yeah, exactly. So I mean, be being you know, aware of the conversations you're having, if you know, you're on a date night, maybe opening up about problems and relationships and things you want to fix, like, definitely talk about those things, but pick and choose the times you do it, because it might not lead to that sexual experience you might be hoping for at the end of the night. But if it is something that hasn't been talked about, and it's a good opportunity to talk about it, I mean, don't avoid it, do it, but then don't expect that, like you're gonna come home and have some really hot sex, like, maybe then you're just gonna kiss get close and kiss, if it feels right.

Eric MacDougall
Yeah, you might hold each other, you might hug, you may lie together, whatever the case. But it will be a very different sexual or central experience based on the way that you're feeling. And so that's really important, right to understand what's on your heart, what's there and really own, you know, your own emotional connection with your partner and your own vulnerabilities. And yes, it takes courage to open up to your partner about some of these more vulnerable feelings. But that's where the connection is created. And over time, you realize, you know, oh, this person loves me, they do want to hear from me, right. And once it gets reciprocated, it gets back and forth, you create a really safe place where you can open up about anything, which then the heart is always connected. Right? And so that's where you're able to create catalog Ken and I are focused on which is, hey, how do we create a sex life? That's, that's fun. That's flirtatious. That's playful. It's exciting. Well, that's because we've created the secure emotional foundation between us. Right, me and Kate, we're not questioning our connection to each other, like, does Kate love me? Does she gonna stay with me forever? If I open up to her? Is she gonna, like laugh in my face? Like, no, it's if I would have to Kate she's gonna receive it, she's gonna love it. And vice versa. And so that's because we've really taken action to connect heart to heart. Right. And so, when you kind of think about zoom out big picture here, this really is about taking ownership of you opening yourself up sexually, you know, to your partner, but really more than anything to yourself just being open, right? And that has to do with the mind, the body and the heart. So make sure that the things you're thinking about, right, the way you speak about yourself, the way you view your relationship, the way you think about your sex life. If you think your whole sex life is just a problem to be fixed, that's not going to be really exciting to want to engage in not only for your partner, but also for you. You know, if you're always lethargic and you're eating like crap, If you're drinking all the time, or things like that, well, that's not going to lead to you having a good energy to bring to a sexual experience. And then lastly, if you're always guarded, and you feel insecure with your partner, and you feel like that connection is not there, it is going to be very hard to create that Heart to Heart sexual experience.

Kate MacDougall
Yeah, it's important for you to take responsibility for the way you want to desire to own that desire to own that. This isn't somebody else's problem. This isn't something my spouse is doing or my partner is doing. I have responsibility to heal that part of me and I have responsibility to open up to my partner, and speak to them about it and be vulnerable and honest and communicate you know, what's going on? For me? It is solely your responsibility. First and foremost.