Solving Disconnection & Creating Connected Relationships (for Couples & Parents)

44: How Does Self-Intimacy Help With Sexual Desire Discrepancies? With Nicole Colleen

• Jason Polk

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This episode explores sex with sex and intimacy coach Nicole Colleen.

We discuss self-intimacy and how that can help you with the desire discrepancy often found between parents. 

We also discuss how you may have stories associated with sex you tell yourself, and what is a good sex life?

Find out in this episode.

Nicole's Instagram

Nicole's let's talk sex free guide. 

Nicole:

we focus so much on finding the right person instead of being the right person. And that's why the self intimacy piece is so important because we really need to tune in to ourselves and be aware of what our own needs are, be honest with ourselves.

Today, I'm sharing highlights from a talk I had over a year ago with Nicole Coleen, who is a sex and intimacy coach. The reason I'm sharing this is because I got a lot out of this interview and I've actually shared this interview with a lot of clients as well. And i know you're going to have some great nuggets here This is healthy relationships secrets from parents. The podcast is saves your relationship from parenthood. My mission is to help parents have a thriving relationship and be great parents at the same time. Thank you for checking out this episode. The first question I have. I really like to start out with the why. And i asked her nicole being a sex and intimacy coach how did you get into what you do

Nicole:

sure. So this, this answer could be very long, so I'll try to keep it short. I got into this because I needed this. I needed someone like this years ago when I was trying to navigate my sexuality and how to be in a relationship and own my own sexual desire and pleasure. And I know way back then, you know, when we're in middle school or high school and taking the sex ed classes, we're pretty much learning how not to have sex or how to put on a condom, but there's nothing about owning your own pleasure and how to actually live life and love and show up in a relationship. And now looking back in retrospect, I desperately needed that. And I know so many other people did. So what happened when I didn't have that support, and resources to really learn about it is I had to navigate it on my own, um, within my relationships, very young. And that took a lot of time and a lot of heartache and a lot of conflict. And I want to shorten that, that learning experience for people. I don't want people to have to go through all of that. I want to give them the tools and resources now to have the love life that they want now and not have to go through all that I went through. So kind of creating those quantum leaps for people. That sounds so cool. And Nicole, do you work with individuals, couples, both? Yeah, so I work with both individuals and couples, and the programs and spaces I create for couples can be tailored to either one. Pretty much whether you're an individual in my program or a couple, we always start with the self intimacy piece, which I know we'll talk a little bit more about later. But we focus so much on finding the right person instead of being the right person. And that's why the self intimacy piece is so important because we really need to tune in to ourselves and be aware of what our own needs are, be honest with ourselves. There are so many narratives we create. There are so many experiences we have from again, early on in our childhoods and our development, that we learn And here that, sex and intimacy should be a certain way. And that's impacted again by our parents and the role models they create for us, our cultures, our religions. So that self intimacy piece is really the self awareness. So what stories do I have right now about my sexuality, about what people have told me and how how am I showing up in a relationship and how do those stories impact how I show up? If we don't have awareness of that, then we have no way of connecting with our partners because we don't know our real selves. Our real selves are a culmination of everything people have told us we should be, but we haven't created our own recipe yet. Many of us have not. Most of us have not. So we have to be honest and real with ourselves about that first so we can bring that authenticity to our relationships. So in my programs, that's always the starting piece, whether I'm working with an individual client or a couple of clients.

Jason:

That's so great. I love the term of self intimacy and I don't know if you got a trademark on that or something, but,

Nicole:

Yeah, I don't know. I don't yet. Um, it's such an important piece that self awareness.

Jason:

Yeah, that's great. And so you said that self awareness of the stories that you have gathered along the way. Yeah. And to reflect on that. But could you share, keeping confidentiality, like a theme to a common story that we do have. Yeah. Yeah. That gets in the way of our self intimacy.

Nicole:

Sure. Well, I think just intimacy in general, I mean, there's so many themes I see, but one of the big ones for, let's talk about, let's start with a couple client who may be coming in to work with me. One of the big ones on the outside, what we see is. Is the discrepancy in desire, right? So you have one partner who wants to have sex more often and the other one for whatever reason doesn't. So that's a common theme of couples who are coming to work with me, right? And a couple of different things happen. One could be that now, so we have this discrepancy in desire and what meaning has each person assigned to it? Right? So the person who wants sex more may be assigning a meaning that their partner who doesn't want sex as often is broken, right? That there's something wrong with them. Oftentimes that's the female partner. So is there an issue with their hormones? Is their testosterone low? Um, have they even had an orgasm before? Do they know what that feels like? Maybe they just haven't, you know, explored themselves enough, but there's often that blame and that pressure. I'll use the female here because it's often that, not always. Yeah. For the female partner to figure herself out, right? Why don't you want sex more? The other thing that happens that men don't always open up to and are vulnerable about is the stories they tell themselves about what it means about them. Right? Does my desire, does my partner not desire me because I'm not something right? Am I not as sexy or attractive or as masculine as this person or what is seen on TV? Do I not know how to bring them pleasure? And a huge misconception, and myth we learn is that sex If we're compatible, it should come easy, right? If you're compatible with your partner, we hear that word compatible all the time. Maybe you're just not sexually compatible. That's not even a thing, right? We can all be compatible, but it takes an investment, which so many of us don't realize that we have to put into it because we think it should just happen, right? We think the sparks should just fly. And what's tricky about it is early on in relationships, when we first started dating someone, it seems like the sparks are flying. And oftentimes they are, right? This is so easy. It's organic. I didn't have to do all this stuff to, have sex with my partner. They just wanted it at the same time I did. What's interesting is there was a study done. of people's brains who are on drugs and people's brains when they first start dating someone. And the areas in the brain light up in the same areas, when you have an addiction. And it's because we're literally chemically obsessed with our partners when we first start dating them. That's chemically what happens. In addition to that, the context is so different than what it looks like later on in our relationship. Right. When you think about dating someone for the first time, you're going on your early dates. Oftentimes you're not living together, right? You're in your own separate locations. So you're getting ready for the date separately. You might buy a new outfit. You might get your nails done. You might shave, you might shower, right? As parents, those are, those are novel things. Um, but you're intentional, right? You're so intentional. And then there's novelty of how's my partner going to show up? What are they going to wear? Are we going to have our first kiss tonight? Are we going to have sex tonight? There's a risk there. There's a vulnerability there. And when we get into a long term relationships, the context of those things disappears, right? You're getting ready in the same bathroom. If you're a parent, you have kids running in. You're trying to manage so many things. You maybe get a shower like me. Sometimes maybe you put on a hat over the mom here. It's like, okay, I'm ready to go, right? We don't create space for that transition, right? For the transition from the. Parent mode into dating my partner mode with the same intention that we did early on our relationship because the context was just different of what lives look like, right? Yeah. So it does take a different type of investment to recreate that. It doesn't just happen naturally.

Jason:

So in essence, and then feel free to correct this, what you're saying is, okay, now we're parents. We've been together for a while, most likely. And now we need to create space or maybe even have a conversation about what can we do to have a good sex life.

Nicole:

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And the first thing I work with couples is, what's your definition of a good sex life?

Jason:

Yeah. I was gonna ask you that. Obviously that's subjective, right? Yeah. You don't have the definition book. Okay. I know you guys are off

Nicole:

and that's so important is because again, like with the discrepancy and desire again, another complaint is I just want to, have a better sex life. And my personal, you know, learning as a transitioning from a therapy mode to coach mode too, is I'm not here to give you the answers. Right? If you want different solutions, you have to ask different questions, right? So it's not like, how can I have more sex? First, we got to look at, well, what is more sex? What is a good sex life? Look to you define that. We have to start there. What is keeping you from having that? Do you take ownership of your role in it or is there blame there? Right? What's your role in not having the sex life that you want to have? And that's a huge piece going back to that self intimacy. Are you willing to show up in that, vulnerability space in the self awareness to take ownership of how you're showing up to be the right partner instead of just expecting the right partner to show up for you.

Jason:

I work with couples in my coaching and therapy practice and that sometimes happens. I just want more sex, period. You give me more sex. Not of can you look at it on your side first? And also what you said, what does it mean? what does good sex mean?

Nicole:

And even more sex, like what's the point? Yeah. When someone comes, when someone in a relationship says, I just want more sex and my partner doesn't want to have more sex. For you, what's the point of having more sex? What does that get you? Is it really just about my language, like banging it out more times? Like, is that what it's about for you? Then you're fulfilled or is there more to it? And oftentimes on the surface level, it is about having sex more often, but it's because we've assigned a certain meaning to that. Right. If we have sex this many times, maybe that's a successful relationship because that's what my friends say is successful sexual relationship, right? Three or four times a week. Perfect. That, that's what Joe at golf said the other day they're having. So that's successful, right? But what does it mean? Right? Having sex more often wasn't me. What are you actually looking for? And I can promise you every client that I've asked us, both men and women, and especially for the men out there underneath that layer of, okay, I want it more often. Right. They want it more often, not because of the times, it's because they actually want to connect more with their partners. And they want to know that their partners desire them. They don't want male, they don't want to be begging for sex, right? But they're not so that's what's underneath the surface. So we have to ask different questions.

Jason:

That's great. And you said underneath that they want to connect and they want their partner to desire them. And that's good work, Nicole, getting to the root of the matter. And when you say that, culturally speaking, two acceptable emotions for males are anger and lust, you know, and it's almost like there's so much meaning into the idea of sex for males. I guess it's reiterate what you said of going back to, okay, what does sex mean? See if we can get to the bottom of that. Maybe... You two are not up for banging it out, but can you find connection and can your partner express desire to you in other ways?

Nicole:

Yeah. So first of all, there's nothing wrong with a husband lusting for his wife. That's a good thing. And again, we lose that. And oftentimes the dynamic is because I'm. Man, like you get shut down by your wife so many times, right? So we lose that lust. I had a client who wrote me a letter once and he's like, I've turned off my need and desire for sex. Cause I didn't want to rock the relationship more. I saw that it was putting pressure on you. Just similar to smoking. I quit smoking. I'm going to quit sex. Like I'm not going to desire it. But that avoidance of the topic and the pain and her invulnerability there created even a larger gap in their relationship because she actually wanted to have sex and she wanted that connection, but they hadn't found the recipe yet that worked for them. Right. And a big piece is no husbands can lust after their wives and most wives want them to. Right. But on the female side. A lot of women, especially moms, don't create space to allow themselves to desire anymore. They don't give themselves permission because it feels so heavy. It feels like something else on their to do list, on their list of chores, right? And I often say that so many women, especially moms, are diagnosed with superwoman syndrome, right? They wear all the hats, they play all the roles. But their self intimacy, their care of their self is very low on the totem pole and the priority list, right? And to desire our husbands, to desire our partners, we gotta own the wanting and to own the wanting, we have to give ourselves permission that we're worthy of the wanting, but when we're so filled with all the other things, keeping children alive, potentially having our own careers to keeping up the household. There's no ownership of the wanting and the pleasure and the desire there. So I turn it to women often and I say, Hey, okay, your husband wants to have more sex, right? He wants you to desire him in the bedroom. Okay. Do you as a woman pursue pleasure outside of the bedroom? Right. If you're going to pursue pleasure with your partner inside the bedroom, do you give yourself permission to pursue pleasure outside of the bedroom? Do you go and sit on the patio and have coffee for five minutes with no distractions? Do you create boundaries around that? Do you go out with your girlfriends and have a night alone? Is there autonomy and independence in your relationship and the marriage that you have that time to yourself where you can transition back into that feminine role? In superwoman syndrome, we've taken on a lot of masculinity, right? We get her done. We're very goal oriented, all the things that are very masculine. You need polarity in our relationship. You need the balance of the masculine and feminine, right? So if you're both showing up in the masculine, because you're both doing so much and there's no desire for your male partner there, right? You have to have that time again to transition into the feminine, to take care of yourself. So that you can own the desire for yourself, own the wanting, and then show up that way in your relationship. That's a big challenge for women out there, is to really create space for that. And partners, husbands can help women do that too, is by being direct and Learning that this is what women need is part of the owning of desires that they need the space for the transition, right? So husbands to come and show up and be direct with their partners. Hey, I got the kids tonight. Here's a glass of wine. Go take a bath. Have your time. So helpful. So helpful. And for women, they have to There's a surrender to that, right? They have to surrender control there that everything's going to be done the way that they have it done, that survival mode of being a mom or a parent, right? My husband can take this on, he can give the kid the bath, all their toes might not get washed. They will, they will survive, right? We got to release that control because we can't do it all on our own. And if we try, then there's no way we can show up intimately in our relationships, partnership.

Jason:

What you said embracing the feminine is to release control? I give overly simplistic summaries

Nicole:

to embrace the feminine is to create the space and going back to that self intimacy, self awareness piece of how do I pursue pleasure? Outside of the intimate realm, outside of the sexual realm? Do I give myself permission for that? Do I feel like I'm able to do that? Does my partner support me in doing that? Right? We have to ask for help, right? We have to ask for support and we have to be curious. Intimacy is about curiosity and that's the novelty is what turns me on? How do I explore pleasure? I know for me, I always turn to coffee. It's like, if I can get out on my patio for five minutes in the morning before my kids wake me up, before anybody asks anything of me, sip my cup of coffee in peace, go through some journaling or some mindfulness, like that is self intimacy. And that is true pleasure. If I know that if I am having a crazy day and super overwhelmed that I can turn to my husband and say, Hey, I need a break. I need to go out for a little bit. Is that okay? And he says, yes. And there's a second piece to this. And he says, yes, by all means go do that. It's not that by him saying yes, there's now an expectation for sex either, because I think that's a, that's a big, um, that's a big thing that couples need to understand and that husbands need to understand. And I have a little like, and I should trademark this. I have a little, equation that I came up with, okay? Oh, cool. So, P minus P equals P. So, patient, Patience minus pressure equals pleasure. So, there needs to be a patience on all ends to let all things unfold. But for men who are hearing this and wanting to step up, wanting to, you know support their wives or their partners and having this space and allowing them to transition. It does not mean that you allow your wife to go out on a Target shopping spree for an hour and come back and, you know, she's ready for you. That might not always happen, right? And the second you put the pressure on your waiting, it's like, well, I gave you the space or I did this chore. I took care of the kids. Where's the sex? Where's the follow through? You know? You'll have, you'll create the shutdown again from your partner. So it's, remember, it's always about connection, right? So that needs to be, that needs to be the goal. If there's even going to be a goal, it's the process of connection. I, I created this space for you, right? So you could have that self intimacy. I would love to connect with you. And I'm here and I desire that, but I also know we work differently. So continuing to explore what those needs are. And the second, male partners especially create that space without any pressure. Whether or not sex happens, they're okay and they're still going to connect and cuddle and all of it. There's a magic thing that happens. Women lean in, it's like, Oh my God, like you're not going to put pressure on me. We're not going to have the conversation again. I want sex with you now! It just happens. It's a magical shift. You got to take the pressure off and guys,

Jason:

that is such a cool equation. If I share it with clients, I'll drop your name. And that answered one of my questions. It's, what is something that you're doing that is getting in the way of more sex? And you mentioned it is the pressure.

Nicole:

Yeah, again, we're human, right? When we want something, we think that we have to exert more force to get it right. There's no blame on men like we want it right. Another piece of it is again the story you tell yourself, right? If I'm not getting it, what does that mean? And so we get kind of obsessed with that. It's like, okay, maybe I need to talk to her more about it. Maybe we need to figure out what the problem is. And we focus on the solution as opposed to being curious. Yes. We're not curious about all facets of it. We think it's again, just about the quantity, how many times, right? How can I get you to want it more? It's no, how can I get you to grant yourself permission to pleasure first? Right. And as a man, like what stories are you telling yourself about your partner and about yourself? And what not having as much sex as you want to have, what that means. How does that affect your masculinity? How does that affect how you show up? So we had to be curious. Yeah. That's really cool. And I assume that's what you do is provide in a way, provide space, for a real curiosity, as I would say, vulnerability. Yeah. Yeah, no, my programs are all about creating clarity around the relationship and that openness space. Like you said, curiosity early on. Like I said, it's the self intimacy piece, what that looks like, what that involves to be fully honest and transparent. I'm very, I'll say picky about who I allow into my programs. There's definitely a vetting. Process on both sides. In coaching. I want people who are ready to show up for themselves, who are committed to that vulnerability and the ownership, who aren't just here to vent and blame their partners, right? And be stuck in old stories. There's definitely a deep vulnerability, in this coaching process to create the most extravagant, you know, transformations, but you got to be ready for it, right?

Jason:

how can a couple focus on pleasure. Without, going to the, the banging it out.

Nicole:

So as a society, we're all focused on outcome goals, right. And it's what we're fed all the time. You see a new story of, you know, 500 pound woman lost 400 pounds and everybody celebrates her, that's the outcome goal though. None of us focus on the process. So for a process like that for her process is 500 pound woman eats salads for 10 years and then she loses the weight. So we don't look at the process. We don't look at the behind the scenes and we compare so much with social media to all of this. We compare it to the outcome goal, but we don't look at the process. Right. So when it comes to pursuing pleasure, not orgasm or not sex, that's the process connections, the process, right? And when you focus on the process of that, then you'll get the outcome goals you actually desire, right? But when it's just about the outcome goal, that pressure kills libido, right? The stress of it kills any opportunity for connection. But if you're just focusing on how can we enjoy each other's company as parents, how can we create intimacy with one another when our home is chaotic a lot of the time, right? What does that look like? And to be honest, we don't have very much time as parents, right? It could be five minutes here and there. So to create rituals around that, to be intentional, small moments of connection, and that's really all it takes, small moments of pleasure, is that, you know, my husband and I will send funny memes back and forth, right? Small moments of connection, we laugh, we connect, we do the wordle, I don't know if people are familiar with that. Oh, if you're not, this is the New York times put out this like app where you like guess words, but we compete. So every day him and I compete of who can guess it in the lesser amount of guesses. Right? So that's a different way of creating a different dynamic and pleasure. And we joke about it and we laugh having more fun. We take our love life so seriously, but we have to have more fun. Again, we have to infuse our lives with fun. And so much of that we can do with our kids around, right? And then when we do that, it's the greatest gift we give our kids by showing that we can embrace that affection, brace that fun and silliness. We're setting them up for success in their future relationships. Right? So a lot of the things we talk about in my program as well is how can we be novel? How can we infuse our lives with that intimacy and pleasure and connection in short little pieces, because that might be all that we have a short little couple minutes here and there. But again, that takes intention, that takes a mindfulness, that takes ritual, and you have to be ready for that. You have to plan that out so that it can be infused into the rest of your day whether it's little non sexual shows of affection with physical touch. I do a six second kiss often right little things that so when you do get the time it's not this like oh my gosh we have hours of foreplay now because we haven't had this date forever no foreplay is every interaction you have And even John Gottman, if you're familiar with him and his, uh, he defines sex as everything between one orgasm to the next. So every interaction is sex because sex is really connection, right? So pursuing pleasure and connection in that way. And being, you know, curious about how can I pursue pleasure with my partner and especially with myself in fun ways so that when we get to that intimate space, there's not the pressure we feel like we've been connected and have this, you know, friendship and this passion and this intimacy that's been building up. Another thing that I talk to couples a lot about too, in terms of the outcome goal, is as soon as we reach a goal, even right before we reach it, we always move the goal post, right? So it feels like we're never getting where we want. Okay, we're having sex three times a week now. Now it should be five times a week, right? Before you've even quite gotten to three. We're never celebrating our successes, right? It never feels like we're enough or that we're doing enough. So we don't set ourselves up for success. Right. So that's something else to be aware of. We got to celebrate the baby steps. We got to celebrate the small moments of connection, right? All of that gives us this foundation of love. So that again, when we're in that space, we've been building up to it. Right. And it's not just a one time thing.

Jason:

That's so cool. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, something about feeling connected to your partner. I know from experience, a lot of other issues go away, right? Where can people find you? Yes, everything's on social media. It's the most easily accessible space. But Instagram or Facebook, it's at Nicole Colleen coach on Facebook. I have a private group for women, undressing intimacy at the forum for the modern woman and navigating all that. So that's cool. And a lot of my new programs and offers are launched there first. And then I have links for people to DM me if they want to schedule a discovery call with me to learn more about my programs. That's all on Instagram under my links as well. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Nicole, thank you so much. This has been very informative for me and it's been so fun just to unpack all those good nuggets in there. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. We always have more to learn. Yeah. We're all friends in the oven. Yeah. Definitely. So Nicole, thank you so much. And I know this has been super helpful for people listening to this. And enjoy sunny California. Thank you. I will. I will. Okay. Take care.

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