F*CK MEN, Your Hoe Phase w/ Sheena Sharma

Hello, my loves. And thank you so much for joining me on the get your guy coaching podcast. I have a very special guest with me today. I'm so happy to talk to her. Her name is Sheena Sharma, and she is a dating coach for millennial men and women. And we are going to talk a little bit about.

Our hoe phases. Right, Sheena? And what that really is all about. And I have to give some background around this because Sheena had a viral TikTok that went crazy. And I found her and I was like, I have to talk to this woman. And I'm so glad that we were able to connect. I'm so glad to have you on this podcast, Sheena. So thank you so much for joining me today.

Thank you so much for having me, Anwar. And yes, I'm so excited to talk about co phases and things that people just really don't talk about as much from this. From this dating perspective.

Totally, totally. So why don't you tell me and the listeners a little bit about your business and what you actually do? What work do you actually do, and how do you serve your clients?

Yes. So I am a dating coach for Millennials in Austin, Texas. I do serve clients around the country, but it started out just serving people locally here. What I do is using my yoga background. So I am a registered yoga teacher as well. I use spirituality. So yoga, meditation, and breath work to help single men and women connect and align with themselves in a really, really authentic way so that they can go out and attract a really aligned partner for them.

I love that. I love that so much. So what sort of breath work do you do with these clients to kind of help them align and get really in touch with themselves? If you wouldn't mind sharing.

Yeah, absolutely. There is a yogic breath, what's called in Sanskrit, it's called called the Ujjayi pranayama. Ujjayi pranayama means breath of victory or breath of life force. And basically what this means is when we're going about our day, we are breathing in through our nose and out through our mouth, and we're not really being conscious of just how much air we're bringing into the body.

Okay.

We usually also breathe into our chest when we breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth. The difference between that kind of breathing, what I call regular everyday breathing, and ujjayi breath is breathing in through the nose. And exhaling through the nose brings the breath into the low belly first and then the lungs and the chest and then exhaling out through the nose and emptying all throughout the body. And what that slow sort of breath work does is it really gets you in touch with your more emotional self versus more. What we call the more logical right. Brain, sort of masculine, you know, person at work 9 to 5 or.

Yeah.

So it's. It's a place to get to your more emotional, healing, feeling self. And that's really the self that we want to be producing to the world when we're looking to attract someone in for love.

I love that. So when would I kind of do this breath work? When do you kind of. What do you suggest in terms of when I'm in my day, during the week, during the weekend? When do you think would be best to kind of implement this? And how long should I be doing this for?

That's a great question, and I'm glad that you asked that. A lot of people think that. And this is a form of meditation, right? Breathwork is just meditating. That to meditate, you have to sit in a dark room with your eyes closed and take 20 minutes or 30 minutes. That is actually a really advanced way of really getting to your true self. There's a much, much simpler way that I recommend to people. And you, girl, tell us, oh, my gosh, and this will change your life.

Okay?

You can meditate and you can breathe in the shower. You can do it while driving. You can do it while doing your makeup in the morning. And what I suggest to people is start with two minutes. Just two minutes. And all you have to do is inhale through the nose. So let's do one together right now.

Exhale out the nose. Empty everything out.

And do you notice how you just completely soften when you take that breath? Right?

Yes, girl. I'm soft, girl.

It is such a soft feeling. Imagine doing that for just a few minutes every day. And what your body will do is it'll begin to tell yourself, hey, that breath feels really good for me. Let's keep doing it.

I'm actually feeling that now. I was being a little bit flippant and ridiculous, but I'm actually feeling it a little bit now.

Yeah, there you go.

That's awesome. Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool. Sheena, girl, you're already giving us these gems that we are changing our lives here one minute at a time. I absolutely love it, girl. I love it. Good, good, good, good, good. Thank you for that. I appreciate that. That's something that I personally don't do, but I want to actually start implementing. Cause I think that even just doing it now, it Was like, felt good. Right. So. And I think along with so many other of my listeners are super busy and have a such so much mind chatter that, like, this idea of having to kind of sit down for like 30 minutes and like, you know, is like, feels not possible. So this is something that we can definitely implement and execute. So thank you for sharing that. I appreciate it.

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay, girl. Well, we have to talk about our hoe phases. Yes.

Why are we going to talk about this? We're talking about this because I think it's really important. I think everyone has one, even the nice, good girls. Out.

Good girls.

I think a whole phase doesn't necessarily have to mean sex. Right. It can actually mean a lot of different things that can mean. So for example, for me, there was a moment where I. I was kissing guys all the time. It was like my thing. I wasn't like a sex ho phase kind of guy. I was like, when I go out, I'm gonna kiss like five or six guys, and that is just gonna be my thing. Right. That's gonna help me feel however I need to feel. And I think everyone has that hoe phase. So would you mind kind of just sharing your hoe phase a little bit when that happened and what that really looked like for you?

Yeah, absolutely. So. And I love, by the way, that you said your hoe phase looks a little different. Cause everyone's hoe ph different, right?

Correct.

And, Hope, race doesn't necessarily have to mean having sex. It can mean something as simple as being physically or sensually intimate with someone else. Whatever that looks like for you. And for me, that did look like having sex. So getting straight to the point, you know, having sex and then telling the guy, hey, okay, I have to go to bed early, be up for work. So you.

Oh, you were that girl. You were that girl.

I didn't even want them to sleep over. I'm like, my bed, you know? But my Hope is I'm 30. I'll actually be 31 next week.

Happy early birthday girl.

Thank you. My hope phase lasted from, I would say, 18 to about 25.

Or 26. And it was a just repetitive cycle of meeting a guy out at a bar or through a friend or whatever, hooking up with him before, getting to know him really well. And after the hookup, kind of feeling like, okay, well, I got what I came here for. I don't really want more because I, first of all, I don't even know what it is that I want. And second of all, do I even feel I deserve Those things, if I really tap into what that is. So let me just have sex right now. Yeah. And when that kept going and going, and I'm sure a lot of people, and you can probably attest to this, that have a whole phase. It's like one experience just blurred into the next because they all become so similar. It just becomes a cycle of get to know someone, have sex, and then they just leave as quickly as they've come. And you. You haven't really formed a true bond other than a physical or sexual bond.

And we're creatures of habit. Right. So we do it once. Oh, that wasn't so bad, actually. It felt really good in the moment. So why not do it again? Like, why not? Right. I think is the thing that comes into our head. Right. So that's really interesting. So you started at 18. Why 18? What was happening at 18?

Oh, you know, so that's a great question, too, in my culture. So my parents are from India. I was not actually allowed to date in high school. And so up until the age of 18, I was pretty prude, or what people would call prude. And I didn't even lose my virginity until I was 18, which in many same. Right. Oh, so you're a late bloomer, too.

I don't really think it's a late bloomer. And I think this is actually the case for so many women out there, especially women of color. And for the women that are listening to this podcast who are smart and successful, they were probably focused on school or maybe super focused on sports, and they didn't have time to actually engage with a lot of different guys. And so when we get to college, it feels like one, I'm free. Like, I don't have to go to church every Sunday, so I can kind of do whatever the hell I want to do. Or I don't have my parents kind of in my ear telling me what I can and cannot do. And I don't have to feel like I have to appease them and live for them, so I can kind of just do me. And there's this liberation that happens at college where you're, like, doing so many different things that you wouldn't necessarily. That you hadn't done before. So that was the story for me. And I know and working with hundreds of my clients, that that is their story as well. So was that something that was similar for you?

Absolutely. That resonates so much. And it's interesting because when you don't go your whole life, you know, really dating or being involved with Anyone then to go sort of to the complete other extreme where.

Right where you're, this is how we do things, right. If we are high achieving, like smart, successful women, like it's zero or it's 10. There's nothing in between. Yes. 100. 100. Let's go to 100.

Absolutely. And I think when you get to this place where you realize, okay, not only do I have permission to hook up with people now, but I recognize my own power in doing that. At first it feels incredible, like you said, it feels liberating, it feels empowering. You feel sensual and sexual. And I think that the sort of trouble, at least for me, came in when this became almost a habit on autopilot. It's like I was doing it without even thinking about it beforehand.

Yeah, Quick question, because I think this is something that happens for a lot of different women. And I'm curious if this, this happened to you right when you started your sexual journey at 18. Did you feel like, I just want to get this over with and like not be a virgin anymore, or did you feel like, I like this guy, like, I really just want to be with him? Like, talk to me about that. Virginity versus into ho phase kind of transformation that happened. Right. Was it one of these things where it's like, yeah, talk to me about that.

You know, the first, the guy that I lost my virginity to, I actually liked and I hoped, I hoped that it would turn into a relationship when, after we had sex, when he made it known that he was not looking for a relationship, I think it's sort of. It created this precedent in my head that, well, okay, I guess guys who just want to have sex are not really looking for relationships. And so I then began the pattern of seeking out emotionally unavailable, good looking men who just wanted to have sex and who really valued me for what I looked like, which at the time to me felt amazing because again, having gone 18 years without really having that validation or attention, it felt. I felt like I was on cloud nine. So it was at such a slippery slope. I mean, once I had that one one and done, it almost became too easy to keep attracting these people and doing it over and over again.

Yes, girl, yes. It's interesting. I tell my clients all of the time, like, men are looking for sex and you find love along the way. And I think that women are looking for love and have sex along the way. Way. Right.

So true.

And so it's important to realize that they're going to continue to want to have sex. Doesn't mean that they're bad people. They enjoy sex. Right. And that's okay. Right. And the question is.

Do we also engage in that way? Right. Or not? One of the things that I've been looking and researching is what we talked about a little bit before, which is this notion of assortive dating, meaning like, I'm going to try to get with people that are quote, unquote, on my level. So if I went to college, I want someone who went to college. If I have a grad degree, I want someone who also has a grad degree. And. But what's happening is that there are 20 or 30% more women that are actually at this level and there's a shortage of, not shortage, but not as many men. And for my ladies in Atlanta, you know this more than probably anyone else in the country. And what happens is that the power dynamic changes, meaning that men have more power in this assortive dating culture because there's not as many of them. And then there's more promiscuity. Sorry, I'm like kind of a little tired today. There's more promiscuity that's happening because men have more power and they're saying, okay, if you're not going to do this for if I'm not going to have sex with you, I'll find another person I'm going to have sex with. Right. This is also one of the challenges when we're talking about dating and relationships and sex that a lot of people are facing right now. So I just wanted to kind of put that out there. What are your thoughts around that?

Yeah, I completely agree. There's a great book called Datanomics that I've been reading that back.

I read that one.

Yeah, yeah, right. That there are more single college educated women out there than men. And it's, in my opinion that's a lot of what has fueled this sort of, you know, what, what I call and what you and I talked about this fuck men, quote unquote ideology, right. Where all of these women who are successful and single and beautiful and have so much to offer, feel like they can't find a man who again, matches or quote unquote, matches their expectations for what they want in a partner. And it sort of begs the question, well, should women sort of re examine what they want in a partner or should they keep looking for this sort of hidden gem in a lump full of men who don't have all of these things on their list?

That's right. It's interesting, right? When we talk about our hoe Phase, because I think sometimes women actually don't go through a legit hoe phase. They, as you were kind of talking about right now, are like, I'm not going to find what I really, really want, so why don't I just settle for some good D and be good with it? Right? With one person, with 30 people, it doesn't matter. I'm just going to try to get mine so that I can feel affection, attention, Right. Touch, which is super important for humans. And so I feel like there's a lot of women that actually do that. Has that been your experience when you're kind of working with your clients especially. Especially Millennials?

Yeah. Oh, my gosh. You know, most of my clients, a lot of them have what they call fuck buddies or friends with benefits. And they. The first thing I tell them is if you have that. And no judgment. Really? No judgment.

And this whole podcast episode has. There's been no judgment here.

No judgment. No judgment.

Yes, girl.

You and I have been there and I, you know, to have a fuck buddy to work 10 hours a day and be like, hey, do you want to come over? Yes, it can feel amazing. But what I say to my clients is, if you are truly looking for love or for a relationship, what you're doing with this friends with benefits is completely out of alignment with what you actually intend to have and feel you deserve for yourself. So how do you expect to find and attract. Right, by the universal law of attraction, attract this love into your life if your actions don't align with your. Your desires. It's as simple as that. And yes, it can get lonely. And yes, it gets. Literally, we lose out on that physical touch. We're such a touch deprived culture right now. So many people are just not even having sex because they're so done with the opposite sex.

And also we're so digitally connected. Right. Plus this pandemic on top of it, girl, in 2020, there were people that were going through it.

Myself included.

Hello.

Before I met my partner. And for me, 2020 was a year of celibacy. It was a time in my life when I. It was the stage between the hoe phase and my current relationship now, where I spent years and years and years doing this hoe phase. And I finally went inward and I asked myself, what is it that I actually want? And is this ho phase really benefiting me? What am I getting out of it? So let me just put the brakes on and stop.

Yeah, talk to me about that moment. When did you come to that realization?

It was a realization that was, you know, it's. I think everyone has a different kind of low, low or what to them feels like a moment of truth. For me, it was literally coming home the morning after from a guy's place. I was hungover, I was sleep deprived. I felt incredibly anxious because I was hungover and sleep deprived. I was just moody. I was irritable. And when I got home, I finally. I just remember, like, slumping down on the couch, feeling like literal shit, like just feeling awful and saying to myself, like, what? What am I doing this for? Is that 45 minutes of pleasure, girl?

Not the actual number of minutes, girl.

Okay, 45 minutes. And that is including penetration, foreplay.

Foreplay. All other, girl.

Yes, girl.

You're telling on some of these men.

Out here, and I'm living for it, guys. Not 45 minutes of penetration. The average man lasts like seven minutes.

Yeah, totally.

But anyway, you know, it really was. Is that 45 minutes of pleasure worth this feeling that I'm feeling right now, which was complete anxiety. It was total lack of self worth. It was like feeling like actual shit about myself. Like, what am I doing schlepping home from some random guy's place in an outfit that I hate? Feeling like, not myself and never even talking to this person again. That's not who I am. That was my moment of truth. And at that moment, I decided, I'm done. I'm deleting the apps. I'm not going to bars anymore and meeting men. I'm focusing on myself, my friendships with men and women. At that point, I didn't even have any single straight male friends. And I knew that eventually aligning in all those ways would inevitably bring me what I really wanted, which was love.

Yeah, I love that. I'm so glad that you had that moment, girl, because I think we all do at some point, right? To just kind of like, what the hell is going on here? Am I. Am I this girl? I know that I'm a different woman, right? Like, let me figure out who that woman is and, like, meet her to where she's at. So talk to me about your hoe phase. Like, what were some of the thoughts you were having? Or how did your opinions or thoughts about men change as you were going through your hoe phase?

Yeah, that's a great question. So when I first started my hoe phase, I would say I was the most doe eyed, you know, hopeless romantic out there in many ways that women are, you know, and that we are, especially when we're young. There's this very sort of childlike female element to that. Oh, I'm growing up. I'm excited to find love and get.

Married and write Disney movies. Rom coms know it. Hallmark movies give us everything, actually inform and program us in terms of what love should feel like and what it should look like. So I'm right there with you.

And when I entered the real world and realized that my reality was not at all that.

Right.

But what happened after the first two or three guys of sort of having this whole phase of, you know, the routine, what I call the routine of getting drunk together, you know, having sex, not talking for like three weeks and then just doing it all over again was. Had become my reality. And I quickly realized this is not what I was fed growing up. The more that I did it though, the more it became a self fulfilling prophecy. Right. Our thoughts become our reality and our reality become our thoughts. And so when I was doing this, I thought, well, this is all that men have to offer me. Men are actually shit. They're not these Prince Charmings that give us a happy life and a very ending. They're. They're leeches that just want us for one thing and one thing only. So let me continue to seek out men that only give me that right. And so it's so easy to fall into that pattern when that's all you allow yourself to access. And all I was doing was shooting myself in the foot. By the end of my ho phase, I went from being this like hopeless romantic, like doe eyed, soft feminine woman to being this angry man hating. Just not, not feminist man hating. I mean truly man hating. Yeah, right. That like literally I hate men.

Right? Get them away from me. Don't.

I don't trust them. I will only be in be in their vicinity when I'm having sex with them. And other than that.

For me it felt like a total lack of faith and hopelessness.

Yeah.

And literally, Anwar, my life at that point was again, I had a moment of realization where I was at a bar in New York City and I was surrounded by like three men. And I was just drinking and drinking and drinking. And it came to a point where I was like, these men were like, okay, which one do you want to go home with? Like, that had become my reality. That was literally my real. It was that bad, my ho phase. I just remember coming home that night and in my drunken mind thinking like, who have I become? Like I'm now a shell of this, this woman that I.

You lost yourself.

I lost myself.

Yeah. You know what's interesting? As you Kind of describe how your thoughts about men kind of changed is that, like when I was in my hoe phase, it was something that was similar as well, where actually these men were not humans anymore, right? They were animals or a number. And I actually dehumanized them and objectified them. And when we do that, it's so dangerous because when we objectify or dehumanize anyone, it means we can treat them however we want to, right? I'm not even focused on how the guy is treating us, but how we're thinking about and also treating them, right? Which I think is really important because for me it was like, oh, you know, I'm gonna kiss him and he's just another number, right? And maybe even a little bit of an ego boost, like got him done, right? Like I'm that bad bitch, right? Next time, next one, right? So I think, I think it's an important point to bring up, which is like your whole face can also be a short term ego boost right in the moment, but like a long term ego suck, right? That like, actually at the end of the day, week, month, year, you have these numbers under you, but don't mean anything and actually maybe make you feel worse about yourself. Yeah, maybe some people. I will say this. Our society is changing, right? And there are women that can and do do this and have no negative effects that can actually be good with staying in their hoe phase. And there aren't any negative effects. But in my experience, the majority of women, and you can always use the 8020 rule here, actually, it's very hard for them to do, right? And my experience, and working with hundreds of women, right, women get chemically bonded to men, like when they have sex, right? And that's why I'm always telling my clients that we need to really take our time and figure out if this person is someone that has demonstrated the qualities that you might want to have in a boyfriend so that you're getting chemically bonded to someone who's actually a good dude and not a douche or an asshole, right? So, yeah, I just think it's like, it's. I think it could be really hard for women that are getting chemically bonded to so many men to the point where they're numbing those. Those, those urges inside of themselves, which means that they're not listening to their body, they're not listening to their intuition, and it's dead. There's no communication. So you don't know what you want, right? Because you've completely deadened and numbed any Sort of connection that you had with your intuition and your body, which will guide you to where you need to go.

Absolutely. I love that. And what I would say when you first started talking, I would almost liken the hooking up with someone. It's almost like it's an addiction. It becomes an addiction. And this is something that a lot of people aren't talking about. We hear about alcohol addiction, we hear about drug addiction, substance abuse, but in many ways, that quick high that you get from hooking up with someone and then a few days later, you kind of go back down and deflate. It's really similar to kind of like getting drunk, feeling amazing, and then being hungover the next day. I call it the sexual hangover. That's exactly what it's like. And I love what you said about the idea that women usually do feel a bond. It's true. In my experience with my clients and even with myself, I noticed that men are much better at leaving what happens in the bedroom. In the bedroom. Right. They can do it, and then they can separate. They're like, okay, cool, I've got my jollies. I'm going to go on with the rest of my day. Whereas women, we nurture what happens in the bedroom, and we have a difficult time separating that from our feelings because of all the hormones we release and everything. We create an actual bond. So when that happens, it's interesting. When I had my hoe phase, this was happening to me a lot in the beginning, where I would feel really, really bonded to the men. But I found that towards the middle and the end, I couldn't believe that instead of now being the girl whose feelings were always hurt by the guy who I was having sex with in the beginning, I had, interestingly enough, become the girl who was now hurting the feelings of the guy that I was sleeping with.

And that's what I'm talking about.

Yes. Because I had morphed into them. I morphed into this emotionally unavailable girl. And by the end, I was making guys cry. I was feeding them false promises, dehumanizing them.

They didn't mean anything. They didn't mean anything. They were not human. They were nothing.

Exactly. Like treating them like treating them the way that the men in the beginning had been treating me. And that is such a good example of how what we keep doing is what we turn into. We are what we do.

Yeah. I am so glad that you mentioned that. And I think there's so many listeners that are listening to this being like, oh, shit, that is me. That is exactly what I did. I'm so glad that we're talking about this. This makes me so excited.

Okay, so I want to talk about. Because we talked a little bit about how your mind changed during the whole phase. What I do know about the beginning of hoe phases, though, is that it's a trigger. Right. That something kind of starts within us that creates it. Right. And so I'd love to understand a little bit about your trigger into your hoe phase. Obviously, we talked about kind of external. Right. Things that were happening outside of you, but also internal. And I will speak for me personally, right. When I was doing this, it was often because I was feeling some sort of abandonment triggers. Right. That someone had abandoned me, Whether it was family, whether it was friends. I felt like, oh, I need to find some control. I need to connect. Right. And that goes from my kind of foundational trigger or trauma, which was the abandonment of my father. Right. Who. Who abandoned me when I was 8 years old. And so anytime anything, like any sort of abandonment happened, my whole phase was coming out. Right. Because I felt like I needed to connect and I needed to get attention, which sometimes in our brains, feels like love. What was your kind of trigger?

Yeah. So thank you for sharing that with me. I had a pretty similar experience where I was raised by a single mom, and my father was just not in the picture. So it wasn't a matter of separated parents, But I saw my mom and my dad. My dad was just completely out of the picture. And so I grew up sort of feeling like this hole in my heart. And I remember even being young and feeling that feeling like, where's my dad? I don't even know what a healthy relationship with a man looks like. And it was me, my sister, and my mom. So, like, just all women. And I hardly. You know, I didn't get any practice. What we call practice, right. That. That sort of safe, secure relationship with a man.

What is healthy, masculine energy and love? Yeah.

Yes. And I even. I always say to my clients, I say, even if I had had a brother, I think things would have turned out a little differently. Like an older brother even, to leave any kind of healthy, masculine figure. But when you go through your life not having that, I almost felt like I really don't trust men, and I don't feel safe with them. I remember not feeling safe around men either. And so by the time I was 18 and starting my whole face, I already kind of started off on that foot of, well, I don't really trust men. And, you know, they're good looking and they're fun things to play around with, but I don't really know that I can do much else with them other than that. So for me it was that, that trigger, that abandonment trigger of I need to find something to replace this void, but something that's really not going to make me feel the years and years and years of feelings I've been suppressing, which was sad. Sex for me was sex and the attention really I could have even done without the sex. It was more the attention, the meeting the guy, the getting the oh, you're so beautiful. All of the things I wished I had heard growing up from a father.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You talked, you mentioned about.

Being raised in a single mother household. I was also raised in a single mother household. And I think that's the reality of so many women of color specifically. And I'd love to get an understanding of how you think that, that I think you've spoken a little bit about it. But how you think kind of just being around women so much kind of affects the way or the probability that we'll get into a hoe phase or not into a hoe phase. Like what have you seen or researched out there?

Yeah, absolutely. Well, research says that people who were brought up in a single parent household, so it can be a mot abandonment wound or a father abandonment wound, are more likely, much more likely to have trouble forming pair bonds or have healthy relationships when they get older. And so what that means is either you can really go, and I've seen both. And you might have seen this in your clients as well, one extreme or the other, where you find people that really don't date at all or have sex at all because that's their safe space. Their safe space, their comfort zone is not really even interacting with the opposite gender because they had a missing or absent father or mother.

Right.

Don't trust the opposite sex. And then you have the other side of the spectrum where I fell, which was I don't trust men, but I'm going to keep interacting with them in a way that feels safe to me. And a way that felt safe to me was having sex and not getting to know them. So much so that I developed feelings.

For them and it doesn't hurt when they leave.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah, that's so important. Like I was saying before 0 or 10, I usually tell my clients that the people that are successful in dating live at the 6 or 7 mark and just keep on treading. Right. And keep on doing what they have to do. Keeping a really Great pace, kind of like a marathon. Not getting super burnt out at the 10 and also not being so slow that you don't finish the race at a zero. So. Okay, great. Let's talk about, since we're both brown girl.

What this looks like as a woman of color and what other kind of thoughts or experiences you had in your hoe phase as a woman of color.

Yeah. Oh, man. You know, I think as a brown woman, I really, really struggled with my identity and I really struggled with, honestly with feeling valued. And I think a lot of people of color experience this where growing up, I grew up in a pretty predominantly white town. And so there was bullying, there was discrimination, there was racism. And, you know, being young and going through those things, it's. It completely affects your self esteem. This is when you're still becoming who you are, and it really affects your psyche and the way that you. You perceive the world. And so going through these things at 15, 16.

By 18, I really felt like. And I remember even being aware of it, that being even just slightly pretty or what I perceive to be pretty felt to me like, okay, I have to use this now as a way to feel valued. I have to use my body and the way that I look with men and get some sort of validation from them. Because I have gone my whole adult, young adult life not feeling good enough and literally not feeling good in my skin. And so a lot of my 20s, it was a lot of hooking up with mostly white men. I would seek them out and they would seek me out. And there was a lot of forming and finding my identity and being comfortable with being brown. But the more that I hooked up with these white men, the kind of further I felt from myself. And once I stopped, I felt like I could actually stand still, look in the mirror and say, this is the color of my skin. I feel beautiful in it. And I can still feel beautiful in it without being told I'm beautiful by some sort of external force, some guy. And the only way to really believe that was to go months and months and months without having that validation from those men.

Yeah, I think that happens so often that we can find validation in.

White society and specifically white men. Right. As it speaks to white supremacy and the patriarchy, that it becomes this like this threshold for us that if he can see me right, then I can feel good in this society as well. Right. That there's these like very like macro things happening even in our micro hooking up.

It's so crazy how that can happen. I know that also community Plays a really big part for women of color. And you know, a lot of my clients will talk about.

You know, that there's lots of pressure on them, right, that like pressure to succeed, that they have these opportunities that they can't mess them up, that there's these expectations on who they should be with. You have to be, if it's a black woman, you have to be with a black man or a Latinx woman, you have to be with a nice hard working Latino, right? There are these expectations about already who you should be with, what your life should look like and all of that. And so I know that sometimes, at least what I've heard from my clients, that their whole phase is a rejection.

Of that as well.

Was that something that was like accurate or does that resonate with you at all?

100%. You know, I have an older sister, so I'm the youngest two and she, she is seven years older. So she's the next generation up. And she took the very, very Indian sort of traditional, which was like she was married by 25, she's now 37, she has two kids and they have a beautiful family. Married an Indian guy, but, you know, sort of went the route that my, my mom had expected of her. And it's so interesting to see even just the generational difference between just seven years of me being the younger one and sort of the first person in my family line to take on this role of I'm going to go against the grain, let's just see what happens. I'm gonna rebel. And a lot of it was subconscious. But to be able to be the younger one and therefore have more freedom growing up, I really took it to that extreme of I'm not going to settle down by 25. I'm going to sexually explore. I'm going to explore my sexual nature, my femininity and being an Indian American. What does that even look like in my eyes? Not what the tradition says. And to me that was, I was getting all the guys on the menu. You know that's right.

I know that's right, girl. Okay, I'm not mad at you. Okay, so let's talk about, you know, you had said earlier there was a moment where you had to stop, that it was too, it was too much. How did you get out of your whole phase? Right? Because there might be listeners out there that are in it and they know that they gotta stop, but like they don't have the steps to kind of make it happen. So how did you make it happen for yourself?

Yeah, you know, Your listeners might not like the answer, but the answer is.

I don't care, girl. Tell them anyway.

It's a hard truth. It's a hard truth. The answer is to stop cold turkey, right? Think about any sort of addiction. Like, think about smoking cigarettes and all the ways that society tells us to stop doing things that are really, really bad for our health. Hooking up can be really, really bad for our health. So again, if you are someone who's looking for love and that's what you desire, what I would suggest is to just stop cold turkey, right? And that means not only stopping the act, but you have to remove the temptation. So, you know, block blocks, delete and.

Blocking numbers, delete, block, unfollow social media.

And be mindful of that. Yes, it is hard. I will say the first, probably month to three months are incredibly difficult, where you're essentially creating a new life for yourself. And any big change, it's going to be very hard. But once you get over the initial hump, you're already going to begin to feel all of these changes within yourself. Like you and I, when we started that breathing, I initially just felt softness. I felt like I went from this, like, if 10 is really, really angry, like that really angry red emoji, that's really mad that to like a six, you know, just the one that's like, okay, you know, and even that felt better. It felt easier for me to go through my daily life not being so angry at men all the time.

Yeah. Yeah, I love that. I also say, like, at least a month, right? I'm not trying. I'm not trying to tell you what to do with your vag, girl. But what I am saying is, you know, we're creatures of habit, right? And it means that we actually have to create new and different habits to replace that one, right? And that can be a variety of different things. I always say, find one small goal that you can knock out of the park to really uplevel that confidence, to know that you can do bigger and greater things, right? Because then if you can knock out this one goal, again, we're creatures of habit, and we'll want to do another goal and another goal and another goal, right? So whatever that goal is for you, it can be, you know, doing a marathon or it can be knitting a sweater or whatever it is. I don't know if doing a marathon is a small goal, but.

Something. Right. To keep you focused on one small thing. The other thing that I tell my clients as well is that that feeling that you're Looking for that connection, right. That attention. We have to find new people and new experiences to get that right. Whether that's hobbies, sports, friends from college that you haven't talked to in a while, let's reconnect with them. Friends that you haven't talked to but need to talk to, let's get in contact with them. Let's contact different people in our family that we haven't been contacting with on a regular basis. Right. Your favorite cousin that you haven't talked to in three years. Let's talk to them. Let's engage with those people so that you can start feeling good, connecting with other people. Do you have any other kind of ideas and thoughts around how we can use this energy as we've gone cold turkey to engage in other activities?

Yes. I love those tips. Replacing a bad habit with good ones is amazing because you're going to find yourself having this free time. Time. What I would also suggest two things that worked really, really well for me and that I suggest to female clients is number one, establishing friendships with men. Establishing friendships with men is so, so, so important because you're going to find, if you're a former slut or hoe, you're going to find like, well, I'm not really engaging with men anymore because I'm not hooking up with them. Right.

And maybe also I don't know how to.

And I don't know how to. That is so true. Which is why it's so important to have those friendships. Because by finding them and maintaining them, you're using a new skill that you haven't used before, which is emotional intimacy. Finding ways to connect with men that have nothing to do with sex are going to really, really boost your self esteem and realize that there are men out there that you can trust. There are. And it's only a matter of time before you meet someone that you have romantic feelings towards. So that's really the first thing. Working on creating friendships with single men.

Yes. And one way to do this, because I know there's so many women out there that are like, well, I don't have any men in my life that I can do that with. Right. What you can do is you can get two or three of your girlfriends and you guys can have like monthly dinners and bring a new guy. Right. Every month. Right. And if you don't know anyone, get your cousin.

Right.

He's a trusted person. Your friends will be bring trusted people in so that you can connect and if they enjoy themselves, they can come back to the next Month. Right. So that we are continuing to cultivate these entrusted relationships with men that have already been vetted by your friends.

Yes. I love that. I love that. I was just going to add. And this kind of leads to the second point, which was I've made quite a few friends through my yoga studio. So, like finding a really sacred space, whatever sacred means to you. If you're religious, maybe that's church, but finding a space where you have a hobby or a common interest that can sort of bring you guys together and you can bond over that you guys already know you have this great healthy habit in common. Why not make friends, Create a friendship with someone who you can do that with, do this healthy thing with. Right. It can be a sport, whatever. And my second, which leads me to my second tip for women. If you're not being sexual with men, women, we just want to feel beautiful. We want to feel sexy. And it's so important to understand that we have the power to do that for ourselves. Yes, we want a man to help us to do that, but in the meantime, you can still do that for yourself. And there are different ways. One of the easiest, best ways is yoga. Yoga. Such a, such a great tool to get you into your body. Notice the way that your body moves and flows, intuitively matching breath to movement. And the other way is dance. There's a beautiful sort of like goddess sexy dance flow that I do once a month that I absolutely love that it makes me feel like I'm sort of like some divine princess that lives in a castle somewhere. And that I would recommend to any woman. It doesn't matter what you look like. It doesn't matter what your body looks like or what your activity level is. It's just to help you get into your body and feel sensual. And you can do this all on your own. So recognizing that you have the power to do that and actually creating that habit and again, finding community there, finding other women that are going to do that with you and really uplift you.

Yeah, yeah. I would also just say, and it sounds weird, but if, you know, no men, you might want to start with a baby step of getting in contact with and hanging out with men. Gay men. Right. That are still men, but you will have no sexual energy to or with or that will not be part of your relationship. Right. I think that's one of the reasons why so many women come to me for dating and relationship coaching because there's a safety there that they haven't felt with straight men. Right. And so that can happen with Any gay guy walking down the street, we're all pretty cool. So please, please engage and connect in that way if that feels safe to you. Right. Oh my God, this has been so great. I want to talk about. I asked this of all of my guests or most of them, how did you get your guy, your partner?

Yeah. So I.

After all this hoenn, girl, after all this hoenng.

Oh my gosh. So I met a wonderful man at my yoga studio. Actually, I was taking a class and he came up to me and he introduced himself, which I thought was so lovely. And afterwards we started talking a bit and then I gave him my phone number. We met for coffee and the rest is history. We've been dating for nearly a year now. Yeah, it was really refreshing to see a man in his healthy masculinity step into his masculinity and approach a woman. And I just fed off of his energy. I loved his energy and I communicated with him in a way that made me feel safe. And I could instantly tell that not only was I attracted to him, but I could instantly tell he was someone that was sort of high vibe and energetic and we had so much in common. So yeah, I met him at my yoga studio, which is why I always tell people, go out and do an activity that's really going to encourage community for you. Of course you can use the apps and one in five couples nowadays meet on dating apps.

So what I say that's increased quite a bit now that the pandemic has happened.

Oh, I'm sure, yeah. That's an old stat that I'm citing. But you know what I always say, which is so important? Use the apps as a supplement, not a replacement for in real life interaction in your dating life. So use it as a backup. But that doesn't mean that because you're swiping to stop going to community events and trying to.

Yes. Don't rest on your laurels with these apps, girl. I love that. That's so important. So when you were kind of chatting with him, at what point did you know that he was someone that you wanted to be in a committed relationship with?

Oh, man. It was really, it's, it was his energy.

You know, attraction is. It happens at such an energetic level. And it wasn't just, I mean, yes, he was good looking. Yes, he, you know, obviously took care of himself. He was also very kind, like offered to buy me my coffee when we first met, he met my dog. It was like very. Just a very friendly interaction. But the way that he was able to help carry the conversation. So I think a lot of women, for example, I hear clients tell me, like, oh, I went on a date with this guy, but he was boring. Or like, he was shy, he wouldn't talk a lot. Or I had to sort of carry the conversation and pull out information from him with this. With my guy, it felt very 50 50. It felt like he was secure in himself enough to talk and keep the conversation going. And not just me, because I'm such a social, talkative person. It was really nice to have that balance. And to me, it instantly clicked in my mind, like, this is not going to be a relationship where I'm in a relationship with someone who's a pushover. Or like, I'm here and he's here. He really sort of matched my guests. And that's so important, you know, to find someone that you can really be yourself with and communicate with, but that also is not secure in himself. Right. He's not an insecure person. He's a secure person who trusts and believes what he has to say.

Oh, my God, I love that so much. Well, you know, we are rooting for you, girl, here at get yout Guy Coaching. You already know.

Of course, of course. Love that. We're all kind of romantic, you know, hopeless romantics here. We love a good love story. So that's great. Okay, so for my listeners out there that are like, oh, my God, I need to work with Sheena right now. She is going to definitely. She's aligned with how I'm feeling about dating and love and relationships and men. For those women out there, how can they connect with you?

Yes. So I have a website and everything is the same link, same everything. So I made it easy for you guys. My website is that Dating Coach calm. My Instagram. I know, right? I'm like, how was that not taken? My Instagram handle is also hatdatingcoach, and you can use either of those to contact me. Book a consultation with me. I have a program for women called Love youe Lonely, which is essentially just what I went through during my period of sort of celibacy. What I call co rehab.

Okay, girl.

For any women who are just, like, tired of this pattern and really want to call in love, that's what Love your Only is. And my TikTok is also that dating Coach. So if you want, you know, information, advice, just. Just like hard truths and tips, you can go ahead and head to my TikTok for that.

I love how thoughtful you are about dating and relationship coaching. I love that you are so researched and so heart centered and heart led in the way that you coach your clients. So thank you so much for being on this podcast with me. This has been joyful. Joyful.

Yes. Thank you so much. It's been such a joy.

All right, my loves, thank you so much for listening to me and Sheena riff on our hoe phases. Please reach out either on her IG or my IG and talk to us about your hoe phase. I think that would be interesting to hear, don't you think, Sheena?

Oh, yes. We want to know.

Yeah. Oh, my God, we're nosy and we love to hear about hope phases. But thank you so much for joining us today, and we hope that you got something out of this. Be well. Bye.