Getting Out of Your Head in Bed

If you're present to your partner, you'll notice the dilation of their pupils. You'll notice their respiration rate. You'll notice the noises they make, the ways they move their body. You'll be able to tell the impact that every move, every kiss is having on them. And you can ask more of this Would you like me to speed up? Would you like me to slow down? I'm wondering if you'd like more pressure. So ask simple yes or no questions and just let them answer however they do. You know, they may simply nod or shake their head or say mm or mm. Mm. That's all you need. Hi, welcome to Sex Love Power. I'm your host, Michelle Lizenberry Christensen. This podcast is where I convene the conversations about love and sexual that help powerful women and those who love them to create the intimacy and intensity they really want in bed and in life. Together, we navigate the tensions between our desire and our devotions, between our wildness and our security with our eyes wide open. This podcast is designed to help you create more closeness, ease pleasure, and justice in your relationship. And we do it by blending wisdom from the fields of sexuality and spirituality, trauma and self regulation, and intersectional feminism. I'm so glad you're here. So one of the conversations I think we need to have is about how to get out of your head in sex, because so many of my clients get stuck in their heads in bed. And there's a number of reasons for this, but I want to start by telling you about me as a dancer, because I think this is a relevant metaphor. So if you see me dancing, you may very well be quite impressed. A lot of people tell me I'm a good dancer, but I am not personally very impressed with my dancing. Because if I'm dancing, I'm probably kidding. I'm probably, like, doing something that I mean as like, a joke or entertainment for someone else around me, or most likely just for myself. So when I start dancing, there is a way that my joy is contagious to those around me. There is a way that I do kind of make up some good moves when I'm dancing. Other people are likely to be interested in what I'm doing, wanting to participate, having a good time near me, wanting to dance with me, you know, picking up what I'm laying down and throwing back even more good energy. And that's exactly what great sex is about, is each of us showing up and having a good time within ourselves, being in our bodies, being present and available to the sensations that are There and looking for how can I express myself and have a good time right now? Might there be a way for me to pay attention to you that creates more energy? Might there be a way to receive what you're bringing in a way that lets you know that I appreciate that in a way that lets that really land on all of my senses in a way that feels good? And what kind of synergy can we create between my own creativity and self expression and yours? Like dancing, sexuality is meant to be play, it's meant to be pleasure, it's meant to be self expression. So that's the basic thing I want you to know today about getting stuck in your head and how to get out of it is that if you go into your head, it's because you're misusing sex. You have decided in that moment, even if a moment before you thought something else about it, in that moment you have decided that sex is about. Maybe it's about performance. A lot of my male clients will get self conscious when their partners start to turn attention toward them. You know, they'll say, boy, the minute she wants to go down on me or be touching me and looking at me, I get nervous and I start thinking and then I'm out of the game and I might lose my erection. I might just not be present at all for what we were doing. So that's an example of getting stuck in your head. And it means that when she turned toward you, you disappeared into performance. Another example of how people get stuck in their heads is sometimes people of any gender can get self conscious about their bodies. They start to go, oh my gosh, what does my haha look like when I go. And certainly I'm not immune to that one. Um, I could be like really just from this angle. This does not look good to me. So what did I go into there? Evaluation. Right. I got out of enjoyment presence and into thinking. I put on that sex was a, an opportunity to be evaluated, to be found either desirable and fabulous or undesirable and bad. And that isn't what sex is. So getting out into a mistake and that's okay, you know, so I can love myself through that moment and go, whoops, I just dropped into evaluation there. And I'll tell you something particularly, you know that women are very internally focused a lot of times, like our own sensation and how you think about me, how you see me, is what I've been taught to pay attention to. And so we of course have lots of different ways of being as feminine oriented creatures. But it's very common for a woman to start to focus on her own appearance because she's been taught that she's a commodity, to either be selected or not selected. And so to get out of your own head with that, it's really useful to think of yourself as the experiencer and the author of the experience, as opposed to a product to be either desirable or found lacking and left on the shelf while a different product was chosen. And I'll tell you this, your partner is not evaluating you while the two of you are in bed, while they're touching your body and you're touching theirs, while they can smell you and hear the sounds that only you make. And only when you're in that place alone with them, they are not trying to decide if you're good enough. You are it. You are she or he or they the one. So let yourself be worshiped and worship yourself at this temple of pleasure. Don't think that we're in the marketplace haggling for a transaction over a paltry, material thing. There is something holy here and it has already been paid for. It is already fully available. So enjoy. Another place that people go to is like, am I doing it right? So if you're wondering if you're doing it right, you've stepped out of enjoyment and you've also stepped out of attention. Because if you're thinking, am I doing it right? You're not actually present to your partner's sensations. If you're really present to your partner, sensation you can care about, how does this feel for you? But that's very different than am I doing it right? If you're present to your partner, you'll notice dilation of their pupils. You'll notice their respiration rate. You'll notice the noises they make, the ways they move their body. You'll be able to tell the impact that every move, every kiss is having on them. And you can ask more of this. Would you like me to speed up? Would you like me to slow down? I'm wondering if you'd like more pressure. So ask simple yes or no questions and just let them answer however they do. You know, they may simply nod or shake their head or say, mm or mm, mm. That's all you need. Don't worry, you're not doing it well enough. So get out of your head and back into what you notice about your partner and that will cure that thought. Am I doing it right? I imagine you have other ways that you get into your head, but I want to leave you with whatever those are. I think the same notion will be helpful if you simply remember that you're there to give pleasure and receive pleasure. Just as on the dance floor, I'm there to express myself and to enjoy and appreciate your self expression. Just play. And if you notice yourself getting into your head, ask yourself, what have I taken sex out of that playful in the moment self expression, receiving and giving? What have I made it instead? Have I made it about performance? Have I made it about evaluation? Have I made it about scrutiny? Have I made it about am I good enough? And you know, we do those same things, we make those same mistakes in so many areas of our lives. And that's the real beauty of the erotic realm, is that it's a place where we can wake up to those patterns, where we can really see with crystal clarity, oh, I did it again. That way that I make everything an opportunity for me to be rejected, for me to be found not good enough again. I look at every moment as a chance where I might screw it up. And I mean those ones come to mind because those are thoughts and patterns I've had. You know, for a lot of us, every moment is a chance to be rejected or a chance to not get what we wanted. A chance to be disappointed, a chance to be frustrated. A lot of people have a pattern of, you know, usually somebody's mad at me or am I about to lose what I have? So just start to see those moments when you go into your head in bed as places where you're playing out a pattern that maybe you've played out in lots of areas of life. And if the mirror of your erotic realm can reveal that truth to you, then it holds the potential to truly transform your life because you can get free from that old story and notice for yourself in this moment who might you be? What might be possible if you didn't have to orient around that concern, that story, that lie ever again. It's truly phenomenal. One other piece I want to mention about getting stuck in your head instead of getting into your body and the moment with regard to sexuality, I think I've posted some other things about this on social media this week. I am in a Fair Play facilitators training for the next couple of weeks. And Fair Play is a deck and a guidebook created by Eve Rodsky. The deck says here on it a couple's conversation deck for prioritizing what's important. And what's important does include a lot of tasks in our homes, a lot of things for those of us with children, a lot of the things that we do for and with our children. There's a lot that it takes to run a life together. And that life needs to include time to care for ourselves and care for the relationship and stay interesting, keep that spark that makes us interesting to ourselves, because that's the only thing that makes us interesting to one another. And so if you feel like you have a hard time responding to your partner's interest in erotic connection and you are stuck in your head, like maybe with your to do list, one thing to inquire into is, how long is my to do list relative to my partner's? When it comes to the shared responsibilities in our home, the things that matter to both of us, what proportion of those do I hold alone? And is it too much? Do we need to renegotiate it? And on the flip side, if you notice that you're the high desire partner and that your partner is often preoccupied with something else at a time when you'd like to connect erotically, ask yourself, how much are they holding compared to how much I'm holding? Why do they have a longer to do list in their head? And how could we even that out? And that's something that I help couples with in my private work. And I'll be developing a program just dedicated to the fair play process in the coming months. So send me a message if you'd like to learn more about that. And I think that that's one of the key areas where a lot of people have a blank spot. They don't yet really see how that's affecting their ability to connect erotically. But one of them is shouldering a disproportionate amount of the conception and planning and execution that go into all the myriad things it takes to run their home and to raise their children. And it's not just those tasks. Like in a lot of couples, the tasks may be somewhat equitably split, or one partner might be really receptive to having tasks delegated to them, but the conception and the planning are still being under measured and undervalued and unseen. And so neither of them really knows that that's coming between them erotically and emotionally because they haven't pinpointed it. So that's what I'm helping couples do. Thank you so much for listening. And this episode has been about getting out of your head in bed. If you have questions about anything I've shared today, or if there's anything you'd like me to address in a future episode, drop us a line@supportisonberry.com I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to hear what you're taking away from this episode and what questions you have. Where do you feel this conversation in your body? My free Conscious Couples Circle is the place to continue our conversation. You can share your experiences, ask questions, and get more actionable ideas for creating the love and sex you deeply desire in ways that evolve you both. It's all happening@society.lizenberry.com that link is in the show notes for you. You know, new listeners need to hear what you're taking away too. Podcast reviews are what really help others recognize how this podcast is different from other relationship and sex podcasts. So thank you in advance for leaving a review right now in your podcasting app while you're thinking of it. Before you forget with just a few words about what this show gives you. And hey, have you subscribed to the podcast? You're going to want to so you never miss an episode. Please go to the app where you listen, hit that subscribe button and then you'll always get notifications of new episodes when they drop. Thank you so much for listening. I'm Michelle Lizenberry Christensen and this has been Sex Love Power. I will see you on the next episode and until then, may the light within you illuminate the world around you.