Pillow Talks Podcast EPISODE 5: How To "Let Go" During Sex

You know, one of the challenges with this whole notion of letting go during sex is that it makes us think that the only thing that we need to do to have great sex is simply to let go. But the problem is, of course, that most of us, at least 80% on Instagram, most of us can't do that. Hello, and welcome to the Pillow Talks podcast. We're your hosts, Vanessa and Xander Marin. I'm a sex therapist with 20 years.

Of experience, and I'm just a regular dude. We share the ups and downs in our relationship while giving you step by step techniques for improving yours.

So make sure to subscribe for your weekly double date full of totally doable sex tips, practical relationship advice, hilarious and honest stories of what really goes on behind closed bedroom doors, and so much more. It's the sex education you wish you'd had. We've all heard the advice to just let go and enjoy sex.

Ah, yes. Let go and just be in the moment. Let go and stop thinking about your to do list. Let go and stop being a control freak. Let go and be uninhibited. Let go and just have an orgasm. Yeah.

Sex should be all about losing yourself in the moment. It should be so intense that you just let go of control and you experience this sense of wild abandonment. But is that actually happening?

Probably not.

So we polled our Instagram audience and asked if they have a hard time letting go during sex. And a whopping 80% of people said that they just cannot let go during sex.

Why am I not surprised?

I know, right? So they gave a ton of different reasons why they struggled to let go during sex. Okay, by far and away, number one was body image.

That sounds fair. That sounds fair. So people also really worry about doing sex right? I put the right in quotes because I think that's a subjective thing. Some one person said, wondering if I'm doing things right versus asking myself if I actually like it. Another person said, I'm constantly assessing everything. Hand placement. Am I making enough noise? That sounds exhausting.

It does. And that'll be our next podcast episode. Is the right way to do sex and the wrong way all right? Another common answer was shame and embarrassment about sex. A lot of people cited, like, religion or just negative beliefs that they had been taught growing up.

Kids played a big factor. People worried about kids hearing them feeling like you're still in mom mode or dad mode and having a hard time switching to partner mode.

A lot of people said it just feels like their brain is constantly racing during sex. And one of the most common Things people are thinking about are their to do lists, like all the different things that they have to get done.

People also have anxiety about pain and past sexual trauma or safety issues.

Some people said that they don't want to be fully vulnerable during sex, so they're actually making a conscious decision not to let go.

People also have orgasm fears. That's another common one, and this one's.

Kind of closely related, but feeling ashamed of making noises or. Or weird faces doing something embarrassing.

Yeah. One other person said, oddly enough, my husband knows me too well. Acting all loose isn't me.

Yeah, that was interesting. A few people mentioned stuff like that. Like, I feel like it wouldn't be authentic to let go during sex.

Oh, so like they want to do it, but then it's like, I want it, but that's not who I am.

Exactly. There's one other quote that I wanted to share. We're going to get to this one a little bit later. But one person wrote, I actually dislike this phrase and it can really shut me down. So that's little bit of a spoiler alert for what we have to come.

Not being able to let go because of hearing they need to let go.

Yes. Okay. So what about you, babe? Do you ever find yourself struggling to let go during sex?

Yeah, I definitely do. This is not one of those things where once you figure it out, you just magically have it and you never worry about things. For me, I think it comes up a lot of the time around performance issues. If I am worried about my erection, if I'm worried about maybe a performance issue issue I had the other day, that comes to mind. And then all of a sudden I feel like I am thinking about what might happen to me or what happened a couple days ago instead of thinking about how much I'm enjoying the moment. And then also, you know, early on in my sexual career, you could say it's a career. No, early on, you know, when I was a lot younger, before I had any, you know, like, serious partners, I feel like I really struggled to let go because I was just worried about doing it right. Like that one person said early on it was. It was a kind of a joint performance and doing it right thing. You know, early on it was very much like, am I going to last long enough? What's she going to think? Like, am I doing? Am I doing this good? I don't know because I've barely ever done it before. And it wasn't until I, you know, started having sex more regularly with, like, a serious partner that I Started being able to be like, okay, these things that I'm so worried about, I don't have to worry about so much anymore. So, Vanessa, what is letting go like for you? Or is it a struggle as well?

It can be a struggle for me too. I think the biggest distraction that comes up for me is just having very random thoughts pop into my head during sex.

Like what?

I thought some weird ones. I thought about, like, aliens. I thought about taxes. What happens after you die? Like all kinds of stuff. And so what will happen is this very random thought will just pop into my head and then I really start judging myself of like, what the fuck? I was enjoying myself, having a good time. Why am I thinking about this very random topic that like, there's no reason for me to think be thinking about it right now. There's nothing I can do about this right now. So that tends to be like the main thing that gets in my way these days.

I've got some really good news for you. You don't need to worry about taxes after you die.

Great. So glad to know that I'll worry about it for you.

Just kidding. We're gonna die at the exact same time.

This is getting really morbid.

And we're not gonna. We're not gonna owe any taxes either.

Oh my gosh. O, I'm so proud of us. So anyways, getting back to our topic at hand, I think, you know, one of the challenges with this whole notion of letting go during sex is that it makes us think that the only thing that we need to do to have great sex is simply to let go. But the problem is of course, that most of us, at least 80% on Instagram, most of us can't do that. So just like what I was describing with my own example, like, we beat ourselves up for not being able to let go during sex.

And then I'm sure as beating yourself yourself up goes, as soon as you start beating yourself up for it, it is way more likely to keep being a problem or feeling like it's an issue. Like, oh God, I can't do this thing. I really need to do it. I have to be able to do it. Oh my God, I'm screwing up again.

Exactly.

And it's this never ending cycle.

Exactly.

How do you get out of the hole?

So we have an unpopular opinion here. We think that the idea of needing to just let go in order to have amazing sex is. Yeah, should we get a little sound effect going where we can do like a kind of thing? Whenever we try to call out A sex myth.

We need a sting.

A sting. Oh, yes. We just learned that word from listening to a different podcast.

Yeah, we're still very new at this podcast game, but we, we listen to the office ladies and they've been adding some stings, which are basically like audio effects.

All right, so we think that this idea of focusing on letting go in the bedroom, it really just leads to shutting down. Instead, it backfires. It's not effective. It's not helping any of us out. So, you know, if you've ever found yourself feeling distracted or self conscious or anxious during sex, I mean, think about this. Like, has telling yourself, ugh, just let go. Like, has that ever been effective? Have you ever been able to tell yourself, just let go and then it actually happened in that moment?

Yeah, like beat yourself into it?

Yeah, I don't think so. And the other issue with this is that letting go, it's just a passive process, but we are really about taking active steps towards creating a sex life that feels pleasurable and exciting and fulfilling to you, rather than just letting go and letting it happen.

Yeah. As we'll discuss more, it definitely is nice and convenient to be like, oh, wouldn't it be, wouldn't it be amazing if I could just flip this switch, let go, and then all of a sudden open the floodgates to like, the sex life of my dreams and perfect orgasms and perfect pleasure every time? But yeah, the reality is there's a lot of reasons why we struggle to let go. Hang ups that we have around sex and things that we want to get out of sex that maybe we're not getting right now. And focusing on letting go, it really just is a means of. To not have to acknowledge where our shortcomings are, where our areas for development are, and putting in the work that's required to get there.

So if we can't just let go and have this amazing sex, what can we do instead? So we've got a few ideas for you. The first thing we want to encourage you to do is to reset your expectations.

Take let go out of your vocabulary.

Oh, yeah. So the thing is, your brain is a very active creature. Your brain loves thinking thoughts, all kinds of different thoughts, very random thoughts, reminders, warnings, questions, daydreams. Our brains just really enjoy thinking and being very active.

That's kind of what makes us really functional and successful creatures, is our brain's ability to think a lot of things, to process a lot of information and give us concise thoughts about it.

And I think there's an added wrinkle where in these modern times, you know, a lot of us are putting increased pressures on our brain. So, for example, multitasking. So many of us love this idea of, like, ooh, I'm doing five things at the same time. I'm being so productive. But all we're really doing is spending the entire day training our brains to be thinking of five, six, seven different things all at the same time.

Oh, yeah. I mean, if you think back to what it was, like, 50,000 years ago or 100,000 years ago, I don't even know how long ago it was. There's, like, when this, like, ideal time is in my head. But, like, when we are hunters and gatherers, it'd be like, okay, like, we tracked down the woolly mammoth. We got our meat. For, like, the next month, we are set. Like, I just, like, had a lot of thinking, a lot of activity, and, like, now I'm done, I'm, like, checking out. So I feel like maybe that idea of letting go is easier. Then you could be like, okay, I'm exhausted. I'm just going to, like, go to sleep for a couple days now on.

My little bearskin rug.

But, yeah, now, like Vanessa was saying, it's like, we have a stressful job. We are thinking a lot. The more we think, the better we do at work. The more we think, the better we are with our friends, the funnier we are. You know, there's all these ways that we're just training ourselves to think, think, think. So how can you expect that you just turn that off all of a sudden?

I think that's the huge problem, is that people think we should be able to get into the bedroom, and for that 30 minutes or 20 minutes, you know, however long it is that you guys are being intimate, that your brain should just be able to completely shut off. But if it's spending the other 23 hours of the day, well, okay, you're doing a little bit of sleeping, but our brains are active in our sleep, too. But, you know, if you're spending the whole day, like, thinking multiple thoughts, always being so active and on the go, like, that's just not how your brain works, that you can just get it to shut off and focus and be present. So I think resetting our expectations means that we don't expect that we're gonna get into this perfectly zen, confident, uninhibited place during sex. That instead, what we can aim for is to flow in and out of all of those things, maybe experience moments of those, but that you're never going to be just perfectly in that zone.

Yeah. And I think we're going to talk about meditation and mindfulness a little later. But I think this is just, this is a misconception that a lot of people have around, like being really Zen or meditating all the time. That it means that all of a sudden you just don't have any thoughts. And we'll talk about this a little more, but that's just not what meditation actually is.

So our next step is to get curious about what is really going on for you.

Yeah, that's because when you say let go, that's kind of just like a big excuse. It's an excuse for you to not actually think about what are the things that are distracting you, what are the issues that you're having that are stopping you from having the sex that you want? Because this let go, it's just like this big catch all phrase. It can mean so many things. It can mean different things to different people, but at the same time, we complain about it with each other. Everyone can relate because they're like, oh yeah, I want to let go too. Even though, you know, for one person it might be like, oh man, like I'm. I'm a new father and I just am constantly thinking about all this, like, things I need to do as a dad. And someone else is like, I have a really busy job and I just got home and like, I'm worried about this promotion that I might get. And someone else might be worried about their performance in bed, someone else might be worried about their orgasm. But all of a sudden everyone's like, oh, yeah, if you figure how to let go, tell me.

Yeah, I mean, just like what we were saying at the beginning of the episode, there were all those different reasons, and that was just a small sampling. I mean, we got thousands of responses and most of them were different. Yeah, I think that's a really good point. That letting go is just too generic. So like we were mentioning at the beginning of the episode, we asked people, what's getting in the way of you letting go during sex? And a ton of people responded with, I don't know. So I think that's another piece of evidence pointing us in the direction of, you know, we got to take the time to figure this out and to feel into all those different individual possibilities that might be coming up. So some questions that you might want to ask yourself could be something like, are you distracted thinking of your to do list? Is your body in pain and clenching up? Are you feeling ashamed or embarrassed about something related to sex? Are you mad at your partner and not in the mood to be intimate with them? Are you feeling self conscious of your body? Are you not feeling safe? Are you not experiencing pleasure and you're unsure of what to do to make it feel better?

Yeah, all those things are totally different. And letting go is not the answer to solve every single one of those. This is just like, if you wake up feeling sick, you could complain about, like, oh, God, I'm sick. Or like, I feel like you could just be like, oh, I feel like shit. I don't know what to do.

Is that the voice that you talking when you're not feeling good?

Yeah, probably.

You kind of sound like a pirate or a cranky sea captain.

Oh, you. I think Vanessa's into this. Okay. I feel like. Want to go to the bedroom?

Definitely not.

So you could. You could be like, oh, you could just complain and be like, you know what? I feel like shit, I can't do anything. Or you could start going through in your mind, okay, does my head hurt? Does. Are. Is my nose running? Does my throat hurt? And depending on your answer to that, you might take one medicine, you might take another medicine, or you might be like, you know, I'm really tired. I didn't sleep well last night and my throat is like a little dry. And it might actually be because the air conditioning kicked on last night for the first time because it's starting to get hot. And maybe I'm not actually sick at all.

Okay. So, yeah, I think that this can be like a diagnostic of. Instead of just focusing on letting go, trying to get curious about, like, what's really coming up for me. What could I actually work on? You know, One other point that I want to make about this too, is that sometimes not letting go is actually a way of keeping your body safe. Like, I was thinking about that. I was reading over those responses, like ones about people mentioning sexual trauma or experiencing pain during sex. Like, for them, you know, if I was their therapist and somebody's telling me I'm feeling so anxious because I'm getting triggered about past sexual abuse, I would never tell that person, oh, just let go.

Yeah. Power through it.

Yeah, Absolutely not. Same thing with pain. Sometimes not letting go is actually a great thing for our body to be doing. And it's something. You know, there are other ways that you can work on your sex life and creating the kind of intimacy that you want to have. But again, it just starts with this idea of recognizing that sometimes not letting go can be a good thing.

Yeah. And I Think. Even in the scenario of being really busy, having distracting thoughts, worrying about your to do list, it's maybe also a signs your body telling you, hey, there's something that you need to address. There's some blockage. You know, there's. Maybe you need to talk about renegotiating the chores, or maybe, you know, maybe you need to do some personal work on perfectionism.

Maybe feeling like you have to do everything and do it all. Well. Yeah, there's so many different possibilities that could arise from this.

Yeah. I mean, it's just like when you get sick, is your. Your body is giving you signals that are showing you that there's another problem, like there's a virus or a bacteria, like, attacking you, and it, you know, it's your body's defense, like, you don't actually want those things to go away.

Or maybe there's a cranky sea captain attacking you. You know, you never know. So take some time to think about, you know, what are the things that are getting in the way of me letting go during sex? Another great question that you could ask yourself would be, what would happen if I did let go? So let's imagine some fantasy scenario where you're able to. You might have some really positive answers that come out of that. So maybe there's something like, I could be more connected to my partner, or I could experience more pleasure in my body. And there might be some really useful answers that come out of that too. Like I might experience more pain. That's again, getting back to that idea that sometimes letting go is not a good thing. It might be like something like, you know, I might make a decision that I would regret later, or I might do something embarrassing. Just gathering information at this point, trying to get a deeper sense of what's coming up for you, what's getting in your way, what are the dynamics that you might want to take a deeper look at? Okay, so once you've taken some time to get curious about what's really coming up for you, your next step is to pick a better goal.

Yeah, letting go is not a good goal.

Exactly. So can you get more specific, more detailed, more nuanced? So it might be something like being more playful, connecting more to my partner, feeling worthy of pleasure. So spend a lot of time here. I mean, this is something that you could return to over and over again throughout the course of your life. But, like, what do you actually want to experience? What do you want to focus on with your sex life? And this answer might change across time as well. But think about it right now, you know, what would your goal be?

Yeah, and I think this can be a really hard one. I know for me, this can be really hard, because once you actually set a goal or identify something that you want to work on, you have to acknowledge to yourself, like, oh, this is something that I'm not perfect at. This is something that is going to take some work and some effort. I know for me, I can always be. I can be pretty resistant to setting goals, because then I'm like, okay, well, now that I've set a goal, I kind of. I kind of know what I need to do to reach that goal, and I might not want to do that.

Yeah, that's such a good point. So, you know, if you need a little bit of inspiration. We also asked our Instagram followers what their sex life would look like if they felt like they could let go.

This is always such a good question because it helps kind of break down the myth of, like, oh, if I could just let go, everything would be perfect.

Yeah. We wanted to ask people, like, get more specific and more detailed. Don't just say, like, oh, it would be great. Like, what would it actually look like? So people named things like, more frequent sex, more desire, more connection, more orgasms, deeper trust with a partner would feel fun, authentic, more pleasure, relaxing, kinkier. Very different answers here. Liberating, spiritual, and adventurous, or trying new things.

Yeah. And so, like I was saying before, if those are. If one of those or two of those is your goal, when you say, oh, I just want to let go, that kind of just gives you an excuse for not having to work on that thing that you do want to get better at. And once you acknowledge, okay, yeah, I want to have more fun, then. Then you can start thinking about, okay, cool, like, what things would be more fun. What's one step I could take today to move me in the direction of having more fun rather than waiting around for this letting go thing to magically happen to you. Yeah.

For every answer that you might come up with, think about what are some of the specific steps that you could do to bring that into your sex life? All right, so I know that we're talking about some pretty lofty things here. This idea of your goals for your sex life and redefining what great sex would be like. So we do want to make this practical, too. So we have some tips for in the moment. Let's say, you know, you're having sex with your partner. You're really wanting to be there with them, but you just find that you Cannot let go. You're so distracted or anxious or whatever it is for you or what the heck can you do? Just in that moment, you're like, I don't have time to stop right now, guys, and, like, think about my goals and how to reframe things. The first suggestion that we want to give to you is to allow yourself to have those distracting thoughts or emotions. So here's the thing. You cannot force yourself to not think or not feel something.

And actually, if you try to tell yourself not to think about something, you're. You're almost certainly gonna think about that thing much more often and much quicker.

Yeah. So we just cannot bully ourselves out of thinking or feeling certain things. It's just gonna magnify that original thing. You're gonna feel crappy about yourself. You're gonna go down this whole distracting spiral. So it's just not an effective solution. So instead, it can be so much more powerful to acknowledge that you're having whatever distracting thought or emotion you're having. Try not to judge it. Try not to fight it. I know this is so much easier said than done sometimes. I've been there myself plenty of times. But what I try to do with myself is, you know, I'll notice that very random thought popping into my head, and I'll just say to myself, okay, you're having that random thought. So rather than, oh, my God, why am I thinking about this? This is so ridiculous. Stop thinking about it. I can't stop thinking about it. Why am I thinking about it more? What's going. You know, going down that whole spiral, it's just taking a second to be like, okay, I've got that random, weird, distracting thought there. Okay, that's there.

Yeah. So you might be thinking, like, oh, well, there's like, those people that sit around and meditate for hours, and, like, they know how to let go. Like, they're able to not think about stuff. Right. Actually, the very first thing you'll learn if you take a meditation class or start a mindfulness practice is that you cannot stop yourself from having thoughts. Thoughts just happen. Like, the goal. The goal of meditation is not to remove thoughts. It's basically to view your thoughts more like a river that is, like, floating by. And instead of jumping in the river and, like, floating along with a thought and dwelling on it, it's just learning how to acknowledge, oh, yeah, I see that thought coming. And I'm just gonna let it float on by and move on to the next thing. So it actually can be really helpful to try a little Bit of mindfulness or meditation. Not like two hours a day, but you can find some, like, you know, five or ten minute meditations on Spotify, on YouTube, and just kind of sit there and try to relax and just do that for a couple minutes every day. And that can actually be really helpful in a lot of areas of your life in just being able to take a second and kind of let something that's bothering you go.

I think that gets back around to the point we were making at the beginning of the episode where, you know, it's really hard to have our brains be on the go constantly, all day, every single day, and then get into the bedroom and just shut off. Like, it's important that we practice this skill in other areas, not just around sex, because that's a lot of pressure to put on sex. And of, okay, now I want to be, like, experiencing pleasure and connecting with my partner and practicing, like, quieting my brain and being, you know, acknowledging my thoughts and being comfortable with them and letting them float down the river, you know, it's a lot of stuff. So if we can make a little bit of space for that outside of the bedroom, it can be really beneficial. And I say this as somebody who has struggled for decades, I think, to like, have a consistent meditation practice. I know it's something we all know we should be doing. It would be so beneficial, but it's really hard to consistently do it. That being said, it really genuinely can be super useful.

Yeah, I mean, to be perfectly honest, I do not have a consistent or very like, well thought out meditation or mindfulness practice. I could kind of say, oh, you know, when I surf and I'm just like, sitting out in the water for long periods of time, waiting for waves to come. It's pretty meditative.

Meditative.

It's pretty meditative. But what I wanted to say is just like how very early on in the podcast we were saying we train our brains to be constantly thinking about a lot of things because, you know, we value, like, the outcomes we get from thinking about stuff really hard. It's also good to have that practice of meditation or mindfulness because that's a way to train your brain to let those thoughts move on by quickly without dwelling on them. So this is a way to counteract the training that we have to keep our brains really active.

Exactly. I have one other thought about, you know, allowing ourselves to just sit with whatever it is that coming up for us. I think that maybe sometimes there's also an opportunity to practice self compassion. I think it's so easy for ourselves to beat ourselves up, to start bullying ourselves into wanting to feel or think something different. But a lot of times, the things that are coming up for us make a lot of sense, and there is the. The opportunity there for us to say, like, hey, I get why I'm feeling that, and it's okay that I'm feeling that. So, for example, you know, there. There are times where I'm just feeling really anxious that day, and I want to have sex, and I want to relax and let go and just be in the moment, and I find myself still feeling really anxious. And there are some times where I can have compassion to myself and say, you know, yeah, I understand why I'm having a tough day right now, why it feels like everything feels stressful, or I'm just having a hard time relaxing, so. And I think this might come up definitely around people who've experienced sexual abuse or pain in the past too. Like, yeah, it makes sense that my body is on guard right now. I completely understand that. Maybe even around performance issues, too. Performance anxiety. Like, yeah, I've had some really bad experiences with this in the past, or I've had partners who are really cruel to me about this in the past. It makes sense that it's popping into my head right now. So, again, it's just this whole idea of trying not to fight yourself. Sometimes it's gonna feel more like it's just a. Okay, I'm just gonna try to let that thing be. Sit in the corner. And sometimes it maybe can be us being really gentle with ourselves, too.

Yeah. And what really helps in those situations is to just remind yourself of your goals. So if your goal was to have more fun or if your goal is to feel more pleasure, that can be a good way to be. Like, okay, I'm acknowledging that this stuff is coming up, and right now I want to focus on trying to feel more pleasure. I know for me, that can be really helpful. If I am sort of in that, like, performance anxiety spiral, I can be really focused on, like, oh, God, I'm not. Not that hard anymore. Oh, my God, like, what. What's gonna happen next? Like, how am I gonna get it up? How am I gonna finish the job?

See, Catherine's coming back.

But, yeah, the times when I just continue to focus on when I try to bully myself into, like, oh, you gotta do this for sure. It is not gonna.

Over this, like, raspy growl that you get in your voice when you're doing examples. Where does this come from?

I don't know. Maybe it's good that you can't hear my inner monologue. Or actually, maybe it's too bad because I think Vanessa kind of like is into this.

I don't know if I'm into it, but I'm entertained by it for sure.

But let's see. So I'm a little distracted now. But what I find is that if I, you know, I'm in that sort of performance anxiety downward spiral, if I can remind myself, hey, I'm not in a rush. I'm just gonna focus on stuff that feels good. And, you know, it's not like I don't have to be perfectly hard. I've got the important things that we're both just feeling good. Like, what can we do to keep feeling good? Almost every time, like, I get out of that spiral if I can focus on that. And it's just, it's hard in the moment. You're. It's really easy to be focused on, you know, the negative thing that's happening or like that negative thought. But, you know, if you can just try to shift yourself to, okay, like, what am, what am I trying to achieve today? It can be a lot easier to kind of get yourself out of that.

Yeah. So we started with this idea of allowing or accepting whatever feelings or emotions are coming up for you. And then I think we're talking about kind of like redirecting our attention to something that might, might be more beneficial or useful in the moment. So we had the option of thinking about your goals, focusing on that. Another option is to pay more attention to your body. So bringing ourselves up from our heads back down into our body can be very, very beneficial. So maybe it's that you're paying attention to the sensations you're feeling, noticing like, where is my partner touching me? Where are our bodies coming into contact? What does it feel like in those places? How would I describe that sensation? That can be really useful. Another thing you can do is to focus on your breath. Like feeling your breath move in and out through your body, even just focusing on slowing down your breath, breathing slower and deeper. Like that can be very relaxing too.

Oh, yeah. And that's, I mean, that's a huge part of meditation. So even if you're not going to start a meditation practice, that is a big part of having, being successful at meditating. And so just bringing that into your day to day life or into your sexual experiences can be super helpful.

Okay, so we have redirecting your attention to your goals, to your body. The third option that I want to mention is to Your partner. I think sometimes we can get so in our heads during sex that we forget that there's another person there with us. And that's what we're wanting to, you know, experience is some sort of connection to them. So try to focus on the connection that you feel with your partner. What's the energy like between the two of you? You know, what kind of vibes do you have going on? Or what kind of vibes do you want to have going on? You can make eye contact with them. That's such a powerful and very underrated way to, like, bring yourself back into the moment. Like, making eye contact is so intimate and so vulnerable. It really just like, brings us right back into the moment.

It startles you out of your weird inner dialogue, your inner sea captain.

There definitely have been times during sex where I felt myself just sort of of spacing out a little bit, maybe thinking about something different. And I make eye contact with you and it's like, woo. Okay. I'm like, back here in this moment because it feels so vulnerable. I mean, that's something that's always cracked me up. Like, how is it that you and I have been together for almost 14 years and know each other so well, and yet, like, something as simple as eye contact feels so vulnerable.

This kind of makes me laugh a little bit because I remember a couple years ago when our business looked a little different than it does now. We would always look in Google Analytics just, like, what our, like, top pages were, and you had written a blog post, like, about eye contact or sex or something like that. We would look at, like, how many people, what people were searching for, and when they found our website, and it was like, far and away searching for eye contact during sex. And it was like, like, huh, this is. This is interesting. What does this mean?

Maybe we need to do a whole podcast episode just about that different. I'm not sure how long I could talk about that for.

And we maintain extreme eye contact the.

Whole time, the entire time. We'll release a video too.

We'll live stream it.

You can make sure that we don't break eye contact at any point. That would be interesting. The final little technique that you can use around, you know, paying more attention to your partner is to talk to your partner too. So it could be dirty talk if you want to, but it could also be just. Just kind of chatting with them. I think people, people underestimate just like a little casual chat during sex, but talking to your partner, kind of checking in with them. Maybe there are times where you Actually would want to let them in on what you're going through or what's coming up for you. I. I could even imagine sometimes saying to your partner, like, I'm feeling a little bit distracted right now, but I want to be really, you know, present with you and connected with you. That could actually feel like a very beautiful thing to share with them in that moment.

Yeah. Especially saying that stuff out loud. Saying our fears out loud often takes a lot of their power away. Like they have a lot of power when they are just inside our minds, when it's just like our internal dialogue because it's only us talking about it with ourselves. Once you bring someone else in, oftentimes you just say it and all of a sudden you're like, oh, wait, I'm not so worried about this now that I've voiced it.

Yeah. I'm also imagining people listening to this podcast and thinking like, oh my God, I could never admit that to my partner. Like, that would hurt their feel or that would get them so upset. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask the question and answer it myself with this. But I think, you know, if you're really distracted or anxious or whatever it is during sex, like, your partner probably notices.

Yep.

And so you being able to share that with them and say, hey, I really wanna be here with you right now, but I am still feeling so anxious about that bad work review that I had. Or something like, that's intimacy, like sharing things with your partner, letting them in on what's going on with. That's much more intimate than just like putting on this act of pretending to let go or of like being in this very stuck place of, you know, you're so in your head, just beating yourself up. Like, I want to let go. What's wrong with me? Why am I not doing it like that? Sharing is so much more intimate and.

Almost certainly your partner is going to be able to relate with you in some way or another. If they're not having the exact same experience. They probably have had a similar experience or can think about a time when they have felt distracted or whatever. Whatever the thing is that you're wanting to share. All right, so should we get into some listener questions?

My favorite part of the episode, listener questions. Oh, wow. Okay, we've got multiple sound effects already.

A one man show over here. All right, so the first question is, how do I turn off the mental checklist going through my head?

Okay, I've got a couple of different tips for this one. First one is a super practical one. I think it can be really helpful to spend couple of minutes before you have sex just jotting down what's on your mind. So it could be journaling, it could be actually adding to your to do list, but just having this little practice of, like, trying to release those thoughts from your mind. Second thing is, this definitely fits in with what we were talking about earlier about just, like, allowing and accepting those thoughts. So if you start thinking, oh, my gosh, I have to go get eggs at the grocery store, don't beat yourself up about it. It's okay. It's understandable. Your brain is trying to do a good thing and remind you of something that you need to do. So, you know, be doing gentle with yourself and say, all right, I thought about that. I don't have to keep thinking about that anymore. And then I also think it kind of ties back into this bigger picture that you hinted at a little bit earlier. This idea of, you know, are we really pressuring ourselves with our mental thoughts, like, feeling like, you know, oh, my gosh, I have to be perfect at making sure I get all these tasks, you know, marked off my list? Or is it bringing up some dynamic between you and your partner where you're feeling like, why am I always the one who's thinking about that we need eggs at the store? I mean, if you listen to our mental load episode, you'll definitely. This one will be familiar to you. But I think it could be worth getting a little bit curious about. Like, man, why does my to do list keep popping up into my head?

Yeah, that's. Those are some good tips. Next question is, do I tell my partner I'm trying to do this or work on it alone?

That's a really interesting question. So I almost always come down on the side of just sharing what you're going through with your partner. Like I was saying earlier, I think that's what intimacy is, is letting our partners see our internal experience. And so if you keep this to yourself, I think you run the risk of making it feel like you're putting all this pressure on yourself to, oh, my God, I've got to figure this out. My partner's probably so upset that I haven't. I want to do better for them. You can create all these stories in your head about it. Whereas if you were to just share with your partner, like, hey, I'm having a hard time just being present in the moment, that can open up some really great conversations. So maybe you listen to this episode again with them. Maybe it brings up your partner saying, oh, this is something I struggle with, too. Maybe you can end up having this amazing conversation about, hey, what are our goals for our sex life together? So I would say definitely talk to your partner about it.

Also, I think we were talking about this on the last podcast is it feels good in a partnership when we know that the other person is working on something and investing in the relationship. So if you keep it to yourself, like your partner, you're not going to get any credit with your partner for putting in effort. So, yeah, why not? Why not share and, you know, show your partner, I care so much about our relationship, our sex life that I'm working on this.

That's a great point.

All right, so next question is, how do I let go and still feel safe? Well, first of all, we already know now the answer is not to just let go, but how do you feel safe when you're doing all of this stuff?

Yeah, I think that it's really important for us to recognize, you know, letting go, it's not a good goal for people who have safety or pain issues coming up around sex. So I would go back to defining different goals for your sex life. So instead of just thinking about it as this, you know, really generic letting go thing, what is it that you really want to experience? And so I'm guessing for a lot of people, the main goal that would come up would be, I want to feel safe during sex. We will definitely have a future episode about sex and safety, But I think a lot of that, it comes down to understanding when do you feel safe and when do you feel unsafe. So there might be specific activities, There might be certain ways that the environment is set up, ways that your partner is interacting with you, things they're doing to you, with you, saying to you. So starting to make a list like, what's my safe list? And what's my unsafe list? And being able to share that with your partner, too, so they understand. Oh, okay. These are the things that make you feel safe and comfortable and connected. These are the things that, at least temporarily, we're going to take off the table because they don't feel safe.

Yeah. And then once you start feeling more safe, once you have listed those things out and have talked about them and feel like you're making some progress, then you can kind of reassess again and see, okay, do I have any other goals that are coming up now? And then you can start working on those. Those.

Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely, like a constant process, and it can be a great experience, a great journey. Okay, I got A question for you.

Oh boy. Is this from you or from someone else?

It's from someone else, but I'm curious to hear your answer. Do guys struggle with this too? Or are all guys just capable of letting go every single time perfectly without incident?

Well, like I said before, at least for me, the answer is yes, I do struggle with this too. I am am nearly certain that all guys also struggle with this too. I think with men there's definitely a performance based aspect. It can be challenging when, when we have this idea that sex needs to be one. Penetrative sex. And then penetrative sex is dependent on our, you know, a body part of ours performing in a certain way that is just sort of an added layer of like, oh, well, in order for me to do this thing, which I think is necessary in order to have had sex, like my penis has to be hard. So that can be something that becomes a struggle. And then instead of focusing on sex, you're focusing on yourself.

Yeah.

And then also, I think that I can also say, you know, I've struggled with this too when I've been in really stressful work situations where, you know, I just can't shut off. Like, I don't leave my work at the office. And, you know, I've had times in my life where I'm just, you know, really struggling to, to even get to a point where I want to think about sex because I have so many other thoughts in my mind. So I think a lot of men struggle with that around work or work responsibilities or financial responsibilities or whatever the case may be.

And I think that men struggle with a lot of the exact same, you know, emotional challenges that women do as well. I think it's just less socially acceptable for them to acknowledge those kinds of things. But we definitely get questions from men all the time who are saying, you know, I feel really anxious, I feel disconnected from my partner. I feel self conscious of my body and not just in a performative issue like what my body looks like and what my partner thinks of it. I think that we actually have a lot more similarities than maybe many of us realize.

Yeah. And this may be generalizing a bit, but I think in general, I think that men are worse multitaskers than women. I think there's a lot of research that shows men are not as good at multitasking. They tend to be really good at like spatial relations type problems, but not multitasking problems. And so it might be that men on the whole don't struggle in this exact same ways or exactly as much as women in certain areas, like the to do list might not be this constant thing, because our brains are not as wired to be juggling a lot of tasks. And so it can be like, okay, well, now it's sexy time. And I'm, like, focused on sexy time. But, you know, on the flip side, you might have sex and then forget, like, the five things that you're supposed to do afterwards.

So I do remember one time asking you, like, do you have random thoughts that pop into your head during sex? And you gave me the funniest look. Like, you do. Like, it just couldn't. You couldn't wrap your head around it. But I think that is. Is such a good point that men, their brains are just wired, you know, differently to be more. A little bit more present in the moment. Again, it's not saying that they don't struggle with letting go.

Yeah. And this is not like all men. It's like, these are averages and stuff.

Exactly. So you might have a little bit easier of a time, like, being present in the moment and not thinking about multiple things, the way that I might be with my aliens and tactics. But there are still other challenges that can come up for you.

All right, final listener question for today. What if I want to let go, but my husband thinks sex should be serious?

Oh, well. So I think that this is a perfect example of why letting go isn't a useful concept, because it can mean so many different things. Like, for you, letting go, it sounds like for you, letting go is different from being serious. But for other people, they might think, yeah, I let go, so I'm really serious and intense in the moment. So this is where it would be so useful to have a conversation with your husband, where you talk about, like, what do we want to feel during sex? What kind of experiences do we want to have with each other? And recognizing that, you know, you're two different people, you're probably going to have different answers that come to mind, and that's totally fine. But it's just having this more open conversation about it and more clearly defining, like, what is it that we want to feel? What do we want to do? What kind of connection do we want to have. Have with each other? So there may be times where you guys do decide to have serious sex, and, you know, your husband's really into it. There may be times where you guys decide to have more playful or goofy sex, you know, so I would I mix it up. But it's got to start with that conversation of, okay, what do we want to feel during Sex.

I'd be really curious, too, to ask your husband, what does serious sex mean to you? Because serious is a pretty broad word as well, I imagine. It's not just like, we're just staring at each other, being totally quiet, very serious. So I'm just curious, what does serious mean to him? And then you can think about, what does blank mean to you? Whatever it is that you're looking to get out of sex, and let's say those things end up being totally misaligned. That is not the end of the world. All it means is that you get to have a variety of experiences, and maybe sometimes you do the serious thing, and maybe sometimes you do the playful thing. I'm just assuming that maybe you want the opposite, which is. Is playful, perhaps. But, yeah, it just means that you get to try a bunch of different things. And the more things you try, the more likely it is that your preferences change. And then, yeah, maybe your husband won't always be wanting serious sex. Maybe you won't always want to be having playful sex.

All right, that brings us to the end of our episode about how to let go during sex. So, just to quickly recap, we believe that letting go is some of the worst sex advice out there. We don't think that this is a useful thing to strive for.

Yeah. Because it really just doesn't mean anything.

So instead, we really encourage you to reset your expectations and to get curious about your own experience. Use your experience as a diagnostic tool to help you figure out what you actually do want during sex and the specific steps that you might want to start taking to get there. Instead of focusing on this passive process of just letting go, you're really identifying concrete, specific things that you want to work towards.

Well, that's all for today's episode of Pillow Talks. Thank you so much for listening. Join us again next week when we'll talk about how to get your partner to work on your relationship with you.

Oh, that's gonna be another good one.

Can't wait. See you next time.

Bye. Make sure to subscribe for your weekly dose of totally doable sex tips, practical relationship advice, hilarious and honest stories of what really goes on on behind closed bedroom doors, and so much more.