Amanda: Hi, Linda, welcome to the podcast. What can I help you with today?

Linda: Thanks so much, Amanda. Really excited to be here. Been looking forward to it. So I’ve been married about 10 and a half years, and we have three kids all under the age of 10. And probably similar to other people I’ve listened to on the podcast, you are engaged and you can’t wait to have sex, and then you get married, and you’re like, what happened?

We did have kids three months into us being married, we were pregnant with our first, and then by the time our oldest was not even four, our third was born. So it was just a lot of the kind of poor, newly married, lots of kids, what felt like lots of kids, no resources type stage.  And, it’s kind of been stuck there.

I work as well. I’m a freelancer and my job is pretty stressful and I think I get this almost addiction to it. I do media relations, so I wait for reporters to respond to me, to story ideas. And I almost get this, I feel like I check my email 20 times in an hour or more, and I even get this almost addiction in my mind, like this high, and I feel like in a way it’s maybe affecting my sex life.

My husband, maybe like a typical male, wants sex several, several times a week. I usually am never in the mood, deny it, and it really affects his self-worth or he feels rejected and unloved and he’s trying to, I think, change that narrative in his mind a bit, but anyways, that’s what I’m seeking help with.

Amanda: Okay. All right. So he wants sex four to five times a week, you’ve said.

Linda: Yes. 

Amanda: And you say yes how many times? 

Linda: Mm, maybe once. 

Amanda: Okay. 

Linda: I would say we have sex maybe two to three times a week, but I feel like I want to scream every time. Not cause it hurts. It’s not painful by any means. And he’s not like forcing it or anything. I just feel like I wanna scream. I’d rather be doing other things. I’d rather be vegging, I’d rather be watching TV, working or just, I don’t know what it is. I just…

Amanda: Okay. So you said you’d rather be doing other things.

Linda: Right. 

Amanda: What would you rather be doing? You said working right? Watching TV.

Linda: Probably 99% of the time, finding more reporters, emailing more reporters, working. 

Amanda: Okay. 

Linda: I love what I do. I’m very passionate about it. 

Amanda: Okay, so what makes working and watching TV more appealing than sex?

Linda: Mm. I think the working is, like I was mentioning earlier, I get this high when an email comes through that a reporter says, Yes, I’ll write a story. Yes, I’m interested. And it’s like all I can think about and it’s, I read this book, or part of this book once, it was something about being addicted to your phone and to technology and so when I have sex, I try to keep my phone outside of my room because I feel like right after sex, I’m always checking my text, checking my email, checking my Twitter feed, all of that. And so I think it’s like this addiction. I also kind of like sales, it’s based on performance. I mean, it’s a flat retainer, but someone won’t hire you again unless you perform. Right? So I make good money, but unless I can keep up the performance, which is stressful, then I’m gonna stop making that and I provide a lot of the income for our family. 

Amanda: Yeah. Okay. So addiction’s an interesting word. Because we like to say we’re addicted to a lot of things that are not actually addictions, they’re compulsions, but that’s different than an addiction. Okay. And so what I think might be happening here is when you get an email, when you get a text, when you get the little ding on your phone, you get a dopamine hit, and it feels really good, and what we do get “addicted” to is the dopamine hit. Now you can get a lot of dopamine from sex if you are looking at it that way.

Linda: Hmm. I need to write this down.

Amanda: Okay. But like, I mean, sex produces lots of dopamine, that’s why people like looking at pornography because they get the huge dopamine hit from sex, from watching it. But so much of it is how you’re thinking about it, and like let’s make sure that the sex is actually sex you want to be having, because you’re much more likely to get those dopamine hits if it’s actually sex you want.

Linda: Right, right, right. 

Amanda: Okay. So do you like sex? 

Linda: When I want it, yeah. 

Amanda: Okay. And do you think, like you said, you know, my husband wants it four to five times, I want it maybe once, but we have it two to three times. 

Linda: Right. 

Amanda: So you’re having sex when you actually don’t want it. 

Linda: I would never have sex cuz I never feel like having it. But I try to think to myself, kind of like your core says other people like sex, I could like sex, if I get in the mood, I think I’ll like it. I want to connect with my husband. And I really genuinely do, but my body screams. It has this like rejection to it. But I try to fight all of that and still do it.

I’m not trying to do it out of duty. Like if I really, I’ll tell him, no, I don’t want it. I really don’t. But I really do want to want it, and so I just try to, I don’t know if that makes sense. So I try to push all those feelings aside and say, Nope, this is what I’m choosing to do. Even though my body is like screaming at me

Amanda: If your body is screaming at you, shoving it down and pushing it aside is probably not the right approach.

Linda: Yeah. 

Amanda: What we need to actually understand is what’s happening in your body that’s making it fight you on this. Okay. So when you say that your body is like fighting you and screaming at you, tell me what that’s like for you.

Linda: It kind of feels like, and I don’t feel like my husband kidnapped me, but it kind of feels like you’re being kidnapped and a mask is put over you. This is what I feel like. I’m not saying that this is what’s happening, you know? 

Amanda: Right, right. I get that.

Linda: But this is kinda what I feel.

It’s like, or almost you’re in the pool and you’re about to drown and someone’s just keep shoving your head down and down, and you just see the surface right there, and so you’re just, you know, just trying to get to the top.

Amanda: Okay, so is there fear, anxiety? What emotions are you feeling?

Linda: I don’t know, I don’t think there’s anxiety. I don’t think there’s fear…

Amanda: But I mean, like what you’re describing sounds scary. 

Linda: It does. As I’m talking about, I like it does, but I don’t think it’s fear. I guess it’s always assuming, Oh, does he want sex just to orgasm? Does he really wanna connect?

I think he really does wanna connect. He does like to orgasm too. 

Amanda: Sure. But the scenarios you’re describing in how you feel sound very scary and fearful. 

Linda: It actually reminded me, so when I was in high school and I grew up in a small town in northern California, there weren’t a lot of LDS people at our school and there weren’t a ton of good guys around and there was this one guy, super, he wasn’t LDS, but he was super pure, like really good guy. And he kinda had a crush on me. And one time he leaned in to kind of give me in the hallway at school, give me a kiss on the cheek, just to say thank you and you’re a really good person type of thing.

And as he leaned in, I literally screamed, what are you doing? You know, I’ve never been sexually abused or anything. Not even close, even close to that. But every time, and even when my mom growing up, she tried to have the birds and the bees talk with me every single time she would bring it up. I would shut my ears and say, da, da, da da, da da.

I would, you know, get dressed in a bathroom instead of the locker room. Even my best friends of years in my own house, I would let them dress in my room, I would go in my bathroom and change, you know, cuz I couldn’t even just change my shorts in front of them or whatever. There’s always just been this like uncomfortability around sex. 

And I remember when I was telling my grandma one time, not about all this, I was just, we were talking about sex and she was probably like 80 years old at the time I was in my twenties and she said, one of the best things you can do is just relax and like during sex.

And that’s always been, I’m just kind of a tense person. And even when I’m like brushing my hair, it doesn’t hurt or anything, but I just like have this tense look on my face. And I even feel like sometimes during sex I have a hard time just relaxing, enjoying it. Or when I’m even on a vacation, I’m like, we have to get to our next to-do item on the vacation.

We have to, you know, it’s just a waste of time for sitting here. I don’t really think my worth comes from getting stuff done or anything, but it’s just like this tense feeling around sexual things, it’s always been. 

I remember my boyfriend in high school. I had a boyfriend in high school. He lived in Utah and I lived in California, so it was long distance, but every once in a while I’d come out to Utah to visit him.

And I would always tell him I was so strict, even when I was dating my husband, we were engaged. I was so strict with him, like, Nope, we are not gonna make out till we’re married. No tongue. You’re not gonna touch me this way. I’ve always been like that regarding sex.

Amanda: Okay. Do you have any idea where it comes from?

Linda: I can’t… 

Amanda: What did you learn in your family about sex? 

Linda: I mean, I always shut my ears when my mom tried to talk, so I don’t think I’ve learned anything. The one thing I can remember, and this is even when I was married a couple years, so this has been within the last 10 years, my dad said, If I never touched your mom, we’d probably never, he didn’t say the word sex, but that’s what it was alluding to. 

And he’s like, That’s just the way she is. She grew up in a single mom home. Her dad was an alcoholic, and she’s not a very affectionate, loving type of person. She’s a great mom. Just not super loving, affectionate. Naturally. 

Amanda: Okay, did you witness this between your parents, like your dad trying to touch your mom and your mom not being affectionate back? 

Linda: No, I never witnessed that between them. I mean, I never witnessed them. Oh. I’ve seen them kiss lots of times. Okay. And hold hands. Um, but no, never her rejecting him or anything like that? I never remember walking in on them having sex or anything. 

Amanda: Okay. I’d like to do some somatic work and see if we can pinpoint this a little bit more. 

Linda: Okay.

Amanda: Have you heard or seen me do this ever? 

Linda: I don’t… I’ve heard of the word somatic work…

Amanda: So, we go into your body…

Linda: Okay. 

Amanda: And you really have to pay attention to what’s happening in your body. So your brain is going to want to try and override things and start talking about, and like describing, and that’s not what I want to happen. I want you to actually feel. 

Linda: Okay. 

Amanda: Okay. So…

Linda: It’s hard for me to

Amanda: I know, I know, but I think it’s gonna help us make a little bit more progress.

So do you feel safe and comfortable to close your eyes for me? 

Linda: Sure. 

Amanda: Okay. So do that. And I don’t want you to open ’em until I tell you to. 

Linda: Okay. 

Amanda: And that way, like we’re not focusing on the things around us, you’re just focusing inside your body. Okay. And what I want you to do is to bring to mind that you, like your husband is asking you to have sex with him. Okay? And what happens in your body, where you described that you feel like you’re being kidnapped or you feel like you’re being held underwater or something. Like, I want you to go into your body and tell me what that feels like in your body when your husband wants to have sex and you don’t

Linda: Do I just say it out loud?

Amanda: Yeah, just talk to me. 

Linda: So what initially happens, it’s kind of like my jaw tenses a little bit and my eyes start to squint and that feeling kind of travels as best as I can try to describe it, travels through my throat into my heart, and then it just feels like there’s this wall around my heart that just, it’s like a, I guess I just kind of picture it as a steel wall almost.

That’s just like, it wants to be… Like naturally, I guess my heart wants to be flowing, but there’s just this wall and I’m just trying to break through, breakthrough and it’s just like this, I wanna scream, I wanna scream, I wanna scream, and I’m just trying to breakthrough, breakthrough. Breakthrough, like, come on, don’t feel this way.

Amanda: Okay. So I don’t want you to do that. I don’t want you to try and resist it. I want you to actually just feel this steel wall around your heart. Okay. We’re not trying to break through it. We’re just gonna feel it. Okay.

So you said like it’s a steel wall around your heart. What other things can you tell me about it? Describe it like, if I was an alien and I had no idea what this felt like, how would you describe it to me? 

Linda: Um, gosh, this is, I feel like I’m, I can’t tell if I’m making it up or if I’m really feeling this, cuz I’m not like an intuitive body person…

Amanda: I know. So this is why we’re doing it. 

Linda: Yes, I’ve done EMDR before. 

Amanda: Okay. 

Linda: And that was so hard for me. 

Amanda: Yeah. 

Linda: But, let’s see, kind of, I kind of picture what comes to my mind is like a hand reaching up through my throat, through my mouth to try to just like pull me back down. 

Amanda: Okay, so picture that wall around your heart. Like what color is it? 

Linda: It’s steel or metalish gray. It um, it’s just kind of like a ring, just a ring of steel piece of a tool or, or something like a nut.

Amanda: Okay. Does it have a temperature? Is it hot? Is it cold? 

Linda: Mm. Kind of coldish. 

Amanda: Okay. Is there any sort of like movement? Is it thumping? Is it buzzing? Is it tingling? Is it hollow? 

Linda: Um, what kinda comes of mind? This is kind of funny. Have you heard of the kids game Bay blades?

Amanda: Yes. 

Linda: So, and you pull the thing and it just turns. 

Amanda: Yeah. So it’s spinning. 

Linda: Yeah. So that’s what I keep picturing, just this thing that’s just, and it kind of looks, it’s not necessarily smooth. I think I might have said smooth earlier, but it’s not necessarily smooth. It’s kind of jagged. 

Amanda: Okay.

Linda: And it just keeps spinning and spinning and spinning and…

Amanda: Okay. So you keep going into your head to try and metaphorically describe it. And I want you to just stay with the feeling in your body, okay? 

Linda: Okay. 

Amanda: Does that make sense? I know it’s hard, especially when we’ve never done that before.

Linda: I don’t feeling like I’m feeling anything though.

Amanda: Well, I really want you to put yourself in that place where your husband is wanting sex from you and you don’t want it. Like, I want you to stay there. Okay? Rather than letting it crawl out of you or pushing it down and trying to resist it, I want you to stay in that feeling that like, he really wants sex and you really don’t.

Okay? Any changes happening?

What does he say to you when he wants sex?

Linda: Hmm. He says, you can meet me up in bed, or I have a few minutes. He works night shifts every other month. He’s a nurse, so he says before I have to go to sleep. After coming off a night shift, he’s like, I have a few minutes. We can, if you wanna come up in bed with me, or join me. Um, that’s one thing. Sometimes we’re just laying in bed…

Amanda: So when he says that, what happens in your body? 

Linda: An immediate nope. Kind of like you’re driving down the freeway 70 miles an hour and then… 

Amanda: Okay. But nope comes from your brain. What’s happening in your body? 

Linda: Um, my heart kind of feels heavy a little bit. It feels like it’s sinking down to my diaphragm. Um, my throat feels like it’s trying not to scream. 

Amanda: What does that mean? What does it like, describe the sensations that are happening in your throat? 

Linda: It’s like a little, not tingling, but it’s like it wants to say something but it’s not going to. 

Amanda: Okay. If it could speak, what would it say?

Linda: I don’t know if it’s just scream like, Why is this like this? This sucks. I hate this. Or why can’t it? It’s almost like if I just get it out of me and just scream as loud as I can. It’ll just go away and I’ll feel better . 

Amanda: Okay. Do you wanna do that right now? 

Linda: Like out loud? 

Amanda: Yeah. 

Linda: I mean, yes and no.  I can I, if it’s appropriate for the podcast.

Amanda: Like, what we wanna do is really let these emotions be there, like what you’re feeling is okay, and instead of resisting it, just letting it do what it needs to do.

So if you need to scream, scream.

Linda: Yeah. It’s just like, ugh. It’s kind of like I wanna just punch someone. I don’t know why I’m crying. It just sucks feeling this all the time. 

Amanda: Yeah.

Linda: It’s just like, it’s like I have a monster inside me that just needs to like, get set free or something.

Amanda: Let’s set it free.

Instead of pushing it away and telling it, it can’t be there. Let’s figure out why it’s there in the first place and set it free.

Linda: I have no idea why it’s there, it doesn’t make sense logically. 

Amanda: It’s not supposed to make sense logically. And when you’re trying to think about it, you’re overriding why it’s actually happening. So I want you to just let it happen. Feel what you need to feel like move your body, make sounds if you need to, and just let it out.

Whatever’s happening in your body. This is a safe place where you can just let it go.

Linda: I’d probably scream right now if I weren’t on the podcast.

Amanda: Scream.

Linda: I just, I know people are listening, so I just can’t do that.

Amanda: We’re gonna edit it down so it’s not so loud.

Linda: Okay.

Amanda: Okay. If you need to scream, then scream.

Linda: Just scream as loud as I can? 

Amanda: Yes. Whatever you need to do. 

Linda: My husband might come running down if something happens or he hears me. 

Amanda: That’s okay.

{Linda screams}

Linda: That felt good. I have, there’s like more. 

Amanda: Go, go.

{Linda screams}

Linda: I’m sure I can keep doing that for 30 more minutes.

I think there’s more tears probably than screaming. 

Amanda: Okay, let the tears go. Just let them go.

Linda: It definitely felt good to scream. 

Amanda: Good. 

Linda: That’s pretty much how I feel every time I have sex with my husband. That sounds so bad because it isn’t bad. 

Amanda: It doesn’t sound bad, Linda. It’s because you’re doing something that you don’t actually want to do.

Linda: I don’t understand. Do I just never have sex with my husband ever again? 

Amanda: Well, I would hope that that’s not true. 

Linda: I don’t want that to be the case. I want it several times a week. I really do. I just don’t know how to feel like it.

Amanda: But you’re not listening to your body and you need to listen to your body. So we’ve got all of this trapped emotion that you’ve been suppressing and pushing away and not letting yourself feel, and it’s keeping you from actually creating what you want, and you need to actually allow yourself to feel what you need to feel and not try to outthink it, and not try to resist it, but let yourself feel what you need to feel. There’s a reason you’re feeling it. Emotions are not a bad thing. They’re an indication of what is out of alignment or in alignment with us.

And if you’re resisting some things, there’s something out of alignment for you. I don’t quite know what that is yet. I think it’s gonna take some more work and some more digging. But what you can be assured that you like, you will figure it out if you’re willing to feel. 

Linda: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: But I think one of the things that you’re doing is you’re trying to distract yourself with work, with tv, with other things so you don’t have to feel these hard emotions.

Does that feel true to you? 

Linda: Yeah. Yeah. No, I didn’t think of them as a distraction, but I would say about 50% of the time, like when my husband wants sex, and I feel whatever scream thing that you just heard… 

Amanda: Yeah. You can open your eyes. 

Linda: Oh, um…50% of the time I’m like, Nope, I’m not, I don’t want it. I don’t want duty. I don’t wanna do, I’m not gonna do duty sex. I don’t want it. And the other 50% of the time I’m like, I really do want it, but I don’t know why there’s this feeling inside me. I’m just gonna, like you said, think past it, and get to it.

Amanda: Right. And what I want you to do is actually listen to what’s happening inside of you instead of trying to convince yourself that you actually do want it when you don’t. 

Linda: Huh? Say that last part again. 

Amanda: I want you to actually feel, and not try to just think past it and convince yourself that you want it when you don’t because if you actually wanted it, things would not be happening like this in your body. 

Linda: Huh. And then I guess I just have to be patient with my husband if he feels rejected or… 

Amanda: Yes. That is his own stuff to deal with, like, you can be empathetic. Of course he’s disappointed, of course, you know, maybe he’s upset or whatever.

But when you do things that you don’t actually want to do, you’re self betraying and that causes more problems.

And you need to reestablish that connection and that trust and that safety within yourself so that you can actually feel like you want to connect with him. If you’re not connecting with yourself, you’re not gonna wanna connect with him.

Linda: Right. So, I don’t know, like I do a lot of girls nights.

Amanda: But I would say that’s probably more distraction again. So you don’t have to face what’s actually going on at home. 

Linda: So how do I connect with myself? I don’t. 

Amanda: You stop trying to convince yourself that you’re not feeling what you’re feeling. Stop trying to shove it down. Push it away. You be willing to feel whatever you need to feel, scream if you need to scream, cry if you need to cry. And then we start working on like what are the thoughts that are creating these emotions in you.

Do you journal, do you do your thought downloads? 

Linda: No.  

Amanda: You need to. When you are feeling a lot of stress and negative emotion and like, feel like you wanna scream, you need to be writing. Feeling the emotions and writing. Ask yourself, ask your brain like, why do I feel this way?

And just let your brain write whatever it needs to. With no judgment, with lots of self-compassion. Don’t filter out like, oh, I can’t write that. I don’t wanna write that. But actually, just write it all so you can start to understand yourself better and start living in integrity with yourself instead of self betraying.

And this might be hard for your husband, but the purpose of this is not to just like never have sex again, right? The purpose of this is to get a better relationship with yourself so that you actually do really want to, and it’s not because you don’t love him, it’s not because you’re not attracted to him, and it might be important for you to tell him these things, right? 

But it’s like I’m understanding that I’m self betraying and that’s what’s causing me so many issues. And so I need to heal this relationship with myself so that I can have a better relationship with you and our sexual relationship. And he’s probably just gonna have to figure things out on his own for a little while.

Linda: Get old masturbation. I’m just kidding. 

Amanda: Which is fine, which is fine. Like it, that’s okay. But what you can start doing is like, is if he says, you know, I’d really like to have sex with you, you can say, you know, I’m really not up for that tonight or this morning, or whatever it is, but I would like to connect with you in this way or like give him three options and let him choose one so that you’re still maintaining connection without necessarily having sex.

Linda: Right? But sometimes I don’t wanna connect, I just wanna work or do whatever distraction… 

Amanda: Why though? 

Linda: Right.

Amanda: Distraction. And so you have to start noticing that in yourself. Like, why am I wanting to choose work over connecting with my husband right now? What am I trying to distract myself from feeling?

Linda: Hmm. I like that question. What am I trying to distract myself from feeling? 

Amanda: Yes. So we talk about buffering. Remember when we’ve talked about like, um, in module two, or we talk about emotions. We talk about how we allow emotions or we like to avoid emotions or we resist emotions or we react to emotions, right?

You’re really good at resisting and you’re really good at avoiding and you need to start feeling. 

Linda: So do I act like if I feel angry towards my kid, do I just yell at them because I’m letting …

Amanda: No, that’s reacting to them. That’s reacting to the emotion, but it’s allowing yourself to feel the anger without reacting to it.

Linda: And then so if I start feeling it, will it go away? Or do I just still dig a little deeper? 

Amanda: If you actually allow yourself to feel it and not react to it, like get into your body. I’m feeling angry right now. I’m feeling a tightness in my chest or in my stomach. Or like you describe it, kind of like what we did here today, right?

Like identify the emotion that you’re feeling get into your body. Like, so we say, Stop and identify the emotion, drop into your body, and allow it to be there. And just let it and breathe into it. So stop, drop, breathe. Those are the three things that we do. 

Linda: Yeah, I think I remember that from that module.

I think I practiced it once, but I actually have forgotten about it since. 

Amanda: So you might wanna go review the module again, but remember we’re like breathing. We’re kind of blowing up a bubble around us creating space for the anger or whatever you’re feeling to exist, without reacting to it. Without pushing it away. Without avoiding it and distracting yourself. 

So some people buffer with really unhealthy things. You’re buffering with work, which you know, it’s, I mean, it’s healthier than some other things that you could be choosing, right? But it’s still, you’re overworking. So what we’re doing when we buffer, we overdo something like, it’s totally fine if you wanna watch tv, it’s totally fine if you wanna work, it’s totally fine If you wanna exercise, it’s totally fine if you wanna eat food. But when you overdo those things, then it becomes a problem. 

Linda: Right. 

Amanda: And you’re avoiding emotions. 

Linda: Hmm. Do you think it also takes into effect, when other people, when I have issues with other people too, telling them either how I feel or not tell, you know, not just with my husband, kind of like…

Amanda: What do you mean? Like, can you gimme a situation? 

Linda: Like, my mom. There was one time, my daughter, she’s nine and if she doesn’t eat. She goes into this crazy low blood sugar. I don’t know if it’s officially low blood sugar, but it’s like crazy. And so we were at my mom’s house one time. My daughter hadn’t eaten in a while. You could tell it was kind of ramping up and she wouldn’t calm down and it was really hard. She’s acting very crazy. My mom just like looked at her, said, You have issues, you have issues, and just started pushing her out the door. And instead of like, I wanted to stand up for my daughter and said, you’re not gonna treat her like that. My mom can’t take emotion very, I mean, she can’t take… 

Amanda: Hmmm, I wonder where you get it from? 

Linda: You try to tell her how you really feel and she just says, I’m doing my best, come on, give me a break.

Amanda: Okay.

Linda: So usually I don’t just, I don’t tell her and I just say, listen to mom, or I just don’t say anything and I get really, really mad. But I wanna, and that’s happened several times. Several times. 

Amanda: So when you are angry, that is a signal that something is out of alignment.

So if your mom is yelling at your daughter and you’re angry, that means a boundary has been crossed, something is out of alignment. And it’s your job to not express that anger, not act out on that anger, but to put things back in alignment. 

So you can be angry, absolutely, but you don’t need to yell at Mom.

Linda: Right, but I can express or tell or tell her…

Amanda: No, you just like mom. It’s not okay to treat my daughter that way. So we’re gonna go  and like you can say it just as calm as that. Even if you’re angry. It’s not okay for you to talk to my daughter like that, so we’re gonna go. 

Linda: I have such a hard time saying something against authority.

Amanda: Well, that’s a whole nother coaching class. 

Linda: Yeah, I know. Which I’m wondering if it bleeds into this whole thing still.

Amanda: I’m sure it does. I’m sure it does. So what you’re telling me is you have learned from your mom that it’s not okay to express emotion.

Linda: Or that people react negatively when you try to calmly express your emotions to them.

Amanda: Well, yes, but you can’t control how other people react, right? You can only control you, so you get to decide where you wanna go from there. But I think what you’ve learned is it’s not okay for me to express myself and tell people how I’m actually feeling, whether I’m calm or not. 

And so you push it away and you push it down and you avoid all these negative emotions because you can’t express them.

And what I want you to start practicing is expressing them in healthy ways. All that pent up anger and rage. The screaming is from you not being able to express yourself in healthy ways. You push it down, you push it down. You push it down. Eventually it’s gonna explode.

Linda: Huh, right. 

Amanda: And so when you can start expressing yourself in healthy ways and expressing how you feel and be okay if other people don’t react positively to that, then you’ll start to be able to move forward. And that just takes practice. And that might mean setting some boundaries with people like your mother.

Linda: Yeah.

Amanda: But that’s what I want you to practice, is being willing to feel your emotions. Not react to them. Not avoid them. Not resist them, but just stop, drop, breathe, and allow them to be there and be able to express yourself when you need to because, so when you started talking about how you’re feeling, you said like it was in your jaw and you felt like you wanted to say something and you can’t say anything.

Linda: That’s interesting. Yeah. 

Amanda: Okay. So this is what your body does when it can’t say what it needs to say, when you don’t let it say what it needs to say. 

Linda: I’ve self betrayed. 

Amanda: Yes. 

Linda: Even my husband will tell me that, he’s like, if you don’t want sex, don’t self betray. I don’t want yourself to self betray yourself. Say no. And I just can’t say no . 

Amanda: So we need to practice. That’s what you need to practice is being willing to say no when you need to say no. And you might have to say no a hundred times.

And it’s, but having the conversation about what we’ve done today with your husband, so he knows what to expect and not waiting until it’s in the moment when he’s asking you for sex. Okay. But talk to him about what we’ve talked about today and what you’ve learned and what you’re gonna do moving forward and that you want his help and support to help make things better for the two of you in the long run. It might be hard, short term, but long run it’s gonna pay off.

Linda: Right… Hmm. Okay. 

Amanda: Okay. So as we wrap up here, I just, I like my guests to kind of just say what they’re gonna take away from our conversation today. 

Linda: Okay. First of all, thank you so much. I feel like I am going to speak up more with my work. Well, one, feel the emotion and then two, in a calm way, express those emotions to whoever it may be. My kid, my friend, my mom. If it, you know, Hey, I’m feeling this right now,  so my answer’s gonna be no, but maybe we could visit it another time. 

Amanda: Love it. Love it. 

Okay. So feeling those emotions, right? And expressing them when we need to. Instead of shoving them down. 

Linda: Hopefully your ears didn’t hurt too bad when I screamed. 

Amanda: My ears are good. My ears are good. But it was so needed for you. 

Linda: Yeah. 

Amanda: And you needed a safe place in order to do that. And that’s what coaching is all about, right? Is providing that safe place where you can do what you need to do and feel what you need to feel and express yourself in whatever way you need to to help move you forward.

Linda: Yeah. Thank you. 

Amanda: It was so nice being with you today. Linda, thanks so much for being on. 

Linda: Absolutely. Thank you, Amanda. I really appreciate it. 

Amanda: So Linda needed to scream. She needed to be able to express the emotions that she was having and to be able to feel them instead of resisting them or avoiding them or acting out on them in ways that aren’t okay.

And we all need to do those same things. We need to pay attention to what our emotions are trying to tell us instead of reacting, resisting, or avoiding them. Actually make space for them and feel them. Doing so is going to help her be more in tune with herself and to self betray less, which is only going to improve her sexual relationship with herself and her spouse.

Thanks so much for joining me today, and we’ll see you next time. Bye-bye.