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Amanda: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. Thank you to all of you who sent me lovely messages about my 300 episodes. I really, really appreciate it. 

I am going to be traveling the next few weeks. Um, we are getting into softball season, which is super fun. I love watching my daughter play college softball as well as being gone for my Retreats.

So I’ve pre recorded a few episodes for you. Um, but this one is actually a replay of an episode that I did with Tammy Hill, who is a marriage and family therapist. She is a former professor at BYU.  She wrote an amazing book called Replenish. And she had asked me to be on her podcast Live Your Why a few months ago.

And so I decided I wanted to air our episode of that podcast here because I think it was just a really good conversation. And it also, I shared a lot of personal information in this interview, um, that I think might be helpful for some of you so you can get to know me a little bit more if you don’t already know my backstory.

So here is my interview with Tammy Hill.  

Tammy: Hello. Welcome today to the Live Your Why podcast. We’re going to talk about mature feminine sexuality today with a guest that I’ve really admired for quite some time. Sexuality coach Amanda Louder is joining us today. 

Hello, Amanda. Welcome to the show. 

Amanda: Hi, Tammy. I’m so happy to be here with you.

Tammy: Thank you. Will you tell my listeners a little bit about yourself, what you do, what led you to study sexuality, and why is this a particular passion for you?  

Amanda: Sure. So I guess let’s start way back when I was a young girl. I grew up here in Utah. And I grew up in a home where we really didn’t talk about sex.

And so when I got married nine days after I turned 19, I really didn’t know much about sex other than basic intercourse.  And sex became a huge problem in my first marriage. It was something that I pretty much hated. It was not fun. It was not enjoyable. It was not pleasurable. I didn’t have an orgasm for about 12 years. 

And so it was really a source of contention in our marriage. I would basically just do it every once in a while to get him off my back until the next time that he would like break down the barriers and I would give in again. And it was just really, really hard. And our marriage was struggling in a lot of ways.

And so I decided that maybe if the sex got better, then maybe our marriage would get better. And so I decided that I needed to face my sexuality head on. And I started gathering information about my body and women’s pleasure. I learned I had a clitoris. I didn’t even know that before. So there was a lot of things that I had to work to overcome.

When I was a teenager, I had a lot of sexual thoughts and feelings. And I felt a lot of shame about that. And then, you know, I get married and it like completely turns off. And then I had a lot of shame about that as well. And so I had to do a lot of work to overcome that sexual shame that I felt in a lot of different aspects. 

So once I finally learned how great sex could be and learned how my body could experience pleasure and have an orgasm, sex got a lot better in our marriage. So that was kind of the beginning of my journey of studying sexuality. Unfortunately, our marriage was really struggling in a lot of other areas as well. And so we ended up getting divorced. 

And then I met my now husband, Kevin, and he had been married previously. And so our sex life and what we wanted for our sex life was something that we discussed a lot before we got married because we really both wanted it to be a good part of our marriage. And so we got married and really it has been a wonderful part of our marriage and our relationship.

And so when I found coaching, I first started coaching women who were struggling in their marriage and contemplating divorce. And I quickly found that many women were struggling with sex in their marriage. And because I had done so much work on myself and had studied it and I had continued to study it even when Kevin and I were married, because I wanted to always make it better and make it a really important part of our relationship. So I had a lot of knowledge. And so I was able to start using some of that knowledge to help my clients. And I went on a girl’s trip with a bunch of other coaching friends and sex came up like it often does when you’re in a group of women.

And by the end of the weekend, they were like, Amanda, you have to change your niche to sex because we’ve learned more from you in a weekend than we have in 15 to 20 years of marriage.  And at that point I was still like, Oh, I don’t know if I can do that. I don’t know if I can talk so openly about it all the time, but the more that I thought about it. And I prayed about it, like it really felt like it was the right decision for me. And my husband and I talked about it quite a bit, and he was really supportive. And so I decided to go all in, and it’s been an amazing, amazing experience.  

Tammy: Wow. I didn’t know all of that. And I, you do talk so freely and openly about this experience. It seems like you’re just, and the thing I’ve noticed about you when I’ve met you a couple of times, is that I just feel like you’re so easy to talk to. It feels like you’re just a friend, even when you just start talking. And I imagine that a lot of your clients feel that way as well.  

Amanda:  Yeah, I mean, I love people.

I think that’s one of my gifts is I’ve just always loved people and love talking to people and helping them and sharing their experience and sharing with them my own experience to help them in their journey. And I was doing that even before I got into coaching. And so coaching just kind of seemed like a natural progression.

Tammy: Good for you. Good for you. I’m so glad. And I know that there are many, many people and relationships that you’ve blessed. And I know personally that that brings a lot of satisfaction to your life and the things that you’re doing.  

So today I wanted to talk about mature feminine sexuality. And as I was writing out this email to you that this is what I wanted to talk about, I wondered, oh, is she going to look at that and think we’re going to talk about sex when you’re a senior?

And I thought, I’m going to make sure to clarify that to me, when I’m talking about mature feminine sexuality, it’s more of an understanding and an attitude about our sexuality than the age of the woman. And so tell me, why do you believe that women of all ages need to have some maturity and understanding regarding their own sexuality? 

Amanda: Well, I think mature sexuality is all about understanding yourself and knowing yourself and being willing to grow and change. And I think a lot of us, especially those of us who grew up in the Church, you know, had a very immature view of sexuality because we were looking to outside sources to tell us if we were okay or not.

And mature sexuality is not about who you think you should be, but who you are at your core, who you were created to be, and really owning that and choosing to act within that integrity. 

Tammy: Yes. So well said. I have found personally in my own work as a certified sex educator and marriage and family therapist that often in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, I believe our theology is beautiful. It has so much integrity and it talks about equal voice in the bedroom and the beauty of what it is. The capacity that we have for beauty in this relationship. And yet as a people in general, we’re immature in our ability to talk about it. And the idea of discussing pleasure particularly makes a lot of parents, a lot of maybe Church leaders or teachers feel uncomfortable and so this discomfort  breeds immaturity, don’t you think? 

Amanda: For sure. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I think as a people, we don’t love paradox and I think sexuality is a lot of paradoxes. It’s really not a black and white. There’s a lot of nuance to it. We have this black and white thinking like we can’t be sexual and spiritual, which I think the way to be more spiritual is to be very in touch with your sexuality because it’s part of who we were created to be in an image of our Heavenly Parents.

So I think that’s essential. And if you can’t embrace the black and the white and the gray area in between, like, I think that it’s a lot harder to be really in touch with your sexuality. 

Tammy: Totally. 100 percent agree. When you’re not in touch with your sexuality and you’re not particularly knowledgeable or showing that integrity of owning your sexual self, it can really negatively impact marriage. Right? 

Tell us a little bit about what you’ve seen as far as how does sexual integrity affect marriages? And then I wanted to also ask, how does having that sexual maturity and integrity change the way you parent as well? 

Amanda: When I was thinking about this, we kind of go to two ends of the spectrum in immaturity, we either go into indulgence into our sexuality where we are acting outside of our value system. Maybe that’s pornography. Maybe that is sex outside of marriage or having affairs or like being dominant over our spouse in the sexuality, whether that’s like not letting them engage at all or trying to pressure them to engage to our level, right? There’s that kind of that indulgence piece. 

And then, I think a lot of people, because they don’t want to go to indulgence, they go to the opposite end of the spectrum and go to repression. And they really just want to deny all parts of their sexuality. And I think part of that maturity is coming to the place where it’s an integral part of who you are.  We can adapt it and have it as part of who we are without moving to either end of the spectrum. And really it’s part of our everyday living and adapting that into our relationships. 

So if you are trying to control either one of those perspectives, in the indulgence or in repression, and not like really just living in integrity with yourself, then it can cause a lot of problems in your marriage.

I think we also do that with our kids as well. Like we are so worried about them indulging in it that we talk about things in a very fear based way, which often either makes them want to indulge even more or go into repression, instead of talking about it in a beautiful, healthy way, like, no, this is an amazing part of who you are. Now, how do you want to integrate this into your life in a way that is in alignment with your values? Like, who do you want to be, you know, as a child, as a teen, young adult, whatever that is, that is in alignment with you? While not going into indulgence and not going into repression.  

Tammy: It sounds like my Live Your Why podcast, that you are living your why with your sexual maturity. And I’m always saying, if you are living aligned with your core values, you’re going to feel peaceful. You’re going to feel happy. You’re going to feel satisfied with your life. And that’s exactly what you’re saying in regards to our sexuality. If we are balancing maybe the indulgent and the repression coming more to an, a middle gray area ground, that living here aligned with values brings such joy. 

So Amanda, how did you go from feeling ashamed for having sexual feelings and things to being who you are today where you’re promoting healthy, integrated sexual, I mean, the sexual part of people. I think it’s so beautiful. What happened? 

Amanda: Yeah. It was a lot of work. I really had to start questioning a lot of my belief systems around sexuality. Would God think me not engaging in my sexuality to be a good thing or a bad thing? I don’t think He wants us not to not engage with our sexuality in marriage.

Tammy: Absolutely. 

Amanda: Like, it’s a really important part of marriage. So I had to really look at these belief systems that I had about myself, about my body, about sex in general, about what God thinks about sex, and really question all of it.

You know, I spent a lot of time on my knees looking for answers and really incorporating my relationship with my Heavenly Parents into my sexuality so that I could feel good and right in expressing it and sharing my sexuality with my spouse.  

So that was, I mean, it took, I didn’t have anybody at that point to guide me. Like it was all stuff that I was doing on my own and it literally took me years to figure it out. But, oh man, I’m so glad I did. And even then, you know, as I worked on this, like it still took a while for me to overcome that sexual shame.  But once I met my husband, Kevin, and we really started talking about things when we were getting married and what we wanted, like, I was like, Oh, I actually can talk about this with him because between the two of us, like, it’s a good thing to be talking about this with the two of us. 

And it’s just blessed our lives and our marriage so much. Sex has really become a place of refuge in our marriage. Like even when things are hard in our marriage, we can come together in that way and become more aligned. You know, there’s a softening that happens with both of us when we come together in that way.

And I think it’s been such a blessing in my marriage that it’s, I want to just shout it from the rooftops. Like, it can be such a blessing in your own life and a blessing in your relationship. 

Tammy: Yes. You are so eloquent. I love just the words you say and how you say them. It’s so good. 

Amanda: Oh, thank you.  

Tammy: In regards to female sexuality, um, I guess you’ve kind of just talked about this, but what is especially important for you, in your mind, what’s the most important things for women to understand about their sexuality in order to kind of embrace it and own it? 

What facets? 

Amanda: Yeah. I think it’s really important to understand that your sexuality is part of who you are. It really is part of who you were created to be in the image of your Heavenly Parents. So when you suppress or deny this part of yourself, something is always going to be missing. Like I get a lot of women who come and talk to me and they’re like, you know, I just feel like something’s missing in my life. And I’ve tried like hobbies and getting a job and going back to school, which are all good things, but it just isn’t like really scratching that itch. And I’m like, well, I think, you know, it’s the way that you’re thinking about your sexuality. Like, oh no, that’s not it. I promise. It’s not it. I’m like, I promise you it is. 

It is because when you are denying that part of yourself, you’re not going to be whole. You’re going to be out of integrity with yourself because, I mean, integrity is really about wholeness, right? Making your outside match your insides. And if you are denying a part of yourself, you are never going to be whole.

There’s always going to be something missing. So I think that’s a really, really important piece.  And I love the title of your book, Replenish, because I think that is so important when it comes to sexuality. I think being replenished, being  nourished in your sexuality, that your sexuality can be very rejuvenating, sharing that with your spouse can do such good things for yourself as well as for your marriage.

It can be such a really, really great place when you open yourself up to possibilities. 

Tammy: Yes, I love those. So your sexuality is part of you. We need to integrate that. And I think integrity also means integration, that we’re not leaving part of ourselves out, that we’re totally integrated and also realizing that the energy that you can get from sharing your sexuality with your spouse can be nourishing and replenishing. 

I wanted to just talk for a minute about bodies because I think particularly for women in the Western world, we have a lot of body image issues and sex is about sharing our bodies, right? And so how can women, you know, if you’re not feeling a hundred percent confident in your body, which is probably most of us, how can we, or all of us… How can we get that out of our minds and fully engage? 

Amanda: Well, so I’ll again, tell a little bit of a story. So when I was married to my first husband, our entire marriage revolved around my weight, my size, how much I ate and how much I exercised. And he could be very cruel. I mean. He was emotionally abusive in that way.

Tammy: I’m so sorry. 

Amanda: And so I had a very tenuous relationship with my body. Because no matter what I did to try and satisfy him and his desires for my body, it was never enough. And so it was this constant battle with myself, always, of wanting to feel whole and wanting to feel okay and being told constantly that I was not. No matter what I did. And I mean, it got to the point where I was having like eating disorders. My mental health was suffering greatly to the point that in 2010, I nearly took my life. 

Tammy: Oh, I’m sorry. 

Amanda: Like that’s how bad it really got. 

Tammy: I’m so sorry. 

Amanda: And it’s … thank you. It was a really, really hard period of my life. 

And then I married my husband, Kevin, and I talked to him about my struggles and how much I really struggled with my body. And he was so kind and so loving and so complimentary. And he was like, look, I want a real woman and you are a real woman. I want curves, I want these things and you have them and I want you to love your body as much as I do.

And that was so hard for me at first. It was really, really hard, but I’m like, this man that I’m married to is not a liar. If he believes these things, could they be true? Could what I experienced in my first marriage be the false and this be the true?  And I really had to borrow some of his beliefs for a little while about what I believed about myself and my body.

And I really feel like his unconditional love and his constant, you know, telling me how beautiful I was and stuff. I had to borrow that until I could build up that belief for myself. And so we’ve been married for 11 years now. And it has been a journey of healing in so many ways, right? But so much of that is with my body and to the point now where I love my body.

I do. I love it. And that does not mean that my brain doesn’t want to go to the negative sometimes. But when it does, I stop it like, no, we don’t talk to ourselves that way anymore. I am choosing to believe that my body is good. I was created in the image of my Heavenly Mother. I am good. My body is good. I’m so grateful for all the things that it does for me. 

And it has totally changed my perspective on my body and healed that relationship so that I can be so much more present in sex because I’m not worried about my body. I am focusing on the joy and the pleasure that I feel in my body, the connection that I feel to my spouse in my body.

All of these different things, it’s totally changed my perspective. But again, that took years of working on it and it was not a change that happened overnight. But it has allowed me to be so much more present and so much more connected to my spouse because I’m not constantly spinning about all of these negative things about my body.

And it really is a choice. It really is a choice. 

Tammy: Oh, wow. Thank you so much for sharing that. That was so tender and so much pain on one side. It’s kind of like another spectrum, pain. And now so much joy because of the healing process. 

Amanda: Yep. 

Tammy: I’m so glad. So Amanda, we’re going to take a little break. And when we come back, I want to hear a little bit about some of the experiences you’ve had with clients where you’ve observed some of their growth into their sexuality, some of those miracle stories that can inspire us. So we’ll take a break and be right back. 

So we’re back on the Live Your Why podcast with Amanda Louder, wonderful female sexuality coach, and she’s going to share with us some of the experiences that she’s had as a coach where she’s seen her clients specifically grow and accept their sexuality through the work they’ve done.

Tell us, Amanda, what are some of the miracles that you’ve seen? 

Amanda: Well, they really are miracles, I think, especially, I think my clients feel that way because it completely changes their life when they do this work. So one of my very favorite stories, we’ll call her Diana. Diana was in her sixties. She had never experienced an orgasm and sex had become a very painful part of her marriage.

It was something that her and her spouse fought about for years and years and they just got to the point where they just didn’t even talk about it anymore. And she had tried a lot of things to overcome, you know, what the issues that they had, but it never had very good results for her. And so she found me and she talked to her husband and he wasn’t really super excited about it because he’s like, well, we’ve tried other things and it’s a lot of money to spend. And I don’t really know that it’s going to work. And she’s like, I just, I want to try this one last thing. And he described it as like a Hail Mary pass. It was like the last ditch effort  to do it. 

And so she and I met. And we talked about her belief systems that she had about herself and her sexuality and how much that was holding her back from those experiences. We talked about the way that she was raised and the belief systems that stemmed from her family of origin and what she believed, you know, from Church, society in general. And we talked about, you know, the early days in her marriage and how some of the things that happened there shaped what happened later on.

And she was like, I think that if I can have an orgasm, then I can start to shift the way that I think and feel about a lot of these things. And so that was a lot of what we worked on. And I encouraged her to just do some things on her own to understand her body better and, you know, as a way to understand herself so that she could eventually share that with her spouse. 

And we talked about different ways of stimulating her body. We talked about, you know, some possible toys that she might want to try. We talked about different positions that she might want to try. We talked about time, talked about, you know, thought processes as she was going through this.  And I remember so clearly when she got on her call and she was like, Amanda, I had an orgasm.

And I was like, what? And I was like, I get just as excited over other people’s orgasms as I do my own. Like, it’s so much fun. And she was like, I couldn’t even believe it. And it was so exciting for her, and she was so, she was actually excited, but also really nervous to share with her spouse because what if it couldn’t be replicated when she was with him?

So we talked about a lot of that, but it ended up being a really beautiful thing between the two of them. And when she and I were done with our time together, she wrote me a really beautiful thank you note, which I love hearing from my client, but I also got a thank you note from her spouse and he said, you know, I really thought that I was not going to be able to have a relationship like this in this life. I thought that I was just going to have to, you know, see her from afar and love her from afar and not be able to share this beautiful thing that I knew should be part of our marriage in this life. And I was willing to do that. But I can’t tell you what it’s like for us now. It’s like we’re on our honeymoon again.

They were in their 60s and they were like, it’s like we’re on our honeymoon. Like it totally changed the way that they interacted with each other, the way that they felt about each other. Like it totally shifted them individually and in their marriage. And honestly, I can’t ask for anything more as a coach.

I didn’t do the work. I guided her, right? She’s the one who did the work, but what a blessing in my life to see like how much what I can do can benefit marriages. I think that’s the ultimate. 

Tammy: It is the ultimate thing, and when you help a couple that have been married for years and years to be able to experience joy through their sexuality that way, as a coach, as a therapist, it brings so much joy to your soul. 

I can almost tell when a couple walks in if they’ve had success or not, from the energy that they have with each other, so it can, it brings this beautiful, eros energy into the relationship that fuels creativity and oh, so much goodness in it. And so that’s so great. I love that story. Thank you for sharing it.

Can you tell us a little bit about how couples can talk and communicate about sex? Often, it’s difficult to have a conversation with your spouse around sexuality, especially if you feel like your needs aren’t being met and you’re wanting something more and you don’t know how to bring it up because you don’t want them to feel bad and yet not talking about it’s never going to help.

So what are your tips for couples that communicate? 

Amanda: Yeah. Well, I talked a lot to my couples about metacommunication. It’s the communication before the actual communication happens. It’s coming in and saying, you know, I want to have this conversation with you. I’m nervous. I’m scared. I am worried that you’re going to feel like I am saying something’s wrong with you or you’re going to get defensive. And this is something that’s really important to me and I want to talk to you about it because I love you and I care about our marriage. 

Like having that little conversation, the metaconversation before you have the conversation, I think can really set up. to have a better conversation with your spouse because you’re communicating the intention behind it. You’re communicating your fears about what you’re worried about in this conversation, which is most of the time going to lower your partner’s defenses. They’re, like, Oh, they’re worried about having this conversation. They’re scared. Like I want to make sure that they feel safe in this conversation.

I think that can change the direction of the conversation significantly rather than going in and saying, you know what, I’m not satisfied. I’m not getting what I want. Like you need to do better. Right? Like, of course that’s going to bring up the other person’s defenses. But when we can go into the conversation having that metaconversation ahead of time, I think that can be really helpful. 

Tammy: Great idea. Great idea. I love that. So what resources do you recommend to help women feel like they can embrace their sexuality and feel like they aren’t the problem in their marriages when it comes to sexuality? I know we have, tell us about things that you offer, but other resources that you’re, uh, familiar with.

Amanda: I always recommend the book Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski. I think that explains so much to women about how desire works for them. I think it’s also good for the men to read it alongside them, right? So like you can understand each other. I think that’s so, so important. 

I love, um, Women’s Anatomy of Arousal by Sherry Winston. I think that is an awesome book to talk about the female anatomy and how our body works. Again, I think it’s really important for husbands to read it as well, to understand. And I love that she has like little tidbits in there for the husband too. I think that’s really, really important. 

You know, I have some more resources that I can talk about, but I also really think it’s important for women to understand that the lens that we mostly look through is the male lens when it comes to sexuality. And so when we are looking through the male lens, we are always going to look broken.  But if we are looking at sexuality through the female lens, you’re right on time. Things are working exactly as they should be, most of the time. Like, everybody wants to know if I’m normal, right? That’s what Emily Nagoski talks a lot about in her book. Like, am I normal? And I would say, like, as a coach, I hear that constantly. Like, is this normal? And most of the time it is. Like, unless you’re having pain, right? That is not normal. Let’s definitely talk about that. But most of the time you are. You’re just looking at things through the male sexuality lens.

And we need to look at it through the female sexuality lens. Because when we look at it through that lens, which is the appropriate lens for women, then you’re right on time. Everything’s working exactly as it should be. Now let’s embrace that and understand that so that you can capitalize on all of the benefits that you have as women in sexuality.

So I work with women primarily in my membership. It’s called the Embrace You Elite Society. It’s just a monthly membership. You can pay month to month, cancel any time, but women come in, I have a video course that they go through with homework and, you know, all the things to help them understand themselves and how they’re thinking and all of that and understand their sexuality better.

It offers weekly group coaching calls so you can sign up to be coached and I bring you on. And there’s other people watching and a lot of people are like, Oh, I don’t want to be coached about sex in front of other people. And I totally get that. But, usually my pushback is the same reason why you don’t want to talk about this in front of everyone is the same reason that you’re having problems in the bedroom and that’s sexual shame. And that’s exactly why you need to.  

But I do offer some private coaching for an additional fee if you’re in my membership. So if it’s really something that you don’t want to talk about, then we can do it on a private call. But that’s really, there’s other courses in there. I do monthly classes. Like it offers such robust education and then the coaching on top of it, that it’s really a pretty amazing deal.

I coach men as well in small groups. And then I do take a select few number of couples. And so if you want one on one couple work, then I do take a few of those a year as well.

And then in addition to that, I have my podcast, which is called Sex for Saints. And I also offer retreats. So I have a couples retreat usually every fall, and then I do my women’s retreats in February.

So I have a retreat coming up February 1st through 4th in St. George, Utah. I talk and teach. I usually bring in a couple of guests as well. I rent this big, beautiful house. I bring in a chef to cook all of our meals, a yoga instructor. And the highlight of the retreat is we do boudoir photography for all of the guests. So I have a hair and makeup team and photographers, and it really just becomes this wonderful experience where people can start to see themselves in a new way and see that they’re beautiful and they’re sexy and they have something amazing to offer. And I just, it’s been so much fun. So that’s available right now as well.

Tammy: Good for you, Amanda. I’m so proud of you.  Any little tidbits, other tidbits of information that you just want to make sure that we hear and learn from you before we wrap up today.

Amanda: Yeah, so I always say sexuality is first and foremost, your relationship with yourself. It’s how you think about yourself, how you think about your sexuality.

And then when you have a better relationship with yourself, then we can move into having a better relationship with your spouse.  And when you have those two things. A better sexual relationship is inevitable.

Like, it really comes down to those two things. So that’s so much of what I focus on is that relationship with self first, and then relationship with your spouse, because good sex is a combination of those two things.

Tammy: It totally is. You’ve got two individuals coming together as a couple, and they’ve got to feel pretty good about themselves personally in order for this to be a beautiful thing too. Nicely said. 

So as we conclude today, you know this is the Live Your Why podcast, and so I like to invite my guests to share with my listeners a little bit about their why.

So Amanda Louder, what is your why?  

Amanda: My why is to show Christlike love and charity to those that I come in contact with, to help them grow and change and become their best selves, and to help them create a better relationship with themselves, their spouse, and their sexuality. And I think in doing that, we create better marriages, which is what builds the kingdom of God. 

Tammy: Wow. That was nicely put, concise. So showing Christ like love so that others can feel that love within themselves and, and then that grows into a happy marriage, which ultimately, happy marriages create happy families and that helps all of us get back to heaven, right? 

Amanda: Yeah. 

Tammy: Thank you so much for being a guest today. I really appreciate you joining me and spending some time with my listeners. Thank you, Amanda. 

Amanda: Thanks for having me, Tammy. 

Amanda: All right, my friends, I hope you enjoyed that interview with Tammy Hill. Thank you so much for joining me today, and we’ll see you next week.