Lorne Brown:

By listening to the Conscious Fertility Podcast, you agree to not use this podcast as medical advice to treat any medical condition in either yourself or others. Consult your own physician or healthcare provider for any medical issues that you may be having. This entire disclaimer also applies to any guests or contributors to the podcast.

Welcome to Conscious Fertility, this show that listens to all of your fertility questions so that you can move from fear and suffering to peace of mind and joy. My name is Lorne Brown. I’m a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine and a clinical hypnotherapist. I’m on a mission to explore all the paths to peak fertility and joyful living. It’s time to learn how to be and receive so that you can create life on purpose.

Hey, welcome to today’s episode of the Conscious Fertility Podcast. I’m with the Sex Chick and her name is Alexa Bowditch, and she is a leading sex coach and business mentor. I got to meet Alexa because I was on your podcast and we were talking about conscious fertility, and then I was thinking, wow, a lot of my patients are making babies and it ain’t fun anymore to have sex. I thought, why not have a sex coach? Hence, we have Alexa here.

Now, I just want to share a little bit about her. Alexa is a sex and relationship by design coach and a sex coach business mentor. She’s on a mission to reform sex education and sexuality expression across the globe. She’s from the deep south of Louisiana, and if anyone knows how to bust through taboos regarding sex, she’s the gal. She’s also known as the sex chick across social media and is the founder of the Sex & Love Co. community, a New York Times future group with love, sex, and relationships as a central focus. Alexa, I was on your podcast. What’s the name of your podcast? Is it the Sex Chick?

Alexa Bowditch:

Yeah, it’s That Sex Chick.

Lorne Brown:

That Sex Chick?

Alexa Bowditch:

Mm-hmm.

Lorne Brown:

All right, that’s how you can find Alexa. Alexa, thanks for making the time to talk about sex because when it comes to fertility, it’s kind of the thing that you got to do.

Alexa Bowditch:

Most people, yeah.

Lorne Brown:

You know what? Good point. For heterosexual couples, yes. For single people, they will do intrauterine insemination for same, same-sex couples as well. They won’t be doing intercourse. For those that are going to be having intercourse, I want to talk about this.

Also, I want to share with you that the feedback I’ve been getting from our podcast is that many people who are not actually trying to grow their family are listening to this. I know that a lot of them that are in long-term relationships also have found sex in the bedroom not so much fun. Maybe that’s the problem. They’re in the bedroom. Maybe we have to take it somewhere else?

Alexa Bowditch:

Maybe.

Lorne Brown:

Maybe. Yeah, right. I want to share with you the thing that I’m observing that’s being shared with me in my practice and then, you’re the sex coach, I’m just going to see how you would be communicating to the people that I’m seeing in this situation. In general, when you’re trying to conceive, you start to get pretty tuned in to timing and it loses a little bit of spontaneity, and there’s sometimes a lot of it over a short period of time. It can get exhausting and even uncomfortable, and it becomes making babies versus making love.

It’s a lot of pressure and it just seems to negatively sometimes impact the relationship and also just impact performance and pleasure. The first question I have for you is how can we help people? How can they help themselves keep it fun, whether they’re in a long-term relationship, not trying to have a baby or they’re trying to have a baby. Do you have some advice for our listeners?

Alexa Bowditch:

Sure. I can speak first and foremost, from my own perspective because my husband and I are actively trying to conceive. We’re used to using the term, trying to conceive, but we’re open. We’re ready to have a baby. We’re ready to grow our family, and we are having sex during the window of opportunity. For us, I’m a sex coach and my husband and I work together. We coach all day, every day. We’re talking to people about their sex lives, their relationships, how to make them better, how to have better intimacy, better connection, all these things.

It was really interesting when we went to Burning Man and then we said, “When we get back from Burning Man, we’re going to start having sex to really hopefully make a baby.” At that time, I was kind of like, “Well, then that’s when the green light is and then we just do it.” Then, in the lead up, I was testing with my LH strips, I was doing my basal body temperature every morning. I had my Flow app. I was looking at all this information.

At first, I told myself that this information is helping me to feel empowered. That was the truth because I narrowed down, it had me paying attention to my body more, but I wound up realizing that I was getting into this place where I was kind of overly obsessing over it where I was making sure that I was testing and then I was doing the LH strips two times in a day, and I was impulsively opening the Flow app so that I could see where I was in my cycle so that I could validate myself that I had the little hearts on the dates multiple times over the peak fertility window.

It turned into something that I didn’t anticipate for it to turn into, for me. Because of other life factors, which I think a lot of women, especially women who are trying to get pregnant, but women in general, life can be stressful. If they already have little people that are relying on them, if they don’t have the amount of childcare that they really need, if they’re not able to get their own self-care in, so many different factors.

I was in a bit of a stressful position. I also had some anxiety or a decent amount of anxiety, around the actual trying to conceive, the idea of trying to make it happen. Then, here is my lovely, incredible husband that doesn’t know any of this stuff. He’s like, what are you doing? I probably seemed kind of crazy where all of a sudden I would just burst into tears. We would get started in the window of trying to be four or five days and by day three in a row, which under normal circumstances it would be like, “Ooh, we’re on day three in a row. Look at us, really hot for each other. No big deal.”

Day three in a row where I’m just like, “I’m tracking what time of the day and your testosterone is probably up high here and you probably have the best sperm count here.” I’m looking at all this data. I’ll also mention to our listeners that I’m 34 and I’m in this window of, if I don’t get pregnant before 35, then people are going to call me geriatric. I have all this stuff that can cause stress, and this stress is probably not going to create the environment that a baby wants to thrive in and grow in. It’s also going to affect anxiety levels for sure, and libido and desire and all of that.

Anyway, just kind of rounding up that story, at first, I had a bunch of stuff come up for us that I wasn’t anticipating because I’d never been in that position before. I’d never been in a position in my life where I was having sex to actively conceive. All the sex that I’d had prior to 34 years old from wherever I started being sexually active in high school, it was all sex, but let’s not make it, it’s all intentionally not to make the child. It was a lot for me to process and I had no idea until I was actually in it.

Being with my husband, I also felt very foreign to him. I felt very different from him. Because he really couldn’t understand and because he wasn’t trying to understand me, which is a very feminine thing to do to try to understand someone else’s feelings much less your own, we were missing the mark where we had tension come up in our relationship where it did start to feel like work and I would kind of burst into tears if we weren’t actually in the mood for it. My energy was actually leading us to not be in the mood for it.

Long story short there, that was a number of conversations that we had to have. To get really real with each other, I needed to let him in on my internal world. At one point, I had to redefine my relationship with a lot of this, and that included a lot of personal development type tools, self-regulation tools, and various meditations. I had to completely rework my self-care regimen. You contacted me with an incredible acupuncturist group here. I had to relax. I really had to focus on relaxing.

Through that, I started tending and caring for myself more. Then, Jordan and I were able, that’s my husband, Jordan and I were able to meet. Sex stopped feeling so performative and so forced. I know I definitely have resources and examples and advice for people who want to spice things up so that the sex is different each time. I can get to that if you want me to share it. That is one thing.

Before that, you got to look at the precursor. How much anxiety are you bringing into the bedroom? How much stress are you bringing into the bedroom? How much of your life do you have wrapped around this thing, achieving this thing versus connecting with yourself, connecting with the spirit of your future baby, connecting with your partner, being in love.

At first, I would hear those things, not even say those things out loud, but I didn’t realize that I wasn’t embodying them, that I wasn’t living it. Just to also share with your listeners, we wound up getting pregnant pretty quickly, but then miscarried that month, that following month. That was a whole other set of stuff to process for me and for our family. Where we are now, is it’s kind of like the hit rock bottom breakdown, breakthrough story.

Breaking through on the other side, my relationship with this journey and with this process has definitely softened. I’ve had to change aspects of my work environment, aspects of my life, and then of course, the way that I’m relating and showing up with my husband. I had to take a lot of personal responsibility. This is the precursor to great sex, personal responsibility and actually taking care of yourself because if you don’t do those things, you don’t have a foundation for great sex, period.

Lorne Brown:

It’s neat that you’re saying this about taking care of yourself and self-care because with conscious work consciousness, my understanding is about caring how you feel. It’s about having an incredible, loving relationship with self, which then allows you to have that with others. Is it kind of what that’s been your experience and what you’re sharing here today?

Alexa Bowditch:

Yeah, absolutely. Depending on the lineage of tantra that you might be listening information wise. Tantra’s more of a way of being, not necessarily a type of sexuality or a type of sexual expression, but someone that I was in a workshop with very recently was describing pathways, various pathways to enlightenment and expanded consciousness and all that. Some people choose a more, let’s say, grueling kind of way of achieving it, and it’s sitting and forcing meditation or forcing some level of pain in order to eventually get to bliss, but there are some tantric approaches that are following pleasure.

It’s how you can essentially hedonistically find your way to higher levels of consciousness or higher levels of, or maybe enlightenment via pleasure pathways, but so many people are disconnected from what actually brings them pleasure. The things that will bring a person pleasure are going to help soothe them and regulate their nervous system and help them feel fully expressed, connected to their desires so that then when you look at something like sex, if you’re able to be connected with your desires and your pleasure and you’re able to speak for those things, then sex is going to be better. If you take that out of sex and you think of that as a way of living and being, well, then you have a life that you really enjoy as well.

People, a lot of times, come to me and they want to work with me and they want to have great sex. I go, cool, I hope you know what you’re really buckling in for here, because we talk about a lot of things and we work on a lot of things that don’t seem to be related to sex, but when you address them, your sex is definitely impacted for the positive and so is the rest of life.

Lorne Brown:

You got me curious. What are some of these things that you’re thinking about or that you’re sharing with your clients?

Alexa Bowditch:

Sharing with my clients, and also I would say sharing with myself, but my husband and I, of course, it’s the, that we want to make sure that we’re walking our talk and I’m walking my talk. It’s only sometimes in moments where I’m really struggling. I’m really challenged with something that I have that kind of zoom out meta perspective and look at it and go, “You have a slew of tools, Alexa, that you can leverage right now.

The precursor, again, is being able to be connected with pleasure and to be able to understand and be connected with your desires. Again, I can’t say that enough, once you are working on that, you don’t have to fully be 100% there. That might even feel kind of elusive, especially if it’s women that are listening to this that might feel a little bit elusive, but do one little step at a time.

The actual tools, when you say something like it’s not spontaneous. Well, a lot of the sacs that long-term relationships, that people in long-term relationships are happening, really aren’t that spontaneous anyway. Spontaneous desire is like, you just look across the kitchen and there they are, and you meet eyes, you make eyes at each other and then all of a sudden, you can’t handle it. You have to close the gap and take the clothes off and then you’re having sex in the kitchen.

Maybe that was something that you experienced towards the beginning of your relationship because sometimes people think, “If we could just get back what we had,” but you’re not going to get back anything. That was something that was present towards the beginning of your relationship and things are different. You’ve probably seen each other poop. It’s like what are you going to do about that? You have routines.

Lorne Brown:

Right.

Alexa Bowditch:

A lot of times for Jordan and I, we do the typically unsexy thing, which is we schedule it. Some people are a little bit opposed to that, though we-

Lorne Brown:

There is a rule of thumb, if you don’t schedule it, there’s a good chance it won’t happen. If you schedule it…

Alexa Bowditch:

Exactly.

Lorne Brown:

… better chance, it will happen.

Alexa Bowditch:

Yes, that the scheduled sex will happen and that also you’re feeling so connected with each other because you’ve already had the sex or you are not feeling scarce, like in scarcity that maybe it’s not going to happen. It’s, you’ve got your window of intimacy already on the schedule. You’re more likely to have the spontaneous kind of popup sex because you’re feeling each other. You already have that connection with each other.

Jordan and I do something every week, and this is definitely more practical. We do something called a relationship check-in and we do it to the best that we can every Sunday. Every Sunday, and this is my responsibility because I am a woman and I take responsibility for being the leader in love, in our relationship. He leads many other things, but when it comes to connection and when it comes to love, I have a deep understanding that that is my role, that is my feminine role in our relationship.

It doesn’t mean that I’m not a badass business owner, that I don’t run our company, that he’s technically working for me. My feminine role in our relationship, check all that stuff, is for me to make sure that we stay in intimate connection and our world works better when I take responsibility for that and he shows up when I do.

I make sure that we have our check-ins and during our check-ins, we take a look at the week ahead and we just generally see what’s going on for each other. Where there is a window of opportunity where we can block off for intimacy, and it doesn’t mean we schedule a particular type of sex, we could, but we block it for intimacy. Meaning, we’re going to come together and see what happens. We put kind of a more masculine structure, but there’s flow in it so we can flow in it.

Also, as a part of our check-ins, we talk about where I’m at in my cycle. I describe what I might be feeling because of feelings. I also take responsibility for those things, my feminine role in our relationship, which might sound so traditional to some people when I say things like that, but this is what works for us. We also talk about the different types of intimacy we might want to experience.

Every other week, he plans something. It doesn’t have to be a whole big situation, but he usually plans something for me and every other week I plan something for him, so that I can pour my love into him, so that I can show him that I love him and that he loves physical touch and I love giving it to him. Our world works better when we have that flow between each other. We talk about ways we can do, we call it king and queen worship, and we also talk about movement activity, how we feel in our bodies, our health, our mental states.

The check-in gives us a nice foundation for the week ahead, and it also gives us an opportunity to acknowledge each other for the things that we’ve appreciated, sharing gratitude. We also take a moment to share something that we call them unsaids. Is there anything from the previous week that you’re holding resentment, that you’re brushing under the rug and maybe you are kind of resenting me for it? You’re not speaking about it. It’s one of those little things that you ignore, but then they kind of compile and later that turns into a big blow up.

We try to do our best to relieve the pressure. That’s definitely something that matters more to me in the grand scheme than it does to him. I’m actively thinking about those things. I like to give myself a structured place to be able to say something that I might have held onto, not intentionally, but maybe he did something that I didn’t like and it was better if I just waited a couple days to see if it still stuck around.

It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to say it in the moment because if I said it in the moment, then both of our nervous systems would get dysregulated. Maybe we’d be late for something we were going to or et cetera. I say it if it’s still present on the weekly check-in, that way I can communicate effectively and from a grounded regulated place.

That’s kind of a long description of sorts to something that really impacts our intimacy is we actually sync up and we know now this is us and it’s our two dogs that live in our house right now. Of course, we run our own business and both work from home, but we know that eventually we’re going to have another person. We’re going to have a little person.

These things that we’ve learned how to do, these check-ins, these syncing up, the not stuffing emotions down, the opportunity for us to communicate on ways we can dream bigger, ways that we can expand on our intimacy, and the fact that we have them regularly has created such a safety in our relationship, such a trust in our relationship and that’s available to anyone.

Lorne Brown:

A few things I want to follow up on with what you were sharing. It sounds like, scheduling the time, just like at work, you want to have a successful business, you schedule meetings just to check in with people. It’s just kind of dawn on me. Yes. We don’t do this, but hey, if you want a successful relationship, scheduled time to check in. This requires, though, and I’m asking you because it wasn’t explicitly said, but it wouldn’t work unless both are available holding the space and really ready to listen.

That’s the attachment theory, like Gordon Neufeld, one of our local psychologists here says, “Every human being wants to be seen, heard and loved.” That’s that idea of feeling safe. If you’re going to share and it becomes a bitch fest, I don’t see how that would help the relationship, but if somebody’s ready to listen, not take it personally, just hear the other person, I can see how that could deepen a relationship. That’s something that you coach and that’s something it sounds like you and Jordan have with this connectivity and having this safe environment with each other.

Alexa Bowditch:

Yeah, and it feels so good because neither of us had this growing up. We did not have, the relationship that we have today was not modeled for either of us. My mom’s married five times. His mom’s married four times. Both of us waited until we were almost 30 years old and actually got married. Both of us, I think we were 33 when we got married.

Now, just going to have children, but that was not what we grew up with. We didn’t see this growing up. I saw a single military mom and I just saw women taking care of the family. She’s got to do everything. I saw men are essentially a revolving door. They don’t stick around. They don’t stay for their children. They don’t stand up for their children. They’re essentially useless. He saw his mom as a functioning alcoholic and she was always working late and wasn’t around and would opt to go and be with friends and that sort of thing while he and his brother essentially raised himself.

The fact that we have a relationship that is this intentional, we’ve had to say the buck stops here for so much generational baggage. We both feel, for the most part, really empowered saying, we want a love and a relationship like we’ve never been shown and we’ve never understood. We want deeply connected intimacy. We want to learn from the past from what we did see and the relationships that we had prior to our relationship, where we loved each one of the people that we dated for however long.

Maybe we thought we were going to get married or have a family with any of those people, but it didn’t work out for whatever the reasons. It didn’t work out with any of the ex-partners, previous partners. What’s special about us? There really isn’t anything special about us. Humans are built for connection. They’re built for love. They’re built to want to have sex.

For us to think that because maybe we’re soulmates in some way, we’ve got some soul contract or whatever, for us to think that there’s something unique that the humans that we are, with the traumas that we’ve experienced in life that we’ve endured for some reason is just not going to play out in this relationship is silly.

Lorne Brown:

What have you done then to, because you know you have trauma in your history and you’ve intentionally said we’re not bringing that in, but there’s the intention and then there’s this subconscious, these programs that just show up with you inviting them in. I love what you said that the buck stops here, right? We’re not bringing this into our relationship.

In one of our episodes and if you haven’t listened to it, it’s the one by Gila Golub called You Deserve to Have it All. She says, when you do conscious work and when you heal your heart and mind, your whole family consolation heals all your generations. The idea here is you’re doing your work because if you’re going to have children, they will have the same baggage you have because it gets passed down, but if you clear up the field, then they don’t have to do it. I’m just curious, you set the intention, you guys are doing it. Do you have a spiritual practice center? Are you cleaning up your trauma that’s trapped in your body? What are you guys doing? Because…

Alexa Bowditch:

No.

Lorne Brown:

… you brought this up and I just find this very curious.

Alexa Bowditch:

Sure.

Lorne Brown:

You’re doing stuff that so many of the experts on our episodes have talked about.

Alexa Bowditch:

This is the thing, while I say the buck stops here and there’s so much that we’re agreeing we don’t want to have of course, and it’s not even just that we don’t want to have, there’s so much more that we know is available that we’re going to opt for. That doesn’t mean that that stuff doesn’t play out in our relationships. We are very familiar with the energy pattern.

My personality trait is aggressive. My energy, whenever I get some level of triggered or nervous system dysregulation, my energy goes, it’s like a volcano. It goes out. It pours out of me. Because of how he grew up, of course, I am perfectly partnered with someone who endures. It’s like he just takes it all and is like, what do I have to do in order to get you to stop? Be a good boy because his mom was also pretty volatile.

It was just, we are, of course, we look at each other and we’re perfect matches. In a lot of ways, I also would describe myself as being pretty discerning. I have a healthy dose of skepticism for just about anything and everything that comes in my direction. My husband is like a golden retriever. He’s just like, “Oh my gosh, I love you. I love what you are and I love what you are, and I trust everything and this is great.”

I joke and say that together, we’re kind of partly cloudy. He’s just this bright ray of sunshine and I’m like this kind of moody cloud. Together, we’re really great because I help him say no, and he helps me say yes. This opposites attract kind of thing, as I’m continuing in my relationship with him and continuing to study and be fascinated by relationships and sexuality and all of that, I’m realizing that the old adages are really true, but on the surface level, they seem like, that’s so basic, but if you really deduce it down, it’s an old adage and it’s a common quote for a reason.

As far as spiritual practices and things go, Jordan and I, when we first got together, had already both individually been on a path. We’ve studied all over the map. Just to give you an example or some examples of what it looks like for two people who now run a business, that’s all about sex, love, and relationships, the things that taught me the most about myself after leaving South Louisiana, Catholic upbringing, very small town, were travel. I lived on cruise ships for almost six years and I’ve been to 79 countries. That will have a person questioning everything they think they know about what it means to be a human and live on earth is to see other cultures.

Some people can do that. Some people will be fortunate to be able to see the world and travel, and some people that’s a bit out of reach, but that was something that really shook my foundation. After that, finding an entry level, I would say personal development, meditation, yoga, health and fitness. Actually, before all of that, I found sales and persuasion and old school, Tony Robbins and Alan Pease and Zig Ziglar and Think and Grow Rich.

I found a kind of money mindset and how to be a good manager and all of that. Then, it eventually progressed to the point where my personal development wasn’t translating into my sex life. That’s the pivotal moment in my journey where I put a big question mark there and decided to study sex and to study why I wasn’t seeing this translation. That’s the avenue that I went to studying sex education.

Spiritual practices looked a little different for me around that time. Things like it has a bit of a negative kind of dark connotation, but BDSM, on bondage, dominance, discipline, sadism, submission, masochism, various types of kink expression, consensual non-monogamy and in the question of am I actually creating my relationships the way that best suits me or am I creating my relationships and putting my sex in a box that my religion would approve of, or my society would approve of, or my family would approve of? It just had me pull all those things apart and ask myself, what’s real for me? What’s true for me today because it’ll change?

I found my way into tantra and all of that. Then, Jordan had his own experiences as well. I’ve certainly pushed him up to many edges since we’ve been together. That kind of gives a little bit of the background. What we do today looks a lot like breathwork and meditation. I do the artist’s way. We’re journaling. I’m journaling a lot, writing as a spiritual practice, but then we also go to play parties and we put ourselves in environments where our sexuality is encouraged and celebrated.

Of course, we facilitate these kinds of things too, where we encourage people to be all of who they are because someone who’s shoving components of themselves down and repressing their needs and repressing their desires, it’s going to come out as a shadow. It’s going to come out in these dark kinds of ways that are essentially in the opposite direction of consciousness.

Lorne Brown:

I’m hearing that you’ve done, you’re doing your self-care. You have a conscious practice or a spiritual practice. Some of the things that are sticking out for me are the breath work. I really like that for moving energy and stuck energy, the breath works. Having a meditation practice, again, slowing down the thought process, getting in touch with yourself.

Sex is a doing act, but it comes out of your beingness. I heard that kind of part of what you’re talking about is getting into that beingness. It will show up in your sexual practice. Safety’s key, right? Meditation and getting to know yourself is a key component. I want to share with you some of the things that have been shared with me when people are looking to spice up their sex life because they’re having challenges.

Now, I want to share again, there is a fertile window. It is helpful to find out your fertile window, to kind of monitor your cycle so you know the best timing to increase your chances of conceiving, if you have a regular cycle. You don’t have to keep tracking. You just kind of know your days, your cycle, because that window will stay pretty much the same, plus or minus two days every month, if you have a regular cycle.

I do want to add for our listeners that are here on the fertility side of it, there are listeners here that are just curious about spicing up the relationship, not trying to conceive, but if you have a fertility issue, timing doesn’t matter. If it’s just timing, you’ll get pregnant over a period of time based on your age, within six months to a year. If you have a fertility issue, the right timing’s not going to correct that because it’s a fertility issue, not a timing issue, but the most important thing, or the first thing is to have the right timing.

It’s riding a bike, it’s a little awkward. We’re trying to time it. At the beginning, you are timing it. You’re kind of in your head, not in your heart. Then, what some people say have worked, and I’m just curious your thoughts on this, after a while, and it’s neat how you’ve taken the responsibility for the relationship, the love part, right? You’re the CEO of that, and that’s just your role and you’re really good at it. You also shared that it could be the other person in the relationship. You just know your superpower. You’re going to take that job on.

People have shared, and I’ve shared this with clients because I’ve heard this from others, is sometimes they just got to fake it until they make it or pretend. When they know the timing, often this is a generalization, but the masculine partner, the male partner, they sometimes will have performance issues if they’re told to have sex at a certain time. It’s interesting.

Alexa Bowditch:

Yeah.

Lorne Brown:

They share that they want to have sex a lot, right? Then, when they start trying to have a baby and they’re told they have to have sex, they can’t perform. It shows you so much in the head, right?

Alexa Bowditch:

Yeah.

Lorne Brown:

What the feminine partner does is they know it’s the window and they will just start to come on to their partner or pretend they’re really into the partner and he kind of knows what’s going on here, but it’s kind of like role play, all right. Rather than, “Hey, it’s this time. I’m about to ovulate, get on the bed,” they start to role play. Even though they kind of know what’s going on, they start to pretend they’re into each other. Then, next thing they know, they’re lost in the game, the story, and they’re having good sex. I’m just curious about what you thought about that. That is a strategy that some people have used.

Alexa Bowditch:

I mean, you do the strategy that works and if it feels good on the other side of it. Like I was mentioning that kind of pathway, that tantric pathway, I recently heard it described by a mentor that’s kind of connected to our community. His name is Shawn Roop, and he described it as pleasure is the gateway to joy, is the gateway to bliss. Doing things that are pleasurable and asking yourself in the moment what is pleasurable, pleasure is a sensation that is felt in the body.

That leads from when you stack and you build upon the pleasure of the sensation of the body, then it leads to pleasure of the spirit, which is joy. Then, when you are fulfilling the pleasure of the spirit up to a certain degree, then you experience bliss where it’s nothing and everything. It’s being. It’s flowing. It’s where you lose all sense of time and space. It’s both physical and spiritual and not.

I think in those times, if you want it to be better and feel better, then maybe pause before you go to do these things because I completely understand the performance, a bit of the performance anxiety, because the one thing that stands out to me there is the concept of congruence. A person who is incongruent, as an example, might be saying certain things, but their body language doesn’t really match it.

The person that they’re speaking to, they’re saying all the right things, but their body language doesn’t match, and their energy is a little weird, but they’re saying the right things, but the other person who’s receiving it has a little alarm bell going off, which is unsafe. That’s unsafe. That person’s unsafe. Their animal ran away.

Lorne Brown:

That’s so interesting because there’s what you’re saying, but our subconscious or autonomic nervous system is picking up cues that we’re not conscious of, just facial tone, eyes. You’re right, you can say one thing and mean another thing, and a part of that individual, depending how sensitive and aware they are, can’t pick that up, and that can be communicated or received as unsafe. Really interesting that you shared that.

Alexa Bowditch:

Yeah. When someone is in congruence, what they’re saying, their facial features, their body language and their energy matches, that’s safe. That’s something that leads to intimacy. You want to be close to those kinds of people. If let’s get down and let’s do it, is not congruent because it’s not actually how you feel inside, then what is something? Now, go from the most, the tiniest thing that might feel pleasurable.

For Jordan and I, our go-to is we bought a massage table and we use the hell out of that thing. At first, I was kind of like, “This is an interesting business expense.” I was like, “Maybe we’ll use it. Maybe we won’t. Maybe it’ll just stay folded up and in the corner of the room.” We use it so much because it represents an entryway. You know what I mean? It represents a place to start.

I might be feeling a little bit kind of high T, high test testosterone because I’ve been recording podcasts all day, making decisions for our business, on business meetings. I could have run around and let’s just say it’s not me running a business, say it’s a mom who is picking up kids and making sure dinner’s ready and getting the grocery shopping done and signing the papers and helping with homework, it’s very structured and high level.

Women are a lot of times paying attention to a lot of things at one time, at any given moment, many things, diffuse awareness, paying attention to so much. Usually, men are kind of single-focused and they’re going for the one thing. There’s no right or wrong or good or bad in that. That’s a topic, a whole other topic, but when it comes to then moving into sex, there’s so much of life is screaming and clanking in her head that it’s like, I hear my mom in my head when she says, “It’s going to be an act of Congress,” to do a thing or meaning, it’s going to take a lot of effort.

It’ll take a lot of effort. It almost feels torturous to make all of that stuff that is so loud in her head quiet down so that she can actually be in her body. I think a man doesn’t really want to have sex with a woman that he knows doesn’t really want to have sex with him, or the only reason why she wants to have sex with him is to get something from him.

Women are a little bit misconstrued here thinking that he should just want sex because he wants sex all the time. We’re talking about something different. We leverage the massage table because he can say basically, “Shut up.” He doesn’t say that, but it’s kind of like you’re going to lay face down on that table. You’re not going to be able to talk. You’re going to be quiet and I’m going to put my hands on you.

He knows, I mean, he’s learned now to soothe with his hands, with his presence, with his energy. He’s actually got to be present with me because if his thoughts are somewhere else, and he would rather be watching the Lakers game, which is kind of a lot, I had no idea until I met and started dating and then married someone who was into basketball just how many games of basketball are played in a season?

Lorne Brown:

Eighty two.

Alexa Bowditch:

Yeah. I didn’t know this. I’d only ever dated football players and they are significantly less, but I guess he could be a baseball player, and I think that’s maybe worse, but he’s got to be present with me and he can help to soothe my nervous system, but the first pleasurable thing is to be quiet and to lay with no expectations because I think people jump into sex way too quickly. They need to warm up. She needs to warm up. You have to give both parties time to drop in.

We leverage the massage table a lot for that. If we want to shift focus and communicate to connect, because some women really want to communicate to connect, but I would also be wary of over-processing and over-communication, but we like to leverage cards for connection decks so that it’s a random question that’s about something we don’t normally talk about. It’s not our business, not our dogs, not our life, not our friends. It’s something between the two of us. We leverage those quite a bit too.

I think that even though I use the massage table as the example, I think anyone could kind of take the key lesson from there and what resonates for them, and then kind of expand on what that would look like in their own relationship.

Lorne Brown:

One of my favorite parts from connecting with you today, because I didn’t know where this was going to go, and I’m fascinated. It was the scheduling time for connectivity. I just had a ha ha moment go on because in your professional life, people will schedule time and just this idea to schedule time to just check-in and be available and listen, and how that would create momentum, just what will come from that when you just start to connect with somebody and really want to just hear what’s going on without the agenda.

The intention’s so important. I’m not suggesting, I don’t think you did, you’re not checking in so you can have sex, right? You’re checking in to genuinely check in to just want to know what’s going on with the other.

Alexa Bowditch:

Yeah. That, again, also leads to that safety. Like you were saying, the person feels like they’re seen, they’re felt. They’re mostly, hopefully understood, at least on some level and you have a plan of action. Then, you also need to invite grace because some of those things that you plan, they might not happen, and that’s okay because you’re two humans, but as long as you know that you’re going to have another check-in, four days later, five days later, however many days later, then, you know you’re going to be able to speak about it, that you’re not just going to be stuffing things down, thinking that the other person is too much or the other person is not enough.

You really, truly have to start looking at each other that you’re on the same team, that you want the same goals. There’s something that we haven’t spoken about, and I know we’re probably towards the end of our time here, but I would be remiss not to share it, my life changed, including my sex life, when I started to, and I’ll say this as a spiritual practice, started being extremely devotional to my husband.

That looks like respecting him and accepting him and not being overly critical and not trying to manipulate and control him. Our entire relationship shifted when I realized, when I took responsibility for a number of the ways that I was showing up, that was decreasing our level of intimacy. We used to joke and call it, “It’s hard to connect with you when you’re like a cactus,” but I started to take responsibility for the fact that sometimes I’m a little pokey, I’m a little bit fiery, I’m a little bit over critical, I’m a little bit controlling. That’s my shit to deal with.

As soon as I started to really take responsibility for those things, I started seeing a husband that brought me presents, that he went on a trip with and he brought me a gift. I was like, “He never does that,” but I also realized that that week, I worked really hard on accepting him as he is and respecting his place that he has in my life and not trying to change him because the more I try to control what he’s doing and how he’s showing up and the way that he is being, the more that I turn him into a little boy and he looks at me as mom trying to control everything. I don’t want to have sex with a little boy, and he doesn’t want to have sex with his mom.

Really and the way that we do this is not going to be the right or true or best way for everybody else, but really getting a grasp on the dynamics that are going on in your relationship to where you both can relax into your roles, it’s pretty exceptional. It’s like the best sex trick I could ever teach anyone is to accept and respect each other and to know that you’re on the same team.

All these toys and different things, if you want to have me on the show and I can pull out all the vibrators and all the toys and the ropes and anything, the candle wax, the pinwheels, I can share with you so much about how to have great, sensual sex and all of this. If you don’t have the foundations of your relationship dynamic and connection and communication and all of that, then, none of that really matters. It’s just stuff you listen to and it goes on a shelf.

Lorne Brown:

I’m going to add to that because you said you worship your partner and you accept him, right? You accept the partner. I’m going to add because from conscious work is that the first step is to have that acceptance of self. I believe that it’s very difficult to genuinely, authentically accept and love somebody else if you can’t accept and love yourself.

Alexa Bowditch:

It’s hard.

Lorne Brown:

Yes. It’s actually hard. It’s very hard.

Alexa Bowditch:

It’s hard.

Lorne Brown:

That’s the experience people, they’re projecting on other people, and when you start to work on yourself, you realize, wow, but wow, does it ever shift when you start to heal those parts and then you start to be available and really present and hold the space for others. It’s like WiFi. It works well and you feel safe in your body, and then others feel safe around you. It’s beautiful.

I just wanted to add that part because in my practice, conscious work, sometimes in the discussions I have with the people on the table, it almost sounds like they’re almost like a doormat for the other and that you’re not. Accepting the other doesn’t mean you’re a doormat and you’re not taking care of your feelings.

Alexa Bowditch:

Right and it doesn’t mean that you agree.

Lorne Brown:

Right. Yes. Hearing that-

Alexa Bowditch:

It doesn’t-

Lorne Brown:

Hearing others means you hear them, it doesn’t mean you agree with them.

Alexa Bowditch:

Yes. I accept you as you are. I accept you, you are your own autonomous, sovereign creature, I accept that. I don’t agree with what you are saying or doing, but I’m not going to try to control what you do because I trust you can be human on your own.

Lorne Brown:

Excellent.

Alexa Bowditch:

Yeah.

Lorne Brown:

I have a question about when one partner is more interested in intimacy than the other or wanting to have sex. Now, I’m going to make a generalization. It’s usually the man that wants it more than the woman, but I am going to say, I have seen couples where it’s the other way around, but most times, it isn’t. I’m going to ask you a question and my listeners, because a lot of them are my patients, my listeners are going to think, “Oh my God, he’s talking about me because he talked about this in the practice.”

Here’s the big reveal. This is said to me so many times. You may think it’s about you, but this is something that I hear often that the woman really doesn’t want to have sex with her partner, but he does. She’s having sex just so he’ll be nicer or he’ll be happy. It’s asked to me many times, and I don’t have an answer for this. Somebody comes to you and says, “I’m married. My partner wants to have sex. I’m really not into him, but I’m having sex. I used to fight it, and it used to be really difficult to receive him, to have him penetrate me. Now, I do it because it kind of seems to take the edge off of him and he’s nicer after.”

Alexa Bowditch:

Usually, they will say things like, I don’t really want it going on, but I usually wind up enjoying it or I feel better after. I hear some of those things too or it’s just the straight up, but I get to the end and I did my duty of sorts. I hear that language too.

Lorne Brown:

I would like to hear your answer to-

Alexa Bowditch:

My response?

Lorne Brown:

Yeah. How would you respond to somebody on that, because obviously, you talked about incongruence. It feels incongruent because they’re having sex, but they don’t want to be having sex with this person.

Alexa Bowditch:

I mean, I work within my personal coaching. My husband and I work with couples. He works with men. I work with women. I will often have that experience in my intimate group coaching and my one-on-one with women. I have a nice little mix. I have a group that I’m working with now that has four people, and I would say, three of them want sex less than their husband. One of them wants sex more than her partner. There’s a mix there.

If I extrapolated that over across my community it would probably be that percentage as well. It’s really interesting because the women are connecting with the one that wants it more than her partner. They’re like, “Is there a way that I can speak to you so that I can try to understand my partner through you?” That’s kind of not really a thing because men are men and women are women, and we don’t think the same and we don’t feel the same. We’re different.

When I’m working with those people, there’s a couple of things, and I want to give you all a tangible tool for this, and that is kind of an easy entry point. Well, precursor is pleasure in their life in general. I mean, you have one organ on your body that’s completely and totally devoted to pleasure, is your clitoris. Tell me about pleasure’s role in your life.

Anything and everything that I discuss with my clients has to do with sex, there’s always some place we start before we actually start going into the sex. Let’s just say that they are loving their life, they love their family. It’s really great. Let’s just say that we’re working on self-love. They’re going to women’s groups. They’re going to sound healings. They’re going to breathe, or they have some sort of spiritual practice. Maybe they go to some church or something.

They have some kind of higher power thing that’s going on in their life and they’re being creative and they’re feeling in their body and they’re getting some movement in, let’s just say all those boxes are checked. The tool that I like to leverage is something called the erotic blueprints. Have you heard of the erotic blueprints?

Lorne Brown:

I have not.

Alexa Bowditch:

Okay. The erotic blueprints are kind of like, I’ve heard them described as the love languages for your sex life. How someone likes to give and receive love is different to how another person might like to give and receive love. My husband really likes physical touch and words of affirmation, and I really love quality time. Those are our love languages. We like to give and receive them to each other so that we make sure that each of us feels good. We want each other to feel good.

When it comes to sex, there are five different blueprints. This is the system created by a lady named Jaiya, J-A-I-Y-A, and her partner Ian. He’s actually, I’ve had several conversations on my podcast that are about erotic blueprints with one of the founders and with some other certified coaches. If you want to learn more about this, but these things have changed the game for so many people, understand that both parties probably have different blueprints.

A woman that is served the same dish every day will opt not to eat. Typically, the blueprint that’s being delivered, over and over and over again in a relationship is whatever his is, typically. That’s in the incongruence of sorts where she, I don’t say incongruence, but the disproportionate desire, let’s say, with this tool in the five blueprint types, there’s an energetic, a kinky, a sensual, a sexual, and a shape-shifter, which is kind of like all of them at one time.

A lot of times, I find people who are, let’s say, energetic, that are deeply affected by energy and want anticipation to be built and want softer, lighter approaches, and the energy that’s in the room and the energy between the two people have to be in a certain kind of way in order for them to really get turned on, they’re partnered with someone that’s a sexual that just wants to go straight in. I want to touch it right away. I want to grab it right away. I’m super turned on by all of the genitalia. I see sex. I want sex.

The energetic, that they’re usually partnered with, and this is another one of those opposites of track kind of things, is usually like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is way too much, too fast. I don’t want this. They think this is the only type of sex that I’m going to get to have with my partner, I’d rather just not do it.

Then, you have someone who’s a sensual that might be partnered with any of the other blueprints, but a sensual likes all of the senses. That might be the person that cannot get out of her head or their head if the light is not right, if the there’s mess in the room or the music is too loud or there’s no music or it smells weird, all of their senses, it’s like they’re screaming at them in their mind and in their body.

Sensuals like it to feel good. They like the mood lighting to be right. They like the music to be a certain way. They like it to smell a certain way. They like it to be clean. Sometimes they’re partnered, let’s say they’re partnered with a sexual, and the sexual is like, why does all this matter? Just relax. That’s not fair. That is not fair. Your partner has things about them that help them feel safe and comfortable enough to feel turned on, which is extremely vulnerable.

You both get to participate in delivering what the other person needs and wants. Occasionally, you’ll deliver what the other person needs and wants because you love them, but if you’re constantly the one that’s doing it, you’ll eventually not want to do it anymore. You’ll eventually want to be reciprocated, have the other person take time to get to know you, but for the most part, the people that don’t understand the others, I mean, just general, there’s a lot of sexuals in the world, and it’s a lot of men because they grew up with porn and they saw their attachment or their connection to turn on.

It was originally established by a boy that might have been a little bit older that showed them porn. Genitals with friction is what they associate turn on with. Through exploring in the blueprints, they usually start to soften and open up and be turned on towards in some of the other directions. This is a really big topic. Just sharing that there’s way more to this that I’m just skimming the surface, but sometimes sexuals get kind of the short end of the stick in a sense, because sexuals, to them, sex is like eating. It’s like breathing. It’s like air and water. They need it to feel good. They need it to feel connected.

Sometimes, they’re partnered with someone that’s like, why are you so thirsty all the time? Why do you want sex so much? Can’t you get your shit together? Are you a sex addict? They have all these shameful things that they say at the sexual and to the sexual, it’s so painful for them to go without the physical touch and the physical interaction. I’ve watched men in groups where this subject has been taught or have been leading exercises or workshops, and this is taught, and men break down in tears because for the first time, they feel heard. For the first time they feel seen. Men that are sexual.

Then, you have people who are kinky and they just like the edge. They like different things. They like taboo. They like to push the envelope in a lot of ways. Sometimes, they’re partnered with someone that’s like, I totally don’t understand what this is. Kink, BDSM, isn’t this people that are just, they experience trauma and they’re busy re-traumatizing themselves and they’re inflicting pain upon each other, and this is some deep, dark thing? It isn’t.

Lorne Brown:

Is there something like this? Because you said there’s so much to talk about this, so I’m glad we found you, and they can go to your podcast to learn more. The person listening to this is the one that doesn’t want to have sex, probably. How do they educate their partners this part of that idea of having those meetings and start to share and educate and listen to podcasts together? How do you bridge this so the person who’s having the issue right now, sounds like bearing the responsibility? How does this get brought into a relationship discussion? What’s the entry point?

Alexa Bowditch:

Let’s say, the fifth one just to point it out, is shape-shifter and it’s someone that really likes all of them, all at the same time, and they sometimes don’t get what their needs are met or their desires met because they’re so easy to say yes to whatever the other person wants. That’s a shape-shifter.

If you want to bring this conversation up to your partner, and let’s say you’re the one that wants it less, and maybe you’re affected because I haven’t met a woman that wants it less than her partner, that is not affected by the fact that she wants it less than her partner. It’s heavy. It’s heavy to feel that want. It’s heavy to feel that need from another person. I know this. I’ve been in relationships where this has been present.

Let’s just say, for an example, you have your check-in where you drop in, and it’s not a conversation that you have in passing in the kitchen while kids are bugging you and things are happening and it’s kind of like chaos. You’re like, “Hey, I heard about erotic blueprints.” No, honey, go put that over there. There’s five of them. No, no, no. I said the blue one.” You can’t do this in passing. You have to sit down and maybe have a glass of wine or maybe have it over dinner. If you have kids, they’re in bed, and have your check-in maybe, if that’s what you want to do.

Let’s just say you do your check-in and on your check-in, you plan a date night because that’s something Jordan and I do. We plan what our date night’s going to be, and I have a little list of local things that we can do and we check in. When we’re feeling super tired, we do have a heavy work week, are we going to keep it close to home or are we going to go out in the city, out in Austin? Are we going to have a whole evening?

On a date night, you bring up this quiz and you both take it and you read the information to each other. Let’s say, you’re the lady and you’re going to lead the conversation because you’re the leader in love. He’ll show up. He’ll rise to the occasion and you can share, “Wow, I’m sensual and you’re sexual, or I’m sensual and you’re kinky. Let’s talk about the differences.”

Lorne Brown:

You know what? I don’t want to tie this into what you were sharing earlier, is if they feel heard and accepted, the key here is, you don’t shame them for being a sexual, you now understand that his attachment needs, he gets it through his intimacy, his filling himself up is through the sexual, the act. Now, you start to understand the partner and they understand you. You’re sensual. That’s not how you get filled up. Once you understand each other’s needs, and there’s really love there, then you start to work to fill…

Alexa Bowditch:

Yes.

Lorne Brown:

… because what you’re doing is, your goal is you want to bring pleasure to your partner. If you think how I get pleasure is how you get pleasure, then, of course, you’re going to want to have sex a lot, but if you realize that’s not how your partner is getting the pleasure and you love them, I’m assuming the intention and the action will be, you’ll start to do things to bring them pleasure the way they receive pleasure and vice versa.

Alexa Bowditch:

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Lorne Brown:

That was my question. I just want to know how you bring it up? You answered it. You have a date night. You check it in. What I missed the first time was the actual questionnaire. Let’s do this questionnaire. Let’s find out our sexual archetype, basically our blueprint, and then we can now understand each other better and understand how we’re getting our needs met. Then, that’s the agreement as I understand you, so I have a better way of bringing you, because why am I having sex? Well, A, you’re doing it for your own pleasure and you’re doing it because you want to bring pleasure to your partner.

Alexa Bowditch:

Absolutely. Then, your person knows, “I had no idea that these things were possible.” If your person wants to have sex with you, then they’ll be like, “What do I need to do again? Turn the lights, put on music, and light candles. Oh, okay, great. This means sex, right?” You just get to keep having the conversation and keep expanding on it, but really the gift is in the conversation, and leveraging something like the erotic blueprints to open the dialogue, is going to give you more language.

Then, if you know that you’re not going to be served steak and potatoes every single time that you’re going into the bedroom showing up to the kitchen, that might have been a terrible analogy, but if you know that every time that you’re going to have sex, it’s not going to look like A leads to B, leads to C, and then we’re done, then you might be more creatively engaged.

Lorne Brown:

You just reminded me of a Seinfeld episode where Jerry would say, “You only have three moves. What am I going to do?”

Alexa Bowditch:

Right. Right. It’s up to you to expand on those moves. A lot of times, men have their understanding of themselves as a man roped in and tied up with how they do sex. It’s very vulnerable for every person. Again, just remembering to accept and respect the process. You’re a team.

Lorne Brown:

Alexa, I want to let them know how to find you, and people may want to hear more about the sex talks and how to bring intimacy into their relationship. We have your podcast, That Sex Chick. By the way, my episode was, I think I’m looking on your site right now, December 21st, where we talked about conscious fertility, and I’m looking at all the episodes. They’re awesome guys. Check that out. Any other ways that people connect with you that we can share also in the show notes?

Alexa Bowditch:

Yeah. This kind of goes back to even answering the question of how people can expand and explore more, because I would be missed also if I left and I didn’t give you a tool or something that you could use outside of the relationship check-in. Those are always great. We actually have a PDF that we built to help guide people through a check-in. It’s something that they can follow, which makes it a little bit easier.

A way that I would love for you to connect with me is by either Googling, Want Will Won’t List, or by going to sexandlove.co. A Want Will Won’t List is a tool that I would love for all of you to try out. It is over 300 questions asking you, do you want this thing? Will you do this thing for a partner if they want it? What would you absolute no to?

Because I think for a lot of people, they’re like, “I want more from my sex life. I don’t know what more is. If I knew what it was, I wouldn’t know how to get it.” Start with something simple like a Want Will Won’t checklist. Print it out. It’s free on the website, and if you Google Want Will Won’t List, ours will come up first.

Lorne Brown:

Wait, you got to say it slow. I’m trying to figure out what you’re saying, want won’t will or want will won’t?

Alexa Bowditch:

You can put it in the Google machine either way, Want Will Won’t.

Lorne Brown:

Want Will Won’t. Okay, now I got it.

Alexa Bowditch:

Yes. You can go through that and check the boxes and write notes. My encouragement would be, find me through that, that way you find me through getting value and creating maybe a cool date night experience where you go through a list, your partner goes through a list, and then you see where you have overlap.

My husband and I did it many years ago, towards the beginning of our relationship. We’re probably overdue to do it again because things change, but he kept nibbling and kissing on my ears and I hated everything about it. It was only through going through the Want Will Won’t List that I said, “You know what? I actually am a no to this.” He would’ve never known how much that put me out of my body and put me into my head if we didn’t do that exercise.

We could have gone months and months or years and years in our relationship and he would’ve continued doing this thing that other women in the past have really liked, but every time he does it, I cringe. For whatever my reasons, I don’t know. I just don’t like it, but that exercise helped us understand, “Okay, well let’s not do things that both of us, neither of us want. Let’s go for things that are both a yes. If it’s a yes, what’s the context? What would need to happen?” If we don’t know what needs to happen in order for us to get to a yes, then we massage each other.

There’s always a great hack.

Lorne Brown:

Go by your massage table, everybody.

Alexa Bowditch:

Exactly. Of course, if you’re an Instagram person, I’m on Instagram @thatsexchick.

Lorne Brown:

Excellent. Alexa, That Sex Chick, thank you very much for joining us today and sharing these tips and also your personal story and your journey as well. Thank you guys for tuning into the Conscious Fertility podcast.

Speaker 3:

If you’re looking for support to grow your family, contact AcuBalance Wellness Center. At AcuBalance, they help you reach your peak fertility potential through their integrative approach using low-level laser therapy, fertility acupuncture, and naturopathic medicine. Download the AcuBalance Fertility Diet and Dr. Brown’s video for mastering manifestation and clearing subconscious blocks. Go to acubalance.ca. That’s A-C-U balance.ca.

Lorne Brown:

Thank you so much for tuning into another episode of Conscious Fertility, the show that helps you receive life on purpose. Please take a moment to subscribe to the show and join the community of women and men on their path to peak fertility and choosing to live consciously on purpose.

I would love to continue this conversation with you. Please direct message me on Instagram at Lorne Brown official. That’s Instagram, Lorne Brown official, or you can visit my websites lornebrown.com and acubalance.ca. Until the next episode, stay curious and for a few moments, bring your awareness to your heart center and breathe.