07 The Libido Issue
This is the ask a sex therapist podcast helping you change the way you look at sex. I’m Heather Shannon. And in a world full of sexual censorship, I’ll give you the raw truth about pleasure, intimacy in your relationships and enjoying your body, because it’s time for you to ask a sex therapist. Hello, my love’s I am here to talk to you about libido or sex drive today. And this is one of the most common issues that sex therapists see in general. Because usually, you’re either the partner that doesn’t have much of a libido and you kind of miss feeling connected to your sexual energy, or you’re totally fine. Not being connected to it, but your partner is not. Or you’re the high libido high sex drive partner, and you’re kind of like, I don’t get it, like what is going on with my partner? What do I need to do here? Like, do they not want me anymore? Is it me? Like what’s going on in our relationship? Is this just how it’s gonna be from now on? Like, how do I work with this? So this is a challenging issue that a lot of couples face. But I also want to mention, you know that it’s an important issue, even if you’re single, right? I really view and you’re probably going to hear me say this over and over again throughout the podcast, but I really view sex drive and libido, and sexual energy as lifeforce energy. So it really fits with even the diagnostic criteria of depression. You know, if you can think of depression is kind of a dimming of our lifeforce energy. One of the symptoms is loss of libido, right. And so I don’t think that’s a coincidence. And one of the things that I see working with clients, it’s been really interesting for me, since you know, becoming, you know, more and more of a specialist in sexuality is that when we shut down our emotions, and when we think we’re compartmentalizing, we’re actually kind of putting, like, a numbing blanket is the way I think of it or like a dampening effect on all of our emotions, or maybe just some extra ones that like we weren’t trying to dampen. Like, maybe we’re just like, I don’t want to feel sad. You know, I don’t want to feel angry all the time. I don’t want to feel victime resentful. Grieving grief is a common one that I see. We’re just like, I’m just just not going to feel it, just not going to do that one. And what I see though, is that libido winds up kind of accidentally, or almost like as a side effect, it winds up getting it dialed down as well. So there’s a few reasons why I wanted to get into libido today. And you might hear something that makes it just a real quick fix for you. You’re like, oh, this is what I can do cool. But it can also be complex, and it’s very holistic. And, you know, my background before kind of becoming officially certified as a sex therapist, you know, I did a health coach training, I’ve been on my own health journey, I’m kind of a biohacker. In my spare time. My friends joke about you know how I need a red light therapy device to sponsor me, because I’m talking about it all the time. But it really lends itself to things like libido because, you know, there’s hormones involved, and there’s relationship stuff involved, and there’s emotions involved. And so there’s, you know, really, such a spectrum and so many places we can look to try and figure out what’s going on. So I will say, you’ll probably get some ideas from this podcast, but because I’m not, you know, coaching you individually, you might be left with some more questions. So I am going to offer everybody my free guide book on libido. It’s called Mojo magic, you can grab it at Heather shannon.co forward slash freebies. So you’ll be able to just see a lot of what I’m talking about today in writing. And last will be some info there if you do want to book a session and get more into depth on what’s going on with you and your particular body and your particular relationship and situation. So let’s get into internal family systems. So if you’ve listened to some of the earlier episodes, you’ve probably heard me talk about ifs or internal family systems before and I love this for getting at some of the deeper aspects of libido issues. So what I have found working with clients is that you know that shutting down of emotions that compartmentalizing kind of detaching from everything that I mentioned, and it does include the libido and so when we get into the deeper layers and find that sadness or grief, or anger that’s kind of been buried or as we would say, with ifs, exiled, you know, it could be anything from grieving the death of somebody who is very close to you, it could be a breakup that you’re kind of just still processing or grieving. And, you know, we might also shut our libido down. It’s just a protective mechanism until we’re feeling more able to connect and to be vulnerable in that way. So I think that’s really important to realize too, is like, low libido doesn’t mean something’s broken, right, we all just kind of have different set points, I kind of think with libido. But I do think when we’re feeling really healthy, and energetic and vibrant, that we typically have, you know, at least like a moderate libido going on. But when we’re grieving, when we need to kind of go more within, when we’re not feeling as safe being vulnerable, it makes sense that our libido would go down. And so I think it’s really important that we don’t look at it as like, Oh, this is bad, I just need to like force my libido to be higher. And I just need to like, hack this and figure out what things don’t need to do to change, I want you to consider that. Everything’s working perfectly. And your, you know, parts, as we would say, in ifs are your protective mechanisms, defense mechanisms, whatever you want to call them, are working perfectly. So keep that in mind, you know, maybe start to get curious, like, can you bring a gentle curiosity to? Hmm, I wonder if there’s a good reason why my libido has gotten lower. You know, I wonder if something’s not feeling safe. I wonder if I need to be focusing on some other things. And, you know, my, my system is just very intelligently helping me to shift focus to what really needs my attention right now. So yeah, I’ve also even run into clients where the libido has kind of been shut down, because there’s even a fear that they’re going to be to intersex, which I think is kind of an unexpected one, right? Like that one can come as a surprise, that, you know, it’s like, if I, if I remove that protective mechanism, if that part kind of relaxes, and just lets me go off to the races, that it might be too much. Like, what if it takes over? What if I’m just a hedonist? 24/7? What if I’m not focusing on work? What if I’m not focusing on the emotional aspect of the relationship? So that’s something to keep in mind too. It could also be that we’ve just had a negative experience or two or many with sex and not feeling super confident, you know, and so lower libido can be a way to protect ourselves. From that, you know, again, vulnerabilities, you’re noticing the word vulnerability coming up a lot today, I’m gonna have to like link to a Brene Brown book in the show notes. But so if you’re somebody who’s having a dry spell, if you’re somebody who’s in a sexless marriage, if you’re somebody who’s in a relationship where you just have mismatched libidos, you know, one of you is pretty high, and one of you is pretty low. These are all really important factors to consider. So, I do want to share a little bit of a personal story. So I had my own period of lower libido following a breakup, I do think that it was pretty holistic for me. So I’m going to kind of break down like, what were some of the factors? And like, what have I learned, and what has worked for me to kind of get back to a place of libido that feels better, more moderate, more balanced for me. So initially, after this breakup, it was a great relationship weren’t on the same page with some things. You know, I went on some first dates, pretty much right after the breakup, I was like, alright, let’s just get back on the horse. And unfortunately, I found, you know, three or four guys in a row on first dates, just being kind of pushy, sexually, you know, I would say, you know, don’t grab my boobs, and they’re doing it anyways, or don’t grab my button, they’re doing it anyways. And I just, I just don’t tolerate that. Nor do I think anyone should. So at that point, there’s a little bit of a conscious choice, like, Okay, I’m gonna give dating a break, focus on other areas of my life kind of get past the breakup. But what I realized was like time kept going by and I just was like, kind of avoiding this area of my life. And I think part of it was different health issues I had going on where you know, I have some kind of food intolerance, autoimmune stuff. So that’s part of the holistic aspect. So there’s often a physical aspect going on, and you know, where I would feel fatigued and my energy levels wouldn’t be that great, my joints would be achy. And so it’s, it’s a little bit harder when you’re not feeling physically great to feel in the mood for sex. On the other hand, some people are like, I don’t feel great, but sex feels really good. Orgasms feel really good and and I actually do think I have a YouTube video on the benefits of orgasm but it actually does help with you know, getting things moving in your system, you know, relieving some some pain or some aches helping the lymphatic system, so don’t rule it out, even if you’re not feeling 100% But that was part of the picture though. What was going on? For me, so wasn’t feeling great physically, I want to be living in a place where there just weren’t a ton of options. And so I was just kind of focusing on social life and business and connecting with different people and started playing pickleball. And, you know, stuff like that. So, you know, that worked out well, in some ways. And then the interesting thing was, I had gotten over this person that I broke up with, right, so I wasn’t like, Oh, my God, I want to get back together. But there was something about the relationship that felt like wow, like, this is so great. And it was so devastating with a breakup. And I realized that part of me was protecting myself from having that kind of heartbreak again, right? Like it’s vulnerable, like, it’s vulnerable to put ourselves out there, and really be open, and really kind of be invested and really be hopeful and not be kind of holding part of ourselves back. And so I felt like I was kinda like, okay, like, let’s, let’s try things. Let’s be all in, and it didn’t work out. Right. So I think that was part of what I realized is that just just the relationship itself, and just the experience was something I had to keep processing. So that was part of it, working on some of the health issues was part of it. The other thing I think is important to address is that, and I may have talked about responsive desire versus spontaneous desire. But especially if we’ve been in a period of low libido, we’re probably not going to have a ton of spontaneous sexual desire popping up. We’re just like, out of nowhere, like, Oh, I’m horny, let’s do it, right. And so you might have to be more intentional, you know, you might have to be more intentional about sexual stimuli in your life. So whether it’s just like, hey, I’m just gonna, like, masturbate, just like have a sexual experience, or I’m just going to watch some porn or listen to some porn or read some porn erotica stuff. Or, I’m going to listen to music because I feel more vibrant when I listen to music. So it depends on you, you might want to go directly to something that’s like overtly sexual, or you might just want to focus on something that helps you feel vibrant. So it could be playing pickleball, it could be just being more physically active, it could be spending time outside and like getting some sunlight. It could be taking your supplements, right, your vitamins, it gives you more energy, making better food choices, so that you’re not feeling like fatigued or sugar crash or you know, inflamed from, you know, wine or whatever, at night. Could be sleeping more, right. So there’s all these things we can do to help ourselves feel better. It can also be like flirting with people, you know, and there’s flirting with intention. And there’s also flirting without intention. There’s some people that I know that like, they’re just way of being and the world is flirtation. Right, and they have fun, and they feel vibrant, and they feel like, you know, zesty, it’s like, the zest for life is coming through and their flirtation and how they interact with people. They don’t take it too seriously. Like, they’re just having fun. So that could be something to kind of bring forth is like, Hey, have I been not flirting? Have I been not kind of allowing myself to flirt? And like, what would it look like to just allow it a little bit more? There’s also the idea of just like feeling yourself, right? And so part of what was going on with me is like, you know, and there had been the pandemic too, right? We’re not going outside of time. So, you know, I wasn’t putting a ton of effort into my appearance and to close into makeup into whatever. And I’m not promoting like, you need to go like wear trendy clothes and put makeup on. I think it’s more like what helps you feel good, right? And so yeah, for me, it was like, you know, I feel more vibrant, listening to music, my dad started taking drum lessons. So it’s like, Okay, I’m gonna get back into drum lessons. I just, like feel better. When I’m doing that. I’m gonna get outside, I’m going to make more of an effort to date, there might be an initial period where you are, you know, not wanting to do the dating apps, or like having some negative self talk around that. And sometimes you need a break, right? That was not the case in my story. So sometimes you need a little push. And sometimes it might be like, Hey, I don’t feel like doing this right now. But I’m going to do it anyways, I’m going to put some time in I’m going to put some effort in, and I’m going to go for it. Another thing I want to share from my story is being in alignment with yourself is also very relevant. So if you don’t like your job, and it’s sucking the life out of you, it’s probably not great for your libido. If you in my case, were living in Chicago and hate the winters, it’s probably not great, right? So then I did move to Puerto Rico felt a little bit more vibrant there. Now I’m living in Florida that’s feeling like the best fit so far. So sometimes there’s a change you need to make in your life, to feel more in alignment with yourself, you know, and lack of alignment can also be linked to depression, which we know is linked to low libido, right? So what I really want to drive home from this episode is look holistically at your life. What is draining you? What are you avoiding? What are you resisting? If you’re in a relationship, what’s going on in the relationship? Right? Is that a factor? Are you arguing? Is there a betrayal from years ago that you never got over? And these are obviously things that you know, a coach or therapist can help with as well, if you’re not sure, but I just kind of want to get you guys thinking outside the box. It can also be hormonal, right? Maybe you are breastfeeding, that actually tends to reduce libido. And I’m sure there’s evolutionary reasons why. So there are some hormonal things going on. Maybe you’ve gone through menopause recently. And that’s a factor, right? Maybe you’ve just had some life changes, and you kind of need to settle in or make some adjustments to your new life stage. I see lower libido is a lot and people who have small kids, and it’s just like they have so many new demands on their life that can be really hard to address. The other thing I want to mention, so we talked about spontaneous and responsive desire. I also want to mention kind of the brakes and the accelerators with your sex drive. So you actually might be someone who has a naturally pretty high sex drive, and I have seen this with clients, but you’re having a low sex drive now. That’s because the brakes are on. So it’s like no matter how hard the accelerator is pressed, if the brakes are on the car is not going anywhere. And so that becomes the detective work of like, how do we start figuring that out. And if that’s something you want to do some work on on your own. I love Emily Nagasaki’s workbook, it’s the calm as you are workbook, I’ll link to that in the show notes, which will help you start to do some of that digging on your own to figure out like, okay, when have I felt great with my sex drive, when do I feel more like turned off, or this is just not going to work for me. And a lot of that tends to go with our nervous system. So if our nervous system is in rest, digest mode, the parasympathetic mode, then we’re probably more open to sex. So relaxation is something that I see work for a lot of people, it’s almost like a prerequisite for sex. So if you’re in a relationship, where you tend to just kind of like go for it, or maybe just start like making out and doing some foreplay and go to intercourse, you might need to add in relaxation for 20 or 30 minutes as like a pre step, maybe it’s like, we’re gonna, like do some aromatherapy, we’re gonna give each other a little bit of massage, or even just like we’re gonna, you know, relax with each other, or whatever that is, even if it’s, you know, I don’t think watching TV is actually super relaxing. But you know, even just talking about our days a little bit, or just doing like, some light touching, that’s not sexual, to think about that too, because I think that’s often skipped as a step. The other thing I want to mention is, especially with some of that life stage stuff, except your current circumstances, right, except the things you cannot change, change the things you can, it’s normal for things to slow down. When you have younger kids, for example, I have an aunt and uncle who have a great connection. They’ve been married for over 30 years. And I was asking them about it a little bit because they’re just so kind of like cute and flirty with each other. And they’re like, yeah, we’ve just kind of had a great connection. But things did slow down a little bit with kids, but then when the kids were out of the house to pick back up, so adjust your expectations. You can’t expect it to be like what it was when you were dating. We’re going to talk about that more in the next episode, though, to keep the spark alive. So I hope you’ll join me in the next episode and check out that Mojo magic guidebook for low libido at Heather shannon.co forward slash freebies. Thank you my loves and I will catch you next time. Thank you for listening to the Ask a sex therapist podcast. Got a question about spicing things up in the bedroom. Find the answers you’re looking for in my dirty talk guide. A free resource for my podcast listeners. grab yours now. Heather shannon.co forward slash dirty talk. Again, that’s Heather shannon.co forward slash dirty talk. And be sure to tell your partner friends because everyone has something they would like to ask the sex therapist
