Uncategorized — Page 26 — Pleasure Mechanics

Transcript of Podcast Episode #348: Become A More Satisfied Mama with Dana B Myers

Podcast transcripts are generated with love by humans, and thus may not be 100% accurate. Time stamps are included so you can cross reference or jump to any point in the podcast episode above. THANKS to the members of our Pleasure Pod for helping make transcripts and the rest of our free offerings happen! If you love what we offer, find ways to show your love and dive deeper with us here: SHOW SOME LOVE

Chris Rose: 00:00 Welcome to Speaking of Sex with the Pleasure Mechanics. I’m Chris from pleasuremechanics.com. On today’s episode we are joined by Dana B. Myers to talk all about reclaiming our sexuality after becoming parents. This is a conversation near and dear to our hearts here at Pleasure Mechanics where our daughter is about to turn five-years-old, so we have been in the thick of it, and I know that this impacts so many of you all. Even if your kids are a little bit older, and you have emerged out of the new parenting haze, you will still get a lot out of this conversation about how we balance the identities and desires of ourselves as parents and as lovers, as erotic sexual beings.

Chris Rose: 00:56 For this episode, we mostly talk about heterosexual relationships, we talk about mothers and fathers, and we often default to talking about the mother as the primary caretaker. I just want to acknowledge as in our home families can look all different ways, and I want to affirm all over the queer families out there, all of the stay-at-home dads, all of the single parents, all of our beautiful families and relationships that don’t fit into neat boxes. In this conversation, as we talk in this particular language of heterosexual relationships and mothers and fathers, I hope you find space in that conversation to find your own experience as I did.

Chris Rose: 01:44 I am very much a mother, but I was not the primary caretaker. I didn’t breastfeed, I didn’t carry the child, and Charlotte’s different role really impacted her experience over the last five years, and we need to create space to acknowledge the different roles we play in raising our children, and the different loads that those roles create, and then the different load it crates on perhaps the partner who is going back to work and is responsible for the financial well-being of the house. That’s a different kind of caretaking role that has its own pressures and stresses that can also show up in the bedroom.

Chris Rose: 02:23 This is one conversation out of lots of possible conversations about how parenting and other family relationships impact our sexuality, but it gets us started. It gets us started in tearing down the narratives that tell us becoming parents ruins our sex life forever. One of the things I love about Dana is she insists on another option. She holds the vision, like we do, that pleasure and eroticism and our relationship to sexuality can be fuel for the rest of our lives. We love this concept. We even have stickers that say pleasure is fuel because we believe so fully that by embracing more pleasure, and joy, and connection we gain access to the energy, and resources, and interconnectedness that allow us to be better parents, spouses, co-workers, and friends.

Chris Rose: 03:25 I hope you enjoy this conversation with Dana. At the end of the conversation she will be inviting you into her new program, The Satisfied Mama, and you’ll find out how to get her free webinars and videos, so you can really dive deep with her and discover if she is an ally and resource for you along your erotic path. All right, here is my conversation about sex after becoming parents with Dana B. Myers. Cheers.

Chris Rose: 03:58 Dana B. Myers, welcome to Speaking of Sex.

Dana B. Myers: 04:01 Thanks so much, Chris. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Chris Rose: 04:04 Can you get us started by introducing yourself and the work that you do?

Dana B. Myers: 04:08 Yeah, sure. I am Dana B. Myers. I’m an author. I’m an entrepreneur in the sexual wellness industry. I found the brand Booty Parlor about 15 years ago, and we’re still going strong. I’m a coach. I’m a mother of two. I’m a wife, and I’m a sexy woman.

Chris Rose: 04:29 Yes, and you help us be all of those things at once.

Dana B. Myers: 04:34 I do. The work that I do really either with the brand Booty Parlor or with my books, which are under the title of the Mojo Makeover, is really just help women feel more confident, more in touch with their desires, and then translate that into sexier, more satisfied relationships and sex lives as well.

Chris Rose: 04:58 Our culture is full of jokes and assumptions about the idea that being a parent will kill your sex life, and we all know like sleep depravation, and caretaking and the stress of parenting can take a major toll, but you have a different vision of what is possible.

Dana B. Myers: 05:18 I do because I’ve been on the dark side, and I didn’t like it. It’s really interesting. So much of my identity, and my happiness, and my vitality is tied to my sensuality and my connection to pleasure. Obviously, I started a business because of this love for pleasure, and beauty and femininity and wrote books because of it, and then when I began having children, I really came up against the blocks that you just spoke of, the things that parenthood is where your sex life goes to die, and I thought, “Well, there’s no way that’s going to happen to me. It’s impossible.”

Dana B. Myers: 06:01 But the sleep depravation, the protracted exhaustion, the breakdown of what you once knew to be your relationship it goes to this morphing phase, and if you’re not paying attention and nurturing it as you’re learning to become parents as you’re nurturing a child, resentment can creep in. Resentment is a boner-killer for everybody. Resentment can really burn down your relationship. Resentment is like on the opposite side of the spectrum from attraction. It’s not just the exhaustion, the first blocks that you think of when you have kids. It’s also the mental load of motherhood, the constant thinking about the child, what’s right for the child from all the details, from what to feed them to where to send them to school, to worrying about their future in this crazy world with everything that’s happening in society and politics.

Dana B. Myers: 07:06 I often refer to that zone as being stuck in the mom zone. You become a mother all the time, and you forget that you’re a sensual being living in a sensual body with sensual desires. Having experienced that, I thought, “Well, this stinks. I don’t want it. I see all my friends experiencing it. I see women in the community experiencing it, so let’s do something about it.” Please join in here. I feel like if you use it, motherhood has all this rich, expansive wisdom that you can integrate into your sensuality, and relationship, and your sexuality if you let it, but it does take some intention, and some work, and focus, but I believe that sensuality, and pleasure, and great communication, and intimacy can really be the rocket fuel that actually powers you through the marathon of motherhood and parenting.

Chris Rose: 08:11 Whoa, that is a different invitation.

Dana B. Myers: 08:15 Right.

Chris Rose: 08:18 As you were developing these strategies, you were in a community with hundreds of women online talking about these issues. We all know the main culprits that take us away from our sexuality, and you really talk about sensuality, and that’s so important. Let’s talk about how those two interact. What are some of the unexpected struggles that we don’t talk about often enough that aren’t named and yet we see as patterns?

Dana B. Myers: 08:51 The two big ones that immediately come to mind are this experience of, “Whose body is this? What body am I in? Whose body is this? I’m not sure I recognize it anymore. I’m not sure I like it. Maybe it’s functioning differently. There’s other humans who need my body,” and all the challenges that that brings, everything from hormonal changes to feeling all touched out, from that delicious, sweet nurturing physical exchange you have with your children, but then you’re filled up on physical touch, and so there’s nothing. There’s no desire left for touch from your partner in any kind of other way.

Dana B. Myers: 09:33 I would say body confidence or learning to love and be in your body again after you have children. The other one, I said it before, is resentment. No one tells you that this person that you love so much that you can so quickly be simmering in resentment towards them. The tricky thing about resentment is that you could have even the most helpful partner, a partner that you love and adore, and you can still feel this resentment because you feel they have more freedom than you do to leave the house. If you’re the primary caregiver, they have more freedom to go and do. They go back to work. Their life carries on mostly as normal. Their body hasn’t changed, but there’s this resentment, and it’s so toxic.

Dana B. Myers: 10:27 Resentment is so, so toxic. It can poison your relationship so quickly if you don’t take care of it. I talk about eight different problems in my book and in the programs, but I would say those are two big ones that you want to address first in order to clear some space. Also, I’m going to add a third. Hold on. I’m going to add a third. It’s loss of freedom. I just never really pinpointed it in any kind of a conscious way. I never knew how sexy my freedom made me feel. I used to live in New York City. The freedom to wander down the street at dusk interacting with strangers, having interesting conversations, looking at street art, or just going to a book reading or anything, that freedom to experience the world as a sovereign adult who could make choices for themselves all day. That freedom was a real turn on for me, and I think for many women.

Dana B. Myers: 11:30 When suddenly that freedom gets limited, you kind of wonder, “Wait, why do I feel this way?” Well, it’s a loss of freedom. I think that’s something that no one really tells you about because it is a little bit tricky to actually pinpoint and identify.

Chris Rose: 11:47 How do you give yourself permission to get this freedom back? How do you assess when is the right time to start thinking about these things again? In our experience our daughter is about to turn five. I think just in the past year that we’re emerging out of what has felt like the parental tunnel.

Dana B. Myers: 12:08 Yeah, and that’s a long tunnel.

Chris Rose: 12:11 I think some people think, “Oh, six weeks you’ll have your sex life back.” I think that’s just really unrealistic.

Dana B. Myers: 12:14 It’s so unrealistic.

Chris Rose: 12:20 How do we give ourselves a pathway back, or not even back, forward? I think you did a great job reminding us it’s not going back to our pre-baby body, our pre-baby relationship, or our pre-baby freedom. We have to carve out something new.

Dana B. Myers: 12:37 Totally. Well, of course, with any change it’s going to start with mindset, giving yourself the permission to take your freedom. In one way that could sound like, “Oh, mom’s leaving. She’s off on [inaudible 00:12:55] road trip.” No I’m talking about taking bite-sized doses of freedom and defining what that means to you, so you got to give yourself permission. You have to acknowledge that you need it, and then you got to give yourself permission to take it, and then you got to put a plan in place to actually make it happen. There’s something that I call the mommy pop-out. It’s one of my favorite things. Popping out, people.

Chris Rose: 13:21 Charlotte just after reading your book came down and was like, “I’m going on a mommy pop-out.”

Dana B. Myers: 13:25 Yeah, it’s the best thing ever. It gives you this incredible dose of freedom. The pop-out what it does … The Pop-out is like a two-hour excursion out of the house to do whatever it is that you want to do. I don’t recommend it, but even if it’s just going to Target and getting toilet paper. You’re still there alone, and that is still a treat. But it’s really a two-hour break from what I have always perceived as being the most exhausting part of the day, which is that 6:30 to 8:30 window where you’ve already had a long day either mothering, working or both, but then you’ve got to do dinnertime, and dishes, and bathtime, and the whole routine, and bedtime, and books and all of that.

Dana B. Myers: 14:13 It really leaves so many mothers completely spent, so that when the kids are finally in bed, all you want to do is just collapse on the couch, you know, Netflix and not really chill if chill means have sex. What you want to do is plan for your great escape during that window and just go out and exist as a woman in the world interacting with other people. Go sit at a bar and strike up a conversation with a stranger, or go take a yoga class, or go to a book reading, or go to the mall. Just go and do something that makes you feel like a woman. It doesn’t have to be extreme.

Dana B. Myers: 14:53 Really, in making this happen you just have to talk to your partner or set up some sort of a plan that allows you to go without the guilt. If you’re worried about what they’re going to eat for dinner, then set up what they’re going to eat for dinner and make it earlier and put in the fridge and give the babysitter the instructions, or tell your partner, “Listen, I’m leaving at 6:00 because my class is at 6:15. I need you home. Will you be home at 5:45 so that I can leave the house? I won’t be in a panic, so I can go and experience this mommy pop-out for myself.”

Dana B. Myers: 15:34 The beauty of this is that whoever you get to help you, and hopefully it’s your partner. When you come home, and they see how relaxed, and filled up and hopefully turned on by some kind of interaction that you’ve seen. I don’t even mean sexually turned on, although maybe hopefully. Just turned on by life. Turned on by remembering that you can be a free woman in the world even if it’s just for two hours. What it does is because you haven’t exhausted yourself with that bedtime routine, then you actually have energy when you come home, so you have energy maybe to make love, or maybe to play a game with your partner, or maybe to just sit and connect and maybe practice touch without expectation.

Dana B. Myers: 16:29 It becomes this beautiful pattern. Maybe every Wednesday night is your mommy pop-out, and your partner knows and sees how it makes you feel, so they become more willing and enthusiastic to step up and help you make sure that freedom really happens for you.

Chris Rose: 16:48 I think it’s important for women to remember that this might feel awkward at first. Your first mommy pop-out you might be thinking about your kids the whole time, and you have to keep letting yourself get further and further away from that mom zone.

Dana B. Myers: 17:05 I’m so glad you brought that up because a woman I was coaching said to me, “Out of everything, this is what I’m most nervous about.” I said, “Why?” She said, “Well, A, I haven’t flirted with anyone in years.” She wanted to go out and sit at a bar and flirt with the [inaudible 00:17:22]. That was her thing. She wanted that experience. She’d be like, “I don’t even know what that means for me anymore.” I said, “Well, let’s start with the permission. Let’s always go back to the permission, and then let’s just say, ‘What’s the worst thing that could happen?’ You have a good conversation, great.” “He wants your phone number.” “Well, you would just say, ‘No, thanks. I’m married. I’m going home to my husband and my child.”

Dana B. Myers: 17:52 If you set up a plan to tackle your fears or your objections, and you take a deep breath, and you step in bravely, even if you just baby step like you said baby step your way to more and more freedom in that moment, the benefits really outweigh the fears. We do that out of practice at being these kind of sovereign women in the world because we’re so committed to our families and our role. I think we take mothering more seriously than anything else even if we’re really passionate entrepreneurs, or workers or everything else that we are. I think we feel so guilty because we take motherhood so seriously, but with practice, the fears to take these pop-outs they really do dissolve, and they just become really one of the highlights of your week.

Chris Rose: 18:46 One of the things you really remind us is that you can’t just do these techniques. You really have to embody them, so it’s not just about putting on lingerie.

Dana B. Myers: 18:54 Totally.

Chris Rose: 18:54 It’s about feeling differently in a new outfit.

Dana B. Myers: 19:00 Absolutely.

Chris Rose: 19:01 Can you talk about how you experience these practices of embodiment and how you make sure they’re not just performative?

Dana B. Myers: 19:09 Yes, totally. You know what’s interesting is before I was nervous about the tech for this interview. I was trying to get my mic ready, and I thought, “I don’t want to bring technology nervousness to this interview.” I had 10 minutes, and I put on my music. I have a playlist called move it or lose it. When I know I’m about to lose my mind, I turn on my music, and I move my body. I turned on some music. I stood in my nervousness, and I move my body until I move through it and until I found that physical calm and that physical confidence that I know I have that I knew I wanted to bring to you guys.

Dana B. Myers: 19:50 Embodying these feelings of confidence, of sensuality it is a practice. It brings up a story that … Where I really first started practicing being in my body I was 21. I was living in New York City, and it was right after 9/11. No, I was a little bit older than 21, but it was right after 9/11, and things were stressful. I noticed that I was turning on my body. I noticed that I was having negative thoughts about my thighs or my tummy. I remember looking in the mirror and having this like almost as if I was outside of myself scolding my body, diminishing my body.

Dana B. Myers: 20:37 I thought, “This is crazy,” so I took myself to another mirror, and I wrapped my arms around myself, and I looked in my eyes, and I just started saying, “I love you.” I just was really hugging myself and almost acting as if I was my own best friend. That practice I’ve taken with me whether I’m in regulars, or I’m in lingerie. I stand in the mirror, and I stand in my discomfort if I’m having it. I stand in my nervousness if I’m having it. Maybe I’m standing in anger if I’m having it or guilt if I’ve lost my patience at my kids. I put myself in the mirror, and I look at myself, and I feel the emotion that I’m feeling. If I have to forgive myself, I forgive myself for that feeling, for that experience.

Dana B. Myers: 21:30 If I need to celebrate myself, I celebrate myself, but really, I stand there until I feel good. I stand there until I feel good. I do love lingerie because, for me, it helps me see my body. It helps me prepare. It helps me transition from being a wound up mom and entrepreneur who’s been juggling roles between working my brand and being a mom all day. It helps me transition back into the sensual woman that I know is always there but sometimes needs that transition period, needs that standing in my body, standing in that mirror, standing in the moment to transition.

Chris Rose: 22:19 Charlotte has always had a practice. If we have a date scheduled, and we’re going to make love, she often takes time alone. She’ll take a bath, and then she’ll do self-massage, and then she’ll dance. It always feels like a really generous gift because by the time we come together she’s already in her body. She’s feeling good. She’s feeling relaxed.

Dana B. Myers: 22:39 Absolutely.

Chris Rose: 22:41 We often talk about this. For those of us who this feels like really far away from, do you have favorite beginner practices to step into this joyful, playful relationship with the senses?

Dana B. Myers: 22:56 Well, I think that you start where you are. If you feel awkward, then stand in your awkwardness. Celebrate your awkwardness. I think the discomfort sometimes comes from feeling, “I have to be somebody else’s version of sexy, or I have to be someone else’s of sensual.” You don’t. You have to figure out what it is to you. If it’s awkward and goofy, great. If you’re comfortable in the kitchen, then find your sensuality in the kitchen. Cut up fruits that feel sensual to you. Make something wonderful and let the pride in your food help you feel confident and then take that confidence to being like, “Well, actually, my confidence in my food is sexy. That must mean I’m sexy.”

Dana B. Myers: 23:48 I think it’s about something that you do feel connected with within yourself. Maybe it’s music, and it’s being with that sense. Maybe it’s food, the visuals of food, the scent of food. Maybe you love to dance, but maybe you think you’re an awkward dancer. It doesn’t matter. I think do something you love and be fully in it and then try connecting the dots for your love of that pleasure, that activity into your senses, into your sensuality.

Chris Rose: 24:23 We often say if you can’t find a desire, find a curiosity. That is one [crosstalk 00:24:28] you can follow.

Dana B. Myers: 24:29 I love that.

Chris Rose: 24:30 I also really love you remind us. You use this word sexy comfy.

Dana B. Myers: 24:34 Yes.

Chris Rose: 24:34 You don’t always have to be in full lingerie to feel sexy, but sometimes getting out of the flannel pajama bottoms may change how we feel in our bodies. For some, like for me, sexy comfy is boxers and a cute tank top. That makes [inaudible 00:24:51]. For some people it’ll be a slip dress. It’s really the authenticity because if I put on a slip dress, I would just feel awkward, so finding your sexy, and that it might be different than it was before you had kids.

Dana B. Myers: 25:09 Absolutely.

Chris Rose: 25:10 This might be a new archetype you’re stepping into, a new version of yourself and letting yourself be curious. There’s an excitement and change. We often think about the change of our sex lives as this loss. We look back at the lusty phase of our relationship and want to feel that newness and the excitement, but when you’re looking across to the father of your children, there’s a different set of emotions.

Dana B. Myers: 25:37 Totally. Well, it’s interesting. What you said just brought up this conversation that I had with someone who said … This was at a workshop for moms, and she said, “You know, all of this sounds great, but I have a lazy libido. My husband has a lazy libido, and we both are kind of okay with that.” I said, “But then let’s just try to make the quality of the sex that you’re having or the quality of the connection that you’re having even more interesting.”

Dana B. Myers: 26:08 If the frequency of your sex life is okay, but you still feel like something’s missing, well, maybe just exploring and being curious about the quality. If you feel like your bedroom style, if you want to get out of those maternity jammies. I wore my maternity jammies forever until I decided to burn them, and I just thought, “Okay, I’m not going to walk around the house in a tight teddy, or a thigh-high stocking with garters, but what’s the next evolution? What’s the in-between?”

Dana B. Myers: 26:41 I also think that that’s the thing with parenting, and sex life and intimacy is that your sense of sexuality, and the actual quality, and frequency and creativity of your sex life it’s going to be different from when your child is six months and then maybe when they start sleeping, and they’re a year old, and you’re more rested. You have a chance to keep reinventing it. You have a chance to evolve it. And then when they go to school full-time you have even more time, more freedom, more space, more mental space.

Dana B. Myers: 27:13 I think keeping this idea, as you said, of curiosity and continual evolution. There’s no hard or fast rules, but I always say that two parents who are getting their love needs met make for really happy kids. You look at the stats, which is scary. It’s like 40% of people get divorced, and it’s interesting because I’m 43, and I can see it. There’s relationships within my circle that have started to breakdown, and it’s real. It’s not just a statistic. It actually happens, and you think, “Well, I don’t want that. I love this person. I can see how easily it is for things to breakdown, but let’s keep nurturing this. Let’s keep working on this. Let’s keep our communication open. Let’s keep trying new things. I’m going to keep improving myself while you keep improving yourself. Let’s see where this could go.”

Chris Rose: 28:10 You just mentioned that we work on ourselves, and then we bring that self to the relationship. How much of this work do you consider internal individual work, and how much of it is relational?

Dana B. Myers: 28:23 That’s a great question. I think both people have to put the work in. I’m not going to say it’s 50/50 because I believe that in my experience there are things that women will blame their partners for, but when they do get a bit more introspective, and they do during the work they think, and they realize, “Oh, okay, that was me having negative beliefs. That was me living in the luck. That was me having a mindset that wasn’t about choice. I was stuck in the chore mindset. I was stuck in the obligation mindset instead of feeling like this relationship could be an opportunity.”

Dana B. Myers: 29:14 Of course, both partners have to do the work, but I do believe that when a mother does the work on herself that her partner will follow along, and that her energy and her growth is the one who creates the domino effect. But both partners have to step up. If one partner is super open to communicate, and the other is into the cold-shouldering or struggles to communicate their desires, well, then how can the other partner read them? Of course, it has to be somewhat equal.

Chris Rose: 29:55 One of the things I was thinking about as I asked that question is I often feel like women wait to be desired in order to let their sexuality wake up. You are so great at encouraging us to wake ourselves up, live in our own bodies as sensual, erotic women and come to our relationship from that place.

Dana B. Myers: 30:18 Absolutely. That’s just part of my whole mantra of ownership and using my own sensuality as rocket fuel and seeing the power of that. A couple of things with that. As I go throughout the day, I’m constantly looking for turn-ons. I’m looking for sensual inputs because I would rather be having my own little fantasy while I’m waiting at my kid’s Muay Thai class than watching five-year-olds do Muay Thai. Do you know what I mean?

Dana B. Myers: 30:58 Maybe one of the other kid’s dad is cute and catches my eye. Well, maybe I’ll drift off into a fantasy, or maybe I’m walking by a flower store, and I stop, and I pause, and I look at the way that the flowers in the window are blooming, and I imagine my own flower blooming at the touch of a lover. For me, I want to be in that sensual zone all day long. It doesn’t mean that I’m not getting things done. It means that I’m getting things done in a more sensual and present way. I’m in a happier place because I’m feeling my senses.

Dana B. Myers: 31:39 It’s the same thing. It’s why I put on a little makeup in the morning because I take that moment to look at myself in the mirror. It’s why I put on some lip gloss and think about a sexy kiss that my husband and I had on a weekend vacation that we may have taken. For me, it is about constantly keeping my own turn on at the forefront of my mind, and my body and my daily experience simply because I’d rather be in pleasure than I would be in irritation. The daily grind of motherhood there’s a lot of things to become irritated about.

Chris Rose: 32:16 That piece that people miss because we talk about this a lot and about where we place our attention matters. I think sometimes people worry that if we allow pleasure in and if we allow ourselves to be sensual, we lose our ability to be rational. What we find as we do these practices, as you said, it frees up this energy because you haven’t been wasting your worry or your anxiety, and so when something comes up, you deal with it. I think as moms we really need to remember this that going for a mommy pop-out, putting the kids down in front of TV and going into the room for an hour alone the world will not end.

Dana B. Myers: 33:02 Totally. Your brains will not be fried.

Chris Rose: 33:05 If situations come up, we deal with it with more resources.

Dana B. Myers: 33:10 Absolutely. There’s no point in operating from a place of depletion. These little pleasure inputs, these little hits, these little doses of pleasure throughout the day are really what fill us up and allow us to operate from a more sane, patient, present and vital position instead of feeling like we’re at our wits’ end with frayed nerves.

Chris Rose: 33:33 Exactly, yeah.

Dana B. Myers: 33:35 Lastly, what I would say is that I know with certainty for me that so many other women that I’ve worked with that allowing yourself to fully explore all facets of yourself as a woman be it religious, spiritual, physical, your fitness, your nutrition, your professional life, your sexuality. Allowing yourself to explore all of them, including your sexuality, gives you more satisfaction. It makes you feel more free. It makes you feel more fulfilled. How can that be a bad thing? How can it be a bad thing? To feel more fulfilled will absolutely bring more patience, presence, vitality, and spark to who you are as a mother and to your children.

Chris Rose: 34:25 And we don’t lose the love for our children after an orgasm.

Dana B. Myers: 34:28 No, we always have more. I’m such a more patient mother after I’ve had an orgasm. I’m like, “Oh babies, come here. Let me cuddle with you,” whereas beforehand I’m like, “No, I need time alone.” Once I’ve had that orgasm with myself or with my partner, then I do. I’m so much available to them because I don’t feel like I have to give. I don’t feel like a mother. I feel like I’ve had mine, and so I have more of me to give.

Chris Rose: 35:01 Fill that well.

Dana B. Myers: 35:03 Awesome.

Chris Rose: 35:04 How do you weave this kind of warm up? We talk about staying warm, so it’s easier to get hot.

Dana B. Myers: 35:10 Yeah, I love that.

Chris Rose: 35:11 How do you weave that practice in with your partner? What are some of the ways you can flirt even if your kids are around?

Dana B. Myers: 35:19 Oh yeah, I love that. Look, there’s really cliched ways to flirt. You can leave each other love notes. What I like to do is like a six second lingering kiss, and we do it in front of the kids. It’s so funny now that they’re six and nine. They’re starting to say, “Ew.” And then it gives us an opportunity to add a little bit of the heavier playful passionate element onto it like a movie kiss, and we make them even more squeamish.

Dana B. Myers: 35:50 We like to show our affection in front of them, but another really simple way to flirt that I think we miss out on when we become mothers, and we do it for our kids all the time, we show up to show support. We show up to their classroom recitals. We show up to their karate classes. We show up and watch them, but we don’t really do that for our senses. To show up and show support is a really mature, modern way to flirt as parents. If your partner has a sales presentation, or if they play tennis and they’ve got a match, or they even play in a group, just show up. It shows them that you’re still interested.

Dana B. Myers: 36:32 Another way to flirt, this is like an epidemic in this era of Netflix and devices and so many choices, is that parents tend to separate at night and go in opposite directions, “Well, I want to watch this show. I’ll watch it on my iPad. You want to watch that show. You’ll be in the living room.” Many parents have lost this touch point at night of sitting down and connecting and sharing interests. Maybe one night a week say, “Let’s not separate. Let’s do this thing together, and let’s not it be in front of a screen. Let’s play a game together. Let’s have a glass of wine together. Let’s cook a dinner together after the kids are down,” and just some simple intentional ways to invite paying attention to one another and to invite some touch and to invite a little bit of romance invitation.

Chris Rose: 37:26 I really appreciate how you talk about really building a lifestyle around the erotic life you want to live. So many people run around crazy, and then they get to the bedroom, and they’re like, “Why isn’t this working?”

Dana B. Myers: 37:38 Totally. You’re absolutely right. You got to keep things warm, so that it’s easy to get hot. For me, again, it’s a way of life. I think some women and mothers say, “Well, wait, if I start to show the sensuality, if I start to do like you said it’s rocket fuel, does that mean that my husband and partner is going to think that I want sex all the time?” That’s a worry. That’s an official worry. What I always say is no. It’s up to you and your partner to create a framework, a frequency that works for both.

Dana B. Myers: 38:24 If he thinks you should be having sex four times a week, and you’d like to have sex twice a week, then come together. Sketch it out on a piece of paper, make it fun, and create a framework that works for you both, which might be three times a week. It might be one long free session, it might be one quickie, and it might be one maybe you’re offering. Maybe you’re offering some manual or oral pleasure. If you’re not in the mood, you can still offer, and so you create this framework and a sense of communication where you’re finding a structure that works for both of you.

Dana B. Myers: 39:04 I think that structure for parents especially in these crazy, busy lives where we’re so involved as parents, and we’re also trying to live these other lives as professionals and humans. Without a framework, I think it’s very easy for sex to go so far back on the back burner. Then one partner feels unhappy about the frequency. The other one feels guilty. If you just come together and talk about it, “How can we co-create a sex life that feels really good to us both right now?” It might change in a month or six months but right now, and come at it from this place of teamwork like team spirit. Then everyone’s needs will be met.

Dana B. Myers: 39:55 I understand that the open communication can feel scary at first, but once you start communicating, you reduce that whole icky expectation rejection cycle where he hopes and expects. I say he because this is very stereotypical; men want more, women want less. I don’t necessarily agree with that, but we’re just talking stereotypically here and what happens to parents. He’s ready to go. He wants more. She wants less. Well, she rejects him, or he feels rejected, and then it creates just an unhappy cycle, but if you can talk about it and talk about what can work for you now with a sense of openness and acknowledgement that things can and will change and evolve, then you’re really setting the ground for a very healthy intimacy and satisfaction.

Chris Rose: 40:52 Now, what do you say to the women who warm themselves up, and they get fired up, and then they turn to their male partners, and they’re not raring and ready to go, and they actually pull away from advances? Because the [crosstalk 00:41:07] of men being always ready, especially as men get older and are under financial pressures. Men are not always ready, and then that can create its own rejection cycle.

Dana B. Myers: 41:20 Absolutely. Well, what I would probably say is if you’re really burning with desire, don’t lose that and feeling rejected. Go have a solo session, get out a toy, turn on some music, have an amazing orgasm with yourself.

Chris Rose: 41:34 [inaudible 00:41:34].

Dana B. Myers: 41:36 Always. So that you don’t waste that yummy desire and then create a framework. Maybe he needs to know when you want to make love so that he can prepare himself as well. We always talk about women needing that transition time to mentally and physically get ourselves in the zone, but he might need to know so that he can put his work stress away or so that he can disconnect from the financial worries he may be having and say, “I want to create this moment with my partner. Let me put that away. Let me rise up to it.”

Dana B. Myers: 42:09 Again, I think it all boils down to communication. I know that when Charlie springs an invitation for sex on me, it can be hard for me to respond with burning lust, but if I have a little bit of knowledge that his invitation is coming or a hint, then I can prepare myself for it. I can prepare myself all day with sensual inputs. Maybe I’ll spend a moment with my vibrator to just wake myself up. Especially if I’m very stressed, I’ll wake myself up with it in the morning and then be ready for a session at night. There’s ways and ways, but again, I think it all boils down to brave communication.

Chris Rose: 42:51 I love your reminders here that it’s really a lifestyle that you create out of daily attitudes and behaviors. All of this is choice, and we build it into our lives with baby steps over time. You’ve been working with women for 15 years in-person, coaching, online, and you have gathered all of the strategies and techniques that have worked for your community into a new online program, which we are so excited for. You gave us preview access, and Charlotte and I were dancing around the house. I’m so happy that this program is out there because it’s so important. Will you tell us a little bit about the program and who it’s for?

Dana B. Myers: 43:33 Yeah, totally. I’m super excited. I’m so excited that you love it. It’s called The Satisfied Mama. As you said, it’s an online course. It’s got video classes, exercises, lessons, tools, couples exercises, solo exercises. It’s a lifestyle program that helps moms really confidently rediscover themselves after having kids, reconnect with their bodies in a really sensual way, and then also reignite the spark, and intimacy and communication in their relationship.

Dana B. Myers: 44:07 I think that if I had to boil it down, the program is really about loving yourself as a mother and loving yourself enough not to lose yourself. We talked about motherhood being like the hardest, craziest, most life-changing identity shaking experience there is. Intimacy in your relationship can be really damaged with resentment, and so this program is not just about rebuilding yourself and finding your desire again in a really fun, beautiful, exploratory way. It’s about reinventing your relationship so that it becomes new and fresh while also really deepening the intimacy, and communication and connection.

Chris Rose: 44:56 Why satisfied mama instead of sassy or turned on? Why satisfied?

Dana B. Myers: 45:02 Oh, I love that. I love that question. I think the word satisfied just encompasses so much. Well, A, it’s never about being sexy. It’s about feeling sexy for me, but the word satisfied means that I’m more satisfied as a mother, that I feel that I’ve learned to balance my instinct to mother in the fullest way with the instinct to live as a woman in the fullest way. It’s not that I want to have the most sex. It’s I want to have the most satisfying sex, and that can mean so many different things to me on any given day. To me, the word satisfied felt the most whole. It felt the most embodied. It felt the most grounded to me.

Chris Rose: 45:58 I love it. We all want to be satisfied.

Dana B. Myers: 46:03 Yeah, who doesn’t want to feel satisfied?

Chris Rose: 46:05 Yes, and it’s personal. It’s authentic to each individual.

Dana B. Myers: 46:09 Absolutely. Within every lesson it’s truly about finding what works for you. This is not cookie-cutter. This is truly about finding what works for you for your unique personality, your unique lever of sensuality and also your unique relationship and relationship dynamics. There’s lots of juicy stuff. I think it’s going to be super fun and also produce really life-changing, expansive, exciting, satisfying results for every woman who puts herself into it.

Chris Rose: 46:45 Dana B. Myers, thank you so much for paving the way to more satisfied parenthood. I really appreciate your work.

Dana B. Myers: 46:52 Thank you so much for the support, and you’re included in our resources page, so everyone who comes and joins me will also get some access to you as well.

Chris Rose: 47:02 All right. I hope you enjoyed our conversation with Dana B. Myers. If you are inspired by her warmth and wisdom, use the links in the show notes page to continue your explorations with her and to find out more about her upcoming courses online. All right, we will be back next week with another episode of Speaking of Sex with the Pleasure Mechanics. You can find our complete podcast archive at pleasuremechanics.com. While you are there, sign up for our free online course, The Erotic Essentials, at pleasuremechanics.com/free. All right, I am Chris from pleasuremechanics.com wishing you a lifetime of pleasure. Cheers.