E144: Intimacy Rituals

E144: Mindful Intimacy with Viv Kan

From Yoni anatomy, to intimacy rituals with ourselves, and with our partners, Viv teaches us so much incredible wisdom…

[1:32] Valerie LaVIgne: Welcome back to The Women's Empowerment Podcast. I am very excited to welcome Viv Kan today to the show. This is a mindfulness coach who helps busy individuals transform their intimate relationships by connecting the mind, body, breath, and yoni. Our mission is to help women and couples deepen their connection with the self and others through normalizing and educating the practice of mindful intimacy, pleasure and desire. I love all of that, I think this is so amazing.

And I have to say, I, I know I've mentioned this to you before, but I love the way you approach this topic, I love the, the gentleness, the femininity, the, the care behind your, your approach and your business so I need to know because, so let me backtrack, let me backtrack a lot I'm getting excited, Viv and I met at our mindfulness, health coaching training.

Four years ago now four years I want to say?

Viv Kan: yeah, yeah,

VL: we met in Mexico. It's been a while since we both been coaches for a while, so I love seeing the people from our program and seeing how they've taken this mindful health coaching.

I will probably all have that same kind of foundational education but we've done our own thing in a different way. So, as you know, I'm habits coach I talk about healthy habits, and you work with this mindful intimacy, so I need to know how did we get to this point.

VK: How much time do we have?

VL: As much time as you take it. Coles notes is good too.

VK: Yeah, coles notes version. Well okay first of all thank you for having me. And it's so good to be here on your podcast I'm honored. And I love just seeing what you've done, and you're such an inspiration as well so let's just get started with that. And for the audience who are listening as a mindfulness coach to start.

I started helping corporate individuals, and also corporate wellness in terms of employees and I noticed that, okay, you really want to perform very well at work you want to be efficient and want to be productive, killing it up work careers going good. All right, so then you give so much on your of your energy at work and then you get home and you are completely depleted, and I can really experience this myself, when I was in a corporate environment before I became a mindfulness coach that I was just at zero battery. When I got home, and the relationships we have in our life and the quality of those relationships really help determine the quality of our well being. Overall, so yes great relationship at work could be pretty good. But what about your personal relationships, and the fact that I see people get so disconnected between their minds and our bodies. It is a whole phenomenon. Now, we are constantly stimulated in all these other ways in our minds and getting constantly distracted losing our focus can't concentrate. Even sensations in the body and tension in the body, we tend to ignore.

And so when we get home, we have that 1% of battery left for ourselves, and left for our partners and left with our families. And that is a big issue. So it really started with that and understanding that's the disconnect really happening in our personal lives. Effects are holistic wellbeing.

[5:38] VL: Wow. Yeah, I mean, I feel like, wow, yeah, I mean, I feel like that's all very true for a lot of people.

Definitely I think that this, we live in a time that the work is very prioritized, I would say. And you know, you are expected to be that high level employee or coworker or boss or whatever your role is in the workplace, I'm doing air quotes workplace. And you're right, like, yes, there's an abundance of energy in the world. Yes, people are burnt out, they're feeling that depletion and who really suffers not only yourself, but the people in your home and your partner. So,

this is so important for a lot of people, a lot of women as well. Yeah, I think women, so just like pulling out women now, the expectation goes beyond. Now we have to work even harder in the workplace. Yet, we were also expected to also be that maternal partner Mother, you know homemaker, whatever the case may be, there is even more of an expectation. So, yeah, yeah, you're hitting the nail on the head.

VK: Yeah and I love that you emphasize women, because when we have this amazing career, and we want to obviously be self-sufficient, independent financially stable, as a woman.

There is a lot of masculine energy. There's a lot of masculine energy. A little bit of the aggressiveness in our career.

We're going really fast pace, especially, you know I'm in Hong Kong, so this is a very busy city. It's a busy city that doesn't stop. And there's all this masculine energy that we are putting on ourselves and we're putting out into the world. And so you get to work. You have a whole day at work, and then you might pick up the groceries, and they have to maybe prepare dinner and then maybe clean, and then when you get home and get into bed, then you're supposed to be this. Sex Kitten in bed and supposed to tap miraculously tap into your feminine energy, and I'm not saying that masculine energy is not good for females because we need masculine energy in our life. However, feminine energy and I love vow that you pose a lot of feminine and masculine energy I love that content that you post, we need a balance, right, and I know you can vouch for that masculine feminine energy needs to have a bit of a balance but with what we are trying to achieve in our lives. Most of the time, the masculine energy dominates and it's hard for us to then tap into that feminine energy softening into that energy slowing down, getting more sensual feeling the sensations of our body breathing, loving, opening. And I think a lot of times people have lost that touch in our lives.

[8:55] VL: Mm hmm. Yeah, thank you for saying that I do like to share about creating a balance, and I think it actually stems from the sort of looking for preventative, so it's like the preventative way of not leading to burnout, and that's through balance. So, you know, there's, there are times when our energy might be overly feminine, and that actually can be really slow, and you know, there is like lack of clarity in the goal, right so there's room for like what you said both masculine and feminine energy so I love that, that we're talking about that today. Now, I've got to be honest, I feel like you're going to jump right into it. This is not a topic so first of all, I'm so excited that you're here because you are the first guest that I've had on the show to talk about intimacy, and I, I don't think that I talked about this enough, even with my own, you know, personal friend network like I, I don't hear this conversation enough and I feel like there are a lot of taboo conversations out there that are becoming a little bit more normal. For example, money, money, I find is becoming a little bit more of a normal conversation especially with women. But I don't hear this as much. And I don't know why that is and maybe you can share why this conversation seems to be so taboo. How can we have these conversations with our friends, how can we normalize this?

VK: So, the reason could be partly, you know from a lot of research and, as, as a female growing up. What did we learn in sex ed. I mean I, we, we both grew up in Canada right so we learned in sex ed, at least in Canada, how to not get STDs or STI, how to not get pregnant. How to put on a condom, and maybe a little bit of our menstrual cycle, but that's pretty much it.

We didn't learn the pleasure centers of our Yoni, which is, by the way, Yoni is the female reproductive system, and the female organs of generation, it's the Sanskrit word for a sacred womb sacred place.

VL: That’s so beautiful

VK: And we didn't before. Right. And we actually, we didn't even learn that, by the way vagina is incorrect when you want to describe the whole female reproductive system that genitals, you can't see vagina to describe the whole genitals because vagina is only internal outside is called the vulva and not a lot of people know that we say, you know we say badge. You know we say punani, We say, different, different words, different words to describe but it should be really all encompassing, which should be Yoni in Sanskrit which is the language of yoga and you know, we're both yoga teachers as well.

So, our, our sexual education going up. Wasn't that in depth, and so no one told us where the different types of erogenous zones are where the illiteracy is, is it above or below the urethra the pee hole so a lot of people even know what the urethra is.

And the fact that even for example the clitoris has 1000 nerve endings, which is almost twice as much as what a penis as which In Sanskrit we call Lingam. And so, it is also the most sensitive part of a female body. And it's the organ on the body, that is meant for pleasure. Yet no one ever teaches us that.

And so, and because there's a lack of knowledge, Val’s like yeah, uh huh

VL: I'm cringing, I'm cringing, but it's true. Like okay, I have to I have to interject, so it wasn't until I started using tampons when I was probably 16, that I realized that your pee hole, and your, your vagina, were two different things. My mom was like, Yeah, you have three those three holes.

I'm looking at this diagram in the pamphlet of when you open the box of tampons and I'm like, This was me did not learn this anywhere like even my mom didn't tell me about this, and I had just the only thing I remember from grade five, you know when they separated the boys and the girls for sex ed. I just remember how uncomfortable. The teachers were like, Oh, awkward talking to us about this, and it made it really scary. It made it really scary to to learn and I was afraid to ask questions everyone was giggling and embarrassed like. You're right. You're absolutely right about this. It all started back then. I can remember this day, so vividly anyway continue.

VK: Yeah, a lot of funny story. No and and I, You're not alone because I have the same sentiment which same experience where I, I wanted to start, start using tampons because going swimming, being more active. And I remember my mom was like don't use tampons, I was just gonna stretch your stretch your vagina out.

VL: Right, right.

VK: Yes, yes. And so I didn't, I haven't done that then I thought I was like I don't want to stretch my vagina out and I'm not going to use tampons, and then really, it got to the point where I was like, no I need to use these tampons because I need to be more active.

And it was just way more convenient and who wants to use pads nowadays. And so, like you mentioned, just looking at the diagram the pamphlet, you're like, Wait, hold on, how do I do this and I had to ask friends and the friends would be like, Oh yeah, you just put it in the applicator just stick it in and just follow up just follow that no one teaches you this stuff and so to answer your initial question of, how is it so taboo, it's because the knowledge isn't even there, and when the knowledge isn't there from school, the people that you talk to that you grew up with your girlfriends. Now, we still don't talk about it in a lot of cases, because we just don't know and what you don't know you just don't know. And if the opportunity isn't presented in your face of all this information that you can learn about, about your body, you're not going to actively seek for it, Unless you're really curious. And also there's this whole shame. Right. And, and I know about, you know, I talked to you before, even about our bodies, about exposing a little bit of skin about wearing something a little bit more short.

VL: I remember growing up just wearing something, I showed my midriff about, you know, to two fingers like two inches one inch of my midriff was just shameful, close your left, showing too much skin all the boys gonna look at you, you're, you're getting too much attention. So why am I forgetting. Well that's the thing I'm writing a spaghetti strap talk right now, but it's a measure.

And if it wasn't two fingers, and then the next year it was three fingers and it was like just give us a uniform if you're going to do this like so, a girl at my in my class in elementary school. She had her midriff showing to the point where it was like, only kind of if you raised her hand, would you probably see it like the shirt was just like, teeny bit shorter. The teacher went into the loss of found found a scarf, and made her wear it around her waist to cover her mid draft, I was sent home on time because my, my tape topless the straps were too thin. And I'll be honest with you, when I was, I probably started developing breasts at like age 11 like I was, I was probably one of the first girls in the class to get boobs, and people were noticing. I mean, how could you not notice I was noticing that my body is changing, it's, that's a really scary again, really scary time and an uncomfortable time as a woman, as a person as a girl, becoming a woman. I felt very isolated I felt very confused. It was, you know, out of your control, and I was shamed for this publicly in front of my peers, and I just remember thinking like, I can't let this get to me, like, you know, it was just one of those things where like I felt very mature for my age, I mean, I wasn't mature for my age compared to the other girls in the class but for the teachers to to point me out to single me out to take me outside the classroom and say, you need to change, or you need to go home or you can't wear the shirt anymore, But one of my best friends in class, she had the exact same shirt on as me, but she didn't have any boobs he actually hasn't she hadn't developed that yet. And I said to the teacher, but this person is wearing the same shirt as. Why didn't you pull her out of the classroom and the teacher straight up said because you have boobs.

And, I was just a 13 year old. Can you are 12 or 13 year olds like the shame imagine.

I mean I still remember this and this was 17 years ago. It was a long time ago, I remember this moment, but yeah it is it is a bit traumatic and it's uncomfortable, and now I I mean, I've evolved, I feel like more and matured more in my own self esteem, but to still remember this and think like now I'm thinking like, I really have to be mindful of how I speak to, I mean, I try to be mindful of it anyway but, like, really be mindful how you speak to two girls who are developing and in those developing stages to humans, going through these changes like it's so important and I don't think that the teachers really recognized this type of languaging and in the effect it had on me at the time.

[19:30] VK: And the teachers that had the effect on you, and then breeding people of our generation or people of any future generation, and also will have that mindset because I'm going to bring this up because I remember very vividly you told me a story how you were in a parking lot to go when I first met you, you were wearing a shirt, I don't even know if you remember this. You were wearing a shirt, and you have an amazing body, let's just say that amazing body. And you were walking out of your car, you're working in the parking lot and then some girl yelled at you and said watch from afar, do you remember this, you told me this,

VL: I don't remember this, but okay.

VK: You said this because you were talking about your, your chest and how you have to cover up sometimes and. And this random girl saw you in a parking lot and just yelled at you, out of nowhere, not knowing who the hell you are, and called you a slut from afar, just because of how beautiful your body was.

VL: I appreciate that. I appreciate you saying that. I mean like I, so I have a lot of conversations with women, about, and this is a little bit off of our topic today but about like our self esteem. And there are movies about this, there's a funny one, I can't remember the name of right now, with Amy Schumer, and she like, She like hits her head and she thinks that her ball, shoot as she goes that spin class right yeah so but yeah, but in the, in one of the scenes in the bathroom, she's talking with this like supermodel who's like in tears, about, and she doesn't think she's pretty and like everyone wants to look like Victoria's Secret models are whatever that's, that's the, the false representation of women right and how women want to be they apparently want to be this way. So really it's about the confidence that you were right, confidence is our best accessory. It's our if it's not even an accessory it's really like a foundational piece but I have definitely learned that we are all going through our own stuff, and we all have our own insecurities, including myself, and hearing how other people talk to themselves or think about themselves, and then there's like projection on other people. So, whoever that was who yelled to, you know, that person is obviously not okay with themselves or not okay. And I really like, I mean I started the Women's Empowerment Podcast. I wanted this to be a space, a platform where women can come together, where women can share their story share their voice be heard, feel accepted, feel her feel listened to, and really empower and motivate and inspire other women to to rise up, I think, apply I truly believe that all ships rise with the tide and, you know, the more outbursts, you can yell at another woman like, let's not, let's just not do that anymore, with each other out there to say, your body so beautiful, beautiful, very different bodies. They're both very beautiful, and, like, I don't know I just, I don't have any tolerance for bullying, and that sort of thing. However, there is a side of me that is a compassionate person that says, what you're going through is really tough. And I'm sorry that you feel the need to share these outbursts, with me. Right and I think that's really important as someone who is on the receiving end, to understand. It's not about me. It's not about me, that person is going through their thing. Anyway, I felt felt like that was important.

[23:19] VK: Yes, absolutely. And on the outburst thing. It's the judgment the internal judgment, even if you don't have the outbursts, right and this is how, you know, starting about starting talking about being mindful, is how mindful are you actually with with yourself and with other people, are you judging other people and are you judging, then yourself as well. Because mindfulness for people who don't know what the definition of mindfulness is, is the awareness of your thoughts, your emotions, your sensations and your feelings, in and around the body and your surrounding environment, with no judgment. Mindfulness is a practice, it means that you do need to practice this like you're training your brain like a muscle. So that's very very important when we're going about our day to day relationships. People approach us and of course with our body image. And going back to the taboo, and the shame that we had growing up about our bodies then stemming into of course in our bodies is the vessel where we can host our pleasure and our desires, and of course where we don't know what our pleasures and desires because we don't want to expose ourselves because it was seen as something that was so wrong and bad and shameful, yet all of a sudden, when you then get to a teenager and you start dating, you're supposed to be this Vixen, and you're supposed to know all about sex and all about your body and be really good in bed because if you don't beat your if you're not good in bed, then no one's going to love you.

We were taught that right so all of a sudden we're supposed to blossom into this sexual female amazing being when in our tweens and teenagers we were never, ever taught. So this is what I am, my mission is to make mindful intimacy, mainstream.

VL: Oh, I bet. I love it, so. Okay. So I think really getting to that point of normalcy is being open to having these conversations as difficult as they may be, you know, get out the giggles get all the discomfort. I feel like the more we do something, the more comfortable, we're going to get with it so I feel like it's safe to say that we can start incorporating these conversations. Can we take things a little deeper into maybe more like the self care rituals and learning how to connect to that mindful, intimacy, learning how we can connect the mind, the body the breath, the Yoni together, how do we do this, where do we start.

VK: Yeah, so one of the things that I want to emphasize as we think about self care as bubble baths face mass massages, you know your basic stuff.

But actually, when you really look at sex, good sex is so good for our well being, So, it's good for our blood pressure or cardiovascular health, to help strengthen our muscles, especially because we're strengthening our pelvic floor. It helps with our confidence it can help strengthen our relationships. So when you look at all of this, all this research about good sex and how good it is for our well being. How come it is not part of our self care repertoire, because it's not innate because of everything that we just discussed. So, how we actually start is to understand what your Yoni is, what does it look like. So if I asked you to draw a diagram of your Yoni like an anatomy textbook and label the outside and the inside the ovaries the fallopian tube the g spot the a spot the clitoris. The Bachelor opening the urethra the vulva, the labium adore the way beyond all that stuff. Would the listeners, would you be able to do it without looking on Google?

VL: Personally, absolutely not. The one spot I don't the who? the what now? I mean it would be hilarious. I would try it and I would laugh at it, and I would, I would be slightly embarrassed but also I would think like okay, this is obviously the opportunity for me to now learn about these things so okay we need I you know I used to do this more often. I used to take a mirror down there and explore and look at these things I didn't know what they were called.

And I feel like I still don't know what everything is called, but I definitely don't do that anymore like I don't have that same personal, intimate connection with myself, as I did, like, when I was kind of learning about this in school and trying to figure out like hey like this looks different than I used to have like what does this make you know it's not easy to look at you need a mirror to help you.

VK: Absolutely. So that's that would so step one is to know your Yoni know the parts of it, understand the anatomy, because you use it you have it every single day you own it. And the second is like you said, use a mirror so we call it Yoni gazing, and that's really to get to know how it looks like and.

And by the way, most of my 100% of my clients, they can't draw, they get stumped as well, when I ask them to draw the diagram which shows you how little we know about ourselves how how disconnected we are in ourselves, and then when I ask them to put a mirror and look at their yoni. A lot of times, they're like, Oh, I don't, I don't want to look at it, it's just like, Ooh, you know, a little squeamish, but the Yoni is a beautiful thing. Think about how strong it is, it can birth out a baby. That thing is so strong it can birth out a human out there, he can experience over seven different types of orgasms.

And like I mentioned, just one little spot has 1000 nerve endings. It is such a beautiful thing that we need to embrace and really start embracing owning this yoni. So, anatomy, understand the anatomy Yoni gazing and then owning it. And you know how we spend time like we make an appointment and we get our nails done we get our hair done right we carve out time to do those things. But how can we don't carve out time to give ourselves pleasure. Embracing pleasure. Right, and, and of course I mean pleasure in different ways but in this specific context, it's your pleasure around your yoni.

So for example, okay. The clitoris is the most sensitive part of the body, but did you know that the clitoral actually looks like a wishbone, and the nerves and the tissue stem all the way down to the labor to the lips to the outer lips, and that it looks like a wish ball, no one knows this, and

people don't people don't realize that wow, okay, when you are exploring yourself. Start to touch yourself start to touch it like carve out that time to really enjoy the pleasure. So I'm going to go back to a Lingam, to the penis right. The tip of the penis is very similar to the tip of the Cuadras. And when we stimulate the penis, how many people just touches the tip of the penis, without stroking the actual shaft to in gorge, it with blood. So similarly with the clearest, why would you just touch the tip of it, to stimulate your clitoris, when you should know by now that it looks like a wishbone so you actually need to massage the higher clearest and by the way the anatomy of the clearest, that looks like a wishbone was only discovered by researchers in 1998.

VL: OH EM GEE!

VK: It’s 2021 by the way for the people who are listening. 1998 was when the full anatomy of the clitoris was discovered that elliptica wishbone stemmed all the way down to the lips.

VL: Oh, and I'm just learning about this today so I was today years old. You know what I don't even have any shame, I don't even have any shame because the good news is, I'm learning about it now and better late than never. Goodness gracious, I got a lot of Yoni gazing and touching. I'm going to carve out that time on time.

[32:24] VK: If you're getting your nails done, your hair done, you've got that time to do that.

A lot of it is also due to how, in terms of the scientific field and researchers, it's quite male dominated. And because it's quite male dominated. A lot of the time, this research is lacking. That's why we only discovered this whole anatomy in 1998, and also a little note about that is you know only 25% of women can orgasm via penetration, right, like going into intercourse, or females can orgasm on the outside. So start on the outside. Why is it that we think that if I can't orgasm through penetration I can orgasm with intercourse or something wrong with me, because the research is so male dominated that penis and vagina sex means that you get an orgasm because the penis uses itself, and it feels a pleasure to go in, but it ignores all the amazing parts on the outside of the vulva. it all makes sense now, doesn't it

VL: Right.

VK: So this is why we need to explore because if you don't explore, you're not you're going to not know about your body and you're going to, then how are you going to help your partner understand your body, right, with some of my workshops, the people who come, it's mainly cater to females and when the females come and they go, this is really a workshop for males. Five. No, I said, How are you supposed to guide your partner? You need to connect with yourself first, own your pleasure first before you let your partner pleasure you.

VL: Okay, so this is actually a great segue point to a listener question from Hannah, and she asks, how can we be more vocal of our needs to be able to get to this point of intimacy where the other partner can give us that pleasure, give us that orgasm that we can give ourselves so definitely I think there are a lot of people who are so disconnected or lack the connection to themselves that they can't pleasure themselves, but then for the people who can find that their own pleasure. How do they vocalize this to their partner?

VK: Well the first thing is, understand that timing is key. So to start timing is key and what I mean is, and perhaps some people already know this, so on average it takes males, two to seven minutes to climax.

I say the average of course for the men listening could be a lot longer than that, but two to seven minutes, but for females, it takes 20 to 40 minutes.

So the way I describe males and females, males is like lighting a match. So, you light a match, and then the match goes out and you cannot relate to it

So there's that refractory period for men. For women, it's like boiling water, it takes time to for water. A once you get that water boiling I guess a boiling, boiling points master climax, and then.

And the water stays warm for a long time and that's why women can have multiple orgasms. So when you know this timing right, you need to then match the timing between, let's say, this is for heterosexual couples, you need to then match the timing, but if you don't know this I need to acknowledge this as, as a couple as your partner, then dirted there's a disconnect, there's a misalignment there. So first understand timing is key. First, it takes time.

VL: Sorry those analogies are awesome, I love. I didn't know that was the time. No, that was the timing, I am learning a lot of things today.

VK: The first thing that's important is timing. I may timing, understand that the timing to climax is different for males and females starkly different, if you think about oh yeah, for play for 1015 minutes is not enough and also for play starts way beyond the bedroom, before the bedroom starts throughout the day, maybe even the day before, and it's also contextual so pleasures contextual meaning if something happened during the day if you bumped into an ex boyfriend, if you had a stressful day at work. If the kids are pissing you off, all these things, it's going to affect your pleasure, right. So when you're then commuting, communicating with your partner, just feel that if you're not feeling it in that moment, You're not feeling it might not be. It might not be.

Okay. And when then you're communicating and let's say, Okay, let's say you're an individual that really understands your body, and you are really good at pleasuring yourself. Let's say you're like okay, I know my body I don't need gays I pleasure my Yoni my vulva I know all the different types of orgasms. The way that you can guide your partner is tell them that what you like when you're doing it on your own, and even guide for hand start with a hand member only 25% of women can orgasm naturally. So start with the outside start playing around you're exploring this territory and this terrain together, which is a very different feeling and a different experience, and you're exploring it on your own.

For the people who haven't explored themselves yet and don't know about how, what can pleasure them yet. The first step is explore yourself first and then explore the terrain with your partner, and it's very very special and it's a very beautiful process that you can navigate with your partner.

VL: So, I love everything that you're saying and I think it's so important and it's almost like you're giving permission for us to do these things, right, and we haven't. Well, a lot of, I mean I never, I was never given permission to do this by from anyone else, you know, you're kind of on your own with this one. So I think it's really nice to hear this, and to hear this permission from you.

It's also nice to hear the statistics and know that, okay, you know, it's, it's okay That I don't orgasms actually it's okay that I'm not gonna say that I don't know all those things, because you know you're not alone and I think that's what's really is the expectation again like oh I'm expected to be the sexy kid and like you were saying I was I'm expected to be the sex goddess like, yet you're don't even know yourself this way so that's the perfect place to start. And, you know, just kind of biting the bullet for lack of a better term, and exploring that with your partner as awkward or silly as it might seem in the beginning but I think it's, it's that simple.

Simple just like opening the conversation and using brands and, you know, making it, making it Okay, making it comfortable for both. I mean, like I know for myself like I want to make sure that my partner is pleased and then they want to make sure that I'm pleased so, you know, forget the awkwardness like just have that conversation with them.

I feel like that definitely deepens the connection as well.

[40:10] VK: Yeah, and a very important part is having a conversation, of course like vocal allies during it because even though, if you're, if your partner's really good at reading body language, and some are, some aren't. It’s great.

But having the conversation after your, your experience with each other. After what felt really good for you. Oh yeah, I really liked it when you did this and I, my body I was feeling all these sensations really be present, be present, of course, during the process and using the breath, by the way, very helpful because using the breath, you're stimulating so you're breathing in nitric oxide which expands your blood vessels meaning when you're expanding your blood vessels. The blood goes to your Yoni, and you need to endorse a Yoni to let it open, think about a flower, it needs to open can pry a flower open and force it to blossom. We need to let it happen naturally. So when you're breathing in and out through the nose nitric oxide. So to help with that, and staying in this present moment, and then even after your sexual experience or intimate experience with your partner, have a conversation with your partner about what you really liked and be present and listen, and your partner needs to listen and how that really in depth, intimate conversation because that is super valuable. Because also, workplace starts at the end of your last orgasm.

That's when foreplay really starts.

[41:43] VL: Okay, so I feel like we're gonna need a part two…

VK: So much information.

VL: We're learning so many things. Yeah, so this is all super. I'm so glad you're doing this because I feel very comfortable asking your questions.

VK: Yeah, there's so much to know.

VL: There is and something we kind of chatted about before this episode in the recording, were some of the ways we can incorporate intimacy habits so I'd love to kind of move into that. I know you talked a little bit about how we can get to know ourselves and that can definitely be a part of it, but is there anything that we can you know do with our partners in terms of those types of habits and intimacy this way.

VK: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I'm assuming everyone showers daily, right. Hopefully everyone showers daily. If you've been on lockdown maybe not every day, but a really good way to build intimacy with your partner is to shower together and actually lathering each other in the shower, and exploring the body that way and, and it doesn't have to lead to sex in the shower, whoever's listening it. It's an exploration process, and like I said it could be part of foreplay because foreplay can start anytime after your last orgasm. So, a part of that as a ritual. And I want to say, ritual, because it is so special is intentional lathering each other up and there's something really sexy about that when you're doing it with your partner.

And then you're all nice and clean up for. So that that's something that's very obvious because everyone needs to shower, so that's a very good start into making a habit. And when I say intimacy, it doesn't always lead to penetration, doesn't always lead to.

And then after the shower, moisturize, I love to all my own I love moisturizing, moisturizing on my own and even doing it in front of the mirror, you can even do in front the mirror with your partner and your partner can even watch you moisturize yourself you can moisturize each other right in different parts, different parts of the body, and, and again staying mindful and present and breathing while you're doing this and being really, really sensitive to all the different parts that you like and communicating that was like, Oh, I like it when you massage my inner thigh. I like it when you touch my glutes, in my butt. I'd like it when your finger strokes down my lower back. Right. So doing little things like that is an amazing way to lead yourself to build up the foreplay towards perhaps sex later on.

[44:36] VL: Yeah, that's great. Now, I'm trying to think of like all the ways I'm like, How can I make every other mind sexy?

VK: Yes you can, even you can even do a little, even when you're undressing before the shower. It can be something that is, you know, not just like flopping your clothes on the floor, it could be very sensual, everything can be very anyways.

VL: So I'm just picturing this tonight okay so just bear with me. This is hilarious. So, I'm just picturing not telling Craig that we had this conversation, and then just start stripped using before the shower and he's gonna be like “What the hell are you smoking?”

Just like... “Oh we're trying something new. Okay!?”

first so you do funny, but I think it's so funny you know what, I am someone who I really encourage playfulness, not just in my partnership in my intimacy but also in habit building and with my coaching practices like, like how can we make this fun, and I feel like that masculine energy, it's really, it is really of linear energy that is one track, we go from point A to point B, but the balance comes from. Okay, we have a goal and you know sex isn't how to have a goal but you know what I mean the masculine energy has the root starting here and we're ending here, But the feminine energy and for women this balance is like, how can we incorporate more play and pleasure. If we're talking about intimacy, how can we incorporate one connection. How can we incorporate more being present and not focusing on the end goal but rather focusing on the here and just trusting that it brings us to the end. And so I yeah I just love the idea of, you know, trying these things out, of course, other than showers every day, of course we need to take her clothes off to get in the shower like blind before, right, and it can be really fun. I know that in the past. Actually, the top that Walmart has a top but it's actually a bodysuit and Craig bought it for me. And I really like it and so something that we do is like, whenever we get new clothes we do like a little fashion show for each other I mean make it fun. I mean make it silly and I hope he's okay with me sharing this.

You know, like, it's an intimate, you know, not like hiding behind a dressing curtain like changing like I'm changing in front of the my partner and like it's, it's fun and it's sometimes it's sexy and I'm like, Oh well that's a nice new pair of like boxer briefs that you got or like that new shirt, it doesn't even have to be a sexy thing, it could just be like, oh that's a new dress that I have and I'm trying it on for you like to show you and to connect with you.

VK: Yeah, I, I love that you're using these like, really basic things that we've already do and just bringing in that play and that pleasure to them so well, so simple because it's not like you have to specifically carve out time to do these things, especially, even before you get home.

When you're at work right let's say in the morning you put on a pair of panties underwear lingerie whatever you want and you have a date night, or you have, you know, a night in, and even just messaging each other messaging your partner, like I'm wearing something really naughty underneath and I'm just going to come home and you're going to have to find out what it is.

VL: Oh, right. Okay.

VK: And then when you then start to get into the shower and start addressing each other or you can undress yourself and your partner can watch and then it's, it's like a build up on top of that, and it's it's beautiful and it's how you make it playful, instead of text messaging each other. Hey, what are we having for dinner tonight we're going to order. What should we watch out now.

VL: This is literally me, I'm like, go to the grocery store after work, what do you want. What do you want? So funny. I love that.

VK: Well you know what it's funny that you say that so now that you're saying this like boiling the water thing and it takes 20 to 40 minutes for women to for females to orgasm. I was just reminded of this time that I bought the sexy lingerie. I wore it underneath my dress to go out for dinner and like the whole time at dinner, I was like giddy and like giggly like trying to make sure that you couldn't see it under my dress and like it was a little bit awkward because it wasn't the best dress for, for what I was wearing underneath. But I was getting, like, really heated up and like excited and I was excited to like surprise my partner with what I was wearing underneath, and it was almost like that was what was longer than 20 minutes that dinner but, I mean the whole time at dinner, it was like foreplay and he didn't even know. Yes, I didn't even know yet.

VK: Yeah, well they only need two to seven minutes so they don't really know until the very end. But for us, when we feel good when we feel sexy when we feel feminine when we feel intimate with ourselves and that and I love that because you were feeling intimate with yourself, actually, because he had no idea.

But for us, when we feel good when we feel sexy when we feel feminine when we feel intimate with ourselves and that and I love that because you were feeling intimate with yourself, actually, because he had no idea.

VL: It's so awesome, I love that. Oh my goodness, I feel like we could talk about this all day long.

Okay, I again like we're just gonna have to have you back on the show to talk about the rest, because this is like gold. I love it. I love this conversation. Thank you so much. So where can we find you? Where can we follow you, how can we support your business? All the things.

INSTAGRAM @mindfulintimacy

[51:45] RAPID FIRE ROUND

1. What are you currently reading? What’s your favourite book?

Come as You Are - Emily Nagoski

2. What do you love most about being a woman?

Wow, I love that question. Oh my gosh, you didn't even tell me this beforehand. Okay. What do I love… how free. I can feel my body, so free. Yeah, and just loving every part of it.

3. What does empowerment mean to you?

empowerment to me means having confidence. Not just physical competence, I want to say confidence in yourself, your mental confidence as well as owning what you're putting out in the world, and really having a strong intention of what you want to put out in the world and, and just helping other women. And this is why I do what I do, because knowledge is great, I'm giving out knowledge but knowledge is only power, if you actually use it. So this is why I want people to build these habits to really start to get intimate with themselves and with their partner and that's very empowering for me and for other women.

4. What are you currently working toward?

Well, so I didn't tell you this though, but I am working towards moving to either Bali or Thailand, by the end of the year, and it's just a place that's super spiritual huge community of these types of women who really want to empower each other, and not just intimately, but just letting all that feminine energy and divine feminine energy release. And I, I love Bali, or Thailand really both places a beach and water, and I feel like I'm, I'm a hole when I'm there so that's what I'm working towards.

Podcast Host

Valerie LaVigne

Valerie is the creator and founder of Valerie LaVigne Life and the Women's Empowerment Show. She helps busy and empowered women create healthy habits so that they can become the best version of themselves and transform their lives. Learn more about Valerie here!