Welcome to the libido lounge where we focus on all things love, lust, and libido. We believe that fabulous sex is important to health as exercise and good food. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the lounge. We're talking today about empathy and intimacy. And empathy and intimacy is so important, especially for us women. This very, very common thing can happen where we are not feeling like we're heard or understood or something is left open. Right?
There's that thing maybe that you did not talk about because you wanted to push it on the rug under the rug because it's like, well, it's not a big deal. Maybe I'm overreacting. These things we tell ourselves and then sometimes these things fester. And because they're not addressed and because we haven't had resolution and empathy and understanding and validation and all the things, sometimes it's so easy to sink then into that loss of libido.
You know, I really look at libido as a flag, a marker for a lot of different things in health, as well as in relationships. So if libido's low, from a physical standpoint, that can talk that can tell us about things like problems with our vasculature, problems with our neurological system, problems with our hormones, problems with various nutrients. Right? Problems with sometimes our thyroid or adrenal glands.
All these different parts of the body, all these different organs and glands can really be related to low libido. Then of course we have the emotional side. And that can be stress. That can be overwhelm. That can be depression. That can be anxiety. That can be on antidepressant, you know, medication or other medication. And then we have the interpersonal. And the interpersonal is really related to our relationship with ourselves as well as our relationship to our partner.
So this could be we could have problems with libido due to low confidence or due to body image where we don't feel comfortable, we don't feel sexy naked. So if we don't feel sexy naked, it's a lot harder to get ready for sexy time to take off your clothes and be naked if you don't feel like you like the way you look, right? And then of course, there's all those interpersonal and relational, how you communicate with your partner. Do you feel loved? Do you feel understood? Do you feel safe?
Do you feel respected? Do you feel that you can go to your partner in a time of crisis and feel like your needs are being met, right? All of that, are they dependable? Are they reliable? Are they trustworthy? All these various things, right? So the interrelational is some of what we're gonna focus on today, and the interrelational is is a little bit tricky.
So there's many types of times where the interrelational really needs to be sorted out with the counselor, but there is a lot that can be done by having a better understanding of how men and females work. And, you know, this work has been around for a long time. We have, you know, Mars, Women are from Mars, Men are from or Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. Right? So we have books like that. We have a lot of books throughout the years that have really tried to explain these differences.
But you'll hear me talk over and over again about Allison Armstrong because I think her work for me did the most radical as far as getting me out of this phase of really, really not understanding how different the masculine brain is. Right? And so the vicious cycle we can get into this is sometimes, like, it's so easy because whatever gender you are, you know what it's like to live in the brain of, you know, of your own your own body. Right?
So essentially, if you're a man and you see that, you know, that that women are not focused or they are varying degrees of emotion, right, and one day it's one emotion, another day it's another emotion, it can feel and it could lead you to believe that it's appropriate to make a statement like women are emotional, right?
If you are a female and you see you're, you know, if you're with a man and you see him watching TV and you're trying to get his attention and he's not paying attention because that's naturally how the man's brain works is to be very, very focused based upon where the blood flow goes to the brain, it's easy to come to the conclusion that he's not listening and he does not care. Right?
So what winds up happening is because we don't innately understand each other oftentimes, and we think we do, but we don't understand many times how innately different our brains operate, right? And that's why I think the studies that are coming up that are showing MRI wise what's different in the male versus female brain are so pivotal.
Because when we begin to understand that, oh, it's not that she's too emotional, it's that she deeply is wired for sensing and feeling the pain of other people, of sensing that if a child is is injured or somebody's having an off day, and she's doing this in part because she's wired for safety, since that oftentimes women are weaker physically, that we have this ability to be wired to sense other things in our surrounding, sense other feelings, sense if
somebody is hurt, sense if somebody needs our help, that we're constantly taking in data of our surroundings. And that that's really overwhelming sometimes, right? Men have such an easier capacity because of how focused their brains are based upon the way testosterone impacts the brain to essentially stay focused, not taking in all that data. Right?
That means they don't have that overwhelm to the level that women do that are just flooded with data all day long because it's very hard for the women's brain to completely focus because it's wired to take in and it's wired to feel for safety and survival. Men's brains are different. Men's brains are really focused. This is why it's sometimes hard to get a man's attention when they're watching TV or they're playing a game with their buddies or whatever. Right?
And so it's easy to come to the conclusion because if you were talking to another woman, and a woman you were saying her name over and over and over again, and she was not responding to you, it would be like, oh, she's definitely ignoring me. Right? Why is she so pissed off? But that's not what's happening. And so when we have blood flowing to different brains, like men, it's not that they're ignoring, it's that they're so focused.
They don't take in the information from the surroundings in the same way that women do, and vice versa. So I think it's really important in in learning and beginning to learn about this information because what it does is it allows us to be more empathetic to the other person. It allows us to understand more. It allows us to say, oh, this is actually not this person out to get me. Right? I think it's a really useful thing to assume that our partner has our best interest in mind. Right?
And then, you know, sometimes we need to ask clarifying questions. Right? Sometimes it might not look like that. But oftentimes, it's so easy to jump to these stories of, you acted this way, so this means this. You know, he acted this way, so that means this. She acted that way, so that means that.
It's so easy to jump into these stories and make meaning out of things that are actually incorrect meaning that if we can actually just understand that the way we process information as females and males is so dramatically different, then we can start to unpack this and have more empathy. This is also, like, really interesting in the bedroom. Right? For a lot of men, I see a lot of I talk to a lot of men who they go through a challenge at work. They're, like, revved up.
They're feeling super intense, and they are ready to have sex. Right? They are fired up. And then women, they go through a very similar day, and they're wound up, and they're, like, overwhelmed. And it was a crazy day at work. And what are most women ready to do? Sit on the couch with a glass of wine. Right? Maybe go to bed early if they can. Right? Not ready to have sex.
So there's a and this is another thing too if they're like men gets home from work in a standpoint from a standpoint of, like, a really, really busy day and they're over they're stressed and there's a lot going on. There's a level of how the masculine brain works where there's a level of almost, like, needing to have sex or needing to ejaculate in order to focus. And, of course, you know, I say needing a little bit playfully, but but it is a helpful thing. Right?
That orgasm actually allows for that focus back like, Okay. I can get my mind back on work now. Right? Versus women in bed after a long day, and you try to go to bed and have sex, and all of a sudden you might find that your mind is like, Oh, crap. I didn't put that on my list. Or, Oh, I hope I remember this after that. Oh, I hope I Maybe I should fake the orgasm because I got a lot of work to do, and I gotta get this over with. Right? Literally. Right?
So this isn't like good or bad for anybody, but, you know, sexually in the bedroom, it helps us to understand how innately we both respond to stress differently in our sexuality. So what does this mean? It means that we have a level of understanding that as women, we are not we don't have the brains of men. And as men, they do not have the brains of women. So by understanding how we work differently, then we can begin to open up the dialogue of how we can work together on this.
So, you know, man has a long day, woman has a long day, they come together, they both have a long day, what can be done? Right?
Is this an area where, okay, if if man really feels like he would benefit from sex, then is it possible where we could do something like, okay, maybe the woman needs her foot rub, her feet rub, maybe she should go take a bath, maybe Halby can or or a spouse or partner can go take care of the kids or cook dinner or something to allow her to have a little bit of time to get back into her body and to process everything and maybe vomit about her day a
little bit and in order to actually be present in the bedroom. Right? What sort of ways can be manipulated? Is it simple that those are just days that that that maybe sex is not on the table? But then in that situation, how can sex be scheduled? When is that sex date to make sure that we're coming back together over and over again? Because we wanna be very careful in this scenario without a plan.
You know, without a plan, it's kind of like it's kind of like just saying like, oh, I'm going to start a workout routine. Well, what we see in the research on habits and habits that stick and work by, like, James Clear who read Atomic Habits, what we see in this type of of of study on habit change is that part of how we develop new habits that stick is by making a specific plan.
If we're gonna exercise, it's, it's way less likely to actually happen if we say, Yeah, I'm gonna start a new exercise routine. Versus if I say, I'm gonna be at the gym at 07:00 every morning because there's this cardio weightlifting class that I wanna take. Right? Then we know when we have to leave for the gym. We know how to set our alarm. We have a specific plan with a specific goal. So the same thing is with sex.
It's so easy once we get into these states of overwhelm and because of how different men and women work, it'd be so easy to just say, okay. Well, I don't wanna do this when I'm overwhelmed, so we'll come back to this another time. What happens when we're overwhelmed tomorrow and the next day and the next day and the next day? Eventually, all of a sudden, we're having sex once a month, once a quarter, once a year, maybe even never.
And this is why I think libido is such a great barometer for things. It's not just like some people will say great barometer for relationship, and sometimes that is true. I've seen that many times be true. Sometimes it's not. But it's also a barometer for measuring things like how are you handling stress. Right? Are you making time for that calming work in your life? Are you doing a good job of staying balanced with stress?
Because what will happen is if we go through a stressful period and we build in recovery time, time where we get out of the stressful mode, where we relax, we have some sort of self care, what typically happens is once we do that, if stress has suppressed the libido, then all of a sudden it's like, oh, I'm ready for sexy time. This is, I think, one of the reasons why so many people I know will call vacations sex cations. Right?
Because it's like you get away from everything, and it's just like everything is There's nothing to worry about, and then all of a sudden the libido turns back on. Why is that? Now you're in a place where there's not no stress and you have this time set apart where you don't have to manage, you don't have to think about this thing, and you can be completely present in pleasure and in the sensations of the body. Right? Amazing. So we need to think about that in terms of preventative.
I'm very, very interested always in preventative wellness. You know, whether that is preventing anything from diabetes to insomnia to bad menopause cycles, any of these types of things. Prevention is extremely important. And the same thing goes with our libido, our sex life, and our relationships. Right? We wanna get ahead of this. We wanna say, okay. It's you know, we're all humans. We all have stressful days. We all have days where we're overwhelmed.
There's days where I don't feel like having sex because of the day I had. Right? But what we're trying to do is remember that these things that are small, a small choice of saying, like, I'm not going to have sex because I'm overwhelmed. No problem. There's no problem.
The the plan, though, is, like, how do we work in getting out of overwhelm, connecting back to our partner so that the problem is like a no big deal problem, and it doesn't go on for days and weeks and months and years, and all of a sudden creates a bigger problem. So I hope this has been helpful for you guys. I always love talking about this stuff. It's been a really lovely episode. Please don't keep me a secret and share me with your friends, and I will see you in another episode.
Just a reminder to stay classy, stay sexy, and stay a little badass y. Thank you for listening to the libido lounge. Please don't keep me a secret. Please share this with your friends. You can find me on YouTube, on Instagram, as well as how to work with me at mylibidodoc.com.