Stop Waiting to Want It w/ Brooke Bralove | Szn. 4 Ep. 14

Hi, it's Dr. Jen Kennedy. I'm a sexologist and couples therapist. The Pleasure Project is about sex and relationships. That includes desire, dysfunction, dissatisfaction, exploration, toys and trends. Sometimes I'll enlist other experts. Sometimes it'll just be me. We'll increase your insight and enhance your pleasure. So tune in. Let's be honest, most people think they're supposed to just feel desire. And when they don't, they assume something's wrong. In this episode, I'm joined by sex therapist, Brooke Braylove, to break that myth wide open. We talk about spontaneous desire. Who actually experiences it? Which is fewer people than you'd think. Who really shows up for sex therapy and why long-term sex doesn't stay interesting without a little intentional disruption? We discuss novelty, long-term couples patterns and what it actually takes to get out of a sexual rut. Plus, Brooke shares how accelerated resolution therapy can help shift the deeper stuff that keeps people stuck. If your sex life feels a little predictable or a little too quiet, this episode is for you. So welcome back. My guest today is Brooke Braylove. She is a licensed clinical social worker, psychotherapist and ASAC certified sex therapist. She is also a master accelerated resolution therapy practitioner and a daring way trained facilitator. Brooke specializes in helping adults and couples navigate anxiety, trauma and sexual relationship challenges. Much of her work focuses on supporting women in letting go of perfectionism and moving towards greater authenticity, pleasure and connection in their lives and relationships. She is particularly passionate about accelerated resolution therapy, which we're gonna be talking about today. It's a brief treatment modality that uses bilateral eye movements to help resolve trauma and stored emotional responses connected to PTSD, anxiety and depression. Today we're talking about how sexual desire actually works in long-term relationships while many couples think they're broken when they're actually normal and how to reconnect with eroticism, without pressure and performance. So welcome. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, it's always fun to have a colleague that feels like we can actually just have a conversation and people get to be witness to it because I feel like I've so many thoughts in my head and I'm like, good, right? It's like this is why we go to conferences too, I think is. Absolutely. To have conversations about all this stuff that we do clinically and then get to actually discuss. So. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so like what first drew you into this work Sex therapy specifically in relationships. So I got divorced at the age of 39 and ended up kind of having a sort of sexual, I would say reawakening, sort of an awakening. I certainly found an old self and a new self at the same time. And it was just very exciting to me. And so within about two years of my divorce, I started down the asex certification route and have been doing sex therapy since, I mean, long before 2019, but I became certified in 2019. And it's been a really fun journey. I often say to people, my practice is just outside Washington, DC. And I'll say, do you think I want to hear the 10th lobbyist or lawyer talk about work stress? Yeah. Or do you think maybe it's fun to have a little sex therapy thrown in there? And so, you know, of course I do depression, anxiety and kind of general psychotherapy, but sex therapy really does keep it more interesting. There's no doubt about it. Well, and I would wager that many of those politicians and lawyers, they've got layered stuff, right? Their anxiety and their depression is interlinked with their intimacy issues and their sexuality and their, right, it's all commingled. And when you add that, that layer in, when they feel permission to talk about intimacy and sex, it's like, oh, it gets way more honest and interesting. Absolutely. Yeah. I certainly, you know, I often tell people, you know, who do you think are the most submissive people that I see? High powered, white men who are mostly Republican. And those are the people who are wanting to be completely submissive, often humiliation, you know, degradation, that kind of thing. And so, you know, this is often how I talk about sex therapy is that many people are looking for balance in their lives. And Kink can actually provide a really, you know, healthy if used right and, you know, ethically and consensually can be a really great way to bring people balance that they're not able, you know, to find elsewhere. Again, if we talk about who wants to be submissive, you know, in that way, there's another group that really enjoys submission. And that's the working mom who does it all. So she is the boss. She's the boss at work. She's the boss of kids. She handles every single thing, all the mental load, and she's exhausted. And in the bedroom, she doesn't wanna make any decisions whatsoever, and she wants someone to take full control. And again, I see that literally across the board of the people I work with. Isn't it interesting? Like, oh, when people come in, it's like, I think, like there's this perception that sex therapy is like in this container that is separate, you know, it's almost like you go to, I don't know, a podiatrist to work on your foot. And it's like the foot isn't connected to the rest of the body. It's like, guys, your sex life is not your eyeball. You know, your sex life is connected to your attachment. It's connected to your history. It's connected, you know, desire, and all of it is interconnected. So you can't look at this, you know, in a separate thing. It's interconnected to all of it. And so to your point, right, the exhausted housewife or the powerful politician, right, it's part of everything else. And so, of course, you have to look at it in context. Yeah, no, I agree with you. People kind of want to put sex therapy like over here, which is why I'm shocked when there are so many couples therapists who've never done any sex therapy training. Yes. And I'm thinking, please tell me you're at least asking about it. And sometimes I'll see couples and it never came up. And I mean, that is just shocking to me, right? I mean, what makes romantic couples, you know, different? They are sexual with each other. That's usually a massive difference. And we all kind of know that. And so if you have a couple of therapists who's not ever talking about how things are going sexually, again, that's a problem. And here's what happens is, I don't know if you'd find this, but patients then get the message that it's not okay to bring it up and so they don't. So many people I see will say, oh, I've got a great individual therapist. I've got a great couples therapist, but I don't feel comfortable talking about sex with her. Yeah. Because they'll sort of hint at it. And then what I've heard is that they get redirected by the therapist, which is the signaling that this isn't what we talk about here. And clearly it's the therapist's discomfort. And so that was end of story. They didn't bring it up again. Right now I've got couples that I see they still have a couples therapist, but they don't wanna talk about sex to the couples therapist. And I'm like, why are you seeing this person? It's like, come on, this is part of, especially, I mean, I'm a marriage and family therapist. Part of our title, you're an LCSW, but marriage and family therapist part of it is couples. And part of that to me is human sexuality. Like I can't believe that. So yeah, I do think it's a big gap in the work that many therapists do. And so I always find it kind of fascinating that, yeah, that there's this gap and yet we're all having sex, but we're not talking about it and we're not recognizing sort of where it's happening. And throughout the life cycle, how it's changing and affecting how we want to show up in our partnerships. Yeah, and I really do think what you're talking about too is so important because there's a way that, again, your sexuality gets kind of split off. And the whole idea of sex addiction, I feel like is so split off. That's your problem, you have an addiction. And I usually see what I call out, out of control sexual behaviors as often complete coping mechanisms to anxiety, depression, loneliness. It doesn't mean, I'm not saying it's okay, but to not understand the need underneath it and to simply look at it as an addiction that needs to be 100% abstinence, that also doesn't make sense. I mean, yes, you can abstain from things that are harming you and your marriage, for instance. But again, you've got to look at it in context of how is that serving the person or not serving them and what are they trying to cope with? And I don't think it's fair to split it all off as one person's problem. It's often a dynamic. That doesn't mean that person isn't making choices. Okay, you disagree with me. Yeah, because I'm a C-Sat too. I'm a certified sex addiction therapist. So I've done a ton of training on that. So I'm both, right? I'm a sex therapist. I'm also sex addiction. So I wear both hats. So this is where like, don't, first of all, abstinence is not the model gets tricky here because it's more process addiction. But I do think that the out of control, I don't care what we call it. It doesn't need to be called addiction. Agree, it's out of control behavior. It's not serving. But typically the challenges are that they've kind of slid out of their own kind of moral code or what's serving them or they're out of alignment. And so they need, and it is coping. It's absolutely coping behavior. So they need to get back in alignment with that. I don't agree that it's always relational. Sometimes I think it's really just like their own stuff. It's not necessarily, I mean, I work a lot with these guys. And I actually, I think probably when I look at the different patterns of who comes in, I would imagine that the guys that you see in DC are probably a fair amount of them because there's a pretty high correlative with narcissism and high powered people. And yet, you know, kind of centering and sort of feeling not good enough, feeling, you know, kind of, it's a power exchange. It's a power over, there's a lot of like, but underneath it's a worthlessness sort of problem that's really at play. I don't disagree with anything you're saying, but so it's addressing that. Yeah, but it has a relational impact. So even if it's not, it still impacts the relationship. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And so I think you have to look, you still always have to also look at the dynamic that it's created or how it gets reinforced. So I don't disagree with one thing you're saying, I completely agree. And so much of what, you know, our coping mechanisms are about, are about not good enough. I mean, at the end of the day, not good enough. Yeah, no. It's just so painful. Yeah, no, sir, I thought you meant the causation was relational. And I was saying, no, that oftentimes they're coming in with their own stuff. It definitely has like repercussions to the relationship, that is for sure. Okay, so getting back to on the sex therapy side of things, though, like talking about spontaneous desire, because I do feel like this is something I see, most of my couples, most of my people that are coming in, I see individuals too, but a lot of couples are kind of on the older side. And I feel like this is a topic, I'm like perimenopausal. I keep thinking I'm menopausal and I keep getting pushed back, you know? Not yet, but the conversation around spontaneous desire and my friends are all having it of like, where did it go? Like it's gone, you know? Yeah. And kind of that concept has left the building, right? Everything, it's like, so talk about sort of what's misleading about spontaneous desire, because I'm curious to hear kind of your perspective. Yeah, so my perspective is that although we have been trained to believe that spontaneous desire is the right kind of desire, it's the best kind of desire, and once you lose it, it's never, ever, ever coming back. I think isn't true. I think that what's happened is, this is where, you know, I was on Dr. Kelly Casperson's podcast, I don't know, two years ago, and the title of the episode is Hollywood Ruined Us. And I truly believe that Hollywood has ruined us around sex, because you never see them, you never see, you know, anything occur that they have scheduled the sex or that they've negotiated something or that they're fitting it in during nap time of their toddlers or that they're reaching for lube. I mean, you just never see any of it, right? And of course, I get why. I mean, I'm not, you know, I get it. It definitely makes for a better movie and a better rom-com for sure. But what's happened is we then believe that at the age of 65, we've been married for 30 years, that we should be ripping each other's clothes off, you know, outside the bedroom. We can't even get up the stairs, you know, before we're ripping each other's clothes off, right? And so that's the model. And so most of us walk around saying, what's wrong with us? That's not the way my relationship looks. And not only at 65, but it didn't look that way at 45 or 35. You know, it looked that way for three months when we were 22. And so you spend your whole life feeling like you're doing it wrong and that something is inherently wrong, either with the relationship or with the sex or with me or with you. And so you're always looking to blame something. And again, I think this is where you've got to bring in some acceptance of what does change, attraction changes, our ability to be spontaneous changes when we're over-scheduled for every single thing. Somehow you think you're just going to immediately, randomly think about sex. And then actually your partner's going to be right there waiting and you don't have the- And they're on the same agenda and that they've got all the same thoughts and ideas about timing. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You know, at the moment and the kids are out and every, you know, I mean, you know, it's just not as common. The other myth, I think, is, and this one always makes me somehow feel good, is that even what we called spontaneous desire before and spontaneous sex before, was it really all that spontaneous? I mean, what was cute underwear for back in the days in college? Yeah. What was when you knew you wanted to, you know, hook up with the guy at the fraternity party that you've been flirting with for three weeks? What did you do? You shaved your legs. Everybody shaved their legs. You might not have shaved a Monday through Friday, but you're definitely shaving them, you know, Friday morning, right? You always were planning little bits around it to, you know, to make sure, you know, you wore the cute outfit or the cute underwear or whatever. And so that isn't totally spontaneous when you were sort of plotting how you wanted to look and feel for the night. It's a part of scheduling. Like really? Thank you for using that word. That word is like a four letter word in sex therapy. They hear schedule that, you know, mostly the men, the women are usually, I mean, depending if they have ADHD, maybe not so, but often the women are the ones who kind of like the structure and the scheduling because it makes the household run better. And you say the word schedule, you know, two words, schedule sex. And, you know, there's groans and there's actually one more. Yeah, no, it's refusal. I won't do that. And like that's the end of the story. And I'm pretty hard on my, you know, clients and I'll be like, you got to get over it. Sorry, I'm not going to go with that. I mean, not at the first session or the second session, but if we're into the work, you know, I'll try to figure out what that's about. But I'll say, so let's look at what you do schedule your personal trainer, your lunch, you know, with a friend who's in town. You schedule what matters to you. And what message is it to your partner if you refuse to schedule sex? So don't call it that. Call it a sexy date, sexy time. But, you know, I put everything on my calendar. And so when I refuse to do that for my partner, I am saying you don't matter to me. Our sexual relationship doesn't matter to me. Because if it does, even though it's not my first desire that we're at this point where that's what we're doing, I want you to know that this matters to me. And I find too that even though, yes, it's time that's blocked out and it feels a little like, OK, it's on the calendar. Some people feel a little bit of dread heading into that. But for the most part, it takes the responsibility off usually at least one person. But sometimes both people, at least it's blocked out. Something happens, you know, it's like dates. Dates have always been scheduled. So yeah, I'm a fan of it. I think it's a good idea. I think that sex doesn't just happen when you're in a longer term relationship. Very often. There are some exceptions. They're not really typically in our offices. That's true, too. They're doing just fine. But also, and I don't know if this is going to get worse as AI picks up. But it's weird because AI is supposed to help us be more productive. But I don't know if being more productive is actually going to eat up more of our like puttering time or discretionary time. But, you know, it's just it's it's like Europe looks at us like, what is wrong with you Americans? You know, it's like we're so obsessed with productivity. And I feel like as we assign everything to chat and get more and more and more productive, you know, the space where we as humans want to shift into playfulness and eroticism and sensuality is not the productivity space. And I don't feel like chat is helping. I agree. And I think, you know, the word play is so important. You know, when things aren't going well sexually, sex becomes so serious. But, you know, bringing humor into sexual situations can be incredibly helpful. You know, sex can be funny. It can be awkward. It's really messy. And, you know, when we make it really serious, God forbid there's a sound. We made us our body made a sound that we didn't want, you know, then everybody sort of freezes where you just laugh it off. Then you can get through it pretty quickly. And so back to a spontaneous desire, obviously, the the other type of desire is the responsive desire. And, you know, the research shows that the happiest couple, the most satisfied couples with their sexual relationship, most of their sex is responsive sex. It's getting going and responding to, you know, kissing or, you know, listening to erotica. It doesn't just happen. But also men know this. Men know they're not having spontaneous erections like they used to when they were 18 and 21. Many men still will have, you know, morning erections, which is, by the way, an extremely good time to take advantage of a nice, hard erection in the morning. And women are like, but I'm getting up and I've got the kids. And, you know, again, you could set the alarm for 15 minutes earlier and you could get it in and get it done. It's like exercise. You're going to feel better after you're going to feel, you know, more connected. But it's just this idea of how hard it is to get there. Well, do something, you know, what my favorite thing to say is you are responsible for your own orgasm. You cannot wait around for people to just, you know, partner to simply know exactly what to do. If, A, you don't know what to do with your own body and B, if you haven't communicated anything about what works and doesn't work. And so, you know, you need to figure out what turns you on, what you respond to, and then do more of that for sure. And wouldn't you say that even though a lot of people think that they had spontaneous desire, like most spontaneous desires actually responsive to they might, it might be under their awareness, but they're actually it might have been a cue, a subtle cue. It might have been a song. It might have been a scent, but it's still it. I don't know, like maybe when you're 14 and you just the wind blows in you and you can get an erection. But but I feel like in later in life, I don't know. I really do think most of its react. You know, yeah, 100 percent, you know, I mean, so why do you want to rip your college, you know, boyfriend's clothes off? Probably because you saw him across the room and you responded to how cute he is. Or you were dancing and you got a whiff of his cologne and you thought, I can't wait anymore, let's go back again. You're totally right. I love that you're saying this just sort of frankly, like, hey, what you thought was spontaneous really wasn't. But we keep using that word. I miss the spontaneity of it, you know, and all of that. And guess what? You know what? We all do. That's OK. You miss. But you're not real. You're missing what feels spontaneous, but there was always a cue. I think you're right. You just didn't say, wow, that clone is really turning me on. And therefore, I think we should go back to the room right now. You're just not aware. And in that, it's like if you can go back, what turns you on is your responsibility and is accessible if you can think of it, right? So I don't know. Like, yes, sometimes it's seeing somebody and that person literally has an effect on you. And sometimes it's you turning yourself on by the idea of what this could be. It's projection, right? So yeah, or replaying something old. I mean, you can, you know, you know, fantasy, I mean, you know, if you don't know what your fantasies are, and I will tell you, my goodness, I don't know if you find this, but people, you know, you say, what are your fantasies? And they are like, I don't have any or I don't know. And sometimes it's that they think they're wrong or bad, so they're not going to share it. But a lot of times they literally have never allowed that space. They just shut it down completely. And I do think a lot of people have, even if they're passing. And again, here's where we always want to make the distinction between fantasy and wishes. You can have many fantasies that you don't actually want to do, but they serve you in your mind. And so those are even some of the best fantasies that you just hold in your mind. You may not want to do it. It pushes you. There's a little bit of, you know, naughtiness that is that is pushing you to the edge a little bit, right, because that's tantalizing. That's titillating to think about something naughty that you wouldn't actually do. Right. Or something that maybe you did in your 22 year old body, you know, somebody you hooked up with that maybe, you know, you don't want them now, whatever. I do, you know, I do think it's interesting when you I'm going to age myself, but I'm like going and putting back in that old cassette, you know, of like when you are replaying. Past highlight moments, I think of Nagoski saying, you know, think of peak sexual moments. And I do think, you know, pulling elements of those moments, but actually sometimes playing those moments and maybe that's for solo sex. Maybe it's actually for sex that's really mediocre with somebody that, you know, but yeah, the function and the euphoric recall of coming coming into those moments again and how powerful that can be. Yeah, that I mean, I think that's amazing. I mean, you know, you got to have a highlight reel in your mind, you know, you know, and, you know, it could be it could be a one night stand. It could be the love of your life, you know, it doesn't matter. It's whatever serves you to turn you on. And this is where again, you have to approach yourself with non-judgment. You know, a lot of people will be like, that guy was a total dick to me. But, you know, I keep replaying that one sexual thing. I'm like, well, are you with him right now? Is he being a dick to you now? And they're like, of course not. That was like 20 years ago. I'd go, great. OK, so you're not actually in it. And if that sexual experience turns you on, think about it all the time. Who cares? But again, people really believe that fantasizing about someone else or another time or even, you know, when you felt really sexual, thinking about a time like that is disloyal. And some people think it's cheating. And I just my own personal belief. I mean, if you believe that, that's fine. But I just don't believe that anything, you know, between our ears or that we do in our brain is actually cheating. Because, you know, if we thought it thought that murdering someone and thinking about raging against them was the same thing, then again, we'd all be in jail. We all have thoughts that, you know, we don't ever plan on putting into action. And I think that's just part of being a human. Well, and we're animals. And at times we see people and we think, huh, right? We're still like, that person's attractive. There's some lustful thoughts about that person in passing, you know? And I think that is normal. I think it's normal. And I think to have some thoughts about historically what has worked in your body is good information for your relationship. It's a roadmap of what works for you. And I like it. And hopefully the relationship that you're in right now can tolerate you bringing in that information. And that's it, right? Is can the relationship tolerate that kind of honesty? And, you know, if not, then what's that about? Right? But, you know, I agree. I mean, I find that things are shifting. I do think like most men really want to please their partner. And again, I often I mostly work with cis hetero couples. So that's my sort of bias here, because that's mostly who I see. But they want to please their partner. But their partner won't tell them what they like and don't like. And so they're kind of like, am I supposed to just keep guessing? And so I do think we have to give women more permission to actually just say, this is what I like. This is what I don't like. I don't know about you, but when I come across couples and I ask them about their communication around sex, there are some people. I mean, there are women who will come in and say, you know, say, so do you tell your husband what you want or whatever? And they'll say, I've never ever said a word about what I like, what I don't like. And I'll say, well, what about in the moment? You know, do you say things like right there or, you know, can you do it a little harder? And they say, never. And it breaks my heart. Yeah, it's really heartbreaking. Well, because also it's so much pressure for, let's call it like the dominant partner. I work with a lot of queer couples and heterosexual couples, too. But, you know, when when one person is charged with being the initiator and the dominant partner, that's a lot of responsibility to figure it out. And if they're not given a lot of feedback, they don't know what they're doing, you know? And so it's I think it's pressure and it's a setup a little bit. And it's a setup for both partners to feel some anxiety and levels of dissatisfaction. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, even I mean, I'll say, you know, if you don't feel comfortable using words like harder, softer, faster, whatever, are you at least making noises that are clear about? And some of them will say, no, I'm pretty silent. And again, it's just I know. And, and can you do red flag, green flag? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, I mean, attach a number to good and bad or, you know, faster, slower, or whatever you need to do. But feedback, it's like you're having sex, but you're not talking about it. That's so frustrating. OK, we're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back to talk about the influences that are invisible that are on the video. A quick pause here to share something that I've been working on that I think you will really appreciate, especially if you've ever felt confused or disconnected from your sexual desire. It's a self-paced course that I created for women who want a better understanding of their sexual desire, especially if it's felt confusing, inconsistent or hard to access. A lot of us are taught that desires should just be there. Effortless, spontaneous, always on. But that is not the reality for most people. And when it's not, it can leave you feeling frustrated or like something is wrong with you. If you've ever felt turned on one day and completely disconnected the next, or if you've struggled to say what you really want sexually, if you're both excited by the idea of vibrant sex and hesitant about what that even looks like, this course is for you. Desire is complex. It lives in your brain just as much as your body. And in this course, I guide you through the understanding of your unique relationship to it without pressure, shame or performance. You'll get short videos and guided worksheets to help you map out your personal erotic template, identify what turns you on and off and what shuts you down, understand the blocks might be getting in your way, reconnect with your body. And you'll explore your sexual self with more confidence and curiosity. You can go at your own pace. You don't need to want more sex. You just need to want to know yourself better. So if this resonates, then head on over to pleasureproject.us and learn more and enroll in the course. Now back to the episode. Okay. So we were just talking about some of the historical influences that absolutely weigh in. And I think it's so interesting because many couples, and this is not just couples in their 20s, right? Teens definitely have trouble talking about sex, but we're talking about couples in their 50s and 60s. That they're having sex, but they're not actually talking about it. And the sexual experience, I think it matters in terms of skill, but it also matters in terms of attachment and in terms of communication, right? In terms, I would say how you find couples, how satisfied they feel in their sexual experience. So yes, some of it is, can you give me guidance to your body, but also how connected do we feel during this experience? Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, look, intimacy and sex are very interrelated. They are not always super interrelated. You know, I think there are people who have sex that may not, you know, feel intimate, but this is where, you know, we look at this kind of balance between safety and, I don't like saying danger. I never know what the opposite, how to talk about it, like Esther Perrell does, but with, I don't know, intrigue or uncertainty. It's sort of how I think about it. Safety and uncertainty. And so you absolutely need emotional safety to build a very strong sexual connection. But if you only have emotional safety and zero kind of uncertainty, meaning if that person is available 24 hours a day and they're in their sweats, I mean, that's why COVID was such a really difficult time for sex. Hey, because your kids were around constantly, but also because your partner was around. And I always say missing someone is an amazing aphrodisiac. Missing someone, that idea of sort of pining for them or the uncertainty of when you're going to see them again. And so I do think kind of inserting some uncertainty, even if it's sort of through play, like, well, am I going to see you later? You know, you could say, I don't know. Are you? Or like, when will you be home? I don't know. Maybe I'll surprise you and come home early. Like even that can kind of shift things or, you know, the whole idea of sort of meeting some, you know, meeting your partner at a bar and pretending like you don't know each other. That inserts this intrigue and uncertainty and, you know, how's it going to go? Where in long-term couples, I mean, the script feels so set for a lot of couples. First kiss here on couch, then move upstairs, you know, start in missionary, then we go to oral sex, then we, you know, I come, then we go back to, you know, doggie style. And it's boring. So I'll often just say, like, even mix up the order. You know, if you like what you like, that's great. And people usually find something that works well enough and then they just do it ad nauseum. So again, if it works for you, great, but at least be willing to do it in another room or, you know, do it on vacation. Vacation sex is great. Hotel sex is amazing. Cause you can't worry about the dishwasher that, you know, wasn't loaded correctly and how much you hate your husband because he put the forks in, you know, upside down, which by the way, I don't, there's something about how people load the dishwasher. Very triggering. So true. Right. And it's, it's like, yeah, there's just something about routine that has to happen in long-term relationships to help you function. But man, it's a deal. Desire killer for sex. Yes. Anything different. Anything literally anything. Like do it in a different place, do it at a different time, wear something different, approach different, talk different, ask for something different. I don't know anything different. The mind is like, what? What? You know, right. And that's a thing. And so if nothing else, if you just took away from this episode, insert new here, new anything, literally anything, you know, and, you know, people think like, you know, everything is such an effort. And look, I do think couples really struggle to come up with ideas. But again, as we're talking about chat, GPT, like that's a great thing to ask chat, GPT, and then you can, you know, then you don't even have to say, hey, I want to try, you know, standing sex. If you're nervous about saying that, because that feels really vulnerable and you're worried, your partner's going to be like, well, that's stupid. Then, you know, have chat, GPT say it. And then you can say they said this would be wonderful. So you often can work on your sexual relationship in the displacement. If you're anxious about saying things. That's why I love these kind of sexual activity lists where it's, you know, yes, no, maybe. And you have each partner fill them out. You know, it has a hundred different sexual acts or ideas. Each of you fills that out separately. So there's no shame. And then when you're talking about it, again, you're reading off a piece of paper. I've done that before where sometimes you'll do like a menu, like you'll co-create like a sexual menu with clients. And I find that they are giggly while you're doing it. Like they're kind of like, I've never really said this out loud, but this kind of turns me on and, you know, we don't do this, but I might want to or this particular thing would be really thrilling for me. And this is a little edgy for me. And so you're kind of co-creating, negotiating what they might like to try. And they're just like, they're like teenagers sitting there. Just like, oh my God. And they're just looking for where it's a Venn diagram, you know, you're just looking for the overlap. You don't start with something that is, you know, extreme kink that only one person wants to do. That is not going to work, but start with where there's some overlap or even just a willingness to try something. Doesn't mean it'll work. Doesn't even mean you'll like it. You can change your mind and be like, I'm not really into this. I thought I might be, but I'm not. But that willing, I love the phrase willingness to try when it comes to sex. I think it's so important. You know, to say to yourself, I'm not really in the mood, but I think I'll be willing to try and, you know, give it 10 minutes. And if after 10 minutes, I'm still not interested, fine, but you can't sit there for 10 minutes. You have to do something. You have to turn your profile. And you have to kiss. You have to hug. You have to do eye gazing, something to see if you can spark something. And most people, once they get going, they're fine. They will tell you. I enjoyed it. Now, I still think they could often enjoy it more if they were inserting newness, intrigue, mystery, whatever, more eroticism, but it's the getting started because people are waiting around for the, you know, lightning bolt that says, now I'm in the mood. It ain't coming. It's sort of that. I'm that ambivalent. Like I'm not a hard no, but I feel sort of meh about it. And so I'm kind of like waiting for it to feel like it's going to be really fun that I really want to join this party. And so, yeah, it's like, okay. And then that tipping point happens, especially I find that I hear that more from women where there's, they just need, they have a slower on ramp. And so, you know, 15 minutes in, they're like, okay, all right. Yeah. All right. Now I'm, you know, more blood flow, more sexually relevant information. All right. I'm ready to proceed. Right. I mean, the whole idea that desire has to come before arousal really hurts people in long-term marriages or, you know, couples. You can absolutely have arousal first and desire will often follow. Not every single time, but often. Yeah. Um, okay. So let's talk about accelerated resolution therapy because I'm new to that term. Yeah. Tell me a little bit about it and how it works. Okay. So art or ART is an evidence-based treatment modality that uses rapid eye movement and voluntary image replacement to change the way the brain stores distressing images or memories and then the corresponding negative sensations that show up in the body. So most, most people have heard of EMDR. I do that. Okay. So EMDR is much more well known, but ART is similar in that it's, you know, trying to, again, change the way the brain processes and holds onto these memories that either were traumatic or experiences that were, you know, unpleasant or painful or, you know, whatever. And so what I have found is a lot of sexual issues. So people that come to me for sex therapy, I end up doing a lot of ART with because it really gets at the brain and the body in a way that talking about things doesn't always get to. And so I have found ART to be the absolute most amazing thing I've ever done clinically. It is so exciting. The rapid change I see, the healing I see in front of my eyes in 60 or 90 minutes is totally magical, even though ART is 100% based in science. It's based on the fact that when we do bilateral eye movement, we are replicating REM sleep where memories are reconsolidated. And we're just doing that consciously and intentionally. So we have control over how to change those images to then store. And it's been revolutionary. I've worked on many different, you know, sexual health kind of related things. So it's really good for sexual assault, getting rid of sexual assault trauma. It could be, you know, years and years of childhood sexual abuse. It can be that you, you know, you can work on it if you got exposed to porn too early and you feel like that's caused a lot of damage. It works on religious trauma that's related to sex, whether it's actual someone in the church abusing you or simply the, you know, the shame, the shame. Oh my God, it works so well on sexual shame. It worked with erectile dysfunction. And, you know, if you process all those terrible experiences where your penis failed you, which now causes anticipatory, yeah, anticipatory anxiety, you process those out, you change the images, you see it the way you want it to happen, the way you wish it had happened where, you know, you've got this erection that's the hardest thing in the world and you last as long as you want and you store that in the brain, their anxiety disappears. And they totally believe that they can have an erection for as long as they want. With EMDR, we look at negative cognitions and then we replace it. So with art, is it, do you work in images? Is that sort of the? So art works in images and sensations. That being said, it 100% works on like limiting beliefs, things like that. But it does it through seeing images. So it works on probably every single thing that EMDR would work on. It just goes about it a little bit differently. So we don't, I don't want to hear your thoughts. I want you to be seeing images in your mind. There's almost no talking with art. And so when you're doing these, you know, rapid eye movement, you're seeing images in your brain, but you're not actually saying anything. And so for trauma survivors, it's a breath of fresh air because they don't have to talk about it yet again. I don't even have to know what you're working on for it to be successful. I'd like to know what you're working on because then it helps me be attuned to you and make better suggestions about if things aren't going perfectly. And I think you need to tweak something. But, you know, I mean, I've had someone, one of the most moving experiences is when I had someone working on a sexual assault and she was literally about to jump out of her skin. She was having, you know, close to a panic attack when she was imagining this very violent sexual assault. But the distress only lasted about two to three minutes. And after two or three minutes, using those rapid eye movement that calm the sensations, she was totally calm. And what had been this terrible image and sensation of someone, you know, the perpetrator choking her within a few minutes, she literally said to me, where is he? Like, I can't even see him in the room anymore. I don't understand. Where did he go? And I said, your brain just got rid of him. It's not necessary. That's amazing, too. That's also the value of exposure therapy, right? If you can tolerate it in a safety, I mean, that's the eye movement. I imagine, too, is like that's part of the EMDR is tolerating it in a safe environment, sitting through with your sympathetic nervous system, being calm. That's incredible. Yeah. And again, it doesn't last very long. It only lasts a couple of minutes. So it's very brief. And I mean, you can have someone who is having a panic attack almost and within three minutes, they're laughing and smiling and yawning because when they yawn, you know, they're very relaxed. You know, they're, you know, rest and digest system is, you know, back in charge. So I always love to see them yawn because I know we're headed in the right direction because they're, they're, they're very relaxed. They're not holding it all in their body. And so it also works on libido and marriage satisfaction. I had a woman who was incredibly angry and irritated with her husband around a lot of different things. They hadn't had intercourse in six years. She felt zero, um, you know, libido. She just thought, I don't care if we ever, you know, have sex again. We did a session where she worked through some of her annoyances. She went home. She said she was so desirous of her husband was so in love with him that they had sex for the first time in six years and it was amazing. And then she's the week after she just loved her husband more. She literally felt more love toward him. We did one session on that. Yeah. So moving some of those blocking beliefs to just be able to access what that previous affection that was there and that, that desire. Yeah. It's often just hidden by other things. It's, it's somewhere in there, but it's been, you know, it's been covered up with resentment and anger and a dysregulated nervous system. And you just have to teach the body that you can think about the way you want things to be. And then, you know, the brain doesn't need a factual story. It needs a good story. And so I often will say to people, you know, sex therapy right there. Yeah. You know, just give it a good story. And it's like, ooh, let's hang on to that one. But you're, you know, we call it the director scene. You direct the way you want it to be. And so your direct scene, you know, it can't be that you're having like sexual pain and then your director scene is we had mediocre sex and it didn't hurt as much. I'm like, do you think your brain wants to hold on to that story? No, you should be seeing fireworks and it's the most pleasurable thing in the world. And you're doing it on a beach in Tahiti. Store that in your brain. Your brain will love that story. Yeah. Yeah. It's like amazing what the brain can do when it chooses to. And we see this, right? When we're in fantasy or early on in relationships, when we're recording somebody and we make up all sorts of stories about them and us and whatever. You know, we have that capability. So it's, it's a frame that we can choose. So we can choose to our own power as well. Absolutely. Okay. So just anything that you want to mention that you have coming up that listeners would want to know about? Well, I think at the moment I do events. I do an event called Vino and Volvas where I can either come into your home, you know, in person or virtually. And I ask people to invite, you know, a group of their friends, their book club, their college roommates, and I show up with, you know, vibrators and I find out their ages and what they're really interested in. And then I tailor, you know, a two hour sort of talk around what matters to them. And it's really fun because they get to a see that many of them struggle with the same things. And most people around, you know, around sex, they're the only one, they must be the only person who's struggling with this. So it really normalizes things. And then I just provide really important psycho education, you know, and sometimes the group I'm with, I was with a group of 35 year olds. I held up a 3D printed clitoris. They had no idea what it was. Zero idea. And these are highly educated women. And I thought, man, do I need to be here? So that's a really fun thing I do. Sometimes hosts ask a sex therapist anything zooms. That's really been fun. But I now, my practice now specializes in art. And so if people are, you know, wanting to experience art, whether it's a regular trauma, PTSD, depression or sex related issues, trying art is just a great way to get unstuck when you've tried lots of other Truman modalities that just aren't working well enough for you. Great. Okay. And they can find you online on Instagram at brookbraylovepsychotherapy. So exactly. We will link all this in the show notes. Thank you so much for being on the show today. Thank you so much. Hey, it's Dr. Jen. Thanks for tuning in. If something in today's episode resonated with you, please take a moment to leave us a review and drop a comment. We'd love your feedback. It really helps support the podcast and keeps this content coming your way. If you're looking to dive deeper into pleasure, connection and self discovery, check out my pleasure circle course where we explore these topics in a fun, guided way. I also write a weekly newsletter with articles, insights and inspiration to help you live a more connect pleasure filled life. And if you want to come with me directly, you can message me on Instagram at drjenkenedy or email me at drjenkenedy at gmail.com. I'm WC here from you.