Getting What You Want w/ Jocelyn Silva | Szn. 4 Ep. 17

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. Safe is good. Alive is better. You actually get both. This week, Jocelyn Silva and I break down how to build intimacy that's grounded, expressive and a little more turned on. So tune in. All right, welcome back. My guest today is Jocelyn Silva. She holds a master's in social work. She is a sexual empowerment coach who works with individuals and couples to release shame, trust their desires and feel confident, expressed and fully alive in their intimate lives. Her work centers on helping people of all identities, heal from sexual shame, communicate their desires with clarity and build relationships that feel both deeply safe and playfully alive. Through trauma-informed plans, Jocelyn supports her clients in reconnecting with their bodies, expanding their capacity for pleasure and creating intimate lives that feel authentic and energized. So welcome. That sounds so good. Doesn't it? It does. Sounds great. I mean, I know I wrote it, but I'm like, yeah, it sounds amazing. Yeah, I sliced it and diced a little bit, but I was like, yeah, I like it. It feels good, right? When you're in your energy and you're feeling your pleasure and it's in an authentic, energized way. I like all of that. So what drew you to this work? Because plenty of people that were trained in this way don't pursue intimacy. Certainly not in social work. That's not where it goes. Yeah, right. I know. I know. Actually, it's funny. I decided to get my masters in social work only because if I got my masters in marriage and family therapy, I wasn't going to be able to work outside of California. And I didn't know if I wanted to stay in California, so I went the MSW route. But I always knew that I wanted to be a sex coach or a sex therapist at the time, but now I do coaching. But yeah, how I got into this, I mean, it really started when I was born. I grew up in a very religious household, very heavy purity culture. I wanted to be a nun when I was 16, very, very religious. Oh my. Yeah, it was very intense how religious I was. And, but I had a dilemma. I've always been a very horny person. Always been very curious as a child. I've always been really interested in that tingling sensation between my legs. It was super boy crazy growing up. And so for me, I experienced a lot of shame in my teenage years. I wanted to explore my sexuality, but then I was scared that God was gonna hate me. I had this really big fear of going to hell. And when I turned 18, I graduated high school, started college, I met this guy. He became my boyfriend. We had sex. We had sex for the first time. And I mean, the sky's parted in the angel's saying. And I was like, oh my God, who said there's something wrong with this? It was such a beautiful experience. Granted, the sex wasn't that great because it was my first time, but he was amazing. He was so kind and tender. And it truly felt like this expression of our love. And so I went on this entire journey and just was filled with so much anger and resentment towards the church and my upbringing. And just wanted to know why I had been lied to my whole life. And so throughout that journey, I got invited to be a part of a collective called Kuchy Los Angeles, where we did prehensive sex education workshops for low income communities of color and specifically revolved around queer and trans individuals. And that changed my life. And I thought, oh my God, I want to do this for the rest of my life. I want to help people become empowered in their sexualities as well. So that's pretty much how I got here. Oh, that's so great. Okay, so yeah, just these marginalized populations, especially where it's so taboo, but in general, right? Like the conversation doesn't happen for so many people and certainly in those communities too. So seeing that in your own transformation and then also kind of tapping in and saying, no, this is something that everybody should have, right? Everybody deserves a good sex life. I find that it's interesting because, you know, I primarily work as a sex therapist and there is definitely a huge correlative to dysfunction and religious history, right? You know, the religiosity and those folks coming in with different stories. So what do you find in terms of, I don't know if you still have that population as a clientele or if you see that consistently? Yeah, 100% when I work with individuals, I have had some individuals that are currently practicing in their religion, right? Whether they be Christian or whatever it may be and have a really hard time with understanding, even as like married people, like this feeling of like, I'm married now, I don't understand why I still view sex as wrong. I should be able to freely have sex with my partner. Why does this feel so deeply shameful, right? It's because those messages, I always say you just need to be shamed once and you will shame yourself for the rest of your life until you heal that same, right? And so it's very, very common with the people that I work with and, you know, people that are not actively practicing their faith also experience just like either the messaging that sex is wrong or they experience no messaging at all, which sends of course a message to a child's brain, well, if no one's talking about this, it must be really, really bad, right? And if it's really, really bad, then I should never talk about it. I should never engage in it. And if I do, I'm wrong or I'm bad, right? So a really big part of the process I do with my clients is really supporting them and understanding what these beliefs are and what they choose to believe about their sexual expression and how they can start living their sex lives, acting or expressing their sex lives in a way that is in alignment with who they actually are and what they actually believe, not what they were told to believe in their upbringing. And how do you see shame actually manifest in their lives? Okay, wow, yeah. That's a big question, right? They don't just come with this neat little package and hand it over to you, right? It actually has like, it's this insidious thing that works its way in all kinds of creative manifestations. Yeah, yeah. So let's talk about what shame is, right? So shame is the feeling, as Brinay Brown says, is the feeling of I am wrong. I am innately wrong, right? There's not even something about me, it's just me as a person is wrong, right? And so you're right, it's not like people come to me and say, I have sexual shame that I want to heal. That's not usually what it is, right? I would say the biggest way that it manifests in relationships are couples that have sex but don't talk about sex, right? That one's a really big one. So couples that feel awkward and uncomfortable, they've been together for 10 plus years, they've never sat and had a conversation about their desires, about what they like, about what they don't like, about their boundaries, about their curiosities, of their fantasies and their kinks, right? So because they're not having this conversation, sex starts to feel uncomfortable and suddenly you're trying to have this high level of intimacy with someone that you don't truly feel connected with because you're so ashamed of talking about the things that you want, right? Like I tell my clients all the time, the importance of saying, I would like it if you kissed me in this way. I would love it if you touched me in that way. I love it when you call me this name. If you want to get me in the mood, this is how you can initiate intimacy with me. And then you start co-creating an experience that works for you. But if you're having sex, and this is an analogy I give my clients, if you're having sex, and let's say sex is a playground, and you're saying, this is the parameter of the playground. As long as you're within the parameters of the playground, have at it, have a great time. But what starts to happen is because there's shame involved, so there's no conversations happening, suddenly couples don't know what the parameters of their playground are. So then they're living an ambiguity and ambiguity creates anxiety, it creates stress, and that's the opposite of erotic energy. So suddenly you see couples saying, well, I'm embarrassed and ashamed about my desires. I don't want to express them to you, but I also really have a desire to do this specific thing to you, but I don't know if you're gonna be into it. So they're living in this tension, right? And that is not sexy. So I would say that's- They're distracted, and they're also having this internal dialogue of maybe self-discussed or embarrassment or yeah, and so you're taken out of the moment. You can't be in flow, you can't be in sensual, playful curiosity at all. You can't play in the playground because you don't know what the parameters are, right? So you're stuck, you're like, I don't know what I'm doing. So I would say that's the biggest way that shame manifests in the individuals I work with, but it's also a lot of body image stuff, especially with the whippet I work with, right? The shame of being naked in front of their partners and their bellies, their breasts after having had children, and their bodies look different. So there's a lot of ways in which people want to hide their bodies with their partner, and when you're hiding, and when you're scared about how you look, again. So much energy to hide, right? You're like, I actually find too that women, they pick not just obvious things like their belly or their breasts, but they're also like, whatever. They're like, my neck is too long, or my, they'll pick things that I'm like, wait, what? Like that thing? People don't even know that that, like my ears are uneven, or, and I'm like, nobody notices that. You know, like it's amazing. Men do it too, but women especially are very self-critical of physical attributes. Well, that's the first part. And if you want to take it a step further, genitalia, right? Like our genitals, one of the biggest, one of the things that I do with every single one of my clients is vulva gazing ceremonies, where we grab a bear and we look at our vulvas because there's so much insecurity and shame around what our vulvas look like, right? And with men like the size of their penises, that also makes people want to hide and not engage and not be fully free in their sexual expression. So that's another way that shame pops up, right? But I would say definitely like those are the most common ways that I see it manifest in my clients, and that I saw it manifest within myself as well. And also just, I get curious, like why can't we trust our desire? Well, oftentimes people don't know what their desires are, which honestly, I kind of call bullshit whenever I have clients. Like I don't know what I like. And I'm like, yeah, bullshit, right? It's not that you don't know what you like, is that you haven't given yourself the opportunity to explore what you like. And I always like to use the comparison with food, right? It's like, how do I know what I enjoy? Well, I tried a bunch of different foods and I realized that my face buds really enjoyed this particular type of food or this texture or whatever, right? And I don't really like these other things, but you go through an exploration phase with food and it's the same thing with sex. You go through an exploration phase and then you ask yourself, oh, what do I like, right? But so many of us don't pause and think what do I like, right? And because we're thinking about my partner's pleasure is in my hands, I need to make sure that they feel good. What do I look like? All these other things that get in the way that we're not feeling into our bodies, we're up here in our heads, right? And it doesn't allow us to fully connect with our pleasure. So yeah, I would say that that's a really, really big one. But also we live in a world, and I think it's important to note this because it's not like it's our fault, we purposefully live in a society that is sex negative because the powers that be, they know that sexually empowered people are dangerous people. And what I mean by that is that if you can conk sexual out, you become mentally liberated. And so you're less easy to manipulate, right? But when suddenly you live in a world where people want you to be sex negative, they want you to be disconnected to yourself, you also become disconnected from your intuition, you become disconnected from your truth. And especially now with the rise of technology, we see like chat GPT, people are consulting with chat GPT instead of checking in with themselves. People are mindlessly scrolling on social media instead of journaling and connecting with themselves, right? Myself included, like I catch myself too, like being like, no way, Jocelyn, let's connect with like my intuition versus what I think this like artificial intelligence robot is gonna tell me I should think or feel. So there's a lot of ways in which it's very easy. Disconnection with self and then disconnection with partner. 100. Can you, I mean, because it's what you want, but then also what you want isn't fixed. What you want is fluid. It's just like you don't always want strawberries. Sometimes you like to mix in some blueberries or some bananas and it's dependent on you that day, it's dependent on how it's pitched to you that day, it's dependent on the ripeness of those berries, right? So it's part of it is every partner is not the same. And you know, so I find that, yeah, we're not fixed and we're not like rinse and repeat. So being able to check in with yourself and know where am I right now and how is this evolving is something that is intuition that has to be to your point and cultivated. And checked in on a safety basis. You know, I've actually gone on this journey myself. I recently started doing IFS therapy, parts work therapy. Oh my God, I'm in love. Where have I been? This is my life. I'm even like, I wanna get certified in this because it's been phenomenal. And what's been coming up for me in my personal journey has been like, how often do I connect with myself? Recently I've developed two daily rituals that have just been game changers for me. Actually three, okay, four, meditation and prayer, gratitude journal, journaling and having a quiet nighttime routine without screens. And I'm telling you like the amount of self-trust that I have developed just in these practices has been so amazing, right? But we really need to put effort into doing those things. Like these things require effort on my part, right? And so the more that we can put effort in connecting with our intuition, with our truth, then the more we can become connected to our desires and the more confident we will be in understanding what our desires are and expressing those to our partner so that we can have sex lives that are fulfilling and fun and in alignment with who we are. I love that too. And the gratitude piece of just returning. I mean, that's so fundamental of like, what are you grateful for? It feeds back to more of what you want, right? The grounding of the meditation, sort of that prayer meditation, journaling practice and the gratitude and then sort of the quietness to settle and to let your mind kind of, right? So you're not constantly getting stimmed, yeah. Right, oh my God. Highly recommend for anyone who's were for folks that are listening, the five minute journal is fabulous. Have you heard of it? Oh my goodness, it's great. You can get it at Target, you can get it on Amazon, get it online. It's a journal that every morning you write five, I'm sorry, three things you're grateful for, three ways that would make your day great and then you write an affirmation. And then in the evening time, you write your highlights of the day, three highlights of the day and what did you learn today? And it's just like, takes a little bit, but it's just, it's so lovely to start your day and end your day that way. And then I also recommend getting galaxy lights. If you wanna have like some fun, moody settings in your home, I have galaxy lights and at night I put them on the red setting. So there's like this red, dark, like beautiful vibe in my home that just like makes me like learn like, okay, it's time to go to bed. I love it. And it's also very sexy. So highly recommend it. Yeah. Well, okay, so expressing desire can feel incredibly vulnerable. If that's a new, if that's a new expression, if you're starting to get centered with yourself, expressing desire, and this doesn't necessarily have to be sexual desire, but you know, as people are kind of flexing that muscle and getting better at it, what do you feel like makes that so difficult for people? I love this question. I also love it you were talking about this cause I literally just finished creating a course that helps them and express their desires. And it's amazing. I'm telling you, I'm just like so proud of this course and it's gonna be, it's gonna help so many women. So I've been pondering this idea a lot that you're asking me. I think it has a lot to do with our human nature. So I love the work of Renee Brown. I use her a lot in my work. She's an MSW as well. So I love her. And I also really appreciate Gabor Mate. Love his work. And I feel like he has been able to explain it to me in a way that has supported my understanding of these dynamics. And so something that he talks a lot about is how we have two basic human needs. One of them is the need for authenticity and the other one is the need for attachment. When we're children, we need the attachment of our parents because if not, we think we're gonna die, right? It's like a survival mechanism or it's a survival instinct, right? But when we go into adulthood, we don't need someone to survive. We're fully fledged adults and we can take care of ourselves. However, our nervous systems haven't caught up to that. So we experience guilt and a lot of that guilt can sometimes lead to self-abandonment and can lead to developing relationships with others where we choose attachment over authenticity, right? At a fear of being alone, right? So why is it so scary to express our desires? Well, because once we become attached to somebody, we suddenly have a deep fear of losing that attachment. And that's a very basic human instinct, right? It's, you know, in the book attached, it says we become biologically connected to our partners, right? So when you're suddenly, you know, sitting down in front of someone who you're attached to and you're about to tell them what you desire, right? You're about to tell them something that they might not like that you're afraid is gonna hurt their feelings that will you get rejected, will you get judged? I mean, it really touches upon that balance of authenticity and attachment, right? It's like, how can I show up authentically and trust that the attachment can survive it, but also be okay with it not. And that is really, really hard for us to do as humans. Yeah, taking that risk to ask for something with the understanding that they might reject it, they might refuse it, they might judge it. And this is an everyday request. This could also be an intimate request. Yeah, can you tolerate the not knowing how the outcome will go? Yeah, it's a developmental task to be able to, you know, do this and I think it's a muscle that has to be built over time. And there has to be enough relational security, which first comes, you know, with individual security, but then relational security to be able to ask, you know, these types of requests, make these types of requests. I was like, yeah, I always think it's funny when my clients tell me, well, how can I do it without feeling so scared and awkward and uncomfortable? And I always say, you can't, you have to do it scared and uncomfortable and awkward and eventually it goes away. It's like, there is no way around it. You can only go through it, right? But like you said, like flexing that muscle, it's getting your reps. It's so funny. When one person does it, it gives the other person permission to do it, right? It's modeling and it's sort of permission giving because otherwise, you know, you're both sort of living in this small contained way. And then the relationship is safe, but it's not that exciting. Yeah, yeah. And sometimes it takes one person to set the example for the other one to say, oh, okay, like this is safe, I can do this, right? Another reason why I always say it's very, very important that couples or the individuals when they're dating, they start getting into the habit of having conversations around sex. Because, so I'm sure it's happened to you many times that you work with patients or clients that come to you and they've been together for 20 years and they realize they're just not sexually compatible because they never had conversations around sex in the beginning of their relationship, right? But suddenly they're with each other and they feel stuck because they're like, damn, like, I didn't realize this was gonna be my life. You know, I had this idea who this person was, but we never sat and talked about what our intimate desires are. Yeah, yeah, or there's, yes, and typically it's couples that are maybe 60s, something like that, where they've been together a long time, but they haven't really ever unpacked maybe some kinkier stuff that they were interested in. And so there's been, and I'm still not completely convinced that if they can really do it from an authentic place, that it's off the table. I think they just have never shown who they are and they haven't evolved through, kind of through the stages of let's explore this together. They're trying to go from zero to, and they've been watching porn, maybe one person has been watching porn and so they've gone through it in their mind, not in their relationship. And so the other person's like way back over here. And so, and there's a lot of shame for the person that's been watching the porn because it's been secret keeping and feeling like, yeah, like this is bad and it's not inherently bad. It's just, they've been doing it as a solo experience. Yeah, you know, I'm not saying that if you don't have a conversation around sex in the very beginning or relationship is doomed, because I've also worked with individuals where they're in their fates and they're finally talking about sex and they're like, whoa, like, we just discovered our sexuality 30 years into being married together. Like this is really cool, right? So that can happen, but it's not, how do I say it's a simple way to get there, but it is challenging. And I think that the more we can just accept that it's going to be hard to have these conversations and brace ourselves for the awkwardness and the discomfort and all the feelings that might come of it. I mean, there's so much beauty on the other side of like those really hard conversations. Yeah, well, it's a balance of feeling both safe and exciting. That's kind of the tension that exists because yeah, a lot of couples come in and they've been together, I see couples that have been together 20 to 45 years, probably, and sometimes there's a lot of safety, there's a lot of familiarity, there's a lot of respect, and there's a lot of boredom. I'm impressed that they're still trying to fight for a sex life because there's been so much apathy. And so how do we relinquish some of the safety that's probably more like scar tissue, corrosion, boredom, and try to take some healthy risks for authenticity? Yeah. In that side of things. And I mean, that's the beauty of working with a sex therapist or a coach, right? Is that they get to practice with us, right? And our clients get to practice with us, like telling us what their desires are, telling us what they're curious about. And sometimes that's all you need is just to say it out loud to somebody who won't judge you and then give you the courage to finally say it to your partner. Hallelujah. Right? Just say it out loud to somebody. And the world didn't blow apart. Yeah. That's literally what my course is all about. It's about speaking your desires out loud and just saying the thing and letting that shame melt away, right? With the practice of doing so. Okay, we're gonna take a quick break and then we'll be right back to talk more about safety versus aliveness. 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 what's it mean to feel home in your body, especially in the sexual context? Yeah. So this phrase came to me randomly one day and I just rolled with it because I thought it was such a beautiful concept that I had just randomly thought about. I hadn't heard it anywhere. And I don't know if I was like on mushrooms or something. I don't know, but it just came to me. And it was, pleasure is your body's way of saying I love you. Like whenever, and I have actually the word pleasure tattooed here and I see that you have the word pleasure here, right? So pleasure in any sense, right? Eating ice cream, the feeling of, you know, soft caresses on your skin, cozying up and watching a movie and laughing, drinking a hot cup of hot chocolate, right? Doing a strenuous workout and then feeling the release of your body afterwards, doing yoga, whatever it may be. Experiencing pleasure in your body is your body's way of saying I love you. So to be home in your body and in your sexual expression for me means, can you accept the love that your body's trying to give you through pleasure? Can you accept it? Can you acknowledge it? And can you sit in it in receptivity? Right? And if you can do those things, I think that's what it feels like to be at home. You know, when I, because let me tell you, the road to healing your sexual shame is not a short one. It's a long one. It's taken me many years to get to a place where I can finally have sex and just like not think of anything. And even just a few years ago, after my self-pleasure practices, I would feel like a little icky. I would be like, oh, this, I don't, why do I feel so icky right now? Like I would feel icky with myself. And I thought about it and I said, okay, well, if pleasure is my body's way of saying I love you, how can I say I love you back? And immediately I was like, oh, being grateful for the pleasure. So I started getting myself into the habit of saying, thank you so much, Clitoris, for like the amazing orgasm you just gave me. Thank you so much, Body, for that amount of pleasure that I just experienced. Thank you for the caresses that my partner just gave me. Thank you for the kisses that I just received. And when I started doing that, it really started rewiring my brain to being like, okay, I'm experiencing pleasure, I'm accepting pleasure, and I'm being grateful for the pleasure. And I think that when we can start doing those things, that's when you come home to your sexual desires. So interesting. Like I love that idea of just, I mean, gratitude, they've shown over and over again, gratitude is such a strong piece of shift. Diana Hill, as a psychologist that I've been on retreat with, and I remember we did this moving meditation, and it was yes, yes, thank you, thank you. And every step, one step was yes, and you just say yes to something. So yes to, and you could do this sexually too, like yes to caress, yes to seeing my body. Thank you to, thank you to your kiss, thank you to whatever, thank you to your orgasm. But it's like, and you just keep doing that mantra over and over again. And this was something we did for quite a while. We think we did like a 15 minute something of just yes, yes, thank you, thank you. And the exhilaration was palpable. It was pretty crazy. Like when you really said into that place, and what you're describing kind of feels akin to that, of just being really mindful of, I mean, I wanna say it like in the healthy entitlement way, right? The deserving of taking in the goodness and allowing it. And even, you're talking about self pleasure, right? It's like, you're not even with partner, and you're feeling guilty. So the shame is real. The shame is so strong, how it could just sort of insidiously like get in there and get ya. And I think it also, because people have, as a coach, I like to be very tangible. I like that people can feel and touch and understand. Like what was my coaching? I always think like, how can I speak to the person who, you know, how can I speak in the most layman's terms? How can I speak to the most average individual that has a nine to five job, right? The cashier at the grocery store. You know, just someone that any, in the language that anybody can understand, right? Because I think it's really important to make this information accessible. And so, yes, obviously we want this to be present in our sex lives, but we can start with the small things. Like my mom always teases me, because when I eat my food, I'm very like verbal. Like this is so good, you know? Like if I eat like a burger and show, he's always goes, mm, you know, she likes makes fun of me. In anything, like again, get a tub of ice cream or like, you know, a cup of ice cream and you're just like closing your eyes and you can feel the cold and the flavors melting on your tongue. And like, can you just sit and enjoy that, right? Like maybe you're riding on your bike and you feel a gush of wind blow your hair back and it's like, ooh, can I just enjoy that, right? Your partner comes up to you and kisses your neck. Like, can you just take a moment to be like, wow, look at the sensations that my body is capable of experiencing. Thank you. You know what I mean? Like, that's amazing, right? And that's really when you start practicing the receptivity, because we're so disconnected from the pleasure, we think that we're supposed to look a certain way or be a certain way. And it's like, no, it's just experience the pleasure and have gratitude for it so that can, that pleasure can expand and so that you can understand yourself better too, right? Yeah. How do you think like the performance based narratives around sex limit people's experience? Oh my God, it limits our experience in everything, I would say, because performance is about looking a certain way, right? So... We're being perceived. We're being perceived, right? So, and it looks different for both genders too, right? So a lot of the men that I work with, performance for them is will I have an erection or not? You know, they can't, they don't even give themselves the opportunity to think about, what would it look like for me to enjoy sexual pleasure with a flaccid penis? I actually feel really great if you just get rid of the pressure of performing, right? And just enjoy the sensations that your body gave you. And for women, it's very much like, how do I look during sex? And do I look like the porn stars? Do I look like the women on TV or on social media that my partner might want more than me, right? And so when we're thinking about how we're perceived, that completely takes us away from us feeling into our bodies. I'll take the ice cream example, because I think it's a simple example to understand. It's like this is feeling of, hey, if I'm eating this ice cream and suddenly I'm worried about what people think of me, you might not even taste the ice cream. You're probably just, you're in a state of tension at that point, right? And we know that when you're in a state of tension, when you're tapping into the sympathetic nervous system, you can't relax enough to experience erotic energy. So when you say, how does that, how does performance impact you? Well, performance is anxiety inducing. So your body tenses up and you're not gonna be able to fully relax enough to experience sexuality, because your body needs to be in a state of relaxation to be able to experience that pleasure and that joy, right? And what I say is like, who cares what you look like? What does it feel in your body, right? I always joke that like, not many people look that great when they're having an orgasm, but it feels amazing. And we can just, I wish I had looked like a porn star having an orgasm. Right, but by the way, porn stars don't actually, they're not even, it doesn't even feel good. They're literally just acting. They're actors, they're actors, right? So it's not the idea of moving from that performance mindset to the presence mindset. And so it's being willing to just own, well, it's relinquishing your attachment to the perception of performance, right? Of that, because there is some payoff to looking good or to looking, controlling the perception of being manly and whatever. I know I've had that conversation too with men and like their devastation at not being able to maintain an erection, because absolutely they have sensitivity without an erection. And most partners, I mean, some partners really care and want the erection to remain because it feels very different. But the sensation is fine. So it's like, yeah, it can work, but you have to release your own attachment to having it look one way. And if you can do that, then it keeps rolling and boy, it can become a whole different experience that probably can be quite satisfying. Yeah. But that requires presence. Yeah. And I think it also requires the belief that your pleasure matters, right? More than your appearance. Exactly. As an umbrella. 100%. It's this feeling of like, I'm selfishly going to experience pleasure and I don't care what I look like as long as I feel great, right? But in order to get there, you have to, and I mean, you know, I always tell my clients, I joke around that I say, I hook people in by telling them we're doing sex coaching and just kidding, we're gonna talk about everything else because it's all connected. You know, how you show up in your sex life is also directly connected to like, how much you love yourself, right? Do you deem yourself worthy of someone who deserves pleasure? Do you deem yourself worthy of someone that deserves joy and happiness and all of the beautiful things that life has in store? Because if you don't believe that, then why would you even care about your own pleasure? It's like, again, the attachment versus authenticity. I would rather forego my authenticity for the sake of attachment, right? That's a dangerous place to be. And how can people start redefining pleasure kind of on their own terms? Well, I would say it honestly starts with thinking about what feels good on a day-to-day basis, right? If you can just maybe even to make it even more tangible, getting a paper and a pen and writing down whenever you feel pleasure. Had really delicious eggs and bacon this morning that was so yummy. Today my dog... What brings me joy kind of thing instead of... Yeah, what brings me joy. My dog sat on my lap today and I got to snuggle with him for an hour. My partner kissed me on the cheek before work and it felt really nice to feel that connection. The sun was on my face during sunset and it felt really nice to feel the sun on my face, right? So if you could just start... Sprinkling some of those things into the interior every day. Yeah, or acknowledge them when they happen so that you understand what you enjoy. And that's a really great way to start connecting with that part of you. And then are you working with both individuals and couples? Yes. Okay, and what do you notice in the difference in that work? Yeah, great question. I find that working with individuals, if they are in partnership, can still be incredibly effective, but it really depends on whatever struggles they're having in their intimate life. Like I always find that at some point, if I work with an individual that is in a relationship at some point it's like, okay, I can only go so far. I think we're gonna have to start incorporating your partner into this work, right? Because then all of the weight can go on that one partner versus like it being a conversation. It really depends, again, every client is different. But of course I find that the most effective work happens when both parties and the couple are like 110% in it. They're dedicated, they wanna work on things, they wanna figure things out. And I think that once both of them become my client, I also, because I always say like, if we're gonna bring your other partner, I want you to know like they're my client too. So it's important that they both understand that they're both here to be heard, they're both here to be understood, they're both here to be seen, and that there isn't like, there's one person right and one person wrong. It's just understanding where in this dynamic is there creating some distance or a disconnect between them and their erotic energy, right? So I'd say that it depends on the person. Now, when I'm working with individuals that are single, it's really interesting because they don't have the consistent, they don't have the attachment, right? That someone who's in a relationship has. So there's a lot more freedom, I feel like, in what we can do. Also a lot of my clients that are single, it depends, like sometimes they're like, I just wanna have casual sex and explore my sexuality and I really need guidance in that. It's like, okay, great, that's gonna look very different, right? Or they say, I'm really ready to be in a committed relationship and I'd like to connect with my sexuality so that the next time I'm in a relationship, I have the tools to be able to express myself and that looks very different too, right? So I would say it differs a lot depending on relationship status, what the goals of my clients are and the coaching can go in many different ways depending on them. Yeah, I like that delineation because I find that typically I'm seeing couples. Occasionally I'm seeing an individual. What's tricky is when one person's really ready to do the work and the other person isn't. Yeah. That's hard. Then it's like one person's gonna move ahead and the other person's kind of stuck at home, feeling usually quite threatened, I find, right? The other scenario that comes in sometimes with couples is that one person is bringing the other person in, hoping that they will get fixed. And I'm like, that's not what this is for. No, no, no. And usually, no, when someone, I'm like, what brings you here? They're like, well, my partner and then, and it's like, okay, well. She doesn't wanna have sex. And I'm like, she doesn't wanna have sex with you. Yeah. Or like, let's bring her in and like ask her, right? But there's very little that we can do to support someone when they feel like their partner is the problem. Yeah. So broadening it into a bigger conversation and getting curious about, yeah, all the factors that play. So you say that intimacy isn't just about sex, it's about creating a life that turns you on. So what does that mean in practice? Yeah. Well, I'll share my personal story because it's very connected. So I've had a few different sexual awakenings and the first one was obviously when I turned 18. I'd probably say that was the second one. I think the first one was when I discovered what my clitoris was. That was like, what's this, right? Yeah. But I went through a really big whiplash in my 20s. I went from being very conservative and shameful to being reckless with my body, which actually landed me in working, recovering and sex and love addiction, which also reconnected me with spirituality, which I think is wonderful. And through that process, I just hit like a rock bottom. I, my life completely fell apart and my mom got really sick around that time as well. And I just had this moment where I was looking at my mom in a coma and I just thought to myself, what the hell am I doing with my life and what do I want to do with my life? Like I've ruined my life with my reckless sexual behavior. Like how do I eradicate this, right? And I made a deal with God and I said, God, if you give me my mom back, I'll do whatever you want me to do and my mom survived. And so I went on this journey where I thought, well, what do I want? And I always said, I want to be a sex therapist and I want to travel the world. And so through that process, I actually discovered coaching. So I decided to go to the coaching route, which eventually I might get my license, become a licensed clinical social worker, I'm not sure, but, and I said, okay, I'm gonna do what I want to do. And so for the last five years, I've been a digital nomad. I have traveled to many different countries. I live in Mexico now, but I've lived in Spain, in Croatia, Colombia, Turkey, Mexico, Guatemala, you know, different countries. And I want to continue traveling for the rest of my life. And so for me, it was, what's the life that I want to create that turns me on? And that is what turns me on. And I had to have a really big reckoning with myself to be like, okay, what do you want, Jocelyn? Like when death is so close to you, you really realize like our time here is limited. Okay, we're gonna die one day, right? And maybe for someone it's not that extreme, but maybe a life that turns you on is like going to play golf a couple of times a week. Maybe a life that turns on is wearing lingerie around your home. Maybe a life that turns you on is learning how to skateboard or skydive or learning how to paint or whatever it may be. But just finding something in your life that you can be passionate about, something in your life that turns you on, because that will translate into your sexual expression. Something like in the book, Meeting and Captivity by Esther Perrell, she talks about how when we become so molded into our partner, we lose sight of our identities. And when we don't have our own identity, then we become disinterested in sexual intimacy, right? So living a life that turns you on is really about how do I make my life exciting for myself? Create an identity for myself so that I have some distance from my partner because that distance is what creates the fire of desire within a partnership. So that's how I... I love that. No, that makes perfect sense and I agree wholeheartedly. And I love that you're walking the talk. Yeah, I'm gonna honestly, I love my life. That's pretty cool. Yeah, and it's taken me a long time to get here. I went through some really hard struggles in the last year, but IFS therapy and doing the internal work lately, I just, I'm really in love with my life and I want whoever's listening to know that you can become in love with your life as well too. It's just a choice that you get to make. So folks can find you on Instagram at IamJocelynSilva, which will be in the show notes. What else do you have going on in terms of offers or ways that they can work with you? I'm so excited that you asked. Okay, so I literally just created my Speak Your Desires course, which is Speak Your Desires, a woman's guide to knowing what she wants and asking for it. And it's $47 and it's jam-packed with insights on how to connect with your desires, a visualization practice. I also threw in some bonuses, a yes, no, maybe game, as well as a dirty talk guide. I'm so proud of this and I'm so excited for it. So that's a course if you're a woman and you have a hard time knowing what you want in bed and how to ask for it, this course can definitely help you. And I also do one-on-one coaching with individuals and couples and you can find all that information out on my website at www.JocelynSilva.com. Great, all right, sounds good. We'll link all that in the show notes. So thank you so much for watching me, thank you. You're welcome. 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 wanna come with me directly, you can message me on Instagram at Dr. Jen Kennedy or email me at drjenkenny at gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you.