Anxiety & Intimacy w/ Dr. Shreya Hessler | Szn. 4 Ep. 10

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. Today, we're diving into a topic that's reshaping how a whole generation approaches love, intimacy, and self-worth, anxiety, and connection in young adulthood. My guest is Dr. Shreya Hessler, clinical psychologist, speaker, and founder of the Mindset Center in Maryland. She works with Gen Z and young adults to navigate anxiety, perfectionism, and the messy, beautiful process of becoming themselves. Her TEDx talk, Stumble Stories, What Success Can't Teach Us, explores how embracing imperfection can deepen connection. And that's exactly what we're unpacking today. From rejection sensitivity to shifting social norms, we'll explore how anxiety is shaping emotional and sexual relationships for young people. And what it takes to build real intimacy in an anxious world. So join us. Welcome back to Pleasure Project. Today, we are diving into a topic that's shaping how an entire generation approaches love and intimacy and self-worth, anxiety and connection in young adulthood. Joining me today is Shreya Hessler, a clinical psychologist and speaker who helps Gen Z and young adults navigate anxiety, perfectionism, and the messy process of becoming themselves. As the founder of Mindsight Center in Maryland, she guides clients in building confidence, authenticity, and emotional resilience in both their personal and professional lives. We'll unpack how anxiety, rejection sensitivity, and a shifting sense of connection are shaping the way young people relate, both emotionally and sexually, and what it takes to build healthy, real intimacy in an anxious world. So welcome. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Yeah. So we haven't, I haven't actually done a whole lot of coverage of this population. I tend to kind of shift to the older crowd. Yeah. So when I met you and we kind of talked about the young adults, I was like, huh, yeah, I think they need some attention. Let's, let's kind of like see what's going on with this, this generation. And so I appreciate you being here and giving me some insight. So I'm happy to be here. This is a population I love to work with. And I'm kind of known as a pediatric psychologist early on in my career. But after being in this profession for 20 years, I've grown with them. And so because I specialize in seeing anxious patients, and I used to just see anxious kids, they've grown up. And now they are in college. And in, you know, the early stages of their careers, they're having a tough time, you know? So it's interesting to be kind of growing and evolving with them and work with them. And they're back talking about things that in a different context, but kind of the same process from when they were younger. Yeah. It's like you've seen them sort of go through some developmental stages and now they're trying to adult in a challenging space. What, yeah, what do you see kind of among the Gen Z and young adults being kind of like chief challenges as they're trying to kind of grow into kind of early professional life? So, you know, there's been also a lot of, there's been a lot of talk about the anxious generation, right? Jonathan Haidt has done a lot of work on. Well, first of all, wait, define, let's define, because as I was telling people we were going to have this conversation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were like, wait, who's Gen Z? What is, they don't even, let's define Gen Z. crazy. They're like, well, who are we? I'm like, I'm Gen X. Who's Gen Z? They don't even know. Right. So, you know, obviously a generation is about 25 years. So we're still in, you know, like the Gen Z era. In fact, the youngest member of Gen Z is a freshman in high school right now. Gen Alpha is eighth grade and younger. And Gen Z is, like I said, ninth grade. And now, you know, into their early 20s, right? In their 20s. So these are folks that are basically, if you think about it, 14 and the prime of like the burgeoning part of adolescence, like the hormonal, like, you know, explosions that happen. And then we're navigating all through high school into college, beyond college, and in the early years of their careers, right? The anxious generation is defined, you know, to quote Jonathan Haidt, who I just mentioned before, who wrote the book, The Anxious Generation, is this is a generation that has been overprotected in the real world. And I'm paraphrasing here and underprotected in the digital world. And so what that ends up resulting in is an increase in anxiety. And what I'm witnessing, not just in my clinical practice, but also as a college professor at the undergraduate level right now, really having this sense of disconnection, the things that organically you and I had opportunity to kind of fumble and figure out because we were able to play on the playground. We're the play generation. We were able to play on the playground, scruff our knees, make mistakes quietly and figure things out. This generation feels like they're under a magnifying glass. And whether that's self, you know, projected or whether that's just comparison culture, it's a different world they're living in right now. And so if you've grown up anxious and overprotected, it makes it really hard to take chances appropriately, right? To explore and above all else, connect, let alone be intimate with someone else. And so I'm finding that that hesitancy they may have had as a late childhood early adolescent again the content is different thinking about or worried about is different process seems to be the same it's just a different subject matter and they've grown up under this kind of magnifying glass like i said before that makes us feel it makes them feel like they're just being watched and judged all the time Which makes exploration really hard. Is it like that magnifying glass was external and now they've internalized it? That's it. So think about it, the digital era, really at social media and it's, and I talk a lot about social media because this is how they're connecting with each other, right? This is communicating with each other. And I started noticing this about a decade ago because I was in session, maybe actually less than a decade ago, really mostly for a decade. five years ago, where these young adults and late adolescent patients were talking to me about having conversations with their significant other. And in diving deeper, I started to realize that they actually weren't talking to each other. They were texting each other. And so, you know, in your podcast and in your work, you talk about, you know, touch and touch starvation. I know that's been, you know, talked about, but they've been set up to have what they call intimate relationships and having deep discussions about a variety of subjects without speaking words to each other. So that part then creates this notion of underlying anxiety about like perception of tone and what do they mean by that. Then you added all the other slang and emojis and things like that. Things get lost in translation. Yeah. And that catches up with you, you know, when you're trying to connect and partner with someone. And they're intuiting what this means when they see things posted or Snapchat and they don't have full context and, and underdeveloped brains. And right. There's just the layers of, when I think about growing up in the seventies and eighties, I mean, I was a teenager in the eighties and right. You had to, you had to wait, right. You're, you're just on that coiled phone, like waiting and like maybe talking to your friend, but you had to wait until Monday morning to get the information. You didn't have like this flood of like snapchats and instagram posts to like feed your like anxiety well and not only feed your anxiety but feed what the definition is of worth and popularity connection so it's not you know i talk about this generation really having difficulty with the pause button things have to be automatic there's urgency and there's a push to get it right right so no this is a generation that had a difficult, whose parents had a difficult time. Let me just correct this. Whose parents had a difficult time when their children were feeling uncomfortable, be it a poor grade on an exam in school or perception of how they were being treated socially, right? And so there becomes this lack of opportunity, right? To have that pause button to be like, oh, I wonder what that's about. And you kind of don't have, for you and I, we wait until Monday morning and it may not have been a big deal or people weren't talking about things in the moment now on a Friday night you get to see what everybody else is doing and who they're with and how they're with them and how those pictures are curated etc and it creates this curated platform of like this is what it's supposed to be like this is what love is supposed to look like this is what a relationship is supposed to right and I think that burdens them right um and prevents them from taking I think natural chances in relationship building that you and I had the ability to do pretty naturally, right? Yeah. So the overthinking, the avoidance then that deepens the anxiety, right? And you said perfection. Do you see a lot of perfectionism in this? So much. So much. So the idea of wearing it right, looking right, doing it right, the judgment of the rules of like how to engage. Do you communicate first? Do you, you're not second guessing that overthinking piece gets in the way of the actual execution, right? Of whether or not you want to have a conversation with a potential partner or somebody you're interested. And then like, so that's just the beginning part, right? Forget about the sexual intimacy piece for a second and just talk about the ability to act by contact, act, right? And it's starting to just catch up, right? So this is a generation who's like partnering later, and certainly marrying later. Well, there's the lack of practice, right? They don't have the practice. And then there's like the, and then magnify all the pressure that they have to get it right. Right. And all the skills are coming later and with less. Yeah. Well, and also think about, right? Like I, I, it's interesting because like my youngest patient is in elementary school and my oldest patient is in her seventies Right And so I I just have this unique and I also done this for 20 years So like I just seen this evolution right And you know we we we know you and I know that when you're anxious, we do two things. We avoid the things that make us uncomfortable. I'm not going to do it. And we do reassurance seeking, right? And so oftentimes our reassurance seeking isn't, you and I might've asked a trusted adult, a parent, et cetera. They're looking online for the reassurance of like, is this, is this neurotypical? Is this normal? Is this expected? And based on... They're asking chat. And chat? They're asking AI. They're asking chat, which isn't even a person. The bots don't have body parts. I say this all the time. The bots don't have body parts, right? Like, so, you know, that part makes the intensity, the frequency of the overthinking and the duration of how much they're perseverating on getting it right. So much so much more than we ever felt before. And so then it just, everybody feels awkward. Nobody wants to touch anybody. No one wants to like do anything because they're so afraid of getting it wrong. Well, and so also, I guess I've heard that more and more these younger people, these younger people, because I see the older people, these younger people are tending to like hang out in groups that they're not doing the traditional, like, let's go on a date. Is that what you're seeing like that they're hanging out and it's a it's it's vague and so the status of what they are isn't taking shape and so it's like they're not getting those skill building or you know exactly and you know the murky water of the situationship is so i like i learn a lot about these terms as i'm right and the operational definition kind of changes over time but you know a situationship is not a commitment. It's the term commitment, right? And I do see on the flip end, you know, members of this generation just giving themselves some grace and some time to say, okay, maybe I, maybe I don't know what figures this out, but the amount of anxiety that I am witnessing just kind of translate into, you know, the worlds of college, which is where a lot of sexual exploration tends to happen, right? Yeah. And, and the young working world. So like, think about remote working, isolation, there's just a lot more isolation. So then don't have opportunities. So you were talking about practice response. Like there's no, there's no opportunity for that practice response organically, just because culturally, since, especially since COVID, we, we tend to be more isolated and we haven't had those practice skills and it's a little bit slow to catch up. And this is happening for a generation of kids, you know, where their brains were still actively developing, but their worlds were getting smaller and smaller. Right. And so that's just kind of what I'm witnessing right now in my work. So and also the piece of connection. I mean, connection is so important for every like every age. But but, you know, certainly COVID was a huge global problem. But then everybody moving to, you know, independent work and remote work, a lot of that is reversed, but the challenges of connection. And as these young adults move into college, I just saw a young adult this week and he's moved here for college. He doesn't know anybody. He doesn't want to be in a fraternity. And I hear this in general. I hear it with men a lot, is that once they get out of the structure of school where they don't have teams or they don't have classes, they don't know how to meet anybody. Women do it, seem to do it better, but the young adults, once they start working, or if they're not in a working situation where they're naturally meeting people, they don't know how to make any friends and they feel really lonely. It's really like, I'm really glad you mentioned this because also as a practitioner, I think a handful of kids this week, or young adults, excuse me, that I saw this week, and across all genders, lonely. And it is, even if we are recommending certain steps and I call that micro dosing, you know, like, you know, sometimes it feels so overwhelming to tell our clients, like, we'll just go join a club, right? Instead, like, can you scaffold for them? That's actually what I'm finding is that the social skills that are required to have or intense relationships that we all as human beings want. We require, I think, more scaffolding provisions for our young adults right now within a higher ed and then beyond, right? And so it's not easy to ask someone to initiate when they don't know how to and they've never really had opportunity to. So what I call microdosing is really about can you eat lunch outside in the park? can you say hi to five people random strangers as you're crossing campus and you know you and I are talking college students for example but that connection piece of practice response and eye contact um shaking hands like simple things that you and I don't ever think about um really hard really hard to do and especially if they've got a phone in their hand right so yeah you're looking down. Right. And so connection, it breaks through that barrier that they've created of like that and me. So at least even just doing that piece, because also the loneliness deepens as they hunger for, for intimate connection, right? So many of the times they're like, I want a partner. And it's like, if they can't make a friend, they can't even imagine how they're going to find an intimate partner. That's it. And, you know, group activities are always safer, but putting your foot forward to at least go into an environment with a group of people can be also pretty daunting, especially as you're making other types of transitions. And so this later part of Gen Z, they're transitioning into higher ed, out of higher ed, into graduate school work or whatever have you. It's hard because they don't know how to play with each other. Simply. Or they've sort of done this flattening where it's like everybody's just kind of friends and it's like you don't want to take the risk and say, I'm interested in you. Or can we peel off of the group and see if we can explore this in a deeper way? Right. That's an emotional risk that they're not used to taking and they don't know how to find that language and be vulnerable. And so it's like, let's all just continue to sort of have this, you know, safe enough thing. Right. But that's the problem, right? Safe enough contributes to information, right? As opposed to why not, right? Like try. What's the worst that can happen? You know, you don't like that. Okay. But I guess what I find a little confusing is at the same time, this is also the generation that is doing all this stuff on Instagram, Right. They're taking huge risks with with being more exposed and more outrageous on social media and, you know, being more eye catching and that type of thing. You know, it's fascinating that you say that because right now I'm teaching, ironically, a digital detox class. So we've been talking about social media, this whole conversation. It's a digital detox class. So the class is completely analog, right? And right now when we're recording, it's, you know, halfway through the semester. And, you know, they, I just had a lecture about digital identity versus real identity. And on TikTok, on Snap, or maybe less of a Snap, but on TikTok and on Instagram, etc., there are these personas that are put on screen, I think, for a myriad of reasons. But it was fascinating that my students would say, like, but that's not all of who I am. Not everybody gets to see everything that I am. But if we think about if everybody is putting a curated, altered persona on social media, there's a group think that happens, right? Then everybody thinks like this is the way it's supposed to be or this is how everybody is. And then in real life, it makes it much harder to be authentic, right? And because you've got this role that you've created for yourself online digitally. And I think that just makes it so much harder. So in this class, you know, Jen, the simplest things, talking to each other, small group exercises, eye contact. Don't give them a choice. It's almost exposure therapy. And as a behaviorist, I do all the time, right? Your phone, like everything is off. They have a notebook and a journal and a pen in my class. You know, midway through the semester, now they don't miss their devices and they're talking out loud about how they wished they've had more opportunities like this class. Offline, to connect, to form relationships, and even friendships that I've seen kind of blossom over the last couple of months. It's been extraordinary to see. And it also makes me sad because it shouldn't be sensational. at all. It shouldn't be the exception to the world. It should be how we're, how we're communicating. But you're giving them, you're giving them, it's almost like when you go to a retreat and then you're like, oh God, I wish I could feel like this all the time. Or you're giving them some opportunity to experience what it could be like. And some, when I leave a retreat, I'm always like, I should do this all the time. And I, and I sort of have some lingering like weeks of it. And then I click back into my normal life. And then I forget I have amnesia, But it's like, if you can pull some of that in, you know, and start to help them see that that's even available. Yeah. And also, if you're feeling super anxious, right, you're focused so much on the overthinking, like that one emotion, right, that you don't give any attention to the possibility of other emotions and also the idea that it's okay to not be okay. It's okay to be uncomfortable. Discomfort tolerance is super, super hard for those experiencing significant anxiety, right? And so the more we squish it away and we try to automatize our feelings on devices like social media, we fail to see what makes us human and that we're supposed to experiment and flounder and figure it out and grow and it's not something to be ashamed of, Right. And so I'm just seeing this translation from performance based anxiety. Go from grades, job performance and online engagement to self-worth with respect to kind of how they are connected with other human beings. Also, then, too, is how does this sort of anxiety and confusion around self like impact desire their relationship to pleasure? Like, how does that factor in? Yeah it interesting because on one hand I think this generation just has more information to be able to eat intimacy and sex in so many different ways that have in previous generations been shamed or quieted but the hesitancy is palpable it tremendous right so i i see this kind of like flip back and forth like we can talk about it but we may not engage it and i think that which is a little bit counterintuitive like you think if they have all the info. Like they've seen porn. They've got porn access since they were 10, which nobody had before. Right. We had paper magazines, but they've got video. But yet, right. I'm so glad you said something like that because, you know, I I've seen patients of that age who have impulse challenges and, you know, developmentally they're curious, right? Like that's it. But then they see something they can't unsee. So that's also what perpetuates the anxiety, that exposure is that, is this what I'm supposed to do? And you're nine or 10 years old and you might have seen something and it's not pictures, it's live action of things. It can't not affect your mental operational definition of what you're supposed to do as an adult. It doesn't leave your brain, right? And that's the thing that concerns me that almost then the idea of intimacy and exploration comes with that shame or that reminder of like, I'm not supposed to do this because when I first discovered it, I wasn't supposed to see it in the first place. Right. So it's a lot of confusion. I mean, I know parents are having such a hard time because they cannot gatekeep all of that information and decide when it's right for their child or their family to be able to share information. And so then we're doing like, you know, trying to plug up a fire hose, right? So developmentally, I think it's a challenge because even as young adults, these young adults have seen more and seen more live action, I would say, versus Playboy magazine, for example, or Playgirl magazine than any other previous generation. and that's hard to unpack you know yeah well i know too that just in terms of expectations of how far things can go and what is a normal relational expectation in terms of sexuality like there's been you know i saw statistics on girls expecting to have like anal sex sooner that type of thing which is unfortunate because that is absolutely not an expectation but because it's been displayed in this forum. Unfortunately, that happens. And again, they're not developmentally ready because they're not talking about it. They're not negotiating it. But, you know, because it's been displayed in porn or in these, you know, areas, it gets sort of communicated that that's the expectation. Right. Especially because they're trying to avoid penetrative sex. And so it gets communicated that these other types of sex are a workaround, which is absurd. But yeah, so there's all this pressure that happens. And my understanding is that, again, there isn't enough communication or there isn't, and the anxiety probably exacerbates it. So there isn't a lot of discussion or focus on pleasure. There is more about having the action, but not really the pleasure isn't really focused. Yeah. Or the ability to just hit a pause button and say, can we enjoy this? right it's more transactional yes fear-based versus part of the human condition right so going back earlier in our conversation if we have you know difficulty having a conversation like you and i are having right now albeit you know digitally we can still make eye contact etc having real intense conversations with friends like so platonic relationships and relationships they're breaking up with their significant others via text? Normative. So if the buildup is normative, if the platonic buildup is normative within a context, then how are they going to have an eye-to-eye conversation about what feels good for them and what feels good for their partner? So there's a lot of scaffolding, I think, that has to be done. And I think we should be talking about it more because then the expectations, you know, when there's silence, there's anxious expectations, which are off. And so we have to fill that silence with dialogue and talking about it and give them safety to be vulnerable. Yeah. Because, and also like if connection is learned, like how do we help the young adults unlearn performative patterns kind of and reconnect with genuine intimacy? That's a great question, right? And I've been thinking about that a lot over these last couple of months, just in terms of what I've seen on college, on the college campus I'm on and, and within my, my client caseload. It starts by just those, those of us who know in our profession, like talking about it, right. And saying like, let's, you should try this. Like this actually could feel really great. Now, again, my class experiment is just natural. Like, oh yeah. Yeah. Yes. Discovery. Right. But that practice response. I think we owe it work organizations and companies, et cetera, especially those who are hiring, you know, Gen Z now, right? Create spaces for connection and community. Don't have this automaticity that they have those skills in abundance, right? If we know that they haven't had as much access or they've been conditioned to learn, you know, in a one-dimensional way. We have to create that on college campuses. Give them a different, yep. All right, let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. 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. 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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. Welcome back. So let's shift gears a little bit and let's talk about something I I think affects this population, which is rejection sensitivity. So let's look at that kind of that heightened emotional response to perceived rejection or criticism. Yeah. And it's perceived as the great, is the right word, right? So again, that's where the anxiety piece is up. Avoidance comes up where we don't like getting feedback, right? We perceive that all feedback is negative and shameful versus constructive or just kind of neutral feedback, right? And then you add that. Is that the, that's part of the perfectionism? Yeah, it is. It's either all, you're doing it all right or you're a failure. There's no, right, black or white thinking. And so, you know, there's this hesitancy that exists amongst this population of being vulnerable, showing like their true selves for fear of rejection or for judgment. And the argument they give me back is that we kind of have been conditioned for perfectionism across the board in our existence. So it's not just in our social relationships. It's anything that we have to demonstrate performatively that we are worthy of being highlighted or elevated or given an accolade for. And it just has trickled down into relationship building. So some of my patients have talked about the loneliness, as much as they don't want to feel that way, feels safer than taking a chance and asking to be a part of a crowd and being rejected. And so if they don't have absolute reassurance that they'll be accepted, that the feedback will be positive, the chance is not. Mm-hmm. God, because I'm just thinking about that in terms of intimacy and how tricky it is with intimacy. I mean, rejection is part of intimacy, right? Like there's going to be times when your partner isn't in the mood or they don't like what you've initiated, right? They don't like the way you kiss. They don't like the way you initiated touch, whatever. Like rejection is part of intimacy. And so that is such a difficult dynamic to absorb. And so there's just, it's just rife with, with rejection. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a big part, like, like we just talked about, like, if we're having trouble having communications about platonic things, then can't you imagine what it must be like for them? And so, you know, we, in, in my office, less about the sexual intimacy piece, but really just even public displays of affection, right? Yeah. Like holding hands and exchanging kisses in public and things like that. I think that oftentimes some of the feedback I get is that I don't really want anyone to see us. I don't want anyone to judge us. That's fascinating to me. And I think they're hesitant to do it in private so they wouldn't do it in public. you know, in terms of exchanging, you know. Is it, is that true though? Because is it, is it the public, being in public adds that layer of judgment versus if you're in private, you can do it without being judged. Without being judged. Or is it, but if you're out in trouble communicating what you like, what you don't like, then in private, right? Then you're going to be more distant in public. Yeah. and that you know that that impacts how I think others also see what a intimate relationship looks like on a grander scale right so there's the relationship you have you know within your four walls but then how you display it outside and then I think sometimes that makes the blurries that muddies the water a little bit right the translation between well and to your point of like the scaffolding skills I mean being able to I find this even with adults I mean I work with older adults and it like they often don have the skill building to negotiate their needs in an erotic space and say I would rather have it be this way or I need something different you know in terms of touch or how we engage in this It's like they've never done it that way. They don't know how to find their words. And so I can't imagine, you know, if these young adults have never had that modeled for them or they've never had that type of exchange in, you know, their friendships, they don't know how to do it. You know, there might be a tendency towards people pleasing, you know, and they don't know. I mean, that translates to if they're doing that in their interpersonal relationships, that's going to translate to erotically. I see this with young girls a lot. you know they're just like they want to be liked or they want to be chosen or they want to be you know and so it's it gets tricky when they when they try to start having sex and also advocating and having agency for what they want right thinking if it's people pleasing then it's about what somebody else wants not so much about what they want too and in a relationship there has to be reciprocity right for it to be to and you have to have that communication so when i when i talk with my patients about my young adult patients about this anxiety piece i'm really trying to scaffold can we start with dialogue the dating courting era etc like you know and they don't date i think they're just more discerning because they feel like they have sometimes they feel like this swipe culture though is like yes no yes no yes no and they can't versus like let me sit and like the maybe or let me let me because yeah I feel like their brains don't entertain I mean when you've only got three people to choose from it's very different in discerning than when you think you've got 300 people to choose from you know right yeah and then you know your initial conversations are generally over text right and so then you're I mean, there's all these nuances, right? How quickly they're responding. You know, how long before, you know, that they go unread. There's all these subtle messages in this communication dance that, again, they're perceiving with significant rejection sensitivity. And so, you know, as a cognitive behavioral therapist, what I do is challenge those negative beliefs, right? You know, we know anxiety. What else could be true? What else could be true? Like maybe he was taking out the garbage or maybe he was cooking dinner or whatever have you. And so challenging those negative thoughts, paying attention to the like anxiety arousal that comes, you know, when we feel anxious, right? And saying like, okay, just because I feel anxious somatically, right? My stomach hurts, my heart's beating really fast. It doesn't mean I have to act on it in the moment. Can I reframe and step away and come back, right? And can I not engage in reassurance seeking, right? Like constant like communication of like, are we okay? Is everything good, et cetera, right? Which generally tends to backfire anyway. Asking yourself what those feelings are, right? Like, huh, I'm really feeling anxious about this. It's just a guy I'm having a conversation with, right? And someone I haven't even had lunch with, you know. And you're balancing all of those skills with, I think, this like strong desire among so many of them of like, I want a person, right? I want to help. And that longing, that's evolutionary, right? That's what makes us human, you know? And so that's a really hard thing for us to straddle when we don't have those life skills and we don't have the practice response. Well, and it's like learning that grounding and connection. Once, you know, like you're trying as a psychologist to help them, gosh, have some of those basic skills of self-regulation and resilience, right? Because basically they need to know that they're okay, regardless of whether this date works out, regardless of whether this sexual experience works out, whether, right, whatever, like they're gonna be okay on the other side of this, that self-knowledge and- Yeah, it's a lesson, right? It's not something we should be ashamed of. It's like, here's some data in my head. I hate to sound like a scientist in that, but it's like, it's data And it's information. So I liked this. I did this. I like this about this person, et cetera. Yeah. You know, yeah. And then you build on that, right? It's so hard to see. I mean, you've also raised kids, right? You see that like these small moments feel like such big moments. It feels like it's like the end of the world. And we've all been there too, but it's not, right? It's not the end of the world. Yeah. Right. It's like, and I also think like, you know, listen, as somebody who sees kids and has been a parent and like I said, I don't know if I said this, but all three of my kids constitute, you know, Gen X. So Gen Z rather, you know, the overprotection piece of like, you're not, you're not supposed to suffer. It's a real thing. The parents have conditioned to say, it's not okay for you to feel any kind of discomfort. So how does then that translate into creating a healthy relationship? Right. That I'm not comfortable. I have to like it right away. work right away. Yeah. So they don't have an expectation, right? Because part of it is your expectation of a situation. I remember hearing a study like, right, part of it is how, I think they were talking about a commute or something. It's like, if you expect your commute to be an hour, or you expect your commute to be 20 minutes and it's an hour, you're agitated. If you knew it was going to be an hour, then you're ready for it. So in a relationship, if you think it's going to involve some difficulty, some struggle, then you're ready for it. But if you think everything's supposed to be easy all the time, then you have no frame or no context for struggle. That maybe you meet somebody, you go out with them, et cetera, and you don't feel the vibe right away. Shutting it down, you give it another shot. So it's the expectation of like, it's going to take a minute maybe for me to see if this is going to work. It may not be fireworks immediately right and i do think that's a conditioned response based on like social media etc it's supposed to be like explosive from the first second and then if it's not you know you kind of crossed a bunch of people off the list right and yeah that's hard to swallow too yeah which also you're probably both on a little bit of good behavior and holding back your cards, right? But there's a whole bunch of variables that factor into long-term compatibility. So that's the other tricky part. Right. Fast and magic, right? Like, you know, that part of our human condition has not changed, right? Yeah. The expectation, I think, has. And so I think that we don't talk about that enough. We talk a lot about perfectionism and performance and achievement in much more concrete, tangible ways, you know, like academics, et cetera. But we don't talk about it in the muddy areas, which is relationship building and certainly not in intimate relationship building. And I'm just watching, like I said, from this evolution of like, I saw them as younger kids and then they're grownups, they're adulting now. And it's so hard. It's really hard for them. Well, and also I think that anxiety is part of the human condition, right? We're going to, it's, it's going to be present. And certainly as relationships start to unfold, anxiety is a normal part of that. You're going to feel that flutter and that, that is, is going to be part of that. So we can't fix it. And if anything, I would say curiosity. That's it. I remember, my gosh, I had this wonderful therapist years ago and she said to be, you know, try to go towards curiosity as a way. And I thought that was so useful. Yeah. When I get curious, that is a way to channel anxiety that is really functional because that helps me kind of stay in a more productive place. Let's teach my patients about like related to that and related to the grounding that you talked about earlier of, you know, from meditation, noting, right? Like, so a thought comes in, what if I can't, I should. And instead of being like, oh, that's, I'm not allowed to feel that way. I'm not allowed to think that way. Or this must mean something. Can you just know, huh, that's a thought. What am I going to do? Because that allows you the ability to be curious, right? To kind of lean into that curiosity that you're talking about. And it's interesting, the more I can talk to patients about process versus content, like, huh, that's a thought. Mm-hmm. I wonder how that's serving me. It's not, can I move forward? They tend to get less lost in the weeds and they feel more empowered, right? And that's where curiosity creates created, right? Because then there's an opportunity to kind of think about it like, huh, that's interesting. Why did I think that way? As opposed to it being so intense. So I know you just did a TEDx talk. What was the topic? Oh, thanks for asking. Yeah, I just did a TEDx. And it's basically this idea that stumble stories or failure teach us what success can't. So we had this whole conversation today about experimentation and connection and curiosity. And that is what comes from recognizing, amplifying our stumble stories. So where we had our own setbacks and having conversations about that so that we normalize that growth and curiosity and true achievement come from where we screwed up a lot. right so yeah i'm really excited to share it with the world good i love that and you're showing by example right that when you stumble actually that's that's a growth opportunity that's right it's a lesson not a failure lesson right so um yeah i'm excited i think it's an every person story and uh i'm excited to share it with them great well we will link that in the show notes So you can find Shreya at Dr. Shreya Hessler on Instagram. And thank you so much. I've enjoyed talking to you. Thanks, Jen, for having me. 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 connect with me directly, you can message me on Instagram at drjenkennedy or email me at drjenkennedy at gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you. Thank you.