EP #146: Beyond the Bedroom: Embracing Holistic Sexuality with Dr. Juliana Hauser, Renowned Sex Therapist

Welcome back to another episode of Everyday in Dorfins, a mental health podcast focused on the importance of finding joy and happiness in daily living. I'm your host Stella Stelestephinopolis, and this week, Everyday in Dorfins is getting a little spicy. We all know that tomorrow is Valentine's Day, and so in the spirit of all things love and romance and pleasure, I had the absolute honor of getting to bring on a renowned sex therapist onto the podcast. Now you may ask Stella, why are you talking to a sex therapist? This is a mental health podcast, and to that I will reply that sexual health is definitely a pillar to our health overall and our well-being. And that's exactly what I got to focus this interview on with Dr. Juliana Hauser, who has really coined this term around holistic sexuality. Or at least the first time I was introduced to the term was at a health and wellness event called Udomonia last November, and I got to hear her speak in person all about this framework on holistic sexuality. And it definitely captivated my attention, so it was really exciting for me to get to have Dr. Juliana come on to the podcast, get a whole hour of her time, where I could ask my questions about what it really means to approach this idea of sexuality from a holistic perspective, how this relates to our well-being at large, to our health, and so we dive deeper into this framework and the different pillars that constitute what it means to approach sexuality from a holistic perspective. We also talk about the differences between being a sensual person versus being very sexual, where there's overlap, where there's distinct differences. We also talk a lot about intimacy, and the importance of cultivating that within yourself, how to do it, ways to get to know yourself better from a emotional standpoint, from a mental standpoint, from a physical standpoint, if you know what I'm talking about, and why it's important to do all of those practices in order to connect more deeply with yourself, and why connecting with yourself is actually what will enable you to better connect with other people from an intimate and romantic perspective. And the last thing I'll note that is a really major takeaway from this episode is Dr. Juliana's perspective on agency, how this is really the fundamental pillar in her whole framework, and what it means to act from a place of agency. In your sex life, but also just in life in general, I really had the absolute pleasure of getting to have this conversation with Dr. Juliana. I learned a lot. I hope everyone who's tuning in feels like they're taking away something valuable, so pop in your AirPods because I don't think kids should be listening if there are kids around, so put in your headphones, go for a walk, get in some sunlight, and have fun listening to this because I definitely did. I had a lot of fun recording this episode, so without further ado, let's get into it. Hi Dr. Juliana, thank you so much for coming on to Everyday in Dwarfins. It's so great to have you here. I'm so happy to have this conversation with you today. I know and we were just talking about like right before we jumped on how we only met a few months ago, but it feels like it's been a lifetime ago, since meeting at the Unimony Summit. So you know, it's crazy how fast time passes, and I remember going to your talk and it really sticking out to me, and I had so many follow-up questions, I didn't have a chance to ask live in person, so hence us sitting here today, really excited to spend the next 50 or so minutes really diving into your whole framework around holistic sexuality, and I think this interview is going to benefit a lot of people, and just before we actually dive in, quick side note disclaimer, if any family members are listening or co-workers, this is the perfect opportunity to, I give you the permission to actually not listen right now, or you can listen, just don't bring it up to me. After we listen and we don't judge, you can exactly, we listen and we don't judge, but without further ado, Dr. Juliana, I'd love for you to start off by sharing a little bit about yourself and your background and how you got into research around sex and sex education, and kind of how you came to where you are today. Oh, thank you, and thank you so much. I'm so happy that we met. You did money, that was a wonderful summit, I actually had a really great experience that weekend, and thank you so much for coming to my talk. It's not often in the wellness space that they include the topic of sexuality, so it felt really wonderful to be able to bring my work, and to just bring the topic to health and wellness, so thank you for being one of the brave ones that comes. What to expect from the conversation, so thank you, and I'm so glad that you followed up, so that we could have a more in-depth conversation too. It feels that way for me too. It's an hour goes very fast in a talk, and so much more that I want to be able to say and answer. So my background, and this is kind of unique, I started off as a kindergarten teacher, and so at the beginning of my career, I taught, and through lots of meandering, I end up becoming a therapist, a marriage of family therapist, I have two licenses, and then I have an expertise in sexuality and menopause, and I love my life's work, and it has been something that in some ways, I'm an unlikely person to have be in a sexuality space, and also it makes so much sense I'm here because it's so accessible to everybody. If I can do this, you can do this. It isn't that I have any kind of unique thing in this. I just had a curiosity and a feeling of this isn't right, this isn't how it should feel, and we should have more information, and in your life changes when you learn more about holistic sexuality and sexuality in your own life. I remember being in a sex education class probably in middle school or high school, and as we know, sex ed classes are not even accurate, an accurate depiction of what actually happens, and so I had actually never heard the term holistic sexuality until coming to your talk, and that's actually what really peaked my interest when I was looking at the schedule at Udemodia, trying to sign up for different conversations. I was like, "Wow, this sounds really different. I've never heard of this before." So can you kind of run through with my listeners what this term even means? And I want to refer back to the notes that I took from the talk because there were so many interesting points that I jotted down, but there was something you talked about around the intersection with creativity and sexuality, and I'd love to hear a little bit more about how that perspective also is embedded into this concept of holistic sexuality. You know, I feel for the teachers who were thrust into the health class or the one day they had to do sex that because they weren't educated either. I guaranteed I didn't want to be doing it, and having to deal with our middle school of maturity and all of that, but it was awful. None of us, none of us, were given any kind of either zero education or it was fear-based, negative, and all the wrong information that doesn't help us at all, and made us afraid or conversely even more interested, but uneducated to have about what we were doing. So when I started my PhD program, I had a class that was about couples and sex, and I sat there, I was like, "Oh, so interesting." And I looked around, and none of my colleagues were interested in it, and I was baffled by this, and other classes I was bored to death, and they thought it was the most incredible thing, and my teacher tripping aside, and she said, "So once in the blue moon someone comes along who's interested, you need to be doing sex and sexuality. There are not many people who are willing to do it." So I started researching, and I started looking into it and realized she was correct, not a lot of people, especially back then, this was in 2005, we're really doing tons of research or talking about it. Definitely a light was being shown on, like this isn't right, but I wasn't here a whole lot of what is. So if we know this isn't good for us, and we know we would do something better, then what do we need to be learning? And what is this thing all about? And I was much older, and it already become sexual. I was actually a mother at that point, and I thought this feels like sex feels like a part of sexuality. And I have gone to a conference, an organization called ASEC, which is the overriding body that Lover looks, sex therapists, counselors, and educators. I went to one of the meetings and they had this heated, and therapy conferences are usually really sweet and nice and supportive, and then sex therapy conferences are even just spicier. And it was heated in the heated discussion. I mean, people were yelling, people left the room, because they were trying to decide, do we color a cell sex or sexuality educators? And it was the first I'd heard that argument also. So in all of that conversation, the concept of holistic sexuality was the first time I'd heard it. It just felt, I get similar to you, like, oh wait, all that makes sense. But what is that? So I looked up and if you were to Google circles of sexuality or holistic sexuality, a graphic for 1981 will pop up. And as we know in 1981, of course, it was going to be a white man that did it. And it was to me at the time, it was like, wow, it isn't just this is the horrible thing that's going to happen to your body if you have sex. And this is how not to get pregnant or get someone pregnant. This is about who you are as a person. Kind of. It was definitely the seeds were there. It was just the beginning of it. So I sat with it a lot and thought, okay, I think this is the beginning. This isn't truly what I think we've evolved into. So I started asking people. And as a therapist, I'm someone who loves to hear people's stories. And so I just started asking and I realized people don't often ask you what your sexuality, your sex stories are. And when I started asking and you know, kind of had the audacity, but really I genuinely was interested. People started answering a lot more freely than I expected to. And that led me to feeling like I had the permission in the room to say, so what do you think is a fulfilling sex life? What do you think is this fulfilling sexuality? Because the word holistic is as you know, it was really not known. But fulfilling or satisfying or good or whatever people understood. And I started gathering themes. And in those themes, so the circus was extravagantly had five of them. And they centered around the word values. And I just had like a like a ik value, you know, to the word value. Because of just the way people have what weaponized it. And I ended up having nine pillars that were absolutely clear that if you describe yourself as having a fulfilling sex life, you knew to some degree one of these nine or all of these nine to some parts of it. And then I started testing that in reverse. So then I went to people and who were not describing themselves as having a fulfilling sex life and asked them about these different areas. So they are sensuality, wealth, health and wellness, pleasure, desire and acts and interests, intersecting identities, power and trauma, loving connection and relationships and intimacy. And I instead of values, I put the word agency as the hub of everything. And how I describe agency in the shortest of terms, although it take I prefer to have four hours talking about agency. Agency in the context of holistic sexuality means that, you know, who you are, your journey as a sexual being is yours. It is your right, your birthright, and it's also your responsibility. And that we know is in our own sexual agency that how we live ourselves and hold ourselves as holistic sexual beings is our journey next to somebody else's who gets to have their own journey. And so we don't oppress others, we don't marginalize others, we don't judge others and we also are responsible for knowing who we are and learning how to navigate that is a therapist. I say very often it's really hard being a human. It's really hard being a human next to other people being humans. And that's even more so as speaking about sexuality. I love this framework that you developed because it really broadens this concept around sexuality and I think for so long, at least when I heard the term sexuality is it pertained to just like the act of having sex. I thought it was like, well, how often are you having sex? Like how many partners you have, whatever. Then I felt like the conversation and the narrative shifted more towards like focusing on pleasure. But what's interesting is that pleasure is actually only one of the nine dimensions that contributes to this broader picture of sexuality as you describe it. So I kind of want to double down on that and first ask how does pleasure kind of interplay with all the different pillars that you've laid out for women at least. And when we're speaking, let's say in the context of heteronormative relationships. So often I hear my female friends share how they're having this like sexual awakening now in their 20s about enjoying these sexual experiences for themselves rather than doing it in the pursuit of giving someone else a pleasurable experience like taking it into their own hands and focusing on their own pleasure, which can also be really uncomfortable if that's not something that you're used to. So would love to hear your thoughts first on kind of how this dimension sits within the framework and influences the other dimensions as well. So you're correct. We've had this wonderful shift of talking that pleasure is really how is the context that container how we should be looking at our sexual selves. And I love it. I love that it was added to the conversation. But as so often happens, especially in tabused faces when the trend occurs, it often takes over the conversation. So I'm absolutely cheerleading that we have had to move from fear based to pleasure based because that is such a huge role in who we are sexual beings. Why would we want to be a part of something that doesn't bring us pleasure? We wouldn't. So particularly when I talk about desire when people come to me wanting to have a different relationship with desire or libido, we absolutely have a very big conversation between the relationship between pleasure and desire. If that's all we're talking about, then we are also we're just doing the opposite of speaking about fear based because in the fear based things that we've learned, it wasn't inaccurate. Well, some of it is, but it is important for us to know the things that can go wrong and who we are sexual beings, just like we need to know about the things that are pleasurable. It just can't be where we end. And pleasure does need to be intertwined in it. And for me, the word pleasure can mean something different to each person and in different situations. So I like to simplify it and it's not always that the best translation, but I think it's a good starting point, which is, is it a yes or is it a no? Is this a yuck or is this a young? And that question, when I first started doing this, I thought was a pretty easy thing to ask. Until it wasn't in my own life or when I was asking other people, and I would say, is this a yuck or is this a young and I would have people burst into years or sit in silence. And it became obvious that we are a pleasure deprived society or an overindulgent and pleasure society. We don't know how to interact with it. And that means we don't really know how to stop and pause and be in a mindful grounded moment and say, is this what I want? Is this a yes for me? Is this a yuck or a yuck for me? First, that's the first thing you have to do in really understanding who you are as a sexual being is really tuning into the truth of you. Then knowing like what your body is saying to you, what your mind, your thoughts, your feelings, like all the warning signals, we override or reuse as our nor star, but even taking the time to focus on that is a skill that of course we're not taught how to do that. We are, we are, we're told what you should be afraid of and what you should, you should be pursuing. We're not taught to have your own discernment in that process. So when you can do your yucks and your yumps and your yas as a nose and your wants and your things that you don't want, then it's finding the skill of communicating that to yourself. This is something that you're just experiencing with yourself or with others. And this is in and outside of a sexual context. And what I say, sexual, I mean like sexual connection or a sex act, but as you know, holistically, I think all pops over us. All of that together, some of the whole is who we are and is the essence of who we are, which is the ultimate definition of holistic sexuality. And when I think about how pleasure is infused in some of the other areas, which is like, so we'll go to connection connections, one of the latter ones that we speak about. I'm 53 and I thought last night I just did a menopause event and we're talking about the value of connections in our lives and how important it is. And a lot of people who identify as female really are strengthened by the connections in our lives. And yet we can think about some of them either in a romantic relationship or in our friendships, I'll say specific friendships. I think we've all had the experience of having friends and you're like, you leave and it's just your drain. It's a no, it's a no. But you know, they have a long time or you don't know, they're not a bad person, but the relationship isn't there anymore. And you override it and you override it and you know better and you're pissed off and you leave or you know, the interaction or just, it's not a resounding yes, like you know that you have with someone else. And yet we pursue. And when we do this over and over again, whether it's in the connection, and it's not a pleasurable connection to us, or in a sex act that we're not wanting to be a part of, that overriding builds a muscle memory and neuro pathways that we don't want to be cemented and strengthened. We want the pleasure part of this and pleasure doesn't mean this overindulgent thing all, you know, all the time. Pleasure means am I serving the truth of who I am and what I need and where I'm moving forward to? That's ultimately what I think is the deeper, deeper definition of pleasure. Yes, it's the yes, wonderful. Yes, it's that I love this flower. Yes, I love this sex act. Yes, I love this person that breaks me so much pleasure. But really is, is am I showing up for myself? Am I asking the right questions in my, voicing my needs and lawns? And am I following that? I love that definition because I think it goes far beyond what people might correlate this concept of pleasure around your kinks are getting like. super spiky in the bedroom. It's really maybe that's like one component of it, but that's really not what it's about. Like it's really about honoring what you enjoy and figuring out what you need and even like being able to communicate that I think is one of the hardest things because I feel like especially as women and what I've heard from a lot of my peers and friends and the like is this shame that's clouded around when we don't know how to ask for what we want or when we don't even know what we want to do. I think that's like a huge area that can kind of knock our own self confidence and self esteem in the bedroom, which maybe can kind of inhibit our ability to experience pleasure because we don't even really know where to begin. And I think that's also why your piece on communication is so important and connection to because you want to be able to feel emotionally and psychologically safe to express your needs and desires to the partner that you're having these sexual acts with. Yes. Yes. You've got it. So what there's an exercise that I didn't come up with it. It's been like in the in this education world for a really long time. I think it's extremely powerful and it's a four quadrant exercise and it is a beautiful place to start and you can do with any topic, but we'll stay spicy because I like what you had to say about it because it's true. People can hear what my days are like with my counseling sessions, you know, what people are asking me about and wanting to know if it normal is it okay. I understand why people ask it because they can be scary to say so I figured out a yes and I'm afraid what people are going to think or what people will what someone doesn't think that's a yes for them. And also the I don't know that scary place of I don't know I've never asked I've never I've never been a part of the sex act that I even had the permission the room to get myself or from a partner to say I yes I want this no I don't. And it's this list I had a list that you can look at my website or you can look up a list of sex acts and you go to the list and one of the that so the four questions are sex acts that I've tried that I want to try again sex acts that I have tried that pretty much for look at no sex acts that I haven't tried that I think so I want to give that a go and sex acts that I haven't tried that feels like a no go like just not going to do it. And you go to the list and you put them each sex acts and you put in a one of the four quadrants it is fascinating it's a fascinating to go through it tells you so much for some people just on paper that no one is ever going to see and no will ever know about you can do the privacy for home it is the scariest thing in the world. And there's like yeah I like okay let's see what we got here I have people do have couples that go through it I mean it's it's really powerful because you have to have agencies the is the first thing that I teach people holistic sexuality it's your first act of active agency that I'm teaching in a holistic sexuality because I'm requiring you to check into your guesses and knows you have to make a decision I mean it's not really an cement and again it's not published at the New York Times is just for you. But some people even still have a hard time deciding and they want to maybe it depends which I get of course there's some things that it all is in the matter of context but also it's interesting how resistance people can be can can have to owning what they want. It's a skill inside an outside of our sexual connections and sex acts I also want to bring back the creativity question that you said earlier because I think this a big part of it too creativity and curiosity have an absolute foundation who we are is holistic sexual beings if it's going to be a part of a filling part of your life that you attuned to and some cultures and some police systems in our chakras if you know chakras then our second chakra is the connection between sexual and sexual. And creativity it's interesting because it's an already something that you know about people can have some like what are you talking about but if you buy into it or you know about it it really makes a lot of sense and those who put those two together work quite wise and I think it can be pretty powerful when you know how to mix the two. And I do think that when somebody is grounded in who they are as a holistic sexual being they have an openness to whatever creativity is individualized in their life so everyone they creativity for some people could be like artistic and you know making music or or our painting for others creativity is coming up with an incredible spreadsheet it is thinking of a new way of relating to their child there's so many different ways. Because what we're saying is I have freedom to access my individual gifts because I'm not shackled by other things I know who I am I know my yeses and my nose I know the truth of me I have access to it I value in it and when you at that it opens up all of the things that you get to gift to the world and to yourself. And that's how I see the the combination of the two and there's more nets and bolts in it as well like you can if you are really heightening your sexuality you can see that there's a shift in creativity in your life conversely to when somebody is really out of touch under not in body or they're having really hard time in their sexual connections and relationships you can see creativity is really dulled there's there's often that also logistic thing to. But I also think there's a more spiritual and holistic wellness connection as well absolutely I actually just recorded an episode on tantra we didn't focus on tantra and how it's related to sex but obviously there is that connection to so I was thinking a little bit about that as you were sharing your response and I've noticed that you keep bringing up this term around this like feeling of embodiment like being embodied in your sexuality and there's a question that I wanted to ask you related to that pillar of your sexuality. And I think it's related to that pillar around relationships and connection but I think it also ties into the ability for women in particular to feel embodied in their sexuality so let's picture this you're a single woman and you're engaging in sexual acts but you don't have a consistent partner you're not in a committed relationship. I think a lot of women feel a difficulty in navigating that because it can be difficult it can be hard to feel embodied in your sexuality to feel like you're engaging in these acts from a place of empowerment when you actually don't have a consistent committed partner when you're not having that connection with someone and I know for women it's difficult to talk about because I and I don't want to generalize this but I do think. For majority of women the act of having sex as the mechanism that actually bonds us more to men it's the practice that makes us feel more connected to men whereas I think for men it's easier to disassociate between the two or like keep them a bit more separate so you know my question for you is you know how would you advise young women who want to feel a bit more embodied and empowered in their own sexual journey as it pertains to their health and wealth and while being at large how can they do that in a way that doesn't sacrifice maybe that desire or longing for a deeper connection with someone right we've already talked about how our sex education is had our normative all the bad things it's also relationship focused and I had a blind spot to that for quite some time because it was just such a part of the cultural norm to have your sexuality is always embedded in either the body of the body. And it was like wait a second and I was lucky enough to be mentored by Betty Dots and if you don't know who that is look her up she unfortunately passed away during COVID at 91 she was just the most amazing person so so incredible absolutely changed my life and she's really the pioneer of self pleasure and she started off as an artist she actually started drawing women experiencing pleasure self pleasure. And you can imagine back in the 70s that was quite controversial and then she just started feeling that women really needed to be empowered she's words I'm not sure I can use on your thing but she was certain that when a woman had control over her pleasure and orgasms that that gave her the power to change her world. And again when you hear those statements it can be like what are you talking about but I'm like yes I actually agree with that and I do think the world heals through orgasms but I also think that when you have that connection to your own pleasure and your own embodiment first before you are in any way connecting it to any other being that is a foundation that is absolutely for you. And I think it's a very fruitful and setting you up to have a more fulfilling healthy holistic sexual life. How many of us were given that not many so hearing that is like yes yes yes that resonates and I don't know what to do because that I'm already you know whatever age you are shit you know I'm already starting doing this all already. But even if you're like I actually just working with somebody recently who chose not to sexually connect to she was 42 it does not matter how old you are the first time that you start sexual connecting you are already figuring out who you are as sexual being well before you have your first sex act. And that's where we want to get at how we're becoming embodied. But for those of us that didn't happen, which is 99% of us, then what do we do? Then we do sit back. And I want this advice to go whether you're in a long-term relationship or you are single. And that is halting, not halting the activity if you're happy with that, but really taking time. Because another problem with sexuality is that we look at as a luxury. It is bifurcated from the rest of our life. It's not necessary. It's an add-on, it's the cherry on top of our life. I disagree with that. I actually think it needs to be. It is a necessity. I think it's a huge part of our life, which again, if you think of it as holistically, not just the sex act, that's just one of the pillars. If you look at all of who we are as a holistic sexual being, we cannot do that. So doing that is a single person. We don't need a partner. In fact, you can't have a partner while you're pursuing that. You have to be looking at yourself or your yeses and noes and the grounding and agency if you are will always be in context of somebody else in your life. And you won't have that feeling of embodiment that's truthful. When I first started it off, and I continue, I mean, if you see me at a bus stop, I'm probably going to ask, if you make eye contact with me about your sex life, I'm not really. But I'm open to it always. I hear a lot of the stories. It was so clear to me how many, especially people who demified as female were saying it just happened. It just happened. It just happened to me. And they weren't speaking about sexual violence. They were just, they were saying, I mean, ultimately it was consensual or ultimately it wasn't harmful. But if you ask me, did I decide if I wanted to do that? No. We were kissing. And the next thing I knew, this penis was inside of me. It wasn't bad. I mean, it wasn't, but it was not ever a time that I was like, this is what I want. I never sat there and thought, yes, do I want this? And when you do that, that's the muscle memory we're speaking about earlier, is you start building a muscle memory outside of that. So as a single person, I think it's important and I'm sure you're not surprised for me to say, self-fusure is the thing. And then you should be doing self-fusure whether you're a partner or not. But particularly it's the sex act that you have the most control over. I like teaching people to start asking themselves, do I want this? Do I not? In context of self-fusure, what do I want to do with my hands? Is this a yes or a no? Do I like this touch? Do I like this rhythm? Is this yummy? Is this pleasurable? Is it a no? And when it's a no, or if it's like a, if it's a no, when you're first starting out and looking at this, we want hell, yeses in our pleasurable centers when we are, when we're learning how to become embodied. And we want to practice when it's a no, we stop. It's a no. If it's a maybe, it's a no. And alongside of that, I said like curiosity, creativity and curiosity are such a huge foundational parts of the holistic sexuality. You have to be willing within all the safety components, again, a safety safety, you have to be able to have curiosity, to have curiosity to find your yeses and knows. You have to do things like, I call them no-sanky bites, that if it's consensual, it's grounded in consent and it feels safe to you. Then I mean, kind of try anything once in the context. And if it's a no, it's a no. That's what I say when I'm teaching my kids, you know, to have other food, you just have to try. You can't look at it and say no, it looks brows. You don't know. So if you look, if you take a bite and it's awful, no, thank you, that's it. So I think we should do that in our sexual lives as well, again, within safety and consent. And if it's a no, it's not a failure. It says a no, it's data. Great. So when a client will come back and they're like, it was awful. It was great. So now we know. Let's talk about what was awful about it. And number one, how did you know it was awful? How did your body tell you that this was awful? How did your mind, what were your feelings, all this, keep tuning into yourself? When you have that level of communication with yourself and the ability to voice it, so in self-pleasure, and again, I'll help people say out loud, no, then you're just like hanging out in their room, just self-pleasure, and they're like, no, no, yes, or I don't want to be doing it because something that is really left out of our hispore education is how to communicate. We're told to communicate, but we're not told how to, even like in condoms, like, you know, we should be using condoms, women should be caring in our own if you're having sex with those who have penises or sex stories. And yet, where were we told how that sounds when someone that you're with, the one night stand or whatever is like, oh, I don't have a condom. Where my clients is in New York City, they door dashed on dungs, and I was so proud of her because she knew she wanted to have sex, and it was she had with all it all, it was a very consensual thing, but it was also only going to be with a condom. And he didn't try to coercer, but he absolutely would have done it without a condom. And we had practiced this well in advance, well in advance, it was one of the things that she wanted her list was to know how to have that. And where is that verbiage? Where is the script that you're given when it feels awkward? And then where is the script when you're like, wow, I mean, that was hot 20 minutes ago, but it took 20 minutes for the condoms to arrive. And like, we got, there's a rolling again, all of that. And then it's like, okay, now the rip, the smile, oh my god. And then how do you get to like, now we want to have this sex that we just paid an absorbent amount of money for DoorDash to bring us these condoms? I mean, you know, whatever we have to do those things. So it starts when you're self-cluduring, saying out loud, even if it feels silly, I love this. This is so hot. I'm so hot. This is great. And I can say this and I can give advice because I've done it myself. It's the rare thing that I ask people to do that I haven't tried myself. There's some sex sex that is a no for me that I just I read about it or I hear about it and then I can tell you, but I'm not going to do it. But I've done that. I've done the awkward in your room by yourself and playing with my boys or learning how to say yes as a nose and it is not comfortable. I'm not going to pretend that I'm just sitting there feeling this is just great. It's weird. It's weird because we're not caught it. Yeah. As Glenn and Doyle says, we can do hard things. That's a hilarious story about the DoorDash with condoms, but I'm glad that it came. You know, safe sex is important. I want to go back to what you said around the world healing through orgasms. Like maybe I should just make this the title of the episode. I'm guaranteed this will get a ton of lessons if that's the title. And that's, you know, you brought up so many, so many great points. Like there's so many follow on questions. I want to ask, but it's so important and it's fantastic that you create a space for your clients to teach them how to communicate because I think that is probably one of the most difficult things to be able to do is like learning how to voice your opinion and your needs and your boundaries to. It's very awkward. It's very uncomfortable, but I think that is like absolutely the most important thing for prioritizing your pleasure, safe sex, making sure that you're doing something that's consensual, you know, the laundry list it goes on. I wanted to go back to a point you mentioned earlier around self pleasure, but really being a sexual and rather sensual being and how that actually kind of has nothing to do with the other party and it really starts within yourself. I would love to hear if you have any advice on like any practices or strategies that people can adopt to harness their own sensuality because I feel like so many times women in particular kind of look towards guys. If we, you know, again, we're talking the heteronormative space like look towards guys to give them some sort of validation or reassurance that yeah like hey, I'm sexy. I'm hot. None of that, first of all, that's fleeting and it's not guaranteed and why do we need to rely on someone else to say it or to believe it? Why can't we just believe it ourselves? So what can we do to start to believe it ourselves that have nothing to do with quote-unquote sex acts? Like what are things that we can do that are PC that have nothing to do with sex to make us feel more sexual more sensual more connected to ourselves? It took a while in my work because again, like I'll say I was one of the lucky ones that in my training but it was in my final year of my PhD program. So years of education that here even the works acts in the context of therapy. I think it's medical and the medical community. So we're not really given a lot of a lot of education personally and we're not giving it professionally but I did it on my own. I always intertwined the word sensuality and sexuality. I thought I thought it was the same thing. If you were sensual, you were sexual, you were sexual, you were sensual and it took a bit for me to know but and I did not see myself as a sensual person and I know if I look that is for a woman with long curly hair and a flowy skirt and volley like and that's wonderful for her and I love that for her but I it's not me. I can be sexual but I'm just never going to be sensual and I also joke and I'm a half Canadian and I love Canadians. This is not a dig on Canadians but my experience was that we had like boiled ham and my mom boiled asparagus and that was so I wasn't even given like the sensual like taste or like that kind of thing with growing up. It was everything was functional and my parents were in the medical community so everything the context was a wonder I love loving family but they was not centrally based that was for other people and when I started finding the definition of sensuality because sensuality was in the first circles of sexuality and that sort of reals like oh no way. I mean is the definition just that you have senses? Is it isn't that simple because I have that. Okay. And I was like, yeah, this is is it? Okay, so I am essential being by default. So what is my version of centrality in that? And I didn't know. And so I went on a I want to know venture. And I started completely outside of any sexual act. And I just started asking again, like I was like a broken record with the yeses of the nose. But that's really where I started. And I started talking about pleasure. And so I started using the words. And so they were saying like, do you make you happy? Was it fun? Was it what? You know, I started saying, did it bring you pleasure? And what I would say that? Like, oh, gosh, yeah, you're so weird. Like you always say the weirdest thing. I like, yes, but did it bring you pleasure? And I would say ask me if it brought me pleasure. No, it didn't. Or yes, it did. Or like, this brings me so much pleasure. And I started talking like that. And I'm using that in the context of my senses. And I love doing the physical senses. It's one of the things that people can relate to pretty easily. And especially if I'm giving a talk, I'll go through the four different types of touch. And again, it goes back to that place of like, what is your body telling you? What are your feelings? What are your thoughts? What are your body responses to it? And I love doing it in a group because I'll have people say out loud, yuckery, yum. So that the sense of water like this is one of the touches of water. And I'll have people do it to their arms and then say, it's quickly as you can, yuckery, yum, yuckery, yum. And when you have like half of the room saying, yuck, and the other half saying, yum, they're always like, what? Like what? And I remember when I was doing that, air is a touch like this. And when I first did, I was like, oh, it is such a yuck. I mean, it's just like, oh, no, no, thank you. And next to people who are like, that is like, please do air all over me. And that was incredibly profound. It was pretty is profound for me as a lot of people have with the five love languages that to me, there's problems with that book. One of the things that I thought had the most impact was that it was the first time for a lot of people they realized that, yes, you have a love language, but other people have a different love language. And that's how they need you working with them. It's the same thing with our senses. It's one of those things that you do need to know about who you are as essential being you also. If you're ever going to connect with anybody else inside or outside of a sexual context, you need to know who they are as essential being, which is not the same thing as sexual. Essential is that you are attuning to your five senses. If you have access to all five, not everybody does. And not everybody has the same access or experience with the senses that you do have access to. And for some people that is mind blowing, they never occurred to them. And I get to be essential being next to the made up woman in Bali being her essential self, who she may not even think that's a hard way of being sensual. Next to all other beings and other genders besides women are sensual to them. And for those who are male, identify, you don't have to just be in yoga pants with a man bun to be a sensual person. You can be a joker or whatever and be a sensual guy. It's not sensual. It's not synonymous with feminine. We all have our senses. And tuning into them is one of our, one of our, our greatest gifts as humans. And it is one of our best communicators. It tells us so much. And so learn, learn and pay attention. For me, I realized pretty quickly into my work when I was combining therapy and sexuality, I did not have a great mind body connection. I was pretty disconnected from my body. I overrode a lot of things and I didn't pay attention to my senses. It was just a means to an ends of things. When I learned how to slow down and I had two pretty big things in my life, one of them was at the Chopra Center out in California. And I was like, I surveyed a retreat and we had to have a silent lunch. And I was like, great, I don't know if it should chat with people. I don't know. This is going to be fabulous. And Gaiwa says, awesome, salad. And it was the crunchiest, loudest salad I have ever ever. It felt like I like it. And the movie was like, it was, I'm trying like whisper, eat my lettuce. It was just so weird, like to have like the crunchiness of it all. And once I got over the bizarre awkwardness that I had that really came out of nowhere. He thought I would feel embarrassed eating a salad. How weird is that? But I had ever had the experience of slowing down that I was really paying attention and staying in my body and paying attention to my senses. It wasn't telling me anything. It wasn't giving me information to follow. But it was telling me that if I slow down, I could pay attention to a whole lot more. And so the crunchiest salad in the world came quite a lesson for me. And another was I was an actor for a while, midway in between kindergarten and sex therapy. And I was doing a class. And she asked us to go around in the class to say, what is, what's the one scene that you would hate to do in a movie? And I was the second person to go. And the first person did their thing. And I was like, oh, a sex scene. And the next person was like murdering a child and raping somebody. All these horrible things. And a kept kind of going back to me that was like, what's wrong with you, Julie? And I thought you had to do a sex scene. That was your worst thing. Like, who was that? And said that. I got about all those other horrible things that would be terrible to do. She made me do a sex scene. She made me seduce another actor in the class. And I wanted to die. And I was the least sensual sexy person out there. I was all performative. I didn't know what I was doing. And she said to the guy, so were you turned on? And like, not even a bit. Oh my god. Then she had someone else who was very in touch with her body and very in touch with who she was as a sensual being in her, in her flavor of sensuality. And everyone was just like, oh my god, that was so hot. And like, she said, what was that like price? And he's like, I can't even say worse. And so what do you mean? She's like, figure shit out, Julian, whatever that was. You got to figure that out. Which is part of how I ended up honestly changing over to sexuality because it was such a pivotal moment for me to realize the difference between performing and being in who I was as a sexual person. But it also how I answered that was I started with sensuality. Because when she said, fix that shit, I was like, how how do I do this? I have no idea what that fix what. And who's going to teach me how to fix it. And so I started with my senses. And and that is not just a one time thing by the way. We have a basic part of who we are as a as a as a sensual formula. But it shifts and changes through our life. So always always go back and discover new parts of yourself. And it's why it's the first pillar. It is not an easy lift for a lot of people, but it's one that we can relate to priestly. Oh, I love that. I mean, what great stories to share. I really resonated with your comment on. It's not about performing. It's about being. It's about feeling that within yourself, grounding yourself, doing practices that ground you to your body, to your mind, to your spirit. I mean, now we know about the mind body connection and how that shows up and really takes shape with our mental well-being, our physical well-being, our emotional well-being. So I talk a lot about that, not in the context of sexuality and sensuality, but I'm not even surprised that that is really taking an integral spot in our conversation today. And I have been practicing yoga a long time. I teach yoga. It's a very sensual practice, but it's also something separate from all of this. It is something that makes me feel good in myself. And I do think that the closer we get to our own authenticity, and I hate to use that word because it's so overused, but the further away we get from doing all the performative things in life, and the closer we get to doing the things that we want to do and doing it from a place that feels right and authentic to us, I think the easier it is to tap back into those five senses, to tap back into the most aligned versions of ourselves. And it's very fascinating to see how that shows up in how we become sensual beings. And I actually really love this approach because I think it's going to shift my mind. Rather, it's like giving me language to kind of put behind the importance of filling up your cup first before looking to things outside of yourself in a sexual context to feel fulfilled because no one can give you that sense of fulfillment or satisfaction. Like you have to give that to yourself first on a more like psychological level. And so I really like the way that you laid out the differences between sensuality and sexuality and how it really isn't all about like the sex acts, but these other grounding practices you can do to feel more embodied in yourself. And I will say, I was the woman in Bali once upon a time. I did my yoga teacher training in Bali and that was one of the best times of my life. And boy, did I feel very sensual because I felt very connected to my yoga practice, to nature, to like, oh my god, take me back. But I loved that example because I resonated with it. I love it. You're saying that because you said exactly what really people are talking about, which is it wasn't your beautiful curly hair and the flowing skirts. That's part of it. It was even you talking about, you started like glowing and I hit this thing like, I want that. That is what I was talking about of like essential person is somebody who's really in touch with who you are, who your senses are. And there's just a verb with that and in certain areas, some of that involves the flowy skirt in the yoga. And that is fabulous. It can also be in other places too. But what I was ending, what I wanted, I want to. to be a woman who knew who I was and I could wear whatever outfit I wanted to, which by the way I had curly hair and wore flowy skirts too. But I understand a difference of that now. But Betty, when I was my mentor, I was talking about she had spiked short hair and wore like a spiked collar and she was like, yes, I'm essential being. It meant something different. She was just so in touch with who she was and there are two things that I want to bring up that just kind of remind me of about being single. So going back to that client, I told you about that to the door dash for condoms, one of the things that we talk about and do this with other clients too who are unpartnered in wanting that, not everybody does, but in wanting that was if you are in the dating scene and you think you want to be sexual with somebody and that can be you've known in 10 minutes and you know you want to do it or you know five dates, whatever is outside of a sexual context if you practice saying what you need and what you want and having situations where you pay attention to the other person, that's a matter of what gender it is, is forcing what they need and want. It doesn't always translate to that happening in a sexual context. But if they're not doing that outside of a sexual context, it is a very, very bright sign and not going to do that within it. So I like teaching people who are in that world to look out for that and to set that up and some of the best kind of situations is with servers because we know some people treat this serving industry terribly, you can learn a lot by that, but you can also learn a whole lot about how they handle you wanting something different than what they want. And if they don't know how to handle that well, I'd think twice about becoming sexual with some early time in it and if you are or if you see yourself not voicing what you need and what you want for whatever reason and you don't know how to have your voice with that person outside of a sexual context, it probably means you're not going to do that inside one too. It's not always, it's not, it's not 100% but it's a pretty good thing to rule a thumb to go by. The second thing is I had a woman who came to a workshop of mine and we were, you know, having a conversation and she's like, I am so hot right now, I want to go do all the things. I am convinced and there is no one out there. There's just no one and I've got stainers. I'm not going to go just do this stuff and I do believe that there's context to it. She's like, what do I do? I don't want to have all these ideas and have no way to practice it. And she's like, can I hire somebody or how do I find somebody to do this? And she's like, I want to go through the whole sex list and I want to know where to put these in the categories. And so we ended working together. We came up with a script, we came up with a way and she went out there. She had a wide repertoire of how to find somebody. She ended up not using a sex worker. She ended up finding somebody and she was, and she was heterosexual and she went to, she said, so I have a list. I want to try it. I don't want to give to you. I don't want to worry about your feelings, your thoughts. I don't want to worry about your connection. I want to get in, get out. I want to try these things and yes or no it. And she's like, can you meet me there? And so she did all the consent work and all the safety things for him. And she said, I don't want to have to worry about you at all. And he's like, yes, yes and yes. And for them, I didn't talk to him, but it sounded like it was a positive experience. But they did that over a course of things. And she, she loved, and this, that would not be a story that works for everybody. And there are lots of people who would find that horrifying. For me, what I love is the happiest part of my job is helping someone have agency. And I do not think it's my business nor have done any interest in designing what other people like and what they need and what I want. All I care about is, is it the truth for you? And I want to make sure that it is absolutely a truthful yes or truthful no. And then I'll sit there with you, whatever. Great. Fastening people are fascinating. You know, I love that. And I loved that. She was like, it's, it is such a relationship centric world. And our sex life are so focused around being partners. She's like, I'm so tired of being invisible. And I don't want to waste this time. And I want to waste this hot body. I want to try this shit now. And I don't want to be, I don't want to wait until I'm dating somebody to do this. And that was what was right for her. And I believed her and she, she knew herself and it was a very positive experience for her. Again, not for everybody, but I love the process. I'm so happy you shared that because that actually leads me to the one question I wanted to ask you before we wrap up today. And it's around the cherry on top of this framework, which is agency. You know, I know that in the talk that you had at Ud ammonia, you had shared how agency, and I'm just pulling up my notes, sexual agency is the key to a fulfilling sexual life. So can you talk a little bit more about that and how you define agency within this framework around holistic sexuality? It truly, it changed my life and it saved my life. I have a TEDx talk about agency. So if you just do Dr. Julianne Hauser and agency, it'll come up and it really talks through the skill of agency because agency is a concept, it's a noun, it's a verb, and it's a skill. And I really talk about the skill of it. And I am so passionate about the the concept of agency because I really had none. And again, like I came for a wonderful family, but my family, my parents came from an emergency room medical center. So they saw the worst of everything. And the way that they showed our love was really to have lots of controlling, limiting parameters with it. And that did keep us safe and alive. And we didn't have any of the horrible things happen that they saw in the ER that worked. And yay for that. The unintended consequence of that was that my sister and I didn't really have the skill of decision making. We didn't have the skill of recovering after a decision went wrong. We didn't really know how to handle unintended consequences of things. I did lots of decisions by committee. I mean, I would have to call five people to figure out what I wanted for dinner, like just even those simplest of things. And how I was showing up as a relationship or a sexual person was whatever the other person wanted. People asked me what my spirit animal was. I'd say chameleon. And I was so proud of that. And if anyone thinks they're committed, that's not ragging on it. But what I discovered by myself was it meant I was never who I was. I was always in a position of what do you want me to be? What do you need? What do you want? And I thought that and then I knew who I was. I was a chameleon. That's who I am. And it wasn't until some of that I had dated for a long time and it was really like the love of my life died that I realized I was basing my identity on him. I was basing my identity in a relationship with him. And when he passed away suddenly, it just hit me more. Obviously the grieving aspect of it. But no one told me I was going to grieve the identity of me and his loss because I thought I knew exactly who I was. And I was starting this work. So I was like, I'm exactly who I am. I just I had already done that class where she told me to fix my shit. And so I was really proud of who I was as a sexual being with him. I knew who I was and I didn't. And I never wanted to feel that vulnerable again. It was incredibly vulnerable to not know me. And so I again, like with I was like, well, no one's tasting me this. So I'm going to figure this out. And I don't remember where I found it, but there was some article that I read that said, agency, I was like, what is that? They didn't define it like how I define it. But the word felt right. You can say sovereignty. You can say, having your voice, it hard for me to distill it down. But I finally distill it down to simplest ways. Learn your terms and live your terms. So learning who you are and then learning how to live them. And you have to do both knowing the truth of you. And for me, that's how it intersects with sexuality because if I know who I am and I know how to live who I am, then I'm not going to be getting myself into situations or I can get myself out of it much more quickly or can recover more quickly in a place where I'm showing up for myself. And in agency, and I have I'll do it my a little soap box, I value agency over empowerment. I think that we do boundaries of a boundaries is like kindergarten. And then we go to empowerment and people either go from boundaries, which is boundaries that you have with other people is number one than boundaries with yourself as number two. Then you go into the empowerment train and empowerment is wonderful because you realize it feels really good when you have boundaries and people follow it. A lot of times people will hop off to entitlement for a little bit. And that's terrible. We don't want to be entitled. We go back to empowerment and a lot of the empowerment movements are really great because we're saying we're really, really empowered but what empowerment stops and it comes short where agency picks up and why I think that's more the PhD of it is empowerment is individual and agency is relational. In my work, I do lots of couples therapy work and just people in general, if you're going to be a human next to another human, you have got to learn how to handle conflict and you have to learn how to be whole into yourself. Next to somebody else who is whole into themselves and sometimes that's great when we all want the same thing but when we don't, whether that is in a relationship or in a social justice movement or politics or in your sex life, if you don't know how to navigate the differences and not oppress and marginalize or be hurt by someone else wanting something different, then your relationship and your empowerment only goes so far and then the relationship has to end or you have to make the other person really wrong, agency allows you to stay true to yourself, understanding, someone else gets to be true to themselves too and we figure out, relationally, how to handle that. Agency does not mean that you accept everything, it doesn't, we don't handle oppression and marginalize, we don't do any of that kind of stuff, that's not agency but it does mean I have to figure out who you are and truly you can't accept someone who, for they are, if you really don't know who you are, then you're a chameleon in performing. Now, I think we need to do a follow up episode just on agency because I could go another hour asking you so many questions. Thank you for your honesty and openness and sharing that experience and Aaron, how used came to realize agency was that a ha moment for you with the love of your life and him passing and I think even just like the way we move through grief is like a whole other topic we could talk about too and how it pertains to like building back your own identity even uncovering what that even is and how that interplays and into everything that we've been talking about today. But as I heard you kind of share that, I couldn't agree more and I think it's actually a really powerful thing to be able to hold onto your identity and stay true to who you are while also acknowledging the other person is who they're gonna be and you can't change them, but how do you find some sort of middle ground? How do you manage conflict? How do you move past whatever that difficulty is while still honoring and acknowledging your own personal boundaries and respecting the other persons too. So perhaps we leave that to a part too 'cause I think there's a lot that we can unpack there and I have a lot of questions but I would love to round out this interview Dr. Juliana with bringing it back to the theme of the podcast which is about endorphins. And earlier you were talking about finding what brings you pleasure and in the back of my mind I kept thinking, "Find what brings you into orphans, "I'm what brings you into orphans "'cause that's what I always talk about." I'll die on that stand. It's like, you know, my motto is the importance of coming back to the things that sparked joy in life that make you feel more connected to yourself. I mean, to bring it back to what we're talking about making you feel more sensual and embodied. Like what are those things that bring you that sense of joy and happiness that you wanna anchor on to to feel more true to who you are? So the final question that I will leave you with Dr. Juliana is what is something that brings you a bit of endorphins every day? I love challenging myself and I love doing different things. And so would I write a friend like, guess what I'm doing is like, who knows? I mean, Juliana with you, you have no idea. So last week I drove four hours to do this. I drove four hours. It was a half an hour that I was given this and I hugged a sloth for. What? Half an hour. And it was in Dwarfen amazing filled. It was so incredible. And even just, and it was just that, it was kind of like absurdity of it. It was an anticipatory endorphins that felt it just, I knew it was gonna come to me. I didn't know if I was gonna cry, laugh, or where, I didn't know how I was gonna respond to that experience. And I floated away. And for those four hours on the drive home, it was, I was just flooded with the feelings of pleasure and endorphins and it was so great. That is hilarious. I've never heard someone say that hugging a sloth is what's brought them joy, but I could have not been a really fun experience. They're so adorable. They sleep all day, they hugged trees. I mean, I sleep with a weighted blanket, so I'm just imagining having a little sloth to just hold on to. It's like a little baby. It was so sweet. It was so dear. It was like having some weight on your chest just to hold on to. It was so lovely. And it's just like the novelty too. You know, they're not my sloths that you can hug. And I just thought, I wanted to learn from this sweet little creature too, and I do other more obvious things too. Like, you know, I do a lot of physical things that bring me a lot of that and even like cold plunging. I'm obsessed with cold plunging. But for the reasons that of your podcast, I mean, that's actually been life changing for me too. But I love, in general, I love trying something new. No thank you, bites are my endorphins. I love finding out, is this a yes or a no for me? And hugging a sloth? Well, yes. I love it. Well, keeping an open mind, being open to trying different things, I think is one of the most important mindset shifts to have to bring more endorphins into your life. Because how do you know that you're not going to like something unless you actually keep an open mind and try it? And I guess in the spirit of this episode, that's also kind of, you know, very integral to what we've been talking about for the past hours. So I'll leave all my listeners on that note. Keep an open mind, keep an open heart, stay in your own autonomy and agency. And prioritize your own pleasure among many other nuggets of wisdom that we've talked about today. Dr. Juliana, thank you so much for coming onto the podcast. Where can my listeners connect with you? Listen to your TED Talk, learn more from you. Where can they just go to find you on the internet? Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for being brave in this topic too. So I am on an all-platforms, Dr. Juliana Hauser. And as Juliana was one in Juliana Banana and Hauser HA, you and I'm on Instagram. And my website is-- I'm on all social media, but my website is Dr.Dash at Juliana.com. Amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you. [MUSIC PLAYING] Thanks for tuning into this episode of Everyday and Door Funds. If you liked what you heard and you want to continue to follow along, make sure to like, rate, review, and subscribe to this podcast, on which ever listening platform you prefer. If you want to stay plugged into Everyday and Door Funds outside of the podcast, I'm on Instagram, I'm on TikTok, and you can also drop your email to subscribe to my newsletter. It's the Everyday and Door Funds Upstack where I talk about the interviews that I've done that month, any events happening in New York that I've hosted, and just a stream of consciousness of my thoughts. Thanks again for tuning in and reminder to keep spreading in door Funds and finding the things in life that bring you joy. Until next time. [MUSIC PLAYING]