Remember that spark you had with your partner when you first met? Butterflies in your stomach. Constantly checking for a text message or call from them. Daydreaming about your next date. Well, how do you get that back after youâve settled into a routine of work, home, dinner, dishes, mouthguard, sleep? How about after a year? Five years? Or even a decade? Today youâll learn how to use mindfulness techniques rediscover whatâs amazing about your partner. Todayâs guest is Dr. Cheryl Fraser. Cheryl combines her knowledge of how the mind works from a psychological and Buddhist perspective with her mission to help people create sexy, passionate, playful relationships. Sheâs also the author of Buddhaâs Bedroom: The Mindful Loving Path to Sexual Passion and Lifelong Intimacy.
As always, Iâm looking forward to your thoughts on this episode and what revelations and questions it creates for you. Please join us in the Relationship Alive Community on Facebook to chat about it!
Resources:
Check out Buddhaâs Bedroom on Amazon
Visit Cheryl Fraserâs website
Click here to get tickets to Relationship Alive...LIVE on June 6, 2019 featuring Terry Real and musical guest Katie Matzell
Visit www.neilsattin.com/bb to download the transcript, or text âPASSIONâ to 33444 and follow the instructions to download the transcript to this episode with Tammy Nelson.
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Amazing intro and outro music provided courtesy of The Railsplitters
Transcript:
Neil Sattin: Hello and welcome to another episode of Relationship Alive. This is your host, Neil Sattin. Weâve covered lots of aspects of how to develop true intimacy with your partner: how to communicate well, how to understand each other, how to get past your triggers. Today, I want to focus on how to bring that mindful connection that youâre developing with your partner into the bedroom. So that you can have passionate, thrilling, sexual connection with your partner. Because often thatâs, if not part of why weâre in relationship, itâs a big part of why weâre in a relationship. In fact, recently I put the question out to the relationship alive community on facebook: âHow important is sex to you?â and there were very few people who said âyeah, itâs not a big deal to me.â Almost everyone, without a doubt, talked about how important a sexual, intimate connection was. So thereâs the intimacy, thatâs your closeness, your connectedness, and then thereâs your ability to bring that intimacy into the way you connect in the bedroom with your partner.
And today we have an expert in that very topic to chat with us. Her name is Doctor Cheryl Fraser, and she is the author of Buddhaâs Bedroom: The Mindful Loving Path to Sexual Passion and Lifelong Intimacy. And, Cheryl actually reached out to me and sent me a copy of her book, and I was just really moved by how simple it is, and yet how powerful the results can be for you. So, Iâm really excited to have her here on the show. As usual, we will have a detailed transcript and show guide with relevant links. To download that, all you have to do is visit NeilSattin.com/bb -- and that stands for Buddhaâs Bedroom. So Iâm making it really easy for you. Or, you can as always text the word âPassionâ to the number 33444 and follow the instructions.
So letâs dive right in to the bedroom with Buddha and Doctor Cheryl Fraser. Thanks so much for joining us today.
Cheryl Fraser: Itâs so much my pleasure. So happy to be talking with you.
Neil Sattin: Well, before we can get into bed, letâs talk about the way that you start your book which I love, which is bringing mindfulness to your relationship, and the sense that our partners arenât there to make us happy. And how that desire for our partner to be that for us is at the root of so much unhappiness. So, before we can get really bed into partners, we often have this obstacle of feeling the resentments that weâve stored about them. Or that abrasiveness that is actually an obstacle to the closeness, to the openness, to being there in a sexual way. So, how did you arrive there, and what, what is our good entry point here. Maybe itâs just with the Buddha, and how the Buddhaâs teaching really do apply to the misery, the potential misery, of relationship as well as the bliss and joy.
Cheryl Fraser: Yes. Well, I think the short handle there is that great love and great sex are all in our head. And that ultimately is absolutely true. When Iâm in love with you, itâs in my head. When Iâm disgruntled with you, itâs in my head. When Iâm horny, itâs in my head, even if itâs in my body. Thatâs why we can have an orgasm in our sleep, with absolutely no physical contact. Because actual eroticism and sexual response is also in our heads. So, you know, the title of the book, is a little bit controversial in some circles. Iâm a card-carrying buddhist, whatever that is, Iâve been studying for 25 years, and I teach buddhism in long retreats, and Iâm studied in Tibet and India etcetera. And âBuddhaâs Bedroomâ is a bit of a misnomer, in that Buddha was a celibate monk after the age of, about, early twenties. After he left his pleasure palace, and his concubines, and his wife, and his infant child, to go discover the root of suffering.
So. Why would we put Buddha in the Bedroom? Because ultimately the teachings of buddhism, and whether youâre a secular person, Christian, Hindu, Muslim, whatever your religious or philosophical bent is, the beautiful thing about the teachings of buddhist philosophy, is theyâre simply about training your mind and looking at your experience, whatever your belief and religious system are, how do we bring that to love and sex, which is the root of your question.
So in essence, whether Iâm happy or not happy is in my mind. And that applies directly to our relationships. So Iâll give a very simple example.
Neil Sattin: Great.
Cheryl Fraser: Letâs say after this interview, you and I have to drive somewhere, weâve got a meeting. And we each go out to our car after we hang up from each other, and weâve each got a flat tire. So what happens next is entirely up to our head. Do we have a tantrum? âThis is a terrible day, Iâm going to be late for my interview, oh no, this is a disaster, why does this always happen to me!â None of that has anything to do with the tire. Itâs completely due to my mindâs reaction to reality. Reality is I have a flat tire. So letâs say, Iâm going to make me the bad guy and youâre going to be the enlightened one here Neil. Letâs say Iâm the one thatâs having a tantrum, and Iâm freaking out âWahh!!!â meanwhile Neil goes out to his car, and is a highly civilized human being, and sees his flat tire, and says âOh, ok, that happened. Iâll have to adjust my plan now.â
The difference between you and I is in our minds, and our mindâs reaction to reality in that moment. I freak out, and my mind goes into suffering and dismay, and creates my problem. Not the flat tire. You have the same real issue, the car wonât work in the way you need it to in here and now. And you simply go âOk, that happened. Reality changed. And I, Neil, am going to go with the flow, and make a new plan. Call a friend, grab a bus, reschedule your appointment.â This is so simple. We all know that from our daily experience, when we react to something, thatâs when we suffer. Thatâs Buddhism 101. How does that apply to love? Well, letâs say my sweet heart comes home today, and he promised he was going to get cat food. Now, my sweetheart has adult ADD, heâs a little bit forgetful. So letâs say he promised to get Cat Food. I texted him, âHey hon, remember the cat food.â Because thatâs part of our relationship agreement around his forgetting things. And he walks in, and we all know where this is heading, blissfully happy to see me, gives me a hug and a kiss, the catâs meowing, whereâs the cat food, his face falls. In that moment, reality is I have a person whoâs forgotten to buy cat food. Thatâs all thatâs happened. But what happens next can often be, and Iâm not proud to admit that Iâve often gone there: âOh, for goodness sakes. I canât rely on you, I texted you, couldnât you just check the phone before you leave the store. You know, whatâs the deal.â
I am suffering but itâs in my mind. Itâs certainly not the cat food. Itâs certainly not the catâs fault. And arguably, and this is where it gets challenging, arguably my misery isnât because my partner did or didnât do something. My misery is because I donât like reality. I donât like the reality that they did or didnât do something. So to your point in your introduction, about whether we are ever in the right relationship, or can we be happy in our relationship. Iâm fond of saying we all marry or fall in love with the wrong person if we expect them to make us happy all the time.
And the first quarter of the book is really about this teaching of examine your mindset, and donât change your mate, change your mind. So most of the small or medium distresses in our relationship, sexually, romantically, communication wise, how we handle the chores, how we handle the commitments at christmas time -- whatever that is. The small and the medium distress, pain, annoyance, anger -- most of that we can get on top of that if we work with our mind. We can say âOh, Iâm so frustrated with Neil right now!â I can look at my mind, I can look at the emotion, I can feel the emotion in my body, I can look at the story: âNeilâs so unpredictable, he makes promises and he breaks them, nah nah nah.â I can harness that in, and ideally calm my body, calm my mind. Do a stretch, do a little meditation, go for a walk with the dog, and come back and say âHey babe. I need to talk to you about something thatâs really bothering me.â So when we take all of that, it sounds complex, itâs actually reasonably simple, but that doesnât mean itâs easy to do. But itâs reasonably simple to say âMy mind is the root of my experience.â How I engage with you, my beloved, is, in reality weâre having engagements, but how my mind interprets them is where Iâm either happy or not.â âOh, Iâve got a hubby who forgets cat food, heâs such a sweetheart.â versus âI canât rely on you. Iâve got to do everything myself.â Wow those lead down radically different roads.
Neil Sattin: Right. Right. And so there are several different paths that I want to go down here. One of them, I just wanted to share, I had this interesting insight when I was reading Buddhaâs Bedroom, which was thinking about the question that Iâve often get asked which is, âWhen Iâve done all this growth, what if I find out that my partner isnât the person that Iâm supposed to be with anymore?â And I think that a lot of what you just said is the answer to that question. Not 100% of the time, but probably 85 to 90% of the time, as long as that growth includes how you process your own stories about your partner and your relationship. And you may find yourself able to connect in totally new ways that arenât based around the dysfunction that maybe brought you together to begin with. Which is so often the case. So I just wanted to share that because for me, it was actually really inspiring, as a way of saying, yeah you know what, when you reach a new level of growth, you also reach a new level of ability to take a new approach in something thatâs problematic in your relationship. Thatâs part of the growing. And some of that is the relational skill -- itâs how you talk to Neil about the cat food he keeps forgetting. And another part of that is how the inner part of your conversation thatâs happening. Recognizing that âOh, itâs my mind thatâs torturing me right now,â and whatever you do to get past that.
And a question that I have for you is around, is around those moments, like, how would you describe someone being, having their story, and getting past their story, but still recognizing, maybe itâs not the cat food, but maybe it is a repeated sense of like, âOh, in reality Iâm noticing that my partner actually doesnât pay much attention to me.â Itâs not like youâre giving the negligent partner a blank check to walk all over the newly practicing buddhist, right?
Cheryl Fraser: No, because that would just create more suffering. And buddhism is all about trying to reduce our suffering not increase it. So let me get a little more clear here, so if weâre becoming a little more aware, and weâre examining our inner experience and our relational experience, and we come to a dawning realization that maybe our partnerâs not that great at paying romantic or connected attention to us. Thatâs partly what youâre putting out. What do we then do with that? And these are such vast, vast questions. And as relationship therapists and coaches, both of us, we know that thereâs not pithy answer, but what Iâm putting forward as a really important tool in the tool box thatâs different than a lot of other relationship advice, is donât immediately go to âI need to fix this situation.â i.e. teach you, bed you, plead, cajole, bully you into paying more attention to me, in order to be happy. Thatâs generally where we go. I have to fix the tire in order to be happy. And from buddhist philosophy, itâs a bit of a radical idea for most of us in the west who are not trained this way. Well, you donât need to fix the tire to be happy. Ipso facto, I donât need to get my partner to be attentive to me in a specific way that I would enjoy, in order to be happy. Whatttt.
That means Iâve got all this space in which to be happy, with my inattentive, distracted partner. Who I know loves me deeply, and shows me in other ways. It also gives space for the two of us to say âHey, but with the inattentive, distracted, not romantic part, that is something I would like to work on.â But now Iâm working on it from a place of curiosity and wonder and friendship and play and good humored acceptance that that is not your strong suit, instead of pain, demand and almost a cyclical failure experience, where Iâm hoping youâll remember to --
Neil Sattin: Yeah.
Cheryl Fraser: Ok, hereâs one. Oh, I did not get his permission to share this, Iâll get it retrospectively. I had an experience with my dearly beloved this weekend. It was my birthday, and um, I told him that all I want is something with wrapping paper on it. I said I donât care if it costs a dollar. Itâs not about that. Itâs because I love wrapping paper, not because I love wrapping paper, but because of what it indicates to me. Which is a thoughtfulness, a bit of precision, a bit of, you know, making something special. It goes back to old patterns, about wanting to make a fuss about my birthday as a kid, and all that good stuff that we have some awareness of. So, my dearly beloved goes and gets me a really sweet little gift. As dog lovers, you and I both Neil, he got me this sweet book on you know dogs and whatever -- lovely book. And, he put it in a bag. Oh, uh, no! Iâm telling you weâre set up for a fight now. He put it in a bag, and he left it on the hotel bed, and he left a card, and in the card, he said all sorts of loving things that were beautiful. And he said, âAnd redneck wrapping.â Now, redneck wrapping, meaning âI threw it in a bag! I didnât get [TK AGAINST TAPE].â And I was not a very good buddhist, or a very good sex therapist, or a very good relationship therapist, or a very good wife, or a very good person in that moment. I kind of freaked out. âAll I asked for was for it to be wrapped! I just wanted it to be wrapped!â And I actually had some tears, I was very tired, it had been a very long week. Now, if I had practiced what I preached, which I try to, as much as possible, I would have said âHow cool! Thatâs his way of wrapping. This is my sweetheart. Itâs kind of funny. Itâs kind of cute. Itâs kind of quirky. Weâre different people.â
So, just to bring this back together and to summarize it for our listeners. When I accept responsibility for my mindâs reaction to reality, it frees me up to accept reality the way it is, and be not upset. It also frees me up to say, âOk, Iâm not really upset, but we can talk a little bit about the wrapping paper in the future? What I would really love, if is on special occasions, if you got paper, because itâs symbolic to me. It just lights me up. Youâll get great return on your investment because Iâll be so thrilled.â But instead of doing it from a place of pain and hurt, and the place we usually dialogue about problems. So, I donât want listeners to think that âOh, my goodness, I have to accept every shortcoming in my relationship, from now on, because itâs my fault that my head isnât happy with it.â No, no. That isnât what weâre saying. But weâre giving people a super powerful tool, to add to the way we usually do relationship. Work on our head as well as the interaction between you and I. And find a way to be happy, and joyful, and horny, and in love, and curious -- regardless of whatâs going on for our sweetheart. And then maybe, take their hand and ask them to jump into that playground with us, when weâre at our best. Cajole them out of their stuck place instead of trying to berate them, or guilt them, or harunge them out of that place. I think you and I have both experienced professionally and personally -- it doesnât work all that well.
Neil Sattin: Yeah, as soon as we are coming at people with, what in the dog training world we call negative reinforcement, as soon as that is happening, theyâre going into their shame, and feeling unworthy, and thatâs not a place where any good problem solving is happening. And certainly, where the connection, also, isnât happening. I love that example that you gave, because your husband clearly he was thinking that -- he was probably thinking that he was getting at what you were asking for. He acknowledged it even. But he didnât really get what you were asking for in the end, because, what you wanted was fairly simple. But he missed that point.
Cheryl Fraser: And I love him anyway. And we redeemed the weekend. And often it wouldnât have gone that way, but you know, the trifecta was there: the exhaustion, the working too much, and hadnât had much time together, and all that stuff. Iâm a human being in relationships, so are you. My private practice therapy office is upstairs from my home. You and I are speaking from my home right now. And I often say to my beautiful patients I get to work with, the couples I work with, I say, you know, âThereâs upstairs Cheryl, and sheâs awesome. And then thereâs downstairs Cheryl, and Iâm a lot less skilled down here.â
[Everyone laughs]
But, all of us should be that self revelatory and not set ourselves up. Because even though, Iâm literally considered a sex and love expert, that doesnât mean itâs easy in the trenches of real life with real human beings. That helps keep us humble, and it keeps us always searching and looking for ways to bring this beautiful work to people to do something that is sacred and profound. Which is to choose to walk through life with a person. And we learn if weâre older than 16 or so, that itâs not as easy as we thought it would be, and that soul mates donât exist, and that Walt Disney sold us a bill of goods, and we should all sue him. [LAUGHTER] There is no happily ever after, at least by itself.
Neil Sattin: So I think they have some money, so I think we should put a class action suit together, and go after Disney. Yeah, yeah, and I think that this is so true, that what weâre after is not this idea of a perfect relationship where nothing goes wrong. In fact, my latest catch phrase has been âthe perfectly imperfect relationship.â That, thatâs part of it. That itâs not that nothing ever happens itâs how you show up, itâs how you handle those things that inevitably go wrong that show you how strong you are, and actually I think are just as valuable as the blissful bedroom moments, are the moments where you survive something with your partner that was tough. That maybe in the past would have really derailed you. And you realize, âWow, we did that in five minutes, which would have before taken us five days, or five months.â And thatâs a real beautiful level of resilience, that you only get to if youâre doing the inner and the outer work that youâre talking about.
Cheryl Fraser: Yeah, there are no easy relationships, other than maybe in the first few months. And itâs the work, and the joy, and the ⌠I think the old fashioned wedding vows are so profound: better or worse, richer or poorer, sickness and health. And Iâd love us to remember that, thatâs love. Not âyouâre so perfect, and youâll keep me happy forever, yay!â I mean, thatâs naive, and, itâs not bad, goodness knows Iâm not anti-romance, I love romance. But I love reality too. But the first part of the book, and weâll probably move on to passion and stuff now, but the first part is sketching out the fundamental philosophy of using your mind in the way weâve been talking about, as one way to approach your relationship, to increase your happiness and your connection, and avoid the pitfalls of having your day ruined because thereâs a flat tire. Cuz nobodyâs days ruined by having a flat tire. Your day is ruined by your mind, not the tire.
Neil Sattin: And I want to highlight too that you offered this really profound view of self responsibility. That itâs not only about your happiness, itâs also about your horniness, or about your attention to a quiet moment. Itâs what youâre bringing in every single moment, to that moment, is something that you have a say in, that you can bring awareness to. And what I love about these kinds of conversations, that now that you have heard us say this, you will not be able to experience the moment the same way ever again. Youâll experience it, and youâll recognize, âOh, wow Iâm really unhappy right now.â And it will give you the opportunity, to ask yourself âWhat is my story that Iâm telling myself right now.â
Cheryl Fraser: Yes, yes. The phrase I use right now, that I bet you resonated with, is that we are story making machines. Right? I know you do that a lot of that in your work, and your teaching on this podcast and your other venues. Itâs so important. Whatâs the story right now? And is it working for me! If the story is âYouâre the worst husband ever, and all I wanted was wrapping paper, and nobody loves me!â Thatâs a dumbass story. I mean, what good is that doing me, what good is that doing me to the evening? Sure, weâre flooded with biochemistry, we all know when weâre in this story that itâs not always easy to snap our fingers and turn the page. Fair enough. But at least when we can realize that weâre stuck on a yucky page of the book, and this story is destructive, we can at least begin the process of stepping away, calming our self, finding our grounding, maybe hugging and holding our partner, letting our parasympathetic nervous system take over the sympathetic fight or flight, calm our self. And then we can probably turn the page, to a blank page and start again. Not easy, but profoundly beautiful to take that as a challenge personally, and with our partner if theyâre willing to engage with some of that study with us. We can do with or without them being fully on board, like much relationship work, but to say: âIâm interested in re-writing my love story one mindful breath at a time,â is how I sometimes put it.
Neil Sattin: I love that, I love that. And as we bring our attention to the moment, this is like a perfect segue I think, because I think for one thing I think a beautiful remedy for those really triggered moments is how you presence yourself. You know, our limbic system is lost in this sense that the tiger is chasing us. So being able to bring yourself into presence with your partner and talk about what is literally happening, I think is part of the mindfulness that youâre advocating for. Is that you seperate your story from what is actually happening, what the reality is that you maybe donât like, but this is reality. And that can bring you into âIâm here, in this room, with my partner, theyâre standing in front of me, weâre both breathing, the cat is meowing,â whatever is happening, that that brings you back into the moment, and once youâre there, all those systems start to come back online. And now letâs talk about how being in the moment is so important to revitalizing the sexual passion that so many people lose, and Iâm putting âloseâ in quotes. Because I love how you talk about how thatâs never really gone, that itâs there within us. So yeah, how does our mindfulness and being moment focused get us back into passionate connection with our partner.
Cheryl Fraser: Oh! My favorite topic. So the first chunk of the book is laying out what weâve been talking about, the mindset and some of the fundamental teachings about how to use your mind to, to interpret reality and be happy regardless of reality, flat tire or no. Then I move into, I chunk it into what I call the âPassion Triangle,â Iâll briefly lay it out, and then I think you and I are going to focus on one or two key piece of that. When I talk about how to help people create, or become, or uncover, or revitalize, or reignite passion, I break into down into three keys to passion as a way for people to remember it. And I use the structure of the triangle, because I was told once by an engineer friend that a triangle is an incredibly stable structure. And if you want to build a big building you want to build it on the variation, and the idea of the triangle. All sides leaning on each other, strongly unshakeable. Isnât that what we want to build in our love life? All three sides of our relationship leaning on each other strong and unshakeable.
What are the three? Iâll name them. Iâll briefly describe them. I talk about intimacy being the base of your triangle. Thrill being one side of the triangle. And sensuality being the other side. And intimacy is what a lot of your work and my work covers, Neil. Which is I donât use intimacy here as an euphemism for sex. I use it as a psychological, emotional communication, even spiritual connection. That sense of knowing each other and being known. What John Gottman and team call love maps, and which many other people talk about being seen by you, being heard by you, ups and downs, the little stuff, the big stuff. True intimacy grows over time, months and years, through what you were just about, the ups and downs, the things we go through, and maybe we can stand in the middle and survive. Intimacy, key to lifelong passion. Because the kind of passion Iâm talking about, isnât just a wild weekend. Iâm talking about sustainable fluctuating alive passion. Sexually, emotionally, romantically and spiritually. So intimacy is really important, we probably wonât talk a lot about it for the rest of this conversation, but a chunk of the book is talking about how to bring mindfulness to your intimacy, and communication practices, mindful apology, things like that.
Thrill and sensuality, are what I think people really respond to as ways to think about their relationship that are cast in a slightly different manner than maybe theyâve heard before. Thrill, Iâm talking about the ineffable sense of butterflies in the tummy, and a rush of lust, or excitement through our mind or body, that most of us experience very easily in the beginning of our relationship, when weâre dating, weâre beginning to fall in love. You know in my days, Iâm going to date myself a bit here, but it was all about the answering machine light and whether or not it was blinking or not when you walked in the door, you didnât have the cell phone, so you were at work all day, and you came in at 5:30 or whatever, and immediately look to the corner of the room, where the answering machine sat, and if it was blinking, that meant there was a message! And hopefully it was him or her, and I would go and listen to the message, and it was my grandmother⌠And I love me my grandmother, but youâre so disappointed. We all know what it was like to be excited and anticipatory, and feeling a rush of thrill. To be at your office desk and to literally a rush of lust in your body when you remember that goodnight kiss from last night. Now what happens three, six or eighteen months down the road? You and I are familiar, and most of your listeners may be, with the findings that thereâs a period of whatâs called luminessence or numinosity, or whatever we want to call it in the fallin in love stage that is biochemically driven. Weâve got dopamine, weâve got serotonin, and oxytocin, weâve got love hormones, weâve got sexual drive. Weâre cave people in cave bodies, and weâre programmed to mate and get it over with! So the pursuit and the chase is very thrilling. Then we move into a phase of what I call âMarriage Incorporated.â Whether or not youâre married, gay, straight, or alternate couples, Iâm talking about when we make a dedicated commitment to each other in whatever form. I just call it Marriage Incorporated. And thatâs where the thrill is gone. We think, Iâll get back to that, but we think. As the old song says, the thrill is gone. And, weâre doing ok. I love you, you love me, weâve got the kids, the dogs, the horses, the cats, no cat food, but whatever. Weâre good, weâre fine, Neil, weâre fine. I like you, you like me, weâre not looking for an affair, directly, weâre not wanting to divorce, and we have a good time on vacation. And we are running the business of us: the mortgage, the pets, the kids, the activities, your career, my career, youâve got that podcast, but Iâve got this other thing. We all know this, we are often living that right now. Marriage Incorporated is where the thrill seems to have gone, and weâre in contentment. Now, thatâs a natural phase. My workâs about bringing the thrill back, re-infusing Marriage Incorporated, and turning it into Passion Incorporated. Iâm going to get to sensuality probably a little later in this conversation, so letâs stay with Thrill right now.
A reminder the three are Intimacy, Thrill and Sensuality. Because you asked me a key question, which is how does the mind, or mindfulness or paying attention, relate to thrill? In every single way. Because when you and I are new itâs novel, and novelty automatically takes care of thrill. I am curious as heck about you, I canât wait to hear about your day, who your best friend was in school, and what happened to that friendship, where and how you lost your virginity, and how embarrassing was it. I want to know everything, I want to know where you bought that shirt, I want to know what your relationship with your parents are like. Itâs easy, weâre organically curious when weâre falling in love. The thrill is based on novelty. You are uncharted territory, and I canât wait to map every single bit of you. Every inch of your body, and every neuron of your mind. I want to know you.
Neil Sattin: Right, and thereâs often some fear, involved there as well thatâs often fueling the dopamine and chemicals that are coursing through our bodies.
Cheryl Fraser: Great observation, I am investing, and Iâm fearful or anxious or excited that, you know, Iâm falling in love with Neil, and I donât know if heâs going to feel the same way, and am I over playing my hand, all of that is very exciting -- sometimes painfully so. And we then move into contentment, and life and busyness. We get complacent often. And the few of you listening that didnât, Bravo and Hallelujah. But the majority of us get complacent, and I start to take you for granted. And what was new seems familiar. And it blows my mind when as couples we say, âI donât really think thereâs anything new to learn about my sweetheart.â Are you crazy? Have you met them?? We are vast, we contain multitudes. I think thatâs Whitman.
Neil Sattin: Yeah it is.
Cheryl Fraser: Thank you, thank you! You will never know your partner anywhere as deeply as you think you do. As this is where I mentioned affairs. And I just want to ground this in reality for all of us. If you and I are in long term relationship, and our partner loves us and thinks were cool. But theyâre not all that interested in our day, or our hopes and dreams right now, weâre not creating time to explore that together, weâre not cultivating thrill, weâve lost novelty in terms of newness, and weâre not creating novelty with our mind and our activities. And then you and I meet someone at work, or at play or at a conference whoâs interested in what weâre interested in. We have a fascinating conversation that is so often the grain of an affair possibility, someone finding us fascinating. So the work I bring with bringing mindfulness and the buddhist philosophy to our love and sex life, is create novelty all over again by what you so cleverly summarized a little bit ago in this conversation. If I show up with you here and now in this conversation, you are freaking fascinating. Even if Iâve slept next to you for the last 26 years. Even if I believe I know everything about you. You are filled with surprises, if only I have the eyes to see. And I think that a very simple way to make this relatable to people, is: Letâs say you and I love chocolate. And I am able to gift you with a tiny sliver of the most gorgeous Belgian truffle, in exactly the flavor and style that you would most love. Even as I say this, my mouth starts to water a little bit, and probably yours, and probably our listeners. And I give this to you, and I say to you âNeil, I want you to take your time, and I want you bring this to your nostrils and have a little scent.â And youâre like âOh my goodness, it smells delicious.â But then I ask you to place it on your tongue and just leave it there. Just for a few seconds.â And it starts to melt a tiny bit, and I ask you to roll it around, and itâs silky and itâs smooth, youâve got texture, youâve got the orgasmic flavor explosion. And then you just enjoy it, you take time, and you swallow, and itâs gorgeous. Right?
Neil Sattin: Youâre killing me!
Cheryl Fraser: Oh! Right after this Iâm going truffle shopping. And I bet what you do not say to me is âYeah, whatever. Iâve had a lot of chocolate before.â And the reason is, youâre just showing up here and now with that sliver of truffle. And youâre experiencing it, as though for the first time, and if youâve had thousands of chocolate -- if you have a two chocolate a day habit, this moment is gorgeous if you focus on it. The power, and the eroticism, of attention. Now, if you were to, and letâs do this together right now. I want you to take your hand, and everybody listening, and just gently stroke the top of your other hand with the fingers. Using my right hand fingers, Iâm stroking the top of my left hand. Iâm closing my eyes, and Iâm focusing on it for a few seconds. And it feels very powerful. Simply because of the special sauce of attention. Imagine kissing like that. Imagine someone licking our thigh like that. Thatâs the way it felt for the majority of us in the beginning, when we were exploring each other. We were locked and loaded on that sensation, and it was so alive, and it was so erotic, and it was romantic. Not just because it was new, but because we were paying attention. Novelty makes it easy to pay attention, familiarity does not make it easy to pay attention. The first time you drive a tricky mountain road. If youâve driven it four-thousand times, because your house is at the top, you stop paying attention. So, whatâs the point of all that? If you want thrill in the here and now after 27 or 48 years or 30 days, or however long itâs been. Itâs your mind paying attention to this truffle, this kiss, this conversation with you, this description of your business meeting today, that makes it alive and passionate. Interest makes us fall in love over and over again. Interest and mindfulness, make thrill perpetual. Instead of simply part of the first few months of our relationship. That part comes automatically. Enjoy the heck out of it! I love falling in love. I love the rush of all that biochemistry and projection and craziness. And when I counsel people on what to do about it, Iâm like âEnjoy the freaking ride.â Itâs a roller coaster, but just know that youâre on a roller coaster. Itâs amazing, itâs intense, youâre in an altered state of consciousness, the biochemistry of falling in love literally mimics the biochemistry of obsessive compulsive disorder in functional MRI machines. We actually are mentally ill when weâre falling in love. Enjoy the heck out if it. And then when it starts to settle, change, shift, and some of the deep work starts to happen, and itâs no longer so perfect, thatâs where we can say âOk, I am interested in boarding the roller coaster volutionally over and over again through our decades together.â Thatâs my mindfulness, thatâs choice, thatâs effort. Thatâs how we can begin to keep thrill alive forever.
Neil Sattin: Great, yeah, thatâs exactly how you take charge of your story. If youâre able in the moment to remind yourself, just like I had the ability to choose happiness in this moment, even, no matter what the circumstances are, now I also have the ability to choose attention.
Cheryl Fraser: Yes.
Neil Sattin: To put my attention into this level of fascination. And where my mind went strangely, not necessarily that the words are connected at all, but I was thinking about fastening, like youâre fastening your attention to someone. So youâre fascinated with them. And the way that brings you into joy, also I think, takes you out of that realm of wanting someone to fulfill your expectations. So, and this I think goes into the sensuality piece, right? Because when youâre in the moment, and youâre fascinated, and youâre just enjoying that last sense of the chocolate on your tongue, you donât want that moment to end. Youâre not really thinking of the next piece, right? Because youâre able to bring your attention in that fully. And where so many people get lost, I think, in especially when thereâs a disconnected state, where weâve been in relationship for a long time, and it feels like the chasm between us is vast -- I donât even know how to get to being sexual with you because Iâm so wrapped up with business, and the kids, and the dog and the cat food. So, but the way, itâs such a quick bridge is to be able to give your attention like that to your partner, and to find that fascination. And then, itâs almost like, that question of how we get to the bedroom, in some respects, becomes a lot less important, because youâre enjoying that moment, potentially almost as much, as you would enjoy the bedroom. And it gets you into that enjoyment, which gets you maybe into more of a sensual experience with your partner.
Cheryl Fraser: Yes. I want to comment on a few of those great points before we move into sensuality, I love the idea of fastening and fascination, because thereâs actually a fairly esoteric buddhist word to describe deep concentrated attention, which is called Watakka [TK AGAINST TRANSCRIPT] which means to tack onto. Which is to fasten. Where your attention kind of gloms onto this breath, and itâs unshakably there. So youâre intuitively really on that point there, Neil, of fastening and fascination, because youâre the totality of my experience in this present moment. I am focused on you. The truffle. The business proposal. The kiss, etc.
The other thing is sensuality is the word I chose on purpose, and again you intuitively picked up on this. I didnât call the third side of the triangle âSexualityâ because sensuality is a much broader field in which to play. All five senses: touch, taste, sound, smell, and vision. And, in Buddhist and other teachings, the sixth sense, which is our mind, we can play in that whole realm. So the third side of passion, intimacy, kind of our relational connectedness, psychological work, the delight in communication. Thrill: weâve talked about here, every moment, being a perfect truffle. No, that doesnât happen for me either. But I can aspire to it more often. And thirdly sensuality, our sexual and erotic life across the entire spectrum. Everything from my eyes meeting yours across the room and having a spark of âThereâs my sweetheart.â to holding hands while we walk the dogs in the forest, to kissing to cuddling when we watch TV, to our entire spectrum or our erotic sexual life -- whether thatâs a verbal foreplay with a sexy text, whether thatâs kissing, whether it is in our love making, the breadth and depth  and possibility of our love making, Iâll talk a little bit about that. All of that, is really in your head. Iâm turned on or not turned on in my head, Iâm interested or not interested in my head. Iâm present with this orgasm in my head, or Iâm fantasizing about someone else in my head while Iâm orgasming. Which means Iâm not fully present with this physiological and emotional experience, itâs still fun, but Iâm having sex with someone else somewhere else, while my bodyâs with you. Which is a pretty common phenomenon. Iâm not even conscious at my own orgasm, and feeling fully the deliciousness of this truffle.
Neil Sattin: Ok, so, bringing our attention back to the sensual piece, when Chloe and I, in our course, when we talk about this, we talk about the continuum. And developing this mindful awareness that you are always on this continuum of sensual experience with your partner. Even if you are thinking about them, you are on that continuum. And the reason I talk about it that way, is because I like the sense that youâre always connected in that way, it helps, I think, also bridge the gap between disconnection or how do we even overcome this gap between us, and where we stand right now. If youâve always been nurturing that sense of âWell, weâre on this continuum no matter what. Itâs just a matter of where we are. Weâre not in the bedroom part of the continuum, weâre on the kitchen making dinner part of the continuum, where we can be aware of each other's breath. Or I can go and touch and you really pay attention to that touch. And now weâre in the same dimension of sensuality, even though weâre in a different place than necessarily, hot sweaty sex between the sheets.
Cheryl Fraser: Yep! I am so happy that you teach it that way, and to help people come to that understanding. But you know, Iâm going to have to say that unfortunately in my experience, not a lot of couples are doing what youâre promoting there. And that they donât experience it, as a continuum. They experience it as a relational life, and psychological life, and our loving each other life. And itâs like errrrr bomp! And then thereâs our sex life, and itâs not experienced as a continuum. So I think a lot of people would say âI love making dinner with my sweetie, and weâre laughing and joking and weâre listening to oldies and dancing around the kitchen, but Iâm not connecting that to sex.â And thatâs what you and I in our own unique ways are encouraging people to do. Which is, oh my goodness, the state of sexuality in long term relationship is really poor. There any very good surveys that give us a real glimpse into whatâs happening in long term relationship bedrooms -- but clinically, and the best of the surveys and research thatâs out there, I would guess that the vast majority of long term couples are having sex maybe a couple of times a month. And it is something theyâre neglecting, itâs something theyâre not even necessarily avoiding, though that can be the case. Itâs more like passive, denial?
Neil Sattin: Thereâs so many other things going onâŚ
Cheryl Fraser: So many other things. Fatigue and Netflix, the two biggest killers of sex ever. Maybe thereâs another class action suit there. But, Iâm Canadian and weâre not litigious, when we spill coffee we generally just clean it up. We donât usually sue. But, I donât know. Weâre obviously teasing, neither you nor I want to sue anybody. But humorâs also good in love and sex. Here you go. But in the passion triangle, for sensuality, I just want to offer a few teachings that I think will be super helpful for people listening. And hopefully very reassuring. For people in long term relationship who are not having much sex, and not having very much spontaneous desire -- theyâre not just like âOh, I want to jump your bones, right now.â Thatâs sort of the old thrill phase for a lot of us, the early roller coaster phase. I want to let people know that thereâs some very important research. Rosemary Bissant out of UBC, Vancouver, Canada, she works with a new model for female sexual desire, people can look her work up. But hereâs the take home message thatâs reassuring. Her research indicates that the majority of long term couples start making love from a place of sexual neutrality, now what does that mean? It means that the majority of long term couples start making love when neither of them is particularly in the mood. Theyâre not turned on, and horny in the body, I call that physical arousal, thereâs different language for these, Iâll use mine. How I break it down to make it relatable to people. So theyâre not physically turned on, and they donât necessarily have mental desire: like âOh, I really mentally feel like making love.â Often, they have sex because theyâre like âDang, honey, itâs been three weeks. We should probably have sex.â âYeah, we probably should.â And that does not sound romantic, but Iâll tell you what it is, it is real.
I had a patient, a gay patient, lesbian patient last week, say to me, she and her wife hadnât made love in four months, and I was really encouraging her to attend to that and open up those possibilities. So she was really excited, cuz theyâd made love, and she said âOh Cheryl, it was so great. I was snuggled inâŚâ Iâll call her wife Jane, âand Jane had her back to me, and Jane said to me, âDo you have your mouth guard in yet?ââ That was the big move! THAT was the big move, man. âDo you have your mouth guard in yet?â And we laughed, my patient and I. Cuz we thought right on baby, thatâs real life. And she said âNo, I donât.â And the rest is history. Why do I make that point? Because thatâs real life! So rest assured, if weâre not feeling spontaneously lusty, or really in our mind, âOh, I really want to make love.â That is normal. And Ok. And so, one of the things I suggest to people, itâs not a novel idea, your guest a few episodes ago, Tammy Nelson suggested the same thing, as many wise people, you probably do to: Make a once a week sex date. And make that be unshakable. Like, Monday night we make love whether we have a headache, or one of us is super tired, or one of the kids has the flu. We make love whether weâre into it or not. Now, the only reason we wonât, is if really through illness or a business meeting, we consult each other and say, âHey babe, Iâm not sure I can make out Monday night sex date. Are you ok if we move it to wednesday this week?â Because that way, you start making love touching, kissing, have a hot shower, have a bath, when youâre not in the mood. Donât wait until youâre in the mood. In fact I like to counsel people, one of my catchphrases is âNever say youâre not in the mood ever again.â And what Iâm saying by that, is that itâs ok if youâre not in the mood. No one should be in the mood if youâre making scrambled eggs and thinking about your tax return. Tax Day in the states today, right?Neil Sattin: It is.
Cheryl Fraser: And someone comes up and wraps their arms around you from behind, and says âHey baby what do you think?â Itâs like âIâm not in the mood!â Worst thing to say ever even though itâs true. Instead I suggest people say âNot right now babe, ask me later.â Itâs a very different energy, and it acknowledges what weâre talking about right now. That waiting until youâre in the mood to have sex, means you probably wonât have very much sex. Versus, I have a couple working with the weekly sex date, just for the last three weeks, and they were having sex maybe once a month, they like sex. They have successful sexuality together. They were just busy and tired. But they made a weekly sex date, and theyâve made love five times in the last two weeks. Because the sex date on Monday, kind of got everything warmed up, and then Saturday morning was like, âHey letâs have a quickie.â Thatâs not true for all of us, but what Iâm saying is that this is also the practice of mindful attention. If weâre not paying attention to our sexual life, on that continuum, as you so beautifully put it, if we donât bridge the gap in our continuum, from you and I, and our humor, and our playfulness, and our parenting, and our going to symphony, and all the other ways that we are. If we donât remember that weâre naked under these clothes, if we donât remember that the unique part about you and I, if weâre choosing a variation of monogamy, is that sexual contact is unique to my relationship with you. And weâre neglecting it, and weâre expecting it to take care of itself, and weâre buying into the myth that the thrill canât last forever. And itâs normal for sex drive to wane. It is typical for sex drive to wane, which make it normal on a Bell Curve, but thatâs like saying itâs normal when youâre old to get unfit. That is typical on the Bell Curve, but if we choose fitness as we age, if we choose to be at the gym, or yoga class, then we donât have to fit whatâs normal. Donât be lazy and old with your sex life. Bring mindfulness to sensuality side of your triangle. And it gets so much bigger than that, we probably donât have time to go into that, but I wanted to at least mention to people, where it gets super juicey to use your mind in your love making, is the aspect of Tantric Sexuality. Transcendent mind states in my lovemaking with you, where the sense of you and I dissolve, and the orgasm turns from its typical physiological experience, which is actually pretty puny -- the average male orgasm lasts 7 seconds, and the average female orgasm lasts about 20 seconds. Thatâs a pretty puny amount of pleasure, as great as it is. Through meditation and through focusing your mind, and some practices I talk about in the book, and you can research elsewhere as well, around tantric sexuality, extended orgasm, full body orgasm, we can turn the orgasmic experience into something that lasts much longer than 7 or 22 seconds. Imagine the orgasmic pleasure filling your whole body for minutes, even longer than that. Imagine being to exchange that on an energetic level. Thatâs some of the really beautiful places that working with our mind, our partner, our heart, our connection could lead us to in the sexual realm. A type of transcendent sexuality. So maybe once a month, or once a quarter, you decide to have gourmet sexuality and sensuality with your partner. Instead of your typical meal. And I talk about that in the later part of the chapters in the book, because, why donât I talk about the in the beginning of the book? Because, it you try to practice tantric sex without clearing up some of your unfinished business, learning to communicate better, enjoying cooking dinner together, remember your partnerâs fascinating, and all the things weâre touching on today, Neil, youâre probably not going to have a 15 minute transcendent orgasm. Donât be greedy, put in a little bit of ground work.
You know, create and cultivate the conditions with Thrill, with Intimacy, and with Sensual contact, to move into some beautiful areas of sexuality, and intimate, spiritual, sexual connection that a lot of us donât explore. And that, can certainly make a long term relationship fascinating a again. Fascinating again. And open up new worlds. From what I usually refer to as our nipple nipple crotch, good night routine. Where we just do the dang thing ever time, and Iâm not opposed to that, but Iâm saying sometimes, create a gourmet meal.
Neil Sattin: Right, so I just want to mention that if you are interested to learn more about Cheryl Fraserâs work, obviously you can read her book, Buddhaâs Bedroom: The Mindful Loving Path to Sexual Passion and Lifelong Intimacy. There are lots of little how-to and action items in the book, to help you along the journey. So I recommend that. You can also visit her website, which we will list in the show notes. It is DoctorCherylFraser.com. And, as a reminder, if you want to download the show notes, and the transcript of todayâs episode, itâs NeilSattin.com/bb, as in Buddhaâs Bedroom, or you can text the word âPassion,â which is appropriate for this episode, Â to the number 33444.
In terms of Tantra, I think it would be great to have you back on at some point to chat about that more. Um, we have if youâre listening and youâre curious, weâve had Diana Richardson on the show, Episode 2 is a great place to start, it was the very second episode of the podcast. And, Margot Anand has also been on the show, I canât remember her episode number, but if you search for Margot Anand on my website, youâll find her. Two amazing Tantric practitioners who can at least start the conversation with you with what weâre talking about today.
Cheryl Fraser: Beautiful. Beautiful.
Neil Sattin: Cheryl, Iâm wondering if you, cuz you offer on your website, people can sign up and get free stuff every week, and you over little love bites that give people a piece of something to work on, or to take action on, or to think about their relationship in a different way, which I think is really helpful to have those bite sized actionable items. You talk a lot about Tantra.
Cheryl Fraser: I do. Itâs critical to have bite sized action items. Because we talked about complacency, familiarity, fatigue, and netflix and everything else gets in the way. So theyâre called love bites because theyâre meant to be small bites of digestible. Some of them are two seconds, five seconds, thirty seconds to read a little reminder for your love this week. So thatâs how I try to help each of us -- myself included, my sweetheart and I read my bites and try to put them into practice.
Neil Sattin: Weâve been there, yeah.
Cheryl Fraser: Yeah, and if people want to learn a little more about Tantra. I would start with the episodes you suggested, and I have a ten minute free video on my website as well, people can watch. Just so people can get a sense of what is a tantric orgasm, and how is it different, and that is a lifelong exploration that I welcome everyone to engage in, and I would delighted to dedicate a whole episode to that in the future, it deserves a bit more of an arc, so we can teach people some techniques on your show here, and have them start with that. But donât lose hope. There are worlds to discover, sexually, emotionally, romantically, and conversationally with this person you think you know everything about.
Neil Sattin: So, thereâs one little bite that Iâm wondering if you could offer our listeners today. Iâm wondering if you could offer something for, letâs say you have that sex date on your calendar. And I have ten different ideas here, but Iâm hoping you can offer one thing that brings people into the sensual dimension with our partner, something simple that helps reignite how they experience their partner this way, how they can invite their partner into the experience of them in a sensual way, what can you offer our listeners today as sort their little take home bite that they might try.
Cheryl Fraser: Beautiful try this at home. There are a lot of ideas, but the one Iâm going to offer right now is pretty simple, but very profound and very few of us do it. Which is, on your erotic date this week, take at least an hour, and break it into two thirty minutes segments, and it can be longer if you wish, and do a giving and receiving of erotic touch. With the rule, that youâre not allowed to touch overtly sexual zones. So, no genitals, no bums, and no breasts. So how that would work, would be the following: flip a coin as to who goes first, whoever wins the coin toss is the receiver first. And the receiver lays down on their back, nude, their eyes closed, you can use candles, and sometimes soft music without lyrics is nice to help relax the receiver and give them something to kind of let their mind dream on. And the giver, you probably did this in your falling in love and wildly sexual, but you probably havenât done it in a long time, it gives you thirty minutes to explore your partner's body with a finger, with a tongue, with your hair, with a feather, with whatever you like. To just explore that body. Whenâs the last time that you licked the back of your partnerâs knees? Everybody listening is probably thinking âUmmm 17 years, I think we probably did it that time we went to the cabin for the dirty weekend.â Anyway. So giving and receiving erotic touch. The receiver use this as a mindfulness practice, thereâs more description of that in the book in some of exercises Iâve given as you mentioned, to do this with your partner. But, as youâre lying there, and your mindâs racing, about this and that, and thinking, and being distracted as minds are unless youâre very well trained in meditation, try to re-focus. Every time you notice youâre off in your head, âOk, Neilâs fingers are, fingernails are scratching along my knee cap right now.â And just try to focus on experiencing that as deeply as you can. Mind races off, come back âOh, now he or she are nibbling on my neck.â So youâre learning as the receiver, to really start to pay, and this is preliminary, it takes, some practice, really starting to notice the actual sensory experience without story. That can lead to persons who have difficult with orgasm, erection, premature ejaculaiton, this can help with that down the road, by the way. Then, at the end of the time, when the timer goes off, and you thank you partner as the receiver, and you switch. And you become the giver, and you explore your partner. So youâre doing multiple things here. Youâre training focusing on your partner when youâre the giver. Youâre training on focusing on your own experience when youâre the receiver. Youâre training on exploring the sensual body away from the usual, as I call it as you heard, nipple nipple crotch good night points, that weâre used to diving for. Nothing wrong with that, but weâre expanding it. And weâre looking at creativity, weâre looking at eroticism, and weâre looking at making it more interesting, because if we fell madly in love with a new person or into the taboo of an affair. That sort of exploration might come naturally, all weâre doing is creating it in the here and now with the one weâre with.
So thereâs an idea people could do. And Iâll make the implicit, explicit. For this exercise, you could either then stop, and thatâs the end of your sensual date, or, you could take it into love making if you wish, thereâs different reasons to do either. But itâs really about erotically exploring. And let me just  finish by saying that a sex date doesnât mean that you necessarily have intercourse, or that either person necessarily has an orgasm. It means itâs an erotic experience that involves nudity, touching, in that way. And thatâs a real relief for exhausted bodies too. Our sexual date might be we play, we touch, and one of us chooses to have an orgasm. And the other one says âIâm completely satisfied right now just with playing and kissing and helping you as you touched yourself etc.â Thereâs no right or wrong. Itâs the mindset of exploration, and the willingness, if it doesnât go well, to just begin again with curiosity.
Neil Sattin: Yeah, I love the permission that you bring to how you approach this kind of time together. An itâs interesting because when I said the word permission, Iâm also thinking about the permission to say No. So, thereâs, even though for instance you just mentioned in this exercise you might say, that the genital areas are off limits. If you have points on your body that are triggers for you, those can be off limits too. Like you can set rules so that you feel safe enough to have this erotic but not explicitly sexual interaction with your partner.
Cheryl Fraser: Yes.
Neil Sattin: Create safety for you. I love that too when you mentioned the never, never say Iâm not in the mood. And what you offered was to say, âNot right now, how about later?â that really reminds me of the Gottmanâs work around the power of saying No, and both people have permission to say No, but itâs not a âNo, neverâ itâs a âNo, andâ or a âNo, letâs do this instead,â and speaking scien
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