How to Overcome Sexual Shame, Trauma & Low Libido in Relationships with Susan Morgan Taylor

Speaker: 00:00:00

Susan Morgan Taylor: What are the things that kind of get in the way that cause us to be disinterested in sex, or to have numbness in our genitals, or pain, or where it's just sort of an act? There's things that that I had through my work with myself, I had cleared those things kind of out of the way, and so now I was having this moment of, I am this and I'm there. I didn't have to, like, seek to a relationship, to like, give me love. Was now this thing that I am, that I bring in to every situation and every relationship that I show up in. I was very blessed several months later to attract a lover into my life who was super open to learning and growing and and I was able then to kind of bring what I learned into that relational space with him. And that's, you know, another it's kind of a different progression of the skill set, but it was just really beautiful. And so we are that we are the love, we are the pleasure, we are the orgasm. It's just a matter of, you know, having the tools and the knowledge and the education to be able to recognize ourselves as that. Hello,

Kate Harlow: 00:00:53

Beauty. Welcome to season three of the new truth podcast. Episode Two. I am so excited to share all the interviews that I have coming up in season three. We're turning the volume up. We're turning the heat up, having some incredibly powerful, potent conversations to liberate your heart and soul in all the ways and expand you into as many corners of yourself and unlock all those places in you and to expand your life in all the ways and your capacity to love. So today has so much to do with your capacity to love. I have the most powerful conversation with a somatic therapist named Susan Morgan Taylor, who's absolutely brilliant. She's brand new to me. We get to know each other on this episode, but she I just love how she teaches the nuances. She teaches about sacred sexuality, connecting to your own pleasure, pleasure practices and tools to heal sexual trauma, sexual shame, low libido. Low libido is a myth, by the way, and she's going to unpack exactly why she talks about the harm of something called indirect pleasure versus direct pleasure, and why direct pleasure is the way to go and to create intimacy with yourself and in your life. She has pleasure retreats for couples called the pleasure keys. She has a freebie that she gives out called the pleasure keys. But she has pleasure retreats. And she has one coming up in I think she said Tennessee, April 1 to fourth. So you could find out about that below this episode, she talks about it at the very end, but it sounds absolutely incredible. If you are in a relationship and you are feeling stagnant, stuck, questioning leaving, you know, just wanting more intimacy, more depth, more connection, these pleasure retreats sound absolutely incredible. She's brilliant, she's wise, she's fun and playful. She brings like a really, a really light energy to a topic that can be so dense and heavy for so many people. So I'm really excited for you to hear this episode, as always, share it with all your friends and would love in season three of the new truth podcast, if you can give as many reviews, five star reviews as possible, raving about the new truth podcast and the impact it has had on your life as that's going to help so much the podcast grow so we can reach as many women as possible, and I can have The most extraordinary guests on to keep expanding you to living into fully, into the truth of who you are. So sending you all the love. Enjoy the episode, and we'll see you soon. Hello, beautiful. I'm so excited for this conversation today, this beautiful, magical, mystical woman who I'm gonna get to know alongside you because we just met, and we had a brief meeting call just to see if it felt aligned to have her on the podcast. And it was so aligned, we're now trying to figure out where we've known each other before, because it feels so familiar, and her energy is so beautiful. So really excited to share Susan Taylor's wisdom with you today, and her magic and her medicine all around women, and the myth of a low libido, which this is a myth we've been hearing for a long time. Like, isn't it wild to think it's almost like the program of the low libido comes from outside, and then we just believe it to be true? Yeah,

Kate Harlow: 00:04:20

Susan Morgan Taylor: I think there's a lot of truth to that, Kate. And I just want to say thank you so much for having me. You're such a beautiful spirit, and you're holding such a beautiful space for women with this podcast, I'm really happy to be here to talk about this because, yeah, and you know, a lot of that myth is coming from the outside and really at its or it is lack of education. It's lack of us as women like learning about our own bodies, and also just Yeah, and sort of this, like social script that we're fed and the medical script that we're fed. I know we're going to dig into this, because there's really a lot of a lot of things that are coming at women from what we consider to be reputable, quote, unquote sources that is perpetuating this myth. We just we need to get rid of this because it's not helping us,

Kate Harlow: 00:05:02

no. And I feel like, as women, there's so many of those scripts right that we that we just believe to be true until they get debunked. And we can see this, we talk a lot. We talked a lot, especially in season two, of the new truth about the the world that's catered towards men and how women are, just so the world doesn't even understand what is a woman, you know, and all the doctors don't understand health studies, and everything is geared towards men. And then we're there, trying to learn about ourselves and thinking that we're men and we're the same as men, when we could not be more different, absolutely, and

Kate Harlow: 00:05:39

Susan Morgan Taylor: that's because, you know, the standard of what we see in in the media, movies, etc, is what tends to work for men. It's also, you know, I think some of this might be changing now slowly, but you're right. Medically, any everything was tested on men. They didn't include women. A lot of clinical studies because they didn't want the menstrual cycle to, like, quote, unquote, get in the way of the data, like messing up the data, and yet, like women are also partaking of these medications, potentially, right? So, yeah, there's just a whole lot of standards that have been set that do not apply to us as women. But yet, we haven't stopped enough, I believe, to really question that. We've sort of just accepted that, and it leads to all kinds of challenges in general, but particularly in the area of sexuality, which is my specialty, and what I love helping people overcome, because it just doesn't need to be so hard.

Kate Harlow: 00:06:32

And I feel like so many women are confused about their sexual desires and sexual we've been repressed in so many ways. So I'd love to hear, where did you start? Like, how did you So, you're a sex therapist. You have a podcast about called sex talk cafe, right? Yes,

Kate Harlow: 00:06:47

Susan Morgan Taylor: yes, amazing, yes. Lots of fun over on that podcast. How

Kate Harlow: 00:06:52

did you get? Like, where, where did you start as a woman, and then I imagine was disempowered around her sexuality,

Kate Harlow: 00:06:57

Susan Morgan Taylor: oh my gosh. Like, wow, probably where most of us start. And I first, I want to say it's never too late. So any women out there listening who maybe are later in your life, that is never too late to learn and to grow and to, you know, really claim our sovereignty and our sexuality. But for me, I was in a marriage where I was absolutely miserable sexless marriage, and I was actually the one who was, like, just not interested in sex. Like, could care less. I was extremely shut down. There were a lot of reasons for this, which I, you know, aren't really relevant to our conversation today, but it's very shut down that led to a lot of depression, a lot of feelings of disconnection and and really, just kind of having sex to get it over with, like, well, let's just do a quickie, and I could have lots of orgasms. So, like, that was not a problem. I could, like, bam, bam, bam. That was great. It was all over in like, 10 minutes. But at the end of all that,

Kate Harlow: 00:07:51

God, that's so sad to think. Like, how many women it was all over, like,

Kate Harlow: 00:07:55

Susan Morgan Taylor: like, there you go, like, 10 minutes and we're done. But like, I didn't know. I didn't know I wanted something different. I wanted more depth, I wanted more connection, I wanted to feel more fulfilled sexually with my husband. I had no idea how to create that. And we're fed this myth by the way, that, like, oh, bigger, better orgasms, have more orgasms, and that's somehow going to make your sex life Great. That's not true, because I had no problem, you know, like, one after the other, fine. No big deal. But then I was still left really feeling empty, disconnected and extremely unhappy and unsexual, like just I didn't feel alive in my body. I didn't feel turned on, and I just avoided it. I didn't want to have sex with my husband.

Kate Harlow: 00:08:32

Okay, so I have a few questions. I do want to go deeper into the backstory a little bit, but just based on the context of the podcast. So I my curious question is a, how old were you when you got married? And was it a No, but you said yes, or were there, oh, you just

Kate Harlow: 00:08:46

Susan Morgan Taylor: nailed it, yes. So that was actually a really big part of yes at the time that I got married. I was very young. I was 20 I think I was 2524 25 met my husband when I was 23 and, and, yeah, so very young, I did not know myself well and, and I knew in my gut that it was, I was doing it to kind of make everything right. We'd had a child together, and I wanted to make the situation, quote, unquote, right. You know, there's a lot of shame that I carried. So, yeah, it was a no. In my gut, it was me trying to make something work, that it was me sacrificing myself for the good of my daughter and my husband. I thought I literally had this thought of, well, I'll be miserable. This is what I created. I'm gonna own it. I'll be miserable the rest of my life so that my daughter and my husband can be happy like literally, that was the thought process in my head. I'm

Kate Harlow: 00:09:38

sure a lot of women can relate to that, which is sad, but that's the because it's the programming that, yes, women receive against myself or others, right? Get married, keep it together.

Kate Harlow: 00:09:49

Susan Morgan Taylor: Else like yeah and stay married at all costs, otherwise you're a failure. And so I've really tried to make that relationship and that Mary. Marriage Work, until I kind of had, you know, an awakening one day of really realizing that, you know, I think I didn't want to be I had two children, two little kids, financially dependent. There's a lot of barriers to leaving financially dependent. At the time my business, I had a side business that, you know wasn't really making a lot of money. Didn't know how I could make it on my own with two little kids, but there was a certain point that I came to where I realized that, like the light at the end of the tunnel was brighter than the fear that was keeping me in that relationship. And so I did decide to leave that marriage. And what was so interesting, I mean, it was a very challenging process, but I have a very strong faith in life and faith in the universe and in the Divine, and that's really what got me through. But what was so interesting, it was almost like someone had flipped a switch my sex drive, like, came back online full force, like, as soon as I left that relationship. Now, by this point, like, I'm in my early 30s. I think I was around 33 when the divorce, you know, when I left the marriage, and I was like, What is this? I felt alive, I felt sexy, I felt sensual. I felt joyful to be receiving attention from men. Now, what was interesting, too, is I didn't I made the choice not to. I didn't jump into another relationship, and I didn't really, like go out have sex with a bunch of people right away. I really gave myself time to kind of mourn the loss of the marriage, even though I wanted to end it. You know, there's still that he was still my best friend. You know, he's the father of my children. Like, we had a lot of life together. So there was this mourning process that I went through that I was like, wow. Like, I am alive, like this is something else entirely, and that was really, really the starting point of my journey into kind of where I am now. I'm happy to share, like, a little bit more of that story, because I think there's pieces in there that are gonna be really helpful for your

Kate Harlow: 00:11:55

listeners to hear. It feels like that piece about like mourning and grieving the loss of your marriage, but also like you gave yourself the time, maybe not consciously at the time, but to bask in your own energy and your own like all of that pleasure, all of that turn on, all of that aliveness as a manifesting generator, especially right, you're like your your safe role is just ready because you had the courage to not go against Your truth. I just think we're our bodies are so loud in all the ways when we're list not listening to our truth, and then when we do, we get to feel that life force energy again. So it sounds like that grieving period gave you time to really just enjoy it yourself rather than share it. You know, like to have that time to almost like date yourself? Yeah, absolutely. And

Kate Harlow: 00:12:42

Susan Morgan Taylor: I think that that's underrated. A lot of times, like, really get as women, like we think we're defined by being in a relationship or not, like, especially as women, oh my gosh, like that can really be a challenge as a single woman in the world. But for me, yeah, it was a lot of like, giving myself that time to just really tune, you know, to mourn the loss of that decade, and that relationship, that marriage and recalibrating to a whole new life, you know, as a single mom and, like, totally on my own, making it in the world, but also it was an opportunity you're right, like when we live in truth, there is such a power to that. And our souls know and we're not being truthful. And that is the start of the shutdown, because our sexual energy is life force energy. So one of the principles of turning that on is, can we live in radical truth with ourselves, and to bring that actually into our relational space as well. And I see how, I know how scary that can be, but it's one of the things that I'm absolutely committed to in my life and in my relationships. And relationship, my intimate relationship is to bring truth, because I know if I don't, that's the beginning of disconnect.

Kate Harlow: 00:13:47

100% that's it. And our bodies, we I mean, we talk so much about this, Catherine and I over the years, how much our bodies are screaming like when it's out of alignment for our soul. We call it anxiety. But actually, this is your body screaming like, No, this is not the direction. And when we honor ourselves like, that's how it feels, is that life force energy is back

Kate Harlow: 00:14:09

Susan Morgan Taylor: exactly? Well, we have this encoded in our bodies. As women, our menstrual cycles, as you probably know your listeners, if they've been with you any amount of time, I'm sure may have heard this from yourself or other guests you've had. But our menstrual cycle, the monthly cycle is designed in such a beautiful way to give us the opportunity to reflect back on the things that are out of alignment. That's the premenstrual phase. And what's happening for me in my marriage is that I, even though I knew that wisdom at that time, I was not heeding it so premenstrually, all the things that were just out of alignment in my life would come up and they would bother me, and I would ruminate, but I would not do anything to actually clear them up. I wouldn't speak my truth. I wouldn't make the changes. I wouldn't speak to my husband at what was bothering me. I wouldn't give to myself what I was needing. I would just kind of deny it and pretend like it wasn't there. That led to terrible PMS, cramping, depressed. Depression, anxiety, and, by the way, like, zero interest in sex. My libido was like terrain. So I literally felt asexual. There was a time where I'm literally like, maybe I'm just like, I literally felt asexual, like I didn't, I knew that I wasn't, but like, in my head, or I'm like, Well, maybe I'm just not attracted to men, you know, like,

Kate Harlow: 00:15:20

you know. And as a generator, that's pretty crazy. Like, for those of you who know human design, like generators and manifesting generators, especially manifesting generators, have sacral energy all the time. It's consistent projectors, like I can go through, you know, cycles, but, but, but, having said that, I used to have no libido, like very little in my seven year relationship, and now, whether I'm single or in a relationship, I'm always turned on because I'm turned on by my life, not just Yes, by a god yes, absolutely.

Kate Harlow: 00:15:52

Susan Morgan Taylor: Well, that's really the what, really where we're I believe is the best place to really live as women when we're truly alive and activated in our sexuality, and we've done that inner work, it truly is like we become like one giant pussy, like, we're just like, come on. We're all like, Ma, like, we just want to suck it all in, you know? And there's such a beauty and an aliveness to that. And I was actually single for quite a while, but there was nothing. I mean, there was like, the desire that I would love to have a partner that was going on in my brain. But there was also this part. It's like, I am so full and so vibrant and so alive, like I didn't it wasn't out of like a neediness that I need that thing. It was like that would be really fun to experience. Like I have all this energy and all this radiance, all this life force, all this desire to, like, make love and have sex and like, Fuck the world. Be so fun to share that with somebody. So really, that's what we're wanting, I believe, to get to in our sexuality is that level of like we're turned on by life itself, not just, you know, needing to have sexual stimulation with a partner, but turned on by life.

Kate Harlow: 00:16:57

Feels like I'm imagining like, as you're talking, I love all of that. I'm imagining like a fountain that's overflowing, and it's always right, living from that place and having intimate experiences from that place, as opposed to the one dimensional, you know, I just I'm turned on, I'm horny. I need to have sex. I have sex. It Like It's such a I feel like so many women, this is why, because men are again, coming back to men and women being so different. Women are worse. We're we need that, even if we've convinced ourselves we don't, I believe women need that intimacy, presence, connection. And how many women are just having sex like men, where it's just physical and they're they're so checked out or numb, or just doing it, like you said, which is heartbreaking to imagine all the women having sex when they don't want to, and they're just doing it to get it done, or because you're supposed to as a wife, or to keep your partner or whatever like, and just having this one dimensional sex, when actually your whole life can be that feeling. And then when you have the intimacy with a man, it's like way beyond just a physical experience, absolutely and

Kate Harlow: 00:18:07

Susan Morgan Taylor: again, I think this comes back to just that we don't know what we don't know. And so what happened? What happened for me? I would love to share this piece. I think it's really relevant to what you're speaking to. What ended up happening for me, I left the marriage and I waited a minute, you know, before I got into another relationship. So it's a couple years, and I ended up in another relationship with a man there was, like, you know, it was really, I was like, in love, and right away. And he, this guy, came with all kinds of, like, training and sexuality, right? He had studied it, and he, you know, he was like, Oh, I'm gonna rock your world. And you want a full body orgasm, I'll give you a full body or, like, oh, he saw these things, and I'm like, wow, like that is exactly what I've been wanting to experience. I've heard about full body orgasms like I always thought they were just not for me. I didn't know how to so this guy is going to really do it for me, right? Well, he did not, he did not deliver. So that relationship kind of ended as quickly as it began. He did not deliver these amazing experiences. The sex was just as disappointing, if not more disappointing, than during my marriage. And I this sort of this moment of realizing, like, well, I have, I really never taken responsibility for my own pleasure in sex. What I've always done is made the man responsible. Made my husband responsible, right? Oh, he's just not a good lover. He's just not doing it right? I wanted something more, different, deeper, better, blah, blah, blah, but I had no idea how to create it, so I just kind of put it on my husband, and then I was doing the same thing here with this guy who's coming in with actual training and experience and sexuality, and what happens with him, like he doesn't do any of that stuff. He said he was gonna do, no, I'm sitting here going, Okay, well, wait a minute. On a minute. This guy said he could do all this and make my body do X, Y, Z, and full body orgasms and this and that. I thought, my goodness, this is my body, my sexual nervous system. Want that, then I can find a way to I can find that way within myself. Surely I can find a way how to do that for myself. So that's what I ended up doing. Me, and I made this declaration that I'm going to undergo the study of my own sexuality. And literally, the moment I made that declaration of the universe, I had some crazy things that happened. I had books at the yoga studio, like, jumped off the shelf at me around, like, tantric orgasm for women. Fabulous book changed my life. I started implementing some of the approaches in that book, during what I my play dates, or my I call them pleasure dates, I took two hours once a week, on a Tuesday, 11 to one, to be with my own body, to touch myself intimately and to start to learn a different approach to accessing my sexuality that didn't depend on mental fantasy or a lot of stimulation. This was about slowing down, cultivating sensitivity and awareness being in my body, I had a chance encounter with a somatic sex therapist that absolutely changed my life. And then a few weeks after this declaration and these crazy things happening, I was in one of my pleasure dates with myself, and I had this moment where all of a sudden, I had this wave of pleasure that started in the bottom of my feet, rolled up through my whole body, shot out my chest. My hands were numb. My face was tingling. All this love, like, just this love, like, poured out of my heart, this massive amount of pleasure, like, rippled through my whole body, and I had this realization of, Oh, my God, I'm like, having this full body orgasm right now. This is happening and holy crap, like I am love, I am pleasure, I am orgasm. Like it's not something that someone can bring to me from the outside. This does. Is not how this works. As women, we literally are love, and it was just that I hadn't had the skills, and I hadn't. There were obstacles in the way of my ability to know myself and experience myself as that. And I'd love to chat about that, because I think it'll be helpful for your listeners to understand, like, what are the things that kind of get in the way that cause us to be disinterested in sex, or to have numbness in our genitals, or pain, or where it's just sort of an act? There's things that that I had through my work with myself, I had cleared those things kind of out of the way, and so now I was having this moment of I am this and from there I didn't have to like, seek to a relationship, to like, give me love. Love was now this thing that I am, that I bring in to every situation and every relationship that I show up in. I was very blessed several months later to attract a lover into my life who was super open to learning and growing and and I was able then to kind of bring what I learned into that relational space with him. And that's, you know, another it's kind of a different progression of the skill set, but it was just really beautiful. And so we are that we are the love, we are the pleasure, we are the orgasm. It's just a matter of, you know, having the tools and the tools and the knowledge and the education to be able to recognize ourselves as that,

Kate Harlow: 00:22:45

yeah, how fucking beautiful is that that's so aligned with everything we've been. Like, you're chasing the guy out there, trying to get the thing to feel good, and meanwhile, it's you that you were feeling when you were with him. It's not him. And I just think, like, how beautiful to hear that about your pleasure practice devotion to yourself, and I love that it was just once a week like you know, doesn't mean you have to do it every day, but that commitment and devotion to getting to know your own body and how how sad it is when you actually think about how many women don't look at their bodies, only Look at their bodies with judgment and hatred. You know, don't connect with their bodies. Don't abuse their bodies. You know, starve their bodies, force their bodies say yes when it's a no, like all the things, the type of relationship, really, we've been programmed to have with our bodies, which is a war within, rather than that beautiful devotion to learning how, and then you have access to your superpowers that then translate into all your relationships.

Kate Harlow: 00:23:47

Susan Morgan Taylor: Yeah, well, I love I love that. And what I'd like to speak to and what you just said is, yes, you're right. There's a lot of shame. And, you know, as women, it's just not as available to us as it tends to be for men. I mean, men are touching themselves while they're in the womb. You know, they've got the external sexual organs. They're visible the world. They're very accessible. As women, it we're the opposite, right? We're internal and there. So there tends to be a lot more challenges. And what I'd like to say is that when I started doing these pleasure dates with myself, that it was not pleasurable. It wasn't that pleasurable at first. So I almost even hesitate to use the word. I mean, that's what I called it, like pleasure date, but it might be even called, like just a an intimacy date or a sensation date, because when I started to really slow down, actually connect with my body. Here's what was crazy. I I really didn't feel very much when I really slowed down and started to touch my genitals, which was weird, because I didn't have problems having orgasms, but when I got really present in my body and began to touch myself sexually, genitally, intimately, there was a lot of numbness there. There wasn't a lot of sensation or a lot of feeling. And what ended up happening was part of the pathway of this is relaxation and embrace the what I like to call embrace, which is. Just meeting exactly what's there. So the numbness, our tendency is to make it wrong, right? Well, I should be feeling something and I'm not. So therefore there's something wrong, and this isn't working. I hear a lot of women say, I tried the pleasure date, but it didn't work. No, it always works. What didn't work was your mindset or your relationship with it. So the relationship we want to have is understanding that we're going to encounter a lot of the discomfort. We're going to encounter things that we've been avoiding. So for me, it was the numbness when I was able to meet that fully and just be like, Okay, I'm going to say yes to this numbness. And what else do I feel? You know, when I feel this numbness in my body, I was so frustrated because I wanted to feel so there was so I'm going to just feel the frustration and say yes to that frustration. Well, then I'm not numb anymore. Now I'm feeling frustration, and beyond that was massive amounts of anger and then deep grief, deep sorrow, and just sobbing, sadness and sorrow that poured from my genitals moved up and came out my heart is just this deep sorrow and grief, and there was some connection with like things that had happened in my past, and some it was just like nameless grief, you know that we tend to hold as women, in our womb and in our genitals. It just poured out of my heart. As soon as I was able to say yes to that, I started to feel well. First of all, I'm not numb anymore because grief, sorrow, anger, frustration, yeah, yes, more sensation. I had more sensation in my genitals. I was able to be more present. I started to feel more in down there, right? So, but it wasn't like it was pleasurable and joyful. At the outset, I had all the same resistance as other women have, like, Oh, this is weird. Like, I don't know. I'm not feeling good. It's not pleasurable, like, it's numb.

Kate Harlow: 00:26:42

Such an important my friend always says numb is a feeling, because you feel it's like we think, we think it means it's like, dead or something, but you feel it, so it's a feeling. And I love that. Thank you so much for sharing that piece, and I can see the absolute essential importance of that piece, because, because we've also been taught to like everything for everything's just supposed to feel good, rather than learning how to be in relationship with all of our feelings. And that what you have to penetrate the pain in order to access the pleasure, because the pain is blocking the pleasure, and what a gateway that is to just stay with it and learn to be in relationship with all of it and how healing. And I imagine not just your own sexual trauma, which i i I'm curious what your thoughts are on this. I personally believe every single woman has sexual trauma, because there's no I don't think I've ever met a woman and I've worked with 1000s at this point in my own work, I don't think I've ever met a woman who hasn't said yes. Wanted to know, which is even to her husband, someone she loves, like we've always been. We've all done it because we were taught to do it, and nobody, or we were nobody, taught us how to do it, anything intimacy, like about our bodies, we just had no authority and no awareness, absolutely

Kate Harlow: 00:27:54

Susan Morgan Taylor: and again, I think, you know, some of that is like redefining the word trauma looks I think people hear the word trauma, and they think, Well, I haven't been sexually abused or raped, so, no, I haven't had trauma. But every time we say yes, and we mean No, even when we stick stuff in there, you know, we've all used tampons, even those Yoni you know, the Yoni eggs and Yoni the diva cups, menstrual cups, like we're shoving stuff in there, much less a penis or a dildo or a vibrator, when our bodies might not really be like, Oh yeah, I'm ready to have that thing in there. I really want. There's a total difference between, like, sticking it in there just because we're a little bit wet or because we have to, versus, what if I really slow down. And so something that, like, I recommend women do is to play with if you're going to, even if you're just using fingers or a dildo or a vibrator. Let it, like, just rest it at the opening of your vagina. Like, let even a penis. This is something you can do with your partner, if you have a you know, if you're with a male partner and you're into penetrative sex, like, slow it down. Like, what if you just rest at the opening of the vagina and wait, the vagina actually will suck it, it will open, and it will pull it will invite the thing in of its own accord. And there's such a different quality when we're it's so hot, but it takes some time, you know, we have to be patient with ourselves, and a lot of times we're trying to rush. So I just got to, like, get it in there. So mostly confusion,

Kate Harlow: 00:29:14

because men, they get hard so fast. So, you know, unless they have issues in that area, it's just like, it's easy for them. It's like, you said, it's like, on the outside, it's visible, it's ready, yeah, and, and there was, until very recently, like, really, we just were not educated on sex. Wasn't even for women, really, because I don't remember anywhere in my youth learning that women take time, that you need to feel connected and your heart needs to be like, there's so many layers to what a woman needs. We've just been taught to, like, lubricate, like, stick some lube on there and stick it in like, and I just imagine how much, how hurtful that is to the body like it is.

Kate Harlow: 00:29:54

Susan Morgan Taylor: And over time, what that leads to, over time is loss of interest and. Sag. So when we're doing that again and again, like, maybe it feels good once you get going. I mean, I get that. I certainly have not like, perfect. I'm always waiting till I'm ready. You know, I've done that many times where it's like, yeah, let's just get it going. And it might feel good once you're going, but over time, what it can do to a lot of women is actually create that disinterest and that shutdown. It can harden our sexual energy to the extent where we lose interest in sex, especially if there's not a lot insects for us, like, we're just doing it and it's over in a couple of minutes, because your partner ejaculates. Like, that's usually for most women, is not enough time for our bodies to really get warmed up and for us to really become not like have an orgasm, like a climax, what I'll call climax, but to become orgasmic, where our energy is expanded, where we're responding, where that pleasure isn't just centralized in our genitals, but it's it's moving throughout our whole body. There's other levels available to us, which we don't get access to if we're stuck in these programs that you know are put on us by lack of lack of education, really is what it comes down to.

Kate Harlow: 00:31:07

I love that so much. I It's like being orgasmic. And I just think of how many women that are listening who don't even you know, they might feel the energy. I can certainly feel the energy of this, but they might have never experienced that and just the difference between the result space, which is feels very masculine, like have sex, to have an orgasm, and then it's done. It's like, get to the end result, and then you miss the experience, versus being the orgasm, the wave, the orgasmic energy frequency, which of course, takes time, and a woman has to feel connected. And, yeah, oh my gosh, this is so incredible. So when women are in I mean, I have so many questions, but right now, what's coming up is women in relationship that you are working with do you? How do you so I imagine it's first exploring your relationship with your own body, and then how do they bring that to their partner? Yeah,

Kate Harlow: 00:32:09

Susan Morgan Taylor: yeah. I love this, and I really believe that like we, we don't know our our own bodies and ourselves. How do we expect somebody else to know it. If we don't know our pathway and how we get there and what we like don't like, how are we ever really gonna help somebody else know us? So we put too much expectation that the man is just supposed to know his way around. He should go figure it out. And I've had that where men are reaching out like, oh, you know, my girlfriend is having problems with XYZ, and I'm doing all this research for her, and I want to figure out how to fix it for Well, we have to do be willing, man, yeah, guys want to fix I really do. I really so sweet. I really appreciate that. But we have to know our own bodies and so, so that's the first piece. And I think where a lot of women like maybe hearing this, like, wow, I would love that. I'd love to, you know, feel more turned on and alive. But I don't know how the pathway, often it's through this pathway of embrace of of shifting our awareness from out there to in here. So the direction of flow is inward and downward. And I use that a lot in my work, the direction is inward and downward, so we're taking it below the neck and internal, into our body and into our inner experience. And what can be really scary about this for a lot of women is that they don't like what they find there's either like numbness, for example, which is everything you feel nothing you're that is a great sign number one, or there's things like, I feel awkward or I feel selfish or I feel ashamed, or I don't want to feel sad, or I feel scared that I'm going to feel something. And so therefore I am now kind of tensing up around that. And this is can be very subtle and very unconscious. So we have to learn how to first be really brave and really courageous to, like, dive deep. Like, bring it on, baby. Like, bring it on. If there's grief, if there's anger, if there's frustration, if there's hatred, if there's rage, ring it on. Let me feel more of that, because the more that I have capacity to feel what's there, what happens is that opens my capacity to feel the life force, energy that's under those quote, unquote negative I don't believe in negative I don't believe in negative emotions,

Unknown: 00:34:23

but a lot of people would call that emotions. I think, yeah, they can be painful. They're

Unknown: 00:34:27

Susan Morgan Taylor: not as pleasurable, right? Yeah, but they are part of our life force energy. They're part of our sexual energy. So if we say yes to that, what can happen? I have had this experience where massive rage or anger turns into orgasms, like having orgasms, or from deep grief and sorrow and like, just like, going all the way, and then this orgasms, it's really hot. Um, so there's a bit of a skill with that, that that we need to learn as women. And then what we do with that, the beauty of this is we bring that to our partner. There is such a gift. And I think a lot of women don't. Realize this. But most men, if you're in a, you know, in a partnership with a man, I mean, they want your energy. They want to see and it doesn't have to just be like, Oh, the pleasure is great. They love that too. But trust me, they would much rather see an authentic women in deep tears and grief or rage, you know, and pleasure, enjoy the whole range of feminine expression is the hottest thing to a guy, and so if we can bring that to our man, that's hot, and everyone's

Kate Harlow: 00:35:28

gonna have a better time when it's not being projected at them. Well, yes, there's but then you're moving through the feelings together, and you know, as you're talking, and I feel this is such an amazing conversation. I'm just feeling like often I when I start working with women, so many women are so numb. They're like, they just feel so shut down from their feelings, and they know that there's a lot to feel. And one of the tools that I that I have suggested many times, is breath work to access feelings that are trapped, that you maybe can't just express on your own you can't access, but this feels like another gateway, so amazing where you are, where you're in relationship, and it's something you can do on your own, as long as you you know are in a safe and loving environment and and you know you feel good to do so, and imagine obviously having someone guide you or support you would be be helpful too, but a practice that you can cultivate slowly over time. You can go at your own pace, and you can you can penetrate those layers of feelings, because there's so much healing in in separating the story from the feeling, and just like actually feeling the feelings, and as you were describing those layers of feelings, I'm imagining, like so much of what we're feeling, besides our own sexual pain and old memories from past events, is also ancestral, you know, and the collective, like the collective women you know, having been abused and taken advantage of sexually for millennial or however long it is, but also like that our ancestors, like, you know, mom's trauma, grandma's trauma, like, how much of our families like the repression and the trauma and the the pain we carry just keeps getting passed down until a woman says no more and goes on that healing journey. So what a gateway. Absolutely,

Kate Harlow: 00:37:21

Susan Morgan Taylor: yeah. And I love the I want to respond to some of that, because I think breath work is wonderful. And one of the things breath work is doing, it's releasing the tension in the muscles, which is our musculature is where we'll hold trauma, for example. And trauma is really just any and it's any experience that we didn't process that has an emotional charge to it. So just to kind of come circle back around on that doesn't have to be that, like I was sexually abused or raped, though, and abused or raped, though I know a lot of women are, you know, it could just be some intense emotional experience I have that I wasn't able to fully process. You know, maybe you weren't able to express anger in your family. It wasn't safe, so you shut that down every time that registers in the body as trauma and it goes into our muscles, so breath work can be a wonderful tool to help release some of that. The other, you know, tool that I use that I didn't really realize I was doing this when I was, you know, doing my pleasure dates, but what I was doing was cultivating what's called direct pleasure. We have two ways that our body experiences pleasure, direct and indirect. And direct is directly through the nerve endings in the skin, the tissues of the skin, up to the brain, so it's not dependent on an indirect route. Would be seeing something that then comes through the visual cortex and creates arousal. So for instance, the use of mental fantasy is a form of indirect pleasure. Watching pornography would be indirect pleasure. Watching my partner be in pleasure and kind of getting off on that would be indirect pleasure. There's a lot of things where we get tangled up. If we're overly dependent on indirect pleasure, it's a lot of what I see. It's a lot of what I help when I work with couples. I do a lot of work with couples. I do retreats and private coaching. That's where a lot of people get kind of trapped, and it causes problems direct pleasure. When we learn to cultivate that as a pathway, it's entirely about it's like shifting our awareness from the mind into the sensations in body. And it's extremely simple, but harder to do than it sounds. The concept is simple, but it can be more challenging because we're so dependent on going up into the head or relying on fantasy, or we meet obstacles to direct pleasure, and those obstacles are things like shame, guilt, fear, all those things can prevent us from being able to really come into the present moment with our bodies, but if we do it consistently and through the quality of embrace, like, I like to use the word embrace. I know you use the word like penetrate, which I think is valid as well. Embrace. For me, you did, yeah, penetrate the emotions, which is fine. Oh, it is interesting.

Kate Harlow: 00:39:39

Choice of words that's funny,

Kate Harlow: 00:39:42

Susan Morgan Taylor: which is one is one way to work through sacred relationship, and we are, in a way, it is penetrating. But the word that tends to work better for me, that I like to use, especially with women, is embrace. Embrace, because it's a little patriarchal,

Kate Harlow: 00:39:56

I'm asking, but that's okay. We value, you know, I value the mask in a. Well, and the patriarchy is not all bad. It's just gotten distorted. Yeah,

Kate Harlow: 00:40:03

no, I agree. I agree. I don't think it's bad, but I appreciate that that like, just because I didn't even know I used it, then it just feels like, Oh, I like, I like something softer, personally. So that feels really good

Kate Harlow: 00:40:16

Susan Morgan Taylor: towards it's like, the leaning towards that thing that we tend to want to lean away from, because when we when we're trying to lean away, we're creating more tension. Tension is one of the biggest obstacles to pleasure, by the way, and enjoyment and orgasm and connection. So if we're trying to get away out of like, oh, I don't want to feel this, I don't want to feel this, I don't want to feel this, then we're creating more tension, which leads us away from our orgasmic potential, instead of, okay, this is uncomfortable. I don't like this, but give me more of it. Turn the volume up on this, lean me towards this. And so as we do that, what happens is we're able then to feel more. We're able to notice more. That's direct pleasure that, or the capacity for, we'll call it sensation, because it's not always like pleasurable to feel a lot of pain, but it opens that pathway as we embrace the discomfort of, you know, I feel shame, or I feel weird right now, or I feel selfish. If I can just say yes to that feeling and lean towards it now, I'm starting to open that direct pathway, and so that's really the thing that leads to my capacity to feel more, to become orgasmic, and ultimately to have this deeper connection that I'm wanting with, you know, maybe with my partner, but, but we start within myself. I have it. I have it now with life, and so then it's very easy to have that with a partner. Oh my

Kate Harlow: 00:41:31

gosh, that's what I'm thinking, just imagining it also translating to every area of your life. Because if you expand your capacity to feel, and the more we can just welcome our feelings and embrace our feelings and feel our feelings, the more the painful ones become. Pleasure become groundedness become the thing we need to to propel us forward and where, like it's we what we need to grow and evolve is, is to be in relationship with our feelings. So what a great yeah, again, a gateway to changing the relationship with what you feel, with the intention of it being for your sexuality, for your libido, for your relationship, or your future relationship, but or, most importantly, your relationship with yourself, but like how that's going to impact every facet of your life, absolutely

Kate Harlow: 00:42:17

Susan Morgan Taylor: and Really, it's a different way of navigating through the world. So we're really taught in our culture to, you know, because it is more patriarchal and external to use our mind and our logic to move through the world. But this what we're really speaking to, is a feminine pathway of navigating the world, and how we do that is through no mind, through through into it, through the feeling sense in the body. So I'm a huge fan of partner dance. I recommend it to all the couples I work with. Go learn how to partner dance, because you're really going to learn about masculine and feminine energy and sexual energy. Very clearly, we've got a, you know, a lead and a follow. We'll just put it that way, because, you know, no matter what your gender is, I prefer the follow role. The follow role is diffuse awareness. My awareness is I'm not planning what's coming next. I'm not thinking about two steps ahead. That's the leads role. They are doing that they're planning, they're discerning, they're making sure I'm safe. I'm not gonna they're not gonna run me into a wall. But I get to relax, I get to feel I get to have this expanded awareness, where I'm moving through through time and space, but I'm in a very I'm not in my mind. I'm in my body. And there's a beautiful way that, as women, we can navigate the world in this way. And I'll tell you what, it's a lot more direct actually, than using the linear mind, logical mind, we have instant access to all knowledge through our subconscious, through that aspect of our beingness, instant knowledge and this access to everything without having to go through a linear process of thinking about it

Kate Harlow: 00:43:43

doing which makes it miserable.

Kate Harlow: 00:43:47

Susan Morgan Taylor: Well, yeah, it sure can, and it tires me out. Like I can do that too. And as you know, you're a business owner, Kate, like you know, we have to, we have to draw from that capacity a lot. But it can be exhaust. I get exhausted. I will absolutely burn out if I'm in that space for too long. And I certainly don't want to be that role in my relationships the dominant amount of time. Like, if I really want to be surrendered in my feminine I don't want to be the primary decision maker most of the time. Now, there's times where I am and I will, and I don't mind doing it. I will lead no problem, but really, to create that magnetic attraction and to have more of that. You know, the dance in a relationship, the partner dance in a relationship. It's really beautiful to understand how to be conscious around am I going to be the leader that follow in the feminine of mask and the surrendered or the directive? And so those are two very different dynamics that we have available to us, and to navigate through the world through intuition and and sensory awareness is a very, very valid way to navigate we're just not taught how to do it, and it's not valued in our culture.

Kate Harlow: 00:44:42

Totally. It's squashed. I love all the metaphors you use and how you teach it. It makes it simple and really digestible. And I'm just thinking like, how many women that are in the logical mind and that that part of themselves, I imagine that is a huge reason why. They feel low libido. Coming back to the whole point of this episode is like, because we're in our heads and not in our bodies, absolutely,

Kate Harlow: 00:45:08

Susan Morgan Taylor: yeah, that absolutely is one of the factors for lowering our arousal, because that's it's a different part of our nervous system. When we are in the thinking mind, trying to figure it out, problem solving. We're in the prefrontal cortex, and that is activating our amygdala, usually to be in that the amygdala is part of the brain that searches the environment for threats, so it's like the guard, right? It's on guard. It's making sure it's everything where it needs to be. There's nothing here that's going to hurt me, making decisions. Planning is a totally different part of the brain than what's required for pleasure and for arousal and for orgasm, which is our parasympathetic nervous system. So to quiet the thinking mind, the directive mind, and to quiet down the amygdala, so that we can get into a parasympathetic state where pleasure and arousal actually live, can take a little bit of time, because as women, we are plugged into our environment. We're aware of everything going on. We are the gatherers of the hunter and gatherer. You know, that is embedded literally, in our DNA. From an evolutionary standpoint, that's not something that's just going to go away, because women were liberated in the 60s, you know, like that. It's still there in our DNA to be plugged into our surroundings. So it can take a little more time for us to, like, turn that part of the brain off and to to drop into our parasympathetic but I'll tell you the quickest way to do that is through sensory awareness in the body, through direct pleasure, through our capacity to help our awareness be in the body and Word and downward below the neck, and simply notice sensation. It's that is it? It's that simple. I'm just going to notice sensation. What is available to me right now? What do I notice right now as I touch myself, let's say, or as I there's other practices that are non sexual that we can do as well, that help to open that capacity. Right we can do a practice called waking up, you know, just using the hands and an object, starting to notice sensation. The more we do that, we strengthen that muscle, and we start to open up that pathway for a direct sensation, for direct pleasure to happen, which, again, that leads to the increase in our ability to feel, which can lead into increase in arousal,

Kate Harlow: 00:47:10

for sure, and endorphins, right? Like feeling happy, the more pleasure we have, the more connected we are to our sensory experience. The more we're feeling, the more the painful feelings. And then we come back to that homeostasis. I think of little kids like their their set point is joy, it's pleasure. And then when they don't feel that, they feel it fully till they're done, and then, yeah, they're back to Joy, right back to curiosity, presence. I feel like that's so available the more time we spend connecting with our bodies and our sensory experience, I think it I really feel like it's like a woman's superpower because, because you could be sitting in a boardroom meeting bored out of your mind and feeling, you know, feeling sensation in your body and completely shift the energy of yourself and of the room, but of yourself and your experience just by bringing attention to your senses as opposed to being in your head, absolutely

Kate Harlow: 00:48:09

Susan Morgan Taylor: right? It's that easy when we can do this while we're driving down the road, while we're standing in the grocery store, while we're in the board meeting, and I do it multiple times throughout the day. Oh, where am I now? Am I in my head, or am I in my body? I am is so in my head. Let me just take a minute. Okay, I'm feeling my feet on the floor. I'm feeling my back against the chair. I just shift my awareness, and it can absolutely shift the moment. I think the thing where we get trapped too is this, our mind is the thing that gets in the way. The prefrontal cortex is the thing that locks those emotions into our musculature and into our body. That's what creates the trauma. Is our mind says, don't feel. It's not safe to feel. Shut this down until it's safe to feel. The problem is we never get to that until it's safe to feel. So it gets locked into the body. It's literally like how those emotions get held, or the traumas get held, is that we never process them, we never feel them fully and let them out. Once we have a habit of doing that, we know how to do it. You know, the negative stuff doesn't stick around very long. It just moves right through us. So, you know, we don't have to get scared that I'm going to get stuck in the sadness. The thing that gets us stuck is my mind thinking I'm going to the fear of the feeling it and the fear that I'm going to get stuck. And so then I don't want to feel and it gets trapped. We

Kate Harlow: 00:49:21

don't have to be afraid. I, you know, actually, I've obviously been studying trauma, teaching it for a long time. I love, I mean, it's not my it's been more cap and specialty. But the way you the language you use, is so light and easy to understand. And I feel like freeing, because I there's so many people teaching trauma nowadays, and it's like, heavy and it feels like it's never ending. And I think so often people go to therapists and they end up just identifying with their trauma and carrying it around like a backpack and a badge of honor, like, Oh, it's my trauma. It's my trauma, versus like, No, we learn about it, and we learn about why our survival patterns are in place so that we can now unravel from them. And. Let a different part of lead like it's a it's an opportunity to to shift where you're coming from, yeah, but I think so often people get trapped in the identification of the trauma that they get stuck right?

Kate Harlow: 00:50:12

Susan Morgan Taylor: Yeah? No, you're so right. And that's really why I was drawn into somatic sex therapy, as opposed to just, you know, sex sex therapy is, is really more of a traditional mental health it's just a niche that you're just working on sexual challenges with your clients, but it's still very talk based and analytical and, you know, go home and try this thing and come back and tell me about it, instead of the somatic work. Why I was so drawn to that is because I really found very early on in my, you know, after I got my master's degree in professional counseling and started into private practice with sex therapy, working with women and couples, I realized very quickly that there's a real limit to what I'm able to do with a couple, for example, in a therapy room, just talking about a problem, and that really where the rubber meets the road and where my clients started to get better results, and where I was growing, Where I had grown in my own sexuality, and then the types of things I was starting to learn about and study with the somatic sexology is that we really need to have an experience of the obstacle in real time, and then some tools to be able to meet it, to embrace to meet it, but then also to How do we begin to create something new, even in the face of that. And so I just find that the somatic work has many more tools available to us, and more practices that I can offer to my couples to help them not just talk about like, Oh, I feel obligated to have sex. Well, let's create an environment where that obligation comes up. Now, you know, we're not naked or having sex in session or at the retreats. That's not happening there. Just to be clear, just to be clear, like, no, that's not what's happening. Because we don't need to. We back this way, way up and create real time experiences where you're meeting that the obstacle that's there in your relationship isn't able to come up and then. But the difference is you have support and you have an actual roadmap to start to work with it constructively instead of and generatively. Where we're, you know, we're using it to create new experiences, instead of like, oh, this is just my trauma, and I'm stuck in it, and, you know, I feel this. And so that's just the way it is. And in there's no growth that happens. It's not generative at that point. So, yeah,

Kate Harlow: 00:52:23

I think so often people just get stuck in the like. I mean, I've had so many clients who are like, Oh, I've been doing therapy for 20 years. Like, 20 years, yeah, yeah. Like, it just gets stuck in the like, okay,

Kate Harlow: 00:52:34

let's just talk about it and talk about it smart and talk and it's level one. It's needed. Of course, talking is important, but it sure. If we don't bring it into the body, we just stay in the head.

Kate Harlow: 00:52:43

Susan Morgan Taylor: About, yeah, I cannot agree more. And I would say, like, almost every couple that comes to me is, like, we've tried, you know, therapy, and it didn't work. I didn't move the needle. It helped with XYZ communication, let's say, but it didn't really move the needle in the intimacy and and I can tell you why. And I know for me, you know, when I was practicing as a mental health therapist, that was just not good enough for me. I'm like, This is not no, like, I am not going to do this. Like, where you're, you know, you're not going to I don't want to see my couples waste their time and money, and I want to feel like I've been helpful. And that's when I see people get success is, then I feel like I've done a good work in the world. So it wasn't enough for me to, like, have couples come to me and say they did couples there, but they've been in therapy for years and years and years and, you know, well, then why? There's something's not working. Like, if that's the case, like we're not meant to be in therapy for 20 years. I mean, most of most of us, right, like we're supposed to get results. I

Kate Harlow: 00:53:38

think the difference for you too, and any, any type of therapist like you that brings somatic and other things into it, is you are the embodiment of what you're teaching. So you you because you walk that path. You don't want to sit in front of a couple and just be like so you should touch her like this, and you should do it like you know, a logical thing. When you're like, you're living and breathing the orgasm like you, you can actually transmit that to them through your teachings and through your work. And I really will change their lives, yes,

Kate Harlow: 00:54:09

Susan Morgan Taylor: and I know you're the same Kate, like I really don't I don't teach anything that I have not personally experienced and done myself and vetted myself and applied to myself, because once I know it in my body, then I know how to lead others through in their body and through their own. You know, everyone kind of has their own ways and pathways that are unique, but I know how to lead them there, because I know the destination, and I've worked with so many couples over the years, so I understand, like, where people tend to get hung up and the different, you know, I use Enneagram. A lot of you like to do the human design is wonderful, but I use Enneagram a lot, just sort of behind the scenes, like, okay, so I can see, like, all right, this one dealing with a one, I've got a one and a

Kate Harlow: 00:54:47

seven. So, okay, yeah, amazing. Okay, circling back, because this is I need to know. What I'm imagining you do pair dancing and what kind of dancing do you do? Yes,

Kate Harlow: 00:55:04

Susan Morgan Taylor: I do all of it. All of it, salsa, Tango, ballroom. West Coast Swing is probably one of my absolute favorite dances. I love west coast swing because it's so there's, you know, west coast swing is so fun because there's a lot of room for play and interpretation and the lead follow isn't necessarily quite as rigid as it is. Say in a lot of ballroom styles, it's much more rigid, right? But in west coast swing, there's room to improvise and play and like, make stuff up, which is what I just love to do. So I'd say West Coast is one of my favorite styles, but I fell in love with partner dancing like 15 years ago, and I just, I just love it for so many reasons. I love it because it is a relationship, and it's not always a perfect relationship. Sometimes you've got a lead who isn't leading so great, but it gives, always gives me an opportunity to be present in my body and to compassionately through my body, be able to give feedback. It cultivates my ability to trust or not trust. Cultivates the leader's ability to learn how to lead, to make decisions. You know, I mean, there's just so much in it that really feeds into the actual intimate relationship. And it helps me with my coaching with couples. It helps me in my relationship with my partner. I love it. It's one of my favorite things in the world. When

Kate Harlow: 00:56:21

you say west coast swing that that like something lit up inside of me. I want to do that so bad. Oh,

Kate Harlow: 00:56:26

Susan Morgan Taylor: you will love it fun. I need to go learn it. I'm sure you can find there where you are in Athens. There's got to be some west coast swing dancers. I'm sure it's a huge swing. I don't know if

Kate Harlow: 00:56:36

it's west coast swing, but I've walked by a swing place dancing. I don't know if it's West Coast

Kate Harlow: 00:56:43

Susan Morgan Taylor: styles out there, but my favorite,

Kate Harlow: 00:56:46

I mean, I love this so much because also I have, I had a woman I worked with years ago who she was a part of the Zoop and kazumba community, oh yeah, oh yeah. And she, I mean, it's like an underground world. So she actually came to the very first immersion. I have a program called the immersion. I forgot you don't know anything about me really, too much. I talked to you a little bit. Yeah. Okay, good. I have a program called the immersion. I've been running for a long time, and it's like a it's like a big, expansive awakening for women, where they unlock all repressed aspects of themselves and awesome. And it's in Greece, which is why I moved here. Like I kept coming back to do the immersion every year, one to two times a year, and then eventually, my friend was like, why don't you just move here? And I did on a whim. So anyways, that's the short version of of that story, but, but the the this woman who came to the very first immersion, she right before she started this dancing. And she was like, I'm I feel like I'm waking up my sensuality. And she was in this boring, this marriage that was, you know, very in my work, we identify your saboteur and your heroine. Your saboteur is your conditioned self, essentially, and you name that part, and then your heroine is your soul self. And she said, The dancing is my heroine. And then I go back to my marriage, and it's my saboteur. Like she just chose her partner from, you know, for all the wrong reasons. And she was young and doing, following the script. And it was so beautiful to witness, because, like the dance, even before she met me and started doing this work with me, of awakening who she really is, it was like the dance was her gateway, of her starting to feel her, how incredibly sensual. She is, how like she and she just loves this dance. And she dove in so fully. And she actually came back to a couple other immersions and helped out and taught some of the sensual movement. And then she met this dance teacher. She came and did kazumba In Athens, because they have them all over the world. That's one of the things I think, is the coolest about dance communities is, no matter what dance community you choose, you can go do it anywhere in the world and meet people who love this same thing that you love. What a great way to meet people. So she had this community here, built a relationship with the dance teacher here, and he then she brought him to the US to DC to do dance there, and then she came back here and did a dance teacher training very recently. So it just like, it's such an amazing and it's been such a huge part of her life, and it's absolutely filled her in ways. She works, you know, in a government job, but she's like, Absolutely, because she's so fulfilled from this sensual energy and really being in her feminine and and this dance is such a huge part of her life. So it's been so inspiring to to witness

Kate Harlow: 00:59:32

Susan Morgan Taylor: that. I I love that. And because, um, is really cool. It does have West Coast wing influences in it. I don't know the exact origins of that style, but I know West Coast is an aspect of it, or has some influences, just as a side note, but also one of the things that I one of the reasons why I'll say, I'll suggest to my couples to like, go learn partner dance, because as women, like, yes, we're empowered now. We work. We get shit done. We have jobs like we know how to do it. We know how to express our needs. But we we've almost. Lost connection with the flow and the relaxation and the, you know, just the ability to be led, and so, and men, as a result, have kind of lost the ability to lead, right? And so there's sort of this, like, there's a real beautiful harmony that can happen when we're conscious about that and when we're doing it willingly. It's not about like, oh, I have to give up my my empowerment, you know, because I'm going to be the in the follow role and dance, or because I want to be surrendered in the bedroom. Like it doesn't mean that I give up my sovereignty or my ability to kick ass in the world. It just means that there's a real, beautiful dynamic that can happen when I'm able to embrace that aspect of, you know, feminine, masculine, I think, tends to get a bad rap. We tend to think of gender when we hear those two words. I know some of my teachers use the word alpha and omega, where omega would be like the feminine, or the Yin and alpha would be the representation of the mask. And I kind of like that, but it neutralizes it a little bit more and gets us out of this gendered idea. But there's a beautiful thing that can happen when we really embrace our ability as women to be in that omega and that feminine flow state where we're just in our bodies and we're trusting to be led. And when we have a lead who we trust and who is willing to be confident and step up. And that lead we really learn those skills through partner dance, and that can translate beautifully into the relationship when we do it consciously, I think, where it's where it's happening unconsciously or out of demand, like, Well, you're the man, so you're supposed to do that, or you're the woman you're supposed we want to get out of that conversation, because that's not fun and that's not juicy, but man, there's a real aliveness that can happen when women learn how to drop back in to that state. That's our inherent nature. It's just about being in our inherent nature

Kate Harlow: 01:01:45

totally. And it's like bringing that energy, not looking because the old ways, like we look to our partner and tell them what to do so we feel better, versus like being like bringing that energy. And I can see how I imagine for a lot of Western women who are very disconnected from that Yin, Omega side, that it would feel like confronting and hard. And I know, even for me, actually, I'm quite in my feminine all the time, but, but dancing, I take control like it's I have a hard time surrendering. So that's bleed, which maybe is true in relationship to actually, I should, maybe, but, but, but that's it. Like the that it might be hard, but just like you were talking about with the pleasure practice or the sensation practice at the date, the dates once a week, it's like same with dancing, like, being willing to be uncomfortable at first, being willing to be to notice the part of you that wants to, like, Hold on tight, that wants to lead, that wants to control. Wants to control, oh yeah, and then to practice surrendering and the gift of that, because it because you're right. It's our nature. So even though it might feel really shitty and uncomfortable at first, when you, I was gonna say, penetrate, when you embrace the shitty uncomfortable, but when you embrace the shitty and uncomfortable, when you embrace the awkwardness, when you embrace the the part of you that wants to control, and you just feel it, and you keep softening, when you get to the being in the softening, and you get to being in the relaxed state of the feminine, it's gonna feel so good that it's worth going through those layers to get Yeah,

Kate Harlow: 01:03:20

Susan Morgan Taylor: I agree, And I think it's not fair of us as women to you know, if we're giving directives all the time and telling him what to do and how to do it. And this is true in partner dance, you'll see it all the time, where the women are back with it's called back leading, and partner dance where the follower, let's just say it's we'll go with traditional gender roles. Man is leading, she's following where she's back leading. So she's not really following. She's like, trying to actually lead the thing, or she's reprimanding him for doing it wrong. This is probably happening in the bedroom too. Like, if I see a couple doing that on the dance floor, I'm like, I know that this is happening sexually, and I know she's probably complaining because she's not getting neither of them are really getting what they want sexually either. Because as women, if we're doing that, but then we expect him to, like, take the lead in the bedroom. It's not going to happen. So we have to learn how to let him mess up and how to make mistake. That's what a lot of women are so afraid of. Like, well, if I don't tell him do, he's not going to do it right. Well, you're going to be his continual mother if you continue to just tell him what to do and how to do it all the time, he's never going to learn let them do it wrong, you know, or, quote, unquote, wrong, let them mess up, give them feedback through other means that does not entail giving directives. So that could be like body language or making sounds, or, really the feminine expression, if we use words at all, the feminine form of expression is the I feel, ooh, I feel this, oh, wow, you did that. I felt this. Instead of you did that. I want you to do. And it's good. It's great to know how to be empowered in our directive masculine communication. We need that too, but we're underdeveloped in general, in the feminine side. So to develop that, it can call out you give him the opportunity to try it again and do it different, and then it can be a beautiful dance in the bedroom as well as on the dance floor. I really

Kate Harlow: 01:04:59

liked AL. And omega, that feels great. I've been feeling like weird about masculine and feminine for so long, and it just feels like there's a lot of confusion around it too. And it just like it just it's overused, almost. But it feels like Alpha and Omega feel like, oh yeah, it feels fun. Because, like, sometimes we do want to be in our alpha, and if we're not embody, if we're not embodying our omega, we will hurt our it's not going to go well. Our bodies will break down as women, yeah, and there's

Kate Harlow: 01:05:25

Susan Morgan Taylor: two, right? I think there's too much Association. When you use the words masculine and feminine, what people hear is man, woman. They hear gender, right? Or sex like female body, female parts is feminine, males. Lipstick, yeah, it's not, it's not the way that

Kate Harlow: 01:05:39

it works. Because we have actual both. We have both within us. We have Alpha and Omega, masculine and feminine, and a, you know, the feminine or the omega is just the capacity to feel. Men have the capacity to feel they're using their feminine, their Omega aspect, when they're in feeling. Women have the capacity to direct and be logical and make decisions. We're accessing our alpha or our masculine. So, yeah, I like to get out of that masculine feminine, because people get way too stuck in it as meaning gender. And it's just, it's not what it's about at all. So yeah, I appreciate the use of alpha, omega. And I, you know, give credit to my teacher so that, I hope we can change that out there in the world. Because, yeah, both and we need to be able to access both consciously, do it intentionally, ideally. Yeah, exactly, exactly. I love it. Yeah, there's, oh my gosh, so much language up leveling in this conversation. It's so fun. I'm such a word nerd. I that's like, actually, in my human design, I flip things on their heads all the time. So this is, I appreciate it a lot. So one question that was coming up is just thinking about the women who believe, like, okay, hear what you're saying. It's pot like, low libido is a myth, you know, but except for me, because XYZ, you know, like that that there's women that are probably listening who think, well, they're just hopeless case. What would you say to them? Well, I would say that I

Kate Harlow: 01:06:57

Susan Morgan Taylor: understand that because I thought that was me. I didn't know what I didn't know. And I would say that you just don't know what you don't know right now, and that there you have got to start somewhere. And I would recommend, you know, whether it's reading books or listening to podcasts, that's where a lot of people start. That's, I mean, where I started reading books. You know, the next level is to reach out and to work with someone like Kate or myself. Now, your retreats sound amazing. I do couples retreats, specifically where we work on getting on the same page and sex and intimacy. And so there are

Kate Harlow: 01:07:26

resources more. Tell us about all your resources. Yeah, I

Kate Harlow: 01:07:30

Susan Morgan Taylor: sure will Well, yeah, so you have to start somewhere, so edge. So educate yourself. And there's lots of resources out there. I do have a free resource for your listeners, if they would like to grab a copy of the pleasure keys ebook, which walks through these three principles of how to start this path of presence, awareness, relaxation, so we can have a deeper connection with ourselves and with our partners. That's at pleasurekees.com so they can grab a copy of that pleasurekees.com and then the retreats are fabulous too. Obviously, yours sounds amazing, so hopefully your listeners maybe probably already know about that. But

Kate Harlow: 01:08:05

my retreat, oh, yeah, no, no, they know. We'll talk about

Kate Harlow: 01:08:07

Susan Morgan Taylor: mine. My retreat is called the pleasure keys. It's an immersion experience for cups, specifically for couples. So I work with couples who are struggling to get on the same page and sex and intimacy and who really want to be able to deepen that connection have more fun, flow and ease to create mutually satisfying intimacy for the long term. So these retreats are happening. I do them several times a year. I do have one coming up this April in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, which is at the foot of the Smoky Mountains. It's a beautiful, stunning location. I absolutely just love these mountains here three days and four nights, where we really just take you out of your daily grind and immerse you into these, some of these somatic practices, like what you and I were talking about earlier, Kate, of how we actually create real time experiences. Of, well, first of all, we work on connection and intimacy, right? So that emotional trust and connection, we work on that first coming in, back into connection, but then we start to play with bringing up some of these obstacles that get in the way for a lot of couples, why they're why they're going sideways when it comes to engaging sexually. And you're given the roadmap so that when you leave that retreat, you're going to be able to navigate forward. You're going to be able to see it from a completely new angle, and you're going to have real world skills be able to navigate through those sticky points so they're no longer sticky points actually opportunities for deeper connection. So that's all of that is on my website, at pathway to pleasure.com, all the information on that retreat is available. There

Kate Harlow: 01:09:29

amazing. That sounds amazing. I just think first, first, I think about Couples Retreat, the movie, Oh, you haven't seen it with like, Vince Vaughn. It's old with Vince Vaughn and, oh my, it's, it's, it's hilarious. I'm sure yours are much better than this one. This is, it's, actually, yeah, it's a comedy. It's really funny. But I, I am so happy to know this, because I don't work with couples, but I. Know a lot of women who would benefit, whose couples who would benefit from from your work, and especially that like having the somatic piece and having it in person. And I just think couples get so stuck in their patterns, being in the same environment, and, you know, the same your house, your neighborhood, your jobs, your day, your schedules, like everything, just so even if you're working with a coach privately, it's like you're still in that environment, or something so profound about leaving the environment and going somewhere new and then being in a safe container, in a safe place to to learn all the tools and practice and also meet other couples and like, deepen, you know, connection in that way. Is it or is it? Are they privates? Is it? Well, I

Kate Harlow: 01:10:42

Susan Morgan Taylor: do, I do private coaching as well, but this the retreats are a group I do up to about no more than 12 couples. That's the max that I'll take into any one retreat. And you're right. I mean, that was really the reason why I started doing the retreats, because what I would see is I work with some of my private clients, is they're so plugged into their daily lives, it was very hard for couples to pull away, to take the time to, like, engage the material and the practices on their own and and to really just, you know, we have, we're have such busy lives. And so where I have found couples really, honestly get the best results and the most traction is through this immersive format. I call them immersions as well, but it's the pleasure keys immersion retreat for couples where they're really able to get that deep experiential wisdom in a safe container with professional guidance happening. So from that, there's other opportunities where they can continue to be supported after that immersive experience, private coaching, or I do also do some group programs. So they're not just like thrown back into the world with no support, but they have now the common language. They've got the foundation built, they understand it, and it's much, much easier from there to then, like, move forward with, you know, different types of support that maybe don't need to be an immersive three day experience. The other thing I'd love to say about the retreats too, I hear a lot of couples. The biggest resistance I get is like, Oh, I don't like groups, or it's too intimate. You know, intimacy is so private, there's a lot of resistance, sometimes to showing up in a group. But I'll tell you. I mean, every couple has been, have you ever been to a restaurant, like a romantic dinner with your sweetheart at a restaurant, and you've had intimate conversations and you've connected, you know, heart to heart, and intimately, not sexually, maybe, obviously, but we're not doing that at the retreats anyway, but you're in a there's that's a group setting, but you're having a one on one experience. That's very much what these retreats are. It is not group therapy, and there's no pressure to have to share, disclose anything about your intimate life. It's just like being out on a romantic dinner with your spouse, but except that you are, you're learning some pretty amazing skills that are going to serve the relationship for the long term. So it's well worth the time and the investment of energy and resources, I think, to make it out to one of these retreats,

Kate Harlow: 01:12:47

I do think, like the the that whole the the fear of the group, like the group, is so powerful because then you get to see you're not alone, like we Yeah, I mean, just how unnatural it is for Let's speak to that for a second how unnatural it is for us to live in alone in a box with our new families like that. I go to Africa. The reason I love it so much is because I'm living in community and nature and like, that's how it used to be, and that's how we're all wired. And now we're living alone in a box, and everything's so separate and private, my child, my house, my family, versus like, the communal feeling so like our I believe, our hearts and souls, especially as women, we need that community, and men need it too. Men need to gather too. They need brotherhood. They need to know they're not alone and absolutely no to see and hear other couples experiences and to realize like, oh, wait, you have the same problem. You're trying to fix her problems. She doesn't feel heard like, whatever it's like, no, hard to think ever enough for her, and you're trying to do everything to make her happy. Like, it's they get to see, like, Oh, we're all the same. And there's another, another way. And then you have a potential support system when you leave, like, so many gifts. Absolutely,

Kate Harlow: 01:13:55

Susan Morgan Taylor: I could not agree more. And I think it's really just, it's indicative the sexual shame that we carry and the embarrassment, I think, that a lot of couples have, if they are having challenges and intimacy, we want to hide that, and so all the more reason to bring it into a very safe environment where there's other others who are having that same issue. I think that is so important. The other pieces, I really believe that it's our it's the community. We don't heal in isolation. We don't grow in ice. We are just not meant to it's very part of the messed up aspect of Western culture. This like living in the box, the nuclear family, and it really is not beneficial to our mental health. The community is what we can potentially draw from for our relationship. I believe, you know, when a couple gets married, it's always been my belief that it's the community that marries them, and so when that relationship is struggling, it is really, ideally, we should be drawing from our community to help us, rather than going into hiding. That's Kenya.

Kate Harlow: 01:14:50

That's the thing. Yeah, their elders. They go to their elders, friends that are Kenyan, that like, if they're having marital problems, you go to your elders and you like, talk about. Problems, and they give you advice. In the communities, you have your relationship, you're not just love

Kate Harlow: 01:15:05

Susan Morgan Taylor: that. I mean, I know they have a lot of traditions in Africa, even around grief and loss and mourning that are so much more. You know, healing through the community. We're not meant to grieve alone. We're not meant to heal alone. We have it. We just need to take the stigma away that somehow having issues in the sex in the relationship is somehow shameful or bad, because I'm telling you, you're miles ahead of everyone else, if you're even like listening to this podcast right now, much less like reaching out for professional support, like you're already millions of miles. Because I promise you, your friends are having problems too. They're just not admitting it or getting

Kate Harlow: 01:15:38

it exactly, exactly. They're just pretending they're perfect on Instagram. Yeah, perfect on Instagram. And I think when you said that, the fear, like the sexual shame they have, so they want to hide, but like, hiding is what keeps shame alive. Hiding is what keeps him alive. Like, if you bring it to a group, if you bring it to a professional, if you get the support, now the shame dissolves, because it's not easy to carry It's the secret power, but alive internally. So fear is so powerful. Oh my god, I love this sounds amazing. I'm so I'm just so happy to know you, to know about your work and to to spread the word. I'm a connector, and I, for sure, will send couples your way. Thank you. Sure. Appreciate that. I highly encourage any of you listening, if you you know, if you have a relationship that you want to revive like absolutely, reach out, and we'll link everything below. But is there anything so there's the gift, the retreats, and is there anything else you want to talk about in terms of working with you and healing from the sexual trauma, shame, low libido, all of the things, oh my gosh. Well, it's just

Kate Harlow: 01:16:39

Susan Morgan Taylor: been such a delight. Kate, I had a really, what a wonderful conversation. Thank you for holding this space. And yeah, any listeners that are out there that resonate with this conversation, I would love to hear from you. I'd love for you to, you know, get the pleasure keys. I also do complimentary consultations. If you feel called to, like, take that next step and you want to reach out to me. The best spot again is just on my website, which I know you'll you'll post its pathway to pleasure.com and then I'm also out there on Instagram and Facebook. If anyone wants to kind of follow my life, I post personal stuff as well as, you know, business related things. So get a little glimpse into what I've been up to. And I'm just just under my name on Instagram and Facebook. Susan Morgan Taylor, so it's a great way to stay connected as well. Perfect.

Kate Harlow: 01:17:19

Well, yeah, we'll link everything below the episode, but yeah, thank you so much. Love. I really got a lot of I feel transformed from this episode. I got so much value, and this was such a fun conversation. And yeah, really excited to share it and to keep this conversation going and to be connected with you. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you. And as always, share this episode with all your girlfriends that you know need to hear this message all the women out there you know who are struggling in their relationships, with their intimacy, with their life force energy, spread the word and we will see you next week.