Follow the show:
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Everywhere else
Letting your body experience good emotions like joy, success and pleasure does not come naturally, in fact, it takes practice. In today’s episode, sex coach Danielle Savory shares about why it is hard for women to receive pleasure and some simple ways to do it. In this interview, we discuss creating a safe place to experience good feelings, the impact it will have when you let those good feelings in and why learning to have better sex is the easiest way to do it.
Topics in this episode:
Why is pleasure (and all good feelings) so hard for women?
Getting out of your head and into your body
One powerful question to increase pleasure and good feels
Why learning to have better sex will help you enjoy your life more
How feeling critical and judgement of ourself can be overwritten when you practice feeling pleasure
Show Notes:
Find our more information about Danielle Savory and her work by going here: https://www.daniellesavory.com/
Ready to let in more joy, fun and adventure in your working mom life? Click here to learn more about coaching and how I can help: www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.com/coaching
Enjoying the podcast?
Make sure you don’t miss a single episode! Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or where ever you listen to podcasts.
Leave a rating and review in Apple Podcasts or Podchaser.
Transcript
Intro
Working moms, I have a real treat for you today in this episode. But before I jump into who I am interviewing and how amazing she is and why you should for sure be listening to this episode, I want to give a disclaimer to any of you that might be listening to this podcast episode with young children.
Danielle Savory, who I am interviewing here today, she is a sex coach. And while we don't get too far into talking about the subject of sex, for sure we are discussing intimacy, and this might not be the episode you want your children to listen to. That being said, the juiciness and vulnerability of this episode is not to be missed.
She is a friend and a colleague of mine, and in full transparency, I hired her as my, sex coach. Now, that feels very vulnerable to say. But what came out of my experience with Danielle was not just better results in the bedroom, which certainly happened, but a completely different way of thinking about pleasure and why pleasure - not just sexual pleasure, but pleasure in general, is a vital part of being a woman and particularly vital for us as high achieving women.
I knew that I needed to get Danielle on this podcast eventually, and now just felt the right time. You're going to jump in mid conversation, where I am sharing with Danielle some of the fun, amazing goals that I have hit in my business recently.
I haven't really spoken to her in quite some time, so we were kind of doing a whole catch up, and you're kind of catching the tail end of that. And I'm telling her how difficult it has been for me to receive all of the good feelings and the joy and the happiness that should come when we hit our goals and we're successful.
And I love that this is the starting point of this conversation, and again, it feels somewhat vulnerable to me. And on some level, I even think she's coaching me a little bit as we're having a conversation.
Getting out of your head and into your body.
But Danielle has so much amazing wisdom to share with all of us about what it means to get out of your head and into your body and to allow yourself to feel all the good feels that come with life or that we want to come with life. I know you're going to love her, so let's get to it.
Welcome to the Ambitious and Balanced Working Moms podcast, the place for women who want to balance their ambitious career goals with their life as a mom. If you're looking to feel more confident, decisive, and productive at both work and home, then this is the place for you. I'm your host, Rebecca Olson. Let's get to it.
Rebecca: This happened earlier in the week too, on Monday, my husband was around while I was finishing up a sales call, and he could tell that this client was moving forward, so he came in all excited, and I was sitting there with my hands in my head, and he's like, what's going on?
And I'm like, well, one is I'm just really tired. I'm just really having a hard time taking this in. I don't know how to receive all of this good stuff that's happening. This comes back to so many conversations that I have had with you and thinking about how do you receive the good?
Danielle: Hold on - I'm just going to pause because it's so funny. You're like, I'm just going to hire a mindset coach. And I'm like, maybe the mindset…I think it's so fascinating, right? Because we want to go to what we've had before, the mindset. But it's like, what is I mean, I'm not going to coach you right now, but right.
It's so fascinating that block that we have, that visceral block of letting in the good and feeling able to absorb it and really being able to indulge in feeling good because we get so addicted to the I don't want to say the not good, but, like, the going and the doing and the moving forward. Not that that's not good stuff, but that motivation stuff, too.
Rebecca: I think the word foreign is a good one. It just feels foreign and almost I just don't even know what to do. And some of the things that I have been kind of - I was going to say wrestling with, but it's not wrestling. It's…I'm practicing or I'm like, just trying.
It's everything from just a big smile and just letting myself smile, because smiling creates natural endorphins to my dance party button that just reminds me to get into my body a little bit and hitting that to, just sitting on a swing in my backyard.
The block to pleasure.
It's like I'm trying to cultivate this pass through, like this, what feels like a wall to pleasure. I don't even know how to almost overcome it. And I think I keep trying to come back through the brain. It's like, this isn't a brain thing. It's a body thing.
Danielle: That's what I was saying. I was like, we do, we can see the gatekeepers here. But I also know you, and I know how much work you've done with your mind around being more open to pleasure. And I don't feel it's like, oh, I can't, or I shouldn't, or I'm not allowed to, or, I'm not worthy, where maybe that's where you were more before, but you're not there.
It's really just a body thing. It's a surrendering. It's a softening. It's actually being able to absorb it and drop into your body and feel it.
Rebecca: I'm going to say this, and I know the answer, Danielle, but I'm not alone in this, right? I'm not the only one that, like, tries to, but has this huge wall. What are your thoughts on even where this wall comes from?
The block of being able to experience pleasure.
Danielle: This wall comes from so many different things. But it's really, at this age, I feel there's so much of a habitual response with our body. So it's this nervous system response of our body because there were messages when we were younger to guilty pleasure or wait till you're worthy or we don't have time for that.
And so it's this constant kind of cutting off and creating that wall. Because it was safety, because it was survival, because we have this wall, because why would we?
Retraining your responsiveness to your nervous system.
And so even if we change our thoughts up here, we haven't really removed that or created a pathway into our body. And so it's really just retraining not just here, but retraining your responsiveness to your nervous system, creating that safety in your nervous system, knowing how to open it up.
It's more than just a wall - It's a deeper connection with your body and your nervous system so that you actually know how to do it.
Because it's a skill, right? It's like, why can't I play tennis? Well, if you've never picked up a tennis racket more than one time in summer camp in 6th grade, right? It's an actual skill to develop, to be able to be in our body and then to be able to stay there and then be able to turn towards the good. That is a practiced thing. It isn't like, oh, I just can't and there's a wall - there might not even be a wall. It just might not be something that you've done enough.
The ability to receive pleasure.
Rebecca: My natural next question is like, you coach on pleasure, you coach on sex, right? And so that's the scratch the surface of what you really do underneath this, what we're getting to is the ability to receive pleasure, which is such an important part of having really great sex. But it's so much more than that. It's so much more than just changing your sex life and your intimate life. And I want to hear about that. I want to hear about the kind of work that you do and how that all connects to that.
Danielle: I am a sex coach. But really what we're getting down to here is, allowing ourselves, especially those of us socialized as women, to be able to have the capacity to open up, to receive and to receive more of the good stuff, because there's so many layers.
I think that in our culture and the way that we show up in our relationships or in our businesses or in our corporate jobs or as mothers and all these different roles that we play what it really is, is about us giving and learning how to actually have the skill of being able to not only be present for the good stuff, but being able to be open to it, to be able to receive it, to bring that pleasure in, to allow it to land and integrate as part of who you are, as part of a resourcefulness in your body.
Learning how to receive pleasure.
So, your brain is really at the crux of what we're doing. And when we focus on our sexuality, when we focus on that relationship, it is very blatant. Well, maybe that's the wrong word that I'm looking for, but it is very obvious about receiving, right? That is really a very obvious relationship where we are learning how to receive pleasure.
So then it is this beautiful bridge into seeing all these ways that we actually are allowing ourselves to open up and receive pleasure in other parts of our life. Because if you just are focusing on your sexuality and receiving pleasure in this place or being connected with your body in this way, what I have found is it's a lot easier to get there when we start practicing it in other parts of our life and vice versa.
Opening up to pleasure in other areas of your life, opens you up to pleasure sexually.
So it really does become the way that you land in your body and the way that you're able to open up. And if you're able to open up and receive more pleasure in other areas of your life, it becomes easier to accept and receive that sexually. And if we start to do that sexually, then it's easy to borrow that and apply it to other parts of your life. So they go both ways, and they go kind of hand in hand.
But understanding that opening up and receiving is a skill. So the more that we practice it in and out of the bedroom is going to make it easier for you.
Rebecca: To do as you describe this to people. What does receiving look like when you talk about receiving or even receiving pleasure outside of a bedroom setting? What does that even mean? What does that look like in a working mom's daily life?
Danielle: I think it can look in so many different ways. There are constantly things that we could receive that are pleasurable in any given moment. And so I think even just acknowledging and opening our eyes to the fact that there is something I could receive just right now in this moment.
So, for me, right now, I have this cushy chair that I'm sitting on. And the way that I'm sitting, it's, like, really nice on my buns. It feels really good when I drop in and notice that, right? It's so good. the texture of my shirt. This is a viori shirt, and I'm wearing viori sweats and probably heard of them, and they're so soft. And I could feel that on my skin. I have a candle going, and I can open up and receive and smell that.
One of the easiest ways for us to learn how to receive pleasure is simply turning to our senses.
What is something I'm hearing right now that I love?
What is something I'm seeing in my environment?
What is something that my body or my skin is touching?
It sounds so cliche, like, oh, just be present in the moment and absorb all this great shit. But it's true. And when we start to open up to that, then we can see how we might be cutting off.
Like, if somebody gives you a compliment and you're quickly dismissive, and we don't even allow that to really land. Or right before we started recording, Rebecca and I were talking about goals, right, and how hard it can be to hit a goal, and then we don't celebrate it, and we're just, like, on to the next or afraid it's going to go away.
Rebecca: Yeah, for sure.
How often do we give ourselves a chance to marinate in a compliment?
Danielle: So really being able to marinate in it. I love that word, especially because I have some dinner marinating right now. You can see it right away, but it's like, how often do we give ourselves a chance to marinate when someone's, like, Whoa, you did a really good job, or, that was so powerful when you said that. Do you hang out with that? Or do you hang out with, like, when they said, I don't really understand what you're doing here, or some other kind of negative comment that we grasp onto when we hang out, we replay in our head, how often are you replaying the good stuff in all areas?
Rebecca: A couple of things stood out to me as you were just describing this to me, which I have worked with you before, right. So I've hired you as a coach, and we have talked about these things, and now it's still I think it's been over two years since we worked together.
But what stood out to me is like, oh, yeah...do I even know what I think something that feels good is? Could I even describe that to you? That feels foreign in this moment to even think about what are the things that feel good?
And if I were to present that to one of my clients, I'm sure I would get this kind of I don't know. I don't think about it…but the point is we don't think about it. We don't spend the same amount of attention thinking about the things that feel good and putting our attention towards those things. Like, we do the things that don't feel so good, and that bring us down, and we put a lot of attention to that.
Danielle: Exactly.
Rebecca: So we're super familiar with what all those things feel like. oh, yeah. The starting place is me just remembering or thinking about things that feel good and why they feel good and how they literally take place in my body and the sensations that take place in my body when I'm experiencing them.
Letting yourself feel.
Everything from a cozy…I have a nice cozy blanket on me right now, how good that feels with this little heater that's here because I'm really cold in my house, right? And letting myself just take that in and feel cozy and be able to feel cozy, and that feels good. And letting myself feel that for a moment or longer. Right?
Danielle: Exactly. And, we get so caught up in all of the other things, and it's like, if you're listening to this, you're like, I don't even know what I like. Do I even have a hobby? Do I even have something I enjoy or fun or pleasure? All of these sorts of things. This isn't a moment to judge yourself or blame yourself.
It's really how, number one, not only have we been socialized, but, like, how the human brain operates. We have this negativity bias. Like, negativity bias is for us, for our protection, for our survival. And that has been way more imperative for you.
Think about back in the day, like, if you stopped and smelled a rose, but then in the meantime, you're going to get eaten by a tiger, then you probably should have been looking out for tigers instead of paying attention to the beautiful buttercups in the meadow. Right? It's just straight up, like, survival purpose. That's why it has to be very intentional and it has to be purposeful.
And especially for busy women, it's creating a framework that allows you to tap into the good and the resources and the pleasure and the fun on purpose. Because if you just keep going on default, you're never going to. Your brain will not choose these things.
Rebecca: And that leads to a couple of different thoughts, too. One was actually when you said you had something marinating in the kitchen. I actually have some beans soaking because I'm going to make a soup later. And so I love that.
But it made me think of, like, you're a mom of two amazing girls. And I think that, at least for me, I know that I'm kind of harder on my daughter than I am for my son. I'm totally aware of that. It's because of the amazing human being that I want her - I obviously I want my son to be an amazing human being, too. It just has a different feel.
And I can see her having my tendencies on some level to be very kind of driven and motivated by task and by process and by reward and the beat up cycle that happens when she doesn't meet her potential. She's eight but I could see it, though, in so much of it.
It's like, what does it look like for me to help her develop a sense of what feels good to her? How do I even describe that to her if I don't even know what that feels to me? So that was one thing that came up. Actually, I'll pause there because I would love to hear from somebody I know that thinks about this a lot.
Danielle: Yeah, well, I think it goes to that old adage of especially our children, they don't do what we say. They do what we do. And I don't know if that's the actual thing, but you get what it's coming from, right? It's how we're being. It's ah, who we're demonstrating to be. And so for me, this isn't something that I am instructing my girls on, but they see me on the couch knitting. They see me…
Rebecca: Such an amazing woman, Danielle, I love you.
Danielle: They see me even on the weekend. I think my husband said something like, oh, are we being lazy or something? Because we do projects as a family. And I was like, Absolutely not. This is what life's about. I am so cozy. I've got this blanket. I'm working on this knitting project, and so when I'm with my girls, I'm doing these things.
Being aware of our surroundings and senses.
If we go on a hike, we are looking. I was like, oh, my gosh, do you smell that? We're constantly talking about, what does the air feel like? I was like, do you feel the air right? When we walked into the forest? Because I'm aware of it. I can ask them because I'm aware.
I'm like, wow, did you see that mushroom? Like, it was so bright orange. Like, I didn't even know Mother Nature produced those kind of colors. I'm just in awe.
And so when I'm walking through my life with these moments of awe, they are engaged in that. Or when we - Monroe and I, we still take our baths together, and we giggle and feel the soap, and I was like, oh, this smells so good. And we're just, like, pausing and smelling and doing these things that are involving our senses. So I don't think there's as much discussion as just, I am in it with them and bringing their attention to it consistently.
Receiving pleasure and receiving goodness.
Rebecca: I wrote down some of the words you just used and kind of added some of my own, but it was, like, cozy and leisure and awe, and rest. These are a big part of what it means to receive pleasure and receive goodness, because this is where a lot of it is found, right, is in the rest and the cozy and the leisure and the awe.
Danielle: Yes.
Rebecca: This podcast is for working moms that are trying to find balance. That is the life we're trying to create, ultimately, on the other side, when I work with clients, when I teach here on this podcast, it's like, what we're getting to the other side is a life where there's rest and there's cozy and there's leisure and there's awe and there's presence. And that's what people say they want at the other side of balance more than anything else, right? They want to experience that life.
And here in this conversation, what we're talking about, I'm kind of just making a parallel hill here, and at least in my brain there is a mechanism there. And, I mean, you'd probably argue with me and say the greatest mechanism there on some level is through receiving pleasure and learning how to receive and cultivate that pleasure through the body right?
How do we get there onto the other side way more than that, although I obviously work with clients and things, like, on things time and stuff that, but it's not that. It's none of this other kind of thing that we all want to make it out to be. A scheduling thing, a time management thing, getting things off your plate thing. It's really not any of that.
Danielle: Right? But I think it's so important, too, to understand that in order to get there, to that place of leisure or rest or pleasure, that we can use these types of frameworks that allow us to understand.
So it's like, if you're listening to this, you're like, Where do I even start? It's like, I use these touch points and not be like, oh, my gosh, I have to clear off my whole Saturday and then sit there and do nothing and sit on the couch and knit. That's not where you start.
I've been doing this shit for a really long time. But you can ask yourself and the thing that I really started to do was just asking the simple question, when I was already doing the tasks that I needed to do, making dinner, okay, or driving my kids from school back home.
Rebecca: One activity to the next.
How do we make this more fun?
Danielle: One activity. So it's one activity, one touch point. You could ask your simple question, how might I enjoy this more? That's it. How could this be a little bit more fun?
So, for me, a huge vehicle into that fun, for me, is music. I think that music can be such an easy, touchstone place for so many people. And music is a huge part of our house. We play music. We're just rocking out to all these different music as we're doing our chores, as we're making dinner, as we're driving to and from school.
Inserting pleasure and fun into our lives.
So even when I'm like, hey, it's time for us to tidy up our room or clean up or do laundry, how do we make this more fun? What playlist do you guys want to listen to? Do you want to wear a funny outfit while you're doing this? Should we light some candles? Like, there's these ways that we can just insert a little bit of pleasure and a little bit of fun into the things that we, quote, unquote, need to get done and not have to make it, like, this extra thing we're doing. It's just upticking the level of enjoyment in the things that we're already participating in.
Rebecca: I love that. upticking the enjoyment. Yeah. Sometimes I'll tell my clients, like, let's just move the needle. 5%. Let's not think about getting all the way there. But what's, like, a little moving of the needle, like, ever so slightly? What does that look like? Right?
Danielle: Yeah, it's putting on a shade of lipstick in the morning, right? It's like, it doesn't have to be a lot like, pick a pair of fun earrings, pick a collar, put some cozy socks on that are absolutely ridiculous. Like, my mom saw my socks the other day, and she's like, what are those? And I was like, they bring me joy. It doesn't have to be a lot, but it's like, as you start incorporating more and more of these small little upticks, they have a compound effect on your overall pleasure and enjoyment in life.
Rebecca: Yeah, I get comments from people all the time, particularly my family. They're like, did you have something like, big habit, a day at work? And I'm like, oh, no, I just sat. and I talked with my clients all day dressed up. And I know, well, I feel good. I feel good.
And sometimes it'll be like, yeah, I'm dressing in my orange blazer, and I love it, and it makes me feel good. And some days it's like, no, I'm for sure wearing my Uggs, and it's going to be the coziest pants I can possibly wear today, and I'm going to have the best blanket, and that's what it's going to be today.
What's going to make your day a little bit more enjoyable?
But it's just what is going to make me enjoy this? What's going to make my day a little bit more enjoyable?
Danielle: Exactly. Like, when I'm on my period, I'm probably going to choose, like, cozy pants and a cozy sweater or whatever, versus at a different time, I might choose the full on fluorescent pantsuit. It's meeting yourself where you're at and understanding that pleasure is not going to look the same from moment to moment, day in and day out. That's why we ask. That's why we're asking, how could I make this a little bit more fun for me in this moment?
Rebecca: I want to come back to this question that we started to talk about, why does this matter? Why does this matter? I think we could think about it, like, I hear it and I go and I cognitively understand why this matters. It's going to help me feel better about life. I want to enjoy life more.
So often I have people that come to me and that's like, circumstantially - my life is perfect. It's everything I ever wanted it to be. And yet I don't feel that way. It feels not enough. I feel unhappy. I feel out of balance, right? So I can see it, and yet it can be the hardest thing to decide to prioritize for.
I think for women that tend to be very ambitious, that tend to be very goal focused, that's our very kind of type A if we want to label it that way. And I'm just curious about your thoughts on that, why this matters, or even why it's the most challenging for this particular group of people.
Danielle: There's really three parts to the answer to this question.
One, I think that we look at benefits. There's benefits to doing this, right? Benefits, I feel, to me are different than why it matters. But sometimes, especially when I have been caught up in the rat race of life, when you're caught up in the momentum of life, when you're going after these things, the benefits are a good reminder for me to snap out of it because it reminds me why it's important.
However, for me personally, when I have just focused on the benefits of things, it never actually was the thing that got me into the action I wanted. Right? We all know the benefits of exercise, reducing stress. And it keeps me healthy and maybe I'll live longer. None of that shit is going to help me get my running shoes on.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Danielle: Like, I'm just going to be honest, right? So we have to understand the difference. It is good to know the benefits. Because when your brain is being a real drama queen about things we want to understand, brain. I hear you.
And also this is going to help my relationship, this is generationally speaking, going to help me be a better mom. This is going to help my communication. It's going to help my immune system, my overall well being. It's good to go through the laundry list of benefits for me, why it matters.
What would you do if today was your last day?
And this might sound very morbid, but again, I like to go to the extremes and the drama of stuff. What actually worked for me when I first started doing a lot of this work is like, what if I found out today that I only had three months to live or whatever your time period is? Really, when I think about that, or I've even watched people in my community or close to me and my family, where this really was a real thing, right? Getting diagnosed with breast cancer or something like that, or another type of cancer, and they really didn't have a long time at all, what would you spend your day doing, really?
Rebecca: Probably not working a whole lot more than I would need to, or want to for that matter.
Danielle: Yeah, you would probably put those hollow notes in the kitchen and shake your booty. You would probably make love to your partner like it was the first and last time. And you would soak in every moment of it and not worry about what your post breastfeeding boobs are flopping around doing.
Rebecca: Right.
Danielle: You would just be kissing. It's those kinds of things. And so again, I know that that can feel very heavy and it can feel very morbid. But when we start to think about what it is. That I'm going to be thinking about if I was nearing the end of my life or if my partner was nearing the end of my life or anybody in my circle was, what would I want to make sure that I was doing?
And it doesn't mean that we didn't have to do the things and the tasks and that kind of stuff, but my level of presence and I don't want to forget this. I want to remember this immediately brings us into our body where we're bringing in the good stuff because we don't want to let it go.
Rebecca: I mean, it's not morbid. It's perspective more than anything.
Danielle: Right.
Rebecca: You zoom out enough to kind of remember what's or to think maybe for the first time. And I think there's a lot of that in the work that I do with my clients because they're asking questions that maybe they've never asked before, but they certainly have never asked before since they've become a mom, which changes a lot of things for us on many levels - goals, motivations, all sorts of things.
What really matters.
And it's that zooming out perspective of saying what really matters. What do I want to get to the end of my life, whether that's in three months or it's in, I hope, 50 years. What do I want to say that I experienced? What are the memories that I want to have in my head? What are the memories that I expect that I would keep in my head?
Danielle: How do I want my girls to remember me? That's a big one I think about all of the time, like, how do I want my girls to remember me? And it's like, they're going to remember my silliness. They're going to remember my emotions. They're going to remember me cuddling them every single day. I spend over half an hour cuddling my kids between the three touch points that we have. They're going to remember that.
And that I love to think about…Like, again - If I was going to get hit by a car today, what are they going to miss about me and what are they going to remember? And so it's not to say that we're not doing the other big legacy stuff in the world and creating an impact in our world. I equally think that's important too, and it does help bring things into perspective and allow us to at least be present for the things we're already doing and bring that level of enjoyment because that's going to change your whole demeanor with what you're showing up for.
We get to experience pleasure through our body, not through our mind.
Rebecca: Yeah, I love that. And again, we're circling all of this back through the lens of how we get to do these things that we want for ourselves, the pleasure, the leisure, the rest, the cuddles, the memories, the silliness. We get to that through our body, not through our mind.
Danielle: Right.
Rebecca: We paint that picture of the life that we want that isn't so much what's the action steps that are going to take me to get there? Although there are some very tangible frameworks as we're talking about. I have frameworks. You have frameworks, right? That help women get there.
Experiencing all the juiciness of life.
But what we're really talking about is getting there through our body and through experiencing, allowing yourself to experience pleasure and joy and goodness and just all of the juiciness, as you say, of life.
Danielle: Yeah, well, and another way that I would also answer that question because I said it was three parts, the benefits are a great place to remind your brain, just very logically and rationally. These are all the reasons that it's good for me, that then there's the emotional pull of the end of life sort of thoughts and experiences.
I am my source of resilience.
The perspective I like to think of and then the other place I also like to go of why it matters is remembering that I am my biggest resourcefulness, I am my source of resilience. So if I truly do want to show up in the world and accomplish these things or achieve these things or show up in that way, understanding that I can't do that unless I am fully supported, I can't do that if I'm overwhelmed and burnt out and having a hard time.
I don't even have access to the creativity in my brain that would solve the problems to begin with. I don't have the resiliency to bounce back from challenges. I don't have the internal support system to feel capable of going after the risks it's going to take for me to actually create big waves.
And so understanding that pleasure and being able to receive and absorb the good stuff is actually what is creating the resources and the traits and the qualities in your brain that are going to allow you to do the big stuff you want to do in the world.
Feeling safe in the body and pleasure, go hand in hand.
You can't actually do those things if you're not taking risk. Well, how do you take risks? You have to feel supported. You have to feel safe. So we do that by bringing pleasure in and creating safety in the body, right?
You can't feel resilient if you don't have an internal buffer system to be able to bounce back. If you're completely drained.
If you're completely overwhelmed, if your nervous system is fried, you're not going to bounce back and you're not going to bounce back in the way that you want to. And so understanding that pleasure is actually what creates that buffer system. It's the balm to the heart. It is your bounce back mechanism.
That is another thing that is really motivating for me of why I'm doing this throughout my day. Because I do want to create a legacy, not just with my family, but in the world. I do want to make a big impact. I do want to do these big, bold, brave things in the world. And I know that I'm going to fail. I'm going to fall on my face. I'm going to wonder what I'm doing. And if I don't fill myself up with nourishing pleasure, I won't have anything to fall back on and I'm going to burn out really fast.
Rebecca: I love that you brought this up, and I think I've said this to you before, but in our work together two years ago, yes, it was a program that was focused on sex and pleasure in the bedroom. And things shifted there for the good, for sure. But some of the things that really impacted me that were life changing had nothing to do with the bedroom.
Danielle: Yeah, that's pretty much every woman that comes through the program, they're like, yeah, I got some orgasms. But yeah, totally. It's not really what this work is about, right.
Rebecca: And for me, coming back to safety - that was the one of the examples that you just gave that really stuck out to me because it was my own experience and it was my own experience of really learning how to not take myself back to that place where I beat myself up for things that go wrong or things that don't happen in the way that I want to or whatever I've deemed failure or whatever I wanted that didn't transpire in the way that I wanted it to happen.
All of those experiences throughout my day, I didn't even realize how in the back of my brain there was a little version of me that was riding a whip and telling me that I was doing it wrong and making me feel shameful and bad and guilty. I think it really was recognizing that voice in the bedroom that ended up leading me to wanting to work with you.
But then I saw her all over the place. I was able to really understand her and see her and find comfort and love for her and ultimately get to a place where I just don't allow her to be in my space much anymore. She's just not there. That experience of knowing that I can create that kind of safety.
That's really what I'm most scared of when I go after anything big in life or, when I'm setting goals and going after them. Big ones, little ones, whatever it is, it's not the fear of failure. It's the fear of the little voice that makes me feel crap if I don't meet it. Or what's inevitable when you go after big goals is, of course, failure.
“The fear of failure was holding me back from experiencing joy and pleasure.”
It was that experience that was holding me back in business and life and lots of things, like just experiencing joy. I can't allow myself to experience pleasure and joy in meeting big goals in my business, because if I did that, then I wouldn't have my eye on the focus of getting to the next goal or pushing myself a little bit further.
And then that little voice - that was some of the biggest work that we did together. And that safety in your body. Safety, you being a safe place for your own thoughts and your own self and whatever your own emotions, right. Is such a huge part of everything that you're talking about here. And again, it comes back through the lens of, safety is not going to come from all of the negative, terrible emotions. It's going to come from the good ones.
Danielle: Yeah, exactly. And it's like, the way that I think of it is, what kind of container are we creating? And can we create this container that can even receive the good stuff? Right? And when you think about if we're just speaking to ourselves unkindly all of the time, or we have this inner critical narrative going on in the background, it really does kind of just repel any of the good stuff, because it literally the way that it stimulates your nervous system, makes it so you can't actually receive a lot of the good stuff.
Open up to receive.
So it goes, like, kind of what comes first? Chicken, the egg? And really, the way that I like to think of it is the first thing that you do is you create the containers so that you can open more up to the receiving. And part of that is working on that safety and setting some very, important boundaries with your own inner dialogue.
Rebecca: Yeah. Probably more than any others, it has to start there, because if you don't allow that negative inner dialogue to be there, then you'll repel it from other people in a more natural way. If they say it, you won't ever receive it because you just know it to not be true.
Danielle: Yeah.
Rebecca: So I come back to this question then. We're talking so much in this conversation around receiving, the good stuff and the pleasure and creating safety, and we're talking about why all of this stuff matters, and yet your focus is at least the way you market yourself is through as a sex coach. And we've kind of talked a little bit about this, but I kind of circle back to this. I know there's all this other, deeper work that came out of it for me. I know other women that say the same thing. Why do you have it through the lens of the bedroom or as your focal point?
“Our work as women with our sexuality is the pinnacle of self growth”
Danielle: I honestly think that our work as women with our sexuality is the pinnacle of self growth. And it is where so many of our relationships, our socialization, our nervous system work, our being on our own side, the tone we set with ourselves and the embodied experience is all wrapped up into this.
And when we go through the lens of our sexuality, like, I could teach you, I started as a self compassion coach. I started as a mindfulness teacher. That is where my work started a decade ago. I could just teach you self compassion. But the reason that I focus on sex and the reason that I focus on sexuality is because when we go right there, you get immediate feedback.
Because you have to be in your body to be able to create desire, to be able to allow yourself to be touched and to experience pleasure. So you get immediate feedback. So it's like, I could work with somebody just on their self compassion, right? Just on changing this inner narrative and being more loving and being more accepting. But you might not have a marker of how much you've progressed with it or how far you've improved, where when you focus on how your body is responding, you get that this immediate barometer. You get to see it right away in action.
If you're doing this inner criticism work, or if you're doing the safety work, or if you're lowering your standards of perfectionism, it's this beautiful place and this beautiful relationship, whether it's with self pleasure or with partnered sexual experiences, that we get to see it in action right away.
Women get quicker results when working on the basis of sexuality.
And so that's why I really love focusing on the sexuality, is because I see women get such quicker results in this area, way faster, because they're getting this constant feedback. They see it coming up and everything really bubbles to the surface when it comes to our sexuality - the people pleasing and the doing things for everybody else and putting stuff on the back burner, I don't have time, I'm not in my body, I'm in my head. And shame is a big one. All of it is in there. And so we get to focus on it right away.
Rebecca: It's heightened all in the bedroom, and so it makes it all come up really fast. And then you have to deal with it really fast and really quick.
Danielle: Yes. And because you're dealing with it in the bedroom, where you feel the most vulnerable, where a lot of times we have felt the most shame in the past, where we feel the least confident in so many ways. Because we have never been really taught what sexuality and pleasure looks for us outside of the sex industry. Because of all of that, you get to see it in action.
“If I can say what I want in the bedroom, it makes it really easy to say what I want in the boardroom.”
It's like, well, if I can say what I want in the bedroom, it makes it really easy to say what I want in the boardroom. It makes it really easy to show up for this as a parent or whatever else. It makes everything else feel easy because you can just borrow it from this place that actually felt really scary or really awkward or really shameful. It's like, oh, well, this is nothing. I'm just posting on social media.
Rebecca: I love it. So many good things here at Danielle. Thank you for all of this. I love that we actually circled back here because I want to make sure that you tell us all about how people can get a hold of you, find out what you do, coach with you, and so forth. I want to hear all of that.
I love how we naturally started with this place of just receiving and receiving goodness and receiving pleasure and how important that is and what it means to do that. And then circling all the way back to, like, the bedroom is the fastest way. If you really want to do it, it's the fastest way to get there. That's where you start. So tell us a bit about how people can get a hold of you and some of the things that you have going on.
Danielle: So, you can get a hold of me through my website, danielsavory.com. If you just want to contact me directly, I have a podcast called It's My Pleasure. So we focus on a lot of these, bringing the pleasure in because it's your pleasure. So we bring up all of these types of topics. I did take a huge social media break, but I am back on, and you can find me at the practice of pleasure on Instagram.
And then other than that, like, working with me or coaching, I have a do it yourself course where we talk about a lot of the things that Rebecca and I talked about here. Just that inner critic, that inner narrative, creating safety in the body, creating sensuality. That course is called undressed. You don't get directly coached by me, but you could learn. If you want to get directly coached by me, then join my group coaching program called Tangled. And we do this with a group of women. We go through it, and then I always have just a couple of one-one spots available as well.
Rebecca: So good. The work you are doing is so important, Danielle. Thank you for the courage and bravery. I mean, we've now known each other for years.
Danielle: How many years? Yeah.
Rebecca: And I remember when you went on all in to this, and it's so important. So thank you for what you do and your voice and the way that you are changing the world.
Danielle: Well, right back at you, mama. Appreciate you. And thanks for having me on.
Rebecca: Thank you, Danielle.
