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Take Control of Your Insecurity

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Take Control of Your Insecurity

I have some questions for you about humor. Just think about them. How much do you notice yourself laughing throughout the day? How easily does laughter come to you? How often do you think you’re able to see the humor in situations?

I’m talking about genuine humor- not sarcasm, sardonicism, or cynicism. Sure, these approaches might make you feel witty and powerful during times when you’d rather avoid feeling vulnerable, but they require you to be pretty critical which often comes from a place of contempt. It can be difficult to benefit from the positive effects of humor when you’re using it contemptuously. There are plenty of ways to use humor in a nondefensive way.

One of the curative properties in humor is its aptitude for finding the humanity in conflict, whether it’s between you and another person, a group of people, or between you and an event. Have you ever noticed that? A joke or some other kind of levity can diffuse tension, bridge a divide, and restore compassion. When you’re using it with regard, humor is an incredibly reparative tool.

Now think about this; how often are you able to laugh at yourself? It’s great to be able to find the humor in what someone else says or does, but what about in what you say or do? What about your mistakes, perceived shortcomings, or faults? Some people find the ability to laugh at themselves elusive. They’d rather their faults go undetected and, when noticed, defend them with some amount of hostility. Usually, this promotes an increased sense of discomfort as it widens the divide in conflict.

When you allow yourself to laugh at your missteps, you immediately begin to draw your brain out of aggression, defensive anger and depending on the situation, sadness. You tap into your resilience and resource. This encourages you to be more patient, clear-headed, and less frustrated. When you are resourced, you feel more curious about your own and others’ experiences, and you are better able to connect to empathy. You are driven to strengthen the connection to another person or yourself.

Finding the humor in your mistakes takes some pressure off and gives you a little bit of breathing room. In that space you create, you’re more aware of yourself, of your choices. You can see yourself and your situation more objectively. You have less need to defend yourself because you start to see that your vulnerabilities don’t make you worthless or terrible; they make you human. You don’t need to defend yourself for being human.

So, the next time you find yourself approaching an argument (or in one), feeling defensive about something, or in conflict give yourself a chance to practice this exercise. See what kind of levity can be found in your situation. Maybe you’ll be in conflict with your partner about sharing household responsibilities. Maybe it will be during a time when you are trying to prove a point about something, and you get your facts wrong. Maybe you’ll find yourself engaged in a heated conversation with a family member about who is doing more for whom. Whatever it is, take a minute to find the humor and get some perspective. You’ll feel more appreciation for yourself and your loved ones.

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie

Understand and Manage Your Feelings

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Understand and Manage Your Feelings

We seem to be fascinated by emotions. We talk about them and try not to talk about them. We think about them and try not to think about them. We roll around in them and try to avoid them. We want to understand them if not release ourselves from their sometimes oppressive grip.

We separate them into categories: negative emotions and positive emotions. Feelings that we associate with pain like sadness, anger and embarrassment become negative emotions. Feelings we associate with pleasure like happiness, gratitude, and confidence becomes positive emotions. Pleasure seekers that we are, we begin to dread the emotions we value as negative and yearn for the emotions we value as positive.
And that brings us to the end of this post; feeling sad is bad and feeling happy is good… just kidding.
What if, instead of avoiding and vigorously fighting against certain feelings, we allowed ourselves to be curious about them? What if, instead of telling ourselves, “I shouldn’t be so sad about this…” we asked ourselves, “Why am I so sad about this?” (and “What do I mean by my attempt to quantify my feeling of sadness with the word ‘so’?”). What might we learn from empathically and curiously sitting with our feelings? All of them, not just the states we associate with pain and discomfort. “What’s happening right now that I feel confident?” “How am I interpreting this event which moves me to feel happy?”
Go on. Give it a try.
A lot of people report that they begin to feel an increased sense of ease in managing their emotional life. Eventually, some people begin to report a sense of gratitude for their feelings- all of their feelings. They learn things about their motivations, their resilience, and capabilities that they might not otherwise have accessed.
As we begin to understand ourselves, our emotions and their function, we feel less desperate to push out the “bad” and hold onto the “good.” We begin to see the connection between our different feelings, that the impermanence of happiness also means the impermanence of sadness. We aren’t chasing one thing while running from another.
I recommend starting with a feeling that gives you pleasure; a lot of people identify the emotions happiness and contentment as good places for them to start. Ok, so the next time you’re feeling happy or content, ask yourself some starter questions:
What’s happening right now that I feel happy?
Why do I connect that to happiness?
What does it mean about me?
Why is that important?
The more you do this, the insights that you get from this way of thinking will produce a shift in how you view your emotions, your control over your emotions, and your control over your thought process.
It can be pretty interesting to try this exercise when you’re at work, too. If you find yourself thinking, “Man, I would way rather be at the beach right now than sitting in this chair in the office.” That might be true for you, that you experience more pleasure at the beach than when you are working, but why is that? What is uncomfortable about being at work? Why? Why do you connect what is or is not happening at work to displeasure and or discomfort?
It’s pretty common for us to think we know why we’re uncomfortable only to find out we had it all wrong. This opens up pretty remarkable opportunities.
Love and Be Loved,
Natalie

 

 

Understanding and Accepting Sexuality

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Understanding and Accepting Sexuality

Remember that movie with the scene of a guy watching porn- his wife comes in, he seems embarrassed, and she yells at him? Yeah, you’re right. It does sound like a lot of scenes from a lot of different movies.

Humans seem to be engaged in a common conversation centered on our sexuality, mainly expressing that those of us who are connected to it are weasels and those of us who aren’t are honorable leaders in virtue. In most of these movies, the guy assumes responsibility for his transgression and tries to win his way back into his wife’s good graces. His wife wraps herself in support of her friends who completely understand that his act is punishable. How dare he express his sexuality!

I have been waiting for years to see a new response to this wearisome scene. Maybe the man’s partner comes in and starts watching it with him, and they have a conversation about it. Maybe they discover all sorts of information about one another, fantasies, desires, talents… who knows?! Maybe they both realize that they have more in common than they thought, but were too afraid to find out. One thing’s for sure, though; nothing shuts down the possibility of exploring new territory with someone like shaming.

Some people experience fear and hurt when they imagine their partner watching porn or masturbating. They see the browser history on the computer and feel slighted. It can be hard to feel open and curious when we feel insulted. It seems easier for us to lean on defensiveness and close ourselves off.

Let’s stop and think for a minute. What is it about others’ sexuality that spurns us so much? Is there something about how it relates to our sexuality that causes us to feel insecure, unworthy, or defective? Why? And what can we do to address this?

When we slow down and allow ourselves to be curious about why someone else’s expression of their sexuality bothers us, our discomfort becomes an opportunity for connection. That’s what we want, right? We want to feel more connected to our partners. We want a felt sense of safety and acceptance. To cultivate this, we have to do our part, which means not reacting impulsively to our fear, hurt, and anger.

“But my partner watches porn with group-sex scenes. I don’t want to have group sex…” There is an endless supply of porn that caters to any fetish, curiosity, preference, and tendency imaginable. Sometimes people who watch porn want to act out what they see and sometimes they don’t. There are plenty of queer-identified people who enjoy watching straight porn, but not straight sex. Likewise, there are a lot of people who are into queer porn but aren’t into queer sex.

There are as many reasons for why we like to watch certain types of porn as there are different genres of porn. How will we learn what we want to know about our partners’ reasons if we don’t ask? The answer we get might be a delicious surprise.

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie

Getting Comfortable with Your Sexuality

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Getting Comfortable with Your Sexuality

Sex. Everyone thinks about it. Everyone wonders about how other people are doing it. And everyone has definitely experienced an insecurity or two about it.

 

Every day I talk to people who want to know if the way they think about, feel about, and have sex is “normal,” people who want to know if maybe they’re “normal,” but maybe not their partner(s). It’s an understandable concern. And it’s a trap.

 

Who makes the rules about what is and isn’t ok for you if not… you? Why should you leave your sexual fulfillment (and any other fulfillment, for that matter) strictly in the hands of anyone else? If you want to masturbate twenty times a week, do it. If you want to have sex twice a month, go for it. If you want to act out a fantasy with a consenting partner, why not? The message here is this; if you’re ok with it and your partner is ok with it, then it’s ok… whatever “it” is.

 

I can almost hear some of your responses. “Really, though? Is this still true if I can pretty much only get off orally?”  “And what about my fantasy of forced sex in captivity? I know that can’t be ok.” “What if people have told me that I masturbate too much…?”

 

If you are bothered by some of your preferences, thoughts, and feelings about your sexuality it could be helpful for you to get a professional’s objective opinion. A useful indicator of what is and isn’t ok for you is the level of stress that it seems to impose. And what isn’t ok for you can change; you can gain comfort with some things and lose a taste for others.

 

Something that used to send you to the nearest exit might become part of your repertoire five, ten years down the road. It’s important to explore why something isn’t comfortable for you, why it makes you anxious, repulses you, or immobilizes you. Just as important is the exploration of why something excites you, turns you on, and fascinates you. (This is true for any aspect of life, but for many people, it seems to lose it’s voice when they think about applying it to sex.)

 

If group sex is your preference, but your partner doesn’t want anything to do with it who’s “more normal”? I think you know the answer to that. Both of you! So, what do you do with the space between? You talk about it. Talk honestly about yourself. Empathically ask your partner questions. Figure out how each of you wants to integrate aspects of the others’ sexuality into the relationship. Allow yourself to take the risk of being vulnerable.

 

You have more in common with others’ sexuality than you think. Often, a safe, open, and fluid dynamic with a partner can usher you into a new, wonderful plane of connectedness to your sexuality, to yourself. Who knows what’s waiting for you?!

 

There is no normal or abnormal sexuality. The only measurements exist within what’s ok for you and the space between what’s ok for you and your partner.

 

Still, have questions or concerns about something? Let’s see what we can figure out together.

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie

 

Decrease Arguments and Increase Understanding in Relationship

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Decrease Arguments and Increase Understanding in Relationship

A whole experience can be regarded as a trifecta of thinking, feeling, and doing. Every day, we all walk around and bump into others’ experiences with our own, and we create more experiences and the pattern continues. Sometimes, this pattern is incredibly pleasant, and we get to feel connected to others and resourced. Other times, the pattern is fiercely dangerous to our connection, and we feel myriad feelings such as sadness, anger, hurt, and resentment. How does this happen?

Most often, the reason people experience this painful part of the pattern is because they are not taking responsibility for each point in their trifecta- responsibility for their thoughts, their feelings, and their actions. They say things like, “Well, I wouldn’t have yelled at you if you had just done what I asked you to do in the first place,” or “I wouldn’t have dismissed your opinion if I felt like you respected mine.” They almost immediately give up their integrity to another (and then punish them for it).

You might be able to identify with this pattern. So, what can you do about it? For starters, you can figure out what you want. If what you want is to be happier, more connected to your loved ones, and more understood, then you can move onto the next step. If you want to be unhappy, disconnected and misunderstood… then, don’t change anything you’re doing.

The next step is to ask yourself some questions:

1) “Why did/am I do/doing that?”

2) “How was/am I feeling?”

3) “What was/am I thinking?”

Let’s say you’re in a heated conversation with someone and you throw out the ever-loved phrase, “I wouldn’t have _______________ if you hadn’t_________.
What are you trying to communicate? (Because, give yourself some credit; I’m pretty sure you don’t think that another person can control your actions.) So, what’s going on? Were your feelings hurt? Did you feel disappointed? Is there a resentment you’ve been carrying?

It’s tempting to blame your partner (or your friend, colleague, family member) for your thoughts, feelings, and or actions, but it’s inaccurate. It’s also tempting to presume you know what they are thinking and or feeling and let this inform your actions… again, though, inaccurate. Focus on what you’re feeling, what you’re thinking, and what you’re doing.

So, after you’ve uncovered your genuine feelings and thoughts, honestly communicate them to your loved one. You can even do it in the middle of a negative pattern- “I’m sorry I yelled at you. I’m feeling so frustrated because we’ve had three conversations about how you are going to start putting your shoes away yet I came home and tripped over them again. I have no idea why this keeps happening. It makes me wonder if you don’t care or don’t take it seriously or-?”

Conversations that are heavy on taking responsibility for your experience are much more productive and fulfilling than conversations that are heavy on blame and presumption. We all want to be understood, and we’re a lot more likely to increase our chances of this when we honestly communicate our experiences.

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie

Fighting for Control in Your Relationship?

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Fighting for Control in Your Relationship?

This is something a lot of couples negotiate throughout their relationships. What one person feels is common courtesy, someone else might interpret as controlling. Finding a middle ground here can be a challenge.

A lot of people can agree on some basic common courtesies. Things like, calling to say you’ll be late for dinner if someone is expecting you to be home at a specific time, filling up the gas tank after you’ve used someone else’s car, and setting your phone, work, or television show aside while someone is talking to you are all generally considered basic accommodations. But what about the specifics?

 

Much of the difference between common consideration and exerting control in a relationship lies within the intention of both members. Sometimes people aren’t aware of their intentions, and that has a tendency to obscure things. The more empathy you have for yourself and your loved one, the easier it will be to discern your true intention.

 

It’s helpful for both of you to be clear about your preferences so that you know where you stand in relationship to one another. When you’re both clear and honest about how you’d like your relationship to look, it can take some of the angst out of things. Generally, relationships feel more manageable the more everyone is aware of specific expectations.

 

Let’s take an innocuous example from what are usually basic agreements between people. Say you and your partner are watching TV, and you remember something you’ve wanted to ask them. Let’s say that you two have already talked about this kind of thing. You know that, since this is your partner’s favorite TV show, if the matter requires substantial discussion, they would appreciate your patience and waited until the program is over. If your question isn’t so pressing, your partner wouldn’t mind a quick pause in viewing for a brief discussion.

 

If one (or both!) of you experiences the other as controlling, there might be less flexibility in this scenario. Perhaps you’re not concerned with which program is on and you feel that you should be able to ask your question immediately. Maybe your partner doesn’t want to engage in any conversation, regardless of brevity, while watching TV and will not engage with you.

 

If this is the case, it might mean that some unmet needs have set up shop in your relationship. The more unresolved conflict you have about certain issues, however significant, the higher the chance of resentment clouding the communication happening between one another. If you dread bringing this up for discussion with your partner, the chances are slim that the resentment will resolve itself. Resentment doesn’t care whether you’re the one in the relationship who feels controlled or the one who is being held responsible for exerting control; both sides feel angry that they’re not getting their needs met.

 

It’s easy to see how couples can become polarized on certain issues. When that happens, both people dig in their heels, and the last thing they would do is back down. Subjects that started out as a matter of common courtesy start to feel more like issues of control. You can find soothing relief when both of you share your experience of what feels courteous and what feels controlling.

 

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie

 

Secrets to Managing Defensiveness in Relationship

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Secrets to Managing Defensiveness in Relationship

Partner A: “Ok… look at this mess! I thought you said you were going to do the dishes?!”
Partner B: “Do you have any idea what kind of day I’ve had? I don’t need this right now.”
Partner A: “Well, I wouldn’t have to yell at you about it if you’d just do them in the first place.”
Partner B: “You don’t have to yell at me at all. If it bothers you that much why don’t you just do them yourself or stop looking at them or something. You make it so much worse for yourself.”
(Cue: explosion)

 

When you express your feelings to someone, you feel better when they respond with something along the lines of, “I don’t think I could care any less than I do right now,” right? Nope. You’re absolutely right. When you tell someone how you feel, it’s usually because you’re hoping that the two of you will connect in some way.

 

There are plenty of ways to communicate feelings, some more provocative than others. The provocative deliveries can make it tempting to snap back with a defensive answer. Even calm approaches to expressing feelings can be met with a defensive response. Bottom line- it’s not that hard to become defensive.

 

Statements used in defense can be made with a few different undertones- criticism, deflection, blame, contempt, and rejection. They convey ideas like; “You’re wrong for feeling like this,” “My experience is more important than yours,” “Your dissatisfaction is your fault,” “Your needs make me angry,” and “This is your problem. Deal with it”. These are tough ideas to sit with, especially when you’re sharing your feelings.

 

I’m not saying it’s ideal to come home from a long day and be met with instant need; I know most of us would rather relax. It’s also not ideal to get into an argument and feel disconnected from your partner. Defensiveness is an efficient way to engage an argument and reduce intimacy!

 

So, what can you do instead? For starters, you can take a few moments before you answer. Think about what they might be experiencing. Do they seem overwhelmed? Insecure? Lonely? Scared? Understanding the need that someone is communicating to you can make it a little easier to respond with empathy.

 

Partner A: “Ok… look at this mess! I thought you said you were going to do the dishes?!”
Partner B: “You’re right; I did. I’m sorry I haven’t done them yet. I had such a long day that all I wanted to do is come home and relax.”
Partner A: “My days are long, too. We still have to help out; otherwise, things start to pile up.”
Partner B: “I guess I didn’t really think about the impact it has on you.”
Partner A: “Sorry I attacked you. I’ve just been feeling so overwhelmed…”
Partner B: “I definitely don’t want to add to that. I guess we’ve both been feeling overwhelmed.”

 

A little empathy can go a long way. While this conversation isn’t over, it is on the right track. By being open to what your partner is trying to tell you, you create a safe place for both of you to express challenges without blame or judgment.

 

Dealing with challenges can be scary and assuaging fear is a lot easier to do in an environment of empathy. Ditch the defense.

 

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie

 

Learn How to Be More Assertive

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Learn How to Be More Assertive

If you’ve ever enlisted the “disappearing act” method as a way to put some space between you and another person, I get it. When you feel like you might need some time away from someone, want to end a relationship, or change a relationship dynamic it can be anxiety producing; speaking up for yourself can feel tricky. Sometimes we’d all rather slink away to avoid conflict.

Now and then, everyone thinks that addressing a relationship issue might result in too many hurt feelings, a knock-down-drag-out argument, or something ambiguously scary. It can be tempting to stay silent and hope it resolves itself. It’s my experience, though, that problems tend not to fix themselves and that, the longer they’re left unmanaged, the more overwhelming they can seem.

There are some things you can do to effectively express what you need from a relationship without becoming invisible and without feeling like your only other alternative is to drape yourself in aggression and hostility. Putting these things to use will help you to feel more grounded as you organize your thoughts about your experience and think about what you’d like to convey. Eventually, while speaking up for yourself might feel slightly uncomfortable in certain situations, it won’t feel as unavailable to you.

The first step to take is to explore your experience. The idea here is to gain awareness of your feelings about the situation and how they connect to your thoughts and actions. This will help you to trust yourself.

For example, let’s say you want some space in a friendship. You love your friend very much and value the relationship, and you also feel overwhelmed by the various goings on in your life. Perhaps you’re afraid to tell the friend that you can’t help them as often as they ask or that you can’t spend as much time hanging out and talking on the phone with them. Because you’re afraid to communicate this, you might continue doing things that you don’t have a chance to do. By overextending yourself, you might begin to resent your friend’s requests and experience the friend as overbearing. Maybe you start to exert less effort in the help that you lend, continue to make plans with the friend but begin to break them.

Be curious about why you’re afraid to say that you need space; what are you afraid will happen? Why would you rather overextend yourself? What do these things mean to you? As you become more aware of your feelings, you will begin to trust your experience. You will feel more secure in creating a more desirable situation for yourself.

The second step is to take the information you’ve acquired and use it to clarify the choices available to you. Will you choose to talk to your friend? Will you choose to let your resentment grow? Gaining awareness of your choices helps you to feel more empowered. When you feel empowered, you feel less inclined to suffer silently, quietly disengage from the relationship, or engage in aggressive behavior. This sense of empowerment will give you comfort when you address the situation.

The third step is to show up in an authentic way. If you’re nervous to express how you’re feeling, let the person know. Be honest about what this experience is like for you, about your fear of what might happen. However they manifest, these feelings will surface at some point, and they are so much more manageable (and a lot less scary) when you address them as you become aware of them.

Standing up for yourself can be scary, but you can effectively say what you need to in an empathic and satisfying way.

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie

Will Couples Therapy Save Your Relationship?

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Will Couples Therapy Save Your Relationship?

Pretty frequently, people ask me if I think couples therapy can “save” their relationship. Most of the time, with this question, what people are asking me is if they’ll be ok. People want to know that, no matter what the outcome, they will thrive.

There are many issues that drive couples to seek therapy or counsel. Sometimes couples feel that they have drifted apart and aren’t feeling as connected as they’d like. Sometimes couples come to me after some breach of trust; infidelity, financial mismanagement, and manifestations of addiction are common problems. Here, the common thread is an overall gap in understanding either partner’s experience.

Somewhere in the relationship, it became difficult to be honest with the other (and, frequently, with oneself). Feelings, needs, and experiences went unspoken, behaviors changed, and a felt sense of connection waned. Maybe this happened pretty early on in the relationship. Maybe it happened after careers and kids and the routine ebb and flow of life. Understandably, a lot of couples fear the implications of this disturbance in their connection so, they try to ignore it and hope it goes away.

More often than not, these problems don’t just disappear. It’s more common for issues to pick up speed and feel increasingly out of control. Quickly, things can feel incredibly not ok.

Sometimes it’s a matter of helping a couple shift how they manage conflict, increasing empathy, and fostering a sense of openness to one other. Other times, couples find that they are not well-matched. In this case, the goal is to explore the couple’s options. Is it better for everyone involved if the couple separates or divorces? Is a negotiation conceivable? No matter what the solution, a shift in an intimate relationship can feel scary and unpredictable.

Couples therapy can be an invaluable tool that helps couples overcome their fear, relational obstacles, and doubt. It can help couples get to a place in the relationship where they feel solid and held by one another. And it can help them get to a place of acceptance if the most appropriate solution is to part ways. Couples can find hope and comfort regardless of their decision to separate or stay together.

When a couple comes in for therapy, both members have been experiencing significant pain and distress. It can feel like an immediate decision must be made. One or both members often feel overwhelmed and are searching for a solution that will bring them soothing and relief. It’s best to slow things down. We are most successful in the decision-making process when we have the most comprehensive information; it takes time to acquire the necessary information.

Useful coping techniques are available to every couple so that they can find stability and resource in-between sessions. No matter what a couple’s instigating problem, there are exercises they can practice that will provide containment of overwhelming feelings, enlightenment about a particular issue, and increased patience. Couples therapy won’t definitively “save” a relationship, but it will foster safety, organization, and hope for whatever is to come. You will be ok.

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie

No, You Are Not A “Sex Addict”

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No, You Are Not A “Sex Addict”

We all think about sex. Most of us, who are able, masturbate. Sometimes we masturbate to porn; sometimes we don’t. We’ve all experienced some dissatisfaction with our sexuality. Many of us want to enjoy sexual adventure in some way. A lot of us have even damaged relationships or put ourselves at risk as a result of poor decisions we’ve made about sex. And many of us are ashamed of and secretive about aspects of our sexuality.

Much of the information about sex addiction encourages you to believe that you’re a sex addict if you have sex in a way that looks or seems different than the way members of the mainstream population report that they have sex. If you frequent swing clubs or parties, enjoy a particular role-play, or pursue sexually adventurous experiences you could be labeled “sex addict.” Someone else is uncomfortable with your sexual expression so that must mean your behavior’s pathological. Right?

Obviously (or, perhaps, not-so-obviously), not everyone is a “sex addict.” So, with such broad (and subjective) parameters, how can you tell who’s a sex addict and who’s not? Let me clear it up for you. You are not a sex addict.

This doesn’t mean you are free from pain related to your sexuality. It doesn’t mean that you don’t have aspects of your sexuality which you have attempted to change, but didn’t sustain, and it definitely doesn’t mean that you don’t regret choices you have made about the expression of your sexuality (and the consequences that followed). Any and all of this can be true; you’re still not a sex addict. You don’t have to swear off casual sex, fetish, polyamory, sex with sex workers, masturbation, or porn forever.

Human sexuality is an expression of ourselves, how we feel, what we think, what we have interpreted from information received. Not limited to behavior, sexuality includes thoughts and feelings. There are reasons connected to why someone likes to incorporate S/M into their sexual relationships, why someone else likes to have sex in complete darkness, why someone takes risks with their safety while seeking out or engaging in sexual activity, why different people enjoy different types of porn, and why someone is turned on by one thing the same way someone else finds said element a complete turn-off. None of these people are “wrong” or “addicted to sex” or “bad.”

There are various occasions for which someone might seek treatment regarding sexuality. The treatment is not for sexual addiction, but rather, a guided inquiry into the desired sex life (and why), the current sex life (and why), and insight into what someone can do to create resolution. Sometimes the aim of treatment is to help them understand and accept their sexuality. Other times, the aim is to help someone understand and negotiate their sexuality, incorporate more flexibility to decrease distress and increase health and satisfaction.

Sometimes sexual dissatisfaction can be identified as sexual dysfunction. There are times when it is seen as a symptom of another condition, biological or neurological issues, or things like depression, anxiety, trauma, grief, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and beyond. Sometimes the dissatisfaction is a manifestation of an unfulfilled need to connect, a quest for empathy, or a way to find soothing. The work is to explore why someone does what they do, what it means to them, and where to go from here.

Treatment for sexual discontentment is a way for you to gain understanding about yourself, learn how to accept your desires and needs and make any changes needed to improve your life and your relationships.

If you would like more clarification about this, please contact me.

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie