Latest / The Love Drive with Shaun Galanos / Can awkward sex be improved?

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Can awkward sex be improved? · The Love Drive with Shaun Galanos

• 0:00
  I think that sexual compatibility can be built, it's
• 0:07
  not always just found. And I would watch for his
• 0:13
  openness, not his current skill, especially if there are other
• 0:20
  things that you really love about him.
• 0:38
  What's up, Cuties? OK, I am going to start this
• 0:41
  episode with a reading by Young Pueblo from his book Clarity and
• 0:47
  Connection, which was sitting on a night stand, and they started
• 0:50
  reading it. It's a New York Times
• 0:51
  bestseller, and I was struck by this passage, which is
• 0:56
  illustrative of what I'm going through right now, and maybe
• 0:59
  what some of you are going through as well.
• 1:02
  There may be times when you feel like a lot of what you've
• 1:04
  understood no longer makes sense.
• 1:07
  This might make you feel as though you have regressed, but
• 1:10
  it is actually a sign that you're opening new space for
• 1:13
  deeper wisdom and greater perception.
• 1:16
  When your previous understandings disintegrate,
• 1:18
  they are not always immediately replaced by better or deeper
• 1:22
  understandings. When you take your growth
• 1:24
  seriously, you will often find yourself in this in between
• 1:27
  state. It's OK to live without clear
• 1:30
  answers. Growth is not about forcing
• 1:32
  understanding. It is about allowing it to grow
• 1:35
  organically. That's where I'm at right now in
• 1:38
  a lot of parts of my life, in a lot of areas.
• 1:42
  I feel like a lot of what I used to know about love, about
• 1:45
  relationships, about myself, I don't know anymore.
• 1:49
  I don't know if any of that stuff applies anymore.
• 1:54
  And it's it's leaving me in, you know what young Pueblo describes
• 1:58
  as an in between state, right? A liminal state, a transitional
• 2:03
  state. And it's uncomfortable to feel
• 2:07
  this, to be in this place because I want to feel grounded
• 2:11
  and I want to feel rooted and I want to feel sure about myself,
• 2:15
  about what I'm doing, about my capacities, about how I show up
• 2:18
  in relationships. And right now, I don't feel
• 2:22
  that. I feel like there is a lot of
• 2:25
  turmoil in this transition, in this part of my life right now.
• 2:28
  And you might feel that too, right?
• 2:30
  You might be in a relationship that just no longer makes sense
• 2:34
  to you anymore. How you understood your
• 2:36
  relationship doesn't make sense. And maybe you're ready for
• 2:40
  something new new. And you don't know what that
• 2:42
  looks like. And that's scary.
• 2:43
  Maybe that's what's happening in your career.
• 2:46
  You don't feel fulfilled anymore.
• 2:47
  You don't understand yourself anymore.
• 2:50
  Maybe you're you're feeling this about you, about your inner
• 2:54
  world. Things don't make sense.
• 2:57
  And perhaps, hopefully there's a deeper wisdom, right?
• 3:01
  We're transcending this current level of your existence, your
• 3:09
  relational capacity, your creative life, but you're not
• 3:13
  there yet. And so it's uncomfortable.
• 3:16
  That's where I'm at. If you asked me what love is
• 3:20
  right now, I would have a really hard time to describe it.
• 3:23
  And and maybe that's OK, right? Like because how vast is love
• 3:28
  then? How hard is it to describe?
• 3:30
  Sometimes it's as simple as saying, oh, it's love is showing
• 3:33
  up for another person and not allowing yourself to be seen.
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  OK? Or love is the willingness to
• 3:39
  grow and sit with and show up for others.
• 3:45
  OK, but right now there's a there's a lot I don't know and
• 3:49
  there's some discomfort there. I will also share a little bit
• 3:54
  vulnerably that this has been a hard time for me.
• 3:59
  These last few weeks specifically have been probably
• 4:03
  the hardest couple weeks that I've experienced in about a
• 4:06
  year. I am coming up on a lot of
• 4:09
  family of origin stuff, attachment wounds.
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  I am feeling a lot of younger tender parts inside that are
• 4:20
  taking over that are screaming for attention.
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  I've been feeling more anxiety and panic than I have in a long
• 4:27
  time. I have started taking
• 4:29
  antidepressants, which some of you know, I've always struggled
• 4:33
  with the idea of taking antidepressants.
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  And I think it got to the point where I really needed some
• 4:38
  support. And so I'm on two weeks.
• 4:43
  No, it's like a week and a half now.
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  So it's, you know, all I'm feeling are the onset sort of
• 4:48
  like side effects, which was like, funnily enough, an
• 4:51
  increase in anxiety and panic and restlessness, trouble
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  sleeping, night sweats, not fun. But I'm committed to sticking
• 5:02
  through this so that I can maybe get a little bit of space from
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  all of this overwhelm. I mean, I'm in a huge
• 5:08
  transition. I don't have a fixed place to
• 5:10
  live yet. I'm working on that.
• 5:12
  I'm so close, so close. In the next couple months, I
• 5:15
  should have some good news for you all that I'm not at liberty
• 5:18
  to disclose. I'm getting reconnected to the
• 5:23
  support systems that I have available to me in San
• 5:25
  Francisco. I'm meeting with a new
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  therapist, still grappling with the loss of my dog and my dad,
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  questioning whether it's time to Plan B for my career and what
• 5:43
  that would look like. So lots and lots and lots of
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  uncertainty. And I felt it important to share
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  that with you, mainly because I can't help myself.
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  I literally cannot help myself to share like what is
• 6:00
  authentically happening for me. It's just so hard.
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  I can't just pretend like all this shit isn't happening and
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  isn't affecting me so deeply. Oh, also, you know how hard it
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  is to show up on social media when you're not doing well?
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  I mean, some of you probably know.
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  I'm feeling like I don't want to be seen in this.
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  I'm feeling insecurities and it's hard to pretend like that's
• 6:25
  not happening. And I don't want to.
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  I don't want to because I think I have worn a mask of everything
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  is OK for a long time. And people say, hey, how you
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  doing? I go fine man, how are you?
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  And I've started saying, woof, not good, not good.
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  Today. I remember getting coffee last
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  week and this, the barista was like, hey, how you doing?
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  I said not good, not good, but I'll have a cortado.
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  You know, I don't have to pretend like I'm OK.
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  And I have moments of deeply, you know, being deeply not OK.
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  And then moments where I'm fine, you know, it's ebb and flow.
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  I'm feeling hopeful that these antidepressants will give me a
• 6:59
  little bit of space. Live laugh, Lexapro, that's what
• 7:02
  they say. So we'll see.
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  You know, the, the reality is that like for the last couple
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  years, or maybe even my whole life, I don't think I've ever
• 7:10
  really felt a sense of like thriving.
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  And that's OK. I think like, you know, Thrive,
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  I'm barely trying to survive. I'm just trying to survive.
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  What do you mean thrive? And some people just like, you
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  know, Thrive. But we also live in this world
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  where it's like, just do it, you know, pull yourself up by your
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  bootstraps, slap a smile on your face.
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  Let's go. Let's just get through this day.
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  And I think that's pretty harmful to who we really are as
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  people, right? Like deeply sensitive, deeply
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  feeling tender humans. Not everybody's like this.
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  Some people just are happy go lucky, you know, like they just
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  are always on the like looking on the bright side and like, I
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  don't know. But you know, God bless them
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  because we also do need people like that to sort of keep the
• 8:00
  world going. But pretending like everything
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  is OK when it's not. It's not something that I am
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  invested in doing anymore. And sure, sometimes you just
• 8:11
  have, you just have to like, you know, put it aside and get shit
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  done right? Take care of your kids, go to
• 8:17
  work, show up for your aging parents.
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  But we don't have to slap a smile on when it's not authentic
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  to do so. So anyways, that's the update.
• 8:31
  Maybe some of you can relate. OK, we have a question today.
• 8:35
  I leaked it a couple weeks ago and I'm excited to answer it, so
• 8:38
  here it is. Hey Sean, I've been following
• 8:44
  your content for the past year and a half and I'm so grateful
• 8:48
  to have discovered you. So first of all, thank you.
• 8:52
  You've inspired me to be more open and authentic and real in
• 8:56
  how I express myself, and I just really appreciate you.
• 9:00
  My question is in regards to a new person I've been on a
• 9:04
  handful of dates with. There has been a lot of ease in
• 9:07
  our connection and we have a lot in common and I see long term
• 9:11
  compatibility with him, but the intimacy that has unfolded
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  between us has felt awkward. I can tell that he's nervous and
• 9:20
  in his head. We've had very different
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  relational experiences. I have mostly been single and
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  involved in shorter term relationships during my adult
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  life, giving me a lot of exposure to different people and
• 9:34
  types of sexual encounters and I would say I feel fairly
• 9:38
  comfortable with my sexuality and it's something that's
• 9:41
  important to me in a relationship.
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  He got out of a 15 year relationship and has only been
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  with a few other people prior to that when he was younger, and it
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  sounds like their sex life was strained by the tension in their
• 9:56
  relationship and there wasn't a lot of exploration.
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  I've encountered this before with men over the age of 40 who
• 10:05
  were in long term relationships where intimacy never deepened,
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  and I have found that their sexuality almost seems stunted
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  and immature. I'm wondering if this is
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  workable. He seems open minded and
• 10:18
  interested in exploring, but I can tell he feels uncomfortable
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  and nervous at the same time. How long do I give this to
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  develop? Do you have suggestions for
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  inviting intimacy and creating an environment that feels safe
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  for us to explore this? I've already opened up the
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  conversation with him, but I also don't want to make things
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  worse. Curious to hear your thoughts.
• 10:40
  Thank you, Andrea. I love this question so much, so
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  much and it's very rich. There's a lot here.
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  I say give it some time, right? Especially when there's a lot of
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  points of compatibility and there's, you know, 1 area that
• 10:55
  needs a little bit of extra attention.
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  Like what a, what a gift, what a gift.
• 11:00
  You know, I will also point out that, you know, if you've been
• 11:03
  mostly single in your adult life, there are going to be some
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  areas in this relationship where you might feel a little
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  inexperienced. You use the word stunted.
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  I I prefer inexperienced. So there may be some things that
• 11:18
  he goes, oh, wow, that was a little awkward with her, right.
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  If you guys do spend more time together and ends up being a
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  little bit more of a longer relationship.
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  So you're both going to bring areas of expertise and areas of
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  development that could be pretty compatible in terms of like,
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  I'll help you through this if you help me through that.
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  So that's a, that's one thing that I noticed.
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  The other thing is that it's nice when the sex is just
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  compatible from the get go. It's nice.
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  It's easy, you know, it's easy, but you know, you can't have
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  everything. You can't have everything be
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  easy from the get go, you know, because it's unrealistic.
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  There's going to be points of friction, and a lot of things
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  can be worked out if both parties are willing to.
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  It's different if he's nervous and shut down.
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  If he shuts down when he gets nervous, OK, that's going to be
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  tricky and you might not want to stick around for that.
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  But if he gets curious when he's nervous and he's open, then you
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  have someone who's willing to play and who's willing to learn
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  and who's willing to grow. I will say that I'm not
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  advocating for you to be a coach or a teacher in this scenario,
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  but as the person who has a little bit more experience,
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  yeah, it's going to fall on you to sort of lead a little bit
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  more or to guide or to give a little bit of advice.
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  So we're not fixing him as a project.
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  We're inviting him into a new way of being.
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  I think that's beautiful. In my experience, I have had
• 13:04
  multiple relationships where the sex was a little awkward at 1st
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  and it got better over time because the intimacy deepened,
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  because we got more playful, because we got more vulnerable,
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  because we had more conversations.
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  And so I absolutely think that sometimes putting in the reps is
• 13:24
  what is going to lead to a better connection between you. 2
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  I've said this before, if you've never played tennis before and
• 13:32
  you start playing tennis, you're going to be really bad at
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  tennis. But the more you play, the
• 13:36
  better you get. And that's with anything
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  communicating your desires, your boundaries, saying no, asking
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  for what you want, sitting with difficult emotions, trying new
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  things, learning new skills, a new career, being a parent,
• 13:52
  being an uncle. Anything that you don't have a
• 13:55
  lot of experience with can get better over time if you do it
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  more and it makes sense. I mean, he's just out of a 15
• 14:04
  year relationship and he's probably smitten and he's, you
• 14:07
  know, man, he's having sex with a new person for the first time
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  in 15 years. I would expect him to feel a
• 14:14
  little awkward. I would expect him to be a
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  little nervous. And that can be sweet.
• 14:20
  His nervousness is just a little bit of information about how
• 14:23
  he's showing up, but doesn't have to, we don't have to
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  pathologize it as, oh, he's immature, he's stunted or, you
• 14:29
  know, incapable of showing up in this way, right?
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  So some things that you might do, you might lower the stakes a
• 14:36
  little bit and not assign meaning to his nervousness.
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  You might have some conversations about this outside
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  of the bedroom. You might be specific in the
• 14:47
  moment about what you're wanting and looking for.
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  You might make room for fumbling and bring laughter and play into
• 14:56
  sex making. You might slow it down.
• 15:00
  You might choose to look at this differently.
• 15:03
  I think that sexual compatibility can be built.
• 15:10
  It's not always just found, and I would watch for his openness,
• 15:18
  not his current skill, especially if there are other
• 15:23
  things that you really love about him.
• 15:25
  The reality is that some people are just have way more
• 15:28
  experience with sex than others, and that's fun, right?
• 15:32
  Like, two people who are experiencing sex can sync up
• 15:35
  pretty quickly, but when there's a mismatching experience,
• 15:39
  sometimes it's going to take a little bit longer.
• 15:41
  So enjoy it, you know, put in some reps and see what happens.
• 15:44
  That's my suggestion to you. I had a question recently that
• 15:49
  was about like, do you think there are bad kissers or can you
• 15:52
  teach someone to kiss better? And I've had multiple
• 15:57
  experiences, once with a girlfriend, where our kisses
• 16:02
  were just so incompatible. And I was like, what the hell is
• 16:07
  going on here? Am I weird or are they weird?
• 16:10
  Who's weird here? And maybe it, it wasn't about
• 16:13
  being weird, it was just different.
• 16:15
  I think she was weird actually. But however, OK, hold on, I'm
• 16:21
  going on a tangent, but I'm going to, I'm going to try to
• 16:22
  land this plane first. It took us two weeks for us our
• 16:26
  kisses to sync up, and then they became incredible.
• 16:29
  So I think you can just stick with it and it will solve itself
• 16:36
  on its own #1 #2 I think there is a way to give feedback on
• 16:42
  kissing. Like, oh hey, I prefer it a
• 16:45
  little bit softer or a little less tongue at first.
• 16:49
  Or I'm curious where your tongue was in that one.
• 16:52
  You know, like have you ever had it open mouth kiss with someone
• 16:56
  and their their tongue is like nowhere to be seen.
• 16:58
  It's so weird. I've had that a couple times,
• 17:00
  but I didn't like them enough to like, you know, get curious
• 17:03
  around what was happening there. But that's a weird thing.
• 17:06
  So I think there is room for giving feedback, especially
• 17:10
  we're not even giving feedback, but sharing what you like.
• 17:13
  Oh, I prefer a softer kiss. I prefer a harder kiss.
• 17:16
  I, I like it when you put your hand on my face or on the back
• 17:19
  of my neck. I like it when you come in
• 17:21
  slowly and not so forcefully. Or I like it when you come in
• 17:25
  more forcefully, more confidently, if that's something
• 17:28
  you're able to do right. So I think there is room for
• 17:33
  sharing what what you like, what makes sense for you.
• 17:37
  I mean, I guess this this applies to everything,
• 17:39
  especially lovemaking, right? Lovemaking, sex.
• 17:44
  Also asking for what you want in bed is not the most obvious
• 17:48
  thing. Only the most sex positive of
• 17:51
  people have a lot of experience in talking about their desires
• 17:56
  and their boundaries, what they like, what they don't like, how
• 18:00
  to touch them. How do you want to be touched?
• 18:02
  Like that stuff is, is awkward because there's a lot of shame
• 18:06
  around sex, right? It's, it's a private thing that
• 18:08
  we don't really talk about. But but some, it's something
• 18:11
  that everybody really wants to talk about, but they just don't
• 18:13
  feel comfortable doing it. And I think the longer you don't
• 18:18
  talk about sex with your partner or partners, the harder it is to
• 18:23
  talk about sex. It's just, it's just harder when
• 18:25
  you don't have a lot of experience.
• 18:27
  It's like tennis again, right? So the more you do it, the
• 18:29
  better you get at it. And that includes talking about
• 18:32
  sex, about kissing, about what you like, about what you don't
• 18:34
  like, about what mood you're in, what would feel good, what would
• 18:36
  be exciting. And it's fun too.
• 18:39
  You know, it's fun to talk about this stuff.
• 18:41
  It can be fun if we can kind of just drop the, the, the story or
• 18:46
  the shame or the embarrassment or the ego or whatever's
• 18:49
  blocking you from having these conversations.
• 18:53
  So, yeah, I think the sex can improve.
• 18:55
  I think kissing can improve. If you're doing it with someone
• 18:58
  that you like, that you care about, that you want to improve
• 19:02
  with, it would be so unfortunate.
• 19:05
  And Andrea, I'm talking to you again.
• 19:06
  If you found this dude that you really liked.
• 19:09
  I mean, you asked this question a couple weeks ago.
• 19:11
  Who knows if you guys are still together.
• 19:12
  But it would be so unfortunate if you found someone that you
• 19:15
  really liked and that we let something like other sex is kind
• 19:19
  of awkward to get in the way of really building something
• 19:23
  incredible together. I think we're we can be quick to
• 19:27
  dismiss people, especially nowadays where it kind of feels
• 19:30
  like to a certain degree, it kind of feels like there's an
• 19:33
  unlimited amount of people that we could be dating or hooking up
• 19:36
  with or what not because of dating apps.
• 19:39
  But in the in reality, I don't think there are that many people
• 19:43
  that you are compatible with that would be a good partner.
• 19:47
  I mean, yeah, in the whole world probably.
• 19:49
  But like the likelihood of you running into those people is
• 19:51
  very slim in your day-to-day. And I know that some of you are
• 19:54
  really struggling to just meet a person to even go on a date
• 19:57
  with, right, let alone having options.
• 20:00
  So when you meet somebody and it's good, it's not perfect,
• 20:04
  it's not great. I mean, it's great.
• 20:06
  Sometimes there are challenges. There are boxes that are not
• 20:10
  ticked. You're coming up on some stuff
• 20:13
  that is really hard for you to look at.
• 20:15
  I'm speaking to myself right now.
• 20:17
  I think it's worth doing the work.
• 20:19
  Whether it's a hard conversation, whether it's
• 20:22
  sitting with discomfort, whether it's telling somebody how much
• 20:25
  you like them and sitting with the fear of what that that
• 20:29
  entails. Whether it's committing to to
• 20:32
  someone and and you have a pattern of not committing,
• 20:36
  whether it's choosing someone that is a little outside of your
• 20:38
  type. But gosh, they, they really make
• 20:42
  you smile. I think it's worth giving it a
• 20:45
  shot. And worst case, what happens, it
• 20:47
  doesn't work out. And you learn, you learn stuff
• 20:49
  about yourself. You get to grow, you get to
• 20:52
  allow it to happen organically. You sit in this in between state
• 20:56
  of not knowing how it's going to pan out, what it's going to look
• 21:00
  like. Can you live without clear
• 21:03
  answers about whether I can stay with this person who is a little
• 21:08
  sexually awkward or who doesn't meet my needs in a particular
• 21:13
  way that I think is really important, or who pushes your
• 21:16
  buttons inadvertently because we all have them?
• 21:22
  Growth is not about forcing understanding.
• 21:24
  It is about allowing it to grow organically.
• 21:27
  So I hope that was helpful. Personally speaking, I am.
• 21:33
  I'm just going to sit in this space waiting for deeper wisdom
• 21:39
  and greater perception because I don't know what else to do.
• 21:41
  The next solo episode is all about love.
• 21:46
  A caller left a message feeling confused about love, about
• 21:52
  saying I love you to their previous partner for years, then
• 21:56
  realizing that maybe that wasn't love.
• 21:59
  Did she ever really have it even though she was saying it and
• 22:02
  she's confused and she wants to know what is love?
• 22:06
  And guess what? I'm confused.
• 22:07
  Also, I'm a love coach hosting a podcast called the love Drive
• 22:12
  and I am confused about love. And I wonder if you might be
• 22:17
  confused about love as well. And maybe you're listening to
• 22:20
  this because you're curious and you want to know more about this
• 22:25
  kind of the greatest thing in life and sometimes the scariest.
• 22:30
  I've been going back to a a meetings and someone said most
• 22:35
  of your actions are either out of love or out of fear.
• 22:38
  And I want mine to be out of love, not out of fear.
• 22:41
  So I would love to hear from you.
• 22:44
  What is love to you? Send me an e-mail podcast at the
• 22:48
  love dr.com. Send me a text or leave a
• 22:50
  message at 415-494-9559. And I hope you have a beautiful
• 22:56
  week. Take good care.