An Intimate Session with Esther Perel.

I was super nervous before I did this interview, but as soon as I hopped on the call, all that faded and I was completely electrified by the wisdom of Esther Perel!

You know how when someone speaks with such inspiration, you just want to scream, “YES! YES! YES!”

And jump through your computer screen to hug them?

(And, if you are me, jump around wildly for no reason in a bit of giddy joy…)

Well, that’s how I felt during this interview with Esther Perel.

We covered all sorts of awesome stuff like:

• How to keep passion and attraction alive in a long-term relationship
• The real key to healing from sexual trauma
• Next-level relationships and how to keep things fresh and sexy

But more than anything else, you’ll just feel alive after watching this. Enjoy!

Transcript:

An Intimate Session with Esther Perel

Welcome. Today, I’m super excited. We’re going to have an amazing discussion with the Esther Perel and she is a speaker, an author, she’s a sexual therapist. And when I first encountered her work, I was given her book and I was reading it on the subway in New York city.

And it was one of those books where every word was like magic. Like my brain was just going off with inspiration and ideas, and I really felt one of those powerful shifts that comes from visionary ideas. And I would be sitting on the subway and getting so excited. I’d want to knock the guy next to me and be like, oh my God, you have to check this out. You have to read this.

And it was so beautiful. Her perspectives were just so game changing. And you know, we’ve been living with sexual ideas, a perspective on sexuality that’s like hundreds and hundreds of years old. And so to have a true visionary that is, you know, helping us step into a more enlightened, more awakened perspective on sexuality and to be able to have her here speaking with us is just such a deep honor. So thank you so much, Esther, for being here.

It’s my pleasure. Really? <laugh> I can see you on the New York subway. You know, <laugh> my first question is always, did you keep the cover or did you take the cover off?

Oh, I totally kept the cover. That’s my style. <laugh> and it’s like, I’m always more committed to a book if it’s a hard book instead of a Kindle. So I was like, this is going to be like a real book, this reading

<laugh> and then one of my boys would come home and said there was a woman reading your book on the train.

Amazing. So one of my first questions, um, was like, I feel like for all of us, when it comes to experiencing desire, allowing ourselves to have desire, um, that it makes a lot of sense to look at what did I get taught about desire or what did I see growing up? And then what actually serves me, like, how do I want to relate to desire now in my life? And what really touched me about your story was how your parents actually influenced you and what sounded like a really beautiful way. So could you share more about that and what they showed you about embracing life?

First of all, thank you for starting me up on that question. Uh, it’s also the more, the more personal question, but very clearly, once you put desire as the central organizing principle in sexuality, you separate sex from eroticism and you talk no longer just about sex as something we do, but sex as a place where we go and a place where we connect to parts of ourselves that express themselves, that manifest through sexuality, to touch, to sensuality through the sensory experience, to an experience of aliveness of vibrancy, to playfulness.

And that’s so different from the typical sexual imagery and text that we get that is very genitally focused, performance driven outcome based. You know, it happened because somebody had an orgasm more often him and it ends because he goes to sleep and, uh, that narrow constricting story is what desire changes, because desire, you know, you can have sex and feel nothing.

Women have done this for centuries. When we speak desire, you talk about owning the wanting, you’re talking about showing up, you’re talking about the pursuit towards someone that you want to invite and that you want to come visit. And that is a whole different erotic experience in which the act may happen, doesn’t have to happen at all, but it is very, very sexual and sensual.

My parents, what they, who I have absolutely zero idea if they ever had sex, except I know they had me and my brother, this is not something we talked about. It was not at all a sexual home in that sense. And I came 12 years after my brother. So, you know, uh, either there was a lot of it and it didn’t reproduce either. There wasn’t much of it. I leave, I’ve never asked. And I think that certain things are left unsaid, but what they did show me is the difference between not feeling dead and feeling alive and they experienced massive trauma.

And I know that you have worked a lot with sexual abuse and with sexual trauma. So it is translatable when you’ve been wounded, when you’ve been dehumanized, when you’ve been violated, when somebody has used you, has exploited you, be it in a concentration camp, like the Germans did to my parents, or be it in your personal experience, you struggle to come back.

And some of us come back and just have survived, but we are not alive. And some of us have been able to come back to life. And that implies being playful again, taking risks, being creative, daring, which is different from just being safe. And that’s what takes us into the world of the erotic.

Woo. So my follow-on question for that, because what I found in my work is that people think that the hardest thing is facing the trauma, facing the fear, facing the numbness. But I have actually seen that people have a much harder time saying yes to their desires and saying yes to their pleasures. Why do you think it can be so challenging for us to say yes to the things that we want so much and we know feel so good when we allow them?

Because somewhere underneath some of us continue to feel like damaged goods, because somewhere underneath we feel we are not worthy because somewhere underneath we feel that if somebody treated us this way, we must have deserved to be treated this way.

And because to experience desire requires to experience a basic sense of self-worth because if desire is what I want, then there needs to be an “I” who deserves to want, and that “I” needs to feel worthy enough to have wants. And more importantly, that “I” needs to trust that there is someone who actually would not only be willing, but would relish meeting your wants.

That is the encounter of pleasure is that I allow you to give to me, or I allow myself to ask you to ask you, and I believe underneath that I’m important enough. I matter enough, you care about me enough. I’m worthy of feeling good and without having to work for it without having to deserve it, just because I am just for the simple fact that I exist and that I’m as good a person as the next for you to want me and for me to feel desirable, lovable, and desirable at the essential preconditions to desirable desire.

Mm. I love that. And what I’m hearing is that it’s a shift as well away from, especially for women, but I think a lot of people do this. They hang their worthiness and their lovability on the success of their relationship. So is my relationship working equals, am I worthy? Or am I lovable? Correct? What I hear from you is actually it’s how do I allow myself to feel worthy? How do I fee,l source that love from within and that putting the focus there first and foremost, then actually translates into the healthier relationship. So it’s almost like we’ve got it backwards somehow.

So I’ll give you an example just of this morning where, you know, it starts with the man goes away. He happens to be in heterosexual couple. The man goes away. He takes a trip and the woman wonders, you know, why did he not come home sooner? He went and did this thing. He knows I’m worried about him.

She doesn’t say, I will miss you. I’m afraid. She doesn’t say I was fundamentally rejected by my mom who really badly rejected her. And somewhere, it’s not just that I’m angry at you or hurt that you have not come back. It’s that underneath. I sincerely, my button gets pushed and it starts to talk to me. Maybe he doesn’t come back because fundamentally you’re not worthy of coming back to. And fundamentally your mother was right and fundamentally, you know, and you can have, can see the descent into the basement, that dark place that really says, you kind of got what you deserve and what you deserve is shit.

It’s not pleasure or love or connection. All of that. And that language exists in our bodies. Our bodies communicates that language too, because our emotional history is translated into the physicality of sex. And we can have a body that shows up. And that basically says this body, you know, doesn’t really believe that it should be made love too. Cherished, adored, wanted, caressed, stroked, nurtured, healed, pursued. All of that.

This body has been poked and this body, or this body is a body I don’t like to live in. This is a home my body in which I just can’t wait to get out of. I think this is too big. This is too small. This is too fat. This is true, you know, and if I don’t want to live inside my own home, why would I invite somebody to come visit me there? Yeah. It’s like, you know, you should be a fool to come there.

And if you want to visit me, you must have forgotten your glasses. You probably don’t see clearly because if you’re so clear, you would see what I see. But the thing you emphasize, and I think is really essential, is that if I break my arm and you put a cast on me, my cast will deal with the pain, but I still need one day to take off the cast. And then the whole experience is to reeducate how to use my arm.

A lot of our work around trauma and about sexual trauma is about dealing with the pain of the experience without, and, and thinking that that’s where the healing take place. Instead of seeing the erotic recovery as the essential ingredient for the healing of trauma. Otherwise you’re just not dead, but that doesn’t make you alive.

Absolutely. That is one of my greatest passions. And part of my deep mission is that okayness is not the standard of healing that the first step is to face and be with the pain and to recognize and, and feel, um, like you’ve, you’ve, you’ve really gone there instead of repressing or disconnecting, but that is only the first step and that the true healing step is the freedom, correct?

The freedom to be whole, the freedom to say yes to pleasure and the freedom of choice that really comes when exactly, as you’re saying, you can own that you deserve it, and that you were always that way, that you weren’t the broken thing. You weren’t the damaged thing. You were born the whole and beautiful and pleasure loving thing, which is so amazing.

But I would also say it’s not a privilege only of people who have experienced trauma and abuse. I mean, you know, I play a lot with seven verbs that I bring to relationships and to relation sexuality, which is to ask, to give, to take, to receive, to share, to dream and to refuse.

And I ask every person, which is the verb that would, that could use a little lighting up, you know, that could use developing. And you will find a lot of people will tell you the hardest verb for me is to receive, which means to let somebody give to me just because they want to cherish me and adore me and not because I’ve worked for it or I’ve earned it, you know, to, to feel that I’m really worthy of somebody else wanting to just be with me, for who I am.

And many people find that a very difficult thing because it’s too passive because it feels powerless sometimes because it triggers my dependence because it is very vulnerable to let somebody have that kind of power over me, even if it’s the power to give. So I think that the experience on a sexual level, fundamentally someone giving to me and me being able to fully receive is a, is a place of, you know, of growth for many of us.

Absolutely. And, and what you were talking about a little earlier of sharing the, the way of speaking in a relationship where you’re actually speaking your core experience. Um, it happened to me in Andrew yesterday. He’s been gone for two and a half months and he got home and we were starting to have a fight and we went and sat out on the beach and for me to not speak the blame or the story, but literally tap into the core emotion I was feeling I’m scared, I’m angry right now. I’m hurt right now. And I feel like that level of vulnerability, when people talk about creating intimacy in a couple, people think it’s, oh, sharing what you did for lunch or being like sharing everything, or, you know, having no secrets left. But to me, the real spirit of it is actually learning, regaining that trust that it’s okay to speak the true depth of what you’re feeling of what’s really going on inside of you.

Totally. And to know that you have a person next to you who can handle that because I don’t want people to just throw themselves open without checking, you know, where am I, is this a safe place to do so, you know, emotional nakedness or physical nudity, you know, great.

But I always think, you know, why don’t you look to see, you know, if there’s no cliff, if there’s, you know, a net at the bottom before you jump, it’s perfectly fine. It’s this combination of security and adventure or about vulnerability and safety or risk taking and safety. You need both. And they are constantly in a dynamic tension with each other.

Absolutely. And I love that about your work is it’s not polarizing like one or the other. It’s always like, where do the two meet? Where can you get the best of both worlds? And that is where, to me the true power is, but also where people feel most alive is in that intersection. So before we did this, I actually asked a lot of my audience, “If you could ask Esther Perel one burning question, what would it be?”

And so curious <laugh>

So we’ve got a list of questions here that I would love to get your perspective on. Um, so one of the first questions is, is, you know, you talk about this desire and really going for it and re-inhabiting passion. Um, but what happens when one of you says yes to that, like I’m in a relationship and I want to be lovers again, and I want to create mystery and desire. And the other partner is uninterested. How do you bridge that gap? When one says, yes, and the other’s like, I don’t really want to work on it.

It’s one of the hardest because you, you know, and if, if you’re in a non monogamous relationship, you at least can say my partner at this point, isn’t thinking about this, isn’t into it. Isn’t up for that. And I have the freedom to experience this with other people. But if you are in a monogamous relationship, you can go and have, see a movie that your partner doesn’t want to see.

You can go see friends your partner doesn’t want to see, but you can’t be sexual except with yourself, but with another partner, if your partner doesn’t want it. So I think that it’s very poorly understood the loneliness that people who are sexually rejected can experience the deadness that can creep into them, the reevaluation of their attractiveness and their self worth. When the other person hasn’t seen them, looked at them for so long, the irritability that creeps up in you, if you haven’t been touched, just simply touched without talking, you know, we can live without sex.

We can’t live without touch. So when your partner isn’t interested, blatantly uninterested, and then the question is, is it because your partner is depressed? Has there been a death in the family? Is there a reason that explains, and then please don’t personalize it? So the question is always, is it about you? Is it about the relationship or is it about them?

The first thing is you need to locate where, where does this, this interest lie? Then I think the first thing you want is to communicate in the best way you can not, you know, you never home, you only come to bed after I’m asleep. You would only initiate when, you know, for sure that we can’t do it so that you can play the statistics, you know, all you get and get into a whole litany of, you know, the way you’re doing it.

That is utterly defeating. It all is true sometimes, but it’s not useful and you can be right, but you will be right and alone. So then the question is, what’s going on? You know, is there someone else, have you lost it for me? Is there something I could do? Is there something that you see that is missing between us that we need to put our focus on?

Can you at least tell me, I’m so not into it. I just had a kid. I just had this, whatever the reasons, but I know how much you miss me. And I hope to come back to you soon or I’m unemployed and I feel terrible, or I gain 30 pounds and I feel terrible, or I lost 30 pounds and I feel terrible or just something that lets the other person know first and foremost, it’s not about you.

That is often a very important thing. It doesn’t bring me the connection, but at least it helps me with the escalation and the crumbling of my sense of self-worth. If you knock at the door 10 times and there is no response, then at some point you have to say, what do you expect me to do? What is it that you want from me to just leave you alone and come back in 10 years and see if you woke up, um, do you want, what is it that I can do towards this?

Because I am in pain and I suffer from it. I’m willing to do a lot of things, but we need to be in a dialogue. If you experience stonewalling, then you have bigger problems in your relationship than just a sexual demise. Then you really need to ask, you know, what is going on here?

Um, are we, are we on the same page? Are we living the same life or are you basically, you know, doing a passive aggressive shtick or are you just numbing me out and shutting me out? Because what’s going on, I think, is always the first question. What is this about? You know, have I contributed to any of this? Is this about us? And what are your ideas about what we can do?

Not one solution, but just let’s brainstorm so that, because as long as you can think about it, as long as you can think of, generate possibilities, you don’t feel hopeless. Uh, you feel hopeful, but once the person says there’s nothing to be done, then you plunge into hopelessness and despair. Then you need to really rethink the relationship. That’s very different than thinking about sexual stalemates.

And I think that’s so applicable to so many issues that couples face, which is, you know, don’t just leave it at, oh, you know, my partner’s uninterested or my partner’s been looking at other people and it bothers me or my partner wants the sexual thing and I don’t want to do it, but like, go, go deeper. Like, what is really going on? Like ask the real questions and don’t just stop on a kind of bigger issue, but like really go there with your partner.

I feel like that so much. Many couples have sexual conversations that are basically conversation stoppers. Mm. They, it just it’s, it’s generally, this is what I need. This is what I want. I won’t stand for this. I want to accept that. You know, now tell me what do you think?

Yeah.

It’s like a set up, on what basis am I going to tell you what I think when you’ve already told me that these are your limits, these are your rules. These are, you know, so a lot of it is about how do we talk about these difficult issues. Most of us have never gotten any training. That’s why you are so important.

Most of us have learned to be silent about sex. So how do we suddenly start talking about it to the people that are closest to us? Yeah. You know, it’s not a, it’s not a given. I think the first thing for all of us educators is to explain that this is not a given.

And you know, in the past you didn’t have to have these conversations because we were not trying to experience sexuality for pleasure and connection in our long term relationships. We basically had no sex till we married. And then we had sex primarily for procreation. And then it was a woman’s marital duty.

And hallelujah that we live today. <laugh> yeah. Amazing blessing. <laugh> to pursue sex for pleasure and beauty. So this feeds into one of the other major questions. Um, the audience had for you, which is, you know, living in the modern era. I think one of the greatest things that’s happening to relationships is for, you know, maybe even thousands of years, relationship was this structure and you had to fit yourself into that box. End of story.

And now relationships can be almost any structure. So there’s this shift happening where it’s more, what kind of structure actually serves me, like what’s going on, what kind of relationship is going to make me happy? So a lot of questions right now on polyamory, everyone poses it as polyamory versus monogamy, but I actually feel like there’s this spectrum of choice.

That’s really beautiful.

Totally. Um, and so what is, you know, do you have any insights or perspectives on people looking to make a choice or looking to design their relationship in a way that really suits them?

Yes. You know, for most of history, people let’s say married because they didn’t have committed relationships that were not married and basically it was one person for life. And, um, you did the best you could with the deck of cards that was given to you. And if you were miserable, at least you could consider yourself lucky because you died earlier. You know, um, that was the only way out you died younger, but we have twice as long of a lifespan at this point.

So we have a whole new opening up of possibilities around relationships, committed relationships, adult intimacies. I don’t think it is at all just around the concept of sexual boundaries, between monogamy as and monogamy as defined as sexual exclusiveness and polyamory. I think it’s much broader.

First of all, we all have sexual experiences that start in our early teens. And you know, you used to come to marriage and had sex for the first time. Now you come to marriage and you stop having sex with others. That’s a fundamental difference.

You used to think that monogamy was one person for life to today. Monogamy is one person at a time,

second fundamental difference.

So like in every other aspect of life, more choice comes with more uncertainty and we need to learn to accept that uncertainty. So you can’t at the same time, be in a paradox of choice, have a bad case of FOMO, want all the options and then say, but I want to be sure that I found the one. You cannot suddenly, out of a sea of uncertainty, spring this certainty bell that rings and says, you’re it. You know, I’m no longer looking left. I’m no longer looking, right? You’re the one, you know, either you are in this opening up of possibilities, then you have to understand that when you have possibilities, you pick one.

And that doesn’t mean that you don’t have other possibilities. You basically just say, this is the possibility I chose for now, for now, by definition, today’s relationships only last as long as people find their happiness in it. So they don’t say for now, they say forever, but in fact, they know that it’s for now. So may they may just as well, be honest upfront and say for now. And I hope this now extends.

It’s a little bit like coming to New York, nobody comes to New York forever. Everybody comes to New York, just for a period. And then they look backwards and they say, ah, I’ve been in New York for 22 years. You know, do the marriage thing like that too.

You know where you start out and you say for now, I just came for a month. I just didn’t use my return ticket. It started with Tinder. I thought it was a hookup. Then it became much more serious and it’s been three years. And then it’s been 13 years. But it’s for now, that actually also keeps you on your feet. It keeps you much more fresh and engaged.

The second thing is it changes. It changes. You’re not going to have, if you’re going to stay long with somebody, you’re going to have plenty of different relationships. And the way I’ve always said it is, most of us are going to have two or three committed long term relationships at this point in our life.

And some, but some of us are going to do it with the same person. And that’s you redefine, you reboot, you reimagine, you rethink and the dynamic changes. The level of interdependence changes. The power structure changes. The breadwinner changes. The primary parent changes, lots of things that will change. And so don’t think I’m, I have a model in my head. I’m going to find the one and I’m going to impose my story on it. And they’re going to travel happily ever after you don’t have a story, you have multiple stories. You don’t have one sexuality. You have your sexuality of your teens, of your twenties, of your thirties. And you know, what changes the most, your sexuality, your level of self acceptance, your how good you feel about yourself is what changes, how you feel about sex, not your looks and your weight, you know, and the people you’ve met along the way and the kinds of interactions that you’ve had.

Then you have another sexuality. Maybe when you suddenly feel very accomplished and confident, then you have another sexuality because you’ve become a parent. Then you have another sexuality because you’ve discovered a practice that you never knew existed. And that suddenly becomes your next fetish, but we have multiple sexualities. And, um, I mean sexualities. I’m I’m, I am a mid woman, midlife woman, and I have a whole other sexual begin to think fluid fluidity is the essential fluidity. Flexibility. Adaptability is really the essential ingredient of modern relationships.

Absolutely. And when people ask me and Andrew, what kind of relationship we’re in, our definition for ourselves is dynamic because it changes.

Wonderful words.

We don’t feel like it’s fixed and it’s monogamous right now is a choice, but like that will literally change. And we know it will change based on our desires at every moment. And, you know, I hear in, in what you’re saying, that like, it takes a certain amount of courage to really say yes to all the changes of life, but that brings a deeper authenticity, that things are going to change and, and to do what really works right now, rather than getting this fixed structure in the mind.

So don’t aim for certainty when you’ve been relishing the uncertainty and all the open-endedness of every app on your phone, you’re doing it with work too. None of you are looking for a job for life. You know, this is a new model. Be real. Don’t just try to force yourself into something that doesn’t work for you. Find yourself with somebody from your own tribe.

If you know that you are much more monogamous, don’t go with somebody who wants a multiplicity of experiences. It just will ache you all the time, find a person of your own tribe. You know, find a person with whom you can imagine growing with, changing with.

I really see all the time. There’s lots of people that you can fall in love with. There are a lot of people we can love, but they’re not necessarily the same people you can make a life with. Mm doesn’t mean you don’t love the person you make a life with, but it’s a different set of ingredients. Many of us have had fantastic love stories, but they’re with somebody who is so completely of a different world with different aspirations, values, values is essential as an ingredient for our, for, for staying with someone and, and interacting with life, not just interacting with, you know, sheets. <laugh>

So I have like a hundred more questions, but we only have time for one more. And so many things that I wish we could discuss. Um, but one of the really common questions that I want to get in before we go is, um, for new mothers and fathers, like, it seems to be one of the there’s so much pain there that I see that people write to me all the time of the sex life, just dying after a baby is born. And I see so much suffering in parents about this because they long to be connected. And they also feel like sometimes years go by after the children are born. So do you have any specific advice for new parents, how to keep eroticism and desire alive?

Yes, I have it. And I’m going to talk very fast to you, but I also have a whole program that I just did live on transition to parenthood, which I’m going to be putting out as a separate unit. And I have a huge section on sex after parenthood in the new rekindling desire online workshop, because it is really the place where so much of marital satisfaction or relationship satisfaction, plums.

And I would highlight just a few really essential points. I don’t think it’s about the sex per se. First of all, we have a culture at this point of child wearing that is literally sapping the relationship of the adults. And parents need to know that so that they don’t personalize everything themselves. There is a whole culture out there that wants you to be a 24-7 parent, and that wants to topple the hierarchy so that the whole family is now regulated by the needs of the child versus the child entering into a relationship where adults are living mm-hmm <affirmative>

And so we no longer take time alone. You know, I can’t tell you how many couples I see haven’t had a babysitter in four years to just go out. We don’t take nights away. We don’t get the kids out of the room. We don’t take adult time. That isn’t about being parents.

Number two, when I hold that little child, this, I say to many women and it’s licking and, and, and adoring, and nibbling and stroking and all of this thing, you know, it is very erotic. It is very centrally satiating. And so when the person says, you know, I’ve got nothing left to give, just I need a break.

I think that sometimes it’s, “I have nothing left that I need,” I have nothing left that I want,” I have received this. And it demands the really intentional moving away from the silky skin of the kid and saying, I’m going to go and touch the skin of my partner. And it is a decision.

It’s a decision that you need to know that you’ve got to make because today family life and your little ones are only going to be happy because you are feeling connected in a relationship. There is nothing. There’s no adult laws, there’s no divorce laws. There’s no church that will excommunicate you. If you don’t take care of your relationships, your children won’t have the two of you at the same time. That’s why it’s important. You’re not just doing it even for you. You’re doing it because it ultimately is the glue to the family.

The next thing is you make sure that you create an erotic space. It’s not just that you’re going to go and plan sex. An erotic space is where you experience pleasure. The way that you talked about it before beauty radiance, you know, and from that place, desire will emerge or your arousal will emerge or willingness will emerge.

Willingness is I’m, I’m willing. And I’m not really in the mood, but let me see where it takes me rather than I’m not turned on, or I don’t feel like it. There are lots of things. We start out not feeling like it.

How many times do you go to the gym? You don’t feel like it. Have you ever regretted it? No, because if it feels good, then you remember, you know, and it’s okay to talk yourself into it. Knowing that you sleep deprived, that you, you know, here is the thing that happens when you say to parent sex after kids and they tell you what you must be kidding.

And I say, but you know, let’s not talk about sex. Let’s talk about a relationship. And I talk about it extensively in the online workshop, your kids get lots of touch. You and your partner are just giving yourself little quick pats like this.

Your kids get new clothes; they get to look beautiful. You and your partner, you come home, you take off your clothes and you put this kind of ugly, sweater on, you know, your kids get to go on multiple play dates. You and your partner, you get to go on your anniversary and on your birthdays, you are depleted.

If you are depleted to, how do you expect sex to suddenly appear? You need not just to connect. You need fun. You need playfulness, you need light. And from that place as adults, not as mom and dad, or as mom and mom and dad and dad, you will experience a new energy that wants to then be sexual with each other. It’s a very different pathway than you used to have even three months before.

Mm. Right. So great. So all of this is exactly why, um, I am supporting your program, rekindling desire, which you’re coming out with soon, because there are so many couples and people struggling with this question.

Um, how do I have more sex? How do I feel more desire? How do I actually create a relationship that I deeply deeply want to be in? And I know from everywhere that I go, like everyone has this question. Like literally so many people are looking and you, as you know, an amazing sex therapist, you literally cannot serve all of the people anymore in your sessions. And so you’ve created this program to be able to support people with your visionary wisdom.

And when I heard about this and I watched some of the videos from the program, I was so excited to tell my audience about it, because I know how hungry people are for this wisdom, for this inspiration, um, for this mind shift, um, to be able to get the tools and skills, to really support desire, passion, love in relationships. So, um, for those of you listening in, you can check out Esther’s program below, I’ve included links to that. And if you want to share just a little bit, why is this program special and what could people hope to get out of it?

So, first of all, I have two children. I’ve been in a long term relationship. I wish I had had that kind of information, that kind of advice. And so, and especially that kind of community of other people, you know, how many hours I talked about motherhood with other women on the playground.

Not a single one of us discussed what was going on with ourselves sexually. But you know, now the single one of us talked, even during pregnancy or during delivery to a childbirth about this, either we just kind of disappeared as if it, we became that number one, number two, I see so many couples who tell me, we love each other very much. We have no sex and it cannot just be left alone like this, because then we know where the story goes. And with the divorce rate, as it is, I just think we can do better.

And then I see loads of people who really want to tell me, how do I do it? What are the specifics? What should I say? What should I do for myself? How do I get myself there? And I wanted something that embraces the complexity of this. And doesn’t just say, you know, you know, lay open and, and, and this is not the way it works.

This life is complicated. Lots of things enter your head. There’s history, there’s culture, there’s class, there’s money concerns. There’s lots of relationship stuff. But from that place, you still, you still long for that connection and that connection people will do crazy stuff to experience it. Once again, nobody wants to feel like a dead leaf. You know, nobody likes to live in a desert. And so I decided to bring water and to create an Oasis, to create a community.

I can’t do it enough in my office. There are people from all over the world and places in the world where these conversations don’t take place at all in the Muslim world, in Southeast Asia. I mean, there are places where people are, and I want to create a global community of us who really want to experience sexuality in our relationships, whatever harmony we have that is about connection. That is about pleasure. And that is about dignity. That, that understands that sexual rights are fundamental human rights.

Um, and if we can change that, marriage will be better. Relationships will do better. And individuals, men, women, and everybody on the gender spectrum, um, will really experience a whole different way of being in the world.

Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more. So for those of you listening in, if you’re excited to hear more about that, be inspired, then definitely go ahead and check out the new course down below. You can also follow that link to more of Esther’s videos and, um, inspirational writing and speeches.

She does amazing mind blowing speeches and just staying connected to this kind of wisdom and this kind of community. I know how much it’s meant to my life. So I’m super excited for you to experience it as well. So Esther, thank you so, so much for being here. Sweet. Absolutely sweet. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and inspiring us and thank you all of you for tuning in.

Thank you very much.