Fertility, Pleasure, and Healing with a Sex and Relationship Coach

a year and a half into it I was like I this is sucking my soul like what is happening like I shouldn't be working 12

0:07

plus hours 100 hours a week on average paid peanuts and I was like this is not

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what life is about and so that was really hard to even take that step to

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leave something that wasn't serving me when everyone from every angle was like you can't do that you have to have

0:25

something lined up and I was like I don't think you understand like I need to go

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[Music]

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I think it's no secret that I'd love the little words projects bracelets I have about six or seven on my arm ones that

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have been given to me ones I've bought myself I love giving them as gifts I think they're so inspirational for me

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personally they're nice little reminders throughout my day to have hope to

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you know have strength to be in good energy I just love the bracelets so much I love giving them I love receiving them

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and if you want to check them out and you want to give it as a gift or get one for yourself you can use our code QTC

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for 15% off your first order I am so excited to welcome our next guest to the

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quiet the clock podcast Katherine Dale welcome oh my God thank you so much for having me we're so excited to have you

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and we were just talking off camera about just your journey and I'd love for you to share because a lot of what we

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talk about here is sort of and you know we're talking about like taking risks trying new things and just very briefly

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getting to talk to you before you start recording I've learned so much about you and that's kind of it's in in your DNA

1:44

to kind of try things and take these leaps and learn more about what you really want to do so can you just share

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first before we get into your egg freezing Journey just like life career you're new New Yorker essentially you

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just moved here so I'm new to New York I've been here since September but I'll back it up a little bit more so I'm a

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sex and relationship coach and I've been in the coaching space for about 5 years

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now but I fell into that not intentionally I studied Communications

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in college and I wanted to work in entertainment so I did publicity for film then I had a mental breakdown while

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I was in said job and part of that was like re-triggering from sexual trauma

2:28

that I experienced in col that I didn't have the tools the resources to deal with and so that was during me too where

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it was coming from every angle and I was like [ __ ] I have to deal with this and so when I left that job I went back to

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school trying to figure out what is my purpose cuz clearly it's not entertainment what was that like for you

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to realize and it sounds like a lot came up for you in that job but what was it like for you to realize like I wanted to

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do this but now I don't think this is really what I want yeah for a while I felt a little empty because like in

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college like I I worked for Saga Awards I worked for 20th Century Fox I worked

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for like PR companies so it's like it was so deeply ingrained with like everything I thought I wanted and like a

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year and a half into it I was like I this is sucking my soul like what is happening like I shouldn't be working 12

3:21

plus hours 100 hours a week on average paid peanuts and I was like this is not

3:26

what life is about and so that was really hard hard to even take that step

3:32

to leave something that wasn't serving me when everyone from every angle was

3:37

like you can't do that you have to have something lined up and I was like I don't think you understand like I need

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to go yeah and my mental health was in the point where like I was debating going to inpatient treatment like that's

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how bad it was and I was very lucky that I had a great therapist who was helping me navigate through that but even like

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even though I loved her it was three years of us working together before I even mentioned my sexual trauma like

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That's How Deeply ingrained and shame and all of that so I just I didn't know

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what else to do other than to just leave and give myself time to heal I think

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that's incredibly Brave too because to give yourself the permission to do it while while there's all this external

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messaging telling you you can't do that and I think that happens for a lot of people when they deviate from the said

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path there's a lot of external noise voices narratives critics that are just like you can't do that it's great this

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is what you wanted and I think that's so incredibly Brave that like you were able it sounds like to drown that out and

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still do what you needed to do for yourself yeah I mean it was hard for sure it's really hard to go against the

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grain but I feel like that's also in My DNA like I have a pretty big disdain for Authority

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so love it pretty rebellious nature and it's interesting cuz I still have some

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you know people pleasing tendencies in there I'm like okay I want to make my parents proud blah blah blah less so now

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I'm like I had work in sex like it's fine you can get over it but at the time like that was really hard for me to

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prioritize myself even though no one understood it yeah and so during that time like I went back to school trying

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to figure out okay what's my purpose and at the time I was thinking like again this was kind of going with like the

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path that I thought I should be on which was let me take some marketing classes let me take some MBA math classes cuz I

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was a Communications girly like math is not my thing same girl same we were trying to do math earlier and then I had

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like I got to grab my phone here I'm like let's do the calculator but I took calculus for the first time and I got an

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A which I was very proud of myself I'm like okay so I'm like this is before I

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knew I had ADHD so I'm like okay if I really apply myself I could do this but while I was there I was taking this

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class it was personal branding and how to become an influencer but at the time I had a dog instag stagram account for

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my golden doodle puppy oh so cute she's so cute her name's Cleo she's six now but at the time I wanted to make her

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Instagram famous and I was pretty good at growing her account I think we got up almost to 4,000 followers within six

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weeks oh my gosh but I spent four hours a day on it like it was a lot of effort but the first night of this class the

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professor said there's a difference between having influence and having impact and that was my liful moment I

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was like [ __ ] all of the [ __ ] that been through in my life like it has a purpose

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like this is my purpose like okay like how can I help other people with the

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[ __ ] that I've experienced so a week later I enrolled in my first life coaching certification oh my gosh that's

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incredible do you remember in that moment the impact you wanted to make like when the professor said that at the

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time and this is sort of like showing like the evolution of my brand and like coaching too at the time it was more

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focused on like Mental Health um so like positive coping skills stuff

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like that and more traditional life coaching body positivity stuff like that

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at that time in my journey I was not ready to support other people with sexual trauma and sexuality CU I still

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had a lot of work that I needed to do on it but I had a full circle moment too around the time that I started getting

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into coaching where I was invited to speak on my college campus in front of

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all the frats and sorority to share my story at the campus where it happened this was like 5 years later in front of

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200 people and I thought I was going to throw up I thought I was going to run away but I did it I did it and that was

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another like Catalyst moment to where I'm like okay like it's not just helping people with mental health it's like okay

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my sexual trauma is such a big part of my journey so how can I help other

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people navigate this oh my God that's incredible yeah how did you go back and

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share your story in front of so many people at the place where yeah it definitely was hard it brought up a lot

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and like I ended up working with the coach to support me even with like writing my speech for that which of course I didn't read or follow I I spoke

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these CS never I never look at them yeah and and like I like to have some general idea of what I'm going to say but most

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of the time I'm a wing it girly but I was very lucky that one of my best friends that was a sority sister and one

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of my roommates from that experience and also like she came with me and she was there

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supporting me so that was really helpful to have her cuz she was one of my roommates that I had while that

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experience happened and who told me to report it so yeah wow really full circle

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and to have her support there yeah yeah it was so in that moment you sort of realizing there's more impact I can make

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yeah and so that led you to the work in can you share more about yeah so the

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work that I do with coaching now is very focused on like pleasure centered

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consent driven sex education sex coaching specifically my focuses mostly

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on women and women's pleasure because it's very under researched underfunded

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under talked about like if you're lucky to have sexed it doesn't focus on female

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anatomy at all and then I also support a lot of clients with healing sexual

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trauma and so how I do that is part of what helped me heal myself was I

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enrolled in this other coaching certification where I learned neural linguistic programming so NLP hypnosis

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and EFT topping and I remember during one of the demos during my certification

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I went up on stage we did NLP time techniques where it works with timeline

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therapy and I was able to release trauma that I experienced within 20 minutes and

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I was like okay [ __ ] this is lifechanging how can I help other people like now I felt like I had something

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tangible that I could help people transform oh my God you are incredibly Brave getting on all these stages doing

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all of these things my god well someone has to go first so like thank you oh my God no but seriously that that is like

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so powerful because you are you're you're starting a you're Paving a path for other women and and to go first and

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do that is again incredibly Brave thank you yeah I love you know when we're when I'm preparing for this episode I'm I'm

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reading a lot about the work that you do and I love what you said about you know under researched under talked about and

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as I'm reading your work I'm thinking about the work that we're doing here and all the conversations we're having around you know a lot of things

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timelines and pressures and societal expectation but fertility as well it's like a lot of what we hear is like I

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just didn't know that like and I think there are so much about there's parallels here where women just don't know about their bodies so I'm just

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curious about when your clients come to you are they really like uninformed or uneducated about their body about

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pleasure yeah I I mean it's definitely a spectrum I mean everyone is completely different in terms of like their comfort

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level what they know um I'd say in terms of anatomy most of the women who come to

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me already have a baseline of that although while I was living in Austin I did meet someone in my apartment complex

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who was 36 didn't even know what a clitoris was where it was had never looked at her own like vulva in a mirror

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she was like I'm a virgin I'm waiting till marriage and I'm like that's fine but can I at least show where your parts are so that you know when it is time

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like you don't have to touch yourself like just might be helpful to look and this is someone who grew up within like

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the Texas you know public education system and didn't have that so that also

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was hard for me when I was living in Texas cuz I'm like wow I'm so like Forward Thinking and being in a place

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where that's just not there but in terms of like clients I'd say what most of my

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clients struggle with is is not feeling like their pleasure matters there's a layer of like anxiety people pleasing

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codependency there to where I think as women like we're taught to kind of perform when it comes to sex and

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relationships right we are taught that part of our most desirable tradeit or

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like what we need to strive for is to have a partner and do everything that's required to keep them which includes not

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taking up space in the bedroom not communicating what you want what your needs are how long you need for foreplay

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if foreplay is even on the table and I think also too with you know all the jokes of like where's the [ __ ] like that

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just perpetuates the fact that like men just don't give a [ __ ] about women's

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pleasure a lot of them don't know yeah and some and some don't know some genuinely don't know and that's part of

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like the broken sex education system if we're lucky to have it at all it's very

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heterocentric penis and vagina and it's done when like the man finishes when the

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man ejaculates the sexual experience is over we're not taught about foreplay we're not taught about the different

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erogenous zones we're not taught that you know you can go from Outer course to

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in course and back to Outer course we're not taught that like kissing and dry humping is okay and that can be the main

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event we're not taught that you can engage in like BDSM and kink without

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having any penetration at all like that's not necessarily about sex either and so I think part of the work that I

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do with my clients is like breaking down and this is what I send in my like initial onboarding questionnaire how do

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you define pleasure how do you define intimacy how do you define relationships and what's your biggest challenge and

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then that's where we create the framework through the coaching yeah do you find that some clients initially

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don't even know how to answer those questions oh 100% yeah 100% I'd say a

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lot of clients really have a hard time time answering them or they might have an easier time answering certain

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questions but not others and that's why like I I like to assign the homework so they can do some like thinking

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themselves and then we go through it like the first session is usually about two hours because we go deep into it

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like okay what do you mean by this let's dig a little bit deeper because my job too with the subconscious tools I'm

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trying to get as deep as possible as quick as possible and usually when I work with clients it's usually 3 to 6

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months and then you're done like I want my clients to graduate so what is some of the Transformations you've seen I

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have so many questions this is so interesting um yeah some of the Transformations you've seen in in the time that you've worked with your

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clients yeah so one of the Transformations that happened with one of my clients last year she came to me

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experiencing a lot of like health challenges especially with like the reproductive region had had surgery was

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experienced a lot of like intimacy challenges with her partner where they weren't communicating well she was very

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anxious 24/7 and um she honestly thought her boyfriend was going to break up with her

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like just very anxious all the time didn't know wanted pleasure but her body wasn't working in the way that she

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wanted it to so that just made things worse and in the 3 months we were together she ended up actually moving in

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with her partner their communication improved she started experiencing more pleasure regular orgasms where she

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wasn't having them before it was like a complete 180 and I think another thing is like a secondary gain from this work

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is she also ended up I think getting a raise at work also so it's like when you

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reprioritize your life around pleasure and feeling good everything else gets to together better yeah that's an amazing

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point because I think it's applicable to all things and not just sex it's like finding a voice getting clear on what you really want being able to express

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those needs whether it's in the bedroom or outside the bedroom so I love that you shared you know there was like

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progress and success outside of intimacy and sex yeah and I mean that's just like

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one of the client success stories I'd say my clients come to me for like a whole range of challenges like a client

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that I had most recently she came to me wanting to feel more confident and comfortable in her body so dealing with

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kind of like body dysmorphia kind of stuff in a bigger body in a plus-sized body where you know there's a lot of fat

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phobia and fat shaming and then also dating how do we navigate dating when

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I'm not feeling good in my body so some things that we did together impl lenting

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uh EFT topping three times a week something I assign with all my clients going to ask you that if you use all

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both things with all of your clients usually it's a mix of everything yeah but usually within the first like one to

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two sessions we go deep into the EFT topping we do a custom thing record it for them so they can have it for the

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rest of the time do you find clients are resistant at first to some of the things

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you're trying to integrate or some of the modalities that you're trying to use cuz I've tried tapping before and I I

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think I didn't do it well or I think I was resistant to yeah it I'd say where I get the most resistance with clients is

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probably with hypnosis so I don't use it with every client I'd say with NLP and with EFT tapping I don't have a lot of

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resistance with them because they come to me already feeling like okay I've been in therapy for this long and like

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it's not working or I'm not experiencing the transformation that I want so I think by the time clients come to me

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they're kind of like desperate for results and they're like okay I will do anything it takes and I'm like okay

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you're G to spend probably like an hour to two hours doing homework every week you're going to have like a daily

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practice we're going to figure out your selfcare you're going to do this you're going to do that so like yes there's

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some Little Resistance with certain things like the mirror work is very challenging for a lot of clients but in

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general I'd say EFT topping no but the way that I teach it and the way that I go about it is very like conversational

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I swear in the middle of it I use their language so that their subconscious is more on board with it so I make it like

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fun and light not like I'm not a very like clinical approach reading the script me I appreciate the cursing and

18:11

the personal to it so maybe I need to connect with you after we're done here yeah I got you thank you thank you how

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is it to I just think about that moment in the when your professor says

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influence versus impact for to now fast forward with you to where you are now do this work and you shared some pretty big

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news with us off camera which is so yeah so I got into colia for grad school I'm

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going to be doing Clinical Psychology and that's going to put me in the path to where like I I'm really passionate

18:44

about like teaching and that's part of like my overall mission I enjoy coaching I love the work that I do with my

18:50

one-on-one clients but I also know the impact that I'm creating is bigger than me so how can I expand my network even

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more expand my reach I know I had a lot of success with like Tik Tok too and I'm

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like I want to write a book I want to be on TV shows like I want to do all these things and so getting a master's degree

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and then hopefully PhD that's going to help me continue on this path even more

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I think it's so incredible too because when we talk about sort of Like These Blueprints or the paths that we're supposed to take they're so limiting and

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and hearing your story is it's so expansive like there are so many opportunities coming to you because

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you've just sort of followed these light bulb moments or these like full circle

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moments of of following what was really important to you yeah look it can be really tough to go against the grain and

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go based on your intuition but I feel like I don't know for the last like five

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years of my life it's really been kind of like a trust fall to where I'm like okay I'm guided to do this I don't know

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what the outcome is going to be but let's see what happens and like I moved to Austin within 10 days of having the

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like the decision I just packed up my car and I moved I didn't know a single

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person I didn't have a plan I rented a room week by week cuz like I didn't have

20:09

stable income with like coaching it's like you know getting aov for apartments a a little tough so I just did it

20:16

without knowing how it was going to turn out I didn't love Austin but I ended up meeting a lot of great people I met

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someone who's one of my closest friends right now I've worked with amazing like sex positive Brands then when I realized

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Austin wasn't for me anymore went back home to freeze my eggs and then after

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that I decided to move to New York and I came here within two weeks and then

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everything's kind of like fallen into place amazing we were we had a guess some previously before you we were

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talking about the sort of harmfulness of being attached to an outcome yeah and

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how hard it can be to let go of that and how hard it can be to navigate that uncertainty but like you're a great

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example of what it can mean to like lean into the uncertainty and just not know the outcome but kind of trust fall like

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you said yeah and like it's don't get me wrong it is it is hard it is [ __ ]

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hard sometimes and I think part of you know the way that we're taught as humans

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like we are taught to strive for security and that's why a lot of people

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you know strive to have the nine-to-five job or figuring out some sort of plan working up the corporate ladder or

21:26

whatnot and I think when we're too rigid and how we try to design our lives this

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like closes us off to so many different opportunities and I know even for me

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like with moving to New York I've been like suing trying different parts of

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town every like three months i' moveed somewhere else cuz because I didn't like Austin I was like let me make sure I

21:48

actually like New York before I hop in a lease and I'm stuck here and during that time too I was applying to grad school I

21:55

was like it doesn't make sense to sign a lease now if I might be leaving City now that I know I'm staying here I'm like

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now I'm looking for a place I'm like I want to sign a lease for 2 years I don't want to bop around I'm tired love it

22:06

here I love it here I love what you said about sort of seeking security and I think what's a little bit problematic

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and I I'm curious if you agree with this is that security has been defined for so long to mean one thing and it's been

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defined to mean 9 to5 and it's been defined to mean like partnership and family and I think we have to be redefining the definition of security

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and how would you if we're being expansive in that definition what would you say security could be I mean I think

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it can look different for everyone but for me like how I have most security is

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through Freedom so it's like my whatever security whether that's you know stable

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income or having a support system stuff like that can provide security but for

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me I want my life to reflect expansiveness and freedom and having the

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ability to do all of the things that excite me and light me up and like that's what's creating the stability in

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my life that's that's really what it is for me I would say the same for myself in terms I love that you said security

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being Freedom like I can't I cannot be caged I need freedom I need option and I

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think yeah continue to like redef redefine Security on your own terms one thing I want to ask you before we shift

23:20

yours into your egg freezing journey is for anyone listening that might not be ready to work with a sex and

23:26

relationship coach like what are some things you offer to them to maybe start to explore maybe start some of the

23:31

onboarding questions they can start to ask themselves like maybe they're too nervous to go to someone you know talk

23:38

about these things it's very vulnerable like is there anything you can offer yeah I mean I think to start number one

23:43

start following like sex positive people online whether that's Educators coaches

23:50

whatnot I know I have a lot of content on Tik Tok where I try to make these

23:55

conversations more approachable so even if you're not ready for for coaching send me a DM with a question and I'll

24:01

answer it I'll turn it into content we can you know work through it that way I think a lot of people too feel like it's

24:08

scary to take that first step I know I had a consultation with someone yesterday who experienced like sexual

24:15

trauma when they were in high school and they're like you're the first person that I've talked to about this and I'm

24:20

so nervous and like I'm scared and I'm like I hear you you don't have to be nervous with me like this is a safe

24:27

space like I'm not judging you there's not a single thing you'll say that's going to freak me out like I'm here for

24:32

you and also if it's not a fit it's not a fit and that's okay like I've definitely turned away clients if it's

24:38

not a fit I've referred them to the right practitioner sometimes it's like maybe you're better fit for therapy

24:44

right now and then come back to me when you're ready um so I think just like opening the door to expand your

24:50

knowledge is Step number one so creating the awareness and maybe thinking about

24:55

like what is working and what's not working and I think also asking yourself how do I want to feel in my

25:02

relationships in my body and in pleasure and I think that's a good place to start

25:08

yeah that's amazing and thank you for offering that those resources and being able to DM you I think it's it's so

25:13

important and I I think it's yeah there's so much like outside of just the sexual experience of just that you

25:19

mentioned earlier like people pleasing or like I have to keep the partner like I can't express my needs I'm going to

25:25

scare them away I think those thems come out and so much even like as we're talking about just dating you know and

25:30

just giving women like sort of the language and the power and the voice to to express those things yeah and it's

25:36

like it it can be so scary to speak up for yourself when it comes to like

25:41

advocating for your pleasure in the bedroom and I think one thing about like the orgasm Gap stats which is baffling

25:49

to me so like men orgasm 95% of the time regardless of like whether it's a one

25:56

night stand or a long-term relationship women so the and here's where a lot of

26:01

people don't share the full research on this it's worse than you think um so

26:07

they say women only come 65% of the time but what they leave out of the stat is

26:14

that's only for that's the average percentage of women who come in a relationship six months or longer what

26:21

if it's a one night stand most women in like a heterosexual Dynamic only come

26:26

10% of the time yeah it's [ __ ] up that is [ __ ] up

26:32

yeah oh my God so thank you for starting more conversations and doing the work that you're doing because that is

26:38

completely imbalanced yeah very imbalanced and I will say like I too like even though yes I'm very sex

26:44

positive I'm very confident now like I didn't used to be I used to be very uncomfortable talking about you know my

26:51

desires what I needed I was I was always I started having sex when I was 14 and I

26:57

enjoyed sex and I experimented a lot but I was just trying to get to the O as quickly as possible I use sex as stress

27:04

relief I use masturbation as stress relief and I did not communicate my needs at all like when my partners would

27:11

ask me what are you into I'd be like T we'll find out later and like that didn't do me any favors and then fast

27:19

forward to when I was like 24 25 I met a partner who was a [ __ ] buddy cuz I used to be a [ __ ] girl like I used to hate

27:26

intimacy no pillow talk no Pillow Talk No I would I like kissing

27:32

but no pillow talk no cuddling I could booty call them but they couldn't booty call me otherwise they were kicked off

27:37

the roster like I ran a tight ship tight ship but this one [ __ ] buddy he one day

27:45

was like I want to give you as many orgasms as possible for your birthday and I was like okay cool and I got up to

27:52

like 32 within 2 hours and he didn't come once and that was 32 now my average

27:58

is about 50 every time I'm with a partner yeah it's wild defin I'm definitely connecting with you after

28:04

this every woman in this room is connecting with you after this I have a course about multiple orgasms too

28:12

FYI yes um but yeah and that sort of that experience opened the door to me

28:18

being more vocal about what I wanted in the bedroom cuz before that I didn't know that I can have nipple orgasms I

28:24

didn't know that I could have orgasms from like kissing my neck and other r zones I didn't know that men would want

28:31

to go down on me for like 2 hours or have sex and not care about coming I

28:36

didn't know that it was okay to be woried and take up space without me having to perform for men or give a

28:43

[ __ ] in order to receive oral like I remember when I was like in college I think there was one time where like I

28:50

had to make an agreement with this guy who like for him to go down on me for five minutes I had to do anal and

28:58

looking back I'm just like why the [ __ ] did I do that like why were my standards so low that I had to negotiate in that

29:05

way do something that I did not like at all and I still don't love anal I've tried enough times to know I don't like

29:11

it um different partners different angles whatever I like an play rim job sure receiving yes penetration no but at

29:20

the time like I was willing to do something that I didn't like just so that I could get something that I needed

29:26

and back to that partner with the 32 orgasms after that that's when I realized okay like oral is a

29:33

non-negotiable for me if any of these men who come over whether it's dating or

29:38

a hookup sneaky link whatever if they're not willing and like enthusiastic about

29:45

going down on me I'm not they're not able to be in my energy at all they're

29:50

off the roster off the roster yeah I kicked off a lot of men very quickly

29:56

yeah yeah wow that's amazing I mean I think that women need to again it's the

30:02

knowledge Gap I think that women need to be more informed and we're talking we're going to be talking about your egg freezing Journey too and that's another

30:07

place where there's this this knowledge Gap but there's so much we're missing out on by not knowing so I I love the

30:12

work that you're doing I'm so excited for your next step I'm so excited to be working with you after this

30:19

podcast um I do want to ship gears to your egg freezing Journey because you did share that on social media too so

30:25

I'm just curious how did you learn about egg freezing when did you start considering it as something that you wanted to do for yourself yeah so I have

30:34

PCOS and with PCOS me realizing that I

30:39

might struggle with infertility down the line egg freezing was something that I wanted to do like seven years ago really

30:46

so you knew about it seven years I knew about it seven years ago I'm I'm an early adopter kind of girly I do a lot

30:51

of I'm a Gemini I do a lot of research I end up in a lot of wormholes so like I

30:57

did all the research but oh my gosh wait your birthday you had your birthday is coming up it's coming up the 19th oh my

31:02

son's the 15th he's a Gemini too love it g twins love it yeah but I think because

31:09

of PCOS like it made me so anxious knowing that like I want kids so badly

31:15

with every like cell in my body like I'm destined to be a mom I know like I need

31:21

to be a mom and like I cry when I see babies like I feel my ovaries pulsing

31:28

like I'm like I need one now I thought getting a dog would make things easier nope it doesn't but I always knew I

31:34

wanted kids but because my parents relationship like they divorced when I was in sixth grade it was a very bad

31:42

divorce very messy I had a lot of like intimacy blocks with relationships I had

31:47

to work through to where for a long time I thought that I wanted to have kids so

31:54

badly that I would do it alone if I don't find the right partner and that's

31:59

why I wanted to have options and I have like very high standards too but actually what I realized through going

32:05

through the egg freezing process because I had a lot of complications I don't want to do it alone I will not do it

32:12

without a partner and like hopefully sooner than later I find my partner

32:17

might be close who knows but yeah we'll see what how old were you when you were

32:22

diagnosed with PCOS so getting to that diagnosis actually was really challenging for most women it is that's

32:29

why I'm curious it took many years so I this is back in 2013 I was like bleeding

32:36

for a month straight wow and this was in college like that semester I had to take

32:42

not a semester off but I had I only took like one class that semester because I was in so much pain I did the surgery to

32:49

diagnose endometriosis which was negative and they were like we don't know what's wrong with you they popped

32:54

in an IUD I ended up bleeding every time time I had sex had to go to the emergency room got it taken out it moved

33:02

and they were basically like we don't know what's wrong with you but like I also have migraines and they're like

33:08

with chronic migraines can't put you on the pill so I don't know [ __ ] out of luck and it wasn't until I think like

33:15

maybe two years after that so around the time I graduated college around 2015

33:21

that's when I finally was diagnosed with PCOS where a completely different doctor

33:26

did the ultrasound was like oh like do you have cysts and I was like yes and

33:32

they're like okay this looks polycystic let's do all of your Labs with your hormones oh yes this makes so much sense

33:40

and that year also I ended up having I think three ruptured cyst within a year

33:45

and went to the emergency room like it was awful it was really bad and like my periods were so bad back then to and

33:52

through that Journey it was frustrating too because I feel like a lot of like medical system wants to push meds on you

34:00

and I was like no like I want to do this holistically and I even through this

34:06

process like we did a lot of like allergy testing turns out I have a wheat allergy so then I started eating

34:12

glutenfree well because I did that and there's more sugar content in that I ended up having pre-diabetes I reversed

34:19

it naturally it took I think a year and a half to reverse what happened in 3

34:24

months which is insane but I was like I needed to do it naturally so I did it

34:31

you know diet and exercise that's how I managed my symptoms for most of it which

34:36

is also amazing because I think there is a lot of pill pushing and solving problems with these Band-Aids and I you

34:43

know I am going through my own like secondary infertility journey and I really leaned into the holistic route

34:49

yeah and I mean there's there's a lot to say about that too cuz it's like yeah

34:54

modern medicine there's a lot of you know benefits weights to that but I don't think it's like what was happening

35:00

before all of big Pharma was being pushed right what was available and something that helped me through my

35:06

journey with navigating especially a lot of like pain cuz I had very painful periods the ruptured CST I started going

35:13

to acupuncture which was like very helpful for me and for me I'm like I'd rather do that than at one point I was

35:19

taking vicadin every period I got three times a day to function but still having

35:25

to go to work cuz I couldn't take time off I know it's nuts so because of that it's like okay let's do the most natural

35:32

way possible and at what age did you start considering egg freezing so I

35:37

turned 30 last year and so that's when I did my egg freezing cuz I was like I want to wait long enough to wear like

35:44

let's see like do I actually have a partner in the I wanted to try to do it as naturally as possible but I also

35:50

realized like I have such big career goals and I'm not ready to put my life on hold to start a motherhood journey I

35:58

mean who knows maybe I meet someone I get pregnant accidentally who knows life unfold we don't know what's going to

36:04

happen but like right now I'm like with grad school starting I'm like I I'm not ready to have a family right now but

36:10

yeah I'd say about 28th 29 is when I was like okay this is something I'm

36:15

seriously considering and then for my 30th birthday this is that's what I did amazing and how did you choose where you

36:23

like which place did you do it in CU you've moved yeah so I did mine through kind

36:28

they had a clinic in Austin but I had this gut feeling back to gut feelings

36:33

and intuition I had this gut feeling that I couldn't do it in Austin because

36:39

I was very scared with all the reproductive Wars that have been going on that if I went through this process I

36:44

wouldn't have access to my egg so smart so smart which everyone thought I was being paranoid and calling me crazy and

36:50

I'm like no no if I'm going to put my body through this and also have such a big Financial investment like I want to

36:58

make sure that I have access to my eggs after and so I this is around the time

37:03

when I also was leaving Austin I went back to my parents place in San

37:08

Francisco and I did my egg freezing Journey like last August in San

37:14

Francisco and how was it for you it was rough I'll be completely honest I really

37:19

wish that more people talked about like the side effects that happen with it um and I think maybe it's just I'm a very

37:25

sensitive person so that's even why most medication doesn't work for me why for

37:31

more holistic stuff anyways I can never get to a clinical dose of anything so my

37:36

body is just so sensitive so the injections were really rough on my

37:41

body I basically was bedridden the entire month process um could not

37:47

function I was nauseous 24/7 barely eating it was really hard to

37:52

even sleep or get comfortable when I was laying down I got a pregnancy pillow to

37:58

help with a little of it and I think also part of these complications they said was because of the PCOS so I only

38:06

started with seven follicles and so I wasn't sure that I was even going to have enough to they recommend like 10

38:12

yeah and so I wasn't sure but I was like if this is what it is now it's only going to get worse later so let's see

38:19

through that process I ended up growing 21 which you know is great but that also

38:25

was hard on my body and that's why had such bad side effects because with PCOS

38:31

you're more predisposed to grow more follicles more quickly and so it felt like I had like bowling balls like in my

38:38

ovaries and like even walking up the stairs to go you know to the kitchen and

38:43

back to my bedroom like that was hard even like going up one flight of stairs and then when it came to like the

38:52

retrieval process the actual retrieval was easy but I ended up having complications so I had ohss I saw that

38:59

you shared on yeah ended up in the emergency room cuz I had fluid built up in my abdomen they didn't have to drain

39:06

it luckily but I was in a lot of pain and then the pain subsided after the period ended but basically the entire

39:13

month I felt like complete [ __ ] how were you and I know you share this you know on social media but you have you know a

39:20

therapist you do acupuncture like what was your mental emotional state as you were going through this and it was being

39:25

it was so challenging yeah I mean it was it was really hard cuzz I also was doing it alone like I was at my parents' house

39:32

but they weren't around so I was physically alone doing the whole process

39:39

giving myself the injections driving myself to the appointments so I really felt very alone and very isolating and I

39:46

think that's why I had the shift in my own brain to like if this process this one month was so hard for me that I

39:52

don't like I don't want to go through Parenthood alone I see yeah I could see how that would inform decision to not do

39:58

it by like do Parenthood by yourself because this process you which like I'm a hyper independent eldest daughter so

40:05

like I I can do all of the hard things and I have can and I have done all the hard things by myself but it really put

40:13

it into perspective to where like I don't want to choose this for myself like if I have an option like I want to

40:19

invite you know space in my life for someone to go through this journey for me also knowing that I probably will

40:25

have complications when it comes to pregnancy who knows but like this journey was so hard for me that I yeah I

40:32

want to have a support system and like I did have support system like you know my sisters are very supportive I have a lot

40:39

of supportive friends but yeah not having a partner and not having you know family right

40:45

there helping me that was really tough yeah and I love the messaging to not choose hard I say that with to a lot of

40:51

my clients it's like okay we know you can do hard I've seen you do so hard like you are resilient you strong you're

40:57

all those things but let's start asking ourselves do we really have to always do hard and I love that you bring that up that we can choose not to do hard yeah

41:05

and I and I know like part of that's just you know Society telling us like you got to keep pushing or like the

41:10

hustle mindset but it's like also I feel like that's the opposite of what a lot

41:16

of us should be doing when it comes to fertility challenges right it's like you kind of have to like ease off and get

41:22

into that softness because when you have a lot of cortisol in your system that's going to make things like more

41:28

challenging and so through this process too like even though I had all of these plans I had clients I had things that I

41:35

was working on I literally took the entire month off for and I was like okay like what can I do today and it was

41:43

basically saw a therapist virtually twice a week because I needed some sort of support and then I went to

41:49

acupuncture once a week through that process which also helped yeah and I

41:54

yeah that permission to take that time because I think that's something we can also struggle with is like especially as

41:59

women in like service jobs where we have clients and that type of work it be hard to give ourselves that permission to do

42:05

it yeah and it's it's hard when we're we're holding so much space for other people and it's like I know there's a

42:11

little like guilt there like I definitely like okay like I'm letting down people by not but it's like are you

42:17

really though like if they were in your shoes they would be like absolutely take the time off you deserve this and so I

42:24

think it's hard like a lot of us in these kind of Fields where we're supporting people we're here because we have so much empathy but how can we turn

42:31

that around and give it to ourselves right if we're our client what would we suggest exactly exactly overall are you

42:39

happy that you did it yeah definitely happy I did it I don't regret doing it I'm glad that it gives me sort of like

42:46

an insurance policy like cuz I don't know I don't know like I definitely want to be a mom but it also opened me up to

42:55

realizing I'm okay with having a family in looking different ways I'm okay for fostering adoption I'm okay to be like

43:02

the hot step mom you know um on brand um I'm okay

43:07

with family looking in all different ways like it doesn't have to be just you know biologically my child um but I

43:14

don't I don't regret doing it I'm happy I did it I just wish that I was more informed with all of the things that

43:21

could go wrong and how truly hard it was because all of the research that I did

43:26

no one t talked about how how truly awful it can be yeah we had a guest on earlier that was talking about the

43:33

hypers the ovarian hypers sumolation and then was the first time we had someone on here I was like we are having someone later that's been through the same thing

43:38

so I think it's yeah so many dynamics of this and so many layers of this that are continuing to be important to talk about

43:45

and shed light on because a lot of like the overarching narrative when it comes especially to like the fertility stuff

43:51

is like why didn't I know any of this or why didn't anybody tell me this yeah well and like the information isn't out

43:56

there and I like as someone who loves research and being well informed like I

44:02

did a lot of research before diving into this and I could not find anywhere where

44:08

it was like as explicit of like what happens when things go wrong you know and I think there is a lot of

44:14

information out on like if it doesn't take or if you don't have enough eggs or stuff like that but not like the side

44:20

effects and what happens with your actual body and that's where I feel like

44:25

I was misinformed completely because even working with the kind body which like I loved working with them they were

44:31

great I feel like they were downplaying the side effects that were happening or

44:37

they were like okay well it should only be for this long and it's just like but no this isn't what it is well and it's

44:43

so hard it's like you know you know this in your work too my work too is like everybody is different everybody's body

44:49

is different everybody's narratives are different like you has to be more person- centered work and I think that's

44:54

part of the Gap that has to be filled there is that it needs to be more personalized and person centered to each

45:00

person yeah okay one last question before we wrap up I could talk to you forever and I'm going to talk to you

45:05

more after this amazing so you're about to turn 31 how are you feeling about that are you and I feel like I have a

45:12

sense of you know what you might say based on all youve shared here today is are you subscribing to any timelines are

45:18

you feeling yeah I fig not at all yeah I don't know I I feel like I I felt internal pressure coming into 30 I feel

45:25

like between 28 and : I was like [ __ ] I need to find a partner like my clock's ticking like I have to do this like why

45:32

don't I have my person I think part of that stress was also happening because I

45:38

also want like non-traditional relationship style I'm someone who prefers to date non- monogamously I want

45:45

like a monogamish type relationship open relationship where like I still want the family the kids the house but also you

45:51

know to date or play with other people and I know that also based on who I am the type of person I am how public I am

45:59

I'm not for everyone so it's not just about finding like the person I also believe that we don't have just one

46:05

person there's multiple people out there um but I think because of that I was putting so much pressure on myself when

46:12

it's like okay like why does it have to happen this way and I think freezing my eggs allowed me and turning 30 allowed

46:19

me to like kind of breathe be like okay but like who said this had to happen and I think now that you know I have grad

46:26

school I have so much on my plate going forward for my career I'm like whatever relationship whatever family I have

46:33

going forward like that's going to add to my life but like what timeline does it have to be on it doesn't have to be

46:39

pre preconceived I mean when I was in high school I thought I was going to be like engaged by 25 married by 27 first

46:47

kid by 30 and like now I'm 30 and I'm like still taking creen pies but like there's no babies so but that's the

46:54

that's the story we're sold that's like the Disney Cinderella Story were sold and then everyone so many women turn

46:59

around and like 30 32 34 like I where are all these things and is something wrong with me because I don't have them

47:06

so I love that you have taken the pressure off yourself you're not subscribing the timelines life is looking very beautiful for you yeah very

47:13

exciting well thank you so much for being here I've really thoroughly enjoyed this conversation I've learned so much oh me too thank you so much for

47:20

having me keep us posted on like life and all the exciting things that you're doing yeah I will definitely thank you

47:26

for having me here and thank you for doing what you're doing cuz I feel like these conversations are so so important

47:32

thank you so much I appreciate that that yeah just kind of the same work you're doing it's just empowering informing women and putting the conversations and

47:39

and the knowledge out there you guys I do not get on a flight anymore without my Baba's compression socks they are a

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bombas hey guys I'm Beth thank you so much for tuning in to quiet the clock if you want to hear more episodes and learn

48:10

more about how to dismantle societal timelines live life on your own terms live life fully And authentically

48:17

subscribe to our Channel on YouTube and you can also follow us on Instagram and Tik Tok at quiet the clock pod

48:25

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