Your Options for Help: Coaching vs. Therapy, Plus Pros & Cons of Each

This episode covers when to see a therapist and when to seek out coaching, strengths and weaknesses of both (because all modalities have pros and cons), and what to watch out for. I'll also go over different types of therapy and different types of coaching, and which versions are good for what situations and challenges, in my perspective. 

This is part of a series of sessions that aim to help you understand the various options for help available to you. 

Get the free guide Find Your Secret Turn Ons to discover the roadmap to your best sex life at https://laurajurgens.com. You can also learn more about me and how to inquire about coaching availability.

Get a transcript of this episode by going to https://sexhelpforsmartpeople.buzzsprout.com/ Click on the episode, then choose the transcript tab.

PS: If you are offended by some swearing, this podcast is not for you.

Transcript

[00:00:20] Hey everyone, welcome to episode 35. Today we are diving further in to the different help options available to you. And we're going to talk about different types of coaching and coaches, and how they are different from therapy and therapists. We talked a little while back about sexological body workers, And in that interview with Rahi, right?

[00:00:48] And today we're gonna talk about coaching and therapy also as tools that are available for you when and if you want help coming up soon, I'm gonna have another interview for you with a pelvic floor physical therapist, and we'll talk about when to see one of them too. So today I'm gonna cover, obviously my perspective on when to see a therapist and when to seek out coaching.

[00:01:11] The strengths and weaknesses of both. Because all modalities have pros and cons, including what I do. And I'll also give you a sense of, from my opinion, of course, what to watch out for. And the things to really think about when you are considering hiring a therapist. or a coach. So your little caveat for today is that I am super over caffeinated.

[00:01:37] I had a, one of those like fasted blood draws this morning and I was really hungry and then I had a session with a wonderful client and in between I had to go get myself some coffee and a pastry and so I am high on sugar and caffeine. If I sound weird, that's why. Okay, so if you were looking at this podcast and you're like, I need the TLDR version.

[00:01:59] Like, this is too long. I don't want to listen to all this stuff about different types of coaching and therapy. Totally fine. I'm going to give you the super bullet point thing that I want everybody to take away from this. When you want to work on your current, present self, and your future, that is a lot of times a great time to come to coaching.

[00:02:22] And so, for example, someone with sexual abuse history or sexual trauma. I often will refer them to a I am a therapist who specializes in processing trauma in the body, and in this episode I'm going to explain to you who those therapists are, like what types of training they have. But I will often have somebody go to that person, if they haven't worked through with a therapist already, the actual effects of the trauma.

[00:02:51] And then come to me when they're, so that's all the past stuff, right, how it's hijacking your present. But then come to me when they're ready to really rediscover their own. own erotic self and figure out what they like and how to really re engage in the world in a way that feels safe and playful and find themselves again, right?

[00:03:13] So coaching is great for building skills, discovering your wants and your desires, playing with those things, really playing. And somebody who's had a lot of sexual trauma that's unaddressed is not ready for playing, right? They need to deal with that. the ways that that trauma is affecting them first. And so I recommend they go see the therapist and then come to me or at least come, you know, be seeing us simultaneously if they want to.

[00:03:42] Okay, so that said we're gonna go into a little story time about kind of how I discovered coaching and then we'll talk a little bit more about the different types of therapy and which ones are good for what and the different types of coaching and which ones are good for what and pros and cons of each one.

[00:03:57] When I discovered coaching, It was really a game changer for me, but I've also had many years of therapy, and I've had therapy that was useful and not useful, and I've had coaching that was useful and not useful. And it's really helped me understand, at least, you know, solidify my perspective so far, and I'm open to changing that perspective as I learn more and experience more.

[00:04:21] But my current perspective on what modalities and sort of sub modalities, right? What types of coaches are good for what? What types of therapists are good for what? And I feel like that is so valuable. I'm so glad I know those things because when I have a challenge, I know who to go to for help. I know whether this is something I really want to hire a coach for, or this is something I really want to go see a therapist for.

[00:04:44] And I will tell you, I have seen both. I have spent out of pocket on both with it. Zero regrets, even, well, there have been some regrets about the amount of time and effort I have spent with certain practitioners. But I'm, I don't really regret it overall because it taught me a lot about the situation.

[00:05:04] And, you know, frankly, I think the biggest regrets I have were the many, many years I spent in ignorance. Being ignorant. I was in the room with therapists, not being a discerning consumer, and just thinking that because they were therapists and they had a degree and licensure, that they knew what they were doing, and that they knew how to help me.

[00:05:26] And frankly, I spent many, many years talking with therapists who incredibly unqualified to help me and didn't know enough to recuse themselves, and that was because I had a lot of trauma. And in fact, I wound up re traumatizing myself by being forced to just retell painful stories over and over to these talk therapists, who offered me zero tools to help me move through that trauma.

[00:05:54] And I just wound up reliving it and feeling more alone and broken than ever. So that was kind of the story of me seeing therapists in my 20s and early 30s. And coaching when I discovered coaching, it was really how I found actual tools that helped me focus on my present and my future. And learn to be the person I really wanted to be and to support myself so that I could get where I wanted in life and just finally feel good about myself.

[00:06:21] I had, despite many years of therapy, I had absolute shit self esteem. And after about six months of coaching, I had pretty great self esteem, a lot better anyway. And learning to self coach over the course of the next year I got really amazing self esteem to the point where I quit the antidepressants I'd been on for 15 years, and I have zero fear now of going back to being depressed, which I had been for decades.

[00:06:49] So I literally tackled all of my challenges one by one. And I'm not saying at all that coaching is the only way to do this. It's just the way, it's the entree that I found. It's the door in that I found. So for me, learning these ways to self coach. which is something that any good coach will also teach you, is how to do it for yourself.

[00:07:12] Learning those tools allow me to stop drinking alcohol. I was a very much a sort of five glasses of wine to sort of numb myself out type of drinker. Every day I could not, I could probably have two, maybe three, but I couldn't be completely without wine any, any day for many years. I wasn't a day drinker or anything like that.

[00:07:36] It wasn't like an alcoholic pattern. It was a very much a numbing pattern. So I got off of alcohol. I fixed my relationship with my partner through coaching. I learned to stop people pleasing through coaching. I learned to stop being a perfectionist. I, obviously, I said, you know, I got, I fixed my self esteem and I got off antidepressants.

[00:07:58] I also learned to communicate with other humans much better and to start being able to kind of build really wonderful intimate friendships. I healed my sexuality and overcame the sexual trauma I'd been carrying for years. And that wasn't just coaching, that was also the help of some critical sexological body work, which we talked about in that other episode.

[00:08:18] And I've also talked about on Rahi's podcast in more detail, sort of my own process. And I got, you know, brave enough to leave a job that didn't suit me and start my own business. That was really supported by coaching and moving to where I wanted to live also. So I did a lot of stuff. I, I'm really excited about all those things about how coaching worked for me and it showed me how to do the work to get there in ways that actually worked and worked pretty darn quickly.

[00:08:46] So. That is why I do what I do and use the modality I do. So I don't tell you that just to toot my own horn, although there is absolutely nothing wrong with tooting our own horns. I'm proud of myself and I think I should be, and that's okay. But it's also what worked for me, what works for many people I know, including my clients, of course.

[00:09:06] So I want to be sure you at least know about coaching and what coaches can offer. As well as all the, you know, I've hired a lot of coaches over the years, and there's been some great experiences and some not so great experiences. So I want to contrast those for you and give you some of the pros and cons of coaching too, and when it's not the right fit, because sometimes it's not.

[00:09:29] You know, even when somebody comes to me as a prospective client and I may have an opening for them, I don't always take everybody because sometimes what they actually need is a therapist and I will refer people out to a therapist instead or another type of helping professional if that's a better fit.

[00:09:47] But I do have so many clients, including one just last week who said, This is the first time anything has worked and I'm so glad I found you. And actually I'm really noticing how angry I am that I wasted decades on marriage counseling that wasn't helpful. And This is not uncommon with clients. They finally find something that helps them in a short period of time and they're like, what the fuck were these people doing?

[00:10:18] I went to them and they didn't help at all. And in fact, in some cases they made it worse. Right. And I think that's a justifiable anger. But, you know, It's really, it's really, it is really unfortunately common. So I want to, that's part of why I'm doing this episode is just to outline kind of what I've learned and what I've seen my clients learn so that we can help you be a little bit more discerning about who you need when.

[00:10:43] And we want to make sure that the situation is the best fit for the modality, right? So, here's just a few recommendations on therapy modalities. As an, you know, experienced consumer of therapy myself, and knowing a lot of colleagues who are wonderful therapists, there are great therapy modalities out there and wonderful therapists.

[00:11:05] There are also some modalities that are better. better fits for certain issues than others. So please don't just go with any old therapist because your insurance takes them. That is, you're still going to be investing, even if you're investing less money, you're still going to be investing a lot of time and trust in this person to help you.

[00:11:24] So please consider being discerning and matching your issue to what they do. If, for example, you have a lot of shock trauma, Which is like episodes of, you know, an accident, a medical situation gone wrong, like, right, like a surgery, a sexual assault, another type of assault, crashes, those kind of shock.

[00:11:47] traumas happen at certain points in time, right? I highly recommend for that a therapist who's trained in either somatic experiencing or something called EMDR. And those are typically done by specifically trained therapists, not just your regular talk therapist. These are body based somatic modalities, which is really important because we actually hold trauma in the whole body, not just in our mind, or it's not psychological, it's actually physiologically held in our body.

[00:12:24] The other kind of trauma, which is early childhood trauma, birth trauma, or really like fucked up parenting kind of trauma, which tends to give complex PTSD, something that's called CPTSD, and also a lot of attachment wounds. This is really benefited in my experience by Something called neuroaffective touch and that was developed by senior trainers in somatic experiencing and It is practiced by Specially trained people who can be either a therapist or a body worker or somebody like me Who and I have recently added this to my own repertoire because it's just so incredibly powerful And really effective for attachment issues which show up in relationships all the time, right?

[00:13:14] You We don't have relationships, intimate romantic relationships, without meeting our attachment wounds. So, but there are other practitioners around in very many places, and it is, it's not a super common modality, so you, you do have to, Go to the NeuroAffectiveTouch website, search the practitioners, try to see if there's somebody near you.

[00:13:36] But it is growing, and it's also really helpful for kids who are in, you know, foster situations or abusive homes. There's some amazing people in the UK who are using it. In have developed an entire non profit around helping kids with, who are experiencing child, who are just out of child abuse situations reconnect with their bodies and, and really process that.

[00:14:00] So that's useful for C PTSD. For overcoming major self esteem issues and depression, I highly recommend working with a therapist trained in internal family systems or IFS. Same thing, right? IFS is just the acronym. So this can be an amazing modality also to combine with neuroaffective touch for healing childhood and parent related trauma.

[00:14:26] But since it's very talk based, it's not, in my opinion, great just on its own to fully really kind of get through all that stuff because to address developmental and attachment trauma, especially if it happened in early childhood, you're going to need some sort of body based somatic work. And an IFS therapist may help you guide, guide you through some of that on your own, but you also may very well benefit from some neuroaffective touch in addition.

[00:14:56] Okay. No, please, that you're a run of the mill therapist, that you just like look up on Google, is not true. probably not going to do any of those things unless they say it explicitly in their description. So you have to seek out these practitioners. It's a little bit more work for you. And some of them do not take insurance.

[00:15:17] And so you'll really have to think about whether you want to invest in a healing modality that's specific to the issues that you have, or you just want to, you know, kind of crapshoot and, you know, throw a dart and hope you hit somebody that's going to help you. But regular therapists are mostly doing what's called talk therapy, and some of them are wonderful, but they do not necessarily have appropriate training in trauma, although there's more of the awareness of that now in the therapeutic world.

[00:15:49] So more therapists who are talk therapists know, at least, That they should refer you to a specific trauma trained therapist. When I was going to therapy in my 20s and 30s, a lot of the therapists didn't even know that they should be doing that, referring me out. So at least that is, that's an improvement.

[00:16:10] I would say one particular type of talk therapy I am very biased against, and I will own that. It is the Freudian type, or analytical talk therapy, and I will never refer someone to that kind of therapist. I have seen and experienced more harm than good from that approach. But again, that's just my opinion, right?

[00:16:29] You don't have to listen to me, but if you want to listen to me, you know, I will. Check and make sure and ask them, are they analytical or Freudian therapists? I know a lot of people who have, I've got clients who've come to me who will, who have said I will never ever see a therapist again because of all the damage that they, that Freudian and talk, those types of analytical therapists have done to them.

[00:16:54] So, That's my beware. Freudian analytical therapists, if you want to come at me, you are welcome to. This is just my opinion, and people can take or leave it. Other types of talk therapy can be great but I don't find it to be terribly useful for serious trauma, whether CPTSD or more shock trauma based PTSD.

[00:17:16] It is really, talk therapy is really great if you just have stuff from your past you want to talk through and just kind of get it out there and you want someone to listen as you talk it through. Just be, be wary of making sure that if you have some, some major trauma that that's not the great fit for you.

[00:17:38] Also be aware that the vast majority of therapists are Absolutely untrained around sexuality, and often very uncomfortable with issues of any sort of issues around sex and sexuality. So they aren't a great fit if you struggle with anything in the realm of the erotic. Okay, and that actually, unfortunately, includes most couples counselors.

[00:17:58] I know, it sounds crazy, but most couples counselors are are also poorly or entirely untrained in supporting sexuality and sexual healing. And actually a lot of them, couples, counselors, and marriage counselors, come from a religious background and have a religious agenda. So be careful if you don't want that.

[00:18:19] Make sure to ask. Secondly, couples in particular, can wind up just sort of in a counseling or therapist's office just really talking about their issues and past beefs and hurts until the cows come home and just keep circling around it, right, and nothing ever changes. So I don't personally recommend standard couples counseling with very few exceptions.

[00:18:46] In my experience, couples really, really need someone to help them actually eat. interrupt their patterns and help them practice actual skills of relating to each other in new ways, right? Skills that you practice in office so that you get some experience and confidence with them. And it's not that helpful to just spend an hour talking about each person's feelings and rehashing old dramas and then walk out of there and go home, right?

[00:19:12] Frankly, it's kind of a waste of your time and it can even do more harm than good by just reinvigorating old wounds. So, If you want to focus on the future together, learn how to relate to each other in new ways, and actually get supported practice implementing that, that's going to mean coaching. Because 99 percent of the time therapists are just not going to do that.

[00:19:34] I actually know a total of three therapists I'd ever recommend for couples, and they are all trained in somatic coaching as well, and that's why I recommend them. So again, obviously, you obviously do not have to listen to me. So these are my opinions, take or leave them. Same thing with coaching, and I'm going to talk about coaching for a little bit now.

[00:19:55] So here's one thing to know. Anyone can call themselves a coach whether they have experience or credentials or not. Yep. You can have absolutely no credentials and go hang out a shingle and say that you're a coach. So that is something of a downside. I don't think it's a, you know, it's not horrible as long as you as a consumer are discerning, right?

[00:20:18] But just be aware of that. Now, that's not true of therapists, right? You can't just go. It's illegal to just go call yourself a therapist and hang out a shingle saying that you're a therapist. But you can get a degree and licensure as a therapist and still be massively shitty at it. And you can harm people.

[00:20:37] I recently had a client, this one is so hard for me, she had massive Childhood sexual abuse. And she told me that, you know, a therapist had actually told her to have a good marriage. She was going to just have to sometimes just lay there and let her husband screw her even though she didn't want to have sex.

[00:20:55] This is a person with massive childhood sexual abuse. No one should be telling any woman that ever. But telling someone with childhood sexual abuse that is a crime. incredibly harmful. And if I could sue the shit out of that guy on her behalf and give her all the money so she could get the right help and also go on some like amazing trips around the world, I absolutely would.

[00:21:18] So, Therapist credentials aren't any sort of guarantee, right, but I am personally very wary of coaches who don't have any training. So I suggest you do ask any prospective coach what their approach is, where they learned it, and find out if they have some training. Right? Also, I really recommend checking their testimonials.

[00:21:44] Even you could ask to reach out to a former client. I've never had anyone do that, but I think it'd be amazing if they did. I would be so supportive and happy to check in with some of my former or even current clients to see if they'd be willing to talk to someone who had questions for them about working with me.

[00:22:04] If they were willing to do that, you know, just connect those people by email so they could disclose whatever they were comfortable with. But definitely at least get testimonials from them, read testimonials or watch video testimonials or anything like that, and find out what their training is. So how are you going to know what the training means?

[00:22:24] All right, so there's some different flavors of coaches out there. And aside from the super fringy ones, which I'm not going into, I mean, if you want someone to like, read your aura, or, you know, energy heal your relationship or whatever. More power to you. That is absolutely up to you. You do you. But I am just not going to spend time on that jazz here.

[00:22:44] So Cognitive based coaches are the most common and this was my first, so this is really like thought work, okay? Thinking, using this, like helping you understand the thoughts in your mind and helping you work with those in ways that you can figure out what you actually want and be more intentional about what's going on in your head.

[00:23:08] And this was my first training and coaching and it can be really, really hard. powerful, but it also has some big downsides. This is all based on this cognitive behavioral model that was created in the therapeutic realm, and it essentially helps you learn how to manage your thinking and take as much control of situations in your life, including emotions, as possible.

[00:23:30] We, you know, through that model, we get intentional about what you want and how to happen. And I love this approach so much in particular situations, and I use it all the time in my own self coaching. So it's really helpful for things like body image issues, right, to clean out our brains and stop letting all that socialized crap about how we're supposed to look into our own thinking.

[00:23:54] It can also be really good for healing negative self talk that's tanking your self esteem and interrupting those crappy stories we tell ourselves, right, about being unloved and unwanted and never good enough and all that stuff, when we are indulging in just letting our brains go wild with that habit, it can really feel horrible.

[00:24:16] And so this is a great approach for stopping and interrupting that. The downside of cognitive coaching is that it really doesn't work for intense emotional dynamics like attachment issues, which means most relationship stuff, cognitive approaches don't work. Very well. And it also doesn't work for anything subconscious.

[00:24:38] So some, anything that's sort of like not in your control, all those subconscious thoughts that are already programmed in there, right? Some coaches who are only trained in this method. have no idea when not to use this tool, right? They've only been trained in one thing, so they try to use it for everything, and it means they can often wind up gaslighting their clients.

[00:25:01] And I really hate that so much. I've had so many coaches come to me for coaching who were trained this way. So cognitive coaches come to me wanting coaching in my modality because they've been trained this way and been burned and tried to get coaching this way and been gaslit. And so that tells you something, right?

[00:25:22] These are people who are cognitively trained coaches and they don't like that modality for a lot of different reasons. So it's not to say it's all bad. It's very useful when applied to the right situation with a lot of compassion and a lot of awareness about how not to gaslight your clients. And I love that I have this tool.

[00:25:44] Because I can use it in just the right situation, right? But we don't want to use, when we have, when all we have is a hammer, right? Everything looks like a nail kind of thing, and that's what can happen. So, my question is, My warning for you is just be careful if people are only trained in cognitive style coaching.

[00:26:03] And that typically is going to come through schools like the Life Coach School or Byron Cady's The Work Approach. There's nothing wrong with that type of training, especially if combined with something else, but just be wary and be an informed consumer. And if you start feeling gaslit by your coach.

[00:26:24] It's you don't, you notice that, right? Validate that, right? You do not have to just stick with someone who you feel like is not, you know, supporting you. Okay, so less common, but still very prevalent, are somatic approaches to coaching. So somatic just means body based, and this is going to include people who work with nervous system support, and either support.

[00:26:51] or teach you, or do both, how to process emotions in your body through experiential practices. Because emotions are fundamentally a body based experience, that makes a lot of sense, right? Emotions are these floods of chemicals in our body, right, and we experience them physiologically. The strengths here are with somatic coaching approaches are that it really can help people learn how to relate to themselves and other people and how to understand and process and bring kind of awareness and compassion to their emotions.

[00:27:31] And all of that is just magic for relationships. It helps you feel empowered and less reactive and as if life and emotions don't just happen to you, right? The downside is that sometimes a somatic approach, if it's by itself only a somatic approach, can forget the mind's role. And when that happens, you can wind up staying stuck in these old and unhelpful stories, right?

[00:27:57] And those coaches who only do somatic work can be really at a loss as to how to get you unstuck out of those unhelpful stories that you're telling yourself in your head. So if you have a story that your body is unacceptable, it's generating all these emotions, you're never, if you never get to that mind part, that cognitive part, you won't ever be turning off the tap on all those shitty feelings, right?

[00:28:20] It's just gonna, every time you deal with one of them, you're just gonna have more coming down the pipe. I really love, for me at least, that I got trained in both somatic and cognitive tools because they blend so well together. And that's my bias. I think it's really helpful and even essential to combine both of those approaches.

[00:28:39] And I personally recommend working with a coach who combines them because you get the best of both worlds and the downsides of each approach are really compensated for by the other one. All right. Another sort of a rare category of coaches are people trained in working with consent based touch. And of course you should be very clear and they should be very clear on the touch boundaries and always checking in with you about boundaries and consent in that moment and that day.

[00:29:13] So for example, I am trained in working with consent based touch. So in my, in, in two different ways, in my somatica training, in sexuality and relationships, and also in neuroaffective touch which I'm wrapping up that training now. So, In my practice, we are always clothes on and no genital touching or kissing, but there's lots of room there for a lot of play, right?

[00:29:40] And sometimes on a given day or with a certain client, my boundaries may be a lot more specific than that. So for example, if someone can't yet attune to themselves and me, I can tell and they tend to project, they might project like mommy issues on me for some, you know, for example. And I will pretty much always restrict touch to a simple holding or hug or like touch on the hand if someone is.

[00:30:11] excessively projecting on me, or if someone is not yet able to rein in some of their leaky sexual energy on me, if they're feeling kind of creepy, right? My boundaries will change. On the other hand, this woman I was working with yesterday, she had none of those issues, and she really needs help.

[00:30:32] identifying what kind of touch she loves and learning to say no to what she doesn't. So I was offering different types of stroking touches on her arms and the side of the neck to see, to help her learn to really listen to her body to discern what felt good and what she wanted. And she definitely wanted to try that, right?

[00:30:52] We talked about it first. We established where her boundaries were, were where my boundaries were, what the consent situ container was so that when we did practice, she was really able to relax and tune in and it really helped her start to notice. Okay. And this type of coaching is so helpful because many of us don't actually really know what that experience is like.

[00:31:16] Really asked to listen and have somebody sit there really patiently with a whole open heart willing to be there for our pace of discovering what we like, right? Learning to navigate our own wishes, our yeses and our nos, to speak them in a safe space with someone who celebrates our nos and our boundaries as much as they celebrate our yeses, our interest in our curiosity.

[00:31:41] And that is a profound experience that is really important. And especially if you are a sexual trauma survivor. having like experiences of deep consent that are based on really you taking time to figure out what you want is incredibly restorative. And since I also do neuroaffective touch, which is a very slowly paced modality that supports the release of deep trauma, bracing, that sort of deep tension that we hold because of emotional pain and misattunement that we've experienced in the past, or like early childhood or even birth trauma, that release of deep bracing in the body, it has to be incredibly consent based and based on being led by the client's body and us both taking time to really listen.

[00:32:32] And so very few therapists do touch work, but there are a few and very few coaches do touch work, except for people who are, for example, somatic trained like me, and, you know, a few other modalities. And yes. You want to make sure that they are very informed, they can explain their consent practice, they can explain their boundaries, right?

[00:32:55] And as always, you want to make sure you jive with them. And this is a really good, touch based work is a really great choice for relationship nourishing help. So those are some different styles of coaching for you to be aware of. Now there are a few things to watch out for whether you're interviewing coaches or therapists.

[00:33:15] And I highly recommend you consider it that way, right? You are interviewing them. You are hiring them. You get to be discerning. You get to ask questions. You get to see if they're the right fit for you. You know, I wish that I could do that with primary care physicians too, to be honest. I just, you know, I moved to Asheville last year and I'm trying to find a primary care physician and there's It's so impacted, it's so hard to get in anywhere that you can't even really interview them and say like, hey, do I really trust you to be my doctor?

[00:33:47] But I really wish that in the U. S. we could do that. Especially if we have to be in this like crappy healthcare system, like don't we, and we're paying out of the nose to see these people. Could we at least have some opportunity for discernment? But most of the time we don't get a choice, right? Well, when you're hiring a therapist or a coach, please notice that you have a choice and be discerning.

[00:34:08] Take that power for yourself. Ask them, how would you work on this specific goal that you have, right? Make sure they have an answer for that. Make sure you like the answer. Make sure you like them. And just know that, like, everything. Quality varies. This includes coaches and therapists and anybody else.

[00:34:31] There are different skill sets, different philosophies, different humans. So just like any profession, you're going to have great ones and crappy ones. Whether it's mechanics, or investment bankers, or hairstylists, or surgeons, right? Some surgeons frickin leave scalpels in people, right? And show up high on Oxy.

[00:34:49] So quality varies with every profession. So please make sure if nothing else, you actually do it. Regardless of what style of person you're seeing, that you actually feel heard, cared for, and respected by whoever you are seeing. I want to invite you to pay attention to how your body feels when you see them, how you feel when you're leaving the office, what is your gut sense?

[00:35:13] Trying to notice the difference between normal nervousness and vulnerability, right? That's gonna happen. I mean it hopefully is going to happen no matter what because that means you're being vulnerable and honest. Notice the difference between that normal nerves and vulnerability and feeling unheard or not resonating with the person.

[00:35:32] You don't want someone who actually fawns all over you or never challenges you either. You actually need someone to tell you the truth. and to care more about telling you the truth, more about helping you than what you think of them. So please be discerning, but don't just look for people pleasers. Does the person have good boundaries?

[00:35:50] Do they reflect back to you what you say in a way that makes it clear they listen? Do they feel trustworthy? Do they have actual methods to offer to reach your goals? And so this week, because y'all know I love giving you exercises to do, your exercise invitation It's to take yourself somewhere nice, go on a walk or to a coffee shop or in the shower or whatever, and reflect for five whole minutes on what your goals are for your own love life.

[00:36:18] What are the top three things that you really want for yourself? Let yourself get really specific and allow yourself to know what those things are. and see if you can be brave enough to define what you actually want. Okay, that's your invitation. I wish you a wonderful week and I hope this was helpful. I look forward to seeing you again next week.

[00:36:39] Hey, if you're curious about how you can have better sex and connections, go grab my free guide Find your secret turn on. It's right on my website, www.laurajurgens.com. And the link is in the show notes. I'll see you here next time.