welcome to the bring intimacy back show we are intimacy is real if you desire to intimately connected with yourself your significant other children and family friends community and your higher power is for you that's we explore intimate topics inspiring life story spirituality and insightful tips on strengthening relationships this show is hosted by dr. April and her co-host dr. Kelly now let's get this episode of the brain intimacy back show started because we share with you the secret power to intimacy to create the life you love or love the life you create now here's your host dr. April dr. Kelly welcome to the bringing intimacy back show where in Tennessee is real today's episode is a collaboration between doctor in April in next week's guests Zach Beach it is an episode of Zach's podcast learn to love that doctor April guessed it on to discuss some of her favourite topics including relationships

counseling spirituality in sex positivity among many things that beach is an internationally recognized Yogi a best-selling author and he regularly leave its Retreats workshops and trainings to open the heart and get closer to Nature now let's learn to love

hello and welcome to the learn to love podcast your guys to everything love sex intimacy and relationship your hosts interviewed to do expertzone love including couples therapist relationship and learn the best tips and cutting-edge wisdom to love yourself others and the world thanks so much for joining us we hope you enjoy the show

welcome to the learn to love podcast everyone I am your host Zach Beach and I'm here with the incredible counselor dr. April Brown hello April and welcome to the show and thank you so much for having me today we are going to be talking about bringing intimacy back and for those that don't know dr. April Brown is a licensed mental health Christian counselor board certified telemental health provider National Certified counselor Florida certified sex therapist and a qualified clinical supervisor she has worked in community centers Public Schools University businesses and private practice and has donated her time and services to help out a variety of different mental health addiction homeless and Community agencies in 2018 Dr April started hosting her own online show called bringing intimacy back or she and other intimacy experts will

resources and tips on increasing Intimacy in all types of relationships and this year in 2021 Dr April released her first ebook this month called improving intimacy how are you today April yes I can't wait to get into this topic super excited and before we get into love and intimacy I'd love to just check in about mental health in general mainly because right now people are really struggling with isolation and lockdowns in the uncertainty of the future what's going to be open what's not going to be and you've also been working in the field for a long time since 1998 so I'm wondering what are some things that you're seeing right now and what can we do for ourselves to protect and cultivate our mental health even in the sense

self intimacy and mental health to self intimacy means taking care of yourself and it's been really hard and the pandemic for us to take care of ourselves are many of us are feeling isolated disconnected a lot of fuss or have made with lost people or jobs so are different celebration occasion so understanding your mental health first thing is letting yourself feel leaving and that's okay and it's how you grieve or how you feel processing those feelings and sometimes whether you Channel it out or whether you you know now that things are opening go back to the gym or event do little small ones at your house doing something to release all the stress that is happening a lot of theater part of course is just so much stuff we cannot control you know and even with this pandemic or vaccinatum getting vaccinated

lot of the stuff we cannot control the only thing we can control is a present moment so learning how to be mindful which means being in the present moment without judgment to definitely help you to Center yourself because in the last I think year and a half or two years we can dispense with them since mental health professionals have possibly increasing the number of clients and people that receive because this March more anxiety because people don't know what to expect so they're worried and of course there's a lot of depression because in all honesty we were born connected with someone in a in a mother's room or whatever and so now with all this there's been a lot of Disconnect we can't connect with our family friends get hugs and touch is so important so this more depression however now that we're in 2021 things are opening up a little bit you got to trust yourself to get out even if you don't want to get out and be around people

most of America is in the spring and summer time get outside go for a walk just get up at house absolutely you know a lot of people is that we're like rabbits are groundhogs that have been in their little holes for so long that the idea of going out is anxiety-producing to little bit like entering into a different world because we just change them gone through so much as a culture yes yeah and that's like how can I put in this whole pandemic was like who do I trust you know because you didn't know if I can test the person next to me to give me the virus so I can trust the news to tell me about what's going on so now it's I fear it's how I feel like I my gosh but you can't live in fear all your life you've been the other day I was walking down the street and somebody's walking towards me and we both made like you know 15 feet between us like as we pass by in the sidewalk and I was like well 18 months ago like if we did this will be like what is with these people

social anxiety and fear are they having of each other but it's really it's it's affecting almost every area of our life and realize that Gina being around people that at first it's going to feel a little difficult because your body and and you may have felt that this past year and a half it's been traumatic if a lot of us it has so just because you feel a little anxious she got to push yourself a little bit more continue to do that so you feel back comfortable I love that phrase that grows happened at the edge of our comfort zone and there are those that we do have to push ourselves and I'm curious like as a counselor how you do find that balance between kind of pushing somebody to step outside of their comfort zone to the extreme of something like reach meditation how do you balance between like being safe and going to the opposite extreme of trauma to that really special like

battle pass of gross and personal development it many times it's really just talking it out and rationalizing and coming up what a realistic fears and what irrational fears so like you said just going for a walk outside and if someone were to come close you can move you know so that's different than well maybe I'll go to a nightclub in our 12:00 at night you know where people are dancing and everything and that's a little bit harder to move so finding something and even if it's just a little baby step is extremely helpful so let's say you haven't gone to the grocery store you know you've been ordered and everything and now if you're vaccinated and you're like oh maybe if I go with the mask I can least going to the store so it's it's just finding those little areas that you can push a little bit of beyond your comfort zone if you're going someplace and you're like your hands and everything or tripling

that's way too much for you at the moment if your body is responding like that but if you're going and you're hard way she's up a little bit yeah absolutely it's the Journey of a Thousand Miles begins with one step right and we do want to see that kind of consistent growth over time and I feel like a lot of people Duke of enter into counseling relationships with really high expectations particularly because we live in kind of like an instant gratification Society like we all want that pill to make us immediately feel better and just tell her listeners a little bit about like how effective is counseling to you in general what expectations should a person have on like the amount of time it takes to like deal with the depression and anxiety for example it's coming up during this pandemic and they're going to give me all the advice

yes and that's not really what counseling is really about counseling is really about helping you find the answers with it okay so it's about bringing in sight so the counselor is very usually good at understanding the process but you provide the data in the information and we help you walk through that process so it's how much you put in is what you're going to get out that's number one number two of course with counseling you've gotta find someone that you can relate to me there's a variety of different therapists and I'm not sure everyone knows no one so you got to find a therapist I mean there's some that are funny there's some that are very serious there's some that talks more their son that just listen you know we all come from different backgrounds yes yes I'm a cognitive behavior some more until the thoughts cause you how how to feel but when you go it is a process so that first one a one or two sessions

Steven three it's really about building Rapport so if you're coming in and let's say you have a very serious problem with that you think it's serious and you're afraid to tell your counselor and you just decide to tell them something smaller that's okay because we know that we know that when people fill out the information and they let us know what they're coming in that's sometimes that's just that small problem versus the big problem because it's about building trust and so that's what the first few sessions are about and then getting into some work to build trust and I'm curious how the also happens in like couples counseling and thinking about a story of Oedipus a couples counselor where like they were trying to dig into kind of this the sexual dysfunction that the couple was having many sessions go by and they're talking about some light service bubble issues and the trying to figure it out and then took many sessions for like one of the members to reveal that they had basically like a porn addiction

and all the energy was going like to their devices and computers and none of it was coming to the relationship for a while to get there kind of hoping the secret doesn't come out so how does it mean when you have like two parties and one might not be willing to like reveal certain vulnerabilities that they have in in the session I said I was thinking about sex addiction how people come in say you know one thing but really it's an addiction up some story so with couples therapy what I personally do and what I help my arm comes with underneath do you also I meet with the couple at first and prior to meeting with them they each get and take paperwork where they can put in the wrong stuff but then I meet with them and then after I meet with them then I meet with each of them individually to understand their back story so this helps give them a little bit of comfort and some tea

I'm bringing stuff up and how we bring it in to couples counseling you know so sometimes they may share something in an individual session that will get brought up in couples therapy but the individual session is a little bit safer as a couples counselor not a believer of secrets so you can't tell me like in the individual that you had an affair and don't expect that it's going to be brought up you know later on if course but when you do it that way and you have some individual sessions to counselor can help you learn how to bring it up and talk to your partner about because in all honesty with couples counseling it's really about helping a couple understand each other and hear each other and get connected cuz each cup overflows a little different does not about the counselor saying you know this is definitely the way you should do things but it's about the couple fighting their way and learning how to compromise and hear what another however

it is a process and in that process if you want to say that sometimes even an individual counseling when you start to open up a motion you become a little bit more vulnerable and sometimes you may feel different inside but that's okay it may feel a little scary but you're not going to be there dinner for the rest of your life sometimes you have to open up stuff to heal it to get that piece I love that you have to open up to heal it and you mentioned earlier like you're not a believer in secrets and I'm curious about every relationship is kind of balance of connection in Independence that you're your own person and you're also in relationships I'm running about that balance between like hiding things and just having one's own private life I'm even thinking about two friends of mine over there in a couple in a relationship and then one was texting the decks and then the girlfriend found out and was was really hurt and surprised and really really jealous she's like why don't you

call me and he's like well I'm not going to tell you like I don't tell you every single person I text all the time right like they're independent things that we do in our own lives and then we also might just want to have private conversations with people in our lives so when does our desires for Independence privacy in our own lives become, like hiding and betrayal and secrets that create this connection in walls in our relationship to have some Independence okay because of a couple is always together and just everything together there is no air and if there's no air there's no passion then the second part is each couple has a underlining contract there's a contract there's an agreement and you whether you explicitly stated that agreement or inexpensively there is an agreement it is good of you supposed to be get to talk about what that agreement is and so

you're doing something that breaks that agreement weather is for some couples May talking with an axe or a female or I mean our mail whatever it doesn't bother the other couples there is bad inside a break through those things that when it becomes a problem I'm sometimes it's not necessarily just the talking to the to the person that that you may be interested in its many times sometimes this leads to what we call emotional Affairs and what that means is that I have this other person that I talk to you when something bad happens good happen unexpected I go to this other person before I come to my partner and that's what we called like an emotional affair okay so what if you're in a situation and like you said you text this person and then all of a sudden your partner is upset about it how they find out that is a good time to start to talk about boundaries and what you expect from

what do I expect from the partner if you've been together five ten years you should already kind of know a little bit about this you know I'm saying but if it's and also and I forget about the timer. But if you're you know 6 months then you may not have known and that's also you know whether that's a red flag for you or not on either end do I want someone where I can always check their phone and my phone so do I watch the one who can just trust me trust that I make a good decision and I'll honestly you cannot stop someone from cheating know what you know you cannot no matter you do all these here I'll do I didn't see where they're located at check their phones you cannot stop someone from cheating in the end what you want is that if there's a roomful of people your partner chooses you so it's not to get rid of every everybody in the world but you want your partner to choose you and that's what we focus on and

being an intimate Connection in improving it even thinking about that phrase good fences make good neighbors and I was thinking like indeed in relationships we are seeking connections leaking intimacy having boundaries can also really improve the relationship were able to understand them early in childhood or taught them others were not but when you have boundaries first thing and also his back that self-interested I talked about earlier that makes you feel that you're worth it because if we love others more than we love ourselves that's not a good thing cuz then we're putting out self last and people treat us how we treat ourselves and then had to be last so we have to have boundaries healthy boundaries are wonderful absolutely because I'm so curious

on the podcast I want to make a podcast about love and it really turned into an amazing like interreligious dialogue you had Buddhist teachers come on and Christian teachers come on and you yourself are a woman of space and I'm curious about the connection that you see between love and God yeah so unconditional love for us that we should definitely do our best to show to our partners and to ourselves so what I see a lots and X is that second commandment love thy neighbor as thyself the Minneapolis still love ourselves and when we start to learn to love ourselves and she. Sounds like we treat our neighbors then we have these healthy boundaries and were able to give and receive and not be so sometimes it's hard for us to give or receive when we've been hurt

some curious cuz you mentioned unconditional love and then mentioned boundaries so can I have two questions first of all when you say God provided us this unconditional love would you say that there is unconditional love inside of us and them by getting in touch with it we get in touch with God and then and if we feel safe then we can give that unconditional love in this sense of my partner did something but it wasn't him or her intention to hurt me so how does that unconditional love tie into something like a boundary or basically all the conditions we kind of put on our partner in order to love them we don't say I'm going to love you even if you hurt me even if you betray me even if you some people even like I asked you to load the dishwasher and sweep the floor and then you didn't the house is a mess and I don't even know if I love you anymore like we have twisted

tie into this idea of unconditional love and not always thinking that they're trying to hurt me and also being able to love ourselves so if you're thinking you're just a doormat and you take the abuse that means you're not also loving yourself so that's in the sense of that unconditional love for yourself so you have it for yourself and for others however if someone's being abusive to you and that's not a relationship that you need to be in around South love is that it reaffirms that we deserve happiness and we're not going to be in a relationship that doesn't align with our own care for ourselves and it's not your partner's job since I'm you think it's our partners job to totally uplift Us in to make us feel you know worth everything in the world that's your job you're putting weight

too much on your partner and finding that love for yourself sometimes requires whether you call it God or Buddha is listen to that inner Spirit that's inside of all of us we just called different names what do you call the in inner spirit inside of a I call it the Holy Spirit and that but I do believe that all of us have it and we just call it different names according to the culture and times and everything that we could talk to today's topic which is intimacy specifically bringing intimacy not bringing sexy back but I kind of wanted to but I'll bring it in to see if so really my first question is well if we bring it back and it must have gone somewhere so where did intimacy go this even before the pandemic of course I think intimacy went out the door in a lot of us because of Business and Technology and made

he stood for some of us even just being very selfish or I'm just not having a good relationship with ourselves and with others and what I mean by technology or business that we've just gotten so busy in this world that we're very rarely calling people talking to people one-on-one sometimes it's just this quick text or Emoji or social media yeah and so and we do have to do some of that in business of course and stuff but when you start doing that so much in your relationship it doesn't feel intimate and you need to close intimacy for wonderful I believe in the sense of sex or being a feeling sexy cuz then you feel a connection just doesn't feel like anything's does that make sense absolutely I mean all the social science studies looking at how are social connection has changed over the years show that with each subsequent generation or more isolated than the

this one we go out last we have a face-to-face conversation last we have Community groups last and indeed that connection also manifest in our relationships where we spend more time staring at that little rectangle rather it's our TV or the laptop or the phone way more than we do look into our partners eyes that's what I've seen in the sense of couples and even out of individuals and connecting with their loved ones and friends and children it's the connection is is going bye-bye all right we got to bring it back let's talk about intimacy cuz I often really love this phrase that intimacy is into me see like it's literally seeing into somebody stealing their hard and staying there so but what does intimacy mean to you physically mentally

spiritually you're in the same Dimension and you're connecting you understand that you're touching a person hard without even really physically touching it it's just the hearts of their together and that doesn't happen many times many times their bodies there but you may be talking to someone and your mind is somewhere else and you thinking about something else so in this right here at like me focusing on you it's an intimate conversation right now I love them both their definitions like the first definition very straightforward physical mental emotional spiritual connection and then send it all up in just four words touching a person's heart I love you believe intimacy really starts and building a relationship starts of course with the self Intimacy in love in yourself I do also think I'm having spiritual intimacy does also helping that aspect and then the other part

is actually spending time with a person communicating you know having touch me just a lot of different forms of intimacy okay so there's of course I touch which is very wonderful so many of us intellectual intimacy which means our minds are together and they're being stimulated sharing Beauty whether it's the beauty of our bodies are the beauties of going outside and seeing this beautiful sunshine are beautiful I way to the water working closely together laughing humor is another great form of intimacy

absolutely so what are some other ways that we can spice up intimacy because a lot of people I'm appreciate your emphasis on physical emotional, spiritual and intellectual because a lot of people do just think that intimacy means physical intimacy and often just use it as code word for sex or they think that if their sex is lacking and they're not going to feel connected to their partner so what are some ways that we can continue to build intimacy particularly when it's lacking when I said before about the South Park if you love and understand your body and I'll comfortable in your own skin so I'm comfortable being naked I'm comfortable feeling other your feelings and I know what arouses and desires me okay then you have that spiritual aspect where you understand that sex is good sex is for pleasure

created sex you know he wants it for you so it's not like you know you feel guilty or whatever it's then going to your partner so you feel secure your in a powerful and how it in your body then what you can give that I conditionally love we talked about touching caressing and not really like what are you doing for me and if your partner has that same strong thing that they're feeling confident do you know how powerful that is in the sense of two people feeling very confident about their love for themselves and for each other and you know for their spirit with dead and being able to play so when it comes to intimacy or sex I look it at play okay. We're out we're out of playground and we're playing and if you remember as a child when you play you use your creative mind you just lost your yourself and you're just having fun you're not thinking about what's going to happen

and if you look at that way it's you have much more powerful orgasms and other kind of a specs versus just focusing on on the orgasms or on the methods let's just play Let's lose our creative self and just play like innocent children explore one another physically mentally and spiritually. I love everything that you're saying it's very encouraging it's very affirming of sex for pleasure that our bodies are vehicles to experience pleasure and sex is a really awesome way to cultivate physical connection to our partners I just have to ask you because I feel like all of that runs quite contrary to the common Christian narrative the tends to be really nice x- and says like they're only good sex is in the missionary position when you're married for the purposes of procreation and don't even get me started about masturbation

so how do you reconcile these things are you saying like all those people if they don't know what they're talkin about or how do you reconcile you know what the modern Christian narrative about sex is with your own sex positive use if I don't put my values and other people okay my belief so I do have others who believe other aspects which is fine and that's that's what you believe but I believe that God is a loving God and I know he created sex number one OK Google every and I don't mean that we have to be man and woman okay but not every man and woman that hooks up together can have children so you couldn't just create sex just so every time you were supposed to produce the cat popping out because that's not true and you know it's a grade in their miracles when they do happen so that's in that aspect and in the sense of whether we like boys or girls or you

I'm afraid of different things God knows who we are inside he created us and if we go around thinking of my gosh I'm just dissing died and because I do know love an alternate lifestyle that said how he wants he wants us to love others as ourselves and he created that Temple that body for pleasure so that's how I look at it and in all honesty when it comes to my topic of bring an intimacy back it was something that he put on my heart for me to start talking about it and because many of us go and have these negative connotations about sex and sometimes this has impact our marriages as whether we are married any kind of way but we don't like enjoy sex because you're like oh my gosh I'm not supposed to enjoy it nasty as negative that's not what it is created for it and you see how our body responds when we have sex and when it's really good

how many of us can have orgasms now that but we have a release endorphins increase we have a sense of calm and peace but not as ancient and that's a good thing for about it thank you so much I just it's just hard for me to hear that from you to hear that you believe God is a loving God He Loves Us he created us he created sex and could this body is a temple and we can experience pleasure it without the guilt and shame that many people want to put on us right exactly thank you so much for that and go back to cuz I keep coming back to this ideas self intimacy being comfortable with ourselves earlier mentioned that if you love and understand your body are comfortable in your skin it will really true intimacy also in your real in your relationship

do we create more self intimacy how do we cultivate at what are some practices and things that we can do to increase the love and understanding comfortability of being in our own skin well the first thing is that I'm loving your body the second thing is knowing that it's okay to touch your body that's okay and it's okay to know how you get a rouse that's that's good in fact that helps you know we expect our partner to know all body and know what makes us turn on and that kind of stuff but it's really your job to know and to you know help inform your partner so that is and I think it's important to even teach our young people that because we get this side notation and I know you mentioned masturbation that all that is just wrong and evil and whatever the case may be but just how we learn what we like to eat and we learn a variety of different things of our own you know the inside of our body the same

thing about learning about touch and what feels good so that's one part of self intimacy the next part is of course if you're single or even if you're in a relationship is taking yourself out for dates in for honoring you because that that helps if you order yourself and that helps your partner be able to honor you and knowing your I know you done probably five love languages and all that but knowing that definitely helps as we are in a relationship with somebody we give somebody gifts in creation and Miguel and dates and then we make love to them as I feel like you're recommending like turning all that around and give it to herself take ourselves on their pleasure ourselves and take care of ourselves when we need it right because then if you're able to do that for you do you know how much more confident you are when you when you do it for a partner when a partner does it for you

absolutely and it's crazy because I recently finished this mindful self-compassion training and when you earlier you mentioned should know that it's okay to touch your body and I was kind of in a reference to the physical pleasure and masturbation but in the course one of the exercises that we did was we put our own hand on her own heart and I was just like it's okay I'm here for you and leaving at that time it still felt you know almost like selfish are indulgent just like our even like vulnerable to our own hands on her own heart and to give ourselves that like appreciation that we want so I'm curious about the obstacles I can see some obstacles to self love being a seem selfish seems narcissistic to be so focus on ourselves and I'm also wondering what are some of the biggest obstacles that you see an intimacy with another and then also with ourselves

another people shoes and when your stuff is that means you put your needs above everybody else has and what I'm just talkin about is putting your needs as equal as everyone so some of the obstacles of course is that train of thought okay if one of the obstacles some of the obstacles in the sense of intimacy with self and with a partner is of course I'm a busy schedules not spending time aside not thinking our partners worth the time or maybe they're worth the time but I've got to run in and take care of this business thing or I'm chasing the dollar here or I'm doing so much for the people that I don't have time for myself so in some of these things one of the things you can't do it set time aside set time aside for yourself is self-care and even if you're in a relationship whether it's 5 years 20 years or 6 months set time to have a date and you may think

we have baby dinner every night together that there's an essay me not today you know when you're dating or you're taking yourself out on a date you're not thinking about problems or talking about bills or children or a variety of things you're actually enjoying the moment the other thing is being open to be creative and not doing the same old thing over and over so I know when you talked about spicing up there a relationship but spice hand up intimacy all of us know that if we go to work 9 to 5 everyday to become a routine that it's like when something is the routine you don't even remember how you drove to work that day because you did you know been driving that same road so if you learn how to spice things up do things differently and helps you bring in more awareness and while mindfulness you know something is different so that's whether you bring in smells different smells candles or for ideas

are you bringing you know something and I didn't apply folks so that when you're intimate that you're maybe not using your eyes but you're all the other senses are going to type because your eyes are closed whatever I mean that's just something else whether you doing with change or you know simple vibrate it doesn't matter yeah just bringing the different emotions or even just changing the atmosphere me yeah besides that you have known couples that you have only only only have had sex in the bedroom you know what about a Mickey Mouse doing something different you want to both incorporate schedule time with your partner a monthly or weekly date night when you intentionally cultivate connection and also intentionally bring spontaneity in your life new surprises

experiences that novelty just really helps to bring adventure and excitement and passion to the relationship among us all your wisdom upon your wealth of experience is truly wonderful and I want to finish by asking you a question I love to ask all of my guests which is quite simply what do you wish everyone knew about love that it's easy to attain and I know many people out there looking for love and if 1st and all honesty starts with loving yourself once you're able to definitely truly love yourself that opens up the doors of feeling love from the higher power from others your partner so it starts there but I did want you to know that each person is worthy of love there's nothing that says that you're not worthy of Love You Are

yes everybody is worthy of love everyone listening you are worthy of love. Thank you so much dr. Brown for your really wise and also really encouraged in affirming the reviews on love and pleasure and connection in an intimacy and for our listeners who want to learn more about you and work with you how can they find you okay so I have a website that's easy to remember w w dr. April Brown., which is d r a p r i l b r o w n. Cam just like that and on the website you can find information about my Counseling Services my podcast called bring and it's Missy back and the book that I have of a new ebook out there on Amazon call improving intimacy and if you are out there and you're like wow I really would like as a couple to become more intimate I do have a new product service called vacation counseling which you can come here and software

Florida you can take a vacation with your partner and learn how to of course increase the intimacy between you guys do communication sucks emotional stuff so yes it's check us out the Couple's Retreat and thank you so much for having me on the show September October November rolls around the snow starts coming to have that intimacy vacation in Florida. Thank you so much for coming on to the show and thank you listeners for listening to the show we hope you take home some valuable lessons from today including recognizing that intimacy exists on physical mental emotional and spiritual dimensions and it's also just a matter of touching a person's hearts and unconditional love for others includes yourself so putting your needs on the same level as other people's remember God is a loving God

created sex in your body for pleasure and each person to than you is worthy of love if you want to learn more about me you can go to a Zach beach.com and learn more about the show at the Heart Center. Com thanks again dr. Brown thank you so much for having me in the show love it

thanks again for listening to the learn to love podcast to learn more about the show and your house head over to Zach beach.com or the Heart Center. Calm so you can also follow Zach on Facebook and Instagram