Mindfulness Mode

Heather Shannon is a Certified Sex Therapist who helps motivated clients to discover their sexual selves and deepen their intimate connections. She and her staff have helped thousands of clients with sex and relationships over the last 11+ years of her private practice. Heather has appeared in The Daily Beast, Hustler Magazine, and on podcasts such as The Horny Housewife for her expertise on sexuality and is a Sex and Relationship expert for the Peanut app, which serves over 2.5M women across all stages of life.

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Contact Info

• Website: www.heathershannon.co/

Most Influential Person

• Eckhart Tolle

Effect on Emotions

• I will be really honest, this is still a work in progress for me. I noticed that I'm a lot kinder to myself about certain emotions. And then I also noticed that there are other emotions where I can beat myself up still. Then I'm just noticing the judgment that's still there. And like, okay, like, this is still here. This is something that, I can still work on, but then it's almost like not judging myself for the judgment. So can be a few layers there.

Thoughts on Breathing

• That's a good one. Because I do think breath can help us a lot with sex. Oftentimes, in bed or not, we can kind of tense up and almost be holding our breath. And a lot of people tend to do that leading to orgasm, especially if you're somebody who maybe struggles with orgasm. Try deep breathing, try relaxing your muscles a little bit, and just see how the energy flows with that. Sex and Consciousness
• But with me, I've done all sorts of different breathing. I've done some, like Holotropic breathwork workshops that I've attended. I've gone through periods where I do the Wim Hof YouTube video in the morning. Dr. Andrew Weil has the 4-7-8 breathing technique for relaxation. Sex
• I noticed when I'm stressed, my breathing is more shallow and tense. And it's like a clue to me, like a signal that I can relax a little more.

Suggested Resources

• Book: No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model
• Dr. Andrew Weil The 4-7-8 Breathing Technique
• App: Dipsea Stories 
• App: Quinn

Bullying Story

• I've seen this more than once, where one partner is kind of pestering, coercing or manipulating their partner to have sex with them. Now that you're kind of bringing mindfulness to it. I actually think that's a huge component because one of the main reasons I got into sex therapy is because I think the way the culture is, there's a lot of shame and stigma around certain aspects of sexuality. Sex and Consciousness
• It could actually think male, bisexuality is one of those. I think there's a lot of men who have interest in some other men, but you know, are kind of told like, No, you're either gay or straight. There's no woman who can be bisexual. So I think that when there's an area of shame or stigma, or when someone's feeling hurt, and rejected, and maybe doesn't have the capacity, or the training or the skill set to be with that because I think mindfulness is a lot of that is being with whatever your experience is, they kind of gets more emotionally reactive. Sex and Consciousness
• And I think that's where sexual bullying can come in. So I think if people are able to develop the capacity to accept themselves, to not judge their own sexuality, to not take their partner's maybe lack of interest personally, and you just see that, like, that's what's going on in their mind, you know, looking away that has nothing to do with you. And to process any hurt that you have without judging it. I think that's huge.
• So I feel like when you do that, it really frees you up to have great sexual communication, which is, you know, another topic on my early podcast. Because it's key, it's like, if you can communicate well about sex, you're gonna probably have a pretty good sex life.

Related Episodes

• Modern Spirituality with Ben Decker
• Don’t Let This Habit Steal Your Life; Roman Mironov

• Rediscover Your Sexuality; Dr. Jane Guyn

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