Home Free Course Work With Me Podcast Login
 

Episode #46: Sex & Relationships with Maggie Reyes

Feb 14, 2023

Listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify Podcasts | Google Podcasts 

 

Summary

Valentine’s Day felt fun as a kid because of the activities we would do to celebrate, coming home with a bag full of sweet cards and little toys. But somewhere along the way, Valentine’s Day turned into a day of expectations in our relationships. The actions we take suddenly define how much we love and appreciate each other, and it never feels like enough. But if you’re ready to go back to having fun on Valentine’s Day, I have the perfect guest for you.

Maggie Reyes is a marriage coach for high-achieving women just like you. One of the points she emphasizes in her teaching is The Power of One. When you change, your relationships transform. I’ve seen this happen in my own life, and I can’t wait for you to experience the same thing in your life, so listen closely.

Tune in this week to discover The Power of One, and what changes in your relationships when you decide to change. Maggie is discussing why people often feel resistant to the idea of taking responsibility for the quality of their relationships and their level of sexual desire, why this isn’t about you doing all the work, and how to go first, so you can improve all of your personal relationships.

 

If you want to take this work deeper and implement it in your life, you need to learn all about The Unstoppable Group. This is my six-month, intimate, small group coaching experience for high-achieving working moms who want to live lighter and lose weight at the same time. I take my clients through a science-backed, simple strategy that seriously blows their minds. The next group starts on April 16th 2023, and enrollment is open now until February 17th, so click here to get on the waitlist before all the spots are taken! If you want more information or to see if we’re a good fit, you can book a free consult call by clicking here!

   

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

  • My experience of Valentine’s Day and how everything changed.
  • How all your relationships start to improve when you work on how you operate in your marriage.
  • The science behind why one person deciding to change has an impact on the entire family.
  • Why going first isn’t about being transactional, manipulating, or forcing others to change.
  • How to investigate your lack of desire for sex and intimacy, even though you love your partner.
  • Why there doesn’t need to be anything wrong in your relationship for you to want it to be better.
  • Maggie’s advice for what to do if you feel under-appreciated in your relationship.
  • How to take the very first step in creating the relationship you truly want to have.

 

 

Listen to the Full Episode:

 

 

Enjoy the Show?:

  • Follow: Get new episodes in your feed every single week on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google or search "The Unstoppable Mom Brain" on your favorite platform.

  • Rate & Review: Take a few seconds and leave your magic review in the stars and comments of this show.

  • Instagram: Come hang out with me on Instagram, you'll find me in your daily feed @theunstoppablemombrain

     

Featured on the Show:

 

Full Episode Transcript:

Click here to download the full transcript

  

  • Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Hey, this is Dr. Priyanka Venugopal, and you're listening to The Unstoppable Mom Brain Podcast, Episode 46. Sex and Relationships with Maggie Reyes. It is Valentine's Day. I have a love not so loving relationship with holidays like Valentine's Day. Growing up I remember I used to cherish these days. It almost felt like as a kid, it just felt fun because we were doing arts and crafts and activities that celebrated specific holidays like Valentine's Day.

    I even remember dropping those little Valentine's into everybody's cubbies and then coming home with a bag full of sweet cards and little toys. It just felt so fun. But somewhere along the way, especially for Valentine's Day, it kind of started to take a downward spiral. Somewhere along the way it turned into expectations and somehow the actions that I took or that I expected my partner to take, defined how much we [00:01:00] loved each other or how much we appreciated each other, and then we got to post it on Instagram or Facebook for everybody else to see.

    Or worse yet, if you don't get the flowers or the box of chocolates or the candlelit dinner, you feel like see, there's no love here. And we start comparing and despairing to everything else we're seeing on social media. I've remembered that that was a phase of my life, that my thoughts and feelings about Valentine's Day totally swung in the other direction.

    And I used to think this is just a bunch of crap. So I have finally swung all the way back around, and I have started to have fun again with holidays like today, like Valentine's Day, and I have really been taking it through a filter if I want to feel special, if I want to feel love, if I want to feel appreciated, I get to go first. 

    I'm telling you, this has been such a game changer, and it's been allowing me to bring fun back and my agency back. I'm not relying on [00:02:00] somebody else or something else to create that experience for me. I'm not relying on flowers or a Hallmark card or a romantic invitation to feel appreciated and loved.

    If it happens, amazing, and if not, I'm still fine. Honestly, this has just been such a game changer and I had to share it with you at the intro of this episode, which is all about relationships. I'm so happy to bring you this episode with Master Coach Maggie Reyes on a day like today, which symbolizes love.

    Maggie is a marriage coach for high achieving women. She has a brilliant podcast called The Marriage Life Coach Podcast, and she has a group called the Marriage MBA. You're going to hear all about it in today's episode, and you can get all of her information over at the show notes page at the end of this episode.

    What drew me to have her on this podcast is one of the points that she emphasizes in her coaching and in her teachings. The power of one, when you change, your relationships start to change. I love this conversation so much, and I cannot wait for you to enjoy it. Before we dive into my conversation with Maggie, I want to make sure that you know that the Unstoppable Group is currently open for enrollment until this Friday.

    This is my intimate six month coaching experience for high achieving working moms who just want to feel better, more powerful, and lose weight at the same time living their real life. This group has everything for you to succeed, and there are a limited number of spots, so make sure you do not wait to book your consult with me, and let's figure out if we are going to be a best fit.

    You can head on over to theunstoppablemombrain.com/connect to grab your consult spot. Consults are free and they're designed to help determine whether we are going to be best fit to work together. We'll talk about you, your goals, and how our work inside the group is different than anything that you have ever done.

    Doors are closing on Friday and consult spots are already going, so don't wait another moment to grab yours. Without further ado, let's get into my conversation with Maggie Reyes. If you want to reach your ideal weight and create lightness for your body, you need to have simplicity, joy, and strategic decisions infused into your life.

    I'm a physician turned life and weight loss coach for ambitious working moms. I've lost over 60 pounds without counting points, calories or crazy exercise plans. Most importantly, I feel calm and light on the scale and in my life. There's some delicious magic when you learn this work and the skills I'm going to be teaching you.

    Ready? Let's get to it.

    Hey, Maggie, welcome. Welcome to the podcast. I am so incredibly excited to have you, and to everyone listening, I've already introduced you once. But I want you to introduce yourself because you are an absolute powerhouse when it comes to relationships. I think healing relationships, having, I think Type A, high achieving women feel more powerful in their relationships, which is why I wanted to have you on the podcast.

    So welcome. Thank you for coming and tell us who you are and who you help. 

    Maggie Reyes: Okay. Hi everyone, and thank you for having me on the podcast for, I just feel I'm having fun already, so, so much fun. So my name is Maggie Reyes. I am a master certified life coach. I help Type A women have better marriages. I like to name things or I've created many of my own titles.

    So I call myself a modern marriage mentor because a lot of the things I talk about in my coaching practice are mentorship things. So there's coaching where we look for the answer from inside you and, and what your highest and wisdom is guiding you to do. And then there's research tells us that if you cultivate your friendship, you're gonna have a better time.

    So I'm just gonna tell you to cultivate friendship. So I do both coaching and mentorship, and I love talking about relationships. One of my favorite sort of outcomes that a lot of my clients have is they come to me for help in the romantic relationship. And then they're like, but all my relationships got better.

    My relationship with myself, my relationship with my parents, or my children, or my coworkers, or my boss. So if you're listening to this and you're like, Hey, she's a marriage coach. I'm not married. Just sit back, relax, enjoy the ride. 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Enjoy this conversation. 

    Maggie Reyes: You're, you're going to take something away and you'll see like, oh, that's right.

    So I just invite that person, I'm waving at you. Hi. 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: That's right. So good. And also, let's not forget, you are the host of a very popular podcast, the Marriage Life Coach podcast, which after this conversation, I think that so many people listening are going to run over there and start listening because I really think of Maggie as someone that has so much wisdom to share, especially, and, and I I love that you said that it's not just a romantic partnership, that that's, I know who you work with primarily, but this is like relationships in every corner of our life. 

    And I love that you said, especially the relationship with ourself. And I wonder for you, because the reason that I even wanted to have you on was you mentioned something. I had Maggie come on for my group, the Unstoppable Group. She came on and she did a workshop for my clients and it was amazing and I just loved it.

    And I dunno if you remember, I was like raising my hand for you to like coach me during the workshop. I was like, okay, Maggie, hold on. I have a hypothetical scenario. And it's like never hypothetical, but you mentioned something, a concept, in the workshop and I was hoping that you kind of explore it and talk about it today.

    You talked about the power of one, and I think this is so incredibly helpful. Can you describe the power of one, how it can... let's just start with just describing how do you describe the power of one? 

    Maggie Reyes: Okay, so here's how this came about. I work with individuals helping individual humans who identify as women have better marriages, and there's a cultural narrative in our society that it takes to detangle that you need both of you.

    That if both of you aren't either doing couples coaching or couples counseling together, then it's not gonna work, or something like that. And I really had to understand for myself, cuz I, I started out just working with individuals and it was working and I said, wait, what's going on? What's happening here?

    And so in my own process of deepening my own understanding, having coached individuals and seeing it work. What I found was in psychology, there's a wonderful theory called systems theory, and it's a very simple hypothesis, which is when one element in a system changes, the other elements in the system respond to the change. They respond.

    That doesn't mean they do everything you ever wanted them to do. Somebody listening to us right now needs to know that. They simply respond. What happens is if there's a foundation of love in your relationship, that response is gonna build and harness and cultivate that foundation of them. I always like to say that some of you think you're married to jerks, but you're just married to good people having a bad day.

    And some of you really are married to jerks. And if you are that data we wanna have, I'm gonna figure that out. So in essence, the power of one is really this idea that one person can change the world and one person can change a marriage. And then we test it and we see how that works and what that looks like.

    But no matter what you're going through in your life, we all know people like Steve Jobs, right? Steve Jobs changed technology. Did he have a whole team of people helping him? Yes. But did he come with a vision that technology could be elegant and simple and clean? Right? And then from there, all of these other things, and then all the groups of people that helped him do that. 

    Right. I love Oprah Winfrey. I grew up watching her on tv. It's like, one woman with one show was like the TV mom for a whole generation. Right. And I don't know anyone who grew up with Oprah like I did. We remember doing gratitude journals and writing things we were grateful for or, decluttering when she would have our decluttering, you know, shows, or I'll still remember she bought, there were sheets for your bed made of T-shirt material.

    And at the time it was the coolest thing you could ever imagine cuz sheets for your bed were never made of other materials, I dunno, back then. And I was like, well, Oprah has t-shirt sheets, I'm getting t-shirt sheets, right? So one person in, in many industries and in many cases can have such a huge impact on the world. So just imagine on your family. 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Right. I feel like the truth of that resonates for me particularly, and, and I'm going to use myself as an example just because you and I are talking, but I think that what I see come up really often, especially for high achievers and we both serve high achieving women, is this dichotomy where high achieving women are working really hard and they are go-getters, they get the job done. 

    They're like the A plus gold star students that are really accomplishing so much in their life. Like they have the categorized list of things to do and they're doing amazing at work. And I think that there is a sense. And tell me what you think and how the power of one kind of plays into this.

    There's a sense that they're doing so much already. That in their partnership, they don't want to have to do, there's, there's like, I can already sense like the entitlement there, but there's like, they don't want to have to also do the power of one there. So what do you say to that? Yeah, they're already doing the power of one in every, they're doing it everywhere else. Like... 

    Maggie Reyes: Why should I do it here too? So here's the thing. There's a couple of ways I like to answer this question, so we're just gonna go with, I'm gonna walk you through both of them. The first one is, why should I do this thing? Whether it's in your marriage, whether it's at work with your team, like there's some area of your life where you want to see a change, you're like, why should I do it?

    The first reason is because you are the one who wants something different. . So if we, in my case, I talk to, you know, women either married to men or married to women, and I talk to them like, well, what does your partner think about what's happening? They're like, oh, they're happy. They're fine. They could go on like this for 30 years.

    They don't care. Just like, why do you need to be the one who does it? If we talk to your boss or your team, if it's a working example, right? They're happy, they're fine. They could go like this for 10 more years. They don't care. So the first reason is because you are the person who wants something different than how it is right now.

    This is just the most essential at the most basic level. The second thing is what I wanna impress upon anyone listening to us right now is not that you do all the work, it is simply that you go first. And that philosophy or example, bears true in any situation. So like I was mentioning Steve Jobs and Oprah as our examples, right?

    They had a whole team of people helping them, but they went first with the vision of an Oprah's case, what television could be like. She decided television should help people feel better right now. It didn't have to be tabloid TV or whatever. She had that vision and then all she went first. And then she had a team of people helping her execute that and create the things she had the vision for.

    So in our personal relationships, it's the same idea. I go first, maybe I express gratitude. Maybe I forgive first. Maybe I look for the most generous interpretation of something that happened. Maybe I'm kind, I go first. Then the person responds, then we see. Sometimes we have to collect some data. We have to see.

    But that is really the essence of what's happening. It's not you're doing everything. You're just going first. 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Right. And you know, I wonder what you think about this because the collecting, I love collecting data for anyone that knows me. I love all the evidence, I love all the data, I like to analyze it all.

    And I think that what I have found, especially since I discovered coaching, especially like just in my marriage, of course I had such a shift in how I felt. I always felt like I had a good marriage, but it felt like I felt so much more connected after coaching and understanding that, oh, my thoughts about myself and my partner are creating my experience of this marriage, and so I can decide, right?

    Like I get to go first. And I think that the part that. . I wonder how many women listening to this struggle with, because I know I did, is we've gone first and I don't even have a timeline, right? So it's like I'm gone first. I'm not even expecting something necessarily to change, but things aren't as good as you want them to be, and I know that I have a tendency.

    So if I have a tendency, I'm wondering if anybody listening has a tendency, but it's like we want them to be a little bit different than they are in the partnership, and we're like, well, we are doing all of these things. Look at how we're showing up. We have the generous interpretation. We're going first. When is it going to be my turn?

    When does the relationship start to shift? So how do you decide when you collect the data, how do you start to feel the shift in the tide? 

    Maggie Reyes: I think that there's nuance to this, right? So you have a program in six months. I have a program that's six months. This is not a simple answer. I'm gonna give you a simple answer for today.

    But for everyone listening, like there is nuance and there are situations that are gonna go outside of what I'm gonna explain right now. The first thing is to decide that you're going to go first, as we said, because it's who you wanna be in the world, not for your partner's response. So when you say, I'm gonna go first, and you wanna see how they respond and we're collecting data that's in a very clean, curious place.

    When they say clean, that means there's no emotional attachment to the outcome. The way you presented the question, there is an emotional attachment to the outcome, which is actually very manipulative, which is, I'm gonna be nice to you, so you're nice to me. Which is very transactional. 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Yes. Yeah. It feels very like, well, I was good. Like how come you're not being good back? It's very, yeah, for sure. Yeah. 

    Maggie Reyes: So what I wanna say about that is often that will fail because it feels transactional to the other person and they will not be inclined to do anything because they feel like, well, the only reason you're doing this is cause you want something from me.

    So that is not my intention. When I talk about going first, I wanna make this really abundant, explicitly clear, is the reason you go first goes to the first thing I said is because you want something different. Okay. Now you still wanna see how your partner responds. You wanna see do they respond with delights?

    Do they respond with annoyance? What is their response that allows you to determine, you know, what kind of relationship do I want? What kind of relationship do they want? Where do we overlap? Where do we not overlap? So in the going first realm, first, it's because of who you wanna be in the world. Now, what will happen in a lot of cases.

    In my situation I will work with people who have done different things. They've gone to workshops or we can retreat or they've tried a bunch of different things before and they'll say, what, you said this, I've already gone first. I'm like, well, but have you really ? 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Mm-hmm, right? Like, let's be honest, let's really be honest about the texture of what you're going first was really like. I think that that's what you're talking about. Yeah, absolutely. 

    Maggie Reyes: Yeah. 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. 

    Maggie Reyes: Yeah, so that's something that we would investigate and that's why I say there's nuance for some of the people listening, they really have put their best, most loving, most generous foot forward without any twingeof manipulative energy whatsoever.

    And that could be your case if you're listening to us, then you say, well, is this the marriage that I wanna have? Or is this the relationship I wanna stay in? Then we have to ask some maybe difficult questions. So that's one part of it. The other part of it is you ask something like, well, when does the marriage change?

    Right? 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Yeah. Like, I'm like imagining this road where it's like, when do we start to, you know, together, like on this journey that we're on together, when do we start to kind of find a new path almost? 

    Maggie Reyes: And that's where there's nuance involved, because one element is how you're showing up. Cleaning up your side of the table, doing things differently with no manipulative energy whatsoever.

    Just genuinely from this is who I wanna be in the world, whether it's with you or whoever's in front of me right now. That's one part of it. I wanna kind of, It's not really a detour, but I wanna give people a specific example of what I mean by going first and seeing how your partner responds to make it really grounded.

    And then we can still investigate this a little more, but one of my favorite examples to give was even before I was a coach, I was just talking to my best friend and have her permission to share this story. She always struggles when she hears me say it was many, many years ago, and she's in a completely delighted situation now, but she called me and she was frustrated with her husband.

    You know, as one does you call your best friend, you're like, oh, you know that kind of energy. And I was even back then was like, well, have you thanked him lately for any of the things that he does to make your life easier? And she was very much not having it. She's like, why should I thank him for things he's supposed to be doing in the first place?

    Like, that's ridiculous. Why would you make this suggestion? And I was like, well, I dunno. I'm really happy with my husband and you seem really frustrated with yours, so I'm just giving you this idea you might wanna try it. And you know, we just kept talking. And then a couple weeks later she calls me and she's like, oh, you're never gonna believe what happened.

    And. You know, I'm used to believing things now. Alice in Wonderland has this quote, I believe it's Eight Impossible Things before Breakfast or something like that. Like I believe Impossible Things all the time. So she's like, you're never gonna believe what happened. Oh, tell me what's, what's new. It's what's happening.

    He stopped at Starbucks and got me my favorite coffee and he hasn't done that in five years. It's amazing. It's so romantic. I love that he did that. Like, oh my gosh, that sounds so great. Like, that's so cool. So she's like, no, no, no. You don't understand. I started doing that thanking thing. You said, . And then what happened was like it would make him smile, and then he started thanking me for things, and then I started smiling more.

    And then, we're just nicer to each other. Like overall, even when we're not thanking each other. And now, you know, it has been five years since he's stopped at Starbucks on the way home to just do something nice just because for no reason. It's not my birthday. There isn't anything special. So when I say you go first and I say, then we see, right?

    This is just a very concrete example of she just went first. And then he didn't call me. We didn't have a conversation like the other person didn't need to be in the room. He was just responding naturally to the way she was showing up. 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Yes. Oh, that's so powerful. You know, this actually is bringing up this, this personal experience for me.

    I felt like for me, after I had, definitely after my son, and then definitely when we had, you know, both my kids, I felt like, you know, in our family it felt kind of like we are all getting by. Like there's this sense of like, we're kind of hitting all the mile markers and we connect as a family, but like I wanted to be better.

    And I think over time it almost becomes like you and your partner, me and my partner felt it felt like, you know, okay, we're like going through, we're going through, but like, that connection, that love, that deep, like just that, just deep love. It felt like it was on hold because we're taking care of these two, these two like jelly beans running around.

    And I remember this was after coaching I, this was after having a really tough time with my son. I remember my husband is the best dad. The best dad, and I never thought to tell him. It's almost like I assumed he knew that he's such a good dad. I assumed that he just knows how amazing of a dad he is. 

    I never commented on it. I never thought about it. I didn't ever take a moment to like, really appreciate it. And I remember we were sitting on the couch, we'd put the kids to bed and I was like, I just wanna tell you like you are the best. You're the best dad. And like my husband actually, he looked so surprised.

    Like he was kind of almost caught off guard that I said that. And just that one sentence, it was true. It felt so like I had to say it because it just felt so true to me. He just, it's like what you were saying. He just had this smile on his face and you could see it's almost like his body relaxed that he was being recognized and appreciated.

    I think he didn't know how to recognize and appreciate himself. Either, right. And I was like, you're just so amazing, like you're just the best dad. It's almost like, I think for me, I might do little moments, but it doesn't feel like this constant occurrence at all. 

    Maggie Reyes: Yeah. Imagine doing it every day. 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Oh my gosh. Yeah. 

    Maggie Reyes: So one of the things I do in my program is called the Marriage MBA, and one of the things I do is we have a 30 day gratitude challenge. And it's a little bit different than maybe some of the gratitude challenges people have in general, which is you, you're focusing on gratitude towards your partner.

    But if you feel underappreciated in your relationship, you also do gratitude towards yourself. What are you proud of? What do you wanna just thank yourself for doing? And so you could take it in both directions. And I am a big fan of doing the things I asked my clients to do. So one of the times I gave the challenge, I'm gonna do the challenge too.

    And it's three days and you just check off each day. You know, had all the best intentions to do it exactly how they were doing it. And I was like, wait, I counted up one day how many times I thanked my husband for something and I think it was like seven times. And I was like, oh, I'm not gonna do this.

    Cuz it's just become like, I'm not gonna use the checklist because it's just become like, like how I work now, how I think now. But I was fascinated to notice that we both have a culture in our relationship where we thank each other for the smallest thing. So we might be going to sleep. 

    One night the other day my husband was like, it was a weekend. He's like, ah, thank you for such a great day today. 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Aw, yeah. 

    Maggie Reyes: So imagine that, right? My husband likes to cook and often, you know, cooks for our, our dinners. I'm like, oh, this dinner was delicious. Thank you for this amazing dinner that you made. But it's constantly for different things.

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: It's almost like this has become the texture of your relationship. It's like it's just happening in the background. You're not thinking very much about it. 

    Maggie Reyes: It's just your automatic response. So that day that I tried to sort of quantify it and I was just gonna check off one box, right? I was like, oh, this is just how we communicate with each other.

    And what happens in the relationship? So gratitude and sex are two of the glues that really glue relationships together. Whenever somebody needs help in the relationship to easy places to work on is like, how often are you having sex? What's the sex like? What's going on? Is there anything in the way? And how often do you express gratitude?

    And immediately we can just have quick wins just from troubleshooting those two areas and then moving on to other areas. So it's like gratitude is such a good idea. 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: You know, I think what's coming up for me, and I don't know whether this is something you hear often or if this is just me being me, but I, in my mind, I don't think this is ever conscious, it's only coming up now because you're mentioning this, the idea of offering gratitude and like saying what you appreciate.

    I think historically in my mind, I used to make it almost like, if I'm appreciating him, then somehow I'm not also appreciating myself. Like it's almost like, like, me or him rather than me and him, which is so interesting because I don't consciously ever think that if I recognize him, it means I like, what about me?

    Like that, what about me? piece of it I think can get obliterated. When I think we remember, I can offer him gratitude and appreciation. It doesn't mean that I'm also not doing amazing things and can offer gratitude and appreciation to myself. Yeah. I wonder whether you notice that coming up a lot, or is that just me being me. 

    Maggie Reyes: I think that's why we do the exercise where you, especially a lot of people who come to me, they want a better marriage.

    They feel unseen in some way. And so we want to cultivate your own ability to see yourself even as we cultivate what's going on with your relationship and how do you wanna be seen by your partner. Like, it doesn't mean we ignore that part, but we do wanna say, well, no, you could be proud of you. You don't have to wait for somebody else to be, you can be proud right now.

    So that's why we can use it towards the partner. And you can also do 30 days of gratitude, acknowledging yourself and see what that feels like. 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I also, I've been thinking about this because I have found historically, this is before coaching with my son or with my husband. This feeling like, not feeling connected or not feeling that deep love.

    Love was unfortunately my lived experience, like I am the one that is not getting to feel the connection and the love, right? So I think that sometimes, at least in the coaching relationships that I've seen, we keep waiting for us to receive the love and to receive the feelings of connection and appreciation, but we can actually get that by appreciating the other person and loving the other person and like, what about loving on them? You get to experience the love too. 

    Maggie Reyes: Absolutely. You get to experience the love too, and it's like anything in life where you're waiting for something outside of yourself to experience the thing that you're craving.

    What my invitation to everyone listening, including to you is to not wait. 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Yes. 

    Maggie Reyes: Is to like what's in the way between me and this thing that I'm craving in the healthy, loving way. And it's really like holding two opposites. Like I know that everyone listening, we're intelligent humans. We can think in nuanced ways and we can hold a paradox or a duality at the same time.

    So do we live in community with others and do their reactions matter? Yes, a hundred percent. But do we have so much control over our internal experience of how we experience their reactions and how we can cultivate something that we're craving? Like appreciation also? Yes. It's like one thing doesn't make the other thing less true.

    And we do navigate how to manage both our relationship with other humans and our relationship with ourselves, but just waiting for another human to give us that thing that we want. It's like, wait, how do I show up? Like embodying that thing that I want. 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: You know, I, I wonder cuz it's like the very first thought that comes to me when you mention that, like, what's ever in the way of offering gratitude or being intimate, having sex with your partner.

    It's like, it's like if you don't feel love, if you don't feel the connection, especially for women. This is like as an OB/Gyn I remember I would see so many of my patients, especially after the age, after they had kids, for sure, there'd be a time period where they would come and they really felt at a loss.

    Like lo libido. Just they don't have desire, but they know that they want to be in this partnership. They want their relationship to be better, but they have no desire. They're not feeling connected. They're not feeling the love. Maybe some of it is of course, when you're immediately postpartum, but I just mean in general, after having kids, I think this is such a common one, and I think that that's a big obstacle.

    This feeling, at least it feels like a big obstacle to me, is well, I don't feel connected. I don't feel love. I don't feel the desire, and so then because I'm not having the feeling, I don't take the action of initiating intimacy or offering appreciation or offering. I don't take those actions cuz I'm not feeling those emotions. So what would you say to that? 

    Maggie Reyes: I think we have to investigate why that's happening. It's easy to say, I feel no desire, but it's a little harder to say, well, why don't you feel no desire? Oh, for the last seven days I've worked for 12 hours and before then, you know, in the case of, of having a baby or something, my mother-in-law was living in my house for the last three months helping me with the baby.

    Like in… I'm Latin and Latin culture. That would be a very common thing that would happen, like a family member or somebody that would come and help with the baby, and so it is actually no desire. Or is it something physiological? Is it something practical? Like how many hours am I working? At what point?

    It's almost like, do I have space to feel a desire at all? So it's the label we give it, Ugh, I just don't feel any desire. But if we ask a few questions. We can determine are you exhausted? Are you having something else going on? Is it something physiological, hormonal that you do need to have the support of, someone on your medical team to run some tests and check and see, right?

    Do we need to rule any of that out or not? And then there's, how are you relating with your partner? So maybe the baby came. I've seen this a lot. Where partners are really wonderful at [00:30:00] being partners, and then you have this idea of how they're gonna be as parents and then they're not that, and then there's this disappointment that is happening.

    And a grief for the thing you thought was gonna be and how you were gonna handle it. And then it's not that anymore. So notice that with no desire, we could have just in this one set of examples, six different reasons, right? Like, it could be, I'm exhausted, it could be . I have a family member here, and it's just, you know, I don't feel whatever.

    It could be I have all these thoughts about how my partner should be showing up and they're not. All of these different things could be influencing something that appears as no desire, but it's really, if we get underneath it, there's things that are solvable in that, that could create desire. 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Yes. I think that's so good. I love that you said that. This is a, it actually kind of makes me think about like if you think about a model and really imagine, okay, I don't feel like connecting, I don't feel like being intimate and it's because I have no desire. I think most people kind of, that's the full stop.

    That's like the end of the sentence and like that kind of creates a drift in the relationship because we stop connecting. Right. But what you're saying, I think is okay. We are saying I have no desire, but I want this relationship. I have desire and I want to have desire. I don't have it now, but it's something that I want for my future.

    So like asking the question, I wonder why I don't have the desire rather than assuming I just don't have desire, like end of sentence. 

    Maggie Reyes: And it's gone forever and there's nothing else to do about it. Yeah. 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: That's right. And I, and you know, this actually speaks to a lot of, like my, my experience, I remember as a physician, like the top two reasons that people would have low libido if it wasn't like an anatomical or physiological situation.

    It was fatigue and stress. I mean fatigue and stress. And I think the issue is, especially for high achievers who don't have coaching support, is they don't know how to get to the root cause of their fatigue and stress. And so we kind of keep putting the bandaid solutions on, right? Let me go out for a mani pedi, and maybe now I won't...maybe now I'll feel relaxed. 

    Maggie Reyes: Relaxed. 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: And that's not where we solve fatigue and stress from, as you and I know, it's actually solving your fatigue and stress might actually be the answer to desire. Of course, looking into the other reasons, but that's so important to look at if you feel that, to ask why. 

    Maggie Reyes: There's a great book called Come As You Are by Emily Naski that talks about the science of sex and then a very approachable, easy way to understand.

    I always recommend this book, and one of the things she talks about there is this exactly is in order to understand and really unleash our sexual self, we have to understand how stress appears in our life and in our bodies. And another thing she talks about there, and there's a name for this theory that escapes me right now, but basically the essence of it is you have accelerators and you have breaks.

    There are things that turn you on and there's things that turn you off. So whether it's a new baby who has come to the family, whether it's a new job, whether you just moved, whether your kids change schools, like there are things happening in your life that can contribute to your turnons and your turnoffs.

    And just knowing, oh, you know what turns me on when I have spaciousness, when I, when maybe I enjoy having sex in the morning, and I always try to have it at night. It could be that simple. For some people it's like, wait, what is it that I need for some other people? Now you have two kids instead of one.

    Maybe you've moved around how you are in the house, and now just having the door closed. You still have that part of you that's like, what if they knock on the door? What if something's going on? What if something's happening? Right? And then it's like, wait, okay. That's a turnoff. 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Exactly. Yeah. 

    Maggie Reyes: How do we, what do we need to do? Do they need to be outside of the house? Do we need to send them on a playdate? What needs to happen so that you can relax? 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Yeah, and I love that. First of all, we were totally taking the direction of the conversation, having sex with your partner, but the other thing that I think is also super important, I'm curious how you coach on this, but at least as a physician, I, I remember, I would talk to my patients about this is being really honest in a conversation with your partner about it. 

    I think because the topic often, I don't know about often, but at least for the patients that I would see, it felt almost like they felt a little ashamed. They felt embarrassed. There was like the topic is, it's almost like this taboo topic that we don't talk about so freely that they also wouldn't talk about it with themselves or with their partners, maybe with their bestie, like right, maybe with your girlfriends, you like are able to have this conversation, but somehow you're not able to have that honest maybe it feels vulnerable conversation with your partner.

    And so not surprisingly, there's a disconnect with what their expectations are, what your desires are, and like how do you start instead of drifting apart, how do you start coming closer together? It has to start with actually sharing. Like where you are in the conversation.

    What do you think about that from a coaching perspective? 

    Maggie Reyes: A hundred percent. So part of that whole gratitude is if we think about it, like making deposits in an emotional bank account. So the idea of an emotional bank account is something that the Gottman Institute talks and teaches about, which is like, we make all these deposits and then when we need to make a withdrawal, there's something there to withdraw.

    If we don't make any deposits, when there's something to withdraw, we go emotionally bankrupt. There's nothing there to support this withdrawal. So when we're expressing gratitude and we're just laughing and having a good time, and then we need to talk about something serious, it's like, oh, we have so much goodwill stored up between the two of us.

    We could just bring something up and it's okay, but if we have no goodwill stored up between the two of us it makes it much harder. So that's one piece of it. The other thing you mentioned is how people don't talk even to their friends, or sometimes maybe they do to their friends. I have given coaching homework so many times, go make a friend because sometimes we put all our emotional eggs in one basket, which is in our partner's basket, and that is not good for any relationship.

    Having other people you can talk to very often I'll ask people, who else have you talked to about this? Like, who else are you sharing this with? And very often the answer is no one. And my, you do group programs and I do group programs where you have people on the same journey, in a constructive way, in a powerful way.

    Being able to talk about really delicate things, whether it's weight loss or or my marriage that is going to embrace it and not make anybody the villain just be like, oh, I'm here for you girl. You know, kind of vibe. 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Yeah, and I think like even in that, it's, like what I love about group coaching experiences, you get to validate that you are not alone in this.

    And, and this is the piece, I think especially, I feel like there's, there's something that, that high achieving women, like there's something about, they're so powerful. They're so strong, they know that they're like kick ass leaders. And yet sometimes there's loneliness with that experience. And I think kind of being in a group coaching container or even in a marriage or partnership, like being able to talk about it out loud, out of your own brain. 

    I think it, number one, you get to become so much more aware of what is happening for you. And number two, and, and this is, I'm just gonna go on a little tangent. I think that sometimes you think you know what's in your head when you start talking. You're like, whoa. 

    Maggie Reyes: What, where'd that come from?

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Where did that even come? I had no idea. I had some, you know, some of these subconscious paradigms driving me. But, and I think the second piece is like, then you get to start validating it, knowing you're not alone. You hear somebody else have that or your partner might actually mirror back to you the same things like you have this desire and they actually might have the desire too.

    You just haven't talked about it. That's so good. And so when you think about that. Really taking that step, that first step where you are saying, okay, I know that I want something. I know that I'm the one that wants it. I want to go first. Maybe right now I'm not feeling the desire or the connection or the love, and so I have not been taking the action of initiating or recognizing.

    Do you have any kind of tangible steps or tips for how to take that very first step? I feel like that very first few steps sometimes feel the hardest, and then once you start taking them, you get into a rhythm. What are your thoughts on that? 

    Maggie Reyes: I think, I mean, you could take it from a lot of angles.

    The simplest thing I would say is, what kind of relationship do I wanna have? Do I want us to be loving and kind to each other? Do I want us to be supportive? What do I want. For so many women, that's a very hard question to answer because we have prioritized everyone else instead of ourselves for many, many years, very often, and we have lost touch with what we want.

    And so I say that it sounds simple, but I know some of you're gonna hear that and be like, I don't even know. 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Oh, that's such a common answer. I don't know. You think you don't, you don't know when you, until you get asked the question. 

    Maggie Reyes: Yeah. 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: You don't have to know. So, yeah. 

    Maggie Reyes: But we do need to figure that out cuz that's gonna dictate what our first steps are.

    Right? If I want more appreciation, I'm gonna go in that direction. If I want more sex, I'm gonna go in a different direction, right? If I want a vacation or if I want to change my schedule, like what I want informs the actions that we take. So I would say the next question is somebody very often I get asked is like, well, if I don't know what I want them, what, where, then what do I do?

    Right? And here's my invitation for anybody who feels disconnected from their own wants to just start this evening or start tomorrow with noticing what you wanna wear, what you wanna eat, where you wanna go for lunch. Start noticing the small wants and connecting with the small, if you're that person that anybody asks you to lunch and you're like, where do you wanna?

    Pick a place. Let yourself... 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: You pick what you want. Yes. 

    Maggie Reyes: Let yourself feel a little bit uncomfortable and you pick a place. If it's the show you're gonna watch on TV tonight, you pick the show, right? Just to practice in very tiny, non-threatening ways, right? If you'd like, I wanna go to Bali for six months.

    Don't start with that. 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Right, right. 

    Maggie Reyes: That's not the point. 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Oh, I love this. Yes. It's almost like the image that I'm getting in my mind. It's like this little muscle that's always been there. It's like not, we're not inventing a muscle, we're not inserting a muscle onto your body. Like it's all already there.

    And as children, we all had it. It was actually very powerful as children and, and it's somewhere along the way. It just atrophied. because of society and programming and all the things we learn, especially as women. But I think what you're talking about is it feels like such a safe way to practice flexing the muscle again.

    And it's gonna feel a little uncomfortable, but it's in small moments. And then you get to see, oh, like I survived that and Oh, and, and I gotta watch my show. And I got to pick. Oh, okay. So not only did I survive, but I also got something that I wanted. And look at me, I feel so good about that. And then you can dial up the volume on how you do that. 

    Maggie Reyes: I think that just for fun, you could allow yourself to want something really outlandish. Just one of the things we do is we think, well, I can't have that, so I'm not gonna give myself permission to want it. And then we, we taper down our own desire. So for example, someone listening to us right now might wanna be a guest on your show one day.

    That might be their dream. Allow yourself to want it. Don't all email Priyanka at the same time, but allow yourself to hold that in your heart. Right. I'm from Miami and I grew up in Miami and I always joke around that I would like to go to Gloria Stefan's house and have lemonade on her porch and her patio, but on the bay looking at the bay.

    I know that's unlikely to occur, but I delight in allowing myself to just have that be something I want. I think it would be cool. I think it would be fun, right? 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Yeah. Oh, that's so, and I think that what gets in the way of that sometimes, I'm curious if this has been your experience with your clients, when I think what gets in the way is we wanna be practical.

    And so what I call it is like the guise of practicality, cuz I think it's a guise. I don't think it's real practicality. Practically, you could totally go to her house, right? But we had this guise of practicality thinking that if I allow my wants to be big, if I allow it to kind of come to the daylight for my wants to be heard, then I'm going to be so disappointed when it doesn't happen.

    And it's like we're trying to be practical and protect ourselves from disappointment, which is why the muscle atrophies. 

    Maggie Reyes: Yes, and think about that, like you're just disappointed ahead of time. You're just saying, no, I want that, but I can't have it. You're deciding ahead of time that you're not gonna get it, as opposed to, well, what would need to happen for me to go to Gloria Stephan's house?

    Maybe I'll write an article for a magazine. Maybe she'll read it. Maybe I'll pitch her some special thing. I don't know. I mean, if I really wanted it more deeply, I might do something about it, but right now. 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: I mean, Maggie, you would totally figure out how to do this. I'm sure you would. 

    Maggie Reyes: I would probably figure it out, , but right now, my growth is just to allow myself to want it and be in the wanting of it and let that be okay.

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Yes. I almost want like, like the theme of this episode. Anybody listening to know that it's, it's okay to want, even in your relationship. It's okay to want a better relationship. It doesn't mean anything is bad. It's okay to want it to be better. It's okay to want things and to give yourself permission, and there's safety in wanting.

    Even when it might start out uncomfortable. I think that this is definitely for me too, like everything you're saying, it's like I know that I have allowed myself to want in certain areas, and I think that what I have done and think a lot of women do this is if it also serves other women, then yeah, then it's almost like my wants are more justified.

    Or maybe they...

    Maggie Reyes: Like it's allowed. 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Yeah. It's more noble like if I'm helping women, it, you know, like for, for my business, if I'm helping other women, then it feels like a more noble reason to want to do and work on my business and invest in my business and take my business to the next level because I'm serving women, right?

    Rather than I can just want it. For me.

    Maggie Reyes: Just want it. 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Because I want it. And I think that that is a piece, like this idea of nobility and like it's shameful to want something just for you, like it's selfish. I think that that is a huge, huge, huge roadblock. It's just like programming for so many women.

    Maggie Reyes: And that's one of the places where then to, just to tie it to what you do all the time is then we overeat cuz we didn't let ourselves want any of the other really substantial things we actually want. But then I can eat the Oreo, so I'm gonna eat that. 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Yeah. It's like I at least deserve this. Right. And, and what we are choosing is the lowest common denominator thing. There are so many better things. 

    Maggie Reyes: Yeah. As opposed to like, what do I deeply want? What lights me up? What if I wanted that? And what if you had permission to want it, even if it helped? No one. The thing is when women are blessed or grow in their careers, in their business, whenever we do cool stuff on earth, everybody wins.

    Like always every time. But it doesn't have to be that everybody wins. Just us winning is enough. Right. But it's an interesting thing to ask ourselves. I kind of, sometimes I give myself things to think about. I was recently at a business event when we were talking about making money as women business owners and somebody said, well, you know, it's not about the money for me.

    I'm like, why not? Cuz we're culturally programmed as women, our impact is the most important thing. But I was like, you know what? If I just wanna make a lot of money and I am just interested in the money and what if I transform thousands of marriages? In the process of making these piles of money, I wanna make, like, who cares?

    Who cares if I want the money? I do wanna have an impact that is real, right? But I just take my brain to this place where it's like, but what if it didn't even matter? What if I just helped all of these people, express more gratitude and have more sex and live better lives? Just cuz I wanted piles of money?

    Why not? 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Yes. And you know, actually what you are saying at the very start of this episode, kind of tying back into that, like, first of all, nobody else has to benefit from, it doesn't have to be a noble cause, but I think that like, just the way that the universe works, there's no way around it When you change.

    When you transform your brain, when you level up every part of your life, when you allow your wants to be heard, when you stop overeating, when you repair a marriage or connect or love more because you change in doing that, like everything in your orbit will have to change because of what you were saying at the start. Remember you saying… 

    Maggie Reyes: Systems theory. 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Systems theory, like everything in your life changes. This is literally, I mean, I remember I shared this on the podcast before, but I got into coaching because of weight loss. I weighed 200 pounds, wanted to lose weight. That's how I discovered coaching. That was my avenue in.

    But all of these avenues, whether you come in because of your marriage or because of coaching, what you really are changing is your relationship with yourself. Always. And the impact of that on your family, on your work, on your society, it just... 

    Maggie Reyes: The ripple effect is incalculable. 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Yes. 

    Maggie Reyes: Incalculable. 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Yeah. And my husband recognized it who's not like, you know, for him to recognize, you know, because of that coaching thing that you did, like you've changed the trajectory of our children's lives.

    For him to say that, that was like a moment that he was appreciating me and I was caught off guard. You know, cuz that's not his typical style. He's a very logical, techy kind of person, but he was like that has changed them and then it changes generations because of systems theory. It's so good, so fun. Okay, so I feel like we have been talking to everybody really to really understand that relationships deserve your attention. If you want it and it's available to you, Maggie, how can people find you? How can they hear more about you? How can they work with you? Tell us everything. We're gonna have to do this again. 

    Maggie Reyes: I love it so much. So my website is maggiesreyes.com.

    Anything that I'm up to, you'll always be able to find it there. I like to hang out on Instagram too. I'm @themaggiereyes on Instagram. If you wanna share your takeaway from this episode, I'd love to hear it. Tag us and tell us. We'd love to celebrate that. What's your Instagram? 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: @theunstoppablemombrain 

    Maggie Reyes: @theunstoppablemombrain. @themaggiereyes.

    Tag us and tell us your favorite part. Are you gonna express gratitude? Are you gonna allow yourself to want something we wanna know? So those are the two best places to just check out whatever's happening in the world. 

    Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: I love it. And everybody check out her podcast, check out her group. I'm gonna have all of your information in the show notes for anyone that missed the spellings of things like you can always go find out right there.

    And I just love these conversations. Seriously, like these podcast conversations for me have become one of my delights about the podcast where I get to bring on people that I think of as my friends, people that have inspired me. And Maggie is one of those people that I, I don't think of you as just a friend. I think of you as someone that has inspired me.

    You have coached me hard. In the past and I love it so much, and I just think you are amazing and so valuable. So thank you for what you do and everyone, I hope you enjoyed this episode and we will see you back next week. Bye Friends, the Unstoppable Group is a six month coaching experience for high achieving working moms who want to reach their ideal weight with more ease, and they're ready to do it now. 

    You know that this is going to be for you if you just know that something has to change and you want to create it now. Run and do not walk to go and book your free consult with me right now. On this call, we are going to talk about everything. We're going to talk about what you've tried, what's worked, and what hasn't.

    And the most important question is we're going to get to why it is never your time. It's never the length of your task list, it's never any of the things outside of you that is keeping you from reaching your ideal weight. On this consult call, you and I are going to walk through exactly what your unique struggles have been, and then I'm going to share with you my step-by-step process that I take my clients through to solve this problem for good.

    I have a success formula that works. It takes into the high achieving working mom's brain in mind, and it really pulls on the common threads that tie high achievers together. This is a room that will push you in the best way, and it is also the most supportive experience that you can imagine. Putting yourself in a room with other high achievers like you is a game changer.

    High achieving working moms often hold a badge of honor at how much they're doing, but for this, I want you to know that you do not have to do it alone anymore. You can get all of the details about the group over at theunstoppablemombrain.com/group, and then don't wait to book your free consult with me to determine if we are going to be a best fit.

    There's absolutely no obligation to join. We are just gonna determine whether we would be best fit to work together. You can head over to theunstoppablemombrain.com/connect to grab your consult spot. These spots are limited and they will fill, so don't wait another day to go and grab yours now. I cannot wait to see you on a call.

    Thanks for listening to Weight Loss for Unstoppable Moms. It's been an honor spending this time with you and your brilliant brain. If you want more information or resources from the show, visit theunstoppablemombrain.com.

     

     



Join The Magic

Value driven ooey-gooey goodness, strategies and skills delivered right to your inbox every week.