What does your nervous system have to do with your sex life?
More than you might think.
In this episode, Dan sits down with nervous system specialist Morgan Starr-Riestis, who explains why feeling safe in your body is one of the most important ingredients for great intimacy.
Many couples assume sexual problems are about technique, desire differences, or communication. But often the real issue is something deeper: our nervous systems are stuck in fight, flight, or shutdown.
Morgan shares how our bodies are wired for safety, how dysregulation can show up in the bedroom, and why learning to regulate yourself can dramatically change your intimate connection.
You’ll learn:
• Why safety is the foundation of pleasurable sex
• The difference between actual safety vs perceived safety
• How shame, pressure, and expectations dysregulate the body
• Simple daily practices that help regulate your nervous system
• Why trying too hard to orgasm can sometimes make it harder
• How to identify the underlying need behind recurring relationship patterns
Morgan also shares practical exercises couples can try right away to build safety and connection in everyday moments.
If sex sometimes feels stressful, pressured, or emotionally loaded, this episode will help you understand what your body is trying to tell you—and how to work with it instead of against it.
You can find Megan on all socials with the handle @mind.psy.guidance
Resources and Events:
We invite you to explore our Get Your Marriage On coaching program. For a limited time, you can try it free for 30 days and get access to coaching sessions and our full course library.
We also have an opening due to a cancellation at our upcoming couples retreat, and one more spot available on our cruise! We’d love to have you join us!
Disclaimer: The opinions and values expressed by guests on the Get Your Marriage On! podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and values of the host. Appearance on the podcast does not imply an endorsement of the guest or their products by Get Your Marriage On or its host. While we work hard to bring you quality and valuable content, listeners are encouraged to use their own best judgment in applying the information or products discussed on this podcast.
Guest
Morgan Starr-Riestis (LMHC, PATP) is a licensed therapist, educator, and coach best known for creating the Seven Centers System®, a practical model for nervous system regulation and lasting behavioral change that integrates seamlessly into daily life. Her work is dedicated to addressing gaps in the healing and self-development space that often keep people feeling stuck. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Cognitive Neuroscience, Wellness, and Human Biology and a master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health with an emphasis in somatic therapies. She explores this model in her forthcoming book, trains other practitioners in the approach, speaks internationally, and shares regulation and personal growth tools with her large online community.
Find her @mind.psy.guidance on all socials or https://sevencenterssystem.com
Transcript
This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors or inaccuracies. For the most accurate and complete experience, we recommend listening to the full podcast episode.
Episode 296
Morgan: And there’s a paradox here, because I almost think about the phrase of when we admit that we are not at peace, we become more at peace.
Dan: Uh huh.
Morgan: a how can we. Recognize that sex doesn’t need to look like orgasm in that’s the
Dan: The be all, end all
Morgan: yeah, that. That’s not necessarily what sex is and has to be right We get to define what that means,
Everyone, welcome to this. Get Your Marriage On Podcast episode. One very important skill that we talk about often on our podcast is what I [00:01:00] call calming the heck down, which put another way is about nervous system regulation. It’s about calming down what’s going on inside, enough for you to be fully present with your spouse and with the world around you.
I am excited to introduce my guest today, Morgan Star Reis. She is an expert with nervous system regulation. In this episode, she’s gonna break down how our nervous system works and some real practical tools on how to calm it down so that you can be more present in the bedroom with your spouse.
I invite you to try some of the tips that she offered today right away and see if you see a difference in your ability to connect and be present with your spouse in and outta the bedroom. At Get Your er, John. We have some pretty exciting events coming up. The first is our in-person couples retreat. This is the four day, four night romantic retreat that we’re having. Here in southern Utah, gorgeous outdoor and beautiful resort facilities where we do a deep dive on intimacy [00:02:00] in your relationship.
That’s coming up the first week of April, and I have a spot left if you wanna grab it last minute. We also have our crews coming up this October, and, we’re almost, sold out on that one. So if you want to come on our cruise, now’s a good time to apply and, you’ll find all those details at Get Your Marriage on.com.
Click on events and scroll down and you’ll see it there.
Dan: Morgan, welcome to the Get Your Marriage On Podcast. How are you today?
Morgan: Thank you. It’s so good to be here. I just got off of a bunch of holidays and stuff and so it’s really nice to be grounded and,
Dan: Yeah, you’re, you’re quite the traveler. This is kind of cool. Uh, you were recently in the New York Times or something that you said, which is like so cool to say. I’ve been published in the New York Times. What, what was that about?
Morgan: That was a really cool way to bring in 2026. That was the very first day, January 1st, 2026.
Dan: Uh huh.
Morgan: it’s so funny that I was in the New York Times for the first time and the topic that I [00:03:00] was interviewed about was raw, dogging, boredom, and so, so I had to,
Dan: boredom. Okay.
Morgan: I had to explain to my more and more, or my grandma what raw dogging is, I mean, at a bigger
Dan: Oh, okay.
Morgan: The raw dogging boredom is essentially this trend where people are facing boredom
Dan: Uh,
Morgan: without protection. And
Dan: Uhhuh,
Morgan: the irony there, if anyone doesn’t know what the vulgar term of raw dogging is, is the having sex without protection.
Dan: uh, without a condom.
Morgan: yes,
Dan: Uh.
Morgan: a condom, and so I had to. Explain to my more and more, first off, what raw dogging was, to give her context of why we’re raw dogging, boredom.
And I just, the whole thing is just so funny that that’s what I was in the New York Times about first. Uh, so
Dan: Of all the things. Uhhuh,
Morgan: out of all the things to be interviewed about what raw my expertise, uh, that’s what, um, that’s what I got in for. But I love the humor around it. I think it’s, I think
Dan: Uhhuh. I can just imagine the look on your grandmother’s face as you’re explaining.
Morgan: Honestly, she loved it. I mean, she, she’s [00:04:00] got a great sense of humor and I think there was, there was a fun element to it to share. And honestly, it, my cousins were around and my parents were around too, so we all got a good kick out of her just being like, wait, what? Explain more. What do you mean? What is that? So it was good. good.
Dan: That’s so good. So your expertise is on, helping people learn how to regulate themselves better. nervous system regulation. How’d you get into this?
Morgan: Yeah, so I have a bachelor’s degree in cognitive neuroscience, wellness and human biology, and I got my master’s degree in clinical mental health with an emphasis in somatic therapies. So I have my own story of struggling with depression and anxiety and not wanting to live at times, and a lot of perfectionism, a lot of overworking, a lot of burnout, a. Of just struggle human things, you know? And growing up this was never a topic that I was ever exposed to. And so I went on my own journey as we all a lot of us practitioners do, and found that this overall [00:05:00] nervous system regulation was a huge missing piece that wasn’t talked about enough growing up.
And so. Got a lot of education in that and then I ended up creating my own model that helps people regulate their nervous system and really bridge that insight to action gap. ’cause so many people really can understand it logically. And we get it intellectually, but then we don’t know how to integrate it into our bodies and how to integrate it into our day to days.
And so that’s a bit of what I specialize in now as well.
Dan: So tell me of a time, maybe this is when you first realized, holy smokes, this stuff is good. It helped me overcome a challenge or something where I used to flip out, but now I can like hold onto it myself better. Did you have an experience like that?
Morgan: Oh my gosh. There’s so many of them that it’s hard to say like this was the exact. Thing, but I feel overarching, a sense of flow.
Dan: Mm-hmm.
Morgan: like I can feel like myself authentically. I can actually able to listen and [00:06:00] receive things better. I can be able to, uh, just the feeling of flow where it’s not as hard as it once was.
Like truly the. process becomes easier of being human.
Dan: Hmm.
Morgan: like these moments of, wow, I’m dealing with this with way more grace and ease and those feelings are we, we wanna think that it’s this big fireworks and like it’s just this huge thing that happens. But I feel like it’s these, it incremental increases over time to where you end up looking back and like, wow, I would’ve. Freaked out about that, or I would’ve gotten completely derailed before and now I have resilience and I’m moving through it a lot more gracefully. And I’m thinking back to, was a particular time that I would continue to sabotage. I talk about like upper limit problems, you know, it’s like we have this place of success that we think is safe, and then anything past that is scary and we don’t do it.
Dan: Uhhuh Uhhuh.
Morgan: got an opportunity while I [00:07:00] was in my undergrad to. to a modeling agency. Somebody had approached me and I at, what? That doesn’t, that’s not safe. And so I did some work with my nervous system to really allow for that opportunity to land in
Dan: Uhhuh because you wanted the modeling agency, it was just outside of your,
Morgan: opportunity.
Dan: Uh.
Morgan: thought about that for myself.
I had never, but when the opportunity arose, I could have sabotaged that moment. Instead, that became a way that I essentially got myself through college because I was able to afford paying for college through jobs that I was getting through that agency, and I would’ve said no. I would have been like, oh, who do those people think they are?
Or whatever story. I would’ve supported it with my dysregulation. But by having done some of the regulation work I had been doing at that time. Really feeling more safety in my body, being seen, feeling more safety in my body, being successful. Some of these pieces I would’ve just, crushed the [00:08:00] opportunity before even stepping into it. So that’s one of them that I can think of. And it takes a lot to be seen. And think about walking on a runway or doing these things, it’s, it’s an intense experience that I had to have, had safety in my nervous system to really step into that opportunity.
Dan: Yeah. That’s so good. So we wanna apply this to, this Is Podcast really dedicated to married couples that wanna improve their sexual relationship. And one key to good sex is learning how to regulate yourself. Can you expound on that a little bit Better?
Morgan: Yeah. Sex in general is a very complex topic, but at the foundation of it, in order to enjoy it, need safety. And if we don’t feel safety in our own nervous systems, our partner is not going to also feel safety and vice versa. It’s a very. thing as well. So I would say there’s two elements to that is both your own nervous system and your own relationship with your body, with the topic of sexuality, [00:09:00] safety, with your partner is also important too, of how are you together and what, what is the process of, we talk about like neural synchrony.
It’s like what is the ways that we, our nervous systems are, can co-regulate with each other as well. So I think both of those topics are important.
Dan: Great. Maybe we need to back up a step and talk more about just the nervous system in general.
Morgan: Sure. Yeah.
Dan: is it that I get, I don’t know, afraid when I have to speak in front of a group or meeting new people or, or things like that? Or even in my intimate relationship, bringing up certain topics or desires why, why does my body do that? Why does, why are we built that way?
Morgan: Yeah, so I like to think of it as two parallel bars within those. That parallel bar is your optimal level of functioning.
Dan: Okay. And as you’re speaking, you’re holding up your hands vertically here. Like, okay, you have an upper limit in the bottom, lower limit. Is that what you’re indicating? Okay.
Morgan: And so we have everyone’s window of tolerance [00:10:00] or sort of optimal level of functioning is different sized. If you’ve experienced trauma, there’s a lot of biological predispositions, things like that.
Your window can be a little bit smaller, on the upper limit of that. Is called hyper arousal. So that’s when your nervous system is getting into places of more anxiety or frustration or frazzled kind of energy. Where on the lower limit of that is hypo arousal. So that’s a lot more shut down, hard time getting out of bed, more depressive states.
And so our nervous system is meant to function in this optimal level of functioning that’s in between those two bars,
Dan: Kind of like a thermostat is the way I think about it. Right? Like if it gets too hot, the air conditioning kicks on too low, the heater kicks on. We like to stay in this like, homeostasis, this, this range.
Morgan: would be the most ideal, right? Is
Dan: Mm-hmm.
Morgan: can stay in that optimal level of functioning, but for whatever reasons, this is complex and nuanced. For some people they’ve learned that hyper arousal is [00:11:00] how they get their needs met, or hypo arousal is safety because
Dan: Hmm.
Morgan: my dad got angry when I was young and I needed to get smaller. And so this is what safety means, is that I, anytime there’s a trigger that arises, I. Go into fight, flight, freeze, or
Dan: Mm-hmm.
Morgan: And so those are also aligned with the, the hypo arousal. Is that shut down? Is that freeze, right? Where maybe a hyper arousal is more of that fight. So all of this is evolutionarily important for our survival and for our safety
Dan: Mm-hmm.
Morgan: level. And so you’re asking why does it happen? Well, there’s a full range of reasons why we would go outside of our window of tolerance and outside of our optimal level of functioning, depending on. Your biological predispositions, how you were raised, but at a deeper level, it’s the things that we’ve connected safety to and getting They’re, they’re getting underlying needs met and we’ve learned over time that this is how I get it met. Like, I might need to yell or I might need to get hyperactive, or I might need to overthink things in order to get [00:12:00] that need met, or maybe I need to shut down or, or get smaller in a more hypo aroused place.
So, just
Dan: Hmm.
Morgan: how each person expresses that.
Dan: Gotcha. Got it, got it. So back to a sexual relationship, some of it can be scary. What are some reasons why people might be a little hypo aroused or hyper aroused and have difficulty in that, getting that sweet spot in the middle?
Morgan: Yeah. Well, it depends on the story that you. Have around sexuality. There’s a lot of different reasons
Dan: Yeah.
Morgan: of guilt. There’s a lot of shame that can come around sexuality, depending on what you’ve learned about sex growing up, what’s acceptable, what is safe, what am, what am I expected to do? There can be a lot of pressure involved in that too, especially with. Having particular outcomes or making it look a certain way, or there’s also situations where there is sexual abuse or situations where sex hasn’t been safe. Traditionally, maybe the introduction of [00:13:00] sex wasn’t approachable thing well, so sometimes it can, even, even if there wasn’t a dramatic Trauma that happened around sex, it might also just be, this isn’t allowed. I’m not supposed to talk about this. Uh, this is a bad thing. so there’s a wide range of why someone might be scared around it or anxious or go outside of their window of tolerance around the topic of sex in general.
Dan: Mm-hmm. Then add to that relationship. With someone else. Their expectations for you, your expectations for yourself,
Morgan: Mm-hmm.
Dan: whatever. I’m thinking of a, couple I’ve worked with a while ago where, great marriage, great relationship, but, she really wanted to have an orgasm, she’s pre orgasmic, which a good percentage of women are.
And it’s so frustrating ’cause she feels like she’s failing, she’s getting close, she’s getting close, she’s getting close, but never quite gets there. Sometimes after an hour of trying and just always feels like, oh, what’s the [00:14:00] use? They just wanna throw in the towel. What’s going on in that situation?
Morgan: Well, obviously there’s nuance there.
Dan: Uhhuh.
Morgan: And I will say that there’s sometimes a paradox, especially if you’re wanting to orgasm. There’s this expectation of this is what it looks like to succeed. This is what I’m expected of, if to do it right or to do it wrong, right. And there, that can put a lot of pressure on us to have a particular outcome. And there’s a paradox here, because I almost think about the phrase of when we admit that we are not at peace, we become more at peace.
Dan: Uh huh.
Morgan: a how can we. Recognize that sex doesn’t need to look like orgasm in that’s the
Dan: The be all, end all
Morgan: yeah, that. That’s not necessarily what sex is and has to be right We get to define what that means, and ultimately there’s a paradox in being able to say, I need to be able to surrender to that, and that’s probably when it will. [00:15:00] Come,
Dan: Uh, yep. Pun intended.
Morgan: yeah, that’s probably will when it will, uh, because there is a need for release and a need for underlying safety.
And ultimately, if that safety, it might, the, the amount of pressure that’s being put on it. On having this outcome might be actually sabotaging the amount of safety that you have. ’cause it’s like, well maybe there’s a, a conditional love situation both to yourself and to the partner. Like, maybe you believe that your partner won’t love you as much if you don’t, or, or that you’re, you’re not loving yourself as much if you don’t.
And so there’s this element of not being safe because of that pressure. And that’s the very thing that’s getting in the way. Just as one way to approach it and think about it. ’cause like I said, it’s, it’s nuance, so,
Dan: Got it. Uh, everything you said makes sense, but in the head, but in the moment it’s a different experience. now you have a program that you have several steps in which you teach people how to learn how to better regulate [00:16:00] themselves in that moment,
Morgan: Mm-hmm.
Dan: would you be willing to share what those steps are
Morgan: Sure. Well, again, my program at least, and the the seven center system that I use with people is customized to each person. A big part of what we do is a proactive nervous system regulation routine in the morning and at night. And I say that because ultimately I think about like playing basketball.
If you expected someone to shoot a free throw. never practicing. And so you’re putting them into the most pressure situation. You say, okay, now in front of this audience, when you have to make the shot the most, now go ahead and do it. And we wouldn’t ever expect a sports player to do that.
Dan: Right.
Morgan: practice ahead of time.
And so that’s why I really promote a proactive nervous system regulation routine. It gets us ahead of triggers. It helps. Everything just be a little bit easier. So when the time comes, not only have we practiced and put in repetitions ahead of time, we also are getting ahead of things and feel we’re setting ourselves up [00:17:00] with more success in the beginning.
So that, that’s one, just preface to that
Dan: Ooh, let’s go there. Just what would, whatever. What’s part of that daily practice? Morning and night.
Morgan: I, I recommend because it’s customized to each person, I’m definitely not of the belief that there’s a cookie cutter routine out there that I, I often don’t share my routine specifically to people because I don’t want someone to say, oh, well that’s what she does, and she’s the expert, so I’m gonna go do that because ultimately your routine is gonna be different than my routine because of a lot of different factors.
Right. So I will say though, this is an exercise I have people do is do a audit of your morning routine and your nightly routine, and. Some people say, well, I don’t have a routine. I, my kids are doing this and that, and I don’t have the thing. Everyone has some sort of anchor of something they do for sure. Brushing their teeth, making tear coffee in the morning,
Dan: Uh.
Morgan: like some of these are basic materials
Dan: Mm-hmm.
Morgan: So I like to think of that as an anchor. [00:18:00] Pick two to three anchors in the morning. So say it’s brushing my teeth. Making my cup of tea in the
Dan: Mm-hmm.
Morgan: then I would stack. I like habit stacking.
I think it’s great. We’re building upon neural pathways that are already existing and instead of trying to start from scratch and we’ll, we’ll add on. A nervous system regulation technique to both of those anchor points. So for example, when you’re brushing your teeth in the morning, maybe that means you’re humming at the same time while you’re brushing your teeth.
This helps to stimulate the vagus nerve and helps to activate your parasympathetic nervous system. So it doesn’t need to be this complex, intense hour long yoga, hour long meditation. It’s like, how can we implement into our daily routine already just five, 10 minutes in the morning, um, stacked upon what we’re already doing. or, uh, I really like the orientation practice. so maybe you brush your teeth and you hum in order to activate the vagus nerve. And then while you’re waiting for your tea to boil, [00:19:00] you’re actively orienting to your current time, location, and age. So a lot of our nervous system might not in our bodies. You might know logically like, oh, today’s this date. Oh, this is how old I am. But sometimes our bodies really don’t recognize that. so a lot of the time what I’ll have my clients do is. your water is boiling, you’re saying, Hey, body, do you know, and I’m tapping as I’m doing this, it’s a bilateral stimulation that act activates both hemispheres of your brain.
so for anyone that’s listening, I’m kind of ta alternatively tapping my arms left and right or my collarbone, and I’ll say, body, do you know that I’m this old?
Dan: Mm-hmm.
Morgan: kind of wait body, do you know what resources I have, what safety cues I have? and so orienting to my current time, location, and age and safety cues is another great way to just start your day proactively to get your nervous system regulated. so yeah, those are, those are just a couple examples. like I said, I’ve got, I’ve got a whole program that helps you customize it all and, you know, lay out what, what would work for you. [00:20:00] But that’s just a little sample.
Dan: That’s great. I, I’m laughing a bit about humming while brushing teeth. It was like a few weeks ago. My wife and I, we brush our teeth together at night. It’s, it’s kind of cute. We
Morgan: Yeah.
Dan: tap toothbrushes, we brush together.
Morgan: sweet.
Dan: And I don’t know why, but we were doing like the vocal warmup exercise. Ah, like in the choir before you warm up.
Morgan: Mm-hmm.
Dan: doing it together, brushing our teeth. We’re just goofing off. Little did we know my son had snuck into our room earlier and was hiding under the bed. He’s 10 years old and he is like, my parents are so weird.
Morgan: That’s so fun. But I mean, I love that actually because, and that that can segue at some point to co-regulation because what you’re doing is regulating your nervous system with each other. You are being playful and you’re in your optimal level of functioning with each other and promoting that
Dan: Mm-hmm.
Morgan: each other.
And then ultimately, I love it because. You know, it might have been a little embarrassing [00:21:00] in the moment or something, but I, it’s, it’s role modeling to your children what healthy connection can look like in playfulness. And ultimately that could be, it’s not intentionally fore play, but I think about the ways that in order to have a healthy sexual relationship, we need that foundation of safety and. Especially for women, it actually takes a bit longer to build that safety and to have that connection and that safety can happen all throughout the day, including when you’re brushing your teeth together or whatever. It, it’s, it’s a longer process. I think sometimes I like to think of, uh, men as a microwave and women as an oven, you know, it takes a little bit longer to warm up and develop that safety,
Dan: Mm-hmm.
Morgan: I, I love the example of the teeth brushing because it happens in these moments. That might not actually be in the bedroom. It might be in the bathroom. It might be while you’re picking your kids up from school. Like there’s, there’s this, all this time that is in between that [00:22:00] maybe we let pass by
Dan: Mm-hmm.
Morgan: recognize the significance of, that developing safety and, and a healthy sexual relationship.
Dan: Gotcha. So you’re saying women take a longer time to feel safety in their bodies compared to men.
Morgan: I, I think especially for, I more so around, ’cause it’s, it’s nuanced ne, I don’t
Dan: Mm-hmm.
Morgan: know if there’s a strong statistic of safety or not, but more so in the sexual process of getting turned on and having the, readiness for. Sexual activities. A lot of the way I understand women at least, is that they’re much more like a, you need to preheat the oven and it, it takes a little while where a man’s a little bit more like a microwave where, you know,
Dan: Uhhuh.
Morgan: a little bit of a shorter warmup time needed.
Dan: Yeah, that’s good. All right, good. That definitely is a stereotype for sure, and a lot of people fit that mold.
Morgan: Mm-hmm.
Dan: All right, so that’s why [00:23:00] regulation, self-regulation, and you’ve introduced the concept of co-regulation together.
Morgan: Mm-hmm.
Dan: of helps with that.
Morgan: Mm-hmm.
Dan: that was step one, right? Like find a habit that you’re already doing, create a routine that helps stimulate your vagus nerve, for example, like with humming or some sort of a way like bilateral tapping, reminding yourself how old you are.
Those are suggestions that you have that help kind of, kind of bring you to a healthy baseline for self-regulation.
Morgan: Mm-hmm.
Dan: Is that,
Morgan: Proactively. Mm-hmm.
Dan: is that?
Morgan: Yep. I think that that’s a great place to start and I like to tell people to start small and build upon that. Some people really wanna have a whole rebrand of their morning routine and make it look super great and have an hour plus long thing of something. It’s like I, I would much prefer you to do a five or 10 minute.
Situation,
so that you can continue to build upon that and it should feel easy before you’re adding more onto it. but I will say that there are some really great things that you can do proactively [00:24:00] together or in the moment as well. So not just the kind of proactive nervous system regulation routine, but in terms of, developing relationship with each other and safety with each other. There’s some really, I, I love any sort of mirroring techniques.
Dan: about that. Mm-hmm.
Morgan: so your nervous system has evolved to be attuned to other people, especially the most intimate people in your life to their nervous system. So I like to think about it as, mean, as a tribe, when we were all living together in that way, we needed the attunement of, if there’s danger around. If someone else’s nervous system picks up on that, I’m gonna be able to pick up on that quickly too. I like to think about if you’re at a party, just, just try it out. If you want to do a fun experiment, but go look a certain direction
Dan: Uh
Morgan: and watch how many people’s nervous systems respond to you that they’ll Oh, and everybody’s like, what are you looking at? And it’s just such a, it’s such an innate, biological, evolutionary, [00:25:00] leftover thing. And we do that in our, in our relationships. We just don’t always realize it. So if, if. We do things like mirroring techniques, uh, or just recognizing the attunement that needs to happen
Dan: Hmm.
Morgan: before we just try to get into sexual activities.
That can really also be a great addition to, uh, establishing safety and having more fun and, and pleasure involved. Um, so it sounds, silly, some of these things to do, but it can actually be really playful and fun if you do it. You know, with someone that you trust and,
Dan: Uh
Morgan: So one of the things I like doing is, uh, you can sit. Face to face with each other, cross-legged, however you wanna do. You could be standing up just face to face and one person starts to mime or move and you have to follow that person’s movements. And really it’s just getting your bodies and your nervous systems synced up and it can be playful and fun and get you into a movement, but you’re not touching each other.
It’s just truly [00:26:00] a quite literal mirroring each other’s bodies and nervous systems. And that can be a really fun activity. And
Dan: if it’s done like naked, it’d be really fun.
Morgan: Yeah. Yeah. You could have a lot of fun with that and, and really the key to all of these things that I will talk about is just safety. Because ultimately we don’t need to have a goal at the end of it.
It’s just establishing like, maybe that was the activity that we did that night instead of sex. And like just knowing that that is. toward a more healthy relationship. As long as we’re feeling safe, to do that with each other, then that’s gonna continue to progress toward the right direction. Um, so I really love that you can hum together. I love what you were talking about for the, for the toothbrushing, but also breathing together and having, prolonged eye contact can also be really helpful. three minutes or so, and can get very emotional too. So again, if there isn’t, I, I would say eye contact is actually one of the harder [00:27:00] things for people to do, even
Dan: Oh yeah.
Morgan: see all the time.
Like prolonged eye contact can really bring up a lot of intimacy and attachment things. So I would also say it goes on a spectrum of fun, playful, and also. Challenging hard sometimes, and both of those sides of the spectrum might need to be looked at at some point in order to establish more safety, depending on the connection of the relationship and how open you are with each other.
And so those are just a couple of ideas for kind of attunement and getting to really be synced your nervous systems together.
Dan: uh, intimacy or that is the, the theory around it is, there’s two human drives. There’s a drive for attachment and a drive for autonomy. I wanna belong to someone else while also belonging to myself at the same time.
Morgan: Yep.
Dan: And oftentimes those drives are, at odds with each other, especially in an intimate relationship, like a sexual relationship.
So learning how to balance and [00:28:00] resolve that paradox sometimes is the work that a lot of couples need to do so that they can have better sexual experiences. So as you’re talking about eye gazing and all that, it’s, and, and whatever. ’cause it requires quite a bit of self-regulation to let my spouse look into my eyes.
Morgan: Yeah,
Dan: Right. So that’s, that’s the autonomy piece, like belonging to myself
Morgan: Mm-hmm.
Dan: also it incorporates the attachment piece, letting her matter to me and me matter to her. Another activity I’ve done with some of my couples is a hugging exercise where the goal is to hug past three Mississippi, right?
Or eight Mississippi or whatever
Morgan: Yeah.
Dan: sta and hug because to hug for a long time, well. To where like where you kind of feel at peace with the whole thing requires you to settle yourself down. Now that’s a skill,
Morgan: Mm-hmm.
Dan: like to calm that down, calm that inner self down while also being in relationship to someone else.
Morgan: Mm-hmm.[00:29:00]
Dan: That’s,
Morgan: keep coming back to safety, safety,
Dan: yeah. Yeah.
Morgan: also, I, I actually have a, a story around hugging, uh,
Dan: Let’s hear it.
Morgan: that when I was young, I would get hugged without my consent, and it, it created a, uh. Literal response in
Dan: Uhhuh. You didn’t like being hugged Uhhuh,
Morgan: not like being hugged.
Dan: right? You taken from,
Morgan: my body language would get small and I would get shut down and I would say like, oh, that doesn’t feel consensual. I don’t like that.
Dan: yep.
Morgan: So growing up, well, it didn’t actually take until I was, my partner in college was the person that would, it would be exposure therapy for me. I had to give consent to
Dan: Mm-hmm.
Morgan: needed to establish safety of, oh, this can feel good with someone that I trust and that I’m giving consent to.
So I say, with any of these things, I’ve also had negative experiences with eye contact of people staring at me in a way that I did not feel comfortable with or want. And so that kind of stuff can get brought up [00:30:00] in these very vulnerable ways with our partners. And so when I, I keep coming back to safety because. That might like, you know, you might hear us say, oh, just do this hugging activity, and for you that might be something that just shuts you down. So again, talking with your partner around what way can I help you feel safe right now? What way can I update your nervous system and body to help you know? This is safe. and it’s not just an intellectual safety, it’s a how, what does that feel like in my body?
Dan: Mm-hmm.
Morgan: to have my no honored or whatever it like it, you might need to actively push someone away, quite literally, physically, to feel like, oh, I have the ability to do that. And for your partner to be like, you do, you do, like, you can say no to me and that’s okay.
And
Dan: yeah.
Morgan: to do this thing because that’s what would be a corrective experience for you to feel safe. So I think like I keep coming back to just attunement and safety, you know, in, the nervous system. So
Dan: really good.
Morgan: nuance there. Yeah.
Dan: Morgan, I do have a hard time with the word [00:31:00] safety though. Maybe you can help me out. And here’s, here’s my line of thinking. I a hundred percent agree with you that internally we need to fill. Safe. Safe. I’m gonna define, as we talked about, kind of being in this green zone, not too hyper activated or hypo activated.
We’re, we’re regulated well in that space. Right?
Morgan: Yeah.
Dan: Um, the difficulty I see is sometimes it’s the, I don’t feel safe, meaning. I have delegated my job to feel safe within me, to my spouse or to other people. And you’re doing a crap job of it. It’s your job to make me feel safe. I don’t feel safe. Therefore, I am not going to make an effort to be invested in this relationship, whatever.
So now it’s not just the person, now, it’s now we’re looking at a, a whole system. Do you have any ideas on, on that?
Morgan: Yeah, so one of the things I work with my clients [00:32:00] doing is perceived an actual safety matter what. Each person will need to take responsibility of their own nervous system and of their own process. Period. You
Dan: Yep. Someone else can’t do it for you.
Morgan: that, they can’t do it for you. They can support and have a container that is helpful for that
Dan: Mm.
Morgan: corrective experiences, especially if in the past you haven’t had those positive experiences with other people.
So there’s, there’s a delicacy in terms of. Needing to be attuned, right? But at the end of the day, it is your system. Nobody else can come inside of you and make those movements and, and the, the tweaks needed to happen. So, I, I will come back to perceived and actual safety. So, that has been a really needed tool for a lot of my clients to say. Because there is actual safety. Like my body’s not gonna get harmed right now. Nothing is actually going to happen there. There is actual safety in my moment right now, but I perceive that I’m [00:33:00] not safe. And so staying curious with that, with your own self of, okay, what ways can Im match my perception? Up with my actual reality.
That being said, I like to distinguish that because that is a skillset that we do need to develop, especially if we’ve had trauma. but also because we don’t want to. Gaslight ourselves and say, oh, I’m safe. I’m safe, I’m safe, I’m safe. He says, I’m safe, but he’s not actually safe. Like, because we do need to distinguish. Well, if he’s forcing you to do something that you don’t wanna do, and then he is like, no, no, I’m safe. Right? Then it’s like, well, is that actually safe? So a big thing is I tell my clients, I don’t want you to lie to yourself or lie to your nervous systems because we can’t regulate away an abusive relationship, or
Dan: right.
Morgan: you know, we, we need to have an attuned practice of. What is actual safety and what is perceived safety
Dan: Hmm. That’s it.
Morgan: for danger. Right? Like, if you’re in actual danger, you do need to get out of it. Right?
Dan: Right.
Morgan: and, and so we don’t wanna just [00:34:00] try to do, okay, I’m doing all these tapping exercises and, and I still don’t feel safe. It’s like, well, I just need to make sure that you’re an actual safety before we can’t regulate away something
Dan: Yeah. Right,
Morgan: not safe,
Dan: right.
Morgan: Mm-hmm.
Dan: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, reality matters here, right.
Morgan: Exactly. Exactly. And I know that that’s hard when someone has had experience before that, like that perception, that perceived safety is a really hard skill. And ultimately that’s, that’s where, people like us come in or your therapist comes in to talk through, uh, what is the actual versus perceived safety in that situation.
And, and it’s a skill set to develop, to learn that telling the
Dan: I love that answer. That’s fantastic.
Morgan: Mm-hmm.
Dan: Alright. can you give us a quick overview of your additional steps that in your multi-step program?
Morgan: In my system. Yeah, so we, we’ve got the proactive nervous system regulation techniques, and it’s a whole, I mean, it’s a six month program, so it’s gonna be hard to [00:35:00] really go into all the details here. But one of the big pieces that I help people do is to isolate certain patterns. So if there’s a pattern that’s coming up in. The relationship here of, okay, every time I initiate something, she shuts down. Okay, what’s this bigger pattern that we can just isolate and look at for a moment? And then we look at what’s the underlying need that’s trying to get met here? So there’s a whole process of pairing that with nervous system regulation that’s customized per person.
But the big philosophy of the model is that we are, we’re not trying to sabotage, we’re not trying to be. or you know, we’re we, we want acceptance and love and joy and there’s positive intentions behind every pattern that we continue to repeat. And so getting down to that underlying need that is trying to get met through that and the positive intention that’s trying to get met, can really help to transform us from a place of judgment and pressure and all this to a place of compassion and curiosity and more, more love.
[00:36:00] Because oh, if I can understand both. From my own process and maybe understand from my partner’s perspective, she’s shutting down because she doesn’t feel safe and, and ultimately shutting down is going to help her feel safe. Okay, so the underlying need that’s trying to get met here is safety. She’s trying to get a need of safety met.
So then instead of us trying to get toward why isn’t she orgasming, why isn’t she letting me do this? It would be, how can I help you feel safe? How can I help that underlying need get met? Then the sort of third step to this all is creating corrective experiences. So it might feel safe for her to say no and push you away however many times she needs.
Dan: Uh,
Morgan: feel counterintuitive,
Dan: um.
Morgan: a corrective experience for her to say, I feel safe. I know that you’re gonna honor my, no, that actually might in the end create a lot more. rewiring of that pattern to say, oh, in today’s world I can say, no, I have new choices. I have new [00:37:00] power. I am safe.
I can feel that in my body with you, and then we can actually move on to a different pattern. and so that’s the quick and rough version of it. Um, because, you know, like I said, it’s, it’s a whole process with each person, but those are kind of the major, steps.
Dan: Very good. So, uh, create rituals where you can regulate yourself better, uh, regularly so you have a good baseline. Learn what safe feels like. Uh, learn what not safe feels like so you can take those corrective actions. Look for patterns, isolate them, understand them. Try to figure out what the underlying missing needs are and provide for them, and then just build on top of all of that and like positive momentum, just getting better and better.
Morgan: Yeah. And I guess another thing that I’ll share that’s sort of another prong of the model that I use with people is that I’m big into making daily practices [00:38:00] happen outside of sessions. ’cause so many of us, we wait, we, we hold onto that thing and then we go to our couple sessions and then we unload it there.
Or you know, we, we don’t have things in our day to day that we’re actually integrating what we know. And so I’m really big on, on bridging that. That insight to action gap. And so one of the ways that I help people do that is we have seven different focuses, uh, seven different pillars of our holistic health that we focus on each day of the week.
So on Mondays for example, we’re focusing on our physical health. Our our, maybe that’s the day that we go to the gym together. Maybe that’s the day that we collectively clean up the house together. We’re, we’re focusing on. Physical safety and physical, our relationship with our bodies. Maybe this is a day that we have a nice dinner together, so we’re theming our days essentially with holistic pillars of our health.
And so I, I walked that through like the whole curriculum and everything of like what the different pillars are. Uh, but then, so Tuesdays for example, might be a day that we are a little bit more sexual, [00:39:00] sensual, creative. Like maybe that’s a day that we have a date night. So we sort of theme each day. On these bigger holistic pillars of our health.
So that’s another, uh, portion of the, the system that I created as well, is to really use that as a way to know what to focus on each day so
Dan: Uhhuh,
Morgan: just like, what it’s a way to organize things and, and keeps it fun and. Novel
Dan: uh.
Morgan: Uh, well also looking at our holistic health in general, um, so that it’s not just like hyper fixating on one problem or one thing. We can kind of look at the big breadth of life together. Um, and so on Sundays, naturally that’s more of a spiritual day. So maybe we go to church together, maybe we have our spiritual practice together, so we have different, each day that we look at and helps us, really integrate into the day to day.
Dan: I like that. That’s really good. Thank you.
Morgan: Mm-hmm.
Dan: Alright. Any other advice for someone who does find, just the sexual experience? A [00:40:00] little, unnerving, A little dysregulating.
Morgan: Mm-hmm.
Dan: It may not be trauma. It is just, it’s just the idea of it. Any advice for them?
Morgan: Well, it truly is the most natural thing that exists on the planet. You know, it really is. I know there’s a lot of stories around what that means and what it should look like, and, and I just think back to the most ancient times that it’s such a foundation to evolution.
so I like to strip away some of those stories and, and think about us kind of as, as animals a little bit, which is like a little silly for some people. But I
Dan: go raw like a dog.
Morgan: Yeah, there you go. Full circle. And this is why I was in the New York Times. Yes. No, no. Um, yeah, I, I think just like helping, distill down to like, an objective, that this is such an ancient thing that we’ve done as humans. and, uh. I don’t know that there’s lots of stories around what it should look like, and I’m like, well, there’s [00:41:00] so much of time that, uh, has, is under our belt as humans with this topic and so many different stories that can be made around it. Yeah. And I just, I’ll say that I’ve struggled with this throughout my life, especially before the nervous system regulation work that I did. yeah, growing up this was a really hard topic for me to know and, truly getting to know your own self in it. Like I, I really am supporter of getting to know what feels good for you and get getting to know your own relationship with your sexuality, outside of relationship with your partner, because that in itself really creates a strong foundation of being able to help someone else navigate. Your system and your body. And so I would even suggest having times without someone else to, really to know yourself on a more intimate level, because for some people they’ve, they’ve only known what it’s like with someone else.[00:42:00]
Dan: Great.
Morgan: so I would say that that can be a really. Needed, training ground for someone else to be able to know how to please you, how to, make you feel safe.
It really does start internally as well,
Dan: That’s good. That is so good. That’s great.
Morgan: Mm-hmm.
Dan: Where can people go to learn more about you and your work?
Morgan: Yeah, so my handle across all social medias is Minds guidance. It’s MIND, period. PSY, period guidance. And if you wanna learn about my system and the model I talked about, it’s seven center system. So you can either Google that, things will come up, but there’s a seven center system.com as well to, yeah, learn more.
And there’s a whole of information on there, so, yeah.
Dan: Awesome. Love it. Thank you.
Morgan: Of course. Thanks for having me. It was fun to talk about. It’s amazing how the time
Outro
Morgan: flies So what do you think? Are you gonna try some of these techniques in your home? I hope so. Now, if you’d like some help applying the things we talk about in this [00:43:00] episode and in this whole podcast, I would love to be your coach. And then what coaching looks like is we meet over Zoom, whether it’s privately or in a small group setting.
me and my team will work with you to help you improve intimacy in your marriage. I work with couples who. Are in otherwise happy marriages, but wish things were better when it came to intimacy, and that’s something that we specialize in. We’re also specialists when it comes to helping couples work through a sexual desire or discrepancy in their marriage.
All that information is on our website at Get Your Marriage on.com/program, and you can try it for free for 30 days for a limited time because you’re a listener of this podcast. So check it out. Meanwhile, please share this podcast episode with your friends. I promise they will. Thank you for life. And now go get your marriage on.
I. [00:44:00]
