Episode 22. 6 Minutes? How Mindfulness Can Lead to More Fulfilling Sex
In this episode of Marriage IQ, we had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Chelom Leavitt, a relationship researcher who studies mindfulness and sexuality. In this candid two-part series, Dr. Leavitt shares practical advice for cultivating more mindful and connected relationships. She covers communication tips, overcoming dysfunction, the role of emotional vulnerability, and specific techniques to try. We found so much value in slowing down, tuning into each other more deeply, and having courageous conversations about intimacy. Our time together has become less about chasing the goal and more about savoring each moment. If you desire greater closeness in your relationship, don't miss this insightful discussion! Dr. Leavitt's wisdom can pave the way to more fulfilling physical and emotional harmony.
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Welcome back to Marriage IQ. This is part two of our interview with Doctor Chelom Leavitt. If you missed the first part, I highly recommend you going back and listening to it. It's packed with valuable insights on mindfulness. In this episode, we'll be diving into mindfulness in sexual relationships.00:00:21
Doctor Leavitt shares more about her research, and I'm excited for all of you to hear about it. Let's get right into the second half of our conversation with Doctor Leavitt.00:00:35
Welcome to Marriage IQ, the podcast for the intelligent spouse. I'm Dr. Heidi Hastings. And I'm Dr. Heidi Hastings. We are two doctors, two researchers, two spouses, two lovers, and two incredibly different human beings coming together for one purpose, to transform the stinky parts of your marriage into scintillating ones, using intelligence mixed with a little fun.00:01:08
So, Chelom. You are a prolific researcher on sexuality in committed relationships, heterosexual religious couples most often. I really love reading a lot of your research, if I remember correctly, and you can tell me if I'm wrong, but you were living years ago in the Ukraine, where you were a lawyer practicing family law. Is that correct? And you noticed so many couples getting divorced.00:01:41
Yeah. If I remember correctly, that kind of spurred you toward going back to school when you got back to the US and getting a degree in human development and family studies, both master's and PhD degrees, and moving into a job as a professor in that area. But your dissertation was looking at middle aged individuals and how mindfulness impacted their sexuality. We're from the US, the Ukraine, and Turkey, is that correct? That's right.00:02:18
Good memory. It impacted me to think that you're not just looking at a small population, but you're looking at across cultures how this idea works. And is that where you really got your start, with the idea of sexual mindfulness? Yeah. In my dissertation work, I validated a measure on sexual mindfulness.00:02:43
So could we actually measure how mindful people are during sexual experiences? And we were able to validate this measure, and then we started using this measure like you're talking about in some cross cultural work and then in just different populations. Very few of my samples are religious, or at least that that's the focus of it. I have done some work with religious couples as well. I just think it's important for us to know that this idea of mindfulness works for everybody that we have tested so far.00:03:20
Right. And that just kind of seems to ring true with people. Like, why wouldn't it, right. This isn't particular to any one group. And so.00:03:29
Yeah. And what we found was that being more mindful was associated with better sexual connection satisfaction and, in fact, more frequent sex. If you're concerned about, you know, some of the metrics of sex, we saw people actually engaged in sex more often. They also engaged in more kissing more, all sorts of things. So they were just happier relationships.00:03:55
And so I think that's an important thing for us to know if things are going wrong in our sexual relationship, usually that's an indicator that things are going wrong in the larger relationship. Right. Sex is a pretty nuanced barometer of the quality of how we're interacting with each other. So if we're feeling stress and distance between our partner, we know that that's going to probably manifest itself in the sexual relationship. Right.00:04:29
We're going to have sex less frequently. We're not going to feel as good about it. Women may be less likely to orgasm. Right. So there's all sorts of reasons why we should really pay attention to these metrics.00:04:42
But then also the quality of the relationship. That's good. I love that you made a career transition from one that was working with couples who were dissolving their marital relationships to teaching couples how to strengthen their relationships. And, yeah, I mean, it's a little depressing to divorce people and to see, you know, and some people need to divorce. Right.00:05:13
So that needs to happen. But we also want to focus on strengthening relationships that could be saved. What's interesting is William Doherty in University of Michigan did a study where he took couples who had filed for divorce and gave them an option of going through a program that may benefit their relationship. And of those who went through the program, I think 80%. I think I'm getting this right.00:05:46
80% stopped the divorce, stayed married. 80%. 80%. 80%. And of those, they went back and asked them five years later, are you glad you didn't divorce?00:06:02
A high percentage, I'm not sure. Said they were glad they didn't divorce and that their marriage was better. And then they took those who didn't opt in for the program who did divorce, and they looked at them five years later and asked, are you glad you divorced five years ago? And a large percentage of them said, I wish we would have given it more time. Wow.00:06:28
So there is so much help that couples who are in crisis really need to have some tools to see how can we maybe help this relationship. Do you feel like the sexual mindfulness project is one of those tools? Absolutely, yes. So many couples. Can you tell us about this?00:06:54
Yeah. So, you know, the real, the objective of the sexual mindfulness project is to give couples some tools to overcome pretty common issues in a relationship. Communication issues, intimacy issues, shame. Unfortunately, shame is just infused into so many of our relationships for a variety of reasons. Right.00:07:25
And we need to be each other's therapists, if you will, champions, you know, cheerleaders, and sometimes the ones who hold each other accountable. Right. And so that's really what the sexual mindfulness project is all about, is helping couples open up some topics, most especially surrounding sex, because that's a topic that very few people address. How can we open up this conversation and talk about it frankly and openly and honestly and authentically without shame? And then how can we infuse our relationship with a little more mindfulness, and particularly in our sexual relationship?00:08:10
So we teach some strategies. How can we do that? We teach some activities that you can engage in to be more attentive and aware and mindful in your sexual interactions. I'll tell you one right now that I can describe easily, and it's called mindful hugging. And I suggest that couples have a mindful hug whenever they come back together after, you know, if you're going off to work or whatever your day is, or maybe if you both work at home and you're just involved in your own activities when you come back together, have a five to ten minute hug.00:08:51
And that's actually a very long hug. That's a long time. We can barely make it a minute and a half. Yeah, well, and so if you are just loosely embracing each other for this five minutes, let's say no talking, you first of all, get centered with your own body. You start to be present with their body, and it gives this time for you to see what the tone of your relationship is like.00:09:27
Am I feeling a little annoyed about what you said earlier in the morning? Or am I feeling maybe some distance because of how things have been going? Or am I feeling particularly close and like I've had some loving thoughts during the day that I want to share with you? And so after those five minutes, we then do something called heads together, where we just put our four heads next to each other and debrief about. Here's what came up for me, and what we know is that the more we do this, the more our body starts relaxing and we kind of clear out things that maybe we've been holding resentments from years ago, or maybe it's not even about my partner.00:10:10
Maybe it's about something that happened to me as a child or a teenager that I feel safe now and I can debrief or talk about this with you. Process it with my partner. It's such a beautiful way to create greater connection in my relationship. Our bodies can truly teach us things that our heads, when we're in a thought bubble above our head all the time ruminating on different things that we can't even touch. You're absolutely right, Heidi.00:10:46
It's such a beautiful way to create this tenderness in our relationship. So that's excellent practical advice. Yeah, I love it. That is really good. I remember in the training that I did with you to be a facilitator, you talked about feeling your husband when you would do this practice kind of leaning on you, some things about your relationship.00:11:14
Yeah. So the first time my husband and I did this, he's much taller than I am, so he was stooping a little bit to hug me, to embrace, but then I noticed him kind of, like, really leaning on me, and I kind of had to adjust my own body to push back a little so we could keep our balance and, you know, five minutes, that gives you a lot of time to process some of these dynamics. So afterwards, that's what we talked about. I said, I have to say, it kind of annoyed me that you were leaning on me. And he said a few things, too.00:11:49
And, boy, that conversation is still going on today in that we are kind of processing some of these dynamics that we have with each other and how I interpret it and how he interprets it. And that's a really important thing that this one activity will help illuminate. I would like you to tell an overview of what sexual mindfulness is, but I love that an important aspect of it seems to be communication. So, as you tell us about that, will you include specifically a little bit about sexual communication as well? Yeah.00:12:30
Yeah. So, sexual mindfulness. We just talked about mindfulness. Right. Slowing down, being more aware of your circumstances, your own emotions.00:12:41
So can I do this during sex? During my sexual interactions? And we know that people feel a little heightened anxiety in sex, whether it's positive anxiety or negative anxiety. Right. I'm just a little more vulnerable.00:13:00
I'm exposing myself. I'm probably sharing things that are really tender and sensitive for me emotionally. Right. And we're exposing our bodies. Right.00:13:12
And so we may have a little body shame, and so we are negative about that. All sorts of reasons why we might feel heightened anxiety during sex. So can we practice trying to reduce that anxiety, be more aware of what I'm thinking and feeling and then describing that to my partner? First of all, describing it to myself. Right.00:13:37
Can I think it through and say, you know what? I think I'm feeling a little shame about the level of my desire or the lack of my desire, whatever it is, or how my body functions, all sorts of things. We start to criticize ourselves, be judgmental, or maybe we're judgmental of our partner. So mindfulness, sexual mindfulness, helps us, first of all, become aware of what it is we're doing in sex that might be undermining our own sexual experience. Am I shaming myself?00:14:13
Maybe I've put on a little weight. And so I'm like, oh, my gosh, I don't want him to see that belly fat or, you know, whatever, my jiggle. And then we withdraw, right? Because we're embarrassed. And so we don't come fully to the experience.00:14:32
And maybe our partner interprets that as we don't want to be with him or with her, right? And so we start misunderstanding and miscommunicating with each other because of our own anxieties. And what this helps us do is kind of put ourselves out there a little more authentically and say, you know what? I think I'm holding back in sex because I think good girls shouldn't enjoy sex. Or I think it scares me when you're so adventuresome in sex.00:15:07
Or, you know, whatever it is, we all experience it. And slowing ourselves down and even slowing the process of arousal down really helps couples, first of all, understand and identify what's going on in their own body and then communicate about it. That's what this is all about, understanding what I'm experiencing. And maybe what we're experiencing is lack of desire. And so when we do engage in some physical intimacy, slow it down.00:15:43
Don't be aiming at orgasm. Instead, just notice. How does it feel right now to hug my partner, to touch, to be touched, to maybe feel the beginnings of arousal? Do I shut that down right away for some reason, or do I encourage it? Do I nurture that?00:16:06
Do I feel curious about it? What creates arousal? What diminishes arousal? What turns me off, right? And those are the things that we need to start really understanding as couples.00:16:20
And then being able to communicate about and communicating is vulnerable, isn't it? So hopefully, as we're mindful, we can affirm each other and say, kudos to you for sharing that thing that I know is hard for you or for responding to my real heightened emotion in such a loving way. I mean, I think you can start to see how that's gonna change the dynamics. Totally. Yeah.00:16:52
Wow. So great. Oh, my gosh. I think women especially, and myself included, before I learned, especially from you. Women, especially, have a difficult time identifying what they do.00:17:07
Like, we are more governed by sexual scripts, which is cultural narratives of what should be right or wrong without ever coming into our body with our mind and asking ourselves, what does feel good to me? What do I like? How do we even verbalize? If our partner says, what would you like? I don't know.00:17:36
I don't know. So, being able to slow down and notice, learning a new language, right. It is learning a new language of sexuality. And what she's helping us learn is just slowing that process down. So you can learn that language.00:17:56
Yeah. So many people are embarrassed about their eroticism, right? About what does it feel? What is it like? How do I process arousal, desire, all of those things?00:18:13
And it's almost like I'm embarrassed about how much I really do want out of my sexual relationship. And so instead, we turn it into something else. It could even be anger and create distance, and then we have a reason to not engage in that thing that we're a little embarrassed about. And so there's so many ways that we undermine ourselves. And what I was gonna say is, one thing that was sobering to me in my own research was that women pretty consistently score lower than men on sexual mindfulness.00:18:53
Women aren't as mindful, particularly during sex. And as I got into it, it kind of makes sense, right? Because women are oftentimes thinking about, well, what's my partner gonna like? I'm more focused on him than I am on me. And here's an area of our life where women need to say, yeah, no, I need to focus on me.00:19:15
And that actually benefits not only me, but him and our relationship. I've heard a study recently that said, exactly. And I can't remember who it was, but that men are more turned on by women being pleasured, and women are more turned on by themselves receiving pleasure. And so it. Yeah, I mean, the focus really probably does need to be women first, because this is the beautiful thing about Mendez.00:19:47
They're pretty steady. We know that as soon as they start feeling any stimulation, there's a pretty direct line to orgasm. But that's not true for women. Women kind of have to. It changes what's going to arouse them from encounter to encounter and from time of the month and, you know, all sorts of things.00:20:10
Women are a little more, you know, have more variables that are contributing to their own arousal. Probably a couple needs to maybe focus on the woman initially, and then the man most likely is going to feel arousal as he sees her arousal. And of course it's going to be different for every couple, but just figure out what works in your relationship. And the unfortunate thing is, for centuries we have focused on male arousal, and what we've done is handicapped, both of us. Men don't understand enough about women's bodies, and women certainly don't understand about their own bodies.00:20:59
And so we've kind of got to rebalance that and help couples really understand the beautiful complexities of women's arousal and what women contribute to the dynamics of the sexual relationship. I love, too, that slowing things down, like you've talked about, helps women who may take longer to achieve an orgasm to experience that. Yeah. And what's nice is that men report greater satisfaction, too, when we take longer in this beautiful, fun activity, you know, of sex. So what's funny is that there was a study that was done just a few years ago, and I think it was reported in Time magazine that the average sexual experience, their last sexual experience that thousands of people reported on the average, was six minutes.00:21:57
And it's like, well, we know that that's not pleasing women. Women take far longer. Are you serious? Sad, huh? Sad.00:22:08
Educating. They're getting gypped. I mean, it's a pleasurable experience, so why rush through it, right? Right. We talk sometimes about comparing it to a fast food experience in opposition to fine dining.00:22:27
Yeah. If I'm going to in and out in my minivan with my kids in the back seat and my earpods in listening to the latest podcast of marriage IQ or whatever it is, and we order something to go and I'm just gulfing it down as I'm going through rush hour traffic. I'm not going to appreciate or enjoy the meal other than it serves a purpose. Yeah, it's some calories. You know, there's a benefit to it.00:23:00
Right. But the fine dining experience where there are flowers and I and music and beauty and just slowing down the eating experience as well is very different. And there's value in both. But I think we need a lot more of the savoring sex. Yeah, I think.00:23:21
I do agree with you. I think there's room for both. I think with Chelom's point, there's far too much in and out in this world. She says the average is six minutes. That's in and out.00:23:35
Pretty much, yeah. Pretty, yeah. Literally. Oh, we really need to start focusing on that fine dining experience. Yeah.00:23:44
In our sexual relationship, there are some women, I guess, who know, because you talked about men like to know that they're women as satisfied. Yeah. But for some women, they're not. And so they fake it. And so they fake their orgasm so that because she knows it makes her partner feel better about himself.00:24:08
But I think that probably opens up a little bit of an opportunity to start educating some of these women to stop faking it. Yes. And this is the thing. Women a lot of times do fake it to kind of preserve the relationship. But instead of kind of putting this band aid on it, why not?00:24:32
Let's take the band aid off and say, women have to speak up and say, I'm not really satisfied. I don't feel enough arousal. When this is the pattern that we go through. Men have to receive that and say, good point. I can change.00:24:48
And oftentimes men can challenge women a little bit to say, are we taking enough time in foreplay for you? And I want to hear your feedback. Right. So I think we have to own this problem equally and say, women start speaking up and being authentic, and men, don't get your feelings hurt if she says, hey, I don't really like it when you do this particular thing or. Or when we always use this position.00:25:19
Let's focus on some things that help me as well. And what you're gonna see is that as we're trying to please each other, the whole dynamic changes, and it's so much more fun. Sex really is adult play, and we don't play like we did as children, and yet we know that child play is so important because it helps us work through problems and fears and anxieties that we have. That's the role that sex plays in a marriage. Right.00:25:51
We work through all of these different things that are going on in our larger life, and we can process that with our partner, and it should be fun and connecting. And so that's really the goal. Just like what you're saying is, let's create a different dynamic. Does this work for couples who maybe there are issues with health problems, with mental illness, with sexual dysfunction, those kinds of things that might struggle with sex in general? Yeah, I will say mental health, that absolutely needs professional help.00:26:34
Right? Probably medication and therapy. But this is going to be a way, particularly for couples who are struggling with different types of sexual dysfunction. Erectile dysfunction. We know this is a very helpful method.00:26:49
We know low arousal and low desire. We know painful intercourse. This is also another really helpful strategy. Slow it down and really be aware of what's going on. Now, does it mean that men who struggle with erectile dysfunction are going to have a hard erection if you start using sexual mindfulness, not necessarily, but it's going to slow down and take off the pressure that that psychological component of erectile dysfunction is going to start to be, you know, helped in some ways.00:27:23
Now, we also know that we can find pleasure outside of the typical, you know, vaginal penile penetration. We can just find ways to even reach orgasm without necessarily relying on some of those typical patterns that we generally associate with sex. Sometimes just holding each other, having our naked bodies next to each other, you know, touching is really satisfying, even when the goal doesn't have to be orgasm or penetrative sex. And I might add, too, I think now that a lot of these medications are generic, it's pretty cheap to get medications for erectile dysfunction. It's not a big deal to ask a medical doctor for it.00:28:22
They shouldn't be embarrassed to do that. No. In fact, this might help them get the courage. Pretty much every man over the age of 50 is going to have some issues that just happen. I don't care if you're totally healthy or if you have diabetes, whatever.00:28:37
I mean, it's going to happen. Yeah. And so I think we need to start removing maybe some stigma or shame that's associated around that, because, believe it or not, men have shame, too. A lot. We just don't talk.00:28:51
And I think that that could be for some people, for actually a lot of people, a helpful thing to do is to go to their doctor, get a prescription, and can be very, very, very beneficial. Take that problem off the table, and then be able to start really talking about how did it make you feel when you were struggling with erectile dysfunction and be there for each other. Right. Women can do so much to help alleviate men's shame surrounding sex. Men really view sex as, like, a core part of their identity.00:29:32
Like, if I don't perform well, if I satisfy my wife, I'm less of a man. You're absolutely correct. We need to get rid of that, right? Yeah. That's a core identity for a man, I think so.00:29:48
We talk about identity a lot on our podcast. So many more questions come to mind, and so hopefully we can have you back again sometime, because we just love you, but our relationship has been changed because of you. We're just so grateful for you. But where can other people find information about specifically sexual mindfulness? Where can they connect with you?00:30:20
Where can they find information about it? Yeah, you can look on my website, which is just my name, Chelom Leavitt. If you know how to spell my name, Chelom, why don't you spell it out so people can c h e l o m l e a v I t t. Just Chelomlovett.com dot. Yeah, that's my website, and so I'll have some options for classes there.00:30:43
And it's just such a passion for me because it's a simple approach that couples can, once they learn these tools, they can start improving their relationship right away. And it has long term effects. Right. It's not gimmicky. It takes work, but it's real.00:31:08
It's about really creating this deeper connection that is meaningful. And it takes work more than just once or twice or three times, but over the years, making it a priority. It's a journey. Yeah. And I will say the more you do that, the more you learn, and the deeper the intimacy within relationships grows on multiple different levels.00:31:39
I will give this one little example just to. I know we're wrapping up, but I really like the idea that as we disclose our emotions to each other, as we're really vulnerable about what we struggle with, what brings us joyous, what we desire, it's like we're emotionally undressing. Right? And as we emotionally undress with our partner, we share with them things that we haven't said to anybody. We maybe didn't even know about ourselves until, you know, different settings.00:32:15
As we emotionally undress, the natural outcrop of that is to physically undress and want to share our body with this person who loves my soul. And that's really important for us to have that foundation of emotional closeness before we engage in the physical closeness. Very important. I love that. Very well said.00:32:40
Wow. So good. Yeah. Well, this has been amazing. Wonderful, wonderful interview.00:32:47
We appreciate and love you so much. And likewise, Heidi. You both are just so wonderful doing such good work. Well, we are really learning the ins and outs of working together like you and your husband are right now. But it's a learning process, right?00:33:06
And we're loving it. And it's learning growing, like, oh, I didn't know that. Okay. Sometimes we make mistakes, and sometimes we let our listeners know we are human and make mistakes. And you might hear me being a little chippy with him sometimes, or you might hear one of us speaking almost through the whole podcast and the other person kind of just taking a backseat.00:33:32
So that's life. Yeah. Thank you so much for joining us today. My pleasure. And that concludes our two part interview with Doctor Chelom Leavitte.00:33:44
I hope you found it as enlightening as we did. If you enjoyed this series, please consider sharing it with your friends subscribing and leaving us a review. Your feedback really helps us bring more content your way. And remember, the intelligent spouse knows that to change from a stinky to a scintillating marriage first requires a change in themselves. Thank you all for tuning into marriage IQ.00:34:10
We hope today's episode has sparked some wonderful thoughts and brought you valuable insights. Remember, the conversation doesn't end here. If you are interested in more information on this topic or to learn more about what we do, check out our website, Dr. Heidi Hastings, PhD, and if you get the chance, we'd love to have you leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. It really helps us get the word out about Marriage IQ, and we appreciate your support.00:34:41
Thanks again for listening. Keep exploring and we'll catch you next time on another exciting episode of Marriage IQ.
