The 1-minute body practice that unlocks what you actually want sexually

Before you can solve your desire gap, you need to know what you actually want. This super simple, somatic practice helps you stop overthinking sex, connect to your body's truth, and find the safety you need to access authentic desire. Whether you want more or less sex than your partner, self-attunement is the foundation for everything. Learn the simple 1-minute body check-in that reveals your real yeses and nos—and helps your partner feel your presence too. 

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Transcript

0:01  
Welcome to the desire gap podcast. I'm your host, Dr Laura Jurgens, and whether you want more sex than your partner or less, you are not wrong, and your relationship isn't doomed. You just need better tools to solve the struggles of mismatched libidos. That's what we do here. So welcome and let's dive in. Hey everyone. Welcome back to the desire gap podcast. I am really happy that you are here today. I'm always happy you're here today. I hope you are feeling great. It is January 2026, right now, and I was at a wonderful podcast conference last week, and I also came down with a cold, and then had to quarantine myself. And so if I'm a little froggy sounding today, that's why, but I'm here, and I'm happy to be here with you. So today I am bringing back one of the most foundational episodes from my early catalog, because, honestly, this skill is so essential that I reference it constantly with clients. It's really one of the it's really the first place I start with everyone, and I want to make sure that you have access to it, and it didn't get buried back there in the early episodes. So I get so many messages to you from people asking things like, how do I want sex more? Or, how do I figure out what turns me on when I say I'm a sex coach, this is, these are some of the common questions I get asked. And what I've learned after years of working with people and myself, is that you cannot answer those questions if you are not connected to your body. So when you're wondering, Am I having sex that I don't actually want, or am I just having sex that I think I should want, or what is it that I actually want? Most people can't answer those things unless they are deeply connected to their own bodies, and it is the root of so much of the desire gap landscape,

2:17  
the lack of connection to ourselves. It is the root of so much, a huge proportion of desire, gap problems, a lot, I would say 90% of the people that I see, this is an aspect of what is going on with them. And that's a minimum. It might be closer to 100%

2:41  
is that not being connected to ourselves, and this is for high libido and low libido partners, it's really affecting our ability to connect with each other.

2:53  
And for those of you who are trying to find your authentic desire, you have to first be able to feel what is true for you in your body, you have to be able to find your honest no and your real Yes, and that requires a skill that most of us were literally socialized out of over the course of our Childhood, which is self attunement. We were told to sit down, sit still, wait to raise our hand to go to the bathroom right. Hold on to our urge to run around until that 15 minutes of permission for recess. We were socialized out of really attuning to ourselves.

3:38  
And the more what happens then, of course, is that we start shoulding on ourselves about things,

3:46  
and we don't really know what's going on with ourselves, so we start judging ourselves with shoulds. And the more you should on yourself about sex, saying things to yourself like I should want this I should be turned on by that. I should be having more sex, right? A client I was talking to last week, this is literally the main thing that she does, is she's saying, I should be having sex X amount of times per week in order to have a good relationship. You know, everything is about should, should, should. The more you do that, the more your body will rebel and shut down,

4:19  
because your nervous system knows you may not know, your brain may not know, but your nervous system knows when you are overriding your own truth and it does not feel safe, your nervous system is not going to lie to you. It is. If it doesn't feel safe, you are it's good. You're going to know. You may not consciously know, but your body will literally shut down. And here's this. This is so critical, if you don't feel safe, you cannot feel sexual. Sex in in the hierarchy of human needs, seriously, safety is number one. Sexuality is way down, way.

5:00  
Way down the list, safety is number one. You cannot feel sexual if you don't feel safe. And so many of us walk around in a chronically unsafe nervous system state without even realizing it, and so many of us feel unsafe in our partnership without even realizing it. And it doesn't mean that our partner is actually unsafe, although they might be, but many times what it is is we're carrying forward patterns of disconnection from ourself and patterns of unsafety from old wounds, and we're bringing them forward into our current space. And we are also often not showing up for our own safety. We are not protecting our own safety. We are crossing our own boundaries over and over again. It's many of us because we didn't even know there was a boundary there. We didn't even think we were entitled to have one. So we haven't noticed that our body has them anyway, and so we are being unsafe partners to ourselves. And when we are in those states of UN safety, we cannot access eroticism and sexual joy. We can't we can't access pleasure because our nervous system is too worried trying to make us safe. So this is all really important and foundational. And in this episode, we're going to walk through a very simple practice. It takes about one minute, once you know how, and it helps. It'll take you a few more minutes before you while you're practicing, learning how, but not a super long time. It's going to help you build what are called your well, they're not really muscles, but I think of them as muscles, right? It's your interoception system. And what interoception just means your ability to feel what's happening inside your body. Okay? And we need to rebuild that. You have that capacity. You're born with it, you haven't lost it, but you might have become disconnected from it. So you're going to learn through this really simple practice, how to check in with yourself, how to figure out where you're at on an activation scale of nervous system activation, and how to practice the foundational skill of curiosity without judgment, just allowing yourself to be where you are without making it wrong. Whether you your nervous system is freaking the fuck out or is totally calm, neither of those require judgment. Neither of them are wrong. They're probably very functional responses to whatever is going on for you, either in the present or in the past, or what your imagination is telling you could happen in the future based on your fears from the past. So

7:51  
it's okay to be activated, but it's really important that you learn that and that you understand if you don't feel safe, because one of the things that we need to build in order for you to have access to desire and pleasure is safety.

8:08  
But it all starts with you.

8:11  
It all starts with you figuring out how to feel into where you are at in this moment, and that's what will allow you to eventually want what you actually want and not what not not want, what you don't want without shame. Gosh, that was hard to say. But this is also the foundation of magnetic presence with a partner, and this is really important, especially for you high libido people, or you people that want to have more sex, you literally cannot attune to someone else if you are not home to yourself first. And when your partner says that, they just don't feel you're really present with them, or they want to be more connected with you. Or when you're saying that to your partner, because you want that connection. You want an emotional and physical connection with your partner.

9:07  
This is what everybody's talking about, even if you don't have words for it. The foundation of feeling present to someone else is being present to yourself.

9:21  
And when, when we eventually talk about dominant energy in future episodes, and how to bring dominance if your partner is asking for that, or what it is that you're asking for, if that's what you're asking for, this skill is the foundation that makes it safe to bring that. It makes everything work, and it tends to be real presence that somebody is craving, not aggression. So it's really this is such an important foundational skill. Your yeses and your nos all come from the same place. That place is in.

10:00  
Body truth and understanding your nervous system state. So we're going to start building that connection. We're going to dive in to this episode. I hope you enjoy it.

10:11  
Today. We are talking about this relationship bedrock skill, self attunement, and sometimes we think being connected to ourselves might be somehow selfish, which is, I feel like once upon a time, I thought this until I learned better, and I'm really trying to remember felt. But once you actually do it, you realize it's not actually selfish at all to be aware of where you are aware of your emotional state, and sort of not making it into an emergency. It actually enables us to take care of ourselves, to fill our own cups, so that we have something to give to other people, to be self aware enough to not spill out our emotional baggage on others and to really, kind of know, we'll talk more about the sort of five major things this does for you in a minute, but it really does help you show up well, both for yourself and for other people. So it's sort of the opposite of being selfish. So the good news is it's really easy to learn and form new habits around self attunement, because it is really innate, and we're going to start today with the exercise, rather than put it at the end like normally, because for you to understand what the heck I'm talking about when I say self attunement, it's going to make a lot more sense if you have just experienced it. So

11:45  
this takes about, I would say, one minute. Normally you want to do it. You can do kind of a quickie self attunement in, you know, just a few seconds. But normally you're going to want to take about one minute periodically throughout your day, you know, when you notice that you kind of need to or when you're just starting out learning to build this into a habit. Practice is everything today. It'll take about four minutes for me just to explain here and guide you through it. So it's best not done while you're driving today to try it out for the first time, although you can do this yourself under pretty much any circumstances, once you kind of get what's going on here. But otherwise, as long as you're not driving wherever you are, is perfect.

12:30  
So we'll start with just take two nice deep breaths and drop into your body. Just walk down the sort of stairs from the attic of your mind into your body. Take a couple nice deep breaths

12:45  
and ask yourself, Where am I? On an activation scale with zero being completely calm, just utterly at peace, and 10 being fight, flight, panic attack, go to punch the wall, right? Really super activated.

13:06  
So ask yourself. Where am I between zero and 10 right now, and just let whatever number seems to kind of fit first. Just let that be fine. You do not have to.

13:17  
Please do not overthink this. Just allow whatever kind of came up for you, and then I want to invite you to ask yourself, ask your body, how do I know? How do I know that's my number? What is my body telling me that is giving me the clues I need to come up with that. So if you're focused right now on your mind, or a story you currently have about your current experience in this moment. See if you can just drop back into your body and let your body tell you, allow any sensations that are there for you. And when this is not familiar, it can be a little hard to feel them at first, so just know any sensations that are present. It's not an emergency. If you have super tight neck, or a, you know, ball of sort of fear, pit in your stomach. It's not an emergency. They're just sensations. If you have any other physical sensations, you know, physical in source, pain, that kind of thing, it's okay. It's not an emergency. It's just a sensation, but just notice whatever what are the clues that are telling you what your number is on that activation scale? And just allow yourself to breathe into whatever those sensations are in your body, and notice them, but just notice whatever their characteristics are, without making it a problem, right? So is there a temperature, hot or cold? Is there a texture, attention, feeling, a blockage, numbness, tingling, sort of an effervescence and energy, or what feels like a lack of energy. Just notice it and see if you can just allow it to be there, and that, sometimes in itself.

15:00  
If we'll give you a little bit of relief if you happen to be over about a three or four right now, and that's really it, taking a deep breath or two, dropping into the body, asking what your activation number is, and inquiring gently into your body, how you know what are the sensations in your body that are telling you what number you are in this moment. That is it. That's all we're going to do for today. Okay, there's other skills to build on this, but this is a really foundational, important and simple one. There's ways to act work with higher levels of activation, to de escalate them. And I teach those to clients all the time. I use them myself all the time. But today, what we're going to focus on is just knowing where we're at, knowing our activation number and knowing what our body is telling us about our activation state. And then we're going to focus right now coming up momentarily on how to use that information for your own good and the good of your relationships. All right, so wherever you're at, remember that it's okay. We are all capable of handling any activation level from zero to 10. Our body is built for that, and it is all right, even when you are at a 10, and it doesn't feel all right in that

16:28  
moment. It feels like horrible in that moment. And I see you when I get you, if you are a 10, I'm amazed that you're listening to this, and you're probably not. So most of us are probably less than that right now. But even when you get to that level, even when you're having a full blown panic, rage attack, whatever it is, okay. It is temporary. And if you allow it to be sensations in the body, rather than an emergency in your mind, your body can actually process those sensations and release all those that flood of chemicals that's causing that feeling.

17:08  
Okay, so what do we do with this information, wherever you're at on the scale, this is actually wonderful information to have about your experience in this moment. So when you do this, number one, how to use this, when you do this regularly, can really support your own authenticity, if you care about that,

17:32  
and I do. I'm a really big fan of authenticity. It's kind of a cornerstone of my personal values. And having grown up in a family, well, a family of two, so not a very big family, but a family of two plus cats who are very authentic, but with a parent who was really inauthentic and disconnected from herself. Authenticity feels so wonderful and safe to me, and I love to just be in that place. Some people, I think, have different relationships to that, but if you if you want to support your own authenticity, you will always be better able to tell where you're at, right, but also what you want and don't want for real, because when you have checked in with yourself, you get access to your inner compass, right? You're able to make more authentic decisions, which you know, side note is, what boundaries eventually, when we get there, which we will boundaries are all about the authentic decisions you make about what you want to do in various scenarios, and this sort of supporting of authenticity and knowing what you want and don't want, you know it in some ways, I'll be honest, it's kind of double edged, right? So if you don't want to self attune, it might be if you notice you have some resistance around it. It might be because you are afraid of having preferences, wants or or things that you don't want that don't align with what you perceive as some what somebody else wants. So sometimes, for example, people pleasing people who are really embedded in a people pleasing habit can really feel challenged by self attunement, because knowing what you want might possibly conflict with what you think other people want from you. So if that's you, hit me up for a consult and we'll talk. So number one, self attuning to support your own authenticity, to know what you want and don't want. Two,

19:35  
self attune before you interact with other people is doing this, especially for sexy time, but really, for any interaction, is so amazing for one for them, feeling that you're present, right? Is actually what we want, is we want to connect with real people. We don't want to connect with the part of them that's trying to people.

20:00  
Please us, because that's actually feels like manipulation, right? They're trying to get a certain response from us in order to validate themselves. It doesn't actually feel super good to the other person when we do that, and instead, being self attuned, can really help us feel home to our partners. If you have codependent tendencies, which many, many, many of us do, so it's nothing to feel ashamed about. It's kind of how we train

20:29  
relationships in our society, at least in the US. Is for a lot of codependent tendencies, we tell people things like that we are responsible for other people's feelings, for example, or like, little, you know, little kids in the playground like, like you're making him feel bad kind of thing, right? So

20:48  
our society really does train for codependent tendencies. If you have them, you are one normal. But also, if you want to work on not having codependent tendencies, then working on, first and foremost self attunement, before you try to attune to others, and then seeing if you can stay attuned to yourself while you practice gently simultaneously attuning to someone else. And we'll go into this in more detail in another episode on partner attunement and codependence. But just so you know, this is the foundation for

21:24  
overcoming codependence, self attunement. Also be aware. So there are some because of gender based socialization, women tend to have more trouble staying self attuned during intimacy, and men tend to have more trouble attuning to their partner and to themselves emotionally, but tend to be better self attuned physically, and that's just because they've been given more permission for that through socialization. But everyone, regardless of gender, socialization, needs the foundation of self attunement first. So that's it. It's a really simple one minute check in you can do with yourself throughout your day. Drop into your body, find your activation number based on what your body is telling you, not your mind chatter. Notice what sensations are offering you that information, and see if you can allow that to be the situation without judging yourself or making it an emergency. And if you want to hear more applications of this exercise, especially how to use it for navigating conflict and tough conversations, the full original episode eight is still in the catalog and covers some other really useful ways to work with that skill. And we will definitely be building on self attunement in future episodes, but for now, I want to invite you just to get your reps in. It feels great when you get this under your belt. It's an amazing skill that will really improve your life in all areas, but really practicing self attunement without self judgment. It helps you also. It helps you not judge other people in your life when they are activated or take it so personally, it just stops feeling personal, because it's really just about whatever is happening internally for them and their nervous system, right? But most importantly, it's also going to form the foundation for how you get to know your own authentic desires, and when you're even in a position to feel safe enough to have desire and when you start noticing that you're not feeling safe. We can also start working on how to feel safer, right? But if you have no idea, because you don't even go there, then it's like work. It's like trying to find the jackpot in the like, complete dark, right? So I invite you to do this exercise, to feel your own presence in your own body, and this is also how you convey that presence to your partner in a way that they can feel too that's usually what most of us are craving, is feeling the real version of our partners fully present and embodied. So thanks for listening. I hope this is helpful. Feel free to shoot me an email if you have questions, and I'll see you next week.

24:20  
Hey. So before you go, I have some more free help for you. If you are okay with sharing your email, I will send you my free guide, five steps to start solving desire differences without blame or shame. This is a practical starting point for individuals and couples. You can opt out of my emails at any time, but I think you'll want to stick around. I am not a spammer. Go get it at www.Laura jurgens.com/libido. Make sure to spell my last name right and the link is in the show notes.