The Body Episode: Pelvic Floors, Sexual Health & the Knowledge You Were Never Given

is your weekly dose of purpose, packed with sciencebacked tools to beat burnout and boost happiness, hosted by us, Tess Brower, and seventime world champion Lane \[music\] Beley. We're the founders of Awake Academy. This podcast mixes raw life lessons, expert \[music\] wisdom, and practical tips to help you stop sleepwalking through life and start living it on your terms. You ready to wake up and thrive? Let's go. Before we begin, we have a quick favor to ask. If this podcast has been landing for you, please hit subscribe and leave us a rating or review. It helps us grow the show and keep bringing these conversations to more people. Today we are talking about body knowledge that most of us were never given and what changes when you finally have it. We're Lane and Tess. This is a wakeup call where we give you science-based facts, real conversations, incredible healers, professionals, and experts to give you tools that you can live your best life and be your best self. Welcome back, Dream Team. We have a guest and a half for you today. Today we are talking about the body and specifically how to have good sex. \[laughter\] Let's talk about sex. The reason why we put let's talk about you and me. Let's talk about all the good things and the bad things that may be. Wicked. Hell yeah. \[laughter\] Let's talk about most of us were never taught about our own bodies unless of course there was something wrong with it. Not the pelvic floor, not the nervous system, not what happens to sexual health through pmenopause and menopause, not the things that quietly affect our confidence, our comfort, and our relationships or our performance at work. Heather Ford decided to change that. After more than a decade as a journalist and following the birth of her second child, Heather noticed a gap in a so that was so significant that she went back to university to fill herself in. Pardon \[laughter\] the pun. Pardon the pun. She completed a masters in women's medicine, a masters in sexology, and founded Core Restore Co. And now you have five clinics across New South Wales built on a reputation of doing something that most clinicians can't. Making complex, stigmatized medical topics genuinely engaging. Hell yeah. And completely approachable. This is almost impossible to ignore, right? It's not every day someone walks into our studio with a pelvic floor. Well, well, a pelvis. Well, yeah. Not often that people bring two though, right? \[laughter\] Nice. Um, you call it unjargoning anatomy, which I absolutely love. And you are very, very good at it, and I've followed you for a while. Heather has appeared on the morning show, the Today Show, and contributes to women's health magazines, Mamame Mia, and speaks to corporate audiences, including some of Australia's biggest organizations. They are the brave ones. um about pelvic floor health, pmenopause, menopause and nervous system regulation as a performance tool. Are your audiences I am sure leave very excited and today that is what we want to bring our dream team is a little bit of selfmpowerment. Um I saw a statistic the other day that good sexual health increases your longevity by 40%. And that was just one orgasm a week. Crazy. Crazy. There's so many more stats to go with that too, but let's let's hold out. I don't want to give it all away too quickly, right? \[laughter\] So, thank you for bringing your light, your joy, your energy. You are a absolute incredible source of inspiration to both of us um purely because you take on subjects that most people want to bury their head in the sand about. So, today we are looking forward to learning from you. Welcome to a wake up. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. And what what an intro. Hell yeah. \[laughter\] So we do like to start every podcast interview with the same question around because it's called a wakeup call. Was there a specific wakeup call that woke you up to wanting to invest in this profession or let's just start with what was your wakeup call? Okay, so let's go back. Let's rewind the clock to 20 the clock. \[laughter\] How how many times can we have euphemisms in this? Okay, let's re let's \[laughter\] rewind the clock.

healthy, looked after my body. At the time I was editing a health magazine. Um, so I spent my days looking through research papers trying to decode the body. So I'm at the trampoline park. My three-year-old at the time, my 2 and a half three-year-old, she decides to go on the trampoline and it's like, "Mommy, come with me." And I'm like, in my head, "Not yet." In my head, I was like, "Of course, baby. I would love to." So I'm wearing my black little tights. I jump on the trampoline. I kid you not, it was like 30 seconds in and of course it took 30 seconds cuz I haven't had kids and it doesn't take 30 seconds to \[laughter\] wet myself. I can fix that. Please come see me. I was about 30 seconds in and I felt like I was going to leak all over the trampoline. So I quickly got myself off, raced to the bathroom, but in that moment the it started to shame. I was so embarrassed and there was so much shame. Thank god I was wearing black. But that quickly turned into anger. And I think any woman who is quite awake in herself and has a lot of um has good self-esteem will in that moment turn anger into something positive. And that's exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to turn this shame and embarrassment and anger into something that could help women because I felt like if it had happened to me, then it's happening to so many other women and no one else is talking about it. So like let's make the change and I'm going to be the one to talk about it. So where did it lead you? Well, I just can I just ask what was the shame? Like you just had a baby question and you would like the second baby. Yeah. No one had warned me. So I didn't know that this is something that we should expect. We shouldn't expect it though. We should have treatment options in place and we should have education. We should have options so that we don't have to have this as an expectation. But at that time no one had warned me that I might leak or that I might have pelvic floor dysfunction. I mean my birth was beautiful. I had a healthy baby. Um, I remember at one point in maybe the 6 week mark, my beautiful midwife came in and asked how I was and if my pelvic floor was good. And I was like, "Yeah, it's fine." But I didn't know what that meant. And also, I had a kid screaming and I had a newborn baby and I was stressed and I was in the throws of motherhood. The last thing I was thinking about was myself. I was just like, "Okay, what can I do to get through the next hour without bursting into tears?" Yeah. Um, so yeah, that's where the shame came from. I I didn't realize that this would happen. Yeah. And when you and I'm sure you were a fit, healthy, active woman before you gave birth. Absolutely. So now it's like, well, who am I? Yeah. I can't go to the I can't jump on the trampoline with my three-year-old. What what's next? And I also didn't know where to go from there. That was the other part. No one had given anyone a really clear guideline of, okay, here's what to do if you do expect this and here's who to see. And so it was like navigating without a map. Yeah. which fortunately we don't have to do much of anymore. No, thank God. Thanks. Thanks to you, Heather. Yeah. Well, you went in and you decided that you needed a map. Not that many people would go back to university and study what, three degrees. \[laughter\] I've always been an overachiever guy. What was that process like for you to turn on that side of your brain and to start learning? I mean, it's like Pandora's box. Here's the pun, but you go in and and there's so much information. so much, but also so little. I think first of all, after giving birth, I mean, nothing's that hard anymore, right? Like, you've already done the trickiest, most painful, like lifealtering thing you could possibly do. So, going back to study for me was easy. It was an easy and fun part of my life. Um but in saying that even studying medicine the focus on pelvic floor the focus on postpartum and the focus on pmenopause is still just such a little blip in the entire thing. So just like nutrition in the doctor world like they spend like a couple of hours on nutrition to be a doctor. Yeah. Yeah. So if you really want to go deep into the weeds you really do need to specialize in it and choose particular topics. So systemically, our health professionals aren't receiving that much education on these particular parts of our body. And that's where we get to the fact that pelvic floor dysfunction and also female sexual dysfunction is such a systemic issue because it's starting at the top. Okay. So, I just want to pause here for a second for anyone who like we have a lot of men that listen to our podcast and education is power and there's a lot of um I know in my circle of friends and family and loved ones, they don't know what to do. The men just like how do I support a woman through par like I'm in parmenopause, you're in menopause like in so we not don't become these like hot raging witches. \[laughter\] Been there, done that. Yeah. with low sex drive or high sex drive, whatever it is. I want our listeners to just take this moment to start to send it to a loved one who could learn with us because it is like sexual health is stigmatized. How did you learn to un like to destigmatize that and start educating people and empowering them? I think it stems from I have one of my key parts of my personality is I hate things that are unfair and I \[laughter\] and if I see life isn't fair though. It's not fair. It's absolutely not. But if I do see injustice or things that I don't deem as fair, it's like this fire that ignites in my tummy that I have to do something to try and fix it. And I think if we think back to our education on sex, like our sex ed in high school, I mean, it was dismal, right? But even back then, it was all centered around the male. There was never any kind of bringing in a woman's pleasure to it. Um, I mean, women don't even know their own anatomy. Research shows us that majority of women can't label the parts of the vulva that we all have. So, that is unfair. And I don't think a woman can have a satisfactory sex life unless she understands her own body. And a man can't pleasure a woman unless he understands. So like let's go back to basics and learn, you know, the basics of female anatomy and and what our bodies do and how they work. So then we can have fulfilling sex lives. And I think I have no shame. So the the injustice part is one part and the fact I don't really get too embarrassed about talking about these things. Like I find it interesting. Yeah. You needed one experience on a trampoline to lose the shame. \[laughter\]

life will look like never having to worry about leakage. Uh never never having to pack, you know, panty liners or think about wearing period undies in case they want to go jumping on a trampoline or want to kick the soccer ball with their friends. Um someone with a healthy sex life. I mean, the confidence that comes from that. Um and also sex is such an important part of a relationship, whether it's a male or a female. It's such a beautiful bonding part. And sex is also, as you kind of touched upon before, such an important part of your health. Like, it's a wonderful way for you to relax. It's great for your mental health. Also, climaxing or orgasming, it releases all of the tension in your muscles when you have a full body orgasm. So, physically, it's really important as well. Having sex was we also talked about the fact that it uh helps with Alzheimer's or helps curb Alzheimer's. Um, and the other really important part about sex is that every time you have an orgasm, it works your pelvic floor. Your pelvic floor contracts and releases. It's one of the best workouts we can do. So, it really is a full body, mental, physical way to improve everything. \[laughter\] Are you sold yet? But you've brought in a pelvic floor. So, do you want to share a little bit more about Let's learn the anatomy.

job. Ura and then you've got the vulva. Your vagina. Yeah, your vagina. So, your vulva is actually around everything. Yes. Yep. So, your vagina is where you can have babies from or where you have penetrative sex. Yeah. And then how does a baby come out of a hole so small? Oh, lane. Gosh. It's women's bodies. The more I learn about them, it's like getting a freaking watermelon out of a pin head. Oh, you feel every single inch of it, too. I promise. I didn't have kids. \[laughter\] Okay, so back to body is designed to do amazing things. It does. It goes back stretch out and come back is just extraordinary. And then the angles. So it looks like we have at least three, maybe four holes. So Oh. Oh, where's the I said three, but where's the I just I'm just looking at this. Yeah, the clitoris clitoris. That's the clitoris. But we actually have four glands which are tiny tiny little holes as well. So I mean, if you want to get really fancy or if you have this at trivia, you can actually be like, "Babe, we've got seven. We've got seven down there. If you count the four glands, that's seven." Okay, so let's go through them together. So urethra, vagina, anus. You've got two little glands called the skins glands. They're also known as the female prostate because they produce PSA, prostate specific antigen. They reside kind of on either side uh near your urethra where you we from. And then you've got two other little holes called the bathlan glands and they reside on either side of the vaginal opening. And their job is to keep things moist and lubricated. So just everyday life, you want to keep things like moist down there, but also during sexy time, they'll produce extra lubrication down there for you as well. And they stop working in menopause. Why? Why? Why does the Why I know it's one of those fun parts of hormones? Yeah, it's the the estrogen. But is that to stop you from having more sex when you're going through menopause? Like cuz the body is so intuitive. It is doing things for us like stretching to give birth to a baby or like what is the purpose of it drying out? What's the purpose of it drying completely out? So you have what want nothing to do? \[laughter\] I don't I don't agree with the fact that women should ever stop having sex. So I would say that our body is primed during um pre perry times to reproduce, right? So it's like evolutionarily we want to have as many babies as possible. And then your body is no longer happening again. Like we're not ovulating anymore. God, it's such a challenging time. I

So, it's great that we're both going through that period together. Um you know, the night sweats and the brain fog and all that kind of stuff. And it's really it's really empowering to have conversations with people like you because it normalizes it. It dstigmatizes it and it empowers us to go, "Oh, okay. So, this is actually normal." Yeah. To be going through this stuff. But it doesn't have to be the only choice. You can there are so many options. Yeah, there are options to deal with this. So, what are some of the options for someone like me who's been in menopause who I had a really active sex life in my 20s and my 30s and I hit my 40s and I don't care if I don't have sex again quite honestly. Well, now my 50s. Um, but of course, I mean, Kirk and I are intimate in different ways. We still have really strong loving marriage and we're intimate in other ways other than just sex. So I'm not going to put just sex as the being the be all and end all of having a very successful marriage. Well, I would then go back and say like what do you even define as sex? Because the course is it? Well, yeah. Traditional education has always centered you know penetration as sex and that's not the case at all. Sex is anything that brings you or your partner pleasure. Um, so yeah, I think if we take penetration off the table, then anything you do, touching, like looking at each other, holding each other, that can all be classified as bringing pleasure to each other, right? Um, so broadening our very definition of what sex is, I think, is a really important place. Yeah, it's almost intimacy. Totally. It is intimacy. It is intimacy. But then how do you label that? Do you need to? I mean, as long as long as you have that connection and understanding with each other. I think what would be even harder is if say for example I've got friends who are going through per menopause and are losing their sexual desires while their husbands are still very highly um sexually driven. Yeah. How do you navigate that to ensure that you're both feeling understood but also satisfied? Yeah. Satisfied. Yeah. So I think communication is

that. But also the woman sometimes might not want to make eye contact, especially if she's trying to explain what's going on with her body. Um so having the conversation with your partner and saying, "This is how I feel." And whenever you have these conversations, because they can be so loaded, I always say talk about it from your perspective and what you're feeling as opposed to you're doing this or you're wanting this. Talk about how you feel um and what you would like out of the an intimacy, an intimate relationship. Um what do you need to have intimacy with your partner? And again, talking about it from not just penetration, maybe you would like a back massage every couple of days. Maybe you would like help with the mental load so that you're not stressed. A foot massage even. \[laughter\] Um, my husband should be taking notes at this point. We teach what we need to learn. \[laughter\] But like, what do you need to get you feeling like you want to be intimate with your partner? I think as women as well, especially if you are working full-time, you may have kids, you may be managing a household, you may be looking after your own parents. There's a lot of mental load and stress going into that. And biologically or evolutionarily, we are not made to have sex when we're stressed out. Because think back to like caveman days. If we were running from a tiger or we were trying to, you know, protect ourselves from something really scary, the last thing we'd need is to get a boner or to want to want to root, right? So, of course, when we're stressed now, we're not made to have a libido. We're not made to want to get intimate. So, you really So, that way women can just use I'm stressed. \[laughter\] I'm not in the mood cuz I'm stressed. I feel like men are like, I'm stressed.

responsive. So, they need some sort of sexual stimuli to get them there. Whether it's like a beautiful book, whether it's a massage again or having a nice bath and relaxing um or pornography. Pornography. It could be watching, you know, Hensworth Brother, whatever. \[laughter\] I do want to talk about porn in a minute. But I've noticed like the more it doesn't just start the moment you get into bed. It's like it's actions throughout the day. It's the look, it's the touch, it's the the care that like I've certainly noticed as I've um softened in myself and the more like if I bring a masculine energy into the house like so we've been at work or like that wouldn't be attractive to anyone because I've just like bolted through the door. But the moment that I like soften I and be very intentional about how I'm walking in the door or how I'm like operating in the kitchen, it all really does add up.

I'm a do it all machine. Yeah. And seeing some of the signs that perhaps you were missing. Yeah. Exactly. Focused. Too focused. Getting \[ \_\_ \] done. Mo, I think there's two things to take away from that experience there. First is that your next sexual experience starts the moment the last one ends. Okay? So what I mean by that is the moment you've, you know, finished having sex with your partner, you need to start thinking about looking after and nurturing each other. Treat it as foreplay. The next 24, 48 hours, next week, whatever it is, all of that time is potential foreplay for you. So, treating your partner with respect, making sure that you're looking after each other, sending a beautiful little text message, doing things around the house, like learning a love language and what works for your partner and then making sure that they feel like they are loved. Um, the other thing you mentioned was a softening and quite literally that is a reduction of stress. Okay. Okay. So, when we talk about softening, we're maybe doing our breath work or we're getting into our visualization or we're really like calming the nervous system because again, we're not going to want to have sex if we're stressed out. And our body won't be receptive to stress because without going too deep in the rabbit hole, but your pelvic floor is your stress response muscle. Okay? And if you are stressed, that pelvic floor is going to contract really tight. Now, guess what? The pelvic floor wraps around the penis. \[laughter\] You were looking at me like Is it the Vegas nerve? No, it wraps around your vagina. So if your pelvic floor is Yeah. your vagina is you're like zipped up. Your body is like absolutely stay the heck away from you like a tiger. Tight like a tiger. And I learned this giving birth is one of the places to reduce like to make stress disappear in your pelvic floor like to loosen up is in your jaw. And I notice how much I carry stress in my jaw. Master muscles. Yeah. They're linked by fascia which is the science behind why. Um and they mirror each other. So if you find that you are clenching your jaw a lot of the day, your pelvic floor is off often times doing the exact same thing. So, one thing you can do is do the little massages or uh shake your jaw out whenever you're feeling like you're holding tension in there. Um, how do you shake your jaw out? Oh, this is very attractive, guys. Okay, ready? \[laughter\] So, we're moving it around from side to side. Literally, it's so easy to do. It's so easy to do. Yeah. So, if you're driving now and your mouth is open and it's moving from left to right, we know you're we know you're relaxing your pelvic floor up and down, around. \[laughter\] The other thing you can do as well is your throat is connected to your vaginal canal. Did you ever hear about this in birth classes where they told you to moan or make noise? \[snorts\] Yeah, I did. Yeah. And the reason for that is that vibration also does the same around the vaginal canal, which is why we're made to make noise during sex because it helps relax and release around the vaginal canal to make things far more pleasurable for you. So I always say don't have sex in silence if you can avoid it. Try and use your throat, use your mouth, relax everything, make vibrations with it because that will help you with lubrication and also arousal. There's another hole we need to be conscious of, right? How how interesting. I love this idea that it start like your next sexual experience starts the moment you finish. onto the next check.

fear and that I would get injured again, that I would get hurt again. So I had to really build trust with my husband because I was just like it was it wasn't pleasure for me, it was fear. Um and only like therapy and exposure therapy helps in those moments. But I don't like what was it like for you stopping sex? Uh I just well I just want to talk a little bit about being in your head because uh often I find that men get stuck in their heads and it stops becoming about the woman and it's st it it's kind of like they get stuck in there. So for people who have um \[gasps\] well for men who have u performance anxiety or um you especially I mean Kirk's had prostate surgery so there's all sorts of challenges and obstacles that we've have had to overcome together. But I think about what's one of the way that we can help men get out of their heads so that they can enjoy the process as opposed to getting worried about whether they're doing it right or wrong or whether they're servicing correctly. Like there's all these things that men get stuck in as well. What could we how can we help them? Okay, my number one tip for this is to again reframe what we think of sex as because again we're talking about sex, but we're actually just talking about penetration, right? Intimacy, penetration. Yeah. So, let's take that off the table. The the end goal is pleasure. It's not penetration or orgasm. Okay? So let's remove that and just go back to pleasure and what feels good. And this is the same for men as it is for women because the amount of women that I see that you know struggle orgasming or feel like they can't orgasm with their partner because and then they get in their head and it becomes this like cycle that it's really hard to break cuz then they get stressed and they're like oh is he enjoying it? Um so take it off the table and just go back to pleasuring each

ways. Look into each other's eyes or just hold each other. Like take away the pressure. And a lot of the time once we take away the pressure, we're helping break the cycle. And I would say a lot of the time it gets to the end of 2 weeks and the women haven't even lasted 2 weeks without sex because they ended up getting so into it that they were like, "Yes, this is amazing." And then it ticked all the boxes for them anyway just by removing the pressure. Yeah. I think obviously it comes down to the confidence of each other. Right. I I had a lot more confidence than Kirk when we started dating because I'd come from a relationship from a partner who was extremely experimental and put me in all sorts of random positions. \[laughter\] I was like, I did not know I could get pleasure from this, you know, being stood on my head, for example. \[laughter\] Like, um, this is fun. \[laughter\] You were a big wave surfer. Yeah. Yeah. He he knew how to do all sorts of things. But, \[laughter\] um, so Kirk used to, you know, it's almost like my confidence overrode his and that and that helped. Maybe it actually kind of eroded his confidence. So for what you're saying, it would have been helpful to actually stop and have those conversations like what makes you uncomfortable like what makes you comfortable? Where can I help you boost your confidence in this environment and and you know how can we have conversations? What is pleasure to you? Yeah. What is pleasure to you? Yeah. Like I mean honestly I only thought it was just all about penetration and and that's that's the only form of of outcome. Yeah. It was very outcome driven. Yeah. Whereas today it's very very different. Oh, it's so broad and so vast and it's so exciting. But I also think there's something in that there's almost this societal pressure on men to be more experienced than women. Um and it's just un unhelpful. It's unhelpful. Well then they watch porn to make

be really good for intimacy, for like um pleasure, experimental, like getting you started all of those things. But then the other side is it's destroying our brains. Um it's destroying our relationship to sex. It gives men uneven power against women. Blah blah blah. Gives you a false interpretation of what sex and intimacy are. I think I have mixed views. I think if it is impacting your relationship, your mental health in a negative way, it's obviously bad. I think if it's helping bring something extra to a relationship or to intimacy, then I don't have a problem with it. What I would love to see though is more realistic portrayals in porn. Um so now with places like Sunroom um you can access what we call ethical porn where uh porn actors or actresses are paid a proper wage um because we know that in the past they were taken advantage of. Um but also it's different body shapes and different body sizes and different ages and levels of abilities. So I think that Sunroom Sunroom is an app where creators can upload their own content. So they're reimbured financially more fairly and there's less of a middleman or producer that has a lot of money trying to So it's your own personal sex type. Yeah. \[laughter\] Yeah. Basically. Yeah. So you get a lot of couples that will just upload home movie type stuff. Yeah, but the real couples experience real pleasure and it can take away a lot of the issues around men assuming that women like sex in one way, which is what historically porn has been about. Wham bam and thank you, ma'am. Yeah, it is wham bam and thank you, ma'am. And especially raising young children, I heard this statistic that scared me that the average age of um sexual activity in kids now is 12. Um because of the access that they have is like I mean it's right there on your phone. And I'll never forget one of the kids um came to Chris and said, "Oh, like this kid brought his brother or sister's phone to school and was showing everyone porn." Um and it scared him. And I remember think like he was very young at this age. And I was so interested to see how a father would coach his son through that moment. And he said, "Oh well, well, how did it make you feel?" And and what did you see in that? And and helped him talk about it. And he said, "Well, you've got a choice in that moment. You can either walk away and um or you can like and you can shut everyone down and say this is unfair. Um or you can use your bravado and go in deep. Who do you want to be?" And he's like, "Oh, I want to tell them to walk away. It's not right." He said, "Okay, well that's your life lesson. You were going to get this porn moment ongoing in life." And it's so true cuz sometimes you don't even want to be exposed to it and it's like thrust in your face. Thrust in your face. Yeah. It's a little scary and it's raising boys particularly who have a really different relationship to sex now because of the way that porn has taught them how to have sex. Yeah. So, was it all these gaps in the market and from your own personal experience that drove you to become a sexologist? Like what drives an individual to become a sexologist? \[gasps\] I think my passion actually started with the pelvic floor. So, it really came down to the jumping on the trampoline. The jumping on the trampoline experience. Yeah. And from there I opened the core clinics and every single day I would be treating women, getting them to, you know, not have to wear pads anymore or be able to, you know, jump on the trampoline like I wanted to. And I in that in those kind of couple of years, I found that a lot of the women were saying, "Holy \[ \_\_ \] I've just had the best orgasms of my life since being with you." Not pick me. Sorry. \[laughter\] I should clarify when the clinicians got really I am sure you'd be very I mean I don't want to say magic hands but \[laughter\] no but since getting their pelvic floor treatment or getting their pelvic floor function up to par they were having incredible orgasms their sex life was improving you know triple the amount that it was in the past and so from there I was like there's something in this I need to figure out what the link is and that's when I went back and I really specialized in the sexology to understand My passion is understanding the mechanics of the body and how that the body works during sex, during intimacy, and during arousal. And the pelvic floor is the most important muscle for a woman to be able to orgasm. And that's why I studied sexology. That's where it all ties up into a nice little bow. Okay. So, how can we make our pelvic floor behave in a \[laughter\] way that supports our sexual health, our immune health, our brain health? Because it's all tied in.

you to imagine you guys have dogs, right? Yes. Yeah. You don't have a dog? Do you have a cat? No. Don't have a dog. I have a pet. I would have picked you as a pet person, Lane. No. Like no fish, nothing. Okay. So, just imagine Charlie, my dog. Oh, imagine the plant. Like I have a plant that I love. Your plant doesn't have a pelvic floor. But so little issue. It's got to be It's got to be a mammal, does it? It's got to It's got to have a pelvic floor. But anyway, imagine like a little a cute little puppy. It's really scared. It's tail tucked underneath it. Yeah. So we do the same thing. Our \[ \_\_ \] tailbone goes under, which shortens your pelvic floor muscles. So that means when you're scared, your pelvic floor muscles shorten or they contract. Now, how does that affect your mental health? I know. Okay, let's get into it. So, your pelvic floor is connected to your diaphragm. Okay, they're besties. Okay, they do everything together. When one goes down, the other goes down. When one goes up, the other goes up. So, if one's up high, the other one is also up high. So, your diaphragm is up high. How do you think that affects your breathing? Well, it shortens it. Yeah. Yeah. You're going to be like doing tiny little shallow breaths. You're never going to be able to do a deep belly full breath. And what do you think that does to your mental health? Freaks you out. Freaks you out. Hell yeah. It sends you into fight or flight mode. Right. So you end up breathing into your traps. You're probably holding a lot of tension in your jaw. Your hands are clenched. Your hands are clenched. Stomach. Yeah. And your body is like, "Oh god, we're running from a tiger all the time. Cortisol levels increase. Of course, you're going to it's going to be this big cycle of pelvic floor contracts, which means you get more stressed. And then your pelvic floor contracts further, which means you get more stressed. Cortisol levels increase. You get more stress. You can't sleep at night. So, you get more It's like this speeds up the incidence of permenopause and menopause. Oh, all of it. Right. So, does it really does that speed up stress because it you know it drains all the hormones out of your body to maintain your ability to manage the stress. Yeah. Okay. So, that's how your pelvic floor affects the mental health. So, we really need to learn to relax the pelvic floor. And we can do that again by breathing into our belly. Deep diaphragmatic breaths. Honestly, breath work. If we were all breathing correctly, I reckon most of our pelvic floor issues would be subsided because every inhale when we breathe in a deep belly breath, our pelvic floor relaxes. Oh, it goes all the way to the top of the pelvis. Uh-huh. Every exhale, it should contract up. How many times do we breathe a day? Is it 50,000 or something? It's not like a crazy number. Well, it depends how fast you breathe, doesn't it? That is true. \[laughter\] But if you're breathing properly, there's thousands of times a day that you're working your pelvic floor by contracting and releasing it. So that is how it affects the mental health. Okay. Is it the same? So it's the same for men and women. Yeah. Men have biological difference between there is a biological difference because men have the hole for the urethra and the anus. They don't have the vaginal canal or a hole opening with the cervix or anything like that. But the pelvic floor, the basics of it are the same. It's their stress response muscle. Um and if they can't relax it, it can lead to things like erectile dysfunction as well. But also a pelvic floor that's too weak can also lead to erectile dysfunction or um ejac early ejaculation. So a range of sexual dysfunctions too. Also things like constipation which is no fun for anyone. No. Yeah. That's well we've talked about mental health. We've talked about mental health. We've talked about importance of breathing and we've talked about how the pelvic floor impacts all of that. But why is it so important during sex? Great question. Okay. because we've talked about the fact that your pelvic floor is the most important muscle when you have sex for a woman. Um, and it's important for you to be able to orgasm, but you're like, "Okay, how do we get from A to B?" So, let's go on the journey together. So, your pelvic floor, it circles around the vaginal canal. We kind of touched on that before, too. So, it's really important to be able to contract during penetration so that you get lots of sensitivity, so there's lots of blood flow in the area. But here's the kicker. When a woman gets aroused, her pelvic floor's job is to contract slightly to keep blood flow in the vulva. Because if your pelvic floor can't contract, your brain can send all of the blood flow down there in the world. And it's just going to come straight on back up if there's nothing keeping it down there. So, its job is to contract slightly to make sure that things stay juicy, lubricated, swollen, the tissues are

lube because there was a research paper that found in every single instance it increased pleasure for male and female. So like why the heck are we not using it? Plant-based one. Anyway, carry on. Anyhoo, so the arousal side of things, pelvic floor, super important. And then once we get to what's called the plateau stage in the sexual response phases, that is the stage where you're into it, you're feeling good, and things quite literally just plateau. You're happy, you're like right up there, but like nothing's going up, nothing's you're just like, "Yeah, keep it there for a while." Right? That's called the plateau stage. Your pelvic floor's job during that stage is to be like a little butterfly and do little flutters for you to increase sensitivity even more. But here's the best part. So, in order for a female to climax, the pelvic floor needs to go through really steep relaxation and a really sharp contraction. And it is the difference between those two movements that get you over the hump to orgasm. So, if you can't relax or you can't contract, you're probably going to have to use other parts of your body. So, a lot of women find that in order to climax, they're like squeezing, maybe they're curling their toes, maybe they're clenching their jaw to like give another little hump over. But your pelvic floor's job, that's its job. It's meant to be doing that for you. And then the orgasm. Okay. So, so is this sort of a little bit like birth? Is like you need like the OB said to me, I wish I forget about birth. I want to get onto the \[laughter\] like give me the orgasm. If you just let your body be your body and get out of your head, it will do the things that it's meant to do. Yeah. I would say that in like the majority of things, we can use that in like the way we eat. If we can get out of our head and just eat intuitively, I think a lot of our issues would be solved. Just be present. Yeah. Be present. Okay. So, we're relaxed. Are we ready to come? Yeah. \[laughter\] Ready? Okay. So, the female orgasm is pelvic floor spasms. Your pelvic floor spasms at point8 of a second. Contracts and releases lots and lots of times. And that little contraction release then send a message almost like a droplet of water spreading out to the rest of the muscles in your body. And that's where you get a full body orgasm. It stems from the pelvic floor going through those spasms. And those spasms are like a release of the muscle. It's that muscle getting uh relaxed. And so that's why orgasm is so important in all like full body health because when you can experience a full body orgasm, all of the muscles that are involved are getting like a beautiful sweep of lactic acid. They're relaxing. M, right? There you go. Can you show that? Show it to us in um Does this orgasm? \[laughter\] You want me to get uh that would be squirting, which is another fun little topic. Yes. Can you talk about squirting? Yeah, of course we can. Can we? Okay. So, squirting, we mentioned this before, the skins glands. Do you guys remember those? Yeah. The female prostate. So, there's been a lot of like myth busting around squirting. Some people are like, "Oh, it's just wee." And some people are like, "Oh, it comes from the vagina." Here's where it comes from. It's a mixture of fluid from the bladder that goes out through the urethra and gets mixed with PSA which is produced by the skins glands. So, it is not urine. It does not have the same color. It does not have the same smell. It is um a mixture of that with the the prostate fluid. It does come out of the urethra, which is where people were really confused. But again, like female bodies are so underststudied and my take on it is if it's good, it feels great, you're enjoying it, like why why is there stigma around it? Now, do you want to know how to squirt? Has anyone ever taught? No. I can't say they've gone to squirt school. \[laughter\] Look at us. I used to. I don't anymore. Oh, you can't anymore. No. Okay. So, it could be something. First of all, I would say if you ever want to try things, I would always try them by yourself first or with toys because it just removes again that pressure. So, it's good to know your own body and what feels good first before you bring a partner in. But if you want to get an A+ in squirt school, my \[laughter\] my technique, you can try this at home. It's the come hither motion. Okay? So, you want to get your index finger, say I'm with a female partner, sliding the index finger up the vaginal canal and just do that little come hither motion. That's going to press onto the anterior vaginal wall, which is basically the front side of the vagina, and that's going to hit the clitoris. Because another fun fact, did you know your clitoris is actually 9 to 12 cm big? Yeah. Cuz it goes inside. And that's the G-spot, right? Correct. So, in the past, we thought the G-spot was this like magic little spot of of nerve endings and it was named after, you know, a guy in the 60s. \[laughter\] It's always named after a take of the G \[laughter\] I feel like well skins was also named after a guy. Bartholan's glands a guy um pouch of Douglas another part of your body named after a guy. Anyway, everything's named after men in this universe including the vagina. Yeah, which is wild, right? His story. It's everything. I know. Yeah. Anyway. Anyway, back to squirt school. So, we want to tap on the anterior vaginal wall with this kind of motion. That's going to pulpate the clitoris from another angle because your clitoris has a little pee, right? But then it comes out like a little chicken wing almost or a chicken bone along either side of your labia. Yeah. So it's like a snake tongue like here. Yeah. Yeah. So by doing this motion, you're getting like the inside of it. Another fun little fact was that women who can orgasm through penetration alone. Research found that their clitoris was closer to the vaginal opening. So clitoris is probably responsible for like all of the orgasms, right? So yeah. Anyway, back to sweating. That's only like 30%, right? Or less than 30% of women orgasm through penetration only. Yeah. Which is crazy when you think about how much attention has been put on that as Yeah. You know, like in sex, there was no information on the clitoris. None sexed. There was only cucumbers with condoms. Oh my god. I know. Tell me about it. Take a morning after pill. \[laughter\] Yes. We didn't even have that. We were like, if you have sex, it was like that mean girls um part where it's like you will die. You will fall pregnant and then you will die. \[laughter\] That was basically Craig was told as a kid if he kissed a girl on the bottom he'd get her pregnant. Who was kissing girls on the bottom? \[laughter\] We did. \[gasps\] No king shaming. No king shaming. Okay, so back to quickly me. I was freaking vision \[laughter\] until you ended up on your head. Until you went a long way. I did. I took a long journey. \[laughter\] It's quite a roller coaster. Literally. Yes. Okay. So, when we going back to squirt school, when we do this motion, we're helping fill up the bladder with fluid and then that activates the skins glands to mix with the fluid and you use your pelvic floor to expel the fluid out. So, another fun fact, research found that women who had a stronger pelvic floor were or a stronger levator ani muscle, which is the ent inside part of your pelvic floor, were more likely to be able to squirt. Okay. Yeah. And does squirting have any profound health in impact or increases and longevity by 40%. Yeah, I \[laughter\] have I have seen people What are the stats around? Do we need to learn how to squirt? Like I said, game changer. Do I need to go back to my 20s? I don't want to do that again. \[laughter\] I never want I never want to add a task. I think if it's fun for you and you want to try it, go for it. But the moment you start like getting in your head and being like, "Oh, why can't I do this?" It's not fun anymore. Like take that off. I'm happy just orgasm. \[laughter\] That's enough. I want to go full body again. That would be great. Yeah, squirting is fun. It's a different uh type of kind of orgasm or a feeling of release. Yeah. Relaxation. Total relaxation. Um by surprise, that's me. \[laughter\] But did your sex life improve after you learned all about it? Like did it take a while to unlearn, relearn, and get back into the body? Yeah, I think I think understanding my own body and normalizing so much of it has created a new confidence that I just didn't have because we were always taught and even porn showed us one very specific type of vulvver and one very specific type of having sex. And when you realize that that's not the way things have been over, you know, hundreds and hundreds of years, you start being like, "Oh, there's nothing wrong with me." Like, I just I don't I don't need penetration to orgasm. That doesn't make me weird. That doesn't make me bad at sex. It just makes me kind of normal. Yeah. Liberating. We have um we have a partner. We a partnership with AIA Vitality, which is all about helping people live healthier, longer, better lives. And obviously sex is an important part to living that life. And that's not just about penetration. So we'd love to incorporate a do it for

to let spread our legs. Nothing. We're staying close. The other thing is, did you know a kele, which is a pussup, it was named after a guy, which is why we're reframing it to push up. I love that. Okay. Okay. So, I've got some music here, too. Okay. First of all, how to do a pussup. So, I think well, research actually backs this. The best way to do a pelvic floor contraction or the best cue to use is imagine like you're trying to hold in a fart. Okay. Okay. Oh, you just did it. I did. I I felt the energy. \[laughter\] Okay. So, that's the best cue to use if you are at home and you're like, \[laughter\] I don't have a poker. \[laughter\] Why did I end up have to hold on to this? We're just squeezing our sneakers together. I never thought I would be with Lane and testing that. \[laughter\] I do it in the first. It's good. Okay. So, the other way you can test if you're doing it right is by giving yourself an internal because again, no one teaches us to give ourselves an internal. But again, it's so important to know your own body. So, slide the finger up the vaginal canal. We are not doing this by the way. No, no, no. We will not be It could be a good way to get people on the socials though. Have you thought visit our YouTube subscribe to the YouTube \[laughter\] subscriber only access personal \[laughter\] of how to personally anyway. But what you want to do is slide the finger up and squeeze around your finger and you should feel a contraction. That's a really good way to feel it at home. Make sure your fingernails aren't too long. Yeah. And make sure they're clean as well. We don't want We don't want any infections down there. Okay. So, should we get some tunes? Have we got a music man or woman? I'm I am the music woman. Okay. Okay. So, every time I do this, I want you to contract. Squeeze that little anal sphincter like there's no tomorrow. And every time I do this, I want you to relax. Okay. Oh, we can we can do some moves as well. Okay. So, we're dancing. Oh, yeah. You got to go the beat. And then when you lift your hands, that's when that's when we're pushing up. Ready? 4 3 2 1. Hold it high and relax. Let it out. You make it look so glamorous, \[music\] Hannah. And contra up \[laughter\] and relax. Oh, you got it. Let's do two more. \[laughter\] And contract up and relax. Last one. We're going to do it quick. Okay. Contract. Hold. Oh, hold it. Hold it. Hold. I thought we were going to do like a push-up. And let it out. What about if you go up, down? Oh, yeah. Double time, babe. Up, lane. Look at you go. She has to edge everything. Yeah, I'm looking. \[laughter\] She's competitive. All right. My pelvic floor is feeling stronger. Good. Now, here's the thing. I went um to the Olympic Games many years ago, not as an athlete, but as an athlete liaison, and one of the physiootherapists told me, "You need to start practicing your, you know, building up your pelvic floor." And so she had me lie on my back with my feet on the floor and my knees and it was about, you know, contracting contracting the it was almost like contracting my abdominal wall to get the they're connected your lower abdominals. Yeah. To get my lower back onto the floor and holding that and then the pelvic tilt. That is a good way to do it. I find that the easiest way though is by doing like feeling inside like giving yourself an internal because that way you know that you're doing it right. You know you're doing it right. Yeah. And or you can use a mirror. You can look in the mirror. And again, we should be looking in the mirror at our vulvvers anyway because again, we want to normalize it. We want to remove. I remember my mom telling me I should do that when I was really like like teenager. I was like, "Mom, don't be just so disgusting." But it's really true. Growing up without a mother, I never got to do that. Sorry. Can I just I I've heard that there's a lot of activity that happens in the athletes village. Oh yes. Um, but is that why the physio was \[laughter\] teaching you? You really need to get in touch with that pelvic floor. No, I had some uh I actually had some hip issues and she was getting into my hip issues and then somehow I got onto Oh, it's cuz I was coaching the trampoline team. Oh. And I jumped on the trampoline away myself. So, did you know female elite athletes are the most at risk of pelvic floor dysfunction? Yeah, right. Cuz there's so much pressure. Yeah, that's me. And look at that. All circles just led back to Rome. The back to the trampoline big moment. Are the rumors true about the Olympics? Yes. 100% true. Um high performance. Hey. Yeah. Yes. Yes. The uh the athletes that come from, you know, African countries and those kind of lands do need beer condoms apparently. And a lot of athletes like to let off steam through sexual. Who was the friskiest? Who the friskiest? Yeah. Who were the friskiest? What country? The Germans. The Germans. Oh. Oh, okay. Canadians. I wouldn't have picked Canadians. They seem so sweet. They are very sweet. Yes. But look, I I don't know if that's true. That's just a rumor that I heard. Yeah. So, don't quote me on it. Yeah. \[laughter\] But yes, it is true about what happened. Is there a particular sport that is like you? Well, the gymnasts are incredibly I can imagine. So, they can get into all sorts of positions very comfortably in very small spaces and take care of themselves and each other. There you go. More power to them. I say everyone has needs and they need to be met. Yeah. From women's point of view, do you find with some of your clients that women are afraid to ask for what they need or what they enjoy in the bedroom? Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. Again, we haven't Well, we haven't centered women's pleasure at all. So if you go about your entire life thinking that sex starts when a male gets an erection and finishes when a male ejaculates and the whole point of sex is to reproduce, then of course when things aren't good for you, you have this little voice in the back of your head and it's like, oh well that wasn't made for me anyway. Like I wasn't it was about him. So it's about desentering um the male and bringing yourself in and saying my pleasure is just as important. But again, you cannot give your partner advice on what to do with your body until you've done it yourself with your body. You need to know your own body. You need to see your vulvver. You need to get used to it. You need to touch yourself, remove stigma, remove shame, and only then and know how to bring yourself pleasure. And only then can you instruct or guide a partner. Mhm. Yeah. That's actually without disempowering him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I what a beautiful place to wrap up today because we always talk about self-empowerment number one like understand how you work internally before and then you get an understanding of how other people work and I I think sex has been or sexual health has been completely um stigmatized. So we actually know that you want to be more empowered. So, how do people become more empowered with you, Heather? Cuz I think male and females should come and see you. Um, where can they find you? How can they do more push-ups with you? actually know that you want to be more empowered. So, how do people become more empowered with you, Heather? Cuz I think male and females should come and see you. Um, where can they find you? How can they do more push-ups with you? \[laughter\] How can they connect with you? So, if you are in New South Wales, we have five clinics across Sydney, Wllingong, Newcastle. Uh, if you're not in New South Wales though, education is so important. So, our Instagram @core.restore.co has free education. We have free workshops that we open the open to the public and we have free online guides. So, please take advantage of that. And I also am available on DM. I make myself very available and if I can't help you out, I will make sure we get you a really clear map for your treatment plan and refer you on to someone locally who can look after you. Yeah, all power to you, Heather. Thank you. Thank you, Heather. Yeah, we have loved having you on board. And if today's episode really hit the spot, \[laughter\] come and join us at awakeacademy.com.au and we will see you next week for another episode. Probably not as um powerful as this one or maybe just a different way. \[laughter\] We don't know \[gasps\] where. We love you, Heather. And here's to happier, sexier, healthier lives. Toodles. Hell yeah. \[laughter\] Have you been listening to this episode and thought, "Mike drop. Maybe I'm ready to get coached or have some therapy, but you don't want to go all the way down and get a therapist. Welcome to the Awake Collective, where we do monthly coaching to help people feel accountable, supported, and they keep on doing the work that you hear in this podcast. It is life transformative. Right, LB? It's a community of support \[music\] and like-minded people who are willing to keep investing in themselves because what we do is we help people help themselves. If you've enjoyed what you've heard today, then the Awake Collective is for you. \[music\] So, come and join us at awakeacademy.com.au and join us for monthly coaching, a community that supports you and tools that you can use in your life to thrive. Let's go. See you there. Before we close, we just want to gently remind you that Awake Academy is not a licensed mental health service and this podcast is not a substitute for personalized mental health advice, assessment, diagnosis, or treatment. What we share here is general in nature and is designed to offer reflection, insight, and practical tools for everyday life. Therapy can be life-changing, and we deeply encourage you to speak to your GP about your mental health and well-being options.