Unleashing Your Pleasure Potential: A Candid Conversation with Dr. Fanny LeBoulanger

Dr. Fanny LeBoulanger, a sex coach, discusses the roadblocks to pleasure, self-love, trauma, and communication in relationships. She emphasizes the importance of reclaiming pleasure, addressing conditioning, and seeking professional help for empowerment. The conversation delves into the complexities of pleasure, intimacy, and self-discovery, offering valuable insights for personal growth and relationship dynamics.

Takeaways

Reclaiming pleasure involves addressing conditioning and reclaiming the senses.
Self-love is a journey that includes self-acknowledgment, self-tolerance, and self-compassion.
Trauma and conditioning can deeply impact pleasure-seeking behavior and require careful, trauma-informed support.
Effective communication in relationships involves voicing needs, acknowledging challenges, and building a depth of presence and inner safety.
Seeking professional help, such as coaching, can empower individuals to explore, heal, and thrive in their personal and relational lives.

Sound Bites

"Coaching is a time, emotional, and relationship commitment that empowers self-responsibility."

Quotes

1. "Pleasure is a birthright, not a reward. It's time to reclaim it as our own." - Dr. Fanny LeBoulanger
2. "We've been conditioned to believe so many myths about pleasure. The first step is to unpack those beliefs and rewrite the narrative." - Dr. Fanny LeBoulanger
3. "Self-love and pleasure are deeply intertwined. You can't have one without the other." - Dr. Fanny LeBoulanger
4. "Communication is key in any relationship, but especially when it comes to intimacy. Be honest about your needs and desires." - Dr. Fanny LeBoulanger
5. "Seeking professional help is a sign of strength, not weakness. It's an investment in your well-being and your future." - Dr. Fanny LeBoulanger

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Reclaiming Pleasure
06:34 The Journey of Self-Love and Overcoming Trauma
31:30 Empowerment Through Professional Help

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Transcript

Michelle Margaret Marques (00:00.64)
Hello and welcome to the Bloody Hell Chelle podcast. I have got a special episode for you today. I am joined again by Fanny, who joined me. This is part two of a very, very interesting conversation. So I'm going to do things a little bit differently today. And I'm really looking forward to it. Of course, I'm excited as always. I'm always excited. Fanny.

Thank you so much for coming back again and agreeing to do a more in -depth conversation about pleasure. I'm so looking forward to it. Would you like to reintroduce yourself to my amazing audience, please?

Fanny (00:46.101)
Thank you so much for having me again. Hi everyone. I'm Dr. Fanny LeBoulanger. If you want to laugh, that means the baker. I am a sassy French physician trying to define what I do in terms of sex coaching, a liveness awakener, sexual wellness igniter, just playing around with decor, trying to figure out what is actually the title I want to give myself. So I have no idea, but I do know.

is that I love helping people step out of sexual numbness and boredom, life autopilot, and self -hate. Talk about a program.

Michelle Margaret Marques (01:27.104)
I tell you what I am going to just jump right in today because I don't want to waste a single second of this time that we have together. So I'm going to ditch the euphemism. Okay, many people are feeling disconnected from their bodies and pleasure right now. What are some of the biggest roadblocks that you see holding people back and how can we start breaking them down?

Fanny (01:57.365)
Ooh, thank you. Are you sure this is just the first question in the whole talk? Because you're in for a treat of me talking and talking and talking.

Michelle Margaret Marques (02:06.368)
Let's do it. Let's talk. Let's just break it all down.

Fanny (02:12.437)
First, I think what is the most important is this disconnection from our senses. We really live in an autopilot world and work as well, where we don't take the time to actually awaken our senses, smell, really look at something, hear what is going on around you, really enjoy the touch of a beautiful fabric.

of your clothing. It's no surprise we are, you are disconnected and we are disconnected from our bodies if we don't have a relationship with what is actually making the intersection between you and what is outside. So there's that. And that's actually where I start when I work with someone with my coachee or in the ebook that I wrote. The first step is really to reclaim your senses.

because you need that to actually reawaken your body. And when you do that, you are able to access what is pleasurable. Because to feel pleasure, you need to feel something first.

I think the second one, the biggest one as well, is art conditioning, patriarchy, shame, sexism, and things like that, that actually help us feel... it's not helping us, make us feel like we will never be enough, whatever we do. If you're thin, get some muscle, if you're curvy, lose some weight.

Enjoy your sex life, but not too much, you're slut, but not too little because you're frigid. And you should love role play, but only insert your roles in things like that. These constant injunctions around us, making us feel there is something wrong with us, or at least that we will, whatever you, we do, we will never be enough. That's exhausting. And for a nervous system, that's awful to feel. And we cannot selectively numb. So.

Fanny (04:27.029)
to not feel that, first we disconnect from that and then we disconnect from the rest. And I think that's another thing. When we are so afraid of our emotions and rightfully so, because good girls don't get angry or don't be angry at people or don't be sad because you're gonna relish in your sadness and you're not gonna be able to take care about everybody around you or just the shame, yeah, the shame that we are conditioned with.

All of this is unbearable for a nervous system. And what we do then is that we put that lovingly under the rug because we need to function as human beings. And the thing is when you put that under the rug, slowly but surely everything else is going under the rug too, because you cannot selectively numb. And without you realizing it, suddenly you don't have access to anything.

to any kind of emotion, that's what I call life autopilot. These moments where everything is gray, where you know you have, you have it all or you have what makes you happy and yet you don't feel it or you feel it 20 to 30%. And I really feel and I truly believe all of that comes from this bearing down.

all of our emotions, so we disconnect. And when we disconnect, there is no way we can access pleasure easily, especially more than that, because it's not encouraged. Like, it's hard to feel it. And if you want to feel it, you have to go against so much conditioning and ideas and things that people who have no idea what they're talking about, AKA people who don't have a vulva, vagina, or don't identify as women, have opinions.

things like that.

Michelle Margaret Marques (06:30.128)
Thank you for that.

That was such a great answer to that question. Fanny, let me ask you this. We talk a lot about self -love. You know, we hear this self -love is bandied around a lot. But how does that translate to our sex lives? And do you have any tips for embracing our bodies and desires, even if we've been taught to feel ashamed?

Fanny (06:59.733)
Yes. First, about self -love, it's getting the place that it's rightfully needed, just like consent. And we also need to address, and that's what I love doing and that's why, in my totally biased opinion, is really missing in the self -development world, is that there is so many steps between self -hate and self -love. Because I remember really vividly, personally,

looking at the mirror and wanting to puke and also having my mind knowing that I should love myself and having no idea how I could do that because I couldn't look at myself in the mirror. So there are all of these first steps of first self acknowledging what you've been through. Just self acknowledging is more being aware that you have a body and that you are farm training. Then there is self tolerance. So first,

stepping out of this constant mind -shatter that is telling you you're unworthy, you're ugly, etc. Then there is self -compassion about acknowledging that you did your best, you did great. And great is an amazing job because you already have dealt with a lot of shit and you've already accomplished so much. And there's all of the... I think I'm forgetting another one. But there are all of these steps.

that we need to take care of and that we need to address first. And that's what we see in our sex life as well. You can read everything on the internet or in magazines and things like that. All of the information is available everywhere. But what is not that often discussed is where do I start when I cannot look at my own vulva without wanting to puke? Where do I start with?

Just the idea of touching myself is making me feel ashamed, is making me feel disgusted and disgusting. When you consider just the idea of any type of sexual interaction with someone else or just with yourself, if you consider this guilt, if it is associated with guilt, with fear or with shame, how do you want to enjoy that?

Fanny (09:27.221)
So there are all of these first steps. And regarding what self -love looks like in our sex life, I think overall, it's the idea of having your own back and trusting yourself. Stopping to second guess yourself. Notice what is a hell no, what is a maybe, and notice that it can change over time and that's perfectly okay. So...

I think the first step to self -love regarding our sex lives is self -consent. Figuring out in your body what is a yes and what is a no. What is a, do I want something in my vagina today? Yes or no? Do I want this type of touch? Yes or no? What I usually love to say, maybe I've said it in the first part as well, is when you insert a tampon every month, enforce your way through it.

How do you want sex to not be painful? That cannot happen. And I think self -love is allowing yourself to honor what you feel and also allow yourself to feel it and advocate for yourself. Way more than I love myself and I'm happy.

Michelle Margaret Marques (10:50.656)
Yeah, yeah because I mean a lot of the the perception of self -love is exactly that, isn't it? I love myself. I'm happy. I like my life. Everything's okay. That's not so -

Fanny (11:05.301)
You can definitely love yourself and still acknowledge that right now your life is feeling like shit because look at the world around us. Everything is literally collapsing. The capitalism is living its last years or decades and is going down with a lot of noise. The political context is messy. So it's really important to acknowledge all of that, acknowledge that we are human beings.

in an ecosystem in that we definitely are allowed and are encouraged to feel happy, but also being happy isn't being in a perfectly blessed or bypassing the reality of others as well. So it's really the idea of the more I go forward with these thoughts and think about this, the more I'm like,

I think self -love is acknowledging what is mine or what is yours and what is not yours. What can I act on and what is out of my control? And where do I put my energy? Because I cannot, we cannot put our energy everywhere in every cause, but acknowledging that this is important to me. And we all know that what makes us feel good is action.

What is, we could definitely go 100 % generalizing about how or about the many society problems our society have. But overall, there is this thing about how little we're doing, little we're doing with our hands, with our physical activity and things like that. So we're doing less and consuming more. And that's why we, that's at least that may be.

because I'm not going to pretend I have understood every societal problem with just my own little brain from a 30 -year -old girl living, white girl, white woman living in the West. But just, I forgot where I was with my brain. Yeah, but how...

Michelle Margaret Marques (13:19.296)
every society problem you were talking about.

Fanny (13:21.749)
Yeah, the how society, societal problem also come from how passive we are in our consumption more than the active role. And I think, and you feel free to correct me if that doesn't resonate with you as well, or I'd love to hear your opinion. This also happened to our sex life because we consume what we are supposed to do. There are all of these injunctions.

Then we consume how we're supposed to follow these injunctions. And when it's time to take actions, it doesn't feel good because it doesn't meet us where we are. And so we don't take action. And so we're just consuming and feeling bad about just consuming. And so because it feels bad, we numb ourselves and more consuming and more guilt and more do do do do do do. You don't see my face, but I'm drawing a circle with my nose right now.

And that's why you end up being disconnected from your body and your pleasure.

Michelle Margaret Marques (14:24.144)
Yeah, perpetual cycle, right? I love the way you talk about the way that society has put these restrictions on us, the way we're supposed to act, the way we're supposed to be, the way we're supposed to be happy.

Fanny (14:28.821)
Yeah.

Michelle Margaret Marques (14:42.4)
the things that are supposed to make us happy. And I love the point that you made about we can still be happy even though all of that is going on out there.

For me personally, I believe happiness is a choice. I choose to be happy and I choose to be at peace. I'm very much a believer on focusing on what's happening inside and not what's happening outside there, right? So yeah, that's a big thing for me, that whole connection, I have to say. And I love the way that you're just so very straightforward about it, of course.

That's what we're all about here on Bloody Hell Chelle, right? That's straightforward raw conversation. let me ask you this question, Fanny. Can past trauma actually affect our pleasure -seeking behavior?

Fanny (15:31.093)
Yeah.

Fanny (15:47.893)
Hell yes, hell yes, 100%, and I'm sure you didn't need me to figure that out. And it's imp -

Michelle Margaret Marques (15:56.48)
No, I want to hear your point of view.

Fanny (16:02.517)
trauma is something very complex that needs to be addressed with really much, with much care and nuance with people who know what they're talking about. I really stand against people who are just doing unlicensed trauma therapy because you can really mess up with people when you talk about trauma. That being said, I'm just a really trauma nerd and trauma informed person.

So in no way am I a specialist, but what I do know is that trauma has little relationship with the intensity, quote unquote, intensity of the events. It's about the reaction in the body. Some people were in the Twin Towers, 9 -11 and were not traumatized. Whereas some people had nightmares, they had PTSD after a nightmare and it messed up with their system for 20 years and they couldn't sleep for 20 years.

So when you know that, when you know that the trauma is really the reaction in your body to an event, whatever it is, suddenly you understand that if you, even if you don't have in your history, something that would be considering trauma inducing, if you have never been abused or raped or things like that, you, that doesn't mean that you

don't have trauma. That doesn't mean, and sometimes the word trauma can be so triggering for many people, what I also do like to talk about is conditioning. Because living in a patriarchal society that is telling us all the time that we are not enough is traumatizing. Nobody wants to feel like you're not enough all the time. This conditioning is hurting us. Or...

This idea of just disconnecting from our bodies all the time and learning that this is how we're supposed to function is a conditioning that is hurting us. Being ashamed of our bodies all the time, being ashamed of, or just feeling that we're flawed and there is something wrong with us all the time is traumatizing, is hurting us.

Michelle Margaret Marques (18:24.928)
Yeah.

Fanny (18:27.853)
So there's, we can play with trauma and we can try to understand and explain. And overall, I think trauma is another lens to explain how you feel and what you can do with it. Some people like to consider everything as a trauma response. Some people agree with that and some people don't. Other really have a more...

like a more intimate relationship with God or any spiritual beliefs that help us go through that and they process their things through this. Or people like movement and process their thing through movement as well. And some people like to really, really do that with their mindset. Although again, in my totally biased opinion, you need your body with you on board to actually change something. But overall, just like when you

go forward in your life, you're noticing how little you understand and how you're not sure about anything. I think the same goes with the trauma lens and the lens of how you look at things in general.

Michelle Margaret Marques (19:37.568)
Yeah, I agree and I definitely agree with what you say when you know these unlicensed people are dealing with people that have had major trauma.

And that's the fine line when clients come to us for coaching, right? I mean, I'm not a trauma specialist, but I have dealt with, I myself have been sexually abused and I've also been raped. I was sexually abused when I was 10 years of age. So I know the effects for me personally on the way that I viewed pleasure and the way that I viewed relationships and intimacy and whatever.

for a very very long time and I can definitely speak about the trauma reaction in my body through certain you know acts or certain things or whatever for a very very long time until I absolutely definitely healed from that right so but when I I know that when I first started my coaching practice I I don't know I guess the universe or whatever way you want to call it.

I don't have several clients that had been very traumatized through sexual abuse or rape or whatever else. And of course, you can coach on that level on with those things to a certain level, but there's a level as you see where you're just not qualified and you can do more harm than anything to be coaching or trying to be a therapist or trying to take some.

trauma that you're not qualified to do, right? So I definitely experienced that.

Fanny (21:25.013)
Yeah, and.

Yeah. And I really think it's important to make the distinction. And what I like to tell the people I work with is a therapist, they're helping you get from a place of, I am not functioning well. What I am experiencing is impacting my life and I don't feel comfortable in my daily life too. So they're helping you go from this state of, I am having trouble functioning.

to a I'm okay. And a coach helps you go from I'm okay to hell yeah, I wanna thrive. And it's really important to make that distinction.

Michelle Margaret Marques (22:07.616)
Yeah.

Yeah, I love that distinction. Thank you so much for that. I'm so glad we touched on that because it is a bloodline for a lot of people, right? And I definitely don't agree with people who are out there doing work like that and they're not qualified to deal with it for sure.

So, I mean, that's a heavy subject to touch on, but I did want to touch on it because it's important to cover all aspects of these kinds of topics and not just the pleasurable parts of the topic, right? Because there's people out there listening thinking, well, that's great for everyone else. But this is how I'm feeling, right?

Let me ask you this question Fanny. Life can be so damn busy and stressful of course right? We all know that. But how can we prioritise pleasure and intimacy when we're juggling a million things? And is it even possible to find that spark again when you're exhausted?

Fanny (23:19.509)
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. So I think there are many layers of answers to that question. First, it's about how... Let me gather my thoughts for a second. There is this redefining that needs to happen about what pleasure is.

Michelle Margaret Marques (23:23.392)
I'm going to go to bed.

Fanny (23:48.149)
And also acknowledging that pleasure can be a piece of chocolate. Pleasure can be just breathing after you brush your teeth. Just spend 30 seconds massaging your neck, breathing after you brushed your teeth. Pleasure can be buying a new jacket or borrowing or buying secondhand jacket that helps you feel good when you look at yourself in the mirror.

Pleasure, when we think about pleasure, we do that and I include myself in it as well. We put so much weight on it. It just feels like this big thing that we need to add to our already full to -do list. So yeah, there's all of that first. Acknowledging and reclaiming that pleasure can be as simple as a few...

Pleasure can be as simple as touch. Pleasure can be as simple as just smelling something great, circling back to what we mentioned at the beginning about reclaiming your senses. Pleasure is that, too. I'm well aware that if your life is full because you have three kids, or even if it's not full because you don't have three kids but it's still full, ye—

I'm aware that if I gave you as a home plate, 30 minutes of masturbation a day, if you don't have the time to just, you know, do some yoga, meditate, or just take a shower, this is not going to work for you. But what works is when we play with that, when we acknowledge that pleasure can be in tiny things, we're much more likely to do it. And it's so important.

to notice how suddenly when you digest your conditioning, when you let go of the shame because you ate it for breakfast with pleasure, when you let go of the fear, when you start to align and let go of the bullshit and conditioning you've been told or you had your whole life, suddenly you have more energy available. And when you're exhausted,

Fanny (26:10.837)
The question that I love asking people I work with is, are you exhausted because you're doing too much? Or are you exhausted because what you're doing has much more impact on you than it should have? And also acknowledge that sometimes when you start this work, you have no idea what I'm talking about. And that's also okay. We all need to process that. But I think...

Deep down, we know. I think deep down, we know what is exhaustion because we've done too much, because we've, our bodies are fatigued because we've done too much. And there is also mental exhaustion. And mental exhaustion can come from these conditionings that we talked about earlier. Mental exhaustion can come from people pleasing. Can come from...

Having to conform to expectations that you think people have, and usually they have way less than we imagine. That's the script I'm writing recently, like how we talk about people's expectations. And there's very good chance people have very little expectations about you. I read somewhere and I love it, like at 20, you care about what people think. At 40, you actually don't care about what people think. And at 60, you understand that they didn't think anything about you.

in the first place. I love that.

Michelle Margaret Marques (27:44.448)
Yeah, I think those timelines are lower now, to be honest with you, because I mean, I'm 50. And it's like, I would definitely say by the time I was 40, I did not care about what anyone thought about me. And now I like I very much know no one thought no one, you know, so very much at all. So yeah.

Fanny (27:49.621)
Heheheheh!

Michelle Margaret Marques (28:12.672)
And I interrupted your thought process there, please. This was like, I've got to agree with this one.

Fanny (28:16.373)
Thank you so much for that. I really feel... I really...

It's again, it's just my totally biased opinion. How, again, it's the question of how you do things and how you do things matter. Pleasure can start slow. And when you start slow, you reconnect to what's true for you and what's not. Because if you take the time to breathe six times a day, so maybe it's just putting an alarm on your phone six times a day and just breathe.

as a reminder to breathe for 30 seconds. Suddenly when you breathe and when you reconnect to the present moment, I love how mindfulness is like the base of everything. It's so boring, simple, not easy, but boring. Just like self -development is boring as well. In the end, it's just a question of self -love in the soul. Yeehee! That's not complicated.

When you reclaim that mindfulness, suddenly you retrain your brain to let go of the circle and the exhaustion. Even if it's still present because we have busy lives, it's also, it's helping us figure out what is really ours, what is not ours. And the last thing I want to say about that is how...

It's really important in my opinion to do something as little as it needs to be, then do nothing. Because when you do nothing, you dissociate and you become numb. And that is so...

Fanny (30:20.309)
That's the type of things that make you look back and be like, I've lost all those years because I don't remember living them. Because I think overall, that's why one of the many things that I started this work as well is how this emotional alumnus life autopilot is so endemic in our society. And there's no way we can think our way out of that.

We need our bodies with you, with us. And the best way, there might be others. And I know that I've tried a lot of them. And for me, the one that has worked the best is the embodiment and pleasure reconnection.

Michelle Margaret Marques (31:07.936)
Love that. my gosh. I could ask you another thousand questions, Fanny, honestly. We could do a part three and four and five and... Totally get carried away. Let's talk about communication though, in the bedroom or wherever.

Fanny (31:19.189)
Hehehehehe

Michelle Margaret Marques (31:30.976)
I mean, we're not confined to the bedroom. We're not putting any more restrictions on this. It can be awkward, right? So do you have... Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead.

Fanny (31:34.805)
Eheheheh

Fanny (31:40.213)
Yeah, what I love... Sorry. I love to be bold in here and say that self -cultivation is the way to save your relationship. Although it's a little bit clickbait, but I love it anyway.

Michelle Margaret Marques (31:51.872)
Yes. Yes.

Michelle Margaret Marques (31:59.264)
Do you have any tips for talking to our partners about what we need even if we don't know all the right words?

Fanny (32:13.205)
I think first it's to really figure out what you need. And to figure out what you need, you need the body reconnection. You need the pleasure. You need, and at least you need to have started their journey. Like, let's face it, nobody has their shit together and nobody actually knows what is.

100 % pleasurable depending on where you are on your cycle, what you ate for breakfast or how you feel in your emotional state, something will feel amazing and something will feel like just blah and the day after it might be the opposite. So there's this sharing and I will balance that in a second, but there is this sharing of, hey, I am doing this. Are you open with trying this with me? And also acknowledge that things...

might have to change. I think the beginning of the communication part is really voicing what is true for you at the moment and also voicing when you don't know what is true for you at the moment and voicing, hey, this is not making me happy. I don't know what I would need. And let's acknowledge that this is challenging for the other person to receive. Like I am not happy with where we are, but I have no idea where we, where I want us to go.

This is challenging and that requires a depth of presence and also a depth of inner safety that society doesn't help us build. How so many of us, myself included, and how often are we, when we see someone who's angry, we like calm yourself. Or when we see someone that is sad, like we want to lift them up, cheer up, exactly.

Michelle Margaret Marques (33:55.168)
Yes.

Cheer up. Yeah.

Fanny (34:02.101)
Or when they say they're ashamed or they are afraid or something, we're going to...

We have this word in French that is like relativise, so maybe loosen the charge, the emotional charge on something. Like your fear isn't that big, do it anyway, things like that. So there's this communication skill that we need to build and it is a constant process to play with this idea of.

I am able to see you. I am able to hold you and witness you without being triggered and without even if I'm being triggered, I'm not going to answer because I know this is not productive. So there's this part first and to do that, we need to actually do the work on ourselves to stop gaslighting ourselves so that we stop gaslighting others.

Well, and how?

Yeah, there's this whole part first. There is the voicing out what is happening for you. And there is also acknowledging that not everything is meant to be shared. What I see, what happens really often in my coaching practices with my coaches is how when they have understood something, a way they discovered something, they want to share it right away, which is great. And...

Fanny (35:43.285)
just questioning where does this willing of sharing comes from? Is it something that feels empowering for you to share? Or is it something that feels too big? Or is it something that feels too challenging? Or is it something that feels X, Y, or Z? In the end, you're a grown up. You're gonna make a great decision. And if it, even if it's not a good decision, you're gonna make it a good decision because it's yours. The idea is just how...

Can you help yourself do it the easiest way?

Yeah, I think regarding communication in the end here, again, things are so simple, and by simple I don't mean easy. When you do the work on yourself, when you digest your conditioning, when you heal your inner child, when you reclaim your pleasure, when you look at and digest your family dynamics.

When you work on your deserving -ness and worthiness of your goal, when you work on figuring out actually what you want and what is preventing you from having it, when you meet the body -mind parts of yourself, your protectors that didn't get the memo, they don't need to protect you with so much strength anymore that you survived and they can rest. When you do all of that, suddenly,

the possibilities of pulling the trigger in the relationship with the other person. There are always so many triggers and relationships are so complex. But what you can do is to do your part. And when you do your part, you see how it unfolds and see how the other person reacts and how the relationship changes or not. And from there, you can ask yourself the good questions. So many

Fanny (37:48.789)
types, myself included, we tend to put the blame on the partner for the need that we need to feel by ourselves first instead of wanting them to feel it for us. And I have this amazing wisdom channeling voice and I'm just a piece of human being doing the same shit as everyone else.

Michelle Margaret Marques (38:16.544)
I love that. I absolutely love that. I love the way you rounded that off just then. my gosh. I want to ask you this last question before we run out of time. my goodness. I honestly could just talk to you for hours.

Fanny (38:22.325)
Hehehehe

Fanny (38:34.485)
Yeah, me too.

Michelle Margaret Marques (38:37.6)
my gosh, for anyone listening, Fanny, let me ask you this question. Anyone that thinks to themselves, sex coaching or pleasure coaching, whatever, you know, joy coaching, whatever it is that we want to identify it as, maybe a big step, right? For anyone that's thinking, that sounds like a big step. What would you say to them?

And how can seeking professional help actually empower them in reclaiming their pleasure?

Fanny (39:13.329)
So when first I want to acknowledge that coaching feels like a big step, like coaching, even if we don't talk about financial commitment, it's a time commitment. It's an emotional commitment. It's a relationship commitment. So there's no way you're going to meet someone. Maybe sometimes there is because there is this instant connection that you feel with people, but it's really rare that you're like,

I'm going to go get coaching. Usually it's like I discover there are other things available and I'm starting to consider doing things differently and then I'm starting to want something different. And the biggest thing after that is I'm ready to do something. And so many of us need to spend some time and some time never step out of this. I want to do things differently and I'm ready.

And I truly believe we, we help people best when we meet them in this, I am ready because they show up from a place of empowerment and from a place of self responsibility instead of waiting of wanting and waiting from the external source to solve the problem. Regarding professional help professional help seeking. Hell yes.

especially if you have a heavy history. Then if it is coaching that you are seeking, what I love about coaching is that it helps you, it holds you accountable. And also it feels good to have someone who has your back. Really few people in our society actually have each other's back. And our job as coaches,

is not to give you the information that will help you feel good. You have that on the internet. You don't need us for that. Our role as coaches is about holding a container where you can feel safe enough to explore, when you can feel safe enough to play and to show up with the parts of yourself that you like and the parts you might like a little less, the parts that you already know and the parts that you will discover. A place where you can

Fanny (41:39.125)
integrate and reconnect to your resources so that then you can show up and live your life because you don't want to do coaching for one, two or three years unless you want to because you really want to feel amazing and thriving. But coaching is not like therapy on an ongoing basis. At some point, this professional help is also about empowering you. And if you want to continue on the long -term relationship with that professional,

Just have them check with you regularly. Like, are you still getting what you need about our relationship and our work together? And I think especially when we talk about pleasure, when we talk about sex, when we talk about aliveness and joy, all of these topics need so much care, need so much reverence because we're addressing deep, deep wounds and those deep...

I'm sure you know that already and I'm also sorry to say it, they cannot be healed overnight. Because everybody would be healed and we wouldn't have any problems in our world and everything would be happy. Everybody would be happy in a perfect bliss. So there is this part of when you seek professional help, it also gives you a reality check somehow.

bringing, reminding us that good things take time. And on a very practical, practical level, when you invest your money in someone in a container where you meet someone once a week or once every two weeks, suddenly you have less more, less tendency to use that money in another online course that you will never finish.

or another, you see where I'm going with this, we all started with that. I always say that I spent so much money, I think several thousands of euros in self -development until I realized that, okay, this is actually not what is happening. We need to go deeper than that. And that's where the beauty of the professional help comes in. And also acknowledge that,

Michelle Margaret Marques (43:56.832)
Yeah.

Fanny (44:06.277)
you are also 100 % allowed to not need that, or it might not be the right moment. And what, what in my opinion is making a great coach is also someone, sorry, someone who can share their wisdom and just, at least on the online world, I don't know in person world with people who have no presence at all, but.

When you feel you are with someone and being with this someone is already helping you or you already getting something from just connecting to that person is already huge.

Michelle Margaret Marques (44:54.016)
I love that. And I love the way that you said we don't always need it, right? It is, it's a big step. It's a big step to commit to the, because working on yourself, like you said, it's not easy. It takes time. You have to dig deep. You know, you have to go.

into places, explore places that you probably would have preferred to hide from previously, right?

Fanny (45:23.637)
Hell yes. Sometimes I say life was easier when I was asleep, when I was functioning in autopilot. I felt like shit and was miserable, but it was definitely easier.

Michelle Margaret Marques (45:28.608)
Yeah, you said that last time.

Michelle Margaret Marques (45:36.32)
Yeah, because once you embark down that road of, you know, digging deep and looking into the dark corners of yourself, there's no going back.

There's no going back. I still work with coaches. I'm a certified coach. I have done all the training. I've done so much training. my gosh. If I look at all the certificates I have, I'm like, my gosh, could fill the entire wall. But I still work with coaches and I love it because I personally love learning more and bringing more to my clients. And I like to look at life from a viewpoint of I can own

take my clients as deep as I've been willing to go, right? Or as far as I've been willing to go. So that's the thing for me. So I still work with coaches. I have three of them actually. It sounds like, yeah, she was so messed up, like way back then. She still needs three now.

Fanny (46:34.965)
I'm sorry.

Michelle Margaret Marques (46:44.8)
But as you said, I love the way that you define, you know, you can work with a coach for a small amount of time to take you from okay to thriving. And then what I find is actually for me personally, and the clients that I work with.

like to then go from thriving to more thriving and higher level of thriving, you know. So I like to point that out to people. Coaching isn't just for when you're going from okay to thriving. Some people really double down on the coaching once they are thriving.

Fanny (47:20.629)
Hmm, thank you for pointing that out. I hadn't, I had never considered it. That's, yeah, thank you.

Michelle Margaret Marques (47:27.2)
Yeah, yeah, I have clients that double down when they're doing even more.

better right so it's I I love that that I love the diversity of coaching right the the levels that you can take it to I haven't found a level yet that we haven't gone past so who knows where the where the limits mainly but

Fanny (47:55.605)
Yeah.

Michelle Margaret Marques (47:57.312)
my gosh, honestly, I think I need to have you back like once every month or something like that. I don't want this conversation to end. Can you believe this? We've actually gone a little smidgen over time, but I'm sure the audience will forgive us for that. I'm absolutely sure that they will. my goodness. Thank you so, so much for joining me again.

Fanny (48:04.469)
I'd love to.

Me neither.

Fanny (48:17.589)
Yeah.

Michelle Margaret Marques (48:27.136)
I'm sure there's deeper conversations we can have and we can go into other places down the line. I would love that very dearly. Thank you so much for your time. Audience, thank you so much for listening in and going over a little bit of time with us. I will, well, you will hear me on the next podcast. Thank you so much. Take care. Until then.