Communicating Desires with Shan Boodram

It is important to communicate your desires with your partner, because that builds a framework for intimacy, for genuine intimacy to exist. And genuine intimacy is kind of a requirement for true healthy partnership. I think a lot of us still hold onto the fantasy, that the right person is just gonna magically know. But here's the truth, you barely know yourself, so how's your partner supposed to know? (upbeat instrumental music) Hi, and welcome to Headspace. I'm Shan Boodram, I'm an intimacy educator. Who's been working in the field of sexology and psychology for 18 years. I'm also a mother, and I'm expecting my second. Today, we're gonna be discussing, communicating desire with our partners. Let's talk about pleasure babies, specifically, let's talk about talking about pleasure. A lot of times when people talk about their needs, their likes, they tend to do it in very serious atmospheres, instead of being like, "Let's get together, and let's talk about what we love doing with each other. Let's talk about what brings joy and light into our eyes." The conversation you have around that should keep that exact same energy. Once you have the energy, try and find a method that feels most comfortable for you. I suggest going one of three routes. Using the past as a method to communicate your pleasure, using the present, or using a future reference. For example, past, there's something that I did three years ago when I went on vacation and it gave me so much joy. How can we incorporate that into our dynamic? Present, here's what is currently making me feel really, really good. And I love when you and I do that. I would love if we could do more of that. Future, now this is if you wanna bring something new and exciting into your life. And to do that, you can use a number of different references. Number one, a video, a movie. I just watched this really cool thing, and I'm kind of curious how that could be incorporated into our life and our dynamic. Or my favorite, make it something completely abstract. I had the craziest dream last night, and in this dream I was doing and you were doing. Could we really do that in real life? All right, I feel like we're ready to have a conversation around healthy communication, when we are in conflict with our partner. This can already have some of you sweating buckets, and for good reason. A lot of people have a fear of confrontation, because there's a very big difference in communication between what we say and what we want to accomplish. And it is so essential, especially again, in moments of confrontation, to separate the two. Because what we wanna say sometimes is, "I hate you, you hurt me, you're the worst person ever." But what we wanna accomplish is, "I need you to understand that these are my boundaries, and you've crossed them in ways that...