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Hi, thank you for joining today’s podcast episode. Today’s episode is 211,”How to get rid of shame to increase passion in the bedroom”, an interview with Ian Ferguson.
Before we get started, I wanna take a moment and just settle into the intention with you, of the Empowered Relationship Podcast. As I kind of reiterate, if you’re a long-term listener you hear me say this, and I repeat it, because it feels so important to really be clear about the pursuit of this journey of developing relationship. And as you’re tuning in today, I recognize that we’re all perhaps in different places, different phases in our relationship, perhaps different triggers or issues we’re working with, or perhaps things are going really well and we just wanna nurture our relationship and nurture that bond further… Wherever you are, I wanna encourage you to just touch in on what feels important for you today as you’re tuning in to today’s conversation.
The intention of the Empowered Relationship Podcast is for you to feel more supported, better equipped, more prepared in navigating long-term intimacy… And as we discuss on this show, there’s typically a lot more involved in this journey than we tend to expect or predict in the beginning phases. And resources, and strategies and tools that are shared, and principles, are in the interest of you feeling more conscious of what all is involved, so that you can be more intentional and you can respond, rather than just react, and be caught in unconscious disconnect patterns.
As we recognize a challenge, part of the invitation is to turn towards that, so that it can be curriculum for our development. The development of our relationship, and the development of ourselves individually… All in the interest of improving the quality of our connection, both with ourselves and with our significant other.
If you would like access to today’s show notes, you can visit DrJessicaHiggins.com, click on Podcast, and you can find today’s episode there at the top. Again, today’s episode is 211, “How to get rid of shame to increase pleasure in the bedroom”, an interview with Ian Ferguson.
Ian Ferguson is an intimacy coach and teacher of the Erotic Blueprint Breakthrough platform, designed to radically transform how we talk about and experience sex. Ian is an expert on clearing shame and ending struggles that keep people from experiencing a deep intimate connection and sexual satisfaction. Through the Erotic Blueprints, he and Jaiya Ma have provided a ‘Rosetta Stone’ for people to clearly articulate their desires and experience erotic fulfillment.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Ian, thank you for joining us today.
Ian Ferguson: I’m super-excited, thank you for having me.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Such an important topic that we are going to be putting some attention on… And we’re looking at sex, also how shame shows up in relationship to sex. And you do so much more than just that, but I wanna just name some of our interests for today’s conversation. Before we go into that, I’m wondering, what go you interest in looking in more depth around romantic sexual intimacy and sex?
Ian Ferguson: Well, I think it’s my failures that really led me deeply into this zone, and then circumstance of faith played a very powerful role in who showed up in my life at a very specific time. Throughout my 20’s I was completely torn up around how to be in relationship. I was very much looking outside of myself to be lovable and to get acknowledgment from people outside of myself. I started to turn that ship around as I went into my 30’s.
I got married somewhere in my early 30’s, and there was a deep lacking of a sense of confidence of my ability to be present with my partner sexually, to the point where I knew that I was able to meet her needs. And that ended up being sort of like a tragic through-line of the relationship, and I think one of the main reasons why we ended up in divorce.
Out of the divorce, there was a piece that I had become aware of, which was all about presence, of being able to really drop in and be present with my partner, so that I could move past my insecurities, my own shames, my own shadows of the mess of sex or the areas that I hadn’t traveled yet… And be with those in a way that they wouldn’t interrupt my connecting with my partner.
So the first thing that occurred for me out of my divorce was this new connection and this new commitment to being present. That alone radically transformed how I was relating to my sexual partners… And the sense of calm, the sense of confidence, the sense of being seen by the people whom I was partnering with totally transformed, with just that transition.
There were a few other wrinkles in the mix, that eventually led me to my current life partner, Jaiya, and that was a whole dive into this realm of sex and sexuality. I’d always been interested in human potential, in the Tony Robbins, in Landmark Education, going to my own psychology with therapy and a number of other modalities that I was interested in… But I found a partner whose life was sex and sexuality. This opened up the doors to me in a whole new way, a much deeper way.
One of the things that Jaiya said to me on one of our first dates was “Well, just so you know, I’m kind of an open book with my sex life, and I share it with everyone. Are you up for that?” And I was very adventurous at that time and just said “Yeah, whatever.” Because she had Facebook, YouTube, huge followings, she had already published a couple of books at that point… So I jumped in as far as my relationship with her whole hog. I had a whole other business and didn’t really move over into — I was already helping her with her work, and supporting it fully. And about five years into the relationship it became clear that I was much more invested in this than just being on the sidelines, and loving my partner and what they do.
I got deeply immersed in the work myself, I became a sexological body worker, went much more deep into the practices and methodologies that Jaiya had uncovered and created, like the Erotic Blueprints. Then I started co-teaching with her and working with our clients, and now this is my life.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Okay, thank you. That helps me really get a sense of your background and history and where you’re coming from in this conversation. I’m super-curious, Jaiya – what does she do?
Ian Ferguson: Well, she’s a somatic sexologist, of-the-body sexology. She’s been at this for over 20 years, and gone through a variety of forms of practice in terms of working with private clients. We do workshops of anywhere from 20 people to over 500 people, introducing people to the erotic blueprints and the deeper systems and methodologies that are part of the erotic blueprint system. She works anywhere from one-on-one with individual clients, to (like I said) these larger workshops and play shop environments.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Gotcha. For people that don’t know what a sexologist is…
Ian Ferguson: Sure. Somatic sexology, or sexological body worker – these are practices of working with clients in the body. It’s not just into the psychology and talking about sex and sexuality, it is actually what’s in your body – what is the somatic memories that are existing in there, the traumas that have been stored in there, the joy, the pleasure… Really helping a client get to know their own body, so that they can begin to articulate who they are as an erotic being, and be able to integrate and dismantle perhaps the traumas that are maybe interrupting pleasure. Maybe putting the brakes on the pleasure. But it’s different than sexual psychology in that it’s all really focused deeply on the body, in the body’s experience.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Gotcha. Wonderful. And so for people that are listening that might be curious about how shame or their own difficulties show up, and perhaps even preventing or inhibiting their ability to be present, can you give some examples around what that looks like, or perhaps what it looks like for you?
Ian Ferguson: For sure. One of the things that may be apparent to most of your listeners is that we don’t really have a culture or society that speaks openly about sex. It is used in advertising, it is threaded everywhere, but the conversation itself and being able to openly express and speak about this is not the norm. And that has a whole litany of reasons why that would be, from family systems to religious and social programming… But what it has created is people being very siloed in their sexuality, meaning we’re kind of suffering alone, and not knowing what normal is, or not knowing that the feelings and the urges and the desires and the thoughts that come up are likely very common to almost everyone. It’s just we’re not talking about it, and then it creates that first layer of shame.
So in our Erotic Blueprint Breakthrough System we’ve got five blueprints. We’ve got energetic, sensual, sexual, kinky and shape-shifter. Perhaps we’ll dive into what those mean, but basically, these are your erotic personality types… Just like the five love languages; it’s the way that you prefer to be or get turned on, or aroused, and it’s your fastest path to arousal. Once you know your blueprint type, then you start to know how you’re aroused, what turns you on, and also what turns you off, what doesn’t work for you.
One of my primary blueprints in that system is the kinky blueprint. My kinky is far deeper, has far more range than what I was willing to admit, let’s say in my 30’s. And kinky, for those who might relate to the kinky or are attracted to the taboo, whatever it is that’s taboo for you, that has that edge and gives you that sense of arousal.
Inside of the kinky blueprint – one of the primary shadows of that blueprint is shame, because the desires are that much more of an edge, societally speaking. So for me, Jaiya and I have gone — within our relationship we do a lot of experimentation to test our theories, and also as fodder for the books, and also to help us be better about working with our clients. And one of the things that we did is an experiment, what we call the 40/40 experiment, which was — Jaiya was writing a book about BDSM and the kink community and kink practices, and it was not her blueprint at all. She didn’t know much about the world, so we took on an experiment where we dove deep into the kink realm, studying with master practitioners, getting their expertise… And for 40 days, Jaiya dominated me. Then we took ten days off, and then for 40 days I dominated her.
Within those periods of experimentation, we were playing with the full range of what’s possible in the kink realm, because neither one of us knew what would turn us on and what would turn us off. I knew that I had a bit of a kinky edge. I love restriction, I love using ropes, I love the power play of control and surrender… So I knew that those elements were in there, but we started playing with much deeper elements inside of this practice, where we were doing really intense restrictive play. We were playing with paddles and caning, we were playing with using shaming — not shaming language, but… Shoot, I’m forgetting the best word to describe this, but… You know, kind of like name-calling. Hopefully the word comes to me, because it’s a much more concise way of talking about it.
And inside of playing with those things, I would be like “I don’t know… I don’t think that’s gonna turn me on.” And then we would play with some aspect of kink, and I would get very turned on. And what was occurring for me throughout this entire process of experimentation – I kept asking, 20-30 days, I’m like “Why am I turned on by this?” Because even though I had a kinky aspect to me, I had an association that the deep, dark worlds of BDSM – people must be traumatized, because they’re in that environment and they’re taking more pain on to sort of relive this trauma. And I kept asking the question, “Well, why am I turned on by this?” I don’t have any history of big-T trauma, I don’t understand. And finally, one of the kink practitioners/experts we were working with just stopped what we were doing and said “I invite you to stop asking why, and just enjoy.”
And that was a big release, where all of a sudden it became the game, as opposed to my projection… The enjoyment of the game and the enjoyment of the play, and finding out what those edges were for me, instead of the pre-disposed projection onto this world of kink as something wrong, weird, “Why am I weird? Do other people feel this way?” And really, that was the first layer of really releasing into/owning “Oh, I’m kinky.”
Dr. Jessica Higgins: You’re saying so much here. You’re saying that in your personal process of even just getting to the transformation of arriving and really being clear around your ability to be present, but then entering into partnership and life-long relationship with Jaiya, that she — given her field, was now this huge playground perhaps to experiment and go deeper and understand on much greater levels around your own arousal and own responses, and just even noticing in the way that you were question the Why… Would you say that relates to shame?
Ian Ferguson: Yes, because we’re talking about really going into deep acceptance. Jack Morin wrote a book called The Erotic Mind. And in that book he goes deeply into where the erotic map for each individual gets formed, early erotic experiences, and the wide range of how we express ourselves sexually.
That first layer is what I’m pointing to in this whole conversation about getting present, and the layer about my kink being a primary blueprint and getting into a deep acceptance, which is “Oh, these are the thoughts that I have. This is the thing that turns me on. This is the way that I want to play and experiment.” And first accepting that that is normal. And this is one thing that I’d love to stress for every one of your listeners, that no matter what is going on for you, you are normal, you are not broken, you are whole and complete as you are.
The only — not the only, but a primary rule for operating in the world around your sexuality is simply that everything that you’re doing is consensual, and that you’re creating healthy boundaries for yourself. But if you’ve got a consensual container and you’re in agreement with your play partners about what you’re playing with and what you’re experimenting with, then everything’s on the table. But making the conversation conscious and being able to articulate what you desire, how you desire it, what your boundaries are, what your limits are, having those be heard and accepted and honored, then you get to open the playground to full experimentation and really finding out who you are, what you are erotically, and how you want to play.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yeah, and I guess this could be a whole other topic, around how we articulate and how we communicate and the safety we create with our person, that can really invite this deeper way of relating… But you’re saying something also really important, that I wanna stay with – if we’re not even with ourselves, how do we even have that conversation? If we’re shaming or don’t even accept ourselves, or we think it’s unacceptable or unlovable, then we’re not even coming to the table to meet our partner.
Ian Ferguson: Right. So here’s a first way of starting to peel back the layers of that onion; the things that may be blocking us, putting the brakes on our sexuality, putting the brakes on our ability to be intimate with ourselves and with others is getting into understanding the different parts that we have inside of us. And those parts may be worrying parts; there may be a part that wants to be fully sexually expressed, and wants to be naughty and playful and all the things that go along with that. And then there may be another part that’s the gatekeeper. The part that’s saying “This isn’t right. You shouldn’t be doing this.” So they create a polarity, kind of like a good/bad”, and then inside of us there’s this warring system. So then we’re all messed up emotionally, and that shows up in erratic behavior, or neurotic behavior around sexuality… So one of the first steps or the first layers is starting to peel apart those individual parts. And one way to do that is to start to become really aware of your body and your body’s physical responses.
For instance, let’s say there’s the possibility that your dating someone and now’s the possibility that you’re going to have intercourse for the first time. And there is this part that rises up, that’s like “Yes, I wanna do that!” And then there’s this other part that’s the gatekeeper, that’s saying “No, that’s shameful, that’s wrong, and that’s bad.” Both of those are gonna show up in some form of body response.
Just for the sake of argument, let’s say the excited part is this sort of vibrating, giddy aliveness in the upper chest and around the heart. And then that other part, that other aspect, the gatekeeper maybe is showing up as a pit in the bottom of the stomach, and it’s like this dense, hard, tense part of the physiology. So the first step is to first notice what’s happening in your body, so that you can feel it fully, and each of these parts wants something positive for us. Their ultimate goal is our well-being and our fulfillment. But they’re inherited messages and they may not be in alignment with our truest self and how our truest self actually wants to express itself.
So instead of trying to get rid of or run away from that gatekeeper, that pit in the bottom of the stomach that’s saying “No, this is shameful. You’re wrong/bad and you shouldn’t even desire this”, leaning deeply into that aspect of ourself and asking it what it wants. Having it name itself, having it really embody itself fully, so we can communicate with that piece in a literal dialogue, asking it what it wants, and then continuing to ask it — give it what it wants, imagine that it’s fulfilled completely, so then you can get to the next layer of what that aspect wants.
By going deeply into the deepest wants and desires of these aspects, then we have the opportunity to integrate them, so that they’re not existing in this siloed piece of ourself that’s warring with another piece of ourself, but they’re fully expressed, they’re seen, felt, heard. Again, that awareness and that acknowledgment of what these parts of ourselves want, so that when we’re in that conversation with the lover, the wife, then we have an opportunity to be more fully ourselves and own who we are, what we are, what we want, what our boundaries are, so that it’s an authentic and fully-expressed conversation, and not one born of all of the hidden shadow aspects of ourselves.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Okay, so you’re saying possibly one way to work with this shame is to recognize the somatic experience or the body sensation that’s emerging around perhaps these two parts that may seem even in conflict – the excited part, and the maybe clamped down, rock in the belly, like “This is shameful, this is wrong.” And when we enquire into that there are needs unmet, can you vocalize an example of what the two conflicting needs would be?
Ian Ferguson: Sure. So let’s say the pit in the belly, really getting into that aspect of myself. I’m feeling it, it’s tense, it’s black, it’s heavy, and it feels like it’s 45 years old. And I don’t necessarily need to know some inciting incident of a shame or a trauma or some specific thing, but that might appear… Where it’s like “Oh, at 7 I had my hands on my genitals, and my father walked in the room and said something, “Get your hands out of there!” and then I took the [unintelligible 00:25:31.16] and that’s where the root of this initial shame came from.”
Again, I don’t necessarily need to have a specific, it’s just about how old does it feel, how heavy does it feel, what does it look like, what color is it, what kind of energy does it have? Asking it to manifest itself fully so I can communicate with it, and then asking “I know you have the highest and best good, that that is your desire for me.” And in that, what is it that you need? What is it that you want? Letting it speak.
Let’s say that aspect of me says “Well, I wanna know that I’m okay, that I’m safe.” Then going through a process of imagining, for this aspect of myself, what safety looks like, and then imagining that I’ve fully created that safety, whatever it looks like. Let’s say that it’s living in a cave, out in the woods, and there’s a plentiful garden of food, and everything is taken care of for me; I manifest this into my imagination.
Now that that part has that aspect of itself, that desire fulfilled, I ask again. “What is it, now that we’ve achieved this, that you want from me that’s even higher, more important, perhaps more spiritual than safety?” Then it tells me a new thing, a new layer of what it wants. “Well, I just want everybody to feel loved.” Now I manifest that in my imagination with it, in partnership with it; we create it, and however it looks, everyone’s loved on the planet. Yay, we celebrate that. Now that we’ve manifested that, what does the next most important thing, even higher than that, more spiritual, that would fulfill your desires? And then it shares the next thing. “Well, I want unconditional love for everyone.”
This work is called Accelerated Evolution; this particular practice that I’m describing is something called Aspectics and it is one of many sets of practices that were originated from a man named Zivorad Slavinski, and then our mentor in this area is a man named Satyen Raja, who is teaching Accelerated Evolution throughout North America. But this one’s called Aspectics, and what’s fascinating is that essentially every part of ourself is ultimately, when you get it to its highest, most spiritual desire and aim, is looking for some form of wholeness, or unity, or being completely connected and free. So walking each part of ourself up this chain of desire all leads essentially to the same place, and every aspect of ourself is looking for home. This is a really powerful way to integrate these aspects. Again, we all have them. We all have warring dualities within us – right/wrong, light/dark, love, friendship… All of these ways where we become incongruous because we have these different aspects that have different points of view and different desires and end goals in their base self. Hopefully you were able to follow that and that was helpful.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Well, it is helpful, thank you… And there’s a process to this that I get that is difficult to articulate, given we don’t have a particular person, and you’re giving me an example. If I may — may I ask you to give an example of what this would look like as you’ve integrated it and bring it into relationship, and have that more integrated —
Ian Ferguson: The integrated conversation, and sort of taking it to the next steps…?
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes.
Ian Ferguson: Yeah, I’m just getting a hit to speak to the trauma aspect of this as well, like the big-T trauma aspect of this as well… That can get very intensely stored in the body, and the Aspectics work or parts integration work is a way to open up these traumatized pieces as well… And hear what they have to say, hear what they need, and that’s also where the somatic aspect and the hands-on aspects can accentuate the healing, because you’re in somatic release. Sometimes it’s stored in the body, it doesn’t really have a language to it… But going into the shake response, of letting the body shake out the trauma, can help to release the physically-stored somatic trauma. I don’t know why I had that side note, but we’re talking about shame, and often shame is driven by some form of either small-t or big-T trauma.
So once we start to get this facility of being able to really feel–
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Can I ask you a quick question?
Ian Ferguson: Sure, sure. How does someone know that they’ve gotten to more crux, or as you’re saying, higher — and there’s a real resonance around “That’s where I needed to get”, as you’re continuing to stay with this inquiry process? Is there something that indicates to you that that’s the deeper layer, or higher layer, or however you wanna say that?
Ian Ferguson: Sure. It’s really a trigger response. Those physiological responses, being able to pay attention to the canary in the coal mine, of “Okay, every time my lover says “I love you”, and they’re approaching me physically, I actually freeze up, because I’m making an assumption that they want sex… And I’m not prepared for sex, I don’t want sex, they’re constantly crossing my boundaries, because they’re imposing themselves on me…” Let’s say that there’s just this built-up history in your relationship of letting your boundaries be crossed, and resentments have built up.
So once you’re really getting to that layer of clarity and freedom from the inherited traumas that are in there, then the story disappears. And the trigger response, and perhaps the withholding and clenching that might be the physical response isn’t there as much or at all, and your partner coming in saying they love you and they are putting your hand on your shoulder doesn’t have the — you’ve let go of the story of the association of “All they want from you is sex”, and “Love means sex to them, and that’s not what it means to me”, all the story fades away, and you’re present to your partner saying “I love you” and putting their hand on the shoulder… And then you have the freedom, without trigger, to inquire and be curious and actually express and say “So what I’m hearing you say is you love me, and you put your hand on my shoulder, and how that usually occurs for me is that that means you wanna have sex. Is that what you want right now?” So it becomes a conscious conversation without those trigger responses and the fight or flight aspect coming up that may be unconscious, or conscious but you don’t have any idea what to do with them.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Gotcha, thank you. And is that the same then for — I was wondering if we’re gonna stay with that pitted part in the belly, that’s like the gatekeeper, where this isn’t okay, and shameful, and we ask “What does that part need?” and we continue to ask that part… Is that the same sensation in the body, that perhaps we would experience some relaxation or release in the body that indicates that we’ve gotten in touch with that?
Ian Ferguson: Yeah, once you walk the aspect up the chain of wants, needs and desires, it moves into sort of a unity consciousness or a completely self-actualized expression of itself, and that expression is usually, for most people, completely relaxed. It feels like absolute freedom, because you’ve taken care of this piece of yourself. You’ve let it speak, you’ve let it articulate its stack of desires.
This is a very effective methodology. It’s some of the most effective material that we’ve come across in the 20 years of doing this work, is the Accelerate Evolution practices, for really getting people past their blocks. Because it moves people into a very released, very connected sense of freedom.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: It sounds really powerful, and thank you for allowing me to ask that question… Because as people are listening that don’t have maybe that felt experience, embodied experience, possibly they’re thinking “How do I know when I got to that clearer need for that part?” so that’s helpful. And then what is that integrated statement look like?
Ian Ferguson: The integrated statement–
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Or bringing that integration to relationship, like you were saying… Let’s say that you’re dating — the example that we were talking about. I’m excited about sex, and I also have this part of me that’s feeling like it’s not okay, or it’s bad.
Ian Ferguson: Well, what it allows is the ability to become really resourced while you’re in the conversation. So it can become — again, letting go of the trigger in the story, there’s a freedom of access to being able to express exactly what you do want, what does have you feel comfortable. So instead of it being this unconscious, unexpressed, undeclared conversation. You can sit there with your lover and “Hey, I’m excited about making love with you, and I know from my body I need this to be a very slow and gentle entry. And that may mean that tonight we don’t have intercourse, but I want you to know that that’s where I want to go with you, that’s how I want to be with you, and I wanna be fully present for you when we get there. Is that okay with you?” And then it lets the other person into the authenticity of where you are.
You’re able to fully express the truth of what you need psychologically, emotionally, physically, and be able to be clear about that boundary and that container, and open, if you want to be open. Maybe the part of you is very clear, it’s like “No, I know for myself, my boundaries, I don’t want to have sex until I have a deeper commitment, and that means marriage, and these are the areas where I’m willing to be physically intimate with you; kissing, body touch, but intercourse is completely off the table.”
It starts to articulate, no matter how you want it as an individual, it starts to give the confidence and the grounding to be able to make those claims… Again, without all the story, without all the trigger, without all the meaning being made. It’s just the way that it is.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yeah, and I’m getting this sense, as you’re describing, that if we can take some time to build awareness and consciousness around what is going on with these different parts that might be in conflict, or perhaps the blocks and the shame… That we can come in contact, and as you said earlier, it’s all lovable, it’s all okay, and if we can make room for that, then we can be in a better position to be present, but also show up for those needs that are really okay, that then we can have a richer, more authentic connection with another person. Is that correct?
Ian Ferguson: For sure. Because once you’re in an authentic conversation with yourself, then you can open the authenticity to another person. And when you are able to get rid of the story, and the trigger, and any kind of meaning you might make.
Let’s say I’m an energetic blueprint and my sexuality is all about spirituality and connection with the higher self… But I’m now in a relationship with somebody who is kinky, and they’re really turned on by rope play, and they wanna tie me up. And I just have this story about “Oh my god, that’s weird, and there’s something wrong with you, and I’m scared to death of being tied up and allowing myself to be in that position with you…”, I could have all those stories, but if I’m grounded and I’m clear with myself and know that I can navigate an unfamiliar conversation and stay grounded, then I don’t have to put all the judgment on my kinky partner’s interests. I can go for my authentic core and say “Well, sex always is about spiritual transcendence for me, and really connecting on a cosmic level, and I really wanna be with your soul… And there’s a part of me that has a judgment about this desire you have to tie me up. Can you tell me what that would provide for you? What does that mean for you, to be able to express yourself that way?”
So I get to be curious and let go of my story, and find out what’s at the root of what my partner wants, what they desire. And then we can get creative. Because I may be a hard no to being tied up with ropes; at this point in our relationship that’s a definite no. But once I start to understand my kinky lover’s desire and what it means… Perhaps they tell me “Well, I just really love the ability to have you be fully surrendered, and I want to feel your trust in me, and that’s how I’ve done this in the past. I’ve done that with using bondage.” Then for my energetic self and my spiritual sexuality self, I can say “Wow, I really love the surrender part of that. How else can we achieve that? Maybe that means that you boss me around. We’re not gonna use ropes, but you can tell me what positions to get in in the bedroom. And what would really help me feel loved and safe is while you’re doing that, if you could tell me how beautiful I am, and how much you want me, and how much you wanna connect with my heart.”
So then we start to create a conscious, co-created experience, where both of our needs are being met, and neither one of us is shaming the other or creating a story about what that desire of the other means.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: I love it. So much of what you’re saying, Ian, is language that I’ve used around emotion and helping navigate conflicts in everyday life, and I just love that you’re bringing this process… I know we have different training and all of that, but there’s so much in the way that you’re articulating that is bringing this process to sexual intimacy that I think is just so, so needed.
Ian Ferguson: Thank you.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: How can people get in touch with what you’re up to? Because as we’re talking about shame, and uncovering these blocks, I imagine people are like “This sounds amazing”, and at the same time there’s so much here, even if there’s big-T, little-t, or just the repetitive messages that we receive from family or culture around sex, and shame… It could be a lot to unpack, and I imagine you have a lot of supports for people, so I wanna make sure people have an understanding of how they can resource that.
Ian Ferguson: Perfect. We’re talking about some of the deeper aspects of sex and sexuality and emotional health and wellness, and this stuff can get really meaty and thick. So one of the things that I love about what we do is also the fun and the play, and really taking this conversation out of the closet, and giving people a language to speak about their sexuality… Because one of the things — you know, 10,000 years of the human experience, and I think we have a very poor base of language to express all of our desires.
One of the things that is the thing that we love to introduce people to is our Erotic Blueprint Breakthrough, our erotic blueprints, which is this personality typing for what is your erotic type. One of the most fun ways to get a hold of us is through taking our quiz, and you can put links to that in your show notes, or wherever you post about it… It’s the Erotic Blueprints.
That leads to you getting answers, a specific read-out about your primary blueprint type; it also shows you percentages for where your other blueprints rank. And there are five blueprints in our system, which again, are energetic, sensual, sexual, kinky and shape-shifter. And with each one of those blueprints comes an entire language of arousal, of turn-on, of turn-off, of different ways of connecting sexually, intimately, through language, through body, through the senses. So it’s a very deep cosmology, the blueprint system.
So they can go take the quiz, and they can also go to jaiya.love, or jaiyalove.com. That’s our main website. There they have access to the quiz as well. And we don one intro event for our community; this last year we had over 500 people at it, it’s called Path to Passion, and we do it on Halloween weekend every year. So that’s sort of like the coming into our community and really getting a sense of the safety and the container and the wide range of our community… Because we’ve got every gender, every race, LGBTQ – fully, widely accepted in our community. So that’s another way, is finding out where our Path to Passion is and coming to that around Halloween.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: And where is that?
Ian Ferguson: This year we’ll be doing it in Denver. We may – we’re not sure about this; this is the year 2020. We may be doing it in multiple cities this year, with our coaches. So as of this summer we’ll have over 200 coaches trained in the erotic blueprints… So they’re out there spreading the word, helping people release their shame and unleash their true erotic selves as well.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Wonderful. I look forward to putting all of those links on today’s show notes… And thank you so much for what you’re up to, and the partnership with you and Jaiya, and how you guys are supporting people in this arena. Thank you for being a guest today.
Ian Ferguson: Yes, I’m so glad to have been here, and thank you for introducing us to your audience.
I hope you have enjoyed today’s interview with Ian Ferguson. I looked into the Erotic Blueprint Breakthrough quiz, and there’s a couple things I wanna share with you. The first is if you take the quiz, you’re gonna be submitting your email and you will likely get a series of emails from her, as well as perhaps a video sequence that she’s then inviting you to take the Erotic Blueprint Breakthrough course.
Now, as I watched the videos, I was able to identify that I don’t resonate with having someone do an experiential exercise with me around sexuality other than my husband. So I just wanna give that disclaimer. And as I mention on many podcast episodes, there are going to be things that are gonna resonate for you, and then there are gonna be things that perhaps don’t resonate as much, or don’t resonate at all… And I really invite you to take the nuggets that fit, in that there’s an array of things that I’m offering, and that many of them can be very transformational and game-changers for you.
The second point I wanna share is more personal… That even though I took the quiz and my husband took the quiz, the little information that we gained about our styles was powerful. I did not have the language and the awareness of my type. My husband and I both took the quiz, and each person will likely come up with different percentages of different types. You have your top type, and your second type, and she gives a lot more context to this.
My first type is energetic, which means there’s a lot more attention that I need to just the space between. And when I was hearing her describe this, I was like “Yes, this is so true…!” My husband’s number one is sensual, so very quickly he is interested in the cuddling and the touching and the kissing… And all of that I love, but there’s something around the anticipation and that space just before contact, that helps me connect with the arousal and the sexuality. So just even in a few weeks, that awareness has been really game-changing for us in our foreplay.
I wanted to just share that, and just so you guys know transparently, I have no affiliate relationship with them and their Erotic Blueprint, so there’s no kickback or anything that I’m getting by sharing that little testimonial. I just want to let you guys know that there could be some value in even taking the quiz, and then if you’re interested in going deeper, just recognize that they have a different philosophy.
I did ask them if they support monogamy and people in marriages, because it sounds like they serve people of various relationship types, and I just wanted to make sure that that is something that they give a lot of attention to. Because as you guys know, if you’re a long-term listener, my goal in this show is to support couples in long-term relationships and how they navigate their couple bond.
If you would like access to today’s show notes, you can visit DrJessicaHiggins.com, click on Podcast, and you can find all the episodes listed there. Again, today’s episode is 211.
On the show notes you’ll also find a link to access a free guide, Shifting Criticism Into Connected Communication. This guide can be extremely helpful in shifting some of the critical tendencies… Because again, most of us have no intention to be harmful or curt our partner down.
As we’re talking about interactions, sexually and in the bedroom, criticism will also show up here, even in the subtlest of forms. I think in the sexual intimacy space it’s that much more vulnerable, so I really wanna encourage if you notice some of this difficulty arising in this space, to perhaps access the free guide, and perhaps you can get some support in shifting that tendency so that you can help your partner know what you need and really tune into that and be able to meet you there.
Again, all of this can be found on today’s show notes, which can be found on the site DrJessicaHiggins.com, click on Podcast, and you can find today’s episode, 211.
Until next time, I hope you take great care.
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