What does it take to step into your sexual power as a woman and connect more deeply with your partner? On today’s episode I talk with Hannah Spanke about the confining roles we often find ourselves in, and how to break free of them. We also talk about what keeps us disconnected in relationships, pleasure, tantra, the importance of connecting with ourselves, her framework for talking about sex, menopause, and more. It is a conversation full of good information.

Hannah Spanke is a relationship coach, clinical sexologist, and passionate advocate for authentic happiness and sustainable, healthy relationships, starting with the one we have with ourselves. She has numerous credentials and styles of training under her belt, from years of study after nearly a decade in the adult entertainment industry. She is a Licensed Authentic Tantra Practitioner, Board Certified Clinical Sexologist, and Relationship & Life Coach specializing in helping individuals become their happiest selves through inner & outer work, while learning to understand and relate to their partners & family in the best ways possible.

 

Learn more about Hannah

Website: https://www.hannahspanke.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hannahspanke/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@hannahspanke

 

Learn more about Karin

Website: https://www.drcalde.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theloveandconnectioncoach/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@loveandconnectioncoach

 

TRANSCRIPT

Podcast Intro:

[00:00] Karin: This is Love Is Us, Exploring Relationships and How We Connect. I'm your host, Karin Calde. I'll talk with people about how we can strengthen our relationships, explore who we are in those relationships, and experience a greater sense of love and connection with those around us, including ourselves. I have a PhD in clinical Psychology, practiced as a psychologist resident, and after diving into my own healing work, I went back to school and became a coach, helping individuals and couples with their relationships and personal growth. If you want to experience more love in your life and contribute to healing the disconnect so prevalent in our world today, you're in the right place. Welcome to Love is Us.

Episode Intro:

Karin: Hannah, welcome.

[01:57] Hannah: Thank you. I'm super excited to be here.

[02:00] Karin: Yeah, I'm excited, too. So where are you in the world?

[02:04] Hannah: I am currently in the San Luis Obispo area, like central coast of California, but in about a month moving back down south.

[02:12] Karin: Oh, okay. So how long have you been in San Luis Obispo?

[02:17] Hannah: So I've only been here for about a month. My sister lives here. I'm at my sister's for the summer. I moved. So long story short, I've born and raised in California. I left California last spring, spent some time in the Midwest, and then I moved back now this spring, and I was in San Diego for a bit. I'm up here for a bit, kind of just doing some family stuff and helping her with some of her things going on. And then in about a month, starting August, I'm moving back down south. San Diego is always what I consider like my home. Like San Diego County. North county, specifically. But for whatever reason, I'm feeling pulled to the desert. I don't even like the desert, but I think I'm going to end up there for a few months, maybe like Joshua Tree or somewhere in that area is.

[03:05] Karin: Yeah. Well, I love San Diego. I haven't been there in a while. My daughter's going to have a soccer tournament there, and usually her dad and I kind of like, all right, who's got to take time off of work and pay for all this travel? And I'm thinking, oh, but San Diego.

[03:22] Hannah: Maybe I would do that one coming from where?

[03:25] Karin: I'm in Oregon.

[03:27] Hannah: Oh, okay, cool.

[03:29] Karin: Yeah. And we're actually having a gorgeous summer, so can't complain. Yeah. So tell us what you do for work.

[03:38] Hannah: I would love to. So what I do for work is I'm a coach. I help people in this journey because it's very integrated into my own personal healing journey. The work that I do in the world, there's so many different iterations I experience of myself that that question feels harder every year, every month. It's like I don't really know exactly how to put that into words, but I'm a coach. I help people become their most authentic selves so that they can authentically relate to other people in their lives, particularly romantic relationships. And I help people go as deep into that inner work that those relationships present as possible.

[04:22] Karin: So you're really helping people to connect and connect with themselves. Yeah. Well, we need more of that, don't we?

[04:28] Hannah: Yeah. And that is the correct word. Really, that is the most correct word to use is connection. I help people feel the deepest possible connection they can with themselves, with God, source, spirit, whatever they relate to, with their partners, with their family. Yeah. And the integration of all of those things.

[04:48] Karin: Yeah. And you do this as a sexologist as well, right?

[04:52] Hannah: Yes. So the sex piece is definitely a huge component. I find that people who come to me for sex reasons, like out the gate, obviously that's something we deal with. But I find that people who come to me for not that purpose, it ends up being brought into our work eventually. Because, like what I'm saying, with the connection, I really help people find their own alignment in their lives. And that includes all parts of them mind, body, spirit and sex. And so that sex piece really is a passion for me and an expertise for me because it's such a disintegrated piece of us collectively. There's so much shame, so much wounding, so much stuff that's associated with it that it's understandable that it's easier to just kind of bypass or not deal with head on. And so that is what I really hope people do fully.

[05:46] Karin: Yeah. And we're going to get into this because people are so scared to talk about sex, scared to really explore sex and what that really means for them. And yet it can be such a place of pleasure and joy and connection.

[06:06] Hannah: Healing. Right.

[06:07] Karin: And healing. Absolutely. But I'm going to back up just a little bit. So first of all, maybe you can explain for our listeners what a sexologist actually is and how that differs from a sex therapist.

[06:24] Hannah: Yes. So I'm happy to answer that question. And my disclaimer is that I'm answering it from the route that I took to get to that credential, which is there's many routes that people can take to get to legally calling themselves like, a board certified clinical sexologist, which is the title that I have. You can achieve that in different ways, different trainings or different paths of education. So my understanding of sex therapy is that it is more of a traditional path where you're going through the red tape, the educational route, where the end goal is to have a clinical practice under that framework, just like a psychologist or any other type of therapist that goes through the system in that way kind of climbs the ladder. That was something that was in my field of interest since I was like ten or eleven years old. I would be googling stuff, what is a sex therapist? But that kind of rigid pathway to that goal never fully aligned with me. There was something about it that just it never was fully right. And then the way that I ended up coming to where I am now is I became a licensed authentic Tantra practitioner. And so that is a holistic, trauma informed sexual healing modality rooted in lineage based, like 1200 years old, lineage based Tibetan Tantra. And so that training is what led me into my sexology credential. And so all of my sexology practice is really rooted in Tantra specifically. So I don't know that that's true for every sexologist. It's probably not true for every sexologist, but that's true for me. And I think that that's one of the main differences for me between how I work as a sexologist and sex therapy. There's a big Tantra component to it, and I personally feel like I have a little bit more freedom of, like, if somebody needs more clinical support, it's like an actual physical dysfunction, or if somebody needs the deeper spiritual side of things that there's something like energetic going on that's leading to the physical complications.

[08:42] Karin: Okay, so you can help people with things like erectile dysfunction and vaginismus and all of the more clinical physical well, at least it's experiences physical issues that people might have, but then also the spiritual, the psychological, that type of thing. So you have really a range of things that you can do.

[09:05] Hannah: Yeah, I don't know if that directly answered your question or not.

[09:09] Karin: Yeah, the difference, I think so.

[09:14] Hannah: I.

[09:14] Karin: Was thinking of asking this maybe toward the end if we had time, but since you've mentioned it, maybe you can say just a little bit about what Tantra is.

[09:22] Hannah: Yeah, I love this question so much because it is such a kind of like, weird, far off, taboo thing in most people's minds. It's just like they might associate it with sex or something and it's just this kind of far off idea. People don't usually it's not a common term unless it is. And so for me, my understanding of tantra tantra is a spiritual science, and it's a family of spiritual sciences that can be traced back thousands of years. And there's many different lineages that have come from that. There's Hindu versions, there's Tibetan versions, which is what I study. There is what's called neo tantra. That is much of what we have in the US. And like Canada, where it's not tied to any lineage, it's not tied to any ancient teachings. It is more sexual, more sexual focused. But tantra in itself is not explicitly sexual. My personal understanding, the way I like to describe it, is that it is the integration of everything. It is the ability to see the unity in all of life's experiences. So whether that is sex, whether that is emotional work, whether that's mindset, stuff, like none of those things are actually happening in a vacuum. They are all interconnected. They all impact each other. And the word tantra, the root of it in Sanskrit, actually means to weave. And so that is what it is. It's the weaving of all parts of your life into something that is coherent and integrated and works well. And so that's how I use tantra is really, in the most general sense, is like medicine to help people come back to a sense of wholeness and connection with the pulse of life. And, of course, sex is involved in that.

[11:12] Karin: That's so beautiful. I don't think that I knew it at that level. I love that it's to weave, which, of course, makes me think of connection, which is what we're talking about, really. So I might come back to that later, but I'd love to find out first before we go on, how you came to do this work.

[11:32] Hannah: It's a sideways story, for sure. I came in the back door. There was a reason why the traditional route did not resonate with me. It's because my soul signed up for a different path. So I actually stepped into the sex industry, like, as a sex worker when I was 16 years old. And so that kind of set me on that path of not sexual healing or sexual work like that I do now at all. Very different. But it opened the door to sex being a big part of my life at that point in time and for almost a decade. It was in a very negative way, in a very dark way, treating myself as a commodity transactionalizing, my body, all of that type of stuff, did that for almost a decade in the sex industry. And then five years ago or so, I had a whole bunch of life altering things happening, a lot of heartbreak, a lot of grief, a lot of loss that I had experienced for the first time in my life to that degree. And it was one of those times that just like, every single thing falls apart and shatters so much that there's no way it's going to come back together looking the same. And so it was really like what I consider my spiritual awakening. And it was like the fog had been lifted overnight. I could see how disempowered my life was as a sex worker. I could see how underserved I was in ways that I thought were empowering before. And it was like just all of the mystified disillusionment was just, like, crystal clear in a second is how it felt. It took about a year maybe to fully accept that and slowly work my way out of the industry because it was my livelihood. So it wasn't like overnight I could see, oh, actually, this is hurting me quite a bit, and I'm going to stop paying my bills tomorrow and just quit. It wasn't an option like that. And so it was a slow climb, and it really felt like a climb. There was nothing very easy about it because it shattered my identity to see what I had been doing as disempowering as it was. Because up until then, I thought the opposite. I thought that I was, like, queen of the castle. I was running the show, I was calling the shots. I set my own hours. And I'm sure this will tie into something we talk about later with the conditioning that women and men experience and how it impacts us both negatively and our abilities to connect sexually. We both are hurt by cultural, societal things, but men and women are affected differently. And this, for me, was like the epitome of that. I was in the trenches of female societal conditioning, of leading with my sexuality, because that's where I was taught through every lingerie billboard and that magazine model I've ever seen, that that's where my worth lives. And so seeing that for the first time that my worth was living outside of me was something that was really hard to face. That was what opened the door, was floodgates open. There was no unseeing it. And then it was a matter of starting the healing process to become internally resourced enough to step away from that lifestyle. Over that long journey, I stepped into a lot of healing work myself in very intense ways. I wasn't slow and gentle about it at all. It was kind of like off to the races, okay, I'm going to do this program and this coach and this therapy and this retreat, and I just dove in, probably, I don't know, whatever's more intense than headfirst is what I did. And through that, I found tantra as part of my own healing path. And then through that, I could see even more clearly that like, oh, I was designed to end up here in this way so that I can now teach this and embody this as medicine to bring to the world that it's embodied. I have used it as medicine to heal myself. And so it's not like I read it in a textbook and now I'm teaching you. It's like, this has been so deeply hammered into my life experience that now it's part of who I am, and so that's how I ended up here.

[15:48] Karin: Long story short, it's so interesting how some really difficult stuff in our lives can end up also being a gift.

[16:00] Hannah: Yeah.

[16:01] Karin: But I can also imagine I really can't imagine how much strength it must have taken to really face up to the truth about what you wanted for yourself and really shifting your perspective. That takes a lot of courage.

[16:19] Hannah: Thank you. Thank you for that. And yeah, it does. And that's been part of my process, too, over the last five years, is like acknowledging that because it's easy, I think, for some people, depending on what your trauma was like in your life, to bypass how hard something actually is just because it's, like, coming from a survival mode. It's like, no, I just had to do it. I just got to do it. Just keep going. And part of the process can really be just slowing down and clapping for yourself or acknowledging that. That's why healing and relationship is one of my favorite things to work with people on, because you can really do that for each other. You can really mirror each other's progress the whole time. And it builds intimacy when you do it together.

[17:01] Karin: Yeah. Having a partner that can meet you where you are and support you and not expect you to be perfect but struggle alongside you, is so powerful, isn't it?

[17:14] Hannah: Yeah. I think half of the healing just comes from being witnessed in it.

[17:18] Karin: Yeah. So I want to talk about you talked about kind of this conditioning that men and women are subject to and how that affects them and their views about sex and all of this. Maybe you could talk just a little bit about what that is and what you mean by that.

[17:38] Hannah: Yes. So I'll just kind of, like, riff on it. My perspective of what I see as far as the conditioning that applies generally to women, generally to men, the caveat is that, of course, this is not exactly true for every single individual experience, but just generalized kind of understanding. Here I see women highly distant, and all of this is disempowering for everybody. And that's what I really want to make clear. It's not about one side versus the other at all. And that's also coming from that tantra lens. None of the duality we perceive is real. Divine union is about everything coming together. And so it's not this or that. Anyways, that's the answer when it comes to women. I see the cultural conditioning as disempowerment, being taught through overvaluing her body, her sex, her desirability. So like I said a minute ago, with the billboards and the Victoria's Secret models and all that kind of stuff. It plants these seeds. Even Disney princesses, you've never seen one that was out of shape. It plants these seeds and paints this picture that there is a mold to fit to be desirable. And if you fit that mold good, you deserve a gold star. Thumbs up for you. You're doing something right. And so it trains us in the most subtle ways to in one way or the other, we handle that. We either run towards it like a mop to the flame, and it's like, okay, I've learned the lesson. I'm going to be a good girl, and I'm going to follow that, and I'm going to lead with what I've been taught to lead with. My body, my sexuality, playing my intelligence down, whatever. All the conditioning is to be desirable to men, even if you're not into men. That conditioning is there. Who I actually am never really gets seen, and who I actually am never really gets valued by me or the people in my life, particularly partners. And that pain exists, I think, as a collective for women, because our power is a threat to somebody who's threatened by it. And we've learned that over centuries. And it's in our DNA now to the point where there's a lot of false safety that we can find in not being true to ourselves and sacrificing ourselves for attention, for connection, for breadcrumbs of things. So that's what I see. For women, it leads to a genuine disconnect with their own desires because they may not even know what they are. They might think they want to be sexy in this way. They might think they want to have sex in this way because it's going to get some sort of validation, because they're going to receive some sort of connection or approval or something for it. More often than not, that's where I see the desires coming from, if they're online at all, versus a true desire, that's like coming from your heart because that's what you want to experience.

[20:30] Karin: And I also think about how when women do fit the societal ideal of what you're supposed to look like, then the fear of losing that can be so intense. And if they do lose that, then they feel like they're nothing or worthless or whatever it is. Their whole sense of self is built on that image totally.

[20:56] Hannah: So it's like, if you fit the mold, you better protect that for the rest of your life. Because if it flops, you're valueless now. And if you don't fit the mold, you're also valueless in some way or another. And so all across the board, that entire paradigm is disempowering wherever you land on it.

[21:14] Karin: And of course, it's impossible to maintain that. And so at some point, you're going to fall off of that pedestal or whatever it is. And then what?

[21:25] Hannah: Then you crash and burn the way that I did at my spiritual awakening. And my hope is that kicks your ass forward into a healing process, into a healing journey where the agenda becomes to find all of the things that you're looking for internally instead of externally.

[21:44] Karin: Yeah.

[21:44] Hannah: And for men, I see the conditioning being like boys don't cry, boys don't hate girls. Boys don't cry. Boys, their emotional reactions are suppressed from the very, very beginning. And so I'm not saying boys should hate girls, but their expression of anger or their expression of pain or their expression of whatever, it's suppressed in a way that it implies that they are dangerous to other people. And I've worked with men for years, one on one. And I see that so deeply internalized by them as this deep, deep pain that they don't even know about until we dig into it deep enough. And then it's like an AHA. And it's devastating when they have these realizations that like, wow, I have been acting in XYZ ways my whole life, particularly in romantic relationships and sex because deep down I see myself as a monster or a problem or someone that is going to hurt somebody else or something. And so it's this internalized fear of being hurtful, really. And I see that show up in two ways. One. They either disconnect from themselves sexually and then we have these kind of like, spineless noodley type of men where they are not empowered in their own masculinity, almost out of a deep fear of being too something domineering, aggressive, something like they don't want to have a negative impact from that place, and so they just don't go there. And then it leads to sexual disempowerment.

[23:20] Karin: They don't want to see be seen as someone who would hurt women. Right?

[23:23] Hannah: Yes, right, exactly. So it's like this. Yeah, it's not safe to be them, basically. And so they'd stay small or the other direction where they overidentify with that sexual piece because of the emotional repression stuff. Boys don't cry. Boys aren't allowed to act like this. Boys aren't allowed to act like that. And so how are they allowed to act? They're allowed to express pleasure in very few ways but consistent ones. Sex and maybe like a burger, beer or something. Like men are allowed to have pleasure in those areas. And so it becomes a way for them to funnel undelt with emotions into that outlet. And they're then like outsourcing validation, outsourcing breadcrumbs of connection, self worth, all the same stuff that women are doing through sex. And it can be perceived as like the man whore, the guy who's womanizing women who's out there just wanting to plow through as many experiences as he can. And I see that as nothing other than the same pain that women are experiencing. It's a deep desire for connection and a lack of safety around coming from their heart to do it. So they over exaggerate the sexual piece and it all gets distorted as a means to an end when really I think it's disempowering all the way across.

[24:43] Karin: The board and so limiting. There's so many experiences that they could be having and connecting with, and yet they feel like they are only allowed to do those things. How does this play out in heterosexual relationships?

[25:04] Hannah: Yeah, so I see that play out as the man stereotypical examples. Of course, the man like, stereotypically not having the emotional awareness that she wishes he had. I saw a reel on Instagram yesterday. It was like Husband Fail 101 and it was some guy, like it was just music playing, but he's like talking with his hands in the kitchen to his wife, like as if he's trying to solve a problem. And she's like, sitting there. It's like a little girl crying like a toddler that looks tired, like about to start crying. And it said something like when he tries to solve the problem instead of validating the emotions. So it's like this autopilot reaction to emotions need to do something with them. So that can be really conflicting in a heterosexual relationship where the woman is wanting to feel heard, seen, understood. And that's what will allow her to feel open in her heart and then open in her body, which will give him the access to the connection and the pleasure that he might be seeking. She's also wanting it, but he wants it too. And then that's a very positive feedback loop. But it gets halted a lot of the times, I think, by the man. I say that with compassion because I'm not saying it's his fault that things aren't working. But what I do see as the dynamic that works versus doesn't is that the man is either committed or not committed to maintaining emotional safety in the container of the relationship. And when he is doing that, he's committed to staying in his own heart so that he can meet her from that place and she will be open to him and receptive to him and trusting of him and all of the things that he wants from her. And then she's going to want to double down and give him even more. I've heard the saying before, like, whatever you give to a woman, she'll give you back two times. We are the vessels of creation. And so when a man really invests in coming to his own heart and anchoring into that place and staying there and relating to his partner from that space, he can almost guarantee he's going to have everything he wants because she will be receptive to him and want to take that in. Instead of the fight where I see a lot of women saying, I want a masculine man, I want a guy that's going to lead, I want a guy that's going to do all this stuff in the bedroom. And she's actually not available for that because of her own stuff, her own fears, her own lack of safety. And so she'll energetically unconsciously resist him create conflict, blame Nag Nitpick. And then he feels like he's doing everything wrong, and it just turns into a very negative feedback loop because she's also not in her heart. So really, I see it coming down to both people needing to invest individually into creating a sense of internal safety so that safe dynamic can be maintained, because that's all it comes down to with the lack of intimacy, is a lack of safety.

[27:59] Karin: So I'm interested in hearing more about this, about what's going on with the women that they say they want this masculine men, but then there's the stuff that comes up for them and they resist it. Tell me more about that.

[28:11] Hannah: Yeah. So I can definitely speak to this with personal examples too. I was raised by a single dad for most of my childhood. Super stereotypical, like toxic, masculine, not stoic, if stoic is a positive word, but truly emotionally unavailable. Hardened. That's the right word. Very hardened. And so through my healing journey, that was what I attracted in partners in the very beginning of my adult life, was very emotionally unavailable men. And then through my own healing work, I changed myself and I became more emotionally available to myself. And then I became a match for more emotionally available men. And then I realized I was attracting men who were emotionally unavailable in a very feminine way, where there was no boundary, there was no container, there was no core centered masculinity coming from them. It was just this kind of like ocean that we were both in together. And I realized, okay, I was on one end of the spectrum, swung way to the other end. What do I actually want? What is in the middle? And what I realized is that in the middle is two people who have done enough personal work to where their own inner masculine and feminine is integrated, to where her and him both are emotionally available to themselves. Her and him both have the ability to be structured and have discipline for themselves. They have an integration of those two things. Internally. The inner divine union is there so that then they can come together and be in divine union together, where the polarity is natural, where she wants to surrender and trust him and not question things because she trusts that he is leading from his heart and is attuned to her heart. And that trust is where I see the trap happen. It's like the woman is like, I haven't gotten what I wanted before. I think I want to be led. I want to be able to fully let go. I want to be able to surrender and be in my feminine and do what I'm here to do and let that shine. And I want the man to support me. And just even claiming that can feel like an edge for some women. So then they do it. It's like, yeah, I'm all empowered, but the blind. Spot is why haven't you had that up until this point? What part of you has been resistant to actually receiving that up until this point? And oftentimes I find, and this has been true for me as well, it's a resistance to the surrendering that you're actually asking for because you don't trust it. There's been plenty of experiences that you've had or you've witnessed or you've seen where the trust was broken. At some point you couldn't actually rely on your dad. You couldn't actually rely on your first boyfriend. You couldn't actually be held and fully received by your first husband, like whatever it may be. There's a deeply unconscious reflex tension tightness around letting go completely because when you let go completely, you are as open and vulnerable for pain as you ever could be. You're also as open and available for connection and love and depth and passion and intimacy and all the things you want. But that comes with a risk innately. And I think there's a lot of a lack of awareness around that piece that really needs to be dealt with, to align with that kind of partnership.

[31:25] Karin: It's so good and so important for people to really explore because it's hard stuff. It takes work.

[31:35] Hannah: Yeah, totally. It makes me think of money goals. Like people who maybe they're very low income, they live a poverty type of lifestyle coming from their mindset, like, they have a poverty type of mindset and lifestyle. They hit the lottery, they get $5 million and then they're completely flat broke in three years. That doesn't happen on accident. It's because the frequency that's the frequency you'll never be a match for anything higher or lower than where you are. And so it's like you can set the intention. You can say I want this kind of man, I want this kind of woman. But until you're willing to really look at your own alignment with that thing, or lack of alignment, it will elude you.

[32:19] Karin: So really looking at your blocks, things that are holding you back, which of course comes from our life experiences. So there is this general belief that men are always wanting sex and women are always not. And you talked about this trust, this inner trust that they need to learn how to deal with. But what other forces are at play? What else comes into the picture to get in the way of sex for women? And of course, I know that this is not true for all women and all men. Absolutely. But I think there is some a tendency.

[33:00] Hannah: Yeah, absolutely. And I love that question because there's so much to say on it. I'll try to keep this under like 2 hours. Definitely all of the conditioning stuff where it's like in any number of religious upbringings, it could be Catholic, it could be Christian, it doesn't really make a difference. There's some narrative of what being a good girl means and it includes a disconnection from your sex. And so that doesn't change just because you become an adult. If you grew up with the first 1015 20 years of your life being told this narrative that's playing out in the background. And so I've noticed just that piece alone is such a big factor of whatever the value system was in the household you grew up in. I see it for men and women both, but for women I see it internalized a little bit more because of the good girl purity culture kind of thing. So there's that piece there's the piece for men of having a very limited outlet for pleasure as men, that's socially acceptable and sex is one of them. And so it can be a quick thing for them to jump to without they might skip over some of the emotional pieces that are missing and that could lead her to feel close to him on an emotional level which will absolutely close her down physically. And I think that's important to mention for both parties here, men and women both, that your genitals literally, energetically and physically, reflexology, everything, are connected to your heart center. And so when you are shut down here emotionally in your heart, you're also shut down in the rest of your body. And then from a nervous system level too, like if you are stressed out, you're in fight or flight all the time, you're in some sort of free state because you have a bunch of unprocessed shit from your life that's just kind of stagnant under the surface. That free state controls your diaphragm down. So your genitals literally will not be online. They will not be wanting to have sex when you're in that kind of state because your body is trying to save you. And so it's not interested in sex in that moment. It's trying to survive. And so nervous system health, I think, is a big thing for both people to be aware of. And then the most practical thing for women specifically is the lack of anatomical understanding and awareness around female pleasure being highly different than male pleasure. And then all of the porn culture we're influenced by, whether you watch porn or you don't, it's in your face at some point or another that things are very male centric. It's all about jackhammer. Faster, better, faster, harder is better. The cum shot is like the end of the video. That kind of culture. It's all about his pleasure, it's not about hers. And so the understanding of her pleasure is just literally nonexistent in our culture.

[35:58] Karin: There is a book that I think would be so great for all men to read, and I think is really popular, is Ian Kerner's book, she Comes First. I think that is something that might help a little bit in that area.

[36:14] Hannah: Yeah, for sure. I really like this analogy too. This seems to really land with men because they think it's funny and then it hits home later, I think. But it's like if you went to a restaurant with your girlfriend or your wife every single night and you sat down at the table and the waiter walks up and says, oh, hey Joe, how's it going? Here's the menu. You can pick anything you want. Whatever you want, you're going to get right now. And the guy walks up and gives her the leftovers from the people who were sitting there before. And that's what she can expect every single time. And she knows she can't really order what she wants and she just is going to eat something. She's not going to want to go to dinner again and again and again and again and again. It's not a fucking mystery that usually drives it home.

[36:59] Karin: That's a wonderful analogy. I love that I'm going to use that. Yeah. I think it's so important to ask people, what would good sex look like for you?

[37:13] Hannah: And imagine I have a framework I can share also for people to have these conversations. It's such a great framework. And this is applicable for anything from like a one night stand to the person you've been with for 40 years about like it's an access point for you to deepen your intimacy and your pleasure with each other through vulnerably communicating. So it's BDSM and it stands for Boundaries is the first. So maybe your husband has been pulling your hair for the last five years and you actually secretly hate it. This is the time to tell. Like that's the boundaries part. Maybe there's something you just really don't want and being able to have that be known would let you relax into the experience a little bit more. So boundaries is the first. D is desires and fears. So that could be the emotion of it. Maybe you want to feel really connected. You want to feel really slow and sensual. Or you hope to have four orgasms. It could be very tangible, like whatever it is, your desires and your fears. So that could look like, I'm afraid that it's going to take me too long to come and you're going to have a sore neck and I'm not going to be able to finish and I'm going to stuck in my head. So just the most authentic whatever's real for you is what should be shared. That's BD. S is safety. So this is like STDs or pregnancy. So that you're aware of what you guys are thinking on those topics. And then M is meaning, what does this mean to you? Is this fun? Is this about connection? Is this so that we can explore each other's bodies? Is this so that you can have some sort of release? What is this about then? A, I usually will add A on the end. Bdsma is aftercare. What do you need for this to feel fulfilling to you afterwards? Do you want to cuddle? Do you want me to make you food? Do you want to be left alone? Do you hope that we talk about it later? What do you need? And then you can go into the physical experience, actually present for it because you're not wondering about all those loose ends that almost never get tied up unless you really try.

[39:24] Karin: That's great. I think that's a great framework for people to start thinking about what they want and yeah, then having that conversation because we said talking about sex can be so hard for people and that I think, is the first hurdle for people to really work through. I don't know, maybe it's more that they need to first figure out what they want themselves and then maybe they can have a conversation.

[39:57] Hannah: Yeah, totally. And I think it's both. I think it's both of those things at play, for sure. Because maybe I'm feeling slightly undersatisfied, but if I don't know what even the name of all my parts are and you don't know them, how am I going to direct you? And so it's a matter of feeling confident in your own body first so that you do have that foundation to stand on and trusting that your partner is a volunteer, remembering that your partner is a volunteer. Nobody's holding them hostage in that bedroom. They want you to have a good experience just as much as you want to have a good experience, just as much as you want them to have a good experience. And it's easy to not trust that when you're coming from a place of your own pain, your own trauma, your own wounding. But if you can be present in the moment, at least from a mindset level, you can remember that and trust it in that moment that your partner is there for you and you're there for them.

[40:52] Karin: So what are some ways that women can get in touch with their own sexuality and what they really want? Because I think that's something that a lot of women struggle with. I don't know what I want, or they might really not even be that interested in sex. Maybe they've never had good sex. So how can women figure that out for themselves?

[41:19] Hannah: Yeah, so it's funny the way you worded that because my answer immediately was going to be to not try to do it by themselves.

[41:26] Karin: Okay.

[41:27] Hannah: Because like I said earlier, so much of the healing in general for us as humans can come from just being witness in whatever it is that we're going through. And so if you have a lot of internalized shame or trauma or experiences that feel hard to navigate, it's not going to be easier trying to do it on your own because that's going to validate that you're alone in it. It validates that there maybe is something to be shameful. There maybe is something to not be shared because you have no new experience to act as like an antidote to that isolation. And so connection through that process is really important. And that could be with your partner, it could be with someone like me in that kind of a professional role. Or it could just be something like, for example, I have a course called Women's Sexual Empowerment and it's four videos. It's like a three hour long thing or so, literally life changing. The women that have gone through it in their thirty s. Forty s, sending me messages telling me that they've learned more about their body than they have in their whole entire life. And that's something they're watching and doing in their privacy of their own home. So there's options for you to be able to do things with support at whatever comfort level you have with talking to someone or not. You can still find support. So that's my first advice is find support. If you don't know, then find support for helping you figure out what it is that you don't know. Because we always don't know what we don't know. That's not a solution, that's not a problem we can solve alone. So that's the first thought. And second is carving out time in your life regularly for this kind of self connection because that's what it is. It's pleasure, it's exploration, it's arousal, it's all these other things. But the bottom line is that it's self connection. And when that foundation is strong, you won't tolerate a lack of that in the bedroom with somebody else. And when that foundation is nonexistent, anything can go, anything will fly, anything can do. And so it really creates a strong backbone for you as a woman to know exactly what it is that you like and want and don't want, and what your arousal process is, and invest that time in yourself because that allows you to uphold the standard for somebody else to invest in you in that same way. Because if you're not upholding that for yourself, why would somebody else be obligated to? And that's the same for any standard in relating you can't expect somebody to do for you which you won't do for yourself.

[44:03] Karin: And do you ever recommend that women masturbate to figure out what they're like?

[44:09] Hannah: Yeah, absolutely. And that's what I'm talking about as far as like the self connection. So the specific pleasure practice that I teach, it's about a 2025 minutes long practice and it's very specific, it does not involve any toys. I want to recommend that you drop your toys as soon as you can for the self connection at least, because toys are like sprinkles to me. Toys should be the last thing that gets added, not the go to, for you to chase an orgasm. Because you can make yourself come in 30 seconds with a vibrator and not experience your full range of pleasure or even close to it. Because the arousal process isn't happening organically. And that can really be helped by just simply using your fingers. Self connection, literally, if you feel frustrated by that process because you're used to more stimulation. That's part of the healing is for you to come back to your own body, come back to your own arousal process and build a working relationship with it so that you feel valued in that way with or without somebody else. Because then you're coming to your relationships full. You're coming to your bedroom with your partner, with your like, you know, you have your own back already. And so I see a lot of conflict that comes from people outsourcing their pleasure or their fulfillment sexually from their partner only. And that creates a codependency in the bedroom and a lot of room for blame and shame and pointing fingers. And that can all be really avoided by building a strong working sexual relationship with yourself.

[45:48] Karin: Yeah. And a lot of women struggle with that, think that's somehow shameful, and they get the messages growing up that that's bad. Right? And so how do you help women get over that hurdle?

[46:03] Hannah: Yeah, it's interesting, I think, because of the extreme nature of my taboo background, that it's sort of like an automatic permission slip for women at any point up until that level of extreme. They're just like, okay, she's not going to judge me. Okay, she's going to be able to understand because I've gone past the deep end. And so it's like, you're not going to say anything that's going to shake me. I've attracted a lot of different women on that spectrum, women with deep religious conditioning from their upbringing who have never touched themselves in their whole life because it's been dirty, it's been not allowed. It's been something that was sinful. Women who maybe didn't have a cultural conditioning that way, but they experienced abuse. And so now it feels literally just like an unsafe part of their body to go to at all. And so it's just like there's a lot of different expressions I've seen of the disconnection. And truly the way back to wholeness every single time is some version of reconnection. Just reconnection with your heart, with your soul, and the understanding that you are holistic, with your sex included. You can't access your wholeness as long as this part is being left out.

[47:29] Karin: And that makes me think about the women I've spoken with who say, I'm just not interested anymore. I'm done with sex. And of course, that's a valid choice, but I also want them to consider what they might be losing out on. So what can you say about that?

[47:50] Hannah: Yeah, so I've heard that a lot as well. And it's understandable in a culture that demonizes women's aging. Absolutely. Women reach 30, and now you're having a fucking mental breakdown because you're not 20 anymore. You're not 25. You reach 40 and like, holy shit, now your life is really over. And it's like it gets worse every single time. And there's this innate acceptance almost I don't even like to use that word for this. But yeah, there's this deep expectation almost that women have an expiration date and they don't. And so that's internalized. And just like, if you believe the world is good, you'll see good in the world. If you believe the world sucks, you'll see a lot of shitty things. Like, same thing. You see what you look for. And so it really just comes down to things just being unconscious and not playing out consciously. If things are on autopilot, they're going to just be what they are. It's just going to be running in the background. And if you for your whole life have been told and taught and believed that at some point you as a woman are not going to be sexual anymore, you can expect that to happen because that's what you're buying into. So that's where I like to focus on that. There is so much power that you as an individual have so much power to create whatever you want. And if that is to not have sex ever again, okay, fine. But I'm going to challenge that and push against it until we get clear that that's actually your desire and not your internalized belief of what's possible for you.

[49:18] Karin: And what are some of the benefits that women experience who kind of reconnect that way.

[49:25] Hannah: So menopause, it's like this dark, horrible thing that everyone's afraid of. Really? Yes. There's some experiences in it that might be uncomfortable that are not ecstatic the whole time. Sweating your ass off in the middle of the night or something is not pleasurable. But what it does is the evolution of us as like an energetic thing in a female body. It's like maiden to mother to crone. It's a ripening of us. We're not dying until we're dead. We're not dying. It's a ripening. It's coming to a new level of fullness. And so there's biological things that will shift but with the right support, such as different yoni practices, different a lot of what I help women do, there is a whole entire other narnia that you don't even know about on the other side of that because you're in a different place, energetically in your life cycle. You are embodied wisdom. Period. It's not that you don't have anything else to learn, but it's like you're done with those deep learning chapters of the maiden and the mother. And whether you have children or not, it doesn't matter. But it's like you reach this crone age, this crone archetype where your body starts to change. To me, my hope for every woman at that point in life is that is an experience of liberation. It's an experience of freedom. You no longer have to think about your childbearing years. Now sex gets to be purely for you. And that's quite the opposite of how it gets dealt with. It's like, okay, I don't have anything else to do with my sexual body. All right, then I should just turn it off now. And I see it the exact opposite. And so I've worked with women in their 50. I actually had a client who's 70 and she is like juicy as fuck, like wet all the time and vibrant and horny all the time. And that's not because she's some dried up old lady. It's because she is connected to her power as a human and as a woman. And that never needs to go away. It can actually only get better.

[51:35] Karin: And I really believe that when we are connected with our sexual selves that that sexual energy really affects the other areas of our lives in really feeling good about ourselves and creative and empowered in general.

[51:51] Hannah: Yeah, absolutely. Because it is literally the energy that creates life. And so it is life force energy that you can channel into anything you want. If you're not creating children anymore or ever, you could maybe start a business or you want to keep the vitality for yourself. It's so regenerative on a physical level to be sexually aroused regularly because it dumps this hormonal cocktail in your brain of all the things that benefit you physically, chemically and circulating, that sexual energy that literally blasts through energetic blocks throughout your whole energy body. By having a regular practice of that, that isn't just orgasm oriented, it's so nourishing, it's like watering your flowers. That's what you're doing for your physical, emotional and energetic body when you invest in a flourishing relationship with yourself sexually.

[52:48] Karin: Gosh, I love all that. Thank you. So tell me a little bit about I feel like we could talk for 2 hours, but I know tell us just a little bit about your work with Tantra and how that can help people really tap into their sexual energy and express it.

[53:10] Hannah: Yeah, so the Tantra that I practice specifically, it is the little sound bite of it. I think I said it before, I'll just repeat it. It's a trauma informed holistic sexual healing modality. So I like to emphasize this part because it's holistic sexual healing. So people come to me for help with things that are not sexually related and I'm using Tantra to help them because it treats you holistically. And so there's just an emphasis on sex because that's one of the most disintegrated pieces of us as a collective. And so most people will need help there. But there are four kind of pillars to this modality meditation, pleasure, connection and movement. And so I use all of those as I see fit, intuitively, with whoever's sitting in front of me and with the sexual piece specifically. I have different protocols, I guess, for different goals for people. If there's like a couple that wants to feel more connected in the bedroom, I might take them through one or two different practices emotionally to connect and give them some physical stuff to do as well that's pleasure oriented. If somebody is needing to heal from sexual trauma, I will give them a pleasure practice and all the support needed for them to start to release actual stuck traumas from their tissues. And it may not be pleasure oriented, but it's about healing. And so there's a lot on the tool belt that I use with Tantra that I reach for with helping people with sex stuff in general, but I'm really passionate about helping women just become empowered in their bodies by blasting through all these things that we've talked about as limitations.

[54:53] Karin: I might have to have you back just to talk about Tantra. I'd love for you to talk more about it.

[54:59] Hannah: Let's do it.

[54:59] Karin: Okay, good. But maybe as we get really close to the hour mark here, maybe you can tell us what else do you want women to walk away with after listening to this conversation today?

[55:15] Hannah: Just that you are and should be the center of your own universe. We all are truly the centers of our own universe, where we're experiencing ourselves as the center of it and everything's happening around us. But I think such a harmful thing in our society, narrative in our society, for women specifically, is that you're a good woman when everybody else comes before you. And that is so fucking wrong. It is so and that it shows up in every area of life as a mother, as a partner in the bedroom with your friends, with your family, wherever you can see that, and grab it by the neck and put it back in the backseat. That people pleasing martyry type of shit that we're conditioned to think is how we can find value in ourselves. Let's just trash it. Let's just throw it away as a group of women together. We're going to trash it and light it on fire. Because the actual truth is that you deserve to have what you want. Period. That's it. There's not a single even reason why. Because you do is why you are worthy. Because you are worthy. And that innate deservingness is something I want every woman to know.

[56:31] Karin: I'm doing a little dance here. I love it. That is great. Beautiful. And so tell us, what role does love play in the work that you do?

[56:43] Hannah: It plays the focal point. I don't even know what the word centrifuge means, but that's the word that's coming to mind. It is the epicenter of my work. Yes. Everything that I do revolves around love and is anchored in love. Even when what I'm saying or doing is confronting or challenging. It's anchored in that love like capital L, love, capital T, truth. That you deserve to have the experiences you want. You deserve to have peace and joy and pleasure and happiness and fullness and all of the things that you want to have men, women, children, adults, everybody. And that is the frequency of love to me. Everything else is a distortion of it.

[57:31] Karin: And how can people learn more about you and learn about working with you.

[57:36] Hannah: Instagram, I would say Instagram is like my home on the Internet, so at Hannah Spanky Spanke. And if you're not on social media, you can always just reach out personally if you have any interest in getting to know about any services I offer or wanting to work together. Hannahspanky at Gmail, and then also Hannahspanky.com, if you want to check out, my website is actually being redone right now, so there's not much to check out. But if you want to hop on the emailing list, that's where you can plug in and stay connected. And I have a freebie or two for you as well in the link in my bio on Instagram. If you check me out there, you can kind of follow once and just stay plugged in for whatever comes.

[58:15] Karin: I have loved this conversation, Hannah. Thank you so much for taking the time to join me and talk with me and share all your beautiful wisdom.

[58:25] Hannah: Thank you so much for listening. That felt so good.

Outro:

[58:29] Karin: Thanks for joining us today on Love Is Us. If you like the show, I would so appreciate it if you left me a review. If you have questions and would like to follow me on social media, you can find me on Instagram, where I'm the Love and Connection coach. Special thanks to Tim Gorman for my music, Aly Shaw for my artwork, and Ross Burdick for tech and editing assistance. Again, I'm so glad you joined us today, because the best way to bring more love into your life and into the world is to be loved. The best way to be loved is to love yourself and those around you. Let's learn and be inspired together.