[LISA LEWIS] The Am I Ok? Podcast is part of the Practice of the Practice network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you market and grow your business and yourself. To hear other podcasts like Faith Fringes, the Holistic Counseling Podcast, and Beta Male Revolution, go to the website, www.practiceofthepractice.com/network. Welcome to the Am I Ok? Podcast, where you will discover that being highly sensitive is something to embrace and it’s actually a gift you bring to the world. We will learn together how to take ownership of your high sensitivity, so you can make positive changes in your life, in the lives of others, and it’s totally okay to feel this way. I’m your host, Lisa Lewis. I’m so glad you’re here for the journey. Welcome to today’s episode of the Am I Ok? Podcast. This is Lisa Lewis, your host. I have a special guest on our show today, and I’m just going to put it out there, I am not able to pronounce her last name. She has a French, she is French, and she told me how to pronounce her last name and I’m not going to attempt because I don’t have a French accent, so I’m just going to call her by her first name. She is a doctor, so maybe it’s going to be Dr. Fanny or just Fanny. Fanny is a family doctor turned into an intimacy and pleasure coach dedicated to empowering women to reclaim their pleasure and orgasms and the power that comes with it because sexual power is one of the fastest way to reclaim a life that feels amazing and worth living. [LISA] After many years practicing gynecology on a daily basis, she noticed something was missing. Turns out a lot of things were missing, but most of all, feminine empowerment. Using tools and techniques from ancient tantric teachings to up-to-date scientific tools, Fanny helps people reconnect to what they truly want regarding their life and their sexuality. She’s helping people reclaim their thriving sex and fulfilling life through transformational approaches using breathwork, sex magic, crystal egg, pleasure, and sexy knowledge always in a fun and playful way. Welcome to the show, Fanny. [FANNY LEBOULANGER] Thank you. I’m excited to be here. Thank you for having me. [LISA] As I like to ask all my guests that come on the show, I like to ask you if you consider yourself a highly sensitive person or not, and if you’re not, that’s totally fine, that’s okay. Just to put some context so the audience gets to know you a little bit better. [FANNY] Thank you for asking that question. I do not define myself as highly, highly sensitive, maybe highly adaptable or adaptative, definitely. it is running in my family though, but personally I don’t feel that, I’m not sure this describes me the best way and I’m really a fan of allowing people to find themselves when with what they feel right in their bones. So I am definitely sensitive, but I wouldn’t dare to say that I am highly sensitive [LISA] Thank you for sharing that. And that is okay. You don’t have to be a highly sensitive person to be on my show. So let’s just jump right into it. Why is sexual power the highway to your fulfilling life? [FANNY] I love that question. I always like to start with something, reminding us that sexual energy is literally the life creating energy and the context around us, the mainstream media, the patriarchy around is really trying to compress, to make other sexuality feels like something that is not our own, that is owned by men or owned by the media, or really that doesn’t belong to us. So when you cut women from this source of life energy, then it’s really hard to feel alive, let alone to have a fulfilling life. So in my opinion, reconnecting to the sexual power, which is what brought us here, is the highest favor you can do to yourself because then you get into your body, your true essence, and when you get that, you can get a fulfilling life more than a life living from our heads. It’s really a challenge to go for that. [LISA] What is challenging about that? [FANNY] First, because the world around us has two things. First, it is living in, we are living in our head on a regular basis. So that’s the first part, like actually saying, and it requires courage and being brave to say, hey, I want to do things different and also with all that is around the sexuality, the shame that is around the conditioning, that is around. This is always an act of courage more than being difficult. It’s really like an act of courage, I think being an advocate for things, wanting to change in a way. [LISA] Okay, so as I listen to you describe this, and you can let me know if this is right or not, so going back to like sexual power and like for women having to like unpack it or like lay the, or peel back the layers of the onion to really get into or get to know themselves and their core and I’m wondering if there’s more to the word sexuality than this, the word and related to the word sex. [FANNY] Of course, definitely. It’s really something that has, that is going on in our world about sexuality being all around sex. But sexuality is about building relationship, of course, with others, but with yourself as well. Sexuality in my opinion, is everything that helps you reconnect to that true essence, that sexual power. In the ancient tradition, they call it [inaudible 07:21], so sexual power because it’s your life force. So in my opinion, whatever revolves around that, and I would dare to say whatever revolves around pleasure, around aeros, life force is about sexuality. Sexuality is about the practices, it’s about the people and it’s also, it really can have a spiritual aspect of it in a sense because you’re connecting to something bigger, you’re connecting to your life essence, your life power. This is all that sexuality can bring you. [LISA] Can you give an example of what that would like, feel like or look like in a woman’s life? [FANNY] The best example I have is mine because I’ve been so disconnected from my own sexuality for a long time and I didn’t feel life. I was going from one day to another, living in 52 shades of gray, but not in a sexy way, just everything feeling blur and feeling gray, feeling tasteless, wondering is life, just this this supposed to be this? What it brought me, and I do want to point out how scary it was at first reconnecting to this sexual power of mine, reclaiming my pleasure, which is still a work in progress, helps me really recommit and meet again this sense of feeling alive, of allowing myself to feel inside, to feel happiness and to feel sadness and to feel joy and to feel anger. I truly believe sexuality and healing your sexuality and reclaiming your sexual power is the best way to start to feel it all and, in my opinion, feeling it all is why we’re here, why we are here and we’re here to live. [LISA] Do you feel like there’s a revolution going on in let’s say like feminine power to, or for women to reclaim their sexual power or is this something else happening in the world today? [FANNY] Oh yeah, and I love that and I love how all of us are, because we’re talking about those topics and everything. We’re doing a freaking great job. There is a, shouldn’t be a lot of things, sorry, to the things left to do, but we are doing a great job. One, women or one people who identify as women after each other, this revolution is on and that’s why the system is trembling because we’re changing it and change can be messy. [LISA] How can other women or men help women reclaim their feminine empowerment? [FANNY] Hmm, good question, thank you. If it’s about helping the others around you, I see two things. First, do your own job because when you do your job, you irradiate what you are doing and people around you are like I want what she has, not in an envious way, but with a, wow, this is inspiring way. The other helping others to do the same is provide space, share the experience and share the ups and downs because every journey is a combination of peaks and vales and setbacks and everything, so share that and also be available to hear about people’s experience, share advice if it is needed and if it is accepted from the person in front of you, just showing up without judgment, without trying to model the person in front of you what she’s going through or anything not trying to fix change nor have an opinion or on the journey this person has, is in my opinion, the best way to change things. Just showing up for each other, radiating our own journey so that we can inspire and also respect the rhythm of everyone, each other rhythm. [LISA] I love that. Like as you said before, change is hard. I’m wondering like if men are willing to accept that change in women, does that feel like a threat to them or what has that been for you or your experience with that? [FANNY] In my opinion, there are way many more men that are ready for that than we expect. The only thing is that the one who are not ready are the one who are at the top. But like any big change, the change has to come from within. I love the butterfly caterpillar metaphor, how if you end up for any reason breaking the cocoon where the caterpillar is in, then it will not survive because it needs the strengths from inside of becoming a butterfly to shine and to fly. So the change will come from within, which is why we need each other. We need to and support each other more than judging each other and having opinions. But I do feel things are changing and in a good way, it’s just that it’s easier to focus on what’s going wrong than focus on what’s going right and of course we have a lot of work to do still, but when you take the time to notice where we are coming from. We are doing a really good job and we deserve to high-five ourselves too. [LISA] I love that. What is the first thing that you do with a client or patient that comes in to see you regarding this topic? [FANNY] I always like to hear about the story and it depends. I have two separate practices, the one with my patients and the one with my coachees because I’m answering the same challenges like in a medical perspective and as a coaching perspective. So when I see people as coachees then we focus on what they truly want. Usually, we notice that and we feel that and we meet that after some explorations, because I hope, and I think I’m sure I’m not the only one thinking I want something and if I dig deep down, turns out it was not what I wanted. So there is this first part of, yeah, exploring, digging and seeing what the coachee actually truly wants. Then my favorite exercise I practice in session is called the integration adventure, where meeting the pieces of what we call the body mind. So the exercise I often practice with my coaches is what I call the integration adventure, when we go into journey of meeting the parts of them that know, that holds the conditioning and we can help release them with exploring the story that is going on. I love this body mind concept. I’ll touch about it again in a second, but there’s that and the first exercise that almost every one, every of my coaches get is breast massage, because breasts store so much energy without us being conscious of it because our breast protects are heart because our breasts are so much charged with male gains and also female gains and also our own. So it’s a really easy way to start to help people start reconnecting to that, to their feeling, to who they’re inside before when they are not ready to, hey, let’s have a party with your clitoris today. [LISA] Can you say more about the body mind connection? [FANNY] Oh yeah, thank you. So the body mind is what is at the intersection of your body and your mind. You would have guessed that. I say that the body, you have feelings and sensations in your body. So maybe I am cold, I am hot, my hand is pushing something or my knee is bent and on the other side you have your mind with the thoughts and everything. And there is an intersection in the middle of something that speaks with sensations but not the usual one. They are more subtle so they can be a little pressure or tingling or a little expansion or compression, some warmth, but not really hot or cold, subtle sensations that are basically a manifestation of something that has been in your mind for a long time. So like I give an example, for a lot of us, we have shame in our heart, in our hearts or around our voices. So it can be like a small pressure in the throat, for example, things like that. This is the meaning of what’s my body, what’s my mind and the beauty is because it’s at the intersection, you can work with both. [LISA] I often hear working with clients having that, as you described, that sensation in the throat and it can be so uncomfortable and it’s like the throat is blocking something to be released and it can feel like a knot or some block in the throat. But that stops the person from allowing them to express their feelings and that can go so far back into childhood [FANNY] Or even before. [LISA] Yes. What do you mean, even before, before what? [FANNY] It depends if you’re into them, if you believe in past lives or anything. It’s just that it can go into childhood, but it can go even before that, things that have been passed upon you, like family and heritage, you having trouble to speak because there is a secret in your family that hasn’t been told. So someone is ending up being born with an issue on the vocal chords or anything. I really do feel that these body mind pieces really can be impactful sometimes in a good way and sometimes in a less good way. [LISA] Have you ever oh, you don’t have to share this or not, but have you come across someone that had throat issues or had maybe some other issue that was holding the “family secret,” maybe not in the present family, but in a past family life? [FANNY] Yes and no. Not specifically about the throat. Although you could argue that the pelvic floor and the throat diaphragm are really in conversation with each other. So if you have an issue with your pelvic floor, it might have something to do with your throat as well. The beauty of the integration adventures and the coaching tools we use is how we actually don’t need the story. We just need the sensations to complete the stress cycle. In my opinion, completing the stress cycle, which means allowing your body to do the, to do what it needs to do at a moment. So for example, if you have been, if someone is looking, yelling at you or anything and you want to yell back, but for some reason you can’t, then when you come home after that, it’s a great idea to just stay in your car and yell because you don’t want this anger repressed into your system. So if you honor that, if you complete that stress cycle, then it feels better into your whole system. You feel more spacious, you have more energy, et cetera. I’m saying that because when you release the stress cycle without trying to understand the story, then what is in your pelvic floor or in your throat is released, whatever was the story behind that. That’s the beauty of it because sometimes you don’t understand, you cannot understand stories or origins of an issue. If it was a memory from when I was three, then I don’t remember it. That doesn’t mean I cannot do anything about it. I can address it just with the dressing sensations. [LISA] I love that. I like to think of it as, it’s not the story that is so much important. It’s the how the story made you feel. There’s the feeling or the sensations in our body that get trapped from whatever happened either in this life or in a past life that wants to or needs to be released or expressed in some way. Coming back to that, when we’re able to do that, that’s where that allows our feminine power like to come in from the second chakra and be released and really fully engaged in our life force energy where we feel alive, we have vitality. Life is exciting. We look forward to getting up and out of bed. [FANNY] Oh yeah. [LISA] So I have a question about if I have a X, Y, Z problem in my sex life, does that mean I’m broken? [FANNY] Hell no, hell no. That’s the message I love to share with people. You’re not broken. The game is twisted. First there is nothing wrong with where you are. There is 99% of chance that where you are is a combination of your own story and a lot of the crap that is around us, the constant injunction to change something about yourself. Like if you’re thin, get some muscle, if you’re too curvy, lose some weight or like there’s nothing, you can never be good enough. So there’s that, the constant exposure to having a perfect body or a perfect sex life or a perfect. So of course, we would feel we’re broken because if every magazine you see just screams at your face, hey, try this new technique, shoot, improve your sex life and use this one size fits all recipe that will work for everyone. As you can hear, I don’t, I’m not really a fan of that, but what’s important in my opinion is how to actually restore power to people by giving them the choice, by helping them understand that what you are experiencing is usual, but it’s not normal to feel you’re broken. Everybody feels it. This is not how we are supposed to feel and let’s cut through that shit. I’m sure there is a voice in you that is sure you’re not broken, it’s just that it’s covered with a lot of conditioning, with a lot of heaviness, a lot of tensions into your body. The beauty of addressing the body mind as we mentioned earlier, is that it brings the best of both worlds. So you can digest this conditioning through your body and when you do that, you notice how much energy it consume to maintain this unbalanced state because our nervous system is made to get back to balance. So when we maintain things fixed as intentions in our bodies or things like that, no wonder we are exhausted. So it is really, it is very usual to think we’re broken because things are not moving because we feel frozen in some states, particular states. And as long as there is movement, you are not broken, you’ll never be broken. There is no medical condition that is preventing you from experiencing pleasure, not single one. So you’re never broken. It’s just a matter of just allowing the dust that is under the rug to come out and more than that, allowing yourself to know yourself truly and actually own who you truly, truly are. I really want to point out that this is really scary to truly own who you’re, truly own that maybe you’re not interested in having sex every day and one penetration a day with a partner. That’s okay. You are not broken, the game is twisted. [LISA] How would you share that with your partner if they’re interested in having sex every day and you’re not? [FANNY] It is really, there is this part about being able to communicate our needs and also receive the needs from others in figuring something that can be some inacceptable for both parts. So maybe a penetration today is out of question for you, but is there a way to figure out some intimate relationship, just spending time with each other with essential touch, for example? Because as we mentioned earlier, sexuality is way more than sex. When you start to open up, first you notice that you might actually want it more often than what you expected. At the same helps you reclaim yes, the palette of your emotions, but also the palette of what is available, the true rainbow colors of sex and intimacy and pleasure. So yes, if you’ve been doing only sex penetration for your whole life, at some point you don’t want it, or at least not every day. You can eat the most delicious meal every day, at some point you’ll get bored with it whereas if you truly connect to what’s available, and this is an endless plate somehow. So I’m sure there is a way for the partners to agree on something and also before that, truly allowing ourselves to feel inside am I a yes or a no. Because so many of us are disconnected from what I call our self-consent. Then if we don’t know from inside, if we are a yes or a no, of course, then we don’t want anything with anyone and we numb ourself more and more. It’s really a matter of reconnecting to who you are, reconnecting to your consent, and then addressing with communication skills that are learnable to find beautiful partnership, a beautiful thing corresponds to both of you. [LISA] Do you find that with clients that they consent to having sex even though they know consciously they don’t want it to please their partner or afraid their partner may get mad and then that will create conflict or an argument and they would rather just consent than go down that road of having an argument or something like that? [FANNY] Sadly, yes, way more often that I want to. And it’s also okay to acknowledge that even with that, there is nothing wrong with you. The game is twisted. It’s because around there is this pressure that we put on ourselves that is put on ourselves that it’s really, I would even go further and say that there is this, in my opinion, there is no half consent. So if you decide to engage into an intimate play of any sort, if this is to please someone or if this is for this person to not get mad or anything, this is not consent. So you, and I say this with the kindest heart ever because it’s really hard when you are stuck in this pattern, this is not consent. So a part of you is disrespecting that, and when you disrespect your wrong consent, then you are signing up for numbness. Just the same as if you put a tampon in your vagina two or three times a day for 40 years, and even if the days are painful, you just push it anyway, how can we be, how can we expect to have pleasure? How can we expect to have pelvic that are healthy and not super tensed? So this road of allowing the sex, and as we mentioned earlier, sex can be a lot of other things, but this road of following the usual sex, just to kiss some peace or to have this person not mad or anything, it is very usual. It’s not normal, but it’s usual and it will require courage to change it because it will create change as well when you start saying no for the first time and then the second time. That’s when releasing the stress cycle we mentioned earlier could really be really helpful at that moment because when you start saying no, then all the anger of the previous time you said, yes, welcome out to the service, for example. [LISA] Wow. I see how this is all tied in together as you’re explaining it all comes back to like reclaiming your feminine empowerment. [FANNY] Yeah. [LISA] Woo, that’s a lot, just to have the courage to do that because it sounds like it can be hard to go through these stages or just to recognize within yourself what the issue is and what you’ve been maybe withholding inside yourself, holding back, and now to release that, and as you said, reclaiming your, I hear your yes too. [FANNY] There is a lot of us, oh, I’m sorry. [LISA] No, go ahead. [FANNY] I’m sorry. I just wanted to add that’s so many of us have forgotten what a true yes is. There is this default pattern around us that if we don’t say no, it’s considered a yes. If you take a second to think about it, to take the time to truly feel a yes, when was the last time you really said yes to something? Yes, I want that. I really want that. So finding back this yes, requires also to spend some time in the numbness, in the, I don’t feel anything. When we are brave enough to sit there instead of getting in our usual but unhealthy default mechanism, then we are slowly starting to heal and this requires courage and I see you in that and you’re rocking it [LISA] Yeah, and just allowing that numbness to thaw out. [FANNY] Yeah. [LISA] What are some ways to improve your sex life? [FANNY] The easiest, reconnect to your body, so start with breast massage if your own pursy scares you, then start only putting your hands on your vulva if it feels too scary and just reconnect to the touch. Then reconnect to pleasure, pleasure from the senses. So is it soft? Is it hard? Is it hot? Is it cold? The best way to improve your sex life, in my opinion is to know what you like and to know what you like you need some solo playing at some point. I like to say athletes don’t always exercise in teams. They have a lot of time working on themselves too. So yeah, exploring yourself to reclaim your self-consent, so your yes and then your no, because when you have that you can create a sex life, like looks like what you want, which is my opinion, the best best sex life ever, the thriving sex ever. [LISA] Yeah, that sounds so hopeful too. Why can’t people see results from spiritual practices like manifestation or gratitude, for example? [FANNY] I love that question because I’ve been a fan of gratitudes and affirmations. Like I have tons of notebooks around that at my house filled with them. A part of me was always wondering, so if it was working, how come we’re not millionaires? But that being said, I’m a fan of the concept of bottom to top and top to bottom approaches. So affirmations, gratitudes, and everything are what I call top to bottom approaches do you do something with your mind and then you try to add into your body and call it to your reality. There is two issues with that. If your body is still filled with tensions and nods and everything, you can try to add some water to something that is already filled, it will not work. Second, the different parts of your nervous system, there is no connection when you go from top to bottom. There is a missing link that really prevents it from happening because there is no anatomical structure to support that. Whereas if you choose the bottom to top approach, which is I am focusing onto my body, I am conflicting my stress cycle, following the sensations, breathing into them because I know they will only last 60 to 90 seconds maximum if I don’t put them into the story or the habitual or anything. So if I just follow that, then I release the tension in my body so when I release the tension in my body, I have more space to add top to bottom approaches. Most of the time in the spiritual practices that we see around the special line to the self-development thing that is going around, it’s always a matter of you’re either, it’s either a matter of mindset or surrendering. And surrendering is great, but if you want to surrender something for it to change, you need to change something. If adding something else to your mind had worked, then at least personally if it had worked, then I wouldn’t have any problems. That’s my take on it. [LISA] Oh, okay. I love that. I love that approach. That makes, it makes a lot of sense what you just said. Coming back to again, just really getting to know yourself and reclaiming yourself so you can open up yourself to new experiences and to be able to say yes instead of no to what you want in your life, not what others want in your life or want from you. Fanny, what would you like listeners to take away from our conversation today? [FANNY] You’re not broken. This is what I say the most and this is why I do the work I do, because I thought I was broken too. I ticked all the boxes, I did the studies, I did everything and then I had to get sick for things to change. The thing is, I do what I do because I want to give the message out there that wherever you think you are, whatever, how bad you feel, there is something wrong with you you’re not broken. It’s just a question of figuring out the way. The easiest way to figure the way out, to figure it is first to acknowledge that the game is twisted. It’s not your fault. It sucks, but it’s not your fault and knowing that since you’re not broken, it just requires a little bit of exploration, a little bit of patience and a lot of acceptance and compassion. Also knowing that if this is not a available at the moment, it’s okay. You can also start to tolerate yourself and stop the self-hate and stop wondering what’s wrong with you before accepting yourself. Because you can do that, you’re not broken. [LISA] Oh, I love that message. That was beautiful. Oh, thank you. Lovely, lovely message. Where can listeners get in touch with you? [FANNY] I have my own podcast available on every platform that the platform that you like, it’s called Your Sexified Life. I also have my website with the email address. If you’re more of an Instagram person, you can send me a DM at With Dr. Fanny. I would like to point out that Instagram is really more of a communication way to me than a social media thing, but I would be glad to hear from you. [LISA] Oh, great. Thank you so much. So many wonderful tips and tools and just I hear your message of telling women or people or women that you identify as women that you are ok, you are not broken into say yes to yourself because you deserve it and you matter. [FANNY] Yeah, you matter. [LISA] Thank you so much for coming on the show today, Fanny. It’s been a pleasure to have you on. [FANNY] Thank you so much for having me, and thank you everyone who share the time and energy with us today, taking the time to tune in. [LISA] Yes. Thank you, my listeners, for tuning in today. Please let me know what you thought of the episode. Send me an email to lisa@amiokpodcast.com. Remember to subscribe, rate and review wherever you get your podcast. To find out more about Highly Sensitive Persons, please go to my website at amiokpodcast.com and subscribe to my free eight-week email course to help you navigate your own sensitivities and to show you that it’s okay not to take on everyone else’s problems. This is Lisa Lewis reminding each and every one of you that you are okay. Until next time, be well. Thank you for listening today at Am I Ok? Podcast. If you are loving the show, please rate, review and subscribe to it on your favorite podcast platform. Also, if you’d like to learn how to manage situations as a highly sensitive person, discover your unique gift as a highly sensitive person, and learn how to be comfortable in your own skin, I offer a free eight-week email course called Highly Sensitive People. Just go to amiokpodcast.com to sign up. In addition, I love hearing from my listeners, drop me an email to let me know what is on your mind. You can reach me at lisa@amiokpodcast.com. This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or any other professional information. If you want to professional, you should find one.