Episode Transcript
0:00
Welcome to the Fully Expressed podcast with Karenna.
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I am your podcast host, Karenna Soto.
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And this is a show where we have conversations that invite you into your fullest express life and relationships and business.
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Hello.
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Hello, welcome to today's episode.
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You get me today a little solo sesh.
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And I was thinking before getting record on this podcast episode, what's been really, really present for me?
0:25
I want to kick things off because, you know, as for the month of July, we've been doing everything around relationships and something that has been really sitting with me has been the importance of sharing how you feel, how you feel like the good that you feel in relationship.
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And then so I'm going to kick things off with just a quick little five minutes about what's been present for me and what I've been noticing when it comes to relationship as well as I'm going to dive into the importance of structure and intention when it comes to relationships.
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So let's dive into what I've been noticing in a relationship.
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And I think this is also very vulnerable to do.
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So, one thing that I have found is just going that extra mile and sharing how you feel about someone, especially when you have a really good experience with them.
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So I remember, you know, something over the last couple of years that I've really started to lean into and I know it's vulnerable because it's like putting myself out there.
1:24
But let's say I'm meeting someone new and in my life and this could be a friendship, a business partner, a relationship.
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And if I am feeling really good about our connection, our experience, our time together, I will vocalize that and express that immediately with my time with them.
1:43
So one of the things that comes up to mind, I was actually at the University of Wisconsin Madison and one of the other speakers were there.
1:50
And I vividly remember like being hesitant to meet up with her, not because I didn't want to meet up with her, but like we were going to meet up for dinner and at dinner, I didn't know if I had the capacity to go out to dinner after spending the entire day at the conference.
2:04
And after speaking and putting myself out there, we spent a lot of energy and by the time we went to dinner, we met up at this little creek spot and sitting at this little Greek restaurant.
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All of a sudden we start talking and I loved her.
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I remember just in the moment being like, wow, I'm so happy that I'm here.
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I'm so glad that I came to this dinner that I came to spend time with her.
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And as the night went on as our walk home, I ended up telling her I was like, thank you so much for meeting me for dinner.
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It really surprised me how good I felt to be there with her.
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And I told her that right away and then we texted a little bit and I was like, seriously, thank you so much.
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I had such a great time in the past.
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I probably would have been a little bit more timid to say that on the very first, basically date or the first time meeting someone.
2:51
But I've gone to this place where I think it's so important for us just to share how we're really feeling and not even just the hard I'm talking about sharing the good sometimes that can be really scary when it comes to relationships is like saying like, wow, I really like this person or wow, I'm feeling really connected or I really have a good time because it can essentially put your heart on the line and you're telling them, hey, I really like this and there's an absolute chance that they may not feel the same, they may not actually have the same experience as you.
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And the truth is it's so important for us to honor what our experience is in the time because one, it's our truth, right?
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We're expressing the part of us that is here and two as vulnerable it is to go first.
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Like I know that most of the times, like 80 90% of the time, if you're feeling some kind of amazing connection and things are going so well and you genuinely feel that way the other person is going to say, wow, I really had a good time.
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Ive been practicing this in every kind of relationship and Ive even been practicing it even more in my friendship.
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So for example, I just yesterday, I got time to spend time with one of my best friends from high school and, and spending time with her and spending time with her and her husband and her son afterwards.
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I got really emotional and I was, and so I communicated to them like how emotional I was to see them, how nice it was to see them, what it meant to meet.
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If you see them, I put my heart out there and I told them that and, you know, I think we forget how important it is to provide that kind of feedback and that kind of feedback in relationship is I said, valid.
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And what I've noticed through practicing this, whether that is in friendship, business partnerships or my romantic relationship with Nick, it solidifies my experience.
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It allows it gives myself permission to feel that fully.
4:53
It allows me to be present with how I'm feeling with those moments.
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And so I'll continue to say this, I'll continue to share this and I even have friendships where I hang out with and have been a part of my life for quite some time.
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And we have so many memories together and every time we create a new memory that feels really good, I just tell them how much I love them.
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And I just re anchor that because I think the more that we share it, it goes such a long way, the way that this can show up in anything is even like the smallest shifts of like sending someone a handwrit card and acknowledging the big moments that they have in their life.
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I remember when I was going through a hard time and I had a lot going on, I had to sit back and take care of myself.
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So I really didn't have the capacity to acknowledge everyone's big moments or remember to send them a handwrit card or send them a text message.
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And now that I'm in a place where I really do have a very regulated nervous system and I'm able to give without feeling depleted because I have my boundaries in place and everything like that.
5:56
It just feels really, really good to show up for people in that way.
6:00
And we with how much pain we have in our world today and how much hurt there is out there telling someone how much you love them, telling them how much you loved and experience with them, telling them how much you loved a conversation that you guys had together or telling someone how someone made you feel like reflecting that back and being that mirror to someone is so healing for them.
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But it's really yearning for healing for us to validate our own experiences.
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And it just creates this little puddle of love between you and another person.
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And I just want to invite you to lean into that this week as you guys start your week, as you guys continue into the summer time.
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Like right now we're in the middle of summer and summer is where we have so many opportunities, events, connections, birthdays, weddings, opportunities to play.
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We have so much more energy and you can get caught up in doing other things.
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But I just reminding you to get presents with your experiences and really tune in to the ones that feel really good and acknowledge them, say them, share them, express them.
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So thanks for listening to my little rant.
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I knew that's what I was really on my heart today.
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And I also knew that it wasn't going to be a long enough episode because as you can see, that's only already about like five minutes, seven minutes in at most.
7:18
And what I really want to talk about today as we continue on this topic around relationships for the month of lie, is structure and intentionality and why is structure and being intentional in relationship and romantic relationships specifically very important.
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So last week, if you got a chance to listen, Valerie Adams came onto the podcast and we talked all about what it meant to call in a high quality man, what it really meant to start dating and calling in your person.
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And it was awesome.
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It was so great.
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And now I kind of want to take it into like, let's say you're, you're in dating season, right?
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You, you've been past the honeymoon, you've been in your relationship for six months, a year, two years, maybe your relationship still feels like the honeymoon.
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I truly believe that we can still feel as connected as we do throughout the entire partnership.
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That's a whole thing.
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But I think a lot of that has to do with the fact of being intentional and structured in relationships.
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So a lot of the times we, when you first kick off your new partner, your new relationship with someone, it can feel so exciting, so easy to like, want to see them all the time, so easy to play dates, so easy to be intimate because there is this like mag magnetism that's going on between the two of you.
8:35
There's, there's chemistry, there's this literally this polarizing po between you two because you guys are being pulled towards each other and wanting to see each other, which is a part of the magic when you find someone that you love and feel connected to and have this aliveness between you two.
8:51
And then as you guys continue in the relationship, it can get so easy to get stuck into the routines or get caught up in life.
8:58
And the truth is we have a lot of life and when I say we have a lot of life, we have a lot of things going on in our lives.
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We have our romantic partners.
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We have our best girlfriends, we have our guy friends, we have our business relationships, we have our passions, our careers, our hobbies.
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And if you are living your fullest expressed self, you're putting out out there and expressing yourself in all the ways that you are searching for and that make you feel vital, you're prioritizing your health and you're prioritizing your, your hikes and things like that.
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And so it's so easy to get caught up in all these other things and it's so easy to also drop the ball on your romantic partnership because all of these other things can take precedence.
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And you know, I'm a huge advocate for finding ways with the yes.
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And like, I truly believe that we can show up where the priorities are a priority to us and our partner.
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And so the reason why structure and intentionality is so important and the way that this can look up for you guys in a relationship, I'm gonna give you a few examples.
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So the very first example that I want to talk about is the importance of scheduling dates and scheduling dates.
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It's so easy to be like, oh, let's just go on a quick date or leaning into your partner to schedule the date for you or whatever.
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But as you guys get into your routine, I want to remind you that, you know, really create some structure into your week.
10:26
Find out what kinds of date nights you guys are going to have is it, is date night, every single Friday is date night on Sundays and or during the week sometimes or do you schedule your date nights on Sundays for the week as you guys look ahead.
10:41
So really finding a way to support the kind of relationship that you want, you know, dates are not only just going out for dinner or going out to a new concert or experiencing something new together.
10:55
This can also be like dating, you know, scheduling sex dates, which I wanted to dive in a little bit deeper in today.
11:02
So when we talk about sex, when we talk about intimacy, I think there is this alluring thing to adventure and spontaneity.
11:11
Like I remember like, I always wanted to just be lifted off my feet the minute that we walked in the door or as we're going to bed, like, you know, really craving for that powerful move of like, oh, now we're going to just make love and, and have sex and be intimate with one another.
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And I think a lot of that's much easier to tap into when you are in the early stages of your relationship.
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And the truth is because you guys are so drawn together.
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There's this chemistry, there's this sexual lust and arrive for one another.
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But when you really get into a relationship, it's so important to schedule sex dates.
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And the truth is, it's like we, especially if you live and you do a lot of life.
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One of the most important key things to having a very intimate and loving and present and deep experience is being able to be present and regulated in your body and really having a regulated nervous system because the more regulated and present you are with yourself, the more regulated and present, you aren't with pleasure, the more regulated and present you are with your partner, with the emotions, the experience, the deeper level of intimacy that you can reach with your partner.
12:28
And the reason why I say being able to plan dates around this, it's like when we're living in such a fast paced world and if you live in the United States, there's always something to do and it's so easy to get stuck in the rut of like we're just going to have sex before bed, which could end up feeling like vanilla or I don't want to use the word vanilla, but just can feel like the same sex all the time.
12:51
And if you are grieving or anything or ever wanting to have these more passionate, powerful sexual experiences.
13:00
We've got to be intentional with it.
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And this is something that I've learned in my own partnership with Nick, you know, like we get tired and then come nine o'clock, like we want to go to bed.
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And so if we really want to be intimate and have this very intimate, high, passionate long sessions of intimacy, we have to plan it, we have to schedule it in.
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There's nothing wrong with that.
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And as I did that, I stepped into it like I did come up against these parts of me there.
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I'm like, well, I don't want to have to plan it.
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I just want it to happen.
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And the truth is none of us are living regulated enough to, for it to happen all the time like that, not all of us are living in our bodies all the time.
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Not all of us are being able to create these like polarizing experiences and relationship all the time because just the way that life is.
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And so we got to be more intentional.
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And I want to invite you into adding that intentionality, adding that structure into your day, really doing that, something that we've loved and buying.
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And I buy this book for my friends because it's the best book ever I bought.
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It's called this Sex Adventures Book by the Adventures Club, I believe.
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And it's called Adventures In Bed.
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And I'm going to drop the link and make sure to send it to you guys.
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So please look at the show notes because I could be wrong.
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But I love this book because it's very specific sex date books.
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And it allows you to explore your sexuality.
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It allows you to explore new things that are maybe a year or doing something different.
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And so I love this book because it aligns with the structure.
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It allows being intentional.
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It allows with scheduling a sex date and when you schedule a sex date, you can choose one of these dates.
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And within the book, its so great because lets say you wanna allocate an hour, you want to allocate 15 minutes, you want to allocate a nine hour day like a whole day towards creating this sexual tension between you and your partner and you choose these dates and every single date is different and it's so fun because you can pair this kind of structure in your relationship, whether that is with scheduling just regular dates or sex dates and just really upping the intentionality.
15:11
And I just want to invite you all to be open to that kind of intentionality.
15:15
I know we all so deeply desire to flow and surrender and just let things happen and the natural way of being however, in relationship like we need in ourselves, we all need the masculine.
15:27
We all need that masculine structure to allow permission to flow.
15:31
And by putting these little things in place, it helps you create more intentionality and it helps create for more flow and more surrender and more of those yummy experiences that you're so deeply craving to continue to experience in your relationship.
15:48
You know, like when I think about relationship, I think about wanting to have the most passionate, deeply connected intimate relationship for the next 80 years, your girl is not trying to turn off my sex drive.
16:03
I am looking for depth and expansive and energy and just passion and zest in my relationship.
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And I know that the only way that I can do that is if I have the container to support that and this kind of structure is going to create the container to support that.
16:19
Another thing that I have talked about pretty frequently is these conscious dates or check ins with you and your partner.
16:27
And it's again when we were in life and there is a lot of life in going on.
16:32
It can get so easy to like not check in, in on your partner and just move through the motions or move the things really quickly and forget to check in, forget to be present and see what's going on and get in the same habits of working through things in the same way, which may or may not be supportive at the end of the day.
16:48
To be honest, like the way that you're handling it, the way that you're navigating it, the way that you guys are meeting each other may not be what you fully need or may not be what the other person needs.
16:56
And so I started implementing these like conscious states, which I've talked about so much over the last couple of years, I was inspired by Samantha Skelly.
17:05
I'm so open about that.
17:06
I've created this guide actually for conscious states and it really gives you a really beautiful structure to fully reviewing your relationship being present with what is asking yourselves?
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Like, how can I support you?
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What came up for you this week?
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How did I not see you?
17:25
Let's talk about sex, let's talk about finances.
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Let's talk about our futures together.
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Like what's happening in the next year.
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What's happening in the next three years?
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What's happening in the next five years?
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So you guys are always in this synchronistic dance together.
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And when I started these dates with Nick, we did them every single Sunday.
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We would choose a coffee shop and we would have just so much fun just talking and connecting.
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Sometimes the dates lasted us four hours.
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Sometimes the dates only were like an hour depending on what we wanted to talk about as we got used to it.
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We were able to work through really quickly.
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And we love them because again, it's just a beautiful opportunity to review what's going on and what you want to call in in your relationship.
18:08
And now it's really evolved to recently and the most recent times in our life is like, we're in a place where we're both putting a lot of energy into our businesses.
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We have a lot going on.
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We're moving soon.
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We just got engaged.
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We're planning a wedding.
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And so I don't think we need four hours on a Sunday to dive into everything.
18:27
But what we have been doing is like every single Sunday on our nightly walks with Kinni, we'll check in on our businesses, then, then we'll check in on our relationship and we'll set intentions for our business and our relationship this week and then we'll do like a little check in midweek and just check in with each other and see if like, we're hitting our intentions, the goals and allowing ourselves to check in which I think is, has been so beautiful and so necessary to bring that structure back in.
18:54
Because without the structure it, you'd feel like you're, you're on the same cycle, right?
19:00
You're, you're living the same life, you're waking up every single day and you're probably like, well, if you do every single Sunday and Wednesday, that's like doing the same thing every single week.
19:09
I hear you.
19:10
And depending on what's important to us that Sunday that, that we can look different, but we're getting really clear on what that looks like and what we need to call in.
19:19
And I really think that this kind of structure or just creating these little different types of structure in our relationship is going to help us and navigating the transitions and the different seasons that we go in our lives.
19:32
And so what you can do in your relationship, because the truth is when you're navigating two different people in relationship, those are two human beings, two human beings having their own experiences, their own parts of them, coming up their own process when it comes to integrating the transition, the season that you're going into in your relationship and without the structure to meet each other there in that and like, truly check in with each other.
19:55
It's so easy again to drop the ball on one another, to fight to, to cause tension or with things going unsaid just because life is busy and life is fast.
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We've got a lot going on and you know, this is an opportunity to stop and pause and really check in and be present.
20:15
I think this is the kind of structure that we need in relationships.
20:19
So to summarize the structure of the three different points, one is being really intentional with dates being intentional with oring into your relationships, being intentional with date nights being intentional with your sex dates and what you're going to plan for your sex dates.
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What do you want?
20:37
You know, like, oh, I could talk about sex all day long, but it's, it's such a beautiful intimate piece.
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And when you learn to communicate what you want and set up those times for yourselves to dive deeper, you will expand in your relationship, which is awesome.
20:53
And then the last thing is really creating those conscious dates, those opportunities to check in with yourself.
20:58
Just like you check in with your business, you check in with yourself and yes, we can be resistant to this structure.
21:04
And I want to reframe that and show you like if you have a structure and you have these lines, these boundaries, this intention with that structure, with that intention, you can color in between the lines, any color you want, you can mix different shades, you can do whatever you want because you're flowing, you know, and as the feminine, we love to flow, we love to surrender.
21:32
There's something very peaceful and being in that, it creates special experiences when we are in the present of flow.
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But we need structure.
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And so this is such a beautiful way to structure your relationship.
21:47
And again, structure is going to lead to more expansive and deeper connections in your relationships.
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If you set them up that way, and I want to invite anyone that's either going to be in relations that's craving to call in a relationship or that it is in a relationship and you just found yourself in a routine or you found yourself just going through the flow and just going up every day.
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Or you know, if someone asks you to go to an event, you go the event and you show up to those things and life is good.
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I'm not saying that life has to be bad.
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But if you're searching for a deeper connect with your partner to like really connect, be alive, to feel good, start to implement these kinds of structure into your life because through structure, the rest of it will fall into place.
22:33
So thank you so much for listening to this week's podcast episode.
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I am Karenna Soto your podcast host.
22:39
And I want to quickly invite you to check out the fully expressed community.
22:44
So if you've been listening to the podcast for a while, the fully expresseded community, we meet every single Wednesday, the second Wednesday, every single month at 5:30 p.m. PST.
22:52
I am so excited to continue to be with the woman in that group.
22:57
Like the last few calls have felt so special.
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And if you're a listener of the podcast, I really think that you would be such a great fit for the community and the community is going to continue to grow and we are in a place where we need sisterhood.
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You know, we need connection, we need support, we need encouragement, we need check in and we get to do that by putting ourselves in their rooms that create that space for ourselves.
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So I just want to invite you to check out the Felix for community.
23:28
If you have any questions, you can send me ad M at the Fully Expressed podcast on Instagram and you'll find that there and just keep an eye out for next week's episode.
23:38
We're going to wrap up the month of July when it comes to relationships and then August is feeling like a little free following for me.
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So we're going to lean into just my fullest express version express and just letting myself channel whatever needs to be said.
23:54
So we're going to have structure within the freedom of flow.
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So the intention for August is going to be to be fully expressed.
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We're going to have a couple guests to come on and talk about being your fullest expressed self through different modalities.
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I'm going to allow myself just to speak whatever is channeling and through my heart and my mind and opening up the floor and then inviting some guests on.
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So keep your ears and eyes open to what August is coming around.
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And if you have appreciated any of the episodes or any episode, I truly invite you into just leaving us a review.
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It's so important to leave us a review whether on Spotify or Apple podcast so that we can get this podcast out there to more people.
24:36
And I am sending you so much love as you go into your week and thank you so much for listening.
