Taking Sexy Back with Dr. Alexandra Solomon

Dr. Alexandra H. Solomon is a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Northwestern University and a licensed clinical psychologist at The Family Institute at Northwestern University. She has written many books on marriage and family. Her most popular books are "Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Get the Love You Want" and "Taking Sexy Back: How to Own Your Sexuality and Create the Relationship You Want."

Dr. Alexandra also does speaking events for groups such as the United States Military Academy at West Point, Microsoft, and The American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy. In these groups, she is frequently asked to talk about love, sex, and marriage. She has also been on media outlets such as The Today Show, O Magazine, The Atlantic, Vogue, and Scientific American.

Today, we have Dr. Alexandra on the show to discuss various areas of a relationship, such as the topics listed below.

Key Topics Discussed:

-Why we apologize and why it's difficult to admit we're weak.

-Defining what "relational self-awareness" and how to put it into action in our own lives: "The idea of relational self-awareness, which is the idea that in order to create a healthy, intimate relationship, the tools and the strategies are important, that's for sure, but it starts with my relationship with me and my willingness to be on an ongoing journey that is guided by compassionate curiosity about looking at what my intimate partnership stirs up. And reflect back to me about myself. "

-What does it mean to have interdependent relationships?

-What is the golden equation of love? "The golden question of Love is 'My stuff, plus your stuff, equals our stuff in order to understand any pain point in the relationship, whether it's something big, like infidelity or something, little like a fight about the toilet paper roll. We have to be willing to look at how my stuff, plus your stuff equals our stuff because otherwise what we end up doing is getting stuck the way we know we're not. Using the golden equation of Love is when we get stuck in either blame or shame."

-How to identify what seven traps and seven reaches look like and how to build more reaches for a healthy relationship.

-What does it mean to listen with our third ear and how does that help with building relationships? "Listening with the third ear is really about holding space, like becoming the bowl, the container for our partner's words, and our partner's experiences. It's really trying to understand it from their perspective, leaving out and try as best we can to leave out the filters that we bring in and to leave out the desire to formulate what we're going to say next while our partner is saying what they're saying"

-Explaining more of how the process goes for "name, connect, and choose" within rational self-awareness or sexual self-awareness.

-How do we call a truce to end the war with our bodies and how we feel about them during intimacy: "The way we end the war is with some pushback and no more. Like, no more. And no more doesn't mean, 'I'm not ever going to have the thought again', but no more means, 'I'm going to commit that when those thoughts start to come up, I'm going to meet those thoughts with compassion, resistance, redirection, and entitlement, entitlements, or pleasure, entitlement to comfort, entitlement, to joy'."

-The nine areas in the map of sexual or sexual self-awareness.

Dr. Alexandra's three truths about love that she lives by:

It's okay to not know.
Things are hard because they're hard, not because we're broken or dumb or silly
There are things we can't see or figure out all right now.

Dr. Alexandra's best relationship advice:

"In terms of a guiding principle to me is that the two of you aren't always going to like each other at the exact same amount at all times. There can be fear in both spots. If I'm aware that I'm more into you than you are into me, that can create tremendous vulnerability, and it can be really frightening and anxiety-provoking. If I'm aware, then a bit less into you right now than you are into me, that can create similar feelings of resentment and questioning, but that's normal."

What does Love Intently mean to Dr. Alexandra:

"Just knowing that it's work and it's absolutely the best work. The research though is the thing that matters most in the quality of our lives is the quality of our relationships, specifically our intimate relationships. And so, when we love intently, by learning and by practicing, it's the most important work we can do."