#16: Communicating as a Couple to Feel More Connected
Practicing Love: Have the Best Love and Sex of Your Life After 40
Release Date: 03/13/2025
#43: Desire Differences: What to Do When Sex Feels Blocked or Stuck
Practicing Love: Have the Best Love and Sex of Your Life After 40
What happens when desire fades, sex feels effortful, or intimacy keeps getting interrupted by resentment, pressure, or exhaustion? In this episode of Practicing Love, I’m joined by Elana Auerbach, author of The Sure Thing: A Pleasure Practice to Revive the Spark, for a refreshing and deeply human conversation about desire differences, sensual connection, and what actually helps when intimacy takes a back seat. Rather than pushing through, fixing, or forcing desire, Elana offers a radically different orientation: pleasure as a practice of presence, intention, and safety. We explore:...
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#42: Reclaim Eros: Erotic Intelligence for Deeper Love, Intimacy, and Vitality
Practicing Love: Have the Best Love and Sex of Your Life After 40
Reclaiming eros can impact every area of your life! In this episode of Practicing Love, Shana James is joined by Erotic Wholeness Guide Darshana Avila, whose work has been featured on Netflix’s Sex, Love & goop, The Guardian, The New Yorker, and more. Together, they explore an expanded understanding of eroticism — not as performance or sexuality alone, but as the life force energy of Eros that supports your creativity, intimacy, passion, and aliveness. Darshana invites us to rethink everything we’ve been taught about erotic energy, showing how cultural...
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#41: How to Have a Deeply Connected Relationship and Ecstatic Intimacy
Practicing Love: Have the Best Love and Sex of Your Life After 40
A Conversation on Real Connection & Ecstatic Intimacy What do we actually long for in love? In this episode, Shana James is joined by Joanna Shakti, founder and facilitator of Ecstatic Intimacy, for a rich conversation about authentic connection, emotional depth, and intimacy that doesn’t require shrinking, over-giving, or shape-shifting to be loved. Joanna introduces the concept of ecstatic authenticity — the shift from hiding parts of ourselves to keep the peace, to honoring who we truly are in relationship and lovemaking. From this place of authenticity, deeper...
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#40: How Not to Get Divorced: A Divorce Coach's Keys to Stay in Love Longer
Practicing Love: Have the Best Love and Sex of Your Life After 40
On today’s Practicing Love podcast, Shana James is joined by divorce coach and NLP practitioner Rachael Sloan for a powerful conversation about how relationships break down — and how they can be repaired before it’s too late. Rachael works primarily with men navigating separation and divorce and is the creator of the Better Beyond Divorce program. Together, Shana and Rachael explore emotional regulation, conflict, boundaries, survival responses, and the unconscious patterns that couples bring into relationships. This episode is for anyone who wants to communicate more effectively, stay...
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#39: Why Communication Breaks Down in Long-Term Relationships — And How to Rebuild Connection
Practicing Love: Have the Best Love and Sex of Your Life After 40
Why does connection and communication break down in long-term relationships, even when love is still there? In this episode of Practicing Love, Shana James and Hannah Chapman explore the hidden dynamics that cause couples to talk past each other, shut down, or feel chronically misunderstood. Drawing from vulnerable relationship experiences and decades of coaching, this conversation illuminates how defensive communication forms, what matters more than “being right,” and how to rebuild connection over time. You’ll learn: Why long-term couples often repeat the same painful...
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#38: AI Matchmaking: AI Reshapes Dating for Lasting Love
Practicing Love: Have the Best Love and Sex of Your Life After 40
Dating feels brutal for so many relationship-ready singles, especially over 40. In this episode, Shana James talks with Adam Cohen Aslatei, CEO of Three Day Rule, about how AI is reshaping modern matchmaking and how AI makes it easier for people to date and find real, emotionally available love. They explore dating burnout, why the apps are failing people, the power of intentional dating, and how AI can even support deeper human connection. A must-listen for those who want to stop unconsciously swiping and start consciously dating and creating meaningful relationships. Music...
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Why Passion Fades in Relationships: How to Ignite and Reignite the Spark
Practicing Love: Have the Best Love and Sex of Your Life After 40
Passion doesn’t fade because “that’s just what happens.” Passion fades because couples are missing a few essential skills. When you learn them, you can create spark and reignite it in long term relationships. In today’s video, I break down some deeper reasons passion fades in long-term relationships and marriages, based on 20 years as a dating and relationship coach and the teachings from my book Honest Sex.
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#37: How to Heal Attachment Wounds and Feel Safe in Love
Practicing Love: Have the Best Love and Sex of Your Life After 40
How do you have a relationship that feels peaceful and loving, rather than feeling like a rollercoaster? In all phases, from dating to long term relationships, this is something clients tell me they want most. Therapist and author Jessica Baum joins me to explore why safety is essential for real love, and what the foundations of a healthy relationship are. We dive deep into attachment theory, nervous system regulation, and the biology of trust, exploring how early attachment wounds shape your adult dynamics, and usually not for the better. You’ll learn what healing requires, and how to...
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#36: You Don’t Have to Be the Hero: The Shift from Overgiving to Real Love
Practicing Love: Have the Best Love and Sex of Your Life After 40
We explore what happens when being “the one who saves” starts costing you connection with yourself and others. Brent Perkins joins me to unpack how overgiving and self-abandonment can masquerade as love, and what it really takes to move from trying to be the hero to letting yourself be human. You'll learn to give without depletion, create agreements instead of expectations, and practice the art of receiving love as fully as you give it. Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):https://uppbeat.io/t/prigida/burbleLicense code: WGWRQANBJDWAVVM6
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#35: How to Rebuild Trust After Betrayal
Practicing Love: Have the Best Love and Sex of Your Life After 40
Trust can break in small ways, or shatter completely. Craig and Michelle Pera, founders of The Mindful Habit, join us to talk about how they help couples navigate trust challenges — from minor breaches to sex and porn addiction. Drawing on their professional experience, and own healing journey, they give you practical tools to rebuild trust, deepen connection, and restore intimacy in your relationship. Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):https://uppbeat.io/t/prigida/burbleLicense code: ELRUV6G8JHUP8JAW
info_outlineWhile there are overlaps, communicating as a couple is different from communicating at work or with family. In a couple, in addition to building trust and respect, you have to help someone feel so safe with you that they will be vulnerable with their emotions and their body! Today's guest shares the most important communication skills for couples to keep their relationship connected, that also work in the dating phase.
Find out how to have the best love and sex of your life!
Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/prigida/burble
License code: 15Q3WZOTKSNA4MJM
Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/prigida/burble
License code: JYEBEACXSYUOYD5E