The Sex Reimagined Podcast

Maya Kova: Stop People Pleasing - Why Women Lose Their Voice When They Fall in Love (And How to Get It Back) | #148

• Leah Piper and Dr. Willow Brown • Season 3 • Episode 148

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What if the most powerful tool for feminine pleasure has been silenced for centuries? Many women are trapped in a devastating cycle: they fall in love, then systematically disappear—sacrificing their desires, dimming their light, and losing their voice for the sake of relationship harmony.


WHAT WE’RE DIVING INTO

  • Why "compromise" is actually killing your relationships (and what to do instead)
  • The magic of speaking the conversation underneath the conversation
  • How to say "no" without guilt (yes, really!)
  • Active listening that actually works when emotions are high
  • Standing in your power while staying heart-centered


LINKS & RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE CAN BE FOUND ON THE WEBSITE


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AWAKENING THE GODDESS IN CRETE! Leah & Willow want to take you on an all-woman's tantric pilgrimage to Greece Oct 5-12, 2025! Join us for a trip of lifetime. 

LAST 10x LONGER. If you suffer from premature ejaculation, you are not alone, master 5 techniques to cure this stressful & embarrassing issue once and for all. Save 20% Coupon: PODCAST20. 

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Willow:

What if the most powerful tool for feminine pleasure has been silenced for centuries? Today's guest reveals how the voice holds the key to unlocking embodied liberation and why so many women have been disconnected from this primal power. I'm Dr. Willow Brown. I'm here with my amazing co-host, Leah Piper for the Sex Reimagined podcast. We are so grateful for all your wonderful likes, shares, and subscribes. Keep them coming. And today we have. A very special guest, a dear friend of ours, Maya Kova. She's a feminine embodiment specialist and a lead facilitator at the Tantra New York Institute. We're so excited that Maya's with us. She's a sensuality and love coach who helps women and couples create secure and connected relationships. She specializes in Authentic relating and embodied self-expression. And she is the creator of voice, which we're gonna be talking a lot about today. And we might touch a little bit on how she is the lead coach for the 90 day relationship, but we're gonna be talking a lot more about that in another episode with Maya and her partner.

Leah:

it is time to tune in, turn on and fall in love with our friend, our sister, our colleague, Maya Kova.

Announcer:

Welcome to the Sex Reimagined Podcast, where sex is shame-free and pleasure forward. Let's get into the show.

Leah:

Welcome Maya.

Maya:

Thank you so much for such warm welcome, and it's such a joy to be here with both of you. I love both of you dearly and. And our Tantric path definitely put an impact on my personal journey.

Leah:

Yeah, we, we've explored lots of Tantra camps together and we've danced at other workshops that have been really fabulous, that have contributed to all of our paths. Maya, I'm really curious, you know, Willow just introduced your work with the voice. And I have watched you work with women and been invited on your platform a couple of times to talk about women's empowerment and helping women heal, um, emotionally sexually, gain more skill sets energetically. Tell me a little bit about your journey to feminine empowerment. You know, what has, what have been the obstacles in your life regarding having a voice and how have you overcome them?

Maya:

Hmm. Thank you. What a great, uh, question. In relationships, I would disappear. I would fall in love. I would disappear in the love and in the man and, and I love saying, I love, love. And yet I had to look at my relationships and what happens to my core and my power and my personality when I get in close proximity to a man and start doing this polarity dance. And then go into, um, this kind of like blind conditioning of, um, sacrificing myself and thinking that compromising or stepping over my desires or my truth for the sake of relationship would make me happy in a relationship. And I had to learn that that's a myth. And it actually makes me deeply unhappy. It, uh, dims my light. It separates me from my feminine radiance and my feminine intuition and my feminine creativity and actually make me resent my partner. So nobody's winning in this template. And, um, so I created voice a year ago, May, 2024. And created voice because I realized after I've been working with women for five years, that we cannot embody our femininity if we cannot say how we feel, what we desire, if we avoid conflicts, if we fawn in conversations with authority, any kind of authority, um, like what kind of empowerment and embodiment we talking about. And then on the other side, um, how we talk because being a victim, uh, blaming other people, blaming patriarchy in all the problems that we have is also not a healthy, empowered feminine way to thrive. So I start just seeing that there is some disconnect in a modern feminine feminism where we actually don't speak. We either blow up or tolerate, and I'm like, there needs to be a different way. And, and I personally deeply connected to the topic, and I'm a student on the path myself because I know, and I've been known for avoiding conflicts and

Willow:

Mm

Maya:

not saying the truth.

Willow:

Not saying anything. Kind of like placating. Acquiescing. Yeah. I think it's so, such a common thing. Thing that people learn. Well, when you get in a relationship, there's gonna be a lot of compromise, you know? I mean, there's always gonna be some, but it's not gonna be, it doesn't have to be a lot, and you don't have to not speak your truth. It is one of the places, whenever I'm doing Somato emotional release with women always. It's almost like 99% of the time right here at the, at the throat chakra, right between the heart and the throat is where they feel the block.

Maya:

Yeah, I and I.

Leah:

Yeah.

Maya:

I just wanna say Willow, that working with you, uh, I'm sure contributed into discovering and embracing this and, uh, being on the path with Leah. I always was amazed by Leah ability to say the truth unapologetically. So, um, you both definitely contributed into, um, inspiring me to diving deeper into this work.

Willow:

Yay. I love the way the ripple effect ripples out. Now you get to help all the women who are coming to you. It's fantastic.

Leah:

I think it's interesting, especially when we're with charismatic, uh, powerful men, um, who are highly competent, um, and know what they want, how easy it is to fall into like this ancient conditioning where women have been sort of trained from generation to generation to put everyone else first. And, um, and to be very pleasing because if you're pleasing, that's how you'll get love. If you're pleasing, that's how they'll stay. Um, and so we tend to self abandon. In order to keep that relationship to feel like we're on solid ground, even though little ruptures are happening in the inside. And like you said, Maya, that can often come out sideways through like resentment through the tone of our voice, through meltdowns, through mood swings, and I remember being in a relationship where it was so based in some of that chaos and the relationship was so important to me that I often, uh, yeah, totally put myself last. Last. And then, you know, you try to be agreeable and then I would have these moments of just where I would get so overwhelmed and I would have this blow up and it would be over this thing that is so small. And in inconsequential, and my partner's going like, what is your problem? You're totally overreacting. And yeah, from the outside looking in, it probably looks like I was overreacting, but that's because I went months suppressing speaking up for myself. And also like when I would speak up for myself, I wouldn't be understood. I wouldn't be deeply listened to. It was like pulling teeth to get compassion and understanding to try to create a change. And then the worst was being gaslit on the back end of it. Now I'm the crazy one because here I am overreacting about something and then you try to have a voice and try to have a voice, and it just kind of fell to smitherenes and it took a while to navigate how to speak up sooner. How.

Willow:

I think that's a really good point you're making Leah around like, you know, I have women come to me all the time. They're like, I am communicating. I am expressing, I am saying, but still needs not being met, not feeling seen, not feeling acknowledged. Right. So then we have to dig deeper and like, well, what, what are you expressing? Like, what are you saying? Does it feel like an attack? Does it, is it not the right language for that person? Is it not, does it not relate to their core values? You know what you, you've gotta like learn communication skills. So I'm curious for you, Maya, on your journey, like at what. Point in your, in your path where you're like, okay, this is, um, like a really crucial and important piece of having a happy and healthy relationship that can sustain itself.

Maya:

Yeah. You know, when, um, couple years ago I asked my friend who has been married for several years of like, what's the most important thing in a, you know, in a committed relationship? And at that time I was not in a committed relationship and she told me. Conversations, communication, the ability to sit down and talk about your issues. And I heard that answer and in my head I was like, boring.

Leah:

Right, totally.

Maya:

Um.

Willow:

Yeah.

Maya:

then after I've been in a committed relationship, I realized how deeply important that is to, um, be able with kindness, compassion, and vulnerability to talk about uncomfortable things and completely erase the mentality. I am right and you are wrong. And that's, let's be honest, that's like the highest level of mastery. Like, I'm not there. I can have a good day where I'm there and I can have a bad day where I'm right and he's wrong. Right? So, uh, but I'm realizing the value of that because when I can sit with your pain and not make you wrong for how you handle it, that's intimacy. That's intimacy. Even more than eye gazing. I know we love Tantra and holding hands and eye gazing. But when we talk about committed relationships and what actually creates safety is that I'm not gonna be punished when I fuck up and I'm not gonna punish you when you not doing something that I desire.

Leah:

Yeah, I,

Willow:

Leo. always says, permission to fuck up. Permission to get it wrong.

Leah:

yeah. Permission to be human.

Willow:

Yeah.

Leah:

Um, you know, Alison Armstrong has a saying that I really took to heart, which is what if no one's misbehaving?

Willow:

Mm-hmm.

Leah:

What if they have a good reason for how they're reacting and when you can come from a place of like. Oh, that's right. We're all just, we're all just responding from our conditioning, which has taken decades. And everything that's happened to us is leading up to this reaction and, and no one's doing anything wrong. They're, again, permission to be human. And when you kind of stamp back from this, like, what if I'm treating this person as if they're not misbehaving, then our tone changes, right? Then the conversation has a chance to shift in our ability to listen. How do you help people become better listeners, Maya?

Maya:

Uh, I always teach, uh, listen with your whole body. Don't listen with your head, especially as a woman. Listen with your body and listen with your heart. And active listening actually begins with you noticing the tension in your shoulders. And then taking a breath or dropping your shoulders, relaxing your body. And uh, I totally get it that sometimes it's so hard when, when somebody will love, no matter who that is, a man, a child, a parent, a dear friend, uh, they upset with us, right? It's kind of like automatically we take it personally and it requires just a wisdom to. Flip into different state of like, oh, they are hurting. My task is to meet them in their pain, and it's not about me. Like, I don't have to take that on. Right? I'm meeting them there and I want to just acknowledge and active listening is, um, right. It's a coaching tool. Why it works, because when I reflect what you said, when I say Yes, that sucks. That's hard. That's unfair. It does this magic to the nervous system where you suddenly don't have to be angry and guarded it immediate. It can shift how you feel in a conversation in a second, just simply acknowledging that they are hurting. But what we usually do in a conversation, we say what you feel is wrong? Uh, you making a big deal out of it, or we start defending ourselves. And the problem with.

Leah:

Well, you did this.

Willow:

Mm-hmm.

Maya:

Yeah, and defending The problem with defending is when we defend ourselves, it's like we agreeing that it's wrong, that there's a problem, right? Versus when we reflecting how they feel. It creates an opportunity, right? For the nervous system starts shifting into your kind of like relaxing, right? Releasing and getting out of that survival mode. Then actually you can start remembering that like, oh yeah, it's not my enemy, or it's not my, I don't know, abuser or somebody I'm healing trauma with. This is actually my, my, my partner.

Leah:

I think also it gives them a chance to hear themselves when you can repeat back to them what you're understanding about what they're saying, you know, and follow up with like, do I have that right? Then they can clarify their feelings. They can give you more information. Uh, they can correct it if it's not quite what it is, and they can hear themselves, and I think then they can understand themselves better as well.

Maya:

I also have to say that, so what brought me into this work is just realizing that I need to become better at, uh, active listening when conflict happens, and I need to master to be more vulnerable. And I also need to learn to stand up for myself.

Willow:

What does that mean to you to be more vulnerable? Like, okay, so we know active listening is you say something I repeat back to you what I heard you say so that we're on the same page and, and then the conversation goes on from there. But what's this vulnerability

Maya:

So to me, in a relationship, vulnerability is conversation. Underneath the conversation I. Is what Leah said, right? We're we start fighting about something so simple, I don't know, misplaced item, garbage bag, something. There is another conversations hap happening underneath that conversation and the conversation is, I miss you, or I feel being ignored, or I'm afraid that I'm disappointing you. And that is important to name that.'cause the moment you name that it brings you, it gi at least it gives you opportunity to start talking from the heart and not from the story.'Cause we all have stories about how people. Let us down and what went wrong, I think in a relationship leading from the heart is so crucial, and yet it's so challenging.

Willow:

Hmm. I love what you're saying here because we were just on a podcast yesterday talking, and I was saying every emotion that you feel is rooted in love, because you wouldn't have the feeling of frustrated or angry or shut down or ignored. You wouldn't have a reaction to that if you didn't have care, if you didn't have love. Right. So it comes back down to love. So this is beautiful. What you're saying is like. Look, if we're in this squabble, it's because underneath it all, I, I want more of you. I miss you. I love you. I care about you.

Leah:

Yeah. This matters to me. You matter to me. I matter to me.

Willow:

exactly. Mm-hmm.

Leah:

So how do you help people get underneath, right? They're, they're presenting the story. How do you help them start to ask themselves the question, what am I, what's underneath all of this? What's really going on? What's the vulnerability that I need to sort of now tap into and get underneath the story as you

Maya:

so when I started leading voice. At the beginning when I was ready for the calls, and it's not a program, it's literally a space where women. The intention is for women to come in and practice communication, practice saying their truth. So at the beginning I was like, okay, we're gonna do this prompt and we're gonna do this technique and we're gonna do this. Like you say, you know, like how you feel and then what you need. And then I realized that actually none of that matters. What really matters is for you as a woman. Your truth. And in order for you to embody your truth, you need to find it within. You need to actually identify what is your truth. And I also noticed that then women would come to, uh, the voice classes and we would do shares. They would start talking a lot about the stories, who did what, and like, all of that. And, and I would pause them, right? And I'd be like, that's not what we interested in. Doesn't matter. I'd close your eyes, please, your hands on your heart. Take a deep breath, right? Like, what do you feel? What's your truth? What's your unfiltered truth that you may be never said? Your entire life, like what's that un unfiltered truth.

Willow:

It is so healing.

Maya:

because you will learn techniques, but none of the techniques is gonna work when you feel uncomfortable in your truth, when you not approving your truth, where you ashamed to be too much or to take space where,'cause I saw it very often, right? In Tantra, we talked so much about desire. But the truth is, even if I identified my desire. I still feel that I'm too much asking for it. It's not gonna land. You can learn the best, you know, communication technique and try to act it out, but if, if there's no space in your body to receive it. You're not gonna get it, something will happen that, that right w will, will not, uh, will not be possible for you to receive. So what I'm deeply realizing is that, um, the work that we need to do as women is to say painful and uncomfortable truth. Right? Which.

Leah:

Can you, can you give an example? Can you tell a story either of a woman that you've helped or a story from your own life that illustrates this?

Maya:

Yeah, I can, I can, uh, give two stories. One story is of a client. Um, she had a very complex relationship with her dad and, and every time she would go

Leah:

I like most of us.

Maya:

I know, I know. I'm like, yeah, every time she'd go and visit, like he would just dismiss, like he would not listen into what she's saying or he, he would make like fun that she's, and she's an artist. Like he would make fun, you know, something artistic and call it sappy or whatever. So she felt extremely, um, like dismissed and basically, you know, denied in her existence. Right? That feeling of like, I never enough and something's wrong with me. And she's been in voice and we've been working through different, um, right techniques, modalities, uh, on speaking up and, and holding your truth. And when she went, I think it was Thanksgiving to visit them and he picked her up and she sat in the car. Dad, I miss you. And that's it, and nothing else. And he get uncomfortable and change the conversation, ladi da. And then again, um, during that time, like he dismissed her and instead of getting defensive or being upset, she said what she felt in a heart. She said like, oh, like it really hurts me that you cannot celebrate this achievement that I just had at my job. And she left it at that. And the difference is that she didn't feel bad about herself. Like she was holding who she is, what she's doing in the world. And she was acknowledging right, the little girl, the hurt of not being seen. So she left. Then she came back for Christmas and he met her at the airport and gave her a warmest hug and said to her something sweet of like, I'm so glad you here, and we're so happy to see you. And she was in absolute awe because that was the, like the first time she saw an opening for a connection from him. And, and that's the illustration of, right, like in her case, instead of making him wrong or trying to fix the relationship, she just stayed in her fullness. She didn't. Deflated for the first time when she felt, um, attacked right. Or criticized by him. And that is, um, quite a big, like, I feel like that's like a, an incredible week victory for her because as women, we

Willow:

Absolutely.

Leah:

that's a beautiful example.

Willow:

really exemplifies what you, what you said earlier as like com communicating, being vulnerable and standing in your power at the same time. You know, it's, there's a, what there is is there's a, a lack of apology in it, right? She's not apologetic for her truth or the way that she's feeling, and in what that does is it takes out emotional charge and it takes out aggressive energy or, or, or, you know, you are wrong because you're not approving of my,

Leah:

Yeah, like

Willow:

ownership of what you're actually experiencing emotionally.

Leah:

It takes, it's got elegance to it. But also I can see how important being maybe in a group or working with a coach to like process this to get to it. So you can bottom line it, especially with relationships with men. Um, because what's so elegant is simply, you know, I'm sad that you can't celebrate my accomplishments. You know, she's not blaming, she's not defending, she's speaking an I statement. She's communicating very simply. I'm sad and this is why. And then, you know, you just, you can just gently leave it on the table. I. And oftentimes I love that, like there's this quietness, right? It's like, it's kind of an oh shit moment of like, you can't really argue when somebody says they feel sad, you know? Like, how are you gonna, you know, talk them out of that. I guess you could say, well, you shouldn't feel that way. But, um, to have that, that pregnant pause afterward so that someone can kind of, oh. Let me just be with that. And then, yeah, and then it inspires you actually to maybe treat a situation differently when you're on the receiving end of that communication. Hopefully.

Maya:

Yeah. Yeah, and right and the choice always by the other person and you know, by the amount of work that they have done and where they're at. I think in that case it was very helpful that she left for another month and that was kind of like the space For him to process and to sit. Uh, but she, right, like she was vulnerable for the first time. Not defensive, not upset, not hurt. She was just vulnerable. And I think this is the mastery that we need to, uh, acquire as women. How can I hold my feelings and own my feelings and calmly state them? Without making the other person wrong.'cause especially in a personal relationships, right? Like we have so many expectations for our partner, and then ideas that they need to heal all our childhood wounds as well and reparent us. And when we bring that to the table, the other person just feel the heaviness of the burden.

Willow:

Yeah, it's a lot of

Maya:

A lot of

Leah:

Yeah.

Willow:

that's not gonna make for a playful, fun, joyful relationship. There is, there is a lot of that going on though. I think, um, you know, people looking to be saved by another

Leah:

Well, I think it's human nature too. I mean, you're not gonna be in a long-term relationship and not project your childhood onto them. You're not. You're gonna project your mommy issues and your daddy issues. It's the nature and the gift actually, I think, of being in partnership. I am always going to hold the post of Matt's mom. When he is unconscious and he's stuck in pattern and he doesn't see me, he sees his mom and his reactions to the feminine through me as a reaction to where his conditioned experience first experienced women. And I think when you can just acknowledge that, like that's okay. Sometimes it's my job to go, oh, that's right. He doesn't see me. He is in the archetypical woman wound. Mother wound. And that's a ding, ding, ding to go. Let me just take a step back. Like you said my, let me just see where he is hurting. He's in a place where he doesn't trust women and he has a good reason to feel that way. And it's okay that he feels that way with me right now. Then I just have to step back and just sort of acknowledge that like I get it. This is hard to trust right now.

Maya:

Yeah. Oof. Right?

Leah:

Yeah. And I can also say, and I feel sad about that.

Willow:

And how does Matt respond when you do that? Does it knock him out a pattern?

Leah:

well,'cause I'm usually feeling, um, yeah, we take a little bit of space. Sometimes I go have a cry by myself and I don't expect him to take care of me in that cry because I know he can't. When that cry happens, he actually thinks he's being manipulated. So I just know that that's a trigger for him and it's something he doesn't trust. So I just go and have a cry by myself. I'm a, I can do that, and then he might, he may be able to sense it and then he'll come in and he'll usually, you know, go. Let's do a redo or something. And then we, we've come to, we, we both process in our own corners and then we, we come towards each other with more softness and he'll do the same with me. You know, He'll get the feeling, oh, Leah's taking, Leah's filling up all the space in this room right now. There's no more oxygen. It's all of Leah's intensity. Because that's how my system reacts when I'm in that childhood wound. He's, he knows that now. I mean, you spend enough time with each other. Hopefully you can have these kinds of conversations where it's like, Hey, this is where I go when I'm triggered. And it reminds me of this from the past. And I always tell people, like, tell your partner what you need to come back to love when you find yourself separate. What helps, what works? And so one of the things that Matt's learned about me is just to go, wow, you're really hurting right now. I really feel you hurting right now. And I'm like, that's like always the best pattern interrupt for me. I'm like, I'm, I really am hurting right now because the part of me I hate the most is the one that gets intense and can't control it. So when he acknowledges how hard that is for me, then there's a place for me to drop my dukes as I like to call him. It's like I'm no longer here to, to fight and defend because he just acknowledged that I'm in that place that is so painful.'cause I'm so afraid that my reaction is gonna create a big mess. So that's like my big story, but that's my dad reacting my whole childhood. You know, I adopted that, that that is getting better and better, but it's probably never gonna go away. You know, like I can't just say I'm gonna be this perfect person that no longer is intense. That's just not possible. So to have people who love me see that and go, it's okay. Because I, I often feel like deep down it's not okay. Like I really am not allowed to be that way in the world and no one will love me if I keep it up. So it's a really squishy thing we do in relationship. We

Willow:

still love

Leah:

over and over. Thank you.

Willow:

do it with us too.

Maya:

Yeah,

Leah:

Um, so, you know, I think, yeah, I think that's getting underneath to like the vulnerable thing and just accepting it's okay, we're gonna project our mommy daddy stuff. Can we see it eventually? You know, and then just be there for it.

Maya:

And you know what I also have to say is you have to recognize on this path, right, if you're stepping into the path of owning your truth and, um, living with other people from the place of authenticity, um, being honest and admitting, oh, I need to learn some skills. I need to learn some resilience. I need to learn some positive psychology. I need to learn some mindset. I need to learn some vulnerability, right? And, and, and if you with a partner where, right, like you clash us together, then it's an invitation for both of you. Hey, let's go and let's learn a little bit more. Let's start fighting or disagreeing in a different way. Let's educate ourselves.'cause otherwise you learn something with your parents, it's been 40, 50 years and you continue doing this. Like, what are you gonna do it for the rest of your life? Like, come on, let's upgrade how we talk about ouchie stuff so it can get more juicier and more fun. Um. And I think another piece is for women, it's so important to start standing up for yourself because for me, Leah is different. I grew up in a household where I felt that the moment there's a conflict, I actually need to go and meet the other person to bring them back in connection. And in doing that, what I do, I step over my hurt, I step over my needs. I had to kind of

Leah:

I, I had the same habit. Yeah.

Maya:

I

Willow:

guys both run the merging pattern, I

Leah:

yeah, that takes a minute to undo. Is to go, okay, I'm not gonna come rescue and sacrifice myself and always be the peacemaker. Yeah.

Willow:

Yeah.

Maya:

And I think for women, the hardest thing for us is to practice saying no. And I see this a lot in a 90 day relationship experiment. Um, where, right, like you can do anything you want with your partner and when you get a random match, if you don't wanna be matched with them, just. Tell them, and even sometimes for women to say that to a man or to say no to his invitation, that's like a major thing. They've never done it in their entire lives. And they're doing it for the first time in this 90 day relationships and they practicing with a more conscious man who not gonna take that personally. Maybe even tell them, thank you for taking care of yourself. And then it's like, what did just happen?

Willow:

Mm-hmm.

Leah:

So you live in community and I'm really curious, like how do you do this with your housemates? You know, because I know you guys really do practice consciously speaking your truth, naming your desires, and like working with basically conscious confrontation, I think. Is that what, I don't know if you would use that language.

Maya:

living in community, it's definitely a test for that because you can't stay resentful. You can't just dismiss a person, right? You can't go into your typical patterns. So there's more, uh, opportunity to practice. Um, coming back to the heart space, talking from the heart and practicing, saying things underneath. Right. Like, again, I miss you. I feel like you avoid me. I feel that I'm doing something wrong around you. Um, and, and that vulnerability, as we know, always brings, um, uh, it's a bridge, right? It's a bridge that then gives us opportunity to come closer. And I think just realizing that it's, it's like, it's so interesting. You just suddenly see from the outside of like, why am I holding onto this? Like, life is so much more abundant, rich, excited. Like, why am I holding on that? You know, somebody puts dishes to the left side of a rack and not do the, you know, it's like, like why? Um, and, and also learning for me, particularly learning to speak up, learning to ask for something, learning to maybe offer an adjustment, but in a way that, again, I don't have a charge, right? I don't come to this as like, oh my God, you're so inconvenient. Uh, or I'm upset about whatever's going on in my life, so let me just project it on. You just kind of like be mindful of like, okay, can I give an adjustment and can I go and attend to my emotions.

Leah:

Yeah.'cause I think I'm, I think standing up for yourself can be tricky because some people can hear, oh, stand up for yourself. And that means you get, you get. All the rights to complain about all the things you're unhappy about with the expectation that someone's gonna change and make you feel better. You know? So can you give some distinctions? Like where have you stood up for yourself in, in areas where like it really mattered and it was like hard to do?

Maya:

Uh, definitely in living in community, uh, made me see the pattern that I have, that if something is done not right, not the way I think I'm, I'm particularly very sensitive to being considerate. Like if somebody is not being considerate in my world, I had to see what I do. I shut down. I, but I would not say it. I just shut down. I talk to them less. I avoid them I'm trying to be out of the house more, but I'm not saying the thing. And living in community has helped me realize that that's very hard. Can I just say the thing, um, in the moment? Can I, can I say the adjustment? Um, so like, that really helped me to see that I shut down and I start separating. And also when I do that, it doesn't help my nervous system to feel considered'cause I'm isolating myself. So who's responsible for that? Me.

Leah:

That's a really good distinction. You know, audience, uh, will certainly be more observant of this in my life is, okay, oh, I'm shutting down. I'm pulling away. I'm now avoiding connection. I'm choosing isolation so that I can avoid a confrontation. It's like this. I'm gonna pull myself out. And that's a good ding, ding, ding, right of going, oh, that's right, Maya said that's a sign.

Willow:

Yeah, that's

Leah:

what do I need to find? What do I need to say?

Willow:

that's a form of protection, right? It's a form of not getting hurt further. Um, but it's also creates a block to love and connection.

Maya:

Yeah. And I love, I would say that I follow religiously in my work, the Rumi quote, that your task is not to find love, but to remove all the barriers around love that you build and created. And like, that's kinda my mission for myself and in supporting, uh, people. And with women, I want, like, I really want women to be confident in their voice and in their truth, and then be able to say it right. Where I honoring my emotions, I'm honoring my needs and I'm not leaking all over. I'm not in my victim hood and I'm not making you wrong or an enemy.'Cause when we talk from that place with man, they're not gonna hear us. They get defensive'cause man's psychology, right man. They want to win with women, they want to be praised by how they're showing up. And depending on the amount of work they have done, when that's not happening, they might get dismissive, aggressive, they might shut down. And again, that doesn't bring us that love and play and polarity

Leah:

Right. Just more separation.

Maya:

and more separation. Yeah. And one thing I wanna say, what different about voice is that, again, it's not a program, it's literally a lab. Where every week you learn different particular, um, tool about embodiment or communication. Like we talk about conflict, say no assumptions, different mental patterns. Then you practice for two weeks with a different woman. So you practice saying things. We do a lot of practicing even with each other because that trains and teaches your, uh, mind and your body that I'm not gonna die when I say this. And I can also notice what's going on and how people respond to me. Right. And, and when it comes to communication, I think the physical experience of saying something out loud, like even in the mirror creates like rewires your nervous system, so then you can say it to your boss, to your mom, to your partner with

Leah:

Well, it helps remove the charge

Maya:

Yeah. 100%.

Leah:

it, it diminishes you, process it so that when you can actually say it to the person, you're connected to yourself. You're not stuck in the pattern where it comes out with all this charge, which is usually what people are reacting to when they get defensive anyways. It's like they're noticing the look, the tone, you know, the, the charge underneath all the words, which

Willow:

actually see the, the pupils dilate when somebody's amygdala starts to fire. God. There was this great book, I can't remember the name of it now, but it, it was, I had created a whole flow chart out of it to work with couples, like first look at their eye, like, are their pupils dilating? You know, to read what's happening in the brain. You can see it through the facial expression, you know, around the tightness around, does the mouth narrow? Do the eyes narrow? Like all these different things that we can see. That we can communicate, use for communication that are nonverbal. And I'm, I'm, as I'm listening to you talk about the voice, my, uh, talk about voice. Maya, I am, um, hearing like so many different modalities kind of woven in, like nonviolent communication, positive psychology, um, what, what are some of the other, uh, sort of modalities that you're weaving together in

Maya:

Tantra, of course. Uh, ident identifying desires. Uh, pleasure list. Leah, the first exercise that I learned from you for cultivating more pleasure, Um, embodiment, uh, and energy work that, uh, I've done with Lydia Ceasara, how to Feel yourself, how to Hold your Boundaries, concept of Boundaries, concept of your energetic space, uh, concept of awareness. Because conversation you, so, right. Um, uh, Willow conversation starts not when you open your mouth. It kind of starts when you enter the room. So how you enter the room

Willow:

You're gonna read

Leah:

And when you leave the room

Willow:

energy. Yeah,

Maya:

yeah. Right. And, and, and getting from the mentality of. I need to be right to the mentality of like, what is it that I'm gonna create? And to me, for women, that's our gift. But that's also in a way our like biggest responsibility because, and I saw this with my partner. When we just moved in together and there was like a lot of kind of like clashing of space and different things that we need. Um, and when I would like judge him silently and be like upset with him, he would respond more aggressively to me. But when I soften into my heart and remember that I love him, he would like suddenly come and give me hugs and kisses or like, hold me at night and, and he and I saw like, oh my God. Like he responds to how I feel. So that what a responsibility I have in this relationship in a way, right? That I'm bringing so much like emotional, uh, heart in it.

Leah:

Yeah. Right. It's like when you get more real, it invokes someone's generosity. It's like, it's all like that shift of like when you get softer, they get softer.

Willow:

totally. You start to see like the magic that's possible when you, um, when you drop back into your car. And it's not just within intimate relationships, it's within all relationships. If you're struggling with your boss or you're struggling with your housemate, or you're struggling with a friend or whatever it is. It's like coming back to love. How quickly can you, can you turn your attention back to what's at the root of it all, which is that you love and care about that person. And Maya, you had, you gave us that one beautiful example, but you'd said you had two. So I'm still

Leah:

Yeah. Yeah.

Willow:

at that example. Number two, do you remember what it is?

Maya:

yeah. The second one was about, uh, my relationship with my partner. When we start practicing, uh, like we agreeing ahead of time that we need to have an uncomfortable conversation on a particular topic so both of us can mentally get ready to that. Uh, we're still working on agreement not to discuss stuff when we triggered. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But, you know, um, on a good days, right, we agree that like, okay, we're gonna talk on Tuesday. So you prepare for the conversation, I prepare for the conversation, and then when we come to a conversation, we practicing that. When I'm sharing and when I'm talking, I want you to come like energetically and sit next to me. So you not listening me from your standpoint with your. Excuses and your philosophy of life. You actually like coming and sitting next to me, right? And you listening it, right? Like kind of like trying to put yourself into my shoes and I do the same thing, and the conversation goes much slower. And the energy and emotions are more grounded and more lower, and then it's so much more easier to be like, oh, this is what you need. Of course, right? Like there is so much, um, room to right, like to actually start finding and building the bridges to come back together. However, right? Like, to be realistic, what I want to say it is our personal responsibility to deal with our emotions on our own. And I'm really building a culture in our relationship of not dumping stuff on each other and not being punching bags.'Cause that's like it leads. To separation and nothing else. Like it doesn't do anything. Yeah. Like, and, and I, and I, and I get what Leah says, that of course we're gonna project, like of course we're gonna project certain things. Uh, and it's like, okay, can I just be mindful of that and bring myself,

Leah:

Can I own that in the moment? I can say, oh my God, I know I'm projecting all over you and I know this isn't you. I know this is from the past, but God dammit, here it's,

Maya:

Yeah.

Leah:

yeah, because then you're at least owning it and that helps the other person kind of hold the bucket on occasion.

Maya:

Mm-hmm.

Leah:

I also like what you said about like sitting next to each other, Matt's always having to remind me, look, we're, we're not gonna face off on each other. If I'm the problem or you're the problem, let's sit next to each other. So we face the problem

Maya:

Mm-hmm.

Willow:

Yeah. like you're on the same team.

Leah:

Problem with the other person. Yeah. And uh, that's, yeah. That's

Willow:

You know, I've, I've, I am thinking of a, a little tactic too, which is like, to name your team, like, what is the name of the two of you as a team. So that can be really useful in

Leah:

I like that.

Maya:

I

Willow:

where you're always, uh, against each other and always at odds with each other. It's like, well, let's, let's get on the same team. What, what,

Leah:

I love that. Willow. You know, something else about this conversation reminds me of what Byron Katie often says, um, which is, can you speak the truth, at the risk of not getting love, not getting approval, and not getting appreciation for sharing what you need to share? And that always gives me courage to say the hard thing, if I can remind myself that this is important, and it's okay if I don't get those things that I hope I'll get, because don't we most want to get love appreciation and, um, an affirmation for this thing that we say, like we want the world to recognize it and sometimes other people can't. And can we be okay? Can we actually just be happy with the fact that we said it out loud?

Willow:

I am imagining some of our listeners might be sitting there thinking, okay, but how do I know when it's really important to say versus this is really not that big of a deal and I could sweep it under the rug? Because when you're in a, on a path of personal development and personal growth and evolution, you know, there's. There's old pattern of like, oh, it's not that big of a deal. I'll just hold it inside. I'll, I'll handle it myself. I won't speak up about it. That's, but that could be just a block to your evolution versus like, is it really a big deal? So Maya, how do you coach people? How do you guide people on figuring out the difference

Leah:

Yeah. I wanna add to the nuance of what you're saying, Willow, for you to address Maya because. Like we're also, it's like a, sometimes it's a balancing act. It's like, okay, here's this thing and I have some emotions about it, so I need to go process the emotions by myself so then I can have the conversation. And so I, and like. I know for me, I say that in my head, but then I just end up suppressing the emotions and never get to the part where it's like, oh yeah, I have to process this thing so that I can still have that conversation. It, it gets a little,'cause we're like straddling both sides. It's like how do we know it's important enough to bring up versus the other part that's just like, okay, and now I just have a laundry list all the time. Do I have to voice everything?

Maya:

Yeah, I think that number one, the truthful answer is you gonna learn. You gonna learn. Right. You, uh, by bringing things up, you're gonna learn what's important, what's actually not important, and you're gonna learn, distinguish is there actually a conversation underneath the conversation, right? Like is the small thing is actually about, again, something bigger where I don't feel acknowledged or I don't feel, uh, appreciated, or I just miss my partner and I'm craving more connection. Um, that's one piece of it. The other piece of it is to recognize where I need to start working and expanding my emotional palate. I had where I need to go and maybe learn different tools to process where I need to just have a discipline and start, grow my capacity to be grounded even when things are shaky or when I'm irritated by my partner. Right. Can I, and to me it's all comes down to cultivating the, um self of sense in terms of staying centered in me.'cause if I'm safe within myself, if I know how to give myself my own acknowledgement, if I'm offering myself, I'm offering myself compassion, then my capacity to not receive it from a partner growth. I'm not saying that. I'm gonna be in a relationship where it's not available, period. Right? That's a red flag, but I'm not gonna collapse necessarily, or I'm not gonna right. Like, go on a much more dramatic ride. And I, I ultimately think that, um, to thrive in life, it. Doesn't mean to get lucky. It doesn't mean to, uh, be very rigid and have systems. It really starts with growing your capacity to hold the discomfort without collapsing, right?

Leah:

I really like what you're saying there and I think too, like sometimes when you, when you have a safe place to like process a little bit and hear yourself, you can also come to realize, oh, the adjustment's just in me. I. I don't, I don't actually need to ask for anything here. I just needed to kind of sort out on the inside how I really feel about this, and turns out the adjustment was in me all along. I don't thi this. And then you feel better and you make you, you make the calibration and like the, you can avoid. And not from a place of unhealthy avoidance. It's from a place of going, oh, I resolved this inside of myself. The charge has dropped.

Maya:

The charges

Leah:

Turns out I just needed to hear this from me. This is really about the relationship to myself and you need sometimes to bounce that off of someone so you can hear it and feel it and come to that conclusion. I think too, like self-coaching helps, like learning some self-coaching strategies so that you can also talk back to the thought and have some self-inquiry, I think is also really useful.

Maya:

and I, right, like being, um, I have one year of voice, which I'm like, oh my God, I did it. Um, and it's been pretty challenging year for myself, but like showing up for those calls, practicing myself was extremely helpful. What I'm realizing is you gonna own your voice as a woman when you are self-centered woman. In a good sense, right? What it means is I am grounded in me. I'm centered in me. I'm not like somewhere else, right? My attention is not on 10 other people. My attention starts from me and I'm calibrating what is it that I'm available for? Um, and. Yeah. And, and that's right. That's the embodiment. That's kind of, I'm feeling myself before I'm saying yes to things, and when I say no, I don't feel guilty because I'm calibrating. Don't have capacity. Love. You don't have capacity.

Leah:

Right, right. Well, I know, um, Maya, that you've got a free gift for our audience. I'd love for you to share what that is and also how can people sign up to experience the voice and, and work with you.

Maya:

Yeah, absolutely. So I am sharing a link to sign up for the voice, um, and you can technically join anytime I do. Open like for a public and do like public calls twice per year for voice. But you can join voice anytime it's ongoing, uh, experience. And all the recordings of previous calls are available and we're gonna welcome you with a lot of love and onboard you. Um, and as for a free gift, I want to offer a free gift based on everything we talked today. I wanna offer a free gift as a, uh, Tantric breath work where you do a beautiful, uh, breathing exercise where you contract your pelvic muscles that actually helps you center yourself because this is your internal muscles. So you literally start feeling your body and bringing your whole attention and awareness to you. And that's, uh, a delicious practice that, uh, teaches you to shift your focus from everything else into what's happening in my body.

Willow:

I love that.

Leah:

Love it.

Willow:

It's gonna be so valuable. Thank you so much for

Maya:

Yeah.

Willow:

generous.

Leah:

Well, we can't wait to be back soon. Yes,

Willow:

we're gonna talk to you next with your partner guy talking about the 90 day relationship, and uh, we look forward to more convo then.

Leah:

yes. Congratulations on your one year anniversary. May there be many years, many seasons to come and, uh, everybody go check out Maya Kova. Love, love, love.

Maya:

Thank you so much.

Leah:

Oh, and y'all don't, the episode's not actually over. We still have a dish, so stay tuned.'cause Willow and I are up next.

Announcer:

Now our favorite part, the dish.

Willow:

I love Maya. She's such a sweetheart. And, um, yeah, getting women to speak up and to express and to not be in apology about what's true for them, but to actually come to terms with their truth. I think that's like at the root of it all, you

Leah:

Yeah. Yeah. Um. It's complex, all these feelings, emotions, stories, vulnerabilities, sorting all of that out. It's not so simple and it takes some skill and strategy and inquiry and accountability, um, to navigate to the truth and to kind of peel back some of those layers, unfurl these deep seated core issues. Then to really figure out how to navigate them and how to get your needs met and how to, you know, have agency and, and be self-responsible for your desires and your needs and your wants and your truths. All that shit, fuck

Willow:

Yeah,

Leah:

takes. Take some, you gotta learn some things

Willow:

Well, yeah, and I think it also, you gotta learn things and then you also have to let the things that you learn integrate into your nervous system and into your being. You know, it's like, it's, it becomes such a nuanced practice to, to be able to, in the moment, track what your nervous system is doing, track what your truth is, be able to come into your heart, be able to, um. You know, without a lot of emotional charge speak that truth. And so there, there are just so many pieces to the puzzle that, um, take time to integrate, especially if you're coming from an environment or a family or upbringing or something where there was a lot of just like we reactive communication, yelling and, um, or, you know, running into the other room or whatever it is. Just that those, those deeper reactions and patterns. Um, one of the

Leah:

Or even non reactions. I mean, I've got a childhood

Willow:

into the room.

Leah:

parents were totally, they give her the silent treatment. They were upset with her. They never screamed. They never yelled. There wasn't a lot of punishment. The punishment, the punishment was, I'm not gonna talk to you for three days.

Willow:

Ugh. That's so

Leah:

And so like, it looks like, oh, it's not very upsetting, except you feel this huge amount of separation. You know, so it, it can look. Just because one family's reactive and another family isn't, doesn't mean that one is healthier than the other.

Willow:

Totally. Absolutely. And you know, Leah and I have done a couple of episodes on, um, the protective patterns that, uh, Maya has also studied, and she referenced that in the episode she spoke about Lynda Ceasara. So I think it's, it's a good thing to understand and know these patterns, especially when talking about communication and how to communicate with your partner when they're in pattern, when they're in a triggered state. So go check out our episode with, um, Steven Kessler, and also we did one on our own as well. Um, those are really, really important for being able to communicate effectively.

Leah:

Well, and, and also just understanding your conditioned wounds and how you reach for safety. That, as an adult really isn't keeping you safe. It's just keeping you in pattern and yeah, and it, and it actually doesn't drive you towards the truth. Um, it drives you somewhere else that's separate from where you wanna be connected to your loved ones.

Willow:

Yeah. And also I will say, you know, it doesn't have to take a long time, like the integration of what you learn. You know, if you go do the Voice with Maya, you're gonna learn some really powerful stuff real quickly and, um, and you'll, you get to practice it with other women right away. So that definitely helps with integration. I mean, that is the most important piece of integrating is to be in practice with what you, aha, you know, what you've realized and learned.

Leah:

It's the key to the embodiment piece is being able to practice these new skills over and over again so that you have a way to freedom to liberation from the things that are burdening you and to be able to process that in a way to practice new tools. Then you pick up, oh, this really worked for me. Oh, this is what I need. This is a ding, ding, ding. So that when I get triggered again like this, I know some steps that are gonna help me get to that place of understanding what's the essential, what's that vulnerable thing that really needs to be said. Just like she illustrated in her story with the, with the woman And her dad. of just like simple, elegant, but it probably wasn't simple and elegant when she started, you know, processing that burden. Like to be able to. Move that charge in community, practice getting to the heart of it. And then, and then from there, having the courage to say what needs to be said. You do that, rinse and repeat, and then it becomes how you operate and live in the world. And, um, yeah, it's just a good. It's a good reminder to me that it has been a long time since I have been in like a personal growth community, really working on something interpersonal, um, and how valuable it is. No matter how much work you've done, no matter how many workshops you've attended, no matter how much personal growth work you've done, it's still good to return and sharpen up your skills. Because these conditioned responses and our triggers and our safety strategies, they are so much more ingrained. Then the little bit of time we spend on a technique. So you kind of have to keep on coming back and going, oh Yeah. that's right. This really works for me

Willow:

It's a layered process for sure. All right, cia. Well, so glad we could have Maya and you'll hear more of her in an upcoming episode.

Leah:

yeah. And do us a favor, share this episode with a woman that, you know, let's, let's let's double up our

Willow:

the word. Let's spread the love. Let's help women express and be content to speak their truths without apology.

Leah:

Nice. Okay. Cheers.

Announcer:

Thanks for tuning in. This episode was hosted by Tantric Sex Master Coach and positive psychology facilitator, Leah Piper, as well as by Chinese and Functional Medicine doctor and Taoist Taxology teacher, Dr. Willow Brown. Don't forget your comments, like subscribes and suggestions matter. Let's realize this new world together.

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Dr. Willow Brown

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Leah Piper

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Maya Kova

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