About the episode
In this episode of the Mom Owned and Operated podcast, Rita Suzanne and Stephanie Hickey discuss raising a family, running a business and remembering yourself.
Stephanie Hickey is a sex, love, and relationship coach with a special interest in helping women take the necessary steps to embrace radical self-responsibility for their own pleasure, the love they deserve, and their relationships. She guides women in creating desire-led lives through practices rooted in Tantra and Taoism. Her guided self-pleasure techniques are simple yet powerful, designed to shift women out of their everyday routines and into a deeper connection with their bodies. These practices help women feel more both physically and emotionally, empowering them to recognize their own strength and wisdom.
Stephanie’s methods attune women to their bodies, intuition, and most importantly, their desires. By using the energy body to circulate and manipulate energy, she cultivates vibrancy and radiance within her clients. Through embodiment exercises, Stephanie offers women the experience of feeling their potential, guiding them to remember and reconnect with lost, hidden, suppressed, and oppressed parts of themselves.
While she primarily focuses on coaching women, Stephanie also coaches men through a more involved application and screening process. Although she doesn’t advertise this service widely, men interested in her coaching can find a link to apply in her Instagram bio.
You can connect with Stephanie on her website, Instagram and Facebook.
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Listen to the episode
Show Notes
SPEAKERS
Rita Suzanne, Stephanie Hickey
Rita Suzanne 00:01
Welcome to the Mom Owned and Operated Podcast, the podcast about moms and for moms, where we have candid conversations about running a business, raising a family, and remembering ourselves. I’m your host, Rita Suzanne, a single mom of four, digital strategist and provider of no nonsense business strategies and tactics.
Rita Suzanne:
Hi, I’m Rita Suzanne, and today I have my guest, Stephanie, with me. Stephanie, I’m so excited to chat with you. Please tell everyone all about you, your family and your business.
Stephanie Hickey:
Yes, thank you for having me, rita. I am Stephanie. I’m a sex, love and relationship coach. I got certified in 2020, so I’ve been doing it for four years now and I have three girls and a partner. My youngest turned two on the weekend. The other two are going to be six and 10 in July. And yeah, here I am navigating my coaching business and running a family.
Rita Suzanne:
Wow, how did you what? What led you to this type of coaching?
Stephanie Hickey:
It’s a great question and I get it all the time and I don’t have a firm like like direct oh, this and this and this. I think I’m just the kind of person who follows my interests, like follows my nose, and and then like see where that takes me. So I guess after my second um girl was born, I didn’t really go. I didn’t really have like a career on the go and at that time I was like, oh, maybe you know, what would be really kind of a good fit for me is um being a therapist. Like I thought I’d go back to school to be a therapist, so I kind of wavered about that and I kept coming across Layla Martin’s certification program and that’s who I got certified with. I had she had been in my world for many years, I loved binging her YouTube content and so she came. She developed a certification in sex and relationships and I would see that come up every year for several years in my inbox and then that particular year, I guess two things kind of went together. I’m like, oh, what if I try this, see if like it’s in the world of what I like doing, and go from there, like it was really like we’ll go from there I thought about oh, maybe I’ll go to school after that for to become a therapist.
Stephanie Hickey:
But in the certification process, the year long program, like the first third of it, is all self development work. So we don’t even start to get to the coaching methodology, and I love that. I was like, oh, there’s so much I’m learning about myself. And even at that point I wasn’t even like sure I was going to continue on as a coach. I just loved learning about my sexuality and my sex life and my relationships and all of the Tantra and Taoist philosophy I was learning. I was like this is all new, I’m loving it. And I still didn’t know if I was going to coach. But then, once the coaching methodology was taught, oh, I’m like, oh, this is, this is very cool. I’d love to bring this to more people.
Rita Suzanne:
Well, tell us, what does a sex, love and relationship coach do, like? What do you do? Do you work with couples? Do you work with individuals? What do you do?
Stephanie Hickey:
So I could have got, I could have gotten my extra major in couples work and I started it, but then I realized I actually do want to focus on individual work. So I work with individuals. I focus on women, even though I do have male clients and I did do my male certification, men’s sexuality certification but I help individuals. My real passion is helping women claim like radical self-responsibility for their life, yes, but like for their pleasure and for their sex life and for their relationships. And it’s really easy to like offload responsibility, to like, oh well, he’s not doing this or well, I never got this opportunity or I never learned about, you know, sex or sex ed. So it’s like really claiming that responsibility and giving and empowering women to find their sexuality, find their pleasure. So that’s what I feel passionate about and how we go about doing that is in session.
Stephanie Hickey:
There’s a lot of really great tools that I’ll do. It’s all talking. But there are practices that I can either guide through with cameras, off camera and sound off, or I can give as like homework or home play, and those are self pleasure, like guided self-pleasure practices like like very specific practices, all based in Tantra and Taoism mostly. I would say become stagnated in your body, or just beliefs or conditioning that you were like, assumed as you grew up.
Rita Suzanne:
So who is then like your ideal client, Like who comes to you for the this type of work?
Stephanie Hickey:
for this type of work, I, I would say, generally women over 30, even though, like I said, I have men. I have men, but but women over 30, and I really feel passionate about working, working with moms, because it’s so easy to put ourselves in second, third, fourth, fifth place, and so I feel I do have moms that I work with, that we help find their the Beto again, we help find their you know, their own desires and passions again, because it just is, it’s just too easy. It’s just too easy to get put to the side and it might not look like somebody who doesn’t have kids, like it doesn’t look the same and that’s great, like it’s not going to look the same. So like, let’s make our days, let’s make our weeks look and feel the way, like just a little bit more, how we want them to feel.
Rita Suzanne:
The way, like just a little bit more, how we want them to feel. Yeah, I find a lot of moms and women. They don’t really want to speak up, especially maybe more, a little bit more mature, don’t want to speak up for the things that they want when it comes to sex, love and relationships, you know, just fear of maybe what the other person might think or say or do, what they might think, say or do, and even deeper than that it’s.
Stephanie Hickey:
It’s like fear of rupture, fear of tension, fear, and then what that might lead to, which is fear of abandonment, fear of being outcast, fear of being alone, like so, yeah, it is really difficult to speak up and that we we work a lot on. I work a lot with women on feeling safe enough and secure enough to speak up.
Rita Suzanne:
I actually know a couple of women who’ve actually yeah, I don’t know if I want to tell, I don’t know if I want to tell that story who have been married for many, many years, who’ve never experienced pleasure with their spouse. Is that something that you’ve come across as well?
Stephanie Hickey:
Absolutely, Absolutely. It’s so common and that’s the thing. Like you were just about to censor yourself because nobody wants to talk about it, and I really want, I really want to.
Rita Suzanne:
I didn’t want to outtie that.
Stephanie Hickey:
No, absolutely no, no, definitely not that. But like even to talk about that. All it’s all. Self-work, it’s all it’s. You know you don’t even have to worry, like, about bringing this to your partner. At that point it’s like it’s you and your body and your pleasure, and we’re going to start from there and we’re going to slowly learn, explore, build all of the things that are available to you. They actually are available to you, and when that starts to feel good and confident and expansive, then then we would start to bring it to the relationship portion. But, like, jumping into that piece can feel too overwhelming and like that’s where you go, not happening, I’m not going to do anything about it overwhelming and like that’s where you go not happening.
Rita Suzanne:
I’m not going to do anything about it, yeah, cause I would think that it would probably be scary to even bring anything like that up to your partner. Um, even once you start to feel comfortable, I guess, with your own body, to then even approach that subject with them. But I guess that’s why you hire someone like you to help you with like these different tactics and strategies, so that you are more comfortable and confident in approaching the situation.
Stephanie Hickey:
That’s right, yeah, yeah. And once you start to feel the things that you know, turn you on the things that you find pleasure in you, like that builds self-esteem and confidence, and so then you’re going to be at a different once you start doing this work, you’re going to be at a different place than you are now. So this, the scariness, the fear of bringing it to the partner is going to feel different once you’re at that new place of self um knowing theying they might notice, that partner might notice.
Rita Suzanne:
something has changed too, that’s right.
Stephanie Hickey:
Exactly, once you change Esther Perel says this once you change one part of the system, two people are in a system together. Once you start changing one part of the system, the other one’s going to notice and change and have to adapt and like you know. So yeah, it’s a real thing. That’s why that’s why I really feel passionate about radical self-responsibility, because you I mean first of all, you are only responsible for your own self. You can’t change anybody else. And once you do begin changing you and you begin inspiring, you begin like, like people will notice that and have to change to like to you and like react to you in a different way.
Rita Suzanne:
So, yeah, so do you only work with people like in one-to-one sessions, or do you do like you have a group program or anything like that?
Stephanie Hickey:
Right now I do one-to-ones and I have a group program which I’m going to actually turn into a self-paced program. I did it live once. I’m going to turn it into a self-paced program with maybe a live component. I’m going to turn it into a self-paced program with maybe a live component. But I have just launched my my mother’s mastermind, which I’m calling a mistress mind because the feminine form of master is mistress and I like that better. So a sex, love and relationship mistress mind where six, six of us are going to go um on a deep dive together for six months weekly calls, daily contact, working on your own specific goals, desires, challenges, but in a group, in a group format.
Rita Suzanne:
I love stuff like that in a group because then you feel even more support than you would if it was just one person and you start start to realize, like maybe it’s not just, I’m not the odd not alone.
Stephanie Hickey:
yes, and I was just talking to somebody yesterday about this how man just starting to talk about these like really sensitive things out loud and then another person is like oh my god, I feel the same, like not just knowing that you’re in communities with people who feel the same or have experienced the same in the past, or going through the same now, or it just it just does feel different and I I firmly support that and believe in group and group formats.
Rita Suzanne:
Yeah, so how is it like juggling a business with your three little ones running around, especially with these kind of more sensitive topics?
Stephanie Hickey:
Yeah, I don’t know yet, rita. It’s all developing, it’s all unfolding. What I do now, I have a lot of help. So I have a partner. I have my mom available to me. I have a partner. I have my mom available to me. She started helping me about a year ago, coming into one to three times a week. So hands down like help is the way I have family around. I don’t. I try not to overschedule my days so that I do have the spaciousness to be, you know, with the girls when they are home, even though even that time I’m like sometimes I need to just lock myself in a bedroom and be on my own. But yeah, it’s really important to schedule those things. It’s really important to block those things out and stick to it. The things that you need for yourself and scheduling help In any way you can. The teenager down the street can watch the kids upstairs for an hour. So I would say that’s my answer is help.
Rita Suzanne:
Well, just based on your story, it’t sound like your, your instant thought, like when you started this, all was like I’m going to be an entrepreneur, this is going to be like my business, I’m going to start this thing and I’m going to have my kids at home, and so it’s just interesting to see how it’s kind of evolved into its own business. For you, that’s kind of.
Stephanie Hickey:
I feel I was reflecting on that this week and I’m like, oh, that’s just kind of how my life has gone. I don’t. I have rarely like set like a plan, like stated a plan and then followed it through in that, in that traditional way. So yeah, I didn’t. But I did know, I did always know, since being very young I I knew that I wasn’t really going to work for somebody. That just wasn’t in my being like, that just wasn’t a part of my. I just knew that. But I never knew what the thing was that I was going to do so.
Rita Suzanne:
So that is, that is true. It’s interesting that you say that, because I always felt like for myself that I wasn’t an employee. Um, I started my first business when I was um, I think I was 19 and um, I did work in corporate when I moved to California. So I I did work in corporate when I moved to California. So I did work in corporate for a while. But you have to when you live out there. There’s really no choice. But this business is my third business because I always knew that I wanted to be my own boss, right, like I always was seeking out time and financial freedom. And it was once I had my kids that it was almost like do or die for me, where it was like you have to figure this out, you have to make it happen.
Stephanie Hickey:
You have to make this happen, cause. I’m not doing the other version.
Rita Suzanne:
Yeah, Right, I was so miserable dropping my kids. I went through five years of infertility just to have my son, and so, you know, dropping them off at daycare. I was so miserable, you know, because I wanted to be home with him so badly, and so that’s when I was, you know, up against the wall of like, what am I going to do? Right, I have to figure this out, do?
Stephanie Hickey:
you feel like when, like interviewing all these moms with businesses, is that like?
Rita Suzanne:
a main motivation for many or most moms is that I wanted to be there with my kids more. You know, what I love now is seeing is when I first started. You know, I started my business 10 years ago and I always tell this story about how there was always, even though we all knew that we were not, we were professionals. We were at work. We were still trying to give that professional and. But then once COVID hit and everybody started working like, it became more known that everybody was working at home. It became more common and more acceptable now for everyone to be like, yes, I’m working at home with my kids you know, Whereas before it was not as accepted or as known.
Rita Suzanne:
So it’s, it’s just a very interesting slight pivot and and I love that, I love that for us, you know yeah, me too.
Stephanie Hickey:
Yeah, it’s just more integrated, it feels more honest.
Rita Suzanne:
Yeah, like my kids, I remember being in this very huge Facebook group and doing a presentation and you know, of course I had told my kids to stay out of the room. I was doing this thing and I gave the presentation. Everything went great. And then, when I was done, my kids ran in the room all behind me. They were jumping, screaming and yelling. I was mortified. Okay, now where I’m I was. It was a group of entrepreneurs. It wasn’t as if it was a group of like business women you know like corporate people.
Rita Suzanne:
But I was mortified right Because, again it was, we needed to give that perception of it being professional. But everybody was like, oh my God, they’re so cute, they’re so adorable. And it was in that moment where I was like, oh okay, it’s not as bad as I had.
Stephanie Hickey:
This is more acceptable than I had believed it to be.
Rita Suzanne:
It was in the beginning, that was probably 2016. It wasn’t even that far away, but it just felt. You know, it still felt separate, but I like to use that as a separate story. So if you, if another mom, came to you and she was just like, well, I’m thinking of starting my own business, um, what kind of advice would you give her? What would you tell her?
Stephanie Hickey:
Hmm, I would ask her why she wants to like are you crazy?
Stephanie Hickey:
Because it’s true, like if you don’t want to be an employee, like that’s like you, just there’s no option. So it’s like if you, if that’s in your being then and you know that, then yes, this is the right path. And then I would say advice, line up, help like get as much in place as you can to to create those like lengths of time, to be in the flow of whatever work you do, and then once that block is over, then you know it’s over and you can go back to mothering or parenting, parenting but have a consistent like have a consistent schedule in place where you know you have this chunk of time available to you for that purpose.
Rita Suzanne:
Yeah yeah, I think that’s super important. I remember one of my first interviews that I did. It was a written interview and I was just so impressed by her because she had just started her business and it was a subscription service. But she had mentioned how you know, just from the jump, she had set up childcare straight away and and I thought that’s fancy shit. I couldn’t afford to stress this. I was definitely bootstrapping from the beginning.
Rita Suzanne:
I mean, when you talk about minimal, you know viability, I mean we’re talking my budget was probably $100 a month, if that, you know, to for expenses, so I couldn’t afford to do any child care. But if I would have been able to, that would have been something that I would have definitely loved to do and I would highly recommend it for anybody who could definitely put that in place right away, because it does alleviate a lot of it, because it’s hard to do both things at one time.
Stephanie Hickey:
It just is yeah. Yeah.
Rita Suzanne:
Because you know the, the child, my son, was four years old and he, he wanted, he wanted my attention, and so it’s hard to think at the same time about kids stuff and work at the, you know, simultaneously. So, yeah, it was, it was definitely a challenge. So let’s talk a little bit about one of my favorite things, which is self-care. What are you doing for yourself, stephanie? What are you? We talked about a little bit. You talked about how easy it is for moms to kind of neglect themselves outside of kind of getting to know your body a lot. What are you doing for yourself?
Stephanie Hickey:
So, being a sex coach, I, and having the you know the embodied experience of what it does for me, I like to prioritize self-pleasure practices. When do I do that? People are like, okay, when do you do that?
Stephanie Hickey:
Um, and yeah in the afternoon not even like sometimes it’ll fall away for many weeks. But in the afternoon, when the little one’s napping, I go to my bedroom and I have, and I have time. Then, um, that’s like that’s prime time for me. Then that’s like that’s prime time for me. Nighttime no, I’m not doing anything. When those kids are in bed I shut off, like I self-care at that time can look like scrolling, it can look like watching TV, it can look like sketching or drawing.
Stephanie Hickey:
Sometimes I’ll take a bath, but self-pleasure practices at least once a week, just to like stay connected to my pleasure and my body, but if not more. And so I I really think that slowing down is such an act of self care. So like if I’m having my coffee in the morning and I take like it’s mindfulness, right, but it’s like taking the time to like taste how good this coffee is, take the time to just be there with my thoughts and not do anything else. Thoughts and not do anything else, that’s an act of self-care for me which I am practicing more and more and I’m noticing even when I’m like busy with the kids. Slowing down, oh my god, it does so much for my nervous system, it does so much for actually lengthening time.
Stephanie Hickey:
I’m like I think I have to rush all the time to get everything done and it’s just not true. I’m just. I’m just, this is just like a new thing for me. So I’m just talking about it as it’s fresh, but like I’m realizing, oh no, slowing down actually slows time down in a weird, strange way, and so, like spending half an hour outside in the yard with the little one I in my head, I used to be like, well, I have to do this, this and this. I’m going to run in there and do that and I’m going to get the pot on and I’m going to get those noodles on. But if I just spend the 30 minutes slow down, that is for me it’s self-care for my nervous system, it’s caring for the mother that I want to be, um, the woman that I want to be. So self-pleasure and slowing down is my answer.
Rita Suzanne:
It just reminds me of when I was a kid and I would, you know, parents would make us go outside, right, like go outside, and I lived in a kind of rural area for a little while, and you know, and we would just go outside and we would be out, be out there, and me and my brother would just sit in the grass and just be playing glass grass, doing nothing, probably looking at clovers, trying to find a four leaf clover, just and, and that’s what, how you describe that, that’s what it reminds me of, just doing nothing.
Rita Suzanne:
And it just took me back to to that time where you’re just, you’re not distracted, and you’re, and you’re just observing, and you’re just out there, just doing nothing, and you’re just admiring what’s going on around you. And I think that oftentimes we’re so distracted by all of the things because even when I’m outside, um exercising, for instance, like if I’m on my bike or I’m taking a walk, I have my phone with me and I’m plugged in and I’m listening and I’m still engaged. So I can’t say that I’m now admiring, because I have things going on, and so it’s.
Stephanie Hickey:
I just did a one week diet, like a diet. I’m doing the artist’s way right now. So I did a one week of like trying not to consume TV, podcasts, media, social media, reading. You weren’t allowed to read even, and so I realized, like I, I’m like a podcast junkie, so it was very difficult not to like throw my headphones on and go for that walk, and you do. You do notice the difference when you’re not doing those things, when you’re not plugged in, you’re like, oh, I mean a, I’m left alone with my thoughts now and my feelings, and and notice that the noticing of your surroundings is just so much more vibrant.
Rita Suzanne:
Yeah, Just being in the car without the radio on or like anything going on, you’re you’re definitely more aware of what’s happening around you. So I can imagine, not the. And even when I’m working, I have my iPad over here and it’s just playing something. I’m not even watching it, it’s just playing stuff on the side just to have like that ambient. Um, yes, it’s just driving sound yeah. Um, yeah, um, okay. So where can everyone find you? Where are you online? I am?
Stephanie Hickey:
um wonder love coach at wonder love coach on instagram and wonderlovecoachingcom is my website. Um, yeah, those are the two main places, like, uh, I, I I don’t have a youtube or a podcast yet, but I’m working up to like seeing where I want to be, where I want to be coming up. But those are the two places I can find me now.
Rita Suzanne:
What’s your favorite online platform? Oh, to consume. No like, where are you spending your time online?
Stephanie Hickey:
Oh yeah, instagram.
Rita Suzanne:
Yeah, your time online oh yeah, instagram, yeah instagram yeah, yeah yeah yeah all right, okay, so thank you so much. It’s been such a pleasure and um I appreciate you coming on thanks, make sure you’re part of me.
And there you have it. I want to encourage you to remember that being a mom who runs her own business is not easy. We all struggle, but just keep moving forward. And don’t forget to make time for yourself. As moms we are usually the first thing to go to the bottom of the list. If your business is overwhelming you and you need real solutions, not just some sugar coated suggestions apply to work with me at ritasuzanne.com/apply
