We recently connected with Angela Skurtu and have shared our conversation below.

Angela, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

When I grew up, I was raised in a very conservative religion that shamed anyone who wanted to have s*x before marriage. The message was purity-avoid s*x and you’ll be good in God’s eyes. The messages kids received was that s*x was bad and shameful. This message was extremely geared towards young girls. They told us that our bodies could cause men to do bad things and we needed to be proper. We needed to say no and we needed to be careful of what we did and what we wore. The underlying message was that women were responsible for the “sexual fall” for not dressing or acting appropriately.

As I grew up, girls around me ended up getting married at a very young age around early 20s some even married at 18 and 19. Around 1 year later, each of my friends would talk to me about their s*x lives and state they really weren’t enjoying s*x in their marriages. The story we were given growing up was that once we got married, s*x would be wonderful and good for us. In marriage, s*x was a marvelous thing and we should be proud to engage. However, in reality, that wasn’t the case.

Many of these young women didn’t feel this way after marriage. In fact, they didn’t know what they liked sexually or how to ask for it. Add to that, they still felt heavy amounts of shame around s*x. They stated it was hard to go from the idea that s*x was bad to now s*x was good after marriage. Ultimately, they gave up on s*x being positive for them and would tell me they were “having s*x for him.”

Part of my business is helping women take back their sexuality and really own it as a positive aspect of their lives. Even outside of my upbringing, women from all walks of life experience shame around sexuality. Men do as well. My mission is to help couples really experience a vibrant, loving s*x life that represents them both. My goal is to educate people about sexuality and help them to open up the dialogue of healthy s*x with their children too. S*x can be joyful, pleasurable, and deeply connecting. My mission is help couples achieve their own unique version of sexual health.

Angela, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My business is St. Louis Marriage Therapy, LLC. I provide couples and sexuality counseling. I also speak for many businesses, conferences, and schools about healthy relationships and healthy sexuality.

I got into this business first through graduate school. I attained my degree in Couples Counseling through the University of Oregon and then moved on to get certified nationally as a S*x Therapist through the American Association of S*x educators, counselors and Therapists (AASECT). This took an additional two years of training, education and supervision.

I also have written two books, “Helping Couples Overcome Infidelity,” and “Pre-Marital Counseling.”

Once I received my degrees and certification, I started my business and have been doing this work for over 10 years. I am deeply proud of the work I do and the couples I help.

Have you ever had to pivot?

During the pandemic, people’s problems became very difficult. I experienced a large influx of new clients with very severe couples problems. Before the pandemic, I might watch one couple break up every quarter. After the start of the pandemic, I might have up to three couples break up in the same week. (This is in my office, by the way). By 2021, I was getting some pretty severe compassion fatigue.

Compassion fatigue is where you lose compassion for your clients and their problems. You get more tired, depressed, and annoyed with your job. You lose focus on your passion or you even question whether you want to be in your chosen field. Healthcare professionals are notorious for suffering from types of compassion fatigue when they are in high stress environments with little ability to manage their own self care.

During this time, I questioned whether I would even stay in the field. I knew logically I loved this work, but every day I came home and thought, “I hate people’s problems. I don’t want to do this anymore.” I seriously had to come up with a new strategy to love my work again.

I started doing therapy to address this fatigue. It turns out I was blaming myself for these couples breaking up and taking on a lot more responsibility for things I could not control. I also needed to take breaks, limit how many clients I took on and prioritize my needs.

A final thing I had to change was who I saw. Before the pandemic, I saw any couple who needed my help. After doing some work in therapy, I realized some clients really brought me passion while other clients were more draining. I decided to pick which clients were best for me. I start the process by drawing a big star on the file of couples I had passion working for. It turned out, certain couples were better suited for my personality while others were not.

The greatest lesson I learned is that it’s important to pick your clients. I do my best work when I am happy with the people I work for. I do my worst work when I am not suited for the client in front of me. I have since regained that passion for my work. I’m so grateful I did this.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I started by answering any requests to do an article (much like this one). Then I started a podcast and and youtube channel and regularly put out episodes and videos. I also have collected an email list for over a decade and have a website with many of my videos posted.

I would say the best thing to do is start with one platform and build your knowledge there. Keep adding and growing your influence in that space. Once you have found ways to automate that platform, then add another and learn as much as you can. Where possible, hire people to do some of the work.

If it’s only you, do one thing well rather than 50 things poorly. Focusing on one platform, you can watch videos, read articles and learn how to master your audience in that space.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://therapistinstlouis.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/angelaskurtu
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarriageFamilyTherapy
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angela-skurtu-01008822
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/angelaskurtu