The actress and Goop founder also opens up to ET about her own sex life.
Gwyneth Paltrow is sharing all the details about her new Netflix series, Sex, Love & Goop, and her interest in exploring relationships and human sexuality.
"I think if I've learned anything throughout the course of my life, is that we as individuals really can impact the outcome of how we feel in our day to day lives," Paltrow told ET's Lauren Zima of her interest in the topic. "What is the relationship that we have with ourselves, and how does that determine how we feel out in the world with ourselves and other people?"
In the series, her second for Netflix, Paltrow, who recently released a line of supplements to get women in the mood, is vulnerable, sharing details about her own sex life and marriage to Brad Falchuk.
"The conversations with me are conducted with this amazing therapist named Michaela Baum, and she's someone that I've worked with and that I have a lot of respect for. I also thought it was really important for me to show up with honesty and vulnerability around these topics," she explained. "I think that's the point of the show, to show different examples of what honesty and vulnerability can look like. I was happy to do that and share."
The 49-year-old actress also brought that vulnerability into to conversations about sex with her two teenage children, Apple, 17, and Moses, 15, who she shares with ex-husband Chris Martin.
"I try always to be neutral on the topic," Paltrow said of talking to her kids about sex. "I think my generation, we got a lot of messages around sex that made us feel bad about it."
She continued, "I try to just be curious, and teenagers are never going to want to talk to their parents about sex, ever. I sort of follow their lead and luckily, in middle school they had a very thorough sex education, so the school handled the kind of birds and the bees parts. Then I am there for any questions, but the questions are pretty minimal."
One piece of advice she will pass down to them is to "stay really close to your own truth."
"I think the main thing that nobody ever tells you, is you have to stay really close to your own truth and you have to stay really in integrity with that truth. Because when you are in a relationship and you are not being your full self, you are sublimating things or you are white knuckling through something, and I think it can be pretty damaging to how you feel about yourself," she shared. "I will always just encourage my children to really listen to themselves, listen to their instincts, listen if something feels right, and to act from that place."
With the help of experts, couples on Sex, Love & Goop learn methods to enhance their relationships through more pleasurable sex and deeper intimacy. It's in these relationships and learning moments that the Goop founder said any "friction" or "unhealed" issue is going to come up.
"What I find so interesting about this particular area of sexuality, is that it's the realm where all the friction is going to come right up, right? Like anything that is unhealed is going to come up, anything that isn't working is going to come up. So, it's like this amazing opportunity to see in the microcosm of how you are in an intimate relationship, how is that impacting the rest of your life?," she continued. "I've always been interested in [it], and more and more so since I've learned more and more about it in this area, and how we relate to ourselves, what is the shame that we carry, and why are we so afraid to ask for what we want?"
The couples not only had to share their stories, but they also had to bare it all -- literally.
"They were amazing," she gushed. "We went through a casting process, for non-scripted shows. I'm sure it was a little bit of a strange request as it goes, you know, but it was amazing."
Paltrow said she's in awe of the couples who participated in the series, and the process they went through on the show to reignite that intimate part of their relationships.
"There's so many people who really love their partner and then are really struggling with the intimate aspect of their relationship. They're really aware of what they're bringing in from other areas of their lives, or childhoods that are negatively impacting their marriages or whatever the case may be, and so people were willing, and they'd go through a whole process," she explained. "But I'm just so in awe of these couples who just showed up with so much bravery."
Sex, Love & Goop premieres on Netflix on Oct. 21.
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