How To Reclaim Your Sexual Identity After Trauma | Sex, Consent & Healing With Matthew Riven

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[SPEAKER_00]: If you've ever struggled trying to understand not only sexuality but kink and your lifestyle and your sexual proclivities and the things that make you tick and maybe you are bathed in fear because of shame or guilt or religious trauma or whatever you see on the media or in magazines or you were told is or is not okay and maybe you're trying to figure out how to navigate your life as an adult who wants to have

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[SPEAKER_00]: an amazing and fulfilling sexual experience, and yet you're still trapped in some of the inner workings of the childhood trauma that you've been through, you're probably going to want to listen to today's episode with my amazing gas Matthew Riven, because he has helped so many people across the world unfurl and unleashed themselves.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm pun intended, I'm into being able to fully own who they are in their entirety, mentally emotionally, physically, spiritually and most importantly for today's context sexually.

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[SPEAKER_00]: As usual, think on broken, this is not a show for children, so if your kids are in the car or with you, you should probably stop listening to this and be a responsible adult.

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[SPEAKER_00]: That said, Matthew my friend, welcome to the show.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm excited to add this, yeah, you know, this, this for me and just my own personal healing journey has been one of the hardest ramps that I've had to be able to overcome, growing up, having had sexual abuse as a child growing up and being a member of the Mormon church.

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[SPEAKER_00]: growing up and no one ever explaining sexuality to me, I struggled for years trying to understand everything from basic relationship dynamics to kink dynamics and I've been lucky enough to interview some amazing people in the world but you're storing what you've done I think is really really powerful and that's why I wanted to have you on today for those who are listening out of curiosity to begin why shouldn't anyone listen to our conversation today?

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[SPEAKER_01]: I can give you a great example why I've done my own work for my own traumas, my own issues growing up and 10 years of working with a therapist, individual and a group therapy room, lots of other people in the room.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And over 10 years, once a week for 10 years, 2, 3 hours at a time, 6, 7, 8 other people in the room, sex and sexuality and can't get everything was brought up exactly 0 times.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody ever talked about it, nobody ever brought it up.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And it's part of humanity.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I practice transactional analysis and Eric Bern, who developed transactional analysis.

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[SPEAKER_01]: One of his comments was, outside of self-preservation, sex and sexuality is the most important things that we have in life.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's part of who we are as humans and there's so much misconception and so much that society kind of drains from us when it comes to sex and sexuality and especially when it comes to BDSM and Kink and a lot of those aspects that a lot of people enjoy, but it has to be kept under wraps and that is a significant problem and the more you suppress your desires, the more issues you have in life

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[SPEAKER_00]: Why is it a significant problem?

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[SPEAKER_00]: Wait, I want to extrapolate and go deeper into that because I think that kind of just initially people may hear this and go, oh, this is just a talk about getting laid.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, actually, I think that there's probably such a deeper element of human self-expression.

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[SPEAKER_00]: When I was younger,

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[SPEAKER_00]: one of my dreams was actually to go to the Kinsey Institute at IU Bloomington because I was so fascinated with human sexuality.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone on the show knows that I went through sexual abuse as a child and so I in my late teens probably just searching on Google and finding porn came across the Kinsey Institute and I was like oh wow there's something here where sexuality isn't a bad thing, where sex isn't bad thing, where kink isn't bad thing, where lifestyle

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[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't want to lead people down the path of today's conversation, thinking we're just talking about how to get laid.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We're talking about something so much deeper.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So why is it a problem?

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[SPEAKER_00]: Why is that a foundational, maybe misstep we've taken as a society?

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[SPEAKER_01]: We have shamed out a significant portion of who we are, and I don't mean we're animalistic and we're going out, we're trying to have sex with anything that moves, but having that connection with a partner, mating with somebody, and it doesn't have to be for procreation, but having that intimacy with a partner is crucial to who we are.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And we have taken that away.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I will actually in a month be attending a five day workshop certification program at the Kentian Institute.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So it's, and it's a fantastic thing, but it's who we are.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And when you take that and you suppress it and you cut it off, you're taking away part of who we are a human being.

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[SPEAKER_01]: There's so many misconceptions around sex and sexuality.

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[SPEAKER_01]: There's so much shame around sex and sexuality, and it's part of what drives us.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Again, it's our desires aren't wrong.

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[SPEAKER_01]: They can be incredibly healing and incredibly opening, and a part of

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[SPEAKER_01]: What makes us individual and what drives us?

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[SPEAKER_01]: We are driven towards getting our needs met and getting love and getting connection and having intimacy in our lives.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And we'll do it either well, over to it poorly.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And it creates so much conflict when we're looking for how many times have you heard somebody say, I keep dating the wrong type of person over and over and over again.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Because what they're looking for in love and sex and relationships is what they're trying to heal from a lot of issues they had growing up.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And until you come to terms with what those issues are, you're going to keep making the same mistakes over and over and over again.

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[SPEAKER_01]: You are, you're going to the hardware store trying to buy milk.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And instill you start shopping for milk at the grocery store.

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[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to end up with the same problems over and over again.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Hmm.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And when I hear that, what comes to mind is people aren't even making the shopping list.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, they're just like in this moment, like they don't really have a direction.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But I think so many people get dissuaded from even contemplating the reality, especially when you marry trauma to the conversation.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of it is people don't, people don't recognize the patterns that they have in their lives.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And so, if you don't recognize the pattern, it's going to control you and you're going to be doing those same things over and over again.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Like you said, they don't make a list.

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[SPEAKER_01]: They don't make a conscious list.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody has, I find this attractive and I don't find that attractive.

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[SPEAKER_01]: These personality traits that you are drawn to if

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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, a good example is you had that narcissistic parent who never ever said I love you.

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[SPEAKER_01]: What you end up doing as an adult is trying to date that same narcissistic personality type, because oh my God, if they would just say I love you, you would heal all of this childhood trauma.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But you're dating the same type of person who's never going to give you.

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[SPEAKER_01]: to say that they're never going to give you what you need.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And narcissists is never going to say I love you and mean it.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And yet you're still tripping over the same pattern over and over again.

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[SPEAKER_01]: When you start recognizing those patterns and you realize it's not that I'm not making a list.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's that I have an unconscious list that is hurting me.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So when you recognize those patterns, now you can make a list and realize that this is a problem.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I can have two twins, gorgeous, whatever, whatever I attribute to that I look for.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I can have two twins walking into a room.

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[SPEAKER_01]: One of them is interested in me and the other one has no interest in me whatsoever.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Identical twins, I'm going to find the one who is no interest in me, more attractive than the other one.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Because my pattern has always been, I look for and date unavailable limit.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Now that I know that, I can start recognizing those patterns and I can make that shopping list, as you said, that is going to help me find that partner I'm looking for.

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[SPEAKER_00]: When I thought about starting off this conversation with you and you know you and I having some conversations prior to this, the one thing that I kept kind of sitting in is I think two things have to exist in order for this to be a successful conversation.

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[SPEAKER_00]: one being really defining and helping people understand what some terminology means so they're not coming in blind.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And then secondly, actually giving structure to how people can consider navigating what is in front of them to actually be able to tap into these other sides of themselves.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Right.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I've had so many conversations with relationship and dating experts over the years.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, even, you know, great, great minds in the trauma space.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And we always at some point bring up relationship.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It's almost in every single episode.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But we don't ever talk about this

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[SPEAKER_00]: So I guess first, can you talk about the differentiation between what sex and sexual outie is and what kink is?

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[SPEAKER_00]: Because I think that there be a really good starting place.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Because again, I want to challenge people to sit in this conversation and hear what we're going to talk about, even though it might be a little bit uncomfortable today, because there might be an unlike here that can become wildly healing for you.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So I'd like to start there.

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[SPEAKER_01]: There's so many, and one of the places I want to get to it, and then we'll end with there's so many places that where kink can be incredibly healing in many, many ways.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So the best definition of kink I have ever heard is that which you are embarrassed to ask for.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's going to vary from person to person.

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[SPEAKER_01]: There's this stereotypical ones of a spanking or bondage or chibhari or any kind of those things impact play is people are going to find kinky.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But there are other people who depending on how they were raised.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And I've worked actually with the number of ex-modes.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Former Mormons is

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[SPEAKER_01]: Some of those nuances that come in where some people would take it for granted, other people would find kit-wait a minute.

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[SPEAKER_01]: You actually touch tongues with somebody else when you're kissing and they would find that incredibly kinky where it's commonplace for other people.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So kink is just something that you find shameful or you have questions about or you're embarrassed to ask for.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And one of the

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[SPEAKER_01]: it doesn't have to be sex.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It can be any part of your life that you find shameful is being in a room with healthy people.

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[SPEAKER_01]: That's the key.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Healthy people who are going to support you and not retraumatize you and you end up being seen by saying, this is something I'm kind of embarrassed to mention.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I want to, I need to be seen while doing that.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And that is incredibly healing for these things.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So that's where the BDSM and Kink comes into play.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And I practice and I was trained with my professional DOM training in conscious Kink.

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[SPEAKER_01]: You're bringing it above the table.

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[SPEAKER_01]: You're not just,

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[SPEAKER_01]: picking a pick an example, it's spanking.

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[SPEAKER_01]: You're not just spanking somebody to spank somebody.

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[SPEAKER_01]: There's an intention behind it.

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[SPEAKER_01]: There's a connection behind it.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And the reason Kank can be healing for a lot of people is the rules around it.

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[SPEAKER_01]: In many ways, it doesn't have to be sexual.

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[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of people on the spectrum who enjoy Kingk or BDSM play because it's structured.

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[SPEAKER_01]: There are rules to it.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And in many ways, sex, kinky or not, sex is the psychological definition of play.

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[SPEAKER_01]: it's time boxed.

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[SPEAKER_01]: There's a scene.

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[SPEAKER_01]: There are rules.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And there are also no rules.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Watch kids on a playground.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And they make up a game as they go along.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And there's no rules.

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[SPEAKER_01]: They're making up the rules as they go.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And if there's an argument at some point in time, they argue about the rules for a couple minutes.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And then they'll look and be like, oh, yeah, let's do it that way.

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[SPEAKER_01]: That's great.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And they go off.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And they play again.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And then the play is done.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And they go back to their chores or school, whatever it is.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Sex and sexuality is analogous to the exact same thing.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And so what we've learned from Kink is there are boundaries.

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[SPEAKER_01]: There is consent.

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[SPEAKER_01]: There's negotiation.

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[SPEAKER_01]: We often find a level of safety with Kink prior to finding it in our lives.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Because we're working with somebody we have a partner that we're vulnerable with and sharing with.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And what we're able to do is create these rules around safety and boundaries and go, wow, I can set up boundaries for myself and be safe.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I can do it with my partner.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I should be able to do this in the rest of my life with family, with boundaries, and set up these things that I wasn't able to do as a kid.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't able to set these boundaries.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Now I can.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and it starts to give you permission to be able to say yes to what you want to say yes to and know what you want to say no to and over the years my definition of healing trauma has always been it's being able to advocate for yourself to say yes to what you want to say yes to say no to want to say no to.

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[SPEAKER_00]: because what people don't understand about trauma and where it starts to, I think really envelop your personality as a child.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It's not taking away the moment to say, I mean, yes it is, some very traumatic horrible things happen in that moment, but it's what happens downstream where you lose identity, where you lose permission to be yourself, where you lose the ability to have agency.

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[SPEAKER_00]: and so coming into the other side of it and this wasn't something understood because and and I've talked about this probably not as publicly as I might in this moment when I was young it was very experimental and I would find myself at times in situations when and what I mean young I mean like 1819 years old in rooms with people my age now 40 plus and I'm like

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[SPEAKER_00]: two things probably won.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I shouldn't have been in those rooms with those people.

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[SPEAKER_00]: They should have been like, hey, you're actually a child because you're fucking 20.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Secondly, like, I don't even understand what I was stepping myself into.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I think a lot of that is informed by one of a nature of adventurousness that I've always had.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And then I think the other side of it was just pure curiosity.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But it can also be very unsafe.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And I think people get scared about this conversation.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And we've already had people hit the eject button, right?

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[SPEAKER_00]: Because they're like, they're so afraid of the reality of like, hey, maybe this isn't a bad thing.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe there can be safety.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe what it really is is empowerment.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But it's never been said to as in that capacity.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, let's, let's head on a couple of things you said.

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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you were adventurous and you were experimental.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Neither of those are a bad thing.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But without any guardrails, yeah, you start ending up in situations where you may or may not be with people that are not trustworthy.

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[SPEAKER_01]: You may the comment about being able to say yes for your yeses and no for your nose, that is so critically important and something we miss.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Children and that's, you know, a lot of the psychological training that I've had in the background is as kids, we take the yes and no away from children.

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[SPEAKER_01]: We don't give them choice.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes we can't, we have to be the adult in the room.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But we have to teach our children that yes is okay.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And no is okay.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And you can say those and be safe.

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[SPEAKER_01]: How many people do you know, typically women, who are good girls?

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[SPEAKER_01]: They were raised to please others.

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[SPEAKER_01]: They have no desires of their own, and they're absolutely in some ways terrified of saying no.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Guys as well, can be raised to be good boys or I would call, you know, boy scouts.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I was raised to be a boy scout.

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[SPEAKER_01]: No, there's ours of my own.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I am there to please everybody else.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And I go as raised with a whole bunch of shudds.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I wish I should on myself a lot.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I shouldn't be doing this.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I should not be doing that.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So the ability to say yes or no, one of the beautiful things about conscious kink when you're doing it with people you trust, partners, and whether it's individuals or in a group situation, whatever, is everything is a no until it's a yes.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And it's almost the opposite of that in the real world.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It in society, almost everything is a yes until, and unless you say no, your boss comes at you and says, I need you to work late tonight.

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[SPEAKER_01]: There's no can you work late tonight?

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[SPEAKER_01]: I need you to work late tonight.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I don't care that it's your anniversary.

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[SPEAKER_01]: This has to get done, and I need it out tomorrow morning by five a.m.

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[SPEAKER_01]: That's like, there's no consent there.

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[SPEAKER_01]: They're not saying to you, can you stay late tonight?

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, it's my anniversary.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I can't, but I'll be in early tomorrow morning and I'll get this done before you're meeting, so you have it ready for you.

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[SPEAKER_01]: There's none of those conversations.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So having that agency to say yes and no and be seen for it and be honored for it.

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[SPEAKER_01]: One of the things I loved from the training I got was when you're talking to somebody in negotiating.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And again, BDSM does not have to be sexual, but when you're negotiating for a scene, are you interested in this or do you want to play or would you like to join me or anything like that?

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[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody says no, the response that I was always trained with was thank you for taking care of yourself.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's great that you said no.

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[SPEAKER_01]: One of my concerns is always working with a client is if they say yes to everything, I can no longer trust their yeses.

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[SPEAKER_01]: If you're getting more and more extreme and the person is constantly saying yes to everything, you can no longer trust their yeses.

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[SPEAKER_01]: You have to be able to connect with somebody and understand where they're coming from.

18:00.149 --> 18:09.450
[SPEAKER_01]: to provide them with the agency, or help them get their agency back to be able to say yes and mean it and know and still be loved for it.

18:10.308 --> 18:11.209
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't have to be kick.

18:11.329 --> 18:18.418
[SPEAKER_01]: And how many relationships, even the relationships of coaching you do, in how many relationships is it like I don't like saying no to my partner?

18:19.239 --> 18:20.040
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm overwhelmed.

18:20.060 --> 18:20.901
[SPEAKER_01]: I've had all this stuff to do.

18:20.921 --> 18:23.744
[SPEAKER_01]: I've got to get one kid to hockey and another kid to soccer practice.

18:23.784 --> 18:24.625
[SPEAKER_01]: I've got all these things to do.

18:24.645 --> 18:25.326
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to fix dinner.

18:25.646 --> 18:26.567
[SPEAKER_01]: Someone is coming at me.

18:26.627 --> 18:29.871
[SPEAKER_01]: Friends or family members to say, hey, can you do Thanksgiving this year?

18:30.032 --> 18:30.933
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god, no.

18:31.093 --> 18:39.623
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm incredibly overwhelmed and you go, yeah, I can do it.

18:40.126 --> 18:53.401
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's, that was one of the things that I discovered very early on because I, I was definitely raised to be whatever we say is go all the time, you have no say in anything happening in your life.

18:53.962 --> 19:03.973
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've said many times on the show, I was highly codependent in my teens and in my 20s where everything, dude, I mean, if your favorite color was yellow, my favorite color is yellow.

19:03.953 --> 19:05.678
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I had no personality.

19:05.698 --> 19:18.975
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't understand that and I remember one time this story comes to mind because I thought the color yellow I bought this yellow backpack and like this is embarrassing, but it's true this this kid in my

19:18.955 --> 19:23.285
[SPEAKER_00]: This eighth grade year, ninth grade year, something like that, who's the most popular kid in school.

19:23.345 --> 19:27.134
[SPEAKER_00]: He had a yellow backpack, I was like, oh shit, if I get a yellow backpack, I'm going to be cool.

19:27.455 --> 19:29.159
[SPEAKER_00]: Guess what, Matthew, did not make me cool.

19:29.540 --> 19:34.492
[SPEAKER_00]: What eventually did, which I still think holds true to this day, is I was just like, I'm just going to be me, fuck it.

19:34.732 --> 19:35.935
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't like me, fine.

19:35.915 --> 19:42.425
[SPEAKER_00]: but it took a long time to get there because if you've never been allowed to be you before, how do you be you?

19:42.465 --> 19:52.641
[SPEAKER_00]: And then when you have never been allowed to be you in a space of this sexual expression and kink or BDSM or Shabari or any of the things,

19:52.621 --> 19:57.350
[SPEAKER_00]: And we talked about this idea of people are so embarrassed and they're so scared.

19:57.390 --> 19:59.353
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, but wait a second.

19:59.514 --> 20:03.822
[SPEAKER_00]: Isn't there a space for them to, how do I want to say it, gain personal power?

20:04.222 --> 20:10.073
[SPEAKER_00]: Like isn't there a space for them to come into this regulated, co-regulated, to have their nervous system,

20:10.053 --> 20:24.356
[SPEAKER_00]: to be in a line of people and to have those yeses in those nose, and what I think about a lot is if you're in your sympathetic nervous system, you're never making cognizant functional decisions that are for the betterment of your life.

20:24.837 --> 20:36.415
[SPEAKER_00]: You're in fight or flight, but if you can sit in these spaces and you are regulated and co-regulated and you learn how to read people and read the room and read the experience and read your yeses in your nose,

20:36.395 --> 20:42.767
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, isn't there something about like retrieving power in that that I think is a big part of the conversation?

20:42.787 --> 20:52.646
[SPEAKER_01]: 100% and frankly, you just took the words out of my mouth it for so much of this is that, yes, that's where the co-regulation comes from.

20:52.687 --> 20:57.576
[SPEAKER_01]: It is so difficult as a kid being yourself.

20:58.366 --> 21:06.015
[SPEAKER_01]: because we are born without any ability to take care of ourselves and we are reliant on other people all the time.

21:06.056 --> 21:08.545
[SPEAKER_01]: So then to branch out.

21:08.626 --> 21:14.215
[SPEAKER_01]: and to take that risk and be slapped down for it, you learn not to do that.

21:14.876 --> 21:20.685
[SPEAKER_01]: So to unlearn that like you did, in ninth grade it was terrible for you because you had to learn to be yourself.

21:21.026 --> 21:31.022
[SPEAKER_01]: It's risky to be yourself because if you're not like everybody else, man, there's nothing more cruel than the elementary school or junior high school playground.

21:31.306 --> 21:38.837
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're not like everybody else, you're gonna get ostracized, you're gonna get picked on, you're gonna be alone, you're gonna be made fun of, and nobody wants that.

21:39.518 --> 21:51.255
[SPEAKER_01]: And so to find a space where you can be yourself and be cherished and loved for it, whether or not it's cake is critically important for us to become who we are and recognize that, I don't need this.

21:52.437 --> 21:59.828
[SPEAKER_01]: The other thing is, people, there are people in your life who will profit off of your issues.

22:00.112 --> 22:03.598
[SPEAKER_01]: You were in that room at 18 with a bunch of 40-year-olds.

22:03.638 --> 22:05.581
[SPEAKER_01]: It was probably not the best place for you to be.

22:05.921 --> 22:08.646
[SPEAKER_01]: You didn't have the boundaries necessary to set that up.

22:08.666 --> 22:11.029
[SPEAKER_01]: But those 40-year-olds are profiting off of you.

22:11.089 --> 22:12.291
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't mean financially.

22:12.772 --> 22:15.617
[SPEAKER_01]: They were getting benefits from your being there.

22:15.637 --> 22:20.204
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you start making that change, you lose those connections.

22:20.284 --> 22:23.209
[SPEAKER_01]: If your codependency was that, those connections were important to you.

22:24.351 --> 22:25.933
[SPEAKER_01]: You're losing all those.

22:26.437 --> 22:33.891
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the first things I tell clients when they come to me is like, look, you're going to lose friends and you're going to lose family members potentially as you make your changes.

22:34.673 --> 22:39.602
[SPEAKER_01]: Because as you set up boundaries, people are going to start walking away from you.

22:39.886 --> 22:43.112
[SPEAKER_01]: or they're going to accelerate because they need you to be in that role.

22:43.412 --> 22:48.842
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're the scapegoat in your family, your family blamed you for everything.

22:48.882 --> 22:50.445
[SPEAKER_01]: So they didn't have to look at their own issues.

22:50.786 --> 22:51.527
[SPEAKER_01]: You grow up.

22:51.988 --> 22:54.773
[SPEAKER_01]: You said boundaries starts that I'm not going to take that on anymore.

22:55.635 --> 23:01.185
[SPEAKER_01]: Your family needs to be there because, man, if you're not my scapegoat, I got to look at my own shit, I don't want to do that.

23:01.351 --> 23:03.634
[SPEAKER_01]: And so they're going to accelerate and they're going to push harder.

23:03.714 --> 23:06.919
[SPEAKER_01]: You may have some family members who are like, dude, we didn't know we were doing that to you.

23:06.959 --> 23:07.420
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry.

23:07.740 --> 23:08.461
[SPEAKER_01]: I love the boundaries.

23:08.501 --> 23:10.584
[SPEAKER_01]: I love the person who are becoming great.

23:11.445 --> 23:13.088
[SPEAKER_01]: But a lot of your friends aren't going to do that.

23:13.208 --> 23:14.009
[SPEAKER_01]: Man, that's tough.

23:15.030 --> 23:21.359
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you find a community and I'm going to open this up, just just for healing basis, for therapeutic basis.

23:21.940 --> 23:30.312
[SPEAKER_01]: When you find a community that accepts you for who you are, that's going to be incredibly healing, whether or not it's cake, BDSM.

23:30.292 --> 23:45.153
[SPEAKER_01]: When you have a game for BDSM, Thresh about desire in your body, and you don't understand it, and you're 18 years old, and you're like, I'd like to tie you up, or I'd like to be tied, you're saying to a partner, and they're 18, and they don't have the life experience, and they're like, dude, you want to do what?

23:45.273 --> 23:51.943
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm out, and you just lost your girlfriend, and now you're alone, and now you're sad, and now she's telling everybody else, what you ask for.

23:53.205 --> 23:57.531
[SPEAKER_01]: That is shame inducing in such a level that you're not going to bring it up again.

23:57.798 --> 24:04.126
[SPEAKER_01]: But when you find this community, that is able to bring that in, and it's a community that when done well is so incredibly healing.

24:05.368 --> 24:14.440
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why teach conscious cake, and that's why I help people recognize the fact that these things in your head are okay, and it's not a sign that you're better on.

24:15.281 --> 24:27.096
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's a healing thing to be able to be seen and to be felt, and have these experiences that you can be seen and ask for what you want, and be loved for it.

24:27.464 --> 24:29.407
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think that's such a great point.

24:29.527 --> 24:37.278
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that parlay is over, whether you're 18 or 88 or 48 or 28 or 60, like it doesn't matter.

24:37.298 --> 24:38.080
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

24:38.100 --> 24:45.270
[SPEAKER_00]: It's it's about the context of recognizing that in the right environment, you will be supported.

24:45.250 --> 24:52.563
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that that's really difficult because the initial rejection, I think, is a part of the experience.

24:53.424 --> 24:55.488
[SPEAKER_00]: I just, at least in my experience, right?

24:55.508 --> 25:00.557
[SPEAKER_00]: And I had a relationship and because of one of my proclivities, we're not in alignment with hers.

25:00.617 --> 25:07.208
[SPEAKER_00]: And this was when I was probably late 20s, I think,

25:07.188 --> 25:12.354
[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember she shamed me so hard and she was like that's disgusting.

25:12.374 --> 25:35.743
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't believe you would think that way and like in context like looking at what the thing was it's so minor like it's so small and from the things that I've seen and experienced in my life I can look back and laugh but in that moment it was like you might as well run me over with the bulldozer because it destroyed me and then what happened is it pushed me to this place where I shut down for a long time

25:35.723 --> 25:58.457
[SPEAKER_00]: And so you have these people and luck I got in this amazing community at one point and it was just a place of healing, just much like AA or NA or any of the AIs that I've gone to or men's group therapy or the retreats I've done or whatever, in this container, I looked at it as this continual space of healing, so Matthew, I look at relationships in these six categories.

25:58.437 --> 26:00.581
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not saying the right or definitive.

26:00.601 --> 26:02.063
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just saying this is how I see it.

26:02.584 --> 26:08.975
[SPEAKER_00]: And those six categories are mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, financial, financial, excuse me, and sexual.

26:09.476 --> 26:22.639
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that each one of those containers depending on what your childhood was like in your relationships prior to literally this moment, probably need some love and some compassion and some touch and some safety.

26:22.619 --> 26:31.510
[SPEAKER_00]: And each one of those containers has a space in which you can access those things, but I believe I think, tell me if I'm wrong.

26:32.010 --> 26:35.915
[SPEAKER_00]: I think this is going to be probably the most crazy thing I've ever said on the show.

26:36.676 --> 26:44.946
[SPEAKER_00]: I think more people would be comfortable talking about the idea that they're about to file bankruptcy than that they like to get paid on.

26:45.467 --> 26:48.390
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that's such a crazy thing, but like yeah.

26:48.370 --> 26:58.508
[SPEAKER_00]: But like, that's where my brain goes with this, because I'm thinking to myself, it's, we live in these subverticals of life, and we're so okay talking about the divorce.

26:58.548 --> 27:00.631
[SPEAKER_00]: We're so okay talking about the bankruptcy.

27:00.651 --> 27:12.572
[SPEAKER_00]: We're so okay talking about this, but we somehow have alluded the safety of talking about the very thing that at the crux of all of it makes us the most human.

27:12.552 --> 27:19.566
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, when I'm, the reason I'm asking you this is like, where does the emotional safety really come from in all this?

27:19.966 --> 27:29.665
[SPEAKER_00]: Where does, like, how does the structure, how does the consent, how does the choice, how does that allow a deeper emotional honesty for people to have a real experience?

27:30.667 --> 27:31.168
[SPEAKER_00]: So,

27:33.427 --> 27:36.831
[SPEAKER_01]: When that girlfriend dumped you, based on that prolific.

27:36.851 --> 27:37.752
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't dumped by the way.

27:37.832 --> 27:38.433
[SPEAKER_00]: I broke up with her.

27:39.414 --> 27:39.514
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

27:39.534 --> 27:39.915
[SPEAKER_00]: Fair enough.

27:40.255 --> 27:42.959
[SPEAKER_00]: When that was, when that was, it was so painful.

27:43.059 --> 27:45.061
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, I don't think I can be with you anymore.

27:45.141 --> 27:45.502
[SPEAKER_01]: Fair enough.

27:46.843 --> 27:49.467
[SPEAKER_01]: When that shaming happened, that was my assumption, sorry.

27:49.527 --> 27:51.189
[SPEAKER_01]: When that shaming, that's happened.

27:51.689 --> 27:54.953
[SPEAKER_01]: You took that prolificity and you said, you buried it.

27:55.033 --> 27:55.834
[SPEAKER_01]: You shut down.

27:56.195 --> 27:58.017
[SPEAKER_01]: You put everything away.

27:59.785 --> 28:04.470
[SPEAKER_01]: We want to be seen, and we want to be loved.

28:04.650 --> 28:07.253
[SPEAKER_01]: It is innate for all of us.

28:07.994 --> 28:14.001
[SPEAKER_01]: The first couple of months of our lives, everything revolves around what does it take for me to get my needs met.

28:15.242 --> 28:20.508
[SPEAKER_01]: What does it take for me to get fed and cleaned and changed and set the bed and all these other things?

28:20.808 --> 28:23.211
[SPEAKER_01]: And how do I manipulate the environment to get there?

28:23.444 --> 28:26.468
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you're not getting it, you're going to keep manipulating the environment to get there.

28:27.069 --> 28:28.951
[SPEAKER_01]: And we take those scripts and we grow up with it.

28:29.111 --> 28:31.054
[SPEAKER_01]: And what are we really looking for the whole time?

28:31.314 --> 28:33.917
[SPEAKER_01]: We are looking for love and care.

28:33.957 --> 28:37.182
[SPEAKER_01]: How do we get cared for and how do we get love?

28:37.202 --> 28:39.304
[SPEAKER_01]: And if we don't have it, we play games around it.

28:40.045 --> 28:53.282
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you get to a point in time when you can be seen and be vulnerable, and you no longer have to play these games to get power or to get love,

28:53.701 --> 28:55.044
[SPEAKER_01]: It's incredibly healing.

28:55.365 --> 28:59.013
[SPEAKER_01]: You mentioned the fact that we'll talk about, oh my God, I have to declare bankruptcy.

28:59.113 --> 29:03.162
[SPEAKER_01]: Long before we're gonna talk about golden showers, it doesn't have to be something that extreme.

29:03.703 --> 29:09.756
[SPEAKER_01]: Guys, we will talk about bankruptcy long before we talk about the fact that, you know what I really want?

29:10.257 --> 29:13.785
[SPEAKER_01]: I just want to really want to be held in my lover's arms and just cry for it for an hour.

29:15.183 --> 29:20.032
[SPEAKER_01]: We won't even talk about that either, but how immensely healing is it going to be?

29:20.072 --> 29:32.635
[SPEAKER_01]: To find that partner who's going to allow us to curl up and be vulnerable and shed some tears and say life is really fucking hard right now and I just need somebody to support me.

29:33.931 --> 29:36.093
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all we're looking for, that's healing.

29:36.594 --> 29:53.092
[SPEAKER_01]: When it comes to our basis of sex and sexuality and our sexual desires, whether it's, I'd like to be tied up or tied or multiple partners or a spank to move this energy that is sitting in my body to have these experiences, I've always thought about her fantasize about.

29:53.893 --> 29:57.397
[SPEAKER_01]: And some of her fantasies, by the way, don't have to become reality.

29:58.138 --> 29:59.820
[SPEAKER_01]: When you have

29:59.800 --> 30:21.792
[SPEAKER_01]: you have your partners like I love hearing my partners fantasies and it may be fantasy like I really want to experience this someday great let's make that happen or it's I've always had this fantasy and don't really want to do this in real life great let's sit together and cuddle and let's talk about it and have these fantasies just between you and I so you can say them out loud and get the experience that way

30:22.092 --> 30:34.028
[SPEAKER_01]: All of this revolves, the entire conversation so far has just been revolving on the fact of being seen and felt and heard in such a way that we are cared for and loved for it.

30:35.450 --> 30:41.298
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the things that, like I said, I think before is the fact that we will get a better experience out of a kink scene.

30:41.358 --> 30:45.484
[SPEAKER_01]: Well before we have learned in life,

30:45.582 --> 30:50.167
[SPEAKER_01]: that we can be seen and heard and felt and respected and honored.

30:50.908 --> 30:54.292
[SPEAKER_01]: So, there's all these misconceptions out there about cake.

30:54.312 --> 30:58.778
[SPEAKER_01]: We can talk about the 800 pound gorilla in the room, and that was Christian Gray from Fifty Shades.

30:59.218 --> 31:00.400
[SPEAKER_01]: The dude is a psychopath.

31:01.160 --> 31:10.932
[SPEAKER_01]: And Hollywood, in multiple examples, from the recent movie, baby doll to Fifty Shades, going back in time, they conflate cake and trauma.

31:12.025 --> 31:21.317
[SPEAKER_01]: And all the psychological studies out there, there is no connection between BDSM and Kink desires and trauma historical in your life.

31:21.417 --> 31:30.869
[SPEAKER_01]: As a matter of fact, people who participate in BDSM and Kink typically have less trauma or better healed trauma than the general population.

31:31.309 --> 31:34.894
[SPEAKER_01]: In almost every measurement, you can make a relationship.

31:35.768 --> 31:39.012
[SPEAKER_01]: People who participate in kink and it's not two or three percent.

31:39.133 --> 31:46.643
[SPEAKER_01]: It's some studies are showing 40, 50 percent of people participate in kink activities or desire to participate in kink activities.

31:47.304 --> 31:50.268
[SPEAKER_01]: Have better relationships measured any way you want.

31:50.588 --> 31:52.070
[SPEAKER_01]: The ability to talk openly.

31:52.110 --> 32:00.882
[SPEAKER_01]: The ability to be vulnerable with a partner, happiness, consent, boundaries, negotiation, healing with a partner.

32:00.862 --> 32:03.245
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's one stat that I love that blows everybody away.

32:03.586 --> 32:09.013
[SPEAKER_01]: When you're in a relationship, really only about a third of the time things are going great.

32:09.654 --> 32:10.054
[SPEAKER_01]: That's it.

32:10.635 --> 32:14.080
[SPEAKER_01]: A third of the time, everybody's like, I get along with my partner 90 percent of the time.

32:14.100 --> 32:16.002
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not a healthy relationship.

32:16.022 --> 32:18.265
[SPEAKER_01]: It's only a third of the time things are going great.

32:18.285 --> 32:19.146
[SPEAKER_01]: What's the other two-third?

32:19.747 --> 32:21.249
[SPEAKER_01]: One third of that's having a rupture.

32:21.970 --> 32:25.755
[SPEAKER_01]: Whether it's something significant or it's fact, man, I hate the way I load the dishwasher.

32:26.815 --> 32:28.458
[SPEAKER_01]: And the other one is just repair.

32:29.319 --> 32:40.316
[SPEAKER_01]: So two thirds of the time you're going through ruptures repairs and these can be minor little things of, I gotta tell you, Michael, buddy, that thing you said to me this morning really kind of frustrated me.

32:40.957 --> 32:42.299
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, man, man, I'm sorry.

32:42.400 --> 32:43.381
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't mean it that way.

32:43.441 --> 32:45.184
[SPEAKER_01]: That wasn't my intent.

32:45.304 --> 32:47.488
[SPEAKER_01]: I hear that that impact hurt you and I'm sorry.

32:47.728 --> 32:48.990
[SPEAKER_01]: That was a rupture that was repair.

32:49.030 --> 32:50.292
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all it needs to be.

32:52.027 --> 33:06.621
[SPEAKER_01]: And you get that and the ability to communicate all of this by BDSM and Kink and learning how to communicate, how to negotiate, how to ask for what you want, how to recognize your partner's boundaries.

33:07.202 --> 33:11.086
[SPEAKER_01]: The first person by the way, you need to dumb is yourself.

33:13.048 --> 33:17.612
[SPEAKER_01]: You need to embody yourself and get control of yourself and your emotions.

33:17.947 --> 33:21.752
[SPEAKER_01]: And only when that's done, do you have the ability to connect with your partner?

33:22.834 --> 33:32.367
[SPEAKER_01]: Once you connect with your partner and allow that vulnerability to happen, my God, the relationships that can get healed, do you have to participate in cake?

33:32.467 --> 33:35.712
[SPEAKER_01]: No, should you learn how cake works?

33:35.732 --> 33:40.258
[SPEAKER_01]: And that may be some of it for your listeners to take away, is just learning some of it how it works.

33:40.318 --> 33:42.942
[SPEAKER_01]: Not for me, man, I don't wanna do any of that kind of stuff.

33:43.394 --> 33:44.576
[SPEAKER_01]: I got news for you.

33:44.596 --> 33:51.886
[SPEAKER_01]: Blindfolding a partner, some people find kinkies simply feathers along the skin is kink.

33:51.906 --> 33:54.329
[SPEAKER_01]: Handcuffs are just tying someone to the bed is kink.

33:54.370 --> 34:01.359
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't have to get to this extreme of golden showers or leather or impact player anything else.

34:01.379 --> 34:03.883
[SPEAKER_01]: But just learning how to negotiate with your partner.

34:04.252 --> 34:09.921
[SPEAKER_01]: how to recognize their nose and their yeses and not push the boundaries and not gaslight.

34:10.381 --> 34:12.545
[SPEAKER_01]: And when somebody says no, it's like, no, no, no, give it a try.

34:12.585 --> 34:13.366
[SPEAKER_01]: You really wanna do it.

34:13.646 --> 34:18.093
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no, no, come on, you really, that's violation.

34:19.155 --> 34:23.882
[SPEAKER_01]: The best example that is the Christmas song, I really can't stay.

34:25.084 --> 34:26.927
[SPEAKER_01]: Baby is cold outside, I really can't stay.

34:26.947 --> 34:32.335
[SPEAKER_01]: As soon as the woman says I really can't stay, the only response is let me get you an Uber or drive you home.

34:34.492 --> 34:42.302
[SPEAKER_01]: and not push, and that's where you develop, that's where you develop, better relationships with the partner.

34:42.882 --> 34:55.038
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you have that from a partner, oh my God, the healing that can ensue because you recognize the fact, I can say what I want and what I need and what I desire without being shamed for it.

34:55.118 --> 35:03.368
[SPEAKER_01]: And it doesn't have to be sexual, it could be like, look, can you do what the kids on Thursday night because I need a break?

35:04.090 --> 35:04.431
[SPEAKER_00]: there.

35:04.751 --> 35:11.944
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I've literally written like 20 questions since we've been sitting here because they're just so many things that are coming to mind as we're going through this.

35:12.706 --> 35:28.174
[SPEAKER_00]: And the two things kind of sit really top for me because I think that it's one of those things where people are probably asking themselves this question as well, one being, and so it's multi-fold, so I'll try to deliver it succinctly.

35:28.154 --> 35:30.137
[SPEAKER_00]: One is like, where does this come from?

35:30.317 --> 35:31.940
[SPEAKER_00]: Where do these ideas come from?

35:32.060 --> 35:39.372
[SPEAKER_00]: Where, like, where did my brain say, hey, you know, it'd be really great is, you know, I'd like you to do X.

35:39.392 --> 35:40.554
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, where does that come from?

35:40.614 --> 35:46.703
[SPEAKER_00]: Two, how do we create emotional safety for ourselves and our partner in that?

35:47.324 --> 35:55.377
[SPEAKER_00]: And then three, how do we avoid conflating what we can call King slash sex with love slash connection?

35:56.116 --> 35:56.476
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.

35:56.617 --> 35:57.678
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

35:57.698 --> 35:58.919
[SPEAKER_01]: So where does it come from?

35:59.680 --> 36:02.984
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, it does not come from trauma.

36:04.185 --> 36:05.727
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, it can come from.

36:07.428 --> 36:16.559
[SPEAKER_01]: You and I are of an age where quite frankly, it can come from watching Julie Numer for those who don't remember Julie Numer, that was Catwoman from the Adam West Batman.

36:17.299 --> 36:19.262
[SPEAKER_01]: It can come from watching Wonder Woman.

36:19.462 --> 36:26.089
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're a certain age and

36:26.288 --> 36:30.313
[SPEAKER_01]: It can come from watching Catherine Bach in her Daisy Dukes.

36:31.014 --> 36:34.699
[SPEAKER_01]: It can come from watching the movie Basic Instinct, which has some pretty intense sex scenes.

36:34.739 --> 36:36.000
[SPEAKER_01]: And all of a sudden, you're looking at that go on.

36:36.501 --> 36:37.642
[SPEAKER_01]: I found that really arousing.

36:38.143 --> 36:39.365
[SPEAKER_01]: It's as simple as that.

36:41.067 --> 36:42.408
[SPEAKER_01]: Look at the history of Wonder Woman.

36:42.649 --> 36:51.520
[SPEAKER_01]: A history of Wonder Woman was, Kent can be DSM with the Golden Lasso and tying people up, the creator of Wonder Woman,

36:51.668 --> 36:59.281
[SPEAKER_01]: the professor, Marston, and his two partners, they was in a thrupble, he's the creator of the Light Detective test.

36:59.962 --> 37:01.224
[SPEAKER_01]: That's where the golden lasso comes from.

37:01.685 --> 37:10.260
[SPEAKER_01]: So watching these things can be enough to be like, I have an interest in King or sex, or these types of things with Wonder Woman in the lasso, for example.

37:10.941 --> 37:11.963
[SPEAKER_01]: Where else does it come from?

37:12.404 --> 37:16.090
[SPEAKER_01]: It comes from your basic desires of what you want out of life.

37:17.065 --> 37:25.878
[SPEAKER_01]: The stereotype of a dominatrix, female dominatrix and her 50-year-old millionaire CEO.

37:26.238 --> 37:30.485
[SPEAKER_01]: A guy who's running a billion-dollar company, people want him all his, all the time.

37:30.545 --> 37:31.606
[SPEAKER_01]: They need something from him.

37:31.626 --> 37:32.468
[SPEAKER_01]: They're after his money.

37:32.508 --> 37:33.649
[SPEAKER_01]: They need to make decisions.

37:33.990 --> 37:37.976
[SPEAKER_01]: He's impacting thousands of lives every day with the decisions he's making.

37:37.996 --> 37:38.877
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really intense.

37:38.917 --> 37:39.618
[SPEAKER_01]: It's overwhelming.

37:39.698 --> 37:44.946
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody wants for an hour or two a week.

37:46.512 --> 37:49.357
[SPEAKER_01]: That's where you get the stereotype of Dominator.

37:49.377 --> 37:51.681
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just going to treat him like an Ottoman, treat him like a piece of furniture.

37:51.761 --> 37:54.546
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to put my feet on you and have a cocktail while you sit there and do nothing.

37:54.646 --> 37:54.967
[SPEAKER_01]: Why?

37:55.007 --> 37:58.853
[SPEAKER_01]: Has he finds it relaxing?

37:59.535 --> 38:02.279
[SPEAKER_01]: Because all he wants out of life is this.

38:03.361 --> 38:06.747
[SPEAKER_01]: There's other fantasies women have, multiple partners, something like that.

38:07.208 --> 38:11.355
[SPEAKER_01]: I just want to be pleasureed and not have to do anything for it.

38:12.027 --> 38:18.694
[SPEAKER_01]: You can take a lot of these desires and make them g rated of what you want to get out of life.

38:20.916 --> 38:24.019
[SPEAKER_01]: And no, it's not Freud sexualizing everything.

38:24.079 --> 38:29.464
[SPEAKER_01]: It's actually taking at the opposite route and saying, your sexual desires, there's interest.

38:31.286 --> 38:34.709
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a way to figure out what are you looking for in life.

38:35.750 --> 38:41.376
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you get to the emotional safety and the emotional regulation by having the conversations you and I are having now?

38:43.111 --> 38:45.173
[SPEAKER_01]: and making sure that we're on the same page.

38:46.435 --> 38:54.184
[SPEAKER_01]: There is difficulty a lot of times with using BDSM and Kink, I won't say difficulty challenges with using BDSM and Kink for therapy.

38:54.764 --> 38:55.565
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not a therapist.

38:56.366 --> 39:02.413
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of my clients I recommend they go get to see a therapist, but what I do can be incredibly healing.

39:03.014 --> 39:05.817
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's no different from somebody's saying, you know what heals me?

39:06.118 --> 39:12.645
[SPEAKER_01]: I go take a walk in the woods or I go spend a half an hour pet in my golden retriever.

39:13.030 --> 39:29.419
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you find emotional regulation by taking care of yourself first, by recognizing when something is spinning you up, by recognizing your triggers, by learning your patterns that we talked about the beginning of the episode, to make sure that you're not repeating patterns over and over again.

39:30.293 --> 39:34.058
[SPEAKER_01]: The one thing I won't do with the client is I'm not going to perpetuate harm.

39:34.879 --> 39:38.704
[SPEAKER_01]: And I teach people when I do this, not to retraumatize.

39:39.245 --> 39:43.511
[SPEAKER_01]: It is not hard sometimes when you're working at this from healing, you mentioned before.

39:43.551 --> 39:56.048
[SPEAKER_01]: We talked about helping a kid or helping an adult, get their agency back from something that happened that was immensely traumatizing as a kid, last thing you want to do is retraumatize and make it worse.

39:57.631 --> 39:59.373
[SPEAKER_01]: So you have that understanding.

39:59.473 --> 40:08.985
[SPEAKER_01]: You go through your therapy, you unwind yourself and understand where your emotions are coming from so that you don't have patterns that you don't recognize.

40:10.387 --> 40:14.933
[SPEAKER_01]: And you work with a partner and you work with people who are trained and people you are you trust.

40:15.533 --> 40:27.148
[SPEAKER_01]: You could have been an 18-year-old young man in a room with a bunch of 40-year-olds and been cared for and have it a safe place

40:28.445 --> 40:34.596
[SPEAKER_01]: that could have helped you with some of that emotional regulation instead of making things a little bit worse for you.

40:34.616 --> 40:35.858
[SPEAKER_01]: And what was your third question?

40:35.878 --> 40:38.522
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the where's it comes down the emotional regulation?

40:38.562 --> 40:39.143
[SPEAKER_01]: What was your third?

40:39.284 --> 40:39.644
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.

40:39.664 --> 40:46.015
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the third was how what is happening that people are conflating King Consex with love?

40:47.851 --> 40:49.994
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think it, I'm gonna broaden that out.

40:50.074 --> 40:52.979
[SPEAKER_01]: People can flate sex with love.

40:53.259 --> 40:57.145
[SPEAKER_01]: People can flate attention with love.

40:57.946 --> 41:04.876
[SPEAKER_01]: It's an exaggeration of go back to being in high school and like, oh my God, she asked me what the homework assignment was because she missed class today.

41:04.896 --> 41:05.838
[SPEAKER_01]: She must really like me.

41:06.719 --> 41:12.888
[SPEAKER_01]: We are, you know, you, you, you, you, you just know me on that one.

41:12.968 --> 41:17.014
[SPEAKER_01]: I may have been speaking from experience.

41:18.530 --> 41:24.298
[SPEAKER_01]: when you don't have the love of in your life and the connection in your life, you're hungry for it.

41:24.839 --> 41:26.862
[SPEAKER_01]: When you're starving, you'll eat almost anything.

41:26.922 --> 41:31.648
[SPEAKER_01]: When you're thirsty, you will drink, when you're in the desert, walking around, you're own, you're on looks good to drink.

41:31.668 --> 41:36.635
[SPEAKER_01]: You will drink anything when you are thirsty or starving.

41:37.696 --> 41:41.702
[SPEAKER_01]: And right now, in American a lot of places, there's an epidemic of loneliness.

41:42.830 --> 41:45.414
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the problem is we reach out to anything we can.

41:45.574 --> 41:46.856
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you not conflate it?

41:47.417 --> 41:48.459
[SPEAKER_01]: You have a conversation.

41:49.380 --> 41:50.863
[SPEAKER_01]: You communicate better.

41:51.103 --> 41:51.944
[SPEAKER_01]: You look at some ego.

41:52.445 --> 41:53.547
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you want this to mean?

41:54.128 --> 41:55.009
[SPEAKER_01]: What does this mean?

41:55.109 --> 41:59.756
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're working with, if you're playing with a new partner for the first time, what's the meaning behind this?

42:00.477 --> 42:01.920
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, not sure where this is going yet.

42:02.120 --> 42:02.380
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

42:03.262 --> 42:05.265
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's talk about this openly because I'm not sure.

42:05.565 --> 42:08.550
[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe you're the type of person says, I need to know first.

42:09.442 --> 42:18.473
[SPEAKER_01]: or you're going to dive in and say like, okay, but I'm going to keep asking you until we know so that I'm not going to farm, not diving in head over heels.

42:19.414 --> 42:24.641
[SPEAKER_01]: You need to know that you have a pro-liquity for diving in and being like, oh my God, I got a kiss.

42:25.382 --> 42:27.244
[SPEAKER_01]: I know I can see myself marrying this person.

42:28.846 --> 42:30.708
[SPEAKER_01]: And it didn't mean really anything to them.

42:32.210 --> 42:35.955
[SPEAKER_01]: So you have that conversation and their hard conversations are not easy to have.

42:36.560 --> 42:37.121
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not.

42:37.561 --> 42:39.224
[SPEAKER_00]: It hurts at all, but you need to be doing.

42:39.244 --> 42:41.426
[SPEAKER_00]: But you need to have them.

42:41.446 --> 43:05.959
[SPEAKER_00]: 100% you know, I can kind of cut a line in the sand of looking at the way I treated sex and King can be DSM, growing up as a kid with no parents, with mentors in hip hop and pop culture, in porn, and movies, and all the things that are not what is happening right now, which is educated conversation.

43:05.939 --> 43:11.208
[SPEAKER_00]: And I can draw the sand in this moment where I started diving deeper into literature.

43:11.609 --> 43:21.226
[SPEAKER_00]: And I started reading books like Ethical Slet, like Polysecure, Sex at Dawn, opening up, because there was this phase for a while in my early thirties.

43:21.286 --> 43:26.074
[SPEAKER_00]: And part of this is probably like living in Portland, and it's a very scenic kind of place where I was like,

43:26.054 --> 43:27.435
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I got some just poly.

43:27.455 --> 43:34.262
[SPEAKER_00]: It like turns out I'm totally not, but I like played in that world for a while, and then I've read more and I was like, okay, cool.

43:34.282 --> 43:36.784
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm reading, um, um, mating and captivity.

43:36.804 --> 43:38.046
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm reading come as you are.

43:38.086 --> 43:40.128
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm reading all of these books.

43:40.428 --> 43:42.630
[SPEAKER_00]: And every one of them, this is what's so crazy.

43:42.650 --> 43:44.212
[SPEAKER_00]: And then Erica Garza's book.

43:44.432 --> 43:46.053
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, God, what was that name of that book?

43:47.034 --> 43:48.636
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, it's such a great book.

43:48.976 --> 43:50.037
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, it'll come to me.

43:50.057 --> 43:51.859
[SPEAKER_00]: I interviewed her on this show before.

43:51.839 --> 44:05.149
[SPEAKER_00]: And like her sexual experiences and the things that she discovered and the thing that I kind of have taken from all of this is that it always, always, always, always begins with communication, always.

44:05.650 --> 44:10.000
[SPEAKER_00]: But you know this, we are not taught to communicate.

44:10.115 --> 44:22.673
[SPEAKER_00]: We have no structural foundation for sitting across from some of the amount of discomfort that you just caused people listening by simply asking the question, well, what does this mean?

44:22.753 --> 44:25.777
[SPEAKER_00]: Probably lost 95% of the audience, right?

44:25.937 --> 44:28.521
[SPEAKER_00]: Because we're not given that structure in that space.

44:29.002 --> 44:32.106
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's funny, like, we're,

44:32.086 --> 44:42.361
[SPEAKER_00]: I always like to think that I'm not like guiding a conversation anywhere and I'm letting it happen, but every single time you say something, I come up with like 10 more questions because I know how important this stuff is.

44:42.922 --> 44:51.975
[SPEAKER_00]: So I guess the next part is diving deeper into where you left off and too fold, how do you start having these conversations?

44:52.536 --> 44:57.283
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, when does kink dangerous and not healing?

44:58.748 --> 45:14.088
[SPEAKER_01]: When do, how do you start having these conversations, um, the, one of the best lines to come out of any art or theater or anything is Yoda, do or do not.

45:14.128 --> 45:16.130
[SPEAKER_01]: There is no try.

45:16.150 --> 45:18.914
[SPEAKER_01]: You just have to have the conversations.

45:18.954 --> 45:21.297
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no way to

45:22.087 --> 45:30.397
[SPEAKER_01]: Kind of dip your, you can dip your toe into these conversations like I need to start asking you something and you can see what you can get out of a partner.

45:31.578 --> 45:44.934
[SPEAKER_01]: And you may have to be able to like, okay, let's have this conversation later and recognize that again, Dom yourself first, understand where you're coming from and what your triggers are and understand and be able to look at your partner and say, this is scary is how for me, but I need to ask this question.

45:46.716 --> 45:50.220
[SPEAKER_01]: How many relations that your listeners who are still listening.

45:50.453 --> 45:53.497
[SPEAKER_01]: who understand that these conversations are difficult.

45:54.919 --> 46:00.888
[SPEAKER_01]: They all look up and go, you know what, but when I had the difficult conversations, I came out the other end, okay.

46:02.410 --> 46:04.874
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it the relationship ended and it needed to end?

46:05.755 --> 46:11.884
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, and it would have ended sooner had we had this conversation sooner, or the relationship wouldn't have ended.

46:12.826 --> 46:15.229
[SPEAKER_01]: Had we had better communication?

46:16.019 --> 46:20.866
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a relationship and I thought it was the most incredible, amazing relationship in my life.

46:21.246 --> 46:30.319
[SPEAKER_01]: And we communicated openly about conversations and topics that just other people would have cringe and gotten running from the room.

46:30.699 --> 46:32.261
[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought our conversation was going great.

46:32.381 --> 46:35.766
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there was something happened that she didn't bring up, and she didn't bring up.

46:36.016 --> 46:58.682
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the resentment built and I don't care how much you love somebody you want somebody resentment will always win nothing beats resentment and the relationship ended because we didn't have these conversations we should have had and so is there an easy way to do it yeah there's a very easy way to do it on we need to have a conversation can we schedule this

46:59.489 --> 47:03.615
[SPEAKER_01]: Everything's fine, and we need to have a conversation.

47:04.397 --> 47:05.839
[SPEAKER_01]: And schedule it and make the time.

47:05.919 --> 47:07.842
[SPEAKER_01]: And don't try and squish it in five minutes.

47:07.862 --> 47:10.125
[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody has to run off and catch the train to work.

47:10.706 --> 47:15.433
[SPEAKER_01]: Schedule it and have the conversations and let them know repeatedly, reassure them.

47:16.195 --> 47:17.697
[SPEAKER_01]: Everything's okay.

47:17.717 --> 47:18.498
[SPEAKER_01]: We're gonna be fine.

47:19.399 --> 47:22.144
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you keep kink safe?

47:24.487 --> 47:26.290
[SPEAKER_01]: Start with communication.

47:27.957 --> 47:30.665
[SPEAKER_01]: You need to be able to say no.

47:31.367 --> 47:35.418
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's just talk the dumb, sought, dumb, sub-relationship.

47:35.699 --> 47:40.853
[SPEAKER_01]: The one who has power in the relationship more than the other is actually the sub.

47:41.845 --> 47:50.075
[SPEAKER_01]: In a healthy, dumb, sub-relationship is the sub-who sets the boundaries, who sets the rules, and says, this is okay, this is not.

47:50.095 --> 47:57.245
[SPEAKER_01]: And the dumb respects that, the healthy, dumb respects that, and listens to that.

47:57.965 --> 48:11.042
[SPEAKER_01]: And their entire goal is to make their submissive as happy as possible to invite their submissive to be happy.

48:11.191 --> 48:16.617
[SPEAKER_01]: As a dominant, I want to build a safe container for my sub so that they can let go of the rest of the world.

48:16.657 --> 48:21.041
[SPEAKER_01]: They can let go of their issues.

48:21.061 --> 48:22.483
[SPEAKER_01]: They can stop thinking about work.

48:22.543 --> 48:23.884
[SPEAKER_01]: They can feel safe.

48:23.904 --> 48:29.730
[SPEAKER_01]: If I don't feel safe, I'm not going to be able to feel as much pleasure or to let go of other things.

48:29.791 --> 48:31.452
[SPEAKER_01]: You talked about the book come as you are.

48:31.492 --> 48:40.742
[SPEAKER_01]: By the way, of all the books you read, most of them are just sitting on the shelf on the other side of the room for me.

48:41.920 --> 48:47.306
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the accelerator, you can mask that thing to the floor, but if the brakes are on a little bit, your partner's not going anywhere.

48:47.406 --> 48:51.011
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you get the brakes off, build a safe container for your partner?

48:52.112 --> 48:54.234
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's how you start making things safe.

48:54.675 --> 48:56.857
[SPEAKER_01]: Deer those who are listening who are subs.

48:57.538 --> 49:04.446
[SPEAKER_01]: If your DOM pushes your boundaries, if your DOM doesn't listen to you, when you say this is not okay, you need to run.

49:05.067 --> 49:06.128
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not a safe thing.

49:06.188 --> 49:07.590
[SPEAKER_01]: This is gonna retraumatize you.

49:07.630 --> 49:10.273
[SPEAKER_01]: This is where it becomes unhealthy.

49:11.789 --> 49:14.253
[SPEAKER_01]: So you need to communicate and make sure you're listening.

49:14.794 --> 49:17.839
[SPEAKER_01]: Make sure you're listening to your partner, make sure your partner is listening to you.

49:18.780 --> 49:21.565
[SPEAKER_01]: Your subuses are safe word, everything stops.

49:22.046 --> 49:22.567
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you do?

49:22.827 --> 49:24.069
[SPEAKER_01]: You go get training.

49:25.191 --> 49:36.750
[SPEAKER_01]: I spent two years of tremendous amount of time in effort and research and work and reading and experiences working with a professional dominant for two years.

49:37.827 --> 49:41.052
[SPEAKER_01]: to build up my training and to build up my scarce skills.

49:41.572 --> 49:49.524
[SPEAKER_01]: I did my own therapy for many, many years, to clean myself up even before I started doing this downward.

49:49.544 --> 49:53.429
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd be a terrible unhealthy dom had I done this 15, 20 years ago.

49:54.170 --> 50:01.000
[SPEAKER_01]: But since I cleaned myself on, and I understand where I'm coming from, and I see my patterns, and I know myself,

50:01.705 --> 50:24.973
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm much better to attune with a partner and build a safe container, whether that is with a partner that's long term, whether that's a partner in a scene, whether that is a client or a couple, or training that I'm doing, and I'm working with somebody for the first time in a training with 20 other people in the room, I'm like, okay, let's build a container.

50:24.993 --> 50:25.673
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you need?

50:26.074 --> 50:27.055
[SPEAKER_01]: Where's that safety?

50:28.672 --> 50:40.550
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to go into thought that I had because, you know, going back to that picture I painted for you of 1819 years old in this space, I didn't have any language like I have now.

50:40.610 --> 50:45.297
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've experienced many of those things again as an adult and a very different experiences.

50:45.738 --> 50:49.563
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of those things, I'm like, yeah, I would do it again, maybe with the right people or person.

50:49.884 --> 50:53.329
[SPEAKER_00]: Many of them are like, nah, right, and for me,

50:53.309 --> 50:59.378
[SPEAKER_00]: I, uh, to paint another picture, I was the kid who stuck a fork in the electrical socket when everyone told me not to.

50:59.419 --> 51:04.506
[SPEAKER_00]: I will never, ever, ever learn from someone else's folly.

51:04.587 --> 51:05.448
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just not in me.

51:05.508 --> 51:06.169
[SPEAKER_00]: I wish it were.

51:06.209 --> 51:09.394
[SPEAKER_00]: Trust me, it saved me a tremendous amount of headache and pain.

51:09.374 --> 51:19.112
[SPEAKER_00]: But people, I think two things have really started to happen in society, one, I think porn has now surpassed pop culture.

51:19.553 --> 51:21.477
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a part of the social ethos.

51:21.998 --> 51:32.277
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that it's so much so that like even the avian awards this year, I saw this post on Reddit where I have like the most attendees in the history of it.

51:32.257 --> 51:56.728
[SPEAKER_00]: more people are consuming more people are spending money predominantly unfortunately it's a lot of under a 35 year old men and you know we can get on a whole different conversation we don't need to right now but you know maybe we'll circle back to that but my reasoning and saying this is I don't think people understand what's real in reality and what to trust because like when you're seeing things in adult films

51:56.708 --> 52:19.577
[SPEAKER_00]: Generally speaking, I'm not saying this is always true nor has it always been, but today especially you see contracts, agreements, conversation on camera, this is what is okay, this is not what is okay, you know, and obviously there's a whole fantasy reality to it, but people don't know how to trust and especially in the moment whether or not the thing that is happening,

52:19.557 --> 52:28.111
[SPEAKER_00]: is them being re-traumatized, is them letting go of their boundaries, is them not feeling safe as them being taken advantage of.

52:28.231 --> 52:33.980
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know as well as I do especially the women listening to this kind of show, they've probably been taken advantage of.

52:34.060 --> 52:36.925
[SPEAKER_00]: Many of the men as well.

52:36.905 --> 52:40.329
[SPEAKER_00]: and so it's like, how do you know what to trust?

52:40.349 --> 52:41.370
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you know who to trust?

52:41.390 --> 52:42.632
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you know how to trust yourself?

52:42.652 --> 52:45.555
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you know to trust the thing that's happening in the moment is right or wrong?

52:45.815 --> 53:06.439
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you know like that word fills like overarching looming on top of me right now of with everything in the social structure of the world plus us not really having the capacity to trust people with our sexuality because someone like me being molested as a child took me

53:06.419 --> 53:08.821
[SPEAKER_00]: talk to me about trust in all of this.

53:10.423 --> 53:15.127
[SPEAKER_01]: That is an entire realm of psychology, which is expansive.

53:16.348 --> 53:20.852
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of that, a lot of that is going to be, a lot of that is going to be experiential.

53:22.013 --> 53:33.844
[SPEAKER_01]: The person who told you not to stick the fork in the outlet, you would probably end up trusting

53:34.077 --> 53:35.619
[SPEAKER_01]: You're like, yeah, that was a really dumb thing to do.

53:35.719 --> 53:36.740
[SPEAKER_01]: I should have listened to you.

53:37.621 --> 53:39.263
[SPEAKER_01]: Versus, that was really dumb thing to do.

53:39.343 --> 53:40.525
[SPEAKER_01]: Why did you tell me to do it?

53:41.686 --> 53:43.789
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of this is just going to be experiential.

53:45.290 --> 53:48.935
[SPEAKER_01]: And learning how to trust a lot of it's going to base based on your family of origin.

53:49.315 --> 53:50.877
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you have trusting parents?

53:50.957 --> 53:53.080
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you have a trusting siblings?

53:53.140 --> 53:54.862
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you have friends you could trust?

53:55.182 --> 53:57.064
[SPEAKER_01]: So you had those experiences growing up.

53:57.144 --> 54:01.890
[SPEAKER_01]: If you didn't have those experiences growing up, you have got to figure them out as an adult.

54:02.292 --> 54:11.829
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, the gentleman who've been assaulted, the ladies who have been in bad places, we don't train our kids well when it comes to sex.

54:11.849 --> 54:13.752
[SPEAKER_01]: Adults don't know how to talk about it.

54:13.893 --> 54:15.355
[SPEAKER_01]: Kids don't know how to talk about it.

54:15.375 --> 54:16.738
[SPEAKER_01]: You're talking about the porn epidemic.

54:16.778 --> 54:20.885
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, porn is up in coming and kids see that as the norm.

54:21.386 --> 54:23.209
[SPEAKER_01]: We can talk about the under 35 real men in a bit.

54:24.892 --> 54:26.916
[SPEAKER_01]: All of that is a problem.

54:28.364 --> 54:37.278
[SPEAKER_01]: What I have found, however, is a lot of this up-and-coming generation, the 30-year-olds, the upper 20-year-olds, I don't work it really with anybody younger than that.

54:37.298 --> 54:53.865
[SPEAKER_01]: The 20-year-olds and the 30-year-olds, they have an understanding coming in, working with me, about consent and boundary and negotiations that I don't think you and I ever got growing up in some ways.

54:54.638 --> 54:55.480
[SPEAKER_01]: is a problem.

54:56.121 --> 54:57.264
[SPEAKER_01]: In many ways, plan is problem.

54:58.206 --> 54:58.787
[SPEAKER_01]: Not in every way.

54:58.888 --> 54:59.950
[SPEAKER_01]: There's some good things about it.

54:59.970 --> 55:03.679
[SPEAKER_01]: There's some great things about it, depending on if you're using it in a healthy way.

55:04.440 --> 55:13.120
[SPEAKER_01]: A good example of what's changed is you look at Hollywood and theater, whether it's sag, aftra, or equity, they're now intimacy coordinators.

55:13.387 --> 55:21.700
[SPEAKER_01]: People backstage that you can look to and say, okay, what is okay, what is not okay for this scene that you're going to be in this person?

55:21.720 --> 55:27.649
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to be on stage on Broadway, getting a hugging, getting a kiss, what is a red zone, what is a green zone?

55:28.370 --> 55:29.391
[SPEAKER_01]: What does the kiss look like?

55:29.511 --> 55:30.613
[SPEAKER_01]: Where can the body parts go?

55:30.693 --> 55:33.057
[SPEAKER_01]: And these conversations are ongoing.

55:34.639 --> 55:37.564
[SPEAKER_01]: And so a lot of it goes back to communication.

55:38.225 --> 55:39.867
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you build trust?

55:40.252 --> 55:44.176
[SPEAKER_01]: a little of the time and experientially does not have to be in the sexual world.

55:44.356 --> 55:51.824
[SPEAKER_01]: How do I trust a partner that I'm starting to date, that they're going to be reliable, that they're going to be there for me, that I want to see them again.

55:51.904 --> 55:53.226
[SPEAKER_01]: You do it a little bit at a time.

55:53.586 --> 56:04.597
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you're diving in with a partner going, yes, well, let's go to a sex club where I have no idea who's going to be there and we have set no ground rules, that setting you up for a failure.

56:05.198 --> 56:07.120
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that going to be retraumatizing?

56:07.724 --> 56:19.599
[SPEAKER_01]: It very well could be that you're repeating a pattern growing up from an early traumatic episode or an early traumatic issue or it could be I'm just adventurous as hell.

56:19.659 --> 56:23.244
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's go play and see what happens and it's perfectly healthy for you to do that.

56:24.245 --> 56:25.847
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to depend on the individual.

56:26.408 --> 56:27.209
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you do this?

56:28.430 --> 56:34.558
[SPEAKER_01]: Man, I mean, I think we could almost change the title of this episode to be communication solves almost everything.

56:35.602 --> 56:39.109
[SPEAKER_01]: because it is going to be communication and experiential.

56:39.429 --> 56:40.672
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you know you can trust a partner?

56:41.113 --> 56:42.335
[SPEAKER_01]: Say no, watch what happens.

56:44.459 --> 56:51.613
[SPEAKER_01]: That may be the summation of that entire convert that entire answer to you is, look at your partner and say no, I don't want to do that.

56:53.016 --> 56:56.142
[SPEAKER_01]: And if they go, okay, great, or if they go,

56:57.708 --> 56:59.972
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, can we talk about it?

57:00.212 --> 57:00.693
[SPEAKER_01]: That's great.

57:01.194 --> 57:13.293
[SPEAKER_01]: Talk about it openly and honestly, but if there's trying to push you and trying to change you or their gas letting you, or they're pushing you harder and harder and or it comes a point in time where they do it anyway.

57:14.054 --> 57:16.298
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that harder.

57:16.318 --> 57:17.760
[SPEAKER_01]: Trust your gut.

57:18.762 --> 57:21.606
[SPEAKER_01]: And if your gut is something you don't feel like you can trust,

57:23.138 --> 57:25.200
[SPEAKER_01]: Come to a coach, come to a therapist.

57:25.220 --> 57:26.501
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's rework that trust.

57:26.562 --> 57:33.449
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's rework that inner warning signal to be able to say, this is not a trustworthy thing.

57:34.310 --> 57:39.295
[SPEAKER_01]: Because if you can't trust your gut, that is a pattern that you learned growing up.

57:39.315 --> 57:40.696
[SPEAKER_01]: And here's the beautiful thing.

57:40.736 --> 57:44.540
[SPEAKER_01]: Once you recognize these patterns, you can control them.

57:44.560 --> 57:46.242
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't have to run your life anymore.

57:46.642 --> 57:52.048
[SPEAKER_01]: Once you make things conscious, you can consciously stop doing that.

57:53.007 --> 57:55.512
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, totally right.

57:55.532 --> 58:12.206
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think I had such a reaction to that moment of like talk to your partner and see their reaction and a vivid memory, I won't get into the memory, but the vivid memory of this conversation, I had this person, her and I had a very strict boundary in our personal relationship.

58:12.827 --> 58:14.290
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said no.

58:14.270 --> 58:20.057
[SPEAKER_00]: And her reaction, dude, you might as well assume that I just kicked a puppy into a ravine, right?

58:20.277 --> 58:23.841
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was in that moment, I actually knew it was the end of the relationship.

58:23.861 --> 58:28.686
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, what, lucky enough I was in therapy at this point, I mean, this is 10 years ago, right?

58:28.727 --> 58:30.128
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm actually deep into this work.

58:30.148 --> 58:33.812
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm understanding boundaries, I'm understanding how to reclaim my power.

58:33.872 --> 58:38.758
[SPEAKER_00]: I understand also how to not be performative in the hopes that somebody likes me.

58:38.738 --> 59:06.147
[SPEAKER_00]: Right and and I also learn how to like as a as a man and as the way that I view myself in the world stand on my own two feet like no, this is how I see it if that's not okay with you goodbye and so for men who grew up like me that's such a powerful moment of growth and the same for women right because you need to be able to implement your boundaries and say no and that that again that parlay I think

59:06.127 --> 59:17.868
[SPEAKER_00]: The reason why I wanted to have this conversation today because I think that parlay of the kink and sexual yeses and nose, they do, that's a trickle down effect into every other area of your life.

59:18.289 --> 59:21.975
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just don't know of another place where it carries as much weight.

59:22.546 --> 59:28.860
[SPEAKER_01]: let's give a great example of this and it was coming up for me as you're talking about the guesses and the nose and the conversations.

59:29.321 --> 59:37.519
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you and your partner, and this is a big if and to your listeners who don't do this, it's fine, but just take the example and understand where it's coming from.

59:37.900 --> 59:41.348
[SPEAKER_01]: If you and your partner are going to a club, a sex club.

59:42.391 --> 59:49.184
[SPEAKER_01]: when you are not horny and well before you go, have the conversation, what are the boundaries?

59:49.545 --> 59:51.388
[SPEAKER_01]: What is okay, what is not okay?

59:51.669 --> 59:52.891
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you want to have happen?

59:53.132 --> 59:54.615
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you not want to have happen?

59:54.935 --> 59:55.256
[SPEAKER_01]: Great.

59:55.576 --> 59:57.400
[SPEAKER_01]: So you go in understanding each other.

59:57.420 --> 59:58.983
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's the key.

01:00:00.245 --> 01:00:04.213
[SPEAKER_01]: When you are there, you're not allowed to change the rules.

01:00:05.510 --> 01:00:14.766
[SPEAKER_01]: you have the conversation when you're not horny and maybe you're there and it's exciting and it's amazing and it's incredible and you're only going to go pick an example.

01:00:14.786 --> 01:00:24.362
[SPEAKER_01]: You are only going to go and play with each other and just have the experience of the void or and the exhibition is a great and you get there and there's another couple who's like we want to play with you.

01:00:24.342 --> 01:00:28.047
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, the arrangement you had was we're only going to play with ourselves.

01:00:28.367 --> 01:00:38.340
[SPEAKER_01]: You cannot change the rule in the club at the heat of the moment, because all that's going to do is lead to potentially a lot of consent regret.

01:00:38.941 --> 01:00:40.082
[SPEAKER_01]: I wish we hadn't done that.

01:00:40.162 --> 01:00:41.284
[SPEAKER_01]: I wish we hadn't done that.

01:00:41.384 --> 01:00:41.965
[SPEAKER_01]: That was dumb.

01:00:42.185 --> 01:00:42.826
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't want it.

01:00:43.186 --> 01:00:44.308
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know you didn't want it.

01:00:44.688 --> 01:00:45.750
[SPEAKER_01]: All I thought you wanted it.

01:00:46.130 --> 01:00:47.892
[SPEAKER_01]: All of these conversations come into play.

01:00:48.593 --> 01:00:52.358
[SPEAKER_01]: So, let's take that and grate it.

01:00:52.338 --> 01:00:53.520
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

01:00:53.540 --> 01:01:01.336
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to go into Christmas dinner with your family and you know we're going to negotiate this beforehand.

01:01:01.797 --> 01:01:06.106
[SPEAKER_01]: If they bring up, pick the subject that Uncle Bob always talks about.

01:01:07.148 --> 01:01:11.376
[SPEAKER_01]: If Uncle Bob brings up that subject, we're leaving.

01:01:12.402 --> 01:01:16.531
[SPEAKER_01]: and we're going to leave and you negotiate and you agree to that going in.

01:01:16.592 --> 01:01:19.879
[SPEAKER_01]: Uncle Bob gets drunk and starts talking about whatever.

01:01:19.939 --> 01:01:23.247
[SPEAKER_01]: Your partner can't look at you and go, no, no, no, it's fine.

01:01:23.327 --> 01:01:24.109
[SPEAKER_01]: Why don't want to leave?

01:01:24.129 --> 01:01:24.870
[SPEAKER_01]: It'll be embarrassing.

01:01:24.910 --> 01:01:25.692
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't want to.

01:01:25.712 --> 01:01:26.935
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not what you agree to.

01:01:28.282 --> 01:01:33.549
[SPEAKER_01]: These conversations being able to say yes or no to things is key.

01:01:34.470 --> 01:01:38.335
[SPEAKER_01]: And in Kink what you can do with a partner is there's a hundred of them online.

01:01:38.395 --> 01:01:40.998
[SPEAKER_01]: I can provide it at any number of them.

01:01:41.418 --> 01:01:42.660
[SPEAKER_01]: Kink checklists.

01:01:42.680 --> 01:01:43.822
[SPEAKER_01]: What activity is okay for you?

01:01:43.882 --> 01:01:45.383
[SPEAKER_01]: What activities are not okay for you?

01:01:45.424 --> 01:01:46.184
[SPEAKER_01]: Pardon the language.

01:01:46.485 --> 01:01:50.610
[SPEAKER_01]: But they're usually ranked from fuck no to no.

01:01:50.590 --> 01:01:53.835
[SPEAKER_01]: to maybe, to yes, to fuck yes.

01:01:54.315 --> 01:01:59.082
[SPEAKER_01]: Your goal is to play around with the fuck yeses, but here's the thing about consent and all of these.

01:02:00.484 --> 01:02:00.925
[SPEAKER_01]: Fuck yes?

01:02:01.105 --> 01:02:01.766
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's fine.

01:02:01.786 --> 01:02:03.108
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, that's fine.

01:02:03.128 --> 01:02:04.711
[SPEAKER_01]: No one to know is, that's a no.

01:02:05.612 --> 01:02:06.874
[SPEAKER_01]: A fuck no, of course is a no.

01:02:07.134 --> 01:02:07.695
[SPEAKER_01]: What's a maybe?

01:02:07.915 --> 01:02:08.075
[SPEAKER_01]: No.

01:02:08.957 --> 01:02:09.457
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure.

01:02:09.678 --> 01:02:09.838
[SPEAKER_01]: No.

01:02:11.040 --> 01:02:12.221
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe no.

01:02:13.924 --> 01:02:14.064
[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.

01:02:14.084 --> 01:02:15.606
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what consent is.

01:02:15.626 --> 01:02:18.150
[SPEAKER_01]: Unless it is a yes.

01:02:18.603 --> 01:02:19.564
[SPEAKER_01]: Everything else is in no.

01:02:20.284 --> 01:02:28.492
[SPEAKER_01]: You want to know how to trust your partner, watch those boundaries and be able to say no and watch like you said, watch what happens.

01:02:28.532 --> 01:02:29.533
[SPEAKER_01]: How dare you say no to me?

01:02:29.733 --> 01:02:31.534
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's not going to be a good relationship for you.

01:02:32.175 --> 01:02:33.496
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how you maintain safety.

01:02:33.996 --> 01:02:35.658
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how you avoid retraumatizing.

01:02:36.038 --> 01:02:48.289
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how you avoid getting into situations where you get consent regret or traumatization or bad partners.

01:02:48.961 --> 01:02:49.842
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I love that.

01:02:50.062 --> 01:03:17.179
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, I've as an entrepreneur and as a coach and somebody who like I my job is literally to push people's boundaries sometimes I look at a no as a not today as a let's keep talking about it as like we need to continue to work through the moments of does this no turning to a yes make my life better the one thing I always think about the fuck no like that so we don't even need to talk about it again because this is decided like I'll give you a great example.

01:03:17.159 --> 01:03:18.560
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't eat Brussels sprouts.

01:03:18.921 --> 01:03:23.725
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a fuck no don't even don't even try don't even ask me I'm not gonna do it.

01:03:23.745 --> 01:03:24.606
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm dead.

01:03:24.646 --> 01:03:41.221
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I call going up little gag balls totally hundred percent You know, I was I was at a restaurant with friends and you know, they ordered the the roasted Brussels sprout with the bacon and the goat cheese and the Balsamic vinegar rat and I was like and they were like just try one.

01:03:41.241 --> 01:03:45.445
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like I will stab you in the face if you ask me to try one of these again

01:03:45.425 --> 01:04:14.588
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, and because like I'm so strict about my fuck knows and my fuck yeses that like it's an absolute and I think that's the thing people need to sit in There are things that are absolute yeses and things that are absolute no But there's there's the individual side of it here's yours here's mine and then there's the married side of it not like literally Mary, but the parlay of these are ours together and I think that that is the dynamic that creates healing because if you think about

01:04:14.568 --> 01:04:41.065
[SPEAKER_00]: growing up in this place of always filling unsafe and never filling the capacity for connection and always filling invisible and filling ignored and filling like your opinions and your mind in your body don't matter and you're disposable, you're not important and no matter what you do, you never are going to matter to anyone and then you finally get somebody in your life and they make you feel the opposite of that the second they break that it's over forever.

01:04:41.045 --> 01:04:46.736
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that so much of it requires a front, and it's like, can we just get on the same page?

01:04:46.816 --> 01:04:52.828
[SPEAKER_01]: Do your last point when you're not seeing when you have all these traumas growing up?

01:04:53.369 --> 01:04:54.852
[SPEAKER_01]: And, and I will say this.

01:04:55.253 --> 01:04:59.502
[SPEAKER_01]: It can be a lot of traumas we have growing up are insidious.

01:05:00.183 --> 01:05:01.326
[SPEAKER_01]: They're under the table.

01:05:01.746 --> 01:05:07.679
[SPEAKER_01]: There's the obvious ones you've talked about and you talk about them openly on your show, but nobody gets out of childhood inscathed.

01:05:07.999 --> 01:05:12.168
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of the issues that people have growing up, I didn't have this experience that Michael did.

01:05:12.348 --> 01:05:13.350
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have to worry about this.

01:05:13.931 --> 01:05:16.637
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of these little insidious things,

01:05:16.938 --> 01:05:28.040
[SPEAKER_01]: that your parents did, because not because they meant you harm, they just didn't know any better and the way you interpreted it, also leads to these traumas and these not being seen and these not to being felt and all these things.

01:05:28.340 --> 01:05:32.669
[SPEAKER_01]: And yes, when you have somebody who does, oh my God, that's incredible.

01:05:33.931 --> 01:05:35.875
[SPEAKER_01]: But when that trust is broken.

01:05:36.749 --> 01:05:39.092
[SPEAKER_01]: That's when things fall apart.

01:05:39.232 --> 01:05:41.956
[SPEAKER_01]: And you can spiral down and say, I will never, ever find it.

01:05:42.056 --> 01:05:43.458
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's never going to work.

01:05:43.919 --> 01:05:50.989
[SPEAKER_01]: And those are so many things that need to be healed therapeutically in every other way that it hurts to hear that.

01:05:51.850 --> 01:05:54.314
[SPEAKER_01]: We make a joke of it nowadays on the internet.

01:05:54.374 --> 01:06:01.103
[SPEAKER_01]: If somebody says something, you know, funny, you know, a little funny meme or something of that and somebody replies with, oh, my God, I feel seen

01:06:02.045 --> 01:06:07.736
[SPEAKER_01]: but it goes so much deeper than that when you actually can be seen.

01:06:08.737 --> 01:06:11.783
[SPEAKER_01]: And experienced and loved for it.

01:06:11.883 --> 01:06:13.566
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe the relationship doesn't last.

01:06:14.949 --> 01:06:22.042
[SPEAKER_01]: The essence and transactional analysis and I work with entrepreneurs and leaders as transact analysis is great for the business world as well.

01:06:22.703 --> 01:06:25.909
[SPEAKER_01]: But the essence of transactional analysis is all of us are okay.

01:06:27.222 --> 01:06:29.085
[SPEAKER_01]: inherently we are all okay.

01:06:29.125 --> 01:06:31.188
[SPEAKER_01]: There's nothing wrong with us.

01:06:31.248 --> 01:06:33.471
[SPEAKER_01]: We've got some things to clean up.

01:06:33.492 --> 01:06:36.797
[SPEAKER_01]: We've got some patterns that we need to recognize and stop doing.

01:06:37.397 --> 01:06:45.670
[SPEAKER_01]: But there's nothing fundamentally wrong with us that makes us unsavable or unsavigable or unlovable.

01:06:47.000 --> 01:06:49.325
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's powerful.

01:06:49.907 --> 01:06:51.069
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and it's true.

01:06:51.089 --> 01:07:03.557
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that the moment that that wall breaks down of the taking care of each other, then you walk down the got men for horsemen of the apocalypse, the criticism, the contempt that defensiveness and the stonewalling.

01:07:03.537 --> 01:07:06.220
[SPEAKER_00]: and I think so much of it is taking care of each other.

01:07:06.261 --> 01:07:10.346
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the questions that I feel like it's very, very, very important to get into.

01:07:10.526 --> 01:07:17.355
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is one, I've listened to Savage Love Cast in consumed and Savage's content for probably 20 years.

01:07:18.116 --> 01:07:22.862
[SPEAKER_00]: Ever since he was writing in the Washington post and I could find it on MSNBC when I was like,

01:07:22.842 --> 01:07:23.623
[SPEAKER_00]: actually longer.

01:07:23.643 --> 01:07:24.724
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I'm aging myself.

01:07:24.744 --> 01:07:25.645
[SPEAKER_00]: This is like 30 year.

01:07:25.845 --> 01:07:29.429
[SPEAKER_00]: 10 year old should not be reading Dan Savage columns, by the way.

01:07:30.250 --> 01:07:36.416
[SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, as a as a tech savvy, as a at-risk youth, I always think to myself, just huge props to him.

01:07:37.737 --> 01:07:41.581
[SPEAKER_00]: Why, why are some of the kings that people are attracted to?

01:07:41.641 --> 01:07:43.543
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I know people are thinking this right now.

01:07:44.064 --> 01:07:48.428
[SPEAKER_00]: Why are some of the things that they're attracted to, the very thing that caused them harm?

01:07:49.505 --> 01:07:51.907
[SPEAKER_01]: because you're looking to get healed.

01:07:52.188 --> 01:07:56.913
[SPEAKER_01]: If you can get through that harm in such a way, let's go back to the example I gave you earlier.

01:07:57.513 --> 01:08:01.958
[SPEAKER_01]: You had a narcissistic mother who never said I love you and you end up dating narcissistic women.

01:08:02.018 --> 01:08:02.278
[SPEAKER_01]: Why?

01:08:02.318 --> 01:08:08.645
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you want them to say I love you because if you get that, your little kid will be healed.

01:08:09.145 --> 01:08:10.867
[SPEAKER_01]: Fine, you can do it.

01:08:11.087 --> 01:08:14.090
[SPEAKER_01]: Dad smacks your ass a whole bunch and it is abusive.

01:08:14.130 --> 01:08:17.554
[SPEAKER_01]: So you're looking for that impact again.

01:08:18.952 --> 01:08:21.376
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to go back to something you brought up a minute ago.

01:08:21.836 --> 01:08:23.098
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is going to be important.

01:08:24.600 --> 01:08:30.149
[SPEAKER_01]: You brought up the fact that I grew up in this horrific state.

01:08:30.349 --> 01:08:30.970
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody loved me.

01:08:31.030 --> 01:08:32.752
[SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't seeing all of these things.

01:08:32.873 --> 01:08:34.675
[SPEAKER_01]: It felt nobody could love me.

01:08:34.715 --> 01:08:36.157
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody could see me all of these things.

01:08:36.558 --> 01:08:41.726
[SPEAKER_01]: When you find that person who does, it's different.

01:08:41.746 --> 01:08:45.972
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's going to feel uncomfortable as hell.

01:08:46.643 --> 01:08:49.286
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to feel incredibly uncomfortable.

01:08:49.306 --> 01:08:56.475
[SPEAKER_01]: Einstein's comment that the mind treats a new idea like an infection and it fights it.

01:08:57.196 --> 01:08:57.977
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what happens.

01:08:58.017 --> 01:09:06.707
[SPEAKER_01]: You may have a person who's just going to be amazing for you and you're going to do everything you can to push them away because it's not new.

01:09:07.408 --> 01:09:09.170
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry, it's not better.

01:09:10.071 --> 01:09:13.275
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just different and different is scary.

01:09:13.694 --> 01:09:16.338
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody saw me for who I was, nobody loved me.

01:09:16.459 --> 01:09:18.902
[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody here is seeing me for who I am, and they loved me.

01:09:18.943 --> 01:09:22.749
[SPEAKER_01]: Dude, I, I, that's scary as hell.

01:09:22.829 --> 01:09:27.757
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to run from that and that's, that's what we do.

01:09:28.077 --> 01:09:34.047
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the problem with coming up with these ways to find it and to get the healing out of it.

01:09:35.349 --> 01:09:36.872
[SPEAKER_01]: That was going back one point.

01:09:36.992 --> 01:09:38.875
[SPEAKER_01]: What was the last question you hit me with?

01:09:39.158 --> 01:09:40.980
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I think I know where you were going.

01:09:41.020 --> 01:09:45.326
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought I was asking you why are people interested and attracted to the very thing that hurt them?

01:09:45.346 --> 01:09:46.728
[SPEAKER_01]: The very thing that hurts them.

01:09:46.748 --> 01:09:49.131
[SPEAKER_01]: And some of that is because they're used to it.

01:09:49.812 --> 01:09:50.893
[SPEAKER_01]: It feels comfortable.

01:09:51.234 --> 01:09:52.035
[SPEAKER_01]: It feels safe.

01:09:52.215 --> 01:09:58.243
[SPEAKER_01]: Even if it was damaging for me, it feels safe.

01:09:59.384 --> 01:10:04.852
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, to be around somebody who screams in yells at me all the time, that's why I grew up, that was my norm.

01:10:04.892 --> 01:10:07.495
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel safe because I know what's going on.

01:10:08.403 --> 01:10:14.483
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're treating me with respect and kindness, I don't know what the fuck to do with that.

01:10:14.543 --> 01:10:16.168
[SPEAKER_01]: That's uncomfortable.

01:10:16.688 --> 01:10:18.712
[SPEAKER_01]: So you stick with the patterns.

01:10:19.093 --> 01:10:20.896
[SPEAKER_01]: You're gonna go after that, which hurt you.

01:10:21.498 --> 01:10:24.965
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of it is, trying to, some of it could be just fucking you.

01:10:24.985 --> 01:10:27.149
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what, dad, you're spanked me all the time.

01:10:27.470 --> 01:10:32.199
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not doing it because I get pleasure out of it and it's fun and screw you for that because I find enjoyment out of this.

01:10:32.921 --> 01:10:38.612
[SPEAKER_01]: That can easily be some of it, but some of it is, I'm trying to find healing from that which I know.

01:10:39.740 --> 01:10:48.836
[SPEAKER_01]: And there are ways to do that by looking up and saying I'm asking for this with agency and consent and boundaries and communication.

01:10:49.257 --> 01:10:51.260
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm taking all that power away from my dad now.

01:10:52.322 --> 01:10:53.585
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm taking those spanks away.

01:10:53.745 --> 01:10:57.511
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm doing this because I can feel the agency in my body.

01:10:58.794 --> 01:11:01.779
[SPEAKER_01]: Now at the people who are like, why is spanking pleasurable?

01:11:01.799 --> 01:11:04.043
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all the chemicals in the brain.

01:11:04.613 --> 01:11:07.463
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the oxytocins, the dopamine, is the pleasure response.

01:11:07.523 --> 01:11:08.406
[SPEAKER_01]: It's moving blood.

01:11:08.466 --> 01:11:11.456
[SPEAKER_01]: It's moving energy in your body for a lot of people.

01:11:12.118 --> 01:11:14.004
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't have to be sexual in any way whatsoever.

01:11:14.025 --> 01:11:14.566
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what it does?

01:11:14.586 --> 01:11:15.670
[SPEAKER_01]: It quietes the mind.

01:11:16.342 --> 01:11:17.523
[SPEAKER_01]: You're no longer thinking.

01:11:17.543 --> 01:11:23.249
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't have to be pain levels of eight, nine, and 10 in the emergency room one to 10 scale.

01:11:23.269 --> 01:11:33.779
[SPEAKER_01]: It could be twos and threes, but that level of impact for example, for many people, quiets the mind, moves energy, settles you out.

01:11:34.080 --> 01:11:37.603
[SPEAKER_01]: Your mind stops racing at a hundred miles an hour and you focus.

01:11:38.884 --> 01:11:44.610
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of the beautiful things about it, people know about the runners high.

01:11:45.080 --> 01:11:52.649
[SPEAKER_01]: when you are not, when you are the sub, and you are no longer thinking about anything else other than the physical experiences and the safety that you are bathed in.

01:11:53.450 --> 01:11:54.632
[SPEAKER_01]: There is Dom space.

01:11:55.233 --> 01:11:56.875
[SPEAKER_01]: The rest of the world doesn't exist.

01:11:56.975 --> 01:12:04.464
[SPEAKER_01]: My entire focus is on keeping this other human being safe and providing them with what they want.

01:12:05.205 --> 01:12:10.952
[SPEAKER_01]: From the negotiation all the way through to the aftercare and the debrief, that's Dom space.

01:12:11.270 --> 01:12:13.432
[SPEAKER_01]: That's incredibly healing for a lot of people.

01:12:13.553 --> 01:12:15.495
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know I took that answer pretty far of field.

01:12:16.376 --> 01:12:26.827
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's a lot of the healing and the attentiveness can come into play with this is I'm going after that, which my father did to be or my mother did to me, to heal me.

01:12:29.750 --> 01:12:35.657
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm doing it with choice and agency and in a safe container provided by my partner.

01:12:36.548 --> 01:12:37.169
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

01:12:37.389 --> 01:12:42.556
[SPEAKER_00]: And what you're getting that you didn't have is agency and control and boundaries.

01:12:43.077 --> 01:12:48.224
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's literally flipping the same experience on its head and being like, oh, I'm actually the one in control here.

01:12:48.745 --> 01:13:05.188
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that that right there surmises what I've been trying, what I thought in my head about the path of the direction of this conversation is let's give people permission to be in control of everything in their life, including this and this.

01:13:06.147 --> 01:13:13.798
[SPEAKER_01]: One aspect of that, a great example of getting agency back, is a victim of sexual assault.

01:13:14.459 --> 01:13:16.462
[SPEAKER_01]: They can go up, mat, male, or female.

01:13:16.482 --> 01:13:25.676
[SPEAKER_01]: They can go out and they can work with the psychologist, they can work with the trauma therapist, they can get over the PTSD, so they're no longer walking into a room with an immense heightened state of awareness.

01:13:25.716 --> 01:13:29.121
[SPEAKER_01]: They're no longer constantly in the heightened state of awareness.

01:13:29.742 --> 01:13:35.530
[SPEAKER_01]: They can talk about the incident without reliving it, which is one of the greatest definitions of PTSD.

01:13:36.269 --> 01:13:37.272
[SPEAKER_01]: So they've healed that.

01:13:37.814 --> 01:13:46.802
[SPEAKER_01]: They can go take their Kravma Ga, their BJJ, whatever their martial artist, they can learn to protect themselves 19 different ways so it never happens again.

01:13:47.710 --> 01:13:51.716
[SPEAKER_01]: but they may not have any ability for intimacy.

01:13:52.717 --> 01:13:57.684
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not that that's the scariest part for them is being with a lover and intimacy.

01:13:58.265 --> 01:13:58.566
[SPEAKER_01]: Why?

01:13:58.906 --> 01:14:01.269
[SPEAKER_01]: Because their body agency was taken away from them.

01:14:01.870 --> 01:14:06.717
[SPEAKER_01]: If somebody was held down and sexually assaulted, their body agency was taken away from them.

01:14:06.998 --> 01:14:08.740
[SPEAKER_01]: The PTSD, you can get that out.

01:14:09.001 --> 01:14:10.463
[SPEAKER_01]: They're being able to defend yourself.

01:14:10.483 --> 01:14:13.347
[SPEAKER_01]: You can take care of that, but you lost your body agency.

01:14:13.427 --> 01:14:16.992
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what a great way to get that back is for some people.

01:14:16.972 --> 01:14:21.518
[SPEAKER_01]: working through the trauma is maybe it's just simply I can hold your hands together.

01:14:22.018 --> 01:14:24.902
[SPEAKER_01]: I can hold your hands together so you cannot move them or release them.

01:14:26.143 --> 01:14:30.388
[SPEAKER_01]: And when it gets uncomfortable and you want to say I'm done, you just simply say I'm done and I will let go.

01:14:31.009 --> 01:14:32.211
[SPEAKER_01]: And you can get your hands back.

01:14:32.791 --> 01:14:34.253
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it's tying the wrists together.

01:14:35.415 --> 01:14:41.021
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you're done and you can say, okay, that's enough.

01:14:41.382 --> 01:14:41.862
[SPEAKER_01]: Great.

01:14:41.883 --> 01:14:42.203
[SPEAKER_01]: We're done.

01:14:42.623 --> 01:14:46.388
[SPEAKER_01]: And you start getting your agency back in your body.

01:14:46.688 --> 01:14:52.754
[SPEAKER_01]: It is one way that BDSM Shabari, rope play, bondage, can be healing.

01:14:54.356 --> 01:14:58.199
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's all done as we dig with communication, with boundaries.

01:14:58.760 --> 01:14:59.641
[SPEAKER_01]: Explain what's going on.

01:14:59.701 --> 01:15:04.566
[SPEAKER_01]: You're ready for this, and as soon as they're boundaries, as soon as you're like I'm done, you respect their boundaries and you untie.

01:15:06.207 --> 01:15:06.347
[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.

01:15:06.367 --> 01:15:07.589
[SPEAKER_01]: Get the agency back.

01:15:07.689 --> 01:15:09.150
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how you can take this.

01:15:09.851 --> 01:15:11.913
[SPEAKER_01]: Recreate, terrible word.

01:15:13.094 --> 01:15:13.995
[SPEAKER_01]: Take that out.

01:15:15.123 --> 01:15:28.223
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how you can take this and instead of recreating the trauma, use your experiences to work through the trauma and get your agency back and your ability to say, this is me, this is who I am.

01:15:29.084 --> 01:15:39.460
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not ashamed by it, I love me, I love you, we're communicating, we're having this conversation, and we have consent and boundaries and negotiation.

01:15:39.659 --> 01:15:46.408
[SPEAKER_01]: We have repair and rupture and repair everything going along to make your relationships great.

01:15:47.069 --> 01:16:01.648
[SPEAKER_01]: Whether that is with your partner, which is 90% of what we've talked about that in 99% of what we talked about today, or as the relationships you have with your subordinates, with your boss, with your manager, with coworkers, with friends, with family members.

01:16:02.469 --> 01:16:05.633
[SPEAKER_01]: You start setting boundaries and negotiation.

01:16:06.220 --> 01:16:09.205
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, this has been just an amazing conversation, Matthew.

01:16:09.245 --> 01:16:10.167
[SPEAKER_00]: It's so fun.

01:16:10.267 --> 01:16:16.698
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm glad that I decided to have this conversation with you because it's something for me that's a part of my life.

01:16:16.918 --> 01:16:17.840
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm okay with that.

01:16:17.860 --> 01:16:23.149
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not something that I'm going to go dive into the details of for me and the people in my life and that capacity.

01:16:23.489 --> 01:16:24.832
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's also something that matters.

01:16:24.892 --> 01:16:27.436
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's something that I've seen change me.

01:16:27.617 --> 01:16:29.680
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's something that I've seen that has given me.

01:16:29.660 --> 01:16:34.064
[SPEAKER_00]: huge amounts of healing and trust in grace for myself.

01:16:34.604 --> 01:16:46.855
[SPEAKER_00]: As addition to just being around some very interesting, wonderful people and pushed me into further understanding and educating myself and beyond all of that created a space and a container for healing.

01:16:47.756 --> 01:16:59.667
[SPEAKER_00]: Before I ask you my last question, tell everybody where they can find you, they're more about you, work with you, and if they need, have a conversation with you because it's just something that really registered

01:16:59.647 --> 01:17:10.020
[SPEAKER_01]: You can find me and the work that I do at the stir-institute.com, STIR, it's an acronym for sex trauma, intimacy, and relationships.

01:17:10.080 --> 01:17:16.248
[SPEAKER_01]: Stirinstitute.com in the US and exactly stir-strategy.ca up in Canada, I work in both countries.

01:17:17.269 --> 01:17:19.892
[SPEAKER_01]: I work with individuals and couples.

01:17:20.413 --> 01:17:25.239
[SPEAKER_01]: I help you recognize the pattern in your life that are no longer working for you and breaking them.

01:17:25.459 --> 01:17:26.380
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can...

01:17:26.360 --> 01:17:32.248
[SPEAKER_01]: You can stop living the life that you were told to live, and start living the life that you want openly and with consent.

01:17:32.909 --> 01:17:42.441
[SPEAKER_01]: I train people, a couple's individuals, large groups, in conscious kink, and how to participate in these activities safely and in the healthy ways that you and I talked about.

01:17:43.022 --> 01:17:51.253
[SPEAKER_01]: One of my favorite things to do is I train psychologists and clinical social workers and therapists in how to be kink aware.

01:17:51.233 --> 01:17:57.468
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you're coupled, when your clients, individuals couples, when your clients come to you and say, I'm having fantasies about this.

01:17:57.708 --> 01:18:00.435
[SPEAKER_01]: I wish my partner would do this or my partner wants me to do this.

01:18:00.795 --> 01:18:01.938
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not understanding it.

01:18:02.439 --> 01:18:06.188
[SPEAKER_01]: You can understand where your clients are coming from.

01:18:06.286 --> 01:18:11.478
[SPEAKER_01]: and provide them with help without shaming them or re-traumatizing them.

01:18:11.518 --> 01:18:16.189
[SPEAKER_01]: Cause if you shamed them once, they're never gonna come back to you in therapy and bring this up again.

01:18:16.249 --> 01:18:21.662
[SPEAKER_01]: So I help clients, therapists, become cankeware.

01:18:21.642 --> 01:18:24.527
[SPEAKER_01]: Not necessarily cake participants, if they want to be, that's great.

01:18:24.547 --> 01:18:42.296
[SPEAKER_01]: Come talk to me about that, but I teach people to be cake aware so that when they're dealing with clients coming out of horrible situations or not understanding where these experiences or these fantasies or desires are coming from, how to do it in a healthy, safe, healing therapeutic manner.

01:18:43.097 --> 01:18:46.603
[SPEAKER_01]: An endurance to 2.com or stirstratagies.ca.

01:18:47.444 --> 01:18:47.925
[SPEAKER_00]: amazing.

01:18:48.205 --> 01:18:54.572
[SPEAKER_00]: And guys, remember, if you go to think Unbroken podcast, there will be all that information and more in the show notes.

01:18:55.133 --> 01:18:59.758
[SPEAKER_00]: My last question for you, my friend, what does it mean to you to be Unbroken?

01:19:02.281 --> 01:19:04.503
[SPEAKER_01]: It means to be healed.

01:19:05.545 --> 01:19:16.557
[SPEAKER_01]: To take all these different parts of yourself and bring them

01:19:17.549 --> 01:19:25.705
[SPEAKER_01]: For you, not through the lens of your parents, not through the lens of anybody else, but to unbreak yourself, you put the pieces together.

01:19:27.067 --> 01:19:28.650
[SPEAKER_01]: Riven actually means split.

01:19:29.692 --> 01:19:33.600
[SPEAKER_01]: And in this case, I'm helping people who are split, come back together.

01:19:35.403 --> 01:19:36.925
[SPEAKER_00]: Beautiful, my friend.

01:19:36.965 --> 01:19:39.288
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for your insight and for being here.

01:19:39.308 --> 01:19:40.189
[SPEAKER_00]: Unbroken nation.

01:19:40.209 --> 01:19:41.751
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you guys for listening.

01:19:41.791 --> 01:19:52.724
[SPEAKER_00]: If today's episode brought any value to you and this really unlocked or opened up something in you, it probably will do the same for your intimate partner or partners depending on what's happening in your world.

01:19:53.085 --> 01:19:58.872
[SPEAKER_00]: You very likely may want to share this with them or sit and listen to this together and have a conversation.

01:19:59.573 --> 01:20:03.638
[SPEAKER_00]: Because, you know, so much

01:20:03.618 --> 01:20:06.068
[SPEAKER_00]: and you can't do it only listening through podcasts.

01:20:06.088 --> 01:20:07.414
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to do with other people.

01:20:07.896 --> 01:20:15.428
[SPEAKER_00]: So with that said, thank you for being here, take care of yourselves, take care of each other, and until next time my friends, be unbroken.

01:20:16.010 --> 01:20:16.412
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll see you.