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Is it ever permissible to lie? Patrick explores St. Augustine's take, dissects the Catechism's stance, and weighs it against real-life, high-stakes scenarios. Patrick also tackles some intriguing biblical questions, from Mary's role in Jesus' miracle at Cana to the details surrounding His burial cloth. Daniel - Is it always a sin to tell a lie? (01:00) Yollie – Did Mary tell Jesus to make more wine at the Wedding of Cana? Did the soldiers break Jesus' legs? (12:25) Steve - In John 20: it says the burial clothes are two separate pieces, but the Shroud of Turin is only one piece of cloth. Why is there a discrepancy? Email – Question about feeding tubes and end of life decisions Neil (email) – My company only lets me invest half of my 401K the way I want, and the other half supports companies that support abortion. What should I do? Matt (email) - What should we do if we receive unclear or seemingly extraordinary penances that may be nearly impossible to fulfill completely? (32:29) Michelle - If we have a perfected body in heaven, do we get a perfected body in hell also? (40:12) Miles – Having a questionable 401K is remote cooperation, much like a mail man delivering pornography. I don't think it is wrong.
O Debate Público desta terça (11/04) trata sobre o trabalho do MP no Direito de Família: pensão alimentícia e divórcio. O entrevistado é o promotor de Justiça e secretário executivo das Promotorias de Família, Sucessões e Registros Públicos, Daniel Isídio de Almeida Júnior. Tem ainda o giro de notícias dos repórteres do MPCE em todo o Estado. O Debate Público é uma produção em áudio, transmitido toda terça-feira, a partir das 16h, pela Rádio Universitária FM 107,9. O programa também está disponível no Spotify, Deezer e Google Podcasts e no site do MPCE (link na bio)
Daniel starts things off with a recap of the Seahawks dominance over the Chargers this past Sunday. Our Dorks breakdown the keys to the next game vs. the New York Giants and give their predictions. Allanah compares these Seahawks players to the current Mariners team and the rest of the Dorks dork out about who their favorite players are on this Seahawks squad. Our Dorks get into the Halloween spirit. Millie dorks out about the movie "Secret Headquarters" she caught on her flight home, Allanah doesn't do spooky season but is enamored with CBS's "Ghosts", Daniel IS in the Halloween spirit and is nostalgic for cheesy 80's B-movie horror flicks, and Curtis just wants lightsabers, Wookies, and Space Wizards back in his Star Wars. GO HAWKS!
September 02, 2022 Daily Devotion: "Eternal Kingdom" Daniel 7:14 New International Version 14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed. What Daniel sees in his marvelous vision is a being that looks ever so human, but who is ushered into the presence of the Ancient of Days and made ruler over a kingdom that never ends. What may have been a mystery to Daniel Is no mystery to us. That flesh-and-blood Son of Man was Jesus Christ the Son of God, who-having been raised triumphantly from the dead ascended through the clouds into heaven in a scene strikingly reminiscent of Daniel's Vision. In that wondrous ascension, Christ transcended every human notion of authority, rule, and reign. Unlike any human kingdom, his spiritual kingdom will last forever. No decline and no fall. No corruption and no decay. So who wouldn't want to be part of a kingdom like that? The timely question is: Why should I fear the current decline and fall of culture if my true citizenship is in an eternal kingdom? --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/gerzon-etino/message
Gregory - Is it okay to approach the topic of pro-choice with someone by asking if they would personally perform or take part in abortion clinic Jane - Can you help me work on disagreement over abortion with my friends? Daniel – Is going to a mass with another language still edifying Jonathon - Going to confession regularly and I am remembering some things i never confessed. what should I do? David - former catholic and physician - how I view the issue of abortion from a doctor perspective Alison - The Second amendment helps deter foreign attacks on our Country Warren - Gun control comment: It is through our freedoms with the 2nd amendment that we maintain peace. We've seen this the last several centuries. Gun control--gov't controls your guns and your lives. Biden is imprisoning political opponents.
Yves Gravelle is a V15 boulderer from Canada and a 3x APL World Champion (i.e. grip competitions). We talked about lessons from grip training that we can apply to climbing, the importance of simplicity and consistency, how to break down a bouldering project, basing your training on the demands of a specific goal, top 3 finger training methods, how to train full crimps, and much more.Check out Athletic Greens!athleticgreens.com/NUGGETUse the link above to get a free year's supply of vitamin D + 5 travel packs!Check out Grasshopper Climbing!grasshopperclimbing.cominstagram.com/grasshopperclimbingTell them I sent you to save $500 off a fully kitted out 8'x10' Grasshopper board! Check out Chalk Cartel!chalkcartel.comUse code "NUGGET" at checkout for 20% off your next order!We are supported by these amazing BIG GIVERS:Leo Franchi, Michael Roy, David Lahaie, Robert Freehill, Jeremiah Johnson, Scott Donahue, Eli Conlee, Skyler Maxwell, and Craig Lee Become a Patron:patreon.com/thenuggetclimbingShow Notes: thenuggetclimbing.com/episodes/yves-gravelleNuggets:0:07:18 – How to pronounce Yves' name, and living in Ottawa0:09:20 – The most legendary training montage I have ever seen, and an introduction to APL0:12:32 – Why Yves thinks climbs could represent themselves well in grip sports, and what a competition is like0:15:22 – Specializing vs. being a well-rounded athlete in grip0:18:11 – Balancing climbing goals with grip competitions0:19:28 – What Yves has learned from grip sports, and taking training ideas from powerlifting0:22:26 – How Yves bases his training around the demands of a specific boulder or goal0:24:49 – Is it possible to combine outdoor climbing with quality finger strength training?0:31:07 – An example training week with outdoor bouldering on Sunday0:35:05 – Preparing your body for the amount of training you want to do, and progressively working your way up0:36:19 – Building capacity, and learning about nutrition0:37:55 – Reading nutritional research about bouldering0:39:33 – How Yves has changed his diet0:42:28 – Maintaining finger strength during off-seasons, and pushing hard for goals0:45:51 – Finger training principles, keeping things simple, consistency, writing things down, and using RPE to measure your training0:51:38 – Training strength when you are fresh, finishing fresh, and not going to failure (adding a buffer)0:54:14 – Yves' session load calculator spreadsheet0:57:36 – Preparation cycles, and competitive cycles1:00:45 – Jazz1:02:13 – How Yves trained for ‘So What' V15, and building shoulder strength and mobility1:05:15 – Patron question from fdclimbs: Any tips for building climbing-specific shoulder strength?1:07:34 – Yves top 3 finger training exercises for climbing1:12:01 – Progressive warmup for finger training1:13:58 – Micro edge training1:15:39 – Contact strength training1:19:20 – Summary of Yves' top 3 finger training methods1:21:08 – Patron question from Alan: Does Yves have a favorite way to train full crimps?1:22:39 – Yves' full crimp story, and how he prevents finger injuries1:26:14 – Patron question from fdclimbs: Tips for training individual fingers? (And Yves' grip positions and anatomy)1:29:53 – Patron question from Alan: How does Yves balance different methods of training fingers and grip strength?1:33:19 – Prepping for ‘Terremere' and Hueco1:34:17 – Patron question from Daniel: Any plans to travel to world-famous bouldering areas and try the classic V15s or V16s?1:35:38 – 1-7-11 on the campus board (with slightly different spacing)1:37:00 – Patron question from Daniel: Is there such thing as “enough power”? What about finger strength?1:38:18 – Patron question from Xander: Do your finger strength gains still transfer to climbing?1:39:28 – One of Yves' favorite coaches to learn from1:40:59 – When you are starting off almost anything will work1:41:44 – Patron question from Michael: What is the smallest edge you can hang with one hand? What about two hands?1:42:54 – Being muscular and still being strong on tiny holds, and putting on muscle mass in the right places1:44:30 – Patron question from David: How does Yves look after his skin, especially splits and tears?1:46:48 – Contributing to local bouldering areas, and winning the world championships1:47:41 – Yves' daughters and gymnastics1:50:26 – Listen to your body, and enjoy the process1:53:10 – Be present1:54:39 – Wrap up
Welcome to an solo episode of Blue Views 324. Harris wasn't able to record this week with Dan. So Dan handle his business this show. Dan breaks down the news that broke Friday afternoon that Daniel Jones will NOT be playing vs the Miami Dolphins due to his Neck Strain that was a very big story line going into this week. Some reports stated he will be missing this Sundays game since Tuesday. Others said he has a chance of playing. We all just flat out had no clue and hoped for the best. The best didn't come and Daniel Is out for at least this week. I go into more of the matchup of two former Pats Assistant coaches under Bill Belichick. They have the same core values and I joked its like the two spidermen meme with them pointing to each other. They are very similar ran teams. After previewing this weeks game, Dan and his Wife had a once in a life time moment with being on the field during Michael Strahan's Jersey Retirement last Sunday vs the Eagles. It was a moment we will remember for a very very long time. Talk to you all next week! As Always Go Giants and Thanks for Listening. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/sndpodcast-channel/message
Daniel Is a super creative talent. Everytime I have possbility to talk with him, I have a lot of ideas. I really love his creative power. Enjoy our conversation Follow Daniel https://www.instagram.com/dan_jimenez_/ https://www.instagram.com/unicornbanditx/ Follow Cdpodcast https://www.instagram.com/cdp.odcast/ https://www.instagram.com/design_forbreakfast/ https://www.behance.net/cristofarodipuorto Intro "Your Call" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ End Song: KSMK - Just my imagination (Vlog No Copyright Music) Music provided by Vlog No Copyright Music. Video Link: https://youtu.be/5v_zQANhToo
Question Time Stamps for Quick Reference: 0:00 - Introduction 1. 1:20 [Kalam Cosmological Argument] When using the Kalam Cosmological Argument, how can I convince skeptics that this argument should lead to belief in the God of the Bible specifically, and not just "a creator" in general? 2. 7:58 [About the Antichrist, Antiochus, & Daniel] Is there any biblical support for the idea that Daniel 11: 36-45 is talking about the antichrist instead of Antiochus IV? 3. 16:08 [Old Ages in Genesis – Literal?] How do you address the advanced ages found in the book of Genesis? My wife and I were discussing this last night. She takes them literally, while I view them more symbolically. How do you view it? 4. 23:15 [Is Tradition as Authoritative as Scripture?] I was speaking with Orthodox Christian friends about tradition, and they said John 21: 24-25 was the best example of the Bible mentioning oral tradition as being as authoritative as itself. Thoughts? 5. 27:52 [Mark & Revelation – Passage Comparison] Are Mark 13: 24-27 and Revelation 6: 12-17 describing the same event? 6. 31:37 [How to Tell when Scripture Directly Applies] How do we determine the difference between text in the Bible that only relates to the cultural context of the time vs. text that is trans-cultural and relevant for all time? 7. 37:41 [“The Restrainer” / Eschatology] When the restrainer is removed, will non-believers lose their compassion and morals? (See 2 Thessalonians 2:6-7) 8. 41:40 [Should Atheist Philosophers Shake our Faith?] Are you ever shaken by why there are brilliant philosophers of religion, like Graham Oppy, who are atheists? I sometimes feel like I must be missing something. 9. 48:39 [The “Sinner's Prayer”] I was wondering, what is a good alternative to the “sinners prayer”? How should we lead someone to salvation? 10. 49:46 [Molinism, Free Will, Circumstances] In Molinism (or your soteriology), is people's choice to believe only dependent upon the circumstances God places them in? If so, why doesn't God make circumstances that makes everyone believe? 11. 53:44 [Difficult Passages – Deut. 22, Rape] A friend of mine points to the law on women and rape in Deuteronomy 22: 23-24 as an example of "flawed teaching" in the Bible. How should we understand this verse? 12. 59:19 [What is the point of the book of Esther?] Why is Esther in the Bible? I see no moral purpose, no mention of God anywhere, and the last two chapters have dangerous implications. 13. 1:04:02 [The Significance/Importance of Baptism] A friend who is a recent Christian hasn't chosen to be baptized yet. He seems to not understand the importance of baptism. How can I explain the importance of baptism without being pushy? Ultimately, it's his decision. 14. 1:06:57 [What does it Mean to "Wait on the Lord"?] What does it mean to "wait on the Lord," and how (in general) would you counsel someone who's in that season? 15. 1:08:53 [How to Differentiate between Our Mind and the HS] Can you speak to how to tell the difference between the Spirit burdening your heart & just being obsessive about something? A friend broke contact with me during great pain a long time ago, and I still worry. 16. 1:12:54 [Is it O.K. to Accept a Trial Instead of Praying?] My unborn baby has a serious birth defect. Several friends are praying for a miracle. Is it o.k. if we don't? I do believe God could heal that way, but I'm just trying to live with what's real right now. 17. 1:15:45 [1 Corinthians 5: 11, Family Gatherings] What is your perspective on the application of the “Do not even eat with them…” passage when it comes to family (1 Corinthians 5: 11)? Do you think this includes not going to family gatherings? 18. 1:19:48 [How to Help Someone who Doesn't “Walk the Talk”] How do I talk to my wife, who believes in Jesus & prays “In Jesus Name, Amen,” but doesn't read the Bible or know the true meaning & story behind Jesus Christ? Her lifestyle doesn't add up with the script. 19. 1:21:10 [Do Politics Bel
Question Time Stamps for Quick Reference: 0:00 - Introduction 1. 1:20 [Kalam Cosmological Argument] When using the Kalam Cosmological Argument, how can I convince skeptics that this argument should lead to belief in the God of the Bible specifically, and not just "a creator" in general? 2. 7:58 [About the Antichrist, Antiochus, & Daniel] Is there any biblical support for the idea that Daniel 11: 36-45 is talking about the antichrist instead of Antiochus IV? 3. 16:08 [Old Ages in Genesis – Literal?] How do you address the advanced ages found in the book of Genesis? My wife and I were discussing this last night. She takes them literally, while I view them more symbolically. How do you view it? 4. 23:15 [Is Tradition as Authoritative as Scripture?] I was speaking with Orthodox Christian friends about tradition, and they said John 21: 24-25 was the best example of the Bible mentioning oral tradition as being as authoritative as itself. Thoughts? 5. 27:52 [Mark & Revelation – Passage Comparison] Are Mark 13: 24-27 and Revelation 6: 12-17 describing the same event? 6. 31:37 [How to Tell when Scripture Directly Applies] How do we determine the difference between text in the Bible that only relates to the cultural context of the time vs. text that is trans-cultural and relevant for all time? 7. 37:41 [“The Restrainer” / Eschatology] When the restrainer is removed, will non-believers lose their compassion and morals? (See 2 Thessalonians 2:6-7) 8. 41:40 [Should Atheist Philosophers Shake our Faith?] Are you ever shaken by why there are brilliant philosophers of religion, like Graham Oppy, who are atheists? I sometimes feel like I must be missing something. 9. 48:39 [The “Sinner’s Prayer”] I was wondering, what is a good alternative to the “sinners prayer”? How should we lead someone to salvation? 10. 49:46 [Molinism, Free Will, Circumstances] In Molinism (or your soteriology), is people's choice to believe only dependent upon the circumstances God places them in? If so, why doesn't God make circumstances that makes everyone believe? 11. 53:44 [Difficult Passages – Deut. 22, Rape] A friend of mine points to the law on women and rape in Deuteronomy 22: 23-24 as an example of "flawed teaching" in the Bible. How should we understand this verse? 12. 59:19 [What is the point of the book of Esther?] Why is Esther in the Bible? I see no moral purpose, no mention of God anywhere, and the last two chapters have dangerous implications. 13. 1:04:02 [The Significance/Importance of Baptism] A friend who is a recent Christian hasn’t chosen to be baptized yet. He seems to not understand the importance of baptism. How can I explain the importance of baptism without being pushy? Ultimately, it’s his decision. 14. 1:06:57 [What does it Mean to "Wait on the Lord"?] What does it mean to "wait on the Lord," and how (in general) would you counsel someone who's in that season? 15. 1:08:53 [How to Differentiate between Our Mind and the HS] Can you speak to how to tell the difference between the Spirit burdening your heart & just being obsessive about something? A friend broke contact with me during great pain a long time ago, and I still worry. 16. 1:12:54 [Is it O.K. to Accept a Trial Instead of Praying?] My unborn baby has a serious birth defect. Several friends are praying for a miracle. Is it o.k. if we don't? I do believe God could heal that way, but I'm just trying to live with what's real right now. 17. 1:15:45 [1 Corinthians 5: 11, Family Gatherings] What is your perspective on the application of the “Do not even eat with them…” passage when it comes to family (1 Corinthians 5: 11)? Do you think this includes not going to family gatherings? 18. 1:19:48 [How to Help Someone who Doesn’t “Walk the Talk”] How do I talk to my wife, who believes in Jesus & prays “In Jesus Name, Amen,” but doesn’t read the Bible or know the true meaning & story behind Jesus Christ? Her lifestyle doesn’t add up with the script. 19. 1:21:10 [Do Politics Belong in the Pulpit?] Do politics belong in the pulpit? I 100% disagree with politics being in the pulpit for various reasons, but I wanted your opinion also. 20. 1:26:12 [How to Respect an Atheist Husband while Obeying God] I was saved last year, and my husband is still an atheist. He doesn't want me sharing Jesus with our daughter because he thinks she'll "think he's going to hell." How do I balance my faith and my respect for him? Helping you learn to think biblically about everything, because the Bible is more brilliant, beautiful and life-changing than most of us have realized. Every Friday at 1pm PT
Question Time Stamps for Quick Reference: 0:00 - Introduction 1. 1:20 [Kalam Cosmological Argument] When using the Kalam Cosmological Argument, how can I convince skeptics that this argument should lead to belief in the God of the Bible specifically, and not just "a creator" in general? 2. 7:58 [About the Antichrist, Antiochus, & Daniel] Is there any biblical support for the idea that Daniel 11: 36-45 is talking about the antichrist instead of Antiochus IV? 3. 16:08 [Old Ages in Genesis – Literal?] How do you address the advanced ages found in the book of Genesis? My wife and I were discussing this last night. She takes them literally, while I view them more symbolically. How do you view it? 4. 23:15 [Is Tradition as Authoritative as Scripture?] I was speaking with Orthodox Christian friends about tradition, and they said John 21: 24-25 was the best example of the Bible mentioning oral tradition as being as authoritative as itself. Thoughts? 5. 27:52 [Mark & Revelation – Passage Comparison] Are Mark 13: 24-27 and Revelation 6: 12-17 describing the same event? 6. 31:37 [How to Tell when Scripture Directly Applies] How do we determine the difference between text in the Bible that only relates to the cultural context of the time vs. text that is trans-cultural and relevant for all time? 7. 37:41 [“The Restrainer” / Eschatology] When the restrainer is removed, will non-believers lose their compassion and morals? (See 2 Thessalonians 2:6-7) 8. 41:40 [Should Atheist Philosophers Shake our Faith?] Are you ever shaken by why there are brilliant philosophers of religion, like Graham Oppy, who are atheists? I sometimes feel like I must be missing something. 9. 48:39 [The “Sinner’s Prayer”] I was wondering, what is a good alternative to the “sinners prayer”? How should we lead someone to salvation? 10. 49:46 [Molinism, Free Will, Circumstances] In Molinism (or your soteriology), is people's choice to believe only dependent upon the circumstances God places them in? If so, why doesn't God make circumstances that makes everyone believe? 11. 53:44 [Difficult Passages – Deut. 22, Rape] A friend of mine points to the law on women and rape in Deuteronomy 22: 23-24 as an example of "flawed teaching" in the Bible. How should we understand this verse? 12. 59:19 [What is the point of the book of Esther?] Why is Esther in the Bible? I see no moral purpose, no mention of God anywhere, and the last two chapters have dangerous implications. 13. 1:04:02 [The Significance/Importance of Baptism] A friend who is a recent Christian hasn’t chosen to be baptized yet. He seems to not understand the importance of baptism. How can I explain the importance of baptism without being pushy? Ultimately, it’s his decision. 14. 1:06:57 [What does it Mean to "Wait on the Lord"?] What does it mean to "wait on the Lord," and how (in general) would you counsel someone who's in that season? 15. 1:08:53 [How to Differentiate between Our Mind and the HS] Can you speak to how to tell the difference between the Spirit burdening your heart & just being obsessive about something? A friend broke contact with me during great pain a long time ago, and I still worry. 16. 1:12:54 [Is it O.K. to Accept a Trial Instead of Praying?] My unborn baby has a serious birth defect. Several friends are praying for a miracle. Is it o.k. if we don't? I do believe God could heal that way, but I'm just trying to live with what's real right now. 17. 1:15:45 [1 Corinthians 5: 11, Family Gatherings] What is your perspective on the application of the “Do not even eat with them…” passage when it comes to family (1 Corinthians 5: 11)? Do you think this includes not going to family gatherings? 18. 1:19:48 [How to Help Someone who Doesn’t “Walk the Talk”] How do I talk to my wife, who believes in Jesus & prays “In Jesus Name, Amen,” but doesn’t read the Bible or know the true meaning & story behind Jesus Christ? Her lifestyle doesn’t add up with the script. 19. 1:21:10 [Do Politics Bel
DOUG Is it wrong to alter your physical appearance to be more appealing to others? Are there boundaries? DANIEL Is taking a human life always wrong? RANDY We are having a discussion at work and someone was researching the story of Esther. Did the events in Esther actually take place or is it just a fictional story of hope in Jewish tradition? 3 Questions is a weekly podcast from Southern Hills Baptist Church. Each week our ministers will answer three questions submitted by the congregation. Questions can be submitted at myshbc.com/contact. You can also text them to 505-258-2076 or email 3questionspodcast@myshbc.com. All questions will be kept anonymous.
更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Daniel: Hey, Vella. Well we're talking about things, big things you want to achieve in your life, so how about you? What do want to do?Vella: Well, one of my biggest dreams is to become an actress.Daniel: Uh-uh.Vella: Because I really love acting and, you know, it would be fun to act in a movie and to play, you know, as a different character than who you really are.Daniel: Uh-uh. What kind of movies especially, do you have any preferences?Vella: I would love to try all characters. You know, maybe play in a horror movie or comedy or romance, anything.Daniel: Where do you want to do this? Back in Indonesia, in the States?Vella: Well, I would love to become a Hollywood actress, but it might be too impossible so I would just try in Indonesia first, and maybe if I can go international, then that would be amazing.Daniel: OK, good. Do you have any, like do you want to do it within ten years or something?Vella: Well, since I'm graduating pretty soon, I would love to try, you know, as soon as I get back to Indonesia.Daniel: Uh-uh.Vella: And, you know, start trying to go to agencies.Daniel: Is there any other dream that you want to achieve?Vella: This might sound silly, but I love Ricky Martin.Daniel: Uh-uh.Vella: And, you know, I really want to have the chance to meet him and maybe dance with him.Daniel: OK.Vella: Because he's Latino and I'm really into Latin culture, and I know that dancing is really, you know, a big part of the culture.Daniel: Oh, yeah, it is.Vella: And it will be really amazing if I could just dance, you know, with Ricky Martin.Daniel: He's a really good dancer.Vella: And maybe I could be in his music video.Daniel: That would be nice. That would be really, really nice.Vella: And the last thing is probably get married and start my own family.Daniel: Uh-uh. How is that going? Do you have any plans? Do you have a boyfriend, like do you have any...?Vella: Well, I'm in a relationship right now, so hopefully that goes well.Daniel: Oh, good. So you want to start a family right?Vella: Yes.Daniel: How many children would you like to have?Vella: Two to three, maximum three.Daniel: Two to three, OK.Vella: I would love to have twins.Daniel: Wow, why?Vella: A girl and a boy so ....Daniel: Why?Vella: I don't know.Daniel: Oh, it sounds, it sounds really fun.Vella: Because no one in my family, you know, has twins, so I think it would be cool to be the first one to have twins.Daniel: But at the same time, it seems to me to be quite hard to raise like twins because everything comes double, you know.Vella: It's the same thing as having like two or three children, you know, you just get them at the same time.Daniel: That's why it's even harder because you have, I don't know, double expenses, double everything.Vella: Yeah, well I'd just love to try having twins.Daniel: No, great, that sounds like a good plan. Thanks.
更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Daniel: Hey, Vella. Well we're talking about things, big things you want to achieve in your life, so how about you? What do want to do?Vella: Well, one of my biggest dreams is to become an actress.Daniel: Uh-uh.Vella: Because I really love acting and, you know, it would be fun to act in a movie and to play, you know, as a different character than who you really are.Daniel: Uh-uh. What kind of movies especially, do you have any preferences?Vella: I would love to try all characters. You know, maybe play in a horror movie or comedy or romance, anything.Daniel: Where do you want to do this? Back in Indonesia, in the States?Vella: Well, I would love to become a Hollywood actress, but it might be too impossible so I would just try in Indonesia first, and maybe if I can go international, then that would be amazing.Daniel: OK, good. Do you have any, like do you want to do it within ten years or something?Vella: Well, since I'm graduating pretty soon, I would love to try, you know, as soon as I get back to Indonesia.Daniel: Uh-uh.Vella: And, you know, start trying to go to agencies.Daniel: Is there any other dream that you want to achieve?Vella: This might sound silly, but I love Ricky Martin.Daniel: Uh-uh.Vella: And, you know, I really want to have the chance to meet him and maybe dance with him.Daniel: OK.Vella: Because he's Latino and I'm really into Latin culture, and I know that dancing is really, you know, a big part of the culture.Daniel: Oh, yeah, it is.Vella: And it will be really amazing if I could just dance, you know, with Ricky Martin.Daniel: He's a really good dancer.Vella: And maybe I could be in his music video.Daniel: That would be nice. That would be really, really nice.Vella: And the last thing is probably get married and start my own family.Daniel: Uh-uh. How is that going? Do you have any plans? Do you have a boyfriend, like do you have any...?Vella: Well, I'm in a relationship right now, so hopefully that goes well.Daniel: Oh, good. So you want to start a family right?Vella: Yes.Daniel: How many children would you like to have?Vella: Two to three, maximum three.Daniel: Two to three, OK.Vella: I would love to have twins.Daniel: Wow, why?Vella: A girl and a boy so ....Daniel: Why?Vella: I don't know.Daniel: Oh, it sounds, it sounds really fun.Vella: Because no one in my family, you know, has twins, so I think it would be cool to be the first one to have twins.Daniel: But at the same time, it seems to me to be quite hard to raise like twins because everything comes double, you know.Vella: It's the same thing as having like two or three children, you know, you just get them at the same time.Daniel: That's why it's even harder because you have, I don't know, double expenses, double everything.Vella: Yeah, well I'd just love to try having twins.Daniel: No, great, that sounds like a good plan. Thanks.
3 Questions is a weekly podcast from Southern Hills Baptist Church. Each week our ministers will answer three questions submitted by the congregation. Questions can be submitted at myshbc.com/contact. You can also text them to 505-258-2076 or email daniels@myshbc.com. All questions will be kept anonymous. EPISODE 6 Randy – What are practical ways for me to love my enemy (Matthew 5:44), since they don't want to be around me—and any time they are it's an awkward and painful situation for me (and probably for them too)? Doug – Whenever I'm praying privately, my mind wanders to 100 different things. Why is this? And how can I battle against it? Daniel – Is it ok for me to feel a sense of accomplishment/satisfaction in my work that is not vocational ministry?
In this episode, Jennifer Finlayson-Fife PhD answers questions from our Improving Intimacy community. Here are the podcast episodes: Ask A Mormon Sex Therapist, Part 16 - THE oft-cited Episode 16 that has positively impacted so many marriages!http://www.finlayson-fife.com/podcast-archive/2019/10/11/ask-a-mormon-sex-therapist-part-16 Partner Desirability and High/Low Desire Dynamics:http://www.finlayson-fife.com/drjenniferfife/virtualcouch2 Virtue, Passion, and Owning Your Desire:http://www.finlayson-fife.com/podcast-archive/2019/11/25/virtue-passion-and-owning-your-desireBook Club Video Interview----more----Bookclub Video Transcript:00:00 Ray: So carry on.00:03 Jennifer: Okay, so should I just jump in with the...00:06 Ray: Yeah, please.00:07 Jennifer: Yeah, sure. The only event, I think, that isn't currently full is just one that we kinda last minute decided to do because we had an opportunity, a venue, which is doing The Art of Desire workshop in Alpine, Utah next week, a week from Thursday and Friday. So it's a two-day women's workshop. It's like my most popular course and workshop because it's a course focused on women's self and sexual development, and kind of rethinking the whole paradigm in which we've been inculturated, and how it really interferes with desire and development.00:48 Jennifer: And so, it's a good one, it's, you know, it's taking my dissertation research into everything I've kinda learned since then. So that's in Alpine and we just posted the tickets for sale like three or four days ago, and we still have maybe 20 spots left, so if anybody is interested in it, you can get a ticket. On my website actually, on my homepage.01:15 Ray: Wonderful. At this point, I have to admit that I did exactly what Ellen and I talked about that I wouldn't do, which is forget to mention that our other host tonight is Ellen Hersam, and... [chuckle]01:32 Ray: So we've been accepting questions for the last 24 hours, and we had several that came in and we have picked three or four that we might get to, I don't know, however many we're able to get to tonight.01:44 Jennifer: Sure.01:44 Daniel: And Ellen, why don't you pick up and can you give us a question?01:48 Ellen: Sure. Happy to jump right in. Yeah, so we've got a few questions tonight. We thought we'd start off with this one. It's, "There's often debate around sex being a need or not, and how neediness isn't sexy, and how sex being a need kills desire. Yet many view sex as a need, not in life-or-death sense, but because they need that healthy sex life, helps them be happier both individually and as a couple. If sex isn't a need," so there's two parts here, "if sex isn't a need, what does this say about David Schnarch's Sexual Crucible?"02:24 Ellen: "If any marriage would be improved by a healthy, intimate sexual relationship, how can it be said that sex isn't a need? If sex is a need, is... In this sense of being able to achieve personal growth, if I understand how Schnarch views marriage or the corresponding increase in marital satisfaction or individual happiness, how can we talk about its importance without killing desire? Or making one partner feel like it's their duty, instead of something they're doing for themselves, to increase their own happiness? I feel like if the couple isn't working toward a healthy sexual relationship, they're leaving something good and positive on the table, and missing a wonderful opportunity."03:07 Jennifer: Okay, it's a good question, although I think the questioner is conflating the issue of... Well, I mean they're using the word "Need" in a way that kind of complicates it. I think when I say sex isn't a need, what I... If I have said that, what I mean is it's not a drive, it's not required for survival. Right? So a lot of times, people try to pressure their partner to have sex with them by putting it in the frame that they need it, meaning...03:38 Jennifer: And my issue with that is if you're gonna talk about need, need is a way of trying to pressure their partner to manage and accommodate you without sort of taking responsibility for what you want. That's why I don't like it. So if you're gonna talk about need, then I'm thinking more about the issue of survival, and nobody needs sex to survive, 'cause as I've said, if that were true, there'd be a lot of dead people in our wards. And...04:03 Ray: Oh my goodness.04:04 Daniel: Maybe that's a good thing. [laughter] [overlapping conversation]04:10 Daniel: And so Jennifer, is what I'm hearing you say is, is more of a manipulative tone...04:16 Jennifer: Yes.04:17 Daniel: Tone? Okay.04:18 Jennifer: Yeah, exactly. And as soon as you start trying to manipulate, which many people do this, the higher-desire person tends to do this... And men are given that script a lot, that they need sex and so on. But as Mormons, we should be the least prone to that idea because we are fine, from a theological perspective, with people going without sex for their whole lives. Okay? So, now that said, I think sex is a part of thriving. Intimate sex is a part of thriving. It's part of a marriage thriving, and I wouldn't so much say that you must have sex in order for a marriage to be good. I wouldn't... Also, I wouldn't say you need for a marriage to be good in order to have sex.05:04 Jennifer: I'm just saying that marriage... Meaning good sex is a part of thriving, but good sex is not something you manipulate or pressure into place. And lots of people try and don't believe me when I say that. [chuckle] So we all want to be desired, but the hard thing about being desired is you can't make somebody desire you.05:28 Jennifer: Desire is a grace. And the more we try to control it and get somebody to give it to us, the less desirable we are. And the more that it feels like an obligation, or you're having sex with your partner just to get them off your back, or to get them to stop bugging you, or moping, or you know, whatever, and even if you get the sex you still don't feel desired. And so it's tough, it's a tough business, because the very thing we want, we don't have control over getting, we only have control over how desirable we are. 06:04 Ellen: So part of their question that I think I wanna highlight a little bit, is they say, "How can we talk about its importance without killing desire?" So without...06:13 Jennifer: Yeah, yeah, because people are talking about its importance as a way to manipulate often. Right?06:18 Ellen: Mm-hmm.06:20 Jennifer: Like they're just saying it like... I was working with a couple of recently, and it was sort of, you know, "I'm focused on this marriage growing, that's why I wanna try all these new things with you." And so, they are using the idea of their standing up for a good marriage as a way to pressure the other person.06:37 Ellen: Yes, so not making it manipulative?06:40 Jennifer: Yeah. And I think you can be standing up for a good marriage and a good partnership by dealing with yourself. Dealing with the issue of your desirability. That doesn't preclude you from talking about the sexual relationship, but a lot of us are, because it's so easy to do it as human beings, we're much more focused on what we think we need our spouse to do, either stop pressuring us so much, or get their act together and go to Jennifer's The Art of Desire course, or something. [chuckle]07:12 Jennifer: I have sometimes the men go and buy the course and then, a day later they ask for a refund, 'cause their wife doesn't wanna go, but... [chuckle]07:18 Ellen: Yes, that makes sense. [chuckle]07:22 Jennifer: So they're pressuring more on what the other person needs to do, as opposed to, "What is my role in an unsatisfying sexual relationship?" And I don't mean to say you can't talk about it and address what your spouse isn't doing, but oftentimes, we're so much more drawn to what our spouse is doing wrong, than how we're participating in the problem, and it keeps people stuck.07:52 Ellen: Yeah, and they mentioned right at the beginning, this neediness isn't sexy.07:56 Jennifer: Exactly.07:56 Ellen: So if somebody is approaching this conversation in a relationship about their desire to have sex, and being in a relationship, a sexual relationship, they could essentially be approaching it in this neediness. And I think it sounds like their question is, "How can I approach it and not be killing desire by this neediness, but also be addressing the importance of intimacy and sexual relationship in the marriage?"08:23 Jennifer: It sounds maybe like I'm not answering the question, but you have to confront... 08:25 Ellen: Maybe I'm not. [chuckle]08:26 Jennifer: Oh no, no, not you. I'm saying me 'cause I'm gonna say something that maybe sounds like I'm not answering it, but...08:32 Ellen: Okay.08:32 Jennifer: I think you have to kinda confront that you are using the frame of neediness to get the other person to take care of you. Right? So, "I feel so bad about myself, I feel so undesirable, I feel so depressed when we're not having sex, and so for the love, give it to me." Okay? So you can do that, you might even get some sex, but you're not gonna get a passionate marriage. You're not gonna get the experience of being on an adventure together where you try new things.09:05 Jennifer: So you have to deal with the fact that marriage is not designed, in my opinion, and I see this, we kind of learn the idea that marriage is mutual need fulfillment, and that's the wrong model in my opinion. That it's not about, "You prop up my sense of self, and I'll prop up yours." Because that just doesn't work, it breaks down very quickly.09:31 Ellen: Absolutely... [overlapping conversation]09:33 Jennifer: Yeah, that's what's happening when you date, but it only lasts for those few months. Okay? [chuckle]09:38 Ellen: Yeah. [chuckle]09:38 Jennifer: Because it's a short timespan. In marriage, you really have to handle your sense of self. You have to sustain your sense of self. If you're approaching your spouse, if you can sustain your sense of self, you're approaching your spouse from the position of, "I desire you. I love you, I like you, I like being with you." And it's real. Not, "Do You Love Me? Do you desire me? Am I enough?" Because that's not... A lot of people when they say, "How was it?" They mean "How was I?" Right?10:11 Ellen: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.10:12 Jennifer: And people know that... They instinctively know what's actually happening. Are you touching your spouse 'cause you want them to validate you sexually? Are you touching them because you really do desire them, and find them attractive, and you can stand on your own, and sustain your sense of self? And a lot of us don't even track that's what we're doing.10:35 Ellen: I think that goes to say a lot to what you had spoken about in your first podcast that we had linked to this book club, where you had done the role play, where you stood in for the husband and spoke what he would say to his spouse in that sexless marriage, but it was what you're saying here. He came across as, "This is what I need. This is where I stand."10:57 Jennifer: Yes.10:58 Ellen: And, "This is what I'm looking for. I love you. And this is where I'm at." It was less of, "This is what I... I'm in need."11:05 Jennifer: Exactly.11:05 Ellen: It was more important for our marriage.11:07 Jennifer: That's right. He's talking about what he wants from a marriage, what he really is standing up for, but he doesn't sound needy.11:16 Ellen: Yes. Yeah.11:17 Jennifer: It's not about, "Hey, you have to give it to me. Please, oh please, oh please." It's like he's sustaining his own sense of self in that conversation.11:26 Ellen: Yeah, yeah. I'd wanted to dig into this question. I'm not the one who wrote it, but I wanted to give this person the opportunity to kind of hear out the full... I'm feeling satisfied with it. I don't know who wrote it, but if they have any additional questions, they're welcome to jump in. Otherwise, I wanna give time to more questions. I know, Ray, we were gonna tag team it. Do you have a second question to go? 11:55 Ray: I do. [chuckle]12:00 Ray: So this is a honeymoon question. So, "As I've recently heard you and other LDS podcasters talk about how newlyweds can have a better honeymoon. Thank you, this conversation is sorely needed. However, I'm disappointed that it so often addresses only the new husband's likely transgressions, while ignoring the new wife's. This makes the conversation feel very one-sided and blaming. I would love to hear you tackle the other half of the problem with equal energy, to round out the conversation by talking just as bluntly to future wives about what they need to know and do, to make their first sexual experience a good one, both for themselves and for their husbands. [noise] Cinderella will wreck a honeymoon just as completely as the inattentive two-minute groom we talked about so often."12:49 Jennifer: Sorry, you just kind of... I just missed that last sentence. You said, "Cinderella can wreck a honeymoon as quickly as" and then I... I think that's what you said.12:57 Ray: Yeah, as completely as the inattentive two-minute groom we talk about so often.13:03 Jennifer: Oh, two-minute groom, got it. Yeah, I mean, probably the reason why I focus on the men is in part because we are so male-focused in our notions of sexuality, and so lots of men come into marriage, and LDS men specifically, in a kind of unacknowledged entitled position. Right?13:29 Jennifer: So it's kind of like, "I've... This is my prize for having remained virginal all this time, and this is... " And they have learned about sexuality in the frame of, "Women exist to gratify this urge within men." So very often, the couple is complicit in that framing, meaning they come by it honestly, but that's their understanding. And so, it often goes that the woman has a very unsatisfying experience, and they both are kind of participating in this idea that the sexuality is primarily about the man.14:13 Jennifer: Okay so, "This person wants me to have equal energy." [chuckle] "It's challenging, I don't know if I can generate it or not." [chuckle] But I guess what I would say to a future woman is just everything I say in The Art of Desire course. Right? Which is that your sexuality is as important as the man's sexuality, and this is a partnership. Right? And that if you frame it in this idea that this is a gift you're giving to your future husband, you can say goodbye to positive sexual experiences, because that frame will kill it. 14:54 Jennifer: And so, even though it's the frame you've been taught, and you've also probably been taught the idea that... I'm assuming you all... Yeah, okay, good. I thought I'd lost you, Ray. The idea that your selflessness and your sacrifice is gonna be fundamental to the marriage being happy, and that you are partly responsible for your husband's happiness sexually and in the marriage... That sounds a little bit wrong for me to say it like that, but basically you kind of shoulder this responsibility of him being happy, especially sexually, that that framing is going to make you unhappy in the marriage, it will kill intimacy, and will be a part of you disliking sex soon enough.15:39 Jennifer: So you must think of it as a shared experience. And I would probably be talking to women about how important it is for them to... If they are relatively naive coming into marriage, how important it is for them to take the time to understand their own capacity for arousal and orgasm, and to not make the focus be intercourse, but mutual arousal, mutual pleasure, and that this is a team sport, and that taking the time to be together in this process, which is... Intercourse and orgasm are not as important as being together in this process of creating something mutual, shared, and desirable by both of you, is extremely important and you ought not move into a passive position, even though you maybe have learned that's the proper way for a woman to be sexually.16:38 Jennifer: That you are a co-constructor of this relationship, and if you take that position, it's a devaluation of yourself and will interfere with the marriage developing as a partnership. So yeah, I have way more to say on it than that, because I've just... That's kind of like my main passion. But yeah, but that's what I would say is right.17:08 Ellen: Jennifer, I'd even jump in to say, on your third podcast that we posted, The Virtue, Passion, and Owning your Desire, you spoke a lot to that point of, "Are you ready as a woman to take on being part of the relationship equally?"17:24 Jennifer: Yeah. Right.17:25 Ellen: And step into that role. And I thought that was really important to pull out.17:31 Jennifer: Yeah. Because a lot of people are... [noise]17:36 Jennifer: Can you hear me alright? Suddenly, it sounded kinda glitchy.17:37 Ellen: Yeah, I can. Could we make sure everybody's on mute?17:41 Jennifer: Just got glitchy for a second there.17:42 Ellen: Yeah, I think... Yeah.17:44 Jennifer: Yeah, I think so. I think one of the things that we just posted today, a quote from one of the podcasts I did recently, was just that a lot of us are tempted to hide behind a partner. You know? To not really step up and be in an equal position, and a lot of times we talk about that, as the male oppresses the female, but I think what feminism hasn't articulated as clearly as it's talked about that dynamic of oppression is how... Like the upside of being Cinderella in a sense. Do you know that fantasy that someone's gonna caretake you, and protect you from the big bad world, and sort of you can just sort of hide in their shadow.18:26 Ellen: There's comfort in that.18:28 Jennifer: Yeah, there's comfort in it for many of us. And we're... So that's why we're complicit in creating an unequal marriage, is we want a caretaker more than we want a partner.18:36 Ellen: Yeah, so I'd even go to say that there's familiarity in that.18:40 Jennifer: Oh absolutely. It's... Right, you know? We grew up watching Cinderella.18:43 Ellen: Exactly.18:44 Jennifer: You know? [chuckle]18:46 Jennifer: I mean, I was looking for somebody to ride in on a horse, for sure. You know? [chuckle]18:50 Ellen: Literally a horse, a white horse.18:52 Jennifer: Exactly. Exactly. And I remember my first year of marriage and I was actually in a PhD program, I was 29 years old. And my, just my IQ dropped in the first year. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I just started... I had earned all my own money for my mission, for college, I had lived independently for years. Okay? I get married and I start like, I don't know, just doing dumb things, like parking in a tow zone because I thought John had told me it was okay to park there.19:22 Jennifer: It sounds stupid. I would never have done this in a million years if I had... I was just sort of moving into the frame that I knew, and even my husband was like, "What's going on? Why did you do that?" I'm like, "I don't know, I don't know." [laughter]19:38 Ellen: I got married. Why is my head so... "19:42 Jennifer: Exactly. And almost it's like... It's almost in your DNA or something. Like you're just moving into what you've known. And so you have to catch yourself, that you sometimes are dumbing yourself down 'cause you think that's the way you'll keep yourself desirable.19:56 Ellen: Yeah, I think that's a very good point. It's this idea that that keeps you desirable, but in fact, what keeps you desirable is that ability to make choices and be. And your...20:07 Jennifer: Yeah. To have an... To have a self in the marriage.20:10 Ellen: An identity. Yes.20:11 Jennifer: Absolutely. And any... Any man or woman for that matter, who needs a partner to be under them, for them to feel strong, is a weak person. Right?20:22 Ellen: Yeah. And you made that point actually in another one of your podcasts recently.20:25 Jennifer: Yeah and I... I honestly was married to somebody who was like, "Wait, what are you doing? Don't do... " In that meaning he needed me not to do that, he had no need for me to do that. And so it was helping me stay awake to my own kind of blind movement in that direction.20:43 Ellen: Yeah, and sometimes it just happens, you do it. It's almost this innate... Yes, like you said...20:50 Jennifer: A hundred percent.20:50 Ellen: It's an innate reaction and then, someone else finds that, "Oh, okay, we'll do [noise]" It becomes a pattern.20:57 Jennifer: Absolutely.20:58 Ellen: But you gotta get yourself out of that pattern.21:00 Jennifer: Absolutely, and... Yeah, I... I still can do things like that, where if I'm with an intimidating male, I'll go into "Nice girl" instinctively, and just all of a sudden realize I'm throwing all my strength away like an idiot, and so it's just what is easy to do.21:17 Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. Definitely.21:19 Ray: And perhaps that's actually another thing we don't do very well in preparing people to be married, is you've lived your whole life as an individual, and now you've gotta learn how to be in a relationship all the time with somebody. And if you've been on your own a long time, you're probably actually looking forward to being able to lean on a partner to help with... You know.21:40 Jennifer: Yeah. Yeah. But "Lean on" might be a little different than the experience of partnering and sharing the burden, where "Lean on" is a little more of a dependency model, but the collaboration model is really where you have intimate partnerships. That, "How can I bring my strengths, and you bring your strengths to bear, and we can create something stronger and better together." But it's not dependency, in the kind of up-down way. Mm-hmm.22:08 Ray: Yeah. And that was... That was not what I was implying, by the way, but yeah...22:11 Jennifer: Yeah. Sure, sure. Yeah. I'm just a word Nazi, I have to say... [laughter] Because... Because words communicate meaning, so I'm like, "No, wrong meaning." But anyway. [chuckle]22:20 Daniel: So maybe a slightly different perspective, I've worked with a lot of men who've been very patient, they've stopped the pursuing of sex, or taking that dominant role, and have allowed themselves, from maybe your podcasts or things that they've just learned naturally, to kinda back off and allow that space to be there. But then, something else that's happened is kind of what we're talking about, is [cough] Excuse me. I just choked.22:51 Daniel: Is, the female has no desire to pursue desire. So months go by, six months will go by. In some cases, even years will go by23:02 Ray: Or decades.23:03 Daniel: where the husband is not bringing it up in a... Maybe occasionally, "Is it a good time tonight?" But then, the partner's just like, "No, I'm fine." Right? How... I realize that's a huge topic but, how would you go about addressing that? And what's the role... What does... Does the man just not pursue it anymore or what?23:24 Jennifer: No, no. Definitely not. And I hope I can address this well 'cause I'm... I am, 100% I promise going to do a class on men's sexuality this year. [chuckle]23:37 Daniel: Great.23:37 Jennifer: Yeah, I keep promising this, but I actually am gonna do it so... [chuckle] Anyway. But I do hope I can talk quite a bit about this, because I think we've sort of socialized men either into the entitled position, or they... If they don't wanna be that, then they almost can't own desire at all. They see it as, "It's offensive that I want it." And, "This is just this hedonistic, bad part of me." And they can sometimes be partnered with a wife who kinda takes the moral high ground of not wanting sex, or whatever. And this, of course, gets very punctuated by... If porn has been in the picture at all, because you know, now you can kinda claim that you're the bad one because you want sex, and it can make it really hard to deal with the sexless-ness of the marriage.24:22 Jennifer: So what I would be thinking about is, if you're the higher-desire person, whether male or female, and your spouse does not desire you, I think the first question I would want to deal with is, "Why?" Okay? Why don't they desire me? Is it about me? Or is it about them? Or both? Is it that I'm not desirable? And that I'm functioning in a way in my life, or in the marriage, or in the sexual relationship, that it is actually good judgment that they don't desire me?24:53 Jennifer: And/or is there something going on in them that they don't want to deal with, or grow up, or handle around sexuality? And that's obviously it seems like a basic question, but it's one that people surprisingly don't ask themselves very much. Because as I was talking to somebody a couple of nights ago, I was saying, "Why not go ahead and just ask your wife why she doesn't desire you?" And the reason for him is he doesn't want to hear the answer.25:23 Ellen: I was gonna say, that's a very scary question to ask.25:26 Jennifer: Yes, exactly. And in part because he already knows the answer, and he doesn't wanna deal with his own neediness, and the ways that he takes advantage in the marriage, and the things that are actually there that he would need to deal with to be freely desired. I mean, that's the bummer about marriage and intimacy, is that your partner gets to know you. And so, the things that... Your limitations become anti-aphrodisiacs often.26:02 Jennifer: And so if you're gonna really grow in a marriage and a partnership, you have to really look at, "How do I engage or deal in a way that makes me undesirable?" Sometimes people are undesirable, and I'll just speak in the stereotypical way for a moment about, you know, some men are undesirable because they're too apologetic about their sexuality.26:20 Jennifer: Because they sort of devalue it also. And they want their wife to manage the question of their desirability. Or manage the question of the legitimacy of their sexuality. And so, when they are too anxious, or apologetic, or looking for reinforcement around their sexuality, it feels more like mothering or caretaking on the part of their spouse, and that's very undesirable. And so, it's a hard question for men, and for all of us, I think in some ways, of, "How do I stand up for something I want, without being a bully?" Right? "And be contained enough without being wimpy and apologetic for my sexuality?"27:10 Jennifer: "And how do I find that middle ground of kind of owning that my sexuality is legitimate and being clear about my desirability?" Without somehow taking advantage or being too reticent around it. And I think the answer, it's not an easy one to give in just a podcast really, because you kind of have to work with people around what's actually going on. But I think you have to really look honestly and with a clear eye towards the issue of your desirability.27:47 Jennifer: And your own comfort with your sexuality and your sexual desires. Because if you can be clear that you are choosable, and clear that what you want is a good thing, and doesn't harm your spouse or you, then you can stand up for it and deal with... Because it could be that your spouse doesn't want sex because she or he just doesn't wanna deal with their anxieties about sex. And maybe you've been pressured in the marriage to coddle those anxieties too much and too long. And it's creating resentment and low growth. Well then it would actually be a desirable position, even though a challenging one, to stand up more for the sexual relationship moving forward, like in that one podcast I did. 28:36 Ray: Okay. Alright.28:36 Jennifer: So are there other follow-up questions about that, or thoughts? If anybody has them, I'm happy to...28:44 Ray: I'm guessing here, but the person who asked the question, 'cause I've heard you talk about it, I've heard, I think, Natasha Helfer-Parker talk about it, Nate Bagley talk about it. And it does kinda sound pretty one-sided, it's, "Husband, you gotta set your agenda aside, you have to make it all about her. Don't be a jerk."29:12 Jennifer: Yeah.29:13 Ray: My experience was... And I know a lot of other men have, we've had a similar experience, is it's not that we wanted, it was, we weren't gonna just run over our wife and get what we wanted. 29:24 Jennifer: Yeah, yeah, yeah.29:25 Ray: You know? And we wanted to know we...29:26 Jennifer: You maybe didn't have... You didn't have a participant maybe from the get-go, some people. Yes, definitely.29:32 Ray: And so, if your partner shows up without any clue at all about what they want or what they need...29:40 Jennifer: Sure. Oh, yeah.29:41 Ray: How do you navigate that?29:42 Jennifer: That's... Absolutely, that's... Right, it can't be collaborative if one person isn't... Not showing up, if they're pulling for a passive position. And many people are and you know, women have been taught not to kinda claim their sexuality because it's anti-feminine. You know? And so a lot of people believe they're gonna show up and the man is gonna teach them about their sexuality, and really, How does he know? [chuckle] I mean, right? For the very people.30:13 Ray: Exactly.30:14 Jennifer: And also, how do you co-create something, unless you're both participants in this process? So yeah, it's true. Yeah.30:23 Leann: I think the frustrating thing is that, and I was one of them, oftentimes women don't, they don't realize they have desire, and they don't even feel like there's anything for... They're not the one with the problem, it's the husband wanting it and I guess pressuring. But when I'm in this intimacy group and it breaks my heart to hear from the husbands, 'cause the wives aren't in the group, they have no desire to want to get better, as far as the sexual relationship.30:56 Leann: So that's what breaks my heart, is these husbands want to, but the wives just shut it down. They don't wanna have anything to do with helping themselves, or how... You know? And that's what I get frustrated in, is how do you help these husbands stand up for what... It would be beautiful, and right, and good in this relationship, but the wives just want nothing to do with it.31:21 Jennifer: Yeah, yeah, and I mean, there's... Well, there's the part of me that's compassionate towards the wives, and then the part that would challenge the wives. Okay? So the compassionate part is, "This is how it's all set up." Okay? So desire is bad, sexual desire, any kind of desire. I grew up, the whole Young Women's Manual is about your selflessness, and how that makes you desirable, and that's the frame. Right? So it is a passive frame.31:50 Jennifer: And that sexuality is a challenge to your desirability. So you wanna shut it down. I have lots of clients who had sexual feelings and thoughts, they'd watch Love Boat and masturbate, and [chuckle] so on and on. And then, they'd feel so guilty and bad, that they'd repent and shut it down and shut it down. You know?32:10 Leann: Yes.32:11 Jennifer: And like, as an act of righteousness and sacrifice would basically shut this whole thing down. Then they show up on their wedding night, and they're supposed to be a participant? I mean, based on what? So, meaning we culturally create this. Now, that said, because I have compassion for that, both... And men too, because for the men that maybe are too eager or whatever, they've also... They come by it honestly, they've been sort of taught this idea that women's sexuality exists for their benefit, and for their delight, and so on. So people come by it honestly.32:45 Jennifer: I think, where I would be challenging of women is when they just don't want... You know, I talk about hiding in the shadow. A lot of us don't wanna own what our desires are, or cultivate them, or figure them out. Because we don't want the exposure of it. We want the safety of having somebody else caretake us. We want the belief, or the fantasy that this makes us more righteous, or more noble, or whatever. And we wanna sell that idea, because what we really know is, we don't wanna sort of grow up and take an adult position sexually.33:16 Jennifer: And so, I think, the challenge is once you start... I had a lot of women whose husbands signed them up for the workshop or something, and they are mad, because... And legitimately so, because they feel like, "Look, you just want me to go get fixed, so that you will get everything that you want." Well then, sometimes they show up there, and then they realize, "No, that's not the approach she's taking. And I have this whole aspect of myself, that I have shut down, that it's felt so self-betraying."33:47 Jennifer: And then, they suddenly realize, "Wait, I want to develop this part of me, I want to be whole again, I don't want to always be living in reference to my husband's sexuality." So they really just start to grow into it, and they start to figure out, and sort of deprogram these parts of themselves. There was other people that don't want to develop this part of themselves, because they are afraid... They're in a marriage where they're afraid, if they start to develop any of it, it will just get hijacked and used for the benefit of the husband, because the dynamic of the marriage has to be addressed, still.34:19 Jennifer: But then, there's other people who just, like I said, don't really wanna grow up and develop. And they can hold the other... Their spouse hostage. And they can get the moral high ground, because he's looked at porn, or whatever it is. And it's cruel. You know? [chuckle] It is absolutely cruel. And people can definitely do that, because they just don't want to grow up, don't want to be fair, don't want to take on the full responsibility of sharing a life with somebody. A lot of us get married with the idea that, "You're gonna manage my sense of self and make me happy."34:54 Jennifer: Men and women do this. Very few of us, if we really thought about what we are committing to, would even get married. Because what we're really committing to is, "I'm willing to basically deal with my limitations, and grow myself up for your benefit, given that you're willing to actually hook yourself to me. And I'm willing to really be a good friend to you, and do all the growth that that's gonna require of me." I mean, that's what you ultimately agree to, if you're gonna be happily married.35:22 Ellen: So you're speaking a lot of collaboration. A collaboration alliance.35:25 Jennifer: Yeah. Mm-hmm.35:28 Ellen: Now, I understand you've spoken in the past of collaboration alliance versus collusive alliance?35:33 Jennifer: Yeah, a collaborative alliance versus a collusive one, yes.35:36 Ellen: What's your difference in that? It being a unilateral? Can you speak a little bit more of that?35:41 Jennifer: Well, a collaborative alliance is, I think, the easiest way to say it. And I'm sure if David Schnarch were here, he would say it much more thoroughly. But basically, the idea that David Schnarch is talking about, is that a collaborative alliance is you are willing to do your part in a partnership towards a shared aim. Being good parents, be creating a good marriage in which two people thrive, creating a good sexual relationship in which two people thrive, that would be collaborative. And you do your part, whether or not your spouse is doing their part. You don't use the fact that your spouse may be having a bad day, and not doing their part, to get yourself off the hook around your part.36:18 Ellen: Definitely.36:19 Jennifer: That you're willing to stand up, and be a grown-up, and deal with things, even if your spouse is having a bad day. A collusive alliance is basically, where the worst in your spouse, and your worst in you... And everybody's in some version of a collusive alliance with their spouse. The happier people have less of one. Okay? [chuckle]36:37 Jennifer: But a collusive alliance is the worst in you, hooks into the worst in me, and it justifies the worst in each of us. We use the worst in each other to justify the worst in ourselves. So it's like, you know people say to me all the time in therapy, "I wouldn't be such a jerk if he weren't such a... What a... " You know, like meaning... This is collusive alliance, that I don't have to deal with my sexuality because you're a jerk.37:03 Jennifer: And so I use the fact that you're a jerk to keep justifying that I don't deal with my sexuality. But you can get really mean, and hostile, and nasty, 'cause you know I won't develop this part of myself. Right? So that's the way it dips... Reinforces. And I'm constantly in therapy being like, "Stop dealing with your spouse, deal with yourself. It's the only way this will move forward." I'm always saying that. 37:23 Ellen: Look in the mirror. [chuckle]37:25 Jennifer: Exactly, get the beam out of your own eye. [laughter]37:28 Daniel: Ellen or Ray, there is, I think, a few questions or comments in the comments section. So you don't have to do it at this moment, but when you have a second, follow up with that. 37:36 Ray: We'll have a look at that, thanks.37:38 Ellen: Yeah.37:40 Ray: When you've got a script for how to have that conversation with your kids…[noise] 37:48 Ellen: Ray, I think you're cutting out.37:49 Jennifer: Yeah. Yeah, you just cut out there Ray. Can you say it again? How to get your kids to do that?37:54 Ray: Yeah, I wanna know, if you ever have a script for how to address that with your kids. 'Cause that's the, kind of the bell. Right?37:58 Jennifer: Well, when there are kids who are younger, what... 38:00 Ray: "'Cause you started it." "Well, you started it."38:01 Jennifer: Well yeah, yeah, when my kids were younger, and this was a borrow, I think, from the IRIS book. But basically, they would have to sit on the couch, and they couldn't get off until they each owned what their role was in the problem. So...38:12 Ray: Yes.38:13 Jennifer: Yeah, that's one version of it, yeah. Another version is, like, put you both in the same boat, and until you can come up with the solution, neither one gets the positive thing. So you have to collaborate to get the positive thing. Right.38:28 Ray: Right. Okay.38:30 Ellen: So kind of back to a topic that we had been discussing about the woman really stepping into the role of being collaborative, and in equal partnership in the relationship. We have a comment in the chat box saying, "How do we change the church culture problems of the unclear functioning of women?" I've... So Nicole feel free... Oh.38:54 Jennifer: Can you say that again? Say that to me...38:55 Ellen: Nicole, feel free to jump in and clarify that. I don't know if I read it... "So how do we change that church culture problem of the unclear functioning women? Woman."39:05 Nicole: Under-functioning.39:05 Jennifer: Meaning that... Oh, under-functioning.39:06 Ray: Under-functioning.39:06 Jennifer: There, under-functioning.39:07 Ellen: Oh, under-functioning...39:07 Jennifer: Yeah, there we go.39:08 Ellen: That is why. [chuckle]39:09 Jennifer: Yeah, good.39:10 Jennifer: So how do we change that culture? I mean, it's the women themselves often that are doing the teaching. To basically teach better and teach differently. I mean that like, you know, we can't necessarily go in and change or control what is in the curriculum, but we can change how we each talk to women and we can change what we share in Relief Society and so on, what we... So that's about the best we have. You can do podcasts. [chuckle]39:41 Ellen: You can say really, it's really us, we can...39:44 Jennifer: It's us.39:45 Ellen: Change us, and us will change our relationships with others, and our others or relationships with others will change the others we interact with, and it will expand.39:54 Jennifer: Yeah, absolutely, and I just tend... A lot of times we think the church is the leadership, and then...40:00 Ellen: It comes down to that too, yeah.40:00 Jennifer: We are the church. You have to think of it that way, in my opinion, and you just roll up your sleeves and have as much impact as you can, because I think the more you role model strength like that, the more you give people permission to relate to themselves, or to women in general, differently.40:26 Ellen: So I'm ready to move on to another question that was posed. Ray, do you have any follow-up to the question that you had?40:34 Ray: Nope.40:34 Ellen: No? Alright. So the next one is a really interesting one, it says, "How is it best to navigate having sex during marriage struggles?" They go on to say, "When she's rude, or attacks the kids, or criticizes, or makes fun of me in front of the kids, I'm so repulsed, I don't feel like being around her at all. But then, eventually, within a few days or less, we both get the biological urge and want to enjoy each other, so we do."41:01 Ellen: "And it's great, and we feel closer and better afterwards, but I worry she thinks everything is okay or resolved because we're having sex. When it's not. Perhaps that's how she feels as well. We are starting therapy... " Or, "We started therapy a few months ago, and that's helpful, though expensive. A chance to talk through things. However, in general, when we get a rare chance to be alone and talk away from the kids, we'd mostly rather have sex than talk about our problems."41:26 Jennifer: Okay, well, that's the problem.41:27 Ellen: "Is that a good approach?" [chuckle]41:27 Jennifer: Wrong, no.41:29 Ellen: "Give me advice in that respect, what we do when our problems are all so present?"41:34 Jennifer: Well, it doesn't have to be one or the other, because you could say, "I really wanna have sex with you, but I think the way you talked to the kids today was horrible." Okay? And you don't have to necessarily put them right next to each other. But I wouldn't say one precludes the other necessarily. You can say, "I like you, you matter to me. I like having sex with you and I'm really concerned about how we're parenting the kids, and specifically how you are harsh with them, and then I come in and I coddle them." Or whatever it is. I don't think it has to... I think what maybe the person's asking is, "If I address this, it may very well kill... "42:10 Ellen: I would say, absolutely yes.42:11 Jennifer: "Our ability to have sex." Right? But then, I would say, if that's really true, if you can't deal with your problems and have sex at the same time, then you probably shouldn't be having sex. Because if dealing honestly with what's going on in the marriage means that you're gonna go through a period of time in which desire gets challenged, well I personally think you have a deeper responsibility to the well-being of the marriage, and your role as parents, than to whether or not you have the... How to say it? The placating experience of having sex. So I'm not here to say that necessarily you'll get one or the other, but if you know that you get one or the other, then I think you have to be really careful about how you're relating to sex, 'cause it has its costs.43:05 Ellen: So if we go back to the original... Oh, go ahead.43:06 Jennifer: Okay. No, I was just saying it has its cost if you keep kicking... You know, I talk in my marriage course about over-reactors, people that are freaking out all the time. But then there's also people that are under-reactors or they don't deal with problems as they arise. That's as toxic to a marriage. You then have people that look like they're doing great, because they have sex or they are low-conflict, but a huge storm is brewing, and oftentimes when those marriages rupture, they rupture permanently. Because they have no ability to... They have no ability to kinda handle the problems, because they have no practice in it. And so, under-reacting to your troubles, is really setting yourself up.43:51 Ellen: Yeah, it's an avoidance technique.43:53 Jennifer: Yeah.43:54 Ellen: That's basically what they're doing.43:55 Jennifer: And you know, of course the problems grow. They don't go away, they grow, they start getting out of your control when you don't deal with them.44:03 Ellen: And they're certainly recognizing that, like they've said that they don't like that they're doing this, that they're concerned about this, they've started going to therapy, they recognize that's a very expensive way [chuckle] to talk. And... But they are...44:21 Jennifer: Good luck if you're gonna go into... [chuckle]44:23 Ellen: But they also recognize that they're physically attracted, and they have, as they say, the biological urge, and they want to pursue that as well. And so I see that as a good thing, as well, that they still have that, despite this... [overlapping conversation]44:38 Jennifer: Yeah, well, and it doesn't mean that you can't have sex for sure, 'cause there's lots of couples that are dealing with their troubles, and they're still having sex.44:45 Ellen: Yeah.44:46 Jennifer: It's just another way of being together and sort of, you know, I think sometimes we have the idea that everything must be good in the relationship, and then sex is legitimized. It's just kind of a Mormon cultural idea we have. I don't see it that way, because I think a good sexual relationship can give you some of the sustenance to kinda keep dealing with the challenges. Part of why I've worked out things with my husband is 'cause I'm attracted to him. [chuckle] Okay?45:12 Jennifer: And I want a good sexual relationship, but I want, you know... And so, that desire pushes you through the troubles. It gives you the energy to deal with the hard things. So I wouldn't necessarily say it should... You shouldn't be having sex, I would say if you're using it to get away from your troubles, then it's a problem.45:32 Ellen: But using it for motivation to work through this?45:35 Jennifer: Sure, absolutely. Now, I think what some people are afraid of is if they talk about hard things, then their spouse won't wanna have sex with them. So it's a kind of a kind of... People can be complicit in not dealing with things, the sad issue. But you certainly can use it as a resource, 100%.45:54 Ellen: So their general question is, "How best to navigate having sex during marriage struggles?" It sounds like you're saying, of course don't cut it out, [chuckle] altogether.46:04 Jennifer: Yeah.46:05 Ellen: So... But don't use it as a way to avoid having those conversations.46:09 Jennifer: Exactly. Exactly.46:10 Ellen: Because there may be some fear around having those conversations, that it will reduce the amount of sex that you're having, but using the desire for each other as a motivation to work through those troubles, because you wanna get close together. Is that right?46:26 Jennifer: Yes. Yeah, and I would say what often happens for couples is when they're right in the heat of the struggle, sometimes their desire goes down, but as they start to work things out, the sex gets way better. You know? It's like that, you feel gratitude, you see your partner as somebody who's willing to deal with things, you feel more aware of your separateness as a couple and through some of the struggle, and so the sex is more positive. So I wouldn't see it as one or the other, but I think if you want good sex, you want your relationship to keep growing and thriving, and that means dealing with hard things.47:01 Ellen: Yeah, I can imagine that coming through difficulties and then coming to this place of convergence, where you're just together on something and you've almost... You've repaired something together.47:15 Jennifer: Absolutely.47:15 Ellen: It would make it even more powerful and even more meaningful.47:19 Jennifer: Absolutely. Absolutely. So yeah, I think that's how couples continue to create novelty. In a long-term partnership there's only so much novelty you can generate. And I'm all for novelty, but it's still the same person, it's [chuckle] the same room, or whatever. 47:38 Ellen: That's so true. [laughter]47:41 Jennifer: So you know, but I mean...47:42 Ellen: I worry about that.47:44 Jennifer: Yeah, sure. And I'm all for novelty. There's a lot of fun things you can do to create novelty, but I think what's at the core of a good intimate marriage is a growing marriage. It's a marriage that's growing, and you don't take the other person for granted. You recognize that they will challenge things in themselves, they'll deal with things honestly, you keep sort of becoming aware over and over again, that this is a separate person from you, who owes you nothing, but that will continue to grow and do better for your benefit and their own benefit, and that drives respect and desire. And so...48:17 Ellen: I think that is a really key point, that I'll personally draw out, is they owe you nothing.48:25 Jennifer: That's right.48:25 Ellen: That's hard to swallow.48:26 Jennifer: Yeah, I know.48:27 Ellen: Because there's this sense of, "I've done this for you, you do this for me." Give-take. "You owe me" kind of idea...48:36 Jennifer: Exactly.48:36 Ellen: But to get away from that...48:37 Jennifer: Yes.48:38 Ellen: Feeling. That's hard. [laughter]48:41 Jennifer: It's hard and it's the only way to do marriage, in my opinion.48:44 Ellen: That's novel. [chuckle]48:45 Jennifer: To do it from a passionate position, because as soon as you get it into, "I need this, you're obligated, you owe me." Right?48:52 Ellen: Or even just the marriage contract idea of, "We... You married me, for good and for bad. This is bad, you are in it with me." This idea of, "You owe this for me, we're working on this." Making sure that you're not using that as a form of manipulation.49:08 Jennifer: Yes.49:09 Ellen: But a motivation to work together.49:12 Jennifer: Yeah, which is not about precluding you from running your life, because you can say, "Look, here are the terms of my participation in this marriage, and if you don't wanna live by those terms, I can choose to exit." Okay? I know that's hard when you have a mortgage and kids, and all that, but you can define the terms of your participation, you can control your own choices. But I think as soon as we are in the idea that, "You owe me."49:39 Jennifer: As a way to pressure and to... As a way to be in a marriage, you will kill desire. When it's more like, "Wow, this person chooses me day, after day, after day. That's amazing. This person has offered goodness to my life, and they don't have to. And they do. And that they do, it's a miracle actually." When you live in that frame, which is the only honest way to live in the world, to be honest. Who's owed anything? There's children starving in Africa, do you think that's what... They're getting what they deserve? You know what I mean?50:13 Jennifer: No, but when you get good things it's good fortune. It's by grace, it's by... And so if you don't live in a gratitude-based frame, you're gonna have a hard time living with joy. And you have to live it, I think you have to live in that frame in marriage. Now again, I know people get like, "Wait a minute. Well, do you just mean you have to take whatever you get? The person's having affairs, you can't... "50:34 Jennifer: No, I'm not saying you can't decide if somebody is bringing too little good, if somebody is trying to take advantage of that commitment you've made. That you may then have to make other choices, because living with them is not good for you. Right? Continuing to struggle with them is not good for you. But the idea that... But that's different than living in marriage from a frame of demand. And a lot of people want the safety of doing that.51:04 Ellen: And I think there's this importance of, again as you've mentioned, this independence of self. You've mentioned in your other podcasts sometimes you do have to bring the conversation to the point of, "I'm willing to step away from this marriage."51:19 Jennifer: Absolutely.51:19 Ellen: If that's the case, "Because this is not good for either of us." And that's a very scary place to come to.51:25 Jennifer: Oh yeah. But it's usually where people grow the most. It's when they realize, "I can't make this marriage happen." That for me is when people often make their biggest strides in their development, is when they stop trying to control whether or not their proud spouse chooses them, whether or not the marriage stays together. They're no longer controlling that, they're only controlling who they are, in the marriage.51:48 Jennifer: When people really take that developmental step, that's when marriages really... Well, sometimes they fall apart at that point, because the other person won't step up. Or they really, really take a massive step forward. Because people are really operating, not from trying to obligate and control, but really a framing of choosing, and controlling themselves, and who they are in the marriage.52:09 Ellen: Maybe I'm making a leap here but, Would you say that that's more a high-desire partner position to be in than a low-desire? To kind of...52:19 Jennifer: To put the question of the marriage on the line, you're saying?52:22 Ellen: Yeah, yeah.52:25 Jennifer: Well, it depends on, "Why?"52:25 Ellen: I don't know...52:25 Jennifer: It would depend on "Why?" If somebody is in a marriage where their spouse just won't develop or deal with their sexuality, yes.52:32 Ellen: That's where I'm... Yeah, that's where I'm looking. Right.52:34 Jennifer: If somebody is in a low-desire position because their spouse is narcissistic, for example, or won't deal with the ways that they take too much in the marriage, and they keep trying to stand up to get that person to deal with who they are, because they do want a good sexual relationship, they just don't want sex in the current form. Okay? They're low-desire because of good judgment. Well, then they may be the one who's saying, "Look, I want good sex too, I just don't want what you're offering. It's all about you." And so, they may be the ones putting on... You know, calling it quits.53:08 Ellen: Interesting.53:10 Ray: I think, whenever the notion of, "Is sex a good enough reason to leave the marriage" comes up, there are a lot of people who are really quick to jump on that because they're afraid that if we normalize that, that's gonna be everybody's first choice. "I don't get what I want, I'm out."53:29 Jennifer: Yeah, yeah.53:30 Ray: And in my experience, it's really the opposite. It's when you're willing to actually walk away from... It takes a lot to be willing to walk away from what you have.53:40 Jennifer: Absolutely.53:40 Ray: I don't know that it's... That's anybody's first choice.53:44 Jennifer: Well, and I think a lot of the time when people are saying, "Is sex enough reason?" We have it in the hedonistic frame, rather than if sex really isn't happening in a marriage, there's something bad going on. [chuckle] Okay? You know what I mean? Like, I mean...53:58 Daniel: Yeah, it's not the sex. [chuckle]54:00 Jennifer: Yeah, it's not the sex. Exactly, it's not the sex.54:02 Daniel: Sorry, I don't mean to laugh, but...54:04 Jennifer: No, but then you're right. The sex is an indicator of something much more profoundly important going on. And so, the sex is the canary in the coal mine.54:14 Ellen: And I think that actually hits the point of the original question, the debate around sex not being neediness, or isn't sexy, but also wanting to talk about the importance of it.54:25 Jennifer: Yeah.54:27 Ellen: I think it goes back to that. I know that you've said it's not necessarily about the sex, but... It's the canary but, What killed the canary? [chuckle]54:35 Jennifer: You know, exactly. It's exactly right. Why is the canary dead? Okay? Can we look at that? [laughter]54:44 Jennifer: Exactly. Is there just too much noxious gas that the canary can't breathe? Or is the canary faking dead so that it doesn't have to, you know... [overlapping conversation]54:54 Ellen: It's looking away. [laughter]54:58 Jennifer: Yeah.54:58 Ellen: Well, it is about three minutes to the hour, so I wanna respect your time. It has been a pleasure chatting with you, and being able to listen more. Our focus to three podcasts and collect people's questions and really just discuss with you. So I wanted to give you a couple minutes to close up, any closing thoughts you had as far as the discussions that we've had today. If there's any kind of ending thoughts you'd like to share, and then give you that au revoir and [chuckle] the opportunity to sign off, and...55:38 Jennifer: Sure.55:38 Ellen: Really one day invite you to come back, we'd love to have a follow-up at some point, and do this again.55:45 Jennifer: Sure.55:46 Ellen: But the time is yours.55:48 Jennifer: I'm trying to think if I have any profound final thoughts. [laughter]55:53 Ellen: You're probably thinking a lot actually. [chuckle]55:57 Jennifer: Well, I guess maybe I would just say I respect in everybody that's here, the pursuit of sorting through these hard things, like marriage and intimate relationships are not easy. To achieve the beauty that relationships are capable of, takes a lot of courage. Courage to deal honestly with ourselves, to deal honestly with our spouse, to face hard things. Happy marriages are not for sissies. Okay?56:30 Ray: Soundbite. [laughter]56:39 Jennifer: So I really do...56:41 Daniel: Jennifer?56:41 Jennifer: Yeah, go ahead.56:42 Daniel: My wife just wanted... Heard what you said and wants to put it on a t-shirt. Do we need to get a waiver or something? "Happy marriages aren't for sissies." [chuckle]56:50 Jennifer: Aren't for sissies. Yeah, you could do that, just stick my name on it and my website... [laughter]56:55 Daniel: You got it.57:00 Jennifer: So yeah. So I respect it, I always respect it because I think it's the best in humans when people are willing to kind of face those hard things. And when I watch people go through it, it's hard. But it's really where all the beauty lies. So, there's divinity in all that process, even though it can feel like you're in hell sometimes.57:25 Ellen: Well said.57:25 Jennifer: Okay.57:28 Ellen: Well, Jennifer thank you so much for your time.57:31 Jennifer: You're welcome.57:32 Ellen: Have a wonderful evening, and keep warm out there. [chuckle]57:36 Jennifer: Thank you, I'll try.57:37 Ellen: Please try to stay warm.57:39 Jennifer: Okay, thanks everybody. Bye.57:40 Ray: Thank you.57:41 Ellen: Bye-bye. So, we're on. Yeah, go ahead Ray. You got it.57:46 Ray: No.57:46 Ellen: Well you got the book. [chuckle]57:49 Ray: Okay. Let's go ahead and stop the recording at that point.
ESTHER 5-6: In Esther 3-4 Haman cast lots (purim) to find out that March 7 was the lucky date to exterminate the Jews. Mordecai requested that Esther intercede directly to the king. And since she hadn’t been called for, the only way to do that would endanger Esther herself, since no one was allowed to approach the king in the inner court uninvited. ISAIAH 41b: Did you notice in yesterday’s reading, we heard a description of a king that sounded similar to one described in the book of Daniel? Is. 41:2 GNT “Who was it that brought the conqueror from the east and makes him triumphant wherever he goes? Who gives him victory over kings and nations? His sword strikes them down as if they were dust. His arrows scatter them like straw before the wind. 3 He follows in pursuit and marches safely on, so fast that he hardly touches the ground! Who was it that made this happen? 4 Who has determined the course of history? I, the Lord, was there at the beginning, and I, the Lord, will be there at the end. Because of the amazingly fast progress of this king being like the description of Alexander the Great (the male goat) in Daniel 8, I previously thought that Isaiah was also describing Alexander. But Alexander came from the west. Instead, this is the same king as mentioned in verse 25 of today’s reading, and scholars say that he is most likely Cyrus. In a few chapters he will be mentioned by name, and chapter 41 is not the only time Isaiah alludes to him without mentioning his name. 2THESSALONIANS 2: In preparing for his topic of Christ’s return, in 2Thessalonians chapter 1 Paul mentioned the punishment of people who refuse to obey the Good News about Christ. They will ‘suffer’ or ‘pay the penalty of eternal destruction’. Note that if people are going to be burned up in hell, or if God’s punishment was simply that people would cease to exist, it would not be called ‘suffer eternal destruction’. This understanding is not just a doctrine. It turns out that this gives great comfort to those who are suffering persecution, and gives a great motivation to all of us for sharing the Good News. GNT Translation notes: 2Thes. 2:2 not to be so easily confused in your thinking or upset by the claim that the Day of the Lord has [already] come. Perhaps it is thought that we said this while prophesying or preaching, or [they may claim] that we wrote it in a letter. 3 Do not let anyone deceive you in any way. For the Day [of the Lord’s return] will not come until the final Rebellion takes place and the Wicked One appears, who is destined to hell. 7 The Mysterious Wickedness is already at work, but what is going to happen will not happen until the one who [is holding//holds] it back is taken out of the way. 10 and [he will] use every kind of wicked deceit on those who will perish. They will perish because they did not welcome and love the truth so as to be saved. 13 We must thank God at all times for you, friends, you whom the Lord loves. For God chose you as the [very beginning//first] to be saved by [the purifying work of His Spirit//the Spirit's power to make you his holy people] and by your [belief//faith] in the truth.
ESTHER 5-6:In Esther 3-4 Haman cast lots (purim) to find out that March 7 was the lucky date to exterminate the Jews. Mordecai requested that Esther intercede directly to the king. And since she hadn’t been called for, the only way to do that would endanger Esther herself, since no one was allowed to approach the king in the inner court uninvited. ISAIAH 41b:Did you notice in yesterday’s reading, we heard a description of a king that sounded similar to one described in the book of Daniel? Is. 41:2 GNT “Who was it that brought the conqueror from the east and makes him triumphant wherever he goes? Who gives him victory over kings and nations? His sword strikes them down as if they were dust. His arrows scatter them like straw before the wind. 3 He follows in pursuit and marches safely on, so fast that he hardly touches the ground! Who was it that made this happen?4 Who has determined the course of history? I, the Lord, was there at the beginning, and I, the Lord, will be there at the end. Because of the amazingly fast progress of this king being like the description of Alexander the Great (the male goat) in Daniel 8, I previously thought that Isaiah was also describing Alexander. But Alexander came from the west. Instead, this is the same king as mentioned in verse 25 of today’s reading, and scholars say that he is most likely Cyrus. In a few chapters he will be mentioned by name, and chapter 41 is not the only time Isaiah alludes to him without mentioning his name. 2THESSALONIANS 2:In preparing for his topic of Christ’s return, in 2Thessalonians chapter 1 Paul mentioned the punishment of people who refuse to obey the Good News about Christ. They will ‘suffer’ or ‘pay the penalty of eternal destruction’. Note that if people are going to be burned up in hell, or if God’s punishment was simply that people would cease to exist, it would not be called ‘suffer eternal destruction’. This understanding is not just a doctrine. It turns out that this gives great comfort to those who are suffering persecution, and gives a great motivation to all of us for sharing the Good News. GNT Translation notes:2Thes. 2:2 not to be so easily confused in your thinking or upset by the claim that the Day of the Lord has [already] come. Perhaps it is thought that we said this while prophesying or preaching, or [they may claim] that we wrote it in a letter.3 Do not let anyone deceive you in any way. For the Day [of the Lord’s return] will not come until the final Rebellion takes place and the Wicked One appears, who is destined to hell.7 The Mysterious Wickedness is already at work, but what is going to happen will not happen until the one who [is holding//holds] it back is taken out of the way.10 and [he will] use every kind of wicked deceit on those who will perish. They will perish because they did not welcome and love the truth so as to be saved.13 We must thank God at all times for you, friends, you whom the Lord loves. For God chose you as the [very beginning//first] to be saved by [the purifying work of His Spirit//the Spirit's power to make you his holy people] and by your [belief//faith] in the truth.
Part 2-2: How Understanding My Husband’s Pornography Consumption Led to Healthy Dialogue and HealingLeanne is a wife of 31 years. She has 2 children who are both married. She is the grandmother of one. She is a retired preschool teacher of 17 years. She is enjoying her season of time with her husband as an empty nester.**Note from Leanne, please read prior to listening: I think there might be some confusion in our story for some people. Some people I think believe that we started to view pornography together as a couple. That is not what happened at all. That day that I sat down with him and opened my heart to understand what was driving him to look was the last day that he viewed it. So I just want to clarify that.When my husband and I started the journey of turning towards each other in all of the aspects of our lives and began to create a truly intimate marriage, the “need” for my husband to turn to porn left him. And my “need” to constantly check up on him left me. And I was healed from being stuck in betrayal trauma. The connection that we made in turning towards one another to proactively create what we really wanted for our marriage was the answer to porn not being an issue for either of us from that point forward. Turning towards each other healed both of us.**Transcript:0:00:04 VO: Welcome to Improving Intimacy, a podcast to help single and married Latter-Day Saints strengthen their family connections and marriages. Daniel A. Burgess is the host of Improving Intimacy. Daniel's a marriage and family therapist, father, husband, and author. Here's Daniel in this episode of Improving Intimacy.0:00:23 Daniel: Welcome to another episode of Improving Intimacy. I'm really excited today. We get to have Leanne back on with us. We get to explore some of the topic set we addressed in the previous podcast in a little bit more depth and I'm excited and thankful that you Leanne are willing to come back on and explore these topics further with us. There is a lot of excitement with people who listen to your podcast and we're just craving more and this is a very private and very vulnerable experience for you, so I really appreciate you coming on and being willing to explore some of these topics in depth. There's clearly a need and it's moved a lot of people to hear your story. So, let's turn it over to you. Where do you wanna start? What do you feel from the people who've listened to your podcast and the comments that have been made? Where do you feel it's important to start?0:01:19 Leanne: Well, first off, thank you for having me back. I'm excited to be back on here and like you say, to go over more in-depth of my journey and how I got to where I am today, but basically I just wanna start off with my struggles, like what my struggles were with my sexuality and what was holding me back for years and years. I struggled for probably... We were married for 31 years and I probably struggled for 25 of those years, overcoming some hurdles and issues that I had in order to be able to step into my sexuality. So, basically, that's just what I wanna share with everyone today is how I overcame. What those struggles were and how I worked through them, how I overcame them, how I was able to think differently. I think so often when we try to improve our sexuality, like we come to it from... Sex, like we try to... What sex acts can improve my sexuality, what things can I be doing in the bedroom to make me like it more. And I think too often we're just chasing after sex acts when really, especially for women, our biggest sex organ truly is our brain.0:02:42 Leanne: And one of the things I learned... Just what I've heard about, I haven't read any of her books, Emily Nagoski. I've never read any of her books but I've heard people explain about her brakes and accelerators and I realized that for years and years as... 'Cause I wanted to want sex, I wanted to like sex. I did have that desire, all through the years of my marriage, I just could not figure out how to get there. And so, I would try different things over the years but what I realized with brakes and accelerators was even though I was trying to push on the gas and go forward and figure it out, I was standing on the brakes. I had so many issues piled up that I just didn't have my foot on the brake, I was standing hard on the brake. And so that was preventing me to make any forward movement at all in the area of intimacy, does that make sense?0:03:38 Daniel: It does and for those who aren't familiar with Emily's book it's "Come as You Are", great book, very very insightful, gets into exactly what you're talking about, the science and the process our brains go through in experiencing sexual arousal. Tell us a little bit more though. What do you mean you're standing on the brake? What did that look like for you? What were you doing or not doing?0:04:01 Leanne: For me, standing on the brakes, I guess, meant for me just any time I would try to make any forward progress in my marriage. One of the issues that I want... I'll talk. Some of these issues that were holding me back, they would just come forward to the surface and then I would be slamming on that brake again. And so, yeah, I guess going forward, talking here, we'll just start talking about some of those things that kept me with my foot on the brake.0:04:27 Daniel: Yeah, let's start by that.0:04:29 Leanne: Okay, so first off, when I finally decided that I really wanted to start working on my sexuality, one day I came across a little meme on Facebook and it broke down the word intimacy and I'm sure people have seen this before, but it broke it down to me saying, "Into me see". And I break it down to "into me you see." And what that means to me is, for me, the goal in marriage is to have a desire to know your partner on a very deep level and then to also allow your partner to know you on that very deep level. And for me that means knowing your partner's heart, their mind, their spirit, their body, and then letting them also know your heart, your mind, your spirit, your body. And so I really wanted that, that was the goal of me being able to work on my sexuality, was I wanted all of that, I wanted all that intimacy had to offer, and so that was the driving force that moved me forward to really working on my sexuality. But first, the first thing I think that I had to figure out was in order to be intimate on a sexual level, and to have true intimacy in a marriage, you really need to work on all the levels of intimacy in your marriage, and that means working on the psychological intimacy in your marriage which means honesty, loyalty, trust and commitment. I feel like that is the foundation to your marriage, is those four things; honesty, loyalty, trust and commitment.0:06:09 Leanne: And then the other areas are verbal, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, physical, and then I've also added recreational. But in order to really be able to work on that physical level, the other levels had to also be being worked on. It's not just enough to say, "I want a wonderful intimate life, intimate sexual life." I feel like it was important in my marriage to work on all the levels. And once my husband and I started to work on all those levels of intimacy within our marriage, then it was easier to work on the physical intimacy part. I think so often we hear that women are more emotional and for me that's definitely true. And so I had to feel like things were being worked on outside of the bedroom in order for me to also be working on things inside of the bedroom.0:06:57 Daniel: Before we get there and maybe you're gonna address this, but what did you have to do yourself? In the previous podcast and online you've talked a lot about how you have to face your own trauma, you have to face your own hold-ups around this before you can engage and improve your relationship together. That's a very difficult place for people who especially have experienced trauma and mental health issues around intimacy. How did you get there? What did you do to... We already discovered in the previous podcast that you do have a level of insight that I think is a little higher than most people, but regardless, what did you do to recognize, "Okay, I need to address this, this is my issue that I need to overcome." And what steps did you take?0:07:50 Leanne: I honestly think the thing that really hit me the hardest when I started to really face myself was one day I was... It was the very, very first podcast that I listened to from Jennifer Finlayson-Fife, and I can't even remember where... I know it was some LDS site, like LDS Living or something and I've tried to find it and I haven't been able to just find it since, but she talks in that podcast about... We really need to bring our very best self to our partners every day. Like, we need to take a good long look at ourselves and ask ourselves, would we wanna be married to ourselves? "Would I wanna be married to someone like me?" And when I really started to look hard at myself and answer that question, the answer was no. I would not wanna be married to me, I was not nice because of some of the anxieties that I faced, I gave myself permission to act badly towards my husband either in coming from a place of I'm trying to protect myself or then also coming through a place of excusing my anxieties and saying, "I can't help it. This is just how I soothe myself, it's how I soothe my anxieties, is to control everything that's around me."0:09:09 Leanne: And so, it really hit me hard when I listened to that podcast when she said, "We, we need to bring our best self to our spouse, every day." And I feel like my husband, for the most part, did bring his best self to me every day. He is so kind and very caring and very patient. And I realized that I wasn't giving the same.0:09:32 Daniel: Was there a point, and maybe I'm making some assumptions here, that you viewed him as the broken one with the issues around pornography and maybe his behavior in the bedroom? Did you view him as the broken one and then have this epiphany like, "Oh, my goodness. I'm the one who's struggling here."0:09:49 Leanne: It doesn't really played a role, it played a role in the bedroom, it played a role just because I had my foot so hard on the brakes that I... "He's just using my body because of what he's seen."0:10:03 Daniel: Yes, exactly, thank you for clarifying. And that's what I was alluding to.0:10:07 Leanne: Yeah, so some of the struggles within the actual sexual realm of things, I could blame some of them on him but I also knew what was going on in my own head, surrounding some of the struggles that I had, and so then I just realized I needed to work on 'em.0:10:32 Daniel: Yeah, again, so you had that level of insight where you were able to acknowledge, and I think for the most part, most people are like that. Specifically women. I think there is that level, "Okay, I know there's an issue here with me too, but the pain and the difficulties in the relationship make it difficult to focus on that inward self because you see other problems in the relationship that you want to address or think are bigger and contributing to that, in this case maybe the pornography, it's tempting to say, "My husband's behavior is what's triggering me and until he fixes it, I can't fix myself." But you're seeing that or at least at this point you're saying, "No, I gotta address myself too."0:11:17 Leanne: Mm-hmm. 'Cause I knew it was part of it, but I knew it was definitely not all of it, so I finally had to just face myself, "I need to figure this out." So then some of the things that I struggled with, like the first one being "the good girl syndrome" and I talked about that the other day. I think it's so hard, and not in just LDS relationships, but also I've heard lately more just in Christian relationships, in religions that really stifle sexuality or have such a strong belief around waiting 'til you're married. So, we get this message growing up that it's a bad thing like, "We don't do this, it's bad." And then all of a sudden when you're married, it's okay, it's fine now. It's really, really hard to change gears for a lot of women, and not just women, but for some men too, it's really hard to all of a sudden think it's okay. So, I had to get over that good girl syndrome and just really come to embrace the fact that I was created to be a sexual being as well as a emotional, and intellectual, and spiritual being, I was also created to be a sexual being.0:12:28 Leanne: And, I think, so often growing up and nobody talking to us when we're teenagers of how to embrace our sexuality we try to repress it. And the other thing I struggled with and I talked about this on the last podcast, was I struggled to be sexual and spiritual within the same body, that didn't make sense to me of how to marry the two. And so the danger is in that though was I was completely shutting down my sexuality because I thought that my spiritual self should learn how to control the physical self. And by doing that it's like you're cutting off your arm, like when you shut down, you're shutting down a part of who you are and it's...0:13:12 Daniel: Let me pause you right there for a second 'cause that's I think an important statement there, and I wanna make sure that the listeners understand what you just said. Tell us a little bit more about what it means, or at least what your paradigm was at the time that you're thinking the spiritual self should, would you say control my sexual behavior or my sexual desire, and you couldn't marry 'em together, what were you... Tell us a little bit more about what that meant to you at the time?0:13:39 Leanne: I feel like it meant that if I... We hear that about our carnal selves and that we need to learn, control our carnal selves, and the natural man is an enemy to God. And so I think I was equating that my sexual part of myself was carnal, it was dirty, it was naughty, it was wanting things that it shouldn't want, and so...0:14:06 Daniel: And that's why you were shutting it down, is...0:14:09 Leanne: Mm-hmm.0:14:10 Daniel: The experience you're having spiritually, so what was that? Did you feel like it was the spirit telling that this was inappropriate, that this was dirty, this shouldn't be pursued? And if you did, how do you view that insight now? Do you still look at that and say, "Yes, that was a spirit telling me that?" Or how do you reconcile that now?0:14:31 Leanne: No, I don't believe that was the spirit at all. I think that was fear, I think it was fear, I think it was guilt, it was shame, it was those. It was those feelings. They were very negative and I don't think that's how the spirit works.0:14:45 Daniel: Yeah, and it's interesting though, because this is not the first time I've heard this. And I've had many, many people come in and say, "This isn't right, the spirit's telling me it isn't." But typically, and who am I? I can't tell somebody that they're not feeling the Spirit, but this is usually what I'm discovering, is it's fear. How would you guide people who are trying to sort that out to distinguish between the Spirit and the fear or guilt that they're feeling around it, and why are they confusing the two? Kind of a bunch of questions there, but I guess, how would somebody distinguish that? What did you do to identify that really wasn't the spirit, that was actually fear and guilt?0:15:33 Leanne: When I finally decided that I was gonna work on my sexuality and really open up my perceptions, and my thinking around it, and just become more open in my thinking, very quickly when I started to work on things with my husband there was a difference. Our relationship just grew so quickly, whereas before there was just... It was a hindrance to our relationship, progress was not being made. The guilt was there that I should not feel that way towards my husband, it's a beautiful thing and if there's guilt for even trying to become closer, I mean that's not right. That's not what our heavenly father wants for us, He wants us to be close, very, very close in that relationship. And so, once I just decided, "I'm not gonna feel these feelings of guilt anymore. I'm not gonna allow them into my mind," and started to work on things with my husband, very, very quickly things moved along at a really beautiful pace, really beautiful, wonderful things were happening within my marriage.0:16:51 Daniel: Are you willing or comfortable with sharing any details, experiences around that?0:16:58 Leanne: Well one thing, and I kinda have details interwoven when I talk about some of my struggles. So there's the one struggle that I had of giving and receiving. Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife talks about this a lot. Truly being able to receive from your partner and you truly being able to give to your partner. I think, so often as women, we have a hard time receiving because we're always on the giving and the serving end of the doing and the taking care of kids, we have a really hard time receiving sometimes. And so the very first time that I had really learned how to calm my anxieties down in the bedroom, and there was one particular time when we were being intimate, and I for the first time ever I felt on a very deep level of how much my husband was giving to me, like giving his whole self to me, his heart, his spirit, his mind, his body, and I just had tears just streaming down my face because I felt like his goodness was pouring into me, and afterwards I was like, "I felt that. I felt your generosity towards me. I felt your love and your goodness," and he said, "I've been trying to love you that way for 27 years but you shut me down."0:18:25 Leanne: I was just stuck in a place of, my mind was just so closed because of the guilt that I couldn't even open up to begin to accept what he was trying to offer me through his sexuality.0:18:36 Daniel: What an amazing experience. He was able to tell you that in those words is, "You're were shutting me down?"0:18:42 Leanne: Mm-hmm. Yup.0:18:43 Daniel: It sounds like maybe you were ready and a place to hear that. I don't know, if I recommend every husband say that to their to their spouse, but...0:18:52 Leanne: I definitely, yes, I definitely was in a place to hear that.0:18:55 Daniel: That's wonderful, and you were recognizing how much love he was giving to you. So it sounds like you were ready to hear that. What a wonderful experience.0:19:02 Leanne: And the other thing on that other end, so then the giving part, I think, that something that can become problematic and it was for me, is we...0:19:13 Leanne: Dr. Jennifer, she talks about this and she got this idea from David Schnarch. And it's where we want to belong to ourselves, like the desire to belong to ourselves is even stronger than the desire to receive sexual pleasure. And so, if we as women or anybody if you don't step into your sexuality and really embrace it and own it and want to share it with another person, then you're constantly gonna be feeling like your partner is taking it from you, 'cause you're not freely giving it and so you're gonna... Over time, I became very resentful because I felt like my husband was constantly taking from me and when I really stepped into my sexuality and had the strong desire to share it with my husband, it made all the difference in the world for me, I never feel like he's taking from me anymore 'cause I've owned it, I've owned that sexuality, it is mine, and it's mine to share. So those feelings completely went away. And so the resentful feelings went away, all that went away because my sexuality now belongs to me.0:20:17 Daniel: If you don't mind, I wanna emphasize that point that is so, so critical in the process. And I love how you describe it when you're rejecting your spouse, you're setting him up for failure and you're gonna always feel like he's taking something away from you or burdening you. And I see that dynamic over and over and over again, where the spouse, the wife in this case, will set certain expectations, until those expectations are met there's no physical intimacy, whatever those expectations may be, and it sets the partner up for failure because you can't ever really live up to those expectations. Whatever they be, you may be able to do it, but then it becomes a checklist and it's anything but intimate. And that creates that cycle downward that spiral downward because, so well said, because it feels like now it becomes this exchange of tasks and a burden, it does not create the intimacy. So that is so hard to break, but then what's reinforcing it is we're thinking, "Well, we're having this negative experience in our sexual dynamic relationship because he isn't doing his part." It becomes very deflective, and so being able to look at this and say, "Open up to it." And then it's connecting, it's beautiful.0:21:39 Daniel: And then you have these experiences. Now, not everybody's gonna have this, there's... In fact, I'm very curious, I would love to know at least your perspective what your husband was going through? He's been... He was giving and giving and giving for 27 years. That's endurance in... I would have to say, I know very few men who are able to maintain that level of giving for so long without becoming resentful, lost in their own sexuality. What do you think, if your husband wouldn't mind you sharing, what he was able to do to embrace that and continue patiently giving? And I'm not assuming he never had an issue of maybe resentment or hurt feelings. We're human beings, right? What do you think allowed him to continue to be loving and patient over almost three decades?0:22:33 Leanne: It makes me a little weepy. He just had a very, very strong love for me. So it sounds like cheesy in a way to be like, "It's because he loves me, that's why he was able to endure it all." But that really was it, he was so in love with me, and that's not to say that there weren't hard times, there were times when things were rough and he would weep and he would say, "You hurt me deeply, you're not nice, and you hurt me deeply." But it was because he loved me so immensely that he endured it, and then also when he prayed to know whether he should marry me or not the answer that he got was yes and take care of her. And he understood how broken I was from the trauma that I received as a child and a teenager. He understood that he knew how broken I was and I think also he knew I was trying. I did want to want it and I expressed that often. It's not that I was the type of person that I was like, "I hate it, don't talk to me about it. I don't want anything to do with it." I wasn't that type of a person, I was the type of person that I would longing to want it, I just didn't know how to get there. And so he was very patient with me all those years and he just loved me through it and felt like he made that promise to my father that he would take care of me.0:24:07 Daniel: What would you say to men who... I think there's a lot of men who have the level of love that your husband has for you, but the years have taken such a toll on them in their relationship and they're experiencing this, their wife not wanting you can't even bring up sex anymore, you can't talk about it. It's become very isolating even to suggest therapy or some sort of intervention around sex is just yet another manipulation or selfish desire to have more sex. What are your thoughts around encouraging those husbands to support their wives who are disconnected from this? Who aren't having that level of insight and they're starting experience that bitterness, any thoughts? They're not losing the love but they're they're lost themselves. It's been such a lonely experience that they don't know what to do. Do you recommend how husbands can support their wives and helping them understand their sexuality better?0:25:06 Leanne: That's a situation that really breaks my heart and I wish I could sit down with those wives and have a conversation with them because I feel like in a marriage where the wives have completely set down is a very difficult place to be for men. And my heart really aches for them.0:25:26 Leanne: I know that I've listened to a couple of podcasts by Jennifer Finlayson's life. Where she addresses that. And she talks about how a husband needs to sit down with his wife and say, "This is not okay for me, I need to feel loved in this way. And we have created this dynamic within our marriage to where we won't even talk about it and that's just not okay for me anymore. I'm suffering and our marriage is suffering and I believe you're suffering as well. And something needs to change." I'm not an expert to speak on that. But I feel like from things I've heard from Jennifer, she is an expert and has helped in that area. She talks a lot about how we each collude in the kind of marriage that we have. And I think that oftentimes in a marriage if we're not speaking up, in a loving way, and just kind of claiming what our desires are and what our needs are, if we're not speaking up about those then we are colluding in the type of marriage that we are creating.0:26:28 Daniel: I like that idea in what you're saying there. First of all, I think what you're saying is very helpful. I think a lot of women appreciate hearing that. That you feel sad that they're in those difficult, difficult places, where they don't even... To even think about sex, would just drain them and frustrate them. And somehow getting out of that.0:26:50 Daniel: But what I also liked is, how to have that discussion. I think there's so much shame for men. There's this, I don't know if it's completely acceptable. But it tends to be more acceptable to not want to have sex and so when the higher desire partner wants to have better sex or more connecting sex, it's viewed as selfish, carnal. And so the man and the relationship is experiencing these feelings of guilt, embarrassment. Yes, I wanna have more sex, I wanna have this type of sex. And so they're shutting themselves down, before they even have that conversation with their wife. But I like how you said that when you can frame it, put all other frustrations aside.0:27:32 Daniel: A lot of times this conversation happens in connection to so many things kids, busy life, stresses and then we throw in, "Well we're not even having sex anymore." or "That's all you want." But to be able to have that dedicated conversation and say, "Sweetheart, I love you and I want this area of our life to be better." and I keep it within that context, I think, can set each other up for success and to be able to address those issues better. I really like that insight there.0:28:01 Leanne: And the reason why I wish I could sit down and talk to the wives is, I think we as wives, really don't understand how that oftentimes, not in every marriage, but statistically are more regularly that a husband, the way he gives love and receives love is through physical intimacy. He feels it on a very deep level. And we as wives do not understand that. I think society has conditioned us to believe that men are just sex pots and that's all they want is sex. They just wanna use women's bodies to get their own physical pleasure and I don't think that's true at all. I mean, it can be true for some people, that they're selfish and they use their sexuality in selfish ways. But I really believe for the most part that men, that's how they are wired, is to love deeply and give love deeply, to feel love deeply and give love deeply through their sexuality.0:29:01 Leanne: And when I grew to really understand that, that's what changed for me. A big thing in the bedroom like that night when I felt the goodness coming from him, it's because I wasn't just being like yes my husband is having sex with me. I felt on a deep level what he was offering to me from every fiber of his being. When you can receive that as a woman, it is amazing and beautiful. And so I wish women could understand it and calm down their anxiety surrounding their husband sexuality and stop putting a label on what it is that they're wanting from... And open up their heart to the fact that your husband just wants to really love you deeply. That helped for me a lot.0:29:45 Daniel: I love this so much because one of my mentors in this field has often said, "Who is your sexual role model?" And I think that's one of the biggest obstacles that we face both men and women in relationships is, you're doing something tremendous for women right now, you're providing, whether you like it or not, you're providing a healthy role model, and the journey you took to get there. It's one thing to hear you can have an amazing sex life, but what does that really mean when all your definition right now is around sex, your sexual relationship is shame, pain and bearable at times. What is it to even mean when we say a thriving healthy sex life?0:30:30 Daniel: I think, a lot of people think... Oh, just more sex. They don't understand what you're actually saying here is a beautiful, profound connection. Which is exactly what they're desiring and is being hindered because they can't see that. But the same thing for men, and unfortunately I think a lot of men get into this place that thinking just like women, sex is bad, but yet they have these urges and desires, and they don't know how to manage them. And then they start to view them cells in the way that they've been told to view themselves.0:31:02 Daniel: It's bad, it's dirty, they take on that definition so they don't even engage in the conversation. And I'll tell you from personal experience because we don't have sexual role models and we don't understand what healthy sex looks like. Which is a variety of experiences, based on couples personalities, cultures and their relationship with the Lord. I didn't know what I wanted. And so it was a frustrating conversation to have, because even though my wife was willing to listen and not just willing, but embracing it. I didn't know what to say because I didn't know what I, I think I knew what I wanted in a relationship, in a sexual relationship. But then I had to come to the understanding to be able to explain, you know what, this is what I'm curious about, I'm wondering if this will work well for me.0:31:49 Daniel: And for you, let's reevaluate because I think we finally have this big conversation, this vulnerable conversation where you're now in a place to have that conversation and your husband is, "What do I say? I just want better sex. And this is how I think we're gonna get there and then we hold to that." It's like, "You don't want that? Well, you know what? I just discovered what I wanted in the relationship was to be able to explore that with you. It really had little to do with the actual physical act but now I feel safe." I could tell you, I'm really curious about this and I'm wondering if this will help in our relationship and not be shut down or viewed as selfish or promiscuous or dirty. I know in my personal experience that allowed me to at least redefine what a sexual relationship looked like because I really didn't know, I had no idea. And where do you begin with that? Even when your wife is willing to have that discussion, I think it's a daunting and scary experience but allowing yourself to reevaluate, come back and discuss, and I think that's been the most bonding opportunities with my wife is just being able to feel like we can openly discuss it. What's your experience around that? Or does that resonate with you?0:33:03 Leanne: Yeah, when I was starting to work through all these, all the things that like the breaks that I had on, like the Good Girl Syndrome, marrying of the spiritual and sexual and just all that. When I was really starting to work through those and be able to push each one aside as I work through. We started practicing, we had sex every day, every single day for probably about six weeks and it really was a learning, and a growing, and a discovery time for the two of us. Just like what does this look like? What does this sexual relationship between the two of us? What's it gonna look like? And so, we practiced and try things and for six weeks, every single day, and it was a great learning experience for both of us, where we both felt free to express our desires and discover each other in a sexual way.0:34:03 Daniel: What made you think of that? I mean was that just something that you randomly thought of says, "Hey, let's do this every day for six weeks and see what happens." Or where did you get that idea from?0:34:13 Leanne: We just started practicing and it just happened. [chuckle] It is not, but that's okay. And it's funny and I have to say this. So, just recently in general conference the one man gave the talk about reading the Scripture and suddenly he's like, "Every day, every day, every day." And my husband and I left because when we were practicing, when we would start again my husband was like joking he got, "Every day, every day, every day." And so that just made us laugh so much when it came up on general conference and we looked at each other 'cause it's just kind of something cute that you would say to me as we were practicing, but we never like said, "Here's the timeframe, we're gonna do this for six weeks. Is just happened that I think we were just both excited that we were working on it, that we were discovering each other, it was exciting for us.0:35:05 Daniel: You took away in that strategy, if we called this pursuer and avoider dynamic where he's pursuing and you're avoiding and you created as a both come together, you're treating each other as equals. I think that's crucial, I think there's this... As we engage into this discovery mode, we pay a little bit more tension like you've been cautioning people to do, to put aside your fears, but there's still that fear there that they want to respect and they don't jump in like that. And I think that's really important, I think we're preparing a little too much emotionally to go into sex and instead view it as, "Let's learn, let's try this, let's schedule it, let's at least plan for it in some way and make it a mutual goal." And that eliminates a lack of predictability, right now, at least at that point in your relationship, what I'm hearing is there's so much unpredictability and there's so much harder and discovery that need to happen that you didn't wanna give heed to that ambiguity anymore. You said, "Let's do this every day. Let's create some predictability, let's be a team on this and come together." Am I hearing you right?0:36:16 Leanne: Mm-hmm. And one thing I wanna say too about that pursuer and... I, a couple of years before that, one thing that we did that helps us transition then 'cause like I said I did want to want sex. I did try different things throughout our marriage to figure things out. But one thing that was helpful for me is Laura Brotherson does talk about how sometimes husbands and wives can create anxiety within each other and by the husband-wife, she calls it the Hungry Dog Syndrome where the husband like it's been a while since he's had sex and he wants it, and he's requesting it and his wife doesn't want it, and so we're creating this hungry dog, she calls it syndrome, where he's chasing after her and looking for any cues that she's throwing him that he might get lucky that night.0:37:09 Daniel: Oh, yeah.0:37:10 Leanne: And he gets irritable and cranky because he's not getting his need's man and he's not being able to be close to his wife in the way that he wants, and so he gets cranky but the more he pursues her and chases after her, the more anxiety is created in her and so she is the avoiding wife, she will avoid touch, she will avoid flirting, she'll avoid any flirty looks from him, because she doesn't wanna send him a message in any way, shape, or form that he might get lucky. And so you're creating this anxiety within each other outside of the bedroom where he's chasing it, she's running all the time. And so, I came to my husband one day and I just came up with this on my own, I sat down with him and I said, "Okay, I need to learn to not run from you, any time you go to hug me or touch me." If I'm at the kitchen sink and he comes up and fondles me, I would elbow him like, "Stop, you always have to be touching me." I can't even begin to tell you how many times I said, "Can you not just love me for my brain? Does it always have to be about my body?" I've said that so many times to him.0:38:12 Leanne: Why does it always have to be about my body? And the sad thing is he just wanted to be affectionate with me, he just wanted to love me, he just wanted to come and connect with me. But I always perceived it as, "This is sexual, so stop." So anyway, I sat down with him and I said, "I need to learn to stop running," and so at that time, what I said was, "Can we please schedule sex? How many days a week would you like to have sex?" And so we negotiated how many days that would be and we said, "Okay," then I said, "Which days are those?" And so we decided upon which two days of the week those were gonna be. And I said, "Okay, I promise you that on those two days I will say yes, we will have sex." But on the other days outside of the bedroom or even inside the bedroom, no matter how much touch we give each other you cannot ask me for sex. But I need to learn to become comfortable kissing you, embracing you, allowing you to touch me in those fondling ways, and I need to learn to be able to calm my anxieties down around those types of touches. And I said, "Even if we full-on make-out on the couch, you cannot ask me for sex if it's a non-sex day," so that I can learn to be comfortable with touch, with your touch, with your wanting to be just intimate with me just through touch that's not sexual in nature.0:39:34 Daniel: I can't tell you how successful that strategy is. Too many people feel like, "Well that's gonna kill the mood and the desire by scheduling. And I will even depending on the relationship, tell them to schedule specifically when you're gonna do it, 9 o'clock at night, 8 o'clock in the morning, otherwise we find we push it out, but not everybody has to do that. Like your approach generally saying, "Tuesdays and Thursdays, for example, are our sex days and it will happen that day," that allows us to put aside our anxieties. Okay, I'm not gonna engage 'cause as you said, "This sexual dynamic becomes a pursuer and an avoider experience where the man is looking for every clue, looking for all those micro expressions. Is this a flirt or is she just being nice with me? Can I go in for a loving touch? And then it feels like groping, it feels like inappropriate, it feels like objecting, and then it shuts down the loving engagement that the the husband is trying to express. But by setting up a specific time we're able to put those anxieties aside. Okay, I don't have to worry about being grabbed today, randomly, or I don't have to worry about constantly looking at my wife.0:40:41 Daniel: Is this the right time? Is she giving me a clue? We put all that stress aside, so we've been able to eliminate that stress. We've already got too much stress in our relationship, and then to be able to engage, and follow through with that. And a lot of couples feel like that kills the romance. And so the first question I ask is, "Are you having romance right now? [chuckle] No, no, none. And so being able to create that predictability will then allow for romance to happen. And so you can create, so excellent approach. Absolutely excellent.0:41:15 Leanne: Because I found that in doing that, being able to calm down that anxiety, then when he did come up, for instance, behind me at the kitchen sink and give me a hug and then maybe even fondled me a little bit. I was able to learn to fold into that touch, to really embrace that and appreciate it, and just know that he just was wanting my attention. He was wanting to be affectionate with me, and I was able to fold into that instead of being angry, "Ahh he wants sex with me tonight," it's like, "Nope, it's not a sex night," I can fold into this, he's just wanting a moment with me at the kitchen sink. So that helped a lot, and that was a couple of years before the whole exercise of every day. And now it's not even a thought, we engage in all kinds of touch and flirting, and it's not even a worry in either one of our minds if it will or will not lead to the bedroom. Our relationship now it's beautiful, it's wonderful. All of it is just embraced and cherished.0:42:19 Daniel: Do you have any words of advice or cautions that you've learned from your relationship that you feel is important to share that we haven't addressed yet?0:42:28 Leanne: Any cautions?0:42:29 Daniel: Yeah, maybe reflecting on your own approach, What words of advice would you give the wives who are maybe willing to, "Okay, this is scary for me, I wanna open up and embrace my husband's sexual touches." Is there any words of caution around that? Do you feel like that can go wrong? Or did it go wrong for you at any point? Or any other aspects of your sexual relationship and self-discovery?0:42:55 Leanne: I definitely feel like there are still boundaries. And I still give myself permission if there's a certain thing I don't like, I voice it. Just because we're being more open and accepting, you still have your boundaries and it is absolutely okay to voice your boundaries and say, "I don't care for that, or I don't like when you touch me in that certain way it really bothered me because of the," is that what you mean?0:43:22 Daniel: Yeah, that's a great clarification. 'Cause I don't want the listeners to think, "Okay, I'm going to follow Leanne's example and just give myself completely over to my husband's sexual desires and anything goes. You still get that right to say, "I'm uncomfortable with this, I'm not sure about this, I'm not ready for that." Whatever that boundary looks like. And so how do you go about or how would you recommend going about that? 'cause it could be a fine line at times, right? You're wanting to explore, but you also don't wanna shut your partner down. How do you have that communication or to navigate that, that disinterest or that boundary without shutting down, or regressing in your recovery?0:44:06 Leanne: Well, for me, we have progressed so far that I do it just because of the personality that I am. I kinda do it in a blunt, but jokey way, I will say to him, "I am not a milk cow. Please don't touch me that way. It makes me feel like a milk cow."0:44:26 Leanne: Like, stuff like that. Because we've come so far that it's not... We know where we are.0:44:33 Daniel: It's not rejection.0:44:33 Leanne: No, it's not rejection at all because he knows that nine times out of 10 the way he touches me I love and I accept, and I revel in. But if there's a certain way I'll be like, "Hey, that doesn't feel good to me," and sometimes I'll make a joke out of it, but sometimes, I'm like... But I would say though in the bedroom, this is like outside of the bedroom, but in the bedroom when you're trying new things I definitely am more tender, or more thoughtful of his feelings, like make sure just, "Why don't you try it this way 'cause that way is hurting me a little bit." Or I'm more careful with how I... So just because that is so vulnerable place to be in the... You're all there, your whole body, all of you is there. And so I feel like more of a sacred space. I'm definitely more careful.0:45:22 Daniel: And I think husbands need to embrace the idea once you get to at least this level of sexual development and healthy approach. Recognizing it's not a rebuke, it's not a criticism. It's I want you to pleasure me, and if you're willing I could give you ideas on what will help, and right now that's not helping. And being able to embrace that as a learning tool and as a connecting tool as opposed to filling criticized and shut down. Because I think husbands too often will hear it, "Stop doing that," and they stop everything or they give up, or whatever.0:46:04 Leanne: I think husbands they get such a bad rap. It just makes me so sad. But I think they are very sensitive in this area. They feel like they're, society tells them that they should be these sexual experts who should automatically know how to please a woman or whatever. And it opens them up to, there's a lot of pressure that they feel to try to please their wives. And then I wanna talk about that for a minute, so the learning each other sexually. Too often we think that men just need to automatically know what their wives would want. And recently, I've heard this idea and concept and it's absolutely true, and made so much such in my head. You're the only one that's in charge of your sexual pleasure, you're in charge of it because you're the only one that's in your head and inside your body. Your husband's not, he doesn't know what you're thinking. He doesn't know what you're feeling inside of your body. And so yes he's trying to pleasure you, but if you don't voice if that's pleasurable or not he's not gonna know. And so it takes a lot of communication. And if a wife is not receiving, if she's unhappy with her sex life and basically all they're having his intercourse because she hasn't voiced anything different and she hates it and resents it.0:47:36 Leanne: Well, my question to them is, "Have you asked for anything different? Because how is he supposed to know that you want anything different? And I think me, I talked about this in my last podcast. But men and women really do need to understand each other sexualities and how we pick, and that women tend to be more emotional. And if my emotional needs were not being meet outside the bedroom, then it is hard for me to then be physical with my husband. If I feel like he was being, that he was mean to me on a certain day, or just really being grumpy and kinda taking it out on me, I'm gonna be less inclined to want to then be physical with him in the bedroom if he asks me for it. It's like, "You were kind of a jerk today, I'm not feeling emotionally connected to you because you hurt my feelings." But sometimes maybe we need to get to the bottom of that."Have you had a rough day? You seem really stressed today. Can I help you with that at all? Can we talk about that?" And maybe it's the end of the day and he answers that conversation, "Yes, he was really stressed and yes he would love to be with us intimately to get some tenderness from us to relieve that stress." And so yes, we can't completely shut him down because they were barking outside the bedroom.0:48:55 Leanne: But I think men also has a duty to understand that it's important for women to feel connected on emotional level with their husbands in order to be able to be intimate in the bedroom. But then on the other hand, women need to understand that men that's the way they connect with you is through the physical. That's the way they show you that they love you and you need to love and embrace that.0:49:16 Leanne: And women and men we've talked about it before, we need to figure out what each other likes. We need to have some [0:49:23] ____ focused exercises within our marriage where you're just really discovering each other's bodies, and discovering what each other likes. That needs to be happening. Women need to figure out what they love, so do men. And we need to come together as a couple and figure out and what then together we can do to bring the most pleasure to each other in all aspects, in the four-levels, spiritual, mental, emotional, bring all that together, and figure it out. And it's a journey. I think people think it's gonna happen overnight. It is not, it doesn't happen overnight. It's a journey and you need to embrace it as a journey. This is a journey of discovery that we are on together, and embrace it and be excited about it.0:50:09 Daniel: And it never ends, because we're constantly changing...0:50:13 Leanne: No.0:50:13 Daniel: As human beings biologically, emotionally, stress, whatever. And so if we think, "Oh that's a mistake," we finally feel like we've had some breakthroughs we enjoy sex this way, and I think that's why a lot of couples get stuck in a rut and repeating certain routine sexual behaviors is 'cause we knew it worked then, but it still needs to be discovered. Is this still working and explore that and also a thought, going back to what you're saying about if he's grumpy, I actually recommend that you first have sex and I think it goes along with this concept of being responsible for your own sexual arousal, not making somebody else a partner or excuse me, relying on somebody else for your arousal. There is definitely a need for your partner to be loving and kind to you to help that along, but I've often suggested have sex and then have that conversation of, you appeared grumpy today, and it was kind of hard to be around that. Can we talk about that? And you'll find in almost every situation, after you have sex it's much easier to have that conversation. Much, much easier and to recover and reduce that type of behavior.0:51:33 Leanne: Sex really is or can be kind of a bomb, like a healing bomb for couples. It's a beautiful thing, it really is. It's such a beautiful gift that God has given to couples, and it breaks my heart to see all the struggle that surrounds it. Because when the barriers can be broken down and the husbands and wives can really work on this part of their relationship, it really is a healing bomb for the rest of their relationship. It's like the crowning jewel and it breaks my heart when so many couples just struggle with it, and so many women just shut it down. Not understanding it at all, not understanding what it can be. It just, it really makes me sad.0:52:39 Daniel: I think we focus a lot on how the adversary can corrupt the sexual experience, and we generally view that in the context of perverting it in physical acts. But the one aspect that the adversary tries to destroy sexuality is by avoiding it. If he can't corrupt it, then avoid it. I refer to that as sexual silence, and that can take on many, many forms. Whether it's just not talking about, or avoiding it, or saying a certain behavior is bad, it shuts it down and it creates that divisiveness. But if we're able to use sex in a way to communicate we could bring each other together. And that's the beauty that I hear you saying over and over today.0:53:31 Leanne: I fully believe, my husband I have talked about this very thing quite often. The adversary, before we're married he will tempt us with trying to get us to have sex outside of marriage because after we're married he will try to get us to stop having sex. It is so true because he knows that will reek havoc within a marriage, and he doesn't care how he destroys a person. He doesn't care if he's having you have sex outside of marriage, or get you to stop having sex inside a marriage. He'll try to destroy people in any way he can, and he knows how powerful a marriage is when they can be deeply connected sexually. A marriage that is truly intimate in all levels of their marriage, that is a powerful marriage, and satan knows that, and he will try to get at it in any way you can. And the biggest way he does it is by shutting down sexuality. I firmly believe that.0:54:28 Daniel: Absolutely. Leanne, you've been so insightful. Is there any other things that you would like to address before we end today's podcast?0:54:37 Leanne: Okay, one more thing really, really fast.0:54:39 Daniel: Absolutely, take your time.0:54:40 Leanne: Can I just say that having kids is really tiring. And my husband and I weren't able to have children, but we adopted two children. And sex and being able to work on your life, sex life, it gets easier, and easier as the kids get older and older. And so I would just say give yourself grace in this area. Both husbands and wives need to realize that kids can be exhausting, and there's seasons of our lives that are harder for us to work on our sex lives just because of exhaustion. There are two things that kill desire the most, one is exhaustion, and the other one is being pressured. If you feel pressured to have sex or if you are exhausted those are the two main killers of desire. And so I just wanna say, just know that and work through that. It's gonna be tricky to work through when your kids are small, especially, but just try to keep working on that as much as you can. And just keep looking forward to that day, it's gonna get easier, it's gonna get easier. And now that we're empty nesters it's amazing because we work on it whenever we want. But we had something to work on it on the other side of our kids being gone, like we started working on this a couple of years ago. And so we weren't staring at each other when both of our kids are gone saying, "We don't know who we are anymore. Like who are you?0:56:17 Leanne: I haven't been creating this relationship with you all these years. I don't even know you." And husbands, I didn't realize how hard kids were until I had my little grand baby for two weeks, a couple of weeks ago, and he kicked my butt. I had him for two weeks and I was exhausted, and it really made me appreciate again young mothers. And so husbands just step in where you can to help her, especially if it's a night that you know you're gonna have sex. Help her get the kids to bed, help her with dinner, help her relieve some of that exhaustion, so she has some energy left for you at the end, 'cause honestly kids can be exhausting.0:57:04 Daniel: Yes, they can be.0:57:05 Leanne: I discovered that. [chuckle]0:57:07 Daniel: Absolutely.0:57:07 Leanne: I discovered that a couple of weeks ago. I was like, "Oh my God."0:57:09 Daniel: In with those, to borrow this idea that we talked about earlier. Even in my opinion, I find that with kids scheduling is even more important 'cause you can do it during nap time time, and create some sort of expectation around that, positive expectation with your spouse, so that you don't feel like you're being demanded from constantly. Thank you Leanne. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing more of your story, thank you.0:57:38 Leanne: Can I say one more thing really, really fast.0:57:40 Daniel: Of course. Go for it.0:57:41 Leanne: Okay, one thing that helped me the most and then I'll be done. It's been bugging me 'cause I knew I wanted to say it and I couldn't remember what it was. Because men and women's desire is so different, there's responsive desire versus, what's the other one? I'm sure you know it, responsive versus spontaneous. So a husband is more spontaneous desire, when he thinks about sex he's ready to go right then, and a woman is more responsive, she kinda has to kinda start being intimate and then the desire comes. And so the biggest thing that helped for me was to always have a pilot light lit with inside of me. And what the pilot light says to me is that, "I am so connected to you, and I want to be known by you, and I want you to know me, and I wanna connect on a deep level, we are already connected on that deep level." And so that pilot light is always lit and whenever my husband wants to be intimate or whatever, and I initiate just as much as he does now. But whenever he does want to initiate the answer is always yes because that pilot light is like, "Yup," and I know it will take me a little bit to get in the mood, like right now I'm not sexually feeling it in this moment. I'm not turned on in this moment, but I know once we get started it will come.0:58:56 Leanne: And I think so often women are like, "I just don't have a sex drive, I just don't think about it. I don't have a sex drive." Well it's 'cause we're created differently. We're responsive, we have to be talked into sex, or feel start to engage and then the response comes. And so, I think, we as women we need to remember that. You might not feel like you're in the mood right now, but start being intimate and you'll find that not too long into it you're in the mood. And so keeping that pilot light always lit for me is very helpful.0:59:45 Daniel: I think that was a wonderful way to end us. Thank you, I appreciate your time.0:59:52 Leanne: Yup, yup. Thank you.0:59:53 Daniel: Alright.
Amanda Louder is a Certified Life Coach who helps women from conservative Christian backgrounds love their sex life. She helps women embrace their sexuality to help them strengthen their relationship with themselves, their spouse, and their Heavenly Parents. As a first step to helping women embrace their sexuality, she has provided a FREE guide to help women understand how they personally experience pleasure. You can get this guide by going to www.amandalouder.com/improvingintimacyIn addition to being a coach, Amanda is also a wife, mom to 3 and step-mom to 2. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, watching her kids play sports, fishing, and camping.To hear more from Amanda, you can find her on Instagram @AmandaLouderCoaching or her podcast "Live From Love" where she talks about all things sex and marriage.[music]00:02 Voice Over: Welcome to Improving Intimacy, a podcast to help single and married Latter Day Saints strengthen their family connections and marriages. Daniel A. Burgess is the host of Improving Intimacy. Daniel's a marriage and family therapist, father, husband, and author. Here's Daniel on this episode of Improving Intimacy.00:20 Daniel: Welcome to another episode of Improving Intimacy. Today, we have life coach Amanda Louder with us, and I'm excited to explore her journey. I've been through her podcast and her website, and she's a member of the Intimacy Group. And I really enjoy her comments a lot, so I'm excited, and hopefully you are excited, to explore her journey to healthy sexuality here. So, let's jump right into it. Welcome. Tell us a little bit about yourself, Amanda.00:47 Amanda: Thanks so much, Daniel, I'm excited to be here. My name is Amanda Louder. I am a certified life coach. I coach women, primarily from conservative Christian backgrounds, help them embrace their sexuality, learn to love their sex life. I'm married. I'm currently on my second marriage, don't plan to have any more. [chuckle]01:08 DANIEL: Oh, wow.01:09 AMANDA: And together we have five kids, ranging from 11 to almost 20.01:14 DANIEL: That's exciting. So, what took you on this journey? I'm assuming that you weren't always a life coach.01:18 AMANDA: No. [chuckle]01:20 DANIEL: So, what brought you here?01:22 AMANDA: So, when I went through my divorce about eight years ago, it was really a time of discovery for me and discovering myself. And I actually have a great relationship with my ex-husband now, and we co-parent really well. And I'm remarried. I actually got remarried fairly quickly. I met my husband just six weeks after my divorce was final, and we married about nine months later, and we've been very happily married for seven years now. And so, people started reaching out to me for divorce advice, because they could see that, I guess as far as divorce goes, it was pretty successful. [chuckle] And so, I was getting calls like three or four times a month from people either asking for themselves or for a close friend or family member. And I really started thinking about going back to school to become a therapist so that I could help more women who had been in my situation. And I looked into it, and it would have taken me a lot of years and a lot of time that I wasn't willing to sacrifice with my family. I had five children at that point, and I'm very busy with them. And so, it wasn't something that I was willing to pursue. But then I found coaching a few years ago, and immediately, it felt like the right choice. It felt like what I was meant to do.02:44 AMANDA: So, I started coaching, and then I went through a certification program. I started originally just coaching women who were struggling in their marriage and contemplating divorce, helping them come to that decision for themselves with confidence and peace. And as I coached more and more, I found more and more women were struggling with healthy sexuality within their marriage and within themselves. And I was actually just on a trip this summer with a bunch of other girlfriends who are also coaches, and we're sitting around our condo, as girls do, and sex comes up. And so, I started imparting of my knowledge of the subject. And by the end of our trip, all of my friends were like, "Amanda, you have to do this. You have to change your niche. This is what you were truly meant to do. We have learned more from you in a weekend than we have in 15 years of marriage." And I was very hesitant at first. Sex can be a very scary topic for some people. I come from a background... A very private background. My parents are very private people.03:48 DANIEL: Very.03:49 AMANDA: I've never been that way. I'm always been an open book. But respecting where I came from and stuff, I understand that it can be a very scary subject for a lot of people to talk about. But it is something that I am very comfortable talking about. I feel very comfortable in that space and really want to help women love their sex life and embrace that so that they can not only enjoy their marriage more, but truly embrace who they are as a person. And I think it helps them come closer to themselves, to their spouse, and to their heavenly parents.04:20 DANIEL: I think it's impressive as I listen to your podcast. It's one thing to be a coach or even a therapist and work with people with sexual health issues, another have this ability to talk about the very sensitive, private, taboo topics in a way that's very comfortable. And that's one thing I immediately appreciate listening to your podcast. You could say things like vagina, clitoris, masturbation. The one episode I was listening to, I think it was orgasms. And the way you presented the information, you even talked about how using masturbation is a healthy part of discovering yourself. The way you presented it was very impressive. It's very difficult within our culture to even use the word masturbation. You pointed out it's a dirty word, and it triggers a lot of people.05:04 AMANDA: Well, I have to attribute a lot of that to you, Daniel. I listened to a podcast you were on, I think it was maybe the Mormon Marriages podcast, and mainly...05:11 DANIEL: Oh, with Nate Bagley and his wife?05:13 AMANDA: Yes. And it really opened up my eyes to a different way of looking at things. And then, I really started doing a lot of my own research and thoughts and prayer about it to be a lot more open-minded about it.05:26 DANIEL: Thank you. It's been quite a journey, but today's podcast is not about me. I relate to you a lot, just I didn't realize you had this background with your divorce. It sounds almost parallel to my experience. I'm assuming you probably already know. But it sounds like we were even divorced at probably about the same time. And I met my wife shortly before my divorce, and we knew we were gonna get married within months after my divorce was finalized. And so, in my journey, I made the stupid decision of jumping back into school and getting into therapy, and that was... It's difficult. And I knew it was gonna be hard, but I value and appreciate the weight of that journey, and I've been very open and vocal about life coaching and the concerns I have around it. You have something that most coaches don't have, is an actual certificate. You're a certified professional life coach. And I think that's important because one of the things of working with people, especially with this type of subject, is you really gotta understand your boundaries, professionally, ethically, and what the client's responsibility is and your responsibility is. And I think that adds an additional level of safety in the relationship.06:37 DANIEL: And so, very good for you. I admire you for doing that, because you're right. I can't tell you how many people I've seen in our position, try to go back into, or at least pursue therapy as a career, and they have to stop after four or five years because it's gotten too expensive, and the barrier to entry is just ridiculous. And that's why I don't say life coaching is not an option. I think it is definitely an option. In fact, I hire life coaches, and I worked as a life coach for a while. But back to what you do, I love this. So, you're presenting a message of safety to these women and you're giving an example that they haven't seen before. When you say you did a divorce right, I totally understand what you mean by that. No divorce is easy, by any means. But they were pursuing you. What did you notice? What was maybe a common theme or pattern that you saw in the people who were seeking your advice? Kind of a big question there, but what would you sum it up, or did you see any patterns, or was it kind of all over the place?07:33 AMANDA: It's really all over the place. Everybody comes to the table with different issues. Their spouse comes to the table with different issues. And it's just really helping them see how they're interpreting the situation, the story that they're telling themselves, and how that's giving them the results that they're getting in their marriage. I worked with women who were really struggling with their sexuality, I worked with women whose husbands had issues with pornography, I was working with women who have had issues with infidelity in their marriage. And some, they were just unhappy because their husbands weren't living up to what they thought husbands should be, what they thought their spouse was supposed to be, the needs that their spouse was supposed to be meeting in them, and just teaching them how to meet those needs for themselves and just letting their partner be them and choosing to love them anyway.08:22 DANIEL: That's a big one, and one that I don't think even a lot of therapists embrace. Maybe that's not a fair statement. Maybe don't value or understand a lot. We get couples into the therapy room, and we focus on better communication. And those things are important. But I like what you're saying here. And I wanna inquire a little bit more about that, and focusing on the individual and their needs. And I've heard that in a few of your podcasts, the need to turn to yourself and understand what your needs are. Tell me a little bit more about your journey there and how you came to that conclusion.08:54 AMANDA: Well, we all have issues, we all come to the table with baggage. And really, being able to look at yourself and see what you're bringing to the table and how you're contributing to your relationship. Are you being needy? Are you being demanding? Are you being... And they stem from all sorts of issues from your background, but you're showing up in a way that's creating the relationship that you don't want. And so, really taking a look at how your thinking is creating that result for you, creating that relationship for you, and what you can do differently even if your spouse never changes. And sometimes that means making hard decisions. Sometimes, that means setting boundaries, walking away, whatever that is for you. But looking at yourself first, not, "How do I change him?" It's, "How do I change me? How do I get comfortable with myself in this situation, no matter how my partner shows up?"09:54 DANIEL: That's a huge concept. [chuckle]09:56 AMANDA: Yeah, it is.09:56 DANIEL: Big. And I'm curious if you get any push back on that?10:00 AMANDA: For sure.10:00 DANIEL: How do you deal with that? Let's get a little bit more specific here. I think there's this danger, and you pointed out in one of your podcasts is, "Are you blaming me for my spouse's behaviors then?" And that's usually how that phrase is taken. It's like, "Focus on yourself. See what you're doing to contribute to the problem or the issue." How do you navigate that?10:19 AMANDA: Well, it's individual. It really just depends on how they're thinking about it. What I say to all of my clients is, every problem is a thought problem. It's just how you're choosing to think about it. Or, you're believing what your brain is offering to you without questioning it. If you wanna believe something, believe it with intention, not just because that's what's offered to you. One I hear a lot is, like, "My spouse plays way too many video games. I'm sick and tired of him neglecting me, neglecting the house, neglecting the kids, because he's busy playing video games." And this could be a variety of things. It could be watching sports or looking at pornography, or whatever it is. It's his behavior. Well, how are you choosing to think about it? How are you contributing to that situation? One, you can choose to think that it's not a problem. That's totally up to you. But you can also choose to think it is a problem, and then what are the results of that? And are you okay with that? Is that serving you? If it's serving you, go ahead and keep thinking about it. But if it's not, then you can look at what you want to purposely think instead that might change that dynamic.11:25 AMANDA: Try to look at it from his point of view. Maybe he's had a long day at work, and this is how he knows how to unwind. Maybe he's doing that too much and you just need to have a conversation about it. But are you having that conversation in a blaming way, like, "You shouldn't do this," or you're saying, "This is what I see, and this is how it's affecting me. This is how I feel"? And be confident enough in yourself to be able to say those things.11:49 DANIEL: I really appreciate that. I use this example and I appreciate it as an example because we focus on the wrong problem a lot. And when I work with clients and they say, let's go with this example of, "He's gaming all the time. And he won't listen to me, he won't get off. He's absorbed with it." And what the discussion starts to evolve around is, how much he's gaming. But that's not really what we want. We want his attention. And so, I will often say, "Tell you what, let's try this experiment. Why don't you stop talking about the... Don't ever bring up the gaming anymore. And you walk into the house after getting the kids or coming home from work, and you see him gaming with his headphones on or whatever he's doing, and tell you what, why don't you do something a little bit different and go up to him, hug him in a way that's not distracting him but letting him know that you're there, and say, 'I would really love to spend a few minutes with you. I miss you'? And watch how that changes." Now, often, people will... They'll come back and they'll say, "He didn't listen to me."12:55 AMANDA: Keep doing it.12:56 DANIEL: No, keep doing it, day after day. Create a new sense of predictability. I think a lot of couples, depending... Especially if they've been in this rut for so long, it's like, "I'm not trusting that behavior. Where is that coming from?" It becomes a little bit suspicious. "You're actually focusing on me and not the games. Are you just trying to manipulate me?" But we give the gaming, or whatever that problem is or that distraction, all the attention. And it no longer becomes about each other. It's about ending this. As though taking that behavior away will then create a healthy behavior.13:28 AMANDA: Well, so I talk a lot about, like, "Who do you want to be in this situation? Do you wanna be the nagging, controlling wife? Or do you want to be the wife who's loving and compassionate and trying to create that connection with your spouse?" Because really, that's what's happening. You're not getting that connection that you want. He's getting the connection through gaming, or whatever. He's getting what he thinks he needs, but he probably rather get it from you, if you're offering it in the right way.13:55 DANIEL: It's interesting, as I listen to you speak, you're definitely using language, I think you have an advantage as a woman working with female clients. I don't know if I could ever get away with saying, "nagging." "Stop nagging your husband."14:05 AMANDA: [chuckle] Yeah. Women nag, I can say that. We nag. Yeah.14:09 DANIEL: [chuckle] Yeah, that's very good, that's very difficult to do, and be able to focus on the positive behavior. I always call it, "What's the desired outcome?" And they'll say, "Stop the game." No, that's not the desired outcome. The desired outcome is, "I wanna feel closer. I wanna feel connected." Then, let's make that...14:29 AMANDA: Let's make that the goal.14:30 DANIEL: Not the ending. 'Cause really, if your husband... And let's exaggerate a little here, for example's sake. If he's gaming 12 hours a day, but he's providing a living and you feel totally connected to him, is the gaming really a problem? "No, I feel totally connected to him." So, it's not really the gaming. I realize it's an exaggerated example, but usually, is the case. So, excellent, I love that approach. So, tell me a little bit more about how you work with the sexual topic. I know when I first did this, it was... And I appreciate the compliment that you got it from me, but when I first did this, and I've shared this story before. My first blog post was a couple, maybe three years ago, about masturbation, my infamous, seven series blog posts. I remember when I clicked post, I was shaking. I was afraid of how people would perceive me and just the whole cultural phenomenon around that. And so, it took me quite a few years to get to that point where it was even comfortable to say out loud, even with clients. Masturbation. I'm constantly managing that sensitivity around that issue. How do you feel like you've taken that journey and getting comfortable with engaging in those topics with people?15:48 AMANDA: It's just kind of who I am. I'm...15:51 DANIEL: Oh, really?15:51 AMANDA: I think it's become more and more comfortable, but it's never been something that I've really had a problem talking about, body parts and saying vulva and vagina and clitoris and penis. That's never been an issue for me. But that's not how I was raised, so...16:10 DANIEL: Yeah, you were saying you were raised in a very private home.16:13 AMANDA: Yes, very. Very private. So, it's just something that I feel like... I almost feel like it's a gift that I've been given. And that's part of the reason... When I started coaching a year-and-a-half ago, I don't know that I would have been ready at that point to discuss these sexual topics in the nature that I do now and become a sex coach. [chuckle] But now, I'm stepping into my own, that is who I am, and I can see that very, very clearly. And I feel very prompted. I bring prayer and the Spirit very much into every podcast that I do and all of my coaching sessions. I pray about what I'm supposed to be podcasting about that week, and I feel very prompted onto what those topics are supposed to be. And so many times, when I listen to those promptings, the words just flow. And so, I just learned to recognize that this is who I am, this is who I was made to be, and I'm just really stepping into that, and as I do so, my Heavenly Father is blessing me more and more.17:26 DANIEL: I appreciate hearing that. I think one of the collateral damage of work in my type of profession is being hyper-sensitive to people's concerns and not wanting to offend or come across as unempathetic. And I think sometimes that's a detrimental in the sense that I forget my personality in that because I'm so focused. And it's interesting because it's almost like a marriage in a sense, because if I lose myself in that work and that other person, I forget the gifts that I bring. So, that's a really good reminder to me, I appreciate hearing that. And being myself, I think, I've talked about this, written about this, is, I'm gonna say dumb things and I'm gonna say things that are incorrect.18:12 AMANDA: Totally.18:13 DANIEL: I'm dyslexic in my communication, as you probably already can tell, but if I focus more on a fear on not being truthful to myself and offending somebody else, I lose that power in that message. And so, that's a great reminder.18:28 AMANDA: We can't control what other people are thinking, so no matter what we say, people could be offended. [chuckle] So, I would rather just be true to myself and true to who I know I'm supposed to be, and let them worry about them.18:40 DANIEL: We call that differentiation in therapy, and that's a powerful concept and very difficult for a lot of people to embrace. I've discovered, as I've tried to bring that to the table, and I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this is, as you teach clients how to differentiate and to be an individual, is that scary for them? What's their experience like?19:01 AMANDA: Yeah, I always tell clients it's gonna get worse before it gets better.19:05 DANIEL: What do you mean by that? I think I know what you mean.19:07 AMANDA: Yeah, so when we start showing up differently, the dance changes. We've been doing this dance with our partner, with ourselves, even, for a very long time, and when we start showing up differently, the people around us, and not just our spouse, but our parents, our children, our friends, are like, "Woah, what's happening here? This is not normal." And they're like, "I don't know how to do this dance, I don't know how to respond." But eventually, most the time, they get the hang of it. If we just...19:35 AMANDA: You create a new normal...19:36 AMANDA: You create a new normal. So, I have a client who... She was definitely... Well, she says, "Being controlled," by her spouse. Really, she was letting herself be controlled. We know that it's not... They're not controlling, you're letting yourself be controlled. So, once she learned to step into her own, her spouse was like, "No, this is not happening. I run... This is what I do." And she was like, "Sorry, this isn't the way it's happening." And now, they've figured out this new dance and things are so good, so good. They've learned to give and take more, and she's willing to really say what she's thinking and not be afraid of his response. And he wasn't abusive or mean, or anything, it was just like, "I'm the man. This is the way it's gonna be". And she...20:26 DANIEL: It was his role.20:28 AMANDA: It was his role. And she's like, "Sorry, that's just not gonna work anymore". And it was really rough for a long time, but then he's like, "Okay, this is the new normal. Okay, I can see how this is actually beneficial for both of us. Okay, this is working. Yeah, okay, let's keep doing this, let's do it, let's do this dance now." And it's so much better.20:48 DANIEL: That is so wonderful to hear from you because I think there's a concern when we... When we look at these relationships, we have a difficult time in general. I'm not just talking about life coaches or therapists, is someone has to be bad and somebody has to be good. And so, when we look at these situations I think we have to be very, very careful. And you demonstrated that right now, is where we have... Let's go with this example of the wife coming in, saying, "I'm being controlled." And then, you reframe it to, "You're allowing yourself to be controlled," which is a big concept and a little scary, as you see. But then, the husband's response in this is, "No, this isn't gonna happen." We tend to stereotypically identify that as a manipulative person. But you had this insight is, "Well maybe this is just his training." He's not trying to be a bad person, as you clarify. He wasn't abusive, but his behavior, the way he was raised as an individual, this is his communication style and he doesn't know how to get out of it, so we need to help him out of it. It's not because he's a bad person. But he just doesn't know how to do it.22:00 AMANDA: But he didn't come to coaching, he didn't go to therapy. It was only her. But by her changing the dynamic and changing the way that she was showing up in the relationship, changed the relationship.22:12 DANIEL: Yes, and that's huge. Good clarification there. And you were able to create that change through her.22:18 AMANDA: And it wasn't me creating the change through her, it was her creating the change through her.22:22 DANIEL: But even in that situation... In fact, it could be even more risky, because we could look at this, we don't know the husband, we don't know his behavior, it could become an easy out and say, "He is abusive. You need to get away from him."22:33 AMANDA: Well, you can, but we talk about that and we talk about healthy boundaries, what those look like. When he starts exhibiting more control, maybe using some language that violates one of those boundaries, then you say, "Hey, that's not okay with me. If you wanna keep using that language, that's totally fine, but I'm gonna go, I'm gonna leave the room. I'm gonna leave the house for a couple of hours. I'll come back when you're ready to talk about it again in a better manner," I guess.23:00 DANIEL: I notice on your website, and it sounds like you work exclusively with women, but do you ever work as a couple?23:06 AMANDA: Yeah, I've worked with couples, I've worked with just men.23:08 DANIEL: Okay, so it's not just women.23:10 AMANDA: No.23:11 DANIEL: But that's your primary audience.23:13 AMANDA: Yes.23:13 DANIEL: So, along this line of thinking, you extend this idea of, "You need to take responsibility in your relationship for your own behavior and how you perceive things and create a new healthy or a new normal." You push this idea into intimacy. And I think it was that same podcast I was listening to is, "When sex is requested, say yes."23:36 AMANDA: It's the Nike approach. Just do it.23:38 DANIEL: Just do it.23:38 AMANDA: Say yes to the sex. That's what I say.23:40 DANIEL: And you addressed the concerns around that in the podcast, but tell me a little bit more because there is a risk there. How do you create healthy boundaries in an environment where you're saying yes to sex whenever requested?23:52 AMANDA: Yeah, so of course there's gonna be abuses taken, but what I'm talking about is more just in a good healthy relationship, where a lot of women are just not in the mood, so they're not... They don't wanna do it whenever their husband wants. And I'm really encouraging them to cultivate that connection and that desire within themselves, so that when their husband approaches them, they're ready, they want it too. And the more that they cultivate that within themselves, the more they start to crave it themselves.24:28 DANIEL: Is there ever a time to say no?24:29 AMANDA: Yeah, I've had women who, like, "Well, what if my husband is wanting sex as I go out the door and I need to be somewhere?" I'm like, "Okay, that's not gonna work. But you don't say, 'No, we're not having sex right now,' you say, 'Hold that thought. Let's do it later. I gotta run here.'" So, you're not saying no, you're saying yes, but let's do it later, when it's a little bit more convenient.24:51 DANIEL: You're focusing on the desired outcome. I love it.24:54 AMANDA: Yeah. Another one was like... And this is... Sorry, maybe too much for you, but women are like, "Well, can I say no when I'm on my period?" I'm like, "Well, that's a boundary... "25:03 DANIEL: Not too much here at all.25:05 AMANDA: "That's the boundary you can set for yourself." "Yes, I will say yes to you when I'm not on my period." But I will push you a little bit further and say, "It is totally fine for you to have sex while you're on your period, you just have to make some adjustments. Get a towel. It might be a little messier. Use a menstrual disk so that you can... " There are options. It's just, what are you willing to do for that?25:28 DANIEL: As I said at the beginning, we're gonna meander here. I love having just casual conversation. Let's explore that a little bit more there. I've actually, and maybe it's just being a man, I'm seeing a different perspective here, but I'm curious what you're seeing. Usually, I hear the man doesn't wanna have sex while the wife is on her period. Are you seeing it the other way around, where usually it's the women or is it...25:50 AMANDA: I see both. In my, "say yes to the sex challenge", if the man is saying, "I wanna have sex and I know you're on your period," then what is your hold up? What barriers are you putting into play? Just like, "Oh, I can't do it because I'm on my period," or like, "Is there really a problem?"26:09 DANIEL: Excellent, excellent insight there. I love it. So fascinating. So, what is the maybe biggest obstacles to intimacy that you're seeing for women?26:22 AMANDA: Guilt. Shame. Not knowing their body.26:25 DANIEL: Guilt and shame around what?26:28 AMANDA: I think the cultural dialogues that they've had in their youth, that their sexuality is something that needs to be repressed and is evil and is going to take them to hell, and then all of the sudden expecting that to be different when they're married. And not understanding that we should not be repressing sexuality as teenagers. We should be learning to manage it. And so, now that you're an adult, you've gotta figure out how to manage it as an adult. And that means not continuing to suppress it, and that means doesn't going crazy but learning how to manage it as an adult manages things.27:06 DANIEL: Wow. How does one go about eliminating that guilt? That's...27:11 AMANDA: Figuring out where it comes from, what the thoughts are, and just retraining the brain on... A lot of what I get is women saying, "I feel dirty. I feel un-virtuous. I feel like Heavenly Father is going to be mad at me."27:28 DANIEL: Wait, wait, wait. Are you talking about about when they're having sex with their spouse?27:30 AMANDA: Yes, when they're having sex with their spouse, that it creates all of this guilt and shame that somehow their Heavenly Father is looking down on them for not using sex only for procreation. For a lot of them, it's okay to procreate, but for fun and enjoyment and being closer to their spouse, not okay.27:48 DANIEL: This is actually something that I've discovered more and more. I think I knew it before, but I didn't realize how deep it ran. I knew it did with me, but for maybe other reasons. But this concept, if you noticed in the group and maybe you saw are common, with the new interview, temple-recommended interview questions came out. And the questions around the law of chastity where you're striving to have morally clean thoughts. And some... And this is not to point out anybody or criticize or shame in any way, but a few people were actually saying, "How do I answer that question when I'm desiring sex with my husband?" Or something to that effect. And so, they equated this idea that sex, even with your eternal companion, is dirty and can't be experienced emotionally or mentally.28:35 AMANDA: Or having thoughts about having sex with your spouse is dirty. And yeah, I just... I'm like, "No." And I tried to tell this as much as I can and try to help women understand, like, "This is what's supposed to be happening. This is what your Heavenly Father wants for you. He gave you an entire organ just for your pleasure. It's not... He wants you to be having fun. He created your brain to need novelty and newness and dare we say dirty thoughts to get aroused with your spouse." Now, sometimes minds wander, and that's fine too. But if you're not turning away from your spouse to do that, if you're turning towards your spouse, even if your mind is going a different direction, good on you. That's what's supposed to be happening. This is how your brain was created. This is what your Heavenly Father wants for you. Just changing that dialogue, I think, is so needed, and that's what one of my main messages is. It's like, let's just change this dialogue a little bit. All of these things that you've heard or you heard as youth or you're reinforcing to yourself now, you're interpreting, there's a different way to think about things, and I just want you to open up your mind to that possibility.29:47 DANIEL: Yeah. What a wonderful idea there. That concept of guilt runs so deep and we start to bring so many different perspectives into the bedroom. And...29:58 AMANDA: Oh, for sure.29:58 DANIEL: We gotta get the Bishop out of the bedroom, we've gotta get our culture out of the bedroom. And how do we do that? 'Cause it crushes sex. Do you see... When a client of yours is able to embrace that idea and start to re-map their brain in how they think about this, what do you see happen to their sexual arousal or desire?30:19 AMANDA: It goes way up.[chuckle]30:22 DANIEL: It seems like I led right into that...30:23 AMANDA: Way up, yeah. This has happened with quite a few clients, but I usually see them creating, cultivating that more within themselves. And it just... It makes everything better. I have a little theory here that the anxiety that so many women have is really just that they're sexually frustrated. And I would love to do some sort of study on this. I gotta try and figure it out. But I really think that they don't understand their body well enough to know that they're actually craving it, and they need it. And if they would just let their body do what it was made to do, quit putting on the brakes all the time and just let it run, it would be so much better for every aspect of their life. They would be a better wife, they would be a better mother, they would be a better friend, they would be a better worker. Every single aspect of their life would be better. And I have seen that for myself. I've seen it in my clients. It happens almost every time. Unless there's some sort of sexual trauma, abuse or something that needs to be worked through, and that's not something I do. I turn that over to the professionals. I can work with a therapist when it comes to that, but that's not something that I personally work on, that's out of my scope. But unless there's that there, it's just women putting on the brakes when they don't need to put on the brakes.31:50 DANIEL: Yeah. Have you ever seen... And I appreciate the clarification around the trauma, and I think that's very important to... And thankful that you refer out for that stuff. And I think that it's important to understand too, it's not for everyone to approach it this way. I'm curious if you've ever seen where somebody is working on their guilt and they start to experience their desires in a way that they've never done before. Have you noticed any of them actually get scared of that desire?32:17 AMANDA: Yeah.32:18 DANIEL: Tell me a little bit about that.32:19 AMANDA: Their brain is doing this, like, "I want it, but I can't." And they're just fighting it constantly, and so, it's causing all this friction that they don't understand.32:28 DANIEL: They can't what? They can't have it or... Oh, because it's bad.32:31 AMANDA: It's bad. They shouldn't. But helping them retrain their thinking so that, like, "No, this is a good thing. This is what I was created for. If I can embrace this, my Heavenly Father can give me even more of His Spirit and His blessings. He can bless my relationship, my marriage, even more when I can open myself up to everything that I was created to be."33:00 DANIEL: I've even heard female clients say... I wanna represent it correctly. I think it was, "I don't... " As they're starting to feel this arousal and this orgasm come on, I've heard a handful of them say, "I don't deserve this." It's very self-shaming language. I'm not exactly sure what they're experiencing as a female, and that... 'Cause I know for a lot of men is like, "Yes, we're creating that experience." So, what is this dynamic they're feeling?33:32 AMANDA: I talked about it a little bit in my last podcast, that we...33:37 DANIEL: Was that 77 or... Which podcast was that?33:39 AMANDA: 78, I think. We're told in the proclamation of the family that we're nurturers. We are responsible to nurture our husbands and our children, and we've turned that into, "We need to be self-sacrificing."33:52 DANIEL: That's the language they use. "It feels selfish to have an orgasm." [33:55] ____, yes.33:57 AMANDA: Yes. Yes. And so, they don't feel like they can have that for themselves, because if they do, then they aren't fulfilling their eternal role as a nurturer. And what I say is, "You need to nurture yourself first." Sex isn't about the culmination of a man having an orgasm. That is not what sex is about. And when it comes to sex, yes, you want to take care and nurture your spouse, but you need to make sure that you are taken care of and nurtured for yourself as well. You and your arousal and your feelings and your primary responsibility. It is not your spouse's responsibility to give you an orgasm, it is your responsibility to get yourself in a place where that can happen.34:40 DANIEL: Wonderfully said. And I'm gonna link the listeners to the specific podcast that I'm referencing, we're referencing, in this podcast. But tell me a little bit more about that. I think it was in the orgasm podcast, again, that learning yourself, even through masturbation, it's not just about stimulating your clitoris. Tell me, do you recall what I'm talking about? Tell the audience more about self-exploration, what's involved with that?35:06 AMANDA: Yeah. So many people think that orgasm is the end goal. And really, it's about connection, but it's also about pleasure. So really, understanding how you personally experience pleasure, that can probably get you to orgasm, but understanding your body... We have erogenous zones all over our body. I love that Friends episode. [chuckle] I don't know if you remember that, but I'm sure some of your listeners probably do. The seven erogenous zones. We have so many places on our body that can experience pleasure. And so, if we tune into our body and really understand how we personally experience pleasure, then we are much more able to have that experience and cultivate that within ourselves. Whether that's, we are understanding how we can touch ourselves, or how we can guide a partner to touch us. It doesn't have to be masturbation. You don't have to pleasure yourself to the point of orgasm. It's just understanding what feels good to you, and then, being able to replicate that, either with a partner or on your own.36:17 DANIEL: We refer to this as sensate focus therapy. Touching and even dragging your fingers across your skin, and just becoming present with yourself. And I really valued how you approached this topic in that podcast, and that you're even sharing with the audience. Consider things you haven't considered before, like anal stimulation. And that may seem dirty, but even that concept of it feeling dirty or not even considering is self-shaming and not really considering what your body can or should do or would like to do. You're silencing your body and not actually paying attention to it. And so, in this senate experience, touching yourself all over, your nipples, your anus, your vagina, your arms, everything.37:04 AMANDA: Everything.37:05 DANIEL: Discover what you like and how it resonates with your sexual self.37:10 AMANDA: Yeah, and so, I actually... And I couldn't offer this, and I'll give you a link to put in your show notes. I offer a free worksheet, a download, where it guides a woman through different body parts and how those body parts like to be touched. And it's just... I call it the roadmap to personal pleasure. Really figuring out what pleasure feels like for you. It can be done alone, it can be done with a partner, both, either. You can do whatever you want with it. It's just a guide to get you thinking and get you started.37:47 DANIEL: Amanda, I gotta have you back on, 'cause I would love to continue to poke and prod your knowledge, and I could go on for hours like this. Anything that you would like to... I think you shared a lot here, but anything you'd like to leave the audience with, before we wrap up?38:03 AMANDA: I would love for you guys to follow me on Instagram @amandaloudercoaching. My podcast is called Live From Love. That's what I believe this life should be, that if we live from a place of love, we're not only honoring ourself, but we're honoring everybody else around us, and that's the best place to be.38:20 DANIEL: Amanda, thank you, thank you so much for your time.38:23 AMANDA: You're so welcome, Daniel, thanks for having me.
Speaker: Clyde Kilough Date Given: 9/16/2018 What is the most important prophetic theme of the book of Daniel? Is there a prophecy that has the greatest meaning for the people of God?
Innovation. We love to talk about it, everyone wants it. Innovation is critical for people and organizations to grow. But we all mean different things when we say it. Today I have a conversation about how innovation is a conversation with Brian Ardinger. He's the director of Innovation at Nenet (which owns my student debt! Hi Nelnet!) and the host of InsideOutside.io, a community for innovators and entrepreneurs that produces a great podcast and a conference that brings together startup and enterprise organizations to talk innovation. There are three key conversations worth designing that we discuss and I want you to have your ears perked up for each as you listen to this episode. Each conversation can help you navigate the innovation process inside or outside your organization. These three are the pre-conversation, the conversation about where to look for innovation and the conversation about patience. Brian specializes in a unique perspective on where to look for innovation. More on that in a moment. The Pre-Innovation Conversation Before you even start to talk about ideas or technology, it's essential to start with the end in mind. What kind of innovation is the company really looking for? Skip the pre-conversation and you have no idea of where you're heading. As Brian points out “without having that definition, then it's sometimes hard to know if you're playing the right game to begin with...the process itself of level setting... I don't think it takes a long time.” Brian and I didn't dive into tools to help with that conversation, so I put a few into the show notes. Mapping the innovation conversation can be done in lots of ways. One is thinking about evolutionary vs revolutionary change, another is about tangible vs intangible change, like rethinking policies or business models vs remaking product or space design. I *just* did a webinar on this topic with my partner in the Innovation Leadership Accelerator, Jay Melone, hosted by the amazing people at Mural. Templates of the two innovation leadership frameworks we outlined are there in Mural for you to download and use, along with the webinar video to help you along. Also check out Mapping Innovation, by Greg Satell. You can download his playbook free in the show notes. Where to look for innovation Brian's Inside/outside perspective is that innovation can be a conversation between the inside of a company and the outside world. Some innovation will happen internally, and some innovation can be brought from the outside in: the exchange and acquisition of ideas and technology from outside your organization is an important conversation for enterprise organizations to be having. When you're trying to innovate, it can be tempting to look in familiar places. If you're a financial technology firm, it can be tempting to look to fintech startups for what's next and to try to innovate through acquisition. But you'll also be looking were your competitors will be looking. Try an innovation approach based on Horizontal Evolution - look to the sides and edges of the landscape. Brian describes this approach as “playing a different ball game”. The conversation about patience Innovation does not happen overnight. Real change takes time and that takes real patience. Brian also points out that organizations need to be having a bigger conversation, about what else needs to change to make real innovation flourish inside the organization. Hint: it's generally more than you bargained for. As he says “Corporations are doing exactly what they should be doing...They figured out a business model that works and they're executing and optimizing that particular business model...And to radically change that, the people, the resources, the compensation, all of that stuff has to kind of morph or change to play in a different environment. And so I think that's where the challenge really begins.” Often people think innovation is about the idea, but it's a much, much longer conversation. That is, in fact, the first “Myth of Innovation” from Scott Berkun's excellent book: The Myth that innovation is about an epiphany, not hard work. It was a real treat to have a conversation with Brian about some of these key issues...I hope you enjoy the episode and happy innovating! Brian on the Web: https://insideoutside.io/ https://twitter.com/ardinger https://www.nxxt.co/ Innovation Leadership Models from the Mural Webinar https://blog.mural.co/innovation-leadership Mapping Innovation by Greg Satell https://www.amazon.com/Mapping-Innovation-Playbook-Navigating-Disruptive/dp/1259862259 Download the Playbook for Free: https://www.gregsatell.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Mapping-Innovation-Playbook.pdf Horizontal Evolution https://evolutionnews.org/2015/08/horizontal_gene/ An amazing summary from Scott Berkun about his solid book, Myths of Innovation: https://scottberkun.com/2013/ten-myths-of-innnovation/ A few more gems from Greg Satell on the Rules and questions central to innovation: https://medium.com/@digitaltonto/on-december-9th-1968-a-research-project-funded-by-the-us-department-of-defense-launched-a-ee063b7585f0 https://hbr.org/2013/02/before-you-innovate-ask-the-ri Transcription: Daniel: Welcome to the conversation factory. Brian, I'm glad we made the time to make this happen. Um, the reason I'm excited to talk to you is, is that not everybody is, is open or interested in the, the analogy that a company has to have a conversation with the outside world that they can't just, you know, put up some walls and just figure everything out inside those four walls that they have to go outside and have a dialogue with the world in lots of different ways. And the way you do that is, is through helping companies think about inside innovation versus outside innovation, which is my way of like teeing up the how you, how do you talk about what you do with people when you, when you meet people, like how do you contextualize what it is that you do? Brian: Well, I think a lot of things, uh, Daniel around this particular topic, it's this whole inside/ outside innovation. It's kind of come to us over the years of working first on the outside with startups and trying to understand how do they develop new ideas and, and build things. And then, uh, you know, as I was having conversations with startups and helping them navigate that, I kept having conversations with corporations and bigger companies saying, you know, how are you doing this? How are you taking these early stage companies and through an accelerator program and that, and, and kind of getting them traction in that faster than we can do in our own walls. And so that started to have conversations with the corporations and the people inside organizations and saying, hey, how can we interact with the outside world and, and think and move and act more like a startup or, uh, become a little bit more adaptive in how we do that. So I think it was an evolution of just having conversations and figuring out what's working, what's not working in this world of change and disruption that we're living in. Daniel: Yeah. So like there's two layers here, which I think are interesting to unpack. I've learned this new term, the idea of an accelerated work environment and this idea of like, let's speed up the conversation about innovation and let's not just put our feet up and look into space and hope a great idea comes to us. Like, let's structure it and let's do it faster. And so can you talk a little bit about like how you structure an accelerator? Like what does it mean to accelerate people through the innovation process from your approach? Brian: Yeah, so I think a lot of it, like when I go in and talk to bigger companies, first thing I like to do is kind of do a level set of what does innovation even mean to the people in the room. Uh, because innovation has become such a word that's, you know, so limp, so to speak. It can mean anything to anybody. Uh, and so kind of understanding that level set of what does innovation mean to the company? How do they define it? Um, is it transformational innovation where it's, you know, we've got to become the next Uber and disrupt our industry? Or is it a innovation from the standpoint of value creation where we're looking at ways to optimize and incrementally improve what we're building? And so from that perspective, you know, it's, once you have that level set, then you can start thinking about, well, how, what are the particular tactics that you can work through depending on what kind of objectives you want to have and, and what you're trying to accomplish. Brian: So I think that's the first place we start. And then how we do that. Um, again, I think a lot of is trying to help them understand that you've got to place a lot of bets on innovation and innovation is not, um, you know, it's by default working in the new, it's working in this area of gray and this area of uncertainty, Daniel: which means there's got to be failure, right? Like there's going to have to be failure. Brian: Yeah. So, yeah, this uncertainty by default, requires you to figure out and make assumptions and, work through this... Areas of the unknown. And that's very difficult for, a lot of folks to work through. You know, especially at companies and people who are used to having a plan or having an execution model that, that they just execute on. Corporations are doing exactly what they should be doing...They figured out a business model that works and they're executing and optimizing that particular business model… Brian: And to radically change that, the people, the resources, the compensation, all of that stuff has to kind of morph or change to play in a different environment. And so I think that's where the challenge really begins. Daniel: So...I'm comfortable with taking this seemingly simple question of like, we want to innovate more and turning it into this, really stretching it out into a much more complicated conversation. Like I'm wondering if people you deal with ever get frustrated with, (you): "well, Brian, you're just making this complicated. Like, we just want to innovate. Just teach us how to innovate. Let's get started." Versus like, let's talk about your strategic goals. Like I can see how some people might get a little impatient with the, with the bigger picture, with the strategic thinking approach. Brian: Sure. Yeah. And I think, and I think it doesn't have to take a long time on to go through that particular process, but I think if you don't start off on that common definition, then you run the risk later on. And you know, why are we doing this? Why is it not working? You know, we said that, uh, you know, we need to have x, Y, z outcome and these brand new bets that you're putting on the table are not getting us an outcome that we want. Um, but you know, without having that definition, then it's sometimes hard to know if you're playing the right game to begin with. So I think, so the, the process itself of level setting I don't think takes a long time to, to make that happen. And I think, but I do think in general, to change a culture or to move the company towards having that innovation mindset set or innovation as a competency to so to speak, does take a long time. Um, but you can do that through a variety of tactics and in ways that doesn't, um, change, change it all overnight. You know, it doesn't have to be something where, um, you know, you're basically creating something brand new and, and throwing out everything that you've done in the past and, and hoping that the new thing works. Uh, it's really a series of iterative bets that you kind of de-risked these new ideas as you're, as you're approaching them into the world and seeing what happens. Daniel: Yeah. Now, now here's the, the piece that I think that, that we were talking about that's interesting is that companies can innovate through outside acquisitions or through outside collaborations, like through working with startups. And maybe that makes it seem "like, wow, that's neat, there is an easier way to do this". we don't have to do it all ourselves. We can, we can turn outwards and see, uh, not just learn from other people, but actually like bring that outside innovation inside. Like, and that seems to me like, uh, a complicated process to navigate. Like how do you facilitate, how do you facilitate that conversation and make it smooth for people? Brian: Yeah. So I think, at least for a lot of folks, you know, the idea of looking outside is not become, it's not a novel concept anymore. You know, maybe five or six years ago it was like, oh, what's one of these things called startups out there? And you know, we're, we're seeing more and more hearing more and more about it. So it's, it's not a novel concept that, hey, the ability for two women in the garage or in a dorm room to spin up something and get some traction and create something of huge value in the world...that's, that's there and that's not going away. And that's speeding up. And so I think, uh, that, uh, first part of the conversation happening, having people understand that, people have the power and tools and capabilities and access to markets and cheap technology, et Cetera, to really disrupt things is there. Brian: So if we understand that, then what can we do to kind of help navigate that? And, and I think the first thing is just, you know, raise your hand and say, Hey, there are things going on outside. Let's, uh, let's take an inventory or a map on discover what's going on...and one of the, pitfalls I see a lot of companies jump into is let's look in our industry. You know, what's happening in our industry. And that's great, and that you should do that of course. But, um, that's also probably where 99% of your competitors are also playing in that same field. And so I find a lot of times it helps to look at adjacent industries or industries far and away, uh, different from your own to see what's going on, and look for clues or models or technologies or, or talent that may give you a different advantage, if you put those pieces together differently than playing, in the same ball game as your competitors are playing. So, you know, I, I see a lot of people going to these conferences and looking for startups in the fintech space and all you have are corporations in the Fintech area looking at Fintech startups where a lot of times I think, it's better to maybe go to a more of a horizontal conference and looking at AI or uh, you know, different types of data conferences and that would give you a different perspective on how those technologies could be used in your industry or in somebody else's, industry, for example. Daniel: Do you have a story like, cause it's funny as you're telling me the story, like I'm realizing this is, this is the classic innovators trick, right? Which is, yeah, it's, and it's a classic trick from nature, right? Which is, people don't realize that evolution isn't just, um, vertical where you adapt and survive. But there's horizontal transfer of, of genes in nature. Like literally the reason we have mitochondria is because we ate them, you know, a billion years ago. And all of the energy in our bodies is made by an alien organism that has its own DNA, which I find a very, it's always just like an extraordinary fact. Um, but you know, and I've been telling my clients this for a long time too. Like what do you, do you have, uh, a story to share of a surprising transfer of, of innovation from industry to industry in case there's any doubters in the world. Brian: Yeah, it's, let, I'm trying to think of one off the top of my head, but I know I've seen it on the reverse side. For example, we've seen, because I run a conference called inside, outside/innovation. And, one of the things we do is we, uh, go out and find startups in a variety of different markets, bring them to a showcase and then bring corporations around to kind of see what they're building and why and hopefully make some connections for that. And where I've seen it happen is a lot of times where, a startup will be working in a particular vertical market, early stage, uh, and they think they've got a solution in, you know, retail or whatever, and a corporation conversation will come around and they'll say, hey, I love your technology, but you're looking in the retail space. Did you know that you could apply this to insurance? Brian: And the light bulb will kind of go off in the entrepreneur's mind. It's like, oh, this is an opportunity for me to potentially go into a different market or get traction with an early customer that I didn't have before. And so I need to happen that way. Um, and I'm sure the reverse could happen as well where a corporation, uh, is, you know, looking at a variety of startups out there and say, hey, that startup's, not in our industry, but we could definitely apply that technology to what we're doing and leverage it in some way. Daniel: So that actually sparks, I mean, I definitely, I want to make sure we talk about the conference before we, before we leave, but in a way, like you said, this thing that was really interesting about startups, you know, they're, they're trying to, uh, you know, iterate and build their own, um, you know, their own growth engine. Right? Um, I would imagine that some of them are not necessarily open to this idea of like, well look, we're, we've got our roadmap and we're trying to build our own flywheel and move it, get that moving. This, they may not be open to this, this pivot or this expansion. Uh, there's like, oh, you know, well, we're just focusing on market X and like, do you want me to also like expand our, our code base so that we can also take advantage of, of why and collaborate with these guys. Like I how do you sort of, I know you've done a lot of work on building community through, through the conference. Like how do you find startups are expanding their perspectives to being open to this collaborative conversation versus like, nope, we're just doing our thing. Brian: Yeah. And I think a lot of it depends on where the startup is in their lifecycle. A lot of the folks that we bring in are probably seed stage and so they, they haven't figured out their business model. They haven't figured out the exact markets sometimes. Uh, and they're looking for that early traction. And you know, one of the reasons we hold this in the Midwest is because, you know, venture capital and the traditional ways of kind of scaling a business in Silicon Valley don't exist out here. And so you've got to find customers. You've got to find ways to, um, to, to get that early traction. And a lot of that means, you know, getting out and finding those early customers. And so having conversations with customers, uh, real people out there and trying to define what problems are out there in the marketplace and then create a solution, uh, to meet those problems and then meet the market where it's at, I think is more effective way a lot of times in the Midwest here or in places outside of your core tech hubs that don't have the, the against the, um, the advantage of getting a venture capital and being able to have a year or two young, two year runway to figure out, uh, how, where that market is. Brian: So I think, I think so part of that is that, um, I think when I'm talking to start ups, you know, I put my "accelerate" hat on and working as a person who is helping startups through that process, a lot of times I'll quite frankly tell them to stay away from corporates until they, until they figured out some of that stuff. Cause it's very easy to go down the rabbit hole of um, hey, if we just get this one big customer on our plate, we'll be good to go. But a lot of times you know that the timing of the two types of organizations don't match up and it can very, very easily kill start up really pretty quickly. Daniel: Yeah. And it can kill them in that what they're, they're focusing, they'd lose their focus or their, they spread themselves too thin. You know, so like what, what sort of, I think beautiful about what you do is that there's this symmetry in a way you have a community driven approach to innovation through the conference you do building community, but building community so that you have a group of startups who are interested in this type of thinking so that companies can have an innovation community. So they're not just going it alone, that they have a view to what's, what's open in the world for them. I mean, I guess my question is like, have you always been so community driven? Like how did you come to value community as an approach, as in a solution to, to these challenges that you're seeing? Brian: So, I mean, I guess I've always felt community is, is a way to accelerate your learning. Uh, and I think early stage ideas, no matter what they are, whether they're inside a startup or inside a corporation, the key to a lot of those taking place in actually taking hold is that the speed of learning. How fast can you, um, take your assumptions and navigate those and understand where you're on the right track or not, and, um, get to that next stage that you need to get to. So, um, community's always been away from me, uh, personally and otherwise to help accelerate those learnings, whether it's, you know, again, connecting somebody to somebody else who can, uh, an expert in a different field or, um, someone who can help me navigate to something else that I didn't know I needed. Um, and so I think it started from that perspective and it started because, uh, you know, quite frankly, when I started a lot of this stuff seven, eight years ago, uh, the, you know, entrepreneurship and startups were, were smaller, uh, both, you know, nationally as well as in our own backyard. Brian: And so part of it was like, well, if we're going to do this, we're going to, we can't do it all are ourselves. So how do we create a community that allows startups to raise their hand and first say, Hey, I want to be entrepreneurial. I want to try some things. I want to build something. In my backyard. Yeah. And then what do I need and what am I missing and how do I then can be that catalyst to help, um, folks figure that out. Uh, and so it was an evolution of just having conversations, going to different cities, uh, meeting different people, starting a podcast, you know, telling stories, um, you know, starting a new newsletter and then, uh, eventually a conference and everything else around it. Um, and then all the while, you know, consulting and helping companies kind of figure it out on both sides. Brian: And, um, it's been fun. It's been fun to see that journey and continue to figure out what the, what the next phase is as we build it out. Daniel: Yeah. Well, I mean, I guess I'd begs the question, what is, what's the next phase? Can you talk about it? Is it Secret? Brian: Yeah, no! Um, so yeah, so inside, outside innovation, you know, we started four years ago actually with the podcast and the original idea was it was called inside, outside, and it was an inside look at startups outside the valley with the idea that their stories, outside the tech hubs that need to be told and how can we help our entrepreneurs, uh, figure that stuff out. And so that's where it started. And again, it'll happen with further conversations as, as we built that particular audience and had conversations around those particular topics, we kept getting asked by innovators in bigger companies, you know, it's like, how are we doing this? Brian: How, how's this working? We want to be connected to startups. We want to understand this new way of innovating things like design thinking and lean startup in that work, uh, becoming methodologies and tactics that could apply to, you know, start ups outside of a big corporation or, or startups within a corporation that were trying to spin up new ideas. So through that we started the inside outside innovation podcast as the, as the way to have those conversations and talk about corporate innovation and how we're corporate matching with startups and how corporate venture play out differently and how we're internal innovation accelerators popping up all around. And what were the different tactics that folks were using through that. We've kind of created this weird community. It's almost like two communities, but the, the advantages by bringing them together, they both learned from each other. So that's kind of how, that's how it's kind of evolved. What's next? We're trying to figure out the third year of the insight off the innovation summit. Uh, we haven't got the dates and, and that solidify, but it's looking like we're probably going to do it sometime in the end of October. I'm in the process, I'm looking at writing a book around this concept of collaborative and innovation and this innovation as a competency. And then, um, we'll just continue with the podcast and the newsletter and keep growing our conversations with great people out there. Daniel: You know, Brian, it's really, it's, I mean it's, it's lovely to talk to you about this stuff because, you know, the, the ecological approach you have to this, to this processes, you know, it's, it's clearly organic. Like, like anything else, it's starting a conversation and then you've gotten feedback from the world and over time you've, you've built more than you've added to it. Like it's, it's a, it's just guy. It's a wave that is sort of, it has its ups and downs clearly. But you're just continuing to, to ride that wave, which was really awesome. Brian: What the, it comes back to, you know, my feeling is that obviously with the world changing in the, in the speed of change that's happening out there, everybody is going to have to take on some of the skillsets of, of the early innovator. You know, again, a startup entrepreneur or, um, or innovator are going to have to have kind of core capabilities or characteristics that allow you to adapt and be nimble and, and, uh, execute. Daniel: Unless you want a robot to do your job! Brian: Yeah. That's executing different ways that, that you didn't have or that were different in the way that you could execute in the past. So things like, you know, curiosity having a bias towards learning characteristics like having a, an a customer focus and this bias towards problem solving for that customer. You know, the, the skill of collaboration and you know, knowing that you can't build everything yourself. Brian: There's bias towards team, um, you know, some of the characteristics of just speed, you know, how can you have this bias towards action and experimentation. And then finally having kind of the reverse of that you are having patience and that bias towards that long term value creation. You know, I think those are some of the core concepts that make up, um, this new world that we're living in. And the more individuals, whether you're, you know, a traditional manager or a entrepreneurial founder, those are the skillsets that are going to take you to the next level in the world that we're living in. Daniel: It sounds like a good book already, Brian. I don't know. I like it. Brian: I'm still outlining. Daniel: It sounds like a pretty good proposal to me. Um, so listen, I, I, we're, we're up against our, our, our time together. Uh, is there anything I haven't asked you about that I should, that we should talk about? Any, any, any final thoughts? Brian: Yeah, I'm curious for, you've obviously been in the space of helping people have conversations and that I'm always curious to understand what have you learned from helping companies and people kind of navigate a, this world of change, uh, and in this world of innovation, what are some of the things that are obstacles or things that stand out that, uh, I could take back to my audience as well? Well, Daniel: I mean, do you have a hard stop in the next three minutes because, no, go ahead. We can go over a little bit. Well, I mean, for me, what really resonated in what you were talking about is the necessity for patients. And I think this is one thing that's really, really hard, um, for people because we want to go fast and we want to have results. Um, but we also need to slow things down. So one of the things that like I'm becoming more aware of in my own work is psychological safety, which people, you know, Google identified as like the main characteristic of effective teams. The ability, the willingness, the openness to saying what's happening, to be able to speak your mind, to say what's right or to say what's wrong. And that, I don't know, that stuff doesn't really come for free. Uh, it's a really, you have to cultivate that environment. Daniel: And so for me, you know, my angle and entry point is always that somebody, somebody has to design that conversation. Um, if a group of, you know, if a group of people is gonna talk about what we're going to do next and how to innovate, we can either contribute content or we can contribute process. Um, if the, to me, the most important and precious conversation is when a group of people is coming together, the fact that you're willing to, that you have a framework, I'm guessing, to stretch out the conversation about what's our innovation roadmap and where are we placing our bets allows people to say like, okay, what's my holistic view of this? It creates, it creates safety, right? It creates a moment where, where we can have the conversation about innovation, we can have the conversation about how we're gonna brainstorm. Daniel: We can have the conversation about how we're going to, uh, evaluate ideas and how we know if they're good or not. Um, and so for me, I think, um, I feel like I'm ranting now, but I was at a problem framing workshop, uh, with my, my friend Jay Malone, who has a company called new haircut. They do a lot of design sprint training and he was teaching a problem framing workshop. And at the end of the workshop, he presented, uh, you know, on one hand, a very straightforward, like, here, this is what problem framing is in the essence. Like, uh, who has the problem, uh, why does it matter? Um, when does it happen? Uh, like, you know, think about like, where to play and how to win. And this one woman said like, well, yeah, what about, uh, uh, how do we know when it's been solved? You know, how do we know if it's working? And this is, I think one of the biggest challenges with, with companies is we don't know like what good looks like. We don't know when to start. We don't know how to stop working and grinding it out. Um, well, and the metrics Brian: are so different from existing business model versus a new business model that you don't even know who the customers are and the value proposition you're creating at the beginning. Daniel: Yeah. So I mean, for me, like I find the, one of the biggest challenges of innovation is that people bring me in to say like, okay, let's help this team coach through this process. Meanwhile, they've already got a job that takes 100% of their time. Um, and they look at me and they're like, this guy has just given us extra work to do. You know, the workshop that I come in is taking them away from their quote unquote real job. The, the work that I asked them to do to go out and do the interviews and to, to get customer contact looks like it's taking away time for them. And so this idea that that innovation's like something you can buy or pay someone else to do. To me, I want people to be earning their own innovation. But the problem is that most people are at 110% capacity. Daniel: And You bring in somebody like me who says, okay, let's do some design thinking stuff. Let's do a, you know, even if it's a week long sprint, which doesn't give you everything you need, you know, if it's a six week process, it's people are like, Oh man, that was great, but oh, that was hard and I never want to do that again. It's like, it's really, really challenging to get people to find time to innovate. And that's frustrating to me. Brian: Absolutely. Daniel: As a person who just really wants people to get their hands dirty with it so that they value it and, and participated in it. So, I don't know. I don't know what the balance is there. That's... I don't know. I don't know if that's a question with an answer, but Brian: I don't know if there's a clear answer for that one. No, no. Daniel: that, oh, so, yeah, I mean that, that's, that's, that's my perspective. I don't know if that, if that's helpful to you at all, but that's, that's… Brian: Very much so, very much so. Daniel: Is there, is there anything else we should I this, this is definitely the shortest episode. You know, I'm, I'm sort of enjoying or slash you know, floundering in the, in the 30 minute time zone. So I just want to make sure that we've covered everything that you want to cover … Brian: No, it's been great, thanks for having me on the show and the opportunity to talk about insideoutside.io and everything we're doing. Daniel: Yeah. So like that's the, that's the final question. Like where, uh, where can people find all things insideoutside and Brian Ardinger on the Internet. Brian: Yeah. Thanks Daniel. Yeah. So, uh, obviously you can go to the website insideoutside.io that has our podcast, our newsletters sign up for that. Um, and obviously I'm very, um, out there on Twitter and Linkedin in that happy to have conversations. So reach out and say hi. Daniel: Well we will do that. Um, Brian, I really appreciate you taking the time. It's really, it's always interesting to have some patience and just slow down and have some of these conversations about this stuff, that's I think really, really important. Like you said, the future is unwritten and uncertain and all of us need to have skills of adaptability, the inside and I think both sides of the ecosystem that you're a co-creating - the innovator, the startups need to learn from big companies how to scale and big companies need to learn from startups, how to be more nimble. So I think it's really a really important dialogue that you're facilitating. It's really cool. Brian: Thanks for having me on the show!
This Post is broken out into two separate sections; Evelyn’s written first-hand account of her sexual health journey as a Latter-day Saint and the full transcript of Evelyn’s podcast interview. Evelyn’s written first-hand account of her sexual health journey:As a single Latter-day Saint woman struggling with anxiety and depression, my sexuality was not a priority in my life. After all, I was single, wasn’t I? As an active and devout member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, my responsibility as I saw it at the time was to avoid and ignore anything related to sex. Whatever my well-meaning youth leaders had intended, the message that I had received from them was that anything related to sex - discussion, acknowledgment, unintended feelings of arousal, etc. - was off-limits. The idea that this avoidance might be contributing to my mental health struggles never crossed my mind. In fact, at one point, when asked whether I had a healthy view of sexuality, my answer was “How should I know?” In my mind, even knowing the answer to a question like this was potentially inappropriate, because it would require thinking about sex.Then came the challenge to make some goals in my life in all areas, including my sexuality. This made me uncomfortable. I have tried to do what is right throughout my life, and this felt like straying a little too close to the fence for me, so I started small. I would just think about my sexuality. That was all. For a few minutes, I would consider that this part of myself that I had isolated, ignored, and disconnected was, in fact, a legitimate part of me. Over time, this few minutes of thought led to study. I read books written by members of the Church and other Christian authors and considered what they had to say. I prayed about what I was reading and my own questions. I became increasingly certain that sexuality and desire are God-given and an important part of being whole and complete. As I came to this understanding, some truly unexpected things began to happen.The first noticeable change was that I began to feel differently about certain TV shows. Many comedies use sex as a primary source of humor. Where these shows had not bothered me previously, I began to feel uncomfortable with the way that they were portraying sexuality. Using this gift from God for a cheap laugh began to affect me more. Studying and thinking and acknowledging my own sexuality made it feel more sacred to me, not less. I changed some of my media habits to reflect my new understanding. This led to a closer relationship with God. I also began to feel better about myself. I felt more comfortable in my own skin. I worried less about what others thought about me, and felt less need to hide behind a mask of whatever I thought others wanted to see. My symptoms of anxiety and depression began to decrease. This was a shock to me, but I realized that accepting my own sexuality and desires allowed me to stop fragmenting myself. I became more whole and more authentic. My relationships did not suffer for letting go of my carefully constructed mask. I became closer to my roommate as we had vulnerable discussions and talked - and sometimes laughed - together about our shared insecurities. Other relationships also improved. I began to serve others more and noticed their needs more easily. I felt more comfortable reaching out to comfort and help others in need.Eventually, I decided to take another step forward in understanding my own sexuality and desires. I decided to explore masturbation. This was not a step that I came to lightly. When it was first suggested during a therapy session, I had a strong negative reaction. I couldn’t possibly do this! It was wrong. I felt anxiety and pressure. I felt torn between a desire to please someone I respected by agreeing to try but also fear that trying this would ruin my relationship with God. As a child, I had stumbled upon the ability to stimulate myself and had done this occasionally for some time before I even understood what it was. The shame I felt when I eventually realized that this was what people meant when they used the term “masturbation” was extreme. I spoke with a bishop about this behavior, and put it behind me as best I knew how, by locking away that part of myself as completely as I possibly could to avoid even entirely unintentional feelings of arousal. Now, the thought that I might choose masturbation on purpose frightened me. I thought about this deeply for some time. Eventually, I made a choice: I would not try masturbation. I shared this in my next session. Once again, the results were unexpected. I didn’t consider this at the time, but this was the first real choice that I had ever made about my own sexuality. I had always attempted to do the right thing, but it was an effort to do what others told me to do. Never before had I exercised my agency around my sexuality. I had never owned a choice before in regards to this part of myself. I felt empowered. I felt strong. My fear and anxiety decreased, but not because of what I had chosen. They decreased simply because I had chosen. I realized then that I had previously allowed myself to be acted upon, rather than claiming my agency and making my choices. I began to pray and consider the possibility of making the choice to try to better understand and appreciate my own body, my sexuality, and my desire through masturbation. After a period of time, and with significant thought and prayer, I decided that this was something that I would do. Not long after this, I met the man that I would marry. My experiences had increased my ability to interact and communicate authentically, and I was able to bring my whole self to this relationship in a way that I had not been able to in past relationships. I was able to communicate more honestly about my needs, with less fear. This is not to say that this was easy, or that I was fully prepared to enjoy the sexual relationship with my husband after marriage. I discovered that what my mind and heart believed, my body did not necessarily understand. Like many women, I had to deal with painful sex and difficulty staying in the present moment during intercourse without shame or fear. Gratefully, my husband is a kind and honest communicator who cares about my enjoyment and is patient with me. As we have talked and shared and supported each other, I have felt increased closeness and enjoyment in sex. I know that if I had not begun the process of understanding and appreciating my sexuality and my own body before we married, this process would have been far more difficult. I fear I would not even have been able to talk about it with my loving husband with honesty and awareness, which would have made our intimate experiences together more challenging and our conversations less effective.I know that my journey is far from complete. I still often feel like I have a long way to go. I also would never presume that someone else should make the same choices I have. Every person needs to make their own decisions thoughtfully and prayerfully. However, I truly believe that my Heavenly Father cares about my relationships and is concerned with my experiences with sex. He doesn't want me to live in fear of my own sexuality, given to me by Him for righteous purposes. He wants me to recognize that this gift is a part of who I am. He wants me to enjoy sex with my husband and use it as an opportunity for us to grow closer together. He wants me to claim the gift of agency and make choices for myself, rather than acting out of fear. I am grateful for the experiences that I have had as I have sought to understand my sexuality. I know that they have helped me to develop my relationships - with myself, with my friends and family, and with God. I know also that they will impact the way that I teach my children about this topic. While I still appreciate the efforts of youth leaders who impacted my life in many ways for good, I want to better prepare my children to understand this powerful gift from their loving Father in Heaven. I hope that by teaching them differently than I was taught, they may be more prepared to fully enjoy and appreciate the blessing of their sexuality. Full Franscript of Evelyn’s Podcast Interview:0:00:05 Voice Over: Welcome to Improving Intimacy, a podcast to help single and married Latter-day Saints strengthen their family connections and marriages. Daniel A. Burgess is the host of Improving Intimacy. Daniel's a marriage and family therapist, father, husband, and author. Here's Daniel on this episode of Improving Intimacy.0:00:29 Daniel: Welcome to another episode of Improving Intimacy. Today, we have Evelyn in the studio, who's gonna be talking about her experiences around improving her sexual health through masturbation. A sensitive topic, and I appreciate her coming in and being vulnerable with us today. Evelyn, will you tell us a little bit about yourself?0:00:50 Evelyn: Sure. I am an active member of the church. I enjoy attending every week and with my family. Anything else you wanna know?0:01:06 Daniel: Kids?0:01:07 Evelyn: Kids, I do. I do have a child. I have a daughter.0:01:13 Daniel: How long have you been married?0:01:14 Evelyn: Been married about... A little more than two years.0:01:17 Daniel: Two years. And how old are you?0:01:20 Evelyn: I am 37.0:01:21 Daniel: Thirty-seven. Wow.0:01:23 Evelyn: Well, I did not get married real early.0:01:24 Daniel: No. Well, out here in Silicon Valley, that's a pretty standard age right there.0:01:30 Evelyn: That's true.0:01:31 Daniel: But you married right, which is a great thing.0:01:33 Evelyn: I did.0:01:35 Daniel: So you're coming in here today, and we're gonna be talking about some pretty private and personal things. What's your motivation for doing this? What's your purpose for doing this?0:01:49 Evelyn: I would say my purpose for doing this is that I feel like I've made a lot of progress through the different experiences that I've had. And some of them have been challenging, but I'm in definitely a better place than when I started, and I want to give other people the opportunity to hear about it so that maybe their journey could be a little bit easier.0:02:14 Daniel: That's wonderful. Tell us some of those challenges that you're having.0:02:19 Daniel: Well, I have struggled with anxiety for a lot of my life. I would say that when I was young, it was really challenging for me to kind of manage day-to-day. I had fairly crippling perfectionism and really was very, very worried about how other people perceived me, and that got in my way a lot. When I was in college, I hit a point where I realized that I needed help. I had great parents who helped me see that I needed some support, so I reached out and I got some help. And...0:03:08 Daniel: What kind of help did you get?0:03:10 Evelyn: I started attending therapy, and I also went on medication. So I was able to get better, but I kind of got to a point where I wasn't really making too much progress beyond...0:03:26 Daniel: Did the medication help?0:03:27 Evelyn: Oh, absolutely. Yeah.0:03:29 Daniel: And this was in your college years?0:03:32 Evelyn: Mm-hmm. Yes. The medication definitely helped, and so did the therapy. I was able to talk to a few different therapists, and it was really beneficial. But I guess that by the time I reached adulthood, I had learned how to manage a lot. I had learned a lot of coping skills which were very beneficial. They certainly made a difference in the quality of my life. I was able to calm myself down. I was able to kind of recognize when I might be having an anxiety reaction that was above and beyond the legitimate need based on what was going on. So I developed a lot of those skills, and I've made a lot of progress, but I would still slide back periodically. And I still realized that I hadn't dealt with some of the root issues.0:04:35 Daniel: Now, we're not talking about, "I'm nervous." We're talking about anxiety that was paralyzing.0:04:43 Evelyn: Yes. Yeah. I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, and it definitely was making it so that there were a lot of things that I couldn't do. Interacting with people was particularly difficult.0:05:00 Daniel: Let's talk a little bit more about that. Not only interacting with people, you're going into a profession. You're working. You're living on your own. You're high-functioning. But this was getting in the way, not just of interacting with people, but your job too?0:05:17 Evelyn: Well, I wouldn't say that it was getting in the way of my job performance. It was definitely getting in the way of my job enjoyment.0:05:24 Daniel: Ah, yes. And that's an important clarification right there. So how... If you can put it on a scale, it sounds like it was growing and becoming increasingly worse, and you'd been on medication and during your... Maybe your 20s is what we're talking about now. You're out of college, and it's increasingly getting worse. How bad was it? Tell us a little bit more about that.0:05:52 Evelyn: It depended, I would say, on the time. I would have times that I was... Felt pretty in control of how things were going, but then I would have other times when things would slide backward and I would just not want to do anything. And I would... I would say, externally, everything looked fine.0:06:11 Daniel: Yes.0:06:12 Evelyn: From an outsider's perspective...0:06:13 Daniel: You're good with that.0:06:15 Evelyn: Yes, I am. [chuckle]0:06:17 Daniel: As most... As a lot of people who struggle with anxiety are and who are high-functioning, people don't realize how bad they're suffering inside. And that was the case with you.0:06:28 Evelyn: Yeah.0:06:29 Daniel: Yeah.0:06:30 Evelyn: Yeah. But it became... Yeah, it was really very, very difficult on a day-to-day basis to just carry out the things that I needed to do, to make myself do that. It cost me a lot to go through a day and to make sure that no one knew how I was feeling about everything that I had to do, and just the overwhelming... Sometimes, it was... Sometimes it just felt incredibly devastating. I remember explaining it to my mother one time how I would feel about the future and about how things were going. And she said, "Wow, that sounds like the dementors in Harry Potter."0:07:11 Daniel: Wow.0:07:11 Evelyn: They just suck the joy out of everything.0:07:12 Daniel: Yes. What a perfect visual. Absolutely. And I think that's when I first met you was you were at that point. Dementors had sucked everything out of you.0:07:24 Evelyn: Yup.0:07:25 Daniel: You made a particularly interesting request, though, when you came and saw me. So this is much later, so in your mid-30s. So I think that's important. So for about 15 years since college.0:07:40 Evelyn: Yeah.0:07:41 Daniel: Were you on medication that whole time?0:07:44 Evelyn: Not the whole time, but I would say off and on.0:07:47 Daniel: Okay.0:07:47 Evelyn: A reasonable amount of the time.0:07:49 Daniel: And when you were on medication, it seemed like it was manageable?0:07:53 Evelyn: Mm-hmm.0:07:55 Daniel: And by the time you came and sought help from me, you were... If I remember right, you were not on medication.0:08:04 Evelyn: Yeah, I did try to not go on medication for a while.0:08:07 Daniel: That was a particular request you actually had.0:08:09 Evelyn: Mm-hmm.0:08:10 Daniel: You said, "I wanna try to do this without medication."0:08:12 Evelyn: Yes. I ultimately did go back on for some help with sleeping, but...0:08:19 Daniel: But for anxiety?0:08:21 Evelyn: Yeah, for anxiety I think I've made a lot of progress.0:08:23 Daniel: Yes.0:08:24 Evelyn: It still helps, but the biggest reason that I take some now is because it helps with sleep.0:08:30 Daniel: Yes. Well, and you're a new mother too, isn't it so?0:08:33 Evelyn: Well, that's true. Yes.0:08:35 Daniel: A lot of stress is going on. In fact, to that point, with all the stresses that you have, you've been married in the last two years.0:08:42 Evelyn: Mm-hmm.0:08:42 Daniel: You have a baby in your late 30s.0:08:47 Evelyn: Yep.0:08:47 Daniel: Later 30s. All these life changes. You became accustomed to living alone, or at least independently.0:08:58 Evelyn: Yes. Yes.0:09:00 Daniel: And so you have a lot of stresses in your life in your... I mean, yes, medication for sleeping, which, gosh, I'm on right now. Not to minimize at all what you're experiencing there. But even with all these major life changes, how would you say you're coping?0:09:16 Evelyn: Oh, much better.0:09:18 Daniel: Much better.0:09:18 Evelyn: Much better than I was.0:09:20 Daniel: So you eventually, in your mid-30s, you sought out help again. Had you see seen a therapist since college?0:09:28 Evelyn: Yes.0:09:29 Daniel: Yes, you have?0:09:30 Evelyn: Mm-hmm.0:09:30 Daniel: And I'm assuming it was somewhat helpful because you're coming again.0:09:33 Evelyn: Yeah. Absolutely.0:09:35 Daniel: And so you're in a new area, you're seeking some support here. Tell us about that. What was that experience like? You're having to reach out. Give me some emotions.0:09:45 Evelyn: Sure. I would say that when I've gone to see a therapist, it has helped. And so I would... I decided that when I reached a point in a new area, I needed to find someone to help me out because with the moving to a new place, it kind of pushed me backward to the point where I really wasn't coping well at all. So I decided that I needed to find somebody, and luckily, I'd met you.0:10:12 Daniel: Okay.0:10:12 Evelyn: So I asked you, and we started talking, and that was really helpful.0:10:21 Daniel: Well, it was interesting at the beginning. We were doing... So one of the first things we did was we tried to explore what's working. And we repeat those and we try to find ways to enhance that or build on the skills that you already knew how to do and do very well. In fact, I do recall a lot that you were, "Yep, familiar with this. I know how to do this." But what we were experiencing, yes, some of the anxiety was being manageable, but it wasn't getting to a point where you're okay. And correct me if I'm remembering incorrectly, it wasn't... We weren't making the progress that I think you were hoping for.0:11:02 Evelyn: Well, I think I kind of got to the point where I thought this is as good as it's gonna get.0:11:08 Daniel: Yes, yes.0:11:10 Evelyn: And I guess this is life. And that's okay. I mean, it's not too bad. I'll just have to do my best and take a day at a time.0:11:16 Daniel: Well, hold on a second. When you say, "It's not too bad," I think we need to put that in context. You've lived a life of anxiety, so you're not too bad. And yeah, don't let me misspeak. I don't wanna put words in your mouth. But I think... To some degree, I think you're minimizing it. You were struggling.0:11:35 Evelyn: Well, yes. I was struggling, but I guess I figured that we reached the point where I had gotten before, which was manageable.0:11:45 Daniel: Manageable. Okay.0:11:47 Evelyn: And figured that this was... What I was going to do was I was going to kind of do a cycle where I could manage it, and then maybe changes in life or something would happen that would increase the stress, and then I would go downhill, and then I would get some help, and then I would bring it back to manageable. And that would kind of be life. But that's as good as I could hope for, so I should make the best of it.0:12:13 Daniel: So what happened from there? Why didn't we just quit, say we succeeded and moved on?0:12:20 Evelyn: Well, that's a good question. I don't know. I think that you brought up some interesting points that I hadn't considered before, and at first I thought that they didn't have anything to do with me.0:12:34 Daniel: Tell us about those points. What points were we bringing up?0:12:37 Evelyn: Well, I remember you bringing up, at one point, just... Well, how do you feel about your sexual health? And I thought, "How should I know?" I think that's what I said. "How should I know?" I was single and being an active temple-attending member of the church. That meant that I didn't really have a sexual life. So it seemed like something that was disconnected.0:13:11 Daniel: It's interesting even now, when you recall this, and you're a lot more informed now, you went immediately to the sexual experiences. I'm not married.0:13:22 Evelyn: Right.0:13:23 Daniel: And so was it even on the forefront of your mind, sexual health, 'cause that was the question that was what was being explored, was much more than just physical intimacy with somebody else. And so even now when you're talking about it goes, you're recalling, right?0:13:40 Evelyn: Oh, yeah. I'm remembering that I didn't really see any other sides to the issue.0:13:46 Daniel: So what was that experience like, coming from your therapist, even a male therapist, what was your experience hearing it come out as even something to be suggested or thought about. And as again, as a male therapist, any thoughts or feelings around all that?0:14:03 Evelyn: I would say that initially I rejected it, and put it aside as something that didn't really apply to me, but it did plant some seeds of thought that I returned to on my own.0:14:21 Daniel: What prompted you to return to it? So that seed was planted.0:14:27 Evelyn: Well, I think one thing that prompted me to return to it was that I think in a session, I actually brought up the idea that I think that this is as good as it's gonna get. This is kind of what I live with, this is... This is how it's going to go, this is how my life's gonna go. And you said I don't buy that. And I thought, well, maybe you're wrong. [laughter]0:14:56 Daniel: You always told me you like forwardness, directness. So, yes, I thought there was much more potential there I didn't think we had to suffer with just manageable. So where did that take your thoughts?0:15:16 Evelyn: Well, I went home and I thought about it and I decided I wanted to give it a try. I guess if you always do what you've always done then you're gonna always get what you've always gotten. So...0:15:30 Daniel: Give what a try?0:15:33 Evelyn: Exploring other ideas, sexual health was one of them. But you did kind of bring up this idea of wholeness.0:15:41 Daniel: Yes.0:15:43 Evelyn: And that there's just so many sides of me as a person and to make some goals in all these different areas.0:15:51 Daniel: Yep, I think so, good memory on that. That's definitely what we do is try to approach it from a wholeness. All too often we get focused on, "Okay, I have anxiety. So just give me the skills and techniques to manage it."0:16:07 Evelyn: Exactly.0:16:08 Daniel: But if there's a possibility to... I'm not gonna say eliminate, I don't think we eliminate anxiety. Everybody experiences anxiety every day at some sort of level, but get to a point where you can actually be proactive about it, or thrive or get it to a point where the management is much, much less, and so we have to step outside of just the managing anxiety aspect, we have to focus on the mental, the spiritual, the physical side of this. And so I think I, well, I'm remembering this because it's a standard procedure I do, I think I even recommended, let's get your blood work done, let's get you... Make sure everything's fine physically, biologically, but this has been around for a long time, and so, this isn't a new... It wasn't like you're coming into a new biological stage of life, although that could have been possible, but we wanted to rule those things out. And so, one thing that you've never explored was that sexual aspect, is my sexual health good and can this be part of the problem?0:17:15 Evelyn: That one was brand new, and some of the other ones were not brand new. Thinking about them altogether was a little bit new, but I'd certainly worked on myself spiritually, I'd worked on myself mentally, I had focused on exercise, and eating right and I mean, all of those things were things that I had done before. Looking at it as a holistic perspective was a little bit different, but they weren't different ideas. It was the sexual health piece that was the different piece, and it felt like it didn't fit. But now when I look back, it feels like... It feels odd to assume that something that's so much an important part of myself would not be a puzzle piece whereas everything else would be, but it was the only piece of it that I had never explored before.0:18:06 Daniel: Looking back now, what do you think was making it feel like it didn't fit?0:18:12 Evelyn: I would say that I had worked pretty hard to make it not a part of myself.0:18:21 Daniel: Yes.0:18:22 Evelyn: And that was in an effort to be as good as possible.0:18:33 Daniel: Tell us more about that, what does that mean? So first of all, the fact that you're saying you worked as hard as you could for it not be a part of... I feel like there's some insinuation going on there. Was this something that you may have or tempted to be struggling with or tempted...0:18:49 Evelyn: I would say that I... Well, to go back when I was young, I discovered that I could stimulate myself.0:19:00 Daniel: How young are we talking about?0:19:00 Evelyn: Oh, maybe between 10 and 12.0:19:02 Daniel: Okay. Entering your teen years, yep, yep.0:19:05 Evelyn: So pretty young, accidentally... And explored it a little bit and...0:19:13 Daniel: Talking about masturbation?0:19:14 Evelyn: Yes. Didn't really have any idea of what I was doing, honestly. I went to youth meetings and things where they would tell you that you should not masturbate. And I didn't have any idea that these things were connected at all.0:19:37 Daniel: Oh, so in those youth meetings, you weren't realizing that's what was happening?0:19:40 Evelyn: Correct. I had no idea what masturbation really was.0:19:43 Daniel: You were just hearing this terminology and you were like, "Oh, okay, I'm not gonna do this."0:19:46 Evelyn: Yeah, absolutely not. It was clearly a bad thing, I was not gonna do it.0:19:50 Daniel: So at what point did you realize what you were doing between 10 and 12 was actually what they were saying don't do?0:19:57 Evelyn: Well, I did it occasionally.0:20:01 Daniel: In your teen years?0:20:02 Evelyn: In my teen years. It wasn't actually until I picked up a teen magazine that was sitting on a table at the library sometime around the age of maybe 14-15, something like that, that the magazine actually gave me a clear enough definition of masturbation that I was able to make the connection.0:20:22 Daniel: Interesting. So, what were you experiencing when you had that connection?0:20:26 Evelyn: I was devastated, I was completely devastated. And...0:20:31 Daniel: About how old were you at this time?0:20:34 Evelyn: I would say maybe 15.0:20:37 Speaker 1: 15. Pretty young.0:20:39 Evelyn: So I just... I felt incredibly ashamed and that I had managed to do something so terrible without even realizing that I was doing it.0:20:50 Daniel: So how did you respond to that?0:20:55 Evelyn: I think that's when I started to try to avoid any...0:21:02 Daniel: It became an active suppressing.0:21:06 Evelyn: Yes, yeah, that was when I kind of began the process of trying to avoid any accidental, 'cause I did my best to avoid any masturbation, but I also tried to avoid any reading something that might accidentally make my mind go that direction. I mean, I was really working hard.0:21:30 Daniel: Totally shut it off?0:21:32 Evelyn: Mm-hmm. Yes.0:21:34 Daniel: And in all intents and purposes, that's really what the ideal was communicated in these youth meetings, don't stim... I mean, for the strength of youth, right?0:21:40 Evelyn: Yes.0:21:40 Daniel: And so you've spent from 15 on when you discovered, made the connection with this magazine, and your behavior and these youth meetings. Well, was there any kind of formal repentance or did you discuss this with leadership?0:21:57 Evelyn: Not at that point, but I did about when I was a freshman in college. So about the age of 17.0:22:04 Daniel: Is that because you were struggling with it or...0:22:06 Evelyn: Yeah, I would say I hadn't been able to 100% cut it off, so I didn't...0:22:12 Daniel: But this wasn't like a daily thing for you, it was like...0:22:15 Evelyn: No.0:22:16 Daniel: Once in a blue moon kind of.0:22:16 Evelyn: It was occasional. Yeah. It was occasional.0:22:18 Daniel: Wanting to clear the air with the bishop.0:22:21 Evelyn: Or, and sometimes it wasn't even physical stimulation, maybe it was just mental. My thoughts might go a different direction, but I would find myself feeling stimulated so it wasn't...0:22:30 Daniel: So when you say you worked hard.0:22:32 Evelyn: I did.0:22:32 Daniel: Not only your sexual arousal but your thoughts, your feelings, all around it.0:22:37 Evelyn: Well I... Yeah, I felt that sometimes I would have thoughts that would lead me toward arousal, and I would feel some physical response, thoughts that I was having or something that I might read or anything like that. And so I...0:22:54 Daniel: So you're a completely different person today because I remember when you first would even start to... I don't even think you would say the word masturbation.0:23:03 Evelyn: No, I didn't say the word masturbation for a long time.0:23:06 Daniel: Even I think maybe eventually you did with me. I don't remember exactly the timeline, but even your mind going there, there was a clear anxiety being provoked.0:23:17 Evelyn: Oh, very much so, yes.0:23:19 Daniel: And did you notice that at the time or was that even something that you were physically aware that was happening? You literally really physically changed.0:23:28 Evelyn: Yeah, I think I'm aware of it. Yeah.0:23:31 Daniel: Prior to 15, I realize we're going back 15, 20 years. Do you feel like before you made this discovery, that you were masturbating, that your anxiety was as severe?0:23:48 Evelyn: It was not. However, I couldn't necessarily say whether that was because of this discovery.0:23:55 Daniel: Absolutely, and I wanna be careful with that...0:23:57 Evelyn: 'Cause I think it...0:24:00 Daniel: Again, 15-20 years ago, we don't know.0:24:00 Evelyn: Right. I think it grew for who knows how many different factors.0:24:05 Daniel: As you're entering puberty too, that's... Or you're well into puberty. Yeah. So all these feelings are coming up which could add to... So yeah, clear, I'm not making any... I can't go there and say that was the cause of it. But now you're in your 20s, you're in your 30s, you've spent 15-20 years going on and off medication, managing. Now we start to explore this. And one thing I really appreciated about you is usually I have a... My clients fall into one of maybe three different categories: One, when we explore... I have seven principles that I explore and that includes mental health, spiritual health, physical health, sexual health, so forth. And usually when we get to the sexual health part, especially with single adults, I get one of maybe three different reactions, one is, oh, no, they never even... Even just mentioning, how is your sexual health? It's very rare, but sometimes I get them... They'll never even come back.0:25:07 Daniel: So I'll get some people who are like, okay, whatever it takes, and then we get people that I think are more like you. I need to think about this. And I really, really value that, because that's part of therapy is getting you to be that individual and you have no problem with differentiating from other people, and so that didn't surprise me, but the thought process, both spiritual and mental, that you put into it was impressive, and I admired, I fully admired how you approach this. You didn't just say, "Whatever you say, Dan. Let's figure this out," and for you as somebody who wanted to get rid of your anxiety, you didn't just jump on and say... So tell us... I'll stop talking there, but you tell us what that process was like from your end. That's what I observed.0:26:00 Evelyn: Okay, sure. Well, after I kind of went through college, when I didn't see a bishop and talked through everything and then no more, I'd really cut off that part of myself as much as possible. No, sexuality is not really a part of who I am. I need to focus on the spiritual, I need to focus on the mental, I can focus on the physical. Those are all okay, but this other part is something that I'm just saving for until after I'm married. Then we came to the point where you brought it up and asked me to make a goal and I started very small.0:26:45 Daniel: Yes.0:26:46 Evelyn: I said I will think about it. I will think about sex for a few minutes. I feel comfortable going that far, but thinking about it started me wondering if there might be something that was missing in my life, and I still didn't connect it to anxiety, not really, but I thought as long as I was working on everything else, maybe I would continue to work in this area as well, and...0:27:22 Daniel: What started to happen? So we're talking about, and I put a timeline in just to give an appreciation, it's not that it was fast or slow or anything like that, but we're talking about months. You were taking...0:27:38 Evelyn: It started to happen, yeah.0:27:40 Daniel: Yeah, so what was the process? You started...0:27:42 Evelyn: Okay.0:27:42 Daniel: So let's explain the thinking about sex a little bit more there. The goal there, do you recall what it was? I'm not, I don't mean to put you on the spot.0:27:52 Evelyn: Do I recall what it was? I remember that there was a goal in every area, and that the one that I felt like I could do was I would think about this issue.0:28:00 Daniel: Being aware of your own sexuality, what are your own desires and thoughts, getting... So the goal was to get in tune, in connection with yourself, your sexual identity, what does that look like? And what does that feel like? And so you started to explore that a little bit more.0:28:19 Evelyn: Yeah, and it was not fast at, it was not a fast process for me, but what I started to notice was that beginning to recognize this piece of myself changed. The first thing I think I noticed it changing was my interactions with other people. I started to feel more open and able to communicate with people. I had a roommate, we'd lived together for some time and we got along reasonably well, but we were just roommates. I mean, kind of ships passing in the night, and one day I started talking with her and our relationship began to grow and to change. And...0:29:13 Daniel: You talking, you mean just casual conversations.0:29:16 Evelyn: At first, yeah, but then eventually, we started talking about deeper things, and discovering that we had more in common than we thought.0:29:26 Daniel: I think it's important, I think you, we alluded to it with the anxiety but part of this, I think the audience should understand is how much of an introvert you are.0:29:35 Evelyn: Oh, very.0:29:36 Daniel: And so just talking with your roommate, you liked your roommate, this had nothing to do with personalities or anything, just you're on probably the higher end of being an introvert than most introverts. And so just having this conversation, how do you feel that was connected to your exploring your sexuality?0:29:55 Evelyn: Well, at the time, I didn't understand it at all, it didn't make sense to me, it was just an observation. So if we're kind of going on the journey, at the time I was noticing that this was happening more and more, but I wasn't clear how it connected.0:30:18 Daniel: So at this time, you're not masturbating, you're...0:30:20 Evelyn: No, just thinking.0:30:20 Daniel: Just explain... What is my sexual identity. Let's just call it that, and doing that, opening that up was starting to allow you to open up to other people.0:30:37 Evelyn: If I'm going to reflect from a position of having travelled a long way from where I was.0:30:44 Daniel: Yes.0:30:45 Evelyn: I think it has something to do with that wholeness piece. There was a part of myself that I was hiding and I was hiding it even from myself. That was my goal, was to hide it even from myself, and because I was hiding it, I felt vulnerable so much of the time, I felt so nervous and yes, I am an introvert and that hasn't changed.0:31:13 Daniel: No.0:31:14 Evelyn: I will continue to be one. But I was so afraid of being found out almost that I had this piece of myself, that was hidden and I...0:31:26 Daniel: Your sexual self.0:31:27 Evelyn: Right. But it's not like I could have pinpointed that that was why I was nervous in any way, but I think that the fact that I was fragmenting myself a little bit, and keeping...0:31:40 Daniel: That's a great way to say it, yeah.0:31:42 Evelyn: Keeping a part of myself away even from me, increased my anxiety and increased the difficulty that I had interacting with people, I was always so nervous, I was very hypersensitive about the reactions that other people were giving me. And anything that seemed negative I took on myself very, very deeply, and...0:32:08 Daniel: We're talking like at work, your social life, at church events, every interaction, even talking with your roommate, you're...0:32:17 Evelyn: Yeah, I was always looking for any negative signs, anything that was wrong, and trying to fit myself into something that would never, ever receive a negative, negative feedback of any kind from anybody, which is so hard to do that pretty much it involved trying to avoid interactions.0:32:37 Daniel: Absolutely. So tell us more. You're starting to explore your sexual identity. Now that you're looking back, you didn't know at the time how or why that would have a positive impact on even your interaction and in minimizing this.0:32:53 Evelyn: I found it confusing, honestly.0:32:54 Daniel: So what did you do with that confusion?0:32:56 Evelyn: Well, I felt like I don't know why this is working, but it seems to be.0:33:05 Daniel: So you were seeing results.0:33:06 Evelyn: Yes, I was seeing results.0:33:07 Daniel: Right.0:33:07 Evelyn: I was seeing positive interactions. I was finding myself... I mean, I bring up the roommate, but there were other indications too. I mean, at work, I found myself willing to step forward a little bit more and disagree with people at times and tell them things that I thought as opposed to what I thought they were looking for.0:33:28 Daniel: This was an impressive time, because your anxiety for the first time that we're seeing wasn't just managed and reduced, your confidence was increasing.0:33:36 Evelyn: Right. Yeah. I felt very different. I have a sister-in-law that I've come to have quite a good relationship with at this point, but I will say that the first, quite a lot of years of my brother's marriage to her, I was terrified of her, because she has a tendency to give negative feedback unintentionally.0:33:58 Daniel: She was feeding the cycle.0:34:00 Evelyn: Yeah. So, I mean, I just thought she hated me. Every time I was in the room, I would just feel... My heart would be pounding and my stomach would be tight and I would be so nervous, because I felt like there was no way that I could get the right feedback from her, and I found myself... She came in one day and said something, and I could have easily taken it the wrong way, and I thought, "I don't think she means anything by that."0:34:25 Daniel: Interesting.0:34:27 Evelyn: And just kind of let it go, and opened the door to actually having a positive relationship with her, because I was no longer living in this place where I was always, always worried about what other people thought of me.0:34:46 Daniel: So why didn't you end it there? You got success you haven't had before. What made you go to the next step?0:34:55 Evelyn: Well, I would say that the first thing that made me go the next step was that you suggested that I might wanna consider masturbation. And I thought that was a terrible idea.[laughter]0:35:08 Daniel: What was going through... In this experience, what was happening?0:35:13 Evelyn: Well, you mentioned it and I...0:35:17 Daniel: Now, let's be clear, I wanna... For the audience to understand it. This wasn't, "Go home and do this."0:35:23 Evelyn: No.0:35:24 Daniel: So, what was the invitation, do you recall?0:35:27 Evelyn: I think you said something like, "Have you ever considered or tried masturbation? Has that ever been a part of your exploration?" I don't remember your words exactly, but it was somewhere along those lines.0:35:44 Daniel: Yup. And I think that was pretty close, 'cause at that point where I started to see more anxiety come up from what we know now, was from your teenage years and it's like, "Woah," so that seed was planted, what happened from there?0:36:00 Evelyn: Well, I didn't wanna dismiss it out of hand, because I was interacting with someone that I had respect for, and that I had seen positive success from what we'd been working on so far. At the same time, I was pretty terrified that it might destroy my relationship with my Heavenly Father, because that always has been and remains one of the most important relationships in my life.0:36:34 Daniel: And still is.0:36:35 Evelyn: Yeah, and still is. And I wanted to make sure that I didn't ever engage in anything that would impact that negatively. So, I was kind of torn between this fear of harming that relationship, and considering the progress that I've made.0:37:03 Daniel: Yes.0:37:03 Evelyn: And that trusting you in the past had led to some positive things.0:37:09 Daniel: You were trusting yourself.0:37:12 Evelyn: And that's true, I was. But it was your idea that I should explore sexual health in some way.0:37:20 Daniel: That's correct.[chuckle]0:37:23 Evelyn: So, I did have that on my mind too. So trying to balance those things, I went back and forth a lot. And...0:37:35 Daniel: What does back and forth mean? What were you doing...0:37:38 Evelyn: Back and forth as in, "Maybe I should try this, wonder what would happen, I wonder how that would impact me? Nope, never gonna do it. Nope, that would be a terrible thing."0:37:48 Daniel: Talk about your relationship with the Lord in this process, how did you include or not include Him?0:37:58 Evelyn: I definitely prayed, and my prayer was something along the lines of help me not do something that I will regret, and help me let... Help let me know if I'm going to do something that would be detrimental to our relationship. So there were a lot of prayers like that. I would say, I didn't feel a lot one way or the other at that point, as far as an answer to that prayer.0:38:26 Daniel: Was that confusing to you?0:38:29 Evelyn: Not terribly. I think that I've gotten some clear answers in my life and a lot of times that I've been encouraged to figure things out myself.0:38:40 Daniel: So is that what you did?0:38:45 Evelyn: Yeah, at least at that moment, and what I did...0:38:47 Daniel: So, what... Yup.0:38:49 Evelyn: Was I decided I was not going to masturbate, and I came back and I told you that. And I felt wonderful.0:39:02 Daniel: Yes, you did, you were glowing.0:39:06 Evelyn: And... Yeah.0:39:07 Daniel: I remember that, and I praised you for that. What was the focus of my praise? Do you recall?0:39:15 Evelyn: I don't recall.0:39:16 Daniel: You made the decision.0:39:18 Evelyn: Well, that's... I mean, I think that that for me was the thing that I came to. Yeah, I mean, it was the first decision I had ever really made, sexually, in my life.0:39:30 Daniel: Yes. That's exactly right. And that was one of the indicators to me, 'cause as you're just talking about a lot of your life, your lot of... What was feeding your anxiety was what... The impressions of what other people were having on you or at least your interpretation of their responses to you.0:39:48 Evelyn: Yes.0:39:50 Daniel: And...0:39:51 Evelyn: A lot of it was interpretation.0:39:53 Daniel: And what you were just saying also about me, you respected me, both as a... And that's something I take... I don't take lightly, as a therapist, and... Especially within our faith, how do we guide individuals to healthy living while also maintaining their level of faith, their love of God, and supporting them in those areas of their life? And you didn't just do this because I recommended it. You came back with a decision, you prayed about it, you pondered about it, you researched about it, and you came in and you were glowing. Now, this was your choice, and that was amazing.0:40:41 Evelyn: Yeah. Yeah, the making of the choice was a claiming of my agency in regards to sexuality that I had never made before. Everything I'd done prior to that point was an effort to please somebody else, really.0:41:02 Daniel: Even suppressing your sexual health?0:41:04 Evelyn: Yes, yes.0:41:07 Daniel: That is huge. And I can't... I mean, we're exploring this in the environment of the therapeutic office, but I had seen this, this wasn't a new occurrence, I had seen this over and over, where people had abandoned their agency around their sexual health and the same or similar things occurred. So this was not new to me, but to see it come out of you was just this light bulb moment. So, what did we do from there? What's... We were done with therapy, right? You were perfect, you're healthy.0:41:43 Evelyn: Yeah, isn't that great?[chuckle]0:41:45 Daniel: And end of story, right?[chuckle]0:41:47 Evelyn: Of course. [chuckle] Well, I mean, what you did at that point was say, "Okay, that's your decision. Go with that."0:41:57 Daniel: Yes.0:42:00 Evelyn: But I kind of continued to think about it, and I think that I felt so freed by the fact that I owned this part of myself, that I...0:42:16 Daniel: Was it scary owning it?0:42:20 Evelyn: No, actually.0:42:23 Daniel: That's interesting. The audience can't see her, she's glowing right now [chuckle] when she responds to that. [chuckle] Tell us more about that. Why was that not scary? This thing was scary all your life.0:42:37 Evelyn: It was scary on my life and I thought it would be scary, you know? I mean, I thought it would be terrifying, because it had worried me so much, and had been... I mean, I would have such a physical response even to the word masturbation, if anyone else ever said it, I would just feel... I would kind of start to sweat and I'd feel my stomach tighten up and I'd feel just... All my muscles kind of get tight, which was why I couldn't say it. I would dance around the term as much as possible. It was so frightening to me and yet when I made that decision, I was very nervous to tell you. I'll tell you that. I mean, when I came in...0:43:27 Daniel: I noticed and I...0:43:28 Evelyn: Yeah.[chuckle]0:43:28 Daniel: Absolutely. Hopefully I came across very respectful?0:43:32 Evelyn: You did, you did. But I mean, that part was nervous...0:43:34 Daniel: Of course.0:43:36 Evelyn: But nerve-racking, but when I made the decision and then when I moved on to owning it, it lost its fear. I mean, I lost so much fear around that, and I gained so much confidence to make decisions in other areas of my life too, I think.0:43:58 Daniel: How much of that was or was any of it, the fact that you're working with a male therapist or was it just the nature of the topic? Did me being a male therapist enhance that nervousness?0:44:12 Evelyn: Well, probably. Yeah, it probably did.0:44:15 Daniel: How did you navigate that or how did you resolve that? Or was it a factor that you felt like you had to address?0:44:24 Evelyn: I didn't really resolve or address. I think it probably did increase my anxiety a bit around it, made it more nerve-racking than it would have been with a woman, but I didn't really... I mean, it wasn't so overwhelming that I really had resolve it, I think.0:44:46 Daniel: The ability to speak it, to vocalize it was freeing.0:44:50 Evelyn: Yes, it really was.0:44:54 Daniel: So you made your decision, you are... You have no need to masturbate, you owned it, your health was improved and we were done with therapy.0:45:05 Evelyn: No, no, we weren't.[laughter]0:45:07 Daniel: So take it to the next step, what's happening?0:45:13 Evelyn: So the next step was continuing. I continued to work on some of those goals, I was thinking, I was reading, I was studying, I was considering and pondering and praying, and all of those kinds of things, and then I really felt like, actually, I do wanna understand my body, I wanna understand my desire, I want to better understand this whole piece of myself and I made the decision that I did want to try masturbation.0:45:48 Daniel: I want the audience to understand how thorough you are, 'cause if somebody doesn't know you and hearing what you just said, you continued to think about it. They don't understand how much of a... Exaggeration, that is.0:46:07 Evelyn: Think about it for me.0:46:09 Daniel: You read every book there was.0:46:11 Evelyn: I did, yeah.0:46:12 Daniel: You scoured the internet, you... Both religious materials, sexual health, you picked up books like And They Were Not Ashamed and you dove right in.0:46:24 Evelyn: Read about half a dozen different books cover to cover.0:46:27 Daniel: You're taking the doctrine covenants to heart, read and study and ponder. So I think it's important for the audience, because they don't know you. And so when I hear that you're pondering this, I know that you are diving and this is beyond just thinking.0:46:42 Evelyn: I am a researcher.0:46:44 Daniel: Yes, you are.0:46:45 Evelyn: When I got a cat about 15 years ago or so, I spent a good three days researching all the different names that I might actually name the cat before coming to a decision. If anyone wants to know what product that they should buy that I've already bought, they just ask me, because I have done all the research, I have read 15 different articles, about the 10 best and then looked at what they all had in common and then compared the pros and cons. I am an extremely careful person.0:47:19 Daniel: So you went into this well aware of what the church leadership, what the culture is, what you've read, but you're feeling that this... I'm gonna put the word positive desire, or desire to explore this, and when I say desire, it's not just arousal desire. Go ahead, tell us more about that.0:47:45 Evelyn: I would say it wasn't arousal desire at that point, it was a desire for increased understanding. That's what I was looking for was a fuller understanding of myself, and I prayed more and again, there was a lot of I'm feeling good about this decision, and if it's not right, please help me to know that. I really, I really didn't take it lightly.0:48:20 Daniel: Yeah, so what was your answer, what did you end up doing?0:48:29 Evelyn: I felt good about it, and so I decided that I would try masturbation and see what happened, and so I did and I felt that understanding, what I was looking for, I felt more in tune with myself, and it wasn't even primarily arousal, it was more that this was a better knowledge of who I am as a person. This is what my body can do, this is the gifts that I've been given, this is... This whole body is a gift and I would like to understand it better. And now I do. So that was, that was more what it was about for me, I think, than it was arousal and orgasm, it was who am I? And I did feel like I developed my relationship with myself.0:49:39 Daniel: What... I realize you're not even thinking about this, but I know the audience is listening and wondering maybe pornography was not involved.0:49:50 Evelyn: No.0:49:51 Daniel: This is a self-understanding. This was so huge. You connected with yourself, with the Spirit. I don't wanna misuse any terminology here, but you seem to increase in your wellness.0:50:13 Evelyn: Yeah, I would say that... I wouldn't go so far as to say that masturbation was in and of itself a spiritual experience for me. However, what I would say is that as I became more aware of myself that led to things in my life that led to increased spirituality. For example, the appreciation of my body and of the gift that I have received through my body, what I found myself doing was becoming offended by TV shows that made light of sexuality, that had previously not had that impact on me. Previously, I could watch these shows, they really kind of just... Some of these jokes just washed over me. It was just the way that jokes are, and yet suddenly they were bothering me more because they were making light of this thing that was a gift, and so I began to change my media habits and that kind of thing I do think led to overall increased spirituality for me.0:51:28 Daniel: You're being able to own your own sexuality, you start to have more confidence around people interacting and socializing more, now understanding your physical self, your sexual self physically, you're starting to have a more profound appreciation for how sex is represented in media, that is profound, that is a response that you... I don't think everybody has that response. And I don't wanna set this up as though you go out and masturbate, and you're gonna reject all forms of unhealthy sex. But this is key. This is, I think, part of your personality and was part of your healing and growing into your whole self, and that was a part of your personality you don't want to be exposed to that, you want to appreciate what God has given you. And the media was a distraction to that. Am I understanding that right?0:52:28 Evelyn: Yeah, I would say that, yeah, that's pretty solid. I think it was, for me personally, in my experience, it was before the different little jokes and things like that. They didn't mean anything to me because it wasn't even...0:52:51 Daniel: On your radar.0:52:53 Evelyn: A part of me. But now suddenly it was a part of me, it was impacting me and I felt like I needed to make those changes, so certainly not something I would expect of everybody, but in my personal journey, that's how it went.0:53:08 Daniel: So, you're emotionally understanding your sexual health, you're physically understanding it, now we're good. Your life is great, is that true?0:53:18 Evelyn: Well, my life is different.0:53:20 Daniel: It is different. I think there was some more progress going on there and some new skills that you were learning.0:53:29 Evelyn: Well, I'll insert another person at this point, which is that this is about the point that I met my husband, and I think that this process kind of prepared me for meeting him, because I was able to talk to him. We were able to discuss things. When we started, I was more comfortable, I was less concerned about what he was thinking about me than I had been in previous relationships where, who knows if they might have worked out or not otherwise, but one reason they definitely weren't going to work out was because I wasn't myself in them, I was too concerned about the way I was being perceived, so I'd reached the point where I was not feeling that in that same way, it was more like, "This is who I am. And let's see if we happen to be compatible and if we're not, it's not a judgement on me, you can go find somebody else."0:54:35 Daniel: You were much more relaxed about this relationship.0:54:37 Evelyn: So more relaxed, yes, than I had been in previous relationships.0:54:42 Daniel: It's interesting 'cause I can't recall if we've ever had this conversation, because I was on the outside looking at as you're sharing your meeting your now husband, and I was wondering the same things, if this, if your ability to understand yourself was helping. It seems like it would be logical, but not necessarily, it doesn't always happen this way, but that was transferring well into your relationship with him.0:55:07 Evelyn: It was... Yeah, I think the biggest one really was that I liked myself. Not every single tiny little bit of myself.0:55:18 Daniel: But you valued...0:55:20 Evelyn: But in general. I thought I was...0:55:22 Daniel: You were no more rejecting parts of yourself.0:55:24 Evelyn: Yeah, exactly.0:55:25 Daniel: And the things that you were not liking, because this isn't about liking every single thing about you. I think that's a beautiful thing if you can do that. Reality is, we're human and we're imperfect and there's gonna be things about ourselves that we don't always love. And you were able to acknowledge those parts without shaming it, without suppressing it, including... I'm talking other things besides just the sexual health part. And so that was making you a more whole person able to interact with your now husband better.0:55:58 Daniel: Definitely. So we got to know each other and we went from levels of just getting to know each other to having more deep conversations. I felt like I was able to be more vulnerable, and he was too. And then we were eventually able to talk about some of these issues, and that also brought us closer and helped me.0:56:26 Daniel: You mean before you married? Are you talking about your issues around anxiety and using masturbation as a coping mechanism, or understanding...0:56:37 Evelyn: Not really a coping mechanism, but that I had had anxiety, that I'd tried different things, we talked about that. We did talk about sexuality before marriage.0:56:47 Daniel: Which is something you would never done before.0:56:49 Evelyn: No, I really wouldn't have, I don't think I would have been able to, but I had the vocabulary, and this wasn't like early in our relationship.0:56:58 Daniel: No, no, no, you guys were... This was clearly at a point that you guys were committed.0:57:03 Evelyn: Yes. Before we discussed, anything that deep, but...0:57:08 Daniel: So at this point, let's backtrack just a little bit here. With the use of masturbation, was this a one or two time occurrence, or was this something that you now incorporated into a healthy routine or part of your life? What was it for you?0:57:25 Evelyn: I'm gonna say somewhere in between those two. It wasn't something that was a routine. Every so often I would masturbate but I wasn't afraid of that either. And so at times I would choose to do that.0:57:45 Daniel: You recognized the benefits and you were able to use it as... Is that fair to say?0:57:50 Evelyn: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's here to say.0:57:53 Daniel: So, the reason when I bring that up, is you now have this additional tool, if you will, in your skill set and understanding yourself and also addressing anxiety. I'm going to assume, I know, but you're dating your husband. How is the stress level? How's your anxiety? Does it ever spike again or what do you deal... How do you deal with your anxiety?0:58:21 Evelyn: I would say that when we got really close to getting married, I got really anxious. Luckily, I was able to talk about it because I have a husband who's really good at communicating and so he is able to ask me about things, and then I was able to tell him, so I was able to talk about how I was feeling, and the communication reduced my anxiety.0:58:51 Daniel: Which is something you wouldn't have done before, talk, you would have...0:58:55 Evelyn: Talking was not one of my management strategies for anxiety.0:59:02 Daniel: Even though you knew it would help. So that was one of the things that you struggled with. But being able to have the confidence now, and reduced anxiety, or at least anxiety to a level that you can now engage in that conversation, but your pattern in the past was to shut down, become more independent. And would you... In the past, how would you have handled that fear of getting married, how would that have played out?0:59:32 Evelyn: Okay, well, I would have run away. And I guess I wanna correct the no talking, because it's not that I wouldn't talk to anybody, but I wouldn't talk to the person.0:59:45 Daniel: Yes, a good clarification, yes.0:59:48 Evelyn: And I would just run and hide. When I was in college I knew where all of the women's bathrooms were that were really comfortable and had couches in them, because should I be avoiding someone who I was dating who was causing me anxiety, I would spend a lot of time there, because I knew that that was not a place they would go. So running away was a strategy that I used and would probably have been what I would have done. Just run away.1:00:21 Daniel: So you got married?1:00:22 Evelyn: I did.1:00:23 Daniel: Yes, and now, you're having sex?1:00:30 Evelyn: Uh-huh.1:00:32 Daniel: How did the things you learned before marriage help you or not help you in your sex life?1:00:39 Evelyn: Oh, boy, they helped me, but there was a long way to go.1:00:45 Daniel: So it wasn't automatic, you now...1:00:47 Evelyn: No way.1:00:49 Daniel: And part of this also is you're learning yourself in a later phase of your life, and so this is... Even if you're learning earlier on there's no comparison to having another intimate person in your sexual life. And so as much as you're comfortable tell us about the... What are some obstacles you had to face and how did you use these skills to help you through it?1:01:14 Evelyn: Okay, well, the major obstacle that we ran into was that sex was very painful for me. And I think that if I had not had the experiences prior to marriage that I had, I would have had no idea what to do from there. I would either have completely cut off sex and decided that that was not something we could do, or honestly, more likely I would have continued to say yes but absolutely hated it and felt every experience being something that pushed me farther away rather than bringing me closer to my husband.1:02:03 Daniel: So you mentioned painful sex?1:02:05 Evelyn: Yes.1:02:06 Daniel: You later found out through a medical check-up what that was and something that a lot of people still don't understand. Do you mind talking about that?1:02:13 Evelyn: No, I don't mind at all. I guess this goes back to how my prior experiences helped me, because I was willing to talk about it and so we had a lot of conversations, my husband and I, and I really felt committed to figuring out what was going on, and part of that was going to see the doctor. So I made an appointment with my OBGYN.1:02:37 Daniel: You knew something was wrong, whereas before, you may not have, you just might have thought, "Okay, this is just what sex is."1:02:44 Evelyn: Yeah, I might have. I mean, that would have been devastating, but yeah, I might have, but I did know that wasn't what it was supposed to be like, and I went and I spoke with the doctor, and she did some checking, and she said that I had vaginismus and she prescribed some physical therapy, so I was able to go and work with a physical therapist weekly for several months.1:03:20 Daniel: These involved dilators?1:03:20 Evelyn: Mm-hmm. Yeah, we did dilators, we did massage, which not as fun as the other kind of massage, sorry, but was helpful. [chuckle]1:03:30 Daniel: Not With a physical therapist. But it was helpful.1:03:34 Evelyn: It was helpful.1:03:35 Daniel: Joking aside, it was helpful.1:03:37 Evelyn: All joking aside, it was helpful, because I started to gradually get to work on the physical part. I didn't enjoy using the dilators at all.1:03:48 Daniel: No. I can't even imagine.1:03:49 Evelyn: Not very fun, but I could put on a TV show or something like that, and distract myself a little bit.1:03:56 Daniel: So the physical therapist... Way to be, way to order support there. The dilators, the physical therapist, did that help resolve the pain?1:04:10 Evelyn: It definitely made significant progress toward it, but it was incomplete without the communication.1:04:17 Daniel: Was masturbation involved in this at all?1:04:21 Evelyn: Little bit, yeah.1:04:22 Daniel: So in your marriage, you're using masturbation.1:04:25 Evelyn: Well, what I used it for, I would say at that point, was to assist me with the physical therapy.1:04:32 Daniel: Yes. That would make sense.1:04:35 Evelyn: Because it did help there.1:04:35 Daniel: Warm things up. Yeah.1:04:37 Evelyn: Yeah, exactly.1:04:39 Daniel: What about other times in your marriage, do you... Was masturbation used as a...1:04:45 Evelyn: Hasn't been, really. Not that it never would be, but we've done other things.1:04:51 Daniel: Good.[chuckle]1:04:57 Evelyn: I feel like the physical aspects were part of it, and so I was able to work on those, but the other piece of it that was really important was being able to work on the psychological and talk and go slow and be patient and enjoy whatever it is that we can enjoy, what pieces of it, as we continue to develop.1:05:23 Daniel: Evelyn, you've been so open here, and I assure you there are many listening to this who maybe even in tears, just feeling comforted from the words that you're using. Is there any, as we're wrapping up here, any advice that you would specifically give young women maybe who were in your shoes as a teenager or currently are, or anyone, what advice would you give?1:05:54 Evelyn: Well, I think something that I would like to have been able to tell my younger self is that, that feeling arousal is something that happens to people, and I felt so alone because of the way that it was being talked about, and I don't want to villainize any of the wonderful people that I got to work with as a youth, because they were incredible leaders. They touched my life and they blessed my life in so many ways, and they were absolutely doing the best that they could. Having said that, though, no one ever told me that feeling arousal is something that people experience and that it is not a sin, and it's just something that happens because that's the way we're built.1:06:58
0:00:05 Daniel: Welcome to Improving Intimacy, a podcast to help single and married Latter Day Saints strengthen their family connections and marriages. Daniel A. Burgess, is the host of Improving Intimacy. Daniel's a marriage and family therapist, father, husband and author. Here's Daniel on this episode of Improving Intimacy.0:00:29 Daniel: Welcome to another episode of Improving Intimacy. Today we have on the line, Anarie. And she will be sharing with us, her personal experiences around porn addiction in her relationship, and her experiences with addiction recovery treatment. Welcome to the show, Anarie.0:00:49 Anarie: Thanks Daniel.0:00:51 Daniel: Tell us a little bit about yourself. Give us some details, who are you, and tell us a little bit about your experience?0:01:00 Anarie: Hey. I am in my early 30s. I'm an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I have two kids, ages eight and five. I was married for 11 years. We were married in a temple. And we had our divorce finalized about four months ago, and separated about a year ago. So, that's kinda where I'm at.0:01:24 Daniel: This is pretty recent and fresh. And I appreciate you, even with that, coming on and sharing your experiences here. Give us a little background on the... You shared with me that, was it your husband or you, who is experiencing the issues around pornography? Let's start there.0:01:47 Anarie: It was my husband.0:01:48 Daniel: Your husband. And how long into the marriage or before the marriage did you know that there was a problem?0:01:55 Anarie: So, we dated for about nine months before we got married. A pretty short time. Looking back at the time, it seemed like a long time. But about two months into our dating, kind of the time when we went fairly exclusive, he told me that he had had struggles with pornography before his mission. He was a return missionary at the time we were dating. He told me he'd had some trouble with it before his mission, that he'd resolved it with his Bishop, at that time.0:02:25 Anarie: And that since then, that it had been no issue at all, that he had no struggle with it during his mission. And but since meeting me, felt extra strong and resisting but he wanted me to know that that had been a part of his past. So I took his word for it, that it was in the past and that it was several years since he'd had a struggle with it. At that time, we didn't really talk about it very much other than I basically said, "Hey I don't expect you to be perfect, I'm proud of you for resolving it." And it sort of went to rest at that time.0:03:11 Anarie: Then about nine months after we were married, is when I found out that he was still actively using pornography and masturbating without my knowledge. And I found that out, there were some things off in our marriage, in our sexual relationship right from the beginning. And sort of when I was pressing into some of that, that he admitted that he had viewed some. At that time he told me it was just recent and that he'd never do it again. He felt it wasn't something that he needed to talk to the Bishop about, and I was okay with that. I do feel like I had a trauma response, and I was very anxious to believe that it really was just once or twice and kinda put it away at that time.0:04:11 Daniel: What happened before? So you were at about two months into the relationship, you guys became serious. And from what I'm hearing, it's impressive. Some individuals don't even, if they feel like their porn use or whatever sin it may be, is in the past, sometimes they don't even mention it. But he was mentioning it to you at about two months in. To, I don't know, clear the air, or just keep you informed. Which seemed like a good thing. What was your experience at the time?0:04:45 Daniel: I really value what you said, you said, "You know it's in the past." But emotionally, what were you experiencing? Were you thinking, "Oh boy, this is gonna be a potential issue in the future."? Or did you feel like, "Oh, it's taken care of, this shouldn't be a problem, going forward."? What were you experiencing?0:05:03 Anarie: That's a great question. I was nervous about it. It was a little bit of a concern. And actually, about a month before we got married, my older sister said to me, "Make sure you've talked to him about pornography. Make sure you've asked him about pornography use." And I said. "Oh... "0:05:22 Daniel: She did that just randomly, or did she already know?0:05:25 Anarie: Yes.0:05:25 Daniel: Okay.0:05:26 Anarie: No, she didn't know. And I didn't tell her. I told her, "Yes, we've had the conversation." And she seemed to imply that if there was pornography use that I shouldn't be marrying him. I very much wanted to marry him, so I chose not to tell her that that was something that had been a problem in the past. So I was a little bit nervous about it.0:05:49 Daniel: Did that scare you?0:05:50 Anarie: I knew it could potentially be a problem in the future. Yeah.0:05:53 Daniel: When she said, "If there's any pornography, don't pursue the marriage." I think it sounds pretty clear why you didn't share more, is because he had issues...0:06:05 Anarie: And I think rather than not pursuing the marriage, he was encouraging to take it seriously.0:06:10 Daniel: Oh absolutely, right.0:06:12 Anarie: And to not just dismiss it. Which I probably dismissed it more than I should have.0:06:21 Daniel: You said, before we went back to the dating phase, you were starting to talk about how you're seeing some signs after he'd mentioned he had ongoing issues. Did I hear you correctly?0:06:33 Anarie: Yes, yeah.0:06:34 Daniel: What were those indicators, those red flags, so to speak?0:06:38 Anarie: We did not have a good sexual relationship right from the beginning of our marriage. We didn't have sex very often. There were just a lot of things that were really weird, that seemed like they weren't typical at all for what I'd heard initial marriage was supposed to be like. And...0:07:04 Daniel: For the sake of the listeners and their, for a variety of experiences, are you comfortable with maybe giving some of those specifics? What did you see as...0:07:14 Anarie: Oh, what I was expecting?0:07:15 Daniel: Yeah. What you were expecting, or what seemed off?0:07:18 Anarie: I think I was expecting honeymoon phase, where we have sex multiple times a week, multiple times a day. I felt, before we were married, there was lots of sexual tension and lots of sexual interest, and so in my mind, I thought that once we got married, we were gonna have sex a whole bunch, and it was gonna be really fantastic, and we were gonna want each other whole bunch. And that's not what happened, when we got married there actually was a significant decrease in any sort of sexual tension or sexual interest.0:07:56 Daniel: Even though it sounds like you were wanting more frequent sex at that time, and were you communicating that, or did it just dry up real quick?0:08:08 Anarie: Yes, I was communicating it. Through our whole marriage, we had what would be termed as a sexless marriage, sex fewer than 12 times a year. And I was the one who consistently was saying, "Hey, I want more. This isn't right. What's wrong?" Reading lots of books. I took on a lot of the blame for that, and I think because by taking on the blame myself, it was something that I could fix.0:08:42 Anarie: So I read lots of things about Good Girl Syndrome, about maybe why... 'Cause he would sort of say that I wasn't responding the way that I should, and so he didn't want to, or usually when I tried to talk to him about it, it just sort of... It was almost like we couldn't talk about it, it never went much of anywhere. I expressed a lot of like my things, but then there was never much response from him.0:09:11 Daniel: Traditionally, we think of the husband as the higher sex desire partner. Was that confusing to you to see he had a lower desire than you, and that the sex was infrequent? Was that part of the reason why you're taking on the blame?0:09:27 Anarie: It was very confusing to me, especially because prior to our marriage, I was the boundary keeper, he was always pushing the boundaries sexually, and I was the boundary keeper. So then it was really confusing when we got married, and suddenly it was different. I wasn't feeling that desire from him any more.0:09:51 Daniel: And what was he saying, what was the feedback? And I wanna respect the fact that he's not here, and the listeners are taking this at the value... From your perspective. With that being said, what information was he giving to you? Was he saying that he wasn't attracted to you, or what was the reasoning he was giving?0:10:15 Anarie: Not really any reason at all. After a while, as I read more books and stuff, we did have the high desire-low desire. And so he would say, "I guess I'm just a lower-desire person," or... But no, there was never much explanation. I would say things like, I did believe that he wanted me before marriage and after marriage, he didn't, so that must mean that I was a disappointment, so I was the problem, I think that was part of it too. And so a lot of that, I was the one saying, and he didn't really counter it. I mean, he would say, "No, that's not the case," but then he'd never tell me why or do anything to make me believe anything different, in terms of attractiveness and interest, if that makes sense?0:11:11 Daniel: So the absence of information left you with very little to go off of, and it was like you didn't feel that attraction towards you, and he wasn't refuting it, so what else were you left to believe? Interesting.0:11:24 Anarie: Yeah. And so I filled a lot of that void with my own ideas and my own beliefs, and read books to try to figure it out.0:11:34 Daniel: So from there, that was about, you said, nine months into the marriage. Then when did... You're doing all this research, when did it finally become clear that this was actually being as a result of his porn use or masturbation? How far into that discovery was it?0:11:54 Anarie: Okay, so I'm actually kind of embarrassed that it was so long, but it was years before I really got clear that it was pornography, that it was still an active issue. We went to a couple of therapists, we went to one at LDS Family Services, and this was probably four years into our marriage. And so that was fairly traumatic for me, 'cause it ended up feeling very much like... The therapist that we went to... We only went to one session, so... And it was my first therapy experience, but I felt very much like the male therapist and my male husband were looking at me, confirming that I was the problem and waiting for me to get on board or figure something out. I don't remember any discussion of pornography in that session.0:12:57 Daniel: What were they then saying, or what... How do I ask this? You felt it like you were the problem. What were they identifying as the problem, specifically?0:13:11 Anarie: My lack of trust in him. So that actually... And that's something that my husband would say to me a lot. I would ask him about porn, so during this time, I would ask him about it, and he would tell me, "No, I'm not using it. I haven't for years." And he would say, "You need to trust me." So even though he knew that he was not trustworthy, but that was what he was using. It's something that needed to be resolved, is I needed to forgive and I needed to move on and I needed to trust.0:13:47 Daniel: It was manipulative. He knew he wasn't being trustworthy, yet asking for your trust.0:13:53 Anarie: Right. Yeah, yeah. And I was overriding a lot of my gut instinct. I can see now, looking back, that I didn't feel safe with him, and I didn't trust him, and I wasn't able to connect with him because he wasn't being truthful and he wasn't being safe. But I was so unwilling at that time to look at that reality, to believe that he could be lying to my face, that I was taking it all on myself and trying to fix it that way.0:14:23 Daniel: Unfortunately. An unfortunate event, not only the betrayal from your husband, but coming across the therapist who, is what we call triangulating, siding essentially with one person in the experience. But it sound like you got rid of that person pretty quickly, you only had one session.0:14:44 Anarie: Part of it was because he was male and I specifically wanted a female therapist. I felt like it would, I would feel safer. So the second therapist we went to was female, and we went to her for several months. And that was interesting. The only conversation about pornography that we had there was, I remember she asked him directly once if he had current use of pornography. He said, "No."0:15:10 Anarie: So then, all of the conversations about how I couldn't get over his past pornography use and how that was interfering and during that time, we were assigned to have sex a certain number of times a week or a month and report back. And when it was an assignment, it happened, so he was willing to engage with me when it was an assignment, when we were reporting back to the therapist. And I think I felt hopeful, so maybe we just needed to get jump started. So that when we were no longer going to that therapist, it again, that essentially disappeared.0:15:48 Daniel: Again, I wanna respect the fact that he's not here, but that sounds a little... For the sake of the listener, he wasn't, am I following you right, he wasn't willing to have more sex with you when you were asking for it but when it was an assignment from the therapist, he would meet that assignment? Is that what you're saying?0:16:07 Anarie: Yes, yes, yeah.0:16:08 Daniel: What do you think was the difference? Do you think he was wanting to meet a commitment with the therapist, or impress the therapist, or why the difference there? Why was he willing to comply as an assignment?0:16:22 Anarie: I think it may have been partly that; I also think there's a rejection factor, that because it was assigned by the therapist, it was clearly mutually greed, that he was on board and I was on board, so there was no risk of him initiating something sexually and having me feel unsafe or not want it, or be hesitant. Does that makes sense?0:16:44 Daniel: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it seems to make sense, especially in the context of what we're talking about here. And what about your hurt; what about your trauma in this experience? Was the therapist mindful of your experiences?0:17:00 Anarie: No, I don't think she had much knowledge of betrayal trauma at all and I didn't have much vocabulary for that either. I don't know that I even knew what betrayal trauma was as a category or how it might be impacting me. Once I learned about betrayal trauma, then my response to everything made so much sense, my response over the years.0:17:24 Daniel: And you said how long were you seeing this particular therapist?0:17:29 Anarie: I think it was about four months. And it was right after the birth of... I think it was when my oldest was about a year old, so four years after our marriage, and we had a one-year-old baby at home.0:17:42 Daniel: And this, I think you're saying seemed to provide some sort of hope, because you're having more frequent sex, things seemed to be improving, but emotionally they weren't.0:17:54 Anarie: Yes. And I would often say to my husband; I felt like I was begging, "Please give me another chance. Can we try again? Can we do this more often?" And he would say, "Yes."0:18:07 Daniel: Wait, wait, begging for what? Sex, or just stay married?0:18:10 Anarie: For us to have sex, for us to have sex more often.0:18:13 Daniel: Oh, okay.0:18:15 Anarie: I talked to... One other thing that was going on here is I did talk to my OB-GYN about vaginismus, and got some information about a program for that.0:18:27 Daniel: So you were, you're experiencing painful sex also?0:18:29 Anarie: Yes. And I think largely due to no foreplay and no arousal. So I don't know that... The vaginismus program wasn't super helpful for me, because I think...0:18:47 Daniel: The foreplay was absent.0:18:49 Anarie: Yeah, there was no arousal happening at all, so of course it was painful and not awesome for me.0:18:57 Daniel: But even with the painful sex, you were still craving... Maybe craving isn't the right word, desiring more frequent sex from him.0:19:06 Anarie: Yes. I think a lot because I had been taught to believe that it was my responsibility as a wife to meet my husband's sexual needs and to fulfill my husband sexually. And I had been, I'd heard from parents and from church leaders that men who are happy with their wives don't look at porn. Which is a incredibly harmful message, that I had internalized and was accepting as part of truth. So I think part of it too was I knew that pornography had been an issue for him, and so one of my ways of helping him with that was gonna be to have sex with him, and then it wasn't working.0:19:49 Daniel: That's powerful.0:19:50 Anarie: I don't know if that makes sense, but that's...0:19:52 Daniel: It actually... You read... Yeah, well, I was about to ask that question, about how much of this was a preventative measure? You felt it was your responsibility as the wife in this eternal marriage to protect and provide a source for his outlet, to prevent him from pornography?0:20:12 Anarie: Yes.0:20:13 Daniel: You're desiring more sex, but there was also a strong element there of, "Okay, if I'm desirable enough to him he won't venture into this icky place," right?0:20:24 Anarie: Yeah, I felt like it was part of my responsibility as a good wife to have a good sexual relationship. I also think, my parents had also told me that sex is a beautiful thing. And once you're married, it's a beautiful part of life. So I do feel like I had a lot of positive affirmation for sex as well.0:20:42 Daniel: But you're like, "Where's the beauty?" [chuckle]0:20:45 Anarie: Yes, yeah. But I felt like I wanted that. And I wanted to make it happen, and I wasn't just gonna settle for like, "Oh, I guess sex is stupid and painful, and so good riddance." I wasn't content to just write it off as, "Okay, well, I guess we won't do this."0:21:03 Daniel: There are quite a few spouses out there that are in similar positions as you and, I don't have any statistics at all, but at least with my anecdotal experience and things that I've read, it seems like a lot of wives will go to a place of... They will actually stop having sex. But you were trying to make this beautiful. You were trying to achieve this thing that your parents were saying is good.0:21:34 Anarie: Yes.0:21:34 Daniel: And so that was amazing. That's, you weren't giving up on this hope that it could be something wonderful. So when did things, so to speak, hit the fan? When did you... Did he finally come out and say, "You know what, it's not you, it's been the pornography." What happened there, how did that occur?0:21:55 Anarie: Okay, so it was when my... Let's see, my five-year-old was a year old. Yeah, so our second child was a year old, and by that point, I felt like I had read all the books and talked to my doctor. Essentially, I felt like I had done everything to fix myself and to educate myself. I kinda felt like I'd hit a limit on what I could do on my end. And so I...0:22:32 Daniel: This was what, about five, six years in your marriage?0:22:35 Anarie: So this was about four years ago. So yeah, so it's seven years...0:22:40 Daniel: Seven years into the marriage.0:22:41 Anarie: Seven years into our marriage.0:22:42 Daniel: Wow, so this is...0:22:42 Anarie: So, yeah...0:22:43 Daniel: Wow, okay, good.0:22:46 Anarie: So I got to the point where I basically told him, "I am done with our marriage. I'm not willing to live in a marriage like this. It's not okay with me." By then, also, I had seen a lot more, I'd gotten a lot smarter about pornography usage. So I think a lot of my denial, believing that he was not actually engaging, had been broken down, because I actually started believing a lot of the studies, a lot of the information that was saying that pornography is an ongoing problem, that you don't just turn it off, like he was claiming he'd done. So basically I said, "I've done everything I can. Either you start talking and you start doing something, or I'm out of this marriage. I'm done."0:23:42 Anarie: And I really was to the point where I was willing to get divorced over this. That I didn't want to live in a emotionally disconnected sexless marriage. We were great. We've always been great business partners, good at coordinating logistical things. So the other aspects of what I believe should be part of marriage were completely non-existent. So I believe it was at that point when he realized that I was dead serious that... So by continuing to lie and hide his addiction, he was going to lose the marriage that he decided to start disclosing.0:24:18 Daniel: And can I ask you a personal question here? Is...0:24:22 Anarie: Yeah.0:24:23 Daniel: Were you at any time in that seven years trying to find clues, or go through his internet history or browser, and see if... Were you checking it?0:24:37 Anarie: No.0:24:37 Daniel: Wow, I'm impressed.0:24:39 Anarie: No, I didn't, I didn't play detective like that.0:24:42 Daniel: No, and forgive me, I'm not suggesting you should have, or anybody else should have. I'm just curious to what extent you were... You had a gut feeling, things weren't adding up, and you wanted to believe him, but there was something just off and...0:24:58 Anarie: Well, I am sort of amazed that I... Looking back, there was evidence. I did actually see some things that I should have realized were linked to current pornography usage. But I didn't. One other thing here that I wanna mention is that, about when we were going to that female therapist, you know, a few years into our marriage.0:25:21 Daniel: Right.0:25:23 Anarie: One of the things that came up was that he had never gone and talked to the Bishop after that initial disclosure nine months into our marriage. So I expressed that maybe if he went and talked to the Bishop to resolve that old issue with pornography nine months into our marriage, then I would be able to relax about it and trust him. So he went to our Bishop. And, I was not there so I don't know exactly what was said, but basically he disclosed that he'd viewed pornography within the first year of our marriage, and that it had been really devastating to me. So he told the Bishop some story, and about three weeks later, he was called as elders quorum president in our ward. Which I took to be a sign from God that he was clear.0:26:15 Daniel: Oh.0:26:16 Anarie: That the pornography issue was resolved. So I think that that was also part of why I refused to acknowledge that it was still actively happening all the time.0:26:28 Daniel: So you gave him this... Gosh, it almost sounds like an ultimatum. You were saying, "I'm done here. You gotta bring it forward," seven years into the marriage, what was his response?0:26:42 Anarie: He started disclosing some things. It was a staggering disclosure. He started admitting that he had... At first he just said that he had masturbated. So he'd been actively masturbating. And, which was upsetting to me but also relieving, "Oh, so that's where your sexual... You are a sexual person. That's where your sexual energy is going." And he said it at first that it was like old... He was using old mental images from his prior pornography use and stuff. So over the course of two or three weeks, he started disclosing more that, "Okay, there had been pornography use, but not in the last year."0:27:29 Anarie: Now that I know more about addiction or sexual addiction and how these disclosures generally happen, it really did fit the framework a lot, that he would disclose a little bit and see how I reacted, and then disclose a little bit more, or based on how I responded or what his shame was. And it was about three weeks after he initially started disclosing that he went to our current bishop. It was his initiation. He went to our current bishop and talked to his parents. And then, I talked to my parents and got in touch with a Lifestar therapist. And we were able to pretty quickly get into a sexual addiction recovery program.0:28:13 Daniel: So, now that you hear what's going on, you're able to get the right resources in there, at least different resources. So what was your experience? Was that... I asked these questions... I know you mentioned at the beginning you're divorced now, what was that experience like for you? Was it helpful?0:28:30 Anarie: It was very helpful, yes. I think we both felt a lot of relief that we had a problem that was identified, and that we could seek treatment for. So, there was a clear path for us to get on now. Whereas before it was like, "Something's wrong in our marriage, what's wrong? What's wrong? How do we fix this?" At least what was going on on my end. And with the pornography sexual addiction model, that gave, "Oh, there's a clear problem, there's a name for it, there's a name for what I'm experiencing, there's a treatment plan, there are other people that are experiencing this." So I feel like it immediately brought a sense of release and hope and safety that we would be able to figure this out.0:29:23 Daniel: For those who aren't familiar with Lifestar out in Utah, I think they're actually in a couple of different other states now but, for those who aren't familiar with addiction treatment, behavior treatment, what was that like? So you're saying now they're actually focusing on the pornography, and they're providing a treatment plan. Help the audience understand what does that mean? What does that look like?0:29:49 Anarie: Okay. So, the first part of Lifestar is called, Phase One, and it's a six-week education phase that couples attend together. If they want to. Sometimes individuals come 'cause their spouse won't come. But generally it's attended by couples, it's six weeks and basically it's kind of... I said educational 'cause the therapist presents information, and we had workbooks to do learning about addiction, learning about shame, some basic family of origin things. A little bit about drama triangle, attachment principles, and, during those we would sometimes break into smaller groups and share some answers from our workbooks. But for the most part, it was not a group therapy kind of experience.0:30:41 Anarie: Then after that six week, Phase One, then Phase Two starts, and that's when each person goes to their group therapy. So it's divided based on gender. So I had my group, and he had his group, and that was a group therapy, a weekly group therapy session. And we had additional workbooks and assignments that we would each work through in our individual groups; and their groups were led by a therapist. The Lifestar program is administered by different therapists, so it's like a franchise type of thing. And, the program that we did it in, the therapist really believes in not setting strict time parameters.0:31:29 Anarie: So, we were actually... Compared to some others where it's like phase two is six months and then you moved to the next phase. It was much more based on readiness and reaching a certain emotional place. So, compared to some other Lifestar group, I was in Lifestar for a total of three years before I completed it.0:31:50 Daniel: Is that...0:31:51 Anarie: And a lot of people do the Lifestar program in 18 months.0:31:54 Daniel: Yeah, you answered my question.0:31:54 Anarie: So I just wanna throw that out there, that's my experience, it's a little different from other Lifestar experiences. After about a year of... Or maybe 10 months of Phase Two, I graduated to Phase Three. And the reason for the different phases is just because it keeps people in the group that are in a similar stage of recovery, 'cause early recovery and fresh raw trauma looks and feels and sounds different than a little further down the recovery road. So, moving from Phase Two to Phase Three, it was more about...0:32:34 Anarie: There was a little change in focus, much less like raw trauma. And so, that's why there it was divided by phase. And in Phase Three, there were different assignments. One significant thing that's done... And they've changed it a little bit now, but there's a formal disclosure that happens during Phase Two, if both parties are willing, and it's a therapeutic disclosure. So the couple meet with the therapist, and it's a organized disclosure where the addict discloses to their spouse all of their behavior, behaviors in the addiction, and the spouse prepares questions in advance to ask.0:33:20 Anarie: So it's a chance to clear the air, start fresh, to ask questions in a safe environment, with a therapist you can hopefully watch for signs of lying or... And for me it was kind of healing because there had been a lot of unhealthy disclosure, it was helpful to have that formal disclosure where I had support, I knew it was coming, I had a therapist, I had friends. So in a way, that was able to heal some of the more traumatic earlier disclosures. So anyway, that was also...[overlapping conversation]0:33:52 Daniel: What a wonderful resource. So during that three years, you're taking it your own pace, working through your own trauma. So this is wonderful, you finally it sounds like now that you have your own cohort, so to speak, or a group of people that you can trust. You're able to now work through your trauma, your hurt, while he's dealing with his struggles. Did you see during that three-year period the relationship improve, or what was the result of attending these different phases?0:34:29 Anarie: Okay, so I do wanna throw in real quick that we also did individual therapy, we each had individual therapy sessions in the same group.0:34:35 Daniel: There at Lifestar, or somewhere separate?0:34:38 Anarie: We did it with the same therapist. So the therapist that led our lifestyle group was also the therapist we went to for our individual sessions, through most of it.0:34:49 Daniel: Excellent. So they understood what you were doing. And that's great. The reason why I point that out is, I think that's actually wonderful. In fact, studies show that if you only do group treatment, you don't have as high success rate. If you combine individual and group treatment, the success rate goes up. And the fact that your therapist was familiar with the program allowed that, I guess synergy, or you don't have to re-explain everything why you're doing what you're doing, or anything like that.0:35:22 Anarie: It integrated really well in taking place.0:35:24 Daniel: Exactly.0:35:25 Anarie: It was really helpful. We did have some couple sessions often on during that time mostly after disclosure and we did the couple sessions as well with the same therapist. When I was in phase three so in the third year of recovery I did go to an outside therapist for a period of time and that was really, really helpful for me. And looking back, I would say that I wish that we would have done some couples therapy with another therapist as well. I think because all of our treatment was coming from the same therapist there was some more... There were just some issues that came up with that but I think there might have been more safety if we had had some other therapist as well.0:36:08 Daniel: Would you point that out if you feel comfortable in doing that. I think that's actually a really important fact that people don't realize. There's a couple of elements here, and I'll share with you my thoughts, and then tell me what it was for you. I personally I'm very comfortable in doing individual and couples with the same people, there are limitations and there are exceptions there and that's usually discovered in the intake processes, is what we call it, and if I feel like it will be a benefit to both the individual and as a couple.0:36:43 Daniel: But there are cases where it's even if I'm comfortable with it, it's not a wise move or it's not a good way to support the couple because of the dynamics or whatever it is there and so a lot of clients will sometimes seek that from a therapist and there comes the other issues if a therapist is confident to navigate and to be able to separate the individual versus the couple experience there and sometimes bringing them together and so the individual seeking that kind of treatment both the individual and couples therapy, need to be aware of that in the risks and the benefits from that. What was your personal experience with that?0:37:27 Anarie: So, I feel that there were some very real benefit, because that therapist was aware, very aware of where each of us was individually. I think that that aided him in a lot of our sessions to... I don't know, I think he was aware of things that we didn't have to talk about 'cause he already knew but I think the biggest reason that I would say I wish we would have gone to someone else with kind of a safety thing.0:38:00 Anarie: So there were times that I felt like our therapist was on my husband's side, and there were times when my husband felt like the therapist was on my side. Whether or not that was accurate, I do think that... And maybe that would have happened with any therapist, but that came up. My perspective from me right now, and my therapist has acknowledged this, is that there was some manipulation, my husband manipulated the therapist. And that was part of why, when I went to an outside therapist, that was really helpful and empowering for me, because that other therapist had not been manipulated by my husband. So, I don't know.0:38:51 Daniel: That's... Yeah.0:38:54 Anarie: Because the therapists that we shared was so in it for multiple years and so he started giving blind spots and there are some things that he didn't see at the time that happens with any therapist.0:39:09 Daniel: Yeah, I think this is a very valid point, one that's kinda hard to communicate in a brief interview like this. And there's a lot of caveats here, I understand very well what you're talking about. I've even had to be very careful with working with couples that I'd known for a long time, or have been... Or I'm following up with, and knowing when and how to ask the right questions. It's very difficult when you have built that relationship, and you're not necessarily looking for all the signs of manipulation. And I'm gonna be cautious here. I'm tempted to say a good therapist can see those signs, but that means we would have to be perfect too.0:39:51 Anarie: Right. Yeah.0:39:52 Daniel: It's a very difficult experience.0:39:54 Anarie: Yeah. Well, and I think my main message to any of the listeners would be, I know it's really scary to get in with an initial therapist. At least it was for me. For me it was really scary to get into therapy, to build a relationship with a therapist, to be vulnerable about these things. So it was really scary to go find another therapist, another person, especially because I'd had some bad experiences...0:40:18 Daniel: Exactly.0:40:18 Anarie: With therapists before. I had some therapist trauma. But if you're feeling like you want another therapist, you want another perspective, a good therapist is not gonna be threatened by you wanting to go talk to somebody else for a period of time.0:40:31 Daniel: Thank you for saying that. Absolutely.0:40:34 Anarie: And you can get the support that you need to go talk to another therapist, or to go as a couple and try talking to another therapist.0:40:43 Daniel: I think you've brought up...0:40:44 Anarie: That you don't have to be still fiercely loyal to one therapist.0:40:50 Daniel: Absolutely, and I think that's a good way to approach it. First of all, trust your gut. You've had, whether there was actual manipulation going on or not, whether the therapist was siding with you or not, your experience is real and valid in that moment. There's a lot going on there's trauma, there's hurt, there's confusion. Trust your gut. First of all, trust your gut. And it is scary trying to get, especially if you've had bad experiences like you did with therapists, pose that question, "Do you mind if I look for another therapist for this?"0:41:25 Daniel: And their response I think will be a great indicator of maybe their motivation, or whether or not you should go get another therapist. If they get kind of awkward or embarrassed, or question, "Why would you do that?" Or if they even kind of stonewall in a way, "Well, we have all this history. How are you gonna communicate that history, and how will they follow our treatment plan?" That's a good indicator that you probably should go look a good therapist, like you said, will be totally supportive. Absolutely, go for it. This is your experience, do what you feel is important.0:42:07 Anarie: And I think sometimes, going to another therapist, I know this is sort of a tangent, but it could be motivated by wanting to run away from your current therapist. Maybe they're wanting you to look at some things you don't want to. So that could also be a factor but.0:42:22 Daniel: That is true. That's why it's hard. I think it's important to, kind of a tangent, but kind of not. This is all part of that experience in realizing what's happening here, especially when you have a partner who's manipulating you. Especially if there's been manipulation in the relationship, that therapist should be joining with you and building that trust, right?0:42:43 Anarie: Yeah. Yeah.0:42:46 Daniel: Yes there is a potential that you're running away, but you know what, you get to. You're having this experience and you need to have somebody who can trust you in this experience. And I've had people come back and say, "You know what? I was running away, and I realized that." And I'm putting it into my own words, but eventually he came out and says, "Thank you for letting me do that. I wouldn't have learned this if you prevented me or discouraged me from doing that."0:43:19 Anarie: Yeah.0:43:19 Daniel: And so, you're absolutely right. People are gonna run away when they don't like hearing what they're hearing but part of the experience is supporting that person in that experience, 'cause that's really what you're asking your husband to do, is, "This is scary. You should have been upfront with me from the beginning, regardless of my response. It's scary, I get it, this is scary for me, too. I need you to be open with me just like I should be open with you." And so, great, great. I think that was an important tangent. If we wanna call it a tangent. So...0:43:51 Anarie: One other thing I wanna...0:43:52 Daniel: Go for it.0:43:52 Anarie: Real quick, another part of my recovery over the last four years has been a 12 step program. The one that I have found most supportive was at a Lifeline group. So I did go to some of the LDS church's ARP program, and did not find them to be as supportive as I did the 12 step groups that are done through S.A Lifeline. [0:44:23] ____.0:44:24 Daniel: Oh, no, I think that's important. And if you could boil it down to one or two things. Why was it not as supportive...0:44:32 Anarie: Okay, so I wanna say at first ARP was wonderful, right at first, I'm super grateful that there was a place to go immediately, and that there was a place within a gospel context and within a gospel framework. So I did attend ARP continuously for about six months, and I was grateful for it. It met a need at the time. The biggest thing that I felt was not supportive about ARP, was actually the way that it was structured, that it was, it is missionaries that lead the ARP group, and a lot of them are not sufficiently educated on the topic on what they're dealing with.0:45:10 Daniel: Yeah.0:45:10 Anarie: And a lot of them spent a lot of time sharing. The missionaries would spend time sharing and teaching and lecturing things that were not actually helpful, were inadvertently shaming, and created a lack of safety. Another thing that I saw happen in the ARP group, in recovery there's a real need to give permission for emotion, and for letting your experience be what it is, and for having that experience be validated. And within the context of ARP, often it felt like there were certain emotions that were okay to have, and there certain emotions that were not okay.0:45:53 Anarie: Or that... And boundaries are important in any group, but I felt like there was not adequate space in ARP for anger. I felt like there was a real jump to forgiveness and share positive things and share faith things, faith-promoting things. And there's a place for that, but when you're down on the ground in, especially the immediate aftermath of trauma, there's so much anger and there's so much hurt. And there's, it rocks you spiritually.0:46:25 Anarie: I've gone through times where I don't even believe in God. I feel like, I know my betrayal that I experienced, it ran deep, a lot of it impacted my relationship with God. So there were times when I felt like I couldn't believe in God the way that that group was wanting me to believe in God. So for me it kind of increased the shame.0:46:47 Daniel: That is so...0:46:48 Anarie: Some of my shame experience there. Compared to the S.A Lifeline, where it's more general language, you talk about a higher power. And there I felt so much permission in that group to be wherever I was at, without feeling like I needed to show only the nicer part, or to be immediately jumping to the right way of saying things. If that makes sense?0:47:10 Daniel: I really appreciate you sharing that, about ARP. I think it's a great resource that is offered. I also agree that it's not for everyone, and I will say it's not for most people. I'm gonna say that very carefully for the very reason you've just mentioned. Untrained volunteers who are doing their best but not aware of how a lack of safety is created by reverting to forgiveness versus allowing that anger to be present and understanding how that can be healing in a group of people with a common experience.0:47:55 Anarie: Yeah.0:47:56 Daniel: Thank you so much. I don't wanna come across as criticizing ARP, I think it's a resource, but I think it's just that, a resource.0:48:06 Anarie: Yes, and I was incredibly grateful that it was there for me at the time, and by going there and talking to some of the people in the group, that's how I learned about some of these other resources as well. And I think that the experience in an ARP group it can be heavily dependent on who the missionaries are, and who else is there in the group.0:48:27 Daniel: Absolutely. So let's come... Thank you, I think that was very important. Let's come back around to... You have so much good information, I love it, I absolutely love it, but I'm trying to remember if we actually answered the question. In that three years of going to Lifestar, and these other various treatments, did we see progress in the relationship? What was a result of that?0:48:51 Anarie: Okay, so in terms of our relationship, we did not really, we were not very successful at connecting emotionally, through the three years. At different times we did. And I'm not entirely sure why. I felt like I made lots of individual progress, lots of individual healing and growth. And relationships with family, I saw relationships with my family members and with my friends, radically transforming and changing.0:49:38 Anarie: Within my marriage though, and my relationship with my husband, I was not seeing and experiencing much fundamental change. We were not connecting sexually, we were not connecting emotionally, really, through that process. We were supportive of each other in our individual journeys, but sort of in the same old like logistical business partner-y kind of way that it had been before.0:50:15 Daniel: So you don't want... You don't want a eternal business relationship, you want an eternal marriage.0:50:22 Anarie: Right.0:50:22 Daniel: So...0:50:23 Anarie: And I was... He might say The reason we didn't have a sexual relationship was because of my boundaries, and I would say, "Well my boundaries were where they were because there was still no emotional safety." I wasn't feeling... I didn't have trust restored, in like, I believe his disclosure was honest. I think I do.0:50:54 Daniel: You mean the disclosure in Phase One, or Phase Two?0:50:57 Anarie: The formal disclosure.0:51:00 Daniel: Okay.0:51:00 Anarie: Yeah, and I appreciated him sharing that. And immediately after there was some connection. He supposedly was able to achieve sobriety really early in the program. So a lot of times during the process of Lifestar, there's opportunity to work on conversation about experiences of pornography and slips, and disclosing that and working through that. And because he was so immediately sober, we didn't have much of that. So, I don't know.0:51:34 Daniel: So Tell me a little bit more about that. I think that's important for the audience to hear, now quite a few episodes are available with my podcast. What is sobriety when we talk about sobriety? And it may sound like a stupid question, and you may be familiar with the way I've tried to define it, and explain what is pornography. So how did they measure that for the sake of the listener Sometimes the definition around pornography could be anything that could potentially lead to something more severe, for example, maybe looking at in a lingerie or Instagram or something like that. So how was... Did Lifestar create some sort of definition, or was this an agreed-upon sobriety? How did that get decided and navigated?0:52:25 Anarie: So, for us in Lifestar there, I think there was a certain expectation in the group of what sobriety is, which is not actively seeking out pornographic images or sexual stimulation, things that with... Because with the addiction model the addicts are turning to that as a way to medicate their feelings, and so it was a... They weren't sober if they actively went after something that would give them their sexual hits. So if they were searching for pornographic images, or...0:53:07 Daniel: Of any kind?0:53:08 Anarie: Of any kind. Or... I believe a lot of people in my husband's group, and I think in 12 steps as well, sort of had a 10-second fantasy rule, that if they engaged in fantasy for more than 10 seconds then that was considered a slip.0:53:31 Daniel: Okay.0:53:33 Anarie: Or they needed to share that with their stuff.0:53:36 Daniel: That's a pretty short, short window in reality.0:53:40 Anarie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.0:53:40 Daniel: But I actually like that concept because it's actually encouraging self-awareness. You're not penalized or you're not viewed, whether by your group yourself or whomever, as back to zero again because, oh, my goodness, my mind went into an automatic thought process, and now I have to... It seems impossible, but that self-awareness or that time allows you to become more, "Oh, my goodness, that's what's happening. Okay, I still have time to recover." And not have to count that as, "Oh, excellent, great." So he was basing sobriety, supposedly off of that.0:54:22 Anarie: Masturbation as well. No masturbation, no self-stimulation.0:54:26 Daniel: Got it.0:54:28 Anarie: But really, so much of it was about the lying. So no... And with my experience with my friends on the betrayal side of it, so much of it was about the lying and the hiding. So yes, it would hurt if there was a slip, but it in a way, it was almost healing to have those slips shared, 'cause then we were being let into that world, and we were a part of it.0:54:58 Daniel: So this is what's... What's really interesting to me, and not a criticism, 'cause I... Well, at least I like to think I understand the human behavior side of it, but now you've gotten at least, you're past phase one, into phase two, the disclosure has been made, you've had a ton of psychoeducation about what these patterns are like, and now creating this environment of trust where he can disclose to you. And you're actually finding healing from it. It feels, "Oh my goodness. You're open with me." Why would he hold that back? If you've made this success... Again, I know I'm asking you to kinda interpret from his experience.0:55:39 Anarie: Yeah, I'm not sure.0:55:41 Daniel: Okay.0:55:41 Anarie: I have wondered if shame... Just using the sexual addiction model, as like these behaviors are bad, coming from that background of these are bad and shameful, by disclosing, it's, I'm showing you again that I'm shameful.0:56:03 Daniel: For those who keep hearing the phrase, "sex addiction model", just to provide a little bit more clarity here, there are different theoretical approaches to treating sexual behavior. And one of them is what is being referred to here as this sex addiction model, which is places like Lifestar and other organizations, believe in treating this behavior. And you're bringing up an interesting point here, is even though the sex addiction model was very enlightening to you, it helped you as an individual. You made a comment about how it might have been reinforcing the shame. Is that what I heard?0:56:44 Anarie: Yeah. Yeah, I'm not sure if it was ideal scenario for him.0:56:51 Daniel: Can you say more about that?0:56:55 Anarie: Just because I feel like all through the recovery there was too much fear around it. Even if it was trying to be normalized, and other people struggle with this, I still feel like there was not an acknowledgement of how normal pornography use is. And I feel like there was still a lot of fear around it, and a lot of labeling of it as being bad and wrong, and...0:57:37 Daniel: So it...0:57:37 Anarie: It itself was still demonized a lot. Even if there was work done to navigate shame, like education about what role it's serving, and choosing more appropriate ways to meet some of those needs, it was still coming from this premise of, the pornography and the masturbation in and of itself is bad and wrong and... Yeah.0:58:11 Daniel: Yeah, well that makes sense. So, what I think I'm hearing here is, even though you've had this psycho-education, you're having this great support network, you're getting the resources you need for both of you and your relationship, there's a possibility that same treatment method was also reinforcing more fear. And so, even though he knew he could reveal to you, and that could be an opportunity for success and recovery, acknowledging that you slipped up again, you are now taking on all these...0:58:46 Anarie: Yeah, it still made him look like the bad guy.0:58:48 Daniel: Very much so. Again, not minimizing the seriousness of it, or giving him an excuse here, but the reality is, is when we demonize the use we then become and identify with that demon, so to speak. Right?0:59:05 Anarie: Yeah.0:59:05 Daniel: And so being able to acknowledge that even though you know you've done it, wow, that could really feed into, not only his fear, but your fear. What does it mean? You did this again. Who are you? Is that what I'm hearing?0:59:18 Anarie: Yeah, yeah. There in... I quite often heard it like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. There's the addict self and the true self. And I think there's some truth to that, and I also think it's problematic and was harmful, for both of us, to turn it into a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde type of scenario. Because I believe it's more integrated.0:59:45 Daniel: This is an experience that I hear so many have, where they finally get the... I thought it was beautiful the way you described it, is they provided resources and information that resonated with you perfectly, things made sense. And your personal journey, you felt like you were getting the right support, the right help, he was being held responsible in the right way to divulge his information and his struggles. While you have this great resource, you're also seeing how it was problematic. What is...1:00:22 Anarie: Yeah, look... Oh sorry, go ahead.1:00:24 Daniel: No, absolutely, go ahead.1:00:26 Anarie: I was just gonna say, looking back there, we're dealing with a sexual issue, pornography, his masturbation, sexual addiction, but there was not much information given in our program about healthy sexuality...1:00:42 Daniel: Bingo.1:00:42 Anarie: About normal sexual development. And I know normal's a relative term, but human sexual development, there was not much information about that. Even with disclosure, hearing about a lot of the forms of acting out that he used, I still, during my time in recovery, there was so much fear that there was never really any normalization of some of those kinds of behaviors. So I would hear that he'd done this type of pornography that, to me, was extra scary and extra bad. And there was never any space to put that in a less terrifying way.1:01:30 Daniel: I think that's huge, and I think that's a thing that's missed in all treatment. Well, not all treatment, but a majority of treatment. Even in those clinics that are, like Lifestar, who are phenomenal at what they do, we focus on what not to do, right? But we don't actually explore and understand from a expert point of view, of what healthy sexual behavior looks like. We have these assumptions, but those assumptions aren't necessarily true, or need further expanding on.1:02:06 Daniel: But I also, what you said there was, the type of pornography, and there's huge misunderstandings around this. Pop-psychology, a lot of the predominant resources out there teach this idea that it's escalative behavior, and that is... There's very, very little support for that, in that somebody who's looking up maybe bondage type of pornography, or something very serious, or is perceived as something more serious than another, then that creates this whole new treatment model or severity around the person. Or there's something more sickening about the person, which is, again, problematic and not supported in treatment or in science. But you started to notice that.1:02:54 Anarie: Yeah. I feel like I needed to have my experience validated, so I was coming at it from a place of a lot of fear.1:03:03 Daniel: Of course.1:03:03 Anarie: In fact, it was really scary for me to listen to his disclosure. I had never watched a rated R movie myself at that time, and so to learn about these sexual behaviors and these kinds of pornography, that was a really scary thing for me, to have to learn about those things. And it was helpful for me to have others validate how scary and how much fear there was in that. At the same time, I feel like there could have been... I could have been validated in my fearful approach to it, and a more balanced view could have also been presented a little bit sooner, so my narrative could have been validated and some reframes could have been offered more.1:03:51 Daniel: So what would you recommend to somebody who's in your position, situation rather, and they're struggling with a similar behavior, their spouse is hiding, and you're seeking treatment? How would you... I guess what I'm asking is, What would you do different?1:04:11 Anarie: Or what would I do the same? What would I...1:04:13 Daniel: Oh yeah, fair, fair.1:04:14 Anarie: Recommend for someone in that place?1:04:16 Daniel: Yes.1:04:17 Anarie: For me, getting support from others and moving out of isolation, is so so scary. So wherever you can start to get that support from. For me, looking back, I have felt some like, "Oh, maybe we should have gone to a different program. Maybe if we would have found a better therapist." Or, "I should have not gone to ARP first, I should have... " It's really easy to get into some of that. But any support, any... Reach out to the people around you, look for the best resources that applaud any steps out of isolation, any effort to express your experience and get support. And permission to experience what you're experiencing, to feel what you're feeling.1:05:09 Anarie: However you're coming at it from, whatever you feel about it, those things are valid, and there's a place for it, and you don't need to feel ashamed for the way that you're experiencing it. So you... I heard a lot of messages about how betrayed spouses need to respond right to disclosure. So, if you freak out, they're not gonna share with you in the future. But... And there's truth to that. At the same time, when you're in fresh trauma it makes sense that you freak out and that you can't hold space for yourself the way that you might be able to further down the road. So, I guess just permission to be where you're at when you're there.1:05:57 Daniel: I really appreciate that insight right there. I will often... If we discover that disclosure has to be made, I can't tell you how valuable it is to, depending on which partner it is, in this case let's say the husband, pulling them aside, meeting with them individually and coaching them through this. "Look, it's gonna be rough. You don't try to manage your wife's feelings and emotions at all. Let her experience it. This is about revealing, building trust, and she gets to have her emotions just like you do. In this experience, allow her to be. In fact, encourage it." But that's, I think... Oh, that's a big one. Thank you for bringing that up.1:06:47 Anarie: And that is something I felt Lifestar did a really good job, of giving space for the betrayed partner to have their experience, for their trauma to be validated. And to expect that the addicted spouse needed to find support elsewhere, and that the betrayed person can't... You want to come together as a couple to address the issue together, but for a time maybe you can't do that. You need outside support, outside people. So...1:07:23 Daniel: Absolutely, so you now are divorced. It's been how long since the separation?1:07:27 Anarie: Four months since it was finalized, a year since we separated.1:07:29 Daniel: Four months. Alright. And do you feel like you're in a better place now?1:07:34 Anarie: I do, yeah.1:07:37 Daniel: Well, Anarie...1:07:39 Anarie: And I'm hopeful that he is as well, and that he will be.1:07:46 Daniel: Well, it sounds like you're making some important decisions to move forward, and that healing is occurring. And I can't tell you how much I personally appreciate you coming on here and sharing your information with everyone else. I can't tell you...1:08:00 Anarie: Well, I hope that it can be helpful. There was so much... Shame thrives in believing that you're the only one. And for so long I believed that I was the only one, or one of only a few. And particularly the sexless nature of my marriage didn't match a lot of what I heard about other...1:08:21 Daniel: No.1:08:22 Anarie: Addicted people. And I think that was part of what was so distressing too, it seemed to not fit. And since recovery I've found, no there are others who are experiencing this dynamic of being married to someone who's acting out sexually while having a sexless marriage and sexless relationship. And so, for a long time I was even nervous to tell other people in my recovery circle about what kind of sexless marriage I'd had because often I was in a minority. So, for that reason I wanna share my story because I know now that I'm not the only person experiencing that kind of dynamic.1:09:03 Daniel: It's so much more common then people realize.1:09:04 Anarie: And when you... When you feel like it's just you, when you feel shame for your shameful experience, it's just so much more painful. So I know now that I'm not the only one experiencing that, so I wanna share that so that others can know as well, that this is part of the experience too.1:09:24 Daniel: I could assure you, the people listening right now are comforted by that comment. You did mention one other thing, before we go. I can't remember if we were personally talking about it offline or if it was at the beginning. You said one of the concerns, or... And maybe you have addressed it in a round about way. But one of the concerns you had about this treatment process, just the whole process I guess, was, yes, you got solutions, you got treatment plans for the porn and sexual behaviors, but some of the underlining issues weren't addressed.1:10:02 Anarie: Yes.1:10:02 Daniel: Do you mind talking about that for a second?1:10:04 Anarie: Yeah. So, in terms of our relationship and what was actually going on in our relationship, I feel like the pornography was a symptom of other things that were going on. So in spending a couple of years honing in specifically on pornography, and the pornography use, and regulating and learning about that, it took a couple of years before we started actually looking at more of our relationship dynamics, that were actually more of our problem. And it's linked, so it's not like... Okay.1:10:50 Anarie: But in a way I feel like the focus on the pornography use was able to feed... We almost... It started to become a part of some of our underlying issues. We almost used it in old unhealthy ways. So, in terms of what the underlying issue was, there was some control and power manipulation, lying, unhealthy shame management, enmeshment, differentiation issues, sexual shame, repressed sexuality. Some of those things... We spent so much time on the regulating sobriety and porn behaviors that by the time we started actually getting to the real meat of stuff, it took a couple of years.1:11:48 Daniel: Which is absolutely a case I see quite frequently here. We may resolve the pornography, the addictive behaviors, but when that's gone what happens is exactly what you described. You're going to this, you're healing, but where's the connection? The absence of porn and undesired sexual behaviors does not create connection.1:12:16 Anarie: Yes, yes, yes. [chuckle]1:12:18 Daniel: Right?1:12:19 Anarie: Yeah. Yep.1:12:19 Daniel: And so, this is an element that is always... Again, I'm using always. Not always the case. Is too often overlooked, because we do, we make the symptom, which is the pornography, the problem. And we think if we get rid of the problem, which is actually just the symptom... There's clearly something else going on here with the constant manipulation. And unfortunately, the way... The addiction model, or pop psychology, whatever we wanna refer to it or blame it on, tells us that manipulation is a result from the escalating behavior. Well, we're finding that it's actually an underlying issue that's unresolved and not treated. And then the pornography, in a sense, becomes yet another form of manipulation to cover that real problem. It's this benign tumor that just is hidden somewhere we can't find it. Right?1:13:17 Anarie: Yes. And pornography addiction recovery can, in a sense, end up being used as a tool of manipulation.1:13:25 Daniel: Yes.1:13:25 Anarie: And, there was something I was gonna say. I can't remember.1:13:33 Daniel: Now, if it comes back to you feel free to jump in.1:13:36 Anarie: Sorry. [chuckle]1:13:36 Daniel: But I think that you hit... I think one of the biggest takeaways from this is not to neglect the... We focus too often on getting rid of something. I phrase it... You went to treatment at the beginning, no one talked about pornography, and then you went to Lifestar where pornography was finally talked about, but yet connection wasn't addressed. If there was some way that we can address both the undesired behavior and the desired behavior... And in my practice, I always say, "Let's focus on the desired outcome. What is the desired outcome? Okay, you're using pornography right now, the desired outcome isn't just to stop that.1:14:20 Daniel: The desired outcome is, "I wanna feel closer to you, I wanna feel connection. Okay, even if you saw some pornography today, I still wanna come home and have a meaningful discussion with you, I wanna have meaningful sex, I wanna feel close to you. If that means getting rid of the pornography, great. If it means we need to understand how to communicate better, let's do that too." And it sounds like that was an element that was missed, at least in your experience.1:14:52 Anarie: Yeah, and it was talked about, and I... Connection, the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, it's connection. That's a phrase that I heard a lot in recovery. So there was a lot of talk about connection.1:15:06 Daniel: Yeah, but we're discovering, it sounds like you did too... And forgive me, I'm not trying to put words in your mouth at all. Is the absence of the addiction doesn't re-result in connection.1:15:18 Anarie: Yes, yeah, yeah.1:15:19 Daniel: So we talk about it a lot, but we don't actually, I think, create a treatment plan around that and try to improve it.1:15:27 Anarie: Yeah. And I do wanna say that I am grateful that pornography... Because pornography was labelled as an issue, as a problematic thing, it gave a doorway into some therapy and some information that was incredibly helpful. So I am grateful that there was this issue and there are these programs that help, that were able to catch me and help me get directed into some real therapeutic help.1:16:00 Daniel: Absolutely. Well, you've given us so, so much to think about here. And I know it may sound redundant, but I'm gonna ask again, any final thoughts or things you wanna leave us with?1:16:13 Anarie: I do wanna share just some of the things beyond betrayal trauma that I needed to learn, and that were an important part of my recovery, and my process of learning how to be a healthy individual in a healthier relationship. Because there were definitely
This Story, by Daniel Is short and sweet and can be a lesson for us all. Enjoy and visit Dan's blog at www.periloustales.net ***** Contact us by email: 3TRPGPod@gmail.com Support the show: https://patreon.com/3TRPGPodcast Follows us on social media: Facebook: https://facebook.com/3TRPGPodcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/3TRPGPodcast MeWe: www.mewe.com/i/3TRPGPodcast Also available on: PodBean: https://ThreeTRPG.podbean.com/ SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/3TRPGPodcast iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/3t-rpg-podcast/id1151909364?mt=2 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3xq2p7OigadzFk6fgzEjA4 We have music on BandCamp: https://3TRPGPod.bandcamp.com/
It's Friday! That means a Q&A show for you. Today, I answer all of these questions. Here are the questions and the time stamp for where each can be found in the episode. Enjoy! Joshua 10:00 - Brandon: How do I convey our financial information to my executor if my wife and I die? Should I have my testamantery trust managed by a professional trustee? 29:43 - Kyle: How do I save money on taxes as a young, single physician resident? 54:01 - Daniel: Is it ok for a young person to have a 100% stock allocation? 1:02:44 - Greg: I have $2.5M, can I afford to retire? 1:10:44 - John: How do I find a good team of advisors? 1:28:00 - Tom: Could I take a loss on a house I transfer into an ESA and then get the gain out tax-free? Links: Last Pass Password Gorilla Save Taxes By Moving Step Transaction Doctrine Substance Over Form Garrett Planning Network XY Planning Network
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