Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - Sovereign Love with Dene Logan

Episode Date: June 19, 2024

What does it take to achieve true harmony in our relationships? Regardless of your gender or sexual identity or role in your relationships, understanding the balance of masculine and feminine energies is crucial for intimacy, connection and personal power in love. In this Language of Love conversation, I have a heart-to-heart with therapist and author, Dene Logan. Dene’s new book, “Sovereign Love,” delves into finding the perfect mix of masculine and feminine energies in our relationships. We discuss the challenges of navigating societal expectations, especially for moms juggling responsibilities and managing dynamics within their relationships. We explore the question of how we can lean on each other in love without losing ourselves and how we can work as a team with our partners to heal what isn’t working in love. It's all about getting to know yourself, embracing what makes us different, being real with each other, and keeping that spark alive while staying true to yourself. We unpack: Reclaiming healthy masculine and feminine energies in love and partnership Balancing masculine and feminine energies in work and home life Societal norms and their impact on relationships Challenges faced by couples, particularly in the context of motherhood Embracing interdependence in relationships The vulnerability and authenticity that lies within communication Check out Dene's book, "Sovereign Love: A Guide to Healing Relationships by Reclaiming the Masculine and Feminine Within," for more insights, and tune into her podcast, “Cheaper Than Therapy” too! As always, visit my website to explore my available courses to improve your relationship. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, I'm sex, love and relationship therapist, Dr. Laura Berman. And for the past 30 years, I've been helping people just like you learn to love and be loved better. Here on the Language of Love Conversations, I'm talking to some of the world's most influential and revolutionary experts, thought leaders, spiritual teachers and celebrities about love, sex and relationships from a mind, body and spirit perspective. and that way my goal is to awaken your mind body and soul it's time to become fluent in the language of life. Danae Logan is an LA-based marriage and family therapist with an orientation in depth psychology or many call that the psychology of the soul. She has a new book out called Sovereign love. And the fundamental question she's posing is what would a sense of authentic fulfillment and joy in a modern day relationship look like if we weren't so afraid of being alone,

or if we weren't so bound by societal pressure and morals and vows we'd taken? And if we were fully embodying the full expression of our masculine and or feminine energy. That's what we're diving into in this episode of The Language of Love. Danae, Logan, I'm so excited to have you on The Language of Love. Thank you so much for being here. Oh, I could not be more honored to be here. Thank you so much for the invite. Of course, I've followed you for a long time. I love your content, but I was really excited to read your newest book. I guess this is your first book, right? First book. Yeah. It was a big, big milestone. Every book is a milestone, but the first one especially is a huge one. So it's called Sovereign Love, A Guide to Healing Relationships

by Reclaiming the Masculine and Feminine Within. And I was telling you this before we started recording. I try to make it a point. I do make it a point to read. Like I canceled the interview if I haven't had time to read the book because I feel like it's really important and I get pissed when I do interviews about a book and people haven't read it, but I don't always like the book. I mean, I like every book, but I don't always like really think this is a great book and this is a great book. I've already recommended it to three of my girlfriends.

There is a testimony right there. Wow. That means everything. Thank you. Thank you so much. I mean, I'm so excited to dive into this with you and there's so many directions I want to go, but just let's start at kind of at the end of where we want to arrive. What is sovereign love as you define it? When I think of what sovereign means or the word sovereignty, I really think of

a state that is in and of itself or sort of defining itself for itself. And I think that we are moving into a time relationally where after really centuries of an external authority defining what is quote normal and what should lead to relational fulfillment for a plethora of different reasons. We're really moving into the space of not only questioning that, but deciding that from the space of an inner authority, we get to define what is true for ourselves. And so to me, loving from a sovereign place is really loving with a sense of self and an awareness of who I am, but then that we are co-creating a relationship dynamic together that is true for us and on a soul level, but we both believe, or however many people I

guess are involved in the relationship dynamic believe, is what we came here to do and explore for as long as it is true and authentic to who we are. Yeah. And so it's really in part about releasing ourselves from the societal pressures, the moral pressures, the quote unquote vows we're supposed to honor. And it's interesting because you write about this in the book as a couples therapist. So am I. You do sex therapy and couples therapy. So do I. And I like you and not many of us are like this, but I don't necessarily am intent upon keeping my couples together come hell or high water, no matter what, like there are, and I want to get into that at some point in our conversation, like that sometimes relationships have run their course. And so

when we are no longer bound by all those rules, and this to me is like what you're talking about, we're no longer bound by all the shoulds or societal expectations or gender expectations or who we are or how we were taught our value is to be found. What does love look like? And I think that's a beautiful piece of what you get into in this book. And also this idea of how to kind of begin to set yourself free from all the stories we've attached to that we've just accepted as truth, but aren't necessarily the truth for us. Yeah. And we've never really questioned the origin point of some of these truths and the ways that a lot of times these truths were configured with a certain agenda in mind, a lot of times not really in service of the thriving and the

becoming of women. And certainly, I mean, there's a whole additional aspect of the conversation around how patriarchal paradigms have been deeply damaging to men as well. But I think that's, to me, the part of the relationship structures that hasn't really been questioned or that I wasn't taught to question when I was, you know, going through school learning to be a therapist. Yeah, I wasn't either. I, like you, kind of really stepped out of my, I was like down with the patriarchy in my twenties. And before, you know, I think I was a feminist from the time I was born. My mother used to whisper because my mother was not. And she used to put me to bed every night and say, promise you're going to be president. I let her down on that one. Promise you're never

going to depend on a man, you know, all just like constantly infusing that in me. And he wasn't empowered, but wanted me to be. But, you know, like many of us, it went the opposite direction where I kind of down with the man until I became a mother of sons. And I was like, wait a minute. And I noticed that you write about that too. We could go on a whole journey down that path, But let's put a pin in that for now, because I want to get into this idea, which is one of the cornerstones or even the foundation I feel of the book is this idea of the masculine and feminine. So talk a little bit to us about what healthy masculine energy, healthy feminine energy is versus the reverse, the wounded masculine and feminine, and also this understanding,

and you can speak to this, that obviously when we talk about feminine and masculine, we aren't talking about gender. Yes, absolutely. At a school that really sort of focuses on Jungian psychology, it's depth psychology is the way that it's described. And I'm saying depth, everyone always thinks I'm saying death psychology, but it's depth, which is sort of like the deep waters of like the collective unconscious, right? And Carl Jung was one of the first people to really speak to the fact that all of us have both masculine and feminine energetics within us. There's so many different ways to speak about these polarities and these energetics. We can say yin, yang, sun, moon, dominant, submissive, all of these different ways. But when I started

really working with couples, and I think when I studied in grad school, I wasn't that curious about masculine and feminine energetics for whatever reason. Like it didn't really, I don't know, evoke a lot within me. But then as I was working with couples, I started to notice there's a lot about energetics that's sort of playing beneath the surface that I just started to like be curious about for whatever reason. I mean, I think it's like divine, like pushing you in a certain direction, but I noticed that there's a lot about the paradigm that we've been living in in this society that's really a wounded masculine paradigm. And what I mean when I say that is that it's just really sort of productivity at all costs, competition. We focus on how things look

from the outside versus how they really feel on the inside, really sort of disconnected from ourselves a lot of times, like workaholism, especially in Western cultures, like really revered as our values, right? And then we're also a society that tends to hold a lot of contempt for the feminine aspects of who we are. And so things like what we think of as feminine qualities are sort of like neediness, attempting to like hold on to people long after things have sort of like run their course, like all of these like energetics that aren't necessarily empowering things like throw like a girl, you act like a girl, like those aren't things that we really revere societally. So when I thought back on Jung's work and the way that he talked about

masculine and feminine energetics, he sort of described them as the anima and the animus. And the anima is sort of the feminine qualities within a man. The animus is the masculine qualities within a woman. And since we've sort of come to understand those energetics are actually a lot more nuanced. They're not so binary in the way that we talk about them, but we've really been sort of dancing between these wounded energetics in terms of our polarity societally. Now, when we think about what is healthy masculine energy, I don't think we have a ton of models of what healthy masculine energy looks like societally. And so that's like really a grounded sense of self, faces our existential fears, creates a sense of safety within confidence. Healthy feminine

energy is really trust in life and a connection to deeper meaning and source, allowing ourselves to play and have fun and not, you know, feel like we have to judge ourselves so harshly, all of these, like these energetics that I don't feel like we have a ton of models in modern day society of what those look like. So I just started to be curious about like, what does it look like to attempt to cultivate those energetics more if that's the goal? Yeah. And I think that is the goal for sure. I know you write to this as well. And I agree with you that, you know, because our societal norms heretofore in this Western society, at least, has been built and determined by men in power, you know, from for hundreds of years that are since even more than that, probably. But

the values and let's just talk about American values or even just Western values of, as you were saying, this idea of like, what is the most logical? What makes sense? What's going to have us fit in, the external, those kinds of clinging to that sense of security above all else, fear around security, need to keeping up with the appearances and the Joneses, those all feel to me, and from what I was reading, you agree, are sort of coming, it's kind of a society built, a society's values built around the wounded masculine, right? Where the healthy masculine is directive and containing. I always try to explain to people that like the way I see the masculine and feminine and it's healthy form is that if you think of a river, the masculine is

the river banks. Yeah. That's kind of containing and somewhat directing, but not controlling the experience that the river is having of itself. But the river is flowing and rocky and rapid sometimes and smooth sailing other times, but it's being contained and directed and led to a certain extent by the riverbanks. I was wondering if you could get into this idea. Well, first of all, I thought it was so interesting and so true. I'd never thought about it this way because I felt so feminine in my miraculous femininity when I had children, when I birthed them. But I think you're absolutely right in what you speak to in the book around motherhood and how it really is the embodiment of the masculine. So wondering if you can speak to that a little bit.

Yeah, it's confusing in a lot of ways, because to your point, an ideal societal situation, motherhood would be an opportunity for us to really be in the embodiment of our feminine. But again, in the way that Western cultures have structured the way that we do this nuclear family system, most of the time as new mothers, we're sort of in survival mode by ourselves in this container with this child who needs us to contain them, to keep them alive, to be in this mama bear energy of like, out of my way, I'm going to handle this, doing it by ourselves. And so there are cultures where when a woman has a baby, she has a significant amount of time to just relax and recover and be supported in community, learning from other mamas how to do this thing, transitioning

from maiden to mother. And I'm the most introverted person in the world. And I remember when I had my kiddo, I was so hungry for the experience of being around other women in a way that I'd never felt before. And yet I felt so completely, first of all, disembodied, but also just really struggling to be in this new role and with my husband in a way that just like, it felt really destabilizing. And what I realized it's so out of alignment with how we're meant to do early motherhood. And we're so in our masculine, we're so in this, like, I just got to contain this. I just got to be in a leadership role, like out of my way. And so often with couples, what I see is like in those first two years of parenthood, it's like the battle of the alphas. Like the man

is like, I don't know what you want from me. No matter what I do, you're just irritated. She's overwhelmed and just like flooded with how hard this is, but you know, nothing that her partner can do is right. And so it's just a lot of like understanding that we're like really in a masculine space because of the way society has set up our, our way of doing parenting. It just doesn't really serve us being in that healthy feminine energy. We're supposed to be in a tribe where the other mamas are coming and taking our baby for hours every day while we can sleep and helping us and letting us kind of be in the flow and slowly adjust. The majority of us do not have that for sure. Certainly not in this country. And I love

how you take a really deep dive in the book. And this is why the three friends that I gave it to, You know, for many, many years now, I've talked about this alpha syndrome, I call it. And I think it starts with once you have kids can also come from just like a skewed sense of power. Like I always talk about the difference between power and control, right? So in our inability to access or lack of awareness, which is why I'm so excited about your book about how to access our true feminine power as women and our true masculine power as women that we create this skewed sense. And I did this too in the beginning. And this is what my mother

taught me. Don't let anyone control you. So what that meant to me is I will control everything, you know, including my man. And I will find a man who lets me control him to a certain extent because then I will be safe. This is my sick, unconscious belief I'm sharing here. Not sick, but dysfunctional, unkind, didn't serve me. Let's just say that gently. My story was that the only way I could stay safe in love was if I controlled everything and he needed me so much for his day to day life. A, that would make me feel safe because I could have everything exactly the way I wanted it. B, I would get high fives from all my other feminists. You know, you got him wrapped around your finger. He'll do you know, there's almost like this badge of honor among some a lot

of women who are in this mindset, right? And C, there's no way he's going to leave me if he needs me this much. Like these were my unconscious beliefs at the time that I didn't unpack until much later. And that created so much resentment in me and in him. It was such a skewed perspective. And of course, he was like already a philanderer when I married him and he cheated all through a marriage and had a second. I mean, it was so messy and so not safe and so dysfunctional. And it took me years to unpack that. But what I would see time and time again in relationships is what is alpha woman syndrome, where she controls everything, his wardrobe, where they go on vacation, even like how the dishwasher needs to be loaded and was kind of emasculating

him, castrating him accidentally. He was participating in it. And I want to get into that in a second. But then these resentments would build, especially once they had kids and would say, I just want you to step up. That was the word. Right. And then but she's criticizing everything he does and controlling everything he does. And he's loading the dishwasher and she's huffing in after him and reloading it the way she likes it. And nothing he did was good enough. And then he starts to see her as this critical mom and she starts to see him as an errant boy and they both start losing it with each other. And so you speak to this in a much more eloquent and less judgmental way. No, it's so real. And I think there's a way that as

grateful as we all are for the modern feminist movement, what a lot of us were raised to believe as you spoke to by our mothers was literally don't ever trust a man. Don't ever put yourself in a position where you need a man. And I would say actually some of that goes back way further to the dawn of patriarchy when in order to create some of these structures, what was done as I looked back and like did a little bit of digging was really things to create a sense of dependence with women on men, but it was around like harming women in ways like the masculine collective not protecting the feminine. And what that looked like was burning women alive that were called witches or had certain feminine gifts that felt threatening to the structures we were attempting

to build. And in that, there was the messaging, fall in line with these nuclear family structures. And if you don't, you will be harmed. But that's sort of like a multi-generational pain point that's been passed down from our mothers and grandmothers, et cetera. And there's this thing of like, we are conditioned not to trust men, but still you need to be with a man in order. You need a man to complete you. We got to get into it. You shouldn't trust him and you shouldn't be at the effect of him. And you should at least secretly, if not overtly control him so that he doesn't control you. And ultimately what that ends up equating to is you don't respect him. And I started to see this consistent theme with certainly my friends, the clients I was working

with of like, oh, we don't respect these men. And I think when we think about like what the core desire of a core masculine man is, it is to be trusted. It is to be respected. The core desire of a core feminine woman is to be seen and to really, you know, feel like she is revered, seen, valued, right? So like there's all these distortions that we've been passing down generationally that are literally making it impossible for us to meet one another and have fulfillment. Yeah. And you talk about this idea, which is, I absolutely agree with of like what we want in the feminine from the masculine to relax into our feminine and our intuition and our abandon and our sensuality and our intimacy and our yumminess is to not only feel contained and

held, but also to feel like he can protect us. That doesn't mean he has to be 300 pounds of muscles and can beat anyone up, but that he is invested in protecting our hearts as much as our bodies, but not control us. And there's a big difference between like, I am your river banks and I am the dam or the one that like controls the flow of the river. There's a big difference that I think gets lost in a lot of relationships and is really important because we do want that leadership, not that we can't lead, we can, but to really soften and surrender sensually and sexually and erotically and emotionally. I feel, and you tell me how you feel, that for the feminine, regardless of your gender, just because I know you get into a lot in the book, this idea of

being core masculine or core feminine. So you guys can take the quiz she has and get it. It doesn't matter what your gender is or your gender identity. But if you are someone who lives and who is at their core feminine, you want someone who has it together and wants to lead, but not control. And what I have found actually cultivates that sense of trust in a core masculine's leadership is really more than anything else. He has a sense of self. And what I think is really interesting about the relationship modalities or orientations up to this point, and you tell me if you've noticed this because I think it's fascinating, is they're so attachment-based, which is a little bit what you've been describing of like, I chose a man that I thought that I could control. So I

would know that the attachment would maintain intact because that's what we're taught to believe across the board is the most important thing. We're scared of being left. We're scared of being alone and we've been taught we're not of value if we're not with a man. Yes, absolutely. But what I also noticed was that a lot of that is constructed by these masculine paradigms telling women how to be in relationships in ways that will be fulfilling. With the exception of a couple women, maybe you, my mentor, Sarah Burrell, and a woman named Ellen Bader that all talk about aliveness, eros, life force, sensuality, these elements that are also so necessary in relationships. Now, do you think it's a coincidence that women are talking about these things in relationships? I do not. But I think that those elements are the elements of the feminine, which are not the things

that we're conditioned to believe are vital in a relationship. But I think if we suppress any aspect of who we are, if we put the attachment, the safety, the like a person I can control that wounded masculine paradigm ahead of everything else, it's a distortion. And eventually those things will come to the surface. Someone will need some aliveness. Someone will have an affair. It plays out all the time over and over in relationships because we're not taught these things matter and are necessary, you know? And we're not taught to even value them. And we're taught, F you, Jerry Maguire. I can hate that

line. But we're taught, you know, you need to eat me. Right. No, you have to be your own delicious cake, each of you. And then each of you is the gorgeous icing and sprinkles on top. Hey, it's Dr. Laura Berman. I've been a sex, love and relationship therapist for over 30 years. And the main question I always get asked is how the heck do we spice it up in a long-term monogamous relationship? Well, if you want to take your love life, your sex life to the next level, whether you're in a relationship or not, check out my free course on quantum sex. It's going to teach you how to take your sexual response to the next level capable of full body orgasms, how to use sex magic to manifest your dreams, and how to connect on an even deeper level

sexually with your partner. Just go to drlauraberman.com and you'll find it right there on the homepage, the Quantum Sex Free course. Check it out and let me know what you think. but let's get into, cause I loved, you have all these cool charts about what's healthy, masculine, what's unhealthy, masculine, you know, and I think it's beautiful because people can really recognize themselves in these what's healthy, feminine was unhealthy or feminine, but also how, when you're moving in terms of navigating and moving in relationship and how your partner shows up. So two things I want you to dive into one is we've touched on this a little bit, but let's just kind of spell out the typical trajectory of how someone who's in their core

feminine, let's just for the sake of example, go heteronormative and talk about a woman who's in her core feminine and a man and what happens when he checks all the boxes, so to speak, but what leads her to lose that respect? Because this is what I see happening again and again and again. I'm not going to spell it out for you because you can spell it out more beautifully than I can. I want you to talk about that. And also this idea of how, when your partner shows up in that wounded masculine energy, you show up in a place of healthy feminine energy. And when they show up in wounded feminine energy, how that changes, it creates a major shift. Well, what I see happens so often in relationships is a lot of times when we're discovering each

other and we're first starting off, we are a little bit more in our poor energetic that feels really good in terms of cultivating polarity. So if I'm a woman dating a man, who's a core masculine man, I will be very like in my feminine radiance and like, sort of like going with the flow and playing and like open to like whatever he's down for. Cause I'm like there and I'm trusting him. I'm like, I'm like seeing him. Right. And like, it feels good. And he is sort of in that chivalrous space a lot of times of planning a date, walking maybe outside on the curb, all of these lovely things that we do when we're courting someone that feel really containing and I'm seen and there's that charge of life force between us. Now, what society has conditioned us

to do is once you come together and you sort of seal the deal, you get to relax into the space of this person is mine now. So I don't have to do all of those things anymore. And one of the things that comes up so often with couples is like the minute we signed the marriage vows or we moved in together, he stopped planning dates, right? He stopped seeing me. He was like, what do you want to eat? I don't care. Whatever. Like all of those things. And the woman's like, what? Like all of a sudden I don't feel like a woman anymore. I don't feel radiant. I don't feel all of those things. And it's both of us doing it. It's a two-way street, but there's a way that we sort of fall in love with this person. And this is the biggest thing for polarity that I

noticed with couples is like, we fall in love with someone because of the way that they are. Meaning if I'm a core feminine woman, a man might fall in love with me because I'm playful and I go with the flow. I'm not like in a really linear structure, but then he will spend the rest of his life making me wrong for that. Like you're so irresponsible. You don't have a, like a plan for our retirement. All of these things that when he first met me, he fell in love with, right. But then vice versa women will sort of like constantly be like in the space of like he's just like in this fixed state and he's never growing and he's not evolving he wants to do the same things and he doesn't like communicate the way that I do like all of these things that are like the feminine

qualities that he's not embodying that I'm making him wrong for right and so a couple things I think it's one really important to understand that you chose this person because they are different from you. And if we sort of celebrate the elements of our polarity versus making the other person wrong for them. And this isn't even just in romantic relationships. I do this a lot in my friendships, you know, like one, like my best girlfriend is like a really sort of more linear in her masculine a lot. And I'm more in my feminine, but I try to really celebrate our difference. Right. And that like, she does those things and sees the world in a way that keeps her feeling safe. And like, I've got this controlled because I'm putting in a box. If I make her wrong

for it. Cause it's different than the way I experienced the world. Then we'll just constantly be in conflict, but there's harmony when I'm like, no, she's sort of the end to my young, it's beautiful. We're sort of like, we balance each other out. And so there's that thing. But then the other thing that I really work with couples on, and I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this is just like really holding as like the paradigm shift that like, you don't own your partner ever. Like if every single day for the rest of our life forever and ever, amen, I treated this person as if they could not be here tomorrow, how might I show up a little bit differently? I just think it sort of invites an element of the sacred into our relationships that we really

lose track of once we've been together and it's a practice. Yeah. I mean, the core element in feeling and taking someone for granted is feeling like they can't leave. They're stuck with me now, so I don't need to try and I don't need to be delightful. I don't need to delight them. I don't need to show up as my best self. I mean, which obviously none of us do all the time. And there does need to be some safety to be a hot mess and self-absorbed in a shit sometimes. I would say, absolutely. I started something that I didn't even realize I didn't tell my husband until I was giving a speech to a whole big group and he happened to be in the audience. And someone asked me a question. I don't even remember what, but my answer included this that

I shared. And I was like, wait a minute. I'm not even sure, you know, I looked at him. I was like, I'm not even sure, you know, that I do this. Cause it never even occurred to me to have that discussion with him. But once I told him he got much more invested in this every morning, I would give him a 30 second hug, which he knew I was doing. Like we did, we used to do the 10, we still do, you know, 10, but when the kids were small, especially now we kiss more because we're empty nesters. But when we were always busy and distracted, we were like, okay, we're going to give each other a 10 second kiss in the beginning of the day when we come back together. And then I started this thing with a 30 second hug. Both of those things actually feel much longer when

you're doing them than it seems. But what I would do when I would give him that morning hug first thing in the morning, he would usually be up like an hour or two before me because he gets up at the butt crack of dawn and I would come down and give him a 30 second hug. But while I was doing that, I was saying to myself very clearly, and it was really for myself in my recovering codependency is I choose you today, which to me meant I can leave if I want to, but I am proactively choosing you and choosing to be here and choosing to be in relationship with you. And that changed not only the way that I showed up with that awareness and set the tone for the day, but it changed the lens through which I experienced him. I felt much less because it was really hard for me for many years,

especially as I was starting my recovery, it's probably like 15 years ago, to find ways to really hold my boundaries and hold my power and assert myself in a healthy way. And so that was when it started, but then it became this kind of ritual that really changed inside of me the dynamics, which of course, as soon as one of you, and this is quantum love, what I wrote my last as soon as one of you changes the energetics inside yourself, the other matches you. So yes, I absolutely agree with this idea of like, we have to choose every single day. And the other thing that you speak to that I don't hear a lot of couples therapists speak to, but that I feel very passionately about is that we, and you speak to this too, is that on an unconscious level,

it's certainly not conscious. We choose our partners because of the way they're going to trigger our shit. That's right. Like we do. They are our great, besides our kids, our partners are our greatest teachers. And it's like this game I play with myself. I always let them in on the game eventually. Inevitably, a couple comes to see me. And within the first few sessions, I can see how the wounds are a perfect match. You chose him. The thing there that's most pissing them off about the relationship is the reason, maybe the shadow side of the reason, but the reason they were attracted to them in the first place. He's like the pinnacle of the masculine, sometimes too much, but unbelievably contained and grounded and loyal and safe. Then it started to piss me off

that he seems so risk averse. And I started to get grossed out that he wasn't letting the kids jump on a trampoline. And I started to judge that until I realized, wait a second, this is the reason I chose him. Or you had a workaholic parent, let's say. And so you choose someone who is not a workaholic, right? And they love their playtime and whatever, because you don't want to be abandoned by a workaholic. But of course, you unconsciously chose someone who may not be a workaholic, but is addicted to something else that keeps them from being present in the relationship, right? We always choose, and you know, therapists, and I know you call this in the book, call it repetition compulsion, but we always choose people because there are partners

in healing if we let them be, which we often don't, but we let them be right. And I think, you know, you were talking a little while ago about power versus control. And I think from my perspective, what so much of the conversations around couples therapy and these different orientations of how we do relationships have been sort of instructing or supporting us to do is like, how do I communicate my needs more effectively so that I can sort of maybe control, but really shift my partner's behavior. Now, I don't really feel like that works. I think we authentic power is sort of what you were just speaking to. How do I be in the inquiry for myself around what feels historic about this? Why does this feel so difficult for me to tolerate? And how can I be in

relationship to what this evokes within me versus making this person wrong for the way they're showing up in the world? Because any of us who've ever made any sort of change, like I'm going to go on a diet tomorrow, I'm going to like, you know, whatever the healthy eating or whatever, right? It's not easy to change. But when it comes to our partner, we just think like, if I just continue to communicate how much I want them to change this, then they'll just change. Like it's easy for them, right? It's like this cognitive dissonance we have where we just think for them, it's easy for me. It's hard, but it's like fundamental, what is it? Fundamental attribution error. Like whatever is going on with them, like that's what's fundamentally wrong with them. With

me, I'm just being human. I'm just struggling to eat healthy. Like that's just me being human, but they don't get that, that level of grace. Right. So a little bit, it's understanding like the only person we get to control is ourselves, as you were saying, our own energy. But to me, that feels empowering. That feels like authentic power. And it changes. I mean, that was the whole premise. I kind of came to quantum love at what became quantum love out of desperation to help my kids really tough time. And I kind of stumbled upon it. I won't get into the story here, but I was astounded at how, when I changed the, what was going on energetically within myself and really stepped into what I would call my divine feminine energy and groundedness and whatever else they

immediately matched me without me having to say a word. It's like a Jedi mind trick. And so I unpack that and be like, what the hell is going on? And that took me into a whole dive into quantum physics and everything else. But then I looked at my husband and I was like, let me look over here for a second. And I started experimenting it admittedly at first as an effort to see One of the reasons I fell in love with him and I was very cognizant of this at the time, I think I even told him this on one of our earlier dates, is that he would not let me manipulate him. And I was a freaking master manipulator. I did something wrong in a relationship. And by the end of it, the guy was apologizing to me like I could run circles around

it. I learned the best and he was having none of it, but you cannot win an argument with him. And I needed to win. So back then. So when I started playing with this, it was like, let me see him. And it worked. And I was like, holy crap, like what is going on here? But I quickly realized that I didn't need to control him. I just needed to clean up my own energy. And then everything around me shifted in ways that were so much better than I could have designed from a place of control. One of the things you talk about is this path of interdependence versus codependence. And I agree with you of that. We need that erotic clarity of the masculine and the feminine, and also this sense of otherness, our tendency, especially with our codependent society. I

wouldn't even say so many of us are, I feel like everybody's a little bit codependent until they awakened. But this idea is that you're enmeshed, you're one. And so you become one with these wedding rings and you have to be enmeshed and there's the possessiveness. So speak to that a little bit. This idea of healthy relationships are really walking the path of that interdependence versus codependence. Yeah. And I love so much. I just have to circle back for a second what you were describing with your husband, because I think there is something in, we are conditioned to believe like, as long as you're safe, that's all you should need. And if it's someone that you can control and you're not sure that he's going anywhere, then that will be enough. But

that's just not the truth of how it really feels. And I think so often what I notice within us as women is like, we're holding this resentment because there's not a lot of like inspiration in the truth of who you are. But when you're someone who can like spar with me and hold your own, like all of a sudden I'm inspired. There's life force in that. And that's amazing. Right. So I just had to say that because I loved hearing you share about that. But yeah, I absolutely believe that we are a codependent society and it's the hill I'm willing to die on, even though a lot of people are like, everything's codependency. Now I'm like, well, it is codependent. It is. It's our orientation. Yeah. And I think that there's a lot of the way that we've been

talking about relationships that really sort of upholds that. And to me, the interdependence path is sort of, I can't fix this. I can't control this, but I can walk beside you. And I really like to start to bring in a little bit more of the sacred into our relationships. Depth psychology is sort of the psychology of the soul. So if we think of us as two souls walking a path together, then my work is to bear witness to you. My work is to honor your soul's path, but never to control it. Yes, we are energetic beings and we will impact one another, but I just believe it's really a time in humanity where we're sort of like bringing back this like thing about making meaning and that we're not just these bodies. We are more than that. And

the things that we thought we could control, I mean, look at our five-year plans, look at the 2020, like for so many people, those went away. But I believe that's by design for us to really understand that, yes, we're connected to one another, but that doesn't mean that we are meant to control one another, interfere with one another's path. I 100% agree. And I'm on the same path as you. I want to just unpack a little bit, and I know we don't have a ton of time left, but just get into the practical realm, because I think this will really illuminate the teachings in the book if we walk through this a little bit even more. And this I see a lot in the world, a woman who in the workplace in order to operate there operates in her masculine more because

that's what's required and for her to get done what she needs to get done and by the people around her that she works for or with we could argue let's just put a pin in that we could argue that she could show up more in her feminine and change the whole dynamic lord knows but let's just say that's where she is. Okay. And she's happy with that. But when she's home, she wants to be in her feminine, but the man she's with who maybe she met at work, I don't know, but the man she's with is someone who is what I like to call a snag, a sensitive new age guy who has been taught by the empowered anti-patriarchal maternal figures in his life. No matter what you do, don't ever take a woman's power away. Don't ever do to a woman what was done to mom, right? So

he's had this, he's basically been shamed, I guess, a little bit, which I think a lot of men are. And so he's a sensitive new age guy. And his idea of that is to defer to her. Like this is this whole idea of the women who wants the nice guy, but who lives a lot in her masculine in the world, wants to be in her feminine in a relationship, wants the nice guy, but then gets grossed out with the nice guy. And I'm not just talking about the women who have like, let's put aside for the purposes of this conversation, the women, there's a huge proportion of women who are like that, who have significant trauma and really low self-worth. And so they think like, if you're that into me and treating me that well, something must be wrong with you. Ew, I'm grossed out. I'm

going to go get re-traumatized by the guy who treats me bad. Let's just put a, that's a different story. But when we're talking about women who don't, I mean, we all have trauma, but you know, who is, it's not about that. How does she shift and change the dynamics? Yeah, I love this. So I would say the first aspect is taking a lot of ownership of the fact that I chose this person. And I think that that is something that I see so often. I'm sure you do as well, where it's really like to me where I have become a little challenged by the conversation around patriarchy and weaponized incompetence and even like the fair play conversation that was like so alive a couple of years ago. And all of these things are real. And there's a point where we sort of become complicit, I think, in our victimhood. And it's not really taking us into solution and forward momentum in a way that I find disempowering. And so if I can say to myself, like, I chose this person, this dynamic didn't just sort of like erupt overnight.

I'm sure if this has been the snag way of being, that was who this person was all along. But what you're speaking to is so real. And I think most of the couple's dynamics, I see a woman who lives most of the time in her wounded, masculine, energetic, and a man. Said wounded. Yes. Wounded, masculine. Yeah.

Or distorted, right? And a man who really sort of lives more most of the time in this wounded feminine energetic because we will inevitably create polarity. And so that's just like a life fact that I've noticed. Like if you love chocolate, I'm going to love salty. Like it's just we create polarity in all of our dynamics. It's fascinating how it plays out, but we do. So if he's looking to her for leadership, if he's constantly insecure, she never wants to sleep with me. I don't know how she feels. What does she want? Just tell me what to do and I'll do it. That's wounded feminine energy, right? Which breeds a lot of contempt from her, which breeds a lot of that wounded masculine, like, oh, I always have to do everything. You're like a child. I always have to be the one leading. And so a lot of times what I will say to women is, first of all, you can't ask him to lead if you're not willing to trust in his leadership. And so that becomes, I've got to take responsibility for going into my healthy feminine, which is that space of vulnerability. Now that sounds like, oh, just be vulnerable. But for us as women, and raise my hand, been there, who live most of the time in our wounded masculine, that's a really big ask to say, I feel flooded. I feel overwhelmed.

I feel like I'm drowning in all of the responsibility and I'm wondering, would you be willing to help me now? That is a very, and for the ladies who are going to hear that and say, I've already tried that and it didn't work. I promise if I listened to you say it, it probably didn't sound like that, right? Like what it normally sounds like is I need you to step up. I need you to do things different, right? That is not vulnerable. That is not a request. That is not sort of like offering the other person an ability to buy in or, you know, just like really giving them the autonomy of their sense of self. Right. And so if you say it in a way that is like vulnerable and really like, you know, I realized I do all of these things, all the ownership,

I, I, I, not you, but like, this is what I'm doing, what I'm noticing, what I'm feeling. Then all of a sudden what happens is when I'm in that healthy space of feminine vulnerability, inevitably we will create polarity from a healthy place. And normally the man in that situation will contain it. We'll say, Ooh, babe, I didn't know you felt that way. I got you. But like for my gentlemen that might be listening, the three hottest words you can speak to a woman are, I got you. So hot. That is so hot. Yeah. But it's just, there's this way that inevitably he will start to contain her. He will start to be like, well, here's what I'm going to do. he will lead. If you say like, what do you think we could do? Right. Not demand. Like,

cause there's still a way that I am leading. If I say, this is what I need from you. This is what you need to do. But if I say, can you help me? Or what do you think? That's like the hottest thing you can say to a man. I've just got to cover it. Like, what do you think we should do, babe? All of a sudden the man's like, so just understanding like what brings him into hopefully that space of healthy masculine containment. But the key is, and you said this earlier, I can't do it as a way to attempt to like control him or bring his energy somewhere. I just got to like authentically be in that space of embodying healthy feminine energy. But I have never seen it not work that

if we really do it from like a space of earnest, like attempt to just like be there that it doesn't shift the energy between us. And you have to, once he does it, stay there, not go into criticism and control and direction and describing where he fell short, right? Like it's really creating a space for a learning curve, I think, in a lot of these relationships. One of my favorite things to do with couples in this situation is in exactly the scenario we're describing here, and it's such a wake-up call, obviously it doesn't solve all the problems, but it illuminates for her, especially what's going on and for him, is I send them on what I call a surrender date. So he has to make every single decision from what she wears, where they

go, how they get there, where they park, what she orders. He makes every single decision. And it is It's hilarious how hard that is. And also I get it, but it's so, you know, she's like, I can do that. And then as soon as she's in the car, she's like, there's a parking spot right there. There's a, you know, she starts to direct, but what happens when a woman can, or anyone, we're talking about men and women here, but we can, you know, we're just being heteronormative and to make it easy. But what happens when she does that and surrenders and he does step up is that inevitably she's like, you know, he picked out an outfit that I never would have put together, but it was really cute. And it was like all my favorite things to wear. And he ordered,

he knew exactly what I would have wanted and how I wanted the dish changed. It's like this awakening and her like, oh my God, he can, like, he does really know me. He does want to hold me. He knows how to contain me. I just have to move out of the way a little bit and create some space for him to do that. And he gets to kind of really step into that leadership role of like generous, authentic, compassionate, empathetic, taking all your needs into account leadership, which to me is what the healthy masculine looks like in a love relationship. Yeah. And I feel like we don't even realize how hungry we are to feel that containment until we have the felt experience of it. And then it's like, oh, I remember this feels so good, but we've just

been so conditioned to fight against it. And there was something else you said that I wanted to circle back to. You were saying like, when you do that thing of going into vulnerability, you have to stay there. And the other thing that I think is like a tool that I have found works so profoundly is we can tend to like really be in the space of thinking like criticism just does anything to like bring someone where we want them to be. It doesn't. But what I have found is like, people want to rise to the expectation of the way that you see them. So when your husband does something, if you celebrate the hell out of it, if you're like, throw a party every time he does something, all of a sudden he's like, oh, you like that?

Let me do some more of that for you. Bear it, not stick. Yeah. I always say that, like throw a party for, it's like training a dog, but I don't mean to make men dogs, but not relationships, but like positive reinforcement. Yeah. Oh my God. That was amazing. I loved how you walked on the curb to keep me, you know, or whatever that is. You know, I loved how you planned that night. It was amazing leaving out, like it could have been better if you had made the reservation for six o'clock rather than seven 30, because then I wouldn't be so full, but you know, like no criticism, but just like really focusing on the positive. And I think also looking for the positive because our lens that we view our

partners through is everything. And so if I adopt a lens that my partner is inconsiderate or unwilling to step up or whatever that story is, I'm going to find evidence for it everywhere because that's where my lens is trained. But if I'm looking for things to appreciate about him or for ways he is stepping up or for ways he's being kind or attentive or considerate. And I'm verbally celebrating those and emotionally celebrating those openly to him. That's going to create more of what I want. And it creates a different energy within me. So then that changes the energetic dynamics between the two of us.

Yeah, that part, that's like the red car effect, right? Like not only am I looking for it, so I see it, but then I start to see him in that light. And that is my perception of my husband when I'm like seeking out to find the things that are beautiful. All of a sudden it's like, oh, and I have this beautiful partner, but I didn't realize that when I wasn't focused on all of the beautiful aspects of who he is, right? Amen. Such a gorgeous conversation.

I'm so grateful for the work that you do in the world. There's so much more we could dive into. I could keep talking to you forever, but the book is called Sovereign Love, A Guide to healing relationships by reclaiming the masculine and feminine within. You'll learn a lot more. We didn't go too, too deep into all the different aspects of healthy, masculine, and feminine and unhealthy, masculine, and feminine, how to move with both of those. But to me, that's one of the most helpful and beautiful parts of the book. So thank you, Danae Logan. Anything you want to leave us with? Oh, just such an honor to get to sit down with you. Thank you so much for having

me. And just, yeah, really grateful for your work, truly. And how can people find you? I'm on the social medias as Denae.Logan. And I have a podcast called Cheaper Than Therapy. And then I run retreats throughout the year. So you can find out more information about those on DenaeLogan.com. The doctor said I'm crazy for your love. Wrote me a prescription.