Moore Style - Unpacking Sexual Trauma, Libido, and Chemistry with Charna Cassell

Episode Date: December 11, 2023

Trauma is more than meets the eye and whether you are aware of it or not, it has a big impact on every aspect of our lives. Charna Cassell, a trauma-trained psychotherapist and sexuality coach, joins us today for a deep conversation about somatic bodywork, personality development, and creating new habits and patterns within our bodies. She even gets into the nuances of trauma and how it impacts our sex lives and libido.  Charna and Celeste also talk about dating challenges as bisexual women and whether chemistry can grow over time. Charna is an amazing expert with so much knowledge and this episode has something for everyone, so take a listen! In this week’s episode, we discuss: [01:40] About Charna Cassell [03:15] Why Charna became a trauma-trained psychotherapist and sexuality coach [10:17] The power of asking for what you want [13:39] Personality development and creating new muscle memory [18:30] How does trauma affect libido? [24:48] Unpacking the stereotype that people with penises should be “ready to go”  [29:19] Dating challenges as a bisexual woman [39:54] Can chemistry grow over time? [48:26] The importance of allowing women to drop into their femininity   Connect with Charna Cassell: Personal Website Psychotherapy and Sex Therapy Website Instagram Facebook Podcast

Hi, everyone. I'm your host, Celeste Moore, and you are listening to the Down and Dirty podcast, aka the Double D's of dating. This is a podcast for navigating the ins and outs of modern midlife dating. Here, we will discuss the challenges that men and women face in today's dating world. Like many industries, this one is forever changing, and I believe this platform will help those who need or want it. Today, it is the best time to take control of your desired outcome, whether it is a marriage, significant other, life partner, or just to gain the confidence in dating once again. Every other week, we will dive in and talk about different viewpoints that seem to be challenges in today's dating arena. So let's get into today's episode.

Welcome everybody to another episode of the Down and Dirty podcast. As always, I'm your host, Celeste Moore. And I want to say a big thank you to everyone who continues to listen and tune in to these episodes. I truly hope that you're able to take away some nuggets that you've learned today back into your relationships. And please don't forget to leave a great review and five star rating. It helps the show with recognition and it definitely, you know, in return helps everybody. So thank you. Thank you. I'm super excited to introduce you to my guest today. But before we dive in, I want to introduce you to her. For over two decades, Charna Cassell, LMFT, a trauma-trained psychotherapist and sexuality coach, has helped people heal,

find pleasure in their bodies, and live vibrant lives. She's also an author, a teacher, and a podcast host. Every week on Laid Open Podcast, Charna shares her own stories, answers your questions, offers practical exercises, and interviews experts in the field of somatics, trauma, healing modalities, mindfulness, and the arts. Charna is currently creating online courses and working on a book, The Authentic. Yes. Six Steps to Sexual Freedom. Charna's work and expertise has been featured in Oprah Magazine, TeenVogue.com, InStyle.com, PsychCentral.com, and AskMen.com. And she is in private practice in Oakland, California. Yeah. Well, you have like some really juicy bits in there. So thank you so much for coming on to

today's show. You know, I really enjoyed being on your show and I just thought you'd be so perfect for the Down and Dirty. Thank you. That was very, very thorough. There's a lot of information in there. That was the shortened version, girl. That's hysterical. Well, you have a lot of juicy stuff, like I said. So I've been a little busy and consistent. Yeah. So let me ask you, yeah, kind of what was the driving force or forces behind kind of your career as a trauma trained psychiatrist and sexuality coach? So let me just correct one thing. I'm not a sorry. It's okay. Psychotherapist. I apologize. Yeah, there are these distinctions that it's like to be kind of ethically aligned. I don't want someone to think I'm a doctor, which is technically

you go to med school to be a psychiatrist and you prescribe medicine and all that stuff. Anyways, that's okay. I just read it wrong. So go for it. No problem. So, you know, honestly, I was a somatic coach before becoming a psychotherapist and I actually kind of fought being a psychotherapist even when I was in school to do it. There wasn't this deep resonance because I'd been in psychotherapy since I was 14, and it didn't change anything in my nervous system. I was a very insightful young person, but I still lived with tremendous anxiety until I came to somatic work. And the person that I started working with was Stacey Haynes, and she started generative somatics, and she also taught at the Strozzi Institute, which is for embodied leadership. And so

of generative somatics is more focused on somatics and trauma. And so I came to that work. I found her book. It used to be called The Survivor's Guide to Sex. It's now called Healing Sex. And synchronistically, I'd met a new bestie in the city and she was in a group with Stacey. And Stacey was her individual practitioner. And so I didn't understand what I was doing, but I was suddenly in this group for survivors and we did these weird exercises. And I started to see a nervous system freeze that I'd always lived with started to thaw out. I started to be able to have different kinds of boundaries. There was a reduction in some of my anxiety. And when she left her individual practice to go teach at the Strozzi Institute, it was a no-brainer for me to

just follow her and to keep studying with her because I just wanted something to be different inside my body and inside my mind. And before working with her, I didn't understand how sex and intimacy could coexist. And after doing that, right? Because without boundaries, how do you even be in relationship, right? Without feeling incredibly, incredibly overwhelmed. I mean, you see this all the time that people will just stuff their needs, not express their feelings or their needs, and then they're gone. And the other person's like, what just happened? And so the cut run is very familiar if you don't have boundaries and you can't allow yourself to be connected and say no at the same time. So I was building all these embodied relationship skills through that

work and it transformed my life. Studying at the Strozzi Institute, that used to be a much more thorough, longer training of one course would be three days and every six weeks over eight months. So that was one course. And I studied there for five years. And simultaneously, I continued to study there while I was in school for psychotherapy. But like I said, there just wasn't the same resonance because, you know, I knew people who'd had bad experiences with psychotherapists as teenagers. So I was wary and really sat throughout my my studies as a psychotherapist or in school for counseling psychology, questioning what I was going to get and what I came out with on the other side. and I am glad that I became a psychotherapist, is that somatic work, I see it as like somatic work are the tiles and psychotherapeutic training is the grout, right? So that there's a different orientation that I have to the world. I see everything, I experience the body, you know, my nervous system really changed through somatic work. And there's something

really important about psychotherapeutic training around boundaries and understanding the container and understanding certain kinds of basics. But regarding trauma, I do encourage people to find somebody to work with that works with the nervous system because it wasn't some kind of strategic plan for me to become a psychotherapist. It was just like I had studied, I had an interest in working with teenagers, working with sexuality and working with the body. And someone suggested, you know, you might want the license to make you more legitimate

it or something, you know? And I was like, okay, I'll jump through this hoop. Even though I'm not the most conventional human, I will jump through this hoop. And what I feel like staying in a program, getting licensed was an eight-year process. Wow. And it built containment in my system, which I didn't have that level of energetic or physical containment. I trusted my intuition and that directed me towards lots of things throughout my life. But this was like a labor of kind of, I'm reluctant to say labor of love, but it was a laborious learning process and it taught me how to stick with something for future gain. Yeah. I mean, so just curious, what was your interest in teens? Is it because of something you experienced as yourself as a teenager?

Yeah. Well, you know, I'd always wanted to work with teenagers. I'd worked as a teenager. I was a youth leader. I volunteered at a runaway teen shelter. So I'd had experience with that population and felt like that was such a vulnerable population to work with. I'd also worked with done a rites of passage group with 11 to 14 year olds. And it's kind of like, okay, so this is a period of time in your life when you're not empowered. Usually, right? You don't have choice. You're stuck at home under someone else's rule and wanting to give them resources and wanting to, you're still plastic and flexible. So wanting to build them up and help them develop boundaries and things like that, the ability to say what they want and identify what their

sensations are and their feelings are before habits get reified in their system, right? And it's a really satisfying thing when a teen is responsive to the work I'm doing, It's pretty remarkable how quickly they can develop a new tool versus, you know, adults, we have more formed rigid habits. But actually working with teenagers, what I found was sometimes working with a parent who is mentally ill, who wouldn't respect my boundaries, it was so hard that I actually, that was one of the reasons I backed away from continuing to work with teenagers. And it was heartbreaking because you know that you're maybe one of the only lifelines for this kid. So that was a hard decision. I still sometimes work with teens, but not so much anymore. Yeah. And I think you said something pretty pronounced in that the last question I asked you, but you talk about asking for the things that you want. Right. And how powerful that is. How does this when you ask for something that you want, are you talking about sexually usually. Right. Or are you talking about anything based in a relationship? Yeah, I see sex as a microcosm. So to be very clear, somebody could come to me for sex therapy and really the issues that they're dealing with in bed are going to show up all over the rest of their life. And often, right, I will do a physical practice with someone and what gets revealed. And when I say physical, I'm using martial arts based practices to rewire the brain through the body by doing a physical practice that creates just enough stress that people's habitual patterns will reveal themselves. It's like their belief system reveals itself through the way they end up doing this physical exercise. And there's a lot of metaphor and it's

very subtle, but I'll ask the question based on what I see and how they physically extend their arm, how they physically make contact. And it's usually accurate, I will say, right? So they'll they'll show themselves. It's like, oh, this is my habit. Whether they believe they have really excellent boundaries and then when I do the exercise, they freeze up and they can't say no, it'll be revealed what is true. Yeah. Boundaries is something I was never taught as a child or a teenager. Yeah. Well, oh, and I didn't mean to sort of come back to your question about asking for what you want. Right. Right. So making requests, approaching someone, it's something that we do all the time in very, you know, neutral situations. My mom tells a story about when I was

two and I said, I don't like my eggs. We were in a restaurant and she said, well, so do something about it. Cause my mom was not, she wasn't going to complain. She was never going to say she didn't like her food so that's like a seemingly minor moment but she also froze up and didn't have a voice in relationships and she was salted multiple times throughout her life right so I got up and I went up to the waitress and I said I don't like my eggs you know and I think I had more capacity there but then certain things got trained out of me as a result of trauma right so when when a freeze takes over it becomes a lot harder to feel yourself if you leave your body or to articulate what you do or don't want whether it's a sexual situation or not okay yeah that makes sense any

kind of overwhelming situation for some people even not saying i don't like my eggs or can you you know redo this steak is a stressful situation because they're so conflict avoidant yeah i have a family member who is like that avoid all like even almost all conversation because does not want to have any conflict whatsoever so I don't know where that comes from somewhere down our lineage especially with a sibling where did you where did you grow up what area so I grew up all over the world, or the United States, Washington State, Florida, Vegas, California. So kind of everywhere. So what's interesting, I find that whatever our parents, even if we didn't grow up in a region, what your parents training is, and I don't know if they were from the East Coast or the Midwest,

and there's like, suck it up, you know, but it's an interesting thing how our parents culture can just insert itself into our beingness even if we're in a totally different area of the world that is interesting I'd have to learn more about that because yeah I mean my mom was her father was in the air force so she lived all over the world my father lives multiple places but not because of that so yeah interesting well I mean you know in terms of your sister just like I think we make these decisions before we're even verbal we get a sense we're like okay I'm gonna be the funny one. I'm going to take your pain away. I'm going to not have any needs. We just assess these things at a very young age and play that role out. Yeah. Surprisingly enough, I will jump off

this topic in a minute, but I had a woman who I didn't know there was even this practice who read my body and I'm not sure exactly her her oh my goodness title if you will and she pretty much like went back to like my three-year-old self and pretty much said what it was how I was with my parents and the situation that's who my personality was because of I wanted to not ruffle the feathers the people pleaser and that was like that good girl so that that's how I would receive love and it's so crazy never in my life you know I'm almost 47 years old and to hear something like that is really kind of powerful but it was almost it's okay to not play that role anymore it's okay to own who I am today and get outside of that so and so it resonated where you were like oh yeah

Yeah, that totally is when that seed was planted. And then you think about it, if you're doing something to reinforce that all day, every day from three to 40, that habit lives in your muscle memory, in your tissue. And so the way to undo it is you need to be in a new practice. And we often think, oh, I'll just read a book. but the idea of being in a physical practice to create new muscle memory, which can override what the habit is, is what I found was the key. Okay. And that's in the somatic healing or what, is that what you mean? Yeah. I mean, you know, there's different ways. Like, so one of my

teachers, he, you know, he was a martial arts master and that was where he developed a lot of these practices using Aikido, certain principles of Aikido. But someone else might find liberation and new habit through dancing. Someone else, you know, there's different ways, but you're doing body work as well. There are different kinds of body work, but the principle of the body work that I call it trauma release body work. And I mix what Richard Strozzi-Heckler and Stacey Haynes taught me as well as multiple other people and it's using breath which highlights places in the body that hold trauma which can show up as tension pain in the body or numbness and blankness and so those places are are either they're not occupied or there's frozen energetic impulses so something

that didn't get to be fully expressed like if you're a good girl you're probably holding back a lot of no's or punches, or maybe there was a flight response, maybe there wasn't. So somebody might not occupy their legs. And so doing physical practices that help you reoccupy certain parts of the body and feel them in a new way creates a memory and an access point that you can then draw on in the future. So I think of the body work as creating a new imprint that may not have been available previously that then allows a new action and a new way of responding that's amazing i love that i think that you know there's i've never heard of the physical aspect of it and it makes so much sense right because that's where like you said that's where you're creating that

new memory that muscle memory i've only heard about you know you talk about it you you figure it out and i mean there's multiple practices like you said but that's really i think that's fascinating. Hopefully everybody here has learned something. I know I have. So yeah. So I have a lot of like, I know that you tackle like so many things and you talked a little bit about trauma. How does trauma affect libido? Oh gosh, that's a big question, but you can think about, and this is why, I mean, it's kind of the thesis of the book that I've been working on is really defining sexual trauma in a much broader sense than we think. When someone says sexual trauma, you think of child sexual abuse or sexual assault. And the way I'm holding

it is that we all have a life force that moves through us, right? That allows us to take action, that allows us to be exuberant, that allows us to take a stand or to move towards something that we want. And when your life force is constricted, so the things that constrict a life force, that's what when I think of trauma, I think of you're growing up in a household where there's mental illness, where there's addiction, where there's violence, physical, sexual, emotional. You're a person of color in a culture that supports white supremacy. There's either a lack of safety or a way that we believe, like being a good girl, you probably, you know, hold a certain amount of tension in your throat and jaw because you had to swallow a lot of words that

weren't going to be good and nice and pretty. And so we believe we have to be a certain way in order to stay connected or be loved in our family, culture, or religious community. And so all those ways of being create a habit in our tissue, a holding in our physical body, and often a constriction in some part of our body. So what forms trauma is not the incident itself, but it's how we respond to it and also our lack of support in processing it. So an unfortunately common story is someone has had some form of child sexual abuse. They may approach a parent or somebody and their parent reacts angry or dismissive. Or maybe they don't approach anyone because they're afraid and they keep it to themselves. And so all of that overwhelm. So it's when your

system is so overwhelmed, it can't process something. And then it just, it ends up being like frozen in your tissue. And then it just lays dormant to be processed at some later date. And that's what a trigger is, right? So when in the moment in present time, you have a bigger reaction than a situation calls for, it's really a dormant experience that you didn't have support and processing, it suddenly rushes into present time. It doesn't know the difference between the past being a five-year-old and being 47. Wow. I know I just kind of went to seven different places instead of fully answering your question. Okay. So coming back to trauma, you said, what is trauma or what's the question again? So I think what I'm curious about is libido.

Oh, libido. Yes. Sorry. Sorry. Thank you. So how it relates to libido. I'll give a handful of examples. So let's say there was actual genital contact sexual trauma versus all these other kinds of trauma that cause restriction in your system, which prevents full sexual self-expression. okay so anything that's going to constrict your system think about that what is libido it is sexual energy that wants to move through you if your body is numb because it's it's like i don't get to feel that part of me that's dangerous i don't get to express that thing it's not nice i don't want to be an angry black woman i don't want to be a bad girl etc we don't get to choose Oh, I want to express my libido. It's like passion, anger, grief, joy. It's all the same channel. So if you twist it and shut it down because you're not allowed to have emotions or needs in your family, then how does libido get expressed? So more specifically, one person

experiences sexual trauma and they may experience turn on at the same time, right? Our bodies are physically responsive if they're stimulated there can be terror and turn on there can even be orgasm and then there can be shame because of that right anytime there's powerlessness there's often shame right even if it's momentary even if someone bounces out of it really quickly so often with sexual trauma there's shame and one of the things we want to do is we don't want to feel something. So we'll shut it down. So someone could be even, you know, 30 years later, anytime they feel turn on, they also experience shame or they experienced that past experience. So then they shut it down. Right. So, you know, someone else I'll use this example. So a man may not be

able to get an erection. Maybe there was abuse and they, they came when they were abused and they feel so much shame for that experience, they don't allow themselves pleasure. Or someone else might even have a hard time. If it's another form of trauma that has nothing to do with sex, but it's creating depression in your system, and depression often can be anger turned inward, right? Depression is, you can think of it as hypoarousal, which is hyperarousal is an increase in sensation, nervous system hyperarousal. Hypoarousal is a decrease in sensation. So when we get dysregulated, when we're feeling a lot in our bodies and we get overwhelmed, we'll go into hyper or hypoarousal. Often people who go into hypoarousal will shoot very,

very quickly, sometimes imperceptibly into a hyperaroused state, which is like, oh, anxiety. I don't want to feel that. Computer shuts down. Too many tabs open. Computer shuts down. And so that sleepy, dissociated, numb or depressed state, it's really hard to access turn on and feel. Hyper arousal is where turn on lives. But if you can't tolerate a lot of sensation in your body, it makes it very hard to be turned on and be okay with being turned on. Man, I feel like an asshole because I have a story. Okay. It's very, very quick. And listen, I'm apologizing to everybody listening to this because it's not who I am. This is just something I did when I was 25. So I was naive. And yeah, I experienced this with someone I just started to date. And we met where I worked through college and that was at a strip club. So automatically, I don't like date anybody outside of that, but he was like my age. He lived in LA where I lived

and we kind of just, oh, let's just, you know, we're very attracted to each other. Let's just go out and have fun. Well, we went on a few dates and kissing was great, whatever. So when we got down to let's, you know, let's have some sex and he couldn't get hard. Well, I ran to my bathroom and and said well here take a viagra and you know let's like you're 25 and like the kissing's good like what's going on you know and then he came really fast and then i was like i did the really i did a really bad thing i kicked him out so it was very like i know every guy that hears that they're like oh my god what a terrible person you are but i you know it was just like so i can't deal with that I was like but I you know of course I was young naive didn't understand and I feel so

bad moving on with this guy probably had some things that he was just very nervous about or or maybe a trauma and I'm not laughing at that but it's just like it's slapping the face like oh my god what'd you do well so let's use that let's work with that a little bit so first of all i hear you reflecting having learned you're in a different place you're you have this new information that you're able to integrate you go oh wow if i could go back i would do that differently 100 i would have a different level of patience and understanding and and so just for for the male listeners out there the female listeners out there anyone listening there is something which I would call demicock, you know, which demisexual people, some people really need

more emotional connection before they can get turned on and want to have sex with you. So there's the stereotype that men are supposed to, or people with penises are supposed to be ready to go, right? Always hard and ready. And if they're attracted to you, they should just be able to get it going. But he also didn't know you yet. Right. So there could be one. It could be that piece like I need more emotional connection or I need things to go slower or there there could be some kind of, you know, maybe depression. Maybe he was on an antidepressant and it made it hard to get hard. You know, there can be a variety of things. And maybe he knew, oh, no, I come quickly. I'm really insecure about that. Here's this woman that I'm, you know, like I want to impress.

And then he couldn't even get hard because he was nervous about how quick he was going to come. You know, so all of that, all of those things are possibilities. And I just want people to know that, you know, even if not getting hard or ejaculating faster than you want to happen, you can be in mindfulness masturbation practices and develop the capacity to shift that. Yeah. I, you know, I had a client whose partner broke up with him because of that, because of ejaculating really quickly. And he worked on it and is happily married now. Yeah. That's amazing. Yes, all of that can be I'm sure if you work on something with the right people, you can figure it out. So yeah, I will never name names. I will always sometimes use my experiences because I think it it fit pretty well for that one. So you live and you learn. And like you said, I'm glad I know what I know now. And having you as a guest and having these amazing people that are experts in this field, I just not only does the audience learn, I'm constantly learning. And I just think this is like my school. I love it. Yeah, I was saying, I had this great author on yesterday and I was saying to somebody that I feel like it's grad school. Like I just because I'm like, oh, sorry, I don't have plans. I can't make plans this weekend. I have another book to read.

It's a lot to learn. I love it. So I hear that you are newly dating. Yeah. Some little mouse told me. I am as well. So I think it's kind of interesting how even like I would say 15 years ago, you know, when match was really popular and some other things. I mean, some things have changed. Some things have not with the online dating world. But I know that I have a very I have a difficulty. I don't know how you categorize yourself sexually, but I am bisexual. and I know that dating is quite I find it's it's a challenge for me because of that I think it's great because I'm attracted to both sexes but at the same time I find that when I bring it up with like a very hetero guy that's like I get to have threesomes and like this is so hot and like no dude that's not that's not it or you know dating a woman I really have only dated a woman very short term and i wasn't quite sure about it because i've never kind of been in the reins of that so it's it's very interesting to me that like i have to put out i don't i don't put anything for

my sexuality oh interesting what would you mind me asking what app you're on or do you want to yeah i'm on hinge okay but i think i should bumble i don't know i you know but you so you can put you can just not put anything but then you still but you get matched with both no I'm only getting no I don't have any women that are on there and I find it I don't know I'm just struggling with with that and maybe I just need to like put it out there so I don't know what is your yeah what's your thoughts on well let me ask you so when you don't put anything is that because you're trying to avoid the creepy couples and the guy who's going to be titillated by being bisexual? Yes. Okay. Yeah. And so, you know, I think that over the years and just so for the, for the record,

I didn't start really dating men until I was in my late twenties. Okay. And when I did, my world was so female centric. I worked at good vibrations, a worker owned sex toy store. I danced six days a week and I did yoga. And it was all women back then. Yoga was not like hot guys in hot yoga. And so I didn't even know where to meet them. And so I asked a male colleague at Good Vibrations. I was like, OK, I'm ready to have sex with a man. And he was like, put that on. It was Craigslist back then, right? It was. Yeah, it was so naive. And then OKCupid used to be called Salon. So this is me in my late 20s. I was like, oh, I don't drink. Where do you meet men? So I've been on dating sites for quite a while. And I've gone back and forth between

being transparent about being bisexual or being queer. Because ultimately, like you said, I wish I wasn't as attracted to masculine energy, but I like pretty, you know, almost stereotypical masculine guys i'm very attracted to like bearded cherry-chested outdoorsmen and masculine energy and women you know but at the same time i really do need a certain level of like queerness often i've dated men who have dated a number of lesbians or people who i call hasbians um so i think that if you're transparent about that you you can sift through the creepy dudes who are like immediately like we turned you on right and actually attract people especially where are you i'm in the bay area i'm in austin i don't know okay well i mean austin probably it's still a pretty progressive

part of texas but i can see why you're you're a little more reluctant there because the bay area there's just you know there's a lot more flexibility but some of you austin guys come I don't feel that right. I like that. Right. Colorado. I was just in Montana. Yeah. Or like Oregon. The Bay Area is not totally my cup of tea. What is the Bay Area like? Oh, I'm going to I'm going to put a stereotype out there. And I think your Austin fans might giggle. I really do want a level of consciousness and awareness, but not so. Oh, and this is a therapist talking, right, but not so over-therapized that there's just like this heavy jargon and like eye gazing and, you know, it's. Yeah. You want that happy medium. Yeah. Yeah. And I think sometimes there can be

an extreme of that. It's like men who have, who've done enough work to take responsibility and be accountable and have some skills, but it doesn't become their role identity. and there's less there's i i like even though i support a lot of polyamorous and non-monogamous couples or individuals and help people create relationships that work for them that are very unconventional that are outside of any boxes i totally support it all in theory in practice i'm more monogamous because i'd rather have five friends who help me garden than five people i have sex with or you know or have five creative projects that i put energy into than five people i'm processing with and so i think that the bay area has so much freedom that there's a lot of

ethical non-monogamy occurring and i might like just a little bit more of a monogamous i'm a funny mix of like very unconventional and have some conventional desires very simple desires you know i'm the same so i'm kind of in the middle of that too yeah so it's different sometimes i'll put I'm on hinge too sometimes I'll put bisexual and sometimes I won't I think on okcupid if you do that you're more likely to attract people who are like couples looking for somebody yeah so I think it's I've just tried different things over the years yeah yeah yeah that's interesting no I just I don't I wish I kind of was along one line of sexuality because I feel like it would just wouldn't be as complicated so what I hear is

you know so you so just kind of trusting like if you're trans if you're transparent and you put who you are out there you are more likely to get what you want and so there are different times when I think I've wanted to dodge more than you know if I would say do the do the work that has you feel safe and discerning and getting the you know being selective about who you respond to right um the less you hold it as an issue like for me it's an afterthought of like oh yeah this is part of my history and this is part of who I am and if somebody has some weird reaction to it versus just like okay then that gives me a lot of good information yeah true I mean I'm a dating coach like I understand like it's really we all have our own issues right yeah there's there's there's

complexity to it and I hear that I hear like I wish that you know oh it would be easier to just exist in this one simple box and unfortunately I straddle multiple pun intended I love it so I know you have it you said just recently jumped on an app again so you said you have gone on dates or you haven't i'm actually going to go on a date tonight i haven't gone on dates um i've been talking to a handful of people so we'll see you know i'm just kind of i'm in this place i just got back from montana camping by myself for a week and as i drove to the airport i was crying from gratitude and i just felt you know that feeling when you're in new love and you're just so in love and you're full and you're on soft and open and it feels so good. And I felt that and I

was like, oh, this is such a good feeling. And there's no object. It's not about a man. It's just a state of being. Yeah. And, you know, even as I describe it, I can feel it and it feels really good. And I and I have so many little learning communities that I'm in right now, these tiny groups, someone, all these group threads trying to organize our meetings. And I just I feel very full of friendship, creative projects. And so I'm kind of like, I will, I do want partnership and there's no urgency around it, you know? And so I was talking to someone yesterday and I could feel his, I was like, wow, I already feel pressure from this person. And this is our first conversation. And I'm like, yeah, that's not really a fit. Like he's clearly, I respect

that he wants partnership and he wants it kind of yesterday and and and he kind of it felt like well if you had kids and you were as busy as you are then that would be okay but since you don't have kids like you're a workaholic he didn't judge me well that was the funny thing it's like he it was like the whole conversation it felt like kind of judgment after judgment and I was like oh this is really interesting there's a lot of tone of judgment and I really get that that's probably his fear of the past repeating itself or not getting what he wants or whatever and us it's like you know not feeling it not um yeah yeah it's like you don't have to go on four dates before you realize this is not something i want to pursue yeah so okay so i have a question on that chemistry

right yeah yeah okay prior to being certified as an image consultant i was certified as a matchmaker and the one thing that we learned is they can be perfect on paper oh my god this is like the perfect match but chemistry is something you cannot okay i'm looking in a crystal ball and this is going to work out now you just said something that i truly believe like chemistry is like pretty instant or at least for women but i don't know i've also been told and i want your thoughts on this can chemistry grow oh yeah so well this is a complicated topic i have a lot of thoughts on it i the short answer would be i think yes okay the longer answer is you can't force something i have multiple experiences around this that may may contradict each other

i've met someone who i thought was insanely physically and then he kisses me and i feel nothing. I was partnered with someone and lived with them and we were on that marriage trajectory and we even had amazing, at times, incredible sex. And I really loved him. And there just wasn't a certain chemistry out of bed, that humor, a lightness, a rapport, the kind of rapport I have with my favorite people. There's deep connection and humor. We can move fluidly between those two states. I didn't laugh with this guy. And that was like, that was it. I just really didn't see us together when we were 80. The guy that I lost my boy virginity to, my choiceful boy virginity, such a stupid expression. I love it. The first man that I had choiceful penetrative

sex with was someone I worked with at Good Vibrations. And so he's a male friend who I chose. The 14-year-old in me was like, I had to lose my virginity. I'd choose you because I feel safe with you. And he was not conventionally attractive. Like he would say that about himself. He was funny as all hell. He was deep. He studied theology. Totally interesting, quirky, quirky guy. And I was smitten with him once we started this physical connection. And I would have totally gone there with him, but he was insecure and kind of cut it off with me because he was afraid that of like oh no you can't really be into me so you know I've had a lot of different experiences but I do think that when you have a heart connection with someone and I think at

different ages it can be different right you're looking for different things and chemistry I think chemistry the people that I have the most intense sexual chemistry with over the years what I have come my theory it might be a little too woo woo for an austin audience i'll share it anyways they're from all over so it's just that there is karma there is some kind of past life or other timeline connection and you are having you're badly in love with them at some other place in time or having amazing sex with them at some other place in time or in deep pain with them but there's this intense karma that gets ignited once you have sex. So when you have sex really quickly with someone, which if the turn on is magnetic between the two of you, it's more likely

to happen faster. It's also more likely to fizzle out. Right. It's often not as sustainable when it's like so, so intense. So I feel like you need enough chemistry. Yeah. You know, and you can't this one partner that I lived with that I didn't have humor chemistry with. Like there were moments of that but on paper we had all the same values it was like check check check check check check right they looked right but it doesn't necessarily mean that they're your long-lasting yeah I think we have multiple people throughout our lives I mean yeah it's definitely a journey and it's definitely a learning process but I always wonder too you know like okay like you go on a first date and it could be like it could just be shit or it could be okay it's decent enough and so

this is another thing this comes from a very professional matchmaker if there's nothing that's standing out saying no no no no then go on another date because you're giving that person like another chance if it's well I don't say chance another experience to have to possibly open up or whatever and it kind of makes sense like if there's no red flags or there's nothing but you're not so like oh my god this is the person you know that sometimes we do that it's interesting it's an interesting thing i i have in the bay area it's so expensive to live by yourself that in my 20s i had a lot of different roommates and i had a house that i was the leaseholder and i had five rooms and there was a woman that the minute i met her and not in a sexual way but just

friend chemistry you know those people you're like yes immediate and then there was another person I had move in just because we needed to fill the room was not drawn to her it was kind of you know like I felt a little rubbed by her actually but what evolved it was such a good learning experience for me was that the person that I had the instant intense friend chemistry with, I ended up actually feeling pulled on too much by her. And this other person that was more kind of almost like a rabbit in headlights, a deer in headlights, either way, very intellectual, kind of kept to herself. Through conflict, we actually created more intimacy and a longer lasting friendship. And so it taught me like, oh, maybe it's not all about that instant, you know,

intuition that we think we have about another person and that people will grow on you. You can become really enamored with somebody. Your heart will, you know, start to expand over time, given time. Yeah. So it's a tricky one. There are so many humans out there and you're a beautiful woman. I'm sure a ton of men want to date you and you can't. I don't have that much free time. I I cannot, there have been times that I've gone on multiple dates in a day, you know, a day and the week, you know, and, but so for me, it's kind of like there is a certain efficiency need. If I'm writing with someone and I don't feel really sparked or interested in what they're

writing back to me, or there's not enough of an interest. If someone's like, do you want to get together? It's like, no, my time is too precious. Right. Right. So I think you need to use the discernment that you've developed over a lifetime. And I don't know about you, but the idea of like, well, there was no no's, but there was no yes. That would be hard for me to prioritize one of my precious free evenings to go out again with that person.

I understand the theory. Right. It's true. I mean, I'm in the same situation. So it's got to take a little bit of you've got to pique my interest. you've got to make me want to learn something more about you. And that's the thing too, guys, like be a little mysterious, right? Don't throw up all the stuff in one date. That is such a turn off. Nobody wants to hear it. So I don't like, don't throw up on the first date with word vomit.

Can you be more specific? Because are you meaning that they're telling you all of their childhood wounds are you meaning that they're telling you everything that you need to know in that hour of their whole life story of where they're at what's going on I mean no I want you just to go on the date I want you to see if there's anything that's interesting about this person pay attention to their body language pay attention to how they interact with you to see if that's a person that you want to be around you know and see if you guys have fun together just have a good time even if it's a half an hour right so and and I would say fun but also you know if you're really attracted to them are you experiencing is it like an anxious turn on or are you able to also

feel calm around them because calm and ease is it's underrated I think it's a really important thing to be able to feel that with another person yeah but it's tricky because sometimes I'm so comfortable around you it's like I've known you my whole life it's like oh family patterns you're attracted to what's familiar yes I want to break that shit yeah yeah well okay I have one last question and I'm gonna let you just tell everybody about your name of your podcast I think I said it but let's reiterate it so people can go listen because I think it's such a great podcast what was one of your favorite dates and what was it my gosh oh these questions let's see oh that's a hard one I'm gonna need a minute you know it's so what's crazy is that nothing is popping up but I

can tell you if I had to do more of an impressionistic watercolor and maybe a real memory will pop forward a specific date but it would include a feeling you know it would include a feeling state and that is laughter for sure like a playfulness a kind of a giddiness there's generosity there's good food some kind of physical activity like I personally love dancing if you do couples dancing like you know as long as you you like to be touched personally um you know like but the mood is soft like having the other person feel supported not controlled like i really like it when someone plans something and has me feel oh i'm just in charge of everything in my life and i am one of those women it's like oh thank you it's a relief to not have to make all the

decisions, but to not feel controlled. So I can appreciate it's like, it's like leading when you're dancing, that there's a lot for, if we're talking about heterosexual or, you know, men navigating these things for you to be thinking about to allow a woman to surrender and be led. Yeah. And I would say there is curiosity on the person's part. There is space. There is some vulnerability. But like you said, it's not like everything is dumped on the table. So there's spaciousness and appreciating and just being in it. And then the chemistry is palpable in the space. and so it feels kind of warm and tingly in my body and yeah that sounds amazing and this for you men out there charna said it all this is what women want we want to be able to drop in our femininity whether or not it's actual hetero or or not heterosexual, there's the feminine and masculine energy and you have to do the dance, right? And

for all of us women that are leading our lives every day in the masculine, we don't want to plan anything. We want you to do it. We just want to drop into this energy and this space of vulnerability and comfortability and have a good time. So take that away. That was beautiful. Yeah. One thing I'll add, you know, and I appreciate when a man is sensitive to awareness of whether I might feel safe or not safe, you know, because oblivion to that is just like a red flag for me. But if they're like, you know, if you feel safe, if you're comfortable with it, I could pick you up. I personally prefer to not drive because I didn't drive for the first 20, you know, 21 years of my life. And then again, for another 17 years, I didn't drive. So for me, that can be stressful. So I actually really like being driven. And so, but to have the person be aware that there might be a safety concern for me or someone else. Yeah. Right. A lot of women would

never would not do that. They would not. But once I feel comfortable with someone and we've talked and if I have the option, yeah, I'll ask my body if it's a yes or no, but often I will say, yeah, absolutely. I would love for you to pick me up. Thank you. Yeah. So like giving them that, that option, but also being sensitive to where they might be coming from, use some empathy and and try to imagine what it's like for a woman having a big strange man come to their house yeah agreed well where can everybody find your podcast your book anything else that you want to talk about really fast and we can yeah well the book isn't out there the book is on my computer so that is wait that's uh yes that's a work in progress sorry yes don't try to find it it's

It's mine. Laid Open, L-A-I-D, Open Podcast. You can find it wherever you listen to podcasts or you can go to one of my websites is charna, C-H-A-R-N-A, C-A-S-S-E-L-L.com. You can read my blog there. You can join my newsletter and find my podcast postings there. And if you want to read more about my private practice. It's passionate life.org. And I imagine that'll be in the show notes. Yes, yes, it'll all be there. And then please, if you're interested, you can follow me on Instagram at late open podcast, I do a little bit of tick tocking. And I also have a Facebook page. So late open podcast on Facebook. Amazing. Well, it's such a pleasure again to speak with you. You just are a plethora of knowledge and I wish we could talk all day, but maybe another

podcast. Yeah, thank you. I can pick your brain. Thank you so much, Tarana. Good luck with your date. Oh, thanks. I hope so. We both like David Sedaris. So I was like, at least we might laugh together. So we'll see. Amazing. Well, have a wonderful time. I'll talk to you soon. thanks for tuning in to today's episode come and hang out with me on instagram at celeste more image let me know your thoughts on today's episode because i always love hearing from you all you can find all the links and resources in the show notes of the episode on my website celestemore.com okay that's all for now i'll see you in the next episode see you next time friends Thank you.