Sex With Emily - Toxic Relationships & Drama Addicts w/ Dr. Scott Lyons

Episode Date: October 27, 2023

([TW // mentions su*c*de] If you would like to skip this portion of the episode, please skip through 47:00-48:00.) Do you (or your partner) start fights over nothing? Do stable relationships feel unsettling? Today, holistic psychologist, podcast host, and author Dr. Scott Lyons shows us how some of us may be more addicted to drama than we think. From attachment styles to toxic partners, Dr. Lyons explains how unresolved trauma can show up in ourselves and our relationships. We also talk about the desire to have rough sex, why makeup sex feels so good, how trauma lives in our bodies, and so much more.In this episode, you’ll learn:How to work through jealousy in relationshipsHow addiction to drama affects our sexual pleasureHow to identify and sit with uncomfortable emotionsSee the full show notes at sexwithemily.com.Show Notes:How to Handle Performance Anxiety5 Ways to Pleasure a VulvaMagic Wand MicroSHOP WITH EMILY! (free shipping on orders over $69)The only sex book you’ll ever need: Smart Sex: How to Boost Your Sex IQ and Own Your PleasureWant more? Sex With Emily: HomeLet’s get social: Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | TikTok Let’s text: Sign Up HereWant me to slide into your inbox? Sign Up Here for sex tips on the regular. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So sometimes we do big, rough sex because it's more sensational, right? And so we might mistake that sensationalism for actually deep pleasure. And that's what gets confused in addiction and drama is where these heightened, excitable sensations is not true intimacy. It's not true intimacy. It's not at all. You're listening to Sex with Emily. I'm Dr. Emily and I'm here to help you prioritize your pleasure and liberate the conversation around sex. Today, Dr. Scott Lyons joined us as our first ever guest in our brand new studio. Talking about all the ways people can be addicted to drama.

And if you're like me, you may think, I don't like drama, I don't do drama, but Dr. Lyons shows us how some of us may be more attracted to chaos than we think. We also talk about vanilla versus kinky sex, how to overcome jealousy when a partner comments and other people, how trauma lives in our bodies and just so much more. Please, please, please rate and review Sex with Emily wherever you listen to the show. It really helps us make more quality shows and have this show reach more people so everyone's having better sex. My new articles, how to handle performance anxiety and five ways to pleasure a vulva are

up on SexwithEmily.com. Arted one, enjoyed this episode. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Lately, everyone has questions about AI. How do we use it? How will it help our business? How do I get started? But there are bigger questions about AI we should be asking. Like how is customer data used and who uses it? At Salesforce, we are all about asking more of AI

and getting answers you can trust. Find out more at askmoreofa.com slash CA. Dr. Scott Lyons, welcome to the show. Dr. Emily, I'm so happy to be on the show. We've been trying to do this for a while. Very excited to talk to you. Can I tell you how fun my week was? Yeah. So people would constantly be asking,

what are you doing this week? And I would just answer them having sex with Emily. And it was my favorite thing to see their response on their faces. And they're like, what do you mean? And I was like, yeah, I came here to have sex with Emily. Or not have sex with Emily. To do sex with Emily. And they're like, and it're like, what do you mean? And I was like, yeah, I came here to have sex with Emily. Or not have sex with Emily. To do sex with Emily.

And they're like, and it was like, they're like, I'm really confused. I was like, it's okay. It did. So thank you for having the titles so that I could make so many people stay. That's a fun thing, it's confusing to people. Super confusing, yeah.

Well, for me to say, Well, right, because you also don't have sex with people. Women, yeah. It's been a while, like 40 years. Oh my God, that's so funny. Well, I'm glad you're here. So welcome to Los Angeles. Welcome to the first guest in our new studio.

It's beautiful. I'm super excited. And you have so many great books and toys. And we have your book here. I have my book here. Your new book, a Dicta Drama, Healing Dependency and Crisis in Chaos in Yourself and Others. Congratulations on your book.

Thank you so much. And we're going to call myself out here because I was like, oh, I'll read it, but I'm not really. I stay clear of drama. I don't like people in my life who are dramatic. I just, I'm not dramatic. And then you call me out. First few pages, it's like, oh, shit.

I might be. I might be. And I know that addicted to drama, meeting internally or the way I live my life. So can you just talk about the whole concept you had in the book and being addicted to drama? Yeah. How does that come about?

It's a gentle callout book. OK. Yeah. We talk about there's a scale of being kind of dependent on drama. And what's interesting is I feel like we all know someone addicted to drama. If we close our eyes and say, who do in your life is kind of dependent on chaos,

it's totally addicted to crisis and a stress addict. Like who do you know? And it almost everyone, yeah. I get stressed addict. I have a lot of stress. I hope it's got to do all I get overwhelmed. That's it. Yeah, we all know someone rarely and thank you for acknowledging your own sort of dependency

on stress. It's where that we will acknowledge our own reliance on drama. And more so we'll be like, oh yeah, my mom, my sister-in-law, my brother, whomever, but rarely do we go, that might be me. And it's hard, like any addiction, we tend to not see our own relationship to it, our own causation of it. Within addiction drama,

I'll just say drama is like the unnecessary turmoil in our lives. It's the exaggerated and intensified response that is not in par with the stimulus. Like the response is bigger than stimulus. We're making mountains on a mole hills. Something is off. And what, the symptoms look like is different on the inside

than what an addiction a drama looks like on the outside. And so on the outside, people are over-scheduling themselves. They're bulldozing other people. They're over-sensitive. You know, that's something people will say to people who are, have a dependency on addiction on drama. Like, you're being so sensitive. You know, they'll use exaggerated language, everything, always, never.

You know, that type of language that we might see with teenagers a lot. They get bored when things are calm. We can see it on the outside. They get bored. Like, all of a sudden there's stillness, there's ease, there's quietness, and all of a sudden they're stirring shit up. Yeah, they love to gossip. The way that they share what's happening in their lives is always what's called the dramatic narrative. He said then she said then they said as opposed to like that made me feel this way. They're stirring things up. They pull people into their crisis. So they're never quite alone, but they're always alone. They generalize a bad situation and make it their day, their life. Like, someone caught me off while driving here and I could be like, ugh, such a shitty day today. Or like my week's just awful

because I'm taking that little experience and spilling it over my perception of my entire day or week or life. I feel like on the outside, they have terrible relationships, right? It's like a roller coaster in the relationships. It's like fast beginnings, intense endings. There's a lot of jealousy, there's constant fights.

We know those people. Yeah, so do it. It's so relatable. What's crazy is on the inside, it's totally different. And I can say it from being on the inside of it. I straddle the fence of being the psychologist and working with people who have an addiction drama and having had it myself. And from the inside, it's like the whole world feels like it's against you. All you can see is queues of danger in the world.

You're so prone to say like, oh, the world's not a safe place. And here are all the reasons why that validate my perception of it. No one ever has my back. Everyone's out to get me. There's always something. So many of us know that person who says, it's always something.

Why can't it just be more easy when we don't realize it can't be more easy because we can't allow it to be more easy Doesn't actually feel safe for it to be easy and quiet and still If it does ever get calmer to easier we're just sitting around That actually doesn't feel okay. Yeah. There's actually what's called a revving reflex or an activation reflex We can use either word and it simply means like we're getting calmer more still and all of a sudden there's an alarm that goes off that says, Hey, if you're

too calm or you're too still, you're going to miss the next potential threat or trauma or danger. And so we have to get something. We have to start creating stories or we have to involve ourselves in some type of crisis to rev ourself back up to be aware, vigilant, or more hyper-vigilant to our conditions, so that we can stay, quote, unquote, safe. So it's like the fight or flight response? Yeah, exactly. It gets oil or fuel poured onto it so that we can quote, quote, be aware of our surroundings and stay safe enough.

It's a total misunderstanding what safety is. What do we do about that? Because I feel like this is how our environments, our ancestors were searching for like saber toothed tigers. And then we had to always be scanning the environment for what's wrong, the negativity bias. Well, there are the people that are dramatic. And we actually, those people are fun.

Like you might want to be sitting at some dinner party right? They're really in time So entertaining the ones like this happened that happened. They're very energetic and That's one way it manifests But then there's the people who always have like you're saying the internal experience of what is wrong in the environment How do I how do I keep myself safe? So I think well that's the human condition Part of what we can do is recognize, well, what does drama do for us? Like from an evolutionary biological perspective,

what is it actually doing for us? It does three things. It gives us more energy. It takes us out of a numbness or a depressive experience and gives passes that threshold so that we can feel alive in the world. And it is a natural pain reliever. Stress is one of our most potent natural pain relievers. It's an anesthesia.

It literally blocks the pain receptors so that we can be more quote unquote pain free. And that pain doesn't have to be like someone punching us in the face. It can be the pervasive pain from the trauma we're storing in our body. So that's why we get addicted to stress, for example, our anxiety or worry because then we are we're numbing for example, our actual emotions. We chase. Yeah, we chase the drama to avoid our trauma. That's right down the trauma that we're always talking about.

Trauma is to buzzword these days, which is why I love that you're here to kind of just break it down. I think people associate it with the big T-trauma, someone died or someone had cancer or something really bad happened. I got fired from a job in a really public way. But trauma, what is it and then how does it live in our bodies and why are we using it as a coping tool for the rest of our lives? How do we not do that?

So trauma is not about the event. Okay. And this is where it gets confusing because often in like diagnostics, statistical manual, the DSM, it's like here are the certain next events that equate to a trauma and that's bullshit. Yeah.

Because trauma is not about the event, it's in our body, it's do we have the capacity to metabolize the experience? And if not, we're flooded. And that's what happens in a trauma is the flooding of our nervous system and inability to break it down. And so it just layers and stays there as basically unprocessed energy. It's like, if you've ever had an impulse, like the balls coming at you, like if you're playing baseball and the balls coming straight at you, and you have an impulse, right?

It's like to catch it or to move out of the way. And what happens in trauma is that impulse gets locked in and frozen. So all that energy that desire to adapt was too overwhelmed by the flooding. And so not only are we flooded and frozen, but we have this energy, the fight or flight energy, the adaptive energy to respond, that's also frozen. So we have a freeze and we have an immense amount of energy that's moving in our body. That's both stuck. That both of them are just stuck. The frozenness is stuck and the energy that in the impulse never got to be mobilized.

So when I think about that, everyone has a childhood trauma, right? It's another thing. Yep. So an example might be if you grow up in a home that's really chaotic, right? Yeah. There was instability, maybe your parents were divorced, things happen, and so maybe you wanted to cry, maybe your parents had, don't stop crying or don't feel that. And then in that moment, your response, instead of like crying and having a parent, like the normal, the nice thing big, mommy daddy were yelling, sorry come here let me hold you and nurture you

and feel your feelings. But for most of us, I'd like to say our parents probably didn't do that. We were alone in our rooms. We didn't feel safe, it stayed in our body, that sadness or that fear that we weren't safe because mommy, daddy, all right, whatever it is. And so that has a physiological response that now it comes up at 50 years, 40 years later, whatever in our lifetime because that

energy still sits there. Yeah, it's not going anywhere. But it affects our entire system and it affects the way we think it affects the way we behave. And it's like, if the time, space, support, and permission are there to process and experience, we're usually good to go. But often one or more of those things are missing. And when it's missing, we don't get to process it and it just stays there. It gets stuck in our body. And we call that trauma.

Okay. Would you say that's true that most people probably didn't have a caregiver that was able to show them how to walk the steps through feeling in a traumatic emotion? Yeah. We know that only 50 to 60 percent of people had some type of secure attachment, which meant they had caregivers that had the resources and support to actually they had caregivers that had the resources and support to actually attend to them in a way that allowed for a safety and a safety with connection and bonding and intimacy. So that's why we all love attachment theory now, right? We love it.

Most of it, what do you find someone who's scared, is purely attached, and most like, we should like just study them on a microscope because it's so rare. Well, yeah. And what's funky is like, even though I might have a secure attachment as a kid, and I get together in a relationship with someone addicted drama, that security can fade. And I can become insecure. I can take what's called an insecure stance.

And I can start to even take their kind of instability on in my own body and my own self. So just because we had a secure stance or a secure attachment when we were younger, all it means is it's easier to get back there if we get lost as an adult. How does this trauma show up in how we show up in relationships? Yeah, we pick. Yeah. So we know that we're looking for any adaptive survival strategy to not be in the depth of pain of the trauma. We couldn't process it then. Our brains think we can't process it now. And so we have all these adaptive strategies, which might be like, I drink or I go have a lot of

sex and I don't, you know, any way that we think that we can become dependent on to help us sort of stay away from being in contact with the underlying pain. So if dramas are jammed to help us avoid the trauma, then it's definitely going to show up in relationships through jealousy, fighting, crazy sacks. It's going to show up in unnecessary fights. It's going to show up. I mean, we know, it's gonna show up in unnecessary fights. It's gonna show up, I mean, we all know it, where we're like, what the fuck is going on? Wait, how did we get from here to here, in zero to 60? Like, when that's happening,

when we're asking that question in a relationship, there's a bit of propensity of drama. When we're not able to track the logic of an expir- like a reaction or an emotion, we're in the field of drama. That's how we know. We're like, oh, this is drama. What would you do in those situations? Well, one is to normalize it.

When I'm like, when I have had partners or, you know, even patients that are like in the drama around relationships, I go, oh, they're doing two major things. One is they're protecting themselves. So they were feeling too close, the intimacy feels dangerous because if I, if they feel too intimate, they're going to feel too vulnerable, too vulnerable to the next potential threat. So they have the moments they get that activation reflex, that alarm that goes off, they're doing crazy shit in the relationship.

They're getting jealous for no reason. They're making stories up. They're just picking fights. They're like picking on little behaviors to avoid the intimacy that feels too threatening. Don't be dramatic. I'll be right back with Dr. Scott Lines answering your questions.

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Available in select locations. See you for details. I would like to get in some questions. So this is from Layla. She's 21 in Illinois. Hey, Dr. Amley, why do I feel so horrible when he says that Florence Pugh is fucking sexy while watching Don't worry darling? Like I know she is, is it disrespectful or unkind to say it?

I feel so sad when you said it but I didn't say anything because I don't want to give it power. But it just makes me feel so bad, it just makes me want to get a nose job, stop eating and totally redefine my wardrobe. It makes you want to change everything about myself and then leave him so we can see how great I am and how he should have been calling me sexy instead of her and that he lost his chance. I know this is a toxic way to think, but we are in college and not technically boyfriend and girlfriend, but we are exclusive and together. Typical Gen Z shit. I just don't know what to do and you have a very grounding way of giving advice.

I know I'm pretty and we have good sex but this throws me for such a self-esteem loop So Leila, thank you for your question, and I just love how articulate she's like I know that my reaction to my boyfriend saying that Lauren's pure sexy, you know is sending me into a tailspin I know I'm a hot, but now I've all of a sudden probably she probably felt unsafe. Yeah She was like, we're great. I'm a hot but now all of a sudden probably she probably felt unsafe. She was like, we're great. I'm happy. Now all of a sudden that thing that he said triggered her, so Leila, thank you for your question. And I know we don't know Leila,

but like if she was sitting in her office for example. I think we all know Leila. We all know Leila. Because we all have been Leila. I've been Leila. When I caught my wife and watching porn at 25, I thought we were having the best sex of our lives. And then I thought, I don't have blonde hair,

and I don't have large breasts. So clearly, he's a five seconds from leaving me, and our sex isn't what it once was, and I took our whole relationship down in that moment. Ooh, we went in the drama spiral. I didn't even try to do it. I didn't even try to do it. And Layla wants to get out of her spiral.

She's actually has the awareness to like, right, I didn't be like, I know this is unhealthy, what do I do? Yeah. So, what would you do if she was sitting with you? Because I know I could be like, well, what was happening in her childhood? There's so many different ways to take that. There's so many different ways.

Well, what would you do with Layla? How would we help her? Well, Layla first, awareness is the first sign of healing. So I just wanted to like identify, you're on the path. She's on the path. Let's just identify. What's on the path of 21? the path. Let's just identify it. I don't know. You're way ahead of where we were. Yeah. So that's amazing. Second, it's great that you can recognize that a neutral statement doesn't feel neutral.

There's a disproportionate response to what is neutral. So it's almost like he's handing you an apple and you're going into a realm of how you don't eat fruit salad Yeah, that's the disproportionate response and how dare he bring me And it's like I don't like fruit salad. He doesn't know me. He doesn't really love me because he doesn't know me He doesn't see me and you're spiraling. So step back. Step back and I'm going to keep using the metaphor in this way. I'm going, all right, there isn't a fruit salad here. There's just an apple.

And I'm stepping back again. Each time I've added a layer of drama, I have to step back and go, that's not actually here. That's not what's here in this moment. So I keep going back and I say, how can I get back to his words and find more neutrality? So, start with the word Florence. Can you find a little softness in your breath? Can you squeeze a pillow when you have like an activation in your body, like that stress response.

Do something physical and then come back and just see if you can ground and anchor in yourself. So just start with the word Florence. Okay. You know, so, and then can you say her full name? And then can you get to the full sentence without jumping out of yourself? Because that's really what's happening this moment. You're jumping out of the present moment, you're jumping out of your own body,

and you're jumping into the drama well. So step back, step back into yourself, feel your own the weight of your body, the weight of your breath, the movement of your breath, come back to yourself, step back from the well. And then you're identifying more neutrality in the words and seeing if you can find that neutrality in your body as well. We have to see as you get back to our bodies again because what we're saying is this trauma from wherever she came from

or this experience she had might have started from wherever but she's playlist probably doing other areas of her life too, not just in her relationship. That's just here. So the practice of, you know, my feet are on the floor, I'm feeling the chair beneath me, is the work. Is the work. So one of the things that happens, like I said, is in trauma is we jump out of our body,

we disassociate, we disconnect, we divorce from ourself, we are basically self-abandoned. And what happens is we leave a void where we should be, where our presence should be. And in that void, we start to fill it with other things. And that's what an addiction is, with we become dependent on the thing we fill the void of where we should be. So let's just walk through being here. So he said that to her, she's sexy and her body probably froze.

She's probably holding hands with him eating popcorn, watching Netflix. Because that's what happens in a freeze. And that then stirs more at triggers. It's like one trigger triggers the next trigger. So exactly. So in that moment of her recognizing she could have been like, okay, he said that thing because he's going to say something else. It's going to happen again.

It might have already happened since she wrote the email. So the practice is the body wisdom, right? Of being like, okay, I'm recognizing this pattern. And I'm gonna breathe. And I'm gonna stop and say, okay, like Florence might be objectively hot to people. But that wasn't about me. We have a great relationship and I'm safe.

We're safe. What else could she do? Well, I think you actually just named it perfectly. Brilliant, Emily. Emily is, once you come back to yourself, you can come back into relationship because exactly what you were saying is in the freeze response in Leila's body,

she disconnected the bridge between her and her boyfriend or her and this guy. And then is reacting to that. So I might go, can I put a hand next to him? What are the ways that I feel safe enough in connection with him? How do I repair the bridge that I actually just cut off? Take radical responsibility

because what that sense of loss in the relationship is coming from your own trigger. And often we then project it out and blame the other person. Well, look at you. This is so relatable. But she's already like getting a nose job, leaving him, dating someone else, losing 20, but it's like, we're already in the future.

From one statement. Yeah, when we can't stay in the present, we pull from the past and we jump into the future. That's what trauma is, right? We can't be in the present. We cannot be in the present. And that's also what happens radically and with those addicted drama.

The bigness of the response is from the past and they're jumping into an anxious future which they have no power over. So they're replicating the lack of agency, the lack of control that started with the trauma itself. That's such a great way of explaining it, because I think we all have been there, right? Or we just, because most of our worry and suffering isn't real. So we would say, yeah, practice some mindfulness activities.

And then maybe she could also, and I put under the hood. Yeah. What's under the hood? It's a moment of like going like, do I feel unsafe? Do I feel scared? Do I feel vulnerable? Because what is also happening in the extremeness of the emotional response is that it's overriding what the true core emotional response is. That's what happens in a drama swell. We might be like,'s not, like, clearly she's not demonstrating a lot of anger or rage to her partner, like some people do,

but that type of rage is what's called the secondary emotion. It's like overriding and casting a cloud over the primary core feeling that we can't tolerate or be with, or we don't know how to be with. And that's because we're feeling like unsafe or not enough, or not lovable, or he's gonna bat in her,

so she's like getting ahead of it. Yeah, or it's like, if we were kids, I don't know about your family, but like sadness wasn't really tolerable, but anger was tolerable in my family. So when I was sad, that wasn't something that was gonna be held in witness. So I would get angry, and that would be seen in responded to.

When I'm getting angry in that moment, I never actually making contact with the underlying emotion. I'm never truly being present with myself or letting people see what's actually underneath the hood and I just keep spiraling. Would you say this? I'm obsessed with the emotion wheel. I have a lot of my house.

I've got pillows, I've got coasters. I love emotions wheel. I love a ball over my house. I've got pillows, I've got coasters. I've got a ball over my house. I love the emotions wheel because it's like, I feel like, yeah, you identify, like anger and sadness and then you go beneath it. You're like, oh, I'm just really feeling threatened or I'm feeling vulnerable or I'm feeling not enough. Which is really hard because I would also say if Laila's in this healthy, I mean, she's not even technically boyfriend, girlfriend, but I guess the practice would be in a healthy

relationship to say, you know what, when you say those things and you comment on other women, because I think that's relatable, even if your partner's liking someone on Instagram, I feel threatened, I feel unsafe. And so maybe if we could not say those things around me or like, this is how it makes me feel, then I often think that if we have the agency over that

and we can actually label it for our partners, because I always want to give people's partners, but if it's not, he doesn't want to piss you off. He wants to still be sex with you when he's 21 years old in college. So I think if you say that, you could say that to him and to say, this is how it makes me feel that our partners want to be good lovers to us. They want to be good partners. But if we give them enough information, they would stop doing it, but we don't have the information to even identify ourselves, let alone be able to communicate it.

So we just have a great communication and relationships, but that's why I love the work you do. And that's why I think addicted dramas, so have a look, because you could like identify and be like, oh, I don't want all this, I actually, because we want connection. Brandy, the put words around it, be like, explain it to somebody.

Yeah, and we can recognize, okay, what are the unmet needs that have been present in my life? What's like the most common ones? Oh, I don't feel seen. Oh, is that present in this moment? So when we start to recognize, like, the things we often say to people,

or especially our partners, is like, I don't feel like you're hearing me. I did that with a current partner. It's like, let's each write down the things we've said to our partners in the past that despite the partner, we have commonly said. And we both looked at and were like, shit, I'll be like, I don't feel like you hear me. I don't feel like you really understand what I'm saying. And in that moment, mostly, it's because I'm not receiving the fact that they're actually saying something to me.

I'm not letting myself be validated. And that would be your opinion, your relationships, and then you might go back to your childhood and say, I never felt hurt at home. Yeah, I never felt hurt at home. And it wasn't safe enough for me to take things in because I constantly had to be on guard. And so those two things coupled, I'm reenacting in my adult relationships, which we all do. And so when we are in drama in our relationships, we're reenacting partly because, you know, when you said, like, if you grew up in a chaotic home, like so many

of us did, the being loud, being intense is often the currency of love. Meaning that's the way you're going to be seen and heard to rise above the decibel of chaos in your own household. And so that becomes in your brain wired as the currency of how you get to be seen and heard. What just about the examples? Like it was an anger. Like I think about my home. It wasn't anger. Anger wasn't tolerated, sadness wasn't tolerated. But I think we had, nothing was really tolerated. It was an emotional desert. Yeah, there was no support.

There was no talking about emotions. There wasn't really, it was absence of parenting, which I think is also relatable to many people. So that might be, look, my needs just don't matter. Or no one cares about me. Or I have to do everything myself. That would be mine. So for my drama, it's like I've do everything myself

and everything myself, then there's a lot to do. And then my schedule gets very busy and very overwhelming because I'm in charge and if I don't do everything myself, then life's gonna fall apart. But then I'm very busy. Yeah, try to just point something out to those who are listening. If you heard Emily's voice when she was describing the pattern, that's what it feels like to be in the whirlwind of drama. It's like, it's fast.

It's, it's like chaotic. It's, it's groundless. I love you. I love you. I love it. It's a mess. I got it. It's, it's, and the excitement takes us and takes us out of our own body and their own control of being in relation to what's happening.

And then we pull people in. This is the crazy thing about also like drama, those who have a propensity for it, is we pull people in as a way of relating. We don't trust that they can come and meet us because that wasn't available when we were kids or it wasn't safe enough. So if I pull you into the ecosystem of chaos and crisis, I feel less alone, which is so prevalent at the base of an addiction in dramas that we feel isolated and alone, isolated and alone from ourself and other people. We truly need to enclave connection.

Like write all the studies or like this is what we need. There's an epidemic of loneliness. But that's like a crisis, right? Because we actually need that to be healthy humans, but we push people away, but we want it. So confusing. It's the bind of drama. It's that I want to be in relationship with you Emily,

but I also feel too, like it's too scary. It's too vulnerable. It doesn't actually feel safe to be in deep vulnerable connection. And so I am riding this tension and when I move in and out of it, what we get is that chaos. It's a chaos incarnated. Exactly.

Exactly. Chaos is so interesting too. And that came up from my therapy is that there's just a lot happening and how do I manage all? And she was like, well, I'm leave to make, like just say hello to the chaos, make friends with your chaos, make peace with your cast and it was kind of annoying to be honest.

Totally. Because I was like, or how about this to be like, well, it must serve you in some way. People said it's annoying. I'm like, how could my chaos serve me? This is, I'm telling you that I'm in pain and comfort when I didn't understand what's a connection, like it serves me because it was a pattern learned in childhood to keep me safe. That's how it serves me. But I kept thinking, like, no, I really don't want this.

Take it away from me. Yeah. And it serves you again. Like, it gives you energy. I stress, response, releases, literally is what it's job is. Our stress mechanism is to release energy, cascade, waterfall through a whole body. And if we are exhausted, if we are repressed and depressed, and our immune system is depleted because of that, where are we going to get our energy source?

Stress. So to answer the question, my therapist, when I was 20, was like, it must be serving you in some way. Now I'm getting that it was giving me energy, it was numbing me. It was giving you sensation to rise out of the numbing. But it also does numb, right? It pushes, it represses the underlying stuff down because you're too busy in the chaos. It's distracting.

They give a sensation that rises above the threshold of numbness, so we feel live, which means we feel valuable in the world. It's the same way in which, I don't know, you know, you meditate, you do breath work. Like I took a yoga class last night for the first time in a while and I'm an avid meditator, but you know, or whether we're in like a bathtub, whatever it is, the thing of like peace, where we find ourselves starting to make lists or go into stories or thinking about our lists or go into stories or thinking about our ex or getting into a fight with someone when there hasn't even been

that real situation or whatever it is, we're thinking about work. The thing that takes us out of the present moment, that is a moment in which drama is happening. Why are we disrupting our own peace? Why are we challenging our own process of stillness and ease in our life? And when we can start to go, oh wait, I'm doing this, then we can start to move towards healing.

It's so true that you start to get calm when you start to meditate, so I'm so people like, I could never meditate, I could never do it. It's because when you get quiet, it starts coming up and our propensity is to like, make the meditate, I could never do it. It's because when you get quiet, it starts coming up, and our propensity is to make the list, think about create the drama.

I remember the first time, remember that I did this 10 day silent, I did a opacit, you did a opacit, when I was like 25, and the first time I did one, but I remember sitting there, and you can't talk to anybody, you can't look at anyone, you can't write, you can't do anything, if you don't want to these retreats, I think I heard you talk. Yeah.

And that was my first experience meditation, because I'm extreme. I'm like, if I've learned my time, would jump in. And I remember, I remember in the time that there was probably like 60 people, I was in Thailand, didn't know anybody, you couldn't talk to a friend.

But I remember creating stories about everybody, the way they were breathing, they didn't like me, I didn't like them, I've created so many stories. Out of nothing, there's literally nothing to do when you meditate for 10 days, you literally just have to breathe and sit, they provide you with your food, there's a place to sleep. And then you came out of it, I met everybody,

I'm like, they're all these lovely people but we create drama, so that's like a very extreme way of saying that like we are constantly doing that all the time in the 80% of our lives, we're creating stories that actually aren't true. And so that's why all this mindfulness work is a practice and it's a muscle. But the more you do it,

so if you stick with anything that you choose, whether it's meditation or breathing or going for a walk without your phone, it's a muscle that you have to exercise at over time, it does get easier to access that point. But I'm gonna say, I'm not perfect. I'll be meditating, I'm like, I'm making my lesson, do things, but then you start to notice how do we bring it back down'll be meditating, I'm like, I'm making my lesson, doing things,

but then you start to notice how do we bring it back down again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love such a good example. Such a good example, out of nothing, you created narratives and stories about every single person. Because we're not comfortable with ourselves, that I'm just, takes a long time. She gets to get to the other part.

I think we got Lailia, I think she knows now, probably that she's. She's good. She's not her way. Okay, let's go to Aaron. Aaron's 30 in Montana. Okay, hey, Dr. Emily, I think she knows now probably that she's. She's good. She's got her way. Okay, let's go to Aaron. Aaron's 30 in Montana. Okay, hey Dr. Emily, I'm reaching out because my husband I've recently experienced

a surgeon or sex life and I don't want it to stop. We've been together for 10 years. I just love to hear that there's a surge after 10 years. And you know it's because they're listening to your show. Yeah. And reading your book, just to be clear. Just to get props for it too. I love it.

Married for five years and we have two kids. Our relationship is into a lot including family drama, moving past trauma on both sides that affects our intimacy. Despite this, we love each other deeply, believe we are soulmates. Our sex life is currently vanilla with a little bit of spice, but I won't explore further and try freaky or things with my husband. I want to show how much I love and trust them and feel safe with him. However, past trauma sneaks in during sex, making me feel scared and triggering me. I hate having my head pulled or pushed and dirty talk

and having my chin pulled or looking in while he's standing, these are all triggers. I freak out immediately and almost stop what I'm doing altogether, but I wanna push past these mental and physical barriers. I wanna be spicier with someone I love and trust and I don't wanna be scared when he pushes my head down or stumble inside of what I try to push past these mental and physical barriers. I want to be spicier with someone I love and trust. And I don't want to be scared when he pushes my head down or stumble inside of when I try to talk to her,

to tell him, can you help me? So she's saying, I want to do all the things, but everything he's doing is triggering me and we're having these trauma responses. And I know that you said, this is something that resident me when we're trying to find addiction to drama, that we seek intense activities

to be in relation to our body sometimes. People sexually do that. Yes. And that's why we seek intense activities to be in relation to our body sometimes. People sexually do that. Yes. And that's why we seek these things, but she's just like intellectually wants it, but her body isn't allowing her to. So what do we think is going on here? Yeah. Great example. Extreme sex or extreme like sports is another way of avoiding what's actually here. Is it okay? So I've discussed about that though. Like we do extreme sports or extreme things to avoid it, which in some ways are people even like now like doing the hot plunge or the cold thing.

It's like that's avoiding it, but then how do we? Come back, have to be willing to tolerate boredom. And when I say boredom, I'm doing air quotes because what we is underneath the boredom is that actually the feelings, the things that are like haven't been processed. Boredom is just like the numbing layer between what's happened in stored in our body and the things we do on top of it to avoid the numbness and what's underneath it.

So boredom equates the layer of numbness that has been that protective layer. So we haven't had to feel what we've experienced. And we don't like boredom. We do not like this. And that's also withdrawal symptom. For those who are addicted to drama, is like they have that big high explosion typically, or they do the big experience as cathartic, or they get that big fight with someone. And then they feel a moment of relief

which is just collapse actually and it's not true relief and Then they get they start to get the itch Things feel a little dry things feel a little boring things feel like hmm. I need a little something in my life And so they go seek create manifest, manifest, whatever, you know, drama. It's free. How come we make up sex is so great? Because I can tell you exactly because I like it. Why, yeah, why is makeup so great?

Okay, so one thing is, oh, I feel closest to you after a big fight. Mm-hmm. Partly, it's because we aren't actually, typically, makeup sex hasn't had a lot of deep repair work to it. Yeah. Because sometimes it does. But often, we have this big fight, and we go into makeup sex, and what that is, is there's actually more distance between us, and that feels safer.

Wow, we've created this risk, and then we want them back. Yeah. So, I'm going to do a sex thing that's connective. Yeah. We do the thing, which is whatever it takes to create space and distance, so it does not have deep vulnerability and intimacy, and then that makes us feel quote unquote safer.

And so the sex is great. So interesting. Yeah, it's like, this is like what's called faulty neuroreception. Our accused of safety get miswired. And it's really challenging because it's like, no, no, this is what feels safe. It's like, I'm doing these things. I'm like getting really jealous.

I'm throwing plates in the house and then we have great makeup sex and that feels so wonderful. That's faulty. Okay, wait, so this is why the people are keeping, they're like, oh, I'm in this relationship that's really toxic. We break up, we get back together, we break up.

He's cheated at me three times. She's done these things, and it's because every time that happens, it's this faulty connection. It's coming back together, it's coming back together. It's what quote unquote feel safe because it's not actually deep connection, which if we have a secure relationship with our caregiver often in the beginning,

then what is actually considered safe is that vulnerability, is that deep intimacy. But if that wasn't available, there was no time-space permission support, resources for it, then what becomes safe is actually distance. Everything's wrapped up in that. That's what's familiar, that's home.

Everything's wrapped up in we create stories. We do behaviors that reinforce that to make sure we do it. And then we don't even recognize that our behaviors are supporting the survival responses or these faulty ideas of what safety is. Would you say most of us have to come through the body to release? Oh yeah. I mean, repatterning safety takes a while because it's like, again, we're going to rely on these other ideas of what safety is, even if it's throwing yourself out of a plane constantly,

if that's what feels good, that's what I feel most alive in the world. That's when I feel most in connection with someone is when I pull them into my gossip or a fight. You know, and we have to go, well, okay, is that actually contributing to your well-being? Or is it just the behavior that keeps you further away from contact with yourself? And again, the things you have in processed. Okay, so if we go back to Erin, so basically she's saying, like, I want to do this stuff. And he buy one to two, and he's like, I'm down. Let me spank you. Let me pull your hair. And she's like, I'm not there yet. She's telling herself that she wants

I freak your things, but now I'm also thinking, maybe that's not what she needs right now. I think what she actually needs is more connection intimacy and feeling. I think she's trying to jump to something that's she what she's craving. She's thinking, I'm gonna try to kick you out and that's gonna be the thing that's gonna make

her sex life spicy, but it's really not. And she needs some more connection, healing and safety with him. You're so good at this. Deep kisses. You're so good at this. I'm listening. I was like, oh, tell me more Emily.

So the sex life is good. Yeah. I'm scared it might not last. Whoa. And then what do I think I need to make sure it lasts? As opposed to, this is really significant for us. This is huge for us to feel bonded and connected in this way after 10 years. And how can we mutually, in connection, say, how do we stay in this?

What is this like to be in connection? What's coming up for us that's allowing this? connection. What's coming up for us that's allowing this? And then using those as the resources to maintain it as opposed to jumping ahead as you're saying and going, we got to get into kinky or shit to keep it spicy, to keep it real. When it's like, I mean, like, yes, there's a lot of fun shit we can do out there. But also, let's normalize vanilla. Yeah. I mean, ooh, you can just get deeper and deeper and deeper in relation with just vanilla. We're getting bored because we're probably a lot of us are disassociating during sex and we're going through the motions. So boring sex is like, I get on top, you get on the bottom, we make out for three seconds, maybe.

Kissing goes a lot in long-term relationships often. Right, as you know, I love kissing. I love kissing too. I want to make out. Yeah. Exactly. Yes. But kissing does go.

It's funny because I was out of way for 10 days. My best friend, in this case, was like, did you guys make out what you got back? I'm like, no, but we probably should have. Like, you know what I'm saying? I forget that. I'm just saying. Yeah.

So that I like make graduate. We have to make out. You do. Because it's like, we forget, but why does it go? I don't know, it's really intimate. It's really connected. We've gotten to a pattern of connection means the old in and out penetration. I know, interesting.

And so I think that we just, again, we go through the motions, because I think most of us aren't present during sex and we're disconnected. So what I would say here, though, to Aaron, is that it's probably really great because they feel really connected right now And I would drill into what's actually going on now what you guys feeling like talk about that Talk about what's made it so great right now after 10 years. There's a surge

She said surge. What is that surge about what's underneath that? There's so much on top of that you don't need to bring in more stuff right now You don't need to be better at receiving dirty talk. You don't need to better any of that Lean into what's working and then amplify that So So well said. And then let us know what that is. We talk about disassociation for a minute because I often throw that around like we disassociate dirty texts, meaning we're not in the moment. I think a lot of it's to relate to the laundry list of things we have to do. How am I looking in the moment? Am I doing the right thing? And the second you're at any of those thoughts, you've left your body or were fantasizing about something else.

So let's just talk about the concept of disassociation, how that might show up to in the bedroom. How do you see it in life? Yeah, we are wired to protect ourselves. So let's start there. We are evolutionary wired to protect ourselves, which means we'll disconnect from our own sensations and feelings in our body as a way of preserving our survival.

And that's disassociation. We literally take a vacation from ourself. And it's totally fine. The problem is when we can't find our way back home. And that is where the challenge of dissociation lies. Is when we're like, oh, we had a vacate because my parents were yelling at me or there was this violent experience or I watched this thing on television that I couldn't take in and metabolize whatever it is. And we had that repeatedly,

or we didn't have an opportunity to have a secure base or secure attachment, we don't know where home is. Or we don't know how to find our way home. It's like a lost part of ourself floating outside of ourselves And that's what it feels like I spent most of my life seeing myself from outside my own body as a kid I told my parents I feel undimensional I didn't have like I didn't know how to describe it I was like I feel too dimensional and I used to say to my parents and like I feel like I'm a walking ghost

I would just like the things could pass by me that I didn't know where I was. Wow. I mean, I did anything to feel alive, which is why I got, I was in the arts, why I did any type of thing that stimulated a sense of feelings and sensation that could rise above the threshold of numbness,

because it reaffirmed that I wasn't a walking ghost for these brief moments. I was being bullied pretty badly and I was bullied by teachers. I was bullied by students for different things. You know, like my sexuality, I had a lot of learning disabilities and so I was at an high school where the teachers were bullying me because I would ask a lot of questions and they didn't have what was at my IEP, my individual education plan. So they thought I was fucking with them or whatever. They didn't understand why I would write backwards. I'm like, didn't you get to school for being a teacher?

Whatever. And you had no tools back then. And I was in so much pain. And I tried to communicate it, but I felt like no one was hearing me going back to my pattern with my partners. And so I set the stage, so to speak, of my suicide attempt. I laid up pills. I did, you know, cut myself to not deep enough.

And I had a note. And I did it for what I call weaponized empathy. I didn't believe anyone was able to connect with me on the things I was going through. So I thought if I could create the conditions that would make them feel as shitty as I feel, then they would truly understand. And we do that with partners. You do, I was just going to say we do that with partners all the time. We're like, I wish they could only feel, I want them to feel what I'm feeling,

what they did to me, I want them to, what do you say to that? Your partners, not gonna feel that, they're not gonna get such a, on creating drama too, right? I remember this couple I saw, and this one part of the couple, she would bring up the past constantly entornment

and like beat him down with the past situation. And I said, what are you doing? Like, what is your intention? What do you want? She's like, I want him to know how bad I feel. And I said, what have you just said, I'm feeling hurt right now. And see if he can stay with you. And he did. He's like, I'm feeling hurt right now and see if he can stay with you and he did. He's like, I really hear the pain that I was impartive and she launched right back into that past and I said, stop. Stop.

Please stop. He's offering a point of connection and what's actually happening here is it's intolerable for you to take it in. And so you're going back to weaponize the empathy so that he'll be with you, but you're not actually letting him be with you. I hear how intolerable this. I hear how painful and scared it is to find that bridge of connection, but until we let you open the windows and let him into your house a little bit, it's always going to feel like you have to attack in order to be on the same playing field. I think so many couples.

I'm just going back to all the emails you give people. She keeps bringing up the affair. He keeps over and over again. We get that question. All the weaponized empathy. Yeah. It's because it's like, oh, that really made me so bad

that I actually can't be with your apology. I am still blockaded. I am still in protection mode. My walls are up. So if I can like cause you the pain so that I feel like we're on the same plane field but I actually can't be on the same plane field issue. And then in those moments though, when you allow it to stop, stop, then she feels it, right?

And then they have a genuine connection. And it was so beautiful. Because so many couples are suffering because of these patterns. It's like, I think we all want to love and be loved and take it in. But this is the stuff that's getting in the way. I think everyone listening, you probably find themselves in their relationship right now and their conflicts and realize that it's really gonna take this kind of work

of slowing down, listening. That's why it's so important to learn the skills of listening in a relationship of hearing and feeling together, going to therapy. Or there's even great relational coaches out there. I see a couple now. I don't do much couples work. I'll just say, and there's a great reason for that.

I really like working with individuals. And I think I was like two. Like in the past, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm too enrapped in their drama. Yeah. And like, and not able to like, you know, help them unpack it enough. And now I'm much better.

But, but a couple's therapists versus a couple's coach is different. Often a couple's therapy will do like, we're gonna slow this down. We're really gonna unpack the past and the trigger is in the pieces where coach might just say, stop it. This is what you're doing. These are the practices I want you to do. It's more direct. And I have a lot of clients who are like, I love the directness. I need the directness.

I like that too, I think. Sometimes we just like, I had enough therapy, when I'm pumped to pass, like what do we need to do? What are the tools? It's like, direct it. It's like, this is specifically what we have to do.

Yeah, I had a client, a patient the other day, be like, I need you to just tell me to stop doing this. And I was like, okay. I feel like that's easy enough. Stop doing it. Just like thank you. I just, what I need is an adult. And I was like, I get it.

The inner child who had the unmet needs is in the driver's seat. And what you're seeking in this moment is really a path back to you being the adult. But in the moment, you need and what you're seeking in this moment is really a path back to you being the adult, but in the moment you need me to be the adult you wish you could be for yourself, and who could say, stop it. That's so powerful. So, if we were guys, I have to ask you this, how does addiction to drama block us from pleasure, specifically sexual pleasure?

That's a great question. So sometimes we do big, rough sex because it's more sensational, right? And so we might mistake that sensationalism for actually deep pleasure. And that's what gets confused in addiction at drama is where these heightened, excitable sensations is not true intimacy. It's not at all. And so, but they can be like, yeah, oh, that

was awesome because that was rough. And I had a lot of muscular sensations. And it was like, you know, whatever the action is that creates a sensation, they don't recognize, oh, they weren't actually there. They were in the sensation seeking not the connection bonding and intimacy. So the rusts sex, because that's, I think for some people, right? We want that, but they were not really feeling. So how do you have rough sex and feel? Well, we build up to it.

Yeah. It's like, I mean, like, you know, with my partner, we'll be having sex and I'll be like, pause. I just fake it. We need to backtrack, step back, and be like, okay, I need to reaffirm my sense of myself. And then we can go from there, we'll titrate it. We'll try it again.

And that's the way we build up to the rough sex. If rough sex is like your jam, cool. Awesome, good for you. But can you build up to the rough sex. If rough sex is like your jam, cool. Awesome, good for you. But can you build up to the place where you can be here with it? Even just stopping that process and just saying like, it's rough and it's not enough in the moment. So giving people permission to stop during sex

and take ownership, that's why aftercare for sex two is so important to like take moments after if you're having like a session and you're into other kinds of play, but to come back to be like, how do we connect again? So that's where I feel like it's a healthy representation of sex. And if that's intolerable, the intimacy after sex

is intolerable, you find you're like, oh, gotta go to the bathroom or like gotta, like you find yourself doing other things, busy work, so to speak. That's a real clear sign that you overrided your sense of connection and bonding with your partner or partners, or yourself, even if you're masturbating, and went to the sensationalism and actually haven't found your way back home. To yourself, to your partner or partners, et cetera. Thank you for helping us all find our way back home. To yourself, to partner partners, you, etc. Thank you for helping us all find our way back home. It's home to our bodies.

Really, this is the work. Thank you so much for this conversation. So I'm going to ask you the five quicky questions we ask all of our guests. Cool. Biggest turn on. Good communication. Biggest turn off. Not responding in text. What makes good sex? Oh my gosh. I'm not over thinking it. I'm just in it. I'm embodying it first. I would say like a sense of energetic physical spiritual lineup and I both feel myself and feel the ameshment simultaneously. That's like, yes. Something you tell your younger self about sex and relationships. It's okay not to feel shame. What's the number one thing you wish

everyone knew about sex? Oh, that it's a vehicle for connection. Thank you so much. Dr. Scott Lions, where can people find you? Tell us all the things that are going on. How can they join you? Yeah, um, you can find me on my website Dr. Scott lions. That's dr. Scott lions. I'm on social media. Um, I have a cool platform where you can take classes with me called the Embody lab. It's all about body-based therapies. Can anyone take that because I want to take it? I want to go to the embodiment lab. Yeah, Embody lab. I'm good, But this is what we're talking about. You should also teach on it. Do the people could go take the course out of line too? Yeah, absolutely.

They're all online. We have some in-person stuff coming up too, but mostly it's online. So, you know, we believe in accessible education. So, you know, whether it's doing a certificate or program on trauma or attachment theory, we believe you do not have to be a doctor or a therapist. We recognize that like trauma is in every profession wherever we go and we shall be more trauma informed. Okay, great.

We're going to link to that too. That's great. And my book is addicted to drama, healing the dependency on crisis in chaos and yourself in others. And I had a good time right now. I hope you have a good time reading it. We will. We will. Thank you so much. Thank you for being here.

Thank you, my love. That's it for today's episode. See you on Tuesday. Thanks for listening to Sex with Emily. Be sure to like, subscribe, and give us a review wherever you listen to the podcast and share this with a friend or partner. You can find me on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter at Sex with Emily. Oh, I've been told I give really good email. So sign up at sexwithemily.com and while you're there, check out my free guides and articles for more ways to prioritize your pleasure. If you'd like to ask me about your sex life, dating or relationship, call my hotline 559 Talk Sex. That's 559-825-5739.

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