The School of Greatness - 1081 How to Create a Lasting Relationship & Build Intimacy w/Dr. Laura Berman

Episode Date: March 8, 2021

“The love that you have for yourself is the only predictor of the love you can receive.”Today's guest is Dr. Laura Berman, who is a leading expert in the field of sex and relationship therapy. She is a New York Times bestselling author of many books, including her latest “Quantum Love.” She is an award-winning radio host and has her own podcast “The Language of Love.” In this episode Lewis and Dr. Berman discuss how to become more connected with your partner, ending a relationship in a healthy way, developing your self-worth, healing trauma and how she was able to handle the grief of losing her son, and so much more!For more go to: www.lewishowes.com/1081Listen to Dr. Berman’s new podcast: The Language of LoveCheck out her website: https://drlauraberman.com/ The Power of Erotic Intelligence with Esther Perel: https://link.chtbl.com/732-podFind Lasting Love with Matthew Hussey: https://link.chtbl.com/811-pod

This is episode number 1,081 with New York Times bestselling author, Dr. Laura Burke. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Gloria Steinem said, far too many people are looking for the right person instead of trying

to be the right person. And Sam Kean said, we come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly. My guest today is Dr. Laura Berman, who is a leading expert in the field of sex and relationship therapy. She's a New York Times bestselling author of many books, including her latest, Quantum Love. She is an award-winning radio host and has her own show, The Language of Love, that you can subscribe to as a podcast as well.

Dr. Berman is ready to help you create the fulfilling and passionate love life you deserve, regardless of your relationship status, gender, or sexual orientation. And in this episode, we discuss how to become more connected with your partner, how to end a relationship in a healthy way, how to develop your own self-worth, whether in a relationship or single, how to improve and keep your sex life alive, how stress affects men and women differently in relationships, the process of healing trauma, and how Laura was able to handle the grief of losing her son. Make sure to share this with someone you think would be inspired by this message. And a quick reminder to subscribe to the School of Greatness on Apple Podcasts, as well as

leave us a rating and review of feedback of what you enjoyed most about this episode. Okay, in just a moment, the one and only Dr. Laura Berman. Welcome everyone to the School of Greatness. We have Dr. Laura Berman in the house, sex and relationship therapist expert. Very excited you're here. We're already starting the conversation. You've had a lot of experience over the years on working with people on how to understand their language of love, their intimacy, how to interact with their intimate partner, how to understand their shame, how to communicate with what they want more in their sex life. I'm curious, what's the one thing that you would say that someone could do to feel better connected to their partner

if they don't feel connected? Yeah. What's the one thing? Have sex. No, seriously, you know, it's interesting because when sex is working in a relationship, it's just one thing that can do? disconnect. And so, you know, to a certain extent, it's about really prioritizing the actual act of sex in a relationship. But it's also because I've done national research, for instance, on what the most sexually satisfied women have in common. And it's not the number of orgasms they have or how well endowed their partner is or anything else. It is the emotional intimacy and connection they feel with the person they're having sex with. That is their greatest predictor of sexual satisfaction.

What if the man is emotionally connected to their partner, but the woman in the relationship is disconnected, whatever it may be, looking away or not in the moment and not communicating and they're disconnected. Yeah. How does the male partner break through to the female partner? Well, it depends on why she's disconnected, right? Like I find that for the most part, when women are disconnected in a sexual situation, it is protective. What are they protecting from? It could be anything. It could be vulnerability.

It could be that they have a lot of inhibitions and they have stories about what nice girls do and don't do. It could be that they have a history of trauma and they're having some PTSD and they have to like really kind of work to keep themselves present. It could be that they're disassociated and they're not even in the building anymore, which is very common. They're out of their body. They're in another place. Yeah. And that's what a lot of people, men and women do too. You know, it's a beautiful

coping strategy that we do to survive sexual abuse or any kind of abuse, but certainly sexual abuse. Because if you were present in your body while that was going on, like you're off somewhere in la-la land to survive it, but then that becomes your sexual script. So you don't even really realize. So to come back into your body for lots of people can be really tough because then they start remembering things they don't want to remember. So how do you get back in your body in a safe space? Well, I think it starts by getting back, learning how, you know, I call it like embodiment. I think most of us walk around out of our bodies most of the time and don't even realize it. Not connected to the body. Not connected to the body. I mean, I'm someone like that. I'm always up here. You know, I'm very philosophical and I'm always thinking and I have to really, you know, work. I call it my yoni breath. You know, you take a really deep breath

in. For you, it would be a bony because you don't have a yoni. You can do this through your butt. But you breathe in really, really deep. And then you imagine light flowing from here through your body. But when you breathe out, you open that sucker as wide as you can. Sucker? You mean your butt? Your butthole in your case. Yoni in a woman's case. So you go like this.

And you blow out. But you have to blow out really hard. And you push it open. Now just try it. Do it. No, I just did it when you were doing it. Now do a really hard breath okay and then let it rest gently open

you see the difference it's just relaxing yeah but do you see the difference you're probably walking around like most people tight assed all the time right i feel pretty relaxed actually i know so do i yeah but but if you're tied down there. So, and it's real for- Allowing it to flow, the energy to flow. Yeah, and also it sort of gets you back to your body. That's just like a kind of- An exercise.

Yeah, and a little temperature I take. Am I walking around connected and open to guidance and grounding or am I somewhere else in my mind? Because I can very easily intellectualize. And so a lot of even my work with myself, much less my work with everyone else, is about learning to be present in your body. And if you're someone who is really inhibited or has a lot of anxiety or a lot of trauma, you are not going to learn to be back in your body, nor should you in a sexual scenario. So you start just noticing

during the day, how often am I up here in the clouds daydreaming and thinking about a million things? Or am I in my body? Can I do a body scan and even notice what the sensations are there? If I'm upset about something, instead of thinking about it, can I really go into my body and notice where I'm holding that feeling? The tension, yeah, yeah. And I'll have to educate people, and it's not just men, but they don't often even know what they're feeling in their bodies, right? So if you're scared, you'll often feel tightness in your stomach or in your chest. If you're angry, you'll feel it in your back. If you're sad or you're scared, you'll feel it in your throat or behind your eyes. So sometimes it's about helping people kind of even identify

how they're feeling. But I would say that most of the world is walking around to some degree, But I would say that most of the world is walking around to some degree not home. So we need to be in a process of healing, it sounds like. Healing the past, being aware of the past, reflecting on it, and then processing and healing in order to be more connected to our body and then connected to another person. Is that what I'm hearing you say? If it's a result of trauma, I think as a culture, we don't support being in our bodies. We support the outside of how our bodies look, you know, but we don't really, and we talk about what our bodies can perform and do, athletic feats or muscles or whatever, or how to lose weight. You know, we relate to our bodies

that way. But are we really in our bodies? So how do we get in our body if we have resentment, anger, trauma, PTSD, stress, anxiety, fear? Or just habit. You were in a family where my family was all intellectualizing and not really... If you grew up in a family not comfortable with big feelings or where your big feelings were not accepted or held, you learn not to have them. And how do you not have feelings? By leaving the building, you know? So it can be a great coping skill because you can go through some major shit and sit and talk about whatever you are. Your body can be traumatized or you can be emotionally or physically or sexually or mentally abused, but then go somewhere else and allow it to happen.

And still function as a human. And still function as a human. Yeah, you're certainly not necessarily allowing it to happen but when you're powerless, certainly in those abuse cases, you leave because if you stayed present, you wouldn't survive it. I mean, it's so terrifying and traumatizing. It's such a beautiful coping mechanism, our minds and our bodies do. But there's so much

beautiful work happening now with somatic experiencing and John Levine, all these people that are doing amazing work, which to some extent is learning to be back in your body. But they talk about how we as mammals are just like every other mammal. You see a dog freaked out about something, what do they do afterwards? They shake it off. They're moving their body, they're present with their body and how that feeling and that experience affected them

and they're letting it pass through them and they're shaking it off. You know, we tend to hold or leave. And they have, it seems like they have shorter term memories. Yeah. It can kind of move on quicker. Well, right. That helps. And we hold on to the memories of the pain of the past and amplify.

And oftentimes, from my experience, blow it up is a bigger and bigger thing than it probably actually was from that event at 7 or 12 or 15. Sometimes we make it the biggest pain in the world, which sure was painful and it shouldn't have happened or whatever, but it's almost like the holding of the attachment of the pain becomes stronger than the actual pain itself. Yeah. And I think that's also a coping skill. Like I find that usually when people do that, when they're really committed to their trauma,

it's because they've never had a place or a person that can hold it for them. Or to let it go or to share it. To hold it. My audience knows about my story of sexual abuse, so I won't go into it, but when I was five, it happened and it took me 25 years to feel like I was safe enough to share it. And it caused a lot of reactions, a lot of negative reactions in me when I felt taken advantage of or abused in other ways. And when I finally had a safe space where I felt open enough to share,

it's when the journey of healing started to happen. And I felt so much freer. I felt so much freer, more accepted, more loved, and I could accept myself. But you don't realize that until you take that leap, right? It's the scariest thing, though. Oh, yeah. So how do people create a safe space in their mind and their body to be able to share any type of trauma that is maybe making them disconnected in a, we're talking about a sexual experience,

but also just disconnected in life? Oh, yeah. You know, and I call it, like, doesn't have to be, I mean, that sexual abuse is like what I would call a big T trauma, right? But there are also those little T traumas. You're ugly. You're not beautiful. Right. Yeah. You're not good enough, overcritical, never measuring up, conditional love, abandonments, you know, all of those things, we hold on to and they become part of the lens through which we view the world and part of our belief system. And then that is what starts a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So I think most of us who are struggling in our lives, and I'm sure you were too, even if on the surface you seemed great, you weren't. I wasn't. I was suffering inside. You were suffering and you were reactive and you were triggered and, you know, and I. Ego driven. Yeah. And that's someone, you know, I would call that someone who is not friends with their shadows. Right. Why are they not friends with their shadows? Because those shadows are freaking scary and they don't want anyone to see them. They don't even want to look at them. They're like, it's like, you know, in those old houses, like that basement.

There are some scary, I am not going down in that basement. Some spiders, some snakes. Some monsters, some evil, serial killers, like who the hell knows what's down there. I'm not going down there. I know it's something bad,

and no one should go down there. What happens to us if we don't go into the basement of our shadows and become friends with our shadows? You are often physically ill with chronic diseases and inflammatory diseases. You're reactive. You're stuck in ego. Not that ego is bad, but when you're stuck there, you're easily triggered and you're

not a very safe person to be intimate with. Wow. And what most people find, and you're saying, you know, you're describing the same thing, is when you open that basement door and you turn on the lights, you don't see anything scary. It's just these little parts of yourself that have just been longing. Like I've, I always say that shame when exposed to the light evaporates, it always evaporates. And the scariest part is opening the basement door. It's so scary. And it's something I try to do every year since I opened up about sexual trauma eight years ago. Now it's something I try to think of where else am I ashamed? Where else am I

hiding something, whether it be to myself or to other people that I'm embarrassed by? Because when I address it, whether to myself, to a therapist, to friends, it doesn't have to be publicly. It can be, but I don't think everyone should just share their shame publicly unless you're really ready for that. But when I do it, I just realize, oh, less and less things have control and power over me. And I'm in more control of my feelings, my thoughts, my reactions or actions based on an event that's happening in life. Yeah, I agree. And it's a powerful feeling to be friends with your insecurities, shadows, fears, whatever you want to call it.

We all have them. You wouldn't have the light. I mean, if you think about like, when my father was dying and he, you know, I had a very complicated emotion. You know, he was a real narcissist, a wonderful father in a million ways, but a real narcissist. And, you know, there was a lot of darkness in my childhood and a lot of trauma, much of which I didn't even really come to terms with until a few years before he died. And at the end of his life, I was his person always, you know, taking care of him. And I said to him about two or three days when it was clear he was going to go soon. I said, clear he was going to go soon, I said, I just want you to know that I forgive you.

Wow. And he said, what for? And I told him. Everything. Yeah. And I said, but if those, you know, those things that happened led me to make the most horrific mistakes in love, led me to feel like I was totally unworthy of love, changed the trajectory of my life and was so painful. But if those things hadn't happened, then I wouldn't have my son from my first horrible ex-husband. I wouldn't be helping the millions of people that I'm able to help and save their relationships and heal them. So not only do I forgive you, but I thank you because I know that on some level,

we both signed up for this on a soul level and you had to participate. So I not only forgive you, I thank you. And he just kind of sat there and stared at me. And this was a man who my entire life, I had never seen him apologize for anything to me or anyone else. And he looked at me, he's like, I am terribly, terribly, terribly sorry. I am so sorry. And it was like this beautiful healing moment. But that's the truth. I wouldn't have that light if I didn't also have the darkness. And that doesn't mean we invite darkness or we say that we deserved it or that we asked for it, but that's one of the reasons it doesn't have to be scary because everything that we don't want to be with, we're already with on the light side. You know what I

mean? It's already our expression in the world and our gift. But when you can't be with the darkness from whence it comes, then that's what drives you. That which you resist persists. Yeah. That's a beautiful story and full circle moment of your father apologizing. As you know, unfortunately, probably 90% of people that say, I forgive you, don't get an apology in return. They say, screw you. I don't care.

You're wrong. You deserve that. Right. Yeah. They don't get that kind of, uh, uh, that Disney ending that, you know, you almost got in that moment there. I'm sure it wasn't perfect, but, um, what should people think about when they forgive someone and they realize this is not going to happen for me? Well, I will tell you that when I went into that conversation, I did it for me. It didn't matter to me. What he said. What he said or whether, like I thought to myself, what is most important I say to this man before he dies? So you don't regret it. Right. It was for me. Yeah. And anytime you forgive someone, it should only be for you because the lack of

forgiveness hurts us so much more than it hurts the person we're not forgiving. And it doesn't mean you are ignoring what happened. You know, I love what Oprah, I heard her once say is that forgiveness is not, doesn't mean that you, you know, that you, everything's rosy between you. It means that you accept that you can't change the past and that you're not going to be a slave to it anymore. And so I think if that person is not someone, and if my dad had not been on his deathbed, I would not have said that to him. Really?

No way. What would have happened if he lived another 10, 20, 30 years? He wasn't going to. It was clear that he was going. But what happened if you held onto this for a longer period of time? Then I would have gotten sick. And would have struggled and I needed, I knew that for me, I waited until the very last minute, but I knew that I needed to forgive and release that

from me because I was holding onto it. I didn't in a million years expect him to say he was sorry. because I was holding on to it. I didn't in a million years expect him to say he was sorry. I was shocked. And it wouldn't have mattered if he didn't. But I think it's telling that he did, because he knew the spirit in which I was coming. And I don't think you have to have that.

You know, if that person is really unsafe or is still in a really dark place, you don't have to have that forgiveness conversation with the person ever. You just have to have it within your own. you have to write them a letter that you never send. Have that conversation with yourself, have it with a friend or a loved one that you really trust or a therapist or whoever, but it's really about deciding to release that weight. Yeah. I've done an exercise in my last few relationships that I've ended, intimate relationships, where I wrote letters to them, but I didn't send them to them.

And I wrote a letter forgiving them and forgiving myself for the things that I did that I wasn't proud of and forgiving them for the things that I felt like they did that were hurtful in the relationship as well. Thanking them and then thanking myself for what they brought me, what they gave me, what they contributed to my life during that period of time. Thanking myself for showing up in a powerful way, the way that I could, the best way I could. And then letting them go and then letting go of that version of myself that version of myself that did not whatever it was yeah whatever it was i was you know that wasn't the best version of me in those moments that didn't work out if that was the reason letting that version of myself go as well with them in that relationship writing those letters burning them and then burying them in the

ground and that's been a powerful ritual i can't remember who taught me someone a therapist told me to write a letter of forgiveness and thanking them but I I was like next step you improvised yeah I was like okay I'm gonna take myself also because I showed up in a proper way and I'm gonna let it go of that version that doesn't work and let them go yeah and that's been a powerful ritual that has supported my healing journey after a breakup. Because I think we need to heal. Oh, we do. And the biggest, people make such a mistake because they think, oh, the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.

And I'm just going to, you know, I always like to say the best thing you can do if you've had a really serious relationship that's now ended, you know, wait for half the time that you were in the relationship, you know, maybe up to 10 years. If you were in a 30 year marriage, you don't have to wait 15 years, but like wait, heal, integrate the learning because every single romantic relationship is a soulmate. You know, every person we're having a love relationship with, we're not really having it with that other person. We're having a relationship with ourselves through that other person. So you are learning poop tons in every relationship. Your soul is learning so much, your heart, your mind. And if you don't give it time to integrate and to heal and to look at those shadows and to do forgiveness, then you end up making the same mistake again and again. Do you think people can heal in a relationship if they

haven't fully healed from a previous relationship? Or do you need to be fully healed and let go of the past until you're like, I'm perfect? None of us are fully healed. I mean, I think life is a process of unfolding and healing and shedding those layers of the onion and becoming more and more yourself, who you were meant to be, you know, in your truest self. But, you know, I don't think any of us, we anymore, until you've forgiven them to an extent, forgiven yourself. What happens if you're holding on to the anger and resentment of another partner while you're in a relationship with a new partner? That's a hot mess. And you see that. I mean, classic example is someone who was cheated on in the past, right?

And then they bring that in the new relationship. They bring it into the new relationship. I get calls like that all the time from these sweet guys who are like, you know, I love this girl so much. I would never do anything to hurt her. And she was really mistreated in the past. And she just won't trust me. And she accuses me of these horrible things.

It's the worst feeling. It's the worst. But that she is not healed enough to be in a relationship yet. That's, you know, that doesn't mean you have to break up. If you want to stick around with her and be the one that she works through it with, as long as she is doing the work. Because you, I mean, and I say this to these guys all the time. You know, you're not, you could be the best person in the world and hold her hand 24-7. But you can't do this for her.

No, I can't. She has to be willing to do it. And if she's not, then stuck there you will be. You could sit there all day and be a puppy dog and say, I'm here for you. I'll do whatever. You're on call 24-7 and it'll never be enough. Right? Because they still have to deal with the past and let it go.

Yeah. And usually, because I also get calls all the time or people reaching out saying, you know, my wife and I divorced or my husband and I divorced 10 years ago or three years ago, and I still can't get over it. I don't even want to be with it, but I still can't get over it. Can't be with the person they were with. Yeah. And what it is almost every single time is that it's not even about that person. It's about something that happened to them in childhood that this experience with the person reminds them of. So that person abandoned them or left them suddenly or cheated on them.

Emotionally abusive. Right. them suddenly or cheated on them. Emotionally abusive. And there's this unconscious wish that if I could just make it right with that person, then I am making my past right. Or kind of heal the past. Yeah. And that's what we're doing when we keep getting into, it's a classic example is like the person

who grew up with an alcoholic parents and says, I am never, ever, ever going to date an addict. And then they end up dating someone who's an alcoholic. And they're like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I did that. Never. And they asked the person, you know, do you drink? Do you do drugs? Do you? No, no, no. Okay. They fall in love. That person's a gambling addict, like again and again and again. And it's like, and this is what I say to people. If you have a pattern like that, where you keep dating the wrong person, then the next time you're with someone on a date and you feel like you've known them all your life. That's not the right person. Run. When you feel butterflies in your stomach, that is your body's warning system

saying. Every time or most times? Most times. I would never say every time about anything, but I would say most times. Interesting. And so if you're someone like that, go on two or three more dates with the person that you don't feel that immediately with. You know? Interesting. Really date someone who's not your usual type type.

Right. And do that internal type. Right. And do that internal work. Wow. Is this similar for same-sex relationships in terms of intimacy and sex, the same types of challenges that are faced with same-sex? I usually, I tried to convince my publishers on my last book about sex, and I didn't get very far, but I didn't want to say male or female. I wanted to say masculine or feminine. Because in every relationship, whether it's two women together, two men together, men and whatever, there is like a yin and a yang. There's someone who's more in their masculine energy.

And it doesn't have to be that the one in the masculine energy has a penis and the one in the feminine energy you know has a vulva like it doesn't matter who's what the physiology is because i know lots of heterosexual relationships where she's more in her masculine and he's more in his feminine but you have to have that dichotomy in order to have the chemistry and the connection and also so those same dynamics seem to unfold but more along the masculine and the connection. And also, so those same dynamics seem to unfold, but more along the masculine and the feminine than male or female. Yeah, okay. And I'm hearing you say that the number one thing

we can do to be better connected in a relationship is have better sex, is be more connected during sex. Is that right? Or outside of sex. Because it doesn't even, I mean, mean yes if you're more connected during sex but it's really about the predictor was more about the general sense of connection in the case of women in general in the relationship right so like the most common thing I'll see let's say in heterosexual relationships who have been together for a while is that uneven desire you know meaning one person has more desire and the other

person's like, I don't want, in sexual cases. Sexual desire, right? One person wants sex, the other person's tired or doesn't want it or not have the desire. And more often than not, not always, that's the woman, right? Or the feminine, right? The feminine wants it more or doesn't want it? Doesn't want it. Why is that? Well, for women, if we're talking about women, not just people in their feminine, for women, it's often hormonal and exhaustion. And we know that like for men in general, stress does not diminish your libido. Financial or work-related stress is the only kind that will negatively affect. So if you're feeling work-related stress or financial stress, you're less turned on. Yeah, usually.

Now, other kinds of stress with a mother-in-law or kid, whatever, like that won't affect as much. Women are affected by all stress. Then once they have kids and busy lives and exhaustion, because it's not that our sexual desire doesn't come from a physical place, but we have less testosterone. We react differently to stress and to sex, but to stress. So it's only been in the past 20 years that researchers have even figured out that women, when chronically stressed, actually our testosterone levels go down because of this whole chemical cascade. Is the testosterone for women what cultivates the sexual desire, or is it estrogen?

Estrogen plays a role with response and lubrication and that kind of thing. But for both men and women, it's testosterone is the hormone of desire. And men have a lot more of it than women do. But certainly with stress, with kids, with life. And so this is what's interesting. life. And so this is what's interesting. I kind of call it the sort of like a sex romance stalemate because she doesn't have that natural drive. She's exhausted. She's juggling work and kids and life and whatever. He the way that a man achieves emotional closeness in a relationship, the masculine, not even a man, is through the physical act of sex. That physical connection is a huge part

of what makes him feel emotionally connected to her. And women are the opposite. It's not the physical. It's the emotional connection that makes us want to be physical. Physically, you're trying, interesting. And so she's less interested and less available. and then he's not even conscious of it but he's less romantic and attuned and sending those sweet texts or you know and she feels that and is that much less interested in having sex

and then he's that much less romantic and then she may eventually say you never send those sweet texts anymore and if he's at all aware, he might say, well, we haven't had sex in eight weeks. And she says, you pig, all you care about is sex. But she doesn't understand that that's his way of feeling emotionally connected. So is it the man's responsibility or both? It's both. It's about him. You know, it's about the masculine. It doesn't have to be him, the masculine understanding that if you want more of that physical connection, you have to find your emotional and romantic connection from a place other than the physical. So it's almost like you have to be something you're not. Well, you just have to learn different languages of love.

I mean, is it really being something? It's not your natural state though, right? languages of love. I mean, is it really being something you're not to, you know, when it doesn't just come automatically to think about being romantic? You have to be conscious of it. And she, the feminine, has to be conscious that if, you know, she needs to love her partner in a way that will really land. And even if she'd rather be watching Bridgerton or doing the laundry or whatever else or reading a book or FaceTiming or whatever, most women who have low desire will say that once they get started,

they really enjoy it. It's just they don't have that spontaneous horniness. And that's a myth that we get from the movies that spontaneous horniness is supposed to be the source of sex. And it is maybe for the first three months. Six months, yeah. Yeah, but after that, your sexual desire has got to come from a place other than spontaneous horniness.

Really? For people that are married over five-plus years, what's the studies or research saying in terms of how much sex they have? On average, obviously, everyone they have on average obviously everyone's different everyone's different you know i think the incidence of what they call sexless marriages is pretty astounding that's people who have not had sex for 10 months or more that happens yes and it's like 30 of couples and we're all after five or ten years after any yes and it's not just five or ten years you know what happens what I see happen time and time again, especially, well, with women, so it could be in a lesbian relationship or in a heterosexual relationship, is that

as women, we weren't raised or cultivated, the culture and our families and our lives never allowed us to really create our own relationship with our sexuality. It's like a means to an end. It wasn't taught, right? It wasn't even, it not only wasn't taught, it wasn't permitted, it wasn't joked about, it wasn't in silly movies, it just wasn't part of the culture.

And so what happens as a result is that- It's more of a shameful thing, right? They're more like- Yeah, or it means to, it's a way to get the guy, it's a way to get a ring on it, it's a way to have a baby, it's a way to- To get what you want. It's a transaction.

She's not thinking it's a transaction, but that's her sexuality is something outside herself. Not within herself. It's not, yeah, it's not this amazing, beautiful, life-giving, juicy gift. You know, it's this, it's a lovely thing and it's fun and it's exciting, but it's either a sense of power or outcome or some other means to an end. And that is like in epidemic proportions in my mind. And so I think that's the reason is that, you know, I work with so many women, young women too, because they're doing the same thing on social

media. They're putting their sexuality outside of themselves as a currency. You know, look at my butt as I pull my bikini, you know, between my crack and like, and's fine but inside herself that her sexuality isn't owned by her it's a currency and it's okay if it's a currency if it's also owned by you yeah as long as it's not a surface level only yeah and you're connected to yourself those are the people who once they have a relationship or once they've had their kids, like what's the internal motivation to have sex anymore? Yeah. They have to learn that. What happens to a sexless marriage most of the time?

Are there some sexless marriages that are also connected emotionally and communication and supportive? Yeah, but kind of like roommates, like loving, affectionate, hold hands, whatever. But usually, not always, but usually couples can sustain that for a while. And then eventually one of them meets someone. And feels something. And it's like, oh my God, I forgot. Or I didn't know you could feel this way. And then they can't.

In every relationship, the pain of being in the relationship has to be greater than your fear of leaving it. Yeah. Or you're not going to leave. Right. And so you'll deal with a certain amount of pain for a long time and say, okay, it's not what I want, but I'm dealing with this and this and this. And it's like, it's manageable. And it's not, and you're thinking, oh, to leave this person, I've invested so much time or we have kids or we have built a life or I, you know, I'm scared to get back. There's a million reasons people will stay, but they're scared of what's on the, they'd rather stay what, you know. What they're comfortable with. Yeah. You know, it's something my friend of mine,

Jay Shetty was talking about this with me a few weeks ago. He was like, you know what, we don't celebrate breakups enough. They're always like this bad thing that everyone's sad about. Oh, it's so sad you guys broke up and heartbroken and this. But if it's not working and you've tried therapy or you've done different exercises and modalities of supporting one another and you've created agreements and boundaries and it's still not working, shouldn't we celebrate people saying, you know what? This was a great experience. Let's move on so we can both find our next experience. Yeah. I think that's-

Shouldn't we celebrate and say, great job. Yeah. Good job. What did you learn? Holding on to this relationship for five more years in misery, but actually moving beyond. I agree. And not resenting each other because you held on to it for five more years whatever it is right and so many couples stay together because of the kids and i say to them you know what your kids need more than anything else is two happy parents and a model of what a loving relationship looks like separate yeah and they are not seeing that they're learning how to

love from you so it's yeah it's. And I think the reason people are so uncomfortable with breakups and celebrating them is because, you know, there is just such fear of abandonment in almost every one of us. Of being alone? Of being alone or being left. And so they're projecting their own fears and sadness onto you, you know?

And so I think it's true that celebrating it in a conscious way, like here's everything I learned. Here's everything I'm forgiving myself and the other person for. Here's everything I'm carrying forward and the learning and the clarity that I now have about what I really want. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to send like balloons and cakes to my friends who go through breakups.

If I'm friends with both of them, I'm going to say, hey, you both get a balloons and cakes to my friends who go through breakups. If I'm friends with both of them, I'm going to say, Hey, you both get a balloon and cakes. I want to write you both a letter and celebrate you both for making a conscious decision to improve the quality of your life. It didn't work together. It's okay. Move on and grieve and take your time, but I celebrate you both. It's brave. As I'm hearing you talk about this, I think of the last 15 years of my relationships, I stayed in all of them too long based on fear of abandonment, or feeling being alone.

That was a big fear of mine. Until I started to heal that past, the situations of really accepting myself as a lone individual and being okay if I'm not in an intimate relationship. And when I did that, I started to set myself free from relationships where I was like, okay, no, I'm not standing up for this. And I'm happy to be alone. Yes. And you're coming from a place of... Wholeness.

Yeah. As opposed to, I need this to work out. I need to hold on to something. I agree. The worst line is that frickin' Jerry Maguire movie where he said, oh, makes me so mad. Because nobody completes you. In order to have a really amazing relationship, you have to be your own delicious cake. Ooh, I like that. Give me a piece.

Break it up like he's my own cake. And the other person's icing or sprinkles, but your cake is still delicious yeah they're the balloons yeah whatever right but they but the cake you're your own cake you don't need them to make it sweet or anything else vanilla ice cream inside oh yeah they're the chocolate sauce that's on you know that's right just the topping yeah not to minimize them but that's how much you need them and And you should be the topping to their cake. Yes, exactly.

Has to be both. That's powerful. Yeah, I think it's so hard for, it was hard for me to accept myself and to love myself for so many years. And so unconsciously, I was staying in relationships way too long. Me too. Wasn't able to communicate my feelings or my needs and probably them as well. We're both doing it unconsciously. How do we learn how to be more conscious in our relationships so

that we can have scarier conversations? Yeah, I think it really starts with your own internal work. And, you know, I learned that when I went through a horrible time, like 10 years ago, my mother had died of breast cancer within a year. I had gotten breast cancer at like 40 years old in the same breast that she had. And I had to, for the first time in my adult life, completely stop my life because I was going through chemo and everything else, surgeries. And my whole kids, everyone was breaking down around me. And so everything fell apart. And it was through that, you know, like they, with the whole metaphor of the butterfly, right? When the caterpillar is turning to a butterfly, you have to turn to mush. You know, the, the caterpillar literally turns to green

mush and then it is in the mushes DNA to become the butterfly. And then the butterfly has to come out like a teeny tiny little hole in the cocoon. And if you've ever seen that, they're struggling so much and you just want to open it up. But if you open it up to them, they don't really survive and their wings don't grow because it's the act of like pushing through that hole that squeezes the fluid out of their bodies and sends the energy to their wings so that their wings can grow. And those are the butterflies that really turn the caterpillars that turn to butterflies. And, you know, that is what tragedy does. You know, I call them an AFGE, another freaking growth experience. You know, these big tragedies that happen in our life that break us open into mush.

Sometimes that has to happen. It's like the universe taps at your door and you don't listen. This isn't working for you. You've got to slow down. What's happening? You're not facing some things. And then it scratches and then it knocks. And then the breakdown.

The full breakdown. And then mush. And I think that, you know, that doesn't have to happen in order to do the healing. But that is how I learned and then started teaching other people that if you heal yourself and you get really, really, you work on yourself and you get really, really clear on your thoughts and beliefs and your energetic frequency and you start to work with that, I can actually do couples therapy with one person now. Because if they start to change themselves and they're doing the healing on themselves, one of two or three things will happen. Either the other person will entrain to them energetically and come along, or they will flip out and eventually do their own healing and come along. Or they'll exit. Or they'll exit. You got to both be on the journey together. Otherwise, it's probably not going to work.

I heard a stat recently about pornography up big time in the last year. I think like 30% of like on Pornhub. What is there else to do? Yeah, and just sitting around at home or whatever. And it's been a, I think the thought process is always that men are the consumers of porn. But isn't it true that women can also be addicted to porn? And what's the percentages of... Much lower for women addicted than men addicted. Why are men more addicted to porn and women aren't as addicted to it?

I think it's a lot hormonal, but also... So any kind of... The way that I look at sexual addiction, whether it's acting out sexually or porn or whatever, is that it's just like any other addiction. You're using that to not be with yourself. It's a coping mechanism. It's a coping mechanism to not feel the feelings you don't want to feel or to distract yourself or to fill that empty hole inside you. And it's endless. It's an endless hole, right? Anyone who's an alcoholic or a drug addict in recovery will tell you that. It's the same thing for sex addiction. So I see women less, when they are, you know, trying to fill themselves up or cope that way with, you know,

from an addictive standpoint, it's usually more relational than porn, I have found. What men will do with porn who are in that addiction place, they will just compulsively watch, self-stimulate, have a momentary relief of pain emotionally, and then start again. It's just like an endless obsessive thing like drinking or doing drugs or anything else. And it's interesting because Pornhub actually made their entire site, you know, that was their good deed for COVID. They made their entire site free. And what I've also noticed is that with the incidence of porn being so readily available online that it is women are watching it, but they are watching it in a, you know, just like I say to guys, don't watch porn and think that that's what women want or what turn

them on or what real women look like, or don't use that as your sex education. I now find myself saying that so much more often to women as well, because they are going on these sites and saying, oh, that's what men want. So they go and have sex on a first date and they're like, choke me, you know, because they think, oh, that's what he must be watching and what he likes. And it's not what she likes. And she doesn't really, you know, but she, so there's this whole skewed perspective, you know, from people who are thinking that that's real sex or what sex is supposed to be like. And it's not. How do we get comfortable talking about what we like in sexual intimate experiences

and not offending the partner or, but also expressing how we feel and what we like in sexual intimate experiences and not offending the partner or, but also expressing how we feel and what we desire without ruining the relationship. Ruining it. Well, I think you obviously wanna be with a partner who, you know, it's like, if you want no other quality in them, the number one you must have is that they're open to learning and can take feedback.

Like if they can't, you're screwed to have a relationship with them. Or growth mindset they need to have. Yeah. I mean, just forget it. Like you're never going to be able to resolve anything if they can't hear you. And like even if they're affected and reactive, they can work with that. You know, they don't have to be perfect. But if they are like super reactive or defensive or so easily insulted that you can't have a real conversation with them, that relationship is probably not going to work.

But I think the key is, you know, first and foremost, to know yourself what you want, which I find that a lot of women, believe it or not, don't. You know, they just kind of hope some guy will touch the right spot, you know. Right. So really knowing for yourself what arouses you, learning your own body, knowing what you like. And then, and you know, for all of you to do that, whether you're male or female. And then you want to have those conversations and that feedback always in the positive,

like what you want more of, what felt really good, you know, what you loved, what would really turn you on. And you want to have that conversation outside the sexual scenario because, you know, feelings are running high and insecurities are running high when you're in this scenario. Right. So not when you're in the bed right after sex. You know what? Yeah. Let's do the post-mortem. Yeah, I didn't like this, I don't like this, I don't like this. You're like sitting there like, you know, shrinking. Getting into more and more of a ball on the bed.

Pulling a blanket over you, like hiding yourself. No, you would, you know, like the next day, or when you're, you know what I was thinking about last night and it was so amazing and I loved when you did this and when you did that, you know what I was thinking? It would be really, really fun, you know, to try this. Or you know when you were doing that thing, if you stayed there longer and you did la, la, la, then that would be great. So in a new context, share the positive feedback. Not in the context of it happening.

And you always frame it in the positive, what you want more of. I didn't like when you did this. I didn't like when you did this. And don't do that. I mean, unless something is triggering you or hurting. Right, right, right. Yeah, this hurt me. Right. Okay. You mentioned this with addiction, whether it be porn or any type of addiction, it's about filling an empty hole is why we have the addiction. Something that we're feeling pain from the past and we're trying to fill this empty hole.

How do we fill an empty hole in a positive way? Go into the basement. So what does that look like? What's a process, a step-by-step process? Oh gosh, all right. So the first thing is recognizing that the hole is there and you don't have to be an addict. Every single one of us.

I don't think we get out of our childhood without some holes in there. It doesn't mean we use substances or sex to fill them up. We might just be overly controlling or passive aggressive or any number of things. So it's recognizing it, first of all, that there are some wounds that you don't want to be with, that you haven't wanted to look at, and that you are hiding from the world and sometimes from yourself. And then it is about really doing that work. What does the work look like? You know, for everybody, it is different. I think, you know, I'm a therapist. So obviously, I don't think that all, you know, I'm a therapist who also believes deeply in therapy that doesn't involve talking. You know, my kids used to call me a talking doctor because I'm a talking therapist. But when it comes to trauma, if you have trauma in your history, I am a huge believer in somatic experiencing. experiencing. And if you are someone who doesn't, like I'm someone, as you can tell, who can talk about stuff all day long. I'm like every therapist's dream client because I will talk for all 45

minutes. But not everyone is like that, right? So if it's hard for you to articulate your feelings or you don't even know how you feel, but you know you're in pain. That's another group that somatic experiencing is really good with. What is somatic experiencing? It's basically going more into the body than using words. So it's kind of bypassing the thinking brain. And they'll use movement or art or intuitive stuff. And I've had clients who are like, so left brain thinkers and, you know, work for the police department

and, you know, and discovered that they are really gifted painters because they, you know, started painting out their feelings in somatic experiencing. And now they've become professional artists, you know? Would somatic experiencing also be something like Reiki or tapping or body talk or, you know? To some extent. My problem, I love all of those

things. My problem with tapping, and I think it's a big problem, and with some of these other modalities, is that they are great for maintenance and like getting through stuff but you have a huge risk it doesn't eradicate the monsters in the basement how do we eradicate them you have to face them you can't tap them away you can't dance them away you can't positive speak them away can you paint them away you can't paint them away you have to go the only you can't go around it, over it. And so much of the spiritual community freaking does this and it pisses me off. It's spiritual bypassing. You're basically bypassing.

You don't want to feel the pain. So, you know, tap it away. I don't want to feel it. Tap it away, tap it away. But it's still there in your body. You're tapping it away for the moment and then 10 minutes later you're tapping again. So how do we fully let it go? You have to go into the, you know, Jesus and the desert.

You have to go into your dark night of the soul with support, with holding. You don't do it by yourself. You find a really good therapist or somatic experiencer or someone who understands trying to escape that and wanting to face it and who will work with you to not flood you with it all all at once, but to really work through the pain. Because every trauma, big T and little T that we've had in our lives is stored in our system. It's stored in our bodies, not just our brains. And if you don't release that, you're just literally, it's like, you know, a fire hose that you just keep putting a cover on. Right. But it doesn't slow down the flow of the fire hose.

Is it possible to heal the big T or little T in a moment, in a day, in a weekend experience? Is it an ongoing process to release the energy or it can still come back? Everybody is different and it depends on the degree of what you're carrying, right? And for how long. But I find that when I take people like on a week-long odyssey of sorts, you know, where they really in a supported environment are really going deep and facing some real truths and releasing some real pain out of their bodies, emotional pain, that that's like a jumpstart. You know, it's like having three months of weekly therapy. You know, you go really deep, really hard, really fast with lots of holding and support. And then it's continual work because...

Then is it more maintenance mode? Is it more... It's more maintenance mode, but it's also, you know, healing is not a straight line. is a more it's more maintenance mode but it's also you know healing is not a straight line it's more like this right it's not like you know you're you're like this but you're sort of more like this yeah right and and you're gonna dip down so let's say you go you know you go through this you had horrible trauma and then you were cheated on and abandoned and now you're really facing it and the wounds from your childhood and all of that you do this really deep work and you're you're feeling like just lighter and clearer and more whole and you're doing the

tapping and the personal empowerment and the kumbaya stuff too and you're finding a community and you get into a relationship and you you know, maybe that person gets sick or maybe the old girlfriend comes back or something happens, right? And that's going to shoot you. But what's happening is that, you know, what therapists call it is peeling the layers of the onion away. You know, that I'm still peeling layers of the onion away and I'm a pretty together, of the onion away. And I'm a pretty together, conscious, happy, healed person, but something will happen or something will come up for me. And I'm like, holy crap, there's a whole other layer of the onion I've got to peel away. And it's not nearly what it was, you know? And once it's peeled away, I'm shining more brightly. I'm stronger. I'm wiser. I always say the heart doesn't break.

It just bends. It recovers and you're stronger and wiser because of it. And every single one of us is going to have a shit ton of heartbreak in our lives. So we can't be scared of it. One of the biggest things for me in my past has been the fear of rejection. I feel like that's pretty common for a lot of people is the fear of putting themselves out there, being vulnerable, asking for someone on a date or whatever in a relationship and them saying no. And that rejection being a very scary place. Why is rejection so hard for so many people? How do we overcome that fear of rejection so it doesn't consume us? Right. It's really about what the rejection means to you, right? Like when that person says no,

what does that mean to you? Does that mean that that person has issues or likes blondes and you're a brunette? Or does that mean that you're not enough? Because the person who fears rejection believes they're not enough. And every rejection is confirmation of that. Maybe they're not enough for what that person wants, but it doesn't mean they're not enough. Not at all. Right. So how do you compartmentalize that? Okay, I wasn't enough for this person, otherwise they'd be with me. Yeah. But I'm still enough as a human being. Right. And I think part of it is talking

to yourself, but it's also in really, you know, what I have found as someone who has had taught people my whole adult and professional life, you know, self-worth is a huge part of the work that I do. And what I've learned over that cancer journey and all the healing and the book, you know, and everything that came out of that is that self-esteem is not the same as self-worth. Self-esteem is, I love myself because I'm kind and I'm smart and I'm good at bowling and I, you know, am a great mother or whatever, right? Fill in the blanks. That's self-esteem. Self-worth, which is really what we need, is not that self-esteem is bad, but self-worth is I am worthy of the most abundant love that exists simply because I exist, because I am the unique expression of the universe's light that I am.

There's not another human like me on the planet. And I found that that is not something that is found through words. It is something that is found through connecting with that higher essential self. You know, that one that when you say hello to yourself in your mind, you know, silently, the one saying hello is you that you know. The one hearing hello is your true self, is your essential self. And when you start to really connect with that through meditation, through spiritual work, through personal empowerment work, when you start to really connect to your intuition and how powerful that connection really is, it's always there.

It's not like you just tune into it or don't, right? But it's always there. When you do that, it's really hard not to love yourself. I mean, it's really hard because you're like, holy crap. Do you know what I'm talking about? Right? So it's really hard. That to me is like where the worth really is. And we put these blocks on it because there are all these parts of ourselves that were abandoned or rejected or over-criticized and we've never challenged them. We've never looked at them because they're the monsters in the basement and they're all like cholesterol on the artery that allows the light to come through. So how do we build self-worth and let go of self-doubt? I think you have to do both simultaneously. You have to do your trauma work, whether that's big T or little t trauma.

You have to do your wound work. And you can't tap it away. Not that tapping is bad. I love Nick Gortner. I love tapping. But it is not a solution. It is a strategy. And then at the same time, and this is what I do with all of my clients, you know,

I'm doing this deep work with them, but I am also sending them to workshops. I'm having them learn meditation. I'm having them learn embodiment. I'm having them learn that, you know, finding their own spiritual practice because everybody's different, you know. So these things are strategies, the workshops, the meditationsitations the tools cultivators the cultivators because they're not that the strategy would be more you know tapping or his breath work and meditation yes well breath work actually is really good that is a great one for embodiment and it's a really good form of somatic experiencing by itself you need the processing as well so it's not it's a really good form of somatic experiencing by itself. You need the

processing as well. So it's not, it's a, it's part of it, but boy, well that moves some stuff out of you. Absolutely. Um, and get those emotions that have been stuck flowing out, which is really good. So the solutions. So the solutions are practice of meditation, breath work, visioning, community. The strategies are things like tapping or positive thinking or that kind of thing. is the real healing work of confronting, facing, turning on the light in the basement and facing your shame and realizing that those are just these sweet little innocent parts of yourself that just want to be seen. Yeah. How do we get to see our, how do we, I feel like a lot of us just do things to be seen and acknowledged, right? Yeah. It's like we all want to be acknowledged and seen. And unfortunately, most people are valued and recognized for our gifts to the world.

And most of us work so hard to be seen by other people. And yet, unfortunately, society in general doesn't see people until they die. And then everyone comes out and recognizes you when you can't hear it and which is such a waste right so how do we become seen without people acknowledging us if that never happens right because it doesn't matter how do we do that for ourselves right no I think that's what the thing is what here's the two things I have found one is that there are so you know them there are millions of people who are seen on national television. That don't love themselves.

Yeah, or seen like crazy and given all the validation in the world and still feel like crap about it. They're like drowning in their shadows. Right? So it's just like money. You can have a billion, jillion, gazillion dollars and you're still not going to be happy if you don't face your shadows. You're just not. And we all know people like that. So that's one thing to recognize is that we have this story that if I'm seen and acknowledged, then I'll be validated.

Then I'll be happy. But that's just a story. And that's easy to disprove because you look at all these people that are being seen. Who are suicidal or on drugs or addicted. Yeah. So how do we validate ourselves without the need? It's about that connection. That's the only validation that's at all real. All the rest is just people's projections onto you. Oh, I'm going to follow you because you have abs that I wish I had. Or I'm going to follow you because you have abs that I wish I had, or I'm going to follow you because, you know, you seem really successful or whatever. It's just,

it's not real. And it's just projections that people are putting onto us, which is fine. You know, people make a good living out of other people's projections onto them, but that's not where the true value is found. The true value is found through that connection to your true self, your essential self, the one that is this lovingly detached, source connected, you know, call it whatever you want. God, Jesus, it doesn't matter to me. But like that source connected part of you that I, for one, or me, but like that source connected part of you that I, for one, never got until my thirties or forties, you know, I didn't grow up with any kind of understanding of that. And I don't think most of us do. What would you say is your true self?

My true self is, I am like, you know, the tip of my fingernail and my true self is as big as LA, you know, is, is just fingernail and my true self is as big as L.A. You know, is is just like yours. But let's talk about me. Immense. And she's funny and loving and compassionate and really, really wise and extremely loving. And it's like each of us is this, I always envision, like, if you think of whatever, insert your word here, spirit, God, universe, whatever. But you know, this immense,

more immense than we could ever imagine, giant, like, bigger than the universe light. And each of us is just a little strand of that light. And when you're connecting to your essential self, you're connecting to the part. Source. Yes. But your unique connection to source, your unique expression of source. And of course, you're connecting to source as well. But the self-love piece, it's just really hard to deny when you start to feel it. What's the biggest shadows you're still facing with, or you haven't yet to let out of the basement? I'm a recovering codependent. I will always, I think, be peeling layers of that onion away. Is that an attachment style? What's the difference between them? Well, an attachment style would be,

yes, but they call it something different. So I would say I have an insecure attachment style by nature. So it's more of a tendency than a style. Most of these styles we have, but the codependent is, I'm not okay if you're not okay, right? Or I will do anything not to be abandoned by someone. You know, I'm not anymore, but like the pure codependent, right? Or I'll be a little more passive aggressive than aggressive. You know, that will be a shadow of mine that I have to keep an eye on. Setting boundaries, I have to keep an eye on because I'm much more likely to say yes to something so that I don't look bad or disappoint you or whatever than say no.

What's that attachment style called? Insecure. Just insecure. How many attachment styles are there? There's four. But they're really more like one is avoidant, right? So someone who's got insecure attachment in its purest form doesn't feel the worthiness for themselves but does for the other person. So they think highly of the other person and not of themselves.

Someone who's more avoidant would be that they feel good about themselves, but not about other people. So they avoid them. They're like, yeah, okay, I'm gonna. And someone who's really. That's avoidant. Yeah, and someone who's really fearful will feel bad about themselves and you. What is that?

That. What style is that? That is a fearful attachment. Okay. So that's someone who's like got serious trauma, you know? Yep. Is there one more? So there's four? And then there's a healthier style, right?

Where you're, that's what we're all going for, right? Is it called healthy? No, I'm trying to remember the name of it. So it's insecure, avoidant. Insecure, avoidant, fearful. Crap. None of those. It's coming to me.

My brain is fried. It's all right. I'll remember. Yeah, I'll find it later. But the fourth one is the one we're all looking to be yeah the attachment style we're looking for yeah right yeah i mean look it's not that there is one it's to me it's more of an ability to understand your tendency because if you understand your, that can be a roadmap to your wounds. And then- Why am I reactive? Why am I avoidant? Why am I feeling this way? Let's go back to the roots. Yeah. And I'll often say to someone, like if someone calls into my show or someone I'm not working with directly, they'll talk about something that's happening in their relationship. And I'll say, okay, let's go into this scenario. Here's what's, you know, something happened between the two of

you. She didn't come home when she said she would. And this is the third time this week. And you found this other guy's number on her phone. So when you found the other guy's number, let's just go back there in your mind. You know, what did you feel in your body? Once again, embodiment, what did you feel in your body? again embodiment what did you feel in your body and then i really walk them through the process of like imagining they're there in first person and what do they feel and i was i feel tightness in my stomach i feel nauseous and like constriction in my throat and i'll say okay just stay there for a minute really put your conscious attention on that maybe even make it a little bit bigger because you're in control it's not going to take take you over. And then once they really have a good handle on that, all right, so I'm just going to ask you a question and I want you to tell me the first thing that comes to your mind.

When was the first time you ever remember feeling this way ever in your life? The earliest time you ever remember feeling these feelings? And it is almost always, well, it was when my mother, when I came home from school, my mother was walking out the door with her suitcase. It always goes back to those earlier wounds that we're just re-experiencing time and time again. Wow. That's why I feel like therapy is so good for people. It's really good.

Even when you're in a good place, I feel like. Absolutely. Do it once every couple of months. Yeah. You should be able to talk about whatever. Yes. And most people, you know, historically, I'm seeing less and less of that, but historically, especially with couples, you know, 10 years ago, they would not come in until they were like ready to get divorced, like final straw, ready to file for divorce, one last shot here. And now I notice. Sooner. Much sooner, which is so much better for me as a clinician. I want every relationship to start therapy within the first like six months of divorce.

I am, I am, thank you. It's like, because then you create boundaries and agreements from the beginning. Absolutely. And you don't have to get to the end. And don't get, like, you should not marry every single couple who is committing, planning on making a marriage commitment or a life commitment.

You should have couples therapy. And I'm not talking about the pre-cana with the priest or the rabbi. I mean, that's fine too. But I'm talking about like at least five sessions. Yeah. Get clear on some basic agreements and make sure you're fully aligned because maybe you haven't had those conversations. And learn how to argue successfully. That's the key. And learn how to, you know, articulate your needs and come up with some

agreements about, you know, not just about kids, sex, money, religion, you know, those things, but also just your dynamics. Get clear on them and set the foundation. That's huge. I want to talk about what happened recently in your life. Very, very sad. Your son passed away because of drugs that he bought on Snapchat from a drug dealer on Snapchat, right? Yeah.

And it's heartbreaking as it's happened. And I'm just, I have no idea what this feels like because I'm not a parent. Me neither. But I can only imagine. I have never felt, I mean, I'm still feeling it. But I have never felt pain so wide and deep. I've been through a lot of grief. I've been with my mother and my father and both my grandmothers when they passed. And my, really the woman who was more of a mother to me than even my own mother when she passed. And I really understand grief, but I, the grief of losing, and I understood as a mother that there's nothing worse.

I mean, I remember when, when my mother died, I remember saying, okay, it's at least the natural course of things, you know, but to have your child go is something that I'm still wrapping my head around and I will be for a long time. And, you know, I am practicing what I preach. It's that I taking that deep trip into the dark night of the soul in the redwoods, you know, birthing and howling my pain into the mother tree and being held literally, literally, being held literally, um, and being held by, you know, some of my nearest and dearest friends who are also healers and understand grief, who I don't have to, you know, didn't have to take, don't ever have to take care of. Um, those are the ones that sort of, it's like that intense, same thing that I was saying earlier, that intensive week. And now it will be, you know, probably the rest of my life.

Ongoing strategies to support when. And, and waves, you know, just at, at the end of the school year, you know, on his birthday, on Thanksgiving, like, you know, there will be endless waves, but, um, and I'm a, you know, as you can tell, I believe 100% that we are all energy and energy doesn't die. I never really understood, you know, I didn't take it literally. I thought it was more of a metaphor when people said you keep them in your heart, you know. But what I have discovered is that if I put all of my conscious awareness, like if I get really, really quiet and I can loosen the constriction of my chest and I can go all the way into the center of my heart,

there's like a little seed. There was this unique brand of sweetness he had that even, you know, when he would come down as a 16-year-old, you know, and would not hug me but tolerate me hugging even, you know, when he would come down as a 16 year old, you know, and would not hug me, but tolerate me hugging him, you know, with his arms next to him, even then I could feel it. It's just this beautiful, sweet, silly, loving energy of his underneath all the teenage stuff. And that's right in the center of my heart. Like he's literally in there, a piece of his, like his energy is literally like you carry them in your heart, literally, not just figuratively. And that has been a revelation to me. And also just,

I can't believe that the community that I have around me, not just of so many healers and friends that have reached out and support, but I have had to, as a recovering codependent, it's very hard for me to receive. And because... To give up the control of like helping everyone else. Or just worrying that I'm going to be a burden or that I'll inconvenience them or that, you know, I just can't be. I was never allowed to be a burden as a child, you know, so it's really hard for me to. So I bend over backwards not to be a burden. And I'm not to say that I'm never a burden. I'm sure I am.

But I at least try not to be. And this, there was no freaking way. I was like, bring it on. I will take whatever you have to give. Like, that's it. I'm surrendered. You can, I will receive because I don't have any other choice. So that has been a beautiful lesson.

And I'm very, very thankful that I have done all of the spiritual work that I have, because I would probably be in the ground with him if I hadn't. And, you know, I would have just not been able to cope. And so that, you know, it's going to be an ongoing and also just the I mean, I was astounded because what he died from and we're still waiting for the toxicology reports, but the police have seen enough of this now to feel pretty certain and treating it like a murder, you know, that it was not an overdose, fentanyl poisoning. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid made in China. in through Mexico and then there are these labs in Mexico that press it or make it into Percocet, Xanax, into Coke, into cannabis, into everything that you're buying on the street and it goes into the Midwest, it goes into the California and then it spreads out from there and it is twice as addictive as heroin and it just takes like a teeny little

seed or two of it to kill you. And the drug dealers are doing this. They're putting it in everything because it's twice as addictive as heroin. So they're making you basically into an addict when you take a Percocet or smoke a joint, and then you're their best customer, or you die and they don't give a crap. And what I learned after his passing from, you know, as I was trying to put the pieces together, his best friend, you know, told me that he had, that our son had screenshot on Snapchat and a menu from a dealer. So I talked to my kids

incessantly about, you know, nude pictures and saying things on there that could be, you know, like those were the kinds that never occurred to me that there could be drug. I mean, I'm an idiot, but it never occurred to me that there could be drug dealers on Snapchat. And that is where my son and this person connected. And he, you know, delivered the drugs to the house. My kid thought- To your house? To my house. Oh my gosh. My kid was up. I just said to my girlfriend, one of the silver linings of this pandemic is that

both my teenage boys are safe and sound in their room and I don't have to worry about them. And I'd let them do more on gaming and social media because it's the only way they can connect to their friends. And as long as they did well in school, I wasn't going to put up a fuss. friends. And as long as they did well in school, I wasn't going to put up a fuss. And what we've been able to piece together is he connected with this guy. He, you know, snuck out, we were sleeping and met him in the alley or got the drug, you know, it was like 25 cents, you know, selling it for nothing and got the drugs and thought he was just, you know, like we all did, thought he was experimenting. He's bored. He's a teenage boy, not able to play sports or go out or do anything. It's a Sunday after Super Bowl Sunday. You thought this guy's offering me, you know, they think from what we've

been able to piece together, Percocet. And so, you know, I'll just pop it and see what happens. And so, you know, I'll just pop it and see what happens. And my husband had just brought him up a cheeseburger an hour before. And I went into his room because he had asked me to come talk to him. He wanted to do an internship for the summer to beef up his college resume. He was applying to colleges. And so I walked in to have this internship conversation and found him there. Oh, man. Yeah.

So I'm still, I mean, it's the worst. It's the worst of the worst of the worst of the worst. But it's only because of everything that's come before that I know that it will get better and better. And what has astounded me is the outpouring. I had to make a Facebook group because thousands of parents were reaching out to me saying that exactly the same thing happened to their kid. Great kid, great grades, good kid, and met someone on Snapchat or something. Great kids, great grades, good kid, you know, not like, and met someone on Snapchat or Instagram.

It's usually Snapchat or Twitter, it seems to be. But I, you know, was probably all, and thought they were taking something. I mean, in one occasion, it was a mother whose kid, they were having trouble getting into the dentist. And he was having a lot of pain. His friend gave him like a Percocet, or, you know, he thought it was a Percocet or something and he died from that. Oh, no. So it's in everything. And the amount of parents who are going, I mean, it is worse than the pandemic, how many kids it's killing.

Really? It is really a big deal. And this has happened more in the last couple of years or last year? There are 30,000 deaths in 2019 from fentanyl. And it has risen significantly. 20,000 deaths just in Los Angeles since this year, 2021. So it's really ramping up. Not just with kids, but with everyone.

Everyone. Do not take anything that you get on the street or from a dealer. You really don't know. And nobody knows. And also social media heretofore, although I'm hoping that that's changing because we're kicking their butts as much as we can. But social media will not give the police any identifying information. We had the ad and the handle, the Twitter and Snapchat handle of this dealer, and they said, don't get your hopes up. All that they'll do is take the profile down,

and then they pop up somewhere else immediately with another profile name. Right, right. So, you know, that really has to change. Yeah. Well, I want to acknowledge you for showing up and the way you're showing up and sharing in such a vulnerable way because I can only imagine what this would be like.

And I want to, if you're open to speaking from a place of relationships, how a partner could help someone who is going through and experience a traumatic event like this, of relationships, how a partner could help someone who is going through and experience a traumatic event like this, whether it's a death of someone in their family, cancer, something very traumatic. How can a partner be there for them

in a way that is supportive in a time of, that might be breakdown and mush mode and grief mode for a long period of time. What would you suggest that a partner do? Yeah. Or friends. Yeah. I think it's about showing up.

It's about not saying, let me know if I can do something or what can I do? Because that person is paralyzed. They can't say what they need. They don't even know what to do. So how do you show up? So you show up with cookies. You send them food. I've had friends who just every morning when they wake up,

they send me a little green heart that just lets me know. I'll text me a little green heart, and I know that they're waking up thinking about me and my pain, you know, just let them know whatever you can do proactively do, uh, not to invade, you know, don't invite yourself over and park on their couch. You know, if, if that's not, if they're not that kind of person, but find some way to proactively show up for them and keep checking on them past, oops, sorry, keep checking on them past the first week. You know, at the first week or two, everybody's really focusing because at the funeral, whatever else may be happening, but then it's the hardest part I think is after that.

And when everyone forgets, moves on. Yeah. And I think for a partner, you know, and my husband has been going through the grief obviously with me, but he lets me do it my way, you know, and it's very different than how he's doing it. Don't force someone to cope in a certain way. You have to let everybody is so different. My 15 year old, my 23 year old and my husband and I are all grieving in completely different ways. And don't make someone wrong for the way they're grieving, even if it seems like they're moved on quicker or... Or my 15-year-old is like, is something wrong with me? I'm not crying enough. And I'm like, no, not at all. And you should know that I'm going to be crying a lot,

and that doesn't mean I'm falling apart, but that's just what's happening. There's no right or wrong. Everybody has to deal, you know, has to process it in their own way. I think it's about creating that room and not taking it personally. And if you can, if you're not the one who's also grieving with them to create a container for them as the partner, you know, to make it okay for them to decompensate and where they don't have to take care of you. And it's a lot to be with grief. I mean, it's a lot because people's own grief will come up, you know? And that's the other thing that I've learned through this process is that, especially with losing a child, I think, you know, it's one thing if you are a parent who's been sick for a long time, people are kind of expecting it. But I have realized that, and this is part of what got me over my difficulty receiving, is that it really helps people when they can help me.

You know, like it literally helps them. Yeah. So, okay. Bring me the cookies all day long. I'll take all the flowers. I'll help you. Go ahead. Give me the help.

But it does. Like they're so helpless. Yeah. They can't do anything. No. They can't help you with your pain. They, they're so helpless. Yeah, they can't do anything. No. They can't help you with your pain. They can't understand it. So they're like, what do I do? Let me try something.

Yeah. So receiving is helping them and helping yourself. You have to receive. And, you know, if you're not a good receiver, something like this will make you one. Well, we have some cake out there. If you want a piece of cake, I'll give it to you. I'll receive. I'll receive and all. I just keep saying, yes, I will receive. Yes, I will receive. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I've got a couple of final questions for you, Dr. Laura,

but I appreciate you being here and opening up about this because you have so much wisdom from your years of experience as a therapist in relationships that people need this information to support them in healing the past big T, little t traumas, on having better communication and their intimate partnerships. I've always said that the key to success in life is relationships and the key to successful relationships is vulnerability, intimacy. And it takes going to the past sometimes to be healthy in the present

until you're ready to heal that. So thank you for explaining all this in a clear way so we can hopefully open up the door to our basements and face our demons, if you will. They're not demons, they're cute little babies. Cute little babies, little bunnies that just want the light, so we let them out. Yeah, they just want to be seen.

That's a good way to look at it. Little bunnies as opposed to snakes. Yeah. This is a question I ask everyone at the end. It's called the three truths question. So I'd like you to imagine for a moment a hypothetical situation. Okay.

It's your last day on earth, many, many, many years away. You get to live as old as you wanna live, but eventually you gotta turn the lights off. And you've accomplished every dream you have from this moment moving forward. Everything you've ever want to do, it happens. Family, relationships, business career, it all happens. But for whatever reason, every written word or video or piece of content you put out into the world has to go with you.

So you can make all the things you want to make, but then it's all going to go with you. So no one has access to your New York Times bestselling book, which I want them to get. No one has access to your content. They don't have access to this anymore. But you get to leave behind three lessons. And this is all you get. You would get to leave behind three things. Piece of paper and a pen.

You write down three lessons that you would share with the world. I call it three truths. What would you say are yours oh my gosh okay i would say that um the love that you have for yourself is the only predictor of the love that you can receive I would say that no decision made from fear is ever a good one and

I would say to embrace every broken heart because as Leonard Cohen would say that embrace every broken heart. Because as Leonard Cohen would say, that's how the light gets in. And it's inescapable. It's going to happen. And you can live your life fighting it and protecting yourself from it and still end up with it.

Or you can live and learn and realize that with every heartbreak, you get stronger and wiser and brighter. Yeah. What does Rumi say? Something about the light and the wound is where the light enters or something like that. Is that Rumi? Yeah, I can't remember. I know Leonard Cohen said, don't be afraid of a broken heart. It's how the light gets in, you know, the cracks in your heart. But I think Rumi said something too.

I think Rumi said the wound is where the light enters or something like that. It is totally true. Yeah. It is totally true because you have to, in tragedy and broken heart, you have to, your whole personality can't sustain itself, you know. So you turn to mush so that you can become the butterfly. Exactly. Those are beautiful truths.

Thank you for sharing those. Thank you. I just came up with those. They're very beautiful. Very beautiful. But they are truths for me. Those are beautiful. You've got a New York Times bestselling book,

Quantum Love is your latest book. Yes. You've also got a podcast, The Language of Love, that just came out. It's a weekly show. Yeah. You talk about a lot of things around love life, relationships, regardless of gender or sexual orientation. Answer questions. Answer questions, the juicy stuff.

So if you like this content, go subscribe to the Language of Love and listen to more. I don't know if it's similar to what we're talking about here or if you're doing a different style. Yeah. Well, it's both. I mean, I consider myself sex, body, soul. That's sort of my thing. There you go. So it's all intertwined for me.

Yeah. Not everybody understands that, but it is. Right. There you go. The Language of Love, if you want more information on that, go subscribe there. You're also over social media. Dr. Laura Berman over on all platforms, I think is Dr. Laura Berman official on Facebook, drlauraberman.com with all the information there. Yep. Is there anything else that we should be aware of on checking out your information?

No, that's a good place to start. Where do you hang out the most on social media? Instagram and Facebook. Okay. And my website always has all the links. I do a blog every week and radio shows are up. I mean, the podcast is up there. Awesome.

Books are up there. There you go. Toys are up there. I love it, all the stuff. So make sure you guys go check out The Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman. And I have, I wanna acknowledge you before I ask you the final question.

I acknowledge you for your incredible presence right now and being present amongst a lot of pain and stress that you're going through and uncertainty and overwhelm. And I can't imagine what that would be like, but I acknowledge you for the decades of work you've done to be here. Yeah, thank you. To be able to share in a moment of pain and grief and to be able to serve other people and serve something greater and grieve at the same time. That takes a lot of practice, a lot of skills, a lot of tools that you've developed over the years

to be able to be in this position. So I'm really grateful that- And harnessing my dysfunction too, because I was a really good compartmentalizer and disassociator. So now I can call on it when I need it. I need to do this interview, yes. Time to disassociate. And for those that are maybe thinking. I need to do this interview, yes. Talk to this associate.

And for those that are maybe thinking, why are we doing this interview at this time? You wanted to do this. We reached out and said, hey, we understand. Let's reschedule. It was hard. Yeah. You know what? My people worked so, so hard, including my son who passed, you know, was helping me with the artwork.

And, you know, it just seemed wrong. And when's the right time? I mean, for God's sake, like when a month from now is the right time? To launch a show. Yeah, or to move on. Like there's no right. A year, 10 years. Yeah, what, what?

You know, so I was just like, move it forward. And I do think, you know, for me, it has always been the biggest part of my healing. And what helps me the most is why I do it is helping other people. Being in service. Yeah, that's always it for me. It's healing and the show must go on. Yeah. It's both and, right?

It can't stop life. No. So it continues. Well, you're a rock star, Laura, and I appreciate you being here. This has been amazing. I have one final question. Okay. What's your definition of greatness? What's my definition of greatness? Authenticity. There you go. Yeah. Dr. Laura, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope you enjoyed it.

There was a lot that we covered around relationships, healing, sex, therapy, all these different things. And I'm just so grateful that Laura was able to share a lot of this and also talk about her son the way she did, as I know she's going through a lot. So make sure to send her some love and some positive inspiration her way as she goes through her healing journey right now. And I'm just grateful that she showed up the way she did, willing to serve even during this process. Again, if you enjoyed this, please subscribe over on

Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Please leave us a rating and review. Let us know what you enjoyed most about this. And if you want to help others in your life and inspire the people around you, then just share this link with them right now, wherever you're listening to this podcast, copy and paste the link and send it to a few people. Or you can use the link lewishouse.com slash 1081 for the full show notes and everything else that we talked about in this episode. And if you want inspirational messages sent to your phone, texted from me to you every single week, then just text me the word podcast right now to 614-350-3960. Again, text the word podcast to 614-350-3960 to get inspirational messages sent to you every single week. And I want to leave you with this quote from Helen Keller,

who said the best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even heard, but must be felt with the heart. I hope you're feeling your heart today and every day. I hope you're connecting with it. I hope you're listening to it. I hope you're allowing yourself to experience the full range of emotions that this life and world has to offer. And I hope you're also constantly in a process of evolving and healing and growing yourself to become a better human being every single day. I'm grateful for you.

And if no one's told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.