May 30, 2024 • 58 mins
Today we explore the concept of sovereign love and healthy relationships with Dené Logan, a marriage and family therapist. The conversation delves into the dynamics of love, attachment, and autonomy, emphasizing the importance of self-awareness and self-care in relationships. It also addresses the societal structures and narratives that influence our perceptions of love and aging, highlighting the deep acceptance and wisdom that come with age. The discussion also touches on the evolving nature of partnerships and taking responsibility for one's energy in a relationship dynamic. After Devi reads an excerpt from the synopsis of Dené’s book, Sovereign Love, Dené describes the polarity of both the feminine and masculine paradigms.
Connect: @DeviBrown @DenéLogan
Learn More: Dené Logan
Pre-Order: Sovereign Love
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:27):
Take a deep breath in through your nose.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Hold it.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Now, release slowly again deep in heale hold release, repeating
(01:02):
internally to yourself as you connect to my voice. I
am deeply, deeply well. I I am deeply well. I
(01:23):
am deeply well well. I'm Debbie Brown and this is
the Deeply Well Podcast. Welcome to Deeply Well, a soft
(01:44):
place to land on your journey. A podcast for those
that are curious, creative, and ready to expand in higher
consciousness and self care. I'm Debbie Brown. This is where
we heal, this is where we become. Welcome to today's
Oh okay, we are going to get into some new
territory that we haven't really explored actually in so many
(02:07):
seasons of Deeply Well relationships. This is an area that
we have kind of dabbled in a little bit, but
it is my number one most requested type of show
to do. And I'm really excited today because we have
someone so special that has an incredible new book out
that is going to guide us through what it is
to be in healthy relationship and to also be a
(02:30):
sovereign being, which if you're on this path and you're
listening to this show, I can almost guarantee that that
is the intention and that is what we are always
exploring here. But it doesn't mean that you have to
be off on that island all alone. So we are
going to be learning today, We're going to be expanding.
Highly recommend grabbing a journal, Highly recommend bringing something supportive
(02:54):
nearby just in case some things start to come up.
Today's episode, we are joined by Denay Logan. She is
a marriage and family therapist with an orientation in depth psychology,
often referred to as the psychology of the soul.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
She's a group.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Facilitator and a cohost of the podcast Cheaper Than Therapy.
She has a master's degree in counseling psychology and is
notably the mentee of acclaimed psychotherapist Esther Perrell. Denay is
passionate about sharing tools and strategies to cultivate spiritual awareness,
understanding the current shifts taking place within our societal structures,
(03:32):
and empowering others and understanding how they can live the
most fulfilling lives possible. Her debut book, Sovereign Love, hits
everywhere May twenty eighth, So hopefully at the time you
listen to the show, it's already out and you can
pick it up and if not, you can pre order it.
So go to all the places that you love to
get books. And it is from Sound True.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Welcome to the show. Oh my gosh, Debbie, thank you.
Your voice is just so lovely. And I'm listening to
you as you're doing that interim like you're like a
soft place to live yourself. I'm like, I'm just gonna
accept back with Debbie and listening you speak.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Oh don't be making me blessed. Thank you so much it. Yeah,
part of my journey has been using my voice in
the way that I believe God wants me to. So
I really appreciate that so much.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Beautiful. This is a big.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
This is a big category of life and conversation. Yeah,
and I'm so excited to have this conversation with you.
I think kind of grounding it. I'll ground it first
with a little a little share in that as a
lot of listeners from this show know well, I am
a sovereign being. That is my path and I have
been deeply learning about love since I got divorced about
(04:49):
three and a half years ago, and it's been so
illuminating kind of coming to that space of loving and
being open to be loved from the position of being
at the depth of healing. I am currently at the
depth of self, the depth of connection consciousness. But even
(05:10):
in all of that, and I think this is the
funny thing for so many of us, where it's like,
you're on the journey, so You're like, while I'm on
the journey, so then all of life is going to
be great. It's like, and we're still on earth, and
we're still surrounded by everyone who has their own spiritual
curriculum and are at different places of that journey, and
so this is still an area that can be deeply
(05:34):
nourished by intention and work and thoughtfulness and care and cultivating.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
So I'm so excited to.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Explore that with you your book Sovereign Love. First of all,
the title, can you walk me through that definition? What
is sovereign love?
Speaker 2 (05:52):
You know, I think so much of what you were
just saying speaks to why I decided to title this
book Sovereign Love, because so much of what we have
understood up to this point about love and relationships has
really been designed or constructed by an external authority telling
us what relationships should be, should look like, what is
(06:13):
quote normal in our relationship structures, right, And what I
think we're finding, in accordance with what you were saying,
is as we really do a lot of this like
deeper work and attempt to know ourselves well and define
ourselves for ourselves, there's a lot that's sort of out
of alignment in terms of the way that we are
loving one another. And you know, I certainly witness it
(06:37):
within the couples that I work with every day, but
also within my own life. I was a yoga teacher
for so many years, and it's so funny, Debbie. People
used to say to me all the time, like, oh
my gosh, your husband must just like love coming home
to you, Like you're soothing, you know, energy, and you're
just like so loving. And I was like, oh, totally,
totally right, And that wasn't the case, right. There were
(07:00):
so many aspects of my own shadow that were sort
of playing out in my relationship dynamics, which is the
case for all of us. But I think we have
been living in what I speak to in this book
that I wrote a really wounded masculine paradigm for centuries now.
And when I talk about a masculine paradigm or when
(07:20):
I talk about patriarchy. I'm not talking about masculinity in
the context of gender so much as I'm talking about
structures of dominance, right, And there's a way that we
are doing relationships from a really sort of wounded masculine perspective,
which is like how it looks on the outside versus
like how it really feels deep within us, whether we're
(07:41):
in alignment with the people that we really want to be,
versus like acting out all of these paradigms that are
really based in fear. And so, as my marriage ended,
and I like to say changed form because my kiddo's
dad is still one of my best friends in the world,
and I think we were both really committed to how
do we do this thing of allowing this relationship to evolve,
(08:04):
and it did need to evolve. We got married when
we were you know, fairly young, like mid twenties, and
realized that after being together for twelve years, it was
just not true anymore. There was so much about who
each of us wanted to be and where our lives
were headed that just weren't aligned. And so much of
what we're taught about relationships is that, like when a
(08:24):
relationship ends, that means we've failed, right, right, and we
should be devastated and we should feel like that means
we're not lovable or all of these narratives that we're
taught to believe about ourselves that you know, as you
were speaking to and I did within myself a lot
of work that made me feel like that's just not
true in terms of like how this really feels and
who I really want to be as I'm holding this
(08:48):
certainly what I want my child to witness about the
dissolution of our marriage. But if that's not true, how
do we do the work of defining what is true
for ourselves? So, you know, sovereign circling back to what
you originally asked, is this sort of entity that is
defined for itself?
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Right?
Speaker 2 (09:05):
If you think about like sovereign countries, they are like
doing the work of defining themselves for themselves, and it's
like a co creation of the people involved, but it's
really like that interra authority is defining it, you know.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
You know, I would like to say that a lot
of the audience of this show is deeply on the
path of self awareness and seekers, you know, curious, as
I say in the title of the show, creative but
deeply connected to finding truths and answers. And I think
something that I hear a lot from people is there
(09:40):
is this belief that you have to quote unquote I'm
doing like all the air quotes right now, be healed
to be in relationship. If you could just kind of
I don't even know what the question is, but explore
and kind of share your thoughts on that concept or
how to approach relationship when you are on this journey
(10:02):
and you are doing your inner work and you're noticing
the triggers and all the pieces.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yeah, well it's twofold because first I would say, you know,
the idea that I need to be healed before being
in relationship, I would sort of say, well, good luck
with that, right, Yeah, there is nothing the work never ends, right,
and there's nothing that will bring our stuff to the
surface like romantic relationships, because it's the most vulnerable space
within us. To stand in front of another person and
(10:28):
say can you love me? Like can you see me
as worthy of traveling this path alongside you? It's it
brings all of our inner child wounding to the surface.
It's the most vulnerable space for all of us. So
I'm like, I don't care who you are, Like I
certainly like when I got back in there, I'm like,
who am I Like, I don't even recognize what is
coming up for me because it's it's deeply activating for
(10:49):
all of us. So I think we have to normalize that. Yeah,
it's going to be activating, it's going to be hard,
and I think if we're open to seeing it this way,
relationships can also be the most rich soil for our
becoming and our evolution. And it's really sort of seeing
whatever the relationship dynamic is as showing me to me. Right,
(11:13):
So if I make it less about this other person
and what they're doing, what they need to change, and
how they're not showing up in quote meeting my needs
and more like being in the inquiry around oof, that's
really challenging for me. When this person does that, I
wonder why, right, Like, what is the story I'm telling
myself about what it means? Where did I get ideas
about who someone else should be for me in relationship
(11:35):
that maybe are maybe they're true, but maybe they're not
necessarily true for me? And how can I just like
really be present with what is and in the space
of questioning versus just allowing our inner child really to
run the show in those moments when we're inevitably activated
in relationships.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
You know, Oh, my goodness is something that you said
in the midst of this I would love to kind
of touch on because I think you know, in this,
in this moment in time, we are incredibly blessed to
have a lot of access to information and language, a
lot of access to concepts and tools of self awareness, diagnoses,
and so many things, all from our Instagram algorithm. Yes,
(12:18):
but we don't always, you know, depending on what our
individual backgrounds are, have the same definitions for some of
these words that we're reading or these understandings, and so
sometimes they're misused. And one of the things that I
see a lot is people saying, you know, I need
to get my needs met or I need my partner
(12:39):
needs to meet my needs, and yeah, I'm like, and
it's the floor is yours.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
I'm like, I'm smiling so big as you say that
that my face or something. She's my people, because I
feel like, very similar to what you're describing as watching
the dscape of social media and how often and not
even just social media, just in general, the relationship sphere
and the way that people talk about relationships, it's almost
become like a tick, talking about like getting our needs
(13:11):
mat And I found when couples come in to see me,
it's literally a battle for who's not getting their needs
needs met excuse me appropriately, to the point where I'm like, God,
this really feels just like the least loving thing ever.
And also what I realized was we're competing for energy here.
We're each feeling like I need someone else to fill
(13:33):
up my love cup. And I think people even actually
describe it that way, but like fill me up energetically
so that I can feel something that I don't feel
within myself, right, But if I need someone else to
be filling up my cup for me to be whole,
it's like a cup with a you know, a hole
in the bottom where it just keeps streaming out, it
will never be enough. And so our work is really
(13:55):
from my perspective, to cork that cup, ourselves really being
in that questioning. And you know, I struggle with the
word needs, and a lot of times it's not that
we don't have relational needs. But what I realized was
I was married for twelve years and there were so
many things that I would have called my relational needs
that I realized once I wasn't in a relationship. Those
(14:17):
weren't needs, they were desires. They were, you know, things
that I longed to feel in a partnership. I'm not
wrong for feeling them or longing for them, but they
were actually things that I was able to do for
myself when I had no choice, right. And I often say, like,
how do single people meet these needs if they're actually
quote needs? And I think language matters because there's an
(14:37):
energetic that is evoked within us when we use certain language.
And if these are my needs, then a lot of
times what I find with couples is there's a little
bit of a level of entitlement that comes up towards
our partner, like you're not meeting my needs. These are
things that I need from you versus always holding as
a practice. This partnership is a sacred gift that I'm
(14:57):
not promised could conceivably not be here tomorrow. And having
someone who sees me and meets me and has the
desire to love me in that way is to me
like the greatest gift ever. You know, not everybody has that,
And so I think there's a way that I just
like to like play with the language a little bit,
like if I expressed this to my partner as a desire,
(15:20):
how does that feel different than this is the need
that I have for me that's not being met because
there's a little bit of an energetic of black sometimes
in the.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Word need plunges into deficiency.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Yes, absolutely, it's so.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
God I think like, and what you're speaking to you
is just so big. It's so big because I think
this these kind of conversations about both needs and attachment
styles are kind of some of it's really good. The
stuff you find some of it is kind of like, oh,
you were gonna you might be sabotaging. You know what
you really want and desire in your life, and you
(15:56):
know what you're speaking to with the needs piece that
I find so interest seen is like when I kind
of re emerged in the dating world and I was
having conversations with people that are single or had been
single for a length of time. I was married for
about ten years, so I was off the market and
didn't know you know, I didn't know how to use
apps nothing. I was like, what are the kids doing?
(16:18):
But I started noticing that as I was talking to
women who were single and some men.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
There was this.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
What kind of became apparent to me was that a
lot of people were actually looking for parental love.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
She gets it, that's true, Yes, yes, because you're.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
The needs that I was hearing so many girlfriends say
they needed it. It wasn't really rational or reasonable to
expect that in a lover or in a partner, or
in a relationship of equality, but it did seem like
one of those core, deeply held desires that you would
have in childhood, of the way you'd want your authority
(17:01):
figure or your protector to show up.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
And it seemed almost as I was hearing that, you know,
and there's no judgment in that, because this is our work,
of this lifetime, right, it's to be aware of these
things and where they came from. But you know, the
thing that was kind of striking to me was just
by approaching love in that way, you keep yourself from it.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Ooof just felt that in my whole body as you
said that, that's right.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
So for what are like realistic needs for someone to
have from a partner, and what could potentially be something
that one you can do for yourself or you might
want to investigate maybe a childhood belief.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Well, I want to go back if we can for
just a second, because what you said was so big
and so important, and to me is such a fundamental
reason why I wrote this book, Because there's so much
about the relationship structures right now that are really attachment
based in nature, and all of us as human beings,
have two fundamental needs. We all need attachment. We need
(18:05):
something to feel tethered to, something that we feel like
contained by and like grounded in security. But we also
need aliveness. We also need a sense of eros and
life force and becoming and evolution. Right, And so the
structure the attachment is the masculine in the context of
the way I talk about it. Yeah, and these energetics,
(18:26):
the aliveness, the eros, the life force is the feminine.
We live in a society that really does not hold
a lot of value around the feminine energetics in general. Right,
And so there's been so much emphasis on just create
the structure, just create the safety. People actually like talk
about it like just get in that bunker of marriage
and stay there and everything will be okay. And in
a lot of ways, it's like if we put the
(18:48):
emphasis on a secure attachment, and that's it. We're out
of balance as you're speaking to We're looking for someone
to essentially, yes, be a parent, but I would say
even the next step up from that is like be
that higher power for me, right, like that source of
Like here's where I get my existential angst sort of
(19:09):
calmed all of Like I noticed there was like, oh,
this is like anxiety. This is almost like addictive, repetitive
patterns of like I need someone else to soothe me.
And when you're a child, as you know as a mama,
that's like that is what your parent is meant to do.
They are meant to give you that sense of containment.
I'm here, I got you, right. But if our children
(19:31):
never develop that, then they sort of go through the
world with an insecure attachment, feeling like they're not safe. Now,
I believe there is a larger secure attachment that we
are meant to cultivate within ourselves, right, But that is
that integration of source and the feminine aspects of ourselves
(19:52):
with us being rooted in the world that we're living in. Right.
So to answer the initial question that you asked, what
do I need from a partner? I would say very little.
To be honest, I would say that having people in
our lives are again this thing that we've sort of
made like our romantic partner everything for us. They're like,
(20:14):
you know, my confidant, my therapist, my travel buddy. But
here's the challenging aspect of that. When I am the
parental figure for my parent or excuse me, parental figure
for my partner, all of a sudden, appropriately appropriately, So
there's not a lot of eros, there's not a lot
of life force. We don't want to sleep together right, right,
(20:36):
And so this is why all of the couples that
I see, because we put so much emphasis on attachment,
everybody's struggling with their physical intimacy because there's like this
immeshed dynamic in our relationships where it's like I don't
know where you begin and I end. And we need
that sense of the other. We need that sense of longing,
that desire. It's like, you know, fire can't be created
(20:59):
without a little bit of air. We need some space
between you and me. But we've just really created these
mesh dynamics that it's like all attachments, stay attached, get
back in these bunkers and be attached. But if I
don't sort of believe that you're, like meant to be
this other, then I can't desire you.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
You know, come on, this is so good, This is
so so good. Deeply, well, I'm very clear about what
(21:41):
I want and need in my life, and I'm also
clear about who I want to be for someone and
who I don't want to be for someone when it
comes to a romantic relationship and love. And I think
for me, and I hope this is the correct word
in the way that I mean to use it. But like,
my autonomy is very important to me, and I want
to interchange that with my sovereignty, like my ability to
(22:02):
be myself. I want to think of life through the
lens of my human experience. While I'm also giving, right Like,
I've absolutely cultivated an expansive ability to give and receive
love and I learned that profoundly from my child and
(22:23):
that caring and that nurturing, and I love that I'm
a giver. I'm a lover, But I also need my
space and I don't really require a lot, you know,
I don't need my problems to be solved. I don't need,
you know, to fall apart on someone at least not
all the time, you know, hopefully, But you know, I
think in the way that I see love in life,
(22:45):
I'm also looking for an autonomous soul and spirit and
someone that is very clear about who they are, with
their interests, with their way to meet their own needs.
And we're not looking to like caretake for each other.
The seasons that that's necessary, like tangibly, like realistically necessary, absolutely,
(23:07):
but not as a full time job. We can think
about ourselves and our individual lives and relationships. I'm curious
how that sounds to you. Tell me if I'm crazy
or if that feels aligned.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Not only do you not sound crazy, but there's a
very specific reason why women of a certain age start
to feel such a strong sense of what you're speaking to.
So around thirty eight thirty nine, all of a sudden,
a woman starts tot and you probably know this, actually,
like there's an astrological shift that happens for us. But
all of a sudden, we start to come into like
(23:40):
this next phase of self, right, yeah, and we start
to like really question and it's it's very much like
what Jung called the individuation process, but like there's a
specific way that it unfolds within the feminine, the core
feminine woman, right, and so all of a sudden, it's
like all of these things that I've been fed about,
(24:01):
like who I need to be to be enough and
what is true about the world, we just start questioning
and we start looking around. And I heard something yesterday,
you know, you hear something You're like that just kind
of blew my mind goes, like the accuracy, but it
was basically saying like, as a woman comes into her forties,
and you've always heard like older women speak about like,
(24:22):
it's just all of a sudden, like your sense of
self gets solidified a little bit more right, And so
I certainly started to feel that, but I just thought like, oh,
that's just me, Like, you know, that's just what's happening
for me. But it's actually like developmentally what happens for women. Now.
What I heard the other day that blew my mind
was that like any oppressive structure has to sort of
be in this preemptive space of knowing how things unfold
(24:46):
to keep the systems in place, Meaning a patriarchal structure
knows this about what happens for women. We start to
come into ourselves around our forties, we start to like
come into this immense space of wisdom and self and
just confidence, and all of a sudden, we're like, we're
not interested in being controlled or diminished or needing someone
(25:09):
to complete me anymore. I actually am really clear, Like
I feel good in my skin. I can do that
for myself. Right, It's good. Yeah, But if you you know,
think back on like what it felt like when you
were younger, A lot of times we didn't have that
because developmentally we weren't in that space of individuation yet, right,
And so these patriarchal structures know that, and it's a
(25:31):
big reason why so much of the programming is around
youth and staying young and that you don't want to
age and when you age, that like that's a negative thing,
and you know, like puts emphasis but for women, right,
Like we don't hear a lot of emphasis on what's
negative around men aging. And women are sort of like
in this space of like coming into themselves in their forties.
(25:52):
And not only are we meant to feel bad about
the fact that we're aging and that our bodies and
our faces and whatever start to look different, but also
that we're bitter, and that's why we're sort of like
speaking to all of these things, right, So we sort
of program young women to see older women not as
like the wise sage elders or you know, and I
(26:13):
would even say like the mystics and the enchantress phase
of life where we're really sort of like in our
inner witch coming to the surface, right, but see them
as bitter and just like mad that they don't have
a man or whatever the thing is that I certainly
probably would have thought that was true when I heard
people talking about like patriarchy or things when I was younger.
(26:35):
I just it didn't occur to me like that that
was that eventually I was going to get a righter
maybe be curious about those things. But I'm saying all
of this to say there's a way that preemptively we
sort of have to be in this offensive space of
negating whatever the thing is that challenges the system. And
you see it, you know, in all of these like
white supremacy. We'll do this with calling you know, black
(26:57):
people angry and saying like anytime this question systems, it's
because you know they're angry. And so like there's all
of these like narratives that float within the cultural zeitgeist
that keeps keep these systems in place, but we're just
so like breathing them. They're the air that we breathe
that we never really question them and say, like are
those women in our forties bitter or are they just
(27:17):
like not concerned with fitting into a box anymore? Right?
And so to me, to this point you were making
I think the most potent form of resistance that we
can sort of enact as women is sort of saying one,
not only am I going to like embrace what is
so unbelievably beautiful about my aging process? And like I
(27:39):
don't like a fine one. I'm like the best time
everbody what you're talking about, Like not not here for
that like conversation. I'm like really in the space of
loving aging, but also just that like I am loving
my life and I think there's so much about whatever
the narrative is around our suffering in life. And this
is sort of like where the mindfulness work comes in
(27:59):
for me. It's always debatable, right, like whatever should be happening,
or what my marriage should have been, or who my
partner should be that they're not if we can be
in the space of questioning and in the inquiry. It
can really sort of diffuse some of the pain that
we're feeling around whatever the thing is, because it's always
a narrative that's debatable. Do you know what I mean? Yes,
(28:23):
you know, I'm just like wow an hour, but very
passionate obviously about what you're speaking. Yeah, because I think
it's important and to me, we're living through a moment
in history that was sort of defined as the Aquarian
Age was going to be the rise of the feminine consciousness,
and that we were going to come into this awareness
that you're talking about earlier in life, and that we
(28:44):
weren't going to sort of be in this space of
feeling like we needed to be diminished and that anything
wrong was happening. It's like, no, this is the natural
order of things and we're waking up, you know.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Yes, oh God. And you know, I think for some
people or some ways that you know, we've looked at society,
it's been that to take that on means that you
want to be masculine, or that you want to like
win against men or overpower men in the dynamic, and
it's like no, I just I want to be left
(29:18):
to be myself. I want to be kind of respected
to be myself and interact and participate with love. I
want to be in participation actively creatively with love and
with loving, but I don't also want to be oppressed
by it. Yeah, And I don't want to be boxed
(29:40):
in by it.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Yeah. And I don't know if you feel this, but
I honestly feel like I have more love for the
masculine collectives in my space of autonomy than I've ever
had in my life. And I think the reason is
because as I am a more sovereign being, I am
using more discernment with who I am joying in partnership
with and when I join in partnership because it's justified.
(30:05):
It's because my man is like so unbelievably inspiring to me,
and I am like thrilled to soften into him and
there's no resentment around doing that because I'm like hungry
to do it and it feels so good. I think
that that's the thing that we're sort of like not
(30:25):
taught to understand about what this process of romantic love
can be so good, because we're just so taught like
if you're alone, there's something wrong, so you better hurry
up and get a partner. But if we're really intentional
about our partnerships and creating community around us, so that yeah,
I have a ton of people in my life, but
(30:45):
when I join in partnership with another person, it's because
it's so aligned, it's so like on a soul level,
what I know for sure, for sure I'm meant to
have for myself that I'm like the softest, she's.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
So soft, like what you were saying, Oh my god,
it's so it's so it's so important, it's so important
for all of us, for both sides, because I mean,
I just have a tremendous amount of respect for like
men with integrity, like a tremendous amount of respect and compassion,
(31:24):
love and desire for men in that space. And you
know it's I think for so long when it came
to society and TV and all the things showing us
what the dynamic look like between women and men, it
was kind of like women needing to please men and
being very anxious about it. And how do I get
(31:45):
him to notice, like be with all these things and
the dynamic you're speaking to, which is the true, healthy, healed, whole,
sovereign dynamic. It's really about like we are both these
sovereign beings. We are both in this container of love
in reverence for love, and because of that, I'm allowed
(32:08):
to just be like a lover girl. I don't have
to be pleasing you. I just get to be so
soft and in lovership and just you know, like at
the highest degree of the way, I'm able to care
and give and it feels like ease, and it feels
like joy, and it feels like passion and creativity.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Do you know how I know the feminine is rising
and I just am like bursting as you say that.
I wrote a post where I said something about like
the era of the lover girl is returning, and Natty,
when I tell you, that was the most engaged post
of all time, like because we know and we're so
hungry to put down all of these things that are
(32:48):
not in alignment with the truth of who we are
and we are love, like this is our essence and
we know that, and it's like we're just like ready
to be that thing. And something else you were saying
that I think is really important is just the way
that it is important to look at and hold the
trajectory of what this has been for men and how
(33:09):
much I am just so obsessed with having the conversation
around men and how much these patriarchal structures have been
really damaging like that. And I think because I have
a little boy, and I never really thought about it
until I thought about like the world that I want
him to inherit and how much I want him to
feel that safety in being his fullest, most embodied self.
(33:33):
But there's all these ways that this like protect, provide,
pro create template, and that's all you're meant to do
for men is just really not allowing them to be
a full self either. And I think that that's a
little bit where we start to get in trouble in
relationships as we've sort of been playing these roles that
we've been conditioned to play. And then I love to say,
(33:54):
like couples get together and it's like we're laying in
bed next to someone that we barely know, because it's
like we've just been playing the roles with one another
but not really feeling safe enough to really be the
fullest expression of ourselves. And so I think, you know,
kind of circling back to what you were saying before,
it's not that we need to be healed to be
(34:15):
in dynamics with another person. But I do think that
we need to believe that our energy and the way
we're showing up for this relationship dynamic is one hundred
percent Maya responsibility, and so it's not someone else's responsibility
to be all of these things for me so that
I can believe that I'm whole.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
That's my job, right, you better, let's run that back.
Jack queis my producer. Let's run it back, that entire thing.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
It's not that we need to be healed to be
in dynamics with another person, But I do think that
we need to believe that our energy and the way
we're showing up for this relationship dynamic is one hundred
percent Maya responsibility, and so it's not someone else's responsibility
to be all of these things for me so that
I can believe that I'm whole. That's my job.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Deeply, well, I love the way that we are slowly
walking through and unpacking the depth of your book and
the concept, especially of the title, because that is sovereign love.
It is not against, It is not two people behind.
You know, these armored walls that are trying to fight
(35:27):
to be the one that gets to be themselves or
gets to be the one whose needs get met. You know,
it's the space of like one is, like love is
a privilege, Like it is a privilege to be in
connection for both sides, and at any time, it's a
privilege that can be revoked, you know. So when it's
there and it's safe and there's space, it's meant to be,
(35:49):
you know, the safe opening space for self where you
can be reflected and reflect and learn and grow. And
I'm such a believer that God God's intention for us
is to learn through relationship and relationship with all things,
not just love and partnership, but relationship with everything around you.
(36:11):
I have a relationship with my house. I have a relationship,
you know, with my favorite book of poetry. I have
a relationship with places I travel and with people and
my child, and you know, and I learn about me
through every way that I relate to relationship in my life.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
The depth of your awareness, it's just it's kind of
blowing my mind. I was thinking as you were speaking
to me, I was like, God, she so gets it.
And to me, this is a little bit what is
beautiful about divorce Because I think in the same way
that any sort of death just gives us a different
level of reverence for life. I think the death of
(36:52):
a connection gives you this opportunity to certainly go back
and you know, look at the black box and really
sort of time to understand what happened here. But also
there's like a rebirth of the way that I hold this,
And I find those who have experienced love and experienced
loss just to have like a different level of consciousness
(37:15):
with what they're bringing. And that's often why if you
look at people's relationships when they're in like their later
in life marriage partnership, they're so content and grateful and
present with one another. But also what I've seen is
like their expectations of the other person are so low
because they're just like settled in their skin in a
(37:35):
different way, you know.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
So we've been kind of speaking of it in the
context of, you know, kind of like mid to late
thirties and beyond for anyone listening who's kind of on
the younger end of the spectrum and might be at,
you know, more of the beginning stages of coming into
that those depth relationships. What is a way that they
can start working with this material so they get it
(38:01):
through in the first pass.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
I mean, I love this question, and in some ways
I feel like we're in such a moment of like
the children shall lead them. Like the younger generation is just,
in my experience, so conscious and questioning and challenging these
paradigms in a way that we just didn't feel safe
to or it just they weren't the conversations we were having, right,
(38:25):
But I think all of these like gender binary conversations
and like what relationships can look like outside of what
we saw and not working well for our parents' generation,
they're already having them, and they're sort of like, you know,
there's like these Pew research studies where they were asking
all of these young people about like getting married, and
they were sort of like why, And I don't think
(38:46):
that's necessarily a bad thing now, I think to me,
and this is just like a hypothesis I have. I
believe that we are going to shift into a time
where partnership is not going to be the baseline. It's
going to be like we are in community with one
another again. It's going to be more of a collectivist
way of being. And then when our soul paths are
so unbelievably aligned, the mission for what we came into
(39:10):
these bodies to do is just like in sync, then
we're going to come together in partnership because it's so
potent and fiery there. And I think that like our
kids generation, that's going to be what their relationship structures
look like. But I think it's going to be more
in the space of like, like you were saying, like
I am in relationship to so many things, to so
(39:30):
many people, with a little bit more of a conscious
reverence for like what all of these relationship dynamics are
teaching me about me, but that I'm not looking for
someone to complete me anymore, Like we're not doing that anymore.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
Yeah. Yeah, I want to just to sit in the
fibers of the book for a second. I kind of
I want to read for everybody some of the synopsis
from the book, and then I have a few technical questions.
So the avout of Sovereign Love is as a marriage
and family therapist, Sovereign Love is Denay Logan's perspective on
how we begin to heal from an unspoken war of
(40:03):
the sexes that's been playing out in our relationships. She
shares the patterns she sees playing out and the couples
that she works with, and how growing up in a
patriarchal society has affected us all. Sovereign love teaches you
about the work of integrating your own masculine and feminine
energetics so that you can create healthy polarity in your relationships,
(40:28):
put down the practice of codependency, and experience a greater
sense of wholeness within So that I mean ough, and
I know so many are are already resonating with the language,
but if you would kind of those energetics that live
within each of us, that polarity that you know, God,
(40:52):
the yend, the young, the light, the dark, the masculine,
the feminine, the grief, the joy, Like we are always
integrating opposites.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
That's why we're here.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
And how I and you know and I know obviously
this isn't books. We'll get the book, get book the book.
But can you describe for those listening what is that
polarity inside men and women? What do we experience as
our inner masculine and feminine and how does that play
(41:26):
into how we are able to show up or not
in relationship.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
Well, so, as we were talking about before, I believe
there's so much about our society as it has been,
that's been like a really wounded masculine paradigm, and so
that's like really like competitive productivity at all costs, you know,
just sort of like pull yourself up by your bootstraps
and like really like disengaged from our inner world in
(41:52):
so many ways. Like that's like the societal paradigm that's
been normalized. And a lot of times, like the things
that we revere, like especially in Western culture, like we
really sort of like you know, this thing of like
working ourselves until we're sick, not having any like vacation days.
That's really like those are like the things that we
value societally. Now, when it comes to feminine energy, we
(42:14):
really think of feminine energy with a lot of contempt
and a lot of what we believe is feminine energy
is really a distortion of feminine energy. So that's sort
of like the insecure, clingy, you know, codependent like anxious
like need someone else to complete me energy. We think
of that as feminine energy. And you know, as we
(42:35):
were saying before, that's in all of us, like we
will all sort of do this dance between our wounded
masculine and feminine energetics. But what I started to understand
is like we're a society that doesn't really have any
sort of like conceptualization of what these dynamics are and
look like from a healthy perspective. And you know, certainly
with masculine energy, we don't even know or have models
(42:58):
of what healthy masculinity looks like really, And so when
we think about, like what is healthy masculinity, that is
a sense of self, that is confidence, that is a mission,
that is like I am rooted in what I know,
I'm here to do, and I got me no matter what, right,
And that's in all of us. That's the like moving
forward from the space of inspired action versus how it
(43:22):
looks from the outside, right, like from a space rooted
from within. But then this beautiful, healthy, feminine energetic is
the energetic within all of us that like, if I
think of feminine energy, the first word that comes to
mind is always trust, because the feminine energy is like
the source energy within all of us. It is the
(43:42):
aspect of us that is like connected to the divine,
and so that is like the receptive energy, that is
the part of us that believes that we can trust
our intuition, trust our internal guidance, system and know that
we will be held. It's the part of us that
trust in life allows ourselves to play and be free
and embodied all of these beautiful aspects of our feminine
(44:03):
But all of us need to like really have both
of those energetics alive and dancing and integrated within us.
But we can't really have that until we not only
have an understanding of what those energetics are and how
they show up, but what it looks like tangibly to
take responsibility for our own energy. And that's really what
I try to walk people through in the book, like
(44:25):
that we are actually able not only to take responsibility
for our own energy in any given moment, but what's
amazing about Couple's work is when we take responsibility for
our own energy. And this isn't just in romantic relationships,
it's in relationships in general. Inevitably we will create polarity.
We will create healthy polarity. So just like a quick
(44:47):
example of what that can look like. So let's say
that I'm like you're like in a We're going to
pretend like we're like battling in wounded polarity for a moment, right,
So if you were like in wounded feminine energetic, and
you're just like constantly like wanting more from me, telling
me that, like you know, you just like want to
hang out more, and I'm just like not meeting your needs.
(45:07):
And like there's all of these ways that you're feeling
like you want more from me, but I'm not giving
it to you, and it's making you feel insecure and
unhappy in this relationship. And so I'm in wounded masculine
energy and I'm just like really irritated and like, oh,
you're always pulling on me and you're so needy and
I'm like really trying to build something at work and
why don't you understand it. I'm just like really in
this like guarded wounded masculine paradigm with you. My work
(45:30):
is to shift into my healthy feminine. So if I'm
in wounded masculine, I go into my healthy feminine, and
that's me in the space of vulnerability. So I get
still and I like really say, Okay, like what is
it that Debbie's doing that? Like I'm telling myself a
story about I take up space. The feminine is like
the spaciousness, So I take up space with the truth
of how this feels. For me, I say the vulnerable
(45:52):
thing I say. You know, the story I'm telling myself
is that like, no matter what I do, it's never
enough for you. And that reminds me maybe of the
way that like my mom always criticized me. Like, we
get into like the vulnerable conversation and I take up
space with that, And what will inevitably happen is is
I take up space in my healthy feminine you will
start to create healthy masculine containment for me. And so
(46:15):
you will see me in this vulnerable space and you'll
be like, oh, tonay, I wasn't trying to make you
feel that way. All of a sudden you got me.
You're containing me. You're like, I see you, I see
how I'm making you feel. That was not my intention.
And we start to be in that dance. Now here's
the important caveat because a lot of times people will say, well,
how do I get my husband to get into that
(46:35):
healthy That's not what we're doing here. When I say
take one hundred percent responsibility for your energy, I mean
one hundred percent responsibility for your energy, not your husband's energy.
And we will inevitably create healthy polarity when we take
responsibility for our energy. But energy is one of those
things we can't fake, Like we can't manipulate energy. So
(46:56):
if I am fully in the space of shifting into
my healthy feminine, inevitably you will sort of start to
like shift into that space of containment. But if you
can't and you won't, that's really important information for me
to have. Like if someone is just like determined to
not be in like healthy polarity with me, then that's
(47:16):
information about like how much we're going to be able
to find harmony in this relationship. And I need to know.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
That, need to know that and need to not respond
to it like a challenge, right like.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
I will make you.
Speaker 1 (47:28):
Yeah, I'm gonna win this, yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
Yeah, because that comes from a wounded space within me
that believes, like if this person can just love me
the way I desire to be loved, and then that
will mean I'm worthy.
Speaker 1 (47:40):
Oh lordie, what are some things that more people in
general need to evaluate when they think about love?
Speaker 2 (47:52):
I love that question. I think in general we have
just a distorted idea of what love is, you know.
I think so often, like even we were talking about before,
if you look on social media and the way people
talk about love, it's like fun. A person who does
this for you for you're the one will like inevitably
know how to do X, Y and Z for you.
(48:14):
So love is really about what I get from someone else.
Is everything that we're taught to believe. I don't think
that's true. I believe love is about what I am
giving to you. And you know, I think since my
marriage ended my definition of love when I really like
got in there and like got in the like unpacking
of love and relationships really shifted. And today what I
(48:34):
think of when I think of love is just the
idea that your soul is safe with me. And what
that means to me is that, like whatever your soul
came here to carry out in terms of its soul mission,
for you to be the fullest embodiment of who you
have the potential to be in this lifetime. I want
that for you because I love you, and I don't
(48:55):
want to interfere with that, even if that means that
you were meant to journey on and grace without me.
I love you, so, you know. I start out the
book with this quote by Maya Angelo where she talks
about like love liberates, it doesn't bind. It doesn't hold
someone here demanding that you stay and be who I
need you to be. Love loves you, and I love
(49:15):
the idea that, like my love for you is for
me that actually has nothing to do with anything you're
giving or doing or being. I love you. That's that's
what it means to love. And I think, yes, if
both people feel that, then there's reciprocity and it's a
beautiful relationship dynamic. But I think love is more about
my experience of you than your experience of me.
Speaker 1 (49:36):
That is so gorgeous.
Speaker 2 (49:38):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
That is so so so so so gorgeous. That is love.
That is love. Oh I really, I just really urge
everyone listening that's resonating to really start thinking about exploring,
going on to some kind of rabbit hole deep dives
(50:00):
of what does love actually mean to you? And what
has been perhaps performance or what has been societal programming
or what has been you know, a barrier against.
Speaker 2 (50:11):
What does it actually mean, what does it look like?
Speaker 1 (50:14):
What can it be? Because I think, and to the
way that you just so beautifully express that love is love,
and we keep trying to give love different definitions depending
on where we apply it. So it's like love means
this when I'm in love with a partner in romance.
(50:37):
But then love between me and my child is like this,
or love between me and a friend or my self,
love is like this. Love is one thing. Love is
one thing. Love is love, and it has to be
universally applied, and it's true nature and it's true and
it's true context. So it's like, if there are different
(50:59):
expertstions of what love is looks like how it feels
depending on who you're attributing that word to or with,
that's something to look at. It should not be that
faceted and compartmentalized in different ways and categorized.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
It's it's love. It just is. And I love what
you're saying so much because I think the more work
that we do to bring the focus back inward and understand.
You know, there's this roomy quote that like our task
is not to seek for love, but merely to seek
and find all the barriers we've built within ourselves against it, right,
(51:38):
And I think that.
Speaker 1 (51:39):
I love that quote.
Speaker 2 (51:40):
Right, It is so good. And I think when we
like boil it down and like just start, like you know,
to me, the healing is just like a returning to
the essence of who we really are, and we are
love period. You know, one of my favorite writers, Jaia
John has this I don't know but shet, but he
has this quote. It's sort of like ocean need not
(52:01):
seek water. You don't need to seek love outside of yourself.
You are love. Our work is just to remember that
and just start to pour love into every space we
enter a little bit more. But that really requires us
going inward and doing the work to understand where did
I come up with all these barriers that are keeping
me from loving.
Speaker 1 (52:23):
Two of my teachers from some years ago used to
start every one of our workshops with that roomy quote,
and then they'd say at the end of it, they'd
add their piece in that they add it, which was
to find all the barriers against it, and then they
would add and to dissolve them. And they would say
that every time like so like, so deliberate, so pronunciated.
(52:48):
You know, it was just and to dissolve them. And
I always love that because it gives you the beautiful
responsibility of that which means you can't do it.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
That's ah, that's gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (53:03):
So good. So as we as we get ready, although
I would love to continue the show for hours and days.
Speaker 2 (53:10):
So excited to find you, sister, you are I know.
Speaker 1 (53:16):
We are hanging. I would love if you could share
at the end of every episode. I like to invite
our guests to share a piece of soul work with
everyone listening, a way to integrate this conversation, a way
to experience it in between time until the next episode.
So whether it is a practice from the book, something
from your heart, or an inquiry, anything that you would
(53:40):
like to let the audience savor as this episode ends.
Ye know.
Speaker 2 (53:45):
I was thinking about earlier that there's this thing that
Eckert Tole speaks to where he talks about whenever you're
experiencing something difficult, make the decision to be in radical
acceptance of this as if you chose it, because on
some level you did. And I got to tell you, Debbie,
like making that the practice of my life has changed everything,
(54:08):
whatever it's going through, or whatever I'm going through, whatever
the situation is. If I get into the space of
getting still and ask myself, like, why is my higher
self making this the assignment you know, giving me? This
is the instruction of something that I meant to go through,
Then all of a sudden, like the resistance just starts
(54:30):
to dissolve, to use that word, And I think that
that's just like a practice that we can bring in
like life's going to be life in right, like things
are going to happen, and when the things that we
would rather not be the case are the inevitable reality.
How can I be in the space of like radical
acceptance as if I chose this because on some level
(54:53):
I did big work.
Speaker 1 (54:58):
Yeah, big work, juicy juicy, juicy work. Spend time thinking
about that invitation everyone and journal to that in a
few different ways. Write down some thoughts as you're hearing
and it's circulating right now, and then consider tomorrow, read it,
(55:18):
jot down a little bit more the next day, and
spend the week with it. Spend some time with it,
give it, give it some space. How can everyone connect
with you in your work? Thank you?
Speaker 2 (55:30):
As you mentioned earlier, I have a podcast called Cheaper
Than Therapy, and my friend Vanessa Bennett, who's also a therapist,
and I have a community, the Cheaper Than Therapy Community
where people can come in and do group therapy and
group work and processing in just like a really beautiful
community that we've built. And yeah, and then I do
a lot of you know, sharing of the content that
(55:53):
we record and on retreats and things on social media.
So that just feels your Instagram. Oh it's dot Logan
lo g A N. And I have this book coming
out called Sovereign Love.
Speaker 1 (56:07):
Sovereign Love. It is available and all the places you
get books, so make sure to get this book, spend
some time with it. This is the work of our lives,
love and relationship in all forms.
Speaker 2 (56:23):
Thank you, Thank you for just the way you're showing
up for this life. I can feel it in your energy.
It's just really really beautiful to be in your presence.
Speaker 1 (56:33):
Thank you, Thank you. Until next time, Thank you so
much for joining us. Now, Mistay Stay Stay Stay. The
content presented on Deeply Well serves solely for educational and
informational purposes. It should not be considered a replacement for
personalized medical or mental health guidance and does not constitute
(56:57):
a provider patient relationship. As always, it is advisable to
consult with your healthcare provider or health team for any
specific concerns or questions that you may have. Connect with
me on social at Debbie Brown that's Twitter and Instagram,
or you can go to my website Debbie Brown dot
com and if you're listening to the show on Apple Podcasts,
(57:20):
don't forget, Please rate, review, and subscribe and send this
episode to a friend. Deeply Well is a production of
iHeartRadio and The Black Effect Network. It's produced by Jacquess Thomas,
Samantha Timmins, and me Debbie Brown. The Beautiful Soundbath You
heard That's by Jarrelen Glass from Crystal Cadence. For more
(57:42):
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Take a deep breath in through your nose.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Hold it.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Now, release slowly again deep in heale hold release, repeating
(01:02):
internally to yourself as you connect to my voice. I
am deeply, deeply well. I I am deeply well. I
(01:23):
am deeply well well. I'm Debbie Brown and this is
the Deeply Well Podcast. Welcome to Deeply Well, a soft
(01:44):
place to land on your journey. A podcast for those
that are curious, creative, and ready to expand in higher
consciousness and self care. I'm Debbie Brown. This is where
we heal, this is where we become. Welcome to today's
Oh okay, we are going to get into some new
territory that we haven't really explored actually in so many
(02:07):
seasons of Deeply Well relationships. This is an area that
we have kind of dabbled in a little bit, but
it is my number one most requested type of show
to do. And I'm really excited today because we have
someone so special that has an incredible new book out
that is going to guide us through what it is
to be in healthy relationship and to also be a
(02:30):
sovereign being, which if you're on this path and you're
listening to this show, I can almost guarantee that that
is the intention and that is what we are always
exploring here. But it doesn't mean that you have to
be off on that island all alone. So we are
going to be learning today, We're going to be expanding.
Highly recommend grabbing a journal, Highly recommend bringing something supportive
(02:54):
nearby just in case some things start to come up.
Today's episode, we are joined by Denay Logan. She is
a marriage and family therapist with an orientation in depth psychology,
often referred to as the psychology of the soul.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
She's a group.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Facilitator and a cohost of the podcast Cheaper Than Therapy.
She has a master's degree in counseling psychology and is
notably the mentee of acclaimed psychotherapist Esther Perrell. Denay is
passionate about sharing tools and strategies to cultivate spiritual awareness,
understanding the current shifts taking place within our societal structures,
(03:32):
and empowering others and understanding how they can live the
most fulfilling lives possible. Her debut book, Sovereign Love, hits
everywhere May twenty eighth, So hopefully at the time you
listen to the show, it's already out and you can
pick it up and if not, you can pre order it.
So go to all the places that you love to
get books. And it is from Sound True.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Welcome to the show. Oh my gosh, Debbie, thank you.
Your voice is just so lovely. And I'm listening to
you as you're doing that interim like you're like a
soft place to live yourself. I'm like, I'm just gonna
accept back with Debbie and listening you speak.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Oh don't be making me blessed. Thank you so much it. Yeah,
part of my journey has been using my voice in
the way that I believe God wants me to. So
I really appreciate that so much.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Beautiful. This is a big.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
This is a big category of life and conversation. Yeah,
and I'm so excited to have this conversation with you.
I think kind of grounding it. I'll ground it first
with a little a little share in that as a
lot of listeners from this show know well, I am
a sovereign being. That is my path and I have
been deeply learning about love since I got divorced about
(04:49):
three and a half years ago, and it's been so
illuminating kind of coming to that space of loving and
being open to be loved from the position of being
at the depth of healing. I am currently at the
depth of self, the depth of connection consciousness. But even
(05:10):
in all of that, and I think this is the
funny thing for so many of us, where it's like,
you're on the journey, so You're like, while I'm on
the journey, so then all of life is going to
be great. It's like, and we're still on earth, and
we're still surrounded by everyone who has their own spiritual
curriculum and are at different places of that journey, and
so this is still an area that can be deeply
(05:34):
nourished by intention and work and thoughtfulness and care and cultivating.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
So I'm so excited to.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Explore that with you your book Sovereign Love. First of all,
the title, can you walk me through that definition? What
is sovereign love?
Speaker 2 (05:52):
You know, I think so much of what you were
just saying speaks to why I decided to title this
book Sovereign Love, because so much of what we have
understood up to this point about love and relationships has
really been designed or constructed by an external authority telling
us what relationships should be, should look like, what is
(06:13):
quote normal in our relationship structures, right, And what I
think we're finding, in accordance with what you were saying,
is as we really do a lot of this like
deeper work and attempt to know ourselves well and define
ourselves for ourselves, there's a lot that's sort of out
of alignment in terms of the way that we are
loving one another. And you know, I certainly witness it
(06:37):
within the couples that I work with every day, but
also within my own life. I was a yoga teacher
for so many years, and it's so funny, Debbie. People
used to say to me all the time, like, oh
my gosh, your husband must just like love coming home
to you, Like you're soothing, you know, energy, and you're
just like so loving. And I was like, oh, totally,
totally right, And that wasn't the case, right. There were
(07:00):
so many aspects of my own shadow that were sort
of playing out in my relationship dynamics, which is the
case for all of us. But I think we have
been living in what I speak to in this book
that I wrote a really wounded masculine paradigm for centuries now.
And when I talk about a masculine paradigm or when
(07:20):
I talk about patriarchy. I'm not talking about masculinity in
the context of gender so much as I'm talking about
structures of dominance, right, And there's a way that we
are doing relationships from a really sort of wounded masculine perspective,
which is like how it looks on the outside versus
like how it really feels deep within us, whether we're
(07:41):
in alignment with the people that we really want to be,
versus like acting out all of these paradigms that are
really based in fear. And so, as my marriage ended,
and I like to say changed form because my kiddo's
dad is still one of my best friends in the world,
and I think we were both really committed to how
do we do this thing of allowing this relationship to evolve,
(08:04):
and it did need to evolve. We got married when
we were you know, fairly young, like mid twenties, and
realized that after being together for twelve years, it was
just not true anymore. There was so much about who
each of us wanted to be and where our lives
were headed that just weren't aligned. And so much of
what we're taught about relationships is that, like when a
(08:24):
relationship ends, that means we've failed, right, right, and we
should be devastated and we should feel like that means
we're not lovable or all of these narratives that we're
taught to believe about ourselves that you know, as you
were speaking to and I did within myself a lot
of work that made me feel like that's just not
true in terms of like how this really feels and
who I really want to be as I'm holding this
(08:48):
certainly what I want my child to witness about the
dissolution of our marriage. But if that's not true, how
do we do the work of defining what is true
for ourselves? So, you know, sovereign circling back to what
you originally asked, is this sort of entity that is
defined for itself?
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Right?
Speaker 2 (09:05):
If you think about like sovereign countries, they are like
doing the work of defining themselves for themselves, and it's
like a co creation of the people involved, but it's
really like that interra authority is defining it, you know.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
You know, I would like to say that a lot
of the audience of this show is deeply on the
path of self awareness and seekers, you know, curious, as
I say in the title of the show, creative but
deeply connected to finding truths and answers. And I think
something that I hear a lot from people is there
(09:40):
is this belief that you have to quote unquote I'm
doing like all the air quotes right now, be healed
to be in relationship. If you could just kind of
I don't even know what the question is, but explore
and kind of share your thoughts on that concept or
how to approach relationship when you are on this journey
(10:02):
and you are doing your inner work and you're noticing
the triggers and all the pieces.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yeah, well it's twofold because first I would say, you know,
the idea that I need to be healed before being
in relationship, I would sort of say, well, good luck
with that, right, Yeah, there is nothing the work never ends, right,
and there's nothing that will bring our stuff to the
surface like romantic relationships, because it's the most vulnerable space
within us. To stand in front of another person and
(10:28):
say can you love me? Like can you see me
as worthy of traveling this path alongside you? It's it
brings all of our inner child wounding to the surface.
It's the most vulnerable space for all of us. So
I'm like, I don't care who you are, Like I
certainly like when I got back in there, I'm like,
who am I Like, I don't even recognize what is
coming up for me because it's it's deeply activating for
(10:49):
all of us. So I think we have to normalize that. Yeah,
it's going to be activating, it's going to be hard,
and I think if we're open to seeing it this way,
relationships can also be the most rich soil for our
becoming and our evolution. And it's really sort of seeing
whatever the relationship dynamic is as showing me to me. Right,
(11:13):
So if I make it less about this other person
and what they're doing, what they need to change, and
how they're not showing up in quote meeting my needs
and more like being in the inquiry around oof, that's
really challenging for me. When this person does that, I
wonder why, right, Like, what is the story I'm telling
myself about what it means? Where did I get ideas
about who someone else should be for me in relationship
(11:35):
that maybe are maybe they're true, but maybe they're not
necessarily true for me? And how can I just like
really be present with what is and in the space
of questioning versus just allowing our inner child really to
run the show in those moments when we're inevitably activated
in relationships.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
You know, Oh, my goodness is something that you said
in the midst of this I would love to kind
of touch on because I think you know, in this,
in this moment in time, we are incredibly blessed to
have a lot of access to information and language, a
lot of access to concepts and tools of self awareness, diagnoses,
and so many things, all from our Instagram algorithm. Yes,
(12:18):
but we don't always, you know, depending on what our
individual backgrounds are, have the same definitions for some of
these words that we're reading or these understandings, and so
sometimes they're misused. And one of the things that I
see a lot is people saying, you know, I need
to get my needs met or I need my partner
(12:39):
needs to meet my needs, and yeah, I'm like, and
it's the floor is yours.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
I'm like, I'm smiling so big as you say that
that my face or something. She's my people, because I
feel like, very similar to what you're describing as watching
the dscape of social media and how often and not
even just social media, just in general, the relationship sphere
and the way that people talk about relationships, it's almost
become like a tick, talking about like getting our needs
(13:11):
mat And I found when couples come in to see me,
it's literally a battle for who's not getting their needs
needs met excuse me appropriately, to the point where I'm like, God,
this really feels just like the least loving thing ever.
And also what I realized was we're competing for energy here.
We're each feeling like I need someone else to fill
(13:33):
up my love cup. And I think people even actually
describe it that way, but like fill me up energetically
so that I can feel something that I don't feel
within myself, right, But if I need someone else to
be filling up my cup for me to be whole,
it's like a cup with a you know, a hole
in the bottom where it just keeps streaming out, it
will never be enough. And so our work is really
(13:55):
from my perspective, to cork that cup, ourselves really being
in that questioning. And you know, I struggle with the
word needs, and a lot of times it's not that
we don't have relational needs. But what I realized was
I was married for twelve years and there were so
many things that I would have called my relational needs
that I realized once I wasn't in a relationship. Those
(14:17):
weren't needs, they were desires. They were, you know, things
that I longed to feel in a partnership. I'm not
wrong for feeling them or longing for them, but they
were actually things that I was able to do for
myself when I had no choice, right. And I often say, like,
how do single people meet these needs if they're actually
quote needs? And I think language matters because there's an
(14:37):
energetic that is evoked within us when we use certain language.
And if these are my needs, then a lot of
times what I find with couples is there's a little
bit of a level of entitlement that comes up towards
our partner, like you're not meeting my needs. These are
things that I need from you versus always holding as
a practice. This partnership is a sacred gift that I'm
(14:57):
not promised could conceivably not be here tomorrow. And having
someone who sees me and meets me and has the
desire to love me in that way is to me
like the greatest gift ever. You know, not everybody has that,
And so I think there's a way that I just
like to like play with the language a little bit,
like if I expressed this to my partner as a desire,
(15:20):
how does that feel different than this is the need
that I have for me that's not being met because
there's a little bit of an energetic of black sometimes
in the.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Word need plunges into deficiency.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Yes, absolutely, it's so.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
God I think like, and what you're speaking to you
is just so big. It's so big because I think
this these kind of conversations about both needs and attachment
styles are kind of some of it's really good. The
stuff you find some of it is kind of like, oh,
you were gonna you might be sabotaging. You know what
you really want and desire in your life, and you
(15:56):
know what you're speaking to with the needs piece that
I find so interest seen is like when I kind
of re emerged in the dating world and I was
having conversations with people that are single or had been
single for a length of time. I was married for
about ten years, so I was off the market and
didn't know you know, I didn't know how to use
apps nothing. I was like, what are the kids doing?
(16:18):
But I started noticing that as I was talking to
women who were single and some men.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
There was this.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
What kind of became apparent to me was that a
lot of people were actually looking for parental love.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
She gets it, that's true, Yes, yes, because you're.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
The needs that I was hearing so many girlfriends say
they needed it. It wasn't really rational or reasonable to
expect that in a lover or in a partner, or
in a relationship of equality, but it did seem like
one of those core, deeply held desires that you would
have in childhood, of the way you'd want your authority
(17:01):
figure or your protector to show up.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
And it seemed almost as I was hearing that, you know,
and there's no judgment in that, because this is our work,
of this lifetime, right, it's to be aware of these
things and where they came from. But you know, the
thing that was kind of striking to me was just
by approaching love in that way, you keep yourself from it.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Ooof just felt that in my whole body as you
said that, that's right.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
So for what are like realistic needs for someone to
have from a partner, and what could potentially be something
that one you can do for yourself or you might
want to investigate maybe a childhood belief.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Well, I want to go back if we can for
just a second, because what you said was so big
and so important, and to me is such a fundamental
reason why I wrote this book, Because there's so much
about the relationship structures right now that are really attachment
based in nature, and all of us as human beings,
have two fundamental needs. We all need attachment. We need
(18:05):
something to feel tethered to, something that we feel like
contained by and like grounded in security. But we also
need aliveness. We also need a sense of eros and
life force and becoming and evolution. Right, And so the
structure the attachment is the masculine in the context of
the way I talk about it. Yeah, and these energetics,
(18:26):
the aliveness, the eros, the life force is the feminine.
We live in a society that really does not hold
a lot of value around the feminine energetics in general. Right,
And so there's been so much emphasis on just create
the structure, just create the safety. People actually like talk
about it like just get in that bunker of marriage
and stay there and everything will be okay. And in
a lot of ways, it's like if we put the
(18:48):
emphasis on a secure attachment, and that's it. We're out
of balance as you're speaking to We're looking for someone
to essentially, yes, be a parent, but I would say
even the next step up from that is like be
that higher power for me, right, like that source of
Like here's where I get my existential angst sort of
(19:09):
calmed all of Like I noticed there was like, oh,
this is like anxiety. This is almost like addictive, repetitive
patterns of like I need someone else to soothe me.
And when you're a child, as you know as a mama,
that's like that is what your parent is meant to do.
They are meant to give you that sense of containment.
I'm here, I got you, right. But if our children
(19:31):
never develop that, then they sort of go through the
world with an insecure attachment, feeling like they're not safe. Now,
I believe there is a larger secure attachment that we
are meant to cultivate within ourselves, right, But that is
that integration of source and the feminine aspects of ourselves
(19:52):
with us being rooted in the world that we're living in. Right.
So to answer the initial question that you asked, what
do I need from a partner? I would say very little.
To be honest, I would say that having people in
our lives are again this thing that we've sort of
made like our romantic partner everything for us. They're like,
(20:14):
you know, my confidant, my therapist, my travel buddy. But
here's the challenging aspect of that. When I am the
parental figure for my parent or excuse me, parental figure
for my partner, all of a sudden, appropriately appropriately, So
there's not a lot of eros, there's not a lot
of life force. We don't want to sleep together right, right,
(20:36):
And so this is why all of the couples that
I see, because we put so much emphasis on attachment,
everybody's struggling with their physical intimacy because there's like this
immeshed dynamic in our relationships where it's like I don't
know where you begin and I end. And we need
that sense of the other. We need that sense of longing,
that desire. It's like, you know, fire can't be created
(20:59):
without a little bit of air. We need some space
between you and me. But we've just really created these
mesh dynamics that it's like all attachments, stay attached, get
back in these bunkers and be attached. But if I
don't sort of believe that you're, like meant to be
this other, then I can't desire you.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
You know, come on, this is so good, This is
so so good. Deeply, well, I'm very clear about what
(21:41):
I want and need in my life, and I'm also
clear about who I want to be for someone and
who I don't want to be for someone when it
comes to a romantic relationship and love. And I think
for me, and I hope this is the correct word
in the way that I mean to use it. But like,
my autonomy is very important to me, and I want
to interchange that with my sovereignty, like my ability to
(22:02):
be myself. I want to think of life through the
lens of my human experience. While I'm also giving, right Like,
I've absolutely cultivated an expansive ability to give and receive
love and I learned that profoundly from my child and
(22:23):
that caring and that nurturing, and I love that I'm
a giver. I'm a lover, But I also need my
space and I don't really require a lot, you know,
I don't need my problems to be solved. I don't need,
you know, to fall apart on someone at least not
all the time, you know, hopefully, But you know, I
think in the way that I see love in life,
(22:45):
I'm also looking for an autonomous soul and spirit and
someone that is very clear about who they are, with
their interests, with their way to meet their own needs.
And we're not looking to like caretake for each other.
The seasons that that's necessary, like tangibly, like realistically necessary, absolutely,
(23:07):
but not as a full time job. We can think
about ourselves and our individual lives and relationships. I'm curious
how that sounds to you. Tell me if I'm crazy
or if that feels aligned.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Not only do you not sound crazy, but there's a
very specific reason why women of a certain age start
to feel such a strong sense of what you're speaking to.
So around thirty eight thirty nine, all of a sudden,
a woman starts tot and you probably know this, actually,
like there's an astrological shift that happens for us. But
all of a sudden, we start to come into like
(23:40):
this next phase of self, right, yeah, and we start
to like really question and it's it's very much like
what Jung called the individuation process, but like there's a
specific way that it unfolds within the feminine, the core
feminine woman, right, and so all of a sudden, it's
like all of these things that I've been fed about,
(24:01):
like who I need to be to be enough and
what is true about the world, we just start questioning
and we start looking around. And I heard something yesterday,
you know, you hear something You're like that just kind
of blew my mind goes, like the accuracy, but it
was basically saying like, as a woman comes into her forties,
and you've always heard like older women speak about like,
(24:22):
it's just all of a sudden, like your sense of
self gets solidified a little bit more right, And so
I certainly started to feel that, but I just thought like, oh,
that's just me, Like, you know, that's just what's happening
for me. But it's actually like developmentally what happens for women. Now.
What I heard the other day that blew my mind
was that like any oppressive structure has to sort of
be in this preemptive space of knowing how things unfold
(24:46):
to keep the systems in place, Meaning a patriarchal structure
knows this about what happens for women. We start to
come into ourselves around our forties, we start to like
come into this immense space of wisdom and self and
just confidence, and all of a sudden, we're like, we're
not interested in being controlled or diminished or needing someone
(25:09):
to complete me anymore. I actually am really clear, Like
I feel good in my skin. I can do that
for myself. Right, It's good. Yeah, But if you you know,
think back on like what it felt like when you
were younger, A lot of times we didn't have that
because developmentally we weren't in that space of individuation yet, right,
And so these patriarchal structures know that, and it's a
(25:31):
big reason why so much of the programming is around
youth and staying young and that you don't want to
age and when you age, that like that's a negative thing,
and you know, like puts emphasis but for women, right,
Like we don't hear a lot of emphasis on what's
negative around men aging. And women are sort of like
in this space of like coming into themselves in their forties.
(25:52):
And not only are we meant to feel bad about
the fact that we're aging and that our bodies and
our faces and whatever start to look different, but also
that we're bitter, and that's why we're sort of like
speaking to all of these things, right, So we sort
of program young women to see older women not as
like the wise sage elders or you know, and I
(26:13):
would even say like the mystics and the enchantress phase
of life where we're really sort of like in our
inner witch coming to the surface, right, but see them
as bitter and just like mad that they don't have
a man or whatever the thing is that I certainly
probably would have thought that was true when I heard
people talking about like patriarchy or things when I was younger.
(26:35):
I just it didn't occur to me like that that
was that eventually I was going to get a righter
maybe be curious about those things. But I'm saying all
of this to say there's a way that preemptively we
sort of have to be in this offensive space of
negating whatever the thing is that challenges the system. And
you see it, you know, in all of these like
white supremacy. We'll do this with calling you know, black
(26:57):
people angry and saying like anytime this question systems, it's
because you know they're angry. And so like there's all
of these like narratives that float within the cultural zeitgeist
that keeps keep these systems in place, but we're just
so like breathing them. They're the air that we breathe
that we never really question them and say, like are
those women in our forties bitter or are they just
(27:17):
like not concerned with fitting into a box anymore? Right?
And so to me, to this point you were making
I think the most potent form of resistance that we
can sort of enact as women is sort of saying one,
not only am I going to like embrace what is
so unbelievably beautiful about my aging process? And like I
(27:39):
don't like a fine one. I'm like the best time
everbody what you're talking about, Like not not here for
that like conversation. I'm like really in the space of
loving aging, but also just that like I am loving
my life and I think there's so much about whatever
the narrative is around our suffering in life. And this
is sort of like where the mindfulness work comes in
(27:59):
for me. It's always debatable, right, like whatever should be happening,
or what my marriage should have been, or who my
partner should be that they're not if we can be
in the space of questioning and in the inquiry. It
can really sort of diffuse some of the pain that
we're feeling around whatever the thing is, because it's always
a narrative that's debatable. Do you know what I mean? Yes,
(28:23):
you know, I'm just like wow an hour, but very
passionate obviously about what you're speaking. Yeah, because I think
it's important and to me, we're living through a moment
in history that was sort of defined as the Aquarian
Age was going to be the rise of the feminine consciousness,
and that we were going to come into this awareness
that you're talking about earlier in life, and that we
(28:44):
weren't going to sort of be in this space of
feeling like we needed to be diminished and that anything
wrong was happening. It's like, no, this is the natural
order of things and we're waking up, you know.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Yes, oh God. And you know, I think for some
people or some ways that you know, we've looked at society,
it's been that to take that on means that you
want to be masculine, or that you want to like
win against men or overpower men in the dynamic, and
it's like no, I just I want to be left
(29:18):
to be myself. I want to be kind of respected
to be myself and interact and participate with love. I
want to be in participation actively creatively with love and
with loving, but I don't also want to be oppressed
by it. Yeah, And I don't want to be boxed
(29:40):
in by it.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Yeah. And I don't know if you feel this, but
I honestly feel like I have more love for the
masculine collectives in my space of autonomy than I've ever
had in my life. And I think the reason is
because as I am a more sovereign being, I am
using more discernment with who I am joying in partnership
with and when I join in partnership because it's justified.
(30:05):
It's because my man is like so unbelievably inspiring to me,
and I am like thrilled to soften into him and
there's no resentment around doing that because I'm like hungry
to do it and it feels so good. I think
that that's the thing that we're sort of like not
(30:25):
taught to understand about what this process of romantic love
can be so good, because we're just so taught like
if you're alone, there's something wrong, so you better hurry
up and get a partner. But if we're really intentional
about our partnerships and creating community around us, so that yeah,
I have a ton of people in my life, but
(30:45):
when I join in partnership with another person, it's because
it's so aligned, it's so like on a soul level,
what I know for sure, for sure I'm meant to
have for myself that I'm like the softest, she's.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
So soft, like what you were saying, Oh my god,
it's so it's so it's so important, it's so important
for all of us, for both sides, because I mean,
I just have a tremendous amount of respect for like
men with integrity, like a tremendous amount of respect and compassion,
(31:24):
love and desire for men in that space. And you
know it's I think for so long when it came
to society and TV and all the things showing us
what the dynamic look like between women and men, it
was kind of like women needing to please men and
being very anxious about it. And how do I get
(31:45):
him to notice, like be with all these things and
the dynamic you're speaking to, which is the true, healthy, healed, whole,
sovereign dynamic. It's really about like we are both these
sovereign beings. We are both in this container of love
in reverence for love, and because of that, I'm allowed
(32:08):
to just be like a lover girl. I don't have
to be pleasing you. I just get to be so
soft and in lovership and just you know, like at
the highest degree of the way, I'm able to care
and give and it feels like ease, and it feels
like joy, and it feels like passion and creativity.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Do you know how I know the feminine is rising
and I just am like bursting as you say that.
I wrote a post where I said something about like
the era of the lover girl is returning, and Natty,
when I tell you, that was the most engaged post
of all time, like because we know and we're so
hungry to put down all of these things that are
(32:48):
not in alignment with the truth of who we are
and we are love, like this is our essence and
we know that, and it's like we're just like ready
to be that thing. And something else you were saying
that I think is really important is just the way
that it is important to look at and hold the
trajectory of what this has been for men and how
(33:09):
much I am just so obsessed with having the conversation
around men and how much these patriarchal structures have been
really damaging like that. And I think because I have
a little boy, and I never really thought about it
until I thought about like the world that I want
him to inherit and how much I want him to
feel that safety in being his fullest, most embodied self.
(33:33):
But there's all these ways that this like protect, provide,
pro create template, and that's all you're meant to do
for men is just really not allowing them to be
a full self either. And I think that that's a
little bit where we start to get in trouble in
relationships as we've sort of been playing these roles that
we've been conditioned to play. And then I love to say,
(33:54):
like couples get together and it's like we're laying in
bed next to someone that we barely know, because it's
like we've just been playing the roles with one another
but not really feeling safe enough to really be the
fullest expression of ourselves. And so I think, you know,
kind of circling back to what you were saying before,
it's not that we need to be healed to be
(34:15):
in dynamics with another person. But I do think that
we need to believe that our energy and the way
we're showing up for this relationship dynamic is one hundred
percent Maya responsibility, and so it's not someone else's responsibility
to be all of these things for me so that
I can believe that I'm whole.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
That's my job, right, you better, let's run that back.
Jack queis my producer. Let's run it back, that entire thing.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
It's not that we need to be healed to be
in dynamics with another person, But I do think that
we need to believe that our energy and the way
we're showing up for this relationship dynamic is one hundred
percent Maya responsibility, and so it's not someone else's responsibility
to be all of these things for me so that
I can believe that I'm whole. That's my job.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Deeply, well, I love the way that we are slowly
walking through and unpacking the depth of your book and
the concept, especially of the title, because that is sovereign love.
It is not against, It is not two people behind.
You know, these armored walls that are trying to fight
(35:27):
to be the one that gets to be themselves or
gets to be the one whose needs get met. You know,
it's the space of like one is, like love is
a privilege, Like it is a privilege to be in
connection for both sides, and at any time, it's a
privilege that can be revoked, you know. So when it's
there and it's safe and there's space, it's meant to be,
(35:49):
you know, the safe opening space for self where you
can be reflected and reflect and learn and grow. And
I'm such a believer that God God's intention for us
is to learn through relationship and relationship with all things,
not just love and partnership, but relationship with everything around you.
(36:11):
I have a relationship with my house. I have a relationship,
you know, with my favorite book of poetry. I have
a relationship with places I travel and with people and
my child, and you know, and I learn about me
through every way that I relate to relationship in my life.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
The depth of your awareness, it's just it's kind of
blowing my mind. I was thinking as you were speaking
to me, I was like, God, she so gets it.
And to me, this is a little bit what is
beautiful about divorce Because I think in the same way
that any sort of death just gives us a different
level of reverence for life. I think the death of
(36:52):
a connection gives you this opportunity to certainly go back
and you know, look at the black box and really
sort of time to understand what happened here. But also
there's like a rebirth of the way that I hold this,
And I find those who have experienced love and experienced
loss just to have like a different level of consciousness
(37:15):
with what they're bringing. And that's often why if you
look at people's relationships when they're in like their later
in life marriage partnership, they're so content and grateful and
present with one another. But also what I've seen is
like their expectations of the other person are so low
because they're just like settled in their skin in a
(37:35):
different way, you know.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
So we've been kind of speaking of it in the
context of, you know, kind of like mid to late
thirties and beyond for anyone listening who's kind of on
the younger end of the spectrum and might be at,
you know, more of the beginning stages of coming into
that those depth relationships. What is a way that they
can start working with this material so they get it
(38:01):
through in the first pass.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
I mean, I love this question, and in some ways
I feel like we're in such a moment of like
the children shall lead them. Like the younger generation is just,
in my experience, so conscious and questioning and challenging these
paradigms in a way that we just didn't feel safe
to or it just they weren't the conversations we were having, right,
(38:25):
But I think all of these like gender binary conversations
and like what relationships can look like outside of what
we saw and not working well for our parents' generation,
they're already having them, and they're sort of like, you know,
there's like these Pew research studies where they were asking
all of these young people about like getting married, and
they were sort of like why, And I don't think
(38:46):
that's necessarily a bad thing now, I think to me,
and this is just like a hypothesis I have. I
believe that we are going to shift into a time
where partnership is not going to be the baseline. It's
going to be like we are in community with one
another again. It's going to be more of a collectivist
way of being. And then when our soul paths are
so unbelievably aligned, the mission for what we came into
(39:10):
these bodies to do is just like in sync, then
we're going to come together in partnership because it's so
potent and fiery there. And I think that like our
kids generation, that's going to be what their relationship structures
look like. But I think it's going to be more
in the space of like, like you were saying, like
I am in relationship to so many things, to so
(39:30):
many people, with a little bit more of a conscious
reverence for like what all of these relationship dynamics are
teaching me about me, but that I'm not looking for
someone to complete me anymore, Like we're not doing that anymore.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
Yeah. Yeah, I want to just to sit in the
fibers of the book for a second. I kind of
I want to read for everybody some of the synopsis
from the book, and then I have a few technical questions.
So the avout of Sovereign Love is as a marriage
and family therapist, Sovereign Love is Denay Logan's perspective on
how we begin to heal from an unspoken war of
(40:03):
the sexes that's been playing out in our relationships. She
shares the patterns she sees playing out and the couples
that she works with, and how growing up in a
patriarchal society has affected us all. Sovereign love teaches you
about the work of integrating your own masculine and feminine
energetics so that you can create healthy polarity in your relationships,
(40:28):
put down the practice of codependency, and experience a greater
sense of wholeness within So that I mean ough, and
I know so many are are already resonating with the language,
but if you would kind of those energetics that live
within each of us, that polarity that you know, God,
(40:52):
the yend, the young, the light, the dark, the masculine,
the feminine, the grief, the joy, Like we are always
integrating opposites.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
That's why we're here.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
And how I and you know and I know obviously
this isn't books. We'll get the book, get book the book.
But can you describe for those listening what is that
polarity inside men and women? What do we experience as
our inner masculine and feminine and how does that play
(41:26):
into how we are able to show up or not
in relationship.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
Well, so, as we were talking about before, I believe
there's so much about our society as it has been,
that's been like a really wounded masculine paradigm, and so
that's like really like competitive productivity at all costs, you know,
just sort of like pull yourself up by your bootstraps
and like really like disengaged from our inner world in
(41:52):
so many ways. Like that's like the societal paradigm that's
been normalized. And a lot of times, like the things
that we revere, like especially in Western culture, like we
really sort of like you know, this thing of like
working ourselves until we're sick, not having any like vacation days.
That's really like those are like the things that we
value societally. Now, when it comes to feminine energy, we
(42:14):
really think of feminine energy with a lot of contempt
and a lot of what we believe is feminine energy
is really a distortion of feminine energy. So that's sort
of like the insecure, clingy, you know, codependent like anxious
like need someone else to complete me energy. We think
of that as feminine energy. And you know, as we
(42:35):
were saying before, that's in all of us, like we
will all sort of do this dance between our wounded
masculine and feminine energetics. But what I started to understand
is like we're a society that doesn't really have any
sort of like conceptualization of what these dynamics are and
look like from a healthy perspective. And you know, certainly
with masculine energy, we don't even know or have models
(42:58):
of what healthy masculinity looks like really, And so when
we think about, like what is healthy masculinity, that is
a sense of self, that is confidence, that is a mission,
that is like I am rooted in what I know,
I'm here to do, and I got me no matter what, right,
And that's in all of us. That's the like moving
forward from the space of inspired action versus how it
(43:22):
looks from the outside, right, like from a space rooted
from within. But then this beautiful, healthy, feminine energetic is
the energetic within all of us that like, if I
think of feminine energy, the first word that comes to
mind is always trust, because the feminine energy is like
the source energy within all of us. It is the
(43:42):
aspect of us that is like connected to the divine,
and so that is like the receptive energy, that is
the part of us that believes that we can trust
our intuition, trust our internal guidance, system and know that
we will be held. It's the part of us that
trust in life allows ourselves to play and be free
and embodied all of these beautiful aspects of our feminine
(44:03):
But all of us need to like really have both
of those energetics alive and dancing and integrated within us.
But we can't really have that until we not only
have an understanding of what those energetics are and how
they show up, but what it looks like tangibly to
take responsibility for our own energy. And that's really what
I try to walk people through in the book, like
(44:25):
that we are actually able not only to take responsibility
for our own energy in any given moment, but what's
amazing about Couple's work is when we take responsibility for
our own energy. And this isn't just in romantic relationships,
it's in relationships in general. Inevitably we will create polarity.
We will create healthy polarity. So just like a quick
(44:47):
example of what that can look like. So let's say
that I'm like you're like in a We're going to
pretend like we're like battling in wounded polarity for a moment, right,
So if you were like in wounded feminine energetic, and
you're just like constantly like wanting more from me, telling
me that, like you know, you just like want to
hang out more, and I'm just like not meeting your needs.
(45:07):
And like there's all of these ways that you're feeling
like you want more from me, but I'm not giving
it to you, and it's making you feel insecure and
unhappy in this relationship. And so I'm in wounded masculine
energy and I'm just like really irritated and like, oh,
you're always pulling on me and you're so needy and
I'm like really trying to build something at work and
why don't you understand it. I'm just like really in
this like guarded wounded masculine paradigm with you. My work
(45:30):
is to shift into my healthy feminine. So if I'm
in wounded masculine, I go into my healthy feminine, and
that's me in the space of vulnerability. So I get
still and I like really say, Okay, like what is
it that Debbie's doing that? Like I'm telling myself a
story about I take up space. The feminine is like
the spaciousness, So I take up space with the truth
of how this feels. For me, I say the vulnerable
(45:52):
thing I say. You know, the story I'm telling myself
is that like, no matter what I do, it's never
enough for you. And that reminds me maybe of the
way that like my mom always criticized me. Like, we
get into like the vulnerable conversation and I take up
space with that, And what will inevitably happen is is
I take up space in my healthy feminine you will
start to create healthy masculine containment for me. And so
(46:15):
you will see me in this vulnerable space and you'll
be like, oh, tonay, I wasn't trying to make you
feel that way. All of a sudden you got me.
You're containing me. You're like, I see you, I see
how I'm making you feel. That was not my intention.
And we start to be in that dance. Now here's
the important caveat because a lot of times people will say, well,
how do I get my husband to get into that
(46:35):
healthy That's not what we're doing here. When I say
take one hundred percent responsibility for your energy, I mean
one hundred percent responsibility for your energy, not your husband's energy.
And we will inevitably create healthy polarity when we take
responsibility for our energy. But energy is one of those
things we can't fake, Like we can't manipulate energy. So
(46:56):
if I am fully in the space of shifting into
my healthy feminine, inevitably you will sort of start to
like shift into that space of containment. But if you
can't and you won't, that's really important information for me
to have. Like if someone is just like determined to
not be in like healthy polarity with me, then that's
(47:16):
information about like how much we're going to be able
to find harmony in this relationship. And I need to know.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
That, need to know that and need to not respond
to it like a challenge, right like.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
I will make you.
Speaker 1 (47:28):
Yeah, I'm gonna win this, yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
Yeah, because that comes from a wounded space within me
that believes, like if this person can just love me
the way I desire to be loved, and then that
will mean I'm worthy.
Speaker 1 (47:40):
Oh lordie, what are some things that more people in
general need to evaluate when they think about love?
Speaker 2 (47:52):
I love that question. I think in general we have
just a distorted idea of what love is, you know.
I think so often, like even we were talking about before,
if you look on social media and the way people
talk about love, it's like fun. A person who does
this for you for you're the one will like inevitably
know how to do X, Y and Z for you.
(48:14):
So love is really about what I get from someone else.
Is everything that we're taught to believe. I don't think
that's true. I believe love is about what I am
giving to you. And you know, I think since my
marriage ended my definition of love when I really like
got in there and like got in the like unpacking
of love and relationships really shifted. And today what I
(48:34):
think of when I think of love is just the
idea that your soul is safe with me. And what
that means to me is that, like whatever your soul
came here to carry out in terms of its soul mission,
for you to be the fullest embodiment of who you
have the potential to be in this lifetime. I want
that for you because I love you, and I don't
(48:55):
want to interfere with that, even if that means that
you were meant to journey on and grace without me.
I love you, so, you know. I start out the
book with this quote by Maya Angelo where she talks
about like love liberates, it doesn't bind. It doesn't hold
someone here demanding that you stay and be who I
need you to be. Love loves you, and I love
(49:15):
the idea that, like my love for you is for
me that actually has nothing to do with anything you're
giving or doing or being. I love you. That's that's
what it means to love. And I think, yes, if
both people feel that, then there's reciprocity and it's a
beautiful relationship dynamic. But I think love is more about
my experience of you than your experience of me.
Speaker 1 (49:36):
That is so gorgeous.
Speaker 2 (49:38):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
That is so so so so so gorgeous. That is love.
That is love. Oh I really, I just really urge
everyone listening that's resonating to really start thinking about exploring,
going on to some kind of rabbit hole deep dives
(50:00):
of what does love actually mean to you? And what
has been perhaps performance or what has been societal programming
or what has been you know, a barrier against.
Speaker 2 (50:11):
What does it actually mean, what does it look like?
Speaker 1 (50:14):
What can it be? Because I think, and to the
way that you just so beautifully express that love is love,
and we keep trying to give love different definitions depending
on where we apply it. So it's like love means
this when I'm in love with a partner in romance.
(50:37):
But then love between me and my child is like this,
or love between me and a friend or my self,
love is like this. Love is one thing. Love is
one thing. Love is love, and it has to be
universally applied, and it's true nature and it's true and
it's true context. So it's like, if there are different
(50:59):
expertstions of what love is looks like how it feels
depending on who you're attributing that word to or with,
that's something to look at. It should not be that
faceted and compartmentalized in different ways and categorized.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
It's it's love. It just is. And I love what
you're saying so much because I think the more work
that we do to bring the focus back inward and understand.
You know, there's this roomy quote that like our task
is not to seek for love, but merely to seek
and find all the barriers we've built within ourselves against it, right,
(51:38):
And I think that.
Speaker 1 (51:39):
I love that quote.
Speaker 2 (51:40):
Right, It is so good. And I think when we
like boil it down and like just start, like you know,
to me, the healing is just like a returning to
the essence of who we really are, and we are
love period. You know, one of my favorite writers, Jaia
John has this I don't know but shet, but he
has this quote. It's sort of like ocean need not
(52:01):
seek water. You don't need to seek love outside of yourself.
You are love. Our work is just to remember that
and just start to pour love into every space we
enter a little bit more. But that really requires us
going inward and doing the work to understand where did
I come up with all these barriers that are keeping
me from loving.
Speaker 1 (52:23):
Two of my teachers from some years ago used to
start every one of our workshops with that roomy quote,
and then they'd say at the end of it, they'd
add their piece in that they add it, which was
to find all the barriers against it, and then they
would add and to dissolve them. And they would say
that every time like so like, so deliberate, so pronunciated.
(52:48):
You know, it was just and to dissolve them. And
I always love that because it gives you the beautiful
responsibility of that which means you can't do it.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
That's ah, that's gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (53:03):
So good. So as we as we get ready, although
I would love to continue the show for hours and days.
Speaker 2 (53:10):
So excited to find you, sister, you are I know.
Speaker 1 (53:16):
We are hanging. I would love if you could share
at the end of every episode. I like to invite
our guests to share a piece of soul work with
everyone listening, a way to integrate this conversation, a way
to experience it in between time until the next episode.
So whether it is a practice from the book, something
from your heart, or an inquiry, anything that you would
(53:40):
like to let the audience savor as this episode ends.
Ye know.
Speaker 2 (53:45):
I was thinking about earlier that there's this thing that
Eckert Tole speaks to where he talks about whenever you're
experiencing something difficult, make the decision to be in radical
acceptance of this as if you chose it, because on
some level you did. And I got to tell you, Debbie,
like making that the practice of my life has changed everything,
(54:08):
whatever it's going through, or whatever I'm going through, whatever
the situation is. If I get into the space of
getting still and ask myself, like, why is my higher
self making this the assignment you know, giving me? This
is the instruction of something that I meant to go through,
Then all of a sudden, like the resistance just starts
(54:30):
to dissolve, to use that word, And I think that
that's just like a practice that we can bring in
like life's going to be life in right, like things
are going to happen, and when the things that we
would rather not be the case are the inevitable reality.
How can I be in the space of like radical
acceptance as if I chose this because on some level
(54:53):
I did big work.
Speaker 1 (54:58):
Yeah, big work, juicy juicy, juicy work. Spend time thinking
about that invitation everyone and journal to that in a
few different ways. Write down some thoughts as you're hearing
and it's circulating right now, and then consider tomorrow, read it,
(55:18):
jot down a little bit more the next day, and
spend the week with it. Spend some time with it,
give it, give it some space. How can everyone connect
with you in your work? Thank you?
Speaker 2 (55:30):
As you mentioned earlier, I have a podcast called Cheaper
Than Therapy, and my friend Vanessa Bennett, who's also a therapist,
and I have a community, the Cheaper Than Therapy Community
where people can come in and do group therapy and
group work and processing in just like a really beautiful
community that we've built. And yeah, and then I do
a lot of you know, sharing of the content that
(55:53):
we record and on retreats and things on social media.
So that just feels your Instagram. Oh it's dot Logan
lo g A N. And I have this book coming
out called Sovereign Love.
Speaker 1 (56:07):
Sovereign Love. It is available and all the places you
get books, so make sure to get this book, spend
some time with it. This is the work of our lives,
love and relationship in all forms.
Speaker 2 (56:23):
Thank you, Thank you for just the way you're showing
up for this life. I can feel it in your energy.
It's just really really beautiful to be in your presence.
Speaker 1 (56:33):
Thank you, Thank you. Until next time, Thank you so
much for joining us. Now, Mistay Stay Stay Stay. The
content presented on Deeply Well serves solely for educational and
informational purposes. It should not be considered a replacement for
personalized medical or mental health guidance and does not constitute
(56:57):
a provider patient relationship. As always, it is advisable to
consult with your healthcare provider or health team for any
specific concerns or questions that you may have. Connect with
me on social at Debbie Brown that's Twitter and Instagram,
or you can go to my website Debbie Brown dot
com and if you're listening to the show on Apple Podcasts,
(57:20):
don't forget, Please rate, review, and subscribe and send this
episode to a friend. Deeply Well is a production of
iHeartRadio and The Black Effect Network. It's produced by Jacquess Thomas,
Samantha Timmins, and me Debbie Brown. The Beautiful Soundbath You
heard That's by Jarrelen Glass from Crystal Cadence. For more
(57:42):
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Devi Brown
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