April 30, 2025 • 61 mins
What if your greatest heartbreak was the gateway to your greatest transformation?
In this intimate and soul-shaking episode of Unapologetically Yours, Ashley Logan sits down with world-renowned sex and relationship therapist Dr. Laura Berman for an intimate and unapologetic conversation on grief, embodiment, and the magic that can emerge on the other side of devastation.
After the tragic and widely publicized loss of her son, Laura found herself broken open. But from the ashes of that grief, she discovered something unexpected: a return to the body, to pleasure, to deep spiritual intimacy—and the birth of her newest book, Sex Magic. Together, Ashley and Laura explore how trauma disembodies us, how culture teaches women to give but not receive, and how reclaiming our sensual power is not just healing—it’s revolutionary.
Dr. Berman brings 30+ years of expertise to the table—she holds a PhD from NYU, is a New York Times bestselling author of nine books, a USA Today columnist, and host of the acclaimed podcast The Language of Love. You may know her from The Oprah Winfrey Show, but in this episode, she’s more raw, real, and radiant than ever.
Whether you’re navigating grief, craving deeper connection, or ready to feel more alive in your own skin, this conversation is an invitation to return to your body, reclaim your truth, and receive the life and love you deserve.
You’ll hear about:
✨ How devastating grief cracked Laura open
✨ The alchemy of loss and grief, and how it can awaken something sacred
✨ What no one tells you about trauma, the body, and why so many of us are disconnected from pleasure
✨ The raw truth about being a woman who receives, feels deeply, and dares to come fully alive
✨ Why your sensuality is not just sacred—it’s your superpower
✨ And the exact moment Laura knew: “I’m never going to be the same again… and that’s the gift.”
Connect with Dr. Laura Berman:
Instagram @drlauraberman
TikTok @drlauraberman
Website https://drlauraberman.com/
Connect with Ashley Logan:
Instagram @ashleydlogan
Website https://ashleydlogan.com/
Have a topic or guest you’d love to see featured on the Unapologetically Yours podcast? Send us an email: podcast@unapologeticallyyours.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
hot steamy, know, seven chakra orgasms for sure.
But it's really at its core about removing the blocks to the truest intimacy andvulnerability and making sex what it's designed to be a full body mind but very spiritual
(00:20):
experience.
Welcome to the latest episode of the Unapologetically Yours podcast.
I'm your host, Ashley Logan, and I am so happy to have you here today.
Unapologetically Yours is a podcast where we go deep on everything from spirituality torelationship and connection to business and belief systems, because in a world where we've
(00:44):
been taught to play by the rules, it's time to live a little bit unapologetically.
And today I am so delighted to have a guest with us who has done exactly that.
We have Dr.
Laura Verbin.
She is sex and relationship expert, award-winning host of the Language of Love podcast,bestselling author of Quantum Love, and so much more.
(01:07):
Laura, thank you so much for being here today.
Thanks for having me.
So you have had the most dynamic career from building up your reputation as a sex andrelationship expert and therapist and coach.
working with people to improve their connection all over the country and have such anesteemed reputation.
(01:29):
But you are also so much more than that.
And I've had the pleasure of getting to know you over the last year.
And tell me, who are you today?
Oh, boy, I need an
You know, the first answer that comes to mind is, you know, I am nothing.
I am still becoming.
(01:50):
I don't fricking know.
You know, I'm a lot of things, you know, I always resist those qualifiers when people saylike, who are you?
Well, I'm a mother.
I am that I'm a wife.
I am that I am a therapist.
I'm an author.
I'm a radio host.
I'm a television host.
I'm, you know, I'm all of those things, but that's not really, those are just.
(02:14):
titles and jobs, right?
So I think who I am is always been something that's evolving now even more, I would sayover the past three to five years than ever before in every way.
You know, it's been, I think for many of us, for lots of different reasons, it's been aperiod of real evolution and to some extent, reinvention.
(02:42):
And that's been
I think the most curious and challenging part, because as you said, at leastprofessionally, I've always, for my entire career, really even before I graduated college
and then into graduate school and beyond that.
So for over 30 years, I've been really in the realm of sex, love and relationships.
(03:03):
And now I am still there, but it's sort of that transition of dovetailing that with.
the ways in which my heart is being called to grief healing, you know, and sex and death,you know, they're two ends of the same spectrum, but it's an interesting marriage, you
know, and even though even my identity as a mother has changed, not just because my kidsare all out of the house now, who I am as a mother has evolved as well, but also after
(03:32):
losing my middle son, who I am as a mother and my relationship with.
all three of my children, including the one on the other side, has shifted and changed.
So I don't fucking know who I am is the answer, the 20 minute answer to your question.
uh As though, cause that raw authenticity that creates so much space for allowing andsurrender and learning and growth.
(03:56):
And that mindset is so important when we're all kind of, we've been taught to be in theseboxes.
Are you a mother?
Are you a working mother?
Where you go put on your work hat, you go put on this hat and that.
But the truth is like we are all whole beings constantly evolving from one role, oneperspective to the next.
(04:18):
so I think that your answer was one that we can all learn from when it comes to allowingall parts of ourselves to coexist at one time.
Yeah.
Yeah, and I spend a lot of time at this point in my life with people who spend a lot oftime on the other side, whether it's my friends who are really amazing mediums or have had
(04:38):
near death experiences.
And one of the things I've been thinking about a lot, just because, you know, I spent somuch time hearing about their experiences, is when this life is done, none of those
qualifiers are going to be at all how we identify ourselves, you know, who we really areis the essence of our of who we are.
You know, we're not all the things we do and all the identifiers and all the titles andall the, you know, that stays here when we go.
(05:08):
Isn't that such an important thing for us to know?
I feel like it is, yeah.
I do too.
I do too.
So let's start thinking.
Let's go back a little bit.
So you built your career, sex and relationships, and that was your niche and you carvedthis place.
And as you said, your life
has handed you some unexpected things.
(05:31):
And that's to say the fucking least, like the death of your son, Sammy, and how you'veshared so publicly about the risk of being a child on social media today and how kids are
preyed upon and all of that.
And thinking about how now you have this deep understanding of how grief.
can impact relationships and how we're showing up for each other and our ability to forgephysical connection and presence of mind in the face of all this grief.
(06:01):
So it's almost like this intersection is so informative to the next phase of your work.
And at least that's my something that I could see being true.
Tell me about your reaction to that.
Well, you know, it's interesting because I for a little bit, you know, he died, let's see,it was February 2021.
So it was four years ago now.
(06:23):
And for the first year, just didn't, I was frozen.
I didn't move.
just was, I was in a hole.
And then after that, after about a year passed, almost strangely exactly, I slowly,slowly, slowly started coming back to life.
And part of that was like, okay, I am very aware.
(06:44):
I was aware from day one that every cell in my body,
And every element of who I am is never gonna be the same.
And I have no fricking idea what that's, I even said that to my husband who said, youknow, very quickly, like, I know a lot of couples don't make it, but we're gonna be okay.
And I said, absolutely, I believe that too, but you have to be prepared that I have no,all I know is I'm gonna be completely different.
(07:08):
Every cell in me is gonna be different.
I don't know if you're gonna like her.
I hope you do, you know, but I.
know where this is going.
And I could feel that very early.
And then I guess, you know, from a metaphorical standpoint, I turned into the proverbialmush in the cocoon as a caterpillar does as it's metamorphosizing and integrating and
(07:31):
trying to heal and catch my breath.
And then as I came back out, the question became, okay, so what do I even want to doprofessionally now?
And even leading up to Sammy's death,
My agent was coming to me and saying, like, you you have what's the next book?
And I was like, I honestly I freaking said it all.
Like I have zero interest.
(07:51):
I've written eight books.
don't have a desire to tell people in another way how to give a good blow job or how toreconnect or whatever.
Like I've done it all.
I've I can't think of anything else.
I have said my piece.
And I don't know what that means, but I love doing the work I do.
I love working with my clients and creating programs, but like a new book, I don't know.
(08:16):
And what was really interesting is that as I came back, started to come back to life and Iwas thinking about, okay, so am I done with sex and love?
Is that finished?
Like, I don't know.
And slowly what started to become apparent as in...
every single aspect of my life, and this is one of the, I guess, transformative pearlsthat can come with tremendous loss or tremendous trauma of any sort, if you do the work to
(08:46):
kind of move through it and heal, is that every element of your life deepens, I guess, forlack of a better word, and becomes more multi-dimensional.
And so what started to evolve in my mind is like, if I were to talk about
sex.
What intrigues me about sex and I wasn't even thinking about a book at this point, buteventually what evolved out of that is what is now my new book, Sex Magic, which is really
(09:14):
about taking sex to the next level.
Yes, hot steamy, know, seven chakra orgasms for sure, but it's really at its core aboutremoving the blocks to the truest intimacy and vulnerability and
making sex what it's designed to be a full body mind, but very spiritual experience.
(09:38):
I don't mean a religious experience, but a metaphysical experience, which it definitely isand can be.
So in that sense, didn't, you know, I actually didn't abandon turned out I shifted into anew dimension and a deeper dimension and my exploration of sex and love.
But I also got called
As I was healing, it became apparent to me that nobody has any fricking idea how togrieve.
(10:04):
And I did already, not only because I'd been helping people with grief in my clinicalwork, but because by the time Sammy died, I had lost my mother, my father.
I'd been by the bedside of both my parents when they transitioned, my grandmothers, myspirit mother, who was like my second mother.
some ways more of a mother than my mother was.
So I had already experienced so much loss and been through it and figured out what worksand what doesn't work.
(10:30):
But this loss with Sammy taught me about it in a whole new level.
then that fast forward, we can get into that, how that evolved into the work I'm doingnow.
There are so many different directions.
know that everyone listening is like, wait, go back to the great blow job part or go backto the seventh chakra orgasm part.
I don't get there.
(10:50):
But I am so curious about the connection between unprocessed grief and trauma and ourdisconnect to metaphysical sex, to full embodiment.
Yeah.
Well, I I cover that a lot, not in particular with relation to grief, but in sex magic, Ido spend interwoven throughout, you know, it is one of the biggest blocks is unresolved,
(11:19):
unprocessed trauma because what to this kind of sex, because what happens is we naturallyleave our bodies.
In fact, most of us are rarely walking around the world.
We're rarely in our bodies.
We are rarely embodied.
But when you have
some kind of, in particular, sexual trauma.
And by that, I mean, big T or little T trauma.
(11:41):
In my case, I didn't have huge, like, years of sexual abuse, but I grew up in an extremelyover sexualized environment.
And my dad was very sexualizing me of me.
And there were lots of ways in which I was traumatized growing up.
It turned, I sublimated it and ended up, you know,
helping other people as a result.
(12:02):
And as I told him at the end of his life, I was really grateful for the ways that heharmed me because I would say I wouldn't be doing the work that I was doing in there, you
many ways in which he did that.
So I think that, you know, there's big T trauma and there's little T trauma in general andin a sexual sense.
And regardless, certainly if it's sexual, but even if it's another kind of trauma, we tendto become disembodied during those times where we could be
(12:26):
fully physically tuning to the senses where we could be, you your body is your antenna, ifwe're talking about a metaphysical sense.
So your body is your antenna for a tuning to the other side, a tuning to your guides, anda tuning to the sacred elements that sex can deliver you.
So if you aren't in your body fully, which we're not gonna be if we tend to leave it everytime we have a still moment, then you're not gonna be able to get to that place in the
(12:54):
same way.
And it was the same thing with grief, that kind of horrific, really any kind of loss, butif it's a loss that you experience as breaking you apart, then you're gonna leave your
body.
Like part of the healing definitely is going to be, that's one of the six pillars ofhealing that I talk about all the time, it's gonna be about coming back, becoming embodied
(13:21):
again.
In all the different ways we can do that gently and consciously.
to stay with ourselves, which is often the last place we wanna be when you're in extremepain.
So, you know, it was only by a miracle that I discovered that not only could I go all theway to the bottom of the pain, that there was a bottom moment to moment.
(13:41):
I don't mean ultimately a bottom, but like that I would reach a bottom if I went all theway in, that it wouldn't take more than five to 10 minutes to do that.
And that I would.
could come back out and feel lighter and freer, more embodied, more tapped in, tuned in asa result.
I don't know had I not had the experiences I had losing my son and pushing me to dowhatever I needed to do to survive that I would have gone that far.
(14:09):
And once I did, I discovered uh these strategies and these mechanisms that everyone canuse.
So I discovered so much through.
that grief journey with him, because it was on steroids.
I'm still on it, but it was on steroids.
It's never ending grief sneaks up on you.
And I love that the visual that I got of swimming to the bottom of a deep pool to get tothe bottom.
(14:35):
And then from that point, when your feet hit the bottom, you can push yourself back up.
Yeah.
And you can kind of re-regulate and you're changed.
you know, it's not all gone, but you're changed as a result.
And then you're, then you're like, Oh, I can do this.
And eventually what starts to happen, and this is for all of us with grief, you know, andespecially with tremendous loss is that you have to learn to become a surfer.
(15:02):
You know, the waves are going to come, sometimes they're going to be huge monster waves.
Sometimes they're going to be a little wave.
Sometimes they're going to feel like beautiful visitors.
Sometimes it's going to knock you flat on your ass.
You learn to surf it when it comes.
And so
you know, I'm at a point in my journey where like, I'm like, here it comes.
Okay, here we go.
I'm just gonna surf this.
(15:22):
I'm gonna feel it.
I'm gonna be with it.
I'm gonna process it.
Okay, I'll see you in 20 minutes, honey.
I got some shit coming up.
And then, you know, that's it.
So it just becomes part of you.
And I feel like each time if you can stay with yourself through it, and it's not always inthe moment that you can, there's strategies for
tabling it or containing it until you can.
(15:44):
But if you do attend to it regularly, it's actually a really beautiful thing that keepsyou even more tapped in and tuned in.
It's interesting to me as I think about the impact that grief has on so many of us and howdisembodied we've become as a culture from our feelings, from our inner knowing.
(16:09):
And it's a lot.
to teach.
It's a lot to get people to come out of their heads and return to their bodies.
And I'd love for you to share just a little bit about the importance of that and how itenhances the human experience to be embodied.
(16:32):
Yeah.
Well, okay.
So let's start at the end first.
How does it enhance?
Like, what's the payoff?
You heal so much faster.
from whatever it is you're running heel from.
And I don't mean just emotionally, physically.
um You you have a cough right now and you told me that it was from walking in frigidweather and I'm sure that was one of the catalysts, but I have found that almost always
(16:56):
the body speaks for us when we're not speaking and in particular, I struggle with throatthings too.
And um that's always seems connected to where I'm not speaking my truth, where I'm notadvocating for myself, where I'm not really...
tuned into that aspect of myself.
We could go down a whole rabbit hole there, but we won't.
um So when you become more embodied, you are healthier physically, you are healthieremotionally, you can weather the storms.
(17:27):
And it seems counterintuitive because our natural instinct is to run from pain.
That's why we become disembodied in the first place.
And when you've had a tremendous loss, the last fricking thing you wanna do
is be with it and feel more of it.
You want to numb out, you want to distract from it.
But again and again and again, I can swear to you that that which you can't be with willrun your life.
(17:52):
And if you can't find a way to start being with it, it not only creates kind of prolongedor what clinicians call complicated grief, which is just hard, you're just in pain longer,
and life is harder longer than it needs to be.
But the reason I find that people don't do it is A, they don't know how and B, it's scaryas hell to imagine doing it.
(18:17):
So for me, and I can share with you how, know, for me, I basically, I'm someone who's offfor many, many years now.
And when I was a little girl as well, I turned it off for a couple of decades, but it cameback online about 12 years ago that I started seeing things, knowing things, attuning to
things, getting quote unquote downloads.
But I had never heard.
(18:38):
You know, many people are a clear audience where they hear messages never.
So after my mother died, which was my worst, most impossible loss until he died, which wasabout 11 or 12 years before he passed, I could, I can't even tell you how painful that
was.
She was my person and I was filming a show for Oprah.
I had a five day wake radio show.
I had a new book coming out.
(19:00):
I had no time to grieve nor did I want to feel the degree of pain.
So I just sublimated it.
I just started spiritualizing it.
just like.
packed it away.
I couldn't, I couldn't break down.
had three young kids.
I had work.
I had everything going on within a year of her dying of breast cancer.
had none of the, I still have none of the genetic risk factors known or the BRCA oranything like that.
(19:24):
Her breast cancer was not genetic as far as we know, but within a year of her dying ofbreast, what was ultimately breast cancer, I had breast cancer.
in the same breast that she did with no risk factors at 40 years old.
And I had to completely stop my life.
And it was a huge metamorphosis back then.
(19:45):
Okay, so fast forward 12 years, I'm sitting on the beach trying to take my next breathafter losing Sammy.
And I hear a voice.
And the voice says to me, do you want to live or die?
And
I knew somehow what that question meant.
I went right back to my mother and the breast cancer.
(20:08):
And cause I knew back then that this was grief, man, unexpressed grief for me.
I'm not saying if you don't express your grief, you're going to get cancer by any means.
I'm not saying that, but for me, it was very clear that this was part of it.
And also because I let the whole world suck off my tits and never recharge my own battery.
so, mean, metaphorically speaking, not literally.
(20:30):
So I knew what that question meant, even though it was this loud booming male voice thatwould know one on the beach that was asking me this.
And so I was just like, uh yes, yes, I want to live.
Not only for my kids that were still here, my husband, but because in that moment, Iunderstood on a whole new level.
(20:59):
that's hard to describe what an inexplicable, indescribable privilege and gift it is to bein this body, to have this life for any of us.
Like it is a miracle.
It is insane that any of us exist.
Isn't it wild?
Like just for a second, like you think about like all of the grains of sand, all of theplanets out there, all of the possibilities that you and me are here in this moment.
(21:26):
having this conversation and relating to one another.
All of the choices that we've made collectively to get to this moment, not to mention justthe miracle of life.
It's amazing.
Yes, it's all insane.
And just like back to the life thing, the fact that that sperm, that egg, it divided, itsurvived nine months.
(21:48):
I survived my family, like everything that had to happen for me to have this.
Survived college.
Right.
Right?
mean, the fact that we have these bodies and we get to be here is like the greatestprivilege and the greatest miracle.
And I felt that in every part of me.
(22:08):
And so I said, yes, yes, I want to live.
And then in that moment was when this realization just all came rushing through me oflike,
It was almost like a near death experience, although it wasn't because I wasn't dying, butI could see like the whole trajectory of my creation.
Maybe like just I could feel sense, understand, see and conceive of the impossible todescribe miracle of life that I get to have it.
(22:39):
And so I said again, yes, yes, I want to live.
And then the voice said, well, you need to go away.
away from your family all the way into the pain or you're gonna die.
Now this was a week after Sammy died and I couldn't imagine.
you, how could you do that right now?
(23:01):
now?
Yeah, exactly.
I think I did say fuck that.
I was like, can't imagine being in more pain than I'm in now.
First of all, second of all.
I'm gonna go home to my husband and my eldest was living away from home at this point, butmy youngest was still living at home.
He was like a sophomore in high school.
(23:21):
And I was like, so I'm gonna go home and be like, see ya, you know, and leave my family aweek after my son died.
But like, it was clear, you know, and for me at least when a voice tells you, you'regonna, you know, when a disembodied being tells you.
that I just had this metaphysical experience of a miracle of, you know, feeling that.
(23:41):
it's like, okay, you're gonna die if you don't do this.
Like I was like, okay.
So I went home to my poor husband and I was like, listen, I don't know how to tell youthis, but I gotta go away and go all the way into my pain or I'm gonna die.
Oh my God.
I mean, what?
First of all, just admire the fact that you guys have a healthy enough relationship.
Of course you would, that you could say those words.
(24:03):
Yeah.
And also, she does.
Yeah, and he's not, I didn't even care at this point.
Like I was such a basket case in many ways that like both of us were in survival mode.
And I think that's why he didn't even balk.
He was just like, okay, like do whatever you do.
God bless him.
He took care of the house.
He took care of our youngest.
I mean, I got them lots of support, but I left for a week.
(24:27):
And where'd you go?
Well,
1440 Multiversity, which is this beautiful retreat center in the woods near Santa Cruz andin the Redwood Forest, the mother tree is on the property.
I had led a couple of retreats there through the years.
And when they heard what happened to Sammy, because it went viral for some reason, theyreached out to me and said, we're closed for COVID.
(24:50):
But if you want to come here and
just cocoon, you can.
And at the time they sent me that, it wasn't even occurring to to take them up on it.
But after this, I reached out to them.
I was like, okay, I'm coming.
And so I got my near bestie, my beloved friend who you've met, Tina, who's the world'sbest space holder and an amazing, she can hold anything.
(25:16):
She came and picked my ass up.
I don't even remember.
I just threw sweats and my weighted blanket.
I don't even know what I took.
we drove to the 1440.
They had set up a faculty house for us with yummy food and blankets and pictures of me andSammy and just like created this cocoon.
And I stayed there for a week.
(25:38):
And all of a sudden, I didn't know what I was going to do.
was like, guess I'm just going all the way into my pain.
All of these colleagues and I don't even know how it all happened because I was, know,Tina was my grief.
concierge, so to speak, she was setting everything up.
But all of these friends and colleagues started coming out of the woodwork on zoom on inperson, and just working with me.
(26:07):
So all day, everything.
the power of community and like, I'm tearing.
Well, now I'm just like tears falling.
But because like just to have that support system and that
the sisterhood, I often reflect on the power of women and that Tina would show up and justpick you up and she probably didn't know what the fuck to do either.
(26:28):
She's just like, I got you, we're gonna go through this together.
I got you.
And I think this is like the message of our time is I got you, not you got this.
I got you baby.
Yeah, and I had to learn, cause I am not.
I was not good at receiving before this.
I mean, my girlfriends, I don't even know how this happened.
(26:50):
This was right before I left.
Somebody said, can we have a Zoom?
And I was like, okay.
And I got on the Zoom and like 40 girlfriends from college friends, colleagues, Chicagofriends, LA friends, like they didn't know each other.
Somehow they all got together on Zoom.
They each one by one, they had a service basically.
(27:12):
One by one lit a candle, saying a prayer, you know, speaking to Sammy and to me.
And then they said, we are gonna be here every Friday at 2 p.m.
from now on for the next year or longer.
And I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
(27:38):
I know, and it was really hard.
It was really hard.
was like, I don't want, cause I learned growing up not to be a burden, you know, like Iwas going to get my needs met.
from, so I was like, you know what?
I'm not going to survive this if I don't let other people help me.
And so I did, I got really good at receiving and I realized when I did that that isactually giving them a gift too, because I wasn't thinking about how helpless they felt.
(28:06):
and to be able to do something for me made their sadness over Sammy easier to hold too.
So it was a win-win.
Oh my gosh, I love that reflection.
Cause I think that you're so right.
So many women are taught not to take up space, to not be a burden, to be the giver, butwe're not taught to receive.
And there is so much like even thinking about like a simple sales meeting.
(28:30):
When you show up and someone says,
Would you like a cup of coffee?
And you say, no, thank you.
Even if you're thirsty, you're missing an opportunity to be served.
And that forms a connection because think about like how much I want you to feelcomfortable.
I want to give you the coffee.
I want to like held you.
Yeah.
And then turn we have to learn to be held.
(28:51):
And wow.
Yeah.
So it was amazing.
And what happened on that week.
I'd never really done, I understood somatic experiencing, but I'd never gone that deepinto it.
And I went all the way in with support of a somatic healer who's become, you know, a dearfriend and colleague, this woman in Chicago, Kate Hudson.
(29:11):
She was on Zoom with me every day.
And even the hands-on stuff, she was coaching Tina to do to me while she was working withme.
And then I did body work and forest bathing and...
meditation and spent hours on the mother tree, but I went all the way in and that is how Idiscovered how this works and how much grace and it was after those moments of going all
(29:34):
the way in and having a huge release, I felt lighter.
It was like taking a huge, huge constipated poop.
It was unbelievably painful.
And then that's the first poop after having a baby.
We're like, yeah.
you know how afterwards, how good you feel?
(29:56):
I was literally just talking about this yesterday.
Yeah, it feels so good.
And then I would start seeing glimmers and feeling his energy.
And I was like, oh, this makes so much sense because I had already written quantum loveand understood that energy can't be created or destroyed.
It only changes form.
And our loved ones are still here right beyond the veil.
(30:17):
And we can stay in communion with them.
But I wasn't even really, I was just focused on the physical baby, my 16 year old sweetboy who was gone.
I wasn't thinking about that other part.
But as I would come out of these moments, I was like, oh, no wonder my frequency is high.
Cause they can't, and I already knew this too, but they're those, you know, they'revibrating at such an impossibly high frequency our human bodies could never reach.
(30:45):
And so the irony is when we're at our lowest of low and our bowels of despair, ourfrequency is very low.
This is something I'd already gotten into in all the science of in quantum love, my book,but they can't reach us there.
It's too low.
So when we move to these, right?
When we move to these higher frequencies, that's when they can meet us in the middle.
(31:07):
Well, we think too about like, what's the lowest vibration?
Fear and shame?
and flame, yep.
That's where you are in grief, yeah.
Well, and not just that, but like even as a society right now, so many people are drivenby fear and living in a lack of and guilt.
(31:28):
And you're either living in a lack of abundance or you're feeling shame and guilt overhaving abundance or both, you know?
And so, yeah, that's a lot.
I mean, that's all about manifesting.
We grow down that rabbit hole too.
But what I discovered
is that that is where I could meet him more.
So after that week, I went to the mother tree with Tina and I thanked her and I wrote, Ithink I have a video on YouTube because I was sending like a little blog to my community
(31:58):
and I ended up posting it.
But I read a letter to the mother tree and to Sammy and then I promised her, I was like,you I don't know that I could have afforded this.
I, you know, this was all just given to me free.
1440 gave me a place, all these people just showed up and nobody knows how to do this.
And what I've experienced in this week has not healed me, but it's completely transformedme and showed me the path forward in a way that I don't know how many months it would have
(32:28):
taken me years to discover.
And I was like, I am gonna come back here.
I'm gonna raise the money to bring a group of mamas back here and take them through what Iwent through.
And it took me three years.
But I did it last April.
I brought 66 mamas, 55 of them were on partial or full scholarship back to 1440 where theyhosted us.
(32:52):
And so many of our my healer friends who were there for me then came back, volunteeredtheir time and I wasn't sure I was like, okay, this worked for me.
Let's see if it works for them.
At the very least, they're going to have a beautiful restful respite.
every single one of those mamas transformed.
And so after that, I was meditating and I was just beyond myself with bliss.
(33:17):
And I got this whole picture of the six pillars of healing.
Embodiment, which we were talking about is one of them.
And they're all the things that I found that work, all the things that you need tocultivate to heal and transform through loss.
And then that became what is now this membership platform, the Grief Healing Collective.
(33:38):
where I teach people how to do this and support them through it.
Oh my God.
What an incredible process of allowing through the unimaginable.
Yeah.
It was so inspiring to hear the amount of courage that you, I'm like, I'm so moved bylistening to yourself, listening to that voice, surrendering to the support, and then also
(34:06):
recognizing
the opportunity for you to create an impact for others.
It is like just so beautiful.
And especially in a world where so many of us hold deep grief and trauma and aredisconnected from our bodies.
And as you say, it is the pathway to a higher vibration.
(34:32):
It is.
And while I wouldn't wish your journey on
anyone you had the strength and the capacity to then create something for someone else.
I think that's just amazing.
oh you.
don't know that it was, I mean, eventually it was strength.
I think it starts with willingness, willingness and surrender.
And, you know, for me, everything in my life has always been He'll learn, teach.
(34:56):
That's just my makeup.
It's hard for me not to do that.
So I, you know, it's kind of natural that it would happen this way, but I do think thatthat is, you know, it's this whole concept of post-traumatic growth, right?
That when we can shape shift our own pain and tragedies into helping others, being ofservice, making an offering to the world, it doesn't have to be a huge thing.
(35:25):
You know, I know one mama who just paints beautiful pictures for people of their
children and their loved ones, you know, that that really, cause she would do that to helpheal herself.
You know, there's so many beautiful ways.
I think it's, it can be tricky cause lots of people rush to making meaning, you know,which is what I did with my mom.
I rushed to making meaning rather than letting myself really transform from, you know,it's really that Phoenix.
(35:53):
It's, it's transformation through the pain.
don't just have to go through it.
You can really grow through it.
and become a whole new, more self-actualized, more inspired, more tapped and in tuned inversion of yourself.
It's like a portal that you can go through if you're brave enough and willing to gothrough it and be supported, obviously, through it.
(36:16):
But it requires community and, you know, and willingness and techniques and tools andsupport.
So that's why I felt like it was so important because there aren't a lot of environmentswhere people in an affordable way can really immerse themselves and get supported in
(36:36):
healing from any kind of loss.
I love this.
Thank you so much for sharing your intimate experience.
um I love this.
we'll make sure to share in the show notes how people can work with you.
um
in this capacity because it's really just beautiful.
And I know when you did another one of the retreats in Chicago fairly recently, I had achance to spend some time with you and some of the other leaders.
(37:04):
And really, it's just so inspiring the impact that you can make for others and that youare making.
And that's really, really incredible.
I want to also cover a little bit about let's talk about sex.
Thanks, Nya Jack, baby.
honestly, one of the things that I have been so fascinated about is the somaticconnection.
(37:25):
It's something, I'm a somatic practitioner, and that came from addressing my grief.
Yeah, and trauma.
so we all have trauma.
Yeah.
Too much too soon without the right support.
And that can look like a lot of different things.
And for me, I was coming off of a time
(37:47):
where I had lost two pregnancies and a whole lot of other things totally disconnected frommy body through the birth experience, through the pregnancy experience had a big impact on
intimacy.
Cause there was conversations I wasn't having.
was grief I wasn't processing.
I didn't know what to do with it in a world that doesn't respect grief.
(38:10):
says,
Okay, good job, move on.
That you don't have that space for healing.
You don't have that space for recovery.
You have to carve your own or find your people who will hold it for you and ask for whatyou need.
thinking about, so really, I remember I showed up at a retreat, women's retreat in Tulum,just outside Tulum, actually, like in the biosphere.
(38:33):
It's like totally remote.
And I was in a tent on the beach and I wasn't...
didn't have my kids with me who were very little at the time and one and two sleeps in mybed and has slept with me forever.
It's just, it's what he does.
It's how like even now he goes to sleep in my bed.
He doesn't just get up in the middle of the night and come in there.
(38:55):
But anyway, I remember just sleep, uh sleeping in this tent and it's
fucking hot and I'm sweating and I brought too much shit because I didn't know what I wasdoing and I was inexperienced.
I was sad because I missed my cuddle buddy and there was a cockroach in the room and I wastrying to get it out and then I got sand everywhere and then I cried and I cried for three
(39:17):
fucking days.
Yeah, you needed to.
It had so much and didn't have that space and so started the practice of getting, we did aTamasco
hot, tense ceremony, and then that's when I was introduced to breath work, and that's whenI was introduced to sound healing and knew right away, like you, like I need to bring this
(39:39):
to people.
I need to bring this back into my world.
But what has been the most incredible part is just learning that those somatic practicesare the key to more inner knowing and also the key to greater joy, greater pleasure.
Yeah, absolutely.
Because if you aren't in your body, you can't even attune to your senses, much less
(39:59):
access these higher realms.
you know, with sex magic, what I teach, there's so many techniques and exercises forlearning to attune to your own body, become more embodied, learning to build sexual energy
inside your body, learning to move that energy through your body, and then learning tomove it between you and another.
(40:27):
partner in a way.
So, so, you know, for most of us, just even just from a physiologic standpoint, sexualarousal is the sensations of it are really more localized to the genital region, you know,
that one kind of pelvic area, maybe if you have G-spot orgasms or uterine contractions orprostate contractions during orgasm, you might feel it kind of dispersed throughout your
(40:54):
lower pelvis, but that's about it.
And so
you can actually learn to pull that sexual sensation up, know, up to your heart and circleit around there, up to your heart and circle it between you and your partner, up through
the top of your head.
I mean, there's so many different ways to play with it and to incorporate body awarenessand muscles and breath and visualization.
(41:20):
You start to learn, you know, and all the things I teach, I'm always saying,
you know, practice it on your own first.
So you kind of master that and then you bring in a partner, you know, to play with it.
But a lot of these are ancient techniques from tantra and Kama Sutra and Taoism.
A lot of them I kind of developed.
(41:40):
through practice and teaching the couples that I work with and try, you know, seeing whatworked and what didn't work.
But it's a really beautiful practice.
And sex is also the highest, you know, orgasm in particular, but even high sexual arousalpleasure is one of the highest frequencies our body can hold.
So in one of the chapters, I really dive into how to manifest through sex because thehigher your energy, when you match an intention,
(42:08):
you get clear on an intention and you hold that intention through arousal and orgasm.
You're kind of supercharging it into the quantum field where all potentials exist.
So I get into all kinds of magical spells and things you can do as well.
But you're absolutely right that it begins with being in your body.
(42:31):
Yeah, yeah.
So I think that what I'm curious about is
What are some the things that people are getting wrong about sex right now?
The majority of the population.
What would you say that they're getting wrong?
Well, what I'm seeing, and this is one of my inspirations for writing this book, know, Ijokingly, but I'm serious, say it's really the antidote to bedroom boredom.
(42:53):
People are throwing away monogamy in many ways.
Now, I absolutely can tell you that monogamy for life is not biologically natural to us.
We weren't designed to live this long when monogamy for life, monogamy for life used to beuntil 50 when we croaked, you now thanks to modern medical technology and our healthy
(43:15):
lifestyles, we're living to a hundred.
So monogamy for life is a long ass time.
And what I find is that people are having a hard time sustaining it.
They're turning to infidelity.
They're opening up their relationships, which is 99.9 % of the time a disaster.
they're having threesomes, which becomes this whole crazy slippery slope.
They're turning to porn and falling into addictive behaviors with that all in an effort toseek quote unquote, spicing it up, right, which is wanting that dopamine rush, wanting
(43:47):
that intensity.
You know, it took me a long time because I spend so much time talking to people and that'sthe number one question I get asked.
How can you spice it up?
and I could give you 365 tips, tools, and techniques, and in a year or maybe a year and ahalf, because you do some of them a couple of times, you'd come back wanting more, because
those will have lost their novelty too.
So we're looking for novelty, not realizing that it's not novelty we want, it's thefeeling that novelty brings us, right?
(44:18):
And so what I realize people are really looking for is a feeling of intensity.
A feeling of intensity, of pleasure, of arousal and of excitement.
And that is what these techniques that I teach in Sex Magic give you.
So you don't have to put your relationship at risk.
You don't have to turn, you know, more and more, more, more, more, where eventuallythere's no more.
(44:43):
You've tried everything.
You know, I talked to so many people, they go from relationship to relationship torelationship.
And as soon as they get past that initial infatuation stage, they're like, oh, onto thenext one, onto the next one.
And they never really get.
the opportunity to have profound earth shattering pleasure in the context of deepvulnerability and intimacy.
(45:04):
And that is the juiciest of all juicy places we can be.
Wow, I'm digesting that.
Cause I think that it's, well, it's so true.
And I intuitively feel that just based on my own experiences in terms of, you know, goingdeeper in somatic practices and also have the intentionality of breath.
you can draw your breath into different places and then also being present and incommunion with other people.
(45:31):
And so how that can escalate based on being in alignment with a partner and in the deepestvulnerability.
And we're just not encouraged to do that.
And porn, don't even get me fucking started on porn.
Yeah, it's gotten real dark.
It's so damaging.
Yeah.
I used to say, listen, and I still, you know,
(45:52):
could potentially say within the context of honest exchange and it's not, it's consensual,not using children or animals and you both want to, it can be a sexual aid.
But what has happened since COVID really, which is when Pornhub became free, is that it'sescalated to a point where people are really becoming dopamine addicts.
(46:19):
and they have to keep escalating and keep escalating and keep watching and keep watchingand they don't even want to, but they can't stop.
And the nature of what they're watching has to become crazier and crazier.
And then they can't have sex with a human anymore because the porn actually watching it ona screen, your brain processes it as a two dimensional object, not as a three dimensional
(46:43):
human.
So then they start accidentally training their sexual arousal
toward an object.
So when they're with a human, they have an even harder time.
It's just, it's become a real complicated and difficult slippery, slippery, slipperyslope.
Yeah, I'm so glad that you said that because I do think that there's a big differencebetween like the porn that was on HBO in the 90s where you get, you know, it's soft core,
(47:11):
there's some storytelling, it gets you turned on and then you...
No, like this is like me in like junior high and high school watching it with mygirlfriends.
We'd be like, oh my God.
But like this shit that I've seen on PornHub and other things, it's very rarely feelsconsensual.
It's very, very dark.
It does not represent consent or woman or the divine.
(47:34):
Or even what pleases a woman.
I mean, I can't tell you how many men and boys I talked to.
I'm like, do not use porn as.
you know, what is happening, it's geared toward men.
What's happening there, you know, is not, if you try that on a woman, it's not arousing.
It's not going to stimulate her erogenous zones.
(47:55):
It's not gonna make her feel safe.
It's not going to arouse her.
And I remember talking to my teenage boys.
They were joking around with me and their friends were over and they said, and I have aline of sexual aids and devices.
And so they said, hey mom, can you give me a sleeve?
you know, those masturbators for men.
And I said, I would be happy to give you a sleeve, but only if you promise to use it withfantasy and not porn.
(48:22):
And I was, here I am, the sex educator.
I had never really needed to or talked, mean, fantasy, I thought, had come up, but I'dnever had an explicit conversation with them about it.
And they looked at me and were like, fantasy?
Like, what are you, and I had to explain to them that,
it what it involves like in your imagination, imagining a sexual scene.
(48:47):
So you see someone who you think is really hot and you imagine it or maybe it wassomething you saw in porn and you reimagine it.
But you're actually using a different part of your brain when you're imagining it thanwhen you're just being fed the images.
And then you know, it's harder to get an erection with a real woman, you know, and theywere like, oh, they got really scared that but it's true.
(49:10):
But yeah, even my kids didn't really under, I didn't realize that fantasy is not part ofthe lexicon anymore.
Cause they're all just watching.
That's so shocking.
Yeah, but I guess that makes sense.
It's the easy means to an end.
uh they're being shown it in middle school, you know, they're being introduced to it.
(49:30):
So.
I know that's so damaging.
It's really, really concerning about, about just the future of intimacy.
And I do think it is a big systemic.
So as, you know, we are all humans, stretched thin.
So many, many, people are just stretched to the absolute max, especially those who haven'tyet been introduced to more of these embodiment practices.
(49:55):
And maybe, I mean, for me, it started as a knowing, like, oh, something isn't right.
I need to, I need to change something in my life.
But not everyone has the access.
to those tools, not everyone has the access to the resources to access those tools or thecapacity in their life.
Maybe have young kids, single parents, et cetera.
(50:18):
But as I think about what opportunities there are for reintroducing pleasure from afeminine standpoint and helping women especially take agency over their own joy, their
turn on, because you said that pleasure isn't just about
Orgasm, it's, it's about joy.
(50:40):
It's about being in your skin.
Aliveness.
Aliveness.
So what would you say are a pointer or two for our listeners about how they can, practicethey can achieve to feel more alive, to connect to their bodies as maybe a stepping stone
to say like, you know what, I think these bitches are onto something.
(51:02):
I need to tap in.
need to, I need to find a way.
Yeah, I think they know these bitches are on to something because if you're listening tothis, you probably recognize yourself.
But I think, you know, it's a couple of things.
There's so many things that I talk about in the book.
But, you know, one of the things that I often have women start with is just make it apoint every single day, several times a day to move your hips in nonlinear ways.
(51:31):
Like stand there and move in a figure eight.
put on some music or just while you're brushing your teeth.
I do this every day because we're constantly walking straight or sitting or standing, butwe don't really move our hips.
Have a little ecstatic dance session with yourself.
I do this all the time when I need to move some emotion or if I just want to come backinto my body, I blast Dancing Queen or some other song I want to listen to and dance like
(52:01):
no one's watching.
I love that.
mean, body movement and dancing, just like that in itself can just raise that vibration.
Yeah, and just play, you know, maybe take, go listen.
You can even listen online, but it's even better in person.
You know, try a sound bath or a breath work session or, you know, play with it a littlebit.
(52:24):
Like I teach so many techniques, you know, they're really simple ones, like even
If you're, know, part of it is just like a tuning to your body again, you know, a tuningto your five senses and practicing even through self stimulation.
Okay.
I'm feel, where am I feeling arousal right now?
Like when we're with someone else, we get distracted.
(52:44):
Is this blob on my stomach showing?
Are they enjoying it?
What do I have to do next?
You know, there are all of these distractions, but when you're by yourself, even if youdon't make it a habit of self stimulating,
just use it as like an exploratory experiment.
Like if I use a little vibrator here, it's easier with a vibrator, especially when you'removing energy, because you know, it's more localized and more intense and it's easier to
(53:10):
access and you know, intellectually and visually, you know, visualizing it and move it.
But like, just pull it up to your belly button.
While you, when you start to feel the tingling warmth, what would happen if I just squeezemy kegels, those muscles I used to stop the flow of the urine.
and took a really deep breath in and just imagine pulling that up to my belly button.
(53:31):
And then on the out breath, dropping it back down and then squeezing and pulling it up anddropping it back down while I continue self stimulating, you know?
And then when I have an orgasm, whoa, now the orgasm I'm feeling all the way up to rightunder my breastbone, you know?
So there's all these different things you can do to start playing with it.
(53:52):
It's just a matter of taking a little bit of time.
And it can be in snippets.
It doesn't have to be like a five hour sensual session with yourself.
But I do find that we often have to awaken or reawaken that energy in ourselves.
Just and part of it is also cultivating our intuition, cultivating our emotionalvocabulary, cultivating our voice and speaking our truth.
(54:19):
You know, there's all these different ways that we can step into our divine feminine more.
that help us become more embodied and it makes us unbelievably attractive and magnetic andmakes sex so much better.
I think this is so important and thank you, because it's so true.
(54:41):
So I have a question for you.
As you know, I'm recently divorced.
And so what advice do you have for a single 40 something going out into the world as asingle lady?
Yeah.
I think you're gonna have fun.
mean, what I would do, whether you're single or in a relationship is really start to playwith this on your own.
(55:03):
Master it, right?
Because then you, and you're not gonna be able to have sex magic with every guy you dateor even necessarily every guy you have sex with.
Although, if it were me and I were single,
I would be setting that very clear intention.
mean, it depends how horny or if you just need to get laid, you know, go ahead and do it.
(55:25):
But if you are really looking for a long-term love relationship and you can sell, youknow, what I find, and I've been hearing this from people, I was just talking to a guy the
other day who's been practicing some sex magic.
And he said, you know, I still want to meet someone, but the truth is I don't feel that inneed anymore.
(55:46):
you know, because I'm having these profound sexual experiences with myself and it almostfeels for lack of a better term, he said, I mean, he was cringing saying this, but it's
almost like I'm making love to God sometimes.
Like it feels so, like it feels so elevated.
And so, yeah, so divine.
And he's like, it's not that I don't want to do it with a woman.
(56:06):
I do, but I'm not really as willing to settle for just a one night stand.
So that's interesting too.
But if you do want a long-term loving relationship, and even if you just want to live amore conscious sexual life, and you can live a conscious life without necessarily always
making every sexual experience metaphysical, but I would want to have sex with men whowere interested in this, you know, and who could be present with it.
(56:36):
And I find that most men are, unless they're just looking to get wasted and get laid or
play out some porn fantasy.
Most of them are extremely intrigued.
I mean, one of my greatest endorsers of sex magic is Nick Cannon, know, who's famous forhaving, I think it's 11 kids now by five different baby moms.
(56:58):
He loves sex magic.
You guys have a really close friendship, right?
We do, yeah.
em And he has been, you know, every time we talk, like he'll have me on his shows to talkabout quantum love and he'd be like, chapter it, you know, quantum sex, like, which is
basically the beginning of sex magic.
That's his favorite part of it because he, you know, and I wouldn't say he's like thepinnacle of the evolved man, you know, but he loves that experience of sex.
(57:30):
And so I think you can find partners.
who are open to it.
And if you've been practicing, mean, talk about being a sexual vixen, you know, you'regoing to blow his mind as you, you know, teach him how to do these things, whoever that
lucky person or persons are.
So, you know, I also think that sex, there's, you know, there's sex just to get off andremind yourself you're desirable and get your feet wet again and all of that.
(58:00):
And then there's sex to
feel profound pleasure, self-actualization, connection and evolution.
And if you're looking for that sex, then be really selective who you do it with.
That's great advice.
Thank you.
So Dr.
Laura, we are coming up at the end, but I have one final question for you.
(58:25):
Okay.
What are you doing to show up?
unapologetically.
I think I live at this point unapologetically.
Yeah.
mean, I can't do I can't do small talk.
can't bullshit.
I you know, it's just life is too much of a blessing and it's too short to make believeand I don't have time for a pile.
(58:52):
I mean, if I've done something wrong, obviously I'll apologize.
But otherwise.
I think the sky's the limit.
There's nothing to apologize for.
Just live and love and enjoy the short ride we're on.
Amen to that.
I love it.
And it is so evident in everything that you do and the way that you lead and live andcreate that you are fully embodied in unapologetic living.
(59:21):
And an example.
to all of us um and I deeply admire you and everything that you've created.
I'm so grateful that you joined us today.
So how can people find you and connect with you?
They can find me on all the social media stuff at Dr.
Laura Berman.
And if you go to drlauraberman.com, you can find all my offerings.
(59:43):
If you go to drlauraberman.com backslash grief healing, you can find the grief healingcollective and.
m
get all the resources there.
And if you go to drlaraberman.com backslash sex magic, you can get the book and it's,it's, available for preorder.
Now you can get it on Amazon or anywhere.
(01:00:03):
Just go to look up sex magic and my name and it'll come up.
Love it.
I preordered my copy already.
I'm so excited.
I know it's going to be something that people talk about a lot.
And hopefully it inspires people for deeper connection and more intentional living and allof the things that are so important.
(01:00:25):
So yeah, you'll either get your rocks off or have a beautiful, intentional, deep,vulnerable, intimate relationship, whichever you choose.
Hey, it sounds like a win-win to me.
So well, thank you so much, everyone, for tuning in.
If you haven't already, follow us on Instagram at Ashley D.
Logan or at Unapologetically Yours Podcast.
(01:00:47):
subscribe, download wherever you take in your content and send us an email if you haveanything that you'd like to hear about.
So now go out, make some mischief in this one big beautiful world.
And until then, I'm Ashley, this is Dr.
Laura Berman, and we are unapologetically yours.
hot steamy, know, seven chakra orgasms for sure.
But it's really at its core about removing the blocks to the truest intimacy andvulnerability and making sex what it's designed to be a full body mind but very spiritual
(00:20):
experience.
Welcome to the latest episode of the Unapologetically Yours podcast.
I'm your host, Ashley Logan, and I am so happy to have you here today.
Unapologetically Yours is a podcast where we go deep on everything from spirituality torelationship and connection to business and belief systems, because in a world where we've
(00:44):
been taught to play by the rules, it's time to live a little bit unapologetically.
And today I am so delighted to have a guest with us who has done exactly that.
We have Dr.
Laura Verbin.
She is sex and relationship expert, award-winning host of the Language of Love podcast,bestselling author of Quantum Love, and so much more.
(01:07):
Laura, thank you so much for being here today.
Thanks for having me.
So you have had the most dynamic career from building up your reputation as a sex andrelationship expert and therapist and coach.
working with people to improve their connection all over the country and have such anesteemed reputation.
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But you are also so much more than that.
And I've had the pleasure of getting to know you over the last year.
And tell me, who are you today?
Oh, boy, I need an
You know, the first answer that comes to mind is, you know, I am nothing.
I am still becoming.
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I don't fricking know.
You know, I'm a lot of things, you know, I always resist those qualifiers when people saylike, who are you?
Well, I'm a mother.
I am that I'm a wife.
I am that I am a therapist.
I'm an author.
I'm a radio host.
I'm a television host.
I'm, you know, I'm all of those things, but that's not really, those are just.
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titles and jobs, right?
So I think who I am is always been something that's evolving now even more, I would sayover the past three to five years than ever before in every way.
You know, it's been, I think for many of us, for lots of different reasons, it's been aperiod of real evolution and to some extent, reinvention.
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And that's been
I think the most curious and challenging part, because as you said, at leastprofessionally, I've always, for my entire career, really even before I graduated college
and then into graduate school and beyond that.
So for over 30 years, I've been really in the realm of sex, love and relationships.
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And now I am still there, but it's sort of that transition of dovetailing that with.
the ways in which my heart is being called to grief healing, you know, and sex and death,you know, they're two ends of the same spectrum, but it's an interesting marriage, you
know, and even though even my identity as a mother has changed, not just because my kidsare all out of the house now, who I am as a mother has evolved as well, but also after
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losing my middle son, who I am as a mother and my relationship with.
all three of my children, including the one on the other side, has shifted and changed.
So I don't fucking know who I am is the answer, the 20 minute answer to your question.
uh As though, cause that raw authenticity that creates so much space for allowing andsurrender and learning and growth.
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And that mindset is so important when we're all kind of, we've been taught to be in theseboxes.
Are you a mother?
Are you a working mother?
Where you go put on your work hat, you go put on this hat and that.
But the truth is like we are all whole beings constantly evolving from one role, oneperspective to the next.
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so I think that your answer was one that we can all learn from when it comes to allowingall parts of ourselves to coexist at one time.
Yeah.
Yeah, and I spend a lot of time at this point in my life with people who spend a lot oftime on the other side, whether it's my friends who are really amazing mediums or have had
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near death experiences.
And one of the things I've been thinking about a lot, just because, you know, I spent somuch time hearing about their experiences, is when this life is done, none of those
qualifiers are going to be at all how we identify ourselves, you know, who we really areis the essence of our of who we are.
You know, we're not all the things we do and all the identifiers and all the titles andall the, you know, that stays here when we go.
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Isn't that such an important thing for us to know?
I feel like it is, yeah.
I do too.
I do too.
So let's start thinking.
Let's go back a little bit.
So you built your career, sex and relationships, and that was your niche and you carvedthis place.
And as you said, your life
has handed you some unexpected things.
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And that's to say the fucking least, like the death of your son, Sammy, and how you'veshared so publicly about the risk of being a child on social media today and how kids are
preyed upon and all of that.
And thinking about how now you have this deep understanding of how grief.
can impact relationships and how we're showing up for each other and our ability to forgephysical connection and presence of mind in the face of all this grief.
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So it's almost like this intersection is so informative to the next phase of your work.
And at least that's my something that I could see being true.
Tell me about your reaction to that.
Well, you know, it's interesting because I for a little bit, you know, he died, let's see,it was February 2021.
So it was four years ago now.
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And for the first year, just didn't, I was frozen.
I didn't move.
just was, I was in a hole.
And then after that, after about a year passed, almost strangely exactly, I slowly,slowly, slowly started coming back to life.
And part of that was like, okay, I am very aware.
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I was aware from day one that every cell in my body,
And every element of who I am is never gonna be the same.
And I have no fricking idea what that's, I even said that to my husband who said, youknow, very quickly, like, I know a lot of couples don't make it, but we're gonna be okay.
And I said, absolutely, I believe that too, but you have to be prepared that I have no,all I know is I'm gonna be completely different.
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Every cell in me is gonna be different.
I don't know if you're gonna like her.
I hope you do, you know, but I.
know where this is going.
And I could feel that very early.
And then I guess, you know, from a metaphorical standpoint, I turned into the proverbialmush in the cocoon as a caterpillar does as it's metamorphosizing and integrating and
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trying to heal and catch my breath.
And then as I came back out, the question became, okay, so what do I even want to doprofessionally now?
And even leading up to Sammy's death,
My agent was coming to me and saying, like, you you have what's the next book?
And I was like, I honestly I freaking said it all.
Like I have zero interest.
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I've written eight books.
don't have a desire to tell people in another way how to give a good blow job or how toreconnect or whatever.
Like I've done it all.
I've I can't think of anything else.
I have said my piece.
And I don't know what that means, but I love doing the work I do.
I love working with my clients and creating programs, but like a new book, I don't know.
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And what was really interesting is that as I came back, started to come back to life and Iwas thinking about, okay, so am I done with sex and love?
Is that finished?
Like, I don't know.
And slowly what started to become apparent as in...
every single aspect of my life, and this is one of the, I guess, transformative pearlsthat can come with tremendous loss or tremendous trauma of any sort, if you do the work to
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kind of move through it and heal, is that every element of your life deepens, I guess, forlack of a better word, and becomes more multi-dimensional.
And so what started to evolve in my mind is like, if I were to talk about
sex.
What intrigues me about sex and I wasn't even thinking about a book at this point, buteventually what evolved out of that is what is now my new book, Sex Magic, which is really
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about taking sex to the next level.
Yes, hot steamy, know, seven chakra orgasms for sure, but it's really at its core aboutremoving the blocks to the truest intimacy and vulnerability and
making sex what it's designed to be a full body mind, but very spiritual experience.
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I don't mean a religious experience, but a metaphysical experience, which it definitely isand can be.
So in that sense, didn't, you know, I actually didn't abandon turned out I shifted into anew dimension and a deeper dimension and my exploration of sex and love.
But I also got called
As I was healing, it became apparent to me that nobody has any fricking idea how togrieve.
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And I did already, not only because I'd been helping people with grief in my clinicalwork, but because by the time Sammy died, I had lost my mother, my father.
I'd been by the bedside of both my parents when they transitioned, my grandmothers, myspirit mother, who was like my second mother.
some ways more of a mother than my mother was.
So I had already experienced so much loss and been through it and figured out what worksand what doesn't work.
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But this loss with Sammy taught me about it in a whole new level.
then that fast forward, we can get into that, how that evolved into the work I'm doingnow.
There are so many different directions.
know that everyone listening is like, wait, go back to the great blow job part or go backto the seventh chakra orgasm part.
I don't get there.
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But I am so curious about the connection between unprocessed grief and trauma and ourdisconnect to metaphysical sex, to full embodiment.
Yeah.
Well, I I cover that a lot, not in particular with relation to grief, but in sex magic, Ido spend interwoven throughout, you know, it is one of the biggest blocks is unresolved,
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unprocessed trauma because what to this kind of sex, because what happens is we naturallyleave our bodies.
In fact, most of us are rarely walking around the world.
We're rarely in our bodies.
We are rarely embodied.
But when you have
some kind of, in particular, sexual trauma.
And by that, I mean, big T or little T trauma.
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In my case, I didn't have huge, like, years of sexual abuse, but I grew up in an extremelyover sexualized environment.
And my dad was very sexualizing me of me.
And there were lots of ways in which I was traumatized growing up.
It turned, I sublimated it and ended up, you know,
helping other people as a result.
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And as I told him at the end of his life, I was really grateful for the ways that heharmed me because I would say I wouldn't be doing the work that I was doing in there, you
many ways in which he did that.
So I think that, you know, there's big T trauma and there's little T trauma in general andin a sexual sense.
And regardless, certainly if it's sexual, but even if it's another kind of trauma, we tendto become disembodied during those times where we could be
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fully physically tuning to the senses where we could be, you your body is your antenna, ifwe're talking about a metaphysical sense.
So your body is your antenna for a tuning to the other side, a tuning to your guides, anda tuning to the sacred elements that sex can deliver you.
So if you aren't in your body fully, which we're not gonna be if we tend to leave it everytime we have a still moment, then you're not gonna be able to get to that place in the
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same way.
And it was the same thing with grief, that kind of horrific, really any kind of loss, butif it's a loss that you experience as breaking you apart, then you're gonna leave your
body.
Like part of the healing definitely is going to be, that's one of the six pillars ofhealing that I talk about all the time, it's gonna be about coming back, becoming embodied
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again.
In all the different ways we can do that gently and consciously.
to stay with ourselves, which is often the last place we wanna be when you're in extremepain.
So, you know, it was only by a miracle that I discovered that not only could I go all theway to the bottom of the pain, that there was a bottom moment to moment.
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I don't mean ultimately a bottom, but like that I would reach a bottom if I went all theway in, that it wouldn't take more than five to 10 minutes to do that.
And that I would.
could come back out and feel lighter and freer, more embodied, more tapped in, tuned in asa result.
I don't know had I not had the experiences I had losing my son and pushing me to dowhatever I needed to do to survive that I would have gone that far.
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And once I did, I discovered uh these strategies and these mechanisms that everyone canuse.
So I discovered so much through.
that grief journey with him, because it was on steroids.
I'm still on it, but it was on steroids.
It's never ending grief sneaks up on you.
And I love that the visual that I got of swimming to the bottom of a deep pool to get tothe bottom.
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And then from that point, when your feet hit the bottom, you can push yourself back up.
Yeah.
And you can kind of re-regulate and you're changed.
you know, it's not all gone, but you're changed as a result.
And then you're, then you're like, Oh, I can do this.
And eventually what starts to happen, and this is for all of us with grief, you know, andespecially with tremendous loss is that you have to learn to become a surfer.
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You know, the waves are going to come, sometimes they're going to be huge monster waves.
Sometimes they're going to be a little wave.
Sometimes they're going to feel like beautiful visitors.
Sometimes it's going to knock you flat on your ass.
You learn to surf it when it comes.
And so
you know, I'm at a point in my journey where like, I'm like, here it comes.
Okay, here we go.
I'm just gonna surf this.
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I'm gonna feel it.
I'm gonna be with it.
I'm gonna process it.
Okay, I'll see you in 20 minutes, honey.
I got some shit coming up.
And then, you know, that's it.
So it just becomes part of you.
And I feel like each time if you can stay with yourself through it, and it's not always inthe moment that you can, there's strategies for
tabling it or containing it until you can.
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But if you do attend to it regularly, it's actually a really beautiful thing that keepsyou even more tapped in and tuned in.
It's interesting to me as I think about the impact that grief has on so many of us and howdisembodied we've become as a culture from our feelings, from our inner knowing.
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And it's a lot.
to teach.
It's a lot to get people to come out of their heads and return to their bodies.
And I'd love for you to share just a little bit about the importance of that and how itenhances the human experience to be embodied.
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Yeah.
Well, okay.
So let's start at the end first.
How does it enhance?
Like, what's the payoff?
You heal so much faster.
from whatever it is you're running heel from.
And I don't mean just emotionally, physically.
um You you have a cough right now and you told me that it was from walking in frigidweather and I'm sure that was one of the catalysts, but I have found that almost always
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the body speaks for us when we're not speaking and in particular, I struggle with throatthings too.
And um that's always seems connected to where I'm not speaking my truth, where I'm notadvocating for myself, where I'm not really...
tuned into that aspect of myself.
We could go down a whole rabbit hole there, but we won't.
um So when you become more embodied, you are healthier physically, you are healthieremotionally, you can weather the storms.
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And it seems counterintuitive because our natural instinct is to run from pain.
That's why we become disembodied in the first place.
And when you've had a tremendous loss, the last fricking thing you wanna do
is be with it and feel more of it.
You want to numb out, you want to distract from it.
But again and again and again, I can swear to you that that which you can't be with willrun your life.
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And if you can't find a way to start being with it, it not only creates kind of prolongedor what clinicians call complicated grief, which is just hard, you're just in pain longer,
and life is harder longer than it needs to be.
But the reason I find that people don't do it is A, they don't know how and B, it's scaryas hell to imagine doing it.
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So for me, and I can share with you how, know, for me, I basically, I'm someone who's offfor many, many years now.
And when I was a little girl as well, I turned it off for a couple of decades, but it cameback online about 12 years ago that I started seeing things, knowing things, attuning to
things, getting quote unquote downloads.
But I had never heard.
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You know, many people are a clear audience where they hear messages never.
So after my mother died, which was my worst, most impossible loss until he died, which wasabout 11 or 12 years before he passed, I could, I can't even tell you how painful that
was.
She was my person and I was filming a show for Oprah.
I had a five day wake radio show.
I had a new book coming out.
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I had no time to grieve nor did I want to feel the degree of pain.
So I just sublimated it.
I just started spiritualizing it.
just like.
packed it away.
I couldn't, I couldn't break down.
had three young kids.
I had work.
I had everything going on within a year of her dying of breast cancer.
had none of the, I still have none of the genetic risk factors known or the BRCA oranything like that.
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Her breast cancer was not genetic as far as we know, but within a year of her dying ofbreast, what was ultimately breast cancer, I had breast cancer.
in the same breast that she did with no risk factors at 40 years old.
And I had to completely stop my life.
And it was a huge metamorphosis back then.
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Okay, so fast forward 12 years, I'm sitting on the beach trying to take my next breathafter losing Sammy.
And I hear a voice.
And the voice says to me, do you want to live or die?
And
I knew somehow what that question meant.
I went right back to my mother and the breast cancer.
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And cause I knew back then that this was grief, man, unexpressed grief for me.
I'm not saying if you don't express your grief, you're going to get cancer by any means.
I'm not saying that, but for me, it was very clear that this was part of it.
And also because I let the whole world suck off my tits and never recharge my own battery.
so, mean, metaphorically speaking, not literally.
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So I knew what that question meant, even though it was this loud booming male voice thatwould know one on the beach that was asking me this.
And so I was just like, uh yes, yes, I want to live.
Not only for my kids that were still here, my husband, but because in that moment, Iunderstood on a whole new level.
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that's hard to describe what an inexplicable, indescribable privilege and gift it is to bein this body, to have this life for any of us.
Like it is a miracle.
It is insane that any of us exist.
Isn't it wild?
Like just for a second, like you think about like all of the grains of sand, all of theplanets out there, all of the possibilities that you and me are here in this moment.
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having this conversation and relating to one another.
All of the choices that we've made collectively to get to this moment, not to mention justthe miracle of life.
It's amazing.
Yes, it's all insane.
And just like back to the life thing, the fact that that sperm, that egg, it divided, itsurvived nine months.
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I survived my family, like everything that had to happen for me to have this.
Survived college.
Right.
Right?
mean, the fact that we have these bodies and we get to be here is like the greatestprivilege and the greatest miracle.
And I felt that in every part of me.
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And so I said, yes, yes, I want to live.
And then in that moment was when this realization just all came rushing through me oflike,
It was almost like a near death experience, although it wasn't because I wasn't dying, butI could see like the whole trajectory of my creation.
Maybe like just I could feel sense, understand, see and conceive of the impossible todescribe miracle of life that I get to have it.
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And so I said again, yes, yes, I want to live.
And then the voice said, well, you need to go away.
away from your family all the way into the pain or you're gonna die.
Now this was a week after Sammy died and I couldn't imagine.
you, how could you do that right now?
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now?
Yeah, exactly.
I think I did say fuck that.
I was like, can't imagine being in more pain than I'm in now.
First of all, second of all.
I'm gonna go home to my husband and my eldest was living away from home at this point, butmy youngest was still living at home.
He was like a sophomore in high school.
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And I was like, so I'm gonna go home and be like, see ya, you know, and leave my family aweek after my son died.
But like, it was clear, you know, and for me at least when a voice tells you, you'regonna, you know, when a disembodied being tells you.
that I just had this metaphysical experience of a miracle of, you know, feeling that.
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it's like, okay, you're gonna die if you don't do this.
Like I was like, okay.
So I went home to my poor husband and I was like, listen, I don't know how to tell youthis, but I gotta go away and go all the way into my pain or I'm gonna die.
Oh my God.
I mean, what?
First of all, just admire the fact that you guys have a healthy enough relationship.
Of course you would, that you could say those words.
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Yeah.
And also, she does.
Yeah, and he's not, I didn't even care at this point.
Like I was such a basket case in many ways that like both of us were in survival mode.
And I think that's why he didn't even balk.
He was just like, okay, like do whatever you do.
God bless him.
He took care of the house.
He took care of our youngest.
I mean, I got them lots of support, but I left for a week.
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And where'd you go?
Well,
1440 Multiversity, which is this beautiful retreat center in the woods near Santa Cruz andin the Redwood Forest, the mother tree is on the property.
I had led a couple of retreats there through the years.
And when they heard what happened to Sammy, because it went viral for some reason, theyreached out to me and said, we're closed for COVID.
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But if you want to come here and
just cocoon, you can.
And at the time they sent me that, it wasn't even occurring to to take them up on it.
But after this, I reached out to them.
I was like, okay, I'm coming.
And so I got my near bestie, my beloved friend who you've met, Tina, who's the world'sbest space holder and an amazing, she can hold anything.
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She came and picked my ass up.
I don't even remember.
I just threw sweats and my weighted blanket.
I don't even know what I took.
we drove to the 1440.
They had set up a faculty house for us with yummy food and blankets and pictures of me andSammy and just like created this cocoon.
And I stayed there for a week.
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And all of a sudden, I didn't know what I was going to do.
was like, guess I'm just going all the way into my pain.
All of these colleagues and I don't even know how it all happened because I was, know,Tina was my grief.
concierge, so to speak, she was setting everything up.
But all of these friends and colleagues started coming out of the woodwork on zoom on inperson, and just working with me.
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So all day, everything.
the power of community and like, I'm tearing.
Well, now I'm just like tears falling.
But because like just to have that support system and that
the sisterhood, I often reflect on the power of women and that Tina would show up and justpick you up and she probably didn't know what the fuck to do either.
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She's just like, I got you, we're gonna go through this together.
I got you.
And I think this is like the message of our time is I got you, not you got this.
I got you baby.
Yeah, and I had to learn, cause I am not.
I was not good at receiving before this.
I mean, my girlfriends, I don't even know how this happened.
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This was right before I left.
Somebody said, can we have a Zoom?
And I was like, okay.
And I got on the Zoom and like 40 girlfriends from college friends, colleagues, Chicagofriends, LA friends, like they didn't know each other.
Somehow they all got together on Zoom.
They each one by one, they had a service basically.
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One by one lit a candle, saying a prayer, you know, speaking to Sammy and to me.
And then they said, we are gonna be here every Friday at 2 p.m.
from now on for the next year or longer.
And I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
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I know, and it was really hard.
It was really hard.
was like, I don't want, cause I learned growing up not to be a burden, you know, like Iwas going to get my needs met.
from, so I was like, you know what?
I'm not going to survive this if I don't let other people help me.
And so I did, I got really good at receiving and I realized when I did that that isactually giving them a gift too, because I wasn't thinking about how helpless they felt.
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and to be able to do something for me made their sadness over Sammy easier to hold too.
So it was a win-win.
Oh my gosh, I love that reflection.
Cause I think that you're so right.
So many women are taught not to take up space, to not be a burden, to be the giver, butwe're not taught to receive.
And there is so much like even thinking about like a simple sales meeting.
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When you show up and someone says,
Would you like a cup of coffee?
And you say, no, thank you.
Even if you're thirsty, you're missing an opportunity to be served.
And that forms a connection because think about like how much I want you to feelcomfortable.
I want to give you the coffee.
I want to like held you.
Yeah.
And then turn we have to learn to be held.
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And wow.
Yeah.
So it was amazing.
And what happened on that week.
I'd never really done, I understood somatic experiencing, but I'd never gone that deepinto it.
And I went all the way in with support of a somatic healer who's become, you know, a dearfriend and colleague, this woman in Chicago, Kate Hudson.
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She was on Zoom with me every day.
And even the hands-on stuff, she was coaching Tina to do to me while she was working withme.
And then I did body work and forest bathing and...
meditation and spent hours on the mother tree, but I went all the way in and that is how Idiscovered how this works and how much grace and it was after those moments of going all
(29:34):
the way in and having a huge release, I felt lighter.
It was like taking a huge, huge constipated poop.
It was unbelievably painful.
And then that's the first poop after having a baby.
We're like, yeah.
you know how afterwards, how good you feel?
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I was literally just talking about this yesterday.
Yeah, it feels so good.
And then I would start seeing glimmers and feeling his energy.
And I was like, oh, this makes so much sense because I had already written quantum loveand understood that energy can't be created or destroyed.
It only changes form.
And our loved ones are still here right beyond the veil.
(30:17):
And we can stay in communion with them.
But I wasn't even really, I was just focused on the physical baby, my 16 year old sweetboy who was gone.
I wasn't thinking about that other part.
But as I would come out of these moments, I was like, oh, no wonder my frequency is high.
Cause they can't, and I already knew this too, but they're those, you know, they'revibrating at such an impossibly high frequency our human bodies could never reach.
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And so the irony is when we're at our lowest of low and our bowels of despair, ourfrequency is very low.
This is something I'd already gotten into in all the science of in quantum love, my book,but they can't reach us there.
It's too low.
So when we move to these, right?
When we move to these higher frequencies, that's when they can meet us in the middle.
(31:07):
Well, we think too about like, what's the lowest vibration?
Fear and shame?
and flame, yep.
That's where you are in grief, yeah.
Well, and not just that, but like even as a society right now, so many people are drivenby fear and living in a lack of and guilt.
(31:28):
And you're either living in a lack of abundance or you're feeling shame and guilt overhaving abundance or both, you know?
And so, yeah, that's a lot.
I mean, that's all about manifesting.
We grow down that rabbit hole too.
But what I discovered
is that that is where I could meet him more.
So after that week, I went to the mother tree with Tina and I thanked her and I wrote, Ithink I have a video on YouTube because I was sending like a little blog to my community
(31:58):
and I ended up posting it.
But I read a letter to the mother tree and to Sammy and then I promised her, I was like,you I don't know that I could have afforded this.
I, you know, this was all just given to me free.
1440 gave me a place, all these people just showed up and nobody knows how to do this.
And what I've experienced in this week has not healed me, but it's completely transformedme and showed me the path forward in a way that I don't know how many months it would have
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taken me years to discover.
And I was like, I am gonna come back here.
I'm gonna raise the money to bring a group of mamas back here and take them through what Iwent through.
And it took me three years.
But I did it last April.
I brought 66 mamas, 55 of them were on partial or full scholarship back to 1440 where theyhosted us.
(32:52):
And so many of our my healer friends who were there for me then came back, volunteeredtheir time and I wasn't sure I was like, okay, this worked for me.
Let's see if it works for them.
At the very least, they're going to have a beautiful restful respite.
every single one of those mamas transformed.
And so after that, I was meditating and I was just beyond myself with bliss.
(33:17):
And I got this whole picture of the six pillars of healing.
Embodiment, which we were talking about is one of them.
And they're all the things that I found that work, all the things that you need tocultivate to heal and transform through loss.
And then that became what is now this membership platform, the Grief Healing Collective.
(33:38):
where I teach people how to do this and support them through it.
Oh my God.
What an incredible process of allowing through the unimaginable.
Yeah.
It was so inspiring to hear the amount of courage that you, I'm like, I'm so moved bylistening to yourself, listening to that voice, surrendering to the support, and then also
(34:06):
recognizing
the opportunity for you to create an impact for others.
It is like just so beautiful.
And especially in a world where so many of us hold deep grief and trauma and aredisconnected from our bodies.
And as you say, it is the pathway to a higher vibration.
(34:32):
It is.
And while I wouldn't wish your journey on
anyone you had the strength and the capacity to then create something for someone else.
I think that's just amazing.
oh you.
don't know that it was, I mean, eventually it was strength.
I think it starts with willingness, willingness and surrender.
And, you know, for me, everything in my life has always been He'll learn, teach.
(34:56):
That's just my makeup.
It's hard for me not to do that.
So I, you know, it's kind of natural that it would happen this way, but I do think thatthat is, you know, it's this whole concept of post-traumatic growth, right?
That when we can shape shift our own pain and tragedies into helping others, being ofservice, making an offering to the world, it doesn't have to be a huge thing.
(35:25):
You know, I know one mama who just paints beautiful pictures for people of their
children and their loved ones, you know, that that really, cause she would do that to helpheal herself.
You know, there's so many beautiful ways.
I think it's, it can be tricky cause lots of people rush to making meaning, you know,which is what I did with my mom.
I rushed to making meaning rather than letting myself really transform from, you know,it's really that Phoenix.
(35:53):
It's, it's transformation through the pain.
don't just have to go through it.
You can really grow through it.
and become a whole new, more self-actualized, more inspired, more tapped and in tuned inversion of yourself.
It's like a portal that you can go through if you're brave enough and willing to gothrough it and be supported, obviously, through it.
(36:16):
But it requires community and, you know, and willingness and techniques and tools andsupport.
So that's why I felt like it was so important because there aren't a lot of environmentswhere people in an affordable way can really immerse themselves and get supported in
(36:36):
healing from any kind of loss.
I love this.
Thank you so much for sharing your intimate experience.
um I love this.
we'll make sure to share in the show notes how people can work with you.
um
in this capacity because it's really just beautiful.
And I know when you did another one of the retreats in Chicago fairly recently, I had achance to spend some time with you and some of the other leaders.
(37:04):
And really, it's just so inspiring the impact that you can make for others and that youare making.
And that's really, really incredible.
I want to also cover a little bit about let's talk about sex.
Thanks, Nya Jack, baby.
honestly, one of the things that I have been so fascinated about is the somaticconnection.
(37:25):
It's something, I'm a somatic practitioner, and that came from addressing my grief.
Yeah, and trauma.
so we all have trauma.
Yeah.
Too much too soon without the right support.
And that can look like a lot of different things.
And for me, I was coming off of a time
(37:47):
where I had lost two pregnancies and a whole lot of other things totally disconnected frommy body through the birth experience, through the pregnancy experience had a big impact on
intimacy.
Cause there was conversations I wasn't having.
was grief I wasn't processing.
I didn't know what to do with it in a world that doesn't respect grief.
(38:10):
says,
Okay, good job, move on.
That you don't have that space for healing.
You don't have that space for recovery.
You have to carve your own or find your people who will hold it for you and ask for whatyou need.
thinking about, so really, I remember I showed up at a retreat, women's retreat in Tulum,just outside Tulum, actually, like in the biosphere.
(38:33):
It's like totally remote.
And I was in a tent on the beach and I wasn't...
didn't have my kids with me who were very little at the time and one and two sleeps in mybed and has slept with me forever.
It's just, it's what he does.
It's how like even now he goes to sleep in my bed.
He doesn't just get up in the middle of the night and come in there.
(38:55):
But anyway, I remember just sleep, uh sleeping in this tent and it's
fucking hot and I'm sweating and I brought too much shit because I didn't know what I wasdoing and I was inexperienced.
I was sad because I missed my cuddle buddy and there was a cockroach in the room and I wastrying to get it out and then I got sand everywhere and then I cried and I cried for three
(39:17):
fucking days.
Yeah, you needed to.
It had so much and didn't have that space and so started the practice of getting, we did aTamasco
hot, tense ceremony, and then that's when I was introduced to breath work, and that's whenI was introduced to sound healing and knew right away, like you, like I need to bring this
(39:39):
to people.
I need to bring this back into my world.
But what has been the most incredible part is just learning that those somatic practicesare the key to more inner knowing and also the key to greater joy, greater pleasure.
Yeah, absolutely.
Because if you aren't in your body, you can't even attune to your senses, much less
(39:59):
access these higher realms.
you know, with sex magic, what I teach, there's so many techniques and exercises forlearning to attune to your own body, become more embodied, learning to build sexual energy
inside your body, learning to move that energy through your body, and then learning tomove it between you and another.
(40:27):
partner in a way.
So, so, you know, for most of us, just even just from a physiologic standpoint, sexualarousal is the sensations of it are really more localized to the genital region, you know,
that one kind of pelvic area, maybe if you have G-spot orgasms or uterine contractions orprostate contractions during orgasm, you might feel it kind of dispersed throughout your
(40:54):
lower pelvis, but that's about it.
And so
you can actually learn to pull that sexual sensation up, know, up to your heart and circleit around there, up to your heart and circle it between you and your partner, up through
the top of your head.
I mean, there's so many different ways to play with it and to incorporate body awarenessand muscles and breath and visualization.
(41:20):
You start to learn, you know, and all the things I teach, I'm always saying,
you know, practice it on your own first.
So you kind of master that and then you bring in a partner, you know, to play with it.
But a lot of these are ancient techniques from tantra and Kama Sutra and Taoism.
A lot of them I kind of developed.
(41:40):
through practice and teaching the couples that I work with and try, you know, seeing whatworked and what didn't work.
But it's a really beautiful practice.
And sex is also the highest, you know, orgasm in particular, but even high sexual arousalpleasure is one of the highest frequencies our body can hold.
So in one of the chapters, I really dive into how to manifest through sex because thehigher your energy, when you match an intention,
(42:08):
you get clear on an intention and you hold that intention through arousal and orgasm.
You're kind of supercharging it into the quantum field where all potentials exist.
So I get into all kinds of magical spells and things you can do as well.
But you're absolutely right that it begins with being in your body.
(42:31):
Yeah, yeah.
So I think that what I'm curious about is
What are some the things that people are getting wrong about sex right now?
The majority of the population.
What would you say that they're getting wrong?
Well, what I'm seeing, and this is one of my inspirations for writing this book, know, Ijokingly, but I'm serious, say it's really the antidote to bedroom boredom.
(42:53):
People are throwing away monogamy in many ways.
Now, I absolutely can tell you that monogamy for life is not biologically natural to us.
We weren't designed to live this long when monogamy for life, monogamy for life used to beuntil 50 when we croaked, you now thanks to modern medical technology and our healthy
(43:15):
lifestyles, we're living to a hundred.
So monogamy for life is a long ass time.
And what I find is that people are having a hard time sustaining it.
They're turning to infidelity.
They're opening up their relationships, which is 99.9 % of the time a disaster.
they're having threesomes, which becomes this whole crazy slippery slope.
They're turning to porn and falling into addictive behaviors with that all in an effort toseek quote unquote, spicing it up, right, which is wanting that dopamine rush, wanting
(43:47):
that intensity.
You know, it took me a long time because I spend so much time talking to people and that'sthe number one question I get asked.
How can you spice it up?
and I could give you 365 tips, tools, and techniques, and in a year or maybe a year and ahalf, because you do some of them a couple of times, you'd come back wanting more, because
those will have lost their novelty too.
So we're looking for novelty, not realizing that it's not novelty we want, it's thefeeling that novelty brings us, right?
(44:18):
And so what I realize people are really looking for is a feeling of intensity.
A feeling of intensity, of pleasure, of arousal and of excitement.
And that is what these techniques that I teach in Sex Magic give you.
So you don't have to put your relationship at risk.
You don't have to turn, you know, more and more, more, more, more, where eventuallythere's no more.
(44:43):
You've tried everything.
You know, I talked to so many people, they go from relationship to relationship torelationship.
And as soon as they get past that initial infatuation stage, they're like, oh, onto thenext one, onto the next one.
And they never really get.
the opportunity to have profound earth shattering pleasure in the context of deepvulnerability and intimacy.
(45:04):
And that is the juiciest of all juicy places we can be.
Wow, I'm digesting that.
Cause I think that it's, well, it's so true.
And I intuitively feel that just based on my own experiences in terms of, you know, goingdeeper in somatic practices and also have the intentionality of breath.
you can draw your breath into different places and then also being present and incommunion with other people.
(45:31):
And so how that can escalate based on being in alignment with a partner and in the deepestvulnerability.
And we're just not encouraged to do that.
And porn, don't even get me fucking started on porn.
Yeah, it's gotten real dark.
It's so damaging.
Yeah.
I used to say, listen, and I still, you know,
(45:52):
could potentially say within the context of honest exchange and it's not, it's consensual,not using children or animals and you both want to, it can be a sexual aid.
But what has happened since COVID really, which is when Pornhub became free, is that it'sescalated to a point where people are really becoming dopamine addicts.
(46:19):
and they have to keep escalating and keep escalating and keep watching and keep watchingand they don't even want to, but they can't stop.
And the nature of what they're watching has to become crazier and crazier.
And then they can't have sex with a human anymore because the porn actually watching it ona screen, your brain processes it as a two dimensional object, not as a three dimensional
(46:43):
human.
So then they start accidentally training their sexual arousal
toward an object.
So when they're with a human, they have an even harder time.
It's just, it's become a real complicated and difficult slippery, slippery, slipperyslope.
Yeah, I'm so glad that you said that because I do think that there's a big differencebetween like the porn that was on HBO in the 90s where you get, you know, it's soft core,
(47:11):
there's some storytelling, it gets you turned on and then you...
No, like this is like me in like junior high and high school watching it with mygirlfriends.
We'd be like, oh my God.
But like this shit that I've seen on PornHub and other things, it's very rarely feelsconsensual.
It's very, very dark.
It does not represent consent or woman or the divine.
(47:34):
Or even what pleases a woman.
I mean, I can't tell you how many men and boys I talked to.
I'm like, do not use porn as.
you know, what is happening, it's geared toward men.
What's happening there, you know, is not, if you try that on a woman, it's not arousing.
It's not going to stimulate her erogenous zones.
(47:55):
It's not gonna make her feel safe.
It's not going to arouse her.
And I remember talking to my teenage boys.
They were joking around with me and their friends were over and they said, and I have aline of sexual aids and devices.
And so they said, hey mom, can you give me a sleeve?
you know, those masturbators for men.
And I said, I would be happy to give you a sleeve, but only if you promise to use it withfantasy and not porn.
(48:22):
And I was, here I am, the sex educator.
I had never really needed to or talked, mean, fantasy, I thought, had come up, but I'dnever had an explicit conversation with them about it.
And they looked at me and were like, fantasy?
Like, what are you, and I had to explain to them that,
it what it involves like in your imagination, imagining a sexual scene.
(48:47):
So you see someone who you think is really hot and you imagine it or maybe it wassomething you saw in porn and you reimagine it.
But you're actually using a different part of your brain when you're imagining it thanwhen you're just being fed the images.
And then you know, it's harder to get an erection with a real woman, you know, and theywere like, oh, they got really scared that but it's true.
(49:10):
But yeah, even my kids didn't really under, I didn't realize that fantasy is not part ofthe lexicon anymore.
Cause they're all just watching.
That's so shocking.
Yeah, but I guess that makes sense.
It's the easy means to an end.
uh they're being shown it in middle school, you know, they're being introduced to it.
(49:30):
So.
I know that's so damaging.
It's really, really concerning about, about just the future of intimacy.
And I do think it is a big systemic.
So as, you know, we are all humans, stretched thin.
So many, many, people are just stretched to the absolute max, especially those who haven'tyet been introduced to more of these embodiment practices.
(49:55):
And maybe, I mean, for me, it started as a knowing, like, oh, something isn't right.
I need to, I need to change something in my life.
But not everyone has the access.
to those tools, not everyone has the access to the resources to access those tools or thecapacity in their life.
Maybe have young kids, single parents, et cetera.
(50:18):
But as I think about what opportunities there are for reintroducing pleasure from afeminine standpoint and helping women especially take agency over their own joy, their
turn on, because you said that pleasure isn't just about
Orgasm, it's, it's about joy.
(50:40):
It's about being in your skin.
Aliveness.
Aliveness.
So what would you say are a pointer or two for our listeners about how they can, practicethey can achieve to feel more alive, to connect to their bodies as maybe a stepping stone
to say like, you know what, I think these bitches are onto something.
(51:02):
I need to tap in.
need to, I need to find a way.
Yeah, I think they know these bitches are on to something because if you're listening tothis, you probably recognize yourself.
But I think, you know, it's a couple of things.
There's so many things that I talk about in the book.
But, you know, one of the things that I often have women start with is just make it apoint every single day, several times a day to move your hips in nonlinear ways.
(51:31):
Like stand there and move in a figure eight.
put on some music or just while you're brushing your teeth.
I do this every day because we're constantly walking straight or sitting or standing, butwe don't really move our hips.
Have a little ecstatic dance session with yourself.
I do this all the time when I need to move some emotion or if I just want to come backinto my body, I blast Dancing Queen or some other song I want to listen to and dance like
(52:01):
no one's watching.
I love that.
mean, body movement and dancing, just like that in itself can just raise that vibration.
Yeah, and just play, you know, maybe take, go listen.
You can even listen online, but it's even better in person.
You know, try a sound bath or a breath work session or, you know, play with it a littlebit.
(52:24):
Like I teach so many techniques, you know, they're really simple ones, like even
If you're, know, part of it is just like a tuning to your body again, you know, a tuningto your five senses and practicing even through self stimulation.
Okay.
I'm feel, where am I feeling arousal right now?
Like when we're with someone else, we get distracted.
(52:44):
Is this blob on my stomach showing?
Are they enjoying it?
What do I have to do next?
You know, there are all of these distractions, but when you're by yourself, even if youdon't make it a habit of self stimulating,
just use it as like an exploratory experiment.
Like if I use a little vibrator here, it's easier with a vibrator, especially when you'removing energy, because you know, it's more localized and more intense and it's easier to
(53:10):
access and you know, intellectually and visually, you know, visualizing it and move it.
But like, just pull it up to your belly button.
While you, when you start to feel the tingling warmth, what would happen if I just squeezemy kegels, those muscles I used to stop the flow of the urine.
and took a really deep breath in and just imagine pulling that up to my belly button.
(53:31):
And then on the out breath, dropping it back down and then squeezing and pulling it up anddropping it back down while I continue self stimulating, you know?
And then when I have an orgasm, whoa, now the orgasm I'm feeling all the way up to rightunder my breastbone, you know?
So there's all these different things you can do to start playing with it.
(53:52):
It's just a matter of taking a little bit of time.
And it can be in snippets.
It doesn't have to be like a five hour sensual session with yourself.
But I do find that we often have to awaken or reawaken that energy in ourselves.
Just and part of it is also cultivating our intuition, cultivating our emotionalvocabulary, cultivating our voice and speaking our truth.
(54:19):
You know, there's all these different ways that we can step into our divine feminine more.
that help us become more embodied and it makes us unbelievably attractive and magnetic andmakes sex so much better.
I think this is so important and thank you, because it's so true.
(54:41):
So I have a question for you.
As you know, I'm recently divorced.
And so what advice do you have for a single 40 something going out into the world as asingle lady?
Yeah.
I think you're gonna have fun.
mean, what I would do, whether you're single or in a relationship is really start to playwith this on your own.
(55:03):
Master it, right?
Because then you, and you're not gonna be able to have sex magic with every guy you dateor even necessarily every guy you have sex with.
Although, if it were me and I were single,
I would be setting that very clear intention.
mean, it depends how horny or if you just need to get laid, you know, go ahead and do it.
(55:25):
But if you are really looking for a long-term love relationship and you can sell, youknow, what I find, and I've been hearing this from people, I was just talking to a guy the
other day who's been practicing some sex magic.
And he said, you know, I still want to meet someone, but the truth is I don't feel that inneed anymore.
(55:46):
you know, because I'm having these profound sexual experiences with myself and it almostfeels for lack of a better term, he said, I mean, he was cringing saying this, but it's
almost like I'm making love to God sometimes.
Like it feels so, like it feels so elevated.
And so, yeah, so divine.
And he's like, it's not that I don't want to do it with a woman.
(56:06):
I do, but I'm not really as willing to settle for just a one night stand.
So that's interesting too.
But if you do want a long-term loving relationship, and even if you just want to live amore conscious sexual life, and you can live a conscious life without necessarily always
making every sexual experience metaphysical, but I would want to have sex with men whowere interested in this, you know, and who could be present with it.
(56:36):
And I find that most men are, unless they're just looking to get wasted and get laid or
play out some porn fantasy.
Most of them are extremely intrigued.
I mean, one of my greatest endorsers of sex magic is Nick Cannon, know, who's famous forhaving, I think it's 11 kids now by five different baby moms.
(56:58):
He loves sex magic.
You guys have a really close friendship, right?
We do, yeah.
em And he has been, you know, every time we talk, like he'll have me on his shows to talkabout quantum love and he'd be like, chapter it, you know, quantum sex, like, which is
basically the beginning of sex magic.
That's his favorite part of it because he, you know, and I wouldn't say he's like thepinnacle of the evolved man, you know, but he loves that experience of sex.
(57:30):
And so I think you can find partners.
who are open to it.
And if you've been practicing, mean, talk about being a sexual vixen, you know, you'regoing to blow his mind as you, you know, teach him how to do these things, whoever that
lucky person or persons are.
So, you know, I also think that sex, there's, you know, there's sex just to get off andremind yourself you're desirable and get your feet wet again and all of that.
(58:00):
And then there's sex to
feel profound pleasure, self-actualization, connection and evolution.
And if you're looking for that sex, then be really selective who you do it with.
That's great advice.
Thank you.
So Dr.
Laura, we are coming up at the end, but I have one final question for you.
(58:25):
Okay.
What are you doing to show up?
unapologetically.
I think I live at this point unapologetically.
Yeah.
mean, I can't do I can't do small talk.
can't bullshit.
I you know, it's just life is too much of a blessing and it's too short to make believeand I don't have time for a pile.
(58:52):
I mean, if I've done something wrong, obviously I'll apologize.
But otherwise.
I think the sky's the limit.
There's nothing to apologize for.
Just live and love and enjoy the short ride we're on.
Amen to that.
I love it.
And it is so evident in everything that you do and the way that you lead and live andcreate that you are fully embodied in unapologetic living.
(59:21):
And an example.
to all of us um and I deeply admire you and everything that you've created.
I'm so grateful that you joined us today.
So how can people find you and connect with you?
They can find me on all the social media stuff at Dr.
Laura Berman.
And if you go to drlauraberman.com, you can find all my offerings.
(59:43):
If you go to drlauraberman.com backslash grief healing, you can find the grief healingcollective and.
m
get all the resources there.
And if you go to drlaraberman.com backslash sex magic, you can get the book and it's,it's, available for preorder.
Now you can get it on Amazon or anywhere.
(01:00:03):
Just go to look up sex magic and my name and it'll come up.
Love it.
I preordered my copy already.
I'm so excited.
I know it's going to be something that people talk about a lot.
And hopefully it inspires people for deeper connection and more intentional living and allof the things that are so important.
(01:00:25):
So yeah, you'll either get your rocks off or have a beautiful, intentional, deep,vulnerable, intimate relationship, whichever you choose.
Hey, it sounds like a win-win to me.
So well, thank you so much, everyone, for tuning in.
If you haven't already, follow us on Instagram at Ashley D.
Logan or at Unapologetically Yours Podcast.
(01:00:47):
subscribe, download wherever you take in your content and send us an email if you haveanything that you'd like to hear about.
So now go out, make some mischief in this one big beautiful world.
And until then, I'm Ashley, this is Dr.
Laura Berman, and we are unapologetically yours.
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