Alicia Davon, a true luminary in the realm of sexuality and relationships returns for her 2.0 SxR interview. With a compelling background in psychology and a passion for helping others cultivate deep, meaningful connections alongside her husband Erwan originator of the Davon Method. If you've ever struggled with shame holding you back from true intimacy and fulfillment, this is a must-listen. Leah, Dr. Willow, and Alicia explore the ins and outs of overcoming shame to cultivate healthy sexuality and relationships.
YOU'LL DISCOVER:
EPISODE LINKS *some links below may also be affiliate links
Leah & Willow's King & Queen of Hearts Intimacy Toolkit is on sale. Use Coupon Code KINGANDQUEEN10 for 10% off. https://www.sexreimagined.com/the-king-and-queen-of-hearts
Awaken Arousal Oil Lubricant "I had a 3-minute orgasm and then a 5-minute orgasm." - Beth https://exploreforia.com/awaken-so?irclickid=wyXW6byI5xyNWouwIoQAUS1GUkAx4m1JsS6bSc0&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=Impact&utm_campaign=Sex%20Reimagined&utm_c
SxR Hotline | SxR Website | YouTube | TikTok | Pinterest | Instagram | Dr. Willow's Website | Leah's Website
Alicia Davon, a true luminary in the realm of sexuality and relationships returns for her 2.0 SxR interview. With a compelling background in psychology and a passion for helping others cultivate deep, meaningful connections alongside her husband Erwan originator of the Davon Method. If you've ever struggled with shame holding you back from true intimacy and fulfillment, this is a must-listen. Leah, Dr. Willow, and Alicia explore the ins and outs of overcoming shame to cultivate healthy sexuality and relationships.
YOU'LL DISCOVER:
EPISODE LINKS *some links below may also be affiliate links
Leah & Willow's King & Queen of Hearts Intimacy Toolkit is on sale. Use Coupon Code KINGANDQUEEN10 for 10% off. https://www.sexreimagined.com/the-king-and-queen-of-hearts
Awaken Arousal Oil Lubricant "I had a 3-minute orgasm and then a 5-minute orgasm." - Beth https://exploreforia.com/awaken-so?irclickid=wyXW6byI5xyNWouwIoQAUS1GUkAx4m1JsS6bSc0&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=Impact&utm_campaign=Sex%20Reimagined&utm_c
SxR Hotline | SxR Website | YouTube | TikTok | Pinterest | Instagram | Dr. Willow's Website | Leah's Website
Welcome back to the show. This is Leah Piper with Sex Reimagined, your Tantra expert. And let me tell you all it is so sweet. We got a email today that said, Very impressed with the quality of your speakers and the information. Well, thank you for letting us know that you're enjoying yourself. tune in and hear all these amazing experts in the world of sexuality. So, who do we have today, Dr. Willow?
Dr. Willow Brown:So today we are tuning in with Alicia Davon of the Davon Method. Her and her husband era one work together and they have really become the go-to expert For those seeking a higher level of relationship support. Both of them have psychology degrees and have developed a method that covers everything from sexuality to the mind to lifestyle design and how to get into and thrive throughout the stages of relationship from both a feminine perspective and a masculine perspective. And our conversation with Alicia was so enlightening as we dove deep into what it means to overcome shame what it means to really raise your children in a shame-free environment. And it was just it was a beautiful profound.
Leah Piper:You'll listen in and you're gonna get some good strategies on how to deflect that inner critic. And I think that's such a worthwhile thing for all of us to do. Because that can be really harmful. And I just enjoyed who she was. We had such range of, we went in so many different directions, and I think you'll enjoy it. So tune in fall in love with the beautiful Alicia.
Dr. Willow Brown:Devon
Announcer:Welcome to the Sex Reimagined Podcast, where sex is shame free and pleasure forward. Let's get into the show.
Leah Piper:Hello. Hello. Alicia, so good to have you with us today. We are eager to dive into this important topic where we are re-imagining what shame could be like for the future if we were able to free ourselves from some of its damage, especially around sexuality and intimacy. And also wanting to take a look at what do we want to reimagine in the world having to do with intimacy and connection and having a really juicy, meaningful, and satisfying love life. So why don't we just hop right into it with the topic of shame. What arises, in your mind when you think about shame and. Yeah, just the word. I'll keep it really broadened.
Alicia Davon:Yeah. The first thing I'll say, is we all have it, and as human beings, it's one of the things that we avoid the most, or we work to avoid it the most, in terms of trying to make sure our bodies look a certain way or smell a certain way, or our actions seem a certain way. You know, we're just, we've learned that shame is just such an unbearable experience. We need to avoid it. It's kind of like, this is a totally different topic, which we can talk about another time, but it's kind of like jealousy in that way where we're kind of like, no, and I, I'm not jealous. I'm not jealous. But meanwhile, we're like so jealous and we refuse to just feel it and accept that we feel jealous.
Leah Piper:I love that you brought jealousy out because isn't there a shame to jealousy, right?
Alicia Davon:It there can be for sure. So they're definitely connected and shame to me has a lot to do with criticism of ourselves and that really nasty, negative voice that we all have inside our heads, which the inner critic is what I like to call it. We have a lot of different names for it, right? The kind of classic psychological term for it is the super ego. But it's that voice inside our head that's like constantly judging us and telling us what we're doing right and wrong. And that voice has very deep psychological roots. We've internalized voices and standards and beliefs from our parents, our caregivers, our religious upbringing. If we had that, the culture, it's almost like it seeps into us. We're not born with an inner critic but eventually becomes one of our guiding lights as to are we right and are we wrong.
Leah Piper:Or one of our guiding shadows.
Alicia Davon:Right. Or shadows. Right. It's not really the light, right, but it's the thing that we follow. It's usually kinda, sitting in our unconscious running our lives unbeknownst to us. Which, I mean, it definitely comes out in sexuality, which we'll get more into in detail. So yeah, and shame comes along with a lot of intense body sensations and thoughts and beliefs and feelings. It's a very intense experience, especially when we're working to avoid it because we don't want to feel it.
Dr. Willow Brown:So what's an indicator for somebody who, I mean, I think we all have a sense of what shame feels like in our bodies. There's this coiling in and we want to hide, we want to not be seen. But what's an indicator for somebody who is like to have them know that they're stuck in a shame cycle and to help them have a way to just like get one toenail out of that shame cycle. That's all it can take to like break the whole bubble.
Alicia Davon:Mm-hmm. So there's what you just mentioned, there's that wanting to coil in and hide and not be seen. There's often heat. There's a lot of heat. You know, you think of our faces flushing red, you know, it's kind of like that feeling. I don't know why this is coming to mind, but let's say you're in a group of people and there's you know, you're in some kind of lecture, some kind of group, and the leader has a microphone and you raise your hand to share and they bring you the microphone and you put the microphone in front of your mouth and then it makes that screechy noise, and then you just feel like you want to die. You're just like, I suck.
Leah Piper:Don't look at me. don't look. at, don't look.
Dr. Willow Brown:There's a real awkwardness, that comes with shame, where you're like, Ugh, I don't know what to do like with myself or my body. I'm totally lost in space. It's almost like a bit of an out of body, even though we feel it so deeply in our bodies. Something disassociates within, there's an incongruence that happens.
Alicia Davon:Right, right. So it's not, it's easier said than done, but if we can really stop and feel that experience, it's funny, the reason I think that example came up in my mind is because a group that I'm part of is very much about spiritual and psychological development and presence and everything. You know, there was a big group session, and this guy Michael took the microphone and then that thing happened and then he said, oh wow, I feel really ashamed right now and this is what it feels like in my body and you, because that's the work we're doing. And it was like, Oh wow. As he stopped and he felt his feet and he felt the heat rushed through his body and his face get hot and his heart beat faster and that urge to coil in, I mean, he was pretty much free of it by the end of his interaction with the teacher. Right? So, My first tip is to really stop and let yourself feel it.
Dr. Willow Brown:Hmm.
Alicia Davon:Now, the second tip is see, when you start to bring awareness to this experience of shame and your inner critic attacking you, you actually start to notice what your inner critic is telling you. You know, like in that microphone situation, it's probably like, you look stupid. You know, you're so bad. You're wrong. The inner critic just throws out these nasty messages and to actually become aware of what those messages are instead of that kind of mess, it's like a mass of uncomfortable sensation and bad feeling, but you don't actually even know why.
Leah Piper:Yeah. Interesting. You don't always think to consider what's being said, like what are the sensations saying to you? And so then what?
Alicia Davon:Right. So then now there's this, I love this because we actually can regain control over the inner critic. So we hear that attack and it is an attack, like you idiot, or whatever it is. And then if you're aware of that and you're present, you can disengage from the inner critic. That is what we train our students to do. It's what we've been taught to do. The inner critic, what you need to do is like rid it of any oxygen and push it away and disengage because, you ever find yourself having a conversation with your inner critic, like your inner critic's, like, man, like, no, like, you know, your body is not looking good. Like you really need to, get your belly flat or whatever. And then you say, yeah, but I had this to eat yesterday so it's really fine. Or, okay, I'm going to go to the gym and you're sort of in this argument with it, which gives it all this power. So a way to disengage really is, Shut up, you know? Or like enough, or I'm not listening to you bug off. And if you can learn, if you can get over the fact you're talking to yourself and you know, whatever. But you, it's
Leah Piper:Let's normalize talking to yourself people. Okay. It's,
Alicia Davon:Right. I mean, am I the only one that talks to myself in my car? I don't think so.
Dr. Willow Brown:definitely not.
Alicia Davon:I know I'm like outta my walks having loud out, loud conversations. I'm like, well, I have my earbuds in, so maybe someone will think I'm on the phone, you
Dr. Willow Brown:phone. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good technique actually.
Alicia Davon:Right, right, right.
Dr. Willow Brown:I think there's also some merit to like talking to your inner critic in a way of like, what is it that you need? What is it that you're really asking for? What are you negative self-talk right now, but is there something else that is underneath that attention that you would like?
Alicia Davon:Yeah, because once we can cut off the power of the inner critic and just say like, Nope, nope. Like not listening to that, meaning not taking on that harsh judgment. And it really works. If you do it a few times, you just start to feel that energy come back rather than the life being sucked out of you. Then Yeah, you know, there's deeper feelings under there, there's kind of the inner child feelings or vulnerability, or there's a need or something like that. So once you can just get that inner critic off your back, then there's more experience.
Dr. Willow Brown:There's other voices underneath. Yeah. That, that want some of your nourishment, some of your presence, some of your time, some of your attention. Usually I think when we're putting ourselves down in our own heads it's because we're not being nourished in some place in our life. You know? We're not, maybe it's the food we're eating, maybe it's the exercise we're not getting or whatever, but we're not self-loving. We're not self nourishing in some way or shape.
Leah Piper:Yeah, that's I think, I think you're both right. I think also that there's a number of voices. To the inner critic. So, I heard, I think it was Elizabeth Gilbert, I, maybe it was a podcast or something that I heard, and she said something that really resonated with me. She was talking about anger and shame and guilt and I think she was going through a divorce and, or maybe her second marriage I think maybe her wife died. Anyways, she was wrestling with this emotion, and she finally just said, okay, everybody, get in the car. Get in the car. Come on shame, get in the car, sweetie. Don't worry you can take a nap. I got us covered. Anger, it's okay you're here, I'm with ya. Go take a nap sweetie. I'm going to drive for a while. Go rest. Come on sadness, get in the car, it's your turn too. I'm not leaving without ya. Go ahead and take a nap sweet one. And I really loved sort of this mothering approach of going, we're all these things, these are parts of us, and every single one of these so-called negative emotions are there because they want us to survive. if one part can scare the shit out of you, so you stay safe, it's going to say whatever it needs to say so that you don't put yourself at risk and be courageous or do something that's hard. And so I think all of these approaches can be really effective. I remember during a time where I was wrestling with self-loathing to the total degree that it was so debilitating and I had to do what you're talking about, Alicia. I had to go, I am turning the volume down on this. I won't survive with this voice in my head anymore. I've gotta find another voice. And so the way that I drowned out that critic was I created another voice that was loving and benevolent and could see the future me and bring it to me now. And I just to practice making a choice. Am I going to listen to Ms. Meanie or am I going to listen to Ms. Sweetie? And then trying to figure out how you can turn up or turn down those dials. So tell us a little bit more about this process. So you've, you say, no, I'm not listening, that's bullshit, you know, we're cutting off the oxygen right now, you know, shut I'm sort of imagining how I would do it in my head. What then?
Alicia Davon:Yes. So, well, first of all, I like what you said about practicing, like when you said, okay, who am I going to listen to? Let me practice listen To Miss Sweetie. So disengaging from the inner critic is a practice. So if you say, bug off, or you could use an approach like, oh, that's really helpful. Yeah. Like, yeah, you're so helpful, you know, sarcastic, or
Leah Piper:Bad advice.
Alicia Davon:Awesome. Like, you're really helpful right now, whatever it is. Some people like to, look at the corner of the room and imagine someone that like they're really mad at, and that's their inner critic and they picture their head blowing up, you know, whatever it is, you know, you disengage. And then what comes next often is a rush of energy in, like you realize how devitalizing it was and you just have more energy and you kind of feel
Leah Piper:I like that.
Alicia Davon:new. Right? Because I mean the, the inner critic is very devitalizing and we don't even really realize it because it's just, you know, and it got us by the neck all day.
Leah Piper:To like track and measure and be really present to what changes when you are purposeful about how you're handling said emotion or said critic. Oh, look how fast that repairs my energy. Or is it not so fast? I suppose it could be differing for everybody?
Alicia Davon:Yeah, well, you can have an inner critic attack about how you handle the inner critic. Your inner, our inner critics are really sneaky and they don't want to die. I mean, they don't want to die. They're there, if we can talk about it like an entity, it's a psychic entity it's there for our survival and to keep the status quo and to make sure that we stay safe, but it's very...
Leah Piper:Make sure we follow the tribal rules. We don't die out in the wilderness. Yeah. But it has its role it's for survival. Yeah.
Alicia Davon:But it's very archaic we don't need it anymore. Most of us know how to function well and not break laws and, all that kind of stuff. So you may notice a free, a freeing up of your energy and an interesting, new, fresh feeling. You may notice another inner critic attack, and then you can disengage from that one. So it's like an ongoing practice and there's really not much else to do after that besides notice where that leaves you and then just go on with your day.
Leah Piper:Now you realize you're hungry or you gotta go pee, or it's time to get to work, or...
Alicia Davon:yes.
Leah Piper:the phone rings
Alicia Davon:You disengage again.
Dr. Willow Brown:I think you have a really good point here of like how much energy can come back to you, can rush back to, you know, those those like whack-a-mole games at the fair? I like to think about that when I'm crushing my inner critic. In sort of ancient culture they call them Kelysha's in Tibetan Buddhism, they call them Kelysha's, K L E Y S H A ands are like mind attacks or mind fucks or the inner critic, these little gremlins and it's like you whack one down and then two more popup, whack those two down real quick, and they say if you squash your kleysha's within the first five seconds, you can actually get ahead, you can get out of kleysha attack. But if you, if you let it go on for like one minute, two minutes, five minutes, like you're going to have to work hard to get all those moles down at the same time.
Alicia Davon:Yes. It is a practice and what you start to realize is that it's its own psychic entity. It's a part of our identity. It's like not even, it's not even who we are. When you can separate yourself. Oh, there's that.
Dr. Willow Brown:I like that point that you made too, though, that it is there to keep you safe, to keep you within tribe, right? To keep you supported and in this surviving place, however, for most of us it's not working well. So I think that's that's a really important thing to sort of ask yourself once you can like squash that kleysha or kill that inner critic. Take the oxygen away from it, you know, then just starting to ask yourself, Is there another way I could keep myself safe? Is there some other entity? Is there an angel? Is there a goddess? Is there a spirit animal? Is there some other entity that could come in and keep me safe in this situation where I'm feeling shut down.
Alicia Davon:That's a really beautiful idea. There is an inherent goodness of reality that we can tap into, and if there's some kind of form that represents that, that is meaningful to us, then that's a really beautiful thing to bring in. I mean, I'm a huge fan. I mean the inner critic is the linchpin. It's like the core of so many relationship issues. I mean, we often joke when you're in a relationship, it's like you're, you got you and your partner and then each other's inner critics and there's like four people in the relationship judging each being
Leah Piper:It's like, it's the relation-shit as my friend Charles would say.
Alicia Davon:Exactly. So it's such a big deal that whatever you can do to ward off the inner critic, bringing in guardian angels and positive forces or images or just allowing yourself to sit and, okay, I'm not tethered to some rule book that's making me feel safe. I have a couple, some friends of ours that live in our neighborhood and they maybe in the last two years, they have left their like fundamentalist Christian upbringing, their whole life was oriented around that. Their three kids were raised in that whole thing. They've got small kids. But they both were kind of like, wait a minute there was something for them that wasn't quite aligning anymore. And they've been wrestling with that a lot because they really had like, okay, well here's our rule book, just abide and then we're good. And there was a lot in there for them. I'm not saying it's like this for everybody, but that was merged with their inner critic and so now they're feeling kind of untethered, but they're getting used to that feeling of like, wow. Okay. Woo.
Dr. Willow Brown:Now they get to find out what's really authentic and true for them.
Alicia Davon:Yes.
Leah Piper:Having been raised in a Pentecostal kind of crazy church the first 10 years of my life and then got baptized into Catholicism I'm really curious since you brought that up, the difference of embodied shame between people who had a stricter religious upbringing as compared to people who don't. Because I definitely feel like I was spoon fed shame. It was a part of the teaching and disciplining and controlling your children to behave, was to shame them. They would shame you publicly. They would shame you privately. I mean, there were so many encounters of shame growing up and I really do feel like it was woven into whatever the teachings were. Now I think that those are misguided teachings. The teachings are probably beautiful. It's the delivery of the teachings that are probably flawed and so yeah, that's an interesting thing to possibly explore.
Dr. Willow Brown:Do you have any? Yeah. I'm curious, Alicia, do you have any personal experience with like religious shame upbringing or was there a pinnacle point in your life where you were like, okay, let me eradicate shame? I actually remember a moment in my life where my partner at the time had said something to me and I, it flowed right by me. And later on my girlfriend was like, I felt like he was shaming you when he said that. And I was like, wow, that didn't register at all inside of me. And I was like, maybe I've become immune to shame. So I actually wrote a whole thing on that, becoming immune to shame, and I think it's possible, I think it is possible to really overcome, and I'm just curious about your own personal journey with it, because I mean, we all have such a personal journey with shame.
Alicia Davon:Oh, we all do and we all have it. Whether it's from a strict religious upbringing mybe there was something about our parents, one of them was really critical and judgmental in general. Maybe there was something that happened embarresing like in elementary school, everyone is just laughing at you. You know those experiences that just Yes was six and I was in this tap dancing class and I was there, and then at the end, like all the parents came to pick us up and they were back, on the back wall watching us and it was time to end and the teacher said, okay, like let's do the routine one more time. And I said, I don't want to do it one more time. Cause I was ready to go home. And then my mom like walked up and grabbed me by the arm, Alicia, and I remember just like, ugh. Like that felt so ashamed. I did something wrong. I upset my mom. Right? So then of course that planted the seed of don't speak your mind and you know how that goes. Right? So that's one of my stories of, wow, that's a moment where I felt fine saying how I felt, and then suddenly I was like a terrible person. So upsetting all these people. Yeah. And we all have those and they could be so like a moment in time in our fifth grade classroom or whatever.
Dr. Willow Brown:It can be so seemingly benign, but then they like, you know, stamp out into the rest of our lives.
Alicia Davon:Yeah, my mom doesn't even remember that.
Dr. Willow Brown:Of course. she doesn't.
Alicia Davon:Yeah. And I'm like, but that defined my identity Mom!
Leah Piper:Yeah, Yeah, this is so, so interesting. So I had a year, it was after, you know, the big sweep with Brene Brown being with her Ted Talks and her research on shame and talking about pursuing being shame free and how shame thrives on secrecy. It's this corner in our thoughts and in our mind and in our bodies. That feels like a secret. We don't want we don't want to expose our shame. We don't want people to know that we have shame. We don't want anyone to know that we are basically bad. I mean, the definition of shame is that we are wrong and bad. It's not so much that we're guilty. It is that there's something flawed in me. There is something that's broken and can't be repaired. And so I took that on for a year. I said, I'm going to become, I'm going to work on being shame free this year. And I had a community, and it was really a refreshing community because I unplugged from having to be liked. And feeling like I, I wanted people to like me, or I needed to be impressive or I needed to somehow prove myself or I just I scrapped all of that. I said, if I don't make one friend in this group, I'm going to be okay. I'm going to be here for me. I'm going to let it all hang out. And see what happens. And so I used it to expose shame and I would just tell if in that whole year, anytime I felt shame, I would expose it. And I did experience a tremendous amount of relief from not keeping it inside but going I'm feeling shame and this is why. I think what I received from that is an ability to greater, disengage, but more so from the feeling, from the sensations. I was like, I was no longer taking the voice seriously. The voice comes in, but I am just don't take it seriously. You're just a voice. And that gave me space to be okay. And to just go, all right, yeah, you're here. I didn't really believe you
Alicia Davon:mm-hmm.
Leah Piper:Time to do the laundry.
Alicia Davon:Exactly. It's like a machine.
Dr. Willow Brown:Moving right along.
Alicia Davon:Yeah, it's just this operating system that's really out of date. It's not that you need to identify with that or even give it much energy.
Leah Piper:yeah.
Dr. Willow Brown:And, to bring it around to sexuality, since the three of us have really explored sexuality and continue to explore it to great depth and degrees, it feels to me in my own personal exploration, and I'd love to hear both of your take on it, but it's like, the more you get into like an uncomfortable, like something you've never done before or something that you have been you had this concept that it was bad or dirty or wrong or that you would be a bad person if you enjoyed something like that. There's overcoming just the inner critic and the general sort of shame. And then we're taking it to this deeper layer, this root chakra, second chakra layer of how to actually glean medicine. I feel like there's medicine in shame. Once we get that initial inner critic off the top, like what's underneath that? So let's say I, I've, I recently had a sexual experience afterwards I was like, whoa, I don't know maybe that was too much for me. You know, maybe, maybe I felt that that coiling in
Leah Piper:Yeah. That moment of doubt. Yeah.
Dr. Willow Brown:And so, I'm just, I feel like there's so much healing to be had of the inner critic and the shame gremlin when you start to explore your sexuality more consciously.
Alicia Davon:This is a huge topic in my work and Erwon's and my work. We have a particular topic that we teach a lot in a lot of different contexts called female sexual psychology. Shame is a huge part of female or feminine psychology, men and males too. Right? But let's just focus on the feminine for a minute. The way I like to describe it is that for most women or feminine people there's a sexual self and then there's a non-sexual self. And there's a split like disintegration between the two. Like our sexual selves for many of us are, it's like inherent and visceral, and there's hunger and desire and interest and curiosity, and we're just like ravenous for whatever experiences we're excited about. And then simultaneously there exists this non-sexual self that's like a big inner critic, basically, that is like, no, no, no. This is not a good idea either because we've had adverse sexual experiences and trauma. So we've learned like, oh no, like you, no, no, no, no. You don't put that energy out there. Bad things happen. Right. Dangerous religious upbringing. Maybe our parents were awkward about sex. Maybe as a woman when we started hitting puberty, our dad got awkward or didn't know how to relate to us or whatever it is. You know, we bazillion things. Right? But it leads to this, like at the same time, it's like what you were talking about, Willow, like you, you have this sexual experience and you explore something new and then part of you is like, wait, I don't know. I don't know.
Leah Piper:contraction sometimes afterward and you start to go. Yeah.
Dr. Willow Brown:It's almost like the bigger the expansion too, the bigger the contraction can be, right? Yeah. Well that's just the Tao, that's nature's way.
Leah Piper:And what a beautiful thing to respond to
Dr. Willow Brown:Yes.
Leah Piper:the contraction that's coming. It's like, oh, that's right. This is how this works. Rubber brand that stretches, and then it comes back into shape.
Alicia Davon:Yeah, and underneath all of that, whatever, whether it's criticism or embarrassment or shame, I mean there's a lot of tender feelings. There's a little us that just wanted to be able to be ourselves and something bad happened or we got these messages, or there's so much in there when we can recognize the non-sexual self, the inner critic messages, and honor that, respect that not just barrel ahead and be this, quote unquote sexually liberated woman because that looks good. Yes, sexually liberation is good.
Leah Piper:Yeah. And want to also,
Alicia Davon:the part.
Leah Piper:I've had positive experiences of my sexual liberation and I've had some hard lessons in regards to it too, so...
Alicia Davon:yeah, yeah.
Leah Piper:You know, I was thinking when you were talking about you know, an entity, an angel, something that can help support you deflecting the inner critic. I was thinking about when I'm too hard on myself out loud, my husband will say, Would you be nice to my friend?
Alicia Davon:Ah. Aw,
Leah Piper:You know, like, that's my friend and I don't really appreciate how you are summing her up, how you're judging her. Stop it. You'd be nice. It is cute. Yeah. And it always makes me feel like, oh, thanks, and so it's like having, so when he's not there, I can bring in his voice and go, wow, that was harsh.
Alicia Davon:Yeah.
Leah Piper:So tell me about like a book, what's a book that you love to recommend to people?
Alicia Davon:Oh man. Okay. Well, I was going to say, I don't know, I haven't read a book in a while, but if we're talking the inner critic, there's the one that we recommend to everybody that we work with, and it's an incredible book, and it is called Soul Without Shame.
Leah Piper:Soul Without
Alicia Davon:Shame.Without Shame. It's written by a man named Byron Brown, who is a student, and then I believe now a teacher of the Diamond Approach Diamond Heart. Yeah.
Dr. Willow Brown:Heart.
Alicia Davon:big part of our lives and yeah.
Leah Piper:Yeah. So Amid is right in the Bay Area. You guys are too?
Alicia Davon:Yes, yes. He's in, they're in Berkeley. The center's in Berkeley. We're in San Fransisco, so we've been a part of that for over 10 years. We love it. And the book is written by this man who
Leah Piper:Byron Brown. Cool.
Alicia Davon:So Soul Without Shame. You can go to Amazon, there's lots of copies used or whatever.
Leah Piper:Yeah, we'll make sure, we'll make sure, that the listeners get a link. Great, great, great. Now when you think about like, you know, your generation coming of age and the shame that you wrestled with, that we wrestled with and this is like, you could be speaking to girls, boys, whatever the case may be, but when you think about the unique challenges that maybe this current generation is going to have, what kind of advice would you give parents? Or would you directly give a kid?
Alicia Davon:Well, I mean, there's so much going on for kids that are coming of age right now. So much. I mean, I'm really happy, but I don't know if you two read that you must have,"Are you there God? It's me, Margaret" the book. And now the movie's coming out. That was one of my favorite books. books
Dr. Willow Brown:Oh, really? I didn't know the movie was coming
Alicia Davon:Yeah. I'm like all excited. I keep seeing it come through my Instagram and I'm like, yeah. Becasue I reread that book a bazillion times as a girl.
Leah Piper:Do you know the author of that?
Alicia Davon:Judy Bloom.
Leah Piper:Oh, it's Judy Bloom.
Alicia Davon:Yeah, she's,
Leah Piper:Judy Bloom. That's right, god.
Alicia Davon:It's like, thank God she like helped me through my adolescence and many of us, right?
Leah Piper:Totally.
Alicia Davon:So, but anyhow, people that are coming of age right now, they have added complexity there's the already kind of cultural shame in developing bodies and there is more awareness rising, more books, more conversations. But then I live in the Bay Area, so everything's kind of progressive. So my immediate circle, there's a lot of awareness around puberty, body parts, all this. There's gender stuff going on.
Leah Piper:Yeah. Yeah. Very unique gender stuff.
Alicia Davon:Huge. Which is amazing. I mean, all of this awareness is being built and it can be confusing. It's people have a lot of reactivity to all of the new gender development.
Leah Piper:Cancel Culture, you've got negative bias. There's all this stuff that is, you know, that are, that wasn't happening when we were growing up.
Alicia Davon:Oh, social media
Leah Piper:Yeah. Porn is next level. I mean, there wasn't porn as readily available.Until 2005. So just the porn alone in its effect on brains is a whole new thing.
Dr. Willow Brown:That's huge. Not to mention all the isolation that we've just gone through
Leah Piper:With Covid. Yeah. I've got nieces and nephews who were high school going through covid and had two years of no school. You know it
Alicia Davon:That is so hard. Right. And then all of the beauty standards in social media.
Leah Piper:Social media and comparisons.. Yeah.
Alicia Davon:it, It's just like, I do not envy kids. We have a six and a half year old, different, but I don't envy kids becoming teenagers right now. It's a lot to deal with. I don't envy parents that are with that. So I don't have a big set of tips, but I think the big, big one tip would be, well two, presence and connection. I mean, really noticing as a parent your own reactivity to these new conversations that are coming into the mix. Being very conscious about how you talk to your kid about it and having, having sexuality and puberty and relationships be open conversations like there's moms here in the city, they're starting these like teen girl and mom groups. Or I don't know if there's any for boys or whatever, but it'd be great if there were, but open conversation rather than secrecy which leads to shame. And you know, presence and connection is really what I would.
Leah Piper:Yeah. Yeah. I think when it
Dr. Willow Brown:Can't go wrong with that.
Leah Piper:one of the most valuable things that anyone can learn is like staying in the moment, staying present, being right there, Yeah. And allowing yourself to feel what's up.
Dr. Willow Brown:Exactly, and I think I think, I'm, I'm watching some parents some rad parents right now, parent their kids and it's so funny, like all the other kids, like the friends of the teenage kids will go to that one parent who's the one
Leah Piper:Yeah. There's
Dr. Willow Brown:open.
Leah Piper:Yeah. My mom was that parent.
Dr. Willow Brown:And they'll be like,
Alicia Davon:I be that parent.
Dr. Willow Brown:Yeah, you will be Alicia, you will be. Yeah.
Leah Piper:That's great.
Alicia Davon:That's great. I love hearing that. that
Leah Piper:Yeah.
Dr. Willow Brown:So even if, even if you're the one parent in the whole community who's being that way with your kids it opens up a gateway for those kids because their brains are still little sponges. Like, the, the teenage brain doesn't, we don't get fully, fully developed I think we're 21. So, you know, they're really paying attention to like, oh wow. Look at the relationship that my friend has with their mom or their dad. Based on the way that, that their parent is really communicative and open and they can talk to their parent about anything. And if, a child doesn't maybe have that with their own parent they're still getting the example of it. So I think it's a really, one can change many in this situation. So,
Alicia Davon:Yeah.
Leah Piper:I've got a client who's a family therapist. Really he's like such a joy to work with him and having been a child therapist, he was telling me some stories about what it was like and how he would work in that way. And he had this one mom and son and the son was really acting out and struggling, and you know, they would come in and like try to play a board game and he wouldn't play by the rules and the Mom was like, you gotta play by the rules. That's the rules and he goes, no, no, no. This is his game.
Alicia Davon:Yeah.
Leah Piper:We're here to understand.
Alicia Davon:Yeah.
Leah Piper:to give him another lesson and then they'd go to the park and it was like, okay, now let's just play. Let him just be who he is, that's what he needs from you is to just be with him, listen to him, feel him and you do your best to understand him. Not always follow all these rules so you'll always be safe. It's really like what is in your heart and on your mind. And there comes a point where we just stop sharing that with our parents. Either because we think they can't handle it or they're, they seem like they're unavailable or they react poorly. And so we find different outlets. And so I've been reflecting a little bit on that, just looking at my own childhood and You know, I'm not going to be a parent. I what a job. All you parents out there, Bravo. And you deserve the love that comes with having kids because that's a hard job. Blessings on everybody.
Alicia Davon:Indeed.
Leah Piper:Woo. And it's like, geez. Talk about, I mean, segueing like parental guilt. If I had a prayer for all parents, it would be to release them from the guilt that seems innate with everyone who's got a kid. It's like there's just this worry that I fucked something up and it's like you can't escape it. And I just, it's horrible.
Alicia Davon:Yep. Oh yeah. No it's there all the time and it's like a it's prime inner critic territory because it's kind
Leah Piper:totally.
Alicia Davon:if you do, damned if you don't. Am I being too smothering? Am I being too ne like negligent? Am I ignoring? Am I too? Am I too? too?
Leah Piper:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which was going to bring me to like the thought, was, I would really want the parent, and I think my parents did a pretty good job at this, treating me, not that I as an adult, adult. But treating me like I was a person, not just a kid. And that helped me want to, do hard things and do great, do all these things that I think built some good efficacy and self-esteem. So I was just thinking like, okay, so as a parent you have to not be too emotional, but vulnerable enough that you show them how you manage shame. And then I just thought, oh shit, it is a racket. You know? It's a racket.
Alicia Davon:Yes, it's nonstop.
Dr. Willow Brown:One of the things that has come up recently in a podcast interview that Leah and I did with my cousin actually was around how we grew up sort of feeling shame about who we were based on comments that were made about our bodies, our skin, acne, like, oh, you're putting on a little bit of weight. What did my grandpa used to say to my cousin was something like one bite of this is a pound on the thighs or something, you
Leah Piper:Yeah.
Alicia Davon:Through the lips and to the hips.
Dr. Willow Brown:Yes, something like that, and, and she said something that was so great. She's like, I don't believe we should ever comment on any child's body as they're growing up, as they're going through the change. Like it is a very, it's a very intense time. The hormones are prolific and all over the place. It's a bit like, turning into a butterfly, like from Caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly, it's a massive metamorphosis that they're going through and their bodies are going to change and morph and do a whole dance through it all.
Leah Piper:What even, I mean, what would cause someone to even want to make comments like that, having probably remembered how awkward it is. I remember growing up, it was just, oh, there was always some creepy comment coming from one side of the family. It was like stop looking at me.
Dr. Willow Brown:Yeah, totally.
Leah Piper:Yeah, Yeah.
Alicia Davon:Even trying to start early, I try to be aware of, like there's a little girl not in my son's class, but another first grade class, and she is like heads taller than all the other kids. She's the thinnest, it's like you look at her and you're like, oh my gosh, but that's just how she, her mom's really tall and whatever, but you see her and you're kind of, you want to be like, oh my God, she's so tall. Or, you know, wow, you're so tall. Or, this kind of thing. I saw funny TikTok video that was like, if people treated, short people, like tall people. You know how you see someone like You're
Leah Piper:so short!
Alicia Davon:And you're like, wow, you're so tall. What's it like up there? But it's like, and then that's like, seems okay because it's like so cool. But then there's a short person you're like, what's it like down there? Oh, can I get a selfie? And it's like, so disrespectful and it's, you know, so I try to not, because I see my kids friends, and they're so cute and they have no teeth, and I want to comment on everything, but I'm like, okay, it'd be good to start now. Not to be like, you're so this.
Dr. Willow Brown:Yeah. Yeah, Yeah,
Leah Piper:don't have to say everything that comes to our head out loud.
Dr. Willow Brown:yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Alicia Davon:Like, can I touch your hair? Like, no. No. They don't want that anymore.
Dr. Willow Brown:No, they don't like to be touched
Alicia Davon:No. No.
Dr. Willow Brown:so what would, what would be like one piece of really good sound advice for for parents who are raising kids who are starting to get into sexuality, let's say. 17, sometimes 15, 14. Who are, you know, they've been dating for a while. A lot of parents are a lot more liberal these days teaching their young sons about how to use condoms and, get ready for sex. So, is there anything...
Leah Piper:How to make out, how to be a good kisser.
Alicia Davon:Okay,
Leah Piper:actually
Dr. Willow Brown:Yeah.
Alicia Davon:Well, here's the thing, a few things about that. A, personally have not gone through that yet. So I don't have personal experience but I do have some opinions and I also have a, you know, what you just said, teaching him how to be a good kisser, this and that. I'm like excited for my son because of Erwan, who my husband is. The best lover, he's like so respectful. He is so educated. He is like hot. So I'm like, Ooh, this is great. I don't know how that whole thing's going to go, but at least he'll get some good information, of how to like be respectful towards women, but also, be like cute and sexy. I don't know. So I will
Leah Piper:sexually empowering.
Alicia Davon:Yes. not feel because that's the other thing is older men are totally squashed by the fear of seeming like a perpetrator. Because if you look at a woman wrong, you're suddenly being so offensive. And I just think it's the roots of obviously respecting women and not overstepping it's very good, but it gets taken so far and so many men are then tentative, which women hate. So it's like, ugh, you know, this, that's a whole other conversation. So I really do want kids to feel empowered. And you know, I, my thinking on it right now is it's better for the kids to hear it from us than only in the schoolyard or only the limited amount they learn in school, so I guess that would be my advice would be to find a way to bring it into their life. Whether you leave a book on their bed and you say, Hey, I left you this book. We can chat about it. Or We don't have to talk about it, but this is good stuff to know.
Leah Piper:Yeah. You know, we had a student who came through the certification course and his son was, I think, turning 13 or 14 and he made him a little video, a little like, like not slides you put on a movie screen, but for the phone and it was images of different vulvas. he said, I just wanted you to know that all Volvos are. And I want you to be prepared that you're probably, you're going to feel and sense and look at a lot of different ones, and I want to give you a feeling of what it looks like. And so, A you don't say you know anything that would be hurtful and B, so you can have some of your curiosity met without you necessarily running to porn. I know you're going to watch porn, but I just want to remind you that, you know, porn is entertainment. It's not real life, and I just want you to be feel prepared as much as you can be without overexposing you. But here, you know, and it gave did in a little CD. I just thought that was a really interesting idea and I think that opens up a conversation, should his son want to have those conversations. Now my parents tried to be those kind of parents that you can come to me and tell me anything. I was still icked out. I just, I don't know. I just couldn't do it. So you can always have like the most empowered environment and kids still not want to talk to their parents, which is why. Yeah. Yeah. So to have somebody, I also like the idea of multiple points of view, you know, to expose our kids to what other people have to say about sexuality. Not just what we have to say about sexuality. I think it's like the Dutch or maybe Finland or something some European country, they have this video that they give to the schools. I've seen, I haven't seen anything like it. It was so cool, and about sex ed and like they showed underwear. When you start to have discharge and you're girl and this is what penises look like. And it was like real, it wasn't just a anatomy shot of the of the genitals. It was just, it was so well done.
Alicia Davon:Ooh, maybe we can get that
Leah Piper:Yeah. Yeah. I wouldn't that be great.
Alicia Davon:another
Leah Piper:like really
Alicia Davon:Take another page out of that part of the world's book, because they're doing a lot of right things.
Leah Piper:Yeah. I think nudity is another issue.
Alicia Davon:Mm-hmm.
Leah Piper:Because what's interesting in both Asia and Europe, not every single country, but in, in the many of them, Nudity, people seem to be more comfortable with it. Even with like grandpa and the three grandkids and one's a teenager and one's still a toddler and they go hot tub or they go to the hot springs and it's not a thing. And I feel like it's definitely a thing here, where there comes a point, like, I remember when my dad stopped hugging me quite as close.
Alicia Davon:Yeah.
Leah Piper:During that like puberty stage and I didn't know as much as they knew what was changing in me, but it was you can't, you don't quite understand it because no one really puts words to it while you're not being held quite as close anymore. And just want to know your thoughts on that.
Alicia Davon:Yeah, that's, yeah. I mean, the way that transition goes from maybe kid or a bigger kid to puberty teenage that that's really, really important. I mean, the nudity thing, yeah, there are definitely other cultures that are much more comfortable and that's really nice. And we all often wonder as parents like, well, when should we not change in front of our kid? Or when should we not have them bathe together? And the answer always seems to be well watch your kid. Watch and see when they start to like either say something or they seem embarrassed and then just stop. And you know, I think given the way our culture is, that might be the extent of what we can do. There's probably people that are really breaking the norms and living in communities where everybody gets to be naked and stuff. And kids are in a totally different world, and that's one thing, right? So, but you know, for people that are in kind of more mainstream, I think just paying attention to your kid and doing what feels comfortable. Not putting it on them or forcing anything on them.
Leah Piper:Right. I mean, because it's a really real issue too, like when you think about all the girlfriends you know who have had an inappropriate sexual experience with someone who was way too old for them and you know I remember encounters with some people that I, that feeling that flirtatious energy and wanting their attention. But they're somebody's dad and you know, you're the babysitter. You know, there's just that energy. And one part of me loved that energy. It was like, oh, you know, like, I loved it and I wanted more of And so like that's a real thing because we are sexual beings and there isn't a ton of control we have over what is arousing and what peaks that sensation of aliveness in us when we're feeling it. And so we feel afraid for our children if something were to go too far, because we all know people who've been really harmed sexually Yes. that inappropriate behavior. And so there's no easy answer, but I mean so many things to weigh in and you know, one of the things I know we have to wrap up, but one of the things I worry about is healing the perpetrators. Healing the people who've done the harm, because it's such a cycle, the, the rehabilitation of coming back, of having second chances to be a healthy sexual person again. And that's, it's so undeveloped and yeah, so again.
Alicia Davon:It's such a big deal because whoever, even if it's the perpetrator who's the teenage boy babysitter that just has hormones and he doesn't realize, I mean, it's not like he's completely oblivious, but I just think that so much responsibility has to be taken by the adults. Like for example, if you have, you're a man and you have a teenage daughter, and just knowing, okay, let me not alienate her but let me not exploit. It's natural to kind of know, oh wow, my daughter's developing, and ooh, I feel uncomfortable, and ooh, you know, but you have to deal with that as an adult. Or if you're an adult and you're hiring a babysitter for your kids. Just, okay, well, hormones are happening in certain aged kids and they don't really have that much control over themselves or somebody who might be considered a perpetrator like there's some education that they need. And at this young age, there's so much we can do as adults. So it really comes down to us. We have to be responsible for all of it because they don't know. I mean, little girls love to, to flirt and bat their eyes and look so cute and I have a friend one of our very best friends, and he has a daughter who's around my son's age. And like three years ago when his daughter was three, she would like take off her clothes and like, just like, you know, twerk in the mirror and be like, daddy, daddy watch me, watch me look at my butt watch me. And he's, I don't know what to do right now.
Leah Piper:right, right, right, right, right.
Alicia Davon:He's like, you look great sweetie. You look great. You know, like You're beautiful baby. But he is like, I'm so uncomfortable.
Leah Piper:Right, right, right, right. Yeah. Gosh. Yeah. I've got so many examples of that, and I it's like I want to preserve our sexual innocence no matter what age we are and so it's like how do we start having these conversations in the open so that we're not afraid to talk about them, because there's something about these feelings that are uncomfortable that we don't give a voice to, but we still feel that person's discomfort. And then there's some sort of projection or transference that happens that we make meaning out of. And so we mind read things that may or may not be happening versus, my dad just saying, Hey, you're changing. And I love you so much, and I feel protective of you, and I'm changing too, as I watch you change and I'm wrestling with my own feelings about it. And I just want you to know, like I'm going to probably not hug you quite as tight, but it doesn't mean that I love you any less. I'm just sorting out how I feel about you growing up and changing and becoming a woman it's so awkward for me, you know? And like
Alicia Davon:yes.
Leah Piper:that would've created intimacy.
Dr. Willow Brown:Oh my God.
Leah Piper:like helped me understand what was hepping with me
Dr. Willow Brown:Did you hear that? All dad's out there
Leah Piper:like a weird rejection, you know?
Dr. Willow Brown:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you can have the self-awareness and the presence enough to get to the root of like why you are acting differently based on how your teenager is developing, then yeah, communicate about it. Alicia, I bet you have an amazing free gift you want to give us.
Alicia Davon:I definitely do, and this is my favorite gift to give because my favorite thing to do is talk to people and listen about your sex lives and your relationships and what you want in them, and how we might be able to support you and what the Free Gift is a Love Life Consultation. So it is a free time for you and I to chat and really, whatever it is you want to ask me about.
Leah Piper:I love that.
Alicia Davon:sex life, I'm
Leah Piper:A love life conversation.
Alicia Davon:I know and if
Leah Piper:That sounds like a fabulous Yes.
Alicia Davon:Yeah. And then you know, if you want any support, I can tell you how we can support you.
Dr. Willow Brown:Love it. Yeah.
Leah Piper:Thank you so much for coming on and we know everyone's going to love your gift and we appreciate your time.
Alicia Davon:Yeah. Great to be with you ladies.
Dr. Willow Brown:love. We'll see you soon.
Announcer:Now, our favorite part, the dish.
Leah Piper:Dish a ree doo, dish a ree doo, dish, dish, dish, dish a ree doo,
Dr. Willow Brown:Sounds like a didgeridoo. Do you know I know how to play the didgeridoo? I can circularly read and everything.
Leah Piper:you, can you play it for arousal if you were to like do it over somebody's genitals or
Dr. Willow Brown:oh yeah, I
Leah Piper:saw that once. I was like, that looks hot.
Dr. Willow Brown:It is hot. I'll have to
Leah Piper:You know how to?
Dr. Willow Brown:Oh yeah, of
Leah Piper:Ah, I'm coming over. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Wow.
Dr. Willow Brown:we're getting distracted. We're talking about Alicia Devon in our interview with her. It was very
Leah Piper:There was no didgeridoos in the interview.
Dr. Willow Brown:you know, genital vibration was not part of the conversation. However, we did talk a lot about how, how to deal with the inner critic, how to stop the inner critic in its tracks, how to overcome shame, and even looked at, like, where shame shows up in a full range of sexuality from, you know, people who are going through their, you know, Their pubescence, their teenage years, all the way to us who are exploring our sexuality to the nth degree in this lifetime. And how we all stumble upon it. What'd you think of her? What'd you think of her conversation with us?
Leah Piper:I liked it. I think, I think it, it would, you know, I could just imagine going even deeper like over dinner, you know, and, and kind of, um, What's
Dr. Willow Brown:Having that girlfriend time.
Leah Piper:it's kind of like tossing the ball a little bit, uh, one of the things that I would have really piqued my curiosity was more about seeing it as medicine, the thing that you brought up. I could kind of tell that there, she had a perspective that was like, Maybe different from that, but I, I think when we can find meaning and purpose behind painful things, it can relieve us of, and give us understanding and help put it all into perspective. And sometimes just a change in perspective changes the belief system. So I think, um, I look forward to wrapping more on that. I just wanted to know what would, if you had said about that, had we had more time?
Dr. Willow Brown:you mean the, the medicine inside of shame? Well, I
Leah Piper:Or inside the inner critic, you know, cause one thing I was hungry for that I didn't get, which I want to get it now is, give it to me, Willow, is, um, you know, that inquiry, you know, your process for finding out what's underneath that.
Dr. Willow Brown:well, I use a somato emotional release work, which, you know, I originally learned through Upledger, through the Cranial Sacral Foundation. And it has morphed and changed into sort of my own thing over the years, but I always start by like, where do you feel shame in your body? You know, and oftentimes it's like here in the chest. And what does it cause your body to do? It causes my shoulders to round, it causes my breath to constrict, it causes my heart rate to constrict, and I feel like I want to hide, you know, and okay, so now we're, now we're starting, we've got this shame ball, that's this tight thing in the chest, and now we, we've identified where it's at, and we can start to massage it. Massage it apart, we can start to pull it apart. Okay, so let's go into the sensation. Do you see anything? Some people are very visual, so I'll ask'em, what do you see? You know, it's like, oh, I see this dark thing, or some people don't see anything at all. That's fine too. And then we'll start to take pieces of it. And let's say they see a dark ball and it's like, well, what is that dark ball? What does that dark ball want you to know?
Leah Piper:Okay, so you're really going for the subconscious, having them really get present with what they see, what they feel, what they sense, where is the energy. Okay, I love this.
Dr. Willow Brown:By the end then, and then, you know, they might say like, okay, this, this shame ball has been wanting me to know that, um, that I'm bad, that I'm wrong, that the way that I've acted is, is not okay. And the way that I am is not okay. You know, and it's like, okay, now we're getting somewhere. And, and then I'll ask them something like, Is that true? Is that really true? You know, and we'll start to question the belief system. And, you know, 5, 10, 15 minutes into this Samatha emotional release, I'll ask again. Anytime I get stuck or I don't know what to say next, I'll always ask, What's the sensation in your chest right now? And they will say, um, or if it just comes to that point in the conversation where it's like so much is cleared, I'll ask, What's the sensation in your chest right now? And they'll say, Oh, I, it feels lighter. It feels more open. My breath is more open and spacious. My heart rate feels better. Like everything has shifted. So it's amazing how, um, emotions like shame or grief or loss or regret, or these sort of downward spiraling emotions that we feel have such a strong effect on our Physical Soma, our physical cellular bodies. And I think it's, we, and I think that's one of the practices that Alicia was really talking to as well. It's like, we can get into a practice where we just don't even go into those downward spirals to begin with, but it takes some time to learn how to get out of them, um, before you can stop going down into them.
Leah Piper:experiment enough to make the choice to go, this really sucks and I got to do something about it, and then finding out what ends up working for you because I think that there's lots of strategies and it's just about you. You know, plain enough to find the thing that's going to work. Um, and I've tried a ton of strategies and I have to say most of them work.
Dr. Willow Brown:yeah, yeah,
Leah Piper:there's a lot of good stuff out there. There's a lot of things that, that, that can, um, move against the debilitating, um, Cycle of those inner thoughts that can just be cruel. It's so interesting. I also thought it was interesting just like, you know, I think I realized for the first time as we do this series on shame, that there's not going to be a lot of answers, right? It's so interesting. I don't know what I was thinking when I was thinking about imagining, reimagining shame, right? Like this whole theme and it really dawned on me like. While this may not give us a lot of answers, my hope is that it normalizes something. That there's something that we're, there are things that we're all afraid of. There are things that we never want to see happen to anybody. And in the middle of all that, there's all this innocence running around, right? Like, ah, yeah. So my heart feels, well, some of it feels risky too, I'll be honest with you. because in some ways works, works, we get a chance to explore. Like what we think is okay or what we think might be okay. And then I keep on getting this voice that goes, Oh my God, there's going to be someone who responds with outrage, right? So like with everything that gets kind of put on the table, I have an inner critic that is like a part of the gallery that represents outrage and wants to, um, know, come burn me at the stake from my old witch days.
Dr. Willow Brown:mm, yes,
Leah Piper:I just, I just noticed that there's, there's the, it's not stopping me from anything. In fact, I'm looking forward to even moving towards that and allowing outrage to be a teacher. If it appears,
Dr. Willow Brown:Yeah, if it appears.
Leah Piper:you know, I'm just really wanting to support this whole process as we do more work on shame on the show is just to go, wow, is it deep. It's a, it's a, it's a big one. And I think it's something we all have to live with. It's just how do we want to live with it? And at what point? You know, because even when I said like, well, there's got to be a purpose to shame, maybe we don't want to eradicate all of shame. You know, if somebody really hurt somebody, I mean, shouldn't someone who murders someone have some shame about they just took somebody's mom or they just killed somebody's son or daughter? I mean, do we really want to unburden shame from everybody? I think I would like to see everyone be unburdened. From shame even people who do horrible things after they've felt it for a while. I don't know See, it's like it's so tricky trying to like narrow down an opinion.
Dr. Willow Brown:Yeah,
Leah Piper:I don't so everyone I'm not narrowing down opinions I'm just exploring
Dr. Willow Brown:This is an exploration, yes. We're reimagining, and part of reimagining is exploring, because we're getting into unknown territory we don't know, so we're figuring it out
Leah Piper:So do you have any thoughts about that?
Dr. Willow Brown:Yeah, I
Leah Piper:arise for you around this whole series we're jumping into?
Dr. Willow Brown:Yeah, I do. You know, it's, I've had such a, a different, um, shame hasn't been a big, big part of my life. It was, I think, of course, when I was a teen, when I was younger. Um, but I've, I feel so far away from it at this point, but I did recently have a very deep, um, spiral. And it was like, wow, what an uncomfortable feeling and so, um, useful for me to really understand how so many people live in shame on such a consistent and regular basis. And to have, uh, just more visceral compassion for what they're going through, because it feels, it's a bit like depression. It feels like there's no way out. Like there is no way to stop this sensation in this body. And I
Leah Piper:Which is different than the inner critic.
Dr. Willow Brown:it is different. Yeah, yeah. The inner critic often is like, if you really listen to the voice of the inner critic, it usually has the same tone of voice as your mom or your dad, you
Leah Piper:And it says
Dr. Willow Brown:your primary caregiver. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Leah Piper:just a scared little kid. It
Dr. Willow Brown:Yeah. I think, um, also.
Leah Piper:you're right. It kind of feels like you don't have any control over it.
Dr. Willow Brown:Yeah, it feels like, because it is, that's the difference between guilt and shame, which Alicia spoke to, is like, shame is you thinking you are bad, rather than you did something bad. Yeah, guilt is like, oh, I did something wrong, or I did something bad, but shame is like, no, I am bad. So, I think there's this place where we, um, have the opportunity to, um, Get more in touch with our true essence so that that, cause this is very Chinese medicine, like bring in the good to push out the bad,
Leah Piper:love that. I think that's really such a brilliant Heartfelt intention. Yeah. Way to go Chinese medicine. Keep doing it. You keep giving us so much good gems. By the way, I got approval from my surgeon to have you work on my scars.
Dr. Willow Brown:Oh, okay. Good. Yes. We're going to needle lead us, leave
Leah Piper:we're going to needle my scars.
Dr. Willow Brown:Can't
Leah Piper:And I think that's it. Everybody, you know, everything.
Dr. Willow Brown:Yeah.
Leah Piper:Well, you know, some, you know, a little bit, you know what, you know, we love you and we'll catch you next time.
Dr. Willow Brown:Ciao for now.
Leah Piper:love, love.
Announcer:Thanks for tuning in. This episode was hosted by Tantric Sex Master Coach and Positive Psychology Facilitator, Leah Piper, as well as by Chinese and Functional Medicine Doctor and Taoist Sexology Teacher, Dr. Willow Brown. Don't forget, your comments, likes, subscribes, and suggestions matter. Let's realize this new world together.