[00:00:00] Casey: I love the fact that we sit here and talk about the comparisons of sex and death and how they're discussed within a household because they fall along the same lines. It boils down to the fact that people don't know how to talk about and we're never taught how to talk about it. 

[00:00:15] Jill: Welcome back to Seeing Death Clearly.

[00:00:17] I'm your host, Jill McClennen, a death doula, and end of life coach. My conversations with my guest aim to challenge your preconceived notions about death, dying grief, and life itself. I hope to encourage you to think beyond the boundaries of what you believe to be true. In this episode, my guest is Dr.Casey Sanders.

[00:00:33] Dr. Casey and I tackle the issue of avoiding important discussions with children and adults around two taboo topics in our culture, sex and death. Like with some of my previous guests, we highlight the importance of starting age appropriate conversations early on with children. This way we can establish a foundation of trust and open communication.

[00:00:55] The conversation does not include sexually explicit content. We talk more about promoting healthy conversations with our loved ones. Thank you for joining us in this conversation today. I have a special guest, Dr. Casey, and we're going to talk about two of my favorite subjects, sex and Death. So welcome to the podcast.

[00:01:13] Thank you so much for coming on.

[00:01:15] Casey: Hey, happy to be here. And coincidentally, two of my favorite subjects as well, so I'm pretty sure we're gonna jive on that. Perfect. 

[00:01:21] Jill: And you know, just a short little disclaimer, this is not going to be a sexual conversation. It's really more to talk about the way that society.

[00:01:31] Does not have healthy conversations with adults and children about sex and death. So most of us have grown up, basically never talking to our parents about either subject. Maybe learning a little bit about both of them in school, very awkwardly at best. And I think it's a really important conversation, especially now that I'm a parent, that we need to have these conversations with our children.

[00:01:57] And it's still even uncomfortable for me to talk about sex with grown adults. Mm-hmm. So trying to have that conversation with my children. We're getting there. We've leaned into some resources that we could find, and I just think it's an important conversation. So I'm super excited to talk to you. Good.

[00:02:14] I'm happy to be here. Can you just tell us a little bit about yourself, maybe where you grew up, if you wanna say how old you are, what religion you were raised, anything that'll kind of set us up for where your beliefs about both sex and death maybe came from? 

[00:02:27] Casey: Yes, absolutely. I'd be happy to talk about it.

[00:02:30] So I'll start off, we'll break this into two areas. We'll talk about sex and we'll talk about death. And this is all my personal narrative about my experiences. Correct. So I, I'm 35 years old by profession. I'm a chiropractor. I've been doing that for the last seven years. I am a native here in Fort Worth, Texas.

[00:02:48] So anybody listening could probably get on board with understanding that I come from a fairly conservative background in terms of, of family. Religion, various things like that, including views on death. So, We'll start with that before I, I break off into the entire opposite direction that I've come to be at this point.

[00:03:08] Entirely opposite end of the spectrum. I grew up in a household that didn't really talk that much about sex or death. All of the stuff that I learned whenever I was younger was, you know me up at. Two, three in the morning with my finger on the back button watching real sex on H B O, right? So that was my instructor.

[00:03:26] I'm sitting here learning from like Dr. Ruth. I'm sitting here learning from, from various shows on H B O, where I, I'm getting this idea of what sex looks like in the world. Until I talked to you, actually, I didn't realize that it was almost hand in hand with what I learned about death Growing up. Growing up as a native Texan, everything that I learned about death came from the lens of Christianity.

[00:03:50] I am not a Christian, so like sidebar, I am not a Christian. Whatsoever, but that's the way that I grew up. I grew up with a father who was Southern Baptist. I grew up with a mother who was a Catholic, went to Catholic school. You know, all, a lot of her stories were centralized around how the nuns treated them throughout their school days.

[00:04:10] So I, I had both ends of the spectrum in terms of, of Christianity, right? And so that was my upbringing in terms of. Of the religious lens. Now, if we relate that to death, how do we talk about death? Whenever I was growing up, probably much in the same way that most other households confront death, they don't do a good job of it.

[00:04:33] A child asks you what happens after you die? What are you supposed to tell them? I don't know, because the truth is like, do you, you don't know. And it's very, very hard to, to relay that message. I can't even fathom just how large of an idea that might be. So I, I grew up in a household that was all about like, behave, do your thing, keep your head down and be successful and, and be nice to people and you're gonna.

[00:04:57] Enter some pearly gates and they're gonna play your life back for you, and you're gonna be told that everything's great and everybody's gonna have a mansion. That we're all gonna have a party after you die. So my experience with, with death growing up up until a certain age was told that that's what death is about.

[00:05:12] It was always about what happens after you die, not how to deal with death that occurs outside of yourself. Right. It wasn't until I was in elementary school, I was in fourth grade that I had my first brush with what death looks like through the eyes, or, well, not through the eyes of, but as seen through my perspective of happening to somebody else.

[00:05:35] I had a, a close friend of mine, another friend of ours passed away within his home. It was, it was a very, very messy ordeal. It involved an unlocked gun closet. It involved an accidental homicide. It involved a lot behind it. And I remember after it occurred not really comprehending what had just happened.

[00:05:56] And we, you know, went to the funeral and we sat down and we're hearing like, you know, green day's time of your life, good riddance playing in the background and. Biggie and Puff Daddy playing in the background as, as this whole thing is going on. And I remember that like super well. That was my first experience with the way that death really works.

[00:06:14] Not for the person crossing over or going wherever they may go, but for the people that are left behind. So that being my first experience with death was an intense feeling and one that I didn't know how to handle. Yeah, I love the fact that we sit here and talk about. The comparisons of sex and death and how they're discussed within a household because they fall along the same lines.

[00:06:38] I know that was a very long-winded explanation to get to where I'm trying to get right now, but it was the, it's the point being is that they fall right along the same lines, and I think it boils down to the fact that people don't know how to talk about it and we're never taught how to talk about it.

[00:06:53] It's almost just like, Hey, you can read this one book on how to handle it and you can read this other book. About how to, well, what pleasure and sex is, and those are your options. Have fun and good luck. I, I feel like that's where society has really been pushed towards and it's people like you and I that are trying to change that, that are trying to really show people that there's a different way to view things and that it doesn't have to be doom and gloom, and it doesn't have to be unknown, and it doesn't have to be this experience of a lonely road that you travel down.

[00:07:28] You know what I'm saying? 

[00:07:29] Jill: Yes, and that was a wonderful introduction. You definitely touched on a lot of the things that I was gonna ask you about anyway. And I don't know if you listened to my first episode that my husband and I recorded, he grew up down south. He grew up in Florida. I'm from New Jersey originally.

[00:07:46] So like guns weren't part of my, guns weren't part of my existence really. I mean, I knew a few people that hunted. Mm-hmm. I really had never even seen a gun up close until I was an adult. But one of the things that him and I talked about on our episode was how he's really good at always asking parents of children that, like our friends are starting to become friendly with if there's guns in the house.

[00:08:12] Because it happens more often than people really want to admit that children get ahold of them. They're curious. Unfortunately people get killed that way. Usually another child that they're hanging out with. My husband's really good at having that conversation. And there's that uncomfortableness though where for me, the thought of even asking a parent if there was a gun in the house makes me feel really uncomfortable.

[00:08:41] I'm afraid I don't know what to say. I'm afraid of what they're gonna think. What they're gonna say. Yeah. So I leave the conversation to him. But it really, again, goes a lot with our discomfort in talking about things when it's like it's conversations that we need to have. We have to start having them. We need to get over the discomfort and part of.

[00:09:03] Getting over it. First off, listening to other people, have the conversations, which is why I know both of us have podcasts, because mm-hmm People get to hear us having conversations about it, which makes it a little bit easier for them to potentially start the conversation with a loved one. And when you were talking, I was thinking, I made a little note about abstinence culture.

[00:09:23] Yeah. And it really goes very much with sex and death in the sense of if we don't talk about it, it won't happen. Yeah. You know, let's, let's just say avoid at all costs. Exactly. Just, just avoid sex. Just, just stay away from sex and then, then that'll solve all of our problems. Which again, they also oftentimes won't even say sex.

[00:09:41] You know, like there's the like weird words that people will use for it when they're talking to children and we know that not talking about sex is not going to stop children from having it, right? Most teenagers are experimenting if nothing else, and. Not talking about death isn't going to make us not die.

[00:10:04] I mean, we're going to die eventually.

[00:10:05] Casey: Right? Yeah. You have a very, very unavoidable, unavoidable thing that we're dealing with and we just kind of push to the wayside. It's a later, it's a later you problem, right?

[00:10:14] Jill: Yes, and that's a great point is that there's the idea that if we just kind of hold off talking about it, I mean, I'll talk to people that are in their like eighties and they'll say to me, oh, I don't need to think about that yet.

[00:10:28] I'm like, really? Really because I'm in my forties and it's really important for me to have this conversation, especially with my husband and even with my children, in that if anything were to happen to me because people do die in their forties. I mean, people die at any age. I'm sure even at 35, you're starting to probably notice.

[00:10:49] Mm. But especially in my forties, I'm noticing more and more people my age are dying from all types of different things, and so we need to have these conversations. 

[00:10:59] Casey: Yes, yes. We take solace in the fact that the law of a averages states that we're going to be likely dying whenever we're older, so people take comfort in that.

[00:11:08] Anyway, that's the same mentality. Whatever we're dealing with, anything in life, whether it be addiction or whether it be sex or anything else. Well, that wouldn't happen to me. That's not gonna happen to me because it often happens to this group whenever it comes to death, that group that are over a certain age, and so no, why would we have to worry about it right now?

[00:11:26] We're delivered that message over and over again. Don't worry about it right now. It's a later you problem. Yeah, so it's, it's super important to have those conversations throughout life. I, I personally think that you should be exploring all of these, what some people would consider taboo topics, just to get yourself better acquainted, because the longer you have to really study them and dive into them, the more equipped, the more well equipped you're gonna be as it gets closer to help not only yourself, but to help those around you as well.

[00:11:57] Jill: Yes, and starting when people are young, having the conversations, it makes it so that by the time you are older, it's not uncomfortable because you've just been having the conversation. And we started. With pets where we dog sit and we had a dog that died. And yeah, it was really difficult to tell our children that this dog had died.

[00:12:20] We all love the dog, but we all cried together. And then we talked about our favorite memories with this one particular dog. And it is uncomfortable sometimes as you're moving through it, but it's gonna be uncomfortable anyway when you have to face death. It's going to be really, really uncomfortable if you've never had a conversation about it.

[00:12:39] Yeah. So you might as well start now with a little bit of discomfort and have the conversations that you need to have so that this way over time it will be easier. Not that it's ever easy when you face death, but still sad. But it will definitely be easier if we start having the conversations sooner than later.

[00:12:58] Casey: Yeah, absolutely. I 100% agree with you on that. Like, I think that part of the difficulty of having those conversations that people experience is that how are you supposed to. Instruct someone on a concept that you yourself could never really hope to understand. We wanna under like, don't get me wrong, we wanna understand these things.

[00:13:19] We yearn to understand. But the only thing that we can really understand about death is coping with the loss of someone. It's like crossing over the horizon of a black hole. We can see what goes on. We can predict what goes on on the outside, but we don't know, and there's no, at this point, hope of us knowing what goes on.

[00:13:41] Once we cross that threshold, the most we can do is explain through the lens of our faith. Or whatever ideals that we have clung to. And I, and I think that that creates an issue whenever discussing these topics with a younger generation, because now I'm gonna sit back and say, well, how, how am I supposed to tell you what's going on and help you cope with what's going on when I, myself am trying to figure this whole thing out?

[00:14:06] So it's conversations that should be had and it's conversations that should be had in a way that. Allows you to, to help someone else feel better than you do about it. That's what I think. 

[00:14:19] Jill: Yeah. And often the conversations, if they ever are being had, are focused more on the afterwards of somebody died.

[00:14:29] This is maybe a little bit about grief, but we don't see the reality of what death actually looks like. Yeah. And again, most people, when they learn about death, just like learning about sex. It's from a movie, it's from a TV show. It's from something that's not reality, it's entertainment. It's made to look a specific way so that it's entertaining.

[00:14:54] The first time I was with somebody that was actively dying, it does not look like it does in television. Mm-hmm. But we don't ever have these conversations. We're so far removed from it, and even now, if I go in and I sit with a family, I will sit right next to the person that's dying as close as I can.

[00:15:14] I'll rest my hand on their shoulder. On their hand. Sometimes even like very gently on their chest. The family is as far away as they could be. They're like literally all the way across the room because they're so just unsure of what's happening and they're so disconnected from the realities of the experience.

[00:15:32] And it's unfortunate because. It's a time when you can be so close and so intimate with somebody that you love in a way that you can't any other time. I mean, even for me sitting with clients, you know, I kind of had commented once on, I don't know, on my TikTok or something, that I find it interesting that I will touch somebody that is dying.

[00:15:58] I more often than I'll touch people that are living. Mm-hmm. Because I have this like wall between me, especially men, because of different traumas throughout my life, I pretty much will keep people at a distance. I'm not a big hugger. My husband hugs everybody. Me. I'm like, Nope. You can stay over there. I will shake your hand.

[00:16:19] That's about as close as I want you to get to me. Mm. But yet when somebody is dying, I could take that wall down and I can really be very close to them and very intimate with them in a way that I wouldn't normally. And I think it's a beautiful experience and people can do that with their loved ones if they were prepared.

[00:16:40] Yes. But when you're not prepared for it, it is just so overwhelming because you're like, what is happening? This doesn't look like it does in movies. Well, no. Right. Of course. It doesn't look like it does in movies, so it's an unfortunate. Loss, I think for people, and I think it could help a lot with grief if we were to be able to get that close with somebody and have those moments with them as they're dying.

[00:17:06] It'll help us when we're grieving them. Yeah. Rather than avoiding the whole situation because we're scared and we're overwhelmed, and it's just different.

[00:17:18] Casey: That's part of the process, right? You know, we talk about this in relationships all the time. How are you supposed to love someone else if you don't love yourself or if you're not prepared to emotionally process things for yourself?

[00:17:30] So, from my perspective of what you're saying, you're, you're in a room where somebody's dying their, their family's against the wall and they're uncomfortable. And it stems from just exactly what you were saying. They don't know how to handle it, so they are not able to be there for the loved one, the member of their family or whoever it is that's about to pass because they're sitting back in a high anxiety, you know, fight or flight state.

[00:17:56] Because they are not sure how to emotionally process what's happening in front of them. This is not something that happens to them all the time. It's not something they're used to. It's not something they're comfortable with. It's not something they've exposed themselves to. So they're in this whole new state, they just walked into a room full of people they don't know, and they're being a wallflower.

[00:18:14] Like they don't know what to do. And so I, I love the fact that. You know, people like you are around to help guide people towards that. Like, look, here's what you could expect. Here's, here's maybe a bit of better, better idea of what, what's going to happen. Because that can potentially allow them to move from that state of being pushed against the wall walls up into being more accepting, enabling, and empowering them really to being with the member of their family or their tribe who's about to pass.

[00:18:45] Jill: Empowerment's a really great word for it. And the first time I really kind of used that word empowerment, for me it was around sex. Because again, with having sexual trauma, I. I really felt like I had completely lost my power in my existence, essentially as a human in the world. And so that idea of empowerment to me was just about kind of getting that safety back in my body and feeling like I'm in control of the situation.

[00:19:19] And that allowed me to heal a lot of the old wounding. Yeah. And with death, when somebody is faced with it, it's a lot of old wounding that's also coming up. It's not just the death of the person that you're witnessing. It's past grief that you probably had not ever processed, and not just grief from the death of maybe you know, your grandfather when you were a child.

[00:19:43] We really should grieve a lot of things throughout our lives that we don't grieve, including relationships that have ended. Yeah, and even losses of jobs or moving away from your childhood home. Those are all things that we should grieve and we're just almost shamed out of grieving them. In our culture.

[00:20:04] And so when we're facing the death of a loved one, all of that old grief is gonna come up. And then you put us in a room with potentially other people that we're holding grudges against because you know, you've got your family around, and as much as we all love our family, there's still a lot of the like, well, of course mom liked you better, or You got this thing when we were five and I didn't get it.

[00:20:29] And so all of this stuff is gonna start to come up, and we're not given the tools of how to work with this pain and this grief and this shame and all the other stuff that comes up. And that just adds to the discomfort around somebody dying that you potentially love. Or in some cases, I mean, I've even talked to people that there's a sense of relief when maybe their abuser is dying.

[00:20:59] And what do you do with that? You know, there's again that shame of like, well, actually I'm kind of relieved that this person's dying. Yeah. But you can't say that out loud to people because they will totally judge you and potentially you've never told anybody about the abuse. So, 

[00:21:13] Casey: yes. Oh, that's, see that, oh, see, that's something that I love the fact that you even say that because that hadn't even crossed my mind of being like, Personally i'd, I'd be sitting back going, oh, okay.

[00:21:24] Wow. Somebody that, that did me wrong on such, if it was like a level of abuse and very serious, then I would 100% be the person that's like, I'm glad this is happening. Am I gonna go to a funeral and, you know, try to tap dance on a coffin? No, I'm not gonna do that, but I am, I am going to have this sense of relief and probably have a smile on my face.

[00:21:43] That's just the way, that's just the way that I see death. I think one of the important things to note about, Me here as we're moving forward is that I don't have a traditional view on what death is and how people experience it. So I, I think that whenever it comes to somebody that might be determinedly deserving of it, based upon my own judgments, I probably would be the person that's sitting if I am forced to go to the funeral, to sit back and kind of have a little smirk on my face and be like, Hey, you know, I'm happy that this is happening.

[00:22:17] That's just that, that's just the way that it falls. And, and again, I, I want to like stress that out. I understand that's not a way that a lot of people see death. It's not. I'm also the person that if a family member close to me passes away, I'm the one that's gonna be like, Hey, what band should we have play at the funeral?

[00:22:32] I myself have it written into all of my documents that like, I want like a jazz chorus. Well, I want it to be like a New Orleans funeral, right. I want to be like marched down the road. I wanna have parties, I wanna have drinks. I want to have people like cheering and happy. That's all I care about. I don't want to be sitting around in a dull, dark room, dressed in a suit, sitting in a coffin that's open with people just grieving and being sad.

[00:22:56] I want them to be happy. I want them to be like this. It's an achievement. It's a rite of passage. It's something that everyone goes through and that the time that we get there is a time to celebrate. Like, we celebrate birthdays. Right. But I, I think that we should celebrate the, the death of a person in such a way that honors their memory, that that makes everyone around just feel elated with how they're passed.

[00:23:19] Jill: In an ideal world, we definitely would do that. 

[00:23:21] Casey: Yeah. In an ideal world, right? 

[00:23:23] Jill: Yeah. And hopefully we're moving more in that direction. There's definitely more people. Celebrating life. Even having parties before they die, maybe they find out they have a terminal illness and you know, as the moment of their death gets closer and closer, they actually end up having that party to celebrate their life while they're still alive.

[00:23:45] And I think that's amazing. Yeah. So often you'll see, you know, the memes or it says something along the lines of why wait until somebody's funeral to say all these nice things about them. Mm-hmm. That they're not even gonna hear. Yeah, and it's true. You go to funerals and everybody says these things and you're like, oh, but did you actually tell the person while they were still alive?

[00:24:06] That you thought they were so amazing, or did you tell them that story of how, you know, maybe they changed your life and it's something that they might not even remember, but you remember it? Yeah. We need to say these things now. I think most people appreciate it, even though I have gotten some weird looks from people when I'm like, I'm gonna tell you a story from when we were in high school and you said this thing, and it like, and they're like, okay, sure, whatever.

[00:24:30] But I don't care because now I want to do that. I don't wanna. Wait until somebody dies and think to myself, wow, I really should have told them how much they meant to me. Yeah. 

[00:24:39] Casey: Because at that point, like I, I don't wanna sound grass or anything here, cuz at that point are, are you doing it for the person that passed?

[00:24:46] Are you doing it for yourself? Yeah. Are you doing it for the people that are sitting in that room? Yeah. You're, you're going up in front of people and, and maybe telling a story about how they, they affected you. And I get it. On one hand, we're trying to evoke happy memories in other people. I've read eulogies before, I've spoken at funerals before, and it always seems to be the same thing as, as I'm sitting down with the week leading up to the funeral and thinking about what I'm gonna say.

[00:25:10] It always occurs to me of being like, this person's not here to hear these things. So am I doing this because I want to. Evoke some sense of clarity and, and like feel good in myself. Or am I doing this because I'm trying to get other people in the room to be a little bit more happy and accepting the fact that this is going on by honoring a memory?

[00:25:32] Like, but what is the real reason that I'm actually sitting back and saying these things and with this person that has passed, why didn't I talk to them about this sooner? Like why? Why did I never sit down with this person? I guess a little sidebar is that I lost my best, my absolute best closest friend from the time we were in fourth grade up through high school, lived together in college.

[00:25:50] I lost him in 2016. I got up in front of everybody at the funeral and I remember like writing everything beforehand and thinking that same thing. I was like, man, why did I not tell? Talked to him about some of these stories earlier. We shared good times. We had, we even had a falling out at one point, but like, why did we not talk about this sooner?

[00:26:09] Why did I wait until now? Why was it this whole thing of why am I just now reflecting upon this relationship after a great loss? Even if it was sudden, why am I reflecting upon my, my relationships in such a way that like this event needed to occur for me to dive this deep into it shouldn't be doing that with my relationships now, the ones that at least matter to me.

[00:26:30] So 

[00:26:31] Jill: yes, we should definitely be doing that now with the people that mean a lot to us, but that gets us. Into that space of the uncomfortable conversations, especially when it's members of the same sex, where there's still those kind of, I don't even know if that would fall in the realm of taboos, but there's just those like norms where, you know, especially men to men.

[00:26:56] Mm-hmm. You know, you're not gonna say like, Hey, you know what? I love you so much. It means so much to have you in my life. Because what are they gonna think? Like, Hey, are you hitting on me? Yeah. Or you know, like, so we don't say those things. And for me, when it comes to. Members of the same sex. I have a lot of, I would say in some cases, trauma from relationships that I've had with female friends and it's, you know, something that I think about a lot when I think about the connection between sex and death in that women, we are essentially trained to compete with each other.

[00:27:35] Well, why are we trained to compete with each other? Well, we need to be the most appealing to the men around us. That the man chooses me and not her. Well, why does it matter if he chooses me and not her? Well, because if he chooses me, then I'm potentially guaranteed that I will be taken care of, that I will be safe, that I will have a protector, that I will have the money, that I'll have all these things that I need to have to survive.

[00:28:01] Where if I don't get chosen by a man, I'm just gonna like waste away. And no, logically I don't believe that inside of myself, but that doesn't mean that that's not what society is. Yes. Putting in our heads. 

[00:28:14] Casey: Yes. That is the message I. That is, that tends to be the message. 

[00:28:16] Jill: Totally. It's a terrible message.

[00:28:18] Yeah. But it is totally the message, and that's even the thing with like having to look as young as possible. Mm-hmm. At all times. For women, the older we get, the less attractive we're seen by men, and that means that our man going to leave us for a younger, more attractive female. And so we. Women tend to be very catty and very vicious towards each other.

[00:28:42] Mm-hmm. So for me to be vulnerable with a woman that I meet and be like, wow, you know, I really like you. Like, I really feel like we've got a connection even eventually being like, I really love you. It puts me in a space of vulnerability because then I've had it happen where then they flip on me and all of a sudden if there's any sense of there having to be some type of competition, it gets really ugly.

[00:29:10] Yeah. And so I will fully admit that I do not. Put myself in the space to say to people things that I genuinely want to say to them because I'm afraid of, well, that, that'll expose me to being hurt. 

[00:29:26] Casey: So that, that feeling like you kind of always have to have some sort of wall up. Correct. Yeah. That's one of the stigmas that we try to break on on our podcast, Cum With KC podcast is we, this is not the view of everybody, but our view is that traditional gender roles should be reimagined.

[00:29:45] We go through this whole thing where the role of the man, there's healthy masculinity being you and yourself and resting in your energy, but we don't see it as black and white. We don't see it as masculine and feminine. We see it as all people are able to experience all spectrums of this energy, the masculine, the feminine, and balance it out in any way that they're comfortable doing it.

[00:30:08] I personally tell my friends, male, female, everything is like, Hey, I just wanna let you know I care about you. I think you're an amazing person. I try to do that often. That's one thing, actually, me and my wife, were sitting at lunch today, earlier. We're going over our, our tasks that we've assigned ourselves at each other for the week and being like, Hey, have you texted your people today to let them know that you're thinking about them?

[00:30:28] Just doing a check-in with 'em? How are those relationships going? So we try to make it a, a big point in me like, The conversation of masculinity is not one. Where I would be really great in, in terms of being that extreme, I find myself bordering in between, like switching back and forth between masculine and feminine in terms of my characteristics on an emotional level often.

[00:30:51] So I personally view it as with your relationships, you should be able to be vulnerable, and it is on me, it's on my myself to make myself vulnerable. And if somebody in that process betrays me, that's not on me. That's a choice that they made. That's a choice that they made to try and swoop in and take my promotion, take my girlfriend, take my, you know, opportunity, whatever it is.

[00:31:17] And if they do that and they succeed, you know what? Am I gonna feel it and be angry and frustrated? Yes I am, but I'm also gonna seek other opportunities. That's probably a very important thing for people to start understanding, is that it's not about making yourself the most. Appealing to a certain person, it's how can you make yourself the most appealing to yourself.

[00:31:40] If you're able to do that, if you're able to break through these barriers and learn to love yourself and become unified with your own inner person, then that's just going to project into the world with such a high energy that's gonna be blinding to those that are seeking to destroy you. 

[00:31:56] Jill: My husband and I do not fall into the typical gender stereotypical roles by any means, and that's partially why we're such a good match for each other.

[00:32:06] That's why we've always been such a good match for each other. And I've even had, usually men say to me, oh, I see who wears the pants and in this relationship. And I'm like, what the, what does that mean? And it really irks me. But again, he's the one that is more of a hugger. He's more of that like warm, welcoming that people typically expect from the female in the relationship.

[00:32:30] Mm-hmm. Uh, when I first met him, I was young-ish, you know, I think I was 21 when I met him. But even at that point, I had already decided that I would rather be single and by myself for the rest of my life than be with somebody like most of the men that I had met. And it made me sad. It made me sad that I had to.

[00:32:53] Potentially be something that I wasn't, and I tried. There was relationships I was in where I tried to be something that I wasn't to make them happy and again to make them want to stay with me and it didn't work for me. So I was really happy when I met my husband and he just, Was very different than all of the men I had met before him.

[00:33:14] And part of it is that we don't fall into those typical roles. And actually when we met in college, there was a lot of people there were like, oh, he's gay, he just doesn't know it yet. And I was like, I don't think so. Cuz we were really good friends before we started dating. And I was like, if he was gay, he would tell me like, I know he's not a, he wouldn't be ashamed of it.

[00:33:33] Like yeah, but because he didn't fit that very masculine, you know what? People viewed as masculine, well then he had to be gay cuz he couldn't just be a straight man that didn't walk around acting like a bro all the time and Yeah, exactly Right. Yeah. And you know, it's, it's interesting to raise children now and.

[00:33:54] Watch some of the way that our daughter is nine, our son is 12, and there's definitely times when our daughter is very obviously being influenced by the culture and some of the ways that she'll say things and some of the things that you know, she does and the clothes she wants to wear and like all these things and.

[00:34:15] It's frustrating and it also scares me a little bit because I don't want her to end up in a place where she feels like she needs to do certain things and act certain ways. To get the love that she wants. And I'm hoping, because my husband and I are so open and honest and we have the conversations that that won't be the case, but, oh, we can't, she's not me.

[00:34:40] I can't control her. So, yeah. 

[00:34:42] Casey: Well, I firmly believe that it's, it, we might go back to that word, empowering. It's empowering her to make those choices if you can take a child, because again, I have a 14 year old and a nine year old, and the biggest ideal is we work hard to instill in our children is that if they can learn to love themselves and have that, that confident attitude towards themselves, it's not about walking into a room with confidence.

[00:35:07] It's not about overpowering people with dominance. It's about being powerful at your own skin. And if you can have the confidence in yourself, if you can build that love for yourself, doesn't matter what you come up against, you're going to overcome it. I, I think that's probably the most important thing that we try to teach our, our children is that it's not about walking in and, and how do you handle what this person said and how do you, you know, react.

[00:35:33] It's not about the reaction. It's about how thick is your armor? How much have you built yourself up? How much confidence have you instilled in yourself, and how sure are you of yourself to get this thing done? Then again, it doesn't matter what anyone throws at you, what sort of, you know, betrayals or anything else, you will be powerful enough to grieve it.

[00:35:54] And overcome it. 

[00:35:55] Jill: Yes. Grieving the, again, loss of friendships mm-hmm. Is really important. I mean, I think, honestly, I've probably grieved harder over the loss of some female friendships than I have over, you know, like romantic relationships that have ended. And it's important that we honor those griefs. And I hope with my children that when they are faced with things that are not, Ideal that they can come to me and they could talk to me about it.

[00:36:25] That again, we could have those uncomfortable conversations because I know, again, as a woman in the world, there's a good chance that unfortunately she will have some type of sexual trauma. Yeah. I'm hoping that she can avoid it, but realistically, probably not. But if she can feel comfortable coming to me.

[00:36:49] And saying to me like, Hey, this really. Basically shitty thing happened to me and I can have a conversation with her and help her work through it. Then she hopefully won't be as traumatized by it. Yeah, because for me, I had apologized to my husband when we first met and I was like, I am really sorry for the damage.

[00:37:09] That you didn't do, but you're essentially paying for. Because it was true, it was not his fault, but it's not like I could just make these traumas go away. Right. And be like, Nope, everything's all better. Because now I have somebody that's really kind and caring and he loves me very much. Yeah. And I didn't know how to process these things within myself until I got older and it took a lot of work.

[00:37:33] But if I would've been able to process them when they happen, you know, big things and little things, then maybe I would've been able to not be quite so guarded and so damaged, essentially for quite a few years. Yeah. And that's what I'm hoping with my children, that they'll feel comfortable coming to me, that even if it's a really uncomfortable conversation.

[00:37:54] That I will be able to hold that space and be there for them and then again, empower them to work through it and then show up in the world and be better for it in the sense of like they worked through it and now they can be stronger than they maybe were before. But I still, fingers crossed, and I'm not a praying person, but there's still part of me that sometimes is like, please God, don't let anything terrible happen to them.

[00:38:19] Like just, just please. 

[00:38:22] Casey: Yeah. Preparing them with the, these tools, these weapons, the tool of consent, the tool of comfortability. The tool of foresight is best you can get. Even if something bad does happen, something traumatic does occur. I feel in my heart of hearts that if they come across something and they're well prepared for it, even if something does happen, they'll be in a better state to heal from it.

[00:38:46] Then holding onto the trauma deep down for the next 20, 30, 40 years or beyond. If they're able to understand that they did everything in their power and realize that perhaps what happened was not within their control at all, they could begin to forgive themselves. In the first place that something like that happened to understand that they were not responsible for what happened, and maybe what occurred was something that was entirely outside of their control.

[00:39:15] No matter how much they might beat themselves up for it or tell themselves that it was had they just left 10 minutes earlier or, you know, done something a little bit differently that perhaps that wouldn't have occurred. Those are all hypotheticals that they had really in the moment. No chance to affect.

[00:39:33] So by forgiving themselves for anything that might have happened, they're able to heal from it as opposed to just replaying over and over and holding onto the resentment and the anger that comes along with those types of traumas. 

[00:39:44] Jill: The same reaction comes from sexual trauma as well as people dying.

[00:39:50] Mm-hmm. You know, how often do people blame themselves? Yeah. Or, oh, if I would have maybe called them earlier or talked to them, or if I would've maybe picked them up rather than letting them drive whatever else it is. Mm-hmm. We run through this guilt and this shame and this like abusing ourselves essentially over these things, when really in the long run, I mean, it's life.

[00:40:15] It's, we can't control all of the little bits of life. Even if we want to, we can only control how we react to it. And having those healthy tools really makes a huge difference. I mean, I know for sure it makes a difference. Absolutely. Yeah, so we are actually getting close on time. Okay. It was a great conversation, which I love that when like I get carried away and I'm talking, I'm talking, and then I look at the time and I'm like, oh wow.

[00:40:41] Most time to wrap it up. Those are the best ones to have. Oh, totally. They really are because then it's a real genuine connection. It's a real conversation, and I appreciate these types of conversations. So tell us again what's the name of your podcast is? Yeah. And is there any other, I don't know, you want people to follow you on Instagram, whatever it is you tell us.

[00:41:02] Casey: Yeah, for sure. You know it, it's funny cuz you, earlier you were like, tell us your background and what you're doing and I just like went off and running and didn't even think to talk. Like it didn't even cross my mind talking about all this. So I appreciate that. So the podcast that me and my wife Kari have is called Cum With KC.

[00:41:16] We are essentially here to help bridge the gap between monogamous or polyamorous couples who have experienced this kind of vanilla sexual reality and bridge that gap between the world of, of kink, between and the world of sexual exploration and liberation, and doing it in a way that's safe and easy. So we take the conversations and just kind of meet them in the middle.

[00:41:41] So we'll have people that we're talking to who are very, like, you know, we, we have sex often, we have a decent sex life, but it's fairly vanilla. Which vanilla's fine if that's what you're into, but if you're starting to want to explore a little bit further, we help make the relationship occur between those people.

[00:41:58] And then the world of kink, whether that be in the, in the sense of polyamory or B D S M. Or literally any topic that you can come across. We have instructional that we do. We have conversations with everyone from Dungeon Masters to PhDs, right? So it's all over the place. So that podcast has come with kc.

[00:42:19] We're currently on our second season. I think we're about four episodes, five episodes in at this point. And we've had some really, really good guests. Which occur every two weeks on the guest side, but we have a new episode every week. You can find us on Instagram at Cum With KC, Cum With KC letter K, letter C.

[00:42:36] You can email us, CumwithKC gmail.com and very, very soon you'll be able to find us on a few other areas as well. But the last one would be YouTube. We've now, we're now posting all of our stuff onto our YouTube channel, so come with Casey as well. Make sure to go over there and subscribe. You'll get access to a lot of our information.

[00:42:55] As we move forward, and we have some amazing things coming down the tube for everybody, including a couple of workshops coming up, those are not ready to be released yet. So you're hearing it first. And then lastly, we have a number of. Online classes, courses that we'll be offering in about the next six months.

[00:43:12] Jill: That's amazing. I will put a link to all of that in my show notes and by the time this comes out, definitely check out their information because these classes and workshops might be up already. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking the time today. 

[00:43:29] Casey: Of course, happy to be on. I'm happy to be on anytime. I'll make it happen anytime you want me on here. 

[00:43:33] Jill: Thank you for listening to this episode of Seeing Death Clearly. My guest next week is Narayani Gaia, Narayani and I talk about the death of her partner and the lessons she learned about healing. Through the grieving process. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or family member who might find it interesting.

[00:43:51] Your support in spreading the podcast is greatly appreciated. Please consider subscribing on your favorite podcast platform and leaving a five star review. Your positive feedback helps recommend the podcast to others. The podcast also offers a paid subscription feature that allows you to financially support the show.

[00:44:07] Your contribution will help keep the podcast advertisement free. Whether your donation is large or small, every amount is valuable. I sincerely appreciate all of you for listening to the show and supporting me in any way you can. You can find a link in the show notes to subscribe to the paid monthly subscription, as well as a link to my Venmo if you prefer to make a one-time contribution.

[00:44:28] Thank you and I look forward to seeing you in next week's episode of Seeing Death Clearly.