LOVE + SEX + MONEY Connection with Madalaine Munro

Did you know your relationship to money is connected to love and intimacy? Today we're talking ALL about LOVE + SEX + MONEY with sexologist  Madalaine Munro.  We break down abundance mindset and share tips on how to upgrade your pleasure toolkit for better self-worth, security, and safety. Bring out your pens and papers! Class is in session baby! 

On this episode we cover

• sex, love & money
• abundance mindset
• attachment styles
• healing your nervous system
• self worth & deservingness
• money dynamics
• scarcity 
• security & safety 
• upgrading your pleasure

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Connect with Madalaine:

• madalainemunro.com
• @madalaine.munro

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Transcript

0:00

Music. Hello everybody and welcome back to the Bedside Podcast. You know what, I just need to say something really quick before we get into this episode today, which is that I have a. Homework assignment for everybody. And if you're not doing it already, I think this. Is the summer of summer bucket lists. I'm just gonna put it out there. I created a summer bucket list and yes, I put it on my Notion page because I want to make sure that I get to everything but I have been saying all year all these different things I've been really excited to get to do during the summertime and I want to make sure that I get them done and I want to make sure that they all live in one place and I don't forget to do them because sometimes you know when the weekend rolls around and you're like oh my god and like you have this like blank time and you're like what am I gonna do and then the weekend goes by and you're like what did I even do this weekend I want to make sure that doesn't happen all summer for us. So I am saying this is the season for making your summertime bucket list. I've actually been having so much fun doing it. I've roped my partner into it. We've got like a nice collaborative doc going. So just wanted to say that. Also after Jordan Scott's interview, I had her on the podcast a couple weeks ago, we talked about dating burnout. I have instilled surprise date night into my life and it is a game-changer. So keep that in mind as you are maybe building out your summer bucket list and if you haven't tuned into that episode already have a quick listen. It was so much fun to hear just this concept of keeping your dating life alive whether or not you're like newer in the dating scene, you're just like dating around, or you're in a longer-term. Relationship. I loved some of Jordan's advice and I have taken on surprise date night. It's been so much fun to do. Basically. Every month we reserve a date night that one of us is in charge of and we don't tell the other You. The plan until a couple hours before. We're just like a couple weeks or like a couple days in advance we'll be like reserved this day, surprise date night, that's all. That's all you get. So. That's really fun. It's been so that's been really fun and I highly recommend for everybody as we are deep in the throes of summertime which is the best. Anyways, so this week I've got Madeline Monroe on the podcast, and this is a really juicy episode. We are talking. All things sex, love, money, connection. We are diving into money attachment styles. Madeline is a trauma-informed sexologist and relationship therapist. She is very well versed in somatic attachment therapy, psychosexual somatic therapy, sexological body work, a lot of her work is based in yoga and Hatha yoga therapeutic remedies, and she also does Reiki, which it was just so amazing to have someone of this level of intuition on the podcast to talk all about these concepts because guess what? They are all related and interconnected, which you'll hear more about. So yes, we're talking sex love money, we are talking scarcity mindset, how to build security around all of your relationships, including your money dynamics and your relationship with money. And we get very deep into nervous system regulation. And we also touch on the subject of deservingness, because I think when it does come to all three things, sex, love, and money, a lot of us have deservingness, hang ups, worthiness, hang ups. So we unpack all of that on today's episode. I am really, really excited about this one. Please welcome Madeline Monroe to the Bedside Podcast. Music. Hi Madeline, welcome to the Bedside Podcast. I'm so excited to have you here today. Oh, hi Tatiana, thank you so much for having me on. Incredible. Okay, so I'm so excited to have you on. Also so magical to have you calling in from Bali. It just feels very like energetically aligned. I'm so pumped about this. Can you really briefly share with the audience just a quick introduction about who you are, what you do, what you're passionate about before we kind of dive into all these amazing topics we're going to delve into today. Thank you. Yes. So I'm Madeleine, somatic sexologist based between Europe and Bali. And I weave together different trainings in sexology, psychosexual somatic therapy, and attachment therapy. And this is where my passion has been evolving over the years of being a practitioner. And now I'm really interested in the energetics of the theory, the science between attachment, sex, love, money, and how our nervous system response to all of these areas. So these are the kind of the themes that I started to see emerge with practitioners and clients that I just love diving more into with clients. I feel like it all comes down to our nervous system. Oh my God. I can't wait. This is just going to be the juiciest episode. I'm curious to know, how did you even get started in unpacking these topics and getting interested in them? Was this a journey that you felt like you had to go through with yourself like in all of these themes of sex, love, money, and your nervous system. Absolutely. Oh my gosh, I love this question. Yeah. So I became a sexologist because I was super... I had fearful avoidant attachment style. So I wanted love, but I was afraid of love. And I was in my early 20s and I was actually contemplating becoming a nun. So I was living in Northern India, really avoidant with intimacy. Yeah. So the antithesis of where I am now, it's been such a wild journey, but I was just really shut down to love and pleasure. And then I was on a silent retreat, taking that next step to where I would settle down which. Monastery, which convent I would settle down in. And I met a guy and it just erupted into realizing where I was avoidant and then where I was avoidant with pleasure. And so that's where I got into more tantra and sexology and the pleasure side of stuff and realizing what I could feel in my body that I'd been afraid to feel or I couldn't feel. And then as I trained as a sexologist, I started training also other practitioners and working for a school as a teacher and a sexology school. And as I started to train other sexologists and supervise sexologists and build my own business and train as an attachment therapist, I noticed, hey, love, sex, and then also money are all related. I'm seeing the same patterns play out over and over again in these areas. And we think they're different, but it's just the same template, just mapped onto different areas of life. I love that and I think it's so interesting because I feel like we always try to, similar to I'm sure you feel this way about the body, but I feel like we're always kind of trying to pick out themes and pieces of our body in silos, like we're almost being like, okay, we're just going to focus on the mind or okay, we're just focusing on this one topic. And I love, I really appreciate when people bring the interconnectivity of all of these topics together because they are so deeply interconnected. And I think sometimes we view, a lot of things in the singular when there's so much more opportunity to view them in their plurality. Absolutely. Yes. And I think we lose so much when we view them in the singular. We're trying to single it down and find one solution or a fix. But actually when we zoom out and see how it's a tapestry, much like our body, like the interconnectedness, that's when I feel like we have a holistic overview of the different themes that are going on and that's how we can really create change, transformation. I love it. Okay. So tell me, let's get into it. Tell me about the interconnectivity of sex, of love and relationships and money. Can we kind of paint just an overview for anybody listening to get a better understanding of all these different components and how they're tied together? Perfect. Okay, so I'll try and simplify it around getting straight into some science because I love the science of sex. I feel like this hopefully can explain some key pieces of how they're so woven together is that when we are in our conscious actions, we are just able to choose what we want. However, when things may feel too much, our nervous system will switch to the autonomic nervous system. We have a window of presence where we can choose and we can feel. However, when things are too much, overwhelming for our system, it will go beyond our window of presence and will go into our ANS. Our prefrontal cortex in our brain goes offline. This is when we're triggered or activated. Then we go into our subconscious patterns. As I know you know from some of your episodes, how important the subconscious is. So we think of it in the mind, right? We think it's just in our brain, the subconscious, where actually those patterns are woven into our autonomic nervous system. So this is the bodily approach. So therefore, when we're beyond our window of presence, our window of tolerance, or we're triggered or activated, or even we're just reverting to patterns that we've grown up our whole life with. So how we are with our caregivers, how we were in childhood, these patterns will run the show in our nervous system, and then they'll run the show in adulthood. So what we're seeing here is if we bring it into sex and pleasure, what we may see is that I see a lot of teachings around orgasm around techniques and if you do a certain thing, then you'll experience an orgasm. Whereas if we look at it through the lens of the nervous system, if we can expand our window of presence within our body to feel. So there's no capacity to feel pleasure and pain, everything. If we can expand that window for ourselves and we can build the nervous system resilience, we can feel more pain, but we can also feel more pleasure. Therefore, when we're experiencing intimacy and pleasure within our systems, then we are more likely and can actually experience more of a downregulated place in. Parasympathetic nervous system, which equals surrender and bliss. Therefore, the more we regulate our nervous system, the more likely we are and more able we are to experience more expansive orgasms. This same concept goes on with love and money in a similar way. To simplify, it's like then the depth of the love that we feel is also down to how much our nervous system can hold and feel. So the same pieces with money, the more money we can hold, the more intimate we can be with money, the more money we can have, the more wealth we can have, depending on how much our nervous system can hold without being overwhelmed, without being triggered and then. Going into a trauma response. Oh my God, that was said so well and I love that you brought in the science and honestly I'm thinking of my own transformations that I've done and I found the the deeper that I've gone into healing and investigating things that I had long put behind closed doors. It was hard at first, like you said, it's painful and it can be hard. Be very, just like a lot, but at the other side of that, once you've desensitized that, once you've kind of dimmed the brightness of what that light felt like at one point in time, it almost has it completely expanded my threshold for bliss, for pleasure, for... It was crazy. I see it almost like as a visual. It's like this line that is just expanding on both sides, Like the capacity to hold that depth comes in all forms. And it's like, it's so enlivening. It's crazy. I mean, it's not easy. But it is like the most rewarding work when you really, really do that. Oh, absolutely. I love how you've described this. And I love how you can really feel into it from your own experience and how powerful that is. And you're so right. It's definitely not always easy. I compare it to almost my journey of being sober I feel like also when I stop numbing out with different substances or alcohol or addictions, the more I could feel in my body, then the more I could feel, then the difficult emotions are coming up, the shame, the regret, the remorse, the guilt, all these things I didn't want to feel, I'd put down through numbing. But then on the other side of that is the bliss, the happiness, the freedom, the excitement. So this journey of going through, and we can't really go around, we've got to feel it all so that we can feel everything. So I love how you've picked up on on this thing of it being a line, because I feel like sometimes people want a quick fix and just want to feel the great things, but actually our capacity to feel full body pleasure and expansion in life, I feel like it's the capacity to feel it all. Yes. Oh my God. There's so much there. And like, I feel like it was so funny because I mean, I'm just going to share some tidbits of my own experience and then we'll go back to kind of this larger topic. But I, in kind of my larger awakening, I would say, I felt like I had a big fear of like half living, being like, am I living to my full capacity? And I think a lot of people feel that, being like, am I stepping into my power? Am I stepping into the fullness of my life? And it was so funny because in unlocking that, it feels like it almost like quantum leapt me into this version of myself that I didn't even. Like knew was always there, but just couldn't even believe I was witnessing her coming to life when I started unraveling. It's so interesting. I just think so many people can connect to that message being like, am I actually truly fulfilled right now? There's more for me. Do you think it comes with that inquiry? Do you think we need to have that moment of inquiry being like, I think there's something more here? Yes, yes, yes. I am so resonating the experience and that's the exact question I had. That when I've gone through big transitions in my life of work or relationships or pleasure, it was that I think there's something more, but I feel like it's where at the beginning, at the bridge, we're on one side, and it's like a part of us is feeling unfulfilled, perhaps we're numbing out, perhaps we don't like that half-life, that something more, but on that one side of the bridge, we don't know what's on the other side. So it takes so much courage and faith and trust that there is something more, because at that point, we don't know. And I love this idea of quantum leaping, because this also feeds into this idea of how much can we feel in our resilience. Because I feel like this idea of quantum leaping can be like, oh, one day, everything is what we wanted. We just quantum leaped and everything was there. But what I've seen in my own life and in clients is that we actually expand our nervous system to receive everything we've wanted. And then one day, through that building, that resilience, the small work, the integration of the work, then we quantum leap into the life that we've we wanted, but we've actually been preparing for on a really subtle level through the feeling, through the work, through the reflection. Oh my God, this is feeling so good. I'm so excited about this. What I love is that you're right in that it is in the micro. Can you explain kind of what some of those practices around regulating your nervous system or what those like tangible pieces look like so people can kind of understand what that everyday feels like? Because I think sometimes we go at it and I actually wrote this down as one of my questions. I personally am someone who struggles with this like really hardworking mindset. And it's like, I think a lot of people struggle even like when they go to the gym, they're like, I wanna see results now, but it takes time. It takes that like build up and that dedication. So can you share maybe a bit around that process? Oh, so resonating with you as well. And I love your awareness around the mindset that you can have. So yeah, nervous system and the practices and the simple steps, the micro. So the way I see the nervous system is a lens, like a pair of glasses that we view the world with, right? But we often don't know that. So I say that the thoughts we're thinking are often the first sign to where our nervous system is. So for people, I ask them like, so what are you thinking right now? And does it feel like there's urgency there or does it feel like there's a lack of urgency? So if we look at the nervous system, an up regulation and down regulation. So there's speed up and speed down. And so if we're noticing. Like a speed in our thoughts, urgency, urgency, culture, then that can be a first sign that our nervous system is dysregulated. So we need to get things done now, there's not enough time. I'm not going to do everything I've wanted, it's all going to fall apart. This is showing us that ah, there's a bit of activation right now and actually that's likely like a small fight response or a flight response and these are the ways that the body is trying to regulate itself. So the thoughts are showing us this and then likely, then also similarly on the other hand, the downregulation is then wanting to collapse, wanting to numb out. Thoughts would be a fear of failure in terms of, but it's more that I am a failure. So we've got upregulation where it's like, I'm going to fail. I'm afraid of it coming. And then downregulation is, I am a failure. It's already happened. Therefore, I can't get that momentum to get out of bed or to do the things I want to do. So a first step for people is just noticing where their thoughts are. Does their feel and the speed of that thoughts. When I ask clients, it's like the quality of those thoughts, because that will tell us where we are in our nervous system if we imagine it on a scale. And then to know our nervous system is regulated, I ask clients, is it open and curious? And almost, is it playful? When it's regulated, it's like everything is possible, even if it's challenging. So it may feel like, oh, I want to work hard. I want success. And this feels doable for me. And I've got the energy and I'm doing it in a grounded way compared to that panic that can happen when I need to work hard and if I don't work hard it's all going to collapse around me, which would be. Dysregulation. So recognizing the thoughts and then coming into the body and noticing how the body feels and the speed of the body, that's what I tend to ask clients. How does it feel in terms of speed? Because that will tell you in terms of the gears of the nervous system whether to slow down. It's just like a car, you know? So if we're driving too fast, that's dysregulation and too slow can be dysregulation. So how can we find our cruise control and that's how we can feel into the speed of the body itself? That is so well put and like great analogies. I think it's amazing to suddenly, and I think what you're describing is coming out of autopilot and it's coming into your, into control. And into like deep awareness. So, I guess what I'm curious to know is... Where does this programming usually come from? Like, where does, how do we get on autopilot? A lot of us get there. I would argue almost all of us are on autopilot until we have some sort of awakening. Absolutely, yeah, totally. I really feel that we are. And that's where often the question comes of, is there more for me? You know, often until there's like crisis or awakening, like, is there, there's more. When everything's going right, autopilot's working, like, oh, this is so fine. This is perfect. So I would say it is down to our childhood. So I really, what I found after I trained in sexology and training in psychosexual somatic therapy is this much more niche look at developmental trauma. So did we get our needs met in childhood? Because that's going to shape how we are in adulthood. So if we look at this, if we, how we are as children, we can't turn away from our parents. So we can't put boundaries in with them. We can't say, I need X, Y, and Z. So instead, we moult to their needs. So we change, we adapt. And this is where it's embedded in our nervous systems over practice, zero to seven, generously zero to 14 years old, that if I'm this way in the world, then I'll be loved. That's really the question that's going on for us at that age. Then we carry that on in adulthood into autopilot. Okay, if I'm this, then I'll be successful. So if I need to be quiet when I was younger and not have any needs, then in my job, if I'm quiet, I don't have any needs, then I'll get the love and the success. So that's really where I see it coming from, a developmental need growing up. Yeah, that totally makes sense. I also wanted to ask you a bit about attachment styles. I know that you talk a lot about not only relationship attachment styles, but how that also translates to money attachment styles. So maybe you can even explain like your own scenario too, like what was your attachment style and then how have you worked to grow into your current style. Maybe – We'll start there. Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Yeah. So love this topic because I feel that it's not been fully mapped fully that, oh, we've got attachment styles and it's also going to play out with money. And I think once you see it, then it's so much more obvious. And so, yeah, for those that are listening, I know you've spoken about it before on the podcast, but the attachment style is like, how safe does it feel to have something that we want or we love or means something to us, close to us and then how do we act when it is close and how safe does it feel to have that as close to us as we want. And so there's different styles picked up from childhood. So what I noticed with money was my dominant pattern was I want more money but I'm also not good with money. I'm overspending, I'm not budgeting, I'm not taking the aligned action to have more money and then when I have more money, as I spoke about the window of presence, is actually triggering. It was triggering for me. I'd hold more money. I'd feel triggered. I would spend it. I would not budget it properly. I would even then at lower charge, I'd give things away for free, even though I didn't want to. Anything to almost come within my window of presence. And if we even simplify that further, say someone you're, what you can hold in your nervous system is a hundred thousand pounds. If you earn more than that, that made me. Feel triggering. And then you may, your system may protect itself through self-sabotaging. You know, how can it keep itself safe? How can it keep you in that cap of £100,000 or dollars? And therefore, anything above that is going to act out these patterns. So my pattern was fearful avoidant. So wanting it, so same with love, wanting it but then sabotaging it. And therefore I had to realize. Where is this coming from? What am I playing at? I'm really, as you said, feeling into going through. So feeling the shame, the guilt, looking at the money that I'd spent when I was in that flight or fight energy. So that flight, that trauma response of like, I just want to check out and I'm just going to spend money to numb my feelings and then coming into nervous system regulation with it to build that secure attachment with it as I would a person. I see. And what are the other, just so we can quickly recap for everybody, what are all the different attachment styles that there are and what are we like working toward? So we are working towards secure attachment. So that's how we feel grounded, regulated. We have trust. We feel open. We trust that money's going to come in. We trust ourselves with money and we trust how we spend money. Just as with a person, you know, there isn't that dysregulation with money. Yeah, there may be triggers or challenges come up, but we're really in this grounded place of, I trust you, I know you're there for me. I don't imagine a lot of people even ask, hey, do I trust money's there for me? Do I trust that money's got my back? And once we embody that, then more money comes in because we can allow ourselves to know that money loves us, money is here for us, and that we can trust ourselves with money. So this is a secure place. What this may look like practically is budgeting, tracking our spending when we want to, charging our worth, allowing ourselves to receive money, allowing ourselves to receive gifts and allowing ourselves to receive more. So we're seeing that the amount of money that we can hold grow over time in accordance to the way that we want it. And then when less money may come in, if there's economic circumstances, then we may feel the challenges and the fears and the wounds, but we're not going to. Be completely dysregulated over it. We have an emergency fund, perhaps we have. Other funds so we're prepared to deal with this and we're not taking it as a reflection of our own self-worth. So if we look at other attachment styles that are insecure, such as anxious, avoidant, dismissive or fearful, avoidant, when money may change, we may see that as a reflection of ourselves. But in a secure attachment, even if those changes are money, we don't see it as a reflection in, I'm a bad person, I'm wrong. We see it in a much more grounded and methodical approach. So, the other attachment styles would be anxious. So, there's someone with an anxious attachment style with money is panicking there's never going to be enough. In this like hand to mouth state, like even if we're earning more, we still end up paycheck to paycheck and we're not sure why. And this scarcity around it, there's never enough. It's just like with love, there's never enough. So with anxious attachment in love and relationships, no matter what someone else may say, if we're triggered and our anxious attachment somewhere came up, no matter how much reassurance they give us, it's not going to resolve our own fears in our system. It's the same with money. There's almost like never enough money because of our relationship to it. And then we have dismissive avoidant, which is where it's like we just may avoid it completely. So we don't want to look at our statements. We don't look at our budgeting. It's almost that we resent perhaps money. It's a cause of the problems in our life. It's a cause, maybe we'll even look at it as a cause of problems in society, and we don't even want money. Yet, we're struggling with that we want more, maybe that question of I want more in life, but also blaming money, not looking at it, not being in relationship with it. And then we also have fearful avoidant, which I spoke about, of the confusing place, also known as anxious avoidant, or disorganized attachment where we want more, but all our actions are almost doing something else. So that anxiousness of wanting more, but then the avoidance of, okay but I'm not going to take the action to do it because it doesn't feel safe to have more money. There's quite a lot of information there. Yeah. No, it's funny because as you were saying it, I was like, what are my attachment styles? And it's so funny because I actually weirdly, I don't know if you feel like you've heard, this before, but I weirdly feel like I see myself in a lot of those categories in micro ways. So I would say I'm actually like pretty unblocked around it, but it's funny because like there'll be a part of me that's very dismissive and like won't look at my account for a really long time. There's a part of me that's like, we'll kind of egregiously spend. I know all of us fall victim to this at some point in our lives where you're just like, oh my God, there's a surplus right now, like let me go buy a whole new wardrobe or something. It's interesting, and again, it's just not something we talk about. Money is so taboo, similar to the way that sex and relationships are. We only talk about this very surface layer of it and there's barely any even salary transparency in workplaces and all that sort of stuff. I know I just threw a lot at you as well, but I just think it's a very interesting concept to unpack. Yeah, yeah. This is where I love going to the concepts that aren't spoken about in society so much. That's why I feel like they're all related because they're bits that we have shame around or shatter around because they're not spoken about. Actually, we could be more unblocked in all of these areas and have more abundance, pleasure, bliss, love, if we were to tend to the pieces that often have shame and shadow with. And I love this piece that you mentioned around the micro, because this is telling me that there's a general secure attachment style. That I think is super common. So generally everything is secure, but there may be triggers that take us into certain patterns. So it's like everything is actually generally good, but just in relationship, are there maybe certain things of like, oh, a trigger came up and I'm going to either not look at my spending or I'm going to spend loads. And so that's so beautiful that you can even just see these really subtle ways in which this can come up for you. Yeah. And I think that's another key part that I love about this conversation is there might be some people listening who are like, yeah, I'm doing the work. I'm good. But there's always still layers to it that can be investigated and I think that's kind of exciting. I believe that once you start this sort of stuff, you get excited about eventually when you find little pockets that you can improve upon and kind of begin to unblock more because you just see how much you reap the benefits of it. But yeah, I just think it's so exciting. Where in your journey did you feel like you. Began to unblock money and relationships. Did you feel like you did it kind of in tandem at the same time or was there one thing that you tackled that you felt like then allowed you to get to the other thing? So this is where my journey may be a bit unique because I really went into my sexuality first. So I made a conscious effort after realizing, whoa, how could I be so avoidant in my life that I was willing to give up sex, love, community, all of this life to go into a life of being a nun that I thought, okay, I want to go all in and explore sexuality and see what there is there for me. What was I not looking at? And so I spent quite a few years going to different events, working with different people, coaches, workshops, retreats. And for me, what I noticed, yeah, the similar journey to, as I spoke about being sober, so I noticed that I, couldn't tap into my body, that I'd had challenges processing stuff, I'd come from a background of disordered eating when I was younger. So the more I could tend to my feelings and which addictions or crutches were there, then I noticed that I had deeper relationships. And then what fully unblocked of sexuality was when I could experience full body orgasms. And that was like a concept that I never knew was possible. So feeling this level of bliss as something that I didn't even know was there. Just blew my world open. So from that place, I thought, oh my gosh, I've had it all wrong. I didn't even know my body could be in this way. So I had that knowing. And then so this unblocked this area and it was like a massive surge of, whoa, this is it. This is what I can experience in life. And then as I grew and evolved, I worked more with money and business and other people in in that way. That's when I noticed where the cat was in a similar pattern with money. So it's almost just, yeah, sexuality first for me and then money. But again, it may be the other way around, but I feel like the theme is that once we experience that unblocking in one area. Then it's like, oh, okay, here we go. This can happen. I can cross the bridge to the other side in another area. Yes, yes, exactly. The first time you do it is so scary. You're so uncertain. It's usually a longer process. And the more and more you do it, you realize, oh, I've been here here before I've walked this walk, I've gone over this bridge and then it becomes more comfortable and like I said, it honestly becomes something that at one point I think you can get excited about doing even though it's tough work. But yeah, that's really interesting and I'm sure that once you had walked through the other side, you were able to kind of identify similar patterns in that category of money and then be like, okay, I see this is similar. Yeah. And so this would literally be that comparison between orgasm and money. Noticing when for me, I'd worked at really expanding my capacity to feel deeper, more expansive orgasms. And I was really working with different practitioners. And I remember at one point. Working with one of my teachers, and I was saying to him, I can't feel anymore. I literally can't. This is so insane. I'm going to explode that cap. And people may experience it in sex when it's like the orgasm feels too much. It's like, stop, I can't. This is so much sensation for me to hold. And then also then with money, it's like, wow, if I earn more, then is that going to feel too much to hold? So it's literally that same cap, that ceiling of feeling and what we can hold within our systems. I'm so curious about your process of this whole process of orgasming. What did that look like? If you were in an experience where you felt like it was too much to hold, like what was your way of navigating that? So I feel like acknowledging it was the first step because, and this is where I think it helped working with other teachers or coaches with it, because I feel like in partnered work, when we're with partners, sometimes there can be so much going on that it's like, it's almost like we don't even know it's too much. It's like, it can be like, oh, okay, okay, pause, stop, or where I was actually taking the time to look into it for myself in a deeper dive. I had the space to notice and kind of say out loud, this feels too much, like I'm feeling too much pleasure. And then when you hear yourself say that, it's like, oh my gosh, what? Like I'm feeling too much pleasure, oh my gosh. So then for me, that was acknowledging it. And then for me, it's so much around like the breath and being in the body and then noticing it and feeling that I'm taking that pause and to acknowledge, okay, this feels too much. Can I breathe into this? Can I expand this through my body? Can I notice how that feels? Pause, breathe, and then keep with it to expand it, like the breath, inhaling and exhaling to allow our bodies to expand, to feel more and more pleasure and sensation with that. Yeah, that reminds me a lot of just, even if you struggle with certain emotions, like anger or sadness or anxiety, and if you shy away, I think I've learned to sometimes lead in and just be like, It literally helps, like you said, to say it out loud. Even if I'm experiencing a deep feeling, I'll be like, this is a really big feeling. Like just labeling it as like, this is big. And just when I can say that, kind of just gives permission for it to be there. And yeah, I don't know. I just think that's such a great tool to share with people. I love this. Yeah, and this reminds of what we spoke about earlier around like childhood and how many times if we'd been given that position as a child or our parents have said, wow, what you're feeling is big. Like I hear what you're feeling, how that will build our capacity to be with bigger feelings, but often we're shut down and don't cry, be quiet and therefore pushing down our feelings. Yes, 100%. I think most people grew up with that dynamic of not being acknowledged for their feelings as a child and then just learning to suppress. And so I think it's a matter of allowing it to bubble and be and just be there instead of having to keep pushing it down. I think I'm curious to know about how we can begin to build security around our, relationship dynamics and our money dynamics. What does that look like? What does building security around it start out as besides the acknowledgement? I think we're at the acknowledgement piece and then what would you say is kind of that next step? Okay, beautiful. So here, I feel like it all begins with our relationship to ourself. So really, this is what's being mirrored in our relationship with love, sex, money, pleasure. It's our relationship to ourselves. So if we acknowledge, ah, triggers come up for me, then it's understanding what happens when we are triggered, what behavior patterns come out. So this is where I invite clients to notice what are the triggers in life? What brings up these responses? Where do they go when they're triggered? And then building a map. It's like a tapestry of all of our behavior because when we're triggered, our prefrontal cortex goes offline. We're not thinking consciously. Our ability to think, empathize, attune to situations is offline. We're literally in survival. So it's building a map of... What happens when this plays out. So as with relationships, noticing, ah, when I, so for example, with me, when I'm triggered, my dominant response is fawn. I'll be right into fawn. So then I have to notice, okay, if something arises, if conflict, if fawn is my dominant response and what this looks like for me, that I have this awareness going into situations to slow everything down and be aware of this. And it may look different for everyone, fawn, flight, freeze, it. But noticing that. So we've got the acknowledgement, awareness and then the embodied rewiring. And this is where it's in the micro that you've mentioned. If we've been this way for decades, it's not going to happen overnight. It's just noticing, building this tapestry of acknowledgement and awareness and then practicing and being kind to ourselves each time we perhaps go into the dominant pattern. Because remember these trauma responses, these patterns that. Wired into our nervous system are trying to keep us safe. It's literally our body trying to find safety in the best way it knows how through these ways. So therefore, when these come up, how can we love ourselves, be kind and almost nurture our inner child of like, I so see why you went into fight in that situation. I so see how you're trying to protect yourselves. So we're demystifying the shame because we may have an initial response of the trauma response and then we may have the cloud of shame of like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I acted that way, or this came up, you know. And so, nurturing the emotions that may come up around the response, and then in an embodied way rewiring the nervous system through daily practice, or practices often that feels doable for you, so that we're actually creating new neural pathways within our being, so that when these patterns show up, we're actually creating new patterns in our system. We're not, we're actually closing down those old systems to create new ways of being in our body. I love that so much. And like, I've dealt with a lot of anxiety myself and really worked through it. And it was crazy to understand my, I would say I've had fight or flight trauma responses of fawning, but I also realized that I'm someone who likes to like flee. I like, I'm like, I got to get out of here. And so it was really interesting in my own. You know even noticing it in in the present and in the micro moments where i'm like. Once I have the acknowledgment around it, I can kind of be like, oh, wow, there's a part of me that really just wants to go right now. Yes. Yeah. It was so funny. I was in the doctor's office yesterday, and I was just a little bit on edge for some reason. And I was like, wow, there's a part of me that I want to go. I want to ditch this appointment right now. I'm sitting there in the chair, but I'm ready to go. And I just really had to walk myself through it and be like. Like there's a part of me that there's some sort of fearfulness here and I acknowledge that. And like what I, I'm curious to get your perspective on this, but a practice that I've found really helpful has been around tapping into kind of what I've coined as my wiser self that can speak and that does speak to that inner child version of myself that is scared where I'm like kind of pep talking and cheerleading myself. And I kind of can get eye level and say like, hey, we can do this, we're fully capable of doing this. And it was really funny, because actually yesterday after I went to the doctor's office and it was a very minor, but it was just this kind of minor situation I had with myself. Afterwards, I had told myself in the doctor's office, I said, I promise you we can go get a donut at the donut shop across the street after this. Like, you know, and like really treating myself like, you know, I would a kid if I was bringing a kid to the doctor. So you'd be like, great, let's go get ice cream after. So it was just really a proud moment now that I'm reflecting on it, being like, it's exciting to tap into that resource that you can establish with that part of yourself. Oh yes, it sounds so nurturing. And it sounds like this process of reparenting, this real tending to reimagine the parts that are activated that want to go into these trauma responses often very young parts. And so, their way of creating safety is to go there. That's the way, the only way that they knew how is to flee, is to want to check out. And so, I love that you're bringing that wise part of yourself, that adult into the conversation and saying, okay, I hear you. I acknowledge you. And like, we're actually in this situation right now. We are safe. And I so hear you in this. And this reminds me of two things. One, just how the power of this in relationships and work with couples, of acknowledging the part, you know, know, when I work with couples in conflict of like, ah, because if. Of saying, hey, a part of me wants to leave, or a part of me wants to leave this conversation, a part of me wants to tell you to fuck off right now, and acknowledging that without making that the dominant story. And therefore, being with that rather than actually going with that fight response and going all out and actually acting out and be like, fuck you, X, Y, and Z. It's like, a part of me is so angry right now that I want to tell you to do this. However, that's letting that part be in the space rather than just pushing it away. And this reminds me of this question around that I invite people to come into a relationship with is, if money was a partner, if you're in relationship to money, if money was a lover, how would you be treating it? What comes up for you? Because this will often also show you your patterns and your ways of being with it in a deeper way when we look at it in that perspective of it also being a person and energy. Wow, I've never thought of it like that because it's like, the second you said, if money were a partner, how would you treat it? I'm like, oh, wow, I'd really nurture it. I'd probably put like, I'd have auto transfers going every day from one account to another account. Like there'd be a lot of movement and attention and just like maintenance. So it's – that is brilliant. I love that refrain. Oh, I love that. Yeah, it just – I think you put it in perspective, when we think about the energetics of money being neutral, and then actually it's through the lens of us that we're building that relationship with it. And often I see clients that may be struggling in their relationships and stuff, and then we bring money into the equation and they're like, oh my gosh, I also treat money as if a one night stand. And I just do something because then I never want to talk to them again. And I'm like, oh wow, so here we're seeing the themes, the same patterns showing up for you of when there's something that you need to be more intimate with and you want something closer to you of how you're actually behaving in relationship to it. Okay. So I'm kind of taking us, I guess, through all the phases. So once you kind of have... Brought awareness to it, our second step was about giving us love around it, accepting it. Where would you say that transformation really occurs? I mean, I guess transformation occurs in every step of the way, but where would you say kind of the next step leads you? Or is there a next step? Does it kind of look like the first two in a cycle? No, oh gosh, I so appreciate your questions. They're so beautiful. I love how this thread that you follow in bringing us back to this real clear step process for people. So yeah, so there's awareness, there's acknowledgement, and then it is this rewiring. So this is the embodied piece of the daily practices. And so this is where I'd notice if we have that tapestry of knowing on a mind level of this is what's going on with love, sex, and money, this is how I respond when triggered or overwhelmed, then it's noticing that sensation in your body and then tending to that first. So I invite people to really notice what the body needs first before tending to the topic. So for example, if we feel triggered around money and then we do our budgeting, we're likely going to be more triggered. We're going to be even more frantic around it because we've got that dysregulation in our nervous system. So therefore, we're going to take that to anything that we do, Same with love and sex. It's going to be that lens that we view anything and anything on the external may feel like a threat because we have that fight or flight within our system. So noticing, where's my body at right now? What am I feeling? What's experiencing? What's going on there on an experiential level? And then tending to that. So perhaps through resourcing. So this is a great practice with people of creating more embodied safety. So a resource is something that can help create that sense of safety and security for us in that moment. So either in the body, is there a part of the body that feels grounded? And safe that we can tap into, or is there an external resource? One of mine is the beach. I like when I'm feeling perhaps I'm like, oh, the ways of the beach. Okay, and I tune into that, or perhaps a certain landscape, or there's a person, or a guide, or a spirit guide to help us find a bit more regulation. So that resourcing practice. And so that can be a really great step when we're noticing a trigger. And then, so what we're doing is we're actually reprogramming the body to respond differently to things that may have triggered us in the past. So we're teaching it that, hey, you may have had this response, this trauma response in the past, but now when this is coming up, I'm going to create more safety to be with the intimate pieces here. So like you've spoken about our patterns of noticing these pieces that can come up and feel difficult and those challenges, it's letting the body know that it's safe to go to these places and therefore having this resourcing practice and then even further, so this may be tools of movement, breathwork, journaling, being with the and transforming these triggers so that our bodies create a different relationship with them and then they're no longer triggers in our system, they're no longer threats for us because we've befriended them. I love that. I love that so much. That is such a beautiful way of putting it in such a like bite-sized way. This feels so tangible. I think a lot of this work can sometimes feel very elusive and this just feels so concise and it makes so much sense. I know you mentioned a few resources and practices, but I would kind of love to talk a bit more about what those look like and maybe even some of your own practices around staying really grounded and kind of helping you to... Why are your nervous system in a way that works for you? So maybe we can share some of your practices and then maybe some things that you like to offer or prescribe to clients to try out as well. Oh, beautiful. So, yeah, so this is where with the nervous system, there's not a blanket all approach to if you're feeling dysregulated, use this. And this is something I can see, where it's actually almost, it can oversimplify it. So if we use the analogy, the idea of a car, again, so here we're noticing if you're feeling like you're going too fast and you're upregulated in your sympathetic response, you will need a different type of tool than if you're in your parasympathetic response and you feel like you're going too slow. So you're a car stuck in the mud, or perhaps you're a car stuck going downhill without a brake. So noticing what speed you're at first and then using the right tools, because if we're using a tool that is to help slow us down, but we're already feeling more freezy and we're already feeling more parasympathetic, it's gonna take us farther into that place. So just inviting that body awareness first. And so for me, if I'm feeling a lot of speed, so I'm sympathetic dominant, I'm feeling upregulated, just that feeling like that car going downhill with no brake then I know that my body needs to slow down. And the thoughts that I may be thinking are like, I don't have enough time, I'm messing things up. I'm panicking, so I'm noticing my thoughts are related to my nervous system, and okay, so I need to bring my nervous system in, I need to down-regulate it into my window of tolerance, my window of presence. So that's why I'm looking for things to slow down. So this is where I've been looking at breath work, where perhaps a small, a short inhale, so it's a psychological breath, so a short inhale. And then a long exhale with a sound. Ah. Ah, and I'm finding that inhaling and then a longer exhale and a sigh, ah, and inviting that pause and that slowness into my body. So that's one tool that I would use. And another tool I would use is perhaps grounding into my body. So if I'm feeling speed, I'd use my hands. So touch is really beautiful and important help rewire our bodies and in a way that perhaps if our mind's going too fast. So I bring a touch to perhaps my shoulders, my arms, or any part of my body that may feel like it's tingly, or it feels as an anxiety feeling that bringing that actual body touch to it. So teaching it that there's like slowness and there's safety here, even if it feels like there's anxiety there. So reprogramming it on a somatic level and. A final one would be, also if there's speed, is that we can put our hands, so we can either perhaps do our feet into the ground, or I also invite clients to put hands on the wall and pushing the pressure into these parts, into these solid surfaces. So pushing, so now I'm doing it with my feet on this call with you, and it's like pushing that pressure into the ground. So this is the speed in our body is meeting that solid surface and it's giving it like some tension to find that grounding against. Because often it can feel like perhaps we're in free fall and we're like, oh my gosh, that car's going down the hill with no brake. Where's the ground? So it's like allowing our body to feel that ground by consciously putting our body, pushing with our hands or our feet against a solid surface to almost allow that energy to dissipate. So all these tools are inviting the body to slow down. Does this make sense with these tools? Yes, no, it completely tracks. And I just think it's so smart to consider what tools you need for the circumstances you need. Because, and I almost was thinking like, I've done this before in the past where I've just like written down. And I usually write this usually around my pleasure practices. But I think it would be so beneficial to almost like write down tools that work for you and things that you like to go to even when you're not in like a fight or flight. Like I said, just things that you enjoy to do as reminders. But this feels so beneficial because I feel like a lot of people can be in situations where maybe they're having a reaction and they're like, oh my gosh, I need to meditate. I need to be calm right now. And it's almost like, whoa, that is just not the tool that is going to work for you at that moment. And everything works differently for other people. But the worst is, and I think a lot of people turn off to things like meditation, because they're like, oh my God, but it was the tool that wasn't meeting them at the right nervous system spot. Oh, this, I love these tapped into this. I was actually just creating some posts around this yesterday. And this is coming from someone, I started Vipassana silent meditation since I was 19. And so I was a full all in, I was like, this is the way silent retreats, I can sit in stillness, I need to do a program. And actually, if we are in sudden nervous system states, meditation may feel like the worst thing to meet that sensation in our body. It may not be right. I would not recommend meditation for everyone as a prescription, even though it may feel like a tool that may help calm our mind over time. If your nervousness is dysregulated, meditation may just add more agitation to it and actually to meet the speed in the system. So if we look at that fight or flight in the system, if we sit down, that might. Not actually be meeting that trauma on our body. So that's where if we're using our hands against the surface, if we're using our breath, we're meeting that speed, that trauma that's arisen and allowing it to complete in our system and actually resolving in the moment rather than almost ignoring it. And I'm a big advocate for meditation. I do it every day. But it's like, if there's a trigger arising, is this actually the right tool? I love it. I once had a therapist tell me when I was dealing with panic attacks early on, and I didn't know what was happening. I told him, I was like, well, I, you know, I'm trying to go lie down and relax. And he said to me, he was like, I actually need to tell you. That's probably the worst thing you could do. What you need to do. He's like, you're in fight or flight. You, your body thinks it's running from a tiger. He was like, he's like, the best thing to do is like go on a walk or like yeah he was like go play tennis like go go match that energy somewhere else and let it complete in its system instead of I was really I was literally meeting an emotion with the wrong tool and it was so crazy just having that That quick switch helped me so much. Yeah, yeah, and I love that tool around walking because I feel like actually walking is such a great tool. And like I said earlier, I was talking about the tools to help if there's speed, walking is a great one and how it allows you to fulfill that perhaps that flight response. I'm actually moving my body. So my trauma, the ANS, the autonomic nervous system wants to run away and I get to allow it to complete the trauma within my system by actually moving my body in this way and then it's actually tending to that piece. Yeah, such a good tool. I love that. Oh my God, wow. I could talk to you about so many different things. I feel like we're just scratching the surface in the best way possible, but I just thank you so much for really walking us through this practice and sharing so much about attachment styles and really ways that we can begin to work with our nervous system to regulate it because I know we all can just use a little bit more of that. So I just wanna thank you so much for sharing that. My last question for you, and I love to end the show on this question, but I would love to know what is currently hanging out on your bedside table? Okay, on my bedside table, my journal, and I've actually got some beautiful magnesium spray right now on my, yeah, that's what I've been really using is magnesium spray, and then some beautiful coconut oil for, I know people have different references for coconut oil, but I tend to keep that for my bedside table as well. I try to keep it quite clear so that it's a clear mind before bed. I love it. Oh, that's amazing. And for anybody who has, you've piqued their interest, they're wanting to walk through some of this unraveling and this unprogramming around sex and love and money, what is your kind of like quick hit advice for anybody listening who just wants a little dose of inspiration around this. I think it comes back to the question that you shared earlier, is there more for me? And so inviting anyone that may have queries or have challenges in these areas and providing. That reassurance that there is more for you. From someone that's been through the depths and not felt any pleasure in my body, felt totally avoidant in love, struggled with money, there. Is more for you. There is so more for you and you're here to have everything that you want in this lifetime. And I really believe that. Oh, thank you so much, Madeline. This is such a beautiful conversation. I'm so appreciative of you coming on the show and we'll definitely have to have you back at some point soon. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, such a joy and so grateful for your really insightful questions. Yeah, it's such a joy to be here. Thank you so, so much. Amazing. And lastly, I guess just share with listeners where they can connect with you online. If you have any sort of offerings where they can kind kind of peek around, drop all of those details. Perfect, so yeah, madeleine.munro on Instagram. My website is madeleinemunro. That's the two main places I've started getting on TikTok. Are you on TikTok? I'm just like scratching the surface of TikTok, yes. I'm just understanding it. Yeah, so I've just started on TikTok. We'll see how it goes. Yeah, YouTube, just really typing in my name tends to come up with quite a few results. But yeah, just definitely check out my website. I've got lots of free resources. This is what I really love to create, like how you have with your podcast. How much access and information can we give people so that everyone, people have the tools to create that change in their daily lives? I love it. Thank you so much. I'll drop everything in the show notes for everybody to go check out, but thanks so much for joining us today. Oh, thank you. Thanks so much for having me. All right, bye everyone. Music. I hope you loved this episode as much as we did making it. If you have any feedback, questions, or suggestions for future episodes, or if you just want to chat, don't hesitate to reach out to us at The Bedside on Instagram and TheBedside.co online. You can also find us at ByTheBedside on TikTok. To stay updated on our latest episodes, be sure to subscribe to our podcast on your preferred platform and if you found this episode valuable, I would so greatly appreciate if you could leave us a rating, a review, text it to a friend, share it to your Instagram stories. Let's get this message out there loud and clear. Until next time, thank you so much for tuning in and I'll see you in the next one. Music.