Soul Joy: Ditch Burnout and Fall in Love with Life

Ignite Your Hot and Sexy Creativity

• Dr. Julie Merriman • Season 2 • Episode 1

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Step into a vibrant discussion on the importance of hot and sexy creativity in our lives as we explore its link to holistic wellness. Join me, Dr. Julie Merriman, as we dive into how embracing our sexuality can become a key component of sustainable self-care, strengthening relationships and boosting resilience against burnout. Through personal anecdotes and relatable insights, I share my journey of maintaining passion and connection in a long-term marriage, illustrating how playfulness and creativity can bring couples closer together.

We tackle the often-taboo topic of sexuality with directness and humor as we challenge the shame and societal constraints that keep many from discussing their desires and needs openly. By exploring activities designed to release shame, we guide listeners in reconnecting with their authentic selves, a necessary step to fully enjoying a fulfilling intimate life. The discussion extends into the psychological and hormonal benefits that hot and sexy creativity brings into everyday life, proving that a healthy sexual relationship goes well beyond the physical realm, impacting overall mental well-being.

As we conclude, I encourage each listener to embrace their inner creativity unapologetically and enjoy the myriad benefits of intimacy without shame. Ready to unlock your true potential? Subscribe today and join me as we continue uncovering pathways to soul joy!

Speaker 1:

Hey y'all, I'm Dr Julie Merriman and welcome to Soul Joy. Kind of excited about today's topic. Not gonna lie, I'm pretty passionate about the importance of it. So in today's episode, y'all, we're going to talk about hot and sexy creativity. This is a very necessary component of holistic, sustainable self-care, also known as wellness. Okay, so, hey, welcome to today's episode. That song just wants to play again. Welcome to today's episode. Song just wants to play again. Welcome to today's episode.

Speaker 1:

I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy day to tune in and spend a couple of minutes with me. So it's been a hot minute since I've visited with y'all. You know I took some time off at the holidays, a much needed and yummy break. Then, in all honesty, I just could not get my ass back in this chair, back to this microphone. But you know, really, I guess, when I think about it. Actually I got really busy with my day job as a program director for a counseling department at a university. I've been working on writing a K-Crip self-study If I have any counselor educators listening. Y'all knew what I'm talking about Got to get that department accredited Counselors that's a very important thing if you're in a counseling program. But blah, blah, blah got that done and I am back. So let me get you caught up on what's going on at the house here with the Merrimans.

Speaker 1:

Kelly, my beloved best friend and husband, got some really good news last week. Y'all so excited. His cancer is all gone, except for a couple of little bitty spots in his stomach, and the oncologist says those are shrinking with each PET scan. So that is phenomenal. Oh, oh oh. And my three goat yogas, goat yogas, yoga, goats had babies a couple of weeks ago, maybe about three weeks ago now. We had two sets of triplets and one set of quadruplets, so I've got 10 babies out there. Oh my heaven, they are pure heaven. I sit out there with all those babies and I watch them. It just brings complete joy. They crawl on me and sniff at me and the mamas come up and talk to me and the daddies. We had to put him separate from the. He's there with them, but there's a there's a separation. So he got a little rough with the babies but he is proud of them now and it is just pure joy. If you're ever in the area, look me up for Sunday Goat Yoga. We do meditation, mimosas and yoga and it is a really grounding day. So that's what's been going on with the Merrimans.

Speaker 1:

So okay, professional helpers, this podcast is dedicated to preventing and overcoming the occupational hazards of the career. We chose specifically burnout and compassion, fatigue and vicarious trauma. So that having been said, our topic today is hot and sexy creativity. Now, if you happen to have my book In Pursuit of Soul Joy, it's on around around I talk about this stuff on around page 44 in the book. If you don't have the book, please hop on over to my website, juliemerrimanphdcom or Amazon preferably my website and grab you a copy. It's well worth the 10 bucks.

Speaker 1:

But the topic is hot and sexy creativity and I'm going to give a real quick disclaimer. I'm going to get a little real in this episode, so it's going to be about a rated R episode. If you happen to be listening in the car or around some babies, you might put on a headset. We're going to talk real and honest about sexuality because we are sexual beings and we need to be comfortable with this. So y'all the Hubs and I, we've been together since 1992. Hot, creative sex has been our go-to ever since then. I smile when I think about our first few years, but I mean it still about our first few years, but I mean, it's still Hot. Creative sex has been our go-to and 34 years later, it still is.

Speaker 1:

Recently y'all around Christmas we thought we'd try to spice things up a bit and we joined a service that sends playful sex ideas and items each month. Playful sex ideas and items each month. And imagine, to our dismay as we've opened these boxes and read through the things they send We've got nothing new. There's been nothing like oh, we hadn't tried that. I mean there's nothing new. Oh, don't get me wrong, it's still fun to go through the boxes and play with the stuff. But we've been pretty adventurous over the years.

Speaker 1:

We're still crushing on each other after all these years 34 years, three and a half decades, years, three and a half decades we have made hot and sexy creativity a cornerstone of our relationship. In fact y'all, I cannot count the times strangers come up to us to comment on how sweet it is to see a couple, especially now in my 60s he's a little bit younger than I am, but he's still in his 50s to see a couple so in love with each other. And many ask us what our secret is. And again, I've got to tell you our secret is hot and sexy. Creativity, that's what our secret is. And keeping the relationship physical and respectful and bringing playfulness in and not being afraid to talk about sex. I mean every little thing. Talking about it. Who else am I going to talk to, except the man I've been married to for over 30 years? That is my partner. I mean you've got to talk to your partner years. That is my partner. I mean you got to talk to your partner Over the years, y'all over the years.

Speaker 1:

As a therapist, I've been stunned by the amount of couples that I've done, couples therapy with that are full of shame. They don't talk about sex, they don't look at each other naked, they don't feel comfy in their skins. Sex is something that just happens. They don't talk about it, they don't let each other know what they enjoy. And no wonder they're in marriage, counseling about looking at divorce because they have not taken advantage of this thing, this beautiful gift that God gave us. I think shame wrecks sex lives, and let me just underscore again sex is a gift from God.

Speaker 1:

Now you might be asking okay, merriman, good to know, interesting, but what in the Sam Hill, as my grandfather used to say, does this have to do with burnout Everything. Good sex with the one you love and adore makes the world's troubles melt away. To be snuggled up with my husband, to be snuggled up with my husband clothed or unclothed, to be held by that man makes me feel so safe, so secure, so loved. That's all I have to think about in that moment. So, plus y'all, with sex, so many wonderful hormones dump into your system. It gives you a complete boost. We have a completely amazing pharmaceutical company, if you will, within our body. If we're taking care of ourself, we're eating right, we're exercising, we're being hot and sexy, creative and taking advantage of the beautiful gift God gave us in sex, we will feel wonderful when we enjoy those hormones.

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Sex allows you to relax, it allows you to feel loved, it allows you to love, it allows you to purr, to be present in the moment and to feel completely alive. It's a necessary ingredient in holistic, sustainable self-care. Y'all, I could go on for days about this. I mean for days, because I believe this is an eminently important part of a healthy relationship. Sweet soul, if you're having troubles being comfortable in your skin, especially around sex, get with a good counselor. I know most of y'all already are counselors, but I spent two hours with mine last week. I mean we have to keep a counselor. If we're counselors, you deserve a fabulous sex life that is built on hot and sexy creativity. I'm really toying with, I'm not lying.

Speaker 1:

I've really been thinking about my next book being about living a hot and sexy life over 60. I keep hearing people talk about 60-year-olds and 70-year-olds, even 80-year-olds, like life has already passed by. But I promise all the things you enjoyed at 20 are happening at 60, except you have the life experience to freaking, do it right and really enjoy it. We are so very much alive and have so much life experience and y'all that makes sex even better. So remember, hot and sexy creativity in the bedroom is part of holistic, sustainable self-care, aka wellness.

Speaker 1:

So the activity for today, for today's podcast, is all about releasing shame, shame. I really think shame gets in the way of our hot and sexy creativity. That gets in the way of us really being able to enjoy our sex lives. Body shame, shame about being naked, shame about sex, shame about being naughty. Shame, shame, shame. It needs to go to the wayside Now. As I mentioned earlier, I talk about this a lot in my book In Pursuit of Soul Joy. So again, if you don't have one, go grab a copy. I go deep into inner child work and really this is needed for releasing the shame that I'm speaking of. For now I want you to create a timeline.

Speaker 1:

Go back to the first time you remember feeling shame For me. I can remember it vividly. My brother and sister were babysitting me. They're five and six years older. They had locked me out of the house and our back door had these little window panels probably 10 by 10 window panels, you know, made up the top of the door. That was glass. Anyway, they had locked me out and I was pounding on that glass panel and it broke and my hand got all cut and it freaked my siblings out and I guess they thought they were going to get in trouble. Anyway, they were like oh my God, you're going to be in trouble, you better run away. So I packed my little raggedy end suitcase and I go hide in the backyard. We had this big, big, big bush in the very corner of the backyard. It was my fort, it's where I'd play. Anyway, I went and hid in there, didn't come out for hours.

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When mom and dad finally found me, what I needed was a hug, but what I got was being made fun of and laughed at and I just felt really shamed. Now I'm not. If you read my book, it's my parents they're one. My mom and dad, my brother and sister are all wonderful people. They were not being mean, it's just. It's something. I experienced, it you know, and I'm not going to negate my feelings there. But anyway, that's my first experience of really feeling shame. So if I were doing this timeline, I would start there.

Speaker 1:

But on that timeline and once you mark the spot where you remember feeling shamed, I want you to look at the time prior to that, focus on that and then on that timeline, I want you to. Now you're working backwards, you're not working towards your age, you're working back from the time of feeling that shame. But I want you to mark the times where you felt joy, you felt whole, you felt playful. Zero sense. Whole, you felt playful, zero sense of being self-conscious, you were just fully yourself. Mark all of that on that timeline.

Speaker 1:

And once you're done, first I want you to be curious and go hmm, look at that, because it should be. For me that was probably around age probably eight, and so those first eight years I can look back and see that I felt very complete and whole and I was just me. I was honest. No shame in being me. I was just me, fully living me, living me. So I want you to think about that and once you've been curious about that, I want you to go to your journal and journal about how free you felt before that shaming grabbed you. Just you know, before all the world polluted, who you were. How did that feel? Write about that. So once you've done your journaling take some time, maybe.

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This is the next day, next week I want you to get a balloon, just a simple balloon. This is a deflated balloon, it's never been blown up and on a very small piece of paper I want you to basically write a message to shame. That's basically telling it to go to hell. I want you to release it. Just write whatever you need to write on that little piece of paper. And then I want you to roll up that little piece of paper and stuff it into that balloon and then blow up that balloon, tie it off and go outside and say out loud whatever you wrote on that balloon and release that balloon and just scream guttural. If you need to, whatever you need to do, just release. And then I want you to take a deep breath, stomp your feet on the ground, get very grounded and feel that confidence overtake you Feel that shame, leave your soul, and I want you to embrace your hot and sexy creativity.

Speaker 1:

Okay, that's it for today. Please subscribe to my email. All you have to do is go to my website, wwwjuliemerrimanphdcom and sign up, and I will send you a weekly email that also contains pdf with the activities that I share. And again, that's it for today. Please subscribe to my podcast. Wherever you listen, leave a review, and I'd love to hear from you. So until next time, take care of you.