(00:00) [Music] I’m Dr Kelly Brogan you may know me as a New York Times best-selling author of a book with an exploding pill on the cover Renegade psychiatrist pull dancer or honorary member of the disinformation Dozen what can I say I’m a born provocator I’ve spent most of my recent life exposing deceptions connecting dots and discovering the secret places my inner victim is still waiting to be liberated and now I feel called to help you reclaim all of your parts your health your sexuality your power and your expression so that you can finally
(00:41) truly own yourself I want to ignite in you that inner knowing and the pulsing Vitality that lives beneath your disempowerment disconnection and resentment so that you can audaciously courageously and playfully alchemize your struggle into the specific pleasure of Who You Are this is Reclamation radio hi and welcome back to Reclamation radio I am Dr Kelly Brogan and what I love about my containers is that the women I attract always have some audacious questions to ask me so it’s my intention for the musings that I share
(01:18) on these topics to grow the permission field of what’s possible and also to offer relatable reframes that can Jailbreak you from your victim stories so you might notice that I’m a bit more familiar and free when I’m answering these questions in our private spaces so take a listen and I hope you’ll take the opportunity to submit your questions to me in my membership vital life [Music] project this question is from Mary I’ve been with an amazing man for almost six years and we’ve both been married before but the idea of getting married again
(01:52) doesn’t appeal to us he is supportive and generous and he has helped me raise my two children I’m also wildly attracted to him and we have an amazing sex life yet I also have the feeling does he love me enough verbal affirmations are not his love language and I should be okay with that because I’ve had many men who told me that they love me and the relationship was horrible I have anxious attachment though that is under control it’s more of an existential question am I lovable enough am I good enough or is this just
(02:23) part of the human experience to have some level of self-doubt yes it is part of the human experience and I would say that your lack of interest in marriage and this question have a strong relationship and so I’m going to pait what might be I don’t know like a little triggering I don’t know you’re a big girl so I know you can handle it so perspective that is like percolating inside of me and I’m going to point you also in the direction of a couple of resources so what is the point of having this kind of relationship right we
(02:57) talked about a little bit earlier if the intention and the goal is to cultivate intimacy to alleviate existential aloneness and I don’t know in your case maybe it’s to to have experiences of ecstatic sexual Union and erotic experience together maybe it’s to experience tribe right and and family that that sense of belonging I would encourage anyone who is in a relationship or looking for a relationship to get clear on what they imagine comes available from and through that relationship that they cannot have just on their own right so whatever is
(03:37) available through that relationship if it is something that you are transactionally getting then there is going to probably be a performative pressure so in the relationships that I’ve been in my performer as I call it although I have many I have like at least three major parts that are performer responsible right one’s responsible for how I look physically like in of beauty and attractiveness uh ones that are responsible for how unique and interesting I am and audite I sound at any given moment ones that are
(04:07) responsible for my wit and flutatious energy and like Charisma and then ones that are responsible for my like you know spiritual gravitas I mean it’s just like it’s exhausting it’s like exhausting circus of like Regulators inside of me and we all have this and we have brought these performers into relationship and the performer is necessarily focused on the other other but not in a devotional way in a neurotic way in a way that is meeting a need that can be updated and met in a totally different way the safety and
(04:42) protection and sense of self-possession that you can confer to yourself can really allow that performance to relax and no longer be necessary so recognizing that the performer is an intimacy sabotaging part is important because it means that you can’t attune to you and as a woman in the relationship that’s actually your job in my opinion of course like in polarity Dynamics like you are responsible for attuning inward to you when you are let’s say in a submissive position with a dominant man in a sexual scene the
(05:19) submissive is responsible for attuning to themselves and channeling and expressing whatever it is that they are feeling that’s actually their number one responsibility if that submissive is focused on the experience of the Dom the contract is broken right the polarity is Disturbed and what might otherwise be possible in terms of you know Flow State and Transcendence is no longer the Ecstasy is not available so if your job is attuned to you and your experience if you’re in the performer trying to read and strategize and guess how pleasing
(05:56) you are to your mate now obviously this is natural okay and and we’re here to mature this so if you’re out there in his business you are not only not experiencing the actual relationship as is happening so what the is the point but you’re actually interfering with your role and therefore what is possible through the relationship now I would make the argument that absent marriage it is very very difficult to cultivate the containment and the sense of investment and Devotion to you know what’s sometimes called the egregor to the
(06:36) third entity to the marriage right that becomes possible when you commit in that way when you commit in that way you are both devoted to the marriage theoretically anyway right so you are remember what I said earlier now you are fundamentally on the same team it is the end of victim Consciousness possibly because when close all of the doors and you know that this person is not of course they do I’ve been divorced twice like you know that this person is not leaving if you close all of the doors then you can actually be
(07:10) transparent then you can actually show who you are then the performer can relax because the person isn’t leaving if you know that they could just assess you in real time judge you and peace out at any moment of course you’re not going to be real of course you’re not going to be transparent and of course your performer is going to be active so you know I am a big believer I recorded a podcast called Reclamation of courtship I highly recommend Rabbi Manis fredman’s work he has a couple books he’s got a ton of
(07:39) YouTubes and a course even that I’ve done and uh I don’t agree you know with all his stuff which is true about pretty much anyone I mention that’s going to be true but I I’m very good at at cating and and picking and choosing like the aspects that I do and he’s really helped me to understand what I didn’t understand when I engaged in legal marriage for I just did another interview by popular demand with Omar Pon that’s going to come out soon also on the subject of sacred marriage and he calls it the seven chakra marriage and
(08:10) there is so much potential here in your union and I’m not saying like oh you should both think about it however just have compassion for what it is that you’re dealing with as a as a symptom of the lack of marriage right like as a symptom of the lack of that level of commitment and the closing of those doors it’s very very challenging to allow your performer to relax in those circumstances and that’s okay you know but I think it’s true and I think it’s true and by the way like I will never get legally married again I’m complete
(08:40) with that system and I also am a huge believer in the commitment ceremony a lot of people are doing common law marriages or even creating like common law trusts together there are other ways you know to engage the same energy without even even if you’re interested in religious ceremony there are other ways to do it without the invocation of bond trading and securities here’s another question on the topic of relationships from Monica I’m curious what your take is on consensual non- monogamy open relationships polyamory
(09:10) and the whole range of having multiple ongoing sexual and romantic relationships I’ve been curious about it myself and I brought it up to my husband who seems very threatened by it from what I’ve read and seen from Friends it seems like it can be a powerful path towards personal growth self-awareness and Spiritual Development as they Embrace their sexual attraction to multiple people people rather than pretend that as soon as they have committed to a partner they have no desire for physical intimacy with anybody else to me it feels quite
(09:39) natural but there are so many tabos about it in our society what are your thoughts I want to offer like an extensive and heartfelt caveat which is that I am certainly not an expert on this matter I’ll tell you a bit about my trajectory and that I am a believer as should be obvious that everybody knows what is best for them and that there is no such thing as like the right path for growth and the only carve out I would offer is that in my experience doing something like VMR where you have an experience of discipline around your
(10:15) lifestyle and personal self-care and specifically your relationship to food is one of the most powerful ways to get in touch with your intuition right so beyond that who knows what is best for you and that freedom you know to trust your impulses and to know that there’s something interesting here for you is part of that reconnection to the self if you want to call it higher self so the fact that this is coming up as interesting so like what I hear you doing in this question is what I always do which is like validating your
(10:49) interest right so you’re like you know it doesn’t make sense that we would be attracted to only one person right so you’re you’re recruiting like almost like litigator like evidence for why this is a valid interest but I would say stay with the very raw impulse and really explore that like play out scenarios and scenes in your mind and find your turn on in this space like what is it about this concept this framework this Paradigm that feels like it is calling forth a part of you that hasn’t had much exposure or airtime or
(11:28) attention and limit I don’t know the sort of justifications because there’s a self-abandonment there and I I do it regularly which is why I know so I will share you know my very bias you know based on my lived experience uh perspective again with that caveat that there’s a reason that this is calling to you and it’s it’s either because like if I could be really reductionist reductionistic about it it’s either because there is growth expans and dimensions of yourself that you’re going to meet particularly because it is taboo
(12:04) right so there might be something that is eroticized in this space of multiple partners that stems directly from an incomplete dimension of your childhood and and it that literally couldn’t be completed in a monogamous diet and that’s why for you it it to me it’s not taboo right like polyamory is so basic at this point like I’m like like it’s a thing right so but for you it seems to be in that terrain of eroticized woundology if I want to call it that so what that would mean is that when you play out these scenarios and
(12:41) you identify what turns you on about it like what is a dream or a fantasy that you have you’re going to make contact with some aspect of you that wasn’t allowed to be or that wants more attention from your childhood I mean that’s what a lot of sexual preferences are about that opportunity for completion and for visiting with what otherwise would be very alive in the taboo realm that can be brought into consensual Choice as you’re saying so it’s either that like or there’s something that you’re avoiding when it
(13:15) comes to the intimacy that you could cultivate with your partner so in my long and winding romantic history I had a window where I thought that I was aligned with polyamor and I thought that it was you know the the most Libertarian like romantic expression right so live in the live I’m going to do whatever I want as long as I’m not harming anyone as long as everybody is consenting and I don’t want to say no to whatever the universe puts in my path and that window coincided with the period I was in many ways forestalling not only uh my first
(13:55) divorce but actually the inner work that I would begin in 2016 that inner work began when I chose a monogamous container with my last partner and I chose that basically under duress and the choosing of that monogamous container without any intentionality around this was the beginning of my deepest window of inner child work Shadow work personal work that began in 2016 and essentially like I put some sort of bow on it like 6 months ago and that would not have occurred if I was still able to Source little hits of
(14:38) connection self-concept self-worth self- validation self-justification from other men so I learned firsthand what a very strictly monogamous including like zippering up my Sexual Energy because of my partners then sensitivities you know what I mean by that right like where I would like use my Sexual Energy like with a colleague to give him the impression that maybe one day somehow some way he could have sex with me right and when I had no intention of that I left that open and my partner was rightly sensitive to that and his Sensitivity I
(15:16) chose to work with and I chose to learn how to shut that down and it was devastating to my inner energetics because I no longer had that way of stabilizing myself of making sure I secured sexual attention it’s very subtle right from all of the men in my life so that I knew that they were attracted and interested but I also was in control of not letting anything happen that I didn’t want to happen of course that is a strategy and that strategy stems from fear of men that’s what I’ve learned and what I have concluded whereas you know clear and
(15:56) clean boundaries knowing that my Sexual Energy is mine to open and close at will and it’s not just like a default strategic connection has been gamechanging for me and it required that I go to the roots of this fear and that took me many years and we do this in all sorts of different ways like we sexually strategize with people who are our partners all the time and you know men do it they Source from other women women do it in various ways including pretending that they’re not sexual right like you’re just like the buddy you’re
(16:31) just the friend we have our way of learning how to feel safe with the opposite sex and it’s not conscious usually until it is so for me I I now see that that was that polyamory for me was an avoidant strategy because I believe that the monogamous Crucible is the most powerful technology there is for Humanity at this time and obviously that’s all that I you know can can speak from is my experience and many of you probably know I’m a huge fan of David DA’s work and you know he talks about like what highlevel Mastery is required
(17:09) to manage the energy not only of your partner let’s say as a man right so he speaks as a man so he’s he’s like he’s like I can barely remain conscious if my woman looks at another man let alone if she has multiple other partners and their energies are in her energy body I am managing that right so it’s he also he doesn’t like openly advocate for monogamy but he talks about how you want to get that down right you want to get that down foundationally first Laura Doyle uh wrote a book I’ve mentioned several times to many of you um called
(17:46) surrendered wife and she wrote a more recent book called empowered wife and I guess she thought the other one was like not a good look for for women to be reading I actually think it’s a better title personally the first one but she’s on to something this woman is on to something and the reason that I know is the same reason that I know I’m onto something with VMR is because of the outcomes so she has testimonials of women who were in really up marriages like actually even frankly physically abusive like involving
(18:15) restraining orders and all sorts of stuff and they turned these marriages around the women did they turned them around and they found the depths of what these Dynamics could offer because of what she calls the intimacy skills and it has a lot to do a lot of overlap with data’s work and others it has a lot to do with polarity Consciousness right so she doesn’t call it that but it’s coming into your lane and it’s understanding that there is a way to interact as a woman with your man that serves you and it seems like it’s just philanthropic
(18:51) right like it’s just altruistic like it’s just serving him but it actually serves what you want out of this man and otherwise like get off the fence right you want to be with him you don’t want to be with him if you want to be with him this is at least again like I’d like to see somebody else is like some other marriage counselors like testimonials right and she I don’t know my am a believer in you know what she teaches and it’s very simple it’s very basic I talk about this more extensively gosh like in a lot of places but in my early
(19:22) podcasts on ending the war with men and it’s essentially like how to show your partner your man respect and what does that look like and that it essentially looks very different than helping him you know live his life better than he already knows how to live it and micro advising him and generally controlling him and so all of that is to say that if you want to identify whether the interest is in the interest in polyamory is a is a strategy to avoid deeper intimacy uh with your partner then it might be worth exploring like reading
(20:04) the book basically might be worth exploring how many of the tenants in this book are already in operation in your dynamic or what could be optimized there because the Reclamation of os in the marital diad is highly possible once this polarity it’s magnets right once the magnets are charged properly and then you might find that your interest it seems complicated right it seems like messy and complicated like managing one relationship is intense now that said I’m also you know as many of you know have been exploring learning about
(20:36) people in the BDSM world and there’s a lot of scene play that involves multiple people and partners and you know it could also be a culture within which you could lightly explore like bringing one other person into the dynamic in a specific role for a specific purpose maybe even just to explore whatever comes up for you with the you know the multiple partner thing now obviously a lot of polyamory is one onone on one on one on one it’s not like a group situation in fact probably mostly right so that’s sort of like a little Bridge
(21:09) maybe between the two and I find that that’s like a really can be a very conscious and intentional and consensual way to bring your partner into what it is that you’re wanting to explore because you can’t leave these things unexplored it’s just a matter of how you do it are you going to do it in your mind’s eye are you going to do it in a structured scene are you going to do it in a lifestyle and what is the best timing is it now right now tomorrow or is it after you’ve really committed you know to the partner and chosen the
(21:39) partner that you’re actually with because it may be that you know there’s something that you’re avoiding there that is you’re not going to find fulfillment elsewhere you know if that’s what it is that you’re looking for and finally here is one from Daniela how does one support their partner when they aren’t interested in self-growth I would love to explore the idea of experiencing containment with my husband and to make my man bigger which is in Omar aani reference in order to experience a different way of relating but I’m
(22:07) nervous that the submissive part might keep me where I’m at feeling unseen unheard and feeling small so this is where the concept of getting off of the fence is so essential for us as women because when you are in active rejection of your partner but you’re staying that’s actually abuse I mean not to be traumatic but it is and it’s aggression at best okay and to really really go in like on a soul level have a conversation you know and really visit with honestly do you want to be with this person in family constellation and in Marine sel’s
(22:49) book she talks about this one of the three yeses of healthy romantic love is that you choose your partner exactly as they are so like if he never changes are you down right never what if he never ever grows or changes one bit ever and there are many of us who you know in less than ideal Partnerships would still on a like a deep knowing level say yeah I’m here for it I choose this person like the personhood of this being right like I choose you once you get into like legal lawful stuff you realize what the word person means and you can never use
(23:28) it again normally so that’s a little caveat but anyway if you’re staying okay cuz otherwise you know pull your big girl panties up and leave like actually do that liberate this person and liberate yourself because if you’re choosing to stay then there is in my opinion if you want a certain kind of dynamic right like if you want like a buddy buddy egalitarian like best friend like we do life together like sexless thing that’s not what I’m talking about here that’s probably like not difficult to achieve with the right kind of
(24:04) compatibility right but if what you want is like a passionate relationship with a man who is different from you and you want to have the feeling as a woman of what it is to be led and guided and held in safety and contained and then you want to be the Muse to this artist right I uh recently interviewed Kimmy inch for the podcast and she talked about Dom and sub that way right like the Dom is the the one in charge of the creation right like of whatever it is that’s being like whatever is unfolding and the sub is the
(24:41) muse right so if that appeals to you that experience of co-creation to me it’s like got to be what I came here for right but if that appeals to you then there’s it’s not complicated like what needs to happen and the leap of faith is exactly what you’re referencing which is I am going to trust this man to come into proper orientation towards me when I get my straight and you’re not going to micromanage that process you’re not going to check in and ask on the status of how things are going right like you are the one who decides how the
(25:20) relationship is going to go that’s what I believe and that you have this power I always thought that it was the couple right and I was like trying to drag my Partners into coup’s therapy and you know find the right person and I remember my my uh coach Whitney she would say let’s just start with you and that felt unfair right it was like I’m the one who is experiencing the dissatisfaction and you know I’m the one who’s doing all this work and as we do as women right like which is in many ways a extension of some sort of
(25:52) self-rejection on a very fundamental level and now you’re saying like I’m the one who’s responsible for saving the relationship like this is too much I want to do it together I get that and what I am seeing again especially through Laura Doyle’s work is that no he actually doesn’t have to do anything because his if you chose the right partner for you which you probably did right on some level unless it’s clear that you should leave then you have all of the power to bring it into its organized polarity and he will naturally
(26:27) and natively come into that role he does not need this is what I started to in it it’s like men actually don’t need to be taught like how to be men they need to we need to get out of the way and there’s a good reason that we’re in the freaking way okay so when we are ready to get out of the way and when we are ready to like I want to say like feed them the feminine energy which is basically respect and you know admiration and appreciation trust and then maybe Creative Energy right play when we can feed them that and when we
(27:02) focus on ourselves so that’s the permission slip I’ve been given for years right is focus on yourself your self-care what’s interesting to you what color are you going to paint your nails what are you going to have for breakfast right what interesting thing are you going to look at or read or you know research like focus on you stay in your lane those two things happen your relationship will change and he does not need to be interested in self-growth in fact fact I actually have started to wonder if it’s part of what I’m now
(27:33) seeing as the new age scop that we have been encouraging men you know to get into self-exploration and take all these courses and go talk to all these therapists and do all these ceremonies and whatever and like probably I have no idea but probably what men need is just to be around other men right like moving their bodies figuring out how to be in their bodies and they need to be around women that make them bigger and then everything’s going to work out and you know what we need as women is to find safety within ourselves and that’s the
(28:11) hardest work it’s the hardest work and not exclusively like not like we should feel okay being like an island unto ourselves but we learn to trust our own navigation like our own internal navigation our own Compass our own decisions and to know that if if we choose to stay it’s actually right we are safe then right and if we choose to go that that’s actually best that like the inner husband right is trustworthy and reliable and that he follows through and his word means something right that that when that comes online you have a
(28:47) capacity to be with your own emotions without needing your partner to grow them or change them or fix them or whatever and you just sort of exit that that functional way of relating so I know that it takes a huge leap to and it almost feels it’s like when people criticize me publicly and say that I victim shame right it almost feels like salt in the wound it almost feels like it’s only going to get worse if I reflect to him that he’s okay right or that he’s like doing anything right he’s going to get the wrong impression and
(29:21) he’s going to stop trying well that’s not how it works like that’s just not how it works people thrive when they are seen for their best intentions and people thrive when they are respected and trusted and appreciated and if you want to try the experiment which she advises you don’t let him know you’re doing you’ll know pretty quickly like I have one close girlfriend of mine I she said that she’ll come on my podcast and talk about her outcomes who’s been in a marriage she’s hyper brilliant she’s a collaborator of mine and a friend
(29:51) brilliant one of the most if not the most competent women I know a lot of strong masculine and traits and she’s got a great husband and she read this book and it changed her life from what from everything I could tell she put the um some of these practices you know like basically shutting the up okay that’s like the number one practice she put into place when she saw that she could tell him how to do something a little better or what time to do this or did he do that yet all of that duct tape right so she just shut up and stopped
(30:29) doing that and you know a couple of other things you know to basically Express like positive reinforcement around the things that he was doing that she appreciated right like showing appreciation and reflecting like what it is that he actually was doing right so he has these winds right Omar Pony calls it like the green light red light so that men have a green light and they have a red light and you’re either turning one on or you the other on it’s really that simple and uh it completely changed their sex life it changed their
(30:57) dynamic in the house changed their dynamic as parents so you know at the risk of sounding like I am her unpaid marketing team I think there’s there’s something to it and also I like the overlap of all of these different teachers and and teachings but suffice it to say there is a leap and the leap is it’s a leap of faith and the leap is it could get way worse I could feel really vulnerable I could feel like I’m actually reinforcing and approving of that which I know is wrong and not working or it could get get way better
(31:29) so you got to just take that risk so people love to ask me questions and I love to ask questions of others because inquiry is play but some of my interviews and answers are too hot to handle for Reclamation radio so in my membership vital life project I have created a private podcast that gets delivered to wherever you listen to podcasts where I answer your questions that arise because of my provocative subject matter and I also share interviews that might otherwise be censored that I call the sovereignty Series so you’ll get access to these
(32:03) private podcasts and a private chat by joining my membership vital life project I’ll see you in there [Music]
