Liberation from Religious Shame & Repression: an interview with Lisa

So many people feel disconnected from their authentic sexuality due to a history of religious repression and shaming. In an ideal world, religion would be universally supportive and comforting. Unfortunately, so many people have had the opposite experience, and wound up with decades of harmful ideas about themselves and their sexuality that they struggle to overcome. In this episode, I interview Lisa, a former client, who emerged from many years of religious shame and repression to discover her own authentic sexuality and access her own capacity for pleasure. Tune in and listen to Lisa's inspiring story. 

To register for the Rocking Relationship Repair workshop, use the code PODFAN for a $25 ticket and register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/rocking-relationship-repair-tickets-1120149891479?aff=oddtdtcreator

Get my free guide: 5 Steps to Start Solving Desire Differences
(Without Blame or Shame), A Practical Starting Point for Individuals and Couples, at https://laurajurgens.com/libido 

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Laura: Welcome to the Sex Help for Smart People podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Laura Jurgens, self liberated former science professor, sexologist, and dual certified master intimacy coach. I specialize in helping you transform your relationships to get the kinds of sex, intimacy, and connection you crave using research backed practice and play.

[00:00:22] Laura: So let's get at it. Hey, hey, welcome to episode 49, my dears. It is The last episode I'm recording in 2024, the first complete year of the podcast, I am celebrating. Are you celebrating with me? I hope so. I have a really special one here for you today. We are going to talk about breaking free of religious shame and sexual repression, which is something that affects a lot of people.

[00:00:53] Laura: So this is an interview with a former client and current friend of mine, Lisa. Who has an amazing story about breaking free from religious shame. I also have a really special offering for you right now that means a lot to me. One of the most important gifts you can give yourself and everyone in relationships with you is knowing how to fix problems and conflicts when they arise.

[00:01:23] Laura: And so I am giving You all, a special 90 percent off workshop this January, January 24th, 2025. In order to register, just go to the show notes and you'll find the link. You can get it for 25. It's normally at least $250, depending on how long I make it. This is going to be a full length workshop. It is going to be an hour and a half of walking you through exactly how to fix relationship Problems and conflicts, you are going to walk out feeling like a fucking rock star knowing that you can do really hard things and that you don't have to ignore conflict or get weird about it or lash out at people that you know exactly what to do.

[00:02:13] Laura: You're going to have so much more confidence and just, it's going to make all your relationships easier and closer. So I really want that for you and that is why I'm doing it. So make sure to go to the show notes, sign up for the event, now. Don't wait! You never know how many people are going to show up.

[00:02:32] Laura: You might not be able to get a spot anymore, so sign up now, or you might forget, or you might wuss out later doing something new, right? But you definitely don't want to miss this. It's called Rocking Relationship Repair, so go grab it. Okay, so let's jump in to our interview with Lisa and Lisa's story. And just to be clear, Lisa's story doesn't represent It's not everyone's experience with religion.

[00:02:56] Laura: It's just some people's experience with religion or religious cults. And it's unfortunately common that those situations can be really oppressive, even though ideally in an ideal world, a religion is comforting and uplifting for everyone. But unfortunately, the reality is that many people are actually severely traumatized and incredibly shamed and isolated by certain types of religion.

[00:03:22] Laura: The good news is, just like Lisa's story shows us, it is absolutely possible to break free. Welcome, everyone, and I want to make a big welcome to my very special guest, a former client who is now a dear friend, my friend Lisa. And I am so glad you're here, Lisa, today to share your story about breaking free of religious shame.

[00:03:44] Laura: and sexual repression. Will you start by just telling us a little bit about your experience growing up in a really strict religious setting and the messages you received about your self and your body and your sexuality? Just give us a little bit of background for you. 

[00:04:03] Lisa: Sure, absolutely, and thank you for having me and thank you for doing this.

[00:04:07] Lisa: This podcast and for being a champion for sexual pleasure. I sure really appreciate you. 

[00:04:14] Laura: Thank you. Yeah, my pleasure. 

[00:04:16] Lisa: So I, I was the second child of seven in a strict Mormon family growing up. I was born in the seventies. Low income family, very traditional values. And I don't know how much your viewers or your listeners are familiar with the Mormon teachings, but basically the women are very much in a secondary service role within Mormon traditional dogma.

[00:04:42] Lisa: And I was taught that my body. Was not mine, but a gift from God, who we refer to as heavenly father. And the gift was to be cared for in a way that looking back was very paternalistic and very much controlled my own access to autonomy, my ability to experience pleasure, or to celebrate that I had, that I was a sexual being.

[00:05:11] Lisa: So basically that my. Role was to grow up, to prepare, to be a virgin, mother, a virgin, and then wife, and then mother, in that order, of course, because nobody would want what they would refer to as a chewed up piece of gum, or a licked cupcake. Did they actually say those words? Well, like a chewed up piece of gum, chewed gum.

[00:05:35] Lisa: They would literally in class, the 12 to 18 year old girls would be, would sit down with their leaders and the, the leader would chew up a piece of gum and they would say, no, who wants to try this? And they'd take it out of their mouth and go, does anybody want this gum? And we'd be like, ew, no, that's disgusting.

[00:05:54] Lisa: And they'd say, well, that's why you need to keep yourself pure. Because someday a man will take you to the temple, which was their very passive way of referring to us getting married. And they're not going to want to take you there if you're a chewed up piece of gum. And not only that, because that's referring to partner pleasure, but also like, uh, from a very young age, I was taught that my arousal system, that my desire within me.

[00:06:21] Lisa: Was a tool that Satan could use to pull me away from God. And so anytime I would feel arousal, like there would be on one hand, I would be like, Oh, wow, that feels nice. You know, and I mean, like a young person who has functioning sexual response system would be able to enjoy the throttling and the pleasure or whatever, you know, but to me, I was taught that that feeling could pull me away from being in heaven for e trinity with my family and with God.

[00:06:56] Lisa: Yeah. Wow. Because of that, I got really good sometimes at turning off my pleasure, which Yep. Of course I know what kind of long term consequences that would have. To just teach a girl to separate herself from her ability. Enjoy that. Yeah. 

[00:07:19] Laura: It's a lot. It's a lot. And unfortunately, it's so common. Not always to the extent of the, you know, dude walking around with a chewed up piece of gum and equating your vulva.

[00:07:31] Laura: That's the thing. But. But the idea, right? This message, it really permeates. Our entire society, of course, because our American society is built on this like puritanical values, but then we see it taken to this extreme level of indoctrination and shaming in some religious communities. And it is so unfortunately so common, but yes, the Mormons do take it to quite a, quite a pretty 

[00:08:02] Lisa: radical level.

[00:08:04] Lisa: And you can see how that would have, yeah. Growing up. I feel like in some ways they've tried to improve. And there are some fringe or less dogmatic portions of Mormonism that try to be more sex positive, but the roots remain as women being a passive vessel of what the men eat or want from them. Yeah. And there's no institution that.

[00:08:30] Lisa: Benefits from women taking control of their pressure, you know, like that doesn't help them. So, yeah, that doesn't help them 

[00:08:39] Laura: maintain control over people. Right. So we can see that it's really in service of maintaining control over the quote unquote flock. Right. And this is harming people. And I wonder. You know, so what do you feel like, as you dealt with the legacy of this, what were some of the major symptoms that you had as an adult, even after you'd left the church?

[00:09:07] Lisa: Do you care if I start with while I was still a Mormon? No, go for it. Tell us all about it. I mean, the first really detrimental thing that happened, Besides the fact that I got myself to stop jerking off. That's so sad, right? So many people stopped 

[00:09:24] Lisa: masturbating! Oh my god, it's like, so sad. It was 

[00:09:28] Lisa: so sad, I spent about a decade just really missing it.

[00:09:32] Lisa: You know, I was like, no, I have to roll over this now. So I made poor decisions with regards to getting married fast and early and having babies because I believed that. Once I got married, I would finally be able to feel that pleasure that I felt as a teen. 

[00:09:52] Lisa: Yeah. But 

[00:09:52] Lisa: then I found out that that's not actually how it works because two virgins fumbling around in the dark is very different than a girl who knows what she likes and reaches down and brings it out to themselves.

[00:10:07] Lisa: I didn't actually experience sexual pleasure for that decade. Very little. You know, so from my early twenties to my early thirties, I was, I was numb. 

[00:10:20] Laura: Yeah. You were numbed out and you were having obligation sex. 

[00:10:25] Lisa: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Make a baby. Check off the list. We're very list oriented. We know the things that we're supposed to do as Mormons to make God happy.

[00:10:35] Lisa: And we're just doing them. Oh, I, I read my scriptures, I prayed, I fed my children, I, I had sex with my husband Winter church. Mm hmm. That kind of thing. Right. There was no joy. There was no. No gratitude for the system that's in my body that creates all that pleasure. I just didn't feel it at all. Yeah. So then.

[00:11:00] Lisa: Yeah. I got, I woke up to the fact that I was in a cult when I was in my early thirties. And then I got divorced because the only thing that the man that I married and he had in common was church and church goals and stuff. We really didn't ever actually get along. And then I was like a naive woman in her thirties with very little experience, but like really wanting to get back to all that pleasure that I had felt.

[00:11:30] Lisa: And yet it actually became kind of, uh, like I was a Greyhound. On the track, trying to catch the bunny, 

[00:11:38] Speaker: you 

[00:11:38] Lisa: know, running, running in circles, trying to be desirable, trying to make myself feel good about me and yet never actually still experiencing, still not ever actually experiencing the pleasure that I experienced by myself.

[00:11:58] Lisa: Before I was ashamed of my body. 

[00:12:00] Speaker: Yeah, because you still carried that shame forward, right? The body shame, the sexual shame, despite leaving the church, you'd still had the indoctrination, right? We, we all do to some extent, but you had it very, very severely. And you'd practiced it for years. You'd practiced shoving all those feelings down, not thinking about yourself as a beautiful sexual being, not feeling free.

[00:12:25] Speaker: So you'd had all this practice. 

[00:12:27] Lisa: Yeah, it was like there wasn't a good connection between my brain and my vulva anymore. Yeah. I'd already turned that on. I was trying to get back. I was trying to get it back. I was working diligently, doing all this dating, trying to quote unquote make myself as hot as possible or whatever, but really it was not fixing the misconnections that had been created from the harmful religious teachings.

[00:12:53] Laura: Yeah, and we can see how that, like, the bunny chasing, the trying to date and make yourself as hot as possible is also really Making the sex about the men that you were dating. 

[00:13:05] Lisa: Oh, 

[00:13:06] Speaker: right. Oh, 

[00:13:06] Lisa: a thousand percent. A hundred 

[00:13:07] Laura: percent. Right? Like, it's not about what makes me feel as hot as possible, makes me turned on, right?

[00:13:15] Laura: It's how do I get this approval and turn on to somehow come to me from somebody else. Because we think that that's what, how it works. 

[00:13:26] Lisa: And this is what you just said is extremely important in my story because I believed that, that emotion, that elevation emotion that you experience when you realize somebody wants you.

[00:13:40] Lisa: I thought that that was physical attraction. Yes. 

[00:13:44] Speaker: So common a misconception. 

[00:13:47] Lisa: We don't even 

[00:13:47] Lisa: talk about this. I 

[00:13:48] Lisa: was like, yeah, this person's handsome. This person, people would be impressed. And he thinks I'm cute or hot or whatever. And so this is exciting. And that must be me, my sexual excitement going up.

[00:14:02] Lisa: Yes. 

[00:14:03] Laura: That idea that the sense of approval in the eyes of men is what sexual excitement or sexual attraction is for women. When there is like no room for you in that entire equation, there is no like your preference or what turns you on, right? What feels good to your body, what feels sexy to you, it's just based on approval.

[00:14:26] Laura: Sort of appearance approval. Yeah. Wow. That is such an important insight. And I'm so, so glad that you learned differently. So, so let's, let's, let's like imagine into that. What's, what's the part of the story? How did you start noticing that some of those things might not be true and might actually even be harming you?

[00:14:47] Laura: How did you start noticing? 

[00:14:49] Lisa: Well, I think that coming out to myself as gay, cause I'm gay. And I didn't realize that until I married another man, who's a wonderful person, by the way. It's funny because it was like, 15 years after I'd left the Mormon church. And I thought that I had cast all of the Mormonism aside, but I had this experience where I finally was able to say to myself, Laura, you're gay.

[00:15:19] Lisa: And. It opened up a whole new cornucopia of emotions for me. 

[00:15:28] Lisa: So happy 

[00:15:29] Lisa: for you. Lisa, were you just noticing 

[00:15:31] Laura: because you were like turned on by women in like around you or in media or you were reflecting on the past or you were feeling it inside you or all of the above? Like how did you even notice that you were gay?

[00:15:47] Lisa: Well, there were three main things that happened. Almost simultaneously. Do you have time? Oh, yeah. I'll try to stay on short if I can. The first one was that I had my hormones balance. And so that kind of like helped reconnect my brain and my sexual response. Like that just kind of like pushed it a little bit.

[00:16:10] Lisa: And I, as I had my hormones rebalanced and I was able to feel arousal again, I notice that a lot of times. I was looking at, but like women's, but there was, the things that would make me go womp womp had to do with the feminine. Okay. Yes. Awesome. The next one was that I got training as a life coach. And so I became much more aware of my own thoughts and emotions because that's part of the training is you get really curious about what's happening in your mind and your body.

[00:16:46] Lisa: Yep. And the last thing that happened was kind of like an accidental hallucination. I had a procedure done under Pronox, which is nitrous oxide at a high concentration. And during that time, I had something, some type of, I don't know, they couldn't wake me up for like 45 minutes. And while I was under, I was, I had these guides.

[00:17:12] Lisa: And they were preparing me for something painful and it was really scary and horrible and I woke up and everything was different and I just look at the world from the new perspective. And it was less than a month later that I was finally able to say to myself, you're gay. 

[00:17:32] Laura: Oh, yay. What a relief. What a beautiful thing to notice.

[00:17:38] Lisa: It was beautiful, but it was something that I had resisted because I knew it'd be hard for my current spouse. 

[00:17:45] Laura: Yeah. Yeah. And I don't want to hurt at the same time. 

[00:17:48] Lisa: Yeah. The one person. So he doesn't deserve that. Yeah. Oh, 

[00:17:54] Laura: so as you started waking up and noticing not only that you're gay, but also that some of this like whole that you had really stuffed down so much of your own sexuality and your arousal, how did you start breaking free and being able to claim?

[00:18:15] Laura: Your authentic sexuality, who you are and what turns you on. What was like, what were the things that helped you most along that process and that path? 

[00:18:26] Lisa: Well, during that time I had multiple coaches, but you could do the same thing with therapy, probably. I don't know. I went the coach route. I started with a wonderful coach who was.

[00:18:38] Lisa: A board certified radiologist and a sex therapist and a life coach and a polyamorous gay woman, by the way. And she really helped me to start making decisions that would help my sexual response trust me better. You know, I had to start making choices. Setting standards and watching out for myself so that my sexual response was safe enough to come back out.

[00:19:08] Lisa: Yep. If that makes sense. Absolutely. Yeah. So like I had to come out to my husband and Skye and I had to renegotiate our relationship. So that I could have a chance to experience the same things that he got to feel, and I had to, I had to create time and space for me. And that was probably the first step.

[00:19:30] Lisa: Yeah, 

[00:19:31] Lisa: absolutely. Absolutely. 

[00:19:33] Laura: And it can be hard to feel entitled to do that, especially if you come from a background. of Religious Shame, right, to feel entitled to taking up that space, to feel entitled to really saying yes to what you want to say yes to, saying no to what you don't want to say yes to, and really know, taking the time to notice what's going on in your own body and actually does turn you on and what doesn't turn you on and not feeling like it has to be you.

[00:20:02] Laura: What somebody else wants, right? Especially if you care about them and you care about your feelings. And I think that's one of you care about their feelings. I think that's one of the most amazing things about how you and your husband have navigated this too, is that you've really stayed in close connection and communication and partnership through the process of you owning you and owning your right to do all those things.

[00:20:26] Laura: And I just think that is so beautiful. I wonder if you have anything you want to talk about, about that. 

[00:20:32] Lisa: It was a huge shift because I had been taught from the time that I was very young, probably like 18 months old, they start teaching you songs about, like, I still remember when I grow up, I want to be a mother and have a family.

[00:20:51] Lisa: And I learned that one when I was, before I was three years old, like I got taught. Very young that the way I measure my success is in relation to how I am serving my spouse and my children. Is my spouse healthy? Are my children still Mormon? Are they still doing the Mormon thing? That means I can approve of myself.

[00:21:14] Lisa: Well, cast most of that off, but also like in the core of me, the way that I decided is the marriage was good. Is, was he happy with me? 

[00:21:25] Laura: Yeah, so are you, 

[00:21:27] Lisa: yeah, if you take that as your normal way to measure, if things are going well, and then you just sprinkle in some gay life, there's going to be some things to renegotiate because my would be real happy if I just continued to be gay, but be exclusively with him.

[00:21:49] Lisa: Oh, I had to get to a point where I was okay to do something that was good for me. And maybe he wouldn't like it very much. Yeah. 

[00:21:58] Laura: Dealing with someone else's disappointment is a really amazingly hard thing, but also so powerful and so wonderful. And actually an unsung gift to another person to say, I trust you to deal with your own disappointment and I don't have to live my life to try to please you.

[00:22:19] Laura: And just wind up hating and resenting you on the inside. 

[00:22:23] Laura: But 

[00:22:24] Lisa: getting from A to B What a gift to him! But that's a hard 

[00:22:26] Lisa: place to get to, from where you were from. Getting from 

[00:22:28] Lisa: A to B, it was really hard because the core of me was over here in A. Yep. Wind me up. I had never, as a late blooming lesbian, I had never I had to choose between myself and my marriage, but here I was, 46, wanting to be gay, wanting to be myself, and understanding that I was engineered to love alone.

[00:22:57] Lisa: Yeah. 

[00:22:58] Laura: Yeah. What an amazingly empowering process, though. I can hear how hard it is. And I actually think yes, there probably are some therapists out there that can support that process, but I do think coaching is really helpful because it is so present and forward focused as opposed to just sort of like digging into the past.

[00:23:16] Laura: Because sometimes therapy can get us stuck in the past for where we're kind of going round and around for years talking about stuff rather than implementing. And coaching is much more focused on implementing and I'm guessing that was really helpful for you to get from A to B. 

[00:23:30] Lisa: Yeah, definitely that my personality better, I have actually never gone to therapy, so I can't speak very well to that.

[00:23:38] Lisa: But for me, the coaching is where I felt comfortable and I don't regret it. Yeah. 

[00:23:44] Laura: Yeah. Great. Well, I'm so glad you found all these different people to support you in your process and just like all the strength inside you to be able to do this, right? Because you, you obviously you're the one, you know, coaches can help, but you're the one who did all this work.

[00:24:00] Laura: And so much bravery and so much courage because when those are the things that we are taught, it is, it is earth, it feels earth shattering. It feels like it changes your whole world to start thinking about things in a different way. Cause it really does. It changes the entire universe. I wonder, are there any things you can share about why it was worth it?

[00:24:21] Laura: All that hard? 

[00:24:21] Lisa: What? Why was it worth it? 

[00:24:24] Laura: Like, what is, what do you get to do now? What is, like, so fun about being who you are now? 

[00:24:28] Lisa: Well, now I get to feel what everybody else feels when they sing those romantic songs. I literally had never experienced true romantic love. I don't want to say that I don't love my husband, because I do.

[00:24:44] Lisa: I love him very much. He loves me in a romantic way. And I love him in a way, I don't know what words to describe it. It's not the same, even though it's sincere and truly meant. But now that little Calico cocktail that comes with embracing someone that you love romantically, I have now experienced. 

[00:25:11] Laura: That's awesome.

[00:25:12] Laura: Yeah. And you've been able to make this work too, right? Where like, you're. Working, it's working and obviously, so for those of you who are in more, you know, traditional monogamous relationships, just, you know, being aware that there's a ways to make all kinds of relationship structures work and you don't necessarily have to get divorced just because one partner comes out as gay.

[00:25:37] Laura: And that's a way that the two of you have really made it work. And I think that's beautiful. You really do genuinely care about each other, you genuinely have a good time together, you support each other, and you have a new partner, new ish, I guess, who is a woman, and your husband and she know each other and get along, and that is just so amazing and beautiful, and I'm so happy for you that you get to have a new partner.

[00:26:08] Laura: More love in your life, right? Instead of having less love, you get to have more love right now and more experiences. 

[00:26:15] Lisa: Yeah. When I came out to men, I believed that I was going to lose him because I knew that I needed to follow the gay and experience life fully like everybody else had been. I'd missed out in almost halfway through my life, you know, and And now I am in a place that I could not have imagined, which is that I have a happy marriage and I have a partner who is a woman who is completely fine with me being married and my husband and my partner, our friends, we like do stuff together.

[00:26:54] Lisa: We work in the garden together, or we go to a concert together, or we, she came, she was here for Christmas. Yeah. We all opened presents. She had a present for each of my children who are young adults now, and they had presents for her and he was there. And she was there and we just had a holiday on Big Cabin family.

[00:27:14] Lisa: Yay. That's so awesome. Yeah. 

[00:27:15] Laura: So one of the other things I know that came up for us. And we did a bunch of work on a lot was body shame too. And that's so closely tied to all kinds of religious shame and repression of women in particular, because if you can control how people feel about themselves, you can really keep them down effectively.

[00:27:36] Laura: Right? If we're so busy focusing on feeling like shit about ourselves, then we don't have the power. inherent power to go, you know, challenge any status quo, right? And that was so indoctrinated for you by the church on top of all of it that women get from society in general. And I know I have to keep on top of my own brain with body shame all the time, because it's just, pervasive.

[00:28:01] Laura: We get so many messages that we're not okay as women and that our, our bodies and our faces and whatever have to look a certain way. But I just wonder for you, like what was so, because you had the extra religious shame that was so intense. And I remember you telling me about them telling you you had to be a certain size and all of that.

[00:28:21] Laura: I'm just wondering, like, how is that going for you now? And what helped the most in really releasing some of that religious shame? 

[00:28:29] Lisa: Yeah, so it's so useful for religion, not all religion, but the ones that are trying to control the women, it's so useful to tell them from this time that they're very young, but it's their job to be aesthetically pleasing and that aesthetically pleasing means tiny, like, because that just means, oh, let's help this woman make sure she knows how to sacrifice and deny herself.

[00:28:58] Lisa: And stay small so that we can rescue her and we can admire her for her smallness. Yeah. Cause she's too weak to do anything for herself. Yeah. And I've got this like stacked brick house of a body where like, I build muscle really easily and I, uh, I'm short. And so everything is like compact, like a hobbit kind of, except for curvy, muscular, 

[00:29:23] Laura: sexy 

[00:29:23] Lisa: hobbit without such hairy feet.

[00:29:28] Lisa: Well, anyway, um, I'm carried around so much of that. And I would work so hard to make myself feel better about myself, but for years, feel better about myself means try to fit the mold. And the harder that I try to fit the mold, the less pleasure I would feel. Like for example, I did a beauty contest once.

[00:29:51] Lisa: Like a fitness one, like a figure contest. So I was building all this muscle and I was eating fish and broccoli every day. And like, I was swole. Okay. Like it was impressive what I had accomplished. But during that time I felt so unhappy. I didn't even have sex at all during that time. Like all that was turned off.

[00:30:13] Lisa: All of my energy was on trying to look pretty for everybody else. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Uh, that was pre coming out to myself. And one of the things that you and I worked on was identifying all the different messages and how they fit in with the agenda of oppressing women for the benefit of patriarchy. Right.

[00:30:35] Lisa: And questioning those messages, which has been so helpful over time. I actually, at your encouraging, I started a folder in my phone of beautiful voluptuous women. And my definition of beautiful became more expansive over time, which it just means it's the wrong sign and not that I'm the wrong side.

[00:31:00] Laura: Exactly. Yeah. 

[00:31:02] Lisa: Yeah. And my, my partner is a voluptuous woman, lifts weights like every day. So she's like all of the things that I had been. Tried not to be, and I just find her so damn sexy and like, I can't imagine how sad my life would be not being able to enjoy all of her femininity and strength, you know, it just kind of comes full circle because I'm like, duh, but I see what they did there.

[00:31:38] Lisa: See what we did there, but so happy to have transcended it and for my hands and my body to be able to feel her and all of her magical curves, you know what I mean? And just be so grateful that I don't have to believe the bullshit anymore. 

[00:31:55] Laura: You did such a good job on that. We did work on that a lot and it is not easy.

[00:31:59] Laura: I want to say to everybody out there, I know it's not easy. Lisa knows it's not easy. And it is absolutely possible to get rid of all that shit and not feel bad about yourself anymore. And it frees up so much space and time and room in your life to actually do other things that 

[00:32:13] Lisa: enjoy yourself that I recommend it to everybody.

[00:32:17] Lisa: If there is one other thing that really helps me to see the bullshit, which was to watch that documentary about Oh, Oh my God, for me to understand how that all came together for money, like made me feel pissed enough and understanding enough to be like, no more, I am not a cock in this machine. Yeah, yeah, 

[00:32:41] Laura: 100 percent highly 

[00:32:42] Lisa: recommend for anyone trying to break through.

[00:32:44] Lisa: That those mental barriers, 

[00:32:47] Laura: yeah, understanding how much money people make off of your low self esteem is quite a really earth shattering realization, right? Like, Oh, uh, do I want to, do I want to do this for them? It's 

[00:33:03] Lisa: so sneaky. Like they took. The average female form and they distorted it into something that's not natural and held it up as the standard.

[00:33:14] Lisa: So that we could all feel that. 

[00:33:17] Laura: Yep. And then, then they, then they sell us the quote unquote solution. 

[00:33:21] Lisa: Which were crappy bras too. Yeah, crappy bras 

[00:33:25] Laura: too. Absolutely. 

[00:33:26] Lisa: Not really made to fit a woman's body. Not at all. 

[00:33:30] Laura: I'm super not comfortable. That's been one of the blessings of COVID, I think, is that so many of us were like, you know what?

[00:33:36] Laura: I'm good. Fuck these really uncomfortable bras. We're not wearing them anyway. 

[00:33:39] Lisa: Have you found the underwire? I barely ever wear a bra now. And I, like, I haven't touched an underwire bra probably four 

[00:33:46] Lisa: years. 

[00:33:47] Lisa: I put one on a couple of weeks ago and I was like, what is this? And I used to wear them every day. 

[00:33:54] Laura: I was laughing with my husband about how on TV, in like every show, if people are having a sex scene, the woman's always wearing an underwire bra while having a sex scene.

[00:34:06] Laura: Oh my goodness. Of course, full makeup, right? Full makeup, but yeah. We're not used to like actually seeing the real shape of women's breasts. Yeah. 100%. So. I want to just close today with thinking about like what advice would you want to offer people who are grappling with Religious shame and sexual repression that they have carried from religion into their adulthood, where they just feel like it's very hard to feel free and to even know that it's okay to want what they want or to know even what it is that they want because they've been really taught that it's, that sexuality or even their bodies or their genitalia, their shape, whatever is just, is somehow shameful or sinful.

[00:34:54] Laura: Do you have any advice for people just kind of like, where 

[00:34:57] Lisa: do they start? It's so hard. I want to just say, listen to your body. But if you have bad messages in your brain and the messages haven't been plucked out, it's hard to trust your body. And the only way to find out what's in there is to discover it.

[00:35:17] Lisa: So you need to do some self reflection. You can have a coach who helps you with the reflection, or you can journal, you can read Emily Nagoski and other sex positive authors. Nagoski was really helpful to see, like her garden theory. It was really helpful for me. So we need, if you have been through what I was been through, had been through or something like that, you have been through a type of trauma.

[00:35:48] Lisa: And so we need 

[00:35:50] Lisa: you 

[00:35:50] Lisa: look at that trauma and treat it in whatever way feels good to you, see what happened to your body and your brain and body. Question the beliefs that are there, which means you have to see them. That's the first step. Yeah, 

[00:36:03] Laura: absolutely. And that's, I think, where our coaching helps a lot is to help people see, right?

[00:36:09] Laura: Because sometimes we can't see it ourselves because it sounds like the truth in our own head. And so having somebody else help you call it out and then give you some homework and really encourage you and help de shame it so that you don't feel stupid. Ashamed or scared, take that time with your body can be really helpful.

[00:36:28] Laura: And I totally agree in, you know, reading a lot of books, trying to consume sort of almost like antidote to the shame, trying to consume a lot of de shaming books, literature, shows, things that will help you release the shame by seeing other perspectives. 

[00:36:47] Lisa: Yes. Yes, and it does, it's almost impossible for you to see what your brain is doing by yourself.

[00:36:55] Lisa: So you need someone to refer to you, and a coach is a very handy way to get that done like faster, more efficiently, and the coaching. You 

[00:37:04] Laura: can often do it on your own, but it takes a long time, and you will miss parts because it just, in your head it sounds like the truth. 

[00:37:12] Lisa: Yeah. And if you're not on a point right now to afford coaching, keep consuming the media that you can and watch what media is being thrown at you in the meantime until you're ready to commit to coaching, but yeah, that helped me so much.

[00:37:30] Laura: Great. Thank you so much, Lisa. It's been a pleasure. As always, wonderful to talk with you, and I am really excited that people get to hear your story, and your story of transformation, your story of reclamation, reclaiming your authentic self and your sexuality is just really, really powerful. So thank you so much.

[00:37:50] Lisa: Thank you for having me. I appreciate what you've done for me. Thank you. You make a difference in a lot of people's lives. 

[00:37:57] Laura: Hey, if you're curious about how you could have better sex and connections, go grab my free guide. Find your secret turn on. It's right on my website, www.laurajurgens.com and the link is in the show notes. I'll see you here next time.