Archetypes Uncovered w/ Dene Logan | Szn. 4 Ep. 4

Hi, it's Dr. Jen Kennedy. I'm a sexologist and couples therapist. The Pleasure Project podcast is about sex and relationships. So this includes discussions on desire, dysfunction, dissatisfaction, exploration of all things sex related. So sometimes I'll do toy reviews and we'll look at trends. And sometimes I'll also enlist other experts. We'll increase your insight and enhance your pleasure. So tune in. I want you to imagine this. Someone who's always pushing, controlling, never satisfied. That is the wounded masculine at play. Or the person who gives until they're empty collapses into victimhood or creates chaos to fill scene. That's the wounded feminine. But there's the twist. Those same energies when healed and integrated become our greatest strengths. The healthy masculine protects, leads with clarity and holds strong boundaries. The healthy feminine nurtures without losing herself, creates flow, and connects deeply without clinging. These archetypal forces are alive in all of us. And the more conscious we are about how they show up, the more whole and connected we become. My guest today has spent years guiding people through these wounded patterns. And she helps them shift into strength based cells. Dene Logan will help us explore and understand what these look like in real life and how we move from shadow into strength in both our inner world and in our relationships. So tune in. It's a really good episode. All right. So welcome back. My guest today is Dene Logan. She is a relationship coach and therapist. And she's also a group facilitator and an author based in Los Angeles. In addition to working with clients in private practice, Dene also teaches mindfulness and yoga. Recently she authored her first book, which is what we're going to be talking about today. And that is titled Sovereign Love, A Guide to Healing Relationships by Reclaiming the Masculine and Feminine Within. So welcome. Thanks, Dr. Jen. I'm so excited to get to sit down with you. I know. Last time, well, last time I saw you was in New York when you were presenting at the conference. But originally we met in Costa Rica. The heat of Costa Rica. Yeah, we were at a beachy retreat. And yeah, so it's such a, such a pleasure to get to see you again. So today we are going to be talking about the masculine and the feminine, androgyetics, some attachment, and some, you know, we're both couples therapists. And we see different different populations. I see a lot of older couples. I think you see a mix and definitely sounds like you see some younger couples. But just, I'm excited to, I read your book and I loved it. And that was really intriguing. I think, you know, you're, you're coming from a depth perspective, which is a little bit different from my training. So I just really enjoyed it. And I thought, okay, let's get her in here and hear what she's got to say. Thank you. Well, I'm so excited. Yeah. So, okay, first off, just kind of tell us a bit about your journey. I know I read it in the book, but for listeners, tell us how you got to this place. Well, that's, you know, so many different angles. We can take with that. But I think you mentioned that I come from a background in depth psychology, which is rooted in the concepts of Jungian psychology, Jungian analysis a lot of times. But really, I think people refer to depth psychology a lot of times as the psychology of the soul. So it's the work of sort of soul tending and some of the more spiritual perspectives of what we're doing here in this, you know, what I like to think of as a life school. And what's interesting about the way that I came into couples work is that, you know, you know, that as we are finishing grad school and sort of doing the practicum, which is working with different populations, figuring out which group we're going to work with, I found that a lot of my colleagues and people that I was doing my practicum with just really did not like working with the couples, like they were all like, it's like, yeah, and I was like, I kind of love it. I think it's fascinating. And I think, you know, trying to understand what's happening beneath the surface for each person and sort of interpreting it and finding a way that they can hear each other. It just felt like really good and natural. But what I noticed was that the perspective of the soul work and like what each person's soul's curriculum was attempting to teach them through this relationship dynamic was certainly not part of my training, but not really something that I heard anyone speaking to or really being that curious about. With the exception, I will say of my mentor, Esther Perel, and she talks about it through a little bit of a different lens in terms of stability versus adventure. But in Jungian psychology, Carl Jung talked a lot about the masculine and feminine aspects of all of us, which are not so much about gender, but they are the anima and the animus are sort of what Esther would call the stability he would talk about as like the masculine, the structure, the containment, and the aliveness is the feminine, the life force, the euros, those aspects of ourselves, right? And so in our relationships, first of all, one person is normally wired towards one aspect more than the other. We sort of find the end to our in our relationship dynamics. And so the person who likes a lot of structure will find the person who's like really free spirited and they will get together and make one another wrong forever. But what I realized was there was a way that I just started to be fascinated by how it's something that like we're meant to be working out within ourselves. And we weren't really giving it given a lot of structure for like how to do that. And what's happening here and why this feels like we're drawn to someone who's very different, but we're sort of working with and battling through these dynamics in our relationships, you know? I feel like, you know, in grad school, it's like there's one couples class. And trying to peek behind the curtain of like the how, how do we do this work? It's, there's not a lot of structure. And it's like when you sit in the room and in that chair, it's like, how do you do what you do? Is it's so personal? And it's so, you know, I think each couple's therapist kind of has their own way. And they're drawn to that work, they're called to do that work, because many are like, I don't know how I'm completely lost and I'm a little terrified by couples, you know, because there's so much going on. Yeah. I think most of us are pretty conflict averse, even if we're sort of trained in the art of conflict, you know, de-escalation and sort of how to navigate it. So I think a lot of stuff from our own childhood pain points and our relational stuff starts to come up for a lot of people in the room inevitably. But I think what I started to be fascinated about and was there was a way that I was thinking about the larger context of our cultural paradigms as I was sitting with couples and that that was something that we are just completely not trained to think about at all from my perspective in like the more clinical aspect of couples work. Like nobody talks about what it has been to be raised in a patriarchal structure where women didn't have bank accounts until 1974. And how has that impacted our relationship dynamics and how our mothers showed up in relationships, right? And what were the multi-generational pain points that were passed down that are still impacting the way that we meet one another relationally, regardless of how we're operating in relationships or who we're in relationships with? We've all been socialized in certain ways that impact how we meet one another. But those were things that nobody was really talking about. So that's a lot of what I started to attempt to dive into in the book. Well, and even too, I appreciate how you front-loaded it with your own story of sort of this fantasy of rushing towards marriage and this idealized thing that so many little girls are handed of fantasy of like let's secure this relationship. But without really having the larger context of what that means to be in partnership and do the longer term work. And then also as a couples therapist being in that position of choosing divorce and what that means and understanding sort of the larger picture of disengagement and choosing self. Yeah, absolutely. I think it wasn't until after I realized that my relationship with my child's father needed to change form. And I say change form whenever I talk about it pretty intentionally because we're still in relationship. We have a child together. He's one of my best friends on the planet. And what I realized was there was not a lot of intention I brought into the idea of marriage. I think I was in my mid to late 20s. I got married much to me now. I was like, God, I was like, baby, it feels like another lifetime ago. But it was sort of like today, when are you going to get married? You're getting at a certain age even then. And that, you know, I mean, we think that we don't sort of meet women that way still, but there is still a lot of societal like it means something about you if you're 30 and you haven't been quote chosen and you're not sort of on a certain trajectory towards marriage. And so it was a lot of like the pressure to do this thing that I felt in retrospect more than like this is a conscious choice of like, I want to share my life walking side by side with another soul. That wasn't really a part of the equation for me. I was actually pretty checked out in the process of the decision. I'm kind of honest about that. But I think that I see that's true for a lot of the couples that I work with. It's sort of like there wasn't a real intentionality when we came into union, but we're here now and we're trying to work it out. And I'm sort of in the space a lot of times with this gets to be whatever you guys decide you want it to be. So what do you want to co-create in terms of this partnership if it's yours to create, you know? And then also the piece just sort of on looking at your lens, how does like sort of the mindfulness piece, the ritual, how does that inform like your therapeutic lens? You know, I really think there's so much of what I started to understand again when my relationship shifted. But then all of these aspects of life that I started to just see were not really conditioned to think about the sacred. And that's an aspect of the feminine from my perspective that we are really conditioned to socially like disregard. And that there are certain things that are just taken for granted. Like when you're in a partnership with someone, that's your person now. They belong to you. And so they should, you know, you have needs quote that need to be met and they should fall in line with those needs. And that should look a certain way. And a lot of times the uncomfortable truth is what that ends up actually feeling like in our relationship dynamics is a lot of entitlement. And I'll be the first to raise my hand. Obligation. And yeah, is what I'm entitled to. You're my man, like fall in line, get it done, right? And there wasn't a lot of mindfulness in just the awareness that this is another human being, certainly, but also another soul who came into this body to do certain things and accomplish certain tasks within this lifetime. And I think, you know, right before my marriage ended, I lost a really close friend. And I just started to come into like a visceral awareness of the sacred and that we're not promised any time in these bodies. And I think because it was so close to that ending and a big part of depth psychology is really own an awareness of the sacred and the ritual and these thresholds of initiation that we go through. And I think we don't have a lot of context for death rebirth cycles in our culture. And so there's a way that I see so consistently, we don't think of like the ritualized nature of things we like marriage is probably the closest thing we have to sort of any initiatory process. It's like you go from, you know, made into wife or whatever, you know, whatever that is in terms of initiation. But that's the closest thing. And we don't really hold space for that collectively and have elders that sort of usher us through the process and name certain things that are going to come up. So I find that it ends up being really destabilizing and we're just sort of untethered trying to figure it out without a lot of community, you know, anchoring us into the meaning of these things. And so what I really attempt to do in the work that I do with couples and in retreat work is like, how do we bring some more of the sacred and the mindfulness practices into our everyday lives? And if I'm sharing my life with someone, how do I meet them every single day of my life as though this is not a relationship that I'm promised if they weren't here tomorrow, how would I want to meet them? How would I want to treat this dynamic as though it were sacred? And it's not to shame ourselves, but just to really bring a different level of intentionality as a practice into our lives and our days. And so they kind of look at how they can co-create rituals and traditions and things that are meaning making to the two of them. Yeah, you know, I think there's so much about our relationships that just sort of become a business arrangement, you know, we're sort of like the only thing we're talking about is the tasks that need to be done, the play dates who's going to drive. Exactly. And that's so much of our culture in general is like this really wounded masculine like productivity at all costs, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, like all these things that we value are really not in alignment with the sacred. And so I will ask couples like how can we incorporate a hike or a walk once a week that is just like an hour that is carved out to be really present, no cell phones, nothing but the two of us in the space of curiosity and discovery around one another. Because no matter how long we've been together, I always find it fascinating, there's so much about our partner that we still don't know, we think we know, you know, I know everything you're going to say before you even say it, but it's just not true. We just sort of lose some of that curiosity. Yeah. And new things emerge when you don't have the distractions and the technology and you can just be in that spontaneous allowance. Yeah. Absolutely. I love that. I love that thought of having some space to let that happen. Let's talk about archetypes. Sure, I love it. So for the listeners who don't necessarily have some of that language kind of unpack that a little bit, kind of what do they serve and what are they and how do they look like? Yeah, I always am like, what is an archetype? Right? Because I feel like I lead a lot of workshops on archetypes and I find that archetypes can be really useful when working with clients and sort of in terms of sort of giving me, you know, just a framework or in a vision of a way that I want to hold a thing. And if we think about what archetypes are, they are throughout different cultures and periods of history and geographical locations, there are themes that are sort of threaded throughout, whether they are the archetype of the hero's journey or the jester or the witch or like there's all these different characters that are like in our stories and how we experience what it is to be in the human experience through these narratives, right? And what I find is that if we start to really think about this life as our own hero's journey, then there are ways that we can tap into some of these historical archetypes in our story and really shift the way we feel in our skin, the way we feel about the narrative that we're moving through. And so an example I'll give sometime is like, I'll be working with, let's say a man who's like really struggling in his relationship with his wife and he'll be like, I just feel like she just sees me as like an ebbed and sort of like everything I do is wrong and I'm like, okay, so if you were an archetype to her, what would be the archetype, right? And it's like, I don't know, like the court jester, I'm just like a joke to her, right? And I'm like, okay, so what would it be like to embody the archetype of the lover? How would you move if you were like the lover or the king or the, you know, like, what would that look like? And it's amazing how you can sort of watch, I will watch in real time as I'm talking to a client about this, like the energetic shift that comes over you as you start to think about how does a king move through life differently? How would he speak to her about the things that he longed for differently than the jester would or the page? As he assumes that identity and starts to embody that. Yeah, he starts to feel that about himself and it really starts to shift the way he's moving in his relationship dynamic. And I know for me, there have been times when I've been going through a really challenging period, you know, we will have these dark nights of our soul, which is another thing I don't think we have a lot of cultural normalization of that like, no, life is cycles and there are going to be dark cycles of our lives. And so when I'm in a dark cycle, not pathologizing myself, not meaning or believing that means something about who I am, but this is a period. And so when I'm in one of those dark cycles, I like to like really embrace an archetype, right? And it's like, okay, maybe I'm like the Hierophant right now. And that's like an archetype from tarot. And so I will like, you know, this is a period where I have to be in like spiritual solitude. And I'm just like, using that archetype to embrace this is me in a period of my story. But it's not, you know, something that I need to be defeated by it's something that I can sort of embrace to have some sort of main character energy. I love that too, because it also gives us more breath, right? It's like we're not just a single fixed entity. Like at times, of course, we all know that we have different versions of self at times, feeling better, worse, whatever, more struggle, more confidence. And so yeah, letting us sort of do a little projection of something else, even to imagine, especially with, you know, work a lot with sex. And so with the anxiety that comes for a lot of people and in that space, if they can imagine maybe being good at something or being more empowered or more welcomed, you know, that would be that would be a good imagining. Yeah, I think that is a huge place where I use archetypes and play and the imaginal space with couples. I think it's so helpful. And we can just sort of like, because again, we get so caught up in the roles that we play and how intimate we feel with one another, that it can be really hard to have some of that, you know, you are the erotic other when you're someone that I spend all day every day with and I have for the last 25 years, how do I bring in like you as this archetype that I'm discovering or you as a character that I don't know. And so I'm like, what if you like in your mind just became like a completely different person and then you start to, you know, explore with your partner through the space of those archetypes and it's fun. It's like, you know, role playing a little bit, a little bit. Yeah. And I mean, it's just a way that we lose some of that as adults, you know, that it's like, if we think about what sex is ultimately, it's play, right? Like, hopefully. So how do we bring some more of that in? And I think it's not only something that can be hot and sort of like bring a little bit of like mystery in, but it's also a way that we just get to put down the roles that we play with one another and sort of soften into the space of exploration a little bit more. Yeah. Well, and couples typically have their standard, you know, they're entrenched into the roles that they often assume in intimacy or in everyday life. And so if they are allowed to take on something different and try on something else, it's almost like Halloween, right? Where you put on some sort of costume or mask of any sort and then suddenly you get permission to be different and to assume those qualities and be more playful. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So let's talk about the masculine and the feminine kind of patterns and kind of how that shows up. Yeah, I mean, how it's in all of us, which I loved. I loved your quiz, which I think everyone should take. I took it, I was on a walk. I remember and I was like counting on my hands, like what I was trying to figure out. I was like, how's this going to go? And did you, did you assess that you were a core feminine? Yes, but it was close. Yeah. I mean, and same. And it's interesting because I always, and I say at the end of the quiz, like take it lightly and let it be fun because the thing about these energetics is that they're not fixed states. And in different aspects of our lives and depending on who we are relating to, we will, they will be fluid, right? And so you sort of alluded to this, but just, you know, for anyone that's listening, we all have both masculine feminine energetics within us. This is ancient wisdom and sort of, you know, spoken of as the yin yang sun moon, light, dark, dominant submissive. There's all these different ways to talk about these dualities, but Carl Young in terms of relational psychology and talking about our inner landscape was the first person to really name it in terms of the anima as the masculine qualities within, or excuse me, the feminine qualities within a man and the animus as the feminine qualities. Why can I do that right now? The animus as the masculine qualities within a woman. Now, since Carl Young's time, we've really come to understand that it's a lot more nuanced and a lot more, there's just a lot more than like these fixed states of like gender binaries and that all of us have these energetics alive within us. But if we understand sort of the energetic qualities of the masculine and feminine, what I have found happens, Jen, is that you see them in everything, you see them in our political landscape, you see them in the way that we are experiencing ourselves and the world around us. And it really becomes these dualities that we're always in a struggle with, whether it's like our attachment energy and whether we're in the energy of our anxious energy versus our avoidant energy, or whether we're in the space of like the pursuer, the distancer in our relationship dynamics, like it's always there. But it's really understanding like, oof, how do I, what is the energetic that's alive within me so that I can sort of play with my own energy? And what I started to really notice over times, I was working with couples was that everyone was competing for energy. And what I mean when I say that in, I think sometimes the easiest way to illustrate what that looks like is a couple will be two people, and then let's say they have a child. And what is like the most common thing that comes up for new moms is it's like, I feel like everyone is pulling on me energetically. They need more of me, right? And so it'll be like the dad and the child will be competing for mom's energy. But what happens in a couple, whether there's a child there or not, is that each person is feeling like I need certain energetic things from you that I used to feel in the beginning when we first met each other, used to fill my love cup. You were my everything, right? Like I got a dopamine surge. It felt so good. I felt so seen all of these things that I don't feel anymore. And I need more of that from you. I need you to fill me up energetically. But what I started to understand is that if we really understand the way that energy works, then as I take responsibility for my energy and what's coming up for me, the energy between us starts to shift. And just to give sort of a tangible idea of what that looks like for people are like, what is she talking about? If we like, we will be sort of in this dance between our wounded masculine and our wounded feminine energy, and our wounded masculine qualities are sort of what we were describing about our culture at large, which is just competitive, sort of stuck in the mind, afraid of failure, really controlling energy. That's all like our wounded masculine energy. And that's alive in all of us, right? And that can also be described a lot of times as our avoidant energy. So I have to do this myself, pull myself up by my bootstraps. I don't need anybody controlling energy, right? Our wounded feminine energy is our more anxious energy. And so that's like not having a backbone, like trying to keep people close to me for safety, you know, minimizing my needs to go along, get along, people pleasing all of those energetic. Yeah, that's like that wounded feminine. That anxious trying to kind of keep the peace and like please everybody and yep. Exactly. And we see that in both men and women. Yeah, we see all those traits in all of us. And none of us live there, right? So in our relationships, we'll sort of dance back and forth based on what's going on at the time, right? And if one person shifts from one energetic frequency to the other, the other person will respond and we inevitably create polarity. It's fascinating. But what I found when I was working with couples is if I take responsibility for my energy, say I'm in my wounded masculine, I'm like really in that defensive, like just annoyed by my partner and everything they do is like too much. And I just want them to leave me alone and, you know, do this this way. And then you'd be a better partner. If I come into my heart and I go into my healthy feminine and I really speak from the space of vulnerability and I, you know, say the thing that makes me feel vulnerable to say it, but I'm going to take the chance to say it and I say, I feel overwhelmed. I'm flooded. I tell myself that no matter what I do, it's never going to be enough for you. All of those things then inevitably what starts to happen is there's containment, the masculine energy that my partner starts to come into, right? So we will create polarity either from a wounded place or healthy place. But as I take responsibility for shifting into that healthy polarity, my partner will respond. But the caveat is we can't do it to control their energy. Like we have to do it from an authentic space of just like, nope, this is me taking responsibility for my energy, not to shift my partner. And the same with my healthy feminine. Because when we see, like I see this oftentimes, you know, the distance or pursuer dynamic and the pursuer tends to be highly anxious, right? They're asking, they get labeled needy a lot. They get, you know, and so that neediness creates more distancing. And so if the needy partner, needy, is it, I mean, neediness, I'm like, is it created in a vacuum? You know, like, are they just inherently needy? Sometimes they can be depending on their history. But oftentimes it's also a relational dynamic, right? Absolutely. So if they're in their wounded feminine is to use your, you know, language right in this frame, their task is to come into their healthy self. Contain myself, right? So I use my own tools to remind myself that I'm okay, no matter what. Maybe that's like, you know, tools like therapy or, you know, going on a hike or whatever's in my toolkit, like something that contains me outside of like going to that person, but I've got me energy, right? And that builds confidence in myself. And as I come into my own healthy masculine, all of a sudden it shifts the energy because you're absolutely right. It isn't a vacuum. And let's say you're the more anxious or the needy or the wounded feminine energy, I promise you, if you were all of a sudden to start being in an energetic relationship with someone who is also very anxious, it would create a different polarity in you, you would start to feel a little bit more like pulling away. Like no matter what we create polarity based on who we're relating to. But when we understand that, then we understand like your partner can't actually come back to you as long as you're trying to pull them there. But the minute energetically you stop pulling, they will come back. It's just the way energy works. And it's so funny. They can come back to you, but they do it out of more obligation than they do it out of inherent desire. And that's the trickiness, right? Because the other partner feels that and kind of goes, but do you really love me? Do you really want to? Do you really want to be here? And then there's this kind of like dance that happens that doesn't feel satisfying? Absolutely. And that's the thing, right? Like first of all, your partner will do it, but they'll do it with an inner sense of resentment a lot of times because I'm being controlled in their mind, which they're resistant to. But it's that thing, it's like when we have to ask for certain needs to get met. That's a lot of times why we feel that energy that you're describing. It's because it's not from an authentic desire within my partner, which is what we long for. In the beginning, when they first met me, they came to me with an authentic desire, but they can't do that when it comes from the space of obligation. And that's a lot of times, to me, what's been challenging about some of the ways that we talk about relationship dynamics from a more attachment based space is the fact that we're sort of speaking about romantic love and eros as though it is similar to familial love. And that becomes challenging over time when we're talking about that erotic charge and desire and that it doesn't feel as easy to access that when we're in a very familial space of obligation, which is a lot of times what we're sort of instructing couples to do. You have to do this because they need you, but it's really hard to desire someone who needs you. Right. Right. Yeah, because familial love, of course, you love your parent, you feel a certain, you love your child, that's easy to tap into. There's a sense of duty and there's a sense of respect that, but wanting is different than loving and needing and respecting. Wanting is different and it's energetically a very different track. Yeah, which is why if you think about that healthy masculine containment, when you first met your partner, you didn't need them because they weren't yours yet. So if you can figure out ways to cultivate that energy within yourself, all of a sudden your partner is able to see you again as that differentiated other and you can start to cultivate that feeling between the two of you again. Right. And that's sort of what Astaire calls kind of that oxygen, that separateness that like fire needs air, right? Like we can't be in that amesh state and still have desire for one another. That tension of not necessarily completely having. And I think you talked about in the book too, you know, that desire to possess is sort of that unhealthy when you're out of balance a little bit. And of course we have that like, do I have you yet? And when you don't know that you have somebody, it creates a little bit of tension, which kind of puts you on your A game a little bit to pursue. And it's harder in longer term relationships to keep up that because there is a balance of knowing you have the safety and the confidence and the longevity, right? You don't want to be constantly wondering because, you know, like infidelity will do that where you're like, are we okay? That creates a different kind of tension. And yet also seeing them as independent and separate and knowing that you do still return to this relationship with a separate person and continue to invest and make effort. Yeah. You know, for me, that's the mindfulness practice. Like I actually really talked a couple of little bit of a different way in that I do think you should always be in that space of never really believing that your partner belongs to you. Because, you know, I was married for almost 12 years to someone that it never occurred to me that our marriage would change form. And I think that some of that can be really good for our being really present in this relationship dynamic, you know, and it's not from the space of fear, but the larger truth that most of the time we've just been conditioned to defend against is that the certainty is always an illusion, big breath, even as I say that. But it's not true, right? Like people always have autonomy and a choice to be here. And God forbid, like we lose people, that's the fact of this life. But a lot of times, because we're just a society that really defends against, as we were talking about, even being in conversation about these death rebirth cycles, we don't talk about changing form and things dying and shifting. And so we just sort of stay in the illusion of permanence when the truth is the only thing we can be certain of this change and endings, you know? I know. Right. Ooh. Okay. Well, existential. Right. Because we have to... Damn girl, what time is it? Sometimes it's choice and sometimes it's not choice. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and thinking about too, the masculine and the feminine, and just sort of the power struggle that is oftentimes unconscious that we witness in the chair of the couples therapist, you know, that's playing out. And it comes in with this sort of... Usually it's tagged as communication. You know, that's what the goal that they oftentimes cite when they're coming in. But that's... It's about what you're talking about, right? It's like one of them or both of them are in there, moving it in and out of their wounded, masculine or feminine. And they're having these struggles. Yeah, absolutely. And it's fascinating how it shows up in so many different ways. And there's all these ways that we're sort of attempting to dominate or be in this space of like... And this is a lot, again, of what we're culturally conditioned to believe. Like I create safety by having power over something, which is the disregard of our feminine, which is really in the receptive space of trusting in life and allowing myself to receive and, you know, be in the flow of how things are unfolding. But we're not conditioned to have a lot of trust in that trust in our feminine in general. But I think one of the biggest places that I watch it come up and, you know, you're speaking to the fact that I work with a little bit of younger couples. And I think a lot of times the most difficult time in our relationship dynamics is really when children enter the picture. And so I really love to normalize like those first two years, it's like a battle of the alphas. And I don't care what the makeup of our relationship structure, it's like each person wants it done the way that they do it. Each person is feeling just depleted and unseen and, you know, wanting to assert power over. And it just becomes like a really difficult time. Because first of all, I don't believe we were ever meant to raise children in a nuclear family structure. I think it's too much for two people to do. And so because we're so depleted and it's so challenging, we're just looking to this one other person and making them wrong. Sorry, I haven't met that struggle. And so yeah, I really love to normalize. I guess this is going to be hard for at least two years. It's such a re, gosh, it's a recalibration constantly of resources of, I mean, literally just sleep deprivation and, you know, kind of readjusting to all the needs of everybody. And yeah, it's, it's a whole new normal. And when they come in asking for help with their sex life, I'm like, my God, you guys, you're in survival mode, guys. You're literally just trying to survive. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So, okay, so we're going to take a quick break and we will be right back. 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And in this course, I guide you through the understanding of your unique relationship to it without pressure, shame or performance. You'll get short videos and guided worksheets to help you map out your personal erotic template, identify what turns you on and off and what shuts you down, understand the blocks might be getting in your way, reconnect with your body, and you'll explore your sexual self with more confidence and curiosity. You can go at your own pace. You don't need to want more sex. You just need to want to know yourself better. So if this resonates, then head on over to pleasureproject.us and learn more and enroll in the course. Now back to the episode. All right. So let's tie in some of these things we're talking about with the masculine feminine. How do we know when we're out of balance? You know. Just joking. I know, but how do listeners know when they're out of balance? Yeah. I think whenever we are, I think most of the time, we're just sort of dancing between our wounded and our wounded masculine and wounded feminine. I will say anytime that we are in resistance to someone else and that's in relationship, that's in the workplace, that's in life in general, I think it's a really beautiful time to do some assessment work around what's coming up for me energetically. What's the story I'm telling myself about who this person should be that they are not? Normally, if I can assess where I am, or I'm sorry, assess where they are, I can get a pretty good sense of where I am. So if I'm just feeling like, you know, this person won't open up to me and I just like, I want to connect and like, why do they keep pulling away? And I don't understand why they're just being so cold and distant and whatever. That probably is a pretty good indication that I am in that wounded feminine energy of believing I need someone else to come to me to secure a sense of safety within myself. And so that's a really great indication that it's just an opportunity for me to come into my healthy masculine containment of myself. And for me, that might be meditation or reading some spiritual book or listening to a spiritual teacher that makes me feel really grounded in the big picture or checking in with my therapist or coach or whatever, right? Like something I can do or even sometimes just I will ask the universe or whatever you believe in to help redirect my thinking. And so like coming back to my center, but like really focusing in on what can I do to be that stable force within myself. And then if I feel like I'm, you know, just like really in contemptuous energy with someone and really sort of judging the way that they're showing up and they should be different. And if they would just do it this way, then this would be so much, you know, and this, this can be everywhere. We feel this all day throughout the day. Then it's like, oof, okay, where am I not taking up space with myself, my needs, my authenticity? And can I bring a little bit more of that lightness and that play that we're talking about? And maybe just like there's a rigidity somewhere that is an indication that I'm in my wounded masculine. And maybe I need to speak about some of the fears that I have or some of the overwhelm that I have. And I think- Right, if you're mad at everybody, it might be a place of the start. If you're mad at everyone, you might be in wounded masculinity world around us, the entire ethos, just so we know. I have a quote here that I wrote down that I was going to mention later, but I'm going to say it now because I think it's good. Instead of saying, what am I going to get out of this, instead ask, how can I be more loving in this moment? And I love that, right? It's like sometimes, I mean, I feel like that's a place that, you know, I mean, that may be more in a business context, but it could also be in a relational context. It's like, if you're really just sort of in that, I want what I want for me, and instead kind of shifting to the, how can I just be loving in this moment, right? Going in with curiosity, going in with grace, going into like, I don't know, I'm just going to see what shows up in this moment. Instead of, I'm not going to participate unless I stand to have a win. That's not going to get you. And I feel like sometimes that's the hyper masculine energy of like, me, me, me, you know, instead of us and, you know, letting go. It's very much the cultural paradigm that we've been raised in is like, what I call like this wounded masculine paradigm that's very like, mine and mine people. And like, you know, how I'm going to get one for myself. And, you know, once you start to come into the awareness of that, you see it in everything. It's like, you'll be scrolling through social media, and it'll talk about dating and like, you know, find a person who does this for you. And these are the red flags, if they're not doing this, then this, and I think so much of what we're conditioned to think about love and relationships. And this can be of all kinds is, it's really about what I get from other people. Like, are they filling my needs? Are they taking care of me? But we're not really taught to think a lot about what we can give. And what really changed me, Jen, on like a cellular level, I think, was when my marriage changed form, I realized I wanted to have a different experience for my child. Like, I just didn't want him to experience two parents that didn't know how to continue loving each other. And so what I really had to focus on was how can I be loved? How can I bring as much love as possible to the situation? And so that's sort of been my North Star to come back to, right? Whenever I feel shortchanged or afraid or overwhelmed, it's like, okay, what would love say about this? And there's always a more compassionate inquiry or way of framing the conversation that I can find if I'm really intentional about it. But that's always me leading with that feminine collaborative way of coming back into trust that if I'm vulnerable, that I'll be okay. But it's just a different way of holding the world around us than we've been taught. But I promise the results are so much better than when we're in the space of power over another person, because all of us just defend against the way that feels inside of us. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's holding on loosely, right? It's holding on, but it's holding on loosely. And it allows for different outcomes, rather than the rigidity of like, it must be this. And so, yeah, I wouldn't even say I think of love and relationships like we're holding water, like with two open hands, right? Because if you think about water in your hands, like the minute you close your hands, like it runs through your fingertips, but like love that feels like freedom and that feels like we're bearing witness. And it's just like this really sacred thing that we want to hold delicately is just a very different energetic. We bring to everything. And I think my relationship with my child's father became so much more sacred once he wasn't quote mine. And I saw him as the sacred person that everything he does for me, I'm not entitled to anymore. He doesn't have to do those things. But when I meet it with so much gratitude and reverence for who he is, all of a sudden, we start to meet one another in a sacred energetic. And I think everything about our world is just calling us to remember how to stop grasping onto what we think we're entitled to and meet it with just a little bit more of like that delicate sacred nature, you know. And that applies to all of our relationships, obviously, not just our intimate partnership. That's our friendship. That's our family, right? If we could show up that way and just be grateful and be, you know, of course, boundaries and not just accept anything, but like accept. Yeah. Absolutely. That's great. So how, I guess, let's talk about how couples navigate the tension between closeness and individual, the individualality that's important, because we kind of touched on that before, but just from sort of, we need to be close, but we also need to be separate. Yeah, you know, I used to, and even in the book, I talk about interdependence in a way that I still sort of stand by. And yet, I think of interdependence a little bit differently than I think a lot of times people speak about it and that there's, you know, we are dependent on one another for survival. And so we need to be interdependent beings, which I don't actually agree with completely. And here's what I mean before you're like that. Because I think, yes, we absolutely, as human or we're pack animals, we need one another, right? But I think a lot of times what we are missing in the sort of power over way that we are taught to hold everything is that what we believe is I need this one particular person to show up in this one particular way or my needs will not get met. And that is really us in the space of defending against believing that there's anything larger holding us and orchestrating this whole life school that we're living in. What I have found is that's never the case. Our needs will always be met. It might not be by this person, but if we open up, if we open up to the possibility that there are multiple ways for the divine life to bring us all of the things that we need, it will always be the case. And so I really like to think of us as constellations of sovereignty and that we're all sovereign beings and that we came to bear witness to one another and to dance through this life school supporting one another, but really with reverence for what each person came into this life to achieve and become and understand. And so when I think about love now and the way I talked to couples about it, it's really this idea that your soul is safe with me. And what that means is I want you to experience everything you came to do and become, even if that means that I'm not going to be a part of it. So I trust in the unfolding of life. I believe we're coming into an era where we're just being asked to trust so much more and control so much less. I think the control has been to the degradation of our earth and our relationships. And that's why we see so much polarization in the world around us right now. But if we are in the space of just like honoring each person's sovereignty while saying, you're sacred to me, I want to be a part of your life, but I don't need to control you to do that. Everything starts to shift energetically. Now people will say often when I say that, yeah, but if you have kids and responsibilities and then how do you do that? And what I would say is it's absolutely possible, but it comes from the space of openness and curiosity and co-creation and that each couple constellation gets to decide what that looks like for them. So an example is my son's father and I have just a very different way that we do co-parenting. We don't do breaking it up according to weeks and stuff. We both want to see our kid all the time. So it's sort of like, what do you have going on this week? Can we divide and conquer? And we co-create it in a way that works for us. And we're really sort of allowing it to be a living, breathing organism, which is to me very much in alignment with the way that nature works. This is what it is in this season of his life. He's going to be a teenager at some point and he might want to be somewhere different. You're both cooperative though. There's flexibility and there's communication. There's mutual respect between you and you're both caring about his well-being. Yeah, but it requires a lot of trust not only in one another, but trust in life and that I don't need to control another person in order for me to be safe. And I'm not going to say that it's always been easy. It's certainly been a lot of mindfulness on my part. You bring new partners and new things into the situation and it's like, okay, trust again. And that I believe is like the natural maturation process that I think collectively we're being asked to really just hold more reverence for one another's humanity and that I don't have to control people or have power over them to trust that things work out. And we just soften a little bit that grip that we were talking about. Well, and it's like this idea too that if I see it sometimes with couples where it's like, if I don't shout my needs, they're not going to be known. Whereas oftentimes, the partner knows what the other person wants. It's been stated repeatedly, a thousand ways. It's interesting, right? The energy and like you said before, if you take your foot off the gas a little bit and you take care of your needs and it becomes a program of attraction and not promotion. So many knows a little stuff. I love it. Sometimes it gets you a little further. Absolutely. And I find that there is a little dormant teenager within all of us that just does not want to be told what to do. Like it's just in us. And so it's like no matter what, what your partner hears when you're consistently telling them this is the need that's not being met, it's not your intention, but what they hear is you're doing it wrong. You're loving me wrong. You're showing up wrong as my partner, just like mom and dad said you were doing life wrong. And that brings up that inner teenager's defensiveness of I just want to be loved for who I am, right? So that's why your partner is well aware of what your needs are and so unwilling to meet you there. Or it feels very different when you come from the space of vulnerability and it's a desire and would you be willing? Like there's something about just giving someone the dignity of this is a desire I have, would you be open to it? I promise you try this at home. Your partner will shift so much in the way that they meet you when you ask for a desire and would you be open to this versus I need you to. It's just all of us. Or shaming, right? Like put your phone down. Or I've told you so many times and you're still not, it just feels like mom energy and none of us like the way that feels in us when we're in that energetic with our partner, but we've all been there. And the thing is, even with our kids, if you treat your kids with dignity and respect and say, would you be open to doing this? They hear you differently. It's just, it's a very human thing. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that also gets back to your book title. It is, it's a calling in of how we want to be loved and ideally how we show up for love. You know, it's kind of that idea of being in union and wanting that right rather than duty and sort of it's, yeah, it's being in alignment. Absolutely. I think, you know, we're living through a period in history where the games are changing at a very rapid pace and the way that we are meeting one another relationally has to change as well. I think, you know, we have to be realistic about the fact that we have more instant gratification than we've ever had at the sort of morality of you need to stay in a partnership because it's the right thing to do is not going to be something that is withstanding when there are basically like human robots that, you know, could quote, meet all of your needs and in the same way that a partner could. I think we have to come back to really seeing the sacred aspects of our humanity and valuing that like we never have before. So I think more than ever, it's just really crucial that we embrace the aspects of our feminine and why this, I believe, is the time in history where we're really best to bring this into our consciousness in a different way. Yeah. So I know you lead retreats. Tell me what happens at those retreats. So listeners want to maybe attend one. Yeah. What would they experience? Yeah, you know, I feel like the retreats that I lead are really centered around the reclamation of our essence and all of this soul tending work that we came into these lives to do. And so it's who are you before the world told you who to be? I find that all of us have aspects of what we long for in ways that we long to express that have just been sort of dormant or suppressed or, you know, so we do all the things we do, work around attachment and shadow work and, you know, just archetypal work, like all of the things that we're sort of diving into a lot of work around masculine and feminine energetics and a lot of understanding how the macro has informed the micro. And so the way that we've been socially conditioned, how that impacts how we move through the world. And I think as we do that, we just feel a little bit safer showing up authentically, because all of us have these two fundamental needs for belonging and feeling like we fit in with the tribe and, you know, the societal structure, but we also need authenticity. And again, those dualities are alive in that. But as we feel a little bit safer showing up as our authentic self, then we are able to find, I find our authentic people and people that vibe with us in the way that we long to be. You know, yeah. Kaseyn Point is meeting you. Yeah, absolutely. Sunny Kesterika. I love that. Do couples come on your retreats? You know, it's so funny. I feel like for so long, my retreats were just for whatever reason women were more drawn to coming. I think there's something that, you know, we're certainly socialized to be in the self exploration or personal development work a little bit more as women, but so much more now. Like our brothers are coming. And I, you know, it's interesting. I'm sort of shifting away from like traditionally like a couple's therapist to more of a relationship coach or therapist, just because I feel like what I'm talking about is our relationships in general. And I believe community is becoming so much more crucial than it's ever been. And that the pair bonds are beautiful. And when we have them, I love it. And I think we need to be together as all the different ways that we show up. Men, women, what I, you know, like all of us just together attempting to really connect and relate to one another. So long answer to your question is, I feel like our brothers, the men are coming more frequently, but please, you're so welcome. You're listening. And if you are part of a whole, yeah, if you're a part of a couple, we love that too. Like everyone is so well. Great. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you. This has been really helpful. So appreciate you. It's a pleasure. You can find Danae at, let's see, on Instagram at danae.logan. Her website is danaelogan.com and her book is Sovereign Love. And we'll put all that in the show notes. So thank you. I've loved our conversation. Oh, such a gift to see love. Thanks for having me. Hey, it's Dr. Jen. Thanks so much for tuning in. Please leave us a review and leave a comment if something struck you. We'd love to get the feedback. It really helps the podcast. And if you want to reach me, go ahead and direct message me on Instagram or you can reach me at Jen at revieretherapy.com. Thanks.