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Is your relationship with pleasure complicated?
- Check out my new pleasure course which is enrolling now through April 29, 2019 (we’ll enroll again in June!). It’s called Power in Pleasure: Reconnecting with Your Hunger, Desire, and Joy and runs for five weeks online. I’d love to see you there.
On with the show!
Anonymous shares how exploring and communicating with a partner can help open new possibilities to feeding your life and your relationship.
Miss Submissive is hiring a professional Dominatrix and she would love some help learning how to be a bratty sub. Are there any resources for how to get started both as a submissive and as a brat?
Some of the resources I share include Kink Academy’s Brat series, “Submissive Fantasy vs Submissive Reality” as well as “Creating a Submissive Training Plan for Yourself” on Sugarbutch.net, plus Sinclair Sexsmith’s Submissive Playground online course, Feisty Fox Films has this great post “In Defense of Brats”, and Evie Lupine is a YouTuber who featured Brittany Simon on a video all about brats (and Evie has other videos on submission that might be worth a watch).
B wrote in because she’s in love with her ex boyfriend and he claims to be in love with her, but while they were together he cheated on her by sleeping with his best friend. B feels devastated and doesn’t know what to do.
I dive into trust, betrayal, the importance of friends, and why mental illness is never an excuse for treating someone badly.
Plus, I ask folks to work to be mature enough to understand the level of devastation they can cause by betraying a loved one BEFORE doing something that hurts a loved one. No one should have to see the horror in a loved one’s eyes to understand the impact of their own actions.
Follow Dawn on Instagram.
About Host Dawn Serra:
Dawn Serra is a therapeutic Body Trust coach and pleasure advocate. As a white, cis, middle class, queer, fat, survivor, Dawn’s work is a fiercely compassionate invitation for each of us to deepen our relationships with our bodies and our pleasure as an antidote to the trauma, disconnection, and isolation so many of us feel. Your pleasure matters. Your body is wise. Dawn’s work is all about creating spaces and places for you to explore what that means on your terms. To learn more, visit dawnserra.com or follow Dawn on Instagram.
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Episode Transcript
Dawn Serra: You’re listening to Sex Gets Real with Dawn Serra. That’s me. This is a place where we explore sex, bodies, and relationships from a place of curiosity and inclusion. Tying the personal to the cultural where you’re just as likely to hear tender questions about shame and the complexities of love as you are to hear experts challenging the dominant stories around pleasure, body politics and liberation. This is about the big and the small about sex and everything surrounding it we don’t usually name. The funny, the awkward, the imperfect happen here in service to joy, connection, healing and creating healthier relationships with ourselves and each other. So welcome to Sex Gets Real. Don’t forget to hit subscribe.
Dawn Serra: Hey, you. It’s Dawn here with another episode of Sex Gets Real and I am ridiculously excited. Mostly because when you hear this, I will be in Maui on a very short but much needed trip. Alex’s family is doing a family vacation to celebrate a big milestone for a family member and so six of us are descending on Maui for a couple of days. And when this comes out, I will hopefully be there relaxing with a fruity beverage and a bunch of fresh fruit in my swimsuit by any body of water, and I am looking forward to it. I also wanted to let you know that there is just about a week left to enroll in the Pleasure course that I have, starting April 22nd, 2019 It is a five week course called Power in Pleasure and it is going to be all about helping you to change your relationship, to deepen your relationship, and to reveal more about your relationship with pleasure. Including things like your hunger, your relationship to food, your body, your relationship to desire, joy and we will be doing it all together. It’s going to be so much fun and if you want to learn more about it, you can go to dawnserra.com/pleasurecourse
This week, it is you and me and some of your emails. I’ve got so many interviews lined up for later this month, many of which will be part of a four part series that I’ll be releasing later in May. I can’t tell you yet what it’s about, but it’s going to be really important. Let’s jump into your emails. So first, I just want to say thank you and welcome to Autumn, who is a new $5 supporter on Patreon. If you support the show on Patreon at $3 a month and above, you get bonus weekly content that you can’t find anywhere else in the world. That’s extended interviews with guests, rituals, poems, additional listener questions, all kinds of fun stuff. There are many, many, many weeks of bonuses now accumulated in Patreon. So if you join us by pledging $3 a month, you’ll not only get all of that exclusive content every week, but you can listen to the back catalog. If you support at $5 a month and above like Autumn has, you can also help me to field listener questions and I’ve got a couple of words of wisdom from two different people who support the show at $5 and above from some previous listener questions. You’ll hear those later in the show. But to support the show, every dollar counts, even if it’s just a dollar a month. You can go to patreon.com/SGRpodcast for Sex Gets Real. SGR podcast. Thank you to all of you who already support and thank you to all of you who are thinking about it. Hopefully you’ll make the leap soon.
Dawn Serra: This first email comes from anonymous and the subject line is, “I love listening to this podcast. Please keep me anonymous. I am from Charlotte, North Carolina and I recently started listening to your podcast from the beginning.” Side note, wow. That’s so long ago. That’s more than five years ago at this point, isn’t that bananas? Anyway, back to the email from anonymous. “I’m very vanilla with my partner/husband and this has been super eye opening. In the past couple of years, I’ve started to enjoy some things such as spanking and we’ve briefly spoken about having a threesome with a woman. It went so far as looking on sites, but we had no luck. I also have a very low sex drive. So after listening to your podcast, my husband and I have now had a ton of sex and we are trying new things that are still pretty vanilla, but I’m so happy about it. He even listens some and we’ve been communicating more about what each of us like during sex. I just wanted to share this with you and say thanks. Anonymous.”
Oh, thank you so much, Anonymous. It means the world to me that you’re not only listening to the show and, God, forgive me for some of those earlier episodes. But I love that the show is something that’s feeding your life and your relationship in really yummy ways. I am so, so, so happy for you and I appreciate you taking the time to write me a note.
Dawn Serra: This next email comes from Miss Submissive. The subject line, BDSM beginner sub, “Hi, Dawn. I’d like to first take this opportunity to say how amazing you are and your wonderful podcast. I’ve learned so much over the years. Your podcast has changed my life and opened my mind to sex positivity, being comfortable with my own sexuality, and understanding the importance of everything surrounding sexual health. I can’t thank you enough now for my question. In an effort to further explore my sexuality, I have booked my very first session with a professional dominatrix. I have never been a submissive before and I’ve recently been intrigued with the idea of being a bratty sub, which differs from a misbehaved sub. However, I’ve found very little information regarding this kind of submissive. I was wondering and hoping if you have any additional resources or information on being a bratty sub or even information for beginner subs. Any guidance or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much for everything you do. Miss Submissive.”
Oh, what a great question, Miss Submissive. Okay, so first, how exciting that you will be working with a pro dom soon. And because you’re going to be working with a professional, what you should expect is someone who meets you exactly where you’re at, who helps to craft an experience that feels both safe and sexy at the same time. You’re paying them not only for their time and their labor, but also for their expertise in helping people like you to explore new things in a way that feels safe and yummy.
Dawn Serra: The number one thing that I want newbie subs to know is that being submissive does not ever invalidate your autonomy and your agency or your humanity. There are a lot of really toxic and abusive tops and dom’s floating around in the kink scene who just sees submissives as people that they can take advantage of or demand really unfair labor from. I have encountered them myself in multiple occasions. And in all things, submissives and dominants are equal when it comes to establishing boundaries, being able to stop or slow down an action and in getting needs met. So for general submission of submissive resources, I highly recommend checking out Sinclair Sexsmith and their blog, Sugar Butch. I am going to link to two different essays about submission. That’ll just get you started but you’ll see there’s many of them on the blog. And I also highly recommend Sinclair’s online course Submissive Playground. It doesn’t look like it’s currently enrolling, but there is a, “What kind of submissive are you?” quiz on the website and you can put in your name and email address to get notified when it opens again. And that is a really awesome online course for anyone who wants to explore or deepen their relationship with submission.
If you go to sexgetsreal.com/ep257 for episode 257, you’ll find the links to those essays on Sinclair Sexsmith’s blog, sugarbutch.net And also, I reached out to some of my colleagues for resources that are brat specific and they also shared a couple of things with me. So the first is there is a blog post on Feisty Fox Films called In Defense of Brats. I’m going to read an excerpt from that in just a minute. There is also a YouTube channel with someone named Evie Lupine and they interviewed someone named Brittany Simon where they talked all about brats and BDSM.
Evie also interviewed Brittany about some other types of submission and service within BDSM. Start with this video all about brats but then poke around and see what some of the other conversations they’re having about submission and BDSM. I suspect you’ll enjoy that as well. And then, Princess Kali who’s been on the show. Kali Kink has a whole series of videos on Kink Academy that are just about brat play. I think there’s five or six training videos there where you can learn all about it and that link to this specific brat place series in Kink Academy is also linked at sexgetsreal.com/ep257 if you want to check that out. Kink Academy is a subscription based online education space. I think it’s $29-$30ish per month and there’s no contract. You can subscribe for a month or two and watch a couple of things and then cancel your subscription and then when you ready for more learning, go back totally up to you how you want to do it. But there’s some really, really great things to check out on Kink Academy if you’ve never seen it. They have literally hundreds and hundreds of videos that are all about kink and BDSM. So there’s a whole section on brat play.
Dawn Serra: Here is an excerpt from that blog post I mentioned In Defense of Brats. “To me, being a brat does not mean that you are a bad submissive or treat people poorly. It doesn’t mean you manipulate people in ways that they don’t consent to or purposely act out in ways that are genuinely hurtful or disrespectful.” This tweet from Taryn (@aceinthehole) says, “Bratting let’s me fight back a little and feel like I’m maintaining some of my personal agency. I struggle with subbing versus being an autonomous human. And being a brat helps me straddle that a little better. It’s a personality trait. A way to be playful and teasing or to see if the dominant is someone who is safe for you to submit to. It can give the submissive more room to ask for things that are hard, communicate their wants and speak up for themselves, especially survivors.”
In response to my Twitter question about what brattiness means to a person, Betty Butch summed up my feelings perfectly, “As a survivor, it gives me an actionable connection to my agency. Because it does. Having the space to be a brat has been and still is, to a lesser degree, absolutely integral to my healing and wellbeing. If I’m comfortable around you, I’m going to be playful. I’m going to usually feel capable speaking up to communicate my needs and wants. I’m going to quip back, both in and out of a scene, and I’m going to tease you, as one of the many ways I show affection. This is my personality. It’s a way for me to connect with you, be engaged, and protect my agency. When you tell me I’m not allowed to be a brat, what I hear is that it isn’t about me. You don’t want a connection and you don’t care if you trample over my triggers. If you give me a boundary for how far I’m allowed to take it, I will obey without question. I don’t want to annoy you or be defiant. I just want you to like who I am, not who you would like me to be.”
Dawn Serra: There’s a lot more in that blog post on Feisty Fox Films, In Defensive of Brats. And then, of course, the YouTube videos, Kink Academy, and Sinclair Sexsmith should get you all kinds of threads to start weaving and checking out. I hope that gives you some starting points for your exploration. Just to reiterate, being submissive is a thing of power. You control what happens to your body on your terms. You control whether play continues or not. You control the conditions that make you feel safe enough to explore your edges. You control what kind of communication and aftercare need to happen so that you feel supported and cared for. Any Dom(me) or Top who doesn’t treat you with deep reverence and respect should be ditched immediately. Your safety, your needs come first. Always. And there are lots and lots and lots of dominants and tops out in the world who will treat you the way you deserve to be treated, even as you’re being submissive, especially a bratty one at that. Have a blast, Miss Submissive, with your professional Domme session, and thank you so much for listening to the show.
I mentioned earlier that folks who support on Patreon at $5 and above get to help me offer advice to listeners who write in to the show. Two weeks ago, I featured a really long and really heavy email from someone named Christina about some abusive behaviors and problems with porn that were happening in a relationship that she was in, and some really tough places that both her and her partner were finding themselves in. I posted that question on Patreon for people to weigh in on. And I just wanted to share that I got two comments from two folks who had a little bit more to add.
Dawn Serra: Steph wrote, “I know I’m late but I wanted to say I try to go by, ‘If it’s not impacting the relationship, it’s okay.’ But this has gone to a place where it’s not a simple fantasy fulfillment. It’s a sneaky, ‘I’m prioritizing my pleasure over this relationship’ situation. I agree. It’s time to move on.” Thank you so much to Steph who shared that. I think that there is definitely a lot of evidence in the email for ways that this partner is, one, deep and shame and, two, also behaving in some pretty shitty ways. I mean, making comments on Christina’s body. Just not good. That is already a flag for leaving.
Katie also commented and said, “Oh, I am so sorry, Christina. This sounds like a really frustrating and hurtful experience. In short, I think the porn watching is a flashy symptom of larger issues. From my perspective, it seems impossible to feel connected or to have intimacy generally with someone you don’t trust. Our nervous systems don’t operate that way. Christina doesn’t trust her boyfriend and that mistrust is founded in his continued lying to her. So whether she can ask him to stop watching porn or whether it’s considered cheating, or the content of the porn really isn’t relevant to me, although he certainly didn’t do himself any favors with his presumed viewing choices. What is relevant is that he’s not being truthful and does not seem to be doing anything to acknowledge that he has broken trust, and to work towards earning it back. Given that alone, as hard as it is, I think that this relationship has run its course. But that is not what is happening alone because another huge issue seems to be his entitlement and lack of consideration for her pleasure, her feelings, and her wants in this relationship. Her own vulnerability and security, so on. This dude does not sound like he gives a shit about her and is certainly in a larger social culture that, again, as she says allows and enables his entitled behavior. Maybe there are loads of great things about this dude that Christina does not include, but from what she’s included here, again, as hard as it can be and assuming that there are not some complicated variables that she needs to stay with him, like access to housing. This dude sounds like a bummer and she should ditch him.” Which is similar to the conclusion I landed on.
Dawn Serra: There are so many factors here of toxic and not good behaviors happening. Some of them are coming from a place of shame. Some of them are coming from a place of deep distrust, but it doesn’t sound like anything about the relationship and if you want to hear it, it’s back on sexgetsreal.com/ep255/ But it just doesn’t sound like there’s much in this relationship that’s inviting both of the people, Christina and her partner, to be better versions of themselves. To be growing towards each other and deepening self awareness, connection, love, support. The fact that he comments on her body, the fact that there’s so much lying and sneaking on both their parts, and shaming. I think that this is a relationship that’s not serving them in a way that’s going to help them to be better versions of themselves, which is really what relationships can do.
Relationships are how we heal and grow and relationships can also be a deep source of trauma and hurt, and it sounds like that’s what’s going on. So thank you so much to Katie and Steph for supporting the show at $5 a month and above on Patreon and for weighing in with your thoughts and wisdom. I appreciate it.
Dawn Serra: Imagine having an unapologetic relationship with your pleasure. Being able to say, “Yes, I want that.” And to know you’re worthy of the wanting, if you’re anything like me and so many of the people I work with, somewhere along the way, you were taught to distrust your hunger cues. To deny or to feel shame around your desire, to ignore or contain the things that make you feel good, to feel like you had to earn your right to pleasure. And it’s not your fault that your body and your pleasure feel foreign, complicated, and distant. It’s a feature, not a bug, of the culture we live in. That’s why I created Power in Pleasure: Reconnecting with Your Hunger, Desire, and Joy, an online five week course and community to help you discover, befriend, and prioritize your pleasure and your body. Because you deserve pleasure, joy, desire, hunger, satisfaction, and presence.
You deserve to savor and feast on your life, the food you eat, and the way you exist in your body. Because the problem is not you. The problem is not your body. The problem is a culture that taught you to distrust your desires and to look outside yourself for answers. So let’s join together in this gentle exploration of pleasure and what it means to you. Plus, the stories that you carry that may not be yours to carry. If you want to learn more about my online course that’s launching in just a few weeks, go to dawnserra.com/pleasurecourse There’s a link in the show notes. Join me. Your pleasure matters.
Dawn Serra: This next email comes from someone using the initial, B. “Hi, I’m going through some real shit and listen to your podcast to find answers. I love the show and your insight. I know you’ve talked about this subject before, but I feel like I need specific advice. So I’m writing in. I am 27 years old and my, in apprentices, (ex??) question mark, question mark, boyfriend is 30. I don’t know if it’s relevant. I think it is, but maybe that’s just my forgiving mind telling me that it is, but he has been super depressed lately. In the same week, our relationship fell to pieces. He found out he was losing his apartment and has been almost unbearably depressed since. The day before it all happened, we’d been kind of annoyed with each other.
When he woke up the next day hungover and super sad about his life, he decided to talk about it with his friend instead of me. I’m also hurt about that. He and his friend have a history. She’s been one of his best friends for 15 years. He doesn’t see her often, but she’s the friend he opens up to. He’s told me that they’ve had sex in the past and that she was in love with him, which is also the reason he didn’t talk to her for a few months in the beginning of our relationship. She was jealous. But then he said that she was over him so they started meeting again. I try not to show how uncomfortable I am with him seeing her since I know friends are important and I don’t want him to feel uncomfortable telling me who he’s going out to meet. On to his visit with this friend. He pocket dialed me and I didn’t realize what I was hearing at the beginning. It sounded like crying and then she was comforting him, but I realized that what I was hearing was sex.
My heart fell on the floor. Lord, the trauma. I listened from the beginning to the end, screaming at him hoping he would hear it, but he didn’t. After the sex, he looked at his phone and saw that I was on it. He broke down and ran back home to try and win me back. I was so incredibly angry. I was certain this had been going on for months, but since then we’ve talked, and I’m 70% sure that this was the first time. He told me how it happened and I was right. He was crying and she comforted him, and started kissing him, and they had sex then and there with all their clothes on. I don’t know if I’m telling you this because I feel like it’s relevant or if I feel like this information will minimize the situation. What also hurt me so deeply was that he said the same stuff to her that he says to me, “I love your pussy. I love your body.”
Dawn Serra: I’m so incredibly in love with him and I know that he is deeply in love with me. We both want to be together. We fell for each other instantly and knew from the beginning that we’d be together. We’ve both been a mess since it happened. I moved out. He started sending me articles on relationships that have survived infidelity and he says he’s going to go to therapy to fix himself. I know that he is so sorry and feel so guilty. I really want to find it in my heart to forgive and trust him, but I’m afraid that I can’t. We decided that time apart is best so that I can see if I can find out if I want to move forward and so he can show me that he’s actually trying to change. But now a week later, I feel like time apart was a horrible decision. That’s making things even worse.
Now, all of my focus is not on the fact that he cheated. The only feeling I feel is sadness and fear. Sad that we aren’t together and fear of us being apart will make him realize that he doesn’t want to be with me and that would break my heart a second time. I’m so confused and I need someone to tell me what to do. Please, help. B.”
Dawn Serra: Oh, B, I am so sorry you’re finding yourself in this really painful place. Being cheated on fucking sucks. Experiencing betrayal is a heartbreak that I had never known before that. To hear it happening? Ugh, god. Before I share my thoughts, Patreon supporter, Steph, had a short little thought in response to your email. Steph says, “It seems really convenient that the phone dialed mid action. Did the ex do it on purpose? Either way, this relationship seems not as solid as B wants it to be.”
As for my thoughts, I want to begin with the end of your email, B, where you said, “I fear us being apart will make him realize he doesn’t want to be with me.” If being a part makes him realize he doesn’t want this relationship, then that’s a gift. And it’s going to be a gift that hurts like fuck, but it’s a gift. Because I want for you to be in a relationship with someone who really, really wants to be in a relationship with you. Not someone who’s only with you because you trapped them into it or because you made yourself so available, they didn’t have an opportunity to really think and reflect and choose it. He’s either committed to you and doing the work to try and repair this relationship or he isn’t. And whether you’re living together or even seeing each other multiple times a week shouldn’t impact that desire and commitment.
Dawn Serra: You started your email by saying you think your ex is depressed and that life has been difficult for him. I have so much compassion for everyone who struggles with depression and other mental illnesses. I live with anxiety every day and I can tell you some days are a real fucking struggle. So I get that. I also have a lot of compassion for how shitty it feels when you get knocked over after you’re already down in life and that doesn’t excuse the very real harm he caused. He made a decision that violated your relationship agreement and that hurt you deeply. Depression, shitty circumstances, any kind of mental illness does not excuse bad behavior. It doesn’t excuse abuse, it doesn’t excuse betrayal. He is responsible for respecting his commitments, even and most, especially when they’re challenging to uphold. Because that’s the point of all of this trust stuff, right?
It’s really easy to have trust and to respect each other’s needs when we’re happy and life is easy, when things are flowing, and there aren’t any real challenges. Behaving in a way that supports the trust rebuilding, behaving in a way that respects our commitments and agreements, is specifically for those hard times when things are overwhelming or confusing or hard. That is when we’re actually meant to exercise those muscles and really show who we are and how seriously we take those things.
Dawn Serra: Now, your ex should be able to go to lots of different people in his life for emotional support. You mentioned feeling hurt that he talked to his friend instead of you and, I think, talking to a friend is a really healthy thing. Sometimes we need space and places to go outside of our relationship to understand how we feel about the relationship. None of us should be the sole support for our partners. That is a burden that becomes really heavy really quickly. It becomes super enmeshed and often it turns into caretaking, which then smothers desire for so many people.
We all should be able to turn to a multitude of friends, family, neighbors, mental health professionals, online support groups, in person groups, colleagues for emotional support, and spiritual support and general resource support, in addition to our partners. Because every person is going to offer different kinds of wisdom and perspective and that richness is so important for our overall health. And, in addition to that, I just want to say we all make mistakes. We all make bad choices, that’s just part of being human. But something that’s really unfortunate to me, and you heard this on sexgetsreal.com/ep254/ a few weeks ago, some people don’t have the maturity to realize how fucking deep it hurts to be cheated on until they experienced that kind of betrayal themselves. And I hate that so much. I think there’s so many things that are wrapped up in entitlement and a lack of empathy, and so many other things that make that be true. There is a lot of emotional intelligence and maturity in being able to say, “I can imagine how this might impact you before the thing ever has to happen.”
Dawn Serra: We should never have to see the horror in a loved one’s eyes to understand how deeply we might hurt them and what they mean to us. We should never have to actually harm someone in our lives to suddenly realize this thing we have is meaningful and important. I want for us to be in relationship with people who get it now and who know things will get really tough, and really messy, and really hard and who choose to do better before hurting someone by betraying them. Also, something else that I talked about in episode 254 is it is absolutely possible for relationships to recover from betrayal and to actually become stronger. It does take a lot of really hard work and really uncomfortable work.
He chose to cheat on you and he can’t undo that nor can you unhear what you heard or unknow what you know. So the option then is to take where you are now with the information you have now, and to look ahead what might be possible from here with this experience, a part of the story. You’re not going to get that prior relationship back no matter what. And I know that can be so hard for so many of us to really feel into, but we can never go back. What you need to decide B, is do you want to do the work to slowly rebuild trust with him? If it takes many months or even a few years of slowly refilling that trust back up, is that something you have the capacity and the desire to tolerate? And does he?
If the answer is yes, you want that, then I would recommend working with a sex positive therapist around healing from this experience, and getting support for the grief work and the anger work that’s going to be a part of this for you. Because you have every right to grieve the relationship that you’ve lost and you have every right to be really fucking angry over what happened. And if the answer is yes, you do not need to move back in together in order for this to be a priority, you’re both committed to. I’m so sorry that you find yourself at this really painful crossroad and the shitty truth of the matter is that no matter what you decide, it’s going to hurt. That hurt is inescapable right now. And you’re allowed to be angry about that, and to feel sad about that, of course you would because betrayal can wound us deeply. It’s going to hurt if you decide that you can’t trust him and that it’s too much work, that you aren’t up for it. It’s okay if you decide that that’s true.
Dawn Serra: There are lots and lots of amazing human beings in the world who would love to know you. This isn’t your only option and it’s going to hurt if you decide you really do want to do the work. It’s going to hurt if you choose to give this a try and then find out he can’t show up in that way. Maybe he isn’t as committed to doing the repair work or maybe repeatedly looking deeply at the kind of person that he is, may mean he just can’t tolerate that kind of introspection right now in his life. You might choose it and then he may bail. And it’s going to hurt even if you both decide to do this repair work because it’s going to mean bumping up against all kinds of stories and moments of distrust and grief. And it’s going to feel awkward and uncertain for probably a long time. That’s not to say you can’t have really great joyous moments during the repair work because you can. But it is that there’s going to be this awkward, maybe spoken, maybe unspoken, weird thing while you’re rebuilding trust because it means choosing to show up for each other when there is no trust. And that’s why having a professional to help you sort through that can be really helpful because it can get kind of murky.
What I want to ask you, B, is it boils down to you trusting yourself and trusting what your gut is telling you. Even if what your gut is saying something you don’t want to hear. Because no one can tell you what to do as much as you want that. That’s the shitty part about being an adult. No one lives in your body. No one lives in your life. No one knows your story. No one will have to live with the consequences except for you. And I don’t want you to give away your power because it just hurts so much. Only you know deep in your heart and soul if this is a person you believe can really do the repair work, and come out the other side more deeply committed and humbled. Only you know if you want to do that work. Only you know if these feelings of love are more about the fantasy you have of him, and the fantasy you have about the relationship than about the reality of who he is and what he can bring. I know that deep inside you have a a little niggling or maybe it really loud, big shouting, of what to do next. And finding your way to hearing that and trusting it even if it just breaks your heart, is going to be what helps you to move in the direction of your own truth.
Dawn Serra: I hope that that gives you some food for thought and I’m so, so sorry you’re in this tough place. I really hope that everyone listening hears the pain of these stories, does some reckoning with themselves about the importance of being trustworthy and how utterly devastating it can be to have to rebuild trust after a betrayal. Please don’t let entitlement or ego or a fear of uncomfortable conversations get in the way of you being honest and transparent with the people that you love. B, I want to wish you the very best of luck. I’m so sorry you find yourself here and I trust you to know what is best for you. You have that answer inside of you. You might not want to hear it. You might not know how to hear it, but it is there. Because you are the expert in your life and no matter what happens next, there is so much goodness available to you whether that’s on your own or in trying to repair this relationship. Thank you for listening to the show and for trusting us with this question. I appreciate it so much. So that’s it for this week’s episode. I know it’s a little bit short, but I’m getting ready to go to Hawaii. And as soon as I get back from Hawaii, the pleasure course launches. So don’t forget, if you want to join me for Power in Pleasure, a five week online course all about feeling into and experiencing new ways of being with your hunger, and your desires, and your joy, and your sensations, your body, exploring presence and mindfulness through it all. Please do join me at dawnserra.com/pleasurecourse
I will talk to you next week when I am back from my little mini vacay and we have some amazing things planned for this summer, including a whole bunch of freebies to give away. So stay tuned. Keep listening. Join me over on Patreon for the bonus and I will talk to you next week. Bye.
Outro: A huge thanks to The Vocal Few, the married duo behind the music featured in this week’s intro and outro. Find them at vocalfew.com Head to patreon.com/sgrpodcast to support the show and your hands get awesome weekly bonuses. As you look towards the next week, I wonder, what will you do differently that rewrites an old story, revitalizes a stuck relationship or helps you to connect more deeply with your pleasure?