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tl;dr Leonore Tjia on highly sensitive people, relational work, and why modern mental health models are inherently anti-erotic.
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In my chat with Leonore, we explore what a highly sensitive person is and why Leonore has been holding workshops on sex for HSPs. We also talk about the difference between highly sensitive and high sensation seeking.
Leonore shares about how resentment builds with tolerating and performing emotional labor as a highly sensitive person. Plus, the impact to our libido and desire when we don’t feel welcome as who we really are (because of a fear and experience of being too much).
Leonore talks about the erotic suffering we are living in and how modern medicine pathologizes valid experiences.
We explore what partners of HSPs need to know about supporting highly sensitive people, and what it means for Leonore to be shifting her professional work to a more relational capacity. What if we all had more places where people genuinely wanted to hear about our experiences, even if it was uncomfortable?
We discuss how worthiness ties to healthier and more connected relationships, boundaries and how we take responsibility for things that aren’t ours which leads to codependence and pain. Plus, why knowing what is not yours takes a lot of practice and work on our worthiness and self-love.
Leonore names why eros can’t move through us when we are in fight/flight/freeze/fawn, not to the extent that it’s possible, so the process of finding our inner authority and transforming shame into courage creates a good container for eros to visit.
We both talk about why our work is dedicated to deeply shifting our ways of relating with ourselves, each other, and the world – because we need to change things, and it starts with our most intimate relationships.
Finally, we geek out on the harm and damage mainstream mental health causes when it operates from within the dominant paradigm. We discuss: the normativity of modern mental health models, how little sexuality training therapists receive, and its goal is to bring us into alignment with oppressive systems. Leonore sees much of modern mental health as inherently anti-erotic.
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About Leonore Tija:
Leonore is a feminist sexuality educator who helps people create more presence, play, pleasure and power in the bedroom and beyond. As a trained practitioner of Internal Family Systems therapy, she assists people in recovering the parts of their sexual selves that have been exiled and repressed. Her workshops and teaching bring an ecological focus to sexual empowerment, helping people to reconnect to erotic vitality and step into sexual wildness. She is the founder of the Nordic Woman retreat, which combines wilderness skills and expressive arts in the Swedish backcountry.
Stay in touch with Leonore at rewildingtheheart.com and 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.
Hey you! I am a few days late with this week’s episode, but I know you understand because of the world. Episode 299 is here. It’s kind of bizarre that we’re going to be celebrating 300 episodes in the midst of a global pandemic, but that is just what it has to be.
Before we get to anything else, I really want to just pause and ask, how are you? Really, truly, how are you? If you want to comment on Facebook or Instagram or shoot me a note at dawnserra.com. Reaching out when things feel confusing and intense is a brave thing to do and an important thing to do. While I can’t fix anything, and I can’t necessarily reply to everyone, I am always happy to hear from you to hold space for you. I know that a lot of us are feeling triggered and checked out, anxious and scared and frustrated, overwhelmed, panicked, numb – all of it is okay. I mean, surviving right now is the most important thing. For a lot of us, certainly, surviving might feel really difficult or scary, especially if we’ve lost our jobs, if we’re not sure of our housing situation, if we or loved ones are still having to go into work or know someone and love someone who’s a healthcare worker. Some of us might be isolating and live alone, which might feel really lonely. And others might be isolating in homes that are unsafe, homes that are violent or just really fucking uncomfortable because of the dynamics – and it’s not ideal.
I have been doing a lot of Zoom calls, both with friends, family, colleagues, and also with the community. Hopefully, you saw my email that went around last week and this week, with a whole bunch of calls that I’m holding for free, just so that we can feel less alone and connect. I’ve been having phone calls with friends that I haven’t talked to in forever. There have been loads of texting and checking in and co-working online. And that piece has actually felt really good and important. I’ve been talking to people that I’ve missed.
Because Alex and I are in the throes of summiting and a whole bunch of client work, we’ve been trying to find time to play a few times a day. We’re essentially fully quarantined because we actually live in a high-rise. So we can’t walk out our door without touching lots of things that other people have touched or being in an elevator that is almost always full. Instead of leaving our place, we’ve been doing things like going out on our balcony to watch the birds or to notice the cherry blossoms that are coming out on the trees nearby, or even pretending we’re in a different city and talking about all the things that we would see if we were in Paris or if we’re in Patagonia. That little bit of fresh air and also imagination has felt really good.
I also just want to say, for those of you that are still having to go to work, I am thinking about you. I hope you’re in a situation that’s as low-risk as possible. For those of us who do have the privilege of staying in and working from home, I hope each and every one of us are taking that responsibility very, very seriously and only going out if it’s absolutely necessary. It might be inconvenient, it might be scary or frustrating, but this time is how we care for each other.
I’ve also seen in a lot of my groups of people who are talking about how lonely they feel and how starved for touch they are. Something that is worth noting because I think it’s something we really discount and don’t think about a lot is self-touch. Self-touch is so important, especially at times like these. We can really soothe our nervous systems, make our bodies feel appreciated through self-touch. Particularly, when we bring intention and attention to the touch. We touch ourselves a thousand times a day, but it’s just functional. We’re just moving hair out of our face or scrubbing ourselves in the shower, or rubbing lotion into our skin, or knocking something off of our hand. But to really be with ourselves to make ritual out of it to self-massage those knots in our shoulders and neck, to hug ourselves. Even to spank ourselves, to slap ourselves, to flog ourselves. When we touch ourselves with that intention and really arrive in the sensations, it can be nourishing and validating. And so few of us do that for ourselves. I hope that if you have the time and the ability that that might be something you experiment with in the coming week. And pleasure is more important than ever right now.
Yes, surviving is our top priority, but my hope is that we can experience a little bit of thriving here and there – moments of joy, moments of delight, and certainly, moments of pleasure,. Eat foods that bring you pleasure. Listen to music that brings you pleasure. Talk to people who make you laugh and feel less alone. Dance or sway with fun songs and musicals – we did that today and laughed a whole bunch. Anything that helps you to feel more present and alive is going to help us also manage the fear and the uncertainty.
As weird as it is, since we’re all home – or many of us are – and isolating, registration for Explore More Summit is open. I expect this year is going to be pretty extraordinary and important. It’s just really weird that I started planning this year’s summit last summer. I sat down in June and July and imagined what kinds of conversations that I wanted us to have. I started recording interviews with people in August, and then recorded all the way through February. I never could have anticipated that we would find ourselves inside of a global pandemic. But holy shit, are these conversations timely and important. They really are. I mean, we are talking about resilience, community accountability and collective care, pleasure – especially when we’re in traumatized bodies – trauma and soothing our nervous systems, relational responsibility and boundaries, body trust and eating from a place of pleasure, joyful movement, embodiment in times of crises. We’re talking about grief and rage and so much more that really speaks to where we find ourselves right now. Needing to support each other and needing to take action in ways that might be uncomfortable for us, but serve so many others. And finding ways to be creative and playful and connecting around difficult things.
So if you haven’t attended Explore More Summit before, this is our sixth one. It happens over 10 days. We’re doing it April 20 to the 29th this year. It’s free to attend live. You can tune in for all 28 talks without paying anything. When you register to get your free ticket at exploremoresummit.com, you will not only get to watch around three talks per day for those 10 days, but you also get these amazing free workbooks that we fill with journal prompts, reflective questions, invitations into news stories, that help you really take everything you see on the talks and bring it into your life and in your body, in your bones. We have a private Facebook group, where we talk about all sorts of things. And it really is a beautiful, precious experience.
I hope that you’re going to join us. You can see the full lineup at exploremoresummit.com plus the schedule. You’re going to see names like Kai Cheng Thom, Pleasure Mechanics, Nora Samaran, Caffyn Jesse – who’s one of the founders of Somatic Sex Education. Andrea Glik, who you might know as @somaticwitch on Instagram. They talk about impact play and kink as a pathway to embodiment and healing attachment wounds. Dana and Hilary from Be Nourished are there. Rachel Cole is talking about living a well-fed life and so many more people. Dr. Jennifer Mullan from Decolonizing Therapy. Lama Rod Owens, who’s a Buddhist, talking about rage and love and patriarchy and toxic masculinity. In other words, whether you see one talk or all 28 talks, you don’t want to miss it. It’s online, it’s free, and we’re going big places. You can get your free ticket at exploremoresummit.com and hopefully, I will see you there.
So let’s talk about this week’s episode. Leonore Tjia is back! Leonore and I always have such an incredible time going really deep in our conversations. It’s something we literally just do for fun when we have our zoom dates, every couple of weeks or couple months, depending on what’s going on in our lives. This episode is basically you getting to eavesdrop on some of the things that we have been thinking about and feeling into and asking ourselves about lately. Then for you, Patrons, Leonore and I actually talked for about 45 minutes before starting the podcast episode. And 20 to 25 minutes of that was gold. It was so good. So I’m releasing that as the Patreon bonus this week, for those of you who support at $3 a month and above. We didn’t intend for it to be heard. But as we were getting ready to record for the podcast, Leonore was like, “That was really good. Maybe that should be part of the podcast.” I said, “I was recording.” So thank goodness. You can head to patreon.com/sgrpodcast to eavesdrop on us even more and hear us really, really geeking out about so many things that you’re going to hear.
In the episode, Leonore talks all about her work with highly sensitive people around sex, what a highly sensitive person is, the ways that HSPs – as they’re called – often have to perform lots of emotional labor and have to perform being non-sensitive, and the ways that that really impacts them and creates resentment in relationships. Also, the impact that that has on libido. We talk about what partners of highly sensitive people can do to better support the HSPs in their life, which is important because all of us know HSPs, even if we don’t know we know them. We talk about the importance of having multiple sources of support so that we can better show up in our relationships with care and presence and what that looks like.
Then we dive into the mess that is modern mental health. Leonore is getting her degree right now. She’s in grad school to become a therapist and is having some really interesting experiences, which you’ll hear more on the Patreon bonus. But we talked about the violence that modern mental health can really enact on us by trying to pathologize really normal experiences and trying to conform us to really deeply normative and violent systems. Also, we talked about why Leonore thinks that so much of modern mental health models are inherently anti-erotic. And when we’re going to professionals, like therapists, for support around our mental health, if the models they’re using are inherently anti-erotic, then that’s going to serve to further separate us from our creativity or joy or aliveness, our feelings. So we have lots of ideas around what we can do around that – how we can be more discerning. There’s a lot. But I am very much looking forward to you hearing it.
Let me tell you a little bit about Leonore, and then we are going to jump into the episode. Leonore is a feminist sexuality educator who helps people create more presence, play, pleasure, and power in the bedroom and beyond. I love all of that alliterating. As a trained practitioner of Internal Family Systems Therapy, she assists people in recovering the parts of their sexual selves that have been exiled and repressed. Her workshops and teaching bring an ecological focus to sexual empowerment, helping people to reconnect to erotic vitality, and step into sexual wildness. She is the founder of the Nordic Woman Retreat, which combines wilderness skills and expressive arts in the Swedish backcountry. Here is my chat with Leonore Tjia.
Dawn Serra: Welcome back to Sex Gets Real, Leonore. Chatting with you is one of my greatest pleasures in life.
Leonore Tjia: Oh, my God! I’m so honored. Really?
Dawn Serra: Yes!
Leonore Tjia: Wow. I’m going to put that on my resume.
Dawn Serra: Please do. I just feel so nourished and challenged whenever we get together and geek out about all of the things that you and I both love thinking about and being inside o f. So I’m excited that you’re here this week and that we get to do a little bit more exploring together.
Leonore Tjia: Oh. Me, too. It’s such a pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Dawn Serra: Okay. So there’s lots of places that we want to go today. But where I would love to start is, I have not in the – I don’t know – five years of this show, really done much of talking about highly sensitive people. Now, I think I’ve certainly talked about it in a very roundabout way. A lot of the people that write in and a lot of the people that I work with, certainly are highly sensitive people. But you just recently taught a class around sex and highly sensitive people. I would love to hear more about that.
Leonore Tjia: Yeah, awesome. This work really comes out of– I mean, I think we’re always mining our work out of our own experiences and pain. But I’m definitely someone who resisted looking into the term high sensitive, highly sensitive person for a long time because I think, like a lot of highly sensitive people, I was in denial and very much resisted it. Because I was like, “Ugh!” It sounds like a weak term or I don’t know. I have to– I resisted looking at my own sensitivity because I didn’t want to, I think, face this level of vulnerability that had always been there in my life. But it’s been really transformative to do so. Yeah. So do you want me to just dive in?
Dawn Serra: Well, I would love it if you would, maybe for people who don’t know what a highly sensitive person is, how would you define that?
Leonore Tjia: Yeah. High sensitivity, it’s a sensory processing sensitivity that affects about 20% of the population. It’s been a very well-researched and published about, primarily from two researchers – Elaine and Arthur Aron, psychologists – who have spawned this whole body of work around it. They define it as an increased sensitivity of the central nervous system and a deeper cognitive processing of physical, social, and emotional stimuli.
So I think when we start talking about high sensitivity, there’s a tendency to equate it with what we might refer to as empaths and to really talk about it in the emotional dimension, which is definitely part of it. However, a lot of it actually is experienced very physically. So we’re talking about people who have an inherently greater sensitivity to all kinds of stimulation, like bright lights, fluorescent lights make you want to die, loud sounds really affect you, textures of clothes really bother you, being around crowds is especially draining. It’s things like that. Does that make sense?
Dawn Serra: Oh, yeah.
Leonore Tjia: It can kind of make you feel crazy. Because really being in this world, we’re living in a world that is not calibrated to our nervous systems. So it sets us up to have a hard time, even attending to those needs. I mean, on a very physical level. Like, “Oh, I’m trying to pay attention to you and have this conversation, but I can hear the whine of the TV that no one else can hear. The lights are just– And then I’m feeling drained and dissociated. I don’t even know why.”
Dawn Serra: Yeah. It makes me think, too, how not only is the world designed in a way that – especially our current kind of iteration of modern world and life – is very, very sensory overwhelming, and how so many of us are becoming numbed to that. But it also makes me think about how– One of the things that I have really high sensitivity to is textures and foods, and how so many people in my life have seen that as being really silly or really dramatic. So there’s this downplaying – “It’s not that bad, “Oh, it’s just in your head.” Or, even, I remember as a kid, hearing some friend’s parents saying about my friends, “Oh, they just want attention.”
Leonore Tjia: Totally. Yeah, there’s this experience of being gaslit by our environments all the time.
Dawn Serra: Yeah.
Leonore Tjia: Because we attend to and notice things that other people don’t. Also, because then our needs are perceived as problematic.
Dawn Serra: Yeah.
Leonore Tjia: Yeah.
Dawn Serra: I’m also curious, so many of the things you named, I think, are also very similar or adjacent for people who are on the autism spectrum or who have experienced trauma and have PTSD, or even people who live with panic and anxiety. There’s lots of similarities in a lot of these things that you’re describing around being sensitive to textures and noises and crowds. I’m wondering, do those need to be teased out? Or, when you think about highly sensitive people and also people maybe who have PTSD or who have anxiety and panic, does it really just boil down to, “Your experience is true, so let’s honor that regardless of what the label is and find ways to thrive with this being true?”
Leonore Tjia: Totally. Well, I mean, I think there’s always cofactors going on. A lot of highly sensitive people have their own trauma histories, definitely. Or, are autistic, or any of the other things that you mentioned? So, I think it’s useful to think about it as a set of over overlapping identities and experiences that can also be experienced discreetly. But I mean, at the end of the day, I think you and I are probably on the same page of, it really boils down to, it’s not about categorizing people into some essential label. But really just listening to the truth of their lived experience. And helping people, as you say, to thrive in worlds that are not set up to support them.
Dawn Serra: So when it comes to sex and HSPs, what are some of the things that you’re teasing out? What are some of the things you want people to know? What are you hoping to teach?
Leonore Tjia: Yeah. Looking at the research that exists on high sensitivity, what I found was really interesting is that highly sensitive people are more likely to experience sex as mysterious and powerful and meaningful. They’re more likely to inherently experience its depth, and also more likely to be distracted, to get overstimulated and overwhelmed, to really need their environment – they need environmental setup – to feel an erotic spark. And also, to need more transition time and recovery time after. That I found very interesting.
The other thing that is fascinating about the research is that there’s high sensitivity, and then there’s high sensation seeking. You can have them together, and you can also have them separately. High sensation seeking correlates with a desire for novelty, exploration, and adventure, a tendency to get restless in routine, a draw to intense physical experiences, and a seeking of physical thrills. High sensitivity is known for having more of a risk consciousness, doing more risk assessments. High sensation seekers are exactly what it sounds – people who are really drawn to have intense experiences. You can have them together, and you can also have them separately.
Dawn Serra: I think It’s such an interesting thing to be highly sensitive and to be looking for risk because you know how that impacts you. But then, at the same time to be high sensation seeking and to feel that contradiction inside yourself.
Leonore Tjia: Yeah, I know right. That’s my entire sexual story.
Dawn Serra: So this explains sex.
Leonore Tjia: This explains so much. This explains so much. I mean, also, I think it’s like we’re overstimulated so often that there’s a desire to experience that kind of overstimulation on your own terms.
Dawn Serra: Yeah.
Leonore Tjia: I just think about, certainly, what my own sexual journey with BDSM has involved is looking for consensual and supportive and empowering experiences of sensation.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. What I think is really interesting about that, too, is, especially right now because of how we’re living our lives with technology and this immediacy culture, there is so much resistance in us to really slowing down and arriving. We’re terrified of being bored, or being offline. Then, a lot of ways that mimics this high sensation seeking, this need for novelty and wanting things to be really fast moving, but that can also be a symptom of numbing, escaping, and trying to not feel. So I think that’s a really interesting space, too.
Leonore Tjia: Totally. I mean, I think all of us on the planet right now are living in times where our nervous systems are being taxed, perhaps more than ever before. A lot of ways, I think, that highly sensitive people are kind of the canaries in the coal mine, in that we’re a population of higher attunement, higher responsiveness. Therefore, being more affected by issues that are actually global.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. It also makes me think, too– I’m so glad that you’re offering workshops around this and helping to normalize for people that maybe they experience sex is something that’s very emotional or has a lot of depth or that they’re really sensitive to the environment, and they need a lot of aftercare. Because I think I personally have experienced – and I’m sure you have, too – in your coaching practice, of working with people, that there’s so much pain and shame that happens when people are trying to perform and keep up with hookup culture. But then finding that it’s really difficult for them. They keep getting their feelings hurt, or they just feel like something is working, but they’re trying to pretend they’re super chill. And how there’s this attempt to appear like everybody else who’s kind of super sexual and hooking up with people versus the actual lived experience of, “How does this feel in my body?” and, “Maybe that’s not what’s best for me,” and some of the shame that comes with that.
Leonore Tjia: Totally, totally. I mean, what I loved about developing this material is that it’s really about healing your relationship with your own nervous system and how you inhabit your whole body, your nervous system, your emotional sphere, your relational sphere. And really, just the process of being who you are, not who you think you should be, or who you were trained and indoctrinated into being.
So what I really actually found through this course was, even though we started off by talking about high sensitivity in terms of the physical aspects, like getting overstimulated by the lights and so on, a huge piece of the work was the emotional – the psychological and the emotional. Of, “How do we understand our needs?” And that brought us into really examining how often we were overriding our discomfort. Just to move through the world at all, to go grocery shopping, to be in grad school, to have conversations with family members. Just the chronic overriding of discomfort that we had become habituated to.
Dawn Serra: Yeah.
Leonore Tjia: And that everything that came out of that – the suppression of our needs, this prioritizing of other people’s comfort and experience, this constant stance of caretaking and volunteering, excessive emotional labor, and just the incredible relational patterns that then come out of that – there’s just so much there.
Dawn Serra: There’s so much there. Because I think one of the things that’s really challenging about that, especially when you aren’t able to name it and really have it validated is an experience of moving through so many of your relationships with this buzz of resentment and not knowing why. “These people are good people, and I love them. We have fun and yet, I’m just constantly irritated,” or “I can’t stop being short with them,” or “I’m getting really passive-aggressive,” or “I’m just annoyed all the time.” How that often is a symptom of this chronic overriding of our needs and chronic tolerating of things that aren’t really serving us, but we’re trying to be really good partners, or we’re people pleasing, or all the other things that come with so many of our identities.
Leonore Tjia: Totally. Especially because part of high sensitivity is having innately more empathy and more information processing – a greater depth of information processing. That means you really catch the microexpressions in people’s faces when they’re upset. You can really tell when someone is not happy. It really impacts you. The interpersonal stuff is so loud in this space. It can really create this whole realm of relational toleration where we might be going through a lot of our relationships not really feeling heard when we’re talking to people who mostly monologue at us and who don’t ask us questions. We want to have a back and forth. We want to have a really balanced relational experience. But these things that seem so minor, like just being told how we should feel, or receiving advice that we didn’t ask for. Or, just think– Just the experience of being the more empathetic one in the relationship where we end up feeling kind of taken advantage of. It really then just creates all this inner talk, like, “Oh. Well, they didn’t mean to hurt my feelings,” or “I shouldn’t be feeling this way.” A huge part of this work is just becoming aware of how much is going on inside and how draining it is.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. It makes so much sense, too. I mean, so many people who write into the show and who I work with, are experiencing a lot of distress around libido and desire. It makes so much sense that, of course, if we’re doing all of this emotional labor, of course, if we’re feeling like our needs aren’t getting met, our feelings are being dismissed, or being talked at instead of listened to and witnessed, of course, our libido is going to be in the toilet. Of course, desire is going to feel hard to come by because we can never really just arrive and expand into ourselves.
Leonore Tjia: Because we don’t feel welcome as who we really are. I mean, our core experiences, my needs make me too much. I feel unseen and misunderstood – the core loneliness. Being told you’re so sensitive, this high level of self-monitoring of, “Who do I need to be right now?” Then all the ways we contort ourselves into that. The amount of psychic energy that is lost through this, I think really explains so much of the erotic suffering that we’re living in. Of course, mainstream medical models just want to turn it into a physical issue.
Dawn Serra: Yup.
Leonore Tjia: Right?
Dawn Serra: Yup. I’m wondering what about people who are partnered with highly sensitive folks. If you are partnered with somebody who experiences high sensitivity, maybe you’re listening to this and you’re thinking, “That really describes this person in my life.” Like, “They really hate certain sweaters, and they really can’t stand crowds and lights. They seem to be very in touch with emotions,” or “They notice the tiniest things across my face.” How do you think people who are in relationship with HSPs can do better?
Leonore Tjia: Oh, what a great question. Love it. I mean, I think a huge part of it is just offering a space that’s truly accepting and affirming for our needs, where we can hang out and be silent together. We don’t have to fill the space. Or, I can express my emotions around you and know that you’re not going to get super dysregulated. I mean, on a really relational level, I can say that this is true, I think, for all people, but it’s really exacerbated in highly sensitive people is we can really hold back from giving feedback about what’s not working. Because the other person’s distress overwhelms us so much that then we can’t even feel what’s happening for us.
Dawn Serra: Yeah.
Leonore Tjia: So it creates huge patterns of avoidance. I mean, for partners of highly sensitive people, to just work on being calm and centered in themselves, so that each person can really find their center of relating to their own needs in relationship I think is so healing.
Dawn Serra: That feels really… Kind and generous is what’s coming to mind. I want that for all of us to be in relationship with people, where, if we’re crying, if we’re upset, if things hurt really bad, if we’re so frustrated that we’ve lost words and we’re in tears, that the people around us can really, truly be in that with us and not try to rush to fix or to then get triggered into their own emotional response. So then it becomes about caretaking for this other person. You know what I mean? I want for all of us to be able to fall apart and be messy and know the people around us can hold us and love us and aren’t going to throw us away or freak out about it. That to me would be so healing.
Leonore Tjia: I’m so right there with you. That’s my prayer, too. It’s a huge part of the work that I do with people. Yeah, it just makes me– Hearing you say that just makes me really reflect on gratitude for my own relationships and the support that’s there – that wasn’t there a couple years ago. It took work, but it’s possible.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. Before we started, you were talking about how so much more of your work is really becoming deeply relational. I think what we’re talking about really lays some of that foundation that so much of the work that we are doing with others is giving them that space, to be able to not know and feel awkward and be messy and fall apart. And for them to still be seen as worthy and lovable. When you think about doing relational work and the things that that’s healing, what does that look like for you?
Leonore Tjia: Such a great question. I mean, my background really came out of experiential sexuality education. Super powerful, but really about connecting people to information and models and possibilities and experiences for their sexual well-being that they hadn’t had. I saw how liberating it was to just get access to that. That’s still, of course, a huge part of my work. But over time, it has become more relational as I’ve shifted to working with people more long term.
What it can look like is, just creating a space for a client can tell me that something I said didn’t land well with them, hurt their feelings, or made them feel judged. To actually have the experience of– Sometimes, I mean, they’re telling me about something that happened months ago. Just to have the experience of feeling heard and listened. How much I appreciate it when they bring that up. And that I can contain my own feelings of, “Oh, no. I fucked up.” To really be met non-defensively in that. It’s been hugely powerful in my own therapy, and it’s something that I really bring into the space, too, of just really feeling that – for me, that unconditional positive regard. Also, that I’m going to take care of myself in our relationship so that you don’t have to attend to me. I’m here for you.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. You have supports in place that can help you to process the tough stuff. Yeah, I think that’s something else that’s important is it can’t just be about the two of us constantly having that unconditional space holding in regard. It needs to be that web of care that we all have.
Leonore Tjia: Totally. It’s so important to say it because I can’t do that without– I mean, I wanted to be really transparent about what it’s like to work relationally. I can’t do it without my own therapy, without my own consultation groups, where I can bring the parts of me that I feel like I totally fucked up. Or, I feel like the worst practitioner ever. Those parts of me and have support for those parts. And it does take energy. That’s why I have to…
I really prioritize not burning out in this work, too. Because it has to come from this authentic place. I also just want to say really clearly that this kind of practitioner and client relationship where I’m offering this relational space for them, I really clearly differentiate from other relationships in my life, like with my friends and my partners, where it is absolutely a reciprocal back and take. I mean, give and take.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. And all the different kinds of relationships we have, where we’re navigating that. Even in the workplace between a boss and an employee or between colleagues who are working on different projects. I mean, sometimes we need to be the space holders and sometimes we need to be the person who finds someone who can hold that space. Maybe that’s not our primary partner or our best friend because of whatever is going on. I really appreciate how important it is that we have multiple places where we can be vulnerable and messy and unsure about all of the aspects of our life.
It also makes me think, too, I think so many people who listen to this show want to do better. I think so many of the people who are drawn to this show, at least in its current iteration, are people who want a more just world. They want to do relationships differently. They want to be more really reflective about the impacts that they have on the people in their lives. Because all of those things lead to better sex and more pleasure and feeling more ourselves. But so much of what you’re talking about around… In order for us to really be in the kinds of relationships where we can appreciate other people’s vulnerability, it requires us to be doing our own worthiness work.
Leonore Tjia: Absolutely.
Dawn Serra: I have to fundamentally, “No, I am okay, even if Alex comes to me and says something that’s really hard to hear.” For me to be able to say, “I’m so glad that you felt you could bring that to me…” It’s not that it doesn’t hurt, and it’s not that it doesn’t bring up my stuff. But it’s that I’ve done enough work and I have enough support that people can help me in that and I don’t crumble.
Leonore Tjia: Exactly. You’re saying it so well. I mean, I really see it deeply as self-love work.
Dawn Serra: And boundary work, too. I think being able to say, “I don’t have the capacity for this right now. How can I help you find support around this?” Or, “This isn’t mine to own.” You know, I think–
Leonore Tjia: Oh, my God.
Dawn Serra: So often– Right? Exactly.
Leonore Tjia: This is like so much of the high sensitive stuff, too, is just getting people to see how much they take responsibility for things that really are not theirs, and then are just contorted into all this guilt and shame and codependence. It really–
What I’m learning is it takes such a strong foundation of self-love to actually know who you are so that you can discern what is not yours. When people come at you with their projections and their triggers, I mean, it’s so overwhelming. Of course, our empathy and our care and our relatedness, we want to be there and respond appropriately. But what I’m learning is the thing that gives us the clarity– I say this as someone who has really gotten overwhelmed, and then my strategy was just to run in the other direction and slam doors and become avoidant because I couldn’t handle the overwhelm.
Dawn Serra: Yeah.
Leonore Tjia: It’s such a common thing, especially for highly sensitive people. What I’ve learned is that the clarity to know, like, “This is not mine and because I know it’s not mine, I’m not going to collapse into a place of wounded ‘I-suckness.’ I actually can be here.” And I can just be with, “It seems like you’re really going through something right now. Would you just like to tell me more about it?” What really creates that is self-love.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. I think one of the things that’s so important to name is when we are in these points of all of our relationships, when maybe our partner is having a meltdown, and they’re really angry about something, and when we know, “This isn’t about me. This isn’t mine to take on,” even though we might be tempted to, we’ve all got those little inner critics that are like, “Oh, God. It’s me. I did something wrong.” That it still might hurt. It still might be uncomfortable. It still might bring up all those things. But we also have the practice of knowing, “Oh. I’ve been through this before, and it’s been okay. I know how to soothe or ask for some space.” Also, we’ve got other stories in our heads that when that little voice comes up and goes, “Oh, my God. This is me. I should apologize. I totally did something wrong,” and there’s another voice that’s like, “Wait a minute. I don’t think this is about me.” And you can pause. Those, I think, are the things that we’re working towards. It’s not just this very easy veneer where things slide off. It might still be fraught because we’re human beings. But we have more options.
Leonore Tjia: Exactly. You’re saying it’s so well. It’s so important to say that because I think we really need to get over the salvation fantasy that one day, it won’t hurt anymore. That, “I’m still fucked up because I still struggle with these things.” I mean, this is just core human relational stuff. But what I’m seeing is– I mean, especially with sexuality work is how important it is to support the psyche, to go from a place of just baseline, “I fucked up and things are my fault. I take everything personally. I’m so easily overwhelmed by other people’s needs. I can’t even feel my own.” I mean, this is like most people. We need to actually get support to experience who we can be beyond that. Then with that, experiencing how it transforms sexuality, too. I mean, it’s just amazing – an amazing process.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, because I think so many of the ways that we’ve been indoctrinated into smallness and domesticity, which is something you talk about a lot, are these stories that make us want to collapse on ourselves. They keep us shrunk. They keep us small. They keep us contained. They keep us focused in on all the things that are wrong with us. And when we begin practicing new stories and new skills, when we begin finding new language, and we feel our shoulders drop back and down and our chest opens, it’s this process of taking up a little more space. And then we begin to find a little bit more voice and a little more power. Now, we’re opening to the erotic and to having more options and to feeling into this power that we know we have, even if it’s hard or messy or scary, like, “Fundamentally, I know, I’m going to be okay. And I can choose how I want to be in this moment.” It might be imperfect, which is okay, but I realized there’s more choices than just that shrinking, collapsing, closing down, and nothing can move through me. I can’t connect with other in that way.
Leonore Tjia: A huge part of this work is just helping people come out of nearly lifelong states of being in flight, fight, freeze, and fawn.
Dawn Serra: Yup.
Leonore Tjia: Because eros can’t move through. That there isn’t space for eros in that. Really not in a– Not in the ways– Not to the extent that it’s possible. We’re capable of so much more than we think we are in that collapsed state. So this process of finding our inner authority, transforming shame into courage, it opens the wellspring to actually be like a good container for eros to visit.
Dawn Serra: Oh. That just makes me feel so excited. When I think about the potential that we all have and what would become possible in the ways that we move through the world, and what we create, and how we relate, and how we treat the planet. If more of us really were able to connect deeply with empathy, eros, each other, and to do it from a place of power and openness, versus taking, extracting, hoarding. Because those also are things around shrinking. I’m trying to armor myself by hoarding resources or money or proving I’m better than other people. All of those things also come from this shrinking, armored, closed down place.
Leonore Tjia: Exactly. That’s why I really chose to call my business “Rewilding Your Heart” because in this practice of rewilding, we’re coming out of the taking, the extracting, the dominating – dominating in the bad way.
Dawn Serra: Right. Not the super sexy, consensual way.
Leonore Tjia: Yeah. Mindsets that have created the entire global system that we live in. I mean, I do sometimes feel this angst of doing sexuality work and what feels like the apocalypse at times and being like, “How is my work contributing?” But to the extent that it is about deeply shifting our ways of relating to ourselves, to each other and the world. I mean, we need to change how we’re doing things on a very practical level.
Dawn Serra: Well, I mean, it really has to start with our most intimate relationships and with ourselves. If I am not actively reflecting on the ways that I live my life, on what brings me more joy and aliveness, can I trust my hungers and be open to my sensations? It’s going to be really difficult for me to do that with other people. Then it’s going to be nearly impossible for me to do that with even larger systems. And we’re going to operate from a place of distrust and pain and grasping. So it really does have to start with our relationship with our bodies – these fleshy vessels – our relationships with the people closest to our lives. That’s how we begin to do this transformation that we so desperately need globally.
Leonore Tjia: Exactly. Yeah. I mean, we’re in a time of such, I think, distrust and disenchantment with so many institutions and orthodoxies.
Dawn Serra: Yeah.
Leonore Tjia: Then in the search for the mindsets that can actually bring us back to life, I think it’s exactly what you’re naming.
Dawn Serra: One of the other things that I’m kind of thinking about too– Because, I mean, so much of what we’re talking about is about finding ways to gently interrogate ourselves, to ask, ‘Do we want to be different? Are we capable of more? Is this serving me?” For many of us, the ways that we do some of that interrogating is with mental health professionals. You and I have talked on multiple occasions – including before this episode – about the bullshit terror mess that is mainstream mental health. I’m thinking about how so many of us go to a therapist or a counselor because we genuinely want more pleasure in our lives. We want to feel more open and more alive. Yet, the state of modern mental health, for the most part, is really about pathologizing, about finding solutions and fixing things. But it’s all about bringing you into alignment with the systems that are broken and causing the violence.
So I would love to talk to you a little bit more about– Especially as someone who is doing work in mental health right now, what should we be looking for when we’re thinking about working with a mental health professional and really prioritizing and centering our pleasure? How do you see the relationship between therapy and pleasure playing out in the ways that therapists are trained and in the systems that they are being indoctrinated into?
Leonore Tjia: Yeah. Well, I’m currently slogging my way through a Master’s in Counseling Psychology with the goal of eventually being a therapist who can be part of the change. But I have to say, it’s bad out there. It’s really bad out there in terms of the normativity of the models that are taught and how little– I mean, it’s possible to become a therapist with very little training on sexuality at all.
So I think that’s important to name for people is that if you’re wanting to do work around sexuality, eros, pleasure, relationship structure, I really recommend looking for more specialized practitioners who have a stated niche and a real body of experience in working with these areas. And to not just assume that any therapist can hold you in that.
Dawn Serra: Yeah.
Leonore Tjia: So I think there’s an element of client discernment and really looking for people who advertise and do work in those areas. Therapy, in its conventional ways, is, I think you said before, it’s adjacent to the medical industrial complex. It is very much about treating symptoms.
Dawn Serra: Yeah.
Leonore Tjia: Too often, its goal is to make us functional in a very dysfunctional– According to a dysfunctional set of expectations, in my opinion. Because it’s working off models that are inherently anti-erotic.
Dawn Serra: Yup. Yeah. I think that’s so important to name. The ways that “we” currently – we in quotes – being the culture of medicine and mental health. The ways that we look at mind and body are very pathologizing. They’re very much about centering the white male, cis, able-bodied wealthy experience and trying to bring everybody else to that place. That can be inherently violent for so many people, of course, deeply anti-erotic. To indoctrinate people into patriarchy, to try and force people to have an experience of libido and desire that matches what they think it should look like according to a whole bunch of studies done on young cis men. That is not a place where wildness, the unknown, uncertainty, magic, power can play out. Because there’s so many mysterious variables in that.
And that is not how these systems are set up to accommodate. They are all about forcing everyone into a code or a box, and then treating from there, versus allowing the wonder and the marvel to happen. Meaning, that might look really different than everything you’ve been given. I really appreciate how you’re saying client discernment is important. And really being skeptical and going in with knowing what it is that you want and being able to ask really hard questions.
Leonore Tjia: Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, it’s really important to say also that– I feel like I’m slagging off therapists in this, which is not really my goal. But also, I’m in grad school, and I’m bitter. Deal with it. It’s just that I think that therapists really need to do their own experiential sexuality work to be able to really help and assist clients in these waters. And that the education that you get to become a therapist does not set you up to do that at all.
Dawn Serra: Yeah.
Leonore Tjia: So I really think that when it comes to working with people around sexual shame and just the amazing, vast, complex, multifactorial realm of sexuality, it is not something that you can learn from a book.
Dawn Serra: Yeah.
Leonore Tjia: It really is not. Even well-intentioned practitioners who still strive to say the right thing may not be able to embody the kind of sexual acceptance. That real felt sense in the room of like,”Anything that you are going through is okay. And anything that you tell me is okay.” Really, that’s the corrective healing experience that we need around our sexuality in this world, where we’re faced with so much isolation, and we’re made to feel like we don’t belong. I mean, we just need to feel seen, accepted, witnessed, affirmed. It’s not about getting to a place of success. It’s about being okay where we are and just getting to feel whole.
Dawn Serra: Yes.
Leonore Tjia: Yeah.
Dawn Serra: Yes. I think one of the things that’s so challenging about this is because of capitalism, because of neoliberalist ideals, because almost all modern mental health was theorized by white cis, upper class men, these systems inherently position us into a hierarchy, where some people have knowledge and some people have power, and everyone else is supposed to be going to those people for the answers. When we’re talking about our sexuality, when we’re talking about the ways we experience our body, literally, no one else in the entire universe knows what it is to be in this body, to feel these sensations, to have been through the things you’ve been through, and to know the marks they left on your soul. I think that that’s so important for us to remember. That we are coming into all of these situations with professionals being the experts who hold the wisdom.
Leonore Tjia: Yeah, this piece around the client’s inner authority is so key, I think. I really would also include that as an aspect of client discernment in finding mental health professionals to work with. Just to really– To trust your own lived experience of how the practitioner holds that power dynamic.
Dawn Serra: Yeah.
Leonore Tjia: And if they really set themselves up to be the expert with answers, or do they set themselves up to be more like a wisdom partner in exploration, in a journey that’s ultimately yours?
Dawn Serra: That, to me, sounds awesome. I want to be in relationship with people in that way, who want to help hold that lantern when I’m in the darkness, but trust that I’m finding my way with the tools that I have and who celebrate… Not just getting me to baseline, but that want me to know pleasure and satisfaction and joy and play and for it to come from every part of my being as often as possible in the ways that I move through the world. I mean, those are the kinds of professionals that I want for all of us. Not people who are just like, “Well, let’s get you to ‘normal.’ And then I’ve done my job, good me.”
Leonore Tjia: Oh, my God. Totally. Yes. Ah! I love how you’re saying it. I feel you’re inspiring me. So good.
Dawn Serra: Oh, my God. Well, I could keep talking to you for literally forever. But in the interest of time and everyone who is listening, can you tell everybody a little bit about what you’ve got coming up next, how they can stay in touch with you, follow along online?
Leonore Tjia: Yes, totally. So all my work is housed at rewildingtheheart.com. Currently, I’m opening up my private practice to taking new clients, which I do remotely over phone or Skype. So I work with people all over the place, around all the things we’ve talked about in this call. I will be offering some resources around rewilding your sexuality and more about this work in the coming months. My mailing list is a great place to be. I’m also part of the– Part of my advocacy is that I’m on the Task Force on Consensual Non-Monogamy for the American Psychology Association. We are producing research and advocacy around getting more psychologists to be literate in polyamory and consensual non-monogamy. So we’re working on a study right now examining intersecting identities within that, which I’m very excited about. That’s going to look at how people’s intersecting identities across multiple axes influence their lived experience of polyamory and non-monogamy. It’s going to be– It’s cool. I mean, it’s going to be pretty new research into that world. Of course, we have to research and publish it to have our lived experiences legitimized. But just saying that’ll be coming out in the next couple of months. Just getting on my mailing list is a great way to hear about it.
Dawn Serra: Woo-hoo! Well, I will have links to your website, in the show notes for this episode, so people can go there, join your mailing list, check out all the rad things you’re doing. Thank you so much for being here and sharing a little bit of time and all of these really deep, amazing thoughts with us.
Leonore Tjia: Oh, my God. It’s such a pleasure. Thank you so much. I just have so much love and appreciation for you and the way you hold your work and hold people and run this podcast. You are such a beam of light in the energy that you bring into the world. It’s a pleasure to be on the planet at the same time with you.
Dawn Serra: It’s so mutual. We will take our love fest offline now. So everybody who tuned in thank you so much for being here with us. Of course, I will be back next week. Talk to you soon. Bye.
A huge thanks to The Vocal Few, the married duo behind the music featured in this week’s intro and outro. Find them a vocalfew.com. Head to patreon.com/sgrpodcast to support the show and 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?