We are getting vulnerable on the podcast this week. Dr. Juliana Hauser returns to the show to talk more about sexual agency.  After Dr. Juliana’s last podcast appearance, Lily participated in Revealed, Juliana’s program about sexual agency in a community setting. This episode is an opportunity to be in the room while Lily talks to her coach about what it was like to dive deep into the experience of sexual agency, what it is, and how it can affect your life. 

“When you get to reclaim who you are, excavating your story and understanding it on your own terms, then you really gain a different level of confidence in knowing who you are; so that you can make decisions with purpose, intention, and agency moving forward.” Dr. Juliana Hauser

Hot-takes from this episode:

• Dr. Juliana and Lily share their experiences about being a part of each other’s work (4:31)

• Excavating your stories and how doing so encourages owning your sexual agency (9:55)

• The first place to be in discomfort is with curiosity (14:15)

• Lily shares the most powerful lessons learned from her time in Revealed (16:49)

• All of the fears that came up for Lily when doing work toward sexual agency (23:31)

• What is the value of knowing your sexuality and understanding your sexual story? (26:13)

• Agency is the headliner of the essence of who we are (29:17)

Links and resources:

• Limited Spots Available for the Main Energy Mastermind – Apply Today!

• Dr. Juliana’s website

• Dr. Juliana on Instagram

• 80. Reclaiming your sexual agency with Dr. Juliana Hauser

• Date Brazen on Instagram

Subscribe to The Date Brazen Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher!

Show transcript:

Lily  00:05

Hey I’m Lily Womble, former top matchmaker and founder of date brazen. After setting up hundreds I realized that with coaching women could match themselves better than anyone else ever could. With my unconventional feminist approach I’ve helped women around the world build courageous and self trust-filled love lives. And now I’m here to support you. Get ready because I’m about to share the exact steps you need to attract a soul quenching partnership and feel amazing about yourself along the way. This is the date brazen podcast. 

Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode. Today we’re getting vulnerable or the royal we…I am getting vulnerable. And I’m so excited that you’re here to like, go with us on this journey. I’m with Dr. Juliana Hauser. Dr. Juliana Hauser is a couples and family therapist. She is a sex educator and the founder of revealed which is a course in which people discover their main character selves in their sexual journeys. And we’ll get into exactly what that means. I am so pumped to bring her on again. Because in the time that she was on, like, couple months ago, between then and now I have done her program called revealed, which is about sexual agency and we’re gonna get into what is revealed and all that jazz because here’s why it’s important that I share this with you. I really wanted you to know that while I’m over here talking about the work that we get to do together, the work that we get to do with your love life, you get to create freedom with other amazing human beings and belonging with each other. I want you to know I’m walking the walk. I’m putting myself in rooms that make me feel feelings. I am getting supported myself from experts that I trust that I know can help me into my next phase and chapter freedom and, and pleasure and so I just really wanted you to be in the room while I talked to my coach about what it was like to dive deep into this experience of sexual agency. And what even is that? So welcome Juliana.

Dr. Juliana  02:16

Oh, thank you so much for having me back. I love and have been looking forward to this conversation.

Lily  02:21

I’m so glad to be here that you’re here. I’m so glad to be here. Oh my god, I’m nervous. I’m so glad that we are together.

Dr. Juliana  02:27

I’m so excited to be here in this conversation, Lily. You know, I love you as a friend and as a colleague.

Lily  02:33

Yes. Okay. Do you? How do you feel about the doctor in front of your name? 

Dr. Juliana  02:37

Oh, that’s interesting. I haven’t been asked that in a really long time. You know, it’s tough. Like my mom had this conversation with me actually, recently, when I was getting my doctorate there’s a couple…because the whole process of getting a doctorate is just a motherfucker like it tears you down, you’re exhausted, you feel like, really inept in so many ways. And there are a couple of times I thought, “do I even, do I finish this?” Like, “what’s this gonna do for my life”. My mom said, You have to finish this. It’s going to open doors. And it’s gonna give you the education experience that you’re gonna you’re gonna get tenfold and at the time I was like you finish the paper then. I was working two jobs. I had a little boy he was three years old. And, and now when I look at it, I think I’m really proud of it. I’m so grateful that I finished it and, and I and I really I’m really grateful that it lends an expertise and it certainly has let me walk through the doors that I didn’t I wasn’t able to walk through previously.

Lily  03:39

Yeah,amazing. So when I was in revealed a couple of the cohort members called you Dr. Giuliana and then I got really nervous that I wasn’t calling you Dr. Giuliana which is why I asked because I did like and I told Chris about this was like Lily, she has a doctorate. Shes worked so hard. You have to call her Dr. Juliana. Like come on.

Dr. Juliana  04:03

No, I mean, it’s you know, I get, you know me like it’s Julian, it’s just fine. And so it just depends on how people know me, too. When we’re friends. I wouldn’t ever want that.

Lily  04:16

So a bit about well, you know, we obviously did our podcast recording a few months ago like six months ago, I have no idea and maybe a year ago…

Dr. Juliana  04:28

When you said that it was a few months I did think it’s like I feel like it was a lot longer than that.

Lily  04:31

No no it was a year ago because I was…it doesn’t matter I don’t need to take them down this journey but I remember we talked and I was in I was traveling for the first time with a pandemic visiting family I was in an Airbnb and we had our first conversation in May 2021. Anyway, long story. People don’t care, Lily. After that call and you’ve, you’ve given consent for me to share this so, that that you ended up joining brazen breakthrough as a client of mine. And something that you said that really stuck out to me in our conversation about whether or not you were going to join was, I want, as I lead so many of these groups, I think it’d be valuable for me to be a member of a group. And you also said, Lily, if you ever want to be a part of revealed, I think that it would be great for you also to be a participant in a group and like, feel what that’s like, and do the work with us, as well. So I love that we exchanged our expertise, in that way.

Dr. Juliana  05:35

I do too. It was so special to be able to see you do your thing, to hear…because it’s one thing to be able to, like, you know, you have this intrinsic trust that you can just tell someone knows what they’re doing. But to actually be able to  witness it, is different. And so yeah, it was really special to see you do your thing, and to and to be able to watch how you facilitate. And uh, then also to like, to reciprocate and have you see how I do something. And we have very different programs, but there’s a lot of overlap too. And in our mindset, and it also, I realize how hard it was for me to be a participant. And I remember saying to you also that I wanted to be able to show up as Juliana, not as Dr. Juliana and there’s not a lot of spaces where I can show up in that space. And that way too.

Lily  06:19

How did you, how did you feel at the end of four months of work? What did you feel like? How was it being Julian and that space after going through it,

Dr. Juliana  06:28

It always was hard. I mean, I still had to work in my head about like, if people looked up who I was, and what I did, how would that resonate with, with the things that I was sharing. But a lot of the time, it was just such a relief to be able to like sift through and do my own work, and to be able to self reflect, I loved it. And I loved being under your guidance and all of that too.

Lily  06:52

Thank you I similarly, so felt so grateful to be under your guidance and also to have you in the cohort I was just so…all of the women who are attracted to the mastermind are so fucking incredible. And I thought it was so amazing to witness the community being formed, the belonging that existed and the messiness that all of us high achieving women who do this work together are showing up in and I found the messy engaging with my messy in revealed was really interesting. So this is not an episode about brazen breakthrough. This is an episode sort of diving into what it was like for me to go through revealed because I think there’s so many juicy nuggets of wisdom for the listener. So I want to hand over the reins to you. And I’ve told you to ask me anything about what it was like to go through revealed and what, like let’s just talk about it.

Dr. Juliana  07:51

Great. So I was…I would love to go back to when we had that exchange, we talked about taking each other like being a part of each other’s work. What you thought you were signing up for?

Lily  08:06

Well, I, so when I was a kid, I was very passionate about sex education funnily enough, like I remember our, um,  our my church growing up which was somewhat moderate in the south, it wasn’t super conservative. We had a sex education weekend where my youth minister you know put together this sex ed weekend where kids of our you know 15-25 folks have ages ranging from 9th grade to 12th grade got together and it was somewhat abstinence focused and also anatomy focused. It was, it was much better than the school the public school abstinence-only sex education gave…anyway. I remember being so passionate about it and being so excited to talk about sex and also feeling like a little bit of a later arriver or a late arriver to sex in that I thought originally that I was going to wait until marriage because of these faith reasons and and that I sort of felt like that didn’t fit me anymore and then in adulthood I wanted to find somebody to have sex with that was meaningful and then that felt like do I even have to do that and but, but it just never happened the series of like I was running into my listeners hear me talk about this idea of like I’m too much. Quote, too much, coming up a lot. I had this internal belief as an early adults that I wasn’t having sex because I was too much. I literally was denied like sex by I don’t know there was this one instance where have we talked about this my my almost first penetrative sex.

Dr. Juliana  09:52

Yes, but I’d love to hear it again.

Lily  09:55

So thanks, Juliana. So Anyway, I like, met this guy, we got along great. We made out one night. He asked me out on a date, I was so excited. I was like, oh my god, I’m finally going to be an adult with an adult relationship. But I’m gonna, you know, I’m gonna be amazing. And I’m gonna, you know, live my best life. And he, you know, was the next day was like, I shouldn’t have asked you out, I can’t be in a relationship, whatever. Then the day before, we’re about to both coincidentally move out of this city that we’re living in the weekend before, I, we ended up hooking up making out he proposed to take my virginity. He like, formally asked me, Can I take your virginity? And he was like, because I think it’d be good for you. And then I was like, look, this feels like bullshit. Like, what? What do you mean, it’d be good for you. I was like, I just want to. And so I was like, No, but I’ll make out. And so we did. And then the next day, I was like, I want to have sex for the first time it’s gonna happen. I feel like everybody else in my life has had sex, we have a great connection. It’s emotional. It’s deep. And we don’t really know each other. We’re both moving. It’s this great story. I knock on his door, to say hi. And to ask if he (this is like, three hours later), because we stayed up all night. I was like, I’m ready to have sex. And he was like, I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to have sex anymore. And there was no real explanation. I just, the only way that I could interpret that was I’m too much. Something about this wasn’t right. So anyway, all of these stories in my, in my dating life, I had excavated somewhat, and not through the lens of sexual agency. And so I knew that there was work to be done. And so when you suggested revealed, I just knew that there was like excavation to do, and that I wanted a loving partner in that excavation, I knew you’d be that. I also knew I was signing up to be in a container of really badass women. I knew that I was signing up to make myself vulnerable. I knew that I was signing up to to walk the walk, as I shared earlier, that this wasn’t just about my sexual journey. And my my, my uncovering my stories, it was also about me learning what it was like to receive coaching, and receive or receive support in this way. Because it’s not necessarily coaching, which I also didn’t know. I was like, what will guys think?

Dr. Juliana  12:39

Yes. Yeah, it’s, and that, that’s a part of it, too, that it’s interesting that is, over the years that I’ve been refining this is that I, as a therapist, I want to jump into that coaching role. And sometimes I do take people on privately, we do it simultaneously, you do the same thing. But what I learned was that the most powerful thing I could do is create a framework that I like, a Sherpa that, that the facilitator is standing there believing in the person. That we’re going to stand together. And I’m going to support you while you are doing this excavation. And I love looking at it that way too. Because you have the agency and I’m not going to take that, that from you. But it’s, it’s an interesting dynamic that isn’t a part of a lot of this kind of framework.

Lily  13:25

Well, isn’t it so frustrating? When a person that you know has a bunch of answers doesn’t give you the answers? It’s like I remember feeling that sometimes in revealed and I’m sure that my clients feel that sometimes with me is that like, when I have a question or when they have a question, and the answer is what do you think? What meaning do you make of that? What it can be I think, if we’re looking at it like a glass of wine, maybe the front notes are like frustration, and then the after notes are like, huh, that was the, one of the biggest takeaways earliest on for me is your insistence that we start from a place of huh. And not from a place of, Oh, I know what this is.

Dr. Juliana  14:15

Curiosity is so important. And it’s really a foundation of, of being able to be in agency. And that’s really what I… I did it unknowingly. I did this, you know, almost 20 years ago, I was still learning what the concept of agency was in general, but really, in particular to me, and so a lot of it was actually based in feminist theory and what I was doing, I was learning how to be a professor, which I kept feeling like the best kind of learning was a learning that you had responsibility for and ownership in and that that made it last and you weren’t doing it to be performative. You were actually doing it to be self reflective and to have self knowledge. And shouldn’t that be something that we were taught all along? And particularly in our sexual life and particularly as cisgender women that so often we are told what our sexuality supposed to be what it isn’t. And rarely do we ever feel like it’s, quote, right. So when you have all of that I could talk about 30 other messages that we’re all given about what our sexuality is, it kept it, I just kept feeling like I have to…I have to be, if I’m going to ask people to go into this space of looking at their sexual journey, I needed to be the kind of facilitator that kept saying, I believe you have the answers. And I can sit in a discomfort with you while you figure out what those are. And the first place to be in that discomfort is curiosity. And we’re not taught how to be curious. And we are taught to look for solutions. And to find it quickly, so that we can not feel that discomfort anymore; to know. And I have to find that myself too. I’m often so much more at ease when I understand why. And sometimes, actually, the magic is in the not knowing and then wandering. An in that, in that ambiguity. That’s really where the power can be. But it’s hard to get there. So unknowingly, I started building a course that provided practice for that. And then it became really purposeful for me. And it’s essential. And it’s very hard to advertise that like so I’m gonna put you in a place where I’m not giving you the answers that I’m supporting you to find your own. Come on in. That’s, that’s not the way to describe it. But it really is part of the experience that becomes the most profound. Because when you get to reclaim who you are in agency as a sexual being first starting at what your story is, and excavating it and understanding it on your own terms, then you really gain a different level of confidence in knowing who you are, so that you can make decisions with purpose and intention and agency moving forward, which is where most of us are really wanting to head.

Lily  16:49

God, I have so many bajillion thoughts about all of this, I think that it was so valuable. I…There’s so many, again, parallels between our work. I feel so grateful and honored to say that I say that with all the humility that I learned, I learned so much about myself as a human being, as a woman, as a coach, in revealed. And I think one of the the most powerful early lessons for me was when we did our sexual timeline, which for the listeners, Dr. Juliana, like asks us to go in and write down every single sexual experience you’ve ever had, whether partnered are so like that feels significant, or that don’t feel significant. And I realized in writing that down that I had had this story that felt like it was driving my sexual journey. And the process of looking at that story that my brain made up for, for example, that I’m too much, story or things don’t happen the way I want them to story or, you know, I don’t get to be the desired one, you know, story. And that was unchecked, like still running through my brain. And the curiosity that we got to bring to that was really powerful, and, and frustrating. Sometimes, because the brain likes well worn paths, like I say, all the time, you know, the brain, my brain liked organizing things into their neat little boxes. And we sort of like, we sort of threw the…that some of the boxes were filled with things that I don’t want to keep anymore, so we got to bring all the…we gotta bring everything out of the garage. Look at it, I’m gonna say what are we gonna keep? What are we going to toss? What are we going to think about? I think that’s a really powerful practice.

Dr. Juliana  18:49

I do too. I actually even have a mini exercise that I teach clients about, like a sexual spring cleaning. And we go through messages that we were given about all sorts of, part of like, a holistic sexuality. And so thank you for bringing up the timeline. Because it’s, I think it’s a really interesting part of the course. And it’s fun, and it’s overwhelming, because you’re like, What are you talking about? How in the world am I going to cover all of this?

Lily  19:11

I avoided that, like, the plague. I avoided, I literally was such a student of, I was a student of that I like… okay, my clients in brazen breakthrough and in the mastermind, may come to a class and say, Oh my God, I didn’t do a homework. I feel so terrible. I haven’t done my homework in two weeks in a row. And I’ll say something like, you just show up and take the space that you need. And that’s okay. I myself did not take my own coaching. I showed up having done the homework right beforehand, or like, avoiding it because I felt burned out or just like, you know, like, whoa, whoa, this is overwhelming. And you were like, you know, take the time that you need, and I was like, No, I have to be perfect. I’m failing and you were just so steadfastly, like no. You’re going to come and you’re going to fill in the timeline as you see fit. And you’re going to, you’re going to thought-dump, and you’re going to commit to this. And you’re also going to give yourself grace, I thought that was a really beautiful thing.

Dr. Juliana  20:15

And it’s going to come to you, it’s gonna come to you. And I have faith in that. And I’ve seen it happen time and time again. And this is not the course of, your getting a grade in that you have to take this as a course for yourself. So why make yourself wrong in the process, when so much of our life, we’re told that and so yeah, it’s beautiful, and everyone comes into their own way. And with a timeline, I really believe that it’s so much of our so much of our, especially our sexual lives, we can tell this story to one person, but we can’t tell that story to that person. We may like with a lover like just can I tell this like heart wrenching story about a girls weekend we’re going to tell the hoop and hollering story. And so we we practice, and we have bits and pieces and stop and start of sharing some of our sexual journey. But it’s so rare that we ever sit down with one person or even more importantly to ourselves, and really get a macro look at what our sexual journey has been. And then particularly that we don’t get it at a holistic sexual journey that we think of is only a sex act, who did I do anything sexual with. And that’s what the other thing I love about revealed is, by the time we’re done with all of the modules, all the different things that I have defined as a holistic sexuality, just my version of it, then we go back, and we fill in that piece of the timeline. So it’s not just sex acts is everything is love and connection and intimacy and relationships and desire. And when you do that, when you, when you take the time, and it’s time, and it’s emotional work to do this to to open up those memories. And I love asking the question like, What do I need to know. And I believe that the stories and the moments that are important for why you’re taking revealed at this time in your life, will raise its hand, so you remember it. And when they start raising their hand, and you can’t really avoid it. And so that’s when you start answering the questions, that’s when you go back to the timeline, that’s when the flow comes to you. And that’s when the patterns emerge. And it’s more than those patterns that are just like you’re talking about that, when you have either a conscious or an unconscious story that you’ve written about who you are as a sexual being. It’s very powerful, because to me, when we’re talking about who we are, as a sexual being, we’re talking about the essence of who we are. So if you are walking around with stories that are just bits and pieces and aren’t intentional, and with purposely looked at, then you’re telling stories that are true about who you are, and they’re not in context of your whole journey, their context of what happened at that time, but you’re the whole person. And so I find that it really helps. It does a lot of healing. And when you can go back as who you are now and look back and have compassion on the person who was going through those things and see how you got yourself into situations or see how the meaning you made of it or the things that happened to you. It changes, it changes, it heals, and then it helps you protect for moving forward.

23:16

Powerful, so powerful, Juliana. Hmm, yeah.

Lily  23:20

What other questions do you have for me?

Dr. Juliana  23:23

So I’d love to hear if you remember, when things started clicking for you, if you if you remember what the catalyst was.

Lily  23:31

I was going through a professional shift at the same time as revealed. I was realizing that I was experiencing burnout in my professional, just like the constant churn feeling in my business in running a small business. And, um, I realized there were so many clicking points that weren’t necessarily like, Oh my God, I feel amazing. It was just like the thre realizations of wow. I don’t have time in my day, to think about pleasure. And that my pleasure was a really activating topic for me. And it felt at odds with the day to day of my work life. That was just like, wild. And I think that was honestly, that being in revealed and being asked to come to the mat. Come to the table every week with these women who are committing themselves every week. Come, come BE with us. was a really revolutionary thing for me that I didn’t always like, I wasn’t always excited about. Honestly, sometimes I was like, I’m so tired. I, I’m so burnt out. I’m so, I’m so afraid that I don’t have the answers. I’m afraid that I’m not going deep enough. I’m afraid that I’m not I’m not experienced. I’m afraid that I’m…I was just so…mindfulness is such a bitch. Oh my God, cause I was like, aware of…and my clients say this to me after, let’s say somebody in a, in a cohort night for a brazen program shares a lot. And it gets really vulnerable. And then that person DMS me inevitably and it’s like, Did I take up too much space? What do people think about me? I was, one of the clicking moments was how aware I was of when I shared my fear about what other people thought about me? Oh my god, like wow, revelatory in a, in a, in a scary way. Oh, this is such a human experience. And I’m, it’s nerve racking to take up my space in this room. It. It is interesting that that is a microcosm of how I take up space in my own brain with my own sexual agency and pleasure.

Dr. Juliana  26:11

Yes.

Lily  26:12

What are you thinking?

Dr. Juliana  26:13

Yeah. Well, I think that’s beautiful. And, and so important, and so hard and so brave. And it’s those unexpected results, and awakenings that happen when you still commit to showing up every week to doing whatever bandwidth you have. And for just doing that question of like, what is it that I have to do in order to show up to this hour instead  of avoiding it? Instead of just no showing? Or making myself into these questions or writing the story? Or reading the stories? What, what do I have to dig into? And when you start thinking like this is, is this a value to me? And then when you go even further, it was like What is the value of my sexuality of knowing what my sexuality is of understanding my sexual story, compared to the other things on my list on my priority list of the day, or of the year are of your value system? That’s a pretty profound question. And it’s not just what it is individually. What is it collectively? What have we been taught about our sexuality? Like, what’s, what’s the whole point of it? Those are pretty deep things that you got to get into on a three o’clock Tuesday afternoon. 

Lily  27:23

Well, wow. And I also would say that, I don’t think I knew, you know, you talked about how sexuality is our essence. You know, we are sexual beings and all this stuff. And I think that I was like, yeah, yeah. You know, what does that mean? Because what I had heard in this sexual world, I mean, I went to a mama Gina, event at the Javits Center for and I, I hated it, but I also like, got something from it, because I went home and masturbated the whole next day. I don’t know, like, the…maybe I’ll put in whatever we can talk about masturbation. I was like, Maybe you should put an explicit warning, no way people can read the title of the episode and know what we’re gonna get into. But I thought that, you know, there’s this sense in that world of, I would say maybe pop, pop psychology, embracing your sexuality embracing this fierceness that I sort of associated with, like, like you were saying sex acts. And so when you would say something like your sexuality, is that your essence? I’d be like, well, sex act, I am so much more than sexual acts. And what I learned through revealed is like the nuance of what you’re talking about, which is getting to know your own preferences on all of these different levels in this complex web of connections is your like, your right to know as you’re, as you’re a human being, and it’s it is at our essence, and I don’t really know, like I, I get your struggle to communicate the, the power of revealed are not the struggle, but the complexity of it.

Dr. Juliana  29:17

It’s not a soundbite. which makes it difficult to…but I want to explain like how I got to the place of prioritizing, learning who I was as a sexual being. So as a therapist, one of the things that I have found time and time again, is that people are looking for connections. That is truly one of the most important things. And that they, if they’re connected to a community, they’re connected to a person, parenting a job, whatever it is, as long as you’re connected to something, then there’s a, there’s a level of contentment. When there’s a disconnect to somebody or something that is important to them. That’s often when someone will come to me in crisis, or if they just feel disconnected from everything in their Life. And that’s what they’re saying with me. And I started thinking like, so what, you know, if we were to back that up like, Well, how do you feel connected? What’s the definition of connection? It really is you have to know who you are, you have to know who you are, in order to show up to a relationship with anybody, and feel authentically connected, because they’re actually knowing the truth of who you are, instead of just showing the bits and pieces of you because we have shame because we’ve been judged because we’ve been told we’re wrong on things. But if you can get to the place, where you’re just truly that love, I always put like, my hands like this and open up like I’m opening up my chest in it. But if you can get to the place that you know who you are, in the truest, most authentic way, then you get to be wanted and seen and valued for who you are the truth of who you are, that you feel connection, and that allows you to be that kind of person for somebody else. And when I think about, there’s, there’s lots of ways to figure out who you are. But what I have found is that sexuality is one of the few things we all have in common. And it is so complex, it’s fluid, and it’s ever changing, that you have to be agile, and very adaptable to keep knowing who you are as a sexual being. So it makes it even more profound to know who you are in your sexual self. So that it is both the purest pathway to the essence of who you are. And it is also one of the purest expressions of your essence, which then all of that allows you to connect. Now, you put the word sex in sexuality and all we think about a sex x because that is what we’re taught. But it’s unfortunate because really, we should be being taught holistic sexuality and stop acting like sex act is the main headliner, it’s truly not. Agency is the headliner of our sexuality. Agency is the headliner of the essence of who we are. People just have made it this scintillating detail, as a part of it. I find sexuality the final frontier of self development. And I really believe that if you can figure out your sexual path and story, figure out that it matters. That your story, and your journey and all the myriad things of that, and all the good things and the celebrations and the hard parts and the trauma, if you can make sense of that and make it matter, then you are going to you are going to have a different level of comfort of who you are. You’re gonna have a different level of knowing of who you are. And you’re going to have to show up and connect. And when you feel that kind of truthful connection, then you have a different level of existence. That’s, that’s, you know what people are talking about meeting someone who’s comfortable in their own skin, there’s truth to that. And you were drawn to it. You know, somebody who isn’t putting on airs, isn’t being cocky isn’t being that kind of when they’re just like, this is the good of me, this is the heart of me, this is me, do you want it? Do you want to get to know me in this conversation? Do you want to know this in a relationship and this work relationship or friendship or sexual? And also, I’m so aware of where I end, and where you begin so we can have an inter interdependent connection, then, then you get to truly feel that connectedness and contentness in life that so many people are seeking. And that’s not easy to distill and then say and we’re talking about our sexuality. Well, I think decades of misinformation.

Lily  33:15

Yeah. And, oh my god, such trauma done by the education process that we have in the US at the very you know, at least with with sexual education and and I just think about how intimate it is to be seen, to allow yourself to be seen. Period. To allow yourself to be seen when you’re naked, whether with somebody or by yourself. Like seeing yourself naked is in a mirror and all of the thoughts and feelings that come up and all of the, all of the stories just like how complex it is, of course, holistic sexuality is that our essence it’s like the most tender, essential, you know, experience of being human. It’s like having sensation and being in a body.

Dr. Juliana  34:09

Yes. And we don’t talk about it. We don’t have the space, whatever. Yeah, we don’t have space. We don’t have the verbiage for it. We don’t write about it. The next question I want to ask you is what did you think it was like for you to be with dudes in a group because I do it individually, but you did it in a group. So I’m curious, what did that feel like to share vulnerable stories and to hear other vulnerable stories?

Lily  34:29

Oh, my God. Well, isn’t it interesting? This is sort of a not..I want to get…if I this is not me skirting the question. I want you to bring me back if I get away. Isn’t it interesting to not lead with I’m Lily, a dating coach. I’m Lily, a former top matchmaker turned dating coach and I have date brazen. And isn’t this program amazing that I have and don’t you…like, as the woman as the person who runs this small business as the leader of it as the coach as the marketer. As the person who’s driving, this is my full time job, my living my my world and my baby in a sense, and I’m so used to living in the world, as the founder of date brazen. And in revealed, I was asked to come in, and I didn’t want to be Lilly, founder of de brazen for a moment, I wanted to see what it was like to be Lilly. And what that, what does that mean, and it was a really powerful, sometimes scary experience. Because I saw how I was organizing my worth in my own brain, and organizing it around my ability to serve and support other people. And how this process of being in a group was really calling me to the mat of like, being worthy as a human being apart from what I create.

Dr. Juliana  36:02

Yes. And that is difficult. It is. And I think also, because what we’re diving into is a place and a space, and a topic, that’s messy. And it’s because life is messy, because sexuality is messy, because we’re not given a lot of places to figure it out. That’s safe for us. In some ways, I remember when I was taking the date brazen program, I wanted to be like Im so put together in this in my life, but Im about to show you behind the curtain subbing a thought that’s messy, a thought that doesn’t align with perhaps what I’m teaching or what my image is. And I don’t know how to hit that dissonance. And so oftentimes, especially those who are helpers and leaders in the world, which is who we both we both work with those, those type of people quite a bit as our clients. Then I think what’s so powerful and working with a group is all it takes is one person to to get into that place of like, Alright, I’m just gonna tell you, this time that I did such and such, or that this happened to me, and I don’t even know what to make of it, or whatever it is, that’s so vulnerable. And so out there. And someone else would like me to experience too, or like, wow, or without obviously getting any details of it, we had one experience that happened almost at the very end, in our group with field, this someone was talking about a sex act, and about not loving the sex act. And then it grew into this beautiful conversation that was supportive. And there’s multiple experiences in the same and, and then eventually, we got to the very end of being able to kind of give advice and a way we can do it, which isn’t how many of us have ever been able to have that kind of conversation that doesn’t turn into like a party trick, but actually gets into like this, this is actually confusing to me? Or like, I’m confused, do I have a right to not want this sex act anymore? Or how do I make sense of it? Or if I want this to be different? What are my options of how to make this different and better, and a place that’s productive and mature. And I find that to be a really powerful part of being in a group that we don’t often get to have. And do it alongside other people who are in the trenches, and in the curiosity and then the like, Huh? And it’s to me, it’s really powerful. When you can not know something about yourself, that you can share, share the messy, and see other people working hard not to judge themselves, too. That also becomes contagious, and I think is a powerful part of doing a sexual excavation in a group.

Lily  38:33

The power of being in a group for me was really witnessing that the unhurried unfolding is truth. Like I share that in my program and hearing you talk about this as an unhurried unfolding. I watched myself become impatient with my own learning. I watched myself become like, frustrated by my own frustration with why cant I figure this out right now. And I think, you know, I’ve been meditating a lot, obviously, on this concept of main character energy and becoming the main character in your story. And when we look at all of the movies, let’s just take movies, for example. Like when we look at all the movies, we love a strong female protagonist specifically, there’s so much, there’s so much in between the beginning and the end of the movie. There’s so much struggle and figuring it out and being in the, in the breakthrough and in the, in the work that I think that as a perfectionist, recovering perfectionist, I think that I should be able to just move through the struggle of figuring it out in the middle. And what was powerful is to witness that like, it is not when you put yourself, when I put myself in a group to learn from you to learn from the other participants, which I totally did. When I listened to their stories and their shares. I was allowing my nervous system to acclimate to a new level of belonging. I was a allowing my brain to be unhurried in her growth. And she liked that. She didn’t want to be like taken into immediately like, well, what would you want right now and to ask for what you want, like it took the excavation, it took the storytelling, it took the timeline, it took the gentleness with which you led us through for my brain to, you know, 10 weeks, it was really 8 weeks and of the 10 week experience that I had, I had a beautiful moment with my partner, Chris, where I realized that I made a decision drenched in my agency that I had never made before. And there’s a lot of agency in my relationship before revealed and that I was coming into a new phase. And I was like, Whoa, I don’t remember writing that learning down. You know, it was just something that like, seeped in. And when you give yourself time and space in a group, you’re allowing those learnings, you’re allowing other people to, you know, let their power like SEEP and we’re interdependent people. And so we get to learn from each other in an unhurried environment where we feel emotionally and physically safe. You know, I read so I was on tik tok, Juliana, and I’m on tick tock now. And it’s really fun and also intense. There’s a lot of Tik TOks, about like, walking versus running. And I love to run. And when you run at a certain pace, the cortisol levels in your body apparently increase. And when you walk at a certain pace, you still get the physical benefit, and the cortisol doesn’t increase. I think of revealed like going on a walk in which like, you’re going to get incredible benefits, and you’re not going to necessarily be pushing yourself to sweat in an uncomfortable way.

Dr. Juliana 42:01

Hmm, beautifully stated.

Dr. Juliana  42:05

I love that. Yes. And it’s scary. It’s still scary in that way too. And, and you’re walking alongside other people. And it doesn’t mean you’re walking the straight line in this, like, there’s this horizontal line, everyone gets to have their own pace, everyone gets to have their own verve of how they’re walking. Yet, it’s still a group that’s working together. In order to find this out. I love the way you said drenched in agency… 

Lily  42:32

revealed is yummy. I think that’s the TLDR of it. Like the, the bear. Like if I were to give a one sentence share of like what, that what this meant to me is that I allowed myself to come home to my own story. To learn what my holistic sexuality looked and felt like. All for the benefit of me becoming the main character of my story. So you don’t, you don’t know how much space is available to you. I didn’t know how much space was available to me until I did the deep dive. The journey, the hero’s journey, if you will to look at like all the different pieces of the puzzle to then come into, oh, wow, I’m not in this cramped apartment. I’m in this gorgeous big airplane hangar space that there’s so much freedom and movement.

Dr. Juliana  43:32

And I remember when you did that analogy in dating brazen it was, it was a brazen breakthrough. It was profound. And I love that you’re bringing them in to revealed, same with the unfolding, that’s yours. And, and I give you all credit for that. That phrasing. It’s beautiful. I’m glad that you felt that within revealed. I have one last question that I wanted to ask. I remember one of the things that, that well, there are many things that may be drawn to you. But I remember you were one of the first people that was also talking about agency. And now it’s a lot more of a buzzword. But we, I really think she’s talking agency, too. And I couldn’t wait to hear what your concept of agency was, is, I’m curious after taking revealed, has your thought and concept of agency changed. 

Lily  44:21

I think of agency in a framework of decision making, that we’re making decisions all day long, all day long, all day long, that we don’t even understand that we’re making like, that coming home to your own agency means…learning…what…um…

Lily  44:43

It’s like it’s so complex. And to me it’s, it’s understanding that you have so many more decisions that you get to make in your day than you think you do. And that you are not…that, that the previous mechanisms by which you may have made decisions, consciously or unconsciously, those, those previous frameworks of the patriarchy that we learned to behave in a way that made us ourselves small. That we learned to behave in a way that was people pleasing. That we learned to behave in a way that made it unsafe, physically, emotionally, mentally, for us to own our space, that those old paradigms get to fall away, for a new way of being like a new literal like, reality in which you are sovereign. In which you are creating decision by decision, you activate and create your own power and your own leadership in your life. And that that doesn’t, that gets to be a beautiful unfolding, that empowers other people to experience their own agency. It is not in the power over framework, either that it’s not like I make decisions that that make your decision smaller. No. When we get to step into our agency, and when we’re doing so in integrity and with love and with knowledge and some humility to keep learning, it creates freedom for ourselves and other people. Yes. Oh, God, what is and, and this idea of essence and preferences also was so aligned in our work that like, when you are very essential about who you are, what you, what you desire, what brings you pleasure, that that can be the seat of your, of your power, that is freeing.

Dr. Juliana  46:41

And for some people to like, one of the hardest questions that I asked in revealed is what brings you pleasure? I’ve had people sobbing over, I don’t know, to know what brings me pleasure anymore, or did I ever? And like, this is not what we’re talking about sex. People, it is super this, but it’s so freeing. And then it happens invariably, every time that then once somebody gets comfortable with asking themselves questions, and being just as happy with a yes or no, or I don’t know, and not judging what comes up after the question is asked, then it’s like, ask me more, I want to know more. I want to know more than that. It’s always an exciting place. For me, when someone opens up from the like, the grieving that often happens as a part of opening up in revealed. To then like, once you know, once you know, agency, especially the way that I like to teach it in revealed once you know it, you can’t unlearn it. And, and it’s a gift that keeps growing. It can change things, some of it changes relationships, it ends things, it changes careers. But it also opens you up to a place of like you said, just being a leader in your own life. And when you make decisions and live with the consequences intended unintended. And when you learn the skill of agency in your life, it changes everything. It heals so much of the past. And then it really provides this beautiful foundation and protection moving forward. That feels really catapulting and especially when you do it in a group. And agency for me, the way I look at agency is that agency is communal. That’s, that’s the difference between agency and empowerment. That in agency it involves the relations with other people, like you said, like it doesn’t prevent others decisions. It doesn’t take away. It doesn’t marginalize or oppress. Agency doesn’t do that by definition. And when you learn to do that, too, it’s…it changes everything. And it starts with one group of 10 women at a time moving forward or 10 people in revealed with all genders, but your group was, was all, all those who identify as women and it’s, it’s a beautiful thing. And it was lovely for me is, you know, I think you’ve already answered it. But I like asking people so what, what was revealed for you in the experience of going through the course?

Lily  49:07

It was realizing that like discovering all the facets of my holistic sexuality that right, that sexuality isn’t just sexual orientation. It isn’t just sex acts. It’s not just what turns you on and turns you off. It’s so many both/and things. And it is uncovering your story so that you can own your identity in a more like, loving and compassionate way and allow space for that to shift and change and grow. It is learning how to hold yourself and your story even when it’s hard and scary. It is learning how to be seen in a group of people that you don’t really know at first. It is also allowing yourself to receive, receive guidance and support and love on the journey to owning your agency. And then afterwards, for me, it’s making the most powerful decisions for my holistic sexuality possible. That is exactly what catalyzed my taking some time off, and then coming up with my most favorite brilliant ideas that I’ve had in a long time that I’m so excited about. So, I’m very grateful.

Dr. Juliana  50:30

Oh, well, it’s, I’m so honored you took it. And it was, you know, it’s also like you obviously everything is confidential. But I remember in my mind, and in my soul, the sharing and the stories and the vulnerability. And it’s so beautiful. I’m so glad we get to share each other’s work.

Lily  50:52

Thank you, Juliana, Dr. J. And I’m going to put all of the information for your website for your Instagram in the show notes. My fabulous editor, Darlene and I will make sure that everybody knows your work, and is…how do people work with you now and moving forward?

Dr. Juliana  51:12

So I see people individually have a private practice that’s all online. And so you have a website to find out about how to work with me privately. And then I do revealed groups. I have several courses that I teach people. I have a course just on agency also. And then I have facilitators so I train people on how to facilitate revealed. It’s in eight countries, and actually count how many states it’s in right now. I don’t know the number but many states in the US also. And so you can take it from other people besides me to. Online or in person. And then I’m Dr. Giuliana Hauser on all social media.

Lily  51:47

Thank you Giuliana and I’ll talk to you soon. Thank you all for listening.