00:00:01 Rosemary

If you’ve completed or are currently enrolled in Compassionate Inquiry training, you’re invited to attend the third International CI Conference in Vancouver, Canada from October 30 to November 1. Dr. Gabor Maté is returning as our keynote speaker and masterclass presenter. Enjoy engaging workshops and inspiring demonstrations with Sat Dharam Kaur, CI facilitators and practitioners. Whether you join us in person for three days of shared inquiry with CI cohort partners and colleagues from around the world, or attend virtually to focus on the teachings, tap the link in the show notes to learn more and secure your place. And yes, there will be dancing.

00:00:49 Charon

How I ended up in sex therapy was I grew up in what we’ll call a fundamentalist Christian tradition where there was a lot of shame or around sexuality in my relationship. We hit something that needed attention. We were trying to find in the medical field. They tell you what’s going on with your body physically, but they don’t necessarily address the emotional, the somato emotional aspect on not only their patient but also the partner. So we were looking for counseling. Very hard to find. And so that’s what turned a light bulb on in me that while I’m navigating my new sexual pathway and exploration, I want to be the person that I’m looking for. I want to be the person that people can say, hey, this thing happened in our relationship. Is it possible to get help? Is it possible to talk about this even? Because that’s like the most often thing I hear in my treatment room. We can talk about this. There’s hope for this. So that’s what sparked that for me to I want to be that person that I was looking for where people can have safety because like I said, there is so much shame related to sexuality. That was my pathway into sex therapy. The techniques that I work with help people get better at all kinds of relationships.

00:02:15 Rosemary

This is the Gifts of Trauma Podcast. Stories of transformation and healing through compassionate inquiry. Foreign.

00:02:34 Kevin

Welcome to another edition of the Gifts of Trauma Podcast from Compassionate Inquiry. My name is Kevin Young and I am joined today by Sharon Widmere. Sharon, you’re very welcome. I am super excited to have you on this really special edition of the Gifts of Trauma Podcast. And I’m curious as you land with me here, how are you doing?

00:03:00 Charon

How I’m doing is well. So when I hear that question, I do check in with my body and I would say I am very relaxed and I feel quite present and in the room with a low grade thread of excitement running through me.

00:03:15 Kevin

Yeah, let’s hold that excitement. Let’s keep that. That’s. That’s a good thing. Right? And Sharon, there are loads of things that I want to talk to you about. And in fact there are probably far too many than we can fit into this conversation. Let’s see how we go. I’m always interested when I get into a conversation with someone like you and someone that is familiar with meditation. And already I hear this vein of spirituality and psychosomatic spirituality coming through this idea of mind and body and injury and trauma and grief you’ve already mentioned. And for our listeners, we have people tuning in to hear you for the first time. And already expressions like dropped into my body and located grief in my shoulders. Talk to me as if I have no idea what you’re talking about. When you say drop into my body and locate grief in my shoulders. What do you mean by that?

00:04:13 Charon

Okay, so if you’re a brand new client of mine and I was considering inviting you to do that, I tend to start with a little bit of I’m going to ask you to rest behind your eyes, locate your awareness behind your eyes, and then I’ll give that a beat and then I’ll say, now I want you to notice your right thumb, maybe wiggle it a bit. And then I give that a beat and I said, now return behind your eyes. And with this same awareness, I’m going to invite you to bring awareness to your shoulders. Let’s go with the right one first. And you’re bringing awareness with so much curiosity to this shoulder as if you’ve never seen this shoulder before. And you just hang out there. Maybe you’re noticing sensations. Maybe there’s nothing, it’s all okay. Maybe we can slide over to the other shoulder with so much curiosity and you’re just noticing what you notice and return behind your eyes and join me when you’re ready. That’s how I kind of intro, invite people into their bodies.

00:05:25 Kevin

That was really beautiful. What was that, 90 seconds? Yeah, that was a really beautiful little practice for minutes, noticing a heat, not an intense heat, first of all in my right shoulder and then when I switched the left, noticing that heat in my left shoulder. And it was really beautiful. Just to move my attention, my awareness from behind my eyes to shoulder. I really enjoyed that. Thank you. I hope our listeners did too. The more I read about you, the more I read that you do and can do and are trained in and have experienced with and the place we know each other from, obviously is compassionate inquiry. There is shamanic body work there. When I read about you, there’s body and therapy kind of stuff in there. There’s sex therapy in there. There’s your work with Pat Ogden. There’s relationship work, there’s couples work. There’s working with queer people. I know that. And I hope you will read a little bit for us later on. Would you do that?

00:06:21 Charon

Yes. I have a new book out. I’ve picked a section that’s got a little bit of somatic work in it for people in relationships.

00:06:28 Kevin

Okay. So we’re going to talk about that. Your new book that has just come out, I know that’s called Sovereign in Love, Nervous System, Path to Power, Desire and Intimacy. It already sounds fascinating. I know that there’s a lot of work going on in your digital work, your website and member spaces and places where people can connect to you and work with you and if they’re interested, follow up with you. So I want to have a conversation about that. And I also want, if it’s okay with you, for myself, I’m just a curious man, curious being, and for our listeners, your listeners, to find out a little bit more about you. Would it be okay if I start asking you some deeply personal and private questions? And of course it’s okay to not answer anything you don’t want to answer.

00:07:13 Charon

Absolutely. I teach about boundaries, so I like to say I’m good at boundaries.

00:07:17 Kevin

Okay. Okay. I’m going to take that as a challenge because I like to see if I can get past people’s defenses and ask questions to see if we can get a little bit deeper and know people a little bit more. So maybe we’ll have that dance together between boundary and questioning. We’ll see how we go. So tell me about you. As I read all that, as I read about massage and body and therapy and shamanic work and compassionate inquiry and your work with Pat Ogden, and you’re telling us now about new meditation teachers and practices, your book and your website. How did you get here? And I think maybe a more important question is why did you get here?

00:07:52 Charon

I’ll start with the how.

00:07:53 Kevin

Okay.

00:07:54 Charon

Maybe the why will come. Yeah. So I had a physical ailment that traditional medicine wasn’t able to take care of it. I had vertigo. And so someone turned me on to chiropractic as well as applied kinesiology, muscle testing. And that just opened up the whole door of holism for me. I trained as a massage therapist. So my first career was massage therapy. And I really got to understand that mind body connection, that there is no disconnection. I actually ended up teaching massage to Massage therapy students. And we would talk about issues in the tissues, like why you could massage someone somewhere and they might start crying or their jaw might lock up, or even their leg might tense up. So we really took a deep dive in the emotional body. And after a while, 25 years doing massage, my body was like, we’re not going to do this into retirement, so we may want to transition, which natural for me was a transition into mental health. But I took with me that understanding of the soma of the body and how I learned you could even do talk therapy for years and years, but only go so far, unless we’re including the body in this whole process. And so in my transition, I discovered trauma. I took education in learning how trauma, I’m going to say, stored on the body. Although I’m also in a new program, a neuroscience program, where we’re learning that it’s more about predictions. Like we experience something and so we kind of make a prediction like love, maybe I had heartbreak, and then I’m going to make a prediction. I’m broad brush strokes here that all relationships are going to hurt. So we are holding that. Our body is in the process of holding that prediction. And so the work that I do between talk therapy and somatic therapy is help notice that holding in the body become present to that holding and start inquiring, how can we make a new neural pathway relative to our beliefs about love and what our body is telling us about love? Okay, so we’re talking about how I got here. Go ahead. Looks like you were going to say something.

00:10:01 Kevin

Yeah. And I’m really conscious that I just love to pick out the minutiae of what people say. And I want to stay on the track of what we’re talking about as well. Sean. So I just want to interrupt you very briefly. A new neural pathway to what we are experiencing. I think that’s what you just said, right?

00:10:18 Charon

I did, yes.

00:10:19 Kevin

Can we take a little tangent? Tell me, expand that for me just a little bit. And our listeners, what does that mean? A new neural pathway to what we are experiencing?

00:10:27 Charon

Yes. So I’m touching a little bit on neuroplasticity. That’s a word that some people are familiar with. Neuroplasticity is how we learn. So I love using this metaphor because I’m a hiker. I love to be outside in the trees, hence my background. You know, when you go to the place and there’s a well worn pathway, our tendency is to follow it. Now, if I were to go in a new direction and I might Need a machete to break a new pathway. But eventually, if I keep coming back and I go down that new pathway, that also becomes well worn. Our nervous system is exactly the same. So think about when you were learning how to tie your shoes or learn how to drive. Those things feel just so awkward at first. I tell people that’s the new pathway that you’re using a machete, you’re cutting a new neural pathway when you learn something new. But the more you repeat it, just like I return people to presence in the body. Now we’re forming a new neural pathway that gets well worn. Does that help?

00:11:26 Kevin

It does. We’ll come back to it. I’m just putting a little marker for myself. I want to talk about that in relation to relationships, what that means to form those new pathways, and maybe what it means to have those old pathways in relationship and what can happen. But I bookmarked that. Please. Shawn, you were telling us how you got here.

00:11:45 Charon

Yes, I think I did lay out how I got to the somatic aspect. Now, how I ended up in sex therapy was I grew up in what we’ll call a fundamentalist Christian tradition, where there was a lot of shame around sexuality. And so there’s two paths that got me into sex therapy. One was in my relationship. We hit. I’m not going to say we hit a wall. We hit something that needed attention. And so we started exploring opening up the relationship when there is a bit of a mismatch in desire, which I see a lot in my current work now. But along that same pathway, my partner developed an illness. He’s great. He’s fine. He’s recovered now. But the illness impacted the sexual dynamic. And so we were trying to find. In the medical field, they tell you what’s going on with your body physically, but they don’t necessarily address the emotional. The somato. Emotional aspect on not only their patient, but also the partner. So we were looking for counseling, if you will. Very hard to find. And so that’s what turned a light bulb on in me, that while I’m navigating my new sexual pathway and exploration, I want to be the person that I’m looking for. I want to be the person that people can say, hey, this thing happened in our relationship. Is it possible to get help? Is it possible to talk about this even? Because that’s like, the most often thing I hear in my treatment room is, we can talk about this. There’s hope for this. So that’s what sparked that for me to. I want to be that person that I was looking for where people can have safety because, like I said, there is so much shame related to sexuality. And so that was my pathway into sex therapy.

00:13:28 Kevin

Thank you. And that maybe answers the why as well. I think that maybe takes care of the how and the why. And give me a little bit, if it’s okay with you, I’d love to know a little bit more about you. Tell me where you are. Tell me what life is like for you. What’s a day look like? What’s a week look like? How is life for you?

00:13:45 Charon

Life for me is good. I’m a mother of four and my children are older, so they don’t need me quite so much. So I do spend a lot of time developing my fledgling business. I’ve been an entrepreneur for about three years, and in this line of work, as I’ve learned more about the body and my own nervous system and how I was doing, like a hustle type of approach to my business. Now my days are more like, let me look at the calendar. Let me see how I want to feel these days. And giving myself the nourishment that I need. So I do get a lot of fulfillment from my work, but I’m learning to also get a lot of fulfillment from being in the woods, meditating, doing my workouts and writing. Writing is a new fascination of mine. And so I’ve been taking some coaching on how to be a good writer. So that is also some of my day is spent writing.

00:14:39 Kevin

And I’m not to be the judge of anyone’s success or otherwise, but I was looking at some of the things that you were writing before we come on here, particularly some of the posts that you have on the Compassionate Inquiry website, which are our listeners and people, wherever they are, can access those, and there are many. So you’re busy writing?

00:14:58 Charon

Yes, I’m busy writing for Compassionate Inquiry and then my own personal blog as well.

00:15:02 Kevin

And a book that we’re going to talk about later. Was that a thing that you were into previously? Did you always like to write, or is this a thing that you came to later? Later in life, or how high is that?

00:15:12 Charon

Definitely later in life. I’m giggling because over the course of my lifetime, I’ve had a couple of psychic readings from different people. Every single one of them were like, write that book already. And I was like, what book? I don’t know. I think it was last year. I have a lot of mentors. I started working with a new mentor, and in one of the sessions he was like, let’s talk about how to become a self published author. And he just laid out the process and it was like a light bulb in my head that once I saw the process, the book came through. Because it’s like I’ve had so many years studying somatics and holism and herbs and nutrition and shamanism. It’s like, oh, now that I have the through line, the book just was like, so later in life for sure.

00:15:57 Kevin

Wow. Yeah. And we’ve said a couple of times, I’m really excited about what you’re going to read later on. And then Sharon, to give our listeners a fuller picture, expand your experience for me just a little bit because we did talk previously. I know you have worked with some really cool people learning some really cool stuff. I’d love to hear you talk a little bit about your work and your passion for compassionate inquiry, your work and your passion for Pat Ogden’s work. Talk to me more about that maybe. I’m asking you how you work with people and the toolbox that you’re drawing from.

00:16:29 Charon

Yeah. Not long after getting my master’s degree to work in mental health, even in that process, I was being introduced to a little bit of Pat Ogden and I was seeing a little bit of clips of gabor like on YouTube. This stuff started showing up in my world. So I did end up taking a training with sensory motor psychotherapy, that is Pat Ogden. So I did take one of the level trainings there. And then I kept hearing the whispers of Gabor. I literally was at one point, do I keep going with sensory motor psychotherapy? But I’m so intrigued with what Gabor’s saying. So I did end up sliding into the professional program. But I find both of these very complimentary. They’re body based. So just like we demonstrated in the beginning, inviting people into their body, and through both modalities, I learned to really work with the nervous system in terms of not pushing people too quickly into their system, but really titrating how much we go into the system. Because for someone who has trauma, for example, the body is the site of the crime and there may not be a lot of safety and trust for them to go into the body. That could be pretty frightening. So what I appreciate about my training is not only am I slowly inviting people into their body, but I’m looking for things like tension in the jaw, a shift in the breathing. Maybe they start fidgeting while we’re working, working. And either I will bring attention to it, but if it looks like even that is too much focus, we’ll Draw back from that. Return to the breath. Feel your feet on the floor. You mentioned some of my community spaces, like I have a free masterclass coming up. But in the intro, I’ll have people come in, arrive, and I’m going to have you just gently push your feet on the floor, arriving into your body at a level that tends to be less activating for people to start with.

00:18:17 Kevin

And then, Sharon, so I can feel myself starting to build a mental picture of how you’re working and certainly the tools that you’re bringing to that work. And you mentioned that free is earlier, by the way. I also love the phrase the body is the site of the crime. That’s a really beautiful phrase that for people that have been traumatized, right? It really is. You mentioned earlier new neural pathways to what we are experiencing. And I heard you talk about the word shame or shame shame, as people often remind me. It’s meant to be said. This is how it comes out of my mouth. So new neural pathways to what we are experiencing. You mentioned the word shame. We’ve talked about relationships and sex therapy. We’ve talked about the body is the site of the crime. What I’m really curious about then is the spider’s web that links all those things together. Together shows up for people in relationships. And somebody’s going to say, hey, listen, my husband and I aren’t getting on great in the bedroom. What’s that got to do with the fact that I had trauma in my life when I was six? Or what’s that got to do with the fact that I was adopted? Or, you know, I imagine people listening who aren’t in this world are going to be saying, those things can’t be related. Quite often people don’t even know that they have trauma in their body. But I imagine they’re going, those things aren’t related. So can you talk to me a little bit then how you see those things being related or relationships or sex life, the shame that we might be carrying in our bodies, the body being the side of the crime, and these new neural pathways. Do you see what I’m asking?

00:19:54 Charon

I think so. And I think the selection, actually that I chose to read for my book will speak a little bit to this. So that might be a good segue for that. But what was coming to mind as you were asking the questions? It’s about presence. And what I mean by that is in the present moment, when we can start to go in and navigate what is happening for us in any present moment, whether it’s difficulty in my Relationship, co workers, parent, sibling, whatever. When I can understand what is happening for me and take that as information. Because what’s often happening is the activation that occurs in the present moment. Our nervous system thinks we’re back in another time. It kind of goes back to the prediction that I was talking about. My nervous system may say when I hear someone raise their voice and this is actually quite personal. I grew up in a home where my parents yelled a lot. So what happens for me when I hear someone yelling, I go into a freeze. Because my nervous system in that moment is back to that 10 year old girl who was like, I don’t know what’s being asked of me right now. So that is one example how the. In the present we can like time travel back into the past, but it’s through the nervous system. So the work that I do with helping people with all relationships, number one, let’s connect with what’s happening for you in the present moment. And from there we can start connecting to what’s happening with the person in front of me. Or we had an argument about this thing. What is my body telling me about that? Are we. I help people understand that their reactions, their responses and the feelings that they feel in the moment. It’s data. It’s data for you. For instance, if anger is arising, usually it’s because my goals are being blocked or my boundaries are being crossed, or both. In that, let me see, I’m feeling some anger. What does this mean for me in this moment? And is it okay for me to take a pause? Maybe I’m talking with someone, maybe I can take a pause so I can do that. Personal inquiry, what is this for me?

00:21:52 Kevin

So to hear you talking about this, is something stuck in your nervous system? There’s nothing wrong with you, there’s nothing wrong with your partner, be that him or her or they or there’s nothing wrong with them. There’s just. If you didn’t use this phrase. But it’s coming to my mind, there’s just a little glitch in the matrix.

00:22:10 Charon

Yes, yes. I think the segment that I want to read speaks to just that.

00:22:15 Kevin

Let’s do it. Please, please. Yeah.

00:22:17 Charon

All right. And this is a tool, a technique people can take with them. So the name of the book is Sovereign in Love. And what I mean by sovereignty is exactly what I was talking to before. Being able to stay connected with what’s happening for you in the moment and also being able to connect with what’s happening for someone else. Which at first sounds like a lot to Manage. But being sovereign, it brings you that presence, it brings you that groundedness so that now the clarity can come in. Oh, I’m so upset with my partner. But now I can first connect with thatness and then I can figure out what’s going on for me so that I can make changes. So that’s where sovereignty is coming from, is being able to stay connected so not dissociating, so that we don’t even know what’s happening. So that’s why I chose the title Sovereign in Love. Love. And the core of all my work is relationship. So it’s either love with yourself, love with your partner, love with your co workers because we’re all in some kind of relationship. I always say relationships are the key to the universe because we’re so wired for connection, but yet we struggle in so many relationships. So that’s why I’ve drawn my passionate about is how can I help people have good relationships. So that’s the purpose of the book. Okay, so this is from chapter six of my book, the Timing of Repair. Under the subheading sovereignty and Conflict. A sovereign nervous system does not win arguments. It recognizes when it can no longer have one. This is not weakness. It is the most sophisticated form of relational intelligence available. The ability to read your own internal state with enough accuracy to know I am no longer here. I am in threat. Whatever comes out of my mouth right now will not serve this relationship, this person, or the truth. I actually want to speak. And then to pause. Not to avoid, not to suppress, not to withdraw as punishment or protection, but to pause with intention, to name the pause, to make it legible to the person across from you and to return when the body is ready to be present again. I want to continue this. I’m not regulated enough to do it right now. Give me a few minutes. That sentence is an act of sovereignty. It requires more courage than escalation. It requires more strength than shutdown. It requires a nervous system that has practiced enough to recognize its own threshold and to value the relationship more than being right in this moment. Sovereigns do not argue in threat. They wait for coherence. Not because they’re conflict avoidant, because they understand that coherence is when words finally have the chance to land the three minute reset before continuing a hard conversation. Try this. No phones, no explanation required. Simply three minutes. You’re going to sit facing each other or back to back, whichever feels more manageable in the moment. Let your eyes soften or close. Feel the feet on the floor. Breathe slowly, not the breath of Performance, not the demonstrative sigh of someone making a point, but the quiet, deliberate breath of a body asking itself to return. Do not speak. Do not process. Do not begin formulating your next point. Just regulate. Three minutes of shared breath does something that no amount of communication technique can replicate. It brings two nervous systems back into the same room. Not into agreement, not into resolution, into presence. And presence is where repair becomes possible. This is not a technique for avoiding hard conversations. It’s a technique for having them. It is the difference between words fired from activation and words spoken from ground. That difference is the whole of repair.

00:26:35 Kevin

Wow. Thank you, Sharon. I was just keeping an eye on my own nervous system and my own breathing as you were reading and noticing my breath lengthen and slow, just noticing a stillness. There was definitely a presence with me and you. I was noticing a lack of thoughts, just imagining myself practicing. That example you talked about, Sharon, I would think it would be really valuable. Could you describe a situation where that process that you’ve just described has worked for people?

00:27:11 Charon

Oh yeah, actually several come to mind. So I do work with a lot of couples. I do find couples come in and the same themes are circulating in their arguments. That’s really a good indicator to me that a somatic, a presence centered technique is really what is needed because people are like talking past each other. I’m trained in imago relationship therapy as well. So if listeners are familiar, that’s where we bring in mirroring, which helps to increase empathy. But sometimes I’ll do the mirror and I also will say, okay, let’s start to take a pause. So I have one couple comes to mind. I can say any names, but they tend to have the same arguments. And I had them start at 30 seconds in the middle of an argument. Let’s just take 30 seconds. You can hold hands, you can sit back to back, or you can look at each other just 30 seconds and just breathe. And what they noticed just beginning with the 30 seconds is what I mentioned in the book, the thing that they were like, this is my response. And I gotta say it’s like, oh, you know what, I don’t even really need to say that right now because I love you so much. And this is silly that we’re having this particular argument when what’s really important is this relationship. It’s sometimes it’s that downregulation interrupting it with the breathing and being present with each other is enough to turn the tide so that people can start hearing each other.

00:28:32 Kevin

Wow, I’m really noticing this theme. This is coming back to this new neural pathways. This is coming back to the body as the side of the crime. This is coming back to things like emotions and shame and being triggered and our prefrontal cortex being offline and just fighting for a response as you read there, fighting to be right. I loved in the little excerpt that you read, this doesn’t prevent us from having difficult conversations. This prepares us for them. So I really like how you’re explaining in that little piece that you’ve read that this isn’t a magic wand. This doesn’t fix all the arguments and make everything right. What it does is bring us into a place of presence where we can can actually talk about and listen to the other person as we have these discussions. Am I right in saying that?

00:29:20 Charon

Absolutely. And what comes to mind as you say that is when I hear someone say, I hate conflict, I avoid conflict. I get real curious and I invite them to get really curious because I tell people conflict is a problem that doesn’t have a solution yet. And then if we bring in the nervous system work, if a person can become sovereign in their nervous system, now you can go into conflict, because I can navigate me. If I look at conflict. We just have a problem. We don’t have a solution yet. What most people run from is the activation. I’m activated and you’re activated. And I don’t like this. But if we can get good at feeling these feelings, and this is something we learn in compassionate inquiry, we don’t get to feeling better. We get better at feeling. And so bringing that into the room is, I help people understand. Okay, yes, going to feel anger and you’re going to feel shame, and you might feel some sadness. But if we learn to actually feel that, navigate that, and know that is part of conflict resolution. But when people can feel like, okay, I’ve got me, I can feel what I feel now, I’m not as like, I hate conflict. It’s like, I can go in knowing we’re going to feel everything and we will eventually get to our solution. But I can navigate myself of.

00:30:41 Kevin

We’re taking a brief pause to share what’s on offer in the compassionate inquiry community. Stay with us. We’ll be right back.

00:30:50 Rosemary

If you’ve been listening to our podcast and are curious about the compassionate inquiry approach developed by Dr. Gabor Mate and Sataram Kar, consider joining the professional training program. It’s open to all healing professionals, including naturopaths, physicians, bodyworkers, coaches, and therapists. In addition to learning how to use compassion to support your clients in their most vulnerable moments, with greater empathy and authenticity. You’ll also deepen your own internal process. If you’re interested, look for the link in the show notes.

00:31:25 Kevin

Sharon, thank you. Can I invite a little exploration of what you just said just now? Would that be okay? Just for a minute or two? So. So again, working with people, you and I both do it. And people are going to be at home or where they’re listening to this imagining. Of course I can feel. Of course I know what I’m doing. What is this woman talking about? Of course I’m going to know what my body’s doing. And when we get into it, the thing that you said there, that most of the time, most of us are trying to straighten out the world in front of us, not because we want the world in front of us to be straightened out, but because I don’t like the feeling that’s inside me. And if everybody else would do something different and behave differently and line up in a different way, I wouldn’t have to feel this feeling. And it is a lot of work trying to get the world outside us to behave in exactly the way we want it to behave. In fact, it’s probably impossible. So that then, as you’re chatting, that then invites. Where did we learn that it’s not okay for me to be angry? It’s not okay for me to express myself. It’s not okay for me to have needs, it’s not okay for me to have wants. That conflict is bad and must be avoided at all times. Where do people learn that? How come? That is their belief system. What’s going on for them?

00:32:52 Charon

I’m going to answer from the personal on that. How I learned not to contact my anger. It’s not okay to be sad. And I’m going to go back to childhood. In my particular upbringing, any emotion. And I’ve come to this as an adult, I’ve figured this out. Any emotion that I had as a child was considered disrespectful.

00:33:12 Kevin

Wow.

00:33:13 Charon

Yeah. It’s like my caregivers were doing the things and feeling the things. And if I had a reaction that’s inappropriate, it. So I was conditioned very early not to show my anger because it would activate my caregiver. I was conditioned very early. You can’t be sad. I distinctly remember hearing the phrase, you shouldn’t feel that way. And so I internalized that. And now I know it’s called masking. But I realize that much of my childhood, I was one of those kids. I got good grades because that I Knew I got positive attention for good grades. I had had the best behavior because I would get attention for that. But anything that was going on under the surface, I started to feel shame towards my anger, towards my sadness, and definitely towards anything in the sexual realm. As I alluded to earlier, I received messaging that what I felt was not welcome and so carried that into adulthood. I’ve been in my own therapy for years and years, and only just now am I able to contact my anger without feeling shame. Shame for being angry. So I just wanted to answer that from a personal experience. And I have shared that with some of my clients and they’re like, yeah, that’s how I was raised.

00:34:25 Kevin

It’s interesting, really, getting a picture then, because in relationship, you are going to have moments where you’re angry. Excuse my language, but shit will hit the fan at some point of some week of some month. And if there is a nervous system avoidance of that anger, that is going to be really difficult to navigate through that relationship challenge. Right?

00:34:49 Charon

Yeah. As you were talking, I have a new couple that I’m working with. And this came to mind our very first session. I was just helping each of them identify. And so what are you feeling as you’re sharing this vignette or this story? And the gentleman was hesitant to say what he was feeling. And I said, can I take a guess? I think there might be some anger there. And he’s like, I don’t want to say that. That. Let’s get curious. Why isn’t that. You don’t want to say that. I don’t want to be known as an angry person.

00:35:15 Kevin

Wow. Wow.

00:35:16 Charon

I know. And so revealing. He got the messaging somewhere in his life path that if he shows anger as a man, he’s considered an angry man and an angry person. And so I tell people, anger is biology. There’s only seven basic emotional circuits in the brain. Now, when they’re lit, two or three are lit up. We get the combination of emotions. But anger is one of our seven basic emotional circuits. We are going to get angry. It’s biology. And so that’s when I simplify it down to. It’s either gold blockage or boundary violation. It’s a frustrating object. Any human is going to get angry. That circuit is going to light up. And usually when I explain that people. Oh, okay. Because there is so much loaded coding around shame, around being angry, or. Or what I call a compounded emotion. I’m angry, but then I feel guilty about being angry. And now we’re not processing the anger because we’ve got. Got the guilt that’s packing down the anger. And so when I explained to them what a compound, I’m like, you’re just giving yourself more to process. Let’s pick one.

00:36:16 Kevin

Sean, I love how you’re laughing at that. I. I said something a few days ago on a different podcast, and it was something like the cosmic comedy in the chaos of a traumatized life. And almost when you explain that to people, what they’re doing, I can imagine people smiling and going. Going, oh, yeah, that’s crazy. That’s. And there is a cosmic comedy to it. You’re like, wow. And I can imagine even helping people understand that would make such a difference in the relationship.

00:36:49 Charon

It does. And so many times when. Especially when I cue it up that way. And, like, you can process an emotion through the body in 60 to 90 seconds. Let’s use anger for an example. But if you’re now feeling guilty about your anger, you’re giving yourself so much work to do, usually, like, that’s so simple. Okay, help me process my anger. Great.

00:37:08 Kevin

Yeah. And before we move on from this, shir, I’m just curious as well. I think for a lot of people, and you’ve alluded to it yourself, for a lot of people, there is a fear of anger because anger came with violence. It came with either physical or emotional violence or neglect. Would that be true that a lot of us don’t want our partners, our friends or colleagues, our bosses to be angry because there is a fear of violence from that?

00:37:38 Charon

Yeah, fear of violence. So some people have that background, their caregivers. In their world, anger came with violence. I call it anger plus action. And when we don’t, we can separate the two. Then we tend to like, I don’t want to be angry. Anger plus action can be actual hitting. It could be brawl, like you said, could be a form of neglect. So that’s anger plus action. But sometimes when we delineate that anger, anger, it’s fine. We want to feel it, maybe not act on it. So just really decoupling the two has been really helpful, I think, and helping people understand that it’s okay to contact that anger. I don’t have to necessarily yell. I can use a somatic intervention in the meantime.

00:38:20 Kevin

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I’m finding this conversation really fascinating, Sharon, and hopefully our listeners are too. And I love it when I hear people report back to me and say, yeah, I get what she was talking about there. I understand that. I see that in my relationship. I see it with my partner or whatever. So maybe then this might be a good time to ask you if there are people at home saying, wow, that goes on for me. I see my husband get angry, he then shuts down. I isolate. We don’t talk for two weeks. It all gets really messy and difficult. Tell us a little bit then about how they would reach out to you. You mentioned earlier a free masterclass coming up. I’d love to hear you talk a little bit about. I know that you have some members areas where people can be with you and work with you and experience you.

00:39:10 Charon

Yeah, yeah. My free masterclass is coming up in a couple weeks and it’s called Intimacy Without Armor. So really taking a deep dive into helping people understand. What does armoring in the body feel like, how that can present in different situations. Like we said, it could be the yelling or it could be the withdrawing or how it looks for you. So they will be able to somatically go into themselves in the session. And how does this show up? And then what’s the next step? Steps? How can I navigate this? How can I navigate myself while compassionately making space for my feelings, but learning how to articulate what I need? So there’s that. And then I have my full program, Embodied Intimacy, that’s also starting in August, a couple weeks after my masterclass. So that’s going to be a live group space where people can go deeper into understanding how my nervous system makes predictions, how I can learn how to navigate these feelings, how I can speak my needs so that that the other person can actually hear me. So those are some of the topics we’ll be exploring in Embodied Intimacy and then the spaces that you were talking about. My personal blog is on substack. I’ve created a members area on substack where that they can access closer proximity to me. And then I also offer one to one private sessions where people can work with me one on one.

00:40:28 Kevin

Are those one to one sessions in person? Shiran, Are they on Zoom?

00:40:32 Charon

Both. I work both.

00:40:33 Kevin

Okay.

00:40:34 Charon

Hybrid. So right now I do work with people all over the world, so that’s not a barrier. But if you’re local to me, then you can come in my office.

00:40:41 Kevin

Wow. Okay, so then you didn’t give us the date. What we’ll do in the show notes, Sharon, is we’ll put links to Intimacy Without Armor, the masterclass, we’ll put links to Embodied Intimacy, your program, we’ll put links to your substack so if people want to, they can reach out to you and connect and then tell me, so what would that look like what? What would working with you look like? What can people expect? Yeah.

00:41:08 Charon

Okay. Because I also forgot I have a group. I know Compassionate Inquiry has something called Circles. I have my own thing called circles, but I call it a different thing. So every six weeks I offer a community space. This one, actually tomorrow is called the men’s room. This will be a men’s space only what I’ve done is I’ve pulled the themes from the men that I’m working with. So themes like shame, anger, not wanting to take up space because it dysregulates my partner. So we’re going to be going through those themes. I’ll do a short teaching in that particular group, and then the men are going to be invited to ask questions on intimacy, relationships, sexuality. That’s the format of the small group spaces. When I work with people one on one, we do a what’s the reason you reached out for the call or for the consultation? Kind of pinpoint what they want to work on and do a treatment plan. But then I love how once we start working with the nervous system, we start unpacking things and help giving them better tools to navigate themselves, better communication skills and things like that.

00:42:09 Kevin

Wow. And this is for. I know we spoke that this is for couples of all demographics. Everything and anything, I’m assuming. But is that correct?

00:42:18 Charon

Yeah. Again, the core of my work is relationships. I actually, I’m doing some arbitration work right now too, with a family of multiple generations, but it’s still a relationship. So it’s couples, it’s people who are in cishet relationships, who are in queer relationships, parent child relationships, friendship issues. The techniques that I work with help people get better at all kinds of relationships.

00:42:45 Kevin

Wow. So family spaces, intimate spaces, platonic spaces, colleague and workspaces. Parent, child, parent child spaces. How is that for you to do all that? It sounds really exciting. Maybe that. Is that a bad word? Is that a bad word to use when describing relationship problems? I didn’t mean that to sound just,.

00:43:05 Charon

But because remember I said a conflict is just a problem that doesn’t have a solution yet. So when people bring me their relationship issues, I do get excited. I usually have a solution to them, but I don’t necessarily give it to them. The joy for me is helping them discover along the way what works best. So, yes, I do get excited.

00:43:27 Kevin

Okay, so that, that. That’s not a bad word then.

00:43:29 Charon

Just on this piece here. Here. I also help people understand what they call problems in relationship are opportunities. Because when there is a rupture like that all this means is something between us needs attention, and that means that love is there because there’s energy there, there’s flow there. So when people come, I have this problem and that problem. Beautiful. These are just opportunities for growth in the relationship.

00:43:56 Kevin

Yeah. I guess if people didn’t care, they wouldn’t care.

00:43:58 Rosemary

Care.

00:43:58 Charon

Exactly. Exactly. They wouldn’t even be up in arms like, this is not working. It’s because you care.

00:44:05 Kevin

Yeah. And they certainly. I would imagine if they didn’t care, if there wasn’t love there, they certainly wouldn’t be coming along to see someone like you spending their time, their money, their energy. If. Yeah, if they didn’t care, they wouldn’t care. And maybe that’s a little celebration for people as well. If they’ve got as far as you.

00:44:22 Charon

It is. I have each session end with appreciation, whether it’s parent, child, or romantic, whatever. And one of the most common appreciations, they say they’ll look to the other person, say, thank you for coming here so that we can work on our relationship. That always comes out, and it just makes me smile.

00:44:40 Kevin

Wow. Yeah. Thank you for that. And again, I’m thinking, you know, you’re out there. If there’s something going on with relationship, and you’re talking that there is talking with your partner, colleague, friend, mother, father, son, daughter, whatever. If you’re talking to them that there is an issue, you’re already winning.

00:44:58 Charon

Yes, absolutely. It’s not.

00:45:00 Kevin

It’s not a problem.

00:45:01 Charon

It’s an opportunity.

00:45:03 Kevin

I think that would be a real win for a lot of people just to realize that if we’re acknowledging that we have a challenge, we’re already doing.

00:45:11 Charon

Well, that’s the trajectory most romantic relationships take, too. In the beginning, it’s all kind of rainbows and butterflies, and then it tanks. And so usually when they end up in my office right there, I go, oh, you’re right. Where you supposed to be? And they’re like, what I said, because the reason we’re in relationship is to heal our old unfinished business. And so now that you’re here to work on it, this means you’re ready to grow. That’s awesome.

00:45:39 Kevin

Yeah, it’s really interesting, Sharon, as I watch myself listening to you and even saying that to someone, I can just imagine someone going. Going, yes.

00:45:52 Charon

That usually happens when I say this. They’re like, oh, we’re not broken.

00:45:56 Rosemary

No.

00:45:57 Kevin

Yeah, yeah, that’s it. We’re not broken. That said, I can imagine the relief from so many nervous systems and bodies just to hear someone who knows what they’re talking about saying, hey, it’s okay. This is a great opportunity. I want to just take you back a sentence or two. Shon, if that’s okay. You said something, and I’m pretty sure knowing who you are and how you work, you’re aware of what you said and you said, I oftentimes have a solution, but I don’t want to give it to them because it’s really important that they get there themselves. And you’re introducing the idea that the wisdom is within your job isn’t there to fill people up with information and stuff and knowledge. It sounds like you’re saying that your job is to encourage this stuff out of them because it’s already in there. Am I right in assuming that’s what you’re saying in that little statement?

00:46:52 Charon

Like I said earlier about learning to mask, I didn’t connect with my own emotions, which would be data for me. So when people come into my space, I help them connect with their body, connect their emotions, because their emotions are data for them to go back to the example of anger, having them get curious about their anger. So is this goal blockage? Is this boundary violation? There’s so much rich information for them in that that they start to then see, oh, I don’t really like this. I would much prefer that. I can’t give that to them. I can’t say, here’s what you need to do. I need you to use your emotions to get us to what works for you. So no, no, I don’t come and give people what I think they should have. Sometimes it’s journey of co discovery. The answer is in them. They just haven’t learned how to listen to themselves. And that’s what their work with me is about, getting to navigate themselves. What is my experience in life? What are the emotions connected to it? What’s this here to teach me to help me move forward in my own life, in my own path?

00:47:57 Kevin

Yeah, I can really imagine that being really empowering. A sense of agency and autonomy and ownership and discovery and growth. Are these words you’ve used already? And I can imagine then, Sharon, on the far side of that, once we’ve crossed that body of water of self discovery and taking responsibility for your own agency and setting boundaries and learning what you like and don’t like. I can imagine a relationship being really beautiful, maybe more beautiful than it ever was.

00:48:31 Charon

That’s the goal. That’s the goal. If both parties can become more authentic and more present, then they’re more in tune with what’s going on between them. And so they can continue to build this beautiful dynamic in the way that that works for both of them. So, yes, the goal is more beautiful relationships. Yeah.

00:48:50 Kevin

Yeah. Thank you. Before I ask you maybe a couple of more questions, if that’s all right. Is there anything that I haven’t asked you. You that you would really like people to know?

00:49:01 Charon

Sometimes people are off put when they see sex therapy. Sometimes people are happy. They’re like, oh, okay, I want to talk about xyz. But then I find sometimes people are like, why all this talk about sexuality? And so if I could explain a.

00:49:17 Kevin

Little bit more, I would love you to. Please.

00:49:18 Charon

Yeah. Sexuality. Sexual energy is life energy. Because what we’re doing when we’re having sex is we’re expressing aliveness that touches everything.

00:49:37 Kevin

I can hear that you are a much more professional and academic thinker and speaker than I am, Sharon, because what I get a mental image of is when are sexual energy and sexual relationship is healthy and energetic and fun and all of those things and sexy. There is a little swing to our hips when we’re walking through work. There’s a little skip in our step when the person drives in front of us in the traffic. It’s like, ah, I’m not so bothered. I don’t want to. I don’t want to dumb down what you’re saying. Saying, but I hear that’s what you’re saying, that life is better in many areas when you’re relating through that sexual energy and when that part of your relationship is healthy.

00:50:26 Charon

Yeah. So we’re using the word energy quite a bit. And I think that’s good because energetic doesn’t always. Some people think it means like, I’m working out, I’m doing everything I’ve had people tell me. Is that what you mean? I’m really energetic. So what I mean is energy is the flow. Flow. So when someone has good connection with solo sexuality or partnered are great. You want both. But even if you’re not partnered, you can work on having a healthy sexuality because what you’re doing is stepping into that flow, the energetic flow of life. So when you don’t have the blocks, some people might be familiar with chakras. The lower three have to do with survival and sexuality. And so when there’s blockage, then there. We’re more likely to get upset with the person in front of us because we’re blocked inside. But when we have that flow going through us, we can now engage. We have more capacity to engage with different aspects of life without it necessarily Sending us above or below our window of tolerance. Because when we have that sexual energy flowing, our capacity is bigger. We can tolerate more, more, which makes.

00:51:34 Kevin

For a much happier, less aggressive. A richer life. Yeah, richer. That’s that. Thank you, Shon. That’s a better word. It’s not happiness we’re seeking. It’s richness, it’s fullness, it’s contentment, it’s peace, it’s joy.

00:51:50 Charon

What I’ve come to understand about sexuality, the energy of sexuality, is the energy of life. It’s our life, full force. And so if we have a shame relationship to it, an anger relationship to our sexuality, a fear relationship to our sexuality, I don’t think this is my belief. We’re not as plugged into life as we could be. The importance of freeing sexual energy is that it touches every aspect of your life because it is the energy of life. This is how each of us got here, is your parents had sex. That’s how you’re here. And so to celebrate life, we want to be able to touch that eroticism, that aliveness. I help people understand eroticism shows up when you have, you know, your favorite cup of tea or beautiful sunrise or we’re in that relationship and you feel like that my person heard me. They got me. I feel seen and hurt. That’s eroticism. That’s the energy of life, aliveness. And so I weave. If I’m listening to someone and they’re struggling, we might even tap into how are you connecting with your own sexual energy, the sexual energy of your partner? And I help them see, they might think, oh, we’re doing great in our relationship, but we’re not having sex. Okay, we need to take a look at that because the flow between you isn’t as good as it could possibly be. So for me, my. I don’t say gravitation. I kind of was pulled into the direction of understanding sexuality and the importance of it, like I said, because it just touches every aspect of our life. We need to have a healthy sexuality.

00:53:33 Kevin

Thank you. Just as you’re chatting, I’m sure you are familiar, but I just wanted to ask Gabor’s teacher, his. The one he quotes. Offense. Ah, Elmus. I think it was maybe last year, maybe the year before a book came out called Divine Eros by Almas. I’m curious, are you familiar with that book?

00:53:47 Charon

No, but I think I should be.

00:53:49 Kevin

I think you should be as well. So he is talking about Eros and sexuality and sexual energy, and he’s talking about it as a divine principle, as Something that is from whatever you want to call source, universe, God, whatever. And he describes a little bit of what you’re chatting about, of how we can be respectful of that and express it and know that when we do that properly, that we are expressing the divine, whatever way we call it, when we do that appropriately in whatever way that means to whatever people are listening, that is an expression of divinity.

00:54:32 Charon

Yes, yes. And while you’re saying that, I’m thinking about power, shame at the same time, so hopefully my brain is probably going faster than my mouth, but because part of the title of my book is the Nervous System Pathway to Desire, Power and Intimacy. And when I say power, I don’t mean power over, over anybody, but else power within yourself to stand next to whoever it is you wish to be in spaces with. Now, the shame connected with sexuality is very disempowering because sexual energy is the energy of life. Like I said, our parents had sex and boom, we’re here. It created us. And so within us, when we can touch that powerful energy, we can create many things. But the shroud of shame surrounding sexuality has caused many to be small. And some of that I think I’m not going to get too political, but just broad brushstrokes by design to keep people disempowered. They’re not going to be asking the bigger questions. You know, I’m going to be focused on my phone or the TV show instead of really fully engaging with, interfacing with many aspects of life. That is very empowering. Empowering. And now we can start asking bigger questions and wondering who’s got their hands in the cookie jar. But yes, divine Eros, I’m saying it is life because it is such a powerful force. And when you can bring and connect and plug into that force in your life, we really have no idea how good our lives can be. And so for me, helping people really channel and plug into Eros, Divine life, sexual energy, that’s the doorway.

00:56:09 Kevin

Sharon, I imagine a queue of people waiting outside your office coming to you to say, hey, show me, show us, show us how to. Because we’re not talking about sexual intercourse. I. I don’t mean we’re not talking about. It’s not. That’s not the totality of what we’re talking about. I hear you say we are talking about life, relationships, connection, a fuller, more expressive experience of yourself, self, the world within you, the world outside of you. And that sounds like a really glorious pathway for people to walk.

00:56:45 Charon

Yeah. I tell people pleasure is your birthright, so then they Go.

00:56:49 Kevin

Yeah.

00:56:50 Charon

Work with me. I’ll help you.

00:56:51 Kevin

Yeah. And I hear that you and I chatted before and I’m a North of Ireland Catholic and I have had a whole truckload of guilt and sheer and condescension to drag along behind me. I need to talk to you again just about this idea of why there would be a system set up for people not to be able to access that because that creates a very powerful, intelligent, content human being to be in touch with that energy that you’re talking about.

00:57:25 Charon

Yeah.

00:57:26 Kevin

Thank you. Sharon, I’ve got one more question, and it’s a question. You’ve maybe heard it before, but I hope you haven’t because it sometimes surprises people. And the question is. And there’s no right or wrong answer. Doesn’t have to be a sensible answer. It can be a funny answer. It can be whatever you want. If you had the ear of humanity and you were able to whisper a little something into the ear of humanity, what would you whisper?

00:57:54 Charon

Without overthinking it, the first thing that popped up was just be.

00:58:00 Kevin

Wow.

00:58:00 Charon

Just be.

00:58:02 Kevin

Wouldn’t that be a lovely thing? If the ear of humanity could hear you say, hey, just be. Never mind the ear of humanity. I think the shoulders of humanity would drop a little bit and the solar plexus of humanity would soften a little bit. And the tension in the jaw of humanity would soften a little bit. If it could just hear that. Just be.

00:58:25 Charon

We do too much.

00:58:26 Kevin

I hear that too. I hear that, too. Sharon, would it be okay if we landed this conversation on the Gifts of Trauma podcast?

00:58:37 Charon

Of course.

00:58:38 Kevin

Can I say that I have thoroughly enjoyed our conversation? It has been an absolute pleasure to speak to you. So, Sharon, thank you for coming on the Gifts of Trauma podcast from Compassionate Inquiry.

00:58:52 Charon

I enjoyed it as well. Thank you.

00:58:54 Kevin

You’re welcome. Please take care.

00:58:56 Rosemary

Bye. The Gifts of Trauma is a weekly podcast that features personal stories of trauma healing, transformation and the gifts revealed on the path to authenticity. Listen on Apple, Spotify, all podcast platforms. Rate, review and share it with your clients, colleagues and family. Subscribe and you won’t miss an episode. Please note this podcast is for informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for personal therapy or a DIY formula for self therapy.