In this episode:
Recognizing that engaging romantically can be a massive trigger for those on a healing journey, I sought the guidance of Eliza Boquin, a licensed psychotherapist, couples therapist, and certified sex therapist for this episode. With notable features on platforms like Bustle and Cosmo, Eliza brings a wealth of expertise to the table. We dive into the delicate intersection of healing and romance, mainly focusing on the challenges faced by women in recovery. Join us as we navigate the complexities of dating for our single listeners and share insights on managing relationships for those already partnered while undergoing a healing journey, such as recovering from addiction. In this empowering episode, Eliza Boquin shares her expert advice, including touching on creating intimacy while sober, creating a supportive space for all listeners to navigate the often tumultuous landscape of love, intimacy, and recovery.
Resources:
Recommended Reading: Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski
Learn More About Eliza’s Houston Based Practice – Flow and Ease Healing
Bottomless to Sober – Coaching, Classes, and Workshops
Transcript:
00:18 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Hey everyone. So this week we have a really special treat and really a podcast episode that I think is going to be so, so, so helpful for you all. So I invited Eliza Boquin, who is a Houston based licensed psychotherapist. She’s also a couples therapist and she’s a certified sex therapist and she’s the co-founder of Melanin Mental Health. And I invited her because I’ve been following Eliza’s work for some time, and last fall I actually had the pleasure of being in her program called Pleasure is my Birth Right.
00:49
It was an eight week program geared towards women of color, but we had some really powerful conversations about love, relationships, self-care, boundaries and sexual health, right. And so I really wanted to bring her on here because, really, for anybody who listens to this podcast and is in a healing journey, especially women in recovery, one of the biggest things that I know from personal experience is that the way that we engage with other people romantically can be huge, huge, huge triggers, right. And so I thought, like who better than to have a licensed mental health practitioner and relationship expert here to kind of get some advice on how to navigate the lovely wide world of dating and relationships while, you know, being on this healing journey, such as recovering from addiction. So, Eliza, thank you, thank you, thank you so much for coming on, so happy to have you.
01:37 – Eliza Boquin (Guest)
I’m so happy to be here and thank you for inviting me, Jessica.
01:40 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yes, thank you. So I guess first can you share just a little bit about yourself and how you found yourself doing this work.
01:48 – Eliza Boquin (Guest)
Yeah, so yes, my name Eliza Boquin and my private practice is here in Houston, as you mentioned, the Fluanese Healing Center. And you know, I just I’m so committed and I think a big part of it is just my own journey around empowering women, right Like empowering women and ensuring that they have the information, the resources, the education so that they can make really wise decisions about their relationships. You know, finding themselves in inequitable relationships and advocating for their needs. And I found myself doing this work, really, I think, just on my own healing journey, right Like seeing the impact that being self-serving, self-sacrificing had on the women in my life you know, the elders in my life and my now ancestors the impact that it had when women put everything and everyone ahead of themselves, how they truly suffered from that. And I think, just along the way, sort of wanting to have the answers and learn the answers for myself. You know, I think, like so many of us who become therapists, we kind of get here trying to find those answers.
03:09 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, yeah. So it’s one of the things I just finished reading the Body Keeps the Score and one of the really like big green flags that you know Bessel Vanderkoe talks about is like in a therapist you always want to look for a therapist who’s done the work themselves right, like somebody who’s been through that work, as they’re guiding you. So it’s definitely comforting to hear you say that.
03:30
So yeah so I guess the first question that I have that I know a lot of people always have is like at what point in your healing journey or a sobriety journey, is it safe for somebody to put themselves out there, right, Like what might be some questions that a woman might want to ask herself to kind of gauge her readiness to date.
03:52 – Eliza Boquin (Guest)
Yeah, yeah, I think it’s such a personal, you know, like person to person decision. So I don’t really believe in you know generalities, so to speak, in terms of determining if we’re ready or not. One, I think, no matter where you are in your sobriety journey, and even if we don’t struggle with it, like not knowing when we’re ready, I think knowing when we’re ready has a lot to do with knowing what our vulnerabilities are, what our limitations are in our ability to, or rather our willingness to get support, ongoing support around that, and also being very intentional about the work that you know. How much work have I already done to really understand what my vulnerabilities are, what my relationship patterns are and what triggers them, right, like, what triggers maybe like the more maladaptive behaviors that we have? So I think a big part of this is awareness.
04:54
I don’t think we have to be perfect, right, like to go into a relationship. I think a lot of times we hear that’s like you have to be. We get this idea that we have to be 100% healed. Well, I don’t think anybody’s ever 100% healed, but I really think it has a big part to do with our willingness to embrace, acknowledge, be aware of our limitations. And what are we doing to make sure we are getting support around those limitations, and also what are our intentions about around a relationship? One of the things that I talk a lot about is undoing what we’ve learned about relationships, and I call it the Jerry Maguire syndrome of you complete me, finding someone that’s going to complete us, and so I would say that’s one of the biggest red flags. If you’re going into a relationship or pursuing a relationship, thinking somebody is going to complete you or somebody is going to be that person that sort of makes up for deficiencies in your life, I think that’s a really big red flag.
06:05 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
You mentioned about undoing things that we’ve been taught or have learned about relationships, and I guess, like my question sort of is how does someone know that a desire or an intention that they have is something that is genuine versus something that’s been taught? Because I think for a lot of us, like, let’s say, your classic, the classic wish list right, is like okay, be married and have kids by X age, and then I think sometimes we just really don’t stop and think about that. So I guess, how do you know that’s really what you want versus that’s just what you’ve been like programmed with?
06:38 – Eliza Boquin (Guest)
Yeah, that’s a great question and I think it can be both right. Like, not everything that we were taught or that we’ve kind of taken on as beliefs for ourselves has to be something that we have to throw out. And I think, where in your life are you experiencing distress? Are you in distress because you’re in your 30s and you’re not married yet and you thought you were going to be and you thought you were going to have the kids and the white picket fence and all that, and that’s causing you distress, or that’s causing you to maybe feel pressured or you feel like a failure. Something that’s making you feel less than or in distress.
07:22
I think really requires our attention. So where does this idea come from? Do I really want, is this what I really want? How do I know that I want it? Right? And a lot of the times we’ll say, well, isn’t that just what you’re supposed to do at this point in your life? Right, like that’s just what you do in your 30s or your 40s or what have you. So I think like writing down even a list of like what are the reasons you want to be in a relationship? Where did you get the message that you were supposed to be in the relationship. How much of that do you believe to be true? I think a lot of this work is ongoing work and self-reflective work and again, I think if you are in distress, if you are feeling bad about yourself, if there’s guilt, if there’s shame, if there’s regret, that’s an indicator that you got, that it’s worth looking at what the belief is. It’s causing you this distress.
08:18 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Okay. So because in a sense you could want these things but not be feeling all these negatively charged emotions and that might just mean that you want it but it’s not like because there’s like this force or external force or pressure to do it.
08:31 – Eliza Boquin (Guest)
Yeah, I think anytime we get really fixated on something, whatever it may be right, because you know and I think sobriety really sort of reinforces this message is our attachment to things right, like how attached we become to ideas or how attached we become to people and how we struggle. You know, when it doesn’t go that way, how we struggle when things don’t go our way, because life doesn’t always go our way, life doesn’t always go as planned. So how much do you struggle when life doesn’t go as planned? Right, if it’s something that you want, it’s a preference to do. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Again, but if you’re feeling super charged and I don’t even think like you have to be super charged to really sort of reevaluate from time to time, like what do I want, why do I want it, what’s motivating me?
09:25 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
But yes, especially if you’re having some distress around these desires that aren’t being met, yeah Well, and I like the point that you make that it’s good to kind of just check in from time to time, and I think that that also gives us permission to change our minds about like anything right, like we can want something at one point and then maybe a year or two later, life has given us circumstances that make us change our minds, and that’s okay too, so that’s really helpful, so like, let’s say, with the women who start to date.
09:53
Another common question that I get is suggestions or thoughts for gauging when to share that you are on like a recovery or healing path, like I know I was, and I remember I shared this in your group. I was like I was just an open book, like as soon as I was meeting people, because I didn’t even want it to be an issue later. But I know that that’s not the case for everyone, and so I’m curious, like, what your thoughts are.
10:18 – Eliza Boquin (Guest)
I love that you had gotten to the point where you owned your story, right Like, because that’s what it sounds like to me is that you owned your story and you were in control of the narrative. And so, again, I think it really does depend on a person to person basis. But if you’re struggling, like, if you’re, if you’re, if you’re struggling to share about your challenges, you know, and you’ve been dating somebody for some time, like, let’s say, you’re like a month in or so, not that there’s any like you know, magic number, like I think that’s a clue to kind of like self explore. What is it that you’re afraid of? Right, like. What is the fear afraid of? Are you? Do you have support around? You know, when you do reveal this to people, like, who can you go go back to in case you don’t get the, the response that you want? Because I think just humans in general, we don’t like rejection, right Like, we don’t like rejection.
11:24
But I think the like, the intensity of like, maybe like your anxiety, might be an indicator of do I still need some support around this? Have I come to terms with where I am in my journey? Because I think that’s the biggest thing about relationships and entering a relationship is how is your relationship with yourself Right, like, how, like? What are your feelings? What is the narrative you have around? You know your sobriety. I think that’s really the key to be on top of and to and to really be able to embrace where you are at. And if you’re still struggling with that, that’s okay. Who are you going to for support? So I do think it’s a personal journey and I think a lot of us kind of like hide these parts of us that we think are not going to be accepted by people. Right, that we fear that if people knew this about this, they may not want us, but it’s such an because it’s such an important part of who you are.
12:28
Not everybody deserves to know our stories. That’s the other piece, right, like, not everybody deserves to hear our stories. So if you know you’re getting to know somebody and it doesn’t really seem like they would really honor your story, you know by what they’re saying or you know something just feels off. So much of this is learning how to trust ourselves. So beginning to know, like, who deserves just to know what our stories are. So maybe you have a list of like, like things that you ask somebody like in the first date, to give you an indicator of what type of values they have, what type of how open minded they are, what their habits are like, right. So find out what would make somebody feel trustworthy, like what determines a person that is trustworthy and a safe person to share your journey with? Would might also be something that you can like sort of rely on, versus just like when it feels good to you.
13:24 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, I love that kind of having questions to sort of gauge because, especially for someone who is still feeling very tender about their sobriety journey, yeah, like that might not be what they want to lead with, but if they are starting to really care about someone or just starting to like feel a good connection or good chemistry, having some sort of way to gauge if this person is trustworthy is super, super important.
13:46 – Eliza Boquin (Guest)
And you know.
13:46 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
I love that you mentioned the self trust, because I think, like for a lot of for me in the beginning, I feel like I was often told, and a lot of mainstream recovery spaces kind of talk about like well, your best thinking got you here.
13:59
So there’s kind of like this element of like we can’t trust ourselves because of our addictive pasts.
14:05
But you know what I always tell folks in recovery it’s like well, your best thinking is getting you help now Right.
14:12
So like, if you need any evidence to trust yourself, it’s the fact that you’ve made the decision to stop drinking, to stop using and to like work on yourself. And so you know, I always like tell people you can trust yourself, it’s okay, like yes, and also like addiction is not like a morality thing either, you know, which is like the other piece of it too, but yeah, I think that that’s super helpful. So now let’s talk a little bit about women who are already partnered, because that also comes up as an issue, and I feel like one of the biggest things that I noticed when women work on their sobriety and they are already partnered is they’re worried about the potential friction that can come up with their significant other. And so I guess, based off your experiences, what might be some of the challenges that women might face when already partnered and they decide to start working on themselves, whether it be sobriety or any other, just kind of like big recovery path.
15:08 – Eliza Boquin (Guest)
Yeah and it’s actually something that I will tell my clients at the beginning of therapy is that you should know that this is going to change your relationship, and that’s because, even if just one person changes in the relationship, the relationship will change. And so, although we set out to do, you know, therapy or other healing, you know paths that we might take. We set out with the best of intentions and then we may even have the people in our lives rooting us on like, yes, we want you to get well, we want you to get healthy, blah, blah, blah, blah, but it’s still. You will often find you don’t always get maybe the support that even they thought they would be able to provide you, because the reality is you are changing the status quo, you are changing the dynamics of the relationship and, for example, maybe you struggled with boundaries before, maybe you were a people pleaser and now you’ve started to say no, now you’ve started to place limits on what you are willing to do and not willing to do. Maybe now you are holding people accountable, holding your partner accountable. Maybe before you did an express yourself, you wouldn’t say when something was bothering you, and all of a sudden you’re bringing up those things right, even though that’s in your best interest, and it really isn’t the best interest of the relationship, your partner may not know what to do with it. So I really think that doing even couples therapy, you know, is really important, because the dynamics of the relationship have shifted and changed.
16:47
I will always, I often tell people relationships go one of three ways, right. So one way is that we are going in the same direction, maybe not exactly at the same speed, but there’s not too big of a gap between us. That’s the ideal version of us. We’re changing, we’re growing, we’re evolving, but we’re going in the same direction. The second is that one person starts to grow in one direction and the second person says, sort of like what are you doing? You’re making things uncomfortable. And so that person who really wants to grow in one direction will find themselves holding themselves back because it’s uncomfortable, they don’t have the support they need and because they’re scared. They’re scared of losing the relationship. This limits them and it often leads to resentment, right, and so there’s disconnect in the relationship or people grow apart.
17:42
So the reality is you’re not the same person that got into that relationship. Your partner may or may not know what to do about that. It’s going to require a lot of communication. You may have to again see a couples counselor, a couples therapist, and reassuring your partner that may, even though you’re not that same person, you still want the relationship. But I think we have to be really honest with ourselves that things will shift. They may or may not shift in the direction we want, and that’s why it’s also so important to have support around the changes that we’re making, be it a therapist, be it a group that we’re in, be it friends, people that are going to help us when things get hard. Now that we’ve made changes.
18:27 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, and that’s so important to point out because we really we can’t predict outcomes, right? I feel like you know, I’ve spent so much of my life trying to manipulate outcomes and like doing all the right things, expecting things to go a certain way, and then like the universe just throws me a curveball. And so I think I love that point about you have to have support that is outside of your significant other, because you never know when things might go left. Hopefully they don’t, but if they do, you want to have a soft space to land and that’s going to be whatever your support group or system looks like. So that’s that’s super important. And I know that you have done couples counseling, so, and I know that couples counseling, you know, can help couples come back from like the darkest and the worst of spaces. In situations like these, what might be like possible indications of points of no return, like can someone who is in recovery be with a significant other who is still like drinking heavily, things like that.
19:27 – Eliza Boquin (Guest)
Yeah, and just to add, you know, because I kind of before I answered that also yes, things may shift and it may be hard for a while. But if you can also think of that sort of transitional time as things sort of leveling out, right and this doesn’t mean that you’re you’re, it’s all doom and gloom either it just may be that there’s an adjustment period. That has to happen because you’re learning each other, you’re learning each other and the reality is, even if you, we don’t struggle with sobriety, this happens in our relationships because we are hopefully continuously evolving and changing, evolving and changing, and so it requires regularly for us to reevaluate our relationships also. But to your point, in terms of point of no return, I think we have to be really clear on what we value most, right, like I often do this work with folks around our core values. What are our core values? What do we value most? What is it that at this point in your life is most important to you? You’re non-negotiables in a relationship, right, and our core values are so important for us to know, because it’s when we stray away from our core values that we suffer.
20:50
And so, being really clear on what your core values are and then, what are your partner’s core values? Right? Like we don’t have to agree on everything. We may not see eye to eye on everything. In fact, what the research tells us, when science tells us, is that 69% of topics couples don’t see eye to eye on but that’s like the small stuff. That’s like how you load the dishwasher right, like that’s you know, I’m a morning person, you’re an evening person type of situation.
21:22
But what they do focus on are the issues that have solutions. They focus their energy on that and I think that is really rooted in our core values. When we compromise or we negotiate our core values, that’s when we suffer. If our work is not aligned with it, if our relationship is not aligned with it, I think that’s a red flag. If your core values are not being supported in your relationship and your partner has rigidity around that, or if their core values are in direct opposition of yours, that’s a red flag Because it’s very hard to somebody’s going to have to then negotiate their core values and like again, that’s when we suffer, when we’re willing to compromise on what matters most to us.
22:10 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, and you know, and I can totally see that becoming a challenge, like, let’s say, because a lot of times you know when, I know from when I was drinking so heavily, I had no idea, in a sense, like really who I was or what really mattered to me. I was just kind of like operating like on this rigid schedule of just like work, drink, sleep, work, drink, sleep. But once the fog clears and you start doing some personal development work, you know you do get a solid sense of what matters to you. And that can really cause some conflict if it happens to be like you said, that like your significant other just really does not care for, like what your core values are and they’re not supporting them. Right, because I’ve seen couples successfully where one has stopped drinking and the other one still drinks.
22:55
But maybe the one that still drinks is like well, I know it matters a lot to you, so I won’t do it around you or only on a special occasion and I’ll limit myself. And then there’s the other ones who are like well, I know that your sobriety matters a lot to you and I’m still going to drink like a six pack a night, which probably is an indication of their own possible issues with the substance too, but I think that that values conversation is a really, really important point. Now, what are what are like green flags, like? What are signs of hope that a relationship, even if it feels scary to someone, right Like, let’s say, you, you’re going through this journey and your significant other is showing some resistance? What are signs for people to not panic and freak out and kind of like keep going that this is just an adjustment period?
23:41 – Eliza Boquin (Guest)
Yeah, I think it’s willingness, right, like willingness to do the work, willingness to have the conversations, willingness to change, willingness to explore if we can, you know, resolve our differences. And just because something is uncomfortable doesn’t mean that it’s a bad thing, right? I often say there’s a difference between discomfort and danger, right? Like there may be some discomfort about this space that we’re in, there may be some discomfort. And just because your partner is uncomfortable or doesn’t know where, he’s confused or is unsure, is adjusting, that doesn’t mean they’re resistant. It just means, like they don’t know this version of you, they don’t know this version of the relationship. But if there is a willingness and that there is accountability and there’s honesty and there’s curiosity, then I think work with that, right, you don’t have to have all the answers, and I think that’s the beauty of a relationship and sort of why we sign up for it is because we say I don’t have all the answers, but maybe we can come up with some answers together.
24:53 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, I mean I love that there’s a difference between discomfort and danger, because I mean, I swear, sometimes there have been so many times where my body registers discomfort exactly as that as danger, and I freak out and I panic and I’m gasping and I’m like already catastrophizing everything when maybe it was just a genuine, like simple disagreement, but I’m already like jumping to the worst case scenario. So I’m so glad that you pointed that out, because even that could just be like something that I could see people writing on a sticky note and putting it like right, like there’s a big difference between that. Yeah, danger.
25:31 – Eliza Boquin (Guest)
Well and you made a great point is that our body doesn’t know the difference right, and so this is also why it’s so important, I think, to really better understand how to regulate our nervous system, how to, like so many of us, exists, disconnected from our bodies, you know, and when we struggle with sobriety, we are so disconnected from ourselves, from our body, from all the things.
25:59
And so really being able to, like, recognize what happens to me when I’m under stress, how does that manifest in my body? Does my heart start beating really fast, my hands, you know, maybe they start to sweat, I get really tense. That’s important for us to know as well, especially like around communication and disagreements, is because all of that can be happening, and what happens is the part of our brain that can do the rational, rationalizing, the logical thinking, starts to shut off, because our body is like this is a dangerous situation. Let’s get you to you know, let’s get you out of here, or let’s get you fighting, do whatever we need to do to overcome this. So sometimes, just even having that reminder, like, is this discomfort, is this danger? If it’s, if I’m not in danger, right then if you really were in danger, your body is going to take over. So let’s just say that. But if it’s not danger, it’s discomfort, learning techniques such as, you know, breathwork and slowing down our breathing and how to ground ourselves so we can get back to the problem solving piece.
27:03 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, yeah, no, that that’s super, super important and it brings me back to like I just finished reading, the body keeps a score and yeah, the whole, like the emotional brain basically taking over and the rational brain shutting off and and all of that. That that makes total sense when we’re triggered and so kind of like settling the body, reminding the body that it’s safe, so that then, like you said, we can go back to like thinking so no, thank you, that’s super helpful. So I wanted to also talk about repair, because one of the things that a lot of people realize the tough way I was one of them is that you know, sobriety, getting sober, is not a linear process, right, like people sometimes think it’s like one straight shot, but oftentimes there are relapses, there are slips, whatever term people prefer to use. And I remember from when I was in a relationship in early recovery which, you know again, I would never advise it to anyone listening. But one big thing that I remember experiencing was when my partner, who he struggled greatly, I remember when he first relapsed. I took it like a betrayal and the interesting thing is I’ve heard other people in relationships experience similar responses from their significant others that if they have had a slip, if they have drank again or consumed other substances again, that their partner felt pretty much as betrayed, as if they would have gone out and cheated. And I was curious if you can kind of speak to that and maybe how someone can come back from that.
28:36 – Eliza Boquin (Guest)
Yeah, you know, because it feels so personal when our partners let us down, right, Like it feels so personal when somebody does something, because we have this idea that if people love us, they’ll never do anything to disappoint us or hurt us, right, and so I think we really have to have a better understanding around relationships and what relationships, how they can really serve us, and understanding, like, how each of us has our own journey right, Like, yes, you’re absolutely right, Subriety is not linear, because healing is not linear, right, Like that’s just not how humans do life and there’s so many different things that can happen to us that make us more vulnerable to going back to whatever our coping mechanisms may have been. So I think a lot of the times you know is, if the other person has slipped up is to go back to this, knowing that I can’t control anybody, nobody can control me. Go back to the knowing that knowing of like we’re all really just trying to do the best, that we know how we’re all trying to just like. I think a lot of times we give ourselves that grace that we know that we are doing the best, that we know how and we’re not perfect, but we forget that our partners are not always perfect and if you’re the one you know that slips up.
30:06
I think it’s so important, especially when we’re dealing with sobriety and struggling with it, is the shame that can come with it, right, Like the shame is just poisonous and it will tell us that we’re unlovable because of our vulnerabilities, because of our shortcomings.
30:26
And so I really think accountability, boundaries and understanding like where do I begin and you end? And understanding that even the people that we love are gonna let us down. Even the people that we love are gonna let us down at some point. You know the level of letting me down is another conversation, right, but even the people that we love are gonna let us down because they are imperfect, just like we are, and I think we have to understand that, you know. But I think in all of these questions, sort of the that you’ve asked me in this conversation we’ve had, is that if I feel that I’m losing myself, if I am more concerned with your well-being or my well-being is at risk you know, emotional, mental, spiritual, what have you? Physical then that cost is too high. The cost is too high. If I am losing myself in some way in this relationship, the cost is too high.
31:27 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, that’s a really, really important point to really drill into this conversation, because I think that you know, I’ve seen people who will stay and drink for fear of losing their significant other, and I mean, everyone’s entitled to make their own choices. But when we go back to that well-being point right, there is a lot to risk in this world is when we are struggling with addictions to alcohol. You know, I mean just the rate of women, especially women at younger ages, having, like alcoholic liver diseases and things like that just the outcomes.
32:07
There’s a big price to pay when you choose someone else over your own well-being, so I think that that’s a really important reminder too.
32:16 – Eliza Boquin (Guest)
Yeah, but if the cost is you right, if the cost is you, the cost is just way too high. Like that is there’s nothing that you know where we say well, the cost is me, my well-being Again, my mental health, my spiritual health, my physical health. You know, the cost is too high. If I’m losing myself to keep you, the cost is too high. I’ve already lost myself.
32:46 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, yeah, and it’s definitely not worth it. Not worth it. But it takes a lot to understand that, because I mean, I remember there were so many times when I was younger and while I was drinking that just holding on to the person meant more to me than anything else, you know. And at some point in my recovery the switch flipped, or whatever the term is, but at some point and I’m so grateful the light bulb went off and it was just like no, like if I tell somebody that I’m in recovery and they have a problem, they can walk out that door like without a moment’s hesitation, and I’m very grateful to really feel rooted in that belief, even like still to this day. But you know there was a really long time that that was not the case at all.
33:33 – Eliza Boquin (Guest)
Yeah, it takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of work to get there, you know, and again kind of like really better understanding what our ideas are around relationships, what our ideas are of love, because I do think that, like movies and media and all of that really support this idea of love being this thing where you get lost in love, being this thing that you know you lose, you lose yourself right, where it’s really the opposite it’s. I want to be in a relationship where I can be all of myself, like we want to be in relationships where we create enough space for all of you and all of me, right, and that neither of us has to really self sacrifice in the way where it’s detrimental to our well being over the long term.
34:30 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
That’s just doesn’t sound as romantic, that’s just.
34:32 – Eliza Boquin (Guest)
You know, that’s not what they do.
34:38 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Because I mean you’re you’re totally right. I mean that that is the thing I feel, like people myself included in the past Like if it didn’t make you feel like you were gonna go throw up, then why bother? You know, if it didn’t make you feel like risking it all, why bother? If it didn’t create this wild emotional charge that would also be like equally as stressful when things went wrong, why bother? And and I think you’re right, it’s really put out there in the media and you know, and I think I’ve seen you post something about like love not being so much the emotion but like a conscious decision and an action, and I totally, totally agree.
35:16 – Eliza Boquin (Guest)
Yeah, because, you know, kind of speaking to to to what you were saying about this charge, that’s a trigger to right like often we only think of triggers being negative, right Like, oh, I was, so you know, overly angry or like, overly scared. But when we get on grounded in this way, even though it feels good and it’s fun, we’re being triggered. Also, a lot of the times what’s lighting us up are really familiar Relationship patterns and a lot of the times those relationship patterns are actually sort of like our problematic Relationship patterns. But the reality is, our brains light up when it recognizes something familiar. Sometimes what’s familiar to us is dysfunction, but that doesn’t show up as dysfunction, right Like, it won’t show up in that way It’ll.
36:13
It’ll look like, you know, you know somebody who is sending out their representative, right, but there’s something familiar about this Relationship that lights me up, and so that’s another reason why we have to be so aware of what our vulnerabilities are in Relationships, because we will mistake it for love at first sight. Well, we just like I feel like I’ve known this person my whole life because you have, you know, it’s probably a repeat. It’s probably a repeat of previous partners and your relationship with your caretakers. Yeah. So, again, there’s so much undoing and unlearning that we have to do, and so self-awareness we’re not gonna figure it all out, but we have to be aware of what our patterns are, because we will repeat them over and over.
37:05 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, and you know, and I Listened to a talk recently where the person’s sharing was saying that like the universe can send us a lesson, first It’ll be like a soft feather and if we don’t listen to the soft feather then they’ll throw us like a little pebble. But then if we don’t listen to that lesson and they’ll like send like a whole train, it’ll run us over.
37:25 – Eliza Boquin (Guest)
And we’ll learn yeah and yeah you’re so right.
37:30 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
We will repeat the same situations until we learn what we’re supposed to. Not just learn, but learn and apply it right, because we can Also have an understanding of something and still choose to do otherwise.
37:40 – Eliza Boquin (Guest)
That’s right. That’s right. And again, we love the familiar, where there’s comfort in the familiar, the unknown. Even if the unknown we say to ourselves, well, that’s probably in my best interest, right, it’s still the unknown. And our brains registered the unknown as a threat, like danger, danger, and this is why it’s often so hard for us to break, you know, habits and patterns, even when we know they’re destructive. Even when we get to the point we’re like this is actually a problem. It’s very difficult to do, because this is, this is what I know, and we feel more confident and more secure and, ironically, even safer in that which we know.
38:24 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, yeah. It makes a lot of sense even just applying it to sobriety, like the decision to stop drinking like whoa, for me to face the world without alcohol and have only sober thoughts and feel everything. That’s really scary. It’s super, super.
38:38 – Eliza Boquin (Guest)
It is. It is scary because, because you know, to I often say, like living your life with an open heart Sounds great, but it is. It means that you are willing, you have the courage and You’re going to sign up for feeling all of what the life experience is, and life is filled Not just with the highs but also with the lows. Right, but I think, especially in our Western world, we have the tendency of labeling everything as good or bad, and even our emotions. Which emotions are good to feel, which emotions are bad to feel, versus like really getting to the point where we can just Understand that if we’re going to live this life fully, we have to live all of it and the parts that are difficult. It’s not about us staying stuck in them and them either. That’s why we do this work is to Learn the skills, learn the tools, make the connections and learn how to learn how to work through those dark times.
39:47
But I do think that, like it’s reinforced in the messaging that we receive that things aren’t supposed to hurt. If it hurts it’s bad, right. If it hurts, take this pill for that. If it hurts, you know, do this to zone out, scroll over here or have a drink or what have you, and we have this idea that life is only supposed to feel good all the time. But the reality is it doesn’t always feel good. But if we don’t know what to do with our emotions, if we don’t know what to do with them, we will suffer, and we will suffer greatly. Yeah, yeah.
40:22 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
And you know I wanted to go back to you made a comment earlier about when people struggle with their sobriety, that there’s this Disconnect that they experience with their bodies, and I wanted to bring it back to kind of like my last question for you, which is about intimacy, while sober right, sober sex is like Fresh for so many people as they enter recovery, and so I was kind of curious what you know you might suggest or offer to say a woman who is easing her way into intimacy after maybe years of just using mind, altering Substances in order to be intimate with another person, like how does someone even start to navigate that world? Yeah, I would say first and foremost.
41:07 – Eliza Boquin (Guest)
I think a lot of cisgender, especially heterosexual women, struggle with this, even when they don’t struggle with with sobriety per se, but struggle to be present during sexual Intimacy and to be in their bodies. And there’s so many reasons for that. And I think first and foremost is because most of us don’t receive the explicit or implicit permission to Be sexual, to embrace that part of us, to see it as something natural, healthy, wonderful. So many of us either, you know, this was taken from us unwillingly, maybe like at a really young age, via abuse, or we were shamed around our bodies, we weren’t giving the proper comprehensive sex education to understand our bodies and and and and Having an ongoing conversation to make really informed decisions. I don’t think we’re given the permission. So what I would say is where we even have to start is by giving ourselves permission To be, to embrace this aspect of us right, because we are also sexual beings, right and really being able to, to define what that means for us. You know, sometimes, especially again in in heterosexual relationships, a woman’s pleasure is not necessarily even part of the conversation. Many times what I and I find this again with women in heterosexual relationships to gender women in heterosexual relationships is where it’s. It’s about their partner. It’s about their partner feeling good. They don’t even know what feels good to them. They don’t know what feels good to them. They don’t know how to communicate it, or maybe it’s dismissed or it’s not even considered.
43:03
So I would say it’s starting with giving yourself permission To be somebody who even enjoys sex, to define what that means for you. If you struggle, you know to be in your body. What is that about? You know? Is there some history of disconnect? Is there a history of trauma? Is it because you don’t have the information? You don’t know where to begin?
43:27
And I would say getting like some solid education? So many of us are misinformed about sex, like we’re expecting to have certain Experiences and the reason that we have those expectations it’s really based on miss, on misinformation, and then when we don’t have those experiences, or our bodies don’t do what we think they’re supposed to do, or we don’t enjoy what we’re so we think we’re supposed to enjoy, that can cause a lot of shame and confusion also. So where, if I was going to start anywhere, I would say is how do I give myself permission for this? And if I don’t feel like I am deserving of pleasure or I’m deserving of sex. That needs some exploration.
44:10
Is it Cultural, is it religious, is it political? What’s adding to that? And the other piece I would say is getting some solid education. One of my favorite resources that I often recommend to people is the book come as you are by Emily Nagelski, who I Think everybody should read that book and can really start to give you some more insight about all of the different factors that might contribute to us having really great sex or really bad sex. So I would start there permission and education.
44:44 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
I love that and I remember you recommended that book when we were in group with you and reading that book, one of the biggest takeaways for me was kind of like and we talked about it too in the group was removing like the end goal pressure, like that you had to climb and if there was no climax that it didn’t count, and just kind of like giving yourself permission to experience pleasure at the different entry points, right. So the intimacy it’s not always about just like climax, climax, climax. And I remember and I mean me being I’m 39 now, you know being like wow, this is my whole life I’ve gone like not knowing that, and kind of really wow, like I have been kind of like cheated from some really simple knowledge there.
45:26 – Eliza Boquin (Guest)
We’ve been 100% cheated from so much information and just even care. You know, like, even the care that we receive, women’s sexual health is not a priority. Sadly it’s not a priority, and that and that’s indicative by, like, how little research there is around it, how often we’re dismissed even by our physicians around it, and so it really is something that I am, like, so committed to helping women get the resources, get the education, learn the skills to be able to embrace and to make the decisions that are right for you right, like, what’s right for you may not be right for somebody else and vice versa but really better understanding and having all of the access that you need to make really informed decisions about this aspect of your life.
46:18 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and I know that you just finished your course, but if folks follow you, they’ll be able to see when you have like your next pleasure as my birthright, collective opening up as well, right.
46:31 – Eliza Boquin (Guest)
Yeah, so my plan is I will probably open up the course for people just to have access to and download, until I start to add on the groups again. But I did create a framework, the pleasure framework for and this is created specifically with black and brown women especially in in mind, because there’s so many different things that can impact our ability to just feel good in our bodies, you know, be that during sex or just even non, in non sexual ways. So I created a framework to really help them, you know, go pillar by pillar and address these different aspects of their life about what might be serving as blocks, and then also giving them the resources that they need to make those informed decisions that I mentioned.
47:16 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, yeah. No, I like your class was incredibly, incredibly helpful for me, and so I would definitely recommend it for anybody who’s listening, to check out at least on you know her resources, at least on anything else that you feel like you would want to share with anybody who might be listening who is a woman going through a healing journey of any kind.
47:39 – Eliza Boquin (Guest)
Self compassion, self compassion and grace.
47:42
I think we are so hard on ourselves.
47:45
We are so hard on ourselves and when we, a lot of times when we have struggled again, we can hold a lot of shame, we can hold a lot of guilt around our struggles.
47:57
But I part of why even got into this work is because from a very young age, I understood that if somebody, if their behavior, was problematic somehow, I just understood that there was probably a reason, there was something going on, and that that reason was rooted in some sort of pain.
48:19
And and so that is one of the beliefs that I have around people is that you know, we will struggle with pain and we manage and cope with that pain in ways that sometimes are as harmful to ourselves or to others. And so, if you have found yourself really grappling with that, I would encourage you to really develop some compassion for yourself, meaning you know, a lot of the times it’s easy for us to not want others to suffer, but we can’t always extend that same knowing to ourselves. And so, cultivating practices to develop that self compassion, it doesn’t mean you make excuses for yourself, it doesn’t mean that you let yourself off the hook, that you don’t do the hard work. It just means you stop beating yourself up while you’re doing that work, and learning how to give yourself grace is going to be so important and such an important part of your healing journey.
49:17 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Yeah, yeah, no, thank you. That’s. That’s super helpful, because the self compassion piece, it’s just yeah, we were doing the best that we could given the situations that we were in and the tools that we had. And for so many of us, you know, we, we are taught so little for how to like, how to live, how to deal, and so, yeah, the now that we know better, we get to do better. So, yeah, yeah well, Eliza.
49:42
Thank you so much. This conversation was so powerful and so helpful. Again, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing and giving your time to the space.
49:54 – Eliza Boquin (Guest)
Thank you. I love this. I love this conversation, so I appreciate everything that you’re doing. I’m always so inspired by the work that you do, by the way you share your story, and so thank you for doing everything you do to support people.
50:08 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Hey, thank you. And so for anybody who’s listening and wants to follow Eliza, you can find her on @elizagboquin. I’ll put the links to her socials. Her website is flow and ease, healing.com, and, yeah, I’ll put I’ll put those links, including the link to the book, come as you are, for anybody who’s interested in reading that. But thank you everybody for listening and I will see you on the next one. Hey, if you are enjoying what you are listening to, I invite you to subscribe and share the podcast. But also go to my website, bottomless to sobercom, and find out other opportunities to work with me, from free workshops to writing classes, to one to one life coaching opportunities. You can schedule a free consultation for that. Everything is available at bottomless to sobercom. See you then.
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