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Talking About When Sex Meets God with Deborah Lukovich · Inspiring Stories

0:04
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the picture of the radiant.
0:26
Speaker 2: Rat.
0:28
Speaker 3: You readything to me?
0:33
Speaker 4: Oh well, well.
0:40
Speaker 3: Say, oh well.
0:57
Speaker 2: Not a bad stop. I just need.
1:14
Speaker 4: Somashion along. Is it dead?
1:38
Speaker 1: Okay, welcome back. We have a new inspiring story. Actually,
1:43
this one is a good friend of mine and she
1:48
has just completed her book and it is ready for launch.
1:53
And let me tell you a little bit about the book.
1:58
The book is called When Sex Meets God and is
2:02
written by Deborah Lukavic. Well, doctor Deborah Lukavic. She has
2:12
a PhD in depth psychology and a to me a
2:18
fantastic person and a wonderful brain. But Debor never saw
2:24
to write a memoir. But when her life and sense
2:28
of identity began to unravel, it it coincided with her
2:34
surprising calling to study depth psychology. Her research and her
2:40
lived experience merged during a collision of spirituality and sexuality,
2:47
leading to the soul level transformation that what founded was
2:57
an unleashing creativity, meaning and purpose. Today, Debora is a
3:05
depth psychology coach and author. She has written other books
3:11
Your Soul is Talking? Are you listening? And through her
3:19
podcast Yes she even does a podcast too, a Dosa
3:24
depth writing and coaching, she empowers others to explore unconscious
3:32
forces shaping their lives. Her story is deeply personal, but
3:38
the journey she shares is universal, let me tell you. Okay,
3:44
So I would got the honor of getting an advanced
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copy of the book, and it floored me that for
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my own story of learning to one like myself and
4:01
too learning to love myself, because there are two completely
4:05
different things, and maybe we'll get into a little bit
4:08
about that with Deborah, but it was just amazing some
4:16
of the things that she talked about is like I
4:20
knew exactly where she was going with it. It was
4:23
like it was an amazing book to read. And you
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should go to Amazon as soon as you finished listening
4:31
to this podcast and buy the book, or check out
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Deborah Ludovic dot com and you'll see that that that
4:43
web address in our description of the podcast. Either way,
4:49
So anyway, without any further talking, go grab those snacks quickly,
4:56
because we are going to get started having coffee with
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Deborah and talking about her book. When Sex meets God.
5:22
Speaker 3: Something we can.
5:42
Speaker 1: Well Tebrah. Actually, it's good afternoon, isn't it, Because it
5:47
is you're like two hours behind me. And it's like
5:52
two o'clock there.
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Speaker 5: Anyway, it is a very typical fall day in Wisconsin today, overcast,
6:00
little winded, little rain.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so I will say that it is a typical
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November day in Vancouver, uh, clouds rain, yeah.
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Speaker 5: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: So so anyway, I loved your book. I found myself
6:24
at times being very aligned with what you were saying,
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because you know, well we grew up in the same
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time error together, right, yeah, and not being the because
6:44
you're you are not the conventional female, nor am I
6:50
the conventional male.
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Speaker 2: Uh.
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Speaker 1: And we were okay, off camera, we were kind of
6:58
discussing depth psychology, verse is quantum theory, and and it
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was it may not have been a technical conversation, but
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it was definitely a very understood conversation because.
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Speaker 6: It, yes, get not only not only that, I'll I'll
7:17
raise you dub psychology, quantum theories, spirituality and neuroscience and
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the sort of kind of reckoning that's going on in
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the world right now all interest.
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Speaker 1: Yes, it's a huge collision. It's a beautiful collision too.
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I'm really in some respects, I'm enjoying the watching people
7:40
waking up and and the time that's actually happening. So anyway,
7:49
I mean you you talk a little bit about what
7:51
inspired you to start writing writing your memoirs, and I
7:57
would say that your memoirs is not a egetistical sort
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of thing. It's a reflection.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, so yeah, well, okay, Really, the reason that I
8:11
felt compelled to write my book was that I thought
8:15
my experience was so ridiculous that I just had to
8:19
write about it. Like, I just thought I had these
8:22
two moments when my life was falling apart, and one
8:25
of them was, Okay, there's a light at the end
8:28
of the tunnel. I'll be stronger after I go through
8:32
this complete unraveling. And then the other one was, oh
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my gosh, I'm in that movie. Oh my gosh, that
8:38
movie about the alcoholic husband. In this I'm like, oh
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my god, my life is a movie. And so what
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I didn't realize it because I wasn't or I wasn't
8:47
studying deaf psychology yet. Was that was my way of
8:50
getting distance from my own experience. So I didn't realize it. Right, Like,
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spiritually we talk about slipping into the role of observer.
9:02
So I didn't know that I had this natural I
9:05
guess defense mechanism because if I wouldn't have done that,
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like created that sort of context for my falling apart,
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I mean, I could have you been depressed. And then
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the other thing was that I had to find a
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strange sense of humor. So my quirky humor today isn't
9:23
really the same as it was before I had my
9:26
falling apart. So it just was so odd and ironic
9:31
what happened to me. Now, if my falling apart hadn't
9:36
have paralleled this weird irrational calling to go pursue a
9:41
master's PhD in depth psychology at age forty eight, I
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don't know what would have happened. Right, So, right from
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the beginning I lived the framework I was learning, and
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I thought that's even strange too, you know. And then
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the fact that I also so thought what am I
10:01
going to research for a PhD? And then that was
10:05
brought to me as well. I thought I was going
10:08
to study education from a depth psychology perspective. Oh no.
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My second quarter at a residential when we were sharing, well,
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what are you going to write your paper on? And
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I was like so embarrassed. I felt like I was
10:24
coming out of the closet, and I said, you know,
10:26
I think I want to study I think I want
10:28
to write about the fifty shades of gray phenomenon. And
10:31
then I was like, oh my gosh, how non academic
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did I just say that and think good as by
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A professor was like, I see there's a lot of
10:40
energy there for you. I think you should follow that.
10:43
So then that led me to sort of the sex
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and God Like, I didn't know I was being led.
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So the first part of my life I was very
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masculine oriented, goal oriented. I had to let all of
10:55
that go and just sort of follow these strange, vulnerable,
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little little breadcrumbs. So that's what I ended up, exploring
11:05
women's experience of reconciling sexuality and spirituality through Young's theory
11:10
of individuation. And when I clicked submit for my dissertation
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immediately within that week, I vomited out fifty thousand words
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into a word document about all the more personal, juicy
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experiences that were not appropriate or needed in my research,
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because what happened to me personally was one of the
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texts in research that I studied that I analyzed. Besides
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what is everybody else saying about sexuality and spirituality, et cetera,
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my own personal experience became part of what I studied,
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So it just happened to me and it just came out.
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And I mean it was five years though I didn't
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really know how to write a story, so.
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Speaker 1: You didn't know how to read the story.
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Speaker 5: No, No, I learned how to be a scholarly writer
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write my PhD. Then what I vomited out into the
12:13
page was really just memories, and it was memories. A
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lot of them were about the man right, my first
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post divorce romance, and because it was just so what
12:25
happened was crazy and swept up and out of control
12:30
and all of this, and I just had to write
12:33
about it. And then when I left my hometown because
12:36
my life kept falling apart and I'm like, I got
12:38
to get out of here, I an answered, I didn't
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know how I was going to earn a living. I
12:44
was living near my sister, so I had that sort
12:46
of security. And in my email box popped up this
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email from the Right Practice. So I'm always promoting the
12:53
Right Practice because they will always have a special place
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in my heart. And I just kept having synchronistic expperiences
13:00
with them. I signed up for one program and their
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programs are very affordable, and then another program, and then
13:05
another program, and I met all these writers and I
13:08
learned how to tell a story. But it took me
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five years, and I discovered that I learned in layers.
13:16
So at first I just wrote stuff, and then based
13:19
on feedback, people start asking me questions like why did
13:23
you stay married for twenty five years? I was like, oh,
13:26
good question. I guess I need to some backstory so
13:30
that people understand how I came to make certain decisions right,
13:35
and why I am you know what lessons did that
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lead to? So I didn't know how to write a story,
13:43
and a good memoir is written like a novel, not
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like a biography, right, And so you know, each I probably,
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oh my gosh, I bet ten to fifteen drafts of
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my story before I finalized it. Yeah, and thirty five
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to fifty people who read it and proof read and
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help me with editing, and I just you know, at
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one point I was impatient, And Joe Bunting, the founder
14:14
of the Right Practice, will say, you know, there's this
14:18
like tension between making it perfect because a lot of writers,
14:23
I guess have perfection complexes, So letting that go, but
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at the same time listening to your tuition that says
14:31
it's not ready yet. It's not ready. So I would
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go through spurts where I would over two months, i'd
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get through all the chapters and do I call it
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a layer of revisions and editing, and then I would
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just set it aside and I would get mad at
14:47
myself for not returning to it. But it needed to percolate,
14:52
like something needed to percolate. So writing a memoir in
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a personal store, so not only just what are you
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sho share? And do you have enough distance from your
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story so that you do come across as it's not
15:06
an ego project. Right, So that's probably why it took
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me five years to write, you know, because I just
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lived this and I studied it, and you know, I
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needed I needed time to be able to write about
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it as if it Yes, it's my story, but it
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isn't my story. It's a universal story. So yeah, it
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was a long process.
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Speaker 1: Well, storytelling is is a long process. And yeah, from
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one storyteller to another. That when I'm actually immersed into
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telling someone's story, well, my wife will tell you that
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it it can be quite involved in I disappear in
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you know, until until something happens, right, and then then
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all of a sudden something snapped and it's like blurp,
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it comes out. It's like almost uh, I don't want
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to say giving birth.
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Speaker 6: But.
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Speaker 5: Well you can use that metaphor. I mean, think about it.
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It is a creative birthing process.
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Speaker 7: Yeah, and it is the feminine, the unconscious, the womb
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where there's chaos of creativity happening, and then there's the
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masculine mind that helps you articulate it in a certain form.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's.
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Speaker 5: The partnership between the two.
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Speaker 1: Then yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely, yeah, So I do
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because you it took me until I was almost fifty
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to understand a couple of things that I spent spent
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most of my life. And it seemed that you also
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spent most of your life trying to figure out why
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you should even like yourself. So what I did? Did
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you figure out that? Did? Did you? Did? You didn't
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have to ask the world's permission to like yourself, nor
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did you actually have to ask the world's permission to
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love yourself.
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Speaker 5: So I would say I never had that problem. I've
17:22
always liked me. That really wasn't my issue. I think
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that and and this is you know, I write about
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this in my books. So it's a chapter called Mixed Messages.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
17:38
Speaker 5: So yeah, so you know, my mother, uh sent me
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off into the world with two messages. One was that
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and this probably was a function of the times that
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you know, she said to my two sisters and me,
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you guys can do anything you want, go after whatever
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you want. In fact, when I was no, I guess
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I was in my forties, she was still waiting for
18:04
me to run to be president of the United States.
18:07
She's like, you know, you could be president. And I
18:10
had a life transformation coach say to me, Wow, that's
18:13
a lot of pressure. And I looked at her sideways.
18:15
I'm like, no, I just think she believed in me.
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But I thought, WHOA did I internalize that as pressure, right,
18:23
because I nothing's ever quite good enough. I have to
18:27
keep achieving, right, So that was interesting. But the other
18:30
message was an invisible message, and it was her undermining
18:34
of me because and you know, I came to understand
18:40
that she needed because of her own traumatic upbringing, she
18:46
needed external validation, right, And and so you know, before
18:52
her death, she you know, she said to me, I
18:55
just knew I had to be a better mother. Well,
18:58
when you're a parent, how do you know if you're
19:01
being a good parent. You can't judge your parents, right,
19:06
You can't didge your parenting solely by your child's behavior,
19:11
because children are normal, right, They're not supposed to be
19:15
well behaved all the time. We don't grow and expand
19:18
by being perfect.
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Speaker 1: Right.
19:20
Speaker 5: And so if she needed to prove to herself that
19:23
she was a good parent, the only way that she
19:26
knew to do that was to look to my behavior.
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Speaker 1: Right.
19:30
Speaker 5: And so if I wasn't behaving, then that was a
19:33
reflection on her. So I internalize that responsibility. So I
19:41
really wasn't free to express negative emotions because that would
19:47
have an impact on her, right. She tells this, She
19:51
tells this story. This isn't in the book. It's just
19:53
a silly little story. But she would tell the story
19:56
about how when I was in kindergarten and she went
19:59
to parent teacher conferences and the teacher said, you know, Debbie,
20:04
that's what I was called as a child, Debbie. Just
20:07
she doesn't want to paint because she's afraid. She doesn't
20:09
want to get her dress dirty. She doesn't want to
20:11
get anything dirty. And when my mom would retell that story.
20:14
She would just laugh and think it was so funny.
20:17
And then later on I started thinking, well, yeah, I
20:20
was terrified at what you were going to say or do.
20:23
And I was not physically abused, just verbally undermined all
20:26
the time. Yes, how could I get How could I
20:29
take risk wrecking my dress and disappointing you? Right, So
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I always thought it was funny that she thought that
20:36
was a funny story, and eventually I was like, that's
20:38
a sad story. That's not funny that I didn't want
20:41
to get dirty. So, of course, how did I overcompensate
20:44
As a parent. I loved when my kids got dirty.
20:46
I was like, you go play in the mud all
20:48
you want, You paint my patio door, you whatever you
20:52
want to do. Because I really wasn't allowed to have
20:56
even sort of normal freedom of expression as a high So,
21:01
to get back to your question, that's not what I discovered.
21:04
I always had. I never had a self worth issue,
21:08
and a lot of women will assume that that's the
21:12
issue for most women, and it really wasn't. I was
21:14
quite confident in myself, but I was also always sort
21:18
of under mining or like, this isn't quite quite good
21:23
enough or why can't can I do this right? So
21:26
so then what did I find out when I unraveled? Well,
21:31
I found out that I overadapt right to the needs
21:36
of others. So it wasn't that I didn't like myself.
21:39
So for example, in my in my marriage, I always
21:44
found a way to pursue what I wanted to pursue,
21:47
but many times it was outside of our marriage, and
21:51
my former husband had his own interests as well. And
21:54
it was the eighties, so it was kind of like
21:55
in Vogue that you know, as a healthy couple, we
21:58
weren't so medium pass essive of each other. So it
22:02
kind of worked until we became parents, and then I
22:05
ended up, you know, shouldering most of the burden. But
22:08
so it's funny, because why did I stay in this
22:12
relationship right? Because I think I stayed as long as
22:16
I did because I was always able to meet my
22:19
needs right either as an activist or I started a
22:23
nonprofit or I helped bring back the beach, or I
22:26
was the Girl Scout troop leader. I started a business
22:28
that I was able to compensate for maybe what was
22:33
missing in my relationship. And actually that's really what the
22:38
root of polyamory is right. People think polyamory is about
22:42
sexual partners and it's really not. Polyamory means many loves.
22:47
So you know, so many couples project the meeting of
22:51
all their needs onto their partner when that's not possible.
22:54
Sometimes they might have a same sex friend that's into
22:59
depth psychology and quantum theory, and so they share this
23:02
kind of passion, the sort of intellectual erotic attachment to
23:08
these ideas. But it's not but that's all it is, right,
23:13
But if you don't have a strong relationship, then that
23:16
might be perceived as a threat, you know, to the
23:19
other person. So that's kind of long answer to your question.
23:22
But that's kind of what I figured out, is that I.
23:25
Speaker 1: Was it's a depth psychology answered question.
23:31
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I explain or the way that I
23:35
explain it is that and I think most people are
23:38
in the situation. Is that the first part of my
23:40
life I lived like a business plan, right, so if
23:45
my emotions had to be very controlled, I had a
23:48
very strong persona meaning and I'm an infj introverted, intuitive
23:55
feeling judger person, which means I'm only three percent of
23:59
the population and we're the most mysterious. So no one
24:03
really knows I n fj's unless they take the time
24:07
to dig like you you dig like right, Most people
24:12
don't really do that, and most people also aren't as complicated, right.
24:17
So yeah, so I forgot where I was going with that.
24:22
Speaker 1: But well it's kind of funny that because I've had
24:27
people because I'm an introvert, okay, And somebody said, oh, well,
24:34
that's so so horrible that you can't feel free and
24:37
be to be extroverted. I said, well, I don't understand
24:43
what you mean. And I looked at him like, because
24:45
I don't didn't understand what they were saying. And introverted
24:51
to me means that you have to be alone to
24:56
recharge your batteries.
24:58
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's all it means.
25:01
Speaker 1: It's like and they were putting some bullying thing, because
25:05
all right, yes, I do always champion the bully, but
25:09
or the bullied should I say? Because that didn't come
25:12
exactly enunciate correctly. But but that's because I was always bullied.
25:20
But you know, it's me wishing that somebody would have
25:25
been there when I was being slapped around, you know.
25:28
But that's you know, so I do that for others,
25:32
but that has nothing to do with me being being bullied,
25:37
has nothing at all to do with me being introverted.
25:39
So and when that's why I had to dig dig deeper,
25:45
and it's like, well, how do you recharge yourself?
25:48
Speaker 5: Yeah, so you know, so that's young in theory Myers
25:53
Briggs is based on Carl Jung's theory of psychological types.
25:58
So introversion and extraversion is it's exactly what you said,
26:02
it's how do you refuel and re energize. Has nothing
26:07
to do with whether you're shy. Now, some introverts are shy,
26:11
but I'm an introvert. I'm not shy, but I am
26:17
as an introverted intuitive. So combining introversion means that I
26:21
am refueled by going by my inner world, where an
26:25
extrovert is energized by external the external world. Like after
26:30
a whole day of team building, an introvert wants to
26:33
go deepbrief with a glass of wine, but an extrovert
26:36
wants to go bowling with twenty people because that's energizing
26:41
to them. Now, an introvert can be energized by being
26:46
with people or by an extroverted activity, but it's how
26:51
they're relating to it with their inner world that is energizing. So,
26:56
for example, if I'm having a common say, for example, networking,
27:02
so an introvert is less likely to do speed networking,
27:07
and an introvert is going to be like, I don't
27:10
I just want to make a deep connection with one person,
27:15
and that might feel really satisfying, and an extrovert will
27:20
be like, how many people can I like? Just they
27:22
just live a little bit more on the surface. An
27:26
extrovert that looks at a beautiful sunset or sunrise experiences
27:31
it out there and also sees it as an objective
27:35
event that everyone kind of sees the same way. An
27:39
introvert that looks like a sunset will eventually be like,
27:43
oh oh oh, like they're going Their inner world is
27:49
just stimulated, and soon their experience of the sunset actually
27:54
changes the experience. So an introvert I read a whole
27:58
book about which was basically somebody dissertation about the experience
28:02
of introversion. And an introvert is interested in their experience
28:07
of experiencing things, and that probably makes sense to you,
28:11
but to an extrovert, like, what are you talking about?
28:15
What do you mean your experience of experiencing things? And
28:17
then that changes your experience of things. Yeah, so that
28:22
is like some of the differences between an introvert and
28:25
an extrovert.
28:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that that also reflects in how you do
28:32
and in your body of work, because because when I
28:38
look at your body of work and it's like your
28:40
podcasts and all that kind of stuff, you're you every
28:45
time you produce an episode is like, oh, what what
28:49
more did she learn today?
28:52
Speaker 5: Right, it's a bottle. My client and I have been
28:55
seeing him a week for a three year, every week
28:57
for three years, and he gets it now. He's like
29:00
every time I'm like, no, I'm good, we end up
29:04
going someplace. I'm like, holy crap, I didn't even know
29:06
this was possible, Like this this meaning and speaking of
29:10
psychological types, if we wanted to bring it back to
29:12
the book. Yeah, in when I after after I get
29:20
divorced and I do some online dating and I get
29:23
swept up, right, I get swept up in a really
29:25
irrational romance with a younger man. And because I'm already
29:33
studying up psychology, I say, and he's thirty three and
29:37
I'm fifty at the time, and I say, hey, will
29:39
you do your Myers Briggs? And he's like yeah, so
29:42
he was that kind of guy that, yeah, he wanted
29:44
to learn about himself too, And I'm an I NFJ.
29:49
He was an E NFP, which is the sort of
29:54
the opposite and so the relationship which means that we
30:00
you would either be really great and compliment each other
30:05
or many people who find their opposite, what they don't
30:09
understand is the attraction to the opposite is they're unconscious
30:14
saying I want you to be a little like that.
30:16
I want you to have a little bit of that
30:19
that trait, I want you to feel free to be
30:21
a little bit. But what happens in most cases is
30:24
people don't change. They actually become more entrenched and then
30:29
what initially attracted them to each other there sometimes they
30:33
end up being resentful of those very things that they
30:36
were attracted to. So that's what usually happens. But with
30:39
this person, I was like, I have no idea why
30:41
I'm so swept up and so attracted to this man.
30:46
But I was like, oh, yeah, he's an extrovert like
30:51
he and he's a pe. So the last letter judger
30:55
judging really is not being judgmental. It's that you're sort
30:59
of more purpose oriented, like there has to be a
31:02
reason that you're doing things, even if it's like I'm
31:04
choosing to have fun today, it's like you have a reason.
31:08
A pe a perceiver is they just have an insatiable
31:11
app site to like meander through life. And so at
31:15
the time, after living the way that I had in
31:18
a kind of very hyper masculine business planning approach and
31:23
having to let all that go, that is very uncomfortable
31:27
right to go to basically not knowing, losing your sense
31:33
of direction, have an identity crisis. And so I adot
31:37
like he used this word meander, and I was like,
31:41
oh my, it just made me want to kiss him,
31:43
Like what is that word? What does meander mean? I
31:47
mean not like can you just look at me like,
31:50
I'm like, oh, meander? Is just this freedom to just
31:56
walk around without having an agenda, without needing to achieve
32:00
a goal. Now, he was sort of bordering on the
32:03
dark side of me wandering through life, right, But he
32:07
really was opposite in that way. So one part of
32:10
the book I start reflecting about, you know, how are
32:15
we had some similarities in our childhood, but yet his
32:21
psychological type they manifested in different in a different way,
32:26
in a more extroverted way than an introvert, right, So
32:30
an introvert, you know, bullied maybe, but also suffering in
32:36
quiet right, so an introvert. Sometimes people don't know that
32:40
you're suffering an extrovert. Like let's say it's a boy extrovert.
32:45
He's just going to go out and like, you know,
32:47
his energy, the whatever, the the pent up energy is,
32:52
it's going to be directed outward and it will be
32:56
called misbehavior.
32:59
Speaker 1: Right.
32:59
Speaker 5: But he suffering too, right, he's suffered too. So in
33:03
the book I and this is told in a very amusing, entertaining,
33:08
you know, and also dramatic way. But I really am
33:12
sort of because of this odd calling to go study
33:15
dep psychology. While I'm experiencing this, I can be have
33:19
a framework because if I wouldn't have had the dep
33:22
psychology framework, I might have not said yes to that.
33:26
Crazy relationships like a fun relationship though, so my hyper
33:33
responsibility would have probably said, no, I don't have time
33:37
for that, that's irresponsible. He's what you know, right, So
33:44
I don't know.
33:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it sounded like one is sounding fun. Then
33:48
it's also sounding needed.
33:52
Speaker 5: Yes, Yes, so he brought yes. Our relationship very much
33:56
was a vessel for transformation that sort of started with
34:02
sexuality and then moved on to spirituality. Yeah, and so.
34:10
Speaker 1: For sake of time and there's a hope for those
34:18
people who need Purpose was the underlying purpose for writing
34:23
the book.
34:26
Speaker 3: Well.
34:26
Speaker 5: As duppsychologists, we automatically realize that we don't really know
34:33
the ultimate purpose for why we do things, why we
34:36
research what we research, why we write our book. You know,
34:42
I see layers of purpose, and I don't think I've
34:46
discovered all of them yet because it's new, right, and
34:50
I think this is the kind of book that will
34:53
that will make its way into people's hands organically. Like
34:57
I'm already hearing people say, hey, yeah, my colleague, she's
35:01
curious about your book. Or my sister said that, and
35:04
my sister sounded surprised, right, And another person was like, well,
35:08
I was on a train with somebody from Milwaukee and
35:11
I told him about this. Or my client was like, yeah,
35:14
I had a because of his own inner work, he
35:17
was kind of surprised about somebody who showed up at
35:20
one of the places that he owns, and the conversation
35:23
that they had that went away that it wouldn't have
35:26
gone a year ago. And then he brought my book
35:28
in and my story, and the guy is like, oh
35:30
my gosh, like this seems like a synchronicity, Like this
35:35
was the purpose of this conversation was for you to
35:38
tell me about this book, right So I don't know,
35:41
and I don't pretend to know. I know that. I
35:45
know that right away after all of that, and when
35:49
I was down with the dissertation, I knew I wanted
35:51
to write a memoir. The title came to me. It's
35:54
never changed. It's kind of like two people meet up.
35:57
One's called sex, one's called God, and then they have
36:00
a relationship and what happens. And I knew that eventually
36:04
I wanted the story to become like some kind of
36:07
Netflix series or other platform or a movie, because I
36:11
know my personal experience is just one version of a
36:17
universal experience that many people are having or are on
36:24
the verge of having, but they don't have a framework
36:27
for how to prepare. Because if you don't have a
36:31
framework for how to make meaning number one, you might
36:35
not have the courage to say yes to the journey
36:38
to the hero's journey because it involves a falling apartner
36:42
and a dismemberment process, and without a framework like oh, okay, yep,
36:47
I'm living that myth, I'm living that movie. You could
36:51
drop into depression not understand that the deeper meaning of
36:56
depression is you're unconscious trying to get you to explore something.
37:00
Speaker 1: Right.
37:00
Speaker 5: Yes, we don't want to be depressed. Maybe we need
37:03
some substance to help us. But really the deeper meaning
37:07
of the depression is you're unconscious saying you know there's
37:10
something else for you in life, but you might not
37:14
be brave enough right to walk into the unknown. So
37:20
that's the other thing that I learned. When you fall
37:22
apart and you have to get to a point where
37:25
you surrender, and then you sense the transcendent saying, hey,
37:30
I've been here all along. Where have you been? You
37:32
just haven't welcomed me. And that doesn't have to be God,
37:36
it can be the quantum, realm, nature, whatever. Then you
37:41
know that takes courage because then you realize now you're
37:46
co creating, and when you co create, you're not in charge, no,
37:52
and so you have to develop a capacity for uncertainty
37:57
and a trust in the process us and that can
38:01
be terrifying. Well, of course we do, yes, yeah, but
38:17
I mean you know that some people can't and some
38:25
people won't. And you know it's for the brave, that
38:31
journey's for the brave, but you do come out the
38:35
other end, you do. So I always had that core belief. Now,
38:39
not everybody has that core belief, right that, yeah, I'll
38:44
survive this. No, no, not everybody has that. Not everybody
38:52
has that core belief that I'll figure it out.
39:08
Speaker 8: Yeah yeah, yeah yeah.
39:33
Speaker 5: So those mixed mixed messages, I think a lot of
39:36
our a lot of our parents give us mixed messages.
39:39
Some of some parents only give limiting messages. So those
39:45
are the people. So you and you and I are
39:46
similar in that we had both of those messages. And
39:51
so what I learned was I have achieved because of
39:56
one of the messages, and I've cut myself short because
39:59
of the other one. So this book and this business
40:03
is really kind of a test to see that I
40:09
have overcome the sort of limiting message because that's my
40:14
self imposed at this point. I can't blame my mother
40:16
for that, right. That's now that I know I have
40:19
that undermining, limiting belief, I have to overcome it, right,
40:24
I have to do what I have to do to
40:25
overcome it. And I think I am, but you know
40:29
those patterns are very stubborn. So you know, Carl Jung
40:32
liked the spiral, and actually the garden Auger is a
40:37
better symbol of the process of individuation. That's the theory
40:44
that you could say my story tracks, you wouldn't know it.
40:47
You don't know you're getting a depth psychology experience unless
40:50
you know these concepts, because it's just told like a story.
40:54
But a garden augur what does it do is goes down.
40:59
It pulls up some dirt, right to make a hole
41:01
for a bulb. It goes down, it brings up a
41:05
little more dirt, it goes down, and so you know
41:09
when you get your first aha aha, what ean La
41:13
van Zandt. I was reading her book when I before
41:15
I was studying dep psychology. What did you learn about
41:17
love as a child? And I was like, gosh, I
41:20
really don't know. Journal journal, Journal, Journal, Journal, Journal. Oh
41:23
my gosh. I learned that love is conditional? Whoa, what
41:29
does that mean? How did that play itself out in
41:32
my life? That love is conditional? Like that was just
41:35
like I had no idea. I had no idea. Now
41:40
I can make sense of how I showed up in
41:42
my marriage. Well, guess what, I will circle back to
41:47
that parental complex, but it will never be as dramatic
41:51
or negative as it was. It loses its power. But
41:54
now you're going to be forced and Hermi's the trickster,
41:57
will probably trick you into a situation where like, oh,
42:00
there it is again, there's my mother wound, there's my
42:04
mother complex. Now what am I supposed to be learning?
42:06
Speaker 1: Now?
42:07
Speaker 5: What's the deeper understanding? And in this theory, as you
42:12
come into relationship with your personal complexes, this is the
42:17
beauty of where some people go is they are being
42:21
called to the universal realm. So until you can release
42:26
and bring some emotional neutrality to your personal victimhood, you're
42:31
not ready to be swept up by the archetypal energies
42:35
which want to use you to expand consciousness in the collective.
42:42
And so from the beginning, some of my clients I
42:44
can see that's where we're going. And other clients it's okay.
42:49
They just stay in the personal realm and they have
42:51
sort of an influence. They show up in the world differently,
42:55
different They attract different people into their lives, and their
42:58
life is much roofed. And then but for some I'm like,
43:02
oh my gosh, you're Artemis. I can tell I could
43:05
tell you're you're you're the Artemis myth. Yeah, I mean
43:31
that's yes, that's a mystery because you know who shows up,
43:39
Like how do they? How how do I get these
43:41
clients right? And over time they they have changed, the
43:47
type of client has changed, and I have my favorite
43:52
kinds of situations. But I have to say, like, you know,
43:58
some of my clients have been seeing me for five
44:00
years and there it's just a bottomless pit. And I
44:09
sometimes can see they'll get to a point where I'm like,
44:14
what did you just say that? Do you know that
44:17
six months ago you would have never said that? And
44:19
they're like what what? I've always been like this. I mean,
44:24
I just love it so like I it makes my day.
44:27
I know exactly what to do in a virtual session
44:30
with a client, and then after the session, I'll be like,
44:33
I don't know what to do. I don't know what
44:35
to do unless I've been a session. It just comes
44:37
so like I drop into this, I drop into a
44:40
space where I'm co creating with you know, because not
44:47
only with what's in the collective unconscious, but you know,
44:51
Carl Jung said that even between you and me, there's
44:55
four conversations happening. There's we're communicating mine to mine, mind
45:01
to your unconscious, your mind to my unconscious. But the
45:04
most fun is between our unconscious at a level that
45:08
we don't really know what's going on, and maybe two
45:13
days later something happens too and you're like, oh my god,
45:16
that's what she was talking about or whatever, Like most
45:20
of the communication is happening in the unconscious realm. So yeah,
45:26
so I love and my clients will say, send me
45:28
a text in between sessions about well, one client this week,
45:32
she's young, she's in her thirties, and she's got a
45:35
big brain, and she's artemis to me, and she's dealing
45:39
with a lot trying to get a hold of her
45:41
parental complexes all it makes sense of all her reactions
45:44
and stuff like that. And we had a session. I said,
45:48
I'm feeling like you should paint, and she paints anyway.
45:51
And so later that night she sent me four of
45:54
her paintings, watercolor paintings, and I was like, did you
45:59
do that in order? Because you could see that there
46:02
was a progression in what was being processed in her
46:07
unconscious and how it got communicated through through the paintings
46:11
and I actually just posted a blog post about it
46:14
and I share she let me share those particular paintings.
46:18
But you know, it's so mysterious just most of the
46:21
work is like and just because you're not aware of
46:24
everything happening doesn't mean it's still not like causing you
46:27
to like pivot or make a different choice. Right, So, yes,
46:33
it's fun. Even the sobbing is fun.
46:38
Speaker 1: It just sounds like fun. You know, it's rich.
46:41
Speaker 5: Full of depth.
46:42
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, well see that that that the title of
46:49
depth psychology told me just told me a lot right there, Like, oh,
46:55
because I've been to therapy, you know, traumatic things have happened.
46:59
I divorced. That was a huge trauma because well we're
47:04
both recovering Roman Catholics, right yeah.
47:07
Speaker 8: Yeah.
47:08
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, you're damned to hell for getting divorced, right,
47:15
So I had to deal with that and being the
47:18
first person in my family to get divorced after and
47:24
I was, I should say I was the second person
47:26
to correct that as the second person get divorced, because
47:29
I encouraged my mother to get divorced from from my
47:33
father because of things that he was. He was just
47:37
going this way. It's like you need to get away
47:39
from that. Yeah, So I dropped her off with a
47:42
lawyer and got her to do it.
47:45
Speaker 5: Wow.
47:47
Speaker 1: Yeah. So then when I got divorced, I'm like, oh wait,
47:53
I've done this. Oh my god, I really am going
47:56
to hell because well, sister, he came back in his
48:01
big bold face and everybody, anybody who's ever going to
48:08
Catholic school, they understand whose sister Mary truly is, not
48:12
just the name but who she is, Like we all
48:16
had that one nun right. So so yeah, trying to
48:23
figure myself out from there it was quite interesting.
48:27
Speaker 5: So yeah yeah yeah, So I mean a depth perspective
48:33
is it's different. You know, one of my my friend
48:37
Youngian analyst Lotto Schultz, He's I've interviewed him like three times,
48:43
so I have a lot of podcasts interviews with him,
48:46
and one of them was about his article titled three
48:49
Ways of Why. And so you can look at like
48:54
usual conventional therapy is sort of well, let's answer the
48:59
question of like why, you know, why are you feeling
49:01
this way? Why why do you act like this? Right?
49:04
And so there there to a certain extent there is
49:08
a sort of going back, not to re experience trauma,
49:11
but to find out like, Okay, what is the root
49:13
of this behavior? Because something happened a long time ago
49:17
and you responded to it in a certain way. And
49:20
what happens is that, you know, we choose a response
49:24
that either avoids pain or seeks validation, and then we
49:29
develop personality traits that are doing that, and then that
49:34
some of them become problematic later on. Right, And so
49:38
in a marriage and especially when we become parents, are
49:41
parental complexes just get triggered. And then during any time
49:44
of stress, your parental complexes get triggered. So conventional therapy
49:49
like is about sort of untangling that and then but
49:53
it is sort of it seems to me, you know,
49:57
focused on a solution. Right, So okay, how can we
50:00
get you out of pain and minimize suffering, and how
50:04
can we teach you how to sort of replace some
50:06
limiting beliefs and have new beliefs. Well, what happens with
50:10
depth is Okay, why is this happening right now? That's
50:17
the deeper question. Okay, why after being married for twenty
50:22
four years? Why not ten? Why not fifteen? Why is
50:26
now the time? Well, that's harder to answer. What is
50:31
it that I'm supposed to be learning right now? What
50:35
is the meaning of my experiences? And also circling back
50:40
to the trauma, the gold, the ointment, the ingredient for
50:44
the ointment is in the wound, right, So we don't
50:46
go back to re experience the wound, but we do
50:48
go back to see like what is the key? Is there?
50:51
The treasure is there? The piece of gold is there
50:53
to bring back? For why now? And what does this
50:56
have to do with my life? Now? What's the metaphor?
50:59
And then in you know, individuation theory is about our
51:07
self capital s and our psyche is prompting us to
51:11
unfold into this blueprint, right, not a specific it's not destiny, right,
51:16
but it is like unfoldment, an emergence. What is emerging?
51:22
Speaker 1: Right?
51:22
Speaker 5: Like how is consciousness continuing to express itself through us
51:27
in a way that contributes to the collective? Now that's
51:31
the uncertainty. I don't know, right. But without the first
51:35
part of the work, the personal, the first why and
51:38
then the second finding the metaphor, you won't trust in
51:44
how you're being pulled mysteriously forward. So you go from
51:48
having specific goals to as Michael Bernard Beckwist says, what
51:51
is emerging for me? And you're like, I'm not sure,
51:55
I don't know, but I sense this. I sense that,
51:59
and that's not the mind anymore. So that's the body
52:01
and the intuition. So it's like you're reversing. So anyway,
52:08
now I'm getting off track with my story again.
52:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, but sorry. So with with everything you just said
52:18
about depth psychology, how did they get poured into your book?
52:25
Speaker 5: Honestly, what's really interesting is I did not. Okay, So
52:29
my first book that I published after receiving my PhD
52:34
was a nonfiction book and it's called Your Soul Is Talking?
52:38
Are You Listening? And it's my first book and only
52:42
book that's just kind of like, here is how, here's
52:44
how your unconscious speaks to you. So it's very accessible,
52:48
it's not intellectual at all. It's like, you know, dreams,
52:52
here's why dreams are the way your unconscious is speaking
52:55
to you. Here's how your emotional reactions. Here's how depression,
52:58
anxiety or obsessive house of disorder, here's how that is
53:01
your unconscious like speaking to you, getting trying to get
53:04
you to explore something. And so that one I wrote
53:09
and published in ninety days like that was like an
53:11
easy book for me to write. So then when it
53:14
came to the memoir, I didn't set out to write
53:21
it in a way that reflected that psychology. But what
53:24
I discovered was that you know, all my journaling, all
53:28
my images, and in the book, because you've read it,
53:32
is infused my experiences with images, synchronicity. I talk about,
53:39
oh I journaled this right, dreams, movies, YOUNGI in film
53:44
theory is a whole thing. So for me, films really
53:47
spoke to me a lot, and it it just it's
53:53
just writing about my story sort of reaffirmed Carl Jung's
53:57
theory of individuation. That it's so sort of happened that way.
54:02
And so when you read it, if you're a Youngian,
54:07
you'll recognize that it tracks. But it wasn't written to
54:12
follow a depth psychology theory. It was written as a
54:16
story that happens to reaffirm this theory of individuation. And
54:22
then in the back I have a lot of discussion questions,
54:25
reflection questions, book club questions, and the questions are underneath
54:30
different themes. But that sort of can get you, you know,
54:35
get you it does like end up offering you kind
54:38
of a framework, I think, especially if you go to
54:41
the discussion questions and if you look at my images,
54:43
you can see Wow, if I put these side by side,
54:47
I can see the progression endeavor's journey. So that's a
54:52
long answer to your question. So I didn't set out
54:54
to do it, but it ended up and then in
54:56
the end I did want to make sure that I
55:00
was like, that was a thread underneath the surface, right, Okay,
55:06
but it just ended up that way.
55:09
Speaker 1: Well, it's it just seemed to be there. But maybe
55:13
it's because we've been friends for a number of years.
55:18
Speaker 5: Also, I don't know, or maybe I'm a good storyteller.
55:23
Speaker 1: Hey, there's an idea.
55:26
Speaker 5: That's weird for me to even say.
55:30
Speaker 1: We would they'll be weird. You're a very talented person.
55:34
Speaker 5: Oh shucks. Thanks anyway, So.
55:39
Speaker 1: Devor, we can find the book on Amazon.
55:44
Speaker 5: Yes, I want to say that if you go to
55:47
Deborah Lukovich dot com. Uh, you can get there from there,
55:52
Because I hear that people Amazon has been really glitchy,
55:57
and I hear that if you search for my book
56:00
you might not find it, but if you put my
56:02
name in you'll find it. So if anybody's having any problems,
56:07
go to Debora Lukovich dot com because you'll get right
56:10
to my Amazon page from there.
56:13
Speaker 1: So for our Canadian friends, make sure you just heard
56:17
what that last place if you need to rewind and
56:21
go back to those directions, because I had trouble finding
56:27
it through Amazon dot ca A, but if I went
56:31
through Amazon dot com, it was ready available. The link
56:36
that we're going to share in the in the notes
56:38
will be to Amazon dot com.
56:41
Speaker 5: But yeah, so the link that you're sharing, I'll make
56:46
sure you have the link that just goes directly to
56:49
my page.
56:50
Speaker 1: Yeah.
56:51
Speaker 5: Well, although and then people should get.
56:54
Speaker 1: There, right, Yeah, they'll get right there. Yeah.
56:57
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm a little frustrated because at first, also Amazon
57:01
was not like people were submitting reviews really quickly, and
57:05
they weren't showing up and it took like ten days.
57:08
That's not good during a book launch, right And now
57:11
I don't know. Now, it's just weird that you can't
57:14
search for when sex meets God or that it doesn't.
57:18
So I'll keep an eye on that.
57:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I will say this because I think my
57:23
review of the book shows up on your website maybe,
57:27
but it's not going to show up on Amazon because
57:30
there was another limitation that we were able to get
57:34
our review up.
57:35
Speaker 5: There are you on good Reads.
57:40
Speaker 1: Signing up for that one, so it's another place for
57:43
people to go. It's good Reads, yes, yes, so you.
57:46
Speaker 5: Should be able to leave a review there. So I
57:47
have some reviews there people who have the same problem
57:50
or you know, if you don't spend fifty dollars a
57:53
year in Amazon and I don't, you can't leave a review,
57:56
which doesn't seem even if you buy the book, which
57:59
is real you know, corrupt to me. But anyway, uh,
58:04
those people have left reviews on Goodreads, and soon next
58:08
week my book will be available on bookshop dot org.
58:12
So for people who are boycotting Amazon bookshop dot org.
58:17
They their book sales also go to support local and
58:21
independent bookstores, so like it's a good alternative to buy
58:25
books on bookshop dot org. The e book version is
58:29
available on bookshop dot org, but not the paperback yet,
58:32
so in the next couple of days that'll it'll be
58:34
there too, and then in the next couple of weeks
58:38
for an e version, you'll be able to get it
58:40
anywhere like Barnes and Noble or any anyplace else you
58:43
buy ebooks, you'll be able to get it on those
58:45
places too.
58:46
Speaker 1: Oh good to know. So, heyway, thank you for coming
58:50
on the show again, because I think this is your
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third time on my show.
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Speaker 5: I no, I think it's my second time.
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Speaker 1: Second time? Am I adding a time in that? Did?
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Did I need to actually bring you back for a
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third one? It is?
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Speaker 5: I think that's what the Thordian slip was about.
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Speaker 1: Anyway, It's always fun talking to you, and please everybody
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go by when Sex meets God. It is an awesome book,
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a wonderful story.
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Speaker 5: Okay, I appreciate it.
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Speaker 1: All right, see everybody later.
59:28
Speaker 2: Hi, So what.
1:00:10
Speaker 3: Thissen days?
1:00:14
Speaker 2: A reason to save me up? Job? In shows?
1:00:31
Speaker 3: We can't try cur wait.
1:00:36
Speaker 6: So.
1:00:57
Speaker 2: Silence.
1:01:52
Speaker 1: The show has been produced by Depictions Media. Please contact
1:01:57
us at depictions dot media for more information.