Latest / Becoming Flame: Where Sensuality, Sovereignty, and Sacred Power Ignite / Opening to Pleasure: Lia Lawton on Shame, Sensitivity, and the Courage to Feel
Transcript
- Kait Tregenza: So today we're talking to Leah Launton. She is a psychologist and psychosexual therapist, but her real work is in liberation. She helps people who were never meant to fit the mold, break the mold entirely. She has a lived experience of ADHD and deep clinical expertise in sexuality, neurodivergence and trauma. Leah doesn't just talk about healing, she helps clients rebuild the foundations it actually stands on. This episode of Becoming Flame is brought to you by Phenxx. Phenxx is a ritual luxury house devoted to erotic feminine embodiment. We create alchemical intimacy oils and functional fragrances infused with spagyric botanicals designed to soften the nervous system, open the body, and awaken life force vitality. Our formulations are crafted as tools of self-initiation. They are not cosmetic. So hi, Leah. How are you? So I wanted, part of the reason that I reached out to you was that you have this really interesting intersection of what I would call deep foundational human understanding. So you have a way of seeing a person as who they are, not as a clinical diagnosis or not as a set of symptoms that you need to heal. What I really loved about that conversation with Leo was to really understand that. Lia Lawton (she/her): Hi, I'm good, how are you, Kate? Kait Tregenza: There's actually this entire reframing of the world that neurodivergent people are doing in terms of how they relate to other people, how they feel emotion, how they feel it viscerally and fully within their body. And how on the flip side, their sexual preferences or their kinks or whatever they want in terms of what makes them feel good is broadening the scope of ⁓ acceptable sexual pleasure. Her clients are the ones who've been labeled too much, too sensitive, too complicated, especially when it comes to their bodies, their desires and their emotional lives. Leah brings them home to a part they were told they needed to exile from. Her therapy isn't for assimilation, it's for reclamation. So you know that I am interested to talk to her. She's not interested in fitting people back into the systems that broke them. They are not decorative. They are designed to be felt. They are designed to shift. Each oil facilitates a cellular shift into relaxation and receptivity, activating and opening up an archetypal femininity that your body knows and is yearning to step into. And I guess my real first inquiry and my curiosity about you is how did you develop or how did, were you always this kind of person who could see a human as their fullest, highest diversion and facilitate somebody else's personal understanding of themselves in that way? Is that how it started or is this like learned through? but also in the same way that neurodivergence ⁓ allows neurotypical people to come into a sense of greatest relaxation around the way that their mind works, the way that their life works, the way that their body works. Here, that opportunity is available for sexual orientation and sexual desire and sexual investigation as well. These oils allow the body to open safely into sensual intelligence, magnetism and creative power. They open the libido and open creative sexual energy. When the body is safe, it softens. When it softens, it receives. When it receives, it creates. And when it creates, the entire world shifts. She's really interested in helping them build new structures, new paradigms, the kinds that hold their truth, their sensuality and their spark, their actual truth, trauma and experience, like how did it start? Lia Lawton (she/her): That's a big question. ⁓ Yeah, think trauma and experience has definitely been a huge part of it. ⁓ I remember as a kid, I used to be able to see what was going on with people, but then they would always be like, ⁓ no, I'm not feeling like that. I'm not feeling like that. And then it was like a month later where they're like, I've been really down lately. Kait Tregenza: Okay. If If one thing doesn't feel good to us, there's a whole plethora of things that we can investigate and vanilla sex doesn't have to be the only option. Vanilla sexuality, sensuality, eroticism doesn't have to be the only option. And I think what's so exciting about the point of life that we're in. Lia Lawton (she/her): And I stopped trusting myself after a while because there was, yeah, so many people have been like, ⁓ no, I'm not feeling that way. But then later actually had been. ⁓ So it took kind of a long time to come back to me and I didn't go straight into this profession anyway. Kait Tregenza: We believe that women who sit deeply in their bodies, in their erotic intelligence and sovereignty, become powerful creators of their lives and the environments around them. Our products are initiations into that coherence. Luxury in experience. Devotional in use. Transformational in effect. Get yours now at phenxx.com That's P-H-E-N. So she definitely refuses any kind of connotation of normal and rather helps people to remember that their wiring, their erotic nature, their emotional depths are not problems to fix, but an actual portal to their freedom and to the life that they want to live, to claim and to be. So I'm really excited to welcome to the podcast today, Leah. is really dismantling the shoulds and the musts and the social conformities and the very narrow definitions of what is accepted, what is normal. I don't know what this word is, normal. People have been using this word normal for so many years, so many decades, centuries, millennia. What is normal? Nothing. Nothing's normal. It's whatever you want and you desire and what you hope for. And I think the Lia Lawton (she/her): I went back to study when I was about 26. ⁓ for people Kait Tregenza: xx.com Lia Lawton (she/her): There's this belief that... If someone else went through exactly the same things you did, they would make the exact same decisions. Kait Tregenza: opportunity to really explore what feels good for you, what actually lights you up and how touching yourself or, you know, being open to erotic pleasure is the simplest and freest way of accessing your own desires in life. And yet, as she says, if that's not something that you Lia Lawton (she/her): And that might not be true for everyone. But everything's kind of a product of how we've grown up, what's happened to us. Like, we all have this beautiful person that we actually are that so many people can't see anymore. because it's being covered by trauma and shame and guilt. And just, we lose ourselves in this world, you know? We lose ourselves. Kait Tregenza: personally think is a problem or even want, then don't go into it. Like look elsewhere. But if you do see it as a problem, if you do see it as a, I'm not operating my highest possible. ⁓ Lia Lawton (she/her): And I don't think it, I don't know. It's funny because I seem to have gotten a reputation for seeing people that other people don't want to see. I think because I'm just happy to sit with people in whatever they're coming up with. Kait Tregenza: life because I'm not experiencing the joy of orgasm or vaginal or vulva ⁓ enjoyment, then there's an opportunity for investigation and you can do that in whatever way you desire. So I loved this conversation. I'm taking a lot away from it. As always, please find the show notes at fennex.com. Mm. Lia Lawton (she/her): You know, so many people think they're too much, not enough, or both at the exact same time. Kait Tregenza: Yeah. Lia Lawton (she/her): You know, can feel that pain, you can... And at the end of the day, we all just want to live. We all just want to be connected and be accepted for who we are. But we're so scared we're not going to be that we just don't show you the real us to people. Kait Tregenza: p h e n x x dot com. They will all be there. We have the show notes also on our YouTube and Spotify and Apple podcast platforms. Wherever you find your podcasts and your show notes, they will be there. And otherwise we will see you next week. So firstly, I know exactly why people come to you just from like the last three minutes of being with you. You such a felt presence. You have such a felt presence and I know that. I know that even people who are listening to this will feel that. So I can understand from my own personal life journey, when you feel everything in the room, everything that's going on in somebody else's system, and then you try to, I think when you're young, it can be really clumsy, like telling somebody how they feel as opposed to like opening space for them to... come to that realization themselves or to even feel it because I think as I've gotten older, I've realized it's not that you can't feel where you're at or what you're going through. It's that sometimes you can't feel it all at once. You can't go there every single day. Is that been part of your journey in terms of learning to trust yourself as well? it separating? I know what I feel and I know what I know and how do I now communicate that in a way that's loving and held. Lia Lawton (she/her): I think that is a part of it and it's being able to sit in that uncomfortability. Like most of us that grew up with trauma and grew up with unstable households learned to sit in chaos but never learned to sit in calm. And so sometimes the uncomfortable emotion or uncomfortable feeling that someone has to sit in is calm. Kait Tregenza: Mm. Mm. Lia Lawton (she/her): and just be alright with it because it's kind of that bed of the devil you know, like, ⁓ no I can sit in chaos, I can sit in anger, can sit in all these things and... but that's not coming from you, that's coming from this trauma space. Um, and there was another part to that, but I don't quite remember. Um, yeah. And I think learning to trust your emotions and knowing that like the timeframe of a big emotion is usually like 20 to 30 minutes. If we can let it go through us. Yeah, it can be scary, but it can also be this wave that like after 20 or 30 minutes, we can start to release a little bit of it. And it doesn't mean that's gone forever. Kait Tregenza: Okay. Lia Lawton (she/her): But it also doesn't mean you're going to have to sit in that feeling forever. ⁓ but yeah. Kait Tregenza: So you're having a big emotion. have, whether it's anxiety, fear, panic, ⁓ overwhelmed, whatever it is that you're dealing with in that moment. It's almost like this stop, roll and feel kind of thing. Like just stop what you're doing and just feel it or just don't react or how does someone approach it? Lia Lawton (she/her): Well, it depends, because you might be in a situation where feeling it in that moment is not going to be okay. So sometimes you can put things like in a little container in your mind to just go, I'm going to come back to that one when I have the space and time. But sometimes if you are like at home and you're watching a sad movie, it's like, let's let this happen. Let's just, let's feel it. Let's. you know, not try and push it down. This society teaches us a lot about pushing down our emotions and not feeling them, not being. And being a bit scared of them, I found. Which is fair, and a lot of people would get in trouble for their emotions as a kid. You know, they were too big, dysregulated their parents, and so therefore their parents would yell at them for having emotions, which I always found an interesting concept because you're yelling at the child for exactly what you're doing in this moment. And you're expecting like, you know, Kait Tregenza: Hmm. Lia Lawton (she/her): a young child to be able to do something that you can't always do. So yeah, we're kind of giving... Yeah, it's a very interesting concept and I feel like we need to learn emotions from a young age. Although I know they do it a lot more in school now, but I remember when my best friend's son was younger and he was learning emotions than he would say to his mom. It makes me really angry when you make me eat dinner. Kait Tregenza: Yeah. Lia Lawton (she/her): Which was always just so funny. yeah, so was being used kind of against her rather than... Kait Tregenza: It'll make you really hungry if I don't. Lia Lawton (she/her): ⁓ But yeah, like most of us were not taught about our emotions. We're just taught they're too big or too much or we shouldn't be feeling a certain way, especially growing up neurodivergent is they have done studies that ADHD ⁓ people do feel emotions stronger. And we also have like rejection sensitive sephoria. So something that might seem like a perceived slight to someone else feels like a full rejection to someone can feel like a full rejection to someone with ADHD. And that can feel like a visceral feeling. Like it can feel like you've been stabbed in the heart or it can feel like this like open cavity kind of in your chest or your stomach just wants to fall out of your body. Kait Tregenza: Mm. Lia Lawton (she/her): And that's a really uncomfortable and horrible feeling, which, you know, as a kid, you couldn't understand and you couldn't always put your finger on. And how could you explain that to someone else? How that felt? when it could have just been a perceived slight from the other person, but rejection is just for it doesn't care if it's perceived or real. Kait Tregenza: Especially if... Sometimes I hear the definitions of highly sensitive people or empathic people and ADHD people, neurodivergent people. It all converges into a very similar set of difficulties that ⁓ seem to present. And my hypothesis or my question, not my hypothesis, because I'm definitely not formed enough in that, but my curiosity around that is in a world that teaches numbness as function. where you don't feel and you don't connect. And what's the outcome of that is this incredibly disconnected world where community doesn't exist, where family structures don't exist. And even in family structures, the level of toxicity and dysfunction, you know, that circulates intergenerationally or just within that family unit all creates sometimes a requirement to disconnect, to go numb, to remove yourself, even though biologically we have this desire and this innate desire to connect and to be in community and to be in unit and to be in togetherness. But because none of us know or have been taught the opposite of regulation or taught the opposite of feeling what we need to feel in the moment, ⁓ any kind of feeling becomes dangerous. Even those of you know, the so-called positive emotions, euphoria, joy, pleasure, you know, love. And I'm just wondering in your experience in clinic and personally is the role of the highly sensitive person or ADHD or neurodivergent or whatever label is appropriate. Cause I'm not into labels, like whatever that feels like. Is it, is it that we're con We're going through this trend of people claiming their neurodivergence as a way to reclaim their humanness and reclaim their connection to their body and to their emotional set and to the superpower of what is emotional reasoning and resonating in the world. Like, you even connect with people if they don't have emotional access? ⁓ Lia Lawton (she/her): That's interesting. ⁓ I wouldn't call it a trend. I'd call it people finding them, so many people, like I felt broken or I felt not right for so long. And now I have words to put to that. And for people that can be really powerful. and you know, like an ADHD label means that you can get medication, which can be like extremely helpful for many, many people. ⁓ And an autism diagnosis, if it's over like level two or three, can get you NDIS help. But also it can just be like, oh, this is why I feel things in a different way, or this is why things are a little bit different. Because they've done a study called the double empathy problem. And so this was done with neurotypical people and people with autism. And so what they did is they got a neurotypical person and neurotypical person in the room. Kait Tregenza: Okay. Lia Lawton (she/her): ⁓ and then afterwards we're like asking the questions around, you know, the emotions the other person was feeling and what they're trying to portray and all this. And it came up positively. They both understood each other. Then they did the same with two autistic people and they both also understood each other. But as soon as you put the autistic person and then neurotypical person in the room, they don't. And that was the thing. It was, they would see emotions as different. They would. ⁓ Kait Tregenza: Thank They don't understand. Lia Lawton (she/her): you know, to what was trying to be portrayed. And we live in a very neurotypical world where emotions in neurotypical world is different to emotions in neurodivergent world. They just can be shown differently, can be experienced differently. ⁓ know, like ADHD to show empathy will tell a story about something that's happened in their life. Whereas a neurotypical person sees that as a rude thing. But for an ADHD brain, this is going, ⁓ I get you. I'm connecting to you. Kait Tregenza: I get you. This is something that happened to me. Right. Lia Lawton (she/her): Therefore, I can show you that, yeah, like I get what you're trying to say. Kait Tregenza: Got it. Hmm. And so coming back to the original question, like what was the catalyst for you to do this specific slant of work even with, you know, the, the psychosexual aspect as well. Lia Lawton (she/her): So, okay, I think when I was about 25, I went to a psychologist and she'd asked me a question. I think she asked me what I did for fun. And when I like told her what I did for fun at the time, like she was like, now I'm not judging you, but do you think that's a good life choice? Kait Tregenza: What was it that you were doing for fun? Lia Lawton (she/her): I go to sex parties. Kait Tregenza: ⁓ okay. Okay. Lia Lawton (she/her): and Then she's like, do you want to book in again for next week? And I'm like, no. And I literally went home and applied for psychology because I didn't want other people to feel that judged. I wanted things to be open. I wanted people to be able to talk about sex. Sex is a huge part of our lives, but there's so much shame and... cultural kind of aspects around it that we never really get to experience the full pleasure, the full breadth of what we actually want or what we want to try and... ⁓ And for a lot of people sex feels like a chore, which it's meant to be a pleasure, you know, it's... The fact that it feels like a chore is we've lost a part of it. We've lost something about it. ⁓ but yeah, so I went home, I applied for psychology and I was like, I want to, I want to do sex therapy. And at the time I was like, I want to help couples get into open relationships because I'd seen a lot of them at like the parties and just having these amazing conversations where everyone's like either just like half naked or completely naked and you're just having these like amazing conversations with someone, ⁓ that aren't just how's the weather, it's actually Kait Tregenza: I'm sorry. Lia Lawton (she/her): You know, who are you? What is, like... It was just such a beautiful experience that I absolutely fell in love with. ⁓ And so, yeah, I wanted to help couples get into that. And now I kind of work, ⁓ yeah, I've worked with everything, like sexual, because I'm also in Hobart. So there is not many of us. So I can't really like. Kait Tregenza: I thought you were going to reveal Hobart as the kinkiest place in Australia or something. I was like, ⁓ I didn't know. ⁓ Lia Lawton (she/her): No, there was a news article from, actually I shouldn't say this, there was a news article from like 2017 where there was the most deaths of hyperaerotic asphyxiation in Tasmania and it made Australia number three in the world. Just because of Tasmania or Lune. Kait Tregenza: that reveals a lack of training as opposed to a high amount of kink. So going back to these parties. Yeah, exactly. I'm curious, how did you even come to think that... Lia Lawton (she/her): Probably. Yeah, better choking training is needed. Kait Tregenza: that was where your tribe was. Was that just like following a body intuition? Was that being invited and like working out that you're in a place that you'd never been before and you really liked it? Like that story is fascinating. Lia Lawton (she/her): No, I looked it up. I was like in my early 20s. Early 20s, yeah. And I actually, I don't know, I wanted something more. I wanted to try more. I wanted to experience more. And then I found this one in Melbourne that I don't think exists anymore. And ⁓ you'd have to fill out a form with them. And I was like, ⁓ they've got one. Yeah, they have one like this weekend, but then they also have one like a month or two months. And I can just like, I'll start then. And then after like I sent him my details, the guy called me and he's like, had to have a chat. And he's like, okay, so we've got one on Saturday night. and I'm just like, ⁓ God, yeah. And then I'm like, all right, screw it, let's do it. And went down and it was one of the best experiences of my life. was just, people were so open. People weren't hiding who they were. There was such a beauty in just seeing people just asking for what they want. and just experiencing pleasure and you know, whether being in it or like watching at times, you know, you got so much out of it. And I remember it felt like for the next like week you'd have these little like flashbacks and it just... be so nice, like I just loved that. And I met some amazing people that like, I ended up becoming friends with some of them at the time and you know, like it was just... And I people that were there for so many different reasons and some that had been getting out of like, I met a lot of people whose, you know, father had been a pastor or... And so they were trying to reclaim their own sexuality. Then you'd meet couples, because this place, could have singles and couples were allowed at this place. And then you'd meet these couples that just had these beautiful relationships because they just communicated so well. Kait Tregenza: ⁓ OK. Lia Lawton (she/her): And we're just, you know, the way they spoke to each other, the way they looked at each other just... Yeah, it just made me smile so much. was just one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. And yeah, then I started going back there kind of every second week for a long time. Kait Tregenza: What translated from the party into your life? What did you learn in that school environment that you then started to apply it, whether it was power or sexuality or pleasure or joy? Like what, what were you learning there that you've kept with you all these other years later? Lia Lawton (she/her): I think it was about pleasure, I think it was about like, not letting other people's... I before I went to those parties, I used to let other people's beliefs sink in as like, ⁓ you're doing this too much or you enjoy sex too much or these kind of things. And then after that, I stopped thinking that. I saw other people that were in the same, that felt the same way, that wanted the same kind of things. And it was... You know, it wasn't being too much. It wasn't being... or whatever the fuck the term is, you know. It was being authentic. It was getting what you needed and experiencing pleasure in the ways that you wanted to. Kait Tregenza: Mm. Mm. I think one of the most powerful things that you've said in the description of what you've held from all those years later was almost like this concept of the way that people... Just a second. Alaya, don't come in here please. Alaya, do not come in here please. No. Go to Gemma. the three year old that moves things around as previously mentioned. What was I going to say? ⁓ yeah, sorry. The part that I loved about what you were talking about really stood out to me was the way that you were talking about inter couple or interpersonal communication, but from a full body perspective, you know, the way that they looked at each other, the way they interacted with each other, the way that they were soft and open with each other. And I think what's really fascinating about going into a place where people are actually allowed to be who they are, they soften, they open, and they relate without this competitive or aggressive or assertive kind of communication style, right? So we talk about, you know, non-violent communication, but it's like, Lia Lawton (she/her): Mm. Kait Tregenza: It doesn't matter what your words are saying. If your entire body is bracing for war, if you're bracing to defend yourself, if you're bracing to own yourself in one way or another, and all you're doing is putting effort into what words are coming out of your mouth. It's not non-violent because you are prepared. You are hyper vigilant. are, or at least vigilant in some degree. And what the way that you describe that memory. Lia Lawton (she/her): Mm. Kait Tregenza: was so palpable, so visceral to the idea of like people can soften into each other and allow an opening of truth to occur. Lia Lawton (she/her): But with that, there's so much shame for so many people that stops it. And like, if you look at Brene Brown, and I have been thinking about this a lot, is like the opposite of shame really is vulnerability. It's, I need help. I need you. I need something. I'm struggling. All of that can help with shame because shame underneath it is... I want to throw someone else into the bus and run in the other direction. But if we go, no, I can sit in this and go, I fucked up. I'm. I need something. That's how we start getting through that shame a lot more. Kait Tregenza: Mm. Lia Lawton (she/her): And the problem is no one's born with shame. It's given to us from society, from our families, from school, from everyone. But it's not something we grew up with. Like what we did, but it's not something we were born with. Kait Tregenza: one way. Lia Lawton (she/her): And so I've forgotten what that question was. ⁓ And then, yeah, we're we're. Yeah, I forgot one of questions. Kait Tregenza: I was talking about how to relate in a full holistic way in softness and openness and authenticity to others. Lia Lawton (she/her): But yeah, yeah, and that's releasing that shame and shame is like, vulnerability is power. One of my favorite questions to ask people is what does the word vulnerability mean to you? And for a lot of people, they actually say it means you can be hurt. Kait Tregenza: Hmm. What are you looking for in that question? Clues into how to dismantle shame? Lia Lawton (she/her): Clues for how the person is connecting to other people because... Kait Tregenza: Mm. Lia Lawton (she/her): If of you, like, vulnerability always means, like, I can be hurt. How often you being vulnerable to someone, with someone? How often you letting people in? Kait Tregenza: Right. Lia Lawton (she/her): Probably not very often. Kait Tregenza: And I guess if you're coming from a set of people where that would be dangerous, you're not going to open up to those people. That's not a good answer to the question. I guess, does the answer mean start shifting where you put yourself or how do you... So I'm just gonna answer the question from a hypothetical perspective. Lia Lawton (she/her): I think this is all s- Yeah. Kait Tregenza: Okay, I'm in a position where anyone in my life is dangerous to me. Sharing information with them would be a bad idea. Maybe there's trauma, maybe there's abuse, maybe there's like a continuation of unsafety and somebody's coming to you to try to solve that. Is the answer, remove yourself or is the answer, what's the way to approach that? Lia Lawton (she/her): I think that depends on the situation. It wouldn't be being vulnerable to people that aren't safe. We don't do that. It's like if I have teenage clients and they're still living with their parents and it's not the safest of environments for them, like. We never do kind of trauma work. never get rid of, like, we never work on dissociation or any of that because they need that. you know, that dissociation is really important to keep there. But yeah, it's... But when someone's out of that and it's like, want to have a relationship. Okay. So what's, what makes someone safe? What are those red flags that we need to look out for? And then can we dip our toe in and. you know, say something's vulnerable, but not too vulnerable and see how the person reacts. Because if you get shut down with it, okay, this person's not safe. But if it becomes a point where it's like that person can hold you in that and it's like, what do you need from me? But then that can be scary for people as well because then they've never experienced someone that's actually can hold them in that. Kait Tregenza: Yeah. That's what I was computing in myself when you're talking. It was like, so for many people, they have friendships for many, many years and the friendships function because you never need something like a real deep need. And you know, the central theme of this podcast is how do you rebuild after, you know, like really hard times, like really ruptures. And a lot of people in that moment discover these so-called friends that they have, who they can fill a room, fill a party, you know, have an invite list. There's no one really there to pick up the phone. And I guess my reaction to that way that you put it is what a good strategy for people be to learn how to ask for smaller things over the course of the friendship or Is it to classify friends as these ones are right or die? These ones I can ask anything. This one I'm asking about the weather. This one is just, you I don't know how do you, how do you approach this with your clients? Because I'm assuming that this is part of, part of claiming a truly pleasurable, authentic, coherent life, because it's a very different thing of like having a great white picket fence versus really living the truth of who you'd be. Because you need a lot of people who are really connected to that outcome for you. How do you test who you're bringing along with you? Lia Lawton (she/her): And I think that's a really hard thing, especially in today's day and age. I think it's become a lot harder. Like we're more connected when it comes to social media and everything like that, but we're so much less connected when it comes to people. And like people are stressed, they have their own lives, they have so much they have to do. But also, is it because you've never actually asked this person for someone and, you know, growing up asking for something was not okay. It was always seen with, okay, well, if I buy you this, what are you going to do for me? Kind of. So if we've... Therefore we're actually scared of testing that because what if they leave? Kait Tregenza: Mmm. Lia Lawton (she/her): And some people can't do these things because, you know, they're busy or... Yeah, so it might be like... It's kind of this whole papal-plazing thing, is like people make themselves smaller to fit in with the world and fit in with other people. And papal-plazing is basically a rejection of yourself. You're putting other people's needs before yours. You're rejecting who you are at your core to make sure that they're okay. they need something but we've forgotten our own needs and I think even the first part is what are your needs even before that because for a lot of people I don't even know I've never been safe enough or anything to ask for anything. It's also... It's only ever been other people's needs and it's so much easier to help someone else. And there can be a problem when, you know, what was it? My grandmother used to call it like fair weather friends. They're there when times are good. as soon as things fall apart they disappear. And that hurts. It's rejection. It hurts. And so many people will only even show someone a small part of themselves because, well, if they only see a little bit of me and then they reject that, then they've not really rejected me. But if they see all of me and I have actually let them in and then they reject me, well, I can't handle that. Kait Tregenza: I'm wondering, know, in your grandmother's age, it's a very different culture, a very different social structure, right? In 2026, is there a value to having fair weather friends? Lia Lawton (she/her): Yeah. ⁓ yeah. Kait Tregenza: from a clinical perspective, not from your personal perspective. I'm just wondering if anyone's done any, you know, ⁓ Lia Lawton (she/her): I'm not sure actually. That's something I'd have to look into. But yeah. I think it's always, you know, if you've got at least like one friend that you could be like, hey, I need like, I need you for something. Or I can tell you my secrets or like, we need to go hide a body, you know, like, and they're like, cool, where am I meeting you? You know? Yeah. Kait Tregenza: Bring the shovel. No questions asked. Yeah. Lia Lawton (she/her): You know, it's having that person, it does... It helps so much. Like, connection is actually the biggest ⁓ killer that we have. it's... Sorry. How much is it? Sorry. ⁓ So people that lack connection are more likely to die younger. And this can even be, I think it's even more than around the same as smoking. You know, it's not a... It's a really high... Kait Tregenza: mortality. Lia Lawton (she/her): Mmm. Yeah, I can't remember the numbers. ⁓ But I know it's, yeah, like it's... Yeah, so people are weaker social types tend to die earlier than people with strong supportive relationships and it's comparable in size to like smoking. So it's actually, you know, it's not just feeling lonely emotionally, it's physiological, changes us. It's we need that connection. And, you know, before agriculture and farming, we used to live in groups of 100 to 150 people. ⁓ Kait Tregenza: Mm. Mm. Lia Lawton (she/her): Everyone kind of knew their roles and there was always people around. And this is also a lot of, you know, shame and guilt comes into this because if you got shame is basically I'm wrong and I'm going to get kicked out of the group. you know, back then when we did used to live in these groups, if you got kicked out, that would usually lead to death because you may never find another tribe around you or. Whereas now it doesn't lead to that, but it's still... ⁓ Kait Tregenza: Not immediately. Lia Lawton (she/her): Yeah, but it still does, yeah. Kait Tregenza: It doesn't lead to an immediate ⁓ physical dying, but it leads to a slow, know, physiological, but emotional, mental. ⁓ I'm curious, how do you help clients to upgrade that body sensation around feeling shame then? Because... You you talked about working with neurodivergent people that have rejection in such a visceral way. I assume that all emotions are very visceral, very deeply felt. So you're feeling shame. feels like, like absolute, ⁓ my God, I'm going to die. And biologically, epigenetically that's, that's coded into, so it's an access point that's possible to feel because it's epigenetically coded into ourselves. How, how ⁓ do I guess neurodivision people in so many ways can show us the intensity of shifting that into something that's not as negative and how do they do that? Lia Lawton (she/her): That is one of the hardest things I'm gonna say. Like, it takes a lot of time, it's... And it's really, it's not an easy thing. It's, it's a very slow process where it's... kind of looking at the difference between your values and theirs, looking at what shame is actually doing to you and where it's come from. I work a lot with like internal family systems, which I absolutely love and like we can find those shame parts and what they need and how they, how we can help them. And a lot of the time it is like a little six year old that's in you that someone's told you too much or they got left behind and we reparent that. We start. You know, we do it one step at a time. It's... It takes a... It can take a long time, but it's... We had so much that was put onto us that isn't actually ours. And a lot of the time it's like our values, are they actually ours or were they just given to us in hand-me-downs? Kait Tregenza: This is kind of the question that I was asking about what's the value of fair weather friends these days? What's the value of filling a room just for the sake of warm bodies? Because if you're really on a pathway of saying, I want to live an authentic life, the foundational base to that is what do I care about? What do I, what do I value? What am I here for? What am I building towards? And obviously the deepest question is who, who am I and what Do I do? What do I be? Lia Lawton (she/her): And who helps me feel that? Who helps me go, can be myself around you and I don't have to just pretend or mask myself all the time. Kait Tregenza: We helped. My experience with my weather friends is they create a lot of calamity. It's not good weather. Lia Lawton (she/her): And yes. You And I guess for some people that, you know, for a value, it's having people around them all the time, it might feel good. But for most people, it's... Yeah, I've got people I might go out with or we might do a certain activity with and that's all right. But I also have my really close friends that I can be me with. Kait Tregenza: Mm. So working with Shane with rejection with all of these different really big emotions, which I would summarize very ⁓ high level as emotions. My babysitter is the worst. I'm sorry. Can you hear this? Lia Lawton (she/her): Yep. ⁓ man. Kait Tregenza: Just a second. Lia Lawton (she/her): There we go. Kait Tregenza: Sorry about that. Okay. What I was interested in. is as you're mapping out all of the reasons why someone's not living an authentic life, i.e. their truth, because they're reacting to shame or they're putting somebody else's requirements above their own to avoid these emotional... ⁓ sensations that are really, really hard to deal with. And then putting on the neurodivergence on top of that, as you've already said, it creates a more visceral feeling in the body. I'm really interested in clients that work with you, patients that work with you over a period of time where they can actually shift out of the immediate, ⁓ my God, I'm going to die from this, into, okay, this is balanced. I can manage it. into now I'm living my most pleasurable, abundant, enjoyable life. Like is that possible for, I think people all want to know, I don't want to just manage my emotions. I want to them into like as much as I feel the visceralness of like shame or vulnerability or like how that feels like death, what feels like aliveness? Because if you have the superpower to feel it viscerally, Lia Lawton (she/her): You Kait Tregenza: you almost have the greater capacity to create that. Wow. Lia Lawton (she/her): Like, okay, yes, it can happen, but it's also like, if we look at kind of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you've got, you know, all the things down the bottom, like we need food, shelter, and then we need, ⁓ know, and it kind of goes up. And the top one is self-actualization, which is a very hard one to get to because you have to pass through every single one of the other. I have one in here. What are the Yeah, so it's physiological, so breathing, food, water, shelter. Then we've got safety, so health, employment, property, and then love and belonging, and then esteem, and then self actualization. So getting through each of those things can be quite difficult. But we can also have more moments of it, you know? And there's that saying of, you know, this too shall pass was kind of created as both the thing for negativity and positivity. If we were happy all of the time, would we notice it? Would we care? What would it do for us? But having the hard times with the light means that we actually can notice those good times a lot better. But yeah, like you can see that shift and you can. So kids with ADHD receive 20,000 more negative messages before the age of I think it's 12. Kait Tregenza: from external people from their own self. Lia Lawton (she/her): from external people. But that gets taken into your own, right? So over time that turns into this really low self-esteem of, I'm not enough, I'm not good enough, I can't do these things, everyone's better than me. And sometimes even just understanding. I've had so many people that after they've gotten the ADHD diagnosis have been like, I feel like I can be a little bit less hard on myself because I know there's a reason for this. I'm not just lazy. I'm not just all of these things. I can just stop being a little bit less hard on myself with that. ⁓ And then we start clearing out, you know, we get someone to a stable level and bring in some good stuff, but then we start clearing out. A lot of that childhood. trauma and what we were taught about ourselves and then we bring in what we need now. And it's funny because it doesn't always feel like a, ⁓ my God, I feel so much better, but it's, it kind of starts with. ⁓ you know, I had one of my triggers was presented to me and I didn't actually feel it. You know, I didn't feel anything. Yeah. And so it doesn't, you know, it takes a long time. Kait Tregenza: There's no charge there, no reaction. Lia Lawton (she/her): to kind of feel those sparks, but it's also, yeah, what are those things that fill up your cup? You you can't pour from an empty cup and so many people are trying to. So how do we fill that cup back up? What are those things? Kait Tregenza: Well, that's why I have a fundamental disagreement with Maslow's hierarchy, because everybody's fed. Even people who are now living in what we classify as the third world, they're eating. They have shelter. They have these like basic things. We're still living disconnected. We're still living apart from what we need. And so it's Lia Lawton (she/her): I think a lot of it's safety rather than the physiological. I think the safety needs are probably where a lot of people are stuck in. because a lot of people grew up in households that weren't safe, that, you know, they didn't have a secure attachment. There's, There's a whole kind of thing where, you know, we all go through stuff, but people that grew up with a secure attachment can deal with it in a much easier way. They go, okay, shit hits the fan. What do I need to do? Who do I call? I know I've got people around me. People that grew up with, you know, disorganized, anxious, avoidant attachment styles don't have that. And that's where problems start to come in as soon as, you know. Yeah, as soon as things get too much, it's, don't know who to call or I don't have anyone to call or... I don't have someone to turn to. I don't know who's safe enough to turn to because it wasn't what was brought up. You know, it wasn't how we were brought up. And that's also in the love and belonging as well. So I think a lot of us, a lot of people are stuck more in the safety and the love and belonging kind of areas. because you know we need Yeah, we need that friendship. We need that intimacy or that connection with others. It's so important. But when we don't have, yeah, and it's just, if you weren't brought up in a like... in a secure household. you know, you're just like, if you're avoidant, you want to run as soon as there's a bit of intimacy or a bit of connection, you're like, ⁓ God, this isn't safe. Good. And our brains are kind of inherently lazy, right? They want, they kind of, they don't want to change. So it's like you're sitting here in this like, you know, burning building and your brain's like, this is fine. We're used to this. It's all good. And it's like, but there's like a nice place to the swimming pool over there. And your brain's like, that might just be a mirage. We're not, no, we're fine here. We don't need to change things. And so it's even just changing the way we look at something like just. A question I ask so many people is how do you bring pleasure into your life? And they're like what do you mean? you know, we've kind of forgotten about pleasure. And there can be pleasure from, you know, your favourite food is just taking it slow and just really feeling it. Or a certain type of material. Like I'm really sensory and I love certain types of fabrics and things. that can be just pleasure. We've kind of forgotten how to like, and I don't think today's society gives us that space to really just feel and be in that moment. We always have to be doing, we always have to do more. It's like, you know, the, The reward for doing good work is just getting more work. It's not like I finished everything, I'm gonna go and take a break and sit down and read a book. It's, ⁓ there's another file that you could do or... you know, that sense of Kait Tregenza: equally on the same as your own personal healing work, right? There's always another thing that you can find that's wrong with you. ⁓ Lia Lawton (she/her): And when is enough enough? Like, you know, I've also been doing my own healing work for a good 20 years and still things come up sometimes and you're like, when will this be over? But the thing is, I have more good days than bad days. have more... I notice the little things now, which I probably didn't used to do. Like I give myself space for pleasure and just for... myself and I know that sometimes I just need to sit in kind of silence and just you know, think about kind of everything and it helps me actually put those puzzle pieces together. It's quite nice. ⁓ Or, you know, if I'm listening to podcasts all the time, sometimes it's like, no, I need music in my life again. I need... ⁓ You know, we don't have to be learning all of the time or doing all of the time. We can actually rest. We can actually take time for us. But so many people have been taught that that's just selfish. That's not okay. But it's how we need to breathe. It's how we need to be a human again. You know, the more stress we're under, usually the less empathetic we can feel to other people. And it's taking that time, it's releasing some of that stress so that we can be empathetic to other people, but also to ourselves. And realize I've been under an immense amount of stress. It's something like, you know, since computers have like, everyone's been using computers, I think it's something like we've done, you know, 40 % more work at least. Kait Tregenza: Yeah. Lia Lawton (she/her): since then that people were doing before that. might even be more. But yeah, it's Kait Tregenza: And then with AI, we'll open more, more, more, more, more, more output. Lia Lawton (she/her): It's just constantly... ⁓ More output, more money, more this, more that, like... But where are you in all this? At what point do you lose yourself? At what point do you lose your connection to you? Because all you're doing is doing. And are you just doing that because it's scary to actually feel that connection that it's easier just to numb it? numbing things yeah it is easier. But at the end of the day. it starts to take over and you lose you as a person. You lose the things that you really loved because it's not just that you can numb one area of your life and everything else will just be fine. You start numbing everything. You start losing hobbies. You start not caring as much about, you know, friends, people, relationships. But when you come back to you and just sit are able to sit in it you can can come back to those things too. And I know that's a really scary thought for so many people because being yourself, one, who is that? And two, what if people don't like me? And that's our, I think that's one of our biggest questions is am I normal and what if people don't like me? What if I get shunned? Kait Tregenza: Mm. Lia Lawton (she/her): You know, and yeah, there's 20,000 more negative messages before the age of 12. Create shame for who I am. Kait Tregenza: Hmm. Lia Lawton (she/her): You know, it's not, and especially in women, like, so boys with like ADHD, if they fail a math test, they go, math is stupid. Girls go, I'm stupid. And this isn't, you this can also be like crossed over. Like there are some boys that do like the I'm stupid as well. But a lot of the time it's... Kait Tregenza: But by and large, it's a personalization of stupidity or wrongness, internal wrongness that women with neurodivergence live with. Lia Lawton (she/her): Yeah, that I'm wrong in some way and I shouldn't exist, Steven. I shouldn't be here. shouldn't. You know, I can't do the same things other people can do. I can't fit into society in the same ways. I don't understand, like, you know, neurotypical. ⁓ empathy or neurotypical emotions and therefore I keep being seen in you know the wrong light or a different light or And it's learningly, it's debilitating for, you know. It creates such low self-esteem in people that there's so much around that's like, I need to love myself, but what if I don't even like myself? I can't just go to loving myself. I need to like tolerate myself a little bit first. And sex comes out a lot in all of this is, you know, there are a lot of sensory issues when it comes to sex, especially in, you know, neurodivergent people that like certain types of touch could feel horrible, but on another day they could feel better. And that can be for everyone as well as like, especially where you are in the cycle or different things like certain types of touch can feel very different. ⁓ But it could be overwhelming. There's so much Kait Tregenza: Mm. Lia Lawton (she/her): smells like sounds like things just you know there can be weird sensations that you don't like the feeling of or it could feel so good that you just want to keep going and going and you don't know when to stop because it's actually filling that dopamine need Kait Tregenza: Mm. Lia Lawton (she/her): and But it's who you undenathal this, it's... You know, is it? And has trauma changed this? Because a lot of the time it has. You know, there are people, so many people have experienced trauma, especially around sex, and it makes them not want to have sex. or feel it in a very different way than if there wasn't that trauma there. or not feel safe enough with their partner and some partners are not safe enough to open up with, some partners aren't safe enough to do many things with. And yeah, I guess because everyone's so individual, it's figuring out what that pattern is for you, what it is for each person, and that can take time as well. because you can have two people that come for the exact same thing, but the trajectory they got there is so different. Kait Tregenza: Mm. Lia Lawton (she/her): and what they might need might be so different. Kait Tregenza: Mm. Lia Lawton (she/her): And so, yeah, it's... There you go. So the vulva and vagina needs about 17 minutes to actually open up, And most people don't get that. And so it's like sex hurts. Well, yeah, cause it's not ready. It doesn't feel safe. You don't feel safe. Kait Tregenza: Mm. Lia Lawton (she/her): Why would I open up if I don't feel safe? You know, there's also a lot around context is. what makes it feel pleasurable, what makes me want to do these things. And I always find it interesting that like, you know, when it comes to something like vaginismus, a lot of people also say, ⁓ but I've never been able to tampons in. And like sex and tampons should be very different contexts. Kait Tregenza: I don't remember feeling a lot of pleasure from inserting a tampon in my life. ⁓ Lia Lawton (she/her): But they seem to be the... No, and we're not really meant to at all. You like it's also at a time you're putting it in when you're probably in pain. You're probably very closed up. And you probably don't even know what, you know, angle, especially the first few times it needs to go in. So you're kind of... Yeah, until it goes in. Like, that's not pleasurable at any way. Kait Tregenza: Push it. Lia Lawton (she/her): But then when it comes to sex, those context cues are still there. you know, they try and have sex with someone and it just closes straight up because, well, I've tried to put something in. But we haven't actually looked at, right, so what does open it? What does open you? What makes you feel pleasurable? What makes you feel ready? And Yeah, they're also, know, pelvic floor physios can be really helpful as well. ⁓ But yeah, like it's, it goes back to that same thing of like people put sex on their lists, like next to doing chores. Cause one thing is, like, okay, making time for pleasure. Like let's, let's book sex in, you know, so that we can actually. Kait Tregenza: NAAAAS Lia Lawton (she/her): think about it so that we can be ready for it so that we can enjoy. It's like when you're dating someone, you know, people go, I want to go back to how it was when I was dating and it was, you know, just spontaneous. But was it, was it ever spontaneous? Cause you'd go out on a date that night. You probably shaved your legs or something, you know, you're not wearing like underwear with a hole in it. You're probably wearing nice underwear, like. And then during the day you're thinking about, I've got my date with whoever and I'm so excited for that. And what are we going to do? And so we're actually making that space throughout the whole day for pleasure. And then when we live with someone, living with someone is not sexy. It's not. And we kind of forget to make that space. We forget. You know, you see the other person in all. Kait Tregenza: Right. Lia Lawton (she/her): manners of situations when they're sick when they're like you know when the baby's just throwing up on them more with anything else going on that it's it's not sexy but how do we bring back that space how do we have that time for each other that we used to have where we can make it a pleasurable experience where it's not just on the list next to washing the dishes where it's ⁓ We put on a candle if that's what helps. put on, you know, something that makes us feel good about ourselves again. And we think about, and you can even send each other like a sexy message or something through the day. Like I can't wait for tonight or just like, or something, you know, or what I want to do to you. And it's always good to use like a different app than like, you know, the one that you kind of talk to your partner on like all the time. Like if you're always sending messages, like, ⁓ we need, you know, milk or whatever. But if you've got like a different app like you know if you always use messages use like WhatsApp or a messenger or something like that and then so that one just becomes just nice messages to each other like just sexy messages. Kait Tregenza: Yeah, I think that's a great idea. It's like this is our devoted sexy channel. Lia Lawton (she/her): Yeah. And so we start thinking about it again. We start thinking about pleasure. We start thinking about each other in those ways again. And it's also exploring yourself. What do you like? What do you even remember what you like? And also this can change over time. If you're going through, you know, perimenopause, menopause, if you've just had a baby, like all this will change how you feel. Um, and so we might need to reevaluate, know, like spend some time on ourselves and, know, really feel like, yeah, like really feel like where pleasure is like. all this whole area is pleasurable. You know, if you look at like what the clitoris actually looks like, it looks like that. So all down like the labia, like all of that, there's still the clitoris, like is all still underneath that. So all of that is like, do we like soft touch? we like harder touch? You know, it's... Kait Tregenza: One of the best things about the, I guess, the kink world or sex party world or whatever, and you've mentioned this as well in your recounting, it's you're constantly asking people what feels good to them. Lia Lawton (she/her): Mm! Kait Tregenza: The question around consent is a big one and obviously you should have people's consent, but after you've got their consent, it's not like, can I do this? Can I do this? It's like, what actually do you want? And I think when ⁓ you start to move into a world of how do I want to feel pleasure? What makes me feel pleasure? not just in a sexual way, but like in life. I think one of the most confronting things can be when you first go on that path, particularly if you've had a, you know, a culture that tells you what to think all the time is all of a sudden you get to make these investigations because you might not even know. And I think one of the greatest parts about exploring your own body is to actually understand Genital pleasure can be great, but like some people have elope stuff or elbow or, you know, like whatever it is. And then you start to see your entire body as this vessel for living in pleasure. I think a confronting can be. Lia Lawton (she/her): Yeah, like what kind of touch do I like? Do I like soft? Do I like harder? Do I like long strokes? Do I like something else? What do I like all over me? Kait Tregenza: And for it to be okay that tomorrow all of those answers are incorrect and you are starting again. And that's okay. Like I think once we start to let go of my pleasure is for somebody else's comfort, my pleasure is for somebody else's ego fulfillment, my pleasure is for thanks for dinner. ⁓ I think a lot of women, especially women, when they come into wanting to live a pleasurable life, understand that there's a whole bunch of receptors that they don't have activated, that they don't even know about. ⁓ But they know all about the, they could tell you about their trauma more than their psychotherapist. But when you ask them what feels good to you, can you repeat the question? I don't understand. Lia Lawton (she/her): Yeah. Yeah, 100%. Because we also don't live in a society which promotes, you know, those good feelings, like promotes pleasure, promotes... Like, I went to an all-girls school and even for sex ed, all I remember is this is how you put a condom on a banana. That's not even like anything that we have. Kait Tregenza: I don't know if you would feel more comfortable with your sex ed teacher engaging you in a pleasure ritual at that moment either at 16, 17 years old, but hey, that's got to be better than... you Lia Lawton (she/her): Well with uni, I remember there was one day that we did this like breathing exercise where we kind of breathe in and like hold it and keep going until we like release the whole thing like straight down. And it was like in a class of like 20-ish people just all like, you know, orgasm simulation kind of like breathing with by breathing like full body kind of, you know, chills right up here. Cause yeah, you can get orgasms from nipples. You can get orgasm, you can get full body orgasms. You can get them from So many different things. But we've also, there's such a disconnection from bodies at the moment. Like we live in our heads so much. Kait Tregenza: What? Lia Lawton (she/her): And it can be really hard to actually get back into your body or have your body feel even a little bit safe. Kait Tregenza: How did you personally start activating these pleasure receptors? Lia Lawton (she/her): For personal... I think for me, I... So I was always really sensitive when I was young and then I had to relearn actually because... A number of years ago now, I ended up with a thing called P-GAD, which is persistent genital arousal disorder, which is a pain disorder. So it's basically like... You know that bit before your orgasm where like you clitoris throbs? That was 24 hours a day. and it like tightens everything. sex was extremely painful. I have lost a lot of feeling since then. but it was actually just, I had to relearn. I had to relearn to feel good. I had an amazing pelvic floor physio ⁓ and did internal massages and started releasing that which helped more than anything. ⁓ But it would be like, I'd hit a pocket of, you know, basically, it feels like not in your back, but internally. And sometimes you'd release one and you'd just start crying because it was just holding onto so much stuff, like so much shame, so much pain. And, but it was also a beautiful thing. But yeah, with paygad like. because it never turns off is people just, you kind of start masturbating just to get rid of the feeling. So you stop doing it for pleasure. Kait Tregenza: Mmm. Lia Lawton (she/her): And so it took a long time to actually be able to like, macerate again for pleasure, for me, for actually feeling good rather than to take away a feeling. And there are still sometimes where things don't work the way that they used to and it can be hard. But at the end of the day, it's like, all right, so how can I make this feel better? What can I do in this situation? ⁓ What do I need? And do I need to go back to the massages? Because yeah, I still need to do them every so often. ⁓ Have I not done one in a while? Kait Tregenza: Mmm. There's a message, something akin to Yoni mapping or to like releasing certain points within or. Lia Lawton (she/her): Yeah, so it's using one of those like S shape ones and you kind of go in and it's like you can find these points that basically Yeah And you can find these like points Kait Tregenza: I say, Priscilla Wand, you mean? Yeah. Lia Lawton (she/her): like do you feel like a knot that you'd feel in your back and it's like releasing kind of around it and then like just going slowly to it, know, ⁓ But yeah, it's also just, and it's giving yourself that time and space sometimes that things don't always work the way you wish they did or. what do I need to actually make it work a bit better or like to feel pleasure? Because okay, I'm not feeling pleasure in this position. So let's change it. Let's move it. Kait Tregenza: Mm. Lia Lawton (she/her): ⁓ And there are some great toys and stuff out there for pain as well that are coming into the market. But yeah, it's, you know, that's caused me a lot of shame as well. I was starting to be, you know, sexologist and couldn't actually have sex. ⁓ Kait Tregenza: It gives you great empathy and understanding to the people that you would actually meet and talk with. Lia Lawton (she/her): Yeah, and it's... I think so. I hope so. Kait Tregenza: Well, if you didn't have any struggle in this place, in this agenda of your life, and you were like, what do you mean sex is hard? Just go and do it. I don't know how valuable your sessions would be for someone who is struggling. Lia Lawton (she/her): Yeah, just do it. Yeah, I that's... And the thing is, like, there's a lot of sides to it as well because there's, you know, there's usually both the physical side and a mental side of we may have been told that sex is painful or... We may have just, you know, we may have had a really bad experience when we first started and therefore it was just painful. Kait Tregenza: Yeah. Lia Lawton (she/her): ⁓ and so what does your body do when it braces for pain? Kait Tregenza: Hmm. Lia Lawton (she/her): Your vagina does the same thing. It braces for pain. It closes. And so it's what makes me feel open. And as you said before, like that softness, that openness that you see in people, like... That's where we need to come from a lot of the time is that softness, that openness. Like how do I actually open myself up enough to feel pleasure? And yeah, there may be a lot of trauma work involved before this can happen. And you know, there is sexuality as a spectrum as well as some people don't enjoy it and don't want to enjoy it or have no desire to enjoy it. And so that's OK, too. But where can you find pleasure in your life? it food? Like, is it a certain type of food? Is it? Just sitting outside on a nice hot summer's day or putting your feet in the water? Kait Tregenza: and from your work in releasing these knots. What does that have a felt impact for you in your life? that shit? mean, obviously you have an actual condition that, you know, dictates a lot of difficulty, but as you release each individual knot and you release that emotion, you release whatever's causing that knot and causing that tension. Do you notice differences manifest in your day to day living? Lia Lawton (she/her): I do, yeah. Like I might notice I feel less shame or like it kind of got rid of some, or there was some grief in that or... or like things actually start to feel better and you can concentrate again because your clitoris isn't throbbing 24 hours a day. Kait Tregenza: Right. And for clients who maybe just have a closed, very closed, very tight or full of tension, do you recommend this kind of practice to them as well? Lia Lawton (she/her): So that's from a. Yes and no. I do find a lot of the time when it comes to things like vaginismus, which is this tightness in the, generally around the vestibule while trying to come in, sometimes it can be like a spasm kind of in the muscle. ⁓ is It's really important to kind of start off with. What they're doing this for, like what their vision of the future would be. Are they doing it for themselves? Are they doing it for someone else? And what would it mean for them to actually, to enjoy sex? Because sometimes... There's like a lot of information on how to treat it and it's yeah, using kind of like dilators and talking about it. But I've also found that a lot of people, there's something else mentally that they're just not ready like. Some people, yeah, it's, there's this block underneath it. So there's also trauma work that needs to happen. ⁓ and yeah, like. What are they willing to do to... change it because if you're not like I have seen it in some people that find it really hard to touch themselves. that is part of At some point that has to be part of treatment for it. But yeah, are they willing to or if we work on, you know, or we could use a toy, we could use other things. There's also ⁓ a really great toy at the moment that's called the Kiwi from the Pelvic People that's if you've got pain like at the vestibule area, like it's a really great ⁓ toy for that. It only comes in just a little bit. But it, yeah, so you can do it without touching yourself with hands. But it's, yeah, and what have you tried before? But I think a lot of it is where did this start? How do we release this from the start? Like, you know, and I might use some IFS or some like MDR of how do we release this, the original trauma or the original feeling of, I can't, I don't want to enjoy sex or I can't enjoy sexy, but only if they want to. Like, so there's a whole thing when it comes to sexology that it's only a problem if It's a problem for the person. So if they're like, I don't like sex, I don't want sex, it's not a problem for me, don't care. Not a problem. Kait Tregenza: Got it. Lia Lawton (she/her): But if it is, I really want to enjoy sex and I really don't and that's problem, then that's a problem. Kait Tregenza: Yeah. Why did you say that the most important starting point for doing some internal investigation or releasing tension and releasing knots is a vision for the future? Why is that the starting point? Lia Lawton (she/her): Because that's that buy-in. What does the future look like? If I don't know what the future looks like, or if I don't know what this change will end up doing or could do, do I want it? We're inherently scared of change. Kait Tregenza: So even if it's to just have less tension, just have less pain, you still need to buy into that future of I could be in no pain. Lia Lawton (she/her): You Yeah, because it's the same thing of like, I'm sitting in that burning building and my brain's like, I don't want to go over to where there's that swimming pool because I don't know if it's real. I don't know what's over there. I know this burning building. So your brain's like, hey, yeah, we have pain, but like, what's the point of changing it? Kait Tregenza: Go ahead. And does therefore inserting or opening, activating pleasure receptors along the journey of healing pain or trauma trapped in the body, does that help to bridge the gap into actually having buy into a future where it could be better? Lia Lawton (she/her): Yeah, because a lot of the time we'll also start with touch that doesn't involve anywhere near the genitals. Like it'll start with, like, especially when it comes to couples work is you've got, ⁓ Lost it. ⁓ Sense8 Focus, there we go. Yeah, when you've got Sense8 Focus therapy. So that's like touching each other and it's not, as Emily Nagaskis said, it's nowhere where like, no chest, nowhere where we'd have kind of underwear on. and no genital area, but it's touching each other and asking for what we want from the other person. But I even think you can do this with yourself, like certain types of fabrics or materials, like I find can be really amazing for things like that. It's what touch feels good for you, even using like wedding blankets, does this feel good? Kait Tregenza: Mm. Mm. Lia Lawton (she/her): But yeah, we don't start with the genitals as well. We start with opening up the rest of the system so that it feels safer to actually feel. Kait Tregenza: This has been a very fascinating. I love that we've meandered everywhere we've gone, where we've gone. Maybe you're going to say, ⁓ that's my ADHD. We're going to go wherever we go whenever we go there. ⁓ But it's been fascinating. would have wanted one full conversation on everything we've touched on. It's been so interesting. ⁓ I guess my final question to you would be, what do you believe? I mean, you've devoted your life to this work. You're devoting your personal self to this work. What do you believe becomes possible in a world where more people are living from their pleasure, living from their truth, living from their deepest coherence? Lia Lawton (she/her): I believe there's just, there's more love in this world, there's less hate, we actually... We are there for other people's differences, like the things that, and other people's, know, so-called imperfections, because nothing in this world is perfect. So it's, see people for who they are. We see... And we just, yeah, we like them for the differences that they bring to our lives rather than... for the sameness or for what we want them to bring into our lives. And just seeing people living authentically, you say this like glow, you say this just. beautifulness of like them as a person as well as just You you kind of get in those faces and you say hi to everyone, whereas you walk down the street and you just feel like you. Yeah, you just, yeah. It's hard to put into words. Like this is the thing, is like, I have this image in my head, but I can't put it into words very well. Kait Tregenza: Glow. It's a felt experience. It's just ⁓ a, it's an experience beyond language for you. Lia Lawton (she/her): It is. Yeah. It's just, you know, it's... This, trust myself and like... Yeah, I have people in my life because I want them there and because... I see them in all of who they are as well. Kait Tregenza: Beautiful. Lia Lawton (she/her): Yeah, it's hard to put into words. Kait Tregenza: Thank you, Leah, for your time. Let us know where can we find you and how can we connect? Lia Lawton (she/her): ⁓ okay. So I'm really bad at like Instagram and social media, but I do have like work ones. But, my website is findsanctuary.com.au. and then I have a Facebook that's Fine Sanctuary as well. I also do have an Instagram that's Fine Sanctuary Therapy and then I also have ⁓ a personal kind of professional Instagram which I'm really bad at using and always say I'm going to do more of that's Master of Underscoreology. ⁓ Kait Tregenza: Okay, perfect, amazing. Thank you so much for today and for sharing your work. We love connecting with people who are so dedicated to this work and to the journey that they're on and just highlighting the work of less, let's call it socially online people. Lia Lawton (she/her): Yeah, yeah, I'm, yeah. I've tried, I don't know. Kait Tregenza: Have an amazing day. Thank you so much for your time. Lia Lawton (she/her): Thank you, you too. Thank you. It's been lovely being here.