Ada 0:00

Welcome to all things Health and Abundance podcast. This is a podcast where we discuss different health and abundance related issues and come with real tips and advice.

I am soon turning 40, and for as long as I can remember, I've been looking for love, looting and finding and then figuring out that it wasn't really love. And it feels like my choice of partner has kind of gotten from bad to worse. And I do work constantly with healing the traumas and my inner child. And then far from done with it. And sometimes I asked myself, how can I do everything differently? How can I actually heal a relationship and heal myself in order to manifest A good relationship, a good partner. And that's what we'll be talking about today.

And today with me is Dr Elizabeth Willis. Elizabeth is an educator of over 20 years and the speaker to hundreds, and is the owner of the Institute of New Paradigm Intimacy. She effortlessly fuses her personal development into every avenue in her teachings and specializes in the self-pleasure modality, psychosomatic sexuality, sacred sexuality, the feminine arts, soma, and the embodiment for men and women from a shamanic lens. She brings pleasure and liberation to anyone who wonders for awakening. She's the manifestation of both strength and softness, power and sensuality, an embedded transmission of the masculine and feminine, fully intertwined. I'm so happy that you're here with us today talking about this subject. I think it is amazing. I have my fair share of failed relationships, and I really think that healing relationships is crucial to healing ourselves, and I'm convinced that it is one of the reasons why we are on earth. Actually, that's why 99% of people struggle with relationships, because it is part of our learning, I believe. So thank you for accepting to be here.

Elisabeth 2:28

Oh, it's my pleasure. Thanks. U1

Ada 2:31

Can you start by telling us a bit about who you are and what you work with?

Elizabeth 2:37

Absolutely, absolutely. So my name is Elizabeth Willis. I have a PhD in education, and I have been an educator of both teachers and adults and children for over 20 years. Um, most of my time I have been a montessori teacher in the Montessori classroom.

Ada 3:01

And really? amazing. I love the Montessori philosophy.

Elizabeth 3:06

Yes, it's beautiful. And I have also supported and taught teachers in Montessori teacher training programs, and I speak at Montessori conferences around the United States. So that is really where the basis of my work has been. But I have always been very devoted to my spirituality and to my personal development. And so my path in education has really merged, beginning with, you know, becoming certified in Montessori because Montessori herself, she's very her method is based. Her pedagogy is based in a very spiritual, um, understanding of the world. So starting with that and then when I was doing my doctorate, I researched and I supported and looked at how children's meditation can support the development of their self-regulation skills and their emotional regulation. So my, my education, my, my work and education and my personal development has kind of all merged. And I have had my fair share of very challenging relationships. And I've always been fascinated with relationships. It's been something that I actually kept pushed to the side and in a shadow for so long, because I had so much shame around my own personal relationships. And after, um, a very challenging separation from my daughter's father, which was very it was very messy. It was very nasty. And I recognized that I needed to start taking responsibility and that I needed to start changing some pieces and to understanding even more about myself. And at that time I was very interested in meditation and yoga, but I hadn't really gotten into embodiment, and I actually enrolled in a sexuality school, and this was about 3 or 4 years ago. And I had no idea what I was doing, and I it made no sense whatsoever. And I did it. And it has opened so many doors for me, and I have just gone and followed one thread to the next, to the next, to the next, and learned so much about myself and had so many amazing mentors in sacred sexuality, in attachment, in sexuality development and somatics, in intuition, in all of these beautiful, beautiful pieces. And that has kind of led me to unfold. I've created my own business. I actually own the sexuality school now that I enrolled in, Wow, three and a half years ago. Um, and we run a certification program for coaches and mentors who are looking to be leaders in the sexuality field. Um, and so, yeah, it's it's a beautiful turn of my life, the way that things have unfolded. Yeah.

Ada 6:26

Wow. It's amazing. Can you tell me a bit more about sacred sexuality? I would love to hear about that.

Elizabeth 6:32

Yeah. Beautiful. So sacred sexuality is the understanding that our sexuality is, in fact, sacred. And it's not something we have actually been. The relationship that most people have with their sexuality is one that is very, very basic and very we don't have a lot of information. And primarily the information that we have received is through conditioning. It could be through society's conditioning around what is appropriate to talk about with sex and what is not appropriate to talk about with sex. It could be what exactly sex is. For example, sex for a lot of people, especially men, is looks like, you know, um, porn. Right. And so we've had these images of what sex is. We've had these, um, messages and a lot of. We've had no messages and no information about sex, and we have to figure it out on our own. And the the understanding behind sacred sexuality is that sacred sexuality was something that was practiced between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, and it is that it is the power and the sheer force that we can actually open each other's bodies through energetic connection and through opening our energy and the kundalini energy. It's wrapped very much with tantra and the concept of neo tantra, and that sexuality is energy and that we are all living in our sexual energy, the energy that we move, our life force, energy that moves us is our eros, is our urge to merge, our urge to create, and our desire, and that in itself is our sexuality. And so when we step into this different understanding of sexuality, it becomes you bring it out of the closet. It's not something that's shamed. It becomes something that's revered. And you can begin to develop a sexual practice with your partner, with your lover, with your husband. You begin to recognize that this part of sex is something that is healing. It's something that is we are meant to, meant to explore and meant to explore this pleasure and find different patterns through our sexuality and so forth. So it's a whole we have deep understanding and it's very esoteric as well.

Ada 9:09

Amazing. Like what comes to mind now is healing, creativity and healing the womb when it comes to women while you speak.

Elizabeth 9:17

Yes, yes. And through cervical orgasm there are, you know, you can heal, you can heal your womb through orgasm. There is armoring that can be done in your cervix, in your womb, and, you know, in your uterus and the the armoring is just to release the stress and pressure that we are body, you know, accumulates over time. And our body in our sexual organs accumulates and stores the stress just as much as we do in our shoulders and our neck. Mhm. Right. And our hips. So it's the same. And so many women have challenges and dis ease with their ovaries, with their, you know, their cervix with their uterus. And you know, even with their vagina, with vaginismus, the tightening of the vagina. So all of these pieces are not only esoteric related to different parts of our body, different energies, but they are also related to, um, you know, to storing the trauma and the experiences that we've had in life. So it's a wealth of healing that can occur.

So it's a lot of trauma work.

There is yes, there's a level of trauma work too. And as you go into it, it's um, you know, it's important to just be aware of what arises, right? Yeah. And noticing what's there and, um, you know, and what's, what's coming forth. And I've uncovered through sexuality many, many different patterns that I have found that are repeated in my, um, in my life that are also repeated in my sex. I can give an example right now if you'd like to please attachment. So with, um, one thing that I study, a lot of which is one of my topics that fascinates me is attachment theory and what has also supported me and what I, I support my clients through is is attaching well, not attaching, but combining attachment theory, um, with. Archetypes, and it helps us to really deepen our understanding of attachment theory, because I feel like it just gives it much more depth. And one of the pieces, most women are very challenged with their anxious attachment system and the anxious. All the attachment systems are not bad. They're very good. In fact, that's how you learned how to survive as a child. And the understanding around attachment systems is to recognize that part of you. And then to repack, and so then to choose differently. And when you begin to choose differently, that's outside of your survival system, outside of your attachment system. That's when you begin to consciously choose to deepen into love, and you begin to open your heart more. So those with anxious attachment are those with caregivers when they were younger who would respond. To their needs. Pick up the baby, hold the baby, but then and connect with the baby. And then all of a sudden disconnect. So maybe the phone rang. They had to put the baby down, or maybe they disassociated and the caregiver went into their own experience. Whatever it was, it was a feeling and a pattern of associated with the feeling of being dropped. And so when when you do feel love, as someone who is challenged with the anxious attachment system, when you do feel love, you actually then want to hold on to it so, so tightly and you want to grab onto it. And you, you find yourself grasping at it because you fear that that love will go away. Because that's the pattern, is that you have. When you felt love when you were younger, you felt it. It was delicious. And then it went away. So anxious attackers actually hold on very, very tightly to love. And that's what most women aren't challenged with when they're dating, because they might find a man who kind of, like, gives them a lot of attention, takes them out on a few dates, everything is going great, and then they start to feel the man kind of disappear and they reach out and they start to grab and they start to hold on tightly. Right? Yeah. Grasping. So one of the patterns, I can talk all about that more, but one of the patterns that I recognized because I, I have more of a disorganized attachment. So I have both an anxious attachment system and I have an avoidant system, um, avoidant attachment system. But one of the pieces that I noticed, uh, when I was having sex with my past partner, was that I would attach while I was having sex to the orgasm, and so I would move my body in a certain way, and I would adjust my hips in a certain way, and I would begin to feel the pleasure of building as I was going to have an orgasm. And I would attach my experience of sex at that moment to getting the orgasm, and I would grab a hold, and I would be so focused on me trying to have an orgasm. And so I and and when we do that in sex, it's the same as when you do that, when you are attaching yourself to a man, you start to lose. You have tunnel vision. And you start to lose sight of all the other possibilities around you. And you. It's you hold on so, so tightly. It's almost like you strangle the experience. And when you start to work with sacred sexuality, you begin to understand and you start to connect to your pleasure. You begin to understand that sex in it of itself when you are having sex, it's not, um, a goal orientated experience. And that sex in itself is an experience. And when you let go of attaching to the outcome, you open the door for more pleasure to come. Because when you're you're attached to the orgasm, it's like, this is the only way I know how I can have this orgasm. And I'm going to just do this and I'm going to, oh, I'm going to make it happen. When you let go of that, you begin to feel more pleasure in your body and you focus on the pleasure and you begin to feel different experiences of pleasure, and then perhaps you might have an orgasm that might even be bigger than what you were trying to grab onto. Right? So it's the recognizing. So that's an example of how. 1s Studying sexual sexuality and understanding your own sexual patterns can really like how they kind of they parallel in so many different ways in your life.

And what can someone do? Because when you're describing this, I'm like, oh my God, that's me. Yeah. Like really? when it comes to sex, but also when it comes to, uh, relationships or dating in general, um, like really attaching myself to the person. what can one do in order to heal this part of themselves, as I understand it, is connected to their childhood.

Mhm. Yeah, absolutely. So the the process that I support men and women through is a unique process that I created based upon my own exploration of these parts of myself. And like I said, the first part was journeying into sexuality development and I. Uh, became a facilitator and learned the self-pleasure modality. And so the self-pleasure modality is a modality that bridges both sexual theory and sexual sexuality and somatics. I'm not sure if you're familiar with, um, somatic Experiencing, but Peter Levine, there's a few other very, very well known and well researched somatic modalities. And soma simply means body. And so you what you're doing in the self-pleasure modality by bridging these two together is you are supporting and learning how to regulate your nervous system. Mhm. So everything goes back to your nervous system. That is the the basis for how your patterns, how you, how your patterns come out of your body. It's all based on your nervous system and the ability for you to stay present and feel the sensations in your body. So the self-pleasure modality, self-pleasure itself is a very old sacred sexuality tantric ritual where you learn to touch your body. It's not masturbation where masturbation is more goal orientated like we talked about before. Self pleasure is the exploration of. Learning how to touch your body, and it supports this transformation through touch. If you think back to babies, when babies are first born, you know the first thing that we do is we pick them up and then we put them on our skin. So we have that skin to skin contact, and you massage the baby when the baby is young and it helps to develop their senses. And all of this is transformation through touch. And over the years, we lose this transformation through touch because we have lost the ability and we have not been taught how to touch ourselves. And touch is really, really important. It stimulates the senses, it stimulates the sensations in the body, and it helps to connect you back to what you are feeling in your body. So. The. The self-pleasure modality supports you to learn how to. What I call is to expand the capacity of your nervous system. So the capacity of your nervous system is how long you can stay present and conscious, and be making conscious choices without falling into these old patterns that we have all adopted. And so this staying conscious is an means that you are aware of how you are feeling in the sensations that you're feeling in your body. For example, if let's use the example that we talked about before with the, uh, when we're dating men, and so you begin to date a man, you go on a few dates and you slowly notice that he's not messaging you as much. And so now your attachment system kicks in and you start to go to your mind and you start to think about all of the things. Maybe there's fears that come up. I did this, I said the wrong thing. I'm not pretty enough. I'm not good enough, right? You have all these fears that come up, and then you have all these strategies that come into play. Okay, what can I text him, you know, so that I can get him to message me back? Or what's a funny, cute text to say so that I know that, you know, he'll answer me? Or how can I get him to ask me on that next date? So at this moment you have moved from you've you've felt, um, an intense amount of sensations in your body when you notice that he wasn't messaging you back, because that is activating that anxious attachment system. And so if you have developed and worked on increasing your nervous system capacity and the redirection to okay, I'm feeling this right now, pause. What am I feeling in my body? What are the sensations that I'm feeling right now in my body? 1s And for anyone who's listening to this, I recommend this exercise so much. And this is something that you can do as soon as that happens. Instead, the moment you're reaching for your phone and you feel that, go to your body and notice what you're feeling in your body and notice where sensations are tingles swooshes temperature changes, butterflies, um, any sort of like fluttery movement. It could be a pounding. It could be a like a swoosh. Right? Those are examples of languages of sensation. And then you notice what you're feeling in your body. So for me, when that happens to me, when my anxious attachment system is triggered, I go in. I have a lot of activity in my in my belly and my solar plexus and in my sacral, and it's intense and it's uncomfortable for me to feel those sensations. 1s But if I stay with the sensations, the sensations only need to be felt for about 90s. So if I stay with those sensations, okay, feeling them okay, it's okay. I'm safe to feel these sensations. Feeling them okay. I'm safe to feel them. Okay? And then they leave. And then you're able to choose a response. 1s Okay. Now. Okay, now. He hasn't messaged me back. How am I feeling? I'm feeling like I need some attention. I'm feeling dropped. I'm feeling abandoned. You step into. And this is when the archetype piece comes in. You step into a different archetype. You step into more of a mature feminine archetype, of which there are many. So this is something that I've also that I integrate in my teaching is also these pieces to start to understand when we go into especially women, um, go into their, you know, their ego and their feminine shadows to try to manipulate, to try to get something from men, to try to catch them right, to try to capture them. We try to chase them. And the tactics that women use are very hurtful to men. It's not your authentic self, it's you're not leading with your heart. And so it's about making a different decision. When you come to that point, after you've been able to stop and you've been able to pause and you've been able to feel the sensations, okay, what do I need right now? Okay, I need I need to have a conversation with him. And so okay, I'm feeling this right. And you lead with your authenticity. You lead with your vulnerability. And that's really where you begin to break down that pattern of chasing unavailable men. Because you begin to connect to more of that authentic part of yourself, of what you need, and you create this safety in your body.

I love this. This brought me back to my Vipassana. Yes, it definitely brought me back there because one of the teachings was, you know, Vipassana is about sitting and meditating for hours. And one of the teachings was, if something feels uncomfortable in your body, don't move it, stay with it and you will see that it will leave. That uncomfort feeling will soon leave, and it actually does. So it is the same basically, for every kind of uncomfortable feeling, the feeling you get when he or she. It can be that as well is not answering to your text or is kind of pulling away. Just sit with it instead of reacting.

Right, right.

Wow, I love it. This was this was amazing. How about someone that maybe is not dating anyone right now? How can they start working with their patterns, with their basically issues or attachments or anything else? How can they start working with that before they jump into the next relationship?

Right. Beautiful. So the the first piece that I'd like to teach is the understanding and I call it it's like in my first pillar which is called disentangling Love from fear. And so that's what I was talking about. We really tangle our attachment system. And our survival system is really based on fear, because that's how it was developed when we were children to keep us safe. And so it's I would support and would encourage if you're not dating, to really start to get to know your attachment systems and start to understand and. Become conscious of when your attachment system is coming online and it it will happen like that. Grasping that we talked about and that chasing that will happen not only with men but it and not only with orgasm, but it happens throughout life. So maybe you have a meeting and you have to get there at a certain time. And so you might be attached, really attached to the route that you're going to take to get to that meeting. And you can't go in any other direction to that meeting. So you notice like for the for those who have that anxious attachment system, you notice where you hold on to things really tightly. Like, I have to have that phone call with somebody because I have to schedule this meeting. If I don't schedule this meeting, then, you know, I can't I can't move on in my day. Right? So you notice or or, you know, you have a drink, a drink at Starbucks, you know, you notice how you have to have this certain drink at this certain time of day, right? So start to notice what you become, that what you hold on really tightly to. And then the invitation is to begin to bring yourself and redirect your awareness back to your body. What am I feeling in my body right now? What am I feeling if I don't get that cup of tea from Starbucks today? What am I? How does that make me feel? And you? 1s You start playing with this. And the best way to do this is to really learn the self-pleasure modality, which is it is an embodiment modality. It helps you to feel, it helps you to learn how to feel, because most of us don't know how to feel. Um, because most of us are numb. And the, the, the big piece is, is that change in any pattern in any sort of in, in any piece happens much easier and much more fluidly from the body than in the mind. So when you take time to begin to just, you can for five minutes, set the timer for five minutes and begin to with intention, just touch your hand. 1s And just slowly trace your fingers on your hand. And just slowly notice how your skin is feeling. And so those are little exercises that you can do to support yourself to feel. So I would say, you know, under get to know your attachment systems, get to recognize how redirecting that awareness, how those attachment systems when they're activated, how they feel in your body, begin to use some transformation through touch to begin to connect back to feeling the sensations in your body. What's also really important is to understand your nervous system and to really understand. Because when you go into survival system, when you go into that attachment system, you're going into fight and flight or freeze. There's many things that you can do for your nervous system to regulate your nervous system throughout the day. Um, cold exposure is really good for the nervous system. Going to bed and waking. Cold exposure, like with cold water. Oh yeah. Wim Hof, Windhoek. Yes, that's really good for regulating your nervous system. And what else? You know, going to bed early. Uh, turning off your electronics, like, a certain, certain amount of time before you go to sleep. Um, having regular meals, getting sunshine. Uh, connecting a lot with nature, being outside in nature. All of these things are super, super important to, um, learn, help you, to support you, to regulate your nervous system. And that would be the next piece is to understand how your body feels when you are in freeze, how your body feels when your nervous system goes into fight and flight, and how you feel when you're regulated. And that's the expansion of your nervous system. The capacity that I was talking about is you're expanding the your ability to be comfortable in your discomfort. So the more that you can be comfortable in the discomfort of the sensations in your body, the more present you can be in your body, the more you can consciously choose to make different decisions. And so that's that. Those are the first main three key pieces. And if you're not dating, I would recommend.

We are so used to pushing the way discomfort of any type. Mhm. Yeah. It feels somehow even not so comfortable to hear that that one has to do that. You know what I mean right. Like really accepting discomfort as because it's part of our reality after all.

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I was checking your Instagram, obviously, and I saw the latest post where you were writing about an available man seeking your leaking sexual energy.

Ah yes. Yes.

What does that mean? Because it really caught my attention. Beautiful. Okay, so if we we we like to talk about unavailable men are men. I would define as men who are unable or emotionally unavailable. Who? 1s I have a fear of connection. Essentially, they're most likely in the pattern of the avoidant attachment system. Mhm. And the avoidant attachment system is one of when they were children they would reach out. They would have their cry, their signal cry um for help, for connection, for a need. And they would reach out with a cry and it would be met with either. Nothing. No response. Or it would be met with kind of like a like perhaps a negative response. 1s A response that wasn't encouraging to them, so they would see a face that wasn't welcoming to their cry. And so what the avoidant learned the avoidant attachment system, actually, it learned how to turn back on itself and become self-sufficient on itself. And while self-sufficiency is beautiful and it's important, it's this is done in a way that it fears connection, because connection was something that it never really experienced. So the avoidant becomes very self-reliant. And women have this too. I have a part of this in me as well so that they don't need. They don't need connection. Mhm. Now I also talk to you about how we are not really connected to our body and we're, most of us are numb. And so because most of us are numb um, and not connected to our emotional body, women are also not emotionally available. We might have a little bit more language skills to communicate our feelings, but we are also. Emotionally unavailable to connect to our emotions authentically. And it also takes a level of regulation to learn how to communicate clearly so that when we communicate our emotions, we're not like spilling them onto somebody else. So the leaky sexual energy. So all of our energy. In our body, everything that we're talking about, the orgasm, the sensations, all of the feelings. Right? All of the emotions, all of that is your energy. All of it is your sexual energy. If we go back to the conversation that we had in the beginning around sacred sexuality, it's that Kundalini. So we are beings that have an energy body and we have a physical body of matter. So we have both of these entities in us. And so this energetic body that we have, that is our emotional body. We haven't really been taught to understand our emotions, to feel our emotions and so forth. So the energy and your emotions and your feelings and your sexual energy is all the same. It's all the same energy. That post I wrote about that he the I think it's the unavailable man is seeking your your is seeking your leaky sexual energy so unavailable men look for women they feel comfortable with women who cannot express themselves fully and in full integrity because that will call them forward. That will scare them. They're going to have to be vulnerable. They're going to have to open their heart. They're going to have to trust, they're going to have to connect. And the avoidant doesn't want to have anything to do with that because the avoidant fears connection. So the avoidant feel safe with a woman who has an anxious attachment style. And that anxious attachment style is when you. Exactly what I talked about at the beginning, when you when your energy reaches out to grab on to him, you're leaking your energy. And leaking in a sense means is that the energy is not clear, it's not clean, it's not in integrity, it's not authentic. So I can give you a quick example of, um, leaky sexual energy and non leaky sexual energy. So leaky sexual energy, like we said, we'll use the same example. The man didn't message you back. You start to feel he's pulling away. He's pulling away. What did I do. And reach out. You send like maybe like a cute picture of yourself, right. And you maybe you say something like, why haven't I heard from you? Or I'm getting tired over here waiting to hear from you, right? You make some sort of, like, comment like that, right? Um, and you start maybe try to start like a banter. Okay. So that is your in the mind. You're using manipulation, your heart is closed. You're not being authentic. And so and and your energy itself is like trying to get him to be close to you. So. That is your leaking that sexual energy out and you're, you're you're leaking it because that is also energy that you bring back to yourself. If you can bring all of that focus, all of that energy, what is he doing? Why didn't he message me back? He should be finished with work by now. All of that energy again is your sexual energy because it's all your sexual energy is going out and you're wasting it. And if you bring it back to yourself like we spoke about before, like, oh, what am I feeling in my body? What are the sensations that I'm feeling in my body are okay, I'm feeling a lot in my solar plexus right now. Oh, okay. Let me stay with this right now. Okay. You're bringing your energy back to you. And I know this isn't a video recording, but I'm, like, using my hands to, like, energy. Back to yourself. Okay? Let me feel these sensations. I feel these sensations. Okay? Okay. What? What is it that I need right now? Okay. I'm feeling. I'm feeling confused. I'm feeling like he's pulling away. I am feeling abandoned. A little of my abandonment wound coming on. I feel as though I need to have a conversation with him. I need to understand what's happening. So that's your need. So then you pick up the phone and your message. In integrity to him is I'm. I'm feeling nervous right now. I'm feeling that you're pulling away. Or the story that I'm making up in my head is that you're pulling, pulling away from me. I would like to have a conversation. Can we talk later tonight? And so you're just very clear. You state your feeling, you state your need, and then you ask, you know, to have that need met. And so that is that is challenging that avoidant man to step forth into connection. 1s So you are. You are inviting him. The female, the feminine always invites. You are inviting him to step forward into connection with you. And so how he responds to that invitation is dependent upon his level. So you're opening your heart. You're opening you're being vulnerable in this message. This is what men want. Men. Men need to feel our. We're essentially in relationships. It's like the man and the woman are walking around with this, like armor. Like we're just, like, walking around armor all the time. And that's why we can't connect. Because we're bouncing off of each other. And so he needs to see this as the invitation, and then he needs to face and see his fears. Okay. A vulnerable response from him could be I'm feeling scared. I'm feeling unsure right now about our connection. I really like you, but I'm feeling a little unsure about this connection. But yes, let's talk. That would be an authentic response from him. A non authentic response from him. From that invitation it would be he doesn't message you back for a few days and then he messages you back something like funny or cute. Um hi. Right. So that's an indication that he's, he's at a you know, he's not he's at a different level. You can choose to be in that space with him, or you can choose to recognize that, okay, there's not much here for me to work with, right? For for two people to be able to, you know, step into love together. It's a conscious choice to step into love together. And for two people to step into love together, they have to both be willing to, um, have open discussions about their fears, their shame. You know, the pieces that have been kept in the shadows for so long. So that's what that post is about around the leaky sexual energy, is that I answer your question a little bit.

Yes, this was beautiful. Can someone have both avoiding and anxious uh, attachments?

Yes.

Because I feel like I have both. Yeah, I have both. I have both okay.

I have both two. Yeah. I had my my avoidant in my last relationship. I'm now with an a new relationship, which is a beautiful, beautiful, really deep relationship. And my last and we're like it's like the the birth of the new relationship. So it's like a baby and we're like creating. Nice. Yeah. Um, I haven't noticed my I have noticed my avoidant a little bit, but I know very well my avoidant in my last relationship would come when he would, he would make the effort to reach out. To me, and he would make the effort to initiate connection, and I would not answer his phone call or I would make him wait, you know, to answer the text back.

Okay, I understand. Do you have any advice for women who are dating around men or actually for people who are dating wrong people? Because I assume it it's applicable to both. I don't want this to be just about women. Do you have any advice? Because I hear it quite often from my patients or from friends. Yeah, but when I discovered what he, for example, was like, I was already in love.

Mhm. Right. So this is why understanding and and getting to know your attachment system is so so so so important because we have different types of. Connections that we make. So we have what are called connections that are. You meet somebody and it's like instantaneous and it's like chemistry and it's like fast and furious, like you want to just like, suck their face and you can't stop talking to them and you can't get enough of them and they can't get enough of you. And it's like, oh, it goes real fast. And before you know it, you're like, moving in together. And then it's like, oh, wait a minute, this is not working out. Oh, wait a minute. This is not working out. Oh wait a minute. This isn't who this person is. Right. So you have that. And that can be that is often what's called trauma bonding where you your attachment system is connecting to another's attachment system that was similar to yours as childhood. And it's ah, the dynamic it's creating, that push and pull dynamic that you experience as a child. So it feels like love because it feels feels familiar. 1s To you, but it is in fact not love. And this is why, in my first pillar, I have disentangling love from fear. Because you actually have to recreate what love feels like in your body. Because we have associated it with somebody else. And that's why the self-pleasure practice is so important is to connect back to your own body, connect back to yourself, connect back to your sensations, to feel what you really like and what you, um, what feels good to you and what is love to you so you can have a relationship that begins with a trauma bond, but you just have to recognize and your partner has to recognize that this is what's happening. And you have to have the tools and the skills, the communication skills, the tools to recognize what's happening in your body, the tools to recognize when you're beginning to close, when you're beginning to armor up, and what it is you need to do to open what it needs you. What do you need to do to ask the other person to open, um, how to communicate your non-negotiables and your standards? So there's tools that we need in relationships that we have not been taught, and it's almost like we are expected. We're expected to love because when we were children, our parents would hold us, give us a pat on the back, give us a kiss on the head. I love you right. And so it's it's supposed, you know, it's like this understanding that, okay, we're all supposed to be able to love each other and you just get into a relationship and that you can navigate it. And in fact, it is really important to to. Take the responsibility to, you know, educate yourself with tools around how to support yourself in relationships so to recognize when that. 1s When these pieces come up and when it comes up where you're, you know, you you you are trauma bonding with somebody. And the word trauma bonding sounds bad. It sounds like trauma bonding like this is a bad situation. And chemistry is not necessarily bad. Chemistry is a good thing. Um, you can also consciously create chemistry with polarity, with the dance of polarity, which is the dance of the masculine and feminine energies and knowing how to. That's another archetypal understanding, knowing how to embody and how to be in your feminine when he's in his masculine, or how to be in your masculine when he's in his feminine. And that's also a dance and a tool and a technique that is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful to use in relationships. So if you are, you know, starting to date and you're finding yourself in these relationships, it's it's really, really important to begin to recognize where you might be. 1s Saying yes to the same pieces over and over again, and where you can push yourself, push an edge. When you are dating, you know. Start to become curious when you're dating. When you what? I like to encourage men and women to do when they go out and they start dating is not to be like, okay, I'm really serious. I got to find somebody, you know, and it make it like a serious thing become be clear with your intentions, okay? I'm looking for a husband I want to marry. But be more curious when you're out on a date, like, okay, like, how am I feeling right now? He's having a conversation with me. You know, he's looking at me. How am I feeling right now? Okay. He pulled the chair out for me. How does that make me feel? Okay. And just starting to tune into how you're feeling on the date and then begin to speak about it. Right? Begin to say things that are authentic and vulnerable on the date I feel I feel a little nervous. You know, you just sit down on the date. Maybe you're having coffee and your hands are sweating. Hi, how are you? Nice to meet you. I'm feeling a little nervous right now. I'm feeling nervous to meet you. Right. Start leading and start, um, start playing with these little pieces of vulnerability and sharing. Sharing with them. Um, because it opens your throat chakra. It opens. It opens the movement of opening your body and opening your heart. Notice when he says something and you might feel triggered. You might feel the need to go into competition. Notice if he says something and you feel as though he's criticizing you, notice. So just really, really start to get curious, because when you start to get curious about what's coming up in your body, your body is constantly giving you information. It's constantly giving you all of this information. And it doesn't. You don't have to categorize it as good information or bad information. It just is. And you get to be curious and like, okay, and when you start to play in that space versus is he unavailable? Is he going to call me back? Is this or this? Is he going to be able to provide? Is he paying for the check, which, you know, that might or might not be important to you? And that's fine. But you you bring it, you're bringing your sexual energy back to here, back to yourself. When you start to become curious and you're not spilling it out so much on them. So that's what I would recommend is just be curious and dating and support yourself in learning tools and be curious about how you feel,

not just how the other person is reacting or you're curious if they like you. This is beautiful.

Yes. Wow. That's a beautiful point. Because with the anxious attachment system, we often say yes when we mean no. So if, um, if a man or a woman chooses somebody with an anxious attachment system, it's often like, yes, I have been chosen instead of you recognizing that you can also choose. And you, you can be the one that chooses. You have to choose each other. You don't just like him just because he has chosen you.

Hmm, I like that. I so want to ask about other attachment types, but I can imagine there are a lot of them. Uh, if you can just explain very briefly other attachment types, because this is so interesting, but I know the time is running out, I know that. So maybe just briefly, if you could explain a bit about that.

Absolutely. Well there's three there's three main attachment types. And that is the um it's called ambivalent or the anxious attachment. Yeah. There's the avoidant um, which we spoke about. And then there's the disorganized or fearful fearful avoidant. The fearful is one that has really experienced a lot of physical sexual abuse. Uh, like severe severe trauma. Um, the disorganized is is the disorganized is a little bit of both the avoidant and the anxious wrapped into wrapped altogether. So those are kind of like the main ones.

Okay. So the fearful is someone that actually has experienced sexual trauma. Wow.

Right. And and they are more apt to shut down to that freeze response. They disconnect and they disassociate. The avoidant disassociated to the fearful, disorganized will really disassociate and just kind of like disconnect completely because that's what they had to do to survive. If you were a survivor of physical or sexual abuse or even emotional abuse, but you had to disconnect from your body when you were experiencing the trauma. And so that disconnect and that disassociation from your body is your survival response. And so that is the response that they bring into their relationships. Is that disassociation?

Wow. Thank you for sharing that. Any advice for people dating on social apps?

Absolutely I have I've had some wild experiences on dating apps, primarily on Tinder is the one that I've had experience with. I met my past partner on Tinder of five years and that was a beautiful relationship. I have been scammed on Tinder and like I had somebody try to, you know, pretend that they were a person and I don't even know if they were a real person or if it was somebody from. Yeah, far away and try to, you know, get obtain information from me that was really scary and damaging. And then I met my current partner, who I'm with right now, my new lover ship that's happening. I met him on Tinder. So you did. Yeah. Yeah. Um, that gives me hope. 3s Um, I yeah, I, I with with the dating apps. What I like to do is to. Really be conscious when I'm on them. So what what I noticed, which all of us do, is the dating apps can be very much like numbing, like Instagram, like you just scroll through. And so with dating apps like it can also be the same thing. Like you just swipe, swipe, swipe and you become disassociated and you become not disassociated, but you kind of become disconnected and you kind of become numb, and you're just kind of like swiping through. So my invitation is always to like, just create some time. And space, you know, to go on the dating apps and to look and to consciously choose, you know, a partner that you're going to connect with. And then once you begin a conversation with somebody, just recognize that you are once you begin a conversation with somebody, you're in like an energetic connection with that person, and you are exchanging your energy and be begin to be authentic, you know, right away. And then because I was scammed, I always recommend that you have some sort of video call so you know that it's a real person, because that was my experience, that I wasn't a real person and slowly begin to have conversations about about pieces and about things and really tune into the energy. Right? Like, is this does this feel good to me? Is this somebody that kind of lights me up? Am I feeling energetic around this person? Am I not feeling energetic? Really kind of tuning into the energy that you feel with the person. And then if it's somebody who you've started a conversation with and you're not so interested, I always recommend closing the conversation. So saying, you know, I appreciate your time. Thank you so much. I'm not interested in continuing this conversation. And when you do that, you energetically close this container so it's not left open because as women, women complain all the time about being ghosted. But often we do the same thing. And so to change the the fabric of dating right now, we also have to step into being in more integrity. So when we start to close conversations, um, and speak authentically, even on the dating apps, we are treating others how we want to be treated. Um, and that is, you know, the beginning of kind of changing the fabric in this culture that's been created.

Wow. Thank you.

Yeah, absolutely.

I'm really speechless I love it. Thank you so much for sharing this.

Absolutely I appreciate everything.

Lastly, can you tell us how people can come in contact with you and how you can help them?

Absolutely. So I am primarily on Instagram at Dr.. Underscore Elizabeth underscore Willis. And all my information is there. I have daily posts that are very informational. I have a free women's group on telegram called men, Women and Life and the link to join. That is in the link in my bio on my telegram. That's a free group, and it's a beautiful little community that I've been building for a few months now where most of us journey the anxious attachment. The father wound is the anxious attachment. We didn't get into that conversation, but that's another archetypal, you know, relationship there. Um, I do run group programs. I'm not running any group programs right now. I have a mentorship. I usually I have two spaces for a mentorship. It's a five month mentorship where I mentor men and women, um, in dating through my process. And that if you're interested in that, there is a link on my bio where you can book a call with me. And then I have my sexuality school, which is called the Institute New Paradigm intimacy. And the link for that school is there. That is, if you are a coach or mentor, um, a teacher, a nurse, anyone, and you want to learn the self-pleasure modality and become certified in the self-pleasure modality, that's a nine month course, sexuality course that's available. And then I have a bimonthly event, if you're local in Miami, which is called enlightenment in the bedroom, which is where I have guest speakers, and we sit for the evening and we talk about intimacy, sex and relationships.

Amazing. And I'm putting all these links in the notes so it will be easy for people listen to the podcast finding all the links.

Oh I appreciate that. Great.

Thank you so much. Is there any last message before we close this?

No. I think the last message that I have to say is, thank you so much for bringing this, bringing and reaching out. And, um, really? Yeah, a relationships are a beautiful thing and they're also very challenging. And like you said in the beginning, like we're meant for connection and we're meant for this growth. So I feel like as, um, a culture and as a society, we're really stepping into recognizing and taking responsibility for ourselves and how we're showing up. And it's really changing the fabric, I think, in so many different ways.

Yeah. So true. Well, then we'll leave it with that. Thank you so much for being here with us. All right. Thank you. Now it's your turn. Let me know what health and abundant subjects you want me to cover in the future. Do that by commenting on the post on Instagram. Thank you for listening and thank you so much to Elizabeth for being here with us today. If you liked it, please leave a review at Pod chaser.com. Just search for the podcast and write a good review. And if you have questions, please do let me know on Instagram. In the next episode, we'll be talking about healing relationships before they reach the breaking point. And remember, you are always trading your health and abundance what you choose to create today.