Lisa Marie Rankin [00:00:00]:

In this episode, I get to speak with Amy Everhart. She's a writer, educator, and a trauma informed intimacy coach who specializes in helping women deconstruct internalized purity culture and reconnect to their bodies and hearts. We talk about people pleasing, romanticy, and smut for hailing, bashing the patriarchy, and so much more. We also talk about the shadow side of therapy and self help and what to do instead. I know you will love this juicy, spicy, exciting conversation. Let's dive in. Welcome to the God of School podcast, where Eastern wisdom meets Western mysticism. I'm your host, Lisa Marie Rankine, author, teacher, and Ayurvedic wellness coach here to help you reclaim your feminine superpowers, and I am so glad you're here.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:00:51]:

Listen. Women are magical. They are intuitive, creative, wise, and magnetic. However, in today's fast paced world, these gifts often get buried under a more masculine way of life. Together, we'll awaken those powers. In each episode, I'll take you through sacred teachings like Ayurveda, shadow work, and the mysteries of archetypes and rituals so you can live with more clarity, synchronicity, and joy in all realms of life, like relationships, health, money, and more. So let's dive in so you can make the most of your one mythic life. The veil is parting.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:01:29]:

Let's begin. Hello, beautiful listeners, and welcome back to the Goddess School podcast. So today I am here with Amy Everhart, and I am so excited to introduce you to her. Now I found Amy on the interwebs on Instagram, and we both have a passion for reading romantacy and really how we can apply these principles to our everyday lives. So I'm thrilled for this conversation and excited to see where it goes. So, Amy, thank you so much for, for joining me today.

Amy Everhart [00:02:05]:

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. I remember finding you on Instagram, I think via your ACOTAR workshop series. And I went, I don't know who this is, but her work is so cool. Let's be best friends. I think I sent you like a random article and then it just kind of went off from there.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:02:22]:

Yes. I thought that was like, so interesting too, because I remember, and it's funny because I don't do this with everyone, but I think you either you liked it or sent a note. And then I looked at you and you were doing something sort of similar. I was like, oh, how interesting. Somebody else who is like looking at romantacy through a different lens that, and yeah. I mean, you don't see those people all the time. So I felt like it was like an instant, instant connection.

Amy Everhart [00:02:45]:

For sure. For sure. Yeah. And I think with romantic. There's so much happening right now. And I think some people are thinking of it in a more negative light. Some people are thinking of it in a more positive light. I think you and I are bringing like an academic sense, a spiritual sense and archetypal sense.

Amy Everhart [00:03:05]:

So we have a lot of fun things to talk about.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:03:07]:

I know I'm so excited now before we even dive into that, could you just tell everyone a little bit about yourself and how you came to be doing what you're doing? For sure. Yeah. So I am actually an English teacher by trade. That's probably not going

Amy Everhart [00:03:21]:

to surprise you with my love of books, but I became a certified ICF credentialed trauma informed intimacy coach. It's a bit of a mouthful, but basically, I'm a certified coach who helps women deconstruct purity culture. And I say deconstruct because we know I think we think of purity culture as this external force, which it totally is, but it's also a set of often internalized beliefs about what it means to be good. We think about purity culture in terms of sex and sexuality, but that idea of what it means to be a good girl or a good woman. I have found permeates pretty much every area of life. So what I do is help women deconstruct the internalized pieces and then reconnect to their bodies and their hearts and who they are under all of that. Wow.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:04:18]:

That's amazing. And so, so well needed. So thank you for, you know, explaining like the purity culture as it applies to just, and I know there's so many women in my community that are really going to be relating because it's like we were trained to be the good girl.

Amy Everhart [00:04:33]:

Yep. Good, sweet, polite, obedient self sacrificing. And I think, you know, a lot of what I have found a lot of those qualities and traits don't necessarily completely disappear as you deconstruct. So there's, there's often a swing, right? Where we go from completely good in the metaphorical core set of who we're supposed to be. And then it's like, okay, let me swing over to my villain era and really be like the bad girl and focus only on me. And what most of my clients do is then settle somewhere in the middle. Right? There's kind of a, like a growth trajectory that we find. And so I wanna say that kind of at the top to say, if the work freaks you out, you don't necessarily need to go from like good girl to villain era in sixty seconds.

Amy Everhart [00:05:26]:

You, you can, you can keep some of the traits of each as you construct who you actually are in that self.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:05:34]:

Yeah. Oh, I love that. And it's very union, which my community is also very interested in, which, you know, we actually were just working with the dark queen inside my membership community. I like what you were saying kind of about the pendulum, because I do think that it's almost like we can be like, okay, I'm too good. But then we go in the other direction. It's like, well, that doesn't really feel totally like me either. Because one of the things that I've been thinking about lately, and I would love to get your take on, is the concept of people pleasing. Like, this comes up a lot, like, where people are like, I've just been people pleasing my entire life.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:06:08]:

And, yes, we don't want to be people pleasers and live our lives for other people. And if we didn't have any of that and we were just living for ourselves, that's gonna feel kind of isolating as well, too. Like we can look at, you know, all of these studies that show people who have someone to care for live much longer. People who have a network and feel needed are much happier. So I think that's almost like another example where it's like, we have this in the zeitgeist. Like you shouldn't people please. And yet is it isn't it more in between?

Amy Everhart [00:06:42]:

Yeah. I love this question so much. Okay. So I think what we're really honing in on is one of the key myths or lies that purity culture tells us that there's an either or there's a good, there's a bad, there's a light, there's a dark. And in reality, we typically contain all of it. And we're so afraid of the dark or bad desires or aspects of ourself that we kind of shun those, shove those into a closet. I'm never gonna be selfish ever. I'm always gonna be perfect and selfless and take everyone's, you know, needs into account.

Amy Everhart [00:07:19]:

And then that breaks one day. Right. And so everything that's been in that closet kind of like comes bursting out. I think the reality is we want a balance that feels true. Right. I have never worked with a single client and I have not had this experience where you leave people pleasing and all of a sudden become like a sociopath. Right. That's, that's typically not the trajectory that we have.

Amy Everhart [00:07:48]:

It's usually much more focused around when I am being the truth of who I am when I am my most authentic me. That's actually when I have the most to give to others. And I think that's probably the biggest lesson I have learned on my underworld journey is that the most selfish I have been has been what I've been attempting to be what someone else wants.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:08:16]:

Oh, I love that.

Amy Everhart [00:08:18]:

Yeah. Because in that paradigm, I'm so focused on keeping the structure and control of that constructed self that I can't actually connect with any other human being. So, I mean, the first question I always ask a recovering people pleaser is how pleased are people with you actually? Because when we start peeling the layers back, the dynamics that you're engaged in, when you're in a relationship involving people pleasing usually aren't working for the other person.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:08:53]:

That is like such a good point. You have like my mind blown as I'm like, kind of thinking about even my past where, how it was people pleasing. And it was almost like this like insidious trade I was trying to make. Like, if I am super nice to you, you will give me what I, or there was, there was a kind of a bargain.

Amy Everhart [00:09:14]:

Yes. Yeah. You're on one hand, you're kind of making your deal with the devil for, you know, giving up who you are in truth for love, right. Approval, etcetera. And on the other hand, you're kind of low key manipulating the other person into loving you, which isn't actual real love and affection. So sometimes I have found being the messier self, the more complete self that has the really sweet, you know, service oriented aspects, as well as kind of a bratty, selfish version, melding those two together, wielding them with consciousness and discernment. That's what opens up the doorway for the real authentic connection to come through, which is what most people want. They're just choosing people pleasing as the pathway.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:10:06]:

Yeah. Oh, that's just such beautiful wisdom to think about it that way. Because I think often when women are feeling that they are recovering people pleasers, they're sort of looking at it like just a lot of their energy is Expended on others as opposed to kind of thinking about, well, why were they doing it in the first place? And how did that actually, instead of getting what it is that they wanted, it actually created a wall between us is so it's also empowering back to the back to the woman or back to the individual about like, how do I want to show up?

Amy Everhart [00:10:39]:

Absolutely. And I think to your point, people pleasing as a wall is so important. When we think about like trauma healing, for example, Sometimes we're in environments where it isn't safe, right? It's not physically safe, psychologically safe. Like we've all had those experiences or relationships that just didn't feel good to be the squishiest version of yourself in. And so people pleasing is a coping mechanism and it's erecting a wall of safety around you. And sometimes those defenses are needed. So don't shame yourself if that's kind of the pattern that you've engaged in and yet there's going to come a point when you start to outgrow the defenses and then a lot of fun, juicy stuff gets to happen from there.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:11:30]:

Yeah. Oh, I love that. I had an author, a young and analyst on, I think like earlier on in the podcast, Lisa Marciano, who had a book, the vital spark. And, you know, she talks a lot about the, the good girl, the people pleaser, how it's a strategy because it works to an extent, but then it stops. There's like a glass failing. So it makes sense why women might be prone to do it, but it's not going to get you to where you need to go or who you want to be.

Amy Everhart [00:11:59]:

Exactly. Yeah. It's, it's a false promise of love. And it's almost like the armor that women need to move through a world that puts them into a box that has nothing to do with who they actually are. The world right now is so terrified of feminine power, terrified. Women are taught to be small and shrink. We're infantilized. Not because that's the truth of who we are, but because the truth of who we are is so wild and so powerful that it can be seen as an uncontainable and untamable force.

Amy Everhart [00:12:40]:

And so we accidentally buy into the lie to keep ourselves safe. That being good is how we get, you know, what we need in life. And yet it's actually the thing that blocks us. Yeah.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:12:52]:

Oh, I love how you say that. Cause I often, when I talk about the feminine, it's like, sometimes we think it's like beauty creativity, receptivity, but it's also, like you said, wild, untamable chaos. There was also the aspect of it too, which is, which is also beautiful.

Amy Everhart [00:13:08]:

And no, no wonder some of them then wanted to control it. They were like, I don't, she's having an emotional storm. I don't even know how to handle this. Yeah. Yeah.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:13:19]:

So tell me a little bit about how did you start using, we can say like romanticy, or I know you like to use the word smut as a medium for healing or for inner work. Can you just tell me a little bit about your journey and, and how you use it?

Amy Everhart [00:13:34]:

Oh my gosh. I love this question. I'm going to try to not answer it in like thirty full minutes. Okay. So I grew up in a really patriarchal and evangelical Christian tradition. And so I had a really intense conditioning of be good. Also a really intense conditioning of what being good meant in a lot of ways that cut me off from just my natural self, my natural reactions, my anger, my grief, my sort of like darker feelings and emotions. I was like, I'm not going to stay here.

Amy Everhart [00:14:16]:

I'm going to go to therapy. I'm going to go to coaching. I even became a certified professional coach. All of that was amazing. I've loved the somatic work. I've done cognitive behavioral therapy, etcetera. I honestly don't think anything healed me as much as reading like silly, smutty, romant to see and erotica books. It was the biggest, like, shock of my life because there was something about getting to open a book and visit another world where the characters weren't limited by what I was limited by.

Amy Everhart [00:14:53]:

It opened this little, like, teeny tiny portal in my mind. Oh, well, if so and so is doing that, maybe I could too. And so it was this shift for me away from focusing on what's wrong. What's wrong with me? How am I broken? How am I lost? What do I need to fix within myself to what if I just picked up this book, had a good time, read for pleasure and enjoyment, and then maybe embodied some of those qualities that I love in my favorite heroines. Maybe those get to be for me too. So it was this massive paradigm shift away from fixing myself to exploring not only what was possible for the world, but what was possible within me. And it was like also really, really fun and had sexy shadow daddies and like a lot of amazing sex scenes. So it, it was kind of like healing through pleasure and play rather than like crying through an entire box of tissues on your therapist couch.

Amy Everhart [00:16:00]:

So Yeah. You're you're gonna heal. Like, which path do you wanna take to get there? I preferred the smutty erotica path.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:16:07]:

Yeah. I was gonna say if it's between like, you know, traditional self help or having shadow daddies, like, why wouldn't you choose the shadow daddies? Like, why?

Amy Everhart [00:16:14]:

I didn't know shadow daddies were an option. And I was like, oh, this, this is what has been missing from my healing journey. Got it. Thank you. Thank you, universe.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:16:23]:

Yeah. Oh, that makes me like, just so like Excited. Happy to hear you like, say all of that too. Cause it's very similar to my path where it's like, you know, I kind of went down the coaching, the self help became a coach with this really intensive program. And then something dawned on me. Like, I think we're looking in the wrong direction. Like, why are we looking at all of these parts that we continue to want to heal instead of what do we want to become? What other options are there? What do I really want for my life, for my partnerships, for my sex life, whatever it is. Not that there's not a time for healing a time of journeying into the underworld and doing that work and understanding, but I don't think we want to stay there.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:17:05]:

I think we also have to like have that imagination of like, well, what do I wanna, how do I wanna show up

Amy Everhart [00:17:10]:

for my life? Yeah, that I think you just articulated one of the most powerful pieces that women on this journey leave on the table. There is an Instagram account that I follow that is all about being angry at the church for the myths and abuse that we have endured through purity culture. And I resonated with this account for a long time because I had a lot of anger for really valid reasons. And then there got to be a time when I went, I feel like that's served its purpose. I don't wanna be angry anymore. I don't wanna drown in this. I don't wanna be sad. What the heck was all of this healing for if I don't get to have an after picture and go to the other side? And so I started to play with the idea as I formed my new business.

Amy Everhart [00:18:10]:

What if instead of focusing on looking backward and what's wrong, what if I could be almost like a little candle for those who haven't gone to the underworld yet? It's kind of like a little like, hey, come, come here. Here's what's on the other side. Here are the things that you get to enjoy and experience after you go through the healing journey.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:18:33]:

And

Amy Everhart [00:18:34]:

so there is something to getting to be in the joy of the after picture after you've done that hard work. If that makes sense.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:18:44]:

Yeah. I love that. I feel like that's like the ascent. A lot of the focus is on the descent, but there's not a lot of talk about the ascent and it's interesting. I don't wanna take us too far off because I love, I love talking about romantic and this hailing journey, but I also sometimes fail that it's a little bit manipulative to always work on the descent because as a coach who have gone through coaching and business programs, everyone's like, you need to market to the pain. Always point out some pain points. So you scroll through Instagram and everyone's talking about the anxious attachment, the trauma that never hails, and all of this, which is creating this vortex of, oh my goodness, there's more healing and that's because how people are taught to sell. So it's really kind of a shadow side of this industry.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:19:32]:

And I've had so many marketing gurus say that pain sells, possibilities don't, And yet I don't think that's where we want to stay.

Amy Everhart [00:19:40]:

I love that you brought that up. I just had a conversation with a girlfriend. I was like, I refuse to sell people things by dysregulating their nervous systems. Like I don't, I don't want to do it. It doesn't feel right to me. I would much rather create like a desire of response and attraction. Let me flirt with you a little bit. Come on, Come on into my world.

Amy Everhart [00:20:04]:

It's really fun here. You're gonna love it. Let me give you a little tease of what's coming for you. Yeah. It carries a different energy. And I think romantic books, the the purpose they have served in my life and the purpose they're serving culturally for so many women right now is beyond escapism. It's again, opening that portal to another paradigm and healing through those responses of desire and attraction rather than let's look at what's wrong. Let's look at what might be, let's look at what could be and for you, maybe it's for you too.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:20:40]:

Yeah. Yeah. That's I love that. One thing that I've noticed on romanticizing too, is that I feel that it connects us with our more primal desires, which I think is important that we're not having these like performative desires. And I remember reading this article in psychology today. I think it was called the end of sex talking about how more therapists than ever were, like, seeing married couples because, you know, the women didn't think the men were dominant enough, but the men were just, like, well, I just wanna make sure that I'm this loving partner and I'm, like, so communicating. I wanna be an Asshole. Yeah.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:21:14]:

Yeah. And yet the woman's like, I wish she was a little bit more of an asshole, at least in the bedroom. And then when we have all of these books, right. And they are very dominant and they're aggressive and they're possessive and yet like women, and I will say myself included are like, you know, like, oh my goodness, Scott is awesome. Like, where do I find it?

Amy Everhart [00:21:32]:

Bring me a shadow daddy.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:21:34]:

Yes. Like what do you think of like that dichotomy of like what we're told we should want in reality and what we might actually want. Again, I have

Amy Everhart [00:21:45]:

so many thoughts on this. So one of, one of the kind of like cheeky things I like to say is I work in the realm of elicit desires, right? The shadowy things that you're not supposed to want, but maybe you secretly do, which is why smut and erotica can be so fun because it's safe. Right?

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:22:04]:

Mhmm.

Amy Everhart [00:22:04]:

I think somewhere along the lines with patriarchy, men and women, and I'm being very like heteronormative in, in this explanation because of what we're talking about with romantic see, but men and women kind of lost their way in terms of relating to one another. And so this myth or idea got formed that in order to be masculine, you had to be an asshole. And in order to be feminine, you had to be silent. And the reality is so different. And so people raised under this conditioning of asshole or silent, shove down any other desires. And so you have a lot of like really sweet, nice, well meaning men who aren't in touch with their aggression or their dominance or their masculinity or their desire to win. You know, you can put like the nicest guy in front of a sports team and he's yelling things like kill them, you know, at the TV. And it's like, oh my God, what happened to you? But it's not necessarily, I think a huge problem of men are like not being men anymore.

Amy Everhart [00:23:22]:

I think there's this thing where men have also been affected by purity culture and cut off a lot of their more problematic emotions.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:23:33]:

And then

Amy Everhart [00:23:33]:

they bring out maybe like a problematic thing in the bedroom and girls are like, oh my God. I love it. Right.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:23:39]:

I just feel like, woah, what do

Amy Everhart [00:23:40]:

we do? I I honestly feel like I just wanna sit them in down and be like, okay, here here's the deal. Yes. I do love that in a book. Don't ever say that in real life. You know, I think it's a situation where all of these qualities are within us, whether it's like dominance and submission or even just a possessiveness, right? Like a territoriality, all of these qualities exist within us, but we're told that we can't have them. And so when you're told that you can't have them, you express them unconsciously and maybe in ways that are not the best, if you make something like dominance or aggression. Okay. Then you get to bring that out into the light and express it consciously and be discerning about how and when you use that, that's what takes us from shadow baby to shadow daddy.

Amy Everhart [00:24:34]:

The daddies know how to wield their own shadows for our fun and enjoyment. Right. And so if I had anything I could tell men, it would be get comfortable with your shadows, just know how to wield them. So they don't wield you and for women get comfortable exploring what desires you have shoved into the closet. It might make for really fun orgasms. Just saying.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:25:02]:

Yeah, that's great. I love the shadow. What makes a shadow baby and a shadow daddy. And, yeah. And it's so interesting how, like, yes, like you can use romantic for shadow work. And isn't again, you could go through all these crazy journal prompts that make you feel bad or, yeah, you could read fun books.

Amy Everhart [00:25:19]:

Or you could read a really naughty book and pass it to your girlfriends and then send each other memes. And all of a sudden we're healing. It's kind of like secret vegetables in, you know, the tomato sauce or whatever. We're, we're getting all of that spinach healing, but we're doing it through something really fun and pleasure based that is sustaining and life giving and enjoyable. If you have options. I think that's the one I will take.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:25:46]:

I agree. Me too. So I remember, I think you had shared a post that you had wrote. It was this really like great article and I had shared it, but you had an acronym and I'm like, I have no idea what she's talking about. And I actually had to like Google the acronym. So I know now, even though I read the book P Y H O T H, can you please? Okay. Okay. Okay.

Amy Everhart [00:26:08]:

I I'm like, I wrote, I wrote that in one sitting, by the way. It just like, I I write every day and I got up and it came to me. And so I don't even remember what I put in that article. I'll post it. I'll add it

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:26:20]:

to the show notes so people can see. I'll I'll link directly there. Yeah.

Amy Everhart [00:26:24]:

Okay. So as I sit down to write this article, I get a text from my group chat called put your hands on the headboard, which is the acronym. This is a trio of Sarah J. Maas fans. And I wanna say we had started the group chat to talk about the release of Crescent City, like the third Crescent City book. Mhmm. I have basically, these are the two women. They're my ACOTAR mothers who got me on the Sarah J.

Amy Everhart [00:26:56]:

Maas journey, which started my whole romantic sea obsession. We had a group chat and the group chat needed a name. So obviously it became put your hands on the headboard, which is I think all of our favorite line from a court of silver flames from that series. And every time I get a text from put your hands on the headboard, it's like this little teeny reminder. If I'm dealing with a work problem or stressed out about something like pleasure exists, play exists, sisterhood exists, and, and you get to return to that as your baseline.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:27:33]:

Yeah. Oh, I love that. I thought that that was like, so, so cute. Cause at first, yeah, the way that you used it, I was like, oh, I should know this. But I'm like, I don't know this. So I had to like research it a little bit. I'm like, oh,

Amy Everhart [00:27:43]:

this is so great.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:27:44]:

I brought,

Amy Everhart [00:27:44]:

I brought you into my, my for that. Yeah.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:27:47]:

And we're actually, we're going through, and it's interesting, you know, as we've been talking about self help in my divine feminine mystery school archetypal lab, we're currently going through the Court of Thorns and Roses series right now. And we made the switch from like reading more self help to like, I don't think we need anybody else, anybody else telling us what to do. I think like let's imagine new possibilities, which has been really, really fun and really makes for great discussion as well, too.

Amy Everhart [00:28:14]:

Yeah. That's, that's truly my favorite portal to take women through because I don't know about you, but the people that I work with, the people in my world are really self aware. We are eldest daughters who are a pleasure to have in class. We have been to therapy. We are doing our healing work, drinking our water, getting our steps in. And with all of that self awareness, there's often a gap between awareness and integration and then integration and embodiment. Right? So you may be aware that you have this wound, but you haven't fully integrated it into your life. You may be aware that you need to integrate the shadow aspect, but you're not embodying it.

Amy Everhart [00:29:02]:

And so in romantic see, you get to actually see. Women on the page who have integrated their shadows or are going through the process of learning to embody these new traits. And it's sort of like a little how to guide, like a secret password, how to guide. And then it's also just like, oh, what would Aileen Galathenius do right now? My boss is being an asshole and I don't wanna write this email. What would Aileen Galathenius do about it? You know? And obviously you don't want to burn cities down like she would, but you can sort of shift your mindset into who do I want to be around this situation? Which again, gold for me.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:29:46]:

Yeah. I am so impressed that you can say her last name. I would never have even attempted to have done that.

Amy Everhart [00:29:54]:

I have a secret talent for knowing how these weird names are pronounced. I will say the fourth wing Emporium series has tripped me up. I did need to do a little research into high Gaelic to get those, but yeah. Yes. That's a good one.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:30:10]:

Great. So what's your favorite series?

Amy Everhart [00:30:13]:

Okay. I need to be a basic bitch right now and just say, at Qatar, I know I know it's everyone's favorite. Obviously, throne of glass is a great contender. I have curse breaker tattooed onto my arm. Like, it's it's a thing. That's my favorite because I think so much of what we read with fantasy smut erotica is really strong genre stuff. I think the ACOTAR series transcends into the category of literature, which I have a lot of nerdy academic literature degrees. So that turns me on in that way.

Amy Everhart [00:30:53]:

And I think it's the richest text for exploring the underworld descent and then the sort of volume two of reconstructing who you wish to be in the aftermath, because that's the journey that the character is on in a really out there and in your face way. It's literally the plot. Yeah.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:31:16]:

Yeah. It's a great series. Yeah. And I, I love, I love the last one as well, too. Port of silver flames nest his journey where it really focuses on how to come out of trauma.

Amy Everhart [00:31:27]:

Yeah, that one honestly was kind of hard to read for me. I was like, Oh, I don't like what this is making me feel in myself. I don't like the way I am identifying with this. So that's a really good mirror, I think, too, for some really hard stuff.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:31:44]:

Yeah. One other question that I wanted to ask you a little bit, like outside of the room and to see, you had mentioned the word patriarchy and that comes up a lot in my groups as well, too. So one of the things that I'm seeing is, you know, a lot of women, very angry. We have to bash the the patriarchy, but I also sense it's almost like becoming the patriarchy. There's like a lot of anger and rigidness and maybe judging of other women who aren't bashing the patriarchy correctly. What would you say? And I, I always suggest like the way that we bash it is to just step out of it, no longer play that game and reconnect with your own pleasure and desire. But I would love to hear, like, cause I tend not to use the word because I find it's triggering to people and we all have different perspectives of what it is and how it was oppressive or whether it was oppressive, but I would love to get your thoughts.

Amy Everhart [00:32:35]:

So I think there comes a time in a healing journey because healing is a journey. It's a trajectory when the things that the systems, the structures, even the terminology for things that we needed to look at, analyze, pull apart, even rebel against no longer fit where we are. And so getting angry is kind of the first step toward leaving and creating your after picture And people get caught there. People get stuck there. And so when I think of patriarchy, I think of a paternalistic system in which women have very few options. Right? Here's the prescription of who to be. And it's enforced through different cultural mechanisms. Right.

Amy Everhart [00:33:30]:

Makes sense to get mad at that. You need to first become aware of it. And then you need like the energetic power of anchor as fuel to be the rocket ship that takes off and leads atmosphere. Right. And then as soon as you've left the atmosphere, you drop the, I don't know. I want to call it a fuselage. That's I I'm in astrophysics now, and I don't know what I'm talking about, but you, you drop whatever launched the rocket. And now you're getting used to a completely new orbit up here.

Amy Everhart [00:34:02]:

So I don't ever advocate appropriating the tool of the oppressor. Right? Like if you've been oppressed with being dominated by men, I wouldn't then advocate for turning around and doing that action to men. You're now perpetuating a cycle. I think to your point, I'm not playing your game anymore is the ultimate power move. I know who I am. In fact, I've remembered who I am. I'm a divine creatrix who is full of abundance and was always meant to live in the garden of Eden. So anything that says otherwise, no, thank you.

Amy Everhart [00:34:43]:

I'm going to energetically leave. And I think another challenge is that even when we energetically leave, we're sometimes still subjected to the external forces and systems at play that keep us there. And so that's the tension of, I know that this is all bullshit. Like I've seen through the veil, like I I've woken up from the matrix, I'm pissed. I went out and I still live in a state in The Us that doesn't protect like my right to choose, or I still work in an environment where men talk over me. And so it becomes this crazy making thing where I'm pulled back into the energy of bashing the patriarchy because I feel stuck in

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:35:29]:

it. I

Amy Everhart [00:35:31]:

don't have a great answer for how to handle this, but I do know energetically no longer entertaining that as an option for me is the first step toward taking those outer actions that can then create real sustainable change.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:35:47]:

Yeah. Oh, I love that. Thank you. And you articulated that so beautifully. Like, and I love your metaphor with, with the rocket as well, too. It made me think of something that Clarissa Pinkola Estes writes in women who run with the wolves, and she writes it in the chapter seven joyous body about how we can take back our own beauty and take back our body. But I think it applies here is that sometimes we can't change the culture just by shouting change, but we can start by changing it internally, like the way that we show up, what we will, you know, agree to. And I think that's a great step as far as like how you described, just like energetically

Amy Everhart [00:36:31]:

requires sometimes a little bit of an ego down, because at least for me, my age that I am, millennials tend to be right fighters. You know, we wanna change the world. We wanna create these new paradigms of inclusivity and everyone has a space and there's equality for all. And so I know I had a little bit of an identity shaped in bashing the patriarchy. And so then I had to have that identity death of, okay, well, if I'm not fighting the good fight, what what am I doing? How am I contributing to this on the other side? And so I think I I've said this, I don't know, probably 10 times at this point, but thinking of your healing journey as a growth trajectory where there's always a new level to get to can be really helpful and it could keep you out of the creative cul de sac of like, this is what I've experienced and have you looking forward into what's the next layer? How do I take it deeper? Where am I going? And continually shedding What's no longer needed as you reach the next level, which sometimes is a harder thing.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:37:51]:

Yeah. Yeah. We, we talk a lot about shedding in my community as well, too. It's kind of like dropping those different personas and identities. And that can be really hard. It can feel like you're losing a big part of yourself too.

Amy Everhart [00:38:03]:

It's right. Yeah. Or this is my community. I have all of these girlfriends who are with me in bashing the patriarchy and maybe my group chat is named bash the patriarchy. And so now if I step into a relationship with a man who treats me like a queen, am I betraying not only that older version of myself, am I betraying like my friends and my community and my political groups that I'm a part of? And that's how we get into staying small and shrinking in a completely different capacity. Now the patriarchy isn't shrinking us. Now we're shrinking ourselves again to stay safe. And it's actually closing us off to the real connection with the community that we would want.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:38:52]:

Yeah. And it's interesting. I, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to articulate this, but I think you just did a really good job of it, but at sometimes like when we're thinking about like, oh my God, I'd never be anything like my mother or my father, but then we go so far in the other direction that just doing that shows that there's still so much control over it because we're still not coming to who we are. It's just the opposite of that. And I think the same can be true when we have this kind of vision of like the patriarch and I'm going to be different than that instead of just like, I'm going to enjoy my relationships. Yeah.

Amy Everhart [00:39:25]:

That's an amazing point because when you're trying so hard to be something else, you're still reacting against it, which means it's still controlling you.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:39:40]:

Exactly. Yes. That's what I was trying to say. Oh my God. Yeah.

Amy Everhart [00:39:43]:

You just blew my mind with that. Yeah. Yeah. Rather than just being the totality of who you are. Mhmm.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:39:51]:

Yeah. So things to think about. And as far as a group chat, I would much rather be part of the group chat, put your hands on the headboard, then bash the patriarchy.

Amy Everhart [00:39:59]:

It's more fun. It's a different energy. You can still bash the patriarchy. I'm just saying maybe there's a hot winged man who, you know, wants to service you, and we can have that in our healing journey. Just say it. Just say it. Just say it.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:40:16]:

Yeah. Well, thank you so much. I would love to share, and I wanna share how everyone can connect with you, but can you share, I know you have some, a new program coming out, but how people can get in touch with you and anything you want about your new program or just whatever listeners might want to know. Yeah.

Amy Everhart [00:40:33]:

Definitely. So my business is called irrepressible. It is again about helping women who have encountered some version of purity culture, whether that's sex, food, anything related with the body or their heart's desire, helping them deconstruct that and become the truth of who they are. So one of the primary vehicles I use is fantasy romance, erotica smut. I have a course coming out in mid July called smut for healing feminist intimacy one zero one. And so it's all about not only the history of what is considered romance, erotica smut, but how to take the erotica that you may be knowing love and apply a healing lens to it, and then how we can use our healing potentially as a tool of political resistance. So that's kind of the circle where we come back to bashing the patriarchy, but from a really sexy empowered place. So smart for healing, like I said, mid July release the best way to purchase that find out details, get on the wait list is gonna be connecting with me on Instagram.

Amy Everhart [00:41:49]:

So that's where every bit of information I have about that will go out. So it's irrepressible.by.amy. And just make sure you spell your press well right. Get on Instagram, and then you can hear all of the good details. I have another course coming out. I have not come up with a launch date yet, but it is called rule breaking for good girls, the seven deadly sins and a guide to getting everything you want guilt free. So it's again about breaking those rules without completely going to the other end of the spectrum where you're in villain era all the time. And don't have access to your light as well as your dark.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:42:32]:

Oh, I love that. They both sound fabulous. So I'll be looking forward to like, yeah, learning more and watching that journey unfold as well, too. So thank you so much for coming on and sharing your wisdom, your ethos, your energy. It's just been, it's been such a fun conversation.

Amy Everhart [00:42:49]:

Thank you for having me. It's been a blast and I love your work, so I'm sure I'm going to love your listeners. So thanks for having me.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:42:56]:

You are very welcome. Thanks for tuning in to the God of School podcast. I hope today's episode inspired you to reclaim your feminine magic. Now don't forget to subscribe to the show. And if you've enjoyed the podcast, please leave us a review on Apple. If you wanna dive deeper into divine feminine archetypes and reconnect with your power, check out my book, The Goddess Solution. It's packed with ancient goddess wisdom for the modern woman. You can find the book on Amazon, and the link is in the show notes.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:43:27]:

And if you are ready to embrace these practices alongside a global sisterhood, I invite you to join my Divine Feminine Mystery School, Enlivened. It's a supportive space to embody these teachings with a fantastic community of like minded women. You'll find the link in the show notes. Remember, the goddess isn't a deity outside of you. She's an aspect of your highest self. You are the goddess. Until next time, my friend.