Welcome to the Love, Sex and Leadership podcast where you can discover simple tantric teachings to embody your true power, awaken your soul's wisdom and live an inspired life as a natural, intuitive and heart centered leader. So welcome everyone to Love, Sex and Leadership. I am in Boston right now and I have two amazing guests coming from Colorado. So we're bringing a bit of the, the US flavor to the show today and very excited to bring Britain and Carolee Beckham who have really incredible story. They reached out to me probably a couple months back and it's just been a matter of arranging our schedules and timings but I was just in observing what they're doing in the world and the journey they've come from, from really the, you could say the, the trenches and the difficulties of, of organized religion from the Mormon religion into sharing their magical story. And the power that happens when two beings unite in a flavor of love and commitment and radical honesty as they were just sharing as we did this intro. And I'm super excited to see where our conversation today goes and very excited to have you both on the show today. Thank you. It's so good to be here and exciting to, to share our story with another, another audience. Yeah, thanks for having us. Yeah, absolutely. So I love to just hear, you know, briefly, you know, you both came from kind of the deep down world of the Mormon Church and, and where you are now. I guess the first question I have is like, when was the first point that you realized I want something else? Because I see so many people that are deeply. And whether it's in, you know, being Mormon or being deep with the, the Catholic Church or ways that the freedom of our being often gets shrunk down and it's, it's not all that recognized when you're inside the umbrella of one of these worlds. So what was that first point that came in your life? The first point of awakening, the first point of ah, okay, something else is out there and I'd love for you to just bring, bring me, bring the audience there because that's the point that's always interesting to me. That's where like that radical shift or changed happened. I'd love to hear a little bit more from that. Yeah. I would say for, for us it was the moment we left the Mormon Church that we made that decision. And because that, that shaped our entire paradigm. Right. That didn't just shape our connection to the divine, it shaped everything about our life. It shaped how we, we're going to raise our kids, how we envisioned ourselves growing old Together, all the possibilities of life, everything was sort of wrapped up in that dogma and in that culture. And we had just done a, our first ever psilocybin journey together on Saturday, November 9, 2019. And the following day was Sunday, and we had an incredible experience in the mushroom journey. And we can talk about that another time. But that next day we were at church and we had sort of committed to it. We were sort of walking out of the church a little bit disinterested, not really going as much about once every month. And her mom wanted to go because it was like a child's program that day. So we all committed to go. And while we were there, we were still under the glow of the, of the magic mushrooms, and we got to see church from a different perspective, a way that we hadn't before. And what was clear to us was there was a massive amount of indoctrination happening to our little people and to, and to, you know, to us in the way that it was manipulative. And so we, we looked at each other like 15 minutes into that meeting and we kind of both had tuned into the, of what we were seeing and like, what the reality was of this, this, you know, structure we'd been a part of for our entire life. And we were both like, we're done. And we walked out of there and we never looked back. And it was like a moment of, wow, anything's possible now. So that was like a beautiful moment that started off, I would say, in a big way started off our journey. It wasn't what the catalyst that started our journey, but it was the first, like super magical moment. Yeah, I'll speak to a little bit before that how we even got to that point. You know, we, we both were six generation Mormon. So like deep, deep, deep in it, born into it. We met at church. That's how we met each other. We went to church and saw each other and we got married in the Mormon temple. And so, you know, what, what was the moment for me where I was like, there's got to be something else is in Mormonism or really in any of these cultures that are high demand, they have a lot of, like, your life is really kind of planned out for you. There's key points, right? You, you start to date at a certain age in a certain way, and then you go on a mission and then you get married and then you, you know, and you go through it and then you have kids and they do the same thing on repeat at the same ages. And it's just this, this cycle. And I had done everything right. I really had. I had gone to the right universities that were Mormon universities. I'd met my husband at church. I had also served a Mormon mission. We both served Mormon missions. You know, when we were single, we got married in the temple, we were going to church, we were holding the callings. We were doing all the things the way that the church said would give us the greatest happiness. And we were so far from happy. There were moments of happiness, truly. I mean, it wasn't just all darkness, but infidelity came into our relationship. And as the one who had been betrayed, I was like, I literally did everything right, which meant that I was supposed to be protected and I was supposed to have like the dream relationship. And I was supposed to, supposed to, supposed to. And all the things that I was told would be part of my life really felt so far from me. And that's what led us on the journey to do deep healing work, to discover what emotional intelligence really was, to understand that we were completely enmeshed in codependency and not sovereign or free or, you know, like, there was so much resentment under the surface that we didn't even know how to name in our partnership and in the way we parented and, you know, there was a lack of embodiment. Our sexual life was just not anywhere close to what it is. Very lackluster. Yeah, it was just all of these things, you know. And so I remember that day that Britain mentioned when we were in church and we had that kind of download that we were ready to like, leave that life behind. We'd already been shedding so many skins, so many layers through to get to the point of being ready for our first ceremony to call in really deep, deep healing. And it was like we, we like literally felt like I was skipping out of church that day. I was like, I couldn't get. And it was this most joyful, childlike happy, like, I'm out of here and I'm never coming back. Oh my goodness. You know, and it can be a terrifying thing. You know, it took years for us to actually slowly deconstruct, to be able to do that. But, yeah, that was like a whole new lease on life. Amazing. Amazing. Yeah. I mean, really what I, what I hear in that is a tremendous capacity to take the reality that's been kind of force fed to you and being, to see beyond the veil, to see beyond the world that you had kind of known and grown and understood to be your reality. And, and this is, you know, something I often speak about in the groups and retreats I'm teaching is like, when we change our reality, everything changes. And. And it's like. And I. I love that actually there was a opening with. Through psilocybin, but that wasn't, like, the whole journey. That was just the opening that kind of released the veil to recognize, oh, my God, like, what. What world are. Are. Are we in? I'm. I'm curious, like, because obviously you had a lot of friends and connections and people like, that were very, like, inside the veil still and underneath the umbrella of what you were doing, like, what were some of their reactions still to this day? And how did you kind of navigate that with some level of, like, grace and ease? What were some of the challenges or celebrations of that as well? Yeah, good question. Yeah, such a good question. And I. I think, first of all, we didn't, like, immediately tell everyone that we had left. We just operated from our own perspective of, like, okay, we're opening our minds to new things. What does that look like? You know, like, we didn't just announce that we had left, but it wasn't too long after when our, you know, our local congregation, our bishop and stuff, sort of picking up and reached out, and they started like, hey, what's going on? You know, and we're like, we're done. You know, and then, so the neighborhood started finding out and all that, because they're all part of our congregation. You know, where we lived, it was 98% Mormon. And so all of our neighbors were the ones that we went to church with. And so, yeah, and then we had family. And. And so family didn't know for a little while, but as they. As we did tell people, it became very difficult for many, including the neighborhood, including the community we were in. There are part. There are some family members that still struggle with the idea that I have left, that she has left, but our relationships have been sort of reset in a big way and. And are getting. There's. They're sort of rebuilding. I think they're still in the rebuilding phase. For some of the family, there definitely is actually still neighbors that think we went off our rocker. Off the deep end. Yeah, neighbors from that neighborhood. We were. We were visiting Utah just this last, like, March, and while we were there, we. We connected with a good friend, and she knew some of our old neighbors, and she said that she had seen one just recently, and they still thought we were off our rocker. Because what we ended up doing, you know, is like, we had been really, really in it. We weren't just like lackluster Mormons. Like we were really, we had both served missions. We were married in the temple. Our child, our oldest son, who's now almost 14, he went to kindergarten, first grade and second grade at a private religious school. This was like the cream of the crop. Mormon families, wealthy Mormon keeping up with the Joneses level families, all were at this school. I was employed by the school. I did their social media. I taught a high school photography class. Like we were incredibly involved. And then all of a sudden, just before he started third grade, which was the fall of 2019, two weeks before school started, I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I can't do this anymore. And so we put him in a charter school. And so we started to kind of back away from that community. But like everyone we KN who was really deeply steeped in the culture and the mindset of Mormonism. And so as we began to shift, even though some of it was a lot of it at that point was really inward, it wasn't as visible outward. People really started to actually feel the difference on. And you know, we had family member, like parents of kids that our child had played with since kindergarten. All of a sudden, not wanting our kid to play with their kids, like things started happening, kind of targeted towards our children to try and control us. It was a really interesting dance that we were doing. And you know, it was, it was. There were moments that were terrifying to face what everybody might have thought around us. But we had to just stay true to the course of our healing because we had been through so much darkness and we even, we didn't even mention this before we even did the psilocybin journey. We actually went through the process that the church said was essential to heal infidelity. And that was a year long commitment of healing. So we had completed that healing with quotes. We had completed that. He. We had completed it successfully. Everything was like celebrated at the end of that. And that showed us that, yeah, the church didn't actually know how to deal with that. It was a disciplinary str, you know, shaming structure that they had built around how to address this type of thing. And none of like, at the end of it, there was no difference in my own behavior. I had felt a lot of remorse and resentment for my decisions and sadness and recognize the devastation, of course, but that like, I still felt tempted by other women. Why, why was that happening? And so there wasn't true healing happening. And so that's why Carolee and I were like, there's got to be something better and that's what we were led to. We were led to real healing. Beautiful. And I guess a question, and this might be part of my own, you know, lack of knowledge inside the Mormon Church, but isn't there also a fair amount of, like, husbands often having multiple wives? So where is the, like, where's the line between infidelity and, you know, having multiple wives? Where does that intersect? That's a really good question. I'm glad you brought that up. In the history of Mormonism, there definitely was the practice of polygamy. In fact, ancestrally, like, I come from polygamous. I have some ancestors that were. But in present day, there's different, like, sects of Mormonism. Right. And so there's a fundamentalist group that still is practicing polygamous to this day. But in mainstream Mormonism, which we were raised in, they would tell you there's no polygamy now. Like, it was stopped. When was that? Over a hundred years ago? Yeah. So it's not something that was part of actually our upbringing. In fact, it was said to have been important, but like, also stopped. Yeah, like if you, if you practiced it in the mainstream religion, you be excommunicated. Gotcha. Gotcha. And so, you know, the piece I'm hearing with all of this is that really there was a strong, like, leader inside of you, both individually as well as being parents, to recognize, like, this isn't the world that I want my children to be raised in. And that requires like a breaking through of this, this paradigm of understanding that tells your kind of belief systems and your value systems for so long. And I'm also curious, like, in the people that were probably saying, like, you're off your rocker, have you also had some people inside of that world that have said, like, oh, actually maybe there's something to it, like, you know, like, I, I reference that in my own world, I came from a maritime military world. And most of guys I went to military school with think I'm, you know, pretty batshit crazy at this point. But every once in a while I get a handful of, you know, a guy maybe once a year that will message me, me and say, oh, you know, I'm thought you're pretty crazy for a while, but I'm going through a divorce. Can you give me some help? You know, something like that. So I'm curious, like, people that maybe have followed your leadership in that side as well. Yeah, there's definitely been people that were also on the fence or not knowing where they stood with the church and they've Seen our story and many others because the, the, the, the support that Mormons leaving the church, the groups and the different. There's, there's actually quite a bit of support in Utah for people that are struggling with Mormonism. And so our, we've definitely had people that have left that we've known since that we're still like gung ho about it and that you know, undoubtedly we were an inspiration or an example of like how it's possible and frankly I still think that that's going to be a big part of our journey is to show that you know, like leaving Mormonism is not the end of the world like they tell you it is. You know, they say doubt your doubts before you doubt your fe. And or your faith. Sorry, doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith. And it's like so they're basically telling you to doubt the inclinations of your own intellect, your intuition. So doubt your intuition before you doubt your beliefs that we've told you. And that, that is such a manipulative thing because it's, it's not giving space for people to truly consider actually what's true for them. The church doesn't want you to. The church, in fact any, any time that you're questioning or looking at material that would be considered quote anti Mormon then they, they would, you know, rec. They would basically tell you that that's not good. Hey, you know, like you need to stay away from that material. This is not how you build your relationship with God, etc. It's just a fear mongering religion really. And they don't even know it. It's not like they come out and they're like fear, fear, fear. But you know, I think systems of control always have an inherent level of, of fear that they use to control the people that they sort of their constituents. So I, yeah, it's an amazing thing. When we walked out we realized over the next, you know, couple of years of deconstruction that we were a part of a cult. And yeah, thank you for that, the clarity of that. And I'm curious now and kind of meeting the field of, of you know, sacred sexuality and emotional intelligence. And you know, I'm certainly people have, have told me that I'm part of things like that and I kind of laugh because I know my own personal sovereignty. But I'm, I'm curious in you know, leaving the quote cult world of, of you know, being in as a Mormon to then meeting the different sects and the vibes and the places inside sacred sexuality community where have you seen any kind of similarities or similar connection points? Do you mean in. In the cult mentality concept? Yeah, and the cult mentality concept. Because psychologically there is this place where it's like when people find a way, they want to follow that way. And then if everyone's following that way, it's like it is a new culture. And that can certainly be conceived, a cult in that framework. So I'm curious if you've seen any connection points of this. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, we have actually. And, you know, honestly, we've felt, you know, I love that you said that, you know, your personal sovereignty, so that when somebody says that to you, you, like, know where you're at. And. And that's actually because we've been. We were raised in this mindset of somebody else had authority over us. Somebody else. You know, if I. If I had a sin, I needed to go tell my bishop, and then if it was really bad, I needed to. He needed to have me go meet with another man. You know, like, there were always somebody. There was hierarchy. So we live in a space now where even in more open, sacred sexuality kind of culture, we have had experiences where people have tried to have hierarchy in it. And for us, our sovereignty in community, our sovereignty in self is so much a paramount that we are okay walking away from friendships and communities. If anybody tries to have any kind of hierarchical order over us that we haven't consented to see. Consent's everything. And, you know, there, when we get into, like, the kinky side of life, we really like BDSM kink. And there's ways in which you can have, like, consensual, hierarchical kind of play and experiences, and that's one thing. But if I am not consenting to somebody being over me in that power dynamic, yeah, we. We've. We've seen it and we've walked away from it with. With hardly any kind of second look. Like, it's. It's so obvious to us. We're not going to go back to a dynamic where somebody has power over, power under, and everybody sort of follows the leader. Like, we all get to be leaders now. Yeah. And I think also what's interesting is, like, you think about the things like Wild, Wild country, like the documentary around Osho and that who and many other types of communities that have been notorious for being sort of sexual in nature and then having this, like, really bad shadow that comes up and destroys the whole community and that the leader was manipulative and abusive. And, you know, like, we get why that happens. We totally understand why that happens, but because we've been a part of like, we know what that looks like from an experiential perspective, not a conceptual one, we can sniff it a mile away and we just won't have any part of it. Like our, our sovereignty is as you awaken, you awaken into your sovereignty and you realize that there is no authority outside of yourself, there's zero. And so for you to then continue to capitulate your own personal power to another is to be an enslavement. And in fact, that is the great, this is the great shadow of humanity is that we are all enslaved to each other through co dependence, through micro enslavement, and we don't even know it. And I'm grateful, so grateful for my time in Mormonism because it taught me so much about what it means to be oppressed by another person or by groups of people or by authority lines or by lies and deceit and all of that, that I just stand in my own truth now, no matter what. Oh, I think you muted yourself there, Aaron. Yeah, it's a clear indication in what you're sharing of the power of sovereignty. You know, one of the organizations I teach with that sometimes gets called a cult. And it's quite humorous to me in a way because like when you really get to the core of what we're initiating people there, it's how to like find your true authentic yes and your no and to have personal sovereignty. And it's, you know, and I find that even a different organization I'm connected to to right now, there's all these people with thoughts and ideas about what they think something is, rather than having the first time experience of going through a training or, you know, a transformational experience and being able to reclaim your own sovereignty. And the, the thing I always return to is recognizing that generally in our society, in our country and our politics and our government and our military, you know, I know this from being, through the military. There's a big entrainment of being sheep, you know, being cheap that, that need to follow to, you know, be a good citizen and to pay our taxes and to take care of things and to, you know, go by certain parameters and in many ways an empowered being, that sovereign that's whole, that can, you know, live and breathe inside of many different worlds in some ways can feel like a threat because there's almost too much choice. It's too much like, whoa, what we, we don't, they're unpredictable. Oh my God. We don't know what they're going to do. They're absolutely, watch out for them. They're unpredictable. We can have control over them. Whoa. They're a threat right there, you know, and it's a funny like, like intersection of values I see especially for myself, like I'm traveling a lot between Europe and, and us and, and Bali and just seeing how different cultures have different ways of kind of having control over individuals decision making and the place I want to kind of go with this and I'm curious to hear more. Your perspective is especially around this conversation of infidelity and you know, having had this indoctrination from the church and now meeting the world of BDSM and sacred sexuality and polyamory. And I'm curious for both of you, like, where is your, you know, choice as individuals and as a couple when it comes to, you know, sharing intimacy with more than one? Like where, where do you stand on that and where do you notice your own indoctrination of what you're supposed to do and what is the, the way forward for you? I'm curious where, where that intersection. You're asking all the good questions in this podcast. So yeah, so here, so here's what I'll say about that. So first of all, when it came to sexual sovereignty, I recognized it early on in my awakening before she did. And so that actually created kind of a little bit of a dissonance. As we were awakening, we already had a sexual dissonance because I was more sexually active. She hadn't been embodied. She had so much childhood sexual trauma and deep patriarchal shame and like a lack, like it was all the program before marriage. I was a virgin. Go, go, go after what. Yeah. And when I came up in a similar situation that she did, I, I had had sexual experiences in the church that were like, you know, hand jobs and lots of making out and filling girls up and some sex, lots of sex. And I was always, it was always guilt laden, right. So every time I did something, it was like immediately the come down was like, oh my God, I know I've God hates me and blah, blah, all that horrible feeling that spiritually I felt dead. And after I left the church and I contemplated this subject for some time and I recognized that I am my own authority. I realized that it was all about consent. Before I even had any training on consent and all of that, I just realized, oh, if two, two adults agree to anything, they can do whatever they want. It can be two men, two women, a whole bunch of people. It didn't matter. She Wasn't fully ready for that truth, but I recognized it and I was like, oh damn, I like, I need to experience my sexual sovereignty. And so that became a place of like where we healed and explored and tiptoed around and did some different things until we found ourselves at ista. And then that really awakened us even into this deep, deep I would call sexual liberation. And. And from there we continued to heal more and more. And now where to answer your question, Aaron, like, basically the way we see our relationship is that we feel so strongly committed to what we have built, what we have healed together. And that's why we are doing this podcast together is everything that we're doing now in our life is a co creation. We are united. We are a divine union. And so in that way we have chosen into each other. And I would say the best way we describe this when I tell when you know answer when people ask this is we are emotionally monogamous so that we, we completely are infidelity in fidelity with each other emotionally. We are not seeking for additional emotional support outside of the relationship. We are not seeking for sexual connections that are linked with emotional connection as well. You know, in. In a longer, longer than a container. And so. But we do like to have fun. So we go to parties. We go to BDSM kink parties. We. We went to a spin the bottle party recently with some friends and had some fun there. So socially speaking, we're totally okay with connecting with others, but it has no meaning outside of this relationship that we've built. And the power dynamic that we've created within our relationship is. It's beautiful, it's magical, it's divine, and we cherish it so much. So we've kind of found a way to mold or to meld both worlds together. The best of both worlds. But it was a. I mean, it's. It's a huge part of the story of how we've healed to get to this point. You know, when we. I was really slow and stubborn and I felt like I needed to want to have open experiences and to be okay relating, open relating in order to be healed. And so I had my own judgments about myself and like what that meant about my lack of desire there or my lack of connection. And the more we dove into our own gnosis, right? Like I had this super beautiful download early on in our Healing where I was reading this book called if Women Rose Rooted. And it was this. In it she was telling the story that essentially the, the whole idea of the story was sovereignty. Sovereignty is what women want most, sovereignty is what we all want most. And I read that and I realized, gosh, I really want that sovereignty. And I knew that by me claiming sovereignty, I had to also give him his sovereignty. But I still still had wounds. I was significantly like, I had significant PTSD from the betrayals. The trauma was severe in my body. I had. Not only did I not have desire, I had, like, negative desire. It was a generational belief that I identified through my healing that generationally, the women in my line were, we cut off our desire. Our purpose was to be a wife and a mother, not a lover. We. We didn't know how to be a lover. And so, like, I got to come as the generational chain breaker and step into being a wife, a mother, and the most embodied lover. And I could do it all right. And so this was part of my journey to heal. And I realized early on that with or without him by my side, I really needed to heal. And then also that I desired sovereignty above all for myself. And that also I had this beautiful man who was willing to stay with me through my healing in that in the hopes that we both could find our sovereignty and also our union. And so I'm not gonna lie and say that it was easy. This, I mean, we, we went through literal hell. We, I mean, yeah, we left the church in 2019. 2020, we got pregnant with our force. 2021, there was more, more, more healing. 2021 was almost a blur by the beginning of 2022. We were like, okay, we're done with this shit. How are we going to do life different? We decided to live what we called the full fuck, yes. And we were diving even more. So in 2022, we made a list of the things that we wanted to do in our life. And part of that was traveling the world, taking our kids on adventures, and also having a sexual reeducation. So Ista came into our life in the summer of 2022. And then the minute we got home from Ista, we were like, well, this place that we're living doesn't work for us anymore. And we put our house on the market and then we moved to Bali, you know, and so, like, it was this really fast, but also deep in the trenches. And then when we moved to Bali, Mama Bali really gave us our own initiation there and helped us even get more clear on how to navigate this sovereign sovereignty within ourselves. And that evolved. We didn't stay in Bali. We ended up traveling the world. And it was this deep, soul level world schooling pilgrimage with our four kids along the whole way, you know, but ultimately it gave us what we really needed to know, which was ourselves. Healing isn't becoming something you're not. Healing is literally letting go of all of the conditioning, all of the layers that, that you are not and then becoming who you really always have been. Just the highest embodiment version of that. Yeah, I love that, I love that definition of healing. Sounds like quite a. Quite a journey. The, the, the piece that, that I hear coming up in this, that I hear, you know, I speak about a lot in trainings I'm doing and just in this dynamic between kind of the, the, the masculine and feminine meaning, like in. We both have masculine feminine inside of us and there's a masculine part that's almost often seeking freedom and really, you know, resonates with the sovereignty piece. Not that the feminine doesn't. And again, speaking into the masculine feminine in both sides, but I generally feel like a big turn in my own journey. Like right now my. I have a child coming in in September. And I remember a few years back, like I made a very clear choice, like my masculine freedom lover had lovers all over the world. I was, you know, traveling everywhere, you know, and I'm still traveling a lot and teaching a lot. But it was, I made a very clear commitment to like, listen to the voice of my inner feminine more that wants to be on land and wants to make babies and wants to, you know, be a bit more grounded. And this was part of my own deepening of my inner union. And the, the, the question I'd love to hear your perspective on is that inside the sovereignty piece, there is the sovereignty to choose and then there's also the, the, the sovereignty and the depth of relating that happens with two that recognizes, yeah, there's a freedom loving part of us and there's a part of us that's kind of longing for commitment and longs to be chosen and longs to be like, no, I don't want to share my intimacy with someone else. And I see both sides to it. Like, I've had, you know, my current partnership, we're, you know, more monogamous. You know, we're not sharing intimacy with others. And that's very much a choice that we're both coming from. When we met, we were both in open relationships and there was just like a coming together in that way and that really feels in alignment. So I'd love to hear your perspectives on where this like freedom loving masculine part meets the feminine longing to be chosen and how you feel like These intersect to have this sacred union you're speaking about. Because I feel if those aspects aren't really dealt with and met and handled, then it often creates a lot of challenge in relationship where some parts of people aren't feeling like they're here in it completely, and that leads to divorce. And they feel like they're not being seen because they can't be in their freedom or they're not being chosen. And where has this sovereignty met the. The longing to be chosen as well as the longing to be free? Yeah, another good question. And I would say, you know, like it. There's no simple answer for any. Well, every answer is going to be unique for people here. And I think this is where, you know, like, we would quickly caution, hey, we've chose. We've figured out what works for us through our own unique soul blueprints and harmony and desires. Right. Not every couple is going to feel the exact same. You might, and you're in a different place because you've had more sovereignty. And now you're looking for this. You know, like, everybody is. Has different life experience. We grew up with a lot of oppression around our sexuality and what was right and what was wrong. And it was always, you know, it's like there's a part of us, at least for sure, strongly in me. And I think that more and more awakening in her just to experience that sovereignty without guilt, you know, with intimacy with others and. But we have, like, when. When we were exploring and she was like, bro, Britain, I. I just want to know, are you gonna. Are you Polly? You know, is that what you are? And I was like, you know, are you going to give me the freedom to be Polly? And, you know, she finally did. And it was at that moment that I was able to really, truly understand and look inward that it had no desire for it. I'm not interested in developing additional quote, unquote lovers that I have relationships with. And so we are like, so committed to each other and to our family and to our. Our. What we call a merged timeline. Like, we've collapsed our timelines into one. And so we've really become this union, this. This soul. The we is now our life. And. But we do recognize that we are two individuals as well. And so we, We. We honor our sovereignty so deeply in the other. And that's actually what drives us deeper into each other. So there's a. There's an interesting little paradox of truth here that the more that you allow another person to be free, the more that they will feel committed, connected, and safe with you. And so through that safety and connection that we've built, we've actually found stronger commitment and we've found deeper and deeper levels of bliss and love making and presence and all of the good things that happen when you're totally free with another. And so, you know, the masculine feminine part that you kind of ask about, I, I think that those energies you have, we have to honor that not everyone is pre, like pre incarnatively configured to be the same type of person in this life and that their life path will always take them down other ways. I will say that a lot of the spiritual material that I've read leads to the concept of union being a very powerful vehicle for ascension. And we have discovered that. And that's one of the reasons why we've also chosen into each other deeper is because we see that the, the relationship itself is the tool that we use to ascend. And that's, that's actually part of the, the, you could say the, the work that we do that we offer. One of the services we offer ritual shadow work is how we teach people how to find that deep union and mirror relationship and find and redefine the whole relationship as the vehicle for ascension. So that's, that's how we view it. And like it's really powerful for us, but we don't project that onto others and think that they need to do this. But we do know that there's people seeking this type of thing and we're open to help guide them into it. Yeah, I'll add, really, really it is, you know, the, the more freedom we were able to give to each other, the more that choice. Right. You talk about the feminine longing to be chosen, the more freedom that we were able to explore safely. Right. Part of our original exploration wasn't really wasn't safe. There were moments of self betrayal especially for me in that I didn't actually didn't have the training to know how to have an embodied. Know how to have an embodied. Yes. And how to be able to show up without disassociating or just traumatizing myself, you know. And again, going back to like, I kind of thought that in order to be quote, unquote healed in my embodiment, I would have to be okay with open play or okay with some of the things that some of the, those in these open relating, very like sex positive communities were all okay with. But I was willing to go into my fears and willing to try something new and willing to discover more about myself. And in that I really learned, actually, you know, astrologically speaking, my Venus placement loves, is the one that loves the safety, loves the security, loves the monogamy. You know, my Venus is in Taurus. And Taurus is a slow, stubborn earth sign that just really likes things to be what they are. His Venus is an Aquarius. Aquarius is the sign of the sacred rebel. You know, like, Aquarius is revolution. Let's do it all different than it's been done and show that it can work right? And change our lives. And so we had, as we learned about ourselves, there were moments in our healing feeling that we real. That we definitely had this fear threshold of, oh, my goodness, are we actually not compatible? Like, are we not fully compatible with who our blueprint, who our makeup is? You know, because he wants to have these experiences, they scared the living out of me. I can't do it. I disassociate. La la la, you know, like all of the things. But as we navigated and learned how to find sovereignty and safety as individuals, I had to learn safety within my own body, which this is like lifetimes in the making. I view now the path of our union as like, literally helping me to heal karma from past lives. Right. Like, we, we view our connection as something like we have been lovers through lifetimes. We have had such cosmic orgasmic bliss moments where in our cosmic connection, I literally have seen visions of these past lifetimes and our lovership. Right. Like, it's been so powerful to be in that and realizing, oh, now that we have the safety within ourselves, now that we know how to claim our safety, now that we know how to make agreements that aren't compromises, agreements that are like, oh, that's an agreement. I can make a full yes, you're not controlling me. See, sometimes in our partnership dynamics, we want to control the other person to do or manipulate. That's going to make us feel good. And there were mo. There were definitely moments of that, but we really were doing the work to heal and to understand and to embody to the point now where we've emerged into this beautiful space where we have this freedom within ourselves. And I have to say, I mean, when your partner is unfaithful like mine was, and does it more than once, I mean, people say once a cheater, always a cheater. In my, in our case, that was the case. There were multiple incidences of infidelity over like a 10, 11, 12 year period of our relationship. There's a lot of sadness and difficulty that comes from that. Right. And I wanted more than Anything to be chosen by him. And because of the infidelity, I didn't feel chosen. But now, as we've been able to heal and we've been able to work through that, and we've been able to call back the parts of ourselves that disassociated and that didn't feel safe. He has so much freedom. He has all the freedom, he has all the sovereignty. And he's never chosen me. Deeper. I feel so deeply chosen, you know, because of that dynamic, we have the most beautiful agreements. We feel so safe. The trauma, the PTSD that was once a regular, singular part of my everyday is gone. I don't have any of those triggers anymore. And we have this really beautiful embodied union that takes us to the cosmos when we drop in with each other. And it can happen so fast, you know, so beautiful. Yeah, I, I love what you started with saying that union is the vehicle to, to the higher ascension. I really resonate with that. That I, I always look at, you know, relationship is our greatest spiritual teacher. There's nowhere to run, there's nowhere to hide. And just meeting ourselves immediately. Oh, there's places to run. And people do. And, and I find that in the community, actually, a lot of people are seeking union. You know, like, I'm in. I'm. I'm so friends with so many poly people and they're all amazing. I love them. Like, they're so. They're the most present people I, I know, yet many of them are seeking relationship. But when the tribulations of relationship come, they, they run. And, and I, I see this as a pattern within these, the lives of these people. And I don't know, you know, I'm not, I'm not going to judge it because I'm just observing. I'm trying to do this without making any pretense to it. But I do see that many of them do seek a deeper connection, but the true relationship is made through the darkness. And Carolee and I have stuck with each other through some of the most agonizing moments of disconnection and heartache, and we have found incredible bliss through it. And that's the triumph, you know, that I want to share with anyone that's listening. Like, if anyone walked away from anything in this conversation, it would be that they can, they can have. A relationship is so deeply connected, so powerful, that it becomes not just something that they love and cherish, but it's something that's central to their experience. It is something that elevates them on a daily basis and that they're committed to. They're committed to their own growth Right. In the relationship, and the relationship is the tool for that. So, yeah, like, I. I do. I don't want to say that I'm bi. I'm not biased. There may be a way to continually find strong growth in the poly community. Obviously there is. There's a lot of shadow work to do with your partners. But when you have one committed partner to do shadow work with, one committed person that is able to hold space for you, honest and honesty, truth and integrity, and that you have this deep level of trust that you. That we're just present with each other, there's something powerful about that that we feel is able to advance you further through the shadow work than dredging around and not having the mirror that's right next to you. Sure. Yeah. And I guess in the spirit of shadow work, you know, what I heard you share, Charlie, is that there was a judgment of his infidelity. And I'm curious, in your journey of kind of, like, owning the shadow and owning. How has it been for you to. Have you been able to own that, like, part of you that's also infidelitis? And as you know, have you. Have you had interactions outside? Has that come up for you? Have you owned that part? And where has that kind of woven in, in the strength of the relationship? Or is that, you know, I'd love to hear more on that. Yeah. So, you know, earlier on, Britain was really encouraging, like, for me to allow myself to fantasize or, you know, think about exploring. And that was part of my own judgment that I've kind of referenced is I judged myself for the fact that that was, like, almost impossible for me. I didn't really feel that pole. And I was, like, trying to force myself to feel it. Trying to force myself to, like, want to connect with other people. Trying to force myself to, like, be okay. Except exploring and experiencing. There was judgments that I held about all of it that at first blocked me. Oh, maybe you don't want to explore because you think inherently there's some shame or there's it's wrong to some level. Right. And so I had to face some of those shadows. In fact, as we were driving to ista, he was very excited about the possibilities of what we were going to uncover about ourselves and how we were going to have this. This reframing of, you know, we had no education in this regard from our Mormon upbringing, none whatsoever. And as we were going to this, he was like, why are you, like, so about it? And I. And I had to sit with that for a minute and I realized, oh, I have this belief. I have this shadow. And it took me like a good 20, 30 minutes to actually even put words to it, because it felt. Felt so dark. It felt so hard and heavy. And what was it? I had this belief that embodied women were white trash, and I didn't want to be trashy. And. And then I was able to identify exact stories from my childhood and from my life that proved this story to be correct. And I then, you know, as I said it, I was like, okay, I am now calling in a new experience to witness women in their embodiment and view them not as trashy, but as like the embodiment of a goddess. Is that even possible? I don't even know, but let me see if. If, if it is. And we showed up at ISTA and we met incredibly beautiful women who definitely gave me the somatic experience of rewriting that belief. I now knew women who were embodied, who were everything but white trash. Right? They were not trashy at all. They beautiful and gave me such a. Such hope for. For what was possible in reframing my own inner beliefs, you know, and then later on, like, as I kind of already mentioned, astrology really is a huge part of our life. It is something that came to me and has really been an anchor for me. And it was when I really sat with my unique blueprint, you know, where were the. Where was the whole constellation of the stars at the moment of my birth? And what does that say about me as a human? As a human in this existence, you know? And I looked at that and I was like, oh, you know, my. My Chiron, that's the wounded healer aspect is actually conjunct my Venus. It's in the exact place. Venus, beauty, art, love and money. And that's in Taurus, the sign that's kind of slow and really loves monogamy. So even to this day, I love bdsm. I love kink. I. I had a great time at the spin the bottle party. I can totally drop in, in the present moment in a container with other people. I. I do require some very clear conversations before we set those kind of containers. And I can be entirely present in that moment. I've been able to find where my yes is and find a lot of safety and a lot of pleasure and a lot of, you know, openness. But I've also been able to completely accept that it. The idea of. Of having like a. A personal connection with somebody else. The idea of playing it it's just. It's just not my baseline. It's not part of my own internal makeup. And I'm okay with that too. Right. For the longest time, I wasn't okay with it. I was like, I'm trying to change. I'm trying to be more open. Why am I not thinking about these things? Why am I not wanting this? And I've realized it's just because it's not me. But I really love to. You know, I, I'm a photographer. I. That's what. I got my fine art degree in photography when I went to university. And I've had exhibits worldwide or publishing worldwide. Exhibits, you know, and all these different things. And one of the things I love to photograph is Eros. I love to document. I love to do boudoir, erotic photo shoots. You know, I love to be photographed in an erotic way. I really loved to be seen. You know, we're a bit of an exhibition as we have this erotic artistry that we do. And so I've. I guess the answer is I found. I've. I found where Eros is alive for me in a very playful way. And it feels really, really freeing. It feels really, really good. And I can be in all of these spaces without any of the judgments that I used to have. I used to have so many judgments that blocked me, and I. It's. It's really beautiful to be free of that kind of judgment of others and of community. Amazing, amazing. Good work. Last question I have. Just because you are parents of four. Yeah. How old, how old is your oldest? He will be 14 in August. 14. So, you know, as stepping into fatherhood myself and working with a lot of, you know, moms and dads through the years, this conversation of the best ways of, like, integrating and having healthy conversations around sexuality, you know, and really to bring it into a way that doesn't put the shame and doesn't put the, the, the stigmas and the, you know, make them do, you know, 20 retreats when they're 30 years old to redo all of their stuff. So I'm curious from, from, as, as parents of four children, what, you know, especially for parents are listening and including myself, like, I mean, I have ideas of how I will, you know, have these conversations and bring it in in healthy, clear ways. My ex. Partner, you know, I was very involved as a, A, a stepfather to her two kids. And, you know, so it's, it's been alive in my field. But I'm always curious, you know, in. Especially from your own journey, coming from the church and, and where you've been, like what do you feel is, is going to work best? And what is working best? To be able to destigmatize a lot of the, the, the issues and challenges that young kids get, get shown around sexuality because there isn't a healthy conversation around it. But I'd love to hear some thoughts from your side on this. I'll go first. So I think that the first thing is one, we don't shame anything around it, right? Like it, there's all of, it's okay. Even pornography. Like we don't shame anything because if you, as soon as you create the resistance around something, then it becomes more enticing anyway. Like that was what. The less the great lesson I learned in Mormonism was anything that the Mormon Church told me not to do, I automatically wanted to do it. You know, so we don't do that. And then there's just a lot of like individual growth that happens. Like there's no like age that's right for any child to like have a certain conversation. It's really about when the child is expressing interest and then, and then like acknowledging their own, own intellect, their own emotional maturity and what they could handle and finding the right appropriate, we'll call it age appropriate or just maturity level appropriate way to engage the conversation of whatever nature. And so like we have, you know, we have four kids and our most embodied child is our four year old. I mean she just runs around naked everywhere. She's, she just loves her body. She has no problem with it. You know, she's the, the culmination of our healing and it's beautiful to witness her. And there's no. I love that my children are so, like, they're so understanding of all of this and they're so appropriate with each other. My 14 year old, I'm struggling. He's, he's reaching that age where he like says things I don't want him to say in front of the other kids, you know, because they're too, their, their minds are a little bit different than his was even at their age. And so yeah, you know, you just have to. It's a really, actually quite a dance. Especially when you have multiple. Right. Because then you're dealing with like, oh, he's this one's ready and this one's not, or this one wants to say stuff in front of the other one and you're like, no, wait, I don't want you. You know, so, so there's, there's an interesting dynamic there and we just Take it. You just have to be present. I think that's the key. Just be present and conscious. Each child. Yeah, I'll add, you know, as, as someone who experienced sexual abuse as a young child, I also have, you know, we also have that very strong, fierce protection over our children. That, that dance of, you know, having clear conversation about their bodies. Especially with the 4 year old who's really embodied. We talk to her all the time about what is appropriate for her to do and allow others, you know, and like really set the container of her safety in her body because, you know, that's really, really important. We live at a time where you unfortunately, you know, I mean, the abuse that I suffered was from a family member member, somebody who was supposedly safe, like in it, you know, in my cousin's house, like where I was supposed to be safe. Right. So, you know, and as we do the work to heal, we as adults become more safe anchors where we really protect children as we also are embodied. There's a way to have both and that's through normalizing. You know, we live here in Colorado on 46 acres and there's a river on our property. We go down to the river on a regular basis, especially during the summer. And we will be nude at the river. Like nudity as around our children is really normalized. It's not sexualized, it's very normal. We'll have friends come over that have the same vibration and they will be. We'll all be there together at the river and our children will be playing and. And again, it's very safe and it's. We're very open and we have clear conversations about boundaries and bodies and safety. And then also like with, you know, with our teenager conversations that don't have shame. I tell him all the time, trust is the most important thing to me. I want to be able to trust you. So he has dropped in and told me the truth about everything he's going through. Like, I know his life really clearly and that is so valuable to me as a mother because when I had my first kiss at 13, I couldn't tell my mother about it till I was 21. Like there wasn't this openness, this honest conversation and dialogue. And so we model that conversation, the ability to be honest, the ability to not have shame, to really talk about how to be safe. You know, especially with our oldest one, we talk a lot about consent and about safety with him and really encourage him to honor those vibrate vibrations, honor those frequencies. Frequencies. And honestly, it's really paid off and you know, part of what we did for our family, too, is, you know, we did sell everything, and we traveled the world together, and we deconstructed not just from the religion that we grew up in and that the children were beginning to be raised in, but we deconstructed from Western culture, from society, and really formed this strong anchor as a family. And I think that that's really given us this beautiful foundation of moving forward in the world together as this beautiful little unit of souls like each one of them. Yeah, they're our tribe. They're. They're such cool kids. And carrying them in my womb is what also honestly facilitated my awakening. I couldn't hold these higher beings of this beautiful frequency and not have my own frequency. Want to shift to be better for them and. And be able to raise them. Amazing. Well, I'm honoring and celebrating both of you and just the. The journey that you've been on and all the. The souls and the, you know, the children that you're raising and all the people that you're impacting in the world. And yeah, it's really. It's a joy to get to know you more here and to just to feel your story. It's really a. A magical, powerful story that I know will inspire many on. On their route. Those of you, those who are listening, who'd like to find out more about the two of you, where's the best place to send them? Yeah, so our website is themagical storyofus.com and so from there, they can learn about our journey a little bit. We've kind of highlighted some of the main points of our journey, and. And then, you know, they can find out all about our offerings. They can book a free discovery call with us. And, you know, then we. We have different programs and coaching, and our key, sort of our focal program right now that we're really excited about is something we call ritual shadow work. And it's the culmination of bringing in astrology and using the moon's lunar cycle to. That illuminates our shadows and brings up the shadows that we're working on. So we use that moon phase to. To guide the shadow work. And we guide people using their own blueprint of their astrological blueprint and then help them through that. So we do a coaching and embodiment work and ritual through that. That particular container that we have. We have other containers and just coaching containers and other relating containers. We have astrological readings. Yeah, we. We have a container that's designed around infidelity, like reframing helping couples, you know, heal that and transcend it and. And reframe it so that it. It becomes a powerful tool for them instead of something that was. That can be a drag for decades. You know, like, we know that that that's a. Affects a. A big part of the population, Aaron. Like, there's so many people that probably 40 to 50 in the United States, and then it's over 50 in Europe that are. That actually have this in their relationship. It's not an uncommon thing. We just don't talk about it enough in our society. So Caroly and I are here to break that mold, too, too. Amazing. Amazing. Well, thank you for your work and, yeah, look forward to the winner. We get to meet in person at some point along the way. Yeah. Hopefully soon. Yeah. Looking to actually do one of my men's retreats out in Colorado this next year. So just in conversation with an organizer right. Right now. That came out that way. So. Well, hit me up. Let me know for sure. For sure. Thank you all for tuning in. If you have questions, if you have comments, you've been watching it live as well as this will be the podcast version of Love, Sex and Leadership. Thank you very much to our two amazing guests, and please like or subscribe and I'd love to see you on the next one. Have a beautiful day, everyone. Thank you.