18. Lindsay Dickes on walking the uncomfortable path

Join me as I sit down with Lindsay Dickes, a trauma psychotherapist and clinical social worker turned Somatic Empowerment Coach and Nervous System Witch. Together we discuss:

• Her BRCA gene mutation diagnosis, and its impact on her childfree decision
• How choosing a life outside the "normal" path has led to deeper fulfillment 
• Channeling erotic life force energy as a source of creativity and power

Lindsay's authentic and unapologetic approach to life was incredibly inspiring and I'm so grateful for the conversation.

To learn more about Lindsay and the amazing work she does, check out the links below:
Website: https://www.lindsaydickes.com/
Instagram: @lindsay_dickes
Tik Tik: @lindsaydickes

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

And so I think I was able to be a bit of a mirror for her when she was bringing this up around one in grandchildren, and I think it was actually really healing for her because it invited her into un-emission with me, this kind of co-dependency that she gets to become her own person, outside of her relationship with me or my role to provide grandchildren. So I actually think it was a very healing experience that's invited her back into okay, well, what brings my life purpose and meaning? And I think it disrupted a lot of these intergenerational patterns for women in my lineage around their own identity. And who am I without children? Who am I when I have a child? Who is disrupting this pattern of having children, getting married to a man, having, you know, fulfilled this role?

Speaker 2: 0:48

Welcome back everyone to another episode of Child Free Me, a show where we examine the choice to be child-free and what it's like to navigate that decision in today's world. I'm your host, laura Allen, and today's guest is Lindsay Dickes. Lindsay was introduced to me via my cousin, who continues to refer many people to me, and I am forever grateful, and Lindsay is part of the same coaching program as Natalie from episode 12. So if you haven't already listened to it, this is, of course, a plug to go back and listen to that episode with Natalie, because you'll see a lot of similarities in how authentically both Natalie and Lindsay approach their lives.

Speaker 2: 1:35

And listening back, what I admire most about Lindsay is her commitment to living a life that is uniquely true to her. While I and I think many of the other people who I've spoken to on this podcast adhere somewhat to the standard life plan I know I'm not having children, but I have a corporate job and I'm getting married, so I would say, one foot in and one foot out of this standard life plan Lindsay is truly creating a life outside of that path. She and I actually use the metaphor of lifting our wheels outside of those well worn grooves that form along dirt roads or wagon wheels used to create back in the day. I really have no idea if this is actually true, but it's what's coming to my mind and those tracks really kept the wheels safe and in the middle of the road and moving forward in the right direction. But when you choose to lift outside of those tracks and start to build a life that is not necessarily shared by many other people, it's sitting in the discomfort of doing that that can ultimately lead to greater happiness or fulfillment. She is incredibly eloquent and inspiring to listen to. I absolutely loved the conversation. I'm grateful that she took a chance on me and my strange little podcast to come on and tell her story, and I'm excited for you to get to know her.

Speaker 2: 3:07

So with that, let's jump in. Lindsay Dickes, welcome to Child Free Me. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much. I'm so grateful to be here. So why don't we? Since you and I were just talking about how we actually don't know each other we were introduced through a mutual acquaintance could you start with just doing a brief introduction of who you are and where you are in the?

Speaker 1: 3:31

world. Yes, so I am a somatic trauma psychotherapist, turned nervous system which and somatic empowerment coach. And I work with women and people socialized as women, to relax and receive their power, their pleasure and their erotic life force, energy. And I am Child Free, living in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, in Bellingham.

Speaker 2: 3:58

Washington. So now I'm very intrigued. Can you talk a little bit about what you mean by and I tried to write it down quickly. As you said it, you said somatic trauma coach. Yeah, so I must.

Speaker 1: 4:10

I have a background as a somatic trauma psychotherapist.

Speaker 2: 4:13

Psychotherapist, there we go.

Speaker 1: 4:15

Yes, yeah, and I still have a private practice and I've transitioned into doing more nervous system based work and somatic empowerment coaching.

Speaker 2: 4:25

How did you come to be in this line of work?

Speaker 1: 4:30

Well, I've always been really fascinated in working with other people psychologically. I remember when I was in sixth grade and I was like I want to major in psychology and I was very fascinated by our inner world and people's inner world. So of course, I went to school for psychology. I have a master's degree in social work. I'm a licensed clinical social worker.

Speaker 2: 4:57

And.

Speaker 1: 4:57

I also became really fascinated with the body. I also got my yoga and meditation teaching training, so I also have that background. So I've just always been really fascinated in what I'm now understanding is being a healing witch, being a somatic witch, through the very traditional pathway that was available to me through like, oh, get your degree in psychology, get your degree in social work, become a therapist, go through the mental health world. But I actually found, even as I was learning a lot and working with so many different I work with adolescents and women people socialize as women I actually found that I wasn't allowing the full range of myself to be expressed and be able to show up in the work that I'm doing.

Speaker 1: 5:45

And I think historically as a therapist, as a psychotherapist, we've been trained to show up as these blank slates and that was actually really suppressing a lot of my creativity and my power and my pleasure and my erotic life force that wanted to move through me and wasn't being able to in that traditional psychotherapist role.

Speaker 1: 6:12

And so I became very interested in working more deeply with the body, the mind, body connection and, of course, our sexuality and our erotic life force. And so I moved into private practice as a psychotherapist and then three years ago I opened my somatic coaching practice and I'm slowly been able to expand into erotic empowerment and I have just found that it's given me more permission to be myself, and then I think we lead by example, and so I've noticed then the clients and the women and the people who are drawn to my world. It's also permission giving for them to be more self expressed, to be in their bodies, to let their bases in their bodies move in a way that maybe hasn't been socially accepted or acceptable but which is actually quite liberating and really healing.

Speaker 2: 7:02

Thank you, that is really fascinating. I love that you ended with socially acceptable and liberating. On that note, you also mentioned that you are, of course, child-free, so would you mind just talking a little bit of around what that journey has been like for you? Yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:19

I always knew growing up that my life would be fulfilling, whether I had a child or children or not.

Speaker 1: 7:29

And I know we all have different experiences, but for me, I just always had this sense that, no matter whether I had a child or I had a family or I had children, I always had this deep sense and this deep trust that I would have a fulfilling life, that I would create a satisfying life, and that has been a really fortifying sense for me throughout my life as I've navigated all of these systems and institutions and medical institutions that are assuming that I'm going to have a child. And why wouldn't I have a child? And have you thought, why haven't you thought, about having a child? I think, as I told you, I'm going to be 40 this spring and I have known for my entire life that my family on my mother's side has a history of breast cancer and ovarian cancer, and so when I was about 27 or 28, I went in to get genetic testing, to get tested for the BRCA gene, the BRCA gene mutation, and those of us who have the BRCA, brca gene mutation are at higher risk for breast and ovarian cancer.

Speaker 1: 8:42

And of course my mother had breast cancer. Her mother had breast cancer and ovarian cancer, so I already knew that I had a strong family history.

Speaker 2: 8:50

But when I?

Speaker 1: 8:51

was 28,. I went in. I was right in the middle of social work, graduate school at the time. I was partnered but I wasn't married. And I remember going in and the doctor asked me well, when are you going to have children? We need to know. And he was proposing a really radical approach to preventative care for those at higher risk for breast and ovarian cancer. And he was proposing radical reproductive surgeries of removing all of my reproductive organs and my breasts.

Speaker 1: 9:24

And I remember at the time I was 28 and I was so thrown off and so surprised by the question of when are you going to have children? And almost this sense of patronizing, why don't you know? Well, when are you going to have children? Because I remember looking at him and said I don't, I don't know. I said I'm 28.

Speaker 1: 9:43

I'm like living my life's purpose, I'm going to school. You know, like I felt really quite fulfilled and it was really striking to me to have a doctor be so, so patronizing and also invalidating that I hadn't come to a decision around having children and how. Why haven't you already considered this? And so, needless to say, like I haven't had children and I still have not gone through these radical preventative surgeries, but as I've gotten older like I said, I'm going to be turning 40, the risk is higher, and so I've had to come back around and I've been in more communication with doctors. I have an amazing doctor who's a woman who is very consent based and really listens to me, and I've been in conversation with her around those surgeries, so it's been a very different experience.

Speaker 1: 10:31

Now but I will say, as I've explored this process of, okay, if I elect to remove my reproductive organs, it's allowed me to come in to revisit that inquiry of being child free. And I've actually found that I feel very satisfied in being child free. And how interesting it is to me that within myself I've always known that. But then, having mirrored to me, especially in the medical institutions, a very different perspective on how I should treat my body and how I should live or be as a woman.

Speaker 2: 11:05

I'm so thankful that you found a doctor that is, like you said, consent based. I'm curious how her approach is different than the doctor you saw, a decade ago. How is that different and what is that approach like?

Speaker 1: 11:18

Yeah, it was really refreshing. I remember just feeling so caught off guard with this initial doctor and this doctor. It felt very different. It's felt very relational, it's felt very consensual and I have a sense that she's really honoring my own body's autonomy. She's not coming in with an agenda. I don't even.

Speaker 1: 11:38

She's probably asked me about whether I want to bear children or have children, but the fact that I don't even remember if she asked me is very telling, because the rest of our conversation was centered around how do I want to feel, what are my goals in life, and it's not just centered around whether do I want to bear children or not, whereas my initial consultation with this doctor who wanted to do these radical preventative surgeries really the only question that I took away from that interaction was you should really be planning to have children now and why haven't you thought of that? Instead of actually honoring what is the quality of life that you want to experience? What is the? You know, what are your goals in life, like? What choices do you really desire and what do you want in your life? That's felt very, very different with this doctor.

Speaker 2: 12:24

So I'm going to back up a bit. So you talked about you had grown up always knowing that you were going to live a fulfilled and satisfying life, with or without children. Where do you think that came from? I have known for a long time that I don't want children, but I don't think I experienced that same confidence around life. So I would love to hear just a little bit around where you think that came from.

Speaker 1: 12:48

It's such a good question. Well, I grew up as a single child, and only child, and my parents were both recovering Christians, I guess you could say they both grew up in the church where neither of them were very satisfied with their church experience, and so I grew up in a household where we didn't have a lot of religious input, like I didn't grow up having to go to church or have the influence of a religious institution that was reinforcing these very hetero, patriarchal models of a woman and bears children and needs to, you know, have a husband and create a family and that's, you know, her whole purpose. So I actually think that, whether we're a lot of challenges in my family growing up, I am really blessed that I didn't grow up with these religious models of you need to get married, you need to have children. I also think, too, I grew up as an only child, as a single child, and I was on my own a lot, and so I really learned from that experience to create the life that I really wanted to, because I was on my own, and I think it really helped deepen my sense of imagination and play and creativity and connection with the natural world and the more than human world and I think, especially because I didn't grow up with siblings, I never had this experience of what it was like to have siblings or have a big family, and I actually was very satisfied as a little girl and even growing up like being an only child, and so I think that that also fortified the sense that I don't need to have children and I actually don't need to create a family in order to have a fulfilling, satisfying life.

Speaker 1: 14:25

I had already created such a rich imagination and rich relational experience with the more than human world, with the animals, pets I grew up with dogs and horses and the natural world that I think I already found a sense of like richness in my world that didn't need to come from having children.

Speaker 2: 14:43

Sounds like you grew up in a very supportive, creative household. Is it something that you and your parents ever spoke about or talked about growing up or even now?

Speaker 1: 14:52

Yeah, I really don't remember my. I felt like my parents were pretty hands off growing up. I was, you know, for better or for worse, a very independent child. I actually didn't need a lot of parenting, which has definitely, you know, impacted my own attachment system as I've gotten older. I actually don't really ever remember my parents directly talking to me about having a family, getting married. I think they were very supportive of me just living my own life and I think they could also see and feel that I was a very independent, very passionate child and that if I wanted to do something I would do it. So in that sense I think they really supported that.

Speaker 1: 15:30

And as I got older I lost contact with my father but I stayed in relationship with my mom and I would say around the same time that I was getting that I got this BRCA gene mutation testing. I could tell that her sense of identity was changing and her friends were becoming grandmothers and every once in a while my mom would bring up this sense of wanting to have a grandchild and I think at the time I was able to see that this was her own identity challenge around what was her life purpose now All of her friends were starting to have grandchildren. She was seeing how that was fulfilling their lives and bringing a sense of purpose and meaning to their lives, which makes so much sense. Our culture does not honor the elderly, much less women. You know, of certain ages is probably when she was in her mid 60s, and so I think she was really searching for a sense of purpose and meaning, and I really am grateful for all of the experiences that I had, both as an only child and just growing up, of the support of being a strong, independent woman that didn't need to have children or be married in order to be fulfilled or satisfied. And so I think I was able to be a bit of a mirror for her when she was bringing this up around wanting grandchildren, and I think it was actually really healing for her because it invited her into un-emission with me, this kind of codependency that she gets to become her own person, outside of her relationship with me or her identity with me or my you know role, to provide grandchildren. So I actually think it was a very healing experience, and I don't even know if we had real in-depth conversations, but I do remember being very clear around I won't have children until I want to have children, and so I think that's invited her back into okay, well, what brings my life purpose and meaning?

Speaker 1: 17:22

And I think it disrupted a lot of these intergenerational patterns for women in my lineage around their own identity. And who am I without children? Who am I when I have a child? Who is disrupting this pattern of having children, getting married to a man, having, you know, fulfilled this, this role, and now it's it's actually interesting, as I've gotten older, people don't ask as much anymore as I've gotten older One if I'm going to have children, much less if I'm going to get married.

Speaker 1: 17:48

So it has been kind of satisfying to get over this hump of being in my 30s where that was like the main question I would get from even extended family Do you have a boyfriend or are you going to get married? Have you thought about kids? And now that I'm almost 40, it's almost like those questions are null and void because I'm over the hill. I think it also, you know, I also think it invites people who ask those questions into what does that actually mean then for them. If here's a woman who's not following this pattern, this role, that is expected, and I think it invites them into their own inquiry whether you know they accept the invitation or not.

Speaker 1: 18:26

And I think now my, my mom actually she came to visit over Christmas and I think that she has really learned that I'm not going to have children and she's taken more agency and ownership in her life, which feels so empowering that she gets to have her own empowering life, just as I've empowered my life by not having children, by making that choice to be child free.

Speaker 2: 18:46

Yeah, you said a lot of beautiful things in there. I think you're right. Our society does not honor the elderly and I don't think it honors really anyone that goes outside the path. So I feel like there's a lot of honoring of the standard life plan, which is a phrase I use a lot in this podcast, and then outside of that, there's very, very little. You really have to work hard to find those support systems and validation, which I think is worth it. You know it can be a struggle at times to work to find it, but I think it can be ultimately very rewarding. In relation to finding support systems, I feel like you've very much walked off the beaten path. I myself kind of meander on and off. I'm in a corporate job, I am getting married, but it sounds like you have chosen a career that is true to you and speaks to your passions. How have you found those support systems along this journey?

Speaker 1: 19:44

I think that I'm still in that exploration of finding those support systems and I think that that is part of this journey. I think for a long time I was seeking those support systems as I just need that and then I'll be fine, like, once I find the support systems, the other people like me, then I'll be fine and I'll be able to feel confident and settled. But I think there's something really rich in walking that uncomfortable path of knowing that I live off the beaten path, I live my life off the those traditional roles, and it asks me to get really vulnerable and in connection with some really uncomfortable experiences of shame and yeah, it was shame, and I think that shame has come from those cultural expectations the shame of not being married as a single woman, the shame of not having children, and so it's actually invited me to confront those collective shadows that have shown up within my body and I've actually found that even in this inquiry searching for this social support system. I think it's so hard for any of us. Truly, I think we live in a very individualistic, self isolating culture and I think that's so important to name, because I think so many of us are so lonely and we can easily take that on as, oh, it's my problem, it's my fault.

Speaker 1: 21:11

But I truly believe that by confronting some of this like cultural shame, it's actually helping me to get deeper into my own power. And so, as I sit with the discomfort of I don't have like couple friends or I don't have, you know, my children. You know, if I had children, there'd be like a school system or like a parents group or, you know, like those, those communities that can kind of organically pop up. I think it's inviting me into this deeper layer of, okay, noticing that shame, but actually what do I truly want and what do I truly desire? It invites me to actually pop those wheels from those like well worn tire grooves of. Like this is just what I'm supposed to do and these are the friends I'm supposed to have and these are. And it can be very uncomfortable, but I've also found, when I lean in towards my shame and I lean in towards my discomfort.

Speaker 1: 22:01

That is actually what makes a fulfilling and satisfying life. And so, coming back to your original inquiry, finding those social supports. I try and follow where I feel most alive in my body, instead of like looking for, oh I need to find other single women, I need to find other child free women or people. I actually have a lot of friends who have children. I have several friends who are partnered, who are married. I also have single friends, but what I found is where do I feel the most alive, where do I feel the most seen, where do I feel the most honored? And that's where I'm going to keep following those tendrils and that's actually what's been the most supportive for me.

Speaker 2: 22:39

Yeah, the concept of shame is one that pops up often in these conversations that I've had with people, but it also seems to be self inflicted. No one has very directly or overtly shamed me for choosing not to have children, but it has somehow just penetrated my inner psyche so much that it is self inflicted shame. It's worry that I'm hurting my parents, that I'm hurting my fiance's parents, like there's the shame that bubbles up from I don't know where, and I'd be just interested to hear if you're comfortable sharing, like where do you find the sources of shame typically when you encounter them?

Speaker 1: 23:19

Well, interestingly enough. So, as you were sharing, I actually don't ever believe I've had anyone ever tell me that you are worthless or you should be ashamed of yourself for not having children. But I think that there's a quality here that is insidious that we get a lot of indirect messages around our sense of belonging and connection, and that there's a certain way that we as women, or people socialized as women, should show up, should show our lives as a way to belong and connect right. If we think about from like, a very like survival based approach, we don't want to be isolated from the herd or the pack. We want to belong, and so if we take a life path that's non traditional or goes against social or cultural expectations, even if it hasn't been directly communicated, there's an indirect message that maybe we experienced from people's behaviors, from people's nonverbals, and also just from epigenetics, just from what we've inherited in our bodies as far as the roles of women, and so I actually think that shame serves a very biological survival function in that if we want to survive, if we want to stay alive, we want to stay in belonging and connection with the herd or with the pack, and if we do something different, that's going to put our own survival at risk. So in some ways, that's how I understand.

Speaker 1: 24:52

Shame is that there's a survival pattern here, there's a survival protective mechanism here that's showing up and it's like oh, if you actually don't have children, if you don't get married, am I going to be cast out, am I going to be rejected, am I going to be exiled? And I think this also connects intergenerationally for me, because I definitely resonate with being a witch nervous system, which is what I identified, what I lead with professionally. But I think, coming from the witch wound, there has been and there is a very real historical trauma related to a woman being sovereign within herself and not following a traditional path. And so I think I have that fear of being rejected or exiled or cast out psychologically, emotionally or physically from the herd or the pack. See my shame emerging as oh, remember this, remember like, remember, if you do something different than what is expected of you, you're going to get cast out, you're going to be rejected.

Speaker 1: 25:51

And so when I see it like that, it helps me come into a more curious, compassionate relationship with myself. Oh, okay, this is actually a part of me that's coming up to perhaps try and protect me and what I get to do is remind that part that I actually have connection and belonging. Just as I am now is like 2024, lindsay I actually. I have a partner who loves me and I feel connected and I have a sense of belonging with him, and I don't need to produce children. I don't need to get married in order to have this sense of connection and belonging and feel love.

Speaker 1: 26:25

I have a really beautiful relationship with my mother, which actually took a very long time. I have connection and belonging with her and so I get to meet that shame from a very curious understanding perspective that this is probably a generations old protective pattern. And I get to disrupt that pattern now and remember that I have connection and belonging without having to have children or get married or to perform any sort of role other than what feels true to me.

Speaker 2: 26:55

Everything you just said paints a picture of what everyone wants A supportive and loving partner who accepts you the way you are, strong and loving relationship with your mother, a career and job that allows you to play into your strengths and your passions. And I would argue that everyone wants that. But what we're told by society is to get there. You have to follow, you know those tracks that you talked about and there's, I think, a lot of people, myself included, go along these tracks and are just waiting and are scared to move off of them. But the whole point is to get to where you are now.

Speaker 2: 27:35

I'm not saying that having children is not a path to happiness. Of course there are many, many people who that is the right path for them. But it just felt to me like you're describing the dream, but it is still very scary to trust that moving off of those paths will get you there. To go just quickly back to your experience with the Brecogene and now that you're 40 and looking at these procedures that could remove the choice to have children, how has that shifted at all your relationship to being childfree?

Speaker 1: 28:08

Yeah, it feels so much more empowering when I first met with that doctor and got the genetic mutation gene mutation results back, that I have the Brecogene and that I was at higher risk for breast and ovarian cancer and that the recommendation was radical hysterectomy, double mastectomy. I was 28. And at that time I was not engaging with practices that honored my own sense of choice and agency and power. I was learning, but I really wasn't. I wasn't there yet, and I think now, as I'm 40, and I'm moving towards 40, I'm able to come to this decision, for this choice, from a much more empowered place. I get to choose the doctor. I get to choose when I have so much more agency over my body that I don't think I had cultivated when I was 28. And so this last time that I had a consultation with this doctor around radical hysterectomy and preventative surgeries, it felt very empowering because it was actually it felt more like a choice this time around and it brought me face to face with this inquiry of if I have my reproductive organs removed. It obviously eliminates my chance to bear a child, and there was something for me that felt really satisfying in knowing that I could make this choice, and I played the tape out to the end right Of like. Okay, if I had my reproductive organs removed and I knew that then I would no longer have be able to have children. That same inquiry of would my life still be fulfilling and satisfying? I got a yes, and I think that that has been.

Speaker 1: 29:43

My whole journey has been listening to my body, listening to my intuition, reclaiming the wisdom of my body and, I think, being able to have all of these years of experience that I've trained in that I work with my clients in around coming into a relationship with the wisdom and the knowing of my body that I didn't have yet when I was 28.

Speaker 1: 30:04

Of course, there were like tendrils, but I was still quite young, I think, at the time. But I think now I have a much greater sense of my own wisdom and my own body. And being able just to have that choice, to be able to decide whether I want the surgery or not versus this is what you need to do, has helped me come to a much deeper, fortified sense of yeah, it is true, I will be satisfied, I will be fulfilled without children, and I don't think if I did not have to face these preventative surgeries, I may just keep pushing off that decision until maybe it is too late. But I think, knowing that I get to decide if I get to keep or remove my reproductive organs, it also helps me to come into a decision and there's something really empowering about making a decision and so I think that's actually helped been it's been very fortifying for me that considering these surgeries it's helped me come to a decision. That has helped me feel a lot more centered and grounded within myself.

Speaker 2: 30:59

It's an incredible way to frame it. I think a lot of people could meet these surgeries with hesitation, anger, regret. I think it's an incredible framing to take empowerment from it because you're right, you get to make the decision. I would love to end on just how, if at all, being child free intersects with the work that you do.

Speaker 1: 31:21

Yeah, I had a woman the other day ask me what it's like to be a solopreneur, an entrepreneur, creative, healer type person and be child free. And I certainly think, as you've named everyone's you know everyone's path is different and there's no right or wrong way whether to have children or not. And in my experience I've really found that being child free especially in a culture that I just don't see supports women or parents in having children. I actually have found that it allows me to channel my creative and my erotic life force energy into my work and into my relationships and into my life other than children, and so much of my work is supporting women and FEN beings and people socialize as women to come into deeper relationship with their bodies and their nervous systems and their erotic life force energy, and that that erotic life force energy isn't just for attracting a husband or attracting a partner or for, you know, procreating and having children. It actually gets to be yours throughout the entirety of your lifetime, through all of your cycles and all of the seasons of your life, not just in your childbearing years. So I think that it has allowed me to really pour into work that feels really important and meaningful for me and it allows me to maybe have more spaciousness around the choices that I make.

Speaker 1: 32:52

Because I think if I had children especially living in the culture that we live in where, like I said, I don't feel like parents are supported, especially mothers are right it allows me to have more spaciousness and it allows me to have more choices as far as how I want to react or how I want to respond.

Speaker 1: 33:14

Maybe if I want to retreat, I just have more spaciousness around disrupting maybe patterns that have maybe would have kept me on a traditional life path. So it allows me to be more creative and it also just allows me to connect with my erotic life force and create in other ways, and for me that is deeply fulfilling and deeply satisfying and I want to continue to encourage women and people socialize as women that that erotic life force, energy, gets to be yours, whether you have children or not. That gets to be your source of power, it gets to be your source of creativity, it gets to be your source of aliveness and your source of being able to remember the goodness and the joy and the pleasure of life. And then it's not just for making babies or having, you know, attending to children, it gets to be your own, and to me that is really deeply empowering.

Speaker 2: 34:05

It brings me back to Natalie, who is in, I believe, the same program as you, and she talked about the womb and the power and energy that comes from that, and I, literally my womb is not something I ever think about.

Speaker 2: 34:21

Because, in my mind. It's not something that I will ever use or need, and I guess it had almost just been like stripped from me in my mind, and so this just it brings me back to that conversation and a reminder that we're not just here to procreate. I still can have a purpose outside of having children, which again is something that, a little less than 40 years into my existence, is something that I still wrestle with.

Speaker 1: 34:47

Yeah, and I think that what you're speaking to is such a common experience and I think it's so important that, as women and people socialize as women, we get to reclaim our own sense of power and presence in the world beyond having children. And I think this is where we can start to connect more deeply with our bodies and the soul and the pleasure that wants to be expressed and moved through us. And I think sometimes then, if we don't have children, it allows the spaciousness for other things to emerge in our lives and and, as you said, just that connection with that womb space, that creativity. The womb is where, you know, life begins and it doesn't just mean children. It can be creative projects, it can be other relationships and just be a way of being. So I think it creates spaciousness for other ways, other ways of being, to be expressed in the world.

Speaker 2: 35:39

Yeah, there's definitely a flexibility that is provided in that I am more and more grateful for every day. I feel like in my 20s I took it for granted that I have. You know, my time is my own for the most part outside of work, but as I get older and, you know, am well into the years where I should be expected to be getting up at 5am and taking people to soccer games I can do other things and that I will always be grateful for. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 36:10

And that gets to be okay. You're not saying it, but there's like this tone of oh, that's might be seen as selfish and I think that also gets to be. What we reclaim is that it actually doesn't have to be selfish in a negative way, Like we get to live our lives in the way that we want and that gets to be. It's more than okay, it gets to be enough. Yes, definitely.

Speaker 2: 36:29

Would you mind, just for the listeners, defining what you mean by I think you said erotic life force or erotic empowerment? What can you define what that means to you?

Speaker 1: 36:39

So when I was my early 30s, I remember I was walking around the neighborhood I was living in this apartment in St Louis and I remember I was walking around the neighborhood and it was a really beautiful day. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping and I felt really sensually alive. I could feel the sun, I could feel the warmth of my skin, I could hear like the vibrancy of the birds, the colors were really vivid and I remember having this sensual experience of my sensual, erotic self. My eroticism gets to be mine, it's for me, and it was such a profound moment because I'm just outside, I'm walking around the neighborhood, I think I was walking my dog, and so there was nothing overtly erotic or nothing overtly sexual about that moment in time.

Speaker 1: 37:28

And yet it really struck me that that is when that intuitive hit, that wisdom landed for me, that here I am, outside in nature, receiving this really pleasurable sensual experience that I had. This wisdom come to me that my eroticism is mine, my eros, my creative life force, energy, my sexual life force, energy is mine, it's for me and it's not for anyone else. And so I think before I used to think that my erotic life force, energy, was something that was to be performed. It was something that only showed up when I was having sexual encounters, and at that time it was only sexual encounters with cis men.

Speaker 1: 38:08

I thought it was something that was used to get a cis man, to get a man, to get a boyfriend, to get a partner. And of course, these weren't things that I thought consciously, but they were part of my subconscious programming of what's been passed down. And so in that moment I was walking around my neighborhood, it landed to me that, oh, this erotic life force energy, this is my sense of being alive, this is my sense of joy, of embodied joy, and my sense of being in relationship with the world around me through my senses. And it doesn't rely on a partner, a sexual partner, a sexual encounter, even a sexual encounter with myself, for it to be part of who I am. And so erotic life force energy is that sexual energy, but it's also this quality of your being alive and your ability to be in your aliveness and in relationship with the world around you. So that's what I would define as a product life force energy.

Speaker 2: 39:11

I love that and I really do want you to go listen to that episode by Glennon Doyle, and they talk about that. There is this notion that the same institutionalized fear of not leaving the tracks that we're supposed to follow is similarly almost weaponized, like we aren't allowed to own our own sexuality. It has to be about getting the right guy, being married, getting a head in life, and it can't be our own. So I think that's so powerful and ties in really well with the general theme of this podcast, which is trying to make sure that the choices we make are our own and not ones that we've just been programmed to make. So thank you, yes.

Speaker 1: 39:53

Yes, and it's such a courageous path because sometimes we don't always know, and that gets to be okay too. Just even the inquiry and the curiosity of what do I want, what do I desire outside of what I've been told, is so radical.

Speaker 2: 40:07

Yeah, yeah, if you want to give a quick word around where people can find you if they're interested in your services and the work that you do.

Speaker 1: 40:15

Yeah, so I do one on one erotic empowerment coaching, somatic based coaching and group work, and you can find me on my website at LindsayDickesscom. You can find me on Instagram at Lindsay underscore Dickess and on TikTok at Lindsay hyphen Dickess.

Speaker 2: 40:31

Awesome. I will make sure all of those are linked in the show notes, All right? Well, thank you so much, Lindsay oh thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 40:39

I so appreciate this, laura Like. Thank you so much for you having this podcast, for following this creative expression, and thank you for taking a chance on doing this podcast with somebody you haven't met and just it was great for me just to be able to be asked questions and be able to express myself and be, you know, curious around what came out and what wanted to be shared.

Speaker 2: 41:00

So I really appreciate you, and that is it for today. Thank you for joining me. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, or please consider leaving a review wherever you get your podcasts, and I'll see you next week.