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Chelsea Wakefield, PhD director of the UAMS Couples Center 

Chelsea Wakefield, Ph.D., LCSW is a Jungian oriented psychotherapist, couples therapist, dream worker, workshop and retreat leader who works with individuals, couples and groups. She has spent twenty-five years facilitating people in moving beyond the wounds of the past, accessing their archetypal potential and living more vibrant and meaningful lives. Chelsea draws from a depth of training in clinical and transpersonal methods, helping people to integrate the insights of inner work into daily living.  She has a passion for supporting women in developing their luminous potential.

Wakefield has led educational retreats and workshops around the world, and offers community workshops for those wanting to improve and enrich their relationships. She holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology, a master’s in social work, and a Ph.D. in clinical sexology. She has published two books, which are valued by both clinical professionals and educated lay audiences, Negotiating the Inner Peace Treaty and In Search of Aphrodite: Women, Archetypes and Sex Therapy.

She is an assistant professor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Psychiatric Research Institute and is the director of the UAMS Couples Center. Opened in November 2016, the Couples Center seeks to help couples navigate the unique challenges of relationships in the 21st century by providing counseling, group therapy, and community education about love, desire, relationships and sex. The center also teaches student counselors about the unique demands of providing therapy and counseling to couples.

Up In Your Business is a Radio Show by FlagandBanner.com

 

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TRANSCRIPT

EPISODE 57

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:07] TB: Welcome to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy. Be sure to stay tuned to the end of the show to hear how you can get a copy of this program and other helpful documents. Now, it's time for Kerry McCoy to get all up in your business.

[EPISODE]

[0:00:18] KM: Thank you, Tim. Like Tim said, I'm Kerry McCoy and it's time for me to get up in your business. If right now you're sitting at your computer, you might want to watch us live on flagandbanner.com's Facebook page. It's fun to see the behind-the-scenes action of me hand signaling Tim, like I was just a second ago, to turn up the volume, or turn your mic on, or turn down the air conditioner. Sometimes it's really hectic in here, like when the guest is late, which thank you, Chelsea, for not being late today, or when the equipment is failing. Thank you, Jesse, for having the equipment working good today. Anyway, we only record for the first 15 minutes. At the break, I give a personal goodbye to our Facebook viewers who are directed to turn on the radio, or listen to the podcast next week.

We have a great show today. My guest is Dr. Chelsea Wakefield, Director of the Couples Center at UAMS in Little Rock, Arkansas. I will be getting up in the business of interpersonal relationships, the practice of dream work and, yes, sexology. We hope, through our conversation and storytelling, you will learn something, want to get involved, or be inspired to take action in your own life. We'll be answering questions via phone and email at the bottom of the hour.

For me, the taking action began over 40 years ago when I founded Arkansas Flag and Banner. During the last four decades, Arkansas Flag and Banner has grown and morphed from door-to-door sales, to telemarketing, to mail-oater and catalog sales and now relies heavily on the internet. Each change in sales strategy required a change in company thinking and procedures. My confidence, leadership knowledge, and my company grew. My initial $400 investment now produces nearly 4 million in annual sales.

Each week on this show, you'll hear candid conversations between me and my guest about real world experiences, especially today. On a variety of businesses and topics that I hope you'll find interesting, especially today, starting and running a business or organization is like so many things, it takes persistence, perseverance, and patience. I worked part-time jobs for nine years before Arkansas Flag and Banner grew enough to support just me. Today, we have 10 departments and 25 co-workers, thus reminding us all, small businesses are the fuel of our country's economic engine and empower people's lives.

Before we start, I want to introduce you to the people at the table. We have our technician, Tim, who will be running the board and taking your calls. Say hello, Tim.

[0:02:37] TB: Hello, Tim.

[0:02:40] KM: And we have Jesse, who will be recording the podcast and making it available next week for you at flagandbander.com. Say hello, Jesse.

[0:02:46] J: Hello.

[0:02:48] KM: My guest today is Dr. Chelsea Wakefield. She is a nationally recognized expert in the field of couples therapy. Didn't we used to call that marriage counseling?

[0:02:57] CW: Yes.

[0:02:58] KM: Now, not everybody's married.

[0:02:59] CW: That's right. That's why we call it couples therapy.

[0:03:01] KM: I like it. She was recruited in January of 2017 by the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, UAMS, to establish a program designed to treat those with interpersonal relationship issues. Chelsea is an Assistant Professor at UAMS Psychiatric Research Institute and was hired to be the Director of the new UAMS Couples Center, whose mission is to help couples navigate the unique challenges of relationships in the 21st century by providing counseling, group therapy, and community education about love, desire, relationships, and sex.

The center also teaches her methodologies to other counselors, so they can help their clients, thus sharing the love. She holds a bachelor's degree in psychology, a master's in social work, a PhD in clinical sexology. She has published two books, Negotiating the Inner Peace Treaty and In Search of Aphrodite, which are both used by clinical professionals and laypersons. To sum Chelsea up, she is a Jungian-oriented psychotherapist, couples therapist, dream worker, workshop and retreat leader, who works with individuals, couples, and groups. Welcome to the table, the extremely interesting and deep thinker, Dr. Chelsea Wakefield.

[0:04:27] CW: Thank you.

[0:04:29] KM: That was fun.

[0:04:31] CW: Good.

[0:04:32] KM: We have a lot to cover today. You have written two books Negotiating the Inner Peace Treaty and In Search of Aphrodite: Women Archetypes, and Sex Therapy. In those two books, you talk about becoming the person you were born to be. Everybody wants to do that. Dream work. I love this. And couple in sex therapy. Well, I like that, too. Before we get started, I want to find out how you ended up in Little Rock, Arkansas and how you first became interested in psychology and sexology.

[0:05:01] CW: Well, I wound up here in Little Rock, Arkansas because Dr. Rick Smith, who is a visionary over at the Psychiatric Research Institute and his wife, Susan Sims Smith, who is an Episcopal priest in this area, recruited me. I've known Susan Sims Smith for quite some time. For a couple of years before I came here to do grand rounds, they had been sending couples out to Asheville, North Carolina to work with me. I'd been continuing to work with them remotely by Skype and I came out to do a grand rounds and Dr. Rick Smith said, “One of the last things I'd like to do before retiring is to really start a training program for clinicians in Arkansas and the heartland, the middle of the United States, to train people to do good couples therapy.”

[0:05:53] KM: I love it. Well, Susan Sims Smith used to be a psychiatrist, I believe, and then she converted to an Episcopal priest.

[0:05:59] CW: She was a clinical social worker, had a practice here in Little Rock for quite some time as a therapist, and then she went into training. Actually, through her dream work, she was called into being a priest and she thought – She's one of the great. She's very, very tuned into her dreams and follows them to the Nth degree.

[0:06:17] KM: Yes, she does. That's how you got to Little Rock.

[0:06:23] CW: That is how I got to Little Rock, with also listening and attending to my own dreams and having lots of conversations with my husband, which could be a couple's book in and of itself, in terms of our caring for each other. My saying to him, “I can't possibly uproot you from where we are. Your best friend is here and you love it here in the mountains of North Carolina.” And him saying, “You can't possibly not go, because this is a culmination of the life's work and a way for you to disseminate more information to more people.” We just kept talking about it and talking about it and working out the disconnects and the tensions, and now we're here and we're very happy to be here.

[0:07:05] KM: Did he have a job?

[0:07:07] CW: Tom is retired. Yes.

[0:07:09] KM: How long did it take you to work it out?

[0:07:11] CW: Well, it wasn't a conflict. It was more of a conversation and just sitting with it and bubbling with it and seeing how we could make it work, and really putting into action principles that I believe in in good couples, which is differentiation, us each being individuals and really sharing and talking about who we are and then caring for each other, being in each other's care, and each of us wanting the other person to have a wonderful life and to fully express who they are.

[0:07:44] KM: I think I read where you got into psychology and when you were in about 22 or 23.

[0:07:52] CW: I had a boyfriend who was training to be a psychologist, and he took me to an early workshop that was led by the Gouldings, who were great Gestalt and Transactional Analysis Psychotherapists. I was exposed to this very early. It was very interesting to me. At that time, I didn't have an interest in becoming a psychotherapist, but that developed later. But I was always interested in my own process and why I was the way I was and why other people were the way they were and how relationships worked. From the time I was introduced to sexuality, I was very interested in sexuality and what that meant to people and how it might be fulfilling and creative.

[0:08:42] KM: A lot of people go into psychiatry, because they have an unfortunate catastrophe of some type of happen. Did you have a moment that you said, “I need to go deeper into myself and figure out why I'm feeling this way”?

[0:08:57] CW: Well, I had a father who had a lot of difficulties in his life. He divorced when I was in my 20s, and I watched the unraveling of my parents' marriage for reasons that was really not necessary. But they didn't get the treatment that they needed and my father didn't get the treatment that he needed either. He really needed to be on an antidepressant. He went into a very classical depression after a heart attack, which is not unusual, we've learned. Unfortunately, he got some very bad advice from his pastor, who said that what the problem was was probably unconfessed sin, and he went in search of some sin that he had not confessed.

Their relationship fell to pieces and he was in deep trouble for a long time. My master's degree, my dissertation from my master's degree was actually on clergy as a community mental health research and a resource and looking at the role of clergy and helping people. That helped to heal some of that trauma for me having watched my parents go through that.

[0:10:00] KM: You were dating that boy at the time?

[0:10:03] CW: Which boy?

[0:10:04] KM: The one that helped, that was the psych, that you said was –

[0:10:06] CW: Oh, the psychologist. That was before I got my master's in clinical social work. I was actually married to Tom Wakefield by that time. Yeah.

[0:10:15] KM: All right. This is a great place to take a break. We have a lot to talk about. When we come back, we're going to get advice from Dr. Chelsea Wakefield on how to become the person you were born to be. We all want to do that. How to interpret your dreams and get advice on couples and sex therapy.

[BREAK]

[0:10:31] TB: You're listening to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy. If you missed any part of this show, a podcast will be available next week at flagandbanner.com's website. If you prefer to listen to iTunes, YouTube or blog talk, you'll find those links there as well. Lots of listening options. We’ll be right back.

[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]

[0:11:15] KM: You're listening to up in your business with me, Kerry McCoy. I'm speaking today with Dr. Chelsea Wakefield, Professor of UAMS Psychiatric Research Institute and Director of UAMS Couple Center in Little Rock, Arkansas. Chelsea, when writing your book, Negotiating Your Inner Peace Treaty, I read you were heavily influenced by Carl Jung and Hal and Sidra Stone. You say, this book is to help people become the person they were born to be and you give us three big steps. You want to talk first about what become the person they were born to be means and then I'll tell you what your three big steps are and you can expand on them?

[0:11:54] CW: Okay. When I talk about becoming the person you're born to be, we're really talking about what in Jungian psychology would be referred to as the journey of individuation. Each of us has what I like to think of as a soul print, a dimension of ourselves, which is as unique as your fingerprint. Often, that soul print gets overlaid by scripts that we're given from parents and early teachers and religious institutions and culture that prevent us from really connecting with our essential essence. When people get disconnected from that essential essence, they become depressed, they become agitated, they become angry and they're lost.

Negotiating the inner peace treaty, we always had these arguments in our head between one part of us and the other part of us and this voice and that voice and this obligation and the part of us that wants to just be free and have fun. It really helps us to define our inner cast of characters, as I like to call it, and to work things out between the worrying parts of self.

[0:13:05] KM: That's tough to do, and it never ends.

[0:13:07] CW: Yes, that's true.

[0:13:10] KM: I know exactly what you're talking about, because there's a part of me that says, yeah, I'm really confident and I can go out and I can just – some days, I just feel like, I can just kill it. Then other days, I wake up and I think, “I am a fake. What am I doing?” Those are those two opposing characters that fight each other all the time. When I read that in your book, I was like, “Oh, I know exactly what you're talking about.” I think everybody has that. That's not unique to me by any means. Identifying the first step. You have three steps. The first step is identifying and naming by becoming the observer.

[0:13:44] CW: Yes. Even just the process of developing an observing self, it makes a profound difference in people's lives. Stepping outside of your reactivity, or your automatic reactions, your automatic scripts and taking a look at them from the sideline and saying, “What am I doing here?” Sometimes people say, “I'm so upset,” and I like to ask people, “Well, who's upset in you? Who's upset? Why are they upset?”

On the days when you're feeling really vulnerable and like, you are no good, or you can't do it, you're really in a younger, a child ego state. That's our vulnerable self and our vulnerable self is usually younger. People are very much like Russian nesting dolls, where they have those layers, every age you've ever been inside, inside, inside, down to the very, very little baby inside. We get kicked all over our age brackets throughout the day and throughout our lives. Some days we just feel really strong and really clear.

[0:14:47] KM: Yes.

[0:14:47] CW: Other times, there's dimensions of us – I like to talk about the voices of warning. We try to expand in a certain direction and the voices of warning come in and say, “Don't do that. This terrible thing will happen.” In identifying the inner cast of characters and naming the voices that are in us, we can begin to step outside of that chorus of voices and to figure out who's activated in me right now. What do they want? What do they need? What’s their agenda? To really get conscious about the things that we're going to follow and the things that we're going to say, “That's old material. I'm not going to follow that.”

[0:15:26] KM: You know this is true, because you're the observer. If it really was you, you wouldn't be able to observe it. The fact that you're an observer makes you know those voices aren't real.

[0:15:37] CW: Right. Right. They're definitely going on, and sometimes very loudly. Most of those voices have body sensations that go along with them. I like to think of it in terms of being in archetypal energies. If you're in the archetypal energy of the mother, you're very responsible and you're very other oriented, and you're trying usually to be a solid citizen and to care for others. You're not really thinking much about yourself. It has a particular physical feeling that goes along with it.

If you're moving more into, which I'm sure we'll talk about later, your Aphrodite self, that more playful, sensuous self, you're not so much concerned about other people. You're just really tuned into your senses. It might feel a bit lighter, a bit more playful, a bit more embodied. Sometimes a little bit more anxious if you've got the chorus of voices over here that says, that being in that dimension of self is dangerous. We have these different voices and we have the felt sense that goes with them.

[0:16:44] KM: Is there a typical amount of voices that anybody has, like 12? I know I have 12. I have named 12 right off the top of my head.

[0:16:51] CW: It's easy to name 12. Sometimes when people sit down with the book and they actually start to name all the different dimensions of themselves, they'll actually come up with a rather long list, many of whom can be grouped.

[0:17:05] KM: Let's just do some typical ones for the listeners that are out there. There's the nurturer you said, the mother.

[0:17:10] CW: Right.

[0:17:11] KM: There's the sexy aphrodisia self. There's the child. Then there's, I think, I read in your book, there's the accountant.

[0:17:18] CW: We have accountants sometimes that keep track of whether we're doing things right. We've got the rule maker and the person who keeps us inside the lines of what's appropriate. Some people have a very strongly developed rebel.

[0:17:32] KM: Oh, that would be me.

[0:17:34] CW: You probably do.

[0:17:35] KM: Matthew, that's you. I raised him. I know that's him.

[0:17:38] CW: Yeah. If you've got a big rebel in you, then that rebel takes great joy in saying things that are a little outside of the norm, or shocking people, or things of that sort.

[0:17:50] KM: Well, you can't work at Arkansas Flag and Banner if you don't have a little rebel in you. We've just about decided that's true down there. Don't you think, Tim?

[0:17:56] TB: Absolutely.

[0:17:58] CW: That's interesting, because organizations actually have personalities as well.

[0:18:03] KM: Oh, wow.

[0:18:04] CW: Yes. If you work at Flag and Banner, you might have a certain personality profile and a set of inner selves that everyone shares, the rebel being one.

[0:18:13] KM: That's absolutely as I think.

[0:18:14] CW: Uh-huh. If you're over at the university, you're more thinking oriented. You're probably a little better behaved.

[0:18:20] KM: The academics.

[0:18:21] CW: There's an academic personality, absolutely. If you were in the performing arts, you would have a particular type of personality.

[0:18:31] KM: What would that one be? Actor? I mean –

[0:18:32] CW: Well, I think that performing artists are more tuned into their emotional selves.

[0:18:39] KM: Oh, the emotional you. Inside or something.

[0:18:42] CW: They tend to be more impulsive. They're really trying to have deep insight into their inner processes, so they're more reflective in terms of their inner processes. Sometimes they're a little bit more show-offy. They like to be the center of attention, so they'll do things to get to be the center of attention. They can be pretty self-absorbed.

[0:19:08] KM: Yeah. What's Donald Trump?

[0:19:10] CW: Well, I think we'll skip talking about Donald Trump. That's a show in and of itself.

[0:19:17] KM: Aren't you diplomatic? I thought you might have a word and there was a word. I think people try to give a word to it all the time and can't figure it out. We are talking really about the second step. The second step, first you identify a name, which is your soul print. Oh, no, really. Now, we're moving into the second step, which is knowing those people.

[0:19:36] CW: Getting to know. In my book, I actually have a series of questions that once you identify – so, let's say I was really over-identified with being a good student, all right? I actually do have a good student in me and I like school. That was also tied into feedback that I got from being raised by my particular set of parents, for whom that was very important. I can interview that part of me and say, “Well, tell me about yourself.” That good student might say, “Well, it's very important to get good grades, because it makes my mother happy. It's very important to have my mother be happy.” I also feel good when I get good grades.

There's a series of questions that I can ask, including when did you come online? Because I don't remember being anything about being a good student in kindergarten. Kindergarten was about wandering around and looking at the tulips in the backyard and –

[0:20:36] KM: Oh, did we go to a state like that?

[0:20:38] CW: Yes, yes. That really, that young – I was so tied into nature when I was little and just –

[0:20:45] KM: Exactly.

[0:20:46] CW: - the imaginal world. That's all nested in me. That's a very different energetic from my thinking-oriented academic self. I still try to make space for her, because if I don't make space for her, I can get very stressed out and unhappy.

[0:21:02] KM: She's very present.

[0:21:04] CW: She's a very important part of me. She's always with me. I carry her in my little pocket and bring her out.

[0:21:10] KM: She's present in the world. One of the things that I think I heard you say is that she smells the road. She stops and smells the road. She sees what's going on in the room. She appreciates. She's not somewhere down the road thinking about tomorrow.

[0:21:24] CW: Yes. Very much in the now.

[0:21:27] KM: Getting to know these people and how the body speaks to us. Tell us about the body speaking to us.

[0:21:32] CW: Well, our bodies are actually speaking to us all the time. As Westerners, we are not very tuned into our bodies. What's interesting about emotions is they actually have a bodily component. The way that you know that you're afraid, or you know that you're angry is you have a particular set of sensations that get set off in your body. The way that you know that you're in love is because your body is telling you you're in love.

Or, if you're feeling very responsible, there's a particular kind of a – I know when I'm feeling very responsible, I feel like, almost all my energy is up in my head and maybe in my shoulders. Whereas, if I'm sad, I might feel it more in my chest. If I'm anxious, I might have more of a fluttery feeling in my arms and my stomach. For people to actually get grounded in their bodies is incredibly important in life.

[0:22:27] KM: When you're having one of your personalities show itself, and I say it's not – Everybody's okay with the good ones, so let's just talk about the bad ones. It's an anxiety one. You're having anxieties and you're feeling inadequate. You need to really pay attention to the way your body feels. Then what do you do with that?

[0:22:46] CW: Yes. What most people do with their anxieties, or their anger, or these darker emotions that we would prefer not having is they revile and persecute them. They hate those parts of themselves. What I want people to do is to actually get into relationship with those parts of selves and have conversations. If you personify your anxious self, or your angry self, or the part of you that is your rebel self, because there's times and places where rebel is perfectly okay and there's other times and places where it's not okay. If you get into relationship, let's say with your anxious self and you begin to dialogue with that self and say, “Tell me about yourself and tell me what you want and need in this moment. What are you concerned about?”

It's almost like, parenting yourself. It's like, taking that little anxious self and tucking it in and saying, “Yeah, I hear you. I hear your concerns. In my adult self, I'm on board here and I'm looking out for the things that you're concerned about. You don't have to carry this burden all by yourself.”

[0:23:52] KM: I try to get rid of it. I try to think about something else, or do something else. But you're saying, go into it, feel it, let it wash over. You figure out what it is and will it go away on its own?

[0:24:04] CW: I'm not really saying, go into it as much as being relationship with it, because we don't want the anxious self driving the car. We want to listen. Because anxious selves actually pick up on a lot of important stuff. They tend to be hyper-vigilant and they're really looking across the landscape to see dangerous signs. They pick up on things that our rebel might miss, or our Aphrodite self might miss. It's good to be attending to those little anxious signals that we have.

But if we're really practicing the development of an observing self and we're living from what I like to call the calm core, we're developing that calm core, we can be aware that we're anxious and we're holding our anxiety, but we're not letting that anxiety drive our lives. Sometimes if I'm about to go into a meeting or something and I know I'm really, really vulnerable, I will actually, in my imagination, I'll have a conversation with my anxious self and I'll say, “You know what? You need to just go out on the playground and go sit outside next door rose bush and hang out with a rose bush for a little while.” I need to go into a meeting that they need to deal with some stuff and this is, you're not going to really enjoy it very much, or –

[0:25:17] KM: Does it work?

[0:25:18] CW: It does.

[0:25:20] KM: When you talk about calm core, you're now talking about the third step, which is negotiating at the round table.

[0:25:26] CW: Yes.

[0:25:26] KM: Your inner cast of characters stay in your calm core. In my church, they call this the piece that passes all understanding.

[0:25:36] CW: Yes. Yes. When we really begin to name, know, identify and get into relationship with everything that lives in us, we have a better capacity to be observing them and know what that's about, to know when we're triggered, because we know what the set of body sensations are. I like to picture gathering these different parts of self around an inner round table, and sometimes having a committee meeting, where they might talk about what their concerns are, or I mean, even in terms of coming to Arkansas, I had to consult my inner round table. What do you think about this?

I lived in North Carolina mountains close to a couple of waterfalls, and I used to love to go hiking through the forest to the waterfall and sitting in front of the waterfall. I had to ask waterfall girl, it's like, how do you feel about not being able to hike to the waterfall? What are you going to do to replace that? Lo and behold, we found a house here in Arkansas that has a waterfall in the backyard.

[0:26:39] KM: No, that's not true.

[0:26:40] CW: It's true. I have a waterfall in my backyard. It's stone waterfall. Not a natural waterfall, but I'm able to sit in the – around the table in the back next to the waterfall and we have beautiful trees back there and actually have a little taste of what I enjoyed previously.

[0:26:57] KM: You sit down with your inner cast of characters and I know in your book, you make a diagram. You have a circle. Around the circle, you have all the characters that you've identified. Then you have a line, like an arrow that shoots off to another circle. In that circle, it's called the soul print.

[0:27:13] CW: Yes.

[0:27:13] KM: How do you get all those cast of characters to buy into your other circle, the soul print?

[0:27:18] CW: Well, it has a lot to do with developing the calm core and being in a process of growth. In the book, I talk about how initially we're defined – we have an ego identity. That ego identity is really defined by things like, our resume, our roles, our history, our health, our religious affiliation, the groups we're affiliated with, etc., our spirituality, all those things, the ego identity.

As we begin to really do inner work and tune into the interior processes that are going on with us, that soul print, which the Jungians call the capital S, self, and the ego identity would be the little S, self. The capital S, self, is really the orchestrator of the fullness of our lives. It's continually feeding information through our dreams and through synchronicities, those interesting coincidences that we come across in our lives and inviting us to become more. If we're actually tuned in and we're listening to that process, then we're continuing to grow and that definition of who we are is expanding. We're not stuck in a definition that might become increasingly constricting as we get older.

[0:28:34] KM: Yup. It never changes, does it? All right, it's the bottom of the hour. We're going to take a break. When we come back, we'll continue our conversation with Dr. Chelsea Wakefield on interpreting your dreams and get advice on couples therapy and yes, including the often-difficult subject, sex therapy.

[BREAK]

[0:28:49] TB: You're listening to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy. If you miss any part of this show, a podcast will be made available next week on flagandbanner.com’s website. If you prefer to listen to it on iTunes, YouTube, or BlogTalk, you'll find those links there as well. Lots of listening options. We'll be right back.

[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]

[0:29:34] KM: You’re listening to Up in Your Business with me, Kerry McCoy. I am speaking today with Dr. Chelsea Wakefield, Professor of UAMS's Psychiatric Research Institute and Director of UAMS's Couples Center in Little Rock, Arkansas. If you've got questions or comments for my guest or me, this is your chance. You can email me at –

[0:29:52] TB: Questions@upyourbusiness.org.

[0:29:54] KM: That's questions with an S, upyourbusiness.org. Okay, Chelsea. Eight years ago, you became interested in sex therapy as part of your couples therapy work. You said, we have very poor sex education in this country in terms of how sex actually works, the difference between men's and women's bodies, the process of sexuality in terms of desire and arousal, and the technicalities of how people actually reach orgasm. You wrote a book about it, In Search of Aphrodite: Women Archetypes, and Sex Therapy. In this book, you talk about what?

[0:30:33] CW: In search of Aphrodite is not a technical book. It's a book about sexual identity and not – it might include partner preference, but it really is about a woman defining her unique sexual essence. Every woman has a unique sexual essence, and women are often disconnected from that sexual essence. Women are very preoccupied with being the person that their partner wants them to be. They're very focused on pleasing their partners and they're not always very focused on really discovering who they are, essential beings and expressing that in the context of an intimate relationship.

[0:31:14] KM: Well said. You use your cast of characters that was in your first book.

[0:31:19] CW: Yes.

[0:31:20] KM: Which I want to make sure everybody knows. Your first book that we talked about is a workbook, so you need to get the book and I'll tell you at the end of the show how to get the book, and you can actually do the work yourself.

[0:31:28] CW: Yes. You can learn a great deal about yourself.

[0:31:31] KM: Yes. We're all going to do that. When you went through your sexual archetypes to form your sexual essence wheel, which you're going to have to tell us what that means. The one I love the most was the fairy tale syndrome.

[0:31:46] CW: Oh, yes. Women internalized, deeply internalized fairy tales. I have a listing of various fairy tales that women internalize. One of which is the Sleeping Beauty story.

[0:32:02] KM: Dang Disney.

[0:32:05] CW: Where we wait to be awakened by someone else. We're waiting to be awakened. Women might wait to be awakened forever. I have many, many women who have come into my practice, who have never had an orgasm. They are partnered and they don't know how to get there and their partners don't know how to participate with them in that. They really don't understand how their bodies work, and they’re not in touch with their unique sexual essence.

[0:32:36] KM: Is that a mental, or physical thing for most women?

[0:32:38] CW: It's both.

[0:32:40] KM: Because some women just cannot. Very few, but some can’t.

[0:32:45] CW: Well, very, very few.

[0:32:46] KM: Yeah, very few. Most of them is a male.

[0:32:48] CW: Almost all women are orgasmic. But they don't always understand the technology. There's some technical dimensions to it. Then there are psychological issues around orgasm. Sometimes women are afraid of they might be going crazy.

[0:33:07] KM: Why? What do you mean?

[0:33:08] CW: Well, it's the loss of control.

[0:33:10] KM: Oh, yeah. How about, I love this one, too. This is one of your topics. Porn star versus sexual priestess.

[0:33:18] CW: Yes, yes. Particularly in the younger generation nowadays, we have so much sex education by pornography, which I think is very unfortunate, because it gives people unrealistic scripts about what sexuality is actually about. It gives people unrealistic scripts about what women actually want and what to expect in terms of normal human sexuality. Most people don't have good porn literacy. Meaning, they don't understand that these are actors and actresses and the activities are actually taped and cut over multiple hours and this is not how normal human sexuality would operate. Women get preoccupied either by the pressure that they feel from their partners, or by watching pornography themselves in terms of how they should be behaving.

[0:34:11] KM: You think they act too much like porn stars?

[0:34:13] CW: They feel pressure –

[0:34:14] KM: To act like a porn star.

[0:34:15] CW: - to act like porn stars. This might come from a partner, it might come from internally by comparing themselves to these beautiful bodies that they see. One of my great objections in the whole field of human sexuality is that we tend to think that the only people having great sex are the young, beautiful ones.

[0:34:34] KM: And the only ones I want to watch. I don't know if that's the only ones having sex.

[0:34:37] CW: Well, in my experience, some of the best sex is being had by people over 50.

[0:34:43] KM: Absolutely.

[0:34:43] CW: Yes. Particularly if you're in a caring relationship, where both parties are interested in delving more deeply into the sexual psyche, into each other's psyches, which is what I consider the way that long-term relationships are kept lively and alive is not necessarily by dressing up in sexy lingerie, but by really going more and more deeply into the intersubjective world.

[0:35:10] KM: Well, everybody's busy. I mean, how do you get past, was busy at work, or I was busy with the kids, or I was taking care of my elderly parents? I mean, everybody's got an excuse for why they won't stop and do what you just said. How do you make time and force yourself to do that?

[0:35:27] CW: Well, you have to value it, and you have to understand the tremendous reward that comes from relating to another human being in this way.

[0:35:36] KM: What is the reward?

[0:35:38] CW: The reward is the depth of meaning and a vibrant connection. Particularly, in a long-term relationship, it keeps the relationship ever unfolding, ever alive, and the kind of meaning.

[0:35:55] KM: What happens when you get older and you just can't have sex anymore, for physical reasons?

[0:35:59] CW: Well, first of all, we are able to have sex to a much later age. People can be sexually active into their 90s. Now, there are certain problems that people encounter. Women post-menopausaly can have difficulty with lubrication and discomfort, and some of those things can be addressed by a gynecologist. Men can have, I mean, most men know nowadays that they can – if they're having problems with erectile difficulty, there are medications for that. I actually like to say that ED is about eros dysfunction.

[0:36:35] KM: Oh, ain’t that cute?

[0:36:36] CW: Yes, because we don't have nearly enough valuing of eros in this world of deep emotional, energetic connections with each other.

[0:36:45] KM: Tell our listeners what eros means.

[0:36:46] CW: Eros is that E-R-O-S. It's the root of the word erotic, but it's much more than just a sexual dimension. Having an eros connection to life means that you're connected to the juice of life, that you are connected to things that bring you energy and vibrancy. When you are sharing from the deeper parts of your personality with another person and you've actually gotten to the place in a relationship where you can disclose to reveal yourself and the other person has gotten to a place where they can actually receive and listen to who that person is without becoming scared or defensive, you're in a really amazing relationship, a very vibrant one.

[0:37:30] KM: What is the sexual essence wheels and how do you use it to help accomplish what you're talking about?

[0:37:36] CW: I like to show women who are exploring their sexuality, the sexual essence wheels, because it's shaped like a flower, an unfolding flower, and there are four petals of the flower. There are four dimensions of archetypal sexuality, one of which is the nurturer and many women find themselves in the archetype of the nurturer. Another one of the petals is the romantic. Another petal is the seductress, and the fourth petal is the mystic, or the muse, and those tend to be very spiritually-oriented sexual beings.

Sometimes when you think about someone like Grace Kelly, she was a muse. She was a little bit of an ice princess, a little bit removed. She was a woman that you would just look at and admire, but you can't really picture yourself tumbling around with her.

[0:38:28] KM: I don't know if that's a good thing.

[0:38:31] CW: Well, it's not necessarily a good thing. Even people like Angelina Jolie, who is very much in the archetype of the seductress, and sometimes the dark seductress has an element of the muse with her.

[0:38:42] KM: Which she does.

[0:38:44] CW: She's a little bit aloof, a little bit mysterious. You don't quite know what she's thinking. She seems a little bit unapproachable. Actually, if you think about Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt was paired with both of them, Jennifer Aniston is more of the girl next door.

[0:39:02] KM: Which would she fell under?

[0:39:04] CW: I would say, she's a romantic. She's warm, she's friendly, she's sparkly, she's inviting, she's playful, and she's – Typically, romantics have a young quality about them. Now, each of these petals, if you go too far into them and become over-identified, you can move into the dark dimension. For instance, if you're an over-nurturer, you can move into the archetype of the dutiful wife.

[0:39:31] KM: Smothering.

[0:39:32] CW: Or you can become smothering.

[0:39:33] KM: Yes.

[0:39:35] CW: You can become a doormat, all of which. One of the greatest recipes for a loss of desire in a woman's life is to simply be having dutiful sex. Sex that's oriented around, “Well, my partner needs this, so I'm providing it. I'm not that interested.”

[0:39:49] KM: I don't think men really care.

[0:39:54] CW: I think men in 2017 care a great deal. The men that I see in my consulting rooms are there, because they want their partners to be engaged.

[0:40:04] KM: Sure.

[0:40:05] CW: Yeah.

[0:40:07] KM: You find out which one of these you are. Put part of your personalities, your –

[0:40:10] CW: Your unique sexual essence.

[0:40:13] KM: You're identifying names in there. Put your personality types into each one of these petals. Then what do you do?

[0:40:18] CW: Well, it's good to identify where you currently are. Sometimes it's actually not your homeland. Sometimes you're actually in those petals, because you've been scripted into being there. You've been shamed, you've been instructed, you've been pressured, and it's not your sexual homeland. The first thing is to begin to discover where is your sexual homeland? Are you really more of a mystic and a muse? Are you really more of a seductress, but you've been shamed out of being a seductress? Are you really more of a nurturer, but you've been caught up in having very spiritual sex, because you've got a lot of script about what is good sex as a spiritual woman?

[0:41:00] KM: Does everybody have some of all of these?

[0:41:02] CW: I find that the happiest women sexually actually have a bit of all of them, and they can travel that sexual essence. I like to say, that you have a homeland, but you also have a passport, and you can visit other dimensions of that. Which means that if you have a partner who loves it when you're nurturing, but you're not essentially a nurturer, you can certainly visit the land of nurturing.

[0:41:26] KM: I just want to tell everybody that you're listening Up in Your Business with me, Kerry McCoy, and I'm speaking today with Dr. Chelsea Wakefield, Professor of UAMS Psychiatric Research Institute and Director of UAMS Couple Center in Little Rock, Arkansas. We're going to continue talking about sexology for a minute, and then we're going to jump over to dream study, because it's part of the way we find out who these people are we're talking about. When you identify these dream characters and you put them on all of these petals, what do you do with that next before we go on to dreams? What do you do with all that?

[0:41:53] CW: Okay. First of all, I only do dream work with the people in my practice who are interested in that dimension, like the depth of the psyche.

[0:42:02] KM: Because some people think it's crazy.

[0:42:03] CW: Some people aren't interested in it, so we can certainly work with other dimensions to get there. Dreams are a tremendous resource. They come from the psyche, from the unconscious mind, and they give us snapshots, daily snapshots, about where we are internally in the psyche. They are continually offering up – it's like, they give us a picture of who we are and they invite us into something more. Dreams are the pathway through which the soul print, or the capitalist self is feeding new archetypal dimensions and new possibilities, new creative ways of dealing with the life that we're living. It's good to attend to dreams.

[0:42:44] KM: I do dream work. I started about, I don't know, about 10 years ago. I go in and out of doing it. I have learned from Susan Sims Smith that you talked about at the beginning of the show that everybody, that there's three types of dreams. The most common one is that everybody in the dream is you. Can you explain that to our listeners?

[0:43:04] CW: Everyone in the dream is actually a construction of your own psyche. Even if you're dreaming about, I don't know, somebody that you work with, or your next-door neighbor, or the guy that we were talking about earlier, a dream you had someone in the church, in the back of the church. Sometimes we recognize these people, we know them, and sometimes we don't. They're constructions of the psyche, people we've never met. But they carry personality qualities. In the dream, you are the dream ego. You'll be the one who's watching the unfolding dimension.

[0:43:44] KM: You're the observer.

[0:43:46] CW: You're the observer in the dream. You're the person who's actually acting in the dream as yourself. Then you're encountering other personalities in the dream.

[0:43:54] KM: Like, people you know.

[0:43:55] CW: Like, people you know, and they carry certain dimensions of personality.

[0:43:59] KM: I always dream about my girlfriend, Kathleen, if she's listening. It took me a long time to figure out why I dreamed about her.

[0:44:03] CW: Why do you dream about her?

[0:44:05] KM: Because she always feels guilty that she's not done enough.

[0:44:08] CW: Okay. When you dream about her, and you wake up the next morning, how does that dream inform?

[0:44:14] KM: It tells me that I am – she always thinks she's not doing enough. She should be doing more, but she's always doing more and she's fine. She's just fine. She actually does above and beyond the call of duty all the time. When I dream about her, that's that part of me that thinks I'm not doing enough, but I actually am.

[0:44:32] CW: Right. That's a great insight. That's one of the valuable things about dreams is they can warn us when we've tipped a little bit too far in one dimension or another. Dreams can actually have a compensatory function also. If we've gone too far in a certain dimension, they bring the elements of the opposite into the dream. Just like in that, they might be saying, “You've gone too far into thinking you're not doing enough. Here's a representation.” She has become a dream symbol for you.

[0:45:01] KM: She is.

[0:45:01] CW: Over time, we have these dream symbols that repeat, and they appear in our dreams. For instance, I have a particular dream symbol of the dolphin. When the dolphin appears in my dream, I know that I am not being playful enough, that I have moved far too far into being responsible and intellectual and thinking things through. I need to lighten up.

[0:45:26] KM: It doesn't always have to be a person in your dream. It can be an animal, or it can be an object, be a spider.

[0:45:32] CW: It can be a setting.

[0:45:33] KM: It can be a setting.

[0:45:33] CW: Yes. You might find yourself in your old high school, or you might find yourself in your childhood home. It's very important when you're dreaming to look at what's going on in your life the week before, what's going on in your life the week after, what you're heading into. Because your psyche, which is the dream maker, is going to be commenting on what that is stirring up in the deep psyche. We are not always aware of what it's stirring up.

[0:46:00] KM: In your book, you tell us why dreams matter. They help us process the events of the day. They offer us creative solutions for living. Alert us to unconscious forces that are driving us. Show us where we are out of balance. Provide compensation, wish fulfillment, and release pressure. Give us yes and no guidance. Help us heal, invite us to become something more. How do you know when you dream those dreams, which one of these messages it's trying to tell you?

[0:46:27] CW: Well, you start doing dream work. Over time, you learn. A lot of people are intimidated by dream work. But it's just to begin with waking up and writing them down and wondering, “Who are these people in my dream?” If I was to actually interview them, like I do my inner cast of characters, I might do something that is called active imagination and I might have a conversation with them and saying, “So, why are you showing up in my dream right now? What do you have to tell me?”

Earlier, you were asking about the sexual dimensions. Let's say, that I was wanting to become, just feel a little bit more sexually uninhibited, or more sensual, I might have a dream about a woman who really embodied that. In imagining, sometimes what I do with my dreams is I'll actually move inside the dream figures and I'll imagine what it's like to be in that state, to carry that archetypal energy. There's a felt sense to it. You can feel it in your body. I might just experience being that particular woman, and then bring that into my sexual dimension as a human being when I'm in interaction with my partner.

[0:47:45] KM: You don't think in your dreams, those are the cast of characters that are in your day, that are the voices talking to you to? I always thought that those are the same voices. The ones that are talking to me in the day are the same people that are my cast of characters in my dreams at night.

[0:47:55] CW: Some of them are, but then they're new ones. Because again, the psyche, one of the functions of the psyche is that it's always seeking to grow us beyond our current identity.

[0:48:05] KM: You can have the dream that has – there's three types of dreams. I can't remember what they are, but there's the one we just talked about where everybody in the dream is a part of you, one of your cast of characters. There's a dream that tells you about the future, that's foreboding. Then there was another one, wasn’t there?

[0:48:21] CW: Sometimes when we're dreaming, we are actually dreaming about someone else in our life, and we're dreaming about where we are in relationship to that person.

[0:48:33] KM: So, dream about your husband, you're probably really dreaming about your husband?

[0:48:36] CW: I'd like to think that dreams are over-determined. We're actually dreaming about the dimension in me that is like my husband, and I'm also dreaming about my objective, my husband out there. Both of those can be true.

[0:48:52] KM: If the listeners want to do dream work, because your book only had a few chapters on dream work, what book would you recommend?

[0:48:58] CW: I think that Jeremy Taylor has written some wonderful books on dream work. In fact, one of his books is entitled Dream Work, and I think it's been reissued by the publisher recently under a new title. But Jeremy Taylor is a great writer on dream work. Robert Johnson had a wonderful book called Inner Work, which gives some great suggestions on dream work. James Hollis has written a lot about, he's a wonderful writer on Jungian psychology.

[0:49:29] KM: That's Carl Jung.

[0:49:30] CW: Yes, Carl Jung.

[0:49:31] KM: He's just so smart.

[0:49:32] CW: J-U-N-G, Carl Jung, who was a Swiss psychiatrist, who was a contemporary Freud and broke off. What I like about the Jungian world is that they tend to believe that the spiritual dimension of life is very important. Freud was an atheist, so he wasn't interested in the spiritual dimension of life. Whereas, Jung was deeply interested in that dimension.

[0:49:55] KM: Yes. I like that too. Negotiating the Inner Peace Treaty is your book, that is a workbook, that people can get and they can actually try to define these inner cast of characters, which is really fun to do.

[0:50:07] CW: It's got a section on dream work and a section on shadow work, which is also very important in our life.

[0:50:12] KM: What is shadow work?

[0:50:14] CW: Shadow work. In Jungian thought, our shadow consists of dimensions of the personality that we've disowned, or that we've never developed.

[0:50:23] KM: Orphans.

[0:50:24] CW: We've got orphans and just parts of us which we've cast aside.

[0:50:29] KM: It's going to be really hard to find those.

[0:50:31] CW: Those appear in your dreams.

[0:50:34] KM: Shadow work.

[0:50:34] CW: Continually have shadow elements that are coming forward in your dreams. We have both dark shadow and bright shadow. I find that the bright shadow work is very interesting. We tend to project that onto other people that we admire. Often, for instance, let's say you were a very expressive child in your youth and you had a very quiet household and your parents didn't like your rambunctiousness, or you're singing out loud, or you're dancing, or whatever, and they said, “Cut that stuff out. Quiet down. Quit being that way.” You might have relegated those dimensions of yourself to shadow. Yet, they live there and they're longing to be a part of you. You might have dreams of –

[0:51:11] KM: Expressing yourself.

[0:51:13] CW: Expressing yourself. Yeah.

[0:51:14] KM: You're not still taking clients, are you?

[0:51:16] CW: I do have some openings at UAMS. Because I don't keep people in couples work forever, we –

[0:51:22] KM: Kick them out.

[0:51:23] CW: - we finish up and send them on their way.

[0:51:24] KM: “You’re done. Get out.” I wanted to ask you how you know when you are done and when you need to quit working, but that's a – we're out of time. You've got to come back next year and tell us what you're up to. I know you're writing another book.

[0:51:35] CW: I am writing a book on couples.

[0:51:37] KM: Yeah. We need to come back and talk about that. You are having workshops, because I just found out about it today, and I'm going to sign up for what it is. I have it on my phone.

[0:51:45] CW: Called The Luminous Woman Weekend.

[0:51:46] KM: It's at Eventbrite. You can buy tickets, or –

[0:51:49] CW: Well, you can sign up on Eventbrite.

[0:51:52] KM: Eventbrite. That's right. It's a luminouswoman.eventbrite.com. It looks like, you're having it in January of 2018.

[0:52:01] CW: No, February 23rd through the 25th.

[0:52:04] KM: Oh, that's when the balance is due.

[0:52:06] CW: Yeah.

[0:52:06] KM: It's February.

[0:52:07] CW: It'll be here in Little Rock, Arkansas out at Fern –

[0:52:10] KM: Cliff.

[0:52:11] CW: Cliff Retreat Center.

[0:52:13] KM: How many days is it?

[0:52:14] CW: It starts on Friday evening and it goes to Sunday at 4 p.m.

[0:52:17] KM: Do we spend the night?

[0:52:18] CW: You spend two nights. It's a deep immersion in women's archetypal explorations.

[0:52:23] KM: I can’t wait.

[0:52:25] CW: Yeah.

[0:52:25] KM: I've never done anything like that. I'm going to do it.

[0:52:27] CW: You can come explore any dimension of your life you want to explore.

[0:52:31] KM: I'll be making a list.

[0:52:32] CW: Okay.

[0:52:33] KM: Thank you, Chelsea. Because I figured out where all you've lived, look, I gave you a desk set with the United States flag. I gave you one of California, where you grew up.

[0:52:43] CW: Okay.

[0:52:44] KM: I gave you one of where you just left, North Carolina, and I gave you one of your new home, Arkansas.

[0:52:49] CW: I love it. Thank you so much.

[0:52:51] KM: You can put that on your desk.

[0:52:52] CW: Okay.

[0:52:55] KM: Also, we are having a special club at Dancing into Dreamland this year. We have the balcony reserved at Dancing into Dreamland for all of my Up in Your Business guests that came on in the past year. Here's your free ticket.

[0:53:08] CW: Thank you so much.

[0:53:09] KM: You're welcome. It’s November the 3rd, and you'll be joining other Up in Your Business guests. You can all sit up there and talk about what it was like to be on my radio show. Actually, we’ll talk about business. We're going to go have fun. If you haven't been to Dancing into Dreamland, it's wonderful. It's like Dancing with the Stars. It's a great date night. Bring your husband.

[0:53:27] CW: Okay.

[0:53:29] KM: Tim, who's our guest next week?

[0:53:30] TB: Next week is going to be Robbi Davis from Robbi Davis Insurance.

[0:53:34] KM: Oh, she is dying to come on. She does our health insurance at Arkansas Flag and Banner, and it is changing so much. I think it changed the last week. I think something happened. She's got lots of topics that she wants to talk about. She's going to be driving the show, because I'm not – health insurance. I am a health insurance novice. I don't know that much about it. She'll be on next week and she'll get us up to par on what the big changes are that are coming.

If you have a great entrepreneurial story you would like to share, I would love to hear from you. Send a brief bio, or your contact info to questions@upyourbusiness.org and someone will be in touch. Finally, to our listeners, thank you for spending time with me. If you think this program's been about you, you're right. But it's also been for me. Thank you for letting me fulfill my destiny. My hope today is that you've heard, or learned something that's been inspiring, or enlightening and that it, whatever it is, will help you up your business, your independence, or your life. I'm Kerry McCoy and I'll see you next time on Up in Your Business. Until then, be brave and keep it up.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[0:54:33] TB: You've been listening to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy. If you'd like to hear this program again, next week go to flagandbanner.com, click on the tab labeled Radio Show, and there you'll find a podcast with links to resources you heard discussed on today's show. Kerry's goal, to help you live the American dream.

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