43. Championing Holistic Sexuality And Embracing Your Erotic Spectrum With Dr. J

In this episode, we explore the multifaceted world of holistic sexuality, self-discovery, and body positivity with Donna Jennings, aka Dr. J.  Dr. J shares her remarkable journey from traditional education to creative writing in the realm of eroticism, emphasizing the importance of embracing one's unique erotic spectrum. Join us for an enlightening conversation that inspires you to embark on your journey of self-exploration, body acceptance, and holistic sexuality.

Mentioned in Show
High Vibe Mindset on Instagram
Dr. J's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drjauthor_/
Dr.J's quick links: http://drjauthor.com/quicklinks/
Dr.J's card deck: https://drjauthor.com/purplesexcards/
Dr.J's journal: https://www.amazon.com/Purple-Love-Beyond-Your-Dreams/dp/1949935787
Dr. J's website: https://drjauthor.com/
 

I've launched a new affirmation card deck designed with YOU, the listeners in mind! The Body Deck offers 77 beautiful cards that address the three high-vibe killers of disconnection, negative-self talk & lack of self-care/coping practices. Best of all, it's portable & affordable at $33. Benefit from the transformative practice of affirmations anywhere you go. Stop self-sabotage & start being the highest version of YOU: Visit soulea.co

I've launched a new affirmation card deck designed with YOU, the listeners in mind! The Body Deck offers 77 beautiful cards that address the three high-vibe killers of disconnection, negative-self talk & lack of self-care/coping practices. Best of all, it's portable & affordable at $33. Benefit from the transformative practice of affirmations anywhere you go. Stop self-sabotage & start being the highest version of YOU: Visit soulea.co

Transcript

dr j interview

[00:00:00] We've got a great taboo breaker, sex positive podcast episode coming your way today with our expert guest, Donna Jennings, AKA Dr. J. She has focused her BS, MA and PhD on the work of sexuality. And after being trained by experts in the field of sexuality and getting fantastic job experiences under her belt, she set out on her own.

Her sexuality work. has been threefold. She's provided sex therapy, professional consulting and training, as well as education. And for her providing sexuality education has been her most rewarding work. She's offered this type of education through college classrooms and through her programs and offerings in the community.

[00:01:00] She's really active online and on the community. I've been able to witness, the amazing types of blog article posts and zoom chats and things that she puts on for people who are interested. So you'll learn more about. All the amazing offerings she has in the episode, Dr. J champion, sex positive and holistic sexuality education, utilizing personal qualities of genuineness and nonjudgmental attitude filled with compassion and empathy, which is so important cannot stress that enough.

And I love that this is her approach when it comes to Sexuality more recently, Dr. J is also an erotic writer and she launched her own card deck called purple sex. So definitely tune into the episode, because if you're like me, I thought that name was so different and interesting and intriguing. So you'll learn more about [00:02:00] what.

That means what is purple sex? She's a wealth of knowledge and experience and I am so excited to dive into this episode and to learn from her I've got Gabby here co hosting with me and so let's just start off by giving some background. I'd love to hear from you, Dr. J, also known as Donna Jennings, but maybe you can share how you became Dr.

J and how you've gotten into this field with sexuality. Oh, well, Melissa Gabby, thank you for having me today. It's always fun to go back in time. That would be 47 years ago for women that started. I had to pull it out of my brain to get it. But, you know, like most college students, sometimes you stumble and go, I have no clue why I'm in college and I didn't want to keep paying, have my folks paying for that.

And I've dropped out of school to everybody's, oh my God, you can't be doing this. And I ended up [00:03:00] taking a job at a company in Chapel Hill. At the time, what the company that I applied with was Population Planning Associates, but it was actually the retail store for Adam and Eve. And so I started my career packing condoms and from there determined that the, the CEO of the company had gotten his master's in public health at Chapel Hill.

He did his research on what people like sexuality information and the privacy of their home and boom, the retail business was born and he used lots of money to do philanthropy work. And from there, it's like. What can I get a degree in that relates to this? And it was the health education degree specific to sexuality.

Then it was a master's degree specific to agency work. And then it was, I want to hang up my own shingle. What do I have to do? Well, you get that PhD and it was specific to marriage and family therapy with sexuality as the entire focus because I'd already been in a business that had trained me [00:04:00] and sent me around the world to meet all of these people that I've taught about Classes in college.

It's like, yeah, I know them. I had coffee with them or, you know, whatever. That was how that happened. I think a lot of people will relate with, not being sure what career path they want to go down. And that's where it's good to .

Get that experience. It sounds like you were at the right place at the right time and really inspired by the people around you. And I love how you were able to tap into this field and further your work and your expertise. 

I have a question. So clearly the family was a little scandalized when you dropped out of college. How did that progress as you then got a job at a sex shop and then went into like the sexuality space for your career? Well, that's the funny part. They were more scandalized that I dropped out of college and I went into sexuality and [00:05:00] I tested this.

This is where I knew this was going to happen. We had a rule in our house. That when we had dinner together, you had to share a piece of information about what you did during the day. So there was a two month period I was living at home while I was getting my place set up in Chapel Hill. And I'd sit down for dinner and I'd think to myself, Well, are the rules gonna apply like they used to?

And I'd watch everybody go through everybody at the table. They'd come to me and they'd say, And what did you do today? And I remember vividly saying, Well, I was in charge of the Christmas decorations for the tree, and we blew up condoms and hung them on the tree, and from that moment on, it was like, okay, we'll talk about anything, and I knew that it was going to be okay to be who I was in this field with them supporting me.

Wow, that's amazing. Would you say that you're like a type of trailblazer or just the kind of person who does [00:06:00] unexpected things and kind of opens doors for others to have conversations that might be slightly taboo or uncomfortable? Wow, can I pick both? I mean, in some ways. I know that I have blazed some trails, but I love to have people with me where I can tap in and say, Hey, I think this would work great for you.

Have you thought about, I did that yesterday. I was talking with an erotic author who was trying to branch out into Another field and I have a connection in Spain with a company that's doing all the audio for several erotica apps. And so I connected the two of them. I see myself having done that from the beginning of my career, making connections, having that network going on the three of us.

Or an example of what that has to do with how we met and where all this came together. I think that's how I honor the process of being out in the world and saying, I have [00:07:00] experiences, I pay attention to what resonates for me. And if it resonates for me, it may be resonating for other people too. And that's the gift.

You're the brave one. So have you always been like, even from childhood, have you always been a brave sort of individual? Well, as you know, today is a very special day. I'm a Leo. Leos do anything. They just get out there on stage and they say, what's this gonna be like? And, I'm just gonna go out there and do it.

Yep. Wow. That is, that's a great story and inspiring too, because there probably weren't that many kind of sex focused therapist, counselors, that kind of stuff when you got into it, huh? And you know what's funny about that, too, is not, I mean, it's not like when I grow up, I'm gonna be a sex therapist.

It's like that didn't even, nobody saw that in school. And when you think about meeting people and going, Well, that's an interesting and different topic [00:08:00] and oh, wow, you can actually do things with that and I remember having different mentors along the way that would say, let me pull you to the side. I had an epidemiologist who said, I think you need to be focusing specifically on sexuality.

Don't worry about this other stuff. You have a way of putting people at ease on the topic and that's as valuable as the actual content that you're providing. He said, I think this year lane just keep going. I was also noticing how your approach that you've shared when it comes to sexuality is nonjudgmental and having an attitude with.

Compassion and empathy, which I think is so important. It sounds like, you put people at ease when it comes to sexuality. I would love to hear what that means for you. When you say that you champion sex positive and holistic sexuality using that approach of being [00:09:00] nonjudgmental, being compassionate, having empathy, how does that show up for you?

. Where do you see where, maybe people are not using that nonjudgmental and empathetic approach? I think the first place is I go to what my theory base is. So my theory base is actually from Jack Annan University of Honolulu in Hawaii. In 1974, he created a model called PLICIT, and it was Permission, LI stands for Limited Information, and SS stands for Specific Suggestion, and IT stands for Intensive Therapy.

When you look at that from a sex direction, most of the time you only need to work with people in the first three areas. Oh, we can talk about this. I might bring up a topic and you go, Oh, that's the topic you know something about and I lean in. It's a physical body thing. I lean in and see both of you nodding your head talking to me.

Are we working [00:10:00] the process together? So it's it's a body function moving in and out to set that stage where everybody goes, Okay, I can breathe a little bit. I watch for the breathing and go. Okay. Yeah, you know, I might bring up ideas or suggestions or examples that let them know what's normative because in that limited information, we could have misinformation and disinformation and just absolutely wrong information.

How does your body work? How do condoms work? Whatever it is. And so I'm listening for what they believe. And then I can take that and turn it around and put the Did you know that when you do this, this happens? And we know this in science because this, have you ever had this happen before? And then it might be, and the specific suggestions would be, where can you go to get that information, that product, that thing, whatever it is.

So it's moving fluidly in that process. When I started in sexuality, [00:11:00] we had to do. A sexual attitude reassessment and it was a two and a half day workshop where you were pretty much taken apart from whatever your beliefs were and it was called the implosion method and you would, you'd have like a 360 room full of pornography and you would see things you never expected or, made up or whatever.

And by the end of the weekend, you're like, Yeah, whatever. Show me whatever you have. But we would have conversations in between and people would talk about what came up for them. What was a problem for them? How would they feel if somebody sat down in their office and said, I'm that person or that person.

How are you going to work with that? So your judgment does not go into them. So that you can say like, they just said, yes, I put salt on my tomato sandwich. And you're going, uh huh. Go ahead. Keep, you know, keep talking. It's like you don't want to have anything to make any negative part that you're imbibing into the [00:12:00] people.

Let them be who they are and you just accept them in the moment for who they are. And I think that can be a learned skill, but it's also something that when you see it, you can recognize it and go, how can I be more like that? I mean, I had several people I loved working with because the ease with which they did it just made it look like, Grilled cheese blowing off of the bread onto the pan, it's just like, oh, this is so nice.

I like the way this is. It sounds like the big part of the non judgmental approach is one, deconstructing your own beliefs or understanding where you're coming from and identifying them so you're not taking them into the experience with your clients. And then two, just taking the approach of curiosity.

Where are they at and where are they coming from? And let's start there. Let's discover where they're coming from without me bringing my own bias and beliefs and right and wrong and weird and cool, that kind of levels of things into the conversation. Yeah. [00:13:00] And I have to tell you this is it was three weeks ago, I did something I have never done before in the sexuality world, not saying a lot for 47 years of work, but I've been coaching authors in their.

Novels, and people keep going, it's a scene with sex, and I'm going, no, it's scenes with sex, not a sex scene, it's scenes with sex, and actually sexuality is an entire arc in your story, you just haven't pulled it out or think about it like that, so I did a live presentation with a USA Today best selling author where I read her book and live we assessed her book or I assessed her book based on the model that I used and it was absolutely fascinating at the end of it.

Everybody said, I actually get it. The whole point of it isn't pull sex off the shelf and shove it into the book at this particular time. It really is about the [00:14:00] character. It really is about what they want. It really is the meaning that they're putting in. And I was like, yes, I'm now a sex therapist for fictional characters.

I definitely, we should definitely talk about the writing, the erotica and that kind of stuff. But I'm also really curious, what are some of the. Biggest misconceptions that you've encountered in your work around sexuality with men, women, with anyone, like biggest misconceptions that people have around sex.

It's going to probably fall into several categories. When I look at bodies, we just don't have sex education in the United States. So people don't even understand. What makes up their body and I'm sitting here going, Oh, wait, I got this in the mail today. Your viewers and listeners can't see this, but you can.

And so this is I'm holding up a model of the clitoral body. And what is interesting about that is that. You think about all the history that's gone on with [00:15:00] anatomy lessons and, autopsies and all of this. Why did it take this being found so late in the career of women's bodies? If the world doesn't even recognize that this is a physical structure in the body, how are we going to help anybody learn, how this works for them?

So when I think about sexual desire, sexual response for women specifically. We have to change the paradigm of understanding. For example, I'll give you a great example. I'm holding this up, you see what it looks like. This is the tip of the clitoris, which everybody has been taught or knows that that might be that little P shaped.

external part of the body, but they have no idea that these two things, legs and these bulbs sit behind the vulva beside the vagina. So we've been told, oh, there's this elusive g spot in here. Everybody should try to find their g spot and see what this is. If we take a look at this, what we actually now know is there [00:16:00] probably is not a g spot.

And what it is, is that through here in the vagina. You might be touching one of these bulbs, or you might be touching one of these legs that are providing the the neural pathways for the energy and the stimulation and the good feeling. This is what I spend a lot of time doing, is helping people say, This is what's in your body.

This is how it works. This is ways that make it work better. And I'm sitting here. You wouldn't even believe the things that are charging around my desk, right? This man, I have four different vibrators because I sit here and go, okay, I have to talk to somebody about this and I need to use this one because it's a, this is a ride on vibrator.

It is not an insertion. It has no. But I need to talk to this person about this because or somebody's writing a story and they need specific information. I'm bringing all of this together where this crosses wires is in relationships because you have here's somebody who, you know, grew up on this side of the street.

And [00:17:00] here's somebody who grew up down the street and five over. They may not do things the same way. They may not use language the same way. They may not have a family that has the same value system. So we start working on morals and ethics and the things that you've been taught and what does this mean and trying to take that apart to help people grow, which is one of the reasons that I've created The Purple Sex Journal is because for women, we haven't been given the space to explore and discover and to put pleasure as a clear cut component in our lives.

And when I look at things like the World Sexual Health Association, that's just now. added, I think it was three years ago, added pleasure as a part of the definition of sexual health. I mean, we're moving. We got to get the pendulum going. So we're looking at desire. We're looking at bodies. We're looking at information.

And you [00:18:00] know, Gabby, your question is so just on point because The difference is going to be where an individual is in their life and the thing that is pressing on them the most that they want information with and did it come from the relationship that they're in, and they're trying to learn more about themselves.

It's an interesting and fascinating direction, which is why I always told my supervision folks. I pretend when I walk into a therapy session that I had just parachuted. into a world that I know nothing about and it's my job to learn everything about it and gather the information in order to make sense of how they put the world together.

 This is why I love the work that you do so much and people like you because you're right. We are not taught this and I think there's been. So much oppression, but it's also just one of those topics that don't get talked about. It's very taboo. Parents [00:19:00] feel awkward talking about it with children.

It's just been something that is not talked about in society for a long time. And so that just leads to people not knowing their own body, not knowing their anatomy, basically not having the scientific information and then just going off of maybe what they're hearing somewhere else, some other religious belief or something they see on TV that may be inaccurate, like you said.

 That's so great that you're doing this work and you're breaking those. barriers and the misconceptions. I wanted to tell you one thing, you know, one of the things that fascinated me about teaching college and I taught human sexuality, I would ask students, how did you learn about sex?

And I got just, all sorts of interesting and different answers. But when it came down to it part of the process for them was Can I be in a place where I can be accepted for who I am? [00:20:00] And I think that my classrooms were those places and, people couldn't understand how my class would open on day one and then there'd be no seats.

It was like, this is a word of mouth thing. This is the place that you need to go to. And when I said, but what is the thing that really taught you about sex? I ended up one day coming into class and it was sitting on my desk and I just about, this is fascinating. And they said, Romance novels believe that the way a romance novel is written is how everything about sexuality is.

And so that I think that's probably 1 of the reasons that I really want to help authors go, whether, it or not. You are teaching. So if you are going to teach, you might want to think about what it is that you're, weaving into these particular stories. Is it accurate information? So people know what it is that I do in the writing world.

So I get some really interesting emails, and I got one that says this. [00:21:00] This is a New York Times best selling author. This is her latest book, and it's a screenshot of three paragraphs, and they have it circled, and I just leaned over and read and went, Oh my goodness, because this author was doing historical work and was using the idea that when women had hysteria, historically, vibrators

To deal with that hysteria, that has all been debunked. It is not true. Nothing about that is true. There are research articles that have talked about this is not true. And here it is sitting in a New York Times or, author's book. Like this is the real truth. And I'm like, no, can we do a little more research and just really ask somebody who knows whether this is accurate or not to put it in the book.

 So funny that you bring this up and it just unlocked my memory as well that [00:22:00] for me That's where I first learned about any type of sexual activity and masturbation as well in middle school reading a romance novel , I can't read romance novels if I'm in a rough spot relationship wise

Happily ever after when you're not sitting in happily makes it really hard Yeah.

 So is that kind of how you got from education, counseling, working one on one with people around sexuality to being an erotica and a romance author? No. Remember how I told that story about how I dropped out of school? This one's about as funny as that is because I went into my classroom and announced I'm officially, this is my last class, I'm officially retiring and everybody went, phew.

Oh, we have all our friends lined up to take your class. You can't do that. And I said I have this person in my life that wants to do some other things that we have an age difference. So it kind of need to be focused on this. And they said, [00:23:00] okay, well, you can't go away from this. And I said, what do you mean?

And my students are sitting there saying, chapter five in the textbook. And I'm thinking, what are they talking about? Chapter five of the textbook is all about fantasy. And they said, You got the science behind you. You got the research right there. You tell great stories. It's now time for you to step up and do that education in a different platform.

And I was like, I've never done a creative writing thing in my life. So in 20, I'd say I retired practicing. 2014, and in 2015, in November, I took a class called Between the Sheets with Rachel Kramer Bussell, who is the number one erotica editor in the, in North America. And, um, on Let's see, 12 31 2015, I posted my first story in a guest blog on a sexuality meme called Wicked Wednesday.

I didn't even have a website, I didn't have [00:24:00] anything, and it's like, I did it and it was all education based about a student who was having to take a test to deal with sexuality components, but his partner was... was demonstrating, wait, now if I do this, what does this mean that it is, and wouldn't let them move forward until they got the answer right.

And so everybody was laughing going, what a great way to move from the education into, how can you make this be a teasing, arousing, interesting direction. So as always go back to school, learn things about it, throw yourself into it. It's a career I never anticipated, never expected to happen just like the first one, but it feels like an absolute normal evolution to go from that to this.

I just love how it was your student's idea.

See, I listen to the world. I pay attention.

 Yeah I'm super curious [00:25:00] about some of your sex philosophy and what you feel like is, like some of your teachings and what, you would see as having a good mindset when it comes to sexuality. What are some key characteristics? I know we talked about self compassion and empathy and being nonjudgmental.

Are there other things that come to mind for you when it comes to your philosophy around sex or some of the major lessons you like to instill into the people you come across? One of the things, and you addressed this in a way that you didn't anticipate that you addressed it, but I think it was because of the different degrees that I have.

I understand that we have interdivisional ways of looking at things. So when I got my first job in sexuality, and we had a case, The case notes sat in the table and here was the doctor, the OBGYN, here's a nurse practitioner, [00:26:00] here's a physician's assistant, here's a social worker, here's a sex educator.

All of these people had different vantage points about sexuality and so what I came to understand at that point in time is that we really need to look at sexuality holistically. And when I think about that, I try to help people go, it isn't just physical. There's an emotional body. There's a mental body.

There's a spiritual body. And all four of these bodies work together. And if we could blow life into those different areas related to sexuality topics, And that's what I think that I did with this journal, is that it has nine topics to it. Let's see, sensuality, self intimacy, fantasy, sexual orientation, sexual behavior, gender, pleasure, body image, and desire.

And if you take those nine topics and [00:27:00] you work it for yourself with affirmations or with meditation or with mandala art, physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual, you're working toward balance. And at that point in time, you're also creating your own owner's manual about sexuality. So if I were a proponent of anything, that's what I'd be saying.

Tell me what your owner's manual has to say. Tell me how you organize these nine topics. What's your favorite? What's your least favorite? Why isn't your least favorite? Why is this one your most favorite? And work all of these different things. And then you have a jumping off. point. If you so choose to share this information with somebody important in your life, then you have a way that you can talk to them about the things that are important to you and the focal points that you'd like to bring forward to gather more curious information.

And how do you see me in this way? And how can we do this and that sort of thing? Did that get to your question? Yes, I [00:28:00] absolutely Love this response to I love empowering people and letting people be their own expert, their own guru and dismantling a lot of the hierarchical oppression those rules or myths getting a different understanding of what's okay, what's normal, right?

And knowing that's different for everyone. So I love the nuance in that. I love being able to go on that inner self discovery journey and for people to really be empowered not be ashamed and to really be able to understand, okay, what's actually healthy for me, what's helpful for me, which will look a little different person to person 

and that's the reason that the journal is called Purple Sex and the cards are called Purple Sex because purple is this unique color that is a combination of red and blue, but it's the color of royalty. It's the color of something that's unique. And when I talk about [00:29:00] sexuality, I talk about sexuality as being as individual.

As our fingerprints and when you create that owner's manual, you are showing what makes you who you are and sexuality. Oh, I love that. 

All right, dr. J a big, uh trigger impetus behind how we first connected was I met somebody who learned about Melissa and I, our card deck, the body deck, and she immediately thought of you, another Donna, she immediately thought of you and mentioned, Oh, I have this writer, sexuality expert friend who also has a card deck.

And when you were talking about your approach to to sexuality about helping people uncover what their, unique expression is. It sounded a lot like the card deck. So how have you brought in your sexuality experience and method and style into this card [00:30:00] deck? And how is this deck designed to help people discover their own sexuality along with the journal too?

Tell us about the book. Well, they're, they're intertwined and what a great question. It's kind of like me saying, you know, I dropped out of college, so this is. This is. Yeah. I had that wonderful high that had a publisher contacted me and said we want you to write this journal and I knew who I wanted my co author to be and we worked on this journal and we were probably 75 percent finished.

I'd done my part and I was waiting on the last part and my co author had a tragedy. Her partner died totally unexpectedly and to the tune of as a sexuality expert, they had businesses together and I wasn't even sure whether she'd be able to carry forward the sexuality work at all. And so of course you have a grieving person here, totally unexpected, and the [00:31:00] publisher says to me, we'll do whatever you want to do.

And I'm like, okay we'll just wait and see how things go. So at the three month mark, I'm checking back in going, How you doing? You got any thoughts about, this and whatever. I don't have the bandwidth for it. I'm not ready to say I'm walking away from this project. And I said, I understand.

No problem. I'll check back in later. So that was that happened the end of. March, and then I went on sabbatical in September to the mountains of North Carolina, and when I got to the mountains of North Carolina, which has always been a creative place for me as a kid, that's where I hung out a lot. It was just a good outdoor.

I'm deep in the woods. I'm having all these spiritual connections and creativity happening, and I got a visual of a woman in the woods, and when I got that visual. Everything started happening related to pictures like the cards were flying through my head and what I [00:32:00] realized was that I was being given the opportunity to figure out how to write the journal without my co author and so I, worked on it there and then I called her on the phone and I said, here's what's happening.

I really need for you to hear where I am at this moment. And she says, you have my blessing. Go forward. Can Whatever. So the cards helped me structure the journal so you can hear the feeling that I have in this. And we had already picked the topics. And because both of us believed in the implicit model, which I talked about a few minutes ago.

We had clarity about how we wanted people to be able to have the experience of the cards and the journal and so it now is this really cool companion thing that you can use each of them [00:33:00] independently or you can use both of these things together and since creativity for me chakra hot chakra. Orange area of your life.

It's kind of perfect to think there's an art component to this too. And having been a therapist, I've always used mandala work with clients who may not have words that they're looking for to put something together. So you might take a theme and maybe it's fantasy and you say, here's a circle.

Here's some stuff. Some markers. Here's just in that circle, draw whatever you think when you think about fantasy and they just draw and then I've done workshops where I've done end up doing six in a day and then you hang them all up together and you watch the movement of the colors or the designs or the shapes.

And people talk about the feeling of how the first one, what was going on in their mind and their body, their spirit. And so it's a [00:34:00] neat way for people to have something that connects them to themselves. But it isn't somebody saying it has to look like this. Has to be this way. It's just this is you. It came out on paper in a snapshot.

I mean, we're looking at psychoanalytical kinds of things in that direction. It makes it really cool. So the cards allowed me to put the structure for the journal together in a particular way. And I like that it has affirmations and the cards all have affirmations on them. So they tie together.

Or here's a way for you to take a card, read the affirmation, but here's a place where you can create affirmations for yourself in this topic range. And the other thing is that the journal ends up being a do it yourself because, it's not like you open the first page and you go page one, page two, page three.

I have a set at the beginning that says here's how the journal is set up and now here's a blank table of contents. However [00:35:00] you go through it, you write your own table of contents and this is going to show you the journey that you take with the cards and with the journal for how you stepped into yourself, how you've experienced yourself in all these different ways and for each of the topics.

I have educational, like an educational page. Here's some specific ideas. And then I have 25 pages at the end of the journal that's all resources. That's, and I did it totally differently. I did it like, here are audio resources. Here are book resources, here are card resources, and the body deck is sitting right there in a prominent location within the journal.

I put it together thinking of it as an experiential thing, and the cards, I think, helped me get back in touch with ritual, with things that help you tap into yourself in different ways. Did that answer your question, [00:36:00] Gabby? Absolutely. Yeah, this is why Gabby and I made a card deck to when we love these types of rituals, these type of practices.

 It's so cool that you have a journal. I'm so excited to get that as well. But That self reflection, being able to pause, being able to take that time, we all need that and obviously, there's way too many distractions in our current day and age and it's way too easy to be on autopilot And To get very, very, very disconnected from ourselves and from our emotions and from our desires and our needs and all of those things.

So I love card decks as a reflection tool and a moment to pause and a moment to just sit with yourself and sit with the words 

 yeah, the other thing too, and until you just said that, I hadn't thought about it this way, but when you do a ritual, like each of you may have card rituals that you do, how easy [00:37:00] it would be to now say, and let's add sexuality in as an important component to your life, you already take this time to do these rituals with cards.

Let's blow life into space. for you about sexuality to help get that balance component. So it kind of dovetails right into the process. I don't know why, but some people nowadays don't like the word balance. I'm still all about balance maybe because I'm a Libra.

But I'm like, um, yes, I want things to be balanced. I too easily can get into extremes and that feels awful. I don't want to be in extremes. I want to notice the extremes and get myself centered, get back into balance. It makes me think, what is not balanced?

What is off balance? And I think about it as energy too. Yeah. You know, the energy that we put forward, the sexual energy, that creative energy, maybe it didn't have a place to go because you didn't have a space for it and it's all bottled [00:38:00] up in here, ready to jump out of you.

And it's like. Let's be balanced about places that it can flow into. I'm looking at nine areas that might be places that you could flow that into. And I think a lot too about balance. How many women go through their lives, not really having their own sexual preferences, but just deferring to the preferences of their partner at the time?

Yes. That is very off balance and of course it happens to men or women, but I think just as a, on the meta level, on a cultural level I think more women struggle with this aspect, especially when you tie in the elements of people pleasing and imposter syndrome and all those kinds of things that make us feel like we're not good enough.

So that's what I really love about this kind of reflective practice. And I remember when we first connected and started talking how much we connected over the idea of the body, not just a body, but [00:39:00] the body, mind, emotions and spirit connection and how important that was to all three of us. So I really love the idea of not just having a card that you can take in like the affirmation cards that we have in the body deck.

It's very much taking in good intent. Which is wonderful. But I think it's so powerful to pair that with a journal where you actually discover and express what's inside. You're not just, because this is what you were talking about before with sexuality, the fact that people don't realize that everybody has their own, Sexual preference, sexual makeup, right?

And this fact of going inwards with the cards to lead you into what area you're going to explore today. And then having that journaling component to really dig deep and do that work of discovering what does this actually mean to me and writing it down. There's something about writing. Anyone who journaled out there knows there's something about writing that just makes it a lot more real.

You know, the other thing. I was thinking about [00:40:00] it. It's it's also I've heard from two people specifically about how they use the cards, and it's fascinating to me how somebody would take their physical card, they ask their question or whatever they choose to do with it, and then they carry it with them all day long.

And they take that card and they look it out and I think that's part of the pause to say, it's still with me. It's still with me. I want it to be a thread that goes throughout my 24 hours. Because I think so often, sexuality for women traditionally has been last on the list. The fun thing, it's a fun thing.

I gotta do Work, business, I got to do all these other things and we don't seem to have gotten a clear message yet that you could put it at the top and then you can integrate it in all sorts of interesting and different ways. And I think that hopefully the cards and the journal or what you're saying, that self reflection, that assessment, that [00:41:00] evaluation where you're saying this is me, I'm stepping into all that I can be and all it's.

Purple goodness, that's how I look at it. There's so many benefits too. It's not just the fun and the pleasure. It's like that release of emotions and moving your body, connecting with your body. So yeah, it hits all the dimensions and it's so easy to forget about that and just be an autopilot and be like, Oh, I don't really need that right now.

Or I'm getting fun in different ways. Coming back again to that idea of balance and really. Sitting and, understanding, where am I off balance or where am I people pleasing, where am I putting others before myself? And what are the things that I want to be able to cultivate more in my life?

And I think that is going to be sexuality for most people but it's also going to look very different. So we don't need to compare our sexuality with other people's sexuality. I [00:42:00] am just kind of curious how this process of, you know, quite the journey of the journal and then the card pick and then back to the journal.

How did that change you? Oh, gosh, what a spectacular question. In ways that I've I didn't anticipate, , to be the creative force behind it. To sit with each of those nine topics, , on my 67th year. Pretty impressive to see where I've come and where I still have to go.

 You've done so much amazing work and it is really impressive and I hope you're really proud of yourself. Thank you. I am. It's been awesome for us to be able to witness, you know, this new version, this part of your path I've taken a lot from your card deck and I'm super excited for the journal.

So it's been so cool to see that and all the lives that you're impacting. [00:43:00] The publisher sent me a message last night and said, I have a hard copy of the journal. It I went, I can't wait to see it. I know I can't wait to get mine. Yes. So what are, yeah, thinking about, , that's amazing. That's coming out next week.

Can you please share with our listeners on how they can get their hands on the journal and the card deck also just everything else you have going on? What other resources and ways can they tap into what projects you have or being able to work with you? Well, the best way is just to do my quick links, which is drjauthor.

com backslash quick links, and that has all of the locations of everything and it's tied directly to my website. So information about the card decks that's there. I don't have anything yet except the [00:44:00] journals coming, hopefully I'll have a link for it and then we'll have a landing page and everything will be beautiful in that direction.

But I do want to tell you there are two things that are happening this weekend and in October that are really interesting for where this blossoming of all of this has gone. I'm going to be speaking at the Sexual Health Alliance Business Summit on Sunday and it's talking about, , Streams of revenue from erotica writing and it's pretty much looking at 2016 to today and looking at all of these different things that we've talked about from the card deck to the journal to I have a community on circle and passion works and how people can work with me here and what they can do there and I was asked to come speak at the Residence 11 Desire Summit in October and I will be on a panel of erotica and romance authors.

So I'm really excited for [00:45:00] where that's going to go and it's like full circle for the 2016 to now and it gives me a chance to have another jumping off the point. And, , I think both of you can see that ideas happen in real time that, , we might have a conversation and go, Whoa, I should try the head out.

I should think about that. So a year from now, who knows what I'm gonna be dabbling in or where it goes. But when it resonates, I try to go with it and move. And I'm just delighted that we made this connection when we did. And this has just been really cool. Yeah, agreed. This has been wonderful for the your community online.

 Where else can people , keep up with you and all the new things that are going on. Um, well, pretty much, let me think, where am I hanging out these days the most? Instagram and Twitter, , people see everything that I'm doing in both of those places.

 I forgot about this, Ream Stories is a new, , author platform. Form created for authors by authors. It's a [00:46:00] new subscription service. And I have a new book that's being delivered. , they're called destination bordello. , yes, it's very different in terms of what this has to do with, but it's an erotic romance.

And so I'm what's different about this is. I'm writing the chapters without doing any editing and putting them up so people can see the process and see it raw, real, here's what it looks like, , and see what they think about it. That's so cool. All right. Awesome. I will put all these links and resources in our show notes so you guys can give Dr.

J a follow and keep up with her. And our last. question for the episode is how do you stay high vibe? Meaning like what are some of the tools, practices, routines, things that keep you high vibe? , you have people that anchor you in your life go, wait a minute, how many hours did you do that this week?

That's the [00:47:00] funny part. , I have my own meditation practice. I have a specific ritual of what I do every single day from an energy direction. Nature is huge for me. I have to be outside. It's hot when it's... It's 100 degrees and you're like, Oh, I don't want to go outside, which is why I just got back from the mountains two weeks ago.

Nature is, is huge. , I'm a walker and I walk and walk. It's that walking meditation piece. I have this new birthday present sitting beside me called Red Lero. It is a walking pad. It will be a standing desk right there. So those are the things that I do for me. . Thanks for sharing. , we get so many guests that bring up meditation, exercise, nature, journaling.

So I always love to hear that. And I agree. Those are the things that keep me high vibe as well.

How about one last [00:48:00] thing? It's also people energy. It's like this. The energy when we come together, there's a synergy in that direction and you can feel even though we're doing this, , virtually, the energy of that process with our auditory parts are just really making that happen. Yep. And you hit body, mind, heart, and soul there with those responses.

You say hi, bye, bye, taking a holistic approach to caring for every part of you. Yes. There you go. This is why I love podcasting. I get to meet people like you and have these conversations and get filled up. So thank you so much [00:49:00]