#23: Healing Through the Unconscious Mind, with Peg Hurley Dawson

Love Is Us: Exploring Relationships and How We Connect

Have you or someone you know tried talk therapy with no success? Do you have the nagging feeling there’s something you’re not able to access in therapy or coaching but continues to hold you back in your relationships or in life? You might find that unconscious methods are more powerful for you.

Today I talk with Dr. Peg Hurley Dawson about the many methods she calls upon to help her clients heal. She works with couples, individuals, those with trauma, and those struggling with sexual dysfunction and out-of-control-sexual-behaviors (OCSB).

Dr. Hurley Dawson has been working as a therapist for over 20 years. She has post-graduate training in IFS, EMDR, hypnosis, sandplay, advanced polyvagal theory, and so much more! She is a certified, sex-positive therapist with AASECT (American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists) who supervises other mental health professionals. She is licensed to practice in Massachusetts. To learn more about her and new book, visit her website (where you can also see pictures of her rooms of figurines as well as her adorable dogs):

https://peghurleydawson.com/

Email Dr. Hurley Dawson: [e-mail]

Karin's website: https://drcalde.com

Podcast Intro:

[00:03] Karin: This is Love Is US exploring relationships and how we connect. I'm your host, Karin Calde. I'll talk with people about how we can strengthen our relationships, explore who we are in those relationships, and experience a greater sense of love and connection with those around us, including ourselves. I have a PhD in clinical Psychology, practiced as a psychologist resident, and after diving into my own healing work, I went back to school and became a coach, helping individuals and couples with their relationships and personal growth. If you want to experience more love in your life and contribute to healing the disconnect so prevalent in our world today, you're in the right place. Welcome to love is us

Episode Intro:

Hi, everybody. Today I'm going to be talking with Dr. Peg Hurley Dawson. Now, Dr. Dawson has a resume that is about a mile long, so I'm not going to list all of the things that she does and all of her certifications, but I will say that she is a member of the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists, or AASECT for short. And she actually supervises other sex therapists and mental health professionals. She does Ifs EMDR, she does hypnosis, she does sand tray work. She does a lot of different things. And really kind of the underlying theme to her approach is that they are more approaches that are designed to get more at the unconscious. And so she really believes that this is a much better way to get at things like trauma and things that we might not want to talk about. So if you're someone who has used talk therapy and hasn't found it to be all that helpful or maybe just minimally, so then you might want to check out one of these other types of approaches that she talks about or even contact her if you are in Massachusetts. She also recently published a book and that's called Sandra or I'm Sorry, sand Therapy for out of Control Sexual Behavior. Shame and Trauma treatment approaches beyond words. And this is really a book for sex therapists and mental health professionals. But the short of it is she really knows her stuff.

We really had set about this episode to talk about out of control sexual behaviors, which is the term she uses instead of sexual addiction. And there's a really good reason for that, but we really talk about a lot of different things and why she uses the approaches that she does. So I enjoyed this conversation. She's got so much energy and so much knowledge. I hope that you enjoy it as well. Thanks for being here.

Episode Transcript:

Karin: Welcome, Peg.

[03:07] Peg: Thank you, Karin. How are you?

[03:09] Karin: I'm doing really well. It's really great to see you again.

[03:12] Peg: You too. Really nice.

[03:15] Karin: Where are you in the world?

[03:17] Peg: I am in north of Boston by about 30 minutes when there's no traffic or an hour and a half, depending on traffic. So I'm north of Boston in North Andover, Mass. And about 15 minutes from Salem, New Hampshire.

[03:32] Karin: I've been talking to a couple of people from that area of the country lately, and it's a place that I visited as a child, but I haven't been back in years. Have fond memories. So what keeps you there?

[03:46] Peg: I love it here. My husband is big into rock climbing and all kinds of athletics, scuba diving, everything. So we travel a lot. And North Conway is New Hampshire, has a lot of rock climbing, and so he loves to do that. So I'm kind of here. I tried rock climbing, but it's just not my bag. For a year and a half. I was in the Miranda. I decided this is not for me. We go to North Conway a lot, which is about an hour and a half from us north. And we can go to the ocean, and we go to Cape Cod, and we travel, we fly a lot of places. So he loves skiing. I would prefer to be in all desert climate, but since he is my partner and we travel a lot, but we stay here because it's access to so many different things and it's a liberal state. We love that.

[04:41] Karin: Yeah. So tell us about the work that you do.

[04:47] Peg: So I'm a sex therapist. I'm a sex therapist supervisor by American Association of Sex Educators, counselors, and therapists. And so I train a lot of sex therapists, up and coming sex therapists to be certified in that modality. And I work a little differently. I've learned a lot of modalities, which are therapeutic techniques such as internal family systems or sensory motorcycle therapy, clinical hypnosis, EMDR, eye movement, desensitization reprocessing. I do sand tray through an internal family systems lens and sandplay, which is coffee and sand play, which is very different modality than sand tray. It's very confusing to a lot of people because what does it mean? You work with miniatures and sand. How could it be different? One is more directive and the other coffee and sand play is more just kind of unconscious and just letting your unconscious heal you as long as it takes. It's one of the quickest modalities I know how to do. But it feels very strange because there's no language involved, really. The right hemisphere is more accessing of the right hemisphere, which has no language but often works in symbols and metaphors. And the other Sandtray. Any modality or technique can be through the lens of the sandtray where you give more directive. And it could be any modality that a therapist knows, whether it's EMDR, sensory, motor, cognitive, behavioral, you name the modality. And anybody can really do that as a therapist. And it's for a lot of fun, but it's really very therapeutic, both modalities.

[06:31] Karin: So it sounds like you use a lot of nontraditional, non talk therapy methods.

[06:39] Peg: Yeah, it really is. The more, you know, I actually say, let's not talk. Let's kind of do the work. So when somebody comes in and they think they're going to talk all session, I listen to people for sure, but when they start talking and tell me stories, this isn't going to get us anywhere. You really have to work with the unconscious mind to heal and get to the depth of the trauma or the upset events. And when you do that, it's really the right hemisphere that can solve problems that the left can't because it is accessing places in our way of thinking, whether it's archetypally, which is basically the world or any individual, no matter where you come from, there's archetypes like trees or the feminine archetype, the masculine archetype and different things like that. And that really is helpful in healing and we tap into something that's bigger and broader than us as an individual.

[07:36] Karin: And I imagine in talk therapy there's a part of us really our thinking narrative parts that tend to take over and it's not the full story, is it?

[07:48] Peg: It's not. We can access places that talk therapy can't access. When you go with the right hemisphere and you're doing things that are symbolic, it's very different, very different type of therapy.

[08:03] Karin: And I want to get into that but I first want to ask how did you get into this work?

[08:09] Peg: I've been involved in sex therapy for about 20 years now and prior to that I went to school for art therapy and prior to that I was a bachelor in fine arts and prior to that I was just in liberal arts. So my education kind of brought me into a little bit more different types of modalities or thinking and trainings and sex therapy was just a calling I think. And working with the population that I work with, I work with really complex PTSD, trauma clients, people with sexual and mental health issues and physically like, I've worked with people with vaginismus, which is a closing of the vagina and often not able to be penetrated. And working in the unconscious mind helps heal some of this in a different way. So I know that seems strange but I wrote a book and actually it's coming out October 3 and it is tell stories about how healing through with the right hemisphere is different than talk therapy.

[09:15] Karin: So maybe you can tell us a little bit more about that. Why is the unconscious mind and using those types of methods, why is that more effective?

[09:26] Peg: So I'll tell you what I think is going on, but often what I witness when we are accessing, when we're born, we're really born more in right hemisphered which the left brain doesn't come on till a little bit later. So that's a lot of times why we don't remember things that happen to us as children because it comes on around four or five really we're getting left hemisphered or language centered, but when we're born we don't have language. So we're really working from the right hemisphere, which is on target from the moment you're born. And so the right brain doesn't have language. It carries all the sensations, or a lot of sensations. The somatic pieces are really carried through the body. And the right hemisphere works in metaphors and images and sensations and things like that. So a lot of the memories that are stored. This is the work of Dr. Bruce Perry. He wrote the book called What Happened to you? And it's all about what happened to people and how he calls it the neurosequential model of therapeutics. And in the book, not once does he mention the neurosequential model of therapeutics, which is brilliant. He wrote it with Oprah, and it's just so wonderful, and I recommend it to anybody. But it really talks about how the brain stem forms from the bottom up. And so we get our brain stem, then it goes more to the midbrain, and then prefrontal cortex is the last to come on board. And what happens in the very early young years, we don't really remember, but it's stored in the body. So from that, I also use his way of thinking. I really love Dr. Bruce Perry's work. In addition, I study the polyvagal theory, or the autonomic nervous system, which is Dr. Stephen Porges's work. And he talks about how the autonomic nervous system really sets us up for it's, really kind of how the emotions form. And it's really what is received to our body or for the five senses, what he calls neuroception. That information feeds the information to the autonomic nervous system, which then reacts instantaneously, but there's no conscious awareness of it. And that actually helps determine what behaviors we're going to have. And we may not even know why it's tied to emotions, but it is. So there's a whole realm of that. And he talks about how the autonomic nervous system really is more in charge of how we react to things. And sometimes it's automatic. It's usually automatic. We go from fight to flight to sometimes where there's basically three or four states of the body. There's the calm state, which he calls ventral vagal, internal family systems. One modality that I use calls itself, which many cultures use the word self, which is calm, curious, connected. Then he talks about going down this deb Dana, who's a social worker that wrote the book Polyvagal Theory and Therapy. You're nodding your head. So, you know, that book actually talks about how there's this metaphorical ladder, and we go up and down this ladder instantaneously at any given moment, and it's this calm state, or it's a sympathetic state or the restful fight or fight or flight state or the dorsal vagal, which is the kind of checkout, repair or collapse state. So when we're in a good situation, we go up and down the ladder and we kind of mobilize, which is the sympathetic state in walking the dog or doing athletics or whatever it is. And then we go to night night sleep, rest and restore and restore and relax. Right. But if we're dysregulated or we have a history of trauma or upsetting events, the body is always on edge and it will go to the sympathetic arouse which is a lot of the fight and flight activities which can show up as behaviors that we don't necessarily like about ourselves. It could be anxiety, depression, out of control sexual behavior, things like that. And then the checkout state is where shame and guilt happen. But it's really the checkout state and takes a lot to and the body's trying to protect us from going there. But there's more to the story. So I really recommend people kind of.

[13:53] Karin: Check out that yeah, I really do think that the polyvagal theory is a missing piece for healing. It's so important and I think that that is why for so many people talk therapy doesn't end up working is because they're not in a calm, connected state. And if we can help people with that, maybe that would help people make progress using other modalities.

[14:23] Peg: Well, it's hard to be triggered and be calm. It's like it doesn't work. You can't be calm and triggered at the same time. So in order to heal, you actually have to kind of have step back a little bit and be in a sense of calmness or curiosity.

[14:39] Karin: So I want to back up a little bit because there's a lot of theory for people and I want to back up to talking about the nervous system because a lot of people might be familiar with these two different states that we can find ourselves in. There's fight or flight and then there's what they might know as rest and digest which might be kind of the yeah. And so, I mean, those are very general descriptions but yeah, in the nervous system that fight or flight is called the sympathetic nervous system and that's really our body trying to protect us when it senses some kind of danger. And then at least the old theory was that then the opposite of that is the parasympathetic where we can be calm and rest and everything. But then Stephen Porges came up with this polyvagal theory that it's not just calm but there's another state that's calm and connected because calm can also be complete overwhelm where you're just checked out, you're dissociated it's another way to cope where you're not really present at all. So I just want to explain that to people that that's kind of what we're talking and how that also kind of maps to some of these other theories. Like ifs which I've talked about a bit with some other people on the show. But you talked about how that in Fight or Flight, people can experience these out of control sexual behaviors. So maybe you can talk about what you mean by that and what that.

[16:21] Peg: Looks like often whether and I also help women that have pain with sex or vaginismus. And that, I think, is also I help that through an IFS-kind of lens. So there's people that are that's more of a shutdown kind of state too, but it's also very much the body saying no, right? Body saying no to something that is not okay for it. Maybe it has a bad experience. So OCSB, out of control sexual behavior, is the lens I like to look at. There's other theories that say it's sex addiction. And I look at through the idea of it's not really sex addiction if what I feel it is, is more of a dysregulated autonomic nervous system. Because when we're in a situation where we're calm and we can handle things, we have clarity, we're calm, we're not going to be too upset or disruptive. But if the body is in a state of anxiety or stressed out, the calm state kind of keeps us in clarity. But when we're stressed out, we can't hold clarity and be calm. And the body is in this state of energy. And that state of energy sometimes is problematic because people who alleviate themselves or found pleasure in orgasm and find that it actually brings you to a calm state momentarily, then if you're using that as a way to regulate the body to have pleasure and have an orgasm and regulate that's one way. But if you're using excess, you're going through a cycle of dysregulation to calm, to dysregulation to calm. So you're seeking out the very thing that helps put you to calmness. But what's really challenging is the body may be sensing danger and it may be, from what I'm finding, and you probably have some questions about this is or maybe not. What I'm finding is that when people come in to see me because they're having issues with out of control sexual behavior, whether that's going to massage palace sexual imagery or going to a sex worker or any of the above, what's really happening is longing for so there's different reasons why they might go to a sex worker versus imagery. But what's happening is most likely the body is sensing some sort of danger that may be implicit memory, which is before very young, but that we don't remember, but the body stored it. The ans, the autonomic nervous system stores that memory. So if there's a movement or a tone of voice or something like that that may be similar to an event that happened very young, the body will store that as a scary event or an upsetting event. If it was dysregulating, if it was really challenging for a child and anytime, whether you're 1020, 30, 4080, doesn't matter your age, that autonomic nervous system took it as a danger signal way back when. And the body will react as if it's then is now. So that sound, that fire engine, whatever it is, the loud voice or whatever it is, is a trigger that feels I'm not safe. Even though you may be in a safe environment as an adult. But I talk about the Ola factory. Like you might be in a situation that has the smell of chocolate chip cookies, but if you were two or three and your grandmother was making chocolate chip cookies and she was a mean grandmother, and you ate some of the cookie dough, and she's like, oh, my God. Raises her voice and makes a movement, says, we're not going to have enough cookies for the party, the cookout, and then maybe makes a movement or possibly spanks you or whatever, that becomes a very challenging situation. And you remember it implicitly, right hemisphere, because we're right hemisphere until three and a half, four and five. That's why we don't remember these young events. But the vent will stay in the body, resulting in a trigger as an adult. So if you're triggered as an adult and you have different anxieties or whatever your behavior is, it may go back to things you don't remember because it's in the implicit mind or the right hemisphere, which has no language, but it's showing up in the body. Does that make sense?

[21:02] Karin: Yeah, I think it makes a lot of sense. So what you're saying is that there could have been events that happened before you developed language. And whenever you encounter a similar trigger in adulthood, you have a similar response of fear. Your body goes into this fight or flight mode, and so you seek out ways to feel better because that doesn't feel so good. Right?

[21:30] Peg: People use sex as a way to regulate they talk about addiction, and I don't particularly like the term sex addiction. That's why I use out of control sexual behavior. But even they say, like for women, they say, oh, she's love addicted, or that she's doing something else. But no, maybe she's just seeking attunement because maybe she didn't get attunement very young. And so the seeking of this as an adult, maybe what's maladaptive in adulthood may have been adaptive skill in childhood and not talking about that she wanted to have sex in children as a child. But maybe what she's trying to seek is that attunement, but it's not happening in the same way as it did as a child. But in adult, we use our sexuality to get people to maybe have sex with people, which may feel attuning at the time, but are we connected to them? And maybe it's just trying to get some something that you didn't have. Does that make sense?

[22:38] Karin: Yeah, and I think the sex addiction word seems to come up a lot. I hear that a lot. And I even had someone ask me about coming on my show to talk about love addiction. And I'm like, okay, I want to know more about what you mean by that. So I'm curious your thoughts about those.

[23:00] Peg: Terms, the sex addiction terms?

[23:03] Karin: Yeah.

[23:06] Peg: I don't like those terms because I feel that most likely they're from somebody who's pathologizing the person, you're addicted to this. You had a problem here. When we're not looking at what caused the behavior, what caused this is probably very young misattunement or neglect or abuse or emotional abuse. And this is so I see it so often every day in my practice. People come to me and they're saying I'm a sex addict. And I say, well, who diagnosed you with that? And usually it's their partner or somebody that says that they're addicted to sex, but maybe they just have a look higher libido than their partner. And the partner is like, oh, you have sex addiction. You're addicted to sex. And I don't want to do that. It happens male and female, because I have people that come to me that are female that are assigned female at birth and are identified as female at birth and female that are doing behaviors that would once be only describe men do this. Now it's a little different game, right? They're hiring people, and they may be partnered in a relationship where the other person loves them so much, just wants them to be happy. And they say, sure, go do whatever you have to do, whatever that is, but I want to be your partner. So they go out and they have consensual sexual experiences, but they may not be the love experience. Maybe they do it. Could be any of the above, right?

[24:46] Karin: Yeah.

[24:46] Peg: But to be open about what's really going on here, what's going on here. And I wonder about the uturn. We call it the uturn where can you look inside you yourself about what's going on for you, that your partner is not meeting your needs? And is it something inside you that actually needs to be evaluated? That if you're looking for the outside world to meet your needs, when you can really meet them internally if you do your work?

[25:17] Karin: And that is where so much of the work is, isn't it?

[25:20] Peg: Always. As a therapist, I don't want to say always, always. But in this case, many people come to me and fix my partner. Fix them, and we will be happy, or I will be happy if you just fix them. And when I say, okay, let's look at why you want me to fix them. What's going on for you? And when I do these things, I call them pro symptom belief cards. And they're all these core negative beliefs, and it's about 25 or 26 of them. And I give them to couples, and they come in and I'll say, okay, fix him, fix her, fix them, fix her, whatever it is. And so I ask them to look at these cards and pull any card that fixed. And they're all negative beliefs, like it's my fault, I'm not good enough. The impostor syndrome, whatever it is, it's not okay to feel or show my feelings. I said, my fault. It could be anything. I should have done more. I should have did something differently. So these cards are and I have each couple do this. And it's fascinating when I say, when your partner triggers you, when your partner triggers you, pick the cards that fix that tell you about you. Like when my partner triggers me, maybe I pick it's my fault or it's not safe for me to show my feelings. So very often they pick these cards. And then I say, okay, let's put the cards down. Which card? And then they tell me they pick four, five, six cards, each of them, or maybe more, might need less. And I say, which card feels the most true? Which one feels the most true about how you feel when your partner triggers you? And they'll tell me what it is, I say, okay. And then I've managed to learn how to do this in one session, where I just go back and forth. Okay, I'm going to have you both look inside. And I use a little somatic piece. When you feel this in your body, this belief, what do you notice? And then we follow that back. And the body holds a score because you're in your autonomic nervous system, which feelings and sensations. And so they end up with sensations. And when you follow the sensations, the parts of you that all parts have bodies, as you know, in Ifs. And somehow you connect with the sensations and the parts will show up. And many times parts go back a lot of times to five. But I have learned in my work, let's go a little further with this. And parts show up before the age of five, and that's where we find the real wound. And it's implicit memory. It's not in the conscious memory, which is five or four. It usually goes back before four.

[27:52] Karin: And so you do a lot of work with people, helping them try to uncover those early wounds.

[28:00] Peg: Well, that's where it starts. If the body has an early wound, it's going to implicit memory going into the right hemisphere, which doesn't have language. It's held there. Somatically and somehow these parts that are held in that somatic wound can speak. Like we don't have that kind of memory, but the right hemisphere can show you images of the situation.

[28:25] Karin: And so one of the ways that you help people do this is with the coffee and sound work. Is that right?

[28:35] Peg: That's a whole different thing. Okay, yes, I do sand tray, which is through the Ifs lens. But I integrate EMDR, sensory, motor, little hypnosis, all of that, into one kind of modality with the sand and doing Ifs. And that's one thing. Coffee and sandplay is a very different thing. Sandplay is using the unconscious to heal from the inside out. It's like your psyche can heal the problem without language. But it does it in a way of it shows symbols so it's coffee and Sandplay is based in union theory, play therapy and Eastern influence. It's a woman named Dora Kauf, who's kind of the matriarch who since passed. But when you do coffee and samplay, you really have to study it. You have to study union union symbolism and a lot of union theory. You have to study Eastern influence and you have to know play therapy, right? So it's a little bit of all this. And I only work with adults, so we do this coffee and samplay. And what sometimes happens is people will do things. Like, one guy was writing a book, and he's taking his time and he put a mattress down. I said that's interesting. Then he put a sloth on top of the mattress. I said, Tell me about your world. He says, yeah, I'm trying to do this thing and I need to kind of slow down. And I said, oh. And I looked at the sloth, and he's like, Slow down. Who's slower than a sloth? That is slow. And then he put his sloth on the mattress. And I was like, oh, you have to slow down and sleep on it. He's like, yeah, I have to slow down and sleep on it. And what it is, it's a metaphor. The right hemisphere can't say slow down and sleep on it. It shows you the miniature of slow down. And in this case, it was a sloth and sleep on it. Here's a mattress. Put the sleeping on the sloth mattress. It was very cute. It's just very funny. And then I had somebody recently, like today's Thursday, so was yesterday. And he's more liberal Democratic and Democrat kind of person. And he was judged by somebody about that when he was in the word leading heart liberal. Right? You heard that?

[30:57] Karin: Yes.

[30:57] Peg: I see the tray, and I didn't know what it was until I'd say, Tell me about your tray. He says, yeah, this person tells me I'm a bleeding heart liberal, and I don't like that. And in the tray, it was very funny because he had a heart like a figure not a heart heart. I mean a heart, physical heart. I have a little miniature of a physical heart. And then he had a puddle of blood, and he put the heart on the puddle of blood, and it was like a bleeding heart. So the brain doesn't say, you're bleeding heart liberal, but maybe it says, I was hurt by the comet bleeding heart liberal, and I need to repair that. So the brain is the right hemisphere was doing a little piece of work on repairing something that was aggravating on the outside in the conscious world. So it does all that kind of stuff all the time.

[31:49] Karin: What's interesting is when we talked before, you gave me a little video tour of your office and you've got some pictures on your website, but you just have rooms of shelves and shelves of. All these different figurines, so many figures. And so people can walk through and they just walk through and pick what speaks to them. Is that how it works?

[32:14] Peg: Well, that coffee and sandplay. I say don't think, just pick. Don't even bother thinking. Like people will try to tell you a story and that's like the conscious mind is influencing that. If you're going to use more conscious mind, maybe we should do a different thing than because no matter what coffee and samplay, your unconscious will take over. But it's influences of conscious mind. If you go in with a total no agenda and you just pick miniatures, you're going to end up when I say, tell me about this world. Majority of people will say, I have no idea why I picked this. I have no idea why I picked any of this. But in the series, the cupping and serum play is a series of trays and the mind kind of figures it out going tray from tray to tray. And I've had great success with people healing when things might be really disturbing to them. Like if I said in a sand tray, you might say make a tray about your anger. And some people could do that, other people can't. So the people who can't may be having real difficulties with the problem of anger and they really need to allow it just to do this play therapy, this kind of sand play where some people are able to do more work directly, working with a part of them that's angry and that's more directive. That's more of like work with the exact part or a section of you.

[33:47] Karin: So you identify, I'm going to work with this part that is bothering me.

[33:52] Peg: That's a different type of it does work to heal that, but it's a little different than Samplay where it just kind of heals the whole system, not just the angry part. And it's crazy. I mean, it's super good. Yeah, it's not crazy. A therapist shouldn't say that's crazy.

[34:15] Karin: Tell me how maybe you can give me some examples of how the work you do. Maybe it's calcium. Maybe it's this combination of different therapies that you use can help people with problems in the bedroom.

[34:31] Peg: Give me make up a situation and I'll tell you how I might handle it.

[34:36] Karin: Sure. Okay. So let's say something that I hear a lot is that maybe it's a heterosexual couple, traditional male, female couple, and the woman has lost interest in sex and maybe she wasn't really ever interested in the first place. And her partner is so frustrated and angry.

[35:02] Peg: The first thing I would do is do those cards. I would give them to each couple and I do this first session. It's really incredible. And people will be able to do this. And I don't let them start talking about he said, she said this happened, that happened. You want sex all the time. You don't want it up. I don't let that conversation happen to begin with. What do we start with is, let's do the Uturn. Let's look at the cards and they all pick cards. He's going to say whatever it is. He's going to say. I don't know. I'll look at them right now. Let's say I'm playing him and he says he might say I'm shameful, or she might say I'm a bad person. He might say, I'm not safe, and she might say I'm powerless.

[35:51] Karin: So these are the feelings that are coming up for them when they are in this argument. But then they look at themselves.

[35:58] Peg: Well, they don't know they're looking at themselves. So I say, just find the cards that pick when she's not interested. And you are, you're having this huge desire for her and she's not interested. Find the cards that pick that. Maybe say something about yourself. Like, what do you feel about yourself when she's not interested in you? And he might say, I should have done more. Right? So that's a core negative belief. I should have done more. And he might pick other cards. She might pick when he wanted sex and I'm not interested, I did something wrong or I'm helpless or whatever it is, they will pick cards. And I've only had one person in 20 years that didn't pick a card. And it was this case she was not interested as much. He thought she should be interested. And so he never picked a card. Ultimately, he's the one I ended up working with long term because he ended up realizing we end up finding out more about him, that there was cards picked later on, but in the first session he didn't pick a card. So what happens is they both pick cards. And this is when I do the uturn, okay, find the cards that really pick the most. Like she might pick it's not okay to feel or show my feelings. It's pretty typical on that one. And he might pick, I should have done more, whatever it is. And so I say, okay. Then I do this little float back. Like, I check with their bodies. We're going to the parts bodies and the belief, where did this stem from? Most time for a session, we usually go back. Sometimes we can't go back very far. We only go back two or 3510 years. But often people will really get into this and allow themselves to really connect with their bodies, and they follow the sensation. And hers can go back. Either of them can go back to at least five or six. And when I know we're at five or six and this can only take ten to 15 minutes max, and when we go down to five or six, there's a very likelihood when the person went that low on the first session, they have the opportunity to go lower, but they might or might not. When they do. And I said, just follow the body sensations, and I have a little way of speaking about that. Then they might have a memory, like at two, three or four, it's gone earlier that than that. Sometimes that's a pretty deep session. And then I say, we're not going to do anything with it. Say, we're just going to find out where it may have originated. So this belief is actually before the age of four or five, and it's usually found somewhere in the family of origin. And it could be a legacy burden. It could be. And trauma burdens are usually three or four generations back. We know that, right?

[38:49] Karin: Yeah. And so I'll just say real quick, for a legacy burden is something that you really kind of take on from your parents or past generations that might not have happened directly to you, but it is somehow inherited in your family system.

[39:05] Peg: Right. And partly that's because if you think about many situations, not America, but the people in general come from situations that were not always lovely. You think about potato famine, you think about the Holocaust, you think about all these terrible things that happened in the world. We come from descendants of these terrible things. And you think about the Native Americans. You think about all the things that have happened. People are not nice. The past. Right? We take over things. We're powerful. We do a lot of things. But most people come from situations that their ancestors had to deal with some tough stuff.

[39:48] Karin: A lot of trauma.

[39:50] Peg: It is trauma. A lot of people say, I didn't have trauma. I didn't have trauma. I had a good family of origin. I'm like, yeah, you probably did. But really, let's think about who was in the generations before and how could the generations before who experienced the trauma be present enough when they had a child? They could do everything. My fault, everything. I'm not going to do what my parents did before me. But we know from the polyvagal theory, I think it is, that if we attune to the baby, and the baby feels a felt sense of safety when it's born, it has to be with somebody that's calm and regulated. Otherwise the baby has to learn self soothe. And if the baby has to learn to self soothe by itself, it can't. It does the best it can. But we all learn to regulate from our parents. So if our parents are alcoholics or drug addicted or just dysregulated or super, super anxious, depressed, it's very unlikely that the child is going to be able to really self soothe themselves. They pick up maladaptive coping skills, like whatever it is, and that doesn't work in adulthood.

[41:01] Karin: Yeah, right.

[41:02] Peg: It doesn't work. What works in childhood becomes maladaptive in adulthood. And a lot of this stems from trauma, generations of trauma. I've had so many people come and say, oh, no, I had a good life. I got all my needs met and I didn't have as bad as the guy down the street or the woman across the street or my friend. I didn't have as bad as them. And I say, no, you probably didn't realize. But you did have it differently in a different way, which shows up differently.

[41:31] Karin: Yeah. And I think a lot of people struggle with that for a number of different reasons, but partly because they feel like they're somehow disrespecting or dishonoring their parents. It's really not about that.

[41:43] Peg: You're right.

[41:44] Karin: Yeah.

[41:44] Peg: It's not about they did the best they could.

[41:47] Karin: Absolutely.

[41:48] Peg: Traumatize a child. Nobody wants to set out and do that. Unfortunately, we need its legacy. It's challenging because so many generations before, they had it really hard. Imagine the 18 hundreds, I mean, outhouses and whatever we had to do. You didn't get your water, you had to go bucket your water, go to the well, whatever it was. This is hard times. It's unlike today, we think, and even today, we have all these luxuries. But look at the phone. Parents are on their phone when their toddlers in the carriage. When they're toddling them, they roll them down the street, but they're not connecting. They're on their phones and they give in toddlers phones. Nobody's attuning it's really challenging.

[42:38] Karin: Yeah. And so we ended up passing that trauma down to our kids because we never learned it, and that was because our parents had never learned it and their parents and so it really does get passed on, available to them. Yeah.

[42:53] Peg: Somebody who has trauma can't really show up. And look at Gavin mate's work. Right. The guy's brilliant. He knows and you read his work and it's amazing.

[43:05] Karin: Yeah. I really respect him and his work as well.

[43:08] Peg: I do too.

[43:10] Karin: Yeah. And for those in the audience who are listening, who are not familiar with Gabar Mate, he's written a number of books. In the realm of hungry ghosts is one scattered. He is about ADHD. In the realm of the body says no. Oh, it was so powerful for me. Yeah. The myth of normal is really powerful. I think every book I've read of his is really powerful and it really talks about how the things that happen to us when we were younger affect us and they affect us physically, our physical health, it affects our immune systems. And he makes that link and he talks about how the science is there. It's really pretty clear that the science.

[44:03] Peg: Shows that this is true.

[44:06] Karin: So one of the things that I hear from clients sometimes, or people ask me about is from women who have never experienced an orgasm. And a lot of them think that maybe there's something wrong with them or they've just given up. And so how would you help someone like that?

[44:29] Peg: Sure. I have had cases like this and I went to a training once that was exactly this situation. So I'm going to talk a little bit about my experience, and then I'm going to talk about that training because it was so interesting. So what happens often is people who can't have orgasm or have really challenging time thinking there's something wrong with them. They might pick the very card, or they might have a negative core belief that there is something wrong with me. So it would start with that. And we'd find out the parts of them that believed us. And maybe it could be sexual abuse as a child. It could be religious, religious feelings that were taught to the person that it's not okay to have sex before you're married. It's not okay to have sex and enjoy it. That there's all kinds of overtones like that. And it may not be religious. It may just somebody. Parents really want to make sure their daughter's safe. And they put thoughts in their minds how things are not safe, that maybe men will use you or take advantage of you.

[45:38] Karin: Can I interrupt you for a second? Do you ever find it's tied to women who have always learned to put others first, ahead of themselves?

[45:46] Peg: Oh, my God. Yes. Do you know the Enigram? Do you know the Enigram?

[45:52] Karin: Oh yes.

[45:52] Peg: We have a lot of nines out there. And the nine is the peacemaker, the one that will put themselves they're like chameleons because they can make everybody happy. But they may not be happy themselves, but they are chameleon because they've learned how to survive by being a chameleon, by being able to help you or make you happy or whatever it is. And it's funny because many times you might see a particular type of person that is like that and their partner may be the other enne grim type, which is the challenger. Or they're all about power and dynamics. In many times. They're paired up, right? And there's reasons why that happens. But in this case, let's use these two as the example. So this woman comes in and says, I'm not able to have orgasm. My partner wants sex all the time, and we do it. But I'm not having orgasm, and I don't even know what that feels like. I'd say, okay, so let's look at what's happening here, and let's look at your core beliefs about yourself and how that has affected you sexually as an adult. It always comes back to something like that, in my opinion. It really comes back to that often in my practice now, I went to that training, and it was a hypnosis training back in the day when I was doing that. And I went to this training, and they said it was about a woman that was having difficulties getting penetrated. She had vaginasmus, which is the inability to be penetrated because the vagina tightens up. So she went to a hypnosis person and they presented this case. And it was somebody that was first generation American from another culture. And in that culture, they definitely said no sex before marriage. And this person was about 18, 1718. About 18. Let's go with 18 around that age. And was first generation born American with a different culture background. And what happened was they lived with their parents, and the grandparents lived with them, and it was so much a factor in the culture. You don't have sex before that for your marriage. And she was no. All my friends are having sex. I want to know what that feels like. I want to have a partner that I know I'm enjoying it with. I don't want to just go in feeling I don't know what to do. So she was really interested in having sex, but couldn't. Couldn't. And what they found out through the amount of therapy they had was that the body said no to something that was a pleasurable experience, because the body was saying, no, we can't do this. We can't go against the very grain of what I was raised with. And it was so, like, so far generational, it's so back so many generations that it was so pronounced that this woman actually couldn't have sex until she was able to get over or deal with the huge amount of cultural influence that said no. And when she was able to work through that aspect of her, in her personality, in her life, the parts that really learned that she was able then to have sex, but only after a lot of therapy. But the culture was very, very strong, and the parts of her that were in charge of that were having no dice, no deals there.

[49:36] Karin: Yeah.

[49:37] Peg: So in my practice, I had a situation like that, and we worked in the sand. It was very much did a couple Kelsey and sand plays, but we really worked for the Ifs EMDR sensory motor lens. And I met the part of her and this is in the book that I've written, and it was amazing. And she came in with, I'm not able to have penetrated sex with my partner, and this is long term. And she was actually divorced from one partner, went into a lesbian relationship for about eight years, and then decided fell in love with a man and left that relationship. And she was tired of being the identified client. Right. And she came to me and she said, I don't want to be the problem person anymore. I'm tired of being the problem. And I said, sure. And she said, you do this thing that's different. I'll give you five sessions, no pressure. I said, okay, let's see what we can do. And what ends up happening was about five sessions. She says, Can I have more sessions, and can I come weekly? And I said, sure. So we end up doing a few more sessions. And then it turned out to really do a lot of work together. But what happened on session ten? She comes in, we do this sand tray, and I talked directly to the part of her. We had this part show up. Find the miniature that represents this aspect that won't let you have socks. And it was a cool miniature. It's about five inches tall, had blonde hair, wore leather chaps and leather studded bra, leather studded belt. It had a gun and it was tough miniature as a girl. And she had heat jeans, and she was just tough. Right. I said, oh, she's got attitude. This little miniature, just like the client. And I said, that's interesting. And then we end up doing some work. And I did talk directly to the part, but the part talked from her. And what the part would say is the client's like, I don't even know why I'm saying this. I said, no, the part is so I would say, what's your name? And the part looked at me and the client says this in this tough, rough voice, bitch. And I said, oh, hi, bitch. And I said, I'm pegged. I like leather, too. I'm not wearing it today, but I wear leather, too. So I got a dialogue going with the part, and the clients didn't even know why she's saying this. And ultimately, she learned she had a part of herself that was a protector, and it was really funny because we ended that session. It ruined. Well, she learned to talk to the part of her that was in charge of this. And so what ends up happening is she comes back in the next session and she said, Peg, you're not going to believe this. I said what? She said, we attempted sex five times since we last met. Four times I talked to her and we were able to have penetrated sex. This time I was drunk, I didn't talk to her. I couldn't have sex, I couldn't get penetrated.

[52:35] Karin: So she really needed to get in touch with that protector part of her.

[52:39] Peg: Oh, my God. And it did a great job and she learned to appreciate it and listen.

[52:44] Karin: To her because that part probably had her best interests at heart. It was trying to protect her from something, but probably from getting hurt.

[52:53] Peg: Right. Sexual abuse there. Yeah, it was trying to protect her as an adult.

[53:01] Karin: And so she probably developed that part when she was very young.

[53:06] Peg: It was young, yeah. But it had attitude.

[53:11] Karin: Sounds like it.

[53:12] Peg: Great part, and it's so funny. I love that part of her. It was really working hard. And at one point I said, why do you protect her like this? She says, she doesn't listen to me. I told her to listen to me. She doesn't listen to me. And the part was always saying, this is painful. I'm going to give you more pain. I don't want to do this. I don't want to be used again. Even though it was a loving relationship, but the part hadn't been updated.

[53:42] Karin: Yeah.

[53:43] Peg: Part was young.

[53:44] Karin: Right.

[53:45] Peg: She was young.

[53:47] Karin: And that's the power of ifs.

[53:50] Peg: Power of ifs and sand.

[53:51] Karin: And sand.

[53:52] Peg: You know, it's funny because you could externalize what's powerful about ifs and sandry is you can externalize your your parts.

[54:00] Karin: Right?

[54:01] Peg: They take form, get to meet them.

[54:04] Karin: In the form of those figures. So as we wrap up today, what does love have to do with the.

[54:12] Peg: Work that you do? Oh, my God. I think the love I think about that question and isn't the love in what you do? Isn't the love in being passionate? Isn't the love about yourself? Isn't the love about when you're able to heal? And I've been on the other side of the sofa. I tell my clients, I've been where you are. I had to be as good as I am only because I had to do my work.

[54:41] Karin: Yeah.

[54:42] Peg: And sand play was the ultimate training that I did. I train in the modality. I had to get a supervisor in all modalities, get certified in these modalities, learn, learn. Because I had a part of me that said, you're not good enough. The part of me that was not good enough lasted for a long time until I did all these EMDR ifs, blah, blah, blah, blah. But nothing healed like Samplay. And I can't spell. I miss second, third and fourth and half of fifth grade. I can't do phonics. I can't spell. And I wrote a book. I got my PhD. I never dreamed I would do that. And now I'm on a podcast. And Samplay healed me in like nothing else. It was working with my unconscious, allowing it to do this solution. It had solutions I never could have thought of. And it's not like you think of the solutions. It just heals it from the inside out. I mean, the love of the love felt like the attunement love is attunement. Love is like being present for yourself. And I had to witness that. Not that I'm one of eight children. It's not that my parents didn't attune to us, but there were some challenges there. But the love is I think love is a great idea about what it is. What is love? And is it the love that you feel so attuned to that changes who you are? And if you've never had that, sometimes you can get it in other ways. And I got it through this amazing therapist that changed my world by being so attuned to me. When I witnessed me doing my sandplay process, everything changed. So her love for what she does helped me become the therapist who I am. And how I sit with people is because I love what I do. So it's not typical love when you ask about love. I think about it in so many other ways.

[56:48] Karin: Yeah. There are absolutely different kinds of love.

[56:51] Peg: Yeah. So now I self love.

[56:54] Karin: And that's where so much love comes from, is when we can love ourselves, isn't it?

[57:00] Peg: Yeah. So cool. You're very funny.

[57:05] Karin: Thank you.

[57:07] Peg: One of my clients is this pointing to me, said, you're good. Very good.

[57:16] Karin: Well, how can people learn more about you and your books?

[57:19] Peg: Oh, sure. My book is on Amazon right now for pre-order. It comes out October 3. It's called Sand Therapy for Out of Control Sexual behavior, Shame, and Trauma: Treatment approaches beyond words. And it's not just about out of control sexual behavior. It's really about all of this. And shame and trauma are huge. And so that's what that book is about. But you can reach me at [e-mail], which is my email, or go right to my website, which is you can reach me through my website, which is Peghurleydawson.com.

[58:05] Karin: Yeah.

[58:05] Peg: And I do return emails.

[58:09] Karin: Wonderful. It was really fun to chat with you today and learn more about all the really great, interesting work that you do. So thank you.

[58:20] Peg: Thank you, Karin.

[58:25] Karin: Thanks for joining us today on Love Is Us. If you liked the show and think others would enjoy it, I'd really appreciate it if you left me a review. You can also sign up for my weekly newsletter where you'll get tips about relationships and personal growth by going to my website, drcalde.com. That's DRC. Alde.com. I make it easy to sign up and easy to cancel at any time. Special thanks to Tim Gorman for my music, ali Shaw for my artwork, and Ross Burdick for tech and editing assistance. Again, I'm so glad you joined us today, because the best way to bring more love into your life and into the world is to be love. The best way to be love is to love yourself and those around you. Let's learn and be inspired together.