Episode 148: Reframing Christian Faith and the Lifestyle

Transcript

Speaker1: This podcast contains explicit language and content and is for mature audiences only. Hey, you teenagers out there. If you're under 18, this show is more for your parents. So now that you have that mental picture stuck in your head, put some music on and get back to doing your homework. We are a longtime married couple who's decided to chronicle our personal adventures and share our sex positive discussions as we navigate our way through the swinging lifestyle. Care to join us? Hello, everyone. I'm Mr. Jones. And I'm Mrs. Jones. And I'm Mitch with Expansive Connection. And we want to welcome you to episode 148 of the We Got a Thing podcast. I think we threw everybody a curveball because we haven't heard Mitch from Expansive Connection yet. Yeah. We are so used to Miche and Kel and Catherine and Jason. We're happy to introduce in just a second another cast from the team of Expansive Connection. And what we're going to talk about today may be a little bit of PTSD for the two of us. But we'll get in. It's been a few years. Yeah, it's been a few years. So, yeah, Mitch, welcome. And we're happy to have you. you. We're going to turn this over to you so you can do a little bit more of an introduction. Thank you. So great to be with you guys. I've been listening to you for years and been a part of your community. And it was such a privilege recently to be asked by Expansive Connection, Catherine and the others to actually join that team. When I was asked, I think I started crying because it was humbling to literally think that I could do something that I've done, coaching, individuals, couples, teams, all kinds of folks for over 30 years. But to be asked by Expansive to join them was really humbling. So yeah, I'm so thankful to be the newest person on the team and looking forward to seeing all that holds, all that that holds in the future. So do you have a specialty in your background as far as what you're bringing to Expansive? I know that each of the coaches has a little bit of a different specialized background. Yeah, thanks for asking. I mean, like I said, I have done a lot of coaching, consulting, consulting, training nationally and internationally for over 30 years. So a lot of expertise in that field. But the area of expertise that I hope brings some value add also is coming from a faith background, having religion and issues of faith, spirituality, etc. Having degrees in that, both bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees in that area. And absolutely love thinking that through. in some new ways, which I hope we get to talk about today. Yeah. And how about your lifestyle background? You are in the lifestyle. Yes. And have been for quite some time. So your perspective is well-rounded. Yeah. In fact, yeah, we were lifestyle adjacent for decades. And I'll share a little bit of that here in just a second. And then in 2022, chose to open our marriage and have only regretted that it took us so long, you know, wishing that because we're like the same age as you guys. And to think that if we could have just done this when we were in our 30s, that would have been even more fun. But you don't know what you don't know, right? Well, I think this is going to be a pretty interesting and popular topic because every month when we look at our Google Analytics, Christian swingers comes up as one of the number one search terms. We're a little bit broader than that today when we're talking about faith. But I think a lot of people are coming from a place where this reconciling or this reframing, as we're going to talk about, really is relevant and in front of mind for a lot of folks before they can move from what you just described as lifestyle adjacent or on the outside to actually stepping foot into it with a healthy outlook. So we're going to turn it over to you, Mitch, and follow your lead. and we're looking forward to the conversation. Yeah, thanks for an opportunity to do this. So my faith journey really began pretty early on when I was in junior high school, and I ended up going to a Christian school at a Baptist church. And the thing I remember most clearly is feeling this sense of calling. I didn't know what that meant, but I literally did feel this sense that I was supposed to pursue ministry or pursue pastoring or be involved with churches. And I didn't know what that meant because I didn't grow up. in that whole world. But I ended up in this very large church, megachurch setting. And my first experience was really healthy, it felt like. And as a junior high kid and the way I was loved and accepted into that community was awesome. It was a number of years later, my high school years, my college years, ended up in another megachurch situation. And that one actually became rather toxic and even abusive. And now as I look back on it, it was some of that experience that caused me to go through many years of deconstruction, trying to figure out where are the good parts in my faith or in religion or in churches, right? And where are the things that have harmed not only me, but others? And what do I keep? What can I hang on to? And what do I need to abandon or completely walk away from? And so, yeah, that began a journey of deconstruction that I say has taken over 30 years of deconstructing. Some people do this deconstruction process really quickly. For me, I was pretty slow. It took over 30 years to kind of pull the pieces apart with that. But nonetheless, it did thrust me to go into full-time ministry. And I did that for many years. But there was something, my very first full-time ministry experience, which was many years ago now, but I ended up in eight months of clinical depression. And that gave me a different perspective because it caused me to realize that the things I was taught. The environments I was in were not as healthy as I might have initially thought, and I needed to see it differently. So I wonder about, though, when you said the second megachurch was a toxic environment, did you realize that while you were in the middle of it, or was it afterwards reflecting back? Yeah, good question. It was mostly reflecting afterwards. It was something I loved. It was something I was a part of. My wife and I kind of connected and met there. Even though we met somewhere else, we ended up going to the same church and didn't even know it at the time. But it was as years went on, and I was on staff at that church for a number of years as well, that I started to feel some things. But it wasn't until I left and looked back in from the outside that I realized that was really bad. There's some problems here. And those aren't as obvious when you're inside the system as they are when you're outside. So, yeah. And then over the decades since then, it got worse and worse to the point where now I even consider it, if not cultic, borderline cultic in the things that this church promotes, the way they protect literal evil in things. So when I talk to people today and they've left the church and they've become agnostic, atheist, or whatever, I totally understand why. In fact, my wife and I look at each other and we've been, we've said many times, how the hell have we stayed so close to the church? or involved with it for so long when it often has done so much damage. I imagine a lot of that has to do with separating in your mind the church from the faith. And I'm not sure if I'm getting ahead of myself here, but can you kind of describe, because you just touched on it, like, why would you stay faithful in an environment like that, but you've got to be able to separate, you know, the one from the other. So was that something that you all purposefully did? Or can you describe what that was like for you all? Yeah, I don't think we were that smart to purposely know how to do it. But we did it, thankfully, nonetheless. I'm going to just say we ended up connecting with some really wise people, people of faith that had walked a journey but knew that church was an institution created by humans. There is no human institution that is perfect. I have a real sense toward perfectionism and wanting everything to be perfect. I'm an Enneagram one. So there's right and wrong, black and white, right? Mrs. Jones, I know. Yeah, I've listened to your Enneagram podcast and such. So I want to see everything that way and realize, no, the church is not perfect. There's no church ever that way. But my whole personality screams out when it's not. So yeah, it is hard. But thankfully, I was around some people that helped me understand spirituality, spiritual practice. that could be extremely helpful and a way to be connected to God or the divine or a rootedness that felt like goodness, right? Because so much of what we experienced was difficult and rough and hard. In fact, when we listened to a number of years ago now, when we listened to your kind of faith journey and the story of getting outed, we couldn't finish the podcast and we had to turn it off. We were in the car driving. We turned it off, and I said, are you feeling what I'm feeling? And she's like, are you feeling what I'm feeling? I'm like, yeah. It triggered our trauma of being treated in a similar way to the way you had, and that was many years ago for lesser reasons. So yeah, this thing of trauma that the church gives many of us as an institution is huge, but we've stayed in it because we still believe that our connection with spirituality and the And the goodness that we see in the best possible way is possible. And when you see that come over into lifestyle conversations, that becomes really fun. So when you say you're still in it, how in are you it? Are you members? Are you still actively involved in leadership? How do you describe that now? Yeah, good question. So we work with churches all over the country. And so literally as a day job, We work with churches, pastors, leaders, teams, organizations to try to help them be healthy. And so that's what kind of my training is, is to bring that kind of health and wholeness to organizations, individuals, and teams. So that's how we're primarily in it. But we have found as we got away from churches that were more toxic and found that some of the more churches on what's often called the progressive or liberal end that have a different theology than our background did, did feel like a safe place to be able to talk about many things we weren't able to talk about earlier. Those aren't easy to find. It takes a lot of work to find those communities. We're also part of like a house church community for over 10 years, something that we helped form and families that were doing life together. We vacationed together and that became our community and was very life-giving. So we're not a part of that now. We're not members of a local church right now, but we still find ourselves in them. I still speak at them and try to enjoy it. As long as they're not at that toxic side of things where they're abusing any people, I cannot be a part of any faith entity or organization that's abusive. But if they're in a place truly trying to be loving and seek goodness, if there's any way that I can help bring a different perspective to bring more love and more goodness and more acceptance. I want to do that. So I'm wondering, and I'll kind of put you on the spot here, I'm not sure off the top of your head if you can do this, but without being very specific, for those who are outside of any kind of a faith religion, sometimes they have a stereotype of this toxicity and apply that across the board because of experiences they've had with either individuals or with churches. Are there words that you would use to describe how to identify a toxic environment versus a genuine faith-based congregation? I mean, what are some of the things that jump out at you so that people understand that, first of all, not all churches are toxic? But second of all, to your point earlier, you didn't realize you were in the midst of it, and to a certain degree, I don't think we did either until we had enough to look back. But what are some things that people should kind of understand about that type of toxic environment? Yeah, I love that direction. Someone said it this way, I want to be known for what I'm for, not what I'm against. So I think one thing to look for is the organization, is that church so against things, what you can't do, all of the rules, all of the legalities. legalism, judgmentalism, separatism, and those things. Look for those because when you go down that road, those are not the kind of organizations that I've seen be healthy, right? It's the places that are about freedom and truly are trying to figure out how we can be more loving and be better humans and take the principles that we find in the Bible or whatever scriptures might be a part of that church and truly live them out. and then support each other in deep community. That's a safe community, right? If a church can have a safe community, I think that's beautiful. Now, many people find that in the lifestyle. That becomes their community. And we've seen that as well. And it's powerful. And we can talk about that in a little bit because I think there are some reasons for that that are important to see. So yeah, a place that has a safe community, nonjudgmental. I find too, the more affirming they are of people, even if they don't understand them. the whole LGBTQ question and how churches have struggled with affirmation or inclusion of that. I think that's a sign that churches that are more loving and affirming to us have become safer places and less toxic. The things that you're describing, you don't have to be a Christian scholar to pick up on that just doesn't feel right. There's things we get along the way. I mean, I've got three different ordinations from three different streams. that's been helpful. I've taught in several theological seminaries over the past 20 years, and I'm currently not doing that, and for some real specific reasons. But when you see these different streams, you see these different perspectives, it's able to help you understand that everything's not created equal as well. Every year there's a handbook of denominations that comes out, and there's somewhere, I don't even know what the number is now, over 4,000 denominations of religions. So, you know, Jesus said that they may be one as we are one. We haven't done a very good job of being one. If anything, it just continues to splinter, divide, and, you know, go off in different directions. But, yeah, we have to find something, some commonality. And I like what you said, too, about what is that gut feeling that you might have that, you know, even if you can't put your finger on it, but it just doesn't feel right, you're probably right. Get the hell out of there. Don't stay and submit yourself to abuse because the religious news at all, the amount of pain and fallenness of religious leaders, everything from embezzlement to scandals, it just continues to get worse. And that's not okay. But there are pockets of goodness of people that truly are trying to follow a way that is healthy and good and loving. And if you can find that, great. That's a wonderful thing. So just to clarify, you're not in that career field now, but are you retired or are you actively involved in another career? Yeah, actively involved in another career. We have our own organization that works with all kinds of leaders. So the coaching, consulting, and training that I've done in addition to. So yeah, I pastored for many years, met multiple churches in all different positions. But then we started an organization to come alongside and help leaders and teams, organizations and churches be healthy. But also did training in the business world as well to help with organizational health, everything from vocational understanding. So the kind of coaching, transition coaching, life coaching, leadership coaching, health and wellness coaching are things that have always been in our wheelhouse. So yeah, to be able to do all those things is a lot of fun. And we enjoy doing that. But the holistic health of has always been a passion and if we can do that um in any uh field uh that brings joy so i understand did i understand you to say that you're not affiliated with any congregation at this point in time that's correct okay so how would you it's almost a similar to a lifestyle question when we ask people what are you interested in or how do you engage in the lifestyle how do you engage with your faith? Is it the two of you? Is it just a group of people? Like, how do you sustain the faith? How would you describe your faith where you sit right now? Yeah, yeah. No one's ever asked me that question before. So, I mean, I want to reflect on that even after this podcast is over. But I think that somehow, and the way I like to say this, God if there is a God. Because I want to give perspective to my atheists and agnostics who might think there isn't. So God, if there is a God or the divine, I think is a wonderful way to have, you know, someone called it a ground of being. How do you try to think about what's underneath the surface? What's behind all of these things? So I think prayer becomes different, for example, because prayer isn't a list that you check off when you do a devotional anymore. It's like, God, if there is a God there, I want that. God to know what I'm feeling, what I'm experiencing, and to give God those thoughts every day, literally in the moment. So prayer becomes all day long, not a check off of something I do or a liturgy or something like that. So it's become far more relational, and I love that part about it. So it's a real, it's a personal spirituality, and it's a communal spirituality to be able to do things with others in that way. And spiritual practices. I think would be another good way to say it, that our faith continues to grow because of various spiritual practices that we've implemented. Everything from things like solitude and silence to fasting to study. If you study traditional spiritual practices or what are sometimes called spiritual disciplines or habits, there are so many of them that are wonderful life practices. You can even benefit from them if you're not using them for a spiritual connection. But those keep us grounded. Those keep us growing. Those keep us, I think, able to, one way I like to think of it is fill our cup in a way so that we give to others out of the overflow. So before we move on to your lifestyle journey, I'm going to go down this hole a little bit more, which I could probably do all day. I want to go back to prayer. Sometimes today we get the idea that prayer is about, well, we can't do anything about that, so let's just pray. Or it could be a prayer chain, which feels more like a gossip chain. Or it could be praying and not doing anything until I receive some sort of guidance or instruction. And you could probably go on about how people are taught to pray and what it's about. When you mentioned meditation and some of those other things, though, it's an acknowledgement. I mean, I'm wondering if you could describe it. It's more of a conversation. It's more of sharing your thoughts. How would you describe what prayer means to you? Yeah, I think in one word, it's relationship. Prayer as God or the divine who is accessible, but not necessarily God is in control of everything. Like many of us were taught, God is sovereign. God's in control. Because many of us have learned even going through things like the pandemic, it sure doesn't seem like God's in control. Or when tragedies happen around the world, like why would a loving God allow that? Well, there's some ways to reframe, which is a word we're using for this podcast, to understand God or the divine in a way that helps you go, oh, God isn't evil. God isn't even allowing those things. So if you can do that, I found that extremely helpful to be able to see prayers. Yeah, if God is listening, and I'll often say that at the beginning of my prayer, like, God, if you're really there, if you are hearing, you know, if you know my heart, let's talk about this. Let's go down this road. Or I need this from you. Or I hope I'm doing a good job at that. Because I want that feeling of God's approval. But in a way that's not beating myself up when I don't meet it, right? God as the schoolmaster or the angry father or the judge, which many of us have this perception of God. No, I want to see God as a loving being that is there to support. So that's how I try to think of God or reframe God when I'm praying. Yeah. And if you take the word God out of it, and I like you keep saying, if there is a God and if there's not, they're paying attention to very good things now that took some work to do coming from a very conservative religious background to move over into what's often called the perennial tradition that has a sense that god the divine is active in not just my religion but in many religions and in many spiritualities and in many avenues throughout life right which is i think what we're talking about here all right was there anything else you wanted to cover there in your faith journey before we switch over to something a little bit more fun no we can switch back and forth we can always hop back into faith journey but yeah let's go let's go to the more fun i'm good with that okay so you mentioned you've been like you were lifestyle adjacent and then you jumped into it just a few years ago so i want to in in kind of staying hand in hand and mrs jones and i went through this as we were sitting in church on sunday morning after going to a lifestyle event the night before those things start those two parts of your life start to collide. So can you take us, not necessarily to the point where you entered the lifestyle, but when you first realized these things were bumping into each other and they didn't necessarily agree, when did that happen and what was that like? Yeah, yeah. Well, let me give a little background, too, about how we had a long on-ramp into this lifestyle journey. And then as it starts to bump with faith down the road. So this started really young for us. We got married young, I think the same ages that the two of you did, 21, 22, something like that. But when I think my wife was 23 and I was 24, we would go to this beach. I had a day off and we would take our day off. This was before we had kids. And we would hang out on this beach that was a very secluded beach. And one day when we left the beach, it was so secluded, my wife said, and nobody would care. And I'm like, sounds like a good idea to me. I think you could. Now, we were very conservative religiously at the time, but my wife didn't come from a background of shame. She didn't come from what you can't do this. This is bad. Or the body is bad. She had no body shame when I met her, which was something that I loved about her because I was in this very rigid religious place and she was not. So that was beautiful. So that was just an innocent thing. And we came back the next week. She decided to tan Topless. came back week after week or every time we went to that beach and she did and it was never really an issue. Occasionally people would walk by and you'd get kind of a double take and they'd think, oh, that girl must be from Europe or something like that. But it sort of was this introduction. So this thought of being naked was freeing, but I didn't feel like I could do it because it wasn't a nude beach and she was kind of breaking the rules of doing this on a public beach. So we tried to look around for where we could go be naked somewhere. And so we found this place in Jamaica called Hedonism. And this was way back in the day when it was a club just owned by Super Clubs, I think, at the time. And all we knew is that they had a nude beach. And my wife was like, yeah, I don't think I can do that. I don't think I could ever get naked there. But, you know, I'll go. I'll be topless. I think we were 25 years old at the time. We were probably the youngest people at the resort the time that we went. We went. The bathing suits came off. They never went back on. She loved it. I loved it. And I guess we were officially nudists when we came home. So then it drove us to find a nude beach locally or something like that. So we were able to find one, thankfully, and be able to go. We even started having little kids, and we thought we'd stop when we had kids, but it was a family-oriented beach. So we'd take our kids down there. There was volleyball, and families would watch each other's kids. And it was sort of like nudism in the best sense. And it was a beautiful thing. And I think it helped us deal with a lot of body shame, things that many of us have grown up with, and kind of start simply. Because in the nudist world, it is very non-sexual. It's not about sex at all. It's about body acceptance and such, and hence why even children could go. And we just told our kids, guys, if this gets weird at some point, if you get older, you don't have to go anymore. And then they hit the teen years, it gets weird, and they stop going, and we get it. And that was kind of the way that it went. But we kept going to that beach for many years, but something shifted on that beach. And that was that it was up against a Marine Corps base that had about 20 miles of beach. And we would take a stroll down on that land as well and notice that in the coves, stuff was going on in those coves. People were doing some stuff. And we started to figure out that, yeah, people were playing on the beach and having sex on the beach. And we'd really never thought of that before. So we started doing that as well or trying that as well. And while it felt really bad, there was also something like really empowering about it. that felt exciting about that. It was doing something within us. Now, this is over many years. This didn't just happen overnight, but we started to do that. My wife loved it. I loved it. We felt like it was mutual. We became kind of a bit even exhibitionistic there because people would walk by and sometimes they would watch and et cetera, et cetera. But until we were really careless one day and after, a little deal like that, that we were involved in. A couple of state park rangers drove up and said, you're under arrest for what you have done. We have you on videotape, yada, yada, which was a lie. They did not have it on video and tried to force a confession, which we did not give. And long story short, we got an attorney and they worked through and the attorney was great. And she said, they should go after some real criminals because you guys just have a great marriage, right? Et cetera, et cetera. It all got thrown out, but we were stupid. We were careless. you shouldn't be doing something that is illegal and we did and we own that but what it did for us is it moved us to a place to say okay we know we like this but we got to do this in a way that's not going to get us arrested or get us ticketed right because that's a big ticket they didn't technically arrest us they said you're on it didn't take us to jail or anything like that but you know it was a pain to have to deal with all that stuff but then we're like well where can we go do that well the answer was lifestyle resorts and boats and things like a bliss cruise. So we signed up 10 years ago. It was like their second year. I think they started running the bliss cruise. We signed up to go back to hedonism because we hadn't been there in many years. We went to desire as well as some local lifestyle resorts. So we were still nudists, but we realized we liked this other part. So let's go hang out. And it was a lot, but that was the bridge from just being nudists over into even more lifestyle adjacent environments. But then it put in environments like where we could go to workshops, and we could learn, and we could ask questions, and we could be around professionals that were sharing it in such a helpful way, an educational way, that we realized, okay, we didn't know about these things, and we began to learn over a number of years. So that's where we moved from being nudist to being lifestyle adjacent that moved us all the way after many years of journeying through this in 2022, like I said, we opened our marriage but that wasn't an easy journey to go on either right well every everything that you described up to 2022 though was just the two of you i mean it was erotic it was outside the norm and in some cases illegal but now you're to a point where somebody one of one of you or both of you had to bring up what if we played with another couple and i imagine I mean, I'll let you tell. I imagine that's where a lot of the reconciliation needed to start happening with your faith. Yeah, yeah, it did. And it really happened back in 2019 on our second trip back to hedonism. So it was our third time there now because the first time had been many years earlier. We came in 2019 again and in the ocean there on the nude beach, we bumped into this couple and literally bumped into them and got to know them and spent a couple of hours talking. It was Mickey and Mallory from Casual Swinger, friends of yours, I know, and they love you guys and everything that We Got a Thing is about. And it was that that really opened things up. Because after we talked for a couple hours, I said to my wife, what if we, hey, those guys are podcasters. What if we offered to do a podcast with them, something very different than they'd probably ever done? I think they were in their first, maybe second season of podcasting at that time. So I went up to Mallory later, and said, hey, would you guys like to do an episode with a couple former pastors? And she said, wait a minute. I'll check. I'll find out. So she went back to Mickey and said, what do you think? And he's like, oh yeah, we got to do this. So in the piano bar at Hedo, we recorded our first podcast in 2019. I heard that episode. Yeah. Yeah. It's called Shame on You, Love God. And we really kind of dealt into this story. It was all about shame. At that point, we were still technically lifestyle adjacent. with anyone either. But it was fun to do. And what it did was it started to make our worlds kind of converge where we were like, okay, we can talk about our faith. And we've dealt with our shame issue in some big ways, especially with a ticket and getting arrested and getting an attorney, et cetera. But then having to be like, what do we do with all this? And where does it go? Well, that podcast went kind of viral, if you can call it viral in the LS podcast world, not millions of people. But so many people were helped. And Mickey said it was one of the most popular episodes ever. And we realized, wow, if our story can help other people, that's awesome. We don't want to hide that. How can we do that? So when Casual Swinger began trips to Hedo back in 2023, they asked us to do a workshop that we've now done every year for them. And people would come to the workshop. And it was kind of funny because Hedo had told Mickey and Mallory, you can't do a workshop on religion or spirituality or all that. And he's like, oh yeah, we can, because that's just who he is, as you probably know, right? He's just like, no, we're going to do that. And we did. Well, the first year we're sitting with about 30 people, I think, came to the workshop in a big circle. And we didn't plan this at all, but we were, my wife and I were here. On our right side, we had a couple that had been in ministry. And on our left side, we had another couple that had been in ministry. And we're like, whoa, in this small group of 30 people, we've got six of us that come from not only a faith background, but a professional ministry background. And that was really powerful. Well, we came out of that one. And one of the wives that was there came up and said, hey, I have a question. My husband wants to be baptized. And I'm like, okay, like when? She's like this week. And I'm like, do you realize where you are? You're at hedonism. This isn't a place that has a baptismal tank. I mean, I know we have the ocean, but isn't this a little weird? And let's have dinner and talk. So we had dinner with them. And this story also has gotten a little viral and it's a fun one to tell. It's a beautiful couple, some of them as the honey spoons because they're out there in many circles and stuff. Beautiful people. But as we sat and listened to his, what I'm going to call testimony, his family, if I recall it right, had, you know, they'd all been baptized, but he had not and really looked down on them for that. And yet they knew about their lifestyle pursuits and were very negative about that. So we ended up talking and saying, what would it look like for you to be baptized? My wife and I will baptize you, but You tell your story about why you want to be baptized and how it merges with your own lifestyle journey. And they did just that. And on Thursday, a group of, I don't know, 30 to 40 people, all naked at Hedonism in a circle watched as we baptized him. He shared his testimony. There wasn't a dry eye standing there around the circle. It was a beautiful experience. Later, Harry Lang, the owner of Hedonism, went to Mickey and said, at hedonism? And he's like, yeah, we did. He's like, you know that's never been done before, right? We're like, yeah, we're pretty sure it hadn't been done before. So this stuff keeps going, and people want some kind of integration. So we realized we can help with other people's integration as well in some of the best ways, and that's been a real beautiful thing. With twice a desire, we have been involved or have participated in vow renewal ceremonies. Standing in the pool one year with no clothes on and then on a veranda one year. And the people that were invited to this ceremony did not even know the husband and wife before the trip started. It was they made the connections during the trip. They invited them to the ceremony. And, you know, when we were outed, and Mrs. Jones can tell the story better than I can, but how many pastors did we hear from? Nine. Yeah, they reached out to us because we did a little 60-second episode saying, hey, we're taking a break for a while. Not real sure the direction that we're going to be heading in, but we will definitely get back with you. And when Mr. Jones put that episode out, he had nine people. people reach out saying, don't know what happened, but we think we know. And like one pastor even gave us his cell phone number and said, I want to make sure that you understand that this was not God's action, you know, our meeting at the church. The one pastor that wrote an article for our website, which is still one of the most popular articles, he actually referenced us in a sermon. to his congregation. He did not mention the word lifestyle, but he mentioned this couple that has a relationship that's outside the norm. His message was about how the church treated this couple. And he sent us a recording of him preaching to his congregation about all of this. So yeah, it really doesn't surprise me that there are so many, not only people of faith, but leaders in the church and clergy who, I mean, we have a faith matters group in our community. It's run by a retired, you know, clergy. And one of the weirdest things, I don't think it's weird. They're doing Habitat for Humanity weekends with lifestyle friends. You know, I mean, this stuff goes hand in glove closer than the manager at Hedo would, I mean, it does make your head explode, you know, in a lot of cases. Right. Yeah. No, it is really fun. Yeah. And we got outed years ago in our church just for being nudists. And that's why we got so triggered by your outing story on the podcast, because that was just for being nudists. We were relating to, oh, my gosh, if we were doing what we do now, what would it be like? But the good news of that is because we got outed in that way, and it was a long story that I won't get into, but I had to take the next year and kind of go incrementally. to everybody, my boss and friends and people we're in a relationship with and kind of explain, not one other person, the one couple that found out had a problem with it and they gossiped about it and it spread were the only ones. Everyone else I told said, we know you guys. You guys are fine. We love you guys. Hey, in Europe, move to Europe and you'd be fine doing what you were doing and it's no problem at all. So once again, back to that, beware of legalistic, judgmental, hateful, gossipy, Well, Mitch, didn't you have to remind them of the original nudist couple in the Bible? That would have been Adam and Eve. Yeah, I know, right? If we were supposed to be naked, we would have been born that way, right? So, you know, it's so interesting. But, you know, this is a long route as well in religion, right? If you go to the Vatican, you see all of the art that has been painted over where fig leaves were put over beautiful nude art because religion had a problem with it. It's not that God had a problem with it. It's that humans have had problems for centuries, for millennia with it. And we know the impact that that's done. And that's too bad. It really is. And we get a chance to try to reframe that. So since we, yeah, so let's get into reframing. I mean, the people listening are going to want to know, how do we reconcile? How do we manage to get through? How do we get to where you are? And I'll start off by saying that 30 years, you know, in a leadership position, your church, your faith beliefs do not change overnight, nor when you're coming into the lifestyle, nor does that all of a sudden happen all at one time. I think a lot of people need to understand that these are journeys. And that's why we say it's lifestyle is a journey, a faith is a journey, and things aren't going to necessarily change or resolve. But what would you share? What are your thoughts on how people could begin to reconcile these two things? Yeah, it's so good. And this really is the overflow of many years now of hundreds of conversations with couples and individuals at so many of the places we've traveled, where they find out what we do, or we share what we do. And we have long conversations that forced us to think, how do these things coexist? And can they coexist? And how can we be helpful in doing that? Which I really enjoy doing. So yeah. Some thoughts on how to reconcile faith with the lifestyle in good ways. And I do think because if you ask a question like, can religion and non-monogamy coexist? I think maybe the best answer is only if you reframe several areas of religion or faith or your beliefs as you know them. And I'm using this word reframing because it's been helpful for me in my own deconstruction. because reframing is not just believing what you want in order to justify your behavior. I've been accused of that. I've had people accuse me, oh, you're just going to do that. And I'm like, no, let me sit down for you. It would take several hours to tell you about 30 years of deconstruction of how I did not do that. Well, that's why we use the term reconcile and not rationalize. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, reframing helps you understand that life is a process. It's a process of order, disorder, and reorder. Many of us have come from a system that was trying to keep everything very controlled, very much in order. If it got out of line, the leaders are going to let you know about that because now you're pushing against a system. Yet we know our lives are full of this disorder. I like to use the word fragmented people. We used to hear words like we're sinful people. people, broken people, fallen people. I don't use those words as much, but I think fragmented is a good way to realize that, yeah, we all have some really rough edges. And when our fragments rub up against your fragments, we can cut each other with those fragments. And we need to be wise and careful about that. So how do we reframe it? Because your belief system can and will have a huge impact on the way you might choose to interact with religion. Now, we know that, but we don't know that. because if you don't consciously pay attention to your belief system, you probably won't pay attention to your belief system. You'll just keep on believing it just like you were taught. So there is a huge difference between creating a belief system that matches up with the behavior you want to take part in and studying your belief systems and the authoritative text that they're based on to see if what you have been taught is truly the only way of seeing it. things. So that's what I mean when I'm talking about reframing. It's a paradigm shift. That word used to be used more commonly. But right, it's putting on a different set of glasses. You take out one set of glasses, put on a different set of glasses, and that helps you see. And I think to be stuck in any belief system your entire life is just that stuckness. It's not growth. It's not change. Even the word, you know, for those religious people that are listening, know the word repentance really well. How many times do we hear to repent? But the Greek word for repent is metanoia, which literally means to change your thinking. Or even better, to change your thinking about your thinking. Well, that's reframing. It's changing your thinking. It's being open to the fact that, yeah, I probably didn't have it all right. Or what if the leaders that I heard it from initially, they didn't have it right? Or what if they had an agenda, et cetera? especially in a couple specific areas but you know i already mentioned but there are a couple options so many people have walked away from religion and i honor that i get that i don't know how my wife and i have it we have been so beat up and abused in ways as have the two of you many hurtful things why would we all not just be atheist or agnostic or the nuns is the big category now the fastest growing religion in america are the nuns n-o-n-e-s Right. There is no religion and it's fast growing. And so, yeah, because and then we see a lot of people in the lifestyle that just believe, no, it's completely incompatible. So I just got to walk away from my faith. And if I'm going to do this and we just try to ask, OK, if you do that, that's fine. No judgment on that. But maybe that's not the case. So if we can help people see something different that helps them live a more integrated or loving existence or stay with a community, if it's a healthy one. That's a good thing for us to be able to do. But then there are those that choose to stay, some form of religion, spirituality, church, faith practice, et cetera, and build some kind of compatibility, allowing them to continue without guilt or shame or fear, et cetera. So I think there's some ways to do that. So a few of the ways that I've found to be really helpful is to reframe. And this kind of is a funnel, if you will. the belief you think about God? Yeah, I don't believe in that kind of God. I'm an atheist to a God that I used to think was hateful, vengeful, sponsored genocides to wipe people off the face of the earth, okay? So you have to ask some really hard questions about God and the kind of God you were taught or even looked at within your scripture, which we can talk about that in a second when we get on to that. But I think this is extremely and it's got to be the place that you start with, right? What kind of entity do we mean by God? Is it God as an old man in the sky? There was a book years ago called Your God is Too Small by J.B. Phillips about all the views people have of God. I think it was the very first book that I bought when I was in junior high and I told you I kind of came to faith in that junior high. Someone recommended that book. Many people see God as a ghost. You know, if you think about God as a burning bush or an angel, or a spirit? It's this ephemeral kind of thing. What does that look like? Theologians have referred to God as a ground of being, not a being, but being itself, which is separate from everything or completely abstract. But what about God as a universal loving spirit? And I read a great quote. It was just a couple weeks ago. It was in a Substack article that I was reading from an essay in Renewing faith by an Anglican priest. David Tomlinson was his name. And he describes God as a universal loving spirit in some poetic language. So it's okay, I just read that short quote. The way he described God, he said, consider likening God to the atmosphere that surrounds the earth, like the air that surrounds the breath we breathe, an all-sustaining spirit of life and love, dwelling in time and space, and interacting with us to create a better future for ourselves and the world. And I love that. It was just a simple way of thinking about God differently than many of us have been taught, right? Many of us have such negative images about God when we think about God. Yeah. And I think to allow yourself to re-ask those questions in this reframing process around God, you know, it's fair to say, who taught me about God? Where did I learn that? And why would they teach me that way? Then you get into what motivates an institution. Could it be money? Could it be control? Could it be power? Could it be that they don't know any different? There are so many different motivations behind the way that that is taught. I think back to junior high school seems to be coming up a lot here. Because having the freedom to ask questions, there are those who preach at you, and then there are those who teach. And if you're going to teach, you have to listen. And when you listen, you have to respond. And you have to respond thoughtfully. And as soon as I give you a canned answer to your Oh, it says here in Matthew, you've lost me because that's a circular pathway right back to where they started from. So I think once we begin to give ourselves the freedom to ask those types of questions, it goes a long way to what you said earlier, just moving yourself into a different mindset that you do have a choice. You do have the freedom to do this. You deserve an answer to the questions that you have. And if those questions either don't make sense, or they're derogatory, or they're hurtful, or it's just back to a scripture, what meaning is behind that? And I think that type of cycle is where this image of God comes from that a lot of people have. Yes, exactly right. Spot on. I've seen that. And I know because I was one of those leaders who was taught how to control people tell people how to keep them in line. It was about obedience. Because if you didn't, they would drift away. They would be backslidden or fallen away, whatever words that were used in that thing. And then you learn to control them. And at some point, you realize this doesn't feel right. We're not like herding animals here. But there's a sense of keeping everyone in the pen, of keeping it secure. And therefore, we come up with methods and motives and ways of doing that. And thankfully, many people have spoken because that's crossed lines of abuse and control in very unhealthy ways, and now they speak up against that. So churches are more aware. Now, some still do it, and they do it unapologetically, which is horrible. But yeah, we need to be aware of that. So you're exactly right with those things. But to note, too, there are different ways of seeing God. Like one thing I studied years ago now and absolutely love, if you've ever been to Ireland, you experience Celtic spirituality. or follow any of the things in the vein of St. Francis. I'm not St. Francis, but St. Patrick in Ireland because there's a beautiful spirituality in Celtic spirituality that sees goodness, not just badness. They raise their children that way. They have prayers that they say that are so full of goodness because it views God from a very positive light. There are ways of seeing that instead of original sin or badness, there's original goodness or blessing that emphasizes Genesis 1, God created and it was good, it was very good, rather than, you know, fast forward into Genesis 3, the fall, and then everything's bad. And then they don't realize that it was actually theologians like Augustine who perpetuated a doctrine of original sin, and probably had some really good reasons for doing that. you need to give yourself permission to use your critical thinking skills and say wait a minute that doesn't make a lot of sense exactly exactly so this is an area we have gone down and this is how i am able to stay connected to a god that looks very different from the god i was originally taught i don't blame those leaders who taught me because they only knew what they knew often right they were teaching what they taught so i don't want to beat them up but i feel thankful that i can have a different perspective. There are good people who teach a different way of seeing God like that. One book I read a year or so ago was Embracing Prodigals by John Sanders. And it was just a beautiful book that helped reframe God for me. And I continue to try to study in that way. I think it's one way people can stay connected to spirituality to realize what if the God that's in your head is not the God that actually exists? And wouldn't God want you to keep learning? about what God is like. And I just think that's a fun thing to do and a beautiful way to go. So I encourage people to do that. So scripture is something that people fall back on and especially emails that we get and people say, can you show me in scripture where it says this or whether where it says this is okay. And that's wrong because obviously in the scripture it says that. So this is a sticking place number two. Yeah, it's a big one. Yeah, thank you. So scripture, and I use scripture because many of us have come from the Bible as our scripture. And there are, of course, other faiths that use different scriptures. And I want to honor and respect that. A lot of LDS friends, a lot of LDS folks in the lifestyle, and they have additional writings as well. So I want to challenge them because my study is in the Bible more than those other ones. But I do want to honor those as well. But here's the question when it comes to scripture. What if the way you were taught to interpret the Bible is not the the only way to interpret it, giving new breath and space for other meanings, right? This is what's called the science of hermeneutics or interpretation, okay? Now, I was taught hermeneutics in seminary. I've got two seminary degrees, and I was only taught a very interesting, specific way to do it, which was a very literal hermeneutic, right? You look at the Bible, you read it, you take a literal interpretation, and that's about it. But then I noticed that many of the leaders, that were teaching me that they would preach sermons and they weren't using a literal interpretation for many of those passages because in many cases you can't do that right you get arrested if you did the things or took them literally right if you killed your children for disobeying etc we could go on and on with examples i mean it's okay to think it though right because yeah it's not okay to think it but yeah everybody does people tend to do that so Yeah, so massive paradigm shifts happened for me after, you know, 14 years of undergrad, graduate, postgraduate education where I studied religion and I knew I wanted to understand what the Bible was saying. But literally, it wasn't until after all of that education was completed that I was introduced by some, thankfully, some other good mentors and teachers and scholars that there are other ways of seeing. Okay. Now, that's not a bad thing because people sometimes get nervous if they have only been taught a literal approach. I am so thankful for scholars that now, rather than take a literal approach to Scripture, are able to take Scripture literately or literarily, which I think is more healthy than taking Scripture literally, right? If you understand what was the literary genre in which it was written and to give respect to that, that's all part of what hermeneutics is about, learning to and Bible scholars do that all the time. So when people ask you, you know, can you find a verse to support that? Yeah, you probably can, but maybe not if you only take a literal approach to the way you look at Scripture. So you have to open yourself up to this. Now, this affects many areas, not just the lifestyle for me and my wife and our journey. For us, it started, I think, with the whole issue of women and the way women are treated in the church and women as equals. Because in scripture, women were pieces of property. They were just property. I always had a complicated relationship with Paul. Paul's letters were not kind towards women. No. But when I studied enough to understand the audience, who is he writing those letters to? And what was going on in that society at that point in time? And I think that's what you're referring to. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. If you can see that, you'll know why that someone like Paul said what he said. And then you've got a place for that, at least. It's like a placeholder where I can go, okay, I know why he said that about women. Because back then, that was actually something that was an increase. It was getting better with what he said compared to what it actually was. It doesn't feel better today. And it's still not better. But yeah, so that was back in the early 2000s for us. And I changed my mind about women in leadership and women in leadership. being treated as equals and realized how I could even contribute to women not being treated well based on what I was being taught in the church. The biggest one for my wife and I, though, was about seven, eight years ago when we were challenged with the whole LGBTQ plus issue and the way those folks have been marginalized and treated so harshly by the church, obviously harshly in many environments, but the church has not done a good job. And it wasn't until we spent some time deeply thinking that through and trying to see it through what we felt was God's eyes. And there's a long story about that. Maybe that's for another podcast at some point of how this happened to change our minds about that. Yeah, God is completely inclusive of LGBTQIA+. And I even see and consider lifestyle and ethical non-monogamy as the plus in that as alternative spiritualities. I've asked many of them because I don't want to ever be because some people have said, oh, you can't do that. We're not the plus. Everyone I've asked so far who identifies in those has said, yeah, I think that's totally accurate and correct. But nonetheless, how do we include each other? Because I'd rather be excluded for who I include than included for who I exclude. I like that. Oh, yeah. And if anyone really wants to empathize with a marginalized group, I would recommend if you want to feel that out yourself as being swingers because when we were outed i mean i've always felt that we were really sympathetic people and understanding people and progressive in our thinking but when i was we were marginalized i i felt i experienced it myself and what a difference and i'm like oh my gosh if this is how we treat people if this is what is meant by being marginalized i get it now now i'm not recommending that people go out and do that but but really it it kind of brought it home for me to say i i get it i i feel it and so we should have a little bit more empathy for those who feel marginalized because if you're in the lifestyle guess what if you come out and say that you are going to be marginalized right yeah you're you're so right you're so right yeah and they have uh gone before us those that have walked that journey for decades now and um yeah lifestyle and the non-monogamous world is far behind where they're at but they're now not out of the woods speaking especially from religious you know understanding and acceptance there well i mean if you think about it we can be ourselves we can be totally closeted with the lifestyle because we're still together we love each other we walk down the street and hold each other's hands So observers don't see that, but when you are gay or lesbian and you want to express that same love towards your partner and you feel like even if you do that, somebody's going to notice you and feel a different way about you, we don't have that burden. So that's even another reason to be more sympathetic, you know, because they're not able to be who they are. I know a lot of people think that maybe non-monogamy is kind of wired into us. I'm not sure that I agree with that. That's probably a podcast for another day, but it's still easy for us to cover up and go into vanilla mode or whatever mode we need to be in without anybody just looking at us and knowing that we live this other lifestyle. Right. And the challenge here is, again, I try to help people see if you think you know what the Bible says, you probably have a literal view of that. My challenge would be go and see if there are other views because good scholars have shown alternative interpretations. for all of what are technically called the clobber passages against LGBTQ people. And if you can see that there are alternative interpretations for each of those, it begins to open your eyes. That, wow, I have been taught this, but what if God does not feel that way? And why did Jesus never talk about those things? Yeah, but I want to go back to something that you said earlier about the people that taught you may, we don't blame them because that's what they were taught or they don't know any better. it's like when somebody says well it says in the bible that that's wrong and when you point to the scripture it'll say a phrase like sexually immoral well that's a very subjective term but what we've done is we've put words inside of that bucket right and the words we choose to put in that bucket then we teach people that they're one in the same and it takes a while to un to disentangle that from your head when you look at the word and you can really think about it oh yeah immoral What does that mean? Can I decide that myself? Or who decided to put the word in that bucket? But the struggle to get to the point where you feel like you can even ask that question is a big growth opportunity. I mean, if you can get there, the rest of it, I'm not going to say it's easy, but it's almost impossible for people who can't even, they look at you like you're speaking a different language. Well, it says right here, immoral. So obviously what you're doing is wrong. Okay, well, the conversation's over, because if you can't separate what you've been taught to what you're actually seeing, there's not a lot we can do. That's right. Yeah. I love encouraging people to do some more study with that. And folks that are in your community, I think you know Glenn and Lydia Farrell, who wrote the book Let's Talk About Sex. Go into all the words, the language, and some study. And kind of more from a layperson's perspective as well, not a Bible scholar perspective, but they did great work and have a podcast and such that helps some people journey through some of the language there next one is yeah yeah wedding vows covet there's all kinds of things that that come to mind here so go ahead and solve this one for us mitch there is so the question here is what if what you were taught about marriage is not rooted in god's view or scripture's view but also has latitude for something else so much and i'm thankful for the amount of talk that now has taken place around purity culture, right? And many of us were given that as our standard. My wife and I were. We did that with our kids. I gave my daughter a purity ring, you know, when she was a teenager. She lost the first one, had to buy her a second one. You know, we go back and we had to like later repent literally and ask forgiveness for that and hope it didn't do damage. She thankfully said that it didn't damage her in the way that we did it or whatever. But it's fascinating. to look today and think about marriage today. Can you find anything that looks remotely close to what we call marriage today in the Bible? And the answer is you can't. You can't, right? In the Bible, what type of relationships do you see? We've already said it, right? Women as property, ownership, women as sex slaves conquered in battle, polygamy or polygyny, more of a purpose, but most people know it as polygamy, broad term, multiple spouses. Status in society, yeah. Yeah, male dominated culture. So I recently listened to a podcast that was so helpful because it was by a biblical scholar, Jennifer Byrd, PhD level, amazing scholar that she's got so much to say about this subject. But the title of the podcast that caught my eye was why you don't want a biblical marriage. And she goes into all this, right? Because it's just intense. And she recently came out with a book called Marriage in the Bible, what do the texts say? So she deals with the primary texts in the Bible about marriage and why we might have got it wrong. And how just translating that stuff into what we think of marriage today is a complete disconnect. So, right, here's where we're coming down that funnel. From what's your view of God, right, to what is that view of Scripture or the Bible, to within the Bible, what does the Bible say about marriage and relationships? And what if we did get that wrong? of scholars today are telling us no the verses that have been used in the bible are not about marriage they're just about relationships in general right yeah we i think um mrs jones and other ladies when going back to uh marriage vows with obeying and who is the head of the household and you know there's a lot of things in there that even back in the 80s and 90s was even like i you referenced that you've been married about as long as us. So like four decades ago, I think the vows were just starting to evolve from I pronounce you man and wife to I pronounce you husband and wife. Right, right. Yeah. And as you were describing your relationship with your wife, and I was thinking about Mrs. Jones and I, because I don't think we were smart enough to know this at the time, but we made our own relationship. I mean, we had good models of relationships. in the past, but it's not about what my pastor says a relationship should be, the Bible says a relationship should be, maybe my parents, my friends, other colleagues. You know, you don't have to take a pattern in your mind that's been woven together by your experience and try to live that way. But the fact that you two, and we did the same thing, I mean, we pushed about, we thought we were pushing boundaries, now it's a little bit different perspective. But we just enjoyed being together, and we enjoyed exploring together, and we enjoyed pushing what I think people would say are outside the bounds of a biblical marriage. And we did it so often. I'm not going to say often, but... Well, it's probably my personality. Again, it goes back to that Enneagram one. Like, I never thought my job was to submit to my husband. And even today, you hear you know that you know good christian wives submit and they you know they do what their husband says well we've always been a partnership and we've always contributed i mean we both get our hands dirty and help clean the house but we both also use our brains and help you know run our household and and plan our finances and our and our future and everything and i you know i i i i think that kind of probably gave us both the courage since we had this partnership to start thinking outside the box when we started getting curious about the lifestyle and and when we taught sunday school or bible studies or led home groups in our church we were not afraid to ask those kinds of questions and challenge scripture and what does this really mean and what was going on when paul wrote this because you know again my relationship with paul is complicated well and when we sat in i'll never forget We were taking, I don't know if you've heard of this study. It was, what was the Bible study that we? Disciple Bible study. And we got, we were in the Old Testament. We were talking about Solomon. We were talking about his wives and concubines. And I raised my hand and Mrs. Jones kicked me under the table because she knew, I'm like, wait a minute, can we stop and talk about these hundreds of wives and concubines? Well, that's just the way that it was back then. And I'm like, nah, that doesn't really sit well with me. Like, why can't we talk about this? And nobody wanted to talk about that. Nope, nope. But that would make for some fun Bible study right there. You could get into that. I thought it was fun. All of a sudden, it was time to go home. I love it. There you go. Time for the closing prayer. We got a thing study on concubines. That would sell really well. I'll be behind that. That'd be awesome. So, yeah. So, you know, we could talk about this subject more. Obviously, it's a big one. It's so, relationships are so important. But I did love what you said. I think that couples that we see that are in the lifestyle who have that solid foundation and treat each other in an equal way, egalitarianism, it's often called, right? Where you respect each other, you make mutual decisions. We were taught submission to the T. And yet we ended up living not like that, but in a very equal way. And we always have. for four years now. And we're so thankful that we did because we could have never even made the decision to come over into the lifestyle if we weren't completely 100% mutual, respecting each other in that and taking a lead because that's not a decision you make alone. Submit does not work. We got an email one time from a gentleman who was saying, okay, Mr. Smarty Pants, if your granddaughter found out about your lifestyle, what would you tell her he was thinking he was going to shame me into saying you're right i'm wrong but i said you know what i would tell her i would say i hope that when you choose a partner that you're going to have the type of relationship where the two of you can decide what you want to do together and how you want to honor each other and how you want a healthy marriage and how they want to grow together and how they want to be independent and how they want to hold each other accountable That's how I would answer that question. Because if you get into, you know, individual things that you choose to do, you're missing the whole point of the relationship is driving the possibility that you could even have a conversation and go to a place like that. Yeah, totally agree. Well, the last area that we get to here as we come down the funnel after God, scripture, marriage is what I'm calling emotional baggage. Might not be the greatest way to refer to it. how do you handle feelings like shame or guilt or fear or jealousy and that's usually where the conversations start in the swimming pool with my wife and i when people find out what we do and i feel this way can you help me but here's my thought that what if the feelings that so many of us struggle with in relation to our lifestyle or ethical non-monogamous journeys are actually rooted in the first three areas if we've been influenced by religion or faith that are in need of reframing, right? So how are all of these issues impacted by everything we just talked about? Because I think they can be, right? I saw it last week or week before last that fear, according to Bible Gateway, Bible Gateway is the number one Bible app and stuff on, you know, the most engaged with verse globally in 2025 was Isaiah 41 10. So do not fear for I am with you. Do not be dismayed for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Well, what does that tell you? There are a ton of people living in fear. Right. Yeah. Right. And that's so, so that's just not in the lifestyle world. That is, I know it's getting right. The way our culture is going and the things that are going on around us give us so much fear. Really good quote that my wife gave me when we did our workshop last week, when we were at Hedonism, she came up with a says this, we shouldn't fear our sexuality, but embrace it. What we should fear at times is our inability to think as highly of the gift as does the creator who made us sexual beings. I think that deserves an amen at this point. Yeah, yeah. Such a good quote. This author has a lot to say about sexuality. So I think there can be some good. Now, most of us have experienced very negative writings, and purity culture on sexuality. There are more and more good healthy ones that take a healthy spirituality and a healthy sexuality and merge them together. If you go back to shame, it's the number one issue I think we deal with in coaching. It was that first podcast we did back with Casual Swinger in 2019, struck a nerve, etc. I remember saying to Kel from Expansive back in May, we were together and I said, Kel, it's the number one issue you deal with in your coaching. right out of her mouth. It's shame. And a little shameless plug for our expansive workshop. Cal and I are doing a workshop actually on January 22nd. So if this podcast comes out in time for that, that would be a wonderful thing. But that workshop's coming up real shortly on this whole subject that we have a chance to unload for about 90 minutes, which we're excited about. Jealousy is the other one. It's so common, right? People want to talk about jealousy. Some of our issues with jealousy were tied to the view that we have of God. Why? Because if you read literally in Scripture, God is a jealous God. Well, if God's allowed to be jealous, aren't I supposed to be jealous of my spouse or partner or whatever? But think more deeply with me again. If we use some of the things we already talked about in reframing, if jealousy is really the fear of a loss of love, do we really think that God can stop loving us? Is God really that insecure? Or is that the language that the authors of the Bible used to describe what they thought God might be experiencing? And if we were convinced that God's love was so great, we could never lose it. What might it do for the love we have for our partner or for others? So see how our view of God impacts so many of these issues that we talk about all the time in the lifestyle world. Shame, jealousy, many others. Well, but fear is the common denominator here, I think, Mitch, because jealousy is the fear of losing something. Shame is a fear that somebody is thinking less of me. Same thing with guilt, a fear that my mother is going to find out and I'm going to, you know, I fear that she's going to, you know, do this to me. So those are, I think, pretty much rooted in that. And, you know, at first when I saw shame and guilt. I thought mostly ladies coming from that perspective. But when I see fear and jealousy, I see men, you know, right there, you know, with the ladies and struggling with a lot of this emotional baggage. So it's not, you know, in our experience, it's not gender related at all. You know, it comes from within all of us. Totally. Yeah, it sure does. As we wrap up, though, let's talk about the, what you're going to talk about. with Kel, because are you going to give people the tool sets that they need to kind of deal with this? It's one thing for us to sit here on a podcast and say, these are the issues. And it's easy to say, oh, we'll just get over it, or this is how you do it. But we know that practically speaking, that's not useful. So I would imagine that you guys, as Expansive Connection always does, is coming with your toolbox and your tool chest and everybody being able to take things things away where they can actually proactively begin to work on some of these issues. Yeah, we are. Actually, we're going to do a deeper dive on shame, talk about that in practical ways, have a breakout room to be able to talk about that and interact a little bit about it. Talk about this deconstruction and reconstruction and what that looks like for people. Those words scare people sometimes, and I don't think they need to scare people. Why do I know? Because I went through it for 30 years, and it became one of the most valuable things. to me that has allowed me to be in the place that i'm in today i'm so thankful for that process i want to talk about that and how that relates to it and then possibly be even able to dive deeper into some of these areas that we just talked about here the second breakout experience about 90 minutes to be able to interact with all of these and then have time for questions as well for people to see where it lands with them well we um since you're a part of the expansive connection team now um we know that you're you're going to be in our rotation for podcasting in the future. So I think what you did a really good job of today is a macro view of all of this. It's going to be a lot of fun in the future to take some of these individual items and drill down into them a bit and help get to maybe some of the emotional part of it, how people can learn from it, what they can do together, how they can take these questions and and speak to their partner about some of this. Because I think that's really where the rubber meets the road, is getting down into the nitty-gritty. So we're obviously running out of time today, so we don't have time to do that. But perhaps we can get you to come back in the future and drill down on some of these things. That'd be great. I'd love to do that. So is there anything else you need to share about Expansive Connection coming down the road? you or contact you if they have questions. Yeah, for sure. Well, to reach me personally, it's just Mitch at ExpansiveConnection.com. All right. I'll also be hanging out in the We Got a Thing community more often, which I'm excited to be doing. And then that workshop that is on January 22nd that you can sign up for. The links are in We Got a Thing as well as on the Expansive Connection website. Also, Catherine and Kel and Miche have a winter couples retreat coming up in Destin Floor. Florida, February 25 to 28. There's still some spots available. And Catherine is going to be co-leading a women's retreat in March, March 26 to 29 in Tennessee. So as always, if you're not connected with Expansive Connection, you can join the mailing list to hear about those events and other things. Just go to expansiveconnection.com slash ENM for more information. Great. And lastly, I'll ask you, Mitch, you mentioned a few resources during the podcast. If you could maybe send those to me, I'm happy to put those in the show notes for this episode as well. Yeah. Happy to do that. Those resources. All right. Well, hey, this has been a great conversation because we haven't talked about this in a long time. And we are happy that you're the focal point of this conversation and not us. So it really does help us to be able to. And I was kind of joking about the PTSD. This happened a long time ago. Obviously, it made a big impact on us and a lot of what we talked about here today. I think we did it in a very positive, uplifting way. And I hope that what people take away from this is that all of this stuff that we talked about is probably something that you are experienced or you will experience. But there's ways that you can change the way that you think. And that there are questions that you can ask each other. And that there are things that you can talk about as a couple that are going to help you with this process of evolving through this reframing journey that we are all on and probably, hopefully, doesn't end. Because that's what keeps marriages fresh, relationships fresh, and life exciting. Yeah, well said. I totally agree. Thank you for an opportunity to share. All right. Well, we'll see you next time. Okay. Thank you. All right. Take care. Hey, this is Jessica. If this episode stirred something in you, curiosity, comfort, or that quiet, I've been looking for this feeling, don't stop here. Go listen to episode 131, Finding Your Tribe and the We Got a Thing community. It's where the conversations go deeper, the connections get real, and you discover that this journey was is never meant to be taken alone. Because if you're listening, chances are you've got a thing. A craving for more honesty, more freedom, and a space where you feel understood without having to justify who you are. And We've Got a Thing, a thriving community built exactly for like-minded couples and individuals ready to explore, grow, and connect with support that's as deep as the desire that brought you here. Head to WeGotAThing.com and come inside. Because a thing you've been craving? It's not just a fantasy. It's a real community, and we're waiting for you. 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