Interview with Wendy Spurgeon, Integrative Coach

We discussed many topics during our self relationship episode, including: losing ourselves in relationships and healing our relationships with ourselves. I learned a lot from the articles we read as well as from the discussion with my fellow TVP ladies; but I still had some questions.

So I decided to sit down and chat with Wendy Spurgeon. Wendy is a certified integrative coach professional, certified hypnotist, reiki practitioner, and ordained minister. She specializes in love and sex addiction, as well as codependency recovery. We discussed her teleconference ("Being Your Favorite Lover Now"), her coaching, losing one's self in relationships, and more.

I originally planned to release this as an audio interview, but no matter how much editing and fiddling I did, the audio was stat-icky. I blame the wind and snow from that evening. But I've transcribed the interview below for everyone, enjoy!

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ZG: Hi Wendy. We can keep this a little more conversational, but I'd love to hear more about your recent teleconference, "Being Your Favorite Lover Now." What inspired you to do this and what is it about?

WS: Before, during, and even after Valentine's Day, we're barraged with all this imagery about romantic love. And around this time of year, the suicide rate rise because of that shadow, that kind of pervasive programming of: you should be in a paired relationship, and it should be this passionate, romantic experience. So if you're NOT, then that can bring up a lot of shadow belief that we have about ourselves. "I'm not good enough," "I'm a failure at relationships," "I'm only lovable if I'm perfect, if I'm the right weight or if I look a certain way or if I make a certain amount of money," and so on. And this applies to men and women both. I mean men can feel a lot of pressure to impress, perform, and overspend; and women do, too. They both wonder "am I enough, as I am?" It brings up all these insecurities and some really deep limiting beliefs about ourselves.

Mirror mirror by sic-purity on deviantart.com

WS: So I feel like now's the time to have this conversation, as a society and also with ourselves, about how to be your favorite lover now. When people think about self love, I mean, most wonder "What is that? Do you mean masturbation?" The answer's no, self love is pretty encompassing. And I want to encourage people to work through whatever shadows that they have around sexual expression.

ZG: Self love certainly goes deeper than masturbation. Although I think that's one thing many people struggle with - accepting and feeling okay to talk about intimate, sexual self love.

WS: I agree. You know, I came from a time when sex was just something that wasn't talked about. Or if you're a small child and you're having an innocent moment of sexual self expression, and your parent comes in, there's this shaming moment that happens. That all gets internalized to "Oh this is bad. This feeling that feels so good in my body is wrong, it makes me a bad girl or a bad boy, and it's something I've gotta hide or try to deny or repress." And that can all be the root of problems in our adult lives, whether it's subconscious or you're fully aware of it.

WS: So with teleconference "Being Your Favorite Lover Now" and also within my coaching, I want to help deprogram those limiting beliefs and help people achieve their most joyous sexual and creative expression. During the teleconference, I want to go deeply into helping people uncover their sexuality, sensuality, the shadow of relationships, and the many ways we can give ourselves that love, assurance, acceptance, and pleasure that we wanted from other people - you don't need someone else to give you those, you can give them to yourself.

WS: And it's something even partnered people can benefit from; when you love yourself and "show up fully" for yourself, you can do so for others. You can be available emotionally for them and deepen your bond. It all starts with self love.

ZG: Definitely. One thing we discussed during EP#18 of The Vodka Press was the idea of losing ourselves. That's one of the reasons why we all need to have (and even want to have) discussions on self love. We lose ourselves to our partners, work, family, kids, friends, etc. Self relationships get much more attention in the media nowadays then even when I was growing up - which wasn't THAT long ago. Do you think that we lose ourselves more nowadays, or are we just more cognizant of it, that it's become more acceptable to discuss it?

By PRA [CC-BY-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

WS: Boy that's such an interesting question. Like I said before, I feel like it is definitely time for these conversations which is why they're happening. If you look back in history, there was this whole move away from the sensual feminine and towards patriarchy. So there's cultural beliefs about what we can be and what we cannot be based on our status, gender, etc.

ZG: So based off our history as a society?

WS: And based off our personal histories. Losing ourselves is something that happens almost immediately at birth. When we're born, we're complete and we only have two fears: loud noises and falling. Those are the only ones we're born with, the rest are taught to us either purposefully or unconsciously by watching the world around us. You learn what your identity is and it's a pretty small sliver of what you're actually born with.

WS: Losing yourself is something that, looking at it from the other side, we're coming to a point in our lives that we're maturing and we're realizing that there's so much of ourselves that we're not even acknowledging. It's an unconscious thing, and we've been basically doing it our whole lives. So the process of uncovering and embracing the different parts of who we are is like reclaiming ourselves. People are lost already, by a certain age, and by reclaiming ourselves we're moving back to that original wholeness. That wholeness has been there the entire time, it's not like it went anywhere - we haven't actually lost ourselves, we just forgot it.

ZG: That's a good way to look at it. We forget ourselves or parts of ourselves as we go.

WS: Exactly. And when you start to remember who you are, when you start acknowledging those parts of yourself that you lost touch with, it can be daunting. Because then you have no more excuses. You know what I mean? Now you've got to take responsibility and stand up for who you really are.

ZG: When people come to you for coaching, do you they come to you with issues about disconnect from career or mostly interpersonal/romantic relationships?

WS: People come to me with all different life issues. When someone first comes in, we figure out their goal and set up milestones to help them achieve it; there's definitely steps to get from point A to point B. But what often happens is someone will come in thinking they're there or they need help for one thing, and what we discover is everything is connected. For example, someone may come in with a desire to stop overeating and he uncovers that he does it to self-medicate because he's running away from who he really is.

WS: Fear is at the root of all the issues my clients come in for. And their visions or goals may increase exponentially within the first three months of working with me as we uncover and work through those fears, the root(s) of those fears. When someone makes an improvements let's say in the area of health and body, it ripples out and all of a sudden you're starting to see improvement in your relationships with your finances, your partner, and so on.

ZG: I agree, I've seen and experienced that even in my own life. So, I don't want you to give away everything, but for someone today who thinks "hey I want to have a better relationship with myself" and acknowledges that he or she needs to make changes, what's the first step he or she should do to act on making that change?

WS: I would encourage them to journal, if they don't already, and write out a list of what makes them feel good. What are the things that light them up? And what are some things they enjoyed doing as a kid but don't do anymore? For example, someone might've loved to dance as a kid but now she's a mom with four kids. And she thinks taking a dance class would be selfish because that's taking time away from all this other stuff. But finding a way to integrate those parts of you that make you feel really good and giving yourself permission to allow that pleasure into your life - that's important! Even if you have to trick yourself, and what I mean by that is convince the part of your self that gives excuses to try it because doing something that makes you feel good will help you be more accessible to your kids, partner, etc. and be a better mom/wife/etc.

By alexindigo on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

ZG: Even as adults, we do need to play and enjoy the more "simpler" things in life.

WS: Absolutely.

ZG: I know we're running short on time, so I'd like to ask one more question: Where can people learn more about you and your work?

WS: I do have a blog of my personal transformation story, it's www.wendyspurgeon.com. The best way for people to reach out is by emailing me (here). They can reach out about coaching, or even about the teleconference. "Being Your Favorite Lover Now" was recorded so I can send along a copy to anyone who's interested.

ZG: Awesome. Thank you so much, Wendy, for taking the time to speak with me today.

WS: Thank you, Zoe! Have a great rest of your night.