SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Unfiltered with Love. I'm your host, Carrie Love. We're here today with Teresa Blackburn, and she has written a book called Strip Down, and she is a licensed therapist. And I met Teresa when I was learning Reiki. She actually is the person who taught me Reiki. So um asked her to come on to the show today and talk a little bit about her book as well as wanted to dive deep a little bit into sexual intimacy, casual relationships versus possible soul connection and sacred sexual intimacy. So Teresa, can you just give us a little bit of a uh background on your therapy and your book?

SPEAKER_03 0:44

Yeah, sure. Um yeah, so I uh I'm a licensed therapist. I also teach Reiki. I do emotion code body code as well, which is a subconscious energy technique that can be very helpful for multiple things, but I especially use it for people who have a lot of trauma. So um I use those types of therapies every day online. Um they don't have to be in person, they can be done via the quantum field, uh, but also can be done in person. So I kind of have like a little blend going on. Um I did write a book, and that book is called Strip Down. And I started writing that book in 2020. I just started writing down my experiences um because I spent seven years as an exotic dancer. Um and that led into my finishing my master's degree in counseling. So I've had a lot of experiences on like the other side of the coin, I guess you would say. Um and that dark lower vibrational kind of a lot of toxicity, you know, that world as far as um the sex industry goes. So I've seen a lot um in the sex industry in all the ins and outs. And if you want to know anything about that, we could talk about some of that. But you know, I did write about that and how I just was kind of forced into changing uh my life. I didn't want to continue doing that lifestyle. I had quit. I didn't know what I was gonna do. And then I was trying to deal with a specific phobia. And a therapist that I was seeing said, try this thing called a motion code, gave me a phone number of a guy. I tried it, it helped. And I was like, Well, this is the first thing that's helped in like 20 years. So I put an effort towards doing more sessions, and then one thing led to another in my life. Call it divine timing, divine intervention, whatever. But I was doing a motion code, healing some of that stuff. And then all of a sudden, the antidepressant that I was on for 14 years stopped working for my body. I'm in full withdrawal. I have to get off the antidepressant. And then all of a sudden, you know, tragedy strikes in my life. I'm almost getting diagnosed with cancer, all while I had first discovered Reiki. And so it was almost like I'm ushered into this other's world as a supportive mechanism to get me through the intense things that were happening with the old life crumbling. That's kind of, you know, the meat of the book in the middle is kind of like I stripped myself of clothes, but then I stripped myself of like all the old things and all of the other old ways. Not completely to where I'm like some kind of a prude and in like, you know, I'm this like holier than thou person. You know what I mean? So it just I had to do a clearing and and we could talk all about that physical, emotional, whatever. And then to your point, and what you want to talk about today is that sexual energy and how it can affect you, your body, your mind, your energy field. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

And and one of the things that I have brought up to you several times is what really hit me is on social media one time when you posted the picture of the girl with the guy, and he was, you know, leaning down, they're about to have sex, and you look in the mirror and he's a demon. And I thought that really was something that stuck with me. And when I started really thinking about how, you know, sexual relationships are sometimes, you know, obviously more than just casual relationships. I mean, you're you're really sharing bits and pieces of your soul and parts of you sometimes. So I know that you have, you know, your views on that as well, because you've you've been in in both probably both camps there.

SPEAKER_03 4:35

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And that, right. I mean, it's just that energy can be intertwined with yours, and you're really picking up a lot of what the other person has going on when you're physically connecting with them in that way. And we could talk about like levels of that and intensity and the differences between men and women, and you know, how all of that, you know, whatever you're interested in today. We'll just roll with it.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

Yeah, but um we talked before, and you we had talked about casual sex before, and you were telling me like some some people it can work for them if depending on their energy and and what you know what they are, you know, what they're into. So maybe you could talk a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_03 5:17

Well, I think that gosh, it's like, where do you start with that? I mean, I feel like if some people, such consenting adults, decide to engage in some kind of casual sex and they have like protected their energy and they know how to clear their energy afterwards, they have a good chance of like doing it without a lot of repercussions. But most people are completely unconscious and unaware of this kind of stuff. But I think once you become aware that these energy exchanges can happen, then you can decide what's best for you.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

Yeah. And and I've and I've actually read some things online as well, some people talking about how people have different traumas and after having a relationship with them that they kind of take on some of those issues, some of those traumas that the that the other person has. So that's kind of scary.

SPEAKER_03 6:11

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I think if you're unaware and you're just, you know, you're a teen or you're in your 20s and you just you're having a good time, right? That's what we do. We learn, we we figure things out, you know, you they're unknowingly taking part in that other person's energy space. So, you know, they they have an accumulation of different people going on, you know, and pe people's energies happening for sure.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Now, a couple things I was thinking about. Do you think that um modern culture encourages casual intimacy more than meaningful connection?

SPEAKER_03 6:48

I don't know. I mean, I feel like it didn't, and then it did in the late 90s and all through the 2000s, early 2000s, and into the like teen, you know, the 2010s. But now I think it's changing a little bit more. I think it's it's cool now to to be celibate. It's it people are more mindful because it's trending.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

I think that too, but in a way, and I've also noticed a little bit of a reverse roles with boys and girls, or or you know, the younger guys and girls, because when I was younger, I felt like the men were more promiscuous and things like that. And um now I I feel like I've met more younger people who the men are are celibate and the the women are the ones that are kind of seem more promiscuous. I think it's kind of like exchanging a change of uh roles there a little bit. Yeah. Because I I have two boys. I have a 20-year-old and a 23-year-old. So I I kind of see from from their angles and their friends and things like that. And it's um I've been, you know, talk even just talking with them, it's been a learning experience for me to say the least, because uh it's just something I've not had to uh deal with with in my younger days. So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:05

Yeah. What do you think contributes to that shift that you're noticing?

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Well, honestly, I think that it's probably just uh the women kind of now taking a more lead role just in a lot of things in general. They've kind of they've kind of just said, well, you know, I feel like it's like we're women, so we we're gonna kind of we can do what we want. And so maybe traditionally it was the men who were more aggressive in that area. But as I think women have come and now they're, you know, um they're doing career and they're doing all these things that were traditionally maybe could thought of as more male roles, they've kind of now maybe come into that role as well sexually. I d I don't know. That's just my theory, just because I think of it, but I don't I don't know if that's true or not. Yeah. The whole like just you know, sexual revolution, women's lib type stuff, you know?

SPEAKER_03 9:00

Yeah, I mean, I think that that's part of it, but also too, the men have become less driven in certain ways and you know, more likely to just be like, Whoa you know, I'm not in a position of leadership anymore, you know. So then women kind of take on that role. I think that you know, they have to take on that role sometimes as a mom, as a as a uh, you know, the main breadwinner. I mean, as a therapist now, I have women and couples in therapy where the women make more, they work more, the dad stays at home because he's he's in the arts and crafts or writing or whatever the case. I mean, and it's like, well, yeah, you know, this isn't really biologically healthy, you know, it's not how it was supposed to be when you're trying to be heterosexual and have a family. You know what I mean? Sure. But the traditional roles, yes. Yeah, but also too, those traditional family roles, people were like tired of it. They're like, uh, okay, this is cheesy and boring now. So yeah, but I but I think the you know, the sexual pieces that they're kind of doing that male role, like, okay, I'll get what I want and you know, move on with my day. And you know, there's no more room for like true vulnerability or true open, open heart space.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

It's true. I think that's a rarity. Definitely. And and do you think that we are becoming more disconnected emotionally? I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 10:33

I mean, I think more people dissociate now than ever, but uh there's a lot, there's so many tools to do it with now, you know, from games to scrolling to, you know, for the regular old food and and drug type of things too, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

Yeah. Well, my last episode that I had was called Are We Afraid to Love? Because I I feel like that that that has become just from what I see, like I said, with online and and my kids and and things like that. And it just seems like it's people are they don't really even know what healthy relationships look like or what um it's and and they're afraid. And even my son will say have said that he's afraid of, you know, he he doesn't want the expectations involved if if he feels like he's in a commitment and um different things like that. So I don't know. I don't know what it's it's kind of scary, really.

SPEAKER_03 11:29

Yeah, but yeah, I mean, I just I I feel like um, you know, every human being is gonna learn and grow through sexual experiences. So you can't like say that, oh well, I've had this secret experience from the beginning, and that's how I'm gonna stay forever. Some people maybe, you know, and that's okay. But a majority of people learn and grow through their experiences.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 11:52

So I feel that what I learned ages ago was that women can hold a man's or a partner's sexual energy for seven years, and a man holds a woman's sexual energy for seven days. And I thought that was pretty unfair. And I was like, wow, I wonder how true that is. So I remember, you know, sex was so casual for me back in those days. It was being sold everywhere around me. You know, the idea of sex, sexual content. There was no OnlyFans, there was no chatterbait back then, there was no Pornhub. It was just, you had to go in person, right? So, you know, there were a lot of people that did escort services and such back then. And so sex was like nothing. It was an exchange, it was transactional, it was just like not a big deal. And so all those years, I had really unconsciously unaware that anything was wrong. So after I had a life change, I started to realize that my body was affected, my energy feel was affected by those things. And I remember this specific time I was getting worked on by this woman who was a, she was like a medical medium and she did all her own type of energy work, but she was still lying on a table, similar to Reiki. So she was doing all this work and she was just like, oh my gosh, I'm just pulling souls, like people out of your sacral chakra. It's like they're all stuck in there. And I'm like, Yeah, no shit. I'm like, don't even know, you know, how many things that I've done or whatever. So she was doing that, and and I remember just like all those energies. I just want them to clear out of me. I wanted to be disconnected from other people's energy. And so what ends up happening is people with trauma, they claim to be an empath, right? And they're like, Oh, I'm so empathic. I can't be around this person, I can't touch this person, I can't do this. Basically, you're not gifted with empathy. You are in a trauma response. And your nervous system is so heightened and you become so hyper-vigilant and sensitive and aware that you're now actually like plagued by this extreme empathy, right? You're not an extreme empath, you're traumatized, and you need to balance that out. So when people are in that state and they're connecting with people sexually, they're they're they're more open to take that on. People will feed on that energy vampires, narcissists, you know, you naturally attract in what you have experienced and what you're programmed to to be with. And so you'll get all these toxic people and then, you know, be upset that, oh my God, I just keep meeting toxic people. What's wrong? What's going on? What's wrong with everybody? No, you're meeting the same people over and over again because you're in the same space. Exactly. Not only like frequency and your mindset, your trauma. So you have to heal all that, and then you get to a point where your empathy can get balanced out. Sure, you can feel people's shit, but when you don't want to feel it, you know how to turn that off and close that door and shield up and say no, thank you. You know, but you can't do that until you've done some healing around that.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

I agree. I agree with that a hundred percent. Yeah. So that is interesting because you do, and if you look back on, you know, past people that you've been with, you can even, once you're aware, you can even see it that that where you were at at that time, why you were with those that person. Right. Absolutely. Oh God, you know, looking back, you're like, my goodness. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, what was I thinking?

SPEAKER_03 15:20

Yeah, absolutely. Not only because they were, you know, such an asshole, just because it's like, wow, like I could feel how toxic that was. Oh, yes, you know, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

And I read your book, and I and I've, you know, that and I liked it, but you know, it definitely it showed, I mean, you you have experienced a lot of that. But we I mean we all have. I mean, I don't know about to that extent, just because with you know, what you were involved in with the clubs and things, but um, but just in relationships in general, just craziness.

SPEAKER_03 15:50

Yeah, right. And I think that you hit like um you hit a point in your journey if you're on a healing journey and you are, you know, improving and and trying to like clear everything and heal everything, then I think you do get to a point where you can balance that out and you could decide. Well, am I going to engage in this or not? And just like when people say, Oh, you know, I'm triggered, I'm triggered, I'm triggered. And then, you know, I have a lot of couples. Well, oh, this this he knows this triggers me, or she knows this triggers me. Yes, but why is that a trigger? You have a button and you have wires to that button, and if it can be pushed all the time, that's not other people's responsibility to not push your button, it's your responsibility to unwire it.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

That's right. No, that's a hundred percent correct. Yes. It's it's kind of nice when you do have people trigger you because, at least, in my opinion, I feel like then you know what the problem is and you can see it when it happens. Yeah. But it's your, as I agree with you, it's your duty to sit there and say, Well, okay, I recognize that that triggers me. Why does it? And how do I fix that for myself? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 16:57

Instead of, you know, continuously being a victim to the your own trigger.

SPEAKER_00 17:02

But, you know, of course, need someone else to fix you.

SPEAKER_03 17:05

Right, exactly. You know, always telling the partner, well, you need to do this differently or this differently or this differently. And I see that a lot of times, you know, a couple, they're like, Well, this person needs to do A, B, C, D, and E in order for me to be okay. Well, yeah, I mean, in in a relationship, you want to compromise, you want to hear the other person. Now, you want to do some kind of changes, but you can tell when it hits that level of like of toxicity, you hit that level of like, well, wait a minute here. You know, this is this is some underlying uh asking for too much.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, that's interesting. Oh, I'm glad we got to talk about that because I I have been discovering that myself.

SPEAKER_03 17:45

Yeah. And then I think there's sometimes like when you said the demon, like the face. Well, I think there can actually be really dark energies out there. I know that a lot of people don't might not buy that or not believe in it, but but I do think that you can be involved with all kinds of shit, you know, anything from like a dark, you know, uh empath, a narcissist, a, you know, spiritually fucked up, you call it demon, whatever you want to say. Or also even, I mean, I kind of believe that you can be involved with like reptilians or kind of like an alien energy too. And so I I feel like that's all possible. Sure. You know, is that as common as you know, in interchanging traumas with each other? No, but I I do think it's possible.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

I agree. And I and I think that people sometimes open themselves up to that, depending on what their traumas are. I think they can open themselves up to being, you know, having attachment, a dark attachment. Maybe not necessarily, we're not talking here like full-on possession. But I mean, right, you know, just open opening themselves up to something like that for sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:56

I mean, and I'm not a big woo-woo person. Like I do all the different stuff, but I'm not like, you know, walking around with bells on my toes and shit like that. So I'm pretty practical as well. But I I I will say that I've been a therapist for um 12 years, I think now. And then during that period of time, I encountered three human beings that were definitely something going on that that was beyond just borderline personality disorder or bipolar. There was other stuff, and I and I can prove it, like some of the things that happened surrounding it. And I was like, wow, this is very scary. That is scary. And you know, yeah, yeah. And they were all women.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Well, even doing Reiki, even doing the Reiki, we we've talked about that before. I've had some um people too that were kind of negative energy type stuff and um scary. And and I remember too when we when we were talking too, and you said, like, you don't want to do this in your house, don't do Reiki in your house because you don't want that in, you know, your daily place where you live and things like that. Because you do do encounter things like that for sure. Yeah. So, and I know that you have done it way more than I have, so I'm sure you've encountered it way more than I have.

SPEAKER_03 20:17

Well, yeah. I mean, it's crazy. I mean, that the situations that I encountered it in weren't even Reiki related. They were one of them was in a therapy set session, and it was people that were actually claimed, hmm, they were looking for twin flame help. And they ended up being one of the people in it, the the woman ended up being pretty messed up and to spiritually almost like it was an attack on me. And then the other situations were women who I met outside of life, like one at a at like um an expo who just started chatting me up, and then another one at like a martial arts studio, and they ended up like stalking me in ways that were toxic, and they were self-proclaimed heterosexual women, but they were curious and they wanted me to be the object of their curiosity, and they like stalked me until I I blocked them several times on several different platforms, and still to this day, one will still try to get to me. And I know this isn't just human, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

That's weird. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's weird. I agree. Yeah, this is wild. So but people can be fooled by that.

unknown 21:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:32

I mean, I'm good. But you can be like if you if you encounter one of these people and you end up sexually involved, that's fucked up. And then you you know something something weird is going on. You have to kind of clear that out. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

Well, yeah, people are weird and people do get obsessed and and uh have issues for sure. Mm-hmm. It is scary. I agree. Yeah. And it is difficult. It's difficult to get, you know, break yourself away from these people.

SPEAKER_03 22:00

I I we also like the the sacred sex type of thing. Let's talk about that for a second because you know there can also be like the I don't know, falsely advertised sacred sex, right? Where the the guy is like well he's a yoga guru and we're gonna go out on a little trip into the mountains and everybody's gonna do tantric, you know, sacred sex everybody's coming from a good place. What the fuck is that? You know, is that just another way to enter into a fucking fuck buddy? I'm sorry, where you're like episode, but not half of the explicit explicit, sorry. Is that another way to have like your casual interaction without it being lewd? You know, like saying, oh well, you know, in the stripping industry or the porn or swingers, now we're talking advantage of it, they're just using the spiritual lingo to basically just take advantage sexually, right?

SPEAKER_00 23:01

But I have all that that is a subject for me that I have a pet peeve about just in general, about people who use the the spiritual lingo and um you know they do all these things and say all these things, but they're but they're really people who are unhealed, they have as much trauma, if not more, than other people, and then they're purport themselves to be these spiritual advisors and guidance people and stuff, and it's you know, they're not in a position to be doing that at all, they're not even healed themselves, so right.

SPEAKER_03 23:36

And that's kind of like that area where people then they justify, you know, oh well, I'm I'm um, you know, polyamorous and you know, I'm engaging with this person and it's all consensual, and my guru told me that this was okay, and this is what I'm doing, and yeah, I'm just loving everybody. No, you are are still sidestepping vulnerability at its deeper level, you know, the non-commit committal thing and like the non-monogamous thing, I think sometimes it can be just as energy draining on a different way, you know, and a lot of the times there's mental mental health and trauma issues that go into that too. But that's just the way they've worked it out in order to feel better about it all without having to do much depth, deep work, you know, around that for sure.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

Yeah, and and avoiding and uh just being able to not have to dive deep for sure.

SPEAKER_03 24:33

Yeah, sure. But I think that sacred being sacred with your sexuality and your body means actually just being decent human being with it, like being clean, being careful and and not like feeding your body a bunch of garbage McDonald's every day. You know, you're not like sitting there listening to a bunch of toxic shows every day. Like, what are you putting in you? You know what I mean? And it's the same thing with the sex. So if you want to like have a fling once in a while, okay, you know, cool. But like go out and have a beer or a drink, whatever. But like when you when you're constantly submerged in it, I think that's when it becomes heavier and you know, weighing you could be weight weighing somebody down. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 25:17

And and also too, like, I think about that with porn. Men uh specifically who watch porn all the time and what that does to your energy and what that does to your expectations as well.

SPEAKER_03 25:31

Yeah, yeah. There's a whole bunch of uh porn addiction, a wave of porn addiction in the past like 10 years that has been gaining uh momentum because it's so accessible. So it's just click, click, click, click, click, you know, you're at the next thing, next frame, next person. You know, live chat online, you're watching people live. Like that's it's it's a way to to really dissociate and detach, and and and that addiction can be very, very toxic.

SPEAKER_00 25:59

Yeah, and I I saw something one time they're talking about with young men, even with the porn, it teaches them, you know, instant gratification. And you know, and it's not really teaching the reality of of what sexual intimacy can be. It's just kind of, you know, they pretty much, you know, are are going for the orgasm, but they're not that you know, there's more to it, obviously. So yeah, but that's just what they're teaching.

SPEAKER_03 26:26

Yeah. I mean, I actually have had people say that it it becomes so addicting that it becomes not even about the sex part of it anymore, that it's literally just um the dopamine hit of clicking new things. So it can like really morph into other things, you know, that that can be just as hard to clear.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

Well, I think we've touched on a lot of topics today. Yeah, but I think we could go into depth on any one of these another time for sure. Sure. Yeah. See you so much for coming on. I've loved it. Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah, this was fun. Yep, definitely. All right, okay.

SPEAKER_03 27:08

All right.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

Bye. If you're interested in downloading Teresa's book or buying it, it's available on Amazon. I will put the link in the description, but you can also search Teresa Blackburn stripped down. Thank you for joining us today. I'm Carrie Love. Until next time.