63 | Bridgett Blood: Hot And Holy

For too many people of faith, the only message about sex growing up was "Don't do it!" So many people had genuine curiosity about their sexuality, but nowhere to bring their questions and no one helping them steward it. As a result, many learned to either ignore an important part of them, resulting in a lack of ability to show up healthy in relationships; or to indulge it, substituting sex or porn for real connection. 

That's why we're so excited to have Bridgett Blood as our guest. Bridgett is a storywork coach who "helps Christian adults navigate sexual desire, dating, and boundaries with clarity, confidence, and deep connection to their values. With a background in ministry and emotional health," Bridgett finds "deep joy walking with people through the messy, beautiful intersection of faith and desire." (from her website)

While it's sad and often surprising how many Christian younger adults struggle to bless their sexual selves, it's super encouraging that many voices (like Bridgett, Jay Stringer, Sam Jolman and other) are rising today to help them see what they've been missing, and how to engage their sexuality without indulging it in ways that compromise their beliefs. 

In addition to her coaching, Bridgett is the host of the Dating and Desire podcast. She lives in Nashville TN.

#bridgettblood #desire #storywork #sexuality #hotandholy #coaching #gospel #sexualdesire #awaken #awakenrecovery #awakenpodcast #whatwereallywant #wwrw #grace #connection #conversation

Bridgett's website

Dating and Desire podcast (Spotify)

Dating and Desire podcast (Apple)

Transcript

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Why Sexual Topics Feel Scary

Bridgett Blood 0:00

I think the reason why we're scared to talk about it is it feels a lot easier to manage behavior than to actually help form people into sexually mature adults.

Announcer 0:10

Welcome to What We Really Want. Conversations about connection. Settle in and get ready for a great conversation. Let's talk about what we really want.

Greg 0:23

Well, hey everybody. Welcome back. It's another episode of What We Really Want. This is episode 63. Our guest is Bridgett Blood. It's called Hot and Holy. How about that?

Stacey 0:35

Sounds great to me.

Greg 0:36

Does it?

Stacey 0:37

Yeah.

Greg 0:38

Okay, see you everybody. Yeah, so Bridgett Blood is someone that we just met. She has a podcast called Dating and Desire. Bridgett is a story work coach, lives in Nashville, Tennessee, and she works with a lot of single clients who are really trying to what she calls reclaim their sexual story.

Stacey 1:02

Yeah, it was really interesting talking with her. I guess because a lot of the people she works with are single, and a lot of the not all, but many. Not all, but many, yeah. And so many of the, at least the women that I interact with are married.

Greg 1:17

But it was really cool getting her perspective. And the something that was a little bit unusual for us was early in the show, she gave us some feedback just from having been a listener, and not only about the show, which she was very kind about that, but just about what she had observed or heard us from a personal standpoint, talking about in our own stories. And I was really impressed with her attunement and just the specificity of the things that she noticed. It's not something you see all the time with someone who pays that close attention and notices so many things. And it was just really cool to have that part of the conversation with her.

Stacey 1:56

Something she noticed, and I'll be very brief because she'll expound on it in the episode, but just commented on my rage and then Greg. What's the word? My absorption of it, being able to own the things that he did. And and I just wanted to mention, you know, it doesn't always go. Well, it wasn't easy at all. It was horrible. But like you really did receive when I was angry. You didn't get defensive, you didn't go into a ball of shame. And and it was helpful for me to for you to be that way. Yeah. But when it's not that way, I just want people to know like a wife needs to be able to be angry, and he gets to have whatever feelings come up about that.

Greg 2:42

Yeah.

Stacey 2:42

Even if he feels like he deserves it, he still needs to be able to talk about that with somebody, probably not her at the time, because that probably won't go well. But please find somebody to talk to because it it, I know it can be really hard. Like if you are trying to do your work and you're trying to do the right thing and she's just still coming at you, I know that has to be hard, but you you you need to find somebody to talk to and know that in time, you know, you'll be able to have a voice and have expression.

Greg 3:11

I think to sum it up, I would say that to feel validation or affirmation of your own feelings doesn't require us to invalidate the other person. Yeah. But it's so hard to have those two going on at the same time, particularly early in a recovery process. And so, yeah, just to have places that you can go. And, you know, please don't compare your experience to our experience. It's really like you're blazing a new trail. And if you've gone through sexual betrayal either as the one who did the harm or the one who was harmed, it's gonna be messy. It's gonna be clunky. Yeah. And hopefully hearing us talk about our story and hearing Bridgett weigh in, all of her perspectives and the people that she helps, hopefully that'll give you some hope and some encouragement, some optimism that things can really, even if they start slow or they start messy, they can really get on a better and more encouraging path.

Stacey 4:03

I think if it's not messy, it's probably not getting to the root of all the things because it's gonna be ugly. That's right. But it doesn't have to stay that way.

Greg 4:12

Yeah. So we hope that you enjoy this conversation. We sure did, getting to know and talk to Bridgett. This is episode 63 called Hot and Holy. You'll understand why when you hear her talk. And the conversation starts right now.

Bridget Joins And Reflects Back

Bridgett Blood 4:27

Just want to say that you guys have a beautiful show. I listen to lots of these adjacent podcasts, and I'm like, wow, it does. It feels like a snuggly living room where you just want to pull up a chair and sit with you guys. And I'm just like, oh my gosh, like I just feel really honored to be invited into this space. I'm like, oh my gosh, all these guests with all my faith heroes. And so just really honored for what your invitation and love what you're building. It's really good content and really beautiful community you're building.

Greg 4:55

Well, that's really, really kind of you to say. And I we I appreciate it a great deal. I'm trying to remember, Stacy was asking me this morning how we first got to know who you were. I think that with you, I was just actually doing a little bit of scrolling around. And I think I just kind of happened upon your website and thought, oh my gosh, this would be somebody really cool to talk to. So, Bridgett, as we're getting ready to jump into some really important things, what do you really want out of our conversation?

Bridgett Blood 5:25

Yeah, I've been pondering if I should be silly or serious. So I decided I'll give you two answers. There we go. Um, my first silly and kind of serious is if y'all want to help me find a husband, I'll take all the help I can get. Um, but my like as far as our conversation, I've been having just this dialogue with my best friend of so many beautiful people that are in this recovery world. A lot of the story is we got to this deep place of safety and connection after having just like your story of like having to navigate horrific heartbreak.

Greg 6:03

Yeah.

Bridgett Blood 6:03

And so what's been really cool and really lonely doing so much of this work, I have never been married. And so doing this work before marriage has been like, how do I mine all of the beauty that has cost y'all so much to find? Like that feels really, really huge to me. Like I get emotional about it. Of I've had the privilege of sitting hundreds of hours with couples to go, like, I want to look at my single friends, I'm like, do you know how much this cost them? Like, you're literally gonna go date a loser when you've watched what like what they have fought for to fight for legacy. Like, I'm I like build something big in me. And so I think something that just really lights me alive is like, what does it look like to mine the gold that generations have fought for to say, well, like, what does it look like to do it different? Like, what does that look like from date one, conversation one, first interaction of you know, sexual joy or conversations, or like how do we take all of the good skills and apply it to the beginning? And I think it's really possible and it's fun, and it doesn't require anybody to abandon any of their traditional ethics for sexuality.

Stacey 7:14

The way you worded that of what we have fought for, like through all the you can edit that out. Nobody does frame it like that because it's like it's a and we threw it in the ditch and we did all this that we shouldn't have, and we didn't know what we didn't know. It's kind of a beauty now, but then rather than like the fighting for what we've got now, I don't know, something about that felt like no shame. It was a beautiful, hard and beautiful. So yeah, I appreciate it too.

Bridgett Blood 7:45

May I make some observations about you guys that I love?

Stacey 7:50

Please do.

Greg 7:52

We're on the hot spot.

Bridgett Blood 7:53

I've been listening, I've been listening to the show even before you invited me as a guest. And so, like, this is it, this is an example of how my brain works of the work I do with clients. But like, what is really encouraging to me is I think I've noticed two things particularly, and remember the I'm making observations about you from the internet. So I'm totally fine to be wrong with that. But Stacey, like, there's something really breathtaking about the rage that you've tapped into. Like there's something like, you know, you've talked about that of like your transition into like healing has been about swearing. And I'm like, yeah, go, girl. Right. And I think for a lot of people, like rage can be used as punishment, or when women tap into rage, it can really be used as a purification process. And like in just the small bits I know about your story, like I haven't it obviously I assume that in those first initial years of catastrophic pain, there probably was a lot of misfires at one another. I'm not, I'm not saying that you know it was all perfect, but there's something really beautiful that it doesn't come at the cost of Greg, but it is something that's like you tapping into your rage has provided this like initiation back into like reclamation and innocence. It's really, really beautiful. And then Greg on your side, like I watch this like high level of ownership for your choices, but it doesn't move into self-abandonment. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's not this, like, it's not this like Stacey being like, oh yeah, he messed up, he did all these bad things, he's horrible. And it's not Greg saying, like, oh yeah, I'm just messed up and she put up with me. It's like, no, like there's something about her rage that has pulled me into a deeper level of maturity, but because I'm so incredible and God wants me to live a free life, not because I did something bad and now I'm trying to like make penance for my choices. And that's just like breathtaking for me to watch. And then my Bridgett brain goes, Well, how do I take that and teach that to people six months in? Like that's what I'm trying to do. And so you so much honor. That's what I mean. Like it feels it feels so necessary to me that if we are going to do this work and change the conversation, we must honor the stories that have gone before us. And so honor you guys excited. Thank you. Thank you for what you're publicly.

Greg 10:12

How is it for you to hear that?

Stacey 10:14

It's pretty amazing because the way I grew up, if you've heard, you know, if you've listened to our stories, it's like anger and rage are not welcome. You know, those are not good things, you know, if if it's righteous anger, but then anytime anybody's angry, then it's never righteous. It's is what it seems.

Greg 10:33

Yeah, righteous anger was just this elusive concept that nobody ever really found.

Stacey 10:38

Yeah, exactly. And I have always felt like the rage and the anger felt to me, I I don't think I was thinking about it when it was happening, but it didn't feel toxic or yes, like I just he disgusted me. It wasn't that. And I even at some point we were, you know, introduced to the steps and like, all right, whatever. But I'm like, do I need to make amends to you for all the things I called you and the rage? And he's like, Yeah, it was necessary and appropriate, but I did. I I I was, I think I got out the rage and I did not hold back, and it was important. And I think it goes hand in hand with what you were saying is his ownership. The hard thing is a lot of people we walk with, it's either it never happens, or it's so not at the same time, you know, like he's not owning anything while she's raging, and so it's really hard. But I yeah, by the grace of God, the way you were owning it.

Greg 11:45

And uh it was clunky and messy and well, you know, and Bridgett, I promise we're gonna let you talk because you're the guest, but something that you were talking about with ownership, I think that we've talked a lot, hun, about how I was not the stereotypical, really buried in shame kind of person. Because once I found a taste of freedom, I was kind of off to the races. But I do think that I actually had some shame that kind of masked as a guy just taking responsibility. Because I think that some of the, like when you were getting angry, I think there was a core of I don't get to be hurt by that. Yeah, you know, and I think there was some shame that was driving that, but it felt like healthy ownership. But man, there's so much nuance in in healing from this kind of brokenness that I don't think I I never felt like I was just drowning in shame, but I think that my shame maybe showed up kind of covertly.

Stacey 12:38

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I hear that.

Greg 12:41

Okay, back to you.

Her Story And Why Nashville

Greg 12:43

So, Bridgett, I know you live in Nashville now, is that right?

Bridgett Blood 12:47

I do.

Greg 12:47

Did you grow up there or did you move there from somewhere else?

Bridgett Blood 12:50

No, I grew up in upstate New York where they still have tons of snow and went to college down by New York City. And then after my college years, I moved to Ohio, was on staff at a church as a spiritual formation pastor for several years. Okay. And loved that and just always knew, like even going, even when I said yes to the job, which that in and of itself was just a wild, never had that in my plans ever. I was supposed to go to Bible college and wear long skirts and marry a youth pastor. And praise the Lord, that didn't happen for me. And so that I was never part of the plan, but really loved it. But I've always kind of had this. I didn't actually know it was gonna be healthy sexuality, but I was like, I want to write, I want to speak, I want to podcast. Like that's always been inside me for a really long time. And so it just kind of became the natural progression of when you are in full-time ministry, you really only have the capacity for the people that are in your church. And I knew that I wanted to have this global. And so I was like, all right, I'm gonna, you know, called and had talked to my friends and my family. And I'm like, I have no job, I know nobody, but I'm moving to Nashville. And they're like, what are you doing? When I first got here, I worked for a media production company, which I had zero business being in because I know nothing about media production, but that was just a really fun experience. And then, yeah, the last several years of building coaching. And so now I get to do sexual story work with singles and dating couples uh one-on-one. And then I have a virtual group program I lead as well.

Greg 14:19

Was there anything in particular about Nashville that drew you there?

Bridgett Blood 14:22

Yeah, my body felt safe.

Greg 14:24

Okay.

Bridgett Blood 14:25

Yeah. When I about a year before I moved here, I had ended a really serious relationship with a man I thought I was gonna marry. And we were long distance, and so every time I would travel to his city, I felt like I was dying. And I was it took me a several months to like navigate through what that was. And once we finally ended, I was like, okay, that was my body catching up on discernment before my brain had an understanding of what was happening. And so came just kind of on a scouting trip here to Nashville. And I was with a friend of mine. I asked her to come with me, and I was like, my body feels so safe. Like I want to be here. And it is this like a really interesting feeling that I do word it as I'm in love with Nashville. I've never felt that before. But like I'll get uh I'm about 15 minutes from downtown. But when I see the skyline, I get like tears in my eyes still of like, oh my gosh, I feel so excited. I don't even know what that's about yet. And I don't really feel like I need to have some strong answer for myself, just otherwise to know that there's something really special in this place that feels really exciting to

Somatic Awareness And Panic Signals

Bridgett Blood 15:27

explore.

Greg 15:27

Have you done just in your own work, have you done like some somatic work? You talk about things that you notice going on in your body, and that's an awareness that I think more people are finding out about. Is that some work that you had personally done to be able to attune to yourself?

Bridgett Blood 15:42

Yeah, I have a lot of friends who are somatic coaches. And so even I think it was like a week or two ago, I had worked with my sexual story work coach working through some memories. But I told her, like in those sessions, I was like, there's parts of things that we're talking about in my childhood that literally like my brain goes black and none of my emotional health tools are working. And she's like, Yeah, I'm glad because there is this virtue and vice of the education that I have that sometimes I can feel my heart go, Oh, I'll just go read another book, listen to another podcast, take another certification. And the Lord's kind of like, girl, chill out, please. Like, you just need to live your life. You don't need to have another certification. And I'm like, Okay, I hear that. And so I was doing a session with my somatic coach friend a couple weeks ago. And in the session, which really felt stupid if we're being honest, like colors and feelings, and I was just like, give me some logical answers. Like, this is a waste of my time. And so all of a sudden I go, Oh, I'm starting to panic. We need to slow down. I'm starting to panic. And she's like, Okay, how do you know that you're panicking? I've never been asked that question. I've I've dealt with part of that, like post-season of ending that relationship five years ago was a really intense season of nocturnal panic attacks and all sorts of stuff. But it was, I'd never had anyone ask me how I knew I was panicking. And so I told her two weeks ago, this is a brand new revelation for me. I'm like, oh, I'm not breathing.

Greg 17:10

Yeah.

Bridgett Blood 17:11

Oh, I've never paid attention that I stopped breathing. I've noticed some like I do this weird thing with my hand, like I crunch my hand, funny, where I can feel when my anxiety starts to rise. But I was like, oh, I'm actually like physically having a hard time taking breath. So if I can dial back in for a second and just breathe for a minute.

Greg 17:28

Isn't that interesting? Because I mean, we we we've come to know so much about how breath can impact what the amygdala is doing. And you know, deep nose breathing can reduce cortisol production and you know, cortisol production is what you know stuck stokes panic attacks. And the the one thing that would help you is the thing that your body stopped doing. That's really a cool catch. That's really cool.

Bridgett Blood 17:52

And I would have missed that. And I would have totally missed that. And there was a couple other things that she brought up that I was like, oh my gosh, like all of these templates of harm are a lot around sensory overload. Like my body switches into fight or flight when it's the sensory overload of like loss of autonomy. And I'm like, I don't know that I would have got there in a traditional talk therapy model. Like, I think I actually needed someone to say, yeah, yeah, yeah, the details don't matter. What is happening for your body right now, or that now I can dial in. So I think it's great. It's been a great companion piece to my healing journey and definitely looking forward to learning more as I go.

Greg 18:29

I've just noticed, even since we've been talking, you're a very attuned person. You know, you've already told us things that you've noticed about us and you made that very personal. And I mean, I know that that I know how that makes me feel. And you have shared some about how other people sitting in and being present with you has helped you to get to some deeper understanding.

Sexual Story Work For Singles

Greg 18:50

And I think this might be a good time to kind of transition into the work that you do because doing sexual story work with people involves probably, I would guess, for a lot of these people, the very first time anyone has not only sat with but not been terrified to allow the topic to even be there, right? On your website, one of the things that you say is, I believe that your sexual story isn't on pause until marriage. Your desire isn't something to suppress or manage until the right person comes along. And like, even as I read that, I can just imagine deep gasps, people puckering up every orifice in their body, you know, as they read that, who grew up in kind of traditional conservative Christianity saying, Oh, yes, it is something to suppress or manage, you know. Why are so many Christians so scared to even talk about sexuality with single people, or really married people for that matter, but especially single people?

Bridgett Blood 21:17

Yeah, that's the million-dollar question, isn't it? It feels a lot easier to control behavior than it is to develop sexually mature people. And so, sure, you can put a bunch of religious rules around what isn't isn't allowed. But a lot of the things that I tell my clients is like, if the only lens you're ever running your sexual decisions, but any decisions through is is this sinful or not, you're gonna live a really small life. And so for me, I'm you know, asking more of the questions of like, how does someone get safe that like this is not an area we live by ourselves? Like I'm I talk very publicly about that of like I refuse to navigate sexuality on my own. Like that's something I'm always practicing. I have mentors, I have friends. When I'm in dating relationships, there's always people that are getting to know the details and walking along because it's just it's too big. And we think that that it is a marriage-specific thing. But as most married couples will share, the templates of connection and conflict and repair and like attachment wounds, like those all happened way before you guys were in relationship. I think the templates of how that relates between partner to partner is something that shows up. I do believe in dating. Like those you can really kind of already tell a lot before someone is married. But I think we have this really black and white answer of sexuality in marriage, good,

Behavior Control Versus Formation

Bridgett Blood 22:55

sexuality outside of marriage, bad. And one of the things I love to say is marriage doesn't make sex sacred. But I'm not advocating for sex outside of marriage. I'm just saying that if we, which we watch, right? We watch, you know, the stories of okay, we know this young couple is sleeping together, or oh, the youth pastor got pregnant. Like, just just make just let them get married and then it fixes it. It it the church looks better, they're not sinning anymore. And I go, Well, neither of them had any invitation to any sort of real beauty of. Of what is marriage and what is sex for? We just put a wedding ceremony to make people look good, and we didn't actually invite anyone into any sort of sexual discipleship of what those things actually mean. And so that's the long answer to your short question is I think the reason why we're scared to talk about it is it feels a lot easier to manage behavior than to actually help form people into sexually mature adults.

Greg 23:53

You know, what you just said reminds me of something that I read that that happened at a a large, pretty well-known megachurch here just in the last couple of weeks, where I think there was a series on marriage that was being preached, and they offered unmarried couples who were living together, they they basically had a mass wedding at the end of the service. Did you read about that?

Bridgett Blood 24:17

Someone sent me to this. Tell me your thoughts on this.

Greg 24:20

Oh man. I mean, so yeah, and and so many thoughts that I have because it it would be so easy to go, yeah, that was great, or oh my gosh, that was the worst thing ever. And I don't think it's either one of those things because I think that the desire behind it was to say that God does have a design for when our sexuality is meant to be expressed in physical ways and in a certain context. But like this, this suggested, I don't think anybody stated it, but the the suggested idea that getting married, you'll be fine and you won't be sexually sinning anymore. I don't even necessarily think that's true because if there was a lot of unprocessed stuff, just having sex within marriage can be sinful, you know, depending on what's driving it and what's motivating it. And so it it's not this gigantic fix-all. And so you were speaking to the smallness of how we kind of envelop something that's much bigger. You use the phrase navigating your sexuality. And how much of that for you involves things that are outside of just talking about sexual activity?

Bridgett Blood 25:27

Yeah. A couple thoughts on that. I think, first of all, even when we talk about sexual sin, something that I feel really passionate about is helping people make the switch, like theologically, that the problem with sexual sin is not that it's sexual. Right. It's that it requires you to abandon yourself and dishonor another person. But it's not the level of sexualness of the exchange. It's that, it's that that level of intimacy is being shared at the cost of self and other is the problem. And so one of the things I a phrase I really like. I'm a really big words person. It's really important to me. Of like, I'm like, I feel like I need to make a whole dictionary of phrases, but understanding that like I think this came from the Gottmans or Esther Perel or the original language of sexual joy and sexual loneliness. And so what I talk about is sexual joy is a pushing force that moves us towards experiences of pleasure, delight, and self-giving. And so you can feel sexual joy about wanting to engage in sexual activity with your partner, but you also can feel sexual joy in a good haircut and that great pair of jeans you feel really good in. And for a man, like opening the door for a woman, right? For a woman like having someone compliment you on how you look. Like there's experiences of sexual joy that are not related to sexual activity and do not mean that you want to engage in sexual activity with that person.

Greg 26:59

Yeah.

Bridgett Blood 27:00

And then the other side of that sexual loneliness, which is not the bad one, it's just the opposing force,

Sexual Joy And Sexual Loneliness

Bridgett Blood 27:04

is the pulling force that really calls on our need to be seen and cared for. I would say this is probably one of the biggest emotions that gets bypassed with unwanted sexual behavior, is this really innocent sexual loneliness of I'm desperate for someone to see me. I'm desperate to be cared for. And so I'm not asking people to shut that off. I'm just like, how do we process that in really healthy ways? I always joke and say one of my largest experiences of sexual loneliness is having to bring groceries into my apartment by myself. I'm like, there should be a hot and holy man here to help me with this. And I get hit with sexual loneliness, which is not in that moment, isn't about sexual activity, but it's about the like, no, there's an ache in me for masculine partnership. And I hate that I'm doing this by myself. And so that can be followed up with a text message of like, ugh, my gosh, so much sexual loneliness today. Pain, pain, pain, having those types of things, or vice versa, of like, wowie zowie, met this guy, so much sexual joy. Wowie zaui. I need to process for a second, like what's coming to life in me. Because sometimes it is a, I want to move towards more romantic curiosity. And other times it's just a like, oh wow, like his confidence, his value of himself inspires me to step more into a life about that. I don't actually want to talk to him anymore. But it's okay that my brain fired some sexual joy. That in and of itself isn't wrong. And so I think that those skills are really, really important. Cause just like what you said, if we don't figure out how to stay really close to those types of templates outside of sexual activity, we will abuse them in sexual activity. But if we don't have that, what I call sexual self-trust within ourselves to say, oh, I need to figure out what's happening for me and what's what's sparking sexual curiosity within myself before I'm inviting a partner into uh an experience.

Greg 28:59

Yeah, but who who encourages young single people to trust anything about themselves sexually, right? Especially if they're growing up in conservative spiritual or religious environments. I mean, the the message is usually you can't trust anything. You know, don't trust your body, don't trust your feelings because they're always going to betray you. And so knowing that people are coming in with that kind of indoctrination and that kind of conditioning, I would imagine that people that you coach and work with, yeah, this is the absolute first time that they've ever heard anybody talk about it the way that you are. And how much deconstructing of really unhelpful and unhealthy stuff has to happen before they're even open to the kind of things that you talk about.

Bridgett Blood 29:46

I think I get more trolls on the internet that are coming with those rage in an unhealthy way, right? Like they're like, oh my gosh, can't believe you're teaching this. But even that, I've had to be really specific about how I market what I teach because I feel like I'm constantly saying, I'm talking about this, not that, or I'm saying this, not that. And so thankfully for me, uh once once they've heard me on a podcast or seen me on the internet, they're like, oh, you are different. So I think specifically for the clients I'm working with, they normally come in with some level of recovery background or healing work or story work where thankfully I when I'm sitting with them, it is we're a couple steps ahead into the journey. But I think about the conversations I have with pastors, or you know, I think about there was this what's it called? Uh like a panel discussion QA for Valentine's Day several years ago at a large church. And so I was like, Yeah, I'm so excited. I think I invited like eight people to come with me and no one showed up. And at first I was really disappointed. I was so lonely, like, oh, I'm going to this thing by myself. And during the conversation, there was this young couple who they were like, you know, we're we were supposed to get married in the springtime, but we ended up getting married in the fall. And the man says, because I knew my limits. And everyone like applauded and cheered of like, oh my gosh, like you guys didn't have sex. You knew that you were so sexually ravaged with one another that you had to get married today. And I'm like, oh, okay. I'm I kind of feel I don't really know what I feel about it at this point. And then 20 minutes later, he comes back and he goes, Yeah, my porn

Purity Culture Fallout And Overcorrection

Bridgett Blood 31:23

use that I brought into marriage was really devastating for us. And I have zero judgment on him. He's just an innocent little dude, like doesn't he didn't know. But I go, wait a second, like pushing this, well, hurry up and get married so you're not sinning anymore, actually cost this man like so much care for his heart that he deserved to have. And I feel really, really angry about that. And so I think the question that I when people come at me with those like, well, lust of the flesh and you can't trust your body and all of those different things. I'm like, okay, well, like, well, where are those teachings getting people? I'm not watching people that are learning this, practicing this, having these extravagantly connected marriages and deeply satisfying sex lives, like that's not the side effects of following that prescription. And so to say, okay, well, if that's not working, what do we need to do different to have a different outcome that doesn't require an abandonment of values? Because I think on the other side, we're seeing this very like post-Christian like purity culture effed us all up. And so you need to go have sex with everybody, like engage your sexuality, like it's because purity culture robbed you of experiences. And I think I have to sit in that tension to go, there's a large part of what they're saying that is correct. I don't apply it the same way.

Greg 32:42

Yeah.

Bridgett Blood 32:42

But the failure of purity culture and church church teachings around sex that they are calling out is true and worth listening to to make a better story.

Greg 32:52

And when something needs to be corrected, we don't tend to correct, we tend to overcorrect. And so that makes a lot of sense when you're talking about the application. But because some of the strong and loud voices apply it in a way that I think conventional Christianity would disagree with, we'll take the entire concept and we'll wad it up and we'll throw it in the trash. Rather than rather than distinguish what were the good parts of that and what were the not good parts of that. You know, take what's valuable and and leave the rest.

Stacey 33:23

I get I just think about how I was raised and missionary kid. And I think it's more, I don't really remember very many conversations about sex, other than it's for marriage, wait for marriage. No education on anything that if I felt anything, that that would be normal. If I felt anything sexual, that would be normal. So I think when, you know, when we started dating and making out and the physical intimacy we were bringing in before we had emotional intimacy, like it was backwards. And so everything was out of balance. And not only did I feel guilty because we were doing things that I knew should be for married people, but just the fact that I felt the feelings that were being awakened, that was shameful and dirty and bad. And that makes me sad. Yes, I was doing it out of order, but if I could have known that like your body's doing exactly what God created it to do. That and that's what we've tried to teach our kids.

Greg 34:29

Yeah.

Stacey 34:29

So yeah, that's that's kind of what I was processing. And and even like sexuality, when you talk about that related to bringing in groceries, I think a lot of people, myself included, I don't have anything other than sexuality, sex, sexuality. Oh, you want to have sex. That I'm recovering from that myself. And that's probably why I I think too, like they don't know what all that could encompass.

Greg 34:54

Yeah, well, you know, we when we talked to Sam Jolman, what, a year and a half ago, yeah. I'm just thinking about conversations that you and I had about his book that were challenging some of the things you just talked about, yeah. And some of the conversations you and I have had since then, where you have had a capacity to show up a lot differently with a lot more curiosity. It just takes time, especially when you've gone through the kind of brokenness that we have.

Bridgett Blood 35:21

Sam's book is literally my favorite thing on the planet. I've told him this. Like when I read his book, I I told him I was like, it literally felt like lies I believed about men coming out of my body. It was like I've never experienced that so profoundly. You know, I got to have a conversation with him on my show recently, and one of the things I told him was I went through a different breakup last year. You know, I had read his book, and so I had gone to, I don't really know what to call it. It's kind of like a somatic session, and I had a male physician. And so it didn't register to my body until I'm in the session as he was like doing this adjustment on my spine. And while there was nothing erotic or inappropriate about the masculine touch, it still was the first masculine touch I had since the breakup. And I had language because I had read Sam's book that I went, oh my gosh, my lover's gone. Like my body is physically grieving the loss of a lover. And so it just kind of hit me all of a sudden. I was like, oh my gosh. So I got out of the session and I called my friend Lauren and I just was like, Can you just be with me? Like my body is grieving that I no longer have a lover. Like I have no one to hug me, I have no one to kiss me, like that's gone. And I have no, I'm not God. I don't know when the timeline is. Like, I don't know if that's a six-month wait, a six-year wait, a 60-year wait. Like I don't know when that's happening again. And so just to kind of stay in that moment to go, this is good and beautiful for me to grieve the loss of physical connection with someone, even though I no longer want to be in a romantic relationship with them. It is that, you know, that both and. And I think it it can be really scary. Like Stacy, as you talked about, like, you know, it that's that arousal non-concordance of like, there's something about this activation that my body likes, and there's something about it that's also violating. And I that is a terrifying human experience to be in your own body in a sexual experience and go, I kind of want this, but I kind of don't. I don't know what to do. And then we have no one to talk to about it. And so those memories just get compounded, compounded, compounded over and over and over and over again, that it makes sense for you, for me, for anyone else's story, where it does take some really slow processing work to go, well, what if I could have called somebody and said, Oh, hey, I got to pause here for a second? Like, what if I could have talked about that with my partner? But also, like, what if I could have called a pastor or a coach or a mentor and said, This is the central experience we had. This is the part of it that I liked and felt comfortable with. And this is what happened when it went to a place I wasn't comfortable with. Can you help me figure out what happened for me in that? Um, that's my dream. Like, I dream about that all the time. It's like, what if every dating couple had someone where they could talk through like how radically that would change all of our lives? Yes.

Stacey 38:03

Because when we got married, it did not do a thing to change and make it all beautiful. My body didn't process the words that I said. Yeah.

Greg 38:14

Or standing up in this ceremony that was way too long, and then all of a sudden, you know, the switch flips from unholy to holy. Yes. And and we've talked about it before on the show that we kind of in retrospect can see the big question was where did all of her pleasure go? You know, it's like before we got married, and the only thing that we didn't do basically was intercourse, where did all of the desire go? And I think that there was a lot of guilt and shame that was tied up in it when the when the stoplight wasn't on anymore, there was something internal that said, no, I still have to stop. I'm not allowed to enjoy this because when I did enjoy it, it was bad. And gosh, there was just so much unlearning. And it and if if we would have had the opportunity for that unlearning to happen without my sexual addiction, it possibly could have happened a lot sooner. But that was going on too. So it was 17 years in before we even really started that work.

Bridgett Blood 39:08

Yeah. Yeah, I think there's this thing as we're learning, is just to go, we didn't know what we didn't know.

Greg 39:16

Yeah.

Bridgett Blood 39:16

And also, but that doesn't mean it's too late. Like, I got to talk to friends of mine that'd been married for 30 years, and they what I call it's called a sexual miss, which what I mean by that is it's not conflict. It's just a like we missed each other sexually here. And so they asked, or like, can you kind of coach us through this? And I was like, Yeah, sure. And so I asked, I was like, Can you tell me what story you brought to sex that day? And they're like, What are you talking about? I was like, No, like you had a narrative in mind when you initiated sexual connection, like what was happening for you and what was happening for you. And when we were able to like talk through that, it was like, oh, we actually needed to talk more about the container because that would have allowed our bodies to stay really present because there were also where other dynamics at play that needed more care. And so yeah, I just I think that's so important of something that I hear a lot from women that are like, Oh, I wish we would have just had sex before we got married, because I had so much more fun before we were married. And I think a lot of it, that missing piece, is the containment. She subconsciously knew it's only going this far.

Greg 40:23

Yeah.

Bridgett Blood 40:24

And I think where a lot of married couples miss is we don't talk about the story you're bringing into a sexual, a moment of sexual play to go, like, well, what story are we playing in here? Like, I have other friends of mine, I love this that when they had really small children, she said to her husband, like, babe, I just want to bang it out. And he was like really offended by that. He was like really hurt. He's like, I'm supposed to like really like this whole like invitation to a quickie, but like this does not feel good to me. And I feel shame that it doesn't feel good to me. Like, as a man, I'm

Trust, Consent, And Talking Details

Bridgett Blood 40:53

supposed to just say yes when she initiates, whatever. And so as they were able to talk through it, he was like, I think what I hear when you initiate that way is it's just like a checklist. You just want to get it done and over with. And she goes, Oh my gosh, like totally miss that with you. What was happening for me is everything in my life is so freaking slow. When a child puts on a pair of shoes, it takes them an hour and a half. Like, I just am desperate to have play with you that is fast and furious. And so I want to take that script. Yes, like take that script into sex with you. And gosh, that is just the principle that I love to teach singles is to say our bodies tell our stories. And how we share our body is how we share our story. What we are practicing, both in romantic relationship, but also in other relationships, is am I sharing my body in a way that matches the level of trust, intimacy, and commitment that I've made with this person?

Greg 41:57

Yeah.

Bridgett Blood 41:57

Right. And I say that people are like, well, how do you know? Well, if we met, let's let's say we met for lunch today and I'm gonna stop into Target and I say, Oh, Greg, so sorry. I just charged $400, but I I left my credit card at home. Can I borrow your card? There's something in your body that's gonna go, Bridgett's real great, but I've just met her about 45 minutes ago. I am not giving this woman my credit card to charge $400, right? Where if Stacy asked you, you'd be like, Oh, yeah, no problem. Here you go. Like you left yours in your purse, totally great.

Greg 42:28

Yeah.

Bridgett Blood 42:28

Because your body knows the trust difference. Yes. And that is happening sexually with couples, but we're overriding it because we don't know how to talk about it. And so my big proponent is if you cannot talk out loud about the specifics of a sexual experience, about the exact details and the exact body parts, there is not enough trust to be participating in that.

Greg 42:51

Yeah. Well, because then one, the person who has the lower level of comfort is gonna find themselves not breathing, panicking, you know, that stuff we were talking about earlier because they're trying to just put their head down and force their way through because they love and they care for their partner. But there's something that's so vulnerable about saying, I don't feel totally safe with that yet. We've we've said often, as we've been getting healthier, we never imagined there would be this much talking about sex. Yes. And like, thank God. I mean, that's not supposed to be. It's just they don't show that part on TV and movies or in porn, you know. That that they're they they really shortchange the talking part because that's the relational part. Or I mean it's all a relational part, but you you know what I mean.

Stacey 43:37

Yeah. You know, if if you're young, when you get married, there's there's only so much you can be prepared for. But I think like I've told our kids, like, you know where you can go when you have questions. And they do. And so I think that's the thing. It's like giving people all of this stuff that we're talking about to where when when they bump up against something, like you said, oh, I can call somebody, or I know where to go with this. Yeah, exactly. That's what's so important.

Bridgett Blood 44:06

Yeah, and I think the goal, I'm not, I always tell people, like, I'm not trying to get people where it's like, oh, well, we read all the books and did Bridgett's course, and now our marriage and our sex life is gonna be magically different than you know, the generation. Like, no, it's like, I just want you to know where to go for help. Yeah, that's the success, that's the changes to go. Like, but like I'm gonna need sexual partnership and engaging my story and how that shows up with my lover for my whole life. Like, that's not that's not gonna stop happening when I get married. And so I think shifting that too is like help is not just when you're struggling, help is because we want to create a flourishing life.

Greg 44:41

Yeah. Yeah. And when when you just said it's not gonna stop when you get married, that is the perhaps one of the biggest myths that gets perpetuated. I mean, when we a few years ago did a marriage intensive, you know, we talked about rupture. And I think that one of the things that came out as as I was processing my hopes for doing this intensive, it was I I don't want these to happen anymore. On the one hand, having a desire to not rupture is a beautiful desire. But but just the reality check that the that our therapist helped us see is what if a healthier goal was notice the rupture quicker and repair it faster? And taking something that seems too overwhelming and making it smaller so that it it it you're not just walking through life with completeness. Utter discouragement all the time.

Stacey 45:31

Yeah. Exactly what you said. Yeah. So that's what you get after 34 years. Because I wanted it not rupture. Like we're not getting it. I'm not getting it. I'm still in the yeah. It's not about that. It's about the repair.

Bridgett Blood 45:45

Well, I I've, you know, you just had Jay Stringer on in his book, Desire, absolutely breathtaking. Yep. And I think the the one puzzle piece that I feel like I need to go spend the next five years unpacking for myself is he talks about sex is designed to reveal, to provoke, and to heal.

Greg 46:00

Yep.

Bridgett Blood 46:01

And so I go, okay, in my context, I go, well, there's actually something about romance that does the same thing. To go, oh, this is revealing. And that's why I think I think one of the ask I can make of married people listening is to say, whether it is a you initiated a new sexual position and your partner said, ooh, I don't want to, and then you get flooded with shame. What happens in your brain is the exact same pain as I sent a friend request on Instagram after meeting this guy on Hinge and he didn't like me back. Like the initiation and rejection wound is the exact same brain firing, whether you are in sexual activity or outside of sexual activity. And so to be honest about that, and you know, again, you don't have to share full transparency details with everybody, but I think to be able to show up in a room, like I have I call my, you know, my Tennessee parents where they're in their 60s and they're like, gosh, like we had a really big sexual miss yesterday. It was really painful. Like I don't need to know all the details, but like we're still working through that and it feels tender. And so as I'm a single person walking into their home, I'm not on eggshells of like something feels a little funny here. But nine times out of 10, like they're already the first to say, Oh, yeah, we had a miss last night. It was painful, and we're still trying to figure out where we lost each other. This is what's happening.

Greg 47:21

And so And when they do that, your awkwardness goes down, the tension goes down. And one of the things that's noted, even if it's on a sub somewhat subconscious level, is hey, if something in this arena comes up for me, I know who I'm safe to talk to about it.

Bridgett Blood 47:36

Absolutely.

Greg 47:38

If we're going to wrap up, put any kind of a bow on this conversation, which obviously this opened up more things to think about than it then it closes, it doesn't close out anything. But in terms of like summing up, people, everybody has a sexual story. The longer we live, probably the greater the likelihood that you have more items in your sexual story that you might classify in a broken column. And that doesn't mean that you're done or that you're second class or that you're useless or that you know you have no value for encouraging people. It's really the opposite of that. We've got so much more to bring to people. And, you know, single people who are paying attention to this have so many opportunities just to imagine going through your life without some of those things in that brokenness column. And God can use us to be a part of how He does that. I mean, that's that's so encouraging. Whether as a coach or friends or a mentor couple, there's there's a lot that we can do with our story.

Bridgett Blood 48:40

Yeah, I think I remember one of my first major, like, wow, there's a secret option C meltdown in college with one of my mentors is I said, Oh, no one told me that dating could be this good. I literally thought my only options were sexual sin or marriage. And like no one taught me that, like, I call it the art of learning to share your skin. Like, no one taught me that like learning to kiss somebody and be close to someone and like talk about your insecurities and like process your past story. Like, no one told me that those experiences could have

Hot And Holy Dating As Practice

Bridgett Blood 49:15

a lot of innocence and honor. They only taught me either like you get married by the skin of your teeth, not sinning, or you're must be sinning. And I'm like, no, there's actually like a whole world of what I call hot and holy. Like it's it's sensual, it's embodied, it's mature, it's having the conversations. It is fun, but it's going at a pace of trust and honor that can set you up for a wild amount of success, whether this is a person you spend forever with, or you get to a place where you go, hey, I've really enjoyed getting to know you. There are some big vision or value pieces that are not aligned. Like we're gonna, we're gonna move on with our life. But I really do believe that it's possible that like when we practice these types of tools to leave a dating relationship as an adult to go, oh, I'm leaving without sexual shame. And so yeah, I just I feel really excited about what this makes possible in the future. That again, we're not, we're not violating values, we're not changing ethics, but we are listening to the feedback of those that have been really harmed to say, what if God has a better story here?

Greg 50:22

So if people listening, yeah. If people listening want to see what's possible for them, if they haven't even had a framework for considering what that would be like, uh we'll make sure that people know how to find your website and how to reach out to you and find out more to get connected to your podcasts and the different uh resources that you have out there.

Bridgett Blood 50:42

Yeah, I would love to have people join me, my next virtual cohort. It has been amazing over the last couple of years. We've had clients in eight different countries, which astounds me. I always think, like, is this just an American thing? Is this just a southern thing? And then I meet people from literally all over the world and we're all navigating those stories together. And so one of the best ways that I provide partnership are either if you are in a season as a single person where you go, I feel ashamed, I don't really have a lot of dating experience, or I've dealt with a partner who's had unwanted sexual behavior and I'm just trying to navigate like, what does it look like for me moving forward? Or if you yourself have gone through a process of recovery, you've kind of had that heart surgery, and now you're ready to do some physical therapy of like learning to gain your strength back. What does it look like? You know, I love just even for for men of going like, oh gosh, like how do I just stay present that I am moved by her beauty and that is good and that is godly in me. And there's places for me to grieve of like, oh, I've taken this to some dark places before, but I'm gonna do it different this time. And these are these are the parameters and the places. And so that's a group for men and women. I usually cap it at about 10 people from all over. We meet together once a week and do some teaching, some live coaching. And it's a lot of it is how do we reclaim sexual desire? How do we look at our childhood stories? How do we look at some of these sexual scripts that have led us to unwanted behavior? And what are the stories

Virtual Cohort Invite And Closing

Bridgett Blood 52:00

that we want to? We talk a lot about that. Of what do you want? And how do we live out of those personal values for you moving forward? So we'd love to have people join for that.

Greg 52:08

Excellent. Bridgett, I I we can't thank you enough for spending this time with us. It's been so good to get to know you.

Bridgett Blood 52:14

Maybe we'll cross paths in Nashville one day. Amazing. Yes. Thanks for having me. Such a joy. And I love that you know you kind of said that of we didn't really answer questions, but we asked more questions. And I think there's something really brave about just the asking that opens up a new world.