Dr Cat Meyer and Joe Moore

Joe Moore: [00:00:00] Here we are. Perfect. Hi everybody. Joe Moore here. Hope you’re all doing great. Psychedelics today we’re joined by Dr. Kat. How are you?

Dr Cat Meyer: I’m so good this morning.

Joe Moore: Yeah, this is gonna be fun. I, I warmed you up with some weird stories and, uh, you had some great suggestions for me.

Dr Cat Meyer: I think that was a, a mutual warming up my friend.

Dr Cat Meyer: I love some in there too.

Joe Moore: So you were a sex therapist out of Los Angeles. You’ve, um, been doing some cap work with clients. Um. Let’s kind of, uh, give people an understanding of what you do right now, and then we’re gonna rewind the tape to kind of like, give people, uh, an idea of how you got here.

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah. Okay.

Dr Cat Meyer: So, um, I would say I’m a, I’m a professional shapeshifter, you do all kinds of things and shift into so many aspects of healing. Um, so I’m a, I’m a licensed psychotherapist [00:01:00] and I work with, uh, sex therapy. I’ve been doing that for about 15 years. Um, specializing in, uh, sexuality, trauma, um, uh, relationships, alternative styles of relationships.

Dr Cat Meyer: I teach a combination of BDSM and tan, so I do workshops, retreats around that. Um, I do ketamine assisted therapy retreats for women around sensuality. So we are doing, uh, cap. Ceremonies, two of them. And then the whole rest of the retreat is based around the integration coming into the body, coming into right relationship with pleasure and the body.

Dr Cat Meyer: And then I, I have a podcast Sex of Psychedelics where I interview experts all on psychedelics, sexuality, um, relationships. And, and I, uh, right now we’re delving into, uh, art as an expression to teach people. ’cause especially right now, what I’ve been running [00:02:00] up against is censorship. Um, watching how words are not fully communicating or landing or being received.

Dr Cat Meyer: Um, and I’m noticing how art can, so there’s a way that art and the way that play can reach people and teach people in a way that you don’t have to have these words that seem to be triggering or causing a block. So, um, I’ve been an artist since I was. A baby, like a painting since I was eight. And, um, uh, now getting into more music and, and doing that as a way to get people to feel the erotic nature activate, um, you know, uh, develop that relationship with our bodies and heal.

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah.

Joe Moore: So we were just chatting about our mutual friend, um, Didi Gold ppa. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Um, they were on last week and we chatted about, um, all sorts of things in the book, but I had [00:03:00] Didi define erotic. Yeah. And you just brought the word up. Could you, like what, what’s a kind of functional definition that you like when you’re working with people in this, um, topic?

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah, so what I say with erotic is that it is the connection to vibrancy. It’s the connection to life. Um, it is the. Relationship that we have with the world and, um, the experience of the world through our senses, and particularly as it relates to pleasure. So we experience the world through these data points, the senses, right?

Dr Cat Meyer: Sensuality is taking those senses in, uh, but through the sense of pleasure, the enjoyment. And, uh, so when we’re looking at, uh, you might also hear the word aeros and aeros is often used in union psychology as a symbol for, um, aliveness. And [00:04:00] so we’re looking for things that bring us liveliness, vibrancy, um, life force energy.

Dr Cat Meyer: Some people might hear it used in those terms.

Joe Moore: Yeah, I appreciate that. And I, I’ve been hearing, um, people in kind of, uh, mystical spaces mm-hmm. Using the term, but clearly not in like an explicit kind. Human sex framework, they’re kind of talking about it in, in that kind of like, broader context. Yeah. Um, yeah.

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah. And I think that’s really important because we’ve, we’ve attached such a narrow definition of sex as this act that we do. You know, we bring bodies together and in, or even our own body and, uh, we connect to it through friction and, and positions. And that really limits the expansive experience of what this does as creation or life or, um, uh, again, I’m gonna use the word [00:05:00] vibrancy.

Dr Cat Meyer: A wakefulness, right? And we are all sexual beings. You can’t really segment that as much as we try to in culture, we say this is, uh. Not sexual or you’re don’t be a sexual person or don’t be a sexually expressed. And yet we are sexual beings that walk this earth. It’s how do we interact with everything around us that is erotic or can be erotic because we can engage with things around us, and it can also be very dead.

Dr Cat Meyer: It can be very, very numb. We can be very disconnected from it or it can bring us down. And so that’s not eroticism, that’s like the opposite of it.

Joe Moore: Mm,

Joe Moore: mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. The repression is so interesting. We kind of chatted about historical origins of the repression, but let’s maybe put a pin in it for Okay.

Joe Moore: And then, and then talk about how did you get here? Like, um, [00:06:00] so I, I assume you’re an American. And, uh, you know, the American experience is quite interesting and unique. Um, and yeah, it just, how do you like to tell your story?

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah, yeah. So I, um, I’m from Missouri, so I’m from rural town, Missouri. Um, grew up as a, a traditional Catholic family, and I had some childhood trauma from when I was younger.

Dr Cat Meyer: Sexual trauma when I was younger and leading into a lot of, uh, anxiety, depression, uh, dissociation, panic attacks, um, eating disorders for about 11 years. And, but all of that was done in secret. So all of that was done within my own self and isolated from, from everyone else. So even though I was out in the world, nobody knew that I was doing these things or that these experiences were happening.

Dr Cat Meyer: And then. Um, I really struggled with relationships. Uh, they would last about two weeks and then I would have full panic attack in them. Or as things [00:07:00] started to move towards sex, I would just shut it down and completely deadpan in a relationship. So there was a fascination while there was a fear at the same exact time, and it wasn’t until I was 21 and I was reading a Red Book magazine and they were quoting a sex therapist, and I was like, oh, that’s a job you can have, like, you can actually do that.

Dr Cat Meyer: And mind you, I hadn’t had any sex. Like the most I had done is like make out with everybody in the fraternity, but I was not, not moving beyond that because of the, the deep fear in my body. Uh, I went to California and uh, got my doctorate in marriage and family therapy and immediately dove into. Learning sex therapy.

Joe Moore: And where did you study,

Dr Cat Meyer: uh, Alliant University? Here in Irvine or in Great In Irvine. Yeah. And I, um, going into that, I dove into Tantra first. So studying sacred sexuality [00:08:00] through more of the tantric lineage, um, and then studying more of the, the, uh, philosophical and the um, uh, spiritual aspect of, of tantra, um, through yogic.

Dr Cat Meyer: Traditions. And then that was some of my first indications of how you could feel differently in your body. Um, I was teaching yoga by the age of 1920 and I was like, oh, you can feel differently. That’s interesting. There’s a state change here. And so diving into that work and then, um, alongside, uh, you know, this more sexual erotic side and then the psychology side.

Dr Cat Meyer: And then I got into BDSM when I was 24 and realizing, well, having like a full transcendent experience that was similar to what I was trying to reach in, in the tan world. Like deep states of surrender, altered states of consciousness, like activating different parts of myself, um, different characters in myself, different skills in [00:09:00] myself.

Dr Cat Meyer: And then it just kind of progressed from there. Uh, I met a teacher who taught, uh, Reiki energy and introduced me to metaphysics. And then I got into, you know, this whole different world of healing that was beyond just my traditional sense of, uh, in psychology school. And then I got into plant medicine and it was just, just one thing after another.

Dr Cat Meyer: It’s kind of like when the student’s ready, the teacher comes and it’s here, here’s a new piece, here’s a new piece. I have no idea where I’m going with all of this. I’m just, I’m interested. This looks really cool. Let’s do this. And then in retrospect, seeing how all of these things interrelate with one another.

Dr Cat Meyer: And now I’m gonna place where I can see, so the interweavings of so many different disciplines. And see why some work, why don’t, and then even the expanded definitions of things you see regurgitated in the spiritual community. Things like pleasure, things like eroticism, things like [00:10:00] surrender, like those are actually very complex concepts that we hear on social media or we see, um, spoken on stage and we’re like, we nod our heads.

Dr Cat Meyer: We’re like, yeah, yeah, that’s right. That’s right. ’cause I’ve heard that before, but people don’t actually understand what they’re talking about with that. So is it actually deeply ingrained? So I’ve, I’ve been able to see across these, these disciplines, um, what it actually means.

Joe Moore: When did things like, um, ketamine assisted psychotherapy or maps come on your radar as something you were curious about?

Dr Cat Meyer: I was, I think I was 26. I, um. Had met somebody in the maps world who had introduced to me about things like, uh, MDMA therapy and, um, uh, telling me about the benefits of using that for sexual trauma. And I was like, oh, I’m really [00:11:00] intrigued, you know, being a therapist and, um, having sexual trauma myself. And, and I had worked with somebody and did, um, MDMA, um, therapy, not, not through maps, but this is, you know, a separate and, um, it was really profound.

Dr Cat Meyer: The things that came out of my mouth were things I had literally not told anybody, so I was so fascinated with how easily the words streamed out of my mouth. And then after that and the way the tears streamed down my face so easily, there was like no more filter there. And at the end of that session, I just softly fell asleep.

Dr Cat Meyer: You know, it was like this, this, uh, purge but not an intense hard breakthrough, the protector parts. It was soft and gentle and, and it was out. And that was a really important [00:12:00] phase at that part of my life to even just let it be heard by myself, let it be witnessed by myself being witnessed by another person, which I think is one of the stages that, of healing.

Dr Cat Meyer: That’s really important.

Joe Moore: Yeah. I love that, and thanks for sharing that story. It’s, um, we get these stories from people here and there that are just extraordinary, like unfolding through. Mm-hmm. You know, one or two encounters. Then we have the inverse, right? Where it’s like, oh, you’ve had 30 encounters and you haven’t had that thing you’re looking for yet.

Joe Moore: Um, you know, we, we used to see it in Hochberg breath work. People were like, I just want that rebirth experience. I wanna re-experience my birth. I’m like, why?

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Moore: Um,

Dr Cat Meyer: I, I think ’cause there’s this hierarchy of spiritual spirituality and power, like we all have this real fascination with power and we think, well, if I have that experience, then, [00:13:00] then I have access to a power that other people don’t have. Or it puts me in a category separate than the rest of the world.

Dr Cat Meyer: And, and what do we think that that’s gonna bring us, is gonna bring us safety? Is it gonna bring us, um, you know. Divine knowledge. Is it like, what is that? What is that that we’re wanting from that?

Joe Moore: Yeah, exactly. That makes sense. Um, yeah, reflecting on my own kind of, um, uh, juvenile periods where I’m kind of seeking really hard and like that was part of it.

Joe Moore: It’s like, this isn’t a game I want, and it was kind of like a spiritual bypass and a few other kind of ways of framing it, I’m sure. But, um, yeah, like this is common. Mm-hmm. It’s not, yeah. Don’t judge yourself folks if you have that. Um, just No, I think a part

Dr Cat Meyer: of, yeah. Yeah. I think there, you know, there is a curiosity in us to, I think, you know, Maslow expanded his, his, um, uh, [00:14:00] you know, hierarchy of needs to even include self-transcendence.

Dr Cat Meyer: And even in that, there’s so many, there’s multiple layers in that too. Like, what are we, what are we seeking with that. So there, there may be this intrinsic desire to seek for more, and I think that’s beautiful. It just is. Then can we create a relationship with that seeking and see what is it actually wanting?

Dr Cat Meyer: Um, you know, with people who they wanna have better sex, one of the questions that I ask them is, what about what, what is it that you’re seeking in that better sex? What do you think you’re gonna get with that? And is it, and, and what do you mean by better sex too? A lot of times people are like, they just want more sex, but do they actually like the sex that they’re having?

Dr Cat Meyer: Um, or for me, in the search of better sex, it was, uh, peace. It was more of a, a fluidity and expression. Um, it was like I [00:15:00] didn’t wanna be clenching anymore. I was clenching a lot in my body. And, and it was also. I power, certainly power, you know, self power in myself. And probably at some points even using that, not even probably, I know in some points feeling like if I had a, a sexual power, then I could use that in space.

Dr Cat Meyer: That was valuable too. And so getting in relationship with that of like, oh, am I using this ability to be courageous in my body and in my expression, is that being used as a tool to seduce or to get something as well? And that’s just as powerful or important for us. What is sex, the function of, like, what are we using it for?

Dr Cat Meyer: Is it to create safety? Is it to get resources? Is it to get, um, connection, uh, comfort, um, to feel [00:16:00] something, to prove something? It oftentimes isn’t even just a. Experience of pleasure and enjoyment, but if we don’t get into the question of like, why am I using this? Or what is it? What’s that relationship or function with it?

Dr Cat Meyer: Um, we’re, we’re not actually in power of it ourselves.

Joe Moore: Um, all right, so you’re at the intersection of two really powerful topics. Um, and a lot of people are like, oh, psychedelics can save the world. A lot of people are like, oh, good sex can save the world. And like there’s this kind of, um, interesting intersection. I’m, I’m sure you see lots of assumptions that people have coming in that are.

Joe Moore: Super half-baked maybe, is the kind way to put it. And then there’s, you know, what, what are, what are kind of like some really [00:17:00] half-baked ideas that you see coming forward at the intersection of sex and psychedelics and what, what kind of things do you actually see as like, um, you know, powerful, powerful things often the horizon or that are here now?

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah. Um,

Dr Cat Meyer: like I said, many of us have this relationship with power, you know, and in power there’s also the desire to wanna be saved. So I see many of us looking to experts, authorities, doctors, not knowing that they have a part inside of them that really wants to be saved. Give me the answer. Take me out of this suffering.

Dr Cat Meyer: Get me out of this place that’s really painful or dangerous for me. And when we say this is the answer, psychedelics or sex, it, it, um, the conviction of that can feel very [00:18:00] enticing to want to give up our, our power, our internal power for that person, um, to do that for us. And that’s very dangerous on many levels because the answer is never black and white and certain.

Dr Cat Meyer: And com you know, we can’t have conviction like that, um, as much as we want that because it’s so complex and the answer is really nuanced and people have a hard time with nuance because it’s, there’s, it changes, it’s dynamic. And the very nature of being human is dynamic. We change from morning to evening.

Dr Cat Meyer: We change from month to month, from year to year, um, through different phases of our life. And we get, we can feel terrified when we’re in, say, the ebb of something. You know, say our libido disappears and we’re like, oh my God, I’m broken. There’s something wrong with me. Or my, [00:19:00] my, my dick isn’t staying up.

Dr Cat Meyer: What’s, what’s wrong with me? Right. I’m not orgasming. And that also is not honoring that the body is in its own dynamic nature, speaking to us, communicating to us. This is a form of communication. It’s a symptom. Um, the nuance is, you know, it really holds that it holds space for us to both be valid in our experience and, um, that the answer can be completely varied and complex.

Dr Cat Meyer: Um. I do believe that both of these things can be highly supportive for us in sex. I’ll start with sex. The importance of sex. Um, and when it comes to healing or when it comes to, um, you know, power in ourselves is that [00:20:00] there’s so much cultural conditioning out there that tells us, this is wrong. This is shameful.

Dr Cat Meyer: You shouldn’t express this way. This is, um, this is dangerous. Um, there’s messages even from the ancient times of, um, making women’s bodies and their erotic expression both as a ritual source and as, um, you know, more of a profane source wrong. That it’s sinful, it’s dirty, it’s, it’s, um, uh, less than. And yet what we know is that when an individual, I’m gonna use, uh, a woman in this case, ’cause I just referred to that.

Dr Cat Meyer: When she’s in her body and she’s in her feeling and she’s in her, uh, expression, that is such an incredibly powerful human being to behold, because when you can feel, you can discern, and a [00:21:00] discerning human is a very powerful human. So think about all the things that turn down our feeling, and that’s a great way to both influence control, um, to reduce somebody.

Dr Cat Meyer: So the same with psychedelics. What I love about psychedelics is that it can also connect us to that feeling. So for many of my clients who’ve had difficult time with, um, you know, they’ve had trauma or they just have the, the impact of the cultural narrative on them, um, that feeling, the relationship with feeling can be very confusing.

Dr Cat Meyer: When they start to feel, whether it’s an emotion or a sensation, they might go into the fear of feeling too much overwhelm or feeling too little, numbness or nothing at all, or feeling mm-hmm. Incorrectly. And so psychedelics can help us to tap back into that feeling. What is it like when your body feels alive?

Dr Cat Meyer: What is it like when you feel energy? What is [00:22:00] it like when you feel sensation and pleasure? MDMA is great for that. It’s, it’s beautiful in that it can, um, I’ve had so many people report to me the, that they could feel emotion again. Um, where they couldn’t before they were really numb to it. Or, um, uh, my clients who’ve had vaginismus or dys hernia, those are painful sex.

Dr Cat Meyer: Uh, they used, uh, they told me they used microdosing of psilocybin and it helped to relax their body helped to relax their, their um, uh, vulva. In a way that they could feel again and feel pleasure or enjoy just being in their body. Um, ketamine is another one, like, in my practice, like, uh, and, and in my retreats, like the women, I teach them how to move their body, you know how to get outta the head and into the body with that medicine, and I’ll see them just like caressing themselves, like they’re just touching their skin here, or they’re, they’re moving their body and it’s, and, and I can tell that they’re [00:23:00] in the enjoyment of their body again, in a way that doesn’t overwhelm them and also doesn’t, you know, numb them out.

Dr Cat Meyer: Now the, the challenge with that is that. Uh, psychedelics can also overwhelm you. They can also barge through the very important protector parts in our body that are designed to protect us, um, or to, you know, to prevent that overwhelm, um, or us accessing something that we’re not ready for. And so how the protocols that we’re putting around that safety we’re putting around that the, the preparation that we’re putting around that is also incredibly important.

Dr Cat Meyer: Um, there’s even energetic practices that I’m seeing people teach nowadays where I disagree with some of the protocols that they’re using because they’re forcing too much energy through the body that the body’s not prepared for. So that’s where that can be dangerous and. [00:24:00] Um, I’ve, I’ve worked with a number of individuals who came into my practice.

Joe Moore: Can you name, can you name something that looks like that real quick? The energetic

Dr Cat Meyer: I can. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah. Um, let’s see. Gosh, I don’t know the name of this other one, but I’ll, I’ll speak to this one. So this one’s, um, kli Kundalini activation process Cap. Um, not to be confused with Ketamine assisted therapy, um, but that one’s one where I’ve received individuals after doing a class where there’s several people and there’s a facilitator, and their bodies weren’t ready for that opening of their, the energetic, uh, flow of their body.

Dr Cat Meyer: And they ended up in a lot of pain, overwhelm, um, confusion, uh, crying, and they could not, they couldn’t calm their body down and. So we would do a, a session and, and I can speak to this ’cause this has happened several times, and so it’s a very general experience that I’ve [00:25:00] seen. Um, and having to work with them and bringing the energy down and bringing more of a self containment again where their teachers weren’t available to talk or they receive the messages of, um, you should just ground or, um, they gave them a list of things to do, but those actions weren’t working because it’s, it, there’s no preparation.

Dr Cat Meyer: For a client or even having a conversation with a client ahead of time, or a student who’s coming to your class ahead of time to see where they’re at with their nervous system health, with, with, um, their hi trauma history, um, with what may be happening in their field to know whether they’re prepared for that or not.

Dr Cat Meyer: You know, psychedelics do this too. It’s, it’s like, like a psychedelic, um, stimulates your nervous system, relaxes the fascia, which is the connective tissue on the body, [00:26:00] so that the energy can flow so much easier. It’s beautiful, and if it’s not held correctly, it can be very, uh, disorienting, disrupting, um, activate psychotic breaks.

Dr Cat Meyer: And I just, you know, I, I fear that there’s not enough infrastructure there to support people or give the resource to know who to go to, what to do.

Dr Cat Meyer: And then, you know, I’ll even speak back to the sex with all of that too. Um, the dangerous side of all of that is also power, you know, comes back to power. Like who are we working with? Um, uh, are there, is there, there’s an, an inherent power dynamic or, uh, in with anybody that we’re seeking help from. And many facilitators don’t realize that, or it’s very seductive to be in a role of power and to be the one that’s [00:27:00] facilitating and offering this healing for somebody.

Dr Cat Meyer: Um, and sometimes they don’t even know what’s what stuff of theirs is becoming transferred onto a client or onto, I know somebody that they’re working on. And so their stuff can end up in the space and. They can project their needs onto another client. Therapists do that too. Um, I’m not just saying it’s psychedelic facilitators, but coaches do it too.

Dr Cat Meyer: I just think it’s really, um, hygienic practice, good hygienic practice for us to be doing that work to see what we’re bringing into the space as well.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm.

Joe Moore: Yeah, absolutely. I was just chatting with a Norwegian psychotherapist researcher who’s talking more and more about, um, doing the research required such that therapists can actually have their own processes legally with MDMA and other substances such that they have more awareness, um, and more skill in session.

Joe Moore: Right. And

Joe Moore: yeah,

Joe Moore: [00:28:00] that’s it. It’s a, you know, hard thing to sell sometimes, but therapy as a field kind of understands that there are limitations. Um, and there are things that we gotta catch,

Dr Cat Meyer: we do. And there is even talk about, you know, I’ll tie it back to sex, um, erotic, uh, transference and counter transference, which means that what we project onto our clients or our clients project onto us in a neurotic sense, um, uh, can be both used as a tool and used as harm if it’s not, if it’s, you know, moving unconsciously through it.

Dr Cat Meyer: So one of the things that I suggest people and that I do personally is working in, um, cohorts, working in cohorts or working with your own therapists, working, um, you know, I have clients who are therapists and we do their work that shows up in their client sessions because that’s, that’s really important, um, to have a place where you, you know, your stuff is in there.[00:29:00]

Dr Cat Meyer: We can’t pretend like it’s not, but how do we, you know, how do we do that hygiene practice to make sure that we’re consciously aware of it and we, we have a relationship with it. So it’s not unconsciously ruin ruling what’s happening in our sessions with our clients.

Joe Moore: I am muted. Sorry. Everything, you know, what

Dr Cat Meyer: much of the country is in, in the world is muted. So,

Joe Moore: um, I’ll give you a little bit of personal trivia, Kat. Mm-hmm. I, um, I have a kind of thing where I actually show up as a mime, but it’s actually the world’s worst mime, um, who’s actually a clown. So there’s like a, you know, there’s a whole lot of stuff there.

Joe Moore: We’ll get into that later, but commuting is part of it. Mm-hmm. I’ve not been punched yet, but you know, oh, thank God. It’s not always, it’s not always [00:30:00] the, the most, um, well looked upon thing. Um, yeah. So, um, the world being muted. Yeah. So this like, hygiene thing is really important. This, like, self-awareness of power dynamics is super important.

Joe Moore: I don’t know that we’re ever gonna kind of solve it. I just think it’s an active part of humanity and how we’re always gonna kind of interact with each other.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Um,

Joe Moore: but we’ve gotta, you know, watch it become more self-aware, can help us in kind of like, um, hopefully seeing the dynamics that could suck us into something like a high control group.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. Um, which is, you know, a, uh, I don’t want to name any right now, but there’s, you know, a handful out there, um, some of whom have been busted up, some are still active, but these dynamics, these erotic kind of, um, things or the power dynamic things can always kinda like. Be things that attract us. But once we all kind of become more aware of that

Joe Moore: mm-hmm.

Joe Moore: Kind

Joe Moore: of a little bit [00:31:00] metacognitive maybe. Mm-hmm.

Dr Cat Meyer: We

Joe Moore: can kind of protect ourselves and each other. What do you think?

Dr Cat Meyer: You know what, there, I had once had this really awesome therapist years ago who asked me, are you aware of what parts of you are getting their needs met through being a therapist? And I was like, Ooh.

Dr Cat Meyer: Uh, that’s a good question because it’s, it’s funny, we choose these careers or we choose these things and if we’re not aware of, um, what parts of us originally picked it, um, then I don’t think we’re in, in the power of it. We’re not in the power seat of it. And that isn’t to say that there can’t be also a connection of altruism and, and, you know, desire to help people.

Dr Cat Meyer: Um. There may also be another part in there too. And not to shame that part either. It’s just like, oh, I’m, I’m very aware there’s a part of me that’s, whether it’s feeling power in this role of knowledge and helping somebody or this, um, I’m getting the attention [00:32:00] with somebody who’s un their undivided attention on me that I didn’t get when I was younger or, um, uh, I get to intellectually get off on analyzing so many and, and just so it’s, it’s, uh, yeah.

Dr Cat Meyer: It’s, it’s things like that, the nuance, there’s the nuance thing there. Um, it’s not direct. It’s, it’s, um, energetic. It’s, it’s subtle. It’s flexible dynamic.

Joe Moore: Yeah. I’m just thinking about the power and like being in the power. Mm-hmm. After you get some letters after your name and a license, like, it’s a really interesting shift from like.

Joe Moore: You’re not one of the select elite until you have these mm-hmm. You know? Yeah. I’ve had that kind of, I, I, I chose not to go to therapy school. I thought about it long and hard for a long time. Yeah. And I just like decided, I don’t know that that’s for me. Mm-hmm. But, you know, I’ve experienced that. Joe, you’re not a therapist thing a lot.[00:33:00]

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. I’m like, Hmm. Fascinating. I hate that.

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah. Yeah. That’s really unfortunate. ’cause I think that that prevents us all from working together in a multidimensional, um, way where somebody’s eyes and voice in particular way of understanding or seeing something or their dis discipline can pick up something that I can’t, and then I can work with them on that.

Dr Cat Meyer: And we can, we can. We can solve some of these problems and some of these puzzles together. Um, you know, it’s kind of like looking at the, uh, archeologists and when they started working with the geologists, they started uncovering even more and more quickly the mysteries of our ancient time because archeologists don’t necessarily know the science of the rocks and the minerals and, and so it’s just, yeah, there’s space for all of us to work together.

Joe Moore: Absolutely. Yeah. Thanks for that. And I, [00:34:00] um, wanna kind of pivot, um, I had something really good. Okay, here it is. I think I got it again. So, you know, people hear this kind of, oh, sex and psychedelics are like, oh, burning Man, orgy Dome, everybody’s gonna get super high on acid or MDMA and everybody’s having sex with everybody.

Joe Moore: And it’s like, that’s not exactly what we’re talking about. Um, and we’re, you know, I think that’s kind of one of the intellectual. Traps when we start thinking about this. Mm-hmm. As opposed to like, what, what can it unveil? Mm-hmm. Or could it open up for possibility wise, um, for people as in like greater intimacy or all of those, like you’ve had some really good lists earlier of like what people might be looking for.

Joe Moore: And I think, yeah, it’s still the same list. Roughly speaking for the general sex conversation, there might though be some access to things via tantra that are kind of beyond that list, maybe.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm.

Dr Cat Meyer: Mm-hmm.

Joe Moore: Yeah. I dunno, how did I trigger anything? You wanna go off on there?

Dr Cat Meyer: Y yeah. A lot of things. Um, great.[00:35:00]

Dr Cat Meyer: So we can start with, um, actually I can probably answer ’em both at the same time. So I’m working on a model to help people to understand that that erotic evolution can happen on a couple of different levels, across many different categories. So it can start with awareness. As the first step, you know, becoming aware of the con cognitive constructs, you know, the definitions, how we’re identifying ourselves.

Dr Cat Meyer: Um, and then it can move into intelligence when we apply what the awareness is and, and we gain more of a, um, interaction with, with these definitions or these roles or these energetics or these emotions. Like how do emotions affect our eroticism, um, and, uh, and sex. And then at the peak of that is acuity, you know, mastery.

Dr Cat Meyer: And that’s where you might, um, you know, study deep [00:36:00] into sacred, sacred sexuality in tantra or, um, become a master in, in BDSM. And, and and what does that even mean? And that can, um, to me, or the fluidity of roles. And to me, when I think of the mastery, it’s like. The full integration and ponten, spontaneous flow of creativity, of our embodiment of these roles that you might see of leadership, follower, masculine, feminine, um, receptive, um, initiator, uh, where you’re not thinking about it, you’re just fully in the dance of it.

Dr Cat Meyer: So I, ILII like to parse it out like that. You can go into sexual evolution and be at any one of those points, and it’s beautiful. It’s any three, one of those three is even better than just being unconscious, which so many of us are [00:37:00] unconsciously driven by the programs and the schemas in the world that the world’s provided to us Now.

Dr Cat Meyer: Many people might be, or, or people might be afraid to go into sex and psychedelics because of those images that you just presented. Um, I also believe that people are afraid to go into this, I guess this likens to that. Um, because what if they go overboard? What if they, they, they like it too much? What if they lose themselves to chaos and, and orgies and body parts everywhere?

Dr Cat Meyer: And it’s insatiable. And I’ve heard that from the narratives of women that I’ve worked with. You know, they’re afraid to get into their, their sexuality or they’re afraid to go to play parties or they’re afraid to make out with women ’cause they’re afraid they’re gonna like it too much and that they’ll be, um.[00:38:00]

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah. That they’ll, they’ll burn up and burn out. And with that, I really believe that I am a great embodiment of the feral archetype, meaning like, I have rewild myself and I love being, um, expressively pervasive, uh, perverted. And I love to, um, uh, uh, say sexual innuendos and sex jokes. And, and I love, love the play of that.

Dr Cat Meyer: And I love being wild. I love wearing my underwear around the house and, and just doing, you know, whatever, whatever the fuck I want. And, um, but with that, I don’t burn out because I’ve built such a strong containment of myself.

Joe Moore: Hmm.

Dr Cat Meyer: And so the, the, um, development of the skills to be chaos. Is only as supportive and growth inducing as we have a strong [00:39:00] container, and I’m meaning this for ourselves because in in the cultural dialogue, I hear a lot of this like, um, feminine needs a good, strong masculine, you know, or, or a woman can be fully expressed when she has a man that has, you know, can hold her in that and all of her rage and chaos and all that stuff.

Dr Cat Meyer: And the, the challenge with that narrative is that when we don’t develop these for ourselves, we might be outsourcing these skills to somebody else. And then what is our discernment of that person that we’re asking to be that role for us? And that’s where it becomes very tricky. I taught a this, um, class called Feminine Femme Chaos to women who were, um, uh, sugar babies.

Dr Cat Meyer: And they were really wanting to find their power in their, in their eroticism and their sexuality. And so these questions were, um, you know, when you build containment of yourself, [00:40:00] that is things like presence, self-regulation, um, uh, uh, consent negotiation, um, advocacy, direct communication, directness, you know, that builds a sense of intrinsic safety for yourself.

Dr Cat Meyer: And if you don’t have that, you might be looking for somebody to provide these things for you. And this is unconscious. Like, I’m like, you can consciously say, Hey, can you pay for my things? And it’s totally, totally okay. Um, but. When you’re unconsciously wanting somebody else to fill those holes for you or, or hold that for you so we can be in full chaos and expression and, and, you know, all over the place, um, that we might not realize what we’re paying out of our power, out of our safety, out of our, um, you know, anything else that we might be giving up.

Dr Cat Meyer: Um, we do this, many of us do this all the time. We’re just not aware of it. Um, [00:41:00] but on the flip side of that, the chaos is full expression. How do we teach ourselves to be in our fullest expression? And, um, the world may not meet us there. There are many times where I’ve said something pervy or sexual and did not land.

Dr Cat Meyer: Did not land. And um, I’ve also built the ability to not, um, collapse in that. I’m like, whoop. Usually I’ll say something like, whoop, that did not land. Tell me how that translated for you. You know? Mm-hmm. But because I have that strong container of myself, I don’t, I don’t need to collapse or fall apart in that.

Dr Cat Meyer: Um, it’s taking time. But that’s, those are the skills I think can be helpful. So then we can go to an orgy and be able to say no when we don’t want something. Or we can go to a, um, a, uh, sexual trauma, uh, sexual healing tantric shamanic retreat to learn skills. And because the [00:42:00] facilitator is in a role to teach us, we might say, override our yes or yeah, override our no to say yes for the sake of healing, but that actually doesn’t do it.

Dr Cat Meyer: And it, and it hurts us even more. ’cause we don’t have that sense of, of self containment for ourselves to be able to say no. Mm. Or believe we can.

Joe Moore: Um, I’m gonna pull up a picture that I took yesterday.

Dr Cat Meyer: Oh,

Joe Moore: it’s relevant here.

Dr Cat Meyer: Okay, well, I wonder how relevant.

Dr Cat Meyer: Yes. Oh my God, that’s so cute. So say, says, stay feral with a, what is that?

Dr Cat Meyer: A possum?

Joe Moore: Yeah. With a bow on the head. Um, I like it. Yeah. I’ve been like, kind of like leaning into the term feral a lot lately. Um, as like, I don’t know, there’s, it seems like there is something kind of fundamentally broken about the cultural [00:43:00] container we’re in. Um, I don’t know if it’s fundamental, but it, it appears to be part of the fabric of how everybody’s showing up.

Joe Moore: They’re mediated through this, this kind of cultural container that doesn’t allow people to be wild.

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah.

Joe Moore: To be. Uh, feral. Um, I like the term feral mystic a lot.

Dr Cat Meyer: Mm-hmm.

Joe Moore: Kind of like working on that one a little bit. Mm. What is that? Yeah, what is

Dr Cat Meyer: that? Tell me. Um, well,

Joe Moore: you know, there’s, there’s some in what you said there that kind of like flows right into it.

Joe Moore: It’s like, um, who, who is the authority I’m gonna bend a knee to, or like take a knee to it’s mm-hmm. You know, it’s not Elon. Um, it’s not the orange guy, and it’s like, not, like there’s not, I, I can’t see too many things that I would want to take a knee to, you know? Um, I think taking a knee to your own divinity is the thing.

Joe Moore: Um, and that is the kind of essence of the feral mystic. It’s like, oh, mm-hmm. I’m the thing. We are the thing. Mm-hmm.

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah. Yeah. [00:44:00] The word feral comes from become moving from a domestic state to a rewilding state. And I think that that is a really powerful. Uh, word to, to stand, stand behind, um, as were re rewilding again.

Dr Cat Meyer: But again, it comes back to what I said earlier. There’s power in feeling. There’s power in feeling because we learn the communication of our body and then that, that is, that is our, uh, authentic self authority, and that’s really powerful. Um, there’s, while there is a part of me that has a lot of concern around what’s happening in, in the bigger culture at large, there’s a part of me that has a deep belief in, in teaching people to feel, again, teaching people to come back and write relationship with their body.

Dr Cat Meyer: So that power comes from. [00:45:00] From, you know, from, from the ground up instead of the top down from, from the people that are necessarily in our leaderships. And so, um, that’s what I believe that I feel really strongly for that.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. Yeah. We’ve been abstracted from all power sources and I think like, figuring out where those are for us and it’s like self ownership.

Joe Moore: Yeah. Um, in a lot of ways and

Joe Moore: mm-hmm.

Joe Moore: There’s a, there’s a sign at, I guess here we go. There’s a sign when I was driving by DPW one day and I was just like, no masters and there’s a giant guillotine. I’m like, oh boy, you guys are living live and burning in different,

Joe Moore: oh my Lord. Like,

Joe Moore: oh my god. Wow. And, um, yeah.

Joe Moore: And then one of my friend camps, um, hush hush pony bar, and they actually had like a whole guillotine like gag that you actually would, would work through, and you kind of like mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Get your, get your head chopped off. I’m like, oh my God. This is really a cultural moment right now. But also like, you know.

Joe Moore: Taking [00:46:00] your own power back in a certain way, symbolically or otherwise, like, I think is really important because as empires collapse, like the people are still there.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm.

Joe Moore: People survive collapse. Me too. Of, you know. Mm-hmm. Um, Europe did okay after the collapse of the Roman Empire kind of took a little bit.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. But they did it. Yeah. Or it evolved

Dr Cat Meyer: like all these places, you know, and that’s something that we need to remember is the constant evolution of the world. The mixing of cultures, the inspiration, the, the melting pot that eventually happens across the globe and, and the ebbs flow shifts. Like it, um, yeah, I’m watching that, you know, the cycles.

Dr Cat Meyer: The repetition of cycles for a millennia. Like a lot of this is not really even new. It’s, it’s just a repeated cycle. We’ve heard these stories again. Um, there’s a lot of people that are going back into the remembrance of [00:47:00] ancient times and history. It’s really powerful to hear people talk about that. Uh, it’s also really important with that, that we check, uh, the interpretations because there’s also a lot of misinterpretations of these things too.

Dr Cat Meyer: And, um, uh, the power of mythology, I guess is important to, um, used to have our own individual interpretations. So it can be that too. Think how much are we gonna know the actual truth of things. So maybe there is space for the, the interpretation. I think that’s just as important.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely.

Joe Moore: There’s so much room for, you know, play in a lot of these areas. Um. Speaking of play, um,

Dr Cat Meyer: oh, I don’t do that.

Joe Moore: So there is, um, just kidding. I, at this great talk last night about like bringing more play into therapy and making therapy [00:48:00] feel like, um, like improv and play can be really, you know, convivial or deadly serious.

Joe Moore: And, um, you know, burning Man’s an example of that. You know, you get the little rubber chickens everywhere. Mm-hmm. Or people are playing with their lives and it’s, it says on the ticket you can die. Mm-hmm. So, you know, there’s, uh, it’s fascinating and I, I see this kind of like, um. Play engine. Mm-hmm. As I think one of our larger opportunities for cultural transformation.

Joe Moore: How do you, how do you like to sit with this kind of concept?

Dr Cat Meyer: Oh, I am the queen of play. I love, love play. I’ve done a lot of research around play and try to keep a pulse on what, what new comes out around play. Um, Stuart Brown does a lot of research around the concept of play and really, um, helps us, helps to define it for us.

Dr Cat Meyer: And it’s, and it’s when we, um, uh, intrinsically are drawn to [00:49:00] do, start doing something, um, there’s no end goal or achievement. Um, a desired outcome per se. It’s more for the desire to do the thing. Um, we’re not in the self-consciousness, um, around doing it right or wrong, and we lose ourselves to it. So flow state, like we lose ourselves to the time, um, or we lose track of time in that.

Dr Cat Meyer: And we all have different ways of playing. There are, uh, some of us are more kinesthetics, some of us are more like, we like collecting things, and that’s a form of play. Some of us like competition. Some of us play in being a director role. Some of us play in, um, creation of art and some of us have play through research.

Dr Cat Meyer: Um, I will spend hours researching something and it’s so much fun for me. Love it. I literally drool, uh, for doing it. And, and I believe that that’s [00:50:00] really important for us too because many people or, or the concept of play in society has a lesser priority than say something with a achievement or something that we produce or something.

Dr Cat Meyer: And yet play rejuvenates us with energy. Play also, uh, requires us to be so present with the things that are available to us. You know, improv is an excellent example. We are present to what’s here and we use what’s here. Um, improv, uh, dinner playing. Cooking dinner. You go to your kitchen, uh, you go open your refrigerator.

Dr Cat Meyer: What do I have to engage with to, to, uh, you know, um, participate with. And when we play, there’s the opportunity of, uh, trying something on. We don’t know if it’s gonna work out. And that’s not the point. And it doesn’t matter. We’re experimenting. It also allows [00:51:00] us to, um, uh, oh, where was I going with that? Um.

Dr Cat Meyer: You know, uh, engage with things that might otherwise be incredibly vulnerable. Think about sex. I do, I, I instruct people to do play labs where they go into like 30 minutes with their partner. They bring in whatever they want, a specific position or a toy or an activity. And for 30 minutes they’re playing, they’re experimenting, they’re trying it out, they’re doing different things, seeing what happens.

Dr Cat Meyer: And then after, on the other side of that, they process, they talk what worked, what did they like, what didn’t they like? And now we’re not attaching our personal value to whether something didn’t work. I wanna use this, this, this butt plug. I don’t know if it’s gonna work, but let’s try it out that way I’m not a failure to my partner, or I’m not a failure to myself because we did that.

Dr Cat Meyer: And then when we’re talking about this on more of the [00:52:00] cultural level. Um, burning Man is an excellent example of play, of bringing in the guillotines and bringing in the perverted signs of, um, I make these really unhinged street signs that, you know, it’ll, it’ll be like a stop sign and I’ll write, um, nonstop anal on it, you know, or don’t stop Daddy or, uh, um, when did I, I had one this year that I put rhinestones on it, and it’s originally said parking in rear and I put parking in her rear, and I was just jumping around with those, passing them out to people, letting, let people play with it.

Dr Cat Meyer: And it allows us the ability to engage with sex, with, with, um, you know, perverted in a way, in a fun way. We’re engaging with it. It’s not, I’m not taking it on as, um, any end goal. Accept the joy of it. [00:53:00] And people get to test their, their feelings around it or what comes up for them, or how do they feel when they’re holding that they feel taboo.

Dr Cat Meyer: This is naughty. Oh my God, I’m holding this fucking sign. It’s really an inch and I’m doing it, and it’s, how does it feel for me?

Dr Cat Meyer: You know, burning Man. Uh, you know, coming back to what you said, you know, these things, there’s so many of these unhinged things that are said, and there are times where I’ve taken, taken things out and I’m like, oh my God, how are people gonna respond to this? And Burning Man is a great place to try this part of us out.

Dr Cat Meyer: You know, somebody might have offense to it. Um, and we can be with that. And, and again, do we collapse? Do we try to, do we go into, um, over-explaining or do we just allow somebody to have a, uh, uh, a different perspective? They don’t understand me and the discomfort of somebody not understanding me, um, [00:54:00] is a really great lesson.

Dr Cat Meyer: We all get to learn.

Joe Moore: Yeah. Um, yeah, it is an interesting place. Do you, like, how do you, 30 seconds or less, what is Burning Man to you? Like what? Um, so like, how, how do we, like, how do you like to talk about Burning Man? Like, I kind of don’t know that I like talking about Burning Man other than telling people not to go. Mm-hmm.

Joe Moore: Um, oh my God. And making jokes like Burning Man’s ruined my life and stuff like that, where I’m like, you know, on one hand, super serious, on the other hand, total joke. And it’s like, you know, what else can I think about now? You know, now that I’ve, I’ve done this weird thing and engaged in it too much. Yeah.

Joe Moore: Um, you,

Dr Cat Meyer: you know, it depends on who I’m talking to. Um, on Instagram, I’ve, I’ve gone for 10 years in a row, including the Renegade Burn and I. Uh, talk about what [00:55:00] I get out of the experience every time. ’cause to me it’s like a ceremonial experience. I go in there with an intention and then, um, and then I meet whatever experience come happens there.

Dr Cat Meyer: Mm-hmm. And after that, I’m, I’m journaling a lot and processing because there’s lessons I learn, there’s skills I learned, there’s ways I showed up that might be different than, than what I’ve done before. Um, I always do a different experience. I even one year camped, uh, completely solo in my own tent, um, with my own AC unit and, and tried that.

Dr Cat Meyer: And I met the part of me that, um, was self-reliant and could go out into the world and make friends and make joy and fun everywhere with every situation. I didn’t stop smiling the whole time and that was really important for me to learn another year. It was, um, my dad had just died and I went out there and shit, hit the fan everywhere and it was the hardest burn.

Dr Cat Meyer: I was also solo camping by myself ’cause I tried to repeat the year before. And what was powerful was to see all these dads come forward [00:56:00] and help me in each of these situations. So there was something really, um, important for me to learn, like the, the surrender into help and, um, as radical reliant as I felt that I was in the year before this one was, I need help.

Dr Cat Meyer: I need to be held. Um, there was one year I, I had been studying a lot around the Ellucian mysteries and um, Brian Morocco’s work is one of ’em. Um, the author of the Immortality Key and what I saw was. Burning man as a sense of allucian mystery, as in you take a journey and follow me with this. But you take a journey and it may be hard, and you arrive at this place where, uh, this container of ecstatic states, um, mystery, uh, drugs in psychedelics, you know, um, meeting other [00:57:00] people, expanded consciousness, um, spontaneous, um, ply providing you with something that you, you manifested or you were wanting.

Dr Cat Meyer: And, and, and so I saw it from more of like a, a, a mystical sense. Um, in that year. And so every year it’s, it’s something new and different. I think it’s just a container if you wanna treat it as such for evolution, personal evolution, or you can treat it, you know, it’s like the sacred and profane. It can be something that’s really sacred.

Dr Cat Meyer: It can also be profanity and it can be the combination of both of those where sacredness can be found in profanity. Um, you know, the divinity and the humanness. Um, when I’m saying sacred and profane, I’m referring to the humanness of that, and both of ’em can exist at the same exact time.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Joe Moore: There’s so much there in this like weird cultural experiment and there’s the best and [00:58:00] worst of humanity there. Mm-hmm. Everybody brings their best and worst to burning man. Yep. And it’s like, um, I, you know, I’ve learned so much. I’ve only gone four in a row. Mm-hmm.

Joe Moore: Um.

Joe Moore: I, you know, made a ridiculous decision to bring an art car second year, and you learned,

Dr Cat Meyer: I’ve learned a

Joe Moore: lot and, um, Uhhuh.

Joe Moore: Yeah, it’s fascinating and there’s so much education that can happen there. Self knowledge, you’re like, oh. And, you know, hopefully you have people to help you, um, kind of learn from it too. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Oh, how did I show up? Super fucked up here.

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you

Joe Moore: for telling me. Yeah, yeah.

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah. And I also think it’s such a microcosm of the macro world, you know, as much as it wants to be, it has this desire to be, um, non-central government that’s created as much as it wants to be free from judgment and, and you know, like a fluidity of a mix of people.

Dr Cat Meyer: There’s judgment, [00:59:00] there’s darkness, there’s curmudgeon, there’s, there’s crustiness, there’s, um, you can’t do this thing because you have money and, and you can’t plug and play. You can’t do this like. That’s exactly what the rest of the world is looking like. So it’s, I don’t, and I also don’t see anything wrong with that either.

Dr Cat Meyer: It’s just a mirror. Like it’s just a, this is what happens when you grow a society to be as big as it is. Um, does it turn up emulating the world that we’re trying to not be like?

Joe Moore: Yeah. Mm-hmm. And what do you think about like, um, pop media’s kind of presentation of it in the last couple years where it’s like the focus is on orgy dom only?

Joe Moore: Yeah. That’s a mirror and a half. Yeah. That’s all you know about. Yeah. And that’s interesting.

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah. People like sensationalism. People want entertainment. They wanna hear that there was cannibalism at Burning Man and [01:00:00] Ebola, you know, broke out in Mud Burn. You know, like, because, and here’s the thing is like media as entertainment, um, brings feeling into the body.

Dr Cat Meyer: It’s since it’s, it’s sensation, it’s panic, it’s anxiety, it’s fear, it’s, you know, like all these, um, uh, feelings where our everyday life might be really mundane. It might be, we might be numb to every day. We might be. So, uh, how many of us are reading. The news, you know, in, in this case, burning Man. Um, for the excitement, oh my God, that happened.

Dr Cat Meyer: Wow. That’s, I can’t even believe there’s an orgy dome where people have sex next to each other. Like, what? You know, so I, I, I just, I, I kind of laugh at it. I’m like, I remember after Mud burn, um, walking out, you know, two miles. And just being super joyful and going into [01:01:00] the, um, uh, what do you call that, the casinos, um, to clean up and, and rest finally, you know, ’cause I was exhausted and feeling I was in a totally different dimension walking through the casino floor.

Dr Cat Meyer: And people, you know, I look grungy, I look totally dirty, totally smelly. And people are like, you’re coming from, from from Burning Man. Did you get that Ebola? You know? And I’m like, I’m like, huh, yeah, I can’t, I can’t handle this right now. Um, no, I did not. But it’s interesting. But they’re, they’re like, it’s exciting for, for, um, the world and, um.

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah, we’re looking for entertainment, we’re looking for life. We’re looking for, you know, here’s the, coming back to eroticism, the word ologist, aliveness. And so are we finding aliveness in these, these, uh, shocking sensationalized news and yeah. Maybe. [01:02:00] Mm-hmm. Or do we wanna come into the vulnerable feeling aspect of pleasure, but most people don’t want that.

Dr Cat Meyer: ’cause that takes time.

Joe Moore: Right, right. Um, yeah. There’s so much here to dig into. Um, so we’re at roughly speaking time. We don’t need to hurry, but I wanna, you know, respect your day and like what are, what are some maybe kind of gems you or things we didn’t hit that you might wanna leave folks with as we kind of work towards the end here?

Joe Moore: Hmm.

Dr Cat Meyer: Oh, here’s something, um, I shared with you before we started recording. Um, so I had been, for the last eight, nine months, I’ve been dealing with long COVID symptoms, um, that activated my Epstein bar activated, um, old mold, uh, uh, poisoning that I had, uh, a couple years ago. Hmm. [01:03:00] And it’s left me for the eight months feeling, uh, dealing with chronic fatigue, foggy brain, um, pain in my body, like waking up and having pain in my body.

Dr Cat Meyer: Like all the inflammation markers were through the roof. And it tanked my hormones and it tanked my, um, cortisol levels and it tanked, like it just brought the worst out of the physical body. And I think so many people are struggling with this and they don’t know what they can do, um, as it relates to their sex life.

Dr Cat Meyer: Like right now, I’m working with amazing functional doctors who have me, you know, um, doing ozone and hormone therapy and, and um, you know, working with inflammation, glutathione, things like that. However, during this process, it was the greatest lesson for me of how do you stay erotic? How do you continue to nurture your sex life with yourself and with your partner [01:04:00] amid chronic illness, chronic pain, chronic fatigue?

Dr Cat Meyer: And the solution of that is coming into relationship with pleasure. And I’m gonna explain that more versus just what’s regurgitated on social media. Pleasure is really important. Pleasure. Um, is that the feel good sensation in our body when we can relax our nervous system to, to connect with it? In therapy, I teach this very basic practice called glimmers and glows.

Dr Cat Meyer: This is a somatic practice that when we stop and we can consciously connect with something in our environment, um, that might feel good and a feel good. Um, for people who, who, who haven’t had pleasure in their bodies or don’t have those reference points, is this subtle expansion of the body. We shift, um, into the parasympathetic system and, and, [01:05:00] uh, things open a little bit.

Dr Cat Meyer: Um, I have birds outside. I leave my windows open, I hear the birds outside and I’ll, I’ll just stop for a moment and hear the birds and I feel my body shift into that parasympathetic state and it feels nice. Now, that’s a glimmer and if you stay connected with that 30 seconds to a minute. Even it shifts into what’s called a glow, and it expands and deepens that regulated state and it expands the threshold of what you can tolerate.

Dr Cat Meyer: So pleasure is very important for the health of our nervous system, just on a basic level. Um, it’s not really basic, but on that, on that foundational level. Um, now when we’re chronically fatigued, when we’re in pain, a lot of times we don’t want to be in the body ’cause that’s where the source of this is.

Dr Cat Meyer: And yet you can connect with pleasure through just your [01:06:00] breath. Like if everybody just pauses and takes a slow breath in and a slow breath out, there’s something pleasurable about doing that. Or if you walk outside, I do this practice, um, I live in, um, in the mountains and I’ll go out for a walk and just be in tune with the sensations, the birds, the wind, the, the sound of the trees, the, the wind going through the trees, the feeling of my, uh, feet on the earth or the, my bare feet on the earth.

Dr Cat Meyer: And that increases your sensitivity, relaxes the body, especially if there’s any clenching going on in the body because of pain or, or fatigue. And you can see the whole body have a state change. It may not get rid of the, the pain, but, but there’s, you’re, you’re developing a relationship with the body still, or, um, when you’re engaging in with your partner.[01:07:00]

Dr Cat Meyer: You know, bringing in the presence, bringing in the slowness, connecting to what feels good, and acknowledging where you’re at. There were times where I told my partner, I don’t want penetration or I don’t want to orgasm. I even said, I don’t wanna orgasm, because it took a lot of energy in that moment and I didn’t have any.

Dr Cat Meyer: So allowing ourselves to, to fall into like a melted state of just touching and breathing and enjoying each other. And sometimes that would open up to more and sometimes that wouldn’t. But that continual coming back to things like that, while also honoring where the point, where the end point actually is, where the limit actually is, prevented me from going into a zero to 100, um, pattern of nothing at all or all the way.

Dr Cat Meyer: So many people do. If they start flirting, this is [01:08:00] gonna go to penetration, and I don’t want that, so I’m not gonna flirt at all. You know? Or, um, if I start making out with them, that’s gonna go to penetration. I don’t want that. So I’m just not gonna make out at all. I’m just gonna push their hand off of me.

Dr Cat Meyer: And that’s unfortunate because we’re losing all of these other realms that we might actually be available for or can even contribute to both our healing, um, of the physical body as well as the relationship.

Joe Moore: Mm-hmm.

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah. So that’s what I’ll tell people, like, just because there’s pain, just because you’re sick or just because you’re in this state doesn’t mean all of that’s not available to you. And, and you just, you can start with small things and that’s actually incredibly profound. Mm-hmm.

Joe Moore: Yeah. Yeah. It moves the door, um, the perceived realm of possibility and a lot of other things and mm-hmm.

Joe Moore: Actually getting pleasures, just medical. So, um, it is, it is.

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah. Mm-hmm. [01:09:00] And if you need psychedelic help, you know, think that that might also, might be available for you too. Ketamine is an antic. It’s, you know, prevents pain. It helps with some of the pain. So, um, or it helps lift the heaviness of depression and anxiety so that you can feel, connect and pleasure again or, um, so you can be in your body more easily too.

Joe Moore: Hmm. So where can people find out more about your private practice and workshops and mm-hmm. Other things you have going on?

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah, so they can go to dr kat meyer.com. That’s D-R-C-A-T-M-E-Y-E r.com. Um, they can also find me on Instagram at the same name. And, uh, my podcast is Sex Love Psychedelics on Spotify and, and, uh, iTunes and all those, all those podcasty things.

Joe Moore: Outstanding. Amazing. Well, Dr. K Myers has been lovely. Thank you so much. [01:10:00] I hope we get to do more. Um, we had a lovely conversation a while ago about the history of a lot of this stuff, and yeah, it’d be fun to dig into that in the future if you’re up for it.

Dr Cat Meyer: Oh God, let’s do it. Let’s be nerds and dig, dig deep into the past.

Dr Cat Meyer: Yeah.

Joe Moore: Love it. Well, thank you so much and, um, until next time. Appreciate it.

Dr Cat Meyer: Thank you.