Radical Approval and Existential Kink: The Foundation of Shadow Alchemy | Penetrate Radio, Episode 3
In Episode 3 of Penetrate Radio, Lucy Baldwin and Leila Matthews explore radical approval as the central foundation of Shadow Alchemy and Existential Kink.
Radical approval is exactly what it sounds like: radical, complete, total approval of what is. But that does not mean apathy, nihilism, passivity, or putting up with behavior that violates your truth. It means learning how to stop fighting reality long enough to meet yourself, your feelings, your desires, your no, your yes, and your life from a place of inner alignment.
This episode clarifies one of the most misunderstood parts of shadow work: how to approve of what is while still allowing change, action, boundaries, growth, and evolution.
Watch or listen to Episode 3 of Penetrate Radio here:
Key Takeaways
In this episode, Lucy and Leila explore:
radical approval as the foundation of Shadow Alchemy
why approval does not mean apathy, stagnation, or tolerating harm
how radical approval can give you more energy to act
why approving of your no is just as important as approving of your yes
how internal criticism tries, and fails, to help you improve
why change becomes easier when you stop hating your way into it
how radical approval can apply to relationships, habits, and self-image
the difference between judgment and discernment
why approving reality makes you more empowered, not less
how radical approval helps you reclaim dominion over your own experience
Radical Approval Is the Center of the Work
Radical approval is one of the core practices at the heart of Shadow Alchemy. It is the willingness to meet reality as it is, rather than immediately arguing with it, denying it, demonizing it, or pretending it should already be different.
This begins with the self. Before radical approval can become a spiritual ideal projected onto the world, it has to become a way of relating to your actual inner life. That means approving of your hurt feelings, your resistance, your anger, your exhaustion, your desire to change, and even the part of you that cannot approve yet.
This is why the practice is so powerful. It does not require you to become instantly peaceful. It asks you to stop making your current truth wrong long enough to feel it honestly.
Radical Approval Is Not Putting Up With Bullshit
One of the biggest misunderstandings around radical approval is that it means staying passive in situations that do not work for you.
It does not.
Radical approval is not the same as tolerating harm, abandoning your boundaries, or convincing yourself that you are fine when you are not fine. In fact, when practiced honestly, radical approval can make action clearer because you are no longer using all your energy to deny what is happening.
When you approve of the truth, you can finally respond to it. You can say, “This is what is happening. This is how I feel. This is what I need. This is what I am choosing now.”
That is very different from spiritualized resignation.
Approval Gives You Energy
Lucy and Leila point to a subtle but important truth: fighting reality is exhausting.
When you are busy saying no to what is already here, arguing with your feelings, denying your needs, or trying to make yourself different through self-attack, a huge amount of energy is locked in resistance. You may think the resistance is helping you change, but often it is simply draining the power you would need to act.
Radical approval releases energy because it stops the inner war. From that resting baseline of approval, you may find yourself more able to have the conversation, leave the relationship, change the habit, set the boundary, take the risk, or make the move that previously felt impossible.
Approval does not prevent change. It often makes change possible.
Approving the Desire to Change
A common fear is that if you approve of your flaws, wounds, habits, or unwanted patterns, you will lose the motivation to change them.
But this assumes that hatred is the only fuel for growth.
In Shadow Alchemy, the desire to change is also approved. You can approve of yourself exactly as you are and approve of the part of you that longs for evolution. You can be worthy now and still want to grow. You can love what is and still move toward what wants to become.
This is not a contradiction. It is a polarity.
When both sides are included, you are no longer trying to hate yourself into transformation. You are on your own side, and that is a much more powerful place from which to change.
Your Inner Critic Is Trying to Help
Leila speaks directly to the inner critical voice: the part that says you are not doing enough, not doing it right, not good enough, not improving fast enough, or not where you should be.
That voice usually believes it is helping. It thinks that if it shames you hard enough, compares you negatively enough, or points out your failures loudly enough, you will finally become better.
But negative comparison and berating do not usually create lasting transformation. They hurt your feelings. They contract the body. They create more resistance, shame, and avoidance.
Radical approval does not need to destroy the inner critic. It can include the critic too. The critic can be seen as a part that wants your betterment, but may need new tools.
You Do Not Have to Hate Something to Leave It
One of the most practical examples in this episode is relationship.
Many people believe they have to demonize another person in order to leave. They feel they must build a case, prove the other person is wrong, list the crimes, and convict them in the court of the mind before they are allowed to move on.
Radical approval offers a different path. You can see the other person as they are. You can see yourself as you are. You can recognize that your needs are not being met. And you can leave without needing to turn them into a villain.
This applies internally too. You do not have to hate a habit in order to outgrow it. You can recognize that it served you at one time, notice that it no longer fits your current needs, and move on without creating an inner drama of evil and punishment.
Judgment and Discernment Are Not the Same Thing
Radical approval does not erase discernment.
You can approve of someone’s existence and still not want to be close to them. You can approve of reality and still say no. You can approve of your own feelings and still choose a different action.
The problem is not discernment. The problem is the extra layer of negative judgment that turns everything into wrongness, badness, and battle.
When approval is present, the no becomes cleaner. It does not need hate to justify itself. It can simply be true.
This matters because a no that comes from radical approval is different from a no that comes from hatred. The first is grounded and sovereign. The second often becomes entangled with the very thing it is trying to destroy.
Radical Approval Is Not “Love and Light”
Both Lucy and Leila describe coming to shadow work partly because “love and light” spirituality felt insufficient. It often seemed to skip over the depression, violence, anxiety, resentment, hatred, ugliness, and complexity of real human experience.
Shadow work was compelling because it did not require pretending that everything was sweet. It allowed the dark material to be included.
But the paradox is that when the shadow is genuinely included, you may eventually arrive at a deeper kind of love. Not a brittle love that refuses to see darkness, but a love that has gone all the way down into what seemed unlovable and found life there too.
This is why radical approval is not sentimental. It is not naive. It is a fierce spiritual practice that can look at the whole human condition and still say yes.
Approving the No
Radical approval includes the no.
If you see something and your whole body says, “Absolutely not,” that response is part of what is happening. It does not need to be spiritually bypassed into a fake yes.
The practice is to approve of the no. Feel it. Let it be true. Then ask what the no wants to do.
When a no comes from a field of radical approval, it does not necessarily need to destroy, shame, or dehumanize. It can still be fierce. It can still be protective. It can still take action. But it is less likely to collapse into hatred.
This is one of the most important distinctions in the episode. Approval does not erase refusal. It purifies it.
Radical Approval and Empowerment
When you fight reality, you often become a victim of the things you cannot control. The more you insist something should not be happening, the more power it seems to have over your inner state.
Radical approval changes your position. You stop fighting the fact of what is, and you begin choosing your response. You can accept your yes, your no, your feelings, your truth, and your next action.
This is where empowerment begins. Not necessarily with outward achievement, impact, or productivity, but with how you choose to respond to yourself, other people, and the happenings of life.
You become less controlled by unconscious patterns and more able to author your own story.
Claiming Dominion Over Your Experience
Lucy and Leila connect radical approval to the name DOMINION because dominion is about claiming rightful sovereignty over your own inner experience.
If you do not claim dominion over yourself, something else will. Old conditioning, other people’s judgments, cultural scripts, trauma patterns, unconscious reactions, and inherited meanings can all take over when you are not consciously relating to your own field.
Dominion does not mean controlling the world. It means becoming the conscious steward of your responses, meanings, stories, and choices.
You may not control everything that happens, but you can return again and again to the place where you choose how to meet it.
Radical Approval Is a Heroic Practice
Leila names radical approval as a heroic path, and that feels accurate.
It is simple, but it is not always easy. It asks you to return to approval again and again, especially when judgment would be easier. It asks you to approve of the part that cannot approve, the part that wants to attack, the part that wants to collapse, the part that is hurt, the part that says no, and the part that wants to grow.
This kind of approval is not a mood. It is a discipline of perception.
You will fall out of it. You will forget. You will judge. You will contract. Then the practice is to return.
Community Makes Radical Approval Easier
Radical approval can be difficult to grasp from the outside because it is not only an idea. It is a field. It is something you feel when people relate to you from approval rather than judgment, correction, pity, or superiority.
That is why community matters. When you are in a space where people are practicing radical approval together, the nervous system begins to understand what the mind could not fully define. You witness other people being met in their truth, and something in you begins to soften.
This does not make the work effortless, but it makes it more accessible. The practice becomes contagious in the best way.
The Real Gift of Radical Approval
The real gift of radical approval is not that it makes life easy. It is that it ends the constant unconscious battle against life.
You can still act. You can still change. You can still leave, say no, grow, evolve, and fight for what matters. But you do not have to do it from hatred of what is.
You can approve of reality and respond to it.
You can approve of yourself and become more.
You can approve of the no and still let it move.
This is the foundation of Shadow Alchemy: nothing has to be exiled from the sacred field of transformation.
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speaker-1 (00:15.054)
Hello and welcome to another episode of Penetrate Radio. I am Lucy Baldwin and I'm here with Layla Matthews. So during this podcast, our intention is that about once a month, we're going to have an episode that's just me and Layla teaching on EK shadow alchemy and the foundations of this work.
Well, everything that we taught in Penetrate, we're just, gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna share the Penetrate good news. We're gonna share the Penetrate tools with you as they apply to your life.
Exactly. So we're starting this month with the sort of central foundational what I see as sort of the most important piece here to Shadow Alchemy in general, which is radical approval.
That's right. Radical approval.
Radical approval is radical. It is radical, complete, total, utter approval, starting with oneself and then projected outwards as much as possible.
speaker-0 (01:26.858)
Yeah, to one's experiences, to the other people that you meet, to the happenings in the world, to your human condition that you share with everyone else. And I mean, I think it's important to really let ourselves feel that it's okay. It's okay to be in approval.
by understanding that approval, radical approval doesn't mean that we like do nothing. It's not nihilism. Like we touched on this a little bit, I think, in our conversation with Danny and Holly. And it's important to understand that radical approval, when applied correctly, does not lead to stagnation. It doesn't lead to just put it, it's not.
It's not putting up with something. Radical approval is not synonymous with putting up with bullshit. Right?
Yeah.
And I think this is something that I see people struggle with when they start to get into the stream of shadow work, into the stream of radical approval, into the stream of, you know, being a yes to whatever is happening. It very quickly because I think because we don't often feel like terribly empowered that approval, like we just, we want that approval to like somehow comfort us in our circumstances.
speaker-0 (03:01.218)
and we imagine that just the approval will make everything okay. In truth, the approval is what makes everything okay on a deep spiritual inner level. And sometimes the deep, like the power that we get often, I'll say this, often the power that we get from that resting baseline radical approval.
speaker-0 (03:31.174)
gives us the energy to do what we couldn't do when we were busy saying no and fighting it and denying it and looking the other way because it was too scary or ugly or embarrassing.
Yeah, and I think of it also, mean, a huge part of this is just accepting ourselves as we are, which sometimes as we talk about and we'll talk about more, we'll probably do whole episode on it, is like accepting our no, accepting our like hurt feelings about something, accepting, like approving of ourselves in exactly as we are, which sometimes means like in discomfort, in constriction, in pain.
in having our feelings hurt and actually needing to just approve of ourselves in that. Sometimes we think that we should feel, I mean, so often we think that we should feel differently than we do. So that is, actually, comes from first having radical approval for yourself and your truth as it actually is. And then you can, and that's why I said like, and then projecting it outwards because I actually really think that we have,
It's not that we have to have it for ourselves because a lot of times it's easier to have approval for other people than ourselves. But I do think that when we're having or I know that when we have judgment for other people and we have opinions about other people, it's usually because of our own insecurities, our own inability, like it stems from us. So it's finding approval for yourself first, I think is key.
so that you can truly have it for others. And sometimes it's like just actually having approval for being hurt or not being able to sustain things that you think you should be able to sustain or not be able to do everything that you think that you should be able to do and having, you know, desires and impulses and thoughts that maybe don't align with your beliefs about how you should be.
speaker-0 (05:42.698)
Yes, exactly. you know, I really, I want to just say to all of the critical voices listening along with the dear readers or dear listeners, you know, the like the the dialogue that tells us that we're not doing good enough or we're not, you know, doing it right, or it should be different, we should be different or that that judgmental internal dialogue, I
I know it well, intimately, and I trust that what it's really after is for your own betterment. I know that that's what it wants for you. And we get tricked though, because the way that that voice has talked to us in telling us how wrong we are in doing that like negative comparison, it doesn't motivate. It doesn't motivate, it hurts our feelings. It's not doing what it wants to do.
And so I guess I want to encourage any critical voices out there who've been trying their darndest through negativity and, you know, berating your person. You know, maybe you maybe you might find some interesting tools, critical voice. You might find some interesting tools in this episode or some interesting food for thought, because it really truly is the radical approval of things as they are.
Additionally, the radical approval of the will towards improvement, those both exist, right? Like we can love what is, we can approve of what is, and also approve of the desire for evolution at the same time. And when those two things are both present, then change can really happen. Then we can really grow because we're on our own side consistently and we're like,
We're aligned. That's an example of alignment. You know, we're not fighting internally.
speaker-1 (07:47.014)
Yeah, I'm really glad you brought this up because this is something that students have brought up in our programs a lot where they're like, but wait, if I'm radically approving of my sort of like negative qualities, then, you know, what's to make me want to change them? And, you know, how do I become like better? How do I improve myself? And yeah, what Leila is saying is that you approve of those things because they're true and that's OK.
but also approving of and holding space for the part of you that wants to improve. So approving of the desire to change. so, you know, this is holding a polarity. It's both and. It's like, you're amazing and wonderful and worthy of love as you are. And you still have, like, we all have areas where we can grow. We all have potentials and opportunities available to us to become.
more of what we want to be and move in new directions that will feel incredibly fulfilling and wonderful to us. And so, yeah, just holding both, like I'm amazing and wonderful right now. And I'm okay. And with who I am, like I'm approving of myself as I am, even if even if it's uncomfortable.
And even if I, you know, I have all these stories about how I should be different. so great honor that side too, like approving of that too, the part of you that says you should be doing better because that part is trying to help you.
Yeah, I mean, I think about this, I think like the the metaphor that's coming up for me, that's also a real life situation is when I think about, you know, people in relationships where the relationship isn't working for one reason or another. And
speaker-0 (09:37.89)
There's a couple things that happen in that circumstance, is like, either we, like, we often look at the other person and start cataloging their flaws and wanting them to be different and wanting them to change. internally, there's some like, they're wrong. What I'm really trying to get at here is like, when we try to like leave a relationship, we often think that we need to like,
demonize the other person or like explain how they're wrong or bad or not deserving of your love or flawed or broken or toxic or messed up. Like we have to, we somehow feel like in order to end the relationship, because it's not working, we have to, you know, convict in the court of our minds, the other person of some heinous wrong. And that gives us like the reason why we can move on.
in a radical approval way, we can just look at that other person and say, you are the way that you are. I see you good or bad, toxic or not, whatever it is, you are the way that you are. I see that. And I, I'm not trying to change it. I'm not trying to deny it. I'm not trying to make excuses for it. I see you and I see me and I see my needs and they're not being met. So peace.
I am done now and you can go and I can go and there doesn't have to be this like horrid tension and horrid like, you know, breaking up friend groups over, you know, creating wrongness. Like obviously, obviously understand me that, you know, I get that people do horrible things and we want to let people know. But I also think that we're aware that sometimes people don't
commit crimes and we're just making up crimes in order to justify our sentence. Okay, so what I'm really trying to get at here is like, we can just love and accept that person. We can just accept that person as they are and just move on with our lives without getting without wasting our energy in the drama of trying to prove the badness. And what I'm really also trying to point to is that within ourselves, if we're trying to like break up with bad habits,
speaker-0 (12:03.508)
We don't have to like make them evil to get rid of them. We don't have to like break up with them and dump them and, you know, think about how horrible they were and how we're never going to talk to them again. You know what I mean? Internally, we can also just be like, wow, I see how that's not fitting my current needs and goals for myself. I see that, you know, that was OK for me for a time. And I'm moving on now. Like we do feel the energy that is just like
released when we're not trying to, you know, make sense of the world.
True hate. Yeah. And I think, yeah. And I mean, this is sort of the reason why we relate this to EK. Of course, you we're talking about shadow alchemy and I think of EK as a practice within shadow alchemy. But in EK, you actually, a big part of being able to get that get off is having approval for something. It's really hard to get off on something if you have shame around it. If you have...
Yeah, if you have this like tormented need to other it and because yeah, in order to receive like pleasure from something generally, unless you're getting off on shame, which you kind of have to approve of your shame to get off on it, right? I think the way that I come to radical approval is because I really see things as a beautiful, like perfect tapestry of reality.
And so it's just, it's like an art of just appreciating things as they are, just accepting them as they are. And also because, yeah, like grinding against things does not make it easier for me. I mean, which isn't to say that I don't grind against things, but I think that what we're saying here is that you can, you can let go of things. You can have things that you don't want in your life anymore.
speaker-1 (14:03.136)
without having to like hate them, without having to turn them into an enemy. So you can, and that's what we're saying, like the approval, it doesn't mean that you accept it necessarily. I mean, that's the wrong word.
Yeah, you I think, well, I mean, I think, you know, we're playing with like semantics here, but I know that, you know, the term that I had heard more often in my life was acceptance. And I really liked the the I really liked the new phrase, radical approval. And in this moment, it's hard for me to like really suss out what like acceptance is like, you know,
I'm definitely gonna acceptance has like a feeling of I'm going to take this in, you know, like I'm going to take it into myself, right? I I'm accepting it. Whereas like approving, I do, of course, obviously I can let things in, you know, I obviously can, but approval, I don't need to accept it to approve it. just approving is just saying, yeah, wow, that is the way that that is.
That's painful. That's wonderful. Yes, it is the way that it is.
Yeah, the way that I think it, because like, I mean, we have years of practice holding this. It's like there are people in my life who make decisions that I definitely don't agree with. Like I would never make that decision. And there is a part of me that's like, what are you doing? And so the for me, the practice is coming into a place of just trusting them, like approving of them. Just like, OK, that's not what I would do, but I'm not in your position.
speaker-1 (15:51.754)
So I'm going to just like, I wouldn't do that from, wouldn't choose that for myself. And maybe it makes me want to even change the dynamics of our relationship, but I'm not going to, I mean, in a lot of, it's not even not judgment because judgment.
in itself is neutral. And I think that humans are, we are, we just judge. That's what we do. We can't even control it. Like we just judge things. Good, bad, ugly, don't like, do like, like we're just, you know, green, blue. Everything is a fucking judgment. But, so, but it's more like I don't have to have a stake in this. can just like, I can just approve of it. I can just say, okay, like that's your decision.
I approve of that for you. And like really radically just get on the side of just assuming, just kind of like dumbly assuming that this is what is true and right for you in this moment. Even if I have all these judgments and opinions about how it might not be, like you have to follow your path. it's almost like faith. It's like trusting and having faith that they're going to like learn what they need to from that and just
approving of it. And it is counter to negative judgment. So, you I talked about judgment and how judgments are sort of neutral, right? They're just all over the place because we can have positive judgments and negative judgments. But I'm sort of seeing radical approval as stepping out of the place of making negative judgments and just kind of accepting that we don't know. We don't fully know.
Like we can't see the future. We don't actually know what's best. So just kind of letting go of the negative judgments and just like approving of people and just being like, wow, I can really feel how this is what's true for you. Even if it's a little, you know, crazy or out there or seem self destructive. It's like what people need sometimes is and this is ourselves, too. It's like is to just be approved of.
speaker-1 (18:04.23)
And it's also, it's just a magic in and of itself where, so often we make decisions, we kind of get stuck in these patterns and we grind against that negative judgment and we know it's coming. And so when we're expecting it from ourselves and others and it's not there and we find approval, we're met with approval, it actually just like, sometimes it just completely sheds everything. Like everything just completely shifts and we're able to like be seen in our truth and then just
let it go or shift our relationship with the thing.
you
Yeah, I mean.
speaker-0 (18:45.558)
I'm just really thinking about radical approval in relationships. And just because it's all they're all metaphors for each other, you know, we're we're we're having a relationship with ourself in addition to with others. And we're having a relationship to our experience, you know. And it's really just making me feel how.
so often are like caring is like the covert demand that someone be different. And how radical it is to give up the demand that someone be different and that things be different. And I don't know, I guess I just want to read this quote that I was sharing with Lucy when we thought about talking about this.
So this is a quote from the subtle art of not giving a fuck, a counterintuitive approach to living a good life written by a guy named Mark Manson. And the quote is, the desire for more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And paradoxically, the acceptance of one's negative experience is itself a positive experience. It's what the philosopher Alan Watts used to refer to as the backwards law.
The idea that the more you pursue feeling better all the time, the less satisfied you become, as pursuing something only reinforces the fact that you lack it in the first place.
And reading this, I'm really struck by, you know, it's funny, the idea that the more you pursue feeling better all the time. I, know, myself as an Enneagram seven, and as a rather happy-go-lucky, comfort-seeking, you know, upbeat kind of person, I was like, yeah, feeling better, like feeling good, you know, feeling like up and happy and whatever. But I'm also realizing that I think that equally applies to the meaning of feeling better as in like,
speaker-0 (20:53.734)
more than or improving or you know, do you know what I mean? Like if you're always pursuing feeling better.
that the less satisfied you become, the less satisfied because pursuing only reinforces the fact that you lack it in the first place. And I really, I just love the truth of that. It's so, so real. I see this, I just see it all the time. I, I, I guess I'm really glad that we're talking about this and I feel like we could talk about this every time we talk Lucy and it would still be good.
Because in my personal experience of human beings having coached and taught and listened to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people professionally and casually, it seems to me that this is the core, one of the very core.
one of the very core issues that robs people of presence and joy and satisfaction in life.
speaker-1 (22:04.014)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I feel I feel a little bit called out because so much of my work is around, you know, helping people feel good. And it's interesting because, you know, I never know who I'm speaking to. Some of the people that we're speaking to are not feeling good. And so I want to help them feel good. Yes. And then some of the people that I'm speaking to.
already feel good and are on this spiritual quest to be, it's either a spiritual quest or it's like, you know, getting better and better all the time. And we talk about that in our programs, like getting better and better all the time. So I'm feeling like a little bit called out in this moment. I also, this is bringing me back to this term that my husband and I coined a few years ago called spiritual fragilization, which is this
It's sort of the opposite of spiritual bypass where you just like keep digging and digging and digging and a fractal of course is a repeating pattern. So the idea is like you just keep digging into yourself and you just keep finding the same repeating pattern and you just go deeper and deeper and deeper and like ever smaller little bits of yourself.
And you just keep finding yourself there, of course. It's just the same thing day over. it's actually just as destructive as spiritual bypass because you're not just living... At some point, it's like we just kind have to let go of the stories. We just kind of have to accept ourselves as we are and stop trying to dig into our childhood and our wounds and our pain and just kind of take it...
as it is and move forward. I think, yeah, I think it's one of my biggest criticisms of this field that we're both in.
speaker-0 (23:57.856)
Is the is which the say your criticism.
Hmm.
is that there can be a lot of and I do I think that we actually I'm just gonna say because we both have this awareness like we do a really good job. I think for the most part not going into this but it's like the criticism is that it's just a lot of self-study it becomes almost like almost narcissistic to a point where it's like just a lot of sort of studying oneself and and obsessing over this like
need for constant improvement. I think that what's at the core of it though is this, at least for me, like my sort of like spiritual needs, right? It's like the desire to connect with some higher powers and grow and to always be growing and evolving and you know.
Well, I think that's the really beautiful thing that the truth is that the universe, the world, life, you know, whatever it is that we are a manifestation of and living out, know, whatever is living out through us, its tendency is towards change. Change is the constant. And development.
speaker-0 (25:21.026)
You know, we see that things develop. We can look into the world and see that everything develops. Whether, whether we want to say it's improvement or not, you know, we could look at winter very judgmentally and say, this is a degradation and this is a falling apart and this is a dying, but you know, finding death ugly is only a manifestation of your own fear. So.
Death is also, you know, like it's all, it's all developing. There's always development. There is always change. There is always evolution. There is always, you know, growth moving on. There's always moving on. So why do we think that we have to hate our way into the happening of what is already happening anyway? Like we could just trust that it's going to be different.
And we can, I mean, you can, you can trust that it's going to be different later.
There is a truth that when you attend to the, yes, I see, I approve. Okay. You know, sort of open-minded, open-hearted, non-argumentative. Like, when you align with the non-argumentative way of experiencing life, your life improves.
Because you are not in a constant unconscious battle at all times. You know, it's great for your health. You know, it's like there's, it's just better. I think it's funny because what drew me to shadow work was the idea that like love and light is just like bullshit. Anybody can look at their own experience and the world and say it is not all peaches and cream.
speaker-0 (27:21.452)
that just, you know, you have to be freaking stupid to think that that's the case. So I was always just so annoyed with everybody being like, you know, it's all love and it's all wonderful. and, and then I, and then I just remember, you know, embracing shadowy stuff and finding space for love and approval for all the yucky, horrible, the depression, the anxiety, the violence.
the hate and finding approval for it until I came out the other side and was like, you know, it's really all, it's really all love, you know, by the way, it's like good vibes through and through where we're all just trying to have a good time. And it's not that I condone any of that stuff. It's just that I get that that's part of the happening. It's part of what's going on. It's part of what it is. And, you know, I still like to show up for the things that I believe in.
And yet I'm also just, understand that other people are showing up for what they believe in. And there we are, all of us doing the exact same thing. I get them. You know what I mean? Like I get other people because I also am a person. You know, you see, does making sense. Does that make sense?
Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, I went on a similar. I started more in the like, well, I was in the medicine world, as we know. And then I went and then I heard about spiritual bypass and got into shadow work and was like, yeah, this is really like I can really sink my teeth into this because it's kind of like claiming those parts of ourselves. But what's funny is that in that world, there was so much vice signaling.
You know, it was like there was virtue signaling and then everybody switched to vice signaling. And then I was like, I'm just tired of all the signaling. I'm just bored of all the signaling. Can we just like be people now? But but then but what I came to realize is like that is part of the human way is that we're all signaling all the time. That's what we do. And so even finding approval for that and finding approval for just everything.
speaker-1 (29:28.718)
That's what we're talking about. Just literally having approval for just like things are the way that they are.
And we can respond accordingly, you know, according to whatever, whatever we have inside of us that meets the what it is and says, well, this is how I feel in response to that. You know what I mean? Like that's also part of what's happening and we can approve of that. So if like we see something happening and we're like, fuck no, then like approval of that. Let's what, what does the fuck know want to do?
Let's let that go. Let's approve of that energy, you know? And I just really, you know, and and I trust and I trust, I trust fuck knows that are motivated from radical approval of everyone. Because when you have radical approval, you don't have hate in your heart. You don't want to kill, destroy and eliminate. You know, you don't, why?
So I just, I trust the reactions that come when everything is approved of.
Yeah, yeah, because the when you think that thing when you get in the stance of like wrong bad no without approval, you end up becoming what you that is what that is what breeds evil, right? That is what that is how you become evil, because then you have to destroy the other thing and destroy the other side. And so the
speaker-1 (31:14.358)
like exactly what you're saying. The fuck no that comes from this approving side of us, right? It's still a no, but there's approval. It's...
is a completely different energy. And you end up having a different approach, which is, you know, it's like, can, I can have approval and space for you as you are. And I'm also not going to go along with that.
Yes. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, I really, I really can't say. And well, I was thinking about this. This occurred to me. just want everyone to know that radical approval is totally within your grasp. It's, it's the essence of who you are. And also you, you are a hero. If you take it seriously and carry it into.
every aspect of your life. It is a heroic endeavor to really and really fully connect with and trust and believe in and return to radical approval always. So, you know, we're I feel like we're talking, you know, I just I just want you to know that it's.
speaker-0 (32:51.278)
It's an undertaking and it's feat to accomplish it. the pursuit of it is worthy and honorable and commendable. And also, if you want to just continue being miserable, I get it. Being a hero is hard work.
Really giving yourself to the heroic task of radical approval is hard work. I understand, I understand, you know, falling off of it here and there. And, and also I just, I guess I just want to say what I'm really trying to get at is like, I commend you. I commend you soldier. Like I believe in you and like, I know how hard it is. I know that it's not.
it's both easy and hard. What am I trying to say? It's like, it's not simple. It's not obvious. And it takes your attention because it's very easy to just...
speaker-0 (33:55.084)
say no, you know, it's very easy to hide behind judgment, negative judgment.
speaker-0 (34:04.312)
Do you know, Lucy, like everybody in the world will listen to your story of how things aren't right and many people will agree. Do you know?
Mm-hmm, yeah.
So the path of radical approval is a heroic one. And that's one of the reasons why we have the Dominion community, because it's nice to have companions in the quest. It's nice to have other people who are committed to the same returning to approval, returning to approval, returning to approval. Because
Not everybody's doing that and it can be easy to forget. You know what I'm saying, Lucy?
Yeah, well, and I also think that just being around because we have such an amazing community and so being around like just coming to the calls and even just seeing how people hold that and seeing what that looks like in relationship and in conversation, it spreads it. it's almost to me, it feels infectious. Like when you come into these communities, like you. You you experience the holding of that and you experience it.
speaker-1 (35:24.366)
towards you and it kind of like cracks you open. Because I do feel like as we're going through this podcast, I'm like, but how can I kind of, I'm always, you know, I'm always trying to like, get really practical like brass tacks, like, okay, but how do they apply this? Like, how can I convey it to people such that they can, like, use this and apply it and do it and really like grasp what we're saying in a very practical, like useful way, because that's always what I want for people.
And I think that the community really is kind of the answer. If you are listening to us and you're like, but I don't know, I don't like, don't fully understand it. It's like being in the field of it, being held by it, being in conversation, witnessing it, that you'll, you'll get a sense of it. It's like, you'll know it when you see it and it will, it will change you. Just like being on these calls will change you if you're, if this feels like foreign to you. And if it feels
like, yes, this is what I want, this is how I want to relate to people, then it will just feel really good to be in community with other people who are already practicing this. And the beauty is that we are, like this is everybody in Dominion is practicing this to lesser and greater degrees working on it. And you can feel that and it's amazing.
Yeah.
Yep.
speaker-0 (36:48.846)
I just want like, I just want to say that I love, I love the name Dominion, Lucy, because I really do believe, you know, Dominion has these like, you know, like, it's like, the thing that I have Dominion over is like the things that I control, right? Like I am in charge of, I am the Lord and master of my Dominion. I'm the Dom of my Dominion.
Right. And so that has like a negative connotation for a lot of people, but I'm so glad that we are willing to just fully embrace the shadowy world of dominion and say, yes, we all have the right. And in fact, the imperative to claim dominion over like over that, which actually is our dominion, you know, and that is our conscious waking experience and.
reactions to and responses to ourself, others, and life's happenings. That is every person's rightful domain. You are in charge of that. And I want everyone to be a good and powerful leader of their dominion. Do know what I mean, Lucy?
Yeah, and also because if you don't claim dominion over yourself, somebody else has dominion over you. And so who is that? It's like whoever, you know, it's like whoever you're responding to unconsciously or whoever you learned from implicitly and explicitly, it's like whoever you sort of absorbed into you and kind of became as your automatic responses to things like...
that becomes who has dominion over you. It's not you. It's not your choosing. It's these unconscious patterns. It's people who are telling you what to do that you're just sort of like going along with. It's like society. It's our culture in ways that you might not want.
speaker-0 (38:51.95)
Absolutely. Yes. like claim, claim the dominion, claim it, you know, like be in charge of it. Own it, be empowered from that place. I really want that for people. That's like, that's like, honestly, I'm feeling emotional because that is like, so I really believe in people's empowerment and
And like autonomy and sovereignty, like we are all like important centers of reality here, you know, we are all that. And so often I like see empowerment and like taken into like the world of action. You know, like, like
Like you'll be, you'll know the, like someone's level of empowerment by how much like outward impact or action or like doing, you know, but I really feel like empowerment absolutely comes from within and it has a lot to do with how we choose to respond, what we choose things to mean, what we, what we tell ourselves is happening.
who we tell ourselves we and others are. And we have so much control over that if we allow ourselves to notice, to notice that we do.
Yeah. Yeah. And just bringing it back to radical approval. When we have that radical approval for ourselves, for existence as it is, we're able to face it from a place of empowerment because we're not fighting with reality. When you're fighting with reality and you're treating everything with
speaker-1 (40:42.734)
and you're approaching things with negative judgment, you sort of automatically put yourself in a disempowered position. You become a victim to things that you have no control over. And when you make the choice to be in radical approval and to accept your no and accept your yes and just be fucking true to yourself, you become the author of your story.
speaker-0 (41:15.986)
Yes.
Yes, and you don't need anyone to rescue you.
speaker-0 (41:25.324)
You can have actual friends. You can have actual relationships. You can have actual adult human interactions because you're not needing to be saved because you're okay, because everything is okay. And everyone is and will be and always was.
Yeah. Lila, is there anything else we want to talk about?
before we close this episode.
I mean, there's always more things on my mind, but I think we can save them for another time. yeah. Radical approval has changed my life for sure. And I, and I trust that you'll hear other people, on this podcast talking about how it has changed their life as well. And I hope that that continues to give a taste. you know, I hope the aroma is given off and you can find your way there.
Yeah. Yeah, I'm just having this little thought that I don't want to go on whole nother tangent, but I'm having this thought about, you know, we talk about people talk a lot about empathy. And and I, you know, I like to think about empathy and compassion. And I actually think that compassion is a more healthy approach than empathy, because you're not like taking on people's stuff. But that's a whole nother that's that would actually be a tangent. But with radical
speaker-0 (42:53.762)
that for another episode.
Yeah, with radical approval, you can have, I mean, that is true compassion. That is how you access actual true compassion or empathy or whatever we want to call it, is through approving of people. And I just, want to say like in relationship, you know, with yourself and others, if you can just approach people with approval, it changes everything.
speaker-0 (43:26.752)
Yeah, I mean, we'll say more.
speaker-1 (43:32.505)
Okay, well, thank you so much for listening to another episode of Penetrate Radio. And we'll be with you again. And our episodes come out every Friday. So we look forward to seeing you next Friday. Bye. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of Penetrate Radio. I have a free guided existential king practice if you are somebody who is new to this work, if you're new to EK, if you haven't read the book.
if you're just not a reader, or if you need a refresher, you can get this, you can download it right now for free and use it to learn how to do EK and just follow along as a guided practice. It is meant for beginners. So I just want to let you know that that's available and you can find it at the link in the description. Also in the link in the description, you can find more information about our membership dominion, a field of radical approval.
Dominion is less than the cost of a single manicure each month, and it's just a wonderful place to do this work in community. We have seen time and time again that being witnessed and witnessing others in this work is wildly helpful and validating. The last thing I want to mention is that a lot of our guests talk about the coach certification program, Penetrate, that they went through with myself and Layla. I want to let you know that we are going to be offering that same program again in 2027.
And you can find a waitlist in that same link if you're interested in getting information about that when it becomes available. And I think this goes without saying, but if you see anyone else offering a program called Penetrate, that is also a coach certification program related to this kind of work, that is absolutely not the same program that Leila and I have taught and that the people in this podcast are talking about when they talk about our coach certification program.
Penetrate. So I just wanted to make that super clear. Leila and I share a lot of hard-won wisdom through that program, so if we're not the ones teaching it and offering it, then it is definitely not the same program. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of Penetrate Radio, and I will see you in the next one. Ciao.
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Penetrate Radio explores shadow work, desire, magic, embodiment, self-honesty, radical approval, Existential Kink, and the hidden patterns that shape our lives from underneath.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is radical approval?
Radical approval is the practice of completely approving of what is, including your feelings, resistance, desire, no, yes, current reality, and the part of you that wants to change.
Does radical approval mean putting up with bad behavior?
No. Radical approval does not mean tolerating harm or abandoning boundaries. It means seeing reality clearly so you can respond from truth rather than resistance or denial.
Can I radically approve of myself and still want to change?
Yes. In fact, radical approval includes the desire to change. You can approve of yourself as you are and also approve of the part of you that longs for growth and evolution.
How is radical approval different from spiritual bypassing?
Spiritual bypassing avoids difficult feelings by pretending everything is fine. Radical approval includes the difficult feelings directly, including hurt, anger, refusal, grief, discomfort, and the honest no.
Why is radical approval important in Existential Kink?
Existential Kink depends on the ability to approve of hidden, taboo, unwanted, or charged parts of experience. Radical approval creates the field where shadow material can be felt, integrated, and transformed.
Next Steps
If this episode resonated with you, the next step is DOMINION: A Field of Radical Approval.
DOMINION is Lucy Baldwin’s space for practicing radical approval, shadow integration, desire work, and the deeper transformation at the heart of Shadow Alchemy.