Relationship Therapy, ACT, and Existential Kink With Adela | Penetrate Radio, Episode 4
In Episode 4 of Penetrate Radio, Lucy Baldwin speaks with Adela, a certified Existential Kink and Shadow Alchemy coach, couples therapist, and associate professor teaching research methods at a university in London.
Together, they explore the relationship between Existential Kink, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, couples work, attachment theory, anxiety, embodiment, and the way shadow work can help people become more flexible, alive, and present in their relationships.
This conversation is especially useful because Adela brings both deep clinical experience and a lived love of Existential Kink. She is not interested in using shadow work as a clever idea to weaponize against a partner or as a way to bypass pain. Instead, she points toward a more embodied and compassionate use of the work: accepting what is present, making friends with sensation, and choosing actions that create a bigger, freer life.
Watch or listen to Episode 4 of Penetrate Radio here:
Key Takeaways
In this episode, Lucy and Adela explore:
Existential Kink through the lens of couples therapy and relational healing
why EK should not be weaponized between partners
how radical approval supports couples work
the overlap between Existential Kink and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
why arguing with thoughts does not always help
how ACT can serve as a bridge into deeper shadow work
Adela’s experience of working with anxiety as a “dragon” in the spine
why insight alone is not always enough to change behavior
how attachment patterns can change and evolve
why over-identifying with stories can limit intimacy and presence
how shadow work helps update our inner working models
why being alive can become more erotic, flexible, and fun
Existential Kink Meets Relationship Therapy
Adela brings a rare combination to this conversation. She is trained in therapy, she works with couples, she teaches research methods, and she has gone deeply into Existential Kink and Shadow Alchemy as a student and practitioner.
This matters because relationship work is one of the places where shadow material becomes most obvious. Our partners tend to activate the patterns we would rather not see: longing, resentment, fear, attachment, control, disappointment, projection, and the secret pleasure of familiar conflict.
Existential Kink can be powerful in that territory, but Adela is careful about how it is applied. In couples work, the goal is not to point at your partner and say, “You must secretly love disappointing me,” or “You have a kink for abandonment.” That would turn the work into a weapon.
The more skillful move is to use radical approval to soften blame, increase compassion, and help both people take more responsibility for their own experience.
Do Not Weaponize Shadow Work Against Your Partner
One of the most important cautions in this episode is that Existential Kink can be misused in relationships.
If one partner uses the language of shadow work to diagnose or accuse the other, the work loses its transformative power. Instead of creating honesty, it becomes another form of control. Instead of helping each person turn inward, it becomes a way to win the argument.
This is why radical approval is so important. In a relationship, radical approval begins with the assumption that everyone is doing the best they can from inside their current patterns, wounds, skills, and limitations.
That does not mean excusing harm or avoiding boundaries. It means reducing the extra layer of blame so that each person can become more honest about what is actually happening inside them.
Radical Approval in Couples Work
Radical approval can change the emotional field of a relationship because it interrupts the reflexive move into condemnation.
When people feel hurt, they often become convinced that the other person is the problem. That may be partially true, but it is usually not the whole truth. There is also an internal experience happening: a wound, a belief, a nervous system response, a story, a fear, or a pattern of longing and disappointment.
Radical approval gives couples more room to notice these layers without immediately turning them into moral charges. It allows both people to become more curious. What is happening in me? What is happening in you? What are we repeating? What is the familiar pain that we keep recreating together?
That kind of curiosity is very different from accusation.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy as a Bridge to EK
A central theme of this conversation is the relationship between Existential Kink and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
Adela explains that traditional cognitive behavioral approaches often involve examining thoughts, disputing them, and looking for evidence or counter-evidence. This can be useful in many situations, but it does not work equally well for every pattern. In obsessive thinking, rumination, or certain forms of anxiety, arguing with the thought can actually strengthen the loop.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy offers a different approach. Instead of fighting thoughts and feelings, it teaches people to change their relationship with them. Thoughts can be allowed to play in the background like radio. Emotions can be allowed to move through the body as energy.
Existential Kink takes this acceptance even further. It does not stop at tolerating unwanted sensations. It asks whether there may be joy, delight, pleasure, eros, or power inside the very material we have been resisting.
When Arguing With Thoughts Backfires
Many people try to heal by arguing with themselves.
They try to prove that the anxious thought is irrational, the fear is not true, the insecurity is exaggerated, or the obsession is baseless. Sometimes that helps. But sometimes the argument becomes another version of the problem.
If the mind is already looping, disputing the thought may simply give it more attention. The person becomes trapped in endless analysis, self-reassurance, and mental checking. This can be especially difficult in patterns like obsessive thinking or rumination.
Adela’s framing is helpful because it shifts the goal. The goal is not always to defeat the thought. Sometimes the goal is to let the thought exist without letting it dominate your behavior.
That shift creates room for shadow work, because once you stop fighting the thought, you may be able to feel what is underneath it.
From Acceptance to Delight
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy invites us to stop fighting unwanted thoughts, emotions, and sensations. Existential Kink then asks an even stranger and more radical question:
Can this become erotic, alive, delightful, or even fun?
This does not mean forcing yourself to like pain. It does not mean gaslighting yourself. It means discovering that some unwanted experiences contain energy that has been trapped by resistance.
When you stop pushing the yucky stuff away, you may find that it is not only tolerable. It may contain force, humor, courage, desire, or vitality. That is where Existential Kink becomes more than acceptance. It becomes alchemy.
The Dragon in the Spine
One of the most vivid moments in the episode is Adela’s story about working with a feeling of near-constant tension and anxiety.
Through practice with another coach, she was guided into a deeper relationship with the sensations in her body. Rather than treating the anxiety as an enemy, she made friends with it. What she found was an image of a dragon living in her spine.
The dragon had a message: the tension was readiness for action.
This is a beautiful example of how shadow work can transform a symptom into information. The anxiety was not merely a problem to eliminate. It was energy. It was readiness. It was a force that wanted to move.
For Adela, the medicine was not to become calmer by suppressing the dragon. It was to act more, do more, and stop repressing her desire to be present in the world.
Anxiety as Repressed Action
Adela’s story points to a broader truth: some anxiety is energy that has nowhere to go.
This does not mean all anxiety is simply a desire for action. Anxiety has many sources and should be met with care. But in this case, the body was carrying activation that wanted movement. The tension was not random. It was trying to help.
When shadow work brings us into direct contact with sensation, the body can reveal meanings that the mind would not have found through analysis alone. Instead of asking, “How do I get rid of this?” we can ask, “What is this sensation trying to do? What does it know? What does it want from me?”
Sometimes the answer is not a story. Sometimes the answer is action.
Insight Alone Is Not Enough
Lucy and Adela also discuss a limitation of talk therapy: insight alone does not always change behavior.
Understanding where a pattern came from can be useful. There are moments when it matters to examine the origin story, revisit an earlier wound, or understand the formative experience that shaped an inner model. But repeatedly telling the same story can also become a way to stay identified with it.
Adela is interested in tools that help people experiment. What happens if you relate to the thought differently? What happens if you feel the sensation instead of avoiding it? What happens if you choose an aligned action even while discomfort is present?
This is where the work becomes practical. The point is not to collect explanations. The point is to live differently.
Attachment Patterns Can Change
Because Adela works in relationship therapy, Lucy asks about attachment styles and whether they can change.
Adela’s answer is yes.
Attachment patterns are not fixed identity labels. They are working models: internal representations of self, others, relationship, safety, closeness, and responsiveness. These models are learned through experience, and because they are learned, they can also be updated.
This is a deeply hopeful frame. Instead of saying, “I am avoidant, therefore I cannot be there for you,” a person can begin to see avoidance as a pattern, not a prison. The pattern may have reasons. It may have protected something. But it can also evolve.
Shadow work helps because it brings unconscious models into contact with new experiences, new choices, and new ways of being.
Be Careful With Over-Identification
Adela expresses suspicion around over-identification with stories.
This is an important warning. The story “I am avoidant” can become a cage. So can “I am anxious,” “I am broken,” “I am bad at relationships,” or “I am traumatized.” These descriptions may point to something real, but if we grip them too tightly, they can begin to organize our future.
Shadow Alchemy is not about denying the story. It is about refusing to become trapped inside it.
You can honor the truth of what happened without making it the whole of who you are. You can recognize a pattern without turning it into a permanent identity. You can understand the past without letting it dictate the limits of your life.
Updating the Models That Shape Your Life
Lucy offers a helpful framing: Shadow Alchemy can be understood as a collection of tools for updating the inner models that shape how we function.
We learn through explicit teaching, family dynamics, culture, relationship, pain, pleasure, reward, punishment, and repeated experience. Over time, the psyche builds models of what is possible, safe, lovable, dangerous, shameful, desirable, and true.
Those models influence everything. They shape relationships, money, creativity, visibility, embodiment, and spiritual life.
Shadow work helps us find the places where the model is outdated. Then, through sensation, approval, experimentation, and aligned action, we can begin to update it.
The Expansive Aim of the Work
Adela returns again and again to the expansive purpose of both Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Existential Kink.
The goal is not merely to reduce symptoms, although that can happen. The goal is to live a bigger, more flexible, more connected, more authentic life.
When people are on autopilot, they spend enormous energy pushing away unwanted thoughts, emotions, and sensations. The more they do not want it, the more they have it. Then they may turn to avoidance behaviors like overeating, online shopping, doom scrolling, or endless distraction, which often create more shame and constriction.
The alternative is not to become perfectly calm. The alternative is to stop organizing life around avoidance. When you are no longer spending all your energy fighting discomfort, more life becomes available.
Why Not Make It Erotic and Fun?
Adela’s final line captures the spirit of the episode beautifully:
Being alive is interesting and challenging. Why not make it erotic and fun?
That is the heart of this conversation. Life includes anxiety, relationship pain, attachment patterns, repetitive stories, unwanted thoughts, and uncomfortable sensations. We can spend our lives fighting all of that, or we can find stranger, more creative, more embodied ways to meet it.
Existential Kink does not remove the challenge of being alive. It makes the challenge more conscious, more workable, and sometimes more pleasurable.
That is not a small thing.
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speaker-0 (00:00.046)
Hey, hello, hello. Welcome to another episode of Penetrate Radio. Today I have Adela with me here and Adela is a certified EK and shadow alchemy coach. She is a couples therapist and an associate professor teaching research methods at a university in London. Welcome Adela. I'm so excited to talk to you today.
speaker-1 (00:23.958)
Hello Lucy, I'm very excited to be here today.
speaker-0 (00:26.958)
So, Adela, how do we get to know each other? How did we meet?
speaker-1 (00:33.582)
Okay, we met actually, we met two years ago when I was in one of your Planetary Magic classes, Saturn, but we got to know each other much, much better because you're one of my amazing teachers for the EK coaching certification program, Penetrate. And we spent six very, very intense months working together. And it was,
It was honestly one of the hardest and also one of the best experiences of my life.
speaker-0 (01:09.358)
Really, that program was? Yes.
speaker-1 (01:12.544)
Yes, absolutely.
speaker-0 (01:14.35)
Wow, even after all of your various trainings and... Yep. Yep.
speaker-1 (01:19.822)
Yes, definitely. Yes, because EK gave me something that I didn't quite get from exposure to any other forms of therapy.
speaker-0 (01:33.59)
So tell me, how did you discover existential king?
speaker-1 (01:36.43)
I was recommended Existential King by Kindle, think, because I had just finished listening to an attachment book called Polysecure. And I saw this, I saw the very sexy cover of the Existential King book. And I like the cover. I like the name. I clicked on it. I listened to it in a couple of sittings and I thought it was amazing.
And that's how I introduced it.
speaker-0 (02:10.84)
I have read that poly secure book actually a long time ago.
speaker-1 (02:14.914)
Yeah, when I discovered it, I had been cultivating a crush, like very, carefully for maybe a period of two years. And I was, I had discovered the pleasures of longing to a degree that I hadn't before.
Everything in the book just seemed to resonate that much with so much with with my experience with the pleasures that I had in the longing and the sadness and lack of fulfillment of this desire that I had for someone else and it resonated with me very much because I Remember even now I remember being very sad and lonely
during that time of my life. But seeing myself as some kind of character in a French independent movie, I was listening to sad music, I was definitely cultivating this kind of sadness and longing. And I also remember saying to myself, very pretentiously, I wear my longing like a perfume. How ridiculous is that? But also,
how EK consistent. So when I listened to EK, was like, yes, this book speaks to me. This book summarizes my experience in a really, really beautiful way. And it just made me look at suffering, my own and everybody else's in a slightly different way. So that was my impression of EK in a very superficial way. And then I...
And obviously it's a beautiful book. really enjoyed listening to it because it's so beautifully read by Carolyn. And after that, I started listening to the podcast with Leyla and I was so intrigued by Leyla. I couldn't find anything about her online. I was so curious about it. And then I found myself on one of Carolyn's, on Carolyn's mailing list.
speaker-1 (04:36.938)
when you started to advertise Saturn and I really, really reacted to that change in tone in those emails. I, yeah, I felt that you were speaking to me. So I had to, I had to sign up for that course and I was introduced to you and Leila as teachers, as an amazing duo of teachers. And I stayed.
I stayed for Penetrate and for a couple of other really, really cool coaching programs that you offered. And we had a lot of fun. I learned so much from you, from both of you to the point that when I go about my day and I encounter any difficulties, I can hear your voices in my head. I can imagine what you...
I can imagine what you would be saying about what's happening in my life. So, yeah, I'm a very, very enthusiastic student of you and Laila.
speaker-0 (05:45.57)
Thank you so much for saying that and sharing that. I'm so curious, because you work with couples, and I'm curious how you apply EK in your practice, or if you do, and if so, how?
speaker-1 (06:04.642)
That's a really great question. I have been working with individuals actually a little bit and I'm working towards developing an EK protocol for couples, but it's very much in the initial experimental stages because the last thing that I want
is for the couple to weaponize the idea of decay and point fingers at each other and being like, you're doing this because you have a king for, I don't know, disappointing women and you're doing this because you have a king for something else. So I'm taking baby steps in that direction, but I feel like there's something that needs to happen and that will
revolutionize how I work with couples.
speaker-0 (07:08.782)
Interesting, interesting. Yeah, that's a really good point. I can really see that just like how we can sometimes weaponize it against ourselves. I think, I mean, the way that, and you probably know this, the way that I sort of work through that with people is to try to bring it into the body and to really highlight the importance of the radical approval piece.
But I can see how in a relationship with someone else, when they're doing things that you don't like and there's conflict coming up, like in those times, I could see how it could be weaponized. And I'm curious. Yeah, I mean, I guess I'm just curious to hear more about.
how you might work with that.
speaker-1 (07:54.062)
Thank you for reminding me about radical approval. feel like radical approval is definitely informing how I work with everyone and especially with couples. And it's something that I have to remind them again and again and again that everybody's doing the best they can. Everybody's suffering when people do annoying things, when people do hurtful things.
they probably do it because that hurts themselves, because that triggered, because they don't know how else to deal with that pain. And you are absolutely right that it's always, always a good idea to bring people back to their body, to the sensations in their body and away from the stories that they tell themselves and away from the...
cycle of
hurt and then some kind of judgment about the hurt and then more hurt, more judgment, more hurt.
speaker-0 (09:02.626)
Yeah, I've kind of had this philosophy with relationships that's like you have to trust and believe like unconditionally that your partner has your best interest at heart. feel like, I mean, I'm, I have nowhere near your experience working with couples or any of that stuff, but I do feel like that to me feels like a very essential piece of the puzzle. Like if you think that your partner is trying to hurt you, then
Where do you even go from there?
speaker-1 (09:37.951)
I don't know where to go from there because in some cases the partner wants to hurt you.
speaker-0 (09:44.502)
Yeah, but not like, but right, but yeah.
speaker-1 (09:50.636)
No, I think what you're trying to say is this idea of responsibility, right? That we're ultimately responsible for how we feel. And it's very easy for partners to say, you made me feel this way. When in fact, it's a little bit more complicated than that.
speaker-0 (10:16.918)
Yeah. How does EK fit in with other approaches that you've been using?
speaker-1 (10:23.308)
have been using mostly acceptance and commitment therapy, which is one of the new types of cognitive therapies that tries to achieve psychological flexibility. And I'm going to describe it in contrast with traditional CBT. think it will make a little bit more sense like that. So in traditional CBT, the idea is that
faulty cognitions or unhelpful cognitions leads to undesirable emotions. And if we change the cognition, if we change the belief, we change the emotion. And one of the ways, one of the avenues we have for changing the cognitions is to examine those cognitions, dispute them.
try to find evidence, counter evidence to the cognition. In other words, argue with the cognition.
which works well in many, many cases, but not in all of them. And that's how I was even first introduced to drug acceptance and amygdala therapy to act because I realized that the tools I had at my disposal with traditional CBT were not fit for purpose in cases like OCD, for example, because my
perhaps unskilled attempts to tackle obsession and rumination with these kind of tools backfired. So the acceptance part of acceptance and commitment therapy refers to changing the relationship that we have with our thoughts and with our emotions. And instead of
speaker-1 (12:27.214)
trying to change them, just let the thoughts play in the background like the radio. Let the emotions inhabit us and move through us as energy without fighting them, without arguing with them, without pushing them away. in this sense, think it's quite similar, ACT is quite similar to EK.
But Ikea takes this a little bit further. It takes us from merely tolerating the unwanted emotions and sensations to actually finding joy and delight in them. And that is a spectacular improvement on the initial approach. But they also work together very, very nicely.
So that's the acceptance part of ACT. The commitment part of ACT refers to our efforts to become the best version of ourselves that we can be. And what can we do to make more aligned choices that are going to take us in that direction, even in the presence of the suffering that is inherent to human condition.
speaker-0 (13:56.718)
That's beautiful. That makes so much sense to me, especially when you're talking about in cases with OCD, because my understanding, limited understanding of OCD is like you don't want to obsess. Like you know that that's, you know, it's like driving you crazy. so, yeah, you can't argue with it. Like you're already trying to argue with it. If that worked, people would just...
speaker-1 (13:57.441)
Mm-hmm.
speaker-0 (14:26.04)
probably be able to get over it themselves. And so I can see how it sounds like with this therapy you're talking about just like accepting yourself as you are basically and then committing to working with what you have.
speaker-1 (14:42.954)
Exactly. And getting in touch with your vision of the best version of yourself and getting in touch with your values, deciding what kind of life you want to lead and make choices from that point of view, rather than making choices that are dictated by running away from the painful stuff.
speaker-0 (15:09.346)
Yeah, that makes total sense. did you find working with people, did you actually work with people with this new method with OCD and have much more success?
speaker-1 (15:22.402)
Absolutely, yes, yes, yes, yes.
speaker-0 (15:25.602)
I'm curious what you're working on now.
speaker-1 (15:29.438)
What am I working on now?
I'm such a nerd and I love bringing together eclectic pieces of information from all the areas that interest me. And I am working on a book that will synthesize the best tools, what I think are the best tools from acts, from EK and from a couple of other approaches that are a little bit more esoteric.
but very interesting and very useful.
speaker-0 (16:06.626)
Amazing. So you're writing a book.
speaker-1 (16:08.79)
I am writing a book. I'm also something that I really want to do in this world. I think that all the therapists should at least understand EK, ideally be able to use it. I also think that all EK coaches should understand ACT and be able to use it. I think that there's something really,
There's something of value at the intersection between these two approaches that is complementary and very, very powerful.
speaker-0 (16:49.536)
Yeah. So I've been thinking a lot about doing a new round of Penetrate with me and Leila. It would be a shadow alchemy certification, coaching certification, which would include all of the same material that we taught in Penetrate. But I am thinking about maybe bringing you in to teach this act because to me, from what I've learned about it from you,
it feels like actually a necessary bridge into EK. Because one of the biggest concerns that I have with EK, or one of the biggest things that comes up with EK is people end up gaslighting themselves. end up spiritual bypassing. They end up getting really in the head around trying to convince themselves that they like things that they don't like. that's, I think that
having something like ACT as a bridge into EK and just making sure that people who are certified in this shadow alchemy work are equipped with those tools to work with people, I think that that would be really beneficial.
speaker-1 (18:04.718)
Yes, I accept this invitation. Thank you. I was wondering whether you would be interested in doing something like graduate program for penetrate coaches. that you Like a part two, like a more advanced version of it?
speaker-0 (18:29.226)
Yeah. Maybe.
speaker-1 (18:32.876)
I think that would be really cool.
speaker-0 (18:35.094)
Yeah, is food for thought. will think about that. What else do we want to talk about, Adela?
speaker-1 (18:43.01)
What else do want to talk about? Let me see. So one of the reasons I really like this combination between ACT and EK is because ACT can give a bit more structure to the whole approach, to the whole coaching process. I noticed that especially new coaches and new EK coaches sometimes struggle with
how to structure one session or how to structure a set of sessions. it's easy to, I mean, yeah, it's easy to do the same thing again and again and again, even though it doesn't take you anywhere as a coach. So it's good to know where you're going and to place yourself on a map. But it's...
I can just talk about how much I love UK. Like I just, yeah, I love it. I just love it. love it. And it's an idea that most people will resonate with. This idea that there is a hidden pleasure in everything, in every so-called negative emotion. Like, you know, when you have Ian and Young, when you have like the...
black dot and the white dot like there's a little bit of there is a seed of the opposite emotion in everything. So in grief and sadness, there is a bit of tenderness there. In fear, there is excitement and there is readiness for action. in anger, mean, anger feels so good.
Righteous anger feels so good, like the fire that comes out of it.
speaker-1 (20:39.23)
And I was thinking about it.
I was thinking about how we listen to sad songs when we're sad. So it's almost like we do EK when we do that, right? Like, I'm sad, so let me be a little more sad now.
speaker-0 (21:01.87)
I feel like a lot of us, we definitely feel like EK has given us more, like it brings me more in tune with myself. It makes me feel more able to kind of weather the highs and lows. It helps me feel good and feel better about anything that's coming up. And even sometimes I won't do EK, even though I know that I need to, but just knowing that it's there.
kind of, can, it just makes everything a little bit easier. But I'm curious if you have like specific outcomes that you've gotten, like things that you feel like you manifested or were able to see like big external changes in your life from this.
speaker-1 (21:48.127)
So I've definitely experienced subtle changes like the ones that you're talking about, being able to weather the highs and lows of life, having more of a sense of humor about anything that happens to me.
I feel that I've changed the relationship that I have with the universe. believe that I'm going to be okay anyway. pretty much no matter what happens to me and that has been a dramatic improvement to how I feel about life and about myself. But in terms of outcomes, I have changed the relationship that I have
with my anxiety, actually I was helped in this process by a dear friend of mine who became my friend thanks to Penetrate. Her name is Ronel. And as we were practicing on each other, she guided me through a series of sessions that were related to my feeling of almost constant tension and anxiety.
No matter what was going on in my life, that was the attitude that I had, constriction. And with her help, I just made friends with those sensations. And I discovered that I had a dragon. Had a dragon living in my spine.
I made friends with the dragon. started to listen to the dragon. The dragon had an important message for me. And the message was that all that tension was just readiness for action. And if I wanted to get rid of the tension, I just needed to act more. needed to do more. I needed to stop repressing my desire to.
speaker-1 (24:05.676)
be present in the world and do things. And that has been a game changer. It may be subtle, it might not be very dramatic, but that has been a game changer for me. And I've noticed something else. In the book, one of the suggestions is that you can...
you can say to yourself that this don't like situation that you have will disappear as if by magic in 30 days.
speaker-1 (24:43.104)
I've noticed a couple of times that the situation has disappeared as if by magic in 30 days. So, I don't want to go into detail, into too much detail, but something does happen. And I would like to invite people to experiment with it and see what happens.
speaker-0 (25:06.752)
Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, the anxiety thing is not it. It's it's I don't think it is that subtle is it when it when you go from like living in stress to not living in stress. I feel like that actually is it can be everything.
speaker-1 (25:27.422)
Yes, yes, yes. I also want to point out that I needed somebody else's help to guide me into that process because it took me to a much, much deeper place that then I could have access by myself. So work with coaches if you can.
speaker-0 (25:55.608)
And there's so many, there's so many amazing existential kink and shadow alchemy coaches.
speaker-1 (26:00.654)
out there.
speaker-0 (26:03.928)
for their day. You being one of them.
speaker-1 (26:08.75)
community.
speaker-0 (26:10.478)
And how can people find you while we're on this topic?
speaker-1 (26:13.934)
How can people find me? They can find me on Instagram at DrCardinale, DrCardinale, like Claudia Cardinale, and you can find the rest of the links there.
speaker-0 (26:30.99)
Amazing. Yeah. And so you mostly work, you have your practice where you work with couples. Do you also take on regular coaching clients around EK coaching?
speaker-1 (26:43.618)
I do. So I work both with individuals and with couples.
speaker-0 (26:51.154)
And for anybody who's listening, Adela also has a PhD in attachment psychology or in psychology or studying attachment. So if that appeals to you, she would be a really good match for you.
speaker-1 (27:06.452)
Yeah, I just remembered you asked me a few minutes ago about the link between the potential link between EK and the other approaches that I work with, which are attachment and an act. And I think that what unites these three processes is the emphasis on constriction and expansion.
I can elaborate on that. I'm really excited that attachment theory has a moment now in our culture, but I feel that people miss out on one of the really, really important aspects of attachment when they talk about attachment.
these days, we talk a lot about the stylistic differences in attachment, but the purpose of attachment as a behavioural and evolutionary system is to enable babies to explore because when human babies can trust that somebody else will be there to take care of them, to meet their emotional needs.
to meet their need for safety, then they're receptive to learn and explore and run around and interact with the world and learn about the world. So there is a dynamic equilibrium between attachment and exploration. So the point of exploration is not just to be attached to someone. The point of attachment is to enable us to live bigger, better lives.
More expensive lives.
speaker-1 (29:00.718)
Which brings me to act. When we're on autopilot, we spend a lot of time and energy and effort fighting our so-called negative emotions and unhelpful thoughts and unwanted sensations. We push them away and we're like, I don't want that, I don't want that, I don't want that.
There is an Act proverb that says, the more you don't want it, the more you have it.
speaker-0 (29:36.278)
Yeah, sorry, I just want to interrupt for second. This is like the main problem with the whole law of attraction thing. They're like, don't have negative emotions. Don't think about the bad stuff. And yeah, we put so much energy into pushing it away that gives it so much power.
speaker-1 (29:55.448)
Exactly. Yeah. The older tend to become stuck there in a vicious cycle of pushing it away. Then you feel bad because you haven't been able to push it away enough. more the worse you feel about yourself, then the more avoided behaviors you engage in, the more avoided behaviors you engage in things like, I know.
over eating and online shopping and watching the entirety of Netflix, doom scrolling. The more you do that, then the worse you feel about yourself. And again, on autopilot, we spend a lot, a lot of time there.
which is constrictive, which narrows down our lives. While on the other side, there are the behaviors that we could be doing if we are aligned and conscious of our values and if we know where we want to go. And that's the expansive part of ACT. And of course, one of the things I like so much about EK is the ability to
free ourselves of this need to push the yucky stuff away and instead face it with courage, with curiosity and humour.
speaker-0 (31:29.098)
Yeah, and actually expand into it. Like take up space in our discomfort and kind of like claim it and own it and be like, you are mine now and then and expand in directions that we've previously been trying to pull away from.
speaker-1 (31:45.644)
Yes. So tell about expansion. Yeah.
Well, all my favorite things are about expansion. My, my, I also have a budding interest in astrology. I have one that losing clients now because I confess this, you know, online. So I have a, I have an astounded in Sagittarius. So it's all about expansion.
speaker-0 (32:12.14)
Yep. Yep. Well, I've been really in, I don't know, preparing to teach a program on Jupiter. and Jupiter is obviously the planet of expansion. So I've been really in that realm lately. yeah, framing EK though, I've never thought of it like that in terms of like actually expanding into those parts of ourselves and becoming present and conscious in those parts of ourselves that we've been.
hiding from trying to, you know, shove away, get rid of, ignore, pretend doesn't exist, compartmentalize, you name it. There are so many different strategies that we use.
speaker-1 (32:51.63)
Yeah.
speaker-0 (32:54.474)
Amazing. So yeah, so your three sort of like biggest techniques are attachment, ACT, and EK.
speaker-1 (33:04.526)
Yes, but I'm, um, I would say that I have an eclectic approach. Like a magpie, I collect tools and points of view from all the other approaches that I studied. um, probably ACT is at the heart of everything that I do. And EK is, is an expansion of, uh, of that.
speaker-0 (33:32.332)
Amazing. And you have other tools too. Yeah. So you have all kinds of tricks up your sleeve. tools.
speaker-1 (33:36.686)
I have so many tools. Yes, I have so many tools and I just love the work that I do. I'm so happy to be able to, it feels great to be able to help people and to be able to help people with those tools in a fairly short amount of time.
speaker-0 (34:02.643)
Yeah. Do you feel like you make much more rapid progress with your clients than other therapists?
speaker-1 (34:09.678)
Yes, yes, yes, yes, because I'm more, because I'm quite directive and because of the tools, it's because of the tools.
I've noticed that sometimes people spend a lot of time in talking therapy, talking about the problems and insight is not enough to change behavior. So, so what I like to do is to invite people to experiment with, with these tools and see what happens.
speaker-0 (34:49.59)
Yeah, that reminds me, because when you were talking about the story of working with Renell and finding that part of yourself, I was actually thinking about, and my guess is that you didn't spend any time figuring out where that part came from or why it was there. And instead just worked with it. That's my under, I mean, I'm just guessing.
speaker-1 (35:12.878)
Yeah, think that's correct. Because that's what was useful in that moment. Sometimes it is useful to examine where the story came from. And then, I don't know, maybe time travel to it and do something interesting with it.
speaker-0 (35:34.04)
Mm-hmm, resolve it at its point of origination. Yeah, but I think what you're talking about is like kind of just like studying and kind of just like telling the story over and over. I think that that is what I think that's kind of the negative trope of therapy, right? It's like, you're just like going over it over and over and over. You're just talking about the same story, telling the same story. And you're talking about applying tools and being more proactive.
speaker-1 (36:04.987)
Yes, I'm suspicious of any kind of over-identification with stories, like the story that I'm avoidant, therefore I will not be there for you.
speaker-0 (36:17.934)
Do you think that attachment types and styles are kind of like, can we morph? Can we change? Can we evolve them?
speaker-1 (36:26.094)
I'm so glad you asked me that. Yes. The short answer is yes. So the person who invented attachment theory, Bowlby, he was a British psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. He introduced this idea of representations of attachment. We behave a certain way because we have certain formations in our mind.
that inform our behavior. And he called these representations of attachment internal working models, because they are models of ourselves, of the reality of our partners. They're internal because they're internal. But he called them working models because they are resistant to change, but they're not impossible to change.
their working models because they can be adjusted. we tend to have based on our experiences in early childhood and then in our friendships and romantic relationships, we tend to form a certain predisposition towards relating to other people.
a generalized representation of attachment, a generalized style relating to others. But we also then form specific representations of attachment that are specific to every single relationship that we have. every single one of us has the capacity to be secure with one person, avoidant with another person, anxious and rave-alent with another person, depending
on what's happening in the interaction and also depending on their own predispositions. Can attachment change? Yes. And it can change obviously, it can change in therapy. It can change if you have a secure partner. Sometimes it changes when you have a child, but it can absolutely change. It can change and it can...
speaker-1 (38:43.136)
As I said, it's always informed by the other person to a certain extent as well. And if I didn't believe that people could change, then I would not be a therapist. It's all about what's making our life bigger or what's making our life smaller. Is having a fixed story about yourself as, I don't know, I am this kind of person, therefore I can't change.
Is this cognition, is this story making your life bigger or is it making your life smaller? Is it making you more flexible or less flexible? Is it making you better equipped to deal with the trials and tribulations of being alive or less? So maybe less of an attachment to our stories is something desirable.
speaker-0 (39:35.278)
Yeah, I love that framing of it, these working models, because that is how I envision it. And I do think of shadow alchemy and shadow work and all of these processes and tools that I teach and use as just updating those models, like trying to sort of work with those models and seduce them to kind of...
map on how we want and not necessarily just in the realm of relationships and attachment, but just all of the models that we have in our our mind because that sort of is how we function, right? We our whole life is just learning. We're just like, bring picking up information explicitly learning and also implicitly learning just by watching the people around us getting feedback from our environment. So we have these working models. And yeah, I think of shadow work as
speaker-1 (40:28.92)
you
speaker-0 (40:29.26)
a whole variety of processes to update those models and to sort of like get them to operate as we would want them to. And I love how you're framing it as like to help us be more flexible, to help us be more expansive, to help us, yeah, just like face life better with more joy, with more of what we want.
speaker-1 (40:51.884)
Yeah, and it could be to connect with others and with ourselves more authentically as well. Because again, when we're over identified with our suffering or with stories of suffering and unease, it's very difficult to notice the people around you. It's very difficult to be present in your life.
speaker-0 (41:21.198)
Amazing. Are there any last words of EK wisdom that you want to impart to our dear listeners?
speaker-1 (41:29.742)
No, I don't know. mean, being alive is really interesting and challenging. Why not make it erotic and fun?
speaker-0 (41:43.278)
Yes, that is a good question. Amazing. Well, so dear listener, there is a link in the description where you can find Adela and I hope that you will follow her and get in touch. Thank you so much.
speaker-1 (42:01.678)
Thank so much, Lucy. Thank you. Thank you. been a pleasure. Thank you so much.
speaker-0 (42:06.99)
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 twenty twenty seven and you can find a wait list 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.
speaker-1 (44:01.621)
you
New to Lucy’s work?
Start with Lucy Baldwin’s complete overview of Shadow Alchemy here:
Lucy Baldwin’s Shadow Alchemy Hub
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
How can Existential Kink help relationships?
Existential Kink can help people take responsibility for their own patterns, sensations, resentments, longings, and hidden pleasures. In relationships, it should be used for self-inquiry and radical approval, not as a weapon against a partner.
What is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy?
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is a therapeutic approach that helps people change their relationship with thoughts and emotions while taking action aligned with their values.
How is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy similar to Existential Kink?
Both approaches involve changing your relationship to unwanted thoughts, emotions, and sensations. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy emphasizes acceptance and values-based action, while Existential Kink goes further by inviting curiosity, pleasure, delight, and erotic aliveness into the unwanted material.
Can attachment styles change?
Yes. Attachment styles can be understood as learned working models rather than permanent identities. With new experiences, awareness, relationship, and practice, those models can change.
Why is insight not enough to change behavior?
Insight can help, but repeatedly telling the same story does not always create transformation. Change often requires new experiences, embodied practice, emotional acceptance, and aligned action.
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.
You can also continue exploring Lucy’s current offerings, free practices, podcast links, and other work here: