Dreams, Desire, and the Unconscious with Dr. Deborah Lukovich

In this deep dive episode, PolySoCal welcomes back Dr. Deborah Lukovich for a wide-ranging conversation about dreams, desire, projection, and the unconscious forces shaping our relationships.

Dr. Lukovich explores how dream imagery, sexual symbolism, and recurring emotional patterns act as data points from the psyche rather than literal messages. Through personal stories and live analysis, the discussion reframes attraction, fear, fantasy, and intimacy as invitations toward greater self-awareness and individuation.

This episode is reflective, psychologically rich, and focused on helping listeners better understand themselves rather than “fix” their relationships.

Transcript

Alonzo Banx (00:00)
Welcome back to the PolysoCal Podcast. As always, I am still Alonzo Banks. Today we're doing a deep dive with the absolutely amazing Dr. Dever Lukavich, and we have Patty in with me today. So, hi everybody.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (00:14)
Hello, I'm so happy to be back.

Patty (00:15)
Hi.

Alonzo Banx (00:16)
God, it's good to have you.

It's great to have you back. And you know what? We had so many interesting conversations the last time you were on. And I just re-listened to your last podcast today, which dropped this week. So you just hit. So yeah, it's out this week. Been good response. And a lot of people are loving our last conversation. But I wanted to dig a little deeper with you today and talk about some of the stuff that went. But for those who didn't listen to our last podcast,

Let me get through this intro again, because you've got one of those bios. Dr. Deborah Lukowicz, PhD, is a depth psychology coach, author of the Host of Depth podcast, helped self-reflecting individuals decode their unconscious and reconnect to deep wisdom through the theory of individualization. She is the author of When Sex Meets God, a midlife unraveling and

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (00:50)
You

Alonzo Banx (01:14)
your soul is talking, are you listening? Brendan psychology with personal stories of awakening, healing, sexuality, spirituality, and the guide to people to authentic self discovery. Through her writing and her coaching, Deborah invites others into the deep meanings, offering programs and courses, and you got some free stuff too up on your website. Is that correct?

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (01:37)
Yes.

I have lots of free stuff. Yes.

Alonzo Banx (01:41)
Okay, so what did I miss in that bio? Cause I got to be honest. mean, it was like four paragraphs and you know, you got a lot of stuff up your sleeve.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (01:49)
You didn't really miss anything. I mean, I love teaching and sharing, teaching through sharing stories. And I guess my gift is that I use my own vulnerable experiences and I'm very amused by them. So I'm comfortable sharing them. And, you know, because I write about things that people sometimes can't even say to themselves or can't say to their partner. And so I'm hoping that, you know,

people get the courage to answer the call to their hero's journey.

Alonzo Banx (02:23)
I want to dig into some of those questions here in a minute, but I want to say hello to Patty. Patty, good to see you tonight.

Patty (02:28)
Hi,

good to see you. Happy to be joining today.

Alonzo Banx (02:33)
You are one way too busy woman.

Patty (02:35)
I'm very busy. Yeah, I have a lot of relationships and I'm also in school full time, yeah.

Alonzo Banx (02:37)
you

yeah,

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (02:44)
Wow.

Alonzo Banx (02:46)
she's gonna become one of you, Doc. She's down that same path.

Patty (02:48)
I am.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (02:50)
Excellent.

It's a humbling experience.

Alonzo Banx (02:53)
Okay.

Patty (02:55)
It really

is. It's an understatement.

Alonzo Banx (03:00)
All right, so Doc, before we started this podcast, you were showing me your book and you were super excited about some stuff in it. What was that all about? Let's go back there. me about your book that's out.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (03:08)
okay. So my most recent book is took five years to write. It's called When Sex Meets God, a midlife unraveling. It's written as a novel, but it's all true. Everything in it is true. And you know, my last interview asked like, you said you had never planned on writing a memoir. Like how did it come about? And at some point, you know, my whole story, my midlife unraveling,

coincided with an irrational calling to pursue a master's PhD in depth psychology, not knowing why, how I would pay for it. It probably wasn't going to go over well with my husband. But it was like this moment in my life where I felt like I had to do it to say, and I knew it would save my soul in some way. And then came all the falling apart and I lived all these concepts, Yogi and psychology in real time.

You know, CG Young became my lover and my spiritual mentor, you could say. And along the way, I had a couple of moments where was like, this is so unbelievable what's happening to me and so ridiculous. I know I'm going to want to write about it. And after my experience actually led to what I researched and what I researched was women's

experience of reconciling sexuality and spirituality through Carl Jung's theory of individuation. So I had not planned that. I just kept being led. And after I submitted my final PhD dissertation, that week, I didn't know what to do with myself, right? Like I went from 20 hours a week and I'm like, I'm done. And out poured 50,000 words into a Word document. And it was all the juicy stuff.

from what had happened to me that wasn't appropriate or needed in the dissertation, right? And ⁓ that was like May of 2020 and I just published it in this November. So I like it, you know? Sometimes people are like, I don't know if I wanna go back and read my book, but I love it. I love the story. And there are many different types of readers who will enjoy the story.

Alonzo Banx (05:25)
Two questions. ⁓ Tell me about the readers. Who should be the person that goes out and picks up your book followed by and where do they get it?

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (05:33)
Yeah, well, I mean, the most obvious one are people who might sense they're on the edge of a falling apart. So often there are a lot of signals and clues and you're like, I can't deal with that. Now I can't deal with that. Now I can't do it. ⁓ my gosh, I'm too afraid to deal with that in my relationship or my career or whatever it is. And so ⁓ people will appreciate that. So it's a story of completely falling apart.

having a dark night of the soul, losing your sense of identity, having to let go of everything that you thought was true and to start over again. But thankfully, I was led to depth psychology and that became my framework. ⁓ So there's that. And then, ⁓ you know, one of my favorite endorsements is from a man, another PhD man who's now my friend, but he actually was one of my dates.

And he studied ⁓ sexuality through a philosophical lens. And one of the things he says in his endorsement is that my approach to dating after divorce was refreshing. So for people who have already ended a long-term relationship, my marriage was 24 years, it can be very daunting to go back out there again. And all of these stories of my online dating,

this younger man, open up my faucet and then getting swept up with a younger man. They all could be like episodes of a Netflix series. So I share things like one of my clients who was, read my book and did a review. said, I was shocked at some of the decisions that Deborah made. And I'm like, perfect. Yes, that's exactly how you're supposed to feel is like, I was not doing it the conventional way. So there's that.

Um, So my book is about, um, you know, trying to break out of convention, feeling trapped in convention. I came of age in the eighties. So I think women, especially who came of age in the eighties could feel like the growing freedom and liberation we had, but yet there was this backlash. And now of course we're experiencing a backlash again. And so, you know, a 24 year marriage of

you know, trying to chart my own story, chart my own course, but yet I still was trapped in convention when I didn't really realize it. And then also for men. So for men who, you know, they're trapped by patriarchal ideas as well. And in fact, it's really other men who are meaner to men than women when it comes, you know what I'm saying? Like, you can't do that as a man. That's coming from a man, not a woman. And then also like people who are therapists.

Patty (08:17)
Yeah.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (08:22)
or relationship coaches, ⁓ because my story does not on purpose, but it ends up following Jungian theory. And so you can see the theory in the background. So a therapist or a coach actually might recommend my book to help people reflect about their own journey. And then of course, the sex and God part of it, right? So.

You know, one of my favorite topics is understanding that sexual arousal and attraction, it mostly isn't what we think it is. So we all like come to the conclusion that means we want to have sex with somebody and it really doesn't. It's like creative intelligence flowing through us. It's a life force. It's a creative energy. And so there is always a deeper meaning to it. And that's one of the things that I learned through my series of updates. So yeah, so.

you know, there's different reasons why people might enjoy my story.

Alonzo Banx (09:19)
And where can they find it?

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (09:21)
They can, well, they should go to my website, deborahlukovich.com and right on my first page, you can get to it or I have a page dedicated to When Sex Meets God. So they can either ⁓ click to the Amazon link where they can read reviews and there's 24 lovely reviews there. Or if they're like me and they don't use Amazon and don't support that, then they also can go to bookshop.org and they can get a paperback.

or an eversion there. But if they go to my website first, then also if they subscribe, they can get a free download, a PDF of my prior book, which is my first depth psychology book, Your Soul is Talking. And that's where they can start to learn the language of their unconscious. For example, dreams, I know we're going to talk about dreams, fantasies, their emotions, their psychological type, movies, Jungian film theory is...

a passion of mine as well so they can get that for free and start doing their own self-reflection.

Alonzo Banx (10:25)
That's awesome. Patty, I'm going to let you get a question in here eventually, but I got to go back. You talked about how unique your dating approach is. Explain it to me so that I can understand what the unique dating approach looks like. Perhaps I can, you know, and can use some of your techniques.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (10:41)
Yeah.

And I'm about to do a video because I'm a YouTube channel. People should subscribe to that too. I do like 10 minute videos where I take a theme. I take a random chapter and I kind of talk about the theme, read a little bit about it and I tell some of these stories. So, okay. So many people who, many people need like to be seduced out of a relationship that needs to end, right? So why does, why do affairs happen?

Well, because you can't face the truth of the situation in your relationship. And so you let somebody sort of seduce you out of it. And then maybe you end up ending the relationship. And then you stay with this affair, which doesn't usually work out. So they don't do the work in between, right? Well, for me, when I got divorced, I had a new job. My kids were teenagers. I was pursuing my education. I didn't want anything. Like I did not run to the arms of another man.

I ran to my intellect. So actually my major sex organ is my intellect. And so I'm just minding my own business. My husband is, you know, I'm divorced now over there. I'm also managing, you know, the consequences of the struggle with alcohol addiction. And I'm like, just serious. So it was July 2015 and I'm at the beach and I'm at the tiki bar with my laptop doing my research and my reading and studying. And

And I'm just minding my own business. And suddenly, like, there's this younger man standing next to me. And he's trying to get the bartender's attention. I'm like, I gotcha. I knew the bartender orders a cheeseburger. And then he just starts talking to me. And we're talking about beach volleyball. And he says, ⁓ you know, do you play? I'm like, yeah. He's like, I'm looking for a team to be a sub on. And in my head, I'm going, what's happening here? Like, I don't really know. Like, is he really?

And he's a disability rights lawyer. So I'm like, Ooh, like I like that. And anyway, so he gets his cheeseburger walks away and I'm like, I have a little warmth in my tummy. And I'm like, what is that? Like totally caught me off guard. And I'm like, I know he's a lot younger than me. Is, was he flirting? Does he really just want to play volleyball? And we ended up having this really awkward, he does come on our team and we ended up having an

three months before he finally like directly asked me out for a date. And then, you know, when he's kissing me, I'm like, my God, my God, do I like, it was just so, so I ended up, well, okay, this gets to the sort of the sexuality part. I sort of get too nervous that I say, I gotta go home. And I'm like, did I blow that? And on the way home, I am overcome by arousal to the point where I just had to like,

have an experience and then then he fell off and then we eventually have an experience but then he falls off the face of the earth and I'm like is this what it is like in the modern dating world now I'm mad because now he's not available now I want to get back out there and I mostly want to have some sexual pleasure and so I'm like I gotta get online and I have my son take a photo for me and I say it's for Facebook but it's for my online dating profile and I use OkCupid

Okay, so then I decide, and before that, I had some strange experiences that caused me to sort of go back and I decided that I needed to learn how to relate to men again. Because this is where I found that the hidden agenda of marrying my husband was that he sort of rescued me for some chaotic ⁓ sexual and relationship experiences. And he offered me stability.

Right? Like he respected me, he was supportive of me, and now he was gone. So suddenly I'm like, how do I even be with men? So I guess my unconventional approach to dating at that point was like, I'm not looking for anything except to learn how to relate to men again. And I do actually coach people on doing this, how to do this, even how to put together their profiles.

how to have no expectations except to just learn more about themselves through the dating. So I had a series of dates and the first younger and they were all eight, seven out of 10 of them were 33 years old exactly and I was 50. And I didn't do that on purpose. It was a really strange thing. And now I realized that 33 is my numerology number. And I just got that literally like a month ago.

So I, and I was very hungry and I was perplexed at why these men wanted to be with me. And then also I was like perplexed of my, how voracious I was. So there were a series. Now, along the way, there were some other men that tested my boundary. So one of the men was, I call him Planetarium Man in my book.

Because on the phone, he hit my intellectual sex organ. He's like, how about we go to the planetarium? I'm like, my God, yes. And then when he showed up in the lobby, was like, ugh, I'm so not attracted to him. Like I just knew it. And I made my, and I, during the whole planetarium show, I was like, if he touches my hand, I do not know what I'm going to do. And then I felt like I needed to go spend three hours after the show.

because I already knew like this was going nowhere. And so one of the things that I had to learn was that how to politely reject men. So I wasn't really worried about whether men would be attracted to me, but like I had this thing around being able to not hurt other people. So it's something that I had to learn how to politely reject. Then there was the fireman.

Like I think he wanted to marry me the day that we are, the, one date that we had. we, when he grabbed my hand, was like, I couldn't even pull away. And I wanted the bartender to rescue me. And, and even him, when we, when we walked out after our date and I had said, I will kiss every date, whether I'm going to see them or not. And he started licking my teeth. And I'm like in my head going, what is happening right now? Why is he licking my teeth? And then there was my PhD man.

I went on a date with him and he sort of helped me come into deeper relationship and he was in a polyamorous sort of community as well. And so all of these different men seemed to come in the order that provided a lesson for me to learn. So the series of those dates then lasted about six months. And the last one was sort of my biggest lesson. It was, I call him Russian man.

because he was from Russia and he had lost his wife to cancer like three years earlier. And I know like he wanted to, I know he would tend to women's needs. Like I just, he wanted somebody to love and I felt so exhausted by his projection of what he, like how he wanted to, like neediness is not love, right? So needing somebody to love is not love.

And that was a test for me. So I had to be kind and say, I think you have more healing to do and I know you're a good man. But it was like, it tugged on my sense of responsibility, right? And reminded me how long I had stayed in my marriage. And so all of that ended. And then that's when I sort of got swept up in the ironic love affair that brought me into relationship with these two wounds. But that was my dating.

I loved it because I had no expectations.

Alonzo Banx (18:42)
So the core advice, date without expectation. Find out who you are yourself before you start putting yourself out there.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (18:49)
⁓ definitely. Yeah, especially after you've been, after you've ended a relationship. Because if you don't, because there is a purpose and a hidden unconscious agenda to all your encounters, no matter how short. And so there's something happening there, but it's mostly at the unconscious level unless you know how to look for it.

So even in my very short encounters, I learned something about myself and it seems like, you know, small things. So, ⁓ yes, so not to have expectations because what happens when you have expectations is there's that neediness is there, right? For them to fill some kind of hole. And the best way to go into a relationship and the best way to be a better partner is to actually find wholeness in yourself.

So, this is the work that I really do with individuals and who are in marriages or relationships or not, is to help them realize what are they projecting onto the other person that they're supposed to develop in themselves so they're not needy, so that they're more their peers in their relationship, which then without the neediness allows them

to experience new depths of meaning and heights of ecstasy. You can experience so much more than you realize once you're not as needy of the other person. I mean, it's amazing. I experienced that. talk about that in my book too.

Alonzo Banx (20:24)
Patty, how did that resonate with you?

Patty (20:26)
⁓ I'm a needy girl, that resonates with me ⁓ quite a bit. And I have had a similar experience with relationships and I have learned that they do teach you something all along the way about yourself and point out areas where, for me, where I might not have developed. And, you know, with John, I lucked out.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (20:43)
Mm-hmm.

Patty (20:55)
at 19 years old with my soulmate, like just utter soulmate. And that man, we've grown up together. we've been poly since I've been 19 in some way or another, but we have grown, fortunately we have grown together versus apart. And so I look at him and hold him at just this.

level of gratitude in other relationships that I've had. I have learned something about myself all along the way. ⁓ Good things, some things where I'm like, ⁓ I don't like this about myself. And each one has taught me something. And the current relationships that I have now with Heather, I learned how serious I take myself.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (21:55)
Hmm.

Patty (21:55)
And

when I am around her, the amount of laughter that she and I have is so healing and it's undescribable. And ⁓ with Beeb, it's the same, this level of jokey fun, ⁓ exploring each other, it is healing. And I didn't know I need that. And then I have a newer ⁓ relationship where I realized that

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (22:04)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Patty (22:26)
Maybe my self-esteem isn't as good as I thought it was, and that man has raised the bar of what I feel like is possible with men. so each one has taught me something and has healed some part of me in some way, and then also pushed me to work on areas where I realized, okay, I should be working on

on this and that, kind of pointing out area, not that they're pointing out, the things that are being shown to me are pointing things out to me that I constantly work on to be the best.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (22:58)
Yeah.

That's

amazing, actually. That's awareness because the things that you want to change shouldn't be judged. Because once you understand your psychology and your family's psychology, everything you've ever done makes perfect sense. So there really shouldn't be any judgment. And even like, I'm needy. That reminds me of James Hillman. He's an archetypal. He's the ⁓ founder of archetypal psychology, which is

kind of a branch of depth psychology. And he tells a story of how he had a patient client come in and say, I can't stand how needy I am. And he's like, okay, you're needy. Find a way to live in the world being needy. I mean, literally is like, so like there's no, there should be no judgment. Now you could experiment and explore because once another person mirrors back to you, wow,

I needed to laugh more, perhaps I needed to reconnect with my eternal child, my child self, then your advanced curriculum would be to be able to provide that for yourself. So not to expect that this person plays that role for you because the problem with projecting that onto them, Heather just makes me feel so great. She brings up my inner child is that

The day that she steps off of that pedestal and acts differently toward you, you're like, who are you? Right? So this is how projection works is we're attracted to what's lacking. And in most cases, but not in yours, because you have this level of conscious awareness. In most cases, those roles become entrenched. my husband is the one that does this. ⁓ my wife handles that. She's the nice one.

Patty (24:57)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (25:01)
Right? And then in the end, what happens is that we sense that as the burden. And eventually what drew us together, we grow resentment about like, she needs me to be like this. When do I get to fall apart? Right? Or when do I get to fall So you could just play, like just be playful and curious because our lives are so interesting.

Patty (25:13)
Mm-hmm.

I have found ⁓ since I've been with her that the level of laughter and joy really is permeating everywhere in all of my relationships now and I'm a lot more silly and ⁓ I have people commenting on my energy is significantly different than it used to be and that they really like it. And so it just is, I have

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (25:54)
I love.

Patty (25:55)
You know, I don't believe that relationships can heal a person. You have to do the work, right, to heal yourself. But I do feel like those relationships and all of my relationships in one way or another are providing an opportunity for me to heal myself in ways that I didn't know that I needed. And that one was a huge one because I do tend to take everything so serious all the time. And then I've turned into this humor is just

the most powerful thing to me, to be able to laugh at things, even, know, dark humor, like John and I've always had done. I never realized how attractive that is to me, that and being with somebody who's smart. never, John's always smart. I mean, I mean other relationships besides John. I never realized how attractive somebody who is intelligent and likes to horse around.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (26:52)
Yeah.

Patty (26:54)
play around, joke around how healing that is for me.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (26:59)
Yeah. Well, so, you know, so, but this is how it works. We relay our unconscious brings us what we are. So what the, whatever it is, whether it's a high frequency or low frequency, you, things will show up, people will show up and it's, I learning the right lesson? And you'll know it's the right lesson if it contributes to a sense of wholeness. You know, I like to use the word sort of

Patty (27:07)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (27:27)
wholeness and we don't always feel whole. We don't always feel balanced, but you know what it feels like to sort of like, you know, feel grounded or you get glimpses into wholeness and you're like, how do I get another one of those? So yeah, I don't think there's ever, I don't believe there's ever like an ultimate point of healing. I don't, I don't think you're like, I'm healed. Like, I don't know, healing is a problematic term for me.

Patty (27:47)
No, it's a journey, I think. ⁓

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (27:53)
Because it's really, it's about fully living, right? Like, you what is my Dharma? Why am I here? And sometimes it's to answer or reconcile something from your ancestry and your life is like working out. So all these different people show up and you're like, my God, quit torturing me with like, what is all this showing up? But if you learn...

Patty (27:53)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Thank

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (28:19)
If it, can be hard to find the right lesson too. Sometimes it's not easy. So.

Patty (28:23)
⁓

I have found that ⁓ for me, it's not true for everybody, but for me, I believe that the universe or whatever you want to believe in wants to show you lessons and teach you lessons. And if you don't get those the first time around, they're going to continue to resurface. And you can put that in any other terms that you want, but that those opportunities, those things are going to keep resurfacing until you have come.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (28:48)
Mm-hmm.

Patty (28:53)
to master that or overcome that.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (28:56)
Yeah, so from a depth psychology perspective, Carl Jung would say between you and a partner, there are always four conversations happening. There's the conscious to conscious and it's what your mind knows. So you know, you probably, maybe you know, maybe you don't know, but science affirms that we really only know 20 % of what's going on with us. That means 80 % we don't have any idea why. You actually don't know all the reasons that you're with John.

There's another agenda at play and sometimes we don't see it until at some point that we go, ⁓ that's why you're in my life. So that's one conversation. And then there's a conversation I'm communicating right now and your unconscious is absorbing so much more than your mind is aware of and vice versa. But the most of the conversation happening is between our unconscious.

Patty (29:50)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (29:51)
And

so, and then, so you have that, and then you have, we relate through projection. So yeah, so your unconscious is constantly, or so you can use a spiritual lens, you can use a quantum theory lens, neuroscience or depth psychology, they all sort of say the same thing. So like you said, whatever your language is, that yes, you are from a, like a spiritual sense.

you are attracting whatever is inside you. So if there's an inner battle going on, you're going to attract something that helps you see what the inner battle is. So the universe aligns to match what is happening inside you. So like I said, like, okay, this is happening. Why is this happening? It's not a punishment. It's like feedback.

Patty (30:43)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (30:43)
So what

shows up in your life is a data point. That's all it is, a data point. like, didn't do anything wrong. It's like, huh, I'm not quite where I want to be yet. So how do I shift my lens? How do I shift my perspective? Or if I want to be something different, how do I use neuroscience to make new neural grooves and allow the old pattern to weaken? And that can be more, that's where there's sort of work.

Patty (30:52)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (31:12)
indiligence and it's not about willpower. It's about our central nervous system is always scanning for danger. Period. That's just all that's just what it does. So your mind has to override that. And you sometimes have to teach your body how to be safe, where it hasn't felt safe before. And that can seem like that's so irrational, but it's not it makes perfect sense. So I love your awareness level.

Patty (31:20)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Thank you. I've done a lot of therapy. Yeah, I just feel... Yeah, we've... John and I are big on the belief that everyone needs therapy at some point. It's like a tune-up and to me it's always somebody that's helping me walk through. ⁓

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (31:42)
Yeah, and health therapy's good. ⁓

You can tell!

Patty (32:06)
things where I might be struggling with and ⁓ I never regretted doing that.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (32:15)
Yeah, why would you? mean, sometimes there are bad therapists out there and conventional therapy often has limitations. It does have limitations. A depth approach is go, I mean, automatically we're about what's in the unconscious, not what do know here already. So yeah, I would say like even therapy is like a problematic word. It's more like what you need is a different set of glasses.

Patty (32:20)
Yes.

Yeah.

Alonzo Banx (32:35)
Ended.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (32:43)
to look at the situation so you can see the truth of the situation, not be afraid of the truth of the situation, and you just need to look at things from a different angle so you become aware. Like that's really the journey of being human is increasing our consciousness, increasing our awareness to the point where we realize we are one and we are consciousness and consciousness is love, period.

Patty (32:44)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (33:11)
So it's really

that and fear is the opposite of love. And so where there's fear, there's not love and there's not consciousness. I think like, you know, therapy's got a, you know, kind of a bad rap and, you know, why don't we just call it like, I'm on the journey of self-awareness.

Patty (33:14)
Mm-hmm. ⁓

I love that. I love reframing things because it really is a journey. A lot of people, you know, there's a stigma like, you're going to therapy, what's wrong with you? You must be having problems or your marriage is having problems. But I've always felt like my therapist is somebody that's helping me walk through things a little more gracefully and become knowledge is key to me.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (33:28)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Well,

Patty (33:55)
and accountability to push through.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (33:57)
yeah, I mean, you could even reframe that. So what's happening there? Because think about what has to be inside that person for them to belittle a decision to seek out help to be a healthier human being. That's a projection. So that is a reflection of their fear, their fear. So you already are bringing light and people who are afraid to be authentic

They fear the light. And so any kind of judgment you get from anyone else, now you can reframe that as, can say, huh, that's interesting. That's interesting that, that's interesting that you would look at me seeking feedback and help as something bad. I love helping people with how to respond to, cause the road to authenticity,

Patty (34:48)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (34:53)
takes a lot of courage. Authenticity, like just get over being liked and understood then. You have to totally be like, nope, I don't need to be understood. And but what will happen, and this is the magic that can happen in other problematic relationships is as you gather the courage to not depend on external validation and you find authenticity, you actually give others permission.

Patty (34:59)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (35:20)
for themselves. So by you not being authentic, are ⁓ keeping people from their journey.

Patty (35:28)
I have noticed that because I have noticed that the more open I am with somebody, the more vulnerable I am with someone and my authentic self, they show up in the same way. And our relationship ends up being a lot ⁓ more deep. And that's just straight across the board with friendships, coworkers, all of the things. I'm in school, so classmates. ⁓ I have never regretted.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (35:48)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Patty (35:57)
being my authentic self with somebody unapologetically, but doing that is going against what I have been ingrained to do. So I've done a lot of work to overcome that.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (36:07)
Yeah.

Yeah, but you can see how like our fear gets in the way

of other people's journeys too. Right? So if you care about people, instead of just being afraid to hurt their feelings, and instead if you're like, well, this is my truth, we don't have to be mean, we do it in kindness. And then sometimes that's enough to prompt a moment of self-reflection. Like, and inside they might go, wow, I wish I was brave enough.

Patty (36:19)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (36:41)
to do that. So even when people double down and dig in their heels and they're meaner, then you're really just blessed and release them.

Patty (36:48)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I would love to dive in a little bit with you about ⁓ sexual imagery and dreams, and ⁓ as well as like when exes show up in your dreams and what you believe about those things, what that means.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (36:55)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, well, those

are all big things. So, ⁓ I mean, a couple of like the highlights because people mostly get this wrong. So when people show up in your dream, they are showing up as a symbol. If you recognize the person, they symbolize something that you might already be aware of yourself. If somebody shows up in your dream and you don't know them,

there's a new aspect of you that is looking to be recognized. Now learning the right lesson can be very tricky. So I specialize in dream analysis with people and I actually do it through email with people and it's very affordable. So exes, I once had a therapist ⁓ send me a client who had over six months, a series of dreams with all her exes in them. And it was quite, she was quite distraught about them because she

They were bad breakups. All of them. She's like, I don't even want to remember. Why is he showing up in my dream? And so it was a process of really taking each one. And she would tell me about the relationship and one ⁓ tool to use would be take that person, the ex, and ask yourself, what are the first three things that come to mind when I think about that person today?

Patty (38:05)
Mm.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (38:32)
because also associations can change over time. Like my husband, he still will continue to show up in a dream. We spent half our lives together when I got divorced. So he is still a teacher to me or he symbolizes something for me. So you ask yourself, okay, right now, what would be the three words or phrases that would come up? And then you can say, huh, somewhere in there, I'm talking about myself. Now, here's where it can get tricky.

Patty (38:35)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (39:01)
Perhaps your ex was passive aggressive. So you're like, ⁓ shit, am I passive aggressive? You might be. You might actually not be passive aggressive, but your psyche is calling on a dramatic thing. So you recognize, well, maybe I need to be more aggressive in advocating for myself. So this is where it can be tricky without help to gain sort of the right lesson. Cause it could be,

Patty (39:04)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (39:30)
Yeah. And especially when you're like the kind of per like, let's say you're like, God, hate aggressive passive aggressive people. ⁓ right there. That's a reflection that you may be doing the same thing in another relationship. And so it's just trying to like, so then you can just explore that. You don't feel bad about it. You could be like, okay, maybe that is a defense mechanism I've developed. Why have I done that? Well, because when I was five, my mother and father did this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So that's where your self-compassion and non-judgment has to come in so you can see the truth of the situation. Or it could be, ⁓ yeah, you know, he was so good at this, that's why I stayed that long. He was this way, despite the fact that he did this and this and this, this part of him, well, okay, is that part of you want to be developed? Are you supposed to grow that capacity in you so that you don't just admire it in other people?

Patty (40:11)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (40:28)
No, you're unconscious like, no, I want you to be like that. So what do I do so I can grow the strength to be more like that? So that's sort of right off the bat when like exes and people show up in your dreams. Now, there was a period of time I had gotten divorced. It was probably at least three years after I was divorced. I think I might've been swept up in this ironic relationship.

And there was a month where my ex-husband showed up in my dreams 10 times in a month. And now I'll bring in the sexual imagery. So in some of the dreams we were driving our Honda Odyssey and either he crashed or fell asleep or I was driving, I fell asleep. It was always something like happened that I didn't want to happen. one of the dreams, I

I had to have sex with him. And I was just like, my God. And I was on top. And in the dream, I keep falling asleep. And I'm like, my God, when is this going to be over? And so when I shared with my friend, her name is Brooke in the memoir, I'm like, I had to have sex with my ex-husband in my dream. I'm so distraught. And she's like, was it fun? I'm like, no, it was yuck. It was the opposite of fun. And I kept falling asleep. So then she goes, and I said, I kept.

Patty (41:32)
Wow.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (41:52)
I had to, kept thinking, what is this going to be done? What am I going to finish? And she goes, ⁓ what do you have to finish? And I was like, Ooh, good job, girlfriend. Good question. So the dynamic was what in my life is just yucky that I have to just finish, right? And I got to pay attention and finish. And then that led to insights that led to new insights. So you see, he represented.

At that point, he represented like having sex with him was like, at that point, like, no, no, I'm not one of those divorced women who still feels attraction for her ex. Some do. I'm like, no, I'm not attracted to him anymore. So there's that. Now, when it comes to sexual imagery in general, sometimes you'll have, you might have a dream where you're doing something sexually that just causes you to like not even know you had that dream.

Patty (42:24)
Thank

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (42:47)
You're embarrassed, you feel shame. I once had a dream that my sister was pleasuring me orally. That's disturbing. Right? Okay. So why is my psyche bringing that image? And it is about that emotion. That's wrong. Okay. So now I'm a good girl. Like I...

Patty (42:56)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (43:11)
Part of my complex is I have a perfection complex. I'm controlling, I have to follow the rules, things like that, right? So what in my life was I misunderstanding the rules that I needed to break, basically? So you understand what I'm saying? So the dynamic is there was something going on my life. There was an obstacle for me to move forward.

Patty (43:32)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (43:39)
And

it was because of some kind of unlimited or limiting belief. so there was a limiting belief that I was applying to something and I had to overcome the limiting belief. And you see how my psyche was like, tried to use a really dramatic example. So I could see, yes, this is something is holding me back.

Patty (43:57)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (44:01)
And I need to move the Overton window on what I think is right and wrong. That that's not wrong, but there's this limiting belief. Do you understand what I'm saying? Yes. So, okay, that sometimes sexual imagery will come up that way. Those are really important dreams that people want to push them down because they're embarrassed by having the dream. I specialize in dreams like that. So if anybody like, they're...

Patty (44:14)
Yeah.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (44:28)
Many therapists are not going to talk to you and explore these kinds of dreams. Now, one other what happened to me during a time when I was in the process of ending this ironic relationship because it was done. ⁓ it was sudden. It was like, I guess this is done. And I had a series of dreams of the phallic symbol, the penis.

Patty (44:56)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (44:57)
So when one,

Patty (44:57)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (44:58)
I was with a naked man and I'm laying my face is all nuzzled and his groin area and suddenly it comes like a volcano. I'm like, oh my God, I'm not ready for that. Literally I say that in the dream. I'm not ready for that. What is it I'm not ready for? So the phallic symbol is a very important symbol. can symbolize like creative unleashing.

So, and then the dreams went on and eventually there was another dream where I had my own phallic symbol. It was attached to me and I loved it. And I could like touch it and lick it and I was like, my God, I ⁓ love this. That's me acknowledging, that's me embracing my own creativity, creative expression, which is part of what came out of When Sex Meets God.

that baby is a creative unleashing. And then there was another dream where there was a penis and it wasn't attached to a man at all. It was just floating and it wanted to enter me. And I was like, my gosh, am I wearing protection? I mean, what a weird thing to think of in a dream, right? So what was that about? And I needed to relax and to accept it. So that series of dreams happened over months. And then combined with a lot of other crazy dreams, one day I woke up and I received an email from

Patty (45:47)
Mm-hmm.

Thank

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (46:15)
somebody at a college asking me to submit a proposal to speak to do a workshop about healing the the patriarchal wound between men and women. And ⁓ I'm like, OK, I don't know what I'm going to do, but sure, I'm to propose. And I got accepted. And after that series of dreams and another dream and a fantasy and a drawing that I call Womb on Fire, it's in my book, ⁓ I wrote that whole presentation.

in a day.

So sexual imagery is almost always misunderstood when it's showing up in a dream. It's really not about literal sex. At another point in time, I had a fantasy that wouldn't leave me alone and it was about being submissive. And I actually played around with that a little bit in one of my online dates. There's that chapter in there. ⁓ And so I drew it because the fantasy was

Patty (47:01)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (47:10)
I'm like, I didn't ask for this fantasy. And it's like, there he is. It's my ironic love affair partner and he's naked and I'm on my knees and I'm looking up and all this. And I'm like, what is this? And when I drew it, I wrote the word receptive. And what I realized is that it was my self capital S wanting me to obey, right? So my larger self is leading, leads us and

prompts us and sometimes our mind is like, no, I'm afraid that's uncertain. Right. And so I was like, ⁓ I need to learn how to listen to the right voice inside, not my fearful mind. So this is the power of dream images and fantasy images.

Patty (48:01)
Have you ever had a reoccurring dream to the T? Because I have had a childhood, it's not a dream, it's more of a nightmare, but dream that is exactly the same from when I was a small child all the way up. And when I look at it, I don't know what it is, but it plays out exactly the same every single time. Sure, is.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (48:05)
Yes.

Do you want to tell me what the dream is? We'll work it right now.

Patty (48:31)
It is my grandmother and my mother ⁓ fighting, arguing back and forth about the size of socks they should buy for me and they're white socks. And in my dream, I don't really see them, but I could hear them yelling at each other and the socks are coming out at me. So my grandma will say, no, she needs this sock and that sock will pop up and then the smaller sock.

my mom will argue that she needs that sock. And it is really the feeling that I get of that dream is exactly the same all the way up. It ⁓ is a fear, is uncertainty, ⁓ not feeling safe because they're screaming and yelling and fighting between the two. But it's like when you, as an adult when I look at that dream, I think,

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (49:10)
Yeah, what is the emotion? What's the emotion?

Yeah.

Patty (49:29)
really it's not that big of a deal, but experiencing it from childhood all the way into adulthood, I will still get that dream. ⁓

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (49:39)
Okay. That's a significant

⁓ dream.

Patty (49:43)
Mm.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (49:44)
Yeah, I mean, we can't even like properly work that here. That's a significant dream. It probably through exploring it, you would probably end up exploring your mother wound, an ancestral wound. There's definitely, there's an inner battle in you. And when you said, when you said she needs this, she needs this. I mean, that's an indication of something inside that you don't feel.

Patty (49:49)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (50:12)
Number one, there's people arguing over you. And number two, that you have other people telling you what you need.

Patty (50:15)
Mm-hmm.

⁓ that I never thought about. ⁓

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (50:20)
So you could journal about that. could reflect about that.

what you would do, actually, I have a resources page and you could download like how to work your dreams and I have a YouTube instructional video or I can work your dream with you. You could start by pulling out all the images. So grandmother, grandmother, socks, argument, and even your emotions are images. So you list all the possible images. If there's scenery or a place, all of them.

And then you can take the one that has the most energetic, the most energy around it. Maybe it's grandma. Maybe she's more scary than your mother is. And then you ask yourself, okay, what comes up for me? What are the first three things that come up for me when I think about my grandmother? And do not filter, do not filter for like, ⁓ she really was like not very nice, but I can't go there. No, you have to do whatever comes up. If it's negative or positive, it doesn't matter.

Patty (51:12)
Thank you.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (51:16)
So you can start, same thing with socks, they were white. White is an interesting color. White can symbolize purification process. there's a lot, so just go through that process with each image, what comes up, and then see where you're associating, just see where things go, and then you'll recognize if there's something, a dynamic at play, and you can look for the metaphor. So one of the things that resonated,

with you is when I said, who's making decisions for you? Right. Or are other people telling you what you need now right there, you can reflect what comes up first. And then you can, you can go, yeah, that happened the other day. And I just like acquiesced. Right. Or what is my earliest memory of that? Actually that dynamic, what is my earliest memory? It's a dream, but what is my earliest memory where there are people arguing over me.

Patty (51:50)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (52:14)
and it was scary and it was dangerous actually for me to speak up. And then that will just lead you all different kinds of places.

Patty (52:14)
Mm-hmm.

Down a big rabbit hole. There's a lot to unpack.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (52:24)
Yeah, but it's necessary. See, the

reason you're still having the dream is you haven't gotten the insight from it. This will be key to your, if you want to refer to as healing, this will be key to you, to your development to gain the insight of this dream. It's going to be like life changing.

Patty (52:40)
Hmm, thank you for that.

What? Interesting.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (52:44)
Yeah.

Alonzo Banx (52:45)
Okay, we're starting

to run, we're gonna start running out of time here. Doc, I gotta ask you one question because you bring it up many ways. You talk soul, you talk God. When you're with sex and God, what is God?

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (52:55)
I just refer to it as the infinite or consciousness.

Alonzo Banx (52:59)
and the soul.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (53:00)
⁓ I love the notion of the soul. So in class, the way that my professor sort of looked at it from a depth psychology perspective is that the soul was a function and it was a function that helped reconcile, helped find meaning in things. So Jung has another theory called the transcendent third. So all day long, we just have these little battles, this or this. We have a disease in our society, right? This or this. Instead of being able to hold the tension,

Yes, this is true. I feel this. Yes, this is true. There's a situation. But if you continue to hold that, then eventually you'll gain a third position or a new insight or the lesson. And so that's sort of the function of the soul. So the soul can be a noun. It could be an adjective, a verb, adverb. The soul is the feminine though, and it's the unconscious. Right? So the

the it's meandering. You can't pin her down. The masculine is linear. It's two plus two equals four. It's reason-based. The soul got stuck shoved in the unconscious along with the feminine. So I don't know. That's how I talk about the soul.

Alonzo Banx (54:13)
at it. Clearly we could go on and on and on and on. You are a very intriguing guest. So what haven't we asked you tonight? What should we cover in our last few minutes?

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (54:15)
I

know what's coming up for me is it's Valentine's month, right? And I love relationships. and I'm doing a series of newsletters and some really interesting thing is, is coming up. So what's been on my mind recently is, ⁓ Mary, I don't know if you're familiar with Marianne Williamson. She's sort of, well, she ran for president twice, but she is.

Alonzo Banx (54:29)
Yes

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (54:53)
or if you've heard of A Course in Miracles. ⁓ Anyway, so she will talk about how the opposite of love is not hate. And this will make sense to you. The opposite of love is fear, right? Hate is a byproduct of fear. You are either in love space or in fear. You can't be both. And so I just came to this conclusion that

when there are relationship challenges, instead of talking about, what's the challenge? What's happening? What's the incident? The better question would be, what is your deepest fear? Because that's what's showing up. So I have a relationship framework that we didn't really talk about, but we did talk about purpose, the hidden purpose of your encounters, and we talked about projection. The third one is the idea of permanence. So what keeps people from

growing in their relationships or even growing together is the fear that the relationship might end.

If you think about it, like you might not think about it, but it keeps the honesty from being there that's needed for the vulnerability, for the growth, the psycho-spiritual growth to happen for the people individually and as a couple. And the paradox is that if you can let go of the need for a relationship to last.

Because sometimes they're just meant to, that relationship served its purpose. I don't have to be mad or sad. I don't have to make the other guy the bad guy and have an excuse for the way that I feel. But if we can let go of the need for the permanence of a relationship, then we are authentic and honest. And then that causes friction. But it's in the friction that we then hold the tension between what is in friction and we gain the insight and the learning and the lesson.

and it's helpful.

Patty (56:46)
I

like that could be a whole hour podcast, just that one topic.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (56:53)
Yeah,

and that's my next book I want to That's my next book I want to write. Yeah.

Alonzo Banx (56:53)
Well, then.

I'll have to get the good doctor back on again.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (56:59)
Yeah, maybe

Patty (57:00)
Yes. Yeah.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (57:02)
I'll have some groupies in your audience.

Alonzo Banx (57:04)
Ha.

Patty (57:04)
Yes.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (57:06)
I wanna have groupies.

Alonzo Banx (57:11)
Well, we love having you on.

Patty (57:13)
Yes.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (57:13)
I love

chatting with you guys. You guys are fun. And you ask good questions. Great questions.

Alonzo Banx (57:16)
Patty,

Patty (57:19)
Thank

Alonzo Banx (57:20)
I didn't mean to stop, you know, cut off your conversation there, but we are getting short on time. Was there anything else that you wanted to finish off with the good doctor before we say good night?

Patty (57:23)
Yes, yes.

I feel like that was really informative and I loved hearing about ⁓ dreams and relationships and all of that from her. I learned quite a bit. So thank you for that.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (57:39)
You're welcome.

Alonzo Banx (57:40)
Okay, Doc, now give us all the list. You've talked about it, but how can people find you? What can they do? Tell us all about the good stuff so that everyone listening knows how to get in contact with you.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (57:46)
Yeah.

I

will make it easy and direct. I'll be in my masculine. DebraLukavich.com. At the top are all my socials. I would love for you to subscribe to my YouTube channel. So right there you go. Click YouTube, subscribe. Love for you to subscribe to my podcast. So my podcast is called Dose of Depth. And I'm actually, I've had Jolie on it twice.

Patty (57:55)
Yeah.

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (58:17)
and got a lot of good conversations there. I write on my blog. And so I just wrote about ⁓ the sigma female. I don't know if you've heard about that sigma. Like being sovereign psychologically. And as you're sovereign psychologically, you can have just a whole other level of relationship. So when your goal is to be able to provide for your own psycho-spiritual needs,

The kind of partnership you could have is what Barbara Marks Hubbard calls evolutionary man and woman, where you create. and ⁓ what else? I mean, I would love people to check out my book. So it's on Amazon, When Sex Meets God, A Midlife Unraveling. And then they can get my sole book for free just by subscribing on my website. So that's all.

Alonzo Banx (59:06)
Sounds awesome. And I will put all of those links up on our pages for you and people can find out more about you on our website. Patty, it's awesome having you back on tonight. Doctor, thank you so much for being here. You're always an absolute pleasure. As always,

Patty (59:06)
Thank

Dr. Deborah Lukovich (59:10)
Thank you.

Patty (59:18)
Thank you.

Thank you.