Ep 124: Part 8/8, Relationship Death Doulas Talk Repair, Intimacy & Rebirth: Designing a Relationship that Works Series

What if the problem isn’t your relationship… it’s that you won’t let it die? In this episode, Andrea & Janelle interview relationship death doulas Yana Rumi and Cari Caldwell, who don’t just “work on” their relationship—they burn it down on purpose. No catastrophe required. Just a willingness to stop pretending, drop the roles, and meet each other again from zero. Truth: most relationships don’t fail because of conflict—they suffocate under unspoken agreements, stale identities, and quiet resentment. Like computers, relationships require a defrag and a restart ;-). You’ll hear:

-About the flatlined nature of “Happily Ever After”

-Why you should schedule sex without intercourse expectation

-How predictability can be such a cage

-Truth: Repair isn’t a failure, it's a gym where the intimacy muscles get stronger

-How jealousy, desire, and curiosity are all just sensations

-Why they’re NOT committed to forever, but to each other’s fullest expression

-The beauty of choosing each other again after brief separation

-Validation about the “weight of survival” Learn more at relationshipdeathdoulas.life.

TRANSCRIPT:

Janelle Orion 0:00

Janelle, struggling to discuss sex and intimacy with your partner, not feeling met, seen or heard in your relationships. I'm Janelle And I'm Andrea. We're two midlife Mavericks sharing our own experiences, messy, AF and no regrets with marriage, divorce, polyamory and pleasure. We've learned that when you're brave enough to figure out what you want and ask

Andrea Enright 0:23

for it, with partners, friends, family and most importantly, yourself, you'll feel more

Janelle Orion 0:29

alive and free question

Andrea Enright 0:31

everything, especially your mother's advice. There's no rom

Janelle Orion 0:34

com formula for this. But don't panic. Being

Andrea Enright 0:37

alone matters, honey, I can't miss you if you don't leave,

Janelle Orion 0:40

what if your breakup could be your breakthrough?

Andrea Enright 0:43

Our podcast is for brave hearts.

Janelle Orion 0:45

Anyone who seeks or has found the courage to confront their fears and limiting beliefs about breaking societal norms in the spirit of finding their truth.

Andrea Enright 0:54

If you're seeking permission to be brave in your relationships and want to feel

Janelle Orion 0:59

less alone along the way,

Andrea Enright 1:01

we got you

Janelle Orion 1:07

Okay, sometimes you have to kill your relationship, and you have to see if you are coming back to each other. We interview Janelle And Carrie about how they have killed their relationship many times death is important to life. Is what I got from that. Janelle, I know it was so beautiful. Their description of of that life has death in it. A tree goes into hibernation and it sheds its leaves. It loses the things that no longer serves, and then it takes that as compost and like, puts it into the flowers for the spring. And these two really showcase how a tool you could it's a tool you can use for your relationship when it's stagnant, when it needs more life in

Andrea Enright 1:56

it, when you're carrying things from the past that you don't want to carry anymore.

Janelle Orion 2:01

So whether you're in a relationship, or whether you're single, or whether you're still haunted by a past relationship, this episode is going to be for you, because guaranteed, guaranteed you're going to hear things you have never heard before, how to have absolutely about how to design a relationship that works.

Andrea Enright 2:22

Welcome to permission to be human. Bravehearts, I'm Andrea and I'm Janelle, and we're in the middle of our season six. How to design a relationship that works. We have talked to many couples and singles and gotten all these different ideas about people who are breaking the rules and creating their own template, right? Creating their own way of living together, of being together, of being apart. There's all different things, sometimes very unexpected situations. So I'm really excited to keep this season going. I'm learning so much already,

Janelle Orion 2:59

and we are thrilled to have my dear friends Carrie and Janelle. By the time brave hearts are listening to this, we will all have just returned from New Zealand, from Haydn. They are not only incredible couples, but they are also relationship death doulas, and that's the part that I'm really excited for you guys

Andrea Enright 3:20

to learn about Janelle. Can you define Haydn just, you know, just in like, six words,

Janelle Orion 3:27

Janelle, six words,

Cari Caldwell 3:29

Mystery School down under. Okay, it's a yes, mystery

Janelle Orion 3:33

school down in New Zealand. Yeah.

Andrea Enright 3:35

Okay, amazing. So I am going to tell you a little bit about Carrie and Janelle. So here we go. Carrie Caldwell, 52 and Janelle Rumi, 51 are common law married and consider themselves nesting partners with an open relationship. They live together in Lakewood, Colorado with Carrie's 15 year old son and sometimes their friend Gerard. Janelle is an author, relationship, death doula and content creator. He finds joy at the intersection of so many things, of AI and economics, spirituality, sacred sexuality, tantra, ritual and ceremony, nature, adventures, travel and ecstatic dance. Kerry is an entrepreneur, a somatic leadership coach, a constellations facilitator, a relationship death doula and a tantrica. She loves Bikram, yoga, poetry, erotic ritual, theater, travel and transnational politics. This is Janelle third common law marriage and Carrie's first. They've both been divorced once before. Carrie and Janelle have both explored polyamory and monogamy in the past. They like to do everything together except sleep, which I thought was an. A great line, so I can't wait to learn more about that, especially because right now, like I also cannot sleep with anyone else, and it's really maddening, because I really want to sleep with my partner, but I really just get the best sleep when I don't sleep with him. So yeah, welcome to the show. Welcome to permission to be human. Thanks for being here.

Cari Caldwell 5:20

Thanks for having us amazing.

Janelle Orion 5:23

So I'd love to do to start with a couple of definitions right off the top. Can you please describe what it means to be how you define nesting partners and open relationship?

Yana Rumi 5:33

Yeah, nesting partners like we have an awesome nest together that we've been rehabbing for the last year and a half. So we, yeah, we live. This is our home base. We're in different rooms in it at the moment. And yeah, this is our home and open is we are both fully in support of each other, having other relationships and following love where it goes in all its forms.

Janelle Orion 6:01

So with that, then that first question for you is, what were you taught about relationships? Because my guess is it wasn't about following love at all. Of course,

Yana Rumi 6:12

I was lucky. I had loving parents. They always taught love, devotion, communication. My mom's like, if you have an issue, you just got to communicate. That's the cornerstone of a good relationship, you know, kind of the old school, you know, healthy mom kind of stuff. But it was forever after, like they it was, there is no such thing as, you know what I've done, like serial monogamy. And so there was a big unlearning there for me. So I had a really wonderful sort of like line to say in our form. And then Carrie gets there, and you said, What would you what'd you learn from

Cari Caldwell 6:51

your parents? I said, there will be fighting, and there will be more fighting, and then if you try to talk about it, there won't be any talking. Like we don't really talk about it. There wasn't a working through ever, really. It was just, yeah, people, you go to your corners, eventually it calms down, and everybody's nervous system calms down, and then eventually there's some kind of stability and return to civility. And so, like, you know that's conflict in relationship, and relationships in general was, sort of, there was care, but like, the weight of survival, I think, weighed so heavily on my parents marriage, and eventually ended up in divorce. And so there was kind of, yeah, like, like, relationships are also like a struggle, something to get out of, something that can, like, constrain you. They're hard.

Janelle Orion 7:44

That's what I was taught. What I'm hearing there is that, like, that was a beautiful statement about your parents, right? Like, the weight of survival. There are so many couples, right, where we can talk about, like, here's this idea of romantic love, but if you don't know where, like, how, where the next meal is coming from, or how to pay the bills for the rent and, like, get your kids to school, then this, like, light and easy and romantic notion of love can feel very far away.

Yana Rumi 8:11

Yeah, and if you've never been given any skills, like just so much compassion for the the ways that my parents tried to figure it out and had no, no no support to do that.

Janelle Orion 8:23

So it sounds like this common law marriage. I love that you described this, which is, I think there's a definition to what a common law marriage is. Can you state

Cari Caldwell 8:30

that it varies state to state? Colorado's very liberal in their interpretation. It's essentially that you hold yourselves out as married. So by announcing that on this, on this podcast, is a way to sort of say, Hey, we are married. And then all the other things substantiate it, like, you know, finances and time together, and you know, you know, mutual bank accounts, all those things support it, but if you're holding yourself in public as married couple, then that's the enough for the law in Colorado, as far as I know, like last time I really dove into this was 10 years ago, so if it hasn't changed since, then, that's pretty much the Standard.

Janelle Orion 9:19

And so then, what would be one agreement, because you're creating now a relationship on your own terms? Or what are some agreements that you have that might seem strange to some of our brave hearts listening,

Yana Rumi 9:33

we have one that we love, that is maybe our favorite agreement, and we came by this agreement after the first time that we killed our relationship, which I know we're going to talk about a little bit more later, but it was one of the big gifts out of the first time doing that. And it's an agreement not to know each other. And when we say that to people, yeah, there's a little bit of a silence, right? There's a little bit like a. What like isn't that? The whole point is like, I know how you take your coffee, and I know your favorite song and and there was a way of, like, recognizing that yes, that's all yes, and that happens, and we have that, and it's beautiful. And there's also a way that we are, like, growing, and we're also mysteries to ourselves and the ways that when our partner knows us, it also limits us and keeps us in identities and keeps us in you know, even if they're positive ones, it's still like the known, and part of what we both are attracted to and love playing with is the mystery and the unknown and like, who am I today? And so one of us will do or say something that's just like, contrary to everything they've ever done or known, and I just, you know, we just be like, Oh, I'm so glad I don't know you like and it feels really freeing and really loving.

Janelle Orion 11:00

Does that ever feel destabilizing, right? When someone suddenly acts out of, say, left field, and you're like, what's going on? Or you just like, Oh no, okay, just trusting, it's sort of like a

Cari Caldwell 11:13

different order of things. Yeah, when there's something that's like destabilizing, like that, or there's some place where we're we're like, there's a rub, or something's just doesn't land right, that feels like a repair conversation, or one of those sorts of things. But when we're in this like situation, and it's usually around more trivial things, there's like, wow, really? I thought You thought differently or did differently in those circumstances, and I love that you're defying the pigeonhole that I had you in, right? So I would say that's the difference. There comes times when we're in an experience of disillusionment with each other. That's a different order of experience, and usually about the time when you when we decide to go ahead and kill the relationship.

Andrea Enright 12:10

I have to just say here, this is beautiful. I love it. And this reminds me everything goes back to Waldorf, like my daughter went to a Waldorf school. Might have heard of it. It's, you know, it's a very different type of education from kindergarten through eighth and the idea there is that you don't wear shirts or have lunch boxes with characters on them. And when they were in kindergarten, what they call early childhood learning, they made dolls, and the dolls they made did not have faces. And in all the puppet shows I have been to, and I've been to a lot of them, none of the puppets have faces. And this is why, because by giving them a face or giving them a character, you're limiting them, and then therefore you're limiting the child's imagination. So thanks for carrying this into adulthood.

Janelle Orion 13:02

What I'm feeling is like this surprise of someone else getting to be outside of this box or outside of the pigeonhole. But really it's a I can feel it as like a deep sigh of relief in my system of like, oh my gosh, I don't have to be or act a certain way all the time, right? That there is that I can feel the freedom in my own system around that and then trust that I'm not going to be judged, right? I'm going to be seen, I'm going to be accepted, I'm going to become at with curiosity if I do something wild and different, out of character, right?

Cari Caldwell 13:39

It really speaks to your whole idea of permission to be human. It's just like, Yeah, let's have permission to change our mind, to be different, to like, from taking your coffee differently or not having coffee at all, to like, Hey, today I actually feel really feminine. I'm gonna be I'm not going to be the, you know, top, dark, masculine that you love. I'm going to be, you know, something that feels more congruent and may not be what I imagine you want me to be all the time. So there's a there's so much life that opens up when you're not keeping yourself in a role relative to your beloved. And I think

Yana Rumi 14:24

one of the keys with this is that we get to do that, and we still get to belong. And I think predictability in relationship can become a belonging rule, like, if I behave this way, I can guarantee my belonging.

Janelle Orion 14:40

Wow, okay, that's really deep, like, basically you're saying, like, you're trusting each other, that you're like, Oh, I'm going to be different, and you're still going to love me.

Yana Rumi 14:48

I'm not going to get kicked out of the relationship or the tribe because I'm showing up in a way that you didn't expect.

Andrea Enright 14:56

You're saying, regardless of how I change. I'm still gonna love you. And so I guess where is the commitment? Is my what comes up for me is like, is it a commitment to love each other? Is it a commitment to be together forever? Or maybe there isn't one? Can you help me understand that?

Yana Rumi 15:15

I think the way that I would say it is like we are for each other no matter what. And if that ultimate good for Janelle is something that doesn't involve me or like means that there's a divergence in our paths, and we can both see and feel that that's a true, that's a truth, then that's what we're committed to. And inside of that, there's just so much love, there's so much love, and there's so much congruence, and we do so many things together. And like also, there's an understanding like nothing lasts forever, and I and who knows who will be in 10 years, and the commitment is yeah, for each of us to live the fullest expression of the souls we came here with, however that looks without constraint and without putting boundaries on it that are based on either one of our fears or survival needs or

Cari Caldwell 16:14

or even like a sense of obligation, like the flip side of that is, I don't want her showing up out of some obligation or habituation like that doesn't feel juicy, that doesn't feel alive, that's just like, like, you know, we're committed to the health and wellness and vitality of each other no matter what, and so, Having lived in that and had our experiences of rupture and repair have just really built and built and built a coherency and a congruency that allows for this kind of freedom to be like, Oh, I also want you to be just as, you know, free as you can be, you know, In relating,

Janelle Orion 17:00

that's gorgeous, that's so juicy and so unconventional. What I'm hearing you're saying love, you're saying freedom, you're seeing support, you're saying belonging. And yet the relationship that you've described so far is probably foreign to most of our listeners, right? So that that format, especially an open relating format, can feel very for some like, Oh, you don't have commitment, you don't love deeply. There's not a lot of depth, right? You're just, it's all sexual. It's all you know. And like, there's a lot of Miss judgments and assumptions about what open relationships or polyamory looks like. And you guys are bringing in these values that actually very much align with what I would say is monogamy, or what we're taught a relationship should provide, and you're saying, yeah, it does provide that, and it doesn't look the way that you think.

Andrea Enright 17:48

I think I'm hearing it's a belonging to a mutual love. Is that correct?

Yana Rumi 17:55

I like that. It's also like, like our relationship is already committed to life and like, our relationship has a name, our relationship has its own being. And like, we are offering up the relationship as well to life and being, like, use the relationship that we have to support love in life. How can this relationship be of service that needs to be included to kind of feel the full picture of what we've built?

Janelle Orion 18:29

What I'm hearing is that each of you have a relationship to yourselves, and then your relationship to each other is embodied in this third being.

Yana Rumi 18:39

Yeah, there's always a third in any relationship, right, right? And we're not talking about other kinky things, like, yeah,

Janelle Orion 18:50

yeah, so is the third. So I want to kind of you've talked a lot about repair and how repair has been so critical, right? There's repair and there's dissolution. Of the two words I've heard you use. But I'm curious, when you get to a moment of repair, is it that Carrie's hurt, she needs, there needs to be repair, or is it that third being, aka relationship, is hurt, and so that's the repairs coming from that perspective. Or maybe it's can be both?

Yana Rumi 19:17

Yeah, I think it can be both, and it varies. What would you say?

Yana Rumi 19:22

Love, we have such a field that when there's any sort of disturbance in the field, we disturbance in the Force, you know, we we can feel it like it's real, like it's sort of like, Oh, all right. We have this practice of, like, instantly tending to it. And, you know, when you start to really look at it, there's different ways that people are, you know, some people are really outwardly focused, and they're, like, focused on the externals, like, is my partner in a good way, you know, and sort of shaping around them. Or they're really focused on themselves. Like, oh. I'm not in a good way, and my partner needs to know. And like, I think we've sort of, in ways, sort of shifted that to, like, sensing what is the nature of the field that's happening between us. And of course, you take cues off your partner and you listen to what's going on inside of you. But ultimately it's like, oh, there. The field feels scratchy right now. And so even if it's not obvious, and especially if it's not obvious, we'll just like, say, Hey babe, what's going on right now? What's your sense of what's happening? That leads me to the next thing is, like, to me, the most powerful, most potent way of relating is curiosity. Is like not assuming that they're, you know, not giving you the love that you need, or that they're being a certain way. That is, what is the reason why you feel triggered, you know? So it's like, gosh, it feels like something's up. What do you think is happening? What do you notice? I'm noticing this. What are you noticing? And then you get a chance to compare notes and explore, versus, like, starting from a point of pointing a finger that's really potent and powerful and actually almost instantly disarms a situation. And you can start really on a place of together, looking at the state of the relationship. You know, it's like, let's look at what's between us and understand it. And it's really enjoyable every time is like a little bit deeper intimacy, a deeper sense of each other, and an opportunity to grow without the the turmoil and the churn of, you know, an argument.

Yana Rumi 21:53

And I want to say like that's when we're at our best, and we are human, too. Doesn't always work like that, just like not to give too much saintly glow around us, but it is definitely our practice.

Janelle Orion 22:08

If you're listening, and if you're someone who's like, Oh, I'm like, a really curious person in general, I invite you to go deeper, because I just this week, discovered the part of me that has always thought of myself as super curious, and found the part of me that isn't when I'm upset with my ex, and I didn't even know I wasn't looking at that part, and I just didn't even know what it existed. I think it was possible for it to exist because I had identified so strongly with curiosity as a value. And what Janelle just described to me, I like listening to it with like, new ears, because I think you said it probably on the last podcast too that you were on. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, we always, we're always learning about each other, like there's more and more, like, depth that we get to go to. And so with that, I wanted you guys to start talking about this like death doula, and how you've used the phrase I've you killed your relationship many times. And what does that mean that you're since you're sitting here together, smiling,

Cari Caldwell 23:17

in the general sense, we've had the privilege of being in certain containers that have oriented towards was it looked to look like to go through an ego death, to dis identify with who you think you are and open up to what's possible. And so we applied the same thing to our relationship through the course of one of these experiences, actually her. She came to me in her wisdom, and was like, Look, if we're gonna do this, don't we also need to dissolve our relationship or kill our relationship, because otherwise we'll be carrying that into this experience. And I was like, fuck, right? I wasn't ready. This wasn't this is like, a new idea. We were just barely a year into the relationship, and

Yana Rumi 24:04

we were really happy and in love, and had just had, like, a romantic three days in Malta, and then, like, went into this course to die. And so we were just totally on one level not wanting, like, there's no there was no reason. There was nothing wrong. There was no reason to kill it.

Cari Caldwell 24:22

Really, what it was at that point was just a ritualized, intentional closure. And yeah, we had our last dinner together on the Sunset Beach. And, you know, we had a last kiss. We we then, you know, cut our cords and energetically, and then separated our altar and vacated the room that we had and slept in different places, and, you know, split up for the duration of this experience, which was

Janelle Orion 24:56

just to put in context, about three days.

Cari Caldwell 24:59

Three days, yeah. That was about three days. Yeah. So we're in the same container, but not in communication, which is its own fascinating like, Yeah, hi. You know high sensation. Can feel it every time I tell the story of what it's like to be, to be in that space, to be in our own underworld experiences. In this particular experience, you don't have an identity for three days, so it's like, all on the table, and we didn't know and when, like, what we agreed was like, we'll know when we know. And if we're meant to come back together and we're pulled back together, then, then we'll know when. That's when that's true.

Cari Caldwell 25:38

And it's so powerful. It's so powerful to do this and then choose each other again, because you come back together and just like, Oh, wow. It's even though we're only a year in, like, there are places I was taking you for granted, and they're like, there are places where I was my shit was kind of like fogging me to the nature of what was going on, and so it's just a dramatically clarifying experience. And we've since then done it three more times this last time more out of what you would call necessity, or because things were needed to shift. So the first three were sort of like preventative health care. This last one was like, oh, we need it. We need a revitalization. And each time we genuinely go into this death in the underworld or the descent experience as if we might not get together again. Because the degree to which you can somatically and really ritually go there is the degree to which you gain this clarity in this beautiful liminal between time, and there's so much power in that space, because you just like all of your stuff comes to the surface, your attachment, your your little pieces, all those things that are running in the background, in the relationship that You think might be really good. All of a sudden show themselves, and they pop up when you're like, when there's that severance. And so you get this real crystal clear peak, like you're, it's like you're your own best friend saying, hey, you know when you do that thing, that's because you're, you know, attached to them by and you're just being really anxious. You just get that download, and then you get to choose to change and rebirth, either back into the relationship or into the next chapter of your life. But with that clarity,

Yana Rumi 27:32

yeah, I would think the parts come up and also whatever parts have wanted to be free from the relationship, no matter how good it is the ways that we either like for ourselves, we'll again keep ourselves in a shape or keep ourselves in a certain way. In that death, the parts that want to be free are free again, like they get a moment to like, feel what it feels like to come back to just being in my sovereignty, to doing it my own way, or that thing that does annoy me, but I really love, love, love the other person, so I put up with it. It's like, oh my gosh, I've got five days without that thing happening, even as much as I love them in all other ways. It's like, it's a balance, and this idea that we're sold of happily ever after, right? And like Happily Ever After is a flat line, like that's not life that's not alive, right? So, like anything that's alive is either in the growing and birthing or it's in its dying phase, and to to be able to have a relationship with those cycles is part of the much bigger picture of where we are in society and in civilization at the moment is a reconnection with giving death its place. Part of what we are up to and are like seeing with the people we're working with is the we know it like, cognitively, Death and life are right here, like they're right together. So the more that we avoid death, we're also avoiding the fullness of life. At the same time, as the ancient said, the key to life is to die before you die. And so can we do that? And can we do that in our relationships, where it's like our most intimate and our most vulnerable and like and feel, feel the possibility of that there.

Andrea Enright 29:25

Wow, there's just so much running under the surface. I think I've, like, cleaned it all out and like, I'm a good purger, I'm a good organizer. I'm a good I'm like, no, no, I've got it. Like, I brought that up. I brought that up. No, I brought that up too. And yet, there's more how you

Janelle Orion 29:40

described it, Carrie with the in relationship to the to life and death and everything that has life actually dies right as we're in winter in Denver right now, and my gorgeous tree out front, my silver maple, is no trees on it. It's, you can tell it's in its winter hibernation. And yet, I know. In just a few months, it's going to blossom into with all of these buds and all of these leaves, but that it feels even in its death, there is aliveness there, right? It's not dead. And so I love how you just described that. I haven't heard you describe it that way before. And what I'm also fascinated by is neither of you have seemed to have said that, oh, you put your relationship on the altar because of someone else, per se, right? Like, oh, you're an open relationship. So it's threatened. There's like, there's these outside threats that are coming in, or things like that that it feels like it's like, maybe coming from, I don't know if it's the hour, if the field and the being are the same thing. Janelle, maybe you can just like, make sure that those are synonyms. I would say you could use it okay, that the relationship, it's this third thing. The relationship is like, Hey, I'm the one who needs something right now, and I'm asking for more life or death to come.

Cari Caldwell 30:56

That's beautiful. I really love that. I hadn't really considered it from that particular angle, but it really is a service to the relationship and holding that in it's in this way, like Andrea, like you just said, like we you always, there's always stuff that's accumulating in the background, unconscious, subconscious, like resentments or just even little things or just building in habits. And is, you can be an amazing the best communicators, the best whatever. And there's always stuff building up. You can just assume it, it's just like on a computer, you need to defrag the hard drive every so often. Otherwise it just, like, doesn't run right? And so what we do is is hit the reset button, and that death allows the composting of all the junk that was in there during that descent period. In that compost turns around and serves the life that is rebirthed. It serves the spring for the tree and the buds that come out. So when you

Janelle Orion 32:04

work with couples, like, I'm thinking of brave hearts, if you're listening, if you're like, oh, is this right for us? Can you give us some is this monogamous? Is this open? Is this Are you new, or have you been together for 20 years? What happens if you have kids? Do you like, can't stand each other? Do you have to already, still, really? Do you still have to love each other? Like, where? Who benefits? And do you work with

Andrea Enright 32:25

all of it? The answer is yes,

Yana Rumi 32:29

yeah, yes. The answer is yes, all of it. We work with people who are Yeah, where it feels like maybe this is the end, and we're not sure, but it seems like it's the end, and so they're going to come to us and they're going to have a death to see, like, is it? Is it really true? And when we go are into the underworld, and we have a break, and we really feel our sovereignty again, is their life pulling us back together? So we work with couples who are trying to figure that out. We also work with couples who are clear, like it's over, and we want to do it consciously. And even in that case, like there's a conscious closure phase, there's being in the underworld. And even when they know they're not coming back together, there is a rebirth. If they want to do it consciously, to be able to say, yeah, like even in the underworld, these are the things I learned. These are the gifts of the relationship. This is what was hard. And there's a reverence for what we had. And I think that that word has been coming up a lot of reverence, like relational reverence, and to complete cleanly in a way that means we're not carrying things over into the next relationship in a way that is either just inefficient and repetitive or, you know, harmful, that everything needs to be given its place of what this was and honored and seen. And so we have couples who are both in alignment with that. We also have people who are like, my partner doesn't want to do this, but I want to do this. And so we can guide an individual through doing it themselves, even if their partner isn't up for doing it in that way, so that their experience is conscious. We've also done it having kids and, like, living together. So there's ways of Yeah, and supported other couples who are living together and have to figure out, okay, we want to do this. How do we manage it when we're in the same house? Or, like, is one of us on a trip? Or do we schedule it like, you know, all the logistics of that and permutations of that,

Cari Caldwell 34:35

I'd also add, even for folks that have been out of relationship for a long period of time, you might still be haunted by the ghosts of a past relationship. It could be, you know, six months ago, I was talking to a guy, you know, three years have passed, and he just he can't get into the new relationship because he's still sort of haunted by the unrest. Resolved ghosts, if you will, of what had happened. So we'll be going through this practice for him to, you know, ritually release that and allow for that underworld experience. You know, he sort of had been in his own limbo, right, which is a kind of underworld, but this is, this is one where you really go all the way down. You commune with the ancestors, you commune with your grief, and you gain the insight that allows you to make a conscious choice say, hey, now I'm ready to move on to the next, next chapter.

Janelle Orion 35:37

What does this kind of container look like? Is it kind of standardized and that it's like, a week long, or is it a three month thing? Or, like, what's the kind of commitment are we talking about?

Yana Rumi 35:47

It varies, and that's part of what we will work with people on, is to figure out, well, what's the right length for what is happening for you. And I think for some couples where things are have been really enmashed Or really entrenched, or that's been a longer term relationship, there might need to be a little bit longer. Maybe it's two weeks, maybe it's a month. For others, it's like, okay, seven days is good. Like, we're going to take a week apart. There's variables in terms of what is going to be a good death that's going to serve where you are and what's happening in the relationship

Janelle Orion 36:21

a good death, so that there can be a good rebirth. So obviously people can then work with you. They're, you know, they're getting this idea, this completely new notion, of killing their relationship. Is there anything unconventional that creates intimacy for you, that you want to share with bravehearts.

Cari Caldwell 36:42

I think we touched on this in the last podcast. But conversion has been, you know, that's a new word to some folks, and for me, it lives in the same spectrum as jealousy. So some people like jealousy is very real. It's a thing that they just like, don't have a choice about and for me, conversion is very real, like, she'll tell me about her experiences with someone else. And I literally have a physiological erection, like that happens, and so I don't have much of a choice about that. But I just mean to say it's on the spectrum, because it's all sensation, right? So just like pain pleasure, some people's playing and pain is other people's pleasure. You know, some people's like, jealousy, to me, is a version of like, turn on. Like, there's a lot of energy there, and there's different ways that we can choose to interpret the sensation that we're having. Now, that sounds a lot simpler than it is in reality, like jealousy is a really difficult, multifaceted experience, and it's real. I would say that Carrie's been on more of a journey and an arc with that that has turned to conversion and has had some experiences that have it also be an experience of deepening intimacy. And so we could do a whole podcast on that, but I don't know if you want to say anything there.

Cari Caldwell 38:06

Love, yeah, it could be an entire podcast. I think the headlines for me is is and and I really love working with people on around this who are exploring it, because so much of it is the somatic sensations that happen in our bodies and our our stories, and our ability to tolerate certain sensations, you know, and being with those, and my journey with it, led me into a deeper trust of life. I didn't know that's where I was going to go, but the ability to trust what I don't understand, and what, like, what I feel is love for my partner, is like relaxing back into the deeper trust of all it is that is, that is the deeper trust of like, there's some love there and there's life there, and there's an intelligence there that I don't always understand. But when I feel my partner is happy and thriving and pleasurable because of it, then that reps of that just breed a greater trust.

Cari Caldwell 39:08

And I would say the thing that that we also mentioned there about repair being a place where we build intimacy, it is like clockwork when there's some disruption, or there's something that we're like, out of whack with each other, and we sit down, we take the time to go through. We have our way of repair, you know, like you somatically, know, when you hit that place of like, you can take a full exhale, and then you're like, yes, we've we've met this place, we see each other, we understand that love is beneath all of this. And then nine times out of 10, it's a communication breakdown or whatever. But when you get to that point, it's just like, oh, there's us deepening into your humanness with this. They're human that just you don't get there by just having good times together necessarily, like it's one of those unique experiences of intimacy that bind and sort of become the backbone of a relationship. To me, I feel like the more repair successful repairs you have, the stronger the relationship. Which is somewhat counterintuitive, people sort of think, oh, you know, if you had to repair a lot, that means there must be a lot wrong. It's like, actually, there's a lot of like, really strong nodes in the arc or in that experience of that relationship, those repair nodes are like, doubled over with experience in love and connection. And so I kind of relish those. Because when something's up, I kind of get giddy, like, oh shit. Here we go. We're we got something to dig into. Let's repair, you know. And of course, it takes you can't force it. It's gotta you can't there's no, like, forced exhale, like, you know when it's real. Yeah, going there is just exciting to experience and feel.

Andrea Enright 41:08

I am anticipating Braveheart questions, and a question I've had in the past is, if you're really busy, couple with three kids and two dogs and a mother in law, you're taking care of. How do you keep repairing in the moment?

Yana Rumi 41:31

Yeah, bookmarks is part of it, right? Is like, it's like, not stepping over it, or not pretending it's not there, but like, having a way with each other to be like, All right, bookmark that. We'll get to it tonight before we go to bed. But like, we can't deal with it right now. We've had code words at different moments about things. Like, I think it's about knowing that it's going to happen, having an agreement for, like, being able to, yeah, I think not stepping over it is the biggest thing, and then finding the time and the space for repair. And also, you know, like, with death, like the last time we killed it, we were in the middle of, like, launching an event, like we needed to, like, talk to each other, and, like we needed to have logistical conversations. But we had a boundary, you know, like, so it was like, we're doing the logistics. That's all we're doing. We're not getting into anything else if we have to relate.

Andrea Enright 42:28

Like, just being clear on those I hear what that is, a lot of devotion and a lot of discipline and a lot of personal boundary holding.

Cari Caldwell 42:36

Yeah, I'd say similarly for sex and intimacy is like, scheduling, and you hear that all the time. But one thing I think is really important is, like, you schedule this intimate I would call it intimacy time, not with the expectation there's going to be, like, you know, intercourse, because that can also, like, flatten things like show up with enough free time to explore what's true and what's alive between you in that moment, it might be the most resource Thing. Thing is Cuddles, or, you know, whatever your love language that you figured out with each other is really powerful, and not assume that it's intercourse. And then, you know, if there's a if you can have a code word for like, let's have some spontaneous, you know, fun time. It's nice to have that to just like, say, Hey, we've got this code word. And, you know, you might not use it, but once a week, but it's like, it's nice to also have this way to be spontaneous. So having the schedule, but not pressuring the schedule to be a certain thing, and then also a way to be spontaneous is really powerful.

Janelle Orion 43:49

Okay, Bravehearts, you've got some homework there. Now. There's a lot to digest. You're gonna like, I recommend listening to this podcast again on regular speed.

Andrea Enright 44:01

Yeah, that's such a good point.

Janelle Orion 44:03

Yeah, and just a reminder that we've talked to another on another podcast. We talked about a repair conversation. There's a framework there. We have another podcast with Janelle on it. Both are really they're both in our series on how to talk about sex and intimacy with your partner. So that can be really useful as well. Okay, fabulous friends and guests who are oh so wise. If our brave hearts wanted to get a hold of you to talk about death and death dueling their relationship, how do they do that?

Cari Caldwell 44:34

Well, we have our website relationship, death doulas dot life and it's live. It's working. It's functional. I'm very excited. I put so much work into that we've also got a sub stack relationship death doulas on sub stack. We've got a whole bunch of really fun articles there. You're welcome to reach out to us individually. We can leave some contact info.

Yana Rumi 44:58

I want to see. Thank you to both of you for the invitation to be on here and also for this work and for your podcast, and for you, yeah, bringing the beauty and the humanness and the messiness and the taboo and all the things that you've brought over the course of this podcast, like it's such a gift and a deep bow to both of you and your service that this has been received.

Janelle Orion 45:22

Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Bravehearts, it's possible we've got, like, one episode left of permission to be human. Janelle And Carrie are kind of taking us home here. So thank you so much for being on the show, and thank you, Bravehearts, of course, for listening. Have a great day. Thanks, bravehearts. We love you. Bye, bye.

Andrea Enright 45:48

Hey, Bravehearts, looking for permission. Work with us. Andrea offers permission coaching, and Janelle offers erotic wellness sessions. Follow us on Instagram, meet us in real life, at permission to be human workshops in Denver. Subscribe to our newsletter. Do all this and more at our website. Permission to be human. Dot live you.