Dating and Desire Podcast

For a lot of Christian women, anger can feel like evidence that something has gone wrong. Maybe you learned that being godly meant being gracious, peaceful, agreeable, and definitely not angry. But what if anger isn’t something you need to get rid of before you can become a healthier person?

Tori Mae Hein, a certified life coach, Bible teacher, and trauma-informed coach who serves with Freedom Movement, joins Lauren and Bridgett to talk about what anger can actually reveal. They explore the messages women receive about being “good,” the ways anger gets buried beneath anxiety, overwhelm, or fear, and what can happen when we never learn how to tell the truth about what hurts, feels unjust, or matters deeply to us.

The conversation also gets practical about anger in relationships and dating. How do you express anger without using it to harm someone? What does it look like to stay curious about what’s underneath it? And as trust grows with another person, can learning to name anger honestly actually become part of building intimacy rather than threatening it?

Watch this episode on YouTube

Connect with Tori Mae Hein

• Instagram: @torimaehein
• Tori's Website
• Freedom Movement – Work From Worth

Want help applying this to your dating life?If something in this episode resonated with you, here are two ways to go deeper depending on what you need:

🩷 Work with Bridgett

You don’t need more rules. You need a deeper understanding of your sexual desire.If you still feel confused about how to navigate dating without shutting down or crossing your boundaries, Bridgett helps you build sexual self-trust and honor your values

→ ⁠⁠⁠ RECLAIM Cohort⁠⁠⁠

📓 ⁠⁠⁠Free Guides and Ecourse⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠

💙 Work with Lauren

If you’re feeling unsure what to do next— whether that’s meeting people, choosing who to pursue, or trusting your judgment in dating, Lauren helps you move forward with clarity and confidence.

→ Work with Lauren

📔 Get the free guide ⁠⁠⁠Dating Apps Don’t Have to Be Confusing⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠

Have more questions?

Email us at [email protected]

What should you look for when you’re dating someone with a history of porn use, sexual addiction, or another recovery story? Robert Vander Meer of Pure Desire joins Lauren and Bridgett for a conversation about why a person’s past matters, but checking the right boxes doesn’t necessarily tell you whether they’re ready for a healthy relationship.

Robert shares openly from his own story of addiction, loss, recovery, and marriage as they talk about what it means to let another person really know you. They explore the difference between honesty and vulnerability, when a dating partner needs to know about your recovery story, and why sobriety alone isn’t the same thing as relational health.

For singles trying to discern whether someone is safe to keep getting to know, the conversation moves beyond “Have they done the bad thing?” toward a fuller picture of health. Are they taking ownership of their story? Can they be honest without being interrogated? Do they have meaningful community, boundaries, curiosity, and the capacity to stay connected when relationships get uncomfortable? And for anyone carrying a story they fear will disqualify them from love, Robert offers a hopeful reminder that recovery does not have to be the end of your romantic story.

Watch this episode on YouTube

About Robert Vander MeerRobert Vander Meer brings more than 25 years of pastoral experience and a decade of clinical experience to his work helping people move from hopelessness and isolation toward greater health and connection. His approach does not separate faith from recovery, but sees both as part of the larger work of becoming more present in relationships while pursuing a meaningful and fulfilling life.

Robert is a clinician with Pure Desire Ministries, where he works with individuals and couples navigating unwanted sexual behavior, addiction, betrayal trauma, and recovery. At the heart of his work is a simple belief: good relationships are not the byproduct of health. Health is the byproduct of good relationships.

Website: puredesire.org

Instagram: @puredesirepdmi

If something in this episode resonated with you, here are two ways to go deeper depending on what you need:

🩷 Work with Bridgett

You don’t need more rules. You need a deeper understanding of your sexual desire.If you still feel confused about how to navigate dating without shutting down or crossing your boundaries, Bridgett helps you build sexual self-trust and honor your values

→ ⁠⁠⁠ RECLAIM Cohort⁠⁠⁠

📓 ⁠⁠⁠Free Guides and Ecourse⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠

💙 Work with Lauren

If you’re feeling unsure what to do next— whether that’s meeting people, choosing who to pursue, or trusting your judgment in dating, Lauren helps you move forward with clarity and confidence.

→ Work with Lauren

📔 Get the free guide ⁠⁠⁠Dating Apps Don’t Have to Be Confusing⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠

Have more questions?

Email us at [email protected]

Does body count actually matter when you’re deciding whether to date someone? For many Christian singles, the number of people someone has slept with can feel loaded with meaning. It can bring up questions about faith, sexual compatibility, trust, comparison, and whether someone’s past tells you something important about who they are today.

Lauren and Bridgett explore why sexual history does matter, but a number may tell you far less than you think. Two people can have similar pasts on paper and have completely different relationships with their sexuality now. And someone with little or no sexual experience isn’t automatically more prepared for healthy intimacy than someone whose story looks very different.

So if body count isn’t enough information, what should we actually be paying attention to? This conversation looks beyond the number toward sexual integrity, the stories and fears we bring into dating, and how two people can begin talking honestly about the past without letting shame or judgment take over the conversation.

Watch this episode on YouTube

If something in this episode resonated with you, here are two ways to go deeper depending on what you need:

🩷 Work with Bridgett

You don’t need more rules. You need a deeper understanding of your sexual desire.If you still feel confused about how to navigate dating without shutting down or crossing your boundaries, Bridgett helps you build sexual self-trust and honor your values

→ ⁠⁠⁠ RECLAIM Cohort⁠⁠⁠

📓 ⁠⁠⁠Free Guides and Ecourse⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠

💙 Work with Lauren

If you’re feeling unsure what to do next— whether that’s meeting people, choosing who to pursue, or trusting your judgment in dating, Lauren helps you move forward with clarity and confidence.

→ Work with Lauren

📔 Get the free guide ⁠⁠⁠Dating Apps Don’t Have to Be Confusing⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠

Have more questions?

Email us at [email protected]

Can you actually stay friends with an ex, or with someone you’ve hooked up with? A listener question gets Lauren and Bridgett talking about what happens when a romantic or sexual connection ends but the other person is still part of your church, friend group, workplace, or everyday life. Rather than giving one rule for every situation, they talk through what matters: how serious the relationship was, how intertwined your lives became, what kind of connection you’re hoping to have now, and whether staying close is actually helping either person move forward.

They also get honest about the ways “let’s just be friends” can mean very different things. Sometimes friendship is genuinely possible. Other times it becomes a way to stay emotionally attached, keep receiving scraps of connection, or avoid accepting that the relationship has ended. Lauren and Bridgett talk about giving your heart enough space to reset, resisting the pressure to choose sides after a breakup, and why churches need to become places where people can date, break up, grieve, and still belong to the same community.

The conversation gets even more complicated when the relationship began with a hookup, a fling, or another sexual experience. What were you actually looking for in that connection? Were you longing to feel chosen, close, wanted, or known? And if you decide to remain friends, what boundaries would help that friendship actually become friendship instead of a quieter version of the same relationship? This episode is less about finding a universal rule and more about being honest about what you want, what the relationship really is, and whether the way you’re staying connected lines up with the life and love you ultimately want to build.

WATCH THIS EPISODE ON YOUTUBE

If something in this episode resonated with you, here are two ways to go deeper depending on what you need:

🩷 Work with Bridgett

You don’t need more rules. You need a deeper understanding of your sexual desire.If you still feel confused about how to navigate dating without shutting down or crossing your boundaries, Bridgett helps you build sexual self-trust and honor your values

→ ⁠⁠⁠ RECLAIM Cohort⁠⁠⁠

📓 ⁠⁠⁠Free Guides and Ecourse⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠

💙 Work with Lauren

If you’re feeling unsure what to do next— whether that’s meeting people, choosing who to pursue, or trusting your judgment in dating, Lauren helps you move forward with clarity and confidence.

→ Work with Lauren

📔 Get the free guide ⁠⁠⁠Dating Apps Don’t Have to Be Confusing⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠

Have more questions?

Email us at [email protected]

Cedric Dale Hoard, mental health therapist, spoken word artist, and author, joins Lauren and Bridgett to talk about the messages Christian men often receive about desire, lust, masculinity, and relationships. Drawing from his work with men and his own experience, Cedric looks at how purity culture can leave men ashamed of attraction or afraid of desire without helping them understand what may be happening underneath it.The conversation gets practical about what healthier dating can look like. What do you do when someone you like is not ready for physical affection? How can a man say no to sexual attention without feeling weak? What is the difference between attraction and lust? Cedric talks about emotional regulation, boundaries, vulnerability, and learning to express disappointment without turning it into pressure or manipulation.They also talk about male friendship, loneliness, and what happens when men begin to let safe people really know them. For men who want to date and love well, this episode offers a way to move beyond shame without pretending desire does not exist. And for women who care about the men in their lives, it offers a fuller picture of the emotional work many men are doing to become healthier partners, husbands, fathers, and friends.

WATCH THIS EPISODE ON YOUTUBESHOW RESOURCESThe Head & The CrownAnchored In LightCONNECT WITH CEDRIC HOARDWebsite: https://cedricdalehoard.comInstagram: @cedricdalehoard

If something in this episode resonated with you, here are two ways to go deeper depending on what you need:

🩷 Work with Bridgett

You don’t need more rules. You need a deeper understanding of your sexual desire.If you still feel confused about how to navigate dating without shutting down or crossing your boundaries, Bridgett helps you build sexual self-trust and honor your values

→ ⁠⁠⁠ RECLAIM Cohort⁠⁠⁠

📓 ⁠⁠⁠Free Guides and Ecourse⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠

💙 Work with Lauren

If you’re feeling unsure what to do next— whether that’s meeting people, choosing who to pursue, or trusting your judgment in dating, Lauren helps you move forward with clarity and confidence.

→ Work with Lauren

📔 Get the free guide ⁠⁠⁠Dating Apps Don’t Have to Be Confusing⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠

Have more questions?

Email us at [email protected]

Being single for a long time changes the way you build your life. You learn your routines, make your own decisions, carry your own responsibilities, and often become very good at doing life on your own. Lauren and Bridgett talk about what happens when you genuinely enjoy the life you have built but still want someone to share it with.

They get honest about the good and hard parts of long-term singleness, from knowing yourself well to carrying the financial and mental load alone. They also explore what can happen when independence becomes hard to give up, when preferences start turning into requirements, and when dating feels harder because you have spent years building a life that already works.

If you have been single for years and wonder whether you have become too independent, too selective, or just tired of trying, this episode is for you. How do you stay open to love without putting your life on hold? How do you make room for grief when dating hurts? And how do you keep taking small risks when you do not know how the story will turn out?

WATCH THIS EPISODE ON YOUTUBE

If something in this episode resonated with you, here are two ways to go deeper depending on what you need:

🩷 Work with Bridgett

You don’t need more rules. You need a deeper understanding of your sexual desire.If you still feel confused about how to navigate dating without shutting down or crossing your boundaries, Bridgett helps you build sexual self-trust and honor your values

→ ⁠⁠⁠ RECLAIM Cohort⁠⁠⁠

📓 ⁠⁠⁠Free Guides and Ecourse⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠

💙 Work with Lauren

If you’re feeling unsure what to do next— whether that’s meeting people, choosing who to pursue, or trusting your judgment in dating, Lauren helps you move forward with clarity and confidence.

→ Work with Lauren

📔 Get the free guide ⁠⁠⁠Dating Apps Don’t Have to Be Confusing⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠

Have more questions?

Email us at [email protected]

Dr. Camden Morgante, psychologist and author of Recovering from Purity Culture, joins Lauren and Bridgett for a conversation about dating after deconstruction and what it looks like to rethink the beliefs you inherited about faith, sexuality, and relationships. Drawing from both her clinical work and her own purity culture experience, Camden offers a hopeful reminder: you do not have to have your faith completely figured out before you can date, connect, and keep discovering what you believe.

The deeper tension is that purity culture often promised certainty. Stay pure, follow the rules, find the right Christian spouse, and a good marriage would follow. When that formula begins to fall apart, dating can feel confusing. Together, they explore how to move beyond the pressure to make every date a potential marriage, loosen rigid ideas about the “perfect” Christian partner, and approach dating with more curiosity, self-trust, and room to grow.

For anyone recovering from purity culture while still wanting faith to remain part of their dating life, this conversation offers a way forward without simply replacing one rulebook with another. What to pay attention to… is whether your relationships are helping you grow in honesty, wisdom, safety, mutuality, and connection. Healing is not about getting every belief or boundary perfectly settled first. It is about becoming more free to date, discern, and love with integrity.

WATCH THIS EPISODE ON YOUTUBE

SHOW RESOURCES

• Book: Recovering from Purity Culture by Dr. Camden Morgante

CONNECT WITH DR. CAMDEN MORGANTE

• Website
• Instagram: @DrCamden

If something in this episode resonated with you, here are two ways to go deeper depending on what you need:

🩷 Work with Bridgett

You don’t need more rules. You need a deeper understanding of your sexual desire.If you still feel confused about how to navigate dating without shutting down or crossing your boundaries, Bridgett helps you build sexual self-trust and honor your values

→ ⁠⁠⁠ RECLAIM Cohort⁠⁠⁠

📓 ⁠⁠⁠Free Guides and Ecourse⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠

💙 Work with Lauren

If you’re feeling unsure what to do next— whether that’s meeting people, choosing who to pursue, or trusting your judgment in dating, Lauren helps you move forward with clarity and confidence.

→ Work with Lauren

📔 Get the free guide ⁠⁠⁠Dating Apps Don’t Have to Be Confusing⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠

Have more questions?

Email us at [email protected]

Kendra LeeAnne Kuntz, a gospel-centered Bible teacher and writer, joins Lauren and Bridgett for a conversation about divorce, healing, and what it means to risk your heart again after an abusive marriage. Drawing from her own story, Kendra shares how well-meaning Christian teaching about purity, submission, and marriage shaped the way she understood herself, and why it took leaving her marriage to begin recognizing some of what she had been living through as abuse.

The deeper tension here is that Scripture and the character of God can become distorted when marriage is treated as something that must be preserved at the expense of safety, dignity, or truth. Kendra talks about learning to separate God's character from the messages she had absorbed, the pastors and community who helped carry her through divorce, and why conversations about biblical divorce and remarriage need more humility, discernment, and room for redemption.

But this episode does not stop at what went wrong. Kendra shares what helped her begin trusting herself again, including therapy, learning to recognize red flags, and inviting trusted people into her dating life. Lauren, Bridgett, and Kendra also talk honestly about attraction and compatibility, dating with children, when to introduce a new partner to your family, and the fear that divorce or motherhood may have somehow made you too complicated to be chosen again.

For anyone wondering whether healthy love is still possible after heartbreak, this conversation offers a deeply hopeful picture of what can come next. Healing does not require pretending the past did not happen, and wisdom does not mean closing your heart forever. What to pay attention to… is whether you are becoming more able to use your voice, trust what you are noticing, welcome safe people into your discernment, and choose a relationship where you and the people you love are treated as a blessing rather than a burden.

Watch this episode on YouTube

SHOW RESOURCES

• What the Bible Actually Says About Divorce: Kendra's larger Bible study explores difficult passages surrounding divorce and what Scripture actually says about the topic. https://www.kendraleeanne.com/store/p2/whatthebibleactuallysaysaboutdivorce.html
• Kendra also offers mini studies addressing difficult-to-understand Bible verses and questions surrounding abuse and divorce for Christians: https://www.kendraleeanne.com/store/c3/Mini_Scripture_Studies.html

CONNECT WITH KENDRA

• Website
• Instagram: @kendraleeanne
• Substack
• FacebookWant help applying this to your dating life?

If something in this episode resonated with you, here are two ways to go deeper depending on what you need:

🩷 Work with Bridgett

You don’t need more rules. You need a deeper understanding of your sexual desire.If you still feel confused about how to navigate dating without shutting down or crossing your boundaries, Bridgett helps you build sexual self-trust and honor your values

→ ⁠⁠⁠ RECLAIM Cohort⁠⁠⁠

📓 ⁠⁠⁠Free Guides and Ecourse⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠

💙 Work with Lauren

If you’re feeling unsure what to do next— whether that’s meeting people, choosing who to pursue, or trusting your judgment in dating, Lauren helps you move forward with clarity and confidence.

→ Work with Lauren

📔 Get the free guide ⁠⁠⁠Dating Apps Don’t Have to Be Confusing⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠

Have more questions?

Email us at [email protected]

Ellie Berry, a Sexual Addiction and Recovery coach, joins Lauren and Bridgett for an honest conversation about women, pornography, and what the path toward real freedom can look like. Drawing from her own experience with pornography addiction and recovery, Ellie names the isolation many women carry when their story does not fit the common assumption that pornography is primarily a man's struggle.

Together, they explore why healing takes more than shame, willpower, or simply trying harder. Ellie shares how understanding triggers and the brain's addiction cycle changed the way she understood recovery, why telling a safe person became such an important part of her own healing, and what it can look like to become curious about the deeper needs for connection, relief, pleasure, and care underneath unwanted sexual behavior.

The conversation also makes room for a question many Christian women may not know how to ask: What do I do with sexual desire when I'm single, recovering, or choosing not to act on it? Lauren, Bridgett, and Ellie talk about learning to listen to the body without treating desire as dirty or dangerous, finding healthy ways to move that energy toward life and connection, and discovering that sexual wholeness is about much more than whether or not a particular behavior stops.

For any woman who has struggled quietly, wondered whether she is the only one, or felt like she should have figured this out by now, this episode offers both practical first steps and a deeply hopeful picture of recovery. And for the friend who may someday be trusted with someone's story, it offers guidance for how to respond with care instead of shame. Through it all is a reminder that healing does not begin with earning your way back to God. His delight has not disappeared because you struggle.

WATCH THIS EPISODE ON YOUTUBE

SHOW RESOURCES

• Beyond the Porn Phenomenon from Pure Desire Ministries and Barna Group
• Fight the New Drug
• Ellie offers a free First Steps in Recovery PDF for women who want to begin taking immediate steps toward healing and recovery.

CONNECT WITH ELLIE BERRY

- Website

- Instagram: @elliebe_

- Ellie also offers an individual coaching package that includes six sessions over three months for women who want more personalized support in their recovery journey.

ABOUT ELLIE BERRY

Ellie Berry is a Sexual Addiction and Recovery coach based in Northern Idaho who is passionate about empowering and equipping women through individual coaching, resources, and group sessions.Outside of her coaching work, Ellie is getting back into running as a hobby and enjoys sitting in a cute coffee shop and walking her two golden retrievers, Margo and Maple.

Want help applying this to your dating life?

If something in this episode resonated with you, here are two ways to go deeper depending on what you need:

🩷 Work with Bridgett

You don’t need more rules. You need a deeper understanding of your sexual desire.If you still feel confused about how to navigate dating without shutting down or crossing your boundaries, Bridgett helps you build sexual self-trust and honor your values

→ ⁠⁠⁠ RECLAIM Cohort⁠⁠⁠

📓 ⁠⁠⁠Free Guides and Ecourse⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠

💙 Work with Lauren

If you’re feeling unsure what to do next— whether that’s meeting people, choosing who to pursue, or trusting your judgment in dating, Lauren helps you move forward with clarity and confidence.

→ Work with Lauren

📔 Get the free guide ⁠⁠⁠Dating Apps Don’t Have to Be Confusing⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠

Have more questions?

Email us at [email protected]

Have you ever been told dating should feel easy, that the right person will show up when you stop looking, or that maybe you’re just being too picky?

In this episode of Dating & Desire, Lauren and Bridgett unpack some of the Christian dating advice singles hear over and over and ask whether it’s actually helping. They talk about why anxiety doesn’t always mean a relationship is wrong, why dating is meant to be a process of discovery rather than a search for certainty, and why finding love still requires the courage to risk being disappointed.

They also get honest about attraction, standards, and the fear of settling. How much attraction is enough? Do your standards need to change as you get older? And how do you know when you’re wisely adjusting expectations versus making yourself smaller just to make a relationship work?

Because dating doesn’t come with guarantees. The invitation is not to eliminate every risk, but to become more honest about what you want, more willing to move toward connection, and more discerning about the kind of relationship that gives both people room to grow.

Watch this episode on YouTube

Want help applying this to your dating life?

If something in this episode resonated with you, here are two ways to go deeper depending on what you need:

🩷 Work with Bridgett

You don’t need more rules. You need a deeper understanding of your sexual desire.If you still feel confused about how to navigate dating without shutting down or crossing your boundaries, Bridgett helps you build sexual self-trust and honor your values

→ ⁠⁠⁠ RECLAIM Cohort⁠⁠⁠

📓 ⁠⁠⁠Free Guides and Ecourse⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠

💙 Work with Lauren

If you’re feeling unsure what to do next— whether that’s meeting people, choosing who to pursue, or trusting your judgment in dating, Lauren helps you move forward with clarity and confidence.

→ Work with Lauren

📔 Get the free guide ⁠⁠⁠Dating Apps Don’t Have to Be Confusing⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠

Have more questions?

Email us at [email protected]

If you're waiting until marriage to have sex, how can you know if you and the person you're dating are sexually compatible?

Lauren and Bridgett explore what sexual compatibility can look like long before sex enters the relationship. Rather than treating compatibility as something you can only discover through sexual activity, they look at the ways attraction, emotional safety, boundaries, honesty, and the ability to stay connected through disagreement can reveal how someone may eventually show up in sexual intimacy.

Because marriage doesn't suddenly create mutuality, respect, or sexual health. The patterns you practice while dating matter, including how you respond to vulnerability, how you navigate physical boundaries, and how each person takes responsibility for their own sexual integrity.

If you're dating toward marriage while honoring abstinence, this conversation is an invitation to ask not just, "Are we sexually compatible?" but, "What is the way we relate to each other now revealing about the kind of intimacy we could build together?"

Watch this episode on YouTube

How to discuss p•rn in dating:

Download Discussion Guide

Read Article on PureDesire.org

Want help applying this to your dating life?

If something in this episode resonated with you, here are two ways to go deeper depending on what you need:

🩷 Work with Bridgett

You don’t need more rules. You need a deeper understanding of your sexual desire.If you still feel confused about how to navigate dating without shutting down or crossing your boundaries, Bridgett helps you build sexual self-trust and honor your values

→ ⁠⁠⁠ RECLAIM Cohort⁠⁠⁠

📓 ⁠⁠⁠Free Guides and Ecourse⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠

💙 Work with Lauren

If you’re feeling unsure what to do next— whether that’s meeting people, choosing who to pursue, or trusting your judgment in dating, Lauren helps you move forward with clarity and confidence.

→ Work with Lauren

📔 Get the free guide ⁠⁠⁠Dating Apps Don’t Have to Be Confusing⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠

Have more questions?

Email us at [email protected]

Dr. Glenn and Phyllis Hill, the couple behind Connection Codes, offer a grounded and hopeful vision for emotional connection in dating, marriage, and everyday relationships. Their own story includes a painful start to marriage, years of misunderstanding, and a later discovery that emotional language could change everything about how they loved and understood one another.

The deeper tension here is that many Christian spaces have emphasized behavior while leaving people emotionally under-formed. Desire, sexual connection, conflict, disappointment, and fear all live in the body, but without language, they often become silence, shame, or distance. Glenn and Phyllis help make emotion feel less threatening and more like a God-given pathway toward connection.

For anyone dating or discerning a relationship, this conversation gives permission to bring your authentic self forward with wisdom. What to pay attention to… is not only chemistry or shared values, but whether emotional honesty creates more closeness or more confusion. Healthy connection grows through clarity, discernment, and self-trust.

Watch this episode on YouTube

Connect with Dr Glenn & Phyllis Hill

• Website: https://connectioncodes.co/ - USE CODE RYL20 for 20% off Foundations Course

• Instagram: http://instagram.com/connectioncodes

Want help applying this to your dating life?

If something in this episode resonated with you, here are two ways to go deeper depending on what you need:

🩷 Work with Bridgett

You don’t need more rules. You need a deeper understanding of your sexual desire.If you still feel confused about how to navigate dating without shutting down or crossing your boundaries, Bridgett helps you build sexual self-trust and honor your values

→ ⁠⁠⁠ RECLAIM Cohort⁠⁠⁠

📓 ⁠⁠⁠Free Guides and Ecourse⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠

💙 Work with Lauren

If you’re feeling unsure what to do next— whether that’s meeting people, choosing who to pursue, or trusting your judgment in dating, Lauren helps you move forward with clarity and confidence.

→ Work with Lauren

📔 Get the free guide ⁠⁠⁠Dating Apps Don’t Have to Be Confusing⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠

Have more questions?

Email us at [email protected]

Lauren and Bridgett tackle one of the hardest parts of dating: Breakups. From the disappointment of ending early connections to the heartbreak of losing a relationship you thought might become your forever person, they explore what it means to grieve with honesty, dignity, and self-trust.

Because dating requires risk, and risk sometimes leads to loss. Instead of minimizing grief, over-spiritualizing it, or avoiding hard conversations, they offer a different path: ownership, kindness, and compassion for your own heart.

If you're discerning or healing from a breakup, this conversation is an invitation to ask not just, "How do I move on?" but, "What did this experience reveal about where I need to grow and what I really want in a partner ?"

Watch this episode on YouTube

Want help applying this to your dating life?

If something in this episode resonated with you, here are two ways to go deeper depending on what you need:

🩷 Work with Bridgett

You don’t need more rules. You need a deeper understanding of your sexual desire.If you still feel confused about how to navigate dating without shutting down or crossing your boundaries, Bridgett helps you build sexual self-trust and honor your values

→ ⁠⁠⁠ RECLAIM Cohort⁠⁠⁠

📓 ⁠⁠⁠Free Guides and Ecourse⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠

💙 Work with Lauren

If you’re feeling unsure what to do next— whether that’s meeting people, choosing who to pursue, or trusting your judgment in dating, Lauren helps you move forward with clarity and confidence.

→ Work with Lauren

📔 Get the free guide ⁠⁠⁠Dating Apps Don’t Have to Be Confusing⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠

Have more questions?

Email us at [email protected]

Tabitha Westbrook, a trauma therapist and author, brings clarity, courage, and compassion to the tender realities of sexual abuse, healing, and dating after harm. With deep honesty and a fierce belief in God’s good design, she helps name what has been distorted, what has been taken, and what restoration can actually look like.

A central tension in this conversation is how often abuse is hidden under confusion, grooming, niceness, spiritual language, or pressure that slowly erodes a person’s boundaries. Tabitha speaks directly to the body’s experience of fear, freezing, shame, and self-doubt, while reminding listeners that consent, dignity, and personhood matter deeply to God.

Her teaching offers a path toward formation that is honest, embodied, and full of integrity. Healing is not about pretending the harm did not happen or rushing back into romance before the story has been tended. It is about reclaiming wholeness, learning to recognize coercion, honoring the body’s wisdom, and rebuilding connection with God, self, and safe community.

For anyone dating after pain, or wondering whether healthy sexuality can still be possible, this conversation is a compassionate invitation to slow down and trust what your body is telling you. What to pay attention to… is whether someone respects your no, honors your personhood, receives your boundaries, and helps you feel more safe, clear, and whole. That is where discernment, clarity, and self-trust begin to return.

Watch this episode on YouTube

Connect with Tabitha Westbrook

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tabithathecounselor/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_tjatp
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TabithaTheCounselor
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thejourneyandtheprocess

Mindful Connection - faith-based, self-paced skills course on mindfulness which includes a private podcast. Use code MINDFUL for 80% off.

Want help applying this to your dating life?

If something in this episode resonated with you, here are two ways to go deeper depending on what you need:

🩷 Work with Bridgett

You don’t need more rules. You need a deeper understanding of your sexual desire.If you still feel confused about how to navigate dating without shutting down or crossing your boundaries, Bridgett helps you build sexual self-trust and honor your values

→ ⁠⁠⁠ RECLAIM Cohort⁠⁠⁠

📓 ⁠⁠⁠Free Guides and Ecourse⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠

💙 Work with Lauren

If you’re feeling unsure what to do next— whether that’s meeting people, choosing who to pursue, or trusting your judgment in dating, Lauren helps you move forward with clarity and confidence.

→ Work with Lauren

📔 Get the free guide ⁠⁠⁠Dating Apps Don’t Have to Be Confusing⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠

Have more questions?

Email us at [email protected]

Dr. Jake Porter, a couples therapist who specializes in betrayal and repair, offers a grounded conversation about how people actually grow in faith, love, and relational maturity. With insight from neuroscience, Scripture, and human development, he helps name why dating is not just about finding the right person, but about becoming someone capable of healthy connection.

The deeper tension here is that many of us interpret struggle as failure. If a relationship feels hard, if desire feels complicated, or if conflict appears early, we may assume something is wrong. Jake reframes those moments as opportunities for formation, where the body, the nervous system, and the Spirit meet us in the real work of learning how to love.

His teaching moves beyond information and into embodied integrity. We are not formed only by what we believe, but by what we practice: how we text, how we show up, how we repair, how we tell the truth, and how we stay present when connection becomes complex. Wholeness grows as we learn to name rupture, move toward repair, and let relationship become part of our formation.

For dating and relationships, this matters because healthy love is not built by avoiding all discomfort. What to pay attention to… is whether you can be honest about what is happening, stay curious instead of reactive, and notice if the relationship is helping you become more grounded, connected, and whole. That is where discernment, clarity, and self-trust begin to take shape.

Connect with Dr. Jake Porter

• Instagram
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• eBook and webinar on healing from betrayal for $9: https://helpafterbetrayal.com/

Want help applying this to your dating life?

If something in this episode resonated with you, here are two ways to go deeper depending on what you need:

🩷 Work with Bridgett

You don’t need more rules. You need a deeper understanding of your sexual desire.If you still feel confused about how to navigate dating without shutting down or crossing your boundaries, Bridgett helps you build sexual self-trust and honor your values

→ ⁠⁠⁠ RECLAIM Cohort⁠⁠⁠

📓 ⁠⁠⁠Free Guides and Ecourse⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠

💙 Work with Lauren

If you’re feeling unsure what to do next— whether that’s meeting people, choosing who to pursue, or trusting your judgment in dating, Lauren helps you move forward with clarity and confidence.

→ Work with Lauren

📔 Get the free guide ⁠⁠⁠Dating Apps Don’t Have to Be Confusing⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠

Have more questions?

Email us at [email protected]

Dr. Carol Tanksley, a physician and minister, brings a rare blend of medical wisdom, theological depth, and lived experience to the conversation around singleness and sexuality. Having lived through long-term singleness, a cherished marriage, widowhood, and singleness again, she speaks with honesty about desire, intimacy, the body, and what healthy sexual formation actually takes.

One of the deeper tensions she names is the way many singles have been given information about what not to do, but very little formation around what to do with longing, touch, sexual desire, and the need to be known. Dr. Carol invites a more embodied understanding of discipleship, one that does not reduce desire to sin or collapse intimacy into sexual activity, but honors the emotional reality beneath the ache.

Her teaching moves toward a more connected vision of integrity, wholeness, and life in the light. Rather than relying on fear, rigid rules, or surface-level accountability, she points to the kind of formation that happens when desire is brought to Jesus, trusted community, and wise discernment. This is not about hiding the heart behind walls, but learning how to steward longing with honesty, maturity, and love.

For anyone dating, healing, or navigating singleness, this conversation offers a slower and more trustworthy way. What to pay attention to… is what comes alive in you around another person, where your longing is asking for care, and whether that desire can be held with peace, connection, and trust. Healthy love begins with discernment, clarity, and self-trust.

Watch this episode on YouTube

Connect with Dr. Carol Tanksley

• Website
• YouTube
• Instagram
• Facebook
• In-person Intensives
• Her book, Sexpectations

If something in this episode resonated with you, here are two ways to go deeper depending on what you need:

🩷 Work with Bridgett

You don’t need more rules. You need a deeper understanding of your sexual desire.If you still feel confused about how to navigate dating without shutting down or crossing your boundaries, Bridgett helps you build sexual self-trust and honor your values

→ ⁠⁠⁠ RECLAIM Cohort⁠⁠⁠

📓 ⁠⁠⁠Free Guides and Ecourse⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠

💙 Work with Lauren

If you’re feeling unsure what to do next— whether that’s meeting people, choosing who to pursue, or trusting your judgment in dating, Lauren helps you move forward with clarity and confidence.

→ Work with Lauren

→ Coming in July: The Mid-Summer Dating Reset→ ⁠⁠⁠Book a Dating Clarity Call⁠⁠⁠ We’ll look at your specific situation and map out your next step.

📔 Get the free guide ⁠⁠⁠Dating Apps Don’t Have to Be Confusing⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠

Have more questions?

Email us at [email protected]

Bridgett Blood and Lauren Mathues step into one of the most tender and often misunderstood conversations in Christian sexuality: masturbation, self-pleasure, and how adults make embodied, faithful decisions. With warmth and nuance, they name the range of perspectives people often carry, from “always wrong” to “always empowering,” and invite listeners into a more honest conversation about story, Scripture, the Holy Spirit, and what it really looks like.

The depth of this conversation comes from the way they refuse to separate theology from lived experience. Our bodies, histories, wounds, shame, curiosity, and longings are all present when we talk about sexuality. For some, this topic touches abuse, loneliness, purity culture, pornography, confusion, or fear. For others, it raises questions about freedom, agency, healing, and what it means to live with integrity.

Bridgett and Lauren offer a framework that moves beyond rule-making and reaction. They talk about discernment, personal conviction, embodied awareness, the difference between pleasure and escape, and the importance of asking whether our practices are leading us toward connection or away from it. Their invitation is not to bypass God or the body, but to listen more deeply to both as part of formation and wholeness.

What to pay attention to is the fruit of your choices. Are you becoming more connected to God, yourself, and others, or more hidden, isolated, and self-protective? Are you honoring your body with kindness, or using pleasure to avoid the risk of being known and cared for? These questions help create a path toward discernment, clarity, and a deeper trust in your own story.

Watch this episode on YouTube

Mentioned in this Episode

• Bridgett’s free guidebook, 19 Ways to Engage Sexual Joy
• Pure Desire: Groups and Clinical care for unwanted sexual behavior and betrayal trauma for men and women
• She Recovery: women porn recovery resources
• Tabbitha Westbrook: healthy sexuality after abuse

If something in this episode resonated with you, here are two ways to go deeper depending on what you need:

🩷 Work with Bridgett

You don’t need more rules. You need a deeper understanding of your sexual desire.If you still feel confused about how to navigate dating without shutting down or crossing your boundaries, Bridgett helps you build sexual self-trust and honor your values

→ ⁠⁠⁠ RECLAIM Cohort⁠⁠⁠

📓 ⁠⁠⁠Free Guides and Ecourse⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠

💙 Work with Lauren

If you’re feeling unsure what to do next— whether that’s meeting people, choosing who to pursue, or trusting your judgment in dating, Lauren helps you move forward with clarity and confidence.

→ Work with Lauren

→ Coming in July: The Mid-Summer Dating Reset→ ⁠⁠⁠Book a Dating Clarity Call⁠⁠⁠ We’ll look at your specific situation and map out your next step.

📔 Get the free guide ⁠⁠⁠Dating Apps Don’t Have to Be Confusing⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠

Have more questions?

Email us at [email protected]

Bridgett and Lauren gather the threads from recent conversations with Dr. Anthony Bradley, Barb Hill, Dr. Andrew Bauman, Dr. Jenna Mountain, Jonathan Hernandez, Adam Young, and Dr. Tony. Across themes of men’s formation, emotional capacity, abstinence, shame, story, and embodied sexuality, they keep returning to what healthy love actually takes.

The tension is honest: rules can feel safer than discernment, but they cannot do the deeper work of formation. Bridgett and Lauren name the body as a place of wisdom, not fear, where desire, hesitation, grief, attraction, and discomfort all offer meaningful information.

Their invitation is toward integrity that is connected and whole. Physical closeness is not treated as a formula, but as something that should match trust, commitment, communication, and the relational reality being built.

For dating and relationships, this becomes deeply practical. What to pay attention to is whether your body feels safe, whether your words can be honest, and whether connection is forming something good in both of you. The fruit is clarity, discernment, and growing trust in yourself.

Watch this episode on YouTube

Mentioned in this Episode

• Join Andrew Bauman's Man Land
• Listen to Three Percent Podcast

Heartbreak Albums Bridgett Mentioned:

• The Process by Judah & The Lion
• Nova by Falcon

If something in this episode resonated with you, here are two ways to go deeper depending on what you need:

🩷 Work with Bridgett

You don’t need more rules. You need a deeper understanding of your sexual desire.If you still feel confused about how to navigate dating without shutting down or crossing your boundaries, Bridgett helps you build sexual self-trust and honor your values

→ ⁠⁠⁠ RECLAIM Cohort⁠⁠⁠

📓 ⁠⁠⁠Free Guides and Ecourse⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠

💙 Work with Lauren

If you’re feeling unsure what to do next— whether that’s meeting people, choosing who to pursue, or trusting your judgment in dating, Lauren helps you move forward with clarity and confidence.→ Work with Lauren

→ Coming in July: The Mid-Summer Dating Reset→ ⁠⁠⁠Book a Dating Clarity Call⁠⁠⁠ We’ll look at your specific situation and map out your next step.

📔 Get the free guide ⁠⁠⁠Dating Apps Don’t Have to Be Confusing⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠

Dr. Tony Krohn, chiropractor and men’s holistic health coach, brings a thoughtful and needed perspective on men, formation, health, and what actually prepares someone for love. He speaks to the pressure many men feel to become impressive on the outside while avoiding the deeper work of identity, community, healing, and embodied integrity. This conversation moves beyond appearances, apps, and external validation into what it really looks like to become ready for relationship.

One of the central tensions is that growth can look good on the outside while still being driven by fear. We can read the books, work out, clean up our lives, and say we are “doing the work,” but still be trying to prove we are worthy of love. Tony names the deeper invitation: to let God form the places in us that are lonely, defended, insecure, or still reaching for validation, so our healing becomes honest rather than performative.

His framework is rooted in wholeness: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health held together rather than separated into parts. The goal is not simply to get the girl, get married, or check the boxes. It is formation with integrity, where community can offer encouragement and correction, where the body is cared for, where the heart is not abandoned, and where connection becomes something we can actually receive and sustain.

What to pay attention to is why you are doing what you are doing. Are you growing because you are afraid you are not enough, or because you want to live with greater clarity, love, and faithfulness? In dating and relationships, notice whether your desire for marriage is helping you become more whole or tempting you to perform. That kind of honesty creates space for discernment, deeper trust, and a more grounded relationship with yourself.

Watch this episode on YouTube

Connect with Dr. Tony

• Instagram
• The Restored Man - Group Program
• Discovery Call

If something in this episode resonated with you, here are two ways to go deeper depending on what you need:

🩷 Work with Bridgett

You don’t need more rules. You need a deeper understanding of your sexual desire.If you still feel confused about how to navigate dating without shutting down or crossing your boundaries, Bridgett helps you build sexual self-trust and honor your values

→ ⁠⁠⁠ RECLAIM Cohort⁠⁠⁠

📓 ⁠⁠⁠Free Guides and Ecourse⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠

💙 Work with Lauren

If you’re feeling unsure what to do next— whether that’s meeting people, choosing who to pursue, or trusting your judgment in dating, Lauren helps you move forward with clarity and confidence.

→ ⁠⁠⁠Book a Dating Clarity Call⁠⁠⁠ We’ll look at your specific situation and map out your next step.

📔 Get the free guide ⁠⁠⁠Dating Apps Don’t Have to Be Confusing⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠

Adam Young, licensed clinical social worker and author of Make Sense of Your Story, brings a compassionate and clarifying lens to why our past continues to shape how we date, desire, and attach. Rather than asking us to summarize our whole life from a distance, Adam invites us to pay attention to the particular memories, relational patterns, bodily responses, and places of pain that have formed us. For anyone longing for honest, connected love, this conversation helps name what it really looks like.

There is a meaningful tension here: our bodies are telling the truth, but not always the whole truth about the present moment. Attraction, fear, shame, and longing are not random, and they are not problems to simply overcome. They are often invitations to listen with more kindness to what our lived experience has carried, so that we can respond with greater clarity instead of simply reenacting what feels familiar.

Adam’s framework centers on the integrity of looking at our own story with compassion, not contempt. Healing is not a finish line we cross before we become ready for love, but an ongoing formation of how we relate to our heart, our body, our wounds, and our desire. The real question becomes whether we and the people we date are willing to keep looking, keep repairing, and keep moving toward wholeness together.

What to pay attention to is not whether someone has a perfect story, but whether they can engage their story honestly. Can they stay present with emotion? Can they receive a small vulnerability with care? Can they notice a pattern without turning away or becoming cruel? These are the places where dating becomes discernment, where clarity deepens, and where self-trust has room to grow.

Watch this episode on YouTube

About Adam Young

Adam Young is a therapist who focuses on trauma and abuse, the host of The Place We Find Ourselves podcast, and the author of Make Sense of Your Story: Why Engaging Your Past With Kindness Changes Everything. Adam is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) with a Master degree in Social Work (Virginia Commonwealth University) and Divinity (Emory University). He currently serves as a Fellow and Instructor at The Allender Center and lives in Fort Collins, CO, where he enjoys skiing, soccer, and mountain biking.

Connect with Adam

Website

Instagram

Adam's Book, Make Sense of Your StoryWant help applying this to your dating life?

If something in this episode resonated with you, here are two ways to go deeper depending on what you need:

🩷 Work with Bridgett

You don’t need more rules. You need a deeper understanding of your sexual desire.If you still feel confused about how to navigate dating without shutting down or crossing your boundaries, Bridgett helps you build sexual self-trust and honor your values

→ ⁠⁠⁠ RECLAIM Cohort⁠⁠⁠

📓 ⁠⁠⁠Free Guides and Ecourse⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠

💙 Work with Lauren

If you’re feeling unsure what to do next— whether that’s meeting people, choosing who to pursue, or trusting your judgment in dating, Lauren helps you move forward with clarity and confidence.

→ ⁠⁠⁠Book a Dating Clarity Call⁠⁠⁠ We’ll look at your specific situation and map out your next step.

📔 Get the free guide ⁠⁠⁠Dating Apps Don’t Have to Be Confusing⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠

Jonathan Hernandez, certified Connections Codes Coach, specializing in porn recovery and men's emotional wellness, joins Bridgett and Lauren for an honest conversation about sexuality, shame, curiosity, and wholeness. Through his story with pornography, trauma, faith, and dating, he names what it looks like to pursue healing with integrity instead of fear.

The tension is real: many of us learned to hide or manage sexual struggle instead of bringing it into connection. Jonathan offers a more embodied path, where our reactions, attractions, and shame can become places of honesty, not isolation.

His invitation is not behavior control, but formation. Sexual wholeness begins when we get curious about what desire is connected to, where we disconnect, and how God meets us with kindness as we grow in clarity, trust, and integrity.

What to pay attention to is when attraction shifts into urgency, fantasy, control, or the need to be chosen. In dating and relationships, those moments can become invitations to slow down, tell the truth, and move forward with discernment, clarity, and self-trust.

Watch this episode on YouTube

Connect with Jonathan

• Website
• Instagram
• Connection Codes Coaches

Want help applying this to your dating life?

If something in this episode resonated with you, here are two ways to go deeper depending on what you need:

🩷 Work with Bridgett

You don’t need more rules. You need a deeper understanding of your sexual desire.If you still feel confused about how to navigate dating without shutting down or crossing your boundaries, Bridgett helps you build sexual self-trust and honor your values

→ ⁠⁠⁠ RECLAIM Cohort⁠⁠⁠

📓 ⁠⁠⁠Free Guides and Ecourse⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠

💙 Work with Lauren

If you’re feeling unsure what to do next— whether that’s meeting people, choosing who to pursue, or trusting your judgment in dating, Lauren helps you move forward with clarity and confidence.

→ ⁠⁠⁠Book a Dating Clarity Call⁠⁠⁠ We’ll look at your specific situation and map out your next step.

📔 Get the free guide ⁠⁠⁠Dating Apps Don’t Have to Be Confusing⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠

Bridgett and Lauren sit down with Dr. Jenna Mountain, a sex therapist and educator who works at the intersection of faith and sexuality, for a conversation that gently rewires how many of us were taught to think about abstinence. Jenna brings both clinical experience and a deep love for the church, and she does not shy away from the places it has gotten things wrong. Together, they explore what it means to make sexual choices from a place of conviction rather than control, and what healthy formation actually looks like.

At the center of the conversation is a quiet but important distinction. A choice rooted in your own values feels different in your body than a rule handed to you by someone else. Jenna names the way purity culture often produced sexually fragile adults, people who learned to avoid their own desire rather than engage it with maturity. That fragility shows up later in dating, in marriage, in the way people relate to beauty, attraction, and their own embodied lives. The work, she says, is becoming someone who can stay connected to your body, your faith, and your discernment all at once.

Her framework moves us from formulas to formation. Formulas tell you exactly what to do and promise a guaranteed outcome. Formation invites you into the slower, more honest work of knowing your convictions, understanding your own development, and choosing in alignment with what you actually believe. In this view, abstinence can absolutely be a healthy choice, but only when it is fully yours. The goal is integrity, wholeness, and the kind of sexual maturity that is not waiting on a wedding day to arrive.

For anyone dating, this conversation reframes what real readiness looks like. What to pay attention to is whether your sexual choices are forming you into a fuller, more grounded person or quietly keeping you small. The invitation is to engage rather than avoid, to ask better questions of yourself and the people you date, and to build the kind of self-trust that holds steady whether you are single for another year or another decade. Move with clarity, trust your discernment, and let your convictions feel like your own.

Watch this episode on YouTube

Connect with Jenna

• Work with Jenna in either counseling or coaching
• Join her email list
• Instagram
• TikTok
• Facebook

Want help applying this to your dating life?

If something in this episode resonated with you, here are two ways to go deeper depending on what you need:

🩷 Work with Bridgett

You don’t need more rules. You need a deeper understanding of your sexual desire.If you still feel confused about how to navigate dating without shutting down or crossing your boundaries, Bridgett helps you build sexual self-trust and honor your values

→ ⁠⁠ RECLAIM Cohort⁠⁠

📓 ⁠⁠Free Guides and Ecourse⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠Website⁠⁠

💙 Work with Lauren

If you’re feeling unsure what to do next— whether that’s meeting people, choosing who to pursue, or trusting your judgment in dating, Lauren helps you move forward with clarity and confidence.

→ ⁠⁠Book a Dating Clarity Call⁠⁠ We’ll look at your specific situation and map out your next step.

📔 Get the free guide ⁠⁠Dating Apps Don’t Have to Be Confusing⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠Website⁠

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Bridgett and Lauren sit down with Jamie and Blake of the Three Percent Podcast, two therapists, friends, and husbands whose work centers on what it means to be a safe, embodied man. The conversation moves through male friendship, attachment, the difference between knowing your story and doing the work, and the quiet ways loneliness shapes how a person dates. It is a grounded, honest look at what healthy formation actually takes.

**WARNING: THIS EPISODE CONTAINS A STORY ABOUT SEXUAL ABUSE*

Bridgett opens with a phrase that becomes the through line of the conversation: eroticized loneliness. The ache of being unseen does not disappear when it goes unnamed. It travels into the body and shows up in dating, in sex, in the way a person reaches for a partner to carry what only community can hold. Jamie and Blake speak to this with the kind of clarity that comes from having lived it, naming the difference between social proximity and the experience of being known.

Their framework rests on what they call the 3%, the small part of ourselves we keep hidden that quietly drives the rest. Real formation, they explain, is not finishing the work alone and then arriving polished into a relationship. It is the slower practice of integrity in connection, learning to bring your honest self forward, letting the people closest to you point you back to your person, and setting boundaries that draw someone in rather than push them out. Healing, they remind us, happens in relationship, not in preparation for it.

For anyone dating, this conversation reorients what it means to be ready. Readiness is not the absence of wounds. It is the willingness to be honest about them and to keep choosing connection anyway. What to pay attention to is whether the people in your life are forming you toward wholeness or around it, and whether you are bringing your heart into your relationships or only your strategy. Trust what you are noticing. Move with clarity. Let yourself be known.

Watch This Episode on YouTube

Connect with the Three Percent Podcast

Website: https://threepercentco.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/threepercent.co/

Join The Basement: https://threepercent.substack.com/

Connect with Blake:

Website: blakerobertscounseling.com

Substack Newsletter: https://blakeroberts.substack.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therapy.with.blake/

Connect with Jamie

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jamie.w.haigh/

Want help applying this to your dating life?

If something in this episode resonated with you, here are two ways to go deeper depending on what you need:

🩷 Work with Bridgett

You don’t need more rules. You need a deeper understanding of your sexual desire.If you still feel confused about how to navigate dating without shutting down or crossing your boundaries, Bridgett helps you build sexual self-trust and honor your values

→ ⁠⁠ RECLAIM Cohort⁠⁠

📓 ⁠⁠Free Guides and Ecourse⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠Website⁠⁠

💙 Work with Lauren

If you’re feeling unsure what to do next— whether that’s meeting people, choosing who to pursue, or trusting your judgment in dating, Lauren helps you move forward with clarity and confidence.

→ ⁠⁠Book a Dating Clarity Call⁠⁠ We’ll look at your specific situation and map out your next step.

📔 Get the free guide ⁠⁠Dating Apps Don’t Have to Be Confusing⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠

→ ⁠⁠Website⁠

how loneliness affects dating, what is eroticized loneliness, how to be ready for a relationship, why men struggle with intimacy, healing in relationships not before them, the part of yourself you hide in dating, what healthy masculinity looks like in dating, Christian men and friendship, Three Percent Podcast, Jamie and Blake, male loneliness and dating, healthy masculinity Christian, men and emotional intimacy, integrity in connection, healing happens in relationship, Christian dating readiness, dating with integrity, Christian men and friendship, Dating and Desire podcast, Bridgett Blood, Lauren Mathues

Bridgett and Lauren sit down for an honest conversation about one of dating's most loaded phrases: "don't waste my time." They unpack where that posture comes from, why it often reveals more about our own fear than about a potential partner, and what it really looks like to date from a place of groundedness rather than self-protection.

Underneath the urgency to know everything on date two is usually something tender. Maybe a fear of getting hurt, a belief that you only have so much of yourself to give, or a lingering message from purity culture that connection itself is a kind of loss. When we hand someone else the job of protecting our time, we quietly give away the discernment that was ours to carry all along.

The invitation here is to take that responsibility back. Bridgett and Lauren talk about what it means to say yes to one hour, one coffee, one honest conversation without needing to know the ending. That kind of openness asks for real integrity and formation, a willingness to stay connected to yourself, trust your internal resource, and recognize when staying would require you to get small. Growth looks less like certainty and more like the steady work of choosing yourself and the other person well.

For anyone dating, this is a reframe worth sitting with. What to pay attention to is the fear that tells you to pre-decide, the urge to rescue or shrink, and the moments your body is asking you to slow down. You are allowed to have needs. You are allowed to change your mind. And the more you practice showing up honestly, the more your own discernment, clarity, and self-trust become the compass you can actually follow.Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Y_bj7WSe2Do

Want help applying this to your dating life?

If something in this episode resonated with you, here are two ways to go deeper depending on what you need:

🩷 Work with Bridgett

You don’t need more rules. You need a deeper understanding of your sexual desire.If you still feel confused about how to navigate dating without shutting down or crossing your boundaries, Bridgett helps you build sexual self-trust and honor your values

→ ⁠ RECLAIM Cohort⁠

📓 ⁠Free Guides and Ecourse⁠

→ ⁠Instagram⁠

→ ⁠Website⁠

💙 Work with Lauren

If you’re feeling unsure what to do next— whether that’s meeting people, choosing who to pursue, or trusting your judgment in dating, Lauren helps you move forward with clarity and confidence.

→ ⁠Book a Dating Clarity Call⁠ We’ll look at your specific situation and map out your next step.

📔 Get the free guide ⁠Dating Apps Don’t Have to Be Confusing⁠

→ ⁠Instagram⁠

→ ⁠Website⁠

Therapist and author Andrew Bauman joins Bridgett and Lauren to explore embodiment, sexual story work, and what it really looks like to grow into healthy, connected relationships.

Together, they name the difference between understanding your story and actually experiencing healing, and why the body often carries what insight alone cannot resolve. It is a thoughtful look at how awareness, formation, and lived experience all work together in the process of change.

Andrew also shares his framework for how porn can shape patterns of relating over time, along with what it looks like to move toward greater integrity, connection, and wholeness in how men relate to themselves and to women.

This conversation offers a clear and compassionate lens on dating, especially for women learning how to discern what is real in a partner. What to pay attention to, what genuinely reflects growth, and how to stay connected to your own sense of clarity and trust along the way.

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/j64yWeceOx0

About AndrewFounder & Director of the Christian Counseling Center: For Sexual Health & Trauma (CCC), Dr. Andrew J. Bauman is a licensed mental health counselor with a Doctorate from Northeastern University.

His dissertation was on studying the impact of sexism and abuse on women in the Protestant Church. Andrew is the author of seven books, his newest book is called SAFE CHURCH: What Women Can Teach Us about Sexism, Abuse and Safety within Christian Community.

Connect with AndrewChristian Counseling Center

Website

Facebook

Man Land Online Community:

Use code: FOUNDING for first 200 members to get 50% off membership

Want help applying this to your dating life?

If something in this episode resonated with you, here are two ways to go deeper depending on what you need:

🩷 Work with Bridgett

You don’t need more rules. You need a deeper understanding of your sexual desire.If you still feel confused about how to navigate dating without shutting down or crossing your boundaries, Bridgett helps you build sexual self-trust and honor your values

→ RECLAIM Cohort

📓 Free Guides and Ecourse

→ Instagram

→ Website

💙 Work with Lauren

If you’re feeling unsure what to do next— whether that’s meeting people, choosing who to pursue, or trusting your judgment in dating, Lauren helps you move forward with clarity and confidence.

→ Book a Dating Clarity Call We’ll look at your specific situation and map out your next step.

📔 Get the free guide Dating Apps Don’t Have to Be Confusing

→ Instagram

→ Website

Christian men sexual healing, embodiment for men, pornographic style of relating, Andrew Bauman, sexual story work, somatic therapy Christian, porn addiction recovery Christian, emotional heavy lifting men, men's inner work, purity culture recovery, healthy masculinity, sexual sobriety Christian dating, trauma and sexuality, wise adult wounded child, under-functioning men, women over-functioning relationships, Christian men's community, Man Land Andrew Bauman, dating and desire podcast, faith and relationships, Christian therapy men, how to know if a man is emotionally healthy, lust vs healthy desire, clean anger masculinity

What if the person you love can't actually meet you where you need to be met? Therapist and author Barb Hill joins Bridgett and Lauren for a conversation that reframes what Christian compatibility really requires. Barb walks through five kinds of compatibility (emotional, spiritual, intellectual, physical, and how they all interact) and draws a line that changes the whole dating conversation: the difference between emotional maturity and emotional capacity. One is what you know about yourself. The other is whether you can actually do something with that knowledge when a conflict hits. Barb explains why so many promising relationships stall right in that gap, and what to look for in the first three months with someone new. The conversation gets into why curiosity is the engine of long-term love, how resentment quietly kills it, and the one question to ask yourself before ending a relationship you thought was going to last. If you've ever wondered whether you're the problem, whether you're asking too much, or whether love really is enough, this one is for you.Connect with Barb Hill

📕 Get her devotional: Seasons of Waiting

🖥️ Holding Space Counseling

📱 Follow Barb on InstagramComing Up:

Ready to pursue purity in dating without being weird about it? Join Bridgett for RECLAIM.

Next Cohort- Starts May 9th [APPLICATIONS OPEN NOW]

Want help applying this to your dating life?

If something in this episode resonated with you, here are two ways to go deeper depending on what you need:

🩷 Work with Bridgett

You don’t need more rules. You need a deeper understanding of your sexual desire.If you still feel confused about how to navigate dating without shutting down or crossing your boundaries, Bridgett helps you build sexual self-trust and honor your values

→ RECLAIM Cohort

📓 Free Guides and Ecourse

→ Instagram

→ Website

💙 Work with Lauren

If you’re feeling unsure what to do next— whether that’s meeting people, choosing who to pursue, or trusting your judgment in dating, Lauren helps you move forward with clarity and confidence.

→ Book a Dating Clarity Call We’ll look at your specific situation and map out your next step.

📔 Get the free guide Dating Apps Don’t Have to Be Confusing

→ Instagram

→ Website

Christian dating compatibility, is love enough in relationships, emotional compatibility, emotional maturity vs emotional capacity, spiritual compatibility Christian dating, intellectual compatibility relationships, physical compatibility Christian dating, curiosity in relationships, resentment in relationships, Barb Hill therapist, Barb Hill podcast, dating and desire podcast, when to end a relationship, emotional availability, conflict resolution dating, Christian dating advice, faith and relationships podcast, Christian breakup advice, getting back together after a breakup, holding space counseling, seasons of waiting devotional

Dr. Anthony Bradley joins Bridgett and Lauren to talk about what's actually driving the crisis of young men - and why the church's standard diagnosis is wrong.Bradley traces the problem past porn and video games to a formation breakdown that started with the Industrial Revolution. When fathers left for factories and children left for schools, the developmental process that shaped boys into men for thousands of years simply stopped. The church didn't recover that ground. It replicated the separation with age-segregated ministries and accountability groups built on shame.

The result is a generation of men who have checked out — not angry, just resigned. And they're not pursuing women for the same reason: they don't know who they are yet, and nobody told them they were ready.

Bradley's prescription is intergenerational community and a church willing to speak identity over men instead of shame.

Watch this episode on YouTube

Connect with Dr. Anthony Bradley

• Instagram
• Substack
• His Books

Coming Up:

Join Bridgett's ⁠RECLAIM Info Party⁠ on April 18th 🎉

You'll learn her most successful tool for processing sexual desire in real time

Next ⁠Cohort⁠- Starts May 9th

Want help applying this to your dating life?

If something in this episode resonated with you, here are two ways to go deeper depending on what you need:

🩷 Work with Bridgett

You don’t need more rules. You need a deeper understanding of your sexual desire.If you still feel confused about how to navigate dating without shutting down or crossing your boundaries, Bridgett helps you build sexual self-trust and honor your values

→ ⁠ RECLAIM Cohort⁠

📓 ⁠Free Guides and Ecourse⁠

→ ⁠Instagram⁠

→ ⁠Website⁠

💙 Work with Lauren

If you’re feeling unsure what to do next— whether that’s meeting people, choosing who to pursue, or trusting your judgment in dating, Lauren helps you move forward with clarity and confidence.

→ ⁠Book a Dating Clarity Call⁠ We’ll look at your specific situation and map out your next step.

📔 Get the free guide ⁠Dating Apps Don’t Have to Be Confusing⁠

→ ⁠Instagram⁠

→ ⁠Website⁠

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Follow ⁠@datinganddesire⁠ on Instagram for updates and conversation: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/datinganddesire⁠

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Topics covered in this episode: Christian dating, Christian men, male disengagement, formation crisis, masculinity and faith, intergenerational discipleship, men and the church, shame in church culture, men's ministry, accountability groups, attachment and addiction, father-son relationship, Industrial Revolution family, age-segregated ministry, marriage readiness, Christian marriage, dating and desire podcast, Anthony Bradley, self-resignation, video game addiction, single Christian men, Christian women dating, pursuing marriage, biblical marriage standards, married men success, church and young men, purity culture, identity in Christ, Christian podcast, faith and relationships

Episode 11 kicks off the D&D Debrief, a new recurring format where Bridgett and Lauren answer listener questions, recap past episodes, and preview what's coming. In this first one, they tackle four real questions: how to read whether someone is safe to date, what to do when rejection keeps happening, how to talk about different physical comfort levels, and how to tell if your desire is healthy or worth paying closer attention to. They also walk back through the first 10 episodes with personal reflections and share what's ahead for the show and their coaching practices.

Watch this episode on YouTube

Coming Up:

Join Bridgett's RECLAIM Info Party on April 18th 🎉

You'll learn her most successful tool for processing sexual desire in real time

Next Cohort- Starts May 9th

Want help applying this to your dating life?

If something in this episode resonated with you, here are two ways to go deeper depending on what you need:

🩷 Work with Bridgett

You don’t need more rules. You need a deeper understanding of your sexual desire.If you still feel confused about how to navigate dating without shutting down or crossing your boundaries, Bridgett helps you build sexual self-trust and honor your values

→ RECLAIM Cohort

📓 Free Guides and Ecourse

→ Instagram

→ Website

💙 Work with Lauren

If you’re feeling unsure what to do next— whether that’s meeting people, choosing who to pursue, or trusting your judgment in dating, Lauren helps you move forward with clarity and confidence.

→ Book a Dating Clarity Call We’ll look at your specific situation and map out your next step.

📔 Get the free guide Dating Apps Don’t Have to Be Confusing

→ Instagram

→ Website

--Follow @datinganddesire on Instagram for updates and conversation:https://www.instagram.com/datinganddesire--Topics covered in this episode: Christian dating podcast, dating advice for Christians, how to know if someone is safe to date, reading red flags in dating, how to handle rejection in dating, perpetual singleness, fear of being single forever, different physical boundaries in dating, how to talk about physical limits with a partner, healthy desire vs. unhealthy desire, Christian singles, dating with faith, Christian relationship advice, how to trust your body in dating, asking someone out, Christian dating Q&A, D&D Debrief, Dating and Desire podcast, Bridgett Blood, Lauren Mathues

Bridgett and Lauren pick up where they left off in the stages-of-dating series and walk through what committed relationship actually looks like - what it requires, what conversations belong here, and what most people skip until it's too late. They define what commitment means at this stage (it's not knowing you want to marry someone - it's knowing you'd regret not finding out), and then they get into the real stuff: how to have the DTR conversation, when to bring up sexual history and mental health, what it looks like to lean on each other without becoming codependent, and why Bridgett believes every couple needs outside support before the engagement conversation even starts. They also preview part two, which will cover finances, sexual boundaries, family dynamics, and how those play out inside a committed dating relationship. If you're in the thick of figuring out whether this person is someone you can build a life with, this episode gives you a framework for how to find out.

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Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/68__3-ObcLQ

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If you're a Christian who wants to date with clarity and self-awareness, this is where you start.📱Follow @datinganddesire on Instagram for updates and conversation.⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/datinganddesire⁠⁠⁠⁠

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Connect with Bridgett:

Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/bridgettblood/⁠⁠⁠⁠

Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bridgettblood.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠

Coaching | Free Resources | RECLAIM Cohort

📓Get the free Value-Based Boundaries in Dating Guide: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://stan.store/bridgettblood/p/get-my-valuebased-boundaries-guide-⁠⁠⁠⁠

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Connect with Lauren:

Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/laurenmathues/⁠⁠⁠⁠

Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://laurenmathues.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠

Dating Apps Don’t Have to Be Confusing. Get the free guide here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://laurenmathues.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠

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Bridgett and Lauren break down the first stage of dating - the part between meeting someone and deciding whether you want to be exclusive - and they want you to stop treating it like a marriage audition. Lauren shares her three-stage framework and makes the case that six to eight dates is enough time to know if you want to move forward, as long as you're actually being yourself. Bridgett talks about what she's learned to pay attention to in those first few conversations, why she stopped leading with faith questions, and how she thinks about physical connection in this stage. The two get practical about first dates, texting expectations, navigating early disagreements, and why the ability to repair matters more than the ability to avoid conflict. If dating feels impossibly high-stakes before you've even ordered coffee, this episode is the permission slip to lower the pressure and actually enjoy getting to know someone.

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Watch on YouTube: ⁠https://youtu.be/xvcStD3gDp4⁠

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If you're a Christian who wants to date with clarity and self-awareness, this is where you start.📱Follow @datinganddesire on Instagram for updates and conversation.⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/datinganddesire⁠⁠⁠⁠

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Connect with Bridgett:

Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/bridgettblood/⁠⁠⁠⁠

Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bridgettblood.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠

Coaching | Free Resources | RECLAIM Cohort

📓Get the free Value-Based Boundaries in Dating Guide: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://stan.store/bridgettblood/p/get-my-valuebased-boundaries-guide-⁠⁠⁠⁠

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Connect with Lauren:

Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/laurenmathues/⁠⁠⁠⁠

Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://laurenmathues.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠

Dating Apps Don’t Have to Be Confusing. Get the free guide here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://laurenmathues.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠

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