The dynamics of love, sex, and relationships is a complicated subject that can baffle even the most experienced in life.  So it helps to have a life coach that can offer some much-needed insight and guidance.  Offering such help with her tough love style is Spirit, an internationally renowned love, sex, and relationship expert.  Spirit’s advice doesn’t just come from the school of hard knocks since she holds advanced degrees in both psychology and professional counseling.  She obviously knows what she’s talking about! 

In addition to being a nationally syndicated radio host, a featured expert on television shows such as The Tyra Banks Show, and more she is now the author of a self-help book entitled, In Your Skin.  Spirit’s book provides practical approaches, quizzes, personal assessment journals, and step-by-step strategies to help get one’s life moving in the right direction. 

Sixshot took a lesson from the life coach diva as we talked how she uses her own life struggles as inspiration to help others, why Kim Porter needs to “run” from Diddy, why she thinks Jay-Z is still a playa, why people cheat, the stigma of bisexuality, the one myth she has to dispel, and more. 

How do you describe your approach?

I’m very direct but in a loving kind of way.  I would probably be somewhere in between maybe Dr. Phil and Oprah.  Dr. Phil tells-it-like-it-is but Oprah delivers it with a lot of love.  [Laughs]  So I used to joke and say, “I am the person that you would get if they ever had a love child.”  I believe in delivering something to people honestly.  I think a lot of times we’re not being honest with ourselves and about our situation.  I also deliver that message with hope.  It is my belief that once you acknowledge something, you have the power to make that situation whatever it is that you want it to be. 

What’s the one thing you had to experience in order to get comfortable and confident within your own skin?

Oh my God!  I had to confront all those demons that told me that I wasn’t worthy enough; that I wasn't strong enough; that I wasn’t good enough to be able to make all my wildest dreams come true.  We all have baggage; life is a journey, it’s not a destination.  Life includes disappointment, hurt, hurdles, obstacles, and challenges.  What I had to do was really get to a point where I was really willing to get real with myself about who I was, what I wanted, and if I was actively going after them.  So once I did that I was able to be strong enough to let go of relationships that were bad; be strong enough to forgive myself for bad choices in the past; and get real about what I wanted out of life.

How have your own romantic relationships given you the insight to help others?

My own relationships have really allowed me to ask myself those deep questions: why have I chosen the relationships that I’ve chosen?  Are they working for me?  Am I being the person in these relationships that I want to be?  Am I requiring from myself and my partners those things that are gonna continue to support me?  Am I allowing myself to be caught up in situations that I know are unhealthy or unproductive, simply because I don't want to deal with the things that it would require to make the changes?  As you start to go through each relationship you understand that what you do in one type of relationship is really what you do in all the rest as well.  So it really becomes an issue not about any particular relationship, but it’s really about who you are and where you are.

Is there a particular experience you can pinpoint as an example of that growth for yourself?

Probably the birth of my child would be one of those moments.  When I first found out I was pregnant, I was 20, and I was a sophomore at college.  Up until that point I was holding onto to a lot of the childhood stuff—the childhood dreams because I didn’t want to disappoint other people.  So once I found out I was pregnant it was like one of those profound moments where you say, “I need to get real about what it is I want.”  I went from being a pre-med biology major to a psychology major, and decided that I wanted to be a different kind of doctor.  It was a profound moment that changed my life.

What are you still trying to improve upon for yourself?

That’s a great question.  I think each and every day I am working on learning to love myself some more and forgive myself more for not having all of the answers and understanding that all of the answers will never be there.  The main goal is to really live every given moment being as open and authentic to who I am as I possibly can be.

I want to ask about some famous celebrity couples and get your point of view on their relationships:

First up: Diddy and Kim Porter.  Why do you think he won’t commit?

Well, because he’s not ready to be a husband and he told her that very clearly.  He told all of America that very clearly in their Essence interview.  When they asked him if he was gonna marry her he said, "I'm trying to get the boyfriend thing down.”  At that point I said, “Run girl, run!  Get out of there!”  The fact of the matter is that he is not ready and willing to be in a committed relationship.  Rather than be real with himself and own that, and rather than be real with the partner—he’s forced to live a lie.

So he dates her, gets her pennant, and knows that he doesn’t want to be in a committed relationship.  He unfortunately hurts her and destroys that family that he’s created, by lying and sneaking and cheating—and gets somebody else pregnant.  So he keeps having all these unfortunate situations because he’s not willing to get real, and be honest about who he is and what he wants.  Once he does that his life will change.

It’s definitely not a one-way street.  So what role does Kim and other women in those situations play?

I think women in those situations need to accept the situation for what it is and for not what they wish it would be.  Kim, I think was not in love with Diddy for who he was, but who she was waiting for him to become—a responsible father figure to her and her children.  So she kept saying, “If I give him enough time eventually he will get there.”  So what you see years later is that after all that heartache, the back and forth, and children who don’t have both parents in the home—she finally has to see this man for who he is.  If people would deal with what a situation is rather than look at it as what they wish it would be; there lives would be so different.

Next couple: Jay-Z and Beyonce.  Since they don’t speak publicly about their relationship, what does their body language tell you?

I think there is frustration in that relationship.  I think there’s a lot of love in between them—they enjoy each other and are very comfortable around one another.  I think that in a lot of ways what keeps them going is that they challenge each other.  But they’re both wanting something from each other that they’re not really getting.  I think he wants her to be more committed than she is, and she wants a different type of commitment from him that he’s not willing to give.  I think he’s still very much a playa.

You’re seeing that--when the child came up out of “the blue,” that he had during the same time period that he was dating her.  So it’s been a very quiet thing that nobody has talked about a whole lot.  But let’s be real—that means that he was cheating.  He stepped out of that relationship in order to have at least a sexual relationship with somebody else.  So I think there is hurt there and disappointment.  The thing that keeps them both there is that they really do love each other.

We hear stories about cheating all the time to the point that it’s an epidemic.  What do you see as some of the main causes and possible solution for this issue?

The problem is that we are in a society where everybody accepts having your cake and eating it too.  Many of us are lacking the integrity and the discipline to really uphold monogamous relationships.  Monogamy is difficult because we are part of the animal.  If we don’t understand the science behind sexual drive and sexual energy then we don’t understand how difficult the discipline is in order to uphold monogamy.

So that’s where the science part comes in.  We also have to get more mature and get real with ourselves.  If you know that you do not want to be in a monogamous relationship with somebody—be strong enough to tell that person.    It really just requires a different level of discipline to be committed to what we commit ourselves to.

Bisexuality is another hot topic with people talking about men on the DL (down-low) that have sex with other men.  There’s a stigma attached to these men which leads many of them to cheat on their wives.  What do you think needs to be done to alleviate this stigma and deal with this very real issue of men who cheat on their wives with other men?

There too it goes back to the book and that whole idea of being comfortable in your skin.  I don’t think that society as a whole will start to accept bisexuality until individuals who are bisexual themselves start to accept it.  It’s a circular argument because you have people who are bisexual who don’t want to deal with it because they are afraid of the repercussions, but at the end of the day we have to realize that we can only be true to ourselves.  You also have the stigma and the selfishness that no one talks about.  Many men will say, “I don’t want to tell women ‘cause they don’t want to be with me.”  But that should be the woman’s right to make that decision.  I think many men and women will wait until the person that they’re dating has genuine affection for them before they drop that bomb and it’s really not fair.  It all comes down to are you okay in your skin to show your true self to the world?

If there’s one myth you could dispel about love, sex, and relationships what would it be?

It’s that all love, sex, and relationships are exactly the same and will look the same for everybody.  Love, sex, and relationships is not a cookie cutter situation.  As soon as you begin to understand who you are you truly can have the kind of love; the kind of sex; and the kind of relationships that you aspire to have.

For more information please visit:
www.talk2spirit.com