In this interview‑style conversation, a moderator (Speaker A) guides participants Jill and Speaker C through reflections on how the Conscious Girlfriend Academy transformed their approach to relationships. Jill describes a prior pattern of fearing intimacy, running from partners, and reacting to childhood‑rooted triggers. Through the Academy’s curriculum—emotional language, self‑questioning, the SCORE self‑regulation process, and deliberate neural rewiring—she learned to recognize and sit with triggers, calm her nervous system, and set healthier boundaries. Speaker C echoes similar breakthroughs, noting increased calmness, the ability to stop anxiety loops, and a more discerning yet open‑hearted stance toward friendships and romance. The discussion also critiques the common lesbian‑community myth that finding “the right person” alone resolves relational challenges, emphasizing that step‑by‑step skill development is essential for sustainable partnership.
Chapters
I'm just still so curious what would have happened if the two of you had met without Conscious Girlfriend, because it sounds like maybe, Laurie, you would not have pursued Jill, and Jill, you were running away. So maybe just nothing would have happened. It's— or do you think that if you had found your way to getting together, there would have been something that didn't work because of the skills that you hadn't yet learned? From the Academy?
Like, I, I don't— I think, um, big because the Academy, I was very open to, um, everything that was going on. And prior, I think all those things that I was open to would have scared me and forced me to run, of not knowing how to process everything and doing possibly, um, and not having the support of My buddies. Mm-hmm. So probably not because of the space, and I don't think I was had my picker was broken.
Mm-hmm.
I had no idea what a quality person was. I kept wondering why this has to be difficult or this has to be that, and and having relationships in the past were very smooth and easy, but knowing they were probably not going to be forever because. You know, she was 10 years younger, or whatever, whatever the— whatever my things were in my head, or something like that, opposed to seeing forever, as I saw forever with her almost immediately on the ship.
So it sounds like you had a pattern of you would get scared and you would run, and that would have fit perfectly with Lori's old pattern of being anxious. And having somebody run, right? So there's something that changed in you, Jill, to enable you to just stay when feelings came up.
Yeah. And having the language and be able to talk myself down and ask myself questions of what's going on and kind of getting to the bottom of it, how we work with that. And knowing that this isn't real, whatever I'm feeling, it's something from my childhood. And having those— because I've exercised, I've gone through the talks with You guys are extra homework and seeing where those connections come back to when I was 5 years old and just apply. You know, I'm always having those little situations where I get completely nervous. Everything's over the top. It has nothing to do with me as an adult, as 58— 58 years old?
Yes.
No, it's like 57. I got called out on the cruise for lying about my age, and it was right before my birthday. So I'm really messed up with my real age. So it's—
yeah, it's the ghost versus messenger thing again.
Yeah.
Like, like that each of you— this, this really feels like a parallel— each of you has noticed that when, when you start having those triggers come up inside. But it sounds like the difference is because you're able to recognize, oh, this is my trigger, this is my old ghost showing up. Then that hasn't had to become a trigger between the two of you.
Yeah. And not act upon it, letting it just feel it and just let it pass through. Before, I would've reacted with everything and whether, and it felt bad. It didn't feel good. You know, I know you talk about kind of being, feeling light or feeling heavy. And I relate to that a whole lot. You know, something kind of feels heavy and that I'll, I can recognize it. Or that light feeling. It's just, it's a completely different vibe of connecting with people and meeting people just as friends. You know, we've had situations, you know, where people we have met as friends and then we're able to quicker stop the relationships. Not meaning they're a bad person or anything like that, but it's more of a trigger and it's not working for us. We see they're gonna take too much from us or whatever it is. I've never done that before. I'm like, ah, just—
No.
Everybody for who they are. Even though they're walking all over me and asking me to do things that are unreasonable or whatever. Whatever.
Yeah.
Just didn't feel good for me. And I've watched her do that.
That happened for me. And, and, um, for the first time in my life, seriously, I stood up to it finally.
I—
and wow, this is not okay.
Wow. So it's again what, what we talk about in class of being open-hearted and discerning. It doesn't mean you're walking around the world with a closed heart, but you are discerning what, what feeds you, what drains you, what you want to go toward, what's congruent for you. Yeah.
And before, that would have never been the case. You kind of just take what you get. You're bonding with this person. They're part of that. You make excuses for your family members, friends, however it is. I can remember in the very beginning starting that people were saying, Yeah. All my friends and people say how much I've changed and grown, you know, and they were single. Not saying that, but getting the confirmation of that and, and how they respond to interactions with their roommate or with their mother or with their sister.
Mhmm.
It's— those are the first stepping stones, I think, until you're able to even get to the romantic relationship, right, of seeing the difference and retraining. It's just rewiring your brain, and you just can't do it overnight or by yourself. Well, therapist, you— I mean, you need to have consistent support, I think.
Yeah. I, I mean, it, it, it, I've had a lot of firsts over the last year for sure. And those, those moments I sit back with later on and think, wow, you've come a long way. Like, a lot of change, a different life, and I'm calmer. Someone recently said, oh, Jill, like, I love the energy between you. Jill calms you. And, and it— she does, it's true. But, um, I'm also calmer because my nervous system isn't constantly triggered.
Yeah. So there's some— you've also learned to calm yourself, and you've learned to make choices in general that calm you.
Yes.
Yeah, it's so important because I think, as I— again, as I said, in the lesbian community, maybe in the whole world, but definitely in the lesbian community, there is this idea of like, when I find the right person, everything else changes. You know, that's all I need is to find that right person. But I love how both of you are saying that, that there were these step-by-step changes that made you able to even be the right person for each other.
Yeah, definitely.
Because I think that fantasy really ends up harming us, you know, that people are looking for what the two of you now have, but they think it's just going to be, you know, your eyes meet across the crowded room and then that's the person. And, you know, but they haven't put these other steps in place, then they don't have the skills or the discernment, and they haven't done the neural rewiring that each of you are talking about.
Most definitely.
Yeah, it's for sure a combination of all of it. Um, but again, icing on the cake that we are able to apply the principles and, um, and put, put it to work in this relationship. And it seems like it comes very naturally.
Mm-hmm.
I don't, I don't feel like we force any of those things. It, you know, And anytime I have had anxiety about, like, what are we doing? Is this the right thing? Is everything OK? Creating those bad tapes in my head, I have access to stop. This is what's happening for you. It's not about what's really going on. This is up here.
So you do a version of the SCORE process inside. Yeah. So that's that self-regulation, the self-calming.
