Existential Kink and Shadow Work in Midlife Love

04-09-26 Existential Kink and Shadow Work in Midlife Love

What if the painful patterns in your love life are not random?

What if some hidden part of you is actually attached to the very thing you say you do not want?

In this powerful conversation, Junie sits down with Dr. Carolyn Lovewell, also known as Carolyn Elliott, author of Existential Kink. Together they explore shadow work, unconscious desire, spiritual transformation, and how embracing what we resist can dissolve long standing relationship patterns.

Carolyn shares how she uncovered an unconscious desire for obsessive love inside an unhealthy relationship and how fully owning that desire allowed her to walk away in freedom. The conversation dives into the body, the divine, irritation, pleasure, surrender, and the radical idea that what we resist persists and what we love changes.

This episode is for anyone repeating painful patterns in dating or relationships and wondering why.

You will learn:

What the shadow really is and how unconscious desires shape your love life
• How existential kink differs from traditional shadow work
• Why resisting painful experiences keeps them in place
• How changing the meaning of an experience can shift your reality
• What it means to move from duality into wholeness
• How embodiment transforms personal growth beyond “neck up” mindset work

This is a conversation about power, surrender, and reclaiming your full self in midlife and beyond.

Dr. Carolyn Lovewell is the author of the best-selling book that rocked the coaching and personal development world, Existential Kink: unmask your shadow and embrace your power. She’s also the co-founder of the world’s only operating initiatory school in the Western Esoteric Tradition, Sleep Over Mystery School. Dr. Lovewell earned her doctorate in Critical and Cultural Studies at the University of Pittsburgh.