With Sonya and Danni, the other two (fabulous) women guests who married themselves, on the Dr. Phil show. Thanks to assistant producer Kalley for the photo. I helped Kalley and her sister Camryn get engaged to themselves after the show!
Being on the Dr. Phil show on self-marriage was a wild ride, to say the least.
Before you dive in to watch the full episode, you can watch this 30-second clip where I retort to the Trump advisor they brought on the show to be the conservative foil.
I said, “When I listen to you, I feel tense in my body.” I fell back on all my somatic coaching training because I was truly at a loss for what to say with all the nonsense coming out of his mouth about people marrying animals!
In the end, I inadvertently brought the messages of embodiment into the conversation. When we connect with what we feel in our bodies, we are speaking an inarguable truth without resorting to contempt or defensiveness. I am happy to have brought that message into the world–it’s key to my work as a life coach, as a writer, and my life!
Sonya and Danni, the two other women who appeared on the show to share their stories are truly spectacular. Together we helped to show that what at first seems like a weird idea really is not. If you are looking to be inspired, I recommend you watch the whole thing.
Here is the full Dr. Phil episode on self-marriage! Enjoy.
Here, I have only scratched the surface of what I want to tell you about this experience so far. When I have a chance to catch my breath, I will write up a full behind-the-scenes blog post on how this all happened. Be sure to sign up for my newsletter for the juicy stories that are yet to come about how this came to be, including backstage photos with the folks in hair, makeup, and wardrobe. Those people were truly lovely. I never got such a Hollywood makeover in my life.
If you are interested in marrying yourself with guidance and support, you can work with me one-on-one or join the next cohort of my group coaching program Turned-On Living, where you get to enter into the process with the support of other women on the self-love journey.
And… let me know what you thought about the show!
Would love to hear any and all reactions! With a caveat: no hate tolerated. Any nasty comments on this blog post will be deleted.
Executive and Life Coach on a mission to help women connect with their bodies to live their best lives + do their best work. Author: of Quirkyalone + To-Do List. Forthcoming: WET.
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I loved watching the Dr Phil Show on Self Marriage. Sasha Cagen you were AWESOME! You explained self-marriage so succinctly and really drew attention to the Marriage Project guy’s so called “statistics” on the apparent greater happiness of married people. Really?
I loved how Danni made it very clear that self-marriage is about self love and has nothing to do with romantic love, and those who are self married are not against traditional marriage. The two young women who got engaged to themselves were wonderful too and so eloquent the way they both spoke about what marrying themselves would mean to them. Once they put the rings on their fingers you could see and feel their joy.
As a fellow sologamist I hope this show helps to bring the concept of self-marriage to many thousands, perhaps millions more people This would be amazing.
Thank you Sasha for being a wonderful advocate for self marriage and women’s empowerment in general. I’m an Australian fan!
Thanks so much Robbie! For some reason this comment didn’t come to me as an email so I just got to approve it now. Really appreciate your responses here and all you are doing to bring the message of self-marriage to folks in Australia. Surely we will meet one of these days 🙂
You rock!
I watched this episode twice. The first time, the self-marriage ceremonies made me cry so hard I couldn’t focus on what anyone was saying. Thank you Sasha, Dani, Sonya, Kalley, and Camryn for sharing your strength and your insights. You make me proud to be a member of the self-married (sologamish?) community.
Sasha, I’m especially glad you articulated embodiment and shared your physical response to Johnny McEntee. I think it’s important for women to see how healthy embodiment practices can help us encounter patriarchical discourse.
Thanks so much Jill! I love what you posted on FB too! If you want, I would love that you share that here too as a comment. You have a way with words on this topic!
Hi Sasha,
Congratulations on doing an amazing job on the Dr. Phil Show. I just watched it.
It is truly weird and sooo Handmaid Tale ish that the conservatives are so obsessed with the birth rate in the U.S. and that they link this fear to their arguments against self marriage.
First, their concept of marriage is so heterosexist and also completely invalidating for people who don’ t or can’ t have children. Also invalidating of the fact that we have 9 billion humans to take care of in this world. We are hardly lacking human life! Also ignores the fact that you don’ t need to get married to have children and many people do…their arguments seem firmly lodged in the 1950’s America.
And as to the sociologist’s data, of course married people are more prosperous…since all the institutions and programs give them significant financial advantages! You were right to bring up the need for policies to support single people aging well and being loved and also to mention Bella De Paulo’ s work and research on happiness.
Also, very ridiculous to have a Trump supporter talk about the need for more selflessness and caring for others… I just don’ t get how a person can become so deluded. It is truly frightening. He made me tense, too!
I found Dr. Phil’ s questions to be quite superficial, but that is par for the course. I thought you handled him graciously.
He focused on the weddings rather than the core of the matter, which is the committment to loving oneself.
Of course more women want gorgeous, elaborate weddings. They are trained from childhood to want that fairy tale day. Maybe if we all got that kind of wonderful day, regardless of our relationship status, we would be less inclined to try to grab a partner to make it happen! So many thoughts!
Anyway, I just wanted to say I thought you did an excellent job of bringing forth the message of self love and ceremony.
Hope you are well and that you fully enjoyed that experience. I am sure you will have a lot of new fans as a result, which is great.
All the best.