I'm answering your comments on Kendrick Sampson choosing freedom over romance, and you did not agree. When Kendrick Sampson (the actor you know from Insecure and How to Get Away with Murder, and the activist behind BLD PWR) sat down with me and said he cares about freedom more than romance, I had a feeling some of you would feel seen and some of you would feel personally called out, and the comments landed right down the middle. [One side heard someone finally say out loud that romantic love is only one kind of love worth building a life around, while the other side heard something that felt like permission to never fully choose anyone. CONFIRM against actual comments.] In this first episode of If It Don't Apply, Let It Fly, I'm reading the comments that split you and responding to them honestly, [including the ones that shifted how I think about the conversation and the ones I'm holding my ground on. CONFIRM against what Shan actually says]. If you walked away from Kendrick's episode feeling defensive, inspired, or stuck somewhere uncomfortable in between, this is for you, because the disagreement is where the real conversation was happening. Follow Kendrick Sampson Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kendrick38 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@kendrick BLD PWR: https://bldpwr.com Want more LOVERS? Follow Shan on Instagram → http://instagram.com/shanboodram Get a free weekly Love Letter from Shan → http://loversbyshan.com/newsletter Join the Lovers Community → https://www.loversbyshan.com/community Explore free quizzes + worksheets → http://loversbyshan.com/quizzes ________________________ Advertising & Other Inquiries: [email protected]

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Kendrick Sampson (founder of the racial justice nonprofit BLD PWR, actor best known as Nathan in Insecure and Quincy Jones in Michael Jackson's biopic) sits down with Shan to talk about loving widely.

Kendrick grew up in a house where nobody said "I love you" after his parents divorced, so love turned into something you did instead of something you said. Love is choosing someone else's needs over your own wants. It's why he has no plan for a romantic relationship, why he separates sex, pleasure, and love into three completely different things, and why he'll tell you flat out that romantic love is actually the smallest, most narrow kind there is.

His 25 nieces and nephews come first. If he ever has kids, he wants to raise them with a homegirl, no romance required, because the village already exists. This is a conversation about what happens when you stop assuming a partner is the endpoint, and start asking who you're actually accountable to.

—------- 

Showing some love to the sponsor of this episode Hollyood Ending. It is the book everyone will be talking about this fall. Buy Hollywood, Ending now wherever books are sold.

Ready to reach your goals? Visit forhers.com/shan to get personalized, affordable care that gets you.

Follow Kendrick Sampson

Instagram: http://instagram.com/kendrick38

Follow BLD PWR

Instagram: http://instagram.com/bldpwrYouTube: youtube.com/@buildpowertv 

Want more LOVERS?

Follow Shan on

Instagram → http://instagram.com/shanboodram

Get a Lovers Letters from Shan → http://loversbyshan.com/newsletter

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Explore free quizzes + worksheets → http://loversbyshan.com/quizzes

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Every couple of years, after a stretch that tested us, Jared and I climb onto the roof in the same outfit and talk honestly about what it did to our relationship. We did it in 2022 and again in 2024, and the second time a lot of people watched two exhausted parents be imperfect and decided that was the verdict on the whole thing. We're doing it anyway, because the hard years reach your love life whether you film it or not.

This summer the kids were home for six weeks, the business didn't pause, several of my longest relationships shifted at once, and somewhere in there we had our worst argument in six years. It looked like it was about one day. It was actually about neither of us having the room to feel anything, and what happens when one person finally does. Jared explains why he didn't come over and hold me (an honest answer, not a flattering one), I explain why a voucher I printed him for exactly this moment stayed in his closet, and we get into how sex has changed as the kids have gotten older, including the 25-minute challenge he almost survived.

This is a conversation about staying kind to the person closest to you when you have nothing left. If you've ever been graded on your worst week, this one is for you.

_________

Thanks to Article for sponsoring this podcast! Article is offering our listeners $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. To claim, visit ARTICLE.COM/LOVERS and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout.

My pickiest eaters have no complaints on this one! Explore my Hungryroot Digital Cookbook "Recipes My Kids Will Actually Finish (No Bribery Required)." at https://hungryroot.com/LOVERS

Ready to reach your goals? Visit forhers.com/shan to get personalized, affordable care that gets you.

Stay hydrated every single day with Ultima Replenisher: Head to https://ultima.yt.link/cIC3aOP and use the code LOVERSBYSHAN20 for 20% off your order!

_______

Follow Jared Brady

Instagram: http://instagram.com/enjoyjaredbrady

YouTube: youtube.com/@enjoyovereverything 

Want more LOVERS?

Follow Shan

Instagram → http://instagram.com/shanboodram

Get a free weekly Love Letter from Shan → http://loversbyshan.com/newsletter

Join the Lovers Community → https://www.loversbyshan.com/community

Explore free quizzes + worksheets → http://loversbyshan.com/quizzes

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Brandi and Lawrence aren't a couple. He's a gay man, she's a lesbian, and they were best friends first, until they decided, in their twenties, to build a family together on purpose, with a legal parental agreement in place before they ever tried to conceive.

They walk Shan through what that intentionality actually looked like. But underneath the logistics is the part nobody warned either of them about, the isolation Lawrence carried as the only man in his friend group building a family this way, and the year their living situation and their respective romantic relationships pulled the friendship apart so hard that Brandi had to tell Lawrence something she still calls one of the biggest heartbreaks of her life: that she could stay his co-parent, but she couldn't stay his friend.

____________

Ready to reach your goals? Visit https://www.forhers.com/shan to get personalized, affordable care that gets you.

Right now, our listeners get an additional 15% off any MasterClass annual membership at https://www.masterclass.com/lovers

Follow Parental Agreement

Resource → https://u42luyhpb6f.typeform.com/agreement

Website → http://theparentalagreement.com/

Follow Lawrence

Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/lawrenceccarroll/

Majestic Art Gallery → https://majesticartgallery.org/

Donate to LA Pride → https://lapride.org/donate-to-la-pride/

Follow Brandi

Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/brandijandrews/?hl=en

Youth Dealer, skincare for melanated people → https://www.instagram.com/youthdealerco/?hl=en

Want more Lover?

Receive my Lovers Letter → http://loversbyshan.com/newsletter

Join the Lovers Community → https://www.loversbyshan.com/community

Explore quizzes and worksheets → http://loversbyshan.com/quizzes

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Drs. John and Julie Schwartz Gottman have followed 3,000 couples, some of them for twenty years, second by second, and in this conversation Shan brings them something that research was never designed to answer: what happens to a generation that has decided love isn't available to them, and has built community around that belief instead? 

Julie's answer is that those groups are writing each other a prescription for how to stay alone, and she says it with a tenderness that's hard to argue with. From there the three of them get into why criticism sabotages the exact thing you were trying to be heard about, why listening to a woman's anger is one of the strongest predictors of a relationship improving over time, and what John pulls out of his back pocket every time Julie says the four most terrifying words in the English language. 

This one is for anyone who has started to suspect that being right about dating and being loved are not the same project.

____________

Ready to reach your goals? Visit https://www.forhers.com/shan to get personalized, affordable care that gets you.

Right now, our listeners get an additional 15% off any MasterClass annual membership at https://www.masterclass.com/lovers

____________

Follow The Gottmans

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

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thegottmaninstitute

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thegottmaninstitute

The Gottman Institute: https://www.gottman.com

Courses and Books: https://www.gottman.com/shop/

Want more LOVERS?

Follow Shan on Instagram → http://instagram.com/shanboodram

Get a free weekly Love Letter from Shan → http://loversbyshan.com/newsletter

Join the Lovers Community → https://www.loversbyshan.com/community

Explore free quizzes + worksheets → http://loversbyshan.com/quizzes

________________________

Advertising & Other Inquiries: [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kamie Crawford (former co-host of MTV's Catfish: The TV Show, now host of Relationsht*) sits down with Shan to unpack what actually keeps a catfishing scheme alive long after the story stops adding up. 

The conversation centers on Troi, who spent years believing he was in an email and phone relationship with a woman named Belly. His brother's boo, Tatiana, introduced him to her sister, Belly. Then came the car accident. Belly lost her memory entirely, Troi included. When the call finally came, it wasn't from Belly. It was Tatiana, breathless, saying Belly finally remembered him.

Troi thought that was the end of the strange part, but it wasn't. Months later, his brother's choir competition landed in Orlando on the one day that mattered most to Troi: his own birthday. Tatiana and her sisters were finally coming to meet him in person. Years of phone calls and near-misses, about to become an IRL meetup. But you know how this goes by now...

They never showed. What arrived instead was a video, of someone filming him from the crowd, sent as proof they'd been there all along. No Belly. No Tatiana. What happens after is even more shocking.

That's the story I sat down with Kamie Crawford to unpack this week: not just how a lie like this gets built, but who is behind those lies and the psychology behind why.

—----------- 

A huge thank you to Article for sponsoring this podcast! Article is offering our listeners $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. To claim, visit ARTICLE.COM/LOVERS and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout. 

A personal fave, OneSkin! Get 15% off OneSkin with the code LOVERSBYSHAN at https://www.oneskin.co/LOVERSBYSHAN  #oneskinpod

My pickiest eaters have no complaints on this one! Explore my Hungryroot Digital Cookbook "Recipes My Kids Will Actually Finish (No Bribery Required)." at https://hungryroot.com/LOVERS

Special shoutout to Beducated! Unlock deeper pleasure with a roadmap designed for you! All it takes is 5 minutes. Go to https://beduc.at/bg2635-boody to learn more! 

Thanks to For Hers. Ready to reach your goals? Visit forhers.com/shan to get personalized, affordable care that gets you.

Stay hydrated every single day with Ultima Replenisher: Head to ⁠https://ultima.yt.link/aNAX4cg⁠ and use the code LOVERSBYSHAN20 for 20% off your order! 

—-------

Follow Kamie CrawfordInstagram → https://www.instagram.com/kamiecrawford/Watch her podcast Relationshipshit → https://www.youtube.com/@relationshitpodWebsite → https://www.kamiecrawford.com/ 

Follow Troi Breeze

Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/troibreeze/ 

Stream his music → https://lnk.to/themotion

Website → https://troibreeze.com/ 

Want more Lover?

Receive the weekly Love Letter → http://loversbyshan.com/newsletter

Join the Lovers Community → https://www.loversbyshan.com/community

Explore quizzes and worksheets → http://loversbyshan.com/quizzes

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In this deeply personal episode presented by Bumble, singer Mario opens up about the profound impact of unresolved trauma stemming from his relationship with his mother. He shares how this pain shaped his early behavior towards women, leading to manipulation and broken connections. Mario takes us on his journey of self-reflection, healing, and ultimately embracing his inner feminine energy, a process that not only reshaped his relationships but also elevated his personal growth and artistry.

As Mario gets real about accountability, self-love, and the power of healing, he also introduces us to his latest album, "Glad You Came", a soulful and vulnerable collection of music inspired by his life experiences and growth. Tune in for an honest, thought-provoking conversation that dives into the intersections of trauma, love, and creativity.

Follow Mario

Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/marioworldwide/

Live Tour Dates → https://www.vipnation.com/tour/the-r-b-tour-mario

Stream Mood Swings EP → https://music.empi.re/moodswingsmario

Want more LOVERS?

Follow Shan on Instagram → http://instagram.com/shanboodram

Get a free Love Letter from Shan → http://loversbyshan.com/newsletter

Join the LOVERS Community → https://www.loversbyshan.com/community

Explore free quizzes + worksheets → http://loversbyshan.com/quizzes

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We've been on a short break the past two weeks, so we're revisiting one of our favorites: Lena Waithe on why she won't have sex with someone unless she can already picture what happens after, and why some of her deepest connections have never been physical at all. New episodes of LOVERS are back August 19.

In this episode of LOVERS, I sit down with Emmy-winning writer, producer, and actress Lena Waithe (Queen & Slim, Master of None, The Chi) for an eye-opening conversation about intimacy, love, and meaningful connections. Lena shares why you should never have sex with someone unless you can imagine a positive aftermath for both of you. She dives into how cuddling can create a deeper emotional bond than sex, especially when the future of a relationship feels uncertain. Lena also opens up about the power of plutonic relationships, revealing why some of her most impactful connections today are non-romantic. With all of the rumors about her love life, Lena sets the record straight and shares what truly matters to her in building authentic connections. This episode will challenge your views on love, intimacy, and boundaries in ways you won’t want to miss!

Thank you Lena!

https://www.instagram.com/lenawaithe/ 

Legacy Talk Podcast

https://lemonada.lnk.to/LegacyTalkWithLenaWaithehs?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAaZR0rgZOhMXnR_1HkQjiKfKa5_UUPHcXYlKFCmzjhKgXdje2qDlp8lbhmg_aem_wULmegwSQB8ct8zEmMkQfg

Want more LOVERS?Follow Shan on Instagram → http://instagram.com/shanboodramGet a free Love Letter from Shan → http://loversbyshan.com/newsletterJoin the LOVERS Community → https://www.loversbyshan.com/communityExplore free quizzes + worksheets → http://loversbyshan.com/quizzes

Advertising & Other Inquiries: [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're on a short break the next two weeks, so we're revisiting one of our favorites: Cree Summer on losing (and finding again) her sex drive after 50, and why emotional safety made all the difference. New episodes of LOVERS are back August 19.

In this episode, I sit down with the legendary Cree Summer to talk about her journey through love, loss, and rediscovery in her 50s. Cree opens up about losing her sex drive during her marriage due to a lack of emotional shelter and the importance of finding a partner who provides safety and calm during life's storms. We also dive into how her sex drive has improved post-menopause and what she's looking forward to as she explores love again in her senior years.

This episode originally aired on April 30th, 2025.

Follow Cree:

instagram.com/iamcreesummer 

 x.com/iamcreesummer 

 Want more LOVERS?Follow Shan on Instagram → http://instagram.com/shanboodramGet a free Love Letter from Shan → http://loversbyshan.com/newsletterJoin the LOVERS Community → https://www.loversbyshan.com/communityExplore free quizzes + worksheets → http://loversbyshan.com/quizzes

Advertising & Other Inquiries: [email protected]

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#AD This episode is sponsored by Daré Bioscience. DARE to PLAY™ Sildenafil Cream is a compounded drug. It is not FDA-approved. This product has not been reviewed by FDA for safety or efficacy. It is manufactured in a 503B outsourcing facility under pharmaceutical Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP).

Shan sits down with four women to talk about the low libido nobody prepares you for: the 26-year-old who kept saying "I'm supposed to be in my prime" and quietly decided she was broken, the married woman delighting in her season of stillness, and Shan's own reframe that low libido is only a dysfunction if it comes with an F word (frustrating). Then Sabrina Martucci Johnson, founder and CEO of Daré Bioscience,  explains what actually happens in the body when desire and arousal stop cooperating, and why women were told for almost 30 years it was all in their heads.

Follow Sabrina Martucci Johnson

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sabrina-martucci-johnson/ 

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sabrinadareceo 

Follow Daré Bioscience

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dare-bioscience 

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

—-

Learn more about DARE to PLAY™

https://daretoplaybio.com/

Unlock deeper pleasure with a roadmap designed for you — all it takes is 5 minutes. Go to https://beduc.at/bg2631-boody to learn more! 

Follow Indigo MateoInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/indigomateoMusic: http://www.indigomateo.com/

Follow Jamille McClendonInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/thahealingfactor 

Follow Saraijah BarnesInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/Rai.destinei Follow Brittany Johnsonhttp://instagram.com/brittbekountry  

Want more LOVERS?

Follow Shan on Instagram → http://instagram.com/shanboodram

Get a free Love Letter from Shan → http://loversbyshan.com/newsletter

Join the LOVERS Community → https://www.loversbyshan.com/community

Explore free quizzes + worksheets → http://loversbyshan.com/quizzes

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Naomi Sharon is an R&B singer-songwriter, the first woman signed to Drake's OVO Sound label, and the voice behind Obsidian — an album she wrote, she says, while stuck in a loop she didn't yet have a name for. Her new single is "No Sleep in Paradise," and it turns out to be a more accurate self-portrait than she realized when she wrote it.

This conversation starts with that song title and follows it somewhere much harder. Naomi opens up about ROCD (Relationship OCD) — a form of OCD rooted, for her, in her parents' divorce at 12, the lie she found out about, and the trust that cracked in a way that never fully sealed. She describes what it actually does inside a relationship: the reassurance-seeking that exhausts even a loving partner, the rumination that colonizes every quiet moment, the specific experience of standing onstage mid-performance and suddenly being flooded with thoughts about whether he still loves her. And then the harder question underneath all of it — whether what she's feeling is her intuition or her fear, and what it costs not to be able to tell the difference.

This one is for anyone who has ever been told to just let it go and discovered that wasn't something they could do.

Want to learn more about OCD?

International OCD Foundation (IOCDF) →⁠ https://iocdf.org/⁠

Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) →⁠ https://adaa.org/⁠

National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) →⁠ https://www.nami.org/⁠

Mental Health America (MHA) →⁠ https://mhanational.org/⁠

Follow Naomi Sharon

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

YouTube:⁠ https://www.youtube.com/@naomisharonmusic⁠

TikTok:⁠ https://www.tiktok.com/@naomisharon⁠

No Sleep in Paradise:⁠ https://ovo-naomisharon.ffm.to/nsip⁠

Want more LOVERS?

Follow Shan on Instagram →⁠ http://instagram.com/shanboodram⁠

Get a free weekly Love Letter from Shan →⁠ http://loversbyshan.com/newsletter⁠

Join the Lovers Community →⁠ https://www.loversbyshan.com/community⁠

Explore free quizzes + worksheets →⁠ http://loversbyshan.com/quizzes⁠

Advertising & Other Inquiries: [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices