Lindsey M. Stillwell

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Lindsey M. Stillwell

Lindsey Stillwell is a First Nations (US) storyteller, visionary performing artist and pleasure activist. They are a storyteller through and through.

Lindsey Stillwell is passionate about amplifying freedom, prosperity and self-expression for creatives, change-makers and ambitious parents. Currently, they collaborate with a variety of international leaders and change-makers, and am a frequent speaker, facilitator and performer at events across Australia. The Creative Storyteller. Lindsey creates bespoke websites, copywriting & copy editing to bring your brand, voice and story to the audience it’s meant to reach. The Intimate Storyteller. Through their Sex Doula work, Lindsey creates supportive & therapeutic practices for singles and couples to feel more empowered in intimacy and communication. The Stage & Screen Storyteller
As a freelance performing artist and actor, Lindsey loves telling stories through theatre, spoken word, dance, film and their drag queen alter ego, Lady Zee.

04/08/2025

Nurturing a long-term relationship is like brewing kombucha.

In order to prevent it from turning into vinegar, you need to work at getting the timing right - when to add more sugar, when to leave alone, when to stop the fermentation process, etc.

Without seeking experienced knowledge and support, you're likely to create something that either explodes because of too much effervescence or goes flat and sour because of a lack of attentive care and attunement.

It's not just the ingredients that you add or when to pull it from the pantry and put it into the fridge, but the climate and environment in which you brew is essential as well.

Who you surround yourself with, the quality of insight and support you receive, the level of emotional hygiene in which you relate are all things that can get overlooked when you're solely focused on keeping the relationship light and sweet.

So don't let your relationship turn to vinager and be the tool for cleaning up future messes.

Follow me for more on secure relationship and fermentation tips ;)

04/06/2025

I remember one of the first couples I started working with…they were at a crucial time in their relationship where it seemed it all mind implode and their marriage of nearly 10 years would end.

There had been infidelity, broken trust and loss of intimacy.

At times I felt unsure and intimidated in how to help them.

One of the most common things I'd heard taught about creating healthy, long-term relationships was to have clear boundaries and agreements.

I'd experienced varying degrees of success with this in my own life, and decided to offer this as a next step to this couple.

What I didn't know at the time was that agreements aren't what create safety, rebuild trust or prevent broken boundaries in the future.

Agreements certainly don't facilitate deeper intimacy. (Generally speaking)

It wasn't until I went through my most recent experience of betrayal (it wasn't my first) that I experienced a different way forward.

I learned that repair meant I had to let myself feel the deepest pain of what I had gone through 6 months prior.

There was no amount of boundary setting that was going to reveal to Greg the impact of his actions on me.

And in those early months of repair, I was so scared. Terrified of being hurt so deeply again.

But the key to our healing was not in making agreement about who we would or wouldn't spend time with, where we went at night, or how much time lapsed between communication.

Repair happened in the courageous moments of revealing my fear, pain and anxiety. Not just telling him about my feelings, but feeling them in my body and showing them, letting him into the most excruciating, scary and risky things I was going through. And being felt by Greg in what I was going through - true empathy comes with great vulnerability.

This change in my lived experience changed everything in how I facilitate relational healing for individuals and couples.

I no longer suggest agreements as methods of repair or creating secure attachment.

I guide people into deep empathy with themselves and others.

Feeling felt is the path of secure, healthy relating. And it's not solely done with others.

04/02/2025

Ever wonder why loving yourself more doesn't prevent your relationship from rupture, collapse and even break-up?

Most relationship and love coaches these days will tell you that you need to ‘love yourself fully before you can be in a loving relationship’ or ‘in order to fully love your partner, you need to fully love yourself’.

A simple Google search reveals entire schools and apps that have been created to help people develop self-love.

In a survey my partner and I created for potential couples clients, 80% of survey participants said ‘yes’ to the question “Do you think/feel/sense that a person needs to love themselves fully in order to be in a secure, loving relationship?”.

I used to belief this too.

When my partner wouldn't meet my expectations or desires, I'd resolve to ‘work on myself more’, book in a session with my therapist or get focused on my daily meditation and yoga practice.

For example, when my partner and I were repairing prior to re-entering partnership, he would spend time with his business partner in a social context, and I'd feel insecure and anxious. My mind would race for hours about what they were doing and how late it was getting. I'd constantly be checking my phone. But instead of revealing to him what I was going through, I resolved to love myself more and ‘heal my insecurities’ on my own.

Now, I'm not here I s**t on self-love courses or coaches, god knows the world needs people who love themselves… but unconditional self-love is not going to fix or solve the challenges you experience in your relationship, and you don't need to fully love yourself before you create a loving, secure relationship.

You need to create opportunities for the parts of you that feel unlovable, believe they are not good enough to have a successful relationship, or constantly remind you of all your failed attempts at a secure relationship, to be allowed to exist.

Yup.

Let yourself be unlovable.
Accept that you may never have the relationship of your dreams.

11/06/2024

I've tried to control how people experience me.

I've made them wrong for experiencing me different than how I experience myself or intend to be felt, seen and heard.

I've attempted to repaint and correct people's experiences, which leaves them invalidated, dismissed and alone.

I'm learning to let go of my need to be seen or heard in a particular way, and allowing people to be hurt by me.

And it's such a tender reckoning.

The last thing I want to do is abandon people through invalidation and making them wrong in their experience.

But that's what I've done.

My heart is heavy and full of remorse for the ways I've isolated others.

I want to be a safe place. And at times I'm really not.

Even with the best intentions and attempts for closeness, I push people away.

Humility is not for the faint of heart.
Vulnerability requires risk.

And creating secure relationships means being willing to own my triggers, own the ways I blame, criticise, make wrong and invalidate, and stay open to love, open to others.

I'm on my knees today. Trusting and surrendered. Humbled by Love. Devoted to the depths.

🙏🏽🤍

10/31/2024

“I don't want to be the next Brooke Fraser. I want to be the first me”

Brooke Fraser was a popular Christian singer in my late teens and early twenties, and many of the people in my Church world at that time were telling me I'd be ‘the next Brooke Fraser’.

I was on a trajectory of pursuing music full-time and becoming a worship leader at my church. At 21 years old, I had just recorded my first EP, and was selling it in white CD sleeves with the tracks written in sharpie on the cover at the Christian Bookstore I worked at.

From the outside it looked like I was on track to fulfil my dreams and goals.

On the inside I was wilting like a flower. One petal at a time slowly dropping.

I felt like I was meeting other people's expectations of me, but dying inside. Disconnected from myself and disillusioned about my faith.

I felt like no matter what I did, it never quite made the mark. Like somehow my biggest efforts still fell short of what I perceived my parents wanted for me. What society wanted for me.

I'd never been allowed to have doubt or questions about Christianity or my place in it.

I felt like I was doing it all wrong. Doing the human thing wrong.

And the harder I tried to play the part, the more dead inside I felt, the more I felt like a failure. I couldn't hold the mask on. It was slipping. Cracks in my armor.

I didn't want to be found out. And at the same time desperately wanted to stop the charade and be free to find my own way.

The weight of having to uphold someone else's expectations of me was unbearable, especially since it felt like I was stuck in a game I didn't know the rules to.

It felt impossible to win.

Deep in my core, I felt wrong for being me.

Shame shrouded me all the time.

A heavy cloud around me. At times it would rain, and like a wet clown with makeup smeared and dripping, my true face would start to peer through, and the sky would burst with magic of a rainbow.

But soon, I felt the pressure to paint the mask back on, put on the puffy red nose, and parade through life as this false version of myself.

The thing was I didn't know who I was. I didn't know how much or little of this costume actually fit and felt good, because I'd never had the opportunity to take it off.

And that's what I wanted.

I wanted to be free to discover who the true me is, and try on lots of different costumes to see which one feels the most true and comfortable and authentic, for me.

It wasn't that I was faith-less or didn't believe in God anymore. I just couldn't keep pretending that my experience of God was the same as my parents and everyone around me.

It wasn't that I didn't want to be a singer, perform regularly and make a life with my music (I still want that!), I just didn't want to have to be Brooke Fraser to do it.

I wanted to be me.

And the only way I knew how to get to know me was to start trying new things.

10/23/2024

Secure attachment is being able to be hurt and end a phone call before there's resolution, and not spiral into doubt about the relationship.

10/10/2024

Getting better at communication skills is not the goal in relationship repair. Making contact with my inner world and emotions in real time has made all the difference.

10/02/2024

"almost everything I do to feel better in conflict, creates more conflict."

- relationship distress

09/29/2024

A few days ago my mum and I cried together over a video call for probably the first time ever.

I hadn't spoken to her in over a year, aside from a couple of texts she sent me earlier this year that I hardly responded to.

Last August, we'd been on a zoom call and she said something that hurt me to the core. Something that had me draw a very firm boundary with her and my dad.

I told them via email that I wouldn't be available to relationship with them unless it was in the context of family counseling.

I told them that while I forgave them for the hurt and pain I had experienced, I could no longer tolerate relating with them unless they were ready to do counseling together.

I then continued to do the EMDR therapy for C-PTSD that I'd been in for 8 months already.

My mum texted me on my birthday and on mother's day. I hardly replied.

The last 5+ months of healing and repair that I've been doing with my love, Greg, have changed me profoundly.

I've learned what it is to truly be vulnerable - to risk loss or love.

I've learned how to communicate my pain and hurt without blame and defensiveness.

I've learned what healthy boundaries are compared to defensive boundaries and guarded vulnerability.

I softened beyond what I could've imagined.

And this has led me to open myself to one of the most painful relationships in my life - my relationship with my mother.

It took about 2 days to integrate and process what actually took place in our call.

I couldn't believe the depths we'd gone to, the tears we both shared, her apologies and understanding of what I went through, and each of us sharing in each other's pain. (She's been through a LOT this past year too).

At the end of the call she said she wanted to speak again soon and get to know me. I burst into tears, and told her how much that meant to me... Because I'd never experienced a desire or effort for her or my dad to really get to know me throughout my life. (Pretty understandable to some degree, being that I grew up the 5th of 12 children.)

My heart is hopeful.

If even the most painful relationship in my life can start to heal, what richness of relationship lays ahead for me!

Humbled. Grateful. In service to Love.

09/20/2024

If boundaries & agreements don't create safety & secure attachment (see previous post), what do you think does?

09/19/2024

Why Agreements in Relationship Don't Work

One of the first couples I worked with was attempting to repair betrayal and broken trust.

They were hurting and resentful, and totally lost in how to communicate their deepest fears and pain.

I was worried I couldn't help them feel each other, and although I had shared in the intake call that they were one of the first couples I was working with, I was hesitant to bring my own vulnerability into the session.

So I shared with them what I'd learned from the self development and coaching industry - get clear on what works for each of them, and create safety through agreements and boundaries.

The problem is agreements and boundaries don't create safety (I wasn't fully aware of this at the time though).

Agreements in relationship tend to be attempts to get the other person to relate to you, others and the world in the same way that they do; to control behavior in order to not get hurt. Agreements are often used to teach the other person how you want to be loved.

Boundaries are generally ways to remain in guarded vulnerability, and an attempt to align behaviors based out of fear or hurt.

I know, I know… how the f*** do we create safety if there's no boundaries and agreements?!

We'll get to that.

First, let's look at why we move towards these things as methods of creating safety.

We live in a world of contractual, transactional relating.

What does this mean?

It means our whole world is set up like a supermarket - I go choose the things I like, then I pay you for them. But if I don't pay for them (and get caught), then I'm punished. And if I decide that what I chose is rotten or it doesn't meet my standards, I can come back to you and demand a refund… which you'll likely give to me in order to preserve your reputation and minimise rage or further dissatisfaction.

These are the social agreements and boundaries that permeate our lives.

This is what we do in relationships.

And this is why agreements don't keep people from cheating on their partner (or shoplifting).

Because the impact isn't felt and shared.

While you might not care about how the corporation that owns the supermarket feels if you shoplift, nobody cheats with the intent to hurt their partner.

The trouble is, we aren't deeply concerned about or connected to the impact, because it's very rare we actually get the opportunity to share in the pain we cause or experience.

And while I tried my best to get this couple to feel the pain that was going on between them, I wasn't equipped with the tools that I am now, as well as my own lived experience of repairing betrayal.

Being betrayed last year, and beginning to actually repair with Greg Stanbro 5+ months ago, humbled me… it brought me to my knees in ways I never expected.

The biggest task for me in repairing with my partner, has been to reveal my pain. The second biggest task has been to do it without blaming or shaming him.

After the initial attempts to repair last year, I attempted to share my pain through punishment. Of course! Because we've grown up in a world where punishment is the norm, instead of reconciliation and repair.

I didn't consciously want to punish him, but I hadn't yet learned other ways to share my pain.

I didn't know how to connect to the depths of my feelings and express from my heart, without going into blame or guarded vulnerability (talking about the pain from my head but disconnected from the actual feeling).

Over the past 5+ months I've delved deep into relational healing through mentorship and applying the methods with Greg, and have learned how to connect more presently and deeply with my pain, and share it without criticizing or blaming him for it.

The reality is, we will hurt each other and we will get hurt.

Agreements won't prevent pain.

But learning how to be with and express our pain through humility and vulnerability allows the other person to fully feel the impact of their actions. (And trust me, unless they have a severe personality disorder, they are already in their own world of pain, riddled with guilt and shame).

So whether you have agreements in place or not, there's better ways to create safety than to contractually agree not to do things that hurt each other.

And if you think you're already being vulnerable, but what you're doing isn't drawing your partner closer, than perhaps it's time to learn something different.

Join us in The Path of Peaceful Relationship Repair to learn more about creating safety in your relationship, repairing betrayal and broken trust, and creating secure attachment whether you have agreements in place or not.

With love
Lindsey 🌹

Photo by Jonathan Borba

09/17/2024

In tears after reading a testimonial a former client sent to me today, from having worked with me various time over the past 10 years. Humbled and honored to support people in relationship with themselves and others. 🙇🏽‍♀️

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Our Story

Lindsey Stillwell Artist, Activist and Alchemist.

I’ve been a singer since before I could fully form words, and my feet have danced me around the world. I’ve graced many stages in many ways, and come alive in front of audience. From singing in choirs to writing my own songs and merging the worlds of healing and music, I consider myself a ‘sound alchemist’, creating powerful transmissions through vocal tones, lyrics and song.

Activism has been at the core of my art and work for as long as I remember. Growing up in a religious family, I was taught the value of service, compassion, and humility... and my path has found me advocating for the voices of the voiceless, empowering those who feel unheard, and standing beside those who feel alone. From volunteering around the world in the slums of India, ‘red light’ districts of eastern Europe, hospitals in West Africa and rehabilitation homes for exploited girls and women in Nepal, to working as a social worker and mental health caseworker in Australia, my compassionate heart has been coupled with a passion for social change.

I first read Paulo Coelho's book "The Alchemist" when I was 23, had just moved across the world to follow a new romance, and was discovering mySelf as an adult in the world. I was deeply moved by his words, and this book become an instant favourite. Since then, much of my work and exploration has felt like alchemy - driven by my curious nature to explore what emerges when various elements are intentionally combined or find a place of intersection. As a multi-modal Creative Arts Therapist, I infuse my therapeutic work with embodiment practices, emotional clearing, and mindfulness, offering a holistic path towards empowerment and wellbeing (with a focus on sexual empowerment coaching). I am many things... and namely three - artist, activist, alchemist. My mission is to inspire and awaken the embodiment of divinity in those I encounter, to inspire others to live in connection with Life Force and as empowered creators of their own lives.