Erotic Wholeness & Somatic Healing with Darshana Avila

What if eroticism is simply your life force—your aliveness—and not just a sexual act? In this episode, Jacquelynn Cotten talks with trauma-informed somatic educator Darshana Avila about reconnecting with your body, rewriting internalized shame, and building safety for authentic intimacy.

We discuss:

• What “erotic wholeness” really means
• How trauma, religion, and patriarchy disconnect us from pleasure
• Why talk therapy often is not enough without somatics
• How freeze responses and people pleasing show up in intimacy
• Consent as collaboration, not obligation
• Body-based tools: breath, movement, sound, self touch
• Myths about desire, pain, lube, and menopause
• Raising kids with healthy embodiment and curiosity instead of shame

Darshana shares simple practices for shifting from sexual performance to presence, so you can experience intimacy with clarity, consent, and sovereignty.

Connect with Darshana:
Instagram | Website

If this episode resonated, share it with a friend and leave a review telling us which old belief about sexuality you are ready to release.

Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Guest Introduction
• 2:51 Defining Erotic By Nature
• 6:32 Reframing Eroticism As Life Force
• 11:22 Parenting Without Shame
• 17:02 Why Sex Is Taboo
• 20:57 Trauma, Safety, And Healing Paths
• 26:22 Somatics And Hands-On Practice
• 32:27 Myths That Hold Women Back
• 37:32 Simple Daily Embodiment Tools
• 42:42 Staying Centered And Next Steps

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:45

Welcome back to just women at Talking Shit. I'm so happy to have everybody here. I've got a really uh, I would say spicy guest for us today, talking about so many things to do with womanhood. She goes by an erotic wholeness guide. I'd never heard of that before. So I'm really excited to dive into that because I'm I'm a I've been very open with women so far about being in the Bible belt. So I'm already kind of shaking shit up, but there's a lot of shame built around sex, about being erotic, about owning all of it. And so I'm really excited about this. So to see that this is even a thing, I'm like, what? We don't talk about this down here. So let's talk about it today. But Darshana Avila is a trauma-informed somatic educator, practitioner, and international speaker who helps people reconnect with the most essential aspect of themselves. And I saw on your website, I actually have it pulled up. She says that you are erotic by nature. And that really stuck with me. So I want to talk more about that. However, um, and this means, you know, their truth, their desires, and their capacity for profound pleasure and power. Known for her grounded, candid, and relational approach, she bridges the worlds of embodiment, emotional intelligence, and personal agency with depth and accessibility. Her work has been featured in, and I think this is super cool, Netflix's Sex, Love and Goop, The Guardian, The New Yorker, and numerous leading podcasts. So, oh my gosh, hi. Now I've got chill bumps. Now I'm like, I'm getting in the mode. I feel like I'm in front of somebody that's gonna teach us a lot today. And I would just love if you could take a second to talk a little bit about yourself. I mean, I gave the bio, but yeah, who are you and what are you doing in this world?

SPEAKER_01: 2:29

I mean, that that tells you a little bit about what I'm doing, but maybe not about who I am. So that's a fair question. I I'm many things. I mean, my identity is rooted in I'm a New York Jew who lived in the South for a long time, who now lives in California, also lived overseas. I grew up in a very like non-religious family that was progressive-ish. Like, I like to say they put the fun dysfunctional. So there was a lot of fabulously chaotic moments of my formative years. But what my parents didn't fuck up, which I really give them a lot of credit for, they did not shame me around my sexuality. Not that they were like especially sex positive, which is a term and and we could say an ideology that nowadays has gained a lot of traction in certain parts and certain communities, but they weren't sex negative. Sex was not verboten. It wasn't like we couldn't talk about it, or that I felt in any way that I was being repressed. And so one of the things that's relevant is that when I started exploring my sexuality, I didn't have to hide it now from them. What I did do was hide certain aspects of it that I had picked up from culture, from wider culture and wider community circles, that even as a young person, I was like, you know, this doesn't go with that very narrow script I've been handed of sex is boy, girl, man, woman, penis, vagina, on an escalator, everything's gotta be moving toward intercourse and a ring on your finger and you know, till death do us part kind of stuff. Like, so when I started to explore in many different ways that went beyond that really, really narrow script, thankfully, my parents are pretty cool with it. And we can say that that might have planted a seed for me, taking a very winding path that included getting married at 22. Never saw that one coming. Was married from 22 to 28 to a really lovely human who I was just not meant to do the rest of my life with. And on the other side of that marriage, here I find myself at 28, basically making up for what many people in their 20s might be doing, which is dating, uh, having sex with different people, exploring what my personal spiritual path was going to look like, really coming into my own. A lot of things were going on in that chapter that really set me on this path to the point where I walked away from a very like well-established corporate career and the mainstream life that looked very much like what we are taught to aspire to. You know, I was, I did have the handsome husband. We got divorced. I had the home, moved out of it, had the career, quit. Like, chose this path, or I could say this path chose me to explore a far more expansive idea of what it is. You you quoted one of my favorite sayings, which is to be erotic by nature. And I'm happy to tell you what that means to me, but I just said a lot of words. So let me pause for a sec.

SPEAKER_00: 5:30

I love it. I love it, I love it so much. Well, if you could, a couple of things I want to cover would be what one, what is erotic wholeness? And then two, after explaining that, like, what are listeners gonna walk away with today? Because I feel like you've got some tools and you're about to expand our minds tremendously. I uh uh yeah, I was always reading through everything, I was like, we've got so much to learn. But you know, for the person that's listening who feels like she doesn't maybe powerful like in career or like you said, social settings and but very timid or disconnected with that, that, you know, yeah, the eroticness of us. What can they walk away with today if they do some of the things that you suggest?

SPEAKER_01: 6:13

What you're gonna walk away with is a widened perspective of what eroticism actually is. You get to orient to that on terms that get to be way more authentic than the stories that have been bought and sold. You get to know something about your power and your pleasure and the way you get to live life, not only in an intimate relation context, but in every context, like from a place that is more aligned with your authentic truth. And there are very simple ways that that journey can begin. Doesn't mean it's always easy. And I want to be straight up about that, right? Because I know that when I say the word erotic, there are people listening who are squirming right now. They are feeling like, oh shit, I shouldn't even be listening to this podcast. What is she about to say? My best friend since I was 17 years old. So we've got a lot of life lived together at this point, is a practicing Catholic mother of three living in an affluent suburb. Talk about my business. She's always like, Darsina. Like, I know that most of the women that I'm going to church with and at my kids' schools or whatever actually need to learn from you, but you keep saying this word erotic and they can't hear anything else because that word stops them. And that's fine by me. I'm here to be a provocateur. And I trust that when people are ready to listen, when they're ready to hear what's being spoken here, they will. I'm not trying to like, you know, push anybody past their limits. What I do want to offer is the invitation that when I say you're erotic by nature, I'm using the word erotic to describe life force energy. I'm using the word erotic to speak about the fact that we are born into these bodies that sense and feel we are energy. Where we channel that energy, we actually have a choice over. So sure, it flows into our sexuality, but it flows into our creativity. It flows into our activism, it can flow into our passions in a professional lens, into how we tend all of our relationships, the ways we show up in our community. So when you are really connected to that flow of vitality, your power is then something that you get to wield with intention and totally use that to have amazing sex, use that to deepen intimacy, use that to explore and express aspects of yourself that maybe you've secretly been curious about or don't even know that you're secretly curious about and could play out in the bedroom. I mean, that's a beautiful expression of eroticism, but it isn't the only one. And that real narrow definition is something that our culture has created. And that culture is rooted in a lot of religious conservatism. It's rooted in a lot of patriarchal and misogynistic norms, a lot of things that in many, many ways have been suppressing our vitality for a really long time. And that includes equating it with sex alone and then slapping a bunch of shame on top of it. So we get to take that shame away, the stigma, and actually make space to be in an inquiry with each other for our own selves. Like, what does it mean to me to be erotic? What is my erotic nature? Like, how or how does my erotic nature want to express itself? And that's a really juicy place to hang out. Not saying it's an easy place. I will, I get it. You know, some people are still like crawling out of their skin, listening to me talk. Others are probably like, huh, okay, tell me more, tell me more. Great, keep listening if you want more.

SPEAKER_00: 9:43

Yeah, I my mind immediately went to sex. Yeah. Immediately went to, yeah, to just getting it on and being more comfortable with that and being more sensual. And like, but when you explain it, how it trickles into everything else and it being the life force. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 9:59

Well, let's a light bulb. We used that example. Like, can I just use you right now to act like of course.

SPEAKER_00: 10:06

Mississippi girl here moved to the city. Like, I remember stepping off the um, the where were we in Times Square. And and I went to school and and met all kinds of people. And that that like opened me up to so much. And now I'm transplanted back in Mississippi. So just saying I've got a little bit of perspective, not a lot, but for the people that are listening and for my neighbors, because I'm sitting outside, maybe just be open to what we're about to talk about. And I'm happy to be an example. So let's go for it.

SPEAKER_01: 10:35

Well, so I want to ask you before I answer it, for you to feel more comfortable in in a sexual context, for you to express your desires more clearly, for you to communicate what you want, to not be afraid to relate in the most vulnerable, wild, wonderful ways. What are some of the things that you might have to acquire in order for that to happen or become capable or become capable of?

SPEAKER_00: 11:03

Yeah, I feel like for me, it was working on confidence. Like I have to acquire confidence.

SPEAKER_01: 11:08

Confidence, clarity in your desires, actually learning what does and does not feel good to you, connecting to your body's wisdom that says, yes, no, I want this, I don't want that. You have to unwind the conditioned people pleasing that most of us are really, really entrenched in that as a protective strategy, as a way to get love and belonging and safety, pats on the back, you know, like the bills paid for us, the peaceful relationship, whatever it is. We go along with what other people need or want, or what we think they need or want from us, as opposed to representing ourselves honestly, truthfully. So you want to have better sex, all the things that you're gonna need to learn in order for that to happen, they transfer. You more confident, transfers. You more connected to your body's wisdom, transfers. You actually being unafraid to express a boundary or a preference or to disappoint somebody so that you're not abandoning your own self, that transfers to every aspect of your life. So when I talk about erotic wholeness, what I'm talking about is really claiming your authentic expression, being aligned with that vital power that's running through you. Every cell of your body is vibrating with that. So either you could keep tamping it down or you could learn how to express it confidently. And that's gonna change the shape of every aspect of your life if you let it. Again, it's not wrong to equate eroticism with sex. It's simply too narrow if you stop there. It's one place that that energy gets to flow, but it's not the only one.

SPEAKER_00: 12:52

I love this perspective so much because I think about how now being uh I'm a mother, I have two, two of my own, and then I have three um, three steps that I don't even like that word, but I call my bonus babies, bonus sons. So there's a lot of penis talk, there's a lot of curiosity around here. And one thing that I've noticed throughout, I was the same way with my daughter, but when like there's we're so little, I I think of it as like self-discovery, you know, and how it starts so young, the self-discovery, where whether it be like physical or internal. But one thing, and maybe you can give me your feedback on this, but one thing that I've done with my two kids, especially, and with the bonus babies coming in, because one of them is real little, seven years old and touching and doing all the things, right? Is I never want them to feel shame around that because I see now that like I'm just now having a good intimacy with my husband and I'm I'm damn near 40, right? It took me a lot of removing the shame and whatnot. But had I had that perspective or been taught that perspective, I can only imagine how confident of a person I would have been. And not, I feel like such a late bloomer at this point, you know, like I'm making up for those lost years, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 14:06

And you're not the only one. You're not the only one.

SPEAKER_00: 14:10

I know. That's what's so crazy, is I'm figuring out, and I can see in some of my friends, now that I'm thinking about it, like how this might be affecting them. Oh, but out of curiosity, one thing that I tell our boys, especially in my and my daughter, you know, again, they're within those years, but is that like that's that's all so normal? And like, how could you not touch that? It's like with probably like screaming at you, it feels nice. And but like, do we do that in private? Like, go explore yourself in private. Do you think that that's a good recommendation for anybody listening who has kids? Because I I was shamed publicly in church when I lost my virginity. And so I don't ever want them to. I'm just seeing all the connections you said it spills over, and I'm like, fuck. Yeah. This makes so much sense because I was like touching myself and and wanting to explore myself, which I wasn't allowed to do, and I'm still kind of recovering from that trauma.

SPEAKER_01: 15:04

So we are born erotic. If we're erotic by nature, we're born erotic. We are not born sexualized. And what has happened in, and you're giving a prime example because it's happened in largely religious conservative culture, something that is completely innocent. And I really want to emphasize that word. We know any baby, any toddler, any young child that you have spent any time around, what do they do? They fling their bodies about, they pick stuff up, they put things in their mouths, they're touching, they're fidgeting. And the moment that same energy happens to land between their thighs, what they're supposed to know that that's a quote unquote bad thing. Oh, yeah. They are following their instincts and their impulses in an incredibly appropriate way for their developmental stage. I do not use the word appropriate often. So if I'm using that word, you know I mean it. It's appropriate to their developmental stage. We need to explore our environments and our bodies. We are wired to do that. We are sensuous creatures. We touch, we smell, we taste, we hear, we are wired with these beautiful sense faculties. So a child who's exploring their body and happens to land on this spot that's like, oh, that feels good. That gives me a lot of pleasure. Of course they're gonna want to do that. Now, if you get publicly ostracized as your, I'm so sorry that that's what happened to you. Even if you get privately chastised by a parent or whatever, the moment we start an adult or someone that you respect, someone who's in a position of power, you don't even have to respect them. But if you know, as a child, pretty much everybody around you wields power over you. How they're using that power is gonna vary widely. If an adult comes to you and says, Hey, I see that you are really enjoying touching yourself in that way. And it's so great that you get to explore your body. And there are certain things that we want to do in privacy and we explain it in a developmentally appropriate way. By shaming a child for being quote unquote sexual, that's not developmentally appropriate because at that stage, they're not, they don't know anything about sex. They just know, oh, this feels good. You can tickle my like my mom used to tickle the insides of my arms. It was the most like talk about an erotic experience, not a sexual one. To this day, my mom's dead. I mean, like, and I still arm tickles light me up like nobody's business because it just feels good to my body. How do I, as a four-year-old or a seven-year-old, know that my forearm and in between my thighs are any different? I don't. I need to learn this from the people around me who, in the ideal set of circumstances, aren't gonna shame me because I don't know something. They're gonna help me cultivate a healthy relationship to my own body in a way that also respects societal needs and norms, understands consent, recognizes that there are certain things we do in public, certain things we do in private. But that's what gets missed when we are just being categorically shamed and shut down and not being educated about ourselves. And I mean, we're this, the implications of this, you can get me on a soapbox so quickly with this conversation about the implications that this has and why in the United States of America, the supposedly greatest nation in the world, the most developed, we have a higher rate of unwanted teen pregnancy than any developed nation. Why? Because we're not teaching our kids about their body, you know, we're not teaching consent, we're not teaching an ethos of pleasure. We're we're keeping them blind, you know, most of the time. And and the the implications of that are devastating, truly.

SPEAKER_00: 19:06

Yeah, you see it a lot down south. I know, especially, I I feel like, and and it just it yeah, it hurts my heart because I mean, I was I want to say this in the most respectful way to my mom and to any parents out there who have had uh, you know, I would consider several kids or just whatever the story. My mom had six kids of her own. And we I I would just say that I learned from that, you know. I saw how stressful it was for her and just how tough it was. And so I was, I would say smart, you know, whenever I was getting into having sex and being with more than one person and all those things, but not everybody has that example, you know, and not everybody has somebody they can talk to. And so I just think about how tough that must be and how we as parents and the whole education system could really for sure, and people like you could help prevent that. But what like, can I ask one question?

SPEAKER_01: 20:03

You can. And I also can I I want to say one little thing, which is that yeah, just go for it. Anyone who's listening and feels maybe their own guilt or shame rising up about the way they've parented their kids, or if you're sitting here judging your parents because of the what they did to you, here's the thing I really want to say. None of this is a personal failing. It is a when we know better, we do better opportunity, right? And I genuinely believe, like I said, I came from a super dysfunctional family, just didn't happen to be around sex. The fact that I could stand here as an adult and have nothing but compassion and love for my parents, even with all the ways they weren't who I might have wanted them to be. That's because I understand they were doing their best. So you are doing your best, your parents were doing their best. But if in this very present moment in time you just learned something that can let you do it even better, do that, please. Do that. Oh, that was like so powerful.

SPEAKER_00: 21:00

Because I always like I want to share, but I also don't want to make anybody feel bad about their decisions. Cause like you just said, we're all doing the best we can with the knowledge and resources we have. I like to think. I really do like to think that. To go back before I forget what I was talking about, I find it so interesting. And maybe you can help me because it feels like a freaking riddle. Why there is so much shame built around this and this life force as you described it, which that was powerful. It's that's literally how we all got here. Why is it like such a taboo subject when it's the most natural thing? If if we could figure out, you know, developmentally, like you were saying, eroticism versus versus sexuality. Like to be taught that early on, it just and I hope that I'm doing that right with my kids right now because and I think I am, because my daughter comes to me and talks to me about like masturbation and stuff.

SPEAKER_01: 21:52

That's great.

SPEAKER_00: 21:53

And which makes me proud because I'm like, she's not hiding and like she's not in there with a boy hiding anything. And it also allows her to feel more confident, being able to be that comfortable with her own body. But what do you think it is besides maybe just society? And I feel like you have a good answer for this, but what do you think it is that that makes it to where it's like such taboo? It's so just as a little girl, I saw it. I'm like, we're not talking about this, but everybody's doing it, everybody wants to do it. And then it's like it's all they do in the movies, and it's on it's how they sell everything too, but like, but we can't do that and we can't talk about it, and I just don't understand.

SPEAKER_01: 22:31

You're giving a voice to the experience that all of us have, whether we're conscious of it or not. Why on earth is it that sex sells and and you're supposed to aspire to having all this wonderful romantic sex in your life, and you're supposed to just be available for sex with your partner, like that's one side of the spectrum. But then over here on the other side of the spectrum, that's shameful, that's horrible, how dare you? Don't do this, don't talk about this. Like that internal confusion is a traumatic experience unto itself. So I work at the intersection of trauma healing and erotic embodiment. That is my sweet spot. That is what the work of erotic wholeness is all about. I am, I am trained to be with people in very deep experiences of unwinding their trauma. And sometimes that looks like you've had an assault, you were abused, something, a medical trauma happened, like there might be a particular incident or a recurring experience that deeply traumatized you. You don't need that to be traumatized about your sex. You just need to be alive right now in this culture. It is really deeply confusing. Ask, how did like you're basically asking, like, why is it this way? How did we get here? And I'm gonna repeat it again. Here's how we got here religious conservatism and patriarchy and capitalism and white supremacy and all of the systems of oppression that we are living in a moment in 2025 where, depending upon who you're listening to, there's a lot of dialogue going on about these very same things. None of it's new. This is old, this is ancient. So since the since the monotheistic religions back in Europe basically came in and trampled over the more indigenous earth-based ones that had a lot of different reverence for women, for the earth, for our erotic energy, since all of that got subsumed by a monotheistic, God on high, male-dominant, male-centric, money, money, money, power, power, power societal norm. Systemically and categorically, our erotic energy has been suppressed. The wisdom of a woman's body in particular. Women who were connected to the cycles and rhythms of nature were labeled as witches. What is a witch? Someone who knows what plants to use to cure an illness, someone who's actually listening to her body, someone who creates rituals to honor the earth and to care well for the this unseen and seen realms. Like, what is a witch? And I realize that me saying these things, you know, talking to someone who's in the deep south and whoever's listening, like, you might think I'm crazy. You might agree with me. I don't, I'm good either way. But what I want you to hopefully understand is that what you're experiencing right now, that dichotomy that says sex sells, sex is horrible. Be sexy and sexual only in these contexts and always for another person's pleasure, never your own. That alongside being in a body that also feels pleasure or wants to feel pleasure, because this is what happens for a lot of women. There is also a many of us who think we don't like sex, that we don't experience pleasure. Maybe it's because we've never had sex worth having. Maybe it's because the only sex we've had is going along to please a partner, go along to get along is a saying. You know, you might have heard that somewhere. Like going along, because another myth that is bought and sold so widely is that the guy, in a heteronormative context, the guy not only is it all for him, he's also the one who's supposed to know what to do. And the girl, I'm just over here to, you know, make you happy. And it's time to wake up, sweetheart. You get to learn about what makes you happy. This is an opportunity. I would say this is your birthright. And I would go so far as to say you have an obligation. The obligation is to our wider collective goodness. So erotic liberation for you personally serves collective liberation. What do I mean when I say that? You get in touch with your power, you learn how to hold your boundaries, you stop people pleasing, you actually walk through this world as a well-fucked woman who's being attuned to and who's getting loved on in the ways that feel good to her, that is gonna change the culture. If if the men in power were not abusing women, but women who are in their personal power running the show, what kind of world would we be living in? So for me, I'm if you happen to be into astrology, my son sign is an Aquarius. It's not the only thing that's relevant here, but I'm bringing that in to say I'm very Aquarious in that I go wide out into the macrocosm and then I come make it like very, very narrow and small and right about you in the blink of an eye, because that is how I see the world. And that is why erotic wholeness chose me to come through, why I get to spend my days. I have these kind of conversations day in and day out. Also, mostly I'm a private practitioner. And what I do in my private practice is something that will blow many of your minds because I'm a professional pussy stroker, y'all. What that means. What? Yup, you heard that correctly.

SPEAKER_00: 27:58

Hold on. That sounds very interesting. Yes. You said it with such confidence, too.

SPEAKER_01: 28:03

Like, I am very confident. I am a sexological body worker. This is a professional certification that I hold alongside my trauma trainings. And I work hands-on and hands-in with my clients, the vast majority of whom are women, cis women, partnered, divorced, single, married with kids for ages, never want any of that, different sexual identities, all the full gamut. And I help these women learn themselves from the inside out, release the trauma imprints, learn about the anatomy of their pleasure and arousal, give them vocabulary and communication skills so that they build confidence, teach them how to negotiate consensual, mutually enjoyable, delightful, intimate encounters with their lovers, with their partners, with their husbands, with their wives, whomever it may be. Could you imagine, yet again, like we were talking about younger versions of ourselves, you're talking about your daughter, Jacqueline? Like, could you imagine if when we were in our formative years, coming into adolescence, coming into that shift from an erotic innocence that has nothing to do with sex to now age-appropriate, I'm starting to get a little curious about sex. That person's cute. Ooh, my body's doing things. Could you imagine if at that age and stage of life what we learned was about consent and pleasure? And we actually had containers to understand our own bodies for our own sake before we started focusing all of our attention on how to get a partner, please a partner, keep a partner, be approved of by a partner. Radical, radical shifts happen. And so, my job, I get to do that with women in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s for the first time in their lives.

SPEAKER_00: 29:57

It's pretty amazing. That sounds amazing. And a lot of things are coming up for me. You know, we we keep touching a little bit on trauma. So I kind of want to revisit that. And then I want to, I feel like it's gonna segue into my next um question about your that practice. But how like how can someone who like myself who has experienced a lot of trauma, especially sexual trauma and the shame and all that, like how how can we or they or whoever's listening, um, how can that lead to, you know, I would say like a satisfying intimate life?

SPEAKER_01: 30:32

Yeah, it's a really fair question because I know that when you are sitting there actively inside of those traumatic imprints in your body and your perspective is really shaped by what you've lived through. It can seem so impossible and so far away that it would ever be different than that. And trauma healing is slow work and it's deep work and it is very available. So whether or not you were to choose what I offer that bridges trauma into the erotic, like the specifically sexual side of the erotic spectrum, you can still work on your trauma. And how we work on our trauma needs to include the body. That's the biggest thing that people often, you know, don't necessarily get. Like a lot of my clients have spent years in therapy, talk, talk, talking about things, and it's brought about some improvement. But then there's usually a point where they hit a wall. The healing is plateaued. It can't go any further. And that's because you actually have to get into your body and learn how those trauma imprints have shaped you. I want to just, I'll give an example of some a woman that I've been working with for the last couple of years. And she had a very extensive trauma history and spent much of her like she's into her early 30s having a ton of casual sex completely dissociated. So she thought she liked sex because she thought she was doing what she was supposed to do, which was to just like hop into the sack with whatever guy was in her life and go along with it. Then she met her husband, who is a doll, loving, kind, they're securely attached, they're building a beautiful life together. And a couple years into their relationship, her body went on lockdown. She could not be touched without having a trauma response because what was going on was finally there was actually enough safety in her life for all the things that she had been overriding to start coming closer to the surface. When we first started working together, if her husband came up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder, she would have a visible startle response. Fast forward, the work we've done, her own therapy, ways that the two of them as a couple have integrated certain practices that I've given them. They do naked cuddle time now, sensual massages. They're exploring like some light kinky play because that's actually created more safety for her than just straight on vanilla sex. She's learning about some of the patterns of pain and tension in her body, how they're connected, and we're doing the work together to release those from her body. So that's one example of what happens when you actually decide to turn toward the trauma. You can't wish it away, you can't ignore it away. If you're moving through your life dissociated, frozen, in pain all the time, feeling totally cut off from your libido, not wanting to be touched, treating sex as a chore. This list could go on and on and on, but those are a few common examples. You've got an opportunity. And none of us does this alone. So that's a real heavy point of emphasis here. You're not meant to do this alone. So please do not be thinking like I've got to figure this all out by yourself. You deserve to be helped, supported, guided, ideally by a very well-qualified practitioner. It could also be really helpful to have a community that understands, to have friendships or support groups or what have you, where people are speaking the same language and understand what it's like to move through life with all of this trauma in your body as a layer of protective armor that actually feels more like a prison that you're inside of. Because that's what happens. The things that we do to keep out what feels dangerous and threatening to us also keep us blocked from the connection, the intimacy, the aliveness that we're wired to experience, that we that we ultimately really want. So it's a it is very much a possibility. And you just gotta choose it for yourself. Wherever you're at, your first step is right there. And that path gets to keep going into places that might take you beyond your wildest dreams.

SPEAKER_00: 34:47

Wow. So all I can think about right now, and now after hearing all that, I think about, and I'll just be the example, but for instance, so I relate to that client so much. It's so funny. Like shame was built around sex, but then it was very much like my way of being liked, I guess. I felt like I needed to to be with that person and and be that like um, I don't know, I it was a weird thing. I wanted to get them hooked on me before I could be hooked on them type thing. And it was like a a power thing, I think. But I remember, and this is something I still struggle with, but I remember doing it and getting the endorphins of, you know, the lust and the being sought after and all that, but I never I I didn't know what I was doing. I never got off. I would always have to like go home and take care of myself. I never actually enjoyed it. Yeah. And so that disconnect that you're talking about, like it kind of landed like bricks for me. Right. And I almost sorry. I almost won it's okay. I almost wonder if there's still this disconnect in me because in a loving relationship, and my husband, you said that her husband was a doll. Like I feel that way about my husband, and he's so sweet and he takes his time with me. And but I'm there's still some disconnect that that like I can only in one position truly climax. And I I know it's my head. I know there's something that has happened that I don't quite understand, or there's some trauma there to make it where I can't fully enjoy myself. And so, which I feel like you probably have clients that come in with those issues, those kinds of issues too. So I know you're about to say something, but I want to hear more about how you're helping, like what that actually looks like.

SPEAKER_01: 36:31

What I want to say is that when we are in a deeply intimate experience, it's an incredibly vulnerable state to be in. And even when we are consenting, when we are choosing what you're describing with your husband, for instance, the client that I'm speaking to, it's fully consensual in these instances, which is to say both parties are informed, are showing up because they want to, are negotiating what's gonna happen, taking their time, being creative together, like all sorts of wonderful things that are happening. But the big but is that it really takes a lot for some of us who have deeply embedded trauma and all the defense, layers of defense that that comes on top of that, it takes a tremendous amount to surrender that. Because what we're talking about is letting ourselves be so vulnerable that the defenses are down, we're completely disarmed. And you can't, you know, it's it's not enough to just wish that. And this is why, as a somatic practitioner, and in case the word somatic is new to anybody, what somatic means is simply body-based. So when I say the word therapy, most of us understand therapy as talking. And that's accurate because it's psychotherapy. Psyche is the mind, soma is the body. So psychosomatic, put those two together. That's the intersection that trauma healing has to happen at. It's not just one or the other, it's both. But most people don't understand the body part. That is the newer edge, if you will, the newer frontier in the healing world. Now, I live in Oakland, California. I live in a hotbed of progressive everything, including alternative wellness and health. And so there's a somatic practitioner. I mean, my literally my entire friend group, never mind my professional group, like we're all therapists, dancers, healers, bodyworkers of many different sorts. But it is reaching further and further. As a somatic experiencing practitioner, which is another one of the professional certifications that I hold, that modality is actually very popular. So I said earlier, I'm a sexological body worker. That's the erotic component. And that's niche. There are only a few hundred of us around the world. Somatic experiencing practitioners, there are literally trainings being conducted all across the globe in almost any language you can imagine. Practitioners, uh, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of practitioners around the world doing trauma healing work in a body-based way. So it's not as fringe as you might think. And again, I want to be clear like, even though anybody who's interested in like darshana, erotic wholeness, the things you're saying, this focus on sex, like if you feel like that's your growth edge, I want you to explore there. But there might be some people listening who are not ready or don't feel that they need to go into the sexual realm. And that's your prerogative. You can still work on your trauma. You can still work with what's going on in your body that's blocking you from that flow of vitality and creativity. You can still feel a greater degree of power, of confidence to show up in your life, even if you don't explore the sexual end of the spectrum. So wherever you are, dear listener, there's an opportunity for you. That's the point I want to make.

SPEAKER_00: 39:56

I love it. So as I get older, I feel like I've, my husband calls it my dirty 30s, is what he calls it. I've definitely like come out of my little shell and been more open about stuff. But I'm, but I think back to like all the myths I was told, which I think are really big for women. What are you, what are some of the myths that you wish that people would stop believing, or that women especially would stop believing? Whenever it comes to all of this, because there's like so much to discuss.

SPEAKER_01: 40:26

So many. First of all, I I think for many, there's a very pervasive myth that women aren't meant to like sex or meant to want it as much as men do, that there's some kind of intrinsic sex divide, gender divide. And that's just bullshit. That is so not true. I have been the woman who has absolutely wanted way more sex than my male partner before. So I'm here to tell you it's not real. Another myth is that sex should that if sex is in any way painful or uncomfortable, that that's just something to be tolerated, something to assume, like, oh yeah, you know, it hurts a little or oh, it's a little, I'm a little dry. No, no. Sex is meant to feel pleasurable. And there are a lot of ways that you can be supported, whether things that are more physical therapy-esque, meaning you might have to do some exercises to release tension patterns, or you might be first lubricant. Lube is your friend. That's another myth that, oh my God, like I have to use lube. I want you to know, I'm gonna give you a very basic sex ed factoid right now. A wet pussy does not equate with a turned-on pussy. A dry pussy does not mean you aren't turned on. Some bodies lubricate more than others. Period. End of sentence. Whatever age you are, if you are on the drier side of the spectrum, lube is your friend. There's no shame. It makes everything feel better. It can make it feel better for the person with a penis if that's who you're having sex with, because we tend to like the gushy moistness of it all. So, no shame in using lube. Now, I'll talk to you as a perimenopausal 44-year-old right now. And the the myth that paramenopause and menopause is the decline, the death of your sex life. Not true. Not true. Will you maybe experience hormonal changes that influence your body's sexual response? Maybe your energy levels differ, your desire levels differ. It's very possible everyone gets to have their own unique subjective experience. But the idea that for everybody, it's like you're done, not true. I work with a lot of women post-menopausal who are in a sexual renaissance, in a sexual spring, because they have no fucks left to give and they are committed to whatever chapter of life remains being the best yet. So for they're the ones oftentimes who divorced the husband that they raised kids with for 30 years and finally realized like this was never gonna be the relationship that met me. Or maybe they stayed with the partner and they're just like, I'm gonna figure out how to come. I'm gonna learn about my orgasm. I'm gonna learn about how I like to have sex, I'm gonna use my voice, I'm gonna prioritize my pleasure. I don't care if I'm 63 or 72, and I'm not like I've worked with women at all of those ages. So these are some of the myths that, again, stem from all of that shaming and suppression of women's sexuality because it's a power over dynamic. Systems of oppression are rooted in power over. They want to create a top-down situation so that the ones who are below feel disempowered and go along with whatever the master plan is. Don't, don't disrupt, you know, and the best way that you can disrupt the radical activism that is available to you wherever you are is to prioritize your pleasure, to actually get to know your body, to give yourself the rest that you need, to give yourself the relaxation, to learn how to move and free up that energy that's all stagnated and tight and lives in your body as all those bracing and tension patterns. And yeah, you might end up with a significantly better sex life. That's a possibility. You will end up with a significantly better life life. That's a guarantee. She said life life. Because we talk about sex life as if that's separate. Like, because it's part of life. We wouldn't be here otherwise.

SPEAKER_00: 44:29

Yeah, I think you already said that earlier. Like, that's that's what blows my freaking mind is that we literally all came from that. Like it it just it it boggles my mind. It boggles my mind. Um okay. Thank you for debunking those myths. Because I'm I'm approaching, you know, those years, and I there are with all the information out in the world, we have TikTok, Instagram, and uh all these you don't know what to believe. And you hear about it, and like like you said, like I can be that partner that wants sex more than my partner. He's nine years older than me. And so I keep him, let's just say I keep him young, but it's it's hard to know and trust. And it goes back to that being connected with yourself, like to know what is normal for you and what's not. So all this information coming at me, I'm like, well, shit, what do I have to look forward to? Because the painting is a nightmare. Somebody out there is still painting is a nightmare. And and it's not until I have conversations, you know, with others that it's like, no, it's not that bad. And I I'm noticing it's getting better the older I get. And so thank you for for debunking all this. It's my pleasure. You've got a lot to story too. As your elder, as your elder. I love it, I love it. Okay. So, what like what's a simple way that someone listening can begin their journey towards being more, you know, erotic and more embodying all of this in general?

SPEAKER_01: 45:56

Well, you've heard me say multiple times I I've invoked sensuality, sensuousness. I've talked about the fact that we're in these bodies that sense and feel. That's where you begin. Fundamentally, we're animals. We are a human animal, right? Like, and so we perceive through our senses what happens for us, modern humans, most of us are very much from the neck up. We're looking at our screens, we're up in our heads, it's very, very mental, intellectualized, and we're not really paying attention to our bodies. The way you pay attention to your body is by paying attention to your senses. So creating small little daily rituals or routines that focus on deepening that connection is where you begin. What I like to recommend is you could do a simple rule of five inventory. Five senses, notice five things that are happening in your present moment. Ideally, five things that are that you would rate as pleasant, positive. So I'm looking around my office that I'm standing in right now, and it's like, okay, my eyes are landing on one of my plants. I see my plant. I'm gonna drink my glass of water. I'm gonna sit my water. And I'm gonna actually like let the cool moisture be something I pay attention to. But what do I hear? In this moment in time, I actually hear that soft little fan on my laptop that's worrying, but that's a sound. And if I put some attention on that, I'm in the present moment with my body. Movement, touch. So I can just kind of roll my shoulders and my spine right now. I've got this soft cashmere sweater on. I could rub my hands across my arms. I feel my own touch. I feel the fabric. The thing that makes this different from any other moment is that I'm present. I'm actually taking the time to notice what my body is experiencing. That's where this all begins, because our body is wise. It might be so used to not being listened to that it's it's a very faint little whisper, but our body is wise and has a ton of information to give us. And when we create a practice of paying attention to our bodies without really giving ourselves those, like what I just did, it's not a heavy investment of time or energy, right? So it's not quantity so much as the quality of our presence. Spending 60 seconds doing that little five cents inventory and really being present for it is the starting point. Way better than trying to sit on a meditation cushion for 15 minutes and accomplishing nothing actually, because you're just so flustered that you can't slow down. Quality over quantity, pay attention to your senses. I'll also make a mention of your four allies of erotic embodiment. And I named a couple of them already. Your four allies are breath, sound, movement, and touch. Breath, sound, movement, touch. They're always with you. They always are here as your supports, your allies. You're feeling a little riled up. A few slow, deep breaths are gonna slow you down. Breath. You breathe with a sound, you make a vocalized exhale, like you're sighing, toning, like a ooh, sound or something like that. You're gonna soothe your nerves, those frayed edges of your nerves. That sound literally travels down the nerve plexuses in your body. And that little bit of vibration is sending a somatic signal that it's okay to relax a little bit more now. Movement. A lot of us are bracing all the time without even knowing it. Our shoulders are up in our ears, we're clenching our asshole, or holding our bellies in, because that's another myth that that like that. That's an okay, like women are just supposed to walk around sucking in their guts all the time. Let your belly out, move your joints around, move your spine and your hips. Most like earth-based cultures, they squat low to the ground. They have ritualized practices that move hips and spine. Why? Because it keeps you vital. It keeps you connected to that flow of life force energy. It keeps you healthy. And then touch. We are wired for it. And if nothing else, you can touch your own sweet self to soothe you. You can squeeze your upper arms and shoulders and give yourself a nice tight hug. You can lovingly bring your hands to your chin, your jaw, your cheeks, and just give yourself a little sweet caress. You can place your hands over your eyes or your head or touch any which wear feels soothing and delightful to you. So your breath, your sound, your movement, your touch are always with you. Your five senses, assuming you have all of them, because somebody may not have sight or may not have hearing or what have you, but whatever sense faculties you have available, use them with presence. That is how you start. It isn't rocket science, y'all. It just requires a commitment to choose that and then choose it again, and then choose it again and again and again until it becomes more natural. Now, the thing is this, it's already your first nature. So I was about to say until it becomes second nature, but really what we're speaking about is returning to your true nature. And this brings us full circle in the conversation because that is what I mean when I say you are, we are erotic by nature. I love how it came full circle.

SPEAKER_00: 51:23

Night drop. I know, right? We should just end right here. But what I got from that is just being super intentional. You said pres present. And in the world of let's buy everybody's attention, that's that's harder these days. But like if we make the commitment to ourselves to disconnect from the the oversensory load of uh it's reconnecting. I think I'm good on there we go. It was doing some weird thing. But I think the challenge for listeners is gonna be to be intentional. Where, you know, we live in a world where everybody wants your attention. They're trying to keep you distracted. You've got to to make the commitment to to build upon that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 52:06

So and that's the beauty of of learning how to pay attention to your body, because the distraction is a form of disembodiment, right? When you get more embodied, you're less susceptible to those distractions. You're not gonna be as pulled off your center to follow someone else, whether that's your partner's sexual desires or government's latest edict or whatever that may be. That's what this is fundamentally about, like learning how to stay in your own center and creating a real and genuine intimacy with yourself. Everything good grows from there.

SPEAKER_00: 52:44

I love this conversation.

SPEAKER_01: 52:45

Yay! I love having it. Thank you for wanting to dive in.

SPEAKER_00: 52:50

It's been so good. Can you tell everyone where to find you, how to work with you, and all the things?

SPEAKER_01: 52:57

Well, the good thing is, even though I'm in California, clients come to work with me from all over the place, different states, different countries. So there actually is a way to work with me in a more immersive container if you don't live near me. So if you're like, I want what you got, it might just be possible. And whether or not you you become a private client of mine, go to my website, go to my Instagram, go to my YouTube. I have a free online community hub called Galgasm that's hosted on the school platform G-A-L-G-A-S-M. And Galgasm has a lot of resources and it's like a c got a classroom with all sorts of PDFs and recordings and practices to invite you to do the very things we've spoken about here today. It means the world to me when, you know, when I get to have a conversation like this, if something touched you, reach out, drop me a message. Like I read them all. Like, you know, say hi, say I heard you, ask questions, find a practitioner near you if traveling to me is not an option. And it's true. What I do is unique. Erotic wholeness is my body of work. And there are only so many people even doing similar work, but it doesn't mean you may not have options. And I want everyone to know that you get to begin wherever you are, both in the inner sense of wherever you are, and then geographically, like there are ways where there is a will, there is a way. So you've you've got options. And I'm sure all of those wonderful links will be shared. So if you're like listening to this while you're driving, you know, you'll get those.

SPEAKER_00: 54:25

Yes. Listeners, check the show notes and uh seek her out. This has been so fun. I've enjoyed talking shit with you today. Uh, I'm so glad that we got to do this. And I can't can't thank you enough for taking the time to chat with me. Little old me.

SPEAKER_01: 54:41

It's my pleasure. My MO when I show up for these is if one person is served by this conversation, I've done my work. And if that person is you, Jacqueline, then fantastic. And then all you all you listeners, you're you're like the sprinkles and the cherries on top. Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 54:56

Well, thank you again, and have a beautiful day.