Episode 47: Pleasure-Centered & Unfuckwithable

[ INTRO WITH EV’YAN ]

Hey, everyone! I’m Ev’Yan Whitney and this is The Sexually Liberated Woman. Why hello, everyone! Long time no see. It’s been a minute—more than a minute actually—since you’ve heard my voice and I’m honestly a little embarrassed that I was gone for as long as I was. But—if I could explain, things have been very, very intense around these parts for the last nine months. I mean, they still are as I journey slowly and trepidatiously along with you through this global pandemic we’re currently in. But just on a smaller level, like, what’s been going in my personal world for the last several months, things have been very hard. And very beautiful. And very. . . interesting.

So let me first start off by saying that I never intended to have this long stretch of radio silence happen here. Actually, here’s what I wanted to happen—this is how I planned it in my head: Big, hard, beautiful things started happening in my life around August of last year. Some of them I peeped, others sort of blindsided me. But for the ones I could see coming, I told myself, “OK, things are about to get a little hectic. Take an impromptu break from the podcast, come back in October and reveal what’s been going on because surely things will be settled by then.”

You know that saying that’s like, “Make plans, God laughs”? Baby, when I tell you that God wasn’t just laughing at me—they were straight up guffawing. Like, big, gasping belly laughs.

Three major things have happened in my personal world since I last spoke to you: I made a big decision to move cross-country back to LA, my hometown. Then, on the eve of that big move, the moving truck which held all of our belongings—all of our furniture, pictures, family heirlooms, all of my clothes and shoes, all of my journals and crystals, all of my podcast equipment, literally everything we had—was stolen from our driveway. And then right after that my relationship with Jonathan went through a major change and transition. And now we’re doing battle with that rona!

So yea—needless to say, things have been quite a lot for me and while I dislike relying on excuses, if I had to rely on them, I feel like I have some pretty good ones.

The good news is that I feel deeply in my bones that I’ve come out the other side of my personal Tower season. Our moving truck was found a week from the day it was stolen—ransacked and with a lot of irreplaceable stuff damaged or missing, but with some serious help from our community we got closure. We also didn’t let that tragedy stop us—we still made the move to LA days after it happened and I began to settle in as soon as we arrived. I am so so happy to be in LA, to be close to my friends, to feel my skin being kissed by the sun frequently.

And as for things with my relationship: honestly, there’s A LOT to be said about that and I don’t really want to get into here right now. It’s not that I don’t want to talk about it, I definitely do, it’s just. . . a lot to go through and process. So very soon I’ll be devoting an entire episode to the state of my marriage, so stayed tuned.

Anyway, I didn’t quite come out of these last nine months unscathed. But I learned a lot about my own resiliency and tenacity. I’ve learned a lot of lessons about the importance of faith, of self-trust, of putting myself and my desires first. And I really feel like all of that hardship and mess was preparing me for what’s happening in this moment—with this global pandemic roaring through the world, halting us all in our tracks, asking us all to slow the fuck down and surrender and be deliberate with ourselves and each other. I’ve been thinking a lot about how much harder this experience of social distancing and isolating would be if I hadn’t gone through what I did in October, September, January, February.

Actually, it’s because of this global pandemic that I’m here with you now. I was inspired to come back from my impromptu hiatus primarily because I’ve got so much time on my hands at the moment. Much of the engagements and gigs I had planned for this first half of the year have been either canceled or postponed, and I finally got the last piece of my podcast equipment in the mail two days ago—which I took as a sign.

It’s not just that, though. This coronavirus outbreak has me recalibrating the way I move through my world and the things that get my attention. It has me thinking about pleasure and presence and self-healing and the restorative potential that lives in solitude. It has me being much more mindful of my relationship to my self, my body, and the way I talk to myself.

During these times of social distancing, as we keep each other at a distance, like it or not, we are simultaneously being encouraged to use this strange new reality to come closer to ourselves. And for me, that’s been looking like me coming home to my body, its softness, its needs, its nuances, and what it’s asking for each moment to help me ground it into that moment. Because as things are slower, quieter, I’m finding I have more space and opportunity to tune in and listen. It is both a gift and also really fucking uncomfortable.

Because one of the things I’ve realized in the last few days as I continue to explore all of this space that’s been made is the ways I impulsively try to fill it. Like, if we weren’t in the middle of a pandemic right now, I would be filling my time with work and caretaking other people. But that just isn’t possible right now, and sitting with all of this space with the only thing available to fill it is reckoning with my own aloneness and the way my body sits in that aloneness—I mean, it’s been overwhelming. Lots of grief has been coming up for me to try to fill that space—grief of the last nine months that I’ve not totally been to lean into because (real talk) I’m afraid of my own sadness. There’s been lots of shadow stuff, too, like all of my fears and traumas and heartbreaks coming to the surface.

There’s also been pleasure.

Funnily enough, pleasure has been the best way for me to come home to myself during these wild, fearful, uncertain times, and the things I’m doing are small and simple; they’re not these grand gestures of luxury or indulgence. But they bring me comfort and they make my body feel good.

Like, I’ve been wearing perfume even if I know I’m not leaving the house. I’ve been eating a lot of pasta with lots of cheese. I’ve been living in my robe—I’m actually wearing it right now. I’ve been dancing and cooking and sitting in the Los Angeles sun like a lizard. I’ve been taking spiritual baths each night to cleanse and reclaim my body as mine at the end of the day where it feels like I’ve absorbed everybody else’s anxieties, worries, traumas, energies. I’ve been applying homemade body butter to my overly-washed hands. I’ve been having the best sex I’ve ever had with myself and really exploring what it feels and looks like to take myself as a lover.

With each of these tasks, I’m making sure that all of my senses are fully engaged and that I’m present to every nuance of touch, taste, smell, and/or what I’m hearing, seeing, or feeling emotionally. And the only way I can do that is if I slow the fuck down and tune into the pleasure of this moment (and I believe that there is pleasure potential in every moment—no matter how shit things seem).

So pleasure and sensuality and the space I’ve been making for my softness to reveal itself to me has been saving me. All of these things have been grounding me into my body. They’ve been reminding me that I can feel and experience other things than tragedy or anxiety or sadness or powerlessness. Pleasure and sensuality and my softness have been reminding me of my power and purpose and potential.

And so, with that, I’d like to share with you some practices you can engage in that are either pleasure centered or will help activate some grounding so you can access pleasure a little easier. Because pleasure cannot live or thrive if we’re disconnected from ourselves. So maybe pause this episode and grab a pen and paper to jot down some notes or just bookmark this episode to come back to later. Because if they resonate, if they make sense for you, I’d like for you to give them a try.

OK, so the first practice that I would love for you to try—and it’s something I’ve been relying on a lot because it’s so simple—I invite you apply some lotion to your hands and see if you can draw out that act for three minutes. Set a timer and slow down, Savor each touch and feel of your own hands, your fingers. Connect to your breath; breathe in the scent of the lotion in your palms, breathe in your own softness. And let the practice flow and go from there. For me, I’ve been noticing that after I spend a good while on my hands I intuitively begin to bring touch to other parts of my body—my wrists, my forearms, my neck, my chest, my face.

What I love about this simple task is that it regulates your central nervous system and the pleasure you’re gently engaging in is helping you ground into your body—which is where your power lies.

Another simple but powerful way to initiate and call in more pleasure in your life is by asking the question anytime you can remember it throughout the day: What do I need in this moment in order to feel good? Whatever the answer, give yourself permission to act on that pleasure and fully indulge in it. Often times what our body needs to feel good in the moment is simple enough that it’s right at our fingertips. We just need to slow down and listen.

But. . . there are times when what we really really need in order to feel good just isn’t within reach, either because it’s not readily available or what we want would, I don’t know, require us to go outside and the whole world has shut down so we’re not allowed to do that right now (thanks, Rona). In that case—please don’t shut down pleasure or the desire to experience it. Instead, use that time to acknowledge pleasure by saying, “Okay, what would make this moment more pleasurable is if I could experience some physical touch with someone, but since I’m not able to do that I’m going to thank the desire for physical touch for showing up (thank you) and see if I can find something physical touch adjacent to engage in”—like, maybe that practice I gave earlier about putting lotion on your hands for three minutes.

I’ve seen so many people shut down their desires because they’re like, “Well, what I want I can’t have so what’s the use?,” which does such a disservice to pleasure because, as I said before, there’s pleasure potential in every moment. Maybe it doesn’t look exactly the way you want it to, but it’s a great opportunity to try to find and engage with pleasure even with those limitations. There’s a lot of gorgeousness in ordinary pleasures. I actually think that that’s where the real pleasure magic is. Because sitting in a bubble bath with rose and candles and chocolates, that pleasure is easy! Imagine what new depths of pleasure and feeling and connection you can cultivate and experience while calling in pleasure when sitting traffic.

The next practice I want to share is what I call the Certainty Practice. I started doing this intuitively a few weeks ago when I could feel myself spiraling into fear and anxiety about what’s going on in the world right now. There are a lot of things we don't know right now—and the uncertainty is what's making us antsy, nervous, fearful, understandably so.

With a certainty practice, when you feel your mind taking you down a rabbit hole of all the things you don’t know—if you can afford groceries this week, if your loved ones are going to be okay, when all of this is going to end—if you’re mindful enough in that moment to catch it, you stop, take a breath and ask, “Uncertainty has me scared, worried, anxious, angry (whatever) in this moment. But what do I know for sure right now?" Then, you answer, answering the most mundane and obvious things first: I know that I have a roof over my head right now. I know that my heart is still beating. I know that I have food in my refrigerator. I know that the sun is shining (or the sky is cloudy), I know that it’s 4:00 o’clock in the afternoon . . . and so on.

Then, if you feel like you’re able to make space for some macro-level certainties, you can cycle through those too: I know that my friends and family love me. I know that my ancestors got my back. I know that I have the tools to take care of myself. I know I know that all of this—this pandemic, these hard uncertain times—are temporary. I know that I have the resiliency to get through this.

The Certainty Practice has been huge in helping me find grounding in myself when uncertainty is trying to take me out of that place. Give it a try whenever you find yourself spiraling in the not-knowing.

And the last practice I want to offer you is something you might already be familiar with if you follow me on Instagram. I’ve been doing these sensual dance meditation sessions every Friday on Instagram Live, which, sensual dance meditation is a mindful movement practice that connects us to our body, emotions, and senses through dance. It’s super simple to do and has helped me tremendously in not just coming back into my body but to really feel into the pleasure of having this body. If you want to give it a try, turn on a song that never fails to get you moving and dance it out. And while dancing, stay as connected to your body as possible—connect to your breath, to how it feels to have your feet tapping the ground, connect to any emotions that arise and give them space to be expressed or released through your movements. 

If you need some inspiration, I’ve got some resources for you in the show notes, I’ve got some playlists I made that you can dance to and a video of me doing the practice so you can get a sense of what it looks like.

Now, you don’t have to get that intentional with the practice if you don’t have the capacity for it. You can just turn on a song or two and dance to your heart’s content. That’s more than enough. But. . . if you do want to try sensual dance meditation, I’ll be facilitating another session this coming Friday on Instagram. The best way to know the when and where is by following me over there: I’m @evyan.whitney. Hundreds of people show up, we create this beautiful, bustling community, and it’s a lot of fun. So feel free to come join us if you’re into it.

So those are the practices of pleasure and sensuality that’s been keeping me together throughout these tumultuous times. If you end up exploring them, I hope that they restore a sense of balance, strength, and ease in your body. I hope they remind you of your tenacity and resilience. And I hope that you're able to find small moments of ease and pleasure as we all continue to move forward into the wild unknown.

Until we speak again, take care of yourself and each other. Protect your energy and your pleasure. We’re going to get through this together.

[CREDITS]

This podcast is produced, edited, and designed by me, Ev'Yan Whitney. Find me on my website, evyanwhitney.com and on Instagram @evyan.whitney to keep up with me and my work.

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Thank you so much for being here and I'll see you in the next episode.