How future Visioning can help your relationship

This week I’ve got my husband Mark back on the pod as we talk about future visioning, and how it has worked in our relationship.  Tune in to discover how to use this practice to invite more connection, contentment, and resilience to your relationship. 

Listen below, or tune in via: Apple Podcasts,Stitcher or Spotify.

In this episode you’ll discover

How this practice moves you out of the day to day, and invites you to focus on what you want.A secret to hacking your brain for more pleasure.Using visualization to affect your physiology. Why Sensual Self Care is vital nervous system nourishment.What does it mean to connect to your future self and how does it help your relationship?How contentment builds resilience. Enjoy a visualization to tap into more pleasure.and much more!

It’s always fun to have Mark on the show, as it gives some real life context to many of the practices we use to keep our relationship humming.  Like everyone, we have our moments, but the more we tune into the tools that help us reconnect, remember we are on the same page, and have more fun, the more we enjoy harmony, and joy in our home. 

This week we’re sharing one practice that has been supporting us these past few weeks, especially when things feel so out of control in our environment. Hope you enjoy this podcast, and if you know someone who would enjoy this episode, please share!

If you would like to learn more about how sensual self care can transform your life, Schedule a free consult HERE.

Join in the discussion on this episode and more in my free Facebook Group, Find Your Feminine Fire HERE.

Listen here or tune in via Apple Podcasts,Stitcher or Spotify.

Want to learn my #1 secret for bringing back your libido and sexual radiance?

This week I’m sharing about one of my favorite practices, and the Do’s and Don’ts of a proper Jade Egg/ Yoni Egg practice.  Tune in as I answer all your questions, and demystify this powerful sensual self care tool.

Listen below, or tune in via: Apple Podcasts,Stitcher or Spotify.

Complete transcript below.

In this episode you’ll discover

What is a Jade Egg or Yoni Egg?What does it do? Is it safe? Why you may be using it incorrectly, causing more harm than good. How to step up your sensual self care and sexy up your pelvic floor health.What are the common myths and misconceptions around using a Jade Egg?How can I fire up my libido?What is sexual energy and why is it important?.  and much more!

This week I’m clearing up some of the misconceptions around using a Jade or Yoni Egg.    Tune in as I share my personal story of how this practice was a game changer for my life.   Maybe you have a Yoni Egg and aren’t sure what to do with it.  Maybe you have no clue what I’m talking about. Either way, this episode will leave you with all the knowledge you need to determine if this practice is right for you.

Want an egg of your own? Get one HERE.

Have an egg but not sure what to do with it?  Want to have a heart to heart to figure out if this is right for you or want to learn more about this work?  Schedule a free consult HERE.

Join in the discussion on this episode and more in my free Facebook Group, Find Your Feminine Fire HERE.

Listen here or tune in via Apple Podcasts,Stitcher or Spotify.

EPISODE 137: Demystifying The Jade Egg + Unlocking Your Sexual Potential 

 

[Fun, Empowering Music] 

 

Amanda Testa: Hello, and welcome to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. I am your host, Amanda Testa. I am a sex, love, and relationship coach, and in this podcast, my guests and I talk sex, love, and relationships, and everything that lights you up from the inside out. Welcome!

 

So welcome, welcome, and, today, we’re gonna be diving into all things Yoni Eggs, Jade Eggs, and get all your questions answered. I want to start just talking a little bit about the practice and kind of why I’m so passionate about it, and then I’m gonna dive into answering all your questions, and we’ll move through all of those.

 

So, as we get started, again, I’ll just invite you to gather anything you might need to make this more comfortable. I always like to tap in and ask what can I do right now to make whatever I’m doing 10% more pleasurable, 3% more enjoyable, whatever feels doable for you, right? So, again, for those of you that don’t know me, I’m Amanda Testa, and I’m gonna dive in today just talking a little bit about this practice which is one of my favorite practices to really reclaim your libido, your sexual radiance, and to kinda bring back that aliveness and vitality within us.

0:01:13

I truly believe our sexual energy is this powerful secret elixir that we’ve never really been taught how to tap into. This practice really helps you be able to do that. I appreciate you for tuning in today, and if you’re curious who this is for, just know it’s for if you are a woman-identified human who wants to feel more alive. Maybe you’re just feeling depleted, and maybe COVID sucked the life out of you and you’re just over being in the house all the time, and you’re missing the normal things that light you up. I don’t know. I know it gets so crazy with constant interruptions and all the natural disasters going on in the world. So all of that stuff is real, and it all can combine to really kill your libido and have zero desire or zero, you know, that oomph to do anything for it.

 

0:02:04

 

This practice, if you want to engage on it at any level, you don’t even have to go all in. You can do little bits and pieces. Like I always say, what is one little step that you can do to move you in the direction of feeling better? Even if it’s the tiniest thing, right? Maybe getting a little extra sleep or drinking a little more water. Whatever it might be, and it’s not to add more to your to-do list. It’s to kind of make everything you do more of an experience of presence and connection, whether that be cleaning the toilet or making love or parenting or dealing with a meltdown, whatever it is.

 

What I often see with clients when they start with this practice is they just start to have this confidence and this deep connection to their body which I think there’s so much there. There are so many layers there, but it really can lead you to feel sexy confidence in and out of the bedroom, no matter where you are, feeling more love and pride for yourself when you look in the mirror, and feeling (like when you walk into the closet) versus it being an experience of, “Ugh,” it’s more of an experience of, “Hmm, how am I gonna adorn myself today, right – what does my body need today,” and feeling more connected in all the things you do, as I mentioned a minute ago.

0:03:22

It awakens that sexual potential. So you can have more energy and creativity in all of your life ‘cause this is where our creativity thrives. It’s in our sexual center. This is the area of birthing and bringing to life, whether that might be a human or an idea or whatever it is, right – whatever your creativity wants to express. It can also help bring that desire back so you actually want to have sex again, so you can rekindle your relationship as well.

 

People notice the energy. People will notice a change in you. So if this sounds like something that you’re in for, then stay tuned as I talk a little bit more because what I find, too, about this information and this practice is that there are a lot of strategies out there, and this is just a tool, right? It’s not like a miracle worker. It’s a tool, when used properly, that can be a miracle worker, but just on its own, it can do some things, but you really need to learn how to properly use it for it to be effective.

0:04:19

I, personally, have perfected this process. I’ve been doing this practice for many, many years. I’ve spent over 800 hours getting certified and trained to teach this to others, and so, there’s a lot to it, and I’m living, breathing proof that it works. I know, for myself, when I first discovered this practice, it was at a time in my life when I was super disconnected, and I just remember one morning waking up and I just was so resentful the minute I woke up. Everything was making me irritated. This was pretty common for that time in my life. My daughter was just a small baby, and I felt like I did everything, and I just remember walking to the bathroom and tripping over toys and just like, “Ugh, I’m the only one that ever does anything around here.” Then, when I got to the bathroom, looking in the mirror and having zero connection with the woman looking back at me and thinking, “What the hell? This cannot be my life.”

0:05:16

 

I mean, I’m doing all these things, but I still don’t know what’s wrong. I was working out. I was involved in my community, I didn’t have postpartum, I was doing all the things, but I was still just so disconnected, and so, I made a little commitment to myself in that moment that I would follow the breadcrumbs, I would follow the breadcrumbs to help me feel better and to feel like myself again, and one of those breadcrumbs happened to be finding this course from my mentor, Layla Martin, and I was thinking, “Okay, this is really — it sounds — I have no idea what it’s about. It’s something about spicing things up in the bedroom,” and I was like, “Well, that truly can’t hurt,” so I signed up. I remember, at the time, I signed up being mortified. I was like, “Oh, my god. I hope no one knows I’m doing this. I didn’t even want to tell my husband. I was just so embarrassed, but I just knew, all right, I’m gonna be open for whatever. What I have been doing isn’t working, so I’m open for something new.”

0:06:03

 

I remember when I first started with the practice, I was like, well, this is really weird, and I don’t even think it’s doing anything. Why in the world is this so embarrassing, but after a few months, I was like, “Oh, my gosh!” I felt like a different person. I had all this energy again. I felt so much better in my body and, literally, even now, I am ten pounds overweight because of COVID and I’m like, “Eh,” and instead of the judging or feeling disgust when I look at my body or grab a roll I’m like, “Yeah, this is a part of me, and it is juicy and delicious.” Ah, and that is such a miracle because I suffered through eating disorders for years and hated my body. I mean, I wanted to chop it off with a knife, and now I’m like, ah, I love all of it. Part of this process is creating that deep connection to yourself and amazement for what your body’s capable of. So there’s a lot to it. There’s a lot to it.

 

I know so many women out there suffer, and you’re told that losing your libido is just part of aging, right? You’ve just got to deal with it.

0:07:01

Use lube, whatever they say, right? I can tell you right now, that’s a bunch of BS because, honestly, a lot of healthcare providers aren’t really taught a lot about sexuality so they have, like, a very — a few hours that they study it. And so, they don’t always know what to say so they’re like, “Use more lube. This is normal. Just deal with it,” and you don’t have to. Know that if you have a lot of pelvic floor issues, this is another thing that’s not normal. Having painful sex is common, but it’s not normal. One in three women have painful sex in the last Masters and Johnson report I read. So it’s so common, but that doesn’t mean it’s normal. There’s a lot of things that are common around our sexuality that aren’t normal. Part of it is because we haven’t been taught, and part of it is that there’s a lot of shame and disconnection around sexuality so we have never been really taught that this is something to be proud of and this is something to nurture and this is something that’s our life-force energy.

0:07:59

 

I’ll tell you a little bit about the history of the practice because people often ask, “Well, okay, what even is this?” Basically, this is a tool that was used in practices back — kind of it started with The Taoists. Basically, it was talked about in The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Medicine (which is a Chinese medical text from 100 BC), and so, there’s supposedly these ancient Taoist roots to this practice. So that’s kind of a mystical and spiritual tradition from China that originated around 400 BC. You might be familiar with the Tao Te Ching, but it’s basically kind of a Chinese version of Tantra, and it really focuses on a seasonal approach to living and kind of this fundamental energy source of life. Like, we have a few different energy centers. Basically, we have Qi (which is energy), we have our Jing Qi (which is our sexual energy, and then Qi (which is our heart energy), and Shen (which is a spiritual energy), but with the Chinese medicine (if you’re familiar at all), it’s a lot around health and healing and promoting harmony in the body.

0:09:01

When there’s disharmony, that’s when disease can come in. I’m not a healthcare provider. I’m not giving medical advice here. I’m just sharing a little bit of the philosophy. Through this practice, you can kind of bring in what’s good and get rid of what’s bad and get your body humming on all cylinders, so to speak, because the more that you have all your cylinders humming, the less disease. There’s less opportunity for things to kind of — kinks in the system.

 

That’s kind of what’s so key about the Jade Egg practice. So you might have heard of it called a Jade Egg or a Yoni Egg, and yoni is the Sanskrit turn for your vagina which I really prefer the term pussy which I know turns some people off, but because there’s not really a great word to encompass all of it — the vulva is your external genitalia. The vagina is the internal canal, and so, Yoni is more like a sheath, but it’s like really reclaiming that part of your body in the word which sometimes takes some work, but if we can reclaim the word pussy and really feel good about it, then, I’m telling you, there is some power in that. We can also always read Mama Gena’s book with the same name, Pussy: A Reclamation, which is a powerful book if that word still rubs you the wrong way. [Laughs]

0:10:06

 

So that practice is about being tuned in with your body’s natural states, having a healthy pelvic floor because, again, in the Taoist philosophy, you are pumping energy from your pelvic floor (that’s where our sexual energy resides in our lower belly, our genitals, our whole pelvic bowl), and the stronger your pelvic floor is, the more healthy your pelvic floor is. You don’t want it to be tight, but you want a nice, relaxed, toned pelvic floor that you can circulate that energy through your body more easily and use that to fuel your entire body. It also can help you get into expanded states of ecstasy and pleasure and expansion and really moving the things that need to go, getting the unaligned things out of the system.

 

Why is it different? Why is it different than other things out there? What I think about this that has something different that Kegels and pelvic floor physical therapy may lack is the emotional component that really empowers the sensual and sexual enlivenment, and while I do recommend pelvic floor therapy (I do think it’s great) and Kegels (when you do them properly) are great, there’s also a lot to learn about your pelvic floor.

0:11:10

Sometimes, this practice, you want to do it in different ways depending on what’s going on in your pelvic floor, right? If you have a super tight pelvic floor or if you have a vulvodynia or you have vaginismus (which is kind of an involuntary contraction of the muscles around the vaginal opening) then there’s different ways to use the practice, right? If you want to strengthen your pelvic floor, this is a great practice for that, but we have to learn the proper way to use it, right? You can’t just put it in and hope for a miracle. That’s not how it works, and so, it’s much like yoga, right? There’s stretching and there’s yoga, and yoga is different than stretching because there’s that more psycho-emotional component to it and it has an intention for personal evolution and growth. In the same way, that’s how the Jade Egg practice works, right? It’s different from just simply squeezing. You do learn practices of how to do it in a way that serves your body. So there’s a lot of supports there. There’s physiological and biological supports, emotional and spiritual supports as well.

0:12:09

 

And so, I want to dive into a little bit of these because I think these are questions that come up a lot like how does it work, what does it even do? So I want to dive into that. If you have a serious health issue or problem, always work with a professional. If you’re not sure what’s going on in your pelvic floor, there are some self-assessments that I can guide you through but, also, you can always go to a Pelvic Floor PT and get a check-in. I think this is a healthy thing to do if you’ve ever had kids and even if you don’t because as we age, gravity pulls on our organs and what prolapse means — you might have heard of vaginal prolapse or prolapse in general is when your organs kind of, like, come out of the pelvic floor and sag down. You don’t want that to happen, right? So you need to have a healthy pelvic floor in general to eliminate that as well as to help heal all kinds of issues. If you typically have a lot of yeast infections or BV or things like that, when you kind of regulate your body, these things can, often, dissipate.

0:13:05

 

Healing after-birth wounding, healing after-birth trauma, that’s another thing that I see a lot of. This, again, isn’t always really addressed on the emotional level, right? You can heal, physically, but there’s a lot that still can be going on emotionally and that needs to be processed and integrated that you might not even realize. A lot of times these things are subconscious and they show up in our sexuality that we might not even be aware of, right? So maybe there’s a shut down or pain or, of course, if you’re having pain, you’re not gonna want to have sex because your body is wired to move towards pleasure and away from pain. You’re definitely not gonna want to do something that hurts, and if you do that repeatedly every time, you’re gonna kinda have more numbness and more shut down, and that’s just normal, but there are things you can do to turn that around.

 

Also around vaginal atrophy and dryness with age, you’ve gotta (I like to say) use it and you won’t lose it. So even just taking care of your vulva and your vagina and your pelvic floor should be part of your overall health and wellbeing, and it’s often something we don’t think about unless we’re going to the gynecologist or have a problem, right?

0:14:07

This should be a part of our overall selfcare, in my opinion, because it’s a huge, vital part of the equation. Our sexual health is a real meter to our overall health. If things are going wrong in one area, it has a ripple effect in all areas of your life. So know that if this is coming up for you, there are things you can do because it’s got a more holistic approach, right? It works on a deeper level even if you think, “Well, I don’t really have any problems,” it can just help unlock a lot of radiance and energy and just this deep connection with yourself because, for most women (for many women) there’s been a lot of shame around our sexual organs. Perhaps, you grew up in an environment, but, culturally, if you grew up in The US, especially, there’s a lot of shame around it. There’s not a lot of speaking of it. A lot of women aren’t even told the proper name for their anatomy.

0:15:04

Just a question here – raise your hand if, when you were little, you were taught what your vulva was and taught what your clitoris was and your anus and your vagina before you were, like, five or six years old — when you were young? Not very many. I know it was like  “down there” or “your tootie,” in my house. [Laughs] So that, in itself, can subconsciously create a disconnect. “There’s no word for this part of my body. It must be bad.” A lot of times it’s the culture we grew up in. Our parents didn’t necessarily have the most open education around it. So I’m giving them some grace a little bit but also knowing it’s important to feel confidence in our anatomy, right?

 

The other thing that’s really exciting is there are a couple of teachers in this field that are actually doing a lot more medical studies, and, as many of you know, it takes a lot of years and a lot of money to get scientific research. So a lot of these claims may not have a lot of scientific backing yet, but there’s thousands and thousands of women who can speak to the benefit and so many clients that can speak to the benefit.

0:16:07

So some of the benefits that you can find are no feeling, healing prolapse, getting rid of incontinence. It’s a very common thing. As I mentioned before, things that are common might not be normal, but 26% of women experience some kind of urinary incontinence, and there are different types so, again, there are different exercises based on the type of incontinence you have. You don’t want to necessarily over-tighten your pelvic floor. If it’s too tight, that can cause some problems. Again, if it’s too loose that can cause some problems. So there are things to be defined so that you know the proper way to use the practice.

 

Tension – a lot of things that happen is we hold so much in our sexual center. We hold so much tension. I have one of the — oh, gosh, I forget the lady’s name. She was on my podcast once, and I loved it. She talked about how our pelvic bowl is kind of, like, under the sink where everything just gets shoved. “Ah, I can deal with that later. I’ll just put that under the sink. Oh, well, the neighbors are coming over, let’s just shove everything under the sink.”

0:17:05

And so, we have all this stuff held in our sexual center in our cells, and, you know, there’s so much study around how our body holds onto trauma in the cells of our body. So part of healing and integration is actually working with the tissue to integrate and release anything that needs to go. A lot of sexual issues can come from this, right? When you don’t have a lot of health in your pelvic floor, there’s a lot of sexual dissatisfaction. Forty percent of women report sexual dissatisfaction, and forty-six percent of women have some kind of sexual dysfunction, and I don’t love that term because I think a lot of it is just stuff we haven’t learned.

 

The other benefits that people also ask me about — there were some questions around sexual energy and what is that and what does it mean to move sexual energy, and so, I’m gonna address that as well.

0:17:58

So with regards to that, as I mentioned before, our sexual energy is our life-force energy. This is a center of creation, and no matter what age you are, no matter what’s going on in your life, this is a resource that you can tap into when you learn how to do it, and so, often women who want to engage in this practice are looking for better orgasms, they’re looking for more of a spiritual experience like when you hear some of these leaving-your-body, annihilation orgasms, that is a big fear for a lot of women – having that level of surrender where you can just become one with the universe and really surrender to your experience. So part of the process is learning to be open to that ‘cause many women have trouble allowing that deep level of surrender or letting go or allowing themselves to get to that space where they can let go. So there are steps to that.

 

It can be an antidepressant when you have feel-good energy running in your system, and I know for myself, I can tell such a difference when I’m doing my practice regularly and when I’m not.

0:19:02

I can tell you right now, it’s like night and day. It’s just amazing, the difference, like, how much better I feel, how much more energy I have. The overall well-being of my system when I’m consistently doing a practice versus when I’m not — and we all go through phases, right? It’s like working out, you know? If you fall off the wagon for a long time, you’re gonna notice. You’re not gonna have the same energy level, and this practice works the same way. It can really help heal a lot of these issues of body hatred, guilt, shame, disgust with oneself, right, because you can release a lot of the stuff that’s keeping you disconnected from your sexuality or rejecting yourself on some level – your body, the way it looks. It’s really connecting to the authentic, original essence of you, like, this blueprint within that is full of health, that we all have access to, it’s just our culture or life experiences has dulled it or almost put it out, but it’s still there. There’s still this little feminine fire that’s like, “Nurture me, blow on me, expand me.”

0:20:05

I want that. It wants to thrive in us. Our health wants to move freely through our system. You know, there’s just so much healing that can come from that.

 

There is a researcher, William Wright, who has done a lot of studying on trauma and sexual energy, and he did a lot of research around finding the sexual conditioning and trauma that’s held inside of our system that keeps a lot of numbness or disassociation. So maybe you don’t have a lot of sensation. Maybe you just don’t feel much down in your sexual center at all, and that is normal too. So what we do with this process is kind of learning to open up and liberating stuck energy and working to rewire the brain in the process so that you learn to associate sexuality with desire and experiences – things that you desire like the experiences, the feelings that you want.

0:21:00

As I mentioned before, the trauma-healing aspect, this is a big thing with this practice, and so, if you have sexual trauma, there’s a lot that can come up. So I urge you, if you have that kind of history, you definitely want to work with a professional ’cause things can come up. As I mentioned, we’ve got so much in our systems, and when you can untap that, if you don’t have the proper support, it can be overwhelming. This is just a gentle way. It’s a gentle practice to slowly integrate residual trauma, and there’s also deeper levels there. I know, for myself, I went to therapy for seven years for sexual trauma which helped so much, but also, this, I was amazed, in a few months, how much healing happened because I was actually working in the space where the trauma happened, right? I was healing it. Powerful, powerful, powerful.

 

Also, something I see a lot with women is that feeling of not-enoughness: “I’m not good enough,” or, “I’m not worthy. La, la, la,” which is all the patriarchal conditioning that we have from growing up in the structure that we have, right?

0:22:02

Know that’s normal too, and so, this kinda helps reconnect you to that part of you. I’ll share that one of my clients, Rachel, shares with doing this work, she experienced profound shifts in awakening and understanding her sexuality. She says, “I feel more connected to my body and more vibrant and alive. I understand the deep, unconscious patterning from my religious upbringing which has caused me to shut down my authentic sexual expression. Bringing compassion and awareness to this patterning has helped me reawaken my true self and my sexual desire. I am so grateful for our time together.“ So it’s powerful stuff. There are these deeper levels that you can access.

 

So I also want to share — let me make sure I hit all the questions that you guys sent in ‘cause there were some really good ones. More Q&A.

 

Q: So how do you start and maintain a sustainable practice? Wearing mine overnight seems not to work well. I forget it’s in there, and when I get up, half asleep, to pee, it goes in the toilet. I’ve sort of given up on it.

0:23:00

 

A: So this cracks me up because I love all the stories of people dropping their egg in the toilet. Here’s what I say: I don’t recommend, necessarily, sleeping in your Jade Egg because you don’t just put it in and expect a miracle, right? There are specific practices that you use. So this is something I teach my clients: What is a sustainable practice? What are they? What does it look like? You don’t want to just wear it around because, actually, that can be taxing on your pelvic floor. Although they’re not heavy, our core — all the muscles are connected. So if you have back issues or if you have core issues, all of that’s connected so you want to make sure you’re using it properly. So I don’t recommend sleeping in it or wearing it around. Ideally, when you start the practice, you want to do 15- to 45-minute sessions with the egg in and then remove it. Again, the more you progress and you feel stronger, then you could maybe wear it around. That’s not something I recommend. Sleeping in it, again, that can be taxing on your pelvic floor so I don’t recommend doing that.

0:24:00

Q: How often do you use it and for how long?

 

A: So this is the other thing. You can do just simple — even if you did 15 minutes a couple times a week, you’re gonna start to notice a difference, and one of the things I love about this is it gives kind of a physical representation to the commitment that you have to your sexuality. You know, I love to talk about sensual self-care as a sacred experience because, truly, that’s what it is. It’s a sacred honoring of your body, a sacred honoring of your pussy, a sacred honoring of all these parts that we’ve taught to be ashamed of, and, really, it’s for you. This is for you – an opportunity to fully bear yourself to yourself. This practice is only for you and you alone. That’s what I think is so powerful because when you can reclaim that for yourself, then it becomes easier to know what you like, then it becomes easier to express that to others, create the boundaries that you need so you can have time and space for your practice.

 

You know, one of the things that I know — I’ve got a family, right? We’re all stuck in this house, and I don’t even have locks on my doors, but I have a “do not disturb” sign I put on my door, and I’ve trained my family.

0:25:03

They know not to come in with it on. Occasionally, yes, there’s a door-knock. Occasionally, yes, there are some questions through the door, but they know not to come in, and, yes, there are times when this happens often, like, at the apex of a practice, someone is, like, knocking or needing something, but that’s part of the practice, too, is learning to kinda stay in your own energy even with distractions because that’s life. It’s really unrealistic that you’re gonna have all this time and space uninterrupted, and so, the more you can kind of create these pockets for yourself, the more your people are gonna realize, “Oh, wow, I see such a difference when you do the practice. Yes, take the time to do the your practice.” My husband is like, “Oh, my god, it’s night and day. Please, take all the time you need.” 

 

Again, for that question, “What do you do with it? Do you just hold it in there? Are there exercises? What’s the deal?” There are exercises. You don’t just hold it in there. There’s a process of learning to put it in, in a way that honors your body. So many times we’ve been taught just to say yes when our body means no, so you learn how to put it in, in a way that’s respectful and honoring and that you actually get a real yes from your body.

0:26:07

And so, there are exercises, and, really, the benefits of it being egg-shaped, I would say there are a few theories on that, and it’s around that creation piece, right? The egg, the creation, right? We come from an egg. It’s a big part of creation energy so that’s why I think it’s in the shape of an egg, and, also, it makes it easier to insert. When I first had my baby, I remember doing a lot of research on repairing my pelvic floor when I didn’t even find anything out about it (a Jade Egg), and, thankfully, there’s more information out there about them now, but I remember getting some Kegel weights, right? And so, super great things, but also very sterile, very institutionalized-feeling, very medical. Not sexual, not sensual, not sumptuous, and when I’m gonna be relating to my body, that’s the relationship I want.

0:27:05

I don’t want some medical, “Okay, here’s this device. Do this. Do that.” That, to me, didn’t feel nourishing. Those things are great. I’m not dissing that. There is some importance for pelvic floor therapy, but in doing it in a way that feels delicious and more honoring is what I was looking for, and that’s what I found with this which I love, right? Yeah, yeah.

 

Let me see.

 

Q: So excited to give this practice a try as my glass dildo is collecting dust because it hurts.

 

A: Mm, I’m sorry to hear that, and, yes, you don’t want to force anything that is painful. Oftentimes, I have so many stories of, like, “Oh, my egg sat on my shelf forever,” and it’s okay if it feels scary to use it because these practices are designed where you don’t have to even use the egg, you know? You can use it if you want. If your body says no, you can still do the practice without it.

 

Q: Does price/brand matter? Is jade the best option for beginners? Do I need to consider size?

0:28:02

 

A: So here’s what I recommend. I actually recommend jade because, traditionally, that’s what was used. There are all kinds of different eggs out there, and I would say as long as you are using a reputable source, that is great. I actually sell them, and I sell the medium size because I feel like that is kinda the best overall size for all. There’s a hold drilled here in the center because you can thread it with unwaxed floss. So that way it’s easy to remove. I do think jade is great. So a middle-sized Jade Egg is ideal, and you want to make sure that you get it from a reputable source because you want to make sure the jade is mined in an ethical way. So that’s why I use the company that I do because I trust where they come from.

 

Something else I will just advise as well is when you start the practice — again, that’s the other reason why I offer a free consult when you purchase an egg because I feel like that’s a really important part of it — is to make sure that you know what practices are appropriate for your body ’cause there are actually things that you can do that can be harmful.

0:29:11

So it’s really important to speak with a professional around how to use it. Also, if you maybe have an egg but aren’t sure how to use it, then I’ll invite you to set up a call with me, and I’m happy to walk you through how you can do it and what are some exercises that are helpful. So I’ll put that here too. Amandatesta.com/purchasejadeegg is where you can get the egg. Amandatesta.com/purchasejadeegg, and that also comes with some beginner videos. So you’ll get your consult with me, and you’ll get that kind of walk through of how you use it and what you do. Then, if you do already  have an egg, but you want to know how to use it or what’s right for your body, you can go to amandatesta.com/activate and schedule a time, and I can walk you through it and share some practices. I also have an online program around working with the Jade Egg, so I can answer any additional questions that you have, but I really love to kinda demystify this practice because there are so many questions, and there are so many falsehoods out there on the Google.

0:30:12

And so, know that it really is a practice that can be super supportive if you do it properly and there’s a reason why there’s a lot of years of study and understanding of your anatomy to be able to teach it because there are the right ways and the wrong ways to go about it.

 

Oh, the other question is:

 

Q: What do you do to keep it falling in the toilet?

 

A: This is why I usually remove it before I go to a toilet, and if you forget, it happens, but typically, you could always just put a little reminder when you’re done with your practice to remove your egg, and if you do go to the bathroom and it falls in, you can get it out. [Laughs] Use a spoon or something. Put it in the dishwasher. Sterilize it. It’ll be okay.

 

Oh, yeah, that’s another question that I got. Before you use it for the first time, you definitely want to sterilize it.

0:31:04

So you can boil it in boiling water for ten minutes and, again, make sure it’s fully cooled before you use it. You don’t want to burn your delicate tissue. But, yes, you want to always sterilize them before you first use them.

 

Q: How long before you start to notice a difference?

 

A: So that’s a good question. So, again, as I mentioned before, if you do 10 to 15 minutes at a time, then that’s a great way to start, right? Doing just a couple practices a week is an amazing shift because, not only are you committing to yourself, you know, there’s that intention. That has a lot of power of, all right, this is something that’s important to me, and I’m gonna make it a priority in my life again, and then the more you do it, over time, you start to develop more sense eight focus which means there’s more connection between the nerve endings in the brain so that there is more sensation. This is part of the reason this practice can be so helpful. It’s because you can start to connect those nerve endings and bring back more sensation.

0:32:00

 

So I would say, for me, I think after a few months I started to notice a difference; after six months, a huge difference; and now I can tell it’s night and day when I don’t do it and when I do. You know, I can tend to have a lot more feelings of malaise and depression when I’m not consistently taking care of myself and doing my practice, and people also ask, often, what if I have an hour, and I want to work out, and I want to do all these things. Why would I do this versus working out? To that, also, that’s a good question, and the more you do the practices, you actually can do, like, a 15-minute. So, oftentimes, this is kind of what I offer when I work with clients is a lot of different practices, right? You can have an hour-long practice, you can have a ten-minute practice. You can have a fifteen-minute practice, and so, I also like to incorporate in kind of a workout and call it my pelvic inner-pussy energy power workout, and so, you can do 15 minutes of working out, like a HIIT workout — 15 minutes, and then 15 minutes of pelvic floor work using your egg, and then 15 minutes of meditation or breath work.

0:33:12

That’s 45 minutes, and you’re done, and you’ve hit all the buttons. You’ve gotten your body moving. You’ve gotten your sexual energy moving. You connected to yourself and your mind and your body and your spirit. That, to me, is my perfect workout.

 

So it differs for everyone, right? There are some days maybe you want to go run for two hours, right? There are some days maybe you want to go to the gym, but when you add this in, you’re gonna realize, wow, it’s worth it to make time for this, and I really enjoy making time for this. So it becomes a priority once you see the effects. Yeah.

 

Q: Can you speak to circulate the energy or bringing to orgasm?

 

A: Ooh, yeah, that’s a great question. Thank you for bringing that up. Circulating sexual energy as opposed to expressing it through orgasm. So here’s one of the benefits of this, and this is kind of a more advanced practice. The more you work with the egg, you start to realize what your sexual energy feels like, and it can differ for everyone, and so, as you start to circulate it through your body, what that kind of means is, often, when we think of an orgasm, I hear it referred to as a genital sneeze, right?

0:34:16

It’s like you build up, you build up, [Sneeze Sound] and there’s, like, this expression or sensation that happens around the clitoris or in the vulva because actually the clitoris is more than just that little tip up there, right? It’s got these wings that go around the vulva so there’s a lot of erectile tissue there. And so, really, what you can learn when you start to expand your sexual energy is you build up the sensation, and then you start to move it through your body. So instead of just allowing it to collect in your genitals and, like, [Stop Sound] tense it out, you’re kind of expanding and inviting a more full-body experience of the sensation and of the pleasure. When you do that, it can help to expand your orgasms. So, again, instead of being like just a clenching type of thing, it’s expansive and it’s more full-bodied. So when people speak of full-bodied orgasms, that’s kind of how I describe that.

 

There are some theories in the Taoist philosophy, specifically, for a man around orgasming and when they ejaculate, and releasing energy versus containing it and spiraling it through. This is something you can play with because sometimes you might notice if you have a lot of orgasms, maybe it’s really rejuvenating to you. Maybe it feels exhausting and, in that case, you might want to just kind of circulate the energy versus letting it build and build and build and orgasming, you can just build it and then — you know, one of the practices I teach is how to circulate it through your system. So it can be more of like a nourishment for your body, and you can use that to kind of just tune into where does my body need this energy, where does my body need this nourishment, and letting it go there. Yeah.

 

And so, people often ask the question around how is it a compliment to partnership. I have a question here.

0:36:06

 

Q: Sometimes when I do these self-pleasure practices, it may interfere with my sexual relationship with my partner. Will you use it up and not desire your partner?

 

A: What I say around that is actually what I’ve found is the more that I cultivate my aliveness and my sexual energy, the more I have desire in general. So it just kind of opens up this flow, and so, oftentimes, what happens is that you will have an increased level of desire because you’ve kind of opened up the flow, so to speak. So instead of going from zero to sixty, you’re already running at, like, a thirty or a forty. And so, when an opportunity for sex comes up, there’s a lot more excitement and desire and lubrication because your body’s flowing and humming like it should. It usually helps to be able to connect to, okay, here’s what I like. I know now this is what I like. These are the touches I like. This is how I like to be turned on. Then, you can invite that into your partnership. So there’s actually more enjoyment.

0:37:09

 

Then, one of my clients, Claudia, was sharing around, “Every time we’ve done Jade Egg sessions the awkwardness and discomfort I’ve felt around my sexuality melts away, and I am able to surrender into deep states of pleasure within my body. Amanda holds a kind and compassionate and gentle space that always feels safe, completely loving, and non-judgmental. I would absolutely recommend Amanda to anyone who is interested in deepening their relationship to their sexuality and especially exploring the Jade Egg. I also noticed a deeper connection between myself and my partner in exploring our energies.” It definitely can help in your partnership as well.

 

Q: Is the practice more to feel pleasure than rather to climax?

 

A: Actually, it’s either/or, right? This is the thing I love. Once you kind of learn some basic practices, you can say, “Okay, what am I aiming for today? Okay, today, I want to really access my primal, wild nature,” right?

0:38:01

You can do that with the practice. Or, “Today, I just feel like I need some gentle nourishment. My body feels tired. I’m exhausted. I’m stressed out. I just feel so far away from anything that feels good,” and you could kind of just do a nourishing practice. Or you could be like, “Ah, I’m all about pleasure. I’m feeling so horny today, and I want to have some amazing orgasms,” then you can do a pleasure-focused practice. So that’s what I love about it is there are different ways. That’s what I teach – there are different ways to use it, and you can learn the different practices and know, “Okay, great, today, I’m going this way. Today, I’m going that way. Today, my body needs this,” and tune into what you need and offer it to yourself. Yeah, so if you want to have an orgasm during your practice, heck yes, and you don’t have to, too. That’s the great thing. It’s kind of letting the goal off the table and just allowing your body to receive what it needs and to give yourself what you need, so that’s kind of a big part of the practice as well.

 

I’m curious if there is maybe one thing that you learned today that you want to take with you or maybe one thing you can appreciate about showing up today and even just to honor yourself for showing up and being open to learn because I know, like I said, when I started doing this, I was mortified.

0:39:14

I couldn’t even go onto a call in the class because I was too afraid. [Laughs] I was too embarrassed, and so, that was something I worked through, but, no, that’s totally normal because I was like, “This seems weird. What even is this? You want me to put a rock in my vagina? This is so weird,” but then after learning the practice and really understanding the nuances of how it works I’m like, okay, there’s a reason this has been around for thousands of years — I find science is starting to prove a lot of this ancient theory. So, yeah.

 

Ah, thank you all so much for being here, and I appreciate you taking the time to join. If you’re interested in purchasing an egg, you can go to my website, amandatesta.com/purchasejadeegg and you can get one there. It comes with a call with me and practices as well so you can start your practice and know that you’re doing it safely, as well as if you do have an egg and you want some more guidance, you can go to amandatesta.com/activate, and I can walk you through that as well.

0:40:12

 

I hope you all have a fabulous rest of your day. Stay tuned in the group. If you are in my group on Facebook (the Find Your Feminine Fire group), I am going to start offering more opportunities for practices there, so stay tuned as well.

 

[Fun, Empowering Music] 

 

Thank you so much for listening to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. This is your host, Amanda Testa, and if you have felt a calling while listening to this podcast to take this work to a deeper level, this is your golden invitation. I invite you to reach out. You can contact me at amandatesta.com/activate, and we can have a heart-to-heart to discuss more about how this work can transform your life. You can also join us on Facebook in the Find Your Feminine Fire group, and if you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please share with your friends. Go to iTunes and give me a five-star rating and a rating and a raving review so I can connect with other amazing listeners like yourself.

0:41:09

 

Thank you so much for being a part of the community.

 

[Fun, Empowering Music]

Cultivating Sanctuary

How do we become and grow ourselves into sanctuaries of health and wellness in a world of so much chaos and difficulty?  

This week I’m thrilled to talk with one of my teachers and mentors Rachael Maddox on how to cultivate collective sanctuary and post traumatic growth.

ThisListen below, or tune in via: Apple Podcasts,Stitcher or Spotify.

(complete audio transcript below)

In this episode you’ll discover

What is a trauma resolution guide and how can you move from trauma to trust?Why trauma informed work and care is so helpful to heal our nervous systems and increase or capacity.How trauma shows up in your body and emotions. Understanding extraction vs. regeneration, how this shows up internally and externally, and how to cultivate your regenerative aliveness.How to create sanctuary with yourself, and others.What is Post Traumatic Growth?How to expand your “range of resiliency”How we grow a healthy garden together, creating an environment where everyone can thrive.  How Rachael’s ReBloom model has transformed my life and biz, and much more!

This week I’m talking with Rachael Maddox,  a trauma resolution educator, coach and guide who’s helped hundreds of people resolve their sexual trauma and reclaim their pleasure, power, and wholeness.  We’re jamming on what it takes to build sanctuary within and collectively. 

On a fierce mission to help as many humans as possible who’ve experienced trauma, Rachael teaches experienced coaches, therapists, and guides to work safely and powerfully with trauma in her magical, soulful ReBloom Coach Training.  I’ve been honored to be in her ReBloom Trauma Informed Coach Training program since last October, and it’s been an incredible experience.

You can learn more about the ReBloom Coach Training  HERE. (early bird ends 9.15.20)  I highly recommend it!

Follow her on Insta HERE. (her feed is magic)

Join in the discussion on this episode and more in my free Facebook Group, Find Your Feminine Fire HERE.

Listen here or tune in via Apple Podcasts,Stitcher or Spotify.

Amanda Testa (00:01):

Hello, and welcome to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. I am your host, Amanda Testa. I am a Sex Love and relationship coach. And in this podcast, my guests and I talk sex love and relationships and everything that lights you up from the inside out.

Amanda Testa (00:19):

Welcome. Hello everyone. And Welcome to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. I am your host, Amanda Testa, and I’m thrilled today to be talking with Rachael Maddox, who is one of my mentors and she is trauma resolution educator. She’s a coach and a guide, and she really works around helping, helping people move from trauma into pleasure and trust filled relationships and feeling empowered as well as really helping other leaders to be more trauma informed in their work and really changing the way they do their lives and work. So it’s much more regenerative among many other things, but welcome Rachel, thank you for being here.

Rachael Maddox (01:00):

So happy to be here with you, Amanda.

Amanda Testa (01:02):

Yeah. And you know, as we are recording this episode, it’s, you know, it’s a crazy time in the world and there’s fires going on. All the injustice being brought to light even more than ever and just a lot going on. So before we started recording, Rachael mentioned something that I thought was so beautiful talking about how we can become more, more strong in times like this. And you said it much more beautifully. So I want you to repeat what you said about becoming a sanctuary. Cause I think that’s feel so relevant right now. Yeah.

Rachael Maddox (01:37):

Yeah. I’ve just been thinking about this a lot. It’s something I’ve had to learn how to do in terms of working with trauma. Because when we work with trauma in individuals, or if we have groups over teaching groups, nervous systems can be really disregulated. And so one of the things that’s really important around facilitating post traumatic growth is cultivating enough blueprint and health and resiliency and capacity in your own nervous system, cultivating a wide enough base of support so that when somebody comes to you with a lot of emergency, you’re not thrown off by that. And in fact, your blueprint, your health your wellness because has a bigger momentum than their emergency. And so they fall into your momentum as opposed to you falling into theirs. So I’m thinking about that in terms of culture, how, and of course not one person can shift the momentum of culture.

Rachael Maddox (02:41):

So the question then becomes, how do we, how do we, and who is the we, and where are the we’s? How do we become sanctuary? How do we become some kind of momentum of wellness, blueprint, cooperation, regeneration, which is making things healthier than they were before. How do we become those things together in a culture that is currently full of chaos, disregulation violence, emergencies, of course, injustices, who do we need to be together and not alone? How do we become sanctuaries together? And who do I have to be as an individual to be able to be part of a powerful collective sanctuary of wellness? So what, what ways do I have to tend to myself? Do I get to tend to myself, to my body, to my spirit, to my psyche, to my nervous system, to my heart, what are the ways I get to tend to myself so that I can find other people who are here to collaborate on sanctuary?

Amanda Testa (03:53):

That just feels what, when you just say that to even just the word, like creating that collective sanctuary, it’s like, ahh, That feels so good. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I love how you said get to like, we get to tend to ourselves.

Rachael Maddox (04:09):

Yeah. Well, the thing is, you know, there are a million things that are going wrong and they’re all real, right? Like the stresses of COVID the stresses of Trump, the stresses of systemic injustices, environmental stresses, like they’re so real. And many of us, not all of us, but many of us still have enough privilege and enough choice. Now the, the challenging thing is when our nervous systems are really stressed and jacked with traumatic fear, it actually reduces choice or reduces, excuse me, choiceless, or it reduces choice. And it increases choiceless ness because our reptilian brain hijacks our neocortex, which is our decision making part of our brain and our prefrontal cortex, which is the planning part that can say, Oh, even though I don’t want to do this 20 minute or 10 minute practice in the morning, even though I’m resistant and tired and grumpy, if I do it, everything will be better.

Rachael Maddox (05:18):

It’s the prefrontal cortex that can weigh consequences and make decisions. But if our reptilian brain, which is the part of our brain that gets hijacked by trauma is super activated. It actually decreases our access to our prefrontal cortex by like 75%. So that’s why, I’m just kind of launching into random ideas here, but that’s why trauma informed support and care is so helpful doing, having, doing work, to heal our nervous systems and to increase our capacity, our capacity, our nervous system capacity is so important because it’s what gives us choice in times of stress.

Amanda Testa (05:59):

Yeah. I think that piece that you mentioned just about how the reptilian brain takes over, and I just read something recently, like when someone’s under stress, it reduces your IQ. And then when it’s like intense stress, it’s like something like 40% reduction in your IQ. That makes so much sense. Right. And I think, . And I was just going to say, you know, I think when you, when you were mentioning, you know, just the whole trauma informed care in general, for people who might be listening and they’re like, well, what exactly is a trauma resolution guide? What does that mean? I love if you would share a little bit more about that.

Rachael Maddox (06:35):

Yeah. Well, you know, I think especially today, all of us are experiencing things that we did not consent to. We didn’t consent to COVID, we didn’t consent to forest fires. We didn’t consent. A lot of us didn’t consent to our president, even maybe as a nation, we didn’t consent our president and yet he’s our president. So we’re experiencing a lot of collective trauma. So whoever you are, whether you have a background of any kind of sexual violence, whether you have a background of maybe any kind of childhood neglect or not, we are all experiencing collective trauma. What it means to guide someone from trauma to trust, a trauma resolution guide, right, is to help somebody one first become aware of the experiences that they’re having that are hijacking their nervous system or the experiences that they have had in the past that have hijacked their nervous system. And when we have, when our nervous system gets activated, we tend toward different responses, right? This is something everybody’s heard of fight flight or, freeze or appease,

Rachael Maddox (07:46):

Right? To hyper socialize, to try to make someone else feel safe and comfortable so that they are less of a threat to you. So we develop these responses in our system, hyper arousal responses of hypervigilance, escaping situations, being really argumentative or combative, right, fight or flight or flight or fight hyper socialization, which is the appease, or hypo States we get into hypo States of free is depression, dissociation, chronic pain, chronic illness, exhaustion. Why bother, who cares numbness to your dissatisfaction purposelessness? These are all actually not our natural way of being. These are States that emerge when we’ve experienced something or many things that felt like they were too big, too much, too soon, too fast for our nervous systems to respond to in a healthy way. So instead we respond to them in these, with these trauma responses, but the trauma responses get stuck in our system until we complete them and get a sense that we can actually have a new future, have a new experience in relationship to ourselves, others or the world.

Rachael Maddox (09:09):

If we don’t get a chance to renew the way we relate to ourselves, others and the world in a safe enough container that helps us regrow new neural pathways in the place where we’ve had traumatized neural pathways, then there’s traumatized neural pathways, secretly run the show. They secretly run the show. So a trauma resolution guide helps you see whats secretly running the show and at the level of the body at the level of the somatic felt sense, nervous system shift, internal physiological patterns, so that you have more capacity for choice as opposed to reverting to these unconscious trauma responses.

Amanda Testa (09:52):

So beautiful. And I can just tell too, from in my own life of doing this work is just noticing so much more capacity to just handle things. And it’s just so huge because I know I’m one that in my past tend to be like super hyper and anxious and do all the things and push myself beyond what’s normal all the time. And thinking that was the normal way of being which many I know of listeners are, could probably relate to feeling that like constant push to like whatever, you know, that society tells us that that is required to be successful or to that, to, to get what you want or go out and like seize and all those terms that are just very counter, counter regenerative. Right? So learning that in myself, I think that’s one of the things that I have noticed so much in doing and learning this work is just my capacity has shifted. And the way I view the world has shifted in the way I like live. Every part of my life is more aware of like, what is really regenerative for me? What is pushing it too much? Like when can I set stronger boundaries and really honor those,

Rachael Maddox (10:59):

Can I ask you a question about that? Like what it for you helped you get to that place of realizing I’ve been pushing too far too fast. And then how did you not just intellectually understand that, but in your body learn to know what your limits were and to stop when you reach them.

Amanda Testa (11:21):

Yeah. And I think there was a couple of times, like the first was after my daughter and I, my journey kind of began as just like really learning tools and supports that would help me and like going through certifications to learn more about sexuality and how that was affecting my life. And then realizing when I was going to build my business like that is when I started pulling in that, okay, I’ve got to like push myself beyond what’s capable. Even though I was doing things to help myself, it was definitely not balanced. And I think what happened is the end of last year, just feeling really burned out and the lack of energy, lack of joy, like the things that I would normally do, wouldn’t bring the same kind of response and just realize I needed to make some shifts. And so one of the things that I decided to do is like, really take a hard look at how I was doing my business and realizing this is really not serving me at all.

Amanda Testa (12:13):

Like I am pushing myself far too hard and, you know, taking all the business courses from these dudes that were like telling me to do all these things and didn’t feel, didn’t feel right. It burned me out. Like my body was literally like, you’re done, here’s going to take a break. So I have, I did that. And that’s when I found like, that’s when I started doing the Rebloom your business and all those things like started the Rebloom work. It was just like this huge breath of fresh air. It was like this literally like a balm for my whole system. Like, Oh, wait a minute. There is other ways to do this and have it work even better. Wonderful. Yeah. And the other thing I think too is, you know, you talk a lot about the collective support, which I think is so key.

Amanda Testa (12:58):

And I think that’s something that, you know, especially now feels a little harder to get to for a lot of people. Cause we can’t be in groups like we normally can. We can’t like see people like we normally do, and that is hard. But I think, you know, even having virtual connections and spaces where that is available more often is part of the help, you know, even just like with our sessions and our meetings, like just having that collective with similar goals, like you say, creating that collective sanctuary so everyone can just like regulate together. Yeah. Feels so good that everything I love. Yeah.

Rachael Maddox (13:34):

Wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. It’s wild. How many people in the personal development industry end up finding me, like burnt out on personal development. They’re like, I went too far, whether it’s like Tony Robbins style, like I, you know, pushed, pushed, pushed, and like my adrenals are shot now or whatever it is or right. Some kind of marketing type thing where, and I mean, I don’t know, I’ve never done anything with Tony Robbins, so I don’t really have a personal opinion, but, and anyway, that’s a whole other story, but you know, this idea of extraction versus regeneration, so extraction is what takes from us or what takes from the natural source without giving back to it. Regeneration will is what takes with giving back twofold, right? And so we are a culture of extraction the way we do our farming industry. It’s completely extractive. It’s why, you know, we are having to pump all kinds of pesticides onto the food because the fields have been so extracted from that they can’t naturally grow. They didn’t get their natural crop rotation or season of rest. So I look at these big systems and I say, how are we doing this to ourselves? We are not those systems. Yes. We’ve been literally eating the fruits of those systems since we were children, but we are not them. We are wiser than that. We just have to remember who we really are. And it’s a lot easier to remember with others than to remember

Amanda Testa (15:16):

By yourself. I love that. It’s funny how you were talking about the crops and just in general. And my dad was actually grew up on a farm in South Georgia. And so he originally went to school for agricultural economics was, you know, gonna go back and like take over the farm and then realize like that just the way things were changing in small forms, weren’t gonna make it. And like that whole area he grew up in has been devastated. Right. It’s just that whole agribusiness like been so negative in so many ways. And so I think it’s like finding, but you know, finding those pockets of when things feel overwhelming and you look around and you’re like, what are we done to ourselves? Realizing like, well, let’s figure out what we can do. Yeah. Cause I think that’s what happens. I see what happens for me. And I also see what happens for people I talked to as like sometimes when things feel too much, it’s like, then they’re like, well, I don’t even know what to do. So I’m just gonna like shut down.

Rachael Maddox (16:11):

Yeah. That’s normal. I mean, I had a day like that yesterday with all the fires, I was just like, Holy crap. And you know, and it’s, it’s normal to get overwhelmed. It’s absolutely normal. And the more you’ve been practicing, cultivating sanctuary in yourself and with others, the more you can bounce back. So it’s not about being perfect. What, what is that? Who can be perfect in this world? No one it’s not about perfection. It’s not about never having feelings or never being affected or never getting down on your hope. No, this is a hard time. It’s about bouncing back together. What are the structures, relationships, communities, rhythms, routines that you have in place that help you bounce back because we need people with heart to have bounce back. Right.

Amanda Testa (17:07):

And I think that’s what you mentioned earlier too, when we were talking about the creating that collective environment and just also creating strong more strength within ourselves, you mentioned Harriet Tubman or, you know, you think about these people. There are people that do amazing things in times of intense stress. Right. Right. And I, I would love if you could speak to that a little bit more, because I sometimes think about that too. Like when days I feel really down on myself, but I’m like, there’s just, there are people out there who have done amazing things and don’t, don’t put pressure on yourself. Like you have to do it all, but like, know that it is possible for one person to make a big change. And it can be little start, little, little things that you do, right. Yeah. Yeah. And I’d love to

Rachael Maddox (17:50):

Hear your thoughts on that. Well, what’s coming up for me is in the very last chapter of my new book ReBloom that’s one day coming out, I have the print proof, but I read the first 80 pages and I was like, Nope, gotta change some things. So, but the very last chapter is, is called the next world, coming to meet us from the other side. And it’s about this sort of parallel possibility. You know, I have this theory, this secret theory I’ve been running in my head, which is that we’re going to be experiencing like as the world progresses in the next decades. Yes. We will still be here. Okay. So that’s the thing, first of all, we’re still going to be here, but there’s going to be massive evolutionary changes in how we look as humans. And there’s going to be, I think, splits in the experience of what it looks and feels like to be a human, which is weird, but this is just my prediction.

Rachael Maddox (19:01):

My prediction is there’s going to be these splits and there’s going to be certain people who are creating sanctuary together against all odds. There’s going to be, there’s going to be utopia and dystopia coexisting. And of course the utopia is still going to be like crying about the dystopia and trying to change it and heal it and everything else. But this is my prediction. And what that makes me think of is this part of the very last chapter of the book, where I talk about, you know, in Peter Levine’s Seminole book, Waking The Tiger, he tells this story about these kids, these like third graders who got kidnapped. Have you read the book? Yes. Remember this story? So I just think the story like touched me so deeply when I read it, there were these third graders who got kidnapped and they were all buried underground in a cellar or like, yeah, the seller was underground.

Rachael Maddox (19:49):

And then it was like buried into the earth and they were just left there to die. And it was like some, you know, 20 3rd graders or something like this. And a few of those kids decided they found spoons, they found metal spoons. And most of the kids were like starving and about to like fall asleep, like just kind of wither away. And a few of these kids found these little spoons and they were like, we’re digging our way out. And you know, it was like two kids got the idea. They enrolled, whoever would, would help. And there was like four or five kids that helped. And the other 15 kids were like, Nope, we’re going to die. But those kids dug the whole group out. And then those kids that dug, they went on to become CEOs, doctors, philanthropists, like they went on to have these lives that were of tremendous impact.

Rachael Maddox (20:45):

And the kids that didn’t help dig went on to have significant PTSD. And so I feel like that’s both like a warning and an invitation without, again, trying to put pressure on things because sometimes we collapse and we’re like, I just can’t do it. Right. And so what do we do in those moments? How do we, again, how do we receive what we need in those moments so that we don’t completely collapse, but if you have it in you to dig at all, now’s the time and we’re going to make it through this portal, we’re going to make it out the cellar. And we won’t look the way we’ve looked before humans are gonna look very different, but we’re either gonna make it out with super powers, posttraumatic growth superpowers, or a lot of traumatized physiology. So my goal, my life’s fucking goal is to grow more and more and more people that have the capacity to dig themselves out. Because if, even if you tend to collapse, tend to hypo, which there’s no shame, that’s like a very normal thing that happens for a lot of people. You can still grow your capacity to lean into difficulty and to stay showing up and to stay present. So the more of us that have that capacity, the better off we’ll all be. So that’s my goal. That’s my vision .

Amanda Testa (22:09):

That that’s powerful. And I like, you know, even that visual of just the digging, because you think like, even if you just dig one spoonfull a day, that’s better than just not doing anything. Right. You’re making progress in the direction of change or what you want. Like that escape that you’re, you’re doing some action, even if it’s small. Yeah. But the more capacity you have, the more you can dig. Right? Yeah. I haven’t thought about that story in awhile. Thank you for bringing that up. And I L and you know, and to speak, to post traumatic growth. I think let’s speak to that for a minute. Cause I think that’s one of the, the beautiful things that is the purpose of the work. Right. And to invite more into that. And so, and for anyone listening, who, you know, maybe you already work with clients and you maybe want to learn how to be even more trauma informed or how to create a pathway that feels even more magical and possible, but yet that posttraumatic growth. And how can you talk a little bit more about what that is and how, how that yeah. How, how that, how that works?

Rachael Maddox (23:15):

Yeah. So I love this idea of posttraumatic growth because you know, when I first started working with trauma and I’m remembering when I first went on my like podcast tour, the very first one, like five years ago with my first book, secret bad girl, I used to talk about this all the time. So I’m like, Oh, this is fun. I think that when we have traumatized physiologies, it’s like swimming in a pool with 10 bathing suits on because you’re still expected to do all same things that anybody else is, you’re still expected to figure out how to show up, to work, how to make money, how to take care of your kids, how to be enough thriving or functional relationship, how to take care of your body. But you’re doing it in a state of hyper arousal or hypo arousal. You’re doing it outside of what Dan Siegel calls your window of tolerance, which is the physiological state of which you have the most presence.

Rachael Maddox (24:11):

And like resiliency range of resiliency is what my teacher Brigit calls it. So you’re when you’re walking around the world raw under a trauma spout. And I, you know, deep compassion, if you’re listening, you’re like, Oh my God, that’s me. Like you’re going outside. And you’re anxious all the time. Or you don’t want to see anyone you’re in deep States of self isolation because people feel like too much to deal with. I mean, I’ve dealt with all of these things. It feels like lifetimes ago at this point, even though it wasn’t, it was maybe six or seven years ago. So when you’re walking around with traumatized physiologies, it is like you’re swimming through life with 10 bathing suits on and trauma resolution helps you slowly take off one bathing suit at a time. Well, what happens when you’ve been swimming with 10 bathing suits and now you’re only swimming with five, you can go faster in a, in an efficient way without working harder.

Rachael Maddox (25:05):

All of a sudden you’re able to get a further distance. And it’s because you have been training under such difficult situation or conditions. And I like to think of posttraumatic growth is you got no bathing suits on maybe one, and now what’s possible because you grew such phenomenal strength. This is the thing, people who are walking around the world with trauma, they are having to learn how to do things they’re having, they’re picking up all of these extra senses because they’re exhausted. So they’re like, how do I do that more efficiently? Or they’re scared. So they’re like, how do I read the room better? They’re picking up super powers that they don’t know that they’re picking up, but because their nervous systems hijacked, they’re also, you know, in constant States of hyper or collapse, which is like not very longterm functional, but when the hyper and collapse evens out and you’re just in your range of resiliency, you still have all those super powers.

Rachael Maddox (26:04):

And that to me is posttraumatic growth. That’s when you can use those super powers from a more regulated physiology, and then you can just be building on the super powers you have developed and asking yourself, instead of like, how do I experience less pain? How do I experience more pleasure? Or instead of how do I save everyone? How do we grow a healthy garden together? Or instead of how do I get out of this abusive situation? How do I create opportunities for, you know, women and girls to learn about financial independence? So they never get into those abusive situations. So these are the kinds of things that happen in post traumatic growth. The dreams that you have under the trauma spell become the reality of your post.

Amanda Testa (26:54):

Yes. I love that because you do the superpowers. It’s like, so key. Thank you for that. And so, and I’d love to, if there’s, you know, with regards to kind of that collective healing and creating that collective sanctuary, I’d love if you would maybe share, you know, maybe one or two things, if someone’s like, I love that. How can I do that? And he wanted to cultivate that more in your own life. What would you invite for them as a possibility?

Rachael Maddox (27:25):

Yeah, well, you know, here’s something that’s really fun. Well, there I, okay. Two ideas. This is one idea. This is something I’m doing secretly about to two secretly. You can say to yourself who are six, five, six people that I resonate with, cellularly, who I want to see, grow and thrive, and you can invite them into a private free, short term mastermind. And you just say, we’re going to gather for two hours a month, for four months, we’re going to do one, two hour meeting per month for four months. We’re going to ground together at the beginning. And then each person’s going to get to come into the center of the circle and say like each person’s going to get 13 minutes in the center. And each person’s going to say what’s up for them and ask for support from the group and receive support.

Rachael Maddox (28:25):

And if I were the one organizing that, which in this case, I am at this moment, I would invite people. I would ask myself, what are the questions I’m asking myself about my life and who might be asking similar questions or who might be one step ahead of me. And don’t be afraid to invite people that are one step ahead of you, especially if you’re a leader, especially if you’re a teacher, especially if you’re a guide or a coach, let yourself receive the wisdom of others, let yourself receive something. Somebody invited me into something like this, you know, a season or two ago. And it was so easy to say yes, cause I was like, wow, short term. You know, we ended up meeting like six times. We ended up doubling how much we met. It was really nice nourishing regenerative, all of these peers that I’d been seeing online and admiring, well now we dropped into relationship with each other.

Rachael Maddox (29:15):

That was wonderful. So that, right. That’s one way to just make things really easy. Like it’s not so hard to invite people into something, but right now also just being mindful, like everybody’s on zoom so much people have full stressful lives. What would be an invitation? It’d be really easy for someone to say yes to what would be an invitation you would love to receive and can you receive it or can you offer it? So that’s one, one thing. The other thing is, you know, possibly joining some kind of community that exists with like some kind of learning or healing community. So if there’s right, the first way is a peer to peer circular kind of network that would be free. And I think we need way, way, way more of that because the dominant theme in our culture is pay the, the expert who knows everything.

Rachael Maddox (30:07):

And you know, that’s a role that I play, not the expert who knows everything, but I’m a teacher who holds space. I’ve made it very important to me to have a more circular leadership. So the team that I have there’s, you know, well, there’s technically like nine of us, but you know, central team is like six of us and they’re all paid and they’re all paid well to be part of this circle and to be part of holding the leadership and that’s going to continue more and more next year, like the decentralization of power and the training program and the circulation of money. But you know, if there’s somebody that you admire and you think, you know, they’ve cultivated a community of regeneration, there’s something they’re doing over there. That seems like everybody in that space is getting healthier. Not everybody in that space is getting flashier or more like egotistically.

Rachael Maddox (31:01):

Cool. Okay. Like, or more followers, like, no, they’re getting healthier in a deep root way. I can see it. I can watch I’m watching it happen. They’re all getting healthier. Consider hopping in. Considering seeing what communities exist like that. There’s a lot of them. There’s so many give yourself the gift of showing up. Thank you. Yeah. And I’m wondering too, maybe if there’s any other question that you wish that I would’ve asked that I didn’t know or any, any other last words you’d like to share? Well, I can just say like on, on that note the ReBloom coach training is open for enrollment for 2021. It’s an Epic program. If you’ve been resonating with what I’ve been talking about, this is sort of the, the heart and soul of a lot of what goes into the program. But the bigger picture, just to be brief is there are two levels.

Rachael Maddox (32:00):

Each of them are six months long and then there’s a certification process. That’s three month process after that. So it’s about a year and a half because we take a month off in between the different levels. And I am just so excited for this program. If you are an experienced coach, teacher, facilitator, guide, therapist who maybe is already working with trauma or who, Oop, kitty cat, who’s maybe already working with trauma or who’s having a lot of clients or students come their way with trauma, but you’re like, am I doing this effectively? Am I really serving these clients or these students to the best of my ability, maybe you’re not in the most healthy relationship with your business. Maybe you want to be more on the program of creating cultural sanctuary in these times. And you want to be with other people who are doing that.

Rachael Maddox (32:53):

We are going deep slowly. So in the first six months, I’ll just give you what this is my thing I’m most proud of after running programs for a long time, I feel like I finally am hitting my stride with the pacing. It’s going to be a pacing of like four day online virtual workshop, a little bit of time off after then four weeks of lessons followed by three weeks of peer practices followed by one week off. And you repeat that cycle three times. So it’s very well paced and that pace gives you the chance to receive, to integrate, to digest, to really let the material work on you and to incorporate it into your current business and practice at a titrated doable pace. So that’s just a little snippet. There’s a lot else I could say, but those are the things I’m excited about. And if you’re interested check

Amanda Testa (33:51):

Highly recommend it because I have found it to be so amazing. And even if you’ve had, you know, training around trauma informed training of any kind before I think what it’s helped me do so much as just embody it on a deeper level. And I, and I also just love the Rebloom that you can listen to art. We did a podcast in 2019, Rachel, and I talk to you more about the re bloom, the model and the different archetypes. So you can go back and listen to that, but it’s just such a beautiful way. I love the nature that’s connected to it. And just how it’s. So it is it’s so regenerative and it just really kind of widens the lens of how you can support people and do it on a deeper and wider level. So it is not just individual, but it’s also collective, which I think is the key piece that I took from it as well is collective part awesome. And not always doing it myself for like, everything has to be myself, you know, it’s like, that is draining and depleting.

Rachael Maddox (34:49):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so to grow the program more and more into that collective space, because, you know, it takes time to figure out how did we do that? Because we’re also brainwashed into hyper individualism, right? There’s a lot of unlearning that we’re also doing as a, as a program. And we’re continuing that process. We’re committed to continue all and learning and collective growth.

Amanda Testa (35:15):

Thank you. Thank you so much. I am so grateful for you and all your teachings and all of it. You’ve brought to my life too. And so if anyone is listening and wants to learn more, please check it out because it’s a fabulous program and you will leave feeling so much different than you walked in. I’ll tell you that.

Rachael Maddox (35:33):

Thank you so much for having me. Amanda to connect in this way. I loved it. And I

Amanda Testa (35:38):

Thank you for this conversation. I so appreciate it. And for everyone listening, thank you for tuning in, and we will see you next week. Thank you so much for listening to the find your feminine fire podcast. This is your host, Amanda Testa. And if you have felt a calling while listening to this podcast to take this work to a deeper level, this is your golden invitation. I invite you to reach out. You can contact me@amandatesta.com/activate. We can have a heart to heart to discuss more about how this work can transform your life. You can also join us on Facebook and the group find your feminine fire group. And if you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please share with your friends, go to iTunes and give me a five star rating and a raving review. So I can connect with other amazing listeners like yourself. Thank you so much for being a part of the community.

SEx, Pleasure and money.

Yep.  They are connected.  Want to tap into more abundance now?  If you’re looking to bring in more of what lights you up, then kick back and get ready to grow!  This weeks podcast is going to share some simple yet powerful steps to bring in more pleasure, more money, and more abundance into your life, STAT.

Listen in as my guest Wendy Petties shares how you can have anything you dream of if you connect to pleasure and plan for abundance.

Listen below, or tune in via: Apple Podcasts,Stitcher or Spotify.

(complete audio transcript below)

In this episode you’ll discover

How to make deliberate choices for pleasure.How to train yourself to uplevel yourpleasure, and how it affects abundance.  Where are you playing poor? and how to shift it. How simple tweaks to your space can open up more abundance.How to channel what makes you feel sexy.How to connect to pleasure when it feels far away. Some fun practices to put a spin on your sexy, and your wallet!Simple tips to attract more money. and much more!

Wendy Petties is a Dream Liberator. A Freedom Fighter for YOUR desires. She helps women reconnect with needs that they THINK are just wants.In her signature program, Sexy Money she demonstrates that you can have anything you dream of if you connect to pleasure and plan for abundance.Creator of the upcoming podcast, “Opinions, Orgasms & Opulence: Sex and Money Talk for Ordinary People”, she uses her experiences as an MBA, Sexpert, and Psychologist to share her wisdom with all who will listen.

Connect with Wendy below!  Get her free gift, the Achieve Your Dream Jumpstart HERE.

FB Group Business Page Instagram

Join in the discussion on this episode and more in my free Facebook Group, Find Your Feminine Fire HERE.

Listen here or tune in via Apple Podcasts,Stitcher or Spotify.

Amanda Testa (00:01):

Hello, and welcome to the Find Your Feminine Fire Podcast. I am your host, Amanda Testa. I am a Sex, Love and Relationship coach, and in this podcast, my guests and I talk sex love and relationships and everything that lights you up from the inside out. Welcome. Hello everyone. And welcome today. I am so thrilled to be diving into some juicy topics. We’re going to be talking sex and money today. And I am thrilled for my guest, Wendy Petties. She has a signature program called Sexy Money, and she demonstrates you can have anything you dream of if you connect to pleasure and plan for abundance, I love this so much. She’s also a dream liberator, a freedom fighter for your desires, and she helps women reconnect with needs that they think are just wants. So welcome so much Wendy, thank you for being here.

Wendy Petties (00:53):

Thank you so much for having me, I loved the way you just kind of put your whole juicy body into reading that like I can feel you and so you definitely are connected to your body. So thanks for having me.

Amanda Testa (01:05):

Yes. You know, well, this, you know, I love talking about sexuality on this podcast and all the things that help light women up. And I know, you know, that’s one of the huge things it’s so connected sex and money two taboo subjects. People never like to talk about and, you know, and how you’re such a pleasure pioneer as well. So I’d love if you would share just a little bit more about you and your, you know, what gets you on this path, if you wouldn’t mind sharing.

Wendy Petties (01:31):

So my mom says that it started as a little girl where I would re I was really connected with my body and listening to what I wanted to do and what I didn’t want to do. So as a child, I would either have my arms out open, like, okay, you’re okay. Or I would have my arms crossed like, no. And I was very clear on these things. As a child, I also would get very hot, physically hot and take my clothes off in the, in the stroller. And so people would run after her afterwards and see, you know, hand back a sock or my sweater or something. And I would say I hot, you know, so I’ve always kind of been this, you know, fully embodied person. But I think this venture started back in the eighties when I was hired for a program that had to do with HIV and AIDS.

Wendy Petties (02:23):

And it was a program for women of color to help them help save them because they were dying at disproportionate rates from HIV and AIDS from men. And so I was hired, I call myself the condom negotiator, but I was hired to go out and talk to them about getting their men to use condoms, you know, building that skill of being comfortable and talking. And I found out that a lot of these women were not even had not, we’re not equating sex with pleasure. And I was fascinated by that fascinated. And so I began this quest to learn more about psychology and sexuality and women all while getting my MBA. So I have a very specialized MBA. I have these human lie detector skills because I learned about body language and all kinds of things there. I have a psychology background and I have a business degree and MBA, and I have this sex educator background. So I’m a sexpert and MBA. And like the human lie detector all rolled up in one, which brings us to here, where I put all of that together to help women to connect with their bodies. I know for sure, physiologically that orgasms are very important to women, but it’s not just about sex. It’s about pleasure in general, it’s about making deliberate choices so that you can find pleasure and that leads you to be comfortable and confident and productive and creative so that you can have everything that you want.

Amanda Testa (03:58):

Yes. I love this. Thank you.

Wendy Petties (04:00):

You’ve given me the amen. I love it.

Amanda Testa (04:04):

Yeah. And so, you know, I do, I know you work with so many women who you say, like check all the boxes and like, feel like they’ve done all the things, but still are just missing something big. And I, you know, I can relate to that. And I know many of my clients too, so I’d love, you know, what do you see most often that you feel like is a problem that if you wish women could just like, they think they don’t think they need it, but you know, if they could just open up to it, it could make a huge world of difference. I’d love to hear you share about that.

Wendy Petties (04:31):

I think it just goes back to, you know, pleasure in general. Like they think that it’s something that they have to really plan and it has to be deliberate. Like I’m going to get a massage, but you can have that experience every day. Cause I’m assuming that everybody takes a shower. For example, everybody takes a shower now in the pandemic every day, we don’t take a shower like, or it’s just me, right. It’s just me. But we get clean somehow. And the difference between rushing through a shower, you know, like to just get the shower done and spending even five minutes in the shower, actually touching your skin with the soap, smelling the soap, using something that feels good to your skin, wrapping the towel around you, looking at yourself in the mirror. Like it takes the same amount of time and it can change your whole outlook and change your whole perspective. But they think they don’t need it or they think they don’t have time for it. So that I think it’s deliberate choices for pleasure.

Amanda Testa (05:37):

Yes. That intention is so huge. I love the shower practice because it it’s so simple, but yet, you know, you’re taking things you’re already doing and put that intention behind it. Yes, yes. Yeah. Yeah. And so I’m curious too, from the money aspect, like where do you feel like this comes into the picture and why do you think they’re so tied together? I think that

Wendy Petties (05:58):

We, as women are conditioned to just kind of accept whatever we, we get, you know, and that’s, that’s in a good way. You know what I mean? Like that’s, that’s the best part that we have. You know, there are people who are taught to not accept anything or not even want anything, but, but in overall I think women are taught, you know, like be, be happy with what you have, you know, and they’re not taught about abundance and that you can have everything that you want and everything that you desire. So it’s all tied together because the better you feel about yourself and your body and are connected and feel like I’m worth, you know, the dollar 50 soap, you know, not just the 99 cents soap, I am making a choice to get this soap. It smells really good. I’m making a choice to, you know, not just wear my flip flops around the house, cause they’re really not comfortable and I could fall, but, but that’s what I have right now, you know, to, to get something that feels good when you slip your feet in the more we are training ourselves to up that kind of consciousness, the more we affect abundance, the more we attract abundance, the more we go for things that we normally wouldn’t.

Wendy Petties (07:15):

So it’s all tied together. I have seen it happen over and over and over again.

Amanda Testa (07:20):

Yeah. That, that cracks me up about the flip flops, because I was just saying last night, how I am so grateful to have worked from home for so long, because I just remember back in the corporate days of wearing shoes that would kill my feet and how my feet were so jacked up my toes, everything. And I’m like, my feet are like different feet.

Wendy Petties (07:38):

What a great thought. I mean, that, that, that is such a key. I mean, how many listeners are, you know, a little grateful, you know, for being at home and being like, I’m sitting at my desk right now and I don’t have any shoes on, cause I’m much more comfortable either being barefoot or my feet in the sand or the water. That’s where I want to be. But when I do put on shoes, if they’re uncomfortable, I take them off and I don’t just take them off so I can wear them next time. Oh, I won’t wear that today. Like they go in the bag to be donated so that somebody else who has different feet than I do can have them.

Amanda Testa (08:17):

I think that is such a huge, like little simple way to tap into pleasure, right there, like, think about what you’re wearing and things that are uncomfortable or that are like binding or that are not comfortable. It’s like, why am I wearing this? Is there something that would make me feel better or that I would enjoy like the, the way the touch of the material feels on my skin or all those things.

Wendy Petties (08:37):

And there’s all kinds of examples. I mean, I do an exercise in my program. You talked about Sexy Money to do an exercise about like, where are you playing small and where are you playing poor? And it is eye opening, eye opening because you know, you there’s prompts for it. So there’s things like your clothing, there’s things like the food you eat, you know? And, and we’re not necessarily talking about money, but we are talking about money too, you know, like yes, organic food costs more than burger King. Absolutely. But if you go to Burger King, you don’t have to order off the happy meal, which I think I’m mixing, mixing food metaphors, but do you know what I mean? Like you can say, you know, you know, what can I have water instead? You know, those simple things that people don’t think about, you can say, you know, I would rather, you know, I just want it this way.

Wendy Petties (09:37):

You know, you can practice upping your game, you know, with the things that you eat with the people that are around you. Is there somebody who, who, who doesn’t encourage you so much or who says things to keep you small? You know, when you’re really excited about something, do they say, Oh, well, you know, I mean, I can do that too. Or do they say, you know, Oh, well, that’s great. Do they even listen to you? You have to think about those things too. You know? And, and it’s, it’s just an awareness exercise so that you can tune this muscle, you know, and you can get closer to having, you know, the juicy things that you really want.

Amanda Testa (10:17):

I love that perspective. I’m curious if it’s okay to share, if there’s any other ways, what are some other ways that you see women playing poor, that they might not even be aware of?

Wendy Petties (10:26):

Ah, well, you brought up the clothing that I find a lot, you know, people wearing things that don’t feel good or that they think they should be wearing, you know, the high heels, you know, how many times have we come in the house and immediately taken off our bra?

Amanda Testa (10:42):

Another reason I love, being home

Wendy Petties (10:46):

We don’t even have to wear a bra if we don’t want to, you know, but, but we, we have done that and bras are not inherently uncomfortable, but we have not taken the time to get fitted, which incidentally is free just for the record. It’s free. Okay. You can go to a high end, fancy smancy place and have a bra fitting and you don’t have to buy anything. You can maybe splurge on one bra and that, and feel how it’s supposed to fit and look at how you, how it’s supposed to look. You know, it’s a big difference. It’s an experience. And then you can go online and buy that bra for half price. Let me tell ya, okay. And I’m not saying like abundance, I think abundance is a mindset. I don’t pay full price for things, but I have the money to buy it if I want it. You know, that’s what I’m talking about. I think the other thing that we need to think about, you know, in terms of this, you know, areas where people often miss the mark is in their space, their space. So people listening may have, you know, we’ve all been in here since March, you know, so that’s two, four, six months. And there are probably things in your house that are getting on your damn nerves.

Amanda Testa (12:11):

Okay.

Wendy Petties (12:12):

That the way the chair, the chair is, or what’s behind you for the hundreds of zoom meetings or, you know, or we have to deal with people who are in the house all the time with us. And so being frustrated by the noise or the interruptions, when a simple tweak of when you see the baseball cap on the door, please know that I’m doing X, Y, Z, or a check in, in the morning that says, okay, what do you have to do? This is what I have to do. And this is what I need from you. Or could you please do X, Y, Z, you know, these things are empowering and calming so that you’re not fretting about this and you’re not stressing about it. So that’s another area where I think that people don’t, don’t really, aren’t really making conscious choices and that you could be playing poor or playing small.

Amanda Testa (13:19):

Right? Yeah. It’s interesting. I think just the other day I was walking around the house, like making a list of all the things I wanted to get repaired. Just little things that you don’t pay attention to. It’s like this one drawer that always sticks, or the door knob that falls off like random things. Like if I could get this fixed, I would feel so much better. And the other thing too, I wanted to loop back to you for a second. You mentioned about like the lingerie and getting fitted and what I, you know, one of the things too, I think I’ve found is oftentimes I know for myself as women putting ourselves last on the list of everyone who else needs things like as an I’m a mom too. So it’s like, who gets the new clothes, not me and all this and that, but realizing sometimes when you invest in something that maybe is more than you would normally spend, like a nice bra, it lasts forever versus like a target bra. That’s going to fall apart after a few wearings.

Wendy Petties (14:07):

And be uncomfortable? And you’re going to want to pull off through your sleeve. Cause we’ve all done that, right. We’ve all unhooked it in the back and pulled it out right through our sleeve, not even taking your shirt off. Cause it’s so uncomfortable.

Amanda Testa (14:18):

And I mean there’s and every now and then yes, target bras are fine, but I just like once and the other thing too, to speak to laundry, cause I thought this was funny to loop back to is cause you know, I think a lot of people have that in their mind of like what sexy is and that it means they have to wear like the pushup bra and the like, you know, whatever it might be. And granted I do love lingerie, so don’t get me wrong, but it’s creating your own definition of what you feel beautiful and what you feel,sexy in.

Wendy Petties (14:41):

Those links and feeling it from the inside out. I also do an exercise that I’m going to do with you right now. Okay. And so listeners can it too. So if I said to you, Amanda, I want you to channel your sexy feel as juicy as you can. Now, now express that with your face. Yes. I looking at you right now, but I can feel you and I know you’re squirming in your seat and I can also feel it in my body because you’re sending it back to me. Okay. You can turn that on at any time and it calms your body. It calms your central nervous system. And it’s not about lingerie. It’s not about high heels and a whip. You know, to me, it’s about just channeling. What makes you feel sexy? It could be the lighting on your skin. It could be, you know, touching your arm like your, your whole body has shifted.

Wendy Petties (15:51):

Just thinking about that. And I would, I would bet that people who actually are doing it with us, we’re sending this energy all over the place. We’re feeling juicy and yummy. And it is a scientific fact that if we can turn that on, it doesn’t even have to go to full orgasm, but just turning yourself on. When we get off of this call, you will be ready to do whatever you have to do. You will be more creative, more productive, you will be jazzed up clear focused. It’s just, it’s the nature of our bodies that we don’t use to the full extent.

Amanda Testa (16:26):

Oh my gosh. I feel like we just, most people just scratch the surface of what we’re capable of in our body. And like you’re talking that energy, that sexy energy, that’s our life force energy. It’s so delicious. And I feel, that’s why I love sharing this podcast. And I think it’s so key for women to just be aware that we’re, this is nothing we’re ever taught. I mean, some women are, but very few,

Wendy Petties (16:48):

Very few. And I always say that there’s things that we were taught that we should unlearn right now, there are things that we were never taught that we need to learn. And there’s always questions. We always should question whatever we think we think or think that we know we should always question and by question it doesn’t, it doesn’t have to be this energy of, you know, well, I don’t know if I believe that or whatever, it just kind of ask yourself, how do I really feel about that? How do, what do I really think about that? That’s the questioning. That’s just like checking in with yourself. That’s all.

Amanda Testa (17:21):

I love that. I have another question for you just to loop back to around that, you know, that I bet that MBA and embodiment exercise, you just took us through of connecting to that sexy inside of you. And I’m curious if you have maybe another favorite tip to help women connect to that inside of them.

Wendy Petties (17:39):

Hi. The other thing that I have done is when we were doing live events, you know, you remember that, you know, when we were in a room that we could actually put our arms around people, I call it the tail, the tail. So when you are outside and we could do this too now, because we do get to go outside now, wherever you are in the world, we can go outside. And it’s a really fun kind of thing. It’s like, you know, going back to lingerie and underwear, like when you have sexy panties on you walk differently. Cause you know, whoo. You know, okay, so this is about your tail. So if you think about your hips and your butt and you know that central area there, think about what kind of tail would you have if you had a tail and it could be any, it could be a different tail all the time.

Wendy Petties (18:29):

But if you have a bunny tail that walk that you walk is a little different, if you have a dragon tail, that walk is a little different and, and just, if you’re ever feeling down, you can put that tail on and just kind of put a little pep in your step, you know, think about what kind of tail you have attached to your little cute little butt or your big butt or your hippy butt or your whatever kind of, butt, and, and use that. That’s just another juicy connection area. Especially if you’re going to ask for something or you’re going to go after something or, you know, like something surrounding money or abundance, you know, or you’re going to buy something like, it’ll just juice you up really quickly and have you really connected to that area of your body so that you can feel, you know, unstoppable.

Wendy Petties (19:19):

That’s an awesome visual. The first thing that popped into my mind, you said that was like a leopard tail. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t wear that today. Oh, I love it. Yeah. Yeah. It’s got your leopard tail on. Yes. Oh, I love it. I love it. This is part it’s like having fun with it. You know, we need to have more fun. Yeah. Just less. I know I do. Yes. And yes, we do need to have more fun and everything is not fun all the time. So we need to be connected with our bodies enough so that we can weather the storm when it’s not so good. You know, this is about filling yourself up so that when it hits the fan or you think it has, you can still stand, stand tall and stale the crowd and be connected.

Amanda Testa (20:11):

All of that, you know, that’s, that’s what this is about fully embracing the spectrum of all the emotions and everything, because you know, it is true. The more we allow ourselves to fully embody a rage in our grief or our sadness, or, you know, really when we think about the state of the world, it’s crushing. And so, but allowing that full feeling and then knowing the more you feel, all those feelings then too, you can feel every feeling, even like the quote unquote positive ones, like joy and Pleasure.

Wendy Petties (20:43):

Agree with you. Absolutely. I do not feelings as wrong or right. I, they just are. And so you have to be able to feel everything. And part of this is getting connected to your body so that you can identify what you’re feeling for real, for real. Because the other thing that I noticed with a lot of my clients is when they start with me, I say, Oh, how you doing today? And they go fine. I’m okay. And they’re not, but there’s a couple things.

Wendy Petties (21:13):

One is a lot of people ask and don’t really care how you’re really feeling. So we’ve been conditioned to not tell the truth. We’ve been conditioned to just ask, you know, to just answer regardless, because we think people don’t care anyway. And then I’m saying, well, who are you around that doesn’t really care? And would ask you a question. I mean, it’s not, you know, even the person where you buy your newspaper, you know, like assume that they really care and temperate with the appropriate response for them, but you can own it. I’m feeling delicious today or not so great today. You know, got some things on my mind, how are you very different energy from I’m fine. Which is a lie. Your body knows. Yeah.

Amanda Testa (22:00):

Yeah. And I think that’s so key is that I love how you just said, even the guy you buy the paper from, whoever, you know, take it, like it’s a true inquiry and how different that feels just even to let that settle in, like, that person really is asking you this because they care, maybe they don’t, but you can take it on like yeah, they do care. Yeah. And then responding that way, that just opens up so much more connection.

Wendy Petties (22:24):

Yeah.

Amanda Testa (22:25):

Of that. And you know, I want to ask another question too, because I know we talked a little bit about this before we got on the air, but just, you know, right now when everything feels so heavy and there’s so much just, that’s not great in the world. And how do you think women can tap into pleasure when it feels sometimes so far out of reach?

Wendy Petties (22:42):

Ooh. Wow. Great question. I say one step at a time, one step at a time. So most of us have 12 zoom meetings a day. We have kids around and partners around and animals around and we may love all the noise and attention and we may not. And, and from day to day, we may love it. And you know, I mean we’re exhausted or we’re, you know, sleeping all the time. I mean, this is, this is unprecedented, but there are some things that we can do so we can go outside. We can go outside. We can even for two minutes, stick our head outside and listen, you can hear the birds. Now, at least I live in New York city. It has never been so quiet. We are seeing seagulls in my neighborhood seagull. Okay. Now I know where the water is, but I wouldn’t think of my town as a water town, but there are seagulls walking around.

Wendy Petties (23:49):

And so I am stopping, looking remembering times that I’ve been to the beach. You know, I am listening for things. So using your five senses. That’s another exercise is to see what you can see, seek out pleasure by using your eyes, by using your nose, by using your ears, you know, touch, taste, all of these things that we have at our disposal that are part of this wonderful body that we have been gifted with, find the pleasure in everything. And it, and that’s a simple thing, you know, going outside or even looking outside, if you don’t feel comfortable going outside, even looking outside, if you just open your window or your back door, or, you know, your eyes, even in your house and look for pleasure, it will tell you something either you will find it or you will not. And if you find it, appreciate it.

Wendy Petties (24:49):

And if you don’t, then that will tell you that you need to find something and get something in there to be pleasurable. You know, that’s what I mean and be gentle with yourself because it takes the, it takes effort that you may not have every day. Yeah. The gentle part is huge. Oh, absolutely. There are some days when I am on fire and I do this as a practice and I do this for a living and I am very connected to my body and to pleasure. And there’s, I’ve had enough at 10 o’clock in the morning. Yeah, it is. And I have to be gentle with myself and accept that and not beat myself up and do listen to my body because some days it’s okay. I just need to go and get in my bed. I have things to do. So I will say, all right, we’re an hour or an hour for 15 minutes because I have a wonderful interview with Amanda today.

Wendy Petties (25:51):

You know what I mean today? I actually feel good. But, but I’m just saying, if I didn’t, I’m going to honor what I said, I would do. I’m going to honor this wonderful, beautiful exchange that we’re having here. I’m going to honor that. And I’m going to honor myself as well. And I think way too many women, like you would alluded to put themselves last, you know, like you said about the clothing, you know, think of you, you have a little girl. Yes. So think of how much you are teaching her. If you do something wonderful for yourself, some selfless, selfless, and selfish act of pleasure that you can demonstrate to her, how much better is Mommy going to be.

Amanda Testa (26:40):

I think that’s so true. And it just makes me laugh because yesterday she has little dolls, they’re called LOL dolls and she loves to play with them. And there’s a little bathtub and she made a mini goddess bath for her LOLs and put Rose pedals in it from the backyard. And I was like, yes.

Wendy Petties (26:58):

So you are doing it by osmosis and you are doing it deliberately. And that’s wonderful because this child knows about pleasure. And I don’t know if you were taught this or you learned around the way along the way, but somehow you have taught this child. So think about how delicious she’s going to be as she grows.

Amanda Testa (27:23):

I mean, that’s a huge intention I have cause I was not raised that way. And I feel like that’s why I’ve been on my own journey for the past 10 years of reclamation, you know? And I think I love that we, that you are sharing all these gems. And I’m curious too, if there’s maybe one more tip that you could share around abundance or you know, this connection of like you’ve tapped into the pleasure, you’re opening more to feeling good and appreciation. And then what, what about the abundance piece? Let’s talk a little to the money part.

Wendy Petties (27:53):

Two things came to mind. So I’ll probably share both if that’s okay. The first thing is a real, tangible thing. I learned it. It’s not my idea, but I learned it from Oprah, who is my friend in my head. I love her. And years ago she had someone on, I don’t even remember who it was. Cause I attributed it to Oprah. Maybe it was a Yon, Levant Santu was talking about it. But talking about being respectful to money, there are a lot of people that would see a penny or a nickel or a dime on the ground and leave it there because it’s, you know, it’s not worth it to bend down. I don’t believe that when it gets to a quarter, I think most people would pick it up. But being respectful of all money starts with acknowledging that it is money and that every little bit counts.

Wendy Petties (28:42):

So what we were taught and I’ve done this often is when you go to the store, I mean, we don’t go to a lot of stores now, but when you used to go to the store and you’d get your change back, you know, they’d hand it to you in your hand, they’d say, thank you. They put the receipt in your hand or in the bag. And what would you do? You would crumple it up and stick it in your bag or your wallet or your purse or whatever. You just kind of do this and then drop it in there. Right? And then you wouldn’t think about it until the next time when you had to buy something and you dig out all these ones and fives and tens and quarters and whatever, and you’d be pouring things out and whatever. And she just taught us the simple practice of honoring your money of taking the extra second to organize your money by denomination and fold it nice and neatly and say a thank you when you put it in your wallet, billfold, pocket, pocketbook, whatever purse, you know, whatever you call it. And it makes all the difference. It makes all the difference because the money is like, it’s nice here. Huh? It’s really cool here. It’s nice here. I want to be in here and I’m going to tell all my friends We’re gonna fill this thing.

Wendy Petties (29:57):

Yes, yes, yes. So that’s a simple thing that you can do. And I talked about that in Sexy Money too. Absolutely great practice. The other practice is, cause I know that some people, cause I’ve heard it, some people are like, well, yeah, Wendy you have money. And I do have money, but I’ve done these things and that’s why I have money. But if you don’t have money, you may be thinking, well, you know, I have a list, energy around money and I don’t have a lot of money and it’s just a pain point. Whatever, what you need to do is be grateful for what you have. And the practice that we use there is not my practice either. I learned it from someone, I learned it from think, I learned it from Mary Hall who is a, an expert in, in kind of mindset stuff.

Wendy Petties (30:44):

And what she taught us to do was check your bank account every day, every day. And no matter what is in there, be grateful and say, thank you. And not more thankful because there’s a hundred thousand dollars in there, then the hundred dollars, but grateful, grateful. We did this practice. I was in a group and we did this practice for 30 days and money kept showing up. It kept showing up. People would either say, Hey Wendy, you know, like, are you available? You know, I really like to talk to you about this. You know, like I have this budget and I’m trying to, you know, do it at the end of the fiscal year. And so, you know, I, I I’ve been thinking about you. And so could you do this for this amount of money or someone would, or, or rebate would come or a refund or somebody owed you money or you forgot to bill somebody for something being conscious about your money and grateful, attracts more. Yeah. And it is, you know, like I like to say, I’m not a real woo woo girl, but I believe in what I believe in. And I’m living proof that it works. Absolutely. Yes. So those are some of my tips for abundance.

Amanda Testa (32:04):

I love both of those. And I think that, you know, doing the daily, that’s like you say, when something is appreciated and valued, of course it’s going to want to stick around. Right. It’s like, I don’t know if I want to be scrunched up in the bottom of a bag, with seats and all kinds of gum wrappers and whatever dirt in the bottom of the purse,

Wendy Petties (32:22):

And Starbust Starburst. Right. You know, those candies. Yeah. Well,

Amanda Testa (32:28):

I, now, if, I mean, I just appreciate you so much sharing all of this and I’m curious if anyone wants to connect with you and learn more, what’s the best way for them to find you?

Wendy Petties (32:38):

So there is couple of ways on Facebook. I have a group for women called Unstoppable Women with Big Dreams. And so feel free to join that. It’s a, it’s a wonderful group. And we talk about all these things and that’s where you can find out what I’m doing next and all that stuff. I’m known as happy life coach, happy.life.coach on both Instagram and Facebook. And I also have a free gift, which we’ll post the link for. I believe that you can have everything you want. And so I created a, a free gift called the Achieve your dream jumpstart. It’s called the jumpstart because I believe in action. I don’t think we have time to waste. This is the only life we have. And I don’t, I believe you don’t have time to wait. So there’s three parts. There’s a, an ebook, which is 22 pages.

Wendy Petties (33:25):

And it is all about mindset and really thinking about what you want. And there’s some exercises in there. And then I pulled out the exercises and made a workbook about nine, 10 pages. And so if you just are a quick start and are like, let me just get to the meat and get some stuff done. That’s what you can do. But there’s also a video from me with a surprise, but I’ll tell you already, I offer people a half hour have it all call where you can talk to me. I’ll give you a couple of tips. One about abundance, one about pleasure. So, you know, we kind of talk a couple minutes about what’s going on in your life, in those areas. I’ll give you some quick tips and then, and then I’ll tell you about how you can continue to work with me, if that should be a good fit. So I encourage you to take me up on it. It’s a lot of fun and that’s how you can find me, you know, that’s where I hang out.

Amanda Testa (34:15):

And I’ll make sure to put all that in the show notes as well. And I’m curious as we close, if maybe there’s any last words of wisdom you’d like to share, or maybe a question that you wish that I would have asked that I didn’t ask.

Wendy Petties (34:25):

No, your questions were amazing. I really, really have enjoyed this. I think my last bit of wisdom is just to, you know, to know that whatever stage you’re at, wherever you are on this journey of, you know, pleasure and this journey of, of abundance, you know, sex and money, these are things that people don’t normally talk about. I’m totally comfortable talking about them and you don’t have to be me. You know, you’re perfectly okay the way you are. But if there is something in your life that you think you might want to explore, this is, this is the, these are some of the ways that you can. And once you master these skills, you know, in the way that feels comfortable for you, because all the tips that I gave, some of them may feel comfortable. Some may feel hokey, you know, I have tons and tons and tons of things, but find what works for you and just get connected more connected to yourself, more connected to your body so that you can have everything that you desire because you deserve it. You know? And that’s, that’s the thing to remember. Cause we, weren’t always taught that growing up that you can have and be, and do everything that you want. And you really can in the way, in the way that you want to.

Amanda Testa (35:41):

Oh, thank you so much, Wendy. And it’s been a pleasure to talk with you today and thank you to everyone for listening. And we will look forward to seeing you next week. Thank you so much for listening to the find your feminine fire podcast. This is your host, Amanda Testa. And if you have felt a calling while listening to this podcast to take this work to a deeper level, this is your golden invitation. I invite you to reach out. You can contact www.amandatesta.com/activate And we can have a heart to heart to discuss more about how this work can transform your life. You can also join us on Facebook in my group Find Your Feminine Fire Group. And if you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please share with your friends, go to iTunes and give me a five star rating and a raving review. So I can connect with other amazing listeners like yourself. Thank you so much for being a part of the community.

Creating Connection In A Virtual World.

I don’t know about you, but I miss people. I miss concerts with lots of sweaty bodies pressed together.  I miss gatherings and retreats and witchy woman togetherness.

I know I’m hearing from so many about how isolated it feels right now.

How many are longing for IRL touch.

But what can you do if you don’t have the option to gather in person, or don’t feel comfortable doing so?

Listen into this episode as I share some ways you can feel connected in a virtual world.

Listen below, or tune in via: Apple Podcasts,Stitcher or Spotify.

(complete audio transcript below)

In this episode you’ll discover

The power of ritual to bridge time and space.Old school ways to make yourself feel more connected with your loved onesHow to recharge your space so it can feel fresh, even when you are always stuck at home. How to move through anxiety about social situations and embrace new ways of connecting. How to nurture your body when you’re missing out on physical touch. and much more!

Join in the discussion on this episode and more in my free Facebook Group, Find Your Feminine Fire HERE.

Listen here or tune in via Apple Podcasts,Stitcher or Spotify.

And if youre longing for more connection.. I’d love to invite you to join us for this incredible Virtual Retreat HERE.

Reclaiming YouR Beauty

In this world where “beauty” is an instrument of capitalism, a means of control, one of the most powerful “trances” we are trapped in, and a standard set by “masculine” values and attitudes, in this episode I’m diving into what it means to reclaim your beauty, and find appreciation in the Feminine Genius at your fingertips.

Listen in to this episode as I go deep with LiYana Silver, author of Feminine Genius,The Provocative Path to Waking Up and Turning On the Wisdom of Being a Woman.

Listen below, or tune in via: Apple Podcasts,Stitcher or Spotify.

(complete audio transcript below)

In this episode you’ll discover

A tip for using meditation to avoid falling into the loops of anxiety or worry. (even if it’s only 3-5 minutes)Unwinding the voice of self doubt, and how to move from judgment to hearing your authentic voice.Why we police our appearance and go to war with ourselves. How to have a different  experience of beauty.The cost of beauty and our financial well being.How trusting our inner spark can help us keep moving forward when the times are hard. Learning to appreciate with the “Gaze of Grace”What happens when you start to love your sexuality.How to move from “doom scrolling” and recalibrate to feeling good. and much more!

This week I have the pleasure of welcoming LiYana Silver back to the show.  Liyana helps women transform self-criticism through a unique process (that finds where the self-criticism got installed in the first place), LiYana helps women stop self-doubt and second-guessing so that they feel comfortable in their skin, know their worth, are clear about their contribution to the world, feel at home in their lives, and naturally trust themselves (even with life and work’s hardest choices).

Get the audiobook of Feminine Genius HERE. (and get a free month of Masterclasses to go deeper with Feminine Genius.

Join in the discussion on this episode and more in my free Facebook Group, Find Your Feminine Fire HERE.

Listen here or tune in via Apple Podcasts,Stitcher or Spotify.

Hello, and welcome to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. I am your host, Amanda Testa. I am a Sex Love and Relationship coach, and in this podcast, my guests and I talk sex love and relationships and everything that lights you up from the inside out. Welcome. Hello everyone. And welcome to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. I’m your host, Amanda Testa. And today I’m thrilled to welcome back to the show. Liyana Silver. She is the amazing author of Feminine Genius, as well as just a leader in helping women to own the magnificence of who they are, and really empower themselves to use all that. We have the good, the bad, the dark, the light, and to really emerge the best we can in the world. And I think right now, too, I know there’s just a lot, a lot happening, so I’m very looking forward to where we are. We’re going to dive in today. Welcome so much. Thank you so much for being here.

I was so excited to be here and be back with you. And I’d love to know too, you know, just in general, how, how things are with you, just in the depth of the world, all the things that’s happening, how are you doing? 

Liyana:

Well? I will say that things got, I’m amazed when people post that they’re bored. Like you don’t have a, I, first of all, I don’t think you have a child. The second of all, maybe you have a trust fund. I don’t know. I will say that I have doubled down or just yeah, on meditative practices and that it just occurred to me how much of other people’s trauma, my own resurfacing, just intensity, chaos, you know, what, what, we’re, what we’re dealing with on a magnified level, right.

LiYana Silver (01:51):

I’m not going to be able to actually deal with that and function unless I have even more skills. So I’ve been skilled scaling up, scaling up, doing okay, I’m doing okay, I’ve got a better kiddo and sower, you know, looking at what does that mean with school? I’ve always worked from home, so that’s my commute has always been when it’s been, I, you know, I have financial somewhat insecurity, but not to the degree that I feel like many have. And we’re at the beginning, we’re at the beginning of this economic ripple. So I’m acutely aware of our interconnectivity and, and those who don’t have it, the, the luck that I might. Yeah. So I’m doing okay.

Amanda Testa (02:41):

Thank you for sharing that. I just think that, yeah, I can relate in many ways and I think, you know, also navigating Parenthood and all of this and how, just the effects that it’s going to have of, you know, people not being able to work like they normally do. And also the weight that falls a lot Of the time on the women to take care of the parenting and manage everything else as well.

LiYana Silver (03:11):

Well, no, I just wanted to invoke, you know, the social isolation or women who are trapped in relationships that are not good places to be. Yeah. Just the specific hardships that do fall on us as women.

Amanda Testa (03:26):

What I also am excited to talk about because I feel like, you know, through all that, it’s so important to just allow ourselves to go through what we need to go through, but also keeping in mind as well of, you know, the possibility that there is. And, you know, it’s funny because oftentimes we can feel like, well, I don’t know what the right thing to do right now is, and I feel like I’m being pulled in so many directions and I want to do all these things and try to be better human and activist and all the things that we might be wanting to do. And also having the restraints of like, but I can’t really go anywhere or do anything like I want. So I think you mentioned, you know, reconnecting to a practice that serves you like your meditation practice. And I think as women it’s so key because it can connect us back to these like ancient parts of us. I’d love if you may would share a little bit about that, if you wouldn’t mind. Yeah.

LiYana Silver (04:19):

Yes. I feel that meditation, we can talk about some of the different formats that can work. I feel, I feel socialist, democratic. I feel like very open palmed about what kind of meditation, you know, there’s lots that can work. I think that what meditation does is it reminds us that we have a choice about what we focus on. So often we’re focusing on something other than our thoughts. And then that alerts our system. We don’t always have to get caught in the loops of anxiety or worry or productivity. We have a say in where our focus is and that’s that’s, I think one of the only things we can control. And the other thing it tells us is, Oh, we have a say over the quality of my focus, am I focusing in a judgemental way, in a harsh way? Am I focusing in a way that invites gratitude or presence?

LiYana Silver (05:16):

And then the last thing I think is that this is slightly slightly ineffable, but I’ll try is that inevitably in the process of some kind of meditation, whether it’s stillness or whether it’s movement based is that we connect with reconnect with, or we abide in something that is, I just feel like it, you know, it is, we could call it Feminine Genius. We could call it the divine. There is it just, it’s also very, every day, it is this deep well of presence and grounded-ness and even joy. And it absolutely fortifies us from, from the inside out. And that I think is one of the, you know, that’s also one of the benefits is that, Oh, part of us can be resting and we’ve got a hand or a foot or two feet in this world, this realm of nourishment, excuse me. And so I just feel like how in the world can we do modern life without, without also being connected to that?

Amanda Testa (06:28):

I so agree. And like that nourishment piece you spoke to, I feel like it’s something that until I started doing more work to tap into my own and Divine Feminine within, and just my own body and understanding the, the depth of presence and peace I can find there, it makes it incredible because I know like, no matter what what’s happening, I, if I really take the time, even if it’s just five minutes, the more you do it, the easier it gets to drop in. It’s just like to find that place presence and just peace. And when you can find that within yourself, it’s incredible because, no matter what’s going on around you, you can still connect that in some way.

LiYana Silver (07:08):

And you said something important, I think is just even five minutes. And I really get if someone needs the time they need, but I also am a huge fan of things that can be done in five minutes, in three minutes in 10 minutes, because we’re all handling a lot. And there are a lot of time demands, but yeah, I’m, I’m all for potency in small doses,

Amanda Testa (07:34):

The simple, quick things. And you know, it’s interesting too, because one of the things I wanted to dive in more and you spoke to it a second ago around the judgmental, when you’re reflecting, is it like a judgmental voice you’re hearing? What is the, you know, what is behind that? And I think for so many women that I talked to, there’s that judgment, that voice that’s just like nonstop beating you up or whatever you’re doing. It’s not good enough. I mean, so I’d love to speak a little bit more to that. If you don’t mind.

LiYana Silver (08:03):

If I had to say what the heart is of work that I do, I would say it is this, it is understanding where did that? Self-Criticism self doubt, self-loathing self abuse. Where did those voices get installed? Whose voices are we importing? Are we imitating? And how can we update that in your system so that you are talking to yourself and looking at yourself and inviting other people to regard you and interact with you from a way that is more in line with the truth of who you actually are. So you’ve may have heard, I’ve heard this is I’m borrowing from psychology that says our internal voices are the voices we heard either out loud, explicitly, or we just felt and intuited from our family, from our parents, for our caregivers, from our early childhood environment. They’re not ours. And then I wonder what’s ours, what is your own authentic voice? How would you talk to yourself? How would you look at yourself if it wasn’t covered over with layers of someone else’s stuff that was passed down from their parents and their parents and their parents and their parents.

Amanda Testa (09:22):

Yeah, exactly. And then, you know, I think too, oftentimes we aren’t even aware of some of these things because it is so subconscious and it is passed down from generation to generation. And I think so just to find that authentic voice or that authentic expression, that feels true to you and that where you can just, you know, embrace all of who you are and know that you don’t have to do anything you’re good enough as you are here. Perfect. As you are, which as you said, you know, I think is a construct that’s been put on us, like the, the patriarchal effect of having the culture that we have for thousands of years that has really repressed our expression or make it make it So you have to feel, you have to look a certain way.

LiYana Silver (10:07):

Yes. Now when a woman, a girl, or a woman, anyone, anyone, this a patriarchy affects all genders, humans, and just specific ways girls and women, when you realize even you don’t realize in your mind, when you realize some part of your, your being that your value, your right to be in life and take up space is dependent on your physical appearance and your sexual availability to usually to men. It is a lot narrow bandwidth by which your value in your place in life is dependent. Even though we realize I can get married or not married, we’d be like we understand on a cognizant level, but there’s a part of us that knows we are our value. Our right to be here is if we look good or the right kind of sexy, there is a tremendous amount of energy of money of time of resources that go towards that.

LiYana Silver (11:18):

Even if you’re a feminist, even if you are woke, even if you know better and you understand, and are, you know, fighting to find some liberation within patriarchy, we, we, you know, we’re, we’re working this out inside the cage, and this is heartbreaking to me, if it must have been my own story, but it’s just every woman’s story like that is so much time wasted and energy wasted, wasted on this like Naval gazing, right? And then this way that we actually control ourselves, well, patriarchy doesn’t even after control, we control ourselves, we police ourselves. Do I look fat in this? Do I look right? Do I need to go change my hair, change my wardrobe, change my blah, blah, blah. We, you know, this, this war war with ourselves becomes a way that we do the patriarchy’s bidding. And so many, just so there is, there is something that is uniquely yours to contribute to the world. And I feel like that narrows the bandwidth so much that that can get through if we’re just so, so concerned with, with physical appearance and sexual availability. And I don’t mean to downplay it because it is in our cells. It is in our DNA. It has to do with survival. It doesn’t have, it’s not a medical, like, doesn’t matter how much you get the concept of feminism. This is something we’re working out of our bodies. And when we’re working out of our bones,

Amanda Testa (12:50):

I mean, if you think about it, cause it was really only what the seventies that women could have their own credit cards, their own bank accounts in the sixties, even. I mean, and it’s just crazy to think, like that’s not that long ago. It’s no wonder that there’s parts of us that are still like, well, to be safe to survive. I have to look this way. And like you said, it’s in our systems. We have to kind of unravel it from the inside out. Yeah,

LiYana Silver (13:15):

Yeah, yeah. And it really helps I think, to connect with other women who are talking about it, you know, we’ll bit by bit, we’re working on it, but it’s immense, it’s immense.

Amanda Testa (13:26):

And now, you know, just to speak to a little bit more, cause I know before we started recording, talking about the commoditization of beauty and like what that means to you and like what you think like as a big picture, what else you see around that? I know we just spoke to a good amount of that, but what else? Yeah, let’s talk more about that.

LiYana Silver (13:43):

I have a wish that we could have a different experience of the word Beauty. So the word beauty, or if there’s a beauty industry, there are beauty magazines, right? So we understand beauty is like this thing that women have to do and pay for it. And I would love there to be a redefinition of beauty, ugly things can be beautiful. So there is somehow like we have a deep muscle muscular recognition of beauty when something is so fully itself and there’s just an “isness” to something. And I wish that we could reclaim the ability to feel ourselves rather than have a, rather than paying attention to how we are perceived that actually we haven’t experienced from the inside out rather than the outside, in that we would say, how does it feel to be in my skin? How does it literally, can I pay attention to my experience? So I feel what I feel and that feels beautiful to me. And that as we were talking before, that could then what I put on my body, if I choose sparkles or, you know, goth eyeliner, or I cut my hair shorter and longer stick flowers in my hair, or I, or I don’t, or I go bare chested or whatever the options are that that is a confirmation. It is, it’s a way that I can say, this is how I’m feeling today. This is the energy that I am making manifest by my adornment, rather than I’m going to cover up a flaw or I’m going to follow the latest trend or this is what I’m supposed to wear or be, or how to be perceived. And I just, I mean, we all know what it’s like to be with someone who just is who they are. It is so beautiful. It’s beautiful. So that’s what I wish. That’s what I wish for us all.

Amanda Testa (15:39):

I love that. And I do know what you mean that feeling. And I think it’s interesting because I know I’ve probably spoken to this before, but I do feel like there’s such so much money we spend on trying to look beautiful or be a certain way. And yes, I feel like if it’s conscious and you’re doing it because you are just enjoying playing with all the different, different ways you want to express yourself, like I am not no judgment here at all. I think that’s all beautiful. I think it’s just also being aware like, wow, this is how much money a month I’m spending on trying to look a certain way. And wow, what if women invested a quarter of that, you know, every month versus just feeling like we have to spend. And I feel like it’s a way of oppression because of that. You know, women are encouraged to spend money on looking beautiful versus investing or being smart and doing other things with the money. And that to me makes me crazy, but I know I love beauty products. I color my hair. Like I am all about it too, but I realize sometimes it’s like, wow, getting my hair done is quite expensive. Like what if I invested that every six months for my whole lifetime, that would make a huge difference in my financial stability, right?

LiYana Silver (16:51):

So that’s not gloss over that. That’s such an important point Friend, Amanda Steinberg,

Amanda Testa (16:53):

Who wrote to the creator of daily worth, wrote a book called worth worth it. And

LiYana Silver (16:59):

Women have some fraction of the net

Amanda Testa (17:03):

Worth or the like the saved money as we go on in life compared to men, we will die poor, significantly poor, and yet live longer. This is, this is serious. This is serious. I really appreciate what you’re saying. So yeah, I’m with ya. I mean, all I know is I, you know, I also was raised in the South in a very conservative environment and very much so, like I just remember my mom always being on a diet and always complaining about how she looked. And that was just like the constant and I, you know, suffered from that a lot and had eating disorders years of struggle before I finally was like, you know what, I’m just who I am and I can embrace it. And I know it was a long journey, so it’s not something that’s easy. I’m just going to say that right now. It’s definitely not easy. But I think just looking back now, how interesting, and like me noticing that too, because even I have an eight year old daughter and she like just got her ears pierced and all this and that. And you know, she’s all excited about expressing herself and trying to figure out how do I, how do I teach her in a way maybe what I would have liked to have learned about it? And that’s a good question. I still make mistakes for them.

LiYana Silver (18:15):

And I feel like we do need to be a little bit gentle with ourselves that we probably aren’t even aware of all of the influences that if we walk out of our doors, which is an option for some, not for all at the moment, I realized that just metaphorically we look around the world are the ways that information and media interact with us.

LiYana Silver (18:34):

Even your daughter’s eight. My, my son is eight. So, you know, it was, this is the world that we live in. It is more than just your messaging. So we just gotta be a little gentle. And at the same time, I, so I don’t want to skip ahead to anything. So I’m working on my second book. And so I’ve been talking, I’ve been gathering a ton of stories of people going through really hard times and in a variably, like really, really hard stuff. Like we all go through and invariably, we always get to this point of like, what, let you do that? What let you be hospitalized, you know, in the psych ward and yet figure a way to get out. And invariably, there’s this little spark that people just feel like that was never lost. That spark that knew I was okay as I am, or that just knew there was a different way or just felt what I felt or knew what I knew or needed to say what I have to say.

LiYana Silver (19:37):

And I have faith in that that is in there and that, you know, you, you’re so conscious of nurturing that. So I believe in that innateness of that spark in each of us, it doesn’t go anywhere. It’s really hard to sniff it out really, really, really hard. And you know, you’re just doing so much to blow on that so that it is hers, so that it is hers.

Amanda Testa (20:04):

Yes. I love that visual. And I think that cause that little spark is so it’s always the thing, like you mentioned, you know, I can even think of like the lowest times in my life, but there was this little teeny piece of me that was like, get up.

LiYana Silver (20:18):

Yes, yes. And I think, you know, there’s, there’s also, I don’t know if I’m changing subjects a teeny bit, but so I, you know, be like, Oh wow, there’s more, there’s a lot more wrinkles than there used to be. Or, Oh, that’s a new little curvy part. I, you know, it’s been really fascinating to look at them and go like, do I really think that’s a problem? And then I’ll look at them and I’ll be like, wow, there’s this cool thing that happens when you have wrinkles, because then the light shines on them in this way that they almost sparkle. Or so then I have this thing right. With like, where would we call it? Like kind of around my Honches or something. Right. And there’s this like fold or indentation that would have just been unimaginable, especially in the days I was a dancer and I was like, but I like it.

LiYana Silver (21:04):

I like, it’s like this little arrow. That’s like, Ooh, don’t you want to like, put your hand here? Like, don’t you want to put your hand on my waist on this like solid, sexy part of a woman? Well, maybe you can, maybe you can’t. I don’t know. So I just, you know, to the, to the part, even with the spark that’s coming out here is, is a yes. I, I just, I do. I do. I think it’s it’s in there. I think it takes a lot to sniff it out.

Amanda Testa (21:28):

And so I’m curious too, for women who are listening that are like, yes, I totally can relate, but what do I do? Like how can I start looking at myself through that lens of authenticity and appreciation versus judgment?

LiYana Silver (21:41):

Great. I mean, I have an exercise, but I call the gaze of grace and it’s really that, it’s just the simple practice of looking through the eyes of appreciation or listening with ears of appreciation or speaking with the voice of appreciation. And so a nice visual can be, if you imagine you have a pair of glasses on or a, got some goggles or some lenses that filter specific that they make you, I see in a certain way, they could be tinted Rose or they could be tinted dark or whatever it is. But these ones that most of us are wearing are tinted to have us focus on the flaws to fix and things to judge. And like you said, like we started out ways to criticize ourselves and that’s, it’s a groove. It is a way that I think our mind like to try to keep us safe and organize reality. But if we just go, that is one set of glasses or lenses, and if I put them down and I pick up another pair consciously, and these ones, the information that they helped me see, they sort for, what I can appreciate and appreciate is I feel like there’s a neutral way to appreciate and a positive way to appreciate.

LiYana Silver (23:00):

And if you can, you can start just with something that’s pretty low stake, right? Like probably don’t have a ton of judgment on your water bottle. Just like, can I just appreciate that it is, and this color and this shape and the way that the light is on it, I’m not looking at the dent at like the flaw to find, I’m just looking at it with neutral. Let me understand this essence of this thing before me, I’m gonna look at it with sort of neutral appreciation or I have positive appreciation, which is like, wow, there’s this cool? How look, you know, that’s where I dropped it when I was dancing with my son. And actually this is my son’s water bottle. It’s his favorite color yellow, but he went on to a different one. So I inherited one. And so then we practice with things in our world that are low stakes.

LiYana Silver (23:54):

Hmm. Then we go find a low stakes part of our body go to the area that you have the most self criticism about, but we just try it. You know, let’s just say your forearm is neutral. Just trying to practicing what is here that I can appreciate what is already good. What is already right? Just as it is, How can I look at this the way grace, looks at it looks at this, appreciating this amazing thing. And then we go on, let me go on. When you start to start to feel like you’re getting your brown belt and then your black belt, and then you go on and you look at your thighs or you look at your belly or you look at your neck or you look at your lips or whatever the thing it is. And just really with the, as soon as you feel like those other lenses are creeping back on you to just be like, hold up, hold up, sweetheart.

LiYana Silver (24:49):

Let’s just try. Let’s just see what possibly, what can I appreciate about this part of myself? And I feel like that’s a, a good, basic practice. It’s a good, basic practice. Couldn’t tell you on a hormonal or chemical or scientific level, but we all know what it feels like, whether you’re just in the space of criticism versus in a space of appreciation, we know that that feels better in our bodies and minds. So the, I love the word appreciate too, because what we appreciate, appreciate, appreciate means to rise in value. So if we have this practice of looking and listening and speaking with eyes of appreciation, what we’re looking at and listening to increases in value, we become more valuable to ourselves. So that is the basic one .

Amanda Testa (25:43):

I love that. And I think it sounds know, I love that visual too. Like literally pretend you’re putting on the glasses, right. And starting with something neutral, like your water bottle. I love that because I think so quickly we are just drawn to like my eyes going to be drawn to what I want to feel bad about or whatnot. So it’s like just shifting that. And I know, you know, it’s definitely a practice, but I can tell over time it definitely works. You know, it definitely works. Cause I even look at myself now and it was funny because I was, I was laying down and I had like my leg kind of bent towards my body. And so like this part of my thigh was like all squished up and I took a picture of it and I was like, you know what I have, because for me it was a huge moment because I remember years ago taking a similar picture in digust and wanting to like cut it off.

LiYana Silver (26:30):

And now it’s like, I appreciate this. And this is a huge moment to realize, like, I can look at this and feel like, yeah, they’re silent and stretch marks and it’s perfect. I mean, it’s not bothering me at all. It’s just what is, and that is a huge, I think a huge thing. I mean, it seems like it’s pretty, maybe in the big picture, it’s a teeny thing, but for me personally, it’s a big thing to notice that because I don’t think about it anymore. Like every day used to be a battle about what I look like and this, that, and the other now it’s like, I don’t even think about it. Right, right, right.

LiYana Silver (27:02):

And that essence of acceptance is a funny word because somehow it’s like deserving, deserving an acceptance. I don’t know. I have a little issue with the words. Right. Right. Kind of has in it. Some nonacceptance like, I really don’t accept, but I’m going to try. And so, all right. But I still feel with what you just said, this like, this is me and this is good, full stop. And that to just be around that is life giving and it’s infectious and I’m so glad for your daughter to be around that. You know, even if it’s not all the time and it’s not to the degree you want, but you know, still congratulations yet. But I think, you know, in the Feminine Genius part, like that’s a huge part of the journey because I think it’s like doing, having that understanding of the power of our bodies and the pleasure we’re capable of and you know, really learning to love the parts of us. We’ve been taught to be the most shame about like our sexuality and our sexual organs and just really learning the capacity that we have literally at our fingertips.

Amanda Testa (28:03):

I know we talked about us a little bit last time, but to me, I think that is what, when you realize all the amazing things your body can do, it makes you more, just an audit. Yes. Yes.

LiYana Silver (28:14):

And these are tricky areas because I mean, there is little more, very little in the world. That’s more powerful than a like sexual woman. Women’s sexuality is maybe the most potent force there is. And so what’s the line between where we are so aware of that we’re using it for manipulation or a way to prove our value to ourselves and where we actually just recognize it. If it’s for whom, for what, and for whom, right. We need to understand that yes, this is very powerful stuff. And what is my, who, who is it ultimately for? And that I think is really important.

Amanda Testa (28:59):

So this is the beauty of, you know, managing all the things from home. My little daughter’s upstairs, lots of fans. I want to know noise appearance. I want to see your she’s upstairs or something. So I think that’s wonderful, but yes. So I lost my train of thought for a second there. Oh gosh. Where were we?

LiYana Silver (29:22):

Oh, women’s sexuality. Yes. Yes. Well, I do think that there are so many ways we are blind we’re shamed and blinded to what a, what an incredible, what an incredible creature we are. We’re sort of, we have little blinders on, which is like, you know, just make sure you look a certain way. And then we don’t ever get taught that about our power, our sexuality, our, our reproductive organs, depending on what, you know, however many of those we have at the moment. So sometimes it’s just, sometimes it’s purposeful for don’t, you know, we were purposefully not taught about ourselves and sometimes we’re just so ashamed to even go there. And yet, and I think this is one of the reasons, The big reasons I wrote the book is, Is the reflection I get. So I know it’s working is I kind of knew somewhere that, that I was magnificent and you’ve kind of just given me a map back to that. And so I’m really grateful, grateful that it, that it’s working.

Amanda Testa (30:31):

And I, I mean, it’s so true because I see it as well. It’s like such a, an awakening of sorts for women to reconnect to that. And you just see it in the way they look and just this glow in them. And just the confidence, I think, you know, it’s the empowerment piece, but there’s so many, there’s so many layers to it.

LiYana Silver (30:50):

Exactly. You know, and Feminine Genius has a way of the words, you know, they, you get sort of feel what they mean, even not really knowing what they mean. And so I like to say that Feminine Genius is a kind of an energy, right. Or it’s a mixture of strengths that we have been taught are weak, but there’s a, there’s a, there’s a, an idea that anything to do with feminine is weak or unreliable or crazy or stupid. And the idea is like, no, actually it’s genius that there’s this mix of strengths, intuitive, sensual, collaborative feeling strengths that are very not trusted in the world. So we learned to not trust them in ourselves. And it is these very things that have a kind of life force, energy and intelligence about them that really do. They just bring us back to our cells and they really guide our lives in a, in a very true and powerful way

Amanda Testa (31:55):

That it’s like the original blueprint or essence of us that is knows what it needs to thrive. Right. It knows what it needs. And you just can, I think a lot of times it’s just like peeling away, all the things that’s keeping it from blooming up and budding out, right? Yes, yes,

LiYana Silver (32:13):

Yes. I think there’s some learning, but I think you’re mostly that you’re right. That it’s mostly an, an unpeeling or a sloughing off of, like we said before, these voices are really not mine. They’re not true to me. And I’ll just a discarding to reveal what is this original blueprint?

Amanda Testa (32:32):

That’s beautiful. So you tell me, so I know that you have your new book that you’re working on. When are you hoping that’s to come out? Do you have any, I know deadlines and timelines, everything is all up in the air now, especially with, okay. I’m just curious.

LiYana Silver (32:47):

So let me not get ahead of myself. So right now I just worked on getting the audio book ready for Feminine Genius. And it was a little confusing to me because at the same time, along with homeschooling my kid and all the other things I am, I’m just working on the foundational material for book number two. And what it does is it takes One of the sections of Feminine Genius. Yeah. Called navigating your dark and expands that into a book I have. So in the nonfiction world, if you want to get a book published with a publisher, you write what’s called a book proposal, which is really long and difficult. It’s like writing a quarter of the book, third of the book. So that’s the stage I’m in research writing that book proposal.

Amanda Testa (33:30):

Well, Feminine Genius is such an excellent, excellent book. So I highly recommend if you haven’t read it, you should definitely check it out. And now you can get on the audio version coming here soon. Yes, yes. And I read it, which was really important to me, I think. And there’s something too. I think this is the thing that I do when I have a book that I love. I often read it or have it on audible because I feel like there’s a different transmission you can get. And sometimes listening to things on audible by the teacher is so powerful because you pick up that the non spoken transmission. Right.

LiYana Silver (34:05):

And I know everybody loves different mediums. When I discovered audible or audio books, I went from reading maybe two books in a year because I just don’t necessarily organize my life to sit and read. I went from reading two books a year to 50. Okay. Listening to, but that, you know, both, I get both, I get the written one and I write in all the margins. Right. Underline, and then I listened to the one. I love it when the author reads it themselves. So I’m really with you,

Amanda Testa (34:37):

Is it, as you can do it while you’re, but like you mentioned earlier, we need to find the things that we can sometimes do when we have little time. So that’s what I love about audible too. Cause you can wash the dishes or clean the house or take a walk. And before you know it, you read a book.

LiYana Silver (34:51):

So true. Yeah.

Amanda Testa (34:53):

And I think, you know, the other thing too, and I will just share this as a little tidbit that I’ve been doing for myself because especially, I know one of my, one of the things that takes me down the dark spiral is the, the dooms scrolling. They call it, you know, like being on social media too much, or, you know, I don’t really read the news, but I find myself like when I’m in one of those stages where I’m like trying to wanting to numb out or catching myself, just doing the scrolling and the scrolling. And so I’ve consciously made the choice to notice when I’m doing that and like change to something else. So listen to a book, listen to audible, have things cued up and ready. And I’m going to have like books all over my house too, to pick up. So I realized like, okay, is this really helping me?

Amanda Testa (35:35):

Is this making me feel better? And the answer is no, typically. So when I shift that, I mean, it makes such a difference. I did a little experiment the other week and I was like, all right, every time I want to pick up my phone, I’m going to pick up this book instead or listen to something. And it made such a huge difference. And I read like three books in a week. So I was like, wow, how much time am I spending? You know, just zoning out when I don’t even realize it because it’s never a long period of time. Like I never feel like I’m on my phone for a long period of time, but it’s like a few minutes here and there

LiYana Silver (36:05):

High Potency doom, high potency feel bad about yourself.

Amanda Testa (36:10):

Yes.

LiYana Silver (36:12):

I want to just highlight something though, where that you said is that I find that well, well, I’m just going to assume this about you, that there is something in you that has recalibrated to what is default your default setting that you recalibrate that my default setting is I want to feel good. I want to feel good about myself. I want to feel enlivened and with, you know, a gaze of grace on myself and the world of my family, et cetera. And that I can just tell you, and we’ve talked a little bit that that was not an accident, and you’ve been working your ass off to have that be a new normal, and then that new normal stabilizing your system. So I just want to take congratulations for that, but just really speak to, you know, that is such the journey we’re on is the, we have a default in our systems that makes it more comfortable and safe and familiar to feel like shit and to self criticize and, you know, go on the swipey spiral of down you’re talking about. And so the, the recalibration to actually feeling good and feeling good about ourselves is huge. I’m so glad you mentioned it. And I want it for everybody else too.

Amanda Testa (37:28):

I’ll make sure to share where’s the best place for them to get the audio book or when will it be available?

LiYana Silver (37:33):

Okay. Yes. You could do a Bitly link. Can we do that so we can get an audible? You would just go to audible it’s on audible. Yeah. However On, you know, it has the Autoboaudiblet link via Amazon. And honestly, I don’t know if that’s other booksellers sellers because I know audible is an Amazon company, so that’s one way. And then another way, let me just share is that I made a bonus for anybody who wants to, to get the book by audible. And the bonus is to join me in my community for a month, or we’re going to do a month of master classes. And the classes are based on the perspectives and the practices in feminine genius. Since you’ll be in there, my online community, no cost, you can stay on if you want afterwards, but it just gives us a month to really dive into the material. You don’t have to read the book already. You could be new, it doesn’t matter. So that’ll be sweet. So I’ll give you a link so people can just decide if that’s for them. And that is so I’ve tried to make it easy. Https://Bit.Ly/Fgaudiobook.

Amanda Testa (38:50):

Well, congratulations on that. I know that’s a huge project to record the whole book.

LiYana Silver (38:57):

Thank you.

Amanda Testa (39:01):

I’m curious if there’s any last words that you’d like to share if there was maybe anything that we didn’t cover that you wished you had an opportunity to touch on now.

LiYana Silver (39:09):

Yes. And you said something at the beginning. I mean, I want to say that this is a very intense time and that you said it’s very important for you to focus on what is the opportunity, you know, of the time. And I don’t know if wide sweeping systemic change is possible in our lifetimes, and yet we are noticing it’s like someone pulled back the curtain so that we can see the inner workings of the systems we are inside of. And there is an opportunity. There is an opportunity I, in fact, was just reading today, the story of Emily DOE. So she was the victim in the Brock Turner sexual assault case 2016, I think.

LiYana Silver (39:59):

And so there’s an opportunity for women to kinda, you know, get out of the cage, other the myriad of cages that we’re in to see the ways that we’re in caged and to, you know, bit by bit get ourselves out. I w I feel like there are some ways we can, we can influence structures to change, to support that, but there is an opportunity for that. We see that in the” me too” movement that was, you know, a little bit more in our faces a year or so ago. And, you know, she’s got this incredible book out. So I just think that, you know, it’s, it’s a lot to just manage daily life, but I want to say that the opportunity is very right. So I read that after the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic pandemic, that was that mirrors what we’re going through in that COVID-19 pandemic in a lot of ways. But after that, there was the Harlem Renaissance. And so I just wonder what happens when our foundations are so deeply shaken, like what part of our creativity and our being able to think differently in our age, our ability to regard ourselves differently comes online. So that’s the opportunity that I just want to invoke here.

Amanda Testa (41:25):

I love that because I think it is easy. Maybe if you see all that’s going on in the world, I’m thinking, wow, the mistakes I’ve made or how I might have been pro blinds, my privilege in this Kind of thing, but like looking at the opportunity there versus focused on feeling bad and like beating yourself up and like, great. Now, you know, let’s move forward and what can we do to make things different better? Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Yes. Well, this has been a delight. Thank you so much again, LiYana, for coming on. And for those of you who are listening, please make sure to download feminine genius. If you haven’t read it yet, I highly highly recommend it. And I’ll put again where you can connect and find more in t show notes. And thank you. Thanks for having me and what a rich conversation. Thank you. Thank you.

Amanda Testa (42:13):

Thank you so much for listening to the Find your Feminine Fire podcast. This is your host, Amanda Testa. And if you have felt a calling while listening to this podcast to take this work to a deeper level, this is your golden invitation. I invite you to reach out. You can contact me at amandatesta.com/activate, And we can have a heart to heart to discuss more about how this work can transform your life. You can also join us on Facebook and the group Find Your Feminine Fire Group. And if you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please share with your friends, go to iTunes and give me a five star rating, any raving review so I can connect with other amazing listeners like yourself. Thank you so much for being a part of the community.

Finding Your Path to Fulfillment

Something I often see in working with busy, overwhelmed women, is that often it is very hard for them to connect to what they REALLY want.  (or maybe they do, but are afraid to admit it)In this episode I’m talking with my dear friend Carrie Koh, Career Strategist, Executive Coach, and Professional Fulfillment Consultant, and TedX speaker about what it really takes to find the fulfillment we REALLY want.

Listen below, or tune in via: Apple Podcasts,Stitcher or Spotify.

In this episode you’ll discover

How to move through adversity and cultivate more resilience.The power of Radical Clarity, and how to laser in on what you really want.Finding possibility, even in the midst of problems.Moving from isolation, to connection, and why it’s so easy for women to isolate when things get hard.Elevating and celebrating your friendships. How to deal with jealousy and comparison.Healing and post traumatic growth.and much more!

In this episode we go deep around the quest for fulfillment, and why it’s so hard for us to claim what we want.  Carrie also shares her wisdom around resilience and finding the strenght to keep going after what we want, even if it feels overwhelming.Find our more about Carrie and connect with her on Linked IN HERE.

Listen to her TedX talk on The 4 Choices To Overcoming Adversity HERE.

Discover her Radical Clarity program HERE: 

Join in the discussion on this episode and more in my free Facebook Group, Find Your Feminine Fire HERE.

Listen here or tune in via Apple Podcasts,Stitcher or Spotify.

Getting The intimacy you want (a Male perspective)

In this week’s podcast, I’m bringing back my husband Mark Testa, as we talk about what men desire in relationships, and some of the common challenges I often see working with couples in long term partnerships. 

Tune in to get some insight on the male perspective, AND learn some tools to enhance the intimacy in your relationship.

Listen below, or tune in via: Apple Podcasts,Stitcher or Spotify.

In this episode you’ll discover

What men really want – besides sex. How do I get my husband on board to work on our relationship?How to open up around tender and taboo topics.Why shame affects both men and women.Why it’s important to express the full spectrum of who you are in a relationship.Why male depression is so common, and what to do about it. Why the white supremacist male patriarchal system fails women AND menand much more!

After all the great feedback about our last episode, I thought it would be fun to bring back my hubby, Mark Testa, as we dive into the male perspective of sexuality and relationships.

Listen into this episode as we discuss some of the challenges and desires that many men face.

Some of the resources we talked about in this episode:

Get the Reconnection Ritual for Couples HERE.

Find the The Mask You Live In Documentary HERE:

Join in the discussion on this episode and more in my free Facebook Group, Find Your Feminine Fire HERE.

Listen here or tune in viaApple Podcasts,Stitcher or Spotify.