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EPISODE 233: Pleasure in Movement with Mark Testa

[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!

Hello, and welcome to the podcast. If you are curious to find more ways to have more energy and even feel like you're in the mood, feel desire, today, I want to talk about finding pleasure in movement because I truly believe that pleasure is foundational in so many ways, and when we are looking at our overall holistic wellbeing, there are a lot of things that come into play when it comes to feeling good and having desire and feeling empowered in our sexuality. I love how we can actually cultivate energy from within. I love doing this with sexual energy but also just the importance of movement in general.

0:01:01

My husband and I were actually riding back from a trip away this weekend, and we were talking about this because when it comes to feeling good in our bodies, there are so many things that we can do, and a lot of the time it’s easy to do and easy not to do, right?

So, actually, I’m bringing my lovely husband, Mark Testa, on the podcast again today. Welcome, Mark.

Mark Testa: Hi, Amanda, nice to see you again.

Amanda Testa: [Laughs]

Mark Testa: [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: I’m gonna be talking about finding pleasure in movement because we were talking about this yesterday and just how much better you can feel with minimal -- it doesn't have to be things that are overwhelming, but let’s just chat for a minute about this, Mark, because I know we had such a good discussion in the car yesterday, and I was like this would make such a good episode.

So tell me. Why are you passionate about this topic?

Mark Testa: Well, really, I mean, we have this vessel (our body) that, you know, we want to get pleasure out of, but if it’s not healthy, if you're sick, if you can’t move, if you have aches and pains, there’s not much pleasure associated with that.

0:02:08

There are ways to get our vessel (our body) healthier. We were talking about this yesterday. I think the number one thing that most people don't want to do, and (you know, I’ve taken care of patients for 30 years) most people don't do that is the main needle that will move everything else is exercise. Like you said, it’s easy to do, it’s easy not to do, and I’m not talking about doing a triathlon or a marathon or spending hours a day in the gym. I’m just talking about very simple, basic things. I don't want to sound like the profit of doom, but I think it’s important to talk about why this is so important for our physical health, our vessel, for it to be healthy. I’m gonna start with some stats.

0:03:06

I know we talk a lot about nutrition and supplements and which diet’s right for us, but this exercise reduces all-cause mortality by 50%. Anything that can kill you, short of a trauma, this will reduce by 50%. No diet has ever shown that. No supplement has ever shown that. So, to me, if you're gonna start somewhere, we just start by moving our body.

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm, and I think what’s so interesting, too, is ‘cause I feel like so often people just want an easy button. They want a pill or something that’s easy, and, honestly, there are ways to do things that can add up to be a lot of things in easy ways, but there is no magic pill, right? There’s no magical way to get your desire back or there’s no -- even Viagra. That serves a purpose, but there’s also downsides to it. I’m just saying because we have to look at our whole selves.

0:04:04

The reason why I want to talk about movement is because, not only is it so powerful in just keeping you healthy, but also as we look at being overwhelmed, one of the main issues I see with clients and a lot of the research out there around why women have so much trouble around desire and sexuality, there are numerous parts to it, but one is overwhelm. One is just being burned out, and I love how, actually, Emily Nagoski and her sister address this in their book, Burnout. But the beautiful thing about even just 20 minutes of exercise is it gives your body that feeling of completing a stress cycle because it’s like you're trying to escape from the lion. Granted, we aren’t in a world where we’re being chased by lions, but our biology still thinks that we are, often, and so, when we have a lot of stress, we can feel like that, right? And so, when you give your body an experience like it has survived, it outran the lion, that can really help reduce your overall stress. There are numerous ways to do that (which I’ll talk about in a minute) that can be really easy.

0:05:07

But I’m curious, Mark, when it comes to some of those other health benefits, what were you going to share around that?

Mark Testa: Well, I was gonna start somewhere else, but let me just start where you talked about stress. So exercise definitely has been studied to reduce stress through the autonomic nervous system and improve the vagal tone (the vagus nerve) which a lot of people talk about. You can do it with breathing exercises and maybe exercise, because it stimulates breath, stimulates and improves vagal tone, and if you wear an Apple watch or you wear an Ōura ring or you wear a WHOOP, you can measure that through your heart rate variability. I mean, it’s a measurable metric.

But I think, equally as important, exercise addresses the leading cause of death in America which is cardiovascular disease. Again, better than diet, better than supplements, and women catch up to men in cardiovascular disease after menopause, and so, it is the leading cause of death.

0:06:09

So if we can start to exercise (again, 20 minutes a day) it really makes an impact on that. We’re starting to see arrhythmias like A-fib or ventricular fibrillations start to increase, too, in America. This has a really bad downstream effect of causing strokes. And so, exercise can really address the strength of the heart through getting it to work. It is a muscle.

Then, when you talk about Viagra or you talk about -- what’s the female libido?

Amanda Testa: Well, it’s called Addyi, but actually it’s not -- I had a Urogynecologist on talking about that drug, and it actually has not had a lot of positive reviews. Mostly, it has a lot of bad side effects and there’s a lot of contraindications. So it’s something to be very wary of. Again, if you want an easy pill, that might be a placebo which if that helps, great, but there are also a lot of downsides to that so I don't recommend that medication at all.

0:07:09

Mark Testa: But exercise, then, will increase nitric oxide flow which is what Viagra does. You cannot short-circuit the brain to get the result. There is no easy button, whether it’s male genitals or female genitals, you want blood flow.

Amanda Testa: Right, or non-binary, gender-expansive humans, however you want to refer to your genitals, I want to respect and name that too. But, honestly, there are so many things at play, often, with these kind of sexual, quote unquote, “dysfunctions,” and there are things -- sometimes you do have a medical need for something, and that is understandable, but oftentimes, there’s a lot of emotional things behind it, there are a lot of layers to it, and so, that’s why when we approach anything we’ve got to look at the whole body. I think one of the reasons I want to talk about exercise as foundation is because even just, like I was saying, making it easy, I would like to talk a little bit about finding pleasure in movement because, I know for myself, I was an athlete for many years.

0:08:06

I did triathlons. I ran long distances. I did a lot of things that I really enjoyed at the time, and, honestly, I feel like there is a fine line there, right? I also struggled with eating disorders and so many body image issues for so many years, and I feel like one of the things that got me over that was to have a different mindset around how I viewed what I take in, what I do, and it’s from a place of being aware and noticing what feels good versus berating myself and beating myself up. I want to name this because I think a lot of time with exercise, I know for myself, I used to be someone who would be like, “Oh, well, I ate a bag of chips, so now I’m bad, and I’m just gonna eat crappy all day, and I’m just gonna go down this rabbit hole, and, oh, I better work out and beat myself up,” and I did it as a punishment versus as something that felt good. I just want to name that because I feel like it’s one of those things where if we approach it from a pleasure-based mindset, it can be so much different.

0:09:10

Like, what are the ways that you enjoy moving? What are the ways that feel good? How can you bring in pleasure to your whole experience? I’ll talk more about that in a minute, but I know Mark has got something to say because he’s over here excited to share.

Mark Testa: [Laughs] No, you know, again, back to some of the physical things, too. I mean, I say these to help incentivize, mostly, people’s health, right? Diabetes is another thing that can easily be addressed. It’s not gonna reverse it, but, you know, when we exercise, it redistributes our body composition, right? You may lose weight. You may lose belly fat. These are things that are involved in diabetes and fatty liver (which is now almost an epidemic in America), and so, again, just more reasons to start moving.

0:10:01

Again, easy things which we’ll talk about here in a second. As we all age, we lose muscle. It happens after 40 years old. People start to lose muscle, and what does it get converted to? It doesn't even get converted. It gets replaced by fat.

And so, for men, fat breaks down into estrogen, and so, if there’s a loss of libido after midlife in males, it could be related to excess fat (belly fat, in particular). Fat is inflammatory. Inflammation, we know, feeds diabetes, dementia, cardiovascular disease, and arthritis. So if there’s pain in the body, it could be overstimulated in ways that are modifiable by our behavior, but also the last point about losing muscle, if we fall (especially after 65) and break a limb (usually it’s the hip or the femur), there’s a 50% mortality in the first year.

0:11:12

So that means the chances of someone dying after a hip fracture in the first year is 50%. Not to mention, how poor the quality of life will become, generally, for the people who survive that first year.

So movement like this is far-reaching into our health, but when we talk about it around pleasure, it’s, again, our body. We want to be able to use our body for pleasurable things, whether that’s in relationship with our partners or enjoying our environment or enjoying the people who we love being around (children, grandchildren) or traveling. You know, in my career, I saw so many people who were gonna wait until they retire to do something and then couldn't do it because they had pain, and so, their life went from work to the ability to excess zero pleasure after they retired. We want to access things now because we don't ever know what we’re gonna have later.

0:12:16

Amanda Testa: Right. I mean, and the reason, again, why I am talking about this is because I feel like it’s such -- when I think about the foundations that we need for thriving, right, there are a lot of base-level things. A lot of times I work with women who are so overwhelmed and tired that they really have a hard time finding what feels good, finding ways to find pleasure, and so little things that we can tweak into our daily routines -- I love talking about the groundskeeper archetype. You know I talk about this a lot with weeding and watering, adding in what is good, and taking away what’s not, and I think by just adding in more pleasurable movement in a day, that can feel good. And so, what are some ways you can do that?

Honestly, I love making things easy so when I think about making moving my body feel pleasurable, what are the things that feel good to me, and listening and turning into what that is day by day.

0:13:07

I think I learned this a lot through my own self-pleasure practice, honestly, because it’s like listening and tuning into what you need each day, in all the ways, right? So when I broke my ankle last year (it’s been like a year now, and I’m finally feeling better) I couldn't do a lot of movement, and so, that was really hard, I noticed, because, for me, I kind of went into a depression after that. Finding new ways to move -- obviously, based on your ability there are modifications that you can make. And so, I still modify, but what I like is ease, right? That’s one of the things I like is ease. So I just workout at home. I used to be a personal trainer so I’ve got all of the accoutrements. Even just like an inexpensive resistance band you can get a lot out of.

And so, I love just getting up and rolling downstairs in my PJs and working out. Half the time, Mark will poke in laughing ‘cause I’m in my nightgown, like, I don't even have a jogger on, whatever. I just do it.

0:14:02

The zero barrier to entry for me is enjoyable. I know some people love going to the gym or have a workout class or whatever it is that they love - the community aspect of that. I used to love when I used to run and (again, that’s one of the things is listening to your body) my body doesn't like that anymore. I love to run but my body does not. It hurts, and, at this age, I just have to honor what my body’s telling me, and so, even then just finding that community. I used to meet up with these running groups and all this and that, and it was so fun because I feel like that’s one of the things that we often -- I think a lot of the mindset I see out there is punishment, right? It’s a punishing thing. Even when we go to certain workout classes, and they’re yelling, and they're like, “Come on! You can do this!” and yelling at you, “It hurts! Feel the pain!” I hate that so much because that, to me, is the antithesis of what I’m going for. I used to be all about that, right? I used to be an endurance athlete, so I know what it’s like to feel pain and push through it, but there’s a difference between doing it in a way that’s punishing and doing it in a way that’s loving and encouraging. So I want to talk about that for a moment, and I’m curious, Mark, your thoughts there.

0:15:09

Mark Testa: Yeah, I agree, right? Low barriers to entry so we can move our body. You know, if you're not used to exercising, get a decent pair of shoes on and you could go for a walk. Walking is definitely very beneficial for cardiovascular health, respiratory health, movement-of-your-joints health. Thirty minutes or twenty minutes if it’s too much. I have an exercise bike in the house so I get my cardio on that, generally. While I’m doing that, I am reading a blog, I am listening to a podcast,  I am catching up on some other things. So maybe it’s not the best way, but for me, that’s what I need to do. I multitask, and I find that pleasurable because people always ask me, “How do you listen to so many books?” It’s when I exercise or when I’m walking the dog when I do that, and so, that’s an easy way.

0:16:07

Then like Amanda with her ankle, we all have aches and pains. I’ve got mine, and so, I want to continue to build muscle. I don't want to lose muscle ‘cause I am over 40, and so, I still lift heavy weights, but instead of just going to the gym and lifting heavy barbells, I’ve had to modify a lot of those things and use dumbbells now, and I use a lot of machines that guide the motion so that I can restrict or limit the painful ranges that I do have but still get the benefits out of it. Again, I’m usually getting something additional out of it that is pleasurable to me like listening to a book or a podcast and doing other things while I’m working out. Then, we walk together. We walk the dog a lot. We get out into our neighborhood. We walk up to the square together and get coffee. That’s always a great thing. That’s a mile-round trip, and it serves a lot of purposes.

0:17:06

Amanda Testa: Right. I think the other thing, too, that’s fun is what are the fun things that you enjoy, right? Dancing - it can be that simple. Can you put on a song and dance to it? Can you go outside and feel the sun on your skin or the elements, whatever they may be? I love when it’s snowing or if it’s raining and I’m out with the dog because no one’s out, and I love that so much. It’s like the quiet that comes with that, and so, for me, being in nature is a big resource for me. It’s something that rejuvenates me. So I love going hiking or just even walking in the woods or even if we have some kind of issue where we can’t, even just going and sitting in nature and letting that be good. Even just squeezing all the muscles in your body and holding it really tight for 20 seconds. Squeezing every muscle in your body, clenching hard, squeezing, and then [Sighs] relaxing. Even that is going to give you that effect of moving your body.

0:18:03

So there are ways that you can be creative in finding the movement, and so, I always feel like, yeah, what’s the pleasurable way? For tuning in again to what your body wants is, like, is it more gentle? Is it just yoga? Mark and I, we used to love to do Yoga with Adriene on YouTube. It’s free, and it was, like, 25 minutes, and it was such a great thing to do especially as I started moving again after I could walk after my ankle injury and just being able to do something gentle felt so good for my body. So even if it’s just gentle stretching, it’s like really just giving your body some love I feel like, at the end of the day, is what’s so important.

Mark Testa: In coming back to your ankle, I think there’s a lot to talk about there because, you know, it did hurt you, it did impact you physically, but it impacted us as a family and as a couple ‘cause we couldn't do things together. You were laid up, literally, non-weight-bearing for six weeks. That was difficult.

0:19:00

So if our partner, our significant other has got health things that are limiting them, that really does spill over into the ecosystem of your home and your relationship. And so, this idea of finding pleasure in movement goes beyond just you as the person and more into you as the couple, you as the ecosystem of your family and things like that.

Amanda Testa: I think that’s so true because, I mean, even as we’re talking now, I think I’ve shared with you before, Mark has had some issues, and he had to have another heart procedure last week, and, thankfully, he’s doing amazing, obviously, here as we’re talking about this, but how it is really challenging when you are at the age where people are injured or have health issues and how to navigate that as a couple. It can be very common for depression to set in if someone has an injury.

0:20:00

And so, being empathetic and understanding if that is the case and always knowing you can reach out for additional support if you need. Oftentimes, you can find resources through your doctor or if you want additional support in that area then, definitely, I urge reaching out because that’s very important.

Mark Testa: You know, let me just address, real quick, depression. It reminds me of a patient I saw in the late ‘90s who would come to me for acupuncture, and it helped her depression. But it was a cost for her every time to see me, and it wasn't really getting to any root causes. It reminded me of numerous articles between the ‘90s and today that show that exercise can relieve mild to moderate depression better than medications, really, without the side effects either. With mostly upside effects. And so, when it comes to mood, again, there’s just no shortcut to changing some of that because some of these medications come with really adverse side effects that people don't want, but exercise can be a really good solution to mild to moderate depression, among other things.

0:21:13

Amanda Testa: Right? Also, I think that mental health piece, that’s why when we’re looking at our sexual function and our pleasure and our ability to enjoy that connection, there are so many aspects to it, and even if you're just doing 150 minutes a week -- isn't that what you said?

Mark Testa: That’s about it, yeah.

Amanda Testa: A hundred and fifty minutes a week of some kind of exercise can be a huge change-maker. That’s why I do 20-minute workouts ‘cause I’m like 20 minutes? I can do that. It’s easy for me because 20 minutes I know I can do.

What’s the story you had about the minute?

Mark Testa: The minute?

Amanda Testa: With your music teacher?

Mark Testa: Oh, yeah. Right, when I started playing percussion, he would tell us, “Look, go home and practice. All I want you to do is one minute a day,” and we were all very puzzled by that.

0:22:02

Like, one minute a day? How am I gonna get better with one minute a day? But what that was, was a very simple, “Well, I can do that.” But then one minute turns into five, turns into fifteen, turns into twenty, and it was like the next thing you know, because you're enjoying yourself and you didn't have any preconceived notion of, “Oh, I’ve got to crank out 30 minutes of this,” which sounds like drudgery sometimes when you're starting ‘cause you're no good at it, one minute, you could do, and it turned more and more into more and more time which also kind of leads to the next analogy.

Really, a farmer doesn't plant a seed and expect to see it crop the next day, so, again, this also takes time to develop, but I bet most people will see a benefit to exercising within seven days (really quickly). You know, you’re not gonna see a change in your body composition, but you're gonna notice, “Hey, maybe I’m sleeping better. Maybe it’s easier for me to move my body. I’m getting up with less morning stiffness.”

0:23:08

And then there’s the whole idea (similar to the drumming) of momentum, right? So once you do it three times a week or four times a week, now, all of a sudden, you've got momentum behind it, that sort of flywheel approach where now it’s going, and it’s really easy to do. You’ve built it into your routine, and you just show up every day and the next thing you know you’ve enjoyed it, you feel good, you're seeing the benefits, and it’s easy to continue to do.

Amanda Testa: Yes, I think finding that momentum around feeling good, it does spread out. Like Mark said, even just after a couple weeks you’ll notice you feel better, and I notice for me, I can tell you I go through periods when I really, really have a good ritual and routine around moving my body and other times where it’s harder. And so, when I get back into the regular rhythm of moving my body in ways that feel good, I do notice I have more energy and I do notice I feel better, and, honestly, there’s a lot of benefit to how you show up in the bedroom, right?

0:24:17

Often, when we have better cardiovascular health and mood there’s a more positive body image. I’m not talking about trying to force yourself into some, as Audre Lorde says, the -- oh, my gosh, I’m having a mental block right now because we just spilled chocolate on the floor, and I’m like, “It’s staining the rug!” These are the things my mind thinks about. Side note.

Yes, so back to the topic at hand. Oh, yes, The Mythical Norm, and just how much pain and misery that causes people to try to look like some unrealistic norm. Thank goodness that’s changing a little bit where there’s more diversity in the images you see in magazines and here, that, and the other.

0:25:01

I, personally, really highly recommend diversifying your feed, diversifying what you take in, looking at lots of different bodies and sexual orientations, and ways people are together so that you can open your mind to what is normal because what we have been conditioned to be normal is not, right? it’s very not normal, and so, I see so many women that struggle with body image and, because of that, don't want to have sex or don't want to be seen naked and just how much it causes pain and suffering and how we can really change that. We can change that.

And so, when you feel better, then, you know, you want to be intimate, and also, it makes it more comfortable to move your body into different positions, right? Sex is a physical act, let’s be honest, and when you're in pain, you can always find ways to adjust things and modify things so, again, if you need help in those areas you can always reach out. But how fun it can be to have more energy and when you have more energy, it creates more energy. I know that cultivating your sexual energy is another thing I talk about a lot because it is part of our overall wellbeing, right? If we have a lot of stagnancy, a lot of things that aren’t moving, then it’s harder to connect to that energy in us.

0:26:16

Mark Testa: And so, not that I’m a physics wiz, I just remember this from physics class. One of the laws of thermodynamics is that energy can neither be created or destroyed. It just can be transferred, and so, you can transfer energy into your body with drugs and stimulants, but that has a short-lived life cycle. You can transfer energy from movement and food and, now, all of a sudden, you have more energy. So when it comes to what you just said, I think you can cultivate it by transferring it from one region to another.

0:27:00

Amanda Testa: That is true. I mean, and actually I was just looking at a study on physiological sexual arousal following acute exercise, and there’s some that it pointed out like it’s driven by increases in sympathetic nervous system activity and endocrine factors. Chronic exercise lightly enhances sexual satisfaction indirectly by preserving autonomic flexibility which benefits cardiovascular health and mood. Positive body image due to chronic exercise also increases sexual wellbeing. I think that’s interesting to note because, a lot of times, what happens with arousal is we have to also be able to hold, not only -- our nervous system needs to function in a way where we’re not constantly in either a sympathetic or a parasympathetic tone. It bounces back and forth all the time, and that’s normal, right? We want to be in that range of resilience which is where we can easily ride the waves of our lives without falling into extreme overwhelm or depression and shutdown, and so, when we exercise, too, it enhances our capacity for arousal which means, again, we can hold more of that good feeling, too.

0:28:12

Mark Testa: Which I’m snickering over here remembering my anatomy class. We always used little stories to remember things, but parasympathetic in the sacrum, right, which affects men and women, but we remembered is, “S234 keeps the dingdong off the floor.” [Laughs] We had all kinds of silly things like that.

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Mark Testa: Right? A male cannot have an erection or stimulation in any general region (male, female, or nonbinary) without some sort of parasympathetic tone which we already learned earlier that exercise stimulates the vagus nerve in ways like that. And so, to get parasympathetic-tone healthy, there are beautiful effects on that.

0:29:03

Amanda Testa: Yes, and so, all this to say is I really feel like what are the foundations that you could look at to make some easy changes because there are easy things to do so maybe looking at what are the easy things if I’m going through my day and I’m thinking what needs to be weeded and watered? Where could I add in more movement that feels good? Where could I add in more care for myself in a loving way? Again, I think that’s the big key is looking at it in a way that can add more pleasure to your life versus this is something I have to do, this is something that’s annoying, this is something that’s painful, this is something that I don't enjoy. It’s finding a way to make it enjoyable and pleasurable because there are ways to do that. If you need help in that area, obviously, you know that we’re available and we’re here for you. But I would just encourage you to maybe look at those things. What are some ways that I can easily find some more movement? Maybe if it’s even just like I’m sitting all day (which we all are in this epidemic of sitting all day in this day and age) is how can I make little reminders to myself like I’m gonna do some full body squeezes.

0:30:04

I’m gonna squeeze my butt as hard as I can. Maybe I’m going to just have some things at my desk that I can just remind myself with. Maybe every hour I’m gonna stretch, I’m gonna get up. Maybe I’m gonna invest in a standing desk, all of these things. How can I be more loving to my vessel that is so important to enjoy pleasure in all the ways. Like Mark said, it’s not just sex in the bedroom; it’s how can I enjoy my life and be present to the things around me with less pain, with less overwhelm?

So that’s why I wanted to share that today, and thank you, Mark, for all your wisdom in this area.

Mark Testa: Thank you for having me on your show.

Amanda Testa: [Laughs]

Mark Testa: I always enjoy it, and if anyone would like to reach out to me, I’ll offer it as well. If you’d like some exercise ideas or feedback, reach out to Amanda, and I’d be glad to give you any support I can.

Amanda Testa: Mark’s been in healthcare for 25+ years so he knows a thing or two which is what I always love when we talk about these things ‘cause we both get very passionate and fired up.

0:31:04

I, around doing things in a trauma-informed way and doing things in a way that is realistic and pleasurable and he, too, right, because he treats patients all the time, and he’s like, you know, people don't implement. Oftentimes, it’s because of the mindset that we’ve learned around all-or-nothing thinking, right? It’s either all or nothing. I’m good or bad. I see that so much. I see it so much. We have to realize that we can have multiple things happening at the same time, right? You can eat a bag of cookies and still be a good person. You can eat a bag of cookies and still love yourself. You don't have to beat yourself up, and we do. We shame the shit out of ourselves, and there are ways that you can evolve beyond that. You know what, it’s because of, unfortunately, our conditioning, right? We are just in this culture that we’re in, and so, it’s understandable that we would treat this all ourselves the way that we do, but there are techniques and there are methods to move through that, and I do feel like a lot of times, when I’m working with people around their sexuality, body image is a big part of it.

0:32:09

So this is a lot of what I talk about. Oftentimes, too, I think I mentioned before I was a personal trainer and I taught Stroller Strides (workouts for moms) for a long time, and that’s kind of one of the things that got me into this work around sexuality is because I would hear all of the complaints and all the struggles that moms face, and so, I get it. I also, too, lived that myself, and so, I know what you can do to feel better, and so, that’s why I like to also look at all the different holistic ways we can have more pleasure as a foundation in our lives.

I appreciate you listening, and I would love to hear any nuggets that you’re taking away. Again, thinking about what can I do to make this experience a little more pleasurable, whatever that is. All right? Sending you lots of love, and we will see you next week.

[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.

0:33:11

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 raving review so I can connect with other amazing listeners like yourself.

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

[Fun, Empowering Music]

JOIN IN THE DISCUSSION ON THIS EPISODE AND MORE IN MY FREE FACEBOOK GROUP, FIND YOUR FEMININE FIRE HERE.

Sasha Ostara is a Mexican multicultural woman, she's a Somatic Feminist,
Somatic Trauma Healer and Pleasure Coach Specializing in Female Sexuality, and Jade Egg.
She believes Vulva Love is a Feminist revolution, and pleasure as medicine and liberation.

Important links

               Follow Sasha on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sasha_ostara/

• • Feeling Safe In Your Body: https://www.sasha-ostara.com/safebody

  • Work with Sasha in her one-on-one coaching program, Unbroken: https://www.sasha-ostara.com/unbrokencoaching

  •   Work with Sasha in her group program, Untamed: https://www.sasha-ostara.com/untamed

  
  
  
  

Have a topic or question you'd like Amanda to address on a future episode? Submit it on this anonymous form.

If you liked this episode, please consider giving me a 5 Star Review on Apple Podcasts! It truly does help the podcast grow. 

EPISODE 232: Sasha Ostara

[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!

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the podcast. Today, I am so thrilled and honored to be welcoming an amazing guest. We are going to be diving into somatic feminism. We are going to be diving into honoring our bodies and our vulvas as a way of connecting to our power and really using this to decolonize ourselves from the systems of oppression. I am so, so thrilled to welcome the incredible Sasha Ostara. Welcome, Sasha. She is a Somatic Feminist, and I love this term that she coined. We’re gonna talk more about that. She’s a Mexican-Lebanese multicultural mother. She’s a witch, a goddess, an amazing human, a powerful, powerful space holder, and I just am so thrilled to be talking with you today. Thank you so much for being here, Sasha.

0:01:09

Sasha Ostara: I’m so honored for this invitation. Thank you so much for allowing me the chance to be here with you, with your audience, and just to share this space with you. It means so much to me.

Amanda Testa: Yes, yes. Well, I’m so excited to share more about you and your wisdom because I really feel like -- we were just talking about this before we started recording because we got to spend time together a few months ago in Costa Rica where we were space holding for our retreat and just talking about how when we can get together in those types of spaces, it really just brings out the best in us. It brings out that empowerment, the support (feeling that support), and, in this day and age, oftentimes, we are very siloed in a way because we’re still recovering from COVID, and just with the way it is, is we don't have that in person connection as much so it feels really good to be remembering that and also to connect energetically with you over the waves of the Zoom land. [Laughs]

0:02:05

Sasha Ostara: Yes, it’s so amazing how when, particularly, people that have been working on their own embodiment, their healing, these powerful witches get together, magic happens, and it’s exponential healing and an exponential empowering experience. I feel like that’s maybe my favorite part of sharing space with other powerful witches. It just feels like we grow exponentially in a couple of weeks.

Amanda Testa: It’s so true, and because we don't -- I feel like, we need more spaces like that where we can be celebrated and encouraged in that way versus most of our cultural experiences that are the exact opposite where we are not able to fully express that.

Sasha Ostara: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: So it’s so important, Yeah.

Sasha Ostara: And to be nourished. I feel like it’s just the same with sharing this, it’s like maybe the thing that makes magic be so evident is the fact that we get to be nourished by one another instead of being the sole providers of nourishment in our communities, in our environments.

0:03:15

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Sasha Ostara: It’s just usually the role that so many people with pussies crave.

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Sasha Ostara: So many women just start becoming the immediate nourisher of our environments, our families. It’s so exhausting to be dealing with our kids, our husbands, our mothers, our families and friends. We need the spaces to just sit and receive. Oddly enough, we are also giving, but it’s such an energy exchange that it feels nourishing at the end of the day.

Amanda Testa: Yes, and for everyone out there listening, I’ll just invite you to try that on even for just now. How about you just sit back and relax and receive and let yourself be nourished through Sasha’s wisdom and our conversation.

0:04:03

Sasha Ostara: Yeah. Yeah, we all need a little bit more of receiving. We are so used to just giving. Let’s just receive for a change.

Amanda Testa: Yes, yes to receiving. I’m wondering, too, because I know all of our stories are a very long web, but I’m wondering if maybe there’s one aspect that you might want to share about, really, what led you into your passion for this work.

Sasha Ostara: Ooh, that’s such a fascinating story because what led me to this work was that I needed it to survive because I was just about to give up on my dreams, my hopes, not my life, of course, but there was, at some point, a sense of “there’s nothing else for me. I guess, this was it. I guess this is as far as I will ever get in life.” I just felt that gloomy energy growing everyday in my life.

0:05:04

I had lost my joy, my humor, my desires, my ambition, my vision. I was feeling really lost in my own little world journey, and the thing with the journey into the underworld is that we risk hanging there for so long that we forget that we can actually start climbing back up.

So I was in that moment in which I was hanging in the underworld for too long, and I was just starting to give up and feeling like there was nothing else for me, and then my grandmother died. She was like my mom. She’s the person that raised me and is closest to me. When she died, I was hit by this force, by this arch of leaving, of thinking, okay, I don’t want to get to that point in my life and think that I didn't do anything with my life, that I just raised my kids and then was left empty with my emptiness and emptiness as well.

0:06:15

So I was pushed towards looking for more. That search led me back to my body. I had been looking for that in mythology, in meditation, in spiritual practices, but the one place I hadn’t looked for it was in my own body, in my own pleasure, and when that moment happened, in which I was just about to give up, about to just let life happen to me without really trying to make anything out of it, it was like a force inside of me woke up and said, “I’m not giving up on you. We need to make something with our lives. We need to experience pleasure again.”

0:07:04

For me, it was really an energy of Aphrodite. I usually share that it was Aphrodite, who I felt that had died, but then she came back and said, “Oh, no, I’m not dying. [Laughs] I’m reclaiming you. I am taking you back, and we are living life at our fullest.”

Amanda Testa: That is so powerful, and that you were able to listen to that call.

Sasha Ostara: Ah.

Amanda Testa: Which is not an easy thing to do either, right?

Sasha Ostara: Yeah, I am so grateful that I had the chance to listen. I am grateful for my grandmother because I feel like that was her biggest farewell gift, and, for me, she had to give me that because she was the woman that lived fully until she gave up on her pleasure. So it’s like healing that trauma.

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Sasha Ostara: I have always focused on healing my family trauma, but I didn’t realize that that was a piece that needed healing as well, the piece of reclaiming my Aphrodite, my pleasure, my desire to live fully.

0:08:08

Amanda Testa: Ah, I love that so much. I’m wondering, too -- you know, I love how you mentioned you had searched everywhere for your own body. I’m wondering how you came upon that. What was the invitation into exploring that?

Sasha Ostara: Hmm, so I found that -- I had a spontaneous Kundalini awakening during a meditation. I could go on long, long meditations. At some point, I started meditating three or four hours a day, and my spirituality, up to that moment, was a spirituality of detachment from the body.

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm, yes.

Sasha Ostara: It was about leaving my body and moving to the higher spheres of consciousness. Then, I had this experience in which I felt my body pull me back, pull this consciousness back, and I started having waves of orgasms. It was like what’s going on? Is the universe having sex with me? What is happening? [Laughs]

0:09:14

Amanda Testa: [Laughs]

Sasha Ostara: I was having orgasm after orgasm in ways that I hadn’t experienced before. I feel like that was the moment in which something shifted when it came to connecting to my body because I realized that this energy was craving for something more. It was literally the Kundalini asking for experiencing more for experiencing more like this. After that, things started to shift and change, and I heard from Layla Martin, and I heard from -- I started flirting around with a friend that I had talked to many years ago. Just having that conversation, it was like I started to feel alive again, and that started showing in many different areas, and one thing led to another which was finding my picture that allowed me to connect to pussy again, to connect to her power again.

0:10:13

What started as a search for more orgasms, like the one I had just experienced, ended up becoming a search for myself, for my deepest power.

Amanda Testa: Yes. Mm, I love that so much. I love the term that you coined - The Somatic Feminist. So I’d love if you might share a little bit more about what that means for the listeners.

Sasha Ostara: Yeah, so, precisely, in that journey (in the journey of finding my pleasure) I found that there was an internalized sexism that I didn't realize I had. There was a sense of an urge of giving my power away to my partner or to whoever might take it. I realized that the whole experience of many of the people I was surrounded by was similar.

0:11:05

There was a desire to become the perfect concubine, to please the partner, to be sexy and desirable. At the end of the day, it was not what my soul was craving. My soul was craving for something deeper, and I started exploring the wound that was lying underneath that desire. I found that the wound was one of misogyny. How, after all, cultures of oppression have caused the deep harm regarding how people (specifically people with pussies) have embraced our sexuality for a long time, how we kept learning that our sexuality belongs to somebody else, how we are sexual to please somebody else. That has been something that I literally heard from some of my earliest clients. 

0:12:05

They would tell me things like, “I feel guilty about self-pleasuring because I feel like I am cheating on my partner.” There is even a phrase in Mexico that says that women are produce for gentlemen. So I have a client telling me, “This is what they used to say in my family,” and then I heard it somewhere else, and I said, whoa, this is precisely the wound that so many of us have been carrying about our sexuality. It’s a wound of having had our sexuality and our pleasure being taken away from us and used to pleasure others, to get other people to be nourished by this powerful source of energy, and then we are left empty, tired, and feeling like giving up like I was these years ago.

0:13:00

So I discovered that it was a struggle that didn't start with me. It’s a struggle that so many other women have studied about, worked on, and I recognize that it is a path that is deeply connected to both the body (our somatic experience, how we live these experiences in our body) and feminism as a fight for justice and equality and for bringing a sense of understanding of how to find freedom from the systems of oppression through our pleasure, through (like Audre Lorde said) our erotic nature, our erotic force. So it was this recognition of those giants on which shoulders we are standing - their fights, their achievements, and to continue that lineage. I was always craving for a lineage.

0:14:01

When I was very young, I joined the sanctuary. I was craving for a lineage, and now I found that lineage is the lineage of those thinkers and revolutionaries that have been craving to bring equality and justice to, not just women, but to everybody because I believe in the kind of feminism that integrates everybody (that integrates people of color, that integrates people with different gender expressions, and people of different social statuses). So, for me, that is the lineage that I am to follow.

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm, and I just want to hold a minute for that reverence. Yes. Ah, so good, and so important to recognize. I think, like you mentioned, too, it can feel so big but yet there’s so much we can do, right? And so, when it comes to that, it’s like when I am kind of reclaiming my pleasure and using it as a way to take back freedom, how do I go about that, right? If someone’s listening and is like, “That sounds amazing! I want that! What can I do?”

0:15:15

Sasha Ostara: [Laughs] Yeah! Yeah, that sounds magnificent, but, yeah, then, the implementation of that is what takes the work and understanding.

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Sasha Ostara: The good news is that it’s actually very specific. The thing with the feminist approach is that it has very specific steps that we can follow, and then we can follow the somatic and pleasure approach, and it creates magic, but one of the things that I love is that it’s simple. It’s about connecting in sisterhood or siblinghood. It’s about putting other women up and listening to those that came before us and bringing them to the front and center and saying, “Hey.”

0:16:09

Just quoting the people that inspire us that a feminist trait, recognizing the struggle and the system around us. That’s another way to do it, and that’s maybe one of the most important ones because when we recognize that we are not by ourselves, dealing with our struggles, but that it is the system that has kept us in this way for a long time, all of a sudden it’s not a personal problem. It’s not that I feel unlovable, unlikable, undesirable. It’s that it’s actually a system and understanding that this system of oppression is thriving by keeping us disempowered and small, allows us to rebel against it, to name it. Once we name it, we get to actually do something about it. We stop thinking that it’s something wrong with us, and we recognize that it has a name.

0:17:12

I was listening to a teacher that I deeply admire called Kelly Diels, and she was speaking about how, before she knew about the term mansplaining, she actually thought that there must be something wrong with her and with her way of explaining things because people didn't seem to get it, and they think that maybe she wasn’t smart enough. Maybe people were not understanding what she was saying properly so she needed to elaborate better. Then, she read from Rebecca Solnit in her book, Men Explain Things To Me, about the term mansplaining and how men have tried to explain her books to her, and she got it. She said, “Okay, it is not me. It is a system trait. It is called mansplaining, and it’s not about me or my experience. It’s about the system and how it works to keep me feeling that I am not fitting enough, that I am not smart enough.”

0:18:15

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

Sasha Ostara: So once you name it, you get to actually do something about it because it’s not about you anymore. That is deeply powerful.

Amanda Testa: Mm, you mention that, too, that sometimes it takes being in community to realize that, right?

Sasha Ostara: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: Because so often when there’s the community you're like, “Wait a minute. I thought that was just me!” and you realize, oh, wait, it is cultural. Like you were saying, it’s not a problem that’s just affecting me.

Sasha Ostara: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: And then it takes this huge weight off of, like, oh, it makes so much sense now.

Sasha Ostara: Yeah. Yeah, and it allows you to focus on other things instead of focusing on the thing that we thought was our sole experience. We get to understand how other people go through it, but, more than anything, we get to feel validated in our experience which is one of the hardest things for women to feel validated in our experience because, for a long time, we have been gaslit into thinking that whatever we are feeling must be just our hysteria and our weird way of understanding the world because who understands women, you know?

0:19:27

We get to be validated in our experience of the world, and that empowers us deeply.

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm, yes. That validation piece is just, ah, so huge. I think, too, like you say, there are things that we can do and things that we can focus on that can kind of change our experience and make a difference.

Sasha Ostara: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: Right? I’m wondering what are some of the most profound things that are coming to mind for you that have been so supportive or that you love to teach or to invite people into?

0:20:09

Sasha Ostara: For me, if I could just teach one thing to people or be satisfied after I have coached somebody because they loved that one thing it could be self-compassion. For me, that piece has changed everything. When people get to understand that they are worthy of love and compassion, that they are doing the best they can with the things they have at hand, that we are made of different parts, different pieces, and that all of them deserve to be seen and validated with love and compassion, we get to just change drastically the way which we experience the world. That is the one thing I keep teaching again and again and again.

0:21:02

Whenever somebody comes with a sense of rage, sorrow, or whatever piece that they have been denying, being just pleasure or being even just disgust about their own bodies. Whenever they come with whatever is necessary for them to work on, the magic that changes everything is learning to see these parts of themselves with love and compassion, slowing down and loving yourself can really change the way in which we experience the world.

Amanda Testa: I’m wondering, too, if people may be struggling with self-compassion because it is not an easy skill to embody and learn. So if someone’s starting to realize, okay, I need to be more kind to myself, I need to honor my experience more, what might you offer around that?

Sasha Ostara: That is true for so many people, and with good reason. It’s hard to deal with self-compassion.

0:22:01

It’s hard to slow down because that’s the first thing is slowing down. It’s hard to actually love anything about them, especially the parts that we have been unlovable for a long time. That feels so easy, but it’s the hardest thing that so many people can aim to get to do. There is always a way to achieve that. For me, that has always been very personal, depending on the person I’m dealing with, but pretty much the magic trick is finding that person or that creature that they love the most and picturing that thing that they are saying to themselves, that thing they are punishing themselves for, that thing that they are having a hard time loving about themself, is something that that one person or creature they love is bringing to the table.

0:23:01

For example, their kids. Would you talk to your kid this way you're talking to yourself? What would you tell your child if your child came to you telling you that she’s horrible and that she has the worst body in the world and that she’s unworthy of love and appreciation? That’s the moment in which they tear up and realize that they would never speak to their kids the way they are speaking to themselves -- or to their dog or to their mom or to their best friend. Very slowly, somebody that we are gentle and kind and loving to, and so, constantly the invitation is to play a little bit with that relationship and recognize that that way in which we love that person can be applied to ourselves and that we can show ourselves that same tenderness and compassion that we show others.

0:23:58

Amanda Testa: Mm, such a beautiful way to describe that. Thank you. I also have a daughter. She’s ten, so I always think about that as well, and also, noticing when we have kids (as a side note) often that can bring up a lot in ourselves, especially if they're certain ages where certain things might have happened in your own life. It’s just also to honor and just appreciate that it’s not easy [Laughs]

Sasha Ostara: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: Compassion is the best thing you can do. Like you say, we’re all doing our best with the tools that we have, and the more that you can see that, I think you have more empathy for everyone and how they are 'cause they're doing their best. Honestly, I think most people really are doing their best.

Anyways, so I want to switch gears a little bit because I also want to talk a little bit more because you are the creatrix of Vulvalchemy -- and let me know if I mispronounced that, but I love that term, and I think it’s so delicious. If you don't mind sharing a little bit more about that for everyone.

Sasha Ostara: [Laughs] Thank you. Yeah, I love the term.

0:25:00

I was playing around with everything that I wanted to bring to the table, and that term just came magically to me. For me, it’s the mixture of the things that I am the most passionate about. What is definitely the recognition of these systems around which we grow because we are traumatized in community and we heal in community. So understanding how our family systems, cultural systems work is a fundamental part.

Then, understanding how magic happens when we learn to relate to our vulva in a way in which we would relate to our best friend. If we start connecting with her (chatting, exploring her, asking her questions), then we recognize that those same things that could be ideal for her, like compassion, again, like consent, like a constant conversation about her boundaries and desires, those same things are the things that we want as women.

0:26:07

They’re the very same things we crave to receive. So, like, okay, yeah, you want to offer consent to your vulva? Are you being clear about your boundaries when it comes to your connection with other people? Are you clear about your desires? So I realize it’s a microcosmos of the bigger cosmos that we are. So it’s this reflection of who we are.

Then, the magic of the Jade Egg practices incorporated with my own flavor that brings storytelling and going deep into the journey of the goddesses and their own mythology and their own mythological journey around healing. So it’s this blended mixture of all of these pieces together which, at the end of the day, are just about loving our vulva madly so that we love ourselves that same way, so that we learn to listen to our bodies in that same way, and to demand the same level of deep love and compassion from our environment because the thing is, is that when we learn to love our self deeply and shamelessly, we also want that from the people around us, and we bring that to the table as well (to the people that we love). We bring that sense of compassion and consent and tenderness to everybody around us so it becomes, again, a systemic thing in which everybody starts getting something from just loving these parts of ourselves.

Amanda Testa: Mm, so good. If you think about it -- because it makes me realize when we think about people with vulvas, for many of us, that’s been conditioned as something that’s not good, right?

0:28:02

It’s dirty, wrong, whatever, all the things that we hear. By loving that part of ourselves, it’s just life-changing.

Sasha Ostara: Yeah, yeah! Specifically loving them in whatever way it means to love them for us.

Amanda Testa: Yes, yes, yes.

Sasha Ostara: Because that is also very important. I realize that what was very simple for some -- I would ask them to look at their pussies, to do some pussy gazing, to just talk to them -- for some people, that was already too much. It was already too much to ask for, and for those people, I learned that I needed to reach them where they were at, to teach them that love didn’t need to be the same thing that meant to love their pussies to other women. So, for other people with pussies, it was about self-pleasure and dearmoring and taking photos or painting, and for others, love just meant being compassionate enough to understand that their pussy was afraid of being seen, that was afraid of being touched, and to love her in that moment just like that.

0:29:18

There was no need to do anything else. Just like that. Just the way they are right now.

Amanda Testa: Yeah, pondering exactly what is and letting that be enough because it is enough, right?

Sasha Ostara: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

Sasha Ostara: Ah, that’s the beauty of it. It is enough. We don't need to show up with an agenda when it comes to loving ourselves, and I think that that is the thing that gets many people confused about what loving ourselves means. Some people think that self love means the big things that we see some people do on Instagram, you know? Posting and being super open about their sexuality. It means that for them, but it means a quiet stillness for others.

0:30:04

It means allowing yourself to cry when you haven't cried for others. It means laughing hysterically for others. It means whatever there is. There is no agenda. There is no right or wrong way to love ourselves. it’s just loving what is.

Amanda Testa: Yes. I love this conversation so much. I feel like I could keep talking to you for hours because I could.

Sasha Ostara: Mm-hmm. [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: I’d love to know if there’s maybe any question that you wished I would have asked that I didn't ask or anything else you really want to make sure to share?

Sasha Ostara: Ah, thank you. What I feel is very important that we bring into the conversation is how -- a friend of mine was calling it a beautiful way. She said, “We are divergent people. Not just neurodivergent, but divergent people, people from different ethnicities, body shapes, narrow ways of thinking, and how all of us are invited to the party as well.

0:31:09

I feel like sometimes it’s easy to think that vulva love, sexual liberation, sexual expression, pleasure is a privilege. We forget that we are all invited to join into this celebration of our bodies. The differences that we all bring into the table, our cultures, our beautiful body sizes, and our beautiful ethnicities, our beautiful ways of perceiving the world, even though our own journey and things, they are all part of this amazing symphony. This is a celebration for all of us. Our body is a freaking party. Let’s live it. There’s no need to look a certain way in order to be worthy of love and appreciation, and that is something that I really want everybody to remember.

0:32:01

We don't need to wait until we have lost those pounds or we have the partner that we wish we had. We don't need to wait to actually start connecting to our pleasure. It’s there, literally, at the tip of our fingers to just start connecting. It’s literally about connecting -- even that, for some people, it feels sexual, and for others, it will never be sexual or it will just be a sensual experience. It will just be about connecting to eating the freaking pie and enjoying the freaking pie and not worrying about enjoying it too much, and not discussing the idea of the guilty pleasure, and just enjoying our pleasures for what they are - a roadmap to our soul calling. So, for me, that is the thing that I really want everybody to remember.

0:33:01

We are all welcome in the celebration of our bodies. No need to wait to look a certain way. It’s not just for young people, it’s not just for skinny people, it’s not just for a certain ethnicity. We are all invited.

Amanda Testa: Thank you so much for that. I’m just so excited for you to share more about where people can connect with you and work with you and all the amazing offerings that you have. So if you wouldn't mind sharing a little bit about how everyone can connect with you and learn more about you.

Sasha Ostara: Oh, thank you. So I am on Instagram @sasha_ostara, and I have a web page www.sasha-ostara.com. I have a free program. It’s a free mini program that I created for people during COVID. It’s called Feeling Safe In Your Body. That is a beautiful, delightful amount of tiny practices for everybody to just connect real quick to this sense of safety back in their bodies. It was created in times of distress, and I think that it’s very present and very useful still to this day.

0:34:17

I am working one-on-one with my coaching program, Unbroken, which is, for me, the biggest realization. We are not broken. We are whole. We are perfect just as we are. So Unbroken is my one-on-one coaching program, and I have a group program called Untamed which is all about this reclamation of our sexuality from the clause of patriarchy.

Amanda Testa: Well, I just cannot say enough amazing things about Sasha. She is incredible, and so, I highly urge you to check her out and connect with her. I’m just wondering if there’s anything else that feels important to share as we close today? Thank you so much, again. I really appreciate your time and being here and sharing your wisdom. It’s so beautiful and powerful, yes, thank you, Sasha.

0:35:10

Sasha Ostara: Thank you so much, Amanda. I’m so, so, so honored to be able to share this space with you. Thank you for all the gentleness and kindness and deep, wild, loving wisdom that you always bring with this blanket of love and compassion. Thank you for everything that you do, and, yeah, for me, I feel like it’s just about reminding people that we are worthy of love, that this is all about remembering that the greatest craving that we all, as humans, have is to be seen, validated, and loved. Let’s offer that to ourselves and to those around us.

Amanda Testa: Thank you so very much. Again, I’ll put in the show notes where you can find more about Sasha Ostara and how you can connect with her. So thank you so much, again, for being here, Sasha. Thank you all for listening. Wishing you a beautiful week ahead.

[Fun, Empowering Music] 

0:36:06 

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 raving review so I can connect with other amazing listeners like yourself.

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

[Fun, Empowering Music]

JOIN IN THE DISCUSSION ON THIS EPISODE AND MORE IN MY FREE FACEBOOK GROUP, FIND YOUR FEMININE FIRE HERE.

Tracey Tee, creator and steward of Moms On Mushrooms, doesn't consider herself  a guru, influencer, life coach or healer. She is a lifelong student of spirituality, plant medicine and health, and comes to you as a humble teacher + guide who finds immense joy in being of service to moms.

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EPISODE 231: Tracey Tee

[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!

Hello, and welcome to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. Maybe you are curious about microdosing. I know this is all the talk, and there’s a lot of great things about it and a lot of misinformation out there. So, today, I am super excited because I am going to be talking with a dear friend and amazing, amazing woman, Tracey Tee. Welcome, Tracey.

Tracey Tee: Thank you! Gosh.

Amanda Testa: Yes, Tracey is a master of many trades, but she is also the creator and steward of Moms On Mushrooms which is a course and community around psychedelics for moms and microdosing. We’re gonna talk all about this and questions that you may have and how, really, it could be a tool for really stepping into your best self and allowing that feminine fire in you to burn its brightest and fullest, and I think, in this day and age, we can all use all the help we can get.

0:01:13

And so, I’m really excited to share more about this. Thank you for being here, Tracey!

Tracey Tee: Ah, it’s always a pleasure, always a pleasure. [Laughs] 

Amanda Testa: Yes! One thing I love about you, Tracey, is that you just -- I love how you say, “I don't want to be the guru, I’m not looking to be this guru about microdosing,” but I know, from your own experience, you spent a lot of years studying and researching and trying different plant medicines and things of that nature. So I’d love it if you would just share a little bit, for everyone listening -- because you might have heard her on the podcast before in a previous iteration of amazing things that she’s done for moms. I would love for you to share a little bit more about this chapter of your life and why you're so passionate about it.

Tracey Tee: Yeah, no, it’s interesting. I guess it has been a couple years. It hasn’t been many years. I am definitely a 2020 awakener.

0:02:01

I was part of the group that just, not only got their butts kicked to the ground in 2020, my business Band of Mothers, we lost everything. We were a live entertainment company and had to cancel all of our shows when the lockdowns happened, and it was incredibly painful, traumatic, dramatic, financially devastating, and in that moment, I found a new part of myself that I didn't know existed and kind of embarked on a spiritual awakening for about a year with the help of some close friends that live in your neighborhood - Sarah Zeren, who became sort of my spiritual coach and dug me out of my depths.

Then, while I was sort of learning about this new aspect of myself while also trying to hold onto a business that just couldn't get back on its feet, while trying to be a mom, while trying to navigate the ridiculousness of COVID, I really felt the call to plant medicine.

0:03:05

I had felt the call for a long time. I had been interested in Ayahuasca. I’ve been interested in it for years, way before it became super trendy, but I never did drugs. I’ve never done any -- I don't actually like using the term drugs anymore, but we can get into that later. I hadn’t done anything before, and also, I had a little kid, and I just didn't think that flying off to the Amazonian jungle was a great idea for me to do a bunch of hallucinogens in the jungle. So I never tried Ayahuasca and then read the book How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan, and it kind of really solidified this inkling inside me that was, I think, mushrooms are calling me.

Then, I actually did -- I went out with a bunch of dear friends to a lake outside Boulder and had my first sort of recreational mushroom experience in the summer of -- I always get the time -- it must have been the summer of 2020, and I had told myself driving there that if I had a sort of deeper spiritual experience with this medicine, that I knew I was onto something, and I, in fact, did.

0:04:12

I had this beautiful evening of lying on the beach with other women, other moms, and I kind of just saw all the symbols ever created. I saw the grid over the earth. I saw the fourth dimension. I felt that wholeness and that connection, that divine beauty and really truly felt the presence of God. I just knew. I just knew the shrooms were for me but still didn't really know what to do with it. I didn't know. You can’t just be high on mushrooms all the time, so, eventually, a microdosing course came across my LinkedIn feed, of all places, and I felt very called to take it, and once I started microdosing, my whole life changed, everything changed, and it’s like everything just kind of came into alignment, and it was what helped carry me and hold me as we navigated the loss of our business and all of the after effects of COVID.

0:05:09

At the end of 2021 when we finally closed down our business, I had done a journey a few months prior, and it was shown to be very clearly that this is my path. As woo as it sounds, when the mushrooms speak, you tend to listen. It’s confusing at times, but some messages come in super clear, and so, when we ended up closing down Band of Mothers, I had kind of had this idea that I might start a course and tell other moms about this because during my whole microdosing experience, I really felt like this is just so different for moms. Same thing. The healing, you know, we can’t go do mushroom ceremonies every month or go off and do a retreat for ten days, nor can we spend two and a half hours doing all the things that we think we need to do to heal. I mean, healing for mothers happens in between soccer practice and doctor’s visits and school homework. It’s different.

0:06:03

It’s just different, and we have a different shared experience that  binds us together not only as women but when you combine that with medicine, it’s very powerful, and so, I just said, “Okay, I’m gonna talk to some moms and see if anyone wants to do this together in community, and the minute we closed down our company I sort of just vomited out -- that’s probably not a great word -- this course. I just wrote for, like, two weeks straight and started Moms On Mushrooms which came to me in meditation - MOM. I thought, well, if it’s not taken, then this was obviously meant for me because this is kind of brilliant. I had to come up with it.

Amanda Testa: Oh, that’s so good.

Tracey Tee: So Moms On Mushrooms was, in fact, not taken, and so, I took that as a sign from the universe that this is my path, and so, I’m here today, but, yeah, I don't want to be a guru. I think the time of gurus is over. What we’re moving into in this age of Aquarius is a time of community, togetherness, but if the time of the guru is over, the time of the lone wolf is over as well, and I don't think people should take this medicine in a vacuum.

0:07:08

And so, I think it’s really important for mothers, especially, to come together around this plant medicine, to heal, and to try to find a place as women and as mothers that feels like we’re also our best selves, and I think microdosing can do that.

Amanda Testa: I’m curious, too, for those out there who might not be familiar with the term microdosing, can you just explain what that is?

Tracey Tee: Yes, yes. So microdosing is taking a very, very, very, very, very small amount of Psilocybin -- well, I use Psilocybin. You can microdose many things. Some people even microdose cannabis. I work with Psilocybin which is the hallucinogenic or psychedelic component of Psilocybe-Cumbetsus which is the magic mushroom. So, in microdosing Psilocybin, you take, like, one-tenth of a gram or one-tenth of what’s the beginning of a larger dose, and the intention is that it’s completely perceptual.

0:08:03

You have no hallucinogenic or psychedelic effects happening within you. However, over time, the repeated use of a very small amount of a psychedelic starts to rewire our neural pathways in a positive manner so that we get the same effects as one typically gets when doing a large-dose journey.

Amanda Testa: Yeah, and I think that’s important to note because, as you mentioned earlier, especially for moms, you're busy. You're driving kids around, you’ve got a million things on your plate. So that is a concern that I know moms have, right?

Tracey Tee: Oh, 100%, yeah, and should be.

Amanda Testa: [Laughs]

Tracey Tee: No, it is a concern and it should be concerning. To be honest with you, I hear friends tell me, “Oh, I just talked to my girlfriend,” or I have people talk to me, “Oh, I’m just microdosing,” and there is a lot of misinformation out there.

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

Tracey Tee: In our American society where we’re just so programmed to think more is more and bigger is better, I hear all the time of people throwing back half a gram or these larger doses (which I would never consider a microdose) and saying, “Well, I don't know. I really felt funny all day long,” or, “I was crying a lot,” or, “I didn't feel like I could take care of my kids,” or, even worse, “Nothing happened,” because there was no intention behind it.

0:09:15

And so, it’s very important, to me, to teach about dosage, intention, safety, all those things because, of course, you want to be a mom, you want to be able to drive your kids to school and do all the things without ever being concerned about an altered state.

Amanda Testa: Yes, I think it’s so interesting. I just love -- because I think about all of my entheogenic experiences, and many were without any type of intention. It was always just, like, around going to concerts or being on Dead tour and all the things I used to do.

Tracey Tee: Which isn't a bad thing.

Amanda Testa: Because I guess there was some intention, right? [Laughs]

Tracey Tee: Yeah!

Amanda Testa: But, you know, there are so many myths out there or people aren’t maybe quite sure what that means, so I just kind of wanted to clarify.

Tracey Tee: Yes.

Amanda Testa: You know, as well, right, nothing’s a magic pill, but there are also benefits. So I’m curious why you feel like, just in your own experience and all the research that you have done and the groups that you’ve led, what are some of the reasons people typically come to you for support around this or to come to the medicine?

0:10:14

Tracey Tee: Absolutely. The commonalities are profound, frankly, in the theme that I’m seeing with mothers which is A, I -- so the number one most common thing is, “I’m on an antidepressant. It’s not working. It hasn’t been working for years, if not decades,” and/or “It’s making me crazy. I don't even feel like myself anymore, and I know there’s something better. Can microdosing help?” That's the first.

The second is very common which is, “Hormonally, I’m completely out of whack. There is a week to two weeks a month where I become a different person. I don't like my partner. I yell at my kids. My anxiety is through the roof. I’m reactive, and I don't want to live like this, and nothing helps. Can microdosing help?”

0:11:03

The third is, “I am completely overwhelmed with life. My anxiety is through the roof. I am sick and tired of yelling at my kids. I’m sick and tired of just existing and just going through the motions and being so busy I can't even see straight. Can microdosing help?”

Amanda Testa: I love it, and just one thing to note, a caveat, we are not doctors or medical professionals, here. We are not giving medical advice here, but, just so you know, just wanted to give that caveat. But, yeah, I do feel like it’s so true. Moms I know, especially, are struggling just in general, and just the world at large is struggling right now.

Tracey Tee: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: And so, I’m curious, too, the safety around this because that’s another question that I’m sure people will have. Like, how do I know that this is a safe thing to do, and then we’ll get into the next part which I think is so key - the community aspect. Just for people that are  like, “Is that safe? How do I know? Blah-dee-blah,” what can you say to people that might have that concern?

0:11:58

Tracey Tee: Sure, well, first of all, unfortunately, all of the dramatic research and data that was happening got shut down in the ‘50s and ‘60s by the government when LSD and Psilocybin sort of leaked out into what we now know is the Hippie Culture, and people started freeing their minds, and the powers that be didn't like it so they shut it all down. So we’ve had this prohibition for, like, 50 years where a lot of research that could have been profoundly helpful to many, many subsets of people has not happened.

That being said, a few key components about Psilocybin. It is not addictive. It is not an addictive substance like alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, sugar, any number of legal substances that we’re allowed to imbibe on with abandon. There have been no known deaths directly related to the use of Psilocybin. Now, we’ve all heard about the people that jump out of buildings and people that have psychotic breaks, and, yes, that has happened, but what is left out of that equation is, one, people who take massive amounts of Psilocybin which is a psychedelic and hallucinogenic drug and should be treated respectfully and carefully, but then mix it with any number of other substances that make you do any number of irrational and potentially mortal things.

0:13:21

Two, the whole notion of a bad trip and frying your brain, same thing. What we don't talk about is, is that combined with other things, and was that person held in a space that was safe to experience some of the darker aspects that can happen in a large-dose journey? That’s where set and setting and having a guide or a trained practitioner or a clinician come in when you use psychedelics past a certain amount, if you are not mentally capable of handling some of the very dark things that can happen in a journey, you absolutely can have a psychotic break, and if you don't integrate your journey after, your brain can’t handle the massive cosmic multidimensional messages that come through and experiences that you see.

0:14:09

If you don't have anyone to talk to about that and help you navigate that landscape and make sense of it, you're gonna have a hard time, and so, yes, there are side effects -- I don't even want to say side effects. There are reasons for concern, but most of them lie in the misuse of the medicine rather than the medicine itself. 

Amanda Testa: I’m curious, too, what are some of the benefits that you’ve noticed, personally, and then also that you see with the people that you work with?

Tracey Tee: Sure, I think my favorite way to describe why I love Psilocybin and microdosing in particular is two things. One, I like to say it gives me space between my thoughts. So I’m an Aries moon and rising -- or I don't know. I’m Aries. I’m all the Aries. I’m an Enneagram Eight. I’m a Manifesting Generator.

0:14:57

I’m like a walking cliche of bigness and type-A and reactivity, and microdosing, for me, allows the words that come and form very fast in my brain and usually shoot right out of my mouth -- it allows me to take just a second, kind of zoom out, open up my head, see the words forming and say, “That is not a good idea. Don’t say it like that. Take a minute and then push them out,” and that has changed everything for me. It’s allowed me to speak more clearly in terms of, even in business, certainly in my personal relationships, to be more grounded and to be more intentional and thoughtful with my words, and with my daughter. To listen, and to listen, not to react, but to listen to hear. That, in and of itself is a big gift.

The second part is dealing with your shadow, traumas, whatever you want to call it, ego, the things that keep us in this loop of up and down, sad and happy.

0:15:59

It takes those aspects, and it kind of puts it right in front of your face so you can’t not stare at it, and instead of it kind of getting swallowed back down, which is what SSRIs and even, in many ways, traditional talk like psychology tends to do where it doesn't actually get resolved, with microdosing and with Psilocybin, those issues come right up into your face. You look at them, they look at you, and then you just sort of collectively agree to let it go, and it just dissipates. It doesn't go back down. Now, that doesn't mean you’re not gonna have repeated issues and the onion layer isn't gonna keep peeling, but it’s kind of like if you've got a thing that’s bugging you and you deal with it, it really does go away. It doesn't keep coming up, and, for a million reasons, that is such a gift.

Then, you know, in terms of the things that we kind of commonly know about Psilocybin, I would say, focus, creativity, clarity, and I also want to say (because this is feminine fire) a much deeper sense for myself, my own sexuality, my own sensuality, my sacral chakra in general, being able to really look at, feel, and connect with my womb, which I have decades of trauma around.

0:17:19

Depending on the right dose, sex can be really great on mushrooms. I’m just saying. Like, really great. Like, seven orgasms great, but that’s just me.

Amanda Testa: Yes! [Laughs]

Tracey Tee: [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: Yeah, and I always like to bring different perspectives 'cause there are so many ways and lots of different paths to where you want to be, and it’s good to just educate yourself on what’s out there and find what excites you and what draws you in, right? I think there are just a lot of alternatives available out there, and if the things that you have been doing don’t seem to be working, it’s always a good idea to open up and be like how could I potentially look at a different perspective or try on something new? I think one of the things about psychedelics in general is they're just a different way to open your mind in new ways, I feel like.

0:18:05

Tracey Tee: [Yeah.

Amanda Testa: That is one of the things -- and back in the day before it was hip, when I was in my, you know, 25-years-ago experimenting, just realizing, like, yes, when you were doing certain things with certain people, there were different enlightenments that you would come upon, right? And so, you're like people that haven't had that experience, it’s hard for them to wrap their hands around it, but I do feel like what I, in my experience, have seen is it just opens the paths of possibility. It makes you see things differently. There is definitely a bigger perspective, and that is so key. Of course, yes, as with the patriarchy or any powers that be, when you are able to think for yourself or when you are able to know, “What am I feeling in my body? What’s happening here?” I can realize something wants to be emerged. Oftentimes, when we speak our minds and when we know what’s right, we might question things, right? That doesn't work well for the powers that want to keep us repressed.

Tracey Tee: No, nope. [Laughs]

0:19:00

Amanda Testa: Yeah, so it makes sense, right? These are things we don't often hear about.

Tracey Tee: Yeah, you're so right. I think, like, broadening your mind and thinking about things in a different way and being exposed to a different way of thinking is so powerful and magical, and it goes beyond just seeing a trippy TV show. It is so expansive, and then to be able to share that with other women, particularly, there’s so much power in it. I guess another thing while you were talking it made me realize is, and this, I suppose, has more to do with doing larger-dose journeys, but I wouldn't have gotten there if I didn't have a relationship with the plant medicine through microdosing is that I just don't have a lot of fear anymore. When you realize that you're so connected to the divine, to everyone else, to everything on this planet, and you realize the power that’s inside you in your soul and your heart and in your mind, it’s just kinda hard to get scared of things. When you realize death is just, like Ram Dass said, like taking off a tight shoe, you just can’t get that scared about many things, and you really just want to live in the moment.

0:20:08

It sounds, like, hard to believe that I just don't have a lot of fear, but I really don't. I mean, it really has just left me because I’ve seen what’s on the other side.

Amanda Testa: [Laughs] Lots of times, too, I think fear is often rooted in the unknown or things we are afraid to see.

Tracey Tee: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: I know you mentioned, oftentimes, there are aspects of ourselves that we don't want to see, the shadow sides we shove down, we find a million ways to numb or to not look at those things, but, truly, when you are able to be with those things and let your body move through what it needs to then, oftentimes, you can integrate those things. Sometimes you might need outside help, and that is perfectly wonderful, right?

Tracey Tee: Totally.

Amanda Testa: That’s what the beauty of -- we’re not meant to do things alone.

Tracey Tee: We have options, yeah!

Amanda Testa: That’s why I wanted to talk about the community aspect because, you know, truly, healing does happen in community. We’re meant to heal in community. We are meant to -- our brains are meant to just handle our community, right?

0:21:03

Not the whole tragedies of the entire world in our face all day every day, and so, it’s no wonder that we have this impending doom and the overwhelm because, often, even if you try to curate the things that you take in, there are just a lot of horrible things happening all the time. And so, when you are constantly exposed to that, then your body’s gonna react to that, right? So knowing that we were designed to just kind of deal with what was going on in our own communities -- we were designed to deal with the traumas in our own communities, and just to bring back that communal help and, like, what is needed in my community, how can I show up to make change here because that’s a big part of activism and showing up is, like, how can I make change? Oftentimes, there are a lot of people out there doing what needs to be done. It’s like finding the people and aligning yourself with what feels right but, you know, just knowing that it’s meant to be done -- we’re meant to be doing things together, not isolated, right? I think recovering from all the isolation of COVID is really hard. I have so many people I talk to all the time and clients who are just like, “Ugh, I just feel like I’m finally coming out of the cocoon.”

Tracey Tee: Yeah.

0:22:03

Amanda Testa: “I feel like I’m finally stepping back into the light and into the world again.” It’s truly about finding that alignment within yourself however you so choose to do it. So let’s talk about that community aspect of it for you and why that’s so important.

Tracey Tee: Yeah, it is. I mean, you really nailed a lot of the things. I mean, you're right. We’re not meant to hold all the pain of all the world of all the things happening at all the same time. There’s a lot of guilt associated when you feel sadness, as you should, which is perfectly normal. Then, it’s compounded by this bizarre frenetic energy -- and I’ll speak to American culture -- and it’s absolutely exacerbated by social media where you are supposed to outwardly express, not only outrage, but sympathy and sadness, and then you have to be outwardly doing something.

0:23:00

It’s too much, and the truth is so many of those people kind of acting outwardly aren’t healed in themselves anyway, and as mothers, I truly believe that just healing ourselves is gonna change the course of history. It’s gonna change everything, and I think a lot of women are finally learning that there’s a different way to raise our kids, that there’s a different way to show up as a mom, and that involves, like you said, coming back together, talking about it, releasing the competitiveness, releasing the judgment, releasing this drive, this sense that we have to be everything to all people at all times, and when we fix ourselves, and when we just focus on shining the light in our little circle, that light grows and grows and grows in a much more sustainable and actionable way than ranting and raving and posting any number of shitty things on social media will ever do.

0:24:04

I don't know how we got duped into believing this to be true, but I do think that as long as we keep that frenetic, divisive energy, and we keep yelling at each other and judging each other for, “You're not like me, and I’m not like you, and, therefore, you're wrong,” nothing’s ever gonna change. So bringing it back, quieting it down, quieting the narrative down and just looking inward and saying, “How can I show up as the best person that I can be today? How can I show love and compassion and kindness and generosity? How can I be my authentic self? How can I work with my highest self to just be of service on this earth?” Just doing that will change so many more things, and you don't learn that you can do that in safety, unless you have a community around you that says, “Look at what you're doing, and, yes, please do that. I need you to do that.” That’s a lot of the basis of Moms On Mushrooms.

0:25:00

That’s why, again, I’m not interested in it being around me. It’s about a community coming together and saying, “Okay, we’re all using this plant medicine for a million different ways, let’s talk about how it’s affecting us.” One mom has postpartum. One mom has depression. One mom is going through a divorce. One mom just lost her business. One mom has a sick kid, but we all have these throughlines, and then one mom doesn't like microdosing, and one mom is completely different, and one mom can’t figure it out. So let’s just talk about it together and figure it out together rather than looking to some outside source, some expert, some paper, some article to tell us what to do. Let’s trust our intuition. Let’s trust our divine feminine power and figure it out together. We’ve been healing each other for centuries, and we’ve lost our way. So I love the idea of just bringing moms back around those two central shared things and figuring it out, and that’s it.

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

0:26:00

Tracey Tee: The beautiful thing is I’ve spent a lot of time sort of being mad at technology, and then I thought this is still a gift.

Amanda Testa: Yeah. Yeah!

Tracey Tee: Like, it’s still an amazing thing. I mean, Zoom is amazing. We’re all sick of it, but it’s amazing, and so are our online platforms and so is social media if it’s used in its own -- if it’s used in the light, you know? So let’s utilize these amazing gifts, these technologies, and create our own, new communities that don't look like tribal centers around a hut. Let’s create 2022 communities, and I think we can do that. It’s very easy.

Amanda Testa: Yeah, that is the beautiful thing. I mean, I will say, I do love Zoom, and also, we get sick of it, right? You can only be looking at the computer for so long. However, it is such a gift to be able to connect with so many people all over the world.

Tracey Tee: Right.

Amanda Testa: The fact that I have clients all over the world and we can be together, it’s amazing to me, and I love that part of it, and also, yes, it can be one of those things that you have to use mindfully. Like, how can you use it in a way to feel connected? There are ways to feel connected, I think.

Tracey Tee: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: I’ve experienced it and I teach that all the time and hold groups on Zoom so I believe in Zoom, and also, yes, being in person is great, too, but however you can create that for yourself, it’s so important, right?

0:27:08

I do believe, too, it’s like remembering -- that’s what I love about, I think, a lot of the work that I do as well is it’s all around that sacred remembrance. You already know all of these things. The cultural conditioning and just the way the world is now has kind of made us forget all that we do know. And so, when you can kind of strip that away by whatever means necessary, then you can come back to yourself and start realizing -- trusting your own nudges, trusting the wisdom that you have within you and remembering and having it reflected back to you by your community that, yes, your messages that you're receiving are, in fact, wise. [Laughs]

Tracey Tee: Yeah!

Amanda Testa: You are, in fact, doing a shit ton every day, and, you know --

Tracey Tee: Yeah!

Amanda Testa: So many women I talk to are moms, caregivers, they're just listing all the things they do in a day like, “Oh, I got nothing done today.” I was like, “Just make a list of actually all that you did do today, and you'll be blown away because it’s a ton.” [Laughs]

Tracey Tee: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: Right? Usually it’s a ton.

0:28:00

Tracey Tee: Yeah, and then I talk to moms, and it’s like, “You know, this isn't working, and this isn't working, and I’m angry,” and I say, “You’ve got three kids under five. This was never gonna be sunshine and rainbows. Let’s just admit that you're in a hard space, but it’s not forever,” you know? Back to community and even online, if you find your soul sisters, if you find your core, find your group and you find safety in that, it actually makes you more apt to connect in real time, to go out actually into your own physical community, to walk out onto your street and to connect with people because you feel confident in who you are, and you don't have to prove anything anymore. So it makes you want to go out and find, in real life, those same people that you can connect with, and then that’s how we rebuild that sort of true, in-person community, and I think we can do it with the vortex of Zoom around it.

Amanda Testa: That is so true because I think it is (and I was actually just listening to a podcast earlier today about this) around, you know, it’s like finding that peace within you, not that there is peace outside because that is not true, but when there’s more peace within, then when you show up to the places where you’re doing the good work or being an activist or however you are, you're less burned out so you can actually affect change versus being so caught up in your own world where you feel like you're trapped and you're stuck and you can't do anything, right?

0:29:24

Tracey Tee: Yeah. Yeah.

Amanda Testa: Because that is a very common thing I hear with a lot of moms is that feeling of being trapped. Like, I have no time, I have no autonomy. My body is not my own. All the things that you feel when there’s people hanging on you all day and needing you for survival.

Tracey Tee: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: [Laughs] It’s challenging. We’re like, yeah, I can't even go to the bathroom, how the hell can I do anything else? I get that, right? But it’s, like you say, being in that community and realizing, yeah, our culture has pretty much (especially here in the US) set us up to have a really hard time when we have small children. There's not the support that we need. 

Tracey Tee: No, and, you know, they kind of want you to be unhappy. They want you to be miserable because if you are, then you feel like you have to have someone help you out all the time versus changing it on your own.

0:30:05

The other thing is, I mean, let’s be honest, here, we all feel like we have no time, but the truth is that we do. Part of my challenge when we take courses is I know unless you have, I’ll give you, five plus kids, I know you’ve got 20 minutes in the day, and that’s the damn truth. You’ve got 20 minutes to sit down, do a quick meditation, say a prayer, work with this medicine, write something in your journal, and give 20 minutes. I know you do because we all have a phone, and we all spend 20 minutes on our phone, and I don't know anyone that doesn't, or something else. It could be any number of things we do to distract ourselves, and I think part of it is getting real honest with each other and saying we’ve collectively numbed out and scrolled ourselves into oblivion for the last ten plus years, and we have to, like, defiantly take 20 minutes of our lives back, let alone an hour, and I do believe every mom has that, no matter how busy you think you are.

0:31:13

If you're that busy, then let’s look at why you're so busy. Can you reduce the activities? Can you say no to something so that you have time for yourself?

All of that comes in finding sovereignty and autonomy, not caring, not feeling fear. For me, I think the medicine really helps kind of bring that all to the surface.

Amanda Testa: Right. I think one thing, too, that a lot of us (because of our culture and how it’s all, like, very much production-oriented) have this sense of urgency all the time even when there’s not urgency.

Tracey Tee: Yes. Oh, my gosh. Totally!

Amanda Testa: Right?

Tracey Tee: Yes.

Amanda Testa: So, like, yeah, the sink’s full of dishes. That does not mean you have to clean them right this minute.

Tracey Tee: Right? [Laughs] 

Amanda Testa: Yes, there’s always laundry to be done. There’s not true urgency behind it. You aren't going to die if you don't clean the kitchen.

Tracey Tee: And it doesn't make you a bad person.

Amanda Testa: [Laughs]

0:32:02

Tracey Tee: It’s not a moral failing if you don't do the dishes right then. it’s not a moral failing if you don't answer that text right away, you know?

Amanda Testa: I’m the worst with texts. Sorry. Everyone that knows me knows I’m the worst. [Laughs]

Tracey Tee: It’s so funny, I’m growing to respect it, you know? Again, you're so right. It’s that instantaneous -- we have this instant connection with hundreds of people on a daily life, and I think Glennon Doyle wrote it in her book, like, who are you to think that just because you're thinking of me and have a question or a thought that you want to share right then, that I’m supposed to drop what I’m doing (which you don't know what it is, by the way) and start a conversation with you. [Laughs] It would never happen in real life, you know? We’ve got to let ourselves lean into that.

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm, and I think, too, like you mentioned, with this creating time for what’s important to you is that we do have to sometimes get creative around that.

Tracey Tee: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: That requires community, often, too.

Tracey Tee: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: I think, oftentimes, for many people that I talk to, caregivers just have a hard time reaching out for help.

0:33:04

There is often help available, it’s just the asking and being open to receiving it that is the biggest challenge. 

Tracey Tee: It’s so true, and there are so many layers to that. It’s the receiving, 'cause we don't think that we’re worthy. We think we’re bad. We think they hate us, but it’s also control, allowing someone to maybe do things a little bit different than how you would prefer for a small amount of time, the insecurity around, “Well, if other people help me then I’m not gonna be viewed --,” let’s talk about mothers, “-- by my children as the primary. They're gonna look to someone else as the authority.” Then, just shadow from just not having any context or maybe any point of reference because of how you were raised of doing things different and just that programming, but it’s so hard. When did we decide that asking for help was a bad thing? It doesn't make any sense if you actually think about it.

Amanda Testa: Right, and not all communities are that way, but I know that it depends, right?

0:34:03

But I feel like that is just such a gift to be able to lean into community and ask for support and let yourself receive it and know that -- you know, sometimes, I think we also have that thought of, like, “Well, if I take something, then it means I’m gonna have to give something,” but, yes, in general, we’re always looking at that web. I love the visual of, like, if we are all on this web, there are some times where people have way more to give, and they're gonna give more and some people are gonna need to take more, and then when that person is full and has more to give, they’ll give more. So it’s not like it has to be, “Oh, well, Tracey took my kids to school today, so that means I need to bake her a cake or do something,” you know what I mean?

Tracey Tee: It’s true! That’s a two-way street, right?

Amanda Testa: Yeah. Right!

Tracey Tee: I’m taking this course, and the leader of the course said women have been divided amongst each other for centuries. Just as women we’ve been divided against each other, and we’ve had to manipulate ourselves to survive, right? We manipulate ourselves to be desirable to a man so that we can have fucking food and a place to sleep.

0:35:01

We manipulate ourselves in the workplace so that we get a promotion. We manipulate ourselves as mothers so that we’re viewed as being what society says is a good mom. We’re constantly shape-shifting and changing in the way we are. In that, we can't just be real with each other. So the pervasive sort of concern is I can't ask you for help and then I can't believe you when you say you're fine giving it, and that goes both ways.

Amanda Testa: Totally.

Tracey Tee: Because it’s possible that there’s conditioning on the other end that when you give help, you actually expect that cake, you know? You expect -- it’s that chalk mark on the wall, and we have to get to this place of (what’s talked about a lot in the psychedelic space) reciprocity, but in the core of that is just compassion and saying, “It’s just no big deal for me to take your kid to school,” full stop. We have to work on not expecting anything in return but also trusting ourselves to say, “Next time I need, I’m gonna ask without agenda or prejudice and just hope that the woman says yes,” you know? It’s a complete unlearning.

0:36:08

Amanda Testa: Totally. So, now, I know you have, often, different courses and things happening in your community. Tell everyone a little bit more about where they can find out more about Momas On Mushrooms and what you have upcoming. 

Tracey Tee: Yeah, thank you. So, yeah, if you go to momsonmushrooms.com, you’ll kind of see everything that’s available, but the really cool thing that just launched in August is I created a community platform that has everything in one place. So think about it kind of like, kind of like Facebook for Moms On Shrooms, and there’s different levels that you can join. So if you're just Psilo-curious, and you're not ready to commit or you want to learn more and you're kind of circling the waters but you want to feel like you're in a place that has good information and you're not just following #psilocybin on Instagram (which is a terrible idea), you can join my monthly membership. It’s $4 a month, and you get access to my Resource Garden which is just sort of a continuously updated database of information from, you know, “Listen to this podcast,” and “Read this book,” or, “Read this scientific paper that came out,” all through the lens of motherhood.

0:37:16

So what I think would relate back to you. You can upgrade it to $7, and then you get access to our Video Garden, and I’m continuously doing interviews with experts in this space, way wiser than me, on specific issues that I see come up in the courses so that we’re really addressing what moms are coming to the table with in terms -- with a psychedelic lens. So that’s a really great way to start if you don't even know where to start.

The second, the main part of Moms On Mushrooms is the digital courses. There are three courses. They're all three months each - nine months. My thought is that it really does take time to get to know this medicine, so Course Dot One is where everyone would start, and it’s a beautiful gathering. You're in a small cohort. We meet every other week for 90 minutes, and then there's information online that you can sort of take as you want.

0:38:06

There are six lessons. They all follow the chakras, actually, which was way more woo than I ever wanted it to be, but we use the chakras as a roadmap so that we focus on one aspect of ourselves for two weeks at a time. I would say 20 minutes or less is needed of weekly activity to kind of really work with the medicine. That's a great way to work with the medicine in community. We’ve got some new courses signing up in September.

Then, if group work isn't your thing, and there’s a bunch of different reasons why people don't want to do group work, and I totally honor that, there’s a self-guided option. There’s a one-on-one option where you work with me, and we go even deeper. We do a weekly ritual together over Zoom or FaceTime where we really set the intention for the week and work with the medicine in more of a ceremonial aspect, and it’s just a much more intimate journey over three months.

Then, the really fun thing you could do is called Circle of Friends which is if you've got a group of soul sisters that all want to take the course together and stay together, you can book a whole course just with your girlfriends.

0:39:07

Amanda Testa: Great, well, I’ll also make sure to put all of this in the show notes, where you can find all this goodness - momsonmushrooms.com. Also, I’m wondering is there any question that you wished I would have asked that I didn't ask or anything that we didn't get to talk about that you want to make sure to share?

Tracey Tee: You know, I think just to drive home the fact that I don't ever want anyone to think that Psilocybin or microdosing or any of these psychedelics that are coming online and getting so much press right now is an ultimate magic pill. All of them take work, and I would just encourage you, if you're feeling called to it, whether it’s Ayahuasca or LSD or DMT or any of these things that you're probably reading about, do your research, go into it with intention, and give yourself time and space to study the medicine and the information around the medicine, and none of it is gonna have a profound effect on you if you don't work along with it, too. I mean, the cliche “do the work” really, really applies here when it comes to medicine.

0:40:02

For my course with microdosing, intention and having a respect for the sacredness and the holiness of this ancient medicine is paramount for it working its magic, and so, this is not something you just get in a brown bottle from Walgreens. It’s much more magical, much stronger, much more potent, but it needs you to show up too.

Amanda Testa: Yes. Love that.

Tracey Tee: [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: Thank you so much, Tracey, again, for being here, and, again, for everyone who wants to learn more, you can go to momsonmushrooms.com, and thank you all for listening, and we will look forward to seeing you next week.

Tracey Tee: Thank you.

[Fun, Empowering Music] 

Amanda Testa: 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.

0:41:00

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 raving review so I can connect with other amazing listeners like yourself.

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

[Fun, Empowering Music]

*This podcast is provided for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute providing medical advice or professional services. The information provided should not be used for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease, and those seeking personal medical advice should consult with a licensed physician. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health provider regarding a medical condition. 

Psychedelics and sacred plant medicines are not for everyone.  As a psychedelic advocate and educator, Tracey Tee is not promoting the mindless use or consumption of any sacred plant medicines."

JOIN IN THE DISCUSSION ON THIS EPISODE AND MORE IN MY FREE FACEBOOK GROUP, FIND YOUR FEMININE FIRE HERE.

Lana Kerr is the founder of Lumisque Skincare. Lumisque is home of CO2Lift Carboxy Gel, the first and only natural and non-invasive method for skin regeneration that uses carbon dioxide to hydrate and re-oxygenate the skin, creating hydration and firmness and lift. Her work has revolutionized the way doctors, ranging from dermatologists to gynecologists, treat their patients and has received recognition from celebrities such as Chrissy Teigen. 

Lana holds degrees in Business and Accounting, she attended the Global College of Natural Medicine, received Certification in Subconscious Restructuring and is the Founder of Your Fat Loss Coach. She is also the mother of two boys and wifer to her husband Terry for 24 years.

Find out more about Co2Lift and Co2LiftV here- use the code FYFF for 15% off!

Have a topic or question you'd like Amanda to address on a future episode? Submit it on this anonymous form.

If you liked this episode, please consider giving me a 5 Star Review on Apple Podcasts! It truly does help the podcast grow. 

EPISODE 230: Lana Kerr

[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!

If you are like me and, potentially, always looking for ways to feel better in your skin and just feel good and get your feminine fire rockin’ and rollin’, thank you for being here today, and I’m really thrilled because today on the podcast, we are going to be talking all about feeling good in your skin and why taking care of our skin (and not just on our face) is very important.

I am going to be talking with Lana Kerr. She’s the CEO and founder of Lumisque and CO2LIFT about how to feel amazing in your skin and why we need to care for all of our skin, especially our intimate skin, as we age. And so, welcome, sit back, get comfortable, and we will dive right on it.

Thank you so much, Lana, for being here. 

0:01:00

Lana Kerr: Amanda, thank you for having me on your platform. I’m just -- it’s such a beautiful day today, and you're such a beautiful person, [Laughs] and I’m really honored to be here today. Thank you.

Amanda Testa: Well, I just have to say -- and, although, those of you listening, you can’t see, but I’m looking at her beautiful, glowing face sitting across from me, and I’m excited to talk about this because I know I live in Colorado where it’s super dry, but just in general how, you know, when it comes to taking care of ourselves, it’s a holistic process, right? It’s not just like one thing to another. It’s like we can’t always just segment things, and so, I would love to hear from you about kind of what led you into your passion for the work that you do.

Lana Kerr: Awesome. Ah, where do we start? So, I mean, my background is in accounting and finance. So that was many years ago. I went back to school after working for some time, there, into nutrition. I went back to school to study nutrition, opened weight loss clinics over, nearly, 25 years ago now, and we were helping people on that journey to look good or lose weight and feel better about themselves, and, generally, when people start feeling better about themselves, they want to get into other areas of feeling better, so we thought we’d take advantage of our clients who were already happy with us, and so, we opened up a spa.

0:02:09

Then, in looking for solutions to aging and the skin, just trying to find something different. Something that wasn't really heard about, really, here was Carboxy therapy. It was something that was done in Europe, and we were excited to bring in the machine. [Laughs] But we weren’t allowed to bring in the machine. The FDA doesn't allow that, and we were thinking how would we be able to leverage it?

So we just did further research, and we found some scientists in Japan who had actually patented a delivery system to put CO2 gas (which is what Carboxy therapy is) into the skin, not through a needle, but through a gel. So we were excited about that. We formed a company. We met with them, and we formulated CO2LIFT. And so, that’s the first topical Carboxy Gel because, prior to this, the only way to put CO2 gas into the skin was with a needle. So that’s kinda how we got into it. Before we launched, we did a clinical study just to compare the gel delivery system with the needle, and we used a video capillary machine, measured under the skin, and the capillaries are dilating the same way it was touching microcirculation. It was the same action that was taking place in the skin with the gel as it was with the needle, and so, we were very excited about it because, now, it would make it accessible to people at home to do it for themselves as well as there’s no pain involved and no down time, and the results are pretty remarkable and very quick to happen.

So, now, we like to call CO2LIFT the fastest way to better skin.

Amanda Testa: I love that, and, you know, it sounds like, too, because you were in that wellness industry, just seeing that, when there’s a desire to feel good, that pertains to everything. I’m wondering, too, because, specifically, I know now. I am of the age where I do want my skin to look its best, and the older we get, the more dry it gets, the more, you know -- not just in our face but everywhere.

0:04:01

I know you started with facial treatments and kind of extended from there to vaginal rejuvenation treatments, and so, first of all, let’s talk a little bit about what that even is for the listeners out there who might not even know that term. Then, I’d love to know a little bit more about what led you to this avenue.

Lana Kerr: Okay, so vaginal rejuvenation is really restoring the functionality and aesthetic appearance of the vaginal tissue because whether it be through hormonal changes, whether it be getting older or just after having children, that affects how that performs. So, for instance, you may get more dry down there. You may lose sensitivity. So you may not be feeling or enjoying sexual intercourse in the same way that you did earlier on in life. Then, of course, the outside, like all skin, it gets thinner and it gets older, and so, if we want to make it look as firm as the skin on our face that we’re taking care of, then we will do something to rejuvenate that there.

0:05:01

So that’s what it is. It’s not vaginal rejuvenation -- surgery isn't really vaginal rejuvenation because that’s really just -- maybe they use surgery for different things. Some women want it to look differently, and so, they will do surgery for that or they may have urinary incontinence, and they do surgery for that. Vaginal rejuvenation is a term used where you’re typically doing either some type of energy-based device or, now, to do Carboxy, to be able to restore that tissue.

How did I get onto it? Well, like most things that I become passionate about, it’s something that affects me personally, and when I was around 47, I started feeling differently in terms of my enjoyment level during sex, and so, I had gone to my gynecologist and just kind of explained that to her, and she just explained that, as we get older, we lose sensitivity. So she was recommending a device, a laser device, and I made the appointment and everything, but driving home, I was thinking we already have something that’s regenerating tissue very quickly on the face and on the body. Why wouldn't we use this for the vaginal tissue because it’s doing that without damaging the skin?

0:06:11

So we started a clinical study, and it was a double-blind study. So the women didn't know what they were using, whether they were using an ultrasound gel or they were using the Carboxy Gel technology, and what we saw was 100% of the women that used the Carboxy Gel showed significant changes in all five areas of what is called the FSFI Questionnaire which is a standardized questionnaire to measure enjoyment in sex. Then, once we received that information, we were pretty excited. Then we went to biopsies, and when the pathologist looked at the tissue of these women -- we used women in their sixties and seventies who were very dry down there, and after ten treatments the pathologist looked back at that tissue, and those women looked as if they were in their thirties and forties. So we were pretty excited (you can imagine) about bringing this to help women.

0:06:59

Before we even started, I tried it on myself, and I tell you something, Amanda. I mean, I really didn't remember how good sex was until after. In other words, because aging is so gradual, you kind of, “Oh, things are fine,” but when you actually are able to go back, you can compare and you say, “Oh, my goodness.” So I was very happy about that, but I thought this is mind over matter. So I got my mom and my aunt involved, and, you know, they went from sandpaper to butter, and I thought, okay, we have something here. We can help women. We put it together, and we launched and -- thousands of happy client stories. We are just convinced that we have something that can make a woman’s life just -- improve the quality of life for her through different stages in her life.

Amanda Testa: I mean, I think that’s so important because anyone listening knows that, as a sex and relationship coach, I do believe in how important our own physical pleasure is, how important our intimacy is if you have a partner or with yourself. You know, it’s just so important and then oftentimes in our culture, as we age, it is one of those things where you hear, “Oh, it kind of just dies off after menopause,” or, “Oh, you're gonna just dry up,” or, “Oh, you know, you're not gonna enjoy sex anymore or it’s gonna be painful.” All those things are common but they're not normal, right?

0:08:16

And as we age, you're right, all those things happen, and I love the non-surgical approaches because I think, yes, there are things that can be done, and then there’s a time and a place -- that’s the beauty of the modern medical world is that if you need something you can get it, but oftentimes there are things that we can do that are much gentler, right? Like this type of product.

Lana Kerr: Exactly, and surgery really doesn't address the quality of the tissue.

Amanda Testa: Right. Yes.

Lana Kerr: You know what I’m saying? In other words, what we’re actually doing is reconditioning that tissue so that it responds in the same way it did when we were younger.

Amanda Testa: Right.

Lana Kerr: So that’s what we’re doing. So I will say that’s all we’re doing. That’s what we’re doing, and that’s where the magic is.

Amanda Testa: Right, and that’s not involving a needle or uncomfortable laser treatments and things like that which, you know, again, I love this. I think it’s so important because when you are feeling pain or you are extra dry on your vulva or you're not -- as we age, we sometimes do need extra help, and often it’s kind of a fallacy that lubrication is a sign of being turned on, but just in general, you want to have healthy tissue because, like you say, the more elasticity, the more healthy the tissue is, the more enjoyable your experience, and that is so, so important.

0:09:22

Lana Kerr: Yes, and you know you said something that I just want to capture. The thing is that lubrication -- okay, I lost my train of thought. Continue. [Laughs] Sorry.

Amanda Testa: I’m curious though, what are some of the main problems that you see vulva owners facing when they come to you? What are some of the main things that people might be suffering from --

Lana Kerr: Okay, and I remember what I was going to say.

Amanda Testa: -- that they don't necessarily want to speak aloud.

Lana Kerr: [Laughs] So a couple of things. One is you're going to have drier -- it doesn't get as moist as quickly, and we’re not against lubes, and this is not a lube.

Amanda Testa: Right.

Lana Kerr: So this is not a lube replacement. However, what you're going to find is that this is going to make it where this is natural lubrication. So you could still use lube but just like when you were younger, you didn't really need that much of it, it would be the same thing. Basically, your tissue is just more responsive.

0:10:10

So you're gonna find -- so vulva owners will experience dryness, maybe, as I said, lack of sensitivity, maybe they don't respond as well, they don't necessarily reach orgasm as quickly as they did before. Also, another thing is even stress and urinary incontinence. Just, I mean, something where when they cough, they will pee themselves or they may not be able to run or they may not be able to jump on a trampoline. Those are some of the things that they may experience, and then now, too, so many women are removing the hair down there, and so, they want that skin to look plump and juicy. [Laughs] So this is something that’s gonna help them to achieve that.

Amanda Testa: Yeah, and I’m curious why -- obviously, when we age, there’s more of a need, but I know that this can actually be beneficial to vulva owners no matter the age. So I’m wondering if you’d share a little bit more about that.

0:11:00

Lana Kerr: Yes because, as I said, hormone changes affect women of all ages. So it can happen when you have a child. When you have a child that -- first of all, the trauma in vaginal birth, to help to bring it back, you can apply the CO2LIFT V down there to reduce the swelling and to bring back blood flow so that you can enjoy intimacy. So that’s one. So after childbirth.

When you're breastfeeding -- women get drier when they're breastfeeding. So this is going to help there. When you're taking certain types of medication -- some women may be on antidepressants or maybe on allergy medicines. Just like how allergy medicines dry out your nasal passage, it’s drying out that passage down there.

So those are some of the changes. Then, of course, some women who have had to have chemo, so that tissue down there may get damaged, and then they're gonna have a harder time enjoying or even having sex. So that’s another area, and then just, as we mentioned, just getting into perimenopausal, menopausal, again, our estrogen level changes. We get drier, and this is going to help to revive that area and recondition the skin and make us return to more youthful functionality.

0:12:10

Amanda Testa: Yeah, I love how you said, too, around bringing back the plumpness and the juiciness in the tissue no matter what you might be experiencing when you have the hormonal shifts. Also, just to improve -- I think at one point, too, you just mentioned just the look and feel of it so that you can enjoy your own vulva. I just want to name that for a minute because what I think is important -- because I personally believe in our culture, especially here in the US, as a vulva owner, we don't get a lot of love and praise for that part of your body.

Lana Kerr: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: And so, finding ways to reconnect with yourself and your body is so key because just like any part of you, it’s important, and I think the more love and care we offer ourselves, the better. And so, even if it’s just because you want to -- like you say, just for fun that you want to be loving towards yourself or whether you're healing, that you need to work with the application in a way that helps to reduce scar tissue and bring back your sensation and healing. I think that’s powerful.

0:13:14

Lana Kerr: Yes, you know, it’s interesting because one of the sexologists here in Florida who had called us because a couple of her patients that she had been working with for nearly a year started really enjoying sex. One of them was a breast cancer survivor. The other one wasn't, but she called us because she was saying this really is helping her patients, but she thinks, obviously, the physiology’s changing. We know this because we’ve done the studies. We can see it, but there also is a psychological benefit of taking care of that area. Just as you mentioned, by just showing yourself love in that area, you feel more control. You approach intimacy expecting it to be more pleasurable so that you’re coming to it with a different mindset, and for women so much of it is in our minds. So by doing this and showing this love to ourselves, it’s definitely going to help to improve our confidence, improve our enjoyment in our intimacy and then, therefore, in our relationship with our partners and then with ourselves.

0:14:18

Amanda Testa: Yes, I think that, what you just said there, about expecting pleasure is so important because if it is something where you’ve had pain in the past, that can just make you automatically, as soon as you even think of intimacy, be like, “Argh,” just tightening up, and you expect it to be painful, and just having that experience of being able to shift that mindset and to know that, “Oh, wait a minute. This can be a different experience for me,” is so important.

Lana Kerr: Yes, yes. Again, it’s all about, to me, taking control of you and the way we appear to ourselves [Laughs] and the way we feel about ourselves has a lot to do with how we’re going to impact other people. Especially in this area of vaginal health I think, as a woman, that makes us feel powerful to know that we control that and we are taking care of it.

0:15:13

You know something, too, Amanda, it’s not just about sexual intimacy --

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Lana Kerr: -- because sometimes, as we get older, women just have burning vaginas.

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Lana Kerr: Sometimes our pH changes, and so, we’re starting to get more infections. The CO2LIFT V basically brings our pH back to ideal. It’s a 4.5 pH so it’s going to help to prevent infections. It’s going to help with that burning that some women may experience for various different reasons. So it’s about just taking care of ourselves, and as we started, even in our introduction with our foot -- every part of us affects us.

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

Lana Kerr: But that area between our legs is a big part of what makes us feel like a woman, don't you think? 

Amanda Testa: Oh, my gosh. I so agree with that because I feel like our sexual health usually is indicative of our overall health oftentimes, right?

0:16:02

And so, if something’s not feeling good, there are things that can be done about it, but it does affect every single part of you, right? Because if it’s uncomfortable, if you're burning, then that probably affects how you sit, the clothes you wear, the underwear you wear, how you go about your life, the things you do, the things you don't do, right? And so, when you can find more ease, more comfort, that changes everything.

Lana Kerr: Yes. Yeah.

Amanda Testa: Right?

Lana Kerr: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm, and I think, too -- this is just a random thing, but I do feel like it’s so important because I know you mentioned confidence, and I don't think this is random at all. I think it’s very important because our confidence is so key. Feeling good about ourselves affects how we show up and the mindset, like you say, is so important whether it is how we look on our body, on our face, on our vulva, and because there is so much -- we are so harsh on ourselves, I think, oftentimes, right?

Lana Kerr: Yeah. Yeah.

Amanda Testa: We’re very hard on ourselves as women and wanting to maybe appear to look a certain way or, too, in our cultural conditioning of, you know, after a certain age then we’re not as desirable which I disagree with. I’m curious your thoughts on that.

0:17:05

Lana Kerr: No, I agree. First of all, I think what makes anyone sexy is confidence and, certainly, as we get older (just speaking for myself) I definitely have more confidence now than I did when I was in my forties and when I was in my thirties because I think experience gives us that. So, fortunately, now, we have the technology that allows our bodies to stay current with us.

Amanda Testa: Yes!

Lana Kerr: In other words, as we mature and get more wisdom and feel more confident in ourselves, we can still look youthful and enjoy the benefits of that confidence.

You know, there’s that saying that says youth is wasted on the young. I think, now, that doesn't even really apply so much in the sense that we have the technology that keeps us youthful if we just avail ourselves to it, you know?

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm.

Lana Kerr: Certainly when you get older, in terms of in your relationships, you're more secure so, now, let’s bring the rest of us up to that level to enjoy that too.

0:18:04

Amanda Testa: I love how you say “that allows our bodies to stay current with us,” ‘cause I feel like no matter what age our numbers say, the way we feel probably does not correspond to that. That I know.

Lana Kerr: Yes.

Amanda Testa: This is true for all the different-aged people I work with. It’s like I look in the mirror, and I’m like, wait a minute. I feel like I’m, like, 29, but I definitely am not looking like that anymore.

Lana Kerr: [Laughs] Yes.

Amanda Testa: You know, that does affect how you show up. Did you ever watch that show on Netflix or something? I think it was called Grace and Frankie, but it was about these older women who get divorced.

Lana Kerr: Yes!

Amanda Testa: But just their stories are so funny, and I remember one of them was going to have sex for the first time with someone new, and she was like - immediately pitch black dark and hid under the covers. [Laughs]

Lana Kerr: [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: And I feel like, you know, sadly, a lot of people live their life that way, and it doesn't have to be, right? There are numerous things, of course, behind that, but just feeling good in your skin can help you turn the lights on and feel good in your skin and be excited to share your body with your own self or with someone else, right?

0:19:00

Lana Kerr: Yeah. Yes. Yes, definitely. Definitely, and as we continue to talk about technology, though, and things that are available, I’m really happy that you brought me on because I wish that this type of information was available to me when I was in my thirties. 

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Lana Kerr: When we started, you spoke about how you want to start taking care of yourself in a better way or something to that effect, and one of the things I talk about is when you look into cultures that actually are ageless, they start very young. When you look at a lot of the Asian cultures, they actually start skin care from when they're in their teens. Generally, here in The United States (myself included) we didn't start until I was in my thirties, but it makes a difference. You can actually free it if you start younger so you don't have to wait to have a problem to start addressing it. Start to keep yourself looking that way, and then you kind of call it a freeze and it just staves off the effects of aging. I think that’s so important. Then, the same principle goes, not only for the skin on our face, but the skin down there.

Some people think, “Well, I don't have a problem.” So you're gonna wait until you have a problem? Because I’m here to tell you that that problem faces 90% of women as we get older.

0:20:09

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

Lana Kerr: We have so many groups that we do and just talking to gynecologists, as we get older our skin is going to get thinner, and when our skin gets thinner, then we’re gonna have all these other effects that come with it. Why not prevent that by just taking some self-care, not only to here but to downstairs?

Amanda Testa: Right, I love that. It’s like use it and you won't lose it.

Lana Kerr: Exactly, right? [Laughs] Exactly, exactly, and then, too, you talk about that -- use it and don't lose it. So some women, they're out of a relationship, they're divorced, and they want to start a new one. So they may have a period of time when they didn't use that organ, right?

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm.

Lana Kerr: And so, similar to if you were to go to the gym and then you stop, eventually, you start losing that muscle. The same thing had happened so that blood flow is not there, so guess what? This type of procedure -- it’s not even a procedure -- type of treatment keeps the blood flow going so even when you're not using it, you're using it. [Laughs]

0:21:06

Amanda Testa: And that blood flow is so key.

Lana Kerr: Yes.

Amanda Testa: I think that blood flow is so key especially for arousal. You know, I always say this a lot of times to my clients: often, if there’s a lack of desire or -- there can be so many factors, but if you think about if you're humming along at, like, a 0, you're gonna have to put in a lot of effort to get up to a 60, 70, 80 miles per hour.

Lana Kerr: Yes, yes.

Amanda Testa: And if you are kinda humming along at a 30 or 40, it’s much easier to get there.

Lana Kerr: Yes. Yes!

Amanda Testa: So you want to remember to take care of yourself and do the things that keep you humming, do the things that keep your body vibrant and keep you vibrant, the things that turn you on, and it doesn't even have to just be around sex in general -- the things that holistically light you up make a difference. 

Lana Kerr: Yes. Amen! [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: [Laughs]

Lana Kerr: Amen.

Amanda Testa: Yeah, so I’m wondering, too -- I know you’ve done a lot of clinical studies, and I’d love maybe if there are a couple of stories that stand out about clients that you've worked with or that you've heard their stories and it just really lights you up and reminds you why you created this product? [Laughs]

0:22:02

Lana Kerr: Oh, yeah. Okay, where do I start? First of all, yes, we’ve done the clinical studies, as you mentioned. In fact, we just did another one recently. The results are coming out, but it was mostly for the CO2LIFT on the face, and I was with the one that your doctor would give to you, but that was showing an increase in elasticity. For about 26%, an increase in elasticity - that’s a big number. So we talk about skin that’s on the face but doing the same thing down there, and we have the stories to prove it. So let me think of a couple.

One, a younger girl, she was 28 years old, I think you can YouTube it. She’s on talking about it. She’s 28 years old. She’s young, and she says she has always had painful sex, right? She actually has to just bear it. She’s like, “Oh, my god. This is horrible,” and so, she started using the CO2LIFT V, and she was talking about how, within the first three treatments, her husband noticed a difference in the looks of it. She’s like, “Ooh, this is really pretty.” [Laughs]

0:23:01

But, then, in terms of the function of her pain -- so she did ten treatments, and then she was saying, “There’s no pain in sex.” So that’s the one that if you’re a listener, just YouTube some of the stories. That particular one is there.

There’s another one that I can think of. She actually works with us - Rebecca. This is such a great story. She’s such a phenomenal woman. She was in her forties when she discovered that she had breast cancer, and it was stage three or stage four breast cancer but she just got married. So she just had a baby. So she was in her forties, she just had a baby, she just got married. Can you imagine having to go through all of that? So after the surgery, one of the things is she was just very dry, and she was thinking -- in her new marriage, to have to deal with this. So she went to her doctor, and her doctor recommended the CO2LIFT V and just how it changed her life. In fact, her vagina is doing things that it never did before. So that’s just a couple stories. [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: [Laughs] I’m wondering, too, when it comes to things like vulvodynia, have you done studies around that?

0:24:04

Lana Kerr: Yes, so what we found from that from some of the doctors who are using it, I mean, a lot of that is psychological, right?

Amanda Testa: Right, right.

Lana Kerr: And so, just kind of to speak to what you had mentioned before, just expecting sex to be more comfortable. You kind of relax into it so that those muscles don't tighten up. It has helped. Some doctors use it for that. They're using it for lichen sclerosus which is another condition where it’s itching and burning vaginas. So we’ve had some pretty great results across the board of women just with challenges or just with women like myself who just want to stave off aging and just to improve their quality of their intimate life because, as we get older, things can change. 

Amanda Testa: Right. Well, I just love that you have created this company and that it is helping in all these ways that you never even intended when you first started.

Lana Kerr: I know, right?

0:24:58

Amanda Testa: I love just to talk about the different options and things that are available for the listeners because I think, like you say, this is a platform that I just want to educate people on to help them to have the best sex and relationships and feel good in themselves and really keep that feminine fire alive and flowing, and so, all the ways we can do that [Laughs] the better.

I’m wondering, too, if there’s maybe a question that you wished I would have asked that I didn't ask or anything else you want to make sure we talk about?

Lana Kerr: I think one of the concerns many people have when they listen to this is how easy is it to apply, and it’s very simple. It’s a matter of just simply mixing two gels. This is the box and how it looks here. This is the box here. Oh, they're not seeing it. I forget. [Laughs] Basically, you're gonna mix two packets together, and once you mix the two packets together, you take it up in the applicator, you pull it up in the gel, insert it pretty much like a tampon, and I like to just say go to bed. Go to bed, wake up in the morning, it pops out in the toilet pretty much like semen, and you're good to go. There’s no down time.

A typical schedule would be you're gonna do a minimum of three once a week for three weeks. You can do up to ten depending on the severity of symptoms that you're experiencing.

0:26:08

So once a week for three to ten weeks, and then once you get where you think you're good, then you can maintain it by doing one a month which is what I do. I do one a month, and it’s just a nice -- it’s part of my self-care. Once a month, I just love myself there, and you feel really good. It’s very cooling so there’s no pain involved. It’s very cooling inside, and then you wash it out. It will not cause a yeast infection. As we mentioned before, the pH of this is about 4.5 so, no, it won't. If you're suffering from some type of BV, then you want to take care of that with your physician and then work with this to help to keep the pH at 4.5 as well as all the other benefits that you're getting. I think that’s the only thing I would think, and it’s not expensive.

Just one more thing I wanted to just say, Amanda. I’m not against doing -- obviously, we work with a lot of physicians, and there are other things that people can do. So they can go and do some energy-based device which is great.

0:27:06

However, definitely pairing them together would be even better. Combo-therapy always works better, but if you can't do that, then certainly this is going to be a phenomenal solution to get yourself back or keep yourself from getting to where you don't want to go.

Amanda Testa: Yeah, and I think the beautiful thing about it is because not everyone wants to go to a facility when you have the ability to do something in the privacy of your own home. A lot of people enjoy that option.

Lana Kerr: Yes.

Amanda Testa: So, yes, and I do want to name that there’s a time and a place for everything. 

Lana Kerr: Yes. 

Amanda Testa: So everybody just chooses for themselves what that is. 

Lana Kerr: Yes.

Amanda Testa: I appreciate that option. So I'm wondering, for the listeners, if there are any other ways they can find out more about you and the products, if you want to share all the goodness about how people can connect and if they want to try some?

Lana Kerr: Oh, awesome. Yes, well, certainly, I know we’re offering your listeners a code. So they will put in FYFF, and they’ll receive 15% off the website which is www.co2lift.com.

0:28:06

On the website, there’s tons of information. You're gonna see testimonials from so many women. They can YouTube it, Google it and see it but, again, it’s hormone-free, you can do it in the privacy of your home, and there’s no down time. You can jump right back into the saddle right after. Typically, a woman sees benefits after the first three.

Amanda Testa: Beautiful, and I know, too, even just you have amazing products as well for the face and the skin, so I am just appreciative of you sharing more about this. I’d also love to know when it comes to finding your feminine fire if there are maybe any words of wisdom that you’d like to share around that or what that means to you?

Lana Kerr: Yeah, oh, I think that a big part of life is enthusiasm. A big part of success is being enthusiastic about what you do. Enthusiasm comes with passion, and so, I feel like connecting with yourself allows a woman to bring that enthusiasm and passion out, and so, to look at intimacy as a way to do that for yourself -- there’s so much information now on the power of sexual energy and what it can do for you as a woman.

0:29:17

So keeping that fire lit is going to translate in, really, every area of your life. And so, definitely whatever it takes to be able to keep your passion going, keep that fire going, you definitely want to do that to have really great success in everything in your life.

Amanda Testa: Ah, thank you so much, Lana. It’s been such a pleasure to have you. I will make sure for everyone listening, if you would check the show notes, then I will make sure to put all of this information there as well, but there will be a special code (FYFF for 15% off) if you would like to play with any of these amazing products to bring back the juiciness.

Also, I just appreciate opening the conversation because I really do think that we don't talk about our intimate life enough. We don't talk about our vulvas enough, so the more that we can normalize these conversions and normalize our self-care and normalizing just treating ourselves the way we deserve.

0:30:09

Lana Kerr: Yes, Amen.

Amanda Testa: Thank you. [Laughs]

Lana Kerr: Thank you. Thank you, Amanda. 

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Lana Kerr: Appreciate you.

Amanda Testa: Yes, and we will see you all next week. Thank you for listening.

Lana Kerr: All right.

Amanda Testa: [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 raving review so I can connect with other amazing listeners like yourself.

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

[Fun, Empowering Music

JOIN IN THE DISCUSSION ON THIS EPISODE AND MORE IN MY FREE FACEBOOK GROUP, FIND YOUR FEMININE FIRE HERE.

Hello,

My name is Amanda Testa, and I'm a Sex, Love, and Relationship Expert + Trauma Resolution Guide.

My goal is to support you to heal your relationship to your sexuality so you can eliminate shame and guilt, own your sexy confidence, feel like a Goddess/Goddex in your skin, and have the deeply connected relationships you desire.

My unique proven process, The Feminine Fire Method™ combines the latest in neuroscience and somatic healing with inspiration from ancient practices from Tantra and Taoism to facilitate rapid and lasting transformation. 

 I'm also a Senior Teacher for VITA Coaching, a ReBloom trauma resolution coach, Mama to a gorgeous 10 yo girl, Wife to my sexy hubs, and the Host of the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast.

I believe deep in my soul is that sexuality is the missing key in personal growth and development. 

I believe your sexuality and sexual energy fuels your creativity, confidence, and power. It is a vital part of your holistic health and vitality.

When we own our sexual power our pleasure and creativity flourishes.  Our confidence and body image soars.

Our relationships deepen.

And when you can connect to that power in yourself, it’s life-changing.

Have a topic or question you'd like Amanda to address on a future episode? Submit it on this anonymous form.

If you liked this episode, please consider giving me a 5 Star Review on Apple Podcasts! It truly does help the podcast grow. 

If you've been interested in learning more about coaching with Amanda, she's now booking coaching clients for 1-1 support in creating the relationship and orgasmic pleasure of their dreams.   If you’ve been thinking about it, maybe we should talk!  Link here to book a free call to see if we’re a fit. 

JOIN IN THE DISCUSSION ON THIS EPISODE AND MORE IN MY FREE FACEBOOK GROUP, FIND YOUR FEMININE FIRE HERE.

Hello,

My name is Amanda Testa, and I'm a Sex, Love, and Relationship Expert + Trauma Resolution Guide.

My goal is to support you to heal your relationship to your sexuality so you can eliminate shame and guilt, own your sexy confidence, feel like a Goddess/Goddex in your skin, and have the deeply connected relationships you desire.

My unique proven process, The Feminine Fire Method™ combines the latest in neuroscience and somatic healing with ancient practices from Tantra and Taoism to facilitate rapid and lasting transformation. 

 I'm also a Senior Teacher for VITA Coaching, a ReBloom trauma resolution coach, Mama to a gorgeous 10 yo girl, Wife to my sexy hubs, and the Host of the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast.

I believe deep in my soul is that sexuality is the missing key in personal growth and development. 

I believe your sexuality and sexual energy fuels your creativity, confidence, and power. It is a vital part of your holistic health and vitality.

When we own our sexual power our pleasure and creativity flourishes.  Our confidence and body image soars.

Our relationships deepen.

And when you can connect to that power in yourself, it’s life-changing.

Have a topic or question you'd like Amanda to address on a future episode? Submit it on this anonymous form.

If you liked this episode, please consider giving me a 5 Star Review on Apple Podcasts! It truly does help the podcast grow. 

If you've been interested in learning more about coaching with Amanda, she's now booking coaching clients for 1-1 support in creating the relationship and orgasmic pleasure of their dreams.   If you’ve been thinking about it, maybe we should talk!  Link here to book a free call to see if we’re a fit. 

EPISODE 223: Trust Yourself

[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!

Would you like to stop second guessing yourself and your worthiness? If you're looking to grow your self-trust, then listen in to this episode. I’m gonna share why so many women-identifying people suffer from not-enoughness and lack of self-trust and how to build this muscle to feel more confident and have more trust in yourself. I’m your host, Amanda Testa, and welcome to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast.

So I want to share a story with you about when I was little. I remember, when I was a kid, my sister and I loved to go to the beach. So we would drive from our house in Georgia to the beach which was always, like, around a three-hour drive, and when we would get there the first thing we would do is jump out of the car, blow up our rafts, and run as fast as we could into the water. 

0:01:07

We loved it so much, just feeling free in the ocean, and I don't know if you remember those old school rafts that were sewn together with some kind of cloth-type material that ripped up the inside of your legs, but we would spend hours out there riding the waves, pretending that our rafts were horses, having the time of our lives and just floating along with the current and trusting our ability to swim, trusting that we were safe, right? We didn't even think twice about the ocean or what could be in the water, and I remember we would just float on down and down with the current. My mom would be chasing us down the beach screaming at us to come back, and we had zero worries in the world, right? There is a time, at some point in our past where we had that full capacity of trust, and through our life we just get disconnected from that, and there’s a lot of reasons why.

0:02:03

It’s from our culture, number one. It’s not our fault, right? It’s our culture so much of the time, and that’s just the way that our lives imprint these ways of being onto us that keep us from trusting our true selves. And so, when you don’t trust yourself, it feels like you're not good enough, right? You can really come down on yourself. You can have a really harsh inner voice, feel guilty and ashamed when you make a mistake, have a really hard time making decisions, and constantly asking others for guidance. There’s a lot of fear of making the wrong choice or disappointing other people, feeling like you need someone else to tell you what to do even if it may hurt you in the long run, and feeling overly self-conscious, right? That’s some of the ways that it can show up. When we do trust ourselves, we have a lot of wisdom, we have clarity on who we are. We have this natural blueprint of health when it comes to self-trust: clarity and choice. 

0:03:00

One of the archetypes that I love that demonstrates this (through the ReBloom body of work from Rachael Maddox that I’m certified in) is the natural blueprint of the Sage.  This blueprint of health for the Sage is having a clear sense of who you are, knowing who you are, having a clear sense of what you know, what you want, and what your options are at every moment. You make decisions from a place of alignment with your whole-hearted values, embodied wisdom, and mental discernment. You are the validator of your experiences. You trust your perceptions to be true and know that your feelings and opinions matter. You take time and space to yourself or with trusted support to get clarity when you're feeling unsure or uncertain, and you have inner authority and knowing. You choose and consent with yourself first and foremost. You trust others from a place of trusting your own integrity first, and you are empowered through access to the truth.

Oftentimes, in our lives, what can happen is we all have different experiences of growing up, but even just in our culture we get taught from an early age not to listen to our own body’s wisdom. This can happen, just for example, when you're a kid and you go to school and you can only go to the bathroom at certain times, right? 

0:04:08

You can't necessarily drink water when you want, so you start to lose those internal urges to care for yourself, and that is a very simple way, but that’s how it can happen, right? Maybe when we’re little and we’re forced to hug people we didn't want to hug, you kind of stop listening to that inner voice. 

Those are just little ways that it can happen over time, but in your life, if you’ve been shamed or if you’ve been guilt tripped or have been faulted all the time or having others’ moodiness blamed on you, being projected on, all the things, being bullied. All these things can show up, and there are a few different ways that this manipulation control can show up, right? There is the hyper-response which this is when we have a healthy nervous system, typically more often than not, we’re ranging in the range of resilience (the window of tolerance) which means when things happen and disrupt us, we can go through an experience, and we pretty quickly come back to a place of calm, of feeling resourced again, but when we get triggered, we can usually react in a couple of ways.

0:05:16

One is we can shoot up into a hyper response where we’re really anxious or stressed and there’s just a lot of energy, and then we maybe crash down into a hypo response which is below the window of tolerance which is where you're feeling really shut down or confused or all of those things, right? And so, how this can show up when it comes to self-trust is if you're having a hyper response, it can be hypervigilance, right? You can not trust people. You can not trust yourself. You can be extremely skeptical about everything. You can think that other people are just trying to take advantage of you. You can be really stubborn about doing things only your own way. You can be controlling and really want to control things, want to control situations, want to control relationships. 

0:06:04

Perhaps, you are very hyper-guarded or isolate yourself out of fear of being hurt. So it can feel really hard, when you are having this hypervigilance, to let go and trust another person or to trust the mysteries of life or even trusting yourself, right?

Alternatively, the hypo response can be feeling confused, feeling like blind following of others, looking to others constantly for validation, feeling extreme self-doubt, having trouble knowing what’s true and what’s not, wanting to be saved by someone who knows what’s going on. It can feel really hard to trust yourself, to sense your own truth, to align to it, and to feel safe following your own guidance, right? Feeling like I don't know what to choose, I need someone to tell me what to do, all these things. These are normal reactions that we have in life, and so, just so you are aware of this. 

0:07:04

Also, it can just be words that we’ve heard, things that have been told to us (maybe that have hurt us), being wounded by words of others, and this causes us to hold back ourselves and who we are.

And so, I share all this because A, just to normalize the fact that this is very common in our culture and also to realize that, you know, it’s not all our fault. It’s really not our fault, but what we can do is we can have choice in how we reclaim our self-trust, right? We can choose to create new relationships with ourselves, and we can choose to create this new experience where we really empower that sage part of us, the wise part of us, the part that does know how to choose what serves us, the part of us that does know how to make choices that serve us, right? 

0:07:56

I love this mantra around the sage about, “I see the truth. I speak the truth. I align to the truth. I am clarity. I am choice. I am integrity. I trust myself.” So even noticing as I say those words how they land on you. If it feels resonant or if it feels hard, and it’s all okay. It’s all awareness, right? It’s all awareness.

So one of the first things that I think is really important in dealing with building your sense of self-trust is, first of all, kind of being aware of what’s happening, noticing when you have those internal voices coming up, noticing if you're feeling more hyper vigilant and lacking of trusting others and just being with what is, like, having real self-compassion. Number one, self-compassion and self-kindness is so important because that is the way we move forward. We’re never gonna make the right decision all the time. In fact, we probably won't a lot of the time, and that’s okay because it’s not about making the right decision, it’s about just moving forward and trusting that you can deal with whatever happens, right? There never really is a wrong choice because it’s all learning. It’s all growth, and I, too, know what it’s like to be stuck in that indecision because I’ve been at that place many times in my life.

0:09:07

And so, what I find to be really helpful here is just being aware, right -- just being aware of when these patterns are arising, and, oftentimes, it can be younger parts of us that are triggered that are coming up that want to run the show, and we can remind ourselves that we are adults, right? We can tap into the part of us that has compassion, that has forgiveness, and trust the nudges that we have.

My husband was telling me about a book he was reading about special forces and decisions and how, oftentimes, they make the wrong decision, but the thing is they just keep moving forward. You don't really have time a lot of the time to assess all the decisions, so you have to be quick to make decisions in that environment. Gratefully, we’re not always in that environment all the time, but we can still use that concept of looking at what’s true, noticing what’s true, and making decisions based on that. 

0:10:04

One of the things that I think is a really powerful way to make these decisions for yourself is by, first of all, learning to tune into what’s going on below the surface. Now, this is a learned skill and it can take time, but I love the process of interoception. That means knowing what’s happening on a sensational level in your body. Now, this can be any sensations that you're noticing (your felt sense). So, for example, if I am going to make a decision, and I feel like the part of me coming up that is judgy, that is my inner critic, that wants to tell me I’m gonna make the wrong choice, that wants to tell me I’m gonna disappoint others, that wants to tell me I don't know what to do, I could be aware of what that feels like in my body. So, for example, as I feel those thoughts, I notice my chest gets tight. I notice that I feel like my shoulders curl in. I notice that it feels like my breath gets more shallow. So when I can pay attention to those things, that’s really good information for me, right? 

0:11:03

If I’m thinking about moving forward from that type of physical experience, that even just a physiological experience, then that’s probably not gonna be the best way to move forward, right, because I’m in a very closed, clenched body position. 

Even just that noticing is like, “Okay, well, what if I just spend a little time with this clenching in my chest. What’s happening there?” You can even just spend a few minutes noticing the sensations. I notice that when I bring my awareness to the sensations in my chest, even just bringing awareness there kind of invites some openness, and that can be the first simple step. I love this process of just, like, bringing awareness to what is, can often bring about some change, bring about some openness.

So that’s just one example of learning to be with what shows up in your body, having that skill of interoception because then you can kind of learn your cues, right? If you are making a decision, and you are going against what your, maybe, inner voice is telling you, you might feel tight, you might feel constricted, you might feel differently than if you're making a choice in alignment with what feels true to you, right? 

0:12:10

‘Cause when I’m making a decision and I’m thinking about, okay, what really feels most in alignment for me, maybe I feel more openness, maybe I feel like a little bit of space is expanding in my throat, right? These can just be little things to start to notice, and it can take time because, for some of us, it might not feel very comfortable to be in our body, and that’s okay too. You can just be aware and start to notice, because I think these are just little nudges that you can trust, right? 

What happens when you trust? What happens when you don't? What happens when you do follow the inner nudges that you get and taking evidence of your successes in this exploration, I think this is a really important way to kind of notice. Like, when you're going to make a decision, let’s see what our inner voice is telling you or when you're getting a nudge of some sort, do you follow it or do you not and just making notes. “Okay, I had this urge to do XYZ and then I did XYZ. Here’s what happened,” right? 

0:13:04

Or, “I had the urge to do XYZ, and I didn't do XYZ. Here’s what happened.” This is just good information to collect for yourself because it can really help you trust yourself by knowing what’s true in your experience and what’s not, right? 

Sometimes it might be important to maybe remove yourself from situations that make you feel uncomfortable, that make you feel unsafe - giving yourself permission to create the space you need to feel honor and express your truth, right? That’s an important thing. 

Also noticing what you are tolerating and what do you not want to tolerate, right? Those are important things too. It can be hard sometimes especially if you're in situations that feel like it’s really impossible to get distance from, there are always ways to do it. 

You can always start in baby steps. You never have to make huge decisions, right? You can make baby steps. I always think that’s just a good way to do it because as you make the baby steps, you can determine how that’s feeling, as I just talked about. Creating the evidence of what supports you and what doesn't.

0:14:09

So another benefit of really tuning into your own experiences is, then, you can change that locus of control from outside of yourself to inside of yourself which is a really important process of cultivating that self-trust, and as you cultivate that connection with yourself, it makes it easier as well to cultivate that connection with others and really tuning in on who are the people that I can trust who honor and validate my experiences, and developing these systems that support you. Like, I really love that little collecting evidence thing. If I’m getting the nudge, am I following it, what happens, am I not following it, what happens, and just using it as information, right? This allows your trust to grow slowly over time. As you do this, you build that courage, the courage it takes to honor the truths that you hear even when they're hard, and so, I think it can be so, so key to grow that inner trust.

0:15:18

I see this so often with clients is just a lack of trusting themselves, a lack of wanting to put themselves out there because of feeling like they will be judged, like they will be harshly criticized, right? This can all be stemming from that lack of self-trust, so it’s such an important key skill to build. I was just recently teaching a retreat. One of my joys in life is being on the senior teaching team for Layla Martin and the VITA Coaching Certification, and so, we just had four weeks of retreats, actually, for our students, but I was there looking out the window one day (we were in Costa Rica), and I was watching these monkeys, and this one money -- and it was so interesting ‘cause we were literally talking about trust in that moment, and this one money literally leapt, his arms flying, and flew, like, four trees over, and landed on a branch. 

0:16:14

That, right there, is self-trust, right? We are animals at our core. We have this natural blueprint of health, that blueprint of trust, that blueprint of knowing. Throughout our life, it gets dulled, it gets tarnished so we don't have that same level of trust. We don't want to leap uninhibited. We’re too afraid to leap, but we do have that ability within us, and I loved that image of that monkey ‘cause I was like exactly. That is exactly what trust is - just leaping and knowing you're gonna land. That comes from practice because knowing, you know what, if I make the wrong choice, I’m gonna figure it out -- if I make the right choice, I can celebrate myself. Whatever happens, it’s learning, and there’s no wrong decision, right? So I just really love that image of the monkey. Just bring that to mind whenever you're like, okay, what’s standing in the way of you trusting what you're inclined to do, trusting what your instincts are?

0:17:16

The other thing, too, is when you're kind of looking to affirm your inner trust, your inner wisdom is just tuning in to maybe feeling in what is something you want an answer to, right? Maybe there’s a question that you want an answer to, and you can just have a little journaling activity about this and just tune in. Ask yourself, if my wisest self were to answer this question, if all the wise parts of me can share what they know to be true, what would you write? Just see what happens for five minutes, right? There’s no wrong way to do it. 

0:18:01

It’s just a way of tuning in, and then you can often get a lot of insight because I think we are (in different experiences) more and more able to tap into these different parts of ourselves that do know that blueprint of trust, that are able to tap into that more easily, right?

And so, another thing that I want to share around protecting your trust (which I think is really important) is protecting your confidence, right - protecting your confidence. My husband actually shared this with me, but I love what it means ‘cause what it means is don’t indulge in things that make you feel bad about yourself, right? Protect your confidence. So, for example, if you go on social media, and you find yourself comparing and despairing and feeling like poop, that’s a good note to be like all right, well, maybe I need to spend less time on social media. I was joking because while I was away I was also 75% less on social media, and I think my happiness went up 75% which is just a good note. I always notice. Less time on social media is really healthy for your brain and more time in the real life is good. 

0:19:02

So just noting that. Like, what am I doing that might be pulling away from my confidence, and how can I stop doing those things? I think that’s a big one. Also, more resourcing in what feels good. Really make a list of things that make you feel good, that support you to feel in your body, that support you to feel grounded, that support you to feel capable, and do those things more often, right? Maybe whatever that practice is for you, tuning in. 

I love bringing in pleasure because I think that’s a beautiful way for me to get into my body, and you know I love that. [Laughs] So I think that’s one of the things I talk about a lot because I feel like it’s so important. Give yourself permission, too, to tune into your needs on a regular basis because I think that is important. We don't often do that enough, and you know I talk about tuning into your needs and creating your desire list on a regular basis because it does help keep you aligned to what you want and need. It can be really easy to get disconnected from that in our busy lives.

0:20:00

The other thing is really allowing yourself to be vulnerable, allowing yourself to feel, allowing yourself to go there so that you can trust that you can feel the feelings and move through them because they are like a tunnel and sometimes it feels like we don't want to feel something, and we avoid it at all costs, and that can make it even worse, but oftentimes if we just allow ourselves to feel what’s there, we can move through it and be on about our day in no time at all. 

Also, making sure that you are creating the boundaries that support you, knowing that if people are pulling away from your confidence or making you feel bad about yourself, maybe give yourself some distance from those people in the ways that you can, right? We’re never gonna be perfect. We’re always gonna make mistakes, but that’s okay, right? We are gonna be kind and compassionate with ourselves. We are gonna be kind and compassionate with ourselves.

Really, to wrap all this up -- because I know I’ve been kind of rambling a bit, but I do feel like it’s all related to this trusting ourselves and how to cultivate self-trust, right? 

0:21:06

Number one, we need to remember that we have the ability to trust in our systems. Our bodies. We have to reconnect to that sometimes. We have to trust that we can be with ourselves in what’s coming up, learning that tool of interoception, trusting our felt sense (what we experience in our own bodies as a result of something), really starting to collect our evidence when we are following your nudges and when we’re not. Like I said before, “I had the urge to do XYZ. I did it. Here’s what happened.” “I had the urge to do XYZ, and I didn't do it. Here’s what happened,” right? It’s just a good way to kind of track your successes as you listen to yourself. Protecting your confidence, resourcing what feels good, self-forgiveness and self-kindness is so, so key, and always, self-compassion. This is a tool we cannot cultivate enough. Really understanding when our bullying inner voice is coming to the surface, and maybe it’s got some points. 

0:22:04

You can say, “Listen. I hear you. These are some valid points you’re sharing. It’s understandable that I would be thinking these thoughts based on my lived experience. However, I’m going to have you sit over in the corner for a minute because I’m gonna tune into my wise sage self, and we’re gonna have a little discussion about what is true and what I know to be true and how I can find a way to move forward in this situation,” right? These things that sound pretty simple are, but it sometimes takes time to learn. 

So if this is something that you are wanting to cultivate more of, and cultivate more self-trust, then I invite you to reach out. You can always book a free call with me, and I’m happy to give you some strategies at amandatesta.com/activate, and I can walk you through some strategies, but even if you just implement the things that I’ve shared here on the podcast, it should be really helpful for you. I also have a great meditation around cultivating trust in your body that if you’d like to get that, again, shoot me an email and we will send it out to you (info@amandatesta.com), and you can put in the subject line “Trust Meditation” and I will send that your way.

0:23:09

As well, I’d love to hear you share with me what some ways are that you have cultivated trust in your own life and how that has benefited you. I always love to hear your own stories as well so please don't hesitate to share those with me. Again, sending you so, so much love. 

As we leave, I’m gonna reshare this mantra with you one more time because I love this mantra from the Sage archetype on really being in your truth-aligned leadership, making choices and taking actions that are in impeccable alignment with your truth, right? Letting go of what’s misaligned for the sake of honoring what is true for you and just noticing how this lands. I’ll invite you to play with this. “I see the truth. I speak the truth. I align to the truth. I am clarity. I am choice. I am integrity. I trust myself.” 

0:24:12

Sending you so much love, and we’ll see you next week!

[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.

0:25:02

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

[Fun, Empowering Music]

EPISODE 223: Trust Yourself

[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!

Would you like to stop second guessing yourself and your worthiness? If you're looking to grow your self-trust, then listen in to this episode. I’m gonna share why so many women-identifying people suffer from not-enoughness and lack of self-trust and how to build this muscle to feel more confident and have more trust in yourself. I’m your host, Amanda Testa, and welcome to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast.

So I want to share a story with you about when I was little. I remember, when I was a kid, my sister and I loved to go to the beach. So we would drive from our house in Georgia to the beach which was always, like, around a three-hour drive, and when we would get there the first thing we would do is jump out of the car, blow up our rafts, and run as fast as we could into the water. 

0:01:07

We loved it so much, just feeling free in the ocean, and I don't know if you remember those old school rafts that were sewn together with some kind of cloth-type material that ripped up the inside of your legs, but we would spend hours out there riding the waves, pretending that our rafts were horses, having the time of our lives and just floating along with the current and trusting our ability to swim, trusting that we were safe, right? We didn't even think twice about the ocean or what could be in the water, and I remember we would just float on down and down with the current. My mom would be chasing us down the beach screaming at us to come back, and we had zero worries in the world, right? There is a time, at some point in our past where we had that full capacity of trust, and through our life we just get disconnected from that, and there’s a lot of reasons why.

0:02:03

It’s from our culture, number one. It’s not our fault, right? It’s our culture so much of the time, and that’s just the way that our lives imprint these ways of being onto us that keep us from trusting our true selves. And so, when you don’t trust yourself, it feels like you're not good enough, right? You can really come down on yourself. You can have a really harsh inner voice, feel guilty and ashamed when you make a mistake, have a really hard time making decisions, and constantly asking others for guidance. There’s a lot of fear of making the wrong choice or disappointing other people, feeling like you need someone else to tell you what to do even if it may hurt you in the long run, and feeling overly self-conscious, right? That’s some of the ways that it can show up. When we do trust ourselves, we have a lot of wisdom, we have clarity on who we are. We have this natural blueprint of health when it comes to self-trust: clarity and choice. 

0:03:00

One of the archetypes that I love that demonstrates this (through the ReBloom body of work from Rachael Maddox that I’m certified in) is the natural blueprint of the Sage.  This blueprint of health for the Sage is having a clear sense of who you are, knowing who you are, having a clear sense of what you know, what you want, and what your options are at every moment. You make decisions from a place of alignment with your whole-hearted values, embodied wisdom, and mental discernment. You are the validator of your experiences. You trust your perceptions to be true and know that your feelings and opinions matter. You take time and space to yourself or with trusted support to get clarity when you're feeling unsure or uncertain, and you have inner authority and knowing. You choose and consent with yourself first and foremost. You trust others from a place of trusting your own integrity first, and you are empowered through access to the truth.

Oftentimes, in our lives, what can happen is we all have different experiences of growing up, but even just in our culture we get taught from an early age not to listen to our own body’s wisdom. This can happen, just for example, when you're a kid and you go to school and you can only go to the bathroom at certain times, right? 

0:04:08

You can't necessarily drink water when you want so you start to lose those internal urges to care for yourself, and that is a very simple way, but that’s how it can happen, right? Maybe when we’re little and we’re forced to hug people we didn't want to hug, you kind of stop listening to that inner voice. Those are just little ways that it can happen over time, but in your life, if you’ve been shamed or if you’ve been guilt tripped or have been faulted all the time or having others’ moodiness blamed on you, being projected on, all the things, being bullied. All these things can show up, and there are a few different ways that this manipulation control can show up, right? There is the hyper-response which this is when we have a healthy nervous system, typically more often than not, we’re ranging in the range of resilience (the window of tolerance) which means when things happen and disrupt us, we can go through an experience, and we pretty quickly come back to a place of calm, of feeling resourced again, but when we get triggered, we can usually react in a couple of ways.

0:05:16

One is we can shoot up into a hyper response where we’re really anxious or stressed and there’s just a lot of energy, and then we maybe crash down into a hypo response which is below the window of tolerance which is where you're feeling really shut down or confused or all of those things, right? And so, how this can show up when it comes to self-trust is if you're having a hyper response, it can be hypervigilance, right? You can not trust people. You can not trust yourself. You can be extremely skeptical about everything. You can think that other people are just trying to take advantage of you. You can be really stubborn about doing things only your own way. You can be controlling and really want to control things, want to control situations, want to control relationships. 

0:06:04

Perhaps, you are very hyper-guarded or isolate yourself out of fear of being hurt. So it can feel really hard, when you are having this hypervigilance, to let go and trust another person or to trust the mysteries of life or even trusting yourself, right?

Alternatively, the hypo response can be feeling confused, feeling like blind following of others, looking to others constantly for validation, feeling extreme self-doubt, having trouble knowing what’s true and what’s not, wanting to be saved by someone who knows what’s going on. It can feel really hard to trust yourself, to sense your own truth, to align to it, and to feel safe following your own guidance, right? Feeling like I don't know what to choose, I need someone to tell me what to do, all these things. These are normal reactions that we have in life, and so, just so you are aware of this. 

0:07:04

Also, it can just be words that we’ve heard, things that have been told to us (maybe that have hurt us), being wounded by words of others, and this causes us to hold back ourselves and who we are.

And so, I share all this because A, just to normalize the fact that this is very common in our culture and also to realize that, you know, it’s not all our fault. It’s really not our fault, but what we can do is we can have choice in how we reclaim our self-trust, right? We can choose to create new relationships with ourselves, and we can choose to create this new experience where we really empower that sage part of us, the wise part of us, the part that does know how to choose what serves us, the part of us that does know how to make choices that serve us, right? 

0:07:56

I love this mantra around the sage about, “I see the truth. I speak the truth. I align to the truth. I am clarity. I am choice. I am integrity. I trust myself.” So even noticing as I say those words how they land on you. If it feels resonant or if it feels hard, and it’s all okay. It’s all awareness, right? It’s all awareness.

So one of the first things that I think is really important in dealing with building your sense of self-trust is, first of all, kind of being aware of what’s happening, noticing when you have those internal voices coming up, noticing if you're feeling more hyper vigilant and lacking of trusting others and just being with what is, like, having real self-compassion. Number one, self-compassion and self-kindness is so important because that is the way we move forward. We’re never gonna make the right decision all the time. In fact, we probably won't a lot of the time, and that’s okay because it’s not about making the right decision, it’s about just moving forward and trusting that you can deal with whatever happens, right? There never really is a wrong choice because it’s all learning. It’s all growth, and I, too, know what it’s like to be stuck in that indecision because I’ve been at that place many times in my life.

0:09:07

And so, what I find to be really helpful here is just being aware, right -- just being aware of when these patterns are arising, and, oftentimes, it can be younger parts of us that are triggered that are coming up that want to run the show, and we can remind ourselves that we are adults, right? We can tap into the part of us that has compassion, that has forgiveness, and trust the nudges that we have.

My husband was telling me about a book he was reading about special forces and decisions and how, oftentimes, they make the wrong decision, but the thing is they just keep moving forward. You don't really have time a lot of the time to assess all the decisions, so you have to be quick to make decisions in that environment. Gratefully, we’re not always in that environment all the time, but we can still use that concept of looking at what’s true, noticing what’s true, and making decisions based on that. 

0:10:04

One of the things that I think is a really powerful way to make these decisions for yourself is by, first of all, learning to tune into what’s going on below the surface. Now, this is a learned skill and it can take time, but I love the process of interoception. That means knowing what’s happening on a sensational level in your body. Now, this can be any sensations that you're noticing (your felt sense). So, for example, if I am going to make a decision, and I feel like the part of me coming up that is judgy, that is my inner critic, that wants to tell me I’m gonna make the wrong choice, that wants to tell me I’m gonna disappoint others, that wants to tell me I don't know what to do, I could be aware of what that feels like in my body. So, for example, as I feel those thoughts, I notice my chest gets tight. I notice that I feel like my shoulders curl in. I notice that it feels like my breath gets more shallow. So when I can pay attention to those things, that’s really good information for me, right? 

0:11:03

If I’m thinking about moving forward from that type of physical experience, that even just a physiological experience, then that’s probably not gonna be the best way to move forward, right, because I’m in a very closed, clenched body position. 

Even just that noticing is like, “Okay, well, what if I just spend a little time with this clenching in my chest. What’s happening there?” You can even just spend a few minutes noticing the sensations. I notice that when I bring my awareness to the sensations in my chest, even just bringing awareness there kind of invites some openness, and that can be the first simple step. I love this process of just, like, bringing awareness to what is, can often bring about some change, bring about some openness.

So that’s just one example of learning to be with what shows up in your body, having that skill of interoception because then you can kind of learn your cues, right? If you are making a decision, and you are going against what your, maybe, inner voice is telling you, you might feel tight, you might feel constricted, you might feel differently than if you're making a choice in alignment with what feels true to you, right? 

0:12:10

‘Cause when I’m making a decision and I’m thinking about, okay, what really feels most in alignment for me, maybe I feel more openness, maybe I feel like a little bit of space is expanding in my throat, right? These can just be little things to start to notice, and it can take time because, for some of us, it might not feel very comfortable to be in our body, and that’s okay too. You can just be aware and start to notice, because I think these are just little nudges that you can trust, right? 

What happens when you trust? What happens when you don't? What happens when you do follow the inner nudges that you get and taking evidence of your successes in this exploration, I think this is a really important way to kind of notice. Like, when you're going to make a decision, let’s see what our inner voice is telling you or when you're getting a nudge of some sort, do you follow it or do you not and just making notes. “Okay, I had this urge to do XYZ and then I did XYZ. Here’s what happened,” right? 

0:13:04

Or, “I had the urge to do XYZ, and I didn't do XYZ. Here’s what happened.” This is just good information to collect for yourself because it can really help you trust yourself by knowing what’s true in your experience and what’s not, right? 

Sometimes it might be important to maybe remove yourself from situations that make you feel uncomfortable, that make you feel unsafe - giving yourself permission to create the space you need to feel honor and express your truth, right? That’s an important thing. 

Also noticing what you are tolerating and what do you not want to tolerate, right? Those are important things too. It can be hard sometimes especially if you're in situations that feel like it’s really impossible to get distance from, there are always ways to do it. 

You can always start in baby steps. You never have to make huge decisions, right? You can make baby steps. I always think that’s just a good way to do it because as you make the baby steps, you can determine how that’s feeling, as I just talked about. Creating the evidence of what supports you and what doesn't.

0:14:09

So another benefit of really tuning into your own experiences is, then, you can change that locus of control from outside of yourself to inside of yourself which is a really important process of cultivating that self-trust, and as you cultivate that connection with yourself, it makes it easier as well to cultivate that connection with others and really tuning in on who are the people that I can trust who honor and validate my experiences, and developing these systems that support you. Like, I really love that little collecting evidence thing. If I’m getting the nudge, am I following it, what happens, am I not following it, what happens, and just using it as information, right? This allows your trust to grow slowly over time. As you do this, you build that courage, the courage it takes to honor the truths that you hear even when they're hard, and so, I think it can be so, so key to grow that inner trust.

0:15:18

I see this so often with clients is just a lack of trusting themselves, a lack of wanting to put themselves out there because of feeling like they will be judged, like they will be harshly criticized, right? This can all be stemming from that lack of self-trust, so it’s such an important key skill to build. I was just recently teaching a retreat. One of my joys in life is being on the senior teaching team for Layla Martin and the VITA Coaching Certification, and so, we just had four weeks of retreats, actually, for our students, but I was there looking out the window one day (we were in Costa Rica), and I was watching these monkeys, and this one money -- and it was so interesting ‘cause we were literally talking about trust in that moment, and this one money literally leapt, his arms flying, and flew, like, four trees over, and landed on a branch. 

0:16:14

That, right there, is self-trust, right? We are animals at our core. We have this natural blueprint of health, that blueprint of trust, that blueprint of knowing. Throughout our life, it gets dulled, it gets tarnished so we don't have that same level of trust. We don't want to leap uninhibited. We’re too afraid to leap, but we do have that ability within us, and I loved that image of that monkey ‘cause I was like exactly. That is exactly what trust is - just leaping and knowing you're gonna land. That comes from practice because knowing, you know what, if I make the wrong choice, I’m gonna figure it out -- if I make the right choice, I can celebrate myself. Whatever happens, it’s learning, and there’s no wrong decision, right? So I just really love that image of the monkey. Just bring that to mind whenever you're like, okay, what’s standing in the way of you trusting what you're inclined to do, trusting what your instincts are?

0:17:16

The other thing, too, is when you're kind of looking to affirm your inner trust, your inner wisdom is just tuning in to maybe feeling in what is something you want an answer to, right? Maybe there’s a question that you want an answer to, and you can just have a little journaling activity about this and just tune in. Ask yourself, if my wisest self were to answer this question, if all the wise parts of me can share what they know to be true, what would you write? Just see what happens for five minutes, right? There’s no wrong way to do it. 

0:18:01

It’s just a way of tuning in, and then you can often get a lot of insight because I think we are (in different experiences) more and more able to tap into these different parts of ourselves that do know that blueprint of trust, that are able to tap into that more easily, right?

And so, another thing that I want to share around protecting your trust (which I think is really important) is protecting your confidence, right - protecting your confidence. My husband actually shared this with me, but I love what it means ‘cause what it means is don’t indulge in things that make you feel bad about yourself, right? Protect your confidence. So, for example, if you go on social media, and you find yourself comparing and despairing and feeling like poop, that’s a good note to be like all right, well, maybe I need to spend less time on social media. I was joking because while I was away I was also 75% less on social media, and I think my happiness went up 75% which is just a good note. I always notice. Less time on social media is really healthy for your brain and more time in the real life is good. 

0:19:02

So just noting that. Like, what am I doing that might be pulling away from my confidence, and how can I stop doing those things? I think that’s a big one. Also, more resourcing in what feels good. Really make a list of things that make you feel good, that support you to feel in your body, that support you to feel grounded, that support you to feel capable, and do those things more often, right? Maybe whatever that practice is for you, tuning in. 

I love bringing in pleasure because I think that’s a beautiful way for me to get into my body, and you know I love that. [Laughs] So I think that’s one of the things I talk about a lot because I feel like it’s so important. Give yourself permission, too, to tune into your needs on a regular basis because I think that is important. We don't often do that enough, and you know I talk about tuning into your needs and creating your desire list on a regular basis because it does help keep you aligned to what you want and need. It can be really easy to get disconnected from that in our busy lives.

0:20:00

The other thing is really allowing yourself to be vulnerable, allowing yourself to feel, allowing yourself to go there so that you can trust that you can feel the feelings and move through them because they are like a tunnel and sometimes it feels like we don't want to feel something, and we avoid it at all costs, and that can make it even worse, but oftentimes if we just allow ourselves to feel what’s there, we can move through it and be on about our day in no time at all. 

Also, making sure that you are creating the boundaries that support you, knowing that if people are pulling away from your confidence or making you feel bad about yourself, maybe give yourself some distance from those people in the ways that you can, right? We’re never gonna be perfect. We’re always gonna make mistakes, but that’s okay, right? We are gonna be kind and compassionate with ourselves. We are gonna be kind and compassionate with ourselves.

Really, to wrap all this up -- because I know I’ve been kind of rambling a bit, but I do feel like it’s all related to this trusting ourselves and how to cultivate self-trust, right? 

0:21:06

Number one, we need to remember that we have the ability to trust in our systems. Our bodies. We have to reconnect to that sometimes. We have to trust that we can be with ourselves in what’s coming up, learning that tool of interoception, trusting our felt sense (what we experience in our own bodies as a result of something), really starting to collect our evidence when we are following your nudges and when we’re not. Like I said before, “I had the urge to do XYZ. I did it. Here’s what happened.” “I had the urge to do XYZ, and I didn't do it. Here’s what happened,” right? It’s just a good way to kind of track your successes as you listen to yourself. Protecting your confidence, resourcing what feels good, self-forgiveness and self-kindness is so, so key, and always, self-compassion. This is a tool we cannot cultivate enough. Really understanding when our bullying inner voice is coming to the surface, and maybe it’s got some points. 

0:22:04

You can say, “Listen. I hear you. These are some valid points you’re sharing. It’s understandable that I would be thinking these thoughts based on my lived experience. However, I’m going to have you sit over in the corner for a minute because I’m gonna tune into my wise sage self, and we’re gonna have a little discussion about what is true and what I know to be true and how I can find a way to move forward in this situation,” right? These things that sound pretty simple are, but it sometimes takes time to learn. 

So if this is something that you are wanting to cultivate more of, and cultivate more self-trust, then I invite you to reach out. You can always book a free call with me, and I’m happy to give you some strategies at amandatesta.com/activate, and I can walk you through some strategies, but even if you just implement the things that I’ve shared here on the podcast, it should be really helpful for you. I also have a great meditation around cultivating trust in your body that if you’d like to get that, again, shoot me an email and we will send it out to you (info@amandatesta.com), and you can put in the subject line “Trust Meditation” and I will send that your way.

0:23:09

As well, I’d love to hear you share with me what some ways are that you have cultivated trust in your own life and how that has benefited you. I always love to hear your own stories as well so please don't hesitate to share those with me. Again, sending you so, so much love. 

As we leave, I’m gonna reshare this mantra with you one more time because I love this mantra from the Sage archetype on really being in your truth-aligned leadership, making choices and taking actions that are in impeccable alignment with your truth, right? Letting go of what’s misaligned for the sake of honoring what is true for you and just noticing how this lands. I’ll invite you to play with this. “I see the truth. I speak the truth. I align to the truth. I am clarity. I am choice. I am integrity. I trust myself.” 

0:24:12

Sending you so much love, and we’ll see you next week!

[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.

0:25:02

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

[Fun, Empowering Music]

JOIN IN THE DISCUSSION ON THIS EPISODE AND MORE IN MY FREE FACEBOOK GROUP, FIND YOUR FEMININE FIRE HERE.

Krista is a master certified life coach, post-traumatic growth and grief expert, widow, mom, and host of The Widowed Mom Podcast. She never anticipated grief and post-traumatic growth being a part of her life until her husband died when she was 40, but through her traumatic experience and spousal loss, she was able to personally transform so much on her own. In 2017, she quit her corporate job and became certified as a coach. In her work, she’s guiding others in moving through sex after loss, post-traumatic growth, and dealing with grief.

Connect with Krista and learn more below!

• Work with Krista 

• Listen to The Widowed Mom Podcast - 

• Free course - https://www.coachingwithkrista.com/navigating-grief-course/

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If you've been interested in learning more about coaching with Amanda, she's now booking coaching clients for 1-1 support in creating the relationship and orgasmic pleasure of their dreams.   If you’ve been thinking about it, maybe we should talk!  Link here to book a free call to see if we’re a fit. 

EPISODE 222: Krista St-Germain

[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!

Hello, and welcome to the podcast. Today, we are going to be talking about post-traumatic growth and sex after loss, and I am really looking forward to talking with Krista St-Germain. She is a master certified life coach, post-traumatic growth and grief expert, widow, mom, and host of The Widowed Mom Podcast, and so, we are gonna dive into, really, how you can move into healing from deep loss and kind of talk about some myths around sex and grief. Krista’s gonna demystify some of those lies that widows have been told about their sex lives and grief and how to support yourself and get the support you need. So welcome, Krista. Thank you for being here today.

0:01:04

Krista St-Germain: Thanks so much for having me. Not everybody wants to talk about grief but me, so I’m glad to be here.

Amanda Testa: Well, you know, I appreciate it because, you know, I think that it’s a very important thing to talk about, right?

Krista St-Germain: I agree.

Amanda Testa: And so, I really appreciate all that you're sharing, and I ‘d love if you wouldn't mind just sharing a little bit about your story and what led you to be so passionate about what you're doing.

Krista St-Germain: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, grief and post-traumatic growth are never things that I ever really anticipated being a part of my life until my husband died. I really wasn't planning on it, but I was 40 years old, and it was my second marriage. He was kind of my redemption story. The first marriage did not end as well as one might hope, and he was just kind of proof that it actually can be amazing. He was amazing. We were coming home from a trip. We had driven separately. I had a flat tire on my car, and I pulled over on the shoulder of the interstate, and being the stubborn engineer that he was, he did not want to wait for AAA to change my tire. He’s like, “Maybe I can change your tire. It’s not a problem. You know, it’ll take less time.” 

0:02:04

And so, he was trying to get into my trunk to get access to the tire, and a driver (who we later found out had meth and alcohol in his system) did not see us, did not brake, crashed into the back of Hugo’s Durango and trapped him in between his car and mine, and so, in less than 24 hours, my perfect, I-love-my-life was just completely evaporated.

So, as one does, I went back to therapy immediately, and that was really helpful to me in terms of being able to tell my story and kind of come to peace in my own brain that it wasn't just a terrible nightmare and that it really had happened. I got back to that functioning place but was also feeling kind of hollow and robotic and really worried that my best days were behind me, right, and I should probably just be grateful for what I had because it probably wasn't ever gonna be that good. I think I just happened into the exact right program at the exact time I needed it which was a life coaching program. It was so powerful for me that I decided people need to know this stuff, right? 

0:03:07

People need these tools. I mean, you get it, right, ‘cause we’re in the same line of work. We get it. 

Yeah, and so, I just kind of transformed so much in my own way of living and seeing the world that I decided this was what I wanted to do. That was in 2017, and I quit my corporate job and certified as a coach, and I’ve been coaching widows ever since so here we are.

Amanda Testa: Yes, well, first of all, I really appreciate you sharing your story, and I’m very sorry for your loss.

Krista St-Germain: Well, thank you. Yeah, thank you.

Amanda Testa: I can only imagine, you know, the road that you've been on and the healing journey.

Krista St-Germain: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: I think that being able to help others in your situation, you probably have learned a lot around sex and grief and just in general how you move forward. You know, I think from what I’ve heard from people that have experienced a deep loss, it can be really challenging. Some people find their way back, and some people don't, and so, I’m wondering for you, well, what do you think has been the most supportive thing that you've done to move forward?

0:04:06

Krista St-Germain: You know, I think it’s a couple of things, but two kind of jump out. So one is I made the transition from believing that feelings were problems I needed to solve to seeing them as just experiences that I could allow, and I wasn't brought up that way. Not that I had terrible messaging around feelings, but I think I, as most humans, had bought into the idea that happiness is the goal and that when you aren’t feeling happy there’s something wrong and you should fix it.

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm.

Krista St-Germain: If that’s what you go into grief thinking, that feelings are problems and you're supposed to solve them or that you're wrong for having them, yeah, it results in a lot of suffering, right? So I made that transition. Then, the other major transition that I made was being able to see myself as separate from my own thinking. Before coaching, I was so busy thinking my thoughts that I hadn’t really realized I wasn’t my thoughts, right? 

0:05:02

And so, being able to see myself as the thinker of my thoughts, that’s what allowed me to see thoughts like, “My best days are probably behind me,” right? Instead of experiencing that as a truth, I transitioned into experiencing that as just an optional sentence in my mind that I could pick up or put down and then I could get leverage over it and then I could actually choose to believe if I wanted to, which I did, eventually. It took a while, that, no, my best days could be ahead of me. I could choose to believe that, and those two things, changing my relationship with feelings and changing my relationship with my thinking, were what I needed to create something completely different.

Amanda Testa: Yes, I think both of those things are easier said than done, right?

Krista St-Germain: Oh, no doubt.

Amanda Testa: So it’s all about the work into that.

Krista St-Germain: Yeah, and nobody taught me that until I got to coaching, and I had to do that work. Not only did I have to get coached, but I had to actually practice those skills and learn them, and you're right, it’s not just a switch that we flip.

0:06:00

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

Krista St-Germain: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: And I think, too, we talk a lot about relationships and sex on this podcast and really what it takes to feel good and flourish in your sex life, and I think, you know, a lot of times, at least something that I notice, is if people have gone through a trauma that it can be challenging to allow themselves pleasure or to allow themselves to feel good. I’m wondering how you help people navigate that or what you might want to share around that if you would.

Krista St-Germain: Yeah, I think a lot of it is exploring what have we been believing about pleasure, what have we been believing about sex, what are we taught to think about pleasure and sex, and then, of course, mixing in the grief part. So what does it mean to want pleasure or not (want sex or not) about you and grief? Most of what holds people back in that regard, especially my clients who are specifically widows, is just all the judgements and all the worries that they place on what does it mean if their libido is not where they think it should be by now, right? 

0:07:03

Does it mean they don't love their partner enough if they want to have sex? Does it mean they’ll never want to have sex again and something is wrong with them if they aren't interested? We’re told so many unhelpful things. You know, you should wait until you’re not grieving to have sex. What? I mean, first of all, that implies that grief has an end. 

Amanda Testa: Right, right.

Krista St-Germain: Which it doesn't, right?

Amanda Testa: Exactly. [Laughs]

Krista St-Germain: [Laugh] Okay, so, basically, what you're saying is if I ever want to have sex again, I’m wrong and I should wait, or we’re told the only reason you would want sex is if you're trying to escape your grief. Well, that’s not helpful or accurate or, “You're just confused.” It’s fascinating how many times I’ve heard this one. “What you really want is a massage. You just want human touch. You don't actually want sex.” Wait, what, right? Yeah, just so much conditioning that we come to a grief experience with that then shows up and it’s worth looking at.

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

Krista St-Germain: There’s a lot of it.

Amanda Testa: Right, and, I mean, I know you're also a mom as well, and so, not only is there all that to navigate but also being a mother and being sexual, that’s also a lot of conditioning around that too, right?

0:08:08

Krista St-Germain: Yeah, totally. 

Amanda Testa: [Laughs]

Krista St-Germain: Yeah, yeah, and I think, also, it’s different for every woman that I work with, and I work with women that are all ages, but I notice sometimes, too, there are many that maybe were never with any other person than the one that they lost, and so, there’s a whole bunch of discomfort and new territory that we’ve got to explore, right? Your self-confidence sometimes takes a hit. You start second guessing yourself and doubting yourself. It’s a recipe for a lot of opportunities.

Amanda Testa: Right.

Krista St-Germain: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: I’m wondering what advice you have for women around kind of creating their own path around that or navigating what feels right for them.

Krista St-Germain: Yeah, ultimately, what I help women figure out is, like, nobody else is gonna know what’s best for your life, but you do.

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm.

Krista St-Germain: Right? What prevents you from living into what’s best for your life is just some garbage in your brain that you picked up like a bad penny, right? 

0:09:04

And so, I don't ever act like I know what’s best for someone’s life. What I see my job is, is helping my client see the garbage in their brain that’s holding them back from their own internal knowing, right, and helping them shine a light on it so they can get some leverage over it, and then we can get it out of the way, and then they can really live into what they know is true for themselves which is different for every person, and it’s not right or wrong or good or bad or superior or inferior. It’s not a moral issue, right? It’s just that we have a way that we want to live our lives, and the only thing that holds us back is just some junk in our brain.

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm. I think that’s a very loving way to view it as well, right? You have been a lot easier on yourself when you can make that distinction.

Krista St-Germain: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, and what’s the benefit of not being easy on yourself? There isn’t one, right, but most of us are pretty good at it.

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm. Yes.

Krista St-Germain: Yes, for sure.

Amanda Testa: All the internalized misogyny and whatnot that we like to throw at ourselves.

0:10:04

Krista St-Germain: It’s fascinating how much the more I coach, the more I see it. Even things like I was coaching someone last week, and we were talking about how she had gone to her high school senior incoming freshman’s college orientation, and everyone in the room (in her mind) was wearing a wedding ring except for her, and I see this a lot where we have so much conditioning around that it’s better to be partnered, you're supposed to be in a relationship, you can only be happy if you are, that when we lose that, all that conditioning shows up, right? Then, of course, we have all these desires to throw ourselves into new relationships because of that conditioning, and unraveling all of that, yeah, phew, hello, misogyny. Hello, patriarchy. It’s a good time. [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: Right, well, I mean, it’s so interesting because that’s so what we’re taught, right? It’s so what people taught, yeah.

Krista St-Germain: Totally. Yeah, totally. The most important day of our lives is our wedding day, right? 

0:11:01

I mean, what’s it about to be a woman? I mean, yeah, right, but I see it, also, as a good opportunity, right? It’s not exactly the way that people would probably choose to start to sort that stuff out for themselves, but it sure does bring it up, and I think it gives you the ability to really decide, okay, if this was the conditioning that’s showing up in my brain, is it what I want to keep? Is it moving me toward what I want in my life? Is it taking me away from what I want in my life? If the answer is away, then just because stuff appears in my brain doesn't mean I have to keep believing it and letting it fuel me. Then, we start seeing, ah, we’re so much more powerful than we thought, and that’s really fun to be a part of.

Amanda Testa: Definitely. 

Krista St-Germain: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: I think, too, you know, because something that comes up a lot around sex in general is shame, and you talk about, too, there’s a lot of myths that people have heard around sex and grief. Maybe could you share some of those myths that people have been told about sex lives and grief and how they are your recipe for shame and guilt and what to do about that?

0:12:04

Krista St-Germain: Yeah, so, I mean, there’s so much of it, but just to hit a few points, that what you want, in terms of your sex life, has anything to do with your goodness or badness, your intelligence or lack of intelligence, your neediness or confidence -- we draw so many unnecessary conclusions based on what we’re taught to believe about ourselves and how we’re supposed to be. It’s not our desire or lack-of or our sexual behavior or lack-of that causes the problem. It’s our judgment. It’s what we make all of that mean that causes the guilt and causes the shame. It’s when we tell ourselves there’s something wrong with us because we’ve bought into the, “You just want to escape your grief because you can't handle the feelings,” or, “You didn't love your person enough,” or, “It’s too early,” or, “Good girls don't do that,” or, “You should at least wait a year.” Any of that nonsense, when we use it against ourselves, that’s what creates the guilt and the shame, and it’s just unnecessary.

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

0:13:05

Krista St-Germain: And then we have these culturally (to me) abhorrent terms like wid-hoe. Have you heard this one?

Amanda Testa: I have not.

Krista St-Germain: I cannot stand it. I know some people think it’s funny, and some people think it’s empowering, and if it’s empowering to you, you go, right? But I’ve just always hated it. A lot of people will go through what they call their “wid-hoe” stage which means that they are having more sex than they were before for some particular reason, and I just guess it bothers me so much because I don't like the idea that we would even consider calling someone a hoe because they're having sex when they want to have sex.

Amanda Testa: [Laughs]

Krista St-Germain: There’s a grown woman, right? Why are we calling her a “hoe?” I know that it’s tongue-in-cheek and some people really do see it as empowering, but, to me, it’s just a sign of all the judgment that exists in the first place about women and their bodies and what they should or shouldn’t be doing with them, and I don't like the idea of feeding into that with a term like “wid-hoe,” but, man, if you ever jump into a widow or widower’s Facebook group, you will see that term left, right, and center. It is everywhere. It’s fascinating to me.

0:14:14

Amanda Testa: Very interesting. Yeah, it is such a double standard.

Krista St-Germain: Right? Yeah, we never do that with men!

Amanda Testa: [Giggles] No!

Krista St-Germain: And the statistics -- I need to look this up and actually get some math behind this, but men remarry and/or date so much faster than widows do, right? Widowers get in new relationships and marry way faster than widows do. I think part of it is just because of the judgment that we have. What we make it mean, that we might have that desire, find someone attractive. Some of the women who are struggling the most are the ones that come to me and they are already dating or in a relationship, and they have so much judgment about themselves for doing that or they fear so much the judgment from others. 

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

Krista St-Germain: Yeah, and then that’s largely a product of the way we were socialized.

0:15:02

Amanda Testa: Right, ‘cause I can see how that would come up and just feeling like, well, what does this mean about me and what will people think. All the things that we put in our brains that don't need to be there, but they're easy to put there, right?

Krista St-Germain: Yeah. Yeah, if you think there’s a right or wrong way of doing grief, which (spoiler alert) there is not, right, but if you have bought into this idea that there is a right or a wrong way, then it’s so easy to see why women would say, well, I want sex too much or I don't want sex enough, right? They will see their own belief of “I’m doing it wrong” reflected in all areas of life, including their sex lives.

Amanda Testa: Yeah, right.

Krista St-Germain: ‘Cause that’s what their brain is looking for is evidence of how they're doing it wrong which is impossible.

Amanda Testa: Right. I’m wondering, too, when it comes to -- ‘cause, I mean, I think the thing that is true about grief is people want it to be over or they want to, like, “When will I know that I’m healed from something?” I think, like you say, it’s not a linear path. It does not look the same for anyone. It’s very much a personal journey.

0:16:07

Krista St-Germain: Yeah, and unless we are capable of time travel and we can somehow go backwards in time and make the loss not happen, right, it’s the natural human response to a perceived loss. The loss happened, and we’re always gonna have a response to it, so it’s not gonna be something that has a finish line or an end.

I was even listening to a podcast the other day from a so-called expert, and,  “There’s a beginning and a middle and an end of grief,” and I wanted to reach through my phone and punch him. [Laughs] It’s just perpetuating the untruth, right? Or we only know -- I don't know how much grief interests you or if it’s something you’ve spent much time around, but I didn't know until I started doing my own grief research that there were multiple theories about grief. I had only heard of the five stages of grief (Kubler-Ross and David Kessler), and so, I really thought that I think I’m supposed to be in denial, and then I’m supposed to bargain, and then I’m supposed to get angry, and then depression, and then acceptance, and whatever. 

0:17:08

Just like there are probably many theories about weight loss or whatever, there’s lots of theories about grief, too, and when we only know about one of them, we try to put square pegs in round holes, and it doesn't really help the griever at all, right? Yeah, so there’s so much misinformation. We kind of suck at grief as a culture.

Amanda Testa: Agreed.

Krista St-Germain: That’s okay. We’re fixing it, Amanda.

Amanda Testa: Well, also, too, just in general, the expectation that you just go back to normal after two weeks or whatever, right, or you should move on, yeah.

Krista St-Germain: Yeah, no, none of that happens, and the misunderstanding of what’s actually going on in your brain and what’s happening hormonally, and what’s happening in your body, we’re so unprepared for that, that when it happens, we think there’s something wrong with us. I find grief fog can be really intense, especially for my clients, and most of them had no idea that was a thing until they were experiencing it and they couldn't think clearly and they couldn't remember clearly, and instead of being prepared for it and realizing, “Oh, this is just grief fog,” they, then, think there’s something wrong with them, right, because we just aren't familiar with what happens to a human who is grieving.

0:18:12

Amanda Testa: Right, and I think in grief, extreme stress actually has been proven to reduce your IQ points because your body is processing a huge stress, right?

Krista St-Germain: Yes. Yeah. You literally cannot process what you could process before. It is so taxing on your ability to use the executive functioning part of your brain. it’s just an unfair ask.

Amanda Testa: Right, but I appreciate you talking about this because people -- and I think, too, oftentimes -- well, I can just share from my own personal experience which isn't the same at all, but just in dealing with grief, my dad was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s. So he was diagnosed when he was 48. So he was sick for a very long time, and then was in a nursing home, the support care place.

Krista St-Germain: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Amanda Testa: And I hesitate to call it a nursing home ‘cause he was young, but, anyways, grief can hit in different ways, too, right, because then there’s extended grief if someone’s sick and then they die.

0:19:08

Krista St-Germain: Anticipatory grief.

Amanda Testa: And then you're like, oh, well, you should be grieving, but then you're not, right? It’s like all these things that it is so nuanced and complex, yes.

Krista St-Germain: Yes, lots of different theories about grief, lots of different types of grief, and lots of differing opinions about grief. Even people who do grief for a living don't always agree, right? Every single human has a different experience which doesn't make them right or wrong or good or bad. It’s just that grief is unique to every human, and so, to try to generalize it or expect it to go one way and then weaponize it against yourself when it doesn't is just such an injustice, and it’s something I hope we can change.

Amanda Testa: Right, when it comes to post-traumatic growth -- because I do want to touch on that too because I think, oftentimes, it’s not talked about enough - the ability to flourish after a traumatic event, the potential for that.

Krista St-Germain: Yeah.

0:20:02

Amanda Testa: I’m wondering if you might share a little bit more about that.

Krista St-Germain: Absolutely. I remember learning about post-traumatic growth, and it was kind of one of those moments when you're like eerk. Like, the record scratched and you're like, “What? What did I hear?” Because I think most people are familiar with post-traumatic stress disorder, but post-traumatic growth is newer and it’s less talked about so they don't even know it’s a possibility, but, basically, post-traumatic growth is this idea created by a couple of researchers (Tedeschi and Calhoun are their last names), and before their work, what was commonly thought was that when someone experienced a trauma, the goal after that trauma (what was possible after that trauma) was to simply get them back to the same baseline of wellness that they had experienced before the trauma, right? So we were doing okay, and then we hit a low spot, and now we’re trying to get back to okay. 

Then post-traumatic growth came along, and these two researchers started seeing that oh, wait, some people aren’t getting back to the wellness baseline anyway. 

0:21:00

Some people are getting back to that baseline of wellness, but then other people are actually reporting that they're more satisfied with life following the trauma of what’s happening here. And so, it kind of blew the minds of those who thought the goal was just to get back to baseline and helped us reconsider the idea that, no, actually, in five specific domains of life, we can use any trauma that we have been through as a way to bounce forward, not just back, right? So we can have increased personal strength. We can have better relationships, increased spiritual development. We can have a greater appreciation for life. We can open up to possibilities that we never opened up to before. 

I like to think of it like -- I live in Kansas -- if a tornado comes and blows your house down, right -- which just happened a few weeks ago down the street from me, but  anyway -- you could rebuild the exact same house that you had. That’s a possibility, right? There would be nothing wrong with that.

0:22:00

It wouldn't make you better or worse. That’s one option. You could also take what you learned from having lived in that house -- do I want more windows, do I want more electrical outlets, do I like where the master bedroom is, do I want an extra bedroom, do I want a bigger closet? What do I want that’s different? What do I value here? If I’m gonna start from scratch, then what if I actually leaned in and used that information from the prior chapter of life and leveraged it to build something that’s even more aligned with what I value and what I want? That’s post-traumatic growth, and, to me, it’s amazing, but a lot of times people will make even the idea of being more satisfied with life after their person died mean something about their love for their person, like, “Who am I to be happier, and what does that say about me,” and that’s where I come in and try to help them sort through that and show them that those two things aren’t connected.

Amanda Testa: I think that’s huge right there.

Krista St-Germain: Right?

Amanda Testa: ‘Cause I know just in my life I can think of people who I know that just don’t feel okay about moving on because they think that’s a disrespect to their person that died.

0:23:08

Krista St-Germain: Yeah, yeah. Meanwhile, I bet that nine times out of ten, if we could have a conversation with that person who died, what would they want for their loved one? Most of them would want them to be happy, right?

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm.

Krista St-Germain: But yeah, it's different to be in the situation, and it’s different to, again, not see all of that garbage in your brain as optional because you're just living it as truth, and sometimes it takes somebody outside of your own brain to point it out to you and help you get some leverage over it.

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

Krista St-Germain: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: I really appreciate the science behind what you're saying, too. It’s like, obviously, we have ways that our brains and bodies respond to things, and there are tools that you can use to navigate how to move forward.

Krista St-Germain: Totally.

Amanda Testa: I love the term positive neuroplasticity that I saw on your website.

Krista St-Germain: Mm, yes.

Amanda Testa: Which there’s a lot around neuroplasticity in our brain. 

0:24:00

We literally have the opportunity to change the way our brains work, and so, I would love if you would share a little bit more about that if you don't mind.

Krista St-Germain: Yeah, so basically, most of us are walking around living programing that exists in our brain, right? Neuropathways that are on autopilot, essentially, it’s the reason we can drive to the grocery store and not remember the drive, right? We don't have to consciously think about it because the pathway exists in our brain, and the brain likes to be efficient, and so, whatever it does often enough and on repeat enough, it doesn't have to consciously choose to do anymore which is good for us because that part of our brain that makes decisions and has those higher functioning skills does have such a limited bandwidth anyway. We need that part of our brain to be efficient and on autopilot, but a lot of what’s on autopilot isn't necessarily moving us towards the life experience that we want, right? A lot of it’s actually holding us back from what we want, and so, this idea of positive neuroplasticity just basically means we can uncover those old patterns that are different for the individual, right, and it’s not universal because what one person might like, another person might find un-useful, and when we find something unuseful, we can create a new pathway, right? 

0:25:11

We can learn to believe and feel in such a way that we cement a new pattern in our brain, right? We can create kind of new highways, if you will, and the science supports that, that just because we believe something now doesn't mean we have to keep believing it. We can actually use our brain to believe new things and create new pathways, and they can be positive.

Amanda Testa: Yeah. 

Krista St-Germain: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: I’m wondering, too, for those who may be finding it hard to reach out for support, what are some of the benefits, ‘cause I know you said you immediately went to therapy, and you got support. How can maybe people open up towards that?

0:25:56

Krista St-Germain: Well, so what I would say is that remember we live in a culture that doesn't really understand grief, and so, it’s really easy to think that what’s happening during grief is indicative of some sort of internal flaw or problem with our character, right, or it’s just us. And so, that’s what often holds us back from asking for support, is we make whatever’s happening mean there’s something wrong with us, and then we have some shame around it, or some worry around it which is the exact reason I specifically love work in groups, right? This is what happened to me. I coached one-on-one for a long time with individual clients, and then I had so many of the same conversations over and over and over, and I struggled to help women see that what was happening wasn't just them. They wouldn't believe me, right, because I’m the coach, but when I could get them together, and they could see -- not me, I’m not making it up -- they could see, “Oh, that’s happening to that woman too. It’s not just me. There’s nothing wrong with me. This is just a part of it,” right, then we make progress so much faster because we get past all of the stuff that everybody’s got in common, and then we can get into the stuff that actually is specific to you. Things move so much faster when you don't try to do it alone because seeing that it’s not just you and you're not flawed will block your progress every time.

Amanda Testa: Right.

0:27:28

Krista St-Germain: So I went back to therapy simply because I already had a good therapist. When I got divorced the first time, I had searched around and found a therapist that worked for me, and so, it was really easy for me to go back because I knew that having someone to listen to me would help. I also felt like I would be a burden. I thought that I would be a burden to other people around me. I just didn't really want to share all that stuff with them, and I loved having a space where I could just go and not be judged and let it all out, and that’s what I needed in acute grief, was just to puke it out. Then, later, when I could think about my thinking, and I was ready to start making changes, and I didn't really just want to talk about what happened anymore, that’s when I think coaching -- I’m just so glad I found it. 

0:28:13

That’s when coaching can come in because, you know, as coaches, I think we’re empathetic. That’s part of our job, but our job is literally to not believe the things that our clients believe that hold them back, right? Our job is to believe that more is possible, and they can create what they want, and it’s a totally different experience.

With the age of online -- and I think COVID helped, but even before COVID, for me, all of my work is on Zoom. So whatever the issue is that you want help with, there is a group somewhere for you --

Amanda Testa: Right.

Krista St-Germain: -- that will help you make progress faster, right?

Amanda Testa: It is true.

Krista St-Germain: There is totally.

Amanda Testa: There is still so much about healing in community. It’s so amazing. I mean, I can just share the same. Like, when I work with women in groups, it never fails there’s a, “I thought I was the only one!”

0:29:02

Krista St-Germain: Yes, yes!

Amanda Testa: And everyone’s like, “Oh, my gosh! It’s not just me!”

Krista St-Germain: Yes.

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

Krista St-Germain: Yeah, there’s like the chats going wild of, like, “Me too! I’m so glad you brought it up! I was embarrassed to talk about it.” Whenever we talk about sex in my group, it’s exactly the same thing that happens, right? And so, I can only imagine what happens in your coaching where it is such a stigmatized subject that when people have a safe environment to be honest about it, and other people are being honest about it, then I can only imagine how liberating that is and how much progress you're able to help people to make that’s just so much harder in a one-on-one environment -- and, literally, almost impossible. If you're trying to go it alone, it’s gonna take you forever.

Amanda Testa: Right. I do feel like just getting support is so important. I think it’s amazing, the communities that you've created. I’d love if you would share a little bit more about how people can connect with you and how you work.

0:30:00

Krista St-Germain: Totally, and before I do that, it just reminded me of something. Right before I hopped on the phone with you, I was doing a podcast interview for my own podcast with one of my clients who’s graduating, and one of the things she said is, “I’m kind of an introvert.” We were talking about why coaching in a group was powerful for her, and she said, “I’m kind of an introvert, and so, what was really nice for me is to be able to come and not have to be the one that a coach had to pull conversation out of, right? I could sit there and kind of watch and absorb and benefit from just being there without having to be in the hot seat,” and, you know, how powerful that was for her.

But anyway, I had a podcast called The Widowed Mom Podcast. It is, of course, serving a very specific woman with a specific story, but I try to cover a lot of grief and post-traumatic growth-related topics and make it very useable for anyone, so definitely people can come and listen to the podcast, and I have a free course on grief. For anybody who’s new to grief or maybe wants to support someone in grief, they can go to coachingwithkrista.com, and if they scroll down on the homepage, you put your name and email in there, and you’ll have access to a free course which is just kind of meant to dismantle some of those most basic myths and get people a little bit more prepared to support themselves or someone else. So yeah.

0:31:14

Amanda Testa: Amazing. I’m wondering, too, if there’s any question that you wished I would have asked that I didn't ask or any other words you want to make sure to share?

Krista St-Germain: You know, because I serve such a specific niche, I would love to learn more about what your clients struggle with as it relates to grief and sex. What do they bring to you?

Amanda Testa: You know, a lot of it, honestly, when it comes to grief, it can show up in so many different ways, like you say, but a lot of times it’s around maybe grieving something that they’ve lost through illness.

Krista St-Germain: A non-death loss, yeah.

Amanda Testa: Yeah, or grieving just maybe ways they feel like their body has betrayed them or if it is a loss, it’s allowing themselves access to pleasure or how they can find ways to feel good in their bodies again. 

0:32:04

And so, a lot of the work that I do in that lens is around that, but for the most part, the trauma-resolution work that I do has a lot to do with sex-related things.

Krista St-Germain: Yeah. Sure.

Amanda Testa: You know, there’s a lot of trauma in that window, and so, I feel like when you work with sexuality, that’s just a part of it, you know?

Krista St-Germain: Yep.

Amanda Testa: One in three people is affected from sexual assault in some way, and there’s a lot around that that I work with, so more so than just specific to grief.

Krista St-Germain: I’m so glad you brought that up, though, because I do think that oftentimes people associate grief with only death losses and they forget -- and even as I’m talking about it I’m not doing it any service ‘cause I’m so in the world of death with spousal loss -- but that grief really is our response to a perceived loss, and a perceived loss can be so many different things to so many people. I have a friend who coaches weight loss. She’s so good at it, and people will grieve the body they thought they were going to have when they lost all the weight and how it’s different from the body that they actually have when they lost all the weight or grieve not eating the way that they used to eat or the satisfaction that they used to get, the emotional high they used to get when they ate particular foods, and so, yeah, really expanding our idea of grief.

0:33:21

Another friend of mine, she made a million dollars in her business after working for several years to do it and then cried for a week, right? The reason that happened -- it was grief. She didn't see it that way, but she thought when she hit that level of success, she anticipated a different experience, and when she got there she realized, “Oh, actually, I’m still the same human person --,”

Amanda Testa: Right, right.

Krista St-Germain: “-- and this idea that some number is gonna change my life… it didn't go that way. I expected it to go one way, and it went the other way, and it felt like a loss,” and so, enter grief. So, yeah, just broadening up that definition, I’m so glad you did that. 

Amanda Testa: Yes, well, thank you so much, again, for being here. I’ll make sure to put in the show notes, as well, where everyone can connect with you and, yes, if there’s anything else that you feel would be supportive as a last word?

0:34:08

Krista St-Germain: You know, I’m always here, so if somebody has a question or they need a resource and they're not a widowed mom -- maybe you've got somebody in your life that you're trying to figure out how to support, don't be bashful. I may not have the exact answer, but I can point you in the right direction and get you the right resource. So don't be afraid to reach out.

Amanda Testa: Yeah, I think that’s good, too, because maybe you are supporting someone who’s grieving, and that also brings up a lot for people who are like, “I don't know what to do,” or, “I don't know how to show up,” or, “I don't know what to say,” all those things that could be coming up.

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Krista St-Germain: Yeah, absolutely.

Amanda Testa: Beautiful. Well, thank you so much, again, Krista. It’s a pleasure to meet you, and I really appreciate all your wisdom.

Krista St-Germain: Thanks for having me.

Amanda Testa: Yes, and thank you all 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.

0:35:05

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. 

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