Awakening your Shakti with Lisa Schrader

Welcome to Mama Goddess. I'm your host, Alexandra J. Johnson. This podcast is all about rocking your goddess life, creating vibrant health and celebrating motherhood and family life. It's about living an authentically awesome life. Let's have some fun.

Welcome. I'm Alexander J. Johnson, and today we have a delicious and gorgeous goddess, Lisa. Lisa is the founder of Awakening Shakti. She's also a speaker, an author, a coach, and she's fantastic. And what I really love about Lisa is that she. The life that she's living now, she was in corporate world. She did marketing and business and things like that. Now she has her own business. But it's very. It's connected to the divine feminine. She has created her life so that she is in divine feminine flow and juicy and sexy and sensual. And I just think she's a great demonstration for all of us ladies. So welcome Lisa.

Thank you so much, Alexandra. I love when we get a chance to collaborate. So this is delicious. Thank you. Yay.

Fantastic. And Lisa and I were just talking about before. A lot of the sensual goddesses have to have things beautiful around her. If you watch her videos or go to her website and stuff, she is just like, she's got this beautiful. Is it a rose?

It's a rose, baby. A big red rose.

I mean, it's like succulent, juicy. I mean, it just says, sensual, sexual pleasure. Come and get me.

And I built a wall and painted it purple so that this big red rose would have her altar space.

Oh, my gosh. I love it. I love it. Okay, so let's just dive in. You know, we're talking about pleasure. So what is pleas. What does pleasure mean to you? Ah.

Well, I think like most people, I used to think of pleasure as the dessert and that, you know, we had to eat all of our meat and our vegetables and clean our plates, and if we were good, then we could have the dessert part, right? Or that. It's the. It's the part where we work really hard and we get everything done, and then maybe when we get to Friday afternoon, we can have a little bit of pleasure on the weekends. So I think for a lot of us, pleasure has that feeling like it has to be in a particular compartment or it has to be something that we deserve after we do the things maybe that are more responsible or that we have to do. And so for me, it very much was in that sort of dualistic, you know, more black and white, this tit for tat kind of context for me. And what's really shifted for me as A result of being in my own shakti, awakening my own shakti, meaning the life force energy, the divine feminine energy that is in all things and animates and is the power of everything on the planet. As I have really been in my own awakening of that in my life, in the last. Really concentrating on that in the last decade of my life, I really come to see that pleasure. What's shifting for me is that pleasure is now. And so even, of course, there are aspects of our life that are not particularly pleasurable. Right. Like, for me, dealing with my financial reality is something I know I need to do as a responsible woman and businesswoman, but that's not something that inherently is pleasurable for me. Right. It definitely lands in that area of like, ugh, I haven't done that and I should pay attention and get my stuff together over there. But even with tasks like that, right? And for all of us, we have those tasks in our life, you know, how can I find the pleasure inside of that task? Might even be something as simple as, well, I'm going to get a big, beautiful open rose that's full of fragrance. I'm going stick it right on my desk, right? And then I have a bar of chocolate with me, and I have my big jug of water, you know, and maybe I'm somehow bring pleasure, weave that into even the tasks for me that I really don't enjoy. So that's a really mundane example, but for me, it's weaving pleasure and it's dancing with pleasure as a way to honor myself, as a way to honor my feminine soul, who needs pleasure and wants to walk with beauty as part of my path. And having that integrated in life so that it's not something that, oh, I can't have time for it, or I gotta wait for it, or it's way out there. But it's those little things that we can do to bring pleasure into our life that for us, in a female body, brings us more happiness, brings us a little more joy, brings us feeling of being sensually alive and in our bodies. Right? So pleasure, you know, a good next place to go would be, how do we define what that is? Right. Because what pleases me and what pleases you, Alexandra, what pleases those of us, those of you that are listening is highly individual.

Right?

Yeah.

So how does somebody find, like, what, do you have recommendations? You know, because I think for a lot of people, you think of pleasure, and a lot of people think the sexual and the sensual, which is an element of it, but there's like a Whole big realm that I think a lot of us are missing. So how do we help ourselves get clear about what is pleasurable for us? Like what is pleasure for each individual? Find our own authentic expression of pleasure?

Yeah, it's a great question. And a lot of times in my coaching practice or in my work, I have a lot of women who resonate with my history of being in high tech, marketing and working and being in environments that felt pretty sterile and very mental and required a lot of stress management for me to cope in those environments. And they'll high achieving professional women and they'll come to me and they'll be like, I don't even know where to begin with pleasure. Or it's so dead in the bedroom. Or I feel so shut off for my body. How do I start feeling more orgasmic? How do I start to feel that juice? And it's kind of like we try to go from zero to 80 miles an hour. You need a silver bullet. What do I gotta do? I want to be like you. I want to be orgasmic all day long and find myself all wet and juicy even when I'm doing the laundry. How do you do that? Right?

Yeah, I do you.

First of all, I want to say it is possible. Yes.

Because I do get to live like that.

Not all the time, but yes. My life is really saturated in a beautiful way, you know, orgasmic energy. But what I would say is, first of all, we're so used to trying to fix it. And we're so, you and I, we can relate to this. We're so used to being in that overachieving mode. Right. So of course it's like, just show me what to do, show me what to do. I get there, right? That, that is a lot of our masculine energy and part of, I think what we're, we're all relearning right now, the opportunity that's available to us is, is this more resting into what we already know. And so it's like, ugh, what if I wasn't trying to get over here? Right? What if I wasn't trying to, you know, get to this place? What if I just let that go? I come back into like, what do I really know right here, right in my heart, in my womb, in my yoni, like, what does this body really know? And this body of ours, as we start to give it a little more attention and we create some more space for the body and the soul to start speaking to us, it might be that we begin in very simple ways in terms of finding Our pleasure. And it might not be, you know, sexual orgasmic pleasure, at least initially at all. Right. And so we could even start with your clothing. Like, are you actually choosing, you know, materials and the kind of textiles and even the colors that really make you feel good, Right. Did somebody tell you when you were three that orange looked terrible, and so you stopped wearing orange, Even though orange is what makes your heart sing, right? Like, start to go back to these. These simple little things, like in your environment, what brings you pleasure, you know, do you. How do you. How can you awaken more of your senses? Right? Sensuality is really about really engaging with our senses. Here we have this magnificent, you know, instrument that we've been given, right? This human body, you know, what. What are we seeing that brings us to. Brings us pleasure? Do you have art? Do you have colors? Do you have sculptures? Do you have flowers? Do you have even furniture, you know, silverware that is beautiful to you or that brings you pleasure? How can you start to look in your environment for beauty? Same with all the senses. Are you smelling things that bring you pleasure? Could be as simple as starting to light a little incense in your office or having flowers or a scented candle around you. What can start to awaken you to the pleasure of scent? So to start really looking at our senses, of course, this translates into the bedroom as well. So if we want to be in our bodies and in our senses, we have to make sure that we're feeding our senses during the day, right? So oftentimes, especially when we're, you know, we're doing. We're making things happen, we're much more in that. What I call the hyper masculine model, which is not a bad thing, right. That's what, you know, has you handle your child and an interview like this and everything that you did today, right? It's what has me also run my business and take care of my family and volunteer and do whatever it is that I'm out in the world doing. So it's not that that energy's bad. We need that. But we want to balance it, you know, with our feminine energy. And our feminine energy is fed by pleasure, by space, right? By beauty, walking with beauty, by feeling our emotional life, our feeling life, by moving our energy. Right. By literally moving our body, whether that's dance or yoga or whatever it is that how your body wants to move, right? Those are all ways that we feed the feminine and feed what brings us pleasure. Yeah.

So you were saying the space, right? So that we need to have this space. And I know as a New mom space is more of an issue than I ever could have imagined.

It's a premium. It's at a premium.

And I know I'm not alone. You know, even if you're not a new mother or you're just a mother or not even a mother, that seems.

Like a common thing for people, like.

How do I create this space? So can you talk a little bit of how we create the space and why creating that space is so important? Because I think when we actually. Maybe this is part of the my masculine. But when we know the benefits of creating the space, then we're like, okay, I can make that happen.

Right? Exactly. Yeah. I'm just thinking about this beautiful phrase from Virginia Wolf, creating a room of one's own. And so the space literally can be a physical space, a physical room, or for many women, it's a tiny little place in a room. Creating some kind of physical space, I think is important. And maybe that looks like an altar, for example, or maybe it just looks like a little corner of a room where you have some comfy pillows or a sheepskin or a little table and a reading lamp where you can go read. I think there is great value to having a literal physical space that belongs to you, right? It really belongs to you, and that's really important. And then, of course, there's the space that you're also referring to, which is the time, Right? Like, how do I create space in my overwhelmingly busy schedule with all these demands upon my time? And that one is one that we're all struggling with. You know, it really. It really is a challenge. So the first thing is to have compassion for the fact that we happen to be in a culture right now where, for the most part, we don't have tribe and community like we used to. Right? It used to be that when we're raising children, we're with the other women in the tribe, and the children are playing, and these women are cooking, and these women are doing the laundry, and these women are out gathering berries, right? So it wasn't like one person was like, I got to take care of the kids and gather the berries and cook the food and do the laundry all at the same time. And by five o', clock, right? So we got to have compassion that, you know, we are struggling right now for a reason. And I think one of those pieces is our lack of community or a lack of tribe. And if that's speaking to any of you listening, I would encourage you to really look at what is possible for you in terms of getting support you know, being in some kind of a collective or even one day a week where you get together with a couple of other moms, for example, and you share with some of that. Yes, you know, the play dates are. Going to the park is great because that can help you feel not so isolated, but even, you know, the tasks around the house. I have been blessed in the last five years to live in community in various forms in my house. And one of the richest times for me was when I was living with two other women. So we had three women in the home. And it was revolutionary for me. It was the first time I had ever experienced that. You know, I would walk downstairs and, you know, one of my lovely housemates would say, oh, I just made a big pot of soup. There's plenty if you want some, right? And I'm like, oh, wow. Like a bowl of homemade soup. How incredible, right? I didn't have to cook that something else. I'd walk by and, you know, the bowl of cat food had been replenished. Like, I'm not the only one that's paying attention to the cat. It made me weep initially, how hungry I was just for these simple supports, you know, to happen. So that's really important. And, of course, that extends to feeling supported and loved emotionally with other women, right? Do you have your sisters? Do you have your, you know, maybe even your red tent time where you get to come together and you share and you cry and you process what's going on? Like, that kind of community is so, so important. So let's see. It's a little off on a tangent, but going back to the space, like, how do we create that? And in terms of that, you know, speaking to the mind so that we can get. We can get there. You know, I get fierce about this right now, right? I get really fierce about it. We are somewhat locked into this paradigm. I don't have time, right? I don't have time for me. I gotta just keep going. I gotta get going. This is no longer a sustainable model. It's not working on the planet, right? You have this idea, oh, I'll just keep. It's almost like, I just want to slap all of us, right? And the thing is, the goddess will slap us, right? We'll have a health crisis, or suddenly our husband will go, you know what you've become?

What?

Daniel laporte, who I just had an amazing conversation with on an interview called the Epidemic of the Brittle Woman. You'll suddenly look at yourself and you're like, I'm brittle. I'm Pissed off, I'm bitchy. I have no time for myself, right? I'm barely functioning in my marriage or my relationship. I'm not being the kind of mom I want to be. I have no time for my soul self, right? This is not sustainable. And so it's like whatever it takes, whether it's 15 minutes in the morning, work yourself up to days, weeks, even where you get space. But even if it feels impossible to you, I would say you've got to begin this. Because even a 15 minute block of time in the morning where, you know, you say, this is my time, mommy's not available, I'm going to sit, I'm going to light this candle, I'm going to talk about what I'm grateful for, I'm going to rub coconut oil all over my body. Whatever your practice might be, that just gives you a moment of pleasure and connection to your soul self. That's not negotiable. It's not negotiable. And so enough with this. I can, I'm too.

Da, da, da, da.

You know, we don't want to keep perpetuating the consequences of that. Yes, it's true for men, but it's critical for women. Men have testosterone, right? They're really good at, go, go, go, show me the goal, Let me get to the task. And penetrating life with my energy, right? That actually good for them. They don't need downtime, but they get, the more they do that, the more energy they get, right? Us as women, when we adopt that model, it stresses us out, right? Our cortisol levels go through the roof. When we feel like we don't have time, we get stressed out big time. And so for us in our bodies, we have to start reducing that cortisol. Women are twice as stressed as men right now. We're twice as likely to fall into depression as a man is right now. Yes, we've made a lot of gains and there's some really beautiful things happening on the planet for women. But as Eve Ensler told us, one out of three of us is still getting sexually or physically assaulted in our lifetimes, right? We gotta start taking a stake and a claim for the feminine and feminine needs, space and feminine needs, time and feminine needs, the soul, life, right? And it's not just for us and our body and our health and our children and all the people we touch, but it's servicing the planet. So if you're having a hard time feeling like you can justify or you deserve your own space, then do it for the planet, for the Planet shifting to a more sustainable way of being. Amen. Thank you for giving me the soapbox.

That was awesome. I totally agree. And I know, I mean, I feel like I say this over and over to the women that I work with and just in general, but it's always great for me to hear and it's a great reminder, I think, for all of us women to keep hearing it over and over. Like it is. I don't function in that. I actually never have really. You know, I didn't go from corporate to that. I literally tried it and I was like, I can't do that.

Exactly.

Get me out of it. I felt like I was gonna have a nervous breakdown. I'm like, this is me too, I cannot do this. And then I felt like a loser. I mean, there was a big bargain. Like, why can't I just buck up and do it?

Yeah, what's wrong with me? Right? I'm so glad that you're saying that. I mean, I literally remember a morning when I was working in the Silicon Valley. I was in my, you know, mid-20s and had, you know, was making a ton of money and had a lot of responsibility and was one of those little golden children right out of college, you know, just. And, and I remember I was commuting, you know, down the 101 towards silicon to Silicon Valley area, San Jose area. And you know, it was 7:30 in the morning and it was bumper to bumper traffic and it was a dreary day and you know, we were creeping along at like 10 miles an hour and I was looking at the people around me, you know, and I was just looking at their faces and I was feeling my own body and I was like doing this drive and I just had this massive realization. I can't do this for another 30 years. There is no way I can do this. And within a couple of years, you know, by the time I was 29, I didn't even make it till I was 30. I was like, I gotta do something different, you know, And I moved to the mountains and I, you know, still worked that job for a while, but I had a baby too and I started consulting and started, I remember that, I remember I was terrified. But the first big action I took was I started taking Fridays off. And it took some convincing, you know, to the agency that I worked for. But you know, it didn't mean I was really working any less hours because my Monday through Thursday were so slammed. But wow, having a Friday, Saturday, Sunday was revolutionary for me. And now in my world I Mean, people laugh at me, but I don't do anything before 10am unless I absolutely have to. You know, my morning up till 10am Is I drink my tea. For me, it takes me a while to re enter my body and realize I'm a human being back on this planet again and I need that time. And I meditate and I read and I pet my cat and you know, I might putz around the house and do a few chores, but I might move or do my yoga. It just depends on what my flow is. But like that time is sacred for me. And frankly my evening time is sacred too. I rarely work in the evenings. Sometimes the flow, my business would have me do that. But you know, and, and I still don't work Fridays or Saturdays or Sunday very often times, as you probably know, I don't even turn my computer on. Like I unplug and I'm at the river or I have time. So I'm sharing this with you and all of us listening because I get it. Like, I get how, you know, when I, when I was stuck in, in that paradigm and in that mindset, it was, you know, if you talked to me about having, you know, 20 minutes to meditate, I would have just laughed at you. I'd be like, are you out of your mind? You know, or when I had a small child and say, are you crazy? Did you see the Legos all over the floor? How does this get clean? You know, it's like it just didn't seem like it was possible. So we're all. The other thing is to honor that we're in different life cycles, obviously. New mom, that is, you're in a life cycle that is unique unto itself. You're in a total reorientation around, you know, your body doesn't even belong to me, this child and what this child needs, right? So. And if you're, if we're full on in our career, sometimes it's like, you know what? Right now I'm just full on in my career and that's okay. I'm not making that bad, right? I've had periods like that. And you know, again, in terms of sustainability, we look for those places where we can have time and space. We look for those places where we can leave in we look. You know, maybe it's not a life like mine yet, but hey, I'm in my late 40s and I've worked hard to get here, right? So it didn't happen for me overnight. Now my life is like, wow, yeah, this is really working for me. And so be clear, I'd say for people about where it is that you want to go. Know that it is possible and start small, you know, start small, leaving that, weaving it in, whether it's time, space, more pleasure, how that that really works for you. Get yourself a coach, get somebody who is further along on that path, or a mentor who can support you and be a cheerleader for you. And going back to something you said earlier, Azran, I think it's so important. Encourage each other, right? So like that reminding each other. So when our girlfriends, you know, say, you know what, I'm taking a day off, I'm gonna go get a manicure and a massage and go shopping because I need some new clothes, you know, it's interesting how we can go like, oh, well, lucky you. Isn't that nice for you, princess? Or like even internally we can be that maybe is shadow stuff or jealousy, but let us try to affirm that you go, that is so awesome.

Good.

Go relax, Go do that. Encourage each other, right? Because it's important. It's hard enough to take a stand for that in this culture. We need to be competing and tearing each other down around that we can be supporting each other with that.

So great. And I love it too, where you're saying there's like the holding what's possible, like the vision for it, you know, And I feel like I'm in, you know, I'm 34 now, so I've kind of like for 15 years, I've kind of known my vision and I've been working on it, like you were saying, little by little by little. And now it's like even being a new mom, I've created amazing support system around me and my husband's awesome. And I know that I need to meditate. I know that me not exercising is a very crabby woman.

Exactly. I know these things of it is.

In order for me to be a great mom and a great wife and to run our business in the way that I want to, I know I have to do those things. So I think it's great, a great reminder for all of us to really hold that vision and keep, like, it's possible, you know, like, you don't have to do all the things that you have to do. I'm still whittling away. Like, do I need to do that?

Good.

Do I really need to check my email every day? No, I don't. You know, like, it's just. It becomes more of a game rather than it being so serious.

That's beautiful. And I want to underline that you're questioning, right? Yeah. So like for us to really question. Is that important and to also question the voice that goes, well, yeah, that's important. Okay, great. So who is that voice? Who's speaking? Whoa, that sounds a lot like my dad. Oh, hi dad. Thank you so much for teaching me about discipline. Right. And the work ethic and how valuable that is. So it's like that's valuable. Is that actually true right here in this particular moment for this particular thing, is that true? Actually, no, it's not true. Right. Or it is. But to really be in an inquiry about what actually has to get done and what are we valuing when we vote that way. Right. Because every moment we're voting with our time, our money and our energy and so what are we voting for? So there's been plenty of times, in fact, last year was one of them. And I fell really madly in Love in 2012, and it coincided with feeling a little burned out with my current programs and things I was offering through Awakening Shakti. And so it was this time where I purposely chose to let my six month Shakti initiation program, for example, rest. Like, I didn't re up another cycle of that. I've been doing it for about four years. And I decided to do more infrastructure work on my business, my website and some things like that that were internal, not me being external like this. And frankly, I spent hours and hours and hours falling in love with this beautiful man and making love to him. And you laying out in the sun in the middle of the week and rubbing coconut oil all over each other. And all the things that we did that we were backless. Right. And I incurred some debt last year as a result of those choices. They weren't without their consequences. But the amazing thing is, well, number one, I have this deep and rich foundation in this relationship right now that I think is because I was voting with my energy to invest there, which is obviously something that was really important to me. And I also was letting my own system rest as a teacher. I was letting the structures go so that I could see was I re inspired to offer them again. And this year my prosperity has tripled probably. I don't know if that's accurate, maybe even more. It might have quadrupled already. So the flow of abundance and I would say not just money, but opportunities, right. And recognition and all those sort of middle world success metrics, those are all flowing in. I have this beautiful relationship and I'm on fire as a teacher again. You know, I Am, like, so inspired. I'm back in my own center, my clarity. Right. And so the voting, the way that I did last year has created this wave now of goodness that's coming in. And it's important that we know that because so often we think we're going to lose something. And in fact, the testing, it will rejuvenate us. Just like you talked about the exercising, the exercising for you shifts, everything makes you a better moment, gives you new, sparky ideas about the business. I'm sure makes you a much better wife. Like, all of those things are in service to you taking that space for yourself.

Yeah. Beautiful. Thank you so much for the example, too, because I think it's a great. It's a great example for all of us. Like, you don't know what's going to happen when you truly trust yourself. You might think you're losing something, like you said, but are you really? I mean, did you lose something? You have an amazing lover. Your business is now, like, expanding. I mean, I don't think you lost anything.

Doesn't feel like it. Wow.

It worked.

Yeah.

But it's really a.

It's scary.

I was just gonna say it's like a courageous.

It's a courageous leap. Yeah.

To say, you know what? I deserve rest. And everyone else is going, you know, 500 miles per hour. And for me, I've always been sensitive, and I just look at it and I'm like, how are they doing that? Yeah. And I don't. I choose not to do that. I know I don't flower. And I think for so many of us, you know, we're. We know that we don't. Especially women, we know. We don't yet. We still do it. So I love that you gave some. Those examples and you just sharing that and sharing your courageous journey to be like, yeah, yeah, right on. Let's do it. Yeah. So what about, like. Because I know for me, there's the intellectual idea, and I know other people watching this will say, you know, oh, yeah, this totally makes sense. You know, I want more pleasure and spontaneity and sexiness and, you know, all that goodness. I want it in my life, and they can feel it and they can see it. But what has people actually change to do something different? Because there's. You have the to do list. You're like, you know, I know I could really go love on my husband right now, but I'm kind of tired.

Yeah. Yeah.

So what. What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah. Well, I mean, what. It's a big Question. I love the question. And what pinging for me in this very moment is that scenario. Like, I know I could go love on my husband, but retired right now. You know, if I was coaching that woman, sharing that in that moment, I would say, let's talk about the tired. You know, like, what is the wisdom for you and the tired? What is the message of the tired?

Very cool.

Because the tired could be, I'm afraid, right. The tired might be. And I wouldn't, you know, so if I was coaching a woman, I would ask her that question and she would say something. But the next place I would go, because I tend to be, find that there's greater wisdom for me and the feminine path in the body. Because I could say, where is the tired living in your body, right? And so this is a little challenging because it's a theoretical question. But, you know, the tired might be living, you know, in her chest or in her head, right? And then literally, like, in terms of an embodied practice for us as women or as men too, really, you know, to feel into the tired, like, wow, let me feel that. Let me really not think about it. Oh, well, it makes sense. I'm tired because blah, blah, blah, that's a concept. But to really feel it and literally, like, does it have a shape? Does it. Where is it? Does it have a texture? Does it have a color? You know, what, what, what is the tired? And. And we gotta breathe with that, right? So we gotta, like, okay, I'm breathing and breathing and I'm opening and it's. You know, our mind will go, try to make up an answer, and then we just want to kind of keep on breathing. Maybe the tired has nothing say, maybe there's no message, it just wants to be felt. Yeah, we give ourselves the permission to do that. Especially I notice this when I'm working with a woman. It's like, what's there? And then suddenly the emotions flood, right? Like they start weeping, you know, and who knows what it is? Like, oh, my God, I missed my mom. You died five years ago. Or, you know, maybe there's grieving to that. Or it's fear or it's anger about something, right? Because a lot of us women are not so great at sharing our ways or anger. So it gets covered over with things we're more familiar with. Like, I should speak for myself. That's totally true for me. And so a lot of times the sadness, because I'm familiar with sadness, it's like, oh, I got sadness. I do that all the time. I'm really Good at sound math, but it's there because. But when I go a little deeper, I'm pissed off about something and that scares me. So then it's anger once you work there. And this is the thing especially.

Hold on one second. You're kind of breaking up and I don't want to miss this.

Okay. Hello.

So we are in part. Part two, because we were talking about emotions and sexuality and technology couldn't handle it. They could not handle it. So we're going to go from there. And I'd love to hear you talk about emotions and sexuality and just how we as women become and men become more comfortable with our emotions and how they can be messengers and really being open and available for our emotions and what they have to tell us.

Okay, perfect. Yes. So when we work with the heart chakra, especially for women, we really want to look at our emotional life as fuel as when the emotions are coming through, that they can really. They really are messengers for us. I think that one of the reasons that. That some of us are not feeling so much access to our sexual energy is because we have shut down some of our emotional intelligence, if you will, as women, right? We've been told we're too hysterical or we're too angry or we're too sad or whatever those kinds of messages have been for us. I think for women, if we want to wake up the body, if we want to feel more of this shock depower that we've been talking about, we can't bypass our emotional life, right? It's like we can't have it both ways. Sometimes women will say, well, but I just want to feel more of my orgasmic energy. I just want to feel more turned on. Well, part of feeling our orgasmic energy and feeling our turn on is also giving a green light to what's happening for us emotionally, right? So when we feel, you know, those waves of emotion, that's part of our shakti. And the practice here is to not get Tsunami by the wave of emotion, right? Because the shadow aspect of that can be damaging, it can be hurtful, it can push people away. It's finding this middle way, this balance for us as women with what is the emotion that's coming up. How can I be in my body with that emotion? Not so much in the story about, well, he did this and you shouldn't have, or I was betrayed by this, but just the raw feeling of anger, for example, like in. In our bodies. And when we let that anger move through us, then it can let us be right. It can Actually, we can assist in the transformation of that energy. And we can also look at what's the message of the anger. Right. Like a boundary's been crossed or, you know, something I need to. I need to put something back into place. Right. Or I need to speak my truth about something that, you know, is requiring maybe some kind of action. So, you know, to really welcome that and know that part of what we're reclaiming with our shakti, power and our sexuality is the flow, the movement of our emotional life as women as well.

I love that.

And I love that you brought the body into it to really feel it. You know, you've done this numerous throughout the interview, just talking about bringing it into the body, that it's not what's happening in here, not what's happening here.

Right. And sometimes when I'm coaching women, you know, and a strong emotion will come, you know, we always want to be in the story about it. Right. Which is up in our minds. But to instead feel. If it's anger, for example, where is that in my body? Right. It might be, you know, in my stomach or it might be up feeling, like, pressure in my head, but to start to feel okay, and then even, you know, take them deeper into that embodied experience. Well, does the anger have a color? You know, does it have a shape? And start to just get really curious about the energy, the feeling of the anger, rather than just the analysis of the anger. Right. Yeah, but that doesn't have a place too. But as an as embodied practitioners as. As women awakening to our shakti to give ourselves the gift of what the emotion feels like in the body. And of course, we can see the link here. Right. If I can feel my anger and I can feel how it moves through my body, that's not so different than feeling my sexual energy or feeling my joy or feeling any of the range of emotions that we have access to. Part of our shakti, it's part of our power.

So feeling the emotions, like really being comfortable with kind of the high, the low, like all of it is the foundation or important part to really awakening our shakti and have like that sexual. As we were talking about earlier in the interview, having the full body orgasms.

Right, right.

And that amazing, juicy kind of orgasmic experience.

Yes, yes. I'd say a key piece. Right. So that's why in my shakti model, when I'm teaching women, you know, we spend a lot of time here in the heart chakra because that's where, you know, we're awakening the breasts. We're Working with the emotional life where we're working with, how do I feel love? How do I feel? You know, appreciation. How do I give love? How do I give appreciation? Like, these are, for a lot of women, really prerequisite to allowing that energy to migrate down the body so that we start to feel trust, openness, and some receptivity to more sexual activity or more sexual connection. It really does begin with our hearts.

Interesting. So if a woman comes to you and says that she really wants to, you know, because a lot of times we have sexuality and it's just like our genitals.

It's just.

We're just associating with just the genitals, just sex, orgasm. So I love that you're talking that it's like a full body, mind, heart, experience.

Exactly. This is one of the real gifts of the tantric sexual practices for men and for women is that we tend to keep our sexual energy below the waist. And so what? And there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not making that wrong, but the opportunity. And I think one of the reasons that we have quite an epidemic right now, at least in our country of women who are disinterested in sex is because they are longing for something more. Right. And this is true for men too. You know, I think there's a lot of men who are also longing for something more. And one of the places to look for the something more apart is to start really taking the energy that gets so concentrated in the first three chakras and really using breath and sound and movement, some of the tantric practices, to start allowing that orgasm energy to move throughout the body. Right? So that's where you start to feel like, oh, the orgasmic energy can actually be tingling throughout my body. I can use my breath to draw it, draw it all the way up to my crown chakra and then let it kind of rain back down on the earth again. Right? We start to use breath and use undulation and use sound vocalizing to draw that energy up. That's when that. That orgasmic energy that we know and we love below the waist can start to enliven right. Our life. And I would say, not just sexually, but throughout our day. What's it like to be able to feel that kind of shakti, orgasmic energy throughout your day? It feels alive, it feels energizing. It feels like love to me. It's like liquid love in my day. It brings me to gratitude, it brings me to joy, it brings me to serenity. It gives me creative power in my day. And of course it can make sex all the more wonderful and love making all the more wonderful as well.

So the sex component, if a woman or a man really wants to experience more pleasure at their sexuality and that feeling of more and they want more desire, there's something more. Would you recommend that they do some of this tantra exercises and breathe and.

Absolutely, yeah.

Absolutely not go straight to the sex or go straight to the sex. What's the.

I mean, it just, it all depends, you know, I can, I will speak from my point of view and also what I see in a lot of, of high achieving professional women who tend to be attracted to my work is that a lot of us, we know how to reach orgasm, right? And we have limited amount of time and so we can, you know, we can jump into sex. We pretty much know, like, okay, this is the process. This is what turns me on. This is what turns you on. This is how it works. You know, I'm owning my orgasm and we can, we can sort of get the job done, if you will. And what's interesting I noticed for myself is very much oftentimes in that kind of scenario, I'm in more of my masculine energy, right? I'm like, okay, well we've got 15 minutes and here's the process. This is how you touch me and da da da. And that brings me to orgasm. We both have orgasm and wonderful. And I would say nothing wrong with that. I mean, the more orgasms, the more, you know, of that kind of energy that we can experience. There's, you know, a myriad of health benefits just if we just looked at the health benefits alone. So it's not that there's anything wrong with that. And what I see as possible is, you know, and what I think gets really interesting, especially for, you know, I'll say women like us who are busy and doing life the way we're doing it is that relaxing into a more feminine way of being sexual and sensual, which even as I'm saying it, I can just feel my whole body going like dropping in. And so what does it look like not to be attached to the orgasm so much or the process, which is very much our masculine energy and more relaxing into orgasm, right? Having the time, the space to really feel your natural juices start to awaken.

Or move.

Really taking the time to connect heart to heart with your partner. And there's just. So, you know, I have, there's a lot that I've published about just different ways that you can, that you can take. But maybe I can just offer a Few tidbits for the listeners about different ways to do kind of look at a menu, if you will, of options. The first one would really be creating sacred space. And so, you know, yeah, sometimes we tumble into bed, there's not a lot of time and you know, you turn the lights off and boom, you just go right into love making. But there is something, even lighting a single candle could be that simple, you know, and dimming the lights or putting music on, whatever it is for you that, that alerts you and your partner that, wow, we're entering into a new dimension with each other, right? We're entering into sanctuary time that we're setting aside for exploring what it means to love each other and being authentic about what's really here for us, right? So these little ways that we create sacred space, including setting a container for the time that we're gonna have together. So, you know, what if we like, okay, we've got two hours or we have a whole day and what do we want in our space to support our lovemaking? And that includes our bodies too, right? Are our bodies well groomed and clean and have we adorned ourselves? You know, do we feel, I mean, there's nothing that works for me quite the same as like, I'm gonna take some moments, right, to, you know, do my hair and put my favorite essential oil on and just prepare my body as a sacred space. Right? Same for men too, right? Like all the care we used to take when we would first go on a date with each other, that kind of air. And so there's creating sacred space and then, and then there's the coming together and in that space. And so that could be some soul gazing where you're just deeply looking into each other's eyes and you're breathing, you know, and you're dropping in. Or could be a meditation practice together or prayer practice and just, you know, some time or yoga practice to really like, oh, we're shifting into, you know, sacred time together. How can we quiet the mind? How can we come fully into our bodies? And then once that's been established, that's a great place to open the heart with each other first, right? So the quickest way to do that, I think, is to share what you appreciate about your partner. So it could even be, I share five things that I appreciate about my beloved, and then he shares five things that he appreciates about me. That can be physical. I love your crazy, wild curly hair. Or it could be something like, I love the care that you show with your children. It could be more of an emotional or, you know, just an appreciation of who they are, the character of them. And when we do that, we remember, oh, wow, I'm so grateful to be with this person. And there's so many things about them that I love and adore. Right? So that opens the heart chakra. And then from that place, you know, even just. That could be a very simple, you know, ritual that could all be done in, like, 10 minutes, really real quickly. Or it could be a more elaborate time where you really move in and out of that. Even just something that simple. And then moving into lovemaking from there. And particularly the next piece in terms of all the foreplay as you start to move, the energy would be to just unhook from the goal of orgasm. Because so often we think it's just all about getting to the orgasm. So for me, in my own practice, that was the most significant thing that shifted me from sort of my traditional way of having sex into what I would call a more tantric context, which is we're not trying to get anywhere. We're just making love. Be more present in this moment, right? And tuning into, well, where do I feel pleasure? And so, you know, that could be massaging each other or just more conscious touch. You know, one person may be receiving for a while and then the other person receiving. You know, as you start to come into that space with each other, eyes open, really present with one another, then you start to. It's like you're standing in a different place, is how it feels to me. You're in a new context. And in that context, that's where, you know, you can start to be present with. What's the miracle of this energy right here? Where does it want to move? How does it want to go? Right. In our more traditional way, we're having sex. We're actually mostly in our minds. In fact, a lot of us are even eyes closed, way deep in fantasy about some scenario. We're actually not even here. It's almost like we're watching corn in our brain. And again, nothing wrong with fantasizing, but keep practicing bringing yourself present with your lover. Keep practicing bringing yourself present to. What am I sensing right now in my body? I feel the heat of the sun from that window right here. What else do I feel? I feel a little tightness in my heart right now. Okay, well, then let me breathe into that, Particularly with your lover. What's truly there in the moment and speaking and sharing that and being present to that. Because the more present we are, then that's when sort of the veil gets lifted is what it feels like almost. And you have access. It's like when people start studying tantra, I think they think there's some miracle technique, like, oh, if I just knew how to do xyz, then suddenly we would be having orgasms that lasted for an hour. And it's not that there aren't techniques, but the techniques are the pointers. They're not the answer. They're the pointers. And so the techniques, even, like the ones I'm sharing right now, kind of allow you to enter into a field where it's a mystery. This is the thing we love about sex. It's our contact with the numinous, right? With the otherworldly, with the spirit inside of these physical bodies that are animal and full of senses and full of emotions and all of that, right? So it's this place where we get to go look at this intersection right? Between the divine, the energy, the spirit of who we are, into the matter of what we are, into the physical, the earth of what we are. That's my hope. That's what, you know, and just, you know, an encouragement for people to take baby steps and trust your own intuition. There's tons of stuff to read out there. I. Tons of things. I have a great ebook. That's a. That's a great just, you know, primer on how do you begin some of these things. So those are great pointers, right, to look for. But trust your own intuition. Trust the energy between you and your beloved. And if you're both coming with openness to, like, hey, let's see what else is here, you know, this is the most potent energy we have access to. It makes babies. What a.

Amazing.

Isn't it incredible?

It's incredible.

That's what we have access to. And yet most of us, you know, we're just scratching this tiny little surface, like, oh, I had my orgasm. You had your orgasm? I guess we made love. It's all good. But, like, what's it look like to just expand this energy and see what's there for you?

Beautiful. I love it. I love the releasing, the orgasm, too.

The goal.

The goal of it. And is that the same for men, too?

Yes. I mean, men are even more susceptible to that because they're masculine. The testosterone is really about. I got to get to the goal. And on a biological level, it's like, I got to plant this seed. I got to keep this human right. Race going. So they're very focused in that way. And so the opportunity for men, too, is to More like ride the waves of that energy versus trying to hit the mountaintop and then come crashing down again. What's it look like? And for men too to know there is a difference between their orgasm and their ejaculation. Most men have them coupled and with some awareness, with some tantric practices, men can begin to uncouple that. And there's lots of schools of thought about that. A lot of the Taoist teachings and the tantric teachings are about not going for the ejaculation. Men who start studying tantric get very nervous when you start telling them that it's not okay for them to ejaculate. But I would say for a man to explore that, you know, in my relationships with men, as I've been exploring this over the years, that many, many men tell me there is a sizable difference for them in their own chi, their life force, energy, their focus. When they're not constantly ejaculating but when they're retaining that energy and especially when they can start to feel their orgasmic energy moving, you know, that they can have that, they can have deep pleasure, deep connection, you know, with their partner, but also keep, you know, riding the waves of that energy versus releasing it. Because for most men when they release it, it's a real, it can be a real depletion, you know, sometimes short lived, but it can, especially as men age, there could just be a lot of opportunity for them to retain that power, losing it.

And I love it too because I feel like this is just a different way as you know, but a different way of looking at sexuality and sensuality. For so many of us, we have media and the culture and the movies and all of this stuff, like what sex is and people are like ramming up against doors and like having an orgasm in 30 seconds. And like that was the best sex of my life. And when we're not doing that, we're like, I don't.

It's so true.

What's wrong with me? You know, so beautiful. And I love what you said too, that also the making love, like when you said that we always think making love is having sex and having orgasm, right? But like you said, it was like making like making love, love, heart to heart, like I love you, full body, mind, heart, making love. I don't know, it was just a beautiful, I had this beautiful image of it. Like, oh yeah, that's what it is.

Yeah, it's true, huh? Because it becomes kind of this just little shortcut for sex. But really when we think about that, you know, I Mean, when my beloved and I can create those taunt, those tantric temple, we call them tantric temple times where we really got space. The lovemaking begins with creating the space. The lovemaking begins as we light the candles or we prepare the plate of mango that we're going to want later or we chill the champagne or that's making love. That's all making love, right? And if and when we choose to have intercourse hours later, that's also making love. But the whole, that whole coming together can be love making. And I think for women too. I mean, a lot of women are like, oh, I'm just so stressed already. And sex feels like a chore. And like, it's like another thing I gotta perform and fire up for and get ready for and they're just wiped out. But if you say to that same woman, well, what if you just set aside time for creating this kind of lovemaking, connecting with your partner, heart to heart, appreciating one another, lighting a candle, just kind of dropping in. And there wasn't this like, you gotta do and have an orgasm and have intercourse attached to that. I think many more women would be like, oh, yeah, I would love to do that. So when we create, I think particularly, and frankly, not to be gender specific, a lot of men want that too, right? They're connected. Getting bombarded with these images in movies and certainly through porn about having to be this like rock star lover, rock hard, just like, you know, and they're, they're like, well, sometimes that's fun, but that's, you know, they want, they want also experiences that are deeper, you know, and feeling more connected and more opportunity for them to be sensually touched and awakened and. Yeah, so it's really, yeah, just really important, I think, to have a context of what lovemaking can be. Because really, like, you know, I think we, most of us really want that. You don't want to feel connected. We want to feel loved. We want to have, feel like there's space and room and time for, particularly for us as women, right? Because like you said, being like, oh, oh, you know these movies where it's like, you know, they look at each other and they're like, oh my God, I'm so hot for you. We gotta go into the bathroom stall and, you know, make it happen. And of course, like, sometimes you do feel that way and it's, you know.

I know times in my life, it's.

Just like, wow, it's so awesome to feel that, like juicy and alive and I gotta have you right now. So it's not. That's great. But for most of us women, it's a much slower warming up process. Men are quick to fire. Women take some warming up. And so we see images like that and of course we start to feel inadequate, you know, like, well, it takes me a lot longer than that. Right. Porn doesn't help any because porn is made for men. Right. So women are instantly ready to be penetrated in porn. But most women's bodies are not.

Very cool. I love it too. Yeah, definitely. And also the, as you're just talking about it, the energy, like allowing space for the sexual energy to build and be cultivated. Like it's not like, oh, I want to have sex. Boom, I'm ready. Okay, let's just cuddle and let's see what happens. And I also like this too because it gives me permission just personally to like, oh, maybe we don't even have sex.

Exactly.

Like, oh, let's just open this up and just play and say, oh, I feel good now, you know, and then if the energy comes, because we all know it, we know when the energy comes and we're like, oh, I want to have you. And sometimes it just doesn't. Like, I'm cool just cuddling.

Right, Exactly.

I like that.

Yeah. And as we, particularly for men, I think when they, when we start to. Even just the idea of my orgasm and my ejaculation can be different like that, just alone, just that conscious context can start to shift things. But you know, for men too, I mean, this is definitely, I mean, I'm a year and a half into relationship with my partner. We are still, you know, very highly sexual at this point. But there are certainly times, and I certainly experienced it in my, in my long term marriage where what I would call running the energy. So like really being, you know, present with your partner and, and feeling the waves of orgasmic energy come and then they kind of will dissipate and they build again. And they come and they dissipate and they build again. We're building the chi, right? We're building the shakti in those moments. And certainly for me as a woman, I am so, you know, a session, if you will, of that kind of energy moving. Very often I feel absolutely completely satisfied, like deeply satisfied, you know, and it doesn't, it hasn't required intercourse. It hasn't required, you know, a traditional clitoral orgasm. For me it's just that like riding the waves of love together and what a liberating concept, you know, for men and women that, you know, that is Love making also. And maybe after, you know, some of that energy moving, you actually do feel really like you want to bring that man inside of you. Or, you know, if you're a man, you want, you want to be inside of your woman or first same sex couples, just that kind of deep, deeper union. And that's great. But to again, like, oh, that's what is authentically here in this moment is that's what I want versus we have. This is the goal we're trying to get to, right? Yeah.

Oh my gosh, I love this.

Yeah.

This is so great. Okay, well, of course I can talk to you forever, but we're gonna wrap up. Is there anything, anything else you want to share on pleasure and where people can find out about you and just anything else that you'd like to share?

Thank you for being so generous. I guess what I just want to say, particularly to women, is that this energy, this Shakti, this goddess inside of you, she is alive. She might feel like she's dead, she might be in a deep coma even, but this energy that we're talking about, it is natural and it is our birthright. And living on this planet, in the cultures that we're living in, with what we're dealing with, this energy has not really. She hasn't been welcome. And I would say she is arising again. And I just want to say to women to not lose hope, but you know, there's. We start small, right? Start small. But know that if you have a desire to feel more of your own, Shakti, whether you're wanting to share that with your, you know, your partner or whether it's just for you, right, that it is yours and that you can absolutely begin to coax her out and wake her up and do the deeper healing that might need to be done in your own body to start to trust your body again. And yeah, just know that there's another way and that you don't have to be pushed to perform, but you can more, you know, in our feminine practice, it's more relaxing into what's really there, what's really true, what's really there. And yeah, I have lots of resources. It's awakeningshaki. S h a k t I.com I'll share a salon Shakti call the first Wednesday of each month and that's open by donation. So whether you want to just pop into that or whether you might want to get some deeper coaching, one on one, or be more involved in a deeper initiation program, there's really a range there. Same on my awakening Shakti page on Facebook. A lot of great content there. So there's lots of room for anybody listening to start small and to start just kind of trying on some of these ideas. And lots of room to go full tilt all the way in. Ready to wake up my Shakti, too. Lots of people are like, I'm ready to go. Where do we begin? It's time, right? Thank you so much for your generosity and just how beautiful you are and what you're bringing to the world, particularly as a new mom, you know, and keeping this kind of conversation alive. So thank you.

Well, thank you. And yes, it's definitely. As a new mom, I just realized, you know, I'm now in the. You know, a lot of us women are moms, and there's just a whole new dimension to our pleasure and to our sexuality and to life that is very interesting.

It's really, really different and it keeps changing. Right. As we move through.

Totally. Yeah. Beautiful, though.

Very inspiring. Well, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Lots of love.

Lots of love.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Mama Goddess. Sending you lots of love and blessings. If you'd like to connect more, go to mamagoddess.com until next time. Keep rocking it and have an awesome day.