Sacred Sexuality with Keira Poulsen and Julie Elizabeth

Foreign.

Welcome back, my beautiful friends, to the Sacred Writing Podcast. I'm so excited. This is going to be such a beautiful episode today. I feel so lucky when I get to bring on Freedom House authors and those who've been in my mastermind to be in this conversation so that your lives can be changed. So we have an extraordinary guest on the show today. Before we dive in, I always like to share something that's going on over here that might benefit or support you. So let me feel into what do we have going on right now? The event in Arizona. That's what I feel like. I haven't talked about that. So we're going to open that up. Julie, are you going to be there?

Yes, I am.

Oh, look at that. Okay, so that's what we're doing. All right, so I'm going to just share that. I'm speaking on stage with Glennon Doyle in Arizona. I think the dates are September 15th and 16th. Maybe it's 16th and 17th, but it's one of those. I'll have the link in our show notes. It's going to be epic. I'm going to be speaking from stage. I'm also going to be doing a small, intimate lunch and learn channeling books with people. You're going to be able to meet almost all the authors from Freedom House. Not all of them, but a lot of them. Julie's going to be there. It's going to be an extraordinary community. Jasmine Star is speaking on the stage like there are some big names. This event is called Unstoppable, and it is about being unstoppable in your life, living life fully, living to the fullest of your passion, your purpose, creation, business, motherhood, all the things. So that's it. I want to invite everyone to come be with me and Julie, and I want to invite Julie to the podcast. Julie, how are you today?

Hello. I'm doing really well. I'm so excited to be here and to be a part of this and talk about Freedom House and my experience with it and what I created with.

Your support and all the magic. So I love. We just have to show your book, Julie Elizabeth, right here in the front, your brand new book, Sexual Sacred Sexuality within and Between. So those who are watching this on YouTube, you can see the book. Those who are listening on the podcast, you're gonna have to go check her out to find to. To find the beautiful cover that she created. Before we dive in, Julie, I want you to share what. And who are you? Who are you? Tell us a little bit about who you are and what you stand for in this world.

Sure, yeah. Such a big question, right? We're all still discovering who we are. I am a passionate lover of life. Honestly, I think I said that even on my book. But. But that's probably the best way I can describe it that, you know, I grew up as a very highly sensitive sensory kid, and. And now I use that as my superpower. So I went through education and got my degree in marriage and family therapy. So I support people in having more fulfilling relationships with themselves and with each other. So I'm super passionate about that. Just helping people connect to each other. And, you know, I'm a love warrior. Glenador. I'm, like, so excited about this event because. Yeah, I just. Yeah, I just admire her so much. So. So I've been doing therapy. I've been a marriage and family therapist for a few years now. And I'm also a embodiment and sensuality coach. So one of the things I've learned in my experience is that some of the most profound change happens in and through the body. So when we have corrective experiences through our body, not just understanding it conceptually, but doing something different. So I've been doing that with couples. I've been doing that with the individuals that I work with. And now I'm going to be creating experiences with immersive retreats and whatnot to have really beautiful, transformative, embodied experiences for people to get back to, you know, get back in touch with their roots of, you know, pleasure and expression and sensuality. Hmm.

I love it. I love it. I love that you're both. You are. You have the education, you've got, you know, years and years learning and being able to support in the therapist role. And you have, like, this magic inside of you that expands more. It expands into helping people really wake up, the love of this life through all the different ways. And so I just honor you, you know, I feel lucky you're my cousin, so we're just going to bring that out. And also, like, kind of crazy that we really didn't know each other that well, if at all. Like, I don't know. I don't remember us ever having a conversation.

Oh, yeah, no, I, like, I remember going, you were a dancer back in the day. And I remember going and watching you dance. And then beyond that. Yeah, there really was not much.

No. So when you came to my interview for the Mastermind last year, I remember thinking, oh, my gosh, I don't even. Like, this is so weird. She's my cousin. And I don't even know her. Which was kind of fun because I got to know you from this place, from this heart centered awe of who you are.

Thank you. And it really is fortuitous timing because when I was growing up, I went through a lot of chaos. And so I feel like for a long time I was just a product of my environment and I was kind of adapting and surviving. So who I was then, which is what you know, when you ask me, who are you now? And I'm like, huh, I'm still figuring.

Right, right.

But really celebrating that, like, I am proud of the work I've done to cultivate an authentic sense of self and identity. And it's always evolving and changing. But I am so grateful that I got to share who I am and who I've. Who I've discovered myself to be with you as an adult.

Yeah, it's been magic. It's been such a joy to work with you. What I love about, I think one of my favorite memories is when we went to Missouri and that was in April. I don't actually remember March or April. And we, a few of us from the Mastermind went to Missouri and I remember bringing my drums and you stood up with that drum and when you drum, it was like the earth shook. And I was like, holy hell, who is this girl? Like, you have that much fire in you. And it's just, it's a fire that is so needed in a. In a world where there's a lot of numbed and deadened souls. Like, like they got numbed and they got like, no one let them know that they could have, like just love. Love for life, love for. For joy, for creation. So talk to me about that. Like, what do you want people to get from your book, from your mastermind, from all the programs that you have? What do you want people to get from it?

An invitation and permission. Permission to, you know, explore the things we don't usually talk about in society. And we're kind of conditioned not to talk about them. And things have been numbed out or shut down or shamed. And so the biggest thing is just permission of, hey, here's all my vulnerable stuff. And you know, hopefully it makes you feel a little bit safer acknowledging those parts and exploring that within you. And I remember that, that Missouri trip and it was so powerful. But the Mastermind and retreats like that. I think the magic really is in having a sense of community and safety. You know, I think I've always had this fire within me, but through experiences with other People holding that space and making it. Okay. I feel safer to be seen. Right. Safer to embody all that I am and to express all that I am with that power and that, you know, magnitude of. Of just the beingness of me. And that's something I hope for anybody that reads my book to really discover that within themselves, like, to be a witness to their. Their own power and their own gifts and their own pleasure and joy and creativity. Like, I want to unlock that for everyone. And I also want to be a part of creating those containers, like I got to experience at Missouri or in this mastermind where we get to have these conversations. Like one of those evenings I remember all of us, you know, stayed up way too late. What is too late, but way too late. Just talking about the things that haven't felt safe in other contexts.

Yeah.

And so, yeah, I think permission to have these conversations with yourself, with your journal or with your. Your friends, you know, whoever is safe to be that vulnerable with. That's my biggest hope.

I love that. Safety is, like, top priority for me. Right. Which is why my masterminds, people have to interview to get in. And I'm always cultivating the safest container for everybody who's in there, because I know, just like you said, when you have a safe container and you get to share all of you, then it changes the brain patterns inside of your mind where you then can go out and be that in front of other people because you first were received in a small place. Right?

Yes.

And that's what I love your book is. Your book takes people on your journey, takes them on how they can create their journey, and you create that safety with them first. You show them, hey, like, this is okay. It's okay to have these conversations. It's okay to look here, it's okay to move here. And then I love that you're now opening it up to retreats and a mastermind of your own that you're leading so that you can cultivate that for those who read your book, for those who want to go, like, dive deeper with you.

Yeah.

There's a safe place for them to do that first, and then they get to move it out into all the places of their life. It's brilliant.

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I think I've been talking a lot about how important it is to have experiences, you know, not just talk about it, but really experience safety. What does safety feel like and how can we create it? And if you're a part of a mastermind or if you join, how can we create it together and with each other. And we're so much more powerful when we work together like that. So just the ability to experience that being received in that way and experience that safety, but also, you know, sometimes for the first time, expression, which can be so vulnerable. You know, it's like, here's the safety and here's the invitation. But how empowering and beautiful is it to be able to express self?

Yeah, yeah.

Like, that's what it's all about. And sexuality is part of that. Right. Like, it's about the whole thing. And sexuality is just such a powerful, potent part that has gotten shut down.

And I think that's where I want you to go deeper, wherever you feel guided to go. Because I feel like, let's go where the listener. This is going to impact them. So let's say no one, if no one ever reads the book or joins your mastermind and goes to a retreat with you, I want them to leave today, maybe with a tool or something that they can just begin using to wake up. And I love that you call it sacred sexuality within and between, because it is that. And it's also like so much more. Right. Like, it's like you wake up that piece, you now wake up all your fire. Right. So. So why don't you talk about that a little bit?

Yeah. So where to begin? A few different things. Like, the first thing that came to mind you said, wherever you feel led to go is really bringing back the innocence of pleasure. You know, we use a word like sexuality, and there's so many things that have been socialized into us that we associate with that, you know, and there's a lot of shame around that or a lot of taboo. We're not supposed to go there. But a safer word for many people is sensuality. And there is an innocence about sensual pleasure. You know, even things as simple as stepping outside and feeling the sun on your skin or taking a full breath and just feeling the pleasure of that.

Right.

And being present. You know, witnessing a flower or walking next to a stream. Like, there's all these different ways that we can actually play with our senses. That is just a gift of being alive. And we can really expand that experience into pleasure. Right. And bring back the innocence of life is pleasurable. And it's allowed to be pleasurable. And there's nothing wrong or dirty about that. But with some of these associations with sexuality, it's like this gets so shut down and we. We learn a shame response. And so if we just kind of go back to the basics in the Beginning of. Let's remember that pleasure is part of our design and that it's so beautiful. It's a gift of being alive. That's where I really like to start with people first is just an exploration and discovery on what they find pleasurable in their own body. Because it can be a unique experience, too. Some of those things I just mentioned are really common, but there are also these nuances that each person can say. This. This is my favorite thing. This is my favorite sensation, right? Music speaks to me so much, or food or color or, you know, movement, like, whatever it is that makes you feel most alive and pleasurable. That's what I want to wake up more because there's. There's wisdom in that joy, right? And then the other key component is connecting the dots. So starting with pleasure as a purpose, like that is the destination. That is the beauty of it. It's just sensuality and pleasure. But then really acknowledging that sensuality and sexuality are on the same spectrum. And that might seem simple, but when we really sit with that, it's actually quite profound to recognize these kinds of pleasure are just part of our design and part of the ways our bodies are built. And it can be so beautiful and a celebration of life, a celebration of self, and a way of embodying this life experience in such a powerful way. And so when we can start from the ground up and rebuild our own experience in our body and really redefine what we believe, you know, instead of what we were taught to believe. Like, what do I really believe about this? And, you know, when I say sacred sensuality or, sorry, sacred sexuality, I see it as an embodied prayer, you know, or a sense of embodying the truth of who I am as a spiritual being in a body. And how can that be a sacred experience? This whole spectrum of sensuality through sexuality, that all of it can be a sacred experience. And it's. It's often edgy when I'm like, yeah, all of it. Like anything that's exciting to you. And of course, we want to be within the bounds of consent and integrity and all of that, but we don't have to fear. Can be a celebration, it can be a discovery. And we can invite the divine in, the divine within ourselves, right? Just being spiritual, spiritual oriented beings, right? Conscious beings. And we can invite the divine in of. Teach me, you know, how can I have a new experience and a new learning experience by being open and asking for clarity, asking for guidance, asking for pleasure, asking for support, healing, you know, which is, I guess, a segue in and of itself, that their pleasure is purpose enough. Right. Like, it's. Oh, yep. We just do that because it feels good, and that's it. That's wonderful, and that's. That's a celebration of life in and of itself. But we do these things because it's beautiful and because art. Right. Just like when we. When we go camping, sometimes there's nothing that you do except to just at the base of a mountain and witness its majesty, or look at the wildflowers and appreciate their beauty, or, you know, swing in a hammock beneath a tree and just hear the sounds.

Like.

Like sometimes it really is just about being present with being alive, and then other times, it can be a medicine. There's so much suffering that life is Buddhism. One of the things I talk about in my book is Buddhist principles suggest life is suffering, and I think that's only half of the equation. Life is also pleasure, and I think that they help to counteract each other. It's like the bitter and the sweet, and it creates the symphony of our whole life experience. And so I see pleasure as a medicine, and I've dealt with some health issues throughout my life, and I experienced things really intensely and physically. So sometimes I'll wake up in the morning and actually feel really stiff or really lethargic and kind of have some dense energy in my body and not have a lot of get up and go. And when I do these embodiment practices like breath work or put on a song and start moving my body or even have a solo sex practice, it's really amazing, the transformation that I experience in a very real way, that I feel like it's natural medicine that's just available to me now within my own body, the very body that was, like, you know, feeling icky in the morning. It's like, oh, but here, like, I feel like I'm, like, unlocking the wisdom of my body. And so in that way, I just think, yes, pleasure for the sake of pleasure, but also as a medicine, as a healing.

Tool. Yeah. Oh, my gosh, Julie. Wisdom. Just wisdom pouring out of you. I feel like there's nothing I can say other than for those who are listening, can you feel how when Julie speaks, it clears up shame? Like, when you speak like this, it clears up the shame that was brought down through the generations, through our familial lines culturally. Right. Like, you're clearing out shame, and in hearing that pleasure is medicine, oh, you got to, like, you got to take that sentence and that. You got to run with that because that Right there, Julie. If more people knew that pleasure was medicine, people would live much happier lives. But because the word pleasure got tainted with some sort of shame, people feel like suffering is the only way to live life the right way. And you've walked through hard paths. This hasn't been. You haven't walked through every easy life. And you're not saying, wow, I've just had pleasure my whole life. You've had hard things happen. And it's just like what you were saying. You can't have the dark without the light. If we had no moon, what would the sun mean to us? It would mean nothing. If we had no winter, what would this summer mean? Right. Like it would just always be summer. It's like you have to have the both and. And you bring that. You bring in that you've walked hard things, which has helped you find safety, which has helped you create this magic in your life.

Yeah, I'd love to speak on that if I can.

Yeah.

I think the way. The context that we frame it is very important because some of that fear and shame is there, you know, when people have seen the suffering of others, like things like addiction, right? Where it's like pleasure seeking, but in a vacuum. It's only pleasure seeking for the purpose of avoiding. Avoiding feeling something else or numbing out or doing it to distract or dissociate. And. And while sometimes even distraction can be very healthy as a coping mechanism. Right. Like we can't just live and wallow in the suffering. Like we need to take breaks, but if we stay in avoidance, we can't actually ever heal. And so it's developing a tolerance. How can I experience the pain and the suffering of whatever it is I'm going through or whatever traumas or stressors that I've got going on and balance it out with pleasure. But a section of my book talks about self expression, how it's kind of like the obstacle is the way. If I can fully feel my feelings and embody them and learn the tools for expression, then I'm not just sitting in it. Sit with your feelings. Sit with your negative feelings. Like, well, this sucks.

Where am I supposed to go now?

But if I accept them, if I allow them and let them do what they're intended to do, which is actually express through, right in and through the body, then I can go into my emotion. I don't have to fear them. I can witness them, allow them, accept them without becoming absorbed by them. And I can use some of these tools and finding catharsis. You know, sometimes there's catharsis just in a vocal expression like. Like that's the emotion coming through. And so when we take off the stoppers, you know, if we remove the inhibitions that have taught us to sit still or to be quiet or to be small or, you know, the social conditioning, that's like, here's what's appropriate and here's what's not appropriate within your own body and expression of self. We're not even talking about interactions with other people. We're just talking about beingness of you. Right.

Yeah.

We can take off some of those things and just say, I'm going to give myself permission to feel what I feel, express, embody it, move through it. Not in a. I guess a metaphorical way, but kind of a literal way. I'm going to move through my emotions.

Yeah.

I can't tell you how many times again, I start feeling pretty shitty. Yeah. And I end feeling elated and joyful and I start giggling because I'm like, yeah, I'm remembering the magic. So I just want to speak on that piece, though, to really clarify what it means to have pleasure as a medicine and as a tool for transmuting. Transmuting the pain back into pleasure instead of just seeking out pleasure as a numbing agent.

I love that. I wish I knew this word. It's in Napoleon Hill's book and he talks about. I think he calls it sex. Sex, transmutation. Have you heard of this? Yeah, I've heard the book, so. Oh, you got to read the book. Best book ever. And I mean, he was writing this, like, what, 1940, 1930s, so early. And he talks about how to activate this transmutation of, like, this orgasmic energy in your body. And I think that's what you. You really bring it to the table in nowadays for women. And. And really, this is for men and women. But you're really helping women realize, like, oh, there's some energy here. There's some fire here that you can activate for creation. So I just. I love what you're doing. I feel. I mean, everyone on here, like, we all know that, like, you're a rising star. Like, every person who's listening is like, holy. How I never heard from her before. Like, it's a topic that most will not take, that most will not take on. Right. And you fearlessly have put two feet in, poured your heart into this book. It was such an honor to watch you write this book. Like, when you wrote it, it was just magic. And I watched you dance with this book, and I watched you breathe with this book. And this book is an expression of who you are at the fullest.

Thank you so much. Yeah, I appreciate that.

So beautiful. So, everyone, what is an Instagram that they can follow you on? They can watch your journey and reach out because I know many are going to want some support.

Yeah. Right now, my homepage is Julie B. Ethan Boy. So Julie B. Underscore live free.

I love it. It will be in the show notes so everyone can go there. But if you're just listening, go follow her. And your book Sacred Sexuality within and between by Julie Elizabeth is live on Amazon, so everyone could go grab a copy. This is like the book that maybe somebody doesn't know how to talk to somebody else about this topic, but they want to help you buy this book, right? Like, you're like, hey, let me gift this to you. It's a tool where maybe we don't have the context ourselves to be able to help somebody else or even help ourselves. But this book gives us the tools, the context. And you have a retreat coming up. When is that coming?

So, yeah, it's almost full. I'm keeping a really intimate space that's at the end of September. I can give you the specific dates. 27th, 28th, I think. So it's end of September. And then I'm going to be doing them periodically, probably quarterly at least. So I'll have those all, you know, in the works and on my page.

Fantastic. Feels so good. Feels so good. And you've got a mastermind that you'll be opening up. So everybody follow, Follow Julie. Follow this work. She is your coach for waking up, your expression for waking up the fire and passion inside of you. She's the person who's going to guide you with clearing out the shame so that you can live life with more pleasure. And I just. I vouch for Julie. She. She is a very clear soul, very clean energy with just a passion to serve. And I just have so much love for you, Julie.

Thank you so much. I love you so much, too. I'm so grateful to be here and to know you and be in this community together. So thanks, everyone for listening.

Yes. So I love, as we drop to the end here, if you want to go into your heart and if there's a message that you could share with our listeners today, what would that message be?

The clearest thing that's coming to mind is it's just this is where your power is. You know, I wanted to share why I said within and between is because it starts with you and that every aspect of your life shifts when you shift. And so if anyone is in a situation where they feel powerless in their circumstances, this. When you go within and you find your. Your power and you, you find the places that can transform, you really do have everything you need inside of you. And it really is miraculous to see how your relationships will change. Your professional work will change, your day to day experience will change, your relationship with the divine will change when you shift this relationship to self. So that's why I started with within and between, because it all starts with you and you have what it takes. So reach out, check out this book. If you love it, awesome. If you hate it, I'd love to hear about that even. What were your triggers? What were the things? I wanted to get conversation started. But yeah, it's all within you.

Thank you, Julie. Thank you. Thank you for writing this book. Thank you for bringing your work to the world.

Thank you.

And as we end, what is my message? Let me feel into this. My message is that it is completely and totally okay to live life fully, is totally okay to push back the boundaries and the bridled belief systems that have held you tight. Because when you untie them, the freedom and liberation that will raise up through your soul will excite you and bring you so much joy. With that, my friends, I will see you next week on the Sacred Writing podcast.